Runaway: Part 1

“Murrieta really is in the middle of nowhere.” I stared out the window and couldn’t see anything but black silhouettes of passing scenery and the road in the car’s headlights. I turned around to glance at Ron and his girlfriend Renee in the backseat, completely knocked out in each other’s arms. I sighed. “Still hot.”

“Neeeext.” Walden’s voice wobbled and wavered. Save for a few fingers clingly onto the bottom of his steering wheel, his arms rested dead in his lap. His eyes looked glazed, and I could tell when he did and didn’t focus on the road. If I didn’t want us all to crash and die, I had to keep him awake.

“The end of your guys’ first hell week and your guys’ first performance—you guys really killed it today.”

“Thanks.” Walden’s voice remained just as flat.

“Okay, you guys are tired. Yet here we all are, going straight to the Halloween party right now.”

“Alcohol wakes us up. Are you going to drink?”

I shrugged. “Depends on the person who invited me.”

Walden scoffed. “Neeeext. I still can’t see it—you and Linh.”

I turned around to double-check that Ron and Renee really were asleep. “Linh and me. Why can’t you see it?”

Walden lifted his hands and shook them with each word he spoke. “Because it’s Linh. I know you pretty well now Brian, and I can tell you, Linh is not your type of guy.” Looked like Walden was fully awake now.

“He is my type of guy. He’s got that hard-ish, hypebeast-ish, ghetto-ish manly—”

“What? Are we even talking about the same Linh?”

“You don’t think he’s—”

“Of course I don’t! Lemme tell you this: Last week, during a team bonding picnic at the park, all the guys were playing basketball. Linh, who was totally uninterested, sat on the side, and he was all, ‘I’m over basketball. Let’s go shopping.’ I don’t have any problem with Linh—I like him—but I know that you get picky about certain things in a guy. Choosing shopping over basketball, is that manly enough for you?”

I bit my lip. I had to admit to my shallow-ass self that my heart sank a little when I heard that he opted for shopping. “Well, Linh and I spent a whole night together, and I didn’t sense a single ounce of gayness on him.”

“Fine Brian. You haven’t been around him long enough, but you’ll eventually see. And when you see it, I’ll be there to tell you, ‘I told ya so.’”

“We’ll see. But I’m sure that he is a keeper.”

We got to Linh’s place in Murrieta half an hour later. We parked outside his house and I retrieved my costume from the trunk: a giant, homemade cardboard pizza to be hung in front of me around my neck. I had brought a yellow shirt to wear underneath it, but I figured, hell, it was Halloween, so I went shirtless underneath my cardboard pizza. With the four of us dressed up, Walden, Ron, Renee, and I marched up Linh’s doorstep and rang his doorbell. We waited.

A few seconds later, the door swung open and we were greeted by some Asian chick I had never seen before. I was slightly taken aback—with her heels on this girl must have been standing at six feet three inches. Her long, wavy black hair, curled eye lashes and dark eye shadow at least made her face pretty, but her breasts, which were incased by a bra probably no larger than an A-cup, nevertheless popped out unusually at me. Her small sweater revealed a flat stomach, and her short black skirt revealed long, toned legs; they even kinda had some muscle to them. My eyes twitched as I scrutinized every unusual detail of her body.

“Oh my god!” Renee spoke up. “Linh, is that you?”

I froze.

“Shit!” Ron stepped up to get a closer look. “Oh shit man I thought you actually were a girl for a minute. You outdid yourself.”

The chick—well, fuck, Linh—grabbed his bra and readjusted it. “Thanks guys.” No doubt about it, that was Linh’s voice. “Here, lemme show you where you guys can put your sleeping bags and stuff.” I watched, my feet locked in place outside on the doorstep, my mouth gaped and my eyes wide open as Linh strutted down the hall with his four-inch heels. Ron and Renee followed him inside.

Still unable to lift my feet, I turned to Walden, my face frozen with the same shocked look. He pretended to not notice, stepped one foot inside the doorway, stopped, turned his head over his shoulder to look at me, smirked, and winked. “I told ya so.”

---
“The Final Entry”
Written May 24th, 2009
[[Continued from where this last left off in “Promises Are Just Restraints.”]]

“SHUT THE FUCK UP TRUNG. You’re not the all-knowing smart person you think you are. This has nothing to do with peer pressure, so again, shut the fuck up. You don’t know shit.”

That silenced Trung for a few minutes, but then, he began prying again.

I wasn’t in the mood to dive into the reason. “Things have changed,” I stated. Trung further tried to get me to elaborate, but no, I left it at that.

A week later, on May 8th, the day of our 17-month anniversary, I felt ready to talk about it. Actually, I wasn’t, but Trung convinced me. 3 AM, we had just settled into bed, and Trung was lying in my arms. He brought up the argument, and soon, he got me talking. I was very hesitant.

“Remember the gay party we went to two weeks ago in Murrieta? We met a lot of people. Remember that one guy? The gay one—well, they were all gay. It was a gay party after all. Anyway, that one guy, he told us about his relationship. His two-year-relationship, which ended months prior. He made it two years. Two whole years. It must be terrible to have a relationship that long just end on you, y’know? You’d think that like, after a while, you spend a lot of months, maybe a year, working out all the kinks in the relationship, and then it’s smooth sailing from there. But this guy, he broke up after two years. I can’t believe that something that is capable of going on for two years is also capable of breaking up.

“And then, a few days later, I was looking up some dance choreography videos on YouTube to get some ideas for Breakthrough this summer. I remembered seeing a piece to Ne-Yo’s Closer that I really liked a while ago, and so I found it and went through the user’s profile. I found a link to his blog, and I read it. ...[H]e blogs a lot about his day to day life with his boyfriend. They’re in their mid-20s, and they’ve been together for seven years. I think they actually got together around eighteen, our age. Anyway, they live together, Trung. They work together for the same company, and, yeah, they live together. They travel together. They even have a dog. And, well, seven years. That’s amazing. Their relationship just seems so unbreakable.

“So all that just left me thinking. On one hand, there’s the guy who broke off a two-year relationship, and on the other hand, there’s the couple who’s maintaining a wonderful seven-year relationship. It made me think about our relationship in a way that I never thought about before. I felt disillusioned: what if we don’t last? I felt hopeful: what if we do last? And that’s when I freaked out. I was thinking about our future. You know how that freaks me out right? I never even liked it when you would plan road trips for us that’d only be like four weeks into the future. Yet, here I was questioning where we’d be in two years, in seven years. The thought of such long-term commitment freaked me out, so I tried to not think about it. But then that just freaked me out some more. You know me Trung. I need control, I need direction, I need to know where I am heading. It’s only when I know where I’m heading toward in the future, I can feel fine moving through the present. So, I thought about our future, but, BAM! Vicious cycle. My fear of commitment came out and freaked me out, so I stopped thinking about the future, but lacking a clear vision of the future freaked me out, so I thought about the future again, and yeah yeah yeah.

“And now, well, I’m less freaked out about it. I learned to half think about the future and to half ignore it. I don’t know what I mean by that, but it’s what I do to keep myself going.”

I paused to wait for Trung’s reaction. He ventured a few comments, telling me that there is no such thing as smooth sailing, but it’s the way I live day to day that determines my future, a future no farther than the next day. Live my life, basically. Cliché advice, but he managed to put it in a different way that made me feel somewhat comforted. I shifted a little bit in bed and realized that I had been shifting quite a bit actually. I was the one lying in Trung’s arms now.

“Sometimes, uh, um, well, you know the game we play, Trung? The hypothetical one. You ask hypothetical questions about...about kids. How I would raise them. Like, you ask me what I would do if my daughter became an anime-loving emo kid or came home knocked up or brought home a boyfriend who was clearly an abusive asshole. Or if my son demanded to take ballet and quit breakdancing. We’ve always played this game since we started going out, and we’ve always had this unwritten and unspoken rule: In these hypothetical situations, I act alone. Single Parent. It was a good rule; I would’ve insisted on keeping it if that rule was every brought up. Every once in a while, you’d throw in black John, who is living on my sofa, and Peter, who I borrow money from, and Miranda, who still keeps on missing out on dinners at my house—er, apartment. But still, I am stuck handling these child-raising hypothetical situations without help. And well, I was thinking, maybe, every once in a while, you...”

A part of me told me to not finish the sentence, but I was already at the point of no return. I had to say it. Tears were pushing against the back of my eyes.

“Maybe you could be with me in the situations every once in a while. Help me out a bit, y’know?”

As I uttered the question, I felt Trung’s embrace tighten. He nodded. It was a slow nod. And I buried my face in his chest, soaking in every little second I was there with him. I felt so warm, and so... and, I let out a sniffle, and some heavy breaths, and soon, I was sobbing. Crying. Soaking Trung’s wife beater. He was concerned, but no, I reassured him, “Trung, don’t worry, no, no. I’m not crying out of, out of sadness. No, I’m not sad.

“Trung, I’m happy. That’s all Trung. That’s it. I’m just happy.”

Drive

There’s something about driving alone late at night, something so relaxing and so illuminating. It’s the only time when I can (and have to) force myself to stay awake while doing nothing for a really long time, nothing except, of course, resting my foot on the gas, keeping my left hand at the bottom of the steering wheel, and staring out into a road. No distractions.

Even though I know my destination, I feel like I’m driving nowhere because I’m not getting there in half an hour, in the next hour, or the next five hours, and the only thing I can see before me is more road heading into a black abyss. This is when I find the time to think and to reflect deeply, real deeply, far more deeply than the amount of reflection I do when I write.

I left my home in NorCal for UCI on the evening of July 4th, of all days. I figured, y’know, traffic would be a bitch the day before when everyone traveled to visit their families, and a bitch the day after when everyone drove back home—with hangovers. But it wouldn’t take much for anyone to figure that this was some lame excuse, some kind of ulterior motive because really, why the hell would I leave friends and family on an iconic American holiday?

While driving through the deserts of Central Valley, I glanced into my rearview mirror every now and then to soak up the last few moments of the sun as it set over the horizon behind me. I mused about the symbolism of my situation: I was driving farther and farther away from the light as I headed down an endless shadowy road. The dark sky through my front window stood in stark contrast to the image in my mirrors.

I tried to keep myself somewhat active by sipping on two pearl milk tea drinks, one of which was Trung’s. Just before I left, Trung and I got drinks from Tapioca Express. We actually did this the day before, too, and in fact, I had originally planned on leaving the day before, July 3rd. We went to Tapioca Express, and as we wandered around the plaza with our drinks, Trung urged me to stay an extra night and hang out with Peter and black John. I was supposed to hang out with them on Friday for an early July 4th barbeque, but after I got home from Breakthrough, I passed out on my bed for five hours. Trung convinced me, so the two of us chilled at Peter’s house with him and John. We played Super Smash Bros Brawl and I learned how to play beer pong, but knowing how destructive a single beer was to me, we used water so that I wouldn’t wake up the next day feeling too shitty for my solo drive back down to Irvine.

10 PM. The sun had been long gone now. Black skies through my front window, black skies in my mirrors, black skies everywhere. Trying to hold onto any glimmer of light, I found myself staring into a circuit of city lights far away in the east. Maybe it was Fresno, or Visalia. I doubled back between watching the road and watching the cities, but eventually, something completely stole my attention: a burst of red, white, and blue sparkles over the island of yellow lights. I had an entire firework show in the left corner of my eye.

I turned to the passenger seat with my mouth already halfway open and words ready to come out, foolishly thinking that for a second, I had someone to tell, “Oh my god, did you see that?” But no, there was no one, no one but my stuff animal whale, Op, and his mate, Mop. So, I resolved to enjoying the fireworks with only these two and the quiet company that they kept.

The fireworks, they made me think about a lot of things. Like the time my family and I took a vacation to Hawaii and watched fireworks from the shores of Honolulu, and my old brother and I skipped rocks over the warm ocean water—that was 1998. I thought about the time my high school friends and I watched fireworks from the hillside of a rich country club neighborhood, and I tried to flirt with a friend’s friend from her taekwondo class—that was nearly ten years later, in 2007. And the following year, Doug, a fellow Breakthrough teacher, Trung, and I drove around Cupertino tracking down a decent place to park and watch fireworks. We gave up and tried to catch glimpses of fireworks from a school parking lot, but we could only see so much shrouded by the dark silhouettes of redwood trees. We had better luck in 2009, fortunately. Doug directed us atop a mountain in a small town where street lights were a scarce luxury. We stood in the outskirts of the entire Silicon Valley where we spectated the firework shows of several cities across the south bay. I held Trung close in my arms, and occasionally we both reached and grasped the air, pretending to catch the fireworks in our hands as if they were confetti strewn about the night sky.

After seeing a third city’s firework show, I realized the reason I left on July 4th: I didn’t have anyone to enjoy it with. I stopped talking to almost all of my high school friends right after graduation, I broke up with Trung, I broke up with Ranier, I didn’t come back to Breakthrough, I left my family for college three hundred miles away from home, and I just sorta popped back into Peter and Black John’s lives after inexcusably missing out on scheduled hangouts over the last ten months.

But maybe there was more to my reason; the more I reflected on the people I abandoned, the more I realized that maybe I left because, well, I didn’t think that I deserved to enjoy it with anyone. This lonely six-hour trip on the night of July 4th was my punishment.

I got my last firework show around 11 PM, and, trying to keep the last images of light ingrained in my brain, I drove my trip’s last two hours in darkness back to Irvine.

Beautiful Sinners

Quiet and as still as the woods around us, we made no sound but the dirt and leaves rustling underneath our feet as we moved across the ground. We tried to be quiet anyway, but occasionally we couldn’t help but let escape from our mouths that suckling, sloppy smack sound as a head bobbed up down, back and forth and all around. We were cautious, turning our heads to every blow of the wind or every crackle of a leaf; out here in nature we couldn’t be too careful of what we had dared to do.

Now having arrived at the end, we felt shivers run down our spines and lift every hair on our cold, bare skin, but it was a feeling as strong and as pleasurable as the feelings of guilt that immediately followed. It was finished, our sin, and now silently the clothes came back on—underwear and wifebeater, shorts and shirts. Feeling hollow, I found no words to speak, nothing more than a nod, a shy smile, a shrug of the shoulders, all meant to say one thing: Thanks stranger.



I couldn’t quite tell the difference—the paneled stained glass windows depicted ocean waves under purple and white skies that were either apocalyptic or heaven. These smaller windows were spread out across the walls, while a bigger stained glass window over the altar depicted white birds flying over green rolling fields, across a deep blue sky, and toward a fiery ball of orange and red flames, presumably the sun. The walls themselves were simply plastered, beige walls. The ceiling hung low, with wooden support beans running across it. It was as if someone turned a daycare center to a church...Church.

First time here.

I wanted to be able to call out or turn to Ranier because I couldn’t keep up with everyone saying in near-perfect unison “Amen” or “Praise the lord” or some really long sentence, but I refrained from moving too much in my seat. Following everyone, I sat back down, and I tried to maintain my posture and kept my hands in my lap. I listened attentively as the priest, who dawned a vibrant green robe, began to speak.



No one would want to buy these jeans if they knew what the two of us accidentally got on them. I poked my head outside my dressing room and peered around the corner. “All Clear,” I whispered. He tipped-toed our from behind me, carrying the pair of jeans to put back in the rack.

As I drove him back to our place, the car was filled with an awkward silence that we occasionally tried to mask with a question. “What are you doing after this?” he asked.

“I got a paper to write for English class, and some studying for a psychology final. You?” I answered.

“Studying, homework.”

“Yeah, same here!” I said. Silence. Finally, we arrived at his place and I dropped him off.

As I drove home, I thought briefly to myself, what the fuck was I doing? I let go of someone I really cared about. I couldn’t have him back, so now, this was me, hooking up like a skank.



The songs were festive and uplifting, and I found myself clapping along to assurances that the Lord loved me no matter what and that all sins, past, present, and future, could be atoned for. I actually liked this priest too. He was eccentric. The green robe probably already said it. Everyone laughed, including me, at his subtle jokes, and his sermons had a relatable, universal message, even underneath all the God talk.

“We can’t blame others for our misfortunes,” the priest said as he began to conclude one of his sermons. “We can’t blame the weather, we can’t blame the frikkin’ traffic that always seems to be there at 7 AM every morning. Take responsibility...Responsibility goes to the bone! God gave us minds so we could think, evaluate our past and present and plan our future, and God gave us limbs so we could take action!”

At the end, he pulled out the wine and the communion bread. I was hungry. But no, Ranier said no, I never went through communion. I didn’t even practice in any shape or form. But I continued to stare at that flat disk of bread that the priest waved in the air underneath the feet of a hanging crucifix. It’s like he was taunting me with it.



This time, we sat on a log overlooking the creek. He zipped his jeans back up and I did the same with mine. As we walked back to my car, I felt something different this time, something so much worse. I could hardly look at him, and most of all I could not look at myself. I felt shame, something that I hadn’t felt in a long time. Once I dropped him off, once he was gone, I knew, there’d be no more of this.

I had been going through a few rough months, but this was no excuse to hook up with random guys. I am never doing this again, I declared to myself. I was done, and now it was time to take some responsibility. I let go of someone I really cared about, and now it was time to get him back.

I went home, logged onto Myspace, and sent this message to him: “This is probably old news, but did you get into UC Davis yet? If so, CONGRATULAAAASHUNS.”

I got this reply: “What happened? Almost 6 months ago at the end of 2006 you were avoiding my calls and trying as hard as you could to avoid contact with me. I was completely willing to talk to you and find out what the problem was. Unfortunately you didn’t want to talk to me at all so I just gave up and stopped caring. I found it hella random that you commented me the other day. I am still completely willing to rebuild the friendship so call me sometime and let’s talk or whatever.

Black John wasn’t as oblivious as I thought he was. I messaged him back, saying no more than a location and time: “Wednesday, 3:00 PM. Oakridge.”

John would be graduating from the high school in less than three weeks, leaving me behind next year to finish my senior year in high school without the support I had from him, Peter, and Miranda, the latter two having already gone off to college. I had to make my last few moments with John last.



“God loves us all, so even if you have not gone through communion,” the priest said, “or if you share different beliefs or don’t even practice anything at all, I invite you to come up here anyway and take a piece of our brea—”

I was sold. Time to get me a taste of that communion bread.

I got up, stood in line, got my tiny paper-thin wafer of communion bread, and skipped on the wine—everyone was drinking from the same cup, but maybe God had some kind of anti-mono force field over the church. I didn’t wanna check. As I walked back to my seat, I let the little chip of bread soak around in my mouth. It tasted kinda like an unsweetened ice cream cone; this was something I could see myself snacking on if I was really, really hungry.

When I was back in my seat, I noticed in the corner of my eye someone shuffling down my row. She was coming toward me. I turned and looked at her, and I was surprised to see a familiar face.

“Oh wow, Brandy, it’s good to see you again!” I said. Brandy was a black girl in my French class back in high school. She used to have a crush on me when I was a freshman and she was a sophomore.

“It’s good to see you too, Brian! How are you doing? What are you doing here? What school are you going to now?”

“I’m going to UC Irvine. I just finished my second year, so I’m back up here in San Jose for the summer.”

“Did you come alone?”

“Yeah, I did.” I shrugged, because I still didn’t fully understand why I came. Brandy and I continued to catch up, but the question of why I came lingered in my mind all throughout our conversation and all throughout my drive home. I came up with a partial answer:

I wanted to take responsibility, but I couldn’t find within me the strength that I needed.

XY Attraction

I stared. A built, athletic thirty-year-old in-shape man, one of experience, unloaded his baby batter all over a young straight twink’s begging wet lips. And then they made out. That was when Cameron’s instant message window appeared over their faces. He asked me what I was doing. Sunday night of Memorial Day Weekend—“Nothing,” I typed with one hand.

“Wanna come to my place? I’m having a small kickback.”

Obviously I had some better, more fun plans, but I agreed to come over anyway. I told him I’d leave in forty minutes.

---
“Funky Relationship”
Written April 22nd, 2004 (Excerpted)
Yesterday, I held hands with Emma. My friends kept on bothering me about holding hands, so I did it. But it’ll be the last time I’ll do it randomly. I’m waiting for the special moment to hold hands and even kiss. Why should I hold hands with her out of the blue? Or maybe I’m not good with girls, and I’m really supposed to always hold their hands for no good reason, no reason except that I’m the boyfriend and she’s my girlfriend. It didn’t feel right because it was not the “magical” moment, so I was constantly letting go and holding back on, remembering all the advice from all my friends. Emma says she doesn’t care about holding hands yet, but then others tell me that she is waiting for me to make the first move. However, since when did I let believe such crap? Hopefully never. …But what is the crap? Emma telling me she doesn’t really care, or that she wants me to make the first move?
---

Besides Cameron and me, there were only five other guys at his kickback. As expected, Cameron delved into a discussion of queer issues (“gay shit”) after a few shots, but unlike last time, I didn’t have any where to escape to unless I wanted to sit outside in the cold alone. The discussion involved him shoving his massive cock of queer logorrhea down everyone’s throats, and it ultimately came down to his one question: “If the person is attractive, good-looking, and has a great personality, why does it matter what’s in between their legs?” (Cameron being on the side of “IT DOESN’T MATTER AND IT SHOULDN’T TO EVERYONE IN THE WHOLE WORLD.”)

---
“Standing Somewhere Lost”
Written May 6th, 2004 (Excerpted)
Me and Emma have been kissing on the lips. Great. I’m not in a relationship I should be in; someone else should be in it. But my biggest problem is trying to tell her. I can’t stand to hurt the girl’s feelings, but by letting all this time pass by, I know I’m just making it worst. However, each time I’m ‘bout ready to break it out, we share a moment of glee. Damn it.
---

I sat in the corner as Trent and Cameron argued, trying to not pay attention when Ranier texted me. I was a little surprised. He and the rest of his teammates were back at the hotel in San Diego, and they were celebratin’ it up. It was a little too much for Ranier so he went outside to text me. I still felt bitter about the Sockhop ticket, but this was at least better than having to listen to Cameron. Funksters didn’t place, but they made good friends with the other teams from SoCal and had fun at the beaches down here. Overall a great experience, he said.

I started to think about what it would’ve been like if we were still together and I went to see Ranier at his competition, and the best I came up was that I wouldn’t be sitting here in the room with Cameron, who then suddenly directed his question to me: “Why does it matter what’s between their legs, huh Brian?!” Even though I was sitting on the other side of the room, I swear I could feel his spit splatter all over my face.

---
“As a Friend”
Written May 7th, 2004 (Excerpted)
Tomorrow I’m going to the mall to see a movie with my friend Vanessa and her friends for her birthday party. We were all planning to see Van Helsing, until Emma got invited. She wants to see Mean Girls. Emma is pretty stubborn, and she’s determined to go see that movie, despite all six other people, including me, are planning to see Van Helsing. Well, I hate when I get stuck with a decision like this. I’m her boyfriend, but I don’t wanna see Mean Girls. But I can’t stand thinking of her sitting alone in the dark movie theatre; then I think of her with tears slowly streaming down her face, all alone. So I think I’m going to watch it with her. It won’t be that bad. I’m easily absorbed into movies. Plus, Mean Girls won’t be a big waste of my life; it’s only an hour and a half. [[I would end up watching Van Helsing with my guy friends while Olivia watched Mean Girls with Vanessa. WIN.]]
---

I thought about Cameron’s question for thirty seconds. And that was when I realized that there was a difference between being gay and being queer. Being gay was, as I had always known it to be, nothing more than some social implications and history all based around a dictionary definition: “Being attracted to members of the same sex.” Sex, not gender. Same sex meant to me other people with the X and Y chromosome. On the other hand, the definition of being queer, as I understood it, meant absolute bullshit.



Peter, black John, Miranda, and I sat down at a lunch table to take a break from playing DDR and ITG. It was the middle of the summer before the start of my sophomore year in high school. We were at the Golf Land in Milpitas for their Thursday arcade special: unlimited free arcade game play all day for ten bucks. I dug out a bottle of Gatorade and a box of Ritz crackers from my backpack and devoured my crackers and drink.

“Hey Brian,” Peter said.

“Mhm?” My mouth was full.

“Miranda, John, and I have all been talking, and we agree that you’re gay.”

I looked up from my food. “What?”

“You’re gay, aren’t you?”

“What the hell? No I’m not!”

“Are you sure Brian?” Miranda asked. “We’re totally fine with it.”

“I’m not gay! I had a girlfriend in the eighth grade.”

“Yeah,” John said. “‘Had’—past tense. In the eighth grade.”

Peter held a stack of Ritz crackers to my face. “Does this turn you on?”

“Look,” I snapped, “I am not gay. I have never been gay. And I never will be gay. Got it?”

They all nodded, but they didn’t believe me, or at least Peter didn’t.



As much as this queer discussion with Cameron made me wanna cut my dick off, it benefited me. To stay sane, I had to reaffirm something about my identity that had been tearing away at my sanity for a while: I’m gay. I like men. With dicks. I’m gay I’m gay I’m gay. I was not Cameron, I assured myself. He was...something else. Not gay. Not bi. Probably one of those other letters in LGBTABCDEQQQ. A question that probably would require a little more thinking on my part probably would’ve been, “If the person has a dick, why does their personality/ looks/ other shit matter so much?” (The answer being I’m a proud shallow motherfucker.)

Thanks Cameron.

I shrugged off Cameron’s question, and Chris and I watched Are You Afraid of the Dark on Youtube with Cameron’s laptop as he and Trent continued to argue.

Phoenix

Dear Pippin Management:
This letter is to inform you that, as of 8 PM on Thursday, November 19th, 2009, I am resigning. Thank you for granting me this opportunity to work at Pippin, and it was a good experience working here.
- Brian Dinh

I told ya I wouldn’t get fired.

Ever since my mom emailed me and confessed to me our family’s money problems, I knew I had to up my hours. But I also knew that if I had to work day and night at Pippin, my school’s dining hall, I’d snap and take a shit in the rocky road ice cream. So I actively started looking for a new job, and instead of trying to get one at a retail store like Urban Outfitters or Active or anywhere I could get big discounts on looking good, I figured that I’d return to what I had cared about above all, that I’d rediscover what I used to love so passionately: teaching.

Google vomited a bunch of off-campus tutoring or teaching jobs before my feet, but all of them required bachelor’s or credentials. Except for one: the Education Academy. It didn’t have a fun name like SCORE!, which always had to be written in all caps and with that exclamation point, but it hired college students to teach kids in grades Pre-K all the way up through high school. I sent in my application to centers in Irvine and Laguna Hill, and on Thursday, the Irvine location sent me an email informing me that they had an interview scheduled for me the very following day, 6:15 PM.

I was late for that interview, and it was the most terrifying experience ever. I had left forty minutes early to go to a place that was only twenty minutes away, but what fucking google maps didn’t tell me was that the route it gave me went through a private residential community, one that I couldn’t drive through. So I had to improvise, and obviously, I wasn’t not good at that.

However, the center managers were very forgiving. We went on to have a thirty-minute interview that had one very general question, “Tell me about yourself,” and one or two specific questions, one strangely and frighteningly being, “So how do you discipline troublemakers?” Before offering me the job, the managers wanted me to observe the way the employees used this “Rotational Technique” to tutor the kids so that I could see whether or not this method was right for me. I knew without a doubt that I would take the job because it already had what I cared about: kids, and teaching kids, but I humored the managers anyway. They asked me to come in Saturday at 12 for the observation.

I was late for that observation. This time because of my usual lack of punctuality, but, again, the managers were forgiving. And yeah, once I saw the kids, I knew. There was this particular tiny little Asian girl who was quiet, but praise made her smile in a shy adorable way. In my head, I called her Amanda. And then I found out her real name was in fact Amanda, and that blew me away.

---
“Spring in November, Part 2”
Written November 29th, 2007

I’ve counted 12 so far. 12 of my favorite kids at SCORE! are either quitting or transferring to Cupertino when SCORE! Almaden closes. Oh yeah, I’m definitely going to miss them.

Last Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, I headed over to Oakridge at 6 after work. I had only wanted to play one or two games of ITG, but then Chris and Taka showed up, followed by Peter, and then later John. That was all very surprising.

While we were all enjoying several games of ITG, a family that included three little Asian girls wandered into the arcade. I recognized one of the little girls; it was Amanda, one of my kids from work. (Not sure about her age, but she’s stands up to my waist.)

Amanda was very shy with me at first. She didn’t really use much effort to talk to me, but it was through interaction with my managers Ben and Adria that she finally started to like me. I believed she first asked Ben, “Is Brian Asian?” When she got that answer, she later asked Adria, “Is Brian Vietnamese?” So, apparently, Asian and Vietnamese added together formed the necessary traits to have good rapport (does the commutative property of addition work here?).

So, fast-forward back to that Wednesday, Amanda came up to me and waved hi. I was very excited to see her; it was the first time I had seen any of my kids outside of work (albeit, at first, I had trouble telling if it was Amanda or a similar-looking Asian girl). I tried getting her to play ITG; I even coaxed her with SCORE! cards, but she didn’t budge. I played for her (to impress her), and I’m pretty sure she was delighted by my dazzling quick feet. Amanda was going to be talking about me during her next trip to work, whether or not I be there, and then all my co-workers will know about how I’m such a “DDR maniac.” (I quit a long time ago, I swear.) I asked her if she wanted to play my last song, but she only gave me this weird look that I noticed she had been giving me since shortly after she showed up at the arcade. Whatever, I was disappointed.

After my game, Amanda had to leave with her family, so I waved her off and continued to ramble on to John and Peter about how much I love my kiddies at work. After my temporary glee had finally died down, I sighed and dropped my head, only to notice that my fly was unzipped.
---

I should’ve been teaching earlier. I was going to apply for on-campus teaching jobs at the beginning of the quarter, but I distinctly remember looking at an application, seeing that its due date was the following day, and putting it away thinking, “Nah, I’m going to go dance.” And soon before I knew it, there were no more openings. Way to burn myself, but I didn’t regret the decision too much because I was happy that dance had become a part of my life. And once the managers at the Education Academy offered me the job, I took it with open arms, warmly welcoming back a part of myself.

What It All Comes Down To

CADC was supposed to have already posted up the roster, but they decided to postpone it to Wednesday night, 11:59 PM. However, some dancers have already gotten calls and know that they’re on the team.

Neither Alfonso, Kevin, nor I have gotten any calls. We’re trying to rationalize: there’s another 24 hours of waiting, so that gives them another 24 hours to call one of us.

Although, honestly, I just want it to be over. I just want that roster to be up, whether or not my name’s in it. With the roster up, I can prepare myself for what’s coming, because as of right now, I honestly have no idea how my life’s going to look starting Thursday.

My friend Sang, who I met through Funksters, was one of the very few that already got a call. He’s officially in CADC, and I’m fucking happy for him. But I immediately felt my heart sink a little. I felt a sense of loss.

I want CADC badly. I want to dance. I want to perform. I want to grow. I want to meet new people.

But, in my heart, I know what this all really comes down to: I don’t want to be alone.

If Kevin and Alfonso make it and I don’t, I might start finding myself alone in my apartment room in front of the laptop every day while they’re off at practicing or hanging out with Sang and the rest of CADC.

---
“I’m Losing Oakridge”
Written December 3rd, 2006 (Excerpted)

Things have really changed lately among me, Peter, Miranda and John.

Normally, Peter comes back from Davis to San Jose every weekend so he could visit his girlfriend, but now with them no longer together, no one forces Peter to come visit anymore. So Peter is pretty much going to be missing in action from now on.

Miranda, she just kinda faded out. Every time me and John decide to go hang out, she has work or classes. We’ve been all talking about hanging out together for a while now, but nothing has ever happened.

It’s strange. The way it used to be was that I would go to Oakridge and expect to find Peter, John, or Miranda upstairs in the arcade, and then we would go chill downstairs or go driving off to somewhere else: Taco Bell, The Gate, BillyJr’s Apartment, MGL, SVGL, our houses, Valley Fair, Eastridge, etc.

Now it’s just me and John. I admit that I’ve been slightly expecting something to also knock John out of the picture, leaving me alone. Or, something would knock me out of the picture. I was more worried about the latter because things already seemed like John was moving on with a new cast of friends.

And now, since I wanna sleep early so I can wake up early to do homework, I’ll post up the conversation that I had with Kaleb where I decribed what happened Friday night, which I already made a few references to in the previous entry.

[The following is a condensed and grammatically corrected version of what I told Kaleb on AIM.]
Things have been moving quickly indeed, and I thought I’ve been moving along with them. John got into breakdancing and joined hip hop club at Leland, and so I got into breakdancing. Sometimes John drives me along to hip hop club practice and I became familiar with all his breakdancing friends. Weekends, we hang out, go to Oakridge, drive around, stay out late at night. Everybody has been getting their ears pierced, so I decided that would like to get mine pierced too.

So John and I were hanging out at Oakridge. After some DDR, we met up with his friends Yang and Pat. Now, I’ve noticed in the past that when John’s other friends are present, I get slightly different treatment from John. Like, when it’s just the two of us, I’d be his Top 1 on myspace, when John’s other friends show up, I’m suddenly like #20.

I told John that I had to be home and into bed pretty early because I’m waking up early Saturday to run a discussion panel on sexual orientation at my school and I had to prepare speeches and shit. We and his friends all went to Valley Fair, and I asked to be home by 11ish. However, we visited John’s friend’s friend at their apartment in Santana Row. At this point, I was starting to get a super crazy headache that almost topped the one I had the first time I got drunk.

But we still end up at that guy’s apartment in Santana Row and we all decide to play some game on their Xbox360. Incidentally, video games don't make headaches better, and so I finally decided to sit out. But then John was like, “Dude, just play. At least move your character so that we can move along.” Ignoring him, I leaned back into the couch and rubbed my head.

Then while playing the game, Pat says, “Ow, my ears are starting to sting a bit.” (He just got his ears pierced that day.) To which John responds urgently, “Do you have the rubbing alcohol? How bad is it?” etc. It was a small little ear ache compared to my huge headache.

After an hour, they were done with the video games, it was 11. Then they John and his friends decided to practice breakdancing shit on the floors of the apartment. They pranced around for another hour. I finally ended up back home at 12:30. [This ends the excerpt of the conversation with Kaleb.]

All I could think about during the car ride home was the drunken vomiting incident at MGL 9 months ago and how things have changed since then. It was finally okay for John to ask my how I was feeling once he dropped of Yosuke and Pat.

I didn’t say anything to John until we finally arrived at my house. As I was getting out, I told John, “This headache was the same one from when I was drunk at Milpitas Golfland. Same one. Same symptoms. Same almost-wanna-vomit feelings, but you’re lucky that I didn’t [vomit]. But this time, the main concern was over somebody’s ear. Tell your Leland friend that I’m sorry that his ear slightly stings.” I could tell that John didn’t really know what to say because for the first time ever, I was taking things absolutely seriously with him. No joking, no “classic” dumb me.

“Good night, Yohannes.” [Yohannes is John’s real name, which all of his Leland friends address him as.]

Normally, an angry person would slam the car door, but I was smart and clever enough to leave it slightly ajar so that John would have to handle the hassle of getting out of the drivers seat to close it himself.

And yeah, I now feel like shit because I don’t actually want things to end that way between us. Don’t bother giving me advice because Kaleb already gave me the only good advice there is. [[I was kinda at a flirty stage with Kaleb at this time.]]

Paramasturbatory Illusions

When I tell the story of how I got into hip hop choreo, there’s the short version, and then there’s the long version. When I don’t want to bore the hell out of everyone and lose my audience, I tell the short version: “Through a friend.”

That’s not an exciting story at all, and the long version isn’t that boring. It’s an intricate, seemingly disconnected series of cause-and-effect, a long chain reaction affected by other chain reactions. It doesn’t seem to be going in any direction at first, but bear with it.

- During my junior year in high school, 2006, DDR was dying, so black John got me into breakdancing. I quit permanently at the beginning of 2007 due to lol-drama between me and John.

- In 2007, a guy named Jon randomly messaged me on Downelink (the gay Myspace) and told me that I looked like his friend QA. I humored Jon and agreed to start talking to QA.

- Somewhere in my conversations with QA, he briefly mentioned a summer teaching internship called Breakthrough. I saw it as an opportunity to teach my very own French class, but the deadline had long since passed. I forgot about it after a while.

- In March 2008, I randomly recalled that one conversation with QA about the teaching internship. I couldn’t remember the name of the internship, and I figured that the deadline would’ve already passed. However, I decided to dig through my AIM logs anyway to find the name of that internship. I found it and discovered that I had two days left to do the Breakthrough application. I worked till the early mornings on it.

- I got the job, but then I found out that I couldn’t teach French for an elective. So, I had to think about something else. I looked back into my past and decided that it was time to revive my interest in breakdancing so I could teach it.

- After the summer, I decided to continue pursue breakdancing into college, and I vowed not to do any other form of dancing because breakdancing was probably the least gay of them. Admittedly though, I wasn’t too into it.

- When signing up for my winter quarter classes back in Fall 2008, I wanted this one Hum Core class for this one time, but that wasn’t available so I had to get another. I was kinda satisfied, but one random day a month later, I decided to check class schedules again and found that a another class for the original time I wanted opened up. Of course, I switched to that one.

- Winter Quarter started in January 2009, and there was no one really noteworthy in my class. I will mention that there was a tall Asian guy named Sam; he became important later.

- UCI held Vibe 14, one of the big SoCal dance competitions. I went because I still had a slight interest in breakdancing and wanted to see the breakdancing club perform.

- I had planned on going to Vibe early but ended up oversleeping, so I got stuck in the back of the line.

- Competing teams were practicing in area close to the back of the line, and that was where I spotted Sam practicing with CADC.

- CADC won, and I congratulated Sam in class the next day. We bonded over dance.

- He told me about Kaba Modern audition workshops.

- I didn’t want to go without Cameron, but Cameron didn’t really wanna go.

- While Cameron and I were walking back from the student center the day of the first workshop, he ran into his friend who convinced him to go. Since he was going, I was going too.

And those audition workshops were how I got into dancing.

All of the above was a summary of a really long entry that lead up to this entry:

---
“all things”
Written May 30th, 2009 (Excerpted)
The path of my life that has led to the person I am today is so delicate and fragile. One different tiny detour in that path could’ve led somewhere totally different. I ponder, what would’ve happened if Cameron and I left the arcade five minutes earlier or five minutes later. At the moment, leaving a little earlier or a little later didn’t seem like it mattered at all. But then we wouldn’t have run into the girl that had convinced Cameron to accompany me to the Kaba Modern audition workshops. If I had never accidentally fallen asleep before [Vibe 14], I would’ve gotten in line close to the front and would’ve not seen Sam. If I had never decided to randomly check the schedule of Hum Core classes, I would’ve not known Sam in the first place.

And going all the way further back to two years ago, if I never bothered to reply to the weird message from Jon on Downelink, I never would’ve met QA, never would’ve heard about Breakthrough, never would’ve forced myself to [relearn] breakdancing as a last minute resort, never would’ve actually gotten interested in breakdancing. It’s possible that I might’ve taken the same Hum Core discussion class in Winter Quarter, but I definitely would not have gone to Vibe 14 without my interest in breakdancing. And yeah, my whole path of becoming a hip hop dancer would’ve fallen apart with one detour that I did not make very early on. And it could’ve still easily fallen apart if I did not make any one of like, eight other detours.

Look at where I am. I’m a (beginning) hip hop dancer now. I once told my dancer friend Kevin, “I just realized that I really love dancing. This is the most fun hobby I’ve had since I quit DDR.” As nerdy as it sounds, to say that I love something as much as I used to love DDR—that’s really huge for me. DDR was six or seven years of my life, and I’ve won competitions and made some great friends through it.
---

I’m beginning to rethink that theory, that one tiny change in the past could’ve led to me never getting into hip hop dancing.

What if it was actually bound to happen? As in, meant to be? As in, fated?

Sam wasn’t the only one who told me about the Kaba Modern auditions. Alfonso told me about them too. So all that stuff about choosing my Hum Core class and sleeping in for Vibe might have not mattered.

Would I have gone to Kaba Modern auditions if Cameron didn’t go? Possibly. I was always prone to making last minute decisions due to getting really bored at night in Irvine.

And what was my reason for doing breakdancing and nothing else? Because breakdancing was the least gay. Cameron changed my attitude about all gay things toward the end of the year, and with my views changed, could I have been more open to giving choreo a try?

And let’s not ignore the obvious: I was going to UC Irvine, the “dancer” school. All of our three competing teams, Kaba Modern, CADC, and Common Ground placed in the top five at Hip Hop Internationals at Las Vegas. It would be hard to avoid going to any kind of dance workshop throughout all four years of college. Everything that happened before me going to Irvine might as well have not mattered.

I never asked for this. To start dancing. To fall in love with it. I feel like I’ve made a lot of sacrifices for dancing, and those sacrifices included bits and pieces that made up part of what I had envisioned as my future. I had a plan, a grand master plan, my own self-made destiny that didn’t include dancing at all. But unexpectedly, dancing did come along, and I guess it just threw things in total different directions. It’s a concept that I still have trouble fully understanding: fate coming in and throwing off the destiny that I had made for myself, as though I really am supposed to not have a choice in creating my own destiny.

---
“all things” (Continued)
There are some choices that I make because I can see the consequences, but then there are some choices that I make that lead to consequences that I could have never dreamed of. And it just happens that the latter type of choices happen to be big life ones. And, since they’re such big life choices that lead to consequences that I don’t see and understand at the time I make them, can I really say that I’m in control of my life?

I want some sense of control and assurance that my life is not just a random and hectic path leading down to my destruction, so I think it’s plausible to say that other people have some control over my own life. That’s reasonable. After all, it’s a well known fact that our lives are shaped by the way other people come into our lives. But really, when Jon messaged me to tell me that I looked like a friend of his, did he really intend to give me the choice of becoming a dancer? Nope.

So who’s in control of my life?
---

Gotta love fate.

Orpheus

“I really really think that this year will be the most FUCKING AMAZING year, EVER!” Cameron so vehemently declared.

Last night, the two of us met up at a quaint little Asian café up in Fremont to catch up and get ourselves excited for Irvine.

It hasn’t really quite hit me that I’m going back to college this Saturday. It’s going to be difficult leaving home. Again.

Cameron invited me to a party at his apartment Saturday night. I understood this perfectly: A Party. Saturday. Cameron’s place.

But I have some kind of mental block that’s not letting me wrap my brain around the fact that all that will be taking place down south.

I question myself. Why do I get attached? And what is it that I get attached to that makes leaving hard? Am I attached to Funksters? I really only had like three or four friends from Funksters, and I had only known them for less than eight weeks. There should no big deal.

Am I attached to San Francisco? Am I attached to that dance studio, with its gray mats, bigass mirrors, loud fan, high ceilings, and the sound of the BART whooshing by?

I had thought this was going to be easier the second time around, but it actually feels harder.

Magnificent view.

Last summer, about two or three days before moving down south, Trung and I headed over to Oakridge late at night and met up with Black John. We decided to head to the top level of the parking garage where we could take in the magnificent breathtaking view of the In-N-Out and Kohl’s across the street. (The garage was three stories, so we didn’t have much of a view.)

This was probably our third or fourth time here on top of the parking garage. We’d always just live dangerously and sit on the edge, our legs dangling over three stories above the ground. We’d chat and reminisce about old times.

John lit a cigarette, and I think the topic of that night was old TV shows, or Super Smash Brothers Brawl. I think I aimlessly ran around in the parking lot too and attempted to bboy.

Me and John.

This was my last night with Oakridge, the mall that I had grown up in all my high school years. It was going to be hard to let go. I didn’t know what it’d be like in SoCal if I wasn’t going to this mall every god damn week.

After an hour, we took the elevator back down to the first floor. As we got out, there were two cops, a female and a male one, there at the elevator door. We thought they were getting on, but they actually detained us. Uh oh.

Apparently, there were cameras on the roof. And we seemed shady.

The female officer took our drivers’ licenses and ran background checks. While waiting for the background checks, the male one searched and questioned us.

Were we terrorists? Nope.
Were we carrying rocket launchers? Nope.
Were we contemplating mass suicide? Nope.
Were we in possession of marijuana? Fortunately, John wasn’t that night.

I feel that if their cameras were any bit decent, they could’ve at least figured that we weren’t carrying rocket launchers.

I don’t remember how long we were there for with the cops. Thirty minutes? It was long enough to get uncomfortable, with all the shoppers walking by and turning their heads to watch the teenage delinquents possibly getting arrested. I seriously thought that they still could’ve nailed us for something, like loitering.

Fortunately, they let us go, but I couldn’t help but feel bitter about the entire incident.

That was when moving on became easier. Four years at Oakridge: I had outgrown this place. It didn’t want me anymore.



(*Trung came up with the title.)

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.
---

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.

---
“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.

Alone

Thursday, August 27th.

Alarm clock rang. 11 AM. Time to go jog. Fuck that. Not today. I turned off the alarm and went back to bed.

Woke up at 2. I dragged myself downstairs to eat a bowl of cereal. Then I booted up my laptop and pretty much sat in front of it all day, neglecting showering and eventually (within one hour), more hunger.

Decided to head upstairs and sit down in front of the TV in the computer room around 7. I booted up the old PS2 and played some DDR on the PS controller. The mesmerizing graphics and upbeat, nostalgic music kept my mind mesmerized and my fingers pushing buttons for another two hours. I fucking hate this game.

Went back downstairs. I decided that I should maybe practice dancing. Ipod in pocket and earphones in my ears, I started moving. But I felt like I was only moving, with some music playing in my head. I wasn’t dancing. No inspiration. I found myself in front of my laptop again, browsing the depthless realms of the internet.

I need someone to talk to. I browsed my list of friends on facebook. No, he wouldn’t understand. No, I’ve never talked about serious stuff like this with her before. No, I just met him. No, haven’t talked to her since high school. Didn’t want to talk to her since high school. And him. And her. And him.

I exhausted the list quickly.

Frustrated with myself, I decided that I needed to do something with however many little hours there were left in the night, so I worked out.

Two hours later, I ate. And then I went to bed.

I don’t remember what I dreamed about.

Friday, August 28th.

My alarm clock went off at 11 AM. I am going to fucking do shit today. I dragged myself out of bed, ate some peanut butter, got into some light comfortable clothing, stretched out my legs, put on my shoes, and at 12, I headed out the door—holy fuck it was fucking burning. I pushed myself and ran anyway. I needed it. I needed sunlight. Air. No walls around me.

But then the run kinda killed my energy. I ate a bowl of cereal, took a shower, and found myself mindlessly pushing buttons to loud and annoying DDR music again. After an hour, I managed to pry myself away and heeded the growling of my stomach.

After eating, I listened to the summer intensive mix and realized that I still need high black socks.

Really though, I just had a tiny little urge to go to Oakridge mall.

But then as I was driving past it, I ignored the urged and continued to drive on. Kohls, which was across the street, had stuff for cheaper, and I found my black socks there. Sorry Oakridge.

Gunderson High School, where I taught with Breakthrough this summer, was in the area, so I dropped by there.

It was strange seeing the school. I think they had been back for two weeks already, and now they had something going on this evening. It was odd to see high school students. Tall, Hollister outfits, dressed like jocks, dressed like skanks. They were spread out all over the school, in the front, by the office, in the parking lot, in the grassy fields. They were everywhere that Breakthrough students weren’t allowed to hang around. Seeing these high school students occupy those spots, I just wanted to go up to them and tell them, “Sorry, you need to head over by the lunch tables where we teachers can see you.”

But I resisted. And it was good that all these older kids were spread out, because there was no one crowding around the lunch table area, where I normally taught my dance class. Where, today, I was going to practice.

I stared at my faint reflection through the window. I missed seeing them, the tiny little middle school students behind me, trying to keep up. I still had the Breakthrough mix on my iPod, so I selected it and ran through the set, for old time’s sake. I made this mix. I made this choreo. As much as I sucked, I missed being the teacher, the leader, the one in control.

After the run through, I practiced the summer intensive set. Our show is this Sunday.

I was there for about two hours, and then I went over to Trung’s place to drop off some X-Files that he wanted to see. We had a little walk, a little talk, and he handed me a folded note.

I left him after fifteen minutes, and as I was driving home, I glanced at the folded note, repeatedly. Distracted. The summer intensive showcase is this Sunday. I need to focus. On dancing. Dancing is all I have right now.

I tossed the note in the glove compartment. I decided that I would read it later.

When I got home, I sent an email to one of my students to check up on her and school.

I’m more alone then I really like to admit. During junior and senior year, I did a good job of slowly fazing myself out from my group of high school friends, both accidentally and intentionally. I often opted to hang out with my Oakridge friends (John, Peter, Miranda, etc.), and I acted very arrogant about it, like I was too mature for my high school friends. (And sometimes, I was. Which is probably why I didn’t regret isolating myself too much.) I’m sure they got sick of it and helped me speed up the process of my isolation.

I had always had a knack for dropping friendships like boiling shit. I could wake up the next day, feel fine and refreshed, go about doing my thing, and not be weighed down by any remorse. (I might’ve had some remorse, but it didn’t weigh me down.) I went to the arcade, bought some American Eagle junk, did whatever I loved doing back then.

Now, I’m here, back home during the summer. My UCI friends are far away; John, Peter, and Miranda are busy with their own lives; and I have no one to catch up with. I don’t regret the loss of friendship, but my need to confide in someone burns more than ever.

---
“Reflect: 8th Grade Year”
Written June 9th, 2004

[[I had one best friend from the second to the eighth grade, Seth, but I grew to hate him. This entry talks about how I managed to finally escape him. He wasn’t aware of all my deep-seated hatred though, at least, until he read this entry. Because it was public. Oh snap internet drama.]]

I think Seth loves to see me make an embarrassment out of myself, especially when in front of others. But when I actually have to show him that I’m hurt by the embarrassment is when Seth starts to be… even more ignorant. Let’s get to the incident now…

Me, Seth, and his new, third girlfriend Brittany and her friend are walking home… There’s some kid in the distance and Seth jokingly asks me, “Hey, why don’t you run to him and yell ‘HI!’” and so I jokingly begin do so. However, right as I lift my foot off a ground, Seth sticks his foot out, and I trip over his gay shoes [[“gay” oh burn]]. I fall flat on my face, but LUCKILY my knees hit the ground ([but] bleed of course), lessening the impact of my face on the ground. Embarrassment. Big time. Not in front of just Seth, but his girlfriend and her friend, and they’re all concentrating on me. BUT OF COURSE, since Seth has to be the big guy in front of his girlfriend, he saves his ~ALTRUISTIC~ pity for when just me and him are alone at his house. And so of course I’m trying to stifle my tears behind the three of them, as Seth and Brittany enjoy their ~nice~ walk home. When I got to his house, his sympathy was too pathetic and I actually felt embarrassed receiving it, so I escaped his hell house when he went in another room to answer the phone. [[I had no sense of verb tense consistency back then, sorry.]]

Second reason...Great America. Seth’s bullshitted lie. Yeah, in the beginning I blamed myself ‘cause I didn’t call to confirm when we’d go… However, when I heard his excuse for not calling me the night of that day, everything fell into place or fell out of place… “Well you see, my sister’s friend wanted to go and she was..and. blah…so..was family…and asdfghjkl so okay? That’s [my] excuse.” Again and again each time I asked him, Seth would begin with his sister’s friend wanting to go and then gradual drift on into vague muttering… He was hiding something from me… He didn’t want me to go? Maybe… Maybe if he invited me, he would’ve felt ever so bad about making me wait beside a ride because I WOULD HAVE BEEN JUST TO SCARED TO GO ON ONE boo fuckin hoo.

Just near the end of the school year, Seth went vacationing at Portugal during two school weeks. I took this time to bond with Randy and meet his friends establish better friendships with all of them. As you know, we’ve become good friends. I slowly drifted away from Seth. When Seth got back from Portugal, I hope the first thing he noticed was I didn’t follow him around at break or lunch or go to his house to endure his harassment ever again.

It was just the final two months of school when I wanted the year to last just a lil’ bit longer. Other acquaintance, who were friends of Randy, became my friends too. Each day was full of unexpected surprises and fun.

Tomorrow, I’m graduating from junior high as a Valedictorian. By moving on to high school, I’m leaving a whole year of mixed feelings and emotions behind to face the new challenges of freshmen year at high school.
---

In December 2006, I “settled issues” with Seth. Those issues actually had nothing to do with resolving our friendship. It was just me telling him that he was a bitch to his face. I wanted to do it because it was less cowardly than telling him through an online blog.

And Randy and his friends? Yeah, they were the friends I slowly phased out from my high school years.

Luh Moar Jwayuh

Hot mess.

Alarm clock went way the fuck off. It got me completely conscious…but I zoned it out and refused to open my eyes. I stretched out in bed for a bit, yawning, my body still half asleep and that weird racing feeling running through my chest. I collapsed back down and opened my eyes. Greeted by the white ceiling. I tilted my head to the right and gazed around my room. Sunlight slipped through the cracks in my window blinds and striped the mounds of unpacked boxes that were spilling all over my carpet. I stretched out my right arm to turn the alarm off, and I rolled out of my bed, feet first. I stepped on something that wasn’t carpet. It was smooth, slick. I sat up and glanced down at it. Les fleurs du mal—it was a collection of poems written by Charles Baudelaire. I bent down and picked it up, flipped to a random page in the middle, and began to read.

“Le Mort Joyeux”
Charles Baudelaire

Dans une terre grasse et pleine d’escargots
Je veux creuser moi-même une fosse profonde,
Où je puisse à loisir étaler mes vieux os
Et dormir dans l’oubli comme un requin dans l’onde.

Je hais les testaments et je hais les tombeaux ;
Plutôt que d’implorer une larme du monde,
Vivant, j’aimerais mieux inviter les corbeaux
A saigner tous les bouts de ma carcasse immonde.

Ô vers ! noirs compagnons sans oreille et sans yeux,
Voyez venir à vous un mort libre et joyeux ;
Philosophes viveurs, fils de la pourriture,

A travers ma ruine allez donc sans remords,
Et dites-moi s’il est encor quelque torture
Pour ce vieux corps sans âme et mort parmi les morts !

Wow, I breathed. My arms dropped onto my lap. Overwhelming. Way overwhelming. What was the poem saying? I had no fucking idea. Juh nuh sahveh pah.

I picked the book back up and flipped to the front cover. I chuckled. Printed so proudly in the corner was, “Brian ‘Marc’ Dinh.” “Marc” was the French name that I chose for myself my first year in high school, and it stuck through all four years. Stuck so much that if “Brian” was ever mentioned out in class, someone would have to ask, “Kee eh Brian?”

I guess, to this day, that is still a good question.

---
“The Computer-Engineer-to-Bagel-Shop-Owner Complex”
Written May 14th, 2007 (Excerpted)

Tonight, before I left Borders, where I was studying AP Psych review books, I made the mistake of buying a rather advanced French language practice book. Now, I’ve been sitting in front of my lap top with several Wikipedia pages on psychology open, but my hand has hardly touched the mouse during the last hour. I’ve been flipping through the practice book, skimming over old and new info, immediately finding stuff far more useful found in the school French book or Madame’s classroom.

When senior year starts, I plan to take the French Language SATII (in addition to the other SATII’s) and I’m going to have to branch off from Madame’s regular lesson plans if I want to pass. Hell, I might even sign up to take the French Language AP test next year; the AP class isn’t offered at my school, but hopefully with enough of my individual studies and passion, I’ll be prepared for it. This summer, since it looks like I’ll be rather alone, I’m going to cram in all the French movies, French music, French novels, and French practice that I can get. I’ll come back senior year speaking more nasally than ever.

So, where am I going with my “passion for French?” I’ve been thinking about my college major more often recently, and I’ve come to realize that when the time comes, I will definitely be marking the checkbox for “French” under college majors.

Years later, after enduring four wild years of college partying, I see myself settling down in a still suburban town somewhere along the California coast and working a steady job as a French teacher.

While I do know that this kind of career is something I’m passionate about, it still seems pretty scary and exciting, especially since, once again, I’m going to be going against the norms of not just my immediate family, but all my relatives too. And, the norm in our whole family is already pretty weird. This same pattern has been played out by three of my grown adult cousins and one of my uncles, and my brother and father are already on the same path. The pattern started with all their parents preaching to them starting at an early age “America have many opportunity; find good job; make lot o’ money,” AKA, become a doctor, whether or not they hated their job.

The next part of the pattern would come when they decided on their majors for college, which, were all related to computer engineering somehow. They completed four years of college and got their degree. Shortly after, guess what they all became.

[Me holding bagels. Taken at a late night Thanksgiving get-together with John, Peter, and Miranda in 2005.]

Bagel shop owners. Each of my three cousins and one uncle own their own bagel shop (which explains why my freezer is often overstocked with bagels).

I don’t know that much else about them and their bagel shop businesses. Maybe they love their job; maybe they secretly desired to make civilians smile with each giant dough cheerio served.

My brother, who I think is currently doing computer-related engineering shit in UC Davis, already joked about running a bagel shop when he grows up. I wouldn’t be surprised if he did. And right now, my dad’s out of a job. With all the obscure technology companies that would hire him moving overseas to revel in the sweatshop joys of Asia, my dad might break and open his own bagel shop too (if he doesn’t die soon).

[More fucking bagels. I was unattractive. No wonder my first crush didn’t wanna dodate me.]

So within the next year, when I’m sitting down with my parents at a cousin’s bagel shop, I don’t really know how to tell them that I am not going to major in shit like medicine, law, Molecular Biochemistry Engineering Aquatics; that once again, I’m making life-devastating choices by not aiming to walk the clear and obvious $100-bill-lined path straight to happiness. Well, those who see that path only for the $100 bills littered in the streets might never get to the end if they spend all their time picking up every single bill that blows up to their feet.

(It should be noted that I am not criticizing people who do choose to practice medicine or something really fancy as careers that they are really passionate about. I am criticizing those who choose a job solely for extrinsic gain and/or conformity.)

Maybe my parents will actually understand. Ironically enough, they were both high school teachers when they lived in Vietnam. But they probably didn’t think so highly of their old jobs because the commies sure did make things bitchy for them or whatever whatever. But, whether or not I’ll be hunted down if our country is overtaken by communism, the Computer-Engineer-to-Bagel-Shop-Owner Complex won’t apply to me.

Amor Fati

“Why did we just go hella out of our way?”

“To avoid someone.”

Saturday night at 7:30, San Francisco, Union Square Park, Sixty miles away from where both of us are from—of all things my first crush, “Vance,” could have been doing (eating, drinking, fucking), he had to be here, with another guy at a corner that SF Andrew and I were heading toward.

Well, it’s not super mind-blowing crazy. It is San Francisco, and Vance is gay. And no one is getting drunk at 7:30 in the evening.

But still, out of all places in San Francisco that he could’ve been at, he had to be there at Union Square Park and at the right time too. We were at the right place and right time. If I was five minutes earlier or later, I might’ve missed him.

I know it’s stupid that I’m making a big deal out of this. It’s not like I even talked to him or tripped and fell face first into his crotch. I just tend to get carried away when I think about how seemingly unrelated occurrences can lead to something significant but way even more unrelated than the occurrence that started the entire chain of events.

Last week, Andrew messaged me asking to hang out in SF. I agreed and figured that Saturday evening after dance rehearsal would be the best time because I was planning on attending a company class Sunday night. The day of, we decided to go on a vain search for the last bit of sun in the evening. We stopped by Forever 21 to browse for a bit. We then proceeded to Union Square Park. I spotted Vance.

I could go further back and start with me meeting Andrew or even way way further back and start with me starting to hang out with Cameron. Either way, one small difference could’ve completely changed the outcome. Andrew could’ve never decided to message me out of the blue. If I wasn’t taking a summer dance intensive in SF, I could’ve visited him on any day of the week at any time. We could’ve decided to not go outside into the cold. We could’ve not stopped at Forever 21 or could’ve stayed there longer. The point is that, based on all the preceding events, I would not and never have expected to spot my first crush at a corner of an intersection. But I did anyway.

This kind of sequence of events is so delicate and easily malleable that it forces my more non-rational (my “emotional”) side to come out and wonder, “These coincidences are too coincidental. Someone or something had to have set this up.”



The reason I came out at the time I did is very convoluted, at least when I explain it. I never planned on coming out on New Years Eve, an hour and a half left before 2006, at an arcade, to Peter.

My story of how it happened starts in 2002 or 2003 with black John, far back when we haven’t even met yet. John was attending a private middle school where one of his friends happened to be Vance. Vance had a birthday party with DDR set-up, and that was how John got into DDR. Middle school eventually ended, and John ended up going to Leland, a public school, while Vance went to Bellarmine, a private school.

One year later in 2004, I just finished middle school. I had a very bad ending to my friendship with Seth, my best friend since the second grade. I told him (and the world) via a blog entry that the last few years of our friendship were shit and he meant nothing to me, especially now that he was heading off to Bellarmine and I was off to Santa Teresa High School (yeah, pretty cowardly, public, and overdramatic). Never talked to him since the last day of the eighth grade.

Some time later that year, I met John through playing DDR at the arcades. We, along with Peter, Miranda, and many more, all became good friends.

December 2005 came, and feeling some kind of mushy Christmas spirit, I decided that I wanted to talk to Seth again to settle some issues. And I had to be very dramatic about it (again), so I wanted to do it through a messenger. I asked John if he knew anyone that went to Bellarmine, and he did. He knew only one person: Vance.

“Oh, by the way, he’s gay,” John randomly pointed out. He’s gay. That stuck out to me, just a little bit. I was still a closet homo.

I got in contact with Vance through myspace, and eventually, the whole issue with Seth was settled toward the end of December. Done with that mess.

During the whole ordeal, however, I got to know Vance and his personality somewhat. He was very bold and out there, and he comfortably joked about his own gayness. He was the first gay guy that I had ever met, and I considered his openness admirable. I couldn’t help but develop my first true crush.

These were emotions that I had never felt before, and I didn’t know how to handle them. I needed someone to confide in, but I didn’t know who I could really go to.

Late at night on New Years Eve, John, Peter, and I decided to drop by Oakridge to play a few games of ITG. We were the only ones in the arcade, and the only sound came from the ITG machine. Peter and I were sitting in some driving games watching John play (the song he was playing, I remember very distinctly, was Soapy Bubble), and out of no where, or as though fate had commanded him, Peter turned to me with a wide smile and asked, “Are you gay?!”

I was caught off guard. I used to be able to lie about this whenever it would come up, but that night, with my need to confide in someone about these new emotions building up inside of me, I couldn’t lie anymore.

“Yeah,” I muttered.

John immediately stopped playing and shouted “WHAT?!” as he jumped off the machine.

And so began some of the best and some of the worst adventures/months/years of my life. New emotions, new drama, new ways of thinking, basically a new era in my life. And of the million things from my past I can now attribute all that to, I can attribute them to 2003, when John and Vance, two people I didn’t know at that time, played some DDR. What’s even crazier about this case is that, in a way, I wouldn’t have met Vance if it weren’t for Vance (him introducing John to DDR).

Gotta love fate.

Five Years Ago

Last Wednesday, Miranda, Peter, and I all chilled together. (Black John didn’t come because he was in Santa Cruz.) We first met up at my house and discussed making spinach turnovers, which, at that point, was still only a memory from the past. And it remained a memory, because we decided, “Screw this, too complicated,” and got dinner at Chevy’s instead. Over dinner, we caught up.



I look at today’s date. I look at the date of old journal entries about the Oakridge crew. And then I subtract the years. I can’t believe it’s been five years.

I first met Peter in early 2004 when I used to go to San Jose Golfland and Oakridge mall alone to play DDR all morning and afternoon long. Peter always wore a baseball cap, but his curly hair would always leak out. At that point, we had not yet established a solid friendship. We only knew each other’s DDR scores.

When summer came that year, I was on the verge of quitting DDR. I felt like I had reached the best that I could ever get and there wasn’t really any aspect of DDR left for me to explore. I went to San Jose Golfland in the morning for one last session, but then I ran into Peter and met Miranda and her boyfriend at the time, DJ. The three of them were all friends, and they all met through playing DDR at the arcades. Miranda’s hair was tied tightly down into two pigtails, Peter was now sporting a Hamtaro backpack. And they all wore beaded bracelets. A hell lot of them. I ended up hanging out with them that day, and I continued to hang out with them. Because of them, I didn’t quit playing DDR yet.

A week later, Peter gave me my first beaded bracelet. Each bead alternated between sky blue and royal blue. And that was when I considered myself to finally be a part of their crew. We didn’t really have a name for our crew during that time, but to me now, we were the Oakridge crew, or quite simply, Oakridge.

Eventually, black John, who was one year older than me, joined the crew. Miranda, Peter, John, and I were the core for a while, and throughout all the years, different people joined us and left us: siblings, boyfriends, girlfriends, high school friends, more DDR players, other arcade goers, etc. (And even at one point in early 2007, I was gone from the core group.)

In my old blog, I wrote over 150 entries about Oakridge and the Oakridge crew. Peter, John, and Miranda all became very well established people (characters) in my blog, and I don’t think anyone else, even Trung, had ever carried as much presence as they did in my writing.

At first, we were all about DDR. Passing this song, getting these scores, whatever. Throughout 2004 to most of 2006, it seemed like all that really mattered in the world, besides our friendship, was DDR. But we slowly expanded as our interest in DDR diminished slowly. Here we are in 2009 now, the game and Oakridge mall long forgotten.

Miranda, now 22 years old, works for a car company; she files invoices and does other paperwork stuff. Peter, 21, works a summer internship at IBM and makes $400 a week. (Too ridiculous.) His girlfriend is surveying owls in Tahoe as part of another internship. A few weeks ago, I finished up a teaching internship for the second summer in a row, and, probably somehow inspired by all the years of DDR, I’m currently pursuing real dancing.

Peter’s been with his girlfriend I think for a year and a half now I think. Miranda’s having an interesting relationship with another guy who’s currently in Japan (or was) for a fighting game tournament. And I’m in first place for longest running relationship, which still probably surprises them based off of all my past guy drama that I used to drag them through for years.

Miranda’s hair is very wavy, red, and pretty now, and it has been for a while. Peter’s is still looking good, a lot better than it did five years ago at least. Mine went from gelled and spiky, to failed Korean popstar wannabe, and down to buzzed.



After dinner at Chevy’s, we went back to my house to chill for a bit longer. Miranda told us the millionth horror story about her feet. (Her horror stories have always been parables about why doing things barefoot is bad, especially in arcades.) Eventually, Trung showed up, and shortly after, Miranda and Peter left. Trung and I watched some X-Files, and I practiced some dancing.

---
“Tournament Part 2”
Written July 21st, 2004 (Excerpted)

When I first arrived at the mall, I knew to not bother checking the arcades for friends; I went straight to Gamester [a kiosk that specialized in selling all things DDR-related]. Peter, Matt [Peter’s younger brother]—those two—and now never featured before, Melissa. She was the random girl in the “perfect attack” tourney on Monday, but today I learned her name.

[From left to right: Matt’s knee, Melissa, Peter, and DJ.]

We played a few games…before we got a call saying the famous DJ was on his way. And then we marched all the way to Metropolis just to meet him? Wow. We went back to Gamester to transfer all our needed DDR equipment to the back of the theatre in Metropolis, but found that the door to the back was locked. So in the mean time… we sat down inside the dark theatre making bead bracelets, which I was a newbie to.

Our DDR gang is like… beadful. I luckily had a few that Peter gave me, so I wasn’t left out. After attempting to make a bracelet, I ended up with a beaded pinky ring, which I didn’t use.

Finally, about an hour before the [freestyle] tournament, we got the Ps2 and DDRMax2 game set up and watched DJ practice his routine…After quickly getting bored of Max2 (and my hump-rave routine to Secret Rendezvous), we abandoned Metropolis, just leaving the DDR setup, to go back to the cart, where we played a few games.

We were well distracted for over an hour, and we returned to Metropolis a few minutes late. There we [met up with] Miranda. And so here was where I realized there was no real freestyle tournament. First of all, there were no judges; next, no prizes; also, we had no list of participants or anything that attempts organization; and lastly, DJ was the only real good one. DJ just picked few several random songs and freestyled. I have no idea what happen to this picture; the camera messed it up.

[That’s Miranda on the left and Peter’s Hamtaro backpack behind her.]

We soon got kicked out of the metropolis at 3 and went back to the cart, where we played some more~. Then me, Miranda, DJ and Melissa decided to drive over to Golfland…Our stay was short, and we soon went back to rejoin Peter and Matt at the Gamester cart, where we put down all DDR and instead…made bead bracelets! Ah fun! And where’d we make them? Sitting on the DDR pads in the middle of the mall, ‘cause we all “work” there, and there was no one else really to stop us.

But, after fun and merriment, mall police came by and broke up our beading group. D: Well, we were “loitering” in a way, and that for some reason is always against a rule. But what one officer said was just priceless~. “The mall is not a place to hang out.” wtf?

When they left and we got back to playing DDR, but then decided to go the food court, where, we MADE BEADS~ And DJ got his funk on with Miranda, We...then got hungry, and moved around buying some food, while DJ continued to get his funk on with Miranda. Then we all randomly decided to go to Metropolis, where I spent most of the last hour of my day…My brother called me around 6 and said he was on his way. :/

Damn great day, but since I can’t really go to the mall a lot (I only could go these two days ‘cause of the tournament), I’ll really be missing a lot of fun. :/

The Family Disappointment

What did I think of the piece I learned yesterday?

Look for me in the bottom right corner of the video to find out! (I’m wearing the purple shirt.)



I like most parts of the choreo. A few parts really turn me off. And if I were to listen to the song enough, I would probably shove some needles through my ears. The piece is overall really gay, and I like gayifying dance pieces, but I’m not sure if I can do it as much as the choreographer did. But I’m sure (or I hope) I can get it and make it more tolerable for myself while keeping the piece’s original personality.



Sunday was a fun day, overall. Somehow, it slipped that I was jee-ay-why. I was driving Mimi and myself to the BART, and she was talking about all the gay guys in Funksters and the whole Funkbrella. So I figured it was an appropriate time to come out. She didn’t believe it, saying that I was a 0 on a believability scale of 1 to 10. (That was a nice ego booster.) But then I whipped out my senior prom picture from my wallet and showed her. It was probably the greatest news that she heard all day.

And for the rest of the day, she’d ask me, “CAN I TELL THEM BRIAN?” to which I would nod yes and to which she would immediately blurt, “BRIAN’S GAY [TOO]!”

I got to tell my coming out story to my parents for the hundredth time that day. I’ve told it and will probably continue to tell it so many times that I should just put it on the back of my business card*. And I’ve always told it the same way: One sentence like, “Yeah, things were crazy with my parent for the first few months,” and then a whole entire conversation about how amazingly cool they are about it now and how they cook food for Trung and invite him to family get-togethers and say hi to him when they walk in on me and Trung lying together in bed in the morning, etc.

(*Trung came up with the “business card” expression.)

Somehow, I learned to get really good at shutting out all the bad events that happened during the first four months of 2006. Of all my past blog entries that I would read from time to time, I would always skip past these months. I’ve never had to think about them in depth, until yesterday, when a fellow Funkster told me his story.

I’ve told my coming out stories a lot, but it’s been a really long time (years) since I’ve actually heard one from another person. His story forced me to think about what actually happened the night I came out. And I kinda got bummed out.

That night, I went home to a hot bowl of Pho sitting on the kitchen table. My parents were sitting on the couch five feet away watching TV, and they asked me if I went to San Francisco for my dance class again. I said yes, and they continued to play an elimination game with me to try to truly understand what kind of dancing I do. “Is it ballet?” “It is tap?” “Is it jazz?” “Is it contemporary?” “Is it classical?”

I had never told them I was taking a dance class in San Francisco. Three weeks into Summer Intensive, I was still trying to figure out how to tell them until my mom finally asked, “Have you been spending your weekends in San Francisco for that dance class?” She must’ve actually remembered the permission slip she signed back in May.

It was a relief that I didn’t have to tell them directly. I sorta had this irrational fear that this would’ve been family disappoint number three because instead of tennis, I chose to do dance. The first family disappointment, coming out, was so bad that I worried that adding any more to the number of disappointments would push my parents completely over the edge. They didn’t take the second one, and now the third one, too badly at all, but I still feel like my parents would occasionally think to themselves, “We wish it couldn’t have been this other way. Oh well.”

People tell me that I don’t need to, but one of these days, I will apologize.

---
“Lunar New Year”
Written January 29th, 2006 (Excerpted)

It was midnight, and the Great Mall was pretty lonely. However, CyberHunt, an Internet Café, was still open, and there were a bunch of wanksters playing CS and stuff. They had a DDR Extreme machine, so I played a game. I AA'd Legend of Max on Extra Stage, got the Encore Extra Stage, and I passed it. Finally. After I was done with that game, I remembered, "What do I smell like right now?" Smoke, yes, cigarette smoke. I grabbed my bottle of Axe and sprayed it all over me.

When my dad came and I got in the car, I closed the door and could still smell it. I turned up the volume on the radio and opened the windows all the way down. My dad raised them up again because the heater was on. I simply muttered, "No," and I lowered them again. My dad didn't protest this time.

As we were driving home, we passed by an exit and my dad pointed out, "If we kept on going through that exit, we would've gone to my work." I was just kinda glancing out the window, but I still heard what he said. Usually, I would just shrug, "Whatever, that's cool," but tonight... I raised the window, lowered the music on the radio, and without caring how I smelled, I asked him, "So that's your new job? What company is it at?" He said it was at KOA, and I asked, "Didn’t they already lay you off and ask you back twice already?" He answered yeah.

A few seconds of silence passed, and I came up with another question. "So what do you do? You know, for a living?" And for the first time ever, I found out what my dad did. He said he was simply a technician who tested finished machine products and made sure that they operated correctly. And I asked him how was the Lunar New Year party, what happened without me, if everything was cleaned up at home, etc. He was speaking in Vietnamese while I was asking him my questions in English. However, as the conversation went on, he started to make an effort to speak English because I think he knew that I was more comfortable with English.

[The conversation] was nice. It has been a while since I've had a conversation with my dad that just wasn't, "Drive me to the mall."

When we were passing by a small accident on the highway, my dad started talking about not to make mistakes like David. I immediately spoke up and said, "Dad, I really don't like it when you compare me to David like that. I'd rather not hear about how David is not as 'good' as me. It makes me uncomfortable..." I looked over to see if my dad understood what I had just said. "...y'know, dad?"

He knew, and he didn't talk about David for the rest of the way home.

I had always wondered for a long time about how my parents would react if I told them that I was gay. Would they react on the same level? Or would one be upset while the other would be extremely upset? I figured they would react on the same level, but that they would react in different ways. My dad had always spoke highly of me. He would always tell me how he looked forward to meeting my wife, being there at my wedding, baby-sitting my grandkids... My mom, on the other hand, was closer to me, while there was always some distance between me and my dad. My mom had general ideas of what made me tick, what I liked to do, what makes me happy, and all that crap. She had cared for me more in the past. I think my dad would've been disappointed because I crushed his dreams, while my mom would've been upset because she thought she should've known sooner or that she made some mistake taking care of me.

When I got home, I took a shower and tried to really get the cigarette smell off of me. After I was done, I waited for my dad to go upstairs into the room with my mom, and I follow him in five minutes after.

"Hey, happy New Year!" I told them. My mom said that my relatives gave me sixty dollars and that there was food left over in the fridge. I was like, "Okay." I still stood there at the end of the bed, however. I started to form the words on the back of my tongue.

"Do you have something to tell us, Brian?" my mom inquired.

"Oh..." Here it was. Here it was... I was nervous, so when I said it, I muttered it really quickly so it sounded like, "I'm okay."

But I knew she heard me clearly when I heard her sigh, "Why?" I simply repeated myself.
"Are you gay... because you're gay?" she asked. I nodded. She and my dad glanced at each other and communicated silently. I was waiting to hear them ask, "Why... why are you choosing that?" But slowly, they turned their heads back to me and said, "Okay.... It's okay. Go to sleep now, it's late."

I said g'night, walked out of the room and closed the door behind me, completely confused. My hand was still on the doorknob when I froze. I finally put together what had just happened: My parents were okay with it. I could feel the tears coming. I went back downstairs and hurled myself into the couch and buried my face in my hands... I felt like crying, but only a few tears came out. So I got back on and worked on this blog entry. That was it. There we go.

EDIT: Okay, there we not go. When I finished this blog entry, I walked back upstairs, and when I passed by the door to my parents' room, the doors opened and they walked out. They asked if they could speak to me downstairs for a few minutes (which turned out to be an hour). I kinda knew that "Okay" would not just be it. I knew there was going to be more when I woke up in the morning, but I guess it couldn't wait.

We sat on the couch in the family room downstairs. My mom was sobbing heavily and had stuff coming out of her nose. My dad had his arms crossed and was quiet most of the time. The first thing they told me was that they still loved me, but they're number one concern is society. I know society isn't too fond of the homosexuals, but my parents take it way overboard. They think that everybody is out to get the homosexuals. All they really want from me is the assurance that I'll survive and I'll be happy in life. It was hard to convince them that I was happy and that people wouldn't mob me if I went out to the mall. I had to eliminate my parents' views that gay people don't always look and act gay and that straight people don't turn gay and gay people don't turn straight unless they drink the bloody piss of Jesus. I constantly reassured them that my gayness had no connection to schoolwork, friends, or my attitudes towards my parents. Other than, they just asked other questions like, "How long have you know?" "Why did you keep it a secret for so long?" etc. [[And later on in the week, my mom would ask, “Is something wrong with your penis?” Thankfully, she didn’t make me show her anything.]]

My dad wasn't all that convinced though. He was telling me that I should just shut away me feelings, and that it [was] "possible" to turn "back" straight. He suggested seeing a [psychiatrist], but I only agreed to when they agreed they would see him with me. Then I [would] laugh when the psychologist [would] bust out his scientific terms and start explaining to my parents how they're son is forever homo.

I've told my parents. I will tell my brother when I wake up later if my parents don't tell him first. Don't have to worry about the [Oakridge] crew because they've known for a long time. Peter, Miranda, John, Jion: Thanks for helping me through this.
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(By the way, never come out to your parents on a holiday or during the holiday season. Do not follow my example.)