The Diary of Antoine Roquentin

Oh my God. Annie and I had the most incredible Valentine’s Day ever!

OK, let me start by saying that everything they say about driving a two-wheeled vechicle is SO TRUE. It is SO fun! On Friday I drove my Metro to work. I even took Fair Oaks, and it wasn’t tremendously scary. It was so incredible… at this one stoplight this guy on a motorcycle sort of pulled up next to me through the traffic and gave me like, a nod. I was like…oh my god! It’s so weird… it’s like we’re members of this weird subculture that the whole world ignores. I don’t know. All I know is that I’m completely hooked.

My coworkers loved the scooter and thought it was ridiculously cute. After work, I drove around downtown rather aimlessly until Annie called me. We had been texting earlier in the day about me going over and fixing her computer, so we met at the downtown mall and had Jamba Juice. She loved my scooter too. I accompanied her to her bus stop and we talked for an hour or so about our crazy exes :). Eventually, I went ahead to her apartment in West Sacramento and she caught up on the bus. I tried to hackz0r her computer that had been locked out by some odd malware, but it was beyond my powers to fix (without any software at my disposal).

We got ready to go out, and I walked her to the bus stop. After her bus came, I met her on my scooter at Old Ironsides, a bar downtown where there was supposed to be an open mic night. We were talking on the phone when I parked in front of Old Ironsides. Annie said that she was right there, but she couldn’t see me. I kept walking closer, and she still couldn’t see me, so I ran right at her and screamed and freaked her out! It was SO funny though, we couldn’t stop laughing. Unfortunately, because it was Valentine’s Day, it was “couples crooning” night at Old Ironsides. Lame.

So, plan B was to hit up Club 21. We did this thing of me waiting with her at the bus stop, and then following her bus on my scooter, as (1) I didn’t have another helmet, and (2) the owner’s manual says you’re not supposed to carry more than 270 pounds (two people, specifically)…and I think we would have been a bit over. Waiting for the 30 on J Street, we ended up running into this extremely cute coworker of Annie’s who absolutely loved my scooter too. We were talking about wanting vintage Vespas but not being able to afford it. After he left, Annie and I kept talking about our crazy exes…and oddly enough, her girlfriend in Spain had a lot in common with Adrian. Well, the common thread was that they both didn’t want to work…ever.

By the time we got to 21st Street, we were starving so we hit up Hot Rod’s…which, despite being a sort of cool place, I generally avoid due to all of the very high-level fags that frequent the place. You all know who I’m talking about…the recreational meth-using group-sex-having Midtown crowd. That is one crowd I hope to never fall into. But I was with Annie, so we made the place cool. We had sandwiches and fried mushrooms, and talked at length about everything… mainly about relationships and friendships, the kind of people were attracted to, etc. During our stay there, Christen called and said that she was sick. We were Hello looking forward to her coming, but we agreed that she should get better and that we should have a movie night the next day. We were disappointed that she couldn’t come, but also at rather complicated things because Annie didn’t bring her bike and she was sort of counting on Christen to give her a ride home.

After a while we walked over to the club. When I parked, we had stowed our coats, sweaters, jackets, etc. in my scooter so we were very cold! I was in a white t-shirt, my scarf, tight black pants, and my retro Nikes. I’m sure I looked ridiculous, but I didn’t care. We went into the club and scoped out the dance floor. There was a twenty-something Asian guy with bad skin gyrating like it was going out of style, and the usual Club 21 riffraff…the Ghetto Fags, the Skater Lesbians, the Abercrombie bois… but the place was really empty for it being ten though. Lately I am of the opinion that people that go to clubs to find people have sex with are too ugly to find sex partners through normal channels (friends, the Internet, etc.). Or maybe I just really notice people with bad skin…it was hella an Edward James Olmos night. Anyway, me and Annie danced for a while, having so much fun! They were actually playing relatively good music… some Gwen Stefani and, of course, that retarded “gasolina” song. I just kept praying they wouldn’t play the 45 minute long mix of “Don’t ‘Cha.”

We had great fun between dancing and retiring to the bar area (and outside, when we were too hot) to talk. I showed Annie pictures of Taggart, Scott, and me with long hair on my smartphone while we talked. Patrick called me when we were outside and I gave him the short version of the night’s events. We ended up buying dollar water (Annie thought this was outrageous, but I remember paying five dollars for water in some other venue) and talking until about midnight. The music wasn’t really that great, so we just decided to leave because I had class the next day.

So. Annie really had no way to get home save for walking (a LONG ways), and I had been joking about her riding on the back of my scooter of all night, so we just decided to bite the bullet and see if it would work. We both climbed on, and even though we both thought that it would end up looking incredibly Charley Chaplinesque, we were able to manage it. It took a lot more time to stop, and when stopped we were a bit unsteady, but it worked. So, we were driving along West Capitol and we came to a stoplight. On the scooter, stoplights are really weird. Some of them will detect you instantly and turn the light, others won’t detect you at all and you just have to run them. So I waited a good 10 minutes and the thing wasn’t changing even though there were no other cars. Right when I was going to just turn right on the red and loop through a parking lot, a cop stopped at the light across from us. I was freaked out, because Annie didn’t have a helmet (hella illegal!). She was all hiding behind me, and a cop went through the intersection without a hitch. I turn right, and was going to a different way to her house then I normally go, when I realized there was a car following us.

Yes. It was the cop. I could tell because beside the beam of the headlight there was that odd grille that I think they use to pop people’s tires or something. I turned on Annie’s street and right then the spotlight came on and he pulled us over. I was FREAKING OUT. After buying the scooter, I have NO money. At all. I am praying that I don’t get an overdraft before I get paid next Friday. So yeah, the writing of the ticket, the shame is all flashing through my head. I get off, turn off the scooter, and he starts asking questions. “What does she have that you don’t have?” he says. We were literally across the street from Annie’s house, so we gave him our sob story about being stranded downtown and guess what? He actually let us go! I was SO relieved.

We went into Annie’s house and had tea and watched the beginning of this great movie from the thirties, and then we said our goodbyes: *hug* “Best Valentine’s day EVER!” and I was off into the night.

I couldn’t wait to ride down Fair Oaks at night. I don’t know what it is about that street. I fucking love that street! There are trees down the middle of it and it just seems really cool. I can’t explain. Anyway, as I was driving down J Street toward Carmichael, at around 40th, this car comes up next to me. All of its windows are down and these guys are screaming out the window at me: “MY FRIEND WANTS TO KNOW HOW HAIRY YOUR COCK IS!” they yell. Laughing, I flip up my visor and yell back “Medium!” They screamed at me more, imploring me to go to their house and do a whole bunch of drugs, but I just laughed and put my visor back down. I thought they might edge into my lane or something (I ran a red light to gain a lead on them), but they didn’t do anything bad, and they turned off at CSUS. As soon as I got home, I called Annie to let her know that I had gotten home all right (and the story about the guys in the car) and then fell right asleep.

So that was my Valentine’s Day. Incredible, isn’t it?