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Stories from a man who fails to meet media expectations of what it means to be gay:
white, frivolous, over sexed yet sexless, shrill, single, stylish, a clown, unimportant, et al.
Monday 02/03/2003
miscast dreams
The wind picked up suddenly early Sunday morning, howling through the trees, rattling windows, and making the bedroom curtains fly. The noise startled the cats and woke me up.
I was disoriented for a while, not entirely sure which was real, the dream I had been having, or the sight of the spanky kitten leaping into the air trying to catch the curtains as they waved around taunting her.
I decided the rambunctious cat was real when I remembered that no, I was not an 18 year old college. In fact, it had been a very long time since I had been one. Besides, even was I was that young, my real life was nothing like the odd sitcom excuse of a dream I had been having. My school had never plastered pictures of me hugging my boyfriend on large billboards across town as a way of advertising itself as liberal school with a diverse student body.
This had never freaked me out because I wasn�t out to my family, and filled me with stress over what was going to happen when my father saw the billboards on his drive to work. I had never worried that my older Japanese brother was not going to react well.
I don�t know why exactly my nonexistent brother would be Japanese, other than besides being a poor excuse of a dream, it was oddly cast. No, make that badly cast. For whatever reason, the role of 18 year old nico was being played by 35 year old me. Additionally, 36 year old John was playing the role of my unnamed 19 year old boyfriend. It was worse than tv sitcoms where twenty something actors play 16 year olds, leading real teenagers to wonder why they look like little kids when compared to their favorite teen stars.
It was a surreal experience sitting up in bed trying to recall who I was exactly. Then again, Saturday had been a bit of a surreal day. My sister had woken me up first thing in the morning to tell me about the Columbia breaking up during reentry. I was a freshman when Challenger happened, so maybe it made sense for my mind to be on the topic of college.
I remember walking into the student center and finding out what had happened for the first time, seeing it played over and over on the television in the lobby. I remember overhearing some older students saying that that it was the astronauts fault they died. Man did not belong in space.
I wish I confronted them over their callous reaction, but I didn�t. I was still too nervous, still to over whelmed by everything, still to shy to tell someone that the least they could do was to show respect to the dead.
Instead, I walked into the student store and bought a chocolate bar and left.
Ok, enough melancholy. Life has been relatively busy here, so lets move on to some vague recaps of the past week instead:
The play:
Last friday night, John and I made the drive out to the west side to have dinner with some friends and do the geffen theater. This time, the play was Rose and Walsh, a new play by Neil Simon. It premiers later this week, so I guess it was a big deal.
It was a play about obsession and loss, the need of writers to write, and ghosts that that can�t quite go away. I really enjoyed it. The actors did a very good job. I particularly liked Jane Alexander's performance.
During intermission, folks were whispering that Neil Simon was in the theater that night, watching the actors, and unfortunately presumably watching the audience as well.
Unfortunate, because I doubt that as a whole we were the smartest collection of people around. Perhaps folks who can only afford preview prices are lacking in over all intelligence. I don�t really want to give anything away, but something very obvious happens in the last act.
Obvious to me anyway, but apparently not to the majority of the audience who gasped when it happened. I could tell that John was rolling his eyes, while I wondered just what exactly everyone thought was going to happen. The last scene had been set up in the very beginning of the play and once the tracks had been laid, there was no other direction it could have gone. Sorry for the vagueness, but I don�t feel to comfortable playing spoiler to something that hasn�t even officially opened yet.
a quick mention of a couple weeks worth of food:
Best light meal: salmon & mango salad at Uncle Moustache cafe in Westwood.
Best heavy meal: overdoing the buffet at the Onami in Laguna Hills.
Best drink thing: a green tea float (unsweetened green tea w/a plop of lychee sorbet studded with coconut jelly) from some not quite as upscale as it wants to be yuppie boba/tea house I can't remember the name of.
Worst fried food thing: fried sushi, that I should never have tried. It wasn't terribly bad, but it was terribly wrong.
Blandest meal: pollo bowl for lunch, & pollo bowl for dinner makes for a boring time.
Hottest meal: City Thai in old town Pasadena where Kristen & I ordered everything extra spicy. It was so hot, that we spent the entire time sniffling and breathing funny. It was so good, that we dared not stop eating.
Whitest dinning experience: uncle Mustache cafe. Discounting staff, one straight Latino couple, and myself, everyone was white.
Nonwhitest dinning experience: A pho place in orange county, with one lone white guy.
Most ethnically diverse dinning experience: a TGI Fridays in Orange county. While the crowd may have been diverse race wise, the majority of folks there did something in common. Many were of a substantial size.
the party:
We went to housewarming for a friend of ours last Saturday. Enrique had moved in to his place over a year ago, but held off on the housewarming party until he got it looking the way he wanted it to.
His condo is decorated stylishly and tastefully. The walls are painted contrasting colors that are simultaneously both warm and inviting, yet cool and sophisticated. Everything was in its place looking perfect. It was very nice. Very artful.
It made me feel insufficiently homosexual. Our house is nice. It is comfortable. It is surprisingly clean and organized considering all the junk John and I have. It will also never be featured in a decorating magazine, with the words �This is it. This is the look. Do this. Do this now!�
As far as I know, neither will Enrique�s condo, but that doesn�t stop it from looking as if it could be. I�m suffering from gay jealousy I guess.
John and I don�t have huge, bold flower arrangements and just so collections of tasteful bric brac, instead we have Pez, and Nightmare Before Christmas toys crowding for space with books and CDs. Oh well, the cats would probably destroy and eat an overly nice flower arrangement anyway.
Mexican cats:
John caught the Spanky kitten running out of the kitchen with a dried red chile in her mouth. She was using it as a toy, tossing and shaking it around. I decided not to move the chilies off the counter, because if she actually bit into one, she would learn not to mess with them.
We found a half chewed one in the den the other day, which shows that my assumption was wrong. Unlike a normal cat, this crazy kid seems to have a taste for chilies. These particular chilies are way hot, so the Spanky is either Mexican, or insane.
When I told my mother this story, she asked me �Why Mexican? Other people eat chilies. Chinese people, Thai people, even Vietnamese people eat chilies tambien.�
I answered that considering I�m Mexican, the story was funnier if I called her Mexican as well.
My mom just said �oh.�
Dulces:
Dear readers, I have a homework assignment for you. To write. Write about the candies/sweets you enjoyed when you were a child. Share a tale of sitting at your abuela�s knees sucking on some sugar cane. Write an ode to chocolate. Make a list of favored flavors of candy bars. Provide the recipe to the best ginger snap cookies you�ve ever eaten.
Fiction or non, it doesn�t matter. It can be what ever you want. It can be private, kept solely for yourself, or it can be public, for all to see. Just write.
As for why, well, I feel the need to recall a simpler time. I think we all can benefit from a smile brought on by the warm recollection of a happy childhood memory.
As for the when, how about sometime during the rest of February? To be fair, I�ll write something on the same topic and put it up here to share. Even if you don�t feel like participating, at least remember. And smile.
More later,
nico
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