Jesse Hanover: Hi

Ok, so Allison got this brilliant idea to do a series introducing some of her characters from her novels. Of course, Allison also thinks the idea of intermittent windshield wipers is brilliant, so whatever. Either way, she asked me to go first – which, ok  sure, does demonstrate a brief flash of brilliance, I’ll give her that. Personally, I think this is dumb, but then again, what isn’t?

So… hi. I’m Jesse. (your turn: Hi, Jesse!)

Thanks. We can hug if you want.

I’m an undergraduate psych student at Forked River State. Junior. Devastatingly handsome (yeah, kidding…or not…you tell me…*wink* - Has anyone seriously ever done an effective wink in an interaction? I can’t see that ever going over as planned.)

All winking speculation aside, my life basically sucks, but I get that everyone else’s pretty much does too. I’m trying to make the best of it, more or less, not that it’s going very well. In fact, it kind of keeps getting worse – and worse – but hey, I found out we had a hotdog bun toaster in our apartment the other day so there’s always that.  Oh yeah, and in between having my life ripped apart, I did watch those Lassie reruns with Holly and go to a lame party with my roommate Kevin. I wonder if Allison will let Kevin talk. Probably not. That would be a 3000-word post, minimum, and even she wouldn’t condone that kind of word-count. Sorry, that was low. She’ll get over it. She loves me.

Anyway, I guess I could say things are looking up. Yeah, ok, not really. But what else are you supposed to do with the crap life throws at you? You have to just deal with it and move on. I do worry sometimes that eventually I’ll reach a breaking point and everything will come crashing down. But for now, I’m kind of managing to stay afloat.

Kevin thinks I’m too smart for my own good. I suspect my girlfriend Holly is in that annoying camp too. And yeah, Professor Sanchez also, but it’s because they don’t really get me. I’m pretty sure at this point no one does and I’m ok with that believe it or not. The thing is, I’m not afraid to get into my head, and that scares people for some reason. I don’t know if they’re just afraid of themselves or what, but life is way too complicated to accept things at face value. The second you think you understand your world, it will screw you. And trust me, I know. Man do I know, but we’ll stop there. You didn’t log on for my stupid sob story anyway.

Ok! So now that we’re new best friends, commence with the inexplicable giggling, cookies, and Jane Austen book club!

Oops sorry, Holly’s rolling her eyes at me. She’s just jealous. She loves to giggle. And Jane Austen. Ok, now she’s about to stab me.

Jesse out before I lose an eyeball.