Grab Bag

I need to pee.

I want to sleep...

I am very worried I am developing a tolerance to my Ambien.

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Days Later:

I'm so tired.

I still want to sleep. I'm so greedy for it. I can't get enough of it. Literally. I keep sleeping like 4-6 hours. Unless I manage to get a nap in...which is spotty at best. 

I bought "I Don't Want To Die Poor" and I've been going through it kind of slowly. I made it through the first chapter pretty quickly, but I'm just not a great reader anymore. It's very relatable, even though I don't have nearly as much debt and none of mine is private loans. I feel pretty lucky in that.

I have also started "I May Destroy You" and I'm a little bothered by how much it reminds me of myself. I can recall fondly the nights I can't recall at all after a certain point, but it's jarring to see someone else blackout. Sometimes it feels like I have so few memories it's painful to watch someone else experience the same thing under such traumatic circumstances. My sister said parts of it are funny, though obviously a lot of it is very uncomfortable. I'm going to try to stick through.

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On Memories:

I have a small scar over the top right of my lip. I wish I had a cool story for it like Tina Fey getting slashed by a stranger as a child. Or my middle school friend who got mauled by a dog. Even Collin has scars on his side and back from when his lungs decided they were tired of his shit and just dropped out. Although, that's not terribly interesting either. It's not like he passed out. So, in my infinite wisdom, I told him he should say he was stabbed by a bear. Because he'd get more chicks with bear stab wounds than a malfunctioning interior.

I got my scar going down a hill on a bike with an ice cream in my hand. I had only recently learned to ride a bike at like...19 years old. Attempts were made when I was younger but they were by my screaming mother on our steep and poorly paved driveway, so that effort was abandoned with extreme prejudice and I never tried again. It didn't seem like a skill I really needed. And funny enough, some of my closest college friends hadn't learned either, so I felt I was in good company. However, Scott liked biking, and he wanted a bike, and so he decided that I should learn to go biking with him. And I did. Several cars were knocked into as we practiced around campus in the dead of night, but I eventually got the hang of it with minimal injury. Then we started biking all over, but I never got used to going very fast and Austin is very hilly so there are many (most) opportunities to go very fast. It was on such and opportunity cutting through a parking lot to slide down a beaten path that I felt my bike fall out from under me as I came to where the hill met the pavement again, And then my face met the pavement as well. I remember being bewildered by the whole experience. I didn't know how the bike got away. I didn't know why I didn't put my hands down well enough to protect my face. I didn't know where my ice cream went, and I think that was one of the first things I asked.

Beyond the horror of this new pain and the taste of blood I felt incredibly guilty that I had ruined Scott's trip to the arcade. This guilt was quickly overtaken when I realized I could feel guilty I ate it right in front of another couple biking down the perpendicular path who stopped to help me because Scott hadn't noticed right away.

I might have bent the wheel of my bike. I'm not sure. I don't know where I was working and how I explained the injury, but it was pretty bad, gross and bloody for a while. I don't know how I covered it. I didn't have healthcare at the time because America sucks, so we stopped at the 7-11 right next to our shoebox apartment over Thai Noodle House and got some salt for me to swish around my mouth. Maybe we got something to ice it with. I can't imagine they had anything with which I could bandage it. And for days I couldn't kiss my trash boyfriend because my face was a wreck. And my family asked me over and over if I needed to be removed from the situation because it was easier for them to believe I was being physically abused than dumb enough to grind my face into the road to avoid dropping ice cream.

I worry sometimes that I'm going to die with only the bad memories in place. That I'll never forget that I lost control on a small hill because it's etched into my face, but I've lost so many memories of my youthful adventures with the person who might be the love of my life.

My most vivid memories of Collin are of the times I convinced him to go to karaoke bars with a friend-couple because I was convinced he came along and got on stage because he loved me. And then I abruptly stopped talking to him for years.

Everything else is impressions. A vague knowledge that we spent a lot of time together watching TV and getting coffee. Fairly certain we'd trade off who bought, but I could be making that up- it's not like he's ever been stingy. I remember being in his car a lot. Coming down the steep concrete stairs and getting picked up in the weird parking lot behind the restaurant. I remember being excited, comforted, and happy. Until I got angry and then all the things that made those feelings seemed to vanish.

In some ways this brings hope because I feel like I am already also losing the memories of Scott. Most of them are the lingering bad times. That time I threw his exes clothes in the living room and the cats peed on everything. That time I found naked pictures of Stassney on his phone and computer and made a desktop wallpaper out of them for him to find to start our argument over it.

I remember when we met and how I thought it was going to be a great story to tell people. I was working in a toy store and asked him for his picture to go on our website/social media accounts. Then he kept visiting to talk to me until I gave him my number. I remember that I liked him because of his hair, blazers and corduroy pants. He was the post-punk douchebag of my dreams. He listened to obscure music and made fun of my taste and I thought "this is the guy I want to be mean to me so I can earn his love for the rest of my life." Then with a slide into stasis birthed out of a blatant refusal from Scott to participate in any life outside of him I pretty much lost all memories from 23 - 28.

And that I don't really miss. I'm sure I could recall some things if I mulled it over long enough. I remember enough of the brunches, parties, bad bosses and miscellaneous coworker friends to make the blur a pleasant one when we fast forward through my relationship. I do miss the nearly 3 1/2 years of inane conversations while watching various sitcoms with Collin, though. It's not even like I was wasted the whole time.

We're rewatching Parks and Recreation right now. Early on we finished all of 30 Rock, which held up fantastically. He never finished the two series without me. With 30 Rock it was interesting to figure out where we left off. It was also fun because with Maeve's introduction of Real Housewives into my life I finally understood the Angie plot line where she gets her own reality show. The franchise was also mentioned in "I Don't Want to Die Poor" so this new trash pop-culture knowledge has been paying off in spades.

I find lately that I don't know how to wrap these up.