6/7/2011 - Mmm. . .

Last year, or maybe it was this year, I can't remember, I set a goal to read one book a month.  Actually, come to think of it, I made the same goal both years.  Bottom line, though, is that I gave up after three or four books last year, and my current outlook is grim seeing as how I just finished my second book of the year last night.

This morning, I got a mass e-mail from a coworker inviting a bunch of people to a coffee shop "reading" she will be giving on Thursday from her novel-in-progress.

I haven't responded, but I know that I will not attend.  I enjoy reading, don't do it enough, but I like it.  On the contrary, I hate readings, events where authors stand at a podium with glasses perched atop their noses, a bottle of water at the ready, and reads aloud.  In grad school, MFA students were expected to attend all readings given by the various visiting authors and poets to the college.  And why wouldn't we want to?  A serious student would relish the opportunity to hear and learn from a master of the craft.  A less-than-serious student would find any reason not to go, and on the rare occasion when I did, I spent most of the time surveying the crowd and watching heads bob in tempo with the author, nodding in approval or understanding or whatever else writers do to show camaraderie.  I never nodded, felt like an imposter if I did.

Worst of all were the poetry readings.  Half the time, I would not know a poem had ended unless I heard a small cascade of "Mmm"s from the audience, sometimes in conjunction with a head nod, as if the final word touched upon a universal truth, an edict passed down from Erato herself to her faithful and open-eared followers, leaving me behind with my prosaic thoughts and doubts, believing that indeed, this is why I will never be a real writer.  Needless to say, I never "Mmm"ed.

So I would usually skip out of these events whenever possible, using convenient excuses like sickness (in the wintertime) or allergies (in spring) or more creative alibis when needed.  Not that it mattered; nobody, faculty included, cared.  I showed up, didn't show up; either way, no one would have wished their lives were any different.

But now, on hindsight, I wonder if I had gone to more of those readings, fraternized with fellow writers more, participated in their community more, and just flat out read more, might I be in a different place in my life and writing career?

Probably not, as no amount of readings can fix what I think is my biggest problem: my attention span has been whittled down to the length of a baby's.  Prime example is this very post; I started writing about how I finished reading Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius last night (finally, after several attempts throughout the years), a manifesto on grief, tangents, and inappropriate reactions to tragedy.  I started writing about how I nervously turned the last few pages, afraid I would reach the end abruptly and not know how to react other than know that someone better than me would have quietly closed the book, smiled sagely to himself, uttered a soft but audible "Mmm" that would have completed the entire experience, filled in every gap and brought profound enlightenment to the passages I (admittedly) skimmed through.

Instead, I flung the back cover closed, looked at the picture of Eggers and thought, "He's the hottest writer I've read in a long time," then held the book by its spine, felt its weight in my hand and admired the girth of all its collective pages and marvelled at the achievement of reading all of them, at enjoying them along the way.  Nothing more, nothing profound, no revelations save the following question: could there possibly be a place for someone like me, with thoughts like mine, in the literary world?

6/6/2011 - gay men don't get bruises. . .

The first HIV test I ever took was at a community health clinic when I first started college.  There was no way I could have tested positive, if you know what I mean, but still, I spent the next few days waiting for the result and worrying that I would be surprised. 

Even in my teens, feelings like I was fated to be a virgin for life, I convinced myself that HIV would affect me somehow in some profound manner at some point in the future.  One Christmas, I asked for an AIDS bracelet, a $20 sterling silver band with a portion of the proceeds going to the "Until There's a Cure" organization.  I can't even remember how I heard about it, but I know I wore it proudly, thinking that it was my own subversive way of coming out before I actually came out.  I equated it with a rainbow flag or pink triangle on my backpack.

Because I grew up and came to terms with gay sex in the 90's, I found it near impossible not to connect homosexuality with HIV.  Sure, the eye of the scare was behind me by the time I even knew what it was, but the echoes reverberated.  Almost every gay movie I watched dealt with HIV, every gay book I read.  It became subliminal: a character coughs, gets sick, sweats at night, and I knew.

So I began wondering if someday, that would be me.

I was so keenly aware of the disease, yet lacked any substantial education about the matter, that I concocted phantom symptoms for myself.  I'd absent-mindedly bash my knee against a table, and the subsequent bruise would be the onset of Kaposi's sarcoma.  Feeling warm at four in the morning was an episode of night sweats.  Every cold, every flu was a sign of seroconversion.  I lived as though HIV had a personal vendetta against me, was determined to break me down, even if I gave it few opportunities to do so.

But more importantly, I believed that its vendetta was not only with me, but gay men as a whole.  Gay men don't get bruises.  Gay men don't get the flu, don't feel malaise, don't wake up kicking off covers in the summertime.  Gay men get HIV.

HIV played as big of a role in my sexual identity as sex and identity itself, and I eventually found that I could not, and never could, separate the two.  In my head, HIV was nothing but a tragic end reserved for gay guys (again, lacking in any substantial education) to cut short the time they have to spend with the loves of their lives.  Kind of like what happened to Nicole Kidman at the end of Moulin Rouge.  HIV was my consumption, and I was terrified that I would meet my Ewan McGregor and then pass out to my death during a big Bollywood-inspired stage number.

Nowadays, I am more informed about HIV, AIDS, STDs, and all the other acronyms that gay men are flooded with from day to day.  I understand that my body will not immaculately conceive the virus just because I am gay any more than my brain will spontaneously rewire itself with math skills just because I am Chinese.  And HIV is not the death sentence it once was.

I think of all this because yesterday, over 2,000 bike riders took off from the outskirts of San Francisco to begin their 550-mile journey to Los Angeles as part of the 10th annual AIDS LifeCycle event.  These riders raised over $13 million that will go toward HIV research and providing services to those affected by the disease. 

On Twitter this morning, I read an exchange between people who were debating the possibility of ever finding a cure.  The prevailing opinion states that the money is so great for those who develop the treatment options that they would never spend any money or effort toward developing and implementing an actual cure; corporations outweigh individual needs.

I don't know if I believe the conspiracy theory.  Could be true, hopefully false.  Either way, it doesn't change how so many men and women saddled up on their bikes, trained for months, raised an amazing amount of money, and then rode off en masse on a cloudy morning on their way down a good length of California.  I have to believe that therein lies a power than can, and eventually will, triumph over any obstacle: virus, corporation, or otherwise.

6/5/2011 - lazy. . .

Sundays always feel so lazy.  Why do anything, productive or otherwise, when I will have to spend the next five days doing productive things, or at the very least, whatever it is my company pays me to do?

Even if Sam and I are productive and actually accomplish stuff, like take Grr out to Fort Funston, bathe him, and clean the house, as we did today, Sundays still feel like a day to just lay down, respect it by closing our eyes and letting it pass.

Sam and Grr got a headstart, but I am right behind.

6/4/2011 - to look like anyone. . .

Without a doubt, X-Men: First Class is the best movie I have seen in a long while.  It captured my imagination from the start and ran with it.  Halfway through, when I realized that we were probably halfway through, I wished that the story would never end, or that I could erase it from my memory when it does, just so I can discover it for myself again later.

Without spoiling anything, I will just say that the movie introduced several mutants and their associated powers.  Some were very cool, from the ability to read minds to power over metal, while others seemed kind of pointless, like emitting unstoppable energy rings that destroy everything in its path or growing wings like a bug.

Most of what I know about the X-Men I learned from the movies.  Well, that and the various friends I had growing up who read the comic books religiously and spent countless conversations debating the various plotlines and the pros and cons of each mutant's power.  Therefore, I know just enough to know that of all the powers available in this superhero universe, there is only one I would want if ever I was given the opportunity to choose: Mystique's ability to look like anyone (or anything?) she wants.

I spent a good portion of my childhood wanting to look like anyone else but me.  I was something of a rotund kid, so I wanted to be skinny like my friend Mark.  When I grew into my body and got skinny, I wanted to be muscular like my classmate Brett.  I wanted to be tanned like the guys I'd see on MTV.  When Matty said that he didn't date Asian guys, I wanted to be white.  When Anthony said I was too young for him, I wanted to be older.

Even now, after growing wiser (a little) and not obsessing as much about my physical appearance, I still catch myself sometimes, when I see a guy at the gym with an impossible body (impossible for me, anyway), wishing I could look more like him and less the ectomorph that I do.  The apparent truth, then, seems to be quite simple: I am vain.  I fight it, try not to think about it, but the urge is often too great.

If I had Mystique's power, I know I would never look like myself, or even the same person on any given day.  Why, when I can be anyone to everyone, be exactly who anybody would want?

With these thoughts in my head after the movie, Sam and I drove out to K9-Playtime to pick up our little pup.  While I waited by the car, a woman came out with her dog and met her husband on the sidewalk.  I overheard her telling him that little Roscoe barely recognized her when she picked him up.

When Sam and Grr came out, Grr turned and saw me.  Immediately, he pinned his little ears back to his head and raced toward me like he had spent a lifetime trying to find me again.  There's a bit of "bumper sticker wisdom" that I've seen a long time ago, something along the lines of, "Help me be the kind of person my dog thinks I am."  Maybe I can repurpose it, ask for help in learning how to appreciate looking like the person my dog loves to see.

6/3/2011 - astonish. . .

I was once a poet, you know. 

Not the good kind obviously, or I'd still be one, but the struggling kind, the kind that never quite got the rhythm and timbre of poetry, that never fit in with those who did.  I was more than halfway through my graduate studies when I realized this, that I was actually a more of a writer of prose who happened to get lucky with one poem, win an award, and then never replicate its (minor) success. 

But even so, after giving up the poetry ghost, the reading and writing of it, the 'scene' itself, I think those years of masquerading as a poet left some vestigial artistry, an appreciation for words and a heightened attention to their possibilities, even if I rarely use these skills. 

Years ago, years after I finished my final poem (though I didn't know it at the time), Sam and I began the first iteration of our relationship.  Because we looked for reasons to hang out, was not ready yet to sit idly on the couch watching TV, we would regularly walk from his apartment to the Ferry Building on the San Francisco waterfront on Saturday morning to booth-shop at the artisan fair, teeming over with paintings, photography, jewelry, knittings, and various other homemade tchotchkes that we would later come to know as "lesbian crafts" (or what some friends call "cat art").

Usually, these fairs produced nothing of interest, but one weekend, an artist set up a booth and filled several racks with small canvases of stenciled words or letters spray painted against an industrial, rust-colored background.  One piece stood out: a medium-sized, $375 canvas with the word 'cleave' stenciled across, perfectly aligned and centered and militant in its perfection.

I thought about that word for a long time, musing on its ability to mean two diametrically opposite things at the same time: to separate but also to cling, to pull toward but push away.  'Cleave' inspired a flash of poetry, awakened that instinct I once had tried so hard to hone.  I even thought about writing a poem on it.  A few weeks later, when Sam and I broke up, I actually tried, wrote a few stanzas about 'cleave,' about community and apartheid, union and divorce, about the very conflicts I felt inside at the time, but nothing ultimately came of it.

And then that poetic instinct, fleeting as it was, fell back asleep and has lain dormant ever since.

Yesterday, after work, I waited by the car while Sam ran into K9-Playtime to pick Grr up from his puppy daycare/romp session.  Stuck to a nearby post was this sticker:

And I stared at it for a few moments.  It became less a word and more a command.  As I stood on the sidewalk and read it to myself over and over, impatient cars rumbled past and onto the highway, headed home, and I felt the gentle stirrings of an instinct I had long ago, heard it stretch and wake up after a long and deep slumber.

6/2/2011 - Pride season is upon us. . .

Today, on a walk in the intermittent sunshine, I saw rainbow flags flapping against lampposts on Market Street and remembered that Pride season is upon us.

In San Francisco, on the first of June every year, rainbow flags are raised on the city's most famous thoroughfare, from the waterfront to the Castro, heralding the arrival of Gay Pride month, a time to celebrate all things gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, queer, questioning, straight (even), and anything else the community has picked up for inclusion along the way.  From film festivals to guest speakers to fundraisers, June is a good time to be a homosexual in the City.

It all culminates in a seemingly endless parade of floats on the last Sunday of the month, with streams of waving walkers holding banners, underwear-clad muscle guys gyrating on platforms, and bike-riding dykes, all of which terminate at City Hall and are greeted by a massive street fair with vendors, food, and entertainment.  I have lived in San Francisco for four years (almost to the day), was always a stone's throw from the City (including the five years I lived in Davis/Sacramento, where you just would have had to throw very hard), yet I have only been to this event three times, have only watched the parade itself once, and only for 20 minutes or so before I got bored.

Though I like the idea of the parade and the after party and all the ancillary events sprouting throughout the City in the coming weeks, I rarely participate.  Just like in high school, when I was struggling with my sexuality and longing to meet other gay people, I never attended a single Rainbow Pride Club meeting, held after school every week or so.  I just took comfort in knowing that it existed.  As an adult, I feel the same way about Pride.

Truth is, I sometimes find the whole thing to be a little overwhelming with the crowds and hoopla, as well as simultaneously a little underwhelming.  I have apparently adopted the attitudes of those I've known who have lived in the City much longer than I and have attended much more of these types of events: same as it was last year, with the same organizations, the same booths, the same people, same same same. 

But when I stopped and thought more about it today, I realized that while I am simply glad that it happens year after year, people from all over the world flock to San Francisco to witness and be a part of it, truly thankful that such an event could exist.  I often fail to consider that for some, gay pride is an act of rebellion, where a display of rainbow flags, or even one rainbow flag, for that matter, would say, "I am putting myself out there because I am proud of who I am, secure and above your reproach."  For those still fighting for the right to just be gay, participation in a pride event is an act of bravery, a risk to their well-being, their families, their lives, not just an occasion to drink outside and walk around shirtless.

From that perspective, Pride doesn't seem so blasé, and I shouldn't take it for granted.  After all, I, too, am proud to be gay, though I rarely, if ever, put it in those words.  I'm proud to be the kind of gay guy I am, however I may be, and I am grateful to live in a place that embraces it.  To actually take the time and see the rainbow flags brazenly flying in the breeze, to remember what it represents and the people who made it possible, as well as the ones waiting for it to be--no, Pride isn't blasé at all.

6/1/2011 - about nothing. . .

It's hard to write about nothing.

The front desk boy at the gym who remembers my name regularly asks me if I have any big plans for the weekend, or if I had done anything exciting over the weekend past.  Though at the time, while living through those weekends, I was thrilled with it all, going into any detail about the dog park, sleeping in, my latest iPad app obsession (Vegas Towers, and not just because it has the word 'Vegas' in it) would seem to just give a long version of the very simple answer: "No, my life is very boring."

Sam and I had dinner with Jason and his sister in honor of Steve's birthday on Monday, and I not only found myself constantly talking about Grr, but Sam too!  Have we become those "parents" who think they are raising a "Christ-pet," and that everyone is waiting with bated breath to hear more?  Do we have nothing else going on in our lives?

When I sat down at lunch today to begin this post, I ran through how Sam and I spent our previous evening for fodder.  Nothing.  I had biked home shortly after five, opened the door expecting to catch a lunging pup in my arms, but the house was quiet.  No pup, no Sam.  I walked to the kitchen and found ingredients for spaghetti stacked on the countertop and a pot of water on the stove, threatening to boil.  I opened the freezer, grabbed the frozen ground turkey, and popped it in the microwave.  It was all very smooth, as if mapped by a choreographer.

But there was a time a little while back, when Sam was a question mark to me altogether, when we were still stumbling around in the infant stages of our relationship, when we weren't in one at all.  I spent countless hours at the gym with Chad, over coffee with Steve, dinners with Karen, trying to decipher this enigma, read his mind and extrapolate tomes of information from a simple glance, a smile or a scowl.  Had I started this blog then, I would never run out of things to say, about Sam, about love, about dating and insecurities, about hope and discontent.

I can see now how Carrie devoted about seven percent of her on-screen time writing her "Sex and the City" column and the rest shopping for shoes, brunching with the girls, living the extravagant life of a writer--her column practically writes itself!  (Though I do have my doubts that her lifestyle could be supported on a newspaper columnist's salary, however successful she may have been.)  Without turbulent relationships, she would have nothing.  For that matter, there would be no pop music, no rom-coms; arts and entertainment would be a completely different landscape without the oft-comedic struggles of dating.

Contentment, on the other hand, is a different story, one that doesn't always write itself.  Turns out Sam isn't so much an enigma as he is just male, and our life together is fun to live, but less so to tell.  How many posts can I put up of living together, cooking together, raising a pup together, before I alienate what little readership I have? 

When Sam and Grr returned from their walk, I heard a frantic shuffling of paws and an equally frantic dog round the corner and leap at me with a winding tail, ready for take-off.  Sam followed and, with no other form of greeting, said, "He's having some tummy troubles.  It was like two handfuls of pretty explosive stuff."

This is what I'm thankful for.  After struggling through the better part of an hour with various scraps and sentences, opening paragraphs that ultimately went nowhere, outlines that even I got bored with writing, I remembered this little quote from yesterday and ran with it.  The post didn't write itself, and I doubt a TV show could be made out of it, but still--eat your heart out, Carrie Bradshaw.