The City of Brotherly Love
i'm here in philadelphia this morning waiting to go to my job interview i have in this city today. if i hadn't mentioned before, this coming week i am flying to three cities for three different interviews, all paid for by most gracious potential employers. i was speaking with a professor the other day saying, that despite sounding sophmoric, i still get a kick out of getting all this free air travel. he said it wasn't really sophmoric, it was just that i was early in my experiences and i will soon realizes that getting paid to fly around to do thing in different places really isn't all that great! ha. but no matter, i am flying my first leg of interviews this weekend, spending the weekend here in philly with sam and seeing friends, and then leaving today after my interview. the following few days will be very hectic, as i fly tomorrow to houston for a wednesday interview, fly back to boston on wednesday afor a flight thursday morning to dallas, followed by a flight back that afternoon... yes, i know... why didn't i just fly from houston to dallas.... didn't think of that! anyways, fly fly fly, kiss ass kiss ass kiss ass.
.
but first some fun in philly. friday before my trip was spent in a most listless way i have to say. after running some errands in the morning i came back to studio expecting a crit by my studio professor. unfortunately, and fortunately i guess, the gsd open house was happening so he was required to make some presentation on studio stuff. blah blah, it was the typical. but then i had to go to housing policy class which today proved to be somewhat interesting as opposed to the usual sleeper. and then after class, i met with my studio professor for like 10 minutes and he told me i should draw more. which is all true, and i am saying this in the sense that sometimes i wonder why i even feel i should get a crit when i know i haven't done enough work to really get anywhere. well, i guess its because i know that next week i won't be here so i'm sort of just like, ehhh... we'll work next week i guess. anyways, somehow the day just sort of bled together after that, there was like a famous lecturer coming and i sat around for that, which turned out to be not all that great. there was also beer and dogs which strangely enough i stayed for because i wanted to get two tickets for the "beaux arts ball"...i.e. our prom. yes, two tickets meaning i am going to bring a date, or try to. i think for the remaining time i am in boston i am going to try to just live out whatever i wanted to truly live out while i was here in boston but just never "got around to" you know. the evening closed fairly non chalantly with chinese food, messing aound the internet, getting ready for my trip to philly.
.
i got into philly and was dreadfully cold and wet. not the greatest type of weather i have to say. but i saw sam and it was good to see him. he's always been such a sweety. anyways, we hung out for a little bit at his place and just kind of talked and were lazy. took a nap, i got the chance to call robert and dish a little bit with him. one funny story, is that apparently he was recently at a webb reunion in nyc and had met some of our old classmates there. he was recounting this one story about a particular classmate whom we both knew, and i think was friendly enough definitely. she was a rambunctous girl and apparently still so is. so anyways, she's already smashed from the open bar service they had, and she comes up to robert and some more friends and was like, hello...have you heard that alex song is finally out! and that he is utterly FABULOUS! FABULOUS! haha, i had to laugh when i heard this, partly out of blushing out of the psuedo compliment but also partly how uncomfortable the situation might have been. robert was recounting the same reaction to me saying, that it was very odd, having a good friend talked so... blatantly... amongst virtual strangers. anyways, i hope he changed that subject wuick and fast. i mean, it certianly is not really to do with anything with being "out" or not... i mean, i post online my orientation... and for god's sake i write this blog (that no one reads!) but still, there's something like "talking behind your back" in that situation. good of robert to step in and put an end to that.
.
anyway, so after some lazying around we finally got off our asses and went to go see ice age 2... an animated flick... which was enjoyable enough i have to say. afterwards we went hunting for food and found this quaint little italian place with hokey decorations and drunk frat boys...drinking box franzia wine! ewww. haha, anyways, dinner was delightful and i got exposed to the BYO concept of philly... bringing your own wine and having it corked for you. we tasted a delightful vintage of "Fat Bastard" shiraz.... yum. i like wine. heehee. it was nice being slightly buzzed bfor egoing to this psuedo club we went to later to see sam and some of his friends that he had made. at first i thought the evening was gonan be lamo because you know, new people meeting each other tend toc lam up... but hey, with a few drinks (i later found out i spent like $70... so at least 8-9 drinks)...one can be quite the social butterfly. not really butterfly however, since honestly i did spent most of the night speaking with one of sam's friends... which he has an interesting history to speak of. but since that is not my story, i won't recount it here. anyways, the chap i thought was great conversation, either that or he was simply nice enough to bare this drunken fool's blabber. i had a good time. and sam's other friends were in general very nice as well. we ended the evening by having a threesome (yeah... you wish!) late night diner snack afterwards and with me making even more of a fool of myself. ha! well...whatever, its not like i will most likely end up in this city anyways.. and that is spoken in a sense that any city i am looking at right now doesn't have an automatic leg up by much really... at the moment. ahhhh... by the time we got home i was distinctly smashed... and the rest of the evening, well... some predictable things happened.
.
the next day started around 3 PM. haha, talk about hangover. but i guessd good enough... since we had just enough time to have some great dim sum lunch and then go over and see the REALLY cool exhibit that sam took me to. it was called body worlds and in essence it was "plastinized" cadivers...i.e real human people... plasticized more or less... in very different poses of dissection. VERY fascinating. kind of gruesome at first but after the novelty wore off you were seriously just interested in general. i think maybe the two most fascinating and gruesome things in my opinion were the fetal deformities.... weird siamese two headed babies and also weird no headed babies... the skull cap not forming and therefore no brain forming... fucking weird. the other weird exhibit was also the "slices" of humans comparing an extremely obese person... like 500 pounds versus a "regular" person...very fascinating in the sense that the fat that surrounded the bodies was this sort of beigy yellow color and seriously...plastinized, looked kind of like marble or some sort of translucent stone in that way. it was so interesting... and in that sliced shape... it totally made me think of material for kitchen countertops or something like that... whic is heavily dsitrubing! haha. i have to say though that even the whole event soon wore off and near the end, i had noticed this extremely cute guy... and i went from observing the dead bodies to observing the delicious live ones, thinking what poses they could be in...haha. still very much the adolescent at times i have to say.
.
.
but first some fun in philly. friday before my trip was spent in a most listless way i have to say. after running some errands in the morning i came back to studio expecting a crit by my studio professor. unfortunately, and fortunately i guess, the gsd open house was happening so he was required to make some presentation on studio stuff. blah blah, it was the typical. but then i had to go to housing policy class which today proved to be somewhat interesting as opposed to the usual sleeper. and then after class, i met with my studio professor for like 10 minutes and he told me i should draw more. which is all true, and i am saying this in the sense that sometimes i wonder why i even feel i should get a crit when i know i haven't done enough work to really get anywhere. well, i guess its because i know that next week i won't be here so i'm sort of just like, ehhh... we'll work next week i guess. anyways, somehow the day just sort of bled together after that, there was like a famous lecturer coming and i sat around for that, which turned out to be not all that great. there was also beer and dogs which strangely enough i stayed for because i wanted to get two tickets for the "beaux arts ball"...i.e. our prom. yes, two tickets meaning i am going to bring a date, or try to. i think for the remaining time i am in boston i am going to try to just live out whatever i wanted to truly live out while i was here in boston but just never "got around to" you know. the evening closed fairly non chalantly with chinese food, messing aound the internet, getting ready for my trip to philly.
.
i got into philly and was dreadfully cold and wet. not the greatest type of weather i have to say. but i saw sam and it was good to see him. he's always been such a sweety. anyways, we hung out for a little bit at his place and just kind of talked and were lazy. took a nap, i got the chance to call robert and dish a little bit with him. one funny story, is that apparently he was recently at a webb reunion in nyc and had met some of our old classmates there. he was recounting this one story about a particular classmate whom we both knew, and i think was friendly enough definitely. she was a rambunctous girl and apparently still so is. so anyways, she's already smashed from the open bar service they had, and she comes up to robert and some more friends and was like, hello...have you heard that alex song is finally out! and that he is utterly FABULOUS! FABULOUS! haha, i had to laugh when i heard this, partly out of blushing out of the psuedo compliment but also partly how uncomfortable the situation might have been. robert was recounting the same reaction to me saying, that it was very odd, having a good friend talked so... blatantly... amongst virtual strangers. anyways, i hope he changed that subject wuick and fast. i mean, it certianly is not really to do with anything with being "out" or not... i mean, i post online my orientation... and for god's sake i write this blog (that no one reads!) but still, there's something like "talking behind your back" in that situation. good of robert to step in and put an end to that.
.
anyway, so after some lazying around we finally got off our asses and went to go see ice age 2... an animated flick... which was enjoyable enough i have to say. afterwards we went hunting for food and found this quaint little italian place with hokey decorations and drunk frat boys...drinking box franzia wine! ewww. haha, anyways, dinner was delightful and i got exposed to the BYO concept of philly... bringing your own wine and having it corked for you. we tasted a delightful vintage of "Fat Bastard" shiraz.... yum. i like wine. heehee. it was nice being slightly buzzed bfor egoing to this psuedo club we went to later to see sam and some of his friends that he had made. at first i thought the evening was gonan be lamo because you know, new people meeting each other tend toc lam up... but hey, with a few drinks (i later found out i spent like $70... so at least 8-9 drinks)...one can be quite the social butterfly. not really butterfly however, since honestly i did spent most of the night speaking with one of sam's friends... which he has an interesting history to speak of. but since that is not my story, i won't recount it here. anyways, the chap i thought was great conversation, either that or he was simply nice enough to bare this drunken fool's blabber. i had a good time. and sam's other friends were in general very nice as well. we ended the evening by having a threesome (yeah... you wish!) late night diner snack afterwards and with me making even more of a fool of myself. ha! well...whatever, its not like i will most likely end up in this city anyways.. and that is spoken in a sense that any city i am looking at right now doesn't have an automatic leg up by much really... at the moment. ahhhh... by the time we got home i was distinctly smashed... and the rest of the evening, well... some predictable things happened.
.
the next day started around 3 PM. haha, talk about hangover. but i guessd good enough... since we had just enough time to have some great dim sum lunch and then go over and see the REALLY cool exhibit that sam took me to. it was called body worlds and in essence it was "plastinized" cadivers...i.e real human people... plasticized more or less... in very different poses of dissection. VERY fascinating. kind of gruesome at first but after the novelty wore off you were seriously just interested in general. i think maybe the two most fascinating and gruesome things in my opinion were the fetal deformities.... weird siamese two headed babies and also weird no headed babies... the skull cap not forming and therefore no brain forming... fucking weird. the other weird exhibit was also the "slices" of humans comparing an extremely obese person... like 500 pounds versus a "regular" person...very fascinating in the sense that the fat that surrounded the bodies was this sort of beigy yellow color and seriously...plastinized, looked kind of like marble or some sort of translucent stone in that way. it was so interesting... and in that sliced shape... it totally made me think of material for kitchen countertops or something like that... whic is heavily dsitrubing! haha. i have to say though that even the whole event soon wore off and near the end, i had noticed this extremely cute guy... and i went from observing the dead bodies to observing the delicious live ones, thinking what poses they could be in...haha. still very much the adolescent at times i have to say.
.
.
after the exhibit we met up with justin who i haven't seen since well.. last time i visited sam, which was at the begginning of the school year. anyways, his new "boy toy" is very cute by the way. unsurprisingly asian, but quite cute and well built. i'd definitely do him, except he has a weird accent that sometimes makes him unintelligible....ha. anyways, it was good to see justin again as he is always a sweety i think... a little frazzled sweety, but sweety nonetheless. and he looks good, he doesn't seem to have aged a day since we met the first time...god... almost 3-4 years ago?? i find it funny... and i guess a sign of maturation, that i actually keep in contact with men that i have slepted with simply for the fact of friendship and that i actually enjoyed their company. it almost seems to reconfirm the stereotype that in the gay social structure...sex is fairly informal exchange that is quite fluid in relationship to other social interactions. writing that made me just think of my previous "crush" who now having slepted with him... and almost getting over the fact that he doesn't know what he wants... well, i think i just might able to be just friends with him. although it is my "goal" to get him into bed at least one more time before the year wraps up. haha!
.
and then the rest of the evening was pretty routine. last minute emails and ironing my shirt, getting ready for my dazzling self promotion the next day. heehee. ahhh... it was a grand time i had here in philly... and actually in general, i think i would love living here in philly. it definitely has the plus of being a great place for a young gay urban man to live. i'm more or less sure i'll be able to afford center city living and yes, there seems to be definitely a great gay culture that unlike boston, isn't so blatantly racist and white-centric. i mean, even new york, with all its attitude, is less like that than boston is.. although i think its simply a matter of having a lot more people, therefore broader spectrums of taste. boston is probaly just too small to be diverse. but philly, seems to have really pulled off a good society of queers... at least that i can see. who knows, the lived experience could be very much different. so yes... it might be a good place to get a job although it would be a great disappointment i know to the folks. i mean the only thing that precludes me from automatically considering texas is the fact that i don't really "socially" know it. but i wonder if that's a problem. i mean, i guess i know "of it" having spent a few summers of lust in houston but still, being a "social" gay man... which i want to be... not excatly sure how one goes about that yet. but i guess the cache is that there is then a challenge... one that you can escape even by say moving to new york or philly, but i guess is slightly mitigated by the fact that you already have gay friends in those cities, themselves struggling to define their gay social circles. we'll see.... it's not long though before i have to make a choice. ahhhh.
.
.
and then the rest of the evening was pretty routine. last minute emails and ironing my shirt, getting ready for my dazzling self promotion the next day. heehee. ahhh... it was a grand time i had here in philly... and actually in general, i think i would love living here in philly. it definitely has the plus of being a great place for a young gay urban man to live. i'm more or less sure i'll be able to afford center city living and yes, there seems to be definitely a great gay culture that unlike boston, isn't so blatantly racist and white-centric. i mean, even new york, with all its attitude, is less like that than boston is.. although i think its simply a matter of having a lot more people, therefore broader spectrums of taste. boston is probaly just too small to be diverse. but philly, seems to have really pulled off a good society of queers... at least that i can see. who knows, the lived experience could be very much different. so yes... it might be a good place to get a job although it would be a great disappointment i know to the folks. i mean the only thing that precludes me from automatically considering texas is the fact that i don't really "socially" know it. but i wonder if that's a problem. i mean, i guess i know "of it" having spent a few summers of lust in houston but still, being a "social" gay man... which i want to be... not excatly sure how one goes about that yet. but i guess the cache is that there is then a challenge... one that you can escape even by say moving to new york or philly, but i guess is slightly mitigated by the fact that you already have gay friends in those cities, themselves struggling to define their gay social circles. we'll see.... it's not long though before i have to make a choice. ahhhh.
.
posted by faux chink @ 8:18 AM
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