I sit down at my desk, wearing my pajamas, blankly
contemplating my plans for the day. Eat food. Work out. Take shower. Write.
Look for a job. My only accomplishment so far is getting out of bed, and
already I’m overwhelmed.
One step at a time. Focus on getting to the gym.
The logistics of the one simple task seem insurmountable.
I’m not sure which day I showered last, but I feel and smell gamey. It would be
. . . inconsiderate to go to a gym with people and sweat through this funk. But,
it seems like a waste of resources to shower before the gym. Do you know how
much effort it takes to shower?
Plagued with indecision, I open my Web browser. You know,
just to see what’s what.
Look! Dogs who really don’t want to take a bath. Hilarious!
Click.
I let the video pour over me, wash away my morning
indecision. It doesn’t matter if I shower before the gym. Right now there are
only these dogs.
Then it’s over. YouTube has helpfully recommended some other
videos I may find interesting. Oh look, a puppy jumping on a trampoline. Click.
Is that really the original She-Ra movie special? MY CHILDHOOD IS ON YOUTUBE.
Listen to my mighty, enthusiastic CLICK.
Turns out, She-Ra doesn’t hold up as well as I thought she
would. That’s okay. We live in a world with Colin Firth jumping into a lake.
Click. And doing an interview on Bridget Jones’s Diary. Click. No, YouTube, I
do not wish to see clips from What a Girl Wants. But perhaps just one from
Bridget Jones. Click. And another. Click.
My eyes glaze over, ever fixedly watching the computer
screen. Strange; I feel no enjoyment, no happiness, even though my face is
smiling. Then again, I feel no pain. No anxiety about being unemployed, without
a purpose for my life, or even a reason to get off this chair. Letting the
screen blur in and out of focus, I don’t feel the uncertainty of my future or that
crushing sense of self-worthlessness weighing on my shoulders. There is me and
YouTube—nothing else.
Until my dog creeps in the room and pokes her cold wet nose under
my arm, as though to say, “What? Are you still here?” I give her a perfunctory
pat on the head and return to my screen, because James McAvoy, that’s why.
Here’s that scene from the end of Penelope. You know, the
one I’ve seen 152 times. I must see it again. Click. I’ll just rewind this a
bit, shall I? Click. Again. Again. And again. Click, click, click.
Something deep inside my brain pings. Nobody spends this
much time in front of YouTube. Why do I keep at it? Do I really want to see
these things, or is compulsion in the driving seat? I click now, because I
clicked before. I click again because there is something to click. If I don’t
click, there is something I won’t see.
A distinctly cottony feeling takes over my mouth. I must be thirsty,
but that could just be because I haven’t had anything to drink yet. It’s only
been three hours. Should the back of my throat really feel all scratchy burny?
Once I acknowledge my thirst, I must entertain the possibility that the dull,
yet sharpening ache in my stomach is hunger. What am I going to do about that?
Is there any food in the house? Do I even feel like eating anything? Too much.
I can’t deal.
Dear YouTube, More James McAvoy, please.
Why, thank you! An interview! Who’s Graham Norton? Click.
Sweet lord almighty. Graham Norton is genius. Must. Watch. More. Click, click, click.
It’s been four hours, now. I don’t think I’ll make it to the
gym. When I don’t have a job to go to, how is there not enough time to work
out? I weigh my options and determine that, in order to eat, I must leave the
house. Leaving the house means taking a shower, which means getting up off this
chair. I mean, I could do all that, or, I could watch this interview with Helen
Mirren.
PAUL RUDD JUST KISSED DAME HELEN MIRREN. Nothing I watch
after this could be so good. But look…
Click, click, click, click.
Have I really been watching YouTube videos for five hours?
Who does that? God, Megan. You are such a
lazy bitch. Get up! Get up!
Maybe after this video.
Okay, just one more. No, this will be the last one. No, this
one. This one. Click, click, click, click.
For real! It’s been seven
hours! Get out of this chair! You stupid YouTube zombie, there is a world out
there and a life for you to live and you’re wasting it all! What is wrong with
you? You should be ashamed of yourself. Click click. Zap zap.
Is it really 5? Okay,
you can’t let Husband come home and find you like this. If he doesn’t see, he
won’t know. No one will know.
Only this fear of someone else knowing how I wasted my day,
seeing how worthless and pointless my existence has become, motivates me off my
chair.
As I shower the stench of who knows how many days off my
skin, I feel like I’m coming to from a trance. Did I really forget to eat
anything today? Me?! Images from the hours of binge-watching clips swim in my
head, none of them offering insight or meaning, only lost time.
Tomorrow, I promise myself. Tomorrow will be better. I will
be better.
