Welcome to the Fellowship of Educated Men and Women
the past two years really have gone by in a whirl i have to say. its a good thing that some of that time has been consistently written down for prosperity and of course for my public humilation of course, haha. anyways... so this will be the entry about graduation and spending the weekend entertaining my folks afterwards... a very interesting time. one interesting theme of this time was the crappy weather...consistent rain or overcast weather... it was actually funny that only on the very last day of my parents and i's stay in cambridge, the sun came out and it was a fabulous day... a fabulous day i spent mostly at the airport, but i will get to that soon enough. when i last left off i was in the middle of the last day in new york i think. after that i went to hang out with alice and tony a little bit. after hanging with alice a bit, tony and i decided to go have dinner with some friends of his that were also visiting nyc from new york... a weird gay connection... tony's ex was now this other guy's boyfriend and somehow tony and this other guy were connected as well... so incestuous the gay community is. anyways, we went to this cute chelsea place called nooch... i like to call it cooch...heehee. dinner was fun enough but afterwards we met up with another one of tony's friends, the other guy's ex that is... haha. now this is where i perked up i have to say because this boy was a cutie... like an asian version of chris carraba... tattooed tiny cute boy... yummy. anyways, i just had to flirt with the guy at the very least and he turned out to be quite intereesting...artistic, he designs jewelry, but yet quite level headed. he told me about a new tattoo ink that is invisible in regular light and only visible in black light.... rocking, this guy is perfect for me. haha. anyways, its a shame we only met on the last day of my stay. you know, in a weird way, and i just only thought of this, but it reminds me of Adil, that i met on the last day of my stay in Boston last year before summer.... a very promising perfect time but one that is ultimately ephemeral. i probably would have made out with this guy if he had decided to come drinking with us...which i am glad he didn't because the subway took like 45 minutes to get back to alice's place and by then i was like...fuck drinking man... you got beer here? haha. i also did a first for my last NYC stay... i took a car service from manhattan to brooklyn instead of the subway... haha. it felt so high class. anyways... so sad, like the guy i met in philly, its a shame i seem to meet really nice guys just when i can't pursue anything more with them... you know? sucks. but at least i like to think that maybe this portends that in houston, finding a man may be just second nature... one can dream no?
.
the next day i had to wake up fairly early and get to the airport for my flight that eventually got delayed anyways... but hey... guess who i met at the airport that kept me company though. it was quite a brush of coincidence i have to say. anyways, i met sooyung, the spunky little korean girl that i talk sex too...haha... its the girl who asked me about a bikini wax... like i would know? anyways, it was great to chit chat with her on the airplane and what not. i also ended up taking her home as well as i had to go rent the car, which was a whole endeavor as we returned to a downpouring boston...seriously raining man. finally getting back to cambridge and luckily finding a parking space decently close, i went to a silly reception for the graduates and got my class picture taking.. had to miss the real reception because i had to move my shit... IN THE FUCKING RAIN... from karen's basement to my car... then go on a trek to find two large sports umbrellas just in case it rained during graduation...which it did...for my parents. finally i got all that stuff done and actually got to the hotel in relatively short amount of time, moved the boxes from the car to the hotel room and had some time to chill out a little. then i went to teh airport thinking that mei would come in at 11:30 and my parents around midnight (actually they were suppose to come in like 8 pm, but the delay was welcomed in a weird way because i only got to the hotel at 8:00). however, there was more delay (that's another consistent theme of the weekend...delayed airplanes!) and we ended up actually leaving the airport around 2 AM. getting back to the hotel and to bed around 3 AM, and voila...waking up at 4:30 AM so we could get into Cambridge. my god...crazy huh, it really was one last all nighter just for kicks.
.
so graduation itself.... you know, i honestly have to say that it kind of sucked. first off, i didn't get any sleep and although i was dressed to the nines, i had major bags and was about to fall asleep throughout the day...even more than my usual narcoleptic self. so anyways.... let me just say how much it sucked. after making sure my parents knew where they were going, i joined my cohorts, got dressed in the cute robes, and finally marched to the Yard around 7:30. Ok, from about that time, to around 10:00 i'd say...we literally waited, standing...in the rain.... since we were the last school to be seated in the arrangement we had to just wait in the ante-quad. i mean, if we were somehow explained this and could have prepared, you know, made a sandwich or something.... it might have been somewhat barable... but no... standing around cold and wet and unknowing of why for over two hours. i personally was not in a good mood and most of the actual main commencement ceremony i could only listen to with sarcasm. we did get some good whoops and willies when they called the design school... but still, i have to say most of the ceremony i could have passed...especially since it was raining still. anyways, that thing finally ended and we marched back to GSD, got in line and did our own diploma getting ceremony which thank god was MUCH MUCH shorter! it was short and sweet and i got my diploma...whoppeee! a short lunch followed and my folks had some lunch and that was about it. we took some pictures but i was getting kinda of pissy because of being tired and what not and so we decided just to leave.
.
.
i dunno, there were nice moment during grdauation, but it was just such a bad begginning with no sleep and crappy weather, that i was like... thank god that is over! we went back to the hotel and slepted... yes! funny enough, my folks wanted to go to chinatown so we drove back into boston and had dinner in chinatown... and went back to the hotel.... and then i seriously just went to bed... i was SO TIRED!
.
then began two days of entertaining my parents, which wasn;t too bad over all... but there were some uncomfortable tensions here and there. the day afterward we basically hung out in harvard, i showed them the basics and also got a chance to close my bank account and just run last minute errands here and there. we went back to the hotel for a nap and then that evening came back and had my fancy schmancy graduation dinner at the Four Seasons hotel. it was a very posh evening and Ira also joined us and sebastian was too as well but later i learned that he had some sort of allergy attack and was really out of sorts so couldnt come...oh well. anyways, the evening actually went off really well... the food...some of it honestly was mediocre...some of it was really good. but the ambience really was first rate and so was the service... it was a nice evening. and i am glad i got to see ira one last time since she really has become one of my closest friends i have made at GSD. i hope we keep in touch.
.
afterwards we had an interesting conversation with my folks that kind of revealed some tensions but actually it sort of worked itself out. anyways, it delt with the issue of an expensive dinner like the one we had and how sometime i get the feeling that my folks aren't satisfied with it or they are but they continue to refuse things or to downgrade things.... despite who is treating. but especially if its me, when you say a place isn't that great when i'm footing a big bill... and the food isn't THAT bad.... i dunno... isn't that a faux pax of sorts? you should be gracious in showing gratitute...downgrading and bitching about service being not "worth" the money spent is not gracious...i think. anyways, we eventually came to the conclusion that when someone wants to treat another to a fnacy meal... the treater should know that its a nice palce with good food..meaning he had eaten there before... and that the treatee should be open and gracious about accepting the dinner without making negative comments about it unless they are truly warranted.
.
our final day in boston was an interesting melee of things. basically we walked around boston. mom, had gotten off to some sour start to the day, for whatever reason i have no idea but anyways she was a little pissy all throughout the day. being attuned to that i tried to be as accomodating as possible since my whole modus operandi with my folks lately has been one of non-cnfrontattion unless completely necessary...i.e.. reminding them i am a homo...haha. anyways, i tried to suggest them a nice itenrary through boston and also saying that you can't really tour boston in a car...or that i couldn't since i was a pedestrian in boston. i know the city on foot. eventually i think that sank into their heads and despite the light rain we walked the city and took some breaks here and there. they saw quincy market, the north end, government center, washington crossing, the commons (the gay pride parade...whoppee! heehee... a little subtle trick on my part letting them tour boston on pride day!), down commonwealth and newbury, and then of course back to china town. we then had lunch and again with my mom in psuedo pissy mood because i didn't know exactly where to drive to get out of boston ( i sometimes don't get my parents for the life of me on how they expect somethings to be "OBVIOUS") and we got back to the hotel eventually. our last evening was pretty dull... lots of TV watching and what not.
.
.
now getting back to houston. what a fucking adventure. waking up and getting to the airport and dropping off everyone by 9:00 wasn't just the end of it. my 11:30 flight was first delayed untila round 1:00 pm and then flat out cancelled. and then i walked back to the tix counter to get reticketed, got put on another airline for a 3:30 flight, and walked over to another terminal, checked in, found out i was on stand by...what the fuck?? thank god though, i got on and routed to dallas and then finally to houston at about 9 pm, when i should have arrived at 5 pm. lovely...and of course, my luggage was lost. welcome to houston baby!
.
and that's it. i like to think that there was some sort of sign the last few days i was in boston to help signify the end of my time here in this part of the country... a long time i have been up in the northeast... it is sad to go i have to say. but the last few days themselves were pretty normal actually... maybe it was some sort of shock.... or trying to hard to see a sign in everyday life. the previous few week were full of those times though...from final review, to cleaning house, to provincetown, to hilly, to new york... there were all these strange moments that felt like something could become of them.... i dunno, it's like little seeds of opportunity that could have flowered but becuase you were leaving, the irony is ever more potent. i think there is some truth to that cliche that you don't see things right in front of your eyes until the idea of not being able to see anyting at all becomes real. meaning... that there are always these small moments of realization or instance where something can happen, but you don't have to wait for the dramatic and slightly romantic irony of not being able to reap those moments and let them blossom, you can simply just take them as they appear. i'd like to think that life is dishing them out by the handful now.... maybe the past few weeks have been "the" sign that i should open up my eyes a bit and my heart... because moments are all around.
.
posted by faux chink @ 10:36 PM
1 Comments:
Hi Alex - I am so sorry about the rain, but you look so adorable in your robe!! Like the P-town pics too.
Post a Comment
<< Home