the diary of antoine roquentin

I had this great idea to make a cool new theme based on the use of sIFR, but nothing worked. Well, the kicker was, I got it to work but all the text was blue and I couldn’t get rid of the blue. It’s still in beta though.

So yeah. I felt like I needed a less cluttered blog.

I was supposed to accomplish so much tonight…fix the work site that’s broken, create a WordPress theme using a complicated beta software…make my portfolio site look perfect. I did succeed on the portfolio site, I think it looks much better (notice the icons and the new graphic on the philosophy page), but I need more content.

I need to actually design a theme from the ground up. I want to start with this blank theme to remind me that I need to actually design things or I’m never going to get into Parsons. Or, well, anywhere.

It’s 2 a.m. and I have absolutely no time to work on the work site. I think there’s a way I could quickly fix everything, but if it backfires, there’s no way I can stay up later and work on it. Fuck it, I’ll just try it.

Wow…it worked. I am a mySQL god! Of course, it only worked because I made a backup before I tried it. Without the backup, it would have asploded.

I don’t know how to feel about being here…the newness has worn off and now I’m starting to get a tiny bit annoyed about the quirks of this house (the soap is never out, it’s in the cabinet, the toaster is never out, it’s in the cabinet…)

My mom and I went out shopping and doing errands in Edgewater today. It’s so weird to have a shopping center that’s right across the river from Manhattan. There’s a cute little riverside walking path that you can enjoy the Hudson from.

Driving back from Wildwood, we saw this black-silhouetted outline of the Manhattan skyline as we got on the Turnpike that looked like a poorly painted Hollywood set stripped of its extras.

I’m liking A Confederacy of Dunces…I wish I could have read it tonight, but I left it on the kitchen table and it disappeared (my grandma Jean is a bit—shall we say—neurotic about home cleanliness).

We’ve settled into a routine…today we did a bunch of errands, including a stop at Barnes and Noble where I got my first Moleskine sketch book. I’m going to design my new WP theme on those cream-colored pages, but I’ve been so busy that I have only written my name in it.

All right, work site fixed, cleaner homepage, check.

I’m thinking of making www.retroviral.net load my blog immediately without the splash page. What do you think? It’d save a click, splash pages are kind of pointless these days.

And this is far from a finished design. I plan to make it awesome and build something customized from the ground up. Or not. But I think this is a good way to achieve some focus by giving myself a blank canvas, so to speak, to start from.

Oh, PS, I also got my awesome t-shirt today! I’m totally wearing it to Parsons.

Categories: Ennui

I’m listening to his debut full-length “Lucky Boy.” Awesome.

Thunderstorm today, no beach time, but we did go to the Lobster House in Cape May with my aunt Anna and cousin Patty. I love Anna, she’s so cool. She’s 95 this year.

She was telling me about how she used to go to this one beach in Fort Lee and then they all found out they were building the George Washington Bridge right on their little beach! Isn’t that crazy?

She was also telling me that somebody told her to buy some lots in Fort Lee (right over the G.W. Bridge), which was mostly forest back then as an investment? Guess how much? $28!

Anyway, I need to head to bed. I need to post pics and videos. Tomorrow is supposed to be stormy, so that should be the time for that.

Categories: Ennui

Categories: Ennui

Today was the day I finally caught up on my sleep. Yesterday, we went out to Hudson County Park, which was just beautiful. You could see the skyscrapers of Manhattan across the river through the gaps in the trees.

There were so many geese…I even saw three or four dinner-plate sized turtles!

More geese.

Today, my aunt Gail arrived with the kids, and they’ve been keeping us busy.

Gail, my cousin Nicholas, and my mom

After they went to sleep, my mom had to feed her karaoke addiction, so we went to this place called Cheeseburger in Paradise and my mom watched people do karaoke. It was a bit of a young scene, not quite her style, but it was fun to go.

Here’s my aunt Gail making a silly pose with this huge drunk she got:

She’s so New Jersey, I love being around her.

I hadn’t uploaded my photos in a while…here’s some from the plane trip:

San Francisco.

Newark Airport.

Categories: Ennui

So we’ve taken off…the right engine was making this weird noise and I was watching it intently, sure it was going to suck in a goose and explode or something. But thankfully, we’re aloft.

Man, my battery kind of…uh, sucks. It estimates I’ll only have four hours. Laaame.

It’s weird…the whole plane thing seems this big farce. I guess my brain just has some kind of problem believing in flight. Intellectually, I know I’m flying at 10,000 feet going 600 miles an hour, but every moment I expect to look out the window and see people shaking tin foil and refilling fog machines.

I think it’s my Ballardesque notion that everything is just a glamourous commercial filmed in Shepperton.

It’s odd, I’m in the first seat in coach, facing the wall. I was counting on stuffing my suitcase under the seat…but no seat. Thanks for that mundane curveball, existence. Apparently it’s in first class.

I work all year for this. Feeling that lightness as I leave the ground, knowing I’ll soon be with my real family on the East Coast.

I want to spend as much time with my grandma Jean before…well…you know. She’s so amazing, I love her. She has such a great sense of humor, and she is such an in-your-face get-things-done kind of person. It’s the mentality there.

After this afteroon, I just had so much fun I want to like live it over again. It’s like I’d forgot what hanging out with people who aren’t soulless assholes is like, and I’m very happy about it.

When The Fragile stars making more and more sense, you know some big change is happening. And I choose to stay away from people who make me feel less like a human. There are many Marios in this world, unfortunately.

So tired, yet I just want to write. I want to leap for joy…I won’t be leaping if I don’t get any sleep tonight.

But this is what I’ve worked so hard all these months for. free.

free.

Free.

FREE

FRRREEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

Of everything.

Not of the people I love, but of those who bring me down.

I thank the gods for these trips. They give me such perspective. I am so lucky to have everything I have. Actually, I’m just lucky to have my mom.

She’s the reason I’m not like, dead in a gutter somewhere.

Mmmm…airline peanuts.

I feel like I should be documenting these flights in every way possible, because my kids are totally not going to believe that these things existed.

Must listen to more Jesus and Mary Chain, but can’t download music ’cause I’m in the air.

I want to watch a movie, but there’s a sleeping little girl in the next seat…I looked through every single movie I have on my computer, and (aside from Labyrinth, possibly) there isn’t a one that doesn’t have something objectionable. Weird.

Fuck it, I’m watching the Goldfrapp tour DVD. The one with just the Felt Mountain stuff on it.

That’s better.

I think I’m just having emotional overload these last two days. It’s 10 minutes until the end of August 1.

These days I’ll never get back. I guess that’s ok.

I just used this time to make my portfolio again…I had the .css file, I guess that would have been harder to recreate. I’ll upload it when I get back to connectivity.

Well, it’s 11:50 p.m., so I’m going to put my MacBook away and try to get some sleep.

*plays Poe on his N95, snuggles up under his jacket*

You thought you could keep me from loving
You thought you could feed on my soul
But while you were busy destroying my life
What was half in me has become whole

Categories: Ennui