the diary of antoine roquentin

Today was fun… it was a warm, sunny day. I drove to work, dealt with the stress that is press day, and left at 4:30.

I’ve been neglecting my exercise… I’m such a Scorpio and I view fat as something that has to be conquered. That day I jogged 2 miles was the death knell of my impetus to exercise. So I decided to walk after work every day.

I used to do that back when it was warm last year and I fell out of the habit during the winter. I’ve also been doing other stuff, but walking is a good first step.

After work I walked from True Love down to the Downtown Plaza and back, which is about 40 blocks.

Just as I was getting off work, I got a call from Andrew saying that he had crashed his bike and had these huge wounds. I only ran into two people on my walk… one was one of Adrian’s exes that thankfully didn’t recognize me, and as I came up to 20th, I spied with my little eye something that starts with A.

Smiling, he took off his shirt and showed me the huge bloody road rashes and he had a big bandage on his head…I smiled and gave him a hug (made awkward ’cause of the wounds). Drove home, I went to play DDR tonight but the place was closed for a public event.

Must find a better place to play…but the only other machine that’s close is in Rosemont…which a) is a shitty area and b) is 10 miles away, round trip. Hmm…there’s one at Scandia, but it closes at 10 p.m. Lame.

I’ve been reading Reddit all night… more doomsaying about our economy, lambasting our insane leaders… the dangers of carbon nanotubes… a really funny scanned-in version of Iggy Pop’s “rider list,” his list of things necessary for shows…endless laughs. He requires a Bob Hope impersonator and a copy of USA today with an article about morbidly obese people :P I <3 Iggy.

I read this great blog post where this girl totally said everything I feel about Boondock Saints:

Boondock Saints: Hey do you like Quentin Tarantino movies but wish he did more? You do, well you should watch this movie, it’s not as good as his films, nor as clever, nor as well shot, but you’ll feel like you’re watching a Traantino movie, sorta…kinda…ish.

Here’s the thing, when I first saw this movie, a friend was telling me for the longest time “Oh man, this movie kicks ass, have to see this movie, you’re a movie guy, you’ll love this.” Here’s a note for anyone out there, if you ever here “You’ll love this.” Or “Kick ass” be wary, because the movie will at most be okay. And this movie is, it’s okay. It’s a lot of swaggering around and cursing, dick talk, violence and sex. But no real plot, and that’s the problem. You can put all that stuff in a movie, but if you have no plot then you don’t really have anything at all.

I wasn’t surprised to find out that the writer and director of this film, was a short balding fat guy who had a drinking problem. Basically short man syndrome. For those of you who don’t know what Short Man syndrome is, it’s a short person often trying to pick fights or show off how badass they are, even though no body cares. That’s Boondock Saints. A movie that wants to be badass, show you it’s badass and tell you it’s badass. But really its just sort of there. Just like short people.

I could not agree more.

While the afternoon was awesome, I fell into my typical Milo mood after I found out Country Club was closed. Idling in the Tesoro parking lot, I desperately wanted to do something and to not do something…to hide away in my room and paint and to say fuck poverty and go out and drink with strangers, be fake, be the toast of the town.

Possibly I was feeling some existential angst thanks to the fact that my aunt that I never see (Kathleen) was at the house when I came home tonight. I hadn’t seen her in ages and canceled my dinner plans to hang out with the family, but her boyfriend (who would not take his sunglasses off the entire night…I couldn’t help but speculate he was high on something) apparently had a really bad toothache and they left early. I don’t know how to feel about Kathy. I mean, at one point I felt like she was my surrogate mother… and then four years later she tells me I’m lucky she didn’t take blackmail pictures of me with Andrew during our failed drug intervention.

You can lead a horse to water, right? I feel like one of the characters in A Scanner Darkly where everyone is giving them strange looks and wondering if they are on drugs. I mean, I can never really know anymore. I realized tonight that I couldn’t even remember her boyfriend’s name. She gave me her new number for the thousandth time… I should call her.

We had a private conversation in the kitchen and I forget how intelligent she is. Intelligent drug addicts are strange…they hide under this veneer of malaise and just go for the gold when you’re not expecting it. In a minute she nailed my feeling of being an impostor in someone else’s house, my vague unease about Grammie’s deteriorating mental state…I just wanted to hug her and cry.

It’s strange not having a best friend anymore. It’s strange and not knowing anyone that you can trust fully. Of course, I can trust Meursault (my MacBook), but those made from less durable materials are always suspect. Having secrets myself makes this all the more difficult. I need to go back in time and kidnap a Christen that I could love again.

My current defense mechanism has been to treat life as a strategy game… a kind of social Risk… but Risk was never practical… the supply chain demands of sustaining a worldwide army are never considered… and in the same vein I feel like I’ve overlooked variables essential to my happiness.

I want to experience the kind of simple, breezy pleasure that I enjoy while hanging out with Andrew or listening to The Bird and the Bee (which I heard wafting through the air in front of P.F. Chang’s today).

Also, I haven’t written anything of substance in my journal for ever. I felt like I couldn’t force it… but it just had to happen. And it’s all boiled up to something. I feel so shaky emotionally that I shouldn’t be in a relationship…but that is what the thing with Andrew could become if we do cross that Rubicon.

The day of the party at Zero’s house (where we drew on John Waters stashes and drove around the lawn on my scooter)

Click here for all of Zero’s pix from the party.

Andrew and I were going to hang out and bike around downtown. We took the bike trail down to old Sacramento, drank a pitcher of beer each, and walked around the train tracks near the river.

The train signal.

We climbed up on top of this platform for a train signal and it kept seeming like we were going to kiss… I don’t know why I didn’t… I guess I keep thinking of all the years where this was my ultimate fantasy and to make it real just seems like some kind of fold in the fabric of space-time. It was so beautiful out and romantic and I was just the right amount of tipsy to do it, but it just didn’t seem like the right time. I want it to be a natural thing, not a capital-E EVENT. But it will be an event. In retrospect, I should have bit the bullet and made the first move. I’m not a first move kind of guy, though.

This whole meeting in public thing is odd…I find it difficult to be intimate when I’m not in my own element…which I guess now is this godforsaken house that I’m trying to cover more and more of with paintings.

Taggart and I under the trestle.

I see people in relationships ignoring their friends, disappearing into some kind of internal world. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to become a Christen. But as I get older it seems inevitable.

It’s a lot of major life changes… by December I need to be enrolled in some kind of four-year school. And I need some way to pay for it. I guess instead of painting I should have been looking at schools. But, oddly enough, painting is really the only thing I can do now. Surfing anything but Engadget Mobile bores me… I’m angry at my friends for some reason. I’m angry my phone keeps dying… the new battery didn’t even last a year. Here’s what I’ve been working on:

This one is a 4×6″ canvas.

I’m still working on this one, my big canvas…it’s much closer to being done now that I did the first background coat. I need a larger brush to do the next coat of the background with, I wore out my medium-size brush…it’s shedding hairs, but I like the effect it gave.

I wanted to hang out with Sam tonight, but he didn’t answer and I didn’t feel like driving to Rancho Cordova.

I’m cheering myself up with fake motivational posters…they are so fucking funny. My favorite one EVAR:

It’s 1 a.m. and I need to try to get to sleep. Even though I will most certainly not be successful. I hate sleeping alone in a stranger’s house.

Categories: Ennui

Today wasn’t so bad. I worked all day, met Andrew for coffee…drove to Sam’s place. We hung out and watched Salad Fingers.

I often forget that Sam gives good advice. Hm.

Considered calling Patrick today, but ultimately decided against it.

I feel like like everyone’s pulling me from every direction and I can’t decide who I want. I mean, the answer has always been Andrew, but I feel like it’s going to complicate things.

Zero is like totally in love with me and won’t understand that we will never date.

I feel like at this point in my life I don’t want to be in a relationship… but I do want to be with Andrew in some way. I feel like it’s this roulette wheel of who I am most annoyed with.

Waiting to be betrayed.

Friends aren’t really talking to you, they are just gathering dirt to use later. I really need to hang out with Annie more. I had no idea how right she was.

I think I just need to accept that dating Andrew might leave me friendless.

I just have so many problems saying no. I want to make everyone happy… not for other people’s sakes but my own. I don’t know.

I should just be like Terry and have a new best friend every month. Or be like Mario and have no actual friends.

The only friend that really give me any useful advice is far far away in 1971.

I wish she would come back.

Once trust is lost it can never be regained, I guess.

In lighter news, we are going to the My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult show on Sunday, which should be super-exciting.

I don’t want to be a Brian, jumping from sinking ship to sinking ship and never taking the time to think about my future. Unlike him, I won’t settle.

Speaking of the future, I have been looking at colleges and it turns out that Sacramento State doesn’t actually have a web design degree. They offer a graphic design degree but that’s it. So I went to the College Board website and did some searches and there are a lot of schools that offer a comma trouble is they all have tuition of like $20,000 a semester.

I called my dad today and talked with him for awhile and apparently he told me that he would pay $10,000 or so for my first semester at Sacramento State.

I’m really trepidatious about going to the damn school. I did some research and of the 100 people that applied for the graphic design program only 40 were accepted. And you have to take 30 credits before that. And I don’t even want to be a graphic designer. Bullshit. I don’t know what to do. Take out a huge loan and go to some school that costs $40,000 a year? I just don’t think I’d be able to do that. Who just hands out $80,000 loans?

Anyway, I’m supposed to be at the office super early tomorrow, so I’m going to try to sleep.

Categories: Ennui

Oh. My. Fucking. God.

The Dresden Dolls show at the Fillmore was the best show I’ve seen in my whole life.

I would write about it, but my voice is totally gone from screaming.

I had a moment with Amanda Palmer.

It was in-fucking-credible.

Watched The Doom Generation and Election tonight with Zero, talked to Andrew about sex…that was weird.

Probably going to go see the Presets on Wednesday after my final.

Totally going to see My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult on June 1st.

Having money fucking rocks.

Categories: Ennui

Today is one of those days where I’m absolutely disgusted to live in this house. When all I want to do is escape somehow.

Turned off my phone and closed my instant messenger app.

I’m sitting in the empty house staring out the sliding glass door in the living room at the backyard. My grandma has been planting flowers… petunias, violets. There are pink roses that are blooming… they all are blooming.

I’m really sick of Zero. We’ve been hanging out like every day this week. I’m sick of everything.

I desperately need to be doing my math homework right now… but I just don’t care. I went out for a jog this afternoon, made it an entire mile without stopping…normally I take a few minutes to cool down and start up again. Wanted to go out for another mile, but my grandma started in with her inane banter. She drains me of all my energy.

Had coffee with Andrew on Friday… it was good seeing him. I don’t know what it was about that day… every time we hang out it’s always this feeling like it’s great to see an old friend… but that awkwardness is still there. And yesterday, all I wanted to do was to push over the table and give him a passionate kiss. It was so melodramatic but I couldn’t get it out of my head.

I’m one of those people that loves the chase, but once I achieve my goal I don’t know what to do. Maybe it’s better this way. It’s just hard to deny the poetry of it all. I think back about how long it took me to get over the whole relationship with him… I’m not even sure now whether I’m over him. I mean, yesterday, I would have done anything he asked me.

Mari and Zero were talking about what sounds were inherently steampunk and clocks ticking was one of them. The clock in the living room keeps ticking over “Corona Radiata,” this ambient track from the new album, and I feel calm.

The past five years have come and gone, and I’m okay.

People I loved didn’t love me as much as I thought they did. Lesson learned. Straight girls will always leave you in the lurch for a man. No matter what you do. I’m okay with this.

I don’t know whether this thing that’s going on with Andrew is good or not. I’m reluctant to cross the Rubicon by trying to escalate things, but most of the time I am still totally taken by him. I don’t know why… I can’t put it into words. It doesn’t make sense. I don’t know whether there’s something there or it’s more unresolved issues.

I just want to be alone today.

Taking a break from being plugged in will be beneficial.

Never mind about the alone time. I just heard the garage door open. My grandma’s back.

I would do anything to escape this house.

The good thing is, I keep getting more and more hours at work. I hope I can get to a point where I can afford to live on my own. With the extra money, I’m making about $700 a month, so I could theoretically afford rent.

I wouldn’t be able to have many of the luxuries I take for granted, but I think it would be worth it.

Just spent about an hour on Craigslist… there are some great places there… but I still don’t know how I burn through $700 a month. According to the Internet, your housing costs shouldn’t exceed 35% of your total income… and if I get a good deal, I could probably find some place for $500 or $400 a month, but that wouldn’t come close to 35%. Thanks to my handy-dandy algebra, the equation I wrote tells me I would need around $1,400 a month to cover my living expenses. :(

The sad thing is I am just starting to live comfortably at my grandma’s (i.e. not ridiculously poor) and I don’t have to pay rent.

Life sucks.

I wanted to go out and do something tonight, but I don’t know what. We were supposed to go to this Earth Festival in Davis, but that was confirmed, canceled, confirmed again, and canceled.

I didn’t want to go downtown because I thought I would run into Zero and I also didn’t want to stalk Andrew.

I’m in one of those moods where I’m trying to deconstruct why I want something.

I watched Primer and The Prestige last night with Zero and Mari, and had these harrowing dreams of a massive steampunk time machine with catwalks and pendulums. It was very cinematic but the dream had little substance. I remember this raccoon that kept staring at me in the dream. The machine had been built in a man-made valley, with sandbags stretching up the ravine from the rectangular bottom of the valley.

The raccoon was staring at me cryptically as it gnawed on something in its too-human hands. From the top of the machine dangled two girders which were hooked onto the center of a five-meter or so catwalk, which had all these people dressed in shabby 1800s period costumes. They were all frozen in time, although it seemed from the way they were dangling that they were going to be thrown off the contraption even though at the moment it couldn’t move.

But the raccooon just kept gnawing and staring at me as I stood near the three-story warehouse-like time machine. It seemed like the beginning of a movie.

Before I fall asleep every night I keep asking myself “why am I living in somebody else’s house?” “Why am I here?”

This place doesn’t feel like home. I’m sick of not living somewhere that I at least pay for.

It’s not like my grandma’s hurting for money or anything, it’s just…I’m fucking sick of this shit.

I need a drastic change in my life. Like, right now. If I had $500 in my bank account I’d be calling up those people with rooms for rent.

My wrists have just been killing me all weekend… as I soak up gossip on the yet-to-be-announced 3G iPhone and 3G BlackBerry 9000.

Neither have been officially confirmed or denied…but they definitely exist. Heck, somebody bought a prerelease version of the Blackberry 9000 on eBay for like $800 and have been thoroughly reviewing it. The thing looks fucking awesome, 3 megapixel camera, 3G, a fully redesigned UI, a solid media player, much faster processor (600MHz!).

But these are the exact luxuries I will be giving up if I were to move out. $500 a month that could be spent on technology.

I just have to pass this last math test and I’m free, I can work MUCH more and buy a big display. I’m going to try and save up $600 to get this amazing 24″ display. I don’t know, I need something to focus on other than the Sisyphean nature of my life right now.

It’s not that I dislike my life at this very moment, I’m just frustrated that I’m not going anywhere. I feel like I’ve been spinning my wheels for five years and nothing’s happened.

I don’t have the kind of independent life I want.

Well, I’m going to watch a dark film about the harsh realities of the French Resistance, Army of Shadows. Maybe that will make everything seem better by comparison.

It’s so damn hot today. I was looking forward to it, but now it feels oppressive. I looked back to the carefree nights Christen and I spent doing fun stuff downtown instead of forward at the bleak reality that I’m confronted with.

Categories: Ennui

Today was great fun. Brian, Zero, and I went to Arden Fair to see a special showing of the amazing cult film Repo-Man. Brian and Zero hadn’t seen it, and they loved it.

After that we got awesome yogurt at Big Spoon and went back to Brian’s house to munch on burritos and watch Family Guy and South Park.

Afterwards, Brian had worked up the courage to tell me that he was giving Johnny “another chance.”

This is break up number four, by the way.

Zero and I had a nice long discussion about the matter to try to clear the air. I told him that I had lost nearly all my respect for him in continuing this charade. I point-blank asked him what he got out of the relationship. He had no answer for me.

And the weird thing was, Brian told me that nearly all of their fights had been about me. Johnny being jealous of our friendship (way to take a page from the Allen playbook, look how that one played out). The thing Johnny doesn’t get is that for people like us, just getting along is easy. We’re laid-back, easygoing people. Yes, we get stressed and have bad days but really, a night like tonight is one I’d like to have every night. Friendship means laughter, sharing experiences, being there for each other.

All Johnny can do is imagine how slighted he is by these cruel people he doesn’t understand. The thing is, if he wasn’t treating one of my best friends like a doormat, I would probably be trying to get to know him better. I enabled that whole visit where Brian and I basically walked to his house from the Amtrak station…but most of all, I’m sick of Brian’s life being turned wholesale into a fucking telenovela.

Brian is an awesome, multifaceted person and deserves better than to prostrate himself for a self-serving, airheaded egomaniac. As we were talking, it was eerie the parallels between Johnny and Terry. These are the kind of people that our morally and intellectually bankrupt society shits out. People with no grounding in philosophy or literature to problem-solve their way out of a paper bag, chock-full of emotions but no sensible rubrick on which to act on them. Tawdry, predictable taste has a strong correlation with a love for melodrama.

I don’t mean to assassinate Johnny’s character (he’s done a swimming job of that already), but let’s face it, he is just not emotionally mature enough to date Brian. And if you know Brian, that should freak you out.

Brian, Zero, and I don’t have to be on the train to crazy town every five minutes to get our rocks off. We had so many moments of just paralyzing laughter tonight, I can’t see what Brian gleans out of fight after fight after fight.

Actually, I do see what he gets out of it. I see it because I was in a relationship just like it. We’ve all had a relationship like that. Making the person who is nice to you a separate person from the person that is mean to you. It’s one of the most obvious signs of an abusive relationship. I took human sexuality. I know this shit.

And the strange thing is, it’s Brian that’s abusing itself. He allows Johnny to be rude to him, to belittle him, to belittle his interests, his personality, his friends. In short, to make him have so little self-esteem that he can’t escape. It’s the first rule of abusive relationships.

It’s time for the self-abuse to stop. It was time like three weeks ago.

Categories: Ennui