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by Megan Boyle

  10:41pm: if I only wear bras without underwire will my boobs be saggier when I’m old?

  10:43pm: going to punish myself so hard at gym tonight…even if I barely move it’ll punish me…

  10:45pm: what if spring smelled like ass

  10:52pm: parked outside mom’s. Unintentionally skipped then did it on purpose and laughed a little then stopped to type this.

  11:02pm: stood on balcony with mom and talked about how spring smells. She said ‘look at that, is that a star? It’s not the bright one, it’s the lower thing.’ It was blinking. Remembered reading part in tao’s book where I asked him if a star was moving and we talked about aliens, then remembered moment he wrote about. Told mom about dark airplane shape I saw fly over the trees at whole foods during zachary phone call. She said ‘that sounds like a drone.’ I said ‘but it wasn’t making any noise.’ She said ‘that’s how they’re making them, I heard something today. They want to make them so they can shoot a missile to north Korea from here. The missile would go all the way to there, from here.’ I was staring at the star she had pointed out, trying to see if it was moving. I said ‘it’s an airplane I think, see? It’s going. Moving.’ she said ‘where? Oh I see, it’s an airplane.’ told her about seeing two shooting stars on the way from new jersey to dad’s apartment. She said ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen one. I’ve seen a double rainbow.’ we walked inside. I said ‘do you remember hale-bopp?’ she said ‘yeah…was that when we were living on Brentwood?’ I said ‘yeah like nineteen ninety-seven.’ she said ‘I remember it happening but I don’t remember seeing it, I don’t think.’ I said ‘you must’ve, it was like, for a few days. Or like a week maybe. It was a comet, so, you know. I remember I took pictures with my camera, I remember taking pictures’ and stopped myself from rambling thing I didn’t see having an end. She said ‘well I must’ve seen it.’

  11:25PM: scanner isn’t working. eating an orange to quell carb cravings. stomach has been hurting from pizza this entire time. updating this then going to kinkos to scan lease/application copy for colin.

  APRIL 10, 2013

  12:30am: arrived at FedEx. Had left driver’s license and credit card at home. Drove back. Arrived at FedEx. Had left paper with signatures at home. Jogged to car and felt for driver’s license. Not there. Searched FedEx and car. It was in my pocket, I didn’t feel it.

  12:34am: slammed brakes at red light.

  12:36am: this is a little number I like to call ‘the 24-hour FedEx shithead shuffle.’

  12:43am: stuffed shrimp jumbo lump crabmeat 24-hour FedEx shithead shuffle relay just outside the taco bell that’s right the taco bell on reisterstown road can’t miss it.

  12:45am: followed cab into shopping plaza containing 24-hour FedEx. A Safeway employee got out and stared at the Safeway door. Now they’re gone.

  1:05am: watching man with big glasses, long dreds in loose ponytail and graceful flowing sweatpants enter FedEx. He looks ‘long-haired’ the way long-haired cats do, from top to bottom he is long and flowy. The shithead shuffle relay is complete. When you see the long-haired man, you know the shithead shuffle is complete.

  1:11am: I completed all the things I wanted to do before I find the fresh water spring and stand with my mouth under it. Mom said the water might not be flowing off a rock. It might just be a pipe. Gonna check that shit out now. Get the scoop. Scoop that shit up.

  1:18am: I feel really good right now. Invincible and stupid. Wonder when I’m going to have sex again. Feels like I’m having sex right now, kind of. Invincible and stupid.

  1:27am: spooky out here.

  1:41am: scoop on fresh water spring: have driven up and down road mom said it was on, I see nothing, turning back.

  2:15am: parked outside mom’s. Sleepy. If I sleep now I can wake at a more normal time. Will be motivated to continue completing tasks at a consistent pace. Will exercise and do emails tomorrow. ‘I earned it.’ -J. Lo.

  THINGS I AM EXCLUDING:

  • romantic daydreaming, that if I included more of, might effect its likelihood to happen

  • don’t always say when I’ve peed/shat/brushed teeth/eaten noopept or vitamins

  • don’t talk about every text message/email exchange

  • not much said about nervous habit of picking at skin on my back/neck/ears

  • not deliberately excluding masturbating, whenever I talked about masturbating is the last time I did it (march 29?)

  3:17AM: made corned beef + sauerkraut sandwich and felt full after a few bites. thought ‘mom would think i was on drugs if she saw ‘new item: sandwich, feat. bites’ in fridge,’ sliced off bitten parts. ate two oreos, 1mg xanax, and went to bedroom. set alarm for 11:30.

  2:57PM: hit snooze. dreamed zachary bought six cans of male birth control. it like, seals up your penis hole. drinking coffee. colin says i should be able to have a meeting with the apartment people next week and i need to fill out and scan a new lease.

  it’s 88 degrees outside.

  THINGS I WANT TO DO TODAY:

  • exercise

  • emails

  • fill out/scan new lease

  • assemble packages

  • eat something not meat or carb-based

  • mail letter to gyno

  mouth watered when i typed ‘meat or carb-based’

  must do at least one thing that’s not 24-hour fedex or eat vegetable-based thing

  if i fail to do at least one thing outside of those things: something bad will happen to five people i think about the most (they can blame it on me too, i’m already saying it will be my fault)

  3:30–5:13PM: zachary called. played tic tac toe over the phone. nice time. i ate the other half of the sandwich and caramel corn.

  5:50PM: drinking coffee. mom is asleep on couch. crippling indecision about what to do right now. no interesting thoughts.

  POSSIBILITIES:

  • dye hair (probably one hour total), buy envelopes, go to yoga class at 8 or 8:30

  damn nevermind guess that was easy

  6:35PM: drinking a ‘the least you can do’ (spinach/banana) smoothie. hair dye sinking into roots. catching up on masha’s liveblog. can’t believe she’s still doing it, happy she is. haven’t read a hand-held book for a while

  6:53PM: sitting on balcony. a helicopter is circling so close in the sky that it looks the same size as a lighter on the table in front of me. dye sinking into hair. it’s hot outside. in the beginning of the phone conversation, zachary said something and i said ‘what?’ and he said ‘nevermind.’ i said ‘tell me.’ he asked if it was okay to put a stick in a bottle of water or whiskey, because he really wanted to put a stick in his bottle. i said it was probably okay but you might end up eating some pieces of stick. he seemed happy to eat the stick pieces. confirmed with him that the stick would not go up into the neck of the bottle, it was a short stick. stick in a bottle.

  8:25PM: showered and dressed and dried hair. seemed like there wouldn’t be enough time to make it to yoga. wrote consent letter to gyno so she will refill my birth control. felt irritated writing it, think irritation shows in the word ‘another.’ the worst thing that could happen to me is i have cancer/will die sooner and if i cared about that, my consequence for not getting shit done today wouldn’t have been ‘something bad will happen to the five people i think about most,’ it would’ve been ‘i have cancer and will die sooner.’ i’m like. re-reading ‘colposcopy’ things on the internet and feeling cancer in me, or just…it feels….i can’t even read it all the way, like, ‘forceps’…shit…i don’t even know what that is…feel like a guy watching a movie where the main character’s balls get kicked. i feel torture chamber-like dread about getting this shit done again. cancer would be better than torture. okay. good. confident in my decision. now i can continue regulating my…goddamnit, i don’t even think birth control is a good idea. can’t imagine what would’ve happened if…i would have an almost five-month old baby right now…no way to provide for it…life seems…is this actua
lly hell…

  8:57PM: buying envelopes for packages now. then feed cats/get dad to sign lease. 24-hour fedex again. assembling packages. exercise. eating shitty food today. i just ate pringles dipped in baba ganoush then two little cookie things. ultimate shit eating. if i take adderall now will i need to take more, because of food? goddamnit. have really letting myself eat the worst shit the past few days. smoothie was a small improvement. okay. eating 7.5mg adderall.

  9:33pm: smelled like a day in North Carolina in November 2010 when I stepped outside. Smelled hopeful. Feel instantly better being in car listening to music, reminds me of good mood yesterday. Additional tactic for feeling better: wearing dresses or skirts and showering. It makes everything an ‘occasion.’ ‘occasionally’ vs. ‘occasion’ in context I just used seems interesting. Ate 10mg adderall.

  9:45pm: dyed hair reddish. Matthew donahoo video from email yesterday is a scene from a movie where the guy draws a diagram of what negative thinking is like. He lays down some real shit. Highly recommended. Avoid that triangle. Considering making ten triangles of my greatest hits of negative thinking image things. Seems hard at the moment.

  10:09pm: bought envelopes, exercise shoes, mint green dress without trying on, gum that said ‘buying this gum will feed a hungry family somewhere.’ felt woman behind me in line, looking at me, standing too close to me. Thought ‘feed your own goddamned family’ at her, not knowing what I meant. Thought it really hard though.

  10:31pm: this is my last pack of cigarettes from the carton. After this I’m buying an electronic cigarette. Caving in. Will probably ‘accidentally’ throw out window.

  10:59pm: things went well at dad’s. When I walked inside he was talking to Janice, a therapist I think, who I used to like talking to when I worked at his office doing secretary stuff in summers home from college and one high school summer (2003-2006 I think). She said ‘I haven’t seen you since…’ and my dad made his hand child-height and I said ‘two-thousand three?’ Highly pleasant person, that Janice. She is ‘salty,’ I think. I asked how she was and she said something like ‘how good can you be? I think I’m evening out after a period where things have sucked.’ I said I was moving to rockaway park and wanted to be a nursing aid. She said ‘that’s good to hear, you’re making a change, I sit and listen to these people all day and it’s like ‘oh my god, it’s the same thing,’ for years.’ I said ‘yeah it like, doesn’t even matter what the change is to me, it’s just been too much of the same thing for too long.’

  11:13pm: it’s raining big fat droppies hell yeah. Hell yeah rain smell. On the way to feed cats.

  CLARIFICATION TO UNIVERSE:

  When I said ‘if I fail to complete at least one thing besides ‘FedEx lease’ and ‘eat something non-meat/carb based’ today something bad will happen to the five people I think about most’ I meant ‘today’ like ‘from now until I sleep’ not ‘today’ like ‘from now until 11:59pm.’ I think the universe understood that but people reading this might not have, and they are part of the universe, so maybe could effect universe maybe.

  11:18pm: I’m on 83S. Ambulance with lights on but no sirens is behind me again, on the same road/in same lane I noticed the same thing a few nights ago.

  11:29pm: I’m using liveblog as surrogate boyfriend or something. There is this thing, ‘Harlowe’s monkeys.’ they let hungry baby monkeys pick between a food dispenser and a foodless wire monkey resembling a monkey mom. They always picked the wire mom.

  11:33pm: arrived at dad’s. Fake teeth security guard yelled something friendly and incoherent.

  11:52pm: slammed hard enough on brakes to make skidding sound before red light.

  APRIL 11, 2013

  12:23am: walked from FedEx to car. Man in taco bell drive thru was cackling.

  12:31am: didn’t want to be home yet. Driving to 24-hour grocery store to garner kale and energy drinks for ‘flushing greens through my body’ drink.

  12:46am: pulled into parking spot at 24-hour grocery store.

  12:54am: bought bunch of kale and four-pack of sugar-free red bull. This was written over a picture of Kim kardashian on cover of ‘star’ magazine: ‘Kim ignores dire health warnings; Getting paid to binge on junk food; She demands a c-section.’ Lady with white hair and ‘leah’ nametag rang me up. There was a card read error. Thought about whole foods cashier from the other day. Leah said ‘you’re not doing it fast enough.’ I went fast and it worked. She said ‘very good.’

  1:39am: have just been driving around, listening/singing along to music. Lost focus of goals. I only feel good when I’m driving. That’s false.

  3:03AM: ate 10mg adderall and noopept in preparation for beasting out emails/assembling packages to mail tomorrow/exercising.

  6:31am: it’s 63 degrees. Sky looks pretty. I’m sitting in my car, smoking. Mom was awake when I went outside. Ate 10mg adderall. One week ago at this time I had just arrived at dad’s apartment from helping zachary move to new jersey. Two weeks ago at this time I was alone in Philadelphia apartment and had probably just fallen asleep after putting all knives/sharp objects/keys/phone under my pillow and would wake in the afternoon and it would be baby’s day out. Three weeks ago at this time I was smoking two cigarettes on mom’s balcony re-reading things I had written earlier that night on heroin and said ‘FFFF’ to scare away a noise I heard from the woods. Four weeks ago at this time I don’t remember at all. Even though those things aren’t the best memories of my life I’m glad I wrote them down because I wouldn’t remember otherwise. I don’t know why that feels good. Guess it’s just like ‘hey, I was there, it happened, it’s not that different than now, it’s not something to idealize.’ but I still idealize it. Smoking second cigarette. Woman with backpack is approaching and I’m typing this to avoid eye contact.

  7:27AM: made kale/cantaloupe smoothie and drank fast. told mom it had been three weeks since we watched ‘the master.’ she had curlers in her hair and the balcony door was open. she said she wished she had been writing down things about her sophomore year of college, when she lived in a dorm with six girls who were ‘always laughing,’ and so could remember more now. the only thing she remembered, she said, was making fake poop out of peanut butter and bird seed to put on a toilet and leaving ‘an artful trail out the bathroom door.’ she laughed as she told the story and sometimes said ‘it’s not even funny.’ i said it was funny.

  9:29AM: sitting on balcony. obsessively checking all online things. writing this to stop feeling obsessive. ate maybe 20mg adderall maybe 20 minutes ago. have yet to feel effects. things i’ve searched on youtube: ‘learning how to speak english conversation,’ ‘how to speak english,’ ‘how to be less depressed.’ watched a tim and eric thing about going to the ‘shrek 3’ premiere. funny.

  THINGS I REMEMBER HEARING ON TV, AS I REMEMBER HEARING THEM:

  • this is a story about how seven strangers lived together in a house where they stop being polite and start getting real

  • because you hear it [DJ record scratching] first

  • the touch, the feel, of cotton: the fabric of our lives [sung in a certain way]

  • pow pow power wheels

  • crossfire you get caught up in the crossfire you get caught up in the crossfire you get caught up in the

  • just…keep…i’m just hearing the ‘where they stop being polite and start getting real’ thing over and over…think that’s all i really wanted to say, everything else on this list is irrelevant

  THINGS THAT MADE ME CRY WHEN I WAS LITTLE:

  • the part in ‘goodnight moon’ where it says ‘goodnight mush’

  • an alphabet VHS tape made by toys ‘r’ us where each letter was an animal, for ‘n’ it was ‘newt.’ the last line of the song was “n’ is for newt and i think he’s cute, i’m sorry he plays all alone’

  • big football player in ‘free to be you and me’ who sang a song like ‘it’s alright to cry, crying gets the sa-ad out’

  when zachary and i were taking trips from our ap
artment to move things into travis’ basement, i saw an empty plastic container that looked like it came from one of those 25-to-50-cent toy vending machines. it was on the lid of the washing machine. for some reason i kept looking at it, probably every time we dropped off a load of stuff, and thinking “n’ is for newt and i think he’s cute, i’m sorry he plays all alone.’

  think i just wanted to say that. all of this, everything you’ve read until now, everything since march 17, 2013 was all to say:

  1. where people stop being polite and start getting real

  2. the plastic container on the washing machine reminded me of the newt

  10:08AM: that would be a good place to stop forever.

  7:55pm: in parked car, thought ‘doing this is making you feel worse, no you just aren’t regularly talking to anyone but parents anymore, that’s what was going on before you started this, you weren’t really happier then, you were just enjoying writing funny things and hadn’t used up all your insight/examples, like the beginning of a relationship, everything always just planes out maybe, no don’t say that you can still make it exciting’

  8:20pm: entering Walmart. Figured out I could store credit card and driver’s license between iPhone and hot pink rubbery phone-sleeve thing and envisioned this being the first of many times I do that, it will be the way I avoid carrying a bag/purse this summer. I’m here in Walmart to look for a continuous water flow device for Alvie.

  8:23pm: when I wrote all that shit, like, big amounts of text from April 2-5, part of me was thinking ‘if you write all there is to write you can fast forward to the future where you don’t have any more to say.’

  8:26pm: do not see continuous water flow devices. Nary a continuous water flow device to be seen at ye walmart, young goodman brown.

  8:30pm: sensed something in my peripheral vision watch me walk up and down the aisles at target. Then I was closer to the ‘something,’ a pudgy little girl. She twisted her ankle shyly and smiled. I smiled back. She said ‘I like you dress.’ I smiled bigger, said ‘thank y-oouuu. It’s from target’ sort of unconsciously and walked away, feeling like a commercial.