the sweetest tongue

Time to Find Center and Recollect.

Sunday, June 4th, 2006 | blog entry, faggy tendencies, journal, life | No Comments

Yay! Two days off!

I have not done grocery shopping in 3 weeks.

My laundry baskets are full.

I have a sudden raving for ramen noodles.

It is time to sit back, relax for a minute, find my center, and jumpstart myself again.

Back to the Island

Thursday, April 6th, 2006 | family issues, journal, life | 1 Comment

I took three days off from work this week to go back to Puerto Rico for the Chinese Tradition of Tomb-Sweeping Day. Very similar to El Dia de Los Muertos, it is a day in which Chinese families get together to pay respects and give offerings to our deceased loved ones at their graves. In our long history in Puerto Rico, we have four immediate members of our family buried in a cemetery here in the municipality of Bayamon, both of my paternal grandparents, a first cousin, and my own father.

We flew in on Sunday morning, the whole family minus one sibling, the older brother. The younger sisters, thanks to the wonders of nationwide cellular plans, immediately found and contacted their friends for plans for the day. Personally, I knew that few of my friends, if any, were around, so I spent a good part of the day being grumpy from lack of sleep and trying to adjust to the heat of the tropical island.

One interesting note: Sundays seem to be the perfect day to shop, regardless of whether you are in Atlanta, or in Puerto Rico. You’d think that the shorter open hours would dissuade people, but people seem to want to look for any excuse to not stay at home. They built a new highway in Carolina here, leading straight to a Belz Factory Outlet in Canovanas (I think?), and thanks to poor road signs (some things never change), we made the mistake of taking that route instead of the usual Carretera 3 to our home in Carolina, not once, but twice in these few few days. For some people, it is an excuse to do some more shopping. I was grumpy and had the look of death walking through the Outlet.

Interestingly enough, my Sidekick worked, connecting immediately to SunCom, a smaller cellular company, since T-mobile does not have an official presence here. All of my data services worked just fine, and soon I was sending e-mails and getting on AIM, you know, the social thing to do.

Monday was an interesting day. I decided to do the alumnus thing and visit my old high school in the Condado. Saint John’s School is on its way to completing its plans it started my senior year of high school in 2002 for developing the school into an even better institution. It was a bit awkward seeing old faces again, students and teachers alike, and of course it was weird telling people that I was taking a break from school. So much definitely has changed in four years.

I bought souvenirs for friends in the Condado, walking down the stretch of Condado Ave., visiting souvenir shops, eating mango gelato, and getting vanilla lattes from Starbucks. I still find it weird ordering a vanilla latte in Spanish in Puerto Rico, a place famous for its own local coffee.

Having some time to kill, I decided to do somethign I would have been too busy to do in Atlanta. I stopped by a small tattoo and piercing parlor recommended by a school friend, and got those nipple piercings I always wanted. Kind of random, right? I got these barbells inserted, and I like them very much. Did they hurt? They hurt exactly as much as you think having your nipples pierced would hurt. I had the guy to give me a heads up before insertion, and I went to my happy place. I think while he was making the exit puncture on my right nipple, I let out a moan.

The highlight of the trip, besides the nipples, was seeing Rinell, my best gay friend in PR from my high school days, for the first time in four years. We kept in contact through e-mails, phone, IMs, and most recently through MySpace, and seeing that crazy sonavabitch and catching up was great. We only got to spend some time at a Starbucks (where else?), but I think it was worth it. He will be heading back to New York soon, so I will catch up with him again hopefully soon.

So what’s a trip to the island without some great car-trip drama? The family spent a good amount of time in the car on Monday night, and especially on Tuesday. On Monday night, we drove to Ceiba on the easternmost northern tip of the island to visit a cousin’s family, and we stayed the night in our beach villa at Rio Mar. On Wednesday, we went to San Patricio in Guaynabo, west of San Juan, to visit family at the one remaining restaurant of my father’s chain, and then we headed out west, to Mayagüez, on the westernmost part of the island.

to be continued…..

Sometimes I do miss home.

Sunday, March 12th, 2006 | faggy tendencies, life, rant | 1 Comment

Sometimes, while browsing online gay hookup sites (I have no shame, so what?), I do a search in areas I used to live in. Sometimes I see people I used to know, either acquaintances (who knew he was a submissive bottom?), or past fucks.

The joy is in seeing people as they have progressed over time. Of course, I know these online personals and ads do not show the full personality or their backstories, but online personals on hookup sites can be some of most raw and honest information you can know about a person. I mean, you don’t exactly share the fact that you like threeways with other people, right?

So call me a stalker already.I prefer “data-miner”.

Well, I did a search for people in Puerto Rico, and I got quite a few people, surprisingly. In hindsight, it seems that the places with the smallest, most closeted gay/lesbian communities have the biggest affinity for these online sites. I remember being in my early teens in Puerto Rico and feeling like the only gay community there was was online, especially in Gay.com chat rooms and IRC. I remember seeing people in these chat rooms that I had seen in person, either at some inter-school events and competitions, and being so excited, as if I was happy that my gaydar was developing well. Even as a kid, the smallest things filled me with glee.

So I did this search today, for people in Puerto Rico, and as I browsed through the results, i realized a few things. That the same people I saw years ago on other sites and chat rooms were still around and kicking (some with the same pics, natch). I The language is still the same, and there are the same closeted husbands and the horny people online. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever see my first, a guy I had my first tryst with, he was 20, and I was 15, and we saw each other, on and off for two years. He also had the unfortunate habit of having some pedophiliac tendencies, and the best compliment he ever paid me was that I was the only one above the age of 15 he still liked to fuck.

Like I said, as a kid, even the smallest things filled me with glee.

Fags-in-training and Health Scare

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006 | faggy tendencies, life | 1 Comment

While walking in the mall today, I saw a fag-in-training. A young boy of around 10 years old, hair slicked back, bluetooth headset in one ear, snappily dressed, and carrying a Louis Vuitton bag.

I guess we start recruiting early. jk.

Also something interesting today. After lunch, I started to experience a weird numbness on my lips. By evening, it had spread to my lower right gums, and my lower right chin area.

Being the hypochondriac that I am, I started to feel queasy, tired, and I even had a spontaneous nosebleed. I told the Princess that I would be fine, even though inside I was a bit shaken and unnerved.

By mid-evening, I’m convinced it must have been a weird food allergy. We’ll see how it feels by morning.

Ciao.

Change of Locale

Thursday, August 11th, 2005 | life | No Comments

Since I have no time on my working days to work on my freelance stuff, and I have yet to purchase a desk and chair from a certain Swedish Affordable Furniture/Lifestyle Company, I have decided that I shall find locales where I can concentrate, and let the creative juices flow.

That of course rules out Outwrite, because a man who can actually get work done in there must have an iron sense of concentration, or a boyfriend who plugs him satisfactorily every morning, day, and night.

And since I’m not the latter, I decided to stop by this cool coffeeplace called octane on Marietta Street. A coffee bar & lounge, octane has a very industrial-chic look. Bright Eyes was playing when I got in, and it reminded me so much of Diesel Cafe in Davis Square, my place of refuge when I spent that one summer in Boston.

The clientele is undeniably young, hip, and creative. The place itself is located in a reviving warehouse/loft area at the intersection of Howell Mill and Marietta Street, with some urban chic apartments popping up around it. There are also quite a few imaging/graphic design companies in the area too. The high ceilings of lofts is quite en vogue amongst designer circles now.

I had two chai-lattes, and one of their panini sandwiches, a prosciutto/cheese/basil lovely served with terra chips. You can also request a mug, if you want to save a tree. The employees are nice and warm, and cute, in a very “hipster” kind of way.

I also got a big chunk of my planned work done, and I think i shall be back here soon.

Oh, The Queen Would be So proud

Tuesday, June 21st, 2005 | life | 1 Comment

At this very moment, I am sitting on my couch, with a facial mask on, and with the TV on the Food Network.

I REALLY want to go to the Dear Friends: music from Final Fantasy concert at the Atlanta Symphony Hall this weekend, but the work schedule just came out, so I will have to pass.

Speaking of work, I wonder just how big of a queen I come off as. Well, I am sitting on my couch with a facial mask on, so it shouldn’t be too hard to tell. Sure, I might not be the faggiest one, but in such high-stress situations, I do have a tendency to queen out. Two things make me queen out: Stress and Baking. i throw up my hands (and maybe legs) in the air in periods of stress and there is nothing more comforting than doing that, “shaking” your pressure away. We queens gots it good.

I came back from work yesterday, and looking at the thundering sky, I made it a night to stay in, turning on TMC, watching The Bells of St Mary’s, starring Bing Crosby. There’s something rustic about spending a night in and watching a classic black & white film. Too bad there’s no one to enjoy it with me. I made international phone calls to my family who is vacationing overseas in Asia. I’m not jealous. I got sick of air travel LONG ago.

This weekend should be interesting with the major influx of fags and dykes coming in for Atlanta Pride. I do not know if I should run off and hide, or come out and play. For me too many people = anxiety. I always end up doing the opposite of what I should do.

yeah, i know the redesign whould’ve been up by now. I’m just putting it off. I’m having trouble still coming up with the right color palette to complement the green I chose.

Toodles! My half hour with the mask is up!

Spring break decisions.

Sunday, March 6th, 2005 | life | 3 Comments

I will be using one of my days off for an extra day of work, totally of my own will.

New York is out, partly because of poor planning and just my inability to relax. Inside, I know I would rather be cleaning up the kitchen and baking, instead of enjoying some sort of debauchery on the streets of New York. Getting drunk and singing Cher songs on karaoke at a bar is so old. I did that last night. At Mary’s. Where one boy with a striped dark shirt, dark-rimmed glasses and nice short hair caught my eye but all I could do was drink Alex’s Long Island and turn red.

I think my goal for my Spring Break is to, besides doing some relaxing, try to finish up some of the work I have been putting aside from school. Finish up the semester project using Outwrite as my subject, and creating something fabulous, hopefully.

Bought myself a new mouse, and I have been drawing again recently. I realized how much I miss creating illustrations and figures, and then splashing colors onto them. Texture is the word I want to use to drive my new works.

Adieu

It’s snowing!

Tuesday, March 1st, 2005 | life | 2 Comments

Well, at least it was. The sight of snowflakes outside my window gave my heart a jump of terror/joy.

And now it is sunny. Flash snowfalls just tease me.