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.