|
Jane was on fire.
She was so hot right now.
Literally.
She was not okay.
Electricity running through her veins.
And her temples.
Brain zaps!
She'd forgotten to take her medication!
Her SNRI, with a very short half-life.
Dangerously short.
It was called Pristiq.
Like prestige meets mystique.
Very chic!
There was this amazing review on Drugs dot com.
Which Jane wasn't allowed to look at anymore.
Because her psychiatrist said no looking at Drugs dot com.
But before that, she'd screenshotted this amazing review.
Where a woman said Pristiq saved her marriage her life everything!
The woman was on such a high dose that whenever she went to the pharmacy to get her prescription filled, they had to call poison control.
"But it's all good in the hood for me," she'd said in the review.
Great attitude, due to Pristiq.
Anyway.
Missing this Pristiq dose wasn't the worst thing.
It was all good in the hood for Jane.
Because Jane had a big idea.
Finally.
Finally!!!
Jane was a writer, of various things.
Who didn't believe in being "blocked."
(But she was sorta kinda blocked.)
Whenever she sat down to write these days, she'd start typing, and think, this is so dumb, I am so dumb, these words are so dumb, they're like dead fish on the page.
Everyone was telling Jane to "take a break."
She was frighteningly prolific.
And probably needed a break.
This moment of "block" was likely her body telling her: you need a break, bitch.
But Jane couldn't take a break.
Because she didn't know how.
She didn't know how to "relax."
Writing was how she enjoyed herself.
If she was not writing, it was not all good in the hood.
But!
She was feeling herself becoming unblocked.
Maybe.
Just maybe, it would be all good in the hood again.
It was 4:32am.
And Jane was experiencing rather intense SNRI withdrawal symptoms that felt like a manic episode mixed with a heart attack.
Jane had never had a heart attack.
Or a manic episode.
But she was a cringe millennial.
So whenever she was in a good mood or had lightly spiked energy levels, she was "manic."
She was "manic" right now, rolling around in her very soft Parachute sheets (sateen, blush), brain buzzing, mind flooded with BIG ideas.
She had been paralyzed by the tyranny of paragraph!
Imprisoned by the hegemony of narrative cohesion!
No one wanted to read a logical fucking paragraph!
They wanted to scroll.
S
C
R
O
L
L
They wanted to chat.
They wanted to talk to their fake little friend.
Wanted a parasocial relationship.
With a crazy bitch, like Jane.
They didn't actually want to know Jane.
That would be scary.
They wanted to hang out with her, from afar.
Jane just needed to write something that felt like chatting with a hot crazy person, scrolling.
Like Twitter.
No, X dot com.
Everyone would love it.
Go freaking nuts for it.
Jane would be famous!
She already was a little famous, in certain circles, niche circles, very small circles, the tiniest circles, like baby polka dots.
For writing a rom-com called Pheromones & Pharmaceuticals.
But Jane didn't want to write any more rom-coms.
She didn't want to come up with characters or plots.
Plot was the patriarchy!
LOL.
Jane used to say things like this in earnest when she was 27.
But she was 38 now and wanted to buy a house.
Whenever anyone said patriarchy or capitalism, Jane rolled her eyes.
No one knew what these freaking words meant, including Jane.
Jane was frivolous, dumb.
She opened Twitter, no X dot com, and wrote: I recommend being shallow & delusional.
She saved the Tweet to drafts.
She wasn't going to Tweet at 4:45am.
She wasn't Donald Freaking Trump.
That was a dated reference, Jane supposed.
Trump hadn't been on Twitter in years.
It wasn't even called Twitter anymore, it was called X dot freaking com!
Several days later, Trump would be shot in the face.
And a month after that, he'd be back on X dot com.
But Jane didn't know any of that yet.
She needed to back the fuck up!
A few hours ago, Jane had no idea she hadn't taken her meds.
All day she had no freaking idea!
The day felt normal!
Jane had spent the day as she always did—drinking caffeine, writing uninspiring sentences, walking up hills, texting friends, listening to pop music made for teens, checking Instagram compulsively, in an OCD-way, online shopping, filling carts with overpriced linen pants that looked sooo good on the anorexic 25-year-old models and not buying anything once Jane remembered she wasn't anorexic or 25 anymore.
She'd eaten dinner with her girlfriend—pasta—and suddenly it was 12:36am and Jane was ready to sleep.
Listening to an audiobook, a thriller, about a hot guy from Los Angeles making a podcast about a murder in a small town.
It was fun!
Jane loved audiobook thrillers.
She drifted off.
Characters from the book entered her dreams.
The hot podcaster and the suspected murderer.
She was trying to talk to the suspected murderer, but then she got dizzy, and couldn't breathe, and fell over, and was screaming HELP!
Jane woke up, heart thudding.
She was scared!
She ran down the hall to the guest room where her girlfriend was sleeping.
She tried to cuddle her girlfriend but her girlfriend was in a configuration that made cuddling impossible and Jane's heart was still thudding and she decided she needed a snack!
She ran to the kitchen to grab a Perfect Bar.
These bars were literally perfect.
On Instagram Jane had seen a video of a golden hour field with all these pink tulips and text that said:
Jesus was literally perfect and people still hated him.
Jane had thought, great point!
This Perfect Bar was literally perfect, like Jesus.
Tasted like a peanut butter cookie, somehow healthy?
No preservatives or chemicals or high fructose corn syrup.
Organic, 20 grams of protein, 20+ superfoods.
It did have seed oils, but Jane didn't need to think about that.
She just wanted to eat her Perfect Bar in peace, then drift off when her blood sugar crashed.
But Perfect Bars were designed to prevent the blood sugar crash.
Low glycemic index or some shit.
Jane had a zapping feeling in her temple.
She remembered the night terror.
Oh.
Last time she forgot to take her meds, she had the craziest night terrors.
Kind of like the one she just had.
Shit.
Jane had bought a pill counter to prevent such incidents, given Pristiq's short half-life, to keep everything all good in the hood.
She ate the last bite of the Perfect Bar and went to her little pill counter.
Today was Tuesday.
And there was her little pill, in the Tuesday slot.
Rats, she'd thought.
No wonder it felt like her heart was pumping electricity through her veins.
She popped the pill, 1:35am.
Then she got on her phone, that little shit.
She was freaking addicted to it.
Everyone was!
She scrolled Twitter.
X dot com.
Julia Fox was a lesbian?
Ew!
(Jane was a lesbian.)
(Julia Fox wasn't.)
The corny lesbians online were SO excited!
Jane was literally shaking her head.
She could see why Julia Fox wanted to be a lesbian.
She was confident and creative.
Straight men did not care for confidence and creativity in a woman.
Women were very turned on by confidence and creativity in a woman.
Men liked Jane because she was insecure and unoriginal.
She hunched and was needy.
She shopped at Everlane.
When Jane started dating women, no one was excited.
The men were disappointed.
They'd lost a skinny blonde with a vaguely sassy attitude.
Who looked like someone who might get tortured and killed in their favorite horror movie.
Jane wasn't blonde anymore.
The men weren't happy about that.
Gentlemen preferred blondes.
Jane was over 35, men didn't like that either.
Also, she wasn't that skinny anymore.
Now she looked less like the woman who got tortured and killed and more like the frumpy female cop who everyone suspected was a dyke but her sexuality was never explicitly addressed because no one gave a shit about her personal life.
Julia Fox would never look at Jane.
People online were calling it Summer of Dyke.
Yuck!
Jane wanted to be straight again.
She'd felt very straight when she was on Lexapro.
Had a boyfriend and everything, was even on birth control.
Now she was on this kooky SNRI that made her feel psychotic if she forgot to take it.
Jane giggled.
She was going psychotic but it was all good in the hood.
Jane had recently gotten back on birth control.
For reasons Jane was too polite to say.
She wasn't having sex with men, that was for sure, wasn't worried about getting pregnant.
But!
She had her reasons.
For being on birth control.
NuvaRing, because she'd been on that in her 20s, back when she had a boyfriend, the good ol' days of sweet heteronormativity.
Back then, she thought that NuvaRing was safe because it wasn't a pill, it was a little rubberband-type thingy you—
Well, Jane was too polite to say.
What exactly was done with it.
She thought the NuvaRing was safe when she was in her 20s because she didn't research it.
Now, when she Googled NuvaRing a lot of things came up about it being "dangerous" and "killing people."
Oh well!
Jane wasn't supposed to research so much.
Her psychiatrist said that.
No research, no Reddit, no Drugs dot com.
Doctor's orders!
When would this freaking SNRI work its way into her bloodstream?
SSRIs were like Ashley Olsen and SNRIs were like Mary Kate—the cooler, edgier, more dangerous twin!
Jane imagined Mary Kate Olsen swimming through her veins, calming her down, telling her everything was all good in the hood.
Jane still felt like she was having a heart attack.
But she was having a lot of fun thoughts.
Mind racing.
She needed another snack.
Fiber cereal?
Sounded healthy.
She walked to the kitchen.
Lights twinkled in the distance, through the windows.
Glendale!
There were mountains behind that.
She couldn't really see them right now though.
Just knew they were there.
Jane poured some fiber cereal with oat milk into a bowl.
Added a little honey because the fiber cereal was kind of disgusting.
But Jane's cholesterol levels were excellent!
Her doctor had told her.
She ate the fiber cereal with honey in bed, in the dark.
Scrolling.
Reddit, X dot com, Instagram.
S
C
R
O
L
L
I
N
G
She saw a Tweet.
OCD is so funny it's like oh I have to check. Like I just have to check.
True!
Jane always had to check: locks, Twitter, Instagram, her hair, online boutiques, her eyebrows, her inboxes, her nails, Brandy Melville dot com.
Jane had been diagnosed with OCD in the past year.
Everyone had been diagnosed with OCD or ADHD in the past three years.
That was just a fact.
Well maybe not everyone, but everyone Jane interacted with online.
Crazy people!
Jane needed to stay away from these crazy people.
Earlier today, she'd said to herself, I'm done with artists, they scare me!
I just want to be a rich British thriller writer with a nice house and nice husband.
Jane hoped the NuvaRing would make her straight.
And British.
And give her a knack for plot and twists and reveals.
And yet, here she was, wanting to write something experimental???
Yuck!
Experimental did not pay the bills.
Experimental did not buy a house.
Maybe Jane just needed to "exorcise" something in herself.
Are we having fun yet?!? Jane said to herself.
No!! Jane responded to herself.
She cackled, in the dark.
Tomorrow, she knew, would be terrible.
But right now?
Right now she was sliving.
Sliving was a word Paris Hilton invented.
A portmanteau of slaying and living.
Like Pristiq was a portmanteau of prestige and mystique.
Sliving hadn't really caught on, but Jane used it to support Paris.
Jane rolled over.
It always felt good to be on a new side, even if the feeling was short-lived.
Most good feelings were ephemeral.
Bad ones too, like the electricity in her heart and veins.
Jane remembered she had an email interview she needed to attend to in the morning.
She always asked to do interviews in writing because she sounded like a dumb bitch off the cuff.
But now she was sick of all the interviews, even the ones in writing.
Always the same questions.
How do you conceptualize your characters?
Um, I don't know.
I sit down and I start typing and words come out.
It ain't that deep!
Jane was shallow.
She wasn't known for her intellect.
I'll drink to that! she said out loud to herself.
Sometimes Jane didn't know if she really sucked.
Or if she just had internalized the messaging from the "adults" in her formative years.
On TV, movies, "films," books, when parents looked at their children and said I'm proud of you no matter what, Jane was always confused.
Jane only recognized her parents in the movie Challengers.
It's about tennis.
Jane's parents loved tennis more than anything.
They were at Wimbledon right now.
They'd been to all the Grand Slams, multiple times.
In Challengers, Zendaya's character says If you lose I won't love you anymore.
That was Jane's childhood.
No I'm proud of you no matter what.
But I'll only love you if you're winning.
Jane could never win, no matter how hard she tried.
She was literally always losing.
Jane didn't need to dwell on it.
Frankly, she was thankful for her parents.
They'd given her thick skin.
Jane wasn't bothered by bad reviews like other writers were.
Jane didn't expect the world to praise her.
She expected nothing from anyone.
A neurotic young writer in New York City had recently messaged Jane.
Do you know any journalists? I'm so worried no one is going to review my debut novel!
Jane had said, No. I don't know any journalists.
Was "journalist" even a job anymore?
She added, And very vintage of you to be concerned with journalists and reviews.
Jane didn't give a shit about any reviews.
A review wasn't going to buy her a house.
She wanted her book photographed in the hands of hot idiots with big audiences.
Like Paris Hilton.
The neurotic young writer had said, I want to be taken seriously by the literati.
Jane cackled.
She could see light outside the shades.
A border of yellow peeking out.
Real world was happening outside that window.
People waking up, going to work.
Their "jobs."
Jane didn't have a "job."
Those things didn't agree with her.
"Jobs."
Jane was extremely privileged.
She made her own schedule.
She returned her focus to the screen, the simulacrum.
Tao Lin had Tweeted that people "weren't ready" for his thoughts on Alice Munro, climate change, and viruses.
Alice Munro had died and her daughter had published an article saying Alice's husband (her stepdad) sexually abused her and Alice turned a blind eye.
People on X dot com were NOT happy about that.
People are so dramatic, Jane said to herself.
Me too, but... in a more fun way!!!
Than everyone else.
Jane was lit.
Jane was miserable.
There was a void in Jane's soul.
Was Jane ever going to fall asleep tonight?
Or, this morning rather?
Her brain was moving too freaking fast.
Electricity running through her whole body.
There was something weird and annoying and exciting happening, something she didn't want to admit to herself, something she was going to avoid in this "new experimental piece."
Jane was always avoiding something!
She went on Reddit.
The subreddit for this catfish podcast.
She posted, does anyone have a picture of "Brody"? He must be hot as hell!!!
This chubby lesbian named Jess had catfished like 10 women with the dude's photos.
The real "Brody" was interviewed on the podcast.
He sounded hot.
Jane wasn't even attracted to men.
But oh how she wanted to be!
Growing up, she'd pretended to be attracted to men.
To fit in.
And to bond with women she had crushes on.
Sick, right?
Oh my god, Jane was exactly like Jess!
The chubby lesbian catfisher!
Jane had never catfished anyone, not officially.
But she had pretended to like men and even went so far as to have sex with them not infrequently mostly so she could bond with women she had crushes on.
Oh you hooked up with Andrew? she'd say to her popular girl crush in the high school halls. I gave him a handjob on Saturday.
As it turned out, this wasn't really an effective strategy for getting closer to women.
In fact, it mostly made women hate her.
Jane was polarizing.
She was lucky she didn't have crushes on straight women anymore.
Billie Eilish said, It's a craving not a crush.
In this song about eating a woman for "Lunch."
Very crude song.
But Jane liked it.
Billie sang about buying a girl a bunch of things.
Jane wanted a pop star to buy her a bunch of things.
And have a crush on her that felt like a craving.
In an interview, Billie said:
I become insane when I have a crush.
That was old Jane.
Luckily, she was NOT like that anymore.
She was in a normal, stable, long-term relationship with a securely-attached woman.
Jane wished her girlfriend would give her a ring.
A proposal.
But all Jane had was this dumb NuvaRing.
At least it made her boobs bigger.
In a way that no one but Jane noticed.
Jane looked at Instagram.
S
C
R
O
L
L
I
N
G
She opened a message she'd forgotten to open earlier.
From a "friend."
Inside the message was a dumb meme.
A very dumb meme.
Jane didn't reply to or heart the meme.
She wasn't going to enable the dumb meme.
Did anything feel more lonely than a "friend" sending you a stupid meme?
Like this "friend" saw this meme and thought, Jane will love this dumb meme! Because Jane is a dumb idiot who was probably dropped on her head as a baby!
Sometimes Jane felt like she was, in fact, dropped on her head as a baby.
Or molested.
Like Alice Munro's daughter.
Because she flinched when people touched her.
But the internet said it was very rare to completely repress a memory of being molested.
So Jane probably wasn't molested.
She was just frigid!
Unfriendly!
Rude!
A BITCH!
A DUMB BITCH!!!
(At least that's what the adults had told her in her formative years.)
Jane's heart still felt electric.
She didn't want to take a benzodiazepine.
But!
Her body was in severe withdrawal.
Her veins were like metal.
She was avoiding thinking about something painful.
She was never going to tell you or anyone else about it.
Jk she'd told a lot of people.
But not in her "experimental story."
No one cared either way.
It was a dumb, unsympathetic problem.
That was causing Jane a massive amount of distress.
In addition to the distress of her heart going loco.
The electric veins.
In two days, Jane would still be recovering from this skipped-dose debacle.
She would feel dead.
Would be extra upset about her extremely unsympathetic and incredibly distressing problem.
She would say I want to die to herself over and over.
But she wouldn't actually want to die.
Jane was hyperbolic.
In eight days, a Serbian astrologer would tell her via What's App that her emotional volatility was "primarily performative."
And Jane would nod vigorously.
She would have many theatrical mood swings between then and now.
In three days, she would recover from the low of the skipped dose debacle at the Crypto dot com arena.
At the Missy Elliott concert, she'd come back alive, get the pep back in her step.
She would jump around at the Missy concert like those cheerleaders on Netflix.
She would be smiling, so happy, euphoric, nostalgic, all those things.
She'd also be contracting COVID-19, but it would be worth it.
Missy was a lesbian but she was closeted, always singing about dick.
It was inspiring!
Jane would be closeted too if she could shut the fuck up for just one second.
Missy would sing at the concert, my hormones jumpin like a disco!
Jane's hormones too, would be jumping like a disco, due to NuvaRing.
But Missy, Jane would assume, would mean something slightly different.
Something regarding horniness.
He watchin my body like he watchin Scandal, Missy would sing.
Jane would slink her little body in her little black dress, hoping the men in her section were watching her body like it was a Shonda Rhimes procedural.
But the men wouldn't be looking at her.
They wouldn't even notice her.
Because they were there to see Missy Elliott.
And Jane was thirty-eight years old.
She didn't have rhythm and would look completely kooky.
But she'd be having fun!
Dancing her ass off and contracting COVID-19!
When Missy performed Get Ur Freak On, Jane would start crying.
Real tears of joy.
Because Jane was always getting her dang freak on.
In middle school, Jane danced to this song every day in her bedroom.
Get Ur Freak On Get Ur Freak On Get Ur Freak On
The song blasting from her family's desktop computer.
As Jane piled glitter onto her eyelids.
She loved to be covered in glitter.
She still did.
Jane liked to SHINE.
And at the Missy Elliott concert at the Crypto dot com arena, Jane would really shine.
Well, she'd feel like she was shining.
While contracting COVID-19.
After the concert, Jane would open Missy Elliott's Instagram.
And read Missy's bio, which would inspire Jane.
I Stan for GOD Period! I AM THE DEFINITION of AVANT GARDE.
Damn straight! Jane would say to herself, three days in the future, the day before Donald Trump would be shot in the face, two days before Jane would test positive for COVID-19.
While on vacation in Santa Barbara.
She would take two tests to be sure.
See two little red lines.
Positive for COVID-19 in 20-freaking-24.
The variant was called FLiRT.
How cute was that?!
Jane didn't know that yet though.
Didn't know that she almost wouldn't go to Santa Barbara.
That she would think to herself,
I'd rather be sick in Santa Barbara than well in Los Angeles!
Currently, Jane was unwell in Los Angeles.
She was positively electric-veined.
Jane went to the bathroom and popped a little salmon-colored pill.
A benzodiazepine.
Not a chic one, like Xanax or Klonopin or Valium or Ativan.
An old school low potency one, a benzo they often gave to dogs.
Jane called it her "puppy benzo."
She didn't take the whole puppy benzo, just half.
Jane was reasonable, delicate.
She swallowed the half-pill and waited for her head and heart and veins to calm down.
The border of her shades glowed NEON.
It was really morning now.
Jane needed to get some freaking shut-eye.
She knew she shouldn't look at her phone, but alas, she did.
Tao Lin had Tweeted that it was "the year of brain damage."
Jane smiled and thought, I'll drink to that!
She hoped she wouldn't forget her big idea in the morning.
To write this experimental piece of crap.
When she was little her mom told her that if she wanted to remember something in the morning, she should think it ten times before bed.
Jane thought it ten times.
Write experimental piece of crap called "Literally Perfect."
She wondered if this trick didn't work if one was on a benzodiazepine.
Benzos killed memory.
Which was why they were so great!
Who wanted to remember stuff?
But!
Jane wanted to remember to write this experimental piece of crap.
Called "Literally Perfect."
Like Perfect Bars.
Like Jesus.
Like the Missy Elliott concert.
Like the COVID-induced brain fog that would make her feel like a dazed fairy.
Would make her walk around Santa Barbara in a haze, taking slow-motion videos of flowers blowing in the wind.
Like the 39 flash photos of the purple flower she would take before a dusky sky, moon shining bright, flash rendering the flower NEON.
Literally Perfect!!!
Like the experimental piece of crap she was about to write!
In this funny little voice she had developed from SNRI withdrawal.
It was all good in the hood.
Jane laughed.
The puppy benzo was working its magic.
Making her bed feel like a freaking cloud.
Jane rolled around on the bed, smiling.
Soft sateen blush Parachute sheets.
Jane was so privileged, so lucky.
So miserable.
So doomed.
And, suddenly
without much fanfare
so
asleep.
|