pink lions

I' ve realized that I have a hard time making friends with other gay guys. It's not a personality thing. It's not a self-hatred thing. It's a competition thing.

It's the same reason why I'm not my best toward people my own age. You size each other up.

It's kinda like how girls don't get along with each other. Similar things happen in the animal kingdom.

valves

What I've come to realize in putting myself back together is that I am not the shell I made myself out to be. I saw other people quantitatively. I saw relationships and friendships on a one dimensional plot: you stick with them until you've gained all that you've needed to gain, and you're done. You are somebody's friend because there is a mutual benefit. You confide in somebody because you need support and the expectation is that you'll be there to give the same.

This isn't right. We'd be dropping friendships like used condoms if it were true. I've ended up with a very unhealthy mindset about people as a result.

Strangers can't do this, I've learned. It's the people you've known, people you've drifted away from who care the most, who are there for you with the fewest ulterior motives.

It's never too late to rekindle an old friendship. I've rekindled a whole forest's worth in the last week.

--
i'm a sensitive bore
...
Never has there ever been a time in my life where I require a valve as I do now. But valves are not to be purchased; they are not to be bartered, nor are they to be improvised. Such valves, such beautiful things, are created. They are created in the maelstroms of the most hostile and most fertile soils that all of humanity has ever experienced and ever will; they are created in the darkest and brightest of human depths; they are created in the arc lamp of two sparking, brilliant souls. These valves: human love and intimacy.
...

reunion

Last weekend was one of the first full Sundays I spent at home in a long time.

My dad came home around 5. Dragging his dirt-stained boots past the threshold, he told me to get dressed. I was in the living room, as awake as I was three hours ago when I first dragged myself out of bed.

We were going to a family get together. A death anniversary. Catholicism with Vietnamese-Buddhist mysticism suggests that in order for an ancestor to be able to ascend into heaven, their children must leave them fruits, incense sticks, and prayers. It's a final responsibility.

Shower. Jeans. Tee shirt. I got ready in fifteen minutes. Ten minutes later, I'm still waiting. Mom's gotta get ready. Twenty minutes later, still waiting. Nephew's gotta get ready. An hour later, my sister gets home. Time to go.

My sister announces she's going to walk and volunteers me. My nephew comes along. My dad puts away the keys. We all walk the two blocks to get there.

When we get to my aunt's house, I navigate the driveway of cars to get to the door. Going in, I don't see anyone.

They're in the back. I forgot my aunt built an extra room specifically for the ping pong table, which could double as a party room.

There were two generations in three different strata: the parents, the toddlers, and the college students-post grads.

There, I had a real conversation with my cousins. The first real one in probably three years.

It was nice. Plenty of food. Meat in all forms. Oysters on the half-shell. Kids loud. Parents chattering. Cousins reminiscing about old times.

My sister's planning to move to Chicago. I don't know the names of my younger cousins.

After that first generation is gone, after those immigrants are all dust, I wonder which one of us will be responsible for making sure their souls are taken care of.

doppelganger

I'm taking your advice. You're right: I need to pick myself up again. After doing that internship in Oct 07, I've lost sight of my career and, in effect, lost a large part of who I was. The only reason why I didn't spiral out of control right afterward was because I had you to keep myself sane. I kept up my grades because of it.

UCLA and Southern California is a toxic place. I need to get out of there. Too many movie studios. Too many clubs. Too many sunny days. Too many fame whores.

I've started on my common application. It's that whole Senior year all over again. This time, there's the heart-wrenching possibility of rejection -- something I hadn't thought about the first time around. I'm applying to the UC's again. Berkeley, I hope you'll let me back in.

I also started working out again. Well, jogging and doing push-ups at least. I don't want to be a 50 year old and in a wheelchair.

I'm looking at possible careers in foreign service again. Although it's not quite what I want to do anymore, I need some kind of light at the end of the tunnel. The dream used to be having a family and a house.

passiveaggressive

i'm having trouble wording this.

but i'll say that i wanted a friendship after everything and i'm making it difficult for you.

so, sorry. i'll stop caring. just don't be so shady. i get it when i'm not wanted. you know how much i like direct confrontation.

dream

I was napping in the living room today after six hours of lucidity. My sister and my dad were cooking in the kitchen. I heard their conversation.

Sister: I haven't seen that guy around anymore. The one that Trung always hangs out with.
Dad: Yeah, me neither.
Sister: All he does is sleep. He doesn't even eat.
Dad: He's like mom.
Sister: The guy isn't taking him to LA. I think they broke up.
Dad: I think so too.

I knew it! They knew the entire time but refused to say anything.

repost

There was a time when I was sure I knew what I wanted to do. I knew what I wanted out of life and you'd be damned if you or anyone else got in the way of it. I was a force of nature, and I knew it; it was the only piece of me that I actually liked because if I held on to that little fact and guarded it dearly, every insecurity, every shadow of doubt, would starve in the hostile environment that was this psyche. Every "A", every executive decision, every move I made was a calculation to ensure the complete manifestation of, what I felt, what was promised to me. I wouldn't allow myself to call it--whatever it was I wanted--an ambition, a goal, because those words implied aspiration.

An aspiration left room for failure. There was no failure in my world. Everything was either one step toward my future, or two. No backwards, no lefts, no rights, no ups, no downs. Only forward.

But I've been falling. What direction, I haven't even the care to look. I just know I'm far from where I was only a summer ago. More than a few both intoxicating and sobering things have occurred in my life during the last few months, setting off a chain of deconstructions, that have split that former steel tower of myself. My trip to Washington D.C. was a big part of that--the life of a foreign service officer would take away more from me than I could ever have to give.

Now that I've given up on that image, I'm lost. I am enthralled with the current of possibility and I'm back to where I was just before I entered high school. I could thrive under a title of a journalist, meeting people and knowing their stories, but I could only dream of the stability that comes with being a teacher. I could cultivate a home and a family as a teacher, but I could only dream of the fulfillment that comes with being a health policy analyst. I could establish a place in the world as a health policy analyst, but I could only dream of the freedom that comes with being a journalist. And so it goes.

If only I could, then I would.

At this point, I don't think my major is going to matter as much because International Relations is going to end up taking me somewhere. Though I'm not sure where exactly.

Despite this, I'm happier than I remember being in any other point in my life. I am free.

---

A lot of this still rings true.

Jes sayin' this thing deserves a repost. I originally put this up on facebook in Jan 08. I remember why I was so happy: it was because I already replaced one passion with a new, more exciting one. I wasn't happy about the freedom.

Now I have neither. Free. Completely free. Aimless is the better word.

I have a secret dream: drop out of college, travel the world, and let the Earth teach me the lessons I need to learn.

It's never going to happen, though.