Runaway: Part 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You don’t think he’s—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I froze.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

XY Attraction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

“Hey Brian,” Peter said.

“Mhm?” My mouth was full.

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

I looked up from my food. “What?”

“You’re gay, aren’t you?”

“What the hell? No I’m not!”

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

Thanks Cameron.

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

Don’t Stop Believin’

Soooooo, auditions for MCIA are tomorrow. They’re a non-competitive dance group, but nonetheless they’re still dope and they’re a great opportunity for growth and making friends.

I don’t know how I feel about the three audition pieces and my group performances, but I’m not panicking. After this blog I’ll be practicing for sure though until late and some more tomorrow before the auditions.

Really though, I just want...I just want it...to be...yes, over. I want it to be over. I’ve said that phrase probably like a million times the last four weeks regarding auditions for Common Ground, CADC, and MCIA. And another million times the week leading up to the Funksters Summer Intensive Showcase.

I’ve said it so many times that I don’t even really know what I mean by it because, in reality, it’s never over. It never ends and I know it. If I don’t get into MCIA, I know dance is still going to fucking rule my life and I’m going to continue emptying my wallet and sacrificing school for it (but hopefully to a less degree because I need to not get on academic probation). And if it’s not dance that will be bugging me all the time, it’ll be something else. I don’t give myself breaks, and even if I try to, the world will just throw something else at me.

---
“What the Hell Can I do?”
Written December 26th, 2004 (Excerpted)

[Should I call] 911? Slim’s in fact planning on doing illegal things (breaking and entering... planning to destroy [a lot of shit]) and terrorizing people. But it’s just getting involved a police case that already sounds hard. And then ~I’m afraid~ that Slim may so stupidly and absentmindedly think I betrayed him for the worst and start trying to mess up by [fucking with] me the same way he did with Miranda.

I’m basically stuck with the burden of this knowledge, all this knowledge on my shoulders, and I want a dump it somewhere, like on the police. But I’m not to sure how I can without too much complications. Maybe I can’t get out of this with too many complications. There’s no easy way out anymore.

---
“Just some small news...”
Written December 27th, 2004 (Excerpted)

I’ll be lacking some transportation to places (such as the mall) for a few weeks.

A thing I didn’t mention was that on Sunday [the day of “What the Hell Can I do”], when my brother was on the way to the mall to pick me up, he got in a car accident. >.> It was around 5:45, and it was pretty dark and rainy and wet. I shouldn’t go into much detail, but the accident happened because another person just had to run a red light on Leen when my brother was already going through an intersection (Leen and Santa Teresa), which was already green on Santa Teresa.

Bam. The car was totally totaled, especially the right passenger side and the back too. Good thing the only person in the car was my brother, and no one else got hurt/exploded.

---
“That Silly Santa”
Written December 28th, 2004 (Excerpted)

[During dinner at home with my family,] when my attention was turned to the TV, I heard some plates shattering, and I thought my stupid ol’ dad dropped some plates, but before I could fully turn around to see what was happening, I heard more shatters. I turned around to face absolute shock. The dishwasher rack was apparently slightly stuck or something, but my dad took out all his anger and completely forced the rack back in with all his puny weak Asian might and caused some massive dish damage. Then with a few more cups in his hand he just hurled it with all his fury into the dishwasher, causing more glass breaking. At this point, my mom and my brother and I were just like, “WTF?!” and my dad reached for the glass of orange juice (which he freshly squeezed just for us before dinner) and was about to add it to the shattered glass collection but my brother yanked it out in time.

Then my mom and dad started bitching, and it was mainly a blur from there. Vietnamese words I never heard before were thrown in with some “Stop it!”’s But the craziest part was when my brother joined in. Never before had he done anything, and neither had I. Usually we just sat there eating our dinner tuning it all at, but today, my brother took off. He yelled “Stop it! Both of you shut up!” and other stuff like that at the top of his lungs. His efforts were vain, as they kept on going off. Finally, my dad went upstairs to his and my mom’s room, and my brother followed. Up there I heard stuff from my dad like, “SHUT UP YOU BITCH!” and, “I can throw you out of your house right now!” (Though I believe American law says that you can’t truly ban a child from the house until he or she is 18. Maybe it’s different in fucking shitty Vietnam.)

After things went quiet upstairs, my brother came back down, and he went on about how annoying it is when my mom and my dad fought. Everytime it’s so annoying. That left my mom in silence, and he finished his dinner and went upstairs. Then I finished my dinner and went upstairs. At that point, my dad was in his room, all the lights turned off, bedroom doors wide open, and the TV on with the highest possible volume setting. Probably so my dad could pay attention to something else, and also to piss of my mom because he knows she gets horribly bad migraines from loud noise.

Then my mom went shopping, and I started typing this entry.
---

Yeah. Don’t even get me started on the Decembers of 2005 and 2006 and the winters that followed.

All in all, I don’t let myself get comfortable. (Though I’m glad to say that the things that are keeping me from getting comfortable presently are rather positive as opposed to all the shit in December 2004.)

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.]]

Soul in the Hole

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

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

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

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

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

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

My parents can't accept me, but they reassure me that they will still always love me no matter what. What total fucking bullshit.
---

The Funksters summer intensive performance was yesterday. I don’t have much to say. I messed up pretty badly going into a part of a piece because I could barely hear anything but the bass on stage, so I ended up missing my cue in the music. When I realized I had to already be up there, I ran but tripped getting there. Oops. It’s pretty noticeable in the video. Among many other things that I really need to fix. I take comfort in looking for other dancers who messed up. There are a lot:


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alone

Thursday, August 27th.

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

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

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

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

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

I exhausted the list quickly.

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

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

I don’t remember what I dreamed about.

Friday, August 28th.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Luh Moar Jwayuh

Hot mess.

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

“Le Mort Joyeux”
Charles Baudelaire

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amor Fati

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

“To avoid someone.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah,” I muttered.

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

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

Gotta love fate.

Five Years Ago

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Family Disappointment

What did I think of the piece I learned yesterday?

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



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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I've told my parents. I will tell my brother when I wake up later if my parents don't tell him first. Don't have to worry about the [Oakridge] crew because they've known for a long time. Peter, Miranda, John, Jion: Thanks for helping me through this.
---

(By the way, never come out to your parents on a holiday or during the holiday season. Do not follow my example.)

Owned by a Bunch of Homos

On Saturday, Funksters casted (had mini-auditions) for two song pieces, both of which I liked, and both of which I did not get into.

I was thoroughly upset, but I understood why and I wasn’t too surprised either.

Watching videos of myself doing these pieces, I can still see that I have the same problems that I had since I started dancing: weird posture, which leads to overall weird form. And I could see that all the dancers who did get casted had normal/good posture (though other aspects of their dancing were really questionable). I’ve had bad posture all my life, and my whole family would continuously nag me about it. But I would always think, “If it really matters, then I can fix it later.” And now it matters.

I’ve been pretty good about standing up and sitting down and just chilling because all that doesn’t require a lot of thinking. I can use like ten percent of my thought process to frequently remind myself to adjust my posture and stand up straight, but when I dance, one hundred percent of my thought process completely goes into the dance. That’s where my posture fails and I look like I’m flailing around. I still need to make good posture come naturally to me somehow.



After each casting, the directors would work with the casted dancers to set up stage formations. I sat with the rest of the uncasted brooding silently.

For each piece I didn’t get casted in, I felt like how I did back then when I lost a DDR tournament. I know it seems ridiculous to compare DDR with actual dancing, but with dancing it’s the same emotion: feeling that I suck at doing something I love.

There are four pieces left to be casted, and I need to work my ass off to get into them. Breakthrough is officially over, so I have all my week to practice like hell. And I WILL get casted in at least one piece, and that will be the shit.

---
“Owned by a Homo”
Written February 18th, 2006 (Excerpted)

[[Some background info: A good part of my life (June 2001-2007ish) was dedicated to four-panel stomping games, a.k.a. Dance Dance Revolution, a.k.a. DDR, and its spin-off, In the Groove, a.k.a. ITG. Nowadays when you go to an arcade, you might see someone “really” good going so fast that you’re wondering if they just memorized that shit. (The answer is no, they didn’t.) But back then, there was a lot more to DDR/ITG. There were communities, friendships, and tournaments. And I was involved in all of that.

[[The most popular place to play in the bay area was probably MGL (Milpitas Golf Land), which was home to a lot of DDR/ITG tournaments and memories, from long days of non-stop DDR/ITG to drunken vomiting messes. This particular entry is about an ITG tournament at MGL (sorry, drunken vomiting incident is for another time). I edited this entry heavily to eliminate a lot of ITG lingo and nitty gritty details about the tournaments, but there is still a bunch of shit that all you not-so-nerdy people won’t understand.]]

So there was a lot of pressure on me on the third song. If Mark won this song, he would win the whole tournament. If I still wanted to win, I had to beat Mark on this song, the song after that, and the song after that. For this match, Mark chose “This is Rock And Roll” and I stuck with the four forced mods. It was a close match, and I ended up winning.

So for my fourth, I decided on, of course, “Out of the Dark” Expert. (I've been whoring the Hard and Expert charts of that song way too much.) Mark drew like a million extra mod again, and they were c450, Hide Targets, Blender, Stream, Incoming, Robot, and... Great Attack. Actually, it's easier to get Greats because the timing window for Greats isn't as small as the timing window for Excellents. I was kinda happy with Great Attack because I'm pretty damn good at it, added to the fact that “Out of the Dark” is my song and I would not tolerate being humiliated by losing on my own song. I fucking won that song: My 400 Greats to Mark's 225 Greats.

So damn, I got to the tiebreaker in a best-3-out-of-5 round. It was definitely looking like a close match. The last song was “Walking on Fire” Expert, and the speed modifier 1x was forced, which really sucked because most charts are like impossible to read on 1x. Me and Mark added Accel to make it a little easier, but somewhere in the middle Mark totally fucked up and I pulled ten percent ahead of him and won [HELL YES!]

This comment that Andrew made a few weeks ago is funny. ("LOOKS LIKE SOMEBODY ISN'T WINNING A TOURNAMENT ON THE 18th.") Why is it so funny? Because I did win the tournament... Oh shit, I won Got Skill^2, Mark's ITG2 tournament at MGL [bitches].

I got $132 cash and a RedOctane Metal Pad; that's a $332 cash valued prize. [FUCK YEAH!]

It's also funny because just a few entries back I was talking how bad I would do at the tournament. [SURPRISE!]

[[Somewhere in my winning speech, I cheered out, “OWNED BY A HOMO, BITCHES,” hence the title of this entry.]]

So after getting my $132 and putting the metal pad away in John's car, we chilled for a bit at MGL. [After doing a bunch of stuff] I ended up at Red Lobster at the end of the day [with John, Peter, Miranda, Hoodie, and Andrew]. There, we wrecked havoc and killed the family theme. (Talked about penises, vaginas, sex, all the usual stuff. Among all the talk about sex and ITG, John stopped to ponder out loud, "What do normal people talk about?" That is a good question.)

So after dinner, we all went home. I'm still like in "wow" mode because I just won my first tournament today [after failing miserable in four or five of them within the prior two years], and I never expected that my first win would be a mod tournament [!!!!]

[[I think I failed to convey my true excitement in my entry, because I know that whole entire evening I was thinking, “OH MY FUCKING GOD YESSSSSSSSSSSSS!!”]]

White People

Race plays a prominent role at Breakthrough, whether or not that makes some people uncomfortable. Regardless, it is as tricky to work with as it is necessary to acknowledge.

Before I started working at Breakthrough last summer, I’ve always believed that all students of all different ethnicities should be looked at as equals and treated no differently from each other. Okay, that’s still pretty true for me. But I used to believe, and I still think a lot of teachers today believe, that, as way of making a completely perfect world, everyone must be colorblind. Colorblindness is key.

All that matters is your education. Your grades. I don’t need to think of your race when I teach you. I don’t need to acknowledge it. All that’s bullshit reasoning now.



90% of Breakthrough students are of color. 79% are Latino. 68% receive free or reduced lunch. And 77% speak English as a second language.

In my writing class two weeks ago, we read excerpts from The Bluest Eye, and of course, race issues came up. However, that discussion went a direction that I didn’t expect it to go.

My students hate white people. And since there were no white students in my Block C, they didn’t feel any reason to not shout it out and declare it with so much rigidness, a rigidness that could only be supported by their past experiences.



Yesterday, Wednesday, Breakthrough had a field trip day, “Occupational Career Day.” While some large groups got some pretty cool places to go to, such as Google, Yahoo, and Adobe, I had a small group of three students, and I had to take them to the San Jose Water Company. Great.

On the bus ride there—okay, first thing’s first. I made my group board the bus going in the wrong direction. Oops. One of my students, let’s call him Cecil, who is also a student from my Block C class (irony: his pseudonym is a white name), kept on thinking out loud, “I think we’re going the wrong direction.” It wasn’t until he said with confidence, “Alright, I know we’re going the wrong direction.”

The bus driver confirmed it, and we got off. I thought the kids were going to kill me and hate me for the rest of the day, but once we got on the right bus, things were going smoothly again.

This particularly bus was driving around in the area of Valley Fair Mall and Santana Row (the rich people land that I referred to in the previous entry), so I brought up Valley Fair. Cecil told me this story:

“One time, my dad brought me to Valley Fair, but before getting out of our car, he asked me, ‘Do you think you can handle this?’ I didn’t think there was nothing to be afraid of, so I said yeah. When I went inside, I got scared. I couldn’t handle it. I made my dad drive me to Oakridge Mall instead.”

When I asked him what he was so afraid of, he responded, “White people.”

Why all the hate for white people? I knew. And I felt for him. It wasn’t hard to fill in the gaps.

---
“Ironically, I think none of this would’ve happened if…” (Excerpted)
Written on March 28th, 2006

I go out to Oakridge at least twice a week and come home anywhere between 10 and 12. My mom does not utter any single sign of protest at all, so I was always thinking, "Cool, I have the best Asian mom ever."

I've finally had to have my brother call me while I'm away at some key club event whatever and listen to him as he explains that my mom would, walk into his room, tears streaming down her cheeks, and explode with random shit about how she's so afraid that I'm really smoking pot with the true Mexicans and Blacks that Peter and John are.

So at this point, I've had two things that have really been bothering me about my mom:
-She still has a problem with Peter, John, and Miranda, the Mexican, Black, and White, respectively. I've tried so fucking much to show my mom that they're not a bad influence: I had them over for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I told her about how we've eaten dinner at the Cheesecake Factory and how Peter paid for my dinner. I'm constantly telling her, "Yeah, John's driving me," or, "Yeah, Miranda's driving me."—no fucking car accident to date. And of course, every weekend: "I'm at the mall with John, Peter, and Miranda." My mom must actually be that fucking stupid to not be able to determine that I'm perfectly sober each time I come home after a day at the mall with those three.

So my brother tells me that she told him that she would rather have him hang out with his friends, who amazingly enough, are all Asian. Here, my mom also managed to contradict herself. A while back, she told me she thought Miranda was weird (in whatever worst way possible) because she was some White 18-year-old and was still hanging out with 15-year-olds like me. But what the fuck, my mom would rather have my brother's Asian friends (18-19) take me out?

But my mom says she's perfectly cool with Peter, John, and Miranda being Mexican, Black, and White. Really Really? My fucking ass.

My mom so desperately cries, "Why aren't you the nice little boy that you were when you were 9?" Well, I grew, I became less naïve, and I was finally able to see all the gaping holes in my parents' logic.
---

And three years later, after having gazed into those “gaping holes” for so long, I now know how they got there.