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by Megan Boyle

  11:40PM: there is some kind of hallucinogen they use to treat drug addiction called ibogaine. they talked about it at the end of the documentary.

  APRIL 22, 2013

  12–1:45am: sudden intense abdominal cramping like I’d get in high school that’d sometimes make me faint and I’d go to the hospital. Also felt urinary tract infection-like pee pain. Took computer to bathroom to ‘wait it out.’ felt more comfortable to be on toilet. Answered ask.fm questions and drank two liters water. When water would hit stomach it would hurt more. Pills eaten: two azo standards, two gas x’s, two stool softeners, two laxatives.

  1:46–2:00am: went back to mom’s room. She seemed concerned and was watching ‘mad men.’ I said medicine was taking longer to work because my stomach was busy digesting shitty food. She said ‘this very thing happened to your dad on vacation, it happens a lot, he’ll say his stomach feels like a boulder.’ I said ‘it’s because he eats such shitty food.’ she said ‘yeah he really does eat like a shark, he’ll just eat nothing for a long time and then have a big meal.’ I said ‘I do that too, I think that’s why this happened tonight.’ she said ‘my poor girl, she doesn’t eat’ and hugged/patted me. I said ‘it’ll get better. Let’s watch something together, do you want to do that?’ she said ‘yes, let’s do something funny. Or ‘homeland,’ or did you lose interest already?’ I said I didn’t remember the last one and she said ‘yeah, you had fallen asleep’ and started re-telling the plot of episode ten and I felt guilty because it was my big Xanax night, the night of carrabba’s take out and ‘les miserables.’ I started looking up ‘homeland’ on the ondemand menu and said ‘let’s just watch Mary, do you want that?’ she said ‘Mary Tyler Moore? Yes I always love Mary.’ she asked questions and I’d respond ‘I don’t know, I have no preference, you know it better than me, I like them all you decide.’ she said ‘so we could watch an early season, like season one, or the last season? What do you want?’ I said ‘I want…to not answer questions, you decide. I’ll like anything.’

  Ate eight chewable tums. Walked to kitchen chewing them to maybe un-covertly get 1mg Xanax from bookbag, thinking it would help calm stomach. Mom had a black clay face mask on, was trying to figure out DVD. She said something in a making-fun-of-minstrel-shows voice, like ‘massa don’t let me use the DVD,’ looking closely at the remote. I laughed and said ‘it’s okay, I understand your struggle, you already have it hard, being born.’ she said ‘oh no we shouldn’t joke like this,’ laughing.

  2:10–2:26am: watched the first episode of the second season. The opening credits came on, showing Mary smiling in her car over the part of the song that goes ‘who can turn the world on with her smile.’ I said ‘I thought ‘fuck you, Mary” and snickered. Mom said ‘oh no, no ‘fuck Mary” and laughed a little. I said ‘fuck you Mary’ and we laughed quietly. Mom left to rinse off face mask. Mary and Rhoda were in Mary’s apartment. I checked email on phone. Mom said ‘what did I miss, what’s going on?’ I said ‘I don’t know, I was paying attention to my phone instead.’ Mom said ‘I’ll just figure it out. Oh you don’t know either? Let’s just rewind’ and used the wrong remote to rewind. I said ‘no, no, that’s the wrong remote, let’s just watch and figure it out.’ mom said ‘oh let’s just figure it out then.’

  2:27am: mom said ‘oh no I’m falling asleep, you keep watching.’ I said ‘okay, do you want me to say goodbye when I Ieave in the morning?’ she said ‘yes, and don’t worry about waking me up, I’ll just wake up and say goodbye, so don’t worry about waking me.’ I said ‘I won’t worry, I figured you might have to be awake to say goodbye.’ mom laughed sleepily and said ‘yes, yes I guess I’ll have to be awake for that.’

  2:28–2:50am: set alarm for 5AM. Played third episode. Rolled to lay on my side and closed eyes, thought ‘maybe don’t do this, maybe be an adult instead, or just stay awake.’ It was the episode where Lou gets promoted and has a big office with a wet bar and a desk with no drawers. He asks his new secretary for a trash can so he can use it to store his scotch. The next day he’s back in his old office and Mary is happy. She says she missed him and he says he missed her, and that all he was expected to do at his new job was sit there and smile and it didn’t feel right to him. Mary says ‘that doesn’t sound like you at all.’ Lou says ‘I didn’t mind taking the money, but the smiling, oof.’ I love them. I want to work there, where Lou is my boss. Brought red quilt to the living room and fell asleep on couch.

  5:10am: hit snooze.

  5:40am: woke for real and showered, dressed. ate noopept, 60mg adderall. Masha texted about the dap x-hose. Got computer from mom’s room. Mom said ‘can you get coffee?’ I said ‘yeah, I have plenty of time, interview’s not until 11.’

  6:16am: driving to dad’s to change clothes. Map says it’ll only take three hours 19 minutes to get to NYC.

  7:15am: dried hair. Applied new outfit, high heels, makeup. Fed cats and cleaned box. Left dad a note on coffee machine.

  7:18am: bought two 16oz sugar-free red bulls and cigarettes from royal farms. Black & Mild’s employee friend was there. She had taken out her cornrows. She didn’t ring me up. Seems so nice to work there, everyone is so happy there. Like ‘king of the hill’ happy with their lives happy. Starting to feel vyvanse.

  9:14am: have to pee badly. Pulling into j. Fennimore copper rest stop.

  9:19am: ‘rio’ by Duran Duran is playing. I’m peeing. Pee no longer hurts. Walked in bathroom thinking ‘looking professional as hell. Professional ass interviewee bitch c.e.o.’ People are speaking Spanish and flushing toilets. I like this song. So emotional and empty-sounding. Patrick Bateman murder playlist style.

  9:24pm: still on toilet. Feeling vyvanse things of having a lot to say. ‘I want you to want me’ is playing. Smells really clean, familiar cleaning agent smell, like my dorm at DePaul. Now ‘blue velvet’ is playing. I like singing ‘blue velvet’ and ‘in dreams’ in the car and pretending I’m being watched by Kyle maclaughlin in ‘blue velvet.’ For ‘in dreams’ I imagine singing at karaoke and people who like ‘blue velvet’ getting excited. When I sublet Tao’s apartment in February I got really drunk and stayed up all night made embarrassing videos of myself singing.

  9:37am: going 81mph, interview is one hour 43 mins away, I can make it faster though, I dilly-dallied thinking I had more time than I did shit

  9:44am: behind pick-up truck with ‘masters of disaster’ bumper sticker.

  9:58am: now gmaps says I’ll arrive in 56 minutes hell fucking hell yeah. I want to smoke something that’s not a cigarette and I don’t want to smoke it, I don’t want to feel a drug thing, just want a cigarette alternative.

  10:00am: traffic has rapidly slowed. Going 12mph what the shit hell hotdog ohhhhhhhhhhbbnbn nooopoolkooo

  10:12am: smells strongly of cinnamon all of a sudden, gmaps says 43 minutes now, cutting this shit close, TO THE UNIVERSE: I WILL SACRIFICE ONE FUTURE HAPPY MEMORABLE EXPERIENCE IF YOU MAKE IT SO THERE IS NO MORE SLOW TRAFFIC AND A PARKING SPACE NEAR 988 ATLANTIC AVE BROOKLYN NY THANK YOU IN ADVANCE.

  10:30am: 25 minutes away looking good.

  10:31am: I spoke too soon major traffic shit shit shit on me.

  10:50am: ate 20mg adderall. Traffic still bad, I’m at exit 21 need to be at exit 27. Going 0-2mph.

  10:56am: texted interviewer that I’d be late. She’s running late also, meeting at 11:30 instead hell yeah.

  11:07am: ate a snigly niblet of adderall approaching exit 27

  11:33am: got pulled over for using cell phone while driving. Gave cop expired registration and insurance then found current registration. Signed ticket. Said ‘I’m sorry, I gave you the wrong things.’ Cop said ‘mmhmm. This is a ticket you drive safe.’ I said ‘okay, I’m sorry.’ She looked at me like ‘mmhmm.’

  11:44am: jogged to 988 atlantic. Man said ‘you have a nice day’ and I turned head to say ‘thanks you too,’ making clippy-clop shoe noises. Called Nasa (interviewer), told her about cop and quickly changed subject. Nasa said she’s getting i
ced coffee, asked if I liked iced coffee, I said ‘yeah a lot,’ she said ‘with milk and sugar?’ I said ‘no just black is great, thank you.’ she said ‘no problem see you soon.’ felt effortless.

  11:47am: bald man in van head-checked me and said ‘hey.’ I head-checked back. ‘Person with hair reciprocates lesser-haired person’s head-check, does not vocalize ‘hey:’ next up on aol.com’s morning news rush.

  12:56pm: exiting interview place. It was a mostly empty apartment with two desks in the front and a photo-taking area in the back with a white background and lighting equipment. Nasa was easy to talk to, calming presence, I didn’t feel uncomfortable or inhibited answering questions. Felt like we could be friends. She and a guy took pictures of me holding an American flag blowing in the air of a fan, holding copy of ‘the fountainhead,’ holding the ticket I just received. She said they usually transcribe interviews word for word then something like ‘but that can be vulnerable, don’t worry we won’t do that for you,’ and I got excited and said I’d like it if they transcribed it word for word and told her about the mdmafilms screening/interview I transcribed word for word, including like, [I said ‘like, ‘dot dot dot,’ ‘uh,’ all those things like that people usually leave out, I’m interested in reading stuff like that’]. Said I’d write something for their website. Think when article comes out I’m going to tweet responses to comments/tweets from their twitter account. Excited for this. Nasa said ‘the weirder the better’ re what I could write about for their website. When the guy was taking my picture nasa and I were talking and something came up about feminism and she said ‘oh! Are you the one who said you’re not a feminist?’ I said ‘yeah’ and she said ‘oh I almost forgot to ask about that’ and got her iPhone and started recording me again. There were professional lighting white umbrella things around me and the guy was still taking my picture and nasa held the phone near my face and said ‘so why don’t you call yourself a feminist’ and I said ‘oh god, there’s all these lights around me’ and we kind of laughed and I said things about how it’s better to just act as if men and women are equal than to create content about women not being equal and felt my legs and voice get shaky and heart beat faster. I think a radiohead song was playing. That was the only uncomfortable part. I asked nasa what she thought about feminism and she said she understood what I was saying but appreciates feminist efforts, and talked about a women’s music festival she organized. I said ‘oh you did the Lilith fair?’ she laughed a little and said her thing was called ‘tinderbox’ and something about coco rosie playing, also something about the Lilith fair. I said ‘I went to the Lilith fair when I was like, twelve.’ she smiled and said ‘oh really?’ and continued taking pictures. I asked her if she knew twin sister and she said she liked them a lot and I said…Jesus…something like ‘I thought ‘tinderbox: that’s a thing like twin sister.’ she said ‘they’re the ones that do that eighties video where they’re like’ and danced a little. I said ‘yeah!’ and did the dance a little and tried to do the twin sister voice to sing ‘all around and away we go.’ she said she had tweeted at them about how she thought they were great. I said ‘you seem to have a knack for social things’ and she said ‘I really don’t, like I’m okay with something like this where it’s people coming to me that I’ve asked, but put me in another thing and I’m like [made ‘no way’ face and shook head ‘no’].’ I said ‘me too, me too’ smiling, liking her a lot. She reminded me of Chelsea in looks/personality/ambition/intelligence/self-awareness. Gushing over interview parked on some little street. Unstoppably gushing. In interview I talked about the silk road. Nasa asked if I really thought the world was going to end soon and I said I really thought it would in December, and that I still feel like ‘where else could this possibly go, how is this still happening,’ and that the internet needs to change into something else soon. Nasa and the photographer sitting at nearby desk said things about the (cessna?) act that means it’s okay for the government to look at everyone’s private browsing now. I said ‘they must be so bored.’ laughs. Fun goodtime interview. Feels like I just got out of a matinee. That feeling when you walk out of a movie and it’s still daylight. The last time I remember doing that was with ‘source code.’ I feel like that. Like I’ve been dropped from a 90-minute airplane ride but the airplane was only 5’7” in the air the whole time.

  2:24pm: driving to library on 5th ave to work on things until Mira and Sam Cooke are free to hang out. Ahead of me an old man in flimsy orange ‘grubhub’ vest biking past three men ‘pampering’/washing a school bus.

  2:53pm: truck with sign: ‘just in case you don’t have time to [picture of back of blonde female head in tropical setting] SHRIMPING IN PATAGONIA’

  3:04pm: ominous/depressing lighting since crossing into Manhattan, which I initially attributed to tall buildings. Shadows look flatter and deeper (hollow?) somehow. Paranormally bleak sky. Paranormal dizziness, like sky saw its reflection and got vertigo. Sky is experiencing vertigo. The sky i’m seeing is the reflection of the sky being shown an image of itself kind of resembling an exciting pre-storm, all I’m seeing right now is a slide in an infinite series of images reacting to each other, that nobody’s supposed to see. Sunglasses made it worse. No parking spots scared of getting towed considering going back to library in Brooklyn. Freakishly depressing lighting. Looks like some day I wanted to stay home from school but wasn’t allowed. Forebodingly familiar and hard to place.

  3:18pm: parked in garage on 44th st near 3rd ave, did not want to risk getting towed. Guy said ‘how long?’ I smiled and looked to the left and said ‘uh’ like I had been asked ‘you have 15 wishes to be granted, what will the first one be?’ guy said ‘you can put it in park’ and I did. I said ‘uh…until like…like…eight…eight-thirty?’ he smiled like ‘when is this child going to finish their story.’ I said ‘eight-thirty. eight-thirty.’ he said ‘good, great.’ Removed things from bookbag, turned off car, started walking. He said ‘the key?’ thought I had left it in the car but it was in my hand. I kind of laughed and gave it to him and said ‘oh the key of course, here, thank you’ and walked a few feet ahead to a space where I could put on jacket and bookbag. Put the wrong arm in jacket twice, somehow. Said ‘thank you’ to another parking attendant who continued staring ahead.

  3:34pm: walking to deli to garner sugar-free red bull. Have to pee badly. Also feel impending big time laxative results.

  3:36pm: depressing lighting.

  3:43pm: behind deli counter was a two-tiered shelf containing eight rows of condoms, four small Vaseline containers, one axe body gel. Swallowed 30mg adderall with 12oz sugar-free red bull on the street. Re-entered deli, threw away can, asked of they sold headphones, then ‘earphones, earbuds’ and employee smiled and said ‘no’ like a little elf. Short man in tank top walked close to me on street and whispered ‘sexy.’ A few seconds after passing I wished I had said ‘BOO’ and done something scary with arms.

  3:50pm: peeing. Heart beating fast and I’m breathing hard and sweating a little, from climbing stairs, I think. Or from the exciting release of pee. 3:50pm red carpet event celebrating the long-awaited spring blockbuster: peeing for the second time today. Will there be a surprise v.i.p. appearance of shitting out all that domino’s? Only time will tell.

  4:00pm: surprise appearance unlikely, despite rumored 3:34pm sighting. Surprise v.i.p. guest is notoriously late and unpredictable, is truly the Robert Downey Jr. of bodily functions.

  4:14PM: shoes echoing in reading room at library. mild coconut oil outbreak in bookbag has rendered bottom of computer oily, sexy, ready for penetration.

  4:30PM: wearing earphones, not playing music, to feel ‘plugged in.’

  4:38PM: man behind me is periodically laughing like leonardo dicaprio in ‘what’s eating gilbert grape.’ girl sitting diagonal to me has been ‘setting up her station’ for over two minutes, i think. she said ‘i can hear you’ to the gilbert grape man.

  4:51PM: gilbert grape laughing situation has escalated. four outbursts
in one minute, garnered three head-turns. laughing man has ‘dirtlip’ mustache. he looks so happy.

  4:52PM: cop said ‘what’s that noise comin’ from. who makin’ that noise over there.’ girl diagonal to me said ‘right there.’ i turned and smiled at gilbert grape and cop.

  4:53PM: two giggles since cop: first one was a little muted and second one was back to normal. glad he’s back to normal. loud ‘heh heh’ just now. people are just annoyed with him because they’re jealous, i think.

  4:58PM: wonder how many people in library right now have killed someone. there has been a time when this library has contained ‘highest amount of people who have killed other people.’ it’s the most okay to kill someone if you’re in the army or navy or marines or air force or [think there’s a few other ones]. probably most acceptable in the marines. otherwise: less okay.

  • army: mostly on the ground. the one that lets everyone in (i think).

  • navy: mostly on boats/submarines. the one my dad was in.

  • marines: mostly…i think it’s harder to get in the marines.

  • air force: mostly in the air.

  5:56pm: sat outside on marble ledge to smoke. Squinty-eyed ‘has five-year-old okcupid profile and m.f.a.’-type man asked me for a cigarette. Warned ‘they’re menthol.’ he said ‘that’s okay.’ asked if he needed a light. he said ‘yes that would be great.’ tried to disguise thinking the Sean Paul song that goes ‘just gimme the light and […].’ man thanked me. I was instructed to have a good night. Watched him walk away. Thought ‘another conversation successfully averted: ding!’