by Megan Boyle
9:17PM: ate an amount of noopept, 30mg adderall. i have eight and a half left, not seven. feel more justified eating 30mg now. it will probably take this much to have significant effects on me and it will cause me to feel a little better physically, at least. going to focus on updating this thing and drawing. will feel better to do small productive things like this instead of laying on my bed looking at things in the room or the computer or trying to sleep.
11:25PM: sensed dad before he said said ‘knock knock?’ walked into my room and i hugged him. we had been emailing back and forth a little and he seemed happy. he said they’re starting to build his new offices, which he didn’t think would happen. i said ‘oh man, i’m happy for you, that’s so cool.’ sort of stood to hug him and he leaned over to hug me and said ‘it’s cool! you’re cool! i’m cool! you bet your sweet bippy i’m cool!’ during the hug. a ‘sweet bippy’ from dad. he said mom had probably already ‘hit all the headlines.’ happy and surprised to see dad so happy. he was holding a paper bag.
APRIL 24, 2013
12–2:15AM: responded to emails and text messages. texted mira and sam picture from last night.
2:16AM: mom walked to my room and said she was going to sleep, probably no movie tonight. asked if it was okay if i smoked on the balcony. i don’t usually ask, it’s like, an unspoken thing. she said ‘well yeah, it’s okay, i just wish you wouldn’t, for you.’
2:17–3:21AM: continued writing update about the car ride and mira’s apartment. remembered i also wanted to be writing about what i’m doing now. i’ve been sitting on mom’s balcony. have smoked two cigarettes. ate remaining 15mg of an adderall a while ago. fingers cold, numb-feeling.
3:51AM: felt too cold, went inside to bedroom again. looked at email and responded to one fast. read response from gabby gabby which included essay she wrote about liveblog, didn’t expect a response so fast. felt very interested reading her essay and [hard to describe something] about her wanting to write it, funny to be typing this after reading essay, now knowing she feels less interested in the content of liveblog than the time it spans/other things (i’m not saying ‘feels funny to be typing this’ to showcase an ego bruise or something, like ‘she doesn’t like my content as much wahhh’—i’m similarly interested in liveblog for ‘time span’ more than ‘content’ reasons—just a funny awareness of the moment where i’m typing the specific content of something which seems more interesting as a sum/method of relating its contents than its specific content). rachel white asked to gchat as a follow-up thing for her tao article, going to do that now. unsure if i want to continue elaborating details of last night to the degree of car ride/mira’s apartment specificity. i like remembering that stuff though.
4:22AM: rachel white was no longer ‘available,’ emailed that i’d look for her tomorrow. stared at pill container. adderalls. it’s probably already working, i’m just used to the effects so i don’t notice them as much and think i want more. still, it would help to have a little more. i think. there are seven. unsure if dealer wants to sell to me anymore. maybe. this is ‘that time of the month.’ savings account depleted. i should get a prescription. i should email masha to trade xanax again. if i eat half of one now…just bit maybe 15mg off, then maybe 5mg more. removed hot pink puffy coat and looked at myself in bathroom mirror. i’m wearing a gray hoodie sweatshirt and blue ‘yoga pants.’ lifted sweatshirt to see if stomach looked okay (not really). fluffed hair to see if it would improve face (not really).
4:29AM: considering eating entire adderall so instead of prolonging/barely noticing the effects, it will feel like something. shit. hate this shit. soon it will be gone and i’ll have to adapt. okay. if i eat the whole thing, i am decreasing the time between now and the future where i’ll have to adapt.
thing i haven’t mentioned: for some time (since i’ve started liveblog definitely, but also maybe before then) have been noticing an area on left side of chest that feels tight and sometimes aches, especially if i breathe deeply, or if i’m out of breath/can feel pulse, like yesterday when i climbed stairs. when i notice these things i think ‘something to worry about, maybe.’ not saying this to get you to worry about me. i…
WHENEVER I TALK ABOUT SOMETHING THAT FEELS SHITTY TO ME, ABOUT ME, LIKE A SHITTY PHYSICAL OR EMOTIONAL THING I’M EXPERIENCING, I’M NOT WRITING ABOUT IT AS A WAY TO SOLICIT ATTENTION OR SYMPATHY. WHEN I TYPE ABOUT SOMETHING THAT FEELS SHITTY TO ME I FREQUENTLY HAVE THE URGE TO WRITE A DISCLAIMER LIKE THIS, WHICH IS STUPID I THINK, NOT ONLY BECAUSE THERE IS ALREADY A DISCLAIMER AT THE TOP OF THIS PAGE, BUT LIKE…WHY THE FUCK WHY, BOYLE?!?!
SO BY WRITING THIS ALL-CAPS DISCLAIMER RIGHT NOW—I’M DECIDING THIS IS THE FINAL DISCLAIMER. PEOPLE EITHER PAY ATTENTION TO THE FIRST DISCLAIMER AND DON’T THINK I’M LOOKING FOR SYMPATHY, DON’T PAY ATTENTION AND THINK I’M LOOKING FOR SYMPATHY, PAY ATTENTION AND THINK I’M LOOKING FOR SYMPATHY, SKIP OVER THIS/DON’T CARE AT ALL, OR [UNKNOWABLE AMOUNT OF OTHER THINGS PEOPLE MIGHT THINK].
I FEEL GUILTY ABOUT COMPLAINING, ALWAYS, I THINK. FEELING GUILTY ABOUT COMPLAINING IS A GREAT WAY TO CREATE MORE SITUATIONS WHERE I FEEL LIKE COMPLAINING. LIKE RIGHT NOW. THIS IS SECOND-LEVEL COMPLAINING, I’M COMPLAINING ABOUT THE COMPLAINING, AND THIRD-LEVEL/BACK AROUND TO FIRST-LEVEL, BECAUSE I’M WRITING THIS OUT OF A DESIRE TO NOT RECEIVE OR BE PERCEIVED AS WANTING TO RECEIVE SYMPATHY CAUSED BY MY COMPLAINING.
I THINK IF I MAKE THIS MY FINAL DISCLAIMER, I WILL BE ‘FORCED’ TO PAY LESS ATTENTION TO THINGS LIKE THIS, WHICH WILL MAYBE EVENTUALLY LEAD TO ME ACTUALLY BELIEVING THAT PEOPLE BELIEVE ME.
5:03AM: first fucking morning bird fuck that shit. fuck that shit. i want to live somewhere birdless. also sunless, maybe. without sunrises. i just never want to know when it’s about to be morning again. like how some married people are like ‘i don’t care if they cheat, i just don’t want to know about it.’ that’s how i feel about the sky ‘becoming morning’ on me, like it’s my unfaithful spouse and i’ve said ‘please i don’t care if you do it, just don’t let me know about it,’ but it doesn’t pay attention and continues on with the morning birds and the sun and the whole gang and there’s no way for me to divorce it. actually i could divorce it by dying. pictured it saying, ‘i’m never going to be silent about becoming morning, it’s nothing to be ashamed of and i want you to stay informed, but if you can’t deal with it, why not just leave me already,’ then me dying quietly in the night without telling it, then a few days later it finds out and thinks ‘that’s exactly what i thought she’d do, i knew she was no good,’ then eventually it forgets me and happily continues its shameless displays of becoming morning after night forever.
6:16AM: ate 15mg adderall. thought ‘damniny shniggets, like the evil jiminy crickets. no wait, they did that, lemony snicket.’ thought ‘much to the favorites of none, [something about twitter]’ and turned off hall light. didn’t think anything but ‘damniny shniggets’ that i’m aware of from hallway to balcony, where i’m currently smoking again.
8:02AM: have been typing crack summary, not looking at anything else. sun up, bright.
8:07AM: bright light, 48 degrees, can hear a lawnmower. feel like i’m writing myself into…not understanding words…starting to feel embarrassed about all of this, myself, etc., but significantly less so than i have in the past.
10:37PM: got my period. seconds ago. period descended into underpants. alert the presses. it does seem a little interesting that i opened the window i’m typing in before i got my period. ‘seconds ago’ was real-time liveblogged. i’m in my bedroom. outside people are yelling like they’re playing sports. postponing finishing/mailing book packages in favor of finding remaining ‘mumblecore’ DVDs to mail to people who want to screen it in spain.
10:47AM: something so indescribably…jesus…it’s this sinking feeling about the internet, looking at all of this stuff at, now, 10:48AM…all the tweets and the facebooks and the websites and the emails and then this liveblog shit…me in relation to all this and me sitting here…not removing myself…this feeling will
be gone soon.
10:48AM–2:17PM: same extremely slow pace different tasks.
2:18pm: masha texted ‘Feel physical chest tightening aversion to taking adderall today even though I’m more fucked without it.’
7:50pm: droplet of water fell on back. parked in front of dad’s. Touched ceiling to check for leaks.
8:19pm: fed cats, cleaned box, found storage unit key, searched all boxes and bags in car for DVDs, found none. Driving to storage unit despite darkness, they close at 9pm I think, thought ‘what day is today, it’s Saturday?’
8:22pm: it makes more sense to go back to mom’s. No I shouldn’t be rewarded with ‘easier better alternative’ in this case, I didn’t do something I felt was important to do today. I had all day. Forget today. I wrote notes on every page of one book and finished packaging mostly. Nervous about being seen, looking the way I do. When mom woke I asked her for a hug and said ‘could you honestly tell me how I look, like am I haggard and tired and like, old.’ she looked concerned and said no, I looked young and pretty, but that my eyes looked big and tired and worried. I said ‘are you sure? The hair?’ she said ‘well, if you just brush it a little. No, you just look worried, you look young.’ I said ‘you would tell me if I didn’t, right?’ she said ‘I would, I would.’ I said ‘okay, okay I’m less worried now, I believe you, thank you’ and walked down the hallway to bedroom. She sort of followed me and stopped where the hallway meets the kitchen. I turned and said ‘can I just try something where I tell you this is my last pack of cigarettes and if I buy another one it means something really bad, like, you’ll be extremely angry?’ mom looked puzzled, said ‘yes, well yeah I guess so, but you know you can always comfort yourself, you can allow yourself cigarettes, I mean I don’t want you to but.’ felt frustrated and tried not to show. I said ‘it’s okay, it was just a thing I thought I’d try, sometimes it works on the liveblog if I give myself a fake consequence, thought saying it aloud this time…think it won’t work.’ long hallway conversation followed. At some point mom said ‘I know we didn’t raise you with any rules or, well you know basic ‘right or wrong’ things, we didn’t want to discipline you the way our parents did, so. You have your own set of drawbacks, you have to do it yourself, but you know that.’ I said ‘I know…’ mom said ‘but me saying that doesn’t help.’ I said ‘yeah…it’s okay though.’ mom said things about how I need to sleep or I won’t be able to function, that not sleeping is probably what’s making it hard for me to focus ‘like this conversation has no focus, it’s just how [she] thinks combined with how she wants to but doesn’t know how to help.’
8:33pm: sky looks grimly, velvet-y, purple-y black, ‘like my lungs maybe.’
8:50pm: made it to storage unit before they closed hell yeah.
8:52pm: rondo caddy shitshow
9:12pm: thought ‘I did it all for the [pile of ten damaged pastel-colored DVDs].’ repacked boxes. ‘rescued’ four stuffed animals from fate of certain forgotten death, welcoming to new loving foster home at mom’s. going to fucking FedEx now better believe bitch gonna live up to her word and mail this shit tonight.
Wanna thank the universe for giving me this opportunity to push my shit ass to the limit today, I saw some lows man not gonna deny it looked like I wouldn’t come out with a win today, but I slid in at the end and turned the shit around man, it’s like when you already gave up and you get the chance to come back you’re gonna come back fierce, tonight I’m sleeping like a blessed woman knowing I put those ten DVDs in their place, thank you universe, thank you Elliott city storage facility, thank mom, thank you dad, and thank you all my unborn babies, remember this day when mama showed Spain how it’s done!!!!
9:36pm: parked at FedEx. Haven’t eaten since domino’s.
9:52pm: cheapest shipping option was $116. Oof. That means $84 profit though, which is $84 less than if I hadn’t done this. DVDs will be in Madrid by May 6 guaranteed. Spain is thirsting for these broke ass-looking beat-up cover forgotten last copies ever of these films DVDs.
10:18pm: worried mom went through bookbag and found drugs, re asking ‘what are you addicted to’ re quote in gabby’s article where saying I was shocked that people didn’t confront me about being addicted to drugs (I said I didn’t feel addicted to anything but that whenever drugs are mentioned people think ‘addiction,’ was just surprised no one had wanted to tell me I was addicted to things, then said ‘are you looking at me?’ mom said ‘yeah, yeah, it’s just my glasses’ and took them off in a little demonstration. I said ‘don’t worry, I’m fine’ and changed the subject fast).
11:05PM: have deduced that it’s wednesday. did not believe it was wednesday. i go to new york again for apartment interview tomorrow. seems…how am i going to…tonight i want to eat and sleep. no more trying for anything else tonight.
11:06pm: mom made me eggs and toast. Stood with her in kitchen, kept pausing and snickering before I talked. Mom acted eager and a little nervous, maybe careful around me. I paused and snickered and said ‘I’m worried you think I’m on drugs right now, I’m not, I’m not on anything.’ she said ‘I don’t think that, wait, why, am I acting weird?’ I said ‘you seem anxious around me a little, but I could be imagining it.’
11:10–11:59pm: emailed apartment committee per request of Colin, to inform them Colin had asked me to ask them to call me and I didn’t know why (annoyed to be doing this). Mom said eggs were ready. Ate 1mg Xanax. Took eggs to mom’s room to eat while we watched Mary Tyler Moore. When the theme song said ‘who can turn the world on with her smile? Who can take a nothing day and make it seem worthwhile?’ I said ‘Mary actually doesn’t know the answers to those questions, she’s actually wondering those very things.’ Mom laughed and said ‘she’s gonna make it after all. You’re going to make it after all, honey.’ felt a little weird. The episode seemed ‘slow,’ felt aware of my chewing noises and fork motions/toast handling. A lot of pepper came out at once and I tried to blend it by rubbing eggs with my finger. Mom was laughing weakly along with the laugh track but knew she probably didn’t think it was funny. I said ‘how do you feel?’ she said ‘I’m a little worried the food doesn’t taste good.’ surprised. I said ‘no its great, it’s perfect, thank you for making it.’ Agreed the episode wasn’t funny or interesting. Switched to an episode of Homeland.
APRIL 25, 2013
12:00–1:[unknown]am: mom asked about what episode I wanted to watch, if I wanted to put in another Mary Tyler Moore instead, what I remember about where we left off with Homeland, what my preferences were. I said ‘I don’t know, I have no preferences, my preference is to not answer questions,’ grinning a little. She said ‘okay okay, I know, you don’t want questions. Let’s just pick up where we left off, I know you fell asleep, [described plot of episode I fell asleep during], I’ll put on the next one.’
Brody suspiciously clutched a laptop-sized package. I said ‘yes, now I have my fish all to myself’ in Brody’s voice and mom laughed hard. I said ‘no one can know about my delicious fish dish’ as Brody unwrapped the package, a bomb, and strapped it to his body, enjoying making mom laugh and laughing too.
6:03am: woke to strange breathing noise. Thought it was me. Opened eyes and saw I was in mom’s bed and she was sleeping to my left. Remembered falling asleep here. Walked to kitchen and ate small piece of whole foods cherry pie, a graham cracker/chocolate ‘digestive biscuit’ cookie, and drank a glass of milk. Went to my room and got under covers. Set alarm for 10:00am. Feeling ‘cozy’ and peaceful.
10:00am–12:49pm: hit snooze every ten minutes but would fall sometimes deeply (I think) asleep every time, or hit ‘snooze’ without waking. Dreamed something about Zachary and me, watching him have sex with a muslim woman who seemed angry at me and said ‘he can have sex with whoever he want.’ felt mad/hurt by him. We were trying living together again, but only because we were going to live with everyone on the ‘real pain: future dead friends’ tour. It was our job to find the apartment for all of us, we had found a small one-bedr
oom apartment attached to a pizza place on a road technically in NYC but far away from Manhattan. We signed the lease and were excitedly planning for people to arrive. When everyone got there they seemed unhappy, and I realized what a huge mistake/oversight Zachary and I had made, there were only two rooms in the apartment, not nearly enough space for everyone. Zachary would also transform into a sandworm from ‘dune’ once a month and eat people, I was worried about living with him again because of this. Then the dream switched to he and I in my mom’s new condo, which was above a sears and a grocery store. I was rubbing pink cream on my legs that was supposed to make it look like I was wearing tights. Mom had a new haircut, it was very short and shiny. She tousled her hair in front of her face and said ‘I just hate it, it’s so Ella Fitzgerald.’ Then I was looking at candy in the grocery store and the Mary Tyler Moore theme song was playing and I thought ‘huh. It really is a song, not just a theme song.’ then Zachary and mom and I were driving out of the condo at night in three cars. Zachary and mom were not allowed to leave the condo and were stopped by the police for ‘thinking about food.’ I could still leave. Then it was morning and ‘Zachary’ was suddenly in the passenger seat next to me, but it wasn’t him, it was a relaxed, jovial-seeming man who looked like a young Don Cheadle. He was telling me how to get to NYC for my meeting with the apartment committee people. He took my phone and said ‘nah, how do they [other ‘real’ Zachary and my mom] got you going this way?’ he told me a faster way, which seemed slower, but I believed him.