LIVEBLOG

by Megan Boyle

  2:32am: passed familiar street sign that says ‘marlborough,’ where last year (exactly one year ago, I think, or one year tomorrow) Zachary and I made a wrong turn. I was driving a u-haul containing the things now arranged in storage closet. Have a feeling I’m going be feeling very stereotypical ‘endings’ things, like as my dominant emotion for next two days. Read beginning half of this on the drive here. Seems impossible to imagine the time before I started writing. Like, meeting Colin at Dunkin donuts in the beginning of march. Jesus. The reading. Jesus. All of the things. Seems crazy that people are allowed to live this long. It would be funny if they do a new kind of autopsy of me in 300 years and figure out I was supposed to have ended up in the body of a cricket instead of a ‘Megan Boyle.’

  2:44am: got lost a little. Ate 1mg Xanax and used a ‘say yes to cucumbers’-brand face towel Tao and I used in Spain, that I bought again recently and every time I use makes me feel like Spain.

  2:45–3:15AM: opened apartment door. the lights were off but i could sense that things weren’t in their normal places. the air felt different, a little confused. i dropped my keys and made a noise. zachary said ‘hey peg’ from the living room. i said ‘hello’ and something else. i turned on the hall lights and walked to the kitchen. in the room before the kitchen, a line of stacked boxes and garbage bags looked like a firing squad to the formerly room-dominating picnic table, which had been made into more portable pieces. opened the fridge and saw condiments and sauerkraut and two cans of schaeffer’s or schlitz, i forget. the cans were side-by-side and leaning in ways that wouldn’t be supported without the help of plastic six-pack rings. didn’t know what i expected looking in the fridge would do.

  zachary had put a sheet on the couch like it was a bed. he was under our three ‘watching TV in the living room’ blankets. the only other thing in the room, that i remember, was the lamp that used to be on a nightstand by his side of the bed but was now beside him, on the floor. i think some of my bags were also in the room but i can’t remember where or what they were. oh, and a water bottle. zachary motioned for me to lay by him and i did, with my head below his chin. felt conscious of the size of his body and mine, the warmness and the comfortable distances between what we were touching and our bones. he had sweat through his t-shirt. i could hear the nuances of our breathing in a way that made me unexplainably uncomfortable. shifted my head and he made a sound like he wanted me to leave my head where it was. a few moments later he picked up a water bottle.

  i tried to ask things about his day in a normal tone but i could hear my thoughts in my voice and think he could too. he responded minimally. i said ‘i’m sorry i was stupid today. i should’ve been here, i could’ve been here with you on the last day, helping you. i was stupid.’ he said ‘yup.’ i said ‘i want to make it up to you somehow. you did all the rest of my packing.’ he said ‘well, i had to do something.’ i said ‘i want to make it up to you.’ he said something about brushing teeth and going to sleep and i agreed and followed him to the bathroom. he said ‘i’m still asleep’ in the bathroom. brushed my teeth, then put toothpaste on his toothbrush and handed it to him. he left first, said ‘can you turn off the lights on your way back’ from the living room. i didn’t want to be asleep yet. thought about the beer in the fridge. hesitated mid-room in the direction of the kitchen, rapidly switched where i was walking a few times, then ‘succumbed’ and got a beer. somehow turned off lights in reverse-order, so i was walking to the living room mostly in the dark. bumped into things and made struggling/laughing sounds. zachary said ‘make sure you turn them off in the right order’ as i reached for living room light. i said ‘okay i will.’

  sat on couch where zachary’s lap would be if he was sitting. started drinking the beer. knew the beer was to put off sleep, to talk more with zachary, something seemed unfinished. i wanted him to say something. don’t know what. asked if he remembered getting lost on marlborough street and he said he did. stopped myself from continuing to ask ‘do you remember [things about our first night at this apartment].’ we said all we had to say and i finished my beer and turned off the light and we fell asleep at different times holding each other.

  10:54am: was getting tired laying on my side of couch. asked to switch sides. Shirley was laying between zachary’s and my calves. Zachary said ‘or we could just get up, it’s eleven.’ I said ‘can we just lay here a little more’ and he said yeah. My head was on his chest and my nose was too stuffed to breathe and z turned away. Thought my breath probably smelled. Told a long dream. Left out parts involving sex with attractive men. Zachary said ‘hm.’ I said ‘you dream?’ he said ‘nah.’ continued to lay quietly. I said ‘rabbit rabbit.’ he said ‘huh?’ I said ‘that thing you say on the first of the month for good luck, remember, ‘rabbit rabbit?” he paused, said ‘think about March.’ I said ‘oh shit it’s March thirty-first.’ he said ‘April fools it’s March thirty-first.’

  11:02am: asked for water. Zachary had an elastic in his hand. He said ‘Shirley loves this thing.’ I spilled a little water on Zachary and he said ‘hm.’ he said ‘Shirley, are you the mustard man?’

  3:57pm: all Zac’s things moved out

  Would jump down from pickup and picture landing on my legs, leg snapping completely off, z finding me saying ‘oh shit’

  Very hard packing the truck but also felt focused

  Moved like a fast machine this time. Yes, it was the faster times this time. Thought of that while looking at a lamp in the front Seat that I knew would need to be rearranged.

  Standing in kitchen now. There are things we forgot under the sink. What do you do with these things. You take them with you? Zachary is struggling with the tarp. It started raining as soon as we started moving boxes. He said ‘maybe just go upstairs and chill for a little bit. I’ll just do the rope by myself, I need to think and putz and I’m going to be unpleasant to be around.’ I said I wanted to help still, knowing there wasn’t anything left for me to do, my muscles are weak and I have, if anything, been slowing us down today. Zachary said ‘yeah it doesn’t make sense for you to stay. Shirley’s upstairs. You should just go home, let me do this part.’ I said something about following him to new jersey to ensure things didn’t fall out of the truck, an idea I knew he’d reject, and he did. I said ‘I’m just going to chill upstairs for a bit.’ he said ‘okay, whatever is fine.’

  I don’t think we were looking at each other much. I said ‘hey, can we hang out this week?’ he looked at me a little confusedly and said ‘sure, we’ll see, fine, whatever.’ I said ‘or sometime, ever?’ he said ‘sure yeah’ and hugged me weakly. I said ‘okay.’ I brought his last box of books down to the truck and readjusted the lamp in the front seat so the box could fit. Now I am upstairs in the apartment, mostly empty except for these things that seem impossible to want to bring with me. To someday unpack someplace else. There is this cylinder of sea salt I bought right before we moved in together. The salt became damp early-on. It has always been hard to use, it is the object we have probably used the most and vocally resented using the most. Zachary urged me to keep it and I said I didn’t want it and he said ‘well I’m not going to be the one to throw it out.’ I don’t mind throwing them away. Salt is first to go.

  3:58-11:59PM: drove to NJ. did not update.

  APRIL 1, 2013

  12AM–5PM: unmemorable mostly.

  5:18pm: using zachary’s ipad to update this. last night shortly after updating we argued more. he was like ‘will this get better eventually, can we still go somewhere tonight’ or something and i said ‘yeah just let’s watch another king of the hill then i’ll feel fine.’ then had totally amazing smart oh wow idea to record a video of us summarizing the argument, like talking about what happened, which is sort of what the argument was about anyway, and i spilled chicken noodle soup on computer. i was more drunk than him, i think. we sat in my car in his parents’ driveway, trying to unscrew back of computer so its insides could dry. it took a long time. i ripped off the back panel w
ith a screwdriver before all the screws were unscrewed. everything seemed fine. then i ripped out the battery in a similar way and the battery broke. the computer still turns on but the screen is fucked. felt.

  i drove us around. bars were closed. zachary held computer up to the air vent, the entire drive. nice of him.

  realize now that i have had minor liquid spills on computers and removing the back or any of that was probably unnecessary.

  when we came inside from the drive i realized i had left my iphone and keys in my locked car. i could see the iphone and figured the keys were near it, under the seat, but i could not see the keys.

  argued again before bed about drugs and spiritual experiences from drugs and some other dumb unnecessary shit. i slept in another bed in the room and tried to lure shirley onto my bed so zachary would see that she liked me more. (last night after arguing i said ‘are you going to say you’re sorry? if you say that i’ll feel fine.’ he said he wasn’t going to apologize. i said ‘fine then i’ll take [2 or 3mg] xanax, i won’t be able to sleep otherwise.’ i took 4mg, i think.)

  today zachary’s dad’s friend tried to get the door unlocked. then zachary and i went on a boat ride, to turn off his dad’s houseboat. (on boat remember saying ‘remember when I talked about how I remembered easter egg hunts were fun to your mom,’ zac saying ‘yeah something like that, it was bad’). when we came back a AAA truck was parked in the driveway and a man was doing things to my car.

  the man got my car open and an alarm started honking. my keys were not in the car.

  the keys were peeking out of a couch cushion.

  now i am going to take zachary out to a steak dinner in atlantic city. this will probably be only update until very late tonight when i’m in baltimore and can use dad’s computer.

  6:00pm: Z: ‘Meg’s being annoying so she’s driving,’ he says to parents as we leave.

  Driving:

  me: ‘What’s your favorite hip hop noise thingy?’

  Z: [pause] ‘The kind of question you ask because you just want to say what your answer would be.’

  me: ‘is that why you ask questions like that?’

  Z: ‘yeah, mostly I ask to be polite.’

  me: ‘interesting. Yeah, sometimes I ask knowing I won’t be interested in the answer.’

  Z: ‘you could do that as an article, like, add something quirky after, like ‘kinds of questions not to ask in a graveyard.”

  Signs for ‘lucy the elephant: a national monument.’

  Z: ‘this is a national monument, we’re about to see a national monument.’

  Walk quietly to fence, make matter-of-fact anticlimactic declarations like ‘Lucy,’ walk quietly to car.

  Z: ‘I’m always thinking of questions for yahoo answers like ‘is lancaster nice?”

  Merging onto highway:

  Z: ‘how close is the nearest dildo to us, do you think?’

  6:30–8:30pm: Seated at Knife and Fork fancy restaurant. Ordered $14 manhattans, lobster thermadore.

  Z: ‘Did you feel douchey going to places like this with Tao’

  me: ‘No, we were both just weird, it didn’t matter.’

  Z: ‘I’m weird but I feel like a douche here.’

  me: ‘I don’t know it was fine.’

  Z: ‘Yeah haha you guys were on drugs all the time.’

  me: ‘I don’t know, maybe,’ restraining saying ‘just Xanax, usually, if we went out to eat.’

  8:38pm: me: ‘Are you supposed to give your kids what they want, or do you buy them things you think will be good, or what? How do you know what to give them?’

  Z: ‘Just, TV does it.’

  me: ‘Oh, yeah.’

  Z: ‘TV raising our kids is sick.’

  me: ‘But no, maybe it’s like that thing, ‘it takes a village to raise a…”

  Z: ‘Interesting.’

  8:53pm: Entering Bally’s casino. ‘Lust for life’ playing and I bounce around like a maniac having the time of my life on a Royal Carribean cruise commercial.

  me: [Iggy Pop voice] ‘drive a G.T.O.’

  Z: ‘You got a real lust for life.’

  me: ‘He goes, he’s like, ‘drive a GEE TEE OH.”

  Z: ‘Yes that’s right.’

  me: ‘Gotta walk on this walkway I got a lust for life’

  10:18pm: bartender not letting him have two beers then I came out of bathroom and he said ‘wait’ll bartender sees you’re real’

  Gonna stay at this bar

  ‘Gimme a shot’ Z says

  10:21pm: Z: ‘I’m old as shit’

  me: ‘Compared to some kids these days’

  Z: ‘I miss those days’

  me: ‘All young women here seem like paralegals’

  10:58pm: Z: ‘I accept things, like Instagram,’ sarcastically says more things about it.

  me: ‘The next girl you get pregnant you’ll have to marry.’ Later I say ‘it’s fucked up that you expect me to feel better, I tried that earlier on drive here, nothing works.’

  He makes fun of the word ‘matter.’

  In convo about what I’m doing w/liveblog, what does he want to write/does he wants to write again, I say ‘Melville house.’ Making eye contact he says ‘I got it cause Tao knew them.’ I kept stressing if you find something that interests you great, I don’t get why he feels pleasure at disapproving of me. Asked him for help remembering a few things. He said what I’m doing w/liveblog seems great, as if ‘multitude of idiots think you’re great, I know what real greatness is.’ I called him out somehow. He said ‘you’re right’ a few times and seemed to want to be happy, like, touch me, be silly. On escalator he said something about how his parents wouldn’t have believed I was getting ready earlier because I looked so bad.

  11:06pm: Woman a few toilets down is confidently improvising ‘when do we know I don’t know’ + other new lyrics to ‘bring me a higher love’ song playing on speakers. She is soloing hard over toilet flushing next to me.

  11:07–11:59PM: did not update.

  APRIL 2, 2013

  12–1:03am: argument in car. ‘There’s no way to make you feel how I feel.’ Back at his house I write two pieces of paper analyzing argument, feel dumb, can hear Jeopardy in living room.

  Nothing left to say

  ‘I’ll get Shirley’

  He’s watching jeopardy

  I said ‘snow white’ as response from the kitchen.

  ‘I feel fine wish you didn’t want to be a bitch’

  ‘I’m not a bitch’

  ‘We are different’

  Did I leave charger

  Go back to house

  Saw him

  ‘Oh that’s right people don’t lock things here’

  Thought about calling but no

  2:16am: Set cruise control. Saw shooting star.

  2:27am: Swerving everywhere. Ate 30mg addy, noopept. Listening to Cocteau twins.

  4:59am: Shirley sleeping. Drove around beltway again. Sober now. Intensity of argument feels foreign

  Have been singing along to things

  When I’m procrastinating I like to drive around the beltway in a circle, singing intensely

  I know before I talked about how weird it is how people feel compelled to sing

  I sing ‘under pressure’ a lot

  I sing some taking back sunday songs

  Imagining people watching Feels good

  Used to wear headphones and stare out the window imagining I was all the people in the band, usually the singer or drummer

  5:08am: Saw another shooting star

  5:21am: Dreading returning to dad’s big time. Wherever I drive I’m just getting closer. The security guard will be there and he will write something on a clipboard and say ‘have a good night.’ seems terrible, what this will be now. He will be smiling and his teeth will be…he has fake teeth, they are the only young-looking thing about him. When I started liveblog I felt this thing I’m feeling now only I knew I always had two places to stay, and a person I liked to talk to.


  Mouth is dry, maybe from adderall alcohol combo.

  Interesting thing: I have been receiving more contact from strangers and less from friends.

  5:44am: I don’t remember the past two days as two separate days

  Shirley awake now

  Listening to ‘into the shadows of my embrace’ by why?

  Displaced or misplaced

  Driving on unfamiliar road

  5:58am: Pulled into parking spot at dad’s. Don’t want to be in the same time unit as what I have been for past however many hours. Sleep. When I wake: take the rest of my things to storage unit, drop computer off at macmedics to repair, respond to emails.

  6:03am: Can hear birds. Still in car. Sky looks bluer. Feel something indescribable right now. Like I don’t know…what’s…I don’t know. Looking at dad’s apartment building.

  6:39am: Fed cats. Wrote dad a note asking to borrow his computer. Don’t know where my toothbrush or pajamas are, know there are things in boxes in storage unit but I forget what they are or if they’re important. Sitting on floor in Dad’s apartment. Alvie seems unquietable. Wish I knew what to do. Ate 2mg Xanax. Alvie is annoyingly unquietable right now. I pet him and call him over and he keeps scratching inside his litter box and howling, kind of. Don’t know what to do. Tomorrow I’m going to wake at some time but it will still be today. Zachary will be doing things. So will everyone. Need to find visitor parking thing for my car.

  7:00am: woke dad to see where visitor parking slips were. They’re strict about towing cars without slips. Gated community. I’ve been towed. Ate 2mg Xanax.

  7:33am: ate 1mg Xanax.

  2:03pm: Woke feeling like I had slept forever and not at all. Room was dark. Thought ‘6pm? No might even be like, 11am.’ Shirley was on my leg, turning to find a place to sit/purr. Shirley: the only calming presence in my life who wants to be touched as much as I do.