Today was the day I left New Jersey.

I woke up on the pullout couch downstairs at 10, folded it back into the couch, went up to the kitchen. My mom made me an omelet…it seemed like I’d have more time. I showed her my time screen saver, the spherical clock, the weird Japanese clock.

There weren’t enough hours left.

Went downstairs to shower and pack, I managed to cram all my new clothes in with the old ones.

It’s about 12:20, and I’m taking the 1 p.m. bus.

Grandma comes out and I show her the pictures my mom and I took in Manhattan.

My mom and I walk down to the bus stop and talk about Grandpa. Everything feels different in the house. It’s like the king is dead but his subjects carry on without him and pretend nothing’s happened.

I kept expecting to go into grandma’s room and see him sitting on his chair, the chair he died in.

Bus to the Port Authority, the E Local to Queens, transfer to AirTrain at Sutphin Blvd stop. Use the MetroCard I put $20 on the week before for the last time. Security line, passport, MacBook out of the bag.

The JFK terminal was sparsely populated when I got there, but a few hours later it was packed. They are renovating the old TWA terminal for them, but it’s not done yet.

Called my mom to let her know I was ok, wasted time on the shitty throttled (yet free) JetBlue wi-fi, boarded the plane at 7 p.m.

We waited on the tarmac for three hours. The whole plane burst into applause when the pilot announced we were taking off.

I’d been playing The Presets as we taxied to our new runway, and as we lifted off during the final crescendo of “Eucalyptus” I looked out the window into the dark. We began to float away from the woven amber lattice of lights…and that was when I started crying.

Higher and higher…the outlines of Queens, Brooklyn…Staten Island, Manhattan. I could clearly make out the Brooklyn Bridge…and as I looked up the Hudson I could see the part of the lattice that certainly continaed my mom’s house.

I still really can’t keep a hold on the tears…I just miss my mom and Grandma and Gail and my two little cousins. The middle seat is empty, thank god. It’s dark in the cabin…the tears drip off my nose into blackness.

I feel like I’ve been living a life so “safe” I’ve insulated myself from any potential source of happiness.

The price of gas goes up and up…article after article I read about the impending fiscal catastrophe. As I was gazing out of the window at all the jets earlier, swiss, Air France, LOT, Quantas, the pieces of the puzzle clinked into place. This is the end. The end of the kind of lifestyle people could live in the fifties. There will be no great jets crossing the skies. Not with $200/barrel oil.

My mom needs me, my grandma needs me. I want to be part of Alexis’s and Nicholas’ (my cousins) lives.

I don’t know…as soon as I heard that Josh (my old friend Josh that worked at the movie theatre in Crescent City) is moving to Idaho or something…I just felt this unbearable lightness. Once the person I respect the most is leaving, I think it’s time to follow suit.

Taylor is back from Paris, he’ll be moving to SF in a few weeks. Andrew faded out of my life. I was angry with him, but for what? Everyone said it was a bad idea, a step backward, and it was. We have nothing in common, and he was using me.

I still have no idea what I’m doing with my life post-December.

I need some advice. Thank the gods I’m going to be appearing in Megan and Steve (the god and goddess of advice)’s indie movie about gay zombies. I cut them off because I didn’t want to talk to them about Christen…that’s an unhealthy subject for sure.

She sent me an e-mail last week saying that she found her coat that she left at that nice woman’s house that let us stay at her place at Coachella, and that she misses me.

It was touching to read, and I just wrote back what was on my mind…that I miss her and I hope she’s doing okay. She said her mom really isn’t going to triumph over her cancer. That’s so terrible. I don’t even know what to say other than platitudes. I mean, what do atheists say at funerals? “She’ll be happier…er…not existing?”

Since we had to wait so long, they gave us the movies for free. That horrible Kate Hudson movie is on…the one where she falls in love with some guy and there’s the ocean…Fool’s Gold. I’m watching it without sound as I type. Even the body language is contrived.

I’m really into the Pet Shop Boys right now…them and the Presets. Ratatat is coming out with a new album and touring…I hope it’s good ’cause quite frankly, Classics, their last album, sucked.

Now I’m listening to Honeycut…since seeing them live, I picture the anemic long-legged puppet that is their lead singer doing his strange little dances. He was a dead ringer for that guy Josh that I went on one “date” with.

*lurch**lurch**lurch**lurch*

Shit..it’s impossible to type in really bad turbulence..my stomach is in my thoat…if they crash will they recover this post from my hard drive? Should I secure erase all my porn?

In my post-crying-jag mood, I want to call him and apologize for not talking to him.

How could he know of his every intellectual gaffe. Is it right? Do I give him the “I’d love to be friends but I think you’re an idiot” talk? In my mood right now I want to love someone who I feel will never be loved.

Maudlin as hell, right?

I want to run over Matthew McConahey’s face with a belt sander…maybe he would understand the pain I feel watching this movie. I miss Kris. I’m sure he’d have some delicious foma for me. He’s moving to LA in a few months.

Rats…sinking ship…ad nauseum.

I miss being by the beach…being by the ocean.

The argument for staying on the West Coast is becoming untenable, but only if my grandma lets me live at her place on the East Coast. Which will suck. S-u-c-k suck. She’s a neat freak…and I’m not. Like, cleaning out back of the tv with q-tips neat freak.

This whole movie seems like a long setup for a porno movie. I keep expecting the next scene for him to be boning the hell out of her hardcore.

11:10 p.m. EST. We’re probably on mountain time now. The in-flight TV still doesn’t work, and according to the live map thing, we’re going 500 miles an hour and are only over like Ilinois. If we’d left on time, we would probably be halfway there. I’m almost tempted to watch this terrible movie since there’s nothing else on and my laptop battery will only last another two hours. Fuck, the flight is six hours and we’re only about an hour and a half into it. I’m probably going to end up watching Horton Hears a Who too. *cringe*

We’re now over Chicago, and I have a confession to make. I started up my phone to make a few calls while we were stranded on the tarmac, and it would not boot up. It restarted itself four times, and on the fifth time it would not make any calls despite having full signal.

I sent a txt successfully a few minutes of unresponsive button-pushing later, and at this moment something happened that should never happen.

I got a call, but the app I was in wouldn’t close or move…the phone kept ringing but there was no way to answer because the phone wouldn’t work. I just got so angry I kind of smashed in my phone’s display. But actually, I’m going to get some explosives or a baseball bat and either blow it up or smash it to death with a sledge hammer.

I’m sure you all have heard about how much I hate my phone. Now, I have to do something about it ’cause the screen is shot. And I have a significant chunk of change in my bank account to do it with.

There’s this lecture series on one of the movie channels, thank the gods. It’s with Jessica Lange. I didn’t know she did stage acting. Also, I didn’t know she won two Academy Awards. Hmm…that didn’t waste enough time. Now I’m stuck with XM radio or that horrible Fools Gold movie. Again.

I should fly Virgin, they have outlets in each seat. And wi-fi, I think. It would probably be just as bad as the shitty airport wi-fi, but at least I could IM people. Sunday is a dead day on the Internet anyway.

I was IMing Aaron earlier, he’s very busy with his Spanish homework…I think he’s in a class too high level for him, but that’s how he likes it.

OOPS, I just realized that my MacBook was scanning for wi-fi networks this whole time. Hopefully that’s passive…right? Totally isn’t. It’s fine…most planes have accidents taking off and landing. Cruising there aren’t too many problems…well, unless we fly through an aurora and have to deal with the Langoliers.

In some ways, the Langoliers would be a welcome respite.

12:30 AM EST.

We’re only over Kansas…I should try to take a nap. I need to remember to take TV shows with me next time. I have movies, but they’re all not appropriate for public viewing.

I felt like today was the embodiment of the Le Tigre song “My My Metrocard”

My mom and I took the bus to the city, and hopped on the A train to the South Street Seaport, where we caught the ferry.

There’s this public art installation called Waterfalls, which are these five artificial waterfalls along the East River. They were pretty cool.

First waterfall, under Brooklyn Bridge.

My video of the Brooklyn Bridge waterfall.

A view of the Manhattan skyline and the Brooklyn Bridge in the distance.

Second waterfall.

The statue.

Me in front of the Statue of Liberty.

Fourth waterfall.

A ferry like the one we were on, view from the south of the East River.

After the boat we went and got a much-needed lunch at this Irish place near the seaport (oh how I miss good pastrami). Next we walked up to the station and took the A train up to 57th street towards the Nokia flagship store.

Waiting for the A train.

It was sweltering in the subway, our train car was not air conditioned, even though it said so. On our walk to the store, it was so hot we decided to cool off in front of the fountains at Columbus Circle, in front of the Time Warner building.

My mom and I in front of the statue in the center of Columbus Circle.

Time Warner building across from Columbus Circle.

Then we moseyed in the blazing heat towards 5th Avenue, stopping at a Cafe Europa for some cool drinks and A/C (of course not to forget some New York cheesecake). It started to rain, as weather.com had predicted, at precisely 3:30 pm, and it rained on and off through the day. It was still very warm though as we walked through the few drops to the Nokia store (the squall had died down before we left the cafe)

I was so bedazzled with the phones and Internet devices that I forgot to take pictures. I played with the N85 and I’m totally getting it.

We did the obligatory visit to the flagship Apple store. My mom loves the glass elevator (as I do).

After that, we jumped in a cab to 88th Street and the Guggenheim. We went there a few years ago and the place looked like it needed a coat of paint, but I went online and they were having this really interesting-looking exhibition by this woman, Louise Bourgeois.

I couldn’t find the museum until I realized that the huge scaffold we were standing under was what they were using to refurbish the facade.

Guggenheim face-lift.

The exhibition was excellent…the lady’s sculpture was ho-hum, but these incredible installations she calls “cells” were incredible. I wish I could have taken pictures, but the museum staff was everywhere.

My mom and I in front of this huge steel spider.

Cabbed it back to the Port Authority, bussed it home.

The flower arrangement my mom bought for my grandpa’s funeral

My cousin Alexis being cute.

Fish market in Keyport where we got our dinner.

The weekend was a hectic schedule of viewings and stuffy formal clothes, but today we went down to my aunt’s house in South Jersey and headed down to beautiful Sea Bright beach to catch some waves. It was beautiful and sunny, I went for a jog down the beach and got tossed around by the waves.

A wonderful afternoon.

Played soccer with my little cousin Alexis, we had my aunt’s birthday celebration thingy:

My uncle Jim on the left (the one who never stops talking) and my aunt Gail on the left. I felt like I’d lost touch with her a year or two ago, she’s in her own world since she is a mother for my two cousins 24/7, but we had a lot of nice time together. And we can definitely bond over a love for the beach.

When we walked up Sea Bright we could see Manhattan’s skyscrapers in the distance…it looked like if we just walked down the beach for a ways it would spill onto the city’s streets. I wish I’d have had my camera.

It’s supposed to be a perfect beach day tomorrow, I can’t wait.

Also, fuck waiting for the BlackBerry. I’m getting the Nokia N95 8GB.

3G.

5 megapixel camera.

GPS.

8GB storage.

DVD resolution video recording.

Full-size headphone jack, video playback, audio playback.

That covers the bases. The only thing it doesn’t have is a QWERTY keyboard. But really, fuck it. Having a great camera kicks so much more ass. And if I really want to type up a storm, I can pair a Bluetooth keyboard with it.

I need to get to sleep.

I’m at the Sacramento airport…the fucking wi-fi doesn’t work. You have to agree to the terms and conditions, click OK, and then the next page doesn’t load and you can’t do anything.

My flight is in exactly fifty-five minutes…so I’m listening to My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult on my MacBook. If someone would have told me this morning that by midnight I’d be on a plane to New York, I would have told them they were loco.

But my grandpa died this afternoon, and the funeral is this weekend.

I found the cheapest flight, on JetBlue…it was $750 round-trip. But the kicker is I have to fly into JFK, which is an hour by car from my mom’s house. So I’ll be taking the Long Island Expressway into the city :P

A ten-block walk from Penn Station to the Port Authority, and I’ll be on my bus to my mom’s house.

I’ll take a train for 30 minutes to save my mom $200 any day.

I’m in New Jersey for a week or so, I’ve never been to a funeral before.

I have a feeling this trip is going to be harrowing in many ways.

My grandpa wasn’t much of a talker, but we all felt how he helped the family…lending money to my spendthrift aunt so she doesn’t lose her house, picking my mom up from work when it was raining…I have this video of him talking to the eight-year-old me about how math is stupid and pointless…it’s supercute. I dunno…this is going to be so weird.

They’ve always been there, my grandma and grandpa…I think I’m in the denial stage…it won’t seem real until I see the sun rising over the New York skyline…then it will be hyperreal.

I only have like $50 in my bank account…if only it could have happened on Thursday when I get my huge paycheck…I guess we can’t plan for things like this…I forgot to turn in my time card…I left it in the printer.

47 minutes until takeoff.

Last night, we had a kind of a going-away party for Sam…I got bottom-of-the-shelf Amaretto, naan, and Sam got hellza apple pucker. Aaron and I came over and we were having great fun being kind of tipsy making up names for the meth addicts on this Nancy Grace special, watching Family Guy and Aqua Teen Hungerforce. Just as Mission Hill came on, Zero arrived.

He complained how bored he was for most of the night, smoked all of Sam’s cigarettes, drank this bottle of Seagram’s Sam had bought. When it was time to sleep (Sam, Aaron and I had to get up super-early for work/school/work, respectively), Zero kept groping Aaron and wouldn’t stop. He said stop at least five times and he didnt.

I was trying to sleep the whole time, and kept telling Zero to stop, but he wouldn’t. Aaron woke up and got out of bed, I went and talked to him…got back in bed, he wouldn’t stop. I slapped his hand away for the third time, and he got out of bed. Turned on the light, rustled around all the bags in the room (2:00 am at this point), turned off the light

SLAM

the door and storms away.

Texts me asking for his glasses and socks, which we reluctantly turn on the light and find since the door slam has woken us all up. Sam’s really sick at this point, goes and pukes.

Zero calls me 20 minutes later saying his car won’t start and that I need to go down there and help him start it.

Fuck that.

Two choices.

1) come back upstairs and sleep on the floor

2) go fuck yourself

After about an hour he wants to come back in.

I’m reaching the end of my rope. He starts in with “don’t give me your shit.”

Let him back in, he gets mad at Sam because he smoked all of Sam’s cigarettes…like it’s Sam’s responsibility to provide Zero with cigarettes.

Ibid.

Ibid.

He goes to sleep on Sam’s bed…I find out later he was trying to feel Sam up to.

Okay, here’s a lesson today. Listening, Zero?

NO MEANS NO.

JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO JOB AND NEVER SLEEP, DOESN’T MEAN THE REST OF THE WORLD DOES.

LEARN SOME FUCKING MANNERS, YOU FUCKFACE.

You think you know someone.

And the next day he texts me asking if I’ve gone further than him with Aaron. Yeah…feeling up someone while they’re sleeping. Real noble.

I’m so sick of this shit. And he’s telling it all to Brian. They both can rot.

Fuck this shit, I’m done.

35 minutes until takeoff.

I hope I’m able to help while I’m there…I don’t know how to comfort people. I guess I’m about to get a crash-course.

I should find an outlet for my computer. But I’m already bored of it. Without the Internet, computers are useless.

What did I do on the computer before then…Oregon Trail, I guess. Omg…MMORPG Oregon Trail…’tis going to happen in our lifetimes.

I can’t stop looking at strangers. I want to know why they are going where they’re going. I want to know their life stories, their reasons for living…the subversive literature they keep hidden under strollers and duffel bags, their secret good-luck charms, the brand of shampoo they use.

The Mexicana flight announcements are in Spanish. Lol.

The only man in the terminal that’s wearing a cowboy hat is at the Mexicana gate.

The plane is here, the travelers are departing…with shaky legs and halting steps…businessmen, the guy that looks like he should be on that M83 album cover.

They will be boarding soon…overhead announcements, headsets, $1, JetBlue.

It’s a 100% full flight. Every damn seat will be taken. I decided to wear my contacts for this flight to go incognito while I’m on the Long Island Expressway…that is seeming like a really itchy mistake. I’d better repack my carryon to have my noise canceling headphones in my pocket. I’d better put my computer away.

iPod. Noise canceling headphones. Contacts case. Check. I need to put you away, Meursault. *into the carry-on you go*

*////aloft\\\\*

So…that was an interesting takeoff. I don’t know why I feel the need to document this trip in such excruciating detail…but it’s the most exciting thing I’ve done all year…and it’s June already. Well, the Presets concert ranks a close second, but that trip only lasted 24 hours.

I had the most cyberpunk takeoff EVER! In this plane there are seatback TVs, and right as we took off, the lights went dark and the TVs lost satellite signal, so they started flashing black and white…it was like the whole plane was filled with slow strobes. It did it the whole time we were taking off…now they say they’re going to “reboot” the system.

Reboot.

The plane.

If I wasn’t entirely, 100% sure I’m living in the future, that was my wakeup call.

It’s 12:40 a.m.

They say it’s another five hours till New York. The ass hat in the seat next to me has his leg all jammed into my part of the seat, and kept waving his book around like it was on fire.

Now he’s asleep. Score?

To my left is reading Philip K. Dick…I really wanted to comment on it, but then I just said fuck it, because the obligatory answer to the “so where are you going” question is a conversation-killer for sure. Oh yeah, grandpa died. He’s reading Valis, which I haven’t read. I’ll have to pick it up…I’m reading so much boring French literature it’s suffocating.

I mean, Simone de Beauvoir is an amazing writer, but after a while in her suffocating world of French bourgeoise nothingess, it feels better to be outside of that world than in it.

In my naivete I thought there could be wi-fi on this flight…nope. Just pay-for-rent movies. Oop, TVs are back on…on each seatback with static. Odd.

In six hours, I take AirTran –> Long Island Rail –>Port Authority –> bus home.

Should be fun

I guess.

I need to find something more interesting to watch/listen to/do. I think I’ll watch Nights of Cabiria. Well, she is a prostitute…I don’t think I watch any G-Rated movies…which makes the issue of in-flight movies that much more troublesome.

Hm.

It’s La Dolce Vita time.

++++/intermezzo\++++

Watched the director’s commentary track on Army of Shadows on the plane, barely got any sleep, arrived at JFK in the morning.

Bright out, cold…JFK is on Long Island, took AirTran to the subway, took the E train to 52nd Street in Manhattan, and my mom picked me up at the Port Authority.

The meeting about what to do with the funeral was at 1 p.m.

I’d never been to a funeral before…we all went in this room, went over all the information…hashed it all out: flower arrangements, notices in the paper, went up and picked out a casket.

It was so surreal.

This was Friday. It’s Monday now…I need to write the rest up, but my wrists are killing me and I don’t think I can use voice-recognition in this house…I mean, not about this subject. Maybe when we’re visiting Gail I can go out into a corner of the lawn and recount it all.

Until then, sayonara. The funeral was today.

I haven’t had time to write all week…but I did work 40 hours this week, I think for the first time in my life.

I’m working a bunch on my company’s website. I have to be done by Aug. 1, the time I go on vacation…although launching when I go on vacation might not be the best idea.

What ‘ev.

I spent the night painting and surfing the web… I don’t know how you can combine these activities, but I did.

I’ve been super-busy in addition to work…I guess I’ll narrate my photostream:

Opening DJ for the Honeycut show

The aftermath of the hotel party with Sara and Amanda!…

Sushi boat when Derrick, Zero, Sam and I went out to Nishiki (we made the sailz!)

Chris’s shirt he won at his birthday party at Chuck E. Cheeze (lol)

Creepy animatronic Chuck E Cheeze at Chris’s b-day party.

Painting I did tonight.

More work on this one…it’s nearing completion.

Check Zero’s photostream for more hot pics of the Thrill Kill Kult concert…which was fucking amazing.

That show was just so great that the Honeycut show could only be mediocre in comparison…which it was. I staked out my spot in the front row, which unfortunately only gave me a view of the lead singer’s crotch. Zero got a bunch of pictures but was being super-rude…touching the singer and shit and putting the camera like right in his face.

The cast party for Where There’s a Will (that semi-horrible show that Mari is in) is tomorrow, I’m going to get trashed and beat up Zero if he tries to touch me, woo!

I finally got paid…which meant I was able to pay my bills and my credit card and have a little left over.

It really sucks… all the things I want are like $300 now. Aaron and I went to Fry’s today and I didn’t find anything I wanted. I mean there were these speakers that were pretty good but they were $130 and I never use speakers anyway because I live with other people. I guess that’s why I haven’t gotten mine back from zero… I only use them the three times a month that Grammie is away.

She came in here earlier tonight and told me that my aunt Kathleen was on her way over to kill her. What do you even say to that?

That’s when you know it’s time to watch a kitschy movie to take your mind off things…so Aaron came over and we watched Death Becomes Her...such a fantastic movie. Isabella Rossellini is positively stunning…I had no idea she was a Lancome model for 14 years. Well, she made her screen debut for me in The Saddest Music In The World, but still.

So I kind of stopped talking to Brian… we were having a cooling off period for a week or so but I just have no desire to call him. It’s going to be the same old crap… the same old crap I’ve been hearing about for two years. OH NOES! I DON’T HAVE A BOYFRIEND! while ignoring every real problem in his life, not going to school, basically not ever leaving his house, and working his part-time job.

He just doesn’t want to grow up…he’s a Toys-R-Us kid. You can’t just keep repeating the same behaviors over and over again and expect them to be reinforced. And, of course, the elephant in the room, my friendship with his ex Aaron. They’ve been broken up a year… when anyone asks him about it he gives the same response… it “makes him feel sick.” Well, Peter Pan, it’s time to fucking grow up. Get a full-time job. Move out of your mom’s house. Stop bitching about not having a boyfriend. Srsly, are you twelve, Brian? I’m sick of this shit.

Anyway, moving on to more positive subjects… I really like those little canvases, they allow you to say so much with so little.

I don’t know what’s going on with the Andrew situation. I mean, it seemed like this was all building to this precipice and I was supposed to step over the bridge… but when I finally made that whole journey get there Irealized that I didn’t want to do it in the first place. Which is the way that it’s supposed to happen. I read Of Human Bondage. I know this shit.

I mean, I don’t want to date him, so that leaves us as fuck buddies…but I know more attractive guys than him… so what’s the point? I thought he had some interest in me as a person… but it turns out that I’m just the only gay guy that he knows. And quite frankly, I think it’s despicable that he thinks that it’s okay to talk to me after me ignoring me for so long.

He’s a wannabe hipster stoner…they’re a dime a dozen.

I really need to leave sacramento. After December, the only solution is to either move downtown and get myself a crew of downtown friends I will hate, or just move away. I picture myself blasting Saint Etienne as I drive far, far away. But it’s hard to drive far with $5/gallon gas.

I need to do more research on colleges. I’ll do that tomorrow morning. It’s 2:24 and I’m not tired at all. I should go lie down anyway.