LIVEBLOG

by Megan Boyle

  INTERESTING….

  during this time he also accidentally said my name. forget how. he gave me five quarters. earlier i had eaten 1mg xanax and he’d eaten a benadryl but we still felt awake. i said ‘let’s split an ambien.’ then…hm. we ended up eating one ambien each, total, i think.

  9:[something]-10:[something]AM: woke lazily. had sex. good. showered. [omitted] was going to be late. i said i wanted to sleep a little more then go to the library and he gave me keys and said i could stay as long as i wanted, then go back to rockaway park, or then meet up after work to watch game seven somewhere. i said ‘i’ll sleep and go to the library to work and hang around here until you get back.’

  10:46am: drove [omitted] to the Q train. I hit a pothole and my car shook then a few seconds later [omitted] almost opened his door on man on a bike who said ‘wake the fuck up man.’ Parked two blocks from his place. Walking to his apartment to sleep a little more, then library. It’s nice outside. I am happy.

  FIRST FAVORITE THING I’VE SEEN TODAY:

  [omitted]’s face coming out of his white button-down shirt, standing still, watching the bike man ride away in the distance, face looking indignant but behind that something sweet and childlike and almost disappointed…unconsciously displaying some core level of emotion, like ‘this must’ve happened before: the guy who yelled because of something i did and then he got away’…anger and ultimate resignation…there is a mouse in ‘the Secret of NIMH’ who makes this face. Big time endeared to him at that moment.

  2:00pm: woke but was like nah.

  3:57pm: woke. Want to get green juice and coffee and go to library. Read Chelsea text from last night and RSVP-ed to two google calendar events she made for our hangouts this week. Warm feelings about Chelsea, making the Google events. Chelsea. I miss Chelsea. Looked at pictures of her (ex?) boyfriend on Facebook to make sure he wasn’t dating anyone else because I’d rage against them…rage against dating anyone but Chelsea…

  4:41pm: ate 60mg vyvanse. Bought large kale/spinach/cucumber/apple/ginger juice from juice place across the street. Jamaican music was playing. Walked to library and remembered wanting an energy/coffee thing. Walked to deli.

  SECOND FAVORITE THING I’VE SEEN TODAY:

  older girl with black curly hair and two younger girls kicked a ball. man in neon orange ‘jogging gear’ neared them. the older girl kicked the ball into the man and he kept running. she looked at me with this dropped-jaw horror movie face and said ‘oh my god’ and i smiled and almost winked at her…wanted my smile to convey ‘it’s all good babydoll. you did good.’ a family of four (two little boys, dog, dad, mom) walked the same path as the jogging man, opposite me. the mom seemed to see the entire thing and smiled at me the way i smiled at the girl.

  4:44pm: hovering near line at deli now. Holding 12oz sugar-free red bull and a monster zero. The things keep happening:

  THIRD FAVORITE THING I’VE SEEN TODAY:

  little boy puts a green Palmolive soap bottle on deli counter

  deli man says something

  little boy says ‘that ain’t $5.50’

  deli man says ‘you want straws’

  little boy says ‘i ain’t gonna drink that’ and disappears

  6:42PM: have been sitting in library typing in/organizing liveblog. told [omitted] i would write an article. he said ‘you should do that, write other things besides liveblog too.’ i don’t know what to write about. i don’t like losing track of days. since i’ve been back from maryland it’s felt like the same day and i’m never sure what day of the week it is.

  7:10PM: [omitted] texted something funny about his name around 4PM. i haven’t responded.

  7:24PM: still sitting in library. no article dice. listening to ‘colors and the kids’ on repeat. the part where she says ‘i could stay here, become someone different. i could stay here, become someone better.’ oof. i don’t know. before i typed text in front of ‘7:24PM:’ i had typed ‘i think i have a problem with drugs.’

  8:08pm: leaving library. Meeting [omitted] to eat before 9PM game. Wish I hadn’t slept so much today and I didn’t have plans tomorrow. Walking fast. Unsure where I’m going. He said to meet at [name of restaurant I thought was maybe fake].

  8:14pm: the place was real. Real restaurant. Saw the sign for it and crossed street and he was standing outside with a plastic bag. Snuck up/ran to him and went ‘AHHH’ and ‘hi’ and we hugged and started walking to a liquor store. He said ‘do you want wine?’ I said ‘yeah yeah, wine, I want a wine.’ he said ‘white? Cold? Maybe the cat I was talking about is here.’ I said ‘uh. The cat?’ he said ‘the cat I come here fo—’ I said ‘the cat! I remember. The cat. White wine, yeah. Cold.’ then we were in the back looking at a fridge. He said ‘should we get champagne?’ I said ‘champagne! Yeah. Prosecco.’ All of this felt like a ‘rising action’ musical comedy number where the characters are acting determined yet unsure and like they know something the audience doesn’t.

  8:30pm: eating take-out at apartment. Jerk chicken. Have been hurrying, hurried pace. He said ‘eight thirty, we have plenty of time.’ I said ‘but we should still hurry. Just because it’s fun’ and he looked excited.

  8:38pm: now we’re done. Finished food 8:33PM. One of us said that. He started streaming the game on his phone. I sang along to an ‘800-588-2300 empire’ commercial and said ‘I’m always going to know that.’ Asked if he’d seen the eagle man commercial. Showed it to him at a commercial break. He liked it. Remembered ‘lakers champions’ video Nate and Seth and I used to watch and laugh and said ‘oh there’s another funny thing like that I want to show you later.’ Started to describe video and said ‘no wait, I shouldn’t build it up, it won’t live up to the hype.’ he said ‘the eagle man lived up to your hype.’

  8:38–11:59PM: walked to bar to watch game. i bet him if the heat won i’d get to call him by his name again. he didn’t really agree or disagree to bet terms. thought ‘i’m being too [something]. too eager to think of ideas. no more bets for a while after this.’ during the first or second quarter we stood outside and i smoked maybe 75% of a cigarette, said ‘it’s making my stomach feel weird, do you want it,’ and he took it. happy to be there with him and everyone in the bar, all of us there for the same thing. said ‘it smells of cabbage in here’ a few times. [omitted] said ‘shrimps.’ i said ‘a twelve-inch shrimp.’ tweeted from unedited account. talked to people. bought six beers for each of us. when the game ended i cried a little and said ‘imagine how they must feel right now, walking to their locker rooms.’ [omitted] said ‘i always forget that that’s happening right now, they’re doing that right now.’ could tell i was hamming it up a little, but not disingenuously. we were walking and holding hands. this feels like a ben lerner-style confession.

  i wanted to get another drink or do something to prolong the period before we were back at his apartment. felt restless. [omitted] expressed not wanting to drink more but wanting me to be happy. sat/leaned on a benched-in tree by an outdoor seating area. he pointed to a window and said ‘see? they’re putting the chairs up already.’ i said ‘that’s okay, it’ll be good to go back.’

  i said we should race from where we stood to end of the block and back, separately, with the other person timing. he groaned. i said ‘just time me, then.’ he said ‘no, just stay here.’ i said ‘no just please, just time me, i’ll be right back.’ he said ‘okay.’ ran as fast as i could, pretending i was getting chased by the nothing from ‘neverending story’ and [vague thing that wants to ‘get me’]. passed a man. the block was longer than i thought it’d be. jogged then walked defeatedly. [omitted] was holding his phone and watching. i did one minute 30something seconds. he said ‘did you really run the whole way?’ i said ‘yeah.’ he stood and said ‘okay. i’m doing it.’ i said ‘even with the cigarette?’ he put it out and said ‘oh-hhhh, boy.’ timed him. he ran faster than i felt like i was running. watched him shrink under street light shadows, then reappear full-size by me. i said ‘one minute fifty-fou
r seconds.’ he said ‘that’s a good two hundred meters,’ breathing hard. he said ‘did you really go the whole way? to the sign?’ i said ‘yeah.’

  it was hard for him to walk. he hadn’t been wearing socks. felt guilty for making us run but that also he could’ve stopped.

  at apartment:

  remember him standing in the kitchen, taking off shoes and showing me his feet. skin was peeling off a toe and it looked red and bleeding underneath. both heels were also not so good. not in good shape at all. he talked about how his feet bones, from the impact of hitting the ground in a certain way while running, due to the shape of his arches, have started growing abnormally into ‘spurs.’ bone spurs. he was in pain. big time. didn’t know what to do. we sat on the couch. i said ‘oh now can i show you the other video?’

  JUNE 21, 2013

  12:35am: loaded ‘lakers champions’ video on my phone. he said ‘i hate the lakers.’ i said ‘it’s not really about that, just wait.’ video started. he said ‘oh no, he reminds me of this guy in high school.’ i said ‘it’s not, he’s not, don’t worry.’

  watched a little less than half of it. i was laughing a little and sometimes repeating lines and he was…not. doing those things. haha. i said ‘we don’t have to watch it, you don’t like it, it’s okay.’

  argued. first argument. he thought the guy was taking advantage of the basketball fans in a mean-spirited way. i said i didn’t think he was doing that and i don’t think mean-spirited things are funny. he said ‘he’s acting. it’s like ‘jackass.’ he just wants to show how stupid basketball fans sound.’ i said ‘i think he’s making fun of himself more than anyone, if he’s making fun of anyone.’ he said ‘he’s definitely making fun of the fans.’ i said ‘you don’t know though’ [i also don’t know]. he was in the kitchen. i said ‘as a person who likes basketball and a person who likes to…um: i thought it was funny. also he must like basketball because he knows how to talk that way.’ he said something about the guy being clumsy or unaware of how he’s talking. i said ‘no! at the end he like, repeats himself perfectly, he goes like, ‘nn-nn-i couldn’ta said it, nn…n-better? without…? [exhales] uh, myself’ twice. he knows what he’s doing i think.’ [omitted] kind of smiled. i was smiling too. he said something like ‘yeah, but you and me and the guy, we’re all in the position of, you know. we’re aware of some things.’ i said ‘i don’t like stuff like that, i don’t like when people point out how stupid other people are so they can look smart. the thing about it that’s funny to me is the language thing. he’s pointing out how absurd language can be.’ he said ‘but he’s doing it at the expense of these people, he’s making them look stupid.’ i said ‘you’re just having a personal bias, he just reminds you of someone you didn’t like in high school.’

  remember really wanting to ‘hammer home’ my thoughts about the video’s pure intentions. i said ‘i feel like the guy, like i don’t talk well, especially about sports, i’m just saying a lot of nothing. like at the bar tonight when i said to the guy, ‘we know who’s gonna win it’ or whatever. it’s like this social agreement to say nothing sometimes, he’s just making a video about that.’ remember [omitted] emphatically saying something about how much the game meant to the fans and felt like i agreed. i said ‘but even if it is that, like. what about that would even be bad though…i feel like anything can be viewed as funny, or just. not always. serious.’ told story about acting school exercise where small groups of us went out on the street and stared/pointed incredulously at nonexistent thing in the sky to see how passers-by would react. he said ‘yeah, but you were doing an experiment, it wasn’t being filmed, no one could put it on youtube so there was no risk of anyone getting taken advantage of.’ i said ‘i’d like it if someone made a video of me like that and put it on youtube.’ he said ‘but you’re okay with things like that.’ made sense to me. felt like it was coming to an end around this time but i still felt interested in/wanted to be clear about…humor…what i don’t like…i’m laughing, it’s 2:59AM now, WITHOUT FURTHER INTRODUCTION HERE IS WHAT I THINK I SAID, OFFICIALLY STOPPING TRYING TO MAKE MYSELF NOT SOUND LIKE AN ASS oh my god goddamnit, goddamnit lol: ‘so there’s two kinds of humor: there’s schadenfreude, which is when there’s a plot to make someone feel bad…humor at the expense of someone’s feelings…it’s aggressive. then there’s the other kind. which is about absurdity. i think. it’s not directed at anyone, or it’s directed at ideas or something, which is what i think the video is. i don’t think schadenfreude is funny ever. like, looney tunes. i never thought that was funny at all, when i was little. i was just like ‘why are they being like that, i don’t get it.” [omitted] seemed to kind of agree or…i think we were both losing interest in talking about this, maybe. he said ‘you didn’t even think wile e. coyote was funny?’ i said ‘no, not even. no. i just didn’t get it.’ i said ‘mainly i just don’t want you to think i think it’s funny when people are made to feel bad or stupid, i don’t like that.’ he said ‘i don’t think you think that.’ jesus. can’t believe i’m still typing this. agreed. um. ‘napoleon dynamite’ was funny because it was sweet-natured and not designed to make fun of anyone.

  what’s funny about all of this is i’m sitting here now, feeling very serious as i’m trying to accurately recapture a now-resolved minor argument where i was feeling very serious about articulating why i thought a youtube video was funny, how i like being able to not take things seriously, and how stuff is funniest when it’s not supposed to mean anything.

  12:37am: ‘no I need surgery,’ walks away, ‘I’ve been told,’ walks back, ‘I’ve been told I need surgery.’

  12:39am: he is laughing from bathroom washing feet. I said ‘use soap,’ he said ‘uh huh,’ is now laughing maniacally. Recently established band aid situation: out of band aids. Prepared paper towels and offered to dress wounds, said ‘my dad would bandage stuff when I was little, it felt good to have another person do it.’

  4:07AM: applied makeshift paper towel bandages and he laid face-down on bed. tried to be careful but slipped a few times. remember saying ‘you have to drink this whole thing of water before bed’ and offering pain killers a few times, saying ‘shit i’m acting like my mom, it can be annoying, i’m sorry,’ him saying ‘it’s okay.’ put on a t-shirt. had sex then went out to sit on couch (i’m not trying to be aloof/dismissive/detached/whatever it is people think i’m being when i write about how i had sex). put on big glasses mom said grandma could’ve stolen.

  took pictures of each other. talked about [not comfortable elaborating, felt closer to him at the end]. went to bed. joked about how he hated the lakers video. i said ‘that was the first time we argued, interesting.’ he said something like ‘you were just feeling strongly about something, it’s okay, it doesn’t change anything about how much fun it was to watch the game and do other stuff with you tonight.’

  hard to sleep. at some point i ate 5mg hydrocodone and gave him a small amount of morphine.

  4:08am: laid in bed in the dark. Talked about writing/liveblog. Felt annoying insistent urge to…jesus. I said ‘I’m not all this one thing, will you read this, I don’t know why I want you to.’ He said ‘I’d be happy to’ and I texted a link to a vice article and he read it and laughed sometimes and I tried not to react and looked at my phone and felt fragile/shaky. Then it was over and I felt normal again. Gave him ‘treasure hunt’ back rub thing mom used to give me.

  5:34am: can’t sleep. He’s snoring. Listened to Brian eno song on earphones. Didn’t help. I am loud moving from the bed to living room. Ate 1.5 ambien units, 5mg hydrocodone, six beers, half bottle of champagne tonight.

  10:30am: woke to hug/kiss from freshly showered [omitted]. Drippy. Nice. He asked what time I’m meeting Zachery in coney island. He is going to a party tonight. Asked if I wanted to hang out after party or tomorrow. He is having a hard time walking.

  11:24am: did dishes. Felt latent embarrassment about asking him to read my article, like how I’d make my mom listen to me pra
ctice monologues before auditions in high school. He said ‘I wanted to read it, that’s why I read it.’ It’s bad when you ask someone to be interested in something, knowing ‘real interest’ only happens without prompt. Then you feel like you pressured the person to 1) be interested, 2) reassure you of their interest. Never works. Always bad. My fault. Why did I want him to read it so much right then. Real cringefest Boyle. NEVER AGAIN BOYLE.

  Sitting on couch. Ate noopept, 54mg concerta. Not feeling effects yet. Going to sprinkle some adderall balls on tongue. Fuck.

  11:46am: Zachery texted that he wanted to rest before coney island bing.com photo safari. I said I could pick him up whenever he was ready. Want to get green juice and walk around I guess…wonder how long it’ll be…

  12:05pm: did time + paper towel wasting thing. drew pictures of fish chasing fish on paper towel, cut them out with scissors, placed on his bed. I would leave things like this on second ex-boyfriend’s bed. Like. Objects or drawings. He would leave in the morning and I’d make his bed and ‘tuck in’ a bottle of Windex or something.

  12:17pm: at green juice place. The juice is being made. Feeling insane bad for some reason. Yesterday I felt good because I knew I’d go to the library then there would be basketball. Now I’m about to do a potentially fun social thing but I don’t know when to expect it’ll happen. Feel like I have nothing to say right now. No I don’t know. It’ll be fun. Lately my baseline/waking feeling is several notches below the ‘normal’ line. I think most people naturally wake somewhere above the ‘normal’ line…like. Most people are plankton at the surface of the ocean and I’m something slow-moving and groaning and ‘as yet undiscovered’ in the bottom-middle area.