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The following online journal entries are from September 2001.
"Most writers have had the experience of catching a poem or a paragraph
or two of formed writing. We consider these finds to be small miracles.
What we fail to realize is that they are, in fact, the norm. We are the
instrument more than the author of our work." |
SATURDAY. 11:09 AM. It's been a slow morning so far. But I am okay with the easy pace. Last night, I went out with my friends Rob and his partner Murphy -- what better way to start off the Labor Day weekend than with a gnosh and a few drinks? We started in the Mission at the Phoenix Bar and Restaurant, which none of us had ever been to. When I first moved to the City, the space wasn't much of anything sandwiched between Burger Joint (erstwhile known as BJ) and an upscale, import furniture store that would make Edina Monsoon ga-ga. Then it transformed into a dark, sadly hollow bar called the Circle Club that attracted the spillover from the Lexington Club just around the corner, one of the only lesbian bars in the city. Unfortunately, the Circle did not get square and it shut down. Now, the long but narrow space sports the Phoenix with uncomfortable booths, a nice ritzy bar, and decent if not trendy food. After the Phoenix, we three trundled by minivan cab (driven by Jabba the Hut as Murphy put it so eloquently) to the Castro to go dancing at The Cafe. The night was mellow for The Cafe, which usually gets wall-to-wall packed by ten-thirty or so. I hadn't been to The Cafe in probably a year (not since the horrible passing out incident). Not much had changed and I didn't really expect it to. The crowd was pretty much the same though a higher percentage of young, whiplike Asian men. Lisa, the bartender always bedecked in a black tanktop and cowboy hat, remembered me and treated me as if I was coming home. The music, if you could call it that, was awful but dancing was fun anyway. The first people I started talking to in the club was (of course) a straight couple Lisa and John, both from Australia, and their two gay friends on holiday, Jonathan and Mark, who are originally from England but now live in Australia. We spent the night shouting over the cheesy house, talking about football hooligans, ogling boys (boyz, if you prefer, but defintely young if in attitude and maturity), and carving out a space on the dancefloor. An interesting turn of conversation focused on the kinds of men we thought were attractive and who among the throbbing, tight-shirted masses of the Cafe drew our attention. Only a few guys really interested me. Of course, I think the crew of J. Crew and muscle-T and high-style boys were attractive, but I like a certain simplicity. I'm not sure how to describe it actually. Maybe ease is a better word. Then the conversation shifted for some reason to whether or not people thought I was gay or not. Lisa, the lawyer, said I didn't look gay to her at all. Some agreed. Some disagreed. But clearly I seem to still have this problem. I code myself not necessarily in a wrong way but in an ambiguous way at best, in a "straight-acting" way at worst. I'm not sure what to make of it. I don't think I'm trying to be straight. Toward the end of our stint at The Cafe, Rob and I decided in our inhibition-lowered state to approach a guy that had been making eye contact with us all night. He was taller than me, dark haired, wide-eyed, broad shouldered (can you even leave the house to go the Castro without?), leaning toward the Abercrombie & Fitch archetype. Of course, I was the one who said something first and I was the one to invite him to chat with us and I was the one to introduce him to Rob and Murphy. His name was Pete and he was sweet enough. And I knew right away he wasn't interested in me, but was gunning for Rob. Unfortunately for Pete, Rob is most certainly unavailable and the young man visiting on business from New Jersey went back to his Hilton hotel room alone. (If I may digress for a moment of self-pity ... he wasn't the only one going home alone.) After the Cafe with no passing out this time, Rob, Murphy, and myself wandered down Market to Bagdad Cafe, one of the few twenty-four hour eateries in the area. Unfortunately, the 2 AM slew of people leaving the bars had already claimed the Bagdad for their own. Therefore, we walked a bit further down Market to Church and found a free table at the much more colorful, perhaps more authentic Sparky's, a more diner-y diner and also open all night. Sparky's, like most late night places, was a haven for the colorful, the gregarious, and most definitely the queer. Our server, Kirby, was a youthful, baby-mohawked grrl who wanted to sit and chat about hair dye except she was really busy. Another server came round and gave us temporary tattoos of various words drawn from some alternative sexualities adjective list I'm sure. I got the words "top toy" for some reason. We left Sparky's after our post-drinking, post-dancing feeding (but not before I managed to make eye contact several times with a cute in that Beautiful Thing kind of way server). We said our goodbyes and Rob and Murphy left. And I walked through a misty 3 AM Mission Dolores home.
WEDNESDAY. 4:12 PM. The long Labor Day Weekend has past. It wasn't a particularly restful weekend for me. Some parts were good. Some were mediocre. It was good to have Monday off of work (even if I am just temping). A four-day work week seems so much more managable. Saturday day was spent mostly lounging about the house. I tidied the apartment. I played EverQuest. Saturday evening, Nathan came by and we had pizza slices at Serrano's. Then I hurtled down Mission on the #14 to POW to meet Dustin and his friend Jason. After POW, Dustin, Jason, and I went to meet up with Nathan at his co-worker Tim's basement apartment for a little housewarming party. (Tim is one of the cutest shavy headed boys I know.) The night ran long and the cab ride at three in the morning was a welcome expense. |
Sunday was spent sleeping in and then playing Tellings. Monday, Labor Day, I woke up and did laundry. Then Rob and Murphy invited me over to their house in the Haight for a little barbeque. I invited Nathan and Tim to join me (Dustin and Kara were not available). Fun and good food was had by all. We played board games, talked, ate, drank mohitos and cuba libres. For the most part, trying to spend time only with people who are markedly interested in me, who actively participate in my world, and who don't judge, dismiss, or assume is good living practice. It significantly narrows my social circle, but I look forward to the day when my life is filled with the tried and true. We should all be so fortunate; we are deserving of such a simple thing. The loneliness still lingers. I fill it as best as I can with work on this webography or reading or making sure Mojo eats or preparing to go back to graduate school next fall. I lay trust in the activities and the psychologies that build me up, that move me forward. I am still looking for that great, great job here in San Francisco and I am holding on to the dream that it will come to me in a matter of time. The best cure for loneliness is the expanding volume of following my dreams.
SATURDAY. 5:12 PM. I am nurturing part of my creative spirit today. I had been saving a handful of overripe bananas in the intent to make banana bread. A week or two passed and I put the bananas in the refridgerator to keep them from disintegrating completely. Another week passed and finally, today, I knew I had to either throw the dark brown skinned bananas away or make something with them. The bread is baking as I write this. I guess today's banana bread is really a metaphor for my writing. I have so many little snippets of things, piles of notes and ideas, and saved up aspirations. I now must take them from the refridgerator of my mind -- these ideas are far more than ripe and ready -- and add effort, sugar, and license with the recipe. I just hope the bread tastes as good as the fun I had in making it. I have been working on some of my poetry. In part, there is something maturing about my journaling and the lines that I pen here and there. I can see my voice changing, getting stronger, like watching crystals form clean and edged and glassy. One of my goals is to finally put together my second book of poems in time to share with friends before the end of the year and to use as part of my application portfolio for school.
Before
Putting love down on paper
is so fucking hard
and though I think
I can manage the challenge
I still stutter, twice
like when I call you
and we trip over silence.
My body aches with the want
to touch you, with the hope
you'll touch me back
in want, too,
as I think of ways
to tell you in a gesture
or an invitation
to have a drink that
I've fallen, deep.
Your smell and the softness
of your hand on my back
tempt me to call you mine
again, to wish the time
were fucking right
so we didn't have to
invent the platonic
reasons to keep us
at arm's length.
I want you, yes.
And I cannot pretend
that our friendship isn't special
because only you make the city
feel like it does,
when I know you share
its deeps and shallows, too.
You are a bright moment
for me and I immediately
don't want to let it go,
I'd rather burn
my hand and heart on it.
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journal
© 2001 Edmond Y. Chang. All original material. All rights reserved.
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