by Megan Boyle
12:15am: a cover of ‘tripped’ by Neva dinova with Jordan on backup vocals/guitar, Tao on drums, me singing is playing. We made it in September 2010. nostalgic.
12:32am: I read ‘Goethals’ as ‘goebbel’ or whoever that third reich guy is almost every time.
2:23am: laying in bed leisurely smoking e-cigarette, Shirley purring and kneading on me. Feels so nice.
6:24am: laying again. Unpacked more. Earlier I walked on the beach barefoot. I was the only one there. Stood with my feet in the water. Two beers one banana 2mg knlonopin 1mg Xanax. It will be sad to leave this place, to pack these things. I feel good for life here.
6:34am: took afrin, zeolite, magnesium. Also I had a memory about this time last year and magnesium and Zacky and me. Was trying to replace xanax with magnesium. The memory was the bottle on our bedroom dresser. My hands taking the bottle from the dresser. No, then taking the bottle to bed, eating some, telling Zac I was doing this and why I was doing this. He was in another room. Not sure which. He had recently left the bedroom, for the other room. Maybe. That’s all I got. That’s all that’s left. That’s all folks.
12:16pm: woke saw clock went back to sleep
1:16pm: woke saw clock went back to sleep
2:48pm: woke next to chocolate bar and cats. Ate bite of chocolate. Nose is very stuffy. I dreamed a lot.
2:52pm: there was chocolate on my face in the mirror. Also little pieces on the ‘sheets’ (curtains) and pillow. Today I want to get sheets and a duvet cover and pillowcases.
4:03pm: called insurance agency to clear up things about my car, called Verizon to set up internet. They’re coming Friday. Leisurely smoking e-cigarette and sweeping little crumbs into piles. No dustpan yet. I want to do dishes, shower, then call the superintendent to fix closet, give me mail key, see about gas/stove. Listening to a stereolab record. I forgot I had so many records and how nice it feels to listen to them wee wee wee wee wee in the potty weewee!
4:12pm: set text message and voicemail alert sounds to a noise called ‘suspense.’ sounds ‘2001 a space odyssey’ style. My phone rings to a theremin-like thing called ‘sci-fi’ now. Everyone uses the same iPhone sounds, I feel. These ones are so unpleasant and ridiculous sounding…so good to imagine them startling people in social situations…
6:27pm: washed dishes using soap and hands because you know this motherfucker is spongeless. Made spinach banana smoothie. Showered. Dressed in ‘secretary from the 1960’s who is also a dominatrix and sort of falling apart’ outfit.
Nervous about car. Sleepy. Mira texted about a party tonight, think I’ll feel unsocial, I don’t know. Want to lay in bed all goldang day. Huff my (thought ‘internet cheebah’) e-cigarette.
6:38pm: Alvie is enjoying his continuous water flow device. Shirley is sleeping near me. Happy. Yeah I am a little happy.
6:52pm: I got excited thinking about eating 30mg instead of 15mg adderall, I think that’ll help me go to ikea a little. Okay doing it.
8:20pm: Ikea was closing when I arrived, hurriedly selected things, forgot maybe 30% of things
Huge lines, people still browsing after second ‘we are closed’ announcement.
Couple in front of me: 30’s, severe looking man in almost transparent blue (lol) plaid button-down, girl in all black, black leather sneakers designed for zero laces but with ‘laces spaces,’ thought they were from another country but no, she is on her iPhone a lot, he is explaining something to her, like he is convincing her about the value of the chocolate bars, they buy six or eight. They have the same trash can as me but different price tag. I took the display one by accident.
Couple adjacent to that couple: 40’s, look sponsored by j crew, man is wearing button-down sweater vest under a ‘Nantucket’ or something cardigan/blazer, he keeps leaving the line looking lost and returning with nothing, wife is wearing hot pink Capri pants. They are buying patio furniture stuff. What if I had bought all outdoor furniture for my room. Insisted on that. They probably own a brownstone, this couple.
Line confusion, I had brought two display items (trash can and dish rack). People behind me commented on how full my bag was and that I’d need to buy a blue ikea bag. I said ‘yeah I know how to fill a bag. I’m buying that blue bag too, yeah.’ smiles all around, somehow.
Cashier said ‘is this your first time here?’ re my two display items then seeing that I had cash and it was a credit/debit only line. I pulled out ‘quick recovery’ visa and said ‘no I’m just stupid about the display things, I’m sorry about that.’ I started putting things in my bag and she said ‘no hurry, here, there’s paper for the glasses, you can wrap them.’
9:31pm: little girl behind me said ‘mommy lets go on the alligator’ as I entered elevator. Woman entered behind a man in all denim who said ‘Ladies first.’
The ‘ladies first’ woman said, to a man with cart, ‘everything goes so fast here, it’s so narrow. I like to drive on open highways.’ More people entered. Someone said ‘yeah they [carts] don’t go in one direction.’ Maybe six people with carts on elevator now. Denim man said ‘That’ll work that’ll work.’ Thought something about disaster movies, getting stuck with them in elevator.
Elevator door closed and it seemed to move. Few seconds later it opened to the same floor we entered.
Someone said ‘how did this happen, we’re all particularly educated people’
Someone said ‘Twilight zone’
I mumbled ‘It’s just two buttons, also’
People said other things and someone pushed the ‘parking garage’ button.
I said ‘Watch, it’ll open up to the same thing.’
The woman who said ‘we’re all particularly educated’ looked at me fake-threateningly. The door opened to the parking garage. She looked at me and said ‘A-ha!’
9:40–10:15pm: looked for 24-hour wifi in ikea parking lot, seems impossible
10:21pm: took the wrong tunnel to 24-hour starbucks, going to manhattan one
10:16pm: somehow it says 10:16 now.
10:20pm: Hugh Carey tunnel is $7.50 Jesus, that’s the one I took by accident, gotta go back through. Think I’ve been largely operating under the misconception that ezpass on my car means ‘free.’
10:39pm: how did I get so lost I’m not even looking at the internet. Definitely third tunnel of tonight. Hugh? Perhaps! PERHAPS THIS IS MY THIRD HUGH THRU!
10:44pm: here is the plan. If I divert from the plan it means I have aids, they will discover aids in me somehow, I will have had it since 2005.
10:47pm: hold up a minute now I’m on the wrong bridge how in the hell
10:53pm: I’ve definitely been lost here before. Hylan drive. I went over the verrazano bridge, it’s like I’m coming from Baltimore again. Getting on belt pkwy I know where I’m at now okay. Told Mira I was not partying tonight.
10:56pm: the order of things which I am not to divert from otherwise it means I have had aids since 2005:
• get energy drinks and green smoothie materials from waldbaum’s
• see if you can garner internet from parked car on 116th st or by the McDonald’s on Beach 90something st., update liveblog quick without elaborations on Ikea stuff
11:28pm: nixing ‘look for internet’ plan. Will take too much time. Sitting in waldbaum’s parking lot now.
11:36pm: wish I had goddamned internet at my house. Goddamnit.
11:55pm: trouble checking out. Neither ice cube tray had barcode. Man named ‘Candy’ went to look for them. He was real ‘New York style.’ like ratso rizzo with a happy family instead of poverty and gimp leg style. He asked me where I found them and I didn’t know. Had planned to ask him when I walked in, where the ice cube trays would be, then I found them somehow. I scanned things. Candy returned with four trays. He said ‘it’s a two-pack, see?’ I said ‘oh no it must’ve gotten…’ he scanned the two-pack for me, said ‘three-nineteen for a two-pack,’ handed mine back. I said ‘thank you, that must be annoying.’ he said ‘nah no problem. three-nineteen’ as he walked
behind an area customers aren’t allowed to go.
Waldbaum’s looks so similar to the super fresh Zachary and I would go to in Philly. I miss that. At this time last year I had no idea. No idea this is how it would end up. I usually think ‘where will I be in a year’ whenever it is but I don’t remember at all, what I thought then. The first two months in Philadelphia were the happiest. April and may. One time in line at a thrift store Zachary said something about how we were being annoying and laughing and that it was good we didn’t have friends, because they would be annoyed by how in love we were. That was the day we bought the matching gigantic t-shirts, floor-length pink ‘hers’ and blue ‘his’ t-shirts, that we rarely wore, that he was wearing the night in late march this year, the night before the week we spent together before moving things to storage units and parents’ houses and new places and eventually it started becoming now.
MAY 4, 2013
12:31PM: colin knocked on my door. i had been recording an audio file of me reading old things i’ve written for a website that solicited me for an audio submission of some kind. worried colin could hear me talking, i don’t think he can. covered up ‘old things,’ spread all over the bed, took a few extra seconds to get to door. colin gave me a newspaper and we talked about an irish music festival and my cats and school a little and he left. i stood in front of the mirror. pupils look huge from adderall/concerta, wonder if they’re noticeably huge. studied them in the mirror.
heard another knock i thought i could be imagining. stood still in front of mirror. a few seconds later i heard colin’s voice say ‘megan?’ i went to the door. he asked if i wanted a lamp. i said ‘i don’t not want a lamp, if there’s a lamp. i mean, yeah i’ll take a lamp.’ he went to get it. looked at my stuffed animals on the bed and my…just…it doesn’t quite look like ‘adult’ decorations. thought ‘oh no, he…knows…he knows i’m a big baby.’
the lamp is cool. he didn’t remember where he got it. he said ‘the bottom lights up, like for a night-light’ a few times. he reminds me of someone in a samuel beckett play. he asked me if i knew about a restaurant and said ‘i gotta invite, i mean introduce you to some of the people on the floor, we’ll all go’ and looked down the hall. followed his eyes and thought ‘invite vs. introduce.’ i said i was doing a thing, helping my friend film a video tonight. he said ‘take it easy.’
here is what happened after waldbaum’s last night/this morning:
• unpacked items from ikea and waldbaum’s, sort of broke shower curtain rod i think. the curtain i bought requires rings so i made rings out of wire. i have pliers and wire for some reason. the wire is of ‘paperclip-thickness.’
• cleaned floor, scrubbed toilet, did dishes, cleaned cat box, looked for AA batteries for swiffer in ‘technology drawer,’ thought ‘look in ‘memories drawer’ for content for the ‘gabby gabby lucy shaw self yelp story’
• responded to gabby gabby email with links to mdmafilms passwords and told her i was working on the story from now until it’s done
• read through things i’ve written saved by my parents from 1991-1996, then journals from 1999-2009…felt….personal hell…it’s all the same shit, same shit as this
one journal is funny and from 2007 and seems to be exclusively thoughts/drawings i made while high, like every day almost. thoughts seem similar to things i’ve thought on mushrooms and DMT but less comprehensible/less funny/people would ‘understand’ less, i think
in that journal i had a lease for an apartment in chicago with a co-worker/friend but then we went…the friend…something happened, he wasn’t prepared for me knowing people there already, we fought about stupid stuff…i broke my end of the lease, think we’re still friends
i had forgotten i had done this thing where i filled up five notebooks in an effort to ‘get me out of depression’
like each notebook would be a step forward
the colors went from darkest (black) to lightest (light green)
they devolve into driving directions at the end, some are not all the way full
1:26PM: keep hearing this whining, half-door half-human sound coming from the hallway.
have plans to eat mushrooms and help film a funny video with zachery wood today. feel incapable of interaction and like mental state would not currently be good for mushrooms. kept wanting to ‘go home’ last night, to ‘home’ i don’t know, like neither of my parents’ and not here, very real/intense urges to be in ‘home i don’t know.’
e-cigarette smoking is giving me a dry cough. have been smoking consistently, since i bought it day before yesterday. but other than cough body feels fine and it doesn’t smell. can discern when it tastes/smells ‘electric-y,’ like a hot outlet or something. thought i was losing interest in them but then put in a new cartridge and ‘boop boop ba doodoo.’
i have 30mg adderall left, feel like since i’m not smoking real cigarettes i’m being a little healthier, i could allow myself the adderall if it meant i would really do things.
this seems like hell
there is no escaping the hell of yourself
all of those journals…
there are 15-20 journals, most are completely or almost completely full, some big in size, from 2004-2009
all the same shit
same shit as now
i’m saying all of the same things
same things slightly different words/circumstances
what is there to do
should i start doing things that are extremely unlike me now, just for…variety…i don’t know
i don’t know if i want to be not-me
just seems hellish, a hellish amount of records, plus consider the liveblog, plus my gmail account, plus four hard drives full of video files and other things
how is this all still going on
i used to ‘wax existential’ or whatever, the thing i did in my book, like, i’d enjoy kind of marveling at ‘how much further could i take this thought, do i really think this’
now i feel a new level of ‘i can’t believe it’s still like this’ almost horror
not being…‘cute’…not trying to be anything except clear about what this feeling is
seems like buddha-like people, like, enlightened people feel the same thing i’m feeling but they get joy out of it
it feels horrible to me
horrible and exactly equal horrible consequence of it not being there
here is a moment documenting me being as close to the 50/50 ‘want to live/want to die’ line while still being alive
<1% is keeping me on ‘want to live,’ the 1% is just me defaulting to this/not wanting to exert effort into dying
thought ‘if i had more adderall i’d probably feel motivated to die’ as a surprise joke (i don’t mean that)
wish there was a pause button for when you want to be dead for just a little bit
wait that’s what sleep is
maybe
maybe i just need to sleep
i don’t sleep…really…much…in 2013 i have definitely slept the least out of any year
wish i had been measuring exactly, this entire time
it is 1:37PM now
1:55PM: texted zachery wood i was flaking on mushrooms hangout tomorrow. mountain of…just wanting to run away from everything, i am a child, i need to grow up. how is every single network password-protected, there is always something.
1:57PM: put phone face-down to avert zachery’s ‘reaction to disappointing text’ text ooooof ooof oof oof oof oof
1:58PM: phone went buzz buzz zachery w fast response, sympathetic, good he can do tomorrow phew. motivation for today: get it all done today so it can be fun tomorrow
3:40PM: why do the cats want me around. i get why i want them but why do they like me. that’s so nice. it might just be for food. they don’t have a choice.
6:48PM: i did it, i did something i liked. for the website that solicited me. the vocal thing. recorded myself talking non-stop for three minutes. as i was talking i dec
ided to just keep going, like how i’m keeping going with liveblog for as long as i can. just talked non-stop for as long as i could.
decided to do an extended ‘personal keepsake’ version. talked for a little over an hour. i cry for the last 30 minutes or so, maintaining constant/nonstop talking. think i took a few accidental two-to-five second breaks from talking via sobbing. uploaded file to meganassboyle soundcloud account.
7PM: shittalked sam cooke’s movie on twitter (which he’d asked people to do), crying a little less, suckling e-cigarette.
8:43PM: room darkening. switched from ‘java jolt’ to ‘menthol’ flavor e-cigarette.
9:12PM: peed. put on jeans from 2005, blue & white striped dolman-sleeved shirt that tao said was ‘nylon magazine-like’ in an airport in 2010. washed face. have plans to go to dunkin donuts…update this…don’t care enough, so far…
laid face-down on bed and shirley laid on my back
then shirley laid on my legs when i turned on my side
shirley purring the whole time
9:53PM: made spinach/banana smoothie. tweeted a little. smoothie was so cold and good.
10:50–11:59PM: tweeted, sort of talked with mira/mira’s mom via twitter, thought ‘joey buzz ‘got’ what i was saying in tweet mira also ‘got’ that i thought ‘only a specific kind of person would ‘get’ this because it’s written so unclearly due to the thing it’s about,’ watched TV, ate 2mg xanax and leftover kale salad from the night zachary was here, half a chocolate bar, drank two beers, changed into pajamas.
MAY 5, 2013
12–1:[something]AM: did the same things as above, i wasn’t watching the clock. knew i fell asleep after 1AM because i set my alarm for 10AM thinking ‘yeah, nine hours, that’s enough, plus then you can have a ‘morning.”
[middle of the night sometime]: woke craving food, ate an orange