archive for June, 2001

it really was not easy

look at me—it really was not easy
but i can’t breathe
and i’m so grateful, cuz i can see
i am free to do exactly what i please
so come with me to a place where we can be…

i wanna touch the sky
i wanna fly so high

i wanna hold you
i wanna love you tonight

i wanna touch the sky
i wanna fly so high

i wanna satisfy
i wanna make you mine

follow me to a place where we can be absolutely free
to be exactly what you wanna be
completely lose control
that’s when i need you more
give me the key
to set your heart and spirit free

i wanna touch the sky
i wanna fly so high

i wanna hold you
i wanna love you tonight

i wanna touch the sky
i wanna fly so high

i wanna satisfy
i wanna make you mine

i know what i want
and i know that i need it right now
gonna take you on a journey to a faraway place now

i wanna touch the sky
i wanna fly so high

i wanna hold you
i wanna love you tonight

i wanna touch the sky
i wanna fly so high

i wanna satisfy
i wanna make you mine

like a bird in the sky

just you and i

i’m gonna fly like a bird in the sky
just you and i

we’re gonna fly like a bird in the sky
just you and i

i wanna love you now
i wanna take you high
i wanna give you everything that you desire

—sonique

three’s company

i’ve complained, i’ve bitched, i’ve moaned, i seem to obsess over this concept of “change”, or, rather, the concept of “velocity”. never happy with any sort of stability, status quo or generally staying in one place for too long, i am, in fact, moving from san francisco to london.

what’s interesting, though, is how drastically different my life will be in about a week. talk about “change”… this is it. leaving loving friends, the castro, increasing enemies, a wonderful apartment, fun roommates, knowing my way around town. gaining urban excitement, a steady income, new roommates, getting lost and having a novel accent.

this past weekend was gay pride weekend in san francisco. last year, i remember hating it. i remember hating the gay scene, hating the bars, the muscleboys, the drag queens, the dykes on bikes, the peer pressure, the assumptions and the overall concept of “pride”. what am i proud of? this year, i was much less bitter, and found much more “at home” throughout the festivities, which shocked me to no end.

i then realized how much i’ve changed in the two years i’ve spent in san francisco. how, slowly but surely, i’ve become absorbed into the castro, which i blatently despised when i first moved here. here i am, living down the road from the infamous black house, having bartenders recognize me and knowing confidently that going out pretty much anywhere guarantees that i’ll run into someone i know. what a wonderful feeling.

this past weekend, i played a bit of game. my name was chris for the weekend. i didn’t live in san francisco—in fact, this was my first time here. i was from london, you see. all of a sudden, all of the castro/san francisco/california stereotypes were thrown out the window, and everyone wanted to meet me. i was a naughty boy… the halo that has been hovering over my head had been fading a bit over the past few months. well, over this past weekend it fell to the ground in a loud clank.

i bet you’re wondering what the title of this entry refers to.

think about it.

shame on you.

march 15, 1977 was a significant day in history.

i was born.

the first episode of the sitcom “three’s company” aired on us television.

dirty bird.

you think you know her

while visiting my parent’s home in indiana, i was rifling through some old old momentos up in our attic. i came across old baseball cards undoubtedly worth millions, old photos of myself in cub scouts and other equally embarassing poses (which i promptly burned), and, after an hour of dusty, humid searching, i emptied out a crate to find the object i had been searching for.

i was a german exchange student when i was sixteen years old, and while living abroad, i kept a journal. rediscovering this journal was an unexpectedly delightful way for me to spend a solid afternoon. aside from the mainy personal triumphs, and … `growing experiences’, there was a painful unraveling of the fated long-distance relationship i was having with my first (and only) girlfriend at the time.

one of the first entries i made was the night after my arrival in brandenburg. i made the not-so-naive revelation that “german people are just like … regular people”. even at the time, i laughed out loud while i wrote it down in this little brown leather-bound journal of mine. but, it definitely signalled a turning point in my perspective of the world, of life, and of people.

over the past few weeks, i’ve grown much closer to a few of my older gay friends. in conversing with one friend in indiana and one friend in san francisco, i learned a few amazing things about “them”, about “the past” and about “what it was like”.

they shared with me countless very real, very personal, very “could’ve been me” stories about friends that they had lost to aids. i heard tales of debauchery that put my tall tales to shame. i witnessed shy mischevious grins as i probed about the “fraternity brother” or the “night before my wedding”. shock! horror!

did i think that i was the only boy to ever seduce another boy? did i think that being gay was invented around 1991? this was the first time in a while that i suddenly felt so naive, so þshockedþ at what is actually quite plausable.

so, to my friends who aren’t quite “spring chickens” any more, i say bless you. i see bless you for paving the way for “people like us”, i say thanks for sharing your own personal insights, drama and tales, and i say keep on keeping on.

older people are just like … regular people.

purple haze

i’ve always thought that i would make for a good drug user. it’s been pretty easy for me over the years to identify my addictive personality—the way that i latch on to things and squeeze every drop of goodness out of ‘em.

i had my wisdom teeth out a few days ago… it was a pretty gruesome ordeal. i was out cold for most of the three-and-a-half hour surgery, but woke up a few times to feel the doctors yanking and twisting on my molars, followed by crunching sounds (and the occasional “oops”). afterwards, the dentists and nurses were all telling me how i was “a tough one”.

the next day, like most people who have their dental region impaled and rearranged, i was ballooned like a chipmunk. i thought it was kinda sexy, actually, to have a nice masculine square jaw. but, anyway, i had a strict drug regimen to follow — vicadin (pain killers), ibuprofin (for the swelling), some penicillin (to ward off infection) and a variety of rinses and compresses and ice packs. overall, that first day, i was miserable.

but, now, on day three, i’m feeling pretty good. my mouth isn’t sore at all. but, i still have a big ole jar of those painkillers. it’s like when you’re at the movies, and you get the large popcorn (cuz it’s just 25 cents more!), and halfway through the movie, you say to yourself “there’s no way i’m gonna finish that”. you set it down. then, 5 minutes later, you pick it up and finish off the bucket (afterwards licking your greasy artificial-buttery fingers).

well, that’s how my temporary, acknowledged, controlled (?!?) drug addiction is going. although the pain is subsided, these magic little pills are smoothing out my days. i can stay up late. i can wake up early. nothing upsets me. it’s great. i see what the appeal is!

thanks to craigstlist.com, it would appear that i’ll be able to sell off almost all of my goods before flying off to england. thank god for online communities and people with nothing better to do on a friday night but shop for used bookcases online.