This is my day long journal entry colliding with a 2023 year retrospective from my fake covid1 den while wearing an embroidered white linen robe.
Of fucking course.
The telltale sign I was waiting for - not being able to smell anything. I ran to my bathroom and opened all of my most scented products. Nope. Can’t smell any of them.
Despite a couple of negative test results, I think I must have Covid again. My anxiety crashes head on with my nearly prideful feeling of social responsibility. I start texting all my prior known contacts as if I just found out I have an STI. I hate it.
Everyone who has seen me as of late, of course, immediately tells me not to worry. I wouldn't be friends with them if they had a different reaction. I think about how I told my own friend a mere 10 days ago how it was not her responsibility to keep all of society healthy after she fell ill herself. We never listen to our own advice.
I truthfully don’t really know if there is a right protocol for Covid contact. So…you tell some folks, and maybe they care and maybe they don’t? Either way, my anxiety wins this round and I tell everyone to the point of overdoing it. Despite my being negative. One of the many times I will laugh at myself this day.
It’s New Years Eve 2023 and I am, dare I say, delighted to be spending it alone, even if I am sick. It’s been about 2 years since I had my own place to call home, bouncing from couch to bed to AirBnB. Last year I spent NYE in one of my friends' apartments with her dog and mine while she was away on vacation. I got drunk on my favorite wine. I listened to my 2023 astrology year ahead on CHANI. I danced wildly with headphone audio on max to Lady Gaga “Paparazzi” and The Police “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic”. I don’t know why, I just let my shuffle do its thing. Then I pretended it fate.
The truth is, I had high hopes for 2023, but found myself yet again breaking old cycles, making even more difficult decisions, and reaching even further down the throat of the credit monster. It gets so much easier to swipe and close your eyes when you're charging toilet paper and covid tests rather than artwork and vintage. But fuck, I’m human. And sometimes, you have to throw future money at today’s problems.
Earlier this morning, trying to spread some ironic cheer, my friend sent me a Tik Tok of how to properly set up for a “rot day” that felt a little too like our psyches on full display. To clarify, a “rot day” is usually to say a day when you simply lie in bed, and accomplish nothing but rotting away. This creators routine screams more reset, as the commenters point out. I don’t care. I think this is a perfect activity for my new Covid quarantine status, and this woman is my people. I immediately want to understand this self-proclaimed “professional rotter”.3
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First, she explains, she gets up and moves by doing pilates or yoga. “Moving is so important to me because if I am going to be spending the whole day at home…I just feel better if I start my day off with movement,” her hair is wrapped in a towel and she’s wearing a sheet mask on her face. Then it's an “everything shower” - or what those in the know see as more or less as using your entire shower arsenal. Hair masks, face masks, shaving. This shower length should make you feel slightly irresponsible in your water use. This is the way I understand it.
I am fully loving this creator's thought process. It is, in essence, the perfect millennial content. Set yourself up to not feel like shit mentally/emotionally to do nothing by doing everything you possibly could have to do in a week. You know, to recharge. I realize reading the comments just how deep my inability to relax goes. But aren’t we are all just perpetually burnt out? Let’s just call it what it is. Don’t be pompous.
After you are fully cleansed, she makes sure to mention that your sheets should also be clean. Okay…this would have been a helpful step 1 but, I don’t disagree. Clean on clean. But clean sheets take…time.
I take stock of my current situation. The sheets could be cleaner. Also, I haven’t showered since I started feeling sick…rookie mistake Mallory. I probably smell, but how would I know? (I think this is the part of losing my sense of smell I hate the most). I commit to both a shower and clean sheets. It is early enough in the morning (8 AM) that I will be able to climb into a fully clean bed in about 4 hours. Done. I throw my sheets in the wash first. I will also clean my duvet and quilt (aggressive, but worth it). It’s dawning on me that I won’t be able to smell my incredible smelling detergent. However, clean sheets are important regardless. I press on.
A watched dryer never….dries.
Next the creator says that you are to make and eat one large meal for the day so you don't have to get up and make anything for the rest of the day. Ok, I can vibe with this. I settle on dumplings, and ordering them in instead (less mess, obviously). Then I remember I can’t taste anything. It’s better to save the money. Maybe I will just eat a container of cottage cheese? I already hate this.
Now at this point of being fed, the creator says she cleans the kitchen. I get this. I do that right away every time. I have to clean the kitchen because I cannot let tasks pile up, because then I get even more anxious. I sometimes just let my hyper-vigilance lead the way. My therapist calls it one of my super powers. “It’s what makes you well equipped for your job.” Sure. Mostly I just think today’s hyper-vigilance will be a decades later study in how single women in our time decided they could do it all, went to try that out, realized maybe it was bullshit, but then went on to build systems and communities of fellow women to depend on in times of need. Or maybe those are just the projected dreams of my own life.
In 2023, I started out strong. Nomadic, single, knowing I was going to be in Mexico City again for some time, and not knowing what would come after that. It was a big question in my life. It was a question of affordability, community and desire. I was choosing to stay in my friends and family homes until I left May 1. It was a long time off.
By the time I did leave, I noticed my mental fortitude had declined. I was pleased to arrive back on familiar grounds in my Condesa apartment with my dog promptly on May 1.
I use my time away to focus on self awareness. Processing life, figuring out what I need, trying to figure out what my next move would be. Everything was in stasis. Work was going but not thriving. It was starting to really affect my attitude. I’ve been self-employed for 15 years. I was fucking tired of the grind. My business partner and I were both tired of everyone telling us we were “right there” and most fearful of all, I felt like I was fucking things up because how had we not gained more ground in 10 years? For as confident as I am, I do not fuck with doubts. Self doubt is something that quickly brings on panic attacks. It is not a state of mind I like being in for long. I prefer being slightly delusional. How else are you supposed to live in these times? Thank god for Mexico City.
Rot Palace.
I get started on my non-rotty rot-routine. Sheets are in the wash, so I unroll my yoga mat and get lost for a bit in creating a long island-like nation using ottomans between my couch and bed. I’ve never actually played floor is lava, but I know I am about to try.
I decide on light stretching for my movement. I am sick after all. I have been regularly huffing Afrin so at least I can breathe. I burn some palo santo, desperately testing my sense of scent to the point of almost burning my nose hair. Throw on some Lofi beats and get high. Thats the one thing I forgot to mention, part of the rot-routine creators to do items was to get high before you throw on that show in bed for rotting. I revise the order and start with it. I think she needs to rethink her ordering.
After my very slow but very gratifying floor stretch, I finish my athletic greens vitamin drink and realize I can still taste. Dumplings are back on my mind. So I get on with the routine. Next is shower. It is glorious in the most disgusting of ways. But I emerge, sinuses cleared out, after my required Wim Hof douse in cold water in an attempt to shock my immune system into working again.
I always get sick this time of year. They say to expect it. After working and the holidays you come to a stand still. Your body goes into some sort of shock from the alteration of routines, eating rich foods, over imbibing. You are more susceptible to falling sick. I even knew this was going to be the case. By not scheduling anything more than a few necessary work items, my schedule was cleared without a plan. It’s good to know sometimes my subconscious works in my favor.
I ordered my dumplings and checked on my clean sheet status. Looks like it’s another two hours to kill until rot-in-bed status. Certainly doable. The idea of writing about this day of events comes to me, so I start writing this.4 As with most things I write, they come to me as streams of consciousness. I write out full drafts at once. I edit for grammar, and then I edit for clarity and flow. Certainly writing has always been a large part of my life. Since I was a kid, I used my stream of consciousness to whip through many-paged reports. In college that looked like weekly writing assignments in each of my classes. I struggle with creative writing, as most writers I know do, until I find some sort of container to restrict myself.
Mexico City was supposed to be my container. But I was bored of myself. The lessons, the epiphanies, the plot twists. I was also annoyed at myself for always wanting to dive into some sort of self improvement or psychological diversion. To the point where derealization has crossed my path more than once. In the words of the energy creators on Tik Tok I have probably done about 10 laps in the dark night of the soul. I am the master of a bootcamp for my consciousness unwillingly running non-stop, towards no destination at all. A lot like a Soul Cycle class - just a lot of things happening in the dark, pedaling endlessly nowhere.
I decided this summer I was going to stop trying to pressure myself to do things that were creative in nature. I either felt it or I didn’t and neither of those parts of me meant anything about who I was as a person or an artist. So I ended up doing a lot of fucking around, learning about natural dying, becoming a regular at galleries, venturing outside the city to see about local agriculture and sustainable practices, and getting drunk in the basement of a Roma Norte apartment building for a random influencer’s birthday party.5
It was certainly unnerving to be on a path to nowhere for a while. And I did my best to protect my peace. I was in a place of waiting for the answer of what to do next to come to me and it hadn’t yet. Every time I tried to force a path forward, whether it be a cross country move or an educational side step, it never flowed. Feeling stuck sucks. I knew this feeling all too well. I know it well enough to mean that I was stuck because I had to be ignoring one of my core needs.
This scared the shit out of me. I couldn’t figure out what I was missing.
These are from Jiao in the Loop, of QXY fame. Always lamb coriander, and shrimp, pork and leek.
My dumplings arrive when my sheets finish in the dryer and I get to work on both. It’s starting to snow for what feels like the first “real” snow of the season - the kind that actually sticks. It’s really pretty, I think as I sneeze incessantly. Fucking Covid.
I down most of the three dozen dumplings I order in no time, frustrated because I cannot in fact taste anything like I thought I could. Just some vague sense of sour from the vinegar.
“Fucking waste of $50,” I think. When did food get this crazy expensive? I try not to think about how much the tacos on my street corner cost (10 pesos), I am all about fair wages but this feels penetrative. I try not to scream.
With my duvet cover in the dryer I realize I am 1 hour closer to rot time. Meanwhile my family is trying to text-diagnose my negative Covid status with Covid symptoms from Mexico. Maybe it's this new cold going around that I got from my nephew - it's not Covid but its this other covid - I will call it fake covid.
I laugh to myself. What are the protocols?
By the end of my three months in Mexico City, fall was approaching and I was ready to return to Chicago. So much so I made the decision to buy an apartment with some help from my parents who were grateful to see me get settled somewhere…finally. It’s complicated and so are the times we live in.
I was ready to come home because to the awe of both myself and my business partner, our efforts to getting over the dreaded business plateau finally started to click. After nearly 10 years in business, I realized it had all been about timing. We were in the right place for most of those 10 years. But that means shit unless there is a proper demand.6 The pandemic started to help create that demand - people moving online as a dependency of life itself. I hate how much money I give to Jeff Bezos. But fuck, that man figured out that not only would some of us would pay for the luxury of convenience, but then the pandemic would sky rocket the demand for home deliveries. Well, between that same sort of idea and the current status of our little micro industry we were about to jump at an opportunity when it came.
For the first time in two years I had direction. I was going back to Chicago to focus on myself and my work. I edited down my responsibilities. I took serious relationships off the table. I doubled down on work and my career. A new way of living indeed.
When I came home I had big plans. I was going to renovate my new place. I was going to start taking trips again. But a lesson I had yet to let really soak in is that good things take time. Good things don’t need to be rushed. I always felt like my ass was lit aflame, but I didn’t have anything to prove to anyone but myself. In fact, I started to realize I was finally living the life I always wanted to live. My own apartment with my dog. An incredible group of friends. Family who were loving and extremely open to supporting me. I didn’t have money, I didn’t have a serious relationship to fall back on. I had my wits, my resourcefulness, and my ability to mold myself to whatever I needed to be to survive and be happy doing it. That was my own particular brand of freedom.
I finish all three dozen dumplings, content with my ability to bring down 2-3ishhhh meals of food to live on for the rest of the day with limited cleanup. I realized my last meal was about 24 hours ago. I’ll spin this in a good light, I think the health kids call it intermittent fasting. Good for me. At the same time my duvet cover is dry and I get to doing the deed of putting my bed back together. I even throw in more laundry. Gooooood for me.
At this point it’s about 1 PM. This has been anything but a day of rotting in bed. I knew it all along. I knew this was for the kids with overactive minds. The ability to find any reason to not rest before we are given the “permission”. In most cases, life benches us with exhaustion or some spell of covid like my own fake covid. To be true, I feel like absolute shit. The Afrin helps.7 The weed helps. But so does the movement. The planning. Working towards a goal even if that goal is quite literally to do nothing.
That feels very reflective of my life. My bed is fully made and prepped for rotting. I start considering my modals of entertainment. We’re going with Netflix. Over-under on how long I am able to do this is 2 hours.
Ready for rot-girl non-activity.
It was July 31st of 2023 when I traveled home from Mexico City. I arrived home with just enough time to sign the paperwork and complete the final walkthrough of my new home. When I decided to move back to Chicago, a place I have lived for many years, in many different lives, I knew I had to be somewhere new. I have spent a lot of time on the north and west side. Considering I wanted to be away from the majority of my exes and memories, this is about as safe as I could get.
Sometimes you just don’t want your future to mix with your past if they don’t have to.
I ended up in the small 2 x 3 block town called Printer’s Row nestled between the Loop and South Loop. I chose this location because of the natural wine bar across the street, the built in floor to ceiling bookshelves that harken the library I always wish I had, and the historic building I would be lucky to call home. I am within walking distance of some of the best sights and cultural institutions the city has to offer. I needed the energy of a city to support my audacious goals. I required the newness in order to mark all that had changed since the last time I had an apartment in Bucktown two years ago. And even before, those apartments never felt like my own home. They were their own special places I would leave after a one year lease. And over the last two years I can count on more than three hands the amount of places I have stayed in for longer than a week at a time.8 For as much as the bohemian life suited me, I was fucking over it. And I wanted my things back and out of storage.
Unpacking felt voyeuristic. I was unpacking the things from “2021 Mallory”. I was different even then than I was in 2019 when I moved out of my home and filed for divorce. Drastically so. But I have also always been the same. Something people are quick to point out to me. If you met me when I was 14, I am the same outspoken energetic adult. Only now I suffer from a lack of shame and lust for adventure, and I have the stories to prove it.
It’s 3 PM and I am well into rot-stasis time. (With a few extra loads of laundry spinning, obviously.) In bed I wear my favorite embroidered white linen robe, and my hair is loose and wavy because, Bitch, I will feel like a goddess even if I am sick and my nose rubbed raw. At this point my French pharmacy Biafine lotion known for its restorative skin rash abilities has proven impotent against the wrath of repeated cotton rubs and runny noses. I’m a hot, sexy leaky faucet of snot. My eyes are also watering like crazy. I feel like that Mucinex commercial where the little animated germs are throwing a house party in my head. But like, in an embroidered white linen robe.
I am quickly jolted to joy when I get a text from my friend Rachel who is about to drop off a NYE care package in my lobby. Frankly, with friends like these, who needs a relationship? Their act is impossible to follow. I get some much needed face time in from a distance in the lobby as we joke about the fact that obviously all our New Years Eve plans fell through, even though they were minimal to begin with. Again, something inside of me knew…things would fall apart. But with the snow continuing and the temps dropping, we both admitted that most of us were relieved to be staying in.
50% of this care package is now in my body.
When I return to my apartment, I realize my last and fourth load of laundry is done. I get on to folding it. When I am done I find myself wondering what is next. Then I realize I can always turn back on the Top Chef Season 15 finale, when I began my in bed rot time. I realize I had only spent a true 23:06 minutes rotting.
I laugh to myself.
When I arrived back stateside in August it was full speed ahead. Work ended up taking over my life in a way I had never really considered. I was already working hard, but this was less about time spent and more about brain power being used. I felt both drunk on knowledge power and absolutely dumb as rocks all at the same time. Just as I thought I was on the heels of figuring out how to solve one problem at work, something else would turn to dust in front of my eyes. The agency was like being inside a pressure cooker - and those were not even my words but one of my team members. I knew it, we all knew it. It is really fucking hard.
And finally I got to a point where I said fuck it at work. It was a real “Jesus take the wheel” moment. I stepped back and screamed aloud “Please help us” and just as I did, the most endearing and empowering thing happened. A lot of people raised their hands and jumped in to help.
This is what money cannot buy. True loyalty. True support. True passion and belief in what you are doing, even if it’s just building websites. At least we love working together. And maybe that seems lame to folks who work for companies who would drop them for a data point. But my team relit the fire under my ass. And for now, for a brief moment I know what to do, before it all inevitably shifts again. And when it does, we will adapt again. I’m strapped into a rollercoaster ride. I am in the front car. I left a little space between me and the safety rail so I can get an extra split second of weightlessness before dropping. I throw my hands in the air. I look over the top, and I scream a loud, guttural scream.
Hurrah! I finished Top Chef Season 15. And I get the hype about Joe Flamm. Good for that dude. And I am hungry again, or maybe I am just sad I cannot taste anything. Maybe it’s time for some medicinal bone broth, as I don’t feel like repeating my $50 tasteless mistake of lunch. Also, three dozen dumplings are still in process. I look at a package of broth. This shit has 19g of protein.9 How is that even fucking possible?
I drink my bone broth. I can get down with bone broth. This one’s called “Hearth” and it’s thanks to a clever Christmas gift/foresight from my sister. It is, of course, from the hyper trendy Brodo in the LES. I have been there before to the tiny walk up window. This gift was truly exciting. I imagine the Hearth bone broth being prepared in a cauldron over a fire, in a dimly lit clay and brick home, being swirled by an old woman who is also by chance, the magician that can cure my fake covid.
I’m in the second half of my not-so-rotting experience and I feel like there’s no way I will make it to midnight. My sinuses are screaming so much I consider a second shower but detest the idea of getting my hair wet again. But, my apartment is neat and the laundry is done. Good for me.
So I tuck into my cozier robe, and throw on some astrology podcasts about the year ahead. Frankly, a lovely tradition I started a year ago, albeit then I was drunk and alone in an apartment with two dogs watching fireworks and silent scream singing “Papa-Papa-Razzi!”. This year I am older. Dare I say wiser? Wise enough to know this grind I set myself on was of my own choosing and it’s time to let life repeatedly school me until I eventually fuck all the way off to Europe and retire.
Doing it all now so I can do nothing later. A little too on the nose for my liking. I immediately think of my inability to rot in place. Good thing there’s wine in Tuscany.
2024 proves to be something of an interesting year, after all it will be my 40th on this planet. Astrologically, I am told the same. I am told to ride the waves. I will Bruce Lee this shit, I will be exactly like water.
Cue Paparazzi by Lady Gaga.
🦶Notes
You’ll understand soon.
Written, edited in 8 hours time. So this won’t be perfect, or anywhere near it. But it was a fun exercise.
This is not bullshit. I relish in the diversity of human experience, especially those living out loud with no fucks to give. We should all be so brave.
This is the inception moment. Up until this point I was writing in my head. Now I was writing it down.
Honestly, a fascinating night in itself.
Fine, I get this is like, Business 101. I went to school for literature and art. Don’t Chad me.
Something I learned while writing this is that the Afrin could be responsible for my loss of scent. Be careful out there kids.
I am at 16, but I could be missing some.
Kettle and Fire brand technically. I had a few broths on hand, what can I say.
This was so fun to read. I hope you feel better soon. <3 More posts in 2024!