The Powerhouse. This porno is being filmed in the back room of the Powerhouse. I smirk.

Later, I tried to get to sleep. I closed my eyes, try to think of nothing. Blackness. It’s a time when I think of a lot of things I want to write about but never do. Specifically, this one image that would always be the last thing I would remember before sleeping. It was an imaginary view of a crag of rock, looking up to see another planet above. I would always think about that view, with the sound of wind whistling by, and gaze at the planet above until I fell asleep. It seems odd, but it always worked.

Another technique I read about was this thought exercise where you imagine yourself in a guillotine. Your head is cut off, but instead of blood, all your problems fall out and float away. You wouldn’t believe the things that come out: my boss, diplomas, the Word documents I need to do the next day, tricky PHP issues, etc.

None of the traditional methods are working tonight. It always happens that I set my alarm, and I actually have enough time to wake up at a non-insane hour (I got up at 3:30pm today). Then I lie there. I try to visualize different places—how I imagine them through the thousands of tourist photos my magazine has published. What all the people I wish I were in better contact with (or despise entirely) are doing.

Sometimes I think of that Margaret Cho skit where she talks about her mom astral projecting. It’s almost unsettling to be alone with your thoughts with no record. When writing, you can always stop and think. You can reread the entire blob. You can edit it for high diction, low diction. But abandoned to the vagaries of my unimpeded thoughts, it ends up being this battle to stop whatever song is playing in my head. Not that it’s a bad song usually. Last night’s 3 a.m. battle (that I really didn’t have my whole heart in) was to try to stop “Jaimie, My Intentions Are Bass,” from the new Chk Chk Chk album.

Tonight, it will probably be “Walk in the Park” or something similar from the new Beach House album. What an ironic lyric, in context: “in a matter of time / it would slip from my mind[.]” I realize what I don’t like about this album is that Victoria’s vocals are swallowed by the songs. I want her voice to be front and center, like on “Some Things Last a Long Time,” where it takes about a minute of nearly-silent white noise to reach the first lyric, pregnant with sadness, “Your picture / is still / on my wall[.]” I’ve been loth to listen to Devotion ever since I played it nearly nonstop on the car leg of my vacation.

My teacher that I recapitulated Molly’s Intro to Lit class with was at best a hack and at worst a failure, but she did teach me one thing that I always come back to thinking about. It was the etymology of “nostalgia.” And, I’ve just learned, according to Merriam-Webster, what she said wasn’t true. She really was good for nothing. For the record, “nostalgia” is from Latin and Greek words meaning “to return home” or “to return.”

I want there to not be this cacophony every time I shut my eyes and try to sleep. It’s especially annoying because once I am asleep I can sleep for a long time. I’ll turn my alarms off and sleep way in because it’s so relaxing that I don’t want to wake up. I can see why people are on uppers and downers. I have always wanted to try sleeping pills, but that old Christian Science aversion to pills that was drummed into my head as a child refuses to let me. My dad, even though he does not practice that religion and ridicules religion in general, brags that he hasn’t been to a doctor in the past ten years. What’s really going to happen is he’s going to discover he has advanced prostate cancer and he has six months to live. I hope he reconsiders.

I think the thing that I am most cognizant of in my half-waking hours is how the room I’m in isn’t mine. In that vein, I just don’t feel grown up when I’m not in my own house that I’ve paid for. I think that’s why I’m excited to move back into the apartments in the university—it’s a place I can call mine. I’ve signed the lease and paid the rent. I think Jorge and I are going to go all out decorating. It will be wonderful. My home away from civilization.

I got my Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center tickets in the mail today, which I’m excited about. I want to go see a performance with Matt or my mom, but I don’t want the responsibility of hoping that my companion is enjoying the performance. If I go see something solo and it’s completely uninteresting, I have only wasted my time. If I drag someone else, then I feel guilty for wasting both of our time. I may bite the bullet and go see this violin performance by this famous violinist, but I really have no money. I’m soon to run up against the actual limit of my credit card. I just cannot afford my lifestyle any more. I can’t eat out all the time when I’m at Matt’s. I can’t afford to drink in bars. I can’t afford my monthly MetroCard. Some of this is that Josh hasn’t sent me a bunch of checks for my work for him (he’s like four months behind) but still, those checks would bring me to just breaking even.

Still, when left to choose between my amazing vacation and two grand knocked off of my credit card, I’ll choose my vacation 10 times out of 10.

I don’t know where the summer went. I barely used my gym membership or my pool membership (I don’t think I’m joining either this coming summer). I was more of a homebody last summer, working during the day and taking breaks to go jog and such. Matt lives so far away that it feels like an entire day is sacrificed in transit.

I want to write that the summer was amazing and flawless, but a lot of things happened that I wasn’t thrilled about: Grandma had two surgeries that she still hasn’t recovered from (she still has no appetite at all). I did start talking to Kelly again, which was something I wouldn’t have imagined happening. Grammie died, which, apparently, is just the beginning of some kind of legal battle between my dad and Kathleen (Kelly’s mom).

Josh told me that it would take an act of god to subpoena me to testify in California. Inheritances, he says, are a matter for state courts, not federal courts who have the ability to subpoena and extradite across state lines. That’s good to hear. I don’t care if I get nothing at all—those people are fucked up and I refuse to be a part of it.

I suppose my dad is buying me off by paying for my tuition, but hey, he needs to pay the piper for all those years of awful parenting.

I feel like the more autobiographical this blog is the less I’ll be able to take it seriously ten years from now. Hell, even five. Hm. That’s not actually true. I read this one post that really touched me, about driving past an ex’s house.

I couldn’t help myself but drive by Ripley’s house. I don’t know what I was expecting… perhaps his abusive boyfriend leering out the window with a carving knife… but there was nothing. All the time I was up there I was half waiting for my friends to call me wanting to do something. It’s 1 AM. Nothing.

[later that week]

He seems like such a nice person, I don’t know why his boyfriend beats up on him. I guess things like that don’t really make any sense. I wish I could make that guy be nice to him. I hate people that only hang around others because they want to change them, but I must admit I really do want to change him. [...]

I’m going to go to sleep and unwillingly have dreams about cuddling with Ripley. Accursed subconscious. I should have been expecting this, yet I was totally unprepared. Why do I have to be me?

As much as I’d like to think that I’m at home in this exurban clusterfuck (Jersey) / Locus of capitalism (NYC). There’s a lot of that lonely small town guy who would drive around at night to ease the loneliness. Even the thought of it is comforting. Driving through forests is very calming. You always feel like you’re going somewhere when you drive, even if you aren’t. There’s this sense of purpose. I remember one of the most fun things I’d do with my friends would be to select a road at random and see how far into the wilderness it went. This one time, we ended up on this road with gigantic potholes that was so narrow I couldn’t make a U-turn. We put some creepy music on the stereo and jumped at everything that could have been anyone with an axe or chainsaw until we got to the very end. There was a giant, spooky-looking house (maintained by the Parks Service, oddly enough).

Sometimes I miss the ability to be alone with my thoughts. I’d drive down to the beach, and if it was low tide, I’d crawl through that special crevice in that big seastack that faced Pebble Beach. Sitting on the cliff face, I could see the puddle-jumper plane of the day coming in to land at our tiny airstrip. Perhaps there would be one person on the beach. I never discovered another soul in my little nook above the beach where someone had installed a bench.

I need a change of scenery once I graduate. But still, when Matt and I went upstate, being in a rural area didn’t seem real. There is no real way to get to that kind of rural-ness that I was used to, the 8-hours-from-civilization rural. Perhaps it doesn’t even exist any more. I don’t think I could relate to it even if I went back to it.

One of the arguments of that book, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, is that by living in cities, or otherwise nearly 100% man-made surroundings, we completely lose the ability to sense nature. I’m not sure if that is good or bad.

So I laid here in the bed, vaguely thinking about the Powerhouse and all the good memories Sam and I (and a rotating cast of characters) had there. I miss that. I miss so many things, but we have to forge ahead. Taylor was talking about moving to L.A., which would be so sad, as I’d probably never see him again.

Heck, there are people here that I never see.

I don’t know what I’m doing these last few months. I can’t seem to get anything done. I never went to the New Museum, I never saw the Basquiat movie. You know what? I need to go to the Film Forum and see that Antononi movie, Le Amiche, that’s playing this week. Probably not. It’s 6 a.m. It’s going to get light soon.

This is a good sample of all the thoughts that swirl around when I’m trying to sleep. Is it better to write them down? I have no idea. I need to try to snooze again.

I have had the time though, in spades. I’ve just been wasting it in rather stupid ways. I fired up this old computer game that I used to play in high school and before I knew it was 5 AM. That was last night. Tonight hasn’t been as unproductive, but I don’t have a whole lot to show for it, considering that it’s almost 4 AM tonight.

What did I do in the past seven days? Let’s see… I went to see !!! at the Williamsburg waterfront. It was a really fun show, although it was threatening to rain the entire time.

Javelin + JD Samson

I went down to meet Matt at the Soho Grand after work last week to see Javelin again. We thought there was going to be this huge line, but we ended up walking into this little area of Astroturf with the members of Javelin (who we talked to briefly) and J.D. Samson (formerly of Le Tigre, who was to DJ that night) looking like she had the biggest dick in the room.

There was this circle of hip looking lesbians that were subtly orbiting her, wishing that she would talk to them, but they were out of luck. She was untouchable. Even the guy from Javelin gave up his seat when she came back from the bar with a drink. The regulars started to file in (you know, those people you see at a bunch of shows but never know in real life). Matt has such a gift for recognizing celebrities—the guy from Blonde Redhead was a few rows behind us when the show started.

After the band played, the crew arrived (Hannah, Steven, Anthony, Bianca, etc.) I was out of cash and there was a limit on credit cards, so I ended up double fisting my third and fourth of these extremely strong frozen margaritas, which got me fucked up beyond reason. I normally wouldn’t have done so, but I was with Matt, so I knew I wouldn’t end up in a gutter somewhere.

UPDATE: We got onto one of the nightlife blogs.

Word to the wise: tequila is not my drink. We stumbled back to his apartment and basically didn’t leave other than to get food for the next day or two. Quotidian as it is, I think the most important thing in a relationship is to just be able to get along with the other person for long periods of time without getting on each other’s nerves. I think we’ve all been in the situation in dating where we feel like we are kind of putting on an act and that the mask is getting a bit stuffy. I never have to have a mask on, which is good.

The Rue Morgue, Rainstorms

Sunday was one of those days where I should’ve just stayed home, although I knew that I did have to leave the house at some point. I had made plans to go see one of those 50s 3-D movies that the Film Forum is showing, but there was all this drama with the Q train, so I had to take the Shuttle and catch the C at Franklin Ave., which made me about twenty minutes late. I always find it very unsettling when they say there is an “incident.” An incident could be trash on the tracks or a chemical weapon attack. Can we have some kind of color-coded danger level system?

I ran into Yevgeny outside the movie theater, and we walked over to the Amy’s Bread on Bleecker. We had gone in there a few other times, having a slice of great carrot cake and sitting at the small bar that looks out onto the street. He told me of his exciting date with the new guy, and I shared about the goings-on that week. We watched the rain come down and all the well-dressed people flitting to and fro on Bleecker until it was time to head back to the Forum.

The movie we saw, The Phantom of the Rue Morgue, was about this trained ape that would kill people. However, the thing that made it a hilarious movie (in a bad way) was that the main character of the inspector, who is supposed to be solving the crimes, is a complete idiot. It wasn’t just the inspector’s character that was wooden and unbelievable… certain snippets of dialogue, like “it was an animal—no—an animal with hands!” were so cringe-worthy that the audience would erupt in laughter.

Ape-sized hole for the Inspector to puzzle over

I think everyone in that theater was happy for the movie to be over. Also, the 3-D presentation kept giving me this really uncomfortable feeling behind my eyes. It was like a headache, but whenever I would take the glasses off it would dissipate. As to the effect of 3-D in the movie, the times that it was most noticeable were kind of lame in that they emphasized the cheapness of a lot of the sets.

Yevgeny and I parted ways at 14th St, but I still had to go over to Union Square and get some groceries. I had just gotten off of the F, and was thinking I’d walk the few avenues over to Whole Foods. As I wearily climbed up the stairs, I heard the dull roar of a torrential downpour echoing through the air vents and the entrances.

Thinking that it would be a short walk, I used my jacket as a makeshift umbrella and started down 14th St. It was about 8 PM on a Sunday, which wouldn’t be terribly populated anyway, but the streets were empty. Save for the occasional person hunched in a doorway waiting for a taxi, my walk was solo. As I approached 5th Ave, some guy walked past me, struggling with his shirt. He eventually got it off and started walking quickly parallel to my course on the other side of the street. It seemed like a nascent music video shoot, but he continued out of sight. The first block or two I was very glad that I wore my boots, but as I approached 4th Avenue, I realized that my socks were wet and my (non-waterproof) jacket was beginning to saturate with rain.

Drenched, I tried to shake out (and wring out) my jacket in the entrance to Whole Foods. Picking up a basket, I went around on my normal shopping visit: challah, peaches, apples, oranges, carrots. The subway entrance is right in front of the store, so I immediately went down to the L platform. “8th Ave—28 Minutes”, the sign read. Ridiculous! I went back up and caught the R five minutes later.

I was so glad to get home and get out of my wet clothes. Despite the ordeal, I felt satisfied that I’d left the house and made something of the day. The next day, I felt rather ill and drank a bunch of tea. I think I feel all right now. We’ll see in the morning.

Long Distance

I called Christen tonight, which of course means we had a 3+ hour conversation. My long-distance friends are strange. Sam and I will have a few five-minute conversations throughout the week, where Christen and I build up all sorts of things to tell each other for a month or two, then let it all out in this epic conversation.

I can’t believe it’s been a year since I went out to visit Patrick. His life must’ve changed. I never hear from him when he is in a relationship.

I did write a card to someone I’ve never written one to today. I need to go put it out in the mailbox tomorrow. One of the things I hate about living in a city is that the mailman doesn’t pick up your letters at your house.

Amanda, baby.

I forgot to mention the most important thing of the past week: I met Amanda Lepore. Matt and I had always meant to go to this night she hosts, called Carnival, above this bowling alley off of Union Sq.

So this Wednesday we just decided to get it over with and go. We got there rather early, and had an expensive drink or two waiting for the action to start. Everything started to get going at about midnight. We walked by Michael Musto on the way to the bar, surveying the crowd. There were mostly-naked carnival barkers operating the strength test game with the mallet, and nerdier stock tending the booths with the ring toss and such. This man in leather kept walking around on stilts, but never seemed to be going anywhere. Another waif-like (but horrendously ugly) guy specialized in semi-erotic hula-hooping.

I was getting to the point where I really didn’t want to bother Amanda like everyone else was with their request to take pictures with her, but Matt decided to just go through with it. The picture came out well, I think. I didn’t realize she was so short.

Belinda, Belinda

The most kitschy thing I did all week was to go see the B-52s at Coney Island. Matt and I weren’t really sure whether we were going to go all week, but when the day rolled around we decided that we should. I had lived in the area a year and still hadn’t been to Coney Island (near where Matt grew up).

Right after we got off the subway, we ran into Bianca and a friend of hers, who told us to meet them after they got back from picking up some food. We walked up to the boardwalk for a little bit, got some ice cream, and then found a place to sit. Bianca and the friend graciously shared their blanket with us as we waited through the terrible performance of the opener, Belinda Carlyle (with no backing band). It was “Heaven is a Place on Earth” karaoke edition.

The B52s actually put on a rather fun show, but I think the thing that was most fun was watching the crowd around us react. Some people were diehard B-52s fans but for the most part the audience had just come out because it was free. We danced 60s dances to “Rock Lobster,” and all headed home.

After I got out of the movie we took the F uptown, and I walked through the gauntlet of black people that is 42nd Street to the Port Authority, Google mapping my bus home. To my surprise, on a Friday night (well, technically it was Saturday night, as it was 2 a.m.) I could take buses until about 3:30 in the morning, and then there was nothing until six o’clock in the morning.

I was a bit flabbergasted, because all last summer I stayed out as late as I wanted and there was always a bus at least every 45 minutes, if not every hour. This must be the result of the service cuts that New Jersey Transit passed this year. I may not say this a lot, but I certainly think it a lot:

Fuck New Jersey. New Jersey is the most mismanaged, wasteful, complacent hodgepodge of suburban idiots I have ever known.

So apparently my whole shtick for living here, 24-hour bus service to New York City, has gone the way of the Dodo. I hope this is only for weekends, but even if so, it used to only be Sunday where there was a big gap in service (which makes sense, who goes out on Sunday night?). But still, I feel trapped with the fare back and forth from the university being around $9 each way.

On an unrelated note, I was musing that my blog is nearing its 10-year anniversary next year. That is so hard to believe. I need to steel myself to edit and annotate a bound edition of the most poignant posts of these last ten years. Perhaps two volumes.

Here’s a bonus video of Javelin performing my favorite song, “Moscow 1980″ (with Matt and I singing along).

Click here to view the embedded video.

UPDATE: I tried to do it. I set up an InDesign document. I opened up my first post. And I just can’t do it. Most of them are so ephemeral and awful. Perhaps I should start with a more recent year. 2006? *shudder* These posts are just awful—and I barely remember what was going on then. I was raving in January of 2006 about this awful guy named Brian who was lying to me the whole time. I think I should start when I moved to Sacramento. I think that was mid-2006.

Okay, this post is kind of hilarious.

Until I meet Adrian on July 1. Writing about the past has a way of breathing life into things that are dead. Perhaps it’s best just to leave my archives as they are: fragmented, flawed, fundamentally incomplete. Full of unintentional alliteration.

Do you want to know the most bewitching thing? On many of these posts, I’m writing obliquely about people I know, but in 2010 I have no idea who these people are or what we were doing.

These archives are as alien to me as those of a stranger. Being excited at going to my first gay bar. Writing quixotic defenses of my beau’s indefensible behavior.

I feel like I have to mine my archives for some substance for fiction—grind them bare for the benefit of literature—but I fear the fact is that, unlike the ultra-morose Beach House lyric, I don’t got a lot of jokes to tell. I’m sick of the David Sedarises and Dave Eggers’ of the world, whitewashing a morally and intellectually bankrupt society in a thin veneer of humorless kitsch.

I fear this is becoming much like À la recherche—an epic novel about being unsure that one is writing an epic novel. Perhaps I should go back and strip out everything quotidian out of the first year. Everything about where I am or what I am doing and only leave anything abstract. Something like this. Lists of people I love. Names and numbers enough to make it all real.

I found it! The rant I wrote scant hours after Jon broke up with me. That’s what I wanted to read again. It resonates with me still, but with a tinge of a chill. Ideas growing stale. The organic universe that created them cooling, tasting like dried-up highlighters, collapsed into a hazy landscape of lost meaning.

I’m listening to the new Blonde Redhead album. I’m not sure what to make of it. Dream pop? Fuzz house? Glo-fi?

Sometimes we’re beyond words. That’s why I appreciate theater of the absurd so much—words cannot express the majority of what we think and feel. The problem is that we are bound up with a language that has us hostage. We can only think of things that already have words. Sure, we can invent “new” words, but those depend on other words for meaning. It’s this complex web of meaning that we can only sometimes escape through art. There’s this very small vestibule at the Whitney that you can get to by this staircase from the second floor. It leads you to this room where there’s a long display case with memorabilia about this black actress in the Fifties. You read all the press clippings, look at photos of her with big-name Fifties actresses, pictures of her as a child. Then you reach the end of the case, and it has printouts of the casting call, credits of everyone who fabricated the photos, the real name of the woman who posed for all the shots. The absurd permeates that installation.

It’s 7 a.m. now. I’m supposed to hang out with Jorge tonight. We’re going to go to the New Museum and then, theoretically, to Glasslands to see Nite Jewel (they are kind of awful live but Glasslands has cheap drinks and a fun atmosphere). We may go to Eastern Bloc instead, but their drinks are really pricy for a supposedly divey bar. I keep reading all these texts on the “slippery” nature of language—how it is impossible to fix one “meaning” to a text. We almost need a meta-language to talk about language. The book is talking about how throughout history people have been arguing about whether writing is just a neutered form of speaking or vice versa. I prefer writing, because although I am a prolific talker (mixed metaphor?), my ideas run over each other in speech.

Writing is precise.

Clarity.

Ordered regularity.

Which is why it is so compelling.

Meanings ebbing and flowing.

A multifaceted dance of signs, ideas, meaning—full of opposition and interplay.

I may as well give up on writing fiction.

I would have that same rattletrap attempt at dry wit just like that legion all imitating Amy Hempel.

Amy Hempel as a gay man (Palahniuk). Amy Hempel as a bougie San Franciscan (Eggers).

But Hempel is good because of her brevity, not in spite of it. There is no fat to be trimmed. It is, for lack of a better word, perfect.

Jaimie Lee Curtis would approve.

The first thing that I did tonight was go with Matt to the Whitney Museum to see Javelin and Warpaint. Both bands put on a really great show, and I got some adorable pictures of the main guy from Javelin.

Javelin

Warpaint

After that, Matt and I went down to the Whole Foods at Union Square to have a snack and for me to pick up some groceries. I was to meet Yevgeny at French Roast around 10:40, to catch some dinner (we ended up just having dessert and lots of coffee) before seeing the kitschfest that was Perfect.

I’m forced to agree with Jason’s assertion that the script, in and of itself, isn’t half bad. There are some moments in the script that have a certain poignancy to them: about body image, dating in the 80s, etc. However, any moments intended to have any sort of gravitas to them are drowned out by Jaimie Lee Curtis’ wooden delivery of the lines. There is this part in the middle of the movie where Jamie Lee Curtis is completely absent, and this secondary character who is obsessed with finding a husband is put into full view. There is actually an emotional moment that doesn’t ring false where, after talking to John Travolta’s character about how she plans to get extensive plastic surgery, she breaks into tears of desperation upon hearing that her friend is getting engaged.

There is this fragility to Jamie Lee Curtis’s character that is obviously in the script, but is completely absent from her performance. Also, the entire plot hinges on John Travolta being so sexually entranced by Jamie Lee Curtis that he gives up his job at Rolling Stone and any sort of career just to be with her. Now I don’t know what planet you’re from, but I wouldn’t give up a stick of gum from a full pack to be in the same room with a woman that looked like Jamie Lee Curtis, let alone flush my career down the toilet.

There are moments in the movie where Jamie Lee is supposed to be having an emotional experience, but her face is so absolutely blank that Jason and I ended up inventing dialogue to match her expression: “I wonder if there is a bagel in the kitchen… I bet there’s only poppy seed. Maybe I could have an English muffin instead?” [End scene] Those scenes ring so hollow that the sound is deafening, which is almost the film’s greatest selling point. It’s like a two-hour screen test for bad actors and actresses.

However, the movie shines (I don’t think I’ve ever said this before) in scenes where no acting takes place at all—those being the ultra-extended scenes in the fitness club, where Curtis’ character exhorts an army of preternaturally American Apparel-wearing (the movie came out in 1981) health club devotees to ever-more-sexually-suggestive aerobic workouts. There is this one (five-minute, but felt like five-hour) extended scene of the workout taking place. We were in stitches at the awkward contortions—you can see up to Curtis’ cervix in her tight leotard.

It was a strange and hilarious romp in spandex, which I can recommend only with the caveat that you are seeing what bad casting and bad acting can do to butcher a prosaic but acceptable script.

The show was, for lack of a better word, fabulous. The crazy costumes, the ridiculous choreographed dances, the wigs—it was out of control. In photos:

Afterwards, Steven, Matt, and I went to Eastern Bloc, where Cazwell was DJing. We got drinks and then started @replying Cazwell to play Sleigh Bells. After he mashed his own song up (Ice Cream Truck vs. Pon De Floor), he put on Crown on the Ground. We rocked out to Sleigh Bells and then headed home.

So in this week’s New Yorker, they featured that awesome band that Matt booked for his boat show, Javelin, in an illustration in the Night Life section. It was amusing, to say the least. I used to read about things in the New Yorker and go to them, now it’s the other way around.

The wedding was actually really fun. Free booze, free food—what’s not to like? We also drove back with this really cool guy and girl. It was fun taking a road trip, as those are one of the things I miss most about California.

Did I mention I went out with Jorge to Nacotheque last Friday? We had a few beers upstairs at Fontana’s and talked university gossip before going downstairs to the performance space. It took a few hours for the downstairs to get filled up, but there was a crowd by the time the band came on. The act consisted of an electro beat with this guy and girl rapping crazily over it, which seems kind of schticky, but it worked really well. By the time the show was over, Jorge had to take the train home. It was a fun night.

Did I mention we went to a fabric store this week? I got some felt to make my stuffed typewriter. Now I just need some good buttons for the keys.

Tonight after work I’m going to see a midnight movie, Perfect, this so-bad-it’s-good movie from the 80s starring John Travolta and Jaimie Lee Curtis.

I’ve been wanting and not wanting to write about a certain event that happened right before I met up with Jorge. Astute readers may notice the setting, but nonetheless.

I’d put on my best suit to go to Nacotheque (for maximum irony), and took the C downtown one stop from the Port Authority. After exiting Penn Station, the labyrinth of tunnels that attempt in vain to be a navigable transportation hub, I walked over to the Borders above the station. I rode the escalator up to the coffee shop and waited in line to get my iced coffee. Walking past the aisles of books, I decided I might as well try to find a book (even though I didn’t have my backpack so I couldn’t actually buy anything). After a bit of brainstorming, I decided to look for Petronius’ Satyricon. I finally located it in the classical literature aisle. Pleased, I took the book and sat down at the end of the aisle (where everyone sits as the café seating is always full). I scanned the peritext and introduction; it wasn’t until I’d finished the “Note on Translation” that I realized it.

This was the same aisle I first met Jon in.

I had taken New York for granted: her refreshing lack of emotional loci. But sitting there, nothing felt right. I could feel the presence of the big stuffed tiger I’d been carrying when I met him—the nondescript diner in Chelsea where we ended up ordering far too much food—our parting for him to go to the Chelsea NYSC (which, I learned much later, was beyond cruisy). His oblique mention of his plans to sleep with a ton of Germans when he went to Düsseldorf. His well-off Zionist filmmaker roommates. Sundays poring over the paper copy of the Times in his cozy kitchen. The odd but sustained ritual of snacking on full-size carrots that he would make a show of peeling over the sink. My angry, unreasoned rant at the existential breakup (that, for some reason, I can’t find in my archives).

New York is coming alive with emotional resonances that I can’t foresee. Even last night on the way to Eastern Bloc I walked by this vegetarian restaurant I went on an awful date at. Still, I am happy here. The best decision I ever made was to leave Sacramento.

I’ve been reading that wonderful book in literary criticism—just got to the really juicy bits on structuralism and post-structuralism.

Lévi-Strauss, Barthes, etc.

I was watching TV briefly when I was over at Jorge’s friend’s house in Hoboken, and it seemed like every commercial was trying to make some product appear “natural.”

This passage from Literary Criticism really resonated with me:

[S]igns which pass themselves off as natural, which offer themselves as the only conceivable way of viewing the world, are by that token authoritarian and ideological. It is one of the functions of ideology to “naturalize” social reality, to make it seem as innocent and unchangeable as Nature itself. Ideology seeks to convert culture into Nature, and the “natural” sign is one of its weapons. Saluting a flag, or agreeing that Western democracy represents the true meaning of the word “freedom,” become the most obvious, spontaneous responses in the world.

I felt like I had all this to write about—the last few weeks were a ton of stories flashing through my mind, but now as I sit here in front of the screen my mind is but ashes.

Perhaps it’s because I’m feeling a bit tired after the Kelis/Robyn show tonight. Kelis put on an odd act—it wasn’t as much a performance of her songs as it was just a big megamix with a bunch of songs obviously not by her mixed in.

Robyn, however, was an absolute powerhouse. The A/C at Webster Hall wasn’t working, so it was dripping hot in that room while she threw it down. Despite the fact she must have been burning up in there, she was dancing and singing like it was going out of style. Most of it was prerecorded, but she had so much stage presence it didn’t even matter. Unfortunately, due to the steaminess of the room, the fact of Matt and I being in the sixth or seventh row, and the fact that she kept moving around like mad, I didn’t get a single clear shot of her.

Matt and I are supposed to go to upstate New York for this wedding this morning (I get on the bus in an hour and a half and I haven’t even begun to pack). I’m dreading it. There’s no cell service, but apparently there is wi-fi? I think I’m just not relishing the idea of being surrounded by strangers in the middle of nowhere for two days. Also, I won’t get any work done. Also, staying up until 8am is going to fuck my sleep schedule up for at least a week.

I hate leaving New York. It gets harder every time. I’m going to miss the showing of Taxi Driver at the IFC Center. And the Yacht show. There’s always cultural events though. I still haven’t made it to the New Museum.

All the things I wanted to write about have vanished from my mind. I have such an awful memory.

I did finish the second volume of À la recherche this week. Before the show, I hopped over to St. Mark’s Books to pick up Volume III: The Guermantes Way.

I’m tempted to think I have a lot of time tonight, but I really don’t. I must catch the bus in 1.5 hours. Okay, just did most of my packing.

I’ve really been wanting to write these days, but anything I would write would make people angry. The only things I can write address uncomfortable truths in my life. Things that have to stay buried for everything to continue as it does.

This diary hasn’t had capital-”t” truth in a very long time.

One truth tonight: I got out my cutesy note cards and wanted to write someone—a long lost love, an old friend that I hadn’t spoken to in a long time, but there are no such people.

I don’t have anyone’s mailing address unless I specifically asked them for it. I miss sending letters to Taylor in Paris. I miss being in love with someone far away—the thrill of the air mail stamp, the joy of a long phone conversation (who has those any more?).

One of the things that Proust is supposed to comment on in the book is the proliferation of telephones, from interesting novelty to something people hardly take notice of. Proust wouldn’t be surprised by the phone’s death via texting.

There are no long-lost friends because of Facebook. Thanks to the wonders of the news feed, I nearly know when they all last took a dump. I miss letters.

I have exactly one hour until I board the bus.

I think I’m afraid of writing these days. I’m afraid of the truth. Did I mention I went to see the new Todd Solondz movie, Life During Wartime, with Yevgeny and Matt? The characters talk profusely about whether other characters are just pretending to be happy or not. It’s one of those questions that has no answer. As soon as you stop to examine the question, you are not happy. Or perhaps you are.

I know I’m a hundred times happier than when I lived in Sacramento, a thousand times happier than living in Crescent City.

I feel like I’m not as close with Sam as I once was. When you know you will only see a person for a few days a year, friendships enter this airless holding pattern that I am, sadly, all too accustomed to these days.

I sent Patrick a card a month or two ago, and it wasn’t until a month or two later when I texted him about something unrelated that he thanked me for the card. I miss when he and I were in love with each other. I miss how everyone I love is destined to this half-life in my mind. I don’t know any of my friends here enough to really consider them close (save for Yevgeny, of course). I get along quite well with Jove, but I feel awkward asking him to hang out. He’s in a capital-”r” relationship now, and it seems like the only activities I could do with Jove would be date-y things: going to museums, going for a walk in the park, going to the beach—things he should be doing with his boyfriend.

I may take the adorable wooden cat Mario gave me along as a good luck charm. I have grown to love that cat. The porcelain one Christen gave me last year watches over me as I sleep upstairs (in the room that, unforgettably, my late uncle occupied for a solid year). I can still picture his face, subtly receding hairline (despite the receipt we’d found when clearing his apartment out about his hair restoration surgery). When we’d go to the pool, he’d chat us up about who knows what—lies and half-truths (in his mind, could he even tell the difference?) about his girlfriend. What was her name? Gail. Gayle. Something like that. She came from money, a lineage my dear uncle was certainly envious of. He’d play pauper, damning her for her cultivation, then take on a conspiratorial air and seem to imply that they were still in (indirect?) contact.

I wonder if she knows he died.

I wonder if she shed a tear.

I never met her.

I need to read Virgil, but I think I’m going to make my first entrance into Roman literature through the back door (or, perhaps more appropriately, through the glory hole) with Petronius’ Satyricon. That’s next after the Search.

I need to open that tome that contains so much pain for me, The Mandarins. It’s the oldest thing sitting on my “to read” shelf. I need to just get back into it and not think about Keith (who, thanks to Facebook, I learned is singing the praises of a new beau). I wonder if he still reads me. Not think about Grammie.

Solondz is right. Sometimes it’s better to just forget and not have to deal with the pain of things.

Nobody wants Truth. They want truth.

I had such a great time tonight at the party Matt organized for the five year anniversary of his blog, The Music Slut.

The headlining band, Javelin, is kind of amazing live—tons of samplers, dead sexy—they’ve got it all. We were dancing like crazy all night as the boat went around Manhattan.

Such an amazing night. I took a video of one of the songs:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I had so much fun tonight! I saw Beach House tonight at Prospect Park with Matt. I’d never been to the Prospect Park Bandshell before, and it was a beautiful venue.

They did “Gila” (which was mindblowing live) and a bunch of stuff from Teen Dream.

It’s 2 a.m. and I’m just starting work. I don’t think I can get much done. I really shouldn’t have gone to the show tonight. Also, after Beach House, I had to stand through two hours of the anodyne, forgettable stylings of The National while these two drunk fools screamed the lyrics in our ears all night. I probably would have enjoyed the show much more if it weren’t for those Westchester douchebags, but I think I have to face the fact that I find most non-electronic music extremely boring.

Speaking of interesting electronic music, I’ve been listening to a lot of Autechre this week. They have such a vast discography that I was pretty daunted, but I decided to step in at “Gantz Graf” era. It’s great reading music—enough going on to keep your brain chewing on the hidden melodies, but no distracting lyrics or crescendos to distract from the pleasure of the text.

I’m writing this instead of the news items I should be writing. The long phone conversation with Christen, which I thoroughly enjoyed, didn’t help my procrastination either. I feel like I have no time to do work because my sleep schedule is so off-kilter with everyone I know (especially Matt’s). He goes to sleep and I’m up for hours and hours afterwards. I initially liked that because people that are night owls end up having a reinforcing effect on my insomnia (hello Marvin). Not that that’s a bad thing, but it’s bad if you hang out with the person a lot. (Thankfully, Marvin is a consummate flake.)

Speaking of people from the university, I might be going with Jorge to Nacoteque on Friday. I’ve never been, but they hold it so infrequently it might be a fun night out.

I’m drinking a big cup of Earl Grey to get myself pumped to write, but it isn’t happening yet (or is it?). I’m just going to open a document and write a title for each one. That’s it.

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.

It’s far too late. 3 a.m. I’ve destroyed tomorrow by staying up this late. It’s my own fault.

I can’t even get excited about the idea of watching porn. I was listening to Depeche Mode while surfing Fleshbot, and as I was about to play a video, the beginning line of “Personal Jesus” came on: “reach out and touch faith.” I chuckled.

I didn’t do much today other than work. Met Abishek for dinner at Tiffin Wallah, which he didn’t remember recommending last time we met. I remember there was snow on the ground as I walked up Lexington because he was late, carrying my big tall canvas I’d bought at Utrecht that day. The Utrecht I was in when Jove’s friend called him telling him that he’d just tested positive for HIV. Manhattan is becoming a locus for memories, but not all of them are good.

Was late to Pianos to see Deluka with Matt, but we got some munchies and he came with me to do some shopping at Whole Foods before I went home.

Briefly noted:
Antoine Roquentin—who burst onto the arts scene at 26, earning the Prix Goncourt for his first novel Your Favorite Mirror — returns for the second volume of his yet-unnamed series, entitled Your Favorite Consciousness (Harper, $26.99). This series of novels, which seem, at this point, to be the beginning of a work epic in scope, follow Benoît, the young protagonist through his young adulthood. While based on Roquentin’s early life in Alsace and Strasbourg, a more deviant vein runs through the novel than ever existed in reality: indecent liasons on the EuroStar, a stint as an erotic slave with a wealthy Parisian businessman, an extended rape on the banks of the Seine. The reader gets the sense that what is happening, as often is the case, is less important than Roquentin’s precise, flowing torrents of prose. A black eye “gleams, glossy and fluent” the events of the rape “slid by, drowsy as smoked bees.” The sequence of events seems calculated to shock, but the narrator, Benoît, is aware of his own fate as a character bound by words.

As I moved down the aisle of the train, I could feel the still-yet-undreamt glow of a raucous, depraved sex act approaching. Not dissimilar to the satisfying feeling of sliding your finger down the length of the soft, creamy paper of a novel, I had to feel the sinuous curves of the Moor. It’s almost as if the paper in your hand were warm, soft, breathing, alive—responding, each paragraph, to your touch. A novel, writing itself to please you more and more, waves upon waves of sensuous letters and their seductive curves distorting your entire field of vision.

One of the novel’s biggest drawbacks is its episodic structure. While the novel does have an overarching plot—that of every bildungsroman—each of Benoît’s antics, such as the indecent train ride, the escape from the gang in the 20th Arrondissement, often seem hollow and staged. What sizzles is seeing the world through Benoît’s eyes. Perhaps he’s right about the world, that “c’est une blague vaseuse,” but he still must saunter on.

Now it’s 4 a.m.

I’m not sure what I’ve accomplished, but it feels like it’s time for bed. Nobody is ever on AIM any more. I don’t know why I bother.

I’ve been having problems logging in and such—I’m not thrilled with this new host but certainly don’t have the time or patience to switch everything again. I need to look through the Apache settings again.

Abishek was talking about writing programs to find out patterns in gene expression. It’s an incredible thing to do. Sometimes I feel like I’d have better prospects of getting hired if my bachelor’s was in engineering rather than writing.

But then I think that many of the engineers I’ve met are philistine bores.

My whole life revolves around whether I get into a grad school now. It’s just too much stress. I need to be a better writer. I need to know when to use “whom.” I’m getting better at my subject/object pronouns, or so I think.

Kelly invited me to a party at her house this weekend. I think I’m going to go. I need to cancel with Jorge. Now I’m being flaky, but he did cancel on me more than once. Now it’s 4 a.m. and I’m officially on a Bad Sleep Schedule. Well, now that I’m there, might as well enjoy it. I’m going to lay down and try to get some sleep.

It’s very hot down here in my room. I would have the fan on, but that interferes with recognition accuracy. I don’t know what it is, but as soon as I sit down at the computer it is immediately two o’clock in the morning.

I suppose this whole journal is time I could’ve spent sleeping. I need to try and write a story this week. I was thinking of writing something very lascivious and very semiautobiographical. If people won’t talk to you, might as well immortalize them in fiction. I tried to write this story where he had this big nervous breakdown, but to tell you the truth I wasn’t really feeling much what was going on so I can only dispassionately describe the situation. Honestly, I was really done with it while it was happening and just wanted to get to bed. I don’t think that’s a good place to start a story from.

I really don’t want to write about death any more. Dave Eggers spread the (fictional?) death of his parents over an entire novel. It doesn’t interest me, save for a passing desire to write about the day that we took my grandma to the home. I had this idea this week to write reviews of something fictional, but I forget what it was exactly.

I think I’m also very hesitant to write a story because I feel like the last story I wrote directly resulted in the end of my relationship with Jon. Or perhaps it was already over. Perhaps I should write a fictional movie review.

NOW PLAYING
L’Infer
Director Antoine Roquentin’s 2002 tale of erotic despair and alienation—to be reprised July 29 at the Alliance Française—stars Paul-Henri Leroux as Karel, an anxious but subdued functionary at an art gallery. His relationship with Augustin, an aspiring writer, is front and center as the couple decide to experiment with what constitutes attachment, desire, and, of course, jealousy. The haunting landscapes of a sinister, claustrophobic Manhattan loom large in the foreground where the characters, as Karel puts it, “aller au-delà de l’idéologie de la propriété hétéronormatif [move beyond the heteronormative ownership paradigm].” Even as art house fare, the moralizing can be dense at times, in the vein of Catherine Breillat in Anatomie de l’enfer. Despite the similarity in title, Roquentin’s work, while displaying some of Breillat’s critical and unshrinking eye in the discussion of raw sexuality, presents his characters in an unquestionably masculine way. Dialogue is sparse while Karel and Agustin perform acts that should draw some sort of reaction from them, but perhaps this is Roquentin’s concession that both participants know the end result of their experiments—the wide-eyed realization that there is a place to be found outside of the stifling universe of the hétéronormatif. — A.L. Sloane

Did I mention that I started using the Kindle app on my Nexus One to read a book for the first time tonight? When I was writing that paper on artificial intelligence and feminism [PDF link], I bought this book called Artificial Knowing on the Kindle store so I could use it as a research source on my computer, but it was so interesting I wanted to read it in its entirety instead of just skimming for stuff relevant to my paper.

I’ve also been reading this book called Literary Theory: An Introduction by Terry Eagleton (that my literature professor loaned me). It is one of the most concise, interesting, and easy to read summarizations of literary theory’s origins and doctrines. I loved this passage about New Critics:

[...] New Criticism was the ideology of an uprooted, defensive intelligentsia who reinvented in literature what they could not locate in reality. Poetry was the new religion, a nostalgic haven from the alienations of industrial capitalism. The poem itself was as opaque to rational enquiry as the Almighty himself: it existed as a self-enclosed object, mysteriously intact in its own unique being. The poem was that which could not be paraphrased, expressed in any language other than itself: each of its parts was folded in on the others in a complex of organic unity which it would be a kind of blasphemy to violate.

I sent a message to Isabel, my friend that I would always have Marxist dialectic with in my literature class, and I hope we can hang out this week. I suggested we go to the new exhibition at the New Museum (I’m dying to go, but I haven’t made plans with anyone yet). I was thinking of Isabel because she and I had this conversation about how Abby Rockefeller started the MoMA.

It’s almost an insult that Americans own The Persistence of Memory, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and The Starry Night. Or would these works not have “value” without the promotion machine of the MoMA? Should I use “quotations” because they remind me of Carles? Should this be the “end?” Should all “articles” end with resolution? Am I rly having a “twitter tiff” w/ Best Coast? Should this post reveal my “deepest inner dezires?” R u turned off by discussion of “faux reviews?” Am I jeluzz I dont own “Broadway Boogie-Woogie?”

My acclamation back to New York is taking longer than I thought. I thought I would be able to slip right back into my old life, but the tiring (but wonderful) weeklong trip to the Shore stood in the way of that.

This weekend, even though I had a lot of work to do, I had to get out and do something intellectual or I would’ve felt closed in during the work week. Last night I went out with Matt for burritos, and then we went over to Union Hall briefly to see some bands that ended up being awful.

Matt also got me a limited edition single of the new !!! track, “AM/FM,” from Strange Weather. It is clear vinyl, which looks awesome.

We got ice coffees and hung out in Prospect Park for a few hours today, drinking in the wonderful weather from a shady bench under a stand of trees. We walked back to his house and watched awful/hilarious videos on YouTube.

In the late afternoon, I went to meet Yevgeny at Shake Shack (which I’d never been to). The weather was fabulous, and we didn’t have to wait too long in line for our burgers. I got this vegetarian burger made out of mushrooms and cheese, which was delicious. We were to see a documentary on the unfinished Henri-Georges Clouzot film Inferno (the above photo is a still from the film).

I want to write more, but my voice-recognition sucks and my wrists hurt. The documentary was interesting, but raised more questions than it answered. I loved all of the experimental footage, but the plot of the supposedly 300-page script was a poorly concealed Proust ripoff. The main characters were Marcel and Odette. Good writers steal, I guess. I should go to sleep. I hate literally not being able to write.

I’ve had such an incredibly odd sleep schedule all week (even for me) since coming back from California on that red-eye flight. I had also run out of my vitamins about a week before, which I think made me look even more wan. However, today is our first day at our vacation rental in Wildwood. Instead of renting a hotel, we went in on a week at a condo with my aunt and uncle. The place is very big (necessary for containing my BB in a boxcar cousins) and has an absolutely wonderful view of the ocean.

I have to work this week, but hopefully I’ll be able to get a lot of beach time in notwithstanding. I just had breakfast out on the balcony, and when somebody wakes up I’ll ask for the keys to go take my morning jog on the beach. Today is supposed to be one of the best beach days of the week. We’ll see how it delivers.

It’s 5:55a.m. and the cousins should be awake shortly. I’d better see how many Amy Hempel stories I can read until then.

I’m on the plane, which still doesn’t have wi-fi. I think I’m flying Virgin America next time, if only for the wi-fi and outlets at each seat. The woman next to me is sleeping, so I have my computer in stealth mode (it’s an application called Nocturne). My last day in San Francisco was fun; Mario and I went to this bar called Moby Dick that had an adorable bartender in a BUTT shirt. We completely embarrassed ourselves attempting to play pool after downing way too many $3 margaritas.

The destination that night was Trigger, a gay bar in the Castro that had an 80s night. The bar itself was decked out in 80s kitsch to the max: they even had a life-size mannequin dressed to look like Michael Jackson. However, the DJing was really odd. The songs would mix from one to another in almost 30-second sets. Just when you’d realize the DJ was playing a good song (like Strange Love), it would immediately be over and mixed into some 80s butt rock.

We had a fantastic time even though the DJing was subpar, watching this drag queen lipsync to Whitney Houston and watching these two guys in booty shorts hump each other. Another attraction was this really cute couple that kept snogging all night. They were there solely to rub in to others that they were unfuckable.

Mario and I ran to catch the 24-Divisadero, and the LaQuonda driving the bus actually checked my super-expired MUNI pass. I like the Asian drivers much better: they don’t give a shit if you have a pass or not and just let you on.

The next day, Mario and I biked down to awesome Burmese at Yamo, then over to Four Barrel for fantastic coffee. After that, we biked to the Castro to go to this awesome vintage porn store, where I bought this chapbook of poems called A Story in a Bottle by this guy named Dan Bellm. I haven’t been able to Google him, but the poems are touching and crammed with wonderful imagery. I like buying chapbooks by random unknown poets. It also helps that most of the poems take place in San Francisco, so there’s that stockpile of images to more fully animate anything he’s talking about.

After the porn store, we hopped on the subway and went to William Stout, this amazing architecture and design bookstore. The only thing I was allowing myself to buy was a book on German/Bauhaus posters from the Twenties and Thirties, but nothing really jumped out at me. There were a bunch of fabulous books on typography, but I knew that it would just sit on my shelf. After that, we headed back to Mario’s house. We said our goodbyes, and I walked down to BART. I have a tendency to get extremely stressed out before a flight, so I tried my best to relax, reading Within a Budding Grove on the way to the airport. I went through security, where I was subjected to one of those full body scanners. I always hear that Benjamin Franklin quote in my head when I go through those checkpoints: “Those that give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither.”

I wandered down to the café, which, ironically, was Il Fornaio, the restaurant my late uncle was obsessed with going to and eating their free hors d’ oeuvres. I was starting to feel less stress as I munched on a tasteless muffin and sipped a very small (“large” on the menu) Italian soda.

It was a motley crew on the plane—the flight is completely full. This man tried to pretend he had the window seat, but I wasn’t taken in. I reserved these seats eight months ago because I get claustrophobic when I’m in a middle seat. Everything seems to be going all right so far. I’m so excited to see Matt and everyone on the East Coast again. I can’t believe my vacation is over. It’s so unbelievable.

It’s odd how the current becomes the old. Kathleen had a priceless relic of my adolescence at her house, one of my first paintings, entitled “God.”

The backstory is that Kelly, the gang, and I were watching a movie and it ended. We were too tired to put in a new DVD, so the screensaver came on. Eventually, after watching it bouncing around the screen for what seemed like hours, we realized it was God. It changed, but stayed the same. It was timeless and immutable. So I painted it for Kelly for her birthday a long, long time ago. The white scratches are unintentional, it should be a black expanse with just the logo.

It’s absolutely unbelievable to me that this vacation I looked forward to for so long is actually over.

The two days I spent in Reno were fun, and mostly spent in Sam’s bar. We also did what I’d been looking forward to for a long time, going to the Gold Dust with Jay and the gang for breakfast at 3 a.m.

We also did Mel’s, In-N-Out, and all the fried food available. It seemed like I’d just arrived when I realized I had to have the rental car back the next day.

Click here to view the embedded video.

There was awful traffic, so I ended up taking a detour down Sunrise and Fair Oaks, ending up at my grandma’s house. I even did a drive-by viewing of it, and it looked exactly the same.

It was sadly the same. I wanted it to be bulldozed and rebuilt, but I guess they aren’t renovating the outside, just the inside.

The die was cast. I knew I had to leave, but the incipient horror was that it was up to me to determine the exact moment. At least with a train or bus you have to leave at a certain time; however, leaving via car is the most anti-climactic because you choose the time. You have to say, at some arbitrary moment, “Well, it’s time to go.” Which, let it be said, took me hours to work up to. We said our goodbyes, and I just couldn’t believe that it was over. That I wouldn’t see her again for a year. It was just too much.

I burned two CDs for the trip:

The Presets’ Apocalypso

and Beach House’s Devotion.

One happy album and one sad album, respectively. Beach House painfully crooned “please do not go” as I careened down I-80 towards Molly’s house, Google Maps Navigation barking directions at me from my Nexus One, air conditioning blasting.

Driving, it could be said, is just like riding a bike. I felt just fine, especially as the traffic thinned out on 91 and I had a stretch of road all to myself. I continued up 70, through Oroville, trying to race the sun as it set. Its ruddy gaze took in everything—the rushing torrent of farmland, the far-away hills flat and purple, painted on the globe of the sky. The gold-turned-pink of empty fields, grass long-dead from the summer heat, waned to gray as the hours crept by. This was all right. I’d done this all before. Snatches of memory began to return from my last trip to see Molly, where I had made the mistake of bringing Adrian. This time, unlike that trip so long ago, I made it in two hours (not five). Night had almost complely fallen as I wound through the hills around Paradise at thirty miles an hour. Every now and then I’d catch a glance of the grey mountains to the left of the highway, almost completely in shadow under a gray halo of dying sun.

I pulled into Molly’s driveway. The house was exactly as I remembered it, but gleaming with every light on.

It was as if no time had passed. Molly and I stayed up until 2 a.m. talking about everything: literature, writing, education, language, sociology, dysfunctional families, relationships. I’d so missed those talks.

The next day, I wandered into the kitchen to find the family making fresh biscuits. They were flaky and delicious, especially with rhubarb jam. That day, we went down to the lake on her property with her new dog, Cash. Not much more than an overgrown puppy, Molly had only had Cash for about two days prior to my arrival, so we all were trying to get his behavior under control. There were a lot of slobber-covered hands to be washed and “no”s to be said. Despite all his faults, he was an absolutely adorable dog.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Molly’s lake.

Cash bringing back an impossibly large stick.

After we got back from the lake (and changed our clothes that muddy Cash had jumped on), Molly, the family, and I went down to Chico. We walked around the downtown area, spending a lot of time in the used bookstore and talking about Molly’s novels (the completed one in revision and the one in progress). We ended up going to this amazing gelato and candy store, Powell’s, where Molly’s daughter took me on a tour of every single candy variety in the place. I had to try very hard not to buy anything there. After the candy store, we went out for some delicious sushi at this place called the Raw Bar.

Back at the house, Molly was showing me some interesting stuff: books by this really funny cartoonist whose name escapes me without an Internet connection, these amazing RSAnimate videos that I’d never seen before, and giving me an overview of contemporary lit (which I am often undeservingly disdainful of). We also talked about Proust at length, and she seems to be leaning in the direction of reading it. I can’t wait to finish it so I can read some of the wonderful books she suggested (especially from her Philip K. Dick-only shelf).

After everyone would go to bed, I needed entertainment, so I set to talking to people on a certain disreptable website (no, not the one you’re thinking of with the peace sign). I ended up getting caught up in a very interesting conversation about Marxist dialetctic and Ginsburg that lasted well into the night. We ended up planning to meet for coffee the next day before I left for Reno.

On my last day in Chico, Molly, her daughter and I took the dogs and went to this feature of Chico called the Flumes, which are these little manmade rivers about twice the size of a water slide constructed for the Diamond Match Company to float logs down to its factories to make matches out of them. I can’t convey the fresh, crisp, earthy smell in the air, the pleasantly hot sun ameliorated by the cool water flowing next to us.

The flumes.

Alas, the time came when I had to leave. It seemed like I had only just arrived, but I had to return my rental car in three days and hadn’t even arrived in Reno yet.

The Naked Coffee in Chico is, for some reason, much more pretentious than the one in Sacramento ever was. The hipsters lounging on their fixies outside (no joke) were rail-thin and tattooed as hell. I ordered a Thai coffee and ran into Alfredo (odd name, huh) in the back seating area. We ended up getting along quite well—I was making him crack up at the Wikipedia image that is supposed to sum up our generation.

We talked demographics, urbanification, anti-capitalism, socialism, New York, Chico, etc. I needed someting to munch on before I left, so we went to a nearby sandwich place for, well, sandwiches. I was enjoying our conversation so much (and for some reason was loth to leave Chico, perhaps because of its positive associations with Molly) that I invited him to Bidwell Park. As Molly had described to me, the creek that flows through the park is channeled into a large swimming area of fresh water, which was kind of amazing. We walked for a while up the trail as bikers and joggers passed us.

We were both enjoying the conversation so much that he directed me to a place to get awesome iced teas, and we decided to round out the day by going to Upper Park, which he’d been singing the praises of all afternoon.

We drove up to Upper Park rather late in the day, and I was concerned that the sun might set before we arrived, but we beat the sun. We climbed up on top of what he called Monkey Hill, which was a rocky promontory from which the entire valley was visible.

The hill we climbed.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A panorama (stitched together in Photoshop) of the view from the ridge. Here is the bigger version, and the giant version.

The Sutter Buttes off in the distance.

I could see everything: Chico State, the stadium, and the trees that obscured any view of the actual city itself. The “purple mountain’s majesty” was on view to the west, and the Sutter Buttes loomed in the clouds to the south. To say that it was picturesque is an abomination of language: it was like being on top of the universe.

As more people came up the hill, we retreated up further into the hill as the sun set.

Finally, the last wisps of sunlight expired.

I dropped off Alfredo and began my journey to Reno.

The day I left San Francisco, I met my dad and we went up to Placerville where my grandpa lives.

We had a good long conversation, then my dad drove me back to Sacramento. I tried to avoid certain topics, but he seriously defended not telling Kathleen that Grammie was dead. Fuck these people. They are insane.

I rendezvoused with Waylon and we went out to pick up Christen at the airport that evening.

I had to work most of that week, but we had a lot of fun hanging around the house. We got her sprinkler system to work and all sorts of stuff. We also went to the Star Trek museum!

After the Star Trek stuff, we looked at the planes and such (the exhibit was at an aeronautical museum):

I went to Lipstick on Tuesday night, and I have to say it was quite boring. The music choices were blah, and the only songs I could actually dance to were “Behind the Wheel,” “The Girl and the Sea,” and a Cut Copy song. I did, however, get hit on by this sloppy drunk girl.

[in slurred voice] “I’ve been making googly eyes at you all night!”

“I’m gay.”

“Oh…” she paused, “Let me introduce you to my friend!”

I attempted to suppress my eyeroll, and got up to dance because there was an actually palatable song on. Her friend wasn’t bad looking, he was quite thin, had a Morrissey coif, little black boots, and one of those douchebag-neck t-shirts showing off his hairy chest and a jangle of pendants on silver chains.

His hag, a short blonde girl with a raunchy sense of humor, provided most of the entertainment as Daniel (the guy) joked about her hypothetical enlarged clit. He was sort of cute, but had that grizzled, almost sandblasted countenance that betrayed his age. Before leaving, he gave me his card. Graphic designer / printmaker. Eyeroll. But isn’t every attempted artfag a graphic designer? I made the long walk back to Christen’s house, down S street, stopping at the Safeway for cigarettes.

I felt stuck in this mode of being that I’d abandoned a long time ago. Not until I got back to Christen’s house and saw her face again that I felt justified in coming back to Sacramento.

I went to Lipstick all out of nostalgia, but apparently the milieu that I missed doesn’t go there any more. The new cool party is Fuck Fridays, which wasn’t around when I lived there.

After work one day I decided to take the light rail down to the Downtown Plaza, the mostly-dead mall in downtown Sacramento. I adore walking around dead malls—it represents everything that I hate about consumerism. However, I had to temper my enthusiasm with the reality that Arden Fair, which Christen and I visited the day before, is booming. There was not a single empty storefront at Arden. I hate knowing that this is true, but Arden Fair is a locus of my childhood and adolescent memories. Christen and I got Fresh Choice (starting with a salad but eventually gorging ourselves on desserts and soft serve) and walked around the concourse. We meandered into Hot Topic, which to our surprise was well-lit and full of t-shirts from TV shows we’d watched when we were young. It was almost disheartening that we didn’t want a single thing. They didn’t even have those bondage pants they used to. It was like Spencer’s Gifts: T-Shirt Edition.

The night after going to the Downtown Plaza, I went over to Kathleen’s house. I expected it would be a harrowing maze of avoiding emotional topics, but we basically just complained about how inhuman my father is (I can’t agree more). While at the Plaza, I decided to give Kelly a call. We had sent each other some preliminary Facebook messages about a possible reconciliation, but with all the running around of my vacation I hadn’t had time to actually sit down and have a long phone conversation. We talked for a good half hour, about people that had changed and who hadn’t. About Sacramento and New York. About Kathleen and my father. It was, to say the least, a strange conversation, but one that I’d been wanting to have for a long time.

This journal that you are reading, I have to say, played a large role in our estrangement, but as you all know I don’t show all my cards here any more. You have to read between the lines.

Speaking of hearts on sleeves, I had lunch with Andrew Taggart after work one day. I hopped on the light rail ($2.50!) and met him at Naked Lounge. He looked the same as ever, as if he’d been trapped in amber as the result of a horrendous bike polo incident. We made some small talk about Sacramento, unemployment, his boyfriend (who is moving back to New York, oddly enough), and a smattering about the past. He really hasn’t changed at all, and probably never will. I feel like I’ve changed, although it could be an illusion. But the things that haven’t changed are still there—I would have run away with him in a moment had he asked me to.

Being in Sacramento was like being in a Disneyland of my memories. The buildings were the same, but the faces were all different. I thought the feeling of being unhinged from time would subside, but from my first entrance to places I’d been, all the old memories flooded back more real than the present.

Butch ‘n Nellies: a long afternoon with Taggart, The Beat: a failed date with an endearing but clueless guy that asked if the Brazilian Girls were from Brazil, Naked Lounge: exchanging okc messages with a barista who ended up completely ignoring me when I went there, The Sac airport: saying goodbye to Patrick after his lovely week-long visit ages ago, Arden Fair: the four palms within which I first met Andrew, I Street, K Street, Capitol Park, the loci of a million interactions, walks, desperate love affairs, drunk drives, midnight rendezvous, Vespa rides in the fresh air, nausea, ecstasy—the endless, painful, relentless drive of my body to regain that which I’d lost. Those who I’d lost.

Driving past Aaron’s street.
Walking by the hospital where Grammie probably died.
Working in my old office.
Drinking at Old Ironsides.

Wishing, just wishing, that even the least shard of my past would come back. For Crash and I to call each other poon zombies in the parking lot of the Rage, for Katie to drive the wrong way down Exposition Boulevard after the disaster Oakenfold show, to get a sandwich at the Co-Op and smile at the guy who always used to make mine.

Every bit of those years, save for Christen, Taggart, Terry, Shaun, and Kathleen

gone.

On the last day, we mowed the lawn and picked up all these little tart peach things that had fallen all over the lawn—it felt good to get something done. We even fixed one of the broken sprinkler heads by jamming something into the broken one to give the others water pressure. For some reason it felt right to get something done, to feel accomplished, on my last day. The night before, Christen, Waylon, and I stayed up until 4 a.m. researching Internet memes. It was a moment of nostalgia, peace, and happiness all in one.

Christen was the only reason I came back to Sacramento.

I can set everything up just the way I like it, allocate resources just how I want, and have root. Root root root root root. Love it.

Everything should run a thousand percent faster now. There were some odd issues migrating everything, so if you see anything that’s obviously broken, shoot me an email or comment.

I’ve been having a lot of fun this trip, despite the fact that this all reminds me so much of my grandma.

Mario and I started out by going to a thrift store on the other side of Bernal Heights

Hitting up the farmers’ market in Civic Center

We ended up at the MoMA, where I met Jose, this amazing artfag friend of Mario’s whose disdain of San Francisco’s neoliberal conservatism exceeds even mine.

Mario and I biked around a lot, taking in the view at Dolores Park. So many bearz!

The next day, after a rendezvous with Sam and his boyfriend, Taylor and I met up and went to see the sunset at Ocean Beach.

Mario, Kyle, and I went to Hearst Castle last week. The drive was epic: at least ten hours total. However, most of it was on the absolutely stunning vistas on Highway 1 around Monterey and Big Sur.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The castle itself, which we got to on a bus that wound up the hillside, was stunning on the outside, but the insides of the buildings were a hodgepodge of ugly but priceless antiques.

We also stopped at a beach on the way back. It totally reminded me of Endert’s Beach, with all the cliffs and seastacks.

Click here to view the embedded video.

He offers
A handshake
Crooked
Five fingers
They form a pattern
Yet to be matched

It was absolutely fucking hilarious. I had never before gone to the Stud, but it was actually fun. There were so many faggots that it was almost refreshing to feel like I had nothing in common with these people (save for a love of dick). When I first came in, I was trying to see if Kyle had come, but it wasn’t until the last act when the crowd began to thin out that I saw him. Smokin’ hot, with those clear frames. I danced (near the bag that had my laptop, since I’d just come from the café) to Junior Senior, that Uffie ripoff artist, C + C Music Factory, Prince, Madonna—all the dirty gay hits.

And whoa.

Were there some dirty frakkin gipsters. I srsly need to take a shower. But like, maybe not. One of the roommates has the hiv. People are so nonchalant about it here. Another thing that New York does not share. Or perhaps it’s just me. I am deeply disturbed by the hiv.

But Kyle and I danced (separately, since I had to keep an eye on my bag) the night away. When Kyle felt like he had had his fill of the Stud, he came over to say au revoir. I grabbed my bag and followed him out, Google Mapping my way home. I asked whether the 14-Mission ran all night, and he replied in the affirmative.

He walked me all the way to Mission Street, and we were cracking each other up about something. Finally, after much mirth, I bid him adieu and walked over to the bus stop (Kyle had his bike). I could have biked today, but I do not have the clothes to brave this awful San Francisco cold. Kyle joked that it was perfect for an ice queen like him. I, however, think it’s too fucking cold.

So I’m in Mario’s bed right now. He’s getting boned by his big-dicked paramour that he’ll be sick of in a week, and it’s almost refreshing to be alone.

I want to write all about Proust—how his influence either killed or crippled writers. Proust is amazing. I’m kind of in love with him. Sad fact: he kind of looks like a rapist. But, like, a hot rapist. Time machine, please?

I need to go to sleep. I set my computer’s clock to PST, and it’s reading out 3:26 ante meridian. Tomorrow: indie dance party. Sunday: A Place to Bury Strangers. Monday: hanging with Sam/Taylor. Life is good.

Time for sleep, if it ever comes.

I would give my life to resurrect Proust. Can À la recherche du temps perdu be twenty books with 35,000 pages? I cannot let this love die. And I’m only on the second volume. I got so involved with The Mandarins I can’t finish it. Too emotional. I read that when I was dating Keith and my life was falling apart around me. Simone was the only thing holding me together. That and getting drunk at Lipstick.

I love you, Marcel Proust.

Despite your wealth.

So I’m here. After the 8-hour flight (not including an hour and a half waiting on the tarmac), Mario picked me up at the airport and we went out to Tubesteak Connection. There were cheap drinks, lots of sleazy disco, and a few of Mario’s friends. I also met Mario’s urbane friend Kyle. He was just as interesting and obsessed with the 18th century as I’d been told.

Today, we went out to the DeYoung with Kyle and took in the new impressionism exhibit on loan from the Musée d’Orsay, as well as the permanent collection. The impressionist works were a lot of portraits of rich ladies and anodyne French lanscapes. The most interesting pieces were those painted of religious or mythological subjects, which I usually find quite boring. It’s almost embarrassing to be staring at a Renoir and be on the verge of a yawn. I’m bored by art that is nonthreatening, but I was glad to see everything.

Mario is hanging with a guy he’s seeing tonight, so I took the J down to the Mission to hit up a coffee shop. I’m not sure what to do today. So much fun stuff is happening tomorrow, but not much tonight. Mario suggested I go see a drag show at the Stud, but I’m not going to a gay bar alone. I’m sipping a darjeeling tea and just had a slice of carrot cake.

I thought I had more friends in San Francisco, but everyone is on vacation: Taylor is in Southern California visiting family, and Sam isn’t coming in until Monday. I did notice that A Place to Bury Strangers is playing Sunday, and Matmos is playing Tuesday. That doesn’t result in something to do tonight though. There’s also an indie dance party on Saturday.

Ok, I did find something fun to do but it’s already over. I do, however, have added something to my calendar for the rest of the days I’ll be here. I think I’m still jetlagged. I need to do a final edit on this document I have. I think I’ll wait until I’ve had a full night of sleep.

The next table is talking about VCs and PayPal. San Francisco is an 18th century Disneyland sustained by Silicon Valley bubble money. This tea has made me all jittery. My original plan for the night was to ride around the city by bike, but it is so cold. I got a light coat when we went to the Haight, but that is not enough for riding a bike full speed. I also picked up the first Crystal Castles album and Attack Decay Sustain Release on vinyl. I can’t wait to play those when I get home.

I called Christen, but she wasn’t home. I was going to call Kelly, but I forgot about the time difference. It’s 1:54am EST. Perhaps I should call Kathleen, but I wouldn’t have much to say. I guess I’ll stay at the coffee shop until it closes. I should read Within a Budding Grove. It’s actually at a really interesting part, but I’m more in the mood for a fun dance party. The ship has sailed, though.

San Francisco is so strange. I miss New York in that I have places I regularly hang out that never close and transit that never stops running. Mario says it’s been very warm in Sacramento. I think I’m going to enjoy that. There’s a woman sitting in front of me using a netbook; she’s on Yahoo. She’s checking stocks and editing a long document.

My table, scarred by use and featuring a bit of illegible pen graffiti, is round and constructed of a light wood . My tea is held by a stainless steel teapot that doesn’t come with a lid. My cup is glass, which reminds me of cups we used to have in my childhood house, and is filled with the amber liquid. It casts a subtly wobbly shadow as the undulations of my fingers on my laptop keyboard cause the table to move imperceptibly.

Now the people in the next table are talking about DEF CON while I wonder what company they work for. They would probably never admit it in public—they could be Googlers or Yahoo-ers. I’m thinking of recording their conversation with Audacity. Pontificating on the difference between black hat and white hat. Are these insufferable Silicon Valley types as insufferable as stockbrokers? At least stockbrokers realize they are members of a different caste and segregate themselves.

Christen needs to be here. We need to drive down to Ocean Beach and run into the darkness until we get to the waves. I need some bacchanalia. Some emotional release. I often feel like the purpose of this trip is an attempt to set up a narrative for my past in California. Visiting old spots in San Francisco didn’t have the cathartic feeling that it used to. Perhaps when Sam and I go back to our old haunts it will have more gravitas, but since Hole in the Wall moved it’s not quite the same. That block with the Powerhouse has a different vibe now. I would have gone somewhere sleazy tonight, but I don’t feel comfortable going to seedy bars without a friend to watch my back.

I almost wanted to get on the train to Sacramento. Even though I don’t really know what I’d do (Christen is in Texas until the 24th), I guess I just need some kind of validation. To go to my grandma’s old house and have it sink in that it’s not mine any more. To see strangers in the house. To have it be final. It’s almost a family tradition on my dad’s side of the family to pretend our family members haven’t passed. There is no closure. No celebration of their life. Just a void.

I suppose I want to achieve catharsis by talking with Kathleen, but that does have an element of artifice to it. Kathleen has lied to me quite a few times. I specifically remember times she’s lied to my face. She has (had?) problems with addiction in the past, and I don’t think her current boyfriend is supporting healthy choices.

However

My father never touches any substances and he’s a complete emotional vacuum. I fully believe he engineered Grammie’s death to collect her money. To play god for a moment, there really was no point in keeping her alive. She didn’t know who she was. Still, what happened wasn’t right. Something about all this doesn’t add up. Why didn’t he call and tell me (or anyone else for that matter) that Grammie was sick? He’s so evil.

I suppose I should get back to Mario’s place. I’m feeling very tired. It’s nearly 3 a.m. EST. And the café is closing.