HG Dreams

There's a common joke that HGTV is a gay man's ESPN. For me at least, it's entirely true - I watch marathons of it when I'm at my mom's place. They have the hottest hosts: David Bromstad is the gay community's obvious favorite, but I think Scott McGillivray is dreamy and has amazing hair. (By the way, Scott should model. There's really very few photos of him online. And if he released a sex tape, well, I'd bootleg it.)

Anyway, handsome, well-built men with power tools aren't what really draws gay men to HGTV. That's not what all of us are interested in. We also like interior decor. (lol)

No, seriously! I grew up in a house without any sense of design or style incorporated into it: all our furniture was bought more or less haphazardly, positioned in the same way, and nothing ever matched. Then, after my grandmother stopped living with us when I was in grade school, our house became one large, self-contained mess without anyone to tidy up. We're a bunch of packrats in my family, and none of us ever mastered the art of domestic living. As a result, clutter fills every nook and cranny of our house - boxes of junk, piles of books and papers, mazes of knick-knacks. It looks like a garage sale exploded in there.

When people came over in high school, I always told them my house was in the process of getting renovated to explain the mess. Remarkably, it took till senior year for someone to say, "Hey, how come your house always looks the same?" (lol)

So you'll forgive me if I watch HGTV to dream about stylish future homes I want to live in, or gaze hungrily at big, glossy pictures of fashionable houses online and in magazines. Like this shot from the famous, ultra-luxurious Oriental Hotel in Bangkok:


The people who designed the Oriental have my taste down to the last detail: traditional Thai furniture, artwork, accessories, and patterns meet Western elegance - not exactly modern, but not too stuffy either. Admittedly, this bedroom is a little over the top even for me, but I love the concept and presentation - the gold motif on red walls, the way the wood has a reddish tone in it that picks up the walls, the benches and triangular cushion used by old Thai aristocracy...(I'd probably place a TV there, lol) A little too much going on for a bedroom, perhaps, but it's sumptuous nevertheless.

This one's a bit more vanilla; probably more realistically imitated. I'd pick a darker wall color, though, and throw in some blue/navy blue pieces to off-set the cream and gold.



I could go on and on. I can't wait till the day I get my own place and can afford to do what I want with it. Of course, I'm probably going to be a starving artist/unemployed teacher for a long while yet...

So, to keep my fantasies alive in the meantime, I'll take a big dose of HGTV.

(And Scott McGillivray on the side, please.)

Any other HGTV fans? Are you Team David or Team Scott?

Show Me the Writing!

Those familiar with the hilariously-inappropriate Sesame Street spoof Avenue Q will have heard the song, "What do You do with a BA in English?"

"Four years of college and plenty of knowledge have earned me this useless degree," the song laments. "I can't pay the bills yet, 'cause I have no skills yet. The world is a big, scary place."

If I weren't facing the same predicament, I may find the song funny.

I racked my mind about it for months, but finally did what I said I'd never do: I registered for nursing classes. I'm still not convinced I want to commit to them, but the deciding factor was a practical one: I figure, if things aren't looking up for me and my English degree, I can transfer to a nursing school after graduation.

But it doesn't feel right. I always wanted to be involved with literature. To read, to write, to speak, to critique - that's what I always saw for myself.

As a kid, I never wanted toys. I wanted books instead. I grew up down the street from the public library and spent most of my childhood bopping back and forth between that and home, reading whatever interested me. I wanted to write; I wanted to illustrate. I even won a few young authors awards back in the day.

But to be honest, I don't actually write very much. Yes, I update this blog pretty often, and my school assignments turn out well, but when it comes to actual creative writing, I have very little to show for myself. For someone who's always professed the desire to write, I'm starting to get a little nervous.

So far, my translation projects have yielded just a few, short pieces of poetry, and I never find myself coming up with great ideas for vignettes and short stories. Maybe I need to reassess the kind of writing I want to do, since I seem to do better with nonfiction-type pieces and essays. In any case, if I don't produce soon, I feel it won't be long before the Reality Police come knocking on my door to demand, "Show me the writing!" Perhaps if I were friends with other literary types we could swap drafts and force each other to write. That way I won't feel like I'm groping through a void.

My mother was so relieved when I signed up for the pre-nursing track. It's what I was "supposed" to do from the beginning. She's even started speaking of nursing school as the goal instead of as the back-up. I cannot tell you how much I resent this.

My attachment to literature has been so deeply-felt, and for so long, that to dishonor the attraction by doing something else just feels wrong. It feels like I'm throwing away a natural interest and aptitude, and stifling a part of myself.

Only one thing to do: get creative. I won't end up doing nursing, not without a fight.

Honor to the Poets

"All men owe honor to the poets - honor
and awe, for they are dearest to the Muse
who puts upon their lips the ways of life."
- Odyssey VIII, Fitzgerald trans.

I sat in a faded plush chair opposite Professor W in her messy office suite. A fan sat whirring softly on a stack of hardcovers on her desk, barely disturbing the pile of papers she left lying on the floor.

Our conversation turned to Homeric Greek, and she recited for me the Iliad's first line: "Menin aeide thea..." I savored the sinuous hexameter, the undulating coil of sound, spoken by someone who knew the language. How different it sounded from my own attempts at Greek!

Professor W's expertise lies in poetry, especially poetry in translation. She's won numerous awards for it, including one in literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. I met with her last week to chat about my own projects in translation, and see if perhaps I could solicit her to read my drafts or offer some practical advice as an expert in the field. But, as it turned out, I learned a lot more from Professor W than I could have expected.

I asked if she had any favorite works in translation. I said my own preference is for those of the late Robert Fitzgerald, whose Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid I have come to look at as examples of excellent verse written by a man who truly had "a knack...for putting things into verse," as he himself called it.

Fitzgerald also said, "Poetry is at least an elegance and at most a revelation." "Revelation" is not an overstatement. It was Fitzgerald's Odyssey, in fact, that first introduced me to the verse in translation. That was back in my eleventh grade English class (Thank you so much, Ms. Rice!). His works have been informing and inspiring my own writings ever since. Again and again I find myself turning to them for insight, instruction, and pleasure.

"I wish he had lived to translate Ovid's Metamorphoses," I remarked wistfully to Professor W.

Professor W paused for a moment, then leaned back into her sofa, looking snug. "Yes," she said, "he really was a fine poet. You know, I knew Robert Fitzgerald."

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that two eminent scholars working with similar material should have crossed paths before, but I think my jaw dropped for a moment.

"Really?"

"Yes," was her reply. "We were friends. He really wanted everyone to enjoy the poetry."

Who knew! The revelation amazed me. Here was a woman who knew one of my favorite poets in person, sitting across from me in a messy office at my university. She even agreed to take a look at my drafts! Somehow, in a strange sort of way, I left the meeting feeling like I'd come closer to the man whose writing I've admired for years, and more encouraged about my own work as well. I want to have some drafts done, and soon!

Musing on the Monkhood

Not long ago I was taking the #8 bus to Boystown when I noticed a girl beside me speaking Thai. We got to talking, and the topic turned to when we'd go home next. She said she was waiting another two or three years until she got her degree. I told her I might go back next year - for my ordination. In fact, my mother had mentioned the topic about a week prior, and the plans were still fresh on my mind.

Ordination. Traditionally, all Thai men are expected to enter the monkhood at some point in their lives. Usually this is at the outset of adulthood, and the ordination is like a rite of passage for the young man. For a period of one to three months, he gives up his secular life to enroll in the sangha, the community of monks, and to follow an ascetic path reaching back thousands of years.

Traditional, however, doesn't mean I'm completely at home with the idea. It's strange to think of myself as a monk. To begin with, his life is austere. His days are highly regimented and spent in quiet contemplation, humble service, and meager settings. On the other hand, I am among the laziest, most unproductive people I know. I am messy, disorganized, and self-indulgent. I lack the discipline to stick to my own workout plans. And I am lustful. My head is perpetually in the gutter. But there are stories of men even more profane than me reaching Enlightenment. And I sort of think even the holiest men were like me once.

I've looked in the mirror before and imagined how I would look as a monk. After His renun-ciation of the courtly life, Siddhartha is depicted shearing off his long, princely hair as the first step in His journey towards Enlightenment. It is a symbolic act showing one's readiness to give up worldly things. I imagine my own hair shaved off, the hair I always fuss over, as well as the eyebrows I keep neat and trim each month. Without them, the face that stares back always looks strange and unfamiliar. But things like hair and eyebrows, I suppose, will be gone someday no matter how I take care of them. And this is the goal of monkhood: to develop a calm detachment to material things and an equanimity towards the transience of life.

The girl on the bus, however, looked surprised at my ordination plans. "Really?" she asked. "Why? You really want to?"

Her question caught me off guard, and I fumbled around for an answer. "Of course I do," I replied, not very convincingly. "Think of it as...preserving our old traditions."

She looked at me incredulously. "Really? That's strange, especially since you grew up here. Even people back home don't say that."

The conversation left me disappointed. Her reaction reminded me how quickly Thai society is changing as the younger generation turns away from its ancestral roots. It really bothered me that she asked why I would want to enter the monkhood. More and more, such practices are becoming seen as a holdover from an antiquated past, a practice out of place in a "modern" (and "Westernized"?) Thailand. I fear that in 10-15 years we'll be just mimes of other countries, our traditional practices surviving only in resorts and tourist brochures. And of course, my response didn't help. The monkhood to me is not a mere exercise in cultural restoration, and I should have told her that.

Part of me wants to be ordained to make my parents happy. Whatever the strain on myself, I could never deny my mother the joy of seeing her only son dressed in the yellow robes of the Lord Buddha. And I would be lying if I said a part of me doesn't feel compelled to join the monkhood to perpetuate traditional Thai values. Not a mere cultural exercise indeed. But along with that, I want to be ordained because I feel it's worthwhile to be ordained. If some time in the monkhood can instill some good in me, some discipline, some selflessness, or even some serenity, it will be time well spent. And maybe that's all that matters in the end - how I lived my life.

But perhaps I'm thinking too much about it now. Depending on my family's financial situation next year, we may not be able to afford flying both my parents and myself to Thailand and arranging the ceremony, which is typically a pretty big to-do. But one day, I will spend some time in the monastery, shaved head and all. I hope I can be a better person for it.