the diary of antoine roquentin

Tonight I’m gaying out listening to the new Kylie record. I suppose it’s been a pretty gay night— I went to see a showing of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! at the IFC Center. I hadn’t seen it since the first time, which was with Sam at this movie night that he curated at the Five Star. The film is hilarious and eminently quotable. I’m in love with the vaguely ethnic character with an impossible-to-place fake accent (the one on the left in the picture above). I saw Travis there, that director Mario knows who is working on this supposedly classy (artsy?) porno film, but I felt it indelicate to just approach him out of the blue and introduce myself. I’m also not of the disposition to just walk up and introduce myself to people.

I’m supposed to be working on news items tonight, but that’s not really happening. I spent all day fielding e-mails about the new message board on my work website. I almost wish I could link to it, I’ve outdone myself in terms of design. I’ve been tinkering with Apache, the ubiquitous server software that powers most of the web, and I think I’ve optimized the settings for the resources of my virtual private server. As soon as they have capacity, I think I may move to prgmr, where I can get four times the resources (a 1024MB slice instead of a 256MB slice) for the same price as SliceHost. We’ll see. I don’t relish the idea of setting up another LAMP stack.

So this weekend I went to visit Kelly in Philadelphia. It was the first time I’d ever been to Philadelphia, and I wasn’t sure what to expect (other than crazy black people). I tried to get as much work done as possible on Saturday afternoon, then took the train to Chinatown in order to try and catch one of the buses. It was so odd because every time I walk around Chinatown they are always trying to get you into those buses and the one time I actually need to go to Philadelphia I couldn’t find a single one.

So I walked to the B at Grand and took it up to Penn Station, thinking that if I couldn’t get to Pennsylvania from its eponymous station that there was no truth and justice left in the universe. I took a NJT train to Trenton and transfered to a SEPTA train for the rest of the journey. I think in total I may have spent $30, and Amtrak is nearly $70! America has no fucking idea how to make rail transportation work.

My trip was pretty painless, although I think I was most excited about taking the train because I knew there would be uninterrupted air conditioning the entire journey and it was melt-your-face hot out that day.

I didn’t get to Kelly’s house until about 10:30. She answered the door, and we said our less-awkward-than-I-imagned hellos. I met her roommates, and (as it was still sweltering) we went upstairs to her air-conditioned room and talked for a while as Turn on the Bright Lights played over the hum of the air conditioner. We tried, wholly inadequately, to summarize our last few years, trading an anecdote here and there about the East Coast/West Coast duality, eccentric professors, and ridiculous art school people at Kelly’s university (who we were to meet later in the night).

An hour later, there were sixty or so people at the house, including Devin and his girlfriend, who had come over early in the life of the party. Jello wrestling. Climbing up walls. Pissing people off with racism. Did I mention I got fantastically drunk? I’m really bad with awkward situations where I know no one—I invariably end up extremely drunk. There was a leak in the upstairs toilet that ended up leaking all over the ground floor, creating a sticky mess that ended up smelling a lot like a porta-potty. I woke up on Kelly’s floor cuddling a towel (Kelly had graciously covered me with a blanket after I lost consciousness).

As if the universe had answered our prayers, about halfway through the morning this deliciously cool rain started to fall, which lowered the temperature from the 90s to probably the 70s. Kelly and I were so happy to not be roasting that we made plans to go walk around the city in the rain.

I felt physically weak and borderline nauseous in the morning, but I felt stronger as the day went by. We got fried chicken around the corner, and after Kelly’s boyfriend went to work Kelly and I took the Philly subway to the city center and walked around the historic district.

It only ended up raining for a few hours, most of those we spent in this rather adorable Chinese restaurant (with extremely socially awkward waiters) talking about life. Things had changed and stayed the same. Both Kelly and Devin were flabbergasted that Taggart was still doing all of the things that they had done in their teen years. It’s so odd that someone I almost idolized in my youth has become, essentially, a loser. A sexy loser, but a loser nonetheless.

I’m glad that Kelly and I ended up meeting up. I invited her to come up some weekend, and to come up for holidays (for the drama-free holidays I’ve grown accustomed to here in Jersey).

As we were walking through one of the historic districts, Kelly mentioned “It’s weird to think that there will never be another Thanksgiving.” I didn’t really know what to say. I remember as a child I absolutely hated those family functions because they inevitably ended in a fight, but now as, essentially, a grown-up, I almost have this Stockholm Syndrome about those interactions because they were the only way I had of perceiving family. My subconscious thinks: without the feud, what is Thanksgiving? Also, that was the only time I got to see Kathleen, Kelly, and the gang—so it was almost an ordeal that had one payoff, which was time with the non-feuding part of my dad’s side of the family.

Family always brings with it complex emotions—I suppose that’s one of its charms.

UPDATE: It’s now 5:30 a.m. and I’ve written 80 percent of a story. Time to go to sleep.