Bits and Pieces

On Thursday, during a class at City Dance (the place in SF I went to for Summer Intensive), a guy proposed to his girlfriend. I wasn’t there, but I saw the video. She said yes, and everybody in the room went fucking crazy. It made me flush with a kind of bittersweet joy even though I didn’t know them.

It’s been a week and a half since the breakup. I’ve been doing a good job of shutting out my emotions, distracting myself with dancing. But occasionally, I have my moments. Everywhere, and in everyone, I’ve been seeing a little bit of me—a little bit of who I am, who I am not, who I was, who I want to be, or, who I had thought I’d be.



I woke up Saturday afternoon feeling weird. It was the first weekend in six weeks that I wasn’t going up to San Francisco for Summer Intensive.

I had to go. The city was summoning me.

I called up SF Andrew and he was free to hang out. Like clockwork, I soon found myself in my car driving to the BART station. I took the BART alone. Alone alone. I sat in the very very front train car, the one that no one ever went in because it would always pass by the part of the platform that people normally waited on. The only other passenger in the same train car was my reflection.

A few stops later, a dad and his young child boarded the train car. From head to toe, they each were branded with “Oakland A’s.” Obviously, they were going to go see the game at the Oakland Coliseum. When their stop came, the kid eagerly shot up from his seat and out the door, his dad following closely behind. My eyes followed them out until the train doors slammed shut, and the BART was now zooming away again. Back to just me and my reflection.



Andrew and I did some shopping, and then we ate some expensive sandwiches. Over dinner, he was telling me about an immature guy that he stopped dating two or three weeks ago. Last week, Andrew went clubbing with some friends his ex-date happened to be there. The ex-date had a shiny new boyfriend. Andrew didn’t care and danced the night away with his friends. The ex-date kept on eyeing Andrew and trying to move closer to Andrew on the dance floor, and when the ex-date thought Andrew was looking, he made out with his boyfriend. Andrew didn’t care. The ex-date tried to play the jealousy game and failed at it.

I finished my sandwich and started on Andrew’s sandwich. Damn, I’m glad that I’m not like that at least.



I went to company class in San Francisco today. It was good to see the Summer Intensive kids again.

I could totally be imagining this, but there’s this one guy—let’s call him Kel—who was totally flirting with another guy. It was really adorable, and the fact that they were both young high school kids just made it more adorable. I felt like I had an idea of what Kel had been going through: Working up the nerve to talk to a cute guy. Having those minor interactions and awkward moments with the guy and giggling about them all later with his friends. Trying to read the guy’s thoughts and wondering if the things he’s doing is bringing him any closer to getting with the guy. And doing it all knowingly in vain, yet somehow still maintaining a trace amount of hope that they’d at least share one kiss in the end.



Every Sunday after company class, a guy from my summer intensive class—let’s call him Max—leaves early with a guy from another dance team named CJ. They were once officially a couple, but now, they’re just friends. And they have actually been doing a good job of that. Whenever I hear about relationships ending with “let’s just be friends” (this includes my first three relationships), one person in the relationship (that would be me in my first three) always really means, “Get the fuck out of my life I don’t want to ever hear from you again.” Max and CJ still watch movies together and hang out a lot.

I still feel like they’re a thing though. I imagine that it’s pretty hard: they were two people who were bonded by the word “relationship,” now downgraded to just a “friendship.” There still must be something there, some remnants left by what once was. And I wonder if there’s still the possibility of them getting back together officially. What’s stopping each of them?

I understand though.

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“DCON ‘08, Part 1”
Written April 23rd, 2008

The California-Nevada-Hawaii District Convention was amazing this year. Best dance, awesome workshops, great people, more Santa Teresa Club spirit. The only thing lacking this year in comparison to last year was the quality of spirit battling before the general sessions...I also feel like I didn’t do the “How do you feel?” cheer as much this year. (That cheer is the most prominent Key Club cheer in which this question is asked to someone or several people, eliciting the response: “I feel good, oh I feel so good, UH! I feel fine, all of the time! Abooga, Abooga, ABOOGA-BOOGA-BOOGA!” It’s stupid, but fun.)

During the three days of DCON, there were two small incidents that frustrated me...I was supposed to see Trung on Day 1. His school, Silver Creek, did not ride with my school and Independence and Gunderson up to Sacramento. His school went with Evergreen, who had the laziest bitchass advisors ever, I swear. They arrived half an hour late on the first day (30 minutes into General Session, three and a half hours of the night still remained) and decided that it was not worthwhile—not worth part of the 150 bucks to go to DCON—to attend the first day. Instead, they stayed at their hotel and missed out on an amazing motivational speech from the key note speaker. (Although I thought last year’s was more fun.) Throughout all of Friday, I was carrying a poster that I had made for Trung. With a great lack of sleep greatly hindering my thinking, I struggled to not leave behind everywhere I went. If he had come on the first day, I, standing over the railing on the second floor, would’ve showed it to him, looking up from the first floor, in the West Lobby, where hella school Key Clubs were registering. I was really annoyed that Trung didn’t show up, so I had to delay things to the next morning before breakfast.

Silver Creek and Evergreen didn’t show up for breakfast. The girls in Evergreen held up Silver Creek, and everyone missed the shuttle from the hotel to the convention center. I ate my breakfast solemnly, thinking of a plan B.

After breakfast, all the 2000-something Key Clubbers split into sixths and went into caucus rooms. Candidates running for positions in next year’s district board went from room to room making their speeches, and there would be little 5-8 minute breaks between each speech. After the third candidate, Trung finally arrived and sat down next to me. He spotted my poster, rolled up, next to my leg and asked me what it was for. “It’s a spirit poster,” and I left it at that.

A few speeches later, it was time for our last break. I decided that this had to be the time to initiate plan B. Without saying a word to Trung, I rushed up to the stage with my rolled up poster to ask for a favor from the D16 LTG, Sam Lee, who was running the caucus room. He agreed to let me use the mic and stand in front of the podium to address the room. The room silenced, and I began:
“Hello everyone, my name is Brian Dinh, from D12 south, and I have a very special question—no, not for all of you guys, but for very one special person in this room. He doesn’t like to do the Key Club cheer and I can never get him to do it. But this time, I think I’ve finally come up with a way to get him to do it. Trung Nguyen…” I unrolled the poster and showed it to the whole room. “Trung Nguyen, comment te sens-tu d’aller au « Senior Ball » avec moi? As in, how do you feel… about going to Senior Ball with me?”

Awws sounded from every corner of the room, and Trung stood up. (At that point, I think some awws died down and became confusion, but then returned to awws once it was understood that this was indeed, a homo thing.) A little red, but completely surprised and happy, Trung did a butchered version of the cheer “as loud as [his] little lungs let [him].”

“I feel good! …I feel fine, all of the time? Uh… abooga, abooga, abooga-booga-booga!”

Everyone cheered, as how they normally do after someone does the Key Club cheer. I rushed off the stage, passed by the D12 East LTG Derek Lee and exchanged the wassup/good-going/keep-it-real handshake, and ran into Trung’s arms for a big hug, to which the whole room aww’d again.

Here’s the picture of me on stage: