Because Love is Rare...

Sonny introduced me to this community last year.

http://www.postsecret.blogspot.com/

People send anonymous postcards admitting their secrets as a way of 'coming clean.' At the same time, reading about others' secrets is an artistic adventure into the human experience.

I've submitted a secret, and I wonder if he's ever going to post it. I saw this one today and I thought of the gay couples...

Sex = easy. It's taken so casually, and messing around is brushed off like an expected weekend activity. But is it just an activity? or does it signify the message in the above postcard?

Gay people are lonely. Gay people are horny. Gay people can't commit, yet they desire to so much... and find themselves in a self demising paradox.

I used to believe that gay couples break that paradox. That gay couples who embrace each other, convey commitment, trust and give a giant "FUCK YOU" to the gay stereotypes because they found love and need to be with only one person to fulfill all internalized desires. Celebrate my gay wedding, we are NOT what you think we are!

But more and more, I question the concept of a 'gay couple.'

The concept of a gay couple has been redefined for me... as I hear more and more stories about promiscuity, unfaithfulness being excused with a sad-faced "just don't do it again." Brushed off because to a gay person, finding love is so rare that it would be utterly stupid to let go because of 'one' mistake that does or does not involve alcohol. Finding love is rare because the first step is finding a gay person... and from that small pool, gay people find themselves being picky. I am picky. But you have to be.

But how many times do you have to forgive until you question their 'love?' And are gay people who are in relationships sluts because they aren't really in love? Or is their sex drive that insatiable? Are they that much of an animal? That they "need" to fuck everyone they see.

And because of this... I find myself becoming equally lenient and understanding. Because I am lonely, because I missed the idea of love. And I find myself continuing to be more willing to forgive and brush things aside (like everyone else) because at least after you fuck him, you come home to me and slow dance to 'our song,' cook me my favorite dinner and tell me you love me. And when we sleep, you fit perfectly in my arms. And I won't question your feelings for me even though you sleep around... because having you right now is that wonderful.

...After all, it's just sex. Right?

Besides, perfection is impossible and compromised when love is rare. In response to the postcard, "being a slut is actually just a weekend activity..."

And for now... I'm willing to accept that.

I Met a Rockstar

Today I drove to my DUI School consultation.

Located in downtown was the cheapest school: $500 for a 3 month program. That's right guys, I have to go to this shit once a week for 2 hours at a time for 3 months.

Even though I didn't have my court date, I was advised to take care of this early. So I made an appointment and walked into an office that reminded me too much of Driver's Ed. I was seated with 2 other people. A big black guy with a lip piercing and a 'lid' that matched his green XXL shirt and a Latino girl with a lot of makeup. The DUI facility member went over the procedure, the costs etc. and then called us one by one to set up dates and times.

Then she walked in. Immediately she started talking.

"I'm assuming ya'll are here for the same reason: cuz you're ROCKSTARS!! HEY!"
I couldn't stop smiling. I was trying to sign the contracts and answer the questionnaire, but she caught my attention. She was black, nicely dressed and was loquacious! She started talking to the black dude.

"Man, it's my birthday today"
"You partying hard tonight?"
"I party hard every night.. CUZ IM A ROCKSTAR! HEY!!!... watch you doing tonight."
"Actually, I'm going to the Hip hop concert tomorrow."
"Shoot, I wish I could go, but I have my weekend work program... HAHAHA!" She was referring to the 'community service' that all of us had to serve. "but if it's after 5, I can go."
"All right, what's your number?"
"Let me have yours..."
"sure its []... I'll see yay!"

"I KNEW I WOULD MAKE FRIENDS HERE!" I started to ask about the "weekend work"program. Apparently, it's really crowded and only a few have to serve in the Field. The lucky majority watches a movie for a couple of hours.

"Dude, AGAIN, they don't have my ethnicity here." I was confused, cuz she was black. " I know what you're thinking.. there are MORE than just ONE type of Black person, I am not 'African American. I'm going to put 'other' because I'm proud. I like your make up." She had some strange and amusing form of ADD... and started to talk to the Latino girl.

"Thanks!" The Latino girl answered
"Is it MAC?"
"Yeah. today it is, sometimes it's Bare Essentials" The girls went on about makeup.
The Latino girl got called up.

"It's so unfair, I was only a 0.9... it's cuz I was driving on the wrong side of the road, OOPS.. man i was crying when I saw the red lights"
"Oh man, what was your fine?" I was curious
"1000 something... I guess I should have gotten an attorney"
"no no, that's the minimal! You don't need one because your Blood/Alcohol was low."
"Cool, well, you know.. it's cuz, I'm a ROCKSTAR!"
"Yeah we all are.. WHAT?!" I got into it and 'raised the roof' with her.

"it was my birthday... last weekend when i got pulled over"
"that's cool, YEAH to the Gemini!... Man, I don't know what date to sign up for.. my boss is gonna wonder why I'm late all the time."
"where do you work?" We talked about her job and she told me there were job openings and gave me her E-mail address so she can send me the internal hiring sheet... SWEET!

"so have you been to Cinebar?"
"yeah! That's a cool place, the drinks are hard!"
"yeah, that's where I got messed up.... do you go to temple?"
"yUp! That place is cool too!... but I usually don't remember where I go!.. man, this one time, I was trying to get into Splash, but they wouldn't let me in because they said I was too drunk! But the girl behind me who threw up everywhere got in! They were discriminated because I don't like girls, But hey, I get more dick then any of them.. CUZ IM A ROCKSTAR!"

I could NOT stop smiling.

"man I can't believe this happened... "
"it's just unlucky i guess."
"well you know, work hard, party harder!"
"dat's right!" I got a little ghetto for no reason. Ghetto? Fobby? ... Ghobby.
"I'm sort of excited for these classes. I know I'm going to meet party people just like me..!!"

My name got called.
"that's me"
"well, I'll catch you later."
"I'll email you" and for SOME weird reason I winked.
"ooo heeyyyyyy!!!!!" she was amused

And I left to set up my dates and payment. OH MY GoD. I loved her so much.
She really was a rockstar. And.. I didn't feel so unfortunate because it was just a mistake... that everyone makes. "This punishment is just something that they do to make you feel guilty, like you did something REALLY bad and you won't do it again... but it was just a mistake... we're all just people..."

Yeah.. we are all just people, but some of us... are ROCKSTARS!!

Time to Leave

I've decided that after everything is ironed out with my attorny today, I am going to fly to New York and visit Nick for a week.

Then I'm going to fly to So Cal to see what the whole big deal is with "Wicked" with ALysia. Then I'm going to go to Caitlin and Diana's graduation in San Diego.

I mean... right now, I feel like I'm under house arrest. Scared of driving. Scared of.. the outside. Crying in bed like a little child who thinks the world sucks because his parents won't give him his favorite toy.

SO I got my DUI on June 1, it's June 5. Five days of wallowing and lashing out on people who care about me... five days of napping and feeling miserable. Five days, too much.

AND, if I can somehow do DUI school in another way, I am going to Vietnam, cuz well. I love it there... and I need a break.

But of course, this is after the Safari Adventure in Santa Rosa that MoAny bought for me and my BOYS on June 14! YEaH! YEAH YEAH! Happy Birthday to Me! <3

By the way. Don't Drink and Drive.

GIRAFFES! DUR!

(2003, Senior 6 Flags Trip... I really don't look like that now, thank god)

Good/Bad

Two Attorneys, two different approaches.

I've been talking to this one attorney. He picks up all my calls, spends so much time on me, answers all my questions. He's a family guy, patient, seemingly trustworthy. His appeal is that he has only experience in defense. I've talked to this guy everyday. He's more than willing to give me a financial break. He has excellent follow up. But why does he have so much free time? I almost signed the contract with him.

I've been trying to get a hold of this second attorney, but have only reached his secretary. I finally got a hold of him today. My cousin's friend recommends him. He sold me based on his one page literature alone (great marketing). His experience is in prosecution. Now as a defender, he argues that he knows what the other side is thinking and has an established relationship with them. He works only in first time offenders. He sounds too good to be true. But I doubt that if I would be able to contact him when I need him. Because he's probably out keeping criminals from being put in jail, (he's that good).

Both have experience. Both deal with DUI. Both cost the same.
Do I want the good guy? or the bad guy?

Therapy

Last night I had a really violent dream.
Really violent. I was being chased by someone, and I managed to get them in a room then kill them by breaking their neck and lighting their body on fire. I woke up realizing who I was killing... for um... many reasons, I'm not going to state who I have so much subconscious hate for.

=

After calling about 10 attorneys, reading up on DUI (i am now an expert), and talking to a handful of people who have "experienced it", I'm worn out. Stressed out. Further depressed, the whole sha-bang. I'm looking at thousands of dollars in fines and attorney fees, but I look at it as... lost pay checks. Essentially, I could be losing up to 3 months worth of paychecks.

I've discovered that the more expensive attorneys are very arrogant (arrogance is ugly). One of them blew me away by asking, "are you serious?" when I asked them a question. And my trust NO ONE policy (est. in April 2008) holds even more firm while finding a lawyer. But I'm leaning toward these two who are reasonably priced and who have seemingly good characters. But what does that even mean in a US court? Should I get the expensive asshole who will get results. Or the kind cheap man who may not even be able to perform. Questions questions. But I was assured that DUI is not complicated... SO might as well go simple, affordable... trustworthy? No such thing exists.

The first question is do I even need an attorney? My parent's Vietnamese friends say no. Everyone else in the world says yes. Hmm, let me think about this one.

I guess, with an attorney, I have nothing to lose except for a paycheck. The other paychecks are reserved for my actual fine.

What's for sure is I have community service hours. So you'll see me in orange cleaning the highway that I got pulled over on. JUST LIKE IN KEY CLUB!! I'll tell you the date and time so you can take pictures. So I can post it on my MYSPACE (note: facebook is too classy to post convict pictures).

Oh, and I won't be driving for about five months. Perfect excuse to leave the country right? Actually, I'm stuck here because I have to take DUI classes for 3 months (sorry mom, can't do that online) and an AA class to show that I am being proactive about my problem! JOY!

=

Last night, I played the piano. I was impressed by my... "tactile memory?" Music escaped from my fingers and I played a brilliant Moonlight Sonata by Mozart. My brother came down because he was impressed. I was inspired to express myself though depressing song.

Music is therapy, writing is therapy... I feel like being with people is suppression. I'm not a Debbie Downer and when I'm around people, I can fool everyone. I seem unaffected by misfortune. I'm a great actor. But I guess being surrounded by people is ... a therapy, a suppressive therapy because it gets your mind off things. And I guess, it's nice... my boys spent a lazy Sunday with me watching a weird movie, eating a random dinner, it was like any other weekend. It was nice. MoAny took me to the mall yesterday so that I could return some fashion mistakes. Smyr took me to work out and gave me some birthday cards.

Szeto & MoAny are sympathetic. But I'd have say, neither of them really know what to say to me. But having them around is sufficient. Joe makes asshole comments about Jail (too soon, Smyr would say)... but I was amused. Instead of sympathizing, Joe acts like nothing is wrong. And I like it. Because, well, 'at the end of the day,' I'm better off than many.

Joe inadvertently made me realize that by talking about his coworker's kid with internal bleeding. Joe doesn't ask me how I'm doing, he just sends me random webjunk to make me laugh. Joe's subtle; he made me realize that showing that you care doesn't have to come from a greeting card.

http://kensingtonvictoria.com/blog/2008/06/03/taking-care-of-baby-pics/
http://i31.tinypic.com/2e4xoyc.jpg
http://www.scribd.com/doc/28415/Why-I-fired-my-secretary-today
http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/1232/1210300064121rv8ej8.jpg

I haven't received any phone calls regarding how I'm doing. That's okay. I'm doing okay. I'd rather talk to my blog and browse the web all day anyway. And my boys have my back. That's my therapy.

Deaf

Today I visited my Grandpa.

I haven't seen him in about 4 months and thought that it was appropriate to see how he was doing. I was supposed to visit him for his birthday, but my mom advised me not to because it would make him sad to be reminded of how old he was. So I put off visiting him until today. When I entered his apartment, I saw him sitting two feet away from the big screen watching SBTN (Saigon Broadcasting Television Network) with the volume on max.

When he saw me he reached his hand out for a hand shake and I bent over for a hug. After that he looked back at the TV. After a couple of minutes, he asked me if I was hungry and I ate some eggrolls that the caretaker had purchased for him.

I yelled in his ear, "I JUST WANTED TO VISIT YOU! THANK YOU FOR THE STUFFED DOG!" A couple of weeks ago, I found a stuffed bear, actually, on my bed. My mom told me that he got it for me and laughed, "he still thinks you're a kid."

My grandpa was confused at what I was saying and responded, "I can't hear much anymore." The caretaker yelled into his ear what I was saying. He smiled with his dentures pat me on the shoulder and walked back into his room and sat back two feet from the TV. I talked to the caretaker, "he's a bit slow now, huh...?" She responds, "not slow... just deaf."

I examined the apartment. There was this toy bug hanging from the wall, I asked the caretaker about it, she responds, "your grandpa." I walked to the little apartment patio and found some plants. My grandpa loves plants, he used to grow giant squash behind our house. Squash that my grandma would make soup out of. He also grew peppers to make chili.

I followed him into his room, the same room where my grandma passed away, and curled up next to him. On the walls were nails haphazardly nailed into the wall and random shit hanging from them: nail clippers, back scratcher, headphones. It reminded me of the poor house of my cousin in Vietnam. I remembered my mom telling me that he was happy I found a job back in August, but today he didn't ask about it. He didn't seem to have much to say to me, he didn't ask why I wasn't at work and continued to watch the Vietnamese News as if I wasn't there. Five minutes later I got up to leave.

"I'M GOING HOME NOW! BYE! ...... I MISS YOU!" He waved and the caretaker shut the door.

=

When my grandma was alive we would have dinner at their apartment. When she passed away, I stopped going. My mom would visit him once a week. My brother sometimes after school if he had no where to be. My dad concerned with his own mom to visit his wife's dad on a weekly basis. We now have dinner at home.

Some how my mom manages to cook a feast coming home from work at 4 everyday. She asked me if I could help take my brother to summer school, not so much now that my license has been revoked. My parents don't say much about the DUI. They don't seem disappointed, just stressed.

And without a job, it's difficult for me to keep my mind of things.

I haven't cried. I don't remember the last time I cried. Oh yeah, during The Veiled Moon May 2007, where my character was forced to cry on stage because he just killed someone. And maybe at my Aunt's funeral back in January.

When I visited MoAny at his work place I reached for a hug and he patted me on the back playfully. When he realized that I wasn't letting go, he tightened his grip. And I began to tear up. I released before I started to cry.

I realized that if I had someone to cuddle with I would cry in their arms all night as they told me that everything will be fine. And I would believe them because they genuinely loved me and I genuinely loved them back...

My cousin told me that bad things shouldn't happen to good people
My exboyfriend told me that he never wanted to hurt me
My friends told me that I am amazing, inspiring... gifted
My parents told me that they are proud of me.

Everyone is lying. I'd rather be deaf than to hear any more of your lies...

...shit. I'm crying.. right not. I fucking hate this.

Irony is the Opposite of Wrinkly

Friday was my Birthday.

I was in the OC for my cousin's graduation and we had an amazing breakfast. With 30 minutes to kill I bought some H&M clothes for my birthday celebration. (All of which MoAny, Szeto and Joe thought were ugly). Surprise. So I wore the shirt that JV bought for me from shirt.woot.com : Irony is the Opposite of Wrinkly. The boys approved of this one, I was set.

All day I received facebook wishes for my birthday forwarded to my phone. I total of almost 50 birthday wishes from all sorts of people from my life. It was nice, I felt loved.

At night my parents took me out to Todai's where I pigged out. They gave me a card that read, "we are so lucky to have you, you are a wonderful son, Happy Birthday." And I gave them both a warm hug... I am privileged to have them. I charmed the waitress into giving me a free Hot Tea, "but it's my birthday!" I pleaded, she obliged.

After dinner, I felt lonely. MoAny and JV went to a gay birthday party in the city which I decided not to go to because... well I didn't want to celebrate someone else's birthday on my birthday. And Szeto did May Dragon with his old roommate. I figured I would just save my party energy for Saturday.

At 1:00AM, I went to the gym to swim laps. I felt strong. No was there, and I proceeded to feel very alone.

Saturday night rolled around and about 15 people came to JUMP SKY High with me. I'll let the photos and video's tell that story. After, we hit up Downtown San Jose.

I was having a great time. I made some new friends and I was extra friendly with new people I just met. Walking in the street, I saw a cute guy and proceeded to flirt with him and the two girls he was with.

"Hi, my name is Chris, where are you coming from?"
"The library."
"Where are you guys going?" I put my arm around the guy.
"We don't know yet, where are you going?"
"Well.. we just want to dance.. there's Hunter's, but it's a bit gay."
"Heh, there's nothing wrong with that"

I smiled at his comment, but before I could remember his face we walked in different directions.

At Hunter's, the music was good, but no one was dancing. I talked to the bouncer. Apparently the club had been fined for passing max capacity. Plus there was a 5 dollar cover. We ended up back at Temple and gayed it up. My group of 11 homos made a loud scene and got a good amount of looks. Haha. Nice.

MoAny and I chatted with the hot girls of the night. Saying shit like, "if we were straight, we'd totally fuck you!" They were all amused and flattered.

=

I drove MoAny's car to Denny's. I thought I was okay to drive, but I wasn't and cop pulled me over for driving recklessly. I didn't feel drunk, but the breath analyzer determined otherwise and I was handcuffed. Ironically, this was the second time I have ever drove after having a couple of drinks. Ever. Ironically, I get really upset when I hear that my friends drive home drunk. Ironically, I won't drive you unless you have a seatbelt on.

As I sat in the backseat of the cop car. I sang happy birthday to myself... 'I am a wonderful son.'

I spent the night in Jail.

The cops that arrested me were nice, but I was sad they didn't let me off with a warning. I was very cooperative. I was hoping they would let me off easily, but I learned that that doesn't happen very often in San Jo. I guess, it's more difficult than getting free tea.

I shared a small cell with 20 guys. There were two benches that filled up. I found my spot under the bench and curled in a fetal position in the two feet tall space and sleep on the cold cement until my name was called at 9am. I was thankful that I slept easily despite that I was 5 inches away from someone's ass. The guys were silent, random Spanish and Vietnamese was thrown back and forth. Everyone was more annoyed than anything else. They were tattooed, wore blood-stained shirts and had red eyes. I contemplated asking them if they wanted to play a game.

I signed the documents and looked at the mug shot they took of me. It was candid, I didn't know they were taking a picture and my forced smiled was not captured. I examined it closely and saw authentic depression in my face. I was startled at how real my expression was, how much sadness I had in my eyes.

I have my court date. I have to find an attorney. I have to pay a fine that's in the thousands that will be determined after the court date. My license is suspended for at least 4 months. I thought about what happened, and I realized if I were to live it over again, I would have made the same mistake. I was CONFIDENT that I was okay to drive. I did not even second guess myself; so in that sense, I don't feel regretful. That maybe, I was meant to get pulled over.

Today, my parents picked me up from the police station. I showered, took a nap, then climbed the foothill behind my house to write. I realized that someone out there is trying to tell me something. That I have to do something with my life... and that the first two recent incidents weren't enough of a wake up call for me to take action.

1. Discovering that I can't trust anyone, even people who claim to love me.
2. Being laid off
3. Getting arrested

All within two months. Someone is telling me that... I am too privileged. That I need some suffering to ground me. That I need some sort of aspirations... and that I was meant to do great things, but haven't DONE any thing to prove it.

I like who I am. I don't like where I'm at. I think it's time to leave.