A Day in the Life of Pinterest

PHOTOGRAPH BY FIONA CRAWFORD WATSON
PHOTOGRAPH BY FIONA CRAWFORD WATSON

The sun shines through Pinterest’s upcycled stained-glass window, catching the mirrored elements on the mobile she crafted. Pinterest stirs beneath a quilt made of old T-shirts, a clever #lifehack that incorporates cherished memories of her past into the cozy comfort of her future. She looks at the ceiling. Breathe, it says. She does. Today feels like a gift. “I guess that’s why they call it the present,” she thinks to herself.

Getting out of her vintage cast-iron bed, Pinterest trips on a pile of antlers. Whoops! She must have been arranging wall clusters in her sleep again. She puts the antlers back where they belong—on the head of the live deer that hangs out by her window. Then she puts a flower crown on the deer and feeds it some homemade maca-and-almond energy balls before it scampers off. “Cherish each moment!” Pinterest yells after it, and slips her feet into some carbon-neutral rice-paper sandals she bought in Japan.

Pinterest’s day begins with a ritual thanking of the universe for its bounty and for how quickly you can turn cashews into a rich, creamy dressing. “Gratitude and humility,” she reminds her terrariums. The succulents look back at her knowingly. They get it. She peruses her Motivation Wall and picks out the day’s themes: power, strength, ombré accents. She throws a few darts at a photo of Gwyneth Paltrow. “There can only be one,” she whispers, slathering her face with a coconut-oil scrub. She gets the most out of her mascara by pouring some contact-lens solution into the old tube. Pinterest is thrifty.

All this skin care has made her hungry. “Hail, seitan,” she mutters, rummaging through jars of preserves. Suddenly she remembers—overnight oats! The taste of chia seeds, organic raspberry compote, and whole oats gives her energy. “Suck on that, Blake Lively,” she says. Pinterest’s tattoo (many small birds in the shape of a larger bird) peeks out of her sleeve as she does the dishes in a bucket she found on a shipwreck.

Thinking about Blake gets Pinterest all revved up. She tries to do some delicate felting, but ends up stabbing her needles into the wheel of her fixie. “Darn,” she says, immediately regretting the profanity. She takes down a few reams of burlap and makes a nest in the living room. Pinterest feels safe in the nest. Calm. She paints little garden scenes on each of her nails and does a few hours of glitter crafts. Did you know that you can turn regular pinecones into gold-covered pinecones with the simple addition of some gold?

Next she heads to her special place. Pinterest spends every day from 11 A.M. to 5 P.M. trying on _very _casual wedding dresses in a secret room, drunk on herb-infused cocktails. She sings Beyoncé lyrics while pasting pictures of herself holding various quirky props (moustaches!!!) into scrapbooks. She has thousands of scrapbooks. They are organized by the color of their spines, to pleasing effect. One day, she knows, she will have a wedding.

Back in her kitchen, she starts the evening’s work: repurposing things. She repurposes a chandelier into a centerpiece, an unwanted blanket into a whimsical teepee, a large can into a slightly smaller can. It feels good to recycle. “Come at me, Martha Stewart. I freaking dare you,” Pinterest thinks, as she paints the final chevron on what used to be a useless old ladder. Now it’s a cool ladder. She lights a few homemade beeswax tapers. She takes one to her fire pit and ritualistically burns many copies of_ House & Garden._ The light flickers across the metallic temporary tattoos she has applied to her collarbone as a fun, affordable twist on glitzy jewelry.

Hours later, there is nothing left to repurpose. Surrounded by things that have become Beautiful Things, Pinterest feels alone. Shyly, she opens the display case where she keeps her apothecary jars. She grabs an antique teacup and throws it on the ground. “OOOOOOOPRAH!!!!!” she yells, her eyes wild. She gathers the remains of the teacup into a tidy line and snorts it. There it is. She’s having one of her nights. She runs through the house, grabs a ceramic fox. She breaks it and greedily snorts it up. She rolls up the pages of a 1916 edition of "Alice in Wonderland” and smokes them. She feels more alive than the time she painted the vestibule an unexpectedly bright accent color. She keeps at it all night, smoking and snorting curios and tchotchkes, mainlining fair-trade coffee, and huffing washi tape. She passes out with one hand holding a lighter to a spoonful of coral she found on a trip to the Bahamas.

Pinterest sleeps fitfully on the exposed-brick ground, surrounded by broken glass and shadow boxes of taxidermied butterflies. Tomorrow she’ll wake up and feel regret. She’ll clean the house with apple-cider vinegar and start a cleanse. She’ll wonder how it all went so wrong. She’ll throw a few more darts than usual at Gwyneth. But, for now, she sleeps. In the dark, a neon sign glows: KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON.

This is an excerpt from Monica Heisey’s book, “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better,” which will be published in Canada on May 13th by Red Deer Press.