Authors: Megan Boyle
'i don't know, but i like it'
11.12.09
yesterday i laid in bed watching TV on the internet while mentally debating the pros and cons of taking a xanax and staring at my ceiling instead of my computer. i continued to stare at my computer, xanax-free
then i got a text message saying 'do you want to get coffee now or a beer at 10:30'
i responded to the text and watched a shitty movie and 'it's always sunny in philadelphia' until i started feeling embarrassed for existing
then i talked to my best friend for a long time. she lives in st. paul, minnesota. she is a school bus driver
then my other friend called me to say she was having a threesome this weekend. i tried not to picture her having a threesome but i definitely pictured her having a threesome
then i felt scared about not having enough time to make myself look attractive for the person i was getting a beer with at 10:30
we said we'd meet at this bar near my apartment that feels like it belongs in a david lynch movie. it's well-lit and sort of in a basement. the same 'grandma or older aunt who enjoys craft shows but also drinks beer and wears football jerseys and yells at the television in the privacy of her living room' bartender is always there
last night i didn't immediately see the person i was meeting so i went outside to look for him. then i got a text message saying 'i saw you but you didn't see me' and went inside again. someone had played really hard, fast, loud, death metal-like music on the jukebox. eight people were there but it seemed like less. it was weird. i couldn't breathe through my nose very well
i sat across from the person i was meeting and asked if the jacket on the table behind us was his. he said it was. he said the bartender told him to sit here because this table is where couples go to have awkward conversations
i believed him because the last time we were here we sat near that table and eavesdropped on another couple's awkward conversation. i felt interested in the bartender and him and the entire situation. then he said he was joking. i still stayed interested
11.25.09
i've been having regular sex with this guy
he hits my cats on their heads and they look insulted
a few nights ago we looked at some website where you can see pictures of all of the registered sex offenders in your neighborhood
we looked at the website for at least 15 minutes while waiting for our chinese food to arrive
some sex offenders looked indifferent about people seeing them and thinking 'that's what a sex offender looks like'
some sex offenders looked remorseful and slightly insane
one sex offender was white and wearing a suit, he liked child pornography
my cat is always looking at me like i am forgetting something crucial and he depends on it
the guy i've been having sex with said 'i don't see how you can tolerate him always looking at you like that'
this morning i hit my cat on the head with a chinese take-out box he dug out of the trash
he looked sad
11.27.09
my family on thanksgiving and most holidays
everyone obsessively worries about how their actions and words will be interpreted by anyone listening. sometimes we forget to worry and make jabs at each other. immediately after making a jab, the jab-maker will half-exhale half-laugh. a short collective group silence will follow, during which everyone independently worries about the jab-maker's intended tone or hidden meaning, if the jab provokes them, if they need to say anything to make anyone feel better, and how much time needs to pass before we silently and unanimously agree that a new moment is ready to happen
my dad will say very few things in a voice two times deeper than his normal voice. he will direct vaguely antagonistic observations to my mom about how she worries about everything. she will jokingly agree with him in an attempt to avoid future criticism, then make it obvious that she is now willfully shifting her focus to a physical task. i see myself exhibiting behavior like this a lot
my dad will ask me questions and agree with most things i say. sometimes he will spontaneously 'take the floor' to talk about something he's reading or 'reality' or some kind of new age or spiritual topic or something. when he does this he will usually talk for at least two minutes without stopping, looking mostly at me and sometimes my mom. after he finishes talking he will seem unsure of everything he said until someone responds to him
my mom will talk whenever the room becomes too quiet. she will look at points in the distance and say directionless, sometimes stream-of-conscious-like thoughts. before dinner she will walk around a lot. sometimes she will walk somewhere then stop to say 'why did i walk here?' she bumps into things. so does my dad. so do i. everyone in my family bumps into things
someone will inevitably tell a story which climaxes with them crying a little. my dad, if he cries, will say 'oh dear, why am i doing this' and i will feel equally endeared and embarrassed. most of his stories are interesting but he repeats a lot of them and acts defensive if someone reminds him. there is a running joke about my mom feeling 'oddly moved' by things. my mom seems to frequently feel 'oddly moved' by small encounters with people or books or newspaper articles. when she reaches the point of a story where she cries, she will say 'oh here i am, 'oddly moved' again' and laugh. she is a volunteer at the aquarium and tells detailed stories about fish. they are kind of boring stories
my grandmother will not know what is going on at all. her hearing aid will make whistling noises. she will always ask me my height and weight. my grandmother thinks factually inaccurate things about everyone, because my mom has fabricated elaborate stories about us. when she tells a lie to my grandmother, my dad will sort of sigh and make eye contact with me in an attempt to share a moment of mutually understanding my mom doing something funny
i will usually sit quietly and maybe try to be alone by reading or going outside to smoke or something. i periodically make sarcastic comments, usually aimed at making someone feel bad, but not too bad. after commenting i will immediately regret what i said, even if someone laughs. usually my mom laughs, even if i made fun of her. she makes fun of me. after she makes fun of me i will say something like 'asshole' or 'faggot' and she will laugh more. then i will laugh. this is fun
the dynamic basically consists of externalizing resentment about our collective compulsion to worry by making each other feel a little bad sometimes. this has resulted in me frequently saying 'i don't give a fuck' in a hopeless voice, then hearing myself say that and feeling like a melodramatic teenager in a way that is impossible to change because it would involve destroying the phrase 'i don't give a fuck' or possibly myself or my family or becoming a completely different person
sometimes there are moments when everything is good and people are just talking and listening to each other. last christmas we sat in my mom's living room, probably drank a bottle of wine each, then watched 'revolutionary road' and cried audibly and hugged each other. it was good
12.23.09
i went to california for a week to visit dana. we mostly just sat around watching movies. sometimes we walked on the beach. sometimes we drove to the grocery store. i feel like we did other things. she cooked healthy food. there was a scary bug near her car that took two days to die
the first night we bought maybe ten movies from a blockbuster that was going out of business. the cashier guy tried to put my movies in a bag and said 'i can't fit them in the bag.' i said 'ohhhhhhhhhh' in a way that made dana laugh really hard. when we walked to her car both of us were laughing really hard
that night she made cabbage salad and we watched most of 'revolutionary road.' sometimes dana would make a comment and i would say one or two words in response. i fell asleep in my chair. in the morning we finished the movie and smoked a cigarette outside. it was raining. dana said she was in 'gastric distress' from the cabbage last night and i agreed. the phrase 'gastric distress' is really funny to me, i've never heard anyone say it but dana
we went to an outdoor mall that had a ferris wheel in its center. palm trees and christmas trees in large cement pots surrounded the ferris wheel. near the ferris wheel was an ice skating rink. dana said 'what if that was your life, you're like 17 and you're one of those five people ice skating at the mall.' there was a girl wearing a helmet and elbow pads or something. i said 'that might be really bad or totally fine, depending on your disposition.' on the drive home dana said 'i didn't know how we were going to have a day after watching 'revolutionary road,' it was so intense'
a few nights later we were in los angeles with her friend jakob. he drove us places and talked about a relationship he just terminated. we went to a beer garden and drank two liters of beer each. we had a really good conversation about what 'failure' means. everyone seemed to like my definition of 'failure,' which was something like 'if someday i realized the goals of my life had become obscured by my methods of attaining them and i didn't know what i wanted anymore'
jakob works at a record store. one time he rung up bret easton ellis for a killers CD. bret easton ellis gave him an american express card. jakob said 'we don't take american express, sorry.' bret easton ellis said 'fuck.' while he looked for a different credit card jakob told him he was the reason he came to los angeles to be a writer. bret easton ellis said something like 'thanks, i'm glad you said that, maybe you'll ring me up again or something.' i imagined bret easton ellis feeling genuinely flattered but uncomfortable and mostly looking forward to listening to his killers CD or maybe something else entirely
we went to a christmas party in a warehouse. there were long buffet tables full of food no one was eating. i drank a lot. dana didn't drink and somehow ended up talking to more people than i did. i felt afraid of people. i went outside and sat on a chair. a guy with a ponytail sat next to me and said 'you shouldn't sit alone.' i said 'oh, i like sitting alone.' he said 'but you just shouldn't.' i couldn't tell if he was annoyed or friendly or mean or attracted to me. a woman approached us and started talking to the ponytail man. i wanted to say 'i like sitting alone' again, but just looked ahead at people going in tents
i walked inside and found dana. she was dancing. a lot of people were dancing. i started dancing. i scanned the room for attractive men. there weren't as many as i thought there would be. i said to dana 'what if everything about this party was the same, except billy zane was here?' she laughed really hard. we danced more and kept saying 'billy zane' and grinning
jakob and dana and i stood around a buffet table and i asked if i should put my hand in a platter of jell-o. they said yes. jakob filmed me plunging my hand into the jell-o with his cell phone. someone said 'live blogging.' i squished the jell-o between my fingers. i inserted my other hand. the jell-o felt like a brain, maybe. i think i got goosebumps. a hipster-looking guy with a mustache said 'what did you just do?' i said 'i put my hand in the jell-o.' he said 'why would you do that?' i said 'i don't know, no one was eating it.' he kind of shook his head at me and walked away. i thought 'in baltimore, that guy would want me to be his wife.' a few minutes later the jell-o platter was gone
dana wanted to talk to this one guy but she was nervous. i belligerently interrupted the guy's conversation to tell him he looked like christian bale so dana could talk to him about her belligerent friend. i backed away and watched them talking and felt good. then a lot of time passed, i forget what i did. i remember standing outside in a crowded alley and smoking a joint with a group of people i didn't know. everyone watched me when i smoked. i made faces. people were starting to get forcibly removed from the party. i looked for dana and jakob and saw the christian bale guy from earlier and said 'hey christian bale, where's the party?'
12.25.09
it is christmas
five employees attended my work's christmas party at a bar
i ate peanuts and tried to hear what people were saying
i think i am going to have smallish relationships which last from two months to two years for the rest of my life
small yet significant changes in my personality occur during periods of two months to two years
maybe that's how relationships should happen
when i was 18-19 and lived in a dorm in chicago i sometimes got drunk and yelled in the stairway, 'i'm horny, i want to have sex, someone come here, i give good blowjobs, are you attractive, i am attractive, come here.' seems really lame and bizarre, i'm glad it never worked
within the next four years, i predict steadily not responding to any okcupid messages but also never deleting my okcupid account
on the 'what is the most private thing you are willing to admit?' question on my profile i said 'i don't like dave eggers'
when i think 'dave eggers' in my head it's in the same tone of voice jerry seinfeld uses to say 'hello newman'
at work i wanted to start saying 'newman' every time something went wrong but i always forgot to do it
1.12.10
i don't know how to react when someone touches me, unless we're about to have sex
a world where i only have to touch people if we're romantically involved is ideal for me. it would be nice to never have to coordinate a hand-shake or fist-bump or 'hello/goodbye hug' ever again
that will be my new year's resolution: don't touch anyone
is that insane? that seems insane but it makes a lot of sense to me
i like touching people when i'm drunk
a parody of myself when drunk would be me lying on someone's lap, touching their face really slowly with no objective
i feel terrified of the internet most of the time. i have an irrational amount of worry about the length of time it takes me to respond to facebook wall posts and emails. i also worry about not posting blogs or writing publishable material and becoming irrelevant or something, that seems very possible
then i tell myself 'the internet is there to help you'