The New Me

by Halle Butler

I imagine her referring to it as a guilty pleasure, like that’s somehow radical or somehow makes her interesting.

I’m reminded of how afraid I am to die, and how every morning is just one more used-up day.

It should be easier to feel good.

“Yeah, you told me that already,” she says, as if she never repeats herself. As if I’m the one who’s boring.

She didn’t know if these sensations were coming from within her—maybe some unaddressed melancholy she’d been carrying around—or if these feelings were being picked up from the atmosphere.

I should read a book, I should make some friends, I should write some emails, I should go to the movies, I should get some exercise, I should unclench my muscles, I should get a hobby, I should buy a plant,

She was the one who brought it up, so it was unfair that everyone else got to talk about it, and she got angry

She’d specifically chosen this movie to watch because she’d seen it before. There was no room for new information in her mind.

The guy is not handsome, but I still want his attention. I want someone’s attention.

I feel bored, and then I feel annoyed, and I wonder why no one ever wants to talk to me, because I’m a great conversationalist, it just takes me a minute to get into it. But once I get into it, I really roll, and things are really great.

“yeah, it communicates something, it’s a real first-gen-college-grad kind of word, like your parents are small-town conservative Christians who didn’t have any books in the house, and you’re self-conscious about your upbringing so you want to stand out by using elitist intellectual language, but you don’t actually know any long words, so you just truss up the word ‘use’ for no fucking reason other than to try to make people feel like you’re the one with the big mental dick, even though ‘utilize’ is basically just administrative jargon and completely déclassé to them that knows.”

“Well, so do you like movies?” wondering what his fucking problem is.

“What’s the last movie you saw?” It’s like sucking on a rock and pretending it’s candy, talking to this guy.

Time, I guess, passes.

If I hadn’t gone out last night, I could have woken up this morning and gone to the museum, the movies, the store, looked at job postings, found a yoga class, called my mother, adopted a cat, looked at my old yearbooks, put on a record, cleaned my apartment.

I could be one of those people who doesn’t drink, but just engages.

I could stop watching so much TV, just read all the time, that way something else could come inside me and show me what to feel.

I reflect that certain people, people who don’t get out too much, people without many intimate relationships, tend to talk too much when they finally get the opportunity.

but I don’t believe in free will, so I can’t make myself do it,

It could be worse for me, I think. I could have a forehead like that.

My dreams are superficial and related to home improvement. There’s a slight feeling of dread to them all.

I walk home, regretting not getting that slice of pizza, effectively free, if it had been eaten slowly and on the clock.

People spend so much time dramatizing trivial bullshit that when an actual tragedy happens, I wonder how anyone could possibly act out their grief in a natural way. The tragedies we steel ourselves for never come for years and years, and our negative fantasies wear us down inch by inch, so that when the blow actually comes, there’s little of us left to care.

I don’t brush my teeth. I wake at noon and leave my apartment only for alcohol, which I drink while I search the internet for reasons why I might not be happy.

This is just entirely my year of rest and relaxation...