Sunday, October 17th. 1 PM.
The roster was posted up, and because the list was in alphabetical order by first name, my eyes immediately fell between the two names where my name should’ve been. Should’ve. Would’ve. I stared at my laptop screen, blinked a few times, rubbed my eyes, looked away and looked back, but the list of names jumped straight from BRE- to CAR-.
I didn’t make it.
Saturday, October 9th.
“So how thick is your dick, Brian?”
“I’m sorry Jaysun, what? I’m not going to answer that.”
“Why not? We’re all men here. No need to be shy.”
“Jayson, I’m not telling you.”
“You already told me you weren’t circumcised! Might as well tell me about the thickness.”
“I’m not going to tell you any more.”
“Shay-day. Well, if you can’t tell me, can you show me?”
I scoffed. “No.”
“Gosh, what’s the problem?”
I met Jayson after my audition group performed for Team Millennia auditions. In the last few seconds of my audition, I had ripped my shirt off and danced shirtless, and I was still shirtless when he went up to me to congratulate me. I could tell right off the bat by his voice that he liked dick up his butt, and I knew it was no coincidence that he wanted to introduce himself after my audition while I was still in the buff.
I didn’t think I’d ever see him again, but then I saw him at the audition workshops in the past week. He was there to audition for the same team I wanted, and he asked me to be part of his audition group with another girl. I knew that they both had previous dance team experience, and I knew they were good; I’d seen them dance. I felt like I was the weakest out of them, so when I asked Jayson why he wanted me on his audition team, he reassured me that I was great dancer and that I killed it at Team Millennia auditions. And I believed him.
Now here I was. Saturday, the day before auditions, not practicing, stuck in my car sitting next to Jayson.
“You’ve ever been in love, Brian?”
I grunted. Not another personal question. “Nope.”
“What’s the longest relationship you’ve been in?”
“No more than a month.”
“Really? I’m surprised. I’m surprised that a guy like you is single right now. Don’t you think you should do something about that?”
I rolled my eyes. “Nope.”
I couldn’t wait until auditions ended so that I could tell him that everything that I ever told him about my personal life, from penile circumcision to love and parental issues, had been all a lie.
I could probably thank Jayson for what was probably one of my most miserable audition weeks. Every day I had to put up with his very forward advances, and not wanting to ruin what little group morale and chemistry we had, I didn’t want to tell him to leave me the fuck alone yet. At first, I thought it couldn’t get much worse than him asking to make out with me at the beginning of the week, but as Sunday drew nearer, he just got worse. By Wednesday, I could already feel my testicles progress in their heavenly ascension back into my bowels whenever I was around him.
His flirting wasn’t what made my audition week so miserable, however. It was the fact that while he spent time cleaning and going over the pieces with our other audition group mate, the girl, he spent most of the time with me trying to get into my pants. I wasn’t there to contribute to my audition group. I wasn’t there because I was a great dancer. I was there to be hit on. It confirmed some of the worst things that I had doubted about myself, mainly, I didn’t have much going for my dancing except my damn good looks.
I considered taking a long break from dance if I didn’t make it onto a dance team, feeling that my progress in dancing had ceased, or even reverted, and that I really needed a change. I figured that that change either meant getting onto a team, or not dancing at all, because, as much as I loved dancing, dropping money I didn’t have to take classes every week wasn’t something I could keep up for another year.
This was only if I didn’t make it onto the team, but given everything that happened this past week, it now looked more like when. After lying some more about my love life, Jaysun and I concluded our discussion and I headed home. While driving, I reflected on how I didn’t get to clean the audition pieces as thoroughly as I wanted to, how I had no faith in my audition group, and how I felt that anything anyone had ever told me about my being a good dancer was a lie. To save myself the disappointment, I accepted right then and there that I wasn’t going to get an interview and that I wasn’t going to make it onto the team, and by doing so, I accepted that I’d be done with dancing for a while after this. I just hoped that I wouldn’t embarrass myself to much at the audition the next day.
Sunday, October 17th. 2 PM.
A phone call lit up my room and interrupted my intense staring contest with the ceiling. The call was from a number I didn’t recognize.
“Hello? Is this Brian?”
I pressed the phone closer to my ear. “Yeah, it is.”
It was the artistic director from the team. A part of me hoped that he called to offer me a spot in the roster last minute, but I knew that was no where near realistic.
At first, our conversation was everything I expected it to be: an explanation of why I wasn’t on the roster. He told me that I killed it at the interview, that he could really see me meshing well with the team, better than some of the others that did make it in, but the technique of my dancing needed some work itself. That made me wonder, if the dancing I had already done during the day of auditions was already going to screw me over, why did I get an interview in the first place? Everything happens for a reason?
But then a few minutes into it, something he said just clicked with me. (I’m going to break the fourth wall a little bit and point out that, out of some professionalism and other reasons, I can’t blog on everything he said to me on the phone. Just know, he said some really inspiring stuff.)
The director told me that if I showed significant improvement at midyear auditions, I had a pretty good shot at getting in. Combined with a bunch of other things he said, he sounded very convincing.
And I believed him. I questioned everything he said at first, but in the end, I believed him. I wanted to. I had to. It felt right to. Because, everything that happened this past week, from the 4 AM phonecall about the interview to the way I came to start believing again, nothing could change that. I couldn’t allow it. I had realized it was better to believe, get hurt occasionally, sulk for a few days, and then continue to believe, rather then just never believe at all.
I had to keep dancing. I felt sure that I had an extremely good shot at making it onto the team if I showed significant improvement, but what it all came down to was that if clause. Being able to show “significant improvement,” meant improving not just significantly, but drastically, especially considering that the midyear audition was a one-day process, as opposed to the beginning-of-the-year week-long audition process. I’d have to do better on an audition piece that I’d only have one hour to practice than an audition piece that I had five days to practice. And that, I felt unsure that I could show that kind of improvement the directors would look for, but I had to believe I was capable of it in order to drive myself to keep dancing, more intensely than ever.
And then I finally realized the answer to my question, why the directors would ever grant me an interview if my audition itself was already going to screw me over. The reason however, was a little unworldly, as it didn’t actually answer why did the directors, but rather, it simply answered why. Naturally I felt unsure about it, and I even considered that everything I just thought about was the best defense mechanism that my subconscious had ever produced. But fuck, this was going to be the one thing that I could not rationalize away.
Everything that happened this past week happened in order to help me. And it did. I found something that I thought I had lost: the will to keep dancing.
My Testimony: Part 2
Saturday, October 16, 2010
“God Loves You” (continued)
9 o’clock came pretty quickly. I tossed my apron into the hamper, clocked out, said goodnight to the chefs and my coworkers, and I walked out the door. The girl and her three friends were in front sitting on a ledge. I smiled and greeted them, and they finally introduced themselves. The girl who God supposedly spoke to was Cindy.
They all talked a little bit about their backgrounds: They were third years, didn’t know any first-years really, weren’t part of any kind of on-campus religious club. And I talked a little bit about mine.
“Do you believe in God?” Cindy asked.
“I used to not to,” I answered. “But, you guys caught me in this period where I just don’t know anymore. You guys have come at a really strange time for me, not just because of that. You know how you said I needed to be healed? You’re right, and I don’t know how you’re right.”
They asked me to tell them about it, and, surprising myself, I confessed my family’s situation to them. “My dad’s nephew, who lived in Vietnam, died in a motorcycle accident. He was nineteen, my age. It happened last Tuesday. My mom told me through email. She wrote that the loss is really hard for my dad, and in all their years of marriage, she has never seen him cry until now.”
I paused to reflect, and then I continued, “I still haven’t talked to them on the phone about it. I owe them a call, but I just haven’t gotten around to it. Among all this stress about finals and a research paper and so many other things, calling them has been on the very back of my mind.”
“My condolences to you and your family. God will help you all through this,” Cindy reassured me. “Would you like us to pray for you now?”
“Alright, I’m almost ready,” I said, “but first, can you explain to me again how exactly God talked to you, Cindy?”
She was happy to. “We were sitting upstairs in the dining hall eating. And when we prayed, God just spoke to me. He said a guy in glasses who worked here needed to be healed, both him and his family. And he told me your name, Brian.”
Guy in glasses... Guy. In. Glasses. This phrase struck me somehow.
“Are you ready?” Cindy asked.
“I am.” Each of the four laid a hand on my shoulders, two on each side. I watched them close their eyes and slowly drop their heads down; I followed suite and listened to their prayers, but sometimes I couldn’t help but distract myself. Guy in glasses. Why couldn’t I get that phrase out of my mind?
A sentence of their prayer stuck out to me: “God loves you. He created you the way you are.”
Guy in glasses. I couldn’t get it out of my mind because it definitely rung a bell.
“You may be confused about where you are in your life now, and you may be afraid of the future. But remember that God is there for you, to see you through all this. Let him open your heart to new possibilities, new adventures. Do not be afraid of the future.”
Motherfucking guy in the motherfucking glasses. Where the hell did I know this phrase from?!
“God is waiting for you, and he will happily come to you when you are ready to open your heart to God.”
They stopped. I open my eyes. “Is that it?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
I couldn’t deny it, I felt somewhat calmer and at ease, except for the, well, you know, GUY IN GLASSES.
They then asked me if I wanted to convert, to which I said that I wasn’t ready. I was still skeptical. Cindy repeated the bit about how God would welcome me with open arms when I decided it was time to “receive Jesus.”
Before parting ways, I declined exchanging numbers, but we agreed to find each other on facebook. I shook each of their hands and thanked them again for the prayer, and we slowly broke our circle to head back to our homes.
---
Walden and I arrived back at the Fullerton apartment with a pound of “XXX spicy” shrimp (“porno spicy” shrimp, as Walden likes to call it) and a pint of gumbo from Boiling Crab. We spread it all out over the kitchen table and dug in with our fingers. The gumbo was delicious, but porno spicy shrimp was disappointingly not spicy. Still all good though.
“So,” I said, “ever since my dance interview yesterday, I’ve wanted to write a thank you note on Facebook to some of my friends who have really helped me with my dancing, but I’m not sure if I should do it.”
“Why not?” Walden asked.
“I feel like I haven’t accomplished anything.”
“What are you talking about? How’d the interview go yesterday?”
“I don’t know, Walden. I think it went pretty well, but I’d say that I’m still as likely as I am unlikely to get onto the team. Right now I’m just going crazy and hating life because the final roster won’t be posted until this Sunday, the 17th.”
“Why are you hating life? You should be happy and proud. You got an interview! Damn, you knocked like fifty other people out!”
“I don’t know, Walden. I’ve been trying to believe that the interview means something, but it’s hard for me. I’ve only been able to focus on the wait, which has been torture, and sometimes I feel like I would’ve been better off without ever getting that interview. At this point, I’m so close. I have to go all the way or else everything leading up to this will have been in vain.”
“Can’t you just appreciate that you’ve made it this far?”
“I don’t know. I just doubt myself. Full of doubts, like always.” I took a sip from my gumbo.
“Brian,” Walden said as he licked the spicy sauce off his fingers, “you are a great dancer. The fact that I’m saying it and the fact that you got an interview are enough to make it true. You can believe it. Believe me.”
“I guess...my problem is I don’t believe in myself. I don’t believe others. I don’t believe, period.”
“It’s time to start believing Brian. You’ve grown so much since I first saw you in my summer intensive session. Why don’t you believe?”
“Because every time I believe,” I paused to wipe some gumbo off my hands, “I get fucked over. I get hurt.”
---
“God Loves You” (continued)
Finally understanding the significance of the “guy in glasses,” I retreated back into the dining common’s kitchen and strode straight to the conveyor belt where all the students dropped off their dirty dishes. On the wall next to the belt hung a bunch of feedback cards. Why were the feedback cards my main interest?
Last week, despaired over the little amount of hours I had been working each week, I asked my friend Mary to get a feedback card, write something nice about me and demand that I get more hours.
I searched the wall for that feedback card, and it didn’t take me long to locate it. And there it was in the first sentence of Mary’s comments: “The guy with glasses and earrings who was cleaning tables today was really good!” Okay...However, Mary didn’t write my name. How could’ve Cindy figured out my name?
The next section of the feedback card, under “Our [Manager’s] response,” had the answer. Again, the first sentence gave it away. “Brian is our dining room attendant...”
I gazed. I gazed long. And hard. At the card. This was it. This had to be the answer, no doubt about it. It was how they knew my name, and how they knew what I looked like. But then again, to go up to a stranger and start getting all God-crazy and extremely personal with them, that is pretty damn ballsy. Cindy was so forward, so unashamed. I saw it in her: She definitely believed in God. But did God really tell her about me? If I was her, and if God didn’t actually talk to me, I would not have the balls to pursue a name that I read in a dining hall’s feedback section. But maybe she was just fucking crazy.
And the whole thing about my family needing healing? Well, that was probably just her sales pitch. I mean, don’t like ninety-nine percent of college students have some kind of problem with their family? For me, it was probably more obvious that I did. I was after all working at my school’s dining common. My posture probably doesn’t convey positive messages about myself either. At the very least, Cindy probably thought that she could hit a poverty nerve in my family. (And hell, there is one. My dad’s been laid off and out of a job for a while, and I’m working at Pippin because my parents can’t afford to give me one hundred dollars a month for groceries anymore.) All this was like a horoscope, y’know? Horoscopes are made to be extremely broad and applicable to anyone, and anyone who wants to believe, believes too much.
[...]
When I got back to the hall, the first thing I did was I called my parents. They were happy to hear from me. We chatted a little bit about work, my schoolwork, my parents’ life at home, and probably drawing from his pain toward the motorcycle accident, my dad reminded me to always drive very carefully. I promised him I would.
Last but not least, I went on Facebook, and I looked up one of Cindy’s three friends, John. There he was. UCI class of ‘10. His profile was decked out with his love for God and a bunch of religious sayings. My mouse hovered over the friend request button, but my finger couldn’t make contact. I gazed long and hard again at his picture, his profile, and all the amazing things he had to say about God and what God had done for him.
Fuck this. I hauled my mouse off the friend request button and signed the hell off Facebook.
---
It was another typical morning in lecture, except this time I didn’t sleep straight through the entire thing. I booted up my laptop, and with a blank note open on Facebook, my fingers went to work on my keyboard:
This interview is the closest I’ve ever been, so close that I figured I had to get in, or else all I’ve done so far would’ve meant nothing. But after the interview, and after talking to a few friends, I’ve learned to appreciate what I’ve already accomplished. And what I’ve accomplished, I think it’s enough to warrant a small thank you entry, something I’ve wanted to do for a while but never found the occasion to. Right now I just wanna thank a few people that I think had a really huge impact on my dancing, the ones who have been an inspiration and a great help. I might write thank you’s to some more later. But for now, I’d like to say thank you to...
The roster comes out Sunday.
9 o’clock came pretty quickly. I tossed my apron into the hamper, clocked out, said goodnight to the chefs and my coworkers, and I walked out the door. The girl and her three friends were in front sitting on a ledge. I smiled and greeted them, and they finally introduced themselves. The girl who God supposedly spoke to was Cindy.
They all talked a little bit about their backgrounds: They were third years, didn’t know any first-years really, weren’t part of any kind of on-campus religious club. And I talked a little bit about mine.
“Do you believe in God?” Cindy asked.
“I used to not to,” I answered. “But, you guys caught me in this period where I just don’t know anymore. You guys have come at a really strange time for me, not just because of that. You know how you said I needed to be healed? You’re right, and I don’t know how you’re right.”
They asked me to tell them about it, and, surprising myself, I confessed my family’s situation to them. “My dad’s nephew, who lived in Vietnam, died in a motorcycle accident. He was nineteen, my age. It happened last Tuesday. My mom told me through email. She wrote that the loss is really hard for my dad, and in all their years of marriage, she has never seen him cry until now.”
I paused to reflect, and then I continued, “I still haven’t talked to them on the phone about it. I owe them a call, but I just haven’t gotten around to it. Among all this stress about finals and a research paper and so many other things, calling them has been on the very back of my mind.”
“My condolences to you and your family. God will help you all through this,” Cindy reassured me. “Would you like us to pray for you now?”
“Alright, I’m almost ready,” I said, “but first, can you explain to me again how exactly God talked to you, Cindy?”
She was happy to. “We were sitting upstairs in the dining hall eating. And when we prayed, God just spoke to me. He said a guy in glasses who worked here needed to be healed, both him and his family. And he told me your name, Brian.”
Guy in glasses... Guy. In. Glasses. This phrase struck me somehow.
“Are you ready?” Cindy asked.
“I am.” Each of the four laid a hand on my shoulders, two on each side. I watched them close their eyes and slowly drop their heads down; I followed suite and listened to their prayers, but sometimes I couldn’t help but distract myself. Guy in glasses. Why couldn’t I get that phrase out of my mind?
A sentence of their prayer stuck out to me: “God loves you. He created you the way you are.”
Guy in glasses. I couldn’t get it out of my mind because it definitely rung a bell.
“You may be confused about where you are in your life now, and you may be afraid of the future. But remember that God is there for you, to see you through all this. Let him open your heart to new possibilities, new adventures. Do not be afraid of the future.”
Motherfucking guy in the motherfucking glasses. Where the hell did I know this phrase from?!
“God is waiting for you, and he will happily come to you when you are ready to open your heart to God.”
They stopped. I open my eyes. “Is that it?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
I couldn’t deny it, I felt somewhat calmer and at ease, except for the, well, you know, GUY IN GLASSES.
They then asked me if I wanted to convert, to which I said that I wasn’t ready. I was still skeptical. Cindy repeated the bit about how God would welcome me with open arms when I decided it was time to “receive Jesus.”
Before parting ways, I declined exchanging numbers, but we agreed to find each other on facebook. I shook each of their hands and thanked them again for the prayer, and we slowly broke our circle to head back to our homes.
---
Walden and I arrived back at the Fullerton apartment with a pound of “XXX spicy” shrimp (“porno spicy” shrimp, as Walden likes to call it) and a pint of gumbo from Boiling Crab. We spread it all out over the kitchen table and dug in with our fingers. The gumbo was delicious, but porno spicy shrimp was disappointingly not spicy. Still all good though.
“So,” I said, “ever since my dance interview yesterday, I’ve wanted to write a thank you note on Facebook to some of my friends who have really helped me with my dancing, but I’m not sure if I should do it.”
“Why not?” Walden asked.
“I feel like I haven’t accomplished anything.”
“What are you talking about? How’d the interview go yesterday?”
“I don’t know, Walden. I think it went pretty well, but I’d say that I’m still as likely as I am unlikely to get onto the team. Right now I’m just going crazy and hating life because the final roster won’t be posted until this Sunday, the 17th.”
“Why are you hating life? You should be happy and proud. You got an interview! Damn, you knocked like fifty other people out!”
“I don’t know, Walden. I’ve been trying to believe that the interview means something, but it’s hard for me. I’ve only been able to focus on the wait, which has been torture, and sometimes I feel like I would’ve been better off without ever getting that interview. At this point, I’m so close. I have to go all the way or else everything leading up to this will have been in vain.”
“Can’t you just appreciate that you’ve made it this far?”
“I don’t know. I just doubt myself. Full of doubts, like always.” I took a sip from my gumbo.
“Brian,” Walden said as he licked the spicy sauce off his fingers, “you are a great dancer. The fact that I’m saying it and the fact that you got an interview are enough to make it true. You can believe it. Believe me.”
“I guess...my problem is I don’t believe in myself. I don’t believe others. I don’t believe, period.”
“It’s time to start believing Brian. You’ve grown so much since I first saw you in my summer intensive session. Why don’t you believe?”
“Because every time I believe,” I paused to wipe some gumbo off my hands, “I get fucked over. I get hurt.”
---
“God Loves You” (continued)
Finally understanding the significance of the “guy in glasses,” I retreated back into the dining common’s kitchen and strode straight to the conveyor belt where all the students dropped off their dirty dishes. On the wall next to the belt hung a bunch of feedback cards. Why were the feedback cards my main interest?
Last week, despaired over the little amount of hours I had been working each week, I asked my friend Mary to get a feedback card, write something nice about me and demand that I get more hours.
I searched the wall for that feedback card, and it didn’t take me long to locate it. And there it was in the first sentence of Mary’s comments: “The guy with glasses and earrings who was cleaning tables today was really good!” Okay...However, Mary didn’t write my name. How could’ve Cindy figured out my name?
The next section of the feedback card, under “Our [Manager’s] response,” had the answer. Again, the first sentence gave it away. “Brian is our dining room attendant...”
I gazed. I gazed long. And hard. At the card. This was it. This had to be the answer, no doubt about it. It was how they knew my name, and how they knew what I looked like. But then again, to go up to a stranger and start getting all God-crazy and extremely personal with them, that is pretty damn ballsy. Cindy was so forward, so unashamed. I saw it in her: She definitely believed in God. But did God really tell her about me? If I was her, and if God didn’t actually talk to me, I would not have the balls to pursue a name that I read in a dining hall’s feedback section. But maybe she was just fucking crazy.
And the whole thing about my family needing healing? Well, that was probably just her sales pitch. I mean, don’t like ninety-nine percent of college students have some kind of problem with their family? For me, it was probably more obvious that I did. I was after all working at my school’s dining common. My posture probably doesn’t convey positive messages about myself either. At the very least, Cindy probably thought that she could hit a poverty nerve in my family. (And hell, there is one. My dad’s been laid off and out of a job for a while, and I’m working at Pippin because my parents can’t afford to give me one hundred dollars a month for groceries anymore.) All this was like a horoscope, y’know? Horoscopes are made to be extremely broad and applicable to anyone, and anyone who wants to believe, believes too much.
[...]
When I got back to the hall, the first thing I did was I called my parents. They were happy to hear from me. We chatted a little bit about work, my schoolwork, my parents’ life at home, and probably drawing from his pain toward the motorcycle accident, my dad reminded me to always drive very carefully. I promised him I would.
Last but not least, I went on Facebook, and I looked up one of Cindy’s three friends, John. There he was. UCI class of ‘10. His profile was decked out with his love for God and a bunch of religious sayings. My mouse hovered over the friend request button, but my finger couldn’t make contact. I gazed long and hard again at his picture, his profile, and all the amazing things he had to say about God and what God had done for him.
Fuck this. I hauled my mouse off the friend request button and signed the hell off Facebook.
---
It was another typical morning in lecture, except this time I didn’t sleep straight through the entire thing. I booted up my laptop, and with a blank note open on Facebook, my fingers went to work on my keyboard:
This interview is the closest I’ve ever been, so close that I figured I had to get in, or else all I’ve done so far would’ve meant nothing. But after the interview, and after talking to a few friends, I’ve learned to appreciate what I’ve already accomplished. And what I’ve accomplished, I think it’s enough to warrant a small thank you entry, something I’ve wanted to do for a while but never found the occasion to. Right now I just wanna thank a few people that I think had a really huge impact on my dancing, the ones who have been an inspiration and a great help. I might write thank you’s to some more later. But for now, I’d like to say thank you to...
The roster comes out Sunday.
My Testimony: Part 1
Friday, October 15, 2010
Back at this again: bright lights right in my face, cheering people crowding the sidelines, and a table of judges, all with stern blank faces and glaring eyes, staring at me or staring past me. Which audition was this? My ninth one? Yeah, my ninth one. Sounded about right.
All the dancing I had done this past week, all the effort—it was going to climax tonight. Time to kill it. The music started, and all the noise and cheers for me from the crowd faded away. Taking in a deep breath, I counted myself into the music. 5... 6... 7... 8...
(I'm on the very left in the front.)
As soon as the judges dismissed us from the floor, I marched through the crowd and immediately sought out Sang and Leland (my roommates). I saw some high-five hands reach out toward me and heard some congratulations, but I paid no attention because to me, all that mattered was the iPod camera that Leland held in his hand. I had asked him to record my audition, and from the video I’d be making my own judgments. I didn’t want to have to believe anyone else, having previously learned one of the most important life lessons in my last year and a half of dancing and twenty years of living: Cameras tell the truth; people don’t.
I fiddled with my iPod and squinted at the tiny screen. I could barely make myself out or distinguish any moves, and worse was that I noticed that I had pretty much no battery left. I knew I didn’t have enough for a possible callback round and then my group audition round. I panicked a little.
As I fiddled with my iPod, more and more people came up to me to pat me on the back and congratulate me. I didn’t really notice until I realized that some were dancers who were already on the team, and they said I did really good. And they held eye contact. Something I noticed in the past about half-assed fake congratulatory comments was that no one ever added an adverb, and no one ever locked eyes. Maybe I could start trusting the people here tonight for their opinions on my callback and group audition.
Or not.
---
“God Loves You”
Written June 4th, 2009 (Excerpted)
[Setting: 8:15 PM, at Pippin, the dining hall on campus that I used to work at.]
As I was scrubbing down my area, a random girl approached me and asked very hesitantly, “Are you...are you Brian? What time are you getting off work?”
I looked at her and tilted my head a bit. I had never met this girl before or even seen her around. She was cute though, probably even cuter than she normally would be because she just seemed so in awe of me.
“Yes, I am. I’m off in forty-five minutes.” I answered. “Do I know you?”
She said she didn’t, and we quickly established that we had never met each other and that we had no friends in common. But she had just heard of me earlier tonight. I asked how that was possible.
“God told me,” she answered.
I tilted my head again at her, skeptically this time. Not because she was cute.
“God told me,” she continued, “that your family needs to be healed.”
I was a little fascinated now, but still skeptical and barely able to refrain from uttering, What kind of fucking joke is this?
“I know this is really crazy,” she went on, “and I can’t believe I’m even acting on this. But does this make sense at all to you? Does your family need to be healed?”
I didn’t need to think about her question for more than a second to know that...it did. My family did need to be healed. How could she have known about this? My skepticism slowly subsided.
“This does make kinda sense to me, I guess.”
She beamed at me and clasped her hands together. “Can my friends and I pray for you and your family?!” She motioned back to her three friends who were watching from the back of the room.
Pray for me. I wanted to scoff and tell this girl and her friends off, but I couldn’t. This was really trippy; the timing of it was almost too crazy to just be coincidental. I brewed with curiosity, a kind that I tried to rationalize away yet a kind that continued to grow as my emotions started to take over. I had to find out if her offer of prayer was something that could really help me, and I also had to find out if this girl really did come to me through divine intervention, or rather, a more realistic series of coincidences. At this point though, I think the whole prayer offer was appealing to my emotional side more.
“Yes, thanks, please,” I said it like I meant it. Because I did.
“Alright, cool!” she exclaimed. “You get off at nine right? My friends and I will be chilling around outside. Find us when you’re done!”
I nodded and thanked her again, and I watched as she and her friends left.
This is weird, I thought to myself. I still could not believe that God talked to that girl. When you talk to God, that’s fine; that’s prayer. But they say that when God talks to you, that’s schizophrenia. After a few minutes of scrubbing, I was able to push aside my emotions, and I spent the next forty minutes rationalizing as I cleaned.
---
My cell phone’s ringer went off. I swore, six hours of sleep felt shorter and shorter each night. I opened my eyes, or at least I thought I did. It was still dark. But then my eyes started to make out the lines of the orange street light shining through my blinds against the wall. I looked at the clock. It was only 4 AM.
My phone was still ringing. It wasn’t the alarm clock. It was a call.
I leapt out of my bed and grabbed the phone. This had to have been it; I took a deep breath as I answered the phone.
“Hello?” I asked.
“Hi,” it was a girl’s voice. “Is this Brian?”
“Yes.”
“You know who this is?”
“I think so!” I played along. “Does this have anything to do with an audition I had tonight?”
“Yes, I’m sure it does. Congratulations Brian, you got yourself an interview with us in two days, this Tuesday on October 12 at 7 PM!”
This was not a dream. This was not a dream. It was really happening, wasn’t it?
“You’ve made it past the first cut!” she went on. “Be proud of yourself. You did a really good job.”
All the dancing I had done this past week, all the effort—it was going to climax tonight. Time to kill it. The music started, and all the noise and cheers for me from the crowd faded away. Taking in a deep breath, I counted myself into the music. 5... 6... 7... 8...
(I'm on the very left in the front.)
As soon as the judges dismissed us from the floor, I marched through the crowd and immediately sought out Sang and Leland (my roommates). I saw some high-five hands reach out toward me and heard some congratulations, but I paid no attention because to me, all that mattered was the iPod camera that Leland held in his hand. I had asked him to record my audition, and from the video I’d be making my own judgments. I didn’t want to have to believe anyone else, having previously learned one of the most important life lessons in my last year and a half of dancing and twenty years of living: Cameras tell the truth; people don’t.
I fiddled with my iPod and squinted at the tiny screen. I could barely make myself out or distinguish any moves, and worse was that I noticed that I had pretty much no battery left. I knew I didn’t have enough for a possible callback round and then my group audition round. I panicked a little.
As I fiddled with my iPod, more and more people came up to me to pat me on the back and congratulate me. I didn’t really notice until I realized that some were dancers who were already on the team, and they said I did really good. And they held eye contact. Something I noticed in the past about half-assed fake congratulatory comments was that no one ever added an adverb, and no one ever locked eyes. Maybe I could start trusting the people here tonight for their opinions on my callback and group audition.
Or not.
---
“God Loves You”
Written June 4th, 2009 (Excerpted)
[Setting: 8:15 PM, at Pippin, the dining hall on campus that I used to work at.]
As I was scrubbing down my area, a random girl approached me and asked very hesitantly, “Are you...are you Brian? What time are you getting off work?”
I looked at her and tilted my head a bit. I had never met this girl before or even seen her around. She was cute though, probably even cuter than she normally would be because she just seemed so in awe of me.
“Yes, I am. I’m off in forty-five minutes.” I answered. “Do I know you?”
She said she didn’t, and we quickly established that we had never met each other and that we had no friends in common. But she had just heard of me earlier tonight. I asked how that was possible.
“God told me,” she answered.
I tilted my head again at her, skeptically this time. Not because she was cute.
“God told me,” she continued, “that your family needs to be healed.”
I was a little fascinated now, but still skeptical and barely able to refrain from uttering, What kind of fucking joke is this?
“I know this is really crazy,” she went on, “and I can’t believe I’m even acting on this. But does this make sense at all to you? Does your family need to be healed?”
I didn’t need to think about her question for more than a second to know that...it did. My family did need to be healed. How could she have known about this? My skepticism slowly subsided.
“This does make kinda sense to me, I guess.”
She beamed at me and clasped her hands together. “Can my friends and I pray for you and your family?!” She motioned back to her three friends who were watching from the back of the room.
Pray for me. I wanted to scoff and tell this girl and her friends off, but I couldn’t. This was really trippy; the timing of it was almost too crazy to just be coincidental. I brewed with curiosity, a kind that I tried to rationalize away yet a kind that continued to grow as my emotions started to take over. I had to find out if her offer of prayer was something that could really help me, and I also had to find out if this girl really did come to me through divine intervention, or rather, a more realistic series of coincidences. At this point though, I think the whole prayer offer was appealing to my emotional side more.
“Yes, thanks, please,” I said it like I meant it. Because I did.
“Alright, cool!” she exclaimed. “You get off at nine right? My friends and I will be chilling around outside. Find us when you’re done!”
I nodded and thanked her again, and I watched as she and her friends left.
This is weird, I thought to myself. I still could not believe that God talked to that girl. When you talk to God, that’s fine; that’s prayer. But they say that when God talks to you, that’s schizophrenia. After a few minutes of scrubbing, I was able to push aside my emotions, and I spent the next forty minutes rationalizing as I cleaned.
---
My cell phone’s ringer went off. I swore, six hours of sleep felt shorter and shorter each night. I opened my eyes, or at least I thought I did. It was still dark. But then my eyes started to make out the lines of the orange street light shining through my blinds against the wall. I looked at the clock. It was only 4 AM.
My phone was still ringing. It wasn’t the alarm clock. It was a call.
I leapt out of my bed and grabbed the phone. This had to have been it; I took a deep breath as I answered the phone.
“Hello?” I asked.
“Hi,” it was a girl’s voice. “Is this Brian?”
“Yes.”
“You know who this is?”
“I think so!” I played along. “Does this have anything to do with an audition I had tonight?”
“Yes, I’m sure it does. Congratulations Brian, you got yourself an interview with us in two days, this Tuesday on October 12 at 7 PM!”
This was not a dream. This was not a dream. It was really happening, wasn’t it?
“You’ve made it past the first cut!” she went on. “Be proud of yourself. You did a really good job.”
The Liar
Thursday, October 14, 2010
He led me to his room, where he sat down on his bed and I sat on his desk chair. I leaned back in it, just to keep more of a comfortable distance from him. We shot glances at each other, feeling awkward, wondering what to say or what to do.
His name was Gabe. I hooked up with him at the beginning of September, and we sorta had a “thing” going on for a while. By “thing,” I guess I could say it was a little romantic. I went to his place to cook with him, and we’d watch DVD’s together. I lent him an entire season of The X-Files, season six. He’d watch it and tell me about it as we chatted on AIM every few nights. Shortly after Team Millennia auditions, however, we stopped talking, and I knew I deliberately ignored his IM’s, texts, and phone calls. I felt like I had to go see him one more time and possibly give him some kind of explanation as to why I disappeared.
“How’ve you been?” he asked me.
“I’ve been good,” I said. “I started my first day at Promod last night. That went all right. And overall I’ve been having a pretty okay start to my junior year in college. How have you been?”
“Busy, really busy. Planning a bunch of club stuff and studying.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right, Mr. Nurse.”
He chuckled. “So you’ve been having fun? Going to any parties or anything?”
“Yeah I went to one just this past week. I went to one two weeks ago and vomited my guts out and missed the very first day of class the next day, so I didn’t want to drink at this one. But my friend did try to make me drink though. Funny story I guess.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Supposedly I took three shots. But really, the only one I took was my second one, which was of something a lot weaker than what would’ve been the first and third ones. For the first one, I switched my cup with my chaser cup and drank that, and when everyone went for their chasers, I put my chaser cup down next to the cup with the actual shot, switch them around a bit, and drank out of my chaser cup again. I dumped the shot cup in the sink. No one noticed.
“For my third shot that I got away with,” I continued, “my friend had already shoved a shot cup into my one hand and a chaser cup into my other. He was holding his own cups, and as he was trying to convince me to drink my shot, he was getting all in my face, literally. Our eyes were pretty much locked, and I used that opportunity to dump my shot into his shot cup. Then I pretended to give in and downed my empty shot right away and ‘chased’ it before he could peak inside my cup. For that one though, some of his friends saw what I did.”
“Really? Did they say anything?” Gabe asked.
“I hope so. That’s kinda the point isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you can lie and get away with it, thus accomplishing nothing, or you can lie and later confess about it, or find some way to make sure that the truth is revealed. That way, you’ll get your point across. Everyone lies for a reason, but that reason only matters if the lie gets exposed. Since my saying ‘no’ is not good enough for my friend, he needs to know that I’m willing to lie to get my way, and then he won’t try so hard anymore. If no one ever tells him about what I did, I’ll have to do it myself next time.”
Gabe nodded solemnly.
“By the way,” I said, “I’ve been eyeing your desk and your DVD collection. I don’t see my X-Files. You didn’t lose it did you?” I forced an awkward laugh.
“Nah, it’s right here.” He went to his desk and lifted my X-Files up from under a neat pile of papers. “Here.”
I grabbed it and glanced over it. Still in good condition. I held it under my arm and smiled at him. “Thanks.”
We continued to chat until there nothing else to talk about. Following a minute of silence and fleeting eye contact, he beckoned me to come to him. I asked him why, and he said to just come up to him. So I did, and he wrapped his arms around my waist and pushed up against me. We faced each other with a few mere inches separating us. He looked at my lips occasionally and I looked at his, only to turn away. But the longer he had his arms wrapped around my waist, the more I wanted to give in.
“I can’t,” I whimpered. “No...”
Horny at 1 AM. What was a college freshman like me to do? Booty call.
I set out onto the street in my sweats and a sweater, keys in hand. It was cold and wet outside, and my legs were still shaking. They felt weak, and my heart pounded in my chest. I tried to keep myself warm, but I knew it wasn’t the cold. It was the anxiety. What I was doing, and why I was doing it, the reasons scared me.
My phone started vibrating in my pocket, and I pulled it out to see a private number calling me. I figured it was him. I answered the call, and the voice on the other line struck me as familiar, but not in a way that I had expected.
“Hi Brian,” the voice said. “Where are you?”
“Hi, uh...”
“You’re not inside your dorm sleeping, are you? I know because I asked one of your hallmates if you were in room, and she said she saw you leaving somewhere. You know who this is?”
I stopped breathing. The voice, it couldn’t be. But it was.
“It’s me Brian. It’s Trung.”
I had no response.
“Brian, why have you been lying to me? You were about to go cheat on me again, weren’t you?”
“I might be getting back with my ex!” I blurted out to Gabe. The lock of his arms around my waist immediately released and I pulled away. Taking a moment to breathe, I sat back down in my chair and rocked back.
“You are?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Oh, that’s great. Which ex? And how did it happen?”
“It’s not Trung; it’s my most recent one, Ranier,” I answered, “and well, two weekends ago, during the same weekend as Team Millennia auditions, he came down to visit. But it was a little unexpected. Originally he had planned on hanging out with some other guy in San Diego, but they had some kind of problem at the last minute. Since it was the night before Ranier’s flight, he couldn’t really refund it, so he planned on going anyway and asked me to come pick him up from San Diego. I drove him back up to Irvine, and we hung out whenever I wasn’t practicing with my group audition mates. The very first night he stayed over, we tried to split the bed, but somehow—oops! We ended up making out. And then we spent the next day like how we spent our days together when we were together, cuddling and watching TV, kissing, all that stuff, y’know.
“Now we’ve been chatting on webcam every night and talking on the phone. Just like how it was when we were together; it was a long distance relationship after all. So yeah, Ranier and I are pretty much together again.”
I stood up and shrugged. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you that my ex and I have been talking again for the last two weeks, and that’s why I’ve been ignoring you.”
He sighed. “Alright, it’s cool.”
I found a table outside near some vending machines to sit down on as I pressed my cellphone into my ear.
“Brian, please,” Trung begged, “can you explain to me why you did it?”
“Look, you caught me. Again. I lied to you, and I was about to go cheat, again. Again. Don’t you think you should break up with me?”
“No, Brian, can you just explain why you did it?”
“Maybe so we can fucking break up already, Trung!”
“We can work this out as long as you’re willing to talk to me!”
“How the fuck are we going to work it out? I’ve cheated, I’m still cheating. Once a cheater, always a cheater, right? Don’t you see Trung? We can’t last, not like this. If you had any amount of logic in you, you could see that the best option is to just break up with me and move on. Again, I lied, and you caught me.”
“Brian, please. There’s a still a chance with us. If there’s any part of you, any part that still believes in us, we can make this work Brian, please. I believe, and I need you to believe too. Can you just do that? Even a little bit?”
“You’re not giving up, are you?” I sighed and rested my head on the table. “This is going to be one long phone call, isn’t it? I don’t know why bother. I doubt we’ll even last until our one-year anniversary or Christmas.”
Gabe and I made more small talk as he walked me out to my car, but before I had to go, I knew there was one more thing I had to tell him.
“I’m sorry Gabe. But you know what, we wouldn’t have worked out together anyway.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m a liar. I’m not afraid to lie, and I’ll make sure that I lie in a way that hurts. Whoever goes out with me would probably be one of the unluckiest guys in the world.”
“That can’t be true.”
“The story about my ex, and our getting back together. Did you believe any of it?”
“Am I supposed to?”
“No, don’t. I made it up.”
Gabe stuttered. “Wait, so, uh, what? What does that make us?”
“Figure it out.”
We shared one last gaze before I unlocked my car and got inside. As I turned on my engine, he started walking away back inside, and I pulled out of my parking space. Once I was back onto the streets, I reached inside my jacket and pulled out my X-Files. I went through each DVD to make sure that they were all in working condition. No scratches. Good. I got what I came for.
His name was Gabe. I hooked up with him at the beginning of September, and we sorta had a “thing” going on for a while. By “thing,” I guess I could say it was a little romantic. I went to his place to cook with him, and we’d watch DVD’s together. I lent him an entire season of The X-Files, season six. He’d watch it and tell me about it as we chatted on AIM every few nights. Shortly after Team Millennia auditions, however, we stopped talking, and I knew I deliberately ignored his IM’s, texts, and phone calls. I felt like I had to go see him one more time and possibly give him some kind of explanation as to why I disappeared.
“How’ve you been?” he asked me.
“I’ve been good,” I said. “I started my first day at Promod last night. That went all right. And overall I’ve been having a pretty okay start to my junior year in college. How have you been?”
“Busy, really busy. Planning a bunch of club stuff and studying.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right, Mr. Nurse.”
He chuckled. “So you’ve been having fun? Going to any parties or anything?”
“Yeah I went to one just this past week. I went to one two weeks ago and vomited my guts out and missed the very first day of class the next day, so I didn’t want to drink at this one. But my friend did try to make me drink though. Funny story I guess.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Supposedly I took three shots. But really, the only one I took was my second one, which was of something a lot weaker than what would’ve been the first and third ones. For the first one, I switched my cup with my chaser cup and drank that, and when everyone went for their chasers, I put my chaser cup down next to the cup with the actual shot, switch them around a bit, and drank out of my chaser cup again. I dumped the shot cup in the sink. No one noticed.
“For my third shot that I got away with,” I continued, “my friend had already shoved a shot cup into my one hand and a chaser cup into my other. He was holding his own cups, and as he was trying to convince me to drink my shot, he was getting all in my face, literally. Our eyes were pretty much locked, and I used that opportunity to dump my shot into his shot cup. Then I pretended to give in and downed my empty shot right away and ‘chased’ it before he could peak inside my cup. For that one though, some of his friends saw what I did.”
“Really? Did they say anything?” Gabe asked.
“I hope so. That’s kinda the point isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you can lie and get away with it, thus accomplishing nothing, or you can lie and later confess about it, or find some way to make sure that the truth is revealed. That way, you’ll get your point across. Everyone lies for a reason, but that reason only matters if the lie gets exposed. Since my saying ‘no’ is not good enough for my friend, he needs to know that I’m willing to lie to get my way, and then he won’t try so hard anymore. If no one ever tells him about what I did, I’ll have to do it myself next time.”
Gabe nodded solemnly.
“By the way,” I said, “I’ve been eyeing your desk and your DVD collection. I don’t see my X-Files. You didn’t lose it did you?” I forced an awkward laugh.
“Nah, it’s right here.” He went to his desk and lifted my X-Files up from under a neat pile of papers. “Here.”
I grabbed it and glanced over it. Still in good condition. I held it under my arm and smiled at him. “Thanks.”
We continued to chat until there nothing else to talk about. Following a minute of silence and fleeting eye contact, he beckoned me to come to him. I asked him why, and he said to just come up to him. So I did, and he wrapped his arms around my waist and pushed up against me. We faced each other with a few mere inches separating us. He looked at my lips occasionally and I looked at his, only to turn away. But the longer he had his arms wrapped around my waist, the more I wanted to give in.
“I can’t,” I whimpered. “No...”
Horny at 1 AM. What was a college freshman like me to do? Booty call.
I set out onto the street in my sweats and a sweater, keys in hand. It was cold and wet outside, and my legs were still shaking. They felt weak, and my heart pounded in my chest. I tried to keep myself warm, but I knew it wasn’t the cold. It was the anxiety. What I was doing, and why I was doing it, the reasons scared me.
My phone started vibrating in my pocket, and I pulled it out to see a private number calling me. I figured it was him. I answered the call, and the voice on the other line struck me as familiar, but not in a way that I had expected.
“Hi Brian,” the voice said. “Where are you?”
“Hi, uh...”
“You’re not inside your dorm sleeping, are you? I know because I asked one of your hallmates if you were in room, and she said she saw you leaving somewhere. You know who this is?”
I stopped breathing. The voice, it couldn’t be. But it was.
“It’s me Brian. It’s Trung.”
I had no response.
“Brian, why have you been lying to me? You were about to go cheat on me again, weren’t you?”
“I might be getting back with my ex!” I blurted out to Gabe. The lock of his arms around my waist immediately released and I pulled away. Taking a moment to breathe, I sat back down in my chair and rocked back.
“You are?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Oh, that’s great. Which ex? And how did it happen?”
“It’s not Trung; it’s my most recent one, Ranier,” I answered, “and well, two weekends ago, during the same weekend as Team Millennia auditions, he came down to visit. But it was a little unexpected. Originally he had planned on hanging out with some other guy in San Diego, but they had some kind of problem at the last minute. Since it was the night before Ranier’s flight, he couldn’t really refund it, so he planned on going anyway and asked me to come pick him up from San Diego. I drove him back up to Irvine, and we hung out whenever I wasn’t practicing with my group audition mates. The very first night he stayed over, we tried to split the bed, but somehow—oops! We ended up making out. And then we spent the next day like how we spent our days together when we were together, cuddling and watching TV, kissing, all that stuff, y’know.
“Now we’ve been chatting on webcam every night and talking on the phone. Just like how it was when we were together; it was a long distance relationship after all. So yeah, Ranier and I are pretty much together again.”
I stood up and shrugged. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you that my ex and I have been talking again for the last two weeks, and that’s why I’ve been ignoring you.”
He sighed. “Alright, it’s cool.”
I found a table outside near some vending machines to sit down on as I pressed my cellphone into my ear.
“Brian, please,” Trung begged, “can you explain to me why you did it?”
“Look, you caught me. Again. I lied to you, and I was about to go cheat, again. Again. Don’t you think you should break up with me?”
“No, Brian, can you just explain why you did it?”
“Maybe so we can fucking break up already, Trung!”
“We can work this out as long as you’re willing to talk to me!”
“How the fuck are we going to work it out? I’ve cheated, I’m still cheating. Once a cheater, always a cheater, right? Don’t you see Trung? We can’t last, not like this. If you had any amount of logic in you, you could see that the best option is to just break up with me and move on. Again, I lied, and you caught me.”
“Brian, please. There’s a still a chance with us. If there’s any part of you, any part that still believes in us, we can make this work Brian, please. I believe, and I need you to believe too. Can you just do that? Even a little bit?”
“You’re not giving up, are you?” I sighed and rested my head on the table. “This is going to be one long phone call, isn’t it? I don’t know why bother. I doubt we’ll even last until our one-year anniversary or Christmas.”
Gabe and I made more small talk as he walked me out to my car, but before I had to go, I knew there was one more thing I had to tell him.
“I’m sorry Gabe. But you know what, we wouldn’t have worked out together anyway.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m a liar. I’m not afraid to lie, and I’ll make sure that I lie in a way that hurts. Whoever goes out with me would probably be one of the unluckiest guys in the world.”
“That can’t be true.”
“The story about my ex, and our getting back together. Did you believe any of it?”
“Am I supposed to?”
“No, don’t. I made it up.”
Gabe stuttered. “Wait, so, uh, what? What does that make us?”
“Figure it out.”
We shared one last gaze before I unlocked my car and got inside. As I turned on my engine, he started walking away back inside, and I pulled out of my parking space. Once I was back onto the streets, I reached inside my jacket and pulled out my X-Files. I went through each DVD to make sure that they were all in working condition. No scratches. Good. I got what I came for.
Promod
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
October 2nd, Saturday night. First day on the job at the ever so hip and preppy clothing retailer, Promod, and I was already thrust onto the busy sales floor with nothing more than a key to the fitting rooms and a flat transparent board to aid me in folding graphic t-shirts into a perfect square, as though a lifesaver were supposed to keep me safe in an ocean infested by sharks. Customers needed fitting rooms, customers needed different colors, customers needed larger sizes, customers needed to be greeted with the sales pitch of the day (“Welcome to Pro-Mawwd! Just to let you know, all of our jeans are twenty bucks or less today”—being the trendy retailer of a clothing store that I worked at, it was important to use “bucks” instead of “dollars” to convey our hipness).
In one of my very first lessons, I discovered that while it took me twenty minutes to recover an entire table of tackily branded t-shirts (“recover” is the retail term for refolding all the clothes), it only took one short minute for one single customer to transform the entire table into a morbid scene out of a nuclear holocaust.
Caught up with cleaning the messes left in the wake of the tornadoes that stormed through the store, I did not even sense the presence of my rather gay manager looming over my shoulder, who silently scrutinized every wrinkle I failed to straighten as I folded my shirts. I turned around and jumped in surprise, not expecting to come face to face with him. Sporting his blue patterned flannel and dark wash bootcut jeans, he greeted me with a smile so enthusiastic that each tooth glimmered under the light. He offered his hand for a handshake, and I reached to accept, glad that of all the sanity in this teen haven dystopia, this handshake was one thing that was the same, and it was one thing I was good at.
He retracted his hand. Swiftly and sharply before I could even close the gaps between my fingers, as though he thought he spotted an ebola-laced pin protruding from the palm of my hand.
“Your shoes are in violation of our dress code.”
I glanced down at my feet to be greeted by the site of my mid-top Nike SB Dunks, adorned by its maroon suede swoosh and its fat maroon laces.
“Here at Promod, we ask that our employees stick to the classics, such as Converse Chuck Taylors or Vans Slip-ons.”
At the very utterance of “Chuh—,” every hair on my body shot straight up as my face turned cold and pale and my heart sank into my stomach, where I could feel it streaming down every inch of my intestines as he went on to say “slip-ons.” Fuck, my Nikes were too cool for Pro-Mawwd.
“And just so you know, Brian, it’s pronounced ‘Pro-Mode’—the ‘o’ sounds are the same. It’s French. Now there’s a lesson on French pronunciation for you.”
---
“Yummy!”
Written May 18th, 2007 (Excerpted)
I’ve basically had this huge (sexual) fetish for Nike SB dunks or any other Nike shoes similar to those. Like, any average looking person looks plain and boring with their Vans Shit-Ons and Converse Fuck Taylors. But if they slip on Nike SB dunks for a day, they’re suddenly hot. One time, when I was browsing photos on downelink, I stumbled upon a picture of two guys making out with Nike basketball shoes on both of them. I was like, “Dayum look at that!” referring to the shoes, not the kiss. The shoes were hotter than their kiss.
One day I will own my very own pair of sexy Nike SB dunks, and until then, you will never see a pair of Vans Shit-ons or Converse Fuck Taylors clamped onto my feet.
---
Twenty bucks at a thrift store. I created a compromise, one in which I figured I could still buy a “classic” type of shoe without ever having to curse the delicate cells of my fingers with the abomination that is a pair of Chuck Taylors or slip-ons, but still, I would probably only wear this pair of non-self-sexually arousing shoes at Promod, for Promod, and no where else.
In one of my very first lessons, I discovered that while it took me twenty minutes to recover an entire table of tackily branded t-shirts (“recover” is the retail term for refolding all the clothes), it only took one short minute for one single customer to transform the entire table into a morbid scene out of a nuclear holocaust.
Caught up with cleaning the messes left in the wake of the tornadoes that stormed through the store, I did not even sense the presence of my rather gay manager looming over my shoulder, who silently scrutinized every wrinkle I failed to straighten as I folded my shirts. I turned around and jumped in surprise, not expecting to come face to face with him. Sporting his blue patterned flannel and dark wash bootcut jeans, he greeted me with a smile so enthusiastic that each tooth glimmered under the light. He offered his hand for a handshake, and I reached to accept, glad that of all the sanity in this teen haven dystopia, this handshake was one thing that was the same, and it was one thing I was good at.
He retracted his hand. Swiftly and sharply before I could even close the gaps between my fingers, as though he thought he spotted an ebola-laced pin protruding from the palm of my hand.
“Your shoes are in violation of our dress code.”
I glanced down at my feet to be greeted by the site of my mid-top Nike SB Dunks, adorned by its maroon suede swoosh and its fat maroon laces.
“Here at Promod, we ask that our employees stick to the classics, such as Converse Chuck Taylors or Vans Slip-ons.”
At the very utterance of “Chuh—,” every hair on my body shot straight up as my face turned cold and pale and my heart sank into my stomach, where I could feel it streaming down every inch of my intestines as he went on to say “slip-ons.” Fuck, my Nikes were too cool for Pro-Mawwd.
“And just so you know, Brian, it’s pronounced ‘Pro-Mode’—the ‘o’ sounds are the same. It’s French. Now there’s a lesson on French pronunciation for you.”
---
“Yummy!”
Written May 18th, 2007 (Excerpted)
I’ve basically had this huge (sexual) fetish for Nike SB dunks or any other Nike shoes similar to those. Like, any average looking person looks plain and boring with their Vans Shit-Ons and Converse Fuck Taylors. But if they slip on Nike SB dunks for a day, they’re suddenly hot. One time, when I was browsing photos on downelink, I stumbled upon a picture of two guys making out with Nike basketball shoes on both of them. I was like, “Dayum look at that!” referring to the shoes, not the kiss. The shoes were hotter than their kiss.
One day I will own my very own pair of sexy Nike SB dunks, and until then, you will never see a pair of Vans Shit-ons or Converse Fuck Taylors clamped onto my feet.
---
Twenty bucks at a thrift store. I created a compromise, one in which I figured I could still buy a “classic” type of shoe without ever having to curse the delicate cells of my fingers with the abomination that is a pair of Chuck Taylors or slip-ons, but still, I would probably only wear this pair of non-self-sexually arousing shoes at Promod, for Promod, and no where else.
Three Points
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Dim flickering streetlights lit our way through the park as we trod through wet grass, unsure of where to go but up the gently sloping hill. The end of our path greeted us with steep concrete stairs shrouded in darkness. We stopped and looked at each other.
“Brian, we’re not going any farther.”
“What?! Why not? Trung, we’ve been driving around trying to find this hill for the last hour and now here it possibly is in front of us. We just have to go up these stairs.”
“Unlit stairs with a bunch of dark low-hanging trees tunneling over them. Do you not see the sign, Brian? I’ll read it again for you. ‘You are entering a natural area characterized by certain inherent dangers. These dangers include rattlesnakes, poison oak, BOBCATS, COYOTES, AND MOUNTAIN LIONS.’”
“I think if people have actually gotten eaten climbing up this hill, these stairs wouldn’t be here anymore.”
“No one’s gotten eaten before because no one goes hill-climbing at 1 AM in the morning.”
“Come on, we’re so close. We have to go all the way or else everything leading up to this will have been in vain.”
“Can’t you just appreciate the fact that you made it here? That you made it this far? Now is not the time to continue on, but later, you will be back here, preferably during the day or sunset. And that’s when you can go all the way.”
“No. How about we go all the way now?”
“Alright, but I’m going to make you hold my hand.”
Trung held out his hand, and I grasped it with both of mine. He placed his other hand on top, and step by step, we ascended the stairs. I didn’t want to mention it, but my heart beat as fast as Trung’s, and as much as I tried to suppress it, I couldn’t help but jerk my head toward every little snap of a twig or rustle of a bush that I thought I heard.
“So...”
“So what?”
“What were we talking about earlier?” Trung asked.
“Changing.”
“Oh yeah. So, if you don’t like the way your life is going, why can’t you change it?”
I shrugged. “I can’t just decide to change.”
“Why not?”
“Because I just can’t. Change has to happen subconsciously. If I’m consciously forcing myself to change, I’m not going to change. A huge part of me won’t allow it.”
“Knowing this though, can’t you prevent yourself from not allowing it?”
“No, it doesn’t work like that.”
“But a part of fixing a problem is acknowledging the problem, and you’re already acknowledging it.”
“Acknowledging the problem and trying to change it from there won’t work. That kind of change is artificial change. Deep down inside, I will still be the same person that I’ve always been. Something unplanned has to instigate the change.”
“Well, Brian, you have to do something eventually. You just can’t sit around all your life waiting for an epiphany, or to get hit by a truck.”
At the top of the stair case, our hands parted and we fell silent after realizing that we had to continue excavating the hill by climbing on rocks. Trung wasn’t happy, and I wished that I had dressed a little more appropriately. Nikes, skinny jeans and a white tank from The Hundreds didn’t make suitable outdoor adventure gear. We could see people roaming around the top of the hill, but from where we stood, they looked as tiny as the stars in the sky. Trung, once again, refused to continue on, but he finally gave in after I persisted. Trung fumed as we silently worked our way up the steep rocks.
“All right, we made it. We’re on top and we can see all of Orange County. Can you remind me why we did this Brian?”
I didn’t have to glance around for more than a few seconds to realize, “We’re not on the right hill.”
“What?”
“The one I wanted has a little bench on top. This one doesn’t have it. We need to go find it.”
“Wait, Brian! Look! Look all over there at the lights. We already have a nice view, so why do you need a fucking bench to sit down?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Oh, I know why,” Trung said. “The one with the bench, the one you saw in those photos, that was the mountain you wanted to take Ranier to, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“And why didn’t you take him?”
“Well, I was going to take him. When he first told me two months ago he was going to come to Irvine, I tried to find out where the hill was, but then he said he wasn’t going to come anymore and just stay in San Diego, so I gave up on finding the hill. Then, last weekend, the very night before he left for San Diego, he told me there was a change of plans and he wanted to come to Irvine again. I didn’t have time to go find the hill, and since I had to worry about Team Millenia auditions last weekend, I didn’t have time to go exploring with him. I wanted to take him to the hill, but when I was practicing with my groupmates in Fullerton, Ranier stayed in Irvine and hung out with another friend who beat me to it.”
“Well, since someone already beat you to it, and Ranier left like last Sunday night, why are we even here now a week later?”
“I wanted to find it so I could go on top of it and convince myself it was nothing more than a giant pile of dirt that happened to be higher than the rest of the city.”
“Oh. I see. You wanted to rationalize away every bit of emotion associated with it. Brian, I’m sure you didn’t even need me to tell you that and how unhealthy it is, so why are you still trying to do it?”
“Because it’s what I do.”
“Ok Brian, can you at least look out at the city and admit, it’s a nice view?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, great. Let’s enjoy it for a few more minutes and then head back to your place, and I’ll stick around there for like half an hour and drive back up to UCLA. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“And I’d suggest watching season six of The X-Files, but...”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ll get it back.”
“Brian, we’re not going any farther.”
“What?! Why not? Trung, we’ve been driving around trying to find this hill for the last hour and now here it possibly is in front of us. We just have to go up these stairs.”
“Unlit stairs with a bunch of dark low-hanging trees tunneling over them. Do you not see the sign, Brian? I’ll read it again for you. ‘You are entering a natural area characterized by certain inherent dangers. These dangers include rattlesnakes, poison oak, BOBCATS, COYOTES, AND MOUNTAIN LIONS.’”
“I think if people have actually gotten eaten climbing up this hill, these stairs wouldn’t be here anymore.”
“No one’s gotten eaten before because no one goes hill-climbing at 1 AM in the morning.”
“Come on, we’re so close. We have to go all the way or else everything leading up to this will have been in vain.”
“Can’t you just appreciate the fact that you made it here? That you made it this far? Now is not the time to continue on, but later, you will be back here, preferably during the day or sunset. And that’s when you can go all the way.”
“No. How about we go all the way now?”
“Alright, but I’m going to make you hold my hand.”
Trung held out his hand, and I grasped it with both of mine. He placed his other hand on top, and step by step, we ascended the stairs. I didn’t want to mention it, but my heart beat as fast as Trung’s, and as much as I tried to suppress it, I couldn’t help but jerk my head toward every little snap of a twig or rustle of a bush that I thought I heard.
“So...”
“So what?”
“What were we talking about earlier?” Trung asked.
“Changing.”
“Oh yeah. So, if you don’t like the way your life is going, why can’t you change it?”
I shrugged. “I can’t just decide to change.”
“Why not?”
“Because I just can’t. Change has to happen subconsciously. If I’m consciously forcing myself to change, I’m not going to change. A huge part of me won’t allow it.”
“Knowing this though, can’t you prevent yourself from not allowing it?”
“No, it doesn’t work like that.”
“But a part of fixing a problem is acknowledging the problem, and you’re already acknowledging it.”
“Acknowledging the problem and trying to change it from there won’t work. That kind of change is artificial change. Deep down inside, I will still be the same person that I’ve always been. Something unplanned has to instigate the change.”
“Well, Brian, you have to do something eventually. You just can’t sit around all your life waiting for an epiphany, or to get hit by a truck.”
At the top of the stair case, our hands parted and we fell silent after realizing that we had to continue excavating the hill by climbing on rocks. Trung wasn’t happy, and I wished that I had dressed a little more appropriately. Nikes, skinny jeans and a white tank from The Hundreds didn’t make suitable outdoor adventure gear. We could see people roaming around the top of the hill, but from where we stood, they looked as tiny as the stars in the sky. Trung, once again, refused to continue on, but he finally gave in after I persisted. Trung fumed as we silently worked our way up the steep rocks.
“All right, we made it. We’re on top and we can see all of Orange County. Can you remind me why we did this Brian?”
I didn’t have to glance around for more than a few seconds to realize, “We’re not on the right hill.”
“What?”
“The one I wanted has a little bench on top. This one doesn’t have it. We need to go find it.”
“Wait, Brian! Look! Look all over there at the lights. We already have a nice view, so why do you need a fucking bench to sit down?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Oh, I know why,” Trung said. “The one with the bench, the one you saw in those photos, that was the mountain you wanted to take Ranier to, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“And why didn’t you take him?”
“Well, I was going to take him. When he first told me two months ago he was going to come to Irvine, I tried to find out where the hill was, but then he said he wasn’t going to come anymore and just stay in San Diego, so I gave up on finding the hill. Then, last weekend, the very night before he left for San Diego, he told me there was a change of plans and he wanted to come to Irvine again. I didn’t have time to go find the hill, and since I had to worry about Team Millenia auditions last weekend, I didn’t have time to go exploring with him. I wanted to take him to the hill, but when I was practicing with my groupmates in Fullerton, Ranier stayed in Irvine and hung out with another friend who beat me to it.”
“Well, since someone already beat you to it, and Ranier left like last Sunday night, why are we even here now a week later?”
“I wanted to find it so I could go on top of it and convince myself it was nothing more than a giant pile of dirt that happened to be higher than the rest of the city.”
“Oh. I see. You wanted to rationalize away every bit of emotion associated with it. Brian, I’m sure you didn’t even need me to tell you that and how unhealthy it is, so why are you still trying to do it?”
“Because it’s what I do.”
“Ok Brian, can you at least look out at the city and admit, it’s a nice view?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, great. Let’s enjoy it for a few more minutes and then head back to your place, and I’ll stick around there for like half an hour and drive back up to UCLA. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“And I’d suggest watching season six of The X-Files, but...”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ll get it back.”
Tags:
fall 2010,
ranier,
relationships,
socal,
trung
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