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.
Embers
Thursday, September 24, 2009
I walked in late—well, no—the teacher started early. Either way, it felt like I had aimlessly wandered into a political rally for some trite issue I never bothered to understand, such as animal rights. But no, I was at the right place: Humanities Hall, Room 118, French100A Grammar and Composition.
I took a seat next to a wall to rest my head on while the teacher’s French vomit flew way past my head. Actually, I tried to understand, but nonetheless I could barely pick up any words. Every once in a while I heard a number, or maybe an English phrase pronounced with a French accent (but I guess those don’t count). No—I understood more than that; I am exaggerating a little bit, but am I at least getting the point across to you that I am hating this? The fact that I’m not taking one, but two French classes? That I’ve already spent close to $150 on a bunch of French books?
No—again—I need to stop myself and breathe. It’s only been one day. I’ve only had to sit through French for one hour and twenty minutes. I need to give this a chance. Even though I haven’t uttered more than one sentence of French for more than half a year (except for maybe, “My name is Brian”), I may still have a few embers within me struggling for air, and maybe this daily exposure to French will rekindle them. Yes, there’s still a chance that I won’t switch my major. There’s still a chance that I won’t stay in college for an extra year. There’s still a chance that I won’t give up my pride.
---
“Qui Je Suis” [“Who I Am”]
Written September 15th, 2007 (Excerpted)
A few days before the start of my senior year, I was eating dinner with my family when my mom asked me, “So Brian, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
I immediately answered, “I don’t know;” those three words shot from my mouth like a reflex. I continued to fire out curt no’s in response to all of my mom’s suggestions: “A dentist? An ophthalmologist? A pharmacist? How about an engineer? A computer scientist? Maybe a financial manager? Well, then what could you possibly become? Those are all the popular money makers. You can’t just be nothing.”
“I don’t know,” I repeated again. The truth was I actually knew what I wanted to be: a French teacher. My future career had been a definite and clear desire since the beginning of my junior year in high school. I had never been so passionate about a school subject except for French. Sciences made me sick, computers confused me, and math drove me mad. French was one of the only few subjects I still cared about. Unlike the money-hungry students and parents who only see the pots of gold at the end of education, I was more concerned with waking up every morning to a fulfilling job.
While I did know that this kind of career was one that I was passionate about, I was still nervous about pursuing it because I would be going against the norms of not just my immediately family, but also all of my relatives. My mom, dad, older cousins, uncles, and aunts all followed the same pattern to get to their current careers. The pattern began with all of their parents preaching and drilling in their heads with broken English, “America have many opportunity; find good job; make lotta money.” Being no different, my brother was currently on the same path as a managerial economics major in UC Davis. Their American dream was locked onto a high-paying job preceding retirement as soon as possible, but I was set on detouring from the $100-bill-lined road straight to “happiness.” (Ironically however, three of my cousins all majored in big money-making fields, but they wound up running their own separate Bagel shops after finishing college. More funnily enough, my brother had a part-time job working for one of them.)
I was planning to keep my career goals a complete secret to my entire family, even if that meant a lot of lying. I hadn’t started my college applications yet, but if there was a way I could hide the check marks under the section for choosing majors or a way that allowed me to keep my parents from seeing my college applications, I would take it. If I could, I would finally tell them about my hopes for the future when I turned twenty-three and had just returned home after my first day teaching class.
[...]
Hopefully though, the shock wouldn’t be as bad as I had thought. I was trying to soften the blow by giving my parents what I had hoped were some clear hints as to what I wanted to be. They knew that I dropped Physics AP, the more academically savvy class, because it conflicted with French 4. A pile of French study guides greeted them every time they entered my room. I was taking an optional semiweekly French class at San Jose City College purely for my enrichment, while my friend Kathleen was taking it because she did choose Physics AP over French 4. As for indicating that I wanted to be a teacher, I turned down a job at my cousin’s bagel job for a job at SCORE! Educational Centers. Working for my cousin would’ve paid more, and it would’ve required no effort getting hired, but I opted to teach children instead.
Whether or not my parents catch the hints or ever accept that I was out to pursue my own dreams, not theirs, nothing could ever change my goal to become a French teacher. I had tried to never think too far ahead into the future, but I couldn’t help but realize that there were two definite outcomes: I would teach French in high school, and I would raise my own child. (I don’t even picture having my own guy.) A gay French teacher—compared to the rest of my family and relatives, it looked like I would be the one cynically raising my middle finger in a professional family portrait.
My Life
Saturday, September 19, 2009
I’ve always wanted to be the French teacher—the one with kickass lesson plans and students who only wanted to speak French in class. This was my dream. I had spent my high school years shaping and obsessing over this dream that I had convinced myself that this was my destiny. But French has all gone to hell now, hasn’t it?
I still want to be a teacher; I just don’t know what subject.
About three weeks ago, I sent an email to one of my Breakthrough students. She still hasn’t responded. I’m not too surprised. I feel like I’ve let my students down; promises of continued contact and updates on my life through blogging have all failed.
What if I can’t even be the teacher I want to be? The classroom, the students, the knowledge to impart—I want that all because all that comes with being a teacher by default. Beyond the default, I hope to be the teacher that students look up to, get advice from, and laugh with, and the teacher whose class they look forward to every day. But what if I can’t do that? What if I suck at teaching? What if I come off as arrogant, as that teacher who tries too hard to be everyone’s friend?
Shaping my own destiny is hard enough when fate long ago decided to make me one of the fucking lucky 4% of the population that is gay. There are so many aspects of my life that I wish could be predetermined, but the sole thing that is predetermined, ironically, is the last thing that I would ever want to be predetermined: the fact that I am gay and will continue to be gay for the rest of my life. Gotta love fate.
Fuck fate.
I am my own fucking god, and there is no greater deity than my mind. My future and aspirations—I may give them the fancy name of “destiny,” and the coincidences that happen to have big effects—“fate.” But life is so ridiculously random that I can barely give any meaning to it sometimes. It feels nice to think of my hopes for the future as destiny and to attribute everything else to fate, to say that some force has this idea for where my life is going because I certainly don’t. That’s more comforting than saying that my life is aimlessly tumbling along as I live it.
But fuck comfort too. I don’t let myself get comfortable.
Maybe I could become the best French teacher in the world and maybe all my dreams could come true. Maybe I’ll become one sad pathetic shell of a person who never grows up. There’s the best outcome, and then there’s the worst outcome; I hope for something in between, but it’s hard to not expect the worst, especially when it’s what I see less hazily in the horizon right now.
---
3:10. The sound of the bell’s loud droning cut me off mid-sentence, and my students didn’t waste any time to reach for their backpacks and shoot to their feet.
“Hold up!” I shouted over the shuffling.
Their blank expressions gazed back at me.
“I’m not done yet,” I said, rather meekly. I glanced over at all of their long, bored faces, clear indicators that they wanted to be out of here. It had been a long class. A long day. “Alright,” I sighed, “we’ll continue tomorrow. You guys can head out. Don’t forget about your essays.”
I watched over my thirty-four students as they scuffled out the door. When the last one was gone, I sat back down at my desk, from where I tossed down my tie and surveyed my empty classroom.
An occasional motivational poster or a few crinkled essays from past years blotted the pale white walls. A ceiling light in the corner flickered until it finally died.
I brought my attention back to my desk when I noticed a folded post-it note staring at me from atop a pile of one-month old ungraded essays. Picking it up, I unfolded it and read the message scribbled inside: do you ever check ratemyteachers.com mr dinh? your not really the shit as much as you think you are.
I knew the handwriting.
I knew what ratemyteachers.com said about me.
I didn’t give a shit.
Around 4, I headed over to the school’s dance studio to choreograph for my weekly night class. I had to come up with something really amazing because my boss was coming in to observe my class this week. He had informed me that my work needed “validation,” based on some bullshit complaints that I had been using extremely similar choreo only set to different songs for the last three weeks.
5 o’clock came, and I had only accomplished getting my dress shirt soaked with sweat. I had wasted an hour figuring out how to move to music—as in, I was only moving parts of my body while music played in the background. I wasn’t actually dancing, so I gave up and took the bus home.
On the bus, I questioned myself. Why was I still doing this? Still dancing? My inspiration had run dry a long time ago. Maybe it was time to move on. This was a dream that I chased way too far, literally, and I had gotten nothing out of it. I only got losses. I had to stop wasting my life away; I wasn’t going to become any famous celebrity’s backup dancer anytime soon. It was time to grow up.
Around 5:30, I got back to my apartment, mail in hand. I trudged through the hypebeast graveyard that was my one-and-a-half bedroom apartment. LRG, Stussy, Johnny Cupcakes, Kid Robot, Upper Playground, Freshjive, Insight, New Era, Nike SB, Supra—they all lay on the carpet faded and dead, only to be brought back to life as zombies when I would shed my business attire and went out at night.
I let a voice message play from my message recorder as I sat down at the kitchen counter and sorted through the mail. The shrillness of my mom’s voice raided my apartment, but I promptly zone it out. We hadn’t talked since the day I left, but ever since my dad’s funeral, which I did not attend, she had been trying to reach me. If only I knew how to block her number on my home phone too.
I flipped through the mail some more, finding nothing but Penny Saver coupons, credit card ads, clothing newsletters—I froze. My mail slipped through my fingers and onto the floor, leaving one envelope behind.
This was the letter.
I clasped it with my hands at its edges. I stared at it so intensely that the envelope might’ve burst into flames right there. My heart was racing. I had to calm down.
I cautiously laid the envelope down on the counter, went to my fridge, and came back with vodka and expired orange juice. Took a shot and chased it.
I gently scooped up the envelope and held it before me. As though I was caressing it, I ran my fingertips down its side, careful not to bend it, not to bruise it, and gradually, I brought it up to my face and kissed it lightly. I let the smell of it linger under my nose, and then I lowered it back down and pressed it firmly against my heart. I slowly closed my eyes and began moving my lips. I prayed.
6:30. I had downed another shot, peed, taken a dump, organized all my dunks into their respective shoeboxes, wandered around my apartment a dozen times, and now here I was sitting by the window, vodka and orange juice on the lamp table next to me, and the envelope in my lap, unopened. I couldn’t open it. I figured that maybe I should just burn the envelope, but no, there was one thing left that I hadn’t tried yet.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cell phone. I hit speed dial, and I immediately got his voicemail.
“Hey, don’t delete this message—” I hesitated. “Please...just listen to what I have to say first. Um, I know we’re not on talking terms right now, I don’t blame you, but...it’s here.”
I held up the letter in front of me to make sure, for the hundredth time, that it really was here. “It’s here, the letter from the adoption agency, about whether or not I’ve been approved. Whether or not I can get my kid. And I uh,” I paused to swallow my tears. I couldn’t let him know that I was and had been a mess.
“I-I can’t open it. This is too hard. I need you with me, just for this. I can’t open it without you.”
I said the words. The hard part was over. I breathed a small sigh of relief, and then I continued. “I’ll meet you at Oakridge, in our secret spot. I’m going to leave now, and if traffic isn’t too terrible on 101-South, I should be there in about an hour and a half.”
I hung up and sighed again. After pouring myself another shot of vodka, I gazed out the window. As I squinted, my eyes locked in on a glimmer far off into the distance. The night sky was settling in, and just beyond the horizon, the noble red towers of the Golden Gate Bridge fought resiliently to shine through the blue evening fog.
I still want to be a teacher; I just don’t know what subject.
About three weeks ago, I sent an email to one of my Breakthrough students. She still hasn’t responded. I’m not too surprised. I feel like I’ve let my students down; promises of continued contact and updates on my life through blogging have all failed.
What if I can’t even be the teacher I want to be? The classroom, the students, the knowledge to impart—I want that all because all that comes with being a teacher by default. Beyond the default, I hope to be the teacher that students look up to, get advice from, and laugh with, and the teacher whose class they look forward to every day. But what if I can’t do that? What if I suck at teaching? What if I come off as arrogant, as that teacher who tries too hard to be everyone’s friend?
Shaping my own destiny is hard enough when fate long ago decided to make me one of the fucking lucky 4% of the population that is gay. There are so many aspects of my life that I wish could be predetermined, but the sole thing that is predetermined, ironically, is the last thing that I would ever want to be predetermined: the fact that I am gay and will continue to be gay for the rest of my life. Gotta love fate.
Fuck fate.
I am my own fucking god, and there is no greater deity than my mind. My future and aspirations—I may give them the fancy name of “destiny,” and the coincidences that happen to have big effects—“fate.” But life is so ridiculously random that I can barely give any meaning to it sometimes. It feels nice to think of my hopes for the future as destiny and to attribute everything else to fate, to say that some force has this idea for where my life is going because I certainly don’t. That’s more comforting than saying that my life is aimlessly tumbling along as I live it.
But fuck comfort too. I don’t let myself get comfortable.
Maybe I could become the best French teacher in the world and maybe all my dreams could come true. Maybe I’ll become one sad pathetic shell of a person who never grows up. There’s the best outcome, and then there’s the worst outcome; I hope for something in between, but it’s hard to not expect the worst, especially when it’s what I see less hazily in the horizon right now.
---
3:10. The sound of the bell’s loud droning cut me off mid-sentence, and my students didn’t waste any time to reach for their backpacks and shoot to their feet.
“Hold up!” I shouted over the shuffling.
Their blank expressions gazed back at me.
“I’m not done yet,” I said, rather meekly. I glanced over at all of their long, bored faces, clear indicators that they wanted to be out of here. It had been a long class. A long day. “Alright,” I sighed, “we’ll continue tomorrow. You guys can head out. Don’t forget about your essays.”
I watched over my thirty-four students as they scuffled out the door. When the last one was gone, I sat back down at my desk, from where I tossed down my tie and surveyed my empty classroom.
An occasional motivational poster or a few crinkled essays from past years blotted the pale white walls. A ceiling light in the corner flickered until it finally died.
I brought my attention back to my desk when I noticed a folded post-it note staring at me from atop a pile of one-month old ungraded essays. Picking it up, I unfolded it and read the message scribbled inside: do you ever check ratemyteachers.com mr dinh? your not really the shit as much as you think you are.
I knew the handwriting.
I knew what ratemyteachers.com said about me.
I didn’t give a shit.
Around 4, I headed over to the school’s dance studio to choreograph for my weekly night class. I had to come up with something really amazing because my boss was coming in to observe my class this week. He had informed me that my work needed “validation,” based on some bullshit complaints that I had been using extremely similar choreo only set to different songs for the last three weeks.
5 o’clock came, and I had only accomplished getting my dress shirt soaked with sweat. I had wasted an hour figuring out how to move to music—as in, I was only moving parts of my body while music played in the background. I wasn’t actually dancing, so I gave up and took the bus home.
On the bus, I questioned myself. Why was I still doing this? Still dancing? My inspiration had run dry a long time ago. Maybe it was time to move on. This was a dream that I chased way too far, literally, and I had gotten nothing out of it. I only got losses. I had to stop wasting my life away; I wasn’t going to become any famous celebrity’s backup dancer anytime soon. It was time to grow up.
Around 5:30, I got back to my apartment, mail in hand. I trudged through the hypebeast graveyard that was my one-and-a-half bedroom apartment. LRG, Stussy, Johnny Cupcakes, Kid Robot, Upper Playground, Freshjive, Insight, New Era, Nike SB, Supra—they all lay on the carpet faded and dead, only to be brought back to life as zombies when I would shed my business attire and went out at night.
I let a voice message play from my message recorder as I sat down at the kitchen counter and sorted through the mail. The shrillness of my mom’s voice raided my apartment, but I promptly zone it out. We hadn’t talked since the day I left, but ever since my dad’s funeral, which I did not attend, she had been trying to reach me. If only I knew how to block her number on my home phone too.
I flipped through the mail some more, finding nothing but Penny Saver coupons, credit card ads, clothing newsletters—I froze. My mail slipped through my fingers and onto the floor, leaving one envelope behind.
This was the letter.
I clasped it with my hands at its edges. I stared at it so intensely that the envelope might’ve burst into flames right there. My heart was racing. I had to calm down.
I cautiously laid the envelope down on the counter, went to my fridge, and came back with vodka and expired orange juice. Took a shot and chased it.
I gently scooped up the envelope and held it before me. As though I was caressing it, I ran my fingertips down its side, careful not to bend it, not to bruise it, and gradually, I brought it up to my face and kissed it lightly. I let the smell of it linger under my nose, and then I lowered it back down and pressed it firmly against my heart. I slowly closed my eyes and began moving my lips. I prayed.
6:30. I had downed another shot, peed, taken a dump, organized all my dunks into their respective shoeboxes, wandered around my apartment a dozen times, and now here I was sitting by the window, vodka and orange juice on the lamp table next to me, and the envelope in my lap, unopened. I couldn’t open it. I figured that maybe I should just burn the envelope, but no, there was one thing left that I hadn’t tried yet.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cell phone. I hit speed dial, and I immediately got his voicemail.
“Hey, don’t delete this message—” I hesitated. “Please...just listen to what I have to say first. Um, I know we’re not on talking terms right now, I don’t blame you, but...it’s here.”
I held up the letter in front of me to make sure, for the hundredth time, that it really was here. “It’s here, the letter from the adoption agency, about whether or not I’ve been approved. Whether or not I can get my kid. And I uh,” I paused to swallow my tears. I couldn’t let him know that I was and had been a mess.
“I-I can’t open it. This is too hard. I need you with me, just for this. I can’t open it without you.”
I said the words. The hard part was over. I breathed a small sigh of relief, and then I continued. “I’ll meet you at Oakridge, in our secret spot. I’m going to leave now, and if traffic isn’t too terrible on 101-South, I should be there in about an hour and a half.”
I hung up and sighed again. After pouring myself another shot of vodka, I gazed out the window. As I squinted, my eyes locked in on a glimmer far off into the distance. The night sky was settling in, and just beyond the horizon, the noble red towers of the Golden Gate Bridge fought resiliently to shine through the blue evening fog.
Tags:
dancing,
dream,
family,
french,
future,
oakridge,
relationships,
spirituality,
summer 2009,
teaching
My Lie
Friday, September 18, 2009
You can’t spell “life” without “lie.”
This doesn’t mean that three-fourths of a life is all lies, but it does suggest that lies do somehow play a big part in a life. The lies in our lives are delusions; they come in the form of goals, dreams, wishes, and prayers. They give us direction and reassurance that we are accomplishing something or that we still have something to work toward. They keep us hopeful and positive in a time when all hell is breaking loose. Some goals, dreams, wishes, and prayers paint the perfect reflection of reality, but many reflect it only enough to fill the holes in our lies.
Live the lie. It feels comforting.
---
3:05. The sound of the bell sang through my classroom, but not a thing stirred. The entire class could not tear their eyes away from the two boys standing in the front. They both clenched their eyes shut as they racked their brains for an answer. Behind them, the white board displayed the current score: “Groupe A : 48. Groupe B : 48.” I sat at my desk, slowly rocking in my chair, waiting for one of them to speak up.
“Une réponse?” I asked, but my question didn’t seem to reach either of them.
Suddenly, one of their faces lit up, and feeling as though he had already won, he slammed his fist against the whiteboard and bellowed out, “Dormir dans l’oubli comme—”
“Oui.”
Half the class—that’s 18 students—burst into cheering and shouting as they shot out of their chairs and ambushed their teammate at the whiteboard. The other half sat in their chairs, sulking as they put away their books and packed their backpacks.
It took me another two minutes to calm down the screaming students and to get them back in their seats. After reminding them of their upcoming test, I let them go.
The students and noise now gone, I sat back down at my desk and surveyed my classroom. Festive Mardi Gras masks, colorful storybooks, and detailed posters about French artists plastered my classroom walls. Not a bit of the white walls was visible.
My eyes fell upon a desk in the corner. Sitting atop of it was an envelope, beckoning me to come open it. I retrieved the letter inside of it and sat down on the carpet to read it. My eyes watered and a smile formed on my face as I read the note. I look forward to your class every morning when I wake up. It gives me a reason to get out of bed. Thank you Mr. Dinh. Merci, merci beaucoup Monsieur. A demain.
I knew the handwriting.
“Juju,” I whispered as I wiped a teardrop on my tie.
After having a catch-up dinner with three of my past students from five years ago, I returned home to my quaint little house in the suburbs of Saratoga at 6. My mom greeted me at the door.
“How’s Janelle?” I asked her.
My mom hugged me and kissed my cheek. “She’s just waking up from her nap.”
I went into her room and found Janelle in her crib, reaching up at the stars scattered across her ceiling. I scooped her up and held her in my arms, bouncing her gently. She looked up at me and cooed merrily.
“You’re a sweet little girl, aren’t ya? Can you say hi to daddy yet? Can you say hi?” I ran my fingers through her soft baby hair and kissed her lightly on the forehead.
Sensing my mom’s presence, I turned around to see her leaning in the doorway, beaming at me, her eyes, shining brilliantly with tears.
“If only your dad were here to see this,” she finally said.
“I know.”
9:15. With all the French recordings graded, Janelle put to sleep, my mom driven home, my dress shirt off and basketball shorts on, I collapsed onto my couch and closed my eyes. A minute passed before I felt a warm body lie down next to me.
“Hi Cookie-cakes,” I mumbled. “Did you put in X-Files?”
“Yep, it’s starting.” I felt a light peck on my lips.
“Do you know if you’re staying home tomorrow? My mom doesn’t like being called last minute to baby-sit.”
“You know she loves to baby-sit no matter what. But yes, I’m staying home tomorrow. How’s work?”
“Good. Had my whole class screaming and yelling. Got a ‘secret’ fan letter. All the usual.”
I yawned and opened my eyes, only to see that before me on the coffee table sat a slice of chocolate cheesecake and a glass of wine. Grateful, I turned around and gave my beloved Cookie-cakes a kiss on the cheek.
The two of us sat up and chatted as we ate and watched Mulder and Scully chase monsters on TV. When was Mulder ever going to stop coming up with ridiculous theories? When was Scully ever going to actually listen to Mulder? The amazing thing about these fictional characters’ partnership, however, was that both of them were always important to the final outcome. Mulder came up with the really out there theories that were far crazier than the reality, and Scully always used hard science to come up with something more plausible and non-paranormal. They both found themselves at opposite ends of the spectrums, but neither of them was ever right at first. As the episode progressed, they learned to find the mean between the two extremes, and the solution ended up being something paranormal but still somewhat scientifically plausible.
As remarkable as their partnership was, halfway through the episode, I started to feel sleepy, so I rested my head on my Cookie-cakes’s stomach.
“Wow, way to be the man in the relationship.”
“Well, your stomach’s bigger,” I retorted.
“Really? Is it showing?”
“Just a little bit—” I winced as Mulder and Scully discovered yet another body. When the tension and dramatic music died down, I found it safe to relax turn my attention away from the X-Files again. Adjusting my head, I closed my eyes and pressed my ear against my Cookie-cakes’s stomach to listen for all the fun sounds. I smiled.
“It’s coming.”
This doesn’t mean that three-fourths of a life is all lies, but it does suggest that lies do somehow play a big part in a life. The lies in our lives are delusions; they come in the form of goals, dreams, wishes, and prayers. They give us direction and reassurance that we are accomplishing something or that we still have something to work toward. They keep us hopeful and positive in a time when all hell is breaking loose. Some goals, dreams, wishes, and prayers paint the perfect reflection of reality, but many reflect it only enough to fill the holes in our lies.
Live the lie. It feels comforting.
---
3:05. The sound of the bell sang through my classroom, but not a thing stirred. The entire class could not tear their eyes away from the two boys standing in the front. They both clenched their eyes shut as they racked their brains for an answer. Behind them, the white board displayed the current score: “Groupe A : 48. Groupe B : 48.” I sat at my desk, slowly rocking in my chair, waiting for one of them to speak up.
“Une réponse?” I asked, but my question didn’t seem to reach either of them.
Suddenly, one of their faces lit up, and feeling as though he had already won, he slammed his fist against the whiteboard and bellowed out, “Dormir dans l’oubli comme—”
“Oui.”
Half the class—that’s 18 students—burst into cheering and shouting as they shot out of their chairs and ambushed their teammate at the whiteboard. The other half sat in their chairs, sulking as they put away their books and packed their backpacks.
It took me another two minutes to calm down the screaming students and to get them back in their seats. After reminding them of their upcoming test, I let them go.
The students and noise now gone, I sat back down at my desk and surveyed my classroom. Festive Mardi Gras masks, colorful storybooks, and detailed posters about French artists plastered my classroom walls. Not a bit of the white walls was visible.
My eyes fell upon a desk in the corner. Sitting atop of it was an envelope, beckoning me to come open it. I retrieved the letter inside of it and sat down on the carpet to read it. My eyes watered and a smile formed on my face as I read the note. I look forward to your class every morning when I wake up. It gives me a reason to get out of bed. Thank you Mr. Dinh. Merci, merci beaucoup Monsieur. A demain.
I knew the handwriting.
“Juju,” I whispered as I wiped a teardrop on my tie.
After having a catch-up dinner with three of my past students from five years ago, I returned home to my quaint little house in the suburbs of Saratoga at 6. My mom greeted me at the door.
“How’s Janelle?” I asked her.
My mom hugged me and kissed my cheek. “She’s just waking up from her nap.”
I went into her room and found Janelle in her crib, reaching up at the stars scattered across her ceiling. I scooped her up and held her in my arms, bouncing her gently. She looked up at me and cooed merrily.
“You’re a sweet little girl, aren’t ya? Can you say hi to daddy yet? Can you say hi?” I ran my fingers through her soft baby hair and kissed her lightly on the forehead.
Sensing my mom’s presence, I turned around to see her leaning in the doorway, beaming at me, her eyes, shining brilliantly with tears.
“If only your dad were here to see this,” she finally said.
“I know.”
9:15. With all the French recordings graded, Janelle put to sleep, my mom driven home, my dress shirt off and basketball shorts on, I collapsed onto my couch and closed my eyes. A minute passed before I felt a warm body lie down next to me.
“Hi Cookie-cakes,” I mumbled. “Did you put in X-Files?”
“Yep, it’s starting.” I felt a light peck on my lips.
“Do you know if you’re staying home tomorrow? My mom doesn’t like being called last minute to baby-sit.”
“You know she loves to baby-sit no matter what. But yes, I’m staying home tomorrow. How’s work?”
“Good. Had my whole class screaming and yelling. Got a ‘secret’ fan letter. All the usual.”
I yawned and opened my eyes, only to see that before me on the coffee table sat a slice of chocolate cheesecake and a glass of wine. Grateful, I turned around and gave my beloved Cookie-cakes a kiss on the cheek.
The two of us sat up and chatted as we ate and watched Mulder and Scully chase monsters on TV. When was Mulder ever going to stop coming up with ridiculous theories? When was Scully ever going to actually listen to Mulder? The amazing thing about these fictional characters’ partnership, however, was that both of them were always important to the final outcome. Mulder came up with the really out there theories that were far crazier than the reality, and Scully always used hard science to come up with something more plausible and non-paranormal. They both found themselves at opposite ends of the spectrums, but neither of them was ever right at first. As the episode progressed, they learned to find the mean between the two extremes, and the solution ended up being something paranormal but still somewhat scientifically plausible.
As remarkable as their partnership was, halfway through the episode, I started to feel sleepy, so I rested my head on my Cookie-cakes’s stomach.
“Wow, way to be the man in the relationship.”
“Well, your stomach’s bigger,” I retorted.
“Really? Is it showing?”
“Just a little bit—” I winced as Mulder and Scully discovered yet another body. When the tension and dramatic music died down, I found it safe to relax turn my attention away from the X-Files again. Adjusting my head, I closed my eyes and pressed my ear against my Cookie-cakes’s stomach to listen for all the fun sounds. I smiled.
“It’s coming.”
Tags:
dream,
family,
french,
future,
norcal,
relationships,
summer 2009,
teaching
Driven
Thursday, September 17, 2009
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.
Tags:
alfonso,
dancing,
flashback,
kevin,
norcal,
photo change,
repost,
summer 2009
Paramasturbatory Illusions
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
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.
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.
Tags:
alfonso,
black john,
breakthrough,
cameron,
dancing,
flashback,
french,
future,
kevin,
norcal,
repost,
socal,
spirituality,
summer 2009,
teaching
Orpheus
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
“I really really think that this year will be the most FUCKING AMAZING year, EVER!” Cameron so vehemently declared.
Last night, the two of us met up at a quaint little Asian café up in Fremont to catch up and get ourselves excited for Irvine.
It hasn’t really quite hit me that I’m going back to college this Saturday. It’s going to be difficult leaving home. Again.
Cameron invited me to a party at his apartment Saturday night. I understood this perfectly: A Party. Saturday. Cameron’s place.
But I have some kind of mental block that’s not letting me wrap my brain around the fact that all that will be taking place down south.
I question myself. Why do I get attached? And what is it that I get attached to that makes leaving hard? Am I attached to Funksters? I really only had like three or four friends from Funksters, and I had only known them for less than eight weeks. There should no big deal.
Am I attached to San Francisco? Am I attached to that dance studio, with its gray mats, bigass mirrors, loud fan, high ceilings, and the sound of the BART whooshing by?
I had thought this was going to be easier the second time around, but it actually feels harder.
Last summer, about two or three days before moving down south, Trung and I headed over to Oakridge late at night and met up with Black John. We decided to head to the top level of the parking garage where we could take in the magnificent breathtaking view of the In-N-Out and Kohl’s across the street. (The garage was three stories, so we didn’t have much of a view.)
This was probably our third or fourth time here on top of the parking garage. We’d always just live dangerously and sit on the edge, our legs dangling over three stories above the ground. We’d chat and reminisce about old times.
John lit a cigarette, and I think the topic of that night was old TV shows, or Super Smash Brothers Brawl. I think I aimlessly ran around in the parking lot too and attempted to bboy.
This was my last night with Oakridge, the mall that I had grown up in all my high school years. It was going to be hard to let go. I didn’t know what it’d be like in SoCal if I wasn’t going to this mall every god damn week.
After an hour, we took the elevator back down to the first floor. As we got out, there were two cops, a female and a male one, there at the elevator door. We thought they were getting on, but they actually detained us. Uh oh.
Apparently, there were cameras on the roof. And we seemed shady.
The female officer took our drivers’ licenses and ran background checks. While waiting for the background checks, the male one searched and questioned us.
Were we terrorists? Nope.
Were we carrying rocket launchers? Nope.
Were we contemplating mass suicide? Nope.
Were we in possession of marijuana? Fortunately, John wasn’t that night.
I feel that if their cameras were any bit decent, they could’ve at least figured that we weren’t carrying rocket launchers.
I don’t remember how long we were there for with the cops. Thirty minutes? It was long enough to get uncomfortable, with all the shoppers walking by and turning their heads to watch the teenage delinquents possibly getting arrested. I seriously thought that they still could’ve nailed us for something, like loitering.
Fortunately, they let us go, but I couldn’t help but feel bitter about the entire incident.
That was when moving on became easier. Four years at Oakridge: I had outgrown this place. It didn’t want me anymore.
(*Trung came up with the title.)
Last night, the two of us met up at a quaint little Asian café up in Fremont to catch up and get ourselves excited for Irvine.
It hasn’t really quite hit me that I’m going back to college this Saturday. It’s going to be difficult leaving home. Again.
Cameron invited me to a party at his apartment Saturday night. I understood this perfectly: A Party. Saturday. Cameron’s place.
But I have some kind of mental block that’s not letting me wrap my brain around the fact that all that will be taking place down south.
I question myself. Why do I get attached? And what is it that I get attached to that makes leaving hard? Am I attached to Funksters? I really only had like three or four friends from Funksters, and I had only known them for less than eight weeks. There should no big deal.
Am I attached to San Francisco? Am I attached to that dance studio, with its gray mats, bigass mirrors, loud fan, high ceilings, and the sound of the BART whooshing by?
I had thought this was going to be easier the second time around, but it actually feels harder.
 Magnificent view. |
This was probably our third or fourth time here on top of the parking garage. We’d always just live dangerously and sit on the edge, our legs dangling over three stories above the ground. We’d chat and reminisce about old times.
John lit a cigarette, and I think the topic of that night was old TV shows, or Super Smash Brothers Brawl. I think I aimlessly ran around in the parking lot too and attempted to bboy.
 Me and John. |
After an hour, we took the elevator back down to the first floor. As we got out, there were two cops, a female and a male one, there at the elevator door. We thought they were getting on, but they actually detained us. Uh oh.
Apparently, there were cameras on the roof. And we seemed shady.
The female officer took our drivers’ licenses and ran background checks. While waiting for the background checks, the male one searched and questioned us.
Were we terrorists? Nope.
Were we carrying rocket launchers? Nope.
Were we contemplating mass suicide? Nope.
Were we in possession of marijuana? Fortunately, John wasn’t that night.
I feel that if their cameras were any bit decent, they could’ve at least figured that we weren’t carrying rocket launchers.
I don’t remember how long we were there for with the cops. Thirty minutes? It was long enough to get uncomfortable, with all the shoppers walking by and turning their heads to watch the teenage delinquents possibly getting arrested. I seriously thought that they still could’ve nailed us for something, like loitering.
Fortunately, they let us go, but I couldn’t help but feel bitter about the entire incident.
That was when moving on became easier. Four years at Oakridge: I had outgrown this place. It didn’t want me anymore.
(*Trung came up with the title.)
Tags:
black john,
cameron,
flashback,
norcal,
oakridge,
summer 2009,
trung
Sunday after Next
Monday, September 14, 2009
After my first day of summer intensive rehearsals, I remember tripping out when reminded that I wasn’t at UCI taking a dance class, but rather, I was three hundred miles up north in San Francisco dancing with the Funksters.
That was about eight weeks ago.
In less than one week, I’ll be back in school. And now, I know, when that first audition workshop comes, I’ll be tripping out when it hits me that I am dancing not in San Francisco with the young faces of Funksters, but with the unfamiliar faces of (mostly heterosexual) college-age students in Irvine.
Tags:
dancing,
gay,
norcal,
summer 2009
Things Left Unsaid
Friday, September 11, 2009
It was late Sunday night, and we were all heading home together from company class on the BART. The entire time, a Funkster named Steve rested his head on my shoulder. Eventually, his stop came, and we all waved him goodbye.
Four or five stops later when we were waiting at a transfer station, a beginning dancer, who we had all met earlier during the day, approached me with a question.
The question couldn’t have sounded any snider.
“So, was that guy gay?”
First of all, I admit I kinda liked how the way he asked it implied that he still thought I was straight. I figured that I must be so damn masculine that any guy could hook onto my arm and I’d still seem like the type to fuck vaginas.
I shook off the brief feeling of accomplishment. I felt the need to say something in defense of Steve and the gay community in general. I didn’t have to verbally push the kid into the train tracks, but I should’ve said something. Well, I knew I should’ve, but I still didn’t really want to. I had been perpetually in a transition period, from my old self who would just say, “Yeah what a fag,” to one who would say, “AH HELL NAW!”
I have definitely stopped hating every gay guy I meet on spot. That’s good. But it has been so easy to accept that other people are gay in comparison to accepting, well, myself—myself being jee-aay-why. It was the one truth that I would have to live with forever, but I didn’t know what to do with it. Not knowing only has only given me internal conflicts to work with, and standing there debating my own internal conflicts didn’t help when situations like this one required only the truth.
I found myself in front of this 17-year-old kid without words to say. But I also found myself without motivation to form those words. I still had conflicts from my past, my “old self,” that I still hadn’t resolved, and I couldn’t find the strength to temporarily forget those and resolve the current conflict at hand.
Instead, I joked, “Dude, we’re all gay.” Considering the three male Funksters plus me riding on the BART that night, this statement was actually true. But I said it—I intended to say it—in a way to steer the conversation away from flames to something a lot more lighthearted.
“Oh, so I must be gay too!” he joked back.
I tried to laugh it off. “Yeah, sure.”
From there I masterfully changed the topic. Just as how I would always do.
---
“‘Fags!’ - Oh No”
Written March 10th, 2007 (Excerpted)
Honestly though, if you’re gay, and you’re just walking around and you overhear some random strangers’ conversation with the word “faggot” in it, and it just drives you crazy, you really need to just shut the hell up.
---
“Happy Gay Pride Month, FAGGOTS”
Written June 3rd, 2007 (Excerpted)
Gay Pride Parades are the most fucking stupid pieces of gay faggot shit ever. I don’t even know why I am even bothering to capitalize “gay pride parades.” What could gay pride parades possibly celebrate that makes sense? Asian dragon parades celebrate Asian culture. Cinco de Mayo parades celebrate Mexican culture. Gay pride parades celebrate gay culture? Or being gay? Or just being proud to be out of the closet? Well, apparently, by standards of gay pride parades, gay culture, being gay, or being proud to be out of the closet is equivalent to this, this, and this. Sweet, the guy in the last picture looks just like me.
---
“Lawrence King: Dumbass A-Z”
Written April 25th, 2008 (Excerpted)
[Lawrence King] flirted with his enemies. Flirted. What? He intentionally provoked them? Yes...What is especially irritating is that the media tries to glorify such a nitwitted move. “And when the other boys made fun of him, [Lawrence King] would boldly tease them right back by flirting with them.” So, if you want to be bold, you should retaliate by teasing haters with your smooth words, sensual motions, and arousing allure. Email Kidshealth.org and tell them to add “flirting” under their list of ways to handle bullies. Now let’s see how many numskulls who look up to Lawrence King as a role model and a hero get their asses kicked (and heads shot).
---
I can’t yet let myself be the best that I can possibly be, but I take comfort in knowing that I’m still a better person today.
Four or five stops later when we were waiting at a transfer station, a beginning dancer, who we had all met earlier during the day, approached me with a question.
The question couldn’t have sounded any snider.
“So, was that guy gay?”
First of all, I admit I kinda liked how the way he asked it implied that he still thought I was straight. I figured that I must be so damn masculine that any guy could hook onto my arm and I’d still seem like the type to fuck vaginas.
I shook off the brief feeling of accomplishment. I felt the need to say something in defense of Steve and the gay community in general. I didn’t have to verbally push the kid into the train tracks, but I should’ve said something. Well, I knew I should’ve, but I still didn’t really want to. I had been perpetually in a transition period, from my old self who would just say, “Yeah what a fag,” to one who would say, “AH HELL NAW!”
I have definitely stopped hating every gay guy I meet on spot. That’s good. But it has been so easy to accept that other people are gay in comparison to accepting, well, myself—myself being jee-aay-why. It was the one truth that I would have to live with forever, but I didn’t know what to do with it. Not knowing only has only given me internal conflicts to work with, and standing there debating my own internal conflicts didn’t help when situations like this one required only the truth.
I found myself in front of this 17-year-old kid without words to say. But I also found myself without motivation to form those words. I still had conflicts from my past, my “old self,” that I still hadn’t resolved, and I couldn’t find the strength to temporarily forget those and resolve the current conflict at hand.
Instead, I joked, “Dude, we’re all gay.” Considering the three male Funksters plus me riding on the BART that night, this statement was actually true. But I said it—I intended to say it—in a way to steer the conversation away from flames to something a lot more lighthearted.
“Oh, so I must be gay too!” he joked back.
I tried to laugh it off. “Yeah, sure.”
From there I masterfully changed the topic. Just as how I would always do.
---
“‘Fags!’ - Oh No”
Written March 10th, 2007 (Excerpted)
Honestly though, if you’re gay, and you’re just walking around and you overhear some random strangers’ conversation with the word “faggot” in it, and it just drives you crazy, you really need to just shut the hell up.
---
“Happy Gay Pride Month, FAGGOTS”
Written June 3rd, 2007 (Excerpted)
Gay Pride Parades are the most fucking stupid pieces of gay faggot shit ever. I don’t even know why I am even bothering to capitalize “gay pride parades.” What could gay pride parades possibly celebrate that makes sense? Asian dragon parades celebrate Asian culture. Cinco de Mayo parades celebrate Mexican culture. Gay pride parades celebrate gay culture? Or being gay? Or just being proud to be out of the closet? Well, apparently, by standards of gay pride parades, gay culture, being gay, or being proud to be out of the closet is equivalent to this, this, and this. Sweet, the guy in the last picture looks just like me.
---
“Lawrence King: Dumbass A-Z”
Written April 25th, 2008 (Excerpted)
[Lawrence King] flirted with his enemies. Flirted. What? He intentionally provoked them? Yes...What is especially irritating is that the media tries to glorify such a nitwitted move. “And when the other boys made fun of him, [Lawrence King] would boldly tease them right back by flirting with them.” So, if you want to be bold, you should retaliate by teasing haters with your smooth words, sensual motions, and arousing allure. Email Kidshealth.org and tell them to add “flirting” under their list of ways to handle bullies. Now let’s see how many numskulls who look up to Lawrence King as a role model and a hero get their asses kicked (and heads shot).
---
I can’t yet let myself be the best that I can possibly be, but I take comfort in knowing that I’m still a better person today.
Tags:
flashback,
gay,
norcal,
repost,
summer 2009
In Our Hearts’ Honeymoon
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
(Continued from last night’s entry, “Call Me Ishmael.”)
For Valentine’s Day 2008, Trung made me (and Op) a Mop. No, not the thing you use to clean up spills. Clearly you still need to reread the previous entry.
Op and Mop have been my backseat companions in my car for long over a year. Somehow over time, some threading on Mop became undone. A hole opened up in her, revealing all the white cotton inside. I had never gotten around to fixing it.
On the night of our breakup, Trung promised me that he wouldn’t shred or burn the present I made him for Christmas 2008, and likewise, I promised him that I wouldn’t shred or burn Mop. I also promised to sew her up. After getting home that night, I brought both Op and Mop in from the car, but I ended up forgetting about Mop’s surgery. I left her and Op to sit there forever in the waiting room.
The buzzer clicked to a stop as the last patches of hair fell to the ground.
Trung stood back, buzzer in hand, and stared at my hair. He let out a long “Ummmm...” He was deep in thought. “Your head is naturally bumpy,” he finally concluded.
“I’ll go look in a mirror,” I said as I stood up and brushed hair off myself. I went into the bathroom, checked out my hair, went back into the garage, and declared, “Let’s go shopping for a hat tomorrow.”
I had always wanted those trendy New Era baseball caps, but I refused to pay more than thirty dollars for any hat. Trung and I spent all of Tuesday searching for the right hat that could still work with my budget. Yelp promised a store downtown that sold New Era caps for twenty dollars, but when we got there, we discovered that it had closed down long ago.
We spent another hour or two downtown looking for clothing stores, but no cheap hats turned up. We then checked Eastridge mall, where we found a store that sold them for prices ranging from twenty-two to thirty-five dollars. Of course, it had to be the tacky design-vomit ones that were twenty-two, while the simple, clean, yet elegant standout ones, thirty-five. I eventually found a likeable twenty-seven-dollar one in my gigantic head size (7 3/4), but it had no golden sticker. My trendy New Era cap wouldn’t be trendy without the deal-sealing sticker, so I did the most badass thing I had ever done since the one time I stole drugs as a 17-year-old*: I peeled the golden sticker off a different cap of the same size and stuck it onto the one I wanted.
(*Trung argues that I’m trying too hard to make myself sound badass when all I really stole was over-the-counter Tylenol from a grocery store. But technically, Tylenol is a drug. And I pocketed multiple pills, so hence the plural drugs.)
After the successful heist, Trung and I went to another hat store where Trung bought himself his own trendy New Era hat. It had “BAMF” running across the front. I thought that “Bad Ass Mutha Fucka” seemed a little out of character for Trung, but he informed me that the reference actually went way back to X-Men. Oh I see.
Satisfied with the hats now resting atop our heads, we watched Final Destination 4.
We had originally planned on seeing it a week or two earlier, but then the breakup kinda happened. So before setting out on our hat hunt, I had asked him if he still wanted to see it, and he agreed.
The movie kinda sucked. Oh well. I had a good time nonetheless.
When we got back to my house, the longing gazes of Mop and Op, who were perched impatiently on the living room table, confronted Trung and me. We knew that we couldn’t put off the surgery any longer, so we got ready. Trung prepped Mop on the carpet as I retrieved the sewing kit from my parents’ room.
The two of us hovered over Mop. Trung held the loose flaps together as I ran the needle and thread through, carefully dodging Trung’s fingers. Together, in silence, we sewed the hole in the pink heart-shape ball of cotton. After ten minutes, we successfully completed the surgery.
After some time for recovery (and after I get my car’s oil changed), Mop and Op will soon find themselves at home again in the backseat of my car.
With Mop in good condition, Trung and I watched three episodes of The X-Files as we ate and worked out (yes, even Trung lifted a little bit).
---
“He’s still alive to me.”
Written February 20th, 2008 (Excerpted)
It’s strange. Normally I’m not a superstitious person, and I don’t believe in what can’t be proven by hard scientific explanations. But last week, I stumbled upon a little hole in this particular belief.
[...]
Last week, a few days before Valentine’s day, Trung had begun to hype up a gift for me that he was going to make himself, a gift that would unearth deep emotions from the past.
Sitting inside my car with Trung on Valentine’s day, I eagerly opened his present. Lifting the lid off the box, I found a big pink mass staring back at me. As I pulled the pink blob out, I started to notice more details: stringy black thread, unconventional stitching, black buttons which probably represented eyes of some sort, B <3 T stitched at the end, and what appeared to be a sailor’s hat on top—oh my god. I gaped at Trung.
“It’s MOP!” Trung confirmed.
I melted. I absolutely melted, and I melted into his arms and nostalgia. I reached behind my seat, pulled OP out from under the rear window, and brought him up to the front between Trung and me to introduce him to his new friend.
The next day, as I was driving Trung home after having eaten at Chili’s, Trung and I were still on the topic of MOP and OP. The conversation started with my joking to Trung, “I still haven’t come out to OP as a homo. You think someone as young as him could understand?”
“I dunno, Brian,” Trung answered, “Let’s see for ourselves.” Trung held OP up to my face, and trying to mimic OP’s high-pitched voice, he said (or OP said), “Hi Briiiian, do you have something that you need to tell me?”
I laughed. “Naaaaah, nothing. Sit back down OP.”
“Are you suuuuuure? You’re not hiding anything from me?”
I looked down at OP’s pleading puppy-dog eyes. Suddenly, I started to feel a little guilty. “No, nothing to tell you,” I was only chuckling nervously now.
“Brian, why can’t you tell me? You know I love you. I loooooooove yoooooou!”
“OP…” I didn’t know what to say. I was totally lost for words.
“Brian, I looove yoooooooooou!”
The voice sounded so hurt. Well, the voice was really Trung’s, and he was still joking. However, to me, the voice sounded hurt. I felt guilty. Guilty that I couldn’t come out as gay to an inanimate object that I had been extremely close to during my childhood. I couldn’t corrupt him. When I was his age, the concept of homosexuality would’ve been far too confusing to me.
Overwhelmed, I told Trung to stop the voice.
Later, I revealed to Trung that after I stopped carrying around OP wherever I went, guilt started to build up inside of me whenever I glanced at him sitting on my dresser as I was leaving for the mall or a friend’s house or a restaurant—all places that I would take OP out to when I was a child. When I got my car, I stuck OP in there under the rear window. But that still wasn’t enough.
“I still leave OP out there in the car, and sometimes it feels like I’m leaving my own baby in there, minus coming back to vomit and heat stroke. OP still doesn’t get to experience the world the way he did a long time ago. He’s immobile. He’s bored. He’s alone.”
“Well, Brian,” Trung leaned in toward me and rested his arm around my shoulder, “Now you don’t have to worry about that. He has MOP now, so he’ll never be alone again.”
[Relieved,] I felt a heavy burden lift off my back, and I was free.
For Valentine’s Day 2008, Trung made me (and Op) a Mop. No, not the thing you use to clean up spills. Clearly you still need to reread the previous entry. Op and Mop have been my backseat companions in my car for long over a year. Somehow over time, some threading on Mop became undone. A hole opened up in her, revealing all the white cotton inside. I had never gotten around to fixing it.
On the night of our breakup, Trung promised me that he wouldn’t shred or burn the present I made him for Christmas 2008, and likewise, I promised him that I wouldn’t shred or burn Mop. I also promised to sew her up. After getting home that night, I brought both Op and Mop in from the car, but I ended up forgetting about Mop’s surgery. I left her and Op to sit there forever in the waiting room.
The buzzer clicked to a stop as the last patches of hair fell to the ground.
Trung stood back, buzzer in hand, and stared at my hair. He let out a long “Ummmm...” He was deep in thought. “Your head is naturally bumpy,” he finally concluded.
“I’ll go look in a mirror,” I said as I stood up and brushed hair off myself. I went into the bathroom, checked out my hair, went back into the garage, and declared, “Let’s go shopping for a hat tomorrow.”
I had always wanted those trendy New Era baseball caps, but I refused to pay more than thirty dollars for any hat. Trung and I spent all of Tuesday searching for the right hat that could still work with my budget. Yelp promised a store downtown that sold New Era caps for twenty dollars, but when we got there, we discovered that it had closed down long ago.
We spent another hour or two downtown looking for clothing stores, but no cheap hats turned up. We then checked Eastridge mall, where we found a store that sold them for prices ranging from twenty-two to thirty-five dollars. Of course, it had to be the tacky design-vomit ones that were twenty-two, while the simple, clean, yet elegant standout ones, thirty-five. I eventually found a likeable twenty-seven-dollar one in my gigantic head size (7 3/4), but it had no golden sticker. My trendy New Era cap wouldn’t be trendy without the deal-sealing sticker, so I did the most badass thing I had ever done since the one time I stole drugs as a 17-year-old*: I peeled the golden sticker off a different cap of the same size and stuck it onto the one I wanted.
(*Trung argues that I’m trying too hard to make myself sound badass when all I really stole was over-the-counter Tylenol from a grocery store. But technically, Tylenol is a drug. And I pocketed multiple pills, so hence the plural drugs.)
After the successful heist, Trung and I went to another hat store where Trung bought himself his own trendy New Era hat. It had “BAMF” running across the front. I thought that “Bad Ass Mutha Fucka” seemed a little out of character for Trung, but he informed me that the reference actually went way back to X-Men. Oh I see.
Satisfied with the hats now resting atop our heads, we watched Final Destination 4.
We had originally planned on seeing it a week or two earlier, but then the breakup kinda happened. So before setting out on our hat hunt, I had asked him if he still wanted to see it, and he agreed.
The movie kinda sucked. Oh well. I had a good time nonetheless.
When we got back to my house, the longing gazes of Mop and Op, who were perched impatiently on the living room table, confronted Trung and me. We knew that we couldn’t put off the surgery any longer, so we got ready. Trung prepped Mop on the carpet as I retrieved the sewing kit from my parents’ room.
The two of us hovered over Mop. Trung held the loose flaps together as I ran the needle and thread through, carefully dodging Trung’s fingers. Together, in silence, we sewed the hole in the pink heart-shape ball of cotton. After ten minutes, we successfully completed the surgery.
After some time for recovery (and after I get my car’s oil changed), Mop and Op will soon find themselves at home again in the backseat of my car.
With Mop in good condition, Trung and I watched three episodes of The X-Files as we ate and worked out (yes, even Trung lifted a little bit).
---
“He’s still alive to me.”
Written February 20th, 2008 (Excerpted)
It’s strange. Normally I’m not a superstitious person, and I don’t believe in what can’t be proven by hard scientific explanations. But last week, I stumbled upon a little hole in this particular belief.
[...]
Last week, a few days before Valentine’s day, Trung had begun to hype up a gift for me that he was going to make himself, a gift that would unearth deep emotions from the past.
Sitting inside my car with Trung on Valentine’s day, I eagerly opened his present. Lifting the lid off the box, I found a big pink mass staring back at me. As I pulled the pink blob out, I started to notice more details: stringy black thread, unconventional stitching, black buttons which probably represented eyes of some sort, B <3 T stitched at the end, and what appeared to be a sailor’s hat on top—oh my god. I gaped at Trung.
“It’s MOP!” Trung confirmed.
I melted. I absolutely melted, and I melted into his arms and nostalgia. I reached behind my seat, pulled OP out from under the rear window, and brought him up to the front between Trung and me to introduce him to his new friend.
The next day, as I was driving Trung home after having eaten at Chili’s, Trung and I were still on the topic of MOP and OP. The conversation started with my joking to Trung, “I still haven’t come out to OP as a homo. You think someone as young as him could understand?”
“I dunno, Brian,” Trung answered, “Let’s see for ourselves.” Trung held OP up to my face, and trying to mimic OP’s high-pitched voice, he said (or OP said), “Hi Briiiian, do you have something that you need to tell me?”
I laughed. “Naaaaah, nothing. Sit back down OP.”
“Are you suuuuuure? You’re not hiding anything from me?”
I looked down at OP’s pleading puppy-dog eyes. Suddenly, I started to feel a little guilty. “No, nothing to tell you,” I was only chuckling nervously now.
“Brian, why can’t you tell me? You know I love you. I loooooooove yoooooou!”
“OP…” I didn’t know what to say. I was totally lost for words.
“Brian, I looove yoooooooooou!”
The voice sounded so hurt. Well, the voice was really Trung’s, and he was still joking. However, to me, the voice sounded hurt. I felt guilty. Guilty that I couldn’t come out as gay to an inanimate object that I had been extremely close to during my childhood. I couldn’t corrupt him. When I was his age, the concept of homosexuality would’ve been far too confusing to me.
Overwhelmed, I told Trung to stop the voice.
Later, I revealed to Trung that after I stopped carrying around OP wherever I went, guilt started to build up inside of me whenever I glanced at him sitting on my dresser as I was leaving for the mall or a friend’s house or a restaurant—all places that I would take OP out to when I was a child. When I got my car, I stuck OP in there under the rear window. But that still wasn’t enough.
“I still leave OP out there in the car, and sometimes it feels like I’m leaving my own baby in there, minus coming back to vomit and heat stroke. OP still doesn’t get to experience the world the way he did a long time ago. He’s immobile. He’s bored. He’s alone.”
“Well, Brian,” Trung leaned in toward me and rested his arm around my shoulder, “Now you don’t have to worry about that. He has MOP now, so he’ll never be alone again.”
[Relieved,] I felt a heavy burden lift off my back, and I was free.
Tags:
flashback,
norcal,
relationships,
repost,
summer 2009,
trung
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