twenty-four but in half
jack bauer vibes
Thursday, August 12 - 9:15 pm
Laying in bed, I quietly text my friend about her next tattoo (a mandala on her shin, which sounds like it will hurt, but beauty is pain) and fill out my nightly log in my Moody Month app. I rate my mood, digestion, and human interactions for the day, before the screen changes to a calendar that shows me when my next period is due. As I count the days until blood once again starts to gush from betwixt my legs, I notice the date. Wednesday, September 1, is two and a half weeks away. I don’t work on Mondays or Tuesdays. August 29 is just over two weeks away and HR doesn't work on weekends. I begin to count and recount days, and listen to my husband’s breath deepen. “Are you awake?” No answer.
Thursday, August 12 - 9:59 pm
I am having an uncharacteristically difficult time falling asleep. Last November, when my dad called to say that my grandma had died, I told him I was sorry for his loss and went to bed. Last month, when I crawled into bed, I picked a fight with my husband and fell asleep before I could finish my argument. Last week, when I learned I could have maybe been exposed to Covid, I convinced myself I was experiencing symptoms all day long, then took a shower and fell promptly asleep. Tonight, I lay awake, repeatedly smoothing my forehead muscles after unconsciously furrowing my brow.
Friday, August 13 - 12:56 am
I’m late for work. No, I’m early? Why am I in an Uber, like it’s 2017? And where is it taking me? I’m really going to be late and then everyone is going to hate me. Why won’t this door open? Oh, I’m inside the building. But where is everyone? I can’t be that late. Sit down. Clock in. Voices. Turn around. Everyone. Staring. Roll over. Back to sleep.
Friday, August 13 - 4:58 am
I wake up again, two minutes before my alarm is scheduled to go off. I lay in bed, waiting for the chime, then press snooze twice before forcing myself to emerge from the safety of my blankets where I had been hiding, despite feeling stifled by the heat of the comforter I insist on using even in the middle of summer.
Friday, August 13 - 5:36 am
In the kitchen, I tell my husband what I have realized I must do. He continues making his coffee and says “yeah, I kind of thought… I kind of thought that was the plan.”
Friday, August 13 - 6:08 am
Sitting on the couch, I open the Google Drive app on my phone and access a document dated December 4, 2018. I know I have accessed this since then, but I guess I didn’t save the changes. I copy and paste the document into the notes app on my phone, where I start swapping proper nouns, like a business casual mad libs. I don’t know why I feel the need to do this in the notes app, but changing the document itself seems wrong now. Like painting a mustache on the actual Mona Lisa, or tie-dying the white shirt you got from driver’s ed when you were fifteen and have not worn since but still can’t bear the thought of defacing because what if?
Friday, August 13 - 7:52 am
I ride the elevator to the fifth floor of my work building with someone who loses interest in talking to me after looking at the name on my ID lanyard. I compliment her skirt (she got it from Nasty Gal last year. I narrowly avoid lecturing her about the effects of fast fashion on both the climate and garment workers) and pretend to have something on my phone worth looking at.
Friday, August 13 - 7:56 am
I sit down at someone else’s desk, just like I do every other workday, and punch in. I carefully align my notebook, my phone, my mask, and my hair tie in a neat stack on the desk that isn’t mine. I open my email, which is expectedly empty. Rearranging my small stack of belongings, I remove my phone and open the notes app. I prop up my phone and begin to type the contents of the note, word for word, into a new email on the desktop computer, as if it is 2005. I then remember that I am a millenn-z baby, and open my work email on my phone, a terrible ability that I often wish I did not have. I copy the entire note, paste it into the empty text box of a new email, and address it to Ashley in HR, hoping it’s the right person. There’s been some staff shuffling lately, and honestly I never had a chance to learn who was who in the first place. I press send and feel simultaneously relieved and more jittery than before. I have given my two weeks, and, come September, I will be unemployed once again.
Friday, August 13 - 9:34 am
I receive an email from not Ashley in HR, but from a woman who I think is my supervisor. The hierarchy has never been explained to me, but she is very nice and is considered a Team Lead and has been working there for almost as long as I’ve been depressed. She needs someone to work tomorrow and is asking very nicely if I am available and willing. I respond that I am.
Did you like how I built up the suspense as if this were about something important instead of me just remembering very last minute that I needed to quit my job? Is anything that I’m saying interesting anymore? Was it actually ever? Please do feel compelled to answer in the comments. Here are some poems that I wrote this week when I was not thinking about what day it was. Happy Friday the 13th, live laugh love.
Sunday morning
walking downtown
before the brunch crowd has
made their way out of bed
drenched in a windy stillness
the air is thick and damp
as if the lake is trying to escape
into the sky drop by drop
I smile at a dog and ignore
the owner and his peloton shirt
a duck drifts up the murky river
and tries to eat garbage
did I just get my period
or is my ass sweating?
I never finished the show Cheers and I don’t know why
the algorithms know me better than I know myself
of course I take things personally
is there another way to take them?
I can’t remember the last time I
did something seriously
losing teeth used to be fun
and exciting instead of concerning
and expensive
I downloaded another app that’s supposed to make me happy
I don’t care about the law but I can’t
go to prison because I don’t
look good in orange
all my idols killed themselves
I sleep on my back like a corpse
I want to experience everything I can
and even what I can’t
Honestly, I know you’re all here for the photo dump, so I won’t make you wait for it any longer. If you did for some reason enjoy this play-by-play of twelve hours of my life, please do me a solid and tell another human being about the ways in which I waste my life (ie. this newsletter). There’s a button for that at the bottom of the issue.
And that’s a chicken salad WRAP for this week! Here’s that button I was telling you about, plus a couple more. lol (lots of love), serena