I have to be getting started.
Right now. 8:27 p.m. (1:19 p.m. November
21, 2011: I was going to delete the period following the 'm' in 'p.m.' but
realized it was good. I am elsewhere now.) November 20, 2011.
I wiped my left eyebrow with my right hand. Boy it’s hot in here. I
think this spaghetti will give me acne. I just wiped my left eye with my
left pointer finger. I should take off my sweater. I stripped last
night. Do you think I’m hot? 8:29 November 20, 2011.
Car engine starts outside. I wipe my mouth with my left hand.
There’s nobody else home. I should have said this earlier—just farted—but
I’m listening to Eddie Vedder. 8:30 November 20, 2011:
originally I didn’t—just farted—want to infect this writing with cultural
associations. Especially pop-culture ones. I take another bite. (8:59 November 20,
2011: I deleted ‘ha,' and added 'actually,' right here): Actually I
lied. I didn’t take a bite, but just looked at spaghetti then back at the computer.
I didn’t mean to lie, just did. 8:31 November 20, 2011. My
lower lip tastes really salty. I have licked it 10-20
times. It won’t go away. I’m concerned.
8:32 November 20, 2011. I
can’t seem to eat (9:01
November 20 2011: I’m deleting ‘to take a bite anymore’ and
adding ‘to eat’, see? look up: it’s not there) But I am hungry. I'll
admit that I’m leaving a lot of things out: facts, emotions, things I
see. What you’re reading—this "time thing"—was supposed to be
like (8:40
November 20, 2011, now we’re in the editing stage. 9:03 November 20 2011:
which, I realize, we already were, spatially speaking.) a diary or
something. Because 8:34 November 20, 2011 I want to
be truly, truly honest. But I’ve already told
you that I lie. People have attempted this before...the constant recording
of their thoughts. Some sort of pining for immortality. There is actually a man
who writes in his diary every five minutes. He’s somewhere in his
forties, I think. Actually I don’t know how old he is, but he has like,
millions of pages. 8:35 November 20, 2011. And nobody will
ever read them (9:05 November 20,
2011: I’m changing ‘it’ to 'them' because that’s correct. "Nobody will
ever read them." Right. 8:42: I deleted the word ‘all’ that
was to come after the soon-to-be-deleted word ‘it’. 8:45. Burped and
added the apostrophes to the aforementioned instance of the deleted word ‘all’.
9:07 November 20 2011: But you never saw ‘all’ at all, but there it was four
times anyways) because they would take up your entire life.
8:36 November 20 2011. I
just ate more spaghetti.
(8:47 November 20, 2011: I remember taking a bite of spaghetti. That was around ten minutes ago. I’ve since changed rooms; my computer was dying. Here comes my roommate Dan at 8:48 November 20, 2011. He’s wearing a shirt from Fat Harry's, which is a bar, and I suppose he's just finished his shift. [A day later, at 1:24 November 21, 2011, I still do not know where he was coming from. I'm at the university library and I just coughed on a public keyboard without covering my mouth. Nobody saw.])
But isn’t it sad, in a way, that the truest documentation we’ll ever have of a man’s life will never be read in its entirety? The Diary Guy wrote and wrote, nearly every minute of every day, emptying himself, trying so hard just to exist. And he does, I suppose. People are talking. But (8:55 November 20, 2011: I’m about to move "to truly know him," which once followed "But" to 147 words from now, because I think it looks better that way, and you may have forgotten where you were, or lost track of time) to truly know him you’d have to become the story and the person who wrote it and make the decision soon.
2:21 a.m. April 22 2013
It's been 1 year, 5 months,
3 days, 5 hours and 54 minutes since this began. During that
time my grammar has improved, but I've made some big mistakes. I
was called unlovable by
someone who wasn't even trying to hurt me. That's honest. And I moved to
a new home. When I started this post, for example someone else lived here,
and I was elsewhere, like you are now. I wonder if one year, five months,
three days, six hours and forty-eight minutes ago someone was in this room,
sleeping behind me—pacing or looking out the window. I don't know how the
furniture was arranged (I keep my bed by a window that faces south) or if this
was a bedroom at all. Maybe the house was
empty. And maybe if I turn around you'll be here with all my things looking
placid at the window and waiting for me to stop whatever I'm doing and gobble
you up. Though it’s no coincidence, it's worth nothing that I'm hungry
again. Starving actually. Mainly I wish I still had some of that
spaghetti, and wish I hadn't let so much go to waste.
3:33 a.m. April 22 2013.
