moving on

As strange as it seems, I've outgrown this blog. I need to move into a space that doesn't scream HIGH SCHOOL to me anymore. I'm a teenager yes, but I don't feel I can claim that label now. I'm moving on, and this blog is going to cease.

I'm moving over to:

Absolutely Normal

Update your link accordingly, and I'll see you over there.

gay films.

I can't really say why I like "gay" themed films. I mean, besides the fact that I am so painfully transgendered, I really shouldn't be able to identify with many of the themes in these films. First off, I'm not biologically male. So, the whole "jack off your best friend and then be awkward" scenario can't happen. I came out to my parents, but there was no maudlin music, just a slight silence and then, to paraphrase, "we don't really give a fuck."

I guess I feel robbed of that stereotypical gay experience. Which sounds stupid, because some of it is horrible. I mean, the whole "get kicked out" thing, and the faggy best friends... I didn't have that, and I won't ever have that. And I guess that's why I want it, because I can't identify with so many gay kids.

But at the same time, I have such a unique experience, all of my own. And I guess it's weird to say this, but someday I want to share that so that other trans kids out there can know that it's not all stereotypical tears and drama, and that there are other ways of doing it out there.

Anyhow, if they ever made a movie about my life it'd probably be pretty uncontroversial, hah.

something new.

I guess I should finally mention my boyfriend. I don't know what to call him, but I need an alias for him... I guess I'll call him Phoneboy, because we met through our work, which is a calling centre for non profit organisations. Anyhow, so we'd been flirting ever since we first met, and how we've just really hit it off. And got it on, I guess.

I mean, we haven't got that far yet, but we will, and I'm a little... nervous is the only way to describe it. I guess I just don't want to come across too strong. I went over to his house this evening and we watched The Usual Suspects and then made out and ... got undressed. We didn't really get farther than me straddling him shirtless and making out. And he bites... and I really like it.

Anyhow, probably TMI. But I like him a lot, and I'd probably let him do anything at this point. Bad, but still.

He makes me happy, oddly enough.

Plata Quemada

There are some films that have left an indelible mark on me. I guess I'd have to say that I am a person easily influenced by media, not in a particularly bad way, but when I am moved by a film or a photograph, I am moved in a way that most people are not. I am utterly captivated, smitten, moved to tears. I suppose there aren't only a few films, but some that stick out in my mind now are The Wind That Shakes the Barley, My Own Private Idaho, The Dreamers, and Plata Quemada.

This post is about Plata Quemada. I've watched it twice now, and I still can't get over it. I guess it's just so beautiful it moves me more than anything ever has.

It's about two criminals lovers known as the Twins, who are forced to flee their country after a heist goes wrong and one of them is injured. Angel is described as "superstitious" and hears voices. "Le Nene" is his paler counterpart, who is the "brains" behind the duo.

I think the best part of this story, besides the involving and amazing plot, is the chemistry between Nene and Angel. They just look at each other and it's like there are fireworks going off. Watching them makes me believe in true love. They look at each other and you can feel the passion just rising off their skin. There are plenty of heterosexual love scenes in the film, some of them even explicit, but Nene and Angel never fully physically consummate their love on screen. I don't feel that this was out of any prudishness on the director's part, so much as a way of showing that Nene and Angel's love transcends their bodies.

I can't really say much more on the film, I just want you to go watch it.

Love on the bus.

I fall in love with people all the time. The clerk at Borders, the guy on the bicyle, the girl in the BMW next to me on the freeway. All the time, anywhere, whomever, I fall in love. And sometimes it's just looks, like a curve of a neck, or the arch of an eyebrow. And sometimes it's many things, combined into one. These are never long love affairs, mostly because I'll never see them again, but it's in those glimpses, those snatches of time that life is most real to me.

Today on the bus home from work I ran into this beautiful boy, wearing a Dodgers hat backwards. His face was like one of Boticelli's angels, so beautiful. He had a star tattoo on his elbow, and his hair curled just slightly. I wanted to lick his skin all over. It wasn't strange at all, and I guess he caught me looking, because he smiled. I just had to draw him, so I did. It was just one of those moments where I was glad to be human and to revel in human beauty and body.

Losing you.

I guess I'm finally losing you.
Little by little, part by part.
Soul by Soul, finger by finger.
You've fallen away and really, it's my fault,
how many times do I have to say it
before I'm forgiven? I know, I know, I've fucked up
so badly and I know he can't forgive me.
But can you?
Your heart is Big. I know you will. At least on the surface.
But deep down, under the skin of things,
will you, really? No.
I've really fucked up this time. Because I can't excuse this away
with "I've been busy" and how many times can my relatives die,
and you won't believe me. Even though it's the godawful Truth.
Love me, love me, I love you, can't you see.
It's true, I've messed up.
But I thought we had unconditional things. I'll love you forever sort
of things. I forgive you everything things.
Is this so unforgivable?

I'm pushing you away, in my own way, I suppose.
I'm shoving you away so you don't get hurt when I screw up again.
Can't hear you cry again, so I'll put you away from me. Protect my heart
from hurting by hurting myself by pushing you away.
Get away, get away. Make him happy, make me miserable, if only to save yourself.
And I guess I'm finally losing you,
and I've never been so miserable, so Bonecrushingly miserable.
But at the same time,
I'm so glad I'm finally doing the right thing for you.
By letting you Go.

a little bit of nothing.

Today has been just that. I have work tonight, so I've been sitting at my computer all day, doing nothing pretty much. I finally signed up for a Last.fm account for my solo musical project, and I'm starting to work on my music/art website. I've been really looking forward to setting up my online stuff in a more concrete way other than the sort of quasi-page that I have hosted on a friend's website. I need to work on that more, right now actually. I really want something professional looking, but not too overproduced. Something minimalist to the extreme. It's important that the work is not overshadowed by the frame/outline.

Anyhow, first day of summer. I'm looking forward to doing nothing! I have two jobs this summer, but other than that... really, there's nothing going on.

Paco Y Manolo

Paco Y Manolo is a Spanish photography duo that takes some of the frankest images I've seen in a long time. They basically take pictures of nude men, but in a sort of vulnerable, non-pornographi way. Really, it's very interesting art. Or at least to me it is. Anyhow, I thought I'd share a few images, just to spread the love. Thanks to Slava Mogutin's blog for introducing me.

Well, I've finally graduated. I'm not sure how I feel about it. Mostly, I'm tired. We stayed at Disneyland for Grad Nite until five in the morning, so pretty much my brain feels like a sponge. I missed work because my family neglected to get me up in time to make it, so really... it's been an odd day. I got home around eight. Went to sleep forty-five minutes later, and then woke up at five in the afternoon. I felt like I'd been in some sort of bizarre time warp. And I've spent the last couple hours (three or so) tapping away on my new computer that I got for graduation (thank you Mum and Dad).

Graduation was a pain in the ass. I got a burn on one side of my face, and I had to sit through four hundred and ninety nine of my peers receiving their diplomas. And of course, I lost my voice halfway through, which was pleasant for Disneyland. I got a sunflower from the school, which was sweet, if a bit late. Even now, I'm still sort of regretting have done two years of IB when I could have done middle college or something. High school was miserable, and not just because I was in the process of coming out and what not. It's just been a disaster.

I guess I've met some amazing people though, and I wouldn't have been so lucky if I hadn't finished all four years of high school and I'd gotten my GED last year or something.

On another note, there is this girl that I've had a big crush on for a long time. And really, I don't consider myself realistically bi because I rarely get crushes on girls, and they are rarely, if ever, physical crushes. I can emotionally connect with masculine women, and fall in love with them, but the physical stuff comes later. Anyhow, this girl, we'll call her Wonderella, is pretty much the pretty asian babe I've always wanted. She's not girly in the slightest, she's not too butch, she dresses well, she likes piercings (which I have more of now, I got an industrial for my birthday) she's sporty... the list goes on and on. Anyhow, I feel weird about liking her so much, especially since I primarily identify as a gay male. And she knows all about the trans stuff, and even knows I like her, but it's just an issue of getting the balls to ask her out.

She was on the bus with us down to Disneyland, and I basically stared at her the entire time. Which, I fully acknowledge, is a little creepy. Anyhow... it was weird. I just really like her and I don't know what to do about it.

So, I'm an adult. I'm graduated. I'm single. I'm desperately in need of some more masculine glasses and shoes so I can start actually passing as a male. Ridiculous!

thoughts.

The best time in my life right now happens almost every day when I'm walking home from the bus stop after work around ten o'clock at night. I turn up the volume on my ipod so loud that it feels like the music is coming from the sky, or from G-d or something. And I can't hear anything but the music. And I put one foot in front of the other and don't really think, just walk. And sometimes I look up and see stars twinkling in the sky, and I'm just blown away by how beautiful life is. I walk in the middle of the street, and when I round the corner and see our house sitting on the edge of the pavement, I just have to smile and sometimes I just stop, and stand there. In the middle of the road. Just staring at this little glowing house, and I get all thoughtful, and deep. And I know I'm not even giving this the proper description it deserves, but it's something that's so indescribably beautiful.

And usually on these walks home I think about how much I've changed over the last year. I'm eighteen years old, and I'd like to think that I'm a little wiser. Or at least older. I'm me. I'm me, and that's something that is just so beautiful. It's odd, but I'm finally being me by changing things about myself that I always hated, and always disliked, and I'm not "becoming" myself, because I was always myself, but now I'm stripping away the parts that society and time have added on. I feel like an old junker, with extra parts that nobody wants or needs, and I need to be laid bare to the bone, completely gutted of all those things that the world has put in my arms and forced me to be.

This year has been… a growing experience. Now that I'm graduating from high school on Friday, I can't say that I'm especially sure exactly how I've grown. I'm more generous, I'd like to think. I've lost some friends, gained some new ones. I'm still a virgin, hah. I'm still too scared to admit some things to people.

But I'm getting there. And that's what matters, I think.

musings.

I find it hard to write about some things. Love, death, happiness. I can talk about sex as a sort of abstract oncept that is unattainable in its purest form. Of course it is easier to write about concerete things: people, places. But feelings, especially those noble, lofty ones we all aspire to are not nearly as tangible or translatable. Baser intincts like lust are identifiable and can be readily diagnosed. But love is almost obscenely difficult to pin to a board to be examined under scrutinous microscope. Love is elusive and often mistaken, misdiagnosed and manipulated. Romantic love is even more endangered, disappearing from its native habitat at an alarming rate. Of course, love can be mistaken for truth, as in "true love" and then spirituality is ascribed to the most human of emotions. True love is always accompanied by celestial imagery and singing cherubim. But I think it is wrong to give love, a human emotion, a quality of heaven. Life on earth is flawed and love itself knows no perfection. The people we love are dark, monsters at time, and love fades and dies. Love is not truth, and yet one can find truth through another person. One can find transcendence through love, and that is a form of spirituality.

But the clarity of religious experience seems to be more akin to sexual ecstasy. The spiritual nature of love seems to be closely tied to physical acts, and as a societ that both embraces and rejects physicality and hedonism, it is difficult to reconcile the two with words or images. Any depiction of love and sex risks being voyeuristic; depictions of love and sex are stick figure paintings of the real thing. Any film, book, etc. that shows love loses any sanctity through distance and corporeal limitations. I hate watching romances, especially those marketed to single women as "chick flicks." Directors seem to mistake chemistry and compatability for genuine emotional attachment, and sometimes even love. Fairy tale endings do not happen, and it is cruel and at times disgusting to pretend otherwise. Romantic movies set up the average couple for failure, by promising a beautiful ending with happy grandchildren, when reality is
in fact a bitter, dark ending in death, divorce, or apathy. Life is what it is, and love is not truth or god, just the ecstasy and pain of being profoundly human. It is not the grandchildren, or the ending that makes love beautiful: it is the pain and the ecstasy of being human.

I feel it is easier to achieve that beauty through writing. Prose allows for at least the attempt to delve into emotion, whilst visual experiences seem to only skim the surface of emotion. I dislike the omniscient perspective in writing because only deity can claim to know everything, but the limited third person seems to most directly translate the human experience into "reality."

Billy's Dad is a Fudge Packer!

This is the best little short film I've seen in a long time. It has one of my favourite actors in it, Robert (Bobby) Gant playing the father. It's just hilarious. The sexual innuendos are awesome. Anyhow, if you have five minutes, it's totally worth it.

we live in a beautiful world...

"we live in a beautiful world, yeah we do, yeah we do…" — Coldplay, "Don't Panic"

Sometimes I forget that the world is a truly unimaginably beautiful, until a day like today. Today felt like my eyes had been opened for the first time since I was very young, and I saw beauty in the small things. The crack in the pavement like lightening. The scrawl of graffiti across a bathroom door. The way that boy who has the Mohawk shrugged his shoulders, as if water were running down his back. Sometimes I get so lost in the every day murmur that I forget about what's really important. The trees, the sky, the people. I get lost in myself, and I forget the landscape outside my own mind. I think that it is not odd for that to happen to people, especially in a suburban or an urban environment. To escape the dreariness of cookie-cutter houses and boxy skyscrapers we retreat inside, and we create a terrain where we can survive. I think the human ability to adapt to monotony is one of the most amazing things in the world: we survive by noticing the details, or drawing within and finding a garden in ourselves. I think that garden is what we use to protect ourselves from pain, from feeling too much. Because living in little cookie-cutter lives is numbing and at the same time excruciating. So we create a coping mechanism.

And I think that for some of us that coping mechanism doesn't work as well, so we end up sort of paralysed on drugs and what not. Sometimes I'm hate my meds so much I want to scream and scream and fucking scream my throat raw, and then I have to remind myself that they're keeping me alive (ironically enough) and there would be nothing worse than losing myself in that strange fluctuating mess between happy and sad all the time. Anyhow, I need to find my garden outside my mind, and today I was able to reach out and touch something I haven't touched in a long time. You know how when you've been holding your breath for what seems like forever, your lungs burn? That's what it felt like, and it was like I suddenly resurfaced and found sanity just above the water.

My college results shall be arriving from Cal on the fifteenth. And I was freaking out about it at dinner, but now that I've had a little time to think and distance myself, I realise that my self-worth and my journey is not dependent on where I go to school. Agreed, my sexual journey would probably be much more fulfilling and meaningful if I was living in the Bay Area and had all the resources I could ever imagine, but I could just stay here. I would feel stifled at first, but then I'd find the beauty in the ordinary things, and then I'd cope just fine.

hot damn.

Sorry for the neurotic posting, but I just figured something out.

I am a bisexual man trapped in a girl's body.

That's it. For the first time in my life I've been able to pinpoint exactly what is up with me. And it kind of sucks, because I really really really would prefer to be a guy

Slava Mogutin

I wanted to blog for a moment about one of my favourite photographers/artists, Slava Mogutin. Mogutin is famed for being exiled from Russia for his queer writing, and specifically for "malicious hooliganism with exceptional cynicism and extreme insolence." Anyhow, I'm going to post a few of my favourite photos of his, and then I'm going to give you a link to his site, but I do have to warn you that many of the photos are particularly sexually explicit, and I'm sure that to some degree I am a voyeur for enjoying his work, but I like to convince myself that it's the artistic sensibilites that draw me to his work, and that's true definitely, but there is something insanely beautiful about all of it: the grunge, the BDSM.

Slava Mogutin

Proust Questionnaire.

Ah, Proust, you lovely boy, you. I dedicate this to you!
To see his actual answers, in French, follow this link →



Confessions.
An Album to Record Thoughts, Feelings, &c.

Your favourite virtue. – Kindness and patience.

Your favourite qualities in a man. – Intelligence.

Your favourite qualities in a woman. – Intelligence, wit.

Your favourite occupation. – Thinking, writing, dreaming.

Your chief characteristic. – Liberality.

Your idea of happiness. – A life spent in artistic pursuit.

Your idea of misery. – A life without love or purpose.

Your favourite colour and flower. – I love red and calla lilies.

If not yourself, who would you be? – I would be… Rufus Wainwright.

Where would you like to live? – Canada! Or Ireland.

Your favourite prose authors. – Jon McGregor, Alan Hollingshurst, Michael Cunningham.

Your favourite poets. – Seamus Heaney, Sylvia Plath, Yevegeny Yevtushenko, Anna Ahkmatova, Alan Ginsberg

Your favourite painters and composers. – Rachmaninoff, Mahler, John Singer-Sargent, Rufus Wainwright, Snow Patrol, Bob Dylan, the Doors.

Your favourite heroes in real life. – My friend Eli, Rufus Wainwright.

Your favourite heroines in real life. – Sylvia Plath.

Your favourite heroes in fiction. – John Grady from All the Pretty Horses.

Your favourite heroines in fiction. – Antigone.

Your favourite food and drink. – Food: pan friend noodle; drink: Irish breakfast tea.

Your favourite names. – Eli, Rian, Rafe, Inara, Mikael, Ecke.

Your pet aversion. – Chewing with ones's mouth open.

What characters in history do you most dislike. – Hitler, for his avarice, his racism, and his nationalism.

The natural talent you'd like to be gifted with – Beauty and charisma.

How you wish to die – A painless drug overdoes. Euphoria and then silence.

What is your present state of mind. – Rather bored, kind of musing.

For what fault have you most toleration? – Sarcasm.

Your favourite motto. – "It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end." – Ursula LeGuin

hey jack kerouac...

Who is Your Alter Poet?

Way to go, your alter poet is Jack Kerouac, who is by FAR the coolest! Take this quiz! Quizilla | Join | Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

This amused me to no end. I'll be honest and admit that I am a rather large Kerouac fan, although I fucking hate the word beat and I will beat (haha) anyone over the head who happens to use the words "cats," "jive," "groovy," and or "hip," in my general vincinity. After I read On the Road I started smoking, so I can generally blame Kerouac for the descent of my health and my current addiction to Camel #9s. Or maybe it's just the pink and black box that's addicting. Well, anyway. Kerouac and I are apparently quite alike, and he's my "alter poet" ego or whatever.

I'm posting entirely too much today, but I really can't help but write a little. I guess it's just that I haven't written in a long time, and this is my one outlet of pretension. I haven't written poetry in like two months, and anything prose I've written has been bordering on psychotic, and I don't mean that in a "haha, I'm soooo crazy" kind of way, but more like it doesn't make any sense. I wrote short story around midnight about a month ago, and when I woke up the next morning and read it was pure gibberish. There were a few gems of sentences in there, so I extracted those and set them around in a sort of semblance of a story, but I'd be lying if I said it made any sense after that.

Anyhow, I just need to get some stuff off my chest.

And a question, what does everyone have against lesbians? All my gay guy friends disdain lesbians, and everyone seems to think there's something wrong with it. Why is that gay guys are more accepted? Well, relatively accepted by society. This has been giving me a bit of a pause lately. Not because of any recent revelations about my sexuality, I've known for a while that I'm at least bisexual, but I've been trying to get more involved in GLBTQ rights, and I've noticed that there's a lot of like prejudice within the movement itself. Like, for some reason everyone hates bisexuals. And a lot of gay guys have nothing but scorn for lesbians (and bisexuals). It's just making me pause and think about some stuff. I'd thought about coming out soon (and I did come out a couple close friends earlier this week) but now I'm not so sure. I don't want to be accused of being "a fake" or a "transitioner," although I'm sure that's always a possibility. I just want to be taken at face value, not like I’m trying to cheat someone just because I like boys and girls. It's very frustrating to lose faith in a group that I thought I could identify with, and a group I thought that would accept me. It's hard enough coming to terms with sexuality, and I thought that it'd be easier because there are more resources for GLBTQ kids now, then ever before. But I feel like I’m running up against a brick wall again and again, slamming my head in. I'm not straight, and I'm not entirely gay, so I have nowhere to go. Not to mention I'm half Asian and half white, so I have no ethnic identity either. I'm stuck in the middle of everything, and I just hate it.

Rufus! Rufus!

I got to see Rufus Wainwright last night, and pretty much all I have to say is that he is a GENIUS. As soon as he opened his mouth and started singing I started sobbing like a baby, just absolutely emotionally wasted because his voice just moves me to a place that I can't even begin to describe. He's like the most influential musician in my life… ever. I mean, seriously. He has amazing style, amazing lyrics, and his music is so lush and orchestral. He was performing solo, so it was even more amazing to see him play some stuff that I didn't think could be adapted for the piano or guitar. He makes me want to be a gay guy so I can have an excuse to wear tailored suits like he does. His boyfriend was there, and he made a really cute dedication to him. Of course, he made the obligatory jokes about California (which is fine, really) and I laughed a lot. The show was just… phoar. And of course, he was kind enough to do an enchore and he played my favourite song, Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk which was (is) my anthem. I'm serious, that song is so relatable to me. I just get it. It makes me life make so much more sense. I went out and bought chocolate milk this afternoon and sat around smoking and I felt like so cool, (which is incredibly lame) but I totally get what he means. Anyhow, he's amazing. See him live if you can. I just can't gush enough about how fucking brilliant his new album is, and of course Poses is his other best album.

Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk

a long time

I guess it's been a long time since I've posted. Well, I got a boyfriend (we'll call him Guitarboy) and I lost him. Well, more like I got rid of him because it wasn't working and it was long distance and we never saw each other... long story short it was a disaster and I'm not sorry I ended it. Even if it did end up hurting his feelings. Yeah, I'll start writing again soon.

goodbye casanova

When I heard about Heath I went outside and chain smoked for about an hour. 

Thanks for sharing your talent with the world, Mr. Ledger. 

here, now

I got into the college of my choice. Yes. Oh my god.
I got 18,000$ scholarship (which isn't enough, but hopefully I'll get the full tuition scholarship too).

I better be going come Fall.

je te déteste

My friends are driving me crazy.

Literally.

I had a massive panic attack in class today because Jules is just… treating me like shit. And it's beginning to affect my mental health. I do not know what to do. Because fuck, I love her, but dammit.

I cannot handle anymore of this shit.

I know I need to see my therapist, who I haven't seen in like three weeks, and I need to up my meds, and I need to do about a thousand different things to help my cope, but I can't right now. I just want to curl up in a ball.

It's like last summer, except a thousand times worse because I can't escape to my room and hide for days. I have to go to school every day and see people.

I've been writing stuff on my arm, just as a way to remind myself of what I love. Quotes from my favourite books, etc. But sometimes, it's just not enough.

"Want what you can have," my elbow says. Yeah.

"Life chooses us; we do not choose it," my forearm warns.

And finally, the best; "je te déteste." That is my life in a fucking nutshell.

meh

These past few days have been hell. Returning to school is always bad, but returning to school after such a lacklustre holiday has made it especially painful. Anyhow, my life has been particularly weird lately.

But today was good; mostly because of PostSecret. There were quite a few good ones up today.