Nam and Erik are Officially Friends Again

Yes, an era has ended and Nam and Erik are no longer together. Erik and I have decided to go our separate ways in order for Erik and myself to sort out our lives. Though I was reluctant, Erik found that this was a necessity for him in his growth as a person and his journey to understand his inner child.

But, we are still good friends and I would like everyone that has gotten to know Erik to be happy for us in this decision. Erik is still an integral friend of mine and will always play a dynamic in the groups of people that I find myself hanging out with. I know that all of you will never show any negativity toward him because ... heck... my friends simply aren't that kind of people... Well maybe superficially, but not where it counts.

Oh.. What it is to be in the NAM.

On a brighter note.. I got some awesome news for ya'lls.... Karen has tentatively decided on her wedding in MAY.... and Matt has finally proposed to Lori Flint.

I'M SO EXCITED AND I JUST CAN'T HIDE IT!!!!

Lesson 1: You never know what you have until you lost it.

I've been getting a lot of e-mails from people consoling me for my loss and telling me what a jerk Erik is. And I suppose to some of you it may be because I went on a selfish tirade for a few days. But, I have learned a few things and the world is such a better place. Lesson 1, is an oldy but goody. I will remind the world of it again, even though I know that you can only truly know it's worth if you have actually lost something of value.

I truly believe Erik was something great that I lost due to selfishness. And now that I am in my right mind, I want everyone to know that those who think he is a jerk because of anything I may have said in passing should accept the fact that I am crazy and that they should rethink their view of Erik..... for my sake.

Lesson 2: You can't see your own problems if you won't listen to the obvious cries of others.

Self righteousness and pride are great for politicians and lawyers, but who likes them? (Well, this doesn't apply to you James). They make a lot of big promises and say a lot of grandiose things with tricky words, but at the end of the day they haven't listened at all and the only thing that gets done is their own agenda.

I think I fell into this world because I lost some things that were very dear to me, and this was a very addictive and satisfying way to deal with my pain. But in the process I think I lost a sense of wonder and life that I was proud of. And I developed an angst of the world that was far beyond my capability to control.

Fortunately, I have been guided by an angel (metaphorically) to the folly of my ways and the error of my thinking.

Goals and Power are interesting things. They give us senses of self worth and belonging. But as many of you know and I have rediscovered, it is true friendship and family that is the building block of a successful person. Respect and cherish your friends and respect and cherish the world around you. With this attitude goals and power are ultimate in your hands.

With that in mind I would like to tell everyone that has touched my life the following:

With the passage of time comes the passing of life,

And all things within are left in doubt

But with joy in your heart and good spirit in your soul,

each moment in life lasts an eternity,

In these moment of pure delights,

your loved ones dwell

and with their aid, you flourish.

If I haven't said it to you before, then I'm saying it now. You all have touched my life in ways that I will always be grateful for. You all know who you are... and I thank you for your friendship...

Now, it's time to party........................................

In Other News

Well it looks life life has come full circle and I'm glad I got a chance to catch myself before I got into another loop!

Went down to LA to see Star Wars Episode II with my kickass homie Richard and his kickass wife Elicia. They got this very cute home down in Van Nuys, and I was welcomed with open arms into their home. We saw Star Wars, which was awesome.... Yoda is my idol.. not that I have idols :p.

We then went to the park, where DJs were spinning, to meet up with Richard's friends, Jesse and Fox and others.....

It was a good trip.

I also started packing up the apartment. I will be moving home now that I am poor. Living in the comfort of mommy and daddy's will be a nice change of scene for me.

Had a nice talk with Erik after some illusory action from him, but our friendship has been confirmed again.

Richard and I are heading back to Kukizaki, Japan in June. And this time, they will not know what hit them.

That's it for the news!

Memorial Day Weekend

Anh graduates from San Jose State University this weekend and we are all happy for her. I think Jacky graduates too, but she didn't make much of a deal about it.

Thursday Party at Bryan's

On the Thursday of the Weekend I went to a party at Bryan's house. Shawn and his friends from the Academy of Art college had submitted some entries into an art show and we were celebrating the show and hopefully going to see some of their stuff. We started the party with oyster shooters and a variety of wines.... among other things. We left Bryan's place completely wacked out and headed to the Academy to see some art. We get there and Shawn and I go looking around wondering what the heck people were thinking when they submitted their works. There were just too many painting of water lilies for my taste, but i guess people like that kind of thing.

(Bryan Shuckin' Oysters)

There I saw Sarah something or other. She is a friend of Elicia's who I believe is evangelical. We had gone to see James Kurtz and his band play at their church sometime way back when. I gave her a hug and told her how to contact Elicia and Richard.

From that party we go outside to elicit smokes from random people. Bryan got one from this japanese chick. She seemed very nice and had told us that she didn't to return to japan because SF was so wonderful. I suppose it is.

From there we walk to another building where our friend Phil had some other stuff on display. However, we had the hankering for some drinks so Shawn, Bryan and I headed to 111 Minna, which was a quick walk down one of the alleys new the school. They had some beers and I had me a baby Piper... yum. We then had a heated debate on relationships. I find that Bryan and I always have heated debates on things, I suppose it is we both are too strong willed and domineering... ha ha!

Bryan then calls Phil and we find out that he had won an award and that we had been sitting there talking for way to long. We completely missed the show and ran down the street to try and weasel our way in. However, to no avail.

feeling bad, we decide to celebrate by going to Sushi Groove. I get a huge bottle of my favorite seasonal sake and some beers for the group. We sit and eat sushi and I meet the most awesome sushi chef... forgot his name. But he indulged my limited japanese and I commented on how wonderful the uni was there. Delicious and perfect! I then get the group going on the argument again which was a fun game. It was an awesome night.

After that we walked down to Butter, where we danced a bit, had red bull and vodkas and watched as Bryan swapped gum with this cute black chick. From there we head over to the Stud and dance for all of five minutes. We realize how boring the club is so we take a taxi and head back to Bryan's for more indulgences.

I don't know when I got home but it was a good night.

Friday Festivities: Waiting for Godot and PF Chang's

So, I go to school and do my thing and I see Kenny online on AIM. He never usually answers AIM calls but I decided to try. I was surprised when he responded. We get to chatting and I tell him how much I missed seeing he and Jacky around, so he suggests we go do something. So, after some deliberation, I convince them to go see Waiting for Godot at the Calaveras Rep with me. I designed the lights for the show and was very happy with how it came out, so I wanted some of my friends to see it before it disappeared. So that night we go watch Waiting for Godot.

The play has been reviewed and critically analyzed by countless people. So I will give you my own view of the show, which may be completely different from the "scholars"

Waiting for Godot is a play on human lives and a critique on human habitualism and blind faith. In essence, what it is saying is that people find their comforts and confine their lives within those comfort zones. These comforts form our habits and eventually envelope our lives and do not allow us to move out of its grasp even though a better path is obvious. Life comes full circle and you've learned nothing.

Kenny was asking what it was about because he didn't quite understand what was happening, but I think he got it in the end.

After that Kai and I head to PF Chang's. We actually were headed for Midori's but didn't know where it was so ended up at PF Chang's. We got there and got a table immediately since it was so late. We got this wacky waiter named Amariah. Nice cute and white. Hee hee. Anywho.... at the end of our meal I asked Amariah to wrap up our food. He then started to RAP. Which was so cute! He then said... Oh, you meant wrap the food, and he took the food away and wrapped it up. When he gave me the bill I gave him my credit card and my ID. He checks my ID and hands it back to me and says "Nice Picture!"

Now the dilemma.... Does a straight guy tell another guy that his License picture is nice? My vote is no... so I was wavering to the side of him being not straight :P. Yet, I was dumbfounded that I didn't have the nerve to respond to him as quickly as I might have in days past. Instead of making a whitty remark back.. I goofed and just smiled. So, to make it up I slipped him my business card in hopes that he might call me if he was "interested". Alas.... no response.... and the beat goes on.

Saturday Festivities: Anh's Graduation

Started moving some things our of the house getting ready for my move back to Milpitas. My storage is getting full now, probably will have to get a bigger space.

In the afternoon, I head over to Anh's graduation party. We get there and no one has showed up. Kai, Erin, Pedro, and I were there along with some of her family. Her mom was making fun of her cause she told her that she had 17 friends coming. She starts screaming in her asian mother accent, "She told me she had 17 friends.... but now I only see 5 friends, you guys can't leave until you eat all this food!" Classic.....

That night we went to Anh's Party at the Back Beat. She seemed to have a lot of fun, but I was getting tired of the party thing so Kai, Ken, Jackie, Pedro, Dan, and I head to play pool. That lasted till 1:30 and Kai and I start heading back to the Back Beat to make sure Anh was ok. She of course was drunk out of her head and we drove her home. Then sleep.

Sunday Frolic

More moving.... I enlisted Anh to come up to SF with me tonight. At around 2:00 I went on a lunch date with this nice guy. We wondered around Santa Clara trying to find a place open for food and we ended up at PF Chang's. I told him of the story of Amariah and enjoyed another dish I had not ever had there. It was a nice date.

Eudean invited me to go to some Drag show..

(Eudean, Nobu and I)

Miss Dolores Pageant. I figured Anh would like that sort of thing and she willingly agreed. We waited for my friend and she helped me pack some of my stuff. Boxes and Boxes later, Eudean and his friend Nobu come over. We then head out to the drag show.

(Anh and "Miss Saigon")

It was an awesome show, five queens fighting for the title. Did some dancing had some fun, and then we headed out to Baghdad Cafe for some food. We talked about our scum bag men and then headed to get dessert in North Beach. We got home at about 3:00 and crashed.

(Moi at the Dolores homestead)

Monday Madness

Anh and I worked and getting my shelves into my dad's minivan and drove down to Milpitas and dropped the stuff off.

(Anh and I in my mess of an apartment)

We then joined Kai and went out on a dim sum date at Joy Luck Place near Valco. We ate a lot of stuff and waited for some desserts that never came. So we decided to leave.

Afterward, we headed up to Los Gatos for some Gelato. After the Gelato, Anh went to get some trophies for something she needed to do for the school she works for. In the mean time, Kai and I explored Sharper Image. This lady was trying to sell us a pair of 700 dollar air cleaners.

We then went to find Anh wondering down the street and headed back home. Kai and I decided to go see Star Wars. He hadn't seen it yet, and I wanted to see the last 30 minutes again. We dropped Anh off and headed to the Great Mall Century Theater. I fell asleep during parts of the first half but was wide awake for the ending sequence that I liked.

From there we drove aimlessly to find something to do. We have been doing that a lot lately. Perhaps symbolically acting out how we felt. Aimless... lost... searching for a sign... some kind of reassurance. So we continued wondering.

Fortunately, hunger took over our psyches and we headed to PF Chang's.... but instead we decide to go to a Mexican Restaurant that I had pointed out to Kai a few days before saying that "It was good"

It was called La Paloma.. When we got our table I realized that I had never eaten there in my life... and that I had been in the lobby but the wait was too long so we went to some other place. Fortunately, it was a very good restaurant. Kai and I talked as usual. I am trying to be more open to my friends and I find it is making life a little more fun.

Anywho, we leave the restaurant and it happens......(See Below)

The Most Important Moment in Kai and Nam's Life... as of yet.....

Ok, I've been deep and serious lately, but that's just the way things go... but for Kai and I, we have reached a place in our lives when we started asking ourselves questions about the people within and the universe we live in. These past weeks have been reflective and difficult as we came to grips with ourselves and our world. And yet, we, like the characters in Waiting for Godot, have come full circle and not sure what to do. Coming out of the restaurant we noticed something that I guess you would say is predictable, but at that moment in time, it took me off guard.

It was 8:30 at night and we opened the door to get out of the restaurant.... The sun was still up. The night had not come for us like the characters in Godot.. there was more distractions for us to embrace that night.

Epiphany.. the world changes in a cycle... but always moves on. You must notice the changes in the world to gauge the changes in yourself.

From there, we walk toward Kai's Car.. and it happens... the most important moment in Kai and My life... as of yet. (I hope I do the story poetic justice.)

In the shadowed rear of this restaurant which proudly presents it's Mexican Fair, nothing but danger one would expect. Yet, with friend by my side, comfort dissolved fear.... for the sun itself would not let night throw it's darkened cloak.

And there within the shadow lay pure sorrow.... A man.

His woeful demeanor pierced the night and gleamed on his ebony facade. He sat, as if trapped, on a bucket filled with sand. The kind of bucket one would expect to see outside of any old restaurant used for the disposal of cigarette butts.

There he sat, his bright eyes gleaming at Kai and I.... Seeing us, he spoke an inaudible cry for help.

Intrigued, I stepped toward him and told him to repeat himself, for I could not understand his understated whisper.

He then closed his eyes, and with all his soul he spoke again, pleading.. in affect,

"Would you help a Black Guy"

This struck my racial core, and the debate within me grew. And I realized that something about that night and something about that moment was special. For as I first walked up to this man, I had not judged him by his colored exterior, or by the shadows he dwelled in. Instead, simply by the sorrow that precipitated through the calm of the night, straight into my soul.

Again, he asked us,

"Can a black guy like me ask for help from people like you?"

So, with time frozen, I answered,

"It depends on what you are asking for...."

And he looks at us with his pearl eyes, and tells us his story:

AJ's Story.. the Jist of it...

I come from Texas.. Houston, Texas. I go to Sacramento State University and currently am studying law. But, I am a black man.... and I am sitting here, tired of walking, to ask you two if you would lend a helping hand to someone in need. You see, I have just finished my finals at Sac State and I decided to celebrated with my white friend who has family down here in Santa Clara.

I can't lie to you.. I've made some mistakes.... We had been drinking and my friend had some marijuana and the cops caught us. I passed the breathalyzer test and was let go, but my friend... well he didn't pass and he was in possession of pot, so he's in jail right now. His car has been impounded and I'm stuck here waiting by the car hoping for a miracle.

By billfold is in that car... and I just want to go home. I went to the police and they told me that I would have to get a written release to get my billfold. However, he is in jail and that would be impossible. I'm stuck. The school year has ended and all my friends have gone home from school, my family is in Texas and I am without a friend.

I'm 6'4', black, and heck.. I know I look intimidating. (And with that remark he stood to show his formidability, we were taken aback) But, I have worked so hard all my life and have given where I could.

Do you believe in karma?

Here in my place of despair I don't know what to think. All I know is that if I was any other color, I probably would have gotten help by now, but alas.

I speak four languages, I only have 24 units left before I graduate and I just want to get home to my dorm. I am harmless and have no weapons... look (He then felt the need to show us that he had no weapons under his shirt... he was only a man.)

I want to go home.

The Test of Humanity

AJ continued his story and Kai and I saw ourselves stuck in time and listening to this man pour out his heart and soul in complete desperation. 20... 30 minutes pass in an instant. I was entrenched in mental intrigued and so I concocted a plan.... a test.One so pure and simple.. and so perfect for what Kai and I needed to fulfill our unease. So I tell him,

"AJ, You will be our test of humanity. We will give you the money you need to get home by train, and I will give you my calling card to contact me. If you contact us within a specific time and repay your debt, you will restore our faith in ourselves and humanity. If not, you will plunge us into the unknown."

And there it was set. Kai and I decided to give him until midnight on Wednesday. Our faith was in his hands. I took his picture and we said our good-byes and goodlucks. I decided not to show his picture on the site, because it just didn't seem appropriate.

And so we wait...

In the mean time....

Afterward, Kai and I head out to PF Chang's because I had somehow got Kai to convince himself to start drinking again. He is doing it since he has to drink at his cousin's wedding, so he better start getting used it it soon. So, we go to PF Chang's which has an awesome bar! We both have this drink called the Buddha's Delight. It tasted like a creamsicle.. yum. Unfortunately, Amariah was not there, but no matter, we were there to discuss our hopes for the future and what the consequences of our test are.

Our conversation diluted into the night and we retired. Content that we have put our worries on the soul discretion of the world instead of ourselves.

Tuesday

Nothing.... no contact from AJ

Bryan, Shawn, and I go see Star Wars.. Again... I notice things I don't like everytime.. but fun is fun. We go to Iroha at the Japan Town Center for dinner and I go home for the night.

Wednesday

Morning... alas, no contact from AJ.... tonight at midnight... our faith in humanity hung to be judged. I go to school as usual and have a midday date with this guy I met online named Scott. He was a neat guy... we had vietnamese ice coffee in Oakland, and walked around the streets of his neighborhood. We then went back to his housing complex and there was crowd in the door. There was a guy on the floor who had somehow hurt his back. My EMT training came out and I asked him, "This may sound like a strange question, but it has serious intentions.... do you have an erection?" He said "No", ...."Good" I said, "An erection could indicate that you have some spinal trauma."

I then went home and talked with Kai online. We started to lose our faith as the time went by.. only 7 hours and our faith in humanity would be crushed.

Then it happened:

The Phone Call

I get this phone call on my cell, the caller ID said "withheld number" which usually means my parents are calling. So, I picked up and said "Hello"

Then the voice of humanity spoke, "Nam Nguyen? It's me AJ.. remember me?"

A great leap of energy surged through my shivering body as if I had been touched by the maker.

AJ called to ask for my address so he could repay us. So I gave him my address and told him that his call was payment enough.. for he had restored our faith in humanity and my faith in my abilities to judge people.

There was more too that phone call, but the excitement makes only that moment clear.

So, here I am writing our story, butterflies fluttering in a swarm within me, and an outlook on life beyond what I had ever thought I could experience a year ago. I've spent a whole year outside of myself in a world of selfish habit, and now my eyes have not just been opened, but have been reinforced. The world is telling Kai and I, that we have chosen the right path, that changes can be made, and that we need to just let life happen and unfold before us.

Quoth Kai:

"It's refreshing to know that there are still some honorable people in the world who keep their word, especially in a situation where their are no consequences for themselves.

There may still be some hope in the world for people to be good, which is refreshing for those as cynical and sarcastic as us."