by Megan Boyle
4:35PM: walked inside and locked sliding glass door, thinking “walked inside and locked sliding glass door’ would be a good point to stop forever.’
7:50PM: now treating my ass with not looking at liveblog. nursing a sparkling water. why am i treating myself for…? today was the day with like. big time. big time nothing today. i am still unshowered. fingers feel strong, hands are like gollum hands again. i feel resentful nostalgia for march 17. everything that’s happened. not happy there is a record of it right now but i’m not being realistic. i’m just resentful of ‘better times.’ what’s with this thinking there’s always a ‘better time?’
think it’s because of that staggered reinforcement thing. giving a rat a treat at staggered intervals makes them most interested and obsessed with the treat. you never know when you’re going to stumble on a ‘better time.’ sometimes you don’t even know. you’re probably in one right now, soak it up. i am too maybe. no really seems like i’m in hell…i’m like…needing to punish myself or something, i don’t know.
other thoughts re ‘better times:’ over time the people who could have ideas/feelings about their futures survived over people who didn’t, also people who could think about potentially moving their houses/potential predators survived more than others, so now there is something kind of encoded in our brains, via years of evolving, that makes us think ‘no don’t settle for that, if you settle you get comfortable, keep looking.’
8:01PM: animal-like digging and something like gregorian chanting noises are coming from upstairs (in that order, both gone now).
REAL TALK BREAK:
• laughing re me re REAL TALK BREAK rRERER RRERERER
• ‘gregorian chant’ word count for total document: 2
• i don’t think i’ve lied about anything in this that i haven’t later corrected. if you know i am lying get at me. there are probably like, 12% various things i choose not to include every day, which would involve names. excluding shit like this is helpful, i don’t like the amount i think about people and what people are thinking.
• why do i shiver so much. seems like i’m always shivering.
• hands look a little more ‘holocaust’ than ‘gollum’ from little cuts from moving. extra transparent bone hands. love my stupid tiny hands.
• when can REAL TALK BREAK be over, just, it’s always the real talk break. that’s why i laughed. also right after i typed REAL TALK BREAK it looked like a poster for dairy or something, from my elementary school cafeteria maybe.
8:18PM: i forget why i haven’t been updating this to blogger, lol. that’s right, have said ‘gregorian chant’ twice but this is the first ‘lol.’ damn, nevermind, there are a lot. really felt this one though. people reading this are going to react differently to what it was before, maybe. seems really dark and obsessive and desperate now. i don’t feel obsessed with myself when i do this, i feel the opposite, like i’m thinking about how to say…hm. i’m imagining there is a person there and it’s someone who i like but maybe i don’t know them. it’s definitely not me. sometimes it’s people i’ve interacted with but most of the time it’s just this idea of a person. or maybe not even a person. maybe just this. i don’t know. maybe this is enough.
8:33PM: i want to watch an eight-hour holocaust movie.
9:20PM: this is day two of barely talking. also this is day two of crushed ice. things to consider. important. life. life: consider it done.
APRIL 6, 2013
9:21PM[yesterday]–12:53AM: have been fixing picture things in blogger and hitting the ‘return’ key a lot again. feels horrible, today. i think two days this week i’ve been awake for 36 or so hours, doing very similar things.
got to the update about brad and thought ‘what’s going to happen to brad,’ started crying as i looked at pictures of him
then peed
all night the end theme song of ‘one flew over the cuckoo’s nest’ has been looping with end theme to ‘glory’ and fucking me up. also the shirley song from earlier. have been reading through march 17 - now. seems so different now. i stopped taking pictures. maybe i didn’t want to elaborate on moving out and atlantic city because i don’t want to remember because it feels bad to remember some things. it’s like a pulling sensation, like the rubber bands around your heart and stomach and face get so tight. your blood feels different. that’s exactly what it’s like. i keep crying, reading the earlier parts of this. looking at all the pictures on my phone. it wasn’t that long ago. i’m sorry for…i don’t know.
there is something so sad about dad’s apartment. the christmas decorations. i’m here with the cats. alvie is unhappy.
dad returned around 11:30 from dinner with his friend. he said ‘i’ve had one too many beers’ maybe four times and kept offering me help. i didn’t know what to say, i’d say ‘no thank you’ or ‘i know you’re here to help, thank you dad.’ he kept coming back into the living room to say a new thing to help me or that i should take xanax or ‘i hope you can take a break’ and i’d say something like ‘it’s not exactly hard work, it’s okay. i’ll watch some TV.’ in the kitchen he said ‘you know how they say ‘this too shall pass…?” like it was the first time but he’s been telling me that since i was little. felt far away. i said ‘i know, that’s good. you seem more worried than me dad, it’s really okay.’ think it started with him asking me how my night was. i had said ‘not feeling great’ and not much about why, but he didn’t seem curious about why, he just went into ‘things will get better, this too shall pass, take a break, i’m here to help’ mode, maybe because of drinking.
i asked him about the TV. he showed me how to use all the remotes and said ‘one of these doesn’t work, so i don’t know if you want to try one of them, or both, so, just so you know: it’s one of these remotes. uh. it’s one the comcast cable remotes we have here, here on the table, see—and here’s another one for the TV. that one works pretty well. so it’s not that one, it’s one or the other of these two comcast remotes, here on the table, one of them doesn’t—i don’t know what’s wrong with it—but one remote here, doesn’t work.’ i said ‘thank you for letting me know, i’m sure i’ll figure it out.’ he said ‘i’m sure you will, you’re so smart,’ saying ‘you’re so smart’ in a way that sounded like ‘you’re so smart and i’m so stupid,’ like he had started thinking things like this a long time ago, that his saying ‘you’re so smart’ to me had nothing to do with me, outside of my saying something that reminded him of things other people have said that have caused him to think he’s stupid.
a little after the remotes on one of his last help-offering trips i thought i wasn’t going to be able to act okay and say ‘thank you, no’ anymore. i was thinking ‘how am i still saying this’ and the event of still-saying it was upsetting me, like the ‘it’s not my fault’ part in ‘good will hunting.’ dad left after i said ‘thank you, no.’ my voice cracked when i said ‘goodnight, sleep tight,’ sounded blanche dubois-style, like, tremory and fragile, about to fall apart, but it was an accident. dad said ‘what?’
heard teeth-brushing sounds end, then tensed at approaching footsteps. dad looked like he had a new thing to say. he said he hoped whatever it was would get better and wanted me to know that i could wake him to talk or whatever and that ‘this too shall pass,’ again, seeming to know in his face that i’d say ‘thank you, but no’ to all of these things, disappointing him somehow, making the rubber band thing happen in me. i said ‘dad, remember when we talked, that talk a couple weeks ago? you’re doing the thing you don’t have to do, really the most helpful thing would be if you stopped offering to help me.’ something seemed temporarily understood. now he is asleep. keep thinking ‘there is nothing i can do’ about dad and me and here and the cats and zachary and mom and all of you and everything.
i remembered something from the pre-help-offering, around the ‘one too many beers’ time:
dad was telling a story about his friend’s wife, kind of like how i imagined the friend told it, like dad
was playing back a hologram of the friend. i listened, looking mostly at my computer. the friend’s wife ate a bag of popcorn and needed surgery because of an old appendectomy. dad started describing the surgery, then something about her appendix, which was gone. i said ‘so now they’re going in to get the other one? the one they left behind?’ he laughed. i don’t think he thought i was paying attention. it felt good when he laughed.
i feel a little better after writing all of this. now it’s been another time unit. before dad was here i smoked more cigarettes on the black wicker table and put a new visitor parking pass on my windshield.
2:22AM: texted masha back. can smell dad’s jacket from chair-leaning position to type. he’s never going to get that he’s okay and that i love him and think he is a good man who is doing the best he can. his TV is made by a brand called ‘life’s good’ with a little happy face emoticon that loads before the stations. when we were talking about the remotes, dad said he had only watched TV four or five times since moving here. i think it’s been over a year. he calls it the ‘entertainment center.’ the thing i feel about that is so big. it’s sort of like ‘touched’ but bigger. like the end theme song of ‘glory.’ he is trying the best he can. he is like alvie and afraid of everything and defending himself, i understand.
2:23–3:30AM: ate 1mg xanax. watched ‘minority report’ and ‘project runway.’ ate wheat thins, cheese-flavored potato chips dipped in hummus, chocolate snack cake in a box labeled ‘great value.’ cats have been oddly quiet.
watched commercials feeling like ‘this is my duty, i will watch them and consider what they’re saying, they were made to show me about a product, the people who made it like the product, someone wants us to know.’ fell asleep on couch.
7:00AM: woke enough to see dad place comforter-style blanket on me, touch my head, leave. he left two canteloupes in pots on the stove, and wrote ‘hi megan’ on the bathroom mirror. both seem accidental. maybe this is a new slow-cooked melon recipe, though.
12:00PM: woke feeling unsure of where i was. remembered and thought ‘oh no it’s still like this.’ there was a movie on TV with a woman who looked like sally field. at first i thought it was the one where she has multiple personality disorder. then i realized it wasn’t sally field. the woman was on the phone. a scary little girl voice from the phone said, ‘starlight star bright [something] help me it’s so dark in here.’ i was like ‘fuck this shit.’ changed the channel to something like ‘the cat whisperer.’ it was called ‘help me with my hell cat’ or ‘my cat from hell.’ the cat whisperer man looked like he played with smash mouth before they got big and left because he was ‘on a rockabilly kick’ and later got into metal and became a P.A. for the guy fieri cooking show. he was great. he whispered to cats. he had a ‘clicker.’ he demonstrated the ‘clicker.’ the couple with the hell cat looked like models for k-mart brand sleepwear. nice, ageless, inoffensive faces, dirty blonde hair, plain fitted t-shirts and jeans. the cat whisperer told them to sit on the floor and they did. he said it was good to tell their cat affirmations as the camera showed a close-up of the couple’s hands touching each other’s knees. then there was a shot of the cat’s face with the woman behind it, petting its head, giving it an affirmation. the cat whisperer said ‘marvelous.’
i turned the channel back to the not-sally field movie. the woman saw ‘starbright’ on a map and went there in her car, then the camera vibrated as if to show ‘mental something,’ then she had a bloody nose. a scary man appeared at the passenger window and yelled. thought ‘they could’ve made it more scary, like he could’ve appeared near her or the car without her knowing, you’d still get to see how scary he was.’ it was on lifetime, it was called ‘sweet [i forget].’ debated waking. put on a cooking show.
2:53PM: woke with a weight on my chest. the weight was shirley. i sat up a little and she dismounted. alvie was on a nearby ottoman, also just waking. college basketball was on TV. i walked to kitchen thinking ‘liveblogbloveblogblobrloolorglr shitshithsithsithsishtiishit shit the internet doesn’t care it’s okay, nobody cares about your life as much as you, don’t worry, it’s okay, you’re not doing it for…[trailed off as i picked up cat bowls and filled them].’ washed grapes and ate a handful. poured coffee. sat at kitchen table.
4:16PM: motivated to keep doing this until forever again. the two or three barely moving/talking days are a time period that is over. thank you if you are still reading. feel less like i’m talking to myself/audience i’m inventing, more conscious of real people reading this, think that’s how i felt in the beginning.
probably felt so bad yesterday and last night due to coming down from over 100mg adderall, and even being on that much feels bad after a certain point. i didn’t write it down but i kept eating more, thinking ‘now it’ll work, now you’ll complete things,’ but my brain was probably like. fitzing. distracted by body aching/shivering.
5:09PM: typed ‘blogger.com’ as my username signing into gmail. alvie has been okay all night and all today, not meowing. think he is afraid of the air mattress.
7:28PM: smoking cigarette outside. opened photobooth, the little green light flashed on. my image on the screen looks mental ward-style, can’t get my face to not look like that. face doesn’t reflect how i feel, which is ‘neutral/okay.’ hair accurately represents unshowered-ness. the photobooth icon is red curtains over black and white tile, like the black lodge in ‘twin peaks.’ seems appropriate somehow.
8:43PM: last night before emotional dad update, while i was fixing layout of this/smoking/hanging new visitor parking pass on rearview mirror, i was thinking of things i wanted to include in an update of this and getting anxious that i wasn’t updating/including, then thought ‘no it’s okay, you can say them later if you remember’ and it felt nice to take a break from thinking i had to include everything.
other stuff i remember about last night:
• listened to funny voicemails from drunk masha last night. laughed in second one when she said ‘rock and roll is all we have’
• ate 60mg noopept
• talked with dad on the phone, he is staying at mom’s tonight
• think it is officially one week since i’ve showered
• fed cats
• looked for blender to make ‘the least you can do’ smoothie, couldn’t find it, ate a banana
• now it’s dark outside
• colin texted that i’ll probably be able to move by the end of the month
• i miss talking to zachary; others
THINGS I WANT TO DO TONIGHT:
• re-dye hair
• shower
• email copy of application to colin
• ‘take a break’ from liveblog for tonight. seems necessary, if i want to keep going forever. like if i don’t take little breaks i’ll lose interest in updating, obscure my ‘order of operations’ priorities and become neurotically focused on non-helpful things
THINGS I WANT TO DO IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS:
• mail packages
• go to yoga/start exercising again in some way
• respond to more emails
• get ‘continuous water flow’ water thing for alvie
• take broken computer to macmedics
• no adderall until monday but if i don’t want it monday then just keep going with not eating it
• deposit check i keep trying to deposit but bank is closed
• go to sleep by 2AM tonight
• wake before noon tomorrow so things won’t be closed when i wake
• write and mail letter to gyno so she will refill my birth control
• take more pictures, listen to more music. felt good when i was doing those things more
TWO THOUGHTS:
• ‘adderrall’ looks like kind of what it makes your eyes do, feel like they removed second ‘r’ to evilly sway people
• i forget the second thought
10:34PM: halved one of dad’s slow-cooked melons and lost interest a few bites
in. catapulted a seed at the wall with my spoon. it was good. i told that seed. so much for ‘taking a break from this.’ no fuck that if i want a break i’m taking that break. i’m going to watch TV with my melon and you can’t come.
10:37PM: pictured myself spinning a globe and going ‘deedledoodoodoodoodoodeee’ and wherever my finger lands to make the globe stop, that’s the place where i send the next person i kidnap, using all my money. like, i’d pick someone, buy a ticket in their name, and somehow force them onto the airplane. imagine if i had kidnapped a person or had hostages with me this whole time, or like, i’m a sick serial killer, none of you know. i’m so good at hiding it. this would be the perfect way to continue hiding it, saying something like this.
REASONS PEOPLE KIDNAP PEOPLE:
• seeking vengeance against person or person’s family
• ransom/hostage thing, for money
• strange sick obsession, like to ‘hoard’ the person or have sex with them
• to kill them for fun
• accidental (?)
i would just want to kidnap for fun. it would be more fun to be kidnapped by someone you like. maybe. or more interesting. like if we’re friends…you know that time when it’s like ‘this was nice, i’ll see you later?’ that wouldn’t be allowed. i would be forcing you to continue. it would be good if that’s why some people were married: one of them just kidnapped the other one for fun, then forced them to marry them. seems hard to think about how this would work or what would happen. seems like what my parents did. i’m not sure what i mean. let’s say i kidnap jordan. i’m laughing.
WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF I KIDNAPPED JORDAN CASTRO:
