当风向改变时，有的人筑墙，有的人造风车。

A few weeks ago, Catherine and I decided it would be fun and silly to sneak into Brian's backyard and use his pool while he and his family were gone in Mexico. Previously, he had mentioned to Catherine that that would be okay, anyway. So we went through his side gate and hung out in his backyard for a bit. While we were sitting back there, we noticed a police helicopter with a spotlight shining it in the neighborhood. Soon after, we got bored and decided to leave.

We drove in separate cars, so I started driving away and assumed Catherine was following me. The police helicopter was still looking around, shining the spotlight right around where I was. I thought it was funny, so I pulled over and started taking pictures of the helicopter. I didn't think it was looking for me, since I hadn't done anything wrong, let alone anything that would warrant the use of a helicopter.

After I got back into my car, a police car pulled me over. With spotlights pointed at me and guns drawn, they shouted at me to get out of my car. They had me turn around, put my hands on my head, and kneel down on the ground. One officer roughly slapped handcuffs on me. While she was putting them on, I asked what I was charged with, at which point she told me to be quiet and follow instructions. She pulled me up and walked me over to her car. She asked, "What house are you at?", which didn't make sense to me, since we were standing on the side of the road, so told her that I wasn't at a house at that moment (obviously). I guess she picked up that she should start making sense and conjugating her verbs in the right tense, and I explained where I had been (Brian's) and what I was doing there. I think it's pretty believable, since (among many many other signs) I'm obviously a privileged suburban kid driving a Passat, I had a swim suit, and I knew whose house it was. Still, this whole time, they maintained disrespectful tones, treated me like I was guilty, and didn't even take my handcuffs off.

I sat in the back of the police car with my hands cuffed behind my back, awkwardly pinned against the hard plastic seat, as they drove me back to Brian's house, where Catherine still was. I remained handcuffed, locked in the back of the car, for at least half an hour while the cops wrote a bunch of shit down, ran our names through their computer, and wasted our time. This whole time, Catherine was in the street with the officers, outside and not handcuffed. In fact, she later told me she didn't even realize I was in the police car for most of the time. We were equally involved in the incident, so there wasn't any reason to keep me cuffed in the car other than disrespect and a lack of manners.

After they saw that there weren't any warrants out on us and that our cars weren't stolen, they gave us a talk as if we had done something wrong. Right, how dare we go into our friend's house with his permission? One officer said I shouldn't go through side gates. Seriously? Side gates are the danger here? Next, they drove me back to my car. On the way, they asked what I was majoring in. I told them I was majoring in robbing houses, but they didn't find that funny.

This whole situation got me steaming angry that night and the following day. Police need to realize that their lack of respect for people is why the public has so much resentment towards police officers. You can't treat someone like a criminal when there isn't even any evidence they've done something wrong. Some cops just get such a power trip from situations like this, when they're really accomplishing nothing. I never had any big problem with the police in general. I used to just say they were doing their jobs, and sometimes they even kept people safe. Now I really understand the intense feelings a lot of people have toward policemen. My most important point is that if police expect respect, they really need to treat other people with respect. Until then, they deserve the bad rap they get.

For the record, the officers are:
Paul Haering, #38849
Lisa Tagg, #36353
of the Los Angeles Police Department, West Valley Community Police Station

Sarah Whitman from the Huffington Post wrote about the ridiculousness of the Newsweek article "Young, Gay and Murdered in Junior High" (not the most elegant title). The Newsweek article basically blames the murder victim for being inappropriately effeminate, and blames society for allowing that kind of behavior. Definitely take a look at the Newsweek article, and I would recommend reading the Huffington Post reply as well.

I'm done being nice or generous. People fucking take advantage of me, and I always end up getting fucked over. Every time I do something for someone, I get fucked over. I have no idea who I can trust anymore because my trust have been betrayed and abused. I always rationalized my generosity by reminding myself that a lot of people don't have what I have, not that I have that much more. Fuck that. If people need shit, I'm no longer helping them. I'm not helping anyone until everything that has been stolen or borrowed indefinitely from me is returned. I'm not lending out a single dollar. I'm not driving anyone fucking anywhere. I've had enough of it.

I don't understand how people live their lives entirely by selfishness, but the sad fact is that what life is. Even in nature, it's about eating shit or getting eaten. With people, it's hurting someone or getting hurt, or stealing shit or losing all of your own shit. Fuck this. How can someone's psyche even be entirely sustained by shallow relationships devoid of trust? I'm not going to hang out with anyone I don't trust 100% anymore, and I'll tell you if that's the case with you.

Get a fucking conscience, humanity.

People who don't travel and experiment are like those computer-generated people in video games that just stay in one of the locations and walk around midlessly and bump into shit.

Is it possible to be honest and come off as confident if you're not confident?

Do you ever wonder if the universe is just one big video game, and there's one special prize waiting on one planet for us to find it? Or like, a final boss or something?

everything is all pippity-pop! my body is singing and the music is dancing to my body. my thoughts are dancing in my body too. don't incinuate anything. why have they all come to visit me tonight? are there some left for the others? lucky me. i think i've composed a whole darn symphony of my own. and i invented all the languages in my car. i'm very very bad. that's why the keeping coming in 2s to follow me. my feet feel dirty. my feet are stomping up on me. my feet are spies, too! i'm the vice president of vices.

I've been doing lots of stuff lately.  Yeah, I guess you're missing out since I never post in this thing, unless you're one of the lucky people who joins me to do these exciting things I do.  Here's a little picture of how I spend my time.

I have a boyfriend now.  His name is Esteban.  I met him at Models of Pride.  He lives in Silver Lake and works at the MOCA.

Now the info on this weekend.  On Friday, I picked Frankie up from her school.  I had an hour to spare when I left Viewpoint, so I just took a really long way that ended up taking an hour to get to her school.  We stopped so she could buy cigarettes at some place she insists is called "Water y Agua and Cigarettes" though I'm pretty sure no place in the world has a name like that.  Then we went to Lulu's Beehive, a coffee shop in Sherman Oaks.  The only way I can really describe it is by saying it's our version of Central Perk from "Friends".  Savannah and Frankie and I hang out there all the time.  It's really cool because like, we know every other person who goes by.  That day, it was just Frankie and I, but then Savannah joined us, and then her friend drove by who later joined us, and then this guy who always we've gotten to know because he always passes by us on his way to the hardware store where he works joined us, and then his friend joined us, and then Zach randomly biked by and joined us.  We started with two people and ended up with a bunch!  It was so cool.  I then went home for dinner since I felt like I hadn't been home since the morning.  I was planning on joining back up with all of them but by the time I was done with dinner they had all gone home.  So, I went to Savannah and Frankie's and we tried to find something to do.  Newman invited us to a concert at the Troubadour and I knew it would be super-hip, knowing Newman, so we went.  It was a punk band called the Black Lips.  They're a pretty awful punk rock band whose Wikipedia article says they "have a reputation for crazy live shows that have included vomiting, urinating, nudity, band members kissing, fireworks, and chickens."  I did not see any of these, and that disappoints me.  But I was amused by this fat guy who climbed one of those scaffolding thingies they put lights on, and he wanted to dive into the crowd, but I think he then realized he was too big for that to work out, and the security guys were yelling at him, so it was pretty clear he would get kicked out if he came down, so he just stayed up there for a while looking really silly and drunk.  To make it even more amusing, they had a spotlight on him while he was up there, and some guy kept throwing shit at his head from the balcony.  That was basically what kept me from being bored for a good part of the show.

Saturday morning, I had Mock Trial rehearsal.  Sarah brought her British exchange student who just sat there really bored while we did mock trial stuff for two and a half hours.  After that, I had my glamorous senior photo shoot, which took a while.  Good thing I'm gorgeous and have an impeccable dress style.

That evening, I went and saw "The Darjeeling Limited" with Luke (Paige's boyfriend) and a bunch of Agoura people.  I would have thought it would be my kind of movie, but I actually didn't like it too much because the plot made little sense and didn't work with the setting, and because the characters were too stupid and didn't get much better by the end.  But it wasn't too bad.  I'd say it was a decent, but far from amazing, film.

Today, Sunday, I slept in for the first time in a while.  Then I picked up Nataly and went over to the Beverly Center to pick up Esteban.  We went to The Grove and ate lunch at Johnny Rocket's, and then walked around The Grove.  After that, I wanted to show Esteban the wonders of the San Fernando Valley, so we went to Lulu's.  Savannah and Heather joined us but by the time they got there I had to drop Nataly back off at home, so I did that and then Esteban and I went to my house for a while.  Then I drove him home.

This is the shit part.  After dropping him off at his place, around Silver Lake / Downtown, I was driving around looking for the 101 when I got into a car accident!  The car in front of me stopped abruptly and I couldn't stop quickly enough avoid hitting him.  It was so scary.  I got out of the car to exchange information with him, but instead the guy came up to me, grabbed me by the collar, and started yelling at me in Spanish.  I thought he was going to beat me up until some bystander came over and got him to calm down.  He then got into his car and sped off.  Being retarded as I am, I didn't get his license plate number.  I pulled off into a side street and waited a while for my parents and a tow-truck.  The whole neighborhood came out so there were like twenty people on the sidewalk watching me.  The tow-truck driver translated some more information.  Apparently, the guy I hit was also drunk.  So even though technically I was at fault, his being drunk and fleeing the scene kind of eclipsed whatever I did wrong.  My mom met me at the towing yard and we went to the police station and filed a report.  Oh, I forgot to mention:  I was downtown, where my parents did not know I was, dropping Esteban off, who they do not know exists, and I'm not legally allowed to drive people yet.  So that kind of added a whole new level of complexity to the whole situation.  Needless to say, things kind of suck now, as I won't have a car for several weeks and my parents aren't too happy with me.

On the bright side, thanks to the fire in Malibu, I have no school tomorrow.  If anyone wants to do something tomorrow, do let me know.  And if you want to do anything during the week and are kind enough to provide transportation, that would be greatly appreciated as well.  Good night.

Oh yeah, and check the Flickr for photos of whatever I've been doing.  I'm too lazy to post thumbnails and shit.

I need to...

• loosen up.
• stop getting my hopes up.
• stop misinterpreting things.
• get some god damn social skills.
• go with the flow.
• be more open.
• stop being so fuxin awkward.
• get in a better mindset.

I swear I'm going to get better about updating this thing. See? I am. Here's what I've been doing. Click the thumbnails to see all the photos from the event described.

A couple days after going to Sunset Junction, which I discussed in a previous post, I went with Paige and Luke to some kickback at their friend's. It was supposed to be a party but a lot of people bailed. I didn't know many of the people there but they were cool to hang out with. I was silly and probably made odd first impressions.

On Thursday, Kayla and I picked up Savannah and went to Tigerheat. But when we were going through security, since you're not allowed to bring liquid in, Kayla gave her drink to the security guard. He opened it up and smelled it and realized that it was ehm...something we shouldn't have, so he made us go off to the side where he made fun of us for a while and then we just left. So no Tigerheat that week. We went to this *cosmic pizza* restaurant Savannah knew about in Hollywood. It was soooo trippy! I went to the bathroom and walked past this table of really fat guys playing Dungeons & Dragons. The restaurant had some anime projected on the wall and loud cosmic-themed music playing, with eerie lights. Definitely made me go a little nuts. Then we dropped Savannah off and Kayla was going to take me to some kickback when I talked to my friend who was already there. He said some skinheads showed up and that he was going to leave really soon, and then in the background I heard some tough voice being like "I'm gonna beat you up!" so I decided I probably shouldn't go.

The next day, Catherine, Kendalle, Greg, and I went up to Catherine's place in Arrowhead. We just hung out and slept the whole time. The next day, we drove back to LA, to Kendalle's hotel in West Hollywood.

Next came the most amazing thing I've done in quite a while. Kendalle's ex, Joe, invited us to a party that turned out to be inside of a freeway. If you look at the picture on the right, we actually climbed up into that hole, which was a manhole on the bottom of a freeway overpass, and inside of the freeway overpass, with cars driving continuously overhead, there were about 7 rooms which he had decorated completely with shit he found. Who knew there were rooms inside of freeway bridges?! Each room had some random theme, like the America room or the duck room or the Santa room. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. My only complaint was that it was really fucking hot in there. I met a bunch of random people, which is always good. Be sure to take a look at these photos.

The next week I attended this seminar thingy at school about applying to colleges. That took up most of my time, so I didn't go on too many adventures. But one day, after school, Fiona, Brian, and I went to Malibu for lunch. Then, we went to Fiona's friend Lindsay's ranch. We messed around with the horses and ducks and chickens. Then, we snuck into her neighbour's and stole fruit. I felt like fuckin' Huckleberry Finn after this day - stealing fruit from the neighbours' orchard. We put some of the fruit in Lindsay's and Fiona's shirts, you know, to boost the voluptiousness while transporting the stolen goods.

On Friday night, I went to Savannah's meteor shower party. Yet another party where I didn't know most of the people, but I met a lot of cool new people and saw a few I already knew. Lots of hip scenesters though; interesting to watch, I suppose. I can't really think of any particulars to write about. I was a little out of it that night, but I had fun. We never ended up seeing any meteors even though we kept watching. I guess we just couldn't see them or didn't notice or something. I fell asleep in Frankie's room after reading an issue of Us Weekly.

I have no pictures from Saturday, but I met up with Catherine and we went and got boba. We met up with Brian for dinner at CPK and then went back to Catherine's and watched Running with Scissors while making beaded bracelets. It's an absolutely amazing movie! The main character was so cute. It was really complicated, so I definitely need to see it again.

There's a lovely kids' book about how a father's neglect and child molestation make a kid gay, and how quickly it can be remedied and that nasty gayness can be *cured*. You can read the whole thing here.

Things have been going really well for me lately. The last few days have been some of the best of the year. Thanks to everyone who helped make them that way. As always, click the thumbnails for more photos from that event.

On Saturday, Catherine, her gentleman companion Greg, and I went to Space Opera, a rave in San Bernadino. It was soooo far away but I had a lot of fun. I saw Jamie for the first time in a while and got to meet his friends. I wore this crazy fishnet feather thing; it was kind of scary. We crashed at Greg's place that night, because it was much closer, and in the morning we hung out there for a while with him and his roommates, who were really cool.

The day after Space Opera, Kayla and I went to the Sunset Junction Street Fair in Silver Lake. It's a street festival/fair but also kind of a music festival. I saw She Wants Revenge and DJ Cheb i Sabbah. I don't think I've ever seen so many scenesters/hipsters gathered in one place! It was like a sea of sex hair, thick-rimmed glasses, and girls in silly dresses.

I don't know if I've ever gone this long without updating my LiveJournal. Yes, I'm still alive. I can't possibly even begin to detail everything I've done since my last post. Here's a quick run-down.

Most of my time was spent in Tibet and China. I went to teaching English. I was there for a month, and two of the weeks were spent living in a village with a family, teaching. The other two weeks were spent touring, in Qinghai province, where I was living, and also in Beijing. I took over nine hundred photos. They're pretty lovely; do take a look. It's a shame that I'm writing so little about this, while I write paragraphs and paragraphs about absolutely nothing, but don't let my brief description deceive you. It was an absolutely amazing experience. The village I lived in was really primitive - no showers or any of that, and our bathroom consisted of a room with a dirt floor (not even a hole in the ground) but I think that was all good for me. We drank a lot (this stuff called baijiu 白酒, 45% alcohol) and I threw up from drinking for the first time. If you have any specific questions about my trip, please ask.

Since then, I've been spending my time doing the usual stuff, hanging out with friends and whatnot. I went to Tigerheat with LJ and his friend. We stayed out all night. Left Tigerheat at 3 went to the beach and waiting for the sunrise until we realized the sun rose from the other direction, went to Starbucks and slept in the parking lot for three hours until it opened.

Another day, Brian, Catherine, LJ, and I went to Hollywood for lunch and then went to Venice Beach where there was a drum circle. Drum circles are always cool; I definitely do not go to enough. For some reason, that day, I think the entire ghetto was on vacation in Venice Beach. We went into the Venice Beach Freak Show, which is just this little room with things with two heads and stuff. Every single other person there was a sassy black lady. One came in and was like "Ima see some sheet. Why they all dead?" Alright, enough racism, it was just an amusing observation I couldn't avoid.

I hung out with Nataly, Mandy, and Alex Shams one evening. Nataly, Alex, and I got food and ate it at the park while watching dogs poop. Some guy brought ferrets which were really cute and hopped around. Then we went to Nataly's house, met up with Mandy, came to my house, and hung out.

Last night, Brian and I met up with Fiona and some French people at the Beverly Centre. Apparently, Fiona made friends with a security guard at a Holocaust memorial in Paris, and that guard and his friends came to LA. Only Fiona makes friends like this... So, being Mediterranean Europeans, they had to get their fix of overpriced designer clothes and this. Almost immediately, they insisted we leave and go to the 3rd St. Promenade, so we did. Brian, Fiona, and I went to an absurdly expensive dinner while the French guys shopped, and then they left. We three walked around and shopped. I bought the Justice CD, which turned out to be not nearly as good as I thought it would be. Here comes the hard part. Fiona drove home. I drove Brian back to his car, which was near my house. I went back to my house; Brian went back to his, and then I picked him up and took him to the beach, where we met Fiona. We lit off fireworks there, around midnight - the kind that go up in the air. Actually, only like two of the five properly went into the air. One didn't go anywhere, just exploded on the ground, and one actually went underwater and exploded there. That was the most interesting one, because you'd think the water would have put it out, but there was actually a little explosion of light in the ocean. Some guy nearby kept shouting shit at us as we lit them off, like "I HOPE IT GOES UP YOUR ASS!" and I was afraid he would call the police, though they could have just as easily looked up in the sky and seen the fireworks. It was fun, though, mainly because a lot of it was running and hiding to not get caught.

I'll be leaving for my China/Tibet trip soon. What a packed day. I got back from Minnesota earlier today, stopped by my house to get ready, and will soon be off to the airport yet again. I'll be staying in a Tibetan village in Xunhua Salar Autonomous County in eastern Qinghai province. It's pretty much in the middle of nowhere, even by China standards. I'm told I'll have running water and electricity, but beyond that, I'm not sure what to expect. I'll stay in a monastery for the first week, for orientation, and then I'll be teaching English there. For the last few days, we'll do some tourist shit in Beijing. The best way to contact me is via e-mail, though I don't know if I'll even be able to access that there. My e-mail address is my LJ username at gmail dot com. I'm leaving my cell phone and laptop at home. If I come across an Internet cafe, I may check my e-mail once or twice, so drop me a line there if you want to know what's going on. I'll be back on the evening of August 2. I hope I won't miss out on too much while I'm gone. I've actually managed to be in town this summer for more than I usually am. I know many of you go into deep depressions in my absence, so please, comfort each other and try to wait it out until I return. I'll miss everyone. Wish me luck.

Here's what I've been up to, or at least the things I took pictures of. Click the thumbnails to see all the pictures from that event.

2007-06-28 Tigerheat (Catherine, Brian, Tanya, Gabby, Zack, Sarina, Nick)

I went to Tigerheat again last Thursday. I wasn't going to go, but it was their anniversary and for some reason a lot of people I knew were going, so I went, as did Catherine, Kendalle, Tanya, Brian (the straight girls got him to go), Gabby, Zach, Sarina, and their friend Nick. We saw some other people from Viewpoint there too, oddly enough. Fargin straight people are takin' over the world, I tell ya.

2007-06-29 Kayla's 17th Birthday Party
For her 17th birthday, Kayla had a party at Liz Klein's house.

2007-06-30 Electric Daisy Carnival (Catherine, Kendalle)
	I went to the Electric Daisy Carnival, a huge rave in downtown Los Angeles, with Catherine and Kendalle. We spotted Miles, of all people, there. It was pretty cool. Catherine gave me a deadly mohawk, so it was a cool way to meet strangers, 'cause they'd come up and say something about it.

Oh, by the way, here's what's to come: I'm in Minnesota at the moment, as of yesterday. I fly back to Los Angeles on the fifth, and that same day I go to China, where I'll be for about a month. I guess I won't be seeing any of you for a while, but I'll let you know when I'm back. I'll be on the internet regularly here in Minnesota but not at all in China, I don't think.

I went to Tigerheat last night. Sounds like the beginning of one of my previous posts, huh? I'm not going to go into too much detail about what Tigerheat is like; read the previous Tigerheat post if you want that, I guess. I did have a bit of a breakdown, though, which culminated in my crying in the back of Catherine's car for a couple of hours. In essence I guess it was the usual shit: feeling worthless, not being able to get guys, lacking social skills, etc., though there are always subtle differences in whats bothering me at particular times. I think what made it worse than just that usual shit was the fact that I felt the people I went with were excluding/ignoring me, and I don't think they even noticed I was crying, which is even worse because I was comforting one of them the previous night when she was upset and crying. There are many times when I feel like I have great friends, regardless of the number, and I feel tremendous feelings of love towards them, and they share their feelings with me, but it always seems that even my best friends don't seem to care too much about when I'm upset, aside from the occasional passing comment like "It'll be fine". Perhaps it's part of my larger problem of feeling more strongly about other people than they do about me, even in strictly friendly ways.

Actually, I initiated this post meaning to write about a less selfish issue, so let's get to that. I take issue with the limited ways that gay people have of finding each other and establishing relationships, especially young gay people. Because homosexuality is a minority sexuality, gay people don't have the ability to flirt with just anyone they find attractive. Straight people can flirt with other people, and their worry is whether or not the other person will be attracted to them, not whether or not the other person is even interested in their gender. Being gay, it's assumed that everyone else is straight unless otherwise noted, so many gay people go to places like clubs and pride events where they know everyone is gay. In other words, straight people can find each other through everyday normal interaction, whereas, being gay, you often need to go to places like clubs in order to find a sufficient pool of prospective mates, and under those circumstances it is necessary to be incredibly outgoing, whereas in everyday interaction, you don't necessarily need to be. Shy straight people who aren't necessarily into club scenes or crazy orgies can still find relationships, but gay people can't meet other people as easily in mediums like work or school or at the store. In those contexts, a gay person looking for a romantic interest not only has to have the tact to deal with the generic challenge of establishing a relationship, but also the complex social skills and confidence to break through the bullshit and stigma established by the heterosexual-default atmosphere, as well as the luck or intuition to find gay people at all. I'm not blaming straight people or saying "look how brave we oppressed gays are" at all. I'm saying that it's unfair to normal people who happen to be gay but don't happen to have have extraordinary confidence and charisma, and who lack the complex social skills to pick up on certain subtleties. When finding a mate, in order to be successful, it is more necessary for a gay person to be a "player" than for a straight person.

Wow, I really never use this thing before, least of all for things that are actually happening in my life. Of course I can't write about everything that's happened since the last time I posted about occurences, but here's the scoop on what I've been up to lately.

This week I was touring California looking at colleges all over. My favourites were Berkeley and Stanford, as I expected, so it'd be awesome if I could get in. I went to San Francisco for the first time during this trip. It's really awesome, not just because it's a liberal city, but because it's more like a real city, Europe/East-Coast style as opposed to a shite spread out city like Los Angeles. It has cool streets and condensed urban areas. I love it. So it would be wonderful to go to college there. We also looked at schools in San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obisbo, Santa Cruz, some other saints, and the Sacramento area. It was incredibly hot too - not necessarily hotter than the valley here, but I guess we were just outside walking around (college campuses) more than we would normally be here. On our way back from Sacramento, we stopped in this weird little town, and as we stepped off the bus it was like walking through warm bread instead of air. The weather just came and bitchslapped me in the face. The thermometer revealed it was about 115°F. Overall I guess the trip was a success. I saw lots of colleges and found out/confirmed which ones I liked. There wasn't much of a social element to the trip, though, since I wasn't with any friends, apart from the couple of times Fiona met up with us when we were in San Francisco. I'll post pictures eventually.

This is probably the biggest thing that has happened to be in this article's timespan: On the ride home from the drop-off spot from the college tour, my mom had to discuss several issues. First of all, she got a call from the LAPD looking for the phone number of someone I was friends with, who was apparently involved in an investigation of something that happened about four years ago (when we were 12, 13?!). I wasn't given many details, but while my mom was looking for the phone number, rifling through all my shit, she came across my pipe. That's right kids, for marah-juh-wana. I was expecting her to shank me right then and there but actually she just made me promise not to smoke pot until I graduated from high school, when she would give me my pipe back. I was really surprised that she had that reasonable a reaction, but it still sucks. She also said that she won't tell my dad as long as I keep the promise, which is good because my dad is more immature and would definitely have a much worse reaction. So, needless to say, my mom's much more suspicious of what I've been doing lately, so life has been quite uncomfortable these last few days.

I came back on Friday, and immediately went to The Grove & The Farmers' Market in Hollywood with Gabby, Zack, and Sarina. We had a nice meal, all that. The Grove sucks but the farmers' market is a nice place to eat. To be honest I can't remember exactly what happened this evening (not for any naughty reason, just forgetfulness), but I think we drove around and went to the Huster Store after that. Since Zack just turned 18, we tried to get him to buy porn but it was too expensive so we just giggled at things in the store for a while. Then we drove Sarina home and I went home wayyyy later than I should have.

Yesterday, I met back up with Gabby, Sarina, and Zack, and we went to Rage, a gay club in West Hollywood. I've been there several times before, even though it's 18+. Last time I went, with LJ, we just went in before it turned into a club, before 9pm, and there was no problem. This time was quite different, however. As the place turned into a club, a policeman went around asking everyone for IDs, so we all ran into the bathrooms and stayed there for some absurd length of time, tactfully periodically checking if the coast was clear. LJ went out, even though he knew there was a guy right outside the bathroom checking IDs, so LJ got kicked out then. I saw him standing outside the club, the policeman walking away from him, so I assumed he had just been escorted out. The girls LJ came with left too, since he got kicked out, and Zack and I stayed in the bathroom for a while after that, until Gabby and Sarina came in and told us it was safe. It was stil pretty early as far as the clubbing night goes, so we were one of a few people in the club, but since the policeman was still checking IDs periodically, I decided that we should get really involved in dancing so he would be less likely to interrupt us. Even though the policeman was actually like, checking other people around the dance floor, somehow we managed to evade him, and never got kicked out. I was so proud of us. We are seriously CIA-caliber sly, and this proves it. Since we were all staying at Zack's that night, where there were no parents, I thought we would stay pretty late and take advantage of our freedom, but everyone else wanted to leave pretty early (at like half eleven), fucking boring straight people, so we headed out even though the place was just starting to pick up. It really pissed me off because that's probably the last time I'll go to Rage until I'm 18, since it was such an ordeal to stay in. Plus, I wanted to pick up or at least dance with somebody, and I never got a chance to do that. So that part of the night was disappointing.

After that, we went to Carney's on Sunset to eat. We sat in there for a while just talking and trying to come up with something interesting to do. It got me even more aggitated because here were the people who insisted we leave the club because were bored, and now they didn't have anything better to do. So then we decided to drive to the beach. For some reason we went to Zuma, which was by no means the closest beach. I thought it would be cool. I mean like, hey, let's go spoon under the stars! But after driving for a looong time, we got there and just sorta drove by and I was like, "Hey, what the hell?! Aren't you going to pull over somewhere and get out and walk around?" so they begrudgingly pulled over and we sat there as the windows fogged up. Nobody was doing anything; why go to the beach for no reason?! Especially since we used like half a tank of my gas. God, I sound so bitchy. At this point I got out of the car alone and walked on the beach in the sand as the others waited in the car. Then we went back to Zack's and fell asleep as Sarina and I talked about sex and watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It wasn't nearly the wild night out that I had expected and hoped for. I later found out that LJ did more what I had wanted to do, having gone to another club and then a million other places. Another night, I guess. Anyone up for it?

The next morning we got some trashy breakfast at McDonald's and then I headed home. Later that day, there was some major drama with Gabby fighting with everybody, so that took up the rest of the day. Relationships are wonderful, huh? Now I'm sitting here and watching Spinal Tap with my mom, intern/guest (Nick), the cats, and my dog. And that's what I've been up to lately, in unnecessary detail.

"(CBS 5) BERKELEY A Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting."

more here

I've been up to quite a lot lately.

I'll start with last weekend. On Friday, LJ and I went clubbing in West Hollywood. We went to Rage. We actually really impressed ourselves by the fact that we got in, since it's an 18+ club and they actually strictly enforce it. Apparently the club has a backdoor that is very occasionally open, and we walked past it a bunch of times and finally snuck in when someone left it open. It was considerably smaller than Tigerheat, with less people. I guess it was pretty much the same experience as Tigerheat, though. I had a lot of fun dancing (alone for a lot of the time) but was at the same time depressed by the fact that I didn't know how to get any guys. I didn't get any to dance with me or anything. It was a fun and educational experience, though.

The next day, Saturday, I went and volunteered at the GLAAD Media Awards at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. It was quite an awesome experience. I saw loads of famous people like Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Lance Bass, and Jake Gyllenhaal. I also saw practically everyone from Ugly Betty, which I love. I saw the gay little kid, the sassy assistant, Rebecca Romijn, and main editor guy. There were also lots of people who I knew were probably famous from something I didn't know, but were just very attractive people to me. I spent the whole time just letting people know where to go, organizing things, and collecting donations. It was kind of awkward because I didn't know any of the other volunteers and most of them were way older than me, but I talked to some of them. I also ran into a bunch of people I knew who were attending the event, like Alex Shams and some people I had met at Models of Pride. It's such a cool thing to see the Kodak Theatre, too, where the Academy Awards are held, and to get to walk over velvet ropes and past security and stuff.

After that, still on Saturday (well, until it passed midnight), I met up with Catherine to go to a rave (FRESH). It took fucking forever to get to because it was way up in like Sylmar or San Fernando or some ridiculous place where I thought I would never find myself. We actually came up against the gates of a juvenile hall while trying to find the place. We finally got there and drove up this shitty dirt road. Security told us that there were some problems with the parking, that people had blocked the road by parking on it, so we should just park where we could and stay out of people's way as much as possible. No problem, so that's what we did. We parked on the side of the road and started walking. After walking through dirt for a while and like, crossing streams and shit, this angry black man, apparently a security guard, drove by yelling at us, saying we wouldn't be let in without a vehicle. Now they wanted us to go get my car and drive up in that. The thing is, there was no way to get our car up that road to the event because the roads were blocked by people who parked there before. So there was no way to get into the rave, basically, and some other bitch who worked there was like "just go home" so that's what we did. Soooo not cool. I feel really bad for people who bought presale tickets. Afterwards there was a lot of talk online about what a piece of shit it was, but there were also a bunch of people talking about how much fun they had. I don't understand how they got in, though. Not very fair that we didn't. Plus I heard someone talking about how security had totally fucked up his car and beat it with a bat and stuff. Just thinking about what a shitty rave that was makes me mad again. Bastards better not dare to have another.

Whew, sorry for the crazy rant there. That night I slept at Catherine's. When we woke up the next morning (Sunday) we discovered that, over the course of the night, someone had broken the window of her car and stolen her laptop. I feel so sorry for her; I'd die if that happened to me. Luckily they had security cameras on that street so they got some of the license plate. I don't know how the situation is going now. So we spent half the day dealing with that, and then we went and picked up Brian and went to lunch. We couldn't think of anything to do then so we went back to my house and chilled for a bit. Then Kayla and Farah came over and we drove to the hill across from my house and smoked out of an apple. Faded, we went to Johnny Rocket's and I indulged in a veggie burger that looked like it had moss growing on it. I have pictures, check the Flickr.

There was no school on Monday but I just stayed at home and relaxed. On Tuesday, Kayla and I went to Doug Benson's "I Love Movies" at the UCB Theatre in Hollywood. Doug Benson is a hilarious comedian who's on VH1 a lot, so if you watch VH1 you'd probably recognize his face. It was his last show, so he had a bunch of other comedians there with him, but he was still the funniest. Graham Elwood is disgustingly obnoxious and should not be permitted to speak or make any noise.

The rest of the week was ridiculously busy and difficult as always. This weekend has been going pretty well, but I'll post about it in another post because I need to get some sleep.

I went to Tigerheat for the first time last night, with Savannah and her step-sister Frankie. For those of you who don't know, it's a gay nightclub here in Los Angeles. It felt amazing to just have the whole night to do whatever I wanted, because I was sleeping over at Savannah's. I had a ton of fun, but it kinda bummed me out at the same time, both of which I expected. I love dancing and that kind of atmosphere. But I always feel out of place in the whole posh gay scene, where everyone's super-skinny and super-tan and has either short spiked hair, a faux-hawk, or shit overly-straightened scene hair. I lack the promiscuous confidence everyone else has. And I don't know how to meet people or pick guys up. I feel like I'm missing out on something everyone else knows, some procedure everyone else is familiar with but me. I asked a guy to dance but he said no. I just don't really know how to go about it, and whenever I ask people how they do it they give some weird vague answer. I feel like such a fucking social retard. I saw some asshole I met a few times before through other people I know, and he said he didn't know me; whatever. And some random MySpace celeb named Jeffree Star was there too, though I had never heard of him before that. Though there are obviously things I didn't like about it, I'd love to go again. I love dancing, and hopefully someday I'll feel more comfortable.