QUICK UPDATE!

Guess what? Tulane Chris and I finished the manuscript for our book. YEP. It’s real. It’s a tangible thing. I started pleasuring myself to it on the bus ride back from Philly and haven’t stopped since. (“You like that baby? You like those tight little references to Jessica Walter and ESOL kids? You like it when I break out The Chicago Manuel of Style and second-guess myself, or do you like it when it’s dirty and inconsistent? Woah…where’s that Oxford comma going? OH you’re a bad little manuscript.”) (Oh my God, I am so sorry.) (Although it’s not not accurate…)

So how’d it go? Well, we’re really happy with the final product, but Jesus Crush it was exhausting to get there. And fun! I mean, there are definitely worse ways to spend a week than poopin’ around your friend’s apartment, batting Megan’s Law jokes back and forth and seeing what makes the other laugh; it just took considerably longer than we thought it would. Not to be all, “WHO DUN THOUGHT THAT THEM THERE BOOKS TAKE A WHILE TO WRITE?!?!?!” But. Really…who dun thought that them there books take a while to write?

Because I’m desperate to get us all on the same page so we can move on and get back to our regular blogging schedule, here’s what you missed during Meg & Chris’ Intense Week of Non-Stop Writing:

- I broke the goddamn L key on my laptop, which means that there are now two keys on my keyboard that don’t work unless you hit them from just the right angle, with just the right amount of force. Ergo, from now on, I’ll be using words containing both S and Lsparingly only when absolutely necessary I totally have to. I think I’ll miss you most of all, listlessly and sluts.

- I learned what it feels like to stay up for 56 hours straight on a diet of off-brand Seltzer water and Russell Stover sampler chocolates. (Answer: like your veins are full of dragon semen and if you blink too hard, your eyeballs might shatter.)

- I coughed at the same time a crane dropped something outside and for .5 seconds, it seemed completely rational, if not logical, to think that my cough had started a Butterfly Effect ending in a large-scale construction site disaster.

- UHH, I learned that Chris “respects” me but doesn’t think of me as a “friend”. Which was slightly awkward to hear, considering he’s my go-to person when I need…anything.

I mean, I’m not saying I want to get matching bird tattoos and wear a vial of his blood around my neck, but I’d like to think in the past couple of years I’ve managed to work my way up from “Flannery’s cousin’s best friend from college” to “My friend Meg”. I’m sharing my blog with you and you’ve been inside of me, Chris; I send people Christmas cards for considerably less.

- I know this isn’t going to help my case in the above, but Chris almost died at the hand of a pug wall calendar and it was the funniest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. He was severely sleep-deprived and sitting next to a wall where he had tacked up these pictures of pugs from a dismantled pug wall calendar when, PER CHANCE, one of the tacks slipped out and a 10 x 10 picture of a fawn pug surfing on a boogie board silently floated down the wall, landed on Chris’ right shoulder and shaved at least ten years off his life. This was absurdly funny to me for the following reasons:

1.) I watched the whole thing happen in slow motion. I knew it was going to scare him. It did. It exceeded my expectations.

2.) It happened when we were writing the part of the book about ghosts (don’t ask; just buy) so it had this extra element of spookiness.

3.) He was so scared he couldn’t even say anything. He just recoiled in fear and made this guttural “UGHHFFFFGGG” noise that despite not being a sentence, or even a word really, still managed to drip in southern twang.

4.) The pug was on a boogie board. I mean, really…

5.) Just the way the picture softly danced its way down the wall contrasted with how hardcore Chris almost shat himself, really does something for me.

6.) I knew if the roles were reversed, I would have had the exact same reaction. Because shit was touch-and-go, you guys. Touch-and-go.

- I can’t stop grinding my teeth when I write and it’s getting bad. I keep getting these really bad headaches; I can now audibly click my jaw in and out of place, which I don’t think is “normal” or “attractive”; and I’m scared I’m fucking up my teeth. Now, I know we have a lot of fun with suicide around here on the blog, but I am serious as a heart attack when I say the following: if I have to start wearing a blogging retainer, or anything even remotely in the mouth guard family when I write, I will absolutely kill myself. And I won’t leave a note, because there shouldn’t be an ounce of ambiguity about why I did it. Just fish the goddamn retainer out of my mouth, clutch your fingers around it, shake a closed fist towards the heavens, and distribute my belongings as you see fit. Thank you.

- These kids (who I would conservatively put at 17 and 13-years-old) were on my bus to Philly last week and BROKE MY HEART. They were alone, carrying a Jansport backpack and a taped up trash bag, reeked of Value Village, and got off the bus in Baltimore for a smoke break:

Here’s my question: how can they buy cigarettes at their little baby ages? And I’m not asking that in like a wag-of-the-finger “MARYLAND STATE LAW CLEARLY DECREES…!” kind of way, I’m asking because I’m genuinely curious and kind of impressed. When I was 17, my friends and I were going to smoke pot in a park or behind a building or something equally Olney, Maryland, when we realized that none of us had a lighter or a book of matches. Because we were too paranoid to go back to one of our houses to get matches, I volunteered to go to 7-11, get in line and (I swear to God) fake the following conversation on my navy blue Nokia cell phone:

“Hey girl! Yeah. Yeah, no I’m just in Olney dropping my laundry off at my parent’s. Yeah I’ll be back AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, WHERE I AM A STUDENT AND HAVE BEEN FOR AT LEAST A YEAR, later tonight. Yeah, I’ll totally go to that party. BECAUSE PARTYING IS OLD HAT FOR ME, AS AN ABLE-BODIED COLLEGE STUDENT OVER THE AGE OF 18! Oh hang on just a sec—yeah, I’ll just take a pack of matches and this Fun-Dip. Thanks. SO I TOTALLY FAILED THAT PSYCH EXAM EVEN THOUGH I STUDIED IN THE QUAD FOR LIKE, HOURS. AREN’T PROFESSORS THE WORST?!?! YOU KNOW WHAT’S WORSE THAN PROFESSORS? T.A.’S!!! ZETA FOR LIFE!!!1”

The clerk obviously carded me because I had the grace and tact of a blind person running head first into a brick wall, and I had to put on this big show about how I “left my license in the car” and awkwardly drop the Fun-Dip and scuttle out to my car, never to return for years to come. God, I fucking hate my life. ANYWAY, my point being: how are they able to purchase enough Marlboro Reds to support a smoking habit where they can’t go three hours without a cigarette, and I couldn’t even buy a pack of matches with four summers of Drama Learning Center improv experience under my belt? And these are the things that keep me up at night.

OK. You’re caught up to speed on my end. Glad to be back.