Notes

When I am on the subway, or sitting in a park, or any place really with my tote bag, I am reading W.G. Sebald's The Rings of Saturn, eighty pages short of the end, and not getting there anytime soon since I read maybe ten pages a day, because thankfully I have a short commute to work. At home, I am reading Mary McCarthy's Memoirs of a Catholic Girlhood, which has to be returned ASAP. And at work yesterday, I started reading Timolean Vieta Comes Home by Dan Rhodes, which so far is amazing and I am hopefully going to get it at work today so I can bring it home and read it all tonight. I read about it on some blog or other, and it is really charming new fiction that I liked instantly. Hopefully, that will sustain itself for the entire book, because right now, I really reccomend it. I will let you know if things change. And I have to finish all of these real soon or otherwise severly minimize how much time I can devote to them because I am already supposed to have started Ulysses, to read along with Joe and Peter. Two days from now is Bloomsday and so I guess that is as good a day as any other to start reading that book.

Three days ago, I read Joan Didion's Where I Was From, which chronicaled changing ideas of California, both her own, and this nation's as represented in its popular literature. The first section of the book dealt with mid-19th century California lit. and it was such a boring section of the book that probably could have been excised and which made me consider putting the book down, but luckily I pushed forward and the last half of the book was really rewarding and maybe this is just because I am dim and only like reading about things which with I am already familiar with, but I really want to cite the reason as being that the first half was poorly written lit. crit. and too disjointed for anything to be gained from it. The book dealt with California's federally subsidized economy and its own contrary idea of itself as independent, looking at the railroad economy, than the post-WWII military-industrial business that flourished there and created lots of the suburbs, and then on sad note, looks out how this has shifted to a new rush of communities lobbying for super prisions to be built in their towns. The book has some weak parts that seem a little unneccesary but when you're done reading the book and look at the work as a whole, you see how they fit into the narrative she was telling.

I am listening to the new Wilco album on my computer and drinking coffee.

Yesterday, I ate pizza on my lunch break and got so happy and had feelings that I wanted to transcribe here, but the feeling is gone. So much for Wordsworth's "emotion recollected in tranquility." I never have done well with that. I do best when I write in the moment of heightened emotion. I am not very good at recalling it. But to tell you what caused this excitement: I realized that I was eating pizza by the slice, really yummy, fresh out of the oven pizza. This is something that is special about New York. I realized this on my cross-county trip and saw the sorry offerings in pizza places. And it's not their fault. They don't have the foot traffice that a pedestrian city like New York has and so obviously don't make much money selling pizza by the slice. So I sat there, eating this warm, delicious pizza and, in what is not as frequent an occasion as it has been in the past, I was giddy, fucking giddy thinking about this, about how happy I was to be, with all these people walking by, and places, so many of them, serving yummy pizza to feed them all. I think the sun was out also.

Also: This morning I had the most magical dream ever. I cannot put into words because it wasn't so much the events that happened in the dream, but my awareness throughout and the feeling of floating on air that I lived in for a lifetime this morning. I slept through my train stop and somehow ended up at this seaside town, I got off to switch back and floated down the street, interacting with people, but feeling so alive and happy and weightless. And I was not in a very deep sleep, so I was concious of this dream and wanted to prolong the feeling indefinitely, I wanted to see if I could fall backwards and feel it, and I did, and it was one of the most magical moments I have ever had in my life and there is no way that I can do it any sort justice, there really should not even be this attempt to try to describe it, but I want to somehow remember that it occured, to try to prolong the dream. But that never works. It vanishes as soon as you start grasping, and so what to do, I do not know.

Last night, I got drunk very fast, before even leaving my apartment to head off to BoysRoom with a ragtag band of friends. Once off the subway, we sprinted there to at least get in a free drink before the open bar closed. All of us got two drinks, one for each hand, and I don't know about everyone else, but this made me way smashed. And I remember dancing to a Cure song, to lots of bad house music, to giving a go-go boy head in front of everyone, including my friends (which I do have a little shame about this morning), and then received head from some random boy in the basement. And yes, that is all I wanted from my birthday, to get drunk, dance, and act slutty. Check. Check. Check.

I woke up this morning, checked my Friendster profile to see if it had changed, and yes, my friends, it had. As my age, it now lists 23. It is true. I wanted to see that it was.

I am not sure how I feel about this. My dad's sister called me shortly after this and said pretty much in this order and in this rapid a succession. "Happy Birthday! How are doing? Are you going back to college? I think you should." I am not even kidding. I wanted to punch Herta, but I somehow persevered through the phone conversation, found out that my dad is still alive, is living at a care center, and that my aunt really thinks it is important that I go back to college. Yeah, thanks for the birthday call.

Right after I got off the phone with her, my mom called. It was really nice talking to her. It made me happy to hear from her, I felt loved. I was reassured that I am. A man in Union Square, however, must not have gotten the memo that it was my birthday when he gruffed at me, "What side of the bench do you want?" since I was sitting in the middle of it like every other person on a bench. He plopped down next to me. I left the park, came home, lied on my bed and read trashy magazines, still resting from last night's massive quantities of beer that were consumed, and the toxins of which my body is still working out of its system. Tonight, more beer will be put into my system. I will probably dance a lot with friends at one of two trashy gay bars - I am still not sure which. And if you want, you should join me.

My stomach feels like it is churning yucky fried oils and other nasty yucky stuff together, spinning them round and round, because it is. I ate pizza for lunch, followed by a glass of whiskey to celebrate leaving work early, followed by a steak and cheese sandwich for dinner, downed with a 24 ounce can of Budweiser, and man, there is a reason you are supposed to eat well - it is so that you don't feel as gross and chained to the ground as I do know with this heavy stomach. I really wanted to go to Nowhere or Metropolitian tonight since I finally have cash, but of course, no one wants to go with me. Niki is over gay bars. Peter is reading. Joe is sick. I need to expand my circle of friends so that I have more backup bar buddies in situations like this. Why the steak and cheese? That is what really did me in. I know it. Ugh, and I cannot even concentrate on reading, so I will probably just lie in bed feeling ishy until I fall asleep. The only activity I am good for right now is throwing more yuck into the mix, drinking more, but sadly, I am not drunk enough to go out by myself, and everyone else is stupid. Yes. Yes, they are.

Today, I didn't go to work because I was already running really late and would have been written up anyways, so not really feeling like going, I called in sick. The day was spent cleaning my room, drinking iced coffee, and napping in the lovely afternoon heat of this ninety five degree day. But, but, but there is hopeful news on the job front. So I emailed my resume and cover letter to the Princeton Review math woman, who Peter referred me to, and she wrote back saying she was going to be out of town until Tuesday but would be in touch next week. Hopefully, my complete lack of math skills will not become known and hopefully I can get this job that would pay as much in two days as I make working five at the Strand.

But there was some easy math calculation that Bonnie and I could not do on our roadtrip. I don't even remember what it was that we were trying to figure out. I do, however, remember wrinkled foreheads as we tried unsuccessfully to calculate whatever it was. I really am not sure why I am thinking of applying for this job, why I did apply for this job, since I did not take any math courses at all in college, and even in high school, I remember struggling through regular math courses. God, I really do not know any math and so applying for a job that entails checking their review questions for accuracy seems more than a little funny, and even if I somehow manage to fool this woman about my math capabilities, I think that eight hours of day of having math questions presented to me might be more than a little stressful and like a nightmare job made real. But, twenty dollars an hour? I want this job. I need this job. Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed.

Niki is moving into my apartment tonight while she tries to find a place of her own to live in. Jillian's brother, Justin, is living in Jillian's room until he finds a place to live also. He makes me more than a little uncomfortable. He is a very straight, very Florida boy. He seems to be the type of boy that I thought townies to be. However, this is probably an unfair characterization since I have not really talked to him much since I generally do my best to stay closeted in my room while he is out in the living room. Jillian also spends her days in the apartment, playing around on the computer, this computer that I am now writing from and that I wanted to spend more time on today, but which she used for in excess of three hours to do nothing other than what appeared to be IM'ing people. I am not really used to sharing this living space with other people since before it was just Dara who was often out of the house and Min who came by once a month to drop off her rent. Now with Niki joining the mix, there will be no personal space whatsoever, and I am a little worried that I may become a complete jerk, totally irritable to everyone.

Tomorrow, I can get some money from the Strand and stop living off the bagels that I got out of the trash on Sunday night. I am really excited about that. I am also excited about this Saturday, because it will be my birthday, and I am not sure what I am doing yet, but you can bet it will involve getting trashed at some fag bar and dancing dancing dancing.

Fuck you, call me bougie or whatever you want, but today, I am in love with Mayor Bloomberg. He wants to silence those nerve-rattling ice cream trucks that have caused me so many near nervous breakdowns. Thank you!

NY Daily News
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In other news, I sold some books this morning to Clovis Press so I could buy some food until I get fucking paid. In other other news, I am going to apply for a job that requires math skills, and please everyone, cross your fingers for me, because this job pays an insane amount of money that would ease my life so much, like not having to sell books to be able to eat. You know, stuff like that.

I almost had a new job being the listings editor for some gay website. However, Rich, the person dangling this carrot, yanked it away, saying that he was going to give the current listings editor another chance but wished me good luck and would call me if things did not work out with the guy after all. That is news. Also in the news department, I got totally drunk at Ben's prom party and as I tend to do when totally drunk, had one thing on my mind, and that was not puppy dogs. I initiated making out in the bathroom with Joe, soon had my cock in his mouth, maybe had his in mine, and yes, this is my co-worker and friend. And yes, I was pretty out of control later in the kitchen also. And no, things were not at all weird today at work.

I sat down on the floor of the Strand today, hungover and tired, sat there and felt effortlessly good. I read some Whitman which I have not been in the right mindset to do in a while, and it felt really good and I knew, and know now, that things are starting to change. My horoscopes have been saying so, the fortune-teller said so, and I am on the verge of something. I felt it in the air when I was sitting there. Normally when I am sitting on the floor of a dusty aisle, I am usually a zombie staring into space, praying for the day to end. But I was hyper-sensate, happy sitting there, lost in thought. And sure, it might have just been because I was hungover.

It was somewhere over the middle of this country: neat, geometric patterns cordoning off the land into farm fields that looked perfect from a mile or so above in the view from a window seat on a Jet Blue flight going from Las Vegas to New York. I was reading from W.G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn and thinking about the past week just spent in a car with Bonnie crossing this nation in the way I was now reversing, all those sights seen and what it could possibly mean, what I should do with the knowledge that this a large, beautiful, sometimes sad country. And appropriately, I came across this passage:

No matter whether one is flying over Newfoundland or the sea of lights that stretches from Boston to Philadelphia after nightfall, over the Arabian deserts which gleam like mother-of-pearl, over the Ruhr or the city of Frankfurt, it is as though there were no people, only the things they have made and in which they are hiding. One sees the places where they live and the roads that link them, one sees the smoke rising from their houses and factories, one sees the vehicles in which they sit, but ones sees not the people themselves. And yet they are present everywhere upon the face of the earth, extending their dominion by the hour, moving around the honeycombs of towering buildings and tied into networks of a complexity that goes far beyond the power of any one individual to imagine, from the thousands of hoists and winches that once worked the South African diamond mines to the floors of today’s stock and commodity exchanges, through which the global tides of information flow without cease. If we view ourselves from a great height, it is frightening to realize how little we know about our species, our purpose and our end, I thought, as we crossed the coastline and flew out over the jelly-green sea. (91-92)

I think it was right then that I shut the book, stirred by thoughts and a longing for knowledge of what I was doing, and looked down on to this nation of ours. It was one week before that I was on a plane heading from New York to West Palm Beach, Florida and on that flight, I could not help but get excited as we approached the destination, seeing the clear waters, just about every house with a swimming pool in the back, the golf courses, the strip mall stretches of road. West Palm has never been my home, but returning to Florida still possessed that drunken nostalgia that homecomings offer. This land felt right and I don’t know if I can describe it much better than that, that I felt right being there. There was a comfort in the heat, in the long stretches of road, strip mall one right after the other. I like these things, I really do. I don’t know if I feel right in New York. I feel sedated here. The weather does not suit me. I am not sure I like the people, the hordes of cool, young people. I like places where there aren’t that many young people, where they are not all beautiful. There was a bar in West Palm, a blues bar and I drank dollar Miller Lights and played free pool and it was perhaps the most amazing, most “real” experience I had had in a long time. There was a bar next door to this blues bar, the name of either I cannot recall, but the one next door was filled with young people, with a bad, trying to be hip rock bad, tasteful lighting, trendy decor – and it was what I had been hoping to escape on my trip. That bar was what New York more often than not seems to me to be, and the blues bar next door with cheap beer and a stained pool table with an old man singing blues songs on his guitar was, and is, what I want. So I am not sure what needs to happen, most likely nothing will, but I have seen these things and their images, the memories of them will soothe me in troubling times when I am convinced this is the world, this place that I live, I can remind myself of my road trip and say No, no it is not. There are long stretches of emptiness and people nothing like this, towns nothing like this.

There is that stretch between West Palm and Pensacola that was Florida and a little trashy and lovely all the same. In Pensacola we ate a pizza and drank beers in our motel room. The next day we drove to New Orleans, making a detour along the way to see a miniature model of Palestine in the backyard of some Christian in Mississippi. A snake blocked our path to Palestine, was literally lying across the path we were walking. Bonnie and I, both perhaps too self-reflexive could not but help see the meaning and irony in this. This two hour detour to see a disappointing model of the Holy Land was one of a few detours to see attractions that more often than not ended up being a bust. In New Orleans, we got drunk on Bourbon Street and observed the spectacle that that town is, saw a few ladies flash their breasts, and then ate another pizza in the hostel we were staying in. The next day we drove to Austin. I love Austin, the heat there, and fantasize about moving there. There were many yummy, cheap Mexican places, two silly gay bars, and I don’t know why, but I really like this town.

Then the boring drive through western Texas, where the landscape suddenly starts to take on distinct forms I had never seen before. Night in Van Horn, Texas, a depressed town that seems like it must have once been a lot more thriving than it was. This is how many of the places we stopped or drove through seemed to be, and we kept speculating about whether or not more people used to go on vacations out west and now they just did not. We ate at Chuey’s, where John Madden ate at a couple of times, and sadly, this is this restaurant’s source of pride with the back page of their menu talking about Madden, and several Madden photos on the walls. Everyone around us asked the servers about Madden and it felt like some other universe, most definitely not New York, but not good either. Weird and sad.

The next day, more driving through the desert on our way to Albuquerque. We crossed the border into Juarez, Mexico, exchanged some dollars for pesos, ate a couple of really cheap burritos and wandered around taking in the sights and the signs that we could understand only a few of the words of. It also, was a beautiful place. Lovely and bustling. Albuquerque was filled with beautiful old motel signs, had a view of the mountains and also seemed lovely. It has an “Old School” station. Oddly, so did Flagstaff where we spent our next night. And I had started off writing this with plans, hopes of detailing all the sights I saw, the things I tasted, how I felt here, what I had hoped for as we started off each morning, but now after the fact, it is getting harder to recall each of these things – it is hard in attempting to recall it in this format to keep the impressions distinct. There is also the time and hunger factor. I am hungry and this all takes time, making me rush through states, through cities, through this wide country of ours. This is the fast forward version of the affair that took us a week or so to complete. Obviously, things must be truncated. So Flagstaff, a Yerba Mate bar where the barista gave me attitude when I asked if they had any coffee and said he guessed he could make me an Americano. Another beautiful mountain town. However, really small and it has tracks running right through the center of town, which a train howls through just about every ten minutes. At some point in this trip, I forgot to mention, but there was also a detour to see a ghost town that was not at all a ghost town, a detour to see live gators, detours to see dinosaurs sculptures, and any other crap that is advertised along southwestern highways.

After Flagstaff, we made the trip to Vegas but not before making a very important, and a very successful detour (in light of the many failed ones) to see the Grand Canyon. We went on the short hike there, looking so silly since we had not planned on hiking. Me in sleeveless shirt, green and white striped socks, blue tennis shoes, purple aviator sunglasses, and a tote bag. Bonnie was perhaps even sillier seeming since she was in a skirt on this fairly arduous trail. It was hot. I got sunburned. We took lots of silly pictures. It really is an amazing sight. Sublime is the word. Then Vegas, bright lights, insanely hot temperatures. A place that looks like Florida except for the mountains in the background. Strip malls one after the other. I ate custard, more burritos, and watched a pirate show that would have offended anyone with even a passing interest in gender issues. I played a few nickel machines with Bonnie yesterday morning as we were walking from casino to casino before my plane took off. We went to New York, New York, and with a happy longing, I looked forward to being back home in real New York, and yes, I did just say home. Because when the plane landed last night, when it flew over all the lit houses out on the far edge of Brooklyn, I knew that that was what I was coming back to. It was not the feeling that I used to get when I flew into Sarasota or Tampa after breaks from school, but I have not created as strong a sense of home, of community here. But let’s not worry about how excited I was, because I was still excited, and even though there were events shortly after landing that tempered my excitement, in fact, just crushed it – I am here, I am home and I am going to make the most of things.

Loved ones, I would not be using the term "loved ones" a mere twenty mintues ago. However, I have just drank half a glass of straight whiskey and am working on the bottom half, the half full, part of the glass.

I just got home a short while ago from my roadtrip with Bonnie which was really fun and which I am going to write about tomorrow after a night of rest, but there was trouble with AirTrain at JFK, where I almost did not have the $7 neccesary to get home when I thought I only need $2. Then when I tried to switch to the L from the A, already with a pounding headache, I hauled my stuff up a broken elevator to the L, only to find out that that part of the L wasn't running and I had to take a shuttle bus. I found the person passing out transfers, hauled my shit down the street to where the transfer bus was, and got on the bus with a screaming baby. I was ready to die. My head was throbbing and I really wanting to kill this wailing baby. I made it home, poured myself the whiskey and now am so happy. Totally broke, sunburt, physically drained, but so so happy, and tomorrow I will tell you why.

Perhaps maybe even in person. Since there is that aforementioned brokeness, I think I may to go galleries tomorrow and down free wine. Anyone that wants to meet up should let me know. I am full of love at this moment right now. Jillian's brother is asleep fifteen feet away, and so I feel like I should not be out here typing loudly on the computer. Tomorrow, tomorrow. You make me promises, promises...