Monthly Archives: March 2006

Exhaustion, eBay, hookups, Cinema, terrible movies, Kelly’s music, and Thomas. 0

I’m still very exhausted from my trip. In fact, so exhausted that I had to blast Queens of the Stone Age in order to get anything done. I got my clothes in the washing machine, dragged out the sewing machine and hemmed my favorite suit, and emptied my suitcase. Now my back hurts and I’m exhausted. The good news is it’s been 8 days since I filed my unpaid item thing on eBay and they are finally refunding my final value fee. It’s only like 20 bucks, but it really irked me that I absolutely had to pay it before they would refund it. I’m not too bummed though, as I just relisted my system. Next week like now I’ll be much richer. I’m really tired and my back is killing me from sitting for all those hours in the car. I think I’m going to take a nap.

Me and Thomas are supposed to hang out today, but I doubt that’s going to materialize. I’m going to keep my cell phone by my bed. If he calls me, then I’ll force him to watch Metropolis. If not, I will get a good night’s sleep.

I’ve been meaning to write about what happened in cinema yesterday, but the movie that we saw was just so damn terrible I don’t think I can even think about that film without wanting to strangle my teacher. He is such an American. It makes me sick. One of those “I don’t like subtitles” people. For one, the movie that we watched wasn’t even old. It was made in 2004. So much for cinema history. Anyway, the cool part about the class was that me and Sara just kept cracking jokes the whole night long. It seemed like a mildly retarded 12-year-old had written the plot. But anyway, we cracked each other up ridiculing the infantile dialogue, cheesy plot, undeveloped characters, and pointless chase sequences. Towards the end of the “class,” she suggested that I come over and we could watch actual good movies, so I’m going over there on Saturday and we’re watching Metropolis!

I can’t wait!

In more melancholy news, I haven’t synced up my iPod with my music library since I’ve been back. Now and through my whole trip, it was linked to her music library and has all her songs on it. I just can’t seem to erase it and put my music on it again. I guess I feel like once I do that, the trip will really be over and I will have to go through months of coolness deprivation.

:(

Anyway, I’d better stop writing or I will have absolutely no time to nap before Thomas calls (if he does). I hope that weeklong vacation from masturbation will make me more susceptible to his nouveau riche “charm.” Speak of the devil, he just signed on.

The boy I know… 0

> Ladytron – Discotraxx

I’m in a wonderfully playful mood today.

I feel like I have a secret lover.

And I guess in a way I do.

*dances to Ladytron and sorts clothes*

Notes on innovation. 0

I’m reading these two articles about the ubiquity of “ugly” designs on popular web sites (think Craigslist), and I stumbled upon this amusing quote.

I’m reminded of that supposed quote of Henry Ford when apparently he said that if he asked people what they wanted he would have designed faster horses, instead of a car.

I just flashed back how it took only about 10 minutes in the Apple store before Chrisen was talking about definitely getting a Mac instead of a PC.

I wish I could take the pain for you 0

> Depeche Mode – Precious

I can’t believe I have class in an hour. Nothing seems real anymore. I know I need to cook up some fun outfit for Cinema (not to mention do my homework), but I’m in this really weird mood. It’s not depression…maybe a mix of nostalgia and fatalism.

I’m realizing that one of my life goals was to be with Jon again, and know that that is over, my only dream left is to have a fun job where I get to use the Adobe Creative Suite and an apartment filled with ridiculously expensive computers.

I find that very anticlimactic. I guess I just have to reconcile myself with the fact that there is no master plan and whatever I do is meaningless. I want friends I can identify with, technology and knowledge. That should be enough for me.

The main reason I’m not into cooking up an outfit is because I’m really exhausted from staying up so late with Jon. And all my clothes mysteriously smell like cigarette smoke. I guess I don’t smell the smoke when I’m in Kelly’s house. It’s not nauseating, but I am no longer able to distinguish the clean and dirty clothes but smell alone. That stack of clothes exhausts me just looking at it. I think I’m going to take a nap until my mom calls me or my alarm goes off.

I miss everyone.

Too tired to elaborate.

Egmont sex. 0

> Beethoven – Overture to Egmont

Beethoven just came on party shuffle on iTunes. I’m picturing my latest sexcapade during the crescendo. It’s strangely fitting. God that was hot. I hate when you have really great sex because then you’re all “aww…I won’t have this for a long time.” Or at least I say that…

I’m hungry but too lazy to get up. And just so you guys know, I’m probably going to blog obsessively this whole week because I haven’t gotten to in so long. I’d better peel myself away from this screen and make myself a damn sandwich. I hesitate to think what’s gurgling around in my stomach after not eating for like two days. Hydrochoric acid is so not cool.

Oh how convenient, my dad made dinner. Time to restart this machine.

Things get damaged, things get broken… 1

> Depeche Mode – Precious
> Depeche Mode – Suffer Well
> Depeche Mode – John the Revelator
> Massive Attack – Heat Miser
> Queens of the Stone Age – Song for the Dead
> Nine Inch Nails – Love is Not Enough

*ding*
Your mailbox has 60 new messages.

God how I love coming back after trips.

I have hundreds of blog posts to catch up on, and two Netflix movies. I have a feeling I’m not going to get much sleep tonight. But then again, that wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary considering my week of sleeping in with impunity.

It took me for ever to get home. The trip went swimmingly, until I learned from a traffic billboard in Eureka that the bridge across the Klamath River was closed 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. for repairs, so at 11:45 I had to call Jon and ask if I could stay at his house in Arcata for the night.

This episode is going to be a journey through fields of emotional and sexual desolation that I had long since thought banished, but here goes. If you haven’t heard my amusing rendition of my coming-out story to my dad, it involves Jon. He lived down street from me and we both came out at about the same time (sophomore year, I believe). We had the same bus stop, so we would often hang around there and talk after school. One day he invited me over to his house and we ended up fooling around. It was one of my first sexual experiences, so of course I thought that I loved him. That same week, his mother found out that he was gay and kicked him out to live with his father in Arcata. We would talk on the Internet about how lonely we were. The whole ” if only someone would hold me and tell me everything will be all right” thing.

Through the years we had made plans to see each other, and they would always fall through, but I never forgot what we had shared on those lonely nights in high school. And now here I was, years into the future, pulling into his driveway. He showed me around his house, a leaky but charming mobile home with a tarp over the roof. It was filled with DVDs and high-definition TVs. I slipped off my shoes and got comfortable on the loveseat, watching him talk on the sofa. He’s one of those people where you can never get a word edgewise, but he never bothers me because when I hear him I know he’s taciturn. His endless conversation is cute, but still a façade. I smiled at him as we talked about Stargate SG-1 and all those other shows on the Sci-fi Channel. For years he was obsessed with the Buffy series and that was such a turnoff but now that he’s into sci-fi my usual secret vault of vitriol was mysteriously empty. I stared at him with almost a look of wonderment as he kept finding more and more subjects to talk about. It was like witnessing an incredibly complex football play.

I obseved his mask. Could he still love me? Even a little? After all these years? At around 1:30, he announced that he was off to bed. My estimation of the next 12 hours flashed through my mind: sleep on the couch fighting off his cats, and a humdrum 6 a.m. drive back to Crescent City.

“You can sleep in my room or out here, but it gets cold on the couch because I have turn off the heat.”

15 minutes later, we were in bed together. I really didn’t know what to expect. Jon is a difficult person to read. His endless banter serves as an almost impenetrable smokescreen for his true intentions and wishes. Half of me wanted to cuddle up to him, but the other half was embarrassed because I was a guest and it would be presumptuous to assume that he wanted to cuddle. He talked on and on until about 4 a.m., often giving detailed descriptions of his sexual encounters. Obviously, that wasn’t exactly helping me get to sleep. He started to slow down in the banter.

Of all people, the voice of Molly popped into my head. I realized that all these burning questions in my mind would never be answered unless I point-blank asked him. It’s impossible to direct a Jon conversation in any sort of way — you can only get in the occasional “yeah.” So I just did it.

“Do you think that back in high school we ever — you know — had anything?” He paused.

“Well, we were both really young back then…I mean, I had no idea what love was– I was going out with that guy from the Internet. No… I don’t think we had anything.”

One question down, one to go.

He talked a bit more about this guy that he went out with and more of his sexcapades. At one point he talked about how he just didn’t pick up on sexual offers based on innuendo.

“So do you want to have sex?” I replied.

He was silent for a moment or two, and then gave this vague “yes… but no” answer. At the next apropos moment, I asked him if he wanted to cuddle. He said yes, and as soon as I felt him near me it felt like all those years of subconsiously needing him were lifted off of me because I had experienced what it would be like to be with him. I felt so at peace, and for once I didn’t wish that it would last forever. I would hold him for a while, and then later I would be back in Crescent City… and I was okay with that. That need which had formed deep in my 17-year-old psyche was now satisfied. As he talked, ideas would blossom in my mind (his emotional metamorphosis [Kafka], the person he used to be and wants to be ["The Becoming" by NIN], etc.). He’d never heard of Kafka. He doesn’t listen to Nine Inch Nails. I knew I could never love him, but I could finally be at peace with it. There was only one thing left.

“Can I ask you a question?”
“You just did.”
*smile*
“Can I kiss you?”
“Well, kissing would lead to rubbing which would lead to sex.”
“It’s not about sex… To say that I don’t want to have sex with you would be a lie, but just being with you is enough.”
“Don’t you get my sarcasm?”
“Sarcasm?”
his head was turned away from me, I nudged his shoulder.
“Come here.”

The kiss itself wasn’t particularly amazing, but the symbolic nature of it blew me away. Years I had waited for this moment. Smashed was my “what would have happened if me and Jon had fallen in love” fantasy that had been simmering in the back of my mind for years. I moved away from his lips, inspecting his face. What drew me to him? Was it that first bit of unbridled high school passion that we all mistook for love? I wanted him to open his eyes and tell me something that would explain it all. I slowly caressed his face. The moment was gone though. I leaned down and kissed him again.

His body looked different then I remembered it, but the same in all the ways that mattered. In that moment I was more in love and in lust with him than anyone I’ve ever known. Soon, he came. It was the 21st century equivalent of Cinderella’s clock striking twelve. I felt no guilt or remorse. I loved him…in that sublimated, unconditional way that you can only love those you’ve known since childhood. And finally, in the warm silence, I did want him to hold me forever. It was an ancient and childish notion though. I now knew that dreams like that were gone. I snuggled close to him one last time, then turned over to fall asleep.

We slept through his alarm. His room was filled with piercing spears of sunlight. I stumbled through the brightness, fishing my iPod out of my shoe to check the time. 9:05.

It was over. Just like I had known last night. And I felt nothing a great lightness. He had slept through his class, and escorted me to the door. We hugged, and I knew that it would be the last time I would feel him, but it still didn’t bother me.

His taste was still in my mouth. I chugged a quart of Silk that I’d picked up at the Safeway in Willits, and set my mind to driving. I looked at my trip odometer. It would read over four hundred miles by the time I was back in Crescent City. With the trip to San Francisco we took, that was around 1000 miles of driving. What did it all mean? Would I ever find anyone to love? But that voice was but a whisper behind my smile. As I pulled onto the freeway, this feeling of certainty and clarity washed over me. Kelly would always be a good person. Jon would always be his talkative façade. There would always be people that loved me, even if it wasn’t in the exact way I needed. The realization was cliché, but on such a beautiful morning I didn’t care. We’re all searching for something. This morning I didn’t care what it was, I just liked being along for the ride.

It was a beautiful morning. I turned on the Depeche Mode, locked in the cruise control, and finally recognized that feeling I’d been having all night. It was pure, crystal happiness. I had known it all along.

Leaving. 0

Yeah, I know, I’m going to get there at like 1:30 a.m. Oh well. Off to Crescent Shitty.

I miss Kelly!

Parting is such sorrow. 0

It’s not sweet.

I have to drive home today :(

8 hours of hell.

8 hours of not being with Kelly and the gang.

Come Monday, I’m going to hate my life.

Well, until I get back into the groove of my mediocrity.

After this semester, I’m leaving Crescent City. And I’m never coming back.

San Francisco. 0

Saturday we went to see this movie The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things in San Fran. Chris wanted to see it, so we went. It was SO fun!!! I haven’t been in San Francisco for days!! And we went to the Castro Theatre so I got to recharge my gay! More pics are on my flickr page (click the photo college to the right)

Mmm…hours of traffic. Endless overpasses and feeder roads. Cities always remind me of J.G. Ballard more than anything.


Becky!


Showing the love.


Picking the tunes.


Are we in the right lane?


Urban ennui.


Turnstyle blues.


Are we there yet?


Lost?


That’s when I know I’m home.


Ditto.


The Bay Bridge, from the top of the Pier 39 parking garage.


SF.


Could this be my home someday?


At last, at the beautiful Castro Theatre.


We were the first ones there.

Party on Friday! 0

It was incredibly fun.

Jagermeister.

Vodka.

Nakedness.


The gang.


Chris demonstrates his love of vodka.


Me making out with…umm…somebody.


Becky’s on the floor.


The aftermath, courtesy of Kelly’s red feather boa.

(naked pics were excluded :)