by Megan Boyle
my grandmother will not know what is going on at all. her hearing aid will make whistling noises. she will always ask me my height and weight. my grandmother thinks factually inaccurate things about everyone, because my mom has fabricated elaborate stories about us. when she tells a lie to my grandmother, my dad will sort of sigh and make eye contact with me in an attempt to share a moment of mutually understanding my mom doing something funny
i will usually sit quietly and maybe try to be alone by reading or going outside to smoke or something. i periodically make sarcastic comments, usually aimed at making someone feel bad, but not too bad. after commenting i will immediately regret what i said, even if someone laughs. usually my mom laughs, even if i made fun of her. she makes fun of me. after she makes fun of me i will say something like 'asshole' or 'faggot' and she will laugh more. then i will laugh. this is fun
the dynamic basically consists of externalizing resentment about our collective compulsion to worry by making each other feel a little bad sometimes. this has resulted in me frequently saying 'i don't give a fuck' in a hopeless voice, then hearing myself say that and feeling like a melodramatic teenager in a way that is impossible to change because it would involve destroying the phrase 'i don't give a fuck' or possibly myself or my family or becoming a completely different person
sometimes there are moments when everything is good and people are just talking and listening to each other. last christmas we sat in my mom's living room, probably drank a bottle of wine each, then watched 'revolutionary road' and cried audibly and hugged each other. it was good
12.23.09
i went to california for a week to visit dana. we mostly just sat around watching movies. sometimes we walked on the beach. sometimes we drove to the grocery store. i feel like we did other things. she cooked healthy food. there was a scary bug near her car that took two days to die
the first night we bought maybe ten movies from a blockbuster that was going out of business. the cashier guy tried to put my movies in a bag and said 'i can't fit them in the bag.' i said 'ohhhhhhhhhh' in a way that made dana laugh really hard. when we walked to her car both of us were laughing really hard
that night she made cabbage salad and we watched most of 'revolutionary road.' sometimes dana would make a comment and i would say one or two words in response. i fell asleep in my chair. in the morning we finished the movie and smoked a cigarette outside. it was raining. dana said she was in 'gastric distress' from the cabbage last night and i agreed. the phrase 'gastric distress' is really funny to me, i've never heard anyone say it but dana
we went to an outdoor mall that had a ferris wheel in its center. palm trees and christmas trees in large cement pots surrounded the ferris wheel. near the ferris wheel was an ice skating rink. dana said 'what if that was your life, you're like 17 and you're one of those five people ice skating at the mall.' there was a girl wearing a helmet and elbow pads or something. i said 'that might be really bad or totally fine, depending on your disposition.' on the drive home dana said 'i didn't know how we were going to have a day after watching 'revolutionary road,' it was so intense'
a few nights later we were in los angeles with her friend jakob. he drove us places and talked about a relationship he just terminated. we went to a beer garden and drank two liters of beer each. we had a really good conversation about what 'failure' means. everyone seemed to like my definition of 'failure,' which was something like 'if someday i realized the goals of my life had become obscured by my methods of attaining them and i didn't know what i wanted anymore'
jakob works at a record store. one time he rung up bret easton ellis for a killers CD. bret easton ellis gave him an american express card. jakob said 'we don't take american express, sorry.' bret easton ellis said 'fuck.' while he looked for a different credit card jakob told him he was the reason he came to los angeles to be a writer. bret easton ellis said something like 'thanks, i'm glad you said that, maybe you'll ring me up again or something.' i imagined bret easton ellis feeling genuinely flattered but uncomfortable and mostly looking forward to listening to his killers CD or maybe something else entirely
we went to a christmas party in a warehouse. there were long buffet tables full of food no one was eating. i drank a lot. dana didn't drink and somehow ended up talking to more people than i did. i felt afraid of people. i went outside and sat on a chair. a guy with a ponytail sat next to me and said 'you shouldn't sit alone.' i said 'oh, i like sitting alone.' he said 'but you just shouldn't.' i couldn't tell if he was annoyed or friendly or mean or attracted to me. a woman approached us and started talking to the ponytail man. i wanted to say 'i like sitting alone' again, but just looked ahead at people going in tents
i walked inside and found dana. she was dancing. a lot of people were dancing. i started dancing. i scanned the room for attractive men. there weren't as many as i thought there would be. i said to dana 'what if everything about this party was the same, except billy zane was here?' she laughed really hard. we danced more and kept saying 'billy zane' and grinning
jakob and dana and i stood around a buffet table and i asked if i should put my hand in a platter of jell-o. they said yes. jakob filmed me plunging my hand into the jell-o with his cell phone. someone said 'live blogging.' i squished the jell-o between my fingers. i inserted my other hand. the jell-o felt like a brain, maybe. i think i got goosebumps. a hipster-looking guy with a mustache said 'what did you just do?' i said 'i put my hand in the jell-o.' he said 'why would you do that?' i said 'i don't know, no one was eating it.' he kind of shook his head at me and walked away. i thought 'in baltimore, that guy would want me to be his wife.' a few minutes later the jell-o platter was gone
dana wanted to talk to this one guy but she was nervous. i belligerently interrupted the guy's conversation to tell him he looked like christian bale so dana could talk to him about her belligerent friend. i backed away and watched them talking and felt good. then a lot of time passed, i forget what i did. i remember standing outside in a crowded alley and smoking a joint with a group of people i didn't know. everyone watched me when i smoked. i made faces. people were starting to get forcibly removed from the party. i looked for dana and jakob and saw the christian bale guy from earlier and said 'hey christian bale, where's the party?'
12.25.09
it is christmas
five employees attended my work's christmas party at a bar
i ate peanuts and tried to hear what people were saying
i think i am going to have smallish relationships which last from two months to two years for the rest of my life
small yet significant changes in my personality occur during periods of two months to two years
maybe that's how relationships should happen
when i was 18-19 and lived in a dorm in chicago i sometimes got drunk and yelled in the stairway, 'i'm horny, i want to have sex, someone come here, i give good blowjobs, are you attractive, i am attractive, come here.' seems really lame and bizarre, i'm glad it never worked
within the next four years, i predict steadily not responding to any okcupid messages but also never deleting my okcupid account
on the 'what is the most private thing you are willing to admit?' question on my profile i said 'i don't like dave eggers'
when i think 'dave eggers' in my head it's in the same tone of voice jerry seinfeld uses to say 'hello newman'
at work i wanted to start saying 'newman' every time something went wrong but i always forgot to do it
1.12.10
i don't know how to react when someone touches me, unless we're about to have sex
a world where i only have to touch people if we're romantically involved is ideal for me. it would be nice to never have to coordinate a hand-shake or fist-bump or 'hello/goodbye hug' ever again
that will be my new year's resolution: don't touch anyone
is that insane? that seems insane but it makes a lot of sense to me
i like touching people when i'm drunk
a
parody of myself when drunk would be me lying on someone's lap, touching their face really slowly with no objective
i feel terrified of the internet most of the time. i have an irrational amount of worry about the length of time it takes me to respond to facebook wall posts and emails. i also worry about not posting blogs or writing publishable material and becoming irrelevant or something, that seems very possible
then i tell myself 'the internet is there to help you'
sometimes i imagine myself sitting in the corner of my bed and wall, rocking back and forth, repeating 'the internet is here to help me'
today i sat in the student center reading an essay from 'being and nothingness' and felt mentally energized. i felt like jean-paul sartre was an athlete and i was watching him on TV but instead of freaking out and yelling at the TV i sat quietly and 'cheered him on' with my eyebrows
when i walked back to my apartment i held my cigarette in a way i felt jean-paul sartre would. i think he would hold his cigarette loosely and inhale it deeply and touch his face with his whole hand when he put the cigarette up to his mouth
then i felt totally ridiculous about smoking that way and having those thoughts, then thought he would be 'proud' of me for thinking that, then i felt ridiculous again
2.01.10
i think my next relationship is going to be with a moody/depressive guy because i want to feel like 'the calm one'
lately when driving i picture myself making seemingly unrelated adjustments which all cause my car to spin out of control and impale me against another car
when walking down stairs i think i'll trip and my shin bones will detach from my knees and i'll be lying there with bloody stumps
the ligament or whatever it is that holds my knees and shin bones together doesn't seem powerful enough somehow
when talking to people i fear somehow saying something that unleashes a series of small but catastrophic events, maybe resulting in the other person's eventual hatred of me
i'm pretty sure every day i mess up really badly, conversationally
yesterday i was talking to my new coworker about alcohol
we had been having a really good, 20-minute conversation before the alcohol one
she said she has friends who drink to get wasted
i said sometimes i do that. she said 'oh' and neither of us said anything for maybe 15 minutes
then i think i said something like 'i think i drink because i'd rather not be in a social situation and drinking makes it easier and more fun, like, i worry less, but i'd rather be at home or something usually, except for maybe sometimes, i don't know'
i said 'do you think i'm an insane alcoholic with social problems'
she kind of laughed and said no
i felt really bad
last night i dreamed strangers kept approaching me on the street to ask when i was moving out of my apartment. then my building maintenance guy told me someone else had taken over my lease and i was getting kicked out. i felt scared when i woke
2.07.10
i am sitting in my living room with the TV on mute, showing 'america's next top model'
nearly every commercial break contains commercials for vagina wipes and refer to 'that itch you just can't scratch'
also commercials for pillsbury crescent rolls and cymbalta
the target demographic of 'americas next top model' watchers are depressed, carb-hungry women who are inhibited about scratching their vaginas
after a three hour nap i sat on my couch, waiting for coffee to brew
i thought 'have an interesting thought, what is happening with you emotionally right now, something must be happening'
the only thing i thought was 'unsure if the glass in front of me is considered grey or brown...'
keep thinking that as i get older i should be getting smarter or more attractive or ambitious and motivated to discover things i strongly care about and develop some kind of profound dedication to those things, like this is just some natural progression that is bound to happen
this probably stems from a semi-conscious fantasy i have that decisions i make are inconsequential and there is some kind of comforting, well-meaning mysterious force taking care of me
i don't imagine the force as 'god' at all, it's just a thing, i don't know
all i want is to live somewhere warm and drive trucks
my friend keeps texting me, encouraging me to watch the super bowl
on animal planet's 'the puppy bowl' this one puppy drank water and the announcer said '[name of puppy] has returned to the water bowl again...[name of puppy] is heading for the end zone but it appears he just doesn't care'
the announcer paused dramatically between the last three words
keep thinking 'what is my life...'
wonder if i'll ever not think that
things will happen in my life, possibly normal things like marriage/job/children. maybe 'great success.' possibly an emily grimes-like decline into a lack of self-awareness, potential homelessness (probably not)
i am currently unqualified to rate the amount of control or enthusiasm i will have for all those things, hopefully a lot
2.08.10
last night i drank laxative tea, sort of accidentally. tonight at work i felt really bad interacting with people because i was farting a lot. i would tell my coworkers to go away because i was in 'gastric distress'
i can't believe i've lived in baltimore for almost two years
thinking about how i've lived in baltimore for almost two years makes me feel like the last half of the movie 'the last samurai'
i can't remember what 'the last samurai' was about, other than tom cruise riding horses and looking reverent and stern
never thought i'd write a sentence containing 'reverent' and 'stern'
i remember watching 'the last samurai' in a dorm and disliking it enough to talk during the movie about how much i didn't like it, how i couldn't believe it was so long and how serious it was taking itself and how much i didn't like the characters
i don't hate the 'characters' of my life in baltimore
maybe i've just been seeing the same things for too long
people living here have 'mad baltimore love' that i don't understand
seems like if i could listen to the thoughts of a lot of hipsters here, like at bars or shows, there would be a significant percentage of thoughts like 'BALTIMORE i am part of something BALTIMORE BALTIMORE fucking baltimore so sweet BALTIMORE i am part of it and it is important...'
i'm not sure if changing my location would change how i feel, overall. probably not
i only have to live here ten more months, then i will graduate college
maybe someone will fall in love with me and make me want to stay. that will not happen, i really don't actually want that to happen, it would be bad and i would feel conflicted. i always have thoughts like that though
2.12.10
whenever i smell wasabi peas i think 'brine shrimp' and feel kind of uneasy, but i still enjoy eating them
one time i heated v8 and pretended it was soup. it was good
my dad and i used to go to diners when i was little and i'd always get a new york strip steak because of the word 'strip.' i thought i was being 'bad' because it contained a word that was also in 'strip clubs,' strippers probably ate a lot of strip steak
a former roommate of mine liked to dip pork rinds in hummus
i once caught another former roommate eating clorox. she acted really embarrassed about it, but told me she always eats a little bit of it when she cleans because she likes the way it smells. i thought it was endearing
i've been eating oatmeal that expired august '09, seems okay though
from october '03 to january '04 i probably consumed the most calories per day in my entire life. i was really depressed. mostly i ate chicken strips and fries from this place in philadelphia across from my apartment
when i moved back to maryland i think i ate at mcdonald's and wendy's 3-4 times a week. gained 30
pounds (then lost it)
i have four different kinds of mustard in my refrigerator
i bought dulse awhile ago and i'm afraid of it
i drank coconut water once and it reminded me of semen
cilantro is my favorite herb. it makes me nervous to chew mint or other leafy herbs. it feels dangerous
i have licked chocolate syrup off of a penis
a few nights ago, i was drunk and started eating this olive hummus with 'pretzel crisps.' i watched the last ten minutes of 'the other boelyn girl' on HBO as i ate. since then, every time i try to eat the hummus/chips i have a mental picture of natalie portman looking sad before her head gets cut off, which doesn't really bother me, but it's not what usually happens when i eat hummus/chips, so i feel kind of disoriented
i've eaten an entire jar of pickles in one sitting
i used to eat ketchup packets from fast food places. i still do sometimes. not all at once, i like to suck on them gradually
kind of can't believe sprite is a successful soda. how is that a successful soda? it seems so much less 'hard' than cola or fruit flavored sodas. i like it, though
i probably consume an average of 800-1400 calories per day
if i had to have sex with any food, penis-shaped things aside, it would probably be rice noodles. rice noodles with no sauce. the texture is kind of 'sexy,' i think
2.13.10
there was a big snowstorm and i didn't have school or work last week
minimal contact with other humans, minimal showering
on thursday night i drank a bottle of wine by myself and some old friends from high school simultaneously texted me '14/m/md wanna cyber'
then we had text message cyber sex
they would send me text messages at the same time
think i took it up the butt and got it in the mouth and face too, said i wanted to be 'blinded with cum' then 'sat on their faces'
