Holiday Hang Ups
i hope everyone's thanksgiving was a good one. i have had a great time in new york these past few days and just have had the urge to put down to blog some of the occurences that have peppered my days and the thoughts that have accompanied them. overall, it has been fairly relaxing but i wish i am hoping i can shift my schedule a little bit for the remaining days from the sleeping at 3-4 AM and waking up at 3-4 PM. not that i am complaining about the twelve hour sleep but still, you kind of feel like a bum after a while. anyways, this post will cover a few days because i am too lazy to create separate entries, so please bare with the probably unrelated storylines here, mr. and ms. reader.
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wednesday
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after waking up around 1 or 2 in the afternoon (that late rising i can understand because mind you i had not slepted at all the previous 24 hour cycle), i messed around my brooklyn friend's house a bit and then decided to go on an flaneur of lower manhattan. unfortunately the weather these past few days have not been the most conducive to just strolling around manhattan but like the masochist i am, i perservered the biting cold. but i was able to finally walk around battery park city and sort of solidified more clearly my mental geography of lower manhattan a little more. eventually, i strolled around the tip of manhattan, made a small detour to check out the world trade center exhibit in the winter garden, and then continued up the hudson river park where i began to get a heavy flood of nostalgia from all those site visits i made in fifth year in college to do "site documentation". walking down christopher street was a somewhat surreal expereince after you have spent so many weekends analyzing its physical structure. the funny thing is, i still can't tell you what any of those shops are like because i have actually never been in them. back then, i think i will still too nervous really and now well, i don't see much of a point to unless someone else wanted to go. but who knows, i would not put it pass me to just non-chalantly check out the mr. leather shop... heh heh.
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as the sun began setting, the temperature really began to drop and so by that time i decided to go on a trek to find warming accessories so it led me to soho. it didn't take me long though to find a stand selling $10 "cashmere" scarves. i got a pretty white one that at the time felt soft and for $10, why not? the two days since, i've begun realizing why this "cashmere" was $10. given some more time, this $10 scarf will shed most of its body mass unto your clothes... hmm, maybe in some wierd way its still worth its money because well, the "cashmere" becomes a somewhat haphazard layer... on a few of your clothing items... so its value is sort of "spread around". haha. but it's good for now. and i also eventually picked up cheap gloves at HM that have faired somewhat better so far, but then again, HM stuff i don't hold to the highest quality standards.
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eventually i found my way after that to the upper east side. robert wanted to go see the "inflation" of the macy's parade balloons... hmm.. yeah, he did. ;-) i have to admit it was slightly amusing but in the end my freezing toes were begging for attention so i had to say this was enough. we then went to warm ourselves up on some good southern cooking and some further illumination of our respective dating lives ( or in my case, lack of one). but that's ok, my current dilema honestly is not how to have more dates, but actually how to figure how i can end the dating game with a guy... which might be easier than in it sounds because it seems to have ended itself already. but like i was discussing in a previous post, i really don't like it when guys seem to just drop off the face of the earth, so believing in karma, as i do... i really should quickly remediate that problem.
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after dinner, we went to go see "rent"...which enjoyable as it was enough... because it was really a very very truthful translation of the musical to film, in the end, it kind of just made me want to see it in the theatre... that is the musical broadway theatre. nonetheless, tears were welling up at certain points in the movie. and then finally, to top off the day, an almost two hour journey to get back to brooklyn... mostly due to the green line being closed for 20 something blocks and me having to walk from upper midtown to grand central...which wouldn't be too bad on a nice day but as i mentioned... it wasn't a nice day. but in strange way, it was also one of those moments where i walk in new york and feel completely at peace with things and there is a beautiful calmness and stillness in those solitary, yet completely satifying... moments.
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a tragic... yet funny...story about the macy's day parade that happened the following day.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051124/ap_on_re_us/thanksgiving_parade
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thursday (thanksgiving)
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so guess when i woke up on thanksgiving..... yeah... around 3 pm i think. oh well, i am on break. after making some calls to see what everyone else was doing, i found myself in a cleaning mode so i decided to clean my gracious friend's brooklyn abode...which i hope they will appreciate, well, as much as i think they can appreciate it. it's funny, this friend of mine... yvonne... is one of my best friends from college, and i love her to death... but honestly... i have a history of cleaning her place its not even funny. it all started freshman year where i came to hang out and went psycho when i realized that her pet ferret, not only was leaving shedded hair almost everywhere, but was also lining the baseboards in ferret poop. ok, that's TOO much! i'm sorry... am i clean freak? well maybe so... but i just can't stand to be in a place i consider "dirty" for an extended period of time... and honestly, even if its not "my" place, and therefore not really my "place" to clean the place, i consider being in that place personal torture. so as any aries would do, if no one else is doing it, i'd rather do it myself. so for the next hour or so i cleaned their place.. and honestly it wasn't like i got down to wiping baseboards but i did wash the dishes in the sink, wipe down the counters, threw away "junk" and then swept the whole goddamn place (that i am so lucky to be able to stay in for so many days of course). now if this was "my" place it would also have gone through de-fumigation, air freshening, and floral bouquet decking... heehee.
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after satisfying myself with such domestic chores, i realized i had to attend a thanksgiving dinner. so off to alice's place i went. after taking a few detours to find tea lights and twine (to tie up the turkey and pss pss ...more... heh heh) i found myself in the lower east side, more... grammercy park area... and within five minute i was tieing up a turkey roll thing... sort of psuedo "tur-duck-en" without the stuffing respective animals in other's asses part. some pictures to illuminate the endeavor (which turned out matha stewart fabulous).
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wednesday
.
after waking up around 1 or 2 in the afternoon (that late rising i can understand because mind you i had not slepted at all the previous 24 hour cycle), i messed around my brooklyn friend's house a bit and then decided to go on an flaneur of lower manhattan. unfortunately the weather these past few days have not been the most conducive to just strolling around manhattan but like the masochist i am, i perservered the biting cold. but i was able to finally walk around battery park city and sort of solidified more clearly my mental geography of lower manhattan a little more. eventually, i strolled around the tip of manhattan, made a small detour to check out the world trade center exhibit in the winter garden, and then continued up the hudson river park where i began to get a heavy flood of nostalgia from all those site visits i made in fifth year in college to do "site documentation". walking down christopher street was a somewhat surreal expereince after you have spent so many weekends analyzing its physical structure. the funny thing is, i still can't tell you what any of those shops are like because i have actually never been in them. back then, i think i will still too nervous really and now well, i don't see much of a point to unless someone else wanted to go. but who knows, i would not put it pass me to just non-chalantly check out the mr. leather shop... heh heh.
.
as the sun began setting, the temperature really began to drop and so by that time i decided to go on a trek to find warming accessories so it led me to soho. it didn't take me long though to find a stand selling $10 "cashmere" scarves. i got a pretty white one that at the time felt soft and for $10, why not? the two days since, i've begun realizing why this "cashmere" was $10. given some more time, this $10 scarf will shed most of its body mass unto your clothes... hmm, maybe in some wierd way its still worth its money because well, the "cashmere" becomes a somewhat haphazard layer... on a few of your clothing items... so its value is sort of "spread around". haha. but it's good for now. and i also eventually picked up cheap gloves at HM that have faired somewhat better so far, but then again, HM stuff i don't hold to the highest quality standards.
.
eventually i found my way after that to the upper east side. robert wanted to go see the "inflation" of the macy's parade balloons... hmm.. yeah, he did. ;-) i have to admit it was slightly amusing but in the end my freezing toes were begging for attention so i had to say this was enough. we then went to warm ourselves up on some good southern cooking and some further illumination of our respective dating lives ( or in my case, lack of one). but that's ok, my current dilema honestly is not how to have more dates, but actually how to figure how i can end the dating game with a guy... which might be easier than in it sounds because it seems to have ended itself already. but like i was discussing in a previous post, i really don't like it when guys seem to just drop off the face of the earth, so believing in karma, as i do... i really should quickly remediate that problem.
.
after dinner, we went to go see "rent"...which enjoyable as it was enough... because it was really a very very truthful translation of the musical to film, in the end, it kind of just made me want to see it in the theatre... that is the musical broadway theatre. nonetheless, tears were welling up at certain points in the movie. and then finally, to top off the day, an almost two hour journey to get back to brooklyn... mostly due to the green line being closed for 20 something blocks and me having to walk from upper midtown to grand central...which wouldn't be too bad on a nice day but as i mentioned... it wasn't a nice day. but in strange way, it was also one of those moments where i walk in new york and feel completely at peace with things and there is a beautiful calmness and stillness in those solitary, yet completely satifying... moments.
.
a tragic... yet funny...story about the macy's day parade that happened the following day.
.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051124/ap_on_re_us/thanksgiving_parade
.
thursday (thanksgiving)
.
so guess when i woke up on thanksgiving..... yeah... around 3 pm i think. oh well, i am on break. after making some calls to see what everyone else was doing, i found myself in a cleaning mode so i decided to clean my gracious friend's brooklyn abode...which i hope they will appreciate, well, as much as i think they can appreciate it. it's funny, this friend of mine... yvonne... is one of my best friends from college, and i love her to death... but honestly... i have a history of cleaning her place its not even funny. it all started freshman year where i came to hang out and went psycho when i realized that her pet ferret, not only was leaving shedded hair almost everywhere, but was also lining the baseboards in ferret poop. ok, that's TOO much! i'm sorry... am i clean freak? well maybe so... but i just can't stand to be in a place i consider "dirty" for an extended period of time... and honestly, even if its not "my" place, and therefore not really my "place" to clean the place, i consider being in that place personal torture. so as any aries would do, if no one else is doing it, i'd rather do it myself. so for the next hour or so i cleaned their place.. and honestly it wasn't like i got down to wiping baseboards but i did wash the dishes in the sink, wipe down the counters, threw away "junk" and then swept the whole goddamn place (that i am so lucky to be able to stay in for so many days of course). now if this was "my" place it would also have gone through de-fumigation, air freshening, and floral bouquet decking... heehee.
.
after satisfying myself with such domestic chores, i realized i had to attend a thanksgiving dinner. so off to alice's place i went. after taking a few detours to find tea lights and twine (to tie up the turkey and pss pss ...more... heh heh) i found myself in the lower east side, more... grammercy park area... and within five minute i was tieing up a turkey roll thing... sort of psuedo "tur-duck-en" without the stuffing respective animals in other's asses part. some pictures to illuminate the endeavor (which turned out matha stewart fabulous).
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whole lots of tasty fun honies. my dominatrix gastrinome would be proud.
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the evening was actually fairly enjoyable. robert accompanied us asian folk for a relatively western style thanksgiving, but it was all good. all of us chinks, were relative transplants anyways so it was all good, untill some of the asians started speaking in only cantonese... how declasse. haha, just kidding. no, but kudos to rob for bringing two bottles of wine because, like him, i definitely needed it. but overall, the food was great and the company and chat good. it was a good thanksgiving.
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on a somewhat more pontificative point, one should always have at least a passing moment of "thankfulness" on thanksgiving. i mean, more than any american holiday, arguably, thanksgiving has been able to maintain a sort of hallowed tradition where commercialization has not been so successful at "cheapening". i mean, except for people who "keep up with the jones" via if they have a butterball or a hmmm... purdue?... turkey or say if they have thanksgiving at McD's or a banquet spread at their country estate... thanksgiving really has been about people getting together for the fact of getting together, if only but simulacra as a cynic might insinuate. but still, the idea that thanksgiving gives you an excuse to sort of put aside your pride or uncomfortableness or feeling like just silly, for expressing some form of... "i just like spending this time with you"... i think... is great.
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before dinner while hanging out at alice's place, i had the chance to finally peruse her thesis book which she had just fairly recently finished. now, i've known alice ever since the begginning of college and we certianly, probably beyond any of my other friends, have had definite "ups" and "down". there were dsitinct moments in our history that we hated each other or at least one of us hated the other... but more or less we've stuck together. now maybe its because we've known each other for so long, that i don't ever really "worry" if we "are" friends" or not. i mean, for sure, i know that i am one of the more "colorful" characters in her life, but i dunno, i think i just have a personal knack of somehow dimunating what i "think" i mean to other people. and its not that i consider myself unimportant, i think i just am never really sure how "deep" of a connection i have with someone. but then again, i tend to over complicate all my relationships and should often take my own advice of simply enjoying the company. anyways, what brought up all of this was that reading the "credits" in her book... where, many of us "gave thanks" to who we thought were important in our lives or maybe just the production of the book... i find myself named individually. now, not to suggest anything, in my own book, i had simply grouped everyone together in a general friends category because i felt that anyone who i considered really important as a friend would feel included in that just by default. but honestly, it isn't the same. and i say that because well, seeing my own name aside from the rest of the world, and a description saying "above all else, thanks for listening"... it honestly felt good... to sort of have that unequivocable ...hmm... validation.... of your "value" to someone.
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i mean, be it true or not, sometimes i think, a goal in "life" is coming to terms with your own personal "value" in relation to the people around you. and its not to suggest its a competition, but in some ways, there's is some kind of...resistance... sometimes, in being "open" about expressing that value that you hold for someone else, or even in receiving and accepting that value. i am certain that i don't make any sense now. but all i can sort of say, is that, it honestly felt good to sort of realize that someone was willing to sort of in some small way even, let the world know that you mattered in someway to them. and conversely, it made me question myself on how much or little, i let the people in my life know... how important they are. in classic alex cynic comedic style... after reading that... my first reaction was to ask first if that was alex as in "me" alex... and then to ask the meaning of the dedication in a sarcastic tone, saying... "when have i ever listened to you?".
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words i wish i could take back. a thank you would have been so much better. but somehow, i guess comedy was easier way for me to digest it but i fear it might have given an image that i don't value what she did.... when in fact it touched my heart. i think the problem is that more direct ways of telling people that you matter always seems weird... and the uncomfortability and weirdness then become over thought out and then ultimately come across as contrived or forced. but maybe that's not the right attitude. i mean, in my small miniscule ways, i think i "do" things that i hope are read as statements of "i care"... remembering birthdays, holidays, random hello, what's up emails and phone calls, and just a distinct interest in the lives of people i care about. but i guess, if that's realy enough or would it be easier (not that its hard because that is sort of my modus operandi) to simply just say sometimes, or write it down somewhere, you are important to me.
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because it sort of made my thanksgiving in a way. and like many other thanksgivings, what i'm thankul for is that i have some wonderful people around me, albeit our faults and eccentricities...yes, actually indeed because of them, we all sort of move in fateful orbits around each other.
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cheesy metaphor time. the planetary bodies all have their orbits somewhat dependent on their individual phsyical qualities of center of gravity, mass, speed or rotation, etc... but they are all sort of held together in a family of sorts, and they come closer and grow far apart, but their is uncanny ... periodicty... to their movements. in life, it's funny how people come in and out of your life, it all seems sort of random and chaotic... but i think its just that our own limited perspective on our existence allows us to only see a small segment of that natural periodicity, so small, that we forget there is a natural rythm, dare i say a reason, we come in and out of the lives of those around us... but we are all ultimately... still together. i was i think about 8 years old when i saw haley's comet, and so i will be probably be dead by the time haley's comes towards earth again... a once in a lifetime experience, like a "true" love. but in the perspective of a whole legacy of lives, the one "true" love happens all the time.
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a small story about how great things can come in small packages.
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friday
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after waking at my usual hour of 2 pm, i mozied around the house a little bit before heading into manhattan again for my little highlight of the day, that is my massage appointment. i decided the day before to set an appointment up as sort of small congratulatory gift for having a great review and just in general on surviving a somewhat hectic semester. i got the massage down at this place that i read about in various online magazines and was voted the best deal in manhattan. it was on midtown and in all honestly, the 60 minute massage wasn't bad. the girl who worked on me wasn't afraid to give it to me hard...which i like... haha... and beside the fact that the ambience wasn't the greatest (clinical... yet clean and efficient)... the massesuse was great and courteous and nice. enough for me to tip 20%+ that is. after the massage its not that i felt amazingly relaxed or anything, but in a weird way, i also feel no "soreness" when i stretch... so i think something worked...right? hmmm, wait until i wake up tomorrow, we'll see if the feeling lasts or if it transforms into something bad. yikes.
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after my massage i decided to be a silly nyc tourist and do the post thanksgiving rush on fifth avenue. well, not that fifth avenue ever really "rushes", but still, there were tons of folk. i stopped by the new abercrombie and fitch store and honestly it was just too much stimulation. the store was packed but strangely enough it seem with almost as much "sale associates" as "customers".. or maybe everyone just looked like an abercrombie fitch model. mind you, i think some of the boys are very good looking, but that whole aesthetic i cerebrally find quite unappealing. anyways, that said, i wouldn't exactly kick an A+F model out of bed...even the one that was grotesquely modeling his perfect abs right in the middle of the store... ewww. ha. after A+F i decided to mozy to something i could one afford, and two, feel more "real" in.... the GAP. despite its faults and not being banana republic (as if BR was something), i still find GAP... fun, and relaxed. now note i would never step down to old navy...please, i do have standards. i found this fabulous pair of pants and pullover combo that i was happy to part with for $26. and holding a bag amongst th crowds, i felt like... ooh... a shopper. haha. now don't tell me you've never bought something simply to just be able to walk around with a shopping bag.
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but as has been happening with every evening since i have been here, once the sun goes down, it gets fucking cold. i scurried my way back up to ues and hung out with robert over take out and sex and the city. oh, and i even found a hmm... useful... piece of furniture for him, aka, via dumpster diving. that's one thing about that boy that is certainly different from moi... for me... i guess because of the designer in me... my living environment is numero uno on my "list" of getting my groove on in a new place. i have to feel completely at home in the sense of really personalizing my space before anything else...and usually its ok, because i have to do quickly. its like the relationship of food, water, and air. air is like a job, actually bringing in income to be able to live. but a quick second, aka, water that you would die without of in a matter of days, would be my "space"... if it be modest or grandeur it doesn't matter, i have to "make" my space so that when someone visits, they will immediately feel if nothing else, the place has "character". on the week, month level, aka.... food... would be everything else... gym, friends, haha. maybe there's something wrong with that but then again, maybe not. your living environment is something you have complete control of, within means, so does it not make sense to tackle the "easier" problems first?
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anyways, after a few great episodes of sex and the city (including one where robert and i ask... how did stanford get such an amazingly good looking boyfriend... and of course, the boyfriend quips in a ridicously child-like but honestly, still with clarion... clarity... well... maybe he just makes her laugh. and you realize... yes, can't argue with that.) we decided to do a "small" night on the town and go to the bar robert told me about where apparently "nice" gay men frequent. haha... oxymoron no? no, it was nice enough, and the crowd did seem much less "attitudy" than most chelsea, or nyc for that matter, homo haunts. tony, alice's brother also decided to come, and us triplets have a decently good time i think. of course, i am always having a good time when i have four jack and cokes and good people to hear me talk (which i realize i do a lot of when i drink...errrr).
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which brings me to another sort of pontificative moment? question in essence being... why do gay men go out? robert stated something that made me internally turn over...over a few jack and cokes... what he really meant by it. it was harmless enough of a question/statement... "why are all the good looking people leaving"... or to that effect. now, i think i did simply ask in reply, "do you come to bars and clubs to look at other people?" and he said, well, it is sort of in a way "part" of the experience... the sort of "scenery", "ambience", "crowd" i guess. and on one level, i can definitely understand that, i mean, if i found myself in a hodgepodge of leather daddies i definitely wouldn't feel... at ease. or if i found myself amongst skinhead goth punk rockers. but i dunno, on another leather... i have the feeling... so what does it matter who's around?
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but i think a question like that illuminates the "multiple" reasons why gay men...or simply people in general... come to "social" places. and of course, part of the reason is to come to places to meet people, and if that is a "goal" of sorts, i guess it makes sense to be concerned about the social environment in terms of people type composition. i.e. if you want leather daddy or skinhead friends, then obviously you would gravitate towards those venues or at least be aware of the potential of whatever crowd you are in for such social encounters. and that's all fine and dandy, and downright common sense really.
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but it makes me wonder why "i" go out. in all honesty, i am not good at "meeting" people, especially at bars and clubs. i dunno, the enviroment just is not conducive to my "game"...whatever that is of course. now, i am not the most embullient or exudingly affable person in the world, but give me a relaxed dinner party, or small loungy mixer of good friends and a few "new" people thrown in the mix, i usually can be quite the convesationalist, because you know... in the end... i really do love to hear myself talk. but it just doesn't work for me in the same way at clubs and bars. hence why i have never gone out to such venues by myself and really do not see myself doing it either, be it really because i am horribly shy or just really not into the scene. maybe a little of both, because i love dancing at clubs and lounging and drinking at bars, but only with people i know already, or if i don't know them, within fairly fairly small groups. i don't do the hitting on people and coming up with silly excuses to talk or my god, grabbing people on the dancefloor, thing... just not my style.
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i sometimes mentioned that at bars and clubs i am fairly oblivious to all the checking out, flirtations, hooking up etc (i just found out that the upper "section" of the roxy is where people have sex... what???!!!) partly because i have bad vision to begin with and i am usually too lazy to bring glasses and don't wear contacts. and its true, it relatively hard for me to really see if anyone really is "cute" or not. but then again, knowing my attitude towards things like "problems", fixing the problem is simpe enough... if i really thought of it as a problem that is. but obviously, it seems i don't. like this evening, and many evenings when i go out, i find moments where i scan across the room, into a relative abyss of semi shadows, and "think" someone is looking my way and continues to look my way over an amount of time. i am horrible gauge of this art, but still, chances are, at least a few of them were actually "checking me out" or whatever its called. but because i have no "skills" and do not have the balls to just wave or even fucking smile, i usually end up delving into some conversation with people i am with at the time.... probably sending the message... i am talking to my boyfriend or i am not interested... which is unfair because in the shadows, i don't even know what you look like.
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but honestly i would so much rather talk to my friends instead of playing the silly game of trying to flirt when you can hardly hear what the other person is saying. god, its hard enough to have a convesation with people you actually are interested in talking real, albeit unimportant chatter, things about, let alone, trying to "introduce" yourself and saying something hopefully witty and sexy and cool. haha. point being, i love hanging out with friends at bars and clubs, but for all i care, relatively, there could be eskimoes and walruses flopping around (cool bar idea!), i'd still be more interested in the social interaction with the people i know.
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sigh, but maybe that's not really helping things out. it might be high time to learn to converse with eskimoes and walruses. or maybe eskimoes and walruses could take the load off my shoulders and just come up out of the fucking shadows and say hello. eh... maybe i am just not "that" charming. sigh, oh well. at least i still got my friends and i'd be lying if i said i wasn't having a great time nonetheless.
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that's why i go out.
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and just in case you feel like learning iceberg-ese
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posted by faux chink @ 1:32 AM
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