Fail

I never finished the program at Stanford.  I had really begun to struggle with depression and anxiety.   Jason and I were butting heads a little more frequently.

And frankly, it was hard.  It was not that the subject matter was hard.  The subject matter was invigorating.  I learned a lot and was absolutely energized by the subjects I was studying.

What was hard was being in the student’s seat.  I had been the teacher for a long time.  It was hard to be just another kid in the program.  I actually had a classmate, who was at least 8 years younger than I was, call me kid as we debated something.  She’d been in the program longer than me, so I guess that gave her a sense of superiority, maybe?

I was also working.  I was substitute teaching, rebuilding the Stanford Religious studies department website, tutoring, and anything else I could do to make a few bucks.  Helping to manage the apartment complex was interesting, too.  In fact, it made for a couple of good stories:

I was actually much more handy than Jason.  So if a tenant called with a needed repair, if it didn’t require a professional, I did it.  I replaced a leaking toilet.  I fixed a few things here and there.  Then one day we got a call from 24C.  Her pilot light was out and she wanted to turn her heat on.  She had left a message on our machine, so as soon as I heard it, I grabbed the lighter and headed over.  She opened the door and looked surprised to see me.

“I’m here to light your pilot light,” I told her.

“Oh,” she said, with some surprise.  She led me to the heater and it was set up a little differently than I was used to.

“Hmm.  I’ve never seen one like this, ” I told her.

“Oh!” she said, brightly.  “Maybe Jason would know better how to light it.”

“No, I’ll figure it out, “I said, “just let me look at it for a minute.”  I opened a few panels, looked around, and finally found the gas knob and the pilot.  I lit the lighter and turned on the gas, and the pilot was lit.

She asked me if I was going to be doing all the repairs, now.  I told her that I’d probably do most of them, unless a professional was required.  She asked if something was wrong with Jason.  I told her no, but he does most of the administrative stuff as well as the yard maintenance.  This was my contribution to keeping the place up.  Plus, he’d recently started a new job in Oakland, so he had a longer commute.

“Oh, what’s his new job?” she asked.

“I really don’t know.  I just know it’s in Oakland.

“Oh, so you guys aren’t together?” she asked with wide-eyes.

I laughed, her odd behavior making sense now.  “No, we’ve just been friends for a long time.  It just worked out that he needed a new roommate and I needed a place to stay.”

I encountered several tenants who seemed less than comfortable to have me work on whatever it was they needed to be done.  Some of them were men who were uncomfortable having a young woman crawling around on their bathroom floor repairing plumbing.  Some of them were tenants of either gender who just expected that a man would better know how to make the repair.

My favorite incident was the crazy lady who lived upstairs from us.  I’m pretty sure she was what I grew up calling a tweaker.  She was always fidgety and overly energized.  She had crazy eyes.  She called down to our apartment and I answered the phone.  She told me she needed her pilot light lit.

I said, “Ok, what is a good time?”

She said, “Now is good.”

I said, “Ok.”  Once again, I grabbed my lighter and ran up the stairs.  I knocked on the door and waited several seconds to hear her coming toward the door.

She gets to the door and shouts, “Who is it?”

It had been less than two minutes since I’d talked to her.  I said, “It’s Jenna.  I’m here to light your pilot.”

She shouted, “Oh, is Jason with you?”

I took a deep breath, “No.  It’s just me.”  I had a feeling something weird going on.

She cracked the door just a little and poked her head out, “are you sure you’re alone?”

“Yes.  It’s just me, see?”  I moved out of the way so that she could see that I wasn’t hiding anyone.  Then I started to think that she might be naked.  Please, God, don’t let her be naked.

She opened the door enough to let me in, and I’ll be damned if she wasn’t naked.  Wrapped in a towel, wet hair.  “I thought you were Jason!” she said with exaggerated relief.

I lit that pilot light and ran back upstairs.  I think she was hoping Jason would light more than her pilot light.

My anxiety and depression had reached the point that I decided to go home.  I had no idea where I was going to live, so I started asking around.  Rick told me that one of the guys from game night, a guy named Dan, was buying a house and looking for roommates.   I  met up with Dan and Rick and two other guys who were going to be living there, and we discussed living arrangements.  I couldn’t afford the amount of rent that Dan wanted for the room, so I told him that, assuming that would be the end of the discussion.  Dan and Chris, the guy helping him buy the house, suggested that I could do the housekeeping as part of my rent.  I said I’d be willing to do that.  Everyone but Jerry got excited.  Jerry whined, “well, I can’t really afford this, either.  I could do the yard work.”  Dan agreed, and I moved in.

Big mistake!