Work on your posture, knit a sweater, make up a language to use when speaking with your cats, bang your head against a wall.

Listen carefully, go to the roof and marvel at the sky and how much of it you can see when sitting in one place. Work on your lunges, organize your unopened mail, download the entire Bill Callahan/Smog discography and wonder if that’s a good idea in your lonesome state. Maybe you should be downloading Destiny’s Child or BEP or some dance remixes.

Take a shower.

Lie on the floor and try to memorize the ceiling. Look at the smooth patches and the smoke detector—make the red light your new sun. Memorize the ridges in the ceiling, the drip marks, the bumps and the splotches. Memorize the floor. The scratches, the grooves, the space of the boards, the slant, the heat of it, the grain of the wood.

Work on handstands, attempt to remember the Thriller dance, move your socks to your underwear drawer and your underwear to your sock drawer. Pluck your eyebrows. Realize you’ve just made a huge mistake.

Paint your nails with stripes. Put a mud mask on your face. Buy jumpsuits. Use a flatiron.

Pretend you’re leading a marching band, think about buying a Venus Flytrap or two, practice the four karate moves you learned 10 years ago. Fill yourself with confidence at your ability to engage in bone-breaking self defense.

Google the ANTM contestants of the past to see what they’re up to now, make eye contact with your cat and say, “I know, right?”

Attempt to improve your punctuation, learn sign language via YouTube videos. Think long and hard about the consequences of the decisions of reality TV show contestants. Marvel at how bad their decision making skills are when simple logic points to the road they didn’t choose. Feel good about yourself that you would have made a better decision in that situation. Make up a sad dance to commemorate the empty bag of trail mix you found in your freezer. Not quite empty, but peanuts are filler and they are a waste of time.

Design a cover for your album, “Peeps and AppleSAUCE.”

Research the history of walking. Make an origami bird out of newspaper.

Walk aimlessly around Target until you find yourself with an armful of padded picture frames and kitty litter. Think about buying lamps so you have something to put under all of the lampshades you bought last week.

Read a book at a bar.

Put on pants.

Try to remember the melody of that one song you liked for a month a few years ago. It went something like da da daaa da daaa da daaa da.

Go to the local Thai restaurant. Mull over the menu until the waitress offers her suggestion. Order Pad See Ew anyway. Let her talk about you to her co-worker in a language you don’t understand as you walk out the door without trying to hear or interpret what she’s saying. You are already halfway down the block. You are already done with your Thai Iced Tea. You are slurping at the ice and the little bit of tea at the bottom of the cup. You are happy in the sun. You are looking forward to a meal that tastes like something. Like anything. Today is a day when you are going to feel alive.

Eat lunch alone. Order a veggie sandwich. Hold the onions. Wait for your iced tea to be refilled. Read a book at this table. Enjoy that your waiter smiles when he refills the glass. He is giving you permission to be this person. Maybe he admires you.

Maybe he wishes he was you. Confidently reading a book about a 41 year-old virgin in a crowded restaurant.

Consider quitting smoking. Three hours later, buy two packs of cigarettes.

Watch your neighbors. But don’t make a secret of it. Stand at your window, your nose to the screen and don’t blink.

Know that in a city this size, you are nothing special. Be okay with that. Take comfort in knowing that, maybe, you are the only person in this city who does not want to be anything noticeable or unique. You just want to be a person who likes iced tea.

Wonder why some men seem to purposely dress themselves up as douchebags.
Listen to Irish folk rock.

Curse the barista who did not leave room for milk in your Americano. Seriously dude. Why is this so hard?

Remember when you were young and had so much potential and blame the lack of realization of that potential on your parents even as you are ordering flowers to be delivered to their house.

Lie. Lie a lot. Give yourself a fake name. Tell your neighbors that you were formerly a burlesque dancer and you are now pursuing a career in accounting.

Make pesto in a blender. Freeze it in ice cube trays. Marvel at the ingenuity of whoever came up with this process.

Cringe at the smell of cat urine in your apartment. Get drunk at the slow and steady realization that you will never find the source of the odor.

Open the windows and turn up the volume on the Conservative radio station. Laugh and laugh and laugh at the fallacy of the logic. Research the process of becoming a Canadian citizen.

Go to the movies. Order a large cola and groan and comment throughout the movie. Loudly slurp the ice in your cup. You are alone. It is okay to be an asshole in public.

Bum a smoke from a bum.

Apply lipsticks of various colors at the same time.

Get really pissed about the overly full, overly hot coffee that is burning your already scarred mouth. Scarred from the toasted bread that you requested not be toasted.
It is the little things after all.

Consider the consequences of wearing head to toe leather.

Make a paste using baking soda and heavy cream. Cover your body and attempt to heal.

Chastise yourself for your decisions regarding hair care and exercise regimes.

Drink hot coffee outside on a hot day because you are strong, dammit.

Congratulate yourself on your own stunning intelligence. You are so smart.

Cry while reading the responses to your online dating profile.

Trace the lines of the stretch marks on the backs of your calves.

Write a sentence. Delete it. Write a sentence. Delete it. Write a sentence. Delete it.

Watch seven episodes of Prime Suspect. Go to sleep happy.

Get sunburn on your ankles.

Google your medical conditions and convince yourself that you are dying. Smoke a cigarette inside. Light incense and tell yourself it never happened.

Stare across the street for a good long while and relax because there is no one around to ask you what you’re thinking about.

Experiment with spices, rice, and vegetables. Congratulate yourself on the efforts you don’t throw away.

Pick at the dirt under your nails.

Stuff your nose, ears, and mouth with cotton. Wrap yourself in toilet paper to get inside the mind of a mummy.

Don’t do anything that would make you a better person. Don’t learn a language or an instrument. Don’t volunteer or take a class. Sit in a chair and watch your cat sleep until the jealousy takes you over and you need to step outside and find a good tree to kick.

Know that you are okay. Know that you are getting better. In this city, you are a stranger and this is your identity to make. In your last city, you were a brick wall. Defined, solid, unchanging. Graffiti scarring your sides. In your last city, you had no way out. Here, you are nothing at all and dammit if that isn’t the most remarkable thing.”

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