the diary of antoine roquentin

Just uploaded all my pics.

I am SOOOO tired.

We would go to sleep at like 2 a.m. and get up at like 10. So yeah.

It’s coma time.

My class starts Monday! :)

After I got back I went to Katie’s birthday party. We were eating crab and Brian and I were arguing that it was evil. “Crab are the kind of thing you burn on sight and hope to god they never come back to your planet!” –Me

Brian thought that was the funniest thing ever.

Oh, and to clarify, the song I selected to be my San Francisco anthem was “Leif Erickson” by Interpol.

Yes, it is maudlin, but the way I look at that song is sort of how Patrick and I were/are (he hasn’t returned my calls this week), really good friends that are also enamored with each other, and feel enough of a bond to bring up their loneliness and try to find a way through it.

Actually, that has nothing to do with me and Alex. I just like that song. It’s my generalized “I love all the people I’ve ever loved” song. Nostalgia.

Okay, I need to go to sleep. I can barely stay awake.

Categories: Ennui

So. Um. It’s tomorrow. Today.

Something like that.

I hate my linear existence. So last night, Alex and I had “the talk.” Well, he initiated it.

We had gone out with some of his friends to this Moroccan restaurant (like the wet dream of what the Kasbah wants to be) and smoked from a hookah and watched the belly dancers.

His friends had driven us home, me riding in the center with one of his friends who was horribly drunk and playing with my hair sitting on my lap, since there wasn’t really room for all of us.

Okay, I’m deflecting.

So we’re lying in bed about to fall asleep after that really fun day, and he says “Okay, we have to talk.”

Basically, it’s one of those “it’s not you, it’s me” things.

He says that he doesn’t want to date me because he’s not willing to commit to me enough to like drive to Sacramento, and that after he breaks up with someone (his ex Ben that he got the “[island]” tattoo about) he has to go through a few guys and he doesn’t want me to be one of them.

Which is sort of a contradiction in terms, since he has sort of gone through me. He says he wants to be friends though, which I’m not sure if that’s a copout. We both say we never talk to our exes. So are we exes? I guess. In some way.

I need to buy my Amtrak ticket and try to get out of this day with some dignity intact.

I guess this is the best way that it could have worked out. I don’t feel as like, horribly needy…that “I just want to hold you or I’m going to die!” feeling. I dunno, I guess I didn’t really get used to it so this world is just like a dream.

Sacramento is a dream.

And when I’m back there, this will just be a wisp of a memory. Lying in the warm sand on Ocean Beach watching a cute dog dig a hole off in the distance. A coy glance on the MUNI.

Meh, existence. That’s all I can say.

I experience things, I don’t understand them, and life goes on. I guess. We’re listening to Hole, which has put me in a sort of “fuck the world, I’m punk rock” mood, which I secretly endeavor to be in all the time.

I won’t really know how I feel until I get on the Amtrak, put on my headphones, and select what song fits my mood.

I am pretty sure it’ll be Dresden Dolls. But it just might be Bjork. Actually, I will have no clue until I’m alone.

Categories: Ennui

This is the first post I’ve ever written from an Amtrak train. I just left Sacramento. The scenery is intensely beautiful and it’s a sunny day.

I’m reading Stranger in a Strange Land. It’s supposed to be really famous, but I’m not quite into it yet. Probably ’cause I’m only on page 30. The train is going right next to the freeway, it’s awesome.

I was such a train buff as a kid…I had hella model trains, and this is my first real train ride. I’m excited! I’m going to put my phone in airplane Mode until I get close to the city…all the constant tower changing is a big battery drain.

Categories: Ennui

Isn’t that cute! I made another one, but it’s horribly politically incorrect. Well, socially. Never mind.

Today was kinda cool, I registered for my summer session class. Okay, it’s yoga. I know, gay gay gay, but it fulfills my physical education requirement. It’s like every day of the week except for Friday, which will help to alleviate my boredom. Today was the quintessential “oh God I don’t work enough and I’m not going to school…I’m freaking out!” day. But I registered and classes start on Monday, so I’m cool.

Let’s see…I was hungry and went to Safeway and got food. And then I bought my first album from the iTunes Music Store, Black Cherry by Goldfrapp. I already had the album, but I wanted to support EMI’s decision to release high-quality tracks to the iTMS that don’t have DRM. I don’t buy anything that has DRM. Man, if Interpol was DRM-free I would have bought everything. But yeah, that’s probably a good thing. Hopefully the other record companies will see that DRM does nothing to stop piracy (99% of music was sold with no DRM for years and the world didn’t explode…remember CDs?). Anyway, that’s my soap box.

Talked with Drew for a while, about video games and our favorite sushi places. I haven’t heard from Alex today. Oh, Drew and I had the “I was interested in you but was trying to take it slow” conversation last week. I probably would be seriously considering dating him if it wasn’t for Alex. I mean, I don’t want to put Drew down, but Alex just excites me in some way that I can’t quite explain.

Oh, on that front, I’m not going to be able to go to San Francisco to see Alex this weekend. A) I have no money, B) it’s the weekend of the zombie walk. A, of course, was the deciding factor, but still.

I applied at the Apple Store a few days ago, I wonder if they’ll call me. It would be wonderful not to be broke.

Categories: Ennui

I had such a fun night tonight!

I spent all afternoon reading Mona Lisa Overdrive, the last book in the Sprawl trilogy, and it was fucking incredible.

Incredible.

I was riveted to the pages on the last few chapters…and people kept calling…I couldn’t even think to turn off my phone. I was there.

Anyway, Steve called me and invited me to Laura (they pronounce it lala, since most people can’t say the Italian inflected version of Laura)’s birthday party. She’s one of the Italian exchange students that have been living with them.

I came over, we had pizza and talked about the X-files and the minor celebrities that me and this cool girl that lives there had known. We all went down to Faces, which was deader than dead, but we had the whole dance floor to ourselves, so it was like a private party. I hung out with Valerie in the unisex bathrooms to get her over the wierdness of it, then the two of us went up to the balcony and talked about her thing with Brent for a while, and my thing with Alex. She (along with everyone else I showed his pic to) was blown away by how hawt he is.

We went downstairs and joined Annie. She was wearing the cute hat that we’d gotten in Old Sac, and looked very trim and stylish. Alex called me, and while I was upstairs talking to him, Annie came up. I snuck up on her and scared her. Alex had to go to bed, so we hung up. Of course, it was Scott Scott Scott Scott Scott Scott Scott Scott Scott Scott. And then Scott Scott Scott Scott and Scott Scott and more Scott.

Scott.

About how she “manipulated me” to get me to tell her that he was at the HorseCow barbecue. Listened to her tell a completely different story than Josh about what happened that night. Weighing the pros and cons of jumping headfirst from the balcony.

If only I could be 100% sure I’d lose all memory of this conversation, I’d jump.

I think she was trying to incite an argument, but I’m not the arguing type. When I argue, I just get angry and say things I don’t mean. I know this, that’s why I don’t go there. I need to have conversations about important topics not in the way Annie does. She’s so earnest…with all the self-propaganda. I just don’t know what to believe any more.

I really don’t care about Scott as a person.

The thing that bothers me is that the feeling I get is: Scott is the only person that matters to me, and I will lie, cheat, and manipulate my friends to be close to him.

I often say that I don’t like drama, but in this instance, I feel like we need to have a talk. As I was driving home tonight, one phrase was stuck in my head.

Sound and fury.

Sound and fury.

I’m not sure what to do. I guess I’ll mull it over some more. I feel like if I say that I don’t think Scott likes her that she’s just going to stop talking to me. I feel like if I say that what she’s done is wrong, she’ll turn on the insults. I hate being with people who take notes of things you hold dear to make fun of you about them later.

The one thing I remember is I was talking to her about how Patrick and I had had rather intimate iChat A/V sessions, when we were dating. She pretended to be interested, but I could see the gleam in her eye. I thought to myself: she’s going to make fun of me for this.

I don’t remember how long it took, but I was right. There she was, denouncing me as sick. Slicing deep.

I held my tongue. I hold it too much. But if I would have said what I was thinking, I probably wouldn’t have talked to her again.

But yes, back to the party, Laura really liked the place, but she got bored of the people singing karaoke, so we went to Badlands (Valerie had gone to a birthday party for another friend, and joined us at Badlands). I mostly sat at the bar nursing a RedBull and mulled over the Annie thing with Steve. I also talked with Megan a lot about how technology impacts our lives (a central theme in the novel I’d just finished that day).

Pulsating LEDs on a big mixing stack downstairs.

When we left, the two Italian girls were IN LOVE with my Vespa. I was so excited!

I get to see Alex tomorrow! I saw a few guys that were cute at the club…but I just glanced over them as they walked by with this kind of “you have no idea the boy I’m dating…he is a hundred times more amazing than you could ever hope to be” contempt.

Alex was talking about how possessive and jealous he is, and I am EXACTLY the same way.

Mine means mine.

And with him, I feel like I have the Hope diamond or something like that, and every bitch in the world is going to want him. Okay, I have to go to sleep. It’s three.

I just want to kiss him so badly. Being in love is so weird. You know what’s even weirder? I’m listening to “Walkin’ on the Sun.” I’m in a 90s one-hit-wonder mood this week. Well that and I’ve been listening to “Leif Erickson,” the amazing Interpol song endlessly too. And, of course, the remix of “Isobel.”

Okay, I’m forcing myself to sleep.

Categories: Ennui