LIVEBLOG

by Megan Boyle

  12:38AM: a good alternative to the ‘house arrest ankle band’ would be that you have to accidentally over-hear someone saying ‘the wimbledon bounty.’ you would have to wear a similar device as the ankle band but you could leave your house. there would be a camera on the ankle device and it would be able to sense whenever you started thinking of ways to steer conversations towards ‘the wimbledon bounty.’ every time you’d do that the device would make your death row sentence five minutes earlier.

  12:49AM: have probably chewed 40-55 ice cubes since 9PM. ate a tangerine and pringles ‘light’ dipped in baba ganoush.

  1:49AM: dipped a pringle in baba ganoush and walked to mom’s room. she was watching ‘downton abbey.’ said ‘close your eyes’ to mom and fed it to her and she made noises of non-sexual pleasure.

  2:04AM: last night a person offered me $100 for a printed, signed manuscript of this liveblog. around 30 minutes ago he upped the offer to $125. in his email he gave suggestions for easier-to-read layout colors and said he wanted me to eat and sleep more. he seems nice. including this because i’m pumped someone would offer me money for this and now he will be in the manuscript i send him.

  3:06AM: sudden memory of ‘wash ‘n’ curl’ pink square shampoo bottle after swim practice at the YMCA.

  4:05AM: sitting cross-legged on bed. listening to balam acab playlist. eyes keep unfocusing. reclined and ‘spanked’ crotch rapidly, like three measures of 32nd notes.

  4:39AM: turned lights off and laid with computer on stomach. thought i saw man in blue shirt and khaki pants glide to center of room and vanish.

  4:42AM: closed eyes for a moment, heard female commercial voice say ‘duracell advanced heat.’

  4:48AM: saw gliding khaki man do the thing again. whispered ‘get the fuck out’ and turned on light next to bed. what is actually scary about a gliding khaki man. if i saw a man in khakis gliding by radio shack it would be good.

  4:51AM: thought i heard man’s voice on phone (like how the other person sounds on the phone when you’re on the receiving end) say ‘horse.’ when i haven’t slept for a long time i sometimes hear voices and see things, curious if other people experience this.

  6:24AM: smoking cigarette on balcony. there is a noise like feet moving tentatively in the woods 20’-30’ away from me. can’t see anything there. just made forceful ‘FFFF’ sound and the feet noise stopped abruptly then sounded like it was backing up really fast. then it resumed normal walking pace. i went ‘FFFFFF’ louder but nothing changed about the feet noise that time.

  6:54AM: smoked another cigarette on balcony. nauseated. keep hiccuping and feeling burning stomach thing. before i was seeing/hearing weird stuff i listened to ‘getting by with its’ by reggie and the full effect and remembered senior year of high school and ate two ‘weight watchers english toffee’ popsicle-like ice cream bars. typed everything from ‘weight watchers’ to end of sentence with eyes closed. eues are closed now. saw imafe of a man’s forearm with blonde hair moving like it was doing ‘poi’ without lightsticks. eyes are closed. peeked a little to write ‘poi’ but they are closed now. so sleepy. going to sleep. eyes are stil closed.

  6:11PM: i was at a philadelphia steakhouse/movie theater with ex-boyfriend and a group of guys i knew in high school. i didn’t want to be there. felt myself actively making a compromise for ex-boyfriend, enduring the steakhouse instead of leading our group to a pizza place across the street. it was one of those places with two tables and a counter and plastic letters missing from a menu of backlit panels that says like, ‘sm med lar x-lar’ and ‘shrimp (not pizza)’ and there’s a really old pepsi decal somewhere. food was taking too long at the steakhouse and i didn’t think anyone at the table would notice, so i walked to the pizza place. ordered a small slice. the guys behind the counter spoke another language and were laughing and play-fighting. all of them were in the process of eating huge slices. sometimes one of them would say how much they loved the pizza, in english, and everyone would laugh and hit each other. brotherly hitting. i wanted a bigger slice, like theirs. ex-boyfriend walked in and took me back to the steakhouse/movie theater, where everyone had finished their food, eaten my food, and moved to a smaller booth. collected scraps of food from everyone’s uneaten food on a plate i carried boastfully to the small booth. everyone was like ‘damn i want that food’ and i was like ‘you coulda had that food.’

  then i was standing beside ex-boyfriend, facing a ticket kiosk machine near a life-sized cardboard cut-out of daniel stern pulling up his shirt. he was making a ‘look ma, i’m nasty’ face. his nipples were showing. i said ‘we should see the new daniel stern movie, it looks funny.’ ex-boyfriend said ‘you like him?’ i said ‘i don’t know, isn’t he like [tried to think of a funny actor]…that person we like?’ he said ‘i don’t like him.’

  sort of sensed mom’s face over my bed and her hand touching my head. thought ‘it must be early in the morning.’ opened eyes again and mom was gone. looked for my phone. it made the ‘not enough battery to work’ graphic when i tried turning it on. looked at computer screen, read ‘6:00PM.’ computer started to fall off the bed but i caught it by slapping my hand hard on the keyboard.

  6:11PM: poured glass of milk and ate three cookies while talking to grocery-unloading mom. she expressed worry about hearing me on the balcony this morning and sleeping so late. i said ‘i’m sorry, i’m okay, don’t worry.’ she unloaded a cardboard cylinder that said ‘plum amazings’ and said ‘doesn’t this look good?’ i said ‘oh yeah i almost bought you that one time when i couldn’t find raisins. plum amazins. amazings.’ mom said something about how she bought a big corned beef to cook for my dad because she felt bad about forgetting st. patrick’s day. walked to bedroom to check if it was too late to fedex tenant application to colin. it felt too late. heard mom say ‘i keep thinking, in andrea boccelli’s voice, ‘bonna fortuna!” and laugh.

  6:15PM: mom said ‘want to try something really nummy?’ felt irritated as i walked to kitchen. the fridge door was open, condiments had fallen. mom was on her hands and knees, looking for something. an opened circular mint green bottle was on the table. mom said ‘have you ever had this stuff that’s not—it’s not the green thing—it’s wasabi something? it’s not wasabi. oh jeez, because they were giving it out on shrimp and AH!’ she held an almost empty bottle that said ‘dijon wasabi marinade,’ i think. i said ‘oh you already had it?’ she said ‘yeah but wait’ll you see what—oh boy. i want to see if you’ll like this.’ from the freezer, she procured a plastic tray of shrimp arranged in three lines around a cocktail sauce container center-point. i said ‘you got shrimpies!’ she said ‘shrimpies shrimpies! i wanted to make them nice and cold.’ i said ‘oh they’re not all the way frozen?’ she said ‘no, no, i was just trying to make them nice and cold.’ she looked for something in the cabinet and said ‘yeah! but, and now—i want to see if you’ll like it without cocktail sauce. with this stuff, instead. they were giving it out in this way. it was just heavenly, to me. now where is this, i had a dish?’ i tried the shrimp in the mustard. it was really good. mom ate a shrimp too. i said ‘oh no, it’s so good’ and peeled the tail off my shrimp. mom tossed a shrimp tail with meat in it into the sink. i said ‘mom, the shrimpy tail! you know what you have to do!’ she said ‘oh, am i wasting the tail? i have to eat it without peeling?’ (dad and i used to eat fried shrimp tails when i was little to gross out mom). i said ‘no you can peel. or. no, i will. you can’t waste the shrimpy’ then felt weird about…i was being serious, to some extent, i felt weird about the seriousness…i said ‘no don’t peel it, you can throw it out, i don’t care.’ she said ‘no, i’ll peel it for you. i won’t waste the shrimpy.’ we talked about when i went to taiwan with tao, all the ‘hot pot’ restaurants his parents took us to. pictured his dad doing ‘the rubber pencil trick,’ gently shaking a large uncooked shrimp to give it the illusion of hovering, saying ‘you see? it’s good.’

  6:34PM: mom stood in my door and said she was going to watch a
ll of the ‘downton abbey’ episodes she’d missed. i said ‘ohhh’ and nodded conspiratorially. she sort of guiltily talked about how there were ‘hours’ she had missed. i said ‘well, i think you’ll have fun’ or something as she walked away, grinning guiltily.

  6:40PM: looked at twitter and other websites. remembered i was supposed to see when fedex closed. figured it was too late and gave up. will just do it tomorrow. the apartment is slipping away from me. i don’t care if i move in april 1st, why does colin think that matters to me. he’s just trying to be a good agent, maybe. it’s okay. no wait, yeah. it’s okay. it shouldn’t take the apartment committee people a week to review an application for somewhere no one else is applying to live (colin said i was the only one). goddamnit. world is dysfunctional and i am part of that dysfunction. integral shitty isolated dysfunctional cog in the workings of the giant barely functional rube goldberg machine that is the earth. good thing i’m here…i mean…jesus.

  6:45PM: went to the kitchen for more coffee. heard ‘downton abbey’ sounds coming from mom’s room. i said ‘i hate how it’s not ‘downtown abbey.’ i hate it.’ mom said ‘you’re not british.’

  7:25PM: produced two long thin turds. thought ‘why hello mr. green, we meet again’ at them while wiping. flushed toilet. felt james bond-like.

  7:48PM: i’ve been listening to ‘metro (brooklyn mix)’ by i am the world trade center, on repeat. ex-boyfriend showed it to me. it sounds like shirley, his cat, like she’s singing it. also playing all the instruments. sounds so much like shirley. i ‘go to pieces’ when i imagine shirley singing this, like. it’s too cute to be real. ‘cute’ isn’t the right word. it’s just too…i don’t know. something about how the person in this band is singing is like, exactly in shirley’s tone when she meows. pretend it’s not a person singing words, pretend it’s a fluffy little shirley cat letting you pet her really hard, making noises like ‘huh, okay, i don’t know what’s going on, please continue.’ it makes more sense. shirley has long gray hair (like alvie, my cat. both cats are currently with ex-boyfriend at our apartment in philadelphia) but the fur on her legs puffs out. i call her leg fur her ‘pantalons’ or sometimes her ‘culottes.’ they are so good. you have to say ‘panta-lonz’ when you call them her ‘pantalons.’ her little face. jesus. i’m ‘going to pieces’ right now. hope ex-boyfriend lets me keep shirley when i move. i love shirley more than he does.

  8:00PM: mom peeked head in room, said ‘am i being too loud?’ i said ‘no, you’re fine, everything’s okay.’ she said ‘because i can move to my bedroom, i don’t have to be in the living room.’ i said ‘no it’s really okay, i just closed the door for. i don’t know why. everything’s okay.’ she said ‘okay, well, okay. you know what would make me stop watching ‘downton abbey?’ is if you wanted to watch ‘les miserables’ with me.’ i have been afraid of watching emotionally-faced poor french people sing (which seems so weird to me, in general: watching people sing…people singing, in general…why are they singing…sustaining talking-notes at unnatural pitches…but now, poverty…france…thought ‘and ann beattie, crying horrifically’ but meant ‘ann hathaway’). hope she forgets she suggested it and so we can watch something else. going to try to steer things towards watching anything else. not going to even pretend to do anything but be a complete unproductive shithead today. if i embrace it maybe it will go away. when i like things they go away.

  9:15PM: i’ve been gleefully re-reading this, laughing at parts. jogged into kitchen to take kettle off stove for tea. said ‘spot of tea, hehehehehe, oh no mom, my ass is so bouncy.’ mom made a noise. heard ‘downton abbey’ noises. i said ‘i’m going to be healthy tomorrow. i’m going to go to yoga and fedex my application and mail packages. do you want tea a too?’ she said ‘it’s a very sad moment right now. they’re about. to…’ i said ‘oh no, sorry, i’ll. good,’ and walked with tea to my bedroom. eating baba ganoush rice cakes.

  9:23PM: checked email. read inaugural liveblog comment by sam cooke. i like sam more than i like most people i don’t know well but ‘like.’ his parents were aware of the singer when they named sam and, i think, didn’t have strong feelings about him. there is less of a gray area with our mutual acquaintances. people either like or dislike sam cooke. more often men don’t like him. they view him as a threat or something, because he talks easily to girls and makes politically incorrect comments and like, pushes people to act ‘extreme’ in social situations, but for…unconventional reasons…i forget, figured this out on cocaine with sam and mira. people think he just wants attention. but to me, his motivations seem to come from some place of egoless nihilistic boredom, like some feeble attempt to…something. last ditch effort to amuse the universe. sam is easy to talk to and down to do anything, which are the most important things i consider when deciding ‘can i be friends with this person.’

  9:32PM: emailed masha email re xanax/addy exchange rates. bought noopept from a website she recommended. ‘noo’ is a soothing ass prefix. remember in psychology class there was a brain chemical…‘noo’ something…loved listening to teacher say ‘noo[something].’

  10:04PM: mom said something about watching ‘les miserables’ i said ‘in a half hour?’ she said ‘yeah but knowing you, it probably won’t be a half an hour.’ thought ‘perceptive, mom.’ she is right. no, i’m going to prove her wrong. i’m excluding a ‘totally fascinating, integral’ conversation about pizza, just to prove mom wrong. i will watch the movie on time. hope you’re happy, mom. you are depriving all four people still reading liveblog of hearing all of those hilarious things we said about pizza.

  10:23PM: seems like i’m getting carried away with typing in liveblog. what if i just did this forever. that’s exciting. has anyone done that? might be hard to sustain if/when i become more social.

  10:31PM: entered kitchen to look for snacks i knew i didn’t want. mom said ‘there’s always downton, we always must think of downton, it’s all we have’ in a british accent. i said ‘oh my god. you’re so right.’ stopped what we were doing and looked at each other and laughed. i said ‘it’s all we have.’

  10:33PM: ate 1mg xanax. handled pear that had been cut strangely. said ‘are you going to eat this pear?’ in a strange voice i didn’t plan on using. mom said ‘well i think we should watch it in the bedroom, because of the HD.’ i said ‘no, i said ‘can i have this pear? are you done eating it?”

  10:39PM: sitting beside mom on her bed. man on TV in a butler outfit said ‘i want to please lady mary,’ extending and retracting his hands several times, palms facing upward, as if holding invisible melons.

  10:41PM: mom said ‘we must always talk like this. OOOOH’ in british accent. i said ‘BLOOOOOR’ in…britishly, i think. man on TV said ‘before the war i believed my life had value. i would like to feel that way again, i suppose.’

  10:42PM: started laughing really hard typing ‘BLOOOOOR.’ mom said ‘don’t laugh, they’ve been in love for twenty years.’

  11:02PM: ‘les miserables’ cannot be ordered ‘on demand.’ something is wrong with ‘on demand.’ crisis.

  11:12PM: mom is calling comcast. we are eating from a plastic bag of lemon jelly beans from whole foods. interested in watching ‘the master.’ mom says it’s ‘too depressing.’ remembered text from keith about ‘the master.’ phone has been dead since yesterday. enjoying leaving it dead for now. secretly recording a video of mom talking to comcast.

  11:20PM: ate handful lemon jelly beans and said ‘after this i’m going to stop.’ mom said ‘i think it’s the sugar that keeps us coming back.’ i said ‘well. you know. whatever you can get, you know. you gotta take whatever keeps you coming back.’

  11:26PM: we have decided to watch ‘the master.’ feel i convinced…this was a product of my convincing. i get guilty when things feel like products of my convincing.

  MARCH 22, 2013

  1:25AM: an intense vague thing is happening with a wall. people are watching an increasingly frustrated joaquin phoenix pace from a window to a wal
l, saying ‘it’s a wall.’ seems like he was instructed to do this by philip seymour hoffman. philip seymour hoffman just embraced joaquin phoenix. i said ‘this is a really weird episode of ‘the office’ you’re showing me, mom.’

  1:40AM: mom paused the movie. oh man, before the movie i had eaten another 1mg xanax. then i made and ate an entire frozen pizza (to be fair, it was only like eight inches in diameter). while the pizza was baking mom and me listed all the places we’ve ever lived. i wrote a list of the places.

  2:46AM: ate two pieces of buttered toast (one with raspberry jam, one cinnamon sugar). i don’t feel xanax effects anymore. i liked ‘the master’ in that i like all movies, i think. joaquin phoenix’s character reminded me of someone i was obsessed with in high school and would later have casual sex with for a few years. sometimes the sex felt less casual than other times. he also looked a little like joaquin phoenix. set alarm for 11:30AM.

  4:09AM: ate 1mg xanax. searched gmail for ‘3/21/12.’ several emails from rite aid. some ‘how will we move apartment’ or ‘hey meet me here at this time’ gchats from ex-boyfriend. stopped looking at gmail. walked to kitchen and opened a coconut as quietly as possible. going to…fucking…watch the last episode of ‘girls’…fall asleep…phone died, will have no alarm tomorrow morning. oh well. something about the movie made me think about babies. or no, mom. talking with mom about all the places she lived when she was around my age. she was doing all these things with a child around. wish i could’ve been there, helping them. she said having my sister with her was the only thing stopping her from killing herself sometimes. if i had a baby i wouldn’t kill myself, i don’t think. unless it was suffering and i thought we both wanted to die. i’d just wait for it to die and then kill myself. want to talk to my sister more. soothing ass coconut water.