11:41PM: surprise appearance from mom. she said she had a good feeling about rockway park, that good things would happen. i said ‘thank you for saying that. i’m not excited but i’m not worried either, i don’t feel anything yet.’ she said ‘you’re just afraid to be excited because you think you’ll be disappointed.’ looked at wall and thought ‘maybe.’

imagined reciting paragraph about standing by dad making coffee, when i took a water bottle to my room so we wouldn’t have to be talking anymore, at dad’s funeral. i would be saying ‘how could i have taken the water bottle like that?’ the extra sandwich, just in case. when i woke, there it was. he would do that, for me. i said ‘roast pork?’ he said ‘with tiger sauce.’ i said ‘i love tiger sauce.’

APRIL 29, 2013

12–2:56AM: read interview with richard yates…keep thinking about his life…description of the last apartment he lived…iowa, i think…boxes of recorded things…mildew…filth…one suit in closet…brown…

it will be hard to hide in new york because colin will live across the hall

think i am doing this on purpose…i think…

no, it’s always easy to hide

i want to walk around a financial district at night and feel that gutted-out lit-up feeling i get from being around tall buildings in a big city

i’ll be able to hear the ocean

i’ll be able to go smoke a cigarette in my front yard, which is the ocean

too many boxes to unpack

richard yates’ family going through his things after he dies

my parents and me with little silent ‘end dates’ floating over our heads, filling boxes with things we think we’ll eventually find places for

then there will be boxes for the ones who stay alive

three chances to get all the boxes

three people: mom, dad, me

someone will have the most boxes at the end

4:42AM: chewed 2mg xanax with teeth. sweating a little. turned out all lights. just broke earphones in attempt free from head. thinking about tomorrow.

thought ‘my life is an objective failure, if you looked at graphs, other people my age, research students would easily identify me at 4:40AM blowing my stuffed-up nose from drugs, body full of food i wasn’t hungry for, inbox full of nothing, getting ready to sleep so i can be rested for moving in to an apartment in an area of new york about 40 minutes from people i like by train, which is only one hour 20 minutes closer than i am to them now, five colleges eight years zero degrees, 27, last time she had sex she was too drunk to remember but was apparently ‘begging for it,’ it is documented somewhere, at the end of march, 2013.’ i’m not saying this to be cute or to have an internet personality or some bullshit. this is someone’s life, it’s shitty, and what’s shittier is that it probably looks good to people, it is definitely better than some people’s lives, so on top of it already feeling shitty, i feel shitty because it’s not the shittiest i can get, other people have it worse.