"What the hell, I think I’ll go to work today," is my first thought of the morning.

Actually, that’s not true. I woke up at 4:07am to pee, and thought, "Good. At least three to four more hours of sleep. SOooo Gooood!"

NPR goes off at 6:50am or so, every morning, and I poke Benn, every morning, to hit DOZE. The alarm is on his side. This repeats every ten minutes, until one of us gets up.

I may or may not go to work today. I haven’t gone in the last three days. It was excusable Tuesday, since I had switched a day with a co-worker, but the last two days were call-in sick days. Mental health days. Work has been sort of a drag lately. Well, more than a drag.

It’s simply sucking the life out of me.

Well, that’s not true.

Work, is cake. It’s so easy, it feels like my life is slipping away from me. Like I’m just sitting back in the tub and watching it all drain out...so it’s not sucking; it’s draining...

Yesterday, Dona, answered the phone, "Good morning, Dona speaking."

"Dona, it’s Rachel. I’m not going to come in today."

"Are you hung over?"

Pause. "No. I’m sick."

"Oh, because I’m hung over. I overslept and Linda just called me, like, fifteen minutes ago, and I got my ass in here. SO YOU BETTER GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE RIGHT NOW!"

Pause.

"I’m just kidding! I’m a kidder! So, you’re really sick, huh? Ok...thanks for calling!"

"Man," I thought. She’s still drunk.

9:30am

Already showered, and putting moisturizer on my face. My skin’s completely breaking out but my period’s almost over. It’s almost completely gone, which is weird since I was bleeding like I was having a miscarriage yesterday. I really need to make an appointment with the gynecologist. And the dentist. Shit, when was the last time I was at the dentist...and I really need to get my old prescription back from my old eye doctor...and I think I’m losing the natural pads on my feet from standing all day...what the fuck do I do about that???

9:35am

Putting make-up on, which is a little strange since I haven’t had any on for three days. I think that I look really good...but weird.

Benn yells out, "Rachel!" and wakes up. He sees me putting on make-up and goes back to sleep, "You’re going to work today. Good girl." He’s still in bed because he took the day off so he could have a five day Memorial weekend.

I know he’s been worried about me. He thinks that I’ve been depressed. And I guess I have been...I’ve just never worked full-time at one place before. I’d always had school, and projects, free-lanced, had a whole bunch of things going at once. And now that I’m just basically "working" I hardly ever get anything done!

I feel like my brain is melting. Like butter. My brain is just solid fat...dissolving...

But I had this idea I’ve been knocking around for a while...gathering personal essays and putting them in a zine, the essays centering around one day in the life of the contributor...

Because the only thing I enjoy more than my own self-absorption is the self-absorption of others!

I tried starting my one day essay sometime last week, but something problematic always came up. How accurate, how revealing do I want to be? How detailed, how honest?

I was explaining this to Benn yesterday, my dilemma the morning I started the essay, and how he put his cock in my mouth that very morning, and I thought, "Oh fuck! What do I do with this now?" (Not what I should do with the cock, I know what to do with that! I mean, what do I do with the act itself and how should I put it in my essay, if at all.)

Benn looked pleased (he gets like that whenever you talk about his penis) and said, "Of course it has to go in the essay! It happened!"

"Oh yeah? What if we have sex tonight and you can’t get it up or you cum too soon, do you want THAT in there?"

A look of excrutiating horror came upon his face and he just sat there like a statue, and didn’t say anything more about anything.

A hand for Benn "Master Thespian" Ray, ladies and gentlemen.

(excerpt from Daybook1)