On December 19, 1974, the writer Linda Rosenkrantz tape-recorded her friend, the photographer Peter Hujar, telling her everything he'd done the day before. The transcript sat unpublished for almost fifty years until Rosenkrantz rediscovered it in her eighties; it came out in 2021 as Peter Hujar’s Day, and Ira Sachs later made a film from it.

I wanted to try the same exercise. To track a day in full, see where the time actually goes.

This is Tuesday, June 23rd, 2026

What do people do all day?

At 7am the alarm goes off and I hit snooze. I've had a bad night of sleep and I need more time. I keep hitting snooze until I finally look at the clock—it's 9am. I've missed off-leash hours at the dog park. Busy is asleep beside me. I try to remember what I have to do today before I look at my phone.

I can’t remember. I look at my phone.

The first thing I see is this:

My sister just finished reading Whistler by Ann Patchett and loved it so much, she said me I had to read it, especially because of the sisters subplot. I’d just started it the day before, so this feels a bit spooky. But in a good way.

I send my sister a screenshot.

I get up. Drink some water. Put on Pod Save America which I don’t typically listen to, but I want to hear about the reflecting pool drama.

I listen while I brush my teeth, wash my face, put on sunblock. Back in my bedroom, I scour my floor and bench at the foot of my bed for clothes to wear. I check the weather. It’s 66 degrees. I put on pants and a t-shirt, and make a mental note to clean my bedroom.

I put Busy in her harness, which I call her “bra,” and grab a light jacket.

We head to Bittersweet for my iced Americano and her morning treat.

Rosa and Gemma are there (Gemma and her husband Lucien own the shop. Rosa is their daughter and works there.) They are part of my extended neighborhood family.

They come outside and hang with Busy, while I drink my coffee, and she eats her treat.

Busy and I start towards the park, but it begins to drizzle, and Busy stops, quickly rerouting us back home.

At home, I dry her off, give her breakfast. She sniffs it and determines it’s beneath her standards. She walks out of “the restaurant” without touching her food or paying.

I sit on the couch and open my laptop.

I quickly write an email to Nicole, the librarian at The Center for Book Arts, requesting to look at 10 more books. I’ve begun research for two books I’m writing—both circling similar topics, so I feel like I’m getting away with something.

In my effort to begin this process as an organized person, I log the newly requested books into the research database I’m building in Notion.

I gather up the materials I’ll need for today: legal pad, my laptop, phone, phone charger, my commonplace notebook (which I’m trying to remember to bring with me everywhere) and place everything in my backpack.

I tell Busy I’m going and I’ll see her later.

See ya. Where’s my treat?

It’s 11:30am as I head to the subway. Today, I’m spending a few hours at the Center for Book Arts to research in the reference library.

On the subway, I do Monday’s New York Times Crossword puzzle and then start Tuesday’s, but I get stuck and am annoyed.

Off the subway, I walk up 6th avenue to 27th, head up the elevator and into the Center for Book Arts, which smells like freshly cut paper and a college library. I secure a seat at the round table, and then head to the reference stacks with my list of books.

I can find all but two of the books I need. I sit and study each one, taking notes and being diligent about keeping track of reference numbers. I seem to fall into some sort of book coma, because when I check the time it’s already 3:20pm. I need to be downtown at 4pm, so I wrap up. Return the books to the dedicated return shelf, and head back to the subway. I’m meeting my friend, the novelist Amy Fusselman, at our spot on 8th Street.

Getting off the train, I get a text from T, who's locked herself out and wants the spare key I keep for her. Before I can answer, a second text: NVM, found them.

I text Amy that I'll see her soon. She asks if I'm there yet. When I hit the street I see her and call her name, but my voice doesn't carry, so I try again, and again, and on the third try she turns.

We walk to our (top secret) spot together.

We both get hibiscus tea and I order a falafel salad. We catch up. We talk about the weekend, what we’re working on, reading, and I warn her that I’ll be taking her photo for this piece. She appreciates the advanced warning. I promise to make us both look nice (filters, baby). We talk about some of the plans for her novel Cloud Six which is coming out on September 22nd, (you can pre-order here.)

Time seems to be flinging itself away because suddenly it’s time to go. Outside we take the photo, head to the subway, stop briefly at Bigelow’s, where I buy nothing and feel very disciplined.

We say goodbye at the subway, and I hop on the C, and keep trying to crack the Tuesday crossword puzzle. I make a nice dent in it before my stop.

It’s drizzling, but I’m just a block from home. I check my mail. It’s all junk, so I return it to its box, and head upstairs. Busy is waiting by the door when I come in—she’s not usually waiting like this, and I worry that she’s been there all afternoon. She’s excited I’m home and flops over to present me with her belly. After a round of rubs, I put her in her harness and we head outside.

She’s excited and dancing, until we get outside and she realizes it’s raining, then her mood drops. I apologize.

After she does her business, we go back upstairs, and I feed her. It’s now 6:30. I pull out my laptop and start to transfer all my notes from the library into the database. At 7:30, I grab a rice cake and peanut butter and sit down to continue building a custom summer workshop for a student.

I go through a pile of books looking for exercises I can adapt. Nothing useful turns up. I remember a notebook from when I studied with Peter Levine — spend twenty minutes hunting for it, find it, read through it, tab the useful pages, take notes. Get excited.

It’s 8:45pm. I want nothing more than to watch that mediocre show I’m watching. I can’t remember the name but I know it’s based on a Harlan Coben book.

It’s the perfect end of day watching. But I don’t feel accomplished. I remember I need to read what my student sent me. I’ll read that in bed.

I didn’t write at all today. This is out of the ordinary for me, and it punctures all the rest of it: the research, the workshop prep, the books, the notes, none of it satisfies in the way writing does. Even on days I fill with things that are in service of writing, if no actual writing happened, the day feels like a deflated balloon.

Hujar, one of the defining black-and-white photographers of his era, chronicler of queer life in downtown Manhattan from Stonewall through the AIDS crisis that eventually killed him, put it more plainly than I have, in the original transcript, recounting his own day to Rosenkrantz fifty years ago:

I often have the feeling in my day that nothing much happens. I wasted another day.

I realize I haven’t eaten dinner. I open my refrigerator and eat some leftover pasta. It’s not very good. I clean the kitchen. Hop in the shower. Tidy my bedroom. Put new sheets on my bed.

At 9:20pm I sit down to log my day here, in my newsletter.

Now it’s 10pm. I will watch one episode of that terrible show, then go to bed and read my student’s work, before listening to a podcast to fall asleep. Hopefully, I’ll get enough sleep that I won’t miss my favorite part of the day—my morning walk with Busy and our dog park crew, drinking my coffee, and wondering whether tomorrow I’ll have time to write—the one thing that makes for worthwhile living.

Did you like this experiment?

How about you try it next?

Until next week, I will remain…