Ebb and flow

Sometimes, I have an idea for a story and I’ll get caught up figuring out the details and the plot.  A few days later, the initial excitement of writing the story fades and fades, and I never really feel as connected and passionate about the original idea again.  Then there are moments in life where suddenly I’m reminded of the story again, and I genuinely feel like it’s time to sit down and write it.  What a great and powerful feeling that is, like validation, when you know you’re not crazy and that it wasn’t just a one-idea wonder.

El ratón y los pupitres

I’m taking 5 courses this semester, three of which are Creative Writing courses.  Ironically, the first story I wrote this term was for my Spanish class, in which we were to re-tell a story we read and studied in class called Cajas de carton (Cardboard Boxes) from one of the other characters.  The word limit was 200-250 words, which I found incredibly difficult to do, and when I was done my first draft, I was up to just over 450 words.  I was able to edit and cut out a bit part of my story, but it just wasn’t as good.  I debated whether or not to simply hand in the long version, since I found it to be a lot deeper than the shorter, edited version, but decided not to, in case my teacher would take off marks or whatever.

Anyway, here is the longer version that I didn’t submit.  I’ll post a translation in English tomorrow or perhaps tonight once I get through my piles upon piles of homework.

El ratón y los pupitres

El peor día del año: el primer día de clases.

Entre la inundación de carros, niños, padres, profesores, y mucho ruido, me siento en mi cárcel por el año siguiente otra vez, mirando la multitud a través de la ventana.  Suspiro.  En la pizarra, he escribido “Sr. Lema.”  Los pupitres en el aula son romos, vacíos, y fríos.  Lentamente, los estudiantes entran, hablan en voz alta, se ríen.  Nunca me prestan atención, nunca me miran.  Cuando llenan los pupitres, me pongo de pie.

“Hola, todos, y bienvenidos al grado sexto.  Me llamo Sr. Lema, su profesor.  Vamos a aprender muchísimo este año.  Espero que estén listos y excitados.”

Todo se ríen.  Me imagino que soy la broma.

***

Recuerdo cuando era niño.  Me encantaba aprender todo – matemáticas, ciencias, geografía, música.  Era tan curioso del mundo entero.  Pero cuando veo a niños hoy, con sus aparatos de alta tecnología, su vocabulario diverso y confuso, sus caras indiferentes y aburridas, es un recordatorio que estos chicos y chicas no son como yo era.  El entusiasmo, la pasión – no está allí estos días.

O quizás ya no exista.

***

Una mañana, el director me dice que un nuevo estudiante matricula en mi clase.  No pienso mucho en su noticia.  Mientras la clase llega, un muchacho bajo y tranquilo, como un ratón, está a la puerta.  Mira el suelo en el silencio.  Pero puedo ver algo especial en los ojos de este joven, algo brillante, como un poquito diamante esperando ser minado.  Durante la clase, no quiere leer, no habla inglés muy bien, y parece aterrorizado por todo.

Los estudiantes están fuera durante el recreo.  Me estoy sentando a mi escritorio cuando percibo alguien en el aula.  Es él, por supuesto, y me sonrío porque veo las joyas brillan.

Por un mes, durante el almuerzo, lo ayudo con sus estudios, particularmente inglés.  Puedo sentirme la pasión tranquila en este ratoncito, la curiosidad en sus preguntas  constantes.  Nunca me dice de su familia o de donde viene.  Dentro de poco, habla más y más en clase, mejor y mejor.

Un viernes, estamos en la sala de música.  Ve los muchos instrumentos diferentes en el temor.  Cojo una trompeta, mi instrumento favorito.

“¿Quisieras aprender a tocarla?” le pregunto.  Asiente con la cabeza, una sonrisa en su cara.  “Es un instrumento poco pero fuerte,” digo.  “Puedo enseñarte mañana.”

***

No lo veo después ese día.  La gente dice que su familia simplemente se fue.

Mientras los estudiantes aburridos llegan como siempre, y el gran ruido vuelve otra vez, me siento a mi escritorio y me doy cuenta de que los pupitres romos y planos, y los estudiantes que los llenarán año después ano, ambos esperan nada.

Thanks, but no thanks

Got another (quick) rejection yesterday, after submitting a couple short stories to a literary journal.  I didn’t think I would get published, but I thought it would be a good opportunity to submit nonetheless, so I wasn’t very disappointed or upset that my stories didn’t get picked.  Anyway, I know my fiction writing isn’t my strongest, but I’m working on it.

Oh well.  Time to make myself fat by eating ice cream cake.  Yay!

Nothing much

Got nothing much to say.  Started reading Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code in box office today, only because 1. I didn’t feel like writing today, and 2. it’s on BBC’s list of books to read.  So far, I’m not impressed.  I really don’t like his writing style — constantly interrupting the plot to tell readers how much he knows about Art History, or painters, or symbology.

I get it.  You did lots of research.  Now can I get back to you telling me a dumbed-down conspiracy story?  Thanks.

PS.  I also like how in his blurb in the book jacket, it says he is a “master” storyteller.  Had to laugh at that one, especially imagining him actually writing that out about himself.

Writing music is hard

Especially 25 minutes of music for a silent film.  Very hard.  Thank god I’m done.  Now it’s on to re-writing and re-writing a story for the Purple Letter Campaign (submit a story yourself, everyone!).

Random dream

Something I found in my Crap folder just now.  Hmm.

Random dream

So I had another dream last night.  (Actually, I have dreams every night and I remember almost all of them, unlike the average person)

I should probably give you a backstory to all of this.  I (used to) know a guy named Peter who I knew way back in kindergarten.  We were sort of friends for the first few years of elementary school but then we weren’t in the same class anymore and we ended up drifting apart.  I left that elementary school for another private school for 2 years before entering high school.  He also happened to be going to my high school too, so it was kinda weird seeing him again.  We didn’t really talk, except in Spanish class when he would ask me about things and one time when he phoned my house and asked me for stuff.  (I was surprised how he had my number).  Anyway, I got out of high school last year and haven’t seen him since.

Here’s the dream sequence:  We are sitting in a classroom.  He turns around and asks if I want to know something cool.  I say yes.  He asks me if it’s weird that crosswalks start out wide and then gradually narrow near the middle and then widen again.  I somehow know exactly what he’s talking about and we laugh about that for a bit.  I ask if he wants to know something weird and he says yes.  So I tell him to follow me.

We somehow get to my old bedroom in my old house.  The camera angle is now third person as we sit down on the bed.  I tell him that I’ve known him since kindergarten and yet we never really knew each other.  I ask if he remembers the Memory Book (scrapbook) we made back in Grade 2.  I pull the oversized yellow book out of the drawer while explaining what I came to tell him about.  We had taken a class picture of everyone and below it, a caption of everyone’s names in the class.  A long time ago, I had scribbled out names of people I disliked, and of course, his name was one of them (this part is also in real life – the scribbled names part).  I tell him this and watch his reaction, but he just takes the book from me and looks at it.  I tell him I don’t know why I had crossed out his name and ask if he remembers if he did anything bad/mean to me, but he still doesn’t respond.  He continues to flip through my book, studying each page.  I look and him and gently kiss him.  I’m not sure how he’ll respond, of course.  The next thing he does surprises me, to say the least.  He just puts the book down, and walks away.  I don’t know how to feel; was it the kiss that made him leave me or was it the fact that I had attempted to erase him from my Memory Book?

The end, by the way.  If there is anyone who can translate a dream, then maybe you could help me out here, because I don’t know if it’s supposed to mean something.  I should probably say that he’s probably straight, but my gaydar is probably the worst in the world, so I could be wrong.  Also, I would have on/off crush status with him, but mostly off, I think.

Wow, that was long.

I’m From Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

I came across this site about a year ago and thought it was utterly fantastic, so I decided to contribute a story that happened to me.  I’m From Driftwood is a site featuring real-life stories from and about queer youth (and some older folks, too) and it also looks like they’ve expanded to include trans people and allies, which is cool.  A lot of the stories on the site are coming out stories, but I decided to write about something different.

Here’s the link to my story:

http://www.imfromdriftwood.com/2009/08/26/im-from-vancouver-british-columbia-canada/

The 10 Defining Moments of My Life (so far) — #1: “Gay”

Back during my film school year, I had to come up with a list of ten defining moments of my life, like taking a snapshot of a scene and describing what was going on (it was an exercise in creating stories, not just randomly coming up with stuff).  Keep in mind these are things I came up with two years ago and some stuff I might bump off now for others.  And with that, in no particular order, here’s the first one! (not necessarily my #1 moment)

1.

I was running around the playground in the third grade, like all third graders.  I can’t remember where exactly I heard it from, but someone had mentioned the word “gay”.  At that point in my life, I had long known, but I couldn’t find the word to describe it… or something.  Feeling utterly joyful that I knew who I was, I dashed around the schoolyard, shouting “I’m gay!  I’m gay!”  I was so elated that I dared to even whisper into the ear of one of the supervisors (who was wearing a shiny reflective vest), sitting on one of the pale blue benches.   I heard her calling out behind me and attempted to avoid confrontation with her by talking with my friend Jessica, who was standing next to a gnarly tree.  But the supervisor didn’t let up; she approached me and asked where I had heard such a word.  I can’t remember exactly what I said, but I do remember her lecturing me on the usage of the word, that it only meant happy, and nothing else.  I stood there, humiliated and crying, not fully comprehending why this stranger was telling me what I was feeling was something else when I knew it was who I was.