Rating things out of 10

1. Iced apple crisp macchiato from Starbucks— The drink was light brown on top and creamy white on the bottom with a pool of spiced caramel sauce resting on the bottom of the plastic cup. The top of the drink was bitter, and the bottom was overly sweet. It needed to be mixed but I didn’t have a straw (save the turtles and all that). It was good, but I’d like to try it warm next time. 8/10

2. Novel The Herd by Andrea Bartz— Eh. The book was overall well thought out, but the writing was incredibly dry & all the metaphors fell flat. The characters were kind of dislikeable and not fleshed-out, the concepts of sexism, feminism, and racism felt gimmicky and surface-level, and any romance in the book was dull. The best part was the epilogue which was written in third person from the perspective of a side character, but it gave me chills. I almost bumped up the total score to seven just for the epilogue. 6/10

3. Giant plastic cups I drink water out of throughout the day— Honestly it hadn’t even occurred to me I could use these cups for water. Ever since I was a kid my family would only bring these gargantuan cups out to drink smoothies out of. Over the summer my friend Austin came over and picked up one of the huge cups and filled it with water and drank out of it and that changed my life. I always have one by my side, refilling it every few hours. We have a few colors— lime green, phthalo blue, and corn yellow—, I like the blue ones best. All of them have indents the size of thumbs running up their sides. The texture is immaculate. 10/10

4. Itchy mosquito (?) bite on my right calf— I don’t even know if it was a mosquito that bit me. I went outside for ten minutes yesterday at 11 a.m. and sat on the concrete stairs of my porch; when I came back inside, I had four bug bites on my leg. The worst one is on my calf, bulging and red and puckered. It’s a hard, flat moon beneath a thin layer of skin. Inflamed is a good word to describe it. I woke up for an hour last night to scratch the bite. The blanket rubbing against the tender spot set off my scratching again and again and again. It had to be my right leg, too. If I had to pick a least favorite body part, it might be my right leg in general. 1/10

5. My right leg in general— When I was seven, I had an infection in my right leg that had to be drained at the ER. The patch of skin where they drained the fluid out is discolored and has a softer texture than the rest of my skin. It feels like a plastic bag pulled over the wound. If you put your thumb there, there is no muscle, you can feel straight down to my bone with soft, torn muscle peeking out around on the edges. In middle school, the bone in my right leg hurt so badly I thought I’d broken it without realizing. I diagnosed myself with a hairline fracture, but the x-ray I got showed nothing was there. It hurt to walk on still, but it must have been psychological. I still don’t fully understand that whole thing with my bone. How can something so painful and physical be unreal? This winter a patch of dry, bubbly skin appeared on my thigh for no reason. I picked away the dead skin and repeatedly smothered it in lotion. I have a purple scar there, just above my knee. I have a thousand tiny scars on my right leg. 5/10

6. Wooden bench in downtown Plymouth with the inscription “For Julia, Twig, and Harry”— Eric & I refer to this bench as our bench. It’s across the street from Panera and sits on the edge of the street with all those high-end restaurants— Comparis (Eric & I hate the sign hanging above their door), the Sardine Room (“Is it really full of sardines?”), Gastro-pub (“It sounds like the kind of place to give you a tiny plate of food and charge you $100”). The bench is prime real estate for people watching. Eric and I discussed who we thought Julia, Twig, and Harry were. I suggested that Twig was their dog who tragically died, but Eric said they wouldn’t have put Twig’s name in the middle before Harry’s. I laughed at that, imagining whoever inscribed the copper plate loving a dog more than Harry. Is Twig their child then? Is Twig a nickname or a birth name? I tried to research online for some insight into who these people are and what happened to them, but nothing came up. If anyone knows who they are, please contact me. 10/10

7. Spider that lives in my room, who I am very afraid of— Even though I only met him yesterday morning, that fat, green spider has occupied a space in my mind ever since. I plucked a tissue out of the box next to my bed to clean my glasses with. As I brought the tissue up to my face, I saw him looking at me from the folds of cottony-white. I flung the tissue across the room (sorry if that hurt you little buddy, but your creepy little eyes caught me by surprise) and scooted myself across the room from him. He crawled up the side of my dresser and disappeared after that. I hope he’s okay (sorry I tried to throw a wet paper towel out you to kill you), but I wish he’d live somewhere else. 4/10

8. Song “You’re so creepy” by Ghost town— Me and Austin listen to this song every time we’re in a car together and sing the lyrics loudly to each other. Honestly, I wouldn’t listen to the song on my own accord, but it’s our song and it’s funny to have a song that doesn’t describe us at all. Some of our favorite lyrics include “Dig up my grave and save my body,” “Blood-red lipstick, you don’t smile,” “Drinks in the A.M. F**** in the P.M.” We reference the song occasionally, but it’s funnier to me to pretend it doesn’t exist until we are explicitly in the car together shouting it loudly. Neither of us are goth girls. 9/10

9. Feeling of dizziness— I don’t like being dizzy, but I am frequently and unfortunately dizzy. I have anemia so I get particularly dizzy during fasting seasons (being Coptic and anemic is a mess as we’re supposed to fast 280 days out of the year [I don’t do all 280 days {I feel bad about not doing all 280 days}]) where we’re vegan. Sometimes when I’m particularly out of it I can move my eyes from side to side and feel my soul lurch around within the case of my skin. It’s always off-putting and, as far as I know, happens to nobody else. I take iron supplements and multivitamins. I haven’t taken a multivitamin in a while actually. I should do that more. 3/10

10. Multivitamins I should take more— Multivitamin One A Day for Women, bought in a sizeable orange bottle from Costco. The pills are as long as a pen cap & smell like cardboard. They taste like carboard too. I make my sister take them, too. I frequently choke on them, but they have 250% (!) Vitamin D, so I guess it’s worth it. 7/10

11. Rose water & ivy candle from Bath and Body Works (as requested by my mom)— I really like the way the Bath and Body Works candles are designed. The rose water & ivy one comes in a translucent pink jar with a white and gold sticker pasted to it. It smells soft and floral and clean. We keep candles around the house and my favorites are the white tea sage in the bathroom and the gardenia in the kitchen. The rose water & ivy is a good one too. 9/10

12. My mom— Very nice lady. She always suggests I should put Visine eye drops on my mosquito bites which I always do even though it never works. I love making her laugh & sometimes I miss her when we’re in different parts of the house. 10/10