how to live my rock and roll lifestyle.

7:00am– Eric gets up for work. You don’t hear the alarm. You continue to sleep until the snooze kicks in while he’s in the shower. You feel like ass. As you grumble about him leaving the alarm on, you fall back asleep.

7:30am– Eric kisses you goodbye on his way out the door. You complain that he was supposed to wake you up earlier and now you’re going to be late for work.

7:45am– Taylor moves his butt away from your face long enough for the alarm to go off. He somehow knows exactly how long the snooze button lasts. You hit the button,and he walks back up to your face and falls asleep again.

7:55am– Cal will not stop meowing. You wake up and realize that you’re now really going to be late for work.

7:58am– Cats race you down the hallway as you stumble towards their food bowls. They sing the morning song that reminds you of scenes from “Farewell My Concubine.”

8:00am– Your calves are still incredibly sore from dancing the other night. You sort of limp back to the bathroom, hoping a good shower will ease the pain.

8:03am– You debate not taking a shower to save time getting to work, and wonder if your co-workers would rather have you on time or smelling decent.

8:17am– You debate not shaving your legs, as that might save three precious minutes.

8:23am– You have just finished a wonderful rendition of “Consider Yourself” in the shower. You wish you had gotten to play the Artful Dodger in the fourth grade and miss your friend Kacie from that year.

8:25am– You stand naked in your closet and realize that you hate every piece of fabric you own.

8:30am– You watch the Today show (to get the weather report, of course) and wait around to see if today is finally the morning that Katie and Matt get freaky on the couch while discussing this season’s sunglasses.

8:45am– You are like, crazy-late for work and run around the house cussing and trying to get all of your shit together.

8:50am– Because you are in denial that you are in leg pain, you decide that if you look inversely proportional to how you feel no one will mind that you’re late with wet hair. Skirt and five-inch platform shoes are adorned.

9:00am– You stomp/stumble out of the house, ignoring your calves’ screams for sensible shoes.

9:05am– You stop at the local grocery store, pick up a Starbucks coffee, a pack of cigarettes, and deposit a check.

9:15am– You realize that you forgot to stop by the apartment building office and tell them that you’ve got a leak in your air conditioning and that the back bathroom tub is clogged.

9:25am– While listening to Howard Stern on your way to work, you realize you forgot to buy a light bulb for the living room halogen lamp, and you’ve still got the bedroom lamps all over the living room (propped on books and countertops). You rationalize that this means you’re sorta re-living your college experience.

9:35am– You stay in the car for another five minutes listening to the end of the Howard Stern segment. You almost finish your coffee.

10:00am– You’re almost done reading your e-mail, and you realize that you’ve got too much work to do in one day because you left early the day before swearing to come in early today to tackle all of it.

10:30am– If you didn’t have so many damn meetings, you could actually get work done.

11:00am– You read other people’s journals.

11:10am– You do some work. If you remembered to take your allergy medicine by now, and started the morning with either a Diet Coke or three cups of bad work coffee, you’re actually awake by now. Otherwise you are incredibly sleepy.

11:13am– Smoke break. You read an entire story from the new David Sedaris.

11:21am– More e-mail.

11:45am– You start writing an entry about how busy you are, and how you don’t have time for work if you sit down and write an entry.

12:00pm– You realize that the Birthday Contest was more work than you were ready for. You wonder how long you can put it off.

12:30pm– Smoke break. More David Sedaris. You end up getting into a conversation with someone outside about the best Karaoke clubs.

12:41pm– People are laughing at you. You become paranoid because you don’t know if they are laughing because you’re in a skirt or because you’re walking like a gimp in your big shoes and screaming calves.

12:53pm– You sit down and do more work.

1:00pm– Damn meetings.

2:00pm– Too much e-mail.

2:30pm– Smoke break. Hey, it’s been two hours. That book is funny.

3:00pm– Work, with the added fever of realizing that you’re never going to get everything done today. No way in hell. You crank up your Rage Against the Machine album, and hope that no one comes by to check on you.

3:30pm– Eric calls.

3:33pm– Ray calls.

3:45pm– Marc calls. There’s a party tonight for a friend that you’ve recently made. She’s going on vacation, and is having a “Going Away for Ten Days” party. You think this makes perfect sense.

3:50pm– Long distance call. Might be your mother. Might not.

4:10pm– You want to beat traffic, so you start working while you’re on the phone. You accidentally type, “The dog misses you” into a press release.

4:25pm– You start getting frantic that you aren’t going to beat traffic, so you start closing shop for the day, making lists of what you still need to do tomorrow.

4:35pm– Smoke break with the boss to discuss what needs to be done tomorrow.

4:50pm– Realize that you’ve just got to do some of it at home tonight, including some of your freelance pieces.

4:55pm– Decide to rewrite your entire one-person show.

5:00pm– Have a ten minute debate about whether or not to just stay for an extra hour and work or spend that hour in traffic.

5:15pm– Bitch about traffic while changing radio stations like a fiend. Nothing good is ever on.

6:10pm– Walk in the door. Pet the cats.

6:13pm– Feverishly type all of the brilliance that you came up with on the drive home for your new show. People will love it, and in turn, you.

6:16pm– Your browser crashes, crashing your computer. You hadn’t saved the document yet. All is lost. You can’t remember how to rephrase it.

6:18pm– Cry.

6:19pm– Realize there’s nothing for dinner. Cry.

6:20pm– Check e-mail. Eric reminds you that “Friends” is almost on.

6:30pm– “Friends.” The One With the Rerun. You’ve seen this episode five times. You watch it anyway.

7:00pm– You announce that you will work for two hours straight on the underground Get Real tapes you’ve been sent and need to turn in the recaps by the end of the week. After that, you will go to the party.

7:15pm– Eric tries to reach friends and family by phone, since he can’t stand listening to the sound of recapping (lots of rewinding and pausing). You are watching “Pleasantville,” because you’ve never seen it before, and you’re angry that Eric watched it without you, when he gave you so much shit about wanting to see it in the first place.

7:20pm– Since you just saw the part where they go into the television, you decide to watch just until things start turning color, as you’ve heard about it, but never seen it. Eric hasn’t heard from anyone, so he goes to the gym.

7:30pm– Eric’s dad calls. Tells you to have Eric call him back. Asks how you’re doing, but you’re basically grunting and breathing as you’re watching the movie and don’t want to miss the part where Reese Witherspoon wants to do the nasty.

8:00pm– Wait, isn’t there a famous scene with Joan Allen and masturbation? Should watch for pop culture knowledge. Might be useful to sketch some day.

8:30pm– Eric returns from the gym. He sits down and talks about how much he likes Reese Witherspoon.

8:45pm– She has a funny profile.

8:54pm– The movie is over. It wasn’t even that good. Time to get to work. If you can just get half of the episode finished, you can do the rest tomorrow night.

8:55pm– Ray calls. Wants to know when you’re going to the party. Wants to know if you got the posters for the show next weekend. You tell Ray that you feel really unprepared to do this show. He tells you that you’ll be fine. You know that he’s just kidding himself. You suck.

9:00pm– Tell Eric that you’re just going to work for half an hour. He goes and reads a book.

9:30pm– He asks if you’re done. You say you are, but just go an check xeney.com real fast while he’s putting on his shoes. You tell him that you got fifteen minutes of the episode recapped, so you should really go back to work on it when you get home.

9:40pm– You’re both taking the “Where Should You Live” quiz that you find on her site. You both get San Francisco as first, and Los Angeles as fourth. You are both surprised that Pittsburgh showed up on both of your lists, around the 10-12 ranking.

9:44pm– Eric is antsy to leave. You get in the car. You announce that you’re going to finish working when you get home, and just stay up a little late tonight.

10:01pm– All friends are at the bar. You order a drink, declare that you’re only staying for a little over an hour, and then sit down to have fun.

10:29pm– Wait, someone’s birthday starts at midnight?

11:14pm– Another drink. Rose showed up! You love Rose!

11:45pm– Eric asks if you’re staying or leaving soon. You realize that it’s too late now to get any real work done when you get home. Besides, someone just handed you a shot.

12:01am– Happy birthday, guy next to me! Tribe Called Quest is playing. Uh! Unh! Unh!

12:17am– It’s really getting late. Wait, she said what? No! No! I don’t believe it! OH. MY. GOD.

12:40am– Your calves stop hurting. Your tongue has no feeling. You run out of cigarettes. Chuy! This is the guy!

1:00am– Eric is now outside waiting for you. You are almost done with your second round of goodbyes.

1:20am– Stumbling back to your apartment, you discuss how cool you are and how cool your friends are and how much you love this fucking town with its wonderful fucking people.

1:40am– Time to answer e-mail! Don’t worry about sentence structure or typing. Don’t even really be sure who you are sending the mail to. Just answer. Answer like the wind. stee’s site is down. Keep trying anyway.

2:00am– Try and catch some new videos while you type an insanely long e-mail about friendship and fears and your hatred of Jay-Z.

2:20am– Find Eric passed out in bed. You plop down next to him and he mutters that we are going to hate ourselves tomorrow. He leans up to kiss you, and falls asleep again before he makes it.

6:00am– The cat is sick. The cat is sick. You are incredibly thirsty. Your eyes are swollen. Your lips look like Angelina Jolie’s. You find Eric asleep in the other room. He explains that it was colder in there. You wipe the sweat from your brow and gulp a glass of water.

7:00am– Everything is so loud. What’s happening?

7:30am– You hear Eric on the phone. Why?

8:23am– Oh. Man. So late for work. You feel like ass in a bottle.

8:45am– Might as well watch the Today show.

9:15am– Stumble into meeting as they are just leaving. You’re a boozy asshole.

9:30am– Commiserate with Eric on the phone about how you aren’t as cool as you thought you were six hours ago.

10:00am– Realize you’re never going to finish all of the work you have to do. Decide that the other stuff you had for birthday week will have to go up tomorrow. Remind yourself to tell people it’s not your birthday week but your webpage’s birthday week. Try and come up with a response to that weird look they give you after you say that.

10:20am– Write an entry about how you have too much work to do. Decide to start working immediately after.

11:27am– Like… right…. now.