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by Megan Boyle

9:34pm: mental functions seems rapidly deteriorating. Van in front of me says ‘your next car: PenskeCar.com’ but I mean is that really my next car gotta give them a call

  9:42pm: got lost somehow. going to dad’s apartment is what i’m doing, on the way to do. pulled into CVS parking lot to re-calibrate GPS. Thinking things like ‘certains’ and ‘chumly’ and ‘fiendish’ and ‘barnaby the string eater’ looking at apple right now how’d this apple get here

  9:44pm: ended voicemail to Colin with ‘okay, bye-bye.’

  9:52pm: going to type what I’m thinking in rapid succession: I’m losing it, my marbles, off my rocker, rocking out, heavy metal garage band, toy boat, where my dads, blinky buttress, that show on MTV with Matt Pinfield, did I ever mow the lawn completely, mow mow, mowrats, the momeraths out grabe, powpowpower wheels, dicey jukebox, the hellish landscapes of a Peruvian metal crisis, financial distress

  11:36pm: somehow was capable of having heated vague two-hour conversation with dad about problems with our interactions, which ended with us hugging a few times and making jokes. When I walked through door dad almost immediately presented me with ‘Mindfulness and Depression’ CD and other things in a hurried manner, repeating himself a lot, pointing to his credit report and explaining things as if I was the person who would be assessing it, but it was like he thought he was ‘in trouble’ with me and forgot who I was. Instead of nodding and being quiet so it would be over soon, I said ‘when you explain and repeat things and give unsolicited help I feel like it means you think I don’t understand and need to be fixed, so I’m sort of a failure, and since I’m a failure it might mean you think you failed at parenting me or something. I worry about that, I feel guilty or something.’ Remember saying ‘when I can tell someone is anxious about talking with me and seems to mostly want my approval, I don’t feel comfortable, I act fake and nod my head, I wish I didn’t feel like doing that with you.’ Talked about how I don’t like it when he asks for ‘permission to interrupt me’ before he comes into whatever room I’m in, even though I say ‘just always come in, it’s always okay’ and have been telling him this for years. Said ‘I feel like if someone I liked told me I didn’t need to be anxious around them I’d be happy.’ Told him his asking permission sometimes seems sarcastic because I thought he knew I was never doing anything important. He denied the sarcasm strongly. He has always thought I’ve been doing something important. How could he think that. I believe him, but. What a disappointment I must be. He was generally receptive, asked questions, and voiced problems with me too (mostly related to my problems with him, which is a similar dynamic I’ve experienced in relationships, which is…I don’t know). Feel like a little tyrant or something, typing this—like he is kind and generous and wants good things for me, so I shouldn’t have problems. Told him that and he expressed a strong preference for me not keep problems to myself. It’s always sort of hard to remember exactly what dad says. He uses a lot of generalizations and nonspecific buzzword-style language, like ‘the self’ and ‘being for the sake of being’ and pronounces some pronouns with capital letters.

  At one point he said something about how mom is emotional but he feels flat all of the time. Without looking away, I said ‘you seem sad to me.’ He nodded slowly, shrugged and pressed his lips together. I wanted to do something to help. Looked around his apartment and thought about how he has thought about places for all his things to go and has arranged them on purpose. Like an area of slightly different Harley Davidson and Beatles gift-y things given to him by the same people, little statues and toys in a line on a mantle, unopened snack boxes in a line and back-ups of the snacks in the pantry, copies of CDs and self-help books and manila folders stacked carefully in neat piles, affirmations and phone numbers on post-its stuck in unusual places, a large variety of pens, an expensive-looking TV which I think he bought because he thinks mom likes TV and we used to watch movies as a family, when we lived in the same house. He sometimes refers to it as ‘the entertainment center’ and talks about how good the sound is. On a bookcase in his bedroom, too large to fit on the shelves, there is a professionally colored-in, formerly black-and-white photo of him smiling in a Navy uniform in 1957 or 1958, I think, between two bouquets of fake flowers all touching the ceiling, which feels especially sad to me—not in a pitiful way—in a way that makes me want to make his life better for him and wish that things could’ve been better.

  MARCH 19, 2013

  12:16am: have returned to parking lot of 24-hour grocery store. Driving here I felt strongly that I wouldn’t go inside. People are sitting by the inoperable entrance smoking and talking. Can hear them as if they were a radio station in my car. Just thought it was possible to press something on my phone to immediately ‘show you this.’

  12:18am: more employees have come to sit at the operable entrance, at tables under umbrellas. I’m shivering. I’m inside the store. I need to find folders and a stapler. A hole punch. Energy drink. Shivering. I haven’t eaten today or slept since whenever I last mentioned it in liveblog. Pronounced it ‘live-[rhymes with boaje]’ in my head, like, French. French-Canadian.

  12:24am: a Paula Abdul song is playing. Have been holding this folder option and staring at it in disbelief, sometimes making little noises, for as long as song has been playing. About 90 seconds into the song now, safe estimate. Paralyzed by the hilarity of this thing. It says ‘title page pocket’ about the title page pocket and it shows you a picture of it too. Unbelievable. My hands holding a picture of hands holding the folder I’m about to buy. Look at the all the hands. Oh my god…

  12:30am: now ‘Simply the Best’ by Tina Turner is playing. Keep gawking and laughing at things, like, how is this what I’m seeing—‘party time,’ ‘married for life,’ ‘go for it.’ All of this seems specifically arranged just for me, right now. Aware of being store’s only observable customer, who appears more concerned with her phone than shopping. Moving only to avoid looking suspicious. Trying to walk with purpose. Sensed a person nearing me and narrowed my eyes ceiling-ward, like the lyrics of ‘Simply the Best’ were making me look elsewhere to more seriously contemplate them, because this is something I thought ‘normal people’ would do.

  12:33am: old man pushing large wheeled machine looked me in the eye like he was thinking ‘Christ, I’d wish you well but what’s the use’ as we passed each other. Selected a Monster ‘Absolutely Zero’ energy drink. Absolutely zero. Simply the best.

  12:35am: used automated self-checkout to pay.

  12:36am: a shitty philosophy class would have ‘photo of barcode on red bull can next to actual barcode: which is more real?’ on the syllabus. I could teach the shit out of that class right now.

  12:38am: an example of something ‘basic’ that isn’t widely regarded as ‘basic’ yet: the set-up of pressing the ‘no, that’s not ok’ option on an ATM screen and instead of printing your receipt the ATM responds by arguing with you.

  12:40am: sitting in parking lot again. Forgot to mention I’ve been eating a birth control pill every night around this time. Seems like a weird time to mention my coat smells like dad’s cologne but hey I don’t make this shit happen I just write it down.

  12:52am: driving to mom’s. Seems highly unlikely that I’ll sleep tonight if I don’t eat Xanax. If I eat the Xanax I will sleep really hard and probably hit ‘snooze’ too many times and miss appointment with Colin tomorrow in NYC. We’re meeting so I can give him my apartment-garnering portfolio binder thing at 12:30pm. That is less than 12 hours from now. Four of those hours will be driving. Traffic. Consider showering and dressing, that takes time also. Should I eat the Molly now. Goddamnit. I have six Mollies. Should I eat one, then eat remaining adderall to drive? Seems like a good conservation of uppers. Megan Boyle: noted uppers conservationist. Uppers activist. Sleepless shivering retard. Molly-eating seems so inevitable now, like being secretly gay and locked in an elevator with the man you’ve loved since ‘the war,’ who you know loves you too.

  1:04am: when my body aches like
this I feel like it’s getting stronger. Does anyone know anyone know if being awake for a long time counts as exercise? Should I keep driving so I can smoke another cigarette? Shit. No it’s time to end this hell.

  1:24AM: arrived home. pooped twice. washed face and brushed teeth and did more boring things. hugged mom, who was watching ‘the mary tyler moore show’ in bed. tried on t-shirt dad gave me. dad said he donated money to some people so they could arrange a memorial concert for a dead friend and they made t-shirts and gave him one. i like everything about the shirt.

  1:35AM: counted only five molly pills in light blue pill container. paced between the kitchen and bedroom, not taking time to look at anything. counted again. rampant molly outbreak. rampant. keep thinking ‘rampant.’ in order to be in new york by 12:30PM i should be awake by 7AM and out the door by 7:30AM.

  1:45AM: blended kale with citrus kombucha. the cord kept falling out of the plug. blender sounded louder with each subsequent plug-in. took smallish sips and felt healthier. stopped being able to drink it without wretching. poured remaining 15-20% down the drain and remembered inside joke with former best friend. we’d raise our hands in a surrendering motion while shaking our heads and matter-of-fact-ly saying ‘can’t do it,’ imitating colin farrell’s character in a recent but seemingly widely forgotten woody allen movie about boats. we saw it in a theater. can’t remember anything else about movie. ‘can’t do it.’ slight british accent.

  2:00AM: experimentally used porky pig voice to say ‘ba-theeba-theeba-theeba that’s all folks’ to mom, indicating the end of loud blender noises. she said ‘what?’ walked to her bedroom door and stood, using my hand to mime a diminishing circle, which i then poked my head through (like at the end of looney tunes), then repeated ‘ba-theeba-theeba-theeba that’s all folks,’ enunciating the sounds slower. unsure if she ‘got it.’ had thought ‘surely she would ‘get this” but now it’s hard to say. refilled kombucha bottle with water.

  2:26AM: responded to text from mira. swallowed the molly. ‘here we go.’ okay.

  2:53AM: felt heart beating extremely hard all of a sudden. palms are sweating. was typing/elaborating on earlier thing about dad’s apartment and thought my body was having a physical reaction to emotions but then remembered eating molly. shivering. shit. shit. shit. feel. shit. unable to. shit. what do i have to do. it’s going to be hard or something, the thing i have to do. looked around room suspiciously, like, expecting it to answer me, then eyes landed on unopened sugar-free red bull propped against my crotch, looking up at me sexily. doolooodobbooboob.

  if 8oz sugar-free red bull can was a person: would look like the guy from that band handsome furs. just picked it up. it is very feathery and light. it might be lurch from ‘the addams family.’ do you guys get it, the person i’m trying to say it’s like? heart is beating definitely faster.

  can’t tell if i’m supposed to be capitalizing things anymore. molly. thought ‘molly’ and laughed self-consciously, like i was supposed to be laughing, like someone was watching me be on molly and contemplate ‘molly.’

  if my hands were a person: jesus.

  jesus.

  they would be a wet person.

  made all ten fingers do ‘the wave.’ the sound is like…pictured a well, like what kids get thrown down into, and like, a cave with a low grassy entrance with white flowers around it like where i used to imagine they kept jesus before he came back to life.

  feel afraid of religious things right now. imagining hell, actual hell. no. i just wrote that, i’m not going to imagine it. shit. starting to imagine. idea virus of imagining hell infecting my head. no, doing this is warding it off. just say things as you think them to ward off hell thoughts: blake butler article about video game liveblogging, megabus, sears bra rack, baja, bajajajaja, lido deck, man overboard, polecat, cactus pop-up book, helpful secretary, Nicholson baker, egregious capitalization, gian’s apartment, soft heads of [nothing], grandpa luna moth, lunesta, backyard, deck, summer 1992, it was all 1992 when you were a baby and a kid there were never other years then it was 1998, copper pots hanging rustically from a kitchen ceiling, roller rink, no, like, an arcade, arcade where i won tiny erasers, eraserhead, begotten, shit no not begotten the movie that movie is like hell, remembered why i was doing this, curious about why begotten seemed so scary, i’m not scared anymore, if had an intern i would pay them to tell me exactly what my crotch smelled like right now

  god

  can’t not do this

  what my crotch smells like: i don’t know. honestly don’t know. pictured my detached head and flummoxed curious face spinning down an endless tunnel saying ‘honestly don’t know’ in every accent, mostly british accents.

  seems like there is a country called ‘crotch’

  pictured throwing my hands up in surrender and shaking my head, no wait

  going out onstage for an open-mic at stand-up comedy thing, saying ‘seems like there is a country called crotch’ with almost no facial or vocal expression

  goddamnit women aren’t funny no one would laugh

  sorry women, sorry me

  gotta try to make this one work for all of us. make it up to us. hoo. chalking up my hands. jumping in the corner. coach is putting in my mouth guard. hoo

  let me try this again, disregard the first time: going out onstage for an open-mic at stand up comedy thing, saying ‘seems like there is a country called crotch’ with almost no facial or vocal expression, then being completely silent for like three minutes, staring intensely into the audience and urgently nodding head sometimes, then raising hands in surrender and matter-of-factly saying ‘can’t do it’

  i can’t tell if i’m horrible

  honestly enjoy the company of myself

  this whole time i’ve been awake, yeah, hey. enjoying myself. well. not the whole time, we’ve. there were ups and downs. had some ins and outs but you know. strong ins and strong outs. the main thing is keeping a strong defense, delivering for the team

  wish i was talking like an athlete after a big game right now, seems so sweet to be able to talk like that

  stand-up comedian who gives earnest mumbled post-game commentary and never looks at the audience and it’s never clear what sport he plays

  wonder how many blowjobs the guy who thought of using ‘fly like an eagle’ for the usps ad campaign in 1998 has gotten from then until now

  TO THIS DAY

  remembered imagining jesus storage cave earlier and pictured it again and jesus pushed back a big boulder at the entrance and blushed and ‘twinkled’ his fingers at me

  seems like…endless ideas…am i going to regret this…

  video game called ‘what thing in my room is a nut sack’ or ‘where is the nut sack’ which is actually just like, halo 10

  lovingly cradled formerly crotch-leaning sugar-free red bull, looking down at it like mary mother of jesus. but then suddenly it would shoot upwards fast and i’d still be holding onto it. then i would let go. it would try to bang its head on the ceiling to a make a hole so it could go live out its calling, which is to stop denzel’s plane from crashing, it received an email about its calling even before i bought it and it was in my crotch, it’s known this all along but has not wanted to spoil something about how things have been going with us by telling me it wouldn’t always be here, and as soon as i find this out i am more able to be happy that it’s gone

  i am the only person i know who says ‘denzel’ and talks about ‘flight’ a lot, feel i do those things a lot

  remembered broccoli ‘wall’ on bottom level of union square whole foods and pointing to it and saying ‘is it breathing’ to tao

  can’t remember if numbers go like ‘11,200, 12,000,

  jesus way too boring, ‘can’t do it’

  heart is normal now

  feeling less peaking am no longer peaking

  forgot about feeling despair or obligation or overtired things earlier, didn’t expect that, thought i’d just tiredly go on

  4:09AM: i fel
t all of that so intensely. now i’m back to normal, mostly. still shivering. going to get in bathtub.

  6:36AM: have been stalling assembly of apartment-garnering portfolio.

  7:09AM: printed free credit report for portfolio. my hand smells like wet cat food. my credit is ‘medium.’ having credit cards that aren’t attached to your bank account…i can’t believe that idea caught on…like, even i wouldn’t fall for that…of course places will go after you…listen: when someone or something lends you money, you revoke the right to pay it back whenever you want. you’ll owe the total amount you borrowed, if not more, until you pay it back on their terms. credit cards seem like mafia business. i feel like ‘old woman rickets’ or something, ranting to no one from my porch. maybe i should get a mafia credit card. i’m stalling cover letter-writing and showering.

  7:16AM: shit 14 minutes.

  7:21AM: you can tell your adderall is extended-release because it will have the ‘deluxe transparent addy ball visualizer’ bottom-half. i don’t really have to leave until 8:30. saying i had to leave by 7:30 is an example of a trick i do to avoid being late when i know i’ll want to be late for fun but the stakes are high and if i drag my feet there will be consequences. fake early deadline. classic stakes-raiser. high stakes mental clock readjustment. just another trick up the sleeve of old woman rickets.

  my friend brian and i used to do this lumbering, dopey, innocent-sounding voiceover for lady, my family’s potato-shaped food-loving dog. it started when lady was watching the fridge. brian said ‘oh, fiddlesticks. why won’t they ever let me go in the big white box?’ that’s what my brain sounds like right now.

  8:18AM: thought ‘give us this day, our daily [michael kimball’s smiling head engulfing entire computer screen, gradually windchimes can be heard]’ as a flash intro to some kind of website, a marketing thing…a union thing…presidential campaign…

  9:14AM: not going to make it to NYC. i shouldn’t have talked about my high stakes consequences trick, that invalidated it. i would not rent an apartment to me. i would be able to tell i’m a nasty slumlord good-for-nothing. i would google the shit out of anyone who applied to live in my building. i want to own a parking garage. i need mafia credit cards to get credit to get loans to buy a parking garage. when have you ever heard of a parking garage going out of business? nasty slumlord. keep picturing the michael kimball head thing and laughing in forceful bursts. wish i could make that the cover of my huge ass binder of everything there is to know about me, that i’m giving to apartment building/company/committee/i don’t know who or what i’m giving it to, exactly. maybe i am being scammed. would feel relieved, i think, if this turns out to be a scam. i could just do something else then.