What All Guys Want

It was 3 AM in the morning on a Saturday night (May 15), which was apparently a really busy time for this particular restaurant in Garden Grove. Alex, Khoa, Daniel, Angela, and I—we were three single guys, a taken guy, and a taken girl, all crowded around a table over warm bowls of Pho. We were discussing one of our favorite subjects.

“It’s only the fat creeper girls that holler at me when I’m drunk. Why me?”

“Angela, tell me how to get girls! I want anything—hook up, one night stand, dating, or a relationship. Just help me get a girl!”

“Man Brian, you’re lucky. You can get sex any time you want because guys are always horny all the time, right?”

“Yeah,” I said as I tried to chopstick pho noodles into my spoon. “All the time, any time.”

“Man, I’m so envious of you.”

I smiled, nodded, and slurped on my Pho.



Chauncer Hien. New friend on downelink. I thought this was going to be another “whatever-I’ll-probably-never-talk-to-you” add until he actually asked to hang out with me. I figured, ok sure. It was only the third week of the quarter, so I had enough free time.

He came by my apartment on a Wednesday afternoon. I had thought he was only going to pick me up, but he actually insisted on coming inside. He had to spray paint a small wooden house for one of his classes, so I let him used my bathtub. While waiting for the house to dry, he lay down on my bed, and that was when I first suspected that he wanted some bang bang:

“Do you want a massage? I give really good massages.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Nah, no thanks.”

After hanging out for a little bit, I left to go to the library to watch Le Retour de Martin Guerre for French class. I didn’t talk to Chauncer again until later that night when I was standing outside the Mesa Parking structure waiting for Sang, ten minutes before the start of the make-up workshops for Common Ground auditions.

Chauncer texted me, and we started texting back and forth. Eventually, he made a corny joke, saying, “Wanna come over? I can show you something special. ;)”

His dick. I rolled my eyes and decided to play along. “What? Hahah lol.”

“You know what. LOLOL JK.”

I knew very well that, in the male dicksucker’s dictionary, “jk” meant “I wanna sit on your dick.” But I brushed it off and pretended to laugh along.

After getting back to my apartment, I chatted with Chauncer over AIM. At this point it was getting pretty late and I really had to do a write-up for the French movie I watched earlier, but Chauncer didn’t hesitate to extend one last poorly masked invitation for sex.

Chauncer:
I’m still working on my art project. Come over and help me!

bbq dinner:
I still need to do my French homework. D:

Chauncer:
Come do your homework here!

I sighed and glanced at the time. 2 AM. Did I want some? Was I that horny? Was I that bored? Was I that lonely?

One out of four questions, I answered yes, but it was the only question that ever mattered.



After finishing our Pho and dropping Angela off back at her place, the rest of us four guys headed back to the apartments. While walking back inside from the parking lot, I offered some helpful girlfriend advice: “It’s usually the upper half that’s the best. Concentrate there. Upper half, bottom side. Make sure she knows in advance to stay away from your piss slit once you’ve jizzed.”

“Aiight thanks Brian!”

Once we settled inside, we watched Daniel play Devil May Cry 3 and fashioned an apple bong so that some of us could go to space (not me).

In our conversations about girls, sex, and guys, basically things that all guys wanted, everyone would love to bring up my poor choices in the past. Tonight, we brought up—

“Chauncer Hien.” I said.

Alex looked up at me confused. “Who?”

“You know, Chauncer. French Homework!”

“Oh WAIT! CHAUNCER IS FRENCH HOMEWORK?”

“Wait, you didn’t know that?”

“No, you guys always referred to him as French Homework and I figured it was better that I didn’t know who it was. OH MY GOD YOU SLEPT WITH CHAUNCER HIEN.”



“You slept with Chauncer Hien last night. Wow.” Kevin sat back trying to get the images out of his head, and Alfonso was too busy laughing. I continued eating my steak. We were at the dining commons.

“Yeah, kinda literally,” I said. I was too eager to spill all the fun details. “I think at one point I fell asleep on top of him. My dick was pretty limp the whole night. Seriously, it was 5 AM. I had spent the last two hours writing up a French essay, putting it through an English-to-French translator and correcting the French.”

“Haha well damn Brian. Even at 5 AM in the morning, you can get sex any time whenever you want. I’m envious of you.”

I smiled, nodded, and worked on cutting my steak. This was too much of a fun dinner, so I didn’t wanna bring myself down by saying something that I really wanted to say: Don’t be.

Nothing’s Really Changed

150.2 pounds, as of this past Tuesday. Considering my erratic eating schedule during spring break, I was surprised, and relieved. I’m going to hit 160 by the end of the quarter. If my dancing doesn’t improve and if I don’t get a new pair of shoes, I’ll be fine as long as I reach this goal.

After putting on some clothes and making myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I headed out the door to my first day of classes.

While walking to my English class at 9:30, I got a new voicemail. I figured it was a call from the Education Academy, because if anyone ever left me a voicemail in the morning, it’d be my boss to inform me that she’s cutting even more of my hours for the week. So when I listened to the voicemail, I was a little surprised:

“Hi Brian, this is Krista calling from Urban Outfitters at the Irvine Spectrum. I’m calling about the application you turned in about two weeks ago and I wanted to invite you to our interview...”

Two weeks ago. I had thought that they put my application through the shredder as soon as I walked out the door.

If I got this job, that would mean that I’d be quitting my job at the Education Academy earlier than I had expected.

Thursday night, I ran into Kevin while heading to the dining hall. I asked him if he wanted to take a dance class with me at the gym, but he had INSA practice at nine. I was a little disappointed, mainly because the dance class was a POP DIVA *BITCH* dance class, and I didn’t wanna be the only guy taking it in fear that I might look hella gay.

I was also a little disappointed because, knowing how far INSA had come along, I kinda wished that I had stayed dancing with them. I heard they were having their second or third hell week now for another upcoming performance.

Even though some practices pissed the hell out of me, being on a dance team was still fun. But that was over for me now.

Friday night, I was working out—nothing too different from other nights. I was texting Gay SF Andrew back and forth because he was in LA visiting. I asked him if he was going to visit Irvine, to which he responded that he was going to a kickback at Charles’s place Saturday night. I texted back, “Charles has a kickback tomorrow? Lol. Honestly I haven’t talked to anyone gay in Irvine for the last six months. Can you bring guests?”

Somehow, Andrew got me invited even though I didn’t ask to be invited. Seriously, all I asked was, “Can you bring guests?” and I guess Andrew made an assumption and asked Charles if I could come. Well, it looked like I was going.

Of course, I called my boyfriend to tell him about it. I didn’t want him thinking that I was going to go to the party to get trashed and get laid. He said he was chill with it. I’m happy that we have trust in our long distance relationship. I think the next time we see each other will be in May, so we’re going to end up missing our three-month anniversary together. I don’t think the fourth one will be a charm either, but at least I know that we’ll be spending time together on my birthday and that he’ll finally visit me in Irvine over Memorial Day weekend. Lots of things to look forward to in May.



Alright, so it’s Saturday night, almost 11 PM. Time to head out.

Just Like Summer Again

[This entry is co-written with Trung. You can guess which one he is.]

On the nineteenth, with most of the Breakthrough teachers back home in the bay, Breakthrough held a winter reunion at some library downtown. A few differences from last year’s winter reunion: last year was ice skating and open to all students, while this year was a formal dance that was only open to students with a 3.0 or higher. So of course, I knew there would be a good amount of my students that I wouldn’t be seeing.

LOOK BRIAN IS RACIST. HE MEANS: MEXICAN KIDS ARE ALL DUMB AND LIKE TACOS.

It’s ‘cause they wrote really terrible essays.

BECAUSE ENGLISH IS NOT THEIR FIRST LANGUAGE.

This was written by a white student: “Ralph is a leader in the beganing then at the end he is not. Well in the Lord of the Flies, it says that Ralph had rules and was a strong leader, but then Jack mess it all up because he wanted to become the leader.”

FINE ITS BCAUSE SHE WAS POOR. YOU MEANIE.

At the formal, we had a VIP section for students who had a 4.0. The only student in there was Mickey, and he stayed there, alone. Not too surprising. I felt bad, but then he eventually found his place outside playing cards with the teachers at the poker table.

Belinda probably still had the hots for me and was grabbing my arms trying to get me to dance with her. I awkwardly shook her off.

SHE IS 11 YEARS OLD. STOP BEING A PERVERT. AND SO EGOTISTICAL. LIKE THAT ONE TIME THAT GIRL SAID “WOW THAT SANDWICH IS BIG” SHE ACTUALLY JUST MEANT THE DAMN SANDWICH.

Belinda and her friends, who took my dance class during the summer, told me that they still knew the set I taught them. I didn’t believe them, but they had the mix on their phone, so they started playing it and doing the set. I didn’t even remember what I taught them, but they still did. It made me feel good.

NOT AS GOOD AS HOW YOU FEEL WHEN YOU FLEX IN THE MIRROR AND MAKE YOUR WEIRD THRUSTY PELVIS THING WHEN YOU THINK YOU LOOK SEXY. DON’T THINK I DON’T KNOW. I DO KNOW. AND I THROW UP A LITTLE.

The whole formal dance concept was pretty awkward. It was basically like a middle school dance with the teachers mixed in with the students. Even with the lights off, no one could really get into it (not that anyone would wanna freakdance, which I wasn’t implying in the first place).

THE BOY TO GIRL RATIO WAS VERY OFF. THAT WAS A GOOD THING.

The seventh grade boys tried to drag me out to the middle of the dance floor for a jerking competition. Not my scene. But I eventually found my comfort place when I sat down with Pauline, one of my eighth grade writing students, in the VIP zone and taught her how to lock. I knew very little about locking and probably had nothing close to the right form, but she, not knowing any better, thought I was godly.

YOU JUST DIDN’T WANT TO SHOW THEM THAT YOU COULDN’T JERK. THE DANCE TYPE. YOUD GET ARRESTED FOR THE OTHER TYPE. EVEN THOUGH I KNOW YOU ENJOY DOING THAT STUFF IN PUBLIC. SKANK!

I also got to catch up Thanh, an alumni student who finished Breakthrough my first summer teaching in 2008. I taught her a small tutting piece, also not from my area of expertise (as though I really have one). I really missed teaching dance.

THANH LIKES ME BETER THAN YOU. ITS TRUE. YOU FORGOT TO MENTION THAT WHITE GIRL.

I drove up to San Francisco with Mimi three times (and once with Kevin) this winter break to take classes at City Dance. It felt good to be back in those hallways. Surprisingly enough, Emerson remembered my face and approached me for a hug. I didn’t think he’d remember me, but I also heard that he just likes to hug any cute guy he sees.

DID YOU GUYS FUCK? OR MAYBE HE’S JUST A NICE PERSON WHO ENJOYS HIS OLD STUDENTS. NOT CUZ YOU’RE CUTE. OMG. EGOTISTICAL AGAIN. STROKING YOUR OWN DAMN EGO. YOU’RE AN EGO-MASTURBATOR.

The last visit for the break was yesterday for workshops taught by the Lost Kids. I went with Mimi and we got to kick it with some Funksters I missed from Summer Intensive, like Isaiah, Joerelle, Nicole, Tin, and JC, and I met Ranier (pronounced rainier than yesterday) during my second visit.

AKA MORE KIDS. YOU ONLY LIKE BEFRIENDING PEOPLE IN HIGH SCHOOL. OMG. BECAUSE THEY LIKE TO TALK ABOUT VULGAR THINGS LIKE BOOBIES AND HOW IF YOU MASSAGE THEM THEY GROW. AND PENISES. WIL YOU B SAD WHEN THEY FORGET ABOUT YOU WHEN THEY GO TO COLLEGE?

They didn’t forget about me when I went to college.

AGAIN JUST THINKING IN YOUR OWN PERSPECTIVE. WHAT ABOUT THEIRS WHEN THEY GO TO COLLEGE?! HM. HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. YOU ALSO FART TOO MUCH.

Caught up with Isaiah a bit. He’s now back with his boyfriend (codenamed Max and CJ in this entry), and he sounded happy. That’s good. I’m happy for him.

DID YOU GUYS HAVE A THREESOME? AND I BET YOU WEREN’T HAPPY. YOU WERE A LLAMA.

No to the threesome question. And I was happy!

I don’t have a conclusion that’s different from the ones I wrote during the summer about how I would miss Breakthrough and Funksters, so instead, Trung typed this up to finish the entry:

I like to look at myself in the mirrors. I only like to flex in the mirror and dance dance dance because I’m egotistical. I like to masturbate looking at myself. And then I flex some more. Because I think I’m really hot. And then I dance.

I like to do fifteen push ups and then go to the bathroom to check my progress. And then I run out and get a chopstick and go back in the bathroom to try to hold it between my boobies because I’m a show off. SORRY, I PARTTY.

I think the “I” might be referring to me.

IT’S REFERRING TO YOUR INNER THOUGHTS AND FEARS. Jk im not that mean to brian. I am nice because he lets me eat his chocolates and hide them. :)

Not to Dance

Today, I was supposed to audition for another dance team, but last night I decided not to instead.

The team was Paradime, a collegiate crew based half an hour away at CSU Fullerton. Alfonso, Kevin, and another two of our friends Jamie and Angela checked out the audition workshops last week. They all decided that they wouldn’t audition after the second day of workshops, but I was still wavering. I liked the audition pieces, but I didn’t really “feel” the people themselves.

Yesterday, the day before auditions, I finally decided that I wouldn’t audition. I hadn’t thought the family aspect would be as important to me as the dancing in a dance team, but, I gradually realized it was. Without (publicly) passing judgment on the team itself, I’ll just say that I couldn’t picture myself in the Paradime family. I explained this to Alfonso and he accepted, saying, “If you’re not feeling it then it was never meant to be.”

In other dance-related news, it looks like I’m actually going to have to cut back on taking dance classes because of money. I had told myself that I could sacrifice shoes, clothes, and chocolates but that dance would be the ONE thing that would remain unaffected, but, with the start of a new quarter coming up, I need a replacement parking permit, $225. I plan on paying for it myself, and I have $250 in my account.

I’m going to need the remaining $15 and my last paycheck from Pippin to support myself until I get a refill on cash from my relatives for Christmas, and honestly, the hours at the Education Academy aren’t too great right now. My shifts so far are either one or two hours long each; I hope my manager’s just giving me a little at a time to ease me in.

Well, I hear picking up choreo from watching youtube videos is a helpful skill. Time to work on that.

One other thing I need to worry about once I buy my parking permit is what I’m going to tell my mom. My account is connected to hers so she’ll be able to see the $225 missing from it. If I tell her that I used it to buy my parking permit, I won’t be able to convince her to not pay me back with the money she scavenges in coins from water fountains. Maybe I’ll just learn hella dope choreo pieces on YouTube and show her and tell her I spent $225 on a week of endless dance workshops. She’ll talk shit about me with my dad when I’m in bed, but whatever, she’ll be $225 richer in the sense that she will not have lost $225 by her maternal instincts.

---
“For My Parents”
Written March 16th, 2007 (Excerpted)

I remember a year ago when I was going through my gay teenage angst rebellion phase, I didn’t give two shits about my mom or dad. [I wrote on the night of 3/28/06,] “I think if I still had any respect left for them as my parents, I would've been quick to apologize. But sadly, I hardly even care anymore.”

That [same] night, my brother came into my room to lecture me again, basically telling me, “Look, I used to be where you are now. But one day, you’ll realize how important it is to you that you make them as happy as possible. I know that you get annoyed when I play along with mom and dad’s corny humor—I think it’s dumb too, but I do it for a reason. So, just go downstairs and apologize to Mom already, whether or not it hurts you.”

I called his policy absolutely bullshit and retorted with some shit like, “Fuck no. If they can’t make me happy, how can I even begin to reciprocate?”

God, did I really mention that when I look back at sophomore year, I really hated every thing about me? Well, fortunately, within one year, I’ve gone a long way, along with my parents.

My original plans didn’t happen today, so I wounded up dining out in Milpitas with my family and relatives. Normally, I would skip out on these kinds of dinners and just go to Oakridge, but it was my mom’s 50th birthday today, so I figured that I should be nice for once. I’ve learned from the past year that even though me and my parents hardly ever interact together during family gatherings, my presence is still important to them.

Towards the end of the dinner, I stood up to stretch, and my little cousins asked me to flex my muscles again. I heeded, and this ended up catching the attention of all my relatives at the dinner table. Vy, Hannah’s mom, singled me out.

“Wow, Brian, do you work out?” she asked me.

“Yes,” I answered timidly with a bit of pride just beginning to sprout out of its seedpod (yeah, I’m a lot more modest around my relatives than I am around my friends).

“Do you have a girlfriend?” she inquired.

Upon hearing that question, I tensed a little bit, so I looked at my parents for any kind of visual cues. They were leaning over their plates and staring down, forcing themselves to keep up their smiles.

I let out a deep breath and then regained my posture. “Nah, I don’t.”

“Oh, no, why?”

“Oh, well, I just keep on rejecting them.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, rejection after rejection, they finally figured out the real me, so they stopped trying altogether.” I smirked. At this point, I was actually kinda amusing myself by seeing how long I could dance along the crater of the volcano.

“Oh, is it your mom? Does she say ‘No girlfriends’?”

“Nah, trust me, she doesn’t say ‘No girlfriends’.” With a quirky smile, I sat down, and as I prodded the grains of rice on my plate with my spoon, my grin relented back to a timid smile.

I glanced over my parents, and they were sitting back in their chairs, breathing a small sigh of relief.

Whenever you guys are ready.

Retrogradation

I was wrong about Pippin; yesterday evening, I actually had to take some initiative and use some intense and quick thinking skills at the face of a challenge, and the reward was satisfying.

I noticed that the ice cream bar had been out of chocolate chip ice cream for a while, and patrons were getting quite antsy. My duty for the night was only to wipe down tables, but the ice cream busser wasn’t anywhere around. I decided, screw cleaning tables for now—it’s time to take some initiative. I rushed to the kitchen and into the freezer to search for the replacement ice cream.

There were layers of buckets of ice cream stacked on top of more layers, and after looking through the ones on the top layer, I figured, shit, the chocolate chip ice cream must be somewhere on the bottom. I had already spent two minutes in the freezer and I was fucking cold, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to live with myself without knowing that I did everything I could to find that chocolate chip ice cream.

After another three minutes, I had looked through all the ice cream buckets I could find. My fingers were numb from lifting so many and I started to shiver violently. Five minutes was far too long for anyone to spend inside a freezer, so I had to get out quick. But god damn it, NOT without that chocolate chip ice cream. What do I do?

I did the next best thing. I remembered stumbling upon a bucket of mint chocolate chip ice cream early on in my search, so I dug through the buckets again to retrieve it. I figured this was close enough.

My hard work paid off, because I think the patrons enjoyed the mint chocolate chip more than any of the other three ice cream flavors at the bar. Within five minutes, I could look anywhere around the dining room and spot two or three people holding cones with globes of bright glowing green stacked on top. I felt satisfied.

Too bad the glee only last for another three minutes. The ice cream busser, who was a superior because he was one of the full-time working adults, passed by the ice cream bar and noticed the alien green ice cream. I watched the patrons waiting in line gape at him in horror as he hauled it away.

K, fine, whatever, I thought. As long as he actually brought back normal chocolate chip ice cream, it wouldn’t be so bad.

He came back with a new bucket of ice cream within a minute. There was no fucking way he could’ve found it. Once he set it up at the ice cream bar and left, I swung by to check it.

It was cookies ‘n’ cream ice cream. That fucking bastard; at least I was closer. He didn’t even replace the label on top of the ice cream bar. It still said “Chocolate Chip.” Just because cookies and cream was also whitish and blackish/brown, did he think it would work the same as chocolate chip ice cream? Or maybe the colors were the only way he could identify it because he couldn’t match the complicated squiggly lines (a. k. a. LETTERS) on the bucket with the ones on the ice cream bar label. (There’s a really racist comment that I can say if I continue ranting, but I’ll stop.)

I ducked down behind the ice cream bar to dig up the label for “Cookies ‘n’ Cream” and replaced it with the “Chocolate Chip” one, and I returned to my normal cleaning duties, where I brooded about how much Pippin sucked.

The night finished off even better when Head Chef, who I guess is also one of the managers, approached me to reprimand me for not doing my job, again. Last Thursday when I worked, I admit that I took two ten-minute unsanctioned breaks within one hour to chill with Alfonso, Kevin, and Erica, who were eating upstairs where I didn’t think any other workers would spot me. But apparently, one did and ratted me out to Head Chef, and he warned me that that would be the last time I socialized with my friends during work.

During yesterday’s shift, I sat down to eat with Kevin, Alfonso, and Asian John again, but this time I was actually on my legitimate fifteen-minute break. I finished at 7:10, and the three of them left to go to the ARC for a dance class, so I didn’t even have anyone else to socialize with for the last forty minutes. But, apparently, some time during those forty minutes, Head Chef could swear that I was fucking around.

Closing was a little different that night at Pippin because we had the help of a bunch of Middle Earth staff members, who were hosting a Casino Night event at Pippin for all the residents. They were folding up and putting away all the tables, something we normally wouldn’t do for closing, and the tables had to be wiped down before they were put away. I knew I was one of the people wiping down the tables, but unbeknownst to me, I guess all the responsibility for the tables fell solely on me. And apparently, Head Chef saw some dirty unwiped tables already folded up.

I did see to it that all the tables under my watch were wiped down before they were put away, but it was fucking impossible for me to personally check and approve every table, for two reasons: First, on normal closing nights where patrons, feeling like leaving whenever they wanted to, left in succession, I only had to deal with one or two tables at a time. But yesterday night, the Middle Earth staff members were rushing multiple tables of people to finish quickly and to leave at once, leaving me with up to like ten tables to clean at the same time. There were too many tables and too many Middle Earth staff members who cared only about putting them away, and the other cleaners and I were few in number. And second, the fucking ice cream busser wasn’t doing his damn job again and people at the ice cream bar were getting impatient, so I found myself making two trips back into the freezer to retrieve ice cream replacements. Those were the only times I wasn’t present in the dining hall from 7:10 to 8 PM.

I tried to reason with Head Chef, but his stubborn ass boiled the argument down to nothing more than squabbling by repeating over and over again, “No, you didn’t, you weren’t doing your job.” He refused to show me evidence of the dirty tables or to acknowledge anything I said. After the fourth or fifth time repeating that, he absent-mindedly wandered somewhere else, leaving me there mid-sentence. Brooding silently in frustration, I stood there and watched his fat ass leave the kitchen

I am not getting fired.

---
“I rock.”
Written September 7th, 2007

I was running about thirty minutes late to work yesterday, although it wasn’t because I had terrible work ethic. It’s actually expected and accepted that I could possibly show up any time between 6 and 6:40 because Ben knows that my SJCC class gets out at 5:45, sometimes later, and that traffic going down 280-south/87-south during that time is a huge bitch. So there’s no really problem except for the fact that I start to beat myself when my tardiness starts pushing twenty minutes.

I veered into the shopping plaza’s parking lot and parked a few stores down as my car clock hit 6:30. I still had to change into my business casual work clothing in the little space of my car’s backseat, and that took another additional five minutes that I didn’t really want to waste. Once I got my nice shoes on, I ran over to SCORE! and threw the door open, panting and looking hardly professional at all.

About 7 kids were there, and Ben was working with them. Juju, one of my favorites who’s probably like a forth grader, looked up from her computer at me and randomly laughed, “Brian, you rock.” ITG2 machines have informed me that I “rock” about 2303 times (stats.xml) for the last two years, but hearing “You Rock” from Juju was a hell lot better, almost touching. I felt better for the rest of the day.

Cơm Gà

I cooked dinner, as I said I would a few entries ago (except I cooked Friday, not Wednesday). Chicken and chicken rice; it was pretty good, and the best part was no one got salmonella.

Back at home, my mom cooked chicken, congee, and chicken rice every two weeks, and I thought it was one of her best dishes. Well, the chicken and congee were okay, nothing super special, but it was the chicken rice that was really fucking amazing. She prepped the rice by cooking it a little in some vegetable oil and garlic, and then she’d pour it into the rice cooker and, instead of using water, she’d add the broth that came from the pot that the chicken was boiling in. Simple, but delicious. I’d eat several bowls of chicken rice for dinner and then eat it with eggs the next day for breakfast, and I’d gulp it down so quickly that I’d start choking.

For the longest time, I had been craving my mom’s chicken rice. I called her for the recipe the first week of school, partially because I wanted the recipe, but also because I hoped that showing interesting in cooking it would make her happy (in preparation for the request that I had next on my agenda: Asking for $300 for books). And it did.

She emailed me the recipe, and I was on the verge of cooking it, but then, auditions came. Common Ground, CADC, and then MCIA. During those four weeks of intense dancing, my mom would call me and always ask, “Did you make cơm gà yet?” I’d tell her no and that I had been busy, and she’d always sound disappointed. Especially by the third week, my mom no longer really believed the “I’ve been busy” excuse and probably thought I was never going to make it. By the fourth week of auditions, she stopped asking. Really though, I was pretty damn busy.

Cooking again was one of the main things I was looking forward to after all auditions. Friday night around 9, I dragged Sang over to help. I had hoped that I’d finish cooking by 10:30, but I soon discovered that the chicken, which I left to defrost in the fridge over night, was still frozen solid. The microwave defroster took forty minutes. And even after that, the chicken was still pretty frozen on the inside (unless the chicken’s pancreas and other internal organs were supposed to be rock hard).

Handling the chicken itself with my bare hands was an odd new experience. Never had I ever dug my fingers inside a chicken through its ass (first time my finger’s been any kind of ass, actually). I got a kick out of defrosting its insides by filling it up with hot water, clamping its ass shut, and shaking it violently. Pressing my ear up against the chicken, I could hear the water swishing around inside, and its legs just kinda dangled in the air. Sang didn’t approve of my cooking methods and wanted to eat Cheerios for dinner instead.

Once the chicken was clean, I dropped it in a pot of boiling water and let it stew with some onions and ginger for another hour.

At several points through the night, I had visits from random dancers, one after another. First from Daniel, Shane, and Erica Lee, and then Alfonso and Kevin, and then Sam Shih.

Eventually, it was just Sang, Sam, and me. After the chicken finished boiling, they helped me prep and cook the rice since I had never made rice before in my entire 19 years of being Vietnamese. Around 12:30, two hours after my goal time, we finished.

We spent about twenty minutes eating, and then packed up everything to head to a parking garage where everyone else was dancing. Alfonso’s face lit up when he saw what I brought along. He, Kevin, and I (again) sat down on the floor to eat, and periodically we’d get up to freestyle a bit. While eating, Kevin informed me that I had been admitted into YPC (Young Papa’s Crew).

YPC was this unofficial crew that a small group of three or four friends started last year and eventually pulled Kevin, Alfonso, and all the aforementioned dancers (except for Sang) in. When it was just starting up, I remember Edge, one of the founders, going around asking people at BBA (Bboy club) to join. He approached one of my friends that I was talking to and asked him but didn’t ask me. I was just a little sad because my friend and I sucked on the same level, but, at that point, I didn’t really know Edge yet.

At the beginning of this school year, I found myself hanging out with Kevin and Alfonso plus a lot of other YPC people, and they’d always mention YPC things. But I knew it was probably taboo to bluntly ask, “Can I join?” So I waited. Patiently.

Last week, while Alfonso was drunk (and high?) Friday night at a Halloween party with several other YPC members, he nominated me for membership. And everyone approved.

I was happy to finally be in. As I sat there inhaling my rice, I danced a little bit in my head and swayed with the music. I smiled as I ate. When I was done eating, I sat back and watched everyone dance. Shane walked over and sat down next to me.

“I hear Alfonso is going to audition next week,” she began. “Are you?”

The word spread quickly. “Yeah, I am,” I answered. Of course I was. How could I let an opportunity pass? “It shouldn’t be too bad.”

“What if you get in?”

“Dancing isn’t something I’m going to stress about anymore,” I declared. “Whatever happens is supposed to happen.” That was a phrase that Alfonso liked to use a lot, especially during the wait for the CADC roster. It was like a way of saying I don’t give a fuck (but really, I do).

Shane left to go chat with Daniel. I knew I’d be getting back up in a bit too to dance, so, carefully scooping up those last four or five grains of rice in my bowl, the ones that made up such an insignificant amount that I wouldn’t have to chew, I savored the last few minutes of my break.

Through the Looking-Glass

“George Mead—all about me—he came up with the concept of self! And self is used to like, describe your personality, based on your own self-awareness and self-image...”

Damn, Sarah’s going to set the curve on this midterm.

“...we try to like, see ourselves from another person’s point of view so we don’t like, make ourselves like, look dumb. Cooley coined the phrase ‘looking-glass self’ for a self-image based on how we think other people see us...”

I glanced around the room. Posters containing overwhelming amounts of brainwashing rhetoric lined the walls top to bottom, fighting for my attention. The few that managed to catch my eye, I read silently to myself, all while scrutinizing the pictures of people that accompanied them. “I’m glad I FAILED...at suicide, because my life is so amazing right now.” But your face isn’t. “I’m straight, but NOT narrow!” Yeah, because you’re fat. “Please let my mommy marry my mommy!” Stop whining, spoiled bitch. “Can you tell which of these children have gay parents?”

“...we initiate action, which is like the subjective side of the self, and then we evaluate the action based on how other people respond to us, which is like the objective side of the self...Brian?”

“Uh, huh?” I snapped out of my daze to see Sarah and Cameron staring at me from their sofa. “I’m listening,” I reassured them.

“Do you need help understanding anything in particular?” Sarah asked, sounding ever so concerned like a teacher or mother.

It was 11 AM, still too early to me. Running on four hours of sleep, I had woken up at 9 to go to my 9:30 natural disasters class for a midterm. It wasn’t that bad at all. I finished at 10 and went to the library to study for my sociology midterm coming up at 12:30. There, sitting in the library’s comfortable chairs, I was falling asleep when I got a text from Camerom asking me to study with him and Sarah at the Lesbian/ Gay/ Bisexual/ Transgender/ Queer/ Pansexual/ Intersex Resource Center (LGBTABCDEFG RC). When I got there, I was dismayed to find that the resource center’s chairs—couches—were far more comfortable and relaxing than the library’s.

“I’m tired. I think I’ll function better after a nap. Can you wake me up in 15 minutes, Sarah?”

“Sure.” Sarah surprised me by being unusually okay with my request to slack off. If this was last year back in the dorms when we were all first year students, she’d lecture me about how I hadn’t done any of the reading for the last four weeks, and with the midterm coming up in less than two hours, I couldn’t have any time to be lazy. Maybe she had given up on me.

Oh well, Sarah granted me nap time, so I couldn’t resist taking advantage of that. As I stretched out in my couch, I noticed the big window looking out into the hallway and realized that anyone could walk by and see me sitting inside among a bunch of rainbows and gay empowerment magazines, so I pulled my cap over my face. After adjusting my wedgie, I leaned back and rested my eyes.



As a gay guy, I’m often criticized for trying too hard to put up a masculine façade. When you see me, you see a guy with a New Era 59fifty cap slapped on over some buzzed hair, a pair of black basketball shorts that matches with whatever T-shirt I’m wearing, and Nikes to complete the baller-dancer hybrid look. When I’m not dressed like your typical Irvine Asian guy, I’m in a tank at the ARC lifting weights, trying to get that nice physique—something I’d rather be doing than expressing my emotions.

I don’t want people to look at me and think, “Oh my god, with gay guys like that, why would I ever want one to raise kids?” Yes, I do try too hard, and I even get carried away sometimes. Kevin and Alfonso expressed far more emotion than I did when CADC rejected them, while I, not wanting to do anything that “the gays” would do, sat silently and took it like a man. A robot, more like it.

But it was also that same night when I got the CADC rejection email that I realized that under this “masculine façade,” I am nothing. There are no layers in my character to peel back. The masculine façade has become my personality. The accusation that I’m trying to butch things up is preceded by the assumption (or expectation) that, as a gay guy, I have some kind of more emotional and expressive side. That assumption in itself is a gay stereotype. And for me, it’s one that is not true. Not anymore, at least. I’m the way I am because that’s just how I am.

However, I still can’t deny the fact that my character is flawed, that something is wrong. And the problem is more deeply rooted than just refusing/not being able to feel any sad emotions. The main question is, what is the problem? I don’t know.

I’ve never fully come to terms with being gay. I never thought I’d be able to, and I never thought that I’d need to. But maybe the problem is that I really do need to.

The total amount of time I’ve spent hanging out with straight guys (Kevin, Alfonso, and other dancers) is probably more than my senior year in high school and first year in college combined. It’s been ridiculously fun, but I still feel a sense of loneliness. I’m wondering if I need a strong group of gay friends too to fulfill that hole. Maybe this is the problem. I used to be able to go to Cameron for gay friends, but I don’t hang out with his gay friends unless I’m hanging out with him, and Cameron is too busy with his internship and gay frat nowadays. If I go out into the gay world looking for friends, I need to go on my own. And then somehow, I’ll finally fully accept myself.

I dunno. This is getting convoluted. I’m looking for some kind of answer, but I don’t even have the question fully formed in my mind. Being the anxious person I am, however, I can’t wait for that question to form. My urge is too strong, so I’m going to form the question over time while I search. Fortunately, I already know where to start looking.

---
“My DowneLife”
Written March 5th, 2006 (Excerpted)

Among all the private messaging and stuff, I've only actually talked to [a few] from DowneLink on AIM so far.

The first guy was rather interesting... He's black, he's a senior at Independence High, he's... interesting. And by interesting, I mean he kept on talking about jacking off and penises. He said his was... 8 inches long. oh god.. =/ And then he asked me if I had a digital camera. I said yes [[how did it not strike me that I should’ve lied?]], and then he started bothering me about showing him pictures of my penis. I tried to be as nice about it as possible, saying stuff like, "Taking pictures of my penis makes me feel really weird, sorry! =)" I'm just glad he didn't show me pictures of his 8-inch black cobra.

The second guy, I only talked to for five minutes. He asked me my age, to which I responded 15. He was disappointed and told me, "Oh, I can't talk to you. You're too young." My DowneLink profile says I'm 18 because that's the required minimum age; I hate having to lie about my age and misleading people like that... And... Apparently I'm "too young"... was this guy looking to have sex with me or what? =/
---

And no, the answer/question doesn’t involve sex or relationships.

Stoic

“The Ides of March”
Written March 16th, 2008 (Excerpted)

I parked in Trung’s driveway and shot out of my car. Trung greeted me at his door, but we didn’t waste any time for anything else. I rushed up the stairs to Trung’s computer and found that the Internet was still logged onto Trung’s UCSD application account. There was a huge “Congratulations!” plastered on the page.

I sat down in the chair, logged out of Trung’s account, and logged onto mine, being extra careful to not make any typos that would further delay when I would find out the results.

While the page was loading, I turned to Trung, who was beside me now, and pulled him in closely. Ivan stood silently in the doorway, watching.

The page loaded. Trung and I immediately glued our eyes to the screen and began reading.

I didn’t have to spend a lot of time reading. The key words were already jumping out at me. I fell back into the chair. Trung was still reading the page.

“Trung,” I began, “You can stop reading. I didn’t get in. We’re not going to the same college.”
---

Six hours remained until the CADC roster would appear on the website. I still hadn’t received a call, and it was driving me crazy. I didn’t want to do anything all day; fortunately I didn’t have to really until I had my only class of the day from 6 to 7:20, social dance. I was thinking of telling the teacher that I was sick and highly contagious (which I really was) and sitting out, but I decided that it would be better to try to get my mind off the auditions at the cost of several other girls’ health.

When my turn came to dance with Hillary, one of the CADC captains, I knew that CADC wasn’t the subject to bring up. We chatted and bantered as we normally would, but there was still that sense of awkwardness that came from something that both of us tried to not bring up even though it was at the top of our minds.

I thought maybe, since three CADC auditionees shared the same class with one of the captains, if any one of us made it then maybe after class, that captain and the rest of the cabinet would come and congratulate us in person. But that didn’t happen. No one popped out from around the corner and Kevin, Alfonso, and I walked out of that class solemnly, still waiting for our calls.

At 7:30, we sat down at dinner and ate in silence. The anticipation was killing us; I could see it in Kevin and Alfonso’s faces and I could feel it in mine. Alfonso explained to us that he heard Hillary telling Jojo in class that she felt “bad for them,” and we debated what that possibly could have meant. Alfonso convinced that she was referring to us, and that she felt bad because the judges had chosen none of us.

“Fuck!” he yelled out. “What did we do wrong? The next time I see Hillary, I just want to ask her what we did wrong.”

Alfonso was normally a chill guy, and I really hated seeing him like this. I had always been really terrible at cheering people up, but I tried something. ““CADC likes to screw around with the people they accept,” I said. “Maybe Hillary wanted you to hear to mess with your mind. Or maybe you heard her wrong.”

Alfonso didn’t respond.

“Plus, you know David Lee? The really really good short Asian guy with the mohawk who’s definitely going to get in?” I asked. “I’ve been regularly checking his Facebook—stalkerish, I know, but whatever—he still hasn’t gotten a call yet either. So CADC is still in the process of making their calls. Don’t lose hope.”

Don’t lose hope. That sounded weird coming from me. I knew that out of the three of us, I was the least likely to get in, but at the same time, I needed as much comfort as Kevin and Alfonso did.

After dinner, Kevin left us to go study, and Alfonso and I met up with Asian John to attend the MCIA workshop at the Mesa Parking Garage. I also called up Sang to come join us. At the workshops, however, I could barely concentrate or put in any energy. Every five minutes or so I’d pull out my cell phone to make sure that I had reception and that I didn’t miss any calls. It was like I could only put my energy into that. I looked over at Alfonso and he looked back, and we both shared an understanding that this was not the night to learn a piece. He went over to the corner by the staircase, and I joined him. Asian John and Sang followed.

After the workshop finished around 9:30, we stood around outside in front of the garage discussing what to do. Alfonso was going to meet up with Kevin and some others at Panyia’s place at CV since our apartments at VDC and VDC Norte were going through a schedule power outage. Earlier during the day I had asked Sang to come wait with all of us and other CADC people for our phone calls, and he sounded excited about that. However, when I later met up with Kevin and Alfonso for class, Kevin expressed that he would rather not see any of the newly accepted dancers. I understood, but I didn’t want to abandon Sang, especially after dragging him out to the MCIA workshops. And plus, for the sake of my sanity, I had to be around someone happy and someone who wasn’t freaking the fuck out about CADC. Maybe it would make time pass by less slowly and less agonizingly.

Once the plans were settled, Alfonso and I shook hands and nodded at each other.

“Good luck, Alfonso.” I still had hope for Alfonso, so I thought of this moment as shaking hands and saying goodbye to the old, non-CADC Alfonso. Tomorrow when I would see him, he’d already be a new person.

Asian John followed Alfonso, and Sang and I went back to his dorm to chill. I sat on his bed as he checked his email at his desk. Being the curious hound I was, I tried to milk out every little detail about Sang’s acceptance phone call from CADC. I wanted to understand it enough so that I could live the experience like he did, but Sang fed me scraps. He only shrugged and smiled modestly.

“Fuck Sang! You made it into FUCKING CADC! You’re all going to have a formal dinner Thursday tomorrow and meet your family for the rest of the entire school year and possibly your entire college life! Why aren’t you more excited?” I demanded.

“I got a midterm Friday morning,” he responded coolly.

I sighed and shook my head. If I were him, I’d still be jumping off the walls and shitting in the showers like I was the shit. But instead, here I was. And here Sang was.

Around 10:15, I asked to use his computer to check David Lee’s facebook, and my heart raced as I read posts on his walls. There were congratulatory posts from his friends. Recent. Within the last fifteen minutes. I immediately texted Alfonso to tell him that David Lee just got in, and then I waited. If there was a call coming for me, it’d be coming within an hour.

11:15 came, and I was losing hope. Sang had gone from telling me, “Don’t worry, there’s still time. You’ll get a call!” to “Auditions for MCIA are coming up!”

I lied across his bed and he handed me a TV remote. I flipped through some channels and was temporarily excited to see Scully in big circular lens glasses and holding one of those big bulky 1990 cordless phones. It was the episode with the cockroaches. I watched as Sang recounted details about the drama that Funksters had last year. I don’t know how that came up; maybe he was telling me all that as a way cheering me up. I wouldn’t have to deal with the drama associated with dance crews. Big woohoo.

Around 11:40, I checked my email once again, not expecting much. But a certain email caught my eye. I read the title out loud to Sang: “To CADC Auditionee.”

That was it. I knew I wasn’t in. It definitely wasn’t an acceptance email, because they would only accept dancers by phone. And plus, there was something about the sound of “auditionee.” That eeeeeee sound. It sounded to calm and unexciting. I didn’t hesitate to open the email and read it, as I already knew what was inside. Yep, one fat paragraph of a rejection masked by apologies and cheap comfort words.

Sang waited for my response, but I only shrugged and forced a meek smile.

Examining the email again, I noticed that I could see a list of all of the people who received the email. I skimmed through looking for Kevin and Alfonso’s emails, and I was dismayed to see both of them in the list. I called Alfonso to tell him the news, and I kept it short because I didn’t know how to comfort him. The truth was the truth, and I had always been bad at masking it.

After I hung up, I leaned back and continued watching X-Files.

“Brian, how are you feeling?”

I thought about Sang’s question for a bit. Then I thought about it hard. I looked deep inside myself for an answer, for some soul. In my mind I flashed through three separate times that I should have cried this summer but refused to. That was when I made a stunning revelation that struck me harder than the actual rejection from CADC.

I furrowed my eyebrows and shook my head.

“I don’t feel sad,” I began. “I don’t feel anything at all. Nothing.” I scoffed in disbelief. Nothing.

I had stifled my emotions for so long that I couldn’t even recognize them anymore. Something was wrong with me.

Empathy

Six hours remained until the CADC roster would appear on the website. He still hadn’t received a call, and it was driving him crazy. All he wanted to do was to sit down and wait for it, but now here he was in his Social Dance class, a class that he shared with his Kevin, me, Jojo, a girl who was already in CADC, and Hillary, one of CADC’s team captains.

As he stood next to Hillary waiting for instructions from the teacher, he tried so hard to get into Hillary’s mind and probe it with questions. Is the cabinet still deciding on who to choose? Do you already know the roster? Am I on the roster?

Standing next to her, he instead thought that he might’ve accidentally overheard her telling Jojo how she felt “bad for them.”

His heart sank, and he felt his head run hot as it filled with more questions. Did I hear her right? Who’s she referring to? Kevin, Brian, and me?

The teacher introduced a few news spins, and so, trying to concentrate, he shoved the questions as far back into his mind as he could.

Some time during that class though, he came to accept that the possibility of not getting into CADC was very, very real. As he, Kevin, and I ate in the dining commons after class around 7:30, he explained what he thought he overheard and yelled out, “Fuck! What did we do wrong? The next time I see Hillary, I just want to ask her what we did wrong.”

He waited on us for an answer. There was silence, and then a meek proposition. “CADC likes to screw around with the people they accept,” I said. “Maybe Hillary wanted you to hear to mess with your mind. Or maybe you heard her wrong.”

No, he knew he heard her right.

“Plus, you know David Lee? The really really good short Asian guy with the mohawk who’s definitely going to get in? I’ve been regularly checking his Facebook—stalkerish, I know, but whatever—he still hasn’t gotten a call yet either. So CADC is still in the process of making their calls. Don’t lose hope.”

He looked at me like it was one of the very few things I had ever said that made sense. How strange it was, he thought, to hear “don’t lose hope” from me when that was what he was telling me two weeks ago. So maybe there was still a reason to believe.

After dinner, he and I left Kevin and met up with Asian John to attend a free dance workshop from MCIA, another one of UCI’s dance teams. The main goal was to distract himself, to pass another hour feeling as little pain as possible.

But he couldn’t get into the choreo. It required too much energy and swagger, something that he didn’t have this night. He looked over at me, and we caught each other’s stares. Seeing my empty face and lack of energy, he could tell that I wasn’t in the mood either. He went to the corner and sat down by the staircase, and Asian John and I followed. My friend Sang came over to joined us.

He looked up at Sang and wasn’t too sure what to feel about him. Sang already got a call from CADC while he didn’t. Should he be envious of Sang? Jealous? Angry? Happy? At the very least, he shook Sang’s hand and told him, “Congratulations, man.”

When the workshop finished around 9:30, he, Asian John, Sang, and I stood around outside in the cold discussing what to do. There was a scheduled blackout from 9 to 6 AM at VDC and VDC Norte, the apartments. He had planned on going to Panyia’s place, where there was power and where he was going to meet back up with Kevin and several other friends waiting for their calls from CADC. I, however, seemed intent on going back to Sang’s dorm, so he extended his hand out to me, ready to bid farewell. As I reached out and shook his hand, he nodded at me, and I nodded back.

“Good luck, Alfonso,” I told him.

He and Asian John turned away from Sang and me, and we walked our separate ways.

Shortly after getting to Panyia’s place, he got a text from me saying that David Lee just got an acceptance phone call from CADC. This gave him and Kevin yet more reason to hope, to get excited, and to get nervous. Any one of them could be getting a phone call too in the next few minutes. He prayed for it.

When more minutes passed without hearing his phone ring, he further tried to rationalize why he hadn’t gotten a phone call yet. It could be one of CADC’s pranks: to make two or three more calls five minutes right before putting up the roster. But as the hour hand crawled closer toward 12, the prayers and the rationalizations grew weaker, making more room now for heartacheand self-criticism.

Around 11:45, he had already nearly finished the process of mourning and reached acceptance when his phone rang. With one last shred of hope remaining, he leaped up and reached for his phone, his heart racing. However, it wasn’t the phone call he was hoping for, and it wasn’t the phone call that he would want to hear. As he picked up his phone, he was disappointed to see that the phone call wasn’t coming from anyone on CADC.

“Hey Brian, what’s up?”

“Did you check your email?” I asked him.

“No, why?”

“I got the email,” I sighed. “The rejection email.”

“Oh, that’s too bad.”

“And, well, you know how when the sender sends out a mass email and you can see a list of all the emails he sent it to?”

Fuck, fuck no. He wish he didn’t know what I was talking about, but he saw where this was going. “Yeah,” he answered.

“Your email is on that list. And so is Kevin’s.”

I said it like I was saying something as typical as, “I bought some milk from Albertsons.” I delivered the information so nonchalantly that he didn’t know how to react with anything more than just, “Oh, alright. Thanks for telling me.”

“Sorry man, so I’ll see ya tomorrow or at the next dance workshop?”

“Yeah, sure,” he answered. I hung up, and Alfonso knew that was it. No CADC this year.



At the beginning of the last school year, Alfonso heard that KASA, the Korean American Student Association, was in search of freshmen to join their club and compete in a freshmen dance-off of several Korean clubs from different schools around SoCal. KASA had to put together a dance team comprised only of first-years, and they had to perform a six-minute set. This was just like any other dance competition, except anyone could dance in the team as long as they auditioned for their part and got casted. Alfonso was just getting into breakdancing, but he thought he might give choreo a try. And he was glad he did.

Through KASA, Alfonso got a sense of what being on an actual dance team was like. He met new friends, he learned and cleaned pieces, and he auditioned and got casted for them. As the competition came closer, the directors scheduled “hell week” practices, and that was when he really bonded with his KASA teammates. They practically lived in a parking garage as they practiced through the night until the sun came up. They barely got any sleep, and together they shared their pains and miseries and questioned why the hell they were putting themselves through all this. But in the end, it was worth it when their team won second place.

That sense of family. Seeing all your effort go somewhere. That feeling of performing on stage. The sense of victory (and slight disappointment) when hearing his team name called out. That only came in small doses with KASA, as the KASA dance team existed solely for this once-a-year dance-off competition. Alfonso knew he wanted more. And he was going to do whatever it took to get it.



“I always thought that those who succeeded were the ones who worked hard...I guess it’s still not my turn to shine.”

“The beginning of a whole new year to improve...now where do I start?”

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.]]

Memoria Technica

Around 9 PM, we (me, Alfonso, Kevin, and our other friends Khoa, Tina, and Erica) decided to take a little break from practicing to get some food at Subway. I bought myself a foot long meatball marinara, sat down with my friends, and eagerly unwrapped my dinner. Ignoring the laughter and chatter around me, I feasted my eyes on this twelve-inch marvel before cautiously wrapping my hands around it. Planning each move thoughtfully, I picked it up and brought my face down to it so I could get a closer look at it. The meatballs, looking ready to pop out, stared back at me, and the creamy white cheese seeped down the sides slowly. Where do I start going down on this thing?

I opened my mouth—no—I needed to go wider. I stretched open my jaw. Inching ever so more closely to the meaty monolith, I closed my eyes and soon felt a rough texture brush between my lips and then my tongue.

I savored it. I savored the taste in my mouth. I savored it before I clamped my teeth together and jerked my head and ripped the sandwich away. Chew chew chew, chomp chomp chomp. Once I felt that it was nothing more than some mush in my mouth, I swallowed. Then I took another inch off the sandwich and continued to viciously take off inch after inch.

Bite after bite, I kept on going, barely pausing to talk or rest. But once I realized I could barely breathe anymore, I relaxed. And then I rested my eyes back on the sandwich. I froze. Not from shock, but a sudden wave of emotions. I had realized something.

I was holding the sandwich upside-down.

I gaped at what I was holding in my hands. And then I looked up and opened my mouth to say something, but I couldn’t making anything come out. Everybody was having fun and I didn’t want to bring down anyone’s spirit. And they definitely would’ve heard my voice start to crack if I spoke. I closed my mouth and I turned back to my dinner. It was just a sandwich. Just fucking eat it. I brought it up to my mouth and began to open my mouth, but then I realized that that very motion could now push a tear out from under my eye. I backed my head away from the sandwich and hesitated, trying to recollect myself.

You used to try to feed me my cheeseburgers upside-down, and I would always get annoyed. Remember that? I didn’t really get angry; I’d just kinda playfully whine. “Why can’t you hold the damn burger right?” And then you’d hold it at some other weird angle.

After another minute, I finally swallowed my emotions and continued eating the meatball marinara. But as I ate it, I found myself deep in thought.

What really bothered me was I couldn’t remember when and where you would feed me cheeseburgers. I just know you did a few time at some points, but we almost always ate right there at In-N-Out, right? Did you feed me in the car sometimes? I couldn’t think of any reason why we would be so much in a rush that we’d have to order some to go and eat it as I drove. Or was it even cheeseburgers that you fed me? Maybe it was some other kind of sandwich? I didn’t know. Why did this even matter?

I just really hated that I couldn’t remember, that there were already holes in my memory.



I’m so stressed right now. How many more hours left? Auditions are Monday, and I find out the results Tuesday. Around sixty-five more hours until it’s all over. I can keep myself together.

Around the Kitchen Counter

I didn’t have time to cook salmon, so I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner. Then I went to bed.

Every morning (sometimes afternoon) when I opened my eyes, my first thought would be, “Where the hell am I—oh, yeah.” This on-campus apartment that I sleep in. That’s where I was. I didn’t consider it home; I didn’t think of myself as living there. Even my dorm last year, the one that I tried hard to always be away from, felt more like a home.

Life had been weird here back at school these past two weeks. Each day followed the same routine:

Roll under my 200-thread count sheets and out of extra-long twin-sized bed, sit at my metal-framed wooden desk with a wooden finish, check my messages on Facebook and emails on Gmail, pick off the ants that find their way onto my arm, slam my fist on the ants crawling on my desk, try to pretend that tingling sensation going up my ass hole is NOT another fucking ant, eat a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios with 2% lactaid milk, brush my teeth with Crest Extra Whitening tooth paste (which clearly does not work), shit out dead ants, shower shampoo soap towel-dry moisturize, grab my backpack stuffed with two Five-Star notebooks, and head out.

The UCI bus shuttle stopped right outside my apartment. I’d sit down on the bench, pull out my iPod, find a good song, put it on repeat, and let it play. In the morning, the air would be cool and crisp, but no matter what hour of the day it is, the sun would always be there to beat down on my face with scorching heat. I baked while waiting for the bus, which would always be crowded with students heading to class. I’d seek out an empty seat next to someone who also plugged their ears with earphones—guaranteed no interaction for the entire ride. Just the way I wanted it.

Go to class, lecture, discussion, whatever depending on the day. I had been having trouble wrapping my brain around anything. Lecture hall so-and-so, room number whatever—I was there only because that was where my schedule told me I had to be.

The only time during the day I had really been living was when I was dancing. That, unfortunately, is not the focus of this entry, because this entry is only supposed to bring your spirits down.

After leaving some dance workshops, or a parking garage where I was learning some dance sets, or the gym where I was practicing some dancing, I would walk back to my apartment. It’d be dark and late out, but at least I could enjoy the cool air without baking. The song on my iPod would be the same song I set on repeat earlier in the morning; the only change to what I was hearing would be the sound of my stomach growling.

You know how light floods into a dark room? Well, I felt like when I stood in the lit up hallway right outside my apartment, struggled with my key in the god damn lock, and finally got the door to open, dark shadows would instead flood from inside my apartment and out into the hallway. That might’ve just been my imagination though.

Anyway, once I walked inside and turned on the lights, I rummaged the fridge and cupboards for dinner. Nothing but just a bunch of spices, sauces, dressings—a bunch of flavoring ingredients all contributed by my other three apartment mates—but nothing to actually put them on and eat.

Once again, it came to this.

I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner. Then I went to bed.
Every morning (sometimes afternoon)...

Fuck.

I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner. Then I went to bed.
Every morning (sometimes afternoon)...

I bought some Hamburger Helper today! Let’s make some.

Way too fucking salty. Doesn’t even look like the picture on the box.

Every morning (sometimes afternoon)...

I hated this.

I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner. Then I went to bed.


I don’t know what possessed me, but eventually I worked up the courage to break out of daily routine. Thursday night, I made a homecooked meal. In the freezer, I kept some salmon that I had marinated with stuff I scrounged from the kitchen (minced garlic, that Asian red chili sauce, pepper, and some kind of olive oil vinaigrette). I had also had some spinach and pasta lying around, and I figured they would all go great with each other. There was no recipe to follow; I just went with what felt right, and Kevin and Alfonso were there to help out. What a bromance.

After frying the salmon and throwing on the spinach, Alfonso tossed on the lid, and I was amazed as the pan filled with water and as what I thought was more than enough spinach shrunk to barely enough for the three of us.

Jumping out of the way of the oil splashes as the salmon drops onto the frying pan. Dumping the spinach all over the salmon and wondering how I was going to stir with all that puffy leafy green overflowing. Subsequently being amazed at how much the spinach shrinks. The crackling sounds of frying fish and smothering smell of garlic were all sensations that my kitchen had never experienced prior to this.

The end result was fucking amazing. I plated a lot for myself and ate it like I had eaten nothing for days—or more literally—nothing but peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner for the past week.

The rest of the night was overall just chill and blissful. Kevin, Alfonso, and I enjoyed our (my) homecooked meal quietly sitting on stools at the kitchen counter. Quietly at least until Kevin went off on yet another really long rave about dancing. His topic of the night was the three different types of dancers: the blahblah, the whatever, and the blahblahblah. Alfonso and I exchanged glances as I brought my bowl of pasta to my mouth and shoveled more in. (Really though, I actually like listening to all of Kevin’s rants and raves as they’re pretty insightful.)

About forty minutes passed, and I swallowed the last speck of salmon. Finally, I felt like I was living. After Kevin and Alfonso left and after setting the dishwasher, I climbed into my bed and rested peacefully under the covers that night.

We need more nights like this.

Concourse

Auditions are coming up quickly and I don’t even realize it. This Sunday begins the audition workshops for Common Ground, and the actual audition day is the following Sunday. Immediately the next day, CADC begins their audition workshops, and the audition day is one week from that day.

While I’m the only one audition for Common ground, Kevin, Alfonso, and I are all shooting for CADC. I really want to get into at least one of them, but CADC I guess is the one that is more likely to take people with potential, and potential is all I have.

Well, maybe I’ve actually got some skill. I’ve been a little bit more positive about my dancing. Of all the 11 pieces that I learned since I’ve been here in Irvine (yes, I’ve been cramming in hella workshops), I think I pretty much got 10 of them down okay. That doesn’t mean I’m super clean at them; I just followed the choreographer pretty well. In contrast, in my first ever choreo class, I stumbled on anything that didn’t fall on a beat. Watching recent videos of myself, I can see that I am not as sloppy as I used to be. Still a little sloppy though.

Kevin and I are unsure about ourselves, but we are extremely positive that Alfonso will get in. He’s just fucking amazing now; it’s ridiculous. The three of us took a series of five workshops on Sunday, and he got picked out to be in the select groups for two of them. He puts so much energy, personality, and performance into his dancing that the judges of CADC, who also know of him already, can’t possibly refuse him unless he really really fucks up during his audition.

Being the best choreo dancer out of the three of us, Alfonso has taken up the role as the one to bring up our spirits, especially mine because I have none. Alfonso has a lot of confidence in me, but shit, I don’t know why he does. He has stared me straight in the eye and told me that I’m getting on CADC. It was almost as much of a command as it was a fact, the truth, the certain future. As long as we all stick together, he says, we’ll all get in. I don’t know. He sees more in me than I see in myself; I’m trying not to let him get my hopes up for fear that this all might end like another UCSD, but it is definitely motivating and pushing me more.

I had never worried about disappointing myself if I didn’t make it into a team, but now I worry that Alfonso might be the one that I’d disappoint if I were to get rejected.



Last year, at the first session for Bboys Anonymous (BBA), UCI’s breakdancing club, I remember feeling intimidated watching all the really pro bboys circling up and battling it out. We newbies gathered into a corner, not too sure how to talk to each other because there wasn’t much we could teach each other. I glanced around nervously; people everywhere were pretty much flying through the air or gliding across the ground. It felt like some kinda of epic Star Wars battle scene.

Trying to not look like a sitting duck, I halfheartedly ran through one of the few breakdancing moves I knew well: a six-step.

That was when this white guy sat down next to me. He must’ve recognized that I wasn’t part of the intimidating pro circle, so he felt safe to ask me how I did what I just did. I walked him through the six-step, and he eventually got it down. It wasn’t too clean; his motion was stiff like a second-hand skipping around the clock. We took a break, and he introduced himself to me as Alfonso (and from that I inferred that he was actually Mexican, not white).

That was how I met my first dancer friend. But of course, back then we weren’t dancers, and we weren’t friends. We were acquaintances who attended the BBA sessions, and we bonded over the same interest: getting good at breakdancing.

My only interest was breakdancing, but a few weeks into school, Alfonso started to slightly branch out. He asked me to do join the KASA (Korean American Student Association, a. k. a. the Korean Association of Smoking and Alcohol) dance team to compete in a traditional dance-off among the KASA’s of a bunch of colleges around SoCal. I went to one workshop with him, but I dropped out afterward. Choreo wasn’t for me, I thought.

Alfonso ended up competing with UCI’s KASA, and their team got second place. He went back to breakdancing for a while, but along came winter quarter and the Kaba Modern auditions. He was one of the two (the other being Sam) who told me about the workshops that would eventually get me hooked into choreo.

Starting Spring Quarter and all, Alfonso and I were both aspiring choreo hip hop dancers. Toward the end of that quarter, I could already see Alfonso’s confidence growing, and I didn’t doubt that he would shoot so far fucking ahead of Kevin and me.

I thought to myself, Alfonso and I started at the same time, so why shouldn’t I be as dope of a dancer as he is? Damn.



One thing that is for sure is that if I were to quit dancing because of not getting into a team, I’d disappoint both Alfonso and myself.

Driven

I went to San Francisco today for a class. Got to see some S.I. kids and Funksters for the last time: Isaiah, Crystal, Masato, Jesyca, Tin, Jacqueline.

I was feeling pretty emotional, even if it wasn’t obvious. Then I found out that Tin went to class today just to say bye to me, and so did Isaiah. So that’s just like—I dunno—this makes me feel even more affected, touched, whatever.

Okay, with all attempts at trying to sound masculine and tough aside, I will say that today meant a lot and I will indeed miss the fuck out of all who I met this summer.

I’ll be back for classes in December.



I’m really excited for the school year, and I’m as equally nervous, mainly because auditions are going to come up fast and I question whether or not I’m ready. Frankly, I know I’m not, and whether or not I can kill it at auditions is dependent on luck. I’ve already accepted that I still need a year to train before I can get into a team.

After class, the executive artistic director of Funkanometry, Emerson, was giving some hugs to people as they left. Honestly, he scares me a little, and I was a little surprised when he prompted me to give him a hug too. (Of course it wasn’t like a full out warm hug.) He then said, “You’re going to Irvine, right?” That surprised me even more because I didn’t think he knew me as anyone except the guy who really butchered his piece (Obsessed) at the Summer Intensive showcase, and I was sure he still didn’t know my name.

I said yeah, and then he asked me what teams I was trying out for. I told him, “Everything,” to which he told me quite bluntly, “You still need a lot of practice.” I felt like it was 50% advice, and 50% a sneaky way of telling me that I sucked.

Still, it was a little motivating. When I come back in December, I’ll prove myself (hopefully), and if not, I’ll at least show some tremendous improvement.

---
“A Return to Normalcy”
Written June 13th, 2009 (Excerpted)
Later that night, after a Mike Song dance class, I had one last Pho run with my Kevin, Alfonso, and non-black John...After dinner, I drove us all back to UCI. As I was dropping off Alfonso, he gave me a corny but unusually empowering speech. Take a picture of this moment, here I am a noob, but compare, by the end of the summer, I’ll be a dope dancer. It went something like that. I’m really excited for this summer.
---

K, so I’m not a dope dancer yet. Give me the fall, at least.

Alfonso actually texted me about a week ago about the Mainstacks audition video, and he told me that I “improved exponentially.” That was actually validating. Getting casted into Fire was validating until I de-validated it, but I haven’t found a way to do the same to Alfonso’s comment. It really meant a lot, especially since Alfonso knew me when I first started choreo.

People in the dance community are just all around amazing in general, and I can’t wait to be reunited in SoCal.

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.

Back in Irvine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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



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