1. Write your name with a really good pen.
2. Text a different friend you haven't spoken to in way too long.
3. Clean your immediate surroundings.
4. Do not look at their Twitter.
5. Do not look at their Instagram.
6. Do not look at their Facebook, not even the photos you've already idly flipped through late at night.
7. Instead, look at pictures of your co-worker's new puppy.
8. Reattach a button that's popped off an item of clothing.
9. Make some progress in that book you started and actually were really enjoying but quasi-abandoned because, who knows, life just gets in the way sometimes and before you know it three months have gone by and Aomame is still no closer to returning home.
10. Delete duplicate photos from your phone.
11. Then maybe put it aside, if you can stand it.
12. Make a fancy snack.
13. Or one that reminds you of being a kid.
14. Floss.
15. Write a love note to your mother or best friend.
16. Allow yourself to feel what you feel — where does your anxiety actually live? Are you scared this person doesn't like you, or can't? Are you sad because you are lonely, or exhausted because you just keep trying and never seem to move forward, or resigned because you have all this hope, barrels of it, and hate watching it harden into dread? Do you really truly care about this person, or is it more that you want proof that you can be wanted? Or are you just plain excited to hear from them again, and to see where this goes?
17. Allow yourself, briefly, to imagine their death, aka the reason it has taken them so long to get back to you.
18. Plan your outfit for the funeral.
19. Realize that, oh god, you totally belong in jail.
20. Measure your height.
21. Water your plants.
22. Look up at the sky.
23. Do not allow yourself the usual outlets, like biting your nails or picking your split ends; it will feel momentarily satisfying but in that stomach-lurching bad way.
24. Listen to the new CRJ.
25. Vape.
26. Search for apartments on Craigslist in cities you've thought about moving to but not, like, REALLY thought about.
27. Apply a temporary tattoo.
28. Wonder if it would make a good forever tattoo.
29. Look up how to get a library card where you live and swear that you'll do it this weekend.
30. Think about how big and varied your own life is, and how small this feels in the context of it all, and also how because of that bigness and that variance sometimes it takes you time to get back to someone, even if you really want to.
31. Drink a glass of water.
