Soul in the Hole

“I think Vance was right.”
Written February 1st, 2006 (Excerpted)

I got angry with Vance over the phone on Sunday. I was telling him how well everything was when I told my parents, but he kept on telling me how it is only well at first, and that eventually they will become paranoid, bitter, and try to control everything that I will do. At first, I told him, "Fuck, my parents won't do that. They're not like your parents." However, he eventually brought me down to, "Fuck, I don't know anymore, we'll see what happens I guess."

So it's been four days since I've told them, and things are not looking good.

I went to the mall today to play some ITG and hang out with Peter and John. That was all fun. Then I called my mom to come pick me up and drive me to Mervyn's so that I could buy some formal shoes for SCV. Before getting out of the car, she parked her car in front of Mervyn's and for half an hour, we argued back and forth about my gayness...She believes every fucking myth that there is about being homosexual, like gay = unhappiness, gay = fixable, gay = unnatural, gay = AIDS ONOZ! No matter what I say and how much I reassure of her of everything, it all just goes back to her sobbing into her hands and, "Brian, I just want you to have a normal life; you have to be in a parent's shoe to see how hard this is." And then she goes on about how she cries every night and doesn't wanna be alive anymore (and now I'm afraid of getting rides from her). She wants me to be willing to follow through with whatever "treatment" there is to "cure" my gayness, and I just told her, "fine". god, just call a doctor already so you guys can be embarrassed when he/she tells you that your son can't be "fixed".

She then sets me a new curfew: I can only go out once a week and must be home by 10 o'clock.

Fuck that. Oakridge is indeed my second home, and right now, my current first home doesn't even feel like home anymore. Any chance I get, I'm going to Oakridge. I'll take the light rail and spend over one thousand dollars on light rail tickets if I have to. Oakridge Mall is like the only place I really wanna be now, as corny as that may sound.

My parents can't accept me, but they reassure me that they will still always love me no matter what. What total fucking bullshit.
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The Funksters summer intensive performance was yesterday. I don’t have much to say. I messed up pretty badly going into a part of a piece because I could barely hear anything but the bass on stage, so I ended up missing my cue in the music. When I realized I had to already be up there, I ran but tripped getting there. Oops. It’s pretty noticeable in the video. Among many other things that I really need to fix. I take comfort in looking for other dancers who messed up. There are a lot:


I’m in the bright yellow shirt with the black sleeveless jacket. Here are the songs:
1. Usher - Make It Rain
2. Mariah Carey - Obsessed (I’m on the front right in the beginning. I’m really sloppy in this one. How embarrassing.)
3. Ne-Yo - Angel (On the left at the end. You can see me trip. More embarrassing.) (I got recasted for this one and Obsessed, by the way. Last weekend, the uncasted were given a second chance to get into some pieces, and so we got these small parts. I thought it was just more sympathy.)
4. Musiq Soulchild - Solong
5. 2NE1 - Fire (Close to the right in the first part. I’m actually good in this one. But ironically, this is the song that makes me want to shoot myself.)
6. Mary J. Blige - The One (You can barely see me in this one. I’m in the back.)

That was it, the last performance. Summer intensive is over. There are great people that I won’t see anymore. Mimi and I were discussing this on the way home in the car Sunday night, and she was very sad. I felt like I should’ve been, but I didn’t feel anything. Last weekend, I felt sad, anxious, and excited about the ending, but this past weekend, I didn’t know how to feel anymore.

SI has ended, but dancing hasn’t. When I got home last night, I immediately thrust myself into preparation for the next somewhat big upcoming thing: Auditions for UC Berkeley’s Mainstacks.

Don’t ask me how I got involved in this. Because I’ll tell how anyway.

On Saturday morning, before practice, Mimi and I took the BART up to Berkeley to check out the Mainstacks audition workshops. Mimi kinda wanted to audition, and another girl from SI named Allison really wanted to audition. They needed a team of at least three, and I volunteered.

I don’t expect to get into Mainstacks, but I am going to take this audition really seriously. The audition process is similar for the teams down at UCI, so I’m doing this for the experience. Another motivation comes from the fact that I don’t want to let Allison down, because she actually goes to Berkeley unlike me and Mimi, who is still in high school, and Allison really really wants to get into Mainstacks. And shit, I have a lot to live up to, because Jin, the SI guy who she tried hard to convince to join, didn’t want to do it. I was like the back-up, a nowhere-near-as-good backup. That’s not the most positive thing to say about myself, but it motivates me.

The set that we’re auditioning to has three songs, two of which we learned choreo for. The other one, we need to choreograph ourselves, and we need to figure out formations and things to modify for the entire set. The audition is this Friday. We already met up once today in Berkeley, and I’m driving myself and Mimi back up to Berkeley again tomorrow, Thursday, and of course, Friday. Wednesday doesn’t work for both Mimi and Allison, but fortunately, I found a nearby two-dollar, two-hour long hip hop class Wednesday night from 10:30 to 12:30 AM to keep myself busy that day. I stumbled upon it while browsing random downelink profiles. This is probably the only good thing that has ever come out of me being jee-aay-why.

Plenty to occupy myself with this week. Next week and for my last week in NorCal, I hope I can find some kind of class to occupy me every day of the week.

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“I’m okay.”
Written February 4th, 2006

Played some ITG today. Improved most of my 11's and 12's by about 7-10 percent (96 on Bloodrush, 85 on Vertex^2)... I played like three games consecutively and they were all 11's and 12's with the only breaks being the time I took to choose the song and options (either x3 or C450). I had a huge chest cramp for like the last set of 11's and 12's and ten minutes afterwards and had to sit down in the theatre lobby. Shouldn't have had that Jones Soda and quart of chocolate ice cream (basically my dinner) right before playing. Left the arcade [Oakridge] at 11:30ish. I've been staying late because the arcade empties out, it's all quiet, and I get to be alone.

I'm also bleaching my hair, by the way. And ATTN Miranda: I'll buy that black emo hat off of you for 13 dollars.

And my stomach hurts a fucking lot right now so I think I'm going to go throw up.