Back in Irvine

I was doing fine back up here in NorCal until this past weekend when I experienced intense Irvine nostalgia.

As Breakthrough comes to a close, I’ve begun to slowly transition into another phase of my summer. Over the past weekend, I drained nearly my entire gas tank driving to San Francisco and back on Saturday and Sunday. And it’s all for a dance class, a “summer intensive” with Funksters SF (which is tied to Funkanometry SF and other things through ways that I haven’t really tried to understand yet).

I’m taking the class with my friend Kevin, who, from here on out, will be referred to as Dancer Kevin (because the other day I got my roommate assignments for my apartment this coming school year, and I will refer to one of them as Roommate Kevin when the time comes).

Dancer Kevin and I felt really old. The class is for 13-18 year olds, but the average age is clearly somewhere between 15 and 16. And the scary thing (to Kevin and me) is that all these high school guys were taller (if not as tall) and buffer than us. And they had tattoos. And they just looked intense. Until I saw their parents waiting for them at the door to drive them home, I forgot their ages, and I felt like I was back at UCI taking a dance class. I got at least Kevin, and then these other college-looking girls and guys (and some were just as gay).

And that’s probably how, on Saturday, I felt this wave of UCI nostalgia wash over me.

At the beginning of winter quarter in January, I signed up for my first real dance class, which was a popping class at UCI’s gym, the ARC, and the almighty famous Mike Song from Kaba Modern Legacy taught it. Dancer Kevin was in that class, and I was aware of his presence (he set off my gaydar), but I didn’t talk to him at first.

Halfway into the quarter, Kaba Modern held auditions in search of less than ten dancers among the 100+ dancers who auditioned. My friend Alfonso auditioned but didn’t make it. He was a mutual friend between me and Kevin, who also auditioned and didn’t make it. After the auditions, I started talking a lot more to Kevin through Alfonso. And then we became friends. Sessioning in a parking lot till late and coming back from Pho at 3 AM during finals week. That was a good memory.

(Somewhere along the way, it was established that Kevin was straight. I think it was when I made a comment on the image plastered on his credit card, and he said it’s a great conversation starter with girls. He then related a story about his ex-girlfriend and making ATM deposits. The image on his credit card? Not big breasts. Not a football field. It was Mashimaro. Ironic.)

Spring Quarter came, and we (at that point, Kevin, Alfonso, Dancer John, Alex Dunn, and me) shared one hip hop class together at the ARC. I usually hogged the first or second row even though there were better and shorter people behind me. Screw them.

Every Tuesday for an hour. Then session a bit and go get some late night at the dining commons. Those dance classes were good times.



This past Saturday, after my summer intensive class got out at six, I braved the hell roads of San Francisco and drove Kevin back to his place (he lives in SF). Then I drove another mile or two to Ocean beach. (It seriously felt like I drove through time, from summer straight into winter. SF weather is irritating.) There, I was attending a bonfire. My friend Cameron’s bonfire. I went there to chill with him before he left for Irvine. Just for him. Which is probably why I refer to it as “a friend’s bonfire” instead of a huge drunk drunk drunk gay gay gay bonfire. Apparently, it was an annual bonfire for NorCal gays (“downe” guys and their fag hags, or, according to Cameron, their “flame dames,” the more politically correct term).

When I arrived at the beach, I was still feeling the effects of the Irvine nostalgia. I saw Cameron, and it only added to it. And then SF Andrew later arrived. More nostalgia, and then I learned Charles was coming. I couldn’t let myself leave without seeing Charles. We’re not super best friends, but seeing him would complete my figurative day in Irvine. I had planned on leaving at 8 so I could get to a Breakthrough teacher get-together by 9, but 8 quickly came and he still wasn’t there. I waited (but the wait wasn’t really much of a wait because I had more fun than I thought I would getting to know the people there).

I met Cameron at the beginning of the school year. He was in my same residential hall Misty Mountain. At first, we didn’t like each other too much. He was too gay and out there for my tastes, and I tried too hard to feign manliness and only came off as too closeted for his tastes. He wasn’t around the hall a lot, so I assumed he was out having orgies with a million other gay people.

We eventually got to know each better though, and by the beginning of winter quarter, we had a budding friendship. Later on Spring Quarter, he would introduce me to some of his other friends, including Charles and another guy named Bryan.

On a spring quarter night in UCI, I was sitting through a very long activity at Misty Mountain. Cameron came through a back door and pulled me out, saving me. It was going to be another night hanging with his friends, Charles and Bryan. That night I met SF Andrew, who was an easy guy to talk to. We had an interesting time food hunting and hanging out at Charles’ apartment.



Charles showed up at the bonfire a little bit before ten. With no more time to waste, I jumped up and ran (waddles through the sand) to him, gave him a hug, and jumped into my car and drove off into the thick-as-a-brick-wall fog of the freeways, leaving behind people back at the bonfire to their drunk (but classy) festivities. It was only an hour-long drive back down, but in my head, it was a six hour drive up and away from Irvine. I’ll be back in one and a half months.