B00BUGFFGW EBOK (9 page)

i said i was 72% 'living life to the fullest' before considering what 'living life to the fullest' meant

a 50-something woman in my group said she was almost living life to the fullest because she has enough money and is generally happy

i said 'well, i'm not happy, but i'm not unhappy' and felt confused and she looked at me a little

an older obese black man in our group had a hard time understanding the question. the 50-something woman said to him, 'i think living life to the fullest means you're mostly happy, you're doing what you want to be doing.' he was like 'if i was doing what i wanted to be doing then i'd be sleeping right now'

then i asked to change my answer to no, i wasn't living life to the fullest because i felt confused about what 'the fullest' meant, i was just alive and trying to avoid feeling bad

when my professor called on our group the 50-something woman said 'megan said she was 72% living her life to the fullest because she tries to make the best of every situation'

i said 'no...'

then we kept talking about other things

people defined 'living life to the fullest' as spending every day at the beach, skydiving, driving cars faster than normal, doing things that would probably put them in jail

i am still unsure what 'life to the fullest' for me would be, mostly i just try to be well-liked in social situations and not die

i silently ask myself questions in the first person limited a lot, i.e. 'am i okay right now.' if i mess up conversationally i will switch to second person, i.e. 'you fucking asshole'

sometimes i narrate my life in the third person in my head and wonder if it's good enough

4.30.10

today in the shower when i tried to think of something catchy to sing, i immediately thought of the mcdonald's jingle that goes 'ba da ba ba ba, i'm lovin' it'

i laughed at myself a little and tried to sing but it felt forced

i have been eating subway 2-3 times a week

the subway employees know me and smile and say 'six inch veggie on wheat?' when i come in

last night i considered calling my mom to ask if she would come over and fix me food

i knew she wouldn't and it would be weird if she did

just wanted a 'mom thing' to cook something for me

i strongly feel that everything is and always will be okay while walking from subway to my apartment, holding a sandwich and a diet coke, usually around 9PM, seeing maybe two other people on the street and very few cars

when i close my apartment door and turn on the lights something changes in my stomach and i think 'shouldn't there be something else, something is missing'

this happens every time i go to subway, i feel worried

i could probably stand in a hot shower for over an hour

showering seems purposeful and always makes me feel a little better

after showering i apply lotion, hair products, and deodorant

5.03.10

unpublished tweets

in my head i just sang 'damn i don't want to shower' to the tune of 'man i feel like a woman'

my dad came downstairs, filled a coffee mug with water, put a spoon in it, left it on the counter, mumbled something, went back upstairs

a ~16" poop just 'flew' out of me at a speed of ~8mph. when i flushed it left 'without a trace.' seemed mysterious, yet businesslike

just read 'performing arts center' as if it were 'performing [sex act]' with 'arts center' being a sex act

looked at a pizza boli's menu for about 90 seconds

seems...hard...to care about anything...lol...

thought about a world where pokémon accompany you in the shower and wash your body/hair as you stand with your eyes closed

have been 'stalking' high school acquaintance who seems to be actively suffering from 'post wedding depression,' via facebook status updates

something about the way the light looks right now reminds me of being on a curb next to a maybe gay kid at a birthday party in high school

argued for an hour on the telephone. now looking at pictures of carbs

just read 'are you a bot? or just a macro spamming me' on google search results and felt nostalgic in a surprising way

WHOA I'M SO DEPRESSED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

woke from ~2 hour nap 2 hours ago. now apartment is dark. smells like pasta and cooked meat outside. seems like i might die soon

parking attendant guy just said 'how are you big boss?' to my mom while i openly picked my nose

have 'consoled myself' ~3 times this week by thinking 'everyone in the world will die someday. i will die someday'

5.06.10

sometimes my cats make human-like faces and small noises at me and i don't know what to do

i feel bad because they can't leave my apartment and someone removed their reproductive organs

sometimes i say to them 'without me you'd be dead'

i don't know if that's true

5.07.10

my philosophy professor asked if we ever looked in the mirror until our faces started to look strange and alien and we dissociated from ourselves

i was excited he asked that and i nodded my head

he said 'oh, you do that, megan?' and a lot of people looked at me

i said 'i do that'

he kept talking and people kept looking at me

6.25.10

i have frequently thought 'i am trying to be okay' in the past 48 hours without really knowing what 'okay' is or what i need to do to be 'trying'

i feel sad and the world around me feels strange and it's making the tone of my thoughts sarcastic in a weird and maybe funny way

at a traffic light today i thought 'how can this thing be serious' and 'oh wow, 'stop and go,' awesome'

one of my primary goals is to not take myself seriously, or at least try to convey that attitude socially, but in order to say 'i feel sad' i have to take myself seriously enough to recognize that on some level i earnestly experience sadness

i've been at my mom's apartment for a few hours. she asked what i was going to do today and i said 'maybe walk around a mall or drive somewhere or something' in what i think was an inadvertently overly sad-sounding voice

i went in the other room and time passed

then she said 'i don't want you to be aimlessly wandering around the world wondering if anyone loves you'

i said 'story of my life, mom' in a 'bad comedian' voice

then we laughed

seemed lorrie moore-esque

7.03.10

today my friend was supposed to meet me at a coffee shop at 5PM, but when i texted to see where he was he responded 'oh my god, i'm sorry, i totally forgot. i'm at the doctor's getting an untreated grease burn fixed'

i stayed at the coffee shop until a lady said 'sweetie, we're actually closed right now'

for about 15 minutes i tried to find a place that would let me pee

at royal farms an old man and i looked for the bathroom key and found it in the potato chip aisle

after i peed i went to the computer lab and worked on things

someone i've been friends with for seven years and had anal sex with on friday called me

a few hours before we had anal sex on friday, we stood in a bar with our other friend and he said to us, 'guys, as you know i'm really depressed lately, and i was just wondering if i could ever call either of you when i feel really sad and need to talk to someone'

when he called me at the computer lab i felt excited for him to potentially confide in me

he was calling to ask my advice about a girl he met saturday

she is five years younger than him, in a band, 'skinny and with cute brown hair,' 'funny and candid'

i pretended i was just talking to a voice that wasn't attached to a person and i think i gave pretty good advice. he laughed and said 'good point' a few times

while we talked i gathered my things to leave without knowing where i was going

the last thing i said to him was 'barack and roll, baby' in a voice that didn't sound like it was coming from me

i walked outside and it felt like there was no boundary between my body temperature and heat of the air, like i was just walking around in a big human body

it was sort of raining but not really

my stomach was doing weird things that hurt and i thought 'acid production has increased'

i made eye contact with a man in gym clothes holding a large iced coffee

my pulse seemed faster than normal when i checked it

at my apartment building cross street i saw a black poodle-looking dog jogging around

it didn't seem to belong to anyone

9.16.10

lies i have told

'i'm itching my belly button'

i masturbated a lot as a kid. this was what i would tell my parents i was doing when they would try to talk with me about it. i remember seeing them look at each other with concerned, yet amused faces

'i just woke up and lady was peeing on the couch'

this was told to my mother at around 2AM when i was 11. lady was our dog. i had fallen asleep on the couch while watching TV. i was dreaming i was looking into an old-fashioned water well. i said 'megan' into the well and listened as the sound of my name reverberated at one-second intervals. i woke rhythmically urinating in the same intervals as i was hearing my name in the dream

'i'm one quarter jewish'

the girls i ate lunch with freshman year of high school identified strongly with their religions, which were mostly christian. one girl was a mormon. my family isn't religious at all. i thought being a little jewish would give me an 'edge.' one quarter seemed small enough to deter questions, but everyone acted curious and confused. the mormon girl asked what holidays i celebrated. i said we went to my uncle's for hanukkah

'we go to my uncle's for hanukkah'

i don't have an uncle

'i think i'm having a migraine'

the night before my half sister's grandmother's funeral, i drank a bottle of cough syrup. i was 17. i still felt high when i woke. after i showered i sat at the top of the stairs wearing only a towel. my dad looked at me and asked if i was okay. i said i felt a little funny. he said my pupils were dilated. my mom would get bad migraines where light hurt her eyes and her pupils got big

1370

SAT score i tell most people i received. i actually got a 1020

128

how much i tell people i weigh. last time i checked i was 134

'i was molested'

told this to the third man i was physically intimate with. i was 18. we were in a play at community college together. he was 23, lived with his parents, and wore the same thing every day. we had maybe three conversations before i invited him to my parent's house where we immediately went to the basement to make out. he lifted my shirt and started kissing my back in strange places. he said 'i want to experience all of you, i don't want to just hit the main spots and run' while looking at me intensely. i thought i should've felt aroused. he went down on me for maybe 20 minutes. we were lying on an orange carpet. i felt like i needed an excuse for not having an orgasm

'i've only done this four times'

said this to the second girl i had oral sex with. i had done things with three girls, but only had oral sex once

'seven, i guess'

the 20th man i had sex with told me he considered a woman to be a 'slut' if she had more than nine sexual partners

i don't remember when i began saying i was allergic to honeydew melon, but i know it was a long time ago. honeydew melon seems like an appealingly quirky allergy. my dad is allergic to honeydew melon. one time my throat itched a little after eating it. stopped lying about this last year

'lived there for three and a half years,' 'two one-year relationships,' 'vegetarian for six years'

i went to school in chicago for two and a half years and only lived there during the school year. both relationships were 11 months, maybe technically shorter because we would break up for week or month-long periods. i ate tuna fish or mcdonald's chicken sand- wiches at least once a year during those six years

'i don't care what happens on my birthday'

'i'm not one of those girls who is weird about her body image'

'porn is so gross'

my first boyfriend looked at porn a lot. he had attachments to certain female porn stars and i felt jealous. one night i found naked pictures of his ex-girlfriend on his computer. i knew all his passwords. i would look at his email accounts and web history to find 'dirt' on him. when i would confront him he would deny watching porn or emailing his ex-girlfriend. then i would show him the proof i had. i would lecture him and he would cry. i looked at porn a lot, too

'i never thought i could love someone this much'

said this to the same boyfriend one night while sitting in the caboose of the el train in chicago, near the end of our relationship. i told him when i used to feel sad/lonely, i would sit in the caboose of a train and ride it for hours, listening to music and imagining what it would be like to have someone i loved sitting next to me. it seemed like he wanted me to say something else after telling that story, so i did

for about four years i've been telling people i hate sour cream. one time i sent back nachos because of this. i started saying this because a friend i admire hates sour cream. i told him i hated it too so we could have a funny thing in common

'i don't really know what i'm looking for right now'

i'm looking for a two to five year relationship with a man similar enough to me so we feel like we have a special, secret kind of bond, but different enough so we have things to talk about. hopefully he has been, but is not currently severely depressed. an interest in writing, reading, literature, and/or existential philosophy is important, though i feel stupid saying that. doesn't have to be much taller than me, definitely not shorter or fatter. atheist or agnostic. likes to spend time apart. likes to go on car trips without destinations. wouldn't call himself an 'activist' or spend long amounts of time with people who call themselves 'activists.' probably doesn't like dancing, bars, or sports. quiet but not boring. laughs easily. doesn't take me or him or life in general seriously, yet has a capacity to earnestly experience emotions, and is aware of this paradox. average sex drive. gives compliments. dark hair is good. would probably not like that i have written all these things about what i want him to be like, but would also understand and tease me about it later. eventually i'd like to get an apartment together