the diary of antoine roquentin

I’m feeling strange tonight. I really want to go out and do something, but I think the last bus already left. And I’m not interested in staying up until 6 AM to take the bus back. Every other day of the week everything runs all night, but Sunday sucks.

So I spend my Saturday evening on okcupid. I had a pretty fun day; we went to the pool for the first time. It was wonderful. The kids had their own pool and couldn’t go into the adult pool, so I did laps. With my knees getting worse all the time, I need to be able to have some kind of low-impact workout. I’m so out of shape I was huffing and puffing after my first lap. But I swam for about an hour, which felt great. Despite my desire to go and bike around Central Park tomorrow, I’m probably going to go to the pool and swim for a while. I guess I can do both.

Oop, just got invited to a party in Brooklyn. Got to go get ready.

Take the A to Hoyt-Schermerhorn (it’s about 6 or 7 stops) then exit the train, go just across the platform and take the G going towards Court St. and get off at Bedford-Nostrand. Got it.

Categories: Ennui

The last few days have been a blur.

On Saturday, my mom and I woke up at seven o’clock in the morning to make sure that we made it to The Wages of Fear on time. Bus service is erratic on Saturdays and Sundays, so we couldn’t take the chance of missing the later bus. We arrived at the West 4th Street subway station an hour and a half before the movie started, so we decided to go to this French café that we had been to before. We got coffee and scones and my mother regaled me with stories from her fishing days. We got on that subject because I asked whether a friend of hers that we both knew was a good captain. According to my mom, the thing makes a good captain is knowing what to do when the shit hits the fan.

There were only a few people in the café, so we had a great leisurely morning. After coffee, we walked over to the IFC Center (which seems to be the only venue that has independent film in the city, at least so far).

The movie was incredible. I don’t know, maybe it’s because we saw the movie in a theater, but it was just mindblowing. I don’t think I’ve seen a better film in years. It has an incredibly sad end. After the film was over, this woman stood up behind us and exclaimed in a tearful voice “This is the worst day of my life.” We thought she was joking, and then we saw the contorted expression on her face. We were so floored by the movie we walked over to Washington Square Park and watched some street performers for a while. It was a beautiful day.

After that, we headed back to the house to have some lunch. After lunch, we went over to Lowe’s and got some patio furniture for my uncle, which I put together once we got home. At about this time, my heart started to pound. I knew that in an hour I would be on the bus to New York City. At night. Alone.

I played it cool for the fam, but inside I had tons of butterflies. I convinced myself that they were mostly concert butterflies as I was getting ready, but as I stood at the bus stop waiting it didn’t seem real. It took about 10 minutes (I think we’d hit Union City) that my heart started palpitating. It was oddly poetic that we had just seen a movie intensely focused on the human reaction to fear.

We got to the Port Authority, and I descended staircase upon escalator upon staircase to get to the subway. I had scoped out the venue (the Bowery Ballroom) the day before and decided to take the most direct route (a backwards-to-go-forwards-but-only-one-transfer affair). After a wasted hour figuring out that the JMZ doesn’t stop at Broadway – Nassau on weekends (thanks for the shitty signage, MTA), I climbed out of the Bowery station right in front of the venue.

Will call line, flash of the ID, a rum and coke, and I emerged into the back of the concert hall. The place was packed (all the way to the back, I could barely get in), but the band sounded incredible. I didn’t find out until later that I was listening to the opening band (A Place to Bury Strangers) of which I am now a huge fan. (There’s a picture here, but it’s copyrighted so I can’t put it on my blog.) After the first act I was able to get very close to the stage and actually dance a bit. I was having such a good time, and sharing it via mobile AIM with a friend I’d met online named Sebastian. He met me at the station and we went to a few bars and this Ukranian diner, walking all over NYC on the way. It was the most fun I’ve had since I moved here. I lost track of time (I’d been up about 19 hours at that point) and realized it was 5 a.m. and that I’d better be heading home, so we walked to the subway and parted ways.

I slept for ages. Today was the first day I’m back on a normal schedule. I spent the day with my mom and my grandma, we went to Metropolitan, this amazing flower and plant store. It was the size of a Wal-Mart and it was completely devoted to plants. Totally awesome. After that, we trimmed a bunch of the trees on the side of the house that were impeding sunlight to our fantasy garden. After dinner, we went over to Lowe’s and got the stuff to create a planter box for our vegetables and such that we want to plant. After this weekend, I am so exhausted. I’m glad I don’t have anything to do this week save for work.

Awesome bonus: the pool opened this weekend, but we didn’t get to go. I’m walking down there tomorrow to try it out.

Categories: Ennui

We did end up going to Paramus Park. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find anything, despite hitting three or four stores.

Now, I’m not one to speak ill of our glorious globalized economy, but I’ve come to this point where I realize that after a certain point if big label retailers don’t stock something, I’m kind of—well—fucked. I’m not, because I live five minutes from New York City, but for most of the nation I could create a catalog of everything they are able to purchase just by what is available in big-box stores. I find this a bit disturbing. Then again, I’m spoiled by being able to shop in the thrift stores of the Haight, where I found all my favorite things.

Today I played wheelchair-driver for my uncle. We went to Kohl’s and he got some pants and shirts. I tried to disguise my disgust when he jokingly suggested that I moonlight as a wheelchair-driver somewhere. I think I may have hinted about this in previous posts, but I have come to completely and utterly despise my uncle.

I want to get out the thesaurus to describe my utter disdain, but basically it can be summed up in the fact that he treats us like his servants and loves to be waited on. I prophesied it way back in the very beginning, when my grandma and mom came to visit to see him after the surgery. Being the ultimate skinflint, I knew he would come back to New Jersey even though he despised it here, because Grandma would wait on him for free.

Grandma was angry when she learned that he had told the social worker at his rehabilitation facility that Grandma was going to stay with him in California and take care of him (something she never even hinted that she would do). A terrible thing dawned on me on the way to Kotcher’s (the incredible German butcher in Ridgefield). The only thing that I will remember Jimmy for is him being cheap. it truly is the only memorable thing about him. He won’t pay bills. Ever. If his phone bill is $50, he’ll pay $40. If it’s $90, he’ll pay $30 and try to arrange a payment plan. This man made more than $100,000 a year for most of his life. He will be making $40,000 a year on annuities and disability alone. And you know what?

He hasn’t paid a fucking penny since he got here.

Not a single cent.

He’s been fed, clothed, ferried to his doctor’s appointments. We even got him one of those lifts so he could go up and down the stairs (with us attending, of course). It just makes me sick. But then again, he’s probably going to die soon. But the terrible thing is, that doesn’t make me any more tolerant of his behavior. It just infuriates me.

On a lighter note, I went out back today and cut down this big tree that was blocking the light to our future tomato garden. My mom was helping me out by steadying the ladder, and we were trying to get this one limb to fall on our side of the fence so I tied twine to it and had her pull on it when it was about to come down. I sawed the branch, the twine snapped, and the branch crashed down miraculously on our side of the fence without falling on the house. We were in stitches.

Afterwards, my mom and I watched The Prestige in high-definition on my awesome monitor. It was cool, but the video kept generating artifacts every minute or so. I couldn’t tell if it was the video file that was malformed in some way or it was that my computer was too slow to play it without stuttering. She really liked the movie.

I feel like there’s some show on Monday, but I can’t really be sure. Ah, it’s a performance of Philip Glass works. I think I will go in the late afternoon after I’m done with work to check out the venue. The advantage to not buying anything this weekend is that I can attend more shows. Amadou & Mariam here I come!

It’s nearly midnight. I need to go to sleep soon so I can get onto a better East Coast cycle.

Categories: Ennui

I got up at 11 today and walked up to the park. It was supposed to rain, but it was a beautiful day. I wandered around empty stadiums and soccer fields, taking pictures and listening to music.

My new neighborhood:

I was going to go into the city today, but I have to work on the magazine’s website. Oh, that reminds me, I was going to ask my aunt Gail if I could come down to Middletown and stay with her and the kids for a few days. It’s easy to get there via public transit.

Great, I just called and got Gail’s mother-in-law. The one that feeds Alexis that Hannah Montana girly-girl anti-intellectual bullshit. It’s hard to be civil sometimes.

Categories: Ennui

Today’s post is some of the old photos I scanned in today.

I spent most of the night touching up my (deceased) Aunt Bella’s wedding photo. The original was all torn, bent, and dusty. She looks beautiful, doesn’t she?

Here’s my mom and her boyfriend kissing somewhere in Germany, 1976.

This is me playing with my cat Cutie. On the left is the son of one of my mom’s friends, Grant. (He’s starting college this year.) This was taken on our farm in Crescent City.

Here’s my mom with her violin, giving me a look. This was taken in my grandma’s house (where I am now).

Here’s my mom and Dolina, our Scottish Highlander cow we kept more as a pet than anything. I remember my mom always yelling out the window “Do-LI-na!” and the cow would come clanking over (we put a bell on her) for treats.

I leave you with my mother during her fishing days giving an enigmatic look while out at sea. That’s her old skipper on the left.

All of these are super-high-res, just click on the photo and go to “all sizes” to see the larger versions.

Categories: Ennui