Jen's Tripping...

yep... jen of "her own invention". the one word that comes to mind when i think of jen is sweet. no, not like that. like, sweeet. damnit, you guys aren't southern enough. jen knows what i'm talking about... and kelli.

see, there's this kind of fragile sticky sweet aura that she has, and it makes us want to reach out and stroke the tears away, throw her over our shoulder, and fix all her problems.

but have you noticed lately that we are seeing a different side of jen? a little more independent, a little more confident, a little less bloggy? it's okay guys... she's living life.


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thanks for doing this. i'm kind of nervous because i haven't done this in a while... so, slap me around if i start getting off subject.

i remember the first time i read your blog. the word that sticks out in my mind is "sticky"... probably because i couldn't stop reading. i combed through the archives, i memorized your patterns, i probably had a mild case of the stalker syndrome, etc...

but, i was amazed at how accepting you were. there has always been this underlying friendship between you and i. we may not email every single day, but i know that if i shot you off an email needing help or advice, you would be there.

all this wouldn't be possible without our blogs. how has it changed your life?


Well, Rick, I have a case of the nerves, too. It's so exciting being here! I am really thrilled you asked me and of course it's always an honor being invited into your place. This is the blog behind the blogs...it's like MTV Unplugged or maybe it's like the Barbara Walters of blogging...I'll tell you anything, I swear. I might even cry! :-D

Sticky Ricky, eh? I do remember when you first found my blog and you were making noises about uprooting your family to live with me in Tulsa. Heh. I was, like, who the hell IS this guy? But when I started reading your first blog your words were like drinking a shot ~ you know that charged, sexy, warm, jittery, euphoric, slightly nauseated feeling? You just had this amazing capacity for supercharging words. And you still do. I think I've said this to you before, but I think you really found your home with your new blog. You hit your groove with it.

You are the one blogger who seems to have my archives memorized...more than me, even. You always have a way of seeing beyond my current post. It's like you get the "big picture" of everything you have read in my blog and you pull out that one thread that really makes sense and ties it all together.

And thank you for the accepting compliment. Well, you know, the things people most want to hide are the things I most want to know about them and love them for. I prefer the raw version inside us all. Maybe it's those points of pain I really connect with (and we all have it in some form in our lives). I've always been one to cut through the bullshit and go straight to the heart, I guess. I have this capacity for carrying secrets. People tell me just about anything and in the most uncanny circumstances, too. I also happen to be a very intuitive judge of character and I know more about people than I let on ~ or that they even realize I know.

And how has blogging changed my life? I started writing again, for one. My writing was something I had really let die in my life, which is a shame, because it's the one thing I love the most. I started my blog and suddenly I had this forum for my thoughts that I could get feedback on. I went through a period where I was very heavily into blogging and I really worked a lot of shit out, I think. I needed to get a hold on who I was and who I wanted to be because not knowing those things got me into a lot of trouble (my marriage).

This past year I have shaped so much of my thinking on sexuality, sensuality, relationships, what is meaningful in this life, where I should take my career direction, the past and it's effect on the present...so many things. It's like I worked all of these thoughts through my system and now I've stepped away from my blog quite a bit...I'm out living my life.

Even deeper than that, though, have been the friendships I have forged through blogging. I have really found some very good people here. The thing about blogging is that you aren't limited to a pool of people immediately around you. You can find anyone...anywhere...you find soulmates and you find people who read your shit and still think you're fantastic. I don't think I have ever felt so "understood" as I have here. I really feel so much more self-confident and sexy because of it.



yes! over the last year we have all become more confident.

i can remember when jason came out and announced that he would be working on a novel... A NOVEL. he was taking it to the next level because he had gained the confidence here, among the same circle that gives us our strength.

and now, the lovely jen in red is doing some outside writing too. seperate from your blog, exactly what type of writing are you doing now? and more importantly, what type of writing do you plan on doing in the future? some of that sexy poetry maybe? or some wild tales about you being bent over that comfy couch?

okay, you don't have to answer all those... i mean, you can if you want. i won't publish it... okay, i will. but, we're all friends.



mmmmmmmmmmmmm...that comfy couch! {Smacks her lips.} Some good times on that sofa. You'll just have to wait and see what I have planned for that. ;-)

My writing. Funny, I feel so awkward talking about these details of my life. Don't know why. Anyway...I will talk about it here. I am currently starting my own copywriting business, which means I am writing all kinds of stuff for businesses and getting paid for it. Web content, press releases, brochures, all that crap. I am also doing some light technical writing for a software company so I guess you could say my career is a bit of a hybrid right now.

When crazy crappy Christian company fell on its knees (no pun intended) and I was released out into the wild...I started this little venture and I've never been happier. Or more stressed! A good friend of mine keeps telling me all I need is CONFIDENCE with my writing and that's, well, hard sometimes.

But what I REALLY want to write are novels. I've known that's what I wanted to do since I was very little. I haven't really had the frame of mind for writing much fiction these days...but I love it and one of these days I will start kicking my ass to really do it. Fiction is something I keep pretty private, though.

I do have a few pieces I am working on...article essay type stuff I am spinning off from a few of my blog posts...that I am planning to submit.

And of course ~ I always have that sexy poetry in me that I want to get out there! That's actually my favorite kind of writing right now, to tell the truth.

Me, my DDs, and my words. That's all I need.


crazy christian company... crazy christian... christian. that word brings something out in you. one of your recent posts you talk about being in a christian environment, the hands raised in the air, the trembling souls...

you and i have both had our fair share of christ... we understand the christian movement. we know all these things about christianity, but yet we are different from those that have much of the same knowledge.

are we missing something?



With all due respect, I get the feeling they're the ones who are missing something. Yes, you and I have quite a different perspective from most...our backgrounds have allowed us to be close to this particular brand of Christianity and yet we have this outside view of it. We can understand it...and yet not be a part of it.

And yes, Christianity is, for better or worse, a central theme of my life. It has sent me running and it has also drawn me in. It's something I am continually wrestling with. I feel I am always weighing its worth in my life and how much of it I want to let in. It certainly holds a twist of fear over me and that is hard to grapple with sometimes. I long ago stopped feeling guilt about some of those Christian "hot button" issues: masturbation feels good. Sex feels good. Drinking is not a sin. I really hate how Christianity tends to make people feel inferior or bad about themselves and I also really hate the overwhelming message that our bodies are bad things.

I try to see my spirituality as its own thing...sure, I believe in God. I don't believe, however, in this crazy religion that mainstream Christianity insists is the right and only way. As a good friend of mine tells me: religion is the enemy of God.


preach it sister! shake that bush! hall-a-freakin-lujah...

ahem. well, that got me started. i always thought it funny that nothing is EVER good enough for christians... "it's great that your baptist, but did you know that baptist don't dance. you better come to our side."

years ago, i made the mistake of telling my pastor that catholics were christians... "they don't serve jesus, they serve the virgin mary. they are worse than devil worshipers."

oh well, blind leading the blind is the way i feel.

now, tell me about your blog... are you still feeling it? i mean, does it still excite you like it used to? yeah, i'm nosey.


Oh, I'll shake somethin' all right!

Phhhhpht. Yeah, you can tell my heart's just not into blogging the way it used to be, right? No, I'm just not feelin' it the way I used to. Anymore I just post when I feel I have something to say and lately, I haven't felt like I have much to say at all. When I was working for crazy company, I didn't have much to do all day so I would write and I would blog. I just don't have that kind of time to commit to it anymore. There was a time when I posted nearly every day and I felt I had so much to say...I really loved it. At least I do try to maintain my bloggy friendships behind the scenes these days.

I don't know. I think also I tend to write the most when I am going through it or when I am worried or depressed or when I am trying to work something out. The process of writing for me has always been borne out of pain...the words insist on seeping out.

I feel great in my life right now. A lot of really, really good things are finally happening...and it's just not there for me when I think about blogging it. Who knows, eh? Maybe someday I will come back to it.



okay... one more question and then i'll stop... i mean, i could go on for days... stamina... but, if i don't ask this i'll regret it... i know i will...

the thing with you, jen, is that people want to love you. sure, you have a way with words, but your words would mean nothing if there wasn't a golden heart behind it. so many times when reading your posts, i would say to myself, "i wish there was another me..." not because i'm not happily married, but because i know that i could love you the way you need to be loved. i have it figured out. that's the part of me that want's to fix everything.

there you are... this lovely creature full of love waiting to expel it on the right person...

will it happen? will you find love again?


Ooohhhhh...that's the question that brings me to my knees. And it's not just the stamina thing. I can have stamina on my knees, too, you know. ;-)

I'm honestly not sure what to say, I'm just stammering from your huge compliment. And you've isolated the one thing that's been somewhat of a torment to me in my life. How to find love? How to find the kind of love from a person who will love you the way you need to be loved? The kind of love where you can just give it all with abandon. Your comment that I am just waiting to expel it all on the right person is right on the mark and it reminds me of my favorite Victor Hugo quote from Les Miserables:

"In this solitude there was a heart that was all ready. Love had only to show its face; there was a temple there composed of greenery, of grass, of moss, of bird sighs.... Her heart, thrown back on itself, makes itself a channel, being unable to overflow, and deepens, being unable to expand."

Will I find love again? I know I will.

But it's the "again" word of that question I have to pause at, since I wouldn't consider that my ex and I were ever really "in love" and I think we both knew it and that's why we got out.

Since then, I have learned. I have experienced love in various forms and each one of those unique experiences has given me an extraordinary gift. I think you can have different kinds of love with different people and you get something from each of those experiences even if it isn't the "whole package," if you know what I mean. Some relationships aren't meant to be anything more than what they are. Maybe it could be right in the right circumstances but the circumstances aren't right.

I think love has always been a very difficult aspect of my life...but I am really opening up. We've all been hurt in some form or another and it's my fear of being hurt that has kept me ~ in the past ~ from entering loving relationships. But don't you think that's the element that is so necessary in these relationships? That your vulnerability, your trembling heart, are handed to the care of someone else? And there is the *possibility* there of them hurting you. You know this. You know it goes both ways. It's the risk that makes it worth it. Maybe there is something telling in the power you hand over to the other person ~ the power to hurt you whether they actually do or not or whether it's intentional on their part or not. When two people can be purely unguarded and naked with one another it's a beautiful and terrible thing. I certainly never had that with my ex and it's unfortunate that that is one of the reasons for my choice in marrying him and also of our imminent demise. He could not hurt me. He did not hurt me. We were devoid of such risk.

I don't know if that answers the question or not or even if my answer makes sense in relation to the question. But I do know that inside me lives a woman who above all wants to risk intimacy and find love in a cynical world.


i just have this huge smile on my face right now... thank you so much for agreeing to do this... and more importantly, thank you for your honesty.



Well, I'm smiling, too! Thanks so much for inviting me to do this! You're the best, man. Hugs to you.


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jen used to write daily at "her own invention"... as you can see, things have taken quite a turn in her life... so, she's a bit spread out. she has the sexiest colored blog ever, and when she's in the mood, she can bang out some pretty hot stuff. she's my friend, so drop by and say "hi".