The Diary of Antoine Roquentin

I’m incredibly tired tonight. Yesterday, I got up beyond early (11 AM, but after staying up until 5 AM) and headed down to the Film Forum to meet my friend Jove and see Rashomon. I’m a huge fan of Kurosawa, and I think this was one of the only films of his that I hadn’t seen.

I could take or leave the movie (I had an espresso and was still near nodding off at some parts). the thing that kept me into it though was my mental running commentary track. The film is so ripe for MST3K-ing, it’s ridiculous. The bad thing about incredibly influential films is that they become kind of clichéd. Rashomon definitely suffers a lot from its own success.

After the movie, Jove and I had lunch at an Indian restaurant and walked over to the waterfront.

The color in this photo is kind of washed out, but it was beautiful that day. We walked back to the subway station and parted ways as we headed uptown (he had to go to work). It was still relatively early and I had to wait until the IAMX show, so I decided to get some shopping done. I hopped on the Subway again, E to the L at 14th, and arrived at Union Square. I didn’t ship a lot of my painting supplies from Sacramento since it would be cheaper to just buy them here, so I picked up a lot of things I was missing. I haven’t been able to open my can of solvent, or I would probably be painting right now. It’s late and the sound of me jamming a scissor into metal wouldn’t be the best sound to wake people up with.

After walking back to the subway, I still had about four hours to waste, so I decided to hop on the bus and go back home for dinner. I had this long talk with my grandma (my East Coast grandma is so awesome) about everything that had happened in Sacramento and how I didn’t talk to Kelly anymore over a delicious home-cooked meal.

8:00 rolled around, and it was time to head back to the city. Okay, I’m going to just get this out of the way. I hate the Bowery Ballroom. At first glance, it looks incredibly well-connected since there is a subway stop right in front of the entrance. The problem is, that line (the J,M,Z) doesn’t stop anywhere near where I need to go and I have to go like five stops towards Brooklyn order to transfer to the E to go like ten stops the other way. It’s retarded. I’m hoping Webster Hall is better connected. I’m seeing Amadou & Mariam there on Monday.

The IAMX show was great, although I couldn’t get any good pictures of him. The venue doesn’t allow videos, and there was no light on the stage, so it wasn’t a photographer’s delight.

The good thing about the transportation clusterfuck was that I walked in the door right as the opening band was starting up. Also, I was glad that I wasn’t in the front row, because 80% of my reason for coming was to hear my favorite song, “Sailor.” After that, I was kinda done (although his other songs were performed very well). One thing that bothered me was that they kept doing the “clap/scream louder” crap. I mean, yeah, once or twice, cool. But they were doing it after every song. I’m like “guys, if you want us to yell more, don’t do the hand to ear disappointed look shit, just PLAY YOUR SONGS BETTER’” I wasn’t disappointed though, I hadn’t lived until I heard “Sailor” live.

For the first time ever, I caught the early bus back to my house, so I didn’t have to walk by the cruisey park near my house. I feel like it’s so out of character, me being gay and all, but I live in mortal fear of being cruised lately. Okay, fun fact, I never used to use urinals because I felt like they were just a socially-acceptable way for guys to look at each other’s junk. But I kind of got over that and used them if there were no stalls. So like two weeks ago I’m in the Port Authority using a urinal. This overweight, scummy, late-fifties guy walks up right next to me. I didn’t really notice for a second, until he’s like “you got the time?” I looked up and realized that there were about 25 unused urinals and he picked the one right next to me. I put on my “fuck you” face, zipped up, and left. I mean, it was 3 a.m., but still. Do I look like a desperate meth addict? Jesus Christ.

So now I feel like I’m a straight guy in the 50s trying to ward off the dangerous advances by homosexuals!

I had a great time yesterday, even though I was beyond tired. So of course I slept in today. Not sure why, but I had one of the most depressing dreams ever. I dreamt that I was back in Sacramento and that I was hanging out with Andrew on the day that I was supposed to leave (in reality, he canceled on me on what was supposed to be our last hangout). In the dream, we were sitting on the curb on a side street on a sunny but bleak day. I kept looking over at him but I couldn’t think of anything to say. He seemed unable to speak either, sitting on his skateboard and looking morose.

So sad.

I got a call from the doctor’s office today. The second test showed that my platelet count was indeed still low, and I’m supposed to go in next week for some reason (my online research shows the only treatment is to give people steroids, which would suck). Since the nurse mentioned it, I am realizing that I bruise really easily these days. I haven’t had any issues with wounds bleeding uncontrollably, but then again I don’t get massive lacerations every day. The rest of my research on the topic hasn’t been wonderful either: one of the major diseases that can be an indicator for is bone cancer. Woo. Hopefully it’s just some random thing.

I’m going with Jove to the Guggenheim on Sunday to see this exhibition about Frank Lloyd Wright. That should be interesting. As for me, I worked out for two hours at the gym today so I’m beat. Bedtime for me. (Well, after I sleepily watch the Daily Show and catch up on the important blogs.) I am such an insomniac.