I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the Substack machine, how I always feel inclined to share thoughtful essays, or the cool things I’m loving or doing. But what got me into blogging years ago was the feeling of keeping a virtual diary. I knew I’d never be Anaïs Nin, but I’ve always loved recording the granular details of my life, no matter how pedestrian. I see comments online about how writing should be this high-stakes, intellectual craft and that all else is useless drivel. That’s not my bag, babe. This week, I wanted to take it back to my roots. So I decided to record a full day in my life. It was harder than I expected to actively chronicle each activity. But part of me felt like I needed to do this because we’re constantly led to believe everyone’s lives are more interesting and put together than our own. And maybe the sooner we realize we’re all pretty boring, the sooner we’ll come back to each other.
7 AM: The alarm sounds, but I am already awake from some bad dream and the debilitating sense that at 32 years old, if I lay here another minute, I could pee the bed. I haven’t peed the bed since I was probably three years old. Not even drunkenly, somehow. I have barfed into my laptop, but never peed the bed. Still, this possibility scares me awake each morning. I didn’t fall asleep until 1 AM, tossing and turning, speeding through useless contemplations of existence. The standard bullshit that keeps people awake. This isn’t normal for me, though. Most nights I’m out the second my head hits the pillow. If that sounds like a brag, it is. I actually spend very little time thinking in general for someone who presents as an “overthinker,” which feels more like an image upheld by being a writer and a romantic that I don’t care enough to truly amend. Just know that I have zero internal monologue. Anyway, yeah, I’m a good sleeper when I’m at home, in routine, and not in my luteal phase. The anxiety still lingers this morning.
7:15 AM: I love those spectacular morning routine videos where TikTokers get up at 5 AM to crush weights, drink Athletic Greens, write “do one thing that scares you today” in a monogrammed journal, etc. Hate all you want on optimization culture, but I’d LOVE to be so aesthetically mechanized! My morning routine is unchanging, and it consists almost exclusively of baseline human maintenance. I kiss my fiance, who mumbles something unintelligible and cute. I take my medication. I’m on a baby dose of Wellbutrin, an atypical antidepressant, and Yaz, a birth control that poses a higher risk of blood clots than any other, but is the only FDA approved hormonal birth control treatment for PMDD. This is the first time I’ve publicly admitted any of this because it was all so last resort, but going through the minutiae of my day felt opportune. I guess I got sick of wanting to die and thank god, because I don’t really want to anymore. I immediately brush my teeth and my Invisalign, which I leave directly on the sink. (Germaphobes have no place reading this newsletter.) I put my contacts in. They’re the daily kind, so I don’t have a case or anything; I leave the little packets on the sink by my Invisalign so that I can wet my contacts if they get dry throughout the day. Andrew despises this—just going into the bathroom that’s already taken over by my stuff, seeing cloudy retainers and contact packets sitting out. Whatever. I apply some skincare: Caudalie essence, Caudalie Vinoperfect serum (I first spelled that “syrum” so confidently), The Ordinary hyaluronic acid, Clinique Moisture Surge. I pluck any stray eyebrow hairs. (I keep my eyebrows very thin.) I make a cup of green tea with honey.
7:30 AM: Anxiety picked a convenient day to linger. My therapist and I just moved our sessions to 7:30-8:30 AM on Monday mornings. I dismissed therapy for a while, but I’ve found someone I really click with: this existential goth guy who’s my age and has a bunch of tattoos and loves literature. Our session starts with book talk. I’m reading James Baldwin. He’s reading Ottessa Moshfegh. The conversation inevitably turns to her magnum opus (IMO), My Year of Rest and Relaxation. He hasn’t read it, but he knows the premise: our nameless narrator, a modelesque 20-something woman living off her dead parents’ inheritance in Manhattan takes a full year to do copious pills and sleep to reset her life. He probes, asking what about this book resonates with me—a question we both know the answer to. And I grapple with the constant need to escape myself, to dip out of life for an undetermined stretch of time where no one can hurt me, where I can do weird shit like sleepwalk out for bodega coffee, order lingerie I’ll never wear, make spa appointments I’ll never honor, and watch Whoopi Goldberg movies. I can’t tell you how good that sounds. I don’t know what that says about my life but I promise I’m doing well. I realize I’m holding a lot of tension this week because Sunday the 27th is the five-year anniversary of my sister’s passing. I don’t tell him this. I don’t feel like getting into it.
8:30 AM: After our session, I finish my morning routine. First, I make the bed. It’s understood between Andrew and I that making the bed is my task. He does all the laundry and takes the trash out, and I cook dinner and make the bed. Everything else we both do sporadically. It’s worked well for us. I don’t think we’ve ever argued about anything chore-related because we’re both just big “get it done and move along” people. Then, I change out of pajamas and into running gear and make breakfast. I’m on this kick: toasted whole wheat english muffin, whipped cream cheese, thinly sliced cucumber, sprouts, and Maldon salt. It’s a good combination of fresh and indulgent, like the warm shrimp salad from Parc if you live in Philly/have ever had that. I serve it alongside the dreamiest scrambled eggs I’ve ever had. I love when something I make myself ends up the best I’ve ever had.
9 AM: I only have a couple more Mondays working from home before we’re officially back in the office four days a week. And with no meetings until 11 AM, I begin the workday at a snail’s pace. I’m baffled by how few emails I’ve received since Friday. Working in email marketing, I should have been prepared for the overflowing inbox, but I wasn’t. I get emails around the fucking clock. Some require action. Some, I’ve been added to “for visibility” (dear lord take this pain away). It’s all really illuminated how many people are doing work over the weekend. Nothing is sacred.
9:48 AM: The intern texts me. I love this girl. She’s 22, wealthy to the point of being unrelatable yet still humble, looks like a mermaid, speaks five languages. I’ll tell her I packed a lunch today and she’ll be like “slay.” We instantly clicked to no one’s surprise. We’re probably going to Miami in October. Anyway, she’s been tasked with something confusing and needs some help. I would drop just about anything in this situation. It took me a long time to be someone who asks for help, so I really admire people who do it freely.
10 AM: This is when I start to lose my mind. You’re gonna have to stay with me here. You see, everyone’s pissed about the return to office four days a week thing. And I’m peeved in theory; I don’t think it’s fair to ask people to uproot their entire lifestyles that they’ve grown accustomed to over the last three years. But in practice, it’s like, pretty good for me. Because at 10 o’clock on Monday mornings working from home, I realize I need to plan out dinners for the week, make a grocery list, go to Whole Foods, run six miles, and find three minutes to eat something. I can slot some of those tasks in throughout the day. The freedom to do that—to lack the guardrails of being in the office or even just having to be on camera for meetings—is dangerous. It turns people like me into frazzled, indecisive versions of ourselves. And on this particular Monday, I am in a tizzy. I’m stumped on what to make for dinner this week. I spend an insane amount of time deliberating. I have plans with a girlfriend tonight, so I have to make something easy. I have dinner plans with girlfriends Thursday night. (Girls just really be hangin out, huh?) Andrew gets his wisdom teeth out Friday, so he can’t have solids then. So there are limitations here. Ahhh but I REALLY want to try these braised short ribs that cook for hours, so I MUST make them today while I’m working from home! Alas, another task! The menu for the week shakes out like this:
Monday: Wishbone Kitchen braised short ribs over Soko’s Kitchen risotto
Tuesday: Green coconut curry chicken meatballs and bell peppers over rice noodles
Wednesday: Salmon, honey balsamic brussels sprouts, and couscous
Thursday: Double crunch honey garlic chicken (Pinterest find), mashed potatoes, and baby broccoli
Friday: Pasta in a parmesan gouda cream sauce with kale, bacon, and shallots. Leftover mashed potatoes and a side of prescription strength ibuprofen for my poor man.
I share the menu with Andrew, all excited to prepare these short ribs. Feeling like I’ve been elevating each week in what I bring to our culinary lives, and this will only add to the list. One bite of these fall-apart, red wine-infused short ribs should reaffirm his decision to marry me. Oh, but his response cuts like a knife: “These elaborate meals are getting expensive.” Dear reader, this comment wasn’t made with a smile. It was grave concern for the financial impact of my cooking adventures. One thing about Andrew is he’s incredibly organized and responsible. He tracks his expenses in Excel. And when he reveals how much we’ve spent on groceries so far this month, I am aghast. Still, I am the LAST person you should say this to. The hours I spend in the kitchen are the best part of my day. Cooking is one of the primary ways I show love. So to hear that my masterpieces—which are often other people’s recipes (except that pasta one is all me and you should try it)—are being viewed through a lens of monthly expenditures logged in some cold, sterile spreadsheet… just kill my family while you’re at it. I am hurt, and I carry an embittered energy around the house like a protection amulet for the rest of the day.
11 AM: My weekly one on one with my boss. She’s the best. We get the work stuff out of the way and she tells me that over the weekend, she went to her friend’s, like, dance recital? For her pole dancing class? Her description was incredible. Because she lives in Atlanta aka the strip club capital of the United States, half the women in the class were just taking it for fitness, while the other half were legitimately training for the stage. We make fun of ourselves and our too-goofiness to be sexy in that setting. I spend the next 90 minutes working, writing, and scrolling.
12:30 PM: These structureless hours are slipping away from me, especially when I still have a six-mile run looming and it’s 90 degrees out. I eat a bowl of tree bark ass cereal called Heritage Flakes that they sell at Whole Foods with Califia Farms oat milk, the one with three ingredients. I haven’t eaten cereal in months, so I don’t understand how this isn’t stale. I think about how absolutely perfect a bowl of cereal is. Cold and creamy and crunchy, ugh. I decide to prioritize grocery shopping on my lunch break, and I head to Whole Foods.
12:35 PM: If you ever see me at Whole Foods and I’m not in a tiny crop top with hard nipples, you better ask for ID, because that is an imposter. I’m zooming through my perfectly organized grocery list. But Andrew’s comment about the elaborate meals getting expensive keeps ringing in my brain, and I become terribly somber. I actually start tearing up, feeling all unappreciated and shit. Something I don’t love about myself is that my sadness can quickly turn to spite. You don’t want my braised short ribs? Fine. But I will buy not one but two $7 pints of ice cream, some fancy peanut butter cups, chocolate chip cookies baked with all natural, organic ingredients, and a $12 hunk of my favorite cheese. See if I ever cook another elaborate meal again. (I will. Like, by end of week.)
1:15 PM: I get home from Whole Foods and immediately realize I forgot beer. I’d told my girlfriend I’d bring a six pack of Modelo and limes to her place tonight. I fly back over and grab that plus a bottle of cheap Pinot Noir for my troubles.
2 PM: I have an hour-long meeting, so I kick back with one of those cookies, a fancy peanut butter cup, and a shot of decaf espresso. It becomes abundantly clear that I will not be running outside today. This makes me feel like a Bad Runner who cannot manage their time. Most of the runners I follow on social media get their run in before sunrise. I used to be this person, but my sleep schedule really shifted since the pandemic; I stay up much later now. During this meeting, a bunch of proofs come through. This is the only annoying part of my job, and I say this as someone who loves editing. But I proof 10000 identical emails a day before they go out. It makes my eyes bleed and my wrist arthritic from all the clicking. I ask my boss if I can order an ergonomic mouse with my company card. She tells me to check the tech center first, god forbid someone hunt her down for approving such reckless spending.
4:30 PM: I feel so fatigued. Coming off a recent bout of COVID, my energy levels are up and down and up and down. I muster every drop I have to run six easy miles on my treadmill. I decide that, because I am so tired and unmotivated, I’m going to listen to David Goggins on the Joe Rogan Podcast. I’m so sorry for how often you’ve been stuck seeing him mentioned on this newsletter lately lol. I’m sure reading that, you’re way more embarrassed for me than I am for me. But I’ve made peace with embracing whatever it takes to push my rolodex of excuses I’m prone to calling upon off the desk and into the trash. The podcast has a video component, and my phone lags the whole time, pausing to load between every militant axiom, every photo of Goggins’s mangled knees from running 240-mile races. When I hit the last quarter of each mile, I do light surges just to keep things interesting. My Garmin thinks I’m running faster than I am, and I don’t know how to calibrate that post-run. So I run an extra quarter mile to make up for it. Stretching afterward, I feel terrified for my October marathon. I haven’t run more than 14 miles in almost a year.
5:30 PM: I shower and cook the salmon, honey balsamic brussels sprouts, and couscous meal from the menu. I’m supposed to be at my friend’s for 6:30.
6:45 PM: I’m late, but I arrive with all my beading supplies, the Modelos, and a little ziplock of lime wedges. Her house is so pretty. It’s nice and new-looking without Philly’s typical gray, characterless new construction vibe. She also lives on a cute street in Brewerytown, the neighborhood west of mine and one of the few places Andrew and I are considering buying. We haven’t seen each other in forever, so we play catch-up for a bit. I love hearing how well she’s doing and how happy her relationship is. Having been in so many volatile relationships, I’ve grown to love, and feel inspired by, those that are just steady. My own is steady. When you can find excitement in predictability with someone, you have found real love, IMO. She shows me the tattoos she’s gotten since I’ve seen her last: a Kewpie babydoll on her bicep, boygenius lyrics around her knee. We turn on House Hunters and get into the beer and beads. Her two stepsisters are recently back in her life, so she wants to bead bracelets for the three of them. She makes her own first, and it’s like, the coolest bracelet I’ve ever seen. All these pearlescent, pale shades of pink, blue, white, purple, green. I restart a choker 200 times because I can’t decide on colors. I ultimately settle on this sort of ombre half purple half pink situation. Her roommates come down and we switch to Love Island UK. They’re both really cool. It reminds me how nice it is to just live with a bunch of girls and watch TV together at the end of the day. The last time I experienced that was with my best friend who is now dead. Love Island is wild. The melange of accents is disorienting, and the drama is hard to follow. Entertaining nonetheless. We talk about how reality TV is best enjoyed as a group activity. How her one roommate’s boyfriend is meeting her family for the first time this coming weekend and all those nerves. Eventually they head upstairs to bed, and we keep beading and drinking until the six pack is finished and we’re both fuzzy and satisfied with our creations. Her birthday is coming up, so I Amazon one of my bead kits to her house as a gift. I love beading for the meditation aspect, but she has a real talent here.
10 PM: Andrew picks me up. I’m kind of worried; I feel like I should be drunker after three beers. I’m giggly and rambling but no more than usual. I swear, going on that bachelorette weekend a few weeks ago primed me for craving alcohol again. I’ve had a singular beer many nights since, which I think has raised my tolerance? I don’t like that, but I’m not about to get mad at myself. You’d think the fullness one experiences drinking beer would exempt you from the drunk munchies. But I head straight for the cupboard. I make this spicy miso ramen from Trader Joe’s, which includes way more seasoning than noodles. Then I have a tiny scoop from each of the $7 pints I got from Whole Foods in spite mode earlier.
11 PM: I tried writing. I tried reading. My eyelids disagree. Our central air is broken and it’s 75 degrees in my house. I brush my teeth and pass out, tipsy, hot, and delirious.
freedom is the word that came after readinng this – you write like you are free, and it’s v inspiring to me. I love this day in the life
My Year of Rest & Relaxation!!!!