by Megan Boyle
6:12–11:59PM: signed in to @altcitizen. answered maybe four questions. mostly tweeted with one person about funny hypothetical situations involving tom cruise. felt aware of concurrent ‘three-hour only’ online premiere of adam humphrey’s and zachary’s movie, ‘baseball.’
AUGUST 8, 2013
12–2:03AM: have been gchatting with zachary. laughed aloud a few times. craving being in the same room as him. surprised to hear he and ex-girlfriend live together and don’t have sex….seems complicated…it’s probably not though, for them. i could be a dick and say something about his prediction that i might find ‘true love’ in ‘some alternative arrangement.’ ate 10mg oxycodone.
2:24AM: read first few pages of ‘adam’s summer purgatory.’ it makes sense that adam is canadian. in my sixth grade textbook there was a picture of people playing basketball indoors, captioned ‘canadians: they do what americans do, with slightly colder weather.’ it was confusing. no one had told me about canada, though. ate 5mg oxycodone.
shirley peed the bed twice. 12th bed pee since i’ve been back. the last two pees don’t smell. there is a small amount of baking soda left in the box i bought yesterday. ‘from vancouver,’ i wanted to add. feeling the humphreys influence. the unmistakable candadian influence of a humphreys gone wild. its first taste of freedom. adam is a nice person.
here are some things i thought while brushing caked baking soda off the bed, sweeping that from the floor, picking at hair in my eye, scooping terds in trash because the toilet is clogged due to too much toilet paper filled with cat pee:
do i sleep on the comforter tonight? the other comforter is still drying. probably still contains pee. smells wet. if i lay on top of the dry comforter i will put the pee/baking soda spots face-down so it’s harder for shirley to smell her pee and i don’t wake covered in pee. no, if they’re face-down then the pee will be on my body kind of. no, the sheet. no…there’s pee on the sheet. the top sheet? yeah einstein the top sheet too. i could take off the mattress pad. so much work. one side of the mattress pad has four large pee stains and the other side has five or six but which side is better? the side with the most stains…most of the stains were already there, but both sides currently contain recent pee. below the mattress pad is the mattress: weighing in with four pee spots. pee. pee. PIDDLE PAD. SHIRLEY’S DELUXE PIDDLE PAD BEACH BLANKET BONANZA! TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS, THE EVENT OF THE SUMMER, IT DOESN’T MATTER WHERE WE PEE!
i hate anyone who has pets that don’t pee on their bed. i hate them and i hate their pets.
how can parents do this with cats and dogs and babies all at the same time. scared if i ever become a mom i’ll find out ‘the secret’ my parents were protecting me from, which is that it is not fun to have children, but if you don’t tell them you love them they’ll turn out really bad (and sometimes they turn out bad even if you do tell them, as my parents have likely discerned by now).
i understand shirley’s ‘it’s okay to pee anywhere’ attitude. i have that too, humans pee everywhere. they just put a toilet wherever they want to pee. i wasn’t around for the toilet invention and i couldn’t build one on my own. like, i couldn’t just invent a toilet. there’s no way i would’ve known what to do after i invented the toilet. there would be no toilets today if i had invented the toilet.
oh cool i’ll just feed you guys and give you water so you can drop some stank terd and pee where i sleep, and then later maybe you’ll stand just far enough from my hand so that i can almost pet you and when i pet you you start moving around out of reach oh okay okay okay. so here we are in this apartment where i bring us food to eat, we poop and pee, sit mostly alone, and sometimes we make noises that startle each other and we all jump and freak out. that’s what we’ve got going on here. that’s our thing. huh. okay. admittedly i was a little more enthusiastic about giving you attention when i wasn’t sleeping in your excrement. just one of those things about me. i know, i hate it too. it’s like how some guys have some freaky opinions about what you should do to your pubic hair. i’m like that guy, i’m the pubes guy…i just…it’s a quirk of mine, a neuroticism, this ‘learning to accept that i am now sleeping in excrement.’ i downloaded something that’s supposed to help. it’s an app. the app is supposed to help me with this.
to let a 23-year-old person like i was adopt cats…no, it seemed like i had hope back then, i get it. plus there are just so many cats. what else are we supposed to do.
what do other people around my age do when a cat starts peeing the bed. what do other people my age do, in general? do they live in like, warehouses? lofts? is there a lot of newspaper on the floor from art projects or whatever, do the cats just pee on that? no, no. that’s not 27. that’s like, 18-25. guess i missed out on that. never seemed like anyone cleaned at those places. huh. 27-year-olds live in places with refurbished kitchens. they have small business start-ups. or something. they’re married. not like how i am, they’re like, pressured…they experience pressure to ‘settle down.’ huh. i don’t know if i’d like that. i can’t do something like that right now. the small business thing. there is this air of ‘things are calming down but they’re still exciting and i’m looking forward to whatever adulthood has in store for me’ about people my age. definitely not me. think my air is like ‘can you tell i sleep in excrement, that is, when i sleep, i mean most of the time i’m sitting in my bed but that’s not really sleeping, do i look awake to you, too awake? am i too awake? i’m sorry i’ll go lie down, thank you for your time and consideration.’
3:11AM: the band 311 is really funny. i lit a candle. currently obsessed with ‘does it smell like poop in here.’ i’m having the adderall or no-sleep thing of…it feels like there are little hairs in my eyes. as i was tweeting from alt citizen i experienced the ‘neon spinning spherical turtle shell made of tiny shifting geometric patterns and if i look close, stuff that looks like the outlines of rice kernals which i used to think were my rods and cones.’ i get this around the 36-hour ‘no sleep’ mark, i’ve noticed.
earlier in the bathroom while picking at a maybe nonexistent hair i thought ‘richard yates didn’t like himself very much. he or someone like him said something like ‘if people relate to what i’m saying, that is bad. people who are doing well should not relate to this.” feels strange to think about someone reading this, relating to it.
3:12AM–11:59PM: i don’t remember most of what i did. things i’m pretty sure i did:
• ate 2mg xanax
• stood mattress upright against wall and used carpeted cat tower thingy to prop it up so there would be no shirley pee when i returned. broke part of bed frame doing this.
• walked to pickles & pies for e-cigarette cartridges.
• man named paul approached me on the street as i was walking to p&p. it went something like this:
paul: hey how’re you doing?
me: okay.
paul: you live around here?
me: yeah pretty close.
paul: oh nice. hey i’m paul, what’s your name?
me: hi paul, i’m megan [shakes hand].
paul: where you headed?
me: pickles & pies.
paul: cool, cool. hey can i get your number, you wanna get a drink sometime?
me: i don’t think so, no, sorry.
paul: it’d just be a drink [something i forget]
me: no, it’s not going to…no, i’m feeling pretty depressed and antisocial lately
paul: [concerned face] what do you do?
me: uh, nothing, write. writer.
paul: oh cool, writing, that’s cool. hey can i just get your number?
me: [had started walking faster than him] no, really, knowing me lately, i’m…think…it’s not going to happen, i don’t feel like…i’m like, depressed, i’m…it’s…[gesture around head] solitary confinement.
paul: well okay, okay. here, how about i just give you this [hands me business card] then. just in case, alright?
me: okay okay sure okay.
paul: i liv
e right over here on one hundred seventeenth
me: oh cool. have a nice night.
paul: you too megan, gimme a call.
• got two slices cheese pizza from slices & ices
• moved my car from beach 113th st to an ‘it’s okay to park here on fridays’ zone three blocks up on my street
• ate 2mg xanax
AUGUST 9, 2013
12–3:[something]AM: used ‘free’ coupon to watch ‘oblivion,’ a post-apocalyptic tom cruise movie. tweeted with person who i was tweeting funny things about tom cruise with during altcitizen q&a.
3:[something]–7:00AM: was afraid of looking at liveblog and averse to typing during this time. googled my name. an argentinian article came up. seemed hard to focus on one thing/completely read one website. ate 2mg xanax. was going to eat .5, then thought ‘fuck it.’ 6mg xanax total, tonight. saw naked reflection in the mirror. lighting looked okay. recorded a video of parading my naked shitass buffalo bill ‘silence of the lambs’ style. things are looking ‘unwashed’ and ‘spiney.’
haven’t weighed myself for about two weeks. [omitted]’s scale said 129.4lbs. pretty sure now i’m less. hate myself when i write shit like this but whatever, it’d be in my head if it wasn’t words. yuckmaster buffalo bill. rubbing the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. actually no, i shouldn’t hate that. i want to weigh less and it’s happening so i should feel good about that. i do. a little embarrassing to think about other people knowing this about me but…nah. nah. okay not embarrassed anymore. is there any person who has never thought about their weight or how their body looks? anyone? anyone? IF THAT IS YOU AND YOU’RE READING THIS: HOW MUCH DO YOU WEIGH AND WHAT DOES YOUR BODY LOOK LIKE? HAHA MADE YOU THINK HAHA HAHA.
recorded a video of typing an email response to rachel white, who had emailed a few weeks ago asking me if i wanted to participate in a gallery/reading/art show event she’s organizing august 30. she suggested for my part of the thing, i would be liveblogging in front of a video projection of me liveblogging. seems funny. potential to repulse maybe 15 people. decided to not send the email right away via 6mg xanax/sleepless/potential incoherence.
watched ASMR videos to fall asleep.
woke a few times. remember eating an orange and a banana.
1:[something]PM: woke and didn’t want to be awake. think i just laid there half-asleep and dreaming for a few hours, or just like, in a very light sleep.
3:46PM: saw 3:46PM on the clock.
3:58PM: looked for e-cigarette, phone, computer plug for what felt like 30 minutes. fed cats. shirley is acting weird and hiding. worried about pee situation. alvie stood on the litter box and vomited, then he like, dug at it and sniffed it and looked like he was going to eat it.
4:15PM: ate 800mg choline, 1.2g aniracetam, 600mg phethylamine and drank a zero calorie monster. jordan emailed. he’s having some kind of insane money crisis and his parents are kicking him out of his house. going to moneygram him $300 remaining in savings account. jordan’s hell sounds worse than mine. he has a job at least…at least…shit. a few days ago he emailed that he still wants to come to NYC but things were complicated and i understood.
4:47pm: walking down apartment building stairs. Smells like weed. Pee-proofed (I think) bed using mattress maneuver from last night. Wearing shorts bought in 2010, didn’t fit until summer 2011, and are now a little baggy. Ate 20mg adderall xr before leaving. Having eidetic flashbacks to dream last night, involving trying to save three kittens and their mom. One kitten and the mom were missing an eye. Someone was moving into an apartment on the first floor but it wasn’t my building. I kept climbing up and down a fire escape to take the kittens up to an empty apartment on the third floor where it was safe. Buttercup was there. We were looking at the apartment, empty except for cats, and saying ‘it seems small, way too small.’ At ATM now.
5:10pm: withdrew $300 from savings and walked to Duane reade. They’re playing the song that’s like ‘there’s a hole in my heart that can only be filled by you’ that makes me feel like a sad empty dollar store. You use a phone to do moneygram things. I spelled and said Jordan’s name twice and each time the woman repeated ‘gordan’ back to me. She said I need his middle initial. I said ‘does it really matter?’ She started to sound irritated and said ‘yes, the name must match the person’s official ID who you’re sending it to.’ Wanted to say ‘it’s Luis or Francisco or something, sounds Spanish.’ I said ‘I think I know it, can I think for a minute?’ She said ‘mmhmm’ and after a few seconds put me on hold. I hung up the phone. Looked to see if my phone picked up wifi. No dice. Asked cashier if I could use cash. Couldn’t picture how the cash in my hand would get to Ohio. Another customer approached. Cashier said ‘I think so, yeah’ and paged the manager. I looked at the customer he had started to ring up, said ‘I gotta find out a middle name, I’ll be back in like ten minutes.’ Cashier said ‘cool,’ picked up the store phone, said ‘cancel.’ Currently walking up stairs to apartment. Still smells like weed. Feel like I’m going to pass out.
5:18pm: sitting on toilet. Out of breath. There’s a new email from Jordan in our email chain. Since I blacked out the other night I’ve been periodically feeling faint and like I need to lay down but then that kind of makes it worse. Used toilet paper to wipe Alvie’s vomit from floor, then dropped the clump of it in toilet.
5:35PM: sitting on floor. listening to ‘what that was’ by majical clouds on repeat. waiting to hear what jordan’s (or ‘gordan’s,’ as he is known in certain moneygram circles) middle name is.
6:01pm: descending apartment building stairs. Jordan is at the grocery store where money should be sent. Worried this isn’t going to work. It’s going to work. Got that middle name in tow: ‘Julio.’ Me and Julio down by the Duane reade moneygram station. Wish Jordan was here. Dreading apartment re-entry. Feels like the bleakest place…solitary confinement headquarters…in a bad way.
6:05pm: put phone in pocket and waited to pass a man standing by a van to write this. Forget what I wanted to write. Remembered as I was typing ‘what I:’ I don’t feel effects from adderall anymore.
6:25pm: when I said Jordan’s middle initial was ‘j,’ the moneygram man said “j’ as in ‘Jordan?”
There was a $23 service fee. I had $2. The cashier said the whole thing had to be in cash. Tried Duane reade ATM several times but it didn’t read card. Ran to pickles & pies ATM three blocks away and withdrew $60 from checking and ran back. There was a line. Female cashier waved to me and I waved and smiled. She said ‘just step over here’ and I walked to the moneygram phone. Female cashier asked who I was sending money to. I said ‘Jordan Castro.’ Male cashier said ‘that’s me!’ I said ‘oh my god, Jordan! I haven’t seen you in so long, you look so different!’ We laughed. Female cashier handed me ~18” receipt with reference number on it. Then everything was good. I thought ‘let’s push my luck while I’m at it.’ Asked her for quarters in exchange for $3. Said ‘I have a laundry…situation…’She wordlessly laid out little stacks of quarters then said ‘here you go.’ I said ‘woohoo thank you.’ She smiled and I walked out the door.
6:41pm: walking up stairs to apt. Winded.
6:46pm: Jordan emailed that it all worked out sweet ass hell yeah. Emailed back that this gave my day purpose…also things about wanting to get pounded by him…heheheh…damn want Jordan sex bad right now. Picturing him at grocery store receiving money and feeling happy, I was able to provide help for a good person, this is making me feel better, I am less wasteful. Surge of horniness. This is funny. Feeling horny due to these circumstances. Genuine horny…thing…imagining Jordan at my door and like, grabbing him, making out, damn. Hehhegehheheheh. Laying in bed with Jordan, ‘reading the newspaper,’ I thought. Haha. Both of us in ‘smoking jackets’ or fancy bathrobes, side-by-side on the bed with our legs extended after sex, holding newspapers, noncommittally quoting the stock market.
7:33PM: chelsea emailed something very sweet and thoughtful and funny and emotional. she is in
curacao. fucking. so happy chelsea is in my life. wish everyone could know chelsea, or have a person like chelsea in their lives. people like chelsea make me want to keep going.
took pictures of myself in bathing suit from freshman year of high school. it smells like chlorine. it has always been tight around the waistband part. still gathers/bunches at waistband a little but all in all, not bad. not bad shitass. have always wanted one to have one of those inviting gaps between my upper thighs. why? so, uh…so the guys know…so they can more clearly see ‘where to put it’…i guess? no reason really. i have achieved inviting thigh gap. inviting thigh gap achieved. and just look at where’s it’s gotten me. ‘woohoo.’
took down ‘pee prevention fort.’ did 400 crunches, chewed 30mg adderall IR with incisors, opened fridge and a 12oz sugar-free red bull and zero calorie monster drink fell onto floor. opened the red bull over sink and tried to drink the fizz to help wash down adderall.
alvie just had a hilarious scare with my earphones. i haven’t showered since august 1. this might be a personal record. my friend alec and his two friends are visiting NYC this weekend and i said they could stay at my place. forgot it was ‘weekend’ already. sent him a facebook message saying he could stay and that i’ve been feeling bad and it’s all seemed like the same day since sunday (day of his last message to me). he responded a few minutes ago with something very sweet and empathic that…damn. don’t want to type it all, just want to respond.
9:20PM: wrote a long emotional response to alec’s message which basically said ‘here’s how to park, this is where i live, i want to be alone tonight, i want to see you and have you stay over tomorrow/however long you want to visit.’