Sunday, February 4, 2018
Day Diary 2
9:05 I wake up and see the time. I’m immediately disappointed that I can’t sleep anymore. I hoped to sleep later. I decide that if I wake up now, I might be able to nap later. I roll up the tapestry over my window and open the blinds—snow. I see that A has moved her car? I wonder if she had J over? I roll over and check my notifications. A text makes me smile. I scroll empty-minded through social media. I feel worn down. I decide to wash my sheets, so I strip my bed and wipe the words “Happy Holidays” written in window paint off of my east facing window. I leave the trees I’d drawn. I wish it was sunny. I tidy my room and gather my belongings to go downstairs and do homework. I take my sheets into the basement, starting the washer. I somehow always do laundry when it’s freezing out. I shiver while running back up the stairs. I notice that my clothing is still hanging on the drying rack in the bathroom. I don’t feel like moving it yet. The counter top is grimy, so I wipe it down. A cleaned on Friday but never does the bathroom.
9:50 I make coffee and pour some juice in a wine glass while I prepare to make breakfast. A comes out of her bedroom and tells me she did have J over. She apologizes for running around so much at the bar last night. I laugh and tell her that I didn’t mind at all. I toast half of a thin bun and cut a perfectly-ripe avocado. I think of my mom and of an essay my sister had me read once. I shift my thoughts, sad for a moment. I put away some clean dishes and rewash a poorly cleaned one. I cook two eggs and place them carefully on top of the avocado and bun. A tells me it’s beautiful and asks how I cook my eggs that perfectly. I think of my morning routine in Cleveland, when I learned how to perfectly fry an egg and how it’s the only thing I ever cooked in that kitchen, smelling of cigarettes and composting scraps of food. I start working on my day diary.
10:35 I clean my dishes and notice the words, STAINLESS STEEL on a knife I’m washing. I shout “STAINLESS STEEL” at A. I couldn’t remember the words the other night to describe the type of sink we had and it finally came to me. I cut a piece of brownie to finish off my breakfast and start reading 100 pages of world history for a test. A gets back in bed and time passes quickly. I’m reading about the developing global economy and slave-trade. It’s a good historical refresher, but none of it is new to me. I feel myself getting a headache. I’m frustrated to be taking the class and struggling to focus. R asks to read my thesis. I tell my co-author, AL, about it. I email it to him with a link to an earlier, related essay. I reread both. How fast two years have gone. It still all feels so applicable. I worry I haven’t accomplished anything. I remember sitting in DeHority learning about the honors thesis my freshman year with Dr. R. I wonder why that memory stands out to me. I don’t remember any details. Just being there and Dr. R laughing at me for being ahead of the game. I thought it was a mandatory event, and I went alone. I keep feeling unsettled lately thinking about how much time I spent alone as a freshman. It’s hard to put myself back in that place; it makes me glad that I’m here now—I always knew it was my place. I keep reading.
12:35 I attend to my day diary, agenda, and move laundry around. I look at old pictures of me and curl up with A in her bed to chat. I force myself to get up and finish reading. Our landlord arrives with a ladder but doesn’t knock. He leaves without the rent checks. I play with my hair, twirling my pony tail into one big, perfect curl while I finish the last few pages, forcing myself to pick up the pace. I almost decide not to shower because my hair looks cute now. My curls are how I decide when to shower.
3:05 My friend B asks me to call her. I tell her I’m showering first and move more laundry around. I make my bed and tidy up the floor and my desk as I go. I use the conditioner my mom gave me to combat my weird winter hair and need of a haircut. I moisturize with lotion intended to be applied while your skin is still wet. I notice how the tiny droplets of water cling to my arm differently with the oily lotion on them. I run upstairs and lay face down on my bed to call B. She tells me about her most recent date—slightly more promising than the previous one. She tells me about acting like a middle school girl—afraid to approach him. I can relate. She keeps meeting guys on Bumble and being disappointed when they have a high voice. I said I’ve never noticed that being a problem. She tells me I’d notice if it had happened and that I make better choices about men. She says I’m pickier, and it’s a good thing. I say maybe I’m snobby. I love the way she tells stories. Her inflection and focus always makes me laugh. I always tell her she should write more. She asks about the guy I’m planning to get coffee with. I assure her his voice is normal, and she asks if I’m nervous. She tells me about life in Cincinnati and her friend getting trashed this weekend. I had met her briefly and can picture the mayhem. She had sent a snap the night before. She tells me she has no plans to watch the Super Bowl. I had forgotten it would be on. J comes home from a long weekend, so B asks if I mind talking later. I tell her I think I’m going to my parents’ house but will catch up soon. We say bye, and I say that that I love and miss her. I picture us dancing in Athens. I hope she visits soon.
4:15 I do the fourth step in my hair-care routine, and A wakes up from a nap. We prepare to eat some leftover pasta, adding spices because she cooked it kind of blandly. A is annoyed she has to eat her tortellini with a spoon. I tell her it’s not a big deal, but she’s bothered by it. I tease her a bit about the utensils, and we chat while we eat. I go over to the pan of brownies and eat them out of the pan with my spoon. My fitbit vibrates with a text from G, “I’m sorry to text you…” is all I see before I sprint upstairs to grab my phone off the charger.
4:35 I see a long couple of texts, upset about her relationship. I tell her to come over and cry in my bed and talk or rest while I read. I remove my comfy blanket from the dryer, lighting a candle and turning on my twinkle lights to make my room a better vibe for her. My eyes tear up; my heart is hurting for her. I’ve been in a similar situation, twice, and hate to think of her hurting. I unlock the door and tell her to come on up when she arrives. She comes in and curls up with me while I read my next assignment from a textbook on the history of African women. I rub her on the shoulder and tell her to interrupt me at any point to talk. She leans against me and avoids looking at her phone. She looks peaceful but like she’s barely holding on.
6:00 G gets up to leave, and I give her a long hug while she cries on my shoulder. I see she’s wearing jeans and feel concerned she’s been uncomfortable. I let her out the front door. It’s been icing/ snowing. I try to decide if I want to drive out to my parents’ house for guacamole and the Super Bowl. Mom tells me she isn’t making much food because my brother can’t eat. I point out I could barely eat last weekend, and she made a Mexican buffet. She said it’s different. I joke that she likes him better. I think it upsets her, so I tell her I’m kidding. I crawl back into A’s bed and under her heated blanket. We talk about ex-boyfriends and long-distance relationships and the pain of healing. She asks if G is okay. I say no but that I hope she will be. Our experiences have been so similar. She talks a lot but isn’t saying much. She can’t run today and is hyper because of it. I grow irritable and go upstairs to text my mom about if I should drive over or not and if the roads are slick. G tells me they aren’t.
6:40 I start up my car, deciding to get away from school and homework for a bit. My windshield is iced-over with many tiny droplets, little individual crystals. I shift into four-wheel drive and wonder if I’m doing it right… I keep forgetting to ask my dad to show me so I don’t mess up the transmission. The roads don’t feel too slick. I love driving. Snow drifts and blows across the road. It looks beautiful. I pull up to CVS pharmacy, confident it closes at 7:00, and that I was just sliding in right in time when the dash says it’s 7:01 but I know it’s six minutes fast. I see then that the sign says 6:00. Damn—I try to figure out if I can squeeze in a trip on Monday? Risky. Driving the rest of the way, the car next to me drives in the middle turn lane instead of the lane next to me. I pull up to the house and the garage door opens. My brother had his wisdom teeth removed. He says he looks like Jay Leno but looks okay if he covers part of his face. Mom is making guacamole. My dad dips a chip into just the avocado and is confused why it doesn’t taste like guacamole. They tell me there’s no cheese dip. I’m unreasonably disappointed. He tells me he put coffee on and wanders into the other room while I cuddle my cat. “Son of a bitch” we hear him swear. Mom and I look at each other and laugh, not sure what he’s swearing about but knowing it’s nothing serious. I remember, for the first time, that the game has started. The score is 3-3. R tells me he made buffalo chicken dip and would make me some. I’m very interested. I tell my mom that I might leave because there is no cheese. She says more guac for her.
8:00 My sister finally comes home and complains about other drivers. She tells me her neck is swollen. I tell her she has a goiter. My mom reprimands me for scaring her. Mom and I talk about our day diaries. She said she’s made a lot out of not much. I tell her no one is surprised to hear that—I’ve seen what she can do with an email. We watch the Star Wars penguin video on twitter and make nachos from the scraps of Mexican food. Mom tells me stories about work and what she’s seen on the news. The stories make me sad. I fill her in on SHC and school. I get tired of talking quickly and start getting snappy. My brother sips a milkshake, and I say I’m not sure about having kids if I have to help them with dental work and bring them into the world of today. She comments that she would never want to be without us, but she wonders the same. Is it worth it? My dad fills all of our gas tanks during the halftime show. We discuss Justin Timberlake at length. I don’t have enough information to make any kind of point. I’m feeling highly uninformed. I don’t follow celebrities and feel out of the loop. I wonder if that makes me a bad WGS major. I’m bad at trivia too which I’m sure makes me a bad history major. Mom tells me about a video of Peyton Manning. My dad refills the humidifier and the cold water in the fridge.
9:40 The Alexa commercial plays and mom shows me a video of several orcas working together to eat a seal. They are unsuccessful, and she says she isn’t sure which party she is rooting for. C decides that I am the green Powerpuff Girl via Buzzfeed Quiz. I’ve never seen the show. We get the call that their county school system is on a two-hour delay. Mom had been thinking about calling off anyway. I ask if she’s going to. It’s good my brother will miss less at school. I worry about him being stressed. He complains about swimming and missing too much to do well at Sectionals, but I’m not sure that he actually cares. It’s more about the coaches and his teammates. My friend J texts me SHC news. I read old EDLM diaries and wonder about how I write differently depending on the day. A few of them are sad. I wish I wasn’t in that place then. I think back about what people thought about me based on my diaries. I don’t like my last diary when I look at it. I can tell how stressed I was that day. Weekend diaries are very different for me. Today I feel sluggish and boring. The diaries have made me so aware of it. I wonder if other diarists feel so hyper aware of what goes on and how they will record it. I send an email to my contact at a grad school, finalizing the details of a phone call on Wednesday. What do I call her? MJ? Dr….? I cringe sending the email, so unsure. Mom isn’t helpful.
10:20 Mom asks me to drop some videos at the library. I agree and hope it’s not slippery. I say bye to everyone in the living room and the cat. I start driving to Sufjan Stevens and Simon & Garfunkel. The main roads are clear, and I pull up to the A/V Drop Box. I briefly wondered how easy it would be to abduct or kill me in that moment. The parking lot is deserted. No one is on the roads. I pull around in front of Hobby Lobby and watch everyone go to Taco Bell while I loop around and drive home. I keep talking with R and get distracted. We finalize our coffee plans. I need to finish my diary. He sends an adorable baby picture. I keep getting sidetracked. We say goodnight, and I can focus a little better. I keep going back to Twitter. Retyping my EDLM notes for the diary puts my head in a weird space. I make new connections I didn’t earlier in the day, and I keep thinking about the old project.
12:30 I look up the hours to see if I should go to CVS in the morning. I think of the CVS in Cleveland Heights. Wandering the aisles and buying a lipstick to keep myself busy. Why am I thinking about Cleveland so much today? Why do I have so little homework done. I can hear our drug-dealing neighbors outside getting in and out of cars. They’re so loud at such odd hours. I go downstairs to prepare for bed. I see the moon out my favorite window and think of G. I hope she’s okay. She never texted me after being over here. I also look for my second roommate’s car. It isn’t there. I worry about her for a moment while crawling into bed. I’m excited to sleep in my clean sheets. They’re cold, but I know I’ll wake up warm. I stretch into every corner of the bed and feel myself breath.
1:10 I fall asleep.