Cal Queer & Asian

She strikes back

2009-11-03T14:39:00.000-08:00

SAMARA!!!!

OH NOESS!!!!

If you weren't at the meeting last week, you missed out on the best event of your life. Too bad.

This week will be back to normal-ish with a discussion entitled "Queer 2.o." Queer 2.O will be about the Internet with respect to Q&A, including Downelink, Craigslist, and coming out over the internet. Come talk about creepy Internet people and the not creepy ones that you ended up becoming friends with in REAL LIFE (whaddaburger!). Maybe you'll even hear me talk about the time I went to about.com and found something out about myself and started freaking out and started taking a bunch of quizzes... ANYways... Coordinated:

What: Cal Q&A Discussion: Queer 2.0
Where: 305 Eshleman (QARC)
When: Wednesday, 4 Nov 2009
Time: 7:30-9:00P

Also happening at Wednesday's meeting is sign-ups for sushi rolling! If you don't know, we don't have classes next Wednesday (start crying). Therefore, there is no Q&A meeting (start bawling). However, we will be having a sushi-rolling event! YAY! Start cheering and dancing and jumping up and down. Do an Irish jig! Please bring money ($7USD, PayPal only (bring cash, actually)) on Wednesday or to Robert or Stephanie before next Tuesday if you would like to participate. This will cover the cost of sushi rice, vinegar, seaweed, cute little bamboo mats, and lovely fillings to stuff your sushi with. Sensei Robert will be teaching a crash course in rolling these delectable delightful delicacies. OH MY ZEUS MAKE THE ALLITERATION STOP! Anyways... the event details follow:

What: Cal Q&A Funtimes: Sushi Rolling!
Where: 2410 Warring Street (Oscar Wilde House)
When: Wednesday, 11 Nov 2009
Time: 12:00-3:00P
Cost: $7.00

That is all, my friend.

Fartfully yours,
-Hobutt

A dollop, a dollop, a dollop...

2009-10-20T15:40:00.001-07:00

Of DAI-SY!!!!

Silly commercial jingles getting into my head, burrowing into my brain, and never leaving.

There's only one event this week (a little relief after last week's torrent of events/midterms/papers/rain... maybe?). Take a break and let loose this Wednesday. Our loverly Kimberly, Stephanie, and Raymond have put together a massive game of Assassins. It will basically be the EPICEST game of tag you have ever seen. Ever. EVER. Seen. Scene. Seam. Seem? It will be an outdoor activity, so please wear closed-toed shoes and loose warm-ish clothing (unless you're a wildperson and like to run around barefoot and naked, that's fine, too.... I guess?). Also, if you have one, bring your charged cell phones. We will be distributing contact numbers and have y'all exchange numbers in case anything semi-disastrous happens or a duckling gets lost. Please be on (Berkeley) time so we can start playing and running around campus like psychos... or not psychos. I quote Stephanie there. Bring all your friends! The more people we have, the more exciting and fun it will be. Coordinates:

What: Cal Q&A Social: Assassins: Tthe Mega Extreme Game of Epic Tag: The Beginning: Colons Ahoy!
Where: Meet at 305 Eshleman (QARC), running around on campus
When: Wednesday, 21 October 2009
Time: 7:30-9:00P
Bring/wear: Loose clothing, closed-toed shoes, charged cell phones

Again, please be on Berkeley time, which means arrive at QARC by 7:40. Do not dillydally, do not delay, do not druck.

See you tomorrow. I'm so ready to run around and squeal like a small child with lots of candy and a guinea pig allergy at a petting zoo.

Raining Cats and Dogs

2009-10-13T16:13:00.000-07:00

Crackers and snacks. I want to live in a hamburger bun.

SO MUCH STUFF HAPPENING THIS WEEK.

Kelly, can you handle this?
Michelle, can you handle this?
Beyonce, can you handle this?
I don't think they can handle this (fish jelly?)

In honour of National Coming Out week and deviating a little from our alternating socials/discussions format, we will be having a discussion this week. Not surprisngly, the topic of discussion is coming out. Drawing a little from our storytime discussion as well as the format from last week's mental health discussion, prepare for a GREAT AWESOME DISCUSSION because I can't think of any more exciting adjectives at the moment. My stupid rhetoric factory is located in my feet, which are currently marinating nicely in my not-meant-for-rain old Chucks oh ew. Coordinate this:

What: Cal Q&A Discussion: Coming Out
Where: 305 Eshleman (QARC)
When: Wednesday, 14 October 2009
Time: 7:30-9:00P

==========

The following day, our very own loverly Robert will be holding a poetry writing/self-actualization workshop at my apartment, complete with lit candle.

Coming out is one very small step in the process of self-actualization. This workshop hopes to examine the role that sexuality plays in our lives through exploring the way we process reality. Our connections with others, platonic or otherwise, bob and surface in our lives. Shackling down memories in writing, we elucidate the subjective experience of reality: how have you arrived where you are today? Do you choose to shape yourself and who has shaped you? Thinking caps on, and bring a poem to share, if you'd like.

What: Cal Q&A Workshop: Poetry and Coming Out
Where: 2017 Berkeley Way, Apt. 1
When: Thursday, 15 October 2009
Time: 6:30-8:00P

Following the workshop will be an informal dinner-getting affair with our internal chairs, Eric Ho and Sonny. You can ration wisely and be hungry by 8! Om nom nom.

==========

Also happening this weekend is a day of food eating and film watching. Come to the first fundraiser for all things Cal Q&A. We'll be having amazing Berkeley Thai House food, and the eyeball-entertaining movie entitled The Wedding Banquet. A casual Saturday full of good food, film, and friends.

Please please please come out and support Cal Q&A. Food is priced at ten dollars a plate. All the money goes toward Cal Q&A, which helps provide some foundation for our upcoming 3rd annual QACON in May of 2010. It comes back to you in the form of amazing events, more food, and an even better conference than last year.

To see what awesomeness happened last year, go here:
http://qacon09.wordpress.com/

What: Cal Q&A Fundraiser: The Wedding Banquet
Where: 2025 Durant Ave.
When: Saturday, 17 October 2009
Time: 12:00-3:00P
Cost: $10/plate (all proceeds go to QACON10)
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=149844909089&index=1

On a side note... if you want to get involved in planning QACON10, let me know, and I'll let you know our secret meeting time and location. Hint: It's a secret treehouse that requires an authorized thumbprint to enter. Otherwise, our lasers will SHOOT YOU BEW BEW BEW.

I'm kidding about the lasers. Only.

That is all, fair children.

Sincerely yours,
- Jane Bennett Darcy Rochester

Broccoli Boiled or Steamed?

2009-10-06T23:37:00.000-07:00

STEAMED.

For me.

Plain.

With garlic. Garlique? Gar-leek. Garlicleeky? Leaky garlic.

Ew.

This week our discussion is on mental health. It will be a more serious but just as insightful discussion as before. Learn stress-relieving techniques, especially potent against the distress of midterms and papers. Sit comfortably while we massage your brain with a nice stimulating activity. Coordinates:

What: Cal Queer and Asian (Q&A) Discussion: Mental Health
Where: 305 Eshleman (QARC)
When: Wednesday, 7 October 2009
Time: 7:30-9:00PM

====================

Cal Queer and Asian is proud to present an excellent educational workshop led by Shin Yi Tsai, a queer Taiwanese American therapist with a private practice in Berkeley.

With over 12 years of experience working with diverse communities at agencies like The Pacific Center in Berkeley and the Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center in San Francisco, Shin Yi specializes in helping queer, transgender and intersex people feel less isolated and more confident in who they are. Visit her website at www.510therapy.com.

Shin Yi's workshop will teach us how to pay closer attention to what your Inner Critic is saying and learn to effectively talk back to it. Being both Asian/Pacific Islander and LGBTQQI, we oftentimes develop painfully loud Inner Critics, who recite negative messages from the mainstream media, social institutions, our families of origin and many other sources. This workshop will help you to identify what your Inner Critic is saying, understand where it comes from and learn how to manage it in healthy ways. Individually and collectively, we don't have to give the Inner Critic so much power over telling us who we are and who we want to be.

What: Cal Q&A Workshop: Shut Up and Love Me! - Dealing With Your Inner Critic
Where: 81 Evans
When: Thursday, 8 October 2009
Time: 7:30-9:00PM
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=159125582392&index=1

====================

Join Cal Q&A in our October Saturday Social! We will be having a scavenger hunt in the Castro. Bring digital cameras if you have one and if you want to, but we will be placing you into teams with a person with a camera. This means that evidence of finding "items" will be in the form of pictures/videos.

Please sign up so we can place you into teams:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dGN4R1k1dVlJdVEtYVpWZ1BsUzhvT0E6MA

If you're not sure, you should sign-up anyways. We can also last-minute attendees, but to be placed on the BEST TEAM POSSIBLE, apply NOW.

What: Cal Q&A Saturday Social: Castro Crawl
Where: The Castro, San Francisco, CA
When: Saturday, 10 October 2009
Time: Meet at Downtown Berkeley BART Station at 10:30AM
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=147572571500&index=1

Holy crap. I'm so. EXxXcited. For. EVERYTHING!

RAWR!

Cold toes and cold nose, but cold Ho's prose?

Crlspitypoo,
-Hopuu

Website Update, New Year

2009-08-26T00:10:00.000-07:00

Hooray it's a new year and new semester. Our website blew up, so we'll be using this one for now. It works, and it's free. Our first general meeting will be next Wednesday, 2 September at our usual time, 7:30PM in 305 Eshleman Hall (QARC). There will be food, fun, and fuzzy sweaters.

Maybe not fuzzy sweaters, but other things just as fun as fuzzy sweaters and a shag carpet.

See you there, kids!

-HO

2009-06-03T06:04:00.000-07:00

wiqaable has stolen me.

"Oh, so you're gaybestfriends now?"

2009-05-09T23:21:00.001-07:00

Jamie Tan asked me why all the cute and talented boys in Q&A weren't constantly making out with each other.

I told her that it is very difficult to manage that sort of thing and, generally, everyone is good friends with one another and that we see each other often enough for it to become nonspecial.

Or, maybe they do and they just don't tell me.

Her point was, though, that everyone in Q&A is special and hot, especially in comparison to the rest of the world since the microcosm if the Q&A conference made us look fantastic since we were somewhat in control of things and power is sexy.

(disclaimer: That was not her point)

What was refreshing, though, was the fact that someone agreed with me, for once in my life. Throughout highschool, I was friends with women with no taste. One of them lived in England, where they have dreadful standards of beauty, and when I'd show her pictures of my crushes she'd always say "He reminds me of my father" or something equally appalling. She also found Alan Rickman hot. My other friends weren't into Asians and liked pretty whiteboys, or miscellaneous boywaifs that wear makeup. It was very annoying and mostly I wondered what was wrong with them. (What do I like in boys? I like condensed faces, even proportions of feature and flesh, skin pulled close to the bone, rounded juts, spheres rather than ovals and evenly spaced teeth. I see the thinned cheeks, eyebrows that limn the socket, a pinhead mannequin with a chin. Just look at what myspace shots try to accentuate, it's basically that.)

After Jamie and I decided we were hot for everyone, I went on a facebook friending frenzy that was largely motivated by misplaced good cheer all the while wondering why I hadn't made a move on anyone I knew already. I remembered, then, that I was only good friends with about 1 male in Q&A, and that I didn't particularly know what to do with it except indulge in the sundry catty gossip he heard. When I was trying to not look like a dumbass in front of someone else over dinner (by being cleverly furtive about gossip I basically knew nothing about), he asked me where I'd heard it from. I told him that it was from my 1 male person in Q&A, and he replied, "Oh, so you're gaybestfriends now?" I made an indecisive noise but eventually agreed that yes, we were gaybestfriends, because it really does deserve its own category in that it is confusing and that even the slightest breeze in any direction will send everything spiralling into DOOM because emotions are terrifying and I do not know what males are, but I care to know more (and that's the worst part).

Mainly, I'm just horrified by desire since it simplifies the way we see things, and tears lives apart in the same way anger does.

In other, stalky news, I was googling my old receptacle of adoration referenced in "Have they invented that meal-in-a-pill thing yet?" and I discovered that, shockingly, like other normal people, he comes home to visit during important holidays like Christmas and my birthday (in my head). I know this because he was referred to in a recipe for bread pudding that he made during the holiday season of 2008, and I saw a similar blog post from one of his friends from the bay area commenting on how delicious it had been. I then remembered that wrong-gendered stalkers were quite possibly the lowest possible item on his "People to visit list" malingering a few notches under "proctologist" and "uncle who works at the morgue and likes to bring his work home with him" and it was pleasantly comforting.

Confessions of a virgin

2009-04-08T22:51:00.000-07:00

There are a circle of people in a dusty courtyard, a man is in its center, writing in the sand. To his side is a woman being restrained by two men. A woman on the opposite side throws a stone towards the woman in the center. He turns to her and says, "Mother, you infuriate me."

Ahem. My literature teacher tell me that you'd get that if you lived in Ireland, or Italy, or if the pope was your G.

Anyway, I'm not going to explain it. It's funny. I swear.

This week was le sex discussion, in which we learned, among other things, that 'having sex feels like you're going to explode.'

That's the sort of talk that puts the fear of god into sparkling virgin's heart and further tightens the chastity belt protecting his behymen. This lack of butt action, in addition to leading to extreme grumpiness and colon cancer due to a lack of pooping, also leads to many other wonderous magical things, which I (as resident the-only-virgin-in-the-whole-world-ever, I-swear) am here to inform you of.

The topic of virginity came up in the middle of our discussion, with someone posing the question, "does it have any value? Did you value yours before you were divested of it?" To which the resounding answer was a firm and powerful "Meh." Multiple good points were raised. First, contrary to popular belief, you do NOT lose any superpowers once you've been Touched by The Wang. Second, sex feels pretty great. And third, virginity is dumb because the longer you wait the worse you'll be at it when someone does deflower you, so you might as well buy a pack of sausages and some AXE bodyspray and start practicing, dummy.

I'd argue otherwise.

We're going to take a trip back into history for a moment to explore what, specifically, I mean when I say that there's a richness in virginity that nobody ever talks about, since they're all adequately sexed and don't remember what it's like to be blissfully uninformed.

Our story begins in 1071 with William IX, Duke of Aquitaine, who was the grandfather of Eleanor of Aquitaine who patronized Chretien de Troyes and divorced Louis VI based on degrees of consanguinity. He was also, perhaps, the first Troubador.

"What is a Troubador?" you shall ask, and I shall tell you that the troubadors were the first assholes in Europe that touted and perhaps created the idea of Courtly Love, which basically informed the romantic beliefs of every single person in the western world up through this day, really. You may recognize some of trademarks of courtly love such as

1. The ennobling and overwhelming nature of romantic, sexual love
2. The raising of the woman up onto an untouchable, perfect pedestal and
3. The DEEP SUFFERING on the part of the two lovers

Literature, dating from Tristan and Isond in the 12th century, all the way up through those trashy-chic Sarah Douglass books that I love, have narratives that revolve around these principles of misery and suffering and the ultimate triumph of perfect love, which ends in people riding off into the sunsets with their soulmates. This belief, and a bombardment of turblent romance stories vomitted at us through all sorts of media has twisted our perception of what it means to feel love, and in turn, it's changed the way we think about connection, changed the shape of our hearts so that "to love" in any way shape or form turns into something winged and perfect and transcendent.

When we are young, and impressionable, and we feel like we finally start to get the subplots in Disney movies, we end up reinforcing these beliefs, building on top of them until all of our needs, our wants and our actions revolve around this notion that love is the ultimate goal.

My evidence for this claim comes from the mere existence of the "Twlight reader" and "slasher" demographics, as well as personal experience. It is rare to see good romance written by people who are satisfied. It thrives on expectation, and connections between words, rather than any sort of realism. The act of union becomes only the framework upon which those that dream may place the expectation of something world-breaking, flash of light beautiful. We see these glittering ideas again and again clothed in trembling words until time refines this wordplay into a high art that makes your heart ache before you understand what it means. The idea of love, with all the stories I've shackled to it, means something to me, in that I've spent countless hours deciding who would be my OTP, and what it'd be like to be The Uncool One in a threesome, because it's cool to be in love, and it's cool to feel differently, and to feel like you have an excuse to perform grand gestures for another person out of romantic whimsy. It is hard for me to communicate, specifically, what it is inside. I know, simply, that I know that the sky will be gray when I run through an urban landscape one day, chasing after the man I love and destroy at the same time, and how, if I just hope hard enough I'll feel ecstatic like I did when this was all very new and when it seemed like the body and mind and evolution came together for the first time.

The thought of holding hands with someone still gives me fantastic jitters.

In a way, sex has become the ultimate symbol for all of this, as well as the gritty reality of it. To participate in the act, in a sense, would end it, whether it lives up to our expectations or not: it is not something that can be rethought, or reclaimed.

S0 where does this put us? We become needy horrible people that worship various pieces of text while simultaneously waiting for our front doors to pop open revealing the love of our lives, who happens to be rain-drenched (gloriously so), haunted-eyed and filled with an inhuman need of your virtue (he is NOT, however, a vampire, because vampires puncture holes in you with their teeth and are consequently not sexy unless you like undying). And it is our right to cling to this image, as it is more rich than anything that could happen in real life.

But there's the rub. As we age, we get smarter, and as much as we try and convince ourselves otherwise, we realize that these things don't happen. They never did, and, if we think hard about it, never will. We persist in thinking that they can, and at the same time know, that if we were to be loved once, it may happen again. Virginity is the final choice. To choose life, to depart from ignorance and chastity is the ultimate death of fiction. In choosing sex, you choose hope: love happens, it finds us and changes us in unimaginable ways, and we trust what our books tell us and have no need of brittle words in brittle worlds to shake us.

---

In case you were wondering, this is what I think about all day.

The stereotype dance

2009-03-19T15:33:00.000-07:00

Unless you're talking about the happy look of having had a cock in your bum sometime in the last 24 hours, there aren't really any innate physical manifestations of being queer. The fact is, what you do in your bedroom can be a secret to just about every other person in the world if you indulge solely in onanism. Or your partner is a robot. Or he/she has a brain lesion that causes recurring retrograde amnesia (or if you're just that mindblowingly good).

Anyway. My point is that being queer is something that can easily be buried since it's not evident unless you act upon it.

Which is why I wanted to say something about stereotypes. (Which was what I originally intended to speak of)

The fact is that the community builds up its own stereotypes to conform to. They're quite useful for many reasons. This is going to sound horrible and presumptuous, but I've come to understand that one of the essential queer narrative involves the inability for queers to find each other. (And now for the painfully obvious) The libidinally linked desire to meet others like you allows the use of stereotypes to be useful, since they provide an easy way of telling whether or not someone else would reciprocate your gross and wrong feelings. It's like a secret handshake (and, at a certain point in time it sort of blew up and now we have the Super Flaming Queer) and it only works if both parties know what it is. Additionally, people are lazy or confused, and stereotypes serve as a clean and easy way for closeted people to move into the big queer world--they become the pot of soup into which you throw carrots and rutabagas grown in your backyard.

I don't think anyone would have guessed I was queer until I actually sort of came out two years ago. In high school I was just a strange girly kid. In that sense, I suppose I avoided being labelled/put into a box. The two queer kids at my school, though, were also sort of alienating because they conformed so perfectly into the stereotypical case of gay. I mean, I knew I liked dick, sure, but it wasn't helpful at all to realize that the only other people that liked dick were also deplorably fabulous. But they were there, and they did their thing, and I guess in that sense they were empowering. That type of behavior was a necessary evil just to show that they were out there, and it was important to acknowledge them as existing human beings. Were they the result of mass media? Probably. Is that OK? Probably. Did other less flaming gays exist? Yes, but I didn't really do anything about it. In a sense, the stereotype serves the purpose in that it makes gays exceedingly visible, even though they could have just worn rainbow stickers on their backpacks.

That's all. I just wanted to complicate the picture a bit by saying that stereotypes, while limiting, are more than just convenient stickers outsiders can plop onto queers.

News from the Conference Front

2009-03-09T15:32:00.000-07:00

I was doing Outreach because Charles threatened to cut off my balls if I didn't, and I was looking for various organizations to e-mail. It was a long, windy process that involved sifting through the websites of various universities and colleges. I was given a LARGE LIST OF CATHOLIC COLLEGES and I wasn't surprised to find that they didn't have any delightfully faggy groups. (And then I realized how lucky I was to be at Berkeley, where we're all allowed to swathe ourselves in rainbows and run around making out with people of the same or opposite gender without getting smote by God). Later that week, at the conference meeting, Charles got out his ballcutting scissors and brandished them in my face while asking me why I didn't contact the Asian groups. "For example, USD

Aikane O Hawaii, Taiwan Student Association..."

And I said to myself, "D'you think they'll actually care about the Q&A people over in Berkeley?" I'd been sending funny little e-mails to every single queer group I could get my hands on, and never would would I have bothered to contact Asian groups A(sian Americans for Aardvarks and Asparagus)-Z(any Asians who Like To Have Fun) because I just figured, well... Seriously. Why?

But then again, why did I assume that all the queer groups would care about our conference? I hear, consistently, that even on this campus, the queer groups are somewhat filmy and diffuse, like sexy underwear (held together by the barest of threads), yet I assumed that people would be omg!yay over a Q&A conference.

My hypothesis, then, was that the queer community was much smaller than the Asian community, and there's some sort of minority effect that makes us all feel special and equally victimized. There was some certain pan-queer force that bound us all together in a way, so that it wasn't just that we'd all have to care about each other, or else it'd be awkward and unpleasant and we'd never get laid.

Was this right? I couldn't decide, because, by the end of all my outreach, the only response I did get from anyone was from this delightful girl from the Nikkei Student Union in Merced, telling me she was honored to be invited.

That weird gender question that drew a lot of crickets

2009-02-20T19:00:00.000-08:00

I didn't really feel like trying to rasp across the room for you all to hear, but I did want to clarify and talk about that one question that fell totally flat on its face.

Text communications, in general, have the wonderful ability to be devoid of embodiment. All we are can be condensed into a few characters on a screen. In this world, there is no absolute gender, only the genders we place onto the people on the other side of the screen based on stereotypes, judgments and "your best guess." More than once, I've had a gender forced onto me so others could feel safe, and so they could remember, "this is how we should act around X." In light of insecurities, it seems that people tend to grasp onto anything stable: they have no view of humanity outside of certain categories. Is it possible to find the love of your life in a disembodied medium?

The idea of "preference" applies not only to gender, but to race. How can one choose what race one prefers, while being unable to choose their gender? Is there fundamentally something different about the two? They say love is carnal, and that it is shaped by our experiences, which shape our needs. It is, perhaps, impossible to disentangle the idea of physical intimacy from companionship.

A holiday hello from that awkward kid

2008-12-29T08:20:00.000-08:00

For most of this vacation, I've been watching this Cantonese soap opera online with my mother and sister. 27 hours in, after the third carton of OJ and the second pack of dried squid, I found myself wondering, which came first? The fagalicious activities or the love of dick? (causation? correlation? contingence? coincidence?) Another day, another day.

Now, "what's so special about a Cantonese soap opera?" you might ask. Well, I shall tell you, because there are several things that I must share for this entry to make sense.

Firstly, Cantonese soaps are somewhere between 40-100 episodes long, and they air every weeknight so the old Cantonese women can get their daily fix. If the series shows some sort of continuity between the first and the last episode, then, good golly, you've got a keeper there! Owing to its scandalously rigorous release schedule, new soaps have to be filmed at least twice per year, lest the current company lose its monopoly.

The backbone of the Cantonese soap opera is the small horde of overworked, industrious Hong Kong superstars clawing and meowing their way to fame. Because of all the cut-throat competition in Hong Kong to become famous, Hong Kong superstars, unlike American celebrities, do it all; they're pop stars, movie stars, and soap opera stars. If you don't release an album a year after your public debut, boy are you dicked. LOL MEDIOCRITY. Anyway, they all kind of remind me of Shahrukh Khan, who's basically starred in every single Bollywood movie in existence.

Finally, the last ingredient in the Cantonese soap opera is a copious helping of schmaltz. These soap operas pull every string in the book, tapping into the universal fear of growing old and being forgotten or neglected by your children, or generally by having the nuclear family structure collapse. The lesson we learn by the end of episode 3... and 8... and 11... and 12... and 19... is that it's better to stay together and that you must respect your elders because they have high blood pressure and will die if you aggravate them, and because they only want their family to stay together. The quality of said schmaltz ranges from painfully bad (like when Ka-mei steals Ka's adopted sister's idea for a show to win his heart) to not that horrible (like in that touching scene with Hor ma telling her mute daughter's fiancee that she won't be a burden to him even though she's mute because she has a family support group and that they'll love each other).

Now, I understand that soap operas are hardly an accurate representation of normal life, but I can't help but see some terrifying similarities (Um, hello, did you steal Auntie Sa from the house down the street or something?). When all the component parts combine (the language, the bad Asian hair, the schmaltz, the cheesy overplayed themesong), all the cultural discontinuities between my mother and I sort of come together unpleasantly, in that I completely understand now what sort of environment my mother grew up in, and that her epistemology is shared by basically an entire continent on the other side of the world. Hell, when they speak, they even sound like her. Except, unlike her, they happen to not be my mother. Instead, they are adorable. If that's not good marketing for a language, then I don't know what is.

By the end of an episode, though, I can't help but wonder, what exactly does my mother think of all this? There are exquisitely faint clues that I must strain to grasp. Occasionally I'll hear the off-hand remark about how she wishes she'd had more good children that knew how to share, and fewer crap children that like to argue about how one's never worked for a single thing in his life, or how the other is an unpleasant old crow that'll leap on everyone's ass whenever she feels like it, just to start unnecessary conflict. Sometimes I also hear it in her voice, the subtle way she tells me that she wants lots and lots and lots of grandchildren, that she'd be annoyed if I were to do anything foolish like not have sex with women. How cryptic indeed! Following this, is, of course, the mental labor needed to make sense of it all, then the familiar sense of SINKING DOOM.

Oh, and here is my obligatory plug for my new heaping teaspoon of crushy goodness (Ok, when I wrote that I was thinking about baking, because I'd been baking cookies... and stuff... but now I just think I'm really disgusting). Raymond Lam is Ho (A.K.A. "Steward Boy") and he plays the role of simple, hard-working, earnest BFF to this doctor chick who was his first love, and (SPOILERS) they totally do get hitched eventually, I think, but he has all that delightful "You're the best I love you (as a brother) mwah mwah mwah I'm here for you through thick and thin~~~" kind of thing going on for most of the soap and basically he was written as a bit of packaged goodness you're supposed to fall in love with (because those writers are whores and I hate them), and my point is that it worked. Goddammit.

The usual stalky results:
facebook, youtube, youtube again, google (too bad I can't read any of it), wikipedia.

Largely, I'm reminded of dichotomies: reality and unreality, slutty twink and boy next door, people and famous people, things that are on fire and things that aren't on fire yet.

The worst part about this crush is that... Well, I guess there are a lot of worst parts, but the one that annoys me most is that whatever gesture of adoration I commit will have already been done by at least one of his 30,325 fangirls (and it'll probably have been done better, too, as I lack that zesty Asian girl panache).

Simmering sense of normalcy is AOK!

2008-10-28T20:38:00.000-07:00

I recently got sent to the psychiatrist after having something of a meltdown re: wanting plastic surgery (precipitated by the fact that I accidentally had the forms sent home where my mother opened them. OOPS. I need to remember to check the mail before she does.) It really didn't seem to be as much of an issue as those yelling people around me made it out to be, but evidently it was alarming enough to warrant some sort of Saturday-morning-ruining intervention. Anywho, I got to be witty to some stranger for about 250$/1 hour session and that was approximately a self-esteem boost, though I still hate my mother horribly for not telling me about it until an hour before I was scheduled to go in (and then telling me, "We have family problems that need to be addressed. This is for all of us." What the hell, woman.) I was very bitter and decided to turn the session into me ragging about my mother's problems, and it worked out fairly well.

About 8 hours later I get into this giant bitchfest with my sister over AIM about why all my goals are wrong and bad and how I think I deserve cupcakes because everyone else has them, which results in me having horrible and unrealistic expectations for everyone and everything. I then told her "duh," and wasn't convinced that I was doing anything wrong, since I knew what I wanted (perfect-simultaneous-orgasm-requited-love, or, failing that, someone to dump all my affections on) and was being proactive about getting it (because, at the time, I equated being pretty to a greater sense of charm, which is partially true). She then asked if I'd ever tried internet dating, to which I replied, "No, because the internet is full of creepy Asian fetishists and/or gross cumbuckets." And then she agreed and continued to try and convince me that I was being vain, thinking that I wasn't listening. But, in fact, without knowing it, she made everything about her argument fall into place perfectly and it was all very alarming and annoying. Sure, the internet can be gross. But, if all I really wanted was to have the opportunity to blow something (like cursory interest) out of proportion into a deluded sense of smashing-euphoric-oops-I-need-a-tissue, then the internet was the perfect place to do it and I should totally be all over that.

It was a very deflating thought, and I realized that, while I wasn't being a total whiner, I was probably letting my hormones and my biological curiosity get the better of me (Dear Self, STOP IT. Love, Self).

Um. So. Yeah.

I think the moral of the story is that, now, I'm totally over everything and everyone, and I'm back to my other weird and deluded state of non-porn-star moviestar crushes (he never wrote me back), and that's AOK! because it's kind of endearing and it's probably a lot more fun than cosmetic surgery. I'm back to my forum-trolly (yield: David Boreanaz in a bathtub) slash-loving (yield: Angel/anything, Tidus/Auron [WARNING: dirtydirtydirty, but hot]) Youtubing self (yield: that new Dido song I like)

Dolor, ennui, other forms of emotional extravagance

2008-10-08T21:58:00.000-07:00

(Disclaimer: Contains unhealthy amounts of Purple in order to evoke a response. "Wow, that asshole has a way with words" or "Wow, that asshole can't talk straight" are both acceptable. Vagueness employed for confidentiality/safe space rules.)

I don't really go into Q&A with any sorts of expectations. In fact, I would be very happy if everyone around me sat in their own corner playing with tape. What I got, today, was mentally taxing. The discussion tonight was about Coming Out. Stories ranged from depressing, to uplifting, to halfway mystic, with all sorts of this and that thrown in for shits and giggles. All around me, people were telling me about some of the best/worst moments in their lives, and it was identified as very sad and moving. While it should have been fairly obvious to me that the act of Coming Out is sort of the genesis to all things queer (read: Coming Out is a Big Fucking Deal), I'd never really think about it. I tried to, tonight. But, no matter how serious I tried to be, the result was the type of bullshit that makes everyone laugh, and scratch their heads, and say "Is this kid for real?" I felt halfway distanced, in that, owing to choice, I'd never had to do anything about being a giant fag other than send the occasional awkward message. The question posed itself: is it really that big of a deal? Truly, this seemed to be one of the things I happened to take for granted.

The pressure from my extended family to come out is near zero. They are all very old, and very senile, and I have older male cousins who are all very strapping and will most likely give the shitty family genes to their perfect 2.5 children. I could probably pass as pre-pubescent, anyway, since I'm dumpy and quiet enough to not be seen as a child-producing object by any of them.

But oh, my mother, my poor, poor mother.

Coming out has become a sort of game I play with my her. On the one hand, I torture her so, with strange and opulent come-ons to non-existent ungendered individuals, and on the other, I conveniently deflect any of the painstakingly phrased questions she manages to squeeze out once every few years. Daily, I tell her, "When I grow up, I want to be a go-go dancer! Look at my sexy unshaved legs." and I lift one on to the table while she replies with some form of "Those people only find work during the good times, and with this sort of economic crisis we're in now, it's doubtful that you'll have business." She pauses as I start to caress it and talk about shaving, then she follows with a snappy "Do you want to be a girl?" and I reply with a "No, I just want to be a slut." And I proceed to bombard her with all sorts of vague questions about longing, belonging, delirium, rejection and yearning. "What is it like, to feel wanted? How does one overcome the barriers that exist between people? Were you more often the dumper, or the dumped?" "Who is it you like?" she asks, and I contort the idea into friendship and direct her to the suffering platonic plane on which I exist. "Oh, if you want friends you'll be fine, you have all those girls that love you!" And I laugh at her and exalt in her confusion and misguided hope. But I can't help but understand that this stems from a sort of sadism, born of boredom, and other empty emotions, in which I thrive on the attention that I get when I play with her feelings.

I know that she won't take me seriously if I ever do come out to her. I know it will be twice as hard to accept, twice as hard to pick through what is joke and what is not. Yet, I continue. Here is a game, here is a game, here we go 'round the mulberry bush, pulling off leaves, pulling off leaves.

For what? My story now turns to the image you see above, the hallowed visage of Francois Sagat.

I saw this fine specimen of man at the ultra trashy Folsom Street fair after browsing some of his videos at the porno booth. I was smitten. Weeks later, I am still smitten through a combination of online stalking, layered jumbles of imagined conversations and Other Things. Yes, I'm having issues with full-blown, balls-to-the-wall, insane-obsessive, bloaty, masochistic crushing. I've written letters and letters and letters, and spoken to dozens and dozens of people about what I should do about this, mainly in an attempt to avoid forgetting him, or forgetting the tactile sensation of his body stubble when I touched his back. I have no illusions, folks, it's just that I haven't felt this way in a very long time, and I plan to keep it no matter what.

This is the only sort of love I know of, the kind that is generated through appeal, but is maintained through force of will. This is the anemic kind that bleeds out when all you have is time: you have no heart, and lack the ability to make people want to give you theirs.

Today I sat on BART next to this old shriveled Asian woman. She looked uncomfortable and there was a man on her right, sitting in the opposite perpendicular seat, a healthy distance away. As he left, a stop before she did, he said to her, "See you next week." She said "Goodbye" and waved at him with a modicum of sweetness that doesn't exist easily in the Asian world. After he left, she moved and sat where he had. Part of me thinks that I just stank because I'd run down from Eshleman, but another part of me constructed the story between them, and how, unbeknownst to me, I had taken the one seat in the car that the man could not have. I felt nothing, when I realized that, though I had been an active participant in that very small tragedy, that interplay of hearts.

It made me realize, more than anything, that I lack that power. The power to give, to break, to mend, to piece together the heart; and there's no way to express that feeling. Though I can say that I like boys, I haven't Come Out yet. I haven't received that blessed power that allows me to love, or create, or to maintain an emotion naturally, without veneer, without artifice, and already I miss it desperately.

Found on Best of Craigslist

2008-07-10T00:30:00.001-07:00

10 Reasons Why Gay Marriage is Wrong

01) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

02) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

03) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

04) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

05) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

06) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.

07) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

08) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.

09) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

Re-post this if you believe love makes a marriage.

PostingID: 102351114

I am crushing on the fruit vendor with special feature "Androgeny is Hot?"

2008-06-12T18:29:00.000-07:00

Today I went to the Farmer's Market, because, clearly, it is what all the Cool Kids do on their Thursday afternoons, and went to buy fennel and peaches and other delicious things. My super sekrit ulterior motive was to also see my favorite hottie vendor from Kashiwase Farms and to buy overpriced peaches from him. I did that after much deliberation and mincing and dropping my onions (but not my apple juice) and convinced myself that he shaved the 5 cents off my 3.05 $ purchase of fruit just because I wouldn't stop smiling at him and not because it is common thing to do that people would wail about were it not in practice. I am also determined to take a proper picture of him someday (like, from some other vantage point that doesn't involve being behind a rack of bell-peppers and strawberries).

Okay, so I'm a little Sticky Rice. (Shut up and stop ruining my plans. I LOVE YOU FRUIT VENDOR, YOU MAKE ME FEEL ALL TINGLY mmmmmmmmmmmmmlet'smakebabies. I also love how your teeth aren't perfect.)

Also, friend who I visited today HAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA ahaha AAAa aaha haaa! ha haa aaaa aa aaaah I HAVE FRIENDS. I REALLY DO. aah ha hhhhhhh hhh h h h

hhh

(seriously)

who would very much like to work at Steamworks (you know, that bathhouse that had the name-brand free condom/lube combo samples in the QARC) stated that he was androgynous, when clearly he is not because he is 6'4" and is quite manly and is a bass and was standing right next to me. It was concluded by a third party that he is not, whereas I am, and I geisha-giggled and they found it creepy. He then later stated that androgyny is hot. To that I replied "But if you're gay, don't you kind of want a man?" to which he argued something, then disproved his own point by saying that everyone prefers lipsticks. I can only conclude that he was being polite and trying to comfort me in the fact that I will never ever ever get laid. (Not that I want to, by the way)

Fresh start

2008-05-18T23:25:00.000-07:00

Level 70 Dark Elf. My spicy new title. I get to throw it around like a ninja star.

We have a pretty fresh ~~regime~~ board for next fall, and the optimism is pumping like... something.

The conference on 3 May was a smash hit, if I may say so myself. Even though we started a little late, the keynote speaker Amy Sueyoshi was absolutely brilliant and hilarious; the audience was not slow to disagree. Lunch was served on the lovely campanile esplanade, and for the first time in event history, we ran out of food- the facilitators didn't have to eat restaurant white rice for the next three days. Many conference attendees also went to GAPA's College Night, which was fun with drag and dance performances.

This semester was fun. We look forward to seeing you next fall, or else I'll throw my ninja star title in your eye.

Hi

2008-05-06T13:28:00.000-07:00

So, I'm actually really self-conscious now about the blog turning into my own personal whine-fest.

I know someone has something to say about The Conference, or The Banquet, or The Party or the Lovely John Judge. So, like, say it [comment, bother Seyron, e-mail one of the contributers, anything.] Or something. Y'know. Because, like, it's important to be informative.

Adventures in Irish Class

2008-04-29T19:40:00.001-07:00

Today was the last day of Beckett's.

For all of you non-Celtic Studies majors, this means that this was the last day of going to the pub and pretending that we carouse noisily over spirits, when in actuality we sit in a circle and grunt out fractured Irish. I was placed in the corner next to middle-aged guy and terminally-ill somewhat deaf guy. The topic for tonight was 'What are your dreams?'

Naturally, I had to be snarky, my piece to share went something like

"I mo bhriongloid, beidh mé i mo chonai i fochla sa Iorua le Internet mar is maith liom an Iorua agus Ní maith liom h-aon duine." Meaning, "In my dream, I will live in a cave in Norway with internet, because I like Norway and I don't like anyone."

There was a moment of pregnant silence, and then my teacher, who is also hard of hearing, said "Well! I have an announcement to make, [Fenia] has decided to join us and study Celtic Studies. A little birdie told me." Of course, this was in Irish, and I'm not THAT good. And then there was applause and congratulations all around and people said things I didn't understand and I was generally embarrassed. I should have said something like "I want to buy a hooker and then sit on his face. HIS FACE. SIT ON HIS FACE AS IF IT WERE A CUSHION." I bet they wouldn't have noticed. Then I went back to staring at the hot native Irishman who somehow attends these things. [His name is Brian]

Middle-aged man, during a lull in the conversation, then decided to ask me where I was from. I told him, and then he told me, and there was some phonetic mix-up, in which I kept calling him gay without knowing it, because evidently New York, and gay, in Irish, sound similar. He corrected me fastidiously: "It's Eabhrac. E-a-b-h-r-a-c." I forgot a few seconds later.

Of course, he actually did turn out to be gay, as he later wrote down on a piece of paper, "Tá mé aerach." and under it he wrote "I am gooy" (the a melted into an infinity sign) and I didn't know what the fuck that meant, so I nodded and smiled and repeated "Tá mé aerach" to try and get the sounds right. He then hushed me a bit. He then said "It's in the dictionary." And then I sort of stopped caring and went back to staring at my eye-candy.

[By the way, the above is agrammatical. It should be "Is duine aerach mé."]

Then he asked me what my last name was, and then later he said, somewhat mumblingly "Tá sé go deas" and then he was cut off by someone else. This roughly translates into, "He's niiiiice..." and I didn't realize that this was addressed towards me, with the subject matter being delectable native Irish man.

I then became suspicious. Maybe my instincts were wrong, but

(We interrupt this post to tell you that Fenia's roommate is probably talking shit about him behind his back in a different language to his sister. Screw you, roommate.)

I had begun to suspect that I had just been come out to, and that I had been labeled as a fellow fag.

I realized then that this was the first time something like that's happened, actually, and it was weird, even though it shouldn't have been. Now, if you don't mistake me for a girl, it's 97% obvious (more than glaringly, slightly less than "Can I borrow that copy of INCHES magazine that's taped onto your shirt?") that I'm fruit-tastic. But usually everyone else is considerate enough to not say anything, or to ask first.

Anywho, long story short, I think I feel vaguely harrassed, but I’m not sure, actually, and 40% of the males in that Irish gathering are queer and the rest are straight?

Unrelated: Remind me to never look at Downelink ever again. I'm convinced that pretty boys are bad for me.

Whining, y/n?

2008-04-28T13:45:00.001-07:00

As the last Q&A event of the semester rapidly approaches, I realize that I haven't written a thing about the club, what happens in meetings, or anything really pertinent. Of course, I could always just say "BUT I DIDN'T SIGN UP TO WRITE ABOUT THE MEETINGS." because I didn't, and I was sort of hoping someone else would. However! I can't help but picture Seyron slapping a hand to his forehead and saying "What a 'tard." and then blowing up the blog one day in an act of mercykill.

Anywho, my point is, I'm not about to ruin my streak now, so here's a story that I ripped directly out of the Penguin Book of Gay Short Stories (I shit you not. This book exists. It's in the fourth floor of Moffit near the men's restrooms, and if you were to open it, and you were to have one of those handy dandy CSI kits on you, you'd find it COVERED in my skin cells.) In my opinion it's one of the bestestestestest ones. It's from the Six Fables collection by Bernard Cooper. Yes, this is probably illegal. No, I'd rather you not rat me out please. Yes, it sort of makes me want to theme a birthday party in a similar manner.

2. Capiche?

In Italy, the dogs say bow-bow instead of bow-wow, and my Italian teacher, Signora Marra, is not quite sure why this should be. When we tell her that here in America the roosters say cock-a-doodle-do, she throws back her head like a hen drinking raindrops and laughs uncontrollably, as if we were fools to believe what our native red rooster says, or ignoramuses not to know that Italian roosters scratch and preen and clear their gullets before reciting Dante to the sun.

In Venice there is a conspicuous absence of dogs and roosters, but all the pigeons on the planet seem to roost there, and their conversations are deafening. When the city finally sinks, only a thick dark cloud of birds will be left to undulate over the ocean, birds kept alive by pure nostalgia and a longing to land. And circulating among them will be stories, reminiscences, anecdotes of all kinds to help pass the interminable days. Even when the voluble cloud dissipates, the old exhausted birds drowning in the sea, the young bereft birds flying away, the sublime and untranslatable tale of the City of Canals will echo off the oily water, the walls of vapor and the nimbus clouds.

There were so many birds in front of Cafe Florian's, and mosquitoes sang a piercing songs I drank my glass of red wine. Waving them away, I inadvertently beckoned Sandro, a total stranger. With great determination, anxious to know me, he bounded around tables of tourists.

The Piazza San Marco holds many noises within its light-bathed walls, sounds that clash, are superimposed or densely layered like torte. Within that cacophony of words and violins, Sandro and I struggled to communicate. Something unspoken suffered between us. We were, I think, instantly in love, and when he offered me, with his hard brown arms, a blown-glass ashtray shaped like a gondola, all I could say, all I could recall of Signora Marra's incanting and chanting (she believed in saturating students in rhyme), was "No capiche." I tried to inflect into that phrase every modulation of meaning, the way different tonalities of light had changed the meaning of that city.

But suddenly this adventure is over. Everything I have told you is a lie. Almost everything. There is no lithe and handsome Sandro. I've never learned Italian or been to Venice. Signora Marra is a feisty fiction. But lies are filled with modulations of untranslatable truth, and early this morning when I awoke, birds were restless in the olive trees. Dogs tramped through the grass and growled. The local rooster crowed fluently. The Chianti sun was coming up, intoxicating, and I was so moved by the strange, abstract trajectories of sound that I wanted to take you with me somewhere, somewhere old and beautiful, and I honestly wanted to offer you something, something like the prospect of sudden love, or color postcards of chaotic piazzas, and I wanted you to listen to me as if you were hearing a rare recording by Enrico Caruso. All I had was the glass of language to blow into a souvenir.

Your form is a fish. Wait, maybe not.

2008-04-11T09:17:00.000-07:00

I've been accused of being horny.

This is not the case. I swear.

really.

As April goes into May, and it starts to feel more like Spring/foaling season etc. I find myself less and less attached to the practical side of reality.

I don't claim to know what I want (hell, I'm THE most indecisive person ever), but, I do know that the warmth of the sun, the heady perfume of pollinated air, and the feeling of Spring never fails to induce dreaming.

More than anything, really, the thought of sleeping next to someone (not with, not atop, not anything, just beside) is strangely appealing to me. The furled leaf of a body, two crescent curves and radiant warmth, I don't know, I find it hard to think of anything else. Somehow, I've really bought into the idea of Agape without even ever having been in a relationship myself. (Does that mean I've completely given up on sex?) I'd like to compose sonnets: to the bronze Aegean sun, the way light moves over your shoulders as you look back; fingers along the arc of your jaw; the shuffle in your sleep and the lull of your breath; the liminal hour between our separate dawns; the ache of absence, the glow of return; the hope, the suspension of being, and silence.

Actually, fuck that. I don't know what the hell I want. It might be easier if we all just lived in our own internet-connected caves. Seriously.

Mine would be in Norway.

By the way, if I think you're pretty, don't call me. I literally WILL FLIP THE SHIT.

And now for Fenia's super-Freudian theory as to why I've spent most of my life chasing straight boys:

Have you ever decided someone was cute before realizing they were pushing a baby stroller? YA. AMIRITE? SRSLY.

Well, anyway, I kind of find baby strollers adorable, even though I hate children, and if I were to ever have one, I'd pick my mate based on how delicious he'd make the childflesh, and guys that push baby strollers are um, kind of super super chaud.

Why? (WARNING: Here comes my half-baked idea)

Because, probably, I sort of want that stability that I'll not ever have. Also, I probably repress lots and lots of stuff (i.e. my super sekrit unconscious love of children... /shudder) and it manifests as omghawt daddies. (Really. They're hot. Really.) Oh, and I'll never get them, so that's like, +++omg want.

My secret shame: I find Jacques Pepin kind of adorable.

Racism or Preference

2008-04-06T10:37:00.000-07:00

I found this blog entry regarding racism vs preference of men (in the bathhouse).

http://www.bathhouseblues.com/racism.html

I thought it was interesting. According to the blogger, "Asian Men are completely undesirable by gay men of any color, including their own" and that a white preference in the gay community, "stems from all of the media images we are bombarded with on a daily basis."

But is this to say that physical and sexual attraction racial or racist? The blogger continues to observe: "Gay men aren't attracted to women; so does that make all gay men sexist? Of course not. So that is how GWM (gay white men) rationalize this preference."

Interesting.

...and no, I've never been to a bath house. And yes, I am curious... and no I would never go... well maybe... to observe the ethic dynamic of course.

Here are a couple of videos on the topic:

Documentary, Forbidden Fruit, from Australia: http://youtube.com/watch?v=H_B_LNFr7jg and http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ua4ziIc5lcM

The Look

2008-04-01T13:10:00.000-07:00

I've been accused of staring.

Well, if there's something to look at I won't hesitate to fix my focus and enjoy the view. I should take a picture, it will last longer. Hah, I do. If it's something strange like ugly shoes or something nice like cute boys, I will look.

Is it rude? I don't think so, is it creepy? I don't think so. After all, using your eyes is a form of communication. But what are your eyes saying?

"How YOU doin?"
"You're a Cutie, what's your name?"
"Let's go to the bathroom for a quicky"

Looking is innocent and making eye contact is exciting. (And awkward). But following it with a smile is possibly the best move you can make. And from there you can see if you get a smile back.

I dream of meeting a guy on the street, asking him out on a date and then persue something romanic. But for many, the first boyfriend is met through the web... and from the getgo, the "relationship" is rocky. But where else are you supposed to meet a boy? Especially when our lives are so "downe" low. Friends of friends are a safe bet, but that's not as exciting as a casual encounter.

That's why the look is so important. It's how you meet real people who so happen to be interested in you, right? Ha, but this is much more difficult than browsing by Zip Code and clicking "more pics."

Walking in the street you see a cute boy, you make eye contact, you look away. That's normal, but was he checking you out too? There's only one way to find out: look again. The double take is a clear indicator that they are interested too. And since you're doing the double take, it signifies that you are interested in him! It also works in reverse.

Oh goodness, that boy is nasty. You inadvertanly stare because you couldn't figure out if why he's wearing CROCs. You catch his look.. Shit! LOOK AWAY! And don't you dare look back because that would be the double take and he may chase you.

Anyway.

I've been working on actually using my mouth to communicate. In church and in SoCal, I've fixed my stare until I get attention then confirm with the double take. I'm now trying to muster the courage to mouth the word "hi" and follow it with a smile. Or even a "wasup" head nod would suffice. But that's easier said than done right?

I've developed a plan or rather a resolution. Next time... I'm in the situation, I'll try with all my might to keep confident and greet them. After all, they're interested too... right? And being shy will get you no where.

Berkeley is a sexually frustrated campus... Just say hi damn it! They probably wish they said hi to you too. .. Awww.

Happy Fenia!

2008-03-23T16:35:00.000-07:00

Today is March 23rd! This means that, among other things (the resurrection of Jesus, the pillaging of the Easter Bunny's candy, etc.), I have survived March 22nd relatively unscathed!

By the way, this is a big deal.

(Like, a totally big deal. Really.)

March 22nd, otherwise known as 'The day of Embarrassing Shit,' is my first SLI's (Straight Love Interest's) birthday. I'd spent the better part of high school and a year of college obsessing over this boy, it was, essentially, the pinnacle of crushy, hormonal limerence that I spent years wangsting over because I went to a small high school and there was nobody else on whom I could crush. Oh, high school; how I miss/loathe thee. Every year, on this day, until yesterday, I'd found new ways of doing atrocious things to him/myself that I've suppressed so well, it is only after great pains, and multiple cups of soothing tea, do I manage to recall.

4 years ago:

Me: Today I shall write in my AIM profile about how you came into a room that one time and got changed but didn't say 'Hi.' because you didn't see me and it was dark. (I also have smooshy feelings about you but haven't decided on what they are yet.)
Him: Wtf? Take that shit down.
Me: Okay.

3 years ago:

Me: HEY, WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE FRUIT?
Him: Mango?
Me: OKAY I SHALL MAKE YOU A CAKE WITH MANGO IN IT AND PERHAPS I SHALL WIN YOUR HEART. /make cake. HERE YOU GO. /awkward awkward awkward
Him: Um.

2 years ago:

Me: I shall now write a long, confusing letter (replete with bad poetry!) about my feelings on home-made stationery and maybe add a few tear stains for dramatic effect. I shall then decide to not mail it to you because that would be in bad taste. OH WAIT I DID MAIL IT TO YOU. WHOOPS (except not really). /graduate and then flee forever

1 year ago:

Me: I am so over you. To prove how over you I am, because I haven't seen you in almost a year, I shall log into someone else's facebook who is friends with you (because I am not) and then contemplate writing another horrible letter to you. And then I will settle upon poking you instead. I shall then misdirect the smooshy feelings/letter onto someone else who totally doesn't deserve to be picked on.

This year:

Me: Thank God I have video games to keep me busy.

How My Parents Found Out

2008-03-18T14:11:00.000-07:00

I was a bad kid in high school.
Oh, well, I'm not talking about school because I was rank 4 when I graduated.

On my 56k modem I downloaded a lot of.. cough.. materials. And since it took so long to load pictures back in the day, it was worth my while to just keep it in a "hidden folder." I just needed to make sure that the folder settings were appropriate. Eventually, I had about 100 of my favorites in a folder in my documents on the family computer.

One day I came home from school and my mom and dad wanted to have a talk with me. My greatest nightmare came true: they found the folder (like magazines under my bed). I was scared out of my mind... the conversation was a blurr, but they concluded that the naked guys in the folder were guys that I wanted to be like because I was so awkward in middle school. I was teased a lot and these images were icons of what I wish I wanted to be.

Great logic Mom and Dad. Or.... maybe, your son was gay.

My dad never brought it up again, but my mom and I have little discussions here and there. She tells me that she hopes & prays to the blessed Lord Jesus Hallelujah that I will "straighten out," but of course she loves me regardless. The saddest part is that she wanted grand kids. And though being gay doesn't make that impossible, it just makes it more of a challenge. I feel comforted that I can talk openly to my mom. She even gave me advice on boys... or love in general rather.

Lately, my gay friend has been sleeping over. My mom asked me if he didn't sleep over too often because Dad was asking her about him and she doesn't know what to say. I don't know what else needs to be said because I carelessly leave my Queer As Folk DVDs on my desk, I take mysterious trips to the city and every time my friends come by a giant rainbow that does not fit the doorway squeezes in behind them.

I know my dad knows. But maybe it makes him happy to have hope and coming out and confirming that I am queer will crush all the dreams he had for me: getting married, having kids, passing on the lineage, being a perfect puzzle piece of society. So I stay silent so that he can pretend that I just haven't found the right girl...

I stay silent so that he doesn't have to cry because I'm not the perfect son that I wish I was...