Burnt Lunch

I swear I didn’t do on purpose! How was I to know that nuking a Leona's take-out was going to cause a small fire?

It was only leftover penne arrabbiata, from a week ago. I figured it’s the oldest thing in my fridge and I better eat it before it started growing fungus. That would be bad because I don’t have any good recipes for mushrooms. I’d have to throw it out and as I’ve said before, that goes against everything I’ve been taught in Sunday School by Sister Mary Giada De Laurentiis.

What? Turning on the Food Network on Sunday counts as Sunday School. It’s a deeply religious experience: first I turn on the serene, beatific Giada, then I tune in to Tyler’s Ultimate and imagine myself prostrate on the altar of Chef Tyler Florence, naked, writhing on a bed of romaine, covered in his special brand of thick Italian dressing. The thought of it makes my bread rise. Soon enough, it is warm, thick and splay--ready for eating.

My penne arrabbiata was in a Chinese take-out container, which is weird, because Leona’s is an Italian Restaurant/Pizzeria. You’d think that the container would be something more fitting for Italian food, like maybe, you know, a gondola. But I can see why they opted for a Chinese take-out container. It’s cheap, just a piece of cardboard folded into a container--ingenious, really. It’s just one of those things that the Chinese have graciously shared with the world, like the fortune cookie, tofu and the classic ‘me rove you wroooong time!!!’

Most days, I half-expect not to find my food in the office fridge. Has someone ever stolen your lunch? Have you thought about taking somebody else's lunch?

Once, I had half a steak sandwich gone missing. This troubled me greatly. I wished that I had a photo of the sandwich so I could put up a “Have You Seen This Sandwich?” sign with the photo of my young, innocent sandwich and my phone extension on it. Instead, I had to settle for a description: ‘6 day-old steak sandwich, medium rare on foccacia, light mayo--no cheese, last seen lovingly wrapped in a pale yellow wax paper.’ They say that by individualizing the victim, it humanizes them to their captor.

This person had to be stopped. I mean, who who who but a sinister person would take some unknown co-worker’s food from the fridge and eat it? This person had no morals whatsoever and should be stopped before they molested some child like they molested my poor steak sandwich. Did they rub it on their privates before consuming that tender, seasoned flesh? My stomach turned at the thought.

It’s totally insane, just the idea of eating somebody else’s food. What if the person didn’t wash their hands after going to the bathroom before making the sandwich? What if it was made by a vengeful wife who peed into the spaghetti sauce after finding lipstick on her husband’s underwear? And oh-dear-god-in-heaven, what if it was a salad that had ICEBERG LETTUCE. Shock!

But my food was there, so I took the take-out container by its aluminum handle and put it in the microwave oven. I don’t know about you, but I like my food piping hot--scalding, if possible. I like to feel the sizzle; it’s more appetizing that way. I hate eating through my food and finding a cold middle. It’s almost like dating a Korean guy and finding out he can’t do calculus or my laundry. It’s annoying and somewhat disappointing.

I figured that five minutes should do it. Since I am always afraid of bacteria, I add an extra minute to kill off those tiny little buggers. 6-0-0, I punched into the keypad. Start.

I settled down with my current book, a real page-turner: Soon I Will Be Invincible, so I am quickly absorbed. The lunch room was empty so it was pretty quiet save for the low, steady hum of the microwave.

Then suddenly, a few minutes in, I smelled smoke. Looking up, I saw wisps of black smoke seeping out of the sides of the microwave’s door. I jumped up and flew across the room to shut it off.

The door of the microwave sprung open. Inside, the white container was black where the handle was attached, small embers forming around the super-heated aluminum. I grabbed the hot container and threw it into the kitchen sink, burning my fingers. I turned on the water.

The inside of the microwave was sooty. Panic rising, I close the door, took the wet container from the sink, threw it into the trash and ran out of the lunch room. I felt a bit like a criminal leaving a crime scene. I wished I had time to wipe down for fingerprints. Everybody’s a fucking CSI these days; forensics is the new porn.

An hour later, I passed some people in the hallway jabbering about the lunch room. I kept quiet, avoiding eye contact. I was afraid that my guilt, combined with my now-acute hunger, would show on my face.

Inexplicably, at around 330pm, I found myself back in the lunch room. The counter where the microwave sat, was bare; only a smoky outline the evidence of its existence. What was it they say? A criminal always returns to the scene of the crime?

My stomach rumbled and churned.

I was drawn to the refrigerator. I opened the door, staring at the contents. Now, my colleagues’ food are somehow different: enticing--sexy. With nervous fingers, I picked up somebody’s Gladware, peering inside. It looked like pad thai; bits of peanut clinging on the pale, translucent noodle strands.

I struggled briefly, then I put it back. Right then, I was that person who stole your lunch. A foodnapper. A snack pirate. A hamburglar.

Right then, I didn’t even care that there could’ve been, you know, pee in the pad thai...



I finished reading the book Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman and I loved it. This book is about a super-villain Doctor Impossible who escapes from a maximum-security prison, who despite several failures to take over the world, compulsively plots to do it again, like it was a tic. At one point, he finds himself blurting out “I. Am. A. GENIUS!” and then kicking himself afterwards for being so stereotypical. Meanwhile, his ex-girlfriend Lily (good? evil?) joins the equivalent of the Justice League. She, who has intimate knowledge of his personality. Would she help bring abut his defeat or is she a plant? This book is for you geeks. It’s funny, exciting and it fucking rocks.

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Other posts about work:

Things That Might Drive Joe To Crazyville - Guest blogger Joe rants about work. Flying Toasters - It is just another cruelty that there is no free coffee at work.

Solitary Confinement - My assignment honed my skills at goofing off. Three Hours - That's how long my commute was, each minute closer to my demise.

Check out my other recommendations, including "Books You Must Read" and "CDs for a Desert Island" here.

This Is Where I Self-Destruct

This is when I let my doubts, my insecurities into the room. Doubt sits at the foot the bed and Insecurity lies beside me, its head nestled on my stomach.

My boyfriend is asking me why I'm quiet. If I were trying to talk things over, if I were trying to make this right, I would answer him instead of giving him the silent treatment--my favorite argument tactic--because it's the only way to I know to resolve conflict in relationships in a totally, you know, mature way. I would make an effort to communicate and tell him why this bugs me and maybe we could come to an agreement.

In the early days of our relationship, I would've been more forthcoming, probably because I was afraid he would break up with me, which scared the shit out of me, because I was barely hanging on to 155 lbs. If he had broken up with me, it would've sent me in a tailspin and I would’ve ended up rock bottom, at bottom of a bag of potato chips, party size, for my party of one.

Why is it that when I am happy, I can't just be happy? I have to think about why I am happy, how much longer I will be happy and whether I should buy some more lube just in case this happiness last longer than another 20 minutes. At least when you're miserable, you could wallow in it. But whoever heard of wallowing in happiness? If you do, maybe you should check the dosage of your medication.

I have to ask myself: Is this going to last? Is he going to stop loving me? How much longer is he going to keep doing the laundry? I have become used to having him in my life. If we split up, how am I going to keep the evil telemarketers at bay?

How am I going to survive without knowing how to operate the dishwasher?

He alway pretends to be me when a telemarketer calls, "May I speak with Paul?" This is by the way, is a dead giveaway that the caller is a telemarketer. When my friends, my family call me, they say, "Wazzup, hookah??!?" Except of course, my grandma, who is quite genteel so she says, "What's going on with my little prostitute?"

I can't deal with telemarketers because I always end up buying whatever shit they are selling or answering totally insane and ridiculous surveys about the state of our Economy. I don't know why I can't do what any normal person would do and just scream obscenities into the phone and hang up. I just can’t do that.

Why am I mad?

I'm mad because he told his mother we'd have dinner with her at the Olive Garden without asking me. I mean, how could he, when I could've been planning some big fancy dinner for us with the package of baloney and an egg in our refrigerator. I mean, it wasn't that big a deal, but at least ask me--I would’ve said yes.

Now, I have to suffer through the 'endless salad and breadsticks,' tediously asking for an umpteenth refill. Then, I have to make sure I lined my man-purse with a large baggie so I could fill it 'leftover' bread and salad.

Yes, it made me angry, which is nuts because, like I said, I would’ve gone anyway. If this was the first year of our relationship, instead of the fifth, I would've even enthusiastically tried to think of a creative gift idea for her. After all, I would've still been trying to buy her affection, instead of merely tolerating her.

So instead, I give him the silent treatment, which by the way, is easier when you've just had botox. Later, I may even throw a fit or pick an argument, I don't know, depending on my mood and outfit. It's hard to act huffy when you're not wearing a feather boa or a pashmina.

Why do I do this? Why can't I let a relationship be? Why do I have to second-guess myself? Why do I have to question the status quo?

And whyohwhy do I let Doubt and Insecurity lie on my bed, especially when Doubt constantly sheds and Insecurity has fleas...


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Cary Tennis, that wise Salon.com sage advises a man from his dark thoughts which mirror my own.

Other related posts:

Detour - We carry our heavy emotional baggage through an SF airport. It Don't Smell Like Roses - I believed in the Happily Ever After. Boy, was I wrong.

Stuttering - You can't argue with a hot Marine who stutters. Girl, Interrupted - A national argument about a girlfriend in a coma.

Cheaper Sneakers

"They're turning kids into slaves 
                 just to make cheaper sneakers.
But what's the real cost? 
      'Cause the sneakers don't seem that much cheaper..."

"Think About It"
Flight of the Conchords

word.

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Other related posts:

The Assassin - A night with another comedian, Margaret Cho

A Blogless World - A slave to blogging, I imagine a world without blogs.

Watch the Video.

Death Wish

Don't you sometimes wish that somebody was dead, just because they have so much power over you? Someone maybe like, you know, like your boss, or your teacher, or like, Madonna? Yeah, sometimes I wish that Madonna were dead.

Ok not really, I am totally looking forward to her next album, even though Confessions on the Dancefloor left me a little cold.

But sometimes, I wish my mother were dead.

Is that horrible? You can say it, tell me I'm horrible, it's okay. Sometimes, I wish that Cher was dead too.

Ok, that's not really true either. You who have children know this; your kids have wished you dead a thousand times to your face for not letting them drive the car, play video games or to wear make-up to the boy scout troop.

I don't really want my mother to be dead. My mother is the only person in the world who can really get to me, she's the only one in the world who can put any kind of sense in my head. She's the only person in the world who can make me feel happy and sad and angry all at the same time.

In my last visit home in the Philippines, my mother drove me around town. She wouldn't let me drive her car, ever since I backed the car into the garage door. What? I was fifteen but I was paying attention and totally looking at the rearview mirror, you know, at my hair.

And as we usually do while we're in the car, we were having an argument about my financial situation, my "bachelorhood," my eclectic choices in deodorant. The conversation would go from a discussion of what diets we were on, to how long to hard-boil an egg, to why-the-hell-aren't-you-married-yet? Sometimes it would go exactly like that, except without the first two topics.

It's a touchy subject, one that nobody in my family would ever have the nerve to bring up sober--or at least when I'm sober.

When I'm drunk, then it's free game where all the old aunties come by and sit around and they all start planning my big fat heterosexual wedding. I don't have the heart to tell them that I would never get married unless there were Limoges china involved. And a shotgun. And the girl had a penis.

My mom brings it up at every opportunity, as if my "sell by" date is fast approaching, that if I don't get married soon, I would have to be marked down for a quick sale. She doesn't know that in local circles, I am already cheaper than a whore with no boobs and a crystal meth habit. She thinks that the right girl will "turn" me back, back into a werewolf with my bushy unibrow and untrimmed man-lawn. Which is sad, but I think she prefers that. She prefers me with wild bushy pubic hair. Mothers. Sigh.

I remember the day my younger sister got married, my mother was so radiant, so happy, you'd think it was her own wedding day. We were all having a wonderful time, drinking, laughing. My mother was in her element. She was able to marry off one of her four children. I think that she thought that we would all get married in succession, inevitable, like time or tide. Or herpes.

That was ten years ago, my sister is still the only married one of her children.

Sometimes, when I think about my mother, it makes me really sad, especially when I think that if something were to happen to her, I will not be by her side. Even if I rush on the next flight to the Philippines from Chicago, it will be 16 hours, 45 minutes and a smelly cab ride too late.

Once, I woke up in the middle of the night and thought that I was back home, until my eyes adjusted to the darkness and realized that I was not. It filled me with a small despair; I could not walk out of my bedroom and find my mother's bedroom down the hall.

The thought of my mother slipping away from the world scares me, and I wish--don't think me callous (even though I don't blame you if you do)--that she was already gone, the grief already behind me, because I don't know that it will ever be behind me.

This distance from my mother and my family is an ache in me. It is always with me, like a pebble in my shoe. If my Mom were to be gone, I would miss that ache, that pebble.

Mom, I wish you can be with me forever.


I had debated whether to put up this post. Most of the time, when I write, I don’t censor myself, I let my thoughts wander freely. This was supposed to be my Mother’s Day post and I was in sort of a mood when I wrote it.

Did I go too far? I feared that mothers might launch a vendetta against me, or conspire to give me a bad perm. When I asked my boyfriend to read it, he said it to was too dark, which I kinda knew, especially since we were both sitting in the living room with the lights off.

To heck with it, let it be posted. You tell me if I crossed the line.

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Engagement - On her deathbed, my grandmother schemed to get my dad married off. Letter From Home - I come across a letter from my mother which tugs my heartstrings.

voyeur - I stumble on a train wreck of a blog, of someone who wishes he were dead. My Sister, The Hurricane - The baby of our family fulfills our genetic destiny.

Cary Tennis of Salon.com advises a man who can't get home before his mother dies.

Because It's About You

(c) 2005 The New Yorker

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you were born and so you're free - Take a wonderful, dark and poetic journey, from deathbed to oblivion, written and drawn by Anders Nilsen.

Cartoons - The New Yorker cartoons slay me. These are ones which have appeared in this site over the years.

Day After Pride

Previously: The Love Parade

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My friend Daniel who has never been to a Gay Pride parade declined to join us in yesterday’s festivities, demurring that while he's gay, he's "not the 'out and proud' type of guy," which is quite sad, because I think that every gay person in the world should be proud of who they are and own at least five pieces of tacky Gay Pride accessories to prove it. Just one piece less is just not proud enough for me.

It is quite understandable really, for someone such as Daniel, who had only recently come out of the closet, with his oversized hockey jerseys which he wears as clubwear still hanging on the rod, to feel that he's not ready to celebrate the person inside. It’s scary to come to such a public event where anybody can see you and assume that just by standing in the throng, you are totally depraved and immoral and you use your anal canal as an alternative habitat for gerbils.

I used to think that way myself. My friends had to encourage me, to cajole me and then to threaten to hold me down and put blue eyeshadow on me before I gave in and went. And even then, I had to wear something that wouldn't scream 'gay' so much in case I ran into some co-workers or something. I had to wear something that guaranteed no one would ever suspect I was gay: I wore black socks with white tennis shoes.

Going to the parade almost felt like the first time I walked into a gay bar. The first time I went to a gay bar, I drove around the bar fifteen times, around the same block, over and over, trying to psych myself into, you know, parallel parking. What? It was downtown Chicago and back then I lived in the burbs.

Before I went in, I had crazy visions of the bar having posts instead of bar stools to sit on; of seven feet tall drag queens with hairy arms; of old men coming up to me and pulling down my pants and sucking on my dick without taking their dentures out first. I was scared shitless. I learned later that scared shitless was actually a good thing, because getting your shit all over somebody's cock is just soo embarrassing. I had yet to learn to douche.

At least only gay people went to gay bars. If I ran into someone I knew there, we could hold each other under mutual blackmail threats to protect our 'straight' identities.

But the Gay Pride parade was a public event. People were armed with cameras like hookers were armed with crabs. Your face could pop up in some lesbian couple's slideshow along with their photos at the Wiccan/Summer Solstice/Monster Truck festival. I was afraid that WGN, the local TV station, would have a film crew there and inadvertently zoom into me with the caption "MEN WHO LICK EACH OTHERS' HAIRY ASSHOLES." I sweated bullets, looking frantically around to make sure there wasn't a film crew or lesbian close by.

But it was hard to stay guarded when it was plain to see that nobody was concerned about me; everybody was truly happy to be there and everybody was having fun. Even the straight guys mugged for the cameras and posed with some of the more flamboyant costumes. They were embraced despite their black socks with white tennis shoes.

Yesterday, my brother Peter, my identical twin--also gay--was on his company's float. His company, a large multi-national conglomerate, with their corporate logo prominently emblazoned, sponsored a float for their gay employees, providing a ton of free swag and samples to the crowds, which meant that every person and their greedy hands were trying to get free shit from somebody who looks exactly like me. Everybody pays attention when there's free shit, right Joe? I wasn't even fazed by the idea. I just wanted to make sure he saved me some swag.

I have come to realize that the Pride parade is a rite of gay passage, like the first gay Circuit Party or that first gay bikini wax, and that even though the thought is daunting, it is something every gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered person must experience at least once. You cannot imagine the sense of freedom, of exhilaration, of total immersion.

It's like, if you're ready to be seen by 500,000 people as who you are, then, I think you're ready to join the world. I think you're ready to be free.

It's no big deal Danny, really, I promise. I hope next year you'll be able to join the rest of us at the parade.

Or I'll hold you down and put blue eyeshadow on you.

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I AM QUEER - and you're a total fag. A Little Less Lonely - Once upon a time, my twin and I lived separate lives.

Mistaken Identity - Switching identities with my twin: a desperate fantasy. I AM The Evil Twin - Okokok, my secret identity is out, now read about why I'm eeeevil.

The Love Parade

"I don't know why you have to have a float with a giant, twelve foot long penis on it with fifteen guys, all in speedos, humping it to the beat of It's Raining Men," said my co-worker Jamie. "It's the Gay Pride Parade isn't it, not the Penis Pride Parade? I know some men are proud of the size of their manhood, but this is ridiculous."

"I'm all about sexual freedom," she continued, "I support gay marriage! I have been taking my son Alvin to the Parade every year since he was born. This year, he's four and I'm not sure that after this year, I can still take him to the parade, which is sad because I want him to grow up accepting the community that his beloved aunts Robyn and Dani belong to."

I looked around my cubicle to see if her exasperation carried over to the neighboring cubes. While I am out at work, I don't trumpet my fagginess by starting every meeting with some zingy appetizers and mojitos. My cubicle looks exactly like everybody else's in my department except for the dildo I use as a paperweight.

Everybody seemed to be enslaved by their monitors, which surprised me. I would've been standing next to whoever uttered the word "penis" to see what the fuss was about.

"But Jamie," I soothed, "this is our parade, this is what we want the parade to be. I understand that our straight friends may think that some of the people in the parade are overtly sexual, and maybe even downright disgusting, but it's us. Hey, I was totally appalled by the Smelts last year. God, won't they let men's capri pants go already? It's dead. Let it goooo."

"But a giant penis? That's practically pornographic!" she exclaimed. "If gay people want to be accepted by society, this is not exactly the way to grandma's heart. For the Gay Movement, it's like one step forward, two steps back."

"No, Jamie," I corrected her. "It's one step forward, two steps back, tap-tap-kick, then jazz hands," shaking my hands to illustrate. "Plus, I always thought of the Gay Movement as sort of sashaying, checking out the scenery and eventually getting to the party, rather than marching forward with blinders on."

"But why does it have to be about sex?" Jamie asked, "Why does it have to be the sex parade? Why can't it be the love parade? Alvin just loves his aunts Robyn and Dani dearly and has never known them to be anything other than being together. When I look at my friends, I don't see them having sex, I see their loving relationship."

"Have you looked in the bottom drawer in their bedroom?" I inquired slyly, "maybe that will change your mind about them having sex."

"Look," I said, "the parade is not for kids; It's not for people with narrow views; It's not for people who have strong body odor, although a lot of them manage to go to the parade and stand right next to me."

"The parade is going to have giant penises on floats. It's going to have bare-breasted women on motorcycles. It's going to have the local gay church float. It's going to have PFLAG. And it's going to have that damn fucking two-story Jewel shopping cart!"

"But I want to take Alvin!" She wailed, "I want Alvin to learn! Why can't there be a family-friendly parade during the day and the X-rated stuff at night?"

"Because society can't choose which part of us it likes and what it doesn't," I said. "I'm glad you're going to take Alvin this year, but maybe next year, you won't be able to take him, unless you're ready to answer some pretty hard questions, like why is a giant penis on a float bad? Or better yet, why is sex bad? Why can't we talk about it openly and in public? Why can't it be in a parade in the middle of the day?"

We left it there. I could see her honest consternation as she went back to her cubicle.

Jamie and her husband are taking four year-old Alvin this year to the parade, along with his favorite aunts.

I truly hope that she would bring Alvin again next year, and the next year, and the year after that.



Next: Day After Pride


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We're here! We're queer! Read about it:

Turnabout - Harriet interviews No Milk about Gay Rights and blogging. Why Change? - Tortured homos find their way back to heterosexuality. Pride - A Gay Pride Cartoon.

Catalyst - It's the 2004 Presidential Elections and I feel fine. Lucky - I was lucky to survive my tumultous teen years. Bill wasn't. The Gay Experience - Gay rights are fabulous and hard to contain.

Leftovers

On any given day, you could look into my refrigerator and find a whole slew of leftovers. Like today for instance, there’s egg foo yung and chicken fried rice from the local Ms. Egg Roll #2; spaghetti with marinara sauce that I made a couple of nights ago; a half-eaten chicken leg.

There was also a single piece of futomaki, which I took home from Nohana. The waitress looked at me strangely when I requested to take that futomaki home, but nevertheless put the piece into a huge styrofoam take-home box. It was maybe twenty times the size of the futomaki.

Inside of me, a war waged between feelings of waste from the excess packaging for my single piece of sushi and the knowledge that the same single piece could feed a starving family in Ethiopia or both the Olsen twins for a week. It was worth it; I resolved to re-use the styrofoam packaging somehow. Maybe if I collect enough of them, I could use it to make some kind of Christmas ornament that I could give friends that I no longer want to hang out with.

But I will say this: I will take home food from a restaurant no matter how small the morsel.

This is probably because I inherited my sense of frugality from my father; who believed that nothing should be wasted; that every cent should be considered. Thus, I can never throw anything away. And sometimes, when I walk past a dumpster, I have an urge to look in there and see if there's something I can rescue: an old lamp, second-hand romance novels, some newly married guy’s discarded porn collection.

I also believe that my fridge has magickal qualities in that anything I put in there can last through the next Ice Age--which I hear is currently in production at DreamWorks. Barring an unforeseen power outage, my leftovers are safe. I put my faith in this the way a televangelist puts his faith in the almighty dollar.

Unfortunately, my boyfriend is one of those people who refuses to eat leftovers because he doesn't believe in it, which makes me have to be sneaky.

Easy enough, I suppose, if you take the leftovers and make it into an omelet, a frittata or a casserole. Sometimes a dish could be separated into parts, and the parts stir-fried in with vegetables, noodles or rice. I'm sure each of you have your own recycling techniques. If I knew how to make futomaki, believe me, the leftover halibut would find itself cut up and folded into a roll.

When I eat leftovers, I know I am my father's son. It takes me back to the days when he would cook dinner, in huge vats. Whatever it was, we would chow down, stuff ourselves and eat it with relish. It's strange I know, but relish goes with everything, not just hotdogs. Usually, there would still be enough for a couple more days. I don't know if Dad cooked because he wanted to show off his culinary skill or because he just loved cooking for us.

I'd like to believe that it was the latter.

I know that as I sit down to eat my single futomaki, my cold egg foo yung, my half-eaten chicken leg, my father is also eating something from his fridge, maybe a lone, orphaned meatball, or something leftover from another meal, another time.

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Shame - My father told me not to embarrass my ancestors. Yes, my dead ancestors. They Found Nemo! - Finally.

My First Beer - My father told me that this was the only way I could grow hair on my chest. Rock Bottom - When you've fished food out of the trash, then you know you've hit rock bottom.

An Open Letter To My Boyfriend

My Dearest,

When I farted in the middle of your political discussion of the War in Iraq, it wasn’t because I was belittling your opinions. It was because I was bending over the sink to spit out toothpaste. That happens sometimes when one bends over.

This is you trying to make a point: you follow me around the house, telling me what you think, turning the topic this way and that until something sticks. You follow me into the bathroom where you stand outside the shower stall while I take a shower, then you keep at it as I brush my teeth, which incidentally is not very pretty.

As you know, when I brush my teeth, my mouth gets extremely frothy and the toothpaste/saliva mixture starts flowing out the side of my mouth in rivulets and goes down the toothbrush, down my wrist, my forearm. It flows towards my elbow but drips down to the sink before reaching it. I can't help it that my mouth overproduces saliva. I wish I were one of those people on TV who can brush their teeth without making a mess.

You of course are quite appreciative of this trait of mine because it benefits you. My wet mouth comes in handy when I have to lick stuff, you know, like envelops during the holidays--you have an awful lot of relatives. It also only comes in handy for blowjobs, but you knew that.

Here's another thing: I know that when we have sex, you think about somebody else. I can tell by the way you look over my shoulder to watch porn. It's soo obvious. But I guess, I have to count my blessings because it's just porn. But if you have to think about an actual person when we're having sex, please please please think of someone with six-pack abs, because I can't bear it if you think of a dumpy guy in my place--it would just kill my self-esteem.

I also wish you would stop calling me "snookums" because I am no one's "snookums." I feel like it's not respectful of my masculinity, my personhood, my humanity. It's offensive to me, degrading even, and I don't know why you can't call me something appropriate, you know, like "you fucking chink." Coz that totally turns me on.

And finally, it's not a criticism of your dancing technique if I move away from you when you start your cowboy-lassoing-a-calf routine, especially when you throw your lasso in the air towards the cute shirtless guy across the dancefloor. I just don't want to get trampled by your invisible horse.

I hope you understand.

Your fucking chink,
P.

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I'm Going To Tell You A Secret - My definition of True Love. Plus: Madonna's cameltoe.

The Freedom to Fart - I once dated a guy who forbade me to fart. Then he broke my heart.

softer, softest.

One of the things that I never thought about as my body hurtles itself into old age and into oblivion is how expensive it is to get old.

For example, I never used to use lotion on my supple, unlined, 26 year-old pink skin. Okokok, I lied, my skin isn't pink, it's yellow--I'm Asian after all. But I'm really really 26, or at least that's what my gay.com profile says. But don't look at my myspace page for my age because I lied there too.

At this point in my life, I lie about my age online because it's the only way people will think that I'm still slutty. Most gay people hardly believe that somebody over 35 is still having any sex at all, which is totally ridiculous. I totally had sex, I think, last month. Besides, after being together with my boyfriend for over 5 years, I’d rather call “sex” by it’s real name, “blackmail.” When I am less cynical, I call it “coercion.”

Of course, I didn’t tell my boyfriend this is what I called sex, the poor dear. My boyfriend had forgotten to take out the garbage yet again so of course I had to punish him by making him have sex with me.

I'm just glad the boyz in the gay bars actually still see me standing there--but i'm not really sure if it's because of me or my pink feathered headress. Sometimes I stand there with my freakishly muscled chest and nobody even looks at me.

Isn't it ironic? Really, you spend all of your gay youth lamenting that all the guyz are too immature and want only sex instead of a relationship. I know, I was one of them. I wouldn't date anybody over 30, absolutely no exceptions. It was really not that wonderful because none of the guys I dated ever had more than $30 in their pocket anyway. And you know what? If i had to live it over again, I'd do it totally different. Totally. I would definitely date people over 30. But nobody over 31--please, I have my standards.

But trust me, we aging queens aren't much better. We spend all this money trying to look young and then, guess what? WE DON'T WANT TO DATE OLDER MEN. I know I don't.

Why waste my Botox money on old, wrinkly men? That's like spending money on a hooker and then asking him to cuddle. If I spend money on a hooker, you can bet that there will be lots of dirty stuff going on, like cleaning my toilet and the scrubbing the soap scum in my bathtub. Cuddling--bah! Besides, a hooker's cheaper than a cleaning lady, especially if you get one that's strung out on crystal meth.

I never used lotion when I was younger because I always thought it was too greasy; it made my skin feel like a fried egg or Sanjaya’s hair. But now, I find that dryness has invaded me: my hands, my lips, the back of my throat. Lubrication is clearly needed if I were to keep my title as Best Blowjob by an Asian in Chicago. By the way, I’m available for ribbon cuttings, inaugurations and grocery store events--just call my publicist at his office/escort service agency.

Now, I have a bottle of lotion sitting on my desk at work. I have a bottle of lotion in my car, just in case I get into an accident. What? I don’t want the doctor to see my ashy knees. I’d rather die with holes in my underwear than that.

It’s strange. Moisture came so easily. My skin was easily softer than a goose’s down or a baby’s bottom. Its softness could rival the softest, limpest dick. Now it’s leather, leather that no coaxing by expensive cremes, lotions or salves can mollify...

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Isn't It Ironic? - A challenge to readers on the definition of 'irony.'

Thank U, Alanis - An Alanis concert brings back bad memories.