Illustration by Gary Taxali

January 1st—Ha! That feels fun to write. I’m excited. I’ve been thinking about doing this for so long—I went through my notes and it turns out I came up with this idea all the way back on Day After Day After Very Cloudy Day.

January 2nd—I’m still so excited about this calendar thing. It just makes so much sense. A thousand days a year, divided into twenty-five months, forty days a month. Why didn’t anyone think of this before?

January 3rd—Getting so many compliments on the calendar. One guy came up to me and said he’s going to organize his whole life around it—literally, someone said that!

January 4th—Best day ever (or at least so far) in recorded history. I talked to Alice at the bonfire for a long time. She seemed to be into me, but I didn’t want to be presumptuous. Finally, I asked if she wanted to come back to my place and hang out. She said, “I don’t know. . . . I guess I’ll have to check my calendar,” and then winked (!!!).

January 30th—People really hate January and want it to be over. I tried to explain that it’s just a label and that ending it wouldn’t make any difference, but no one got it. So finally I told everyone that this would be the last day of January, and from now on months would be thirty days instead of forty. But there wasn’t enough time to get the word out. So, to be safe, I’ll give this month thirty-one days and the rest will have thirty. Not a big deal. Everyone is excited to see Febuary.

February 1st—Another small fuckup: I put an extra “r” in all the copies of the calendar I handed out, even though I already told everyone the next month coming was called Febuary. But Alice came up with the best solution! She said, “Just tell everyone it’s spelled ‘February’ but pronounced ‘Feb-u-ary.’ That way, they’ll feel stupid!” Alice is the best.

February 14th—Alice stuff weird. Tonight we were having a nice dinner at the same place we always go, but she was unusually quiet. Finally, I asked if anything was wrong, and she said, “Do you know what day it is today?” I said, “Yes, of course I do, I invented the calendar. It’s February 14th. Why?” She smiled a really tight smile, said, “Yes. Yes, it is,” and then walked out. What’s that about?

February 15th—So cold.

February 28th—I hate this month. I can’t take one more day of it. This month will just have to be shorter than the rest, and if people don’t like it they can go fuck themselves.

March 9th—There’s this new type of berry that looks so good, but somebody told me it’s poison. Oh, well.

April 1st—A lot of shenanigans today, like pranks (which are lies for no reason). People say it has something to do with the calendar, which I wasn’t crazy about. But I guess it’s good when your invention takes on a life you never expected. That’s what the inventor of the scarf told me—it was originally supposed to be a weapon.

April 30th—I think thirty-one days was a mistake. You can’t divide thirty-one by anything, so you can’t make something half a month or half a week or whatever (because seven’s the same way). There should be a word for numbers like that.

May 2nd—Ahh, now maybe I think months should be thirty-one days after all. (Why am I so obsessed with this?)

May 20th—Ran into Alice and I played it cool. She congratulated me on the calendar stuff and asked if I ever thought of putting pictures on it—she said she could maybe pose for it. I said that it sounded kind of cheesy but I’d think about it. She asked when I could hang out and I told her I was busy until August. “What’s August?” she said. “Oh, it’s a month I’ve been kicking around—you’re going to love it,” I said. I could not have played it better!

June 29th—Met this really cool girl Jane at a stoning.

October 9th—Can’t believe I haven’t written in so long! Summer was amazing. Harvest was amazing. Things are still going strong with Jane. This year has been awesome, and it’s only October! There’s still November, December, Latrember, Faunus, Rogibus, Neptember, Stonk. . . .

November 5th—Stuff with Jane is getting a little tense. She keeps wanting to push the relationship forward. She says that we’ve been together “forever.” I said it’s actually been less than five months. She just stared at me. Then I told her this idea I had: we’d choose a date in the future to make things official, and then, every year, that day on the calendar would be like our own personal holiday—for just the two of us! Good idea, right? “You’d never remember it,” she said.

November 6th—Things with Jane are better. I think we’re going to work this out. I love her, and that’s all that matters.

November 11th—They sacrificed Jane today. Really happy for the Sun God.

November 12th—Cold.

November 13th—Dark.

November 18th—Turns out those berries aren’t poison. So now I’m the guy who discovered that.

November 23rd—Alice came by and said she felt bad about the Jane stuff and that I should hang out with her and her friends. Then it turned out her friends included this new guy she’s seeing, who—get this—invented the diary. Anyway, to be the mature one, I said, “Oh, that’s great, I use that almost every day.” Guess what he says. “Oh, really? I invented that for girls.” What a dick! Then he said, “What else have you done?,” and I said that I’d been distracted about Jane being sacrificed but that I’m planning on doing something new soon, maybe involving clocks. He said, “Well, you know what tomorrow is?” I said, “Yes, November 24th.” He said, “No. Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life.” And everyone said, “Aww,” and I was, like, Are you kidding me? Do you know how long it took me to get people to stop talking like that?

December 23rd—It seems like Alice and Diary Guy are really close. Really happy for them. Hard to see other people so happy this week, for some reason. Going to focus on work!

December 25th—Why do I feel so lonely today?

December 26th—Why am I so fat?

December 30th—I told everyone I’m ending the year early. I know it was impulsive, but I had to do it. I was ready for everyone to make fun of me, but it turned out they were way cooler about it than I expected: “That’s great.” “About time.” “Just what I need.” It was the most praise I got since I invented the calendar in the first place.

This year got away from me somehow. Looking back, I realize how many months slipped by that I can’t even remember. The one nice thing is seeing how even though I used to be so worked up about Alice, now I really don’t care anymore. And the Jane thing ended the right way, I think—better than some long-drawn-out breakup.

So this year wasn’t everything I hoped it would be, and I didn’t get all the months in that I wanted. But, when the New Year starts, I’m going to wake up every day at dawn and get to work. See, I’d love to put a number on “dawn”—that’s why I think this clock thing can be really big. I have so many ideas. For example: I want to double the length of a second so people won’t always have to say, “Can you give me two seconds?” They can just say, “One second.” I have a lot of ideas like that.

December 31st—So many parties going on tonight. On a Tuesday? Not complaining, just saying.

January 1st—Woke up at sun-past-mountain with a headache. So much for the “dawn” thing. But I still feel good. ♦