by Megan Boyle
Sat with eyes closed in Starbucks parking lot for maybe 20 minutes.
Drove for under ten minutes down route 40 and saw forest diner where I used to eat with dad is torn down, getting turned into a ‘glory days’ franchise.
Dad emerged from office and handed me $20. I said I’d go to Starbucks and return at 8 when his session was over.
Knocked on dad’s door but could hear he was in session.
Dad called as I was leaving storage unit, I asked if I could poop at his office.
Loaded car holding in poop.
Cried.
Looked in boxes in storage unit and saw things from my old/childhood house which has now been foreclosed or something or maybe other people bought it.
Went around to back entrance of storage unit and cleared a path to the front so I could check if my books were there.
Books were not in the front or back of storage unit.
Front door lock to storage unit didn’t work.
Pulled into storage unit.
Mom called to say to take the price tag off the mirror and to call dad.
9:12pm: driving back to mom’s from dad’s office. Went well. Sat and talked a long time about noopept and other drugs. Agreed we didn’t want to talk about last night and we were both sorry.
9:38pm: driving from mom’s to dad’s apt.
10:39pm: I have a lot of drugs on me. Took a variety of what Google searches confirmed were opiates, seemingly hidden in vitamin bottles of dad’s. Driving back to NYC now. Ate 10mg opana.
11:15pm: smoking clove cigarette I found in storage unit. Must be from 2005. Still ‘works.’
11:34pm: peeing in rest stop. As I was writing that and peeing I thought ‘I’m peeing my pants.’ I really felt like I was and got confused and worried. Still feels that way a little. Funny twitter exchanges with gian.
JUNE 15, 2013
5:00am: met [omitted] in bay ridge. got drinks at two places. had sex in park by Verrazano bridge.
6:14am: ate bacon egg and cheese items and donuts with [omitted] at dunkin donuts on 116th st.
7:30am: had sex in my apartment. [omitted] washed my back in shower via grass rash from park. Ate Xanax. Fell asleep holding each other.
11:29am: woke. had sex. Two orgasms. Heheheh. [omitted] showered and helped me bring in mirror from hotel furniture resale store. Drove to his apartment, to meet his parents. Last night and this morning talked about ‘what it is we’re doing together, exactly.’ established mutual unusual attraction and excitement. Bailed on lunch with his parents. Have been sending text messages back and forth about stuff we want to do together.
12:[something]–4:[something]pm: drove alone to Bedford L stop area. There was some kind of annoying street festival. Ate 60mg morphine. Bought green juice. Got a free iced coffee and tipped a dollar. Ran into Sam Cooke and his girlfriend on street. He introduced us. I thought ‘she doesn’t know why this is awkward but Sam and I do.’ Told them I was sleepy and on morphine. Ate 1mg Xanax, half a bahn mi sandwich, and ice cream cone from pale yellow ‘van heusen’ ice cream van. From ‘organic planet’ grocery store, bought: three coconuts, three avocados, Dr. Bronner’s rose soap, ‘skin detox’ tea, two pints van heusen ice cream, half pint raw cinnamon vanilla ice cream, candle.
6:00pm: driving home from Bedford ave area. Texted Chelsea and Mira. Made plans with Mira to go to tyrant books reading tonight.
6:37pm: lit candle in car. Feeling good.
7:33PM: back at apartment. put away groceries. snorted 30mg morphine and prepared things in bag for tonight. the new lamp looks good. mira didn’t text that she’d left for reading yet.
7:36pm: driving to reading instead of taking train. Met ‘Eddie’ on the street. He had a USarmy flag on his bike and talked about believing in karma and the law, not like ‘the lord,’ the law, and pointed to the sky. Ate maybe 60mg morphine. Earlier ate a concerta to wake. Unsure if I like morphine.
8:01pm: ate 1mg Xanax.
8:03pm: made illegal u-turn. Stephen said they hadn’t started yet.
8:32pm: about 20ppl milling around in tiny beer cigarette room. Saw Stephen and moon temple and theo then Lucy came in. Mira bailed. Peeing now.
10:57pm: talking w/moon walking to my car.
10:58-11:59PM: did not update.
JUNE 16, 2013
confused about how what i typed above happened on june 15.
JUNE 17, 2013
did not update.
JUNE 18, 2013
8:[something]AM: locked keys in car. zachery w. took picture, want to include video that was recording all last night. moon and theo are nice.
9:08am: driving home listening to rilo kiley.
9:41PM: things i feel comfortable saying: ate ambien as soon as i got home, woke around 4PM, bought ice cream and wine from places on 116th st, came back to apartment.
I AM DRUNK NOW I WANT TO JUST CHILL OUT AND NOT DO THE LIVEBIG THING RIGHT NOW, JULIET IS INTERVIEWING ME AT 11PM AND I WANT TO CHILL AND EAT LEFTOVERS AND WATCH NETFLIX TILL THEN.
THERE WAS A LOT OF FUN STUFF THAT HAPPENED WITH [OMITTED] THIS WEEKEND, THAT’S WHERE I WAS/WHAT I WAS DOING.
JUNE 19, 2013
12:01AM: somehow abruptly ended skype interview with juliet. no idea what happened. drank a magnum bottle of white wine and a vodka something. opened package from juliet and put on ‘i 3 weed’ shirt and made an emotional/embarrassing long video of myself rolling a spliff to the ‘must be the colors and the kids’ by cat power.
read ‘charity’ by joy williams and it became too hard to focus eyes on page.
ate an ambien before bed. ate leftover pizza from the other night when [omitted] and me ordered pizza and watched game five of the finals and didn’t leave my room all day (june 16?).
10:03AM: woke and saw ‘disaster zone’ from muffin eating last night…muffin crumbs everywhere in the kitchen, powdered sugar, a plate with 25% of a mostly melted stick of butter and half a muffin and sugar on it. ate half an ambien and slept until maybe 2AM.
toasted and ate another ‘chia muffin’ from the ‘free bag’ from le pain quotidian (?) that a person gave away at reading. looked up nutrition facts. 300something calories. seemed ‘better than i thought.’
looked at the internet and felt drifting thing…drifting…
read a little more of ‘honored guest’ could not sustain attention
felt bad about doing excess of ‘don’t be present: be asleep, be on xanax or ambien or weed’ drugs and maybe effects of coming down from cocaine the night of the reading (june 17-18?)
watched shitty netflix movie called ‘30 blows’ via wanting to see ‘what normal people do when they live in new york in the summer’
tried to call mom…jesus. there were probably about 15 phone calls back-and-forth, total. my phone is doing this thing where i can hear the other person but they can’t hear me. a woman named erika from AT&T called four times to try to put mom and i in touch. did not work. finally called her from google talk and we talked for an hour and a half. she said something funny, like ‘i don’t want you to be all alone thinking about dying at the end of the earth.’
texted with chelsea and made dinner plans for monday, and then have ‘a day’ saturday where we walk around PS1 and get drunk and i sleep over on her ‘new twin sleeper sofa.’
texted with [omitted] who was making salmon and arranged to hang out at his place.
texted crissy that i loved and missed her.
12[something]-11:09pm: did not update.
11:10pm: driving to [omitted]. Three teenage boys running on the street. I put my key in the wrong car. Felt sinking thing thinking ‘this is my street now, apartment in Baltimore remember that, Chelsea, soon you’ll see Chelsea, this is your street, how is it this now’
Listening to Jeffrey Lewis
Have eaten maybe 60mg concerta to ‘feel normal’
memorable things post-11:10PM:
circled around a cop and a popeye’s more times than normal, looking for parking
&n
bsp; texted with zachery w., made plans to do bing.com ‘get $10 for photographing restaurants’ safari thing friday
crissy texted back that if ever needed a ‘break from the rat race’ she was only a 16 hour car drive away. read that as i walked to the wrong address. imagined driving down to florida to hang out…bring my cats maybe…16 hours in the car. i miss crissy. would be fun to visit. in 40 years we’ll probably be the only people left of our immediate family. i’ll be 57 and she’ll be 77
called [omitted] to say i was outside but that he didn’t live where i was. my phone was doing the thing where i could hear the other person but they can’t hear me
texted [omitted] same information
[omitted] texted me correct street address and i checked and it’s what he texted in the first place too. sometimes some numbers look the same to me…or else i’m just not paying enough attention. numbers easily confused for me: two, eight, nine, six, four, five (especially eight and six, also i’m the worst at my eight’s and six’s tables) (also for the hell of it, letters easily confused for me [mostly confused about where they appear in alphabet, while working at a bookstore in baltimore. i’d be shelving books by authors with names starting with these letters and i’d have to mentally say the alphabet: b, d, p, q, r, s, t, j, k, u, v, w])
parked near [omitted] and walked to address, looking around a lot
stood outside door to [omitted]’s building and texted i was here
heard someone say my name from maybe across the street and looked vaguely out into nothing and said ‘yeah’
person said my name again and i looked up and it was [omitted] smiling smoking cigarette from fire escape window. he was wearing a hat. his face looks different every time i see him
i felt ‘bouncy heart’ and was laughing i think, surprised, said ‘throw the ladder down to me, i’ll climb up’ or something
he said ‘i’ll buzz you in’
door buzzed for comically long time. thought ‘good, he is prepared for my slow-motion door opening, he knows this about me already. maybe. do i open doors slowly? no, i just have a fear of getting locked in places, i move fast, he doesn’t know any of this about me i don’t think, he’s just being considerate’ while walking up stairs
his door was open. lighting in my memory is ‘dusky.’ duskily lit apartment. nice. safe-feeling. he showed me a video he made of me walking up to his apartment and him saying my name and me not knowing where to look. i said ‘oh my god’ and felt a big smiley thing and we were standing close together. would pull back my face from kissing sometimes and i’d be smiling and he’d be smiling. said little compliments and ‘happy you’re here’ and ‘do you want a glass of wine’ things mid-kissing. had sex on the couch for maybe 20 minutes. took a break via sweatiness. after a few minutes of laying limply on each other and breathing similarly [omitted] said ‘how about that glass of wine?’ asked him what music was playing. he said ‘the knife. this album’s weird.’ i said something about it sounding like the level of the ocean where there’s just anglerfish with light-up things bumping into each other. later the music changed and i said ‘more like dolphins now’ and he said ‘yeah, we’ve moved up several layers of the ocean, closer to the surface.’ not remembering exact words.
JUNE 20, 2013
2:27am: [omitted] is making food. I’m not supposed to see what it is but I saw. Have been sitting on his couch drinking wine since sex. Feel calm and nice. Earlier [omitted] sat next to me carrying cigarettes and ashtray. I said ‘let’s make a bet, bets are fun.’ he said ‘okay, what do you want to bet?’ He lit cigarette. I said ‘one time Zachary and I bet each other a hundred dollars we wouldn’t do drugs or drink alcohol. Then I lost after like, three days,’ thinking something about how I was smoking an e-cigarette and how [omitted] had said he wanted to stop smoking, ‘but that wasn’t fun.’ he smiled and made a face and said ‘yeah, that doesn’t sound like a fun bet.’ i said ‘let’s bet we can’t say the other person’s name. The first one to say the other person’s name loses. But like, I can say ‘Megan;’ you can’t.’
Conditions of the bet we agreed on:
• loser pays $1.25 (via it’s annoying to get change for $2)
• you can’t ask the other person for change
• you have either three minutes or can go to three stores to get correct change
• can get out of the ‘change thing’ by saying the name three more times and making it $5 you owe the other person
Remember looking at [omitted] laying on couch from my upright sitting position. After a moment he said ‘you know, I was thinking, it felt weird to say your name when I called to you from the balcony. We don’t say each other’s names.’ I said ‘yeah. It’s weird to say your name too.’ (the last time he was at my apartment I ‘confessed’ that I usually have to stop myself from calling him two names that are not his name before I remember his name). He said ‘yeah, well I mean, you think I’m [wrong name #1]. And like, [wrong name #2].’ I batted at him playfully and said ‘you just look so much like a [wrong name #1]. It’s not my fault.’ I said ‘the bet will be easy. It’ll be a good reason to not say each other’s names. We’ll be good at it.’
A little later he asked me to read something aloud and it had his name in it and I reacted big like ‘fuckkkkkkk’ and we were laughing. Found $1.25 in my purse while he said ‘three minutes, come on, three minutes or three delis, come on.’ I used a fake-mad, ‘aristocratically defeated’ voice to say ‘I have it. I have perfect change, here’ and moved the dollar and quarter up his underpants, trying to maneuver into his asscrack. Unsuccessful, I think. This was good. Good stuff.
Read stuff on our phones for a while. He brought over maybe four poetry books and got excited and showed me parts of poems he liked and had forgotten. They were things I didn’t think I’d like. Surprised I did. Seemed evident they ‘struck more of a chord’ with him than me but I liked them. They were funny/absurd. He is currently still making the food thing.
2:31am: he came over to couch/took a break from food thing and laid on me and we sometimes kissed and put pressure on different body parts in experimental ‘trying to fit’ yoga-like…unofficial pressing on each other/finding comfy spots yoga. You hear the other person breathing and it sounds good and it makes you think about how you’re breathing close to them, and you feel your torsos expand and contract in this…roiling…organism…with double-consciousness…but barely moving, like moving at ‘century pace,’ like you could keep the pace of what you’re doing for centuries if you couldn’t die.
2:33am: [omitted] said ‘what time is it’ I said ‘it’s two thirty-three a.m.’ then we said things about Elliott Smith. Three minutes have passed. The album playing is ‘new moon.’ I said ‘you know, ‘new moon,’ like, ‘twilight?’ you know ‘twilight?’ [omitted] looked busy with the food thing. He said ‘I guess not. Sort of.’ I said ‘Stephanie Meyer? That thing?’ he seemed big time distracted. Snort-laughed a little to myself typing this now, aware of myself not wanting to say the Stephanie Meyer thing at all but making myself further it to…like…socially painful extent…but it’s funny, like an inside joke with myself, I do things like this ‘on purpose’ a lot I think. It’s funny when the other person doesn’t realize what’s going on or they’re just like, occupied with their own concerns and acting ‘obviously, naturally disinterested in this obviously uninteresting topic brought to my attention by the usually otherwise benignly amusing or quiet Megan.’
2:38am: seems evident that I’m typing about things now, like when I take a break like now to respond, he can tell maybe.
2:40–3:[something]AM: sat at kitchen table eating edamame food thing out of cast iron skillet. [omitted] said he’s been thinking about making this for ‘months. months and months, since i first ate it at this restaurant. no, it must be years. a year and a half, i’ve been thinking about making this. i’ve been thinking about how to replicate the recipe.’ talked about him writing a book, he said like, ‘just think about how long it’
d take me to write a book, if it took this long for me to make the edamame.’ i said ‘you just have a marination process. your brain is just like, where the stuff marinates.’ talked about…here it is:
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN US:
• i like having all a lot of information available about myself on the internet. want to eventually have the most information about a person possible on the internet.
• [omitted] is private and sometimes makes comments like ‘this is why i shouldn’t have a twitter’/there is barely any information about him available on the internet.
NOT REALLY THAT DIFFERENT:
• typing all of the things i type about myself neutralizes their impact in my head…like i’ll be thinking or obsessing about something and when i write it down i figure out ‘no one cares that much, this isn’t a big deal.’
• [omitted] seems to think similarly for reasons i don’t think he’d be comfortable with me writing about but that i understand.
the ‘not really different’ thing is i think we both think a lot. overactive head things.
3:24am: Mark McCarthy. That is the name to remember. He is smoking and showing me books on his shelf and talking excitedly about them. I am feeling like an idiot
‘I’ve never read Murakami’
‘Me neither. Well. I started to read ‘Norwegian wood’ and I didn’t…it didn’t…but…’ (trailed off as I typed this)
4:[something]–7:[something]AM: had sex in the dark then turned on the lights and i said ‘yeah, better.’ laid in bed and showed each other pictures on our phones. [omitted] showed me all the things on his old iphone. he was going really fast. kept asking questions to ‘slow it down,’ wanted to look longer at all the pictures, also thought his ‘going fast’ was cute and excited. started showing him all my tagged facebook photos and he said ‘i don’t know if i want to see that.’ he’s said things like ‘i don’t know if i want to read the liveblog, i want to just know you like this,’ but he’s read parts of the liveblog and other things i’ve written and ‘taipei’…on the couch probably around 1AM he said something interesting about almost unfollowing my unedited twitter because of…jesus. going to paraphrase: ‘that night when you got drunk recently, i don’t know. it was like a tesla coil of this…it’s this thing i like about you, your energy, but.’ i said ‘tesla coil? is that the thing in lightbulbs?’ he said ‘no it’s that. you know it’s this glass ball that has a blue light in the center and when you put your finger up to it all the blue light goes to your finger?’ i said ‘oh yeah, yeah i know those. he said ‘well you know when you put both hands on it and it’s like, it’s all these blue lights going everywhere on the ball? they don’t know where to go?’
