the anatomy of a freak FOUR<- because the last one didn't count

maybe i'm sociably awkward because i grew up in environments that didn't do jack shit to help them grow and prosper. i had that horrendous run-in with the family in texas where all i really got was a couple inches off my waist and a tongue-lashing for every wrongdoing i could manage. surely, anything would be an upgrade to that, right?

wrong.

it's hard to compress two years of my life into a few short paragraphs, but i don't really want to spend anymore time than i have to at this point. it's even hard to really look back upon it, because there's so much turmoil and such little resolution, it's the first dark age of my life.

things were hard from the beginning. everyone knew my tendencies for screwing up and everyone thought they had the fool-proof way of getting me to stop. my sister and her husband, well, theirs were the worse. second to no one, hands down psychological abuse was carried out and tested in that house. power trips and exertion of authority ran rampant with not a single roadblock to stop it.

i remember being grounded a lot. sure, it might sound like a laughing matter, but i can count the number of weekends that school year i wasn't grounded.. all on one hand. i couldn't play during the week. kids would come to my house and ask if i could go outside, my sister would answer the door with a resounding 'no'. the smallest fouls would have the refs sending flags flying all over the field.

my friend had a trip to the water park that i was looking forward to. planned a month in advanced, and i made extra sure to be careful as to not get grounded that week. the day before, i was told to vacuum the house, and after inspection, it was declared that i didn't vacuum my room. [cough] i did the whole house, let me count it; two stories, the living room, dining room, office, hallways, master bedroom, my room, guests room one and two, all the closets, and the mats in all the bathrooms. i would do all those, but skip out on my room, which is a mere 15x15 with a queen bed in the middle of it?

i was being falsely accused and had the only thing i was using to get me through taken away from me at the last moment. that water park signified salvation. that water park told me that maybe it's not so bad, maybe they're doing it for my own good and the lack of positive reinforcement is paying dividends.. but i was stupid and naive, and things got worse because at that point, maybe i saw that no matter what i did, i couldn't win.

my grades started to slip, and if it's possible, the punishments got more severe. my brother in-law actually forced me to set up the camcorder, and record myself doing homework for the entire duration of tape, until my sister got home from work. no lie, i sat at the table, with a camcorder transfixed on me, for three hours a day. monday-friday, i sat for three hours doing homework under the eye of my guardians.

with the passing weeks, my psyche declined as my grades rose. the fight in me was lost, the once defiant youngster was merely a facsimile of its former self, now one without much a soul and without meaning and without something, someone to make sense of it all. the world became a dark chasm without a light in the horizon.

and then one day, after school, i ran away from home.

the contrast is startling

life tends to offer startling contrast.. to what? to everything. our happiness, our hopes, our dreams, everything.

the things that are supposed to make us happy in turn are the things that drive us into the ground. i know you've heard it, 'the things we own in turn own us.'

i'm selling my carl zeiss glass. as nice as it is, juggling the ownership of the lens or seeing my friends this holiday, it's a nobrainer. i can always buy the lens, it'll always be there and be available, but living, breathing human beings are a touch more fleeting, especially when they take a liking to you :D

if you saw my camera list, you can easily see the tight spot it put me in for the amount of money i spent on it all. one thing led to another, and accumulation became the name of the game, seeing how much i can get rather than thinking of how i can create beautiful imagery with what i already have in my possession.

learning how to want, that's an amiable goal to have. being happy with what we have, that sounds like a nice way to live. loving life and not toiling with its intricacies too much, that's something to strive for.

in gawd we trust

i needz money for chaunauka and kwanzaa. anyone want to front me moolah?

i don't have a picture for this

but godamnit, i'm going to more black parties.

body weavin' bumpin' grindin'

the juice was week, and the dj was.. bad.

but the people. standard north philly basement. no more than 20ft wide, 100ft in length, FILLED to the brim with bodies. and when you get than many bodies in one room exerting all that energy, it fills up like a sauna and before you know it, you're sweating from head to toe, your thighs burn because that girl your dancing with makes it insistent that she try to impregnate herself with her clothes on and you're pushing back so hard, you start to chafe.

and it's all night. next song, you move on. the bitch clowns you, you move on. fight your way through the crowd, so much contact you swear its molestation is the lowest form. you move on. slide right up behind a girl and start bumpin' away, and if she's feelin' you, it's on for the next 5 minutes, you're her man. fucking with your clothes on, that's what it looks like. you're against the wall, her ass digging so far into your crotch, it's deep penetration without the penetration. she's bent over, a lyrical doggy-style going down.

you take a seat, and someone will come sit on your lap, grind away as the beat goes and the record skips, because hey, the dj is sub par. but even in those 5 seconds of silence, she keeps going as if it never stopped. she goes like it got louder.

and on and on..

big sky

something with the setting sun that connects you to your soul.

shhhh, don't ruin the moment with philosophical babble, hieu!

just know you feel at peace.. ahhhhh, that's nice :D

UGH

apologies end here. questions end here. snapshot, this is it. silver bromide set into the emulsion of the film, exposed, finished. no going back, because life has no reverse.

reaching a lil here;

if you didnt expect me to do anything, how did you expect YOURSELF to feel?

well, when you showed some positive feedback after i left, i felt great. i thought that we were going to be fine that things were going to go along as they were. then the bottom came out from underneath my feet.

Thanh and I have been together for almost 4 years. If it were 4 months, that would have been different.

how would it have been different? i conceded to your relationship with him, and wanted nothing to change on your end. had the letter still remained, i made my position more than known.

I complain about him alot, I know. Maybe i shouldnt have complained to you.

maybe you should, because it makes me aware of the situation in your life, which is what i'm ultimately concerned with in this ordeal.

Maybe I wasnt ready for such a confession, in such little time we've known each other. It caught me off guard SO much, you dont even know. I guess I had a feeling that you somewhat liked me.. but not all of that. I respect you so much. I dont want to hurt your feelings, HP.

that's me. but you won't tell me how it caught you off guard. i'm unaware of your feelings, because you haven't spoken with me, and i'm still in the dark. i would know if you told me. and you know what? i had a feeling you liked me. all i hear is how involved you are with thanh, but little of how involved you are with me. he's not the grunt of our situation, it's you and me in this ordeal.

and the respect, what have i done to earn it? i don't even know what it is you respect in me, and as far as my feelings are concerned, i've done enough on my own right, you can't hurt them much more.

and recently;

what did you expect me to do after you told me?

nothing. take my feelings and lock them away. they're safer kept out of the light.

it seemed as if you, jokingly but seriously, wanted to kinda say good bye..

not true. i wouldn't do such an outright thing at this point in my life. friends are precious and are few and far in between.

You wanted a response. You wanted a reaction.

response, maybe, with time. reaction, no.

A reaction? Its what you live for, isnt it?

i live for the moment, not the moment to come. reactions are all occurrences to an action, the latter of which i'm much more interested in.

You wanted to freak me out, take a risk, and see if your life would change..

i need stability in my life right now. i risked it, but i felt the need to. trust me, this isn't working out for me anymore than it is for you.

it being for the better, or worse. Didnt really matter to you, right. You'll move on.

life's biggest tragedy is life itself. instead of us feeling hurt about something worth aching over, we're feeling badly about something we have direct control over. i no longer do, but it's in your hands now. moving on is a requirement whether we feel it's time to or not, that's the reality, not the way i want it to be.

I still dont know what you want. I dont know how to be the same person dude. I dont. Dont hate me for it. I dont like myself that much right now. you put me in a wierd position. i still want to be friends.. but i dont know how.

i want you back as my friend. i'm sticking out my neck to make it happen with shaken heads along the way. maybe it's too much to ask for the same phung the first time around, BUT CHANGE IS IMMINENT AND UNAVOIDABLE. wouldn't you agree that we have these experiences that shape and make us who we are? that maybe our friendship had to have this fucking bump in the road? either it would rattle us apart or test our resolve, and as much water as i'm throwing off the ship to keep it afloat, it almost seems like you're ready to go overboard.

i don't hate you. i still like you. a lot. as a friend. you were my emotional dump off, and the reason you brought your issues to me is because i was equally effective as being yours. i was pretty hurt these past few days because i thought i effectively killed a good thing. you're not the only one in the weird position, but i'm moving out of it.

so here it is. questions answered, feelings revealed. regrets, desires, fulfillments, all laid bare.

a boy without mischief is like..

..fall without foliage.

I wonder if the coming of the fall has any significance to me at this point. The ending of a season ushered in by the death of those things we find beautiful surrounding us. The dying in itself is graceful and profound, very much unlike what we normally experience when things die.. which is usually something horrendously violent, grief-filled, desperate, and always with a helping of body fluids. Yummy.

[HA, thought I was going for something beautiful and poignant there, huh?]

So PHUNG, why with the hostility? Why would I, the gracious and friendly Hieu, ever be so damn mean? Is that what you want me to feel towards you? I think it's ridiculous, and if I were sober enough last night, I probably would've said something different besides 'my feelings are undeterred.' When I put myself out there the other night, it was about flipping the world the bird and going with it. Social obligations, friendship structure, etc. etc. I was throwing all that behind me and just doing what I know, which is conveying human emotion. Stripped down and pulled clean, and I fucking rock at it.

People don't know how to take me, and it's because they're afraid to connect on that level with me. I kid you not, they're afraid to see what I see and feel what I feel. It's beyond them, they'll never understand. But you tried, and I commend you for that. Maybe I like you because you tried, that you weren't so quick to come to terms with me being a philosophical asshole who wants to look at everything the opposite of everyone else. LAWL, you were even awesome at it.. kinda.. sorta. :D

Who knows, maybe you'll have the capacity to look past this and continue to be friends with me, so you said yourself. I'm not gonna try and act cool and say 'what happens, happens,' but Phung, it'd mean a whole lot to me if you tried.

And so, like the trees, which regrow their leaves after the harsh winter, I hope you can regain your confidence in time to see me in the same light you did before all this came down. Looking forward to our next heart to heart.

PHUNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

What is up with the double standards? Man, can someone, ANYONE, explain it to me. PHUNG, yes, PHUNG, tell me because you're the apparent-all-knowing-all-advice-giving person who is the Asian-female version of Hitch. By her word, she can hook any male, disfigured and all, hook them up with some hottie. She guarantees this, if I remember correctly, something along the lines of, 'Hieu, even with your ugly mug, I can get you a bona fide super model.' I began to interject that my mug is hotter than hot fudge straight from the Hershey machine, but she was having none of it. 'It's eeeeeeeeeasy Hieu, you just gotta listen to me.'

Oh dear lord. I just have to listen to you? How could this possibly be easy?

But! Before I embark on this journey to becoming a more fitting boyfriend for the ladies, I have to get some things off my chest [it's not over yet, Phung xp].

Why is trying too hard a bad thing? And why is it a turn off? What social phenomenon has turned what's undoubtedly something good into something deemed so unattractive? What makes it that women prefer a guy who is so nonchalant?

'I don't care, therefore I bang the bitches left and right.'

aslkfhklsjafhkabdkbsaiufbiwabf

this scrambles my brain so hard it makes we want to go live in the woods and hunt squirrels and lick lichen off of rocks. What, are women afraid that the guy who will put forth effort will make them happy? Afraid of happiness and a sense of being wanted? What is it? Please explain, I'm a little behind the STUPID-SOCIAL-CURVE here, therefore making me= very fucking dense.

What I do understand; a guy trying so impeccably hard that he has to be some sort of obsessive-psycho, and any relations with said obsessive psycho will end in an untimely death and/or missing limbs. Just tell me why some bloke who genuinely likes someone and enjoys their company, who's willing to put on an effort to show they care, gets no love. effort=no punanny.

Next point in line.. my unwillingness to fight for a relationship.

So, women hate a guy who shows they care, but hate it when they don't fight for said womens love.

Is that not contradictory? Who the hell made these rules that conflict so much? You know who I am, you apparently figured me out, and so you know I'm very much a person of heavy IDEALS. Ideals, morals, blah blah blah and that good stuff. But then you'd know I also believe that human nature in itself is oft UNPREDICTABLE and NONSENSICAL. Because my ideals tell me that no woman is worth the anguish and the fight.. doesn't mean I mean it. :P

Jealousy is a nasty thing, emotions, man, they make us do some ugly shit we never thought we were capable of. So I say if my significant other falls for someone else, so be it, it was never meant to be, let her go and I'll find another. Funny, things are very easy to say, but to act out and live the situation, who knows what would actually unfold. Hieu might just have to slap a bitch to make her come to her senses.. of course, I'd never do such a thing, but in a world where a retard becomes president and I find a way to get pussy, anything is possible.

I guess that last point wasn't really a question, but a statement. So answer the first one, and I'll come up with lots more, Ms. Hitch.

[this subject has caused me to get shitty until i passed out]

hurry! get the sharpie and draws penises on his face and stuff!

your lunch, sir, is on fire

should've seen the flame on this thing when i fetched it. you can see a lil hint left, but when i heroically pulled this burning dish from my toaster oven, the flames must've been like 10ft high. no kidding.

my mom and dad don't realize what i just did today. i saved their precious house from disintegrating into itty bitty ashes. they argue, 'it was your lunch you left unattended..' followed by head shakes and groans that indicate, 'we've raised an absolute moron. a grade-a reject who would make a special-needs home look like a fountain of knowledge. lord, where did we do oh so wrong?'

but i'm oblivious to it, for today, i am victorious. today, i stand taller, prouder, and slightly more arrogant. i saved a household from certain doom, and cast a light of profound clarity upon a dainty damsel so bright, she will forever be deafened by the mere sounds echoing any likeness to hieu. and it's damn arrogant to say such a thing to someone you knew only 4 months, but seems like much, much longer.

whether it's a good thing or bad thing.. i dunno, remains to be seen, but the burden of my heart was freed. FREED DAMNIT, freed like the wallowing doves being released from the clutches of a magicians hat, freed like the thrashing waters violently smashing upon the levies in new orleans, just fucking freed. and the entire time, i was the one holding myself captive :D

SO IT'S TIME, time to stop proclaiming myself the next coming of [insert something/someone great here] and show it.

no need to go it alone

because when i was on those train tracks, i needed to hold someone's hand. same i figure with the other things in life.

make ammends

i'm going to email sandy. the infamous ex. the destroyer of dreams and hopes and.. well, that's all false, really. i'm going to email her and apologize. apologize for being a bad boyfriend, for not being there emotionally, for being the wrong things at the wrong times. i honestly couldn't have misstepped any worse, save for murdering her mom, setting her car ablaze, and having sex with her best friend. and to believe some people actually do those things, it's rather appalling.

but she reached out to me last year on my birthday. i ignored the email and went about my miserable existence, and thought how well i got over the situation, and how great it was to be set free. funny thing is, i never really got over how bad of a boyfriend i was, because i kept comparing myself to what i see from other boyfriends, jee, i was a shining example, a knight amongst the surfs! i always thought how much better of a boyfriend i would be to a lot of the girls i knew and met, thinking so highly of myself i went and printed myself a 'best bf in the universe' award.

sorry, blatant lie, i would never print such a thing, but i did hold myself highly in the regard of making a fantastic significant other.

then it hit me recently, how much of a lie all that was. i was a bad, negligent partner, and i'd make as lousy a boyfriend as they come. sure, i won't beat or maim or torture her, but she'll fall to the wayside, no less, and all the roses and all the beautiful dinners by the candlelight won't save that. i'm going to make ammends, and maybe i can show that i've grown up a little, maybe i can display that change is within my capacity.. maybe i can say i'm sorry for being to selfish and wrong, that it won't happen to whoever is next.

and maybe i can finally move on.

photography has taken over my life

this is me holding a camera from the 70s. the body, the lens, the flash, all older than i am. the oldest, also the cheapest; free. it still works, too, that's the crazy thing. but it gets used 0% of the time.. well, .01% if you count it as a prop in this shot.

so, i'm going to attempt to total my costs for photography since july of this year [trying for chronological order, too]:

• sony alpha a100k: $650.00
• minolta xtsi, minolta 50mm f1.7, and minolta 28-85mm f3.5-4.5: $80
• adata 2gb cf card: $35.00
• minolta 50mm f2.8 macro: $235.00
• minolta rc-1000 cable release: $15.00
• calumet photo bag: $60.00
• calumet medium tripod with head: $110.00
  
• minolta 70-210mm f4 beercan: $100.00
• tiffen haze-1 filter for 55mm thread: $10.00
• hoya uv filter for 55mm thread: $10.00
  
• sunpak uv filter for 55mm thread: $10.00
• minolta 135mm f2.8: $100.00
• cokin filter system with yellow and orange filter: $25.00
  
• minolta maxxum 7 film body with vc-7 grip: $375.00
• konica-minolta 5600hs-d flash: $250.00
• minolta rc-1000L cable release: $15.00
• manfrotto 190xprob tripod: $150.00
• induro sa23 ball head: $80.00
  
• sony 16-80mm f3.5-4.6 carl zeiss: $660.00
• heliopan es 6 uv filter for 62mm thread: $45.00

devastating total: $3,015.00

that's not even including film, paper, developing costs, or even tax..

anything in orange indicates a good deal, yellow indicate incredible deals, and black is.. meh. the way i shop, i'm never in a position to get raped on a product. overspending is a no-no, and to think i dropped a good 3Gs on photography and its accessories makes me a little nauseous..

can i be stopped?