Congratulations. You're officially bored.

What's in my heart.

2011-04-21T13:56:00.001+08:00

I need to sit down, boy... 'cause I can't breathe.
You take my breath away from me.

People do stupid things.

2010-11-02T02:29:00.003+08:00

As you grow older, you struggle harder to have a generic faith in people. They they're good and that they want good things for other people. You look at yourself and hope that you have that same goodness inside yourself.

But sanity is found in knowing that people are also capable, and more so inevitably doomed to do stupid things. I had a weekend where a bunch of people around me did a lot of stupid things. But I'm not going to talk about that. I'm going to talk about the stupid thing that I did.

I dated someone because I thought I saw myself in him.

Yes, it's an unbelievable act of narcissism. But I thought I saw me in 2006 when I had first arrived, but it turns out we were very, very different. Why did I want someone who reminded me of myself? Have I been having that much trouble connecting to people who were different, that I felt like an island who would only be happy finding another island?

The second thing I did was do something that suddenly increased my seratonin intake... and thus disastrously depleting my supply of it. I'm sitting in my apartment and everything around me that I loved last week, is simply pitiful. Even my dog looks sad.

It feels familiar. I used to feel like this for years, and I think how the hell did I get through my childhood. How did I get up every morning? I can't imagine how I would proceed if this lasted for more than a week. So it's something to be thankful for I guess.

Be thankful that happiness has become something more of a choice... and that with every passing day is potential to feel a little better.

Simply worried.

2010-06-27T04:55:00.002+08:00

I'm an insecure piece of shit, and my mind is a jumble of doubts.

Am I working too hard? Am I not working hard enough? Should I be with him? Should I stop spending so much time with him? Do I need braces? How many times should I go to the gym each week? If I dress like this will people like me more? Maybe I should buy more clothes... all of mine are too old. Do people notice this shirt is from college? I wonder if he'd like me more if I were a bit taller or less tan or more Chinese looking. Or maybe he only likes white guys... Why don't I have more savings? I wonder if I'll get a boyfriend once I have more money. Is that the only reason he'll want to be with me? Am I ever going to find someone? Am I ever going to get bigger? When the fuck is this stupid band of fat going to go away? Did I lose myself somewhere along the way? Why do I care so much about all this shit? Did I abandon my art, or did art abandon me? Am I the same person I used to be? Am I better or worse than I was before? How much longer before you really lose it?

I'm trying to be strong, but a lot of things want to put me down. I kind of want to settle. Tired of being told I'm too (insert any adjective... really, any). I wish I could find someone who appreciates all I have to offer, because I do have a lot. Maybe they think I'm a whore. Maybe it's me. Do I go after the wrong guys just because I know they'll reject me? Does it fit the story I've written for myself? I think I need to try to stop hating myself so much.

How old am I? I'm 27. Ok. I want to restart my life. But I can't do that. It's not a game. And I wouldn't want to do high school over... so just have to change things moving forward. Stop regretting everything. Love yourself. Love yourself. It's the only way to live.

It's hard being back.

2009-12-20T01:39:00.002+08:00

I told myself I wouldn't come back to California until I was ready. Ready for what?

I have this enormous anxiety being here and I can't really define it's origin. I've been looking through my Facebook page, amazed to have it back and browsing all the people who have come in and out of my life throughout the years. I really have been gone for almost four years now.

Things have changed. Nothing major. My closest friends are still close. Old lovers who truly cared still truly care. But some people have woven me out of their lives. For some, I am a vague memory of this kid who used to live here. And I wonder what my life would be like if I hadn't left.

Would I have fixed the issues I had? Would I still walk into a bar and feel like the ugliest person there?

In Shanghai, I've learned to get past all my drama... but I'm starting to feel more like I haven't gotten over my self-esteem problems as much as I have distanced myself from the source.

I've never been able to fit in with the gay crowds here. Theatre Rice was the first place that I really felt comfortable with myself, until more gay guys started joining.

So what's the deal here? I look at some of these people and I feel like a monster around them. Awkward, limping with boils and slime oozing out of my pores. Did heartbreak and rejection leave me to feel like less of a man?

I lost myself in California, and coming back makes me feel just as lost. For as much life as I have restored, recreated and reinvented in China, there is the part of me that exists here in LA, barely existing at all.

Ready as I'll ever be.

2009-04-27T04:13:00.003+08:00

I am in a recovery state.

At a bar here in Shanghai, I see Stevie. I have such vague memories of our short but rocky history. He was the first guy I ever had feelings for. My first roommate in college. The first person I ever slept naked with. And he was just standing there 10 feet away from me, with a little messenger bag.

I'm not that shocked anymore when I run into people here. At first, it was a somewhat amazed look, which quickly transitioned into something more subtle. All of my past has been coming back to me lately...

Artsy as always, and with his awkward general presence we catch up. Stevie and I haven't talked to each other since he had his infamous revenge orgy in our room. That was about seven years ago. We were such children.

And I only have small fragments of memories of my time with him. I was anxious. I was counting down the days until he would sleep with someone else. I remember a giant hanging lamp we bought from Urban Outfitters. And our yellow room. And our first kiss we had while we painted our room yellow.

We lived in Wilde House, one of the co-ops at Berkeley. And he was sitting on a chair taking a rest. I looked at him and it had occurred to me that we had seen each other naked but hadn't had anything resembling romance. So I dared to infuse it into our relationship. I walked up to him, moved one leg over his and then the other and sat on his lap, and without too much thinking I kissed him.

That was my first real kiss. I remember how thin his lips felt compared to mine. I can think of it and still pan back and see the rest of the room... fresh wet paint on the walls, furniture piled into the middle with tarps loosely draped over, a 3 p.m. sunlight trickling in, and me, a incoming freshman thinking the next four years would be so amazing.

The story of my time at Berkeley, was amazing actually, but not the way I would have imagined.

I've been trying to piece my narrative together. I see loops and I think conclusions. I just turned 26 this month and I feel so lost. My sentences are said and written in fragments, and my thoughts don't seem very cohesive tonight. I don't get it. I feel like I've been given the pieces to three different puzzles. And I can't work.

So maybe I'm thinking... maybe this doesn't have to make sense. Maybe this time the pieces don't fit. Maybe I don't have to become a better person out of this. I asked Arthur to tell me he would never love me, and he did. So I believe him and I'm free, and messy and dysfunctional.

I am in a recovery state and I'm never leaving it... so no more waiting.

Firework revelations.

2009-01-30T00:30:00.003+08:00

I feel like I'm in one of those indie movies. I'm the protagonist and he's lying there, his face lit up by city lights looking at me with big doe eyes. Except, I can't tell if he's looking at me or looking right through. I only know that it's in my general direction. He's that weird kind of character. The kind that you know the filmmakers intended to be attractive, only he didn't get the job for his looks but for his acting skills. Somehow not, yet somehow hot.

And he's young. Too young. I love you, he says. But I don't hear it. In fact, I remember now that since the last time I've said those words to someone else, when I hear them now I bat them away with my hands like little annoyances buzzing towards my ears.

Sitting with Stephany in a sushi bar, I almost cried thinking about Arthur. Only this time it wasn't about our relationship or anything that had actually happened in the past. We spoke briefly when I was in LA and he in SF... our relative cities only two letters off. I get the feeling that he's still afraid to talk to me, as if I'd lash out in anger. He asks me if it would be ok to write me sometimes and see how I'm doing, and it makes me happy to hear that he still cares in some manner.

I was really happy and it's maybe the closest I'll get to tears of joy because I don't actually believe in them. I had a feeling of accomplishment and more than ever before I believed that I actually did love him. It gives you a renewed faith in the world to know there's someone out there you care about that much, that you can let go of and let them be with someone else.

Three years and two and a half months ago, we sat together on my bed in Rochdale Apartments. In my underwear (because why should I know better than to pair emotional with physical vulnerability) I told him that everything that I had been doing wrong I did because I loved him. I knew he wouldn't say it back. I did not expect it. I did not even hope for it.

Three years and one month ago, I wished him to come back to me. Now, I wish him happiness.

I just got the memo, it's over.

2008-11-17T21:39:00.003+08:00

Closure is kind of an elusive thing.

I used to always tell people that I didn't believe in it - that in actuality, it was just a reaffirmation of knowledge that you already have. But I guess, in effect, that can essentially be what closure is sometimes.

Another fling of a relationship passes by and I am somewhat more wise but as equally alone as I was before it all happened. He came to me from the internet. A place where many good and bad things alike come from these days, and possibly in my delusion, I thought that maybe it was one of the better relationships I've had.

I feel a little bit like my bubble had burst, because before we met in real life he mostly knew of my existence and my writings. My writing, obviously is a filtered, saner version of the mindless rambling that happens nightly in my head. And my existence not too long ago (but before I started this blog), had a reputation for more composure and liveliness.

These days, in the aftermath, I find myself wishing that he would go back to knowing me in the distant sense... hoping that he did not get to witness in person the tragedy that is myself:

We broke up when he left Shanghai. I remember it as bittersweet, watching him at the train station as he faded past the security checks, and slowly, with a bit of melancholy towards his departure I walked back to the subway and went back home. We'll call him Davy.

For two months, Davy and I had some really good times, and even a nice little trip. I picked him up at the airport in a sick version of an extreme blind-date. The guilt of seeing him and deciding was too ugly and leaving, would in this case, have been tenfold. I got lucky with my gamble and he turned out to be, actually, quite cute.

But the silly thing is that when it all ended, this was all I remembered. I had forgotten about the bad stuff. I had forgotten fights and weeks without sex and almost kicking him out and the mind-numbing headaches. I wanted to remember the good, and at the end, I did still care for him. So much, that I told him I wanted to leave our Facebook status alone. And he did.

We continued to talk for a couple weeks, and then communication got hard. Call backs turned into three word text replies, and I got sad... and nervous. I knew inside that he hadn't forgotten the bad parts, that I had really wanted to. Then three weeks ago, he Facebook broke up with me.

It doesn't have a full affect of being timed with the actual break-up, but a Facebook break-up stings at your very soul. I logged in, looked at my page, and had found that I was in a relationship... with myself. No longer was I announced to the world as in an (assumed) happy relationship with Davy, but simply as in a relationship with an anonymous entity. Possibly one of those amazingly headstrong folks who've managed to resist getting an account up until now.

It hurts... it really surprisingly does. It's like going to your prom, with all the eyes on you and having your date suddenly leave you in the middle of the dance. People in the distance gaze into your private space and find you alone, single, where once there were two. And I found myself scrambling to change my status appropriately back to single, so as to not appear as I was left sitting idly in a sinking boat the captain had already abandoned.

And then I called him today. Because I missed him. Because the last three weeks have left me wondering whether the two months I spent with him were so easily forgettable or simply best left forgotten.

Before he left, we had lunch one day and he mused, "I don't know if I were staying in Shanghai, if we'd still be together". I shifted nervously trying to avoid the question. I had a pretty good idea what the answer was, but I told him the beauty of our situation is never having to find out. At the moment I had taken it as a way to probe into my thoughts, to deliver an answer from me. Turns out, it was more of a statement than a question.

Davy basically told me he would have left me anyway, had he not moved away. I find myself floating dangerously into the territories of past casualties. He had come to know me during a time where I had started to fall back into darkness.

I am sitting in my Rochdale apartment back in Berkeley, tears flowing freely down my cheeks and dripping onto the sheets. I'm telling Arthur I wish he had gotten to know me at another time in my life. When I was or will be someone more capable of being loved.

Maybe I'm a fool with conflicting beliefs. I don't remember when it happened, but I stopped believing in being rescued. People helped me come to that conclusion. You have to save yourself before anyone can save you, but if you've already been saved, what the fuck do you need that other person for.

I've been telling myself I need to be a better person. That I need to finish what I've started, before I can be with anyone. But I also want to believe that when I see the guy I'm going to end up with, I'll see through his mess and his baggage and love him anyway. I want to believe I'm that kind of guy. But if I don't believe that he could be that guy to me, then what do I believe in? My own superiority?

My craziness with Davy was exacerbated. In Beijing, on a beautiful day, where I was giving him a shit of a time for something bad that happened mostly out of his control, I knew some part of me was testing us.

He showed up late to some reservation I had made at a new Peking duck restaurant, because his mom had booked some ridiculous lunch in some ridiculous part of town. He couldn't figure out what to do to appease me, but I knew in my head I just wanted someone to see through the stupidity and the frustration. I wanted someone to bypass the career cluelessness and the pangs of loneliness, grab both my arms at the side and say, "hey, let's just go get something else".

Sending up tiny smoke signals, I wanted to turn him into something he wasn't. Because he was a lot of good things and I needed him to also be that good thing as well. Because I'm tired of looking and want him to appear under my nose. Because when the fall comes, I'm going to want to get rescued.

Happy perfect people.

2008-06-10T16:12:00.002+08:00

I have this movie about my life reeling in my head. It's really depressing and no one would ever want to watch it but me. Anyway, it's comprised of several events in my life that I consider movie moments. Not anything extraordinary. Rather inconsequential actually, but just a little bit off the regular.

I had just turned off the lights, and crawled into bed with him. The room is warm, silent, comfortable... and I put my arms around him. My clothes feel better on him.
Did you know you talk in your sleep?
Oh yeah sometimes, I reply. Did I say something stupid?
No. You asked me to be your boyfriend.
Shut up. No, I didn't.
No, really.
Really?
Yeah... I don't think you're that type either.
We laid there awkwardly for a while. I had met him a week earlier. Then he started to fall asleep and I hugged him tighter.
Don't go to sleep, I urged.
Why?
... I'm so lonely.
Just keep talking. I'm right here. And he passes out.

I've lately been trying to understand the my-age-old question of why I don't have a boyfriend, even though I seemingly want one (and apparently seemingly don't). However in the past, I've limited it to surface level things. Like my hair is too puffy. Or my cheeks are too fat. My voice is too soft, etc. etc. Now, I wonder if the cosmos is a better source of understanding.

In high school, I developed a motto: we are exactly the people that we want to be. Given that you're not just too afraid to do what you really want, I feel like this is a fair assumption. Although, fear drives more of our lives than I think we'd like to admit. But in general, you end up with the people you end up with because that's who makes you happy.

I had been trying to be a perfect people. Surrounded by them, it's a little bit hard to feel confident as an outsider. Everyone has some crazy expensive degree. Everyone is a banker or a consultant or some kind of convoluted form of business strategist that I will never truly comprehend, even if Berkeley taught a course on Deciphering Job Titles in Corporate Earth. It's easy to feel lost, among the crisp suits, nightclub gear consisting solely of clean striped button up shirts and dark jeans or slacks. They are slim on accessories and heavy on pedigree. In a small wine bar next to Tomorrow Square I have a conversation with Max, while admittedly trying desperately to look nonchalant.

He tells me there's parts of this he loves and parts of this he loathes. He loves hanging out with good friends and loathes the networking. I decided today that I grew up when I started accepting people's business cards as a way of weaving together a social life. I also decided that it was distasteful. Whipping out the card saves you about 30 seconds as opposed to taking out your phone and taking the time to save it in your book.... that's 30 seconds you could use to hit up other contacts at the gathering. I know some people are just lazy and aren't actually vultures looking to peck at the fatty flesh of the corporate carcass, but I decided to not let other people confuse me for the latter.

So then I lament to Max about not fitting in. And he says, no you don't... My heart sinks a little. But in a way, you also do. I give my eyebrow a lift. You're also smart, he says. I think for a bit... Is that what ties me to these people? And is that even enough? In a room filled with smart people, I've learned that I'm off-smart. Not the kind that gets you hired, but the kind that let's you get away with things that a lot of people don't normally get away with. But I wonder exactly how off am I.

I like to think that I have a lot of attractive qualities. It is not my intent to be boastful, but I think I do. Someone recently told me I was funny, good-looking and smart. I instantly fell in love with him but that's beside the point. They seem like pretty good qualities to have. Indeed, almost enough to make me one of those perfect people I've been trying to be. I am on the cusp of resubmitting my resume Google or McKinsey. I really, really want to be able to like Obama. I long to be normal, because at times those qualities only seem to shine when they are at stage center. Offstage, they brood, melt-together, bubble as they wait for their turn. If you're only off-funny, off-handsome and off-smart you've got to work hard to turn some heads, because most people won't give you credit for what you are because your formula is untested. I don't give myself enough credit either.

I want to be perfect, but I want to be a perfect me. And I don't fit into the mold. Perhaps those I should truly be jealous of are the outsiders who manage to figure out at a very young age exactly where on the outside they want to be. Oh, what a luxury that would be.

Sometimes I dream of having my own perfect boyfriend, but then I wonder.... will I stay? Will I ever believe that they love me for who I am? Maybe the main reason I don't have a boyfriend right now is because I'm not ready to accept anyone's love. After all, who are they to love me... when I am just starting to get there myself?

In retrospect, I'm still ok.

2008-04-07T00:49:00.004+08:00

There comes a time in your life when you can divide a century by your age and come out with a relatively low number. Thursday's number is 4.

I've been thinking about what to do in celebration of the day, which is better than what I've been thinking about the couple weeks before. For anyone who knows me, I'm kind of a nut when it comes to my birthday. I get really sad for a couple of reasons:

Reason 1: I stop thinking my friends are really my friends. Instead I consider them to be people who just happen to be in my life for reasons of convenience.

Reason 2: I think about how relatively little I have accomplished in my life and all the things that I don't have.

Reason 3: I'm (with the exception of one year) always single. And as the past five years may dictate, I don't even get a birthday fuck. W.T.H.

Now imagine a life without sex, friends and goals. All your left with is food, and even the really great food doesn't taste as good without people to share it with or things to celebrate. This is what occurs annually from March 10 to April 10.

As it stands, in my old age, I seem to have matured a bit. Because reasons 1 and 3 don't seem to bother me that much anymore. In my distance from home and in the friendships that I've forged post-depression, I find a little more stability in my current relationships. And my mindset is less prone to disregard them in a sweep of emotional volatility.

It remains though, that number 2 is a huge one again. And in light of everything that I wish I had accomplished this year I accomplished very little. I got a better job, but it still pays crap. I got a dog, and at least we seem to have a pretty good relationship lately. I've travelled a decent amount, which is an important goal. But career-wise... while I may have planted some seeds to what may eventually become a profitable business, I'm still buried deep under the soil waiting to germinate.

As a performer, I've seen what I used to see as great potential and talent wither away in the light of harsh realities. Now, I wonder if I can ever set foot on a stage and leave proudly again. Was my time in Berkeley as amateur as I think it might have been. Am I only really good, when very few others are trying?

Yes, the landscape appears desolate. And there are only a few, mostly trivial things that give me hope. That assuage my fears that at long last I am just *gasp* an average human being.

But somehow, among all the reasons I can find to give myself hope that I will make something of myself that I can be proud of, I find solace in a simple success: I'm still alive.

Now, I have not lived a very risky life. I didn't go to war for my country. While I would describe La Puente as ghetto, I don't think my life was ever in danger. To this day, the greatest physical threat to my life was probably a drunken night with a possible STD carrier. Though, I remember clearly, whether it was an actual threat or not, a time in my life when I believed in my heart and in my head that I would not survive the next couple of years.

I do remember feeling empty, and wanting to stop breathing all together. Since, if I was dead, there would at least be an explanation as to why I felt nothing. I remember crumbling to my knees in apartment B12 and in the most distraught state of mind I had ever felt, repeating to myself, "I can't do this. I can't do this."

I knew back then that I wasn't going to take my life. Rather I took a relatively "safe" overdose and hoped for the worst. That if there was a higher power out there he would look upon this poor coward who didn't take quite enough painkillers, and give him the extra nudge to get the hell off this planet.

What I also knew, was that there were two ways for me to go from that point. There was down, and there was up. Down led to a place where a higher power would have no place in stopping me. I could feel it. Just an extra nudge. A really bad argument. A momentary rush of emotion and lack of judgement...

I walked through the quieter streets of Shanghai today. Looking at small furniture shops, past parks booming with the beat of some drums. I walked to where the quiet streets opened to giant streets and retreated to more quiet ones. It reminded me of when I first came two years ago. I didn't need a jacket, because spring was finally here. I was happy that the new baby green leaves would remind me that every year is a new beginning, and that in this flawed place, I would somehow find something settling. I'm happy that I was born in April.

And then I bought myself a trumpet as a gift to myself. I thought it was the perfect present. I hadn't played in two years and when I brought it home, I crooned for about 30 minutes, barely playing out a whole octave of notes. Then I remembered when I was young, how hard I worked to be good. I practiced almost every day.

Looking back, actually, nothing ever came easily. Talent is a high ceiling that you still have to climb up to. Life is an hour in open water, struggling to stay afloat. And I've survived my first fifteen minutes.

Remember the massacre.

2007-12-14T11:45:00.002+08:00

Photo: Oded Balilty/Associated Press

[New York Times] Anniversary ceremonies for the Nanjing massacre, long known in the West as the Rape of Nanking, brought the city to a standstill. During the massacre in 1937, Japanese forces killed 300,000 Chinese civilians and raped tens of thousands of women.

Asian penis, the new object of your affection.

2007-08-30T00:57:00.000+08:00

I'm a forum troll, I admit... usually when I'm at work or lacking something to do I look around the local chat forums to see what's up with people. In a recent exploration into the dating forums, I've come across what seems to be a significant enough presence to be considered a phenomenon: Asian guy/white girl.

I myself have developed an automatic reaction to the Asian girl/white guy couple. If the guy seems to have nothing to offer to the girl, I'm filled with skepticism. However if the white guy is hot (smart, goodlooking, whatever) than well... hey a hot guy is a hot guy, right? In honesty, on the few occasions I've had with white women who seemed to be interested or at least open to dating an Asian guy, I was quite shocked.

Looking back on my life, I see now that I might have had a shot with several non-asian girls (if I liked the vag), but the first time it really hit me was quite late into my college years. I was working a restaurant in Oakland and my co-worker, a really cute, nice, caucasian girl found out I was gay... she then said something along the lines of "Too bad, when I first met you, I thought you were cute". I responded "really?"... she confirmed... I turned around and thought to myself, "freak".

One of my friends in Shanghai, an ABC, has recently been the victim of an ABC fetishizer. Blogger is clear to remind me that "fetishizer" is indeed, not a word. Anyway, this girl has a thing for specifically ABCs. Several girls on the sites are hunting down local boys (steering clear away from overseas chinese) for dating and maybe a relationship. They cite similar features that I myself would... and I am generalizing... smooth skin, cute faces, nice (I'm a total bitch now, btw), slender and toned.

On one hand I want to say, "go Asian men!" and on the other I just want to step back and wonder if this is the fetish of the 21st century. With the rise of China, is it possible that Chinese men (and people that look like them) will become the new "it" thing? In 30 years, will my kids see half-Asian/half-white kids and think, not another product of white girls fetishizing Asian guys?

And then I twist it around to another angle: the gender angle. And I realize that even the creepiest white girl would never reach the level of creepy I get from a wrinkly old potato sack of a white man trying to get with little 24 year old me. Does the glass ceiling extend from women's offices and limit their potential fetishizing creepiness? After all, isn't it always about power and how you use it?

Maybe it's not a fetish at all. Maybe they're just trying something different. Maybe they're getting away from the stereotype of the overly masculine American male and running into the arms of the gentler, softer skinned stereotype. Maybe this means I have more friends to hunt down helpless little Asian boys with... I have no answers for you. Only questions.

Revolutionary.

2007-08-14T19:20:00.000+08:00

I am not a prophet, but sometimes I have prophetic dreams. - Huey Freeman

I'm sitting here in my apartment with Maro curled up next to my feet wondering about the world again, and how my life has taken so many strange strides to bring me where I am. Since I was little I believed that I would be a force of change... though I didn't really understand what exactly needed changing.

In college I began to understand a little more about what was wrong with the world, largely because I was incredibly guilty of this sin.

Now, I find myself stuck in the real world, where the people who have power to make a change do very little if anything at all to make a difference... and the people with the great ideas, the revolutionaries, fall flat because the revolution hasn't figured out how to lift the shackles of the 9 to 5.

And I'm finding why everyone talks about how college was the best time of their lives. 95% of the population is struggling through their daily toils to make it through the weekend. Everyone wants a better job, more money, someone to settle down with, a new house... security. And the search lasts your entire lifetime and in many cases never really produces any satisfying results.

To my fellow university graduates, we will all end the same. We will afford a house and own it by our mid to late 30's. We will find someone we either love or like a lot and settle down with them. Some of us will divorce, but only after we have kids. Our kids will go to good colleges because we went to good colleges. And we will die at a hopefully old age in the little homes that we built for ourselves.

I will die this way as well. Not only do I know it, I also hope for it. What I hope to do along the way is get over myself and my troubles. To feel the need to write less about men and why/how they suck because they've been doing it for several millennia. To not only identify things that need to change around me, but to actually change them.

And when I'm done, maybe a few less people will feel lonely. People will listen more to the topics that need to be listened to. The world will open its eyes just a little bit wider to the plight of the gay, the lesbian and everything in between (but mostly the latter two). Small business won't come to underdeveloped countries to take advantage of low wage standards and charge the same goddamn prices - popping up like a bunch of boutique Nike sweatshops.

It may happen or it may not. And if it does happen, it may not be enough. If you want change, maybe it just needs to happen in yourself or your house or your town. You don't need to end segregation. You don't need to stop the War... but you do need to do something.

Some kind of habit.

2007-08-10T01:41:00.000+08:00

I took a pack of cigarettes out to store with me today when I started to feel a bit lonely. I bought a bottle of Heineken and waited on the corner as a street vendor cooked me some chicken wings. Earlier this week I had ordered a pile of crayfish cooked in a way that reminded me of southeast Asia. Chinese food really does start to open up once you get past Canton.

Anyway, I bought this pack back in March on a drunken walk home from a club. I flipped a cigarette upside down and put it back in to save it for luck, as Sam had taught me, since the Marlboros reminded me of him. It's still there and it comforts me that I haven't had to use it since then.

See, I'm not really a smoker. Perhaps for this reason, the act of smoking brings up a lot of vivid memories. The smell reminds me of lonely summers in Berkeley. I had really bad luck in my love life during the summers. To be honest the semesters only got slightly better. I was reminded of my crushes on Brian and Antony, who so easily dismissed me... and then also of the beginning of my relationship with Arthur.

I used cigarettes to comfort me in my loneliest of times. They didn't actually do anything, but I'd always smoke with someone who I considered to be equally messed up. It became ritual... sitting on the windowsill overlooking Haste, standing out near the bushes just barely acknowledging people walking up to the party overhead... Smoking for me and certain friends was the formal acknowledgment that we were damaged.

Misery loves company and I guess we did really love each other, but for me it's kind of weird to not have those people around anymore, and it's even stranger that I haven't found them here. Where are all the cynics? The jaded lovers? The disenfranchised would-be revolutionaries? My friends here are either happy or focused... what the fuck is up with that? I want someone here who I can call in the middle of the night and cry to, but I don't need to cry right now.

I'm sad that the sadness is gone for some reason. What a strange kid I've turned into. The cigarette has a little bit less than half left over, but I flick it onto the floor anyway and smother it with my chewed up sandal. Smoking is bad for you.

Hand over your wallet and your legs.

2007-07-19T01:58:00.000+08:00

I'm not sure if I wrote about this already, but several years ago I developed a height complex. I liked this guy, and he seemed to be my type... and some "friends" of mine knew it and kind of in a very "mean girls" way happened to let me know that he thought I was too short to date. You know the kind of mean, where you can see that glimmer of happiness as they tell you something they know is going to crush you, through the facade of hesitation. "I really didn't want to bring this up, but [it's going to be so fun to say]"...

It's quite embarrassing to admit how much that little incident still haunts me. Before that summer, I had been learning since I came out to love myself. And I had even began to feel comfortable about my body. I had never believed that I would miss a chance with someone because of my height... I'm 5'8".

Which brings me here... 3 years later. More mature, more knowledgeable yet still plagued with a dangerous cocktail of insecurities. Sometimes I look in the mirror, and I still see the boy 6 years ago in Boston... who came home from work at 2 am, looked at himself and cursed his appearance. He called himself names: a fucking runt, ugly piece of shit. Told himself no one would ever love him.

It doesn't make sense to me now, and I don't realize why I would have thought about myself that way and why I still think of me that way sometimes. Maybe I found a set of reasons to explain why I was lonely. And maybe somewhere along the line, I just naturally started attributing my rejections to those things. So everytime I feel even slightly dismissed, my brain immediately goes to my height as the culprit.

Today I went to a sketchy (but fun) sauna and met a guy who in my opinion was beautiful. He was really cute and he seemed interested in me as well. The only problem was that he came with a man in his mid-40's attached, which incidentally is a huge problem. They were a couple who were picking up a third because obviously someone (hint, hint, wink, wink, nudge, slap) wasn't doing it for the other person I imagine.

I came home not too long ago feeling dejected... but also realizing an important lesson. That besides for my being too short for some people. There are a hundred more reasons why someone wouldn't like me. Some of them are just repulsive or stupid; others are simply infuriating. And I don't have time to react to all of them, nor do I have the strength to internalize them all and get out of bed in the morning.

I thought to myself as I glanced at him with hopeful eyes. If only I could free you from your shackles. Is it money? I'm not rich but I'm sure I have plenty to make you happy. Is it security? I promise to love you for at least three months. Do you like old, fat and wrinkly? Can't help you there.

Like an idiot, I've been drinking milk for the past three years solely for the hopes of growing another inch or god-willing, two. But I'm 24. It's not going to happen (though I should keep drinking to make sure I don't shrink when I'm older). So I can't keep walking with this crutch of self pity. I can't keep feeling sorry for myself when in reality I have relatively little to feel sorry for.

But what's really interesting is... now that I think about it. Maybe it's not the insecurities that plague me. I'm actually quite confident outside of gay communities. I only get nervous when I'm at a club and I start thinking about all the things will contribute to me not getting laid, or not meeting a boyfriend.

The things is... I kinda stopped believing in love. I don't know how it happened. It just faded away gradually, like your insistence that Santa Claus exists or your belief that your parents were completely in control. You grow up and you realize the truth. But I desperately don't want it to be true.

And that's why I tortured Arthur back in Berkeley. I hadn't had feelings for anyone for a long time at that point... not since the beginning of my first relationship. I wanted him to save me by showing me love still exists. That I could find someone who was wrong in so many ways, and want to give him the world. That things like height, and money, and muscles and popularity didn't matter. That you could break apart into pieces and it wouldn't matter, since they already know what you look like in whole. Because when you're in love, you're drowning in a sea of in inconsequence... and the lack of oxygen feels really, really good.

Damn, I want to believe again.

Love fucks. (Part one)

2007-06-05T01:33:00.000+08:00

Someday you will find me caught beneath the landslide...

My grandma passed away last month while I was in Thailand. It was weird that I had been told she would be passing soon and that it happened in the middle of my vacation. I don't remember anything about her, since I've only met her once before Alzheimer's took over.

In Phuket, a family friend told me and the next day we were riding a speedboat through the neighboring islands. Even on a massive engine-powered hunk of steel, it feels close to nature. I remember looking at the clouds with their silver-linings and dark underbellies and thinking about matriarchy... a word I find fitting to use with the mother of 13 children.

In the coming days, her children and grandchildren would be coming to a temple to pray for her around the clock. My dad and my brother would come the furthest from Los Angeles to see her. It was interesting to see everyone together and the levels of "relatedness" with her sons and daughters wearing a burlap dressing, while her grandchildren were dressed in white cloths. Her immediate descendants, totaling over 100 persons at last count have about the same relationship as kids who went to class together... and probably even less of a relationship with the grandmother herself.

Being in Thailand this time really made me realize a lot of things about my privileges. In the room next to ours at the temple, where 50 or so guests came each of the three nights that we worshipped my grandmother and sent her gifts and money and cars and houses and televisions and servants... a small family sat quietly in front of a picture of an old man. The coffin looked like that of a small child, and seemed like he had either never really grown very much or had shrunken towards his later years.

My cousins and I occasionally poured out of our space, and only when we realized that we had encroached on theirs, did we attempt any modesty. Everyone made a big deal about having paid the monks so much to have such a good service. It seems strange to get so much larger an allotment in heaven, because your kids have more money.

In Phuket, I tried to balance the aspect of vacation and the acknowledgment of her death. But as I went for a massage in the gay district of Patong Beach, and gave the masseuse a tip that covered a little under a month of his living expenses, I couldn't help but think how far this apple has fallen from the tree.

The next weekend I visited the village of my grandfather in Chaozhou (潮州） and realized again how I've come to receive the privileges that I have. It was just another town with a lot of nameless cousins, all of whom will make a poor living for the rest of their lives. That sounds really miserable, I know... but there is a good chance that they will find love and happiness and raise children who will take care of them well, also. Still it seems, that my grandfather and then my father have both made huge migrations to give their kids a better life. My grandfather left Chaozhou to go to Thailand during the Japanese invasion. Over the next few decades he would rendezvous with his brothers in Hong Kong and give them money to support the family. My father left Thailand for Los Angeles, and while he works hard everday, he had allowed me a comfortable lifestyle, and an education which has led to me giving myself a comfortable lifestyle (even though I may bitch about what a Berkeley degree can actually do for me).

What's sick about this blog is that it's been all about money. Death and money. Offspring and money. Sex and money. Sometimes you get so occupied trying to get out of your debts and financial troubles you forget about the important things. I saw my dad cry for the first time in my life at the funeral. It was awkward. But I guess it was also important.

Who'd have thought.

2007-05-29T11:35:00.000+08:00

Meet Mashimaro.

2007-04-10T00:25:00.000+08:00

Meet Mashimaro. Named after the cute korean bunny thug that likes to poop everywhere... 'cause, well... if you could smell my apartment you would understand. The video has delayed audio which makes it seem like I gave her a treat for nothing. I swear, she actually did sit. =D

The Shanghai shuffle.

2007-03-14T04:47:00.000+08:00

A great many things have been attributed to this city. I've realized that you could point out any anomaly or even a commonplace thing that occurs in daily life, and easily--somewhat justifiably--say "that's Shanghai".

I had a conversation the other day with a lady I met at an adoption agency. She was telling me how you were only allowed to walk dogs before 7 am and after 7 pm. That's Shanghai. (the agency actually just told her that to avoid getting the animal taken away by police because she was fostering the pet and therefore unlicensed)

You tell the taxi driver to take you to a new place and ask them to look for a certain building when you get to the street. The driver says "I drive, you look". That's Shanghai.

The drinks that you order a restaurant rival the meal in price. That's Shanghai.

And the job that you thought you had down before is replaced by a job that's totally opposite in almost every way within a 10 day period... yep, that's Shanghai.

I called my mom yesterday to chat with her about some things. My brother had been telling me that she's been really upset at my dad lately, and one of the first things she asks me is "are you still working at that place?" Considering it was only about a week since I left the company and three days after I received my offer at Monitor, I found this a bit unnerving. Had she been waiting for me to leave the company for a while now, or does she just have some kind of freaky motherly sixth sense thing when her sons feel uneasy about their current employment.

I was expecting her to make a big deal out of it. What is this company about? What's in it for your future? How is the work permit going to be handled... blah blah blah. But she didn't really ask much except for what industry it was in. I think I may have worn her down when it comes to nagging me for my decisions, and I also think that maybe she's begun to accept that I may not return to Los Angeles to settle down for a long while. Because the thing that I most expected her to ask me was, "So when are you going to come home then?"

For those of you who don't know, Monitor Group is an international consulting company. I... will not be doing consulting as I do not trust my business sense enough to ask a client to pay for it, but instead I'll be doing the design for Shanghai office. The location is great. The people seem relaxed. The money is livable. Again, the exact opposite of my last job.

I've been a bit overwhelmed by the amount of change that has occurred over the past 10 days. For a 23 year old recently out of college, in a foreign country, with an ever-so-slowly improving language ability... a dramatic career change can be a bit disorienting, albeit... also welcome.

One of the things that draws me to this city is the amount of change that occurs in such a short amount of time. People come and go. Buildings fall and rise. New restaurants pop-up every month. While not perfect in any sense and imperfect in a very many, Shanghai seems to serve as a drug dealer for those addicted to change. It's one of the few interesting cities in the world that has a "future" whether it be good or bad.

But stability in forms is also welcome: I'm getting a puppy soon. I've decided it's time for me to make the investment. The cashflow is good. I'll be able to afford to import an animal back into the United States should I need to, and well... it'll be good to have something in my life that grounds me... that I can take with me to other places... if that makes any sense at all. I mentioned earlier that I went to an animal adoption agency. I'll be taking care of two kitties for a couple weeks until they find a permanent home and hopefully within a month I'll be providing the permanent home for a small black puppy.

I really can't remember the last time I was this excited about something. Having another being that will become a part of my life and go with me wherever I go makes me feel like... I'm growing up. Like, I'm finally capable of taking care of something other than myself--financially, emotionally and otherwise.

I wonder what it'll feel like to have a baby.

Letting go.

2007-03-05T16:41:00.000+08:00

I made up my mind sometime last week to quit my job. The pay sucks, as does the commute... I hate my boss... and there's a good chance that the company is going nowhere. But I was waiting--being polite, because she had just returned from looking after her ill father in Kuala Lumpur. Finally last week, I got a chance to sit down with her when I picked up my salary. She started, "Sun, I've been thinking about whether to keep you on or let you go..." and I thought damn. I should've went first.

It's like the boyfriend you couldn't break up with, because next week was his birthday and Valentine's was in a month, just to find that the little hussy was cheating on you.

I am definitively bitter over the circumstances, but I can't say I'm not relieved. I have four more days to come in and train a replacement before I get to leave and start again. Recently, I've realized that my life can be arranged by the times I've been desperate to get out of things: LA to Boston to my first job to UC Berkeley to San Francisco to LA and now to this wretched production house, which is basically the non-organic extension of this harpy of an employer.

I've been in Shanghai now for about a year, and thankfully not sick of it yet. But as fuzzily defined anniversaries go, I guess this can be said to be a big one. A year ago, I ran away from another place... and now I realize it's not really a bad thing to run away from some problems. Had I had a reason to stay in California, I would have. But I didn't, and I would just be fighting for nothing if I was there today. And besides, the problems I really needed to face... I knew they would follow me no matter where I went.

It seems like recently I've learned to stop feeling sorry for myself. I still get angry and frustrated and sad, but I never really consider anymore that I'm not worth it.

A year later, though, I'm still not really over it. Mike has asked me a couple times within the last couple of months if I still loved my ex-boyfriend. I used to believe that you could never really love someone who didn't love you back... maybe more of a protective logic than an actual one. Like you can't hit a ghost so it can't hit you. I think at one point in the future, it might be nice to hear his voice again.

I got a message from Sam yesterday talking about how he didn't want to meet up with me in Shanghai because he didn't want to bring back my troubles in Berkeley to this new place. I think I've gone through many different emotions towards him: from hate to jealousy to a now somewhat mitigated resentment, but it's pretty safe to say that I never faulted him for what happened. In actuality, I learned to resent a lot of the people in my life a year ago--anyone who had a connection to my ex. At the time that I wanted to be with him the most, I also started to believe that he would find kindness for everyone around me but me.

I've excommunicated a lot of people because what happened. And I guess most people would probably read this and think that I have some serious attachment issues... and they're probably right. But it's probably in my disposition to obsess. How do you stop caring, when you just do? If you could just flip a switch, doesn't that mean that you never really cared in the first place?

Why haven't I learned to let go? According to popular relationship knowledge, it's supposed to take half the time you were together to get over a person. So I should've been over it about 11 months ago. But I guess I don't want to ever forget, and I don't want to write off my feelings as "I was young".

There was a morning back in Berkeley that I came to drop off his books that he had left at my apartment. We were in that ambiguous stage of our relationship, where a brush of the arm could result in 3 hours of dialogue spread over the next four weeks. And I came into his basement level room, put his books down and nudged him awake. He sat up completely dazed and kissed me on the lips for a second. And in that second, my brain registered about a hundred different memories: how the bed felt as I sat on it, how bright and pale white the light seemed to be seeping through the curtains at 9:30 am, the slight woody smell of the room and the temperature of his body, the warmest I had felt it in all our time together. Half in shock, I watched expressionless as he mumbled "hi" ... and collapsed back onto his bed... When I wonder today if I had ever really loved him, I consider that morning.

In the future, I will try to make amends. I will try to show less anger towards those who are undeserving of it, and I will heal as I have done tremendously over the past year. But I'm not going to let go, at least not completely. If I do, then a year of my life loses a lot of meaning, and that morning and that second is just a paragraph in my memory which loses the appendixes of emotions that tie into it. By letting him go, I also let go of that morning. I guess you could call me obsessive, naive or foolish, but honestly... it just isn't worth it.

Happy golden pig year, everyone.

For the sake of sleep.

2007-02-09T05:43:00.000+08:00

Recently, in seedy gay news, I was again harassed in the men's locker room of my gym. I don't try to hide the fact that I'm gay, because well... too much eye candy... but someone crossed the line today by walking into my shower stall. I told him to go away, but he was like, "no, it's ok".

Hmm, yeah... I began to wonder if that's what it feels like to be a woman sexually harassed in straight society. It's like it doesn't even matter that I wasn't attracted to him, I didn't want him to approach me or that I don't feel comfortable sharing public shower space with other people. I wasn't afraid of him, but at the same time I felt hopeless. There was really nothing short of punching in the face I could do to have made him go away... so I did.

Just kidding. I'm like Ghandi, remember?

In other, disturbing news... I've woken up the third night in a row from a nightmare I had of work. The first one, I sent the wrong e-mails to the wrong production houses. In the second one, I was rushing to meet a deadline and in the last and final one, my boss took away my right to a break while I was eating potato chips. I'm going fucking nuts.

Tomorrow, I'm supposed to chat with her about my salary increase. So I guess now it'll go up to $3/hr from $2/hr. I'm exaggerating yes, but sadly not by much. I guess in the end, whether or not I decide to stick with film production, this time will be a good way to figure out what I really want to do with my life.

I've been thinking about my musical goals, and how I'm so far off from achieving them and at the same time not really doing anything about them. Been thinking about the rate at which my Chinese is improving. Although, it seems like every time I complain to my peers about not knowing what I'm doing, the response is "join the club".

But I guess I don't want to join the club. I've always believed that performing is the only definite option for my life that would keep me happy. But I wonder if I have enough talent for it, and if I have enough talent if I'm in the right place. After all, I can't really act in China if I can't speak fluently, and the theatrical options here are somewhat bizarre anyway.

My main hesitation with this job is... well I wonder if I'm on the wrong side of the camera. Not many people have enough talent to be a performer, but then again not many people have the skills to be a good producer. Do I fall into either of those categories?

I'm cracking my head over my future, because for me every month I'm not doing something I should be doing, is a waste of my life. At one point in my life, I used to think I was talented but maybe that was just because I was practicing. I need to rethink my goals--figure out what I'm good at. But I guess for the time being I can revel in my new pop star hair and karaoke fan base.

November to December

2007-01-29T03:20:00.000+08:00

I've been holing a lot of things up in my brain for the past three months, so I figured I should get it out in writing before I start to forget things. We'll start with Mike. Some of you already know about him, but in a large part I've kept kind of quiet about this new person in my life. Part fear of announcing a relationship that wasn't concrete, part determination to not make the first news heard from me always about another guy.

Sometime back in October I got so bored I started replying to random responses on craigslist. I got tired of dating random people off the internet that I could barely communicate with, and in my search for a hetero male language partner, I came across an ad by some socal chinese american guy looking for more friends to hang out with. A couple weeks later, I finally met this guy, Max over at what is now our little group's favorite late-nite hangout, Guandi (the club with what I have now come to consider the highest concentration of good-looking asians below 30... yummy straight boys, hehe). As it turns out in my quest to distance myself from falling into the routine of living only to find a man, I end up finding one. A friend of Max's, fellow Harvard alum, Mike, shows up. And I'm back to square one.

We hit it off. And the past couple of months have been my favorite in this city. To be honest, my favorite couple of months in a lot of cities. Watching ripped off DVDs of American TV shows while waiting for our pizza to arrive. Dining at one of the 100+ fun restaurants in the city, always admiring the design and smirking at the varying standards of service in this confused third world country, first world city. Shuttling between our apartments via taxi in the middle of the night. Warm hugs for morning wake-up calls...

I had always said that I would tell my family about my sexual orientation when I found someone to tell them about. So when my brother visited from November to December, it was Mike I told him about when I walked into his room drunk off of who-knows-how-much sake. My brother replied while riding on a cat in World of Warcraft, "Yeah, I know".

We had taken a trip to Beijing while he was here... my brother that is. The city frightens me. In the center, monolithic in size and symbol, in a straight line from south to north lies Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Living in Shanghai, I had almost forgotten that China was communist. But Mao is far less hidden in the capital. But that's not really what scares me. In the middle of the night I took a walk through the streets to see the nightlife, and on the way I walked across a drive-thru fast food joint. It reminded me of LA and then of how much I missed it. Five years ago all I could think about was leaving but I find myself thinking more and more lately, if in the end it is the right place for me.

In the morning we rode a taxi to the nearest section of the great wall. Mao said once that you're not a great man until you've climbed the great wall. And at the top, the wall is littered with souvenir salesmen and tourist traps--vendors selling pictures and fake medals exclaiming "I climbed the greatwall". And though everyone knows it's a sham, because everyone took the same cable car to get them up the first 80% of the hike, there is still pride in reaching the top for most chinese. That day I thought a lot about what it meant to be a great man, a 好汉.

When we came back to Shanghai, I was supposed to meet someone that night... an old fling of mine. But he cancelled and late at night, Mike called asking to come over. Already feeling guilty, I let him and with him in my bed I cried that night, but never really told him why. All he did was keep apologizing to me, thinking he had done something wrong. I guess that night I realized I wasn't a great man, and that I wasn't going to be happy with him... at least not completely.

I broke it off with him a couple weeks ago, but we see each other as if nothing had happened. A big part of me prefers it that way, because as I'm typing this, I crave his presence... and how safe I feel when I'm around him. And I miss him a lot, even though he's just a taxi ride away.

Maybe it's about time.

2006-10-20T03:15:00.001+08:00

So I finally got that job here. I landed one working at a small production company as a PA. It comes complete with a mac, a small personal office space, free lunches and a really cool boss who keeps a bottle of absolut stocked in the fridge for those really hard days. I'm going to be able to use my mandarin at this job, and she's encouraging me to pick up cantonese as well. I guess this is it, if I want it to be.

Then why am I up at 3am blogging when I really should be getting rest for tomorrow's work day? Can't sleep. Apparently maternal nagging reaches across oceans and keeps you awake in the middle of the night.

It's been a while since I've lived under the cloud of my parent's disapproval. That while has been the half year that I've been here as a language student. It's pretty much the only thing that I've ever done in my entire life that they've supported completely. And now I get the job and announce it to my parents and they say, "we're getting worried about you. This is not what we wanted for you when you went to China." Seems that they'd rather have me go to school full-time and do absolutely nothing with my life.

I'd like to think that there are many mothers out there who would appreciate a son that was smart enough to know his anthro degree wasn't going to land him any jobs, and actually went out to build up his CV... as opposed to the son (like many language students in Shanghai) who doesn't even really make it to all 15 hours of class per week and spends the rest of their time living off daddy's wallet.

I can't think clearly, I can't even write. I dreamed about Steven and realized how much I miss him and the relationship that we had so long ago. I wonder if my parents are just starting to realize that my stay in Shanghai is definitely indefinite. I look around this place and ask myself when the peacefulness of anonymity will turn into loneliness.

I stay away from my parents because it keeps me sane, but it's time like these that remind me why I've never let them in to my life. If it's not about my career, or whether or not I will really be able to speak fluently within a year or anything that they mentioned to me. If they're making me second guess my big move and my career path because they don't want to see me settle out here--because they miss me... I'll tell them that I'm gay and ask if they still want me back.

One small step for mankind, one giant step for (a) man.

2006-09-23T09:23:00.000+08:00

I've moved into my apartment on beautiful 衡山路 (Hengshan Road) that I can't really afford yet. I decided that when people come to visit me, I want them to remember that Shanghai has trees, and my street is lined with them.

Life continues as normal here: desperately trying to wake up for class on the weekdays with sporadic spurts of creativity/desperately-working-on-my-portfolio. The weekends are entertained with random dates with random guys and the occasional club hopping followed by 4 a.m. dim sum... which is, today, followed by 1 p.m. dim sum as well. For the time being, my desire for the cute, fun, attentive love of my life is placated by the fact that half-naked images of Rain, Edison Chen, Nicholas Tse and Jay Chou are plastered over every single Pepsi can I buy.

I cook in my apartment, but neglect to clean... hense the pile-up. Whether I listen to american music or chinese, it always attracts a comment on msn messenger.

Last night, I walked on my street past the many bars filled with foreigners and locals drinking it up to meet my friends at Bon Bon. And it makes me wonder if whoever wrote 夜上海 (Shanghai Midnight) back in the heyday of jazz in China, was reveling in the lively nightlife that is only recently on it's way back... or if he or she simply loved walking the quiet sidestreets as I had been doing. I guess if my chinese were better I could listen to the song and have the answer right now, but... eh.

Back when I lived in the Wilde House, this guy Jeff once told me self-esteem issues were bull-shit. I assume he was talking about the very specific type of self-esteem issue that we both owned. It's not exactly about you feeling bad about yourself... it's more about not feeling good enough. It's about feeling shitty that you're not this or that much better than other people. Hmm, now where did I get that from? Could it be the fact that my parents were always comparing me to other kids who were doing better than me at a certain thing. I guess I grew up believing the only time I will be loved is when I'm better than everyone else.

Which brings me to a country. China. In a city. Shanghai. On a street. See above. In an apartment. About $200USD over budget. It's been an interesting couple of weeks. Between dates that always fall flat and being groped (again) at the sauna in my gym, I'm finding that not only do you only find a boyfriend when you stop looking... apparently it's the only time you can find yourself as well. I've lived in three different cities in pursuit of... myself. And now when I stop soul searching, I find myself realizing things about myself and my past. The only thing I haven't discovered is how to summarize my feelings into a blog.

This week, I felt pretty bad about myself. But not in the way that sends me running to my local therapist for another set of pills. Not in the what-am-I-going-to-do-I'm-not-good-enough way, but in the wow-I'm-kind-of-a-loser way. I've fallen from the pedestal I built to try to reach my parent's love. I realize being here, struggling with my Chinese, struggling to find work and income, struggling to find someone to love... struggling, struggling, struggling... that while I may have some good qualities, and some amazing qualities... I have a very many bad ones.

For the first time since I started trying to succeed, I feel normal and average. I'm not one of those rank 7 kids who has only 6 more to shove aside. I'm in the hundreds, and every corner that I turn there's gonna be someone taller, funnier, smarter, stronger, more creative, more endearing or more successful than me. But there is no one on this whole world who has the exact balance of all of those things that I have.

I called home last week to ask my mom for money. It's not like I've never done it before, but in the past 5 years I've always been able to say I have this much and I need that much. Now I have nothing. And as I prepared the excuses and explanations, the transfer of funds came about effortlessly, and not just because we both belong to Bank of America. Has my mother given up on expecting me to be a super-child? Or was she all-along only trying in her fucked up traditional chinese way to make me as super as I could be.

So here I am, on the other side of the pacific. Happy for this communist country, because an openly lesbian lesbian from Beijing just released her first album; because I actually had to sit in front of a TV to figure out if the winner of the american idol equivalent was a guy or girl; because a license auction for the hunting rights to exotic animals was actually pulled by the government after the internet reaction; and because blogspot has finally been unblocked by the censors here. And because I realized you actually do get chances in life to remake yourself... and they come when you least expect it.

The one about penis size.

2006-08-30T19:01:00.000+08:00

A tiny little protective bubble was shatterred earlier today, as I realized someone that I was seeing had freakishly only been with other asian men with exceptionally large penises.

Now, I'm no giant or anything. There is no tree trunk hanging from between my legs, but I'm used to being told by my partners that I'm large. According to studies, I have a slightly above average penis size, but no one really knows how reliable the studies are considering that the smaller men are less likely to volunteer such information. Small Joe with the 3" penis is more likely to pass up the survey and go get a cup of coffee, while Big Swinging Joe, sporting his 10" embodiment of self-esteem would be more than willing to share this private info with anyone willing to ask.

So if I can convince myself and anyone who reads this that I am perfectly happy with the size of my penis, what is it that scares me so much about a guy who has only had larger guys?

I asked him earlier before I had even found out about his sex-life before me, what he thinks is most important in a relationship: sex, physical appearance, conversation or general compatability. His order-general compatability (1), conversation (2), sex (3) and physical appearance (4).

As far as 1, 2, and 3 go, I would say the two of us score very high. So, if I'm roughly the same size as half of all american men, and he ranks appearance as the very last of the four things I could think of that were important to a relationship (I threw out love... the variable), why am I freaked out?

Part of it is in the pure competition of it. You put any guy in front of me that I don't want to sleep with myself, and I'm going to wonder if I'm smarter than him, better looking or better in bed. But it has to be more than that...

Tonight may be the last night I see him for a while, unless he does call on Thursday. And I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't considering how I acted like an insecure idiot today. While he took time to assure that my size was more than enough and that the sex really was great and that I lasted way longer than his other lovers, I was only moderately appeased.

I guess there's only so much someone else's appreciation of your body can do for you, when you still don't really appreciate it yourself. When I look into the mirror, what do I see these days? Am I seeing light reflected off an object or am I seeing myself? More importantly, what the hell am I looking for?

Reading an article online about penile enlargements, I began to play with the idea. What if I did it? One of the natural exercise programs, which probably doesn't work, had a size calculator. It asked you what size you were and how long you would use the program. I entered my size and a year. When 8.25" popped on the screen, I laughed. Which made me think, what about if it were 7"? If I could change the size of it right now with no consequence would I take the extra inch or two?

Probably not. I've been in enough situations where I was already too big for my partner, and we just end up doing something else or lying in bed... a little bit frustrated. I've never topped a guy who didn't seem satisfied, which makes me wonder if gay men fake pleasurable bottoming experiences as straight women do orgasms. It was at this point that I realized I wanted an incredible anamorphic penis.

With this amazing anomaly of human anatomy I would shift larger to match the previous partners of J, and become smaller and more comfortable with the partners that seem to have difficulty taking what I currently have. It makes me think again, what is it I'm looking for when I look into the mirror?

Do I have an idea of who I want to be or what I want to see? Or is that constantly shifting as I date new people? Thinking back, my most successful relationships have been with people with whom I've never second-guessed my own appearance. With Steven, I just knew (or at least felt) he was happy with me just the way that I was. It was the same with Jeff, as well.

I'll go to sleep tonight uncomfortably wondering... Is it that I should only be with the people who never make me question myself? Or is it only the people I truly care about, that can make me this insecure.

Sometimes, I'm just the sidekick.

2006-08-28T17:33:00.000+08:00

I drop him off at his place around five in the morning. Turning around his corner I stop at a 7-11 and pick up a bottle of gatorade. As I'm headed out the door, I catch a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the sliding glass. My hair pops out on the sides, and more closely resembles the bowl cut of my elementary school years than at any time in my adult life. I look like shit, but I feel great. I smile as I think to myself... this is quintiscentially LA.

Yesterday, I was having one of the best first dates I've had in a while with a guy. Let's call him J. We didn't actually do anything since it was so late, but we talked and laughed a lot. Anyway, I told him about how I was so amused that I had so much in common with Carrie, Sex and the City's thoughtful bombshell. Among our other conversations was one about how I was fascinated when people ate alone, and how I felt proud at the times when I could do it without being embarassed.

We go home and watch an episode, and 45 minutes later at the closing, Carrie gives a short monologue as she eats alone without the armor of books or something to do. She just sits and makes peace with being single.

It's not the first time I've found myself identifying with a popular heroine. Perhaps they're popular because they're so identifiable. I like to think that I'm a little bit more in sync with them than most--that the writers have been through and thought the same shit that I do on a regular basis. Watching another episode today, I realize that she's shorter than the other cast members... which proves my theory. Height and intrigue are inversely related.

When I was in High School, I found comfort in a little journal they sold at Barnes and Nobles. On the very front was the saying, "I am the hero of my own story". It made me happy. If it were true, it would mean that there was always a point to what you were going through. Stories didn't exist if they weren't saying something, and heroes weren't written if they were static from start to finish.

As I spent the night with J, I had realized I was rewriting my story again. Or at least the part about love. We went to Life Plaza in massively asian Rowland Heights, and I remembered that I had been there at one point with all of my previous boyfriends. Did the memory of my first three lovers get fainter when I brought him there? If my life is a story, and each of them are a chapter how does one analyze the change in me? Life Plaza, this place I used to hate, becomes some kind of landmark. It's the only thing they all have in common.

The thought brings me to J. He's seemingly perfect for me, or at least he is for the time being. But, of course, I'm leaving Friday and he know's it too. The last time I was in a one week relationship it ended horribly and I had a broken heart (or at the very least a broken ego). I look at J and he's nothing like that other guy, which makes me feel happy and even a little safe. But then I consider for a moment, do I really need to do a personality check on the guy, or should I dedicate more time to restraining myself?

I've never been able to just be a fuck or a fling. It's always about emotions with me. I'm going to get attached, and we're going to part ways and I'll be sad for a while. Had the city of Shanghai not existed, I might be in Los Angeles from now on. I might have had the chance to see where it would go. I know that the chances of me being in an actual relationship in China are much lower, and it makes me glad to know that. Maybe now I've earned so much distrust in my decisions that I've decided to put an ocean between me and temptation.

I'm always the one getting hurt these days. After I came out I enjoyed a brief period of invincibility where it seemed like no one would say no. But more likely I probably just didn't give a shit about the people back then who would. Carrie speaks of masochism in Season 2 and the exquisite pain. After thinking about it for a while, it starts to click. What a great adjective for pain. How can an adjective so seemingly positive come out of something as abjectly miserable as a broken heart? The word "exquisite" hints at hedonism--to indulge in something rich and full. But doesn't it matter what it's full of? What is it that some people find so incredibly delicious about hurting themselves. What the hell is so tasty about sulking and bathing in your own misery.

How is it that there is comfort in heartache? I used to believe, coming out of my depression, that I loved the pain because I had lived so long feeling emotionally and mentally numb. When you live in a world where you go to the gym to get the exercise you're not getting because you're working at a computer all day... and you pay $4 for a cup of coffee to make up for the rest you didn't take, crying becomes one of the most rewardingly natural things you can do. So, I wonder if it is really possible to feel good when you feel like dying, simply because you've spent the last couple of years feeling already dead.

I worry about myself a lot, but I think from his side of the story. If I were writing his biography, I would be the fling who comes in for a part of a chapter and maybe even appears a couple times later through the book. Maybe I'd change things or maybe I'd just provide contrast. I learned from my last boyfriend that while you may be the hero of your own story, others will quickly cast you as the comic-relief, the catalyst or even the villain. It's experiences like those that really ground you.

You begin to realize that you don't have to come out on top all the time, because when you're not the hero of the story, it doesn't matter where you end up as long as you're not dead.

What the hell is closure anyway?

2006-08-23T18:03:00.000+08:00

Every relationship ends with the search for this particular thing. Good or bad, if your boyfriend cheats on you or if your husband dies, you look for this. The trouble is that it's very different for each person, and for one person it changes over time.

The first time I looked for closure was when I was trying to get over my high school crush. Of course it wasn't really getting over him. My idea of closure was trying to get him to fall in love with me, even though he turned out to be straight. And every time I got beat back down and he wondered why I cared so oddly much about our "friendship", I found a reason to fight again for him. Maybe it wasn't so much of a reason then as it was an excuse.

After that I gave up on the idea: one last conversation, one last look or one last kiss. It was all bullshit to me. What is supposed to be the last for me always ends up getting twisted into the first of a new beginning. I think that in a very wierd way I'm too optimistic. I keep dreaming of something I know will never come.

A month ago, my idea of closure changed again. I wanted him to say he loved me back after all this time. I wanted him to say that he made a mistake. I wanted to be able to walk away from him the way he walked away from me. But that's foolish. I know that if he had asked me back, I could walk away... but I could never do it the way he did. Sometimes I think I was born to give him the advantage.

This week, my concept of closure changed once again. I sat on this computer and wrote an e-mail to him. I wanted to say goodbye and sorry. I wanted to apologize for making my problems his and wish him well in his life. The letter was a good one. It sounded optimistic, civil and genuine. But as I got towards the end, I couldn't press the send button. A thought occurred to me. What if he replied? Is there anything he could say that wouldn't make me feel worse? If he said too little, would my heart break a little like it used to? Maybe he thought of this too.

The problem is I'll never understand how he felt about me, or if he felt anything at all, so I don't know why he hasn't tried to get in touch with me. Maybe he is concerned about my feelings or maybe...

I looked at his pictures on facebook. The ones tagged by his boyfriend and besides for the pleasure of masochism I took from it what I found to be closure. Or at least what I will find to be closure for he and I. I saw how happy he was over in New York with his boyfriend, and I decided not to send the e-mail. I figured it would just remind him of a time when he was unhappy. I mean, isn't it sad when you are personally serving as a reminder to someone of a really bad time. And really, what was I looking to get out of it? I think I wanted some validation that things have changed, and that he still looks at me with some amount of affection. Or maybe I just want him to think of me as much as I think of him... maybe I just don't want him to forget about me until I can finally forget about him.

It's hard when someone you cared about moves on so much sooner than you did yourself. I guess that's been the case for everyone I've ever needed closure from. It's always been excuses to draw them back into my life, even after they're gone.

To end a relationship - beyond the last kiss, last hug or last knowing look - what do you really need from the other person? Does he have anything to say that will set me free? Or does he only have things that I want him to say?

I've come to understand that the only way for me to walk away is to accept all my losses. To take the humiliation and the heartache, and appreciate the part of me that dared to love another in the first place.

Signs of change.

2006-08-04T10:53:00.000+08:00

I had another one of those dreams where the people change on you. This one was about my dream guy. We were away somewhere and sharing a room. I didn't know if he was gay or not, so I didn't get interested until we got close to each other. Our beds were pushed together, and slowly I reached around and held him in my arms.

This was my dream guy. You know the one with no face but a nice body. Sometimes I imagine him to be the Taiwanese boy sitting next to me in my marketing class. He asks me to help him read the projection because my professor's handwriting is bad. I like to lean in closer to the board and then to him as I whisper the lecture notes to him.

It's amazing how happy, having nothing, can make me feel... as long as I have the hope that it will one day be something.

The way, that I felt in my dream... I haven't felt like that since Brian Tagiku, way back in high school, during those awkward moments where I would hint to my interest him and in my mind pretend that he returned those feelings, even if only secretly.

So the dream guy changed on my halfway through, thankfully after we had messed around. In another part my brother changed into my dad. I think there's instability in my head.

It all comes down to it.

2006-07-31T17:25:00.000+08:00

I'm experience a sort of writer's block. I'm writing a script for a film, that's supposed to be done for my Asian American Film class. Although, it's really not for that at all.

Being in Berkeley again really makes me remember how badly I kicked my own ass. School, work and tons of extracurriculars from Day One. As hard as it is, there is reasoning behind it and it's not just getting away from problems by keeping myself busy (my time honored self-defense mechanism). Life is really, really short. I mean fuck, I'm 23 already and what do I have to show for it?

I was deciding whether or not to go through with this. Should I really go through with it or should I just say fuck it and pull some shitty ass documentary bull and get my passing grade? I need art to survive and sometimes I had wished I just went straight to doing the art instead of going to college and pleasing my parents, but then again I would always feel that I missed out on the college "experience"... whatever the hell that was, haha.

I'm leaving soon and it's making me realize a lot of things. 1) I am definitely going to miss all my friends from around here, but the really good ones will persist, just like Katy, Sam, and Natalia have already proven to do. I mean, those are the ones that you want your kids to get to know. Everyone else is great to see every now and then, but you can't make decisions on where you live for the now and thens. 2) If I stay in the Bay Area, I'm going to shoot myself. I fucking hate BART with a passion. Every meal, I worry about if I'll eat anything that I actually like, and sadly there have been few meals I've enjoyed since I got back. I don't want to be one of those negative people who leave the country and come back and talk all kinds of smack about the place a lot of people call home, but I guess it's too late for that isn't it? I do my best to not exaggerate though... to keep my opinions mild and not overstated... well except for my hatred for BART.

I miss Shanghai... I miss the language, and being surrounded by Mandarin. Watching Taiwanese music videos on YouTube puts a lump in my heart. I want to get started with my life already...

Mr. Love or Hate

2006-07-21T08:12:00.000+08:00

I've noticed a trend an all my pursuers/pursuees, which is that they tend to either really really like me or really really dislike me. Looking back, there were only a couple who were ambivalent. That's what I'm really looking for I guess. That's what seems the most comfortable with me. I want someone who's willing to date me but not crazy about the whole idea.

I know from experience that I can be trained to love someone, although I've yet to figure out if that is the good kind of love. When someone likes me a lot, especially in the very beginning, it makes me question their sanity. I think to myself, "waoh kid, do you really know what you're getting into?"

It also makes me wonder if it could be any boy walking down the street... or at least any cute boy, for the pickier ones. Or even anyone who pays attention back to you. And I do believe somewhat in love at first sight, but I've always thought the type of love I wanted would be mutual... that we'd look at each other and just know that we had a fighting chance in this crazy world.

I find myself speaking like other nutcases: "If only they could treat me a little bit worse, I would like them so much more."

I entertained the thought, yesterday, that maybe I'm just that great of a person. Maybe the ones who like me (as opposed to the ones that avoid me) just get it. Maybe I'm good enough to be loved that intensely by someone.

But that was just a musing. I know there are people out there who can think that way. And I wonder if that kind of thinking is classified as egotism or a healthy level of self-esteem. After all, is it really that concieted of a notion to believe that we actually deserve the good things we get?

If I sit down with someone and ask them to explain why they like me I will be looking for a list of positive, intellectual things. But I won't get them. At least not at the age that I and the people I tend to date are at. So then, will I scoff when they say, "I just like being around you", or will I accept that there are people in the world that actually like to be around me.

I'm drunk.

2006-06-30T01:27:00.000+08:00

This will be my first drunken post ever. I've come to realize a couple things about myself. Thing the first: I'm a whiney stupid bitch that needs to suck it up. Thing the second: I'm an attractive, smart, talented and mature person and I really need to stop feeling sorry for myself all the time.

I keep on comparing myself to other people and I've only just realized how stupid that is. I have a lot of issues with my height even though I'm not really that short. Apparently a lot of people would go for me if I was just a little bit taller.

But you know what? Fuck that shit! So what if I'm like two inches shorter than ideal. All those tall fuckers in the world don't have nearly as much to offer as I do other than their height. I may not be as big as all the guys that everyone falls over, but I'm still cute and I'm one hell of a good lay. (If you were ever in the sack with me and wasn't that impressed, it's probably cuz I didn't think you were that cute.)

Wow, I type really fast when I'm drunk. It's amazing. Anyway, this no sex pact I have with myself is kinda good. I feel a lot better about myself in general now that I'm not whoring my body out for tiny tiny droplets of self-respect.

I'm really drunk, but my punctuation is still on point. Nerd.

Last January.

2006-06-28T20:12:00.000+08:00

Last January, Katy asked me to do her a favor. She said, every day, before I went to sleep to write out 3 things that I did well or 3 things that I liked about myself. After laughing at her, I told her that it could never happen... that each day it was hard for me to even find one thing that I liked much less 3 whole things.

But I was thinking about it just now and I have 3 things, so here go.

1. I'm kind of a nutcase. But when I become disgustingly famous, it will complement my gifts. Like Mozart, Howard Hughes or Mariah Carey, at the mention of my name, people will say, "He's really talented... but also a bit crazy."

2. Everytime I try to close my iTunes, I get a message saying that someone is connected to my shared music. Last month, in the dormitory lobby, I guy came up to me and asked me if it was my library that he listened to, and then complemented my taste in music. Later, I hit on him.

3. MY GAME ≤ ZERO. Sometimes it frustrates me to no end that I don't know how to hit on guys. But this is probably a good thing. The less men I sucessfully take home, the less likely I am to contract HIV.

(Katy: See how hard that last one was to come up with?)

Everything happens for a reason.

2006-06-26T22:08:00.000+08:00

Sometimes it seems like the worst things happen to you. I like to think that they happen for a reason... either to prevent you from doing something worse or to teach you a lesson. Natalia told me last year she believed the same thing, and that I should just put my problems exactly where the were--in the past--and move on. It's the same thing that christians are referring to when they say "god has a plan".

I'm sitting in a Coffee Bean trying to study for my final tomorrow. A guy comes up and speaks to me in chinese. He holds out two flash drives. I tell him I don't understand what he wants me to do. He talks some more, and then I tell him I don't speak chinese. At this point I realize he's not gonna leave me alone, so I transfer his damn files for him.

Before I came to Shanghai I thought there was a big plan for me. That everything that happened to me over the past had happened for a reason and it was all pointing me to Shanghai. I thought that Arthur broke up with me because if he didn't I might've stayed for him. I thought I was always depressed because fate wanted me to be able to comfort other people with their problems. In Shanghai, I would find that part of me that I was looking for. Maybe I'd fall in love. Maybe I'd learn to love myself. Maybe I'd get over my depression.

I'm going back home in less than a week, and none of this stuff has really happened. I'll be back in Shanghai in two months. I've come to the conclusion that things happen for a reason, but it's always up to me to figure out why. I think it's about time I grew up and stopped relying on fate to put me in the right direction.

Forrest Gump said it was a little of both. I think everyone is destined to end up somewhere, but it's up to us to decide how we get there.

I shave my head in the summers in the years that I want change the most. Hair has always been symbolic for me. Having no hair means less time in the mirror fixing up my appearance. Less time in the mirror means more time in the rest of the world.

I know where I'm gonna end up in the future. One day I'm going to truly be happy with myself, and I'm not going to need a boy by my side to tell me that I'm lovable and capable of loving other people. I'm going to have a place somewhere and stroll the streets in my off-time walking my puppy through my neighborhood. My boyfriend will run up behind me wrap me in his arms and ask me to guess who. I'll reply "Jay Chou?" I'll love him, but no more than I'll love having my sanity. When my friends visit I'll show them my meticulously decorated apartment and serve them tea or beer; Eve or Rick. I'll ride my bike through the streets and hear the jazz in my head bouncing off the building walls.

One day... I'm going to stop wanting change. But if things ever do change from there, I won't try to get in the way.

Growth is a kind of love.

2006-06-25T09:53:00.000+08:00

I think I've finally come to a point in my life when I'm ready to make sacrifices in order to be the way that I want to be. For a very long time now, I've measured my self-worth by the frequency of sex I've had... as if I'm only as good as I am sexually desired.

So I made a contract with myself, a promise on paper.

No more sex for at least 6 months and afterwards, I can only have sex with someone who considers himself to be my boyfriend... AND we have to have been together for at least 3 months. So realistically looking at this, I will probably be celibate for about a year, maybe less, maybe more.

I talked with some friends about this and they all thought it was a good idea. Annalyn once told me a couple years back that I was addicted to sex, but I didn't really understand what it meant. I didn't take it seriously, because I know I didn't have that much sex. But now I realize it's not so much about how often it happens. It's more about what it means to you and how you use it to escape the world.

It's my heroine, my crack cocaine. I start to feel bad about myself and the world and I go and find sex with the next moving thing. Yesterday I did it again. I didn't even know him and afterward, I felt numb and empty... but I still think it felt better than sad and unstable. Within the past couple of weeks, the zoloft has completely left my body, and I'm back where I was November 2005 or February 2002 or October 2001.

These months aren't when it was worst. They're right before they got worse.

So I get to make a decision again. Do I let history repeat? Do I fall until I can barely stand to pick up the scattered pieces and find myself another niche in the world--full of people who don't know about me? Or do I make a decisive move and grow up? I'm 23 right now, and I feel like a child. Ridiculous tantrums dressed up with all the words and sentence structures I learned to use throughout my college years. But in the end, maybe I am just a baby... crying the minute someone leaves the room, because I really can't stand to be by myself.

I came to Shanghai to learn to love myself again. But I realize now that it's going to be really hard, because I'm not sure if the word "again" applies. Was there ever a time when I really did? Probably not. If I remember my life by months and years, then maybe sometime in 2008 or 2009, I could look back on June 2006 and remember it as the month when things started getting better. For good.

Get lost.

2006-06-14T22:53:00.000+08:00

I walk down the street, with all my focus buried in the attention of my cell phone. I need minutes, and badly. As I listen to the automated voice instruct me in broken english, I wonder if I'm at the point in my studies where I can start pressing 1 on my touch tone keypad for Mandarin. Two boys come out of the storefront up ahead, one with his arm around the other. I think to myself, "how cute". The other boy's arm reaches up to the small of his back, as if he were trying to reach a higher hetero-appropriate area. His hand then falls to the other guy's right buttcheek and gives it a long hard squeeze... then I think to myself, "how long has it been since you got laid?"

I've been working in front of the computer for several hours trying to get this contract graphic design business of mine going. Two weeks = two customers = $600 US = 2 mo. rent in Shanghai. But it's not enough. As good as it sounds right now, I can only live off the gap between the US dollar and Chinese RMB for so long. I need consistent work and a good profile. Plus, by this time next year, I want an apartment with a hot tub. Yeah, that's right... hot tub.

I think maybe I can be one of those really sought after designers like Paul Rand. He designed logos for ABC, IBM and NeXT among all his big corporations. I just like the idea of being paid literally hundreds of dollars per hour to sit and think. I could go in the park, wander around and wonder if I should use circles or squares, serif or sans serif. This would all be great if my designs didn't suck ass. But I guess it's ok for now and not having any formal design education.

If I can support myself doing this, I can use the spare time to go on auditions for random things. When I return to Shanghai in August I'll be bringing a flugelhorn with me. Maybe I can get into a jazz band or something here. Then I won't actually have to speak chinese. I'm going to meet Coco Zhao Ke this weekend hopefully, who is a famous shanghainese jazz singer, also gay. Supposedly his stuff is good but I wouldn't know where to find his CD.

Regardless, I can't help but feel like such an idiot here. I was supposed to start my business 3 months ago. If I had, I would have plenty of money for a new place. I see all the material things that I want and kick myself in the butt just a little bit for not already having them.

And in regards to relationships, haven't found one worth talking about yet. I think it'll be a long time coming though. For now I'm happy with the occasional lay, which will hopefully come more often once I have my own place. I think it's about time that I really raised my standards for men. I've noticed that since I've arrived in Shanghai that I've been pretty good about that. Whoever this guy is... the one that I'm going to meet and know that I'll want to be with for a very long time, I'm sure he's on his way to Shanghai within the next 5 years. I'm thinking that he'll come for the jazz.

Let's get serious.

2006-06-04T02:37:00.000+08:00

Standing outside of the ridiculously named Frangipani, he stands still as I pace in circles around him. Playfully, stand-off-ish... I question his motives. And then I tell him, "I'm nothing special". I lie, because I know I am. Looking into his eyes melts my heart, though. It's like looking into a mirror.

From closet to classroom in china.

2006-05-17T00:06:00.000+08:00

By Howard W. French The New York Times

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2005
SHANGHAI As the class got under way, the diminutive teacher standing before an overcrowded lecture hall in this city's most exclusive university handed out a survey. The first of several multiple-choice questions asked students what their feelings would be if they encountered two male lovers: total acceptance, reluctant acceptance, rejection or disgust?

As a way of breaking the ice, the teacher, Sun Zhongxin, 35, with a doctorate in sociology and a fondness for PowerPoint presentations, read aloud some of the answers anonymously. Judging by her sample, most of the 120 or so students said they would reluctantly accept gay lovers in their midst.

The Fudan University class, Introduction to Gay and Lesbian Studies, is the first of its kind ever offered to Chinese undergraduates, and Sun briefly wondered why it was so well attended, before providing her own answer.

"The attitude toward homosexuality in China is changing," she said. "It is a good process, but it also makes us feel heavy-hearted. What's unfortunate about such heavy attendance is that it indicates that many people have never discussed the topic before. Not only are people hiding in the closet, but the topic itself has been hiding in the closet."

Among China's gay and lesbian population, which may be as large as 48 million by some estimates though it remains largely invisible, the new course is being portrayed as a major advance.

Less than a decade ago, homosexuality was still included under the heading of hooliganism in China's criminal code, and it was only in 2001 that the Chinese Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses.

"This is definitely a big breakthrough in the contemporary society, because for so many years, homosexuals, as a community, have lived at the edge of society and have been treated like dissidents," said Zhou Shengjian, director of a gay advocacy group in Chongqing, an inland city far from Shanghai's cosmopolitanism.

"For such a university to have a specific course like this, with so many participants and experts involved, will have a very positive impact on the social situation of gay people, and on the fight against AIDS."

However much they welcomed the academic breakthrough, which is likely to prompt similar courses on other campuses, many gay and lesbian activists in China say they are no longer willing simply to wait patiently for the society to accept them. In particular, gay activists have been able to leverage the rising alarm over the spread of AIDS to win more maneuvering space, including more acceptance from the government.

Currently, by some estimates, there are as many as 300 Web sites in China that cater to the concerns of gays and lesbians.

Some of the sites focus strictly on health issues. Others tread into the delicate area of discrimination and human rights, and these are occasionally blocked temporarily or shut down by the government.

Others feature downloadable fiction by gay writers, who deal candidly with matters of sexuality in ways that few publishers in China's tightly controlled book industry would allow. One of the most popular sites (www.gztz.org) includes detailed maps of gay entertainment areas, from saunas to nightclubs, in China and overseas.

"In each provincial capital there is at least one gay working group that is active on HIV-AIDS prevention," said Zhen Li, 40, a volunteer for a gay hot line based in Beijing. "AIDS is not the main focus of our lives, though. We use the discussion of AIDS as a way of coming together on other issues, from getting coverage of gay life in the media to starting a discussion with the society."

For the most part, activists say, the government's attitude has been pragmatic. Groups that say they want to work on AIDS get official support. Those that focus on equal rights for gay people generally do not.

In almost the same breath, though, many also acknowledge that their strategy of using AIDS to create greater freedom carries a risk that they will be blamed for the spread of the disease.

"This is a very sensitive issue among homosexuals, thinking that outsiders are equating them with AIDS," said Gao Yanning, a professor in the school of public health at Fudan University, whose course on homosexual life for the medical school was a precursor of the new undergraduate class.

"But we, the professors, have been very careful about this. When I was first thinking of a course called the theory and practice of homosexuality, I was approached by another professor who told me I should call the class 'Homosexuality and AIDS."'

Gao said he would have refused to teach the class if he had been forced to use such a name.

Many gay Chinese say that it is social conservatism more than the government, whose policies during the communist era have veered from repressive to prudish, that has discouraged gay people from publicly acknowledging their sexual orientation.

Chinese are hard pressed to name a single celebrity or notable person from their country who has lived an openly gay life, meaning that except for foreigners, young gay men and lesbians have no prominent role models. Explicitly gay literature or cinema and television roles are equally scarce.

A 52-year-old lesbian in the northeastern city of Dalian who gave her name as Yang said she had discovered her sexual identity only at age 36, after marriage, when she had her first relationship with another woman, a factory co-worker.

"When we were together, people would talk about our relationship behind our backs or sometimes ask outright whether we were gay people," Yang said. "I was just ashamed and didn't know what to say, so I avoided my girlfriend in public occasions. The young gay people in Dalian today, though, seem to live in a very comfortable time."

"They're not forced to get married," she said, "and they take new partners one after another."

Many others, however, said the issue of marriage continued to weigh heavily.

"If you tell your parents you have a boyfriend, that may be O.K., but you've still got to get married," said Wang Xieyu, a junior at Fudan University. "The parents have their own concerns, their friends and their reputations. China today is like the U.S. in the 1960s, but we are changing faster. What took 40 years in the States may only take 10 years in China."

NOTE: This class at Fudan is extremely packed all the time and overenrolled. I'm going to sit in eventually but am putting if off until the end of the semester, since I hope my chinese will be better then.

Better late than never.

2006-05-11T14:34:00.000+08:00

I've been having a lot of anxiety towards my return home. Even though I'm only going to be back for less than a week it scares me. Well, I should be more specific really... I'm having a lot of anxiety towards returning to Berkeley.

Like... I don't want to see... people. I've noticed that the thought of running into people from the past scares the crap out of me. Even if they didn't really have any particular meaningful role in my demise, I still fear.

I tend to associate places with events. It's why I can never go back to Boston, really. The place reminds me of too many things that I want to forget. But Berkeley should be different. I spent almost four years of my life there and had many good memories among the bad ones.

I'm riding my bike through campus. It's beautiful weather here in Shanghai. Sunny. Cool. Breezy. Why am I so ready to throw this place away? And relationships with so many people who may not have even known what was going on inside my head?

I started thinking about what I'm doing in Shanghai... besides for occasional studying and working on my portfolio. I mean, what am I really doing in Shanghai. Did I come here to find myself, or did I come here to run away?

I remember once when I was six, my parents got into a fight. My mom walked out of our little apartment in North Hollywood, got into our one and only car... a broken down BMW, and drove away. She came back two days later and said nothing. Sometimes people leave for a short while when they know they have responsibilities. In this case: me. But then sometimes people leave for a while, and once they've past a certain time, they never come back. They stay away because they never came back to take care of that certain responsibility... and after a while they just think it's too late. The damage is done. (Which incidently is the way many of us think about walking into class 5 minutes late.)

I realized that I have a responsibility that I haven't taken care of yet. It's in Berkeley, but I can deal with it here. And well, even though you might think it... it's never too late.

I never forgave myself for what happened. For punishing myself everytime I met a boy who wouldn't love me back. For the night I spent wondering what the tiling would look like red. For giving in and giving up, I never did. But you can't forgive someone who never apologized. So I guess what I'm trying to say... is sorry.

I'm sorry I let it get so bad. I'm sorry for blaming myself for everything that went wrong. I'm sorry that I said I deserved it, and that I would never be happy. And I promise that in the future, I will take my feelings more into consideration.

The boy with no arms.

2006-04-29T23:29:00.000+08:00

She comes up to me on the subway and kneels down right in front. She is only about 9 years old. Placing her hands on my knees, gives me the most pitiful, yet adorable look she can and says, 先生(sir). As I dig into my wallet to find some coins I　think to myself... You had me at 先... you had me at 先.

The homeless and poor have given me some memories that I don't think I'll ever forget. When I was still in elementary school, my family took a trip to Las Vegas, where I bought my first ever piggy bank. It said "I love Las Vegas" on it. Before leaving the mall, I also unfortunately let go of my balloon and preceeded to bawl like the baby that I was. My mom was so frustrated with me that as soon as we got out side she took that piggy bank and smashed it on the sidewalk. And as the rest of my family headed back there towards the van, I cried among the shattered pieces. So engulfed in my own agony I was that I didn't even notice someone else standing sitting on the curb. A homeless man with concern in his eyes leaned over, "Hey. Hey. Don't cry. It's gonna be ok. It's gonna be ok."

I used to think that in my adulthood I would go back and find him, but I soon realized that I didn't even remember what he looked like. And I also knew, that if he had even survived through my adolescence, he would not still be sitting on the curb outside of the shopping mall.

Homeless people aren't always so benevolent, though. Once in New York, some homeless guy spit on me for seemingly no reason as I was coming out of the bank. I noticed his glare on me the whole time as I was waiting for my friend. And I had wondered then like I wonder now, if he was looking at something that maybe not everyone can see. I often wonder if crazy people are actually crazy, or if they just have one foot out the door.

Outside (xiangyang market) there is a boy with no arms who sits with his shirt off. He is there every day and he is always looking down. His skin is almost perfect until it leads to the stubs that are his arms... and imperfect as they are, you can see that they had been cut with some precision. Where foreigners come from all over the world to bargain for cheap brand-name ripoffs you can gaze at the horror that is undeveloped China. But few ever look. Even I turn away because it hurts to look. In the western areas of China, underdeveloped and undersecured, children are stolen to sell to families. They are sold to couples in Singapore, Malaysia or any other place that can afford to buy lives, and in the case that they do not sell... they are used to muster up pity from foreigners.

But no one ever looks. Across the street there is a man with a boy on his lap, fallen ill. He cradles him in his arm and crowds gather around mumbling things to themselves. (he's fallen ill), I hear. And the coins fall into the cup one after another. I guess people want to know that there's hope. They find comfort in the possibility that that man is his father and that that man will find a way to make his son better.

But there is no one to make the boy with no arms better. I wonder, what could I possibly give him?

We see homeless people too much. And we always say we've become desensitized. I know that I've said it several times in the past. But it's not true. To be desensitized would mean that you don't feel anything when you see someone who's lost everything. To be desensitized would mean to lack anguish and pity. I am very much still sensitive to them. But still, I do nothing. I find it strange that someone with nothing can give me so much with a few words, yet people with everything always appear empty-handed.

2006-03-29T00:50:00.000+08:00

Flowers are the prettiest people.

2006-03-29T00:49:00.001+08:00

Xihutiandi of West Lake.

2006-03-29T00:49:00.000+08:00

The willow trees in Hangzhou.

For the lesbians.

2006-03-28T23:31:00.000+08:00

The Bisexual Boogie Man
By Dinah Gardner

A Beijing magazine recently launched an online women seeking women personals section. So far, though, it’s been a big disappointment. The majority of ads are either posted by unsuspecting straight girls seeking female language exchange partners (sigh) or the dreaded straight couple out for some bi-curious fun.

Check out one of the latest cringe worthy ads.

“I’m a foreigner girl. I’d like to organise a private party for my boyfriend’s birthday and give him a special gift – You (not Chinese) with me are the gift ;-)”

Give me stilted conversation with an earnest English student any day.

It’s pretty obvious why many lesbians get bi-furious about the bi-curious – we have made our bed and we only want women in it – but why are we afraid of dating girls who play for both sides?

First off lesbians are a jealous breed. We have enough on our plate obsessing our girlfriend might be sneaking off behind our backs with another woman. If we’ve got to worry about her getting funky with a guy then we’d never get enough sleep.

At the back of our minds is that nagging conviction that one day she will leave us for a man – especially when the pressure is on to marry and have a conventional family.

There’s a scene in the 1994 lesbian flick, Go Fish where a jury of gay women get stuck into one of the butch characters, Daria, after she sleeps with a guy. “It was just sex,” she pleads.

But for us, ”it’s not just sex.” Sleeping with a bisexual puts you one step away from sleeping with a man. Like tucking into a vegetarian mapo dofu that has had its pork bits scooped out by the kitchen staff.

You would think that as a group that has been marginalised since time immemorial, lesbians could be more open-minded. We label ourselves GBLT – gays, bisexuals, lesbians and transgendered – in a bid to embrace all sexual minorities, but many dykes still find sexually fluid women are not their cup of tea.

Of course some lesbians have no problem with bisexual girls. A number of local butch lesbians in Beijing treasure feminine qualities so much that even lipstick lesbians are not girly enough for them. I met one Beijing dyke who goes even further and exclusively hunts out straight girls. She became a make-up artist so she could spend all day surrounded by hot hetero chicks.

I had a near brush with the bisexual boogie man myself last week. An evildoer texted me posing as the boyfriend of my partner. Although we have an open relationship, the idea that she is “sleeping with the enemy” made my stomach curdle.

After vehemently denying the boyfriend in colourful putonghua, she put her mother on the phone. In a glorious reversal of the expected parental attitude to homo offspring, this is what Ma said:

“Dinah, I swear to you, my daughter is 100 percent lesbian. She has never slept with boys. I won’t let her sleep with boys. Oh! And by the way Happy Birthday. Why don’t you come over on Sunday and I’ll make you birthday lunch!”

Let’s hope she makes it vegetarian. From scratch.

Are you happy?

2006-03-26T03:37:00.000+08:00

"You miss America? I haven't really thought about it much."
"Yeah, I never really appreciated it before. Why don't you miss it?"
"I don't know. I guess I just wasn't happy there."
"And you're happy here?"
"Yeah. I think I am."

It's really late right now, and I can't go to sleep. That and I have to wake up in two hours to take my parents 杭州 (Hangzhou) tomorrow. I've been thinking a lot lately about reconciling my life here with my life back in the U.S. Because I'm not a big fan of leaving your baggage behind only to have it come back and bite you in the ass years later.

I've told a couple people here about my past and about last semester, but when I start to speak too much I have to stop. Because I really can't take it. I had 螃蟹粥 (crab congee) today with a guy who is allergic to shellfish. He said he wanted to build up a tolerance. Maybe, it's the same with me. I have to build up a tolerance to my past.

I don't think most people know how certain points of my life have been for me. I don't think they know that I took Tylenol pills until my body couldn't take it and puked it out last semester, so that I could sleep. But I was really looking for a permanent fix. I don't think they know that I stood in my kitchen a couple of times with a knife pressed to my gut while I told myself, "just push".

Last year, I really wanted to die. There's a difference between wanting to die and wanting to kill yourself though. If I had wanted to kill myself, you wouldn't be reading anything right now because I would have done it. I'd have bought a hose, connected it to the exhaust of my Mustang and driven out to the bay to wait for the carbon monoxide to take over my body. No, I did not want to kill myself... though I did want to die. Wanting to die is different in the sense that you don't actually want to do the work yourself. Either your religious beliefs prevent you from doing it or you're just shit afraid of making such a big decision. I wanted a big fat semi-truck to make the decision for me. It's why I only took 10 pills that night, and it's why the tip of that blade never pierced my skin.

"I know a lot of people like you. You move around a lot and you can't stay in one place for more than a couple of years. You get there and everything seems perfect for a while, but as soon as the dust settles, you remember you have to deal with your problems again."

I think I'm not as naive as I used to be. At least not enough to believe that in the six weeks that I've been here the dust has already settled, and I'm ok. But regardless, today I told my parents that I'm going to stay here. After I get my degree this summer at Berkeley, I'm going to come back and stay here indefinitely.

Something about Shanghai tells me to let the dust settle here. Here I can be lost among the millions of people, and as long as I don't open my mouth, I melt into the background. Here, I have a new start and I get to use different decisions for the same problems. It's hard to explain without sounding a little granola, but I just feel at peace here... and I feel safe. And in my lowest lows, I feel like somehow the world still cares about me. It makes me know that I will never try to hurt myself again.

请你不要打碎我的玻理心。

2006-03-09T17:52:00.000+08:00

"So are you... a player?"
"No, I don't think so. Well if I am... I'm not a very good one."

Before I left Berkeley, my doctor told me, Zoloft is not a drug you want to just go off of. I nodded my head, but to be honest I didn't really know what she meant until last week. Anyone who has spoken to me online or on the phone knows that last week I was incredibly sick. Thought it was a flu for a while that gave me the dizziness but after the coughing went away I couldn't even turn my head without feeling all the fluids swishing around my brain.

Which is when I remembered those little pills I stopped taking shortly after I arrived here. I know I should be on them, but I've decided yet again to quit taking them. This time I think it's for a better reason, however, I don't really want to say the reason right now. But in my mind it makes sense.

So I went back on to make the pain go away, and now I cut my dosage down day by day. Dating boys in Chinese is incredibly difficult, especially when they can't understand english. I think my english-speaking chinese friends here take it easy on me, because they usually know what I'm trying to say. Some boys aren't as forgiving on my pronunciations. Words that I thought I could easily say... are more or less incoherent.

Luckily for me, my desire to date guys here has also dwindled. Tons of cute Shanghainese boys, but strangely enough at the end of the day I'd rather stay at home and study mandarin. My teachers compliment me in class, about how well my pronunciation is. They keep asking me if my parents speak mandarin at home which makes me feel pretty damn good. Maybe I just need to speak louder. I wonder how my friends will react if I return to home as a louder me. Quietness has always been one of my defining characteristics.

I went out into the city last Saturday on my own. It was one of the only times in my life that I've ever felt truly comfortable being alone. I think back in the states I feel pressured to be social and have friends around, when most of the time I'm happiest at home in bed. I think I always feel pressured to have something interesting to say about who I'm dating or how my sex life is. Less than a week after I've arrived here I already had several friends ask me if I had met anyone yet. And for some reason, reminding them that I had only been in Shanghai for a couple of days really didn't alter their curiosity... so I went out that weekend and got laid.

And now I don't really give a shit anymore about how long I go without having sex. Always felt like I was on a timer, as if people expected me to have a lot of sex and if I didn't then I was some kind of loser. I don't think it was other people's fault really... I'm pretty sure that I convinced myself of those opinions.

I wonder now if maybe I'm supposed to be alone. If maybe there isn't someone out there for everyone. After all what are the odds of that happening. Realistically speaking there should be several people out there for some people and no one out their for others. People get married and divorce mid-life to live the rest of their lives alone, yet content.

Walking around the city, I see that there are lots of beautiful places, and there are lots of things that I would like to show to some friends, some things I want my parents to see... and a couple things that I would want to share with a boyfriend. But I think that I would very much like to start finding places that I don't mind keeping for myself.

2006-03-04T01:02:00.000+08:00

McDonald's meets IKEA. I'm loving it...

Drive through art at 115 km/h.

2006-03-04T01:00:00.000+08:00

A futuristic structure enclosing a freeway. This work of art was part of many improvements celebrating 复旦大学 (Fudan University's) 100th Anniversary. Also part of the celebration were several free on-campus concerts... even one featuring Andy Lau!

Communist China and the Internet

2006-03-03T23:43:00.000+08:00

Living in Shanghai as an expatriate can give many foreigners the illusion that China has reached grandness on the level of Tokyo or Taipei. While incredibly beautiful as a country and as a people, sometimes I forget that communist China is in fact... communist.

I blog to this page using a proxy server based in the U.S. Why you ask? Because the Chinese government has effectively banned BlogSpot and several other online blogging sites with the exception of Xanga (I have absolutely no idea). Maybe you Xanga folks are slightly less opinionated. =P

A proxy server works by redirecting my internet inquiries to a server in the United States, (or possibly any varying country that does not impose similar restrictions on their citizens). Therefore when I request access to an internet site, the servers are somehow tricked into thinking that it is an American computer contacting them. This bypasses the restrictions on China, because they don't see that I am looking at sites such as BlogSpot, or Google.... or anything involving Taiwan. Haha. Instead it appears that I am really really interested in this American site... which in actuality is the proxy server.

Though I'm not afraid of getting caught for any of my blogging, since I am not calling forth a revolution from within China. Several internet bloggers, which have effectively exploited this from of free speech have actually been imprisoned for as much as 10 years.

Here's a quote from Guo Liang from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing: "Mao Zedong said that to have power you need two things: the gun and the pen ... The Communist Party has the gun, but the Internet is now the pen. If they lose control of it, something will happen to challenge their authority."

They've in fact responded drastically to the new threat closing down hundreds of internet Cafes in Beijing after one cafe had a fire accident. They claimed that having several computers in one room was a serious fire hazard. If this were truly the case, no one would ever play Counter-Strike... because they'd all have died 5 years ago in America.

I've noticed that a vast majority of the foreigners studying here at Fudan treat it as a semester long vacation, which I find a bit annoying. However, I have to remember that most people aren't like me and actually look forward to vacations. I doubt many people have travelled the way that I have though. I doubt many visitors to New York have walked through Alphabet City past midnight. Or that many people living in Boston had tutored kids in the impoverished suburb of Dorchester.

Probably the difference with me is that I've always known that I was gonna leave home. So every where I go I kinda scout the place out and that's why it's important to see the worst areas. From the Bronx to the very worst of Oakland, you have to look. Because the only time you can tell that you're in love with a place is when you want to see it--and help it--get better.

I have a lot of faith in the People's Republic and I think it will get better in the coming years. The blatant capitalism now visible in the country's major cities although not entirely welcome by everyone is at least a great way of thwarting the communist (but more accurately fascist) government. Communist societies are built on the principal of a classless society, whereas the efforts made by the PRC government to censor the internet are efforts to maintain power and oppress opposing views. It actually sounds a little bit like... america. Anyone hear of the Patriot Act? Or the more geeky news of Blizzard Entertainment temporarily banning the in-game advertisement of gay-friendly guild recruitment in World of Warcraft? The only difference is in the way that these efforts are organized and centralized. I think that there are problems with almost every government, though.

I don't have faith in governments really, but I have faith in people. I have faith that the demonstrators that died at the hands of the Chinese army 15 years ago in Tiananmen Square did not die in vain.

I look forward to the day that I can walk through the streets of Shanghai and feel the city's tremendous wealth spread beyond the Western expats that flood the richer areas. I look forward to seeing Chinese-born enjoying the same luxuries that I receive so easily here... I look forward to getting access to www.wikipedia.org back.

Twenty days in Shanghai.

2006-03-01T00:59:00.000+08:00

Today I have been in Shanghai for roughly twenty days, and I'm realizing that my blog is in desperate need of an update, before I disappear into the vast emptiness of travel like I tend to do... this blog shall act as a tether from me to the United States.

As always, too much to write not enough time... so I'll start with a summary of my experiences and you can fill in the blanks for now. In 上海(Shanghai), I have:

- said 听不懂 (i don't understand what you're saying) a total of 130 times.
- been to about every shopping street in the city and bought no clothes.
- eaten until my stomach cried uncle just about every day.
- had a "thai massage" from a shanghainese boy.
- been hugged in a club by a chinese money boy.
- fallen knee-deep into a large pool of wet cement.
- dreamt I was in a city that was crumbling down.
- unwittingly been on half a dozen dates.
- used the phrase 我们做爱吧 (let's have sex) although not in the context I had originally anticipated.
- actually said to a person "no, I will not take a picture of my penis for you"
- bought a bike to ride to school every day
- learned the meaning of 帅.
- been disappointed in myself.
- stopped my medication for the sake of rationing out my remaining pills.
- leveled my priest to 60 and bought an epic mount.
- picked out the first chinese song i'm going to learn on the guitar.
- come to terms with the failures that are my past relationships.
- eaten with three japanese students who spoke little to no english or chinese.
- been kissed.
- hit on my first shanghainese boy.
- was promptly rejected by my first shanghainese boy.
- watched the sun rise and set over 浦西。
- had a $0.25 dinner
- ordered my first meal from a menu with no english.
- realized how happy i could be when i'm alone.
- fallen in love for the first time with a place.
- believed that i could fall in love for the first time... with myself.

I hope everyone is doing well.

2006-02-28T00:22:00.000+08:00

我到了。

This is the sound of settling.

2006-02-10T21:30:00.000+08:00

Someone wrote me an e-mail last week. Someone that I used to care a lot about, and who I still care a lot about... just in a different way. We don't talk very much anymore cuz I always end up mad at him, but he finds me online. Says he always leaves a little sad. Seems like I'm always searching for something. Hopes I'll find it in China.

Plane leaves in six hours. I have so much to write and not enough time to write it. I have pictures to post but not enough time to find them. I think I tend to look over the positive in my life, and for that I'm sorry for anyone who cares about me and actually checks up on me through this. I will try to give a more unbiased account of the occurrences in my life. =P

All I can think about right now is how familiar this feels... to leave again. I spend so much time not caring about my surroundings and when I'm finally going the emotions start to swell up. And in my brain, all the memories swirl together, beautiful in it's unapologetic melancholy.

I remember the night before I left to Boston, watching cartoons with my brother until 5 am when I had to leave. I remember the silent 1 hour drive to LAX with my dad, and how he told me to be a good boy. 10 months later I left the city, head pressed against the window of my friends car as I watched the city lights fade. Body pressed against the airplane window as I looked down and saw how Commonwealth snaked along the Charles River. And far down where the road intersected Harvard Ave. I could see the little building that I called my home.

I remember a lot of things from a lot of places, but it's not so important to list the right now.

Five years ago, I left my home, my family, my friends and everything I knew about myself to find a new me. I ended up in a city where I knew no one, had no place to live and had no idea about what I would be doing for work. I like to think that I've grown up a lot since then. I used to tell people that I was going away to find myself, but now I know that I was just a coward, getting away from my problems. And now I know that the only time you ever really find yourself is when you stop running.

So yes, maybe I'll find myself in China. But if I do... it won't be because of China.

I have been having the worst dreams.

2006-02-09T04:22:00.000+08:00

I woke up this morning to the sound of my guitar... because I punched it. Last night I dreamt that I was leaving my house after an argument with my dad, and right before I left the door, I grabbed a gay magazine and walked up to him. "Oh, and guess what," I said, "I'm gay". I flipped through the pages and showed him all the pictures, and then I rolled it up and lunged to smack him in the face with it.

What I ended up smacking was my guitar.

But before that I dreamt about him. I keep dreaming about him. That I'm back in that place where it feels horrible and I still love him. I wake up and I breathe a sigh of relief that it's over and I go about my day. But today was different. Today felt different when I woke up.

I believe in fate. I really do, and I think that something wanted me to find closure so I could stop having these dreams. It led me to his blog and I read it and wept. I guess I needed to know that he was doing well. I guess I needed to know that he was happier than I could have ever made him...

It's hard being at home.

2006-02-07T15:18:00.000+08:00

Everyone's yelling at each other and it makes me sad for home. Though it seems I try so hard to keep my distance from my family, I often wonder. I wonder what it's like for my mom to go into the same office every day for the past 20 years. I wonder if Nordstroms makes her happy on the weekends. I wonder if she ever thinks of learning new dishes to cook, or if she's content with the same ones she's been making for us all this time. I wonder if she ever wanted to be a mom. I wonder if this is what she wanted for us all.

I wonder what it's like for my dad to hold on to a business that everyone else seems to hate. I wonder what it's like to make a company your life. I wonder if he'll ever be okay with the way things are going to turn out. I wonder how often he regrets marrying my mom.

I wonder about my brother and the girl he's chasing. I wonder if he loves the chase or if he just wants to love something. I wonder if he's getting lost in someone outside of this house. I wonder if he'll have the first grandchildren, if I'll become an uncle to his children.

I wonder about my older brother and what will make him happy. I wonder if he even knows himself. I wonder if he's as much like me as I think he is. I wonder if he worries about his siblings. I wonder if he thinks it's his job to make sure that we turn out ok. I wonder if he knows when to be selfish.

Patient is a virtue.

2006-01-26T09:20:00.000+08:00

I still have two and a half weeks 'til my freaking plane leaves from LA. Jesus christ, man. I bought my ticket last week for $800... not too shabby. Flying on JAL with a frequent flyers program. Two more roundtrips and I can go to New York, haha.

I may go to Mexico again before I leave with Chris. We'll see. I really have a craving for those $1 raw oysters...chance of death...(drool). The Frostmane server was down yesterday, so I couldn't play WoW... so instead I clocked in 8 hours of GTA: San Andreas. They actually made a version of the Castro in their San Francisco. And there's a gun shop in it. I just thought I should share that.

Say it again.

2006-01-23T21:42:00.000+08:00

He tells me he loves me, and asks why I can't say it back. I tell him, "It's too soon" and "we don't even know each other, yet".

And for some reason, when I look at his face, neither explanation seems to satisfy him... or me. So I say, "I'm not sure what love is anymore"...

I think he understands that I've been burned. Those scars don't heal; you just get used to them, that's all. She used to say that I was so brave, for being able to love again but it was never courage--only curiosity. I had never truly been hurt. I had only been the one who was hurting. Loving someone was without risk, until now. Where is this bravery you speak of?

People say that we throw around the word love too much. But I think that we don't say it enough. Everyone's trying to bottle it up until they can trust someone to bare it all. But it's a wildfire and it is infinite and you don't have to worry about running out.

It's just a word and a feeling. I have a feeling... and "I really really like you" just doesn't cut it anymore, so why not? Follow the rules, Sun. Wait 48 hours. Love doesn't come in prescriptions. You can swim right after eating. There is no sweet without the sour. So maybe I'll say it. I love you too.

The first day of instruction.

2006-01-18T18:52:00.000+08:00

Today was the first day of instruction at Berkeley. It's weird to be sitting here in LA while all my friends are trying to get their schedules in order... doing that Berkeley thing.

Especially since the school doesn't know I'm not registered yet...

Sever your hearts.

2006-01-16T10:45:00.000+08:00

There's a certain quality of mind and body that refuses to be very far apart. I think it's why people cut themselves and say it makes them feel better. There's something very unsettling of feeling like you're dying on the inside and being totally healthy on the outside. I've never cut myself or anything like that but I can see why someone would.

From a very early age we develop a strong desire for things to just make sense.

I think too much or not enough.

2006-01-15T22:21:00.000+08:00

I got home this morning at 6:00 am... drove past my house, saw that my living room lights were on and said "shit" as I rolled by. Then I sucked it up, turned around and headed in with my alibi prepared. I do this thing now where I explain every little detail of the situation before my parents can even open their mouths. I find it prevents much of the anger build-up.

So I creep through the door. My dad is sitting on the computer. He turns around, smiles and says "Hey boy!"

... I swear to god, I thought the was gonna pull out a shotgun. But he didn't care. Told me he wasn't feeling well. I said he should see a doctor if it doesn't get better soon, and he let me go. Parents are an interesting being. You spend so much time thinking of them as infallible authority figures, that your world kind of crumbles a little when you realize they're human. That they're prone to emotional fluctuations like you are; they can take misplaced frustration out on someone like you do; they're vulnerable to sickness and disease.

I was trapped in a house of annoying queers in Tarzana for two hours. Oh god, it was painful and creepy. They kept calling each other bottoms and I just wanted to smack them. One of them said I was stuck up because I wouldn't drink. I wanted to kick his ass so much, but he didn't know that the reason I don't drink is because of the pills. It's hard to explain that to people you've just met, so I've decided to tell them I have a "condition".

I've been trying so hard to find myself... fitting in to all these different groups and wondering what it's like to be someone else. But maybe the only time you actually find anything is when you stop looking.

I'm done... with all of it. Some people think I was popular in high school, like I was the ASB President or some shit. I was never popular, always an outsider. And I never really wanted to be popular. It meant you didn't get to be so picky about who you kept around you.

I'm not a party animal. Thinking back on college, the best saturday nights I spent were passing out among a small group of friends in the early morning, the times I played video games throughout the night, or those couple of nights I watched a movie and fell asleep with Steven.

I need to start being myself. But it's so hard when the best way to do that is to stop trying altogether. I've always believed that we are exactly the way that we wish to be--that we are happiest the way we already are.

Maybe this is my happiness. Not a bright, gleaming afternoon picnic, but a soft, moody night among turbulent waters.

These are the rantings of my dillusional mind.

2006-01-15T08:19:00.000+08:00

[16:15] tangs410: mmmm....well if it makes you feel any better
[16:15] tangs410: i'm a total whore now
[16:15] samish823: hm
[16:15] samish823: should i be?
[16:16] tangs410: ummm... well i think i'm one notch more fucked up than you
[16:16] samish823: lol
[16:16] tangs410: decided to give up on love
[16:16] samish823: i'll follow you in your footsteps
[16:16] tangs410: at least for now
[16:16] samish823: ... same here
[16:16] tangs410: so i'm just fucking whatever looks good
[16:16] samish823: hahaha
[16:16] samish823: nice
[16:16] tangs410: i'm gonna sleep with all of china
[16:16] tangs410: and some guys in LA too
[16:16] samish823: hahaha
[16:16] samish823: =)
[16:16] samish823: go for it!
[16:17] tangs410: get up to 40 ppl by the time i come back
[16:17] samish823: omg
[16:17] tangs410: then when my true love finds me he'll see that i've been damaged
[16:17] tangs410: and try to fix me... and then we'll have a dramatic moment where i tell him i'm damaged goods
[16:17] samish823: wow
[16:17] tangs410: and part ways for 5-10 years
[16:17] samish823: thats wonderful
[16:17] samish823: omg
[16:17] tangs410: and run into each ohter in a coffee shop in paris
[16:17] samish823: then realize your belong to each other and come back?
[16:17] tangs410: yea

What happens in vegas...

2006-01-13T17:42:00.000+08:00

... may not stay in Vegas. I've come to a revelation, haha. Well not quite a revelation. I think I'm just tired of shit. I'm tired of dating. Tired of taking it slow. I don't need Mr. Right... just a warm body.

I think I've given up on love... at least for a while. Which is probably a good thing since they say it'll only come to you when you stop looking for it. Yesterday marks the beginning of a whole lot of secrets, probably.

I wanna be stupid. Tired of being responsible. I wanna fuck strangers. I wanna do drugs. I wanna lose respect for myself... I want others to do the same.

Porn

2006-01-06T11:56:00.000+08:00

I just downloaded a video called, "Shibuya Boys are Money Slave"...
...
...
...
HAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAAH...

Falling Out

2006-01-06T09:18:00.000+08:00

You ever have one of those friends who just seemed to thrive off your misery? I've had a couple people like those in my life. We'd spend a lot of time together, bitching about boys and how we were gonna be single for our entire lives. Now, it seems like we put ourselves in that position... to never get better or feel better about ourselves.

If being miserable was what made us so close... then we no longer have that in common.

The First Goodbyes

2006-01-04T19:54:00.000+08:00

Today, I went shopping at Santa Monica. I had one of the best shopping experiences that I've had in a very long time and I even bought something for my brother as well. I really miss the Promenade... it's so gorgeous. I went with Sam and I think that the last time I was there I was with him too, but that was like two whole years ago. Pretty crazy, yo. Anyways I got some cheap ass clothes from Club Monico (i'm smiling) bought Burnout for PSP and ordered a digital camera off cnet.com.

So pretty soon, now that I'll be owning my first digital camera, there'll be pictures up on my blog. Huzzah! I'll be going up to SF this weekend on Sat to chill and say goodbyes before I head off to China. Maybe I'll take some pictures then.

Last week, I realized something weird... that I was actually going to miss people here in the U.S. I know I won't be gone that long but still... I said the first goodbye to Kaelynn after New Year's Eve. And it hit me that I wouldn't see her for a long time. I have so many more goodbyes to say and this weekend will be the last time I see all my Norcal-based and some of my Berkeley friends.

I'm not sure I'm ready for this because I thought I hated you all. No, not really... it's just that when you go through times as I have, you forget about all the things and all the people that got you through... until after. I just wanted to be out of Berkeley. I never really wanted to be a student, I just happened to get good grades. I think towards the end, it ate away at me, because as Eve would say, that city is too small for me.

Sam is the oldest friend from Berkeley I have. We met our first year together living at the Wilde House. He moved in to my room to save me from my terrible roommate/hook-up buddy. And it's been three years and hundreds of revolutions after. He says he doesn't know what he'll do without me.

So how could I forget all the love around me? I was surrounded by it, but I couldn't appreciate it... because no matter who was there for me, it didn't come in the form of a boyfriend. I've been a fool. But I still have some time to say my goodbyes and appreciate everyone as I should have before I leave.

God, I'm going to miss you all...

My place in Shanghai is a single in a 22 story dormitory complex with a private bathroom and private balcony. It costs $300/mo. and comes with internet. That's a fucking tight bachelor's pad, yo. I have adult ADD.

WeHo Whores

2006-01-03T20:17:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, I think I had a dream that I was a West Hollywood snob. I think I might have just been delirious though, because I've been recovering from food poisoning for the past 48 hours. I think it was the steak I had at Denny's (never ever order food that isn't cooked at least "well done"), however my mom is convinced that I got food poisoning from partying too much.

Anyhow, my past couple of visits to WeHo have been interesting. I think I've only been two or three times in the past year, and I always get catcalls from older men. Not that I ain't flattered but I wish some young guys would give me a holler too, you know?

The first time, a late 20's/early 30's black guy came up to me when I was walking to a club and asked me, "Which one of your friends has the biggest dick? I bet it's you, right?" (Yeah, that was my fav.)

This last time, it was "Damn, boy! Which club are you going to?" Anyway, I mention this because I think that if I stayed down in LA long enough, I would become a WeHo snob, considering I already made out with a random guy on New Year's Eve, who I met five minutes just before the countdown. Hooray for good timing, yea?

My New Year's resolution...

2006-01-01T12:36:00.000+08:00

... is to follow my own advice.

We're Okay

2005-12-30T20:11:00.000+08:00

I want to be okay with it. I really do. But I can't talk to him right now because I don't understand everything yet. In my heart, I know that things ended up the way they were supposed to and that it should've gotten to that point a lot sooner. I read his blog. Not HIM, the other one...

And I felt in my chest, the old me crawling out to beat me down again. But it didn't. He doesn't exist the way that he used to anymore. It doesn't really hurt anymore, but even though... it's still not yet safe.

The Problem with Adages

2005-12-30T19:43:00.000+08:00

We all hear those really wise sayings from the moment we can remember things. "Fools rush in", or "don't count your chickens until your eggs have hatched", but it just kinda sucks because they never mean anything until you learn it firsthand. Or maybe it's just me.

What good is good advice, after all, if you're not going to follow it, hmm? It took me a long time to understand the meaning of the question, "How can anyone else love you if you don't love yourself?" Basically, I just kind of felt that it was bullshit, meaning in reality "Well, ya got no takers right now, so why don't you just work on being good at being alone?"

But it's not like that at all. It actually does mean something and three years after having come out, I kinda understand it now. The thing is... when you loathe yourself as completely as I do (yea, I'm working on it) you pass up all the people that ever truly cared about you.

I could count a dozen guys who might've stayed with me for a very long time had I not freaked out because they actually liked me back. I've noticed that whenever I meet someone I like and find they like me as well, I tend to lose interest. But it's not just the thrill of the chase crap. I came to the realization a couple months ago that I actually thought less of them because they liked me. It gave me the impression that they had bad taste in men.

And of course, when they didn't like me, it meant that they were healthy and smart and a good catch, because they deserved better and knew it. It's kind of a Catch-22 really. (Read the book.)

Argh!

2005-12-30T19:40:00.000+08:00

Stupid facebookfriendlinkster.com! They need to consolidate them all into one or something... yeesh. I check them fairly often but I really haven't responded to anyone's messages in a week. And I keep getting messages from really hot guys who are either back in SF or some asian country that ISN'T Shanghai.

I find it kinda upsetting that I get more mail through downelink than I do through my regular e-mail now that I'm out of school and everything. Eh. Whatever, back to playing video games. =P

Christmas

2005-12-26T19:20:00.000+08:00

This year, my brothers got me a PSP. I'm the happiest asian boy in La Puente. But... I'm also the only asian boy in La Puente.

Last Night

2005-12-24T10:10:00.000+08:00

I had a crazy dream. It felt like it was a month ago and I was crying. And I remember that the pain felt exactly the same and I was with someone who I didn't want to be with at the moment. It felt like I was dying inside.

Then I woke up and realized it was a dream, and suddenly the emotions went away, and I was ok. I wanted to watch TV. But nothing that happened in the dream was fake. Everything was exactly as it is in the real world. Which is when I noticed that my love was a dream as well.

So yeah...

2005-12-22T22:18:00.000+08:00

It turns out he hasn't been avoiding me. He's just been busy, and when I told him I thought he was mad at me for some reason, he told me I was neurotic... to which I replied, "but that's part of my charm".

Yeah. FYI, everything bad about me that I'm either too lazy or stubborn to fix is now officially "part of my charm".

Reflecting

2005-12-21T19:22:00.000+08:00

I'm pretty sure that he hates me and he doesn't want to talk to me again... even though he said he did. It's probably an attempt to punish me and make me feel bad, and it's working. It's ok though, I'm not really upset because I understand: this year has really made me learn a couple things about myself.

He's closing a door. Sometimes people are openings to all the places that you've been in your life. With your ex-relationships, you have to come to a decision and figure out if the place that he takes you to, is more good than bad. And if it's more bad, you close it. I really don't think he should close this door because I don't think anything terrible happened to us, even during our breakup. But how would I know what pain he felt? My eyes have been wide shut.

A good friend used to always tell me that I chased the guys who treated me like shit. I didn't really take it seriously until lately. Maybe I've listened to way to much Loveline, but you know how girls who are abused as children grow up to marry guys who are abusive to them? Well my parents never really abused me, but they did underappreciate me and I think that's become what I look for in a man. I don't think it's that I want to be underappreciated. I think it's just that I'm used to it.

It's like how people who were often lonely or sad in their lives find comfort in returning to that solitude and melancholy. As bad as it is, there's consistency and you know the routine.

I've often fell the worst for men who have told me that I was a great person... talented, smart, blah blah blah, and yet always found excitement in other things and other people. I think maybe having the opportunity to change their minds about me, is the possibility of changing my mom's and dad's as well.

But all this psychological crap is exactly what it is: crap. I can theorize as much as I want but it is of no more practical usage to me. What matters now are the doors in my life. Which ones do I leave open? Which ones do I close? Where has the bad outweighed the good?

I'm closing some more today. Sorry to those who would have it another way. The thing is... I find that the good always stays good, and the bad, over time, gets less bad. There will come a time when I will reopen some of these doors, but it will be months...maybe years to come.

Uh huh...

2005-12-20T19:05:00.000+08:00

Yeah. I'm an idiot. What's new?

Back in LA

2005-12-19T18:44:00.000+08:00

So I'm back in LA. After 4.5 years of making sure I was never back for more than two weeks, I'm here and I'm staying for 7 weeks. Some scary shit, really. But I'm also really glad for it, as well. I don't keep in touch with many high school friends, but the ones that I do mean a lot to me.

I'm looking forward to partying it up in LA because I've never really had the opportunity to do that. When I left it was a hazy, dark place for me and I swore that I hated the entire state of California.

I was at a party yesterday with a bunch of Los Angeles-based actors and I realized that the city was not what I remembered it to be. There were people here just trying to make it like me. They had lives, and friends and simple things that made them smile or laugh. And I had actually managed to go my entire life thinking that LA was devoid of that simple humanity.

I'm also glad because tomorrow I get to see Jeff. Yeah, he actually returned my calls! I've thought about him a lot since we broke up back in May, mostly because I didn't really want to break it off... just couldn't do the long distance thing. I'm really excited actually! He wants to see Chronicles of Narnia, which I've already seen but I'm willing to watch it again if he wants to. However, I'm going to try to goad him into watching King Kong instead since I'm dying to see that. And hopefully we'll watch Naruto episodes 129-135 as well. AND he's going to show me his first print work in Non-no magazine. I'm sure he looks hot in it. Can't wait! Really can't wait. Yay. Ok, I'm done.

Straight Boys

2005-12-19T18:39:00.000+08:00

In times of need and terrible crisis, I have found that I can rely on something that I never really thought I'd be able to rely on: straight boys.

I never really got along well with the guys at my high school, on account of me wanting to jump their bones and all, but for some reason after I came out... I started to get along with them better. Maybe because I don't crush on straight men anymore.

Anyhow, this holiday, I want to say thank you to the straight men in my life--Sam and Rick. (Yes, Rick I know you're queer, but I ain't giving you credit 'til you have sex with men.) I don't think I can count how many times I have cried in front of these men shamelessly.

Thank you to Sam, who came home early from drum practice and turned in my paper for me which was due at 4:30 and called me at 4:31 panting heavily with a victorious tone in your voice. I'll buy you boba in LA. Thanks to Rick who is now housing in our previous apartment about 10 cubic feet of my junk, and comforts my feelings of loss in my love life with Warcraft analogies. "Level 60's can't hang with level 20's. The 20 won't get any XP and the 60 will just be bored all the time. They have to go find other level 20's." Believe it or not but that comforts me in some very dark times.

I guess I'm cookie dough.

2005-12-14T14:18:00.000+08:00

You know I've hit philosophical rock bottom when I start taking advice from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but well... here goes.

I watched the last episode of the entire series yesterday (which I'm sad about cuz it's over). But anyway, so Buffy is talking about her dating history and how it sucks and she can never keep anyone around. She makes the analogy that she's cookie dough,and I guess I am too.

I'm not done baking. One day there'll be cookies and I'll be good for someone, but until then I'm just not ready. I have to focus on finding out who I'm going to be and how to become that person. And I think I'm okay with that, you know? It's not so bad, I mean... I eat cookie dough. You just can't have too much of it cuz there's raw egg in that shit. It's still good.

Yeah, I know. I sound like an idiot, I'm sure. But just you wait. One day I'll be cookies and I'll show you.

That Last One...

2005-12-12T14:57:00.000+08:00

wasn't about him, guys.

Fuck You.

2005-12-12T10:46:00.000+08:00

Fuck you for ruining this for me, my last semester in my new home.
Fuck you for tearing me down as I built myself up.
Fuck you for making me feel like nothing I did was ever good enough.
Fuck you for the way you saw me with your goddamn eyes.
Fuck you for looking at other guys and thinking they were so much better.
Fuck you for never giving me any credit, for never acknowledging me.
Fuck you for telling me I could handle it on my own.
Fuck you for putting those thoughts in my head--the ones that would have me end it.
Fuck you for eating away at my insides as I struggled to make the outside beautiful to hide my pain.
Fuck you for the sleep you took away.
I let you sit beside me every night, and teach me to hate myself.
Was a pill all it was to make you go away? I feel...
Sick.
Never.
Never again.
Never again will I let you have me.
I will tear your head off if you come near me.

One More Addiction

2005-12-06T05:41:00.000+08:00

I'm back on Downelink. Yeah, I went off it for a while cuz I was going boy crazy (or more boy dependent). Unfortunately, that did not stop my descent. I think I'm starting to feel better so I signed up again. Mainly to meet people while I'm in LA or while I'm in China too!

Sometimes I feel like I'm being a snob about the whole online thing. You know, not wanting to join the masses and everything, but iunno. Sometimes you get really cute messages and sometimes they're just uplifting. It's nice to have a way for a stranger to make you smile. Maybe that's another thing to be thankful for the internet for.

Hooray for Heartache

2005-12-03T03:39:00.000+08:00

I fell in love with a boy who didn't love me back. As I walk around, I constantly feel a tight grip around my heart, as if someone was taunting me for it's weakness. Telling me what my flaws are.

When the rain pours like it has recently, I'm reminded of all the faults I've trained myself to believe. The ugliness, stupidity, incompentence, lovelessness and hopelessness that I have come to define myself as. But these are fabrications, I know. Why did I make up a version of myself to hate? Or was I taught to?

I understand now, where to go. And I'm happy for that! I'm like a pie... a sexy, sexy pie. But there's this one bad piece that just spoils the whole thing. And the rest of the pie is great, it really is. But this bad piece brings the rest of it down... and you can't eat around that slice... it's just gross.

I have to learn to love myself. Really learn to love myself. Not through others. I'm glad I made the choices that I've made. I'm glad I quit Theatre Rice my last semester, even though it's become the hardest of my semesters here at Berkeley. I'm glad that I had him join Theatre Rice, because despite all the hurt, it kept me from being able to trap him... to guilt him into loving me. And now he's free, as he should be.

Throughout the past couple of weeks I've been questioning my decision to leave TR. For so much of my college life it has provided me with a crutch of self-esteem. Because people like me on stage and because people want to cast me for productions. Because I have so many fag-hags in the group! For the past four months, I've stood on my own. I can't use my talent to make people love me, or my mystery. I am without tools to make anyone love me. This year, this semester is about loving myself. To take all that emotion that pours out to the men in my life and bring it inside, where it's needed the most.

I feel like Stuart Smalley from Saturday Night Live as I sit in front of the mirror and tell myself that I'm good enough for the world. Except he never cried while he was doing that... to each his own right? I think I can find good in me again. I think that there is a lot of good in me. But like anything else that really matters in life, it's gonna take a lot of work.

Oh, here we go again...

2005-12-01T06:30:00.000+08:00

I went to the Tang Center today to get a check up because I've been having my sleeping problems and everything. They've cleared up a bit as of late but it's still on my mind. Also, I thought that you know, I might be dying so I wanted them to make sure that I was all healthy and everything.

I had forgotten that they have a file on me. So within a couple of minutes after the doctor entered the room, she was asking how I was "feeling" and I knew where this was going. She had me do a test. It was kinda like a survey and you scored how much you agreed with a statement. (I feel worthless - strongly agree. My appettite has decreased - strongly agree. My sex drive has declined - strongly DISAGREE.) I wish it had. I'd probably be in less trouble generally. So I filled it out, added up the numbers and I got a 32. Flipping over the page to see the scale, turns out I'm "severely depressed". The doctor looked at my score and said "Ouch. Poor guy." I was amused.

So I'm on Zoloft. I don't know why I'm so open about these things. Some people really try to keep their mental health on the downlow, but for me... I just hope that it explains to the people that I care about why I do the things they do. It's so hard to try and get them to realize what I'm going through. Sometimes it's just easier to say, "Hey. Look! Pills! I'm crazy! Wooo... woooo... wooo."

Then she gave me pills to counter the side effects that I might get from Zoloft. This isn't the first time I've been on medication. In fact, it'll be the third. This is a new drug though. Feels like I've just bought a new shirt that I hope I'll look hot in. When I went to previous doctors, they were hesitant to recommend it to me, which is why I was surprised when she said that I definitely should go on them.

In her explanation, taking anti-depressants is like taking medication for diabetes or high blood pressure. Lots of people my age have realized at this point in their lives that they will always need to be on medication, and that I should realize the same thing. I can't just drop it every time that I start to feel good about myself. It allows space to fall again.

And here I was, hoping I had AIDs...

Does anyone want my heart? I don't need it anymore.

2005-11-21T23:43:00.000+08:00

I'm stuck in the same fucking place that I've been for the past couple of months. I'm an idiot for love, I swear to god. I keep settling for the crumbs that he gives me, hoping that one day it'll be more. And my heart feels so heavy, heaviest when I date other people... when I sleep with someone else. Is this love? Is it poison? ... or are they both one in the same.

I find myself in my hardest moments turning to my beliefs, and now I find that I'm left with none. What do I believe in anymore? Who do I believe in? A year ago, I might have told myself that if it is love, you shouldn't have to work so hard. But now I'm not so sure. I've resorted to looking at that approach as if you were waiting for something to fall on your lap.

And now I'm lost.

Maybe this is why people have religion. So they don't have to wander around for themselves and try to figure it out on their own. I wish I had a book to turn to at this time. Point me to some wisdom, that I am so desperately in need of today and likely tomorrow.

I don't even remember when I got lost.

2005-11-19T23:31:00.000+08:00

I've been on many journeys to find myself now. The most significant so far being the time I spent in Boston, and now I am about to head off to China (hopefully... I'm looking at you financial aid) hoping to find myself yet again. The problem I guess is that I'm not actually so sure where I lost myself. Maybe I just keep on finding different parts of me.

It's 7:30 am. Not even all the warcraft in the world could keep me busy throughout the nights. I'm an insomniac.. no no, I'm nocturnal. I think that I was meant to live in Asia since I always seem to sleep fine when I'm over here. In the U.S. sleep is a blissful memory now. I'm always bright and alive at night time and tired as shit during the day. In between my watching Futurama, LOTR, munching on pill after pill of sleeping aid, leveling my priest to yet another number which will allow him to learn spells which heal for yet another number, I find myself forced to face the scariest thing in my closet: myself.

These nights have gotten so lonely. They start to eat away at my thoughts and at my health. Maybe it's anxiety, maybe I have something on my mind. My two guesses would be (1) a boy or (2) my future.

I've done a lot to solve my issues with no.1, though I'm not anywhere near where I'd like to be. Still love him in some kind of way. Not sure enough to say it, in case he doesn't want it. I asked my friend today, if I'd ever get over the stuff that's happened between us. You know those bad memories that you've had with people you care about? You know how they manage to force their way into the forefront? There are things that I really regret, and I wonder if I could've done something to have changed the outcome. It's not a big deal. It really isn't, but I guess I'm the jealous type so I can't help it. His answer: if you care for someone enough... if they're worth it. I think he is. As silly as it seems and as much as I may make fun sometimes... there's a depth that he doesn't always show. Unfortunately, it is also coupled with confusion. I've given up on trying to make it work though. However, it still remains on my mind... and I wonder if it is the last thing I think of when I fall asleep.

As for my future... another day.

I don't know why I was so mean to you...

2005-11-08T11:16:00.000+08:00

I remember saying that to my first boyfriend. I was thinking about all the stuff I put him through after we ended our relationship, trying to keep him in my life. He called me a lot, always wanting to talk. And I remember I stopped caring at a point. Then, before he left to study abroad I saw him one last time and as I cried in front of him I told him, "I don't know why I was so mean to you." I wonder if he ever forgave me after that point.

I think I could forgive someone else if he were to say that to me. Sometime in the future.

Family

2005-10-18T18:58:00.000+08:00

I've come to know several people that have lost family, and often it makes me wonder what it means for me to have mine. I cried when we thought my mom had cancer, but what are they to me?

When I get sad, I think of a few friends. I don't look to my parents or my brothers for comfort. My parents talk money to me. My brothers talk computers. And no one ever... ever... talks about anything that matters.

I know that I look to a lot of people here to be my replacement family. I'm not anchored anywhere, not even in Berkeley. I don't have a place that I really call home. The main problem is, I wonder if the people I choose to be my family, are ever ready to take on that kind of commitment.