B00BUGFFGW EBOK (6 page)

i experience intermittent sharp pain on the right-front-inside of my head

i hope i die of an aneurism but not for at least another two years

my life could improve exponentially in two years

everyone i know is subsisting on food, water, air, sleep

everyone i know is processing information using an interpersonal equation based on their memories and preferences

it seems almost possible to graph that equation for each person

it feels like i could die in 50 years or tomorrow and the world would be relatively the same place

there would still be trees and people loving each other and killing each other

i feel insane and maybe on the verge of some kind of breakdown right now, like i'm not even sure what the internet is right now, i feel like i've taken a lot of pills but i've just had hummus, pita bread, an apple, some oreos, coffee, water, and birth control

i would like to matter to every person in the world

i would like every person in the world to matter to me

neither of those things will ever happen

9.01.09

drunk

i'm watching 'me and you and everyone we know'

i've seen it probably over ten times

miranda july is using her compact mirror to highlight things in the department store

i think she is about to get rejected by the shoe salesman guy

she is talking to him now and i feel nervous for her even though i've seen this movie over ten times

i just ordered sushi and picked it up. on the way i got vodka and cigarettes. the people at the convenience store by my apartment might think i'm an alcoholic. i thought 'control your eyes, asshole' when i talked to them. i only ate half the sushi because swallowing hurts my stomach/throat

today i got drinks with two people i liked from my poetry class last semester

before we got drinks they took turns talking to me on the phone. one guy asked if i was still pretty. i said 'no,' then he passed the phone to the other guy who said something and i said 'what?' then he said it again and i still didn't understand but i said 'oh, haha, yeah pretty much'

this morning i saw one of the guys in the hallway

he was telling a story to someone and i didn't want to interrupt them

i said 'hey duane, is that you'

he said 'megan, hey i thought that was you'

i said 'you look taller' and he said 'did you get taller?' at the same time

we laughed and made gestures that indicated 'whoaaaaaaa'

i walked away and he continued telling his story to the person he was talking to

over the course of the afternoon i drank two bottled beers, two 16-ounce cans of beer, two shots, and one vodka tonic

somehow we found free pizza

the free pizza was surrounded by tents and student government signs

i ate three slices that tasted good but made my stomach hurt kind of intensely

we sat outdoors at a sports bar and people we knew sometimes sat at our table and talked to us

my poetry class friends left for their night classes

i stayed and sat across from one of their friends and felt worried about sustaining a conversation long enough to finish two beers

then it was okay, he was easy to talk to

we talked about barack obama and potheads for a long time

i was really animated and saying things

then we talked about growing up and how everyone he knew had sex in middle school

i said i didn't get kissed until high school but he seemed more interested in talking about middle school sex

after we finished our drinks we peed separately and left the bar together

we walked for six blocks

a girl we both like showed up on a bike

she has yellow hair

we talked about something

i was drunk

she told me a mutual acquaintance was romantically interested in me

i imagined going on a date with him, scavenging for common interests, kissing or having sex just to feel another person up close, repeating that a few times, maybe having a minor argument and gradually phasing out his phone calls

i tried to make my face convey the opposite of those thoughts

then i felt like i didn't want to date or talk to any person again ever, but knew i would only feel that briefly

the bike friend left on her bike and i walked with the middle school sex guy until my cross street

i didn't know if he wanted me to come with him or not so i just left

i listened to my ipod and started to cry a little, but for no real reason

i wanted to cry more than i was able to at the time

i walked upstairs to my apartment and threw up even though i didn't feel drunk enough to throw up, just really bizarrely nauseated or heart burn or something. there was stuff that looked like blood in the vomit. think i should feel worried

9.10.09

i vomited blood when i was drunk and thought 'maybe the alcohol in my stomach just turned this color somehow, maybe.' before i threw up i walked to pick up sushi and my stomach hurt intensely. it hurt to swallow the sushi. it hurt to vomit the sushi. the next morning it just felt like i vomited the night before. when i made myself eat food around 6PM i felt crippling stomach pain. for some reason i had to go to my dad's office and it was hard to drive. i told my dad what was happening. he had bleeding ulcers when he was my age. he drove me to the emergency room where we sat from 8PM until 4AM. then a really attractive doctor put his finger up my asshole and told me things. a nurse approached my bed and said 'listen, you can scream all you want but please don't hit me.' i said 'what is going on, what are you going to do?' she said she was going to insert a tube down my nose into my stomach. i said 'okay, i won't hit you, i know you're just doing your job.' she brought the tube and cup of water to my bed and said 'okay hon, just swallow, swallow swallow swallow, okay sweetie.' it wasn't as bad as she made it sound. i was just really quiet and tried to be nice to her while she did it. the machine monitoring my pulse made frantic, loud beeping noises. another nurse walked in and didn't look at me. she said something to the first nurse like 'why didn't you tell me you were doing a [whatever this procedure is called]? i would've helped you.' she held the hose above my face and didn't make eye contact with me. my dad walked in the room and looked at me sadly and started rubbing circles on my calf under the sheet. i said 'dad you don't have to do that, you can sit down, it's okay.' the tube moved up and down behind my nose. talking made my eyes water. the nurse's friend left and the nurse injected water into the tube and filled my stomach with water. the water felt cold in my nose and throat and stomach. i stared at a poster showing everything there is to see about the insides of ears and tried not to swallow because i'd feel the tube. the nurse turned on a machine to suck the water and everything else out of my stomach. she said 'this is going to take about ten minutes, here is the remote if you want to watch TV, volume is here, just press this button to change channels.' i said 'okay, thank you' and then it was just me and my dad in the room. he didn't say anything, but looked at me sometimes. i turned on the TV and changed channels without staying on any channel for more than a few seconds. every time i inhaled the tube moved up and every time i swallowed it moved down. i stopped on a channel showing an infomercial for the 'slap chop.' my dad and i looked at the TV. i could see pieces of brown and red and yellow stuff in the tube

9.16.09

i'm at the computer lab trying to make the blogger screen appear small so people won't know i have a blog that i update at computer labs sometimes

i recognize behaviors and patterns that make me feel depressed but then i almost don't care enough to change them or something

i thought about that in class as my professor talked about 'the iliad'

i'm avoiding all people

i don't like explaining to people that i have an ulcer and can't eat normal things for awhile, i don't like the faces they make in reaction

i haven't wanted a romantic relationship for a long time now, but recently i've been thinking how nice it would be to have one person to rub my head and tell me things are okay and make me laugh

i keep wanting to daydream about someone but there is no one

the other night i saw a movie by myself after class

the night before that someone held my face very hard and kissed me

the nights before that night i won't remember in five years, maybe one

it seems impossible that there is no greater number than infinity

shouldn't numbers turn into something else at some point

the guy next to me is typing expressively

seems like he's looking for attention

he has a huge red jug of water, like something a family would bring to a sporting event

in ten hours we'll both be in other places and the computer lab will be dark and quiet

in 50 years our children will have families

10.12.09

last night i asked my mom if i could come over and she said yes. she had pot roast leftovers. she watched me eat from the other side of the room. she looked uncomfortable. we talked about feeling bad and how relationships can be disappointing

after a short period of quiet she said 'oh, i know! let's watch 'away we go,' it's so cute and funny'

i said that sounded good and we moved to her bedroom and ordered it from her TV

during the movie i kept thinking 'dave eggers dave eggers dave eggers white person quirky white people white people liberal meaningful liberal dave eggers white meaningful quirky'

near the end of the movie there was an image of a piece of fruit which would've seemed poignant if it wasn't so obviously trying to be subtle and poignant

my mom said 'did you see the orange? the orange on the tree?'

i said 'yeah'

a few minutes later 'garden state'-like acoustic guitar music played and the main characters looked like they wanted to display 'deep human realness' or 'profound connectivity' and the credits started

my mom said 'who did the music for this, meggie?'

i said 'i don't know. some guy who wants to sound like nick drake'

she said 'i don't know who nick drake is'

i said 'he's this guy. i don't know. i didn't like the music. it was okay, the movie was okay. i couldn't stop thinking about how dave eggers-y it was'

she said 'is he who wrote it? i didn't know he wrote it. he's the guy that guy told us about, the mcsander's guy'

i said 'mcsweeney's'

she nodded exaggeratedly and said 'ah yes, mcdonald's' and we grinned at each other and i said 'yeah, mcdonalds'

a few minutes later i was ranting about not liking the movie. my mom made comments i only listened to enough to keep ranting. i realized what i was doing and hated myself and said 'i feel so retarded, i'm sorry, i'm sorry i just trashed the movie really hard and didn't listen to you, i feel bad, why can't i just like this movie, it's not like it was out to get me or something, i'm sorry'

she looked at the wall and appeared lost in thought and said it was okay in a sad voice

i stood and started walking and then i was in the kitchen. i opened the pantry door and then the refrigerator door without knowing why or seeing what was inside and felt myself starting to cry and thought 'why are you doing this'

10.19.09

i just ate half a xanax and i'm going to watch things on hulu.com until i fall asleep

at 3AM i will wake with my mouth open and probably want to eat a cookie

i didn't do anything for my birthday, it was just a day

my behavior has been slightly histrionic lately

i talk to myself out loud as if i'm updating a friend i haven't seen for two months

i say things like 'well, i don't know, i guess i've been kind of depressed, sort of a lot actually, i just don't like it here and i feel disconnected from everyone and...'

it's really embarrassing, i think

sometimes after i park my car i sit and listen to myself cry and feel like a richard yates character

lately i kind of feel like a richard yates character all of the time

like when i eat xanax and fall asleep on the couch and wake with my mouth open

or at work when i half-jokingly over-share thoughts about loneliness

then laugh to show everyone 'it's okay, really, look how well-adjusted i can be, i can still laugh'

while thinking 'i am a fucking richard yates character, when i am older this will not be 'cute''

10.26.09

what xanax makes me feel like

sort of like the few minutes before falling asleep, but if i was fully conscious during those minutes

everything is neutral and on the same level

i don't feel nervous about anything

sort of like being in a bathtub, my brain gets put in a bathtub

everything seems equal, i don't know, i keep having that thought

when i try to think about things that have made me feel bad in the past i just think 'those things are okay now'

it feels sort of like being slowly fucked in oppressive heat

where the goal of sex is to distract each other with your genitals, not necessarily have orgasms

you just look at each other and forget what you're doing but you keep doing it

it feels like watching cooking shows all day on a saturday and having that be your entire life's purpose

sort of

there are better ways to describe it

i wouldn't want to attempt to read 'swann's way' while feeling like this

one time i went to whole foods and bought two different kinds of lettuce while on xanax

i bought something else too

11.02.09

elevated self-esteem as a result of alcohol consumption

i want to go to the gym

and pretend the weight machines are drums

and play the longest drum solo on them

everyone will stop working out

to look at me

gradually, a crowd will gather

people will nod their heads

and whisper to each other

'what is she doing?'