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"Out of Town" Chapter 2: This Is What My Life Has Become
155 Plays2 years ago
The special sneak-peek reading series of the latest book (Tentatively Titled) "Out of Town" (Although that's changing soon) continues with a reading by your host James Avramenko of chapter 2 "This is what my life has become".
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Transcript
Introduction to Friendless
00:00:08
Speaker
Hey there, sweet peas. Welcome back to Friendless, the only show that tries to teach you how to be a better friend by losing every friend you have. I'm your host, James Avermako, back once again with a brand new episode.
Book Reading: 'Out of Town' Chapter 2
00:00:20
Speaker
And this is a very special part two of my ongoing reading series of my book in development, currently titled Out of Town. I recently shared this chapter with the writer's circle that I'm in and got some incredible feedback. So I just want to give a little shout out to them and a big old thank you.
00:00:37
Speaker
But that's it for me, let's just dive right into the chapter, so without further ado, lean back, get comfy, set your volume at a reasonable level, and enjoy the brand new chapter of my book here on Friendless.
Morning Routine and Social Media Struggles
00:00:53
Speaker
Chapter 2. This is what my life has become. My alarm is set for 7.30 a.m. every morning. I don't know why. Somewhere last year I got it in my head that I shouldn't get into the habit of sleeping in. Instead, I set my alarm obscenely early and then snooze it for an hour. The joke is, I work remotely. What the fuck am I even thinking? I've got some kind of commute to get through? Jesus Christ.
00:01:16
Speaker
Before I jag myself out of bed, the first thing I do is pick up my phone and do the circuit. I sprint through each social media app twice. First to check for notifications, then a refresh to see if something new came in. Once I've thoroughly ruined my morning, seeing how little has changed in my life but how much more intensely the fires of the world are burning, I take my regiment of pills.
00:01:34
Speaker
I keep a small pharmacy's worth on my nightstand so that I don't have to get out of bed, and I'm already pretending to be productive.
ADHD Medication and Its Effects
00:01:40
Speaker
One adderall from my ADHD. I was prescribed two a day, but I only take one because when I lay down, my heart feels like an earthquake is rocking by apartment. I once almost complained to my building manager that the upstairs neighbors were shaking the place so bad. I thought they'd invited the entire building over, except me of course, for an all-night rager, until I realized it was just my pump-pump-pumping resting heart rate while rewatching yet another episode of Community.
00:02:02
Speaker
Then two omega-3s, one vitamin D, because my dad always says every Canadian is lacking enough sunlight exposure, and one 5-HTP, a pill I still have no idea the actual function of, but since I began, I'm generally able to fall asleep without the normal 3-hour anxiety roller
Diet and Health Management
00:02:16
Speaker
coaster. Taking it in the morning helps me remember.
00:02:19
Speaker
I forget a lot. I head to the kitchen to start the kettle, which in an ideal world I'd remembered to fill the night before. I only drink Brita filtered water. The filter sensor is pulsing red. It's been begging to be changed for at least six months, but even that feels safer than trusting the building's pipes. Last year, a big report came out that most Canadian cities have water pipes that are actively pumping lead into our water stream. The story was big for a day or two, then quickly died away. I still don't know why. The kettle boils. I fill a second glass of water and mix in a spoonful of better
00:02:49
Speaker
For years, on an almost clockwork biweekly schedule, I'd wake up and shit blood. At first, I thought it was just bowel cancer, which I dressed as one does by buying a little stool to put my feet on when I'm on the can and never telling my doctor. My new doctor thinks it's due to a lack of fiber in my diet, so after implementing this new supplement, I only shit blood every other month tops. An improvement. As my tea steeps, I tried to do a couple rounds of Duolingo French.
00:03:13
Speaker
I quit coffee last year because I was over drinking. It got so bad that from 11am onward I couldn't stop vibrating. I've replaced it with green tea.
French Immersion and Bullying Reflections
00:03:20
Speaker
I don't feel any different, but that's probably the Adderall talking. As a third child, I was experimented on by being put in French immersion from grades 1 to 9. By the end of junior high, the bullying was so bad I made my first suicide attempt. I jagged a knife across my wrists one night without breaking the skin. I chickened out. I was so scared of my mother screaming at me if I didn't go all the way. Instead, I asked to transfer to the English program and haven't spoken French since.
00:03:43
Speaker
But I have dreams of one day going to France because I still harbor fantasies of one day remembering what it feels like to be alive. I do a couple rounds of the class, struggling to souvenir proper conjugation and inevitably wasting all my heart's uncommon mistakes. After I've drunk my tea and lost my hearts, I ride 5k on the stationary bike. I listen to an episode of the last podcast on the left and play subway surfers on my phone. What can I say? I'm a distraction multitasker.
00:04:08
Speaker
Once I complete the distraction triathlon, I celebrate with a shower. I scrub myself down and then try some light affirmations and positive self-talk. I stare at myself in the mirror and do my best to give myself a couple compliments.
00:04:19
Speaker
Your hair looks great. You have such a nice smile. People like being around you. Sometimes, I almost believe myself. I grab a hoodie from the floor and pull on the same sweatpants I've worn all week, and then go to the bar top in the kitchen and start the next stage of my morning routine.
Relationship with Helen
00:04:34
Speaker
It's the end of October. Helen has been out of town since the beginning of September. I've developed a sense of comfort in spreading myself across our apartment, something I don't really feel when she's around.
00:04:43
Speaker
I leave my books where I want, my clothes in piles around the apartment. It's been weeks since I worried about the low hisses that would follow me if she was around. It makes me sad to feel relief that the woman I love isn't near. But here we are. Somewhere along the way I got it in my head that the way I was going to be validated in life was being an artist.
Acting Dreams and Disappointments
00:05:00
Speaker
When I was young I thought I would be an actor.
00:05:02
Speaker
I never had much use for school, despite everyone loving to tell me how much potential I had. And when it came time to graduate high school and decide what I do next, I figured I'd go to theater school. Rookie move. The university took one look at me and decided they'd be more than happy to take my money, but I wasn't accepted to the acting program. I was devastated. That rejection instilled a new layer of my already well-formed inferiority complex, despite knowing how few acting students actually succeed in theater. Instead, I shifted my focus to a better avenue for my expression.
00:05:33
Speaker
The thing is, sure, I'm a reader, but words and I don't always get along. I find myself getting lost in the intention, like the words always come out tight and surface, never really meaning what I want them to. I always end up feeling lost in intention with no real direction or purpose.
00:05:47
Speaker
After graduation, I took on a few odd jobs, first as a warehouse stock manager, then as a dishwasher. One day, while in a particularly deep creative funk, I challenged myself to write a poem a day for a year. When I hit the first anniversary, I decided to keep going. That was 10 years ago. So the second half of my morning consists of various writing routines. First I journal for a page, usually calling back my poetry writing for the day.
00:06:09
Speaker
Next I try to doodle some sort of infantile drawings to supposedly challenge my creative outlets. A practice I picked up from a TikTok on boosting creativity and begrudgingly added to my repertoire. Then I do a few quick productivity classes off Skillshare and some Python coding units on Code Academy to try and boost my potential career options that I will never actually follow up on. Then the big gahuna is exactly what I'm doing right now.
00:06:30
Speaker
sit down, and write a collective 2,000 words a day on whatever project I'm wasting my current month on.
Writing Routine and Career Reflections
00:06:36
Speaker
With all that out of the way, depending on the day, this can take between an hour and all morning, I then pretend to do a little work at my real job at the Prairie Playwrights Union, and then spend the afternoon sitting on the couch listening to a self-help audiobook and playing whatever video game I've become hyper-fixated on that week. This is how every day plays out, every one of them the same as before.
00:06:56
Speaker
I dream sometimes that my life will change, that I'll have some breakthrough, it'll all be different, but I know that that's just bullshit. Your life changes when you change it, and I just go through the motions. Helen doesn't. Helen changes. But me? I just ruin shit.
00:07:14
Speaker
I ruined our chances here in Saskatoon with my big mouth and with the fact that our former boss couldn't handle being seen as anything but the alpha male in a pack of women. I don't want to talk about him but I fucked up for the both of us and now Helen has gotten a new job in Vancouver and I am alone while she works there and gets our life in order and I sit on the couch and dream of what it might have been like if I knew how to believe in anything that I did with my day.
00:07:36
Speaker
We talked on the phone the other night and once again she asked if I was going to try getting out of town before the big move. She said it would be good for me that I needed a break from the city. I thought about booking a flight out east but just wasted the day scrolling instead.
00:07:48
Speaker
Yeah, I think I'm going to drive to Calgary for a few days and see the city. Try and, I don't know, get some closure, you know? She said, that's such a great idea. I think there will be so good for you. And I said, yeah, totally. And then we got into another fight. That was a few days ago.
Travel Plans and Family Contemplations
00:08:06
Speaker
Since then, she signed a lease for a new apartment and is now flying to Malta on some work trip. So I have to decide if I really am going through with the road trip or not.
00:08:14
Speaker
I've done all my routines and am sitting on the couch and my stomach is empty and bloated. My skin rots on the bone. I scroll through my contacts to find Brett, a guy I don't know all that well but who once offered a place for me to stay if I was ever in town. Brett feels like the least threatening and cost-effective option and there's no chance in hell I'd stay with my mom.
00:08:31
Speaker
I shoot him a text asking if that offer still stands and he says, absolutely, whenever. And I say, how about the end of the week? And after a long pause, he says, yeah, that'll work. I guess I'm going out of town. I guess I'm going home. I think of my grandfather alone in his old house and my mother living next door with her miserable husband.
00:08:50
Speaker
I think of how their lives ended up and I wonder how they ended up there. Was it because they were afraid to make other choices? Was it because they couldn't see themselves as worth the risk? I guess I need to find out so I text. Thanks Brett, I'll see you soon. And then I go back to playing another round of The Binding of Isaac.
00:09:06
Speaker
But the wheels are now turning, and tomorrow I'm going to be on the highway, hurtling back to Calgary for one last trip before I moved back to Vancouver. Two cities I had more or less sworn I would never go back to no matter what. And now I was returning to both. That night I don't dream all that much. I toss and turn and listen to my neighbors yell and clap upstairs, laughing and turning their music up long into the night.
00:09:42
Speaker
And that's it! Chapter 2 in the bag! Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed it. If you want more friendless content, please be sure to sign up for my sub-stack newsletter. The link is in the shinotes. You're gonna get at least a monthly roundup of books, movies, music, and all kinds of recommendations along with
00:10:01
Speaker
writing prompts and tips on how to be a better friend. I've also launched a couple brand new products that you can find in the show notes. These are guides on how to create and maintain daily writing and poetry practices. I've also launched a book on how to write personal statements. This is maybe a little bit more niche for usual audiences but is correlated with the work that I do with my day job.
Newsletter Promotion and Writing Guides
00:10:26
Speaker
So
00:10:26
Speaker
If personal statement writing is something that you are interested in, be sure to check that out. All these guides are in the links and I think are really, really great tools. I'm super proud of them and I think that you will find them super, super handy. So check them out. But that's it for
Conclusion and Farewell
00:10:41
Speaker
me. So let's just wrap this up. Thank you so much for listening and I really, really hope to catch you again next week.
00:10:47
Speaker
But I'm not going to worry about that right now and neither should you because that is then and this is now. So for now, I'll just say I love you and I wish you well. Fun and safety sweeties.
00:11:16
Speaker
. .
00:11:50
Speaker
you