![starting today, march 17, 2013 i will be liveblogging everything i do. right now in my life there is no one i talk to frequently enough that they would be upset by me not doing things i had told them i would do. the only person ‘keeping tabs’ on my life is me. as time has been passing i have been feeling an equally out-of-control sensation of my life not belonging to me or something, like it’s just this thing that’s happening, that i don’t seem to be participating in much, and so am sort of failing at it. i witness myself willfully allowing opportunities to fade away from me because i don’t follow through with the tasks necessary to make them happen, because for whatever reason, it is hard for me to make myself do things that i know will make me happy sometimes.
i have no control over getting older but have i some control about the the things i do as i get older. also i feel like my memory is deteriorating. i used to document my daily activities. i feel like that helped me remember things. i even liked doing that. lately i haven’t been feeling like the things i’m doing are worth remembering. but i feel like that could just be a mind trick and if i just start writing more again, i can convince myself those things are worth remembering and everything is basically the same as it was however many years ago it was when i felt more satisfied or hopeful or whatever it is i don’t feel now.
**THIS IS NOT GOING TO BE INTERESTING** **I AM NOT GOING TO TRY TO MAKE THIS SOUND INTERESTING OR TRY TO MAKE YOU LIKE ME OR THINK ABOUT YOU IF YOU ARE READING THIS OR ENJOYING READING THIS, IT’S JUST GOING TO BE WHAT IT IS, IT’S A FUNCTIONAL THING THAT WILL HOPEFULLY HELP ME FEEL MORE LIKE IMPROVING MYSELF**
recently this post became too big to edit as one long document. from now on, all new updates will appear on this page. the most recent ones will be at the bottom. every four days i’ll archive the text on this page and continue to update here. no current plans to stop doing this. thank you for reading.
archives:
MAY 12, 2013 - MAY 15, 2013
MAY 8, 2013 - MAY 11, 2013
MAY 4, 2013 - MAY 7, 2013
APRIL 30, 2013 - MAY 3, 2013
APRIL 26, 2013 - APRIL 29, 2013
APRIL 22, 2013 - APRIL 25, 2013
APRIL 18, 2013 - APRIL 21, 2013
APRIL 14, 2013 - APRIL 17, 2013
APRIL 10, 2013 - APRIL 13, 2013
APRIL 6, 2013 - APRIL 9, 2013
APRIL 2, 2013 - APRIL 5, 2013
MARCH 29, 2013 - APRIL 1, 2013
MARCH 25, 2013 - MARCH 28, 2013
MARCH 21, 2013 - MARCH 24, 2013
MARCH 17, 2013 - MARCH 20, 2013
for questions/comments, i will probably respond faster than if emailed or contacted in any other way: http://ask.fm/meganboyleliveblog
MAY 16, 2013
12:00-2:11AM: edited and sent jesse’s story. listened to ‘bamboo cactus’ by i, cactus on repeat. didn’t look at other things on the internet at all, i think. i took a pee pee break. focused big time on editing. listening to ‘goodbye stranger’ by supertramp now. archived may 12-15.
3:22AM: how is it now 3:22AM. thought of myself as ‘fluffily hurtling towards death’ instead of ‘placing red bull on windowsill.’ considering re-reading parts of this to see ‘how it came to this.’
3:30AM: i don’t know what i did from 2:12-3:21. going to look at my internet history and fucking…i’ll show a screenshot…seems like it’s going to be embarrassing:
3:40AM: i must’ve been doing other things. i don’t know. want to be held by something. should i drive to maryland now…for just…sad…i don’t know. what the hell am i doing. i’ve been doing the liveblog thing for two months, tomorrow. things felt shitty a month ago but things feel shittier now but now i’m doing the thing i thought would make me feel less shitty.
3:44AM: seems like i lost focus of something but i don’t know what. i would pay someone to read this whole thing and tell me what i lost focus of. or like, tell me where it seems like i start feeling worse, or do a graph of how bad i seem to feel…to that person…the things i was doing/not doing.
SUMMARY OF THINGS I WAS DOING IN EACH ARCHIVED PAGE:
march 17-march 20: had idea for liveblog, staying at mom’s, vomited heroin/xanax, solicited people for ideas for vice articles, solicited matthew donahoo to write recommendation letters for me (as my manager and as tao) to get into apartment building where i am currently living (lol), went to wegman’s, went to whole foods, flossed teeth, wrote about yoga poses, started having visual hallucinations from staying awake for so long, drove around 695 reading liveblog, sat in grocery store parking lot to buy things to help me assemble ‘application for apartment’ package but did not enter store, did all caps interruptive bitch ass/heath ledger edit, refused coffee from dad even though i wanted it, told people to call me and i’d make the ‘shower noise’ at them, mom got the ass-wiper thingy and we laughed, got lost on the way to dad’s, had long emotional talk with dad, got things from grocery store after all, ate molly and wrote stuff, was going to drive to NYC to give real estate agent package but not enough time, had…just…seems like a slew of funny ideas/observations, ate general tso’s frozen thing mom made, wrote blake butler reality TV show pilot, ate xanax and got in bathtub, fell asleep in tub, slept for the first time on march 20, woke ~6PM and wrote emotional thing about being 27, snorted heroin
march 21-march 25: stayed awake until ~6AM, mom had samples of shrimp, wrote about shirley, mom watched ‘downton abbey,’ watched ‘the master’ with mom, talked about abortion, ate a lot of carbs and xanax, person paid me for liveblog manuscript, listened to ‘ruins’ by aloha in wegman’s parking lot, drove to philadelphia via zachary calling me, had sex, went to diner, woke and had sex and made smoothie and showered, bought cat food w/zachary and saw ‘tiny eagles bud light can,’ went to temple library and typed a lot, mutual frustration w/zachary in ‘fresh grocer,’ threw rotten watermelon in penn treaty park river, watched ‘the fighter,’ got drunk and typed drunk fight things, woke and had sex, went to kool a.d. show and didn’t type much about it
march 26-march 28: watched ‘da vinci code’ and ‘angels and demons,’ ate food from central pizza, andrea coates response to liveblog, stayed drunk and alone and typed about ‘i’m coconuts over you’ rum, woke and typed liveblog and zachary seemed maybe impatient/frustrated, watched ‘jeopardy,’ argued, started to drive back to MD, zachary left his phone in my car so i drove back, saw car accident, zachary wasn’t home and i snorted heroin, got period, threw rotten wings into penn treaty park, went to wawa, stayed awake all night typing and zachary seemed impatient/frustrated, smoked and typed in my car, vomited, showered, drove zachary to NJ bus, went to whole foods and dunkin donuts, masturbated, napped, gchatted zachary from NJ and watched ‘jeopardy’ together, made ‘apartment tour’ videos, decided to make the next day ‘baby’s day out’ where i get shit done, felt scared and hid knives under pillow, completed ‘baby’s day out’ and sent apartment application package, ate wawa BLT, packed box, showed pic of boobs, wrote about sex with game show hosts, drove to old dorm at UARTS in early morning on xanax, ate carbs, woke and showed pic of aborted baby, went to whole foods to get boxes for packing, fed brad the cat, zachary arrived home, packed boxes
march 29-april 1: ordered food from germantown, drank most of a thing of whiskey w/zachary, watched ‘king of the hill,’ had sex i don’t remember, ‘ex-boyfriend’ changed to ‘zachary,’ posted videos of zachary and me, dropped off modem thingy at comcast while on xanax, went to el jarocho, napped and zachary packed, travis and kat came over and helped us pack/load pick-up truck and my car, encountered problems with tarp on the drive to MD, locked dad’s keys in apartment, storage unit was closed, drove back to dad’s, got a little drunk, shaved zachary’s face in AM, put my things into storage unit and encountered problems with tarp, zachary went back to philly for job interview, i drove to my old apartment in baltimore, felt weird things, went to mom’s and received adderall & noopept, joked with mom, went to dad’s and took pic of room where i’ll be staying at dad’s, wrote things about infinity (?), drove to philly really late, slept in empty apartment on couch with zachary, packed zachary’s things in truck/moved them to travis’ and made disjointed updates on iphone i never elaborated on, encountered tarp problems following zachary to NJ, got kind of drunk, argued and spilled soup on my computer and broke the back of it trying to dry spill, paid for fancy dinner at ‘the knife and fork’ and went to atlantic city with zachary, disjointed updates
april 2-april 5: argued with zachary and wrote stuff on papers about the argument, drove back to MD, arrived at dad’s ~6AM, ate xanax and slept, went to forever 21, went to mom’s, ate vyvanse and had twitter conversation w/mira and her mom, did not follow through with plans to elaborate on disjointed updates, ate a lot of adderall, alvie was howling a lot, thought ‘people are losing interest in liveblog,’ shittalked depressed people (lol), started doing neurotic ‘**EDIT, [time]’ things, did not make it to macmedics in time and cried about unrelated things, made crying videos for rion harmon, dad made loud noises and i apologized for being irritated/rude, drove around beltway aimlessly, no sleep, identified ‘DON’T DO THIS’ behavior of getting caught up in obligation to elaborate, ate xanax and slept, woke, emailed with jordan, formatted liveblog for blogger futilely, figured out ‘existential/speed of thought ratios,’ ate a lot of adderall, alvie broke air mattress, stayed awake all night again, extreme boring updates about ‘i’m stressed about elaborating,’ ‘not making myself laugh anymore,’ identified neurotic thought patterns
april 6-april 9: felt sad about dad’s apartment, dad was drunk and kept offering help, continued formatting liveblog for blogger.com, ate xanax and carbs and watched TV, woke and wrote about dreams, gave up on formatting, wrote about what would happen if i kidnapped people, solicited tao for formatting advice, read weatherhead’s liveblog and made pasta and fell asleep on couch, woke, made ‘apartment tour’ of dad’s apartment, moved entire liveblog to blogger accidentally, drove to whole foods and talked to zachary/emotional conversation, drove to mom’s and didn’t eat corned beef, transferred liveblog to tumblr pages, stayed up all night again, overhead parents in the morning, went to macmedics successfully, met dad at office to give him key to storage unit and bank was closed, analyzed ‘feeling bad’ thought pattern thing, fed cats, went to mom’s and had good long talk, watched ‘homeland’ with mom and stayed awake all night since previous night, wrote funny things about 10 year high school reunion, downloaded and signed lease for apt i’m currently in and got dad to sign, fed cats, listened to less than jake and drove around, talked about how spring smells and weird sky things with mom
april 10-april 13: went to fedex and scanned lease and sent to colin, drove to try to find water fountain, played tic tac toe on the phone w/zachary, said ‘there are things i need to do today or else bad things will happen to people i think about most,’ wrote letter to gyno authorizing her to not perform colposcopy on me, dyed hair, went to target, dad signed new lease at office & i talked with sue, went to fedex again and re-sent lease to colin, went to 24-hour grocery store, someone tweeted that i seemed mentally ‘in trouble’ sort of, ate adderall and stayed up all night, made ask.fm, made liveblog look better/rearchived pages and deleted old pages, took pictures of the sky at 3 times, reviewed questions people asked me on ask.fm, went to walmart to look for water thing for alvie, decorated dad’s apartment for his birthday, wrote funny stuff kind of, stayed up all night, wrote more funny things, ate more adderall, ‘freaked out’ a little about not doing things i said i was going to do, thought i was going to die, went to petsmart, drove to mom’s, visual hallucination thingies re no sleep, mom made me eggs, ate xanax, we watched paul rudd movie about being 40, woke ~6PM, dad came over, watched ‘homeland,’ ate more xanax and lemon chicken, ice cream
april 14-april 17: ate xanax more and tried to fall asleep, responded to people’s questions, woke ~7PM, went to dad’s to set up alvie’s water device from petsmart, went back to mom’s and ate xanax and carrabba’s take-out food from dad, watched ‘les miserables’ and ‘homeland’ and ate more xanax, woke, parents were leaving for something, showered still in xanax haze, ate adderall/vyvanse and stayed up all night and made book packages, thought ‘liveblog is uninteresting because…,’ wrote funny seeming thoughts, got dad’s signature on ‘house rules’ for apartment, deposited check, decided ‘doing the liveblog and writing on the internet is not making me feel happy and i should probably stop,’ went to fedex to scan thing with dad’s signature to colin, did spacedads reading thing, argued with dad for a lot of hours, car got towed in middle of night during argument, cancelled going to new york/photo shoot thingy, went to tow place ~11AM, parents left for the beach, went to whole foods, decided to ‘take a break’ from liveblog but didn’t, got sushi, livetweeted ‘the place beyond the pines’
april 18-april 21: ate leftover sushi in my car after movie ~1AM, drove to DC, ate xanax and smoked pot and made video, masturbated, woke and watched prison documentaries, ate pringles and sparkling water and didn’t make it to yoga on time, went to mom’s to check mail, emotional talk with mom on phone while she was in ocean city with dad, went to dad’s, skyped with rachel white about tao for an article she’s doing, woke and car was towed again, cancelled gyno appointment re car towed, wrote ‘every time my car has been towed,’ walked in the rain to ATM, talked with royal farms employee for a long time, took cab to towing place, drove to wegman’s, sat in car and typed on phone, made juice, felt paranoid car would be towed again and thought i’d drive to mom’s to avoid anxiety but didn’t, didn’t sleep, wrote DMT account, april 20 i said ‘why hasn’t anyone called me out on being ___,’ wrote long all caps metaphor about the holocaust while driving to frederick, went to petsmart, fed cats, decided to ‘take the night off’ and drove to mom’s, ordered domino’s and updated constantly about MMA fight and other TV show, slept, went between sleeping and waking and ‘allowing’ ‘top chef’ to be on TV, masturbated, parents came home arguing, dad left, watched heroin documentary with mom
5:22AM: i’ve just been doing this. ecigarette seems broken. sky is bluish like sun is rising but not quite yet. took a pee break. felt extremely sad and like ‘where am i, why am i not at mom’s, where can i drive to that’s safe,’ very disoriented pee. going to continue summarizing:
april 22-april 25: intense abdominal craming and UTI pain, sat on toilet answering people’s questions, watched AOL ‘morning rush,’ watched ‘mary tyler moore’ with mom, mom fell asleep, took 3 hour nap, drove to NYC, had interview with nasa/alt citizen, went to library, picked up mira and sam from dumpling place, hung out at mira’s apartment and made up ‘smartdog’ joke, drove to sam’s for crack, did crack for most of the night/morning, ate xanax, woke ~4PM and drank coffee with mira, drove back to MD, felt depressed, typed lyrics to ‘ruins’ by aloha, made kale smoothie thing at mom’s, dad came over and seemed happy, ‘decided to commit to writing down all details of crack night’ all night and ate adderall, gabby gabby wrote article about my liveblog, got my period, assembled more book packages, funny text conversation with masha, went to dad’s for storage unit key then storage unit and found MDMAfilms DVDs, fedex-ed DVDs to spain, emailed gabby, forgot i was going to NYC again and hadn’t slept again, mom made me eggs and seemed anxious around me, watched ‘mary tyler moore’ then ‘homeland’ with mom, woke in mom’s bed, dreamed something about zachary, drove to rockaway park, had interview with apartment people in my building, mira didn’t respond to texts right away due to shitty day, drove back to MD, stopped at rest stop with woman with bright red hair
april 26-april 29: listed rest stops from MD to NYC while driving, tried to masturbate, arrived at mom’s, was on tramadol (?), woke in the afternoon, drove to NYC for zachary’s fishkind show, went to burger king on the way, ate xanax, did cocaine all night with mira/sam/zachery/andrew/maggie, mira and i put each other’s feet in our mouths, slept at sam’s with mira, woke ~4PM and drove to MD, ate burger king, talked with zachary on phone, vomited burger king, ate vicodin and xanax at mom’s, woke, mom made me a ham & cheese sandwich, dad gave me ~60mg xanax, apologized for ‘shitty updates,’ napped, dad brought me an extra pork sandwich and i ate it, answered ask.fm questions, worried about moving, ate xanax and wrote things about feeling like a failure, woke and moved things from MD to NYC with dad’s uhaul friends, thought i lost cats, car battery died and dad jump started it, drove for an hour or so picked up zachary and drove us to my new apartment, had sex kind of, zachary set up shelf and TV, unpacked, walked to grocery store by me (waldbaum’s)
april 30-may 3: found cats behind oven, oven was broken so we made steaks in the toaster oven, drank beer and watched ‘the office’ and ‘king of the hill,’ did sex things, ate xanax secretly, fell asleep together, woke to zachary leaving, unpacked everything and hung up pictures, drove to MD to use internet and go to gyno appointment the next morning, answered ask.fm questions and listened to m83 song, went to rite aid ~2AM to get headphones, received package of drugs, stayed awake all night, went to gyno worried about cancer, gyno talked to me about olympics and said everything was fine with me, went to macmedics, wrote thing about macmedics hottie with face mole, picked up birth control from rite aid, ate concerta, skyped with juliet escoria re liveblog interview, watched horse thing with mom, watched youtube videos, slept irregularly, ate opana, bought ecigarette, dad showed me construction on his new offices, went to petsmart and was helped by regina, went to chic fil a, drove to NYC, unpacked things, felt happy, went to ikea and texted with mira, got lost on the way home, didn’t go to party, went to waldbaum’s for grocery/apartment things
may 4-may 7: stayed up all night, ate adderall/concerta, tried to write ‘self yelp’ story then got involved reading old journals for something to read for an audio submission to another thing, felt sad, colin/neighbor/real estate agent knocked on door and invited me to irish music thing and gave me a newspaper and a lamp, felt depressed, recorded ~1 hour long thing of me talking, cancelled plans to eat mushrooms and film video with zachery, got dressed to go to dunkin donuts to use their internet but didn’t feel motivated enough, made smoothie, slept, felt facially sick from ecigarette, read ‘the wave’ newspaper, updated things at dunkin donuts and waited for zachery, ate mushrooms with zachery and didn’t elaborate on that yet, ate xanax for sleep, went to dunkin donuts in the morning with zachery, tried to find ‘head shop’ to buy kratom and got lost in long beach, ‘gave up’ and ate xanax and ordered pizza, slept, went to central park to film zachery falling out of trees, zachery asked to kiss me and i said ‘no,’ owner of apartment came to apartment and i gave him check, superintendent (mark) fixed my oven, got drunk and watched old things on hard drives, ate pizza, talked to zachAry on phone and made plans to hang out
may 8-may 11: mark fixed my closet, zachAry cancelled our plans to eat with ex-gf, went to library to print resume, gave resume to ‘callahead’ portapotty company, felt bad, ate xanax, got reuben from deli by me, drove to ikea and bought things, didn’t update/got drunk, went to deli late at night and bought beer and hummus/tortillas, fell asleep, dreamed, woke, gyno called to say she wanted me to have colposcopy still, told her off, drove to MD to pick up computer from macmedics, stopped at rest stop ‘where i made first big mistake in october 2012 and went to philadelphia where i started living again,’ mom got computer from macmedics for me, ate opana, ate at clyde’s with mom, transferred things from dad’s computer to mine, mom gave me perfume and matthew donahoo gave me sweet package, drove back to NYC without sleeping ~5AM, talked with mom on phone for an hour ~8AM, slept 2 hours, woke to verizon man (‘frantz’), had nice time talking to verizon guys, went to callahead interview and failed really bad (didn’t write about this), went to unofficial ‘point break live’ audition in greenpoint and talked with jaime and zachery for a long time, car out of gas almost, raining, card would not work at gas station, filled with ~$4 cash to drive home, didn’t sleep until ~5AM, woke and drove back to greenpoint for ‘official-er audition,’ did stuff i haven’t written about yet (feeling socially uncomfortable/out of place, finding chartreuse bottle in park, concluding ‘day was surreal’ with jaime), confirmed my card did not work, looked for spare change in my car and found none, amahd (stranger, wrote about this on another page) gave me $20 and hugged and kissed me, rained really hard, talked with mom on the phone, wrote ‘ways i know how to talk to people’ out of sync with other updates on adderall, mom called again, stopped updating ~9PM but was just filling in other text from that day
may 12-may 15: didn’t update at all may 12 i think, didn’t sleep again, made ‘cooking show’ video, went to dinner at colin’s with people from the fourth floor of our building, slept at some point/stopped updating, didn’t feel like updating may 13 until two videos of me watching TV at the end, made another ‘cooking show’ video but edited that one, laid around looking at the internet and napping, watched thunder vs grizzlies game, watched other TV, watched ASMR youtube things, made youtube videos, tried to get drunk, spilled beer on mattress, woke to TV still on, watched ‘repo games’ for a long time, felt depressed, made list of ‘things i could do,’ made smoothie, laid barely moving/napping sort of, looked at pictures of people i used to be friends with, watched knicks vs pacers, checked to see if my card worked at ATM and it did, ordered pizza, ate xanax and fell asleep early, woke ~4AM, downloaded and watched some of ‘secretary,’ fell asleep and woke and it was still on, rewound it, fell asleep again, woke, ate pizza, ate 1mg xanax, made kale smoothie, reposted ‘ways i know how to talk to people thing’ thinking people wouldn’t read the other one (?!?), exercised a little, mom called about visiting on tuesday, ate adderall, showered, went to petsmart and bought kitty tower & food, bought things from duane reade, tried to get cats interested in kitty tower, made list of things i want to do tonight, ate more adderall, edited someone’s story
6:31AM: finished summaries. ecigarette is definitely broken. i want to drive back to maryland. seems so hard to do this. i’m not even doing anything. look at all of that shit, all of that summary shit. i’m not even doing anything. i don’t know what i want at all. i can’t believe all of that time. i don’t feel like i’m here right now, at the apartment. i don’t feel like ‘yesterday,’ i can’t remember yesterday, going to petsmart. i can’t do this anymore. i don’t know what i can’t do anymore. i know this isn’t making sense. this is just what my brain is sounding like. i feel horrible. i don’t care about sounding. just, whatever. i don’t care about whoever’s reading. nobody cares about me. how do people look at this. people say stuff to me. my parents like me but why. people keep looking at this and asking me questions. nobody really wants this. i’m not saying this to…just, whatever. i don’t have an agenda. if you’re reading this and you think i have an agenda i think you’re an idiot and there is no hope for you. there less hope for you than there is for me. that is sad. there are people like that, with less hope than me. i know that. there’s nothing i can do about it. i’m not condescending to whoever, it’s just. goddamnit. i know something is different about how i’m typing. let me be dramatic. give me a goddamned break. i don’t want to be funny. i don’t want to say stuff to make anyone like me. the sun is coming up. i don’t feel happy about anything. now the ecigarette doesn’t work. there’s nothing i want to do. i get excited when i get to feel different, chemically. i feel hopeful when i’m driving because i’m not in the place where i’ll end up. there’s nothing i want. the thing i used to want is stupid. the thing of wanting another person. it’s stupid. it’s always going to be the same thing unless i want to force myself to be with someone forever and then i’ll always be wondering ‘why did i do this.’ if i don’t do that i’ll always be wondering ‘why am i doing this, why didn’t i do the other thing.’ i’m not happy and i’m not fun to be around right now. it takes me forever to respond to anything because i know i’m going to just end up feeling the same after anything. it’s always this. no matter what everyone is going to leave at some point. i’ll mess up and they won’t like me or maybe they’ll mess up and i won’t like them. or we just won’t talk. it’s always me, alone. or me feeling obligated to all the people who don’t realize whatever is happening between us is going to end in some way. nobody gets it. or no, they don’t get it because that’s not true for them, people just stay in their lives. my life is not something people want to stay in. statistically. you could figure it out. my life isn’t even something i want to stay in but i don’t want to die either but i can’t think of anything i want from this. i don’t know if i’m being dramatic or not. my life is stupid. it’s the stupidest joke of a life. a psychologist would say i haven’t gotten over relationships ending or the abortion. they would maybe be right. i don’t know. it doesn’t matter. i can’t tell anything. all i know is the only thing i have to look forward to is some idea that it’s not going to be ‘now’ someday. it’s always going to be now though. if anyone thinks anything bad about me the joke is on them because i think so much worse shit about me than anyone could ever know because nobody knows me as well as i do. i don’t know how to change anything about me fundamentally, that would make me not think things like this, but i know if i didn’t think things like this i would be happy probably. i don’t know if i’m exaggerating, i feel completely serious and rational, like rationally assessing the potential for me to feel better, or just…saying honestly, what it feels like. i’m not looking for attention. the only thing attention does is make me feel obligated to say ‘thank you’ or comment in some other way and i feel so shitty when i do any of that. any kind of talking i feel bad doing. i’m sorry. i’ve been lying the whole time. if you think i’m nice or funny or a good person or a good friend or something it’s because i’m good at lying. i feel so bad when i talk to anyone. unless it’s a certain kind of talking or a certain kind or person. or unless i’m on drugs or alcohol or something. i’m lying the whole time. i’m sorry. it feels bad in a different way when i’m not talking to anyone. there is more hope when there’s another person around maybe. i get more distracted but i also think i’m stupider and i can’t think as well. i am annoying and i try to make too many jokes. or else i feel paralyzed and like everyone hates me and i say stupid things i don’t mean to help make something go by faster. it’s not always like that, i’m not being realistic. i’m being dramatic. just please read this and think ‘she’s being dramatic’ if you think anything. don’t think anything. just keep doing whatever else you were doing. i’m jealous of whatever else you were doing or whoever you are. don’t want to be this anymore. i don’t know what else to do. what do people do. i already did therapy and it didn’t work. do i just…i don’t know…i just should try to not pay attention to thoughts like this and find something else to make me busy. i guess. it’s always going to come back to this feeling though. for years i think, since…i don’t know. actually this is recent i think, for it to be happening to the degree it’s happening. i think it started last summer. wait. i don’t know. the one before that. i don’t remember. it wasn’t always like this. i think i’m happy also. sometimes i’m also happy.
7:47AM: ate 2mg klonopin. debating driving to maryland. want to lay and not have thoughts for awhile and maybe sleep.
1:19PM: i woke about a half an hour ago.
1:36PM: did 300 crunches, 50 push-ups, 50 squats
2:13PM: picked at myself for awhile. when i talk about ‘picking at myself’ this is what i mean. realize it looks gross. curious if other people do this. feel ashamed of doing this and like picture posting will force me to be less ashamed and maybe do it less since i’m not hiding it. extreme anxiety about posting this, will maybe take down:
2:44PM: did 50 squats on each leg, 50 push-ups, 100 crunches. ecigarette works now.
3:10PM: received email coupon for 50% off rite aid brand products.
3:29PM: it’s good when shirley is here:
3:37PM: real estate agent texted that there was some kind of ‘business networking’ event in manhattan tonight. have been texting with masha funny/commiserating style. arranged drug trade.
4:14PM: going to drive to maryland now.
4:25PM: what the hell:
“This multi-wavelength view shows 4C+29.30, a galaxy located some 850 million light years from Earth. The radio emission comes from two jets of particles that are speeding at millions of miles per hour away from a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. The estimated mass of the black hole is about 100 million times the mass of our Sun. The ends of the jets show larger areas of radio emission located outside the galaxy.
The X-ray data show a different aspect of this galaxy, tracing the location of hot gas. The bright X-rays in the center of the image mark a pool of million-degree gas around the black hole. Some of this material may eventually be consumed by the black hole, and the magnetized, whirlpool of gas near the black hole could in turn, trigger more output to the radio jet.
Most of the low-energy X-rays from the vicinity of the black hole are absorbed by dust and gas, probably in the shape of a giant doughnut around the black hole. This doughnut, or torus blocks all the optical light produced near the black hole, so astronomers refer to this type of source as a hidden or buried black hole. The optical light seen in the image is from the stars in the galaxy.”
(from “Black Hole-Powered Jets Plow into Galaxy”)
4:32PM: ate 10mg opana, 5mg vicodin.
4:47pm: have been carrying these things around in my purse ‘for good luck.’ they are from Matthew donahoo. The horse thing is a notebook with pages cut to hollow out a space for a horse magnet. The flask seems hilarious to me. Real estate agent said ‘hey Megan’ to me. He seemed to be using a metal detector.5:24pm: listening to ‘parking lot music’ by e*vax. This is a ‘reminds me of a boyfriend’ album.5:26pm: there is a lot of traffic. That is okay. I’d rather be in traffic than anywhere else. Want to re-read ‘slapstick,’ wish I brought it with me.6:52pm: gas station attendant man said ‘hey howya doin man.’ I downloaded an audio book thing. Listened to ~25% of a Schopenhauer thing about pessimism and thought ‘yeah I think this stuff anyway.’ then listened to ~25% of the theory of relativity by einstein and thought ‘I almost get it, it would be better to see it written down. Or as a powerpoint.’8:45pm: pulling into parking spot at mom’s. Listened to music. Thoughts in car were mostly ‘what could I have done differently’ and ‘why am I doing this’ and ‘will someone be mad at me for doing this.’ A little ‘that looks interesting’ and ‘why isn’t ecigarette working’ and ‘I don’t feel effects from the pills I ate’ and ‘am I hungry.’ I am hungry.9:08pm: mom was watching the episode before the farewell episode of the office. She gave me a big hug and asked if I was sick. I know I’m not but I felt my face look like ‘maybe.’ I said ‘no I’m just feeling not so good.’ she hugged me again and said ‘you have to watch the farewell ‘office.” I sat next to her on the couch and said ‘I didn’t know it was the last one already.’ she said something sweet and goofy and cheerful and a little embarrassed.When Jim said he hoped someday someone would be inspired by the office mom made a crying noise. I ordered Thai food. Mom said ‘is the pizza coming?’ and laughed knowingly and said ‘I mean are you going to the pizza place to pick up your Thai food.’Ate handful cashews, bite of whole foods cookie, 1mg xanax
9:16pm: the office is on at the Thai place. No one else is here.
9:24pm: warm and spring smelling out here. Normally I think I’d be feeling something10:22pm: extremely sleepy. Things about the office. I wish I was on ‘the office.’ I love mom. So sleepy
10:32PM: watching ‘the office’ things on demand with mom.
10:37PM: forgot to say i ate tom kha soup, pad thai chicken, piece of peach pie okay. great. mom and i trying to find old episodes of ‘the office.’ having a hard time deciding. mom said ‘well we have both agreed that we like to see the ones with jim and pam in love.’
11:02PM: started falling asleep during ‘booze cruise’ office episode and saw picture of a person’s hands over a sink and cans full of different color paint kept getting dumped onto the hands like the person was getting their hands washed by them but also ‘warding them off’ and trying to not let the paint stay on too long
MAY 17, 2013
[some time before 1AM]: fell asleep during ‘the office’ and ‘grumbled’ childishly to bed.
[some time in the night]: woke distracted by the blue light of ecigarette, moved it to my bag.
11:50AM: woke from sex dream with the second guy i had sex with who looked more attractive as he had gotten older. it felt really good. i was laying on him ‘from behind,’ like we were both facing the ceiling. i don’t remember much else about it. then i was outside tao’s old apartment in brooklyn and i think we were having sex standing up near some kind of pole, like a toilet plunger. tao said ‘i have new roommates’ and we went inside. there were three 40-50lbs overweight women and six bunk beds in the room where the kitchen was. i said ‘where did your room go?’ tao said ‘it’s still here, you just can’t see it because of them.’ he asked if i could stay two nights and i thought ‘he wants me to stay two nights, sweet.’ one of the women was ‘lounging’ in a top bunk bed. she said ‘no not two nights.’ tao got in the bottom bunk of a bed and the top was empty and he motioned for me to get in the bottom bunk. there was enough room for two people. i realized we were not going to have sex anymore. the overweight women were talking continuously and making food in the kitchen/bunk bed room and tao and i were looking at each other and grinning and being like ‘what the fuck is this shit.’ when i woke there was half a glass of milk next to my bed.
12:00-1:08PM: ate an apricot and drank two cups of coffee while talking to mom about the army. i told her about colin and the ‘fancy food student’ who were both veterans and had their school paid for. they said being in the army showed them ‘the worst case scenario.’ like when you think things are really bad, the army showed them ‘it can always get worse.’ we joked about that at dinner the other night, i remember saying ‘now you know for sure that it can get worse’ and grinning and thinking i was being insensitive. mom got emotional and cried about the government putting agent orange on people in vietnam and ‘the things they do to those boys, they don’t even know it when they go into it.’ then she apologized for being emotional and i said ‘it’s okay, you don’t have to apologize.’
i said ‘maybe i’ll join the navy, then they’ll pay for my school and i can get a physics degree and then i can work for nasa and be an astronaut.’ mom seemed supportive. i told her about chris hadfield (astronaut whose videos i was watching the other day). she knew about him. i said ‘did you see his ‘space oddity’ song? the david bowie song?’ she said ‘i saw a clip but i want to see the whole thing.’ i brought my computer in and sat next to her on the couch and we watched it:
mom cried and laughed a lot. i cried a little i think, feeling affected by her crying. she said ‘he’s just adorable, what a sweet man’ at the end. i told mom about the female astronaut (suni williams) whose videos at the international space station i was also watching for a really long time the other day. she’s logged the most ‘spacewalk’ hours of any woman. she was a jet pilot in the navy. mom said ‘i knew your truck driving thing wasn’t for nothing, and then the other day when you talked about being a flight attendant, oh meggie, i see this happening for you.’ i read from the nasa website about ‘basic requirements for an astronaut pilot:’
‘Bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution in engineering, biological science, physical science, or mathematics. An advanced degree is desirable. Quality of academic preparation is important.’
i said ‘i’d probably need four more years of college, i’m not got at math.’ mom said ‘oh i bet it would be less than that.’ i said ‘no, i only took one astronomy course, and like, qualitative reasoning. that’s my only math. but that’s okay.’ i walked to the bathroom and my room, looking for my ecigarette. mom said excited things about how she thought i could be an astronaut. i said ‘i’m good at physics but that’s like, the only thing on that list. grad school also.’ i found the ecigarette. mom said ‘can you hear me?’ i said ‘i think so, can you hear me?’ she said ‘i can hear you.’
i sat on the dining room chair and continued to read from the nasa website:
‘In addition, the pilot may assist in the deployment and retrieval of satellites utilizing the remote manipulator system, in extravehicular activities,’
i said ”extravehicular,’ that means doing the spacewalk, getting to repair the ship in space.’
mom said ‘i can see you doing that. all you have to do is try to do that.’
i read the rest of the pilot requirements in a scanning manner, saying like, ”must have vision correctable to 20/20’ i got that, ‘must be between 62 and 75 inches tall’ i got that, blood pressure i think i got that.’ mom said ‘you have all those things.’
then mom expressed anxiety about the ecigarette making things smell, but also that she knew it didn’t smell. she asked if nicotine was bad for you. i said ‘i don’t think so, it’s just the other stuff in cigarettes that’s bad, this is just like, water.’ i said i’d go outside.
1:27PM: sitting on balcony feeling okay. i feel excited about the astronaut idea. i would go to more college. if the navy paid for my college that would be really good. i would get to fly planes. seems sweet as hell. seems like ‘how can i not do this.’ writing seems shitty compared to being an astronaut. i’m going to…look into being a navy pilot now…
1:34PM: shit, disheartening:
i should’ve thought more about moving to new york. i could’ve just like, transferred to the naval academy in annapolis and lived at home. shit. what have i done…maybe i can…maybe there is a way…shit…goddamnit…why didn’t i think of this earlier, i’ve always wanted to be an astronaut but i just thought ‘you’re bad at math, you can’t do it’ but if i really worked on it i could do it…goddamnit…thought ‘want to blow all this shit to hell’
1:36PM: walked inside to get refill battery for ecigarette. i said ‘i’m calling the navy about enlisting’ to mom. she made excited noises and said ‘oh honey i’m so happy for you, this sounds so good.’ i said ‘i feel like i need that, it’ll be good for me. i need someone to tell me to do things.’ she said ‘i just think it sounds so good.’ walked to balcony.
1:48PM: called two naval recruitment offices in queens and ‘garden city.’ the first one didn’t have an option to leave a message. the second one had a recording that said to call back during normal office hours, from 9AM-4PM (which i was calling in). the third one was on flatbush avenue and allowed me to leave a message. i said ‘hi my name is margaret boyle, i’m interested in enlisting in the navy and pursuing a career in aviation. i don’t have my full bachelor’s, but i’m interested in asking you questions about that, and more questions in general [laugh laugh]. please give me a call back at 410-978-0648.’ i sounded ‘professional as hell,’ i feel.
2:05PM: dad called to see about eating dinner together tonight. he said the office building construction was moving fast and he’d be able to rent offices to people by june 1, then said something like ‘i want to set you up with an apartment building to rent out to people so you can have passive income, so you don’t always have to be working.’ i said ‘that’d be cool and all,’ then told him about ‘my plan’ to join the navy and finish school and be an astronaut, that the places weren’t picking up their phones, and that i was just going to go to a recruitment office in-person when i get back to NYC. he seemed really excited. i said ‘they’ll probably be happy because you were in the navy too, what did you do, were you an officer?’ he said ‘well in four years i went up to an e-6 officer, a ‘petty officer,’ i don’t like that name—but you can tell them your dad was a radar technician on the joseph p. kennedy, which is the ship that stopped the cuban blockade.’ i forgot he did that. i was smiling a lot. dad told me things about ROTC and that there were tests to be an officer that he was ‘sure i would pass’ and then i could fly jets or ‘nuclear submarines.’ i said ‘jets, i want to fly jets.’ he laughed like ‘ah-hahaha!’ and said he was happy for me. i said ‘plus since i have my CDL they’ll know i can drive trucks so that must be good.’ he said ‘that’s right, they’ll see that you have your CDL.’ i said ‘even if i don’t get to be an astronaut i could probably get a job at nasa.’ dad said ‘there’ll be more opportunities for you to go to space, in your lifetime.’ i told him about applying to callahead for the secretary position the other day and knowing i didn’t get it, and how i’ve just been thinking about all the shitty jobs i could do, not really wanting to do any of them, then i just had this idea. dad said ‘maybe you’ll take me for a ride in your jet one day.’ i said ‘yeah, they’d probably let me, since you were in the navy.’ he was laughing really happily and i was too. i said ‘i figured it out i think.’ we said things about meeting at 8PM for dinner and hung up.
2:38PM: mom has been filling a pitcher of water and taking it to the balcony to water plants. she said ‘you could be like fred astaire and gene kelly: ‘on the town.”
2:40PM: mom said ‘you want a half a bagel?’ i said ‘no thank you.’
2:58PM: mom said ‘you know what else? you might be going to mars in your lifetime.’ i said ‘y-eah’ unfocusedly while typing ‘yeah’ in tweet response to mira who had asked ‘wait rly’ about my tweet where i said i was enlisting in the navy tomorrow. mom said ‘or other cool places. as-yet-undefined.’
4:10PM: paid all my parking tickets. i had five. bad news. mom just said ‘plus! you’re so good with a gun! you could be a sniper,’ laughing like ‘just kidding.’ tried to pay ticket online from april 22, for using cell phone while driving, but website isn’t letting me, i think because the ticket looks like ‘LAST NAME: Matlock FIRST NAME: MargareMIDDLE INITIALt Megan Boyle [‘Boyle’ is ‘scrunched’ above box that says ‘LOCAL POLICE CODE 088’]. tried all combinations/variations of my name that i could think of. seems like they either didn’t enter the ticket yet or she…i don’t know what they could’ve thought my name was. my PA license says ‘MARGARETMEGAN MATLOCK BOYLE’ because there wasn’t enough space to write ‘MARGARET MEGAN.’ i also tried ‘MARGARETMEGAN.’ i don’t know why the cop wrote ‘MATLOCK’ for my last name. i simply. don’t. know. can’t believe my parents named me ‘margaret megan.’ that’s like naming someone ‘william bill’ or ‘richard dick.’ but they always called me ‘megan.’
here’s a story about my name: somehow i didn’t end up with a social security card until i was eight or nine years old. at that time i had been spelling my name ‘meghan.’ that’s how my parents showed me it was spelled. my birth certificate says ‘margaret megan matlock boyle,’ though. i think i didn’t like it that my middle name was ‘matlock’ and nobody was paying attention or…i don’t know. they let me write ‘margaret megan (no ‘h’ for some reason) boyle’ on the social security card and i ended up with a social security number that didn’t correspond with the name on my birth certificate. it was 1993 or 1994 so things like that mattered less, i guess. pre-9/11 style.
in 1997 my family went on a cruise to the carribean and i needed a passport. i went with my dad to a place where they took passport photos. i’m assuming he brought my birth certificate, and maybe there was some kind of conversation between the photographer and my dad about how ‘margaret’ and ‘megan’ are essentially the same name, so i ended up with a passport that said ‘megan matlock boyle.’
when i got my driver’s license in 2004, the maryland DMV required the name on the license to say the same thing as my social security card.
so the names on my forms of identification as of 2004 are:
birth certificate: margaret megan matlock boyle
baptismal certificate: margaret meghan matlock boyle (this one doesn’t really matter but why the ‘h’)
social security card: margaret megan boyle
passport: megan matlock boyle
driver’s license: margaret megan boyle
i sublet a room in brooklyn from december 2011 to the end of march 2012. as i was walking to the train one of the first days i was there, i saw a storefront covered with ‘CDL license, driving school, truck driving lessons’ and other words. i had always wanted to drive trucks. i signed up for a CDL preparation class with a mostly polish-speaking man. i liked him a lot. we had one-on-one lessons for about two weeks. he said he would teach me how to pass the written commercial driver’s license test, but before i could even get the CDL or get behind the wheel of a truck for driving lessons, i would need to transfer my maryland driver’s license to a new york driver’s license.
i brought my maryland driver’s license, social security card, birth certificate, and passport to the new york DMV. they wouldn’t give me a new york state license because of a ‘4-point system.’ i needed one ‘proof of date of birth’ (birth certificate = 0 points) and 4 points of ‘proofs of name’ (u.s. citizens usually use their social security card [2 points] and passport [2 points], here is a list of all the things you can use as ‘points,’). they all have to say the same name.
i went to the social security office in new york. the first time i went i was drunk and had whiskey in a flask and a water bottle with me and saw a sign that said ‘no liquids permitted’ so i went home. the second time i went sober and did not bring fluids. i waited in a ‘holding tank area’ downstairs in an amusement park ride-style belted maze-like line at the front of which was a security gate, guarded by police. the police would periodically count 15-20 people’s heads near the front of the line. these were the heads permitted to pass through the security device to another waiting area upstairs. when i reached the second waiting area i think i was instructed to get a number given to me on piece of paper by a device. then i stood behind the same person who i had stood behind in the first line, in a similar but tenser-feeling amusement park style belted-in maze-line. the perimeter of the room was comprised of about thirty people sitting behind bulletproof glass in ‘desk stations.’ the mass of line-waiting people were directly in the center of the room, about twenty feet away from the wall of ‘desk stations.’
i’m getting carried away. it seemed futuristic and dystopian and cool, is what i’m getting at.
the woman who helped me seemed (rightfully) tired. i handed her my driver’s license, social security card, baptismal certificate, and birth certificate. she had some kind of las vegas souvenir on her desk. i tried to exude apologetic ‘i understand’ mental waves to her. she mostly looked at my papers and typed things into a computer, making ‘something is wrong’ faces. she said ‘you got a double name?’ i said ‘i don’t’ know, what is that?’ she said ‘why they give you a double name?’ i said ‘i don’t know, i’m just trying to get all my IDs to say the same thing as my birth certificate.’ she was quiet and continued to make ‘something is wrong faces.’ she tore up my old social security card and said i would receive a new card in the mail in two weeks. i said ‘will it say the name on my birth certificate?’ she sighed with irritation and looked me in the eye and said ‘no m’am. you have a double name. your social card is going to say the same name as your driver’s license. if you want us to change the name on your social you need your driver’s license to say the name you want us to change it to.’ i said ‘so wait, my new card will say the same name as my old card?’ she said ‘that’s right’ and something about how i had given her the right to tear up my old card, by applying for a new card.
i waited for the new card to arrive in the mail. it said ‘margaret megan boyle.’ i drove to the maryland DMV where i got my license. the DMV is out in the country and i thought they’d maybe be more lenient or understanding than the new york people. the woman behind the desk looked at my IDs with her eyebrows close together. i explained i was trying to get my IDs to all say the same thing, and that the social security office had told me i needed my driver’s license to be changed first. the woman said ‘i don’t know why they’d tell you that, we need your social first. we use whatever your social security card says.’ i said ‘what about my birth certificate, does that matter?’ she said ‘why does your social security card say a different name than your birth certificate?’ i said ‘i guess i got it with my dad, i don’t know, a long time ago, i don’t know why no one checked to see if said the same thing.’ she said ‘now why does your passport say ‘megan matlock boyle?” i said ‘i don’t know, no one checked.’ she said ‘you at least need your passport. you need at least two things to say the same thing. but really, they all need to say the same thing.’
it had been over a month since i had stopped my one-on-one CDL lessons with the polish guy. near the end, we had started studying the paper of new york license requirements list and were ‘conspiring’ about how i could get a new york license without getting a new social security card or passport: i could just find my marriage certificate [worth 2 points, knew it said ‘margaret megan matlock boyle’], high school diploma [worth 2 points, pretty sure it said ‘megan margaret matlock boyle’ but maybe not], and ‘something else, you figure it out, 2 more points.’ he said the only new york DMV that issued immediate temporary licenses was in coney island. he would say ‘so you go to coney island, hm? with your papers, hm? then they give you new license, then you say ‘can i take CDL test’ and they say yes, you get it the same day. coney island is the only place. you gotta wake up early.’ i would say ‘that’s fine, i’ll wake up early that day.’ he would ask me when i thought i’d have everything straightened out and i would lie and he would nod and say ‘good, you straighten it out’ with a wary but not hopeless facial expression.
around the time i visited the maryland DMV the truck man left me a voicemail asking if i had gotten my name straightened out yet. i called him back and said not yet, it was taking forever, waiting for things to get mailed to me. zachary and i had started looking for apartments in philadelphia. we were hoping to move in together by april or may, i think. there would be no reason for me to have a new york driver’s license (commercial or standard) anymore. i didn’t tell the truck man.
i looked online at passport things. i printed out an application for a new passport and wrote ‘margaret megan matlock boyle’ as my name. i checked a box that said ‘name correction’ and wrote ‘it has never said the same thing as my birth certificate’ next to it on a line. i got a new passport photo at a UPS store and mailed a package with the photos, the application, and my birth certificate to the passport offices. i knew i wouldn’t be living in brooklyn much longer and i never ‘officially’ lived there in the first place so i listed my mom’s apartment as my permanent address. it seemed likely that the passport offices would return my application with an ‘INVALID’ stamp, maybe an ‘INVALID’ stamp on my birth certificate if it hadn’t already been ‘confiscated.’
a few weeks later my mom called and said a package from the passport offices had arrived. i drove to maryland and opened the package containing my birth certificate, a ‘leftover bonus keepsake photo,’ and a new passport which said ‘first name: ‘margaret megan,’ middle: ‘matlock,’ last name: ‘boyle.”
felt like the happiest day of my life.
i went to a social security office in maryland with my passport and birth certificate. there was only one ‘waiting area’ in the maryland office. only a few people were there. the woman who helped me didn’t notice the blank space under ‘father’s social security number.’ she said ‘so wait, is ‘margaret megan’ your first name?’ i’ve never been sure if ‘megan’ is my first or middle name. i said ‘yeah, it’s my first name. double name.’ she said a new card would be mailed to me soon. i said ‘so it’ll say what it says on my passport and my birth certificate?’ she said it would.
i forget where i received the new social security card, but it said ‘margaret megan matlock boyle.’ i went to the maryland DMV with my new social security card and passport. they changed my license so easily i don’t remember what was said.
i think i had a maryand driver’s license that said ‘margaret megan matlock boyle’ for less than a week.
this is when i did something i don’t understand fully. i know i did it on march 28, 2012, when zachary and i had already signed the lease (effective april 1, 2012) to our philadelphia apartment.
i went to the coney island DMV and had them give me a temporary new york state driver’s license. a permanent license, which i still have, would be mailed to me. i didn’t ask to take the CDL test, i just left with a paper license that would expire in a few weeks. i took pictures of the coney island boardwalk. the sun was really bright. only a few people were walking around. i had never been there. i think i was thinking i would live in philadelphia but occasionally drive up to new york for ‘behind the wheel’ truck driving lessens with the polish man.
some time in may or june 2012 i got my new york driver’s license transferred to a pennsylvania driver’s license. they had just gotten a new computer system and ‘margaret megan’ wouldn’t fit under ‘first name.’ the DMV woman urged me to list ‘megan’ as my middle name, which i could foresee leading to future hells of confusedly explaining what my name is ‘technically’ to frustrated desk clerks behind bulletproof glass. i said ”margaretmegan’ is really fine, no space, it’s really really okay, i just want to be sure it says the same thing everywhere, on everything.’
6:39PM: i got into writing that. sitting at desk at mom’s. oh shit i forgot to mail masha’s package. i will fedex that ass. i forgot i decided to enlist in the navy.
6:44PM: i’m embarrassed about my long ass 6:31AM complaining rant thing. i sound like a whiny bitch. my ‘name story’ also sounds entitled and like…the least…like there are much worse problems to have than that.
to clarify: the 6:31AM rant was written while feeling bad to the extent that i wasn’t even aware of the possibility that what i was doing could be seen as ‘whining.’ the ‘name story’ was not me whining, i don’t remember having emotions writing it except maybe mild nostalgia and ‘haha.’
okay great so this ends this very important news briefing blah blah shut your shitty ass up boyle.
8:00pm: asked mom what movie she was going to watch tonight while fumbling around the kitchen and dining room table, gathering things. She said ‘maybe the Abe lincoln vampire one, but I don’t want to be scared.’ I went ‘ooooooh.’ Walked to my room and picked up my phone and walked back to the main room. I said ‘I can’t believe I figured it out. I’ll just do space.’ mom said something positive about college and NASA. I walked to her bathroom and applied deodorant. Pictured something vague about ‘the steps ahead of me’ and felt a pang of fear and loss. Mom said ‘driving trucks just didn’t seem like you, I don’t know, somehow.’ I said ‘y-eah, now I’ll be driving spaceships. Flying jets and spaceships’ and heard slightly forced childish enthusiasm in my voice. Mom said ‘well or whatever.’ I said ‘I’ll have something new to concentrate on.’ mom said ‘you should never stop writing though, but you don’t have to, you can always come back to it.’ I said ‘I’ll write in space. If I feel like it.’ she said ‘and who knows where you’ll go. They’ll be going to mars, in your lifetime. You could go to mars!’ I put on my shoes. Mom said ‘did you hear about Angelina Jolie? She’s gotten her breasts and ovaries removed.’ I said ‘she did it on purpose? Without cancer?’ mom said ‘well, apparently her mother had this type of cancer.’ I said ‘talk about attention-seeking.’ mom said ‘I know, really’ and laughed. I said ‘I don’t like her. She’ll never make it in space. Especially without her boobs’ mom laughed and I smiled and walked downstairs and out to my car.
8:16pm: driving to dad’s office for dinner. Not hungry yet
[some time between 8:17-8:45PM]: dad gave me a tour of his new offices. they built them really fast and he’s rented out most of them. i’ve seen the tour before but i didn’t want to mention it.
dad told a story about how he put $200 in the building contractor’s hand when he shook it for the first time the other day. the contractor refused the money. dad said ‘wait, but don’t you have a friend?’ the contractor said ‘yeah.’ my dad said ‘this is for your friend, buy something for your friend.’ i said ‘oh man’ and grinned. dad’s nose scrunched up and he ‘cackled’ giddily, ‘my dad-style,’ in a way he does rarely. (**side note: seems interesting to write about a person narrating a story they’ve told you, like i wanted to talk about how dad’s face looked when he was telling me the story and describe the inflections/voices/faces he used to tell the story but i want to ‘shit out’ other information first, it’s 2AM now)
dad showed me an area which he and mary (other landlord) are converting into a ‘meditation/relaxation room.’ it used to be an office. he said ‘and i’m putting my elliptical machine in here, dr. oaken says ‘45 minutes a day on that thing, if you wanna live until you die.”
i said ‘i’m so happy for you’ and things like that and asked questions which i think would normally seem ‘fake’ but i felt sincere asking them and interested in their answers. i was happy to see dad acting so happy.
dad gave me a headset for talking on the phone in my car. i put it in my car and dad said ‘are you driving?’ i said ‘oh i don’t know, i was just putting the headset in. or. i’ll drive, do you want me to drive?’ he opened the passenger-side door and paused a moment, looking down, then said ‘no, i think i’ll drive.’
we walked to his car. there was a toolbox on my seat. dad said ‘i got you tools, here are your tools!’ i said ‘oh boy, oh tools, thank you. tools in a toolbox. does it have a drill?’ he said ‘no, well. this one, this box doesn’t have a drill. but you can borrow mine.’ i said ‘no no no, i’ll just hammer the thing i was thinking of drilling, hammering is fine.’ dad said ‘i thought i bought you this toolbox awhile ago!’ i said ‘i’m pretty sure you did. yeah i think you did, it looks familiar, from my old apartment.’
dad pulled into the parking lot of the seafood restaurant we had planned to eat. a handful of agelessly old-looking, ‘active lifestyle’ people in silk shirts and jewelry were milling around outside. dad slowed as we passed them. i said ‘what if there’s a wait, looks like a wait.’ dad said ‘is there a wait?’ the people looked ‘bleakly unfamiliarly acquainted’ to me. i said ‘seems fancy.’ dad said ‘yeah, it might be.’ i said ‘let’s do the double T instead. this seems too fancy.’ dad said ‘yeah, long wait, too fancy.’
i showed him the ecigarette. he tried it, nodded, matter-of-factly said ‘it hits you.’ i said stuff about the batteries not working well and ordering new ones. he said ‘where do they sell those things?’ i said ‘like CVS, rite aid.’ he said ‘wanna go to CVS and get a new one before we eat? so you’re not thinking about it at dinner?’ surprised he would think to ask/offer that. i said ‘oh no, it’s okay.’ he said ‘are you sure? it’s right next to the double T.’ i said ‘okay.’ i said anxious things about how it’s not really smoking and dad would respond with a ‘padding’ comment, like a repetition or slightly different phrasing of whatever i had said. he pulled into a parking spot at CVS. i said ‘thanks for offering to do this, i wouldn’t have even thought to.’ he said ‘well now you won’t be wondering about it all night. plus, i think they’re a stress reliever, cigarettes can be stress relievers.’ continued anxiously saying things, walking fast into CVS with dad behind me, increasingly aware that i was about to ask for an ecigarette battery with my dad, and there was maybe something socially ‘off’ about this.
the man behind the counter said they didn’t sell ‘blu’ or any brand of ecigarettes. i said ‘thank you’ and started walking away. turned my head to see if dad was following. saw him gesturing vaguely and saying ‘do you know where else they’re sold’ to the man behind the counter, whose head seemed like it could’ve been politely shaking ‘no’ from the moment we walked through the door.
dad seemed ready to abandon dinner to hunt for an ecigarette battery. i remember him doing stuff like this ever since i was little. the variety and frequency of ‘stuff like this my dad does’ seems highly unpredictable. one time at the beach we were in an arcade, taking turns maneuvering a joystick controlling a ‘grabbing claw’ in one of those impossible toy machines. we were aiming for a stuffed ‘dino’ dinosaur toy from the flintsones. there were two or three non-traditionally colored ‘dinos’ in the machine. the claw wasn’t picking up anything. i wanted a ‘dino’ really bad. dad gave me quarters and told me to keep trying while he used the bathroom. a little later he returned to the machine with a man holding a set of keys. the man opened the machine and gave me three ‘dinos.’ i was so happy. i think even then i knew ‘this doesn’t happen to most people.’ over the years my dad got really good at getting things from claw machines. it’s like his ‘thing.’ he and my mom went to the movies every thursday and he would almost always bring home a stuffed toy for me. by the time he got really good at it i was in high school.
8:57pm: wrote ‘8:57pm: diner’ in my phone while exiting dad’s car outside the diner.
[some time between 8:58-10:33PM]: as we walked inside i continued a story i had started in the car about chris hadfield (astronaut in ‘space oddity’ video). he was answering a class of 6th grader’s questions from the international space station. someone asked him why he wanted to be an astronaut. he said something like ‘just after my 10th birthday they landed on the moon.’ dad opened the door to the diner. i said ‘how old were you when they landed on the moon? 1969?’ dad thought a minute and said ‘i was…27. whoa-ho-ho-ho! 27! you’re picking up where i left off.’
a waiter approached our table and said his name was danny. my dad said ‘dana?’ the waiter and i said ‘danny.’ dad said ‘oh, oh, i have a bad ear, i’m sorry. i’m mike’ and shook the waiter’s hand. (this is an example of a thing my dad does, introduces himself to waiters, used to embarrass me but now i think it’s endearing). i didn’t introduce myself. i ordered a spinach salad and maryland crab soup. dad ordered some kind of chicken pasta dish and a salad and matzah ball soup.
mostly we talked about the navy. i asked dad a lot of questions. seems hard to…here are the most interesting things my dad had to say about when he was in the navy (1958-1962):
-when he got off the bus of enlisted guys the first thing they did was shave everyone’s head. then they took them to a room where everyone got naked and their clothes and belongings were stored in bags. they were issued uniforms. on the ship he shared a room with 50 guys. there was a table, a garbage bucket, and a radio in the middle of the room.
-he showed me how to salute. you put the tips of the fingers of your right hand to your temple and move it fast to chest-height. the marines make a more exaggerated chopping downwards motion. dad said the general rule was ‘if it’s moving: salute it. if it’s not moving: paint it’ (they did a lot of painting on the ship).
-dad worked his way up to be an officer in charge of 13 guys (i said ‘you told them what to do? how did that work?’ he made a face and said ‘not very well’). he was a radar technician. he said he had a tiny office with a door sealed with 10 latches. sometimes he would go to his office to sleep but he wasn’t allowed. if someone caught him, by the time all the latches opened he would be awake enough to pretend he had been working the whole time.
-he described all the stripes and things that get added to your uniform the higher you rank, seeming ‘tour guide’-interested in this, miming the stripes and half-stripes on his sleeve. he said ‘and then when you’re an e-6 you get a chevron with an eagle coming out of it, you know, which is what i had, you’ve seen that picture of me.’ there is a ~18”x24” photo of him in his navy uniform on a shelf by his bed. he took a breath and held it for a moment, then shook his head like he had surrendered something. he said ‘oh no, i don’t know why i’m crying, why do i do this.’ i said ‘it’s okay.’ he said ‘i don’t even know why’ and chuckled a little, crying less as he continued describing the stripes and chevrons.
-most of the time at sea was spent playing ‘war games.’ dad’s ship would leave from rhode island and a submarine would leave from connecticut at the same time. dad’s job was to use radar to track the submarine as if it was the enemy. if the submarine crew detected someone tracking them, they were supposed to turn off the submarine to appear invisible to the radar. if the ship crew ‘caught’ the submarine before the submarine crew knew about it, they’d send ‘depth charges’ (dad described as ‘cap gun missiles that just made noise’) down to it. then the submarine would surface and they’d say ‘hi, good job’ to each other. one time the submarine went off the radar for a long time. dad’s ship continued sending ‘depth charges’ down to it but it stayed dormant. they got worried and stopped. after awhile the submarine surfaced. it was a russian submarine. dad said ‘and then they blinked their lights, you know, morse code, they said: ‘hi how are you.’ we said ‘hi we are fine.’ and it went along on its way. it was just there, in connecticut, a russian submarine!’
-john f. kennedy and jackie kennedy and walter cronkite were all on dad’s ship, the joseph p. kennedy (‘john was on the ship because he wanted his brother’s name to be historic’), during the cuban blockade. there were a lot of ships and jets. the whole navy, maybe. seemed really exciting, i’m not describing it well. russian ships were moving towards cuba so they could attack the u.s. from there, but the u.s. found out. all the russian ships retreated but one merchant ship. dad said four or five guys from his ship got on a small boat (he described as ‘from here to the other side of the room’ i said ‘like one of the lifeboats on the cruise ship?’ he said ‘yeah, yeah, almost exactly like that, yeah. a little smaller’) to make sure there were no missiles on the russian merchant ship. he said ‘and then we told them to go back to russia, and they did. they didn’t really do a thorough check of the ship, the guys. everyone was nervous.’ he said something about khrushchev. jesus, wonder if i can describe…he ‘acted’ the conversation between JFK and khrushchev with a lot of attitude, like this: ‘khrushchev said ‘look at our ships, look at what we can do.’ and we said ‘oh yeah? well look at our ships, think about what we can do.’ the merchant ship was just khrushchev saying ‘don’t forget, i’m not afraid to do this, too.’ so we said ‘oh we see that you can do that. you’d better not do any more though, because look at us.’ he was giggling kind of, seemed really happy to tell this story.
-by the time the cuban missile crisis started, dad was already ‘overtime’ and didn’t need to be in the navy anymore, but they made everyone stay an extra six months. he really didn’t want to be in the navy anymore. he started growing a beard. cleanliness was big. you were not supposed to grow beards. he told his friends he was growing the beard so when he got off the boat ‘castro would be able to recognize whose side he was on.’ the guy in charge of my dad noticed and called him into his office. he said ‘boyle? get that goddamned thing off your face.’
-drill thing: after the missile crisis, they started doing this circle thing for practice. the u.s. owns an island in the carribean near the panama canal. they test bombs there. dad’s ship was in a circular line with a lot of other ships. there were jets, too. just…it was everyone, moving in a circle around the island and the panama canal. whenever your ship or whatever reached the island you just ‘gave it all you got.’ you shot everything. some ships contained marines who would run onto the island while it was getting ‘practice-shot’ at, who would then shoot ‘giving it all they got’ at nothing (when i asked about this dad said ‘they were marines, they just knew how to not get shot’ which i don’t…jesus, i don’t know about this one). i said ‘seems like a thing kurt vonnegut would put in a book, going around in a circle to take turns shooting at nothing.’ dad did his ‘dad-style’ nose-scrunch cackle and said ‘yes! yes that’s exactly what it was like! a kurt vonnegut thing.’ he looked happy. later he said ‘it was really something, to do that. it was like all the fourth of julys, just going off, shooooom.’
NOT A NAVY THING BUT INTERESTING:
we had been excitedly talking about my ‘realistic course of action’ that would result in me becoming an astronaut. dad said ‘did i ever tell you about the astronaut who put his thumb—’ i smiled and nodded and made a ‘squiched-out’ thumb gesture. dad continued ‘well, so i guess he became some kind of preacher after this. he has a following. after he figured out you can do that thing, blot out the earth with your thumb, it’s just this tiny dot.’
a little later dad said ‘this story is a little embarrassing but i’ll tell it anyway. so, the astronaut who did the thumb thing, he apparently grew up in chicago in this poor neighborhood where the walls were paper-thin, and his bedroom—he lived next to the mcmanus family—his bedroom was right next to mr. and mrs. mcmanus’ bedroom, so he heard everything. this might’ve been another astronaut, this might’ve been neil armstrong. anyway, so one night he hears mrs. mcmanus [looked away and sort of chuckled], mrs. mcmanus from the bedroom, she says ‘i’ll put that thing in my mouth the day they send a man to the moon!” dad laughed and i laughed a little less. i said ‘oh noooooo. no way. you’re making that up, that’s not real.’ dad was still laughing. he said ‘no, it’s really real—they asked him what he was thinking about when he landed on the moon, so that’s what he [continued laughing].’ i laughed a little more.
10:34pm: typed ‘10:34pm: peeing ‘these bitches are annoying can we go’ mid-explanation of space workout’
throughout dinner waiters added tables to a maybe 7-table ‘spread’ of high school aged girls in the center of the room. a waiter added a table connecting the 7-table spread to the booth behind dad. the girls were loud. at some point after we had finished eating i was telling dad about how astronauts exercise in the international space station (which was built by people adding onto it, like how the waiters were adding tables, didn’t realize this, seems funny). dad said ‘how do they do it without weights?’ i explained something poorly about a video i watched, think i was gesturing a lot and saying things like ‘they harnessed the vacuum, it’s negative resistance, they use the space vacuum.’ a waiter added another table and dad and i noticed and i took advantage of the moment to say ‘these bitches are annoying, can we go? plus i have to pee.’ dad made a face like he was also annoyed by the bitches and relieved to be relieved of them.
10:58pm: typed ‘10:58pm: abprtion, tool box, told him re addreall, I’ve been ashamed, nowhere to go but up’
dad drove us back to his office. i forget what we talked about and what led me to think it was probably a year ago today when i found out i was pregnant. i said something like that aloud. dad used a gentle voice to say something i don’t remember completely. i said ‘it’s may 17, right?’ he said ‘yup, may 17, that’s today.’ i knew i didn’t find out on may 17, i felt that not being true. i remembered ‘may 16’ as something important. dad made a right turn into his office. he said ‘what was that like, finding that out?’ i said ‘i threw up, after i saw it. found out. threw up in the toilet. then i cried a lot. i didn’t know what to do so i called mom. i was just crying a lot. then i called zachary, i think, or no, i waited for him to get home, he was at work.’ dad parked the car. he said ‘i remember we were parked in this very spot, or one like it, when you told me about how you had that done, the d&c. i was happy you told me but i was so sorry you had to go through all that.’ i was embarrassed for having brought it up. i knew we both knew i didn’t have a ‘d&c’ (abortion-like procedure they do to remove miscarriages), and that he was maybe embarrassed too, which is why he’d want to call it that. i said ‘i’m happy i told you too. i wasn’t going to. i thought. something about nana, you’d get mad at me like nana got mad at you.’ i stepped out of the car before he turned off the engine. he said ‘oh no, no, no. i want you to feel like i’m,’ (sensed he stepped out of the car and was walking near me but i didn’t want to look), ‘you can say anything, have a seamless, open communication with me.’ he hugged my arm a little. his other arm was holding the toolbox. i did something ‘icky’ that i do sometimes in situations where the other person seems more emotional me, i’m embarrassed to type this. i said ‘i do, i feel that. and actually speaking of ‘seamless open communication,’ do you have any xanax?’ think i mumbled/snort-laughed most of the last part. dad said ‘what,’ seeming to honestly ‘not hear’ more than ‘not understand how i could say that.’ i said ‘do you have any xanax?’ he said ‘oh! yeah, yeah i do, and in fact, i was going to ask if you needed some earlier, but i don’t want to be imposing.’ i said ‘you wouldn’t be, no.’ he said ‘i don’t want to push drugs on you.’ i said ‘you’re not. you’re just giving me tools, like the toolbox.’
walked towards office door. he asked how many milligrams i usually take, which he always asks if i ask for xanax, theb said ‘one or two per night seems like a good limit.’ i agreed. followed him into his office. he asked how much i wanted. unsure if…i don’t know if i should be describing this or if he could get in trouble. going to stop this portion. in the ‘behind the scenes’/’stopped being talked about’ portion i said something that ended up with me saying i buy adderall from someone online, but that i’ve always used my savings account money to do it. dad said ‘thank you for doing that, thinking of me for that’ and it sounded like an awkward or forced formality. he gave me an amount of xanax and i thanked him.
i said ‘i’m really glad we did this tonight, i liked talking with you about the navy.’ dad said he liked tonight too, and that i should always feel free to call him or leave him voicemails or emails, he always likes them and wants to hear more from me. we were standing in the doorway. i said ‘i know you like voicemails and stuff like that. i think i’ve been feeling ashamed of myself, to talk. like i know you want to hear from me but i’m ashamed to tell you about what my life is like because i’m not doing anything, i haven’t been interested in anything. and it’s always nice that you want to hear from me. it’s just hard to imagine why, for me, like why would anyone be interested when to me it feel so, so it’s hard, yeah it’s felt too shameful to talk about.’ dad nodded a moment. he said ‘you know, i think i get that. i didn’t think about it like that.’ i said ‘but now i’m interested in something, so’ and smiled and we hugged. i said ‘now i’ll get to tell you about space.’ dad said ‘that’s right. oh i can just tell things are getting better now. there’s nowhere to go but up,’ broke the hug to point at the sky, said ‘hey! mars, that’s up, you’ll go to mars, you’re going up!’
11:55pm: typed ‘11:55pm: cop at entrance reprimanded me for using phone’
remembered i had left a bag of clothes and my guitar at dad’s apartment when i got to mom’s. drove back to dad’s. the security guard with fake teeth was there with a ‘cop buddy.’ i was on the phone with dad. the security guard didn’t remember me maybe, and made me stop so he could write down my license plate number. the cop said ‘you know, when you see a cop you have to at least pretend to not be on the phone.’ i sort of hung up. made a face and said ‘i know i know, i’m sorry.’ the cop said ‘he’s writing down your plates so i can give you a ticket.’ i said ‘really?’ he said ‘no, just pretend better next time.’ the security guard saluted me (for people just tuning in, he always salutes).
MAY 18, 2013
12:32am: typed ‘12:32am: oil, leaving’
dad helped me transfer the broken bag of clothes into two bags. then we looked around for a capo and a tuner. then we were standing at my car for awhile. we seemed to be drawing things out on purpose, maybe. i felt like i was, anyway. dad reminded me to get my oil checked.
damn it’s 8:45AM now and i’m tired of writing stuff.
here is the gist: have memories of dad showing me how to check the oil levels of a car for…a very long time. i don’t remember the first time he showed me how to do it. he also used to cut open vitamins. we’d get 5-7 kinds of vitamins and put them on a paper towel and he’d cut them open with his pocket knife to show me the insides. the coolest one was vitamin e. i don’t know why i put these memories together. i liked watching him wipe the oil dipstick with the paper towel and put it back and take it out again and kind of turn it and say ‘looks about right.’ i liked watching the vitamins get cut open with the pocket knife. his pocket knife is a ‘big thing’ about him. he is always ready to help cut something open with the pocket knife. also my mom likes to tell a story about how her friend’s car broke down in our driveway and i was maybe four years old and i said ‘daddy will fix it with scotch tape.’
here is the gist of the gist: i checked my oil and dad watched. i did it right. i put a quart of oil in. i told dad i would see him soon.
12:33am: typed ‘12:33am: I saluted him back’
security guard with fake teeth saluted me and i saluted him back. the cop buddy wasn’t there. he said ‘have a good night hon.’ i’ve always known what a salute looks like but haven’t felt confident that my ‘salute’ would not look like a ‘heil hitler’ or…i just haven’t known enough about saluting. seemed cute to do it. my dad calls him ‘captain [forget his name].’ now i know a captain is almost the highest you can get the navy. now he is a security guard. this and the previous thing and to some degree all the stuff i’ve written about my dad tonight sounds corny. it didn’t feel like it.
1:14AM: walked inside mom’s a few minutes ago. she’s been watching international space station videos and we talked about them. she said ‘there’s gotta be long periods of nothing, i know there needs to be, before you feel like something makes sense, you know. before you feel like you fit somewhere. i know, it’s happened to me a lot. there are just these periods.’ sometimes she says something like this.
5:41AM: thought i’ve been updating this with ‘i’m still typing’ updates. guess not. i’ve been typing. sometimes taking breaks to look at things. seemed really hard to write about the dad thing. hate how i sound. have snorted 40mg adderall. do not usually snort adderall but i thought it’d work better since i had a full stomach when i came home.
6:27AM: it would maybe be bad to enlist today since i didn’t sleep and i have adderall eyes
9:01AM: took a break a few hours ago to figure out why i thought ‘may 16’ was important. found in gmail:
seems to be the number of an abortion clinic. looked at text messages. on may 16th i texted zachary ‘it’s the building attached to the bank’s apothecary…suite 202’
he was parking the car. the place seemed hard to find. the next text from him is five days later, about work.
i’m not trying to make a big deal about this. the timing seems interesting to me. i am thinking a lot of cliches. it’s a cliche to think about ‘anniversaries.’ also seems hard for me to not think about this right now. reading old emails and chats and text messages, knowing how things turned out, the stuff we weren’t paying attention to seems so obvious. all the parts where he was trying to pretend he wasn’t getting more and more disappointed and i was trying to pretend everything was okay. getting drunk and arguing and apologizing the next day. i seem like the worst. ‘the one who took the ship down.’ real sinker. i feel different than then but i’m probably not. gaps of time between texts having an interesting effect. making everything seem like nonsequiturs. there is also a very clear progression, to me, of the things he didn’t like about me. i can see him go from ‘unaware of ___,’ ‘trying to ignore ___,’ ‘joking about ____ to diminish annoyance,’ ‘resenting ___,’ indifferent to ___,’ ‘tired of everything.’
seems childish or uninformed to think ‘one person is responsible for a relationship failing.’ i know it’s not just one person. blahballah.
9:42AM: i am now stopping that thought pattern/indulging in whatever by saying everything i think about this photo i found on someone’s ‘photo tumblr that doesn’t post captions of where photos are from:’
-people shouldn’t be allowed to withhold information about the locations of photos like these, i want to know
-is this dubai
-that movie ‘what dreams may come’ where robin williams goes to heaven
-how many people are drunk/on drugs
-photographer is probably a nasty ‘party phReAK’ guy with a tan and unbuttoned shirt and ‘panting’ (somehow) penis…you can hear the penis ‘panting’ for you…from the hole in the top…it’s always panting for someone…if you ever think ‘was TNT ever a network/non-cable TV station,’ that means the penis has ‘panted’ for you, specifically, the penis is sponsored by TNT, when it pants for you and forces a TNT thought into you it means you experienced a next-level kind of advertising that is still being tested/researched
-something that wasn’t even a person generated the photo, this never happened, this place doesn’t exist, when you see the photo you’re actually seeing an advanced algorithm that…[something about google images]…that’s why the guy in the lower-right corner is making that face
-wait, does the guy know he’s there, in the picture you think you’re seeing
-he’s just a stock photo from google images transposed onto the water thing
-he also clearly displays ‘how did i end up here, is this happening’ so maybe something is happening to him like this, like he is in a pool somewhere, caught in some kind of loop, like how in ‘sirens of titan’ the old guy and his dog were stuck moving through time…he’s…goddamnit i give up
-someone should have a photography contest about this place called ‘make this place look shitty without using photoshop.’ i would just take a close-up of one of the people’s face’s or the photographer’s penis
-is this dubai (thought it again not gonna lie)
-is dubai illegal
-is what they’re doing here illegal
-what would edward hopper think about this, would this ‘sicken’ him or ‘blow his mind’ or what
-seems like edward hopper never spent time in the tropics
-seems like artists used to go to places…for like, ‘a study’…keep thinking ‘gaugain’ and ‘polynesia’ and i’m pretty sure i’m spelling his name wrong
-gaugain seems like a prick
-artists seem like pricks
-art critics don’t seem real, like they must know…literary critics…they must know how they come off as, right?
-have felt entertained by the thought that nardwuar and beach sloth are making fun of everyone/being extremely sarcastic in their praise
-if andy warhol were in this picture you would think he would be doing something ‘zany’ like holding an exotic bird or wearing a tuxedo in the water but actually he would just be sitting somewhere quietly
-i feel more conviction about the previous sentence i wrote than anything else in recent memory
-the andy warhol sentence/epiphany legitimizes all the other stupid shit on this page
10:15AM: TWO THINGS:
1. i hate it when the computer or the google says ‘look, it’s a new thing, this is how it works, click this box to make this window go away. i said click this box to make this go away. you need to click it. you can’t do anything until you click it. i need to know that you understand that i am doing something new for you, i am showing you my new thing i made just so you have an easier time with me, HM, do you like that, do you…can you at least show me you NOTICED my EFFORTS by CLICKING THIS SIMPLE EASY-TO-CLICK BOX, TELLING ME THAT YOU UNDERSTAND THAT I HAVE IMPROVED FOR YOU?!?!?!’ I’M NOT ASKING FOR YOU TO FALL IN LOVE WITH ME AGAIN, JUST NOTICE SOMETHING I DID FOR YOU, OKAY?
2. seems weird that perfect geometric shapes don’t grow the same way plants do, like there’s no ‘cube patch’ where you can go with your family and pick ‘perfect cubes with square leaves’
(the last thing is a little lofty)
10:47PM: seems really shittily edited (not selection of things, just how much they chose to say about each thing): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fiction_employing_parallel_universes#Feature_films
mom has entered room twice this morning.
TWO MOM INTERCEPTIONS:
1. mom said ‘can i ask you a science question that i don’t think you’ll know the answer to and that probably doesn’t matter?’ i said ‘sure.’ she said ‘alright. well. so, with all of this sea salt, the sea salt has gone up in popularity. we’re all buying sea salt. and i used to buy morton salt, you know, because they said it had iodine in it, which is supposed to be good i guess. but does that mean…? with all of this non-iodized salt now, that we’re suddenly eating—or rather not eating—iodine. so what does that mean?’
2. mom said ‘do you know of a movie that came out this year, that’s about two people who just almost get to talk to each other? you see their lives, like how they would talk if they could? because they’re in parallel universes? but i think they can see each other though.’ i said ‘is it that one, ‘another earth?’ they actually see another earth in the sky, and the girl killed the guy’s family?’ mom said ‘no, no—no. but that’s what got me thinking of this one. i think because we’ve been talking about space too and i don’t know. well, so no, so in this one—i think it’s recent, this year, 2013—so you can almost see how the guy and the girl will get to meet and they’re so close to meeting, you get to see them—the guy is on this one end of the mountain and the girl is on the opposite end and their [motions] hands get to touch. does this sound familiar?’ i said ‘sort of.’ looked up the list of ‘parallel universe’ movies. keep picturing a movie poster that’s mostly blue, like swimming pool blue, surrounding a mermaid woman with blonde hair and outlines of ‘different earth spheres’ across her body and the movie is called like, ‘eu’ or something.
11:05AM: licked finger and stuck up nose as a ‘probe’ for adderall crumbs. harvested back ‘sweet taste.’ feeling neurotic about ‘wasting’ adderall by snorting and trapping it. probably <2mg are trapped in my nose. i could just eat that amount from the one 20mg i have left. 2/20ths of an adderall. to ease. to quell my stingy fiending mind. yuck.
TWO RESPONSES TO THINGS:
1. ‘marie cattoway’ posted a facebook status update saying: ‘Do any women actually enjoy getting oral…seems made up by men’
I ENJOY GETTING ORAL!!!!
orgasms directly caused by another person doing something to me have been results of:
98% oral
1.9% finger
0.1% penis vagina sex (unsure re 0.1% though, seems like i’d remember it if it happened, i’m allowing for 0.1% error of me not remembering)
it’s fun to say’ penis vagina sex.’
vaginal penis sex…vagina penis…(just trying that out, honestly doesn’t matter which one comes first, both are equally funny to me) (‘vaginal penis’ is not funny to me but i haven’t really thought about it) (penis vagina)
2. http://www.policymic.com/articles/42359/topless-women-in-public-not-breaking-the-law-says-nypd
it’s okay for women to be topless in public now, it’s discrimination if…what normally happens happens
i think that’s cool
imagine the person who ogles men’s chests the way breasts will be ogled before they look ‘normal’
you could make a case that it’s weirder for men to show their chests/nipples because those were supposed to grow into breasts if they had remained an ‘XX’ chromosome, like they’re freakishly underdeveloped
if you are a topless female ever i am going to ogle you hard because i bet you will look sexy and i like to look at boobs and sexy stuff!!!!!!
not kidding!!!!!!!!
11:22AM: i don’t feel like sex at all i’m just responding to sex stuff sitting on my bed in my hot pink ass winter coat feeling my pulse beat against my jeans in this way…that’s…it’s only because i’m sitting in a way that’s restricting bloodflow…it’s a knee thing…
11:52PM: refilled coffee, talked with mom about ‘why do insurance agents keep leaving me voicemails to follow-up on my online inquiries,’ ‘has the attorney called you about the accident settlement yet,’ ‘horoscopes’
this is me chilling non-dramatically, completely relaxed facial expression, no discernable emotions at the time of this photograph:
11:58AM: no one is going to click this link, i’m putting it here to remind myself of how i thought it was cool (i have proof of what you people click and look at and for how long and from where…so it’s almost like a communication…huh…yeah, it’s like 1.5: i put out the 1 [link or writing or video whatever] and you feed a .5 back to me by just thinking about me enough to click on this website, but i can’t do anything with your .5…oh no wait, now i am. i’m adding another 1 by saying this. so now we’re at 2.5 communications: 2 ‘positive’ [not like ‘happy,’ like ‘active/intentional’] from me and .5 ‘negative’ [like ‘passive action/reaction to my active thing’] from you. repeated .5’s [like visits to beethoventhemovie.tumblr.com] do not mean ‘.5 + .5 + .5 = 1.5.’ it’s like ‘.5 +/= .5 +/= .5 +/= .5 +/= .5 [into infinity].’ if you email me or ask me a question or text me or do another kind of ‘positive’ interaction with me it’s +1. if i don’t respond to your whatever it’s still a .5 communication/passive reaction from me. IN THIS CASE i think the .5 gets added—so let’s say we have 2.5: i write something (1), you look at what i wrote (.5), you text me (1). when i read your text but don’t respond it’s a .5 on my part. each person can have one .5, it keeps repeating because it never does anything…so it’s like .5 = 0 though, always. then. shit. should it just cancel out then? from the beginning? the basic thing i’m trying to say is i have a total number of communications like that with everyone who has read this sentence. the base number of communications is always 1.5, that’s what the ‘content/content-viewer’ relationship dictates. i decided. if this makes sense to anyone or if anyone could help me make more sense of it i’ll paypal you $5 [there could be a theorem about how saying stuff like that is designed to add 1 from you to me, but then you’ll get 1 too from my $5 and talking, so it’s like another function kind of…like…i don’t know enough about ‘real/unreal numbers’ or math to say what that would be like in math]):
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2013/05/barns-are-painted-red-because-of-the-physics-of-dying-stars/
12:49PM: going to use this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to tell the world i don’t care about craft beer, but i also don’t care about ‘anti-craft beer,’ like, ‘reclaiming shitty beer as cool american heritage beer,’ or beer outside of either of those things, i simply don’t care about any of it, completely neutral about all things beer
also don’t care about wine
also don’t care about coffee
what are other things people care about…
i don’t care about macs vs. pcs
i generally don’t care about the quality of things
1:52PM: what else
2:01PM: i don’t care about lateness
2:03PM: i don’t care about being ‘female,’ that’s a big one people care about
2:24PM: walked to kitchen to replace/recharge ecigarette battery, thinking something like ‘update with ‘people could say a lot more about how ‘umbilical’ and ‘unbiblical’ are similar. they could say a lot more. the ‘unbiblical cord.’ people are not saying enough. ‘unbeliblical.” felt my eyes not moving. the half a bagel mom offered to me yesterday is still toasted in the toaster. i said ‘they call it ‘smoke juice.” mom laughed slowly and airily and said ‘yeah.’ i said ‘smoke juice.’ she said ‘what are you saying?’ i said ‘the people, johnson creek it’s called, i think, that make this [showed ecigarette battery and cartridge], they call the insides ‘smoke juice.” mom said ‘they call what?’ i said ‘the water, the liquid nicotine stuff. in here. i like it: ‘smoke juice.’ it sounds cool.’ mom laughed the same way again and said ‘oh, that is cool.’ i walked to my bedroom screwing the cartridge and battery together. i said ”smoke juice.’ it sounds yucky. like, gross’ and snickered, sitting down. mom kind of laughed.
2:32PM: that song that’s like ‘the world’s a shitty place and i can’t wait to die’ repeated a lot of times then at the end he says ‘just kidding i love you world.’ that about sums it up for me, i guess. sometimes.
2:35PM: thought ‘what about dave matthews’ it felt like the first time i ever found out about dave matthews
2:37PM: i don’t like it when people make fun of people. or when people aren’t clear about shit. when people do not say what they mean directly. i used to try to write only ‘directly’ i think, but now i’m okay with typing indirect things. for me. i don’t like it when other people do it (most of the time) but it’s okay for me. i’m just writing how my thinking sounds/feels. feelings come before thoughts…feelings are indirect at first…a lot of the time…for me…i think…thoughts…er…words make them…it makes it different…more clear…i don’t like it when people make fun of people…
2:41PM: a lot of typing about general things today and not a lot of typing about what i’m doing or planning to do. i think i’m glad to be thinking things i’m sort of interested in again. afraid to drive back to NYC, i want to stay here and party with mom. mom and i have been partying mostly silently in different rooms today but it feels good to party like that with her. i’m not going to the recruitment office thing until monday. nobody is reading my shit today, haha, i can say anything, BLEEENEYPOOPYTIDDDERTURDER DJANGO RACIST BUTTWISPE!!!!! i feel okay today due to still feeling like it’s the night i went out to eat with dad (last night) due to not sleeping but writing about that night all night.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/b38434fd2fba3583037d1d8ea9ee686f/tumblr_mjsvbyQZ4e1rdkktwo1_r2_500.png)
starting today, march 17, 2013 i will be liveblogging everything i do. right now in my life there is no one i talk to frequently enough that they would be upset by me not doing things i had told them i would do. the only person ‘keeping tabs’ on my life is me. as time has been passing i have been feeling an equally out-of-control sensation of my life not belonging to me or something, like it’s just this thing that’s happening, that i don’t seem to be participating in much, and so am sort of failing at it. i witness myself willfully allowing opportunities to fade away from me because i don’t follow through with the tasks necessary to make them happen, because for whatever reason, it is hard for me to make myself do things that i know will make me happy sometimes.
i have no control over getting older but have i some control about the the things i do as i get older. also i feel like my memory is deteriorating. i used to document my daily activities. i feel like that helped me remember things. i even liked doing that. lately i haven’t been feeling like the things i’m doing are worth remembering. but i feel like that could just be a mind trick and if i just start writing more again, i can convince myself those things are worth remembering and everything is basically the same as it was however many years ago it was when i felt more satisfied or hopeful or whatever it is i don’t feel now.
**THIS IS NOT GOING TO BE INTERESTING** **I AM NOT GOING TO TRY TO MAKE THIS SOUND INTERESTING OR TRY TO MAKE YOU LIKE ME OR THINK ABOUT YOU IF YOU ARE READING THIS OR ENJOYING READING THIS, IT’S JUST GOING TO BE WHAT IT IS, IT’S A FUNCTIONAL THING THAT WILL HOPEFULLY HELP ME FEEL MORE LIKE IMPROVING MYSELF**
recently this post became too big to edit as one long document. from now on, all new updates will appear on this page. the most recent ones will be at the bottom. every four days i’ll archive the text on this page and continue to update here. no current plans to stop doing this. thank you for reading.
archives:
APRIL 26, 2013 - APRIL 29, 2013
APRIL 22, 2013 - APRIL 25, 2013
APRIL 18, 2013 - APRIL 21, 2013
APRIL 14, 2013 - APRIL 17, 2013
APRIL 10, 2013 - APRIL 13, 2013
MARCH 29, 2013 - APRIL 1, 2013
MARCH 25, 2013 - MARCH 28, 2013
MARCH 21, 2013 - MARCH 24, 2013
MARCH 17, 2013 - MARCH 20, 2013
for questions/comments, i will probably respond faster than if emailed or contacted in any other way: http://ask.fm/meganboyleliveblog
MAY 16, 2013
12:00-2:11AM: edited and sent jesse’s story. listened to ‘bamboo cactus’ by i, cactus on repeat. didn’t look at other things on the internet at all, i think. i took a pee pee break. focused big time on editing. listening to ‘goodbye stranger’ by supertramp now. archived may 12-15.
3:22AM: how is it now 3:22AM. thought of myself as ‘fluffily hurtling towards death’ instead of ‘placing red bull on windowsill.’ considering re-reading parts of this to see ‘how it came to this.’
3:30AM: i don’t know what i did from 2:12-3:21. going to look at my internet history and fucking…i’ll show a screenshot…seems like it’s going to be embarrassing:
3:40AM: i must’ve been doing other things. i don’t know. want to be held by something. should i drive to maryland now…for just…sad…i don’t know. what the hell am i doing. i’ve been doing the liveblog thing for two months, tomorrow. things felt shitty a month ago but things feel shittier now but now i’m doing the thing i thought would make me feel less shitty.
3:44AM: seems like i lost focus of something but i don’t know what. i would pay someone to read this whole thing and tell me what i lost focus of. or like, tell me where it seems like i start feeling worse, or do a graph of how bad i seem to feel…to that person…the things i was doing/not doing.
SUMMARY OF THINGS I WAS DOING IN EACH ARCHIVED PAGE:
march 17-march 20: had idea for liveblog, staying at mom’s, vomited heroin/xanax, solicited people for ideas for vice articles, solicited matthew donahoo to write recommendation letters for me (as my manager and as tao) to get into apartment building where i am currently living (lol), went to wegman’s, went to whole foods, flossed teeth, wrote about yoga poses, started having visual hallucinations from staying awake for so long, drove around 695 reading liveblog, sat in grocery store parking lot to buy things to help me assemble ‘application for apartment’ package but did not enter store, did all caps interruptive bitch ass/heath ledger edit, refused coffee from dad even though i wanted it, told people to call me and i’d make the ‘shower noise’ at them, mom got the ass-wiper thingy and we laughed, got lost on the way to dad’s, had long emotional talk with dad, got things from grocery store after all, ate molly and wrote stuff, was going to drive to NYC to give real estate agent package but not enough time, had…just…seems like a slew of funny ideas/observations, ate general tso’s frozen thing mom made, wrote blake butler reality TV show pilot, ate xanax and got in bathtub, fell asleep in tub, slept for the first time on march 20, woke ~6PM and wrote emotional thing about being 27, snorted heroin
march 21-march 25: stayed awake until ~6AM, mom had samples of shrimp, wrote about shirley, mom watched ‘downton abbey,’ watched ‘the master’ with mom, talked about abortion, ate a lot of carbs and xanax, person paid me for liveblog manuscript, listened to ‘ruins’ by aloha in wegman’s parking lot, drove to philadelphia via zachary calling me, had sex, went to diner, woke and had sex and made smoothie and showered, bought cat food w/zachary and saw ‘tiny eagles bud light can,’ went to temple library and typed a lot, mutual frustration w/zachary in ‘fresh grocer,’ threw rotten watermelon in penn treaty park river, watched ‘the fighter,’ got drunk and typed drunk fight things, woke and had sex, went to kool a.d. show and didn’t type much about it
march 26-march 28: watched ‘da vinci code’ and ‘angels and demons,’ ate food from central pizza, andrea coates response to liveblog, stayed drunk and alone and typed about ‘i’m coconuts over you’ rum, woke and typed liveblog and zachary seemed maybe impatient/frustrated, watched ‘jeopardy,’ argued, started to drive back to MD, zachary left his phone in my car so i drove back, saw car accident, zachary wasn’t home and i snorted heroin, got period, threw rotten wings into penn treaty park, went to wawa, stayed awake all night typing and zachary seemed impatient/frustrated, smoked and typed in my car, vomited, showered, drove zachary to NJ bus, went to whole foods and dunkin donuts, masturbated, napped, gchatted zachary from NJ and watched ‘jeopardy’ together, made ‘apartment tour’ videos, decided to make the next day ‘baby’s day out’ where i get shit done, felt scared and hid knives under pillow, completed ‘baby’s day out’ and sent apartment application package, ate wawa BLT, packed box, showed pic of boobs, wrote about sex with game show hosts, drove to old dorm at UARTS in early morning on xanax, ate carbs, woke and showed pic of aborted baby, went to whole foods to get boxes for packing, fed brad the cat, zachary arrived home, packed boxes
march 29-april 1: ordered food from germantown, drank most of a thing of whiskey w/zachary, watched ‘king of the hill,’ had sex i don’t remember, ‘ex-boyfriend’ changed to ‘zachary,’ posted videos of zachary and me, dropped off modem thingy at comcast while on xanax, went to el jarocho, napped and zachary packed, travis and kat came over and helped us pack/load pick-up truck and my car, encountered problems with tarp on the drive to MD, locked dad’s keys in apartment, storage unit was closed, drove back to dad’s, got a little drunk, shaved zachary’s face in AM, put my things into storage unit and encountered problems with tarp, zachary went back to philly for job interview, i drove to my old apartment in baltimore, felt weird things, went to mom’s and received adderall & noopept, joked with mom, went to dad’s and took pic of room where i’ll be staying at dad’s, wrote things about infinity (?), drove to philly really late, slept in empty apartment on couch with zachary, packed zachary’s things in truck/moved them to travis’ and made disjointed updates on iphone i never elaborated on, encountered tarp problems following zachary to NJ, got kind of drunk, argued and spilled soup on my computer and broke the back of it trying to dry spill, paid for fancy dinner at ‘the knife and fork’ and went to atlantic city with zachary, disjointed updates
april 2-april 5: argued with zachary and wrote stuff on papers about the argument, drove back to MD, arrived at dad’s ~6AM, ate xanax and slept, went to forever 21, went to mom’s, ate vyvanse and had twitter conversation w/mira and her mom, did not follow through with plans to elaborate on disjointed updates, ate a lot of adderall, alvie was howling a lot, thought ‘people are losing interest in liveblog,’ shittalked depressed people (lol), started doing neurotic ‘**EDIT, [time]’ things, did not make it to macmedics in time and cried about unrelated things, made crying videos for rion harmon, dad made loud noises and i apologized for being irritated/rude, drove around beltway aimlessly, no sleep, identified ‘DON’T DO THIS’ behavior of getting caught up in obligation to elaborate, ate xanax and slept, woke, emailed with jordan, formatted liveblog for blogger futilely, figured out ‘existential/speed of thought ratios,’ ate a lot of adderall, alvie broke air mattress, stayed awake all night again, extreme boring updates about ‘i’m stressed about elaborating,’ ‘not making myself laugh anymore,’ identified neurotic thought patterns
april 6-april 9: felt sad about dad’s apartment, dad was drunk and kept offering help, continued formatting liveblog for blogger.com, ate xanax and carbs and watched TV, woke and wrote about dreams, gave up on formatting, wrote about what would happen if i kidnapped people, solicited tao for formatting advice, read weatherhead’s liveblog and made pasta and fell asleep on couch, woke, made ‘apartment tour’ of dad’s apartment, moved entire liveblog to blogger accidentally, drove to whole foods and talked to zachary/emotional conversation, drove to mom’s and didn’t eat corned beef, transferred liveblog to tumblr pages, stayed up all night again, overhead parents in the morning, went to macmedics successfully, met dad at office to give him key to storage unit and bank was closed, analyzed ‘feeling bad’ thought pattern thing, fed cats, went to mom’s and had good long talk, watched ‘homeland’ with mom and stayed awake all night since previous night, wrote funny things about 10 year high school reunion, downloaded and signed lease for apt i’m currently in and got dad to sign, fed cats, listened to less than jake and drove around, talked about how spring smells and weird sky things with mom
april 10-april 13: went to fedex and scanned lease and sent to colin, drove to try to find water fountain, played tic tac toe on the phone w/zachary, said ‘there are things i need to do today or else bad things will happen to people i think about most,’ wrote letter to gyno authorizing her to not perform colposcopy on me, dyed hair, went to target, dad signed new lease at office & i talked with sue, went to fedex again and re-sent lease to colin, went to 24-hour grocery store, someone tweeted that i seemed mentally ‘in trouble’ sort of, ate adderall and stayed up all night, made ask.fm, made liveblog look better/rearchived pages and deleted old pages, took pictures of the sky at 3 times, reviewed questions people asked me on ask.fm, went to walmart to look for water thing for alvie, decorated dad’s apartment for his birthday, wrote funny stuff kind of, stayed up all night, wrote more funny things, ate more adderall, ‘freaked out’ a little about not doing things i said i was going to do, thought i was going to die, went to petsmart, drove to mom’s, visual hallucination thingies re no sleep, mom made me eggs, ate xanax, we watched paul rudd movie about being 40, woke ~6PM, dad came over, watched ‘homeland,’ ate more xanax and lemon chicken, ice cream
april 14-april 17: ate xanax more and tried to fall asleep, responded to people’s questions, woke ~7PM, went to dad’s to set up alvie’s water device from petsmart, went back to mom’s and ate xanax and carrabba’s take-out food from dad, watched ‘les miserables’ and ‘homeland’ and ate more xanax, woke, parents were leaving for something, showered still in xanax haze, ate adderall/vyvanse and stayed up all night and made book packages, thought ‘liveblog is uninteresting because…,’ wrote funny seeming thoughts, got dad’s signature on ‘house rules’ for apartment, deposited check, decided ‘doing the liveblog and writing on the internet is not making me feel happy and i should probably stop,’ went to fedex to scan thing with dad’s signature to colin, did spacedads reading thing, argued with dad for a lot of hours, car got towed in middle of night during argument, cancelled going to new york/photo shoot thingy, went to tow place ~11AM, parents left for the beach, went to whole foods, decided to ‘take a break’ from liveblog but didn’t, got sushi, livetweeted ‘the place beyond the pines’
april 18-april 21: ate leftover sushi in my car after movie ~1AM, drove to DC, ate xanax and smoked pot and made video, masturbated, woke and watched prison documentaries, ate pringles and sparkling water and didn’t make it to yoga on time, went to mom’s to check mail, emotional talk with mom on phone while she was in ocean city with dad, went to dad’s, skyped with rachel white about tao for an article she’s doing, woke and car was towed again, cancelled gyno appointment re car towed, wrote ‘every time my car has been towed,’ walked in the rain to ATM, talked with royal farms employee for a long time, took cab to towing place, drove to wegman’s, sat in car and typed on phone, made juice, felt paranoid car would be towed again and thought i’d drive to mom’s to avoid anxiety but didn’t, didn’t sleep, wrote DMT account, april 20 i said ‘why hasn’t anyone called me out on being ___,’ wrote long all caps metaphor about the holocaust while driving to frederick, went to petsmart, fed cats, decided to ‘take the night off’ and drove to mom’s, ordered domino’s and updated constantly about MMA fight and other TV show, slept, went between sleeping and waking and ‘allowing’ ‘top chef’ to be on TV, masturbated, parents came home arguing, dad left, watched heroin documentary with mom
5:22AM: i’ve just been doing this. ecigarette seems broken. sky is bluish like sun is rising but not quite yet. took a pee break. felt extremely sad and like ‘where am i, why am i not at mom’s, where can i drive to that’s safe,’ very disoriented pee. going to continue summarizing:
april 22-april 25: intense abdominal craming and UTI pain, sat on toilet answering people’s questions, watched AOL ‘morning rush,’ watched ‘mary tyler moore’ with mom, mom fell asleep, took 3 hour nap, drove to NYC, had interview with nasa/alt citizen, went to library, picked up mira and sam from dumpling place, hung out at mira’s apartment and made up ‘smartdog’ joke, drove to sam’s for crack, did crack for most of the night/morning, ate xanax, woke ~4PM and drank coffee with mira, drove back to MD, felt depressed, typed lyrics to ‘ruins’ by aloha, made kale smoothie thing at mom’s, dad came over and seemed happy, ‘decided to commit to writing down all details of crack night’ all night and ate adderall, gabby gabby wrote article about my liveblog, got my period, assembled more book packages, funny text conversation with masha, went to dad’s for storage unit key then storage unit and found MDMAfilms DVDs, fedex-ed DVDs to spain, emailed gabby, forgot i was going to NYC again and hadn’t slept again, mom made me eggs and seemed anxious around me, watched ‘mary tyler moore’ then ‘homeland’ with mom, woke in mom’s bed, dreamed something about zachary, drove to rockaway park, had interview with apartment people in my building, mira didn’t respond to texts right away due to shitty day, drove back to MD, stopped at rest stop with woman with bright red hair
april 26-april 29: listed rest stops from MD to NYC while driving, tried to masturbate, arrived at mom’s, was on tramadol (?), woke in the afternoon, drove to NYC for zachary’s fishkind show, went to burger king on the way, ate xanax, did cocaine all night with mira/sam/zachery/andrew/maggie, mira and i put each other’s feet in our mouths, slept at sam’s with mira, woke ~4PM and drove to MD, ate burger king, talked with zachary on phone, vomited burger king, ate vicodin and xanax at mom’s, woke, mom made me a ham & cheese sandwich, dad gave me ~60mg xanax, apologized for ‘shitty updates,’ napped, dad brought me an extra pork sandwich and i ate it, answered ask.fm questions, worried about moving, ate xanax and wrote things about feeling like a failure, woke and moved things from MD to NYC with dad’s uhaul friends, thought i lost cats, car battery died and dad jump started it, drove for an hour or so picked up zachary and drove us to my new apartment, had sex kind of, zachary set up shelf and TV, unpacked, walked to grocery store by me (waldbaum’s)
april 30-may 3: found cats behind oven, oven was broken so we made steaks in the toaster oven, drank beer and watched ‘the office’ and ‘king of the hill,’ did sex things, ate xanax secretly, fell asleep together, woke to zachary leaving, unpacked everything and hung up pictures, drove to MD to use internet and go to gyno appointment the next morning, answered ask.fm questions and listened to m83 song, went to rite aid ~2AM to get headphones, received package of drugs, stayed awake all night, went to gyno worried about cancer, gyno talked to me about olympics and said everything was fine with me, went to macmedics, wrote thing about macmedics hottie with face mole, picked up birth control from rite aid, ate concerta, skyped with juliet escoria re liveblog interview, watched horse thing with mom, watched youtube videos, slept irregularly, ate opana, bought ecigarette, dad showed me construction on his new offices, went to petsmart and was helped by regina, went to chic fil a, drove to NYC, unpacked things, felt happy, went to ikea and texted with mira, got lost on the way home, didn’t go to party, went to waldbaum’s for grocery/apartment things
may 4-may 7: stayed up all night, ate adderall/concerta, tried to write ‘self yelp’ story then got involved reading old journals for something to read for an audio submission to another thing, felt sad, colin/neighbor/real estate agent knocked on door and invited me to irish music thing and gave me a newspaper and a lamp, felt depressed, recorded ~1 hour long thing of me talking, cancelled plans to eat mushrooms and film video with zachery, got dressed to go to dunkin donuts to use their internet but didn’t feel motivated enough, made smoothie, slept, felt facially sick from ecigarette, read ‘the wave’ newspaper, updated things at dunkin donuts and waited for zachery, ate mushrooms with zachery and didn’t elaborate on that yet, ate xanax for sleep, went to dunkin donuts in the morning with zachery, tried to find ‘head shop’ to buy kratom and got lost in long beach, ‘gave up’ and ate xanax and ordered pizza, slept, went to central park to film zachery falling out of trees, zachery asked to kiss me and i said ‘no,’ owner of apartment came to apartment and i gave him check, superintendent (mark) fixed my oven, got drunk and watched old things on hard drives, ate pizza, talked to zachAry on phone and made plans to hang out
may 8-may 11: mark fixed my closet, zachAry cancelled our plans to eat with ex-gf, went to library to print resume, gave resume to ‘callahead’ portapotty company, felt bad, ate xanax, got reuben from deli by me, drove to ikea and bought things, didn’t update/got drunk, went to deli late at night and bought beer and hummus/tortillas, fell asleep, dreamed, woke, gyno called to say she wanted me to have colposcopy still, told her off, drove to MD to pick up computer from macmedics, stopped at rest stop ‘where i made first big mistake in october 2012 and went to philadelphia where i started living again,’ mom got computer from macmedics for me, ate opana, ate at clyde’s with mom, transferred things from dad’s computer to mine, mom gave me perfume and matthew donahoo gave me sweet package, drove back to NYC without sleeping ~5AM, talked with mom on phone for an hour ~8AM, slept 2 hours, woke to verizon man (‘frantz’), had nice time talking to verizon guys, went to callahead interview and failed really bad (didn’t write about this), went to unofficial ‘point break live’ audition in greenpoint and talked with jaime and zachery for a long time, car out of gas almost, raining, card would not work at gas station, filled with ~$4 cash to drive home, didn’t sleep until ~5AM, woke and drove back to greenpoint for ‘official-er audition,’ did stuff i haven’t written about yet (feeling socially uncomfortable/out of place, finding chartreuse bottle in park, concluding ‘day was surreal’ with jaime), confirmed my card did not work, looked for spare change in my car and found none, amahd (stranger, wrote about this on another page) gave me $20 and hugged and kissed me, rained really hard, talked with mom on the phone, wrote ‘ways i know how to talk to people’ out of sync with other updates on adderall, mom called again, stopped updating ~9PM but was just filling in other text from that day
may 12-may 15: didn’t update at all may 12 i think, didn’t sleep again, made ‘cooking show’ video, went to dinner at colin’s with people from the fourth floor of our building, slept at some point/stopped updating, didn’t feel like updating may 13 until two videos of me watching TV at the end, made another ‘cooking show’ video but edited that one, laid around looking at the internet and napping, watched thunder vs grizzlies game, watched other TV, watched ASMR youtube things, made youtube videos, tried to get drunk, spilled beer on mattress, woke to TV still on, watched ‘repo games’ for a long time, felt depressed, made list of ‘things i could do,’ made smoothie, laid barely moving/napping sort of, looked at pictures of people i used to be friends with, watched knicks vs pacers, checked to see if my card worked at ATM and it did, ordered pizza, ate xanax and fell asleep early, woke ~4AM, downloaded and watched some of ‘secretary,’ fell asleep and woke and it was still on, rewound it, fell asleep again, woke, ate pizza, ate 1mg xanax, made kale smoothie, reposted ‘ways i know how to talk to people thing’ thinking people wouldn’t read the other one (?!?), exercised a little, mom called about visiting on tuesday, ate adderall, showered, went to petsmart and bought kitty tower & food, bought things from duane reade, tried to get cats interested in kitty tower, made list of things i want to do tonight, ate more adderall, edited someone’s story
6:31AM: finished summaries. ecigarette is definitely broken. i want to drive back to maryland. seems so hard to do this. i’m not even doing anything. look at all of that shit, all of that summary shit. i’m not even doing anything. i don’t know what i want at all. i can’t believe all of that time. i don’t feel like i’m here right now, at the apartment. i don’t feel like ‘yesterday,’ i can’t remember yesterday, going to petsmart. i can’t do this anymore. i don’t know what i can’t do anymore. i know this isn’t making sense. this is just what my brain is sounding like. i feel horrible. i don’t care about sounding. just, whatever. i don’t care about whoever’s reading. nobody cares about me. how do people look at this. people say stuff to me. my parents like me but why. people keep looking at this and asking me questions. nobody really wants this. i’m not saying this to…just, whatever. i don’t have an agenda. if you’re reading this and you think i have an agenda i think you’re an idiot and there is no hope for you. there less hope for you than there is for me. that is sad. there are people like that, with less hope than me. i know that. there’s nothing i can do about it. i’m not condescending to whoever, it’s just. goddamnit. i know something is different about how i’m typing. let me be dramatic. give me a goddamned break. i don’t want to be funny. i don’t want to say stuff to make anyone like me. the sun is coming up. i don’t feel happy about anything. now the ecigarette doesn’t work. there’s nothing i want to do. i get excited when i get to feel different, chemically. i feel hopeful when i’m driving because i’m not in the place where i’ll end up. there’s nothing i want. the thing i used to want is stupid. the thing of wanting another person. it’s stupid. it’s always going to be the same thing unless i want to force myself to be with someone forever and then i’ll always be wondering ‘why did i do this.’ if i don’t do that i’ll always be wondering ‘why am i doing this, why didn’t i do the other thing.’ i’m not happy and i’m not fun to be around right now. it takes me forever to respond to anything because i know i’m going to just end up feeling the same after anything. it’s always this. no matter what everyone is going to leave at some point. i’ll mess up and they won’t like me or maybe they’ll mess up and i won’t like them. or we just won’t talk. it’s always me, alone. or me feeling obligated to all the people who don’t realize whatever is happening between us is going to end in some way. nobody gets it. or no, they don’t get it because that’s not true for them, people just stay in their lives. my life is not something people want to stay in. statistically. you could figure it out. my life isn’t even something i want to stay in but i don’t want to die either but i can’t think of anything i want from this. i don’t know if i’m being dramatic or not. my life is stupid. it’s the stupidest joke of a life. a psychologist would say i haven’t gotten over relationships ending or the abortion. they would maybe be right. i don’t know. it doesn’t matter. i can’t tell anything. all i know is the only thing i have to look forward to is some idea that it’s not going to be ‘now’ someday. it’s always going to be now though. if anyone thinks anything bad about me the joke is on them because i think so much worse shit about me than anyone could ever know because nobody knows me as well as i do. i don’t know how to change anything about me fundamentally, that would make me not think things like this, but i know if i didn’t think things like this i would be happy probably. i don’t know if i’m exaggerating, i feel completely serious and rational, like rationally assessing the potential for me to feel better, or just…saying honestly, what it feels like. i’m not looking for attention. the only thing attention does is make me feel obligated to say ‘thank you’ or comment in some other way and i feel so shitty when i do any of that. any kind of talking i feel bad doing. i’m sorry. i’ve been lying the whole time. if you think i’m nice or funny or a good person or a good friend or something it’s because i’m good at lying. i feel so bad when i talk to anyone. unless it’s a certain kind of talking or a certain kind or person. or unless i’m on drugs or alcohol or something. i’m lying the whole time. i’m sorry. it feels bad in a different way when i’m not talking to anyone. there is more hope when there’s another person around maybe. i get more distracted but i also think i’m stupider and i can’t think as well. i am annoying and i try to make too many jokes. or else i feel paralyzed and like everyone hates me and i say stupid things i don’t mean to help make something go by faster. it’s not always like that, i’m not being realistic. i’m being dramatic. just please read this and think ‘she’s being dramatic’ if you think anything. don’t think anything. just keep doing whatever else you were doing. i’m jealous of whatever else you were doing or whoever you are. don’t want to be this anymore. i don’t know what else to do. what do people do. i already did therapy and it didn’t work. do i just…i don’t know…i just should try to not pay attention to thoughts like this and find something else to make me busy. i guess. it’s always going to come back to this feeling though. for years i think, since…i don’t know. actually this is recent i think, for it to be happening to the degree it’s happening. i think it started last summer. wait. i don’t know. the one before that. i don’t remember. it wasn’t always like this. i think i’m happy also. sometimes i’m also happy.
7:47AM: ate 2mg klonopin. debating driving to maryland. want to lay and not have thoughts for awhile and maybe sleep.
1:19PM: i woke about a half an hour ago.
1:36PM: did 300 crunches, 50 push-ups, 50 squats
2:13PM: picked at myself for awhile. when i talk about ‘picking at myself’ this is what i mean. realize it looks gross. curious if other people do this. feel ashamed of doing this and like picture posting will force me to be less ashamed and maybe do it less since i’m not hiding it. extreme anxiety about posting this, will maybe take down:
2:44PM: did 50 squats on each leg, 50 push-ups, 100 crunches. ecigarette works now.
3:10PM: received email coupon for 50% off rite aid brand products.
3:29PM: it’s good when shirley is here:
3:37PM: real estate agent texted that there was some kind of ‘business networking’ event in manhattan tonight. have been texting with masha funny/commiserating style. arranged drug trade.
4:14PM: going to drive to maryland now.
4:25PM: what the hell:
“This multi-wavelength view shows 4C+29.30, a galaxy located some 850 million light years from Earth. The radio emission comes from two jets of particles that are speeding at millions of miles per hour away from a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. The estimated mass of the black hole is about 100 million times the mass of our Sun. The ends of the jets show larger areas of radio emission located outside the galaxy.
The X-ray data show a different aspect of this galaxy, tracing the location of hot gas. The bright X-rays in the center of the image mark a pool of million-degree gas around the black hole. Some of this material may eventually be consumed by the black hole, and the magnetized, whirlpool of gas near the black hole could in turn, trigger more output to the radio jet.
Most of the low-energy X-rays from the vicinity of the black hole are absorbed by dust and gas, probably in the shape of a giant doughnut around the black hole. This doughnut, or torus blocks all the optical light produced near the black hole, so astronomers refer to this type of source as a hidden or buried black hole. The optical light seen in the image is from the stars in the galaxy.”
(from “Black Hole-Powered Jets Plow into Galaxy”)
4:32PM: ate 10mg opana, 5mg vicodin.
4:47pm: have been carrying these things around in my purse ‘for good luck.’ they are from Matthew donahoo. The horse thing is a notebook with pages cut to hollow out a space for a horse magnet. The flask seems hilarious to me. Real estate agent said ‘hey Megan’ to me. He seemed to be using a metal detector.
5:24pm: listening to ‘parking lot music’ by e*vax. This is a ‘reminds me of a boyfriend’ album.
5:26pm: there is a lot of traffic. That is okay. I’d rather be in traffic than anywhere else. Want to re-read ‘slapstick,’ wish I brought it with me.
6:52pm: gas station attendant man said ‘hey howya doin man.’ I downloaded an audio book thing. Listened to ~25% of a Schopenhauer thing about pessimism and thought ‘yeah I think this stuff anyway.’ then listened to ~25% of the theory of relativity by einstein and thought ‘I almost get it, it would be better to see it written down. Or as a powerpoint.’
8:45pm: pulling into parking spot at mom’s. Listened to music. Thoughts in car were mostly ‘what could I have done differently’ and ‘why am I doing this’ and ‘will someone be mad at me for doing this.’ A little ‘that looks interesting’ and ‘why isn’t ecigarette working’ and ‘I don’t feel effects from the pills I ate’ and ‘am I hungry.’ I am hungry.
9:08pm: mom was watching the episode before the farewell episode of the office. She gave me a big hug and asked if I was sick. I know I’m not but I felt my face look like ‘maybe.’ I said ‘no I’m just feeling not so good.’ she hugged me again and said ‘you have to watch the farewell ‘office.” I sat next to her on the couch and said ‘I didn’t know it was the last one already.’ she said something sweet and goofy and cheerful and a little embarrassed.
When Jim said he hoped someday someone would be inspired by the office mom made a crying noise. I ordered Thai food. Mom said ‘is the pizza coming?’ and laughed knowingly and said ‘I mean are you going to the pizza place to pick up your Thai food.’
Ate handful cashews, bite of whole foods cookie, 1mg xanax
9:16pm: the office is on at the Thai place. No one else is here.
9:24pm: warm and spring smelling out here. Normally I think I’d be feeling something
10:22pm: extremely sleepy. Things about the office. I wish I was on ‘the office.’ I love mom. So sleepy
10:32PM: watching ‘the office’ things on demand with mom.
10:37PM: forgot to say i ate tom kha soup, pad thai chicken, piece of peach pie okay. great. mom and i trying to find old episodes of ‘the office.’ having a hard time deciding. mom said ‘well we have both agreed that we like to see the ones with jim and pam in love.’
11:02PM: started falling asleep during ‘booze cruise’ office episode and saw picture of a person’s hands over a sink and cans full of different color paint kept getting dumped onto the hands like the person was getting their hands washed by them but also ‘warding them off’ and trying to not let the paint stay on too long
MAY 17, 2013
[some time before 1AM]: fell asleep during ‘the office’ and ‘grumbled’ childishly to bed.
[some time in the night]: woke distracted by the blue light of ecigarette, moved it to my bag.
11:50AM: woke from sex dream with the second guy i had sex with who looked more attractive as he had gotten older. it felt really good. i was laying on him ‘from behind,’ like we were both facing the ceiling. i don’t remember much else about it. then i was outside tao’s old apartment in brooklyn and i think we were having sex standing up near some kind of pole, like a toilet plunger. tao said ‘i have new roommates’ and we went inside. there were three 40-50lbs overweight women and six bunk beds in the room where the kitchen was. i said ‘where did your room go?’ tao said ‘it’s still here, you just can’t see it because of them.’ he asked if i could stay two nights and i thought ‘he wants me to stay two nights, sweet.’ one of the women was ‘lounging’ in a top bunk bed. she said ‘no not two nights.’ tao got in the bottom bunk of a bed and the top was empty and he motioned for me to get in the bottom bunk. there was enough room for two people. i realized we were not going to have sex anymore. the overweight women were talking continuously and making food in the kitchen/bunk bed room and tao and i were looking at each other and grinning and being like ‘what the fuck is this shit.’ when i woke there was half a glass of milk next to my bed.
12:00-1:08PM: ate an apricot and drank two cups of coffee while talking to mom about the army. i told her about colin and the ‘fancy food student’ who were both veterans and had their school paid for. they said being in the army showed them ‘the worst case scenario.’ like when you think things are really bad, the army showed them ‘it can always get worse.’ we joked about that at dinner the other night, i remember saying ‘now you know for sure that it can get worse’ and grinning and thinking i was being insensitive. mom got emotional and cried about the government putting agent orange on people in vietnam and ‘the things they do to those boys, they don’t even know it when they go into it.’ then she apologized for being emotional and i said ‘it’s okay, you don’t have to apologize.’
i said ‘maybe i’ll join the navy, then they’ll pay for my school and i can get a physics degree and then i can work for nasa and be an astronaut.’ mom seemed supportive. i told her about chris hadfield (astronaut whose videos i was watching the other day). she knew about him. i said ‘did you see his ‘space oddity’ song? the david bowie song?’ she said ‘i saw a clip but i want to see the whole thing.’ i brought my computer in and sat next to her on the couch and we watched it:
mom cried and laughed a lot. i cried a little i think, feeling affected by her crying. she said ‘he’s just adorable, what a sweet man’ at the end. i told mom about the female astronaut (suni williams) whose videos at the international space station i was also watching for a really long time the other day. she’s logged the most ‘spacewalk’ hours of any woman. she was a jet pilot in the navy. mom said ‘i knew your truck driving thing wasn’t for nothing, and then the other day when you talked about being a flight attendant, oh meggie, i see this happening for you.’ i read from the nasa website about ‘basic requirements for an astronaut pilot:’
‘Bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution in engineering, biological science, physical science, or mathematics. An advanced degree is desirable. Quality of academic preparation is important.’
i said ‘i’d probably need four more years of college, i’m not got at math.’ mom said ‘oh i bet it would be less than that.’ i said ‘no, i only took one astronomy course, and like, qualitative reasoning. that’s my only math. but that’s okay.’ i walked to the bathroom and my room, looking for my ecigarette. mom said excited things about how she thought i could be an astronaut. i said ‘i’m good at physics but that’s like, the only thing on that list. grad school also.’ i found the ecigarette. mom said ‘can you hear me?’ i said ‘i think so, can you hear me?’ she said ‘i can hear you.’
i sat on the dining room chair and continued to read from the nasa website:
‘In addition, the pilot may assist in the deployment and retrieval of satellites utilizing the remote manipulator system, in extravehicular activities,’
i said ”extravehicular,’ that means doing the spacewalk, getting to repair the ship in space.’
mom said ‘i can see you doing that. all you have to do is try to do that.’
i read the rest of the pilot requirements in a scanning manner, saying like, ”must have vision correctable to 20/20’ i got that, ‘must be between 62 and 75 inches tall’ i got that, blood pressure i think i got that.’ mom said ‘you have all those things.’
then mom expressed anxiety about the ecigarette making things smell, but also that she knew it didn’t smell. she asked if nicotine was bad for you. i said ‘i don’t think so, it’s just the other stuff in cigarettes that’s bad, this is just like, water.’ i said i’d go outside.
1:27PM: sitting on balcony feeling okay. i feel excited about the astronaut idea. i would go to more college. if the navy paid for my college that would be really good. i would get to fly planes. seems sweet as hell. seems like ‘how can i not do this.’ writing seems shitty compared to being an astronaut. i’m going to…look into being a navy pilot now…
1:34PM: shit, disheartening:
i should’ve thought more about moving to new york. i could’ve just like, transferred to the naval academy in annapolis and lived at home. shit. what have i done…maybe i can…maybe there is a way…shit…goddamnit…why didn’t i think of this earlier, i’ve always wanted to be an astronaut but i just thought ‘you’re bad at math, you can’t do it’ but if i really worked on it i could do it…goddamnit…thought ‘want to blow all this shit to hell’
1:36PM: walked inside to get refill battery for ecigarette. i said ‘i’m calling the navy about enlisting’ to mom. she made excited noises and said ‘oh honey i’m so happy for you, this sounds so good.’ i said ‘i feel like i need that, it’ll be good for me. i need someone to tell me to do things.’ she said ‘i just think it sounds so good.’ walked to balcony.
1:48PM: called two naval recruitment offices in queens and ‘garden city.’ the first one didn’t have an option to leave a message. the second one had a recording that said to call back during normal office hours, from 9AM-4PM (which i was calling in). the third one was on flatbush avenue and allowed me to leave a message. i said ‘hi my name is margaret boyle, i’m interested in enlisting in the navy and pursuing a career in aviation. i don’t have my full bachelor’s, but i’m interested in asking you questions about that, and more questions in general [laugh laugh]. please give me a call back at 410-978-0648.’ i sounded ‘professional as hell,’ i feel.
2:05PM: dad called to see about eating dinner together tonight. he said the office building construction was moving fast and he’d be able to rent offices to people by june 1, then said something like ‘i want to set you up with an apartment building to rent out to people so you can have passive income, so you don’t always have to be working.’ i said ‘that’d be cool and all,’ then told him about ‘my plan’ to join the navy and finish school and be an astronaut, that the places weren’t picking up their phones, and that i was just going to go to a recruitment office in-person when i get back to NYC. he seemed really excited. i said ‘they’ll probably be happy because you were in the navy too, what did you do, were you an officer?’ he said ‘well in four years i went up to an e-6 officer, a ‘petty officer,’ i don’t like that name—but you can tell them your dad was a radar technician on the joseph p. kennedy, which is the ship that stopped the cuban blockade.’ i forgot he did that. i was smiling a lot. dad told me things about ROTC and that there were tests to be an officer that he was ‘sure i would pass’ and then i could fly jets or ‘nuclear submarines.’ i said ‘jets, i want to fly jets.’ he laughed like ‘ah-hahaha!’ and said he was happy for me. i said ‘plus since i have my CDL they’ll know i can drive trucks so that must be good.’ he said ‘that’s right, they’ll see that you have your CDL.’ i said ‘even if i don’t get to be an astronaut i could probably get a job at nasa.’ dad said ‘there’ll be more opportunities for you to go to space, in your lifetime.’ i told him about applying to callahead for the secretary position the other day and knowing i didn’t get it, and how i’ve just been thinking about all the shitty jobs i could do, not really wanting to do any of them, then i just had this idea. dad said ‘maybe you’ll take me for a ride in your jet one day.’ i said ‘yeah, they’d probably let me, since you were in the navy.’ he was laughing really happily and i was too. i said ‘i figured it out i think.’ we said things about meeting at 8PM for dinner and hung up.
2:38PM: mom has been filling a pitcher of water and taking it to the balcony to water plants. she said ‘you could be like fred astaire and gene kelly: ‘on the town.”
2:40PM: mom said ‘you want a half a bagel?’ i said ‘no thank you.’
2:58PM: mom said ‘you know what else? you might be going to mars in your lifetime.’ i said ‘y-eah’ unfocusedly while typing ‘yeah’ in tweet response to mira who had asked ‘wait rly’ about my tweet where i said i was enlisting in the navy tomorrow. mom said ‘or other cool places. as-yet-undefined.’
4:10PM: paid all my parking tickets. i had five. bad news. mom just said ‘plus! you’re so good with a gun! you could be a sniper,’ laughing like ‘just kidding.’ tried to pay ticket online from april 22, for using cell phone while driving, but website isn’t letting me, i think because the ticket looks like ‘LAST NAME: Matlock FIRST NAME: MargareMIDDLE INITIALt Megan Boyle [‘Boyle’ is ‘scrunched’ above box that says ‘LOCAL POLICE CODE 088’]. tried all combinations/variations of my name that i could think of. seems like they either didn’t enter the ticket yet or she…i don’t know what they could’ve thought my name was. my PA license says ‘MARGARETMEGAN MATLOCK BOYLE’ because there wasn’t enough space to write ‘MARGARET MEGAN.’ i also tried ‘MARGARETMEGAN.’ i don’t know why the cop wrote ‘MATLOCK’ for my last name. i simply. don’t. know. can’t believe my parents named me ‘margaret megan.’ that’s like naming someone ‘william bill’ or ‘richard dick.’ but they always called me ‘megan.’
here’s a story about my name: somehow i didn’t end up with a social security card until i was eight or nine years old. at that time i had been spelling my name ‘meghan.’ that’s how my parents showed me it was spelled. my birth certificate says ‘margaret megan matlock boyle,’ though. i think i didn’t like it that my middle name was ‘matlock’ and nobody was paying attention or…i don’t know. they let me write ‘margaret megan (no ‘h’ for some reason) boyle’ on the social security card and i ended up with a social security number that didn’t correspond with the name on my birth certificate. it was 1993 or 1994 so things like that mattered less, i guess. pre-9/11 style.
in 1997 my family went on a cruise to the carribean and i needed a passport. i went with my dad to a place where they took passport photos. i’m assuming he brought my birth certificate, and maybe there was some kind of conversation between the photographer and my dad about how ‘margaret’ and ‘megan’ are essentially the same name, so i ended up with a passport that said ‘megan matlock boyle.’
when i got my driver’s license in 2004, the maryland DMV required the name on the license to say the same thing as my social security card.
so the names on my forms of identification as of 2004 are:
birth certificate: margaret megan matlock boyle
baptismal certificate: margaret meghan matlock boyle (this one doesn’t really matter but why the ‘h’)
social security card: margaret megan boyle
passport: megan matlock boyle
driver’s license: margaret megan boyle
i sublet a room in brooklyn from december 2011 to the end of march 2012. as i was walking to the train one of the first days i was there, i saw a storefront covered with ‘CDL license, driving school, truck driving lessons’ and other words. i had always wanted to drive trucks. i signed up for a CDL preparation class with a mostly polish-speaking man. i liked him a lot. we had one-on-one lessons for about two weeks. he said he would teach me how to pass the written commercial driver’s license test, but before i could even get the CDL or get behind the wheel of a truck for driving lessons, i would need to transfer my maryland driver’s license to a new york driver’s license.
i brought my maryland driver’s license, social security card, birth certificate, and passport to the new york DMV. they wouldn’t give me a new york state license because of a ‘4-point system.’ i needed one ‘proof of date of birth’ (birth certificate = 0 points) and 4 points of ‘proofs of name’ (u.s. citizens usually use their social security card [2 points] and passport [2 points], here is a list of all the things you can use as ‘points,’). they all have to say the same name.
i went to the social security office in new york. the first time i went i was drunk and had whiskey in a flask and a water bottle with me and saw a sign that said ‘no liquids permitted’ so i went home. the second time i went sober and did not bring fluids. i waited in a ‘holding tank area’ downstairs in an amusement park ride-style belted maze-like line at the front of which was a security gate, guarded by police. the police would periodically count 15-20 people’s heads near the front of the line. these were the heads permitted to pass through the security device to another waiting area upstairs. when i reached the second waiting area i think i was instructed to get a number given to me on piece of paper by a device. then i stood behind the same person who i had stood behind in the first line, in a similar but tenser-feeling amusement park style belted-in maze-line. the perimeter of the room was comprised of about thirty people sitting behind bulletproof glass in ‘desk stations.’ the mass of line-waiting people were directly in the center of the room, about twenty feet away from the wall of ‘desk stations.’
i’m getting carried away. it seemed futuristic and dystopian and cool, is what i’m getting at.
the woman who helped me seemed (rightfully) tired. i handed her my driver’s license, social security card, baptismal certificate, and birth certificate. she had some kind of las vegas souvenir on her desk. i tried to exude apologetic ‘i understand’ mental waves to her. she mostly looked at my papers and typed things into a computer, making ‘something is wrong’ faces. she said ‘you got a double name?’ i said ‘i don’t’ know, what is that?’ she said ‘why they give you a double name?’ i said ‘i don’t know, i’m just trying to get all my IDs to say the same thing as my birth certificate.’ she was quiet and continued to make ‘something is wrong faces.’ she tore up my old social security card and said i would receive a new card in the mail in two weeks. i said ‘will it say the name on my birth certificate?’ she sighed with irritation and looked me in the eye and said ‘no m’am. you have a double name. your social card is going to say the same name as your driver’s license. if you want us to change the name on your social you need your driver’s license to say the name you want us to change it to.’ i said ‘so wait, my new card will say the same name as my old card?’ she said ‘that’s right’ and something about how i had given her the right to tear up my old card, by applying for a new card.
i waited for the new card to arrive in the mail. it said ‘margaret megan boyle.’ i drove to the maryland DMV where i got my license. the DMV is out in the country and i thought they’d maybe be more lenient or understanding than the new york people. the woman behind the desk looked at my IDs with her eyebrows close together. i explained i was trying to get my IDs to all say the same thing, and that the social security office had told me i needed my driver’s license to be changed first. the woman said ‘i don’t know why they’d tell you that, we need your social first. we use whatever your social security card says.’ i said ‘what about my birth certificate, does that matter?’ she said ‘why does your social security card say a different name than your birth certificate?’ i said ‘i guess i got it with my dad, i don’t know, a long time ago, i don’t know why no one checked to see if said the same thing.’ she said ‘now why does your passport say ‘megan matlock boyle?” i said ‘i don’t know, no one checked.’ she said ‘you at least need your passport. you need at least two things to say the same thing. but really, they all need to say the same thing.’
it had been over a month since i had stopped my one-on-one CDL lessons with the polish guy. near the end, we had started studying the paper of new york license requirements list and were ‘conspiring’ about how i could get a new york license without getting a new social security card or passport: i could just find my marriage certificate [worth 2 points, knew it said ‘margaret megan matlock boyle’], high school diploma [worth 2 points, pretty sure it said ‘megan margaret matlock boyle’ but maybe not], and ‘something else, you figure it out, 2 more points.’ he said the only new york DMV that issued immediate temporary licenses was in coney island. he would say ‘so you go to coney island, hm? with your papers, hm? then they give you new license, then you say ‘can i take CDL test’ and they say yes, you get it the same day. coney island is the only place. you gotta wake up early.’ i would say ‘that’s fine, i’ll wake up early that day.’ he would ask me when i thought i’d have everything straightened out and i would lie and he would nod and say ‘good, you straighten it out’ with a wary but not hopeless facial expression.
around the time i visited the maryland DMV the truck man left me a voicemail asking if i had gotten my name straightened out yet. i called him back and said not yet, it was taking forever, waiting for things to get mailed to me. zachary and i had started looking for apartments in philadelphia. we were hoping to move in together by april or may, i think. there would be no reason for me to have a new york driver’s license (commercial or standard) anymore. i didn’t tell the truck man.
i looked online at passport things. i printed out an application for a new passport and wrote ‘margaret megan matlock boyle’ as my name. i checked a box that said ‘name correction’ and wrote ‘it has never said the same thing as my birth certificate’ next to it on a line. i got a new passport photo at a UPS store and mailed a package with the photos, the application, and my birth certificate to the passport offices. i knew i wouldn’t be living in brooklyn much longer and i never ‘officially’ lived there in the first place so i listed my mom’s apartment as my permanent address. it seemed likely that the passport offices would return my application with an ‘INVALID’ stamp, maybe an ‘INVALID’ stamp on my birth certificate if it hadn’t already been ‘confiscated.’
a few weeks later my mom called and said a package from the passport offices had arrived. i drove to maryland and opened the package containing my birth certificate, a ‘leftover bonus keepsake photo,’ and a new passport which said ‘first name: ‘margaret megan,’ middle: ‘matlock,’ last name: ‘boyle.”
felt like the happiest day of my life.
i went to a social security office in maryland with my passport and birth certificate. there was only one ‘waiting area’ in the maryland office. only a few people were there. the woman who helped me didn’t notice the blank space under ‘father’s social security number.’ she said ‘so wait, is ‘margaret megan’ your first name?’ i’ve never been sure if ‘megan’ is my first or middle name. i said ‘yeah, it’s my first name. double name.’ she said a new card would be mailed to me soon. i said ‘so it’ll say what it says on my passport and my birth certificate?’ she said it would.
i forget where i received the new social security card, but it said ‘margaret megan matlock boyle.’ i went to the maryland DMV with my new social security card and passport. they changed my license so easily i don’t remember what was said.
i think i had a maryand driver’s license that said ‘margaret megan matlock boyle’ for less than a week.
this is when i did something i don’t understand fully. i know i did it on march 28, 2012, when zachary and i had already signed the lease (effective april 1, 2012) to our philadelphia apartment.
i went to the coney island DMV and had them give me a temporary new york state driver’s license. a permanent license, which i still have, would be mailed to me. i didn’t ask to take the CDL test, i just left with a paper license that would expire in a few weeks. i took pictures of the coney island boardwalk. the sun was really bright. only a few people were walking around. i had never been there. i think i was thinking i would live in philadelphia but occasionally drive up to new york for ‘behind the wheel’ truck driving lessens with the polish man.
some time in may or june 2012 i got my new york driver’s license transferred to a pennsylvania driver’s license. they had just gotten a new computer system and ‘margaret megan’ wouldn’t fit under ‘first name.’ the DMV woman urged me to list ‘megan’ as my middle name, which i could foresee leading to future hells of confusedly explaining what my name is ‘technically’ to frustrated desk clerks behind bulletproof glass. i said ”margaretmegan’ is really fine, no space, it’s really really okay, i just want to be sure it says the same thing everywhere, on everything.’
6:39PM: i got into writing that. sitting at desk at mom’s. oh shit i forgot to mail masha’s package. i will fedex that ass. i forgot i decided to enlist in the navy.
6:44PM: i’m embarrassed about my long ass 6:31AM complaining rant thing. i sound like a whiny bitch. my ‘name story’ also sounds entitled and like…the least…like there are much worse problems to have than that.
to clarify: the 6:31AM rant was written while feeling bad to the extent that i wasn’t even aware of the possibility that what i was doing could be seen as ‘whining.’ the ‘name story’ was not me whining, i don’t remember having emotions writing it except maybe mild nostalgia and ‘haha.’
okay great so this ends this very important news briefing blah blah shut your shitty ass up boyle.
8:00pm: asked mom what movie she was going to watch tonight while fumbling around the kitchen and dining room table, gathering things. She said ‘maybe the Abe lincoln vampire one, but I don’t want to be scared.’ I went ‘ooooooh.’ Walked to my room and picked up my phone and walked back to the main room. I said ‘I can’t believe I figured it out. I’ll just do space.’ mom said something positive about college and NASA. I walked to her bathroom and applied deodorant. Pictured something vague about ‘the steps ahead of me’ and felt a pang of fear and loss. Mom said ‘driving trucks just didn’t seem like you, I don’t know, somehow.’ I said ‘y-eah, now I’ll be driving spaceships. Flying jets and spaceships’ and heard slightly forced childish enthusiasm in my voice. Mom said ‘well or whatever.’ I said ‘I’ll have something new to concentrate on.’ mom said ‘you should never stop writing though, but you don’t have to, you can always come back to it.’ I said ‘I’ll write in space. If I feel like it.’ she said ‘and who knows where you’ll go. They’ll be going to mars, in your lifetime. You could go to mars!’ I put on my shoes. Mom said ‘did you hear about Angelina Jolie? She’s gotten her breasts and ovaries removed.’ I said ‘she did it on purpose? Without cancer?’ mom said ‘well, apparently her mother had this type of cancer.’ I said ‘talk about attention-seeking.’ mom said ‘I know, really’ and laughed. I said ‘I don’t like her. She’ll never make it in space. Especially without her boobs’ mom laughed and I smiled and walked downstairs and out to my car.
8:16pm: driving to dad’s office for dinner. Not hungry yet
[some time between 8:17-8:45PM]: dad gave me a tour of his new offices. they built them really fast and he’s rented out most of them. i’ve seen the tour before but i didn’t want to mention it.
dad told a story about how he put $200 in the building contractor’s hand when he shook it for the first time the other day. the contractor refused the money. dad said ‘wait, but don’t you have a friend?’ the contractor said ‘yeah.’ my dad said ‘this is for your friend, buy something for your friend.’ i said ‘oh man’ and grinned. dad’s nose scrunched up and he ‘cackled’ giddily, ‘my dad-style,’ in a way he does rarely. (**side note: seems interesting to write about a person narrating a story they’ve told you, like i wanted to talk about how dad’s face looked when he was telling me the story and describe the inflections/voices/faces he used to tell the story but i want to ‘shit out’ other information first, it’s 2AM now)
dad showed me an area which he and mary (other landlord) are converting into a ‘meditation/relaxation room.’ it used to be an office. he said ‘and i’m putting my elliptical machine in here, dr. oaken says ‘45 minutes a day on that thing, if you wanna live until you die.”
i said ‘i’m so happy for you’ and things like that and asked questions which i think would normally seem ‘fake’ but i felt sincere asking them and interested in their answers. i was happy to see dad acting so happy.
dad gave me a headset for talking on the phone in my car. i put it in my car and dad said ‘are you driving?’ i said ‘oh i don’t know, i was just putting the headset in. or. i’ll drive, do you want me to drive?’ he opened the passenger-side door and paused a moment, looking down, then said ‘no, i think i’ll drive.’
we walked to his car. there was a toolbox on my seat. dad said ‘i got you tools, here are your tools!’ i said ‘oh boy, oh tools, thank you. tools in a toolbox. does it have a drill?’ he said ‘no, well. this one, this box doesn’t have a drill. but you can borrow mine.’ i said ‘no no no, i’ll just hammer the thing i was thinking of drilling, hammering is fine.’ dad said ‘i thought i bought you this toolbox awhile ago!’ i said ‘i’m pretty sure you did. yeah i think you did, it looks familiar, from my old apartment.’
dad pulled into the parking lot of the seafood restaurant we had planned to eat. a handful of agelessly old-looking, ‘active lifestyle’ people in silk shirts and jewelry were milling around outside. dad slowed as we passed them. i said ‘what if there’s a wait, looks like a wait.’ dad said ‘is there a wait?’ the people looked ‘bleakly unfamiliarly acquainted’ to me. i said ‘seems fancy.’ dad said ‘yeah, it might be.’ i said ‘let’s do the double T instead. this seems too fancy.’ dad said ‘yeah, long wait, too fancy.’
i showed him the ecigarette. he tried it, nodded, matter-of-factly said ‘it hits you.’ i said stuff about the batteries not working well and ordering new ones. he said ‘where do they sell those things?’ i said ‘like CVS, rite aid.’ he said ‘wanna go to CVS and get a new one before we eat? so you’re not thinking about it at dinner?’ surprised he would think to ask/offer that. i said ‘oh no, it’s okay.’ he said ‘are you sure? it’s right next to the double T.’ i said ‘okay.’ i said anxious things about how it’s not really smoking and dad would respond with a ‘padding’ comment, like a repetition or slightly different phrasing of whatever i had said. he pulled into a parking spot at CVS. i said ‘thanks for offering to do this, i wouldn’t have even thought to.’ he said ‘well now you won’t be wondering about it all night. plus, i think they’re a stress reliever, cigarettes can be stress relievers.’ continued anxiously saying things, walking fast into CVS with dad behind me, increasingly aware that i was about to ask for an ecigarette battery with my dad, and there was maybe something socially ‘off’ about this.
the man behind the counter said they didn’t sell ‘blu’ or any brand of ecigarettes. i said ‘thank you’ and started walking away. turned my head to see if dad was following. saw him gesturing vaguely and saying ‘do you know where else they’re sold’ to the man behind the counter, whose head seemed like it could’ve been politely shaking ‘no’ from the moment we walked through the door.
dad seemed ready to abandon dinner to hunt for an ecigarette battery. i remember him doing stuff like this ever since i was little. the variety and frequency of ‘stuff like this my dad does’ seems highly unpredictable. one time at the beach we were in an arcade, taking turns maneuvering a joystick controlling a ‘grabbing claw’ in one of those impossible toy machines. we were aiming for a stuffed ‘dino’ dinosaur toy from the flintsones. there were two or three non-traditionally colored ‘dinos’ in the machine. the claw wasn’t picking up anything. i wanted a ‘dino’ really bad. dad gave me quarters and told me to keep trying while he used the bathroom. a little later he returned to the machine with a man holding a set of keys. the man opened the machine and gave me three ‘dinos.’ i was so happy. i think even then i knew ‘this doesn’t happen to most people.’ over the years my dad got really good at getting things from claw machines. it’s like his ‘thing.’ he and my mom went to the movies every thursday and he would almost always bring home a stuffed toy for me. by the time he got really good at it i was in high school.
8:57pm: wrote ‘8:57pm: diner’ in my phone while exiting dad’s car outside the diner.
[some time between 8:58-10:33PM]: as we walked inside i continued a story i had started in the car about chris hadfield (astronaut in ‘space oddity’ video). he was answering a class of 6th grader’s questions from the international space station. someone asked him why he wanted to be an astronaut. he said something like ‘just after my 10th birthday they landed on the moon.’ dad opened the door to the diner. i said ‘how old were you when they landed on the moon? 1969?’ dad thought a minute and said ‘i was…27. whoa-ho-ho-ho! 27! you’re picking up where i left off.’
a waiter approached our table and said his name was danny. my dad said ‘dana?’ the waiter and i said ‘danny.’ dad said ‘oh, oh, i have a bad ear, i’m sorry. i’m mike’ and shook the waiter’s hand. (this is an example of a thing my dad does, introduces himself to waiters, used to embarrass me but now i think it’s endearing). i didn’t introduce myself. i ordered a spinach salad and maryland crab soup. dad ordered some kind of chicken pasta dish and a salad and matzah ball soup.
mostly we talked about the navy. i asked dad a lot of questions. seems hard to…here are the most interesting things my dad had to say about when he was in the navy (1958-1962):
-when he got off the bus of enlisted guys the first thing they did was shave everyone’s head. then they took them to a room where everyone got naked and their clothes and belongings were stored in bags. they were issued uniforms. on the ship he shared a room with 50 guys. there was a table, a garbage bucket, and a radio in the middle of the room.
-he showed me how to salute. you put the tips of the fingers of your right hand to your temple and move it fast to chest-height. the marines make a more exaggerated chopping downwards motion. dad said the general rule was ‘if it’s moving: salute it. if it’s not moving: paint it’ (they did a lot of painting on the ship).
-dad worked his way up to be an officer in charge of 13 guys (i said ‘you told them what to do? how did that work?’ he made a face and said ‘not very well’). he was a radar technician. he said he had a tiny office with a door sealed with 10 latches. sometimes he would go to his office to sleep but he wasn’t allowed. if someone caught him, by the time all the latches opened he would be awake enough to pretend he had been working the whole time.
-he described all the stripes and things that get added to your uniform the higher you rank, seeming ‘tour guide’-interested in this, miming the stripes and half-stripes on his sleeve. he said ‘and then when you’re an e-6 you get a chevron with an eagle coming out of it, you know, which is what i had, you’ve seen that picture of me.’ there is a ~18”x24” photo of him in his navy uniform on a shelf by his bed. he took a breath and held it for a moment, then shook his head like he had surrendered something. he said ‘oh no, i don’t know why i’m crying, why do i do this.’ i said ‘it’s okay.’ he said ‘i don’t even know why’ and chuckled a little, crying less as he continued describing the stripes and chevrons.
-most of the time at sea was spent playing ‘war games.’ dad’s ship would leave from rhode island and a submarine would leave from connecticut at the same time. dad’s job was to use radar to track the submarine as if it was the enemy. if the submarine crew detected someone tracking them, they were supposed to turn off the submarine to appear invisible to the radar. if the ship crew ‘caught’ the submarine before the submarine crew knew about it, they’d send ‘depth charges’ (dad described as ‘cap gun missiles that just made noise’) down to it. then the submarine would surface and they’d say ‘hi, good job’ to each other. one time the submarine went off the radar for a long time. dad’s ship continued sending ‘depth charges’ down to it but it stayed dormant. they got worried and stopped. after awhile the submarine surfaced. it was a russian submarine. dad said ‘and then they blinked their lights, you know, morse code, they said: ‘hi how are you.’ we said ‘hi we are fine.’ and it went along on its way. it was just there, in connecticut, a russian submarine!’
-john f. kennedy and jackie kennedy and walter cronkite were all on dad’s ship, the joseph p. kennedy (‘john was on the ship because he wanted his brother’s name to be historic’), during the cuban blockade. there were a lot of ships and jets. the whole navy, maybe. seemed really exciting, i’m not describing it well. russian ships were moving towards cuba so they could attack the u.s. from there, but the u.s. found out. all the russian ships retreated but one merchant ship. dad said four or five guys from his ship got on a small boat (he described as ‘from here to the other side of the room’ i said ‘like one of the lifeboats on the cruise ship?’ he said ‘yeah, yeah, almost exactly like that, yeah. a little smaller’) to make sure there were no missiles on the russian merchant ship. he said ‘and then we told them to go back to russia, and they did. they didn’t really do a thorough check of the ship, the guys. everyone was nervous.’ he said something about khrushchev. jesus, wonder if i can describe…he ‘acted’ the conversation between JFK and khrushchev with a lot of attitude, like this: ‘khrushchev said ‘look at our ships, look at what we can do.’ and we said ‘oh yeah? well look at our ships, think about what we can do.’ the merchant ship was just khrushchev saying ‘don’t forget, i’m not afraid to do this, too.’ so we said ‘oh we see that you can do that. you’d better not do any more though, because look at us.’ he was giggling kind of, seemed really happy to tell this story.
-by the time the cuban missile crisis started, dad was already ‘overtime’ and didn’t need to be in the navy anymore, but they made everyone stay an extra six months. he really didn’t want to be in the navy anymore. he started growing a beard. cleanliness was big. you were not supposed to grow beards. he told his friends he was growing the beard so when he got off the boat ‘castro would be able to recognize whose side he was on.’ the guy in charge of my dad noticed and called him into his office. he said ‘boyle? get that goddamned thing off your face.’
-drill thing: after the missile crisis, they started doing this circle thing for practice. the u.s. owns an island in the carribean near the panama canal. they test bombs there. dad’s ship was in a circular line with a lot of other ships. there were jets, too. just…it was everyone, moving in a circle around the island and the panama canal. whenever your ship or whatever reached the island you just ‘gave it all you got.’ you shot everything. some ships contained marines who would run onto the island while it was getting ‘practice-shot’ at, who would then shoot ‘giving it all they got’ at nothing (when i asked about this dad said ‘they were marines, they just knew how to not get shot’ which i don’t…jesus, i don’t know about this one). i said ‘seems like a thing kurt vonnegut would put in a book, going around in a circle to take turns shooting at nothing.’ dad did his ‘dad-style’ nose-scrunch cackle and said ‘yes! yes that’s exactly what it was like! a kurt vonnegut thing.’ he looked happy. later he said ‘it was really something, to do that. it was like all the fourth of julys, just going off, shooooom.’
NOT A NAVY THING BUT INTERESTING:
we had been excitedly talking about my ‘realistic course of action’ that would result in me becoming an astronaut. dad said ‘did i ever tell you about the astronaut who put his thumb—’ i smiled and nodded and made a ‘squiched-out’ thumb gesture. dad continued ‘well, so i guess he became some kind of preacher after this. he has a following. after he figured out you can do that thing, blot out the earth with your thumb, it’s just this tiny dot.’
a little later dad said ‘this story is a little embarrassing but i’ll tell it anyway. so, the astronaut who did the thumb thing, he apparently grew up in chicago in this poor neighborhood where the walls were paper-thin, and his bedroom—he lived next to the mcmanus family—his bedroom was right next to mr. and mrs. mcmanus’ bedroom, so he heard everything. this might’ve been another astronaut, this might’ve been neil armstrong. anyway, so one night he hears mrs. mcmanus [looked away and sort of chuckled], mrs. mcmanus from the bedroom, she says ‘i’ll put that thing in my mouth the day they send a man to the moon!” dad laughed and i laughed a little less. i said ‘oh noooooo. no way. you’re making that up, that’s not real.’ dad was still laughing. he said ‘no, it’s really real—they asked him what he was thinking about when he landed on the moon, so that’s what he [continued laughing].’ i laughed a little more.
10:34pm: typed ‘10:34pm: peeing ‘these bitches are annoying can we go’ mid-explanation of space workout’
throughout dinner waiters added tables to a maybe 7-table ‘spread’ of high school aged girls in the center of the room. a waiter added a table connecting the 7-table spread to the booth behind dad. the girls were loud. at some point after we had finished eating i was telling dad about how astronauts exercise in the international space station (which was built by people adding onto it, like how the waiters were adding tables, didn’t realize this, seems funny). dad said ‘how do they do it without weights?’ i explained something poorly about a video i watched, think i was gesturing a lot and saying things like ‘they harnessed the vacuum, it’s negative resistance, they use the space vacuum.’ a waiter added another table and dad and i noticed and i took advantage of the moment to say ‘these bitches are annoying, can we go? plus i have to pee.’ dad made a face like he was also annoyed by the bitches and relieved to be relieved of them.
10:58pm: typed ‘10:58pm: abprtion, tool box, told him re addreall, I’ve been ashamed, nowhere to go but up’
dad drove us back to his office. i forget what we talked about and what led me to think it was probably a year ago today when i found out i was pregnant. i said something like that aloud. dad used a gentle voice to say something i don’t remember completely. i said ‘it’s may 17, right?’ he said ‘yup, may 17, that’s today.’ i knew i didn’t find out on may 17, i felt that not being true. i remembered ‘may 16’ as something important. dad made a right turn into his office. he said ‘what was that like, finding that out?’ i said ‘i threw up, after i saw it. found out. threw up in the toilet. then i cried a lot. i didn’t know what to do so i called mom. i was just crying a lot. then i called zachary, i think, or no, i waited for him to get home, he was at work.’ dad parked the car. he said ‘i remember we were parked in this very spot, or one like it, when you told me about how you had that done, the d&c. i was happy you told me but i was so sorry you had to go through all that.’ i was embarrassed for having brought it up. i knew we both knew i didn’t have a ‘d&c’ (abortion-like procedure they do to remove miscarriages), and that he was maybe embarrassed too, which is why he’d want to call it that. i said ‘i’m happy i told you too. i wasn’t going to. i thought. something about nana, you’d get mad at me like nana got mad at you.’ i stepped out of the car before he turned off the engine. he said ‘oh no, no, no. i want you to feel like i’m,’ (sensed he stepped out of the car and was walking near me but i didn’t want to look), ‘you can say anything, have a seamless, open communication with me.’ he hugged my arm a little. his other arm was holding the toolbox. i did something ‘icky’ that i do sometimes in situations where the other person seems more emotional me, i’m embarrassed to type this. i said ‘i do, i feel that. and actually speaking of ‘seamless open communication,’ do you have any xanax?’ think i mumbled/snort-laughed most of the last part. dad said ‘what,’ seeming to honestly ‘not hear’ more than ‘not understand how i could say that.’ i said ‘do you have any xanax?’ he said ‘oh! yeah, yeah i do, and in fact, i was going to ask if you needed some earlier, but i don’t want to be imposing.’ i said ‘you wouldn’t be, no.’ he said ‘i don’t want to push drugs on you.’ i said ‘you’re not. you’re just giving me tools, like the toolbox.’
walked towards office door. he asked how many milligrams i usually take, which he always asks if i ask for xanax, theb said ‘one or two per night seems like a good limit.’ i agreed. followed him into his office. he asked how much i wanted. unsure if…i don’t know if i should be describing this or if he could get in trouble. going to stop this portion. in the ‘behind the scenes’/’stopped being talked about’ portion i said something that ended up with me saying i buy adderall from someone online, but that i’ve always used my savings account money to do it. dad said ‘thank you for doing that, thinking of me for that’ and it sounded like an awkward or forced formality. he gave me an amount of xanax and i thanked him.
i said ‘i’m really glad we did this tonight, i liked talking with you about the navy.’ dad said he liked tonight too, and that i should always feel free to call him or leave him voicemails or emails, he always likes them and wants to hear more from me. we were standing in the doorway. i said ‘i know you like voicemails and stuff like that. i think i’ve been feeling ashamed of myself, to talk. like i know you want to hear from me but i’m ashamed to tell you about what my life is like because i’m not doing anything, i haven’t been interested in anything. and it’s always nice that you want to hear from me. it’s just hard to imagine why, for me, like why would anyone be interested when to me it feel so, so it’s hard, yeah it’s felt too shameful to talk about.’ dad nodded a moment. he said ‘you know, i think i get that. i didn’t think about it like that.’ i said ‘but now i’m interested in something, so’ and smiled and we hugged. i said ‘now i’ll get to tell you about space.’ dad said ‘that’s right. oh i can just tell things are getting better now. there’s nowhere to go but up,’ broke the hug to point at the sky, said ‘hey! mars, that’s up, you’ll go to mars, you’re going up!’
11:55pm: typed ‘11:55pm: cop at entrance reprimanded me for using phone’
remembered i had left a bag of clothes and my guitar at dad’s apartment when i got to mom’s. drove back to dad’s. the security guard with fake teeth was there with a ‘cop buddy.’ i was on the phone with dad. the security guard didn’t remember me maybe, and made me stop so he could write down my license plate number. the cop said ‘you know, when you see a cop you have to at least pretend to not be on the phone.’ i sort of hung up. made a face and said ‘i know i know, i’m sorry.’ the cop said ‘he’s writing down your plates so i can give you a ticket.’ i said ‘really?’ he said ‘no, just pretend better next time.’ the security guard saluted me (for people just tuning in, he always salutes).
MAY 18, 2013
12:32am: typed ‘12:32am: oil, leaving’
dad helped me transfer the broken bag of clothes into two bags. then we looked around for a capo and a tuner. then we were standing at my car for awhile. we seemed to be drawing things out on purpose, maybe. i felt like i was, anyway. dad reminded me to get my oil checked.
damn it’s 8:45AM now and i’m tired of writing stuff.
here is the gist: have memories of dad showing me how to check the oil levels of a car for…a very long time. i don’t remember the first time he showed me how to do it. he also used to cut open vitamins. we’d get 5-7 kinds of vitamins and put them on a paper towel and he’d cut them open with his pocket knife to show me the insides. the coolest one was vitamin e. i don’t know why i put these memories together. i liked watching him wipe the oil dipstick with the paper towel and put it back and take it out again and kind of turn it and say ‘looks about right.’ i liked watching the vitamins get cut open with the pocket knife. his pocket knife is a ‘big thing’ about him. he is always ready to help cut something open with the pocket knife. also my mom likes to tell a story about how her friend’s car broke down in our driveway and i was maybe four years old and i said ‘daddy will fix it with scotch tape.’
here is the gist of the gist: i checked my oil and dad watched. i did it right. i put a quart of oil in. i told dad i would see him soon.
12:33am: typed ‘12:33am: I saluted him back’
security guard with fake teeth saluted me and i saluted him back. the cop buddy wasn’t there. he said ‘have a good night hon.’ i’ve always known what a salute looks like but haven’t felt confident that my ‘salute’ would not look like a ‘heil hitler’ or…i just haven’t known enough about saluting. seemed cute to do it. my dad calls him ‘captain [forget his name].’ now i know a captain is almost the highest you can get the navy. now he is a security guard. this and the previous thing and to some degree all the stuff i’ve written about my dad tonight sounds corny. it didn’t feel like it.
1:14AM: walked inside mom’s a few minutes ago. she’s been watching international space station videos and we talked about them. she said ‘there’s gotta be long periods of nothing, i know there needs to be, before you feel like something makes sense, you know. before you feel like you fit somewhere. i know, it’s happened to me a lot. there are just these periods.’ sometimes she says something like this.
5:41AM: thought i’ve been updating this with ‘i’m still typing’ updates. guess not. i’ve been typing. sometimes taking breaks to look at things. seemed really hard to write about the dad thing. hate how i sound. have snorted 40mg adderall. do not usually snort adderall but i thought it’d work better since i had a full stomach when i came home.
6:27AM: it would maybe be bad to enlist today since i didn’t sleep and i have adderall eyes
9:01AM: took a break a few hours ago to figure out why i thought ‘may 16’ was important. found in gmail:
seems to be the number of an abortion clinic. looked at text messages. on may 16th i texted zachary ‘it’s the building attached to the bank’s apothecary…suite 202’
he was parking the car. the place seemed hard to find. the next text from him is five days later, about work.
i’m not trying to make a big deal about this. the timing seems interesting to me. i am thinking a lot of cliches. it’s a cliche to think about ‘anniversaries.’ also seems hard for me to not think about this right now. reading old emails and chats and text messages, knowing how things turned out, the stuff we weren’t paying attention to seems so obvious. all the parts where he was trying to pretend he wasn’t getting more and more disappointed and i was trying to pretend everything was okay. getting drunk and arguing and apologizing the next day. i seem like the worst. ‘the one who took the ship down.’ real sinker. i feel different than then but i’m probably not. gaps of time between texts having an interesting effect. making everything seem like nonsequiturs. there is also a very clear progression, to me, of the things he didn’t like about me. i can see him go from ‘unaware of ___,’ ‘trying to ignore ___,’ ‘joking about ____ to diminish annoyance,’ ‘resenting ___,’ indifferent to ___,’ ‘tired of everything.’
seems childish or uninformed to think ‘one person is responsible for a relationship failing.’ i know it’s not just one person. blahballah.
9:42AM: i am now stopping that thought pattern/indulging in whatever by saying everything i think about this photo i found on someone’s ‘photo tumblr that doesn’t post captions of where photos are from:’
-people shouldn’t be allowed to withhold information about the locations of photos like these, i want to know
-is this dubai
-that movie ‘what dreams may come’ where robin williams goes to heaven
-how many people are drunk/on drugs
-photographer is probably a nasty ‘party phReAK’ guy with a tan and unbuttoned shirt and ‘panting’ (somehow) penis…you can hear the penis ‘panting’ for you…from the hole in the top…it’s always panting for someone…if you ever think ‘was TNT ever a network/non-cable TV station,’ that means the penis has ‘panted’ for you, specifically, the penis is sponsored by TNT, when it pants for you and forces a TNT thought into you it means you experienced a next-level kind of advertising that is still being tested/researched
-something that wasn’t even a person generated the photo, this never happened, this place doesn’t exist, when you see the photo you’re actually seeing an advanced algorithm that…[something about google images]…that’s why the guy in the lower-right corner is making that face
-wait, does the guy know he’s there, in the picture you think you’re seeing
-he’s just a stock photo from google images transposed onto the water thing
-he also clearly displays ‘how did i end up here, is this happening’ so maybe something is happening to him like this, like he is in a pool somewhere, caught in some kind of loop, like how in ‘sirens of titan’ the old guy and his dog were stuck moving through time…he’s…goddamnit i give up
-someone should have a photography contest about this place called ‘make this place look shitty without using photoshop.’ i would just take a close-up of one of the people’s face’s or the photographer’s penis
-is this dubai (thought it again not gonna lie)
-is dubai illegal
-is what they’re doing here illegal
-what would edward hopper think about this, would this ‘sicken’ him or ‘blow his mind’ or what
-seems like edward hopper never spent time in the tropics
-seems like artists used to go to places…for like, ‘a study’…keep thinking ‘gaugain’ and ‘polynesia’ and i’m pretty sure i’m spelling his name wrong
-gaugain seems like a prick
-artists seem like pricks
-art critics don’t seem real, like they must know…literary critics…they must know how they come off as, right?
-have felt entertained by the thought that nardwuar and beach sloth are making fun of everyone/being extremely sarcastic in their praise
-if andy warhol were in this picture you would think he would be doing something ‘zany’ like holding an exotic bird or wearing a tuxedo in the water but actually he would just be sitting somewhere quietly
-i feel more conviction about the previous sentence i wrote than anything else in recent memory
-the andy warhol sentence/epiphany legitimizes all the other stupid shit on this page
10:15AM: TWO THINGS:
1. i hate it when the computer or the google says ‘look, it’s a new thing, this is how it works, click this box to make this window go away. i said click this box to make this go away. you need to click it. you can’t do anything until you click it. i need to know that you understand that i am doing something new for you, i am showing you my new thing i made just so you have an easier time with me, HM, do you like that, do you…can you at least show me you NOTICED my EFFORTS by CLICKING THIS SIMPLE EASY-TO-CLICK BOX, TELLING ME THAT YOU UNDERSTAND THAT I HAVE IMPROVED FOR YOU?!?!?!’ I’M NOT ASKING FOR YOU TO FALL IN LOVE WITH ME AGAIN, JUST NOTICE SOMETHING I DID FOR YOU, OKAY?
2. seems weird that perfect geometric shapes don’t grow the same way plants do, like there’s no ‘cube patch’ where you can go with your family and pick ‘perfect cubes with square leaves’
(the last thing is a little lofty)
10:47PM: seems really shittily edited (not selection of things, just how much they chose to say about each thing): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fiction_employing_parallel_universes#Feature_films
mom has entered room twice this morning.
TWO MOM INTERCEPTIONS:
1. mom said ‘can i ask you a science question that i don’t think you’ll know the answer to and that probably doesn’t matter?’ i said ‘sure.’ she said ‘alright. well. so, with all of this sea salt, the sea salt has gone up in popularity. we’re all buying sea salt. and i used to buy morton salt, you know, because they said it had iodine in it, which is supposed to be good i guess. but does that mean…? with all of this non-iodized salt now, that we’re suddenly eating—or rather not eating—iodine. so what does that mean?’
2. mom said ‘do you know of a movie that came out this year, that’s about two people who just almost get to talk to each other? you see their lives, like how they would talk if they could? because they’re in parallel universes? but i think they can see each other though.’ i said ‘is it that one, ‘another earth?’ they actually see another earth in the sky, and the girl killed the guy’s family?’ mom said ‘no, no—no. but that’s what got me thinking of this one. i think because we’ve been talking about space too and i don’t know. well, so no, so in this one—i think it’s recent, this year, 2013—so you can almost see how the guy and the girl will get to meet and they’re so close to meeting, you get to see them—the guy is on this one end of the mountain and the girl is on the opposite end and their [motions] hands get to touch. does this sound familiar?’ i said ‘sort of.’ looked up the list of ‘parallel universe’ movies. keep picturing a movie poster that’s mostly blue, like swimming pool blue, surrounding a mermaid woman with blonde hair and outlines of ‘different earth spheres’ across her body and the movie is called like, ‘eu’ or something.
11:05AM: licked finger and stuck up nose as a ‘probe’ for adderall crumbs. harvested back ‘sweet taste.’ feeling neurotic about ‘wasting’ adderall by snorting and trapping it. probably <2mg are trapped in my nose. i could just eat that amount from the one 20mg i have left. 2/20ths of an adderall. to ease. to quell my stingy fiending mind. yuck.
TWO RESPONSES TO THINGS:
1. ‘marie cattoway’ posted a facebook status update saying: ‘Do any women actually enjoy getting oral…seems made up by men’
I ENJOY GETTING ORAL!!!!
orgasms directly caused by another person doing something to me have been results of:
98% oral
1.9% finger
0.1% penis vagina sex (unsure re 0.1% though, seems like i’d remember it if it happened, i’m allowing for 0.1% error of me not remembering)
it’s fun to say’ penis vagina sex.’
vaginal penis sex…vagina penis…(just trying that out, honestly doesn’t matter which one comes first, both are equally funny to me) (‘vaginal penis’ is not funny to me but i haven’t really thought about it) (penis vagina)
2. http://www.policymic.com/articles/42359/topless-women-in-public-not-breaking-the-law-says-nypd
it’s okay for women to be topless in public now, it’s discrimination if…what normally happens happens
i think that’s cool
imagine the person who ogles men’s chests the way breasts will be ogled before they look ‘normal’
you could make a case that it’s weirder for men to show their chests/nipples because those were supposed to grow into breasts if they had remained an ‘XX’ chromosome, like they’re freakishly underdeveloped
if you are a topless female ever i am going to ogle you hard because i bet you will look sexy and i like to look at boobs and sexy stuff!!!!!!
not kidding!!!!!!!!
11:22AM: i don’t feel like sex at all i’m just responding to sex stuff sitting on my bed in my hot pink ass winter coat feeling my pulse beat against my jeans in this way…that’s…it’s only because i’m sitting in a way that’s restricting bloodflow…it’s a knee thing…
11:52PM: refilled coffee, talked with mom about ‘why do insurance agents keep leaving me voicemails to follow-up on my online inquiries,’ ‘has the attorney called you about the accident settlement yet,’ ‘horoscopes’
this is me chilling non-dramatically, completely relaxed facial expression, no discernable emotions at the time of this photograph:
11:58AM: no one is going to click this link, i’m putting it here to remind myself of how i thought it was cool (i have proof of what you people click and look at and for how long and from where…so it’s almost like a communication…huh…yeah, it’s like 1.5: i put out the 1 [link or writing or video whatever] and you feed a .5 back to me by just thinking about me enough to click on this website, but i can’t do anything with your .5…oh no wait, now i am. i’m adding another 1 by saying this. so now we’re at 2.5 communications: 2 ‘positive’ [not like ‘happy,’ like ‘active/intentional’] from me and .5 ‘negative’ [like ‘passive action/reaction to my active thing’] from you. repeated .5’s [like visits to beethoventhemovie.tumblr.com] do not mean ‘.5 + .5 + .5 = 1.5.’ it’s like ‘.5 +/= .5 +/= .5 +/= .5 +/= .5 [into infinity].’ if you email me or ask me a question or text me or do another kind of ‘positive’ interaction with me it’s +1. if i don’t respond to your whatever it’s still a .5 communication/passive reaction from me. IN THIS CASE i think the .5 gets added—so let’s say we have 2.5: i write something (1), you look at what i wrote (.5), you text me (1). when i read your text but don’t respond it’s a .5 on my part. each person can have one .5, it keeps repeating because it never does anything…so it’s like .5 = 0 though, always. then. shit. should it just cancel out then? from the beginning? the basic thing i’m trying to say is i have a total number of communications like that with everyone who has read this sentence. the base number of communications is always 1.5, that’s what the ‘content/content-viewer’ relationship dictates. i decided. if this makes sense to anyone or if anyone could help me make more sense of it i’ll paypal you $5 [there could be a theorem about how saying stuff like that is designed to add 1 from you to me, but then you’ll get 1 too from my $5 and talking, so it’s like another function kind of…like…i don’t know enough about ‘real/unreal numbers’ or math to say what that would be like in math]):
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2013/05/barns-are-painted-red-because-of-the-physics-of-dying-stars/
12:49PM: going to use this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to tell the world i don’t care about craft beer, but i also don’t care about ‘anti-craft beer,’ like, ‘reclaiming shitty beer as cool american heritage beer,’ or beer outside of either of those things, i simply don’t care about any of it, completely neutral about all things beer
also don’t care about wine
also don’t care about coffee
what are other things people care about…
i don’t care about macs vs. pcs
i generally don’t care about the quality of things
1:52PM: what else
2:01PM: i don’t care about lateness
2:03PM: i don’t care about being ‘female,’ that’s a big one people care about
2:24PM: walked to kitchen to replace/recharge ecigarette battery, thinking something like ‘update with ‘people could say a lot more about how ‘umbilical’ and ‘unbiblical’ are similar. they could say a lot more. the ‘unbiblical cord.’ people are not saying enough. ‘unbeliblical.” felt my eyes not moving. the half a bagel mom offered to me yesterday is still toasted in the toaster. i said ‘they call it ‘smoke juice.” mom laughed slowly and airily and said ‘yeah.’ i said ‘smoke juice.’ she said ‘what are you saying?’ i said ‘the people, johnson creek it’s called, i think, that make this [showed ecigarette battery and cartridge], they call the insides ‘smoke juice.” mom said ‘they call what?’ i said ‘the water, the liquid nicotine stuff. in here. i like it: ‘smoke juice.’ it sounds cool.’ mom laughed the same way again and said ‘oh, that is cool.’ i walked to my bedroom screwing the cartridge and battery together. i said ”smoke juice.’ it sounds yucky. like, gross’ and snickered, sitting down. mom kind of laughed.
2:32PM: that song that’s like ‘the world’s a shitty place and i can’t wait to die’ repeated a lot of times then at the end he says ‘just kidding i love you world.’ that about sums it up for me, i guess. sometimes.
2:35PM: thought ‘what about dave matthews’ it felt like the first time i ever found out about dave matthews
2:37PM: i don’t like it when people make fun of people. or when people aren’t clear about shit. when people do not say what they mean directly. i used to try to write only ‘directly’ i think, but now i’m okay with typing indirect things. for me. i don’t like it when other people do it (most of the time) but it’s okay for me. i’m just writing how my thinking sounds/feels. feelings come before thoughts…feelings are indirect at first…a lot of the time…for me…i think…thoughts…er…words make them…it makes it different…more clear…i don’t like it when people make fun of people…
2:41PM: a lot of typing about general things today and not a lot of typing about what i’m doing or planning to do. i think i’m glad to be thinking things i’m sort of interested in again. afraid to drive back to NYC, i want to stay here and party with mom. mom and i have been partying mostly silently in different rooms today but it feels good to party like that with her. i’m not going to the recruitment office thing until monday. nobody is reading my shit today, haha, i can say anything, BLEEENEYPOOPYTIDDDERTURDER DJANGO RACIST BUTTWISPE!!!!! i feel okay today due to still feeling like it’s the night i went out to eat with dad (last night) due to not sleeping but writing about that night all night.
