The most notable thing about today is that I don’t have the Internet.
Actually, the most notable thing is that I got up at around 8 a.m. today. However, with all the complications of the universe I didn’t end up getting to work until nearly noon. I tried to go to the Rite Aid around the corner to get cash so I could take the bus, but they don’t give out cash in the mornings for some odd reason. I decided to go back home and see if I could scrape together two dollars, but instead I got distracted and worked on my car. I refilled the coolant, refilled the oil, and started the thing. It seemed to work perfectly, until I got to around CSU Sacramento, and I heard the trademark grinding sound that it makes when it decides to stop working.
Long story short, it stalled out and wouldn’t start at around J and 43rd St. I had to walk 15 blocks to my job. Work was okay…we went and got lunch and talked about becoming expatriates. I worked more on the list of every world holiday. Just call me Sisyphus. Getting back home was nothing short of a miracle. My car would stall out and refuse to do anything… it’s a miracle I didn’t get killed but the traffic wasn’t bad at all. I glided most of the way with the car stalled out.
However, I did have a cool soundtrack to listen to the whole day. I know I said this a million times, but I need to never drive that car again. In this house across from my work, someone was starting up a Vespa and I just couldn’t help but stare… I want one so bad! Well, not really…I just want reliable transportation so I won’t have to leave work a half-hour before five because I don’t want to be on public transit after dark.
I just started listening to Bloodsport by Sneaker Pimps… it’s what I’ve been needing to listen to all day but didn’t know it. I’ve been downloading I AM X, the band that the singer from Bloodsport did after they broke up. Actually, I don’t know what happened to Sneaker Pimps… I don’t have Wikipedia to help me. I always thought it was thought it tawdry when Adrian would say “love is just a bloodsport.” It seemed like it was a line he’d used many times before… possibly on boys who didn’t listen to Sneaker Pimps. I’m only talking about him because I miss him.
He’s out with Mario, an ex of a sort whom I had always thought Adrian despised. Yet they’ve been hanging out twice this week. In an odd coincidence, Devin’s girlfriend Colleen saw them together downtown and I heard about it through the Internet grapevine. It really made me laugh, Devin was all “So…you and Adrian still together?” I miss hanging out with Colleen… that one night that we played that game where you had to do charades… I think it was called catchphrase… that was really fun.
There’s this Stargate episode where they try to explain to Teyla what a “hail Mary” play is, and she doesn’t get it, and then later in the episode they fight off like twenty bloodthirsty Wraith and make it out of a hive ship unscathed, and he’s all “that was a Hail Mary.” I was so thinking about that the whole time I was driving my barely functional car home… and I was expecting to go online and talk with all my Internet friends, but Grammie wasn’t home–her room was locked with the nonfunctional access point inside. She locks it when she leaves because her son John (aww, the computer spelled it as Jon, whom I miss terribly for some odd reason) will come into the house with all of his weird drunken friends. I just felt the impulse to link to a Wikipedia article about my life, but I haven’t made my personal wiki yet. I uploaded the software, but it requires PHP 5.0 and my hosting company says that since PHP 5.0 is bleeding edge, it won’t be running on their main servers for probably another year.
It’s going to be incredibly cool. Everyone that knows me can write an article about themselves… it’ll be like an encyclopedia on my life. I don’t know why am so excited about that… except for the obvious ego masturbation, but I think it will be cool.
I wonder if I should call Matthew… I called Adrian today and we had a good talk… I never have anyone to talk to and it seems like Adrian always has people calling him. I feel like someday he will evade my calls just like he evaded other people’s.
I’m listening to Kevin’s favorite Sneaker Pimps song “Loretta Young Silks.” I wonder what he’s up to. I watched an episode of Sliders tonight that I had seen premiere in like 1992 and it made me feel old and predictable. I don’t know whether I should be celebrating my old tastes or trying to find new ones. I generally regard “reinventing oneself” as a pointless endeavor… but something’s got to change. I think I won’t feel so trapped once I have my bike. I can totally outrun unruly muggers on my bike.
That reminds me. I’m now a racist. Every street I look down, my brain automatically scans the place for black people under twent-five that look poor. If there are any, I go down a different street. Maybe it’s because I was sheltered white kid from Northern California, but I guess I was living in this imaginary world where everyone respected each other and nobody was poor and desperate. Today as I walked down J Street I was mentally evaluating what potential nonlethal weapons I could keep in my backpack. I’m thinking pepper spray and a crowbar. As coping mechanism, I’m picturing beating up that fat Hispanic girl that laughed after the first kid punched me. I never did write about that incident. I think I’m waiting until I’m far enough away from it that it doesn’t bother me to think about it. I had to wait a week or so after my car crash to write about it so I could have some kind of perspective.
It doesn’t help that I work in sort of a bad neighborhood. I mean, if it’s sunny and in the morning, the place looks OK… but I would not want to be there at night. That’s why I leave early every day. 4:30 rolls around, I make tracks to J Street before it gets dark. I still haven’t taken the public transit route from my grandma’s house. My Magic 8 Ball said this morning that the Marconi/Arcade light rail stop was shady and that I shouldn’t go. I think that the dial is stuck on “yes,” though.
I want to read something. However, I think I lost the copy of The Rules of Attraction that Kelly lent me. I haven’t actually looked for it, but it’s not where I left it and I haven’t been here for a month, so…
I’m going to be 21 soon. Like, in about 12 days. Am I going to go to clubs? It is so not my thing. I won’t really be able to drink… I don’t think my grandma would take kindly to a bottle of Jägermeister showing up in the freezer.
My mom says that I should paint again… I really want to but I have so many paintings already it feels like I’m suffocating in the emotions that surround me on the walls. I haven’t actually hung any paintings in my room here, they’re propped up on furniture…but they don’t exactly go with the old lady decor here. I do need to paint. I wonder where the closest craft supply store is. I need an easel and a blank canvas. I just pictured myself riding my bike with a canvas on my back :)
Until then all I can do is listen to the Blade Runner soundtrack and change all my WHOIS entries to characters in my favorite novels.
I think I’m going to watch some more downloaded TV… or maybe some porn. Porn is oddly comforting… it’s people in a vacuum being happy and thinking about nothing but pleasure. They seem so happy. Maybe I should watch a movie. I own close to 30 DVDs, most of which I’ve never watched. I only want to watch them when I don’t own them. God, I’m Milo. I think that to myself often nowadays. I know! I’ll watch Amelie!
Audrey Tatou’s inexorable cuteness is enough to make me giggly even on a night with no Internet.
Categories: Ennui
