Reviving the Dead

And Closet Queer rises from the grave.

Appropriately, it's Easter, so that's a big whoopee.

Hmmm, how have things changed for the Closeted One?

For one, my world has expanded in many ways. I can't really say I'e had my coming out party, but the status quo has shifted, ever so slightly.

Personal life? Still a mess. Still single.

But that's not to say that it's without any development!

Kakoi? History.

I can't believe I spent so much time blogging about it.

The search for myself continues.

Selfish Me.

WARNING:
Today's blog entry is an angry, self-loathing, self-serving rant against all civilized society.
If you do not want to spoil your day, I suggest you wait until I'm in a better mood for a perkier blog entry. You have been warned.
Proceed at your own risk.
I need a hug.

And I don't expect it to come from anyone anymore.

In my feeble attempts to sort and sieve through my life, I have just come to realize that maybe I don't need anyone. Or I don't need just anyone.

I believe I've been a good friend to my friends. Well, maybe not where money is concerned, but I try to be there whenever I can.

However, it has come to the point where I don't really want to worry about their problems. I need to get it together.

So I got problems, great. I suppose it's the unattractive me or I think I'm unattractive. Gay culture ruins people like me - pushing me further into the closet.

All this bullshit of people complaining about how it sucks to be single really gets on my nerves. Boo-hoo, my life sucks. Boo-hoo, I'm single. Fucking shit! I've been single for four years. I'm practically in a convent or a monastery or something like fucking that. Sure, I complain about, but not as much as some people. The worst part of it is that it's not just a couple of people but a handful of them, coming up to me.

I'm not Oprah. I'm not Dr. Phil. Fuck off!

So maybe I asked for it. Nice guys finish last. For people like that, my heart bleeds for them. Really, I do.

It's just that I'm such a frickin' bleeding heart that I've grown numb. Gimme space. I'll fix my own life first. Then, maybe, we can fix yours.

I try not to dwell too much on my own status. However, when people who have only been single for less than half a year begin to rant about how much it sucks. I get so fucking offended. What am I chopped liver?

I chose to be single for four years (long story made short, it's my personal therapy for the end of a four year relationship). Now that I'm back in the market. My sealegs are woobly. I have no idea what I'm doing.

So I end up staying away. I need to love myself. Not someone else.

Then again, here I am. Mr. Tough Guy is spent from ranting.





And I still need a hug.



"Nothing lasts forever." "All good things must end." I've memorized that phrase by heart. So tell me, I need to know it. When do the good things start? -Charlie Brown, "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown"

Brazil? Brazil!

And I pop back online.

I've barely taken the time to actually continue this blog simply because there isn't anything happening to me that is worth noting. Or at least anything that I really want to be talking about.

After much brooding (and working - as work really took its toll on me this month), I've mustered up all my thoughts into a coherent theme - Brazil.

Unfortunately, if you ever saw this gem of a film, you'd know that it's anything but coherent (in a conventional sense at least). I'd hate to sing praises for this movie and sound like a poseur, so I won't. At least I won't pretend to like parts that I didn't really understand.

I bought the DVD on sale at HMV in the UK (Thank God for Generic Region-Free Players). I hadn't really had the time to watch it until this month. I had half my brain focused on something else and early on it was a struggle to focus on somethings. However the visuals tickled my fancy. I couldn't really feel for Sam Lowry's (Jonathan Pryce) flight sequences but his mom's facelift scene early on is definitely priceless!

A hodgepodge of the futuristic 20th century and a bit of the old-fashioned 50's look mashed into one proves that Terry Gilliam is one sick, sick genius. The question what is "Brazil"? Is not answered at all. The title is just there, freely available for you to pick apart. Gilliam offers the best explanation, to paraphrase, it's Walter Mitty meets Franz Kafka. Or something like that.

A lot of explanation runs along that line: something like that. It's not quite definite and it is precisely this lack of certainty that "Brazil" plays around with. The dystopian utopia which is mildly reminiscent of the world that "V for Vendetta" presents, but unlike that 2005 release this Nineteen-Eighty-Four for 1984 film has no real menace. Except maybe for the bureaucracy which is a tangled mess of a paper trail much like the ducts which undulate and snake through the film. Untouchable and inscrutable by all except those who dare to do so.

And to dare to dream is what Sam Lowry (a pun? a relative of Willy Loman perhaps?) does. At least in his dreams.

An in mine as well. Or something like that.

Much like his character I live in the fantasies of my mind. No, I'm not dabbling in dirty talk. I just have these bouts of daydreams of incredible images and situations. Things that make my regular life, well more liveable. It's not that is that ill-lived. It's just that the inner-child, someone I've repressed throughout childhood is trying to break free.

And break free it must. To the rhythm of Rio's deep and throbbing beat if possible.


If Terry Gilliam has his way, the torture of everyday life will be underscored by saucy samba music. And in many ways, that's the story of my life.

Minus the samba dancing.

"Aquarela do Brasil" (Watercolor of Brazil)

Love in the Time of Influenza

I do not get Folk'ed.

There is a thick soup in the air.

A yellow nausea that tiptoes into my space and drips all over my head, coating me in its contagious goo.

Yes, it's love in the gay world and it's cheap, free for all.

As a man who loves men, it is difficult to pigeonhole myself into a comfortable cubby that will satisfy everyone.

I do not join Pride Parades. I am not out, to a good degree and some argue that I send gaydom into the Dark Ages.


Well, Hallelujah!

Just because I don't wear my rainbow armband, doesn't mean I don't care about gay rights and all that; I do. However, just like my friend said of her religion, spirituality is not something to be displayed, it's private like dirty underwear.

While I wouldn't go as far as alluding to my spirituality as dirty underwear, but my sexuality is definitely dirty underwear.

I dare not display it, but I am aware of its existence. I acknowledge its importance and role in my life. I choose not to "display" it for various reason which I will not necessarily discuss today.

I do feel that any need I feel to ascribe to a gay lifestyle is quickly quashed by my own person. I never feel truly comfortable with other gay men. To certain degree, I do, but another not quite. This is a bizarre turn of events because I fancied myself a trailblazer in my age group.

I was quite young when I had come to terms with my sexuality and had gotten involved with someone seriously. I came out to my folks (and we all know what kind of drama that entails) and have done my little evangelization of gay rights.

So why am I in the closet? The funny thing is is that I'm not really in the closet. I act the way that I do because that's just who I am. Geeky and not quite fabulous. Friendships with other gay men don't really last. Backbiting can get even the best of them and many are quite fleeting.

Hence, I begin to think about the feasibility of the possiblity of finding love again. Frankly, things are looking bleak.

Gay love is a seasonal infectious disease, it can have terrible symptoms, but at the end of the day, most cases of it are shallow and simply disappear over time.

There is virtually no permanence. How can there be permanence when the entire dating game is plagued with superficial demands?

What is the currency of love nowadays?

1. gym buff. so much for average schmoes like me. why is it that every gay man on fashionable tv looks like the cast of Queer as Folk? the obsession with looks is frankly scary. maybe i'm just insecure. yeah, i'm insecure. what chance do i have?

2. location. are you strategically located to be loved? what happened to crossing the ends of the earth for love? chivalry is dead? not if it never existed. chivalry in gay relationships is merely a fantasy played out in bed as foreplay.

3. the right cellular phone. shallow, but people actually do care about this. quick, right on the money, easily accessible.

4. my humps - my lumps. well-hung we all need to be. sexually-gratifying. of course this is important, but to be rejected.

5. numbers - the right numbers, the right stats, the right height, the right salary.


Should I submit my resume the next time I court someone? I'll have a biopsy as well while I'm at it.

After all this is making me sick.

Love these days hits hard, leaves many empty handed, like we've never been loved at all.

And the Earth rotates once more

ANOTHER day has come and gone and I'm still online. The bizarre thing about a web presence is that you're never really there. A lot is compromised in persisting an existence in cyberspace.

Time flows forward and backwards and not by jumping through the folds and wrinkles in the fabrics of time and space, but just by slumming in the bean bag waiting for myself to turn into a pumpkin, or a glass slipper.

Having just devoured another movie about a man whose wife was murdered, I can't help but reflect on the motifs of the past week or so. Somethings are on just continuous replay. Same things said and same things done and oddly enough different reasons for why I find myself in similar situations.

Flirting with a nineteen year old? Why the hell not? I was nineteen once, in a long time ago, in a galaxy, far, far away. However now things seem more muddled, like seen through foggy spectacles.

I'm rambling. And the world is turning without me. Again.

The Twizzle of Blogs

As I sit here tonight, I wonder once more.

Why do I think too much? Brood, brood, brood.

For some reason, I feel very, very lonely. It's not that I don't have friends around. They're there, fluttering about, but something just got to me today.

I just finished watching "Memento"; you know that Christopher Nolan flick. Yeah I spent two long entries babbling on and on about "The Prestige" - a decidedly inferior according to some people (probably because it's more "mainstream") and one would probably correctly assume that I'd babble on and on about "Memento."

Not really. It was good, no doubt. Maybe it was my mood today or the fact I just saw it in my room with the distractions of the people outside my door, the PC and books. Memento didn't draw me in that much. None of the twists really surprised me nor did they beg me to unravel them.

Maybe I'll need to process it some more.

Right now I feel like dried shit that attached itself to the bottom of your shoe and couldn't be scraped or hosed out.

Like my entire life was headed for this moment: the big giant BLAH.

Of course the irony of the blog is that as I sit here, hours and hours trying to be all profound and shit about my life, the sun has come and gone and I'm still alone.

It measures nothing.

Sacred Secrets

Jamie's got secrets he doesn't confide And I'm still hurting
-"Still Hurting" from "The Last 5 Years"

The worst kept secret in the world is that everyone has a secret and that usually, it in itself is poorly kept. The fact that you share it with someone lessen its entity as classified information and that once the words escape from your tongue or fingers, it exists as its own entity. Free from your own constraints and exists as a secret that your confidant must bear. Until of course, the confidant chooses another confidant, which again, renders your prized kernel of truth, less sacred.

Thus there are secrets that we must keep hidden, even from our closest and dearest of friends, and sometimes even from ourselves.

Any gay/bi man who ever struggled with his sexuality knows this.

Keeping that part of you that you probably didn't want to acknowledge in the first place proved to be a feat of wrestling with your own Nemean lion. Since you are no Heracles, the lion probably one and that's why you're reading this blog.

So we're gay. Big fucking deal. We probably wanted the lion to win anyway. Most of us probably want to be dominated at one point or another anyway. Such are the nature of the secrets we keep from ourselves.

Clearly, it if the secret is on the foremost part of our consciousness, it is far easier to share and to divulge. At least, we have already accepted it to one degree on another.

However, what about our subconscious? When dreams grace and plague our listless sleep, are they stirring such emotions we have long buried in our subconcious? By what machinations of the id do we wake sweaty and bothered by the dancing images of full-bodied, lusty sex with partners we never thought we'd dream of.



Like coming to terms with your own sexuality. Most of the time, the initial reaction is one of repulsion.

Possibly the repulsion stems from the physical attributes of the person. We're simply not attracted to the person. Maybe he/she is quite hideous and our personal tastes are compromised by engaging with him/her in a compromising coital situation.

However the truth is that most of the time, when lustful thoughts of unlikely people penetrate our conscious mind, they're more likely to be remotely attractive to us. Deep down inside, beyond the cogs of our rational mind, we admire something in them. Still, the very thought of kissing, much less make love, that person is beyond consideration.

Why the guilt? Is it a betrayal of our own sensibilities? Like Oedipus, do we have our own Jocasta? Why do the stirrings of such thoughts make us want to gouge our eyes out and mourn for our warped sense of passion?

Does it mean that we secretly harbor lustful intents for our genetic progenitors? Our comrades? Our superiors and inferiors? Surely we can just brush such thoughts aside with one flick of the superego. However, what if - and this is the dangerous what if - what if we actually enjoy it?

That lingering kiss, that swipe of the tongue - the taste of that which has been forbidden, they all come together and form the ideal we have conditioned ourselves not aspire for, but rather avoid.

What then to do? Do we run down the road and follow them? Do we pretend they don't exist?

Neither way is right. They could be, just like any emotion, just some random chemical process and this does not merit any further exploration. However to supress such thoughts would also render us vulnerable. Rather, we should just keep it at that. Accept them for what they are.

So we remain silent. Let it pass like the icebergs in the North Atlantic. In the attempt to keep ourselves pure, let's keep the self sacred.

I'll keep my lips pursed and sealed.

Pseudo Date Number Wha?

Crap, just when I thought it was time to move on.

Yesterday as I was typing in my blog entry, I received a message on Friendster. Actually, it was a reply to a message I sent this guy I sorta liked before. The thing was we never really got to meet. I tried sending him a couple of messages last June and he didn't reply. So I thought, all right, time to move on. Call in the next guy!

Turns out he lost his phone. Or so he says in his message. I'm inclined to believe him, so yeah, he wants to reestablish communication. That made my day. However one cannot look too eager or too excited.

So as with anything that is bound to fuck up your head, the unexpected happens.

I was getting ready to go out for the day. Maybe go to work for some extra overtime paperwork (I do this for fun) or hit the mall with some friends. I also had plans to have dinner with a friend, the one who introduced me to Kakkoii.

Then Kakkoii texts. Crap.

He's sort of asking me out in a very non-committal sort of way.

Didjaget that? No? Lemme rephrase.

He said something like this.

Are you in the area?

Not yet, but I'm on my way. What did you have in mind?

Nothing. I just might want company for dinner.

Ladies and gentlemen, I haved just presented to you the non-committal dinner invite.

To rearrange my schedule or not? That is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageously ambigious pseudo-dates or by taking arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them?

So I did.

After a series of misunderstandings, we finally met. He was with two guys whom he introduced to me as the friends of our other common friend, James. The two immediately left and after a week and a half, I was with Kakkoii again.

No we weren't on a date. He pretty much made that clear when he told me that those two asked if he was on one. His reply? Yeah, not really.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

Gee, that made me feel reeeeeaaal special.

He then added that the two guys said, "Aaah, yeah we know you two are going out. James told us."

Gah.

So pseudo-date number who knows what proceeds well enough. We always enjoy our time together. It's the time away that brings about problems.

However I did encounter one critical flaw in his definition of a date. When he found out that I was with James that afternoon, he remarked,

You should have told me that you were with James, that way I wouldn't have interrupted your date.

Where the fuck did that come from? He knows very well that James and I are friends and just that. And if James and I are "dating" then I'm frickin' engaged to Kakkoii already by that definition of his. Of course, using his other definition of dating (which he applied to the time we're together), relatively James and I are merely aquaintances.

Mixed signals as usual.

When I told him I went to work in the afternoon. He asked me why I had to report to work since it was a Saturday.

I said it was because I didn't have anything better to do, so I decided to work. It's what I always do.

He then opened his mouth to say something, only to take it back. He said it was because it sounded like he was fishing for a compliment.

I twisted his arm for him to say it and after a bit of hesitation, he said:

I meant to say, you'd rather to go work than hang out with me.

Uh, he doesn't text me for days and he expects me to hang out with him? Like I always say, I'm a straightforward guy. Reject me, I'll go away.

So I throw back to him this statement:

You didn't ask me out.

He didn't look at me.

Satisfied with my answer?, I smiled.

No, not really.

I leave this story at this point. What did he mean by that? Discuss the answer amongst yourselves children.

Losing Count of Dates and Not Losing One

It seems that it's a good sign if you lose count of how many dates you've been on...

Date Two was followed by Date Three at an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant, incidentally, we were the only non-Japanese in that small nook. Pretty nice. Date four was at a Vietnamese restaurant because we thought that we ate too much Japanese food. He wasn't in a particularly good mood that day so I tracked down this graphic novel that he was looking for. I gave to him with a note that said "Because you had a bad day and since a dozen roses wouldn't suit you." He was happy as a clam and was grinning from ear to ear.

Date five was a big one. We had lunch at a Wendy's at the mall, with me spilling my Coke on the table (gah) which exposed my klutzy side. He seemed irritated, but was gentlemanly enough to help me clean up the cola swamp on our table. We left the mall for a book expo which was crowded as hell, but fun nonetheless. After that we went to this huge new mall which almost felt a like theme park in its scope and design. We caught a movie, a romantic comedy, and about more than an hour into it, as the music turned mellow over a scene in Paris, he grabbed my hand and held onto it. -swoon- For dinner, we went back to the sushi bar we went the week before. No all-you-can-eat for us at that time, but more Japanese curry though (we both just love that stuff). I drove him home once again and I held his hand for a good length of time as we crawled through the freeway.

The next day, Sunday, was spent flirting and missing each other through phone calls and text messages and when Monday came, I was hot and bothered for him. I picked him up from the gym and had dinner at the Japanese restaurant where we had our first date. We went back to his place and I watched TV while he went to the bathroom. There I was, plopped on his beanbag, when he suddenly lunged for me. I couldn't really breathe, but I happily reciprocated his kiss. This guy was beautiful. I went home that night with a shit-eating grin on my face.

At this point let me interrupt my narrative. Chances are one would expect some sort of happy ending or least a period of contentment, but sadly that was not to be.

The following day, Kakkoii suddenly became quite grumpy. I called him up after I got home from work and he said he was busy and that he'd call me back. When he finally did the conversation went rather well but as we were saying our good nights and good byes, he suddenly said something to the effect that he really didn't want to call since calling me up would mean that he'd up until eleven.

-ouch-

That was cold.

Being the nice guy that I am, I calmly told him that it was all right and that he shouldn't have called if he felt that way.

I woke up the following day - annoyed like hell. He sent me a message apologizing for his behavior the previous night. I told him that I wasn't mad, but I didn't appreciate him making me feel like I'm some sort of intrusion into his life. He barely responded to my texts later that day. I wanted to meet up with him, but reading that he didn't want to, I made other plans.

Later that night, he sends this message to me: Funny, I was kinda expecting to see you outside the gym.

Crap. What was I supposed to say to that?

I wanted to, but the thought that you were mad at me or that you didn't want to see me stopped me.

That was all right. The following day however I waited for his call. He said that he was depressed and wanted to crawl back into his shell.

Surprise, surprise. He called his ex and needed a shoulder to cry on. Shit.

Facts I learned that night:

1. He broke up with his ex last July (we started going out August)

I could deal with this, technically they broke up already.

2. He then said they really didn't break up, they were just "cooling off."

Why doesn't he just fuck with my brain some more? Still, I could deal with this.

3. He said that he thought of me as someone who could possibly help him forget his ex.

Do I have the word martyr tattooed on my forehead? Ouch, but since I dated him with the premise that I was also trying to get over someone else, I could deal with this.

4. He said that he never really considered us dating.

THIS, I cannot deal with. There's a world of a difference between just hanging out and dating in my book. Going out, holding hands, kissing and sleeping with each other does not add up to not dating. It may not add up to a relationship just yet, but definitely not friendly.


We went out a few more times. I felt like he pushed me back to square one. Go back to GO, do not collect $200. Screwed me up like nothing else in recent memory. Little by little, things went back a little bit. There was the slight nod to us still meeting regularly and that I was still slowly becoming a part of his schedule. That was good. Not great but good.


However, dark clouds loomed over the horizon. He suddenly stopped texting warmly. He suddenly became cold and distant. When I asked him out, he simply replied: No thanks.

If that's not rejection, I don't know what it is.

I proceeded to ignore him but after a couple of days, he sent me a message. I replied, hoping that he'd be opening up. It turns out it was a set-up for more mindgames.

And then it just stopped. A month of frequent whatevers just stopped and I don't know why.

So how do I feel?

Not great, but good.

I didn't lose. And I didn't lose him either.

After all, you can't lose what you never had in the first place.

And on the 11th hour...

God said, "Let there be Emo."

And the Emo crawled over the earth with their slightly goth forlorn eyes and their eyes welled up and with a collective sigh, they made music. Sweet, sad music.


Now, I don't know what to think about this one, since I don't really know this anime, but I like Avenue Q. Goes to show what happens to a person when he thinks too much; he starts blogging about anime characters moving to a song sung by a puppet.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where we find relevance nowadays.

The Queer Debate

When I told one of my closest friends that I'd be starting a blog called Closet Queer, he had to stifle a giggle.

"Why," he asked, "did you ever choose such a name?"

This guy wasn't gay, but he did have a point. The LGBT community is split on the use of this word.

Its history shows that it was used as a slur against homosexuals of both genders. The denotative meaning of "strange", connotes a movement that is against the norm or worse: abnormal. Thus some activists would denounce the use of such a word and regard it as a step backward for gay rights.

Other activists would however claim that the genderless term "queer" is an appropriate word to unite all homosexuals of varying degrees under a single banner.

I am not an activitst. I am a gay man in the closet. I do not fancy myself a queen, not that I doubt that maybe I could be one, but at the moment, I'm just a guy who likes guys.

I do not really belong to the mainstream of society. While I function, day in and day out, as a regular guy I still constantly find myself struggling with my sexuality. Struggling because I can't seem to meet the right guy.

It should be as simple as going out to a bar, but the situation is far more complicated than that. With my job, I can't be caught visiting a gay bar or something like that.

On the other hand, I do not belong to gay subculturem, not really at least. Let me clarify my statement, I do not belong to the popular gay subculture.

I'm a true anomaly. A true queer in that sense.

Hence, I'm Closet Queer.