a totem animal

i decided recently, that a rabbit carries a magical sign with it when it appears in my presence. it is a serendipitous animal, a sacred totem animal that guides me. and so this has officially became my third tattoo i want (i don't have any, but i have always had plans for two: one being my japanese family seal, and second being dharmachakra, the buddhist wheel showing the eight ways to enlightenment). i saw a bunny hop across the scenery outside the window while dining at friends house in p-town and told gracey how whenever i see a rabbit (sometimes in the most random place, like in downtown silver spring, and in the brown atheletic field), i am always reminded that perhaps i am in a right place at a right time for a right reason, and she suggested i get a tattoo with a line from alice in the wonderland: "follow the rabbit". and i conqured.

“p” places

i seem to have some kind of prophetic connections with places that starts with a letter "p." one of my favorite p places in the world is provincetown, ma. it is one of the gayest place on earth, but what i love the most is the juxtaposition of new york city tight-armani-jeans gay couples with salty cape cod fishermen with crusty beard, face wrinkly and dark with too much sun and a family history of hardship. there is nothing like it anywhere else. so ever since my buddy from high school ribby told me stories of his boyhood summers on a sailboat, i've desperately wanted to learn how to sail. to realize this dream i took myself out to p-town, pitched a tent at dune’s edge, and decided to take lessons at flyer's to satisfy my yearning. three days of two-hour lessons, one-on-one with an instructor out to the cool water of the outer cape.

despite the typical notion that the northeast coastline has notoriously rainy june, i had four full days of ample sunshine and breeze just perfect for sailing. my instructor is a young lad from Boston suburb, in between schools bound for boulder, co at the end of the season to join his brother and perhaps finish schooling. he was very down-to-earth and patient, answering all of my annoying questions and helping me learn basic techniques. i'm still weak on all the terms... but at least i am fully confident with figuring out the wind direction (i.e. upwind vs. downwind), getting luff out of the sail, and what to do with the main sail when tacking. steering can still be tricky for me sometimes. i still need some serious jibing practices. i also got to work with the jib when a pin from the boom snapped off and our main sail was down. that was kind of exciting. then a lot of mooring practices. that was also difficult. i always either underestimate or overestimate my speed and couldn't get my boat to go head-on into the buoy.

i loved learning about the wind and being intuitive yet experimental. i loved tasting salt on my lips and slight tenderness on my skin fron the sun. my hands were cut up from working with the robes and lines, and my butt hurt, but all of it was worth it when my boat picked up speed and started to heel. SO cool. i really hope to continue sailing. perhaps join berkeley marina and be out in san francisco bay with few friend who will also appreciate such adventure.

each day after my sailing lesson, i biked to my favorite beach in the whole wide world, the herring cove beach. luckily it was still pre-season so i didn't have to pay to get in or buy the season sticker (it's part of a national seashore). the second day was warm enough for me to swim, so i dove into water a few times. the water was certainly still frigid, but it was clear and free of seaweed (the water and the beach gets littered with seaweed as the season moves forward into the height of the summer). i noticed a major coastal erosion where the concrete driveway to the east part of the beach was completely emersed in the sand all broken up. i found out later that last winter storms were such that caused all that damage. i wondered if it had something to do with global climate change. anywho, the beach was also still free of tourists and annoying lesbians trying to show off their six-packs or their lovely wives, so i was happy to curl up on my grass matt claiming my space and my time away from daily hustle-and-bustle and social norms and expectations. BUT, note to self as i discovered later - at least make sure your sunscrean is slathered evenly because i ended up with nice hand shaped tan-lines of various sorts on my back.

in the evenings, i was lucky enough to be invited to all family events with my long-term friend from smith gracey and her partner monica (a real cop, btw). mon's dad and his wife were in town pretty much the same length i was, so naturally they invited me along with everything they decided to do in the evenings. since he and monica lived in okinawa, japan while back when he used to serve, they both kept saying things in japanese and it was just hilarious how similar they were. i mean, i have known mon for a while, and i always enjoyed how goofy and fun she is, but i never knew where it really came from. it was both nature and nurture! i also made friends with a couple of folks who used to work with monica on the ambulance, and i got to catch up with mandy who i had not seen since she got married and moved to canada. it was very nice to see all of them. AND last but not least, i finally got to ride in the back of mon's red-hot harley davidson. we got invited to dinner at the ambulance friends' house, and since monica's dad brought his bike (this is what i'm saying - they ARE the same people. they even look identical), we decided to ride. it was AWESOME. i has been a long time since i rode anything like this (a little moped in thailand DO NOT COUNT!!), and just the power of it all was so cool. despite the noise pollution and god-forbid the gas cost, i would love to own one someday. even if my mother threatens to kill me before it does.

last evening was spent at front street, the BEST restaurant in town. you all know how much i love food and how critical i can be. well this place gets 5 big golden stars from me. from service to menue to every piece and drop of food on the plate are just scrumtuous and extraordinary.

my vacation in p-town 2008 was truly relaxing, fun, and delicious. i will miss this place and the people in it. but i'm sure i will be back sometime soon.

major catching up

so yes. you know shit's been happening when i don't write in my blog. a lot has happened since the st.germain night. to make the long story short, life fell apart even further, and i ended up getting gastritis and i was pretty depressed. i was at the point where anything could set me off and i would just sob for hours at a time. it was mostly because my thesis advisor somehow proceeded to assasinate my character and destroyed my integrity. this was even more painful because the way i was being treated was obvious even to the people with whom i confided, even though none of us could figure out the reason why. i won't go into detail because i don't mean to demean her and what is important is that i did receive my much anticipated master of public health degree, and i aced my classes, absolutely loved the seminars i took this past semester, and that mcat was taken, and i am on my way out to sunny california. one thing i did realize, though, is the fact that i am utterly sick of academics whose vision has been confined into a narrow box of a space, who are simply incapable of facilitating constructive communication and who are blind to human emotions. it is good that i am taking some time off before going back to school for the long haul. i also hope to be outside of academic research setting while i do that.

at any rate, june was welcomed with lots of packing and visiting important people and beautiful places in my life that are on this coast. first weekend I took the train down to NYC, and then to DC to visit my 1/2 brother, his wife, and my baby niece, annie my domestic-partner-without-complications (i love her!!!), and jepa.

after years of reservation, i finally came out to my brother this spring, and so it was absolutely wonderful and extraordinary to see him and the baby niece who is now 1.5 years old. i just couldn't let myself face him or his family without letting them know who i really am and if i was to be a part of their lives, i wanted to be real and honest. i am so happy to know that they accept me as who i am and that they welcomed me back. my bro looks SO much like our father it was unbelievable. and my baby niece looks just like him. she is absolutely adorable and i couldn't keep my eyes off of her. i love her so much and i can't wait to watch her life unfold. after we played in the partk, we had a cozy family dinner at basta pasta, a chic italian-japanese fusion restaurant created by a japanese chef who competed in the original "iron chef" tv series in japan. the food was delicious, and service was up to par with my japanese expectations. i highly recommend it.

then we walked to union square, said good bye, and i met up with annie and ventured out to town. first we stopped by at a sports bar in bowrey to chat with dave and his friend, and then we made our way to the times square. we originally wanted to go get a drink at somewhere ridiculous like the hardrock cafe or planet hollywood, but since they were closing up for the night we decided to just pick a random bar that's still open and get comfortable. so we took a side street and ended up in a pub where they had late night snack (we got calamari, naturally) and a bunch of middle-aged single (?) or unhappily married "looking" men were drinking whisky. there were an adorable older gay male couple, but they left before our food was served. HOWEVER, instead, there walked in a threesome of older dudes, obviously tipsy, loud, in company-polo-shirts who sat right by us. annie eyed me and leaned over, and told me that if they start talking to us, we have to give them some ridiculous stories about who we are, so here is how it went - we are newly weds from california on a cross country trip, and we leave from new york the next day for around the world honeymoon (first stop is italy), i just finished med school at ucsf and am now a gynecologist - and of course, we put our respective rings on our ring fingers, and soon after, one guy started talking to us. we found out, they work for jack daniels (naturally. and i happened to be drinking jack & coke at that moment), and this guy was absolutely STUNNED to hear our story. i think the gynecologist part was the best. SO typical. all in all, he was a nice guy, and we had a blast telling our story. what a lovely night. what a lovely memory to bring with me. we slowly made out way back to her cousin's apartment on upper westside, and slept on the deflated air mattress with two adorable dogs with egzema. poor things. and because annie doesn't have the meat padding that i have, apparently she could hardly sleep. i slept rather well. thanks to my chub...

the next morning, we cleaned up the apartment, took the itchy dogs (i really liked them. they were some sweet dogs) on a walk by the river, and went out to lunch with dave. it broke my heart to bid farewell to annie... we have supported each other through some of the hardest times of our lives, and our friendship had grown deep and beautiful. i will miss her like no other. but i am hopeful that sometime later in our lives (when we're both grown up) perhaps we can be neighbors and raise our children together. until then, i hope to visit her and her to visit me, and continue nourishing our friendship.

the train ride to DC was fine, although it did delay for a quite a bit because of the bridge being open to let a boat go. i read the most of the vanity fair, and loved the little comical section about comparing notorious festivals (which included the burning man, michigan womyn's music fest, and coachella, etc.). jepa waited for me at the arrival gate of the station, in her cute office clothes. she gave me a big smile and a big hug, and i was so glad to have made it to DC. we then took the metro straight to silver spring where she lives, and it was HOT! jepa was complaining how she sweats all the time because she is a mainer and her body cannot handle the heat and humidity. adorable. we caught up with our lives, but could not for the love of goddess decide what to get for dinner. we ended up ordering in thai food, and spent the rest of the evening talking.

the next day we slept in, and stayed lazy for the most of the day. then we figured out that human rights campaign (HRC)'s true colors concert was in DC that night, and it featured some of my favorite artists like tegan&sara and regina spektor, so i convinced jepa to get tickets. to get our lazy ass out of the apartment, we decided to take a stroll by where the conert was, and so we sweated our asses off and walked around the white house and watched naked bikers protesting agaist the high price of oil. i love radical activism. makes me feel optimistic about the world. after we wait and wait and wait and wait on line to get our tickets at the box office (jepa nearly had a heat stroke it was so hot) we made our way into the hall and tegan&sara busted out onto the stage. the concert was fantastic. especially t&s and regina spektor were great. and carlson the host (from queer eye for the straight guy) was hilarious. jepa and i both found out that cindi lauper was 55 and still kickin' and that she wrote a lot of songs that we knew but didn't know that it was by her (like "i drove all night to get to you..." and "time after time..."). i mean really, jepa likes bands like fall out boy and i like indie folk/blues singers like the wood brothers. of course we don't know cindi lauper's life-long repertoire... we ended the evening at the cafe at kramer's book store, and i bought her my favorite book. she bought me zahir. we crashed soon after we got home.

my last day in maryland/DC began with makeshift chocolate chip pancakes (which was delicious) for which jepa had to get out of her sushi boxers and put on clothes to get more eggs since she broke one of the only two eggs that we had. nonetheless they were yummy, and she took me to artomatic, a massive 1000 local artists exhibit. it was absolutely inspiring. first of all, the artwork included all sorts of mediums; b&w photography, collages, sculptures, oil on canvas, water colors, sketches, comics, music, tattoos, etc, etc etc, and second, they were just so full of creative vitality. made me get fired up about bringing art back into my own life. creativity, a flash of inspiration comes suddenly, and these artists showed that in the most raw, most touching, poignant ways. i truly enjoyed the exhibit. after our feet were too tired and could no longer stand the emptiness in our bellies, we headed home to get washed up and to dine in silver spring. we got movies on the way home, but ended up just talking. we talked into the night even though we were both exhausted from the heat and the sun and walking and resisting old feelings. it was a conversation that i needed to have because i felt too much. she was gentle and understanding. then the dream world swept over our consciousness drenched in a blend of something like yearning, regrets, and hope.

jepa and i had never had a chance to enjoy each other's company alone like this. i am so greatful that we finally did. listening to her life stories and watching her admire passionate no-name artist made my heart shake. her love for music resonated with familiar comfort. i am blessed to have had this time with her. regardless of the final product, the inspirational experience that i had creating it is worth a lifetime.

***********************

the rain has slowed down, and the rumbling of the thunder has stopped. tembo is asleep by my side, and he closes his eyes with contentment when i stroke him. he is making me sleepy. i will write about my sailing expedition and ptown with monica's dad at a later date...

clarification

i meant to have done this a while ago, but i seriously got carried away with bitter life such was the way it was at the end of the semester - the last post is titled st.germain and social movement, because i was writing the assignment for social movement seminar which i took and got totally fired up. and i was also drinking st.germain cocktail, the liquid diet of choice for the idealistic brain.