UAE

No matter what I say here, you are going to be the one to choose whether you believe this to be a true story of not. Go ahead, make your choice.

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Ashar and I met on a gay social networking site last spring, something akin to MySpace like 5 years or 20 site upgrades ago. It is a lame and clunky website, but turns out to be a good way to meet guys. I also met Scott, my wonderful summer boyfriend, and Zach, a sweet boy who has since fallen madly in love and off the rails of sanity, on there as well. Ashar and I were both in the video chat room late one Friday or Saturday evening. He's very handsome in an exotic, other-side-of-the-world way, and he was looking as bored as humanly possible, so I struck up a conversation. We hit it off.

Over the next few weeks we chatted online a bit, sometimes with text, sometimes with microphones and videos. Turns out that, though he was living in Manhattan, he has the posh British accent that Middle Eastern people sometimes have when their formative English experiences happen on the other side of the Atlantic. He was born in Las Vegas (who has even claimed to have been born in Las Vegas? No one, I assert) and is therefore an American citizen, but he spent his childhood years in London and his adolescence in Dubai, where his parents have permanently settled. One unsettling thing that I noticed at first: he claimed to be bisexual. This is actually a pretty common thing among gay men, though, when they are first working through a coming out experience. Many have had relationships with women in the past, and they try to reconcile this history with their current, maybe newly-discovered attraction to men. It is pretty easy to shrug off these claims of bisexuality, just a step in the gay man's evolution.

Ashar and I learned a lot about each other over the weeks and developed a pretty good friendship, as far as I could ascertain and these online things go, you know. He kept prodding me to come to New York for a visit, and I was at a fairly impressionable place and needed a getaway. So I found a good package on Travelocity and went. It was a great weekend. Spring was coming on, Central Park was a bit soggy but blooming, the food was primo, the boys were looking fine. I experienced New York City nightlife for the first time, and had the most fun, most memorable club night of my life. I should hasten to add at this point that Ashar and I did not become romantically involved.

We stayed close after that May weekend, talking often, trading stories of our current boy dramas, our complicated exes and ohs. I got Ashar to come visit for the long July 4th weekend, and we had a great time. He had never been to Chicago, so we did some touristy stuff, went up to Scott's family manse for a pool party/cookout, hit up the bars so he could compare and contrast our gay Chicago nightlife to his own. I tried to convince him in advance that the Chicago boys would love him, but he seemed to believe that all Midwesterners are white xenophobes who would be less likely to find his Persian-Pakistani ethnicity appealing. I won that argument in the end.

He told me just after that July visit that he was going home to Dubai for his cousin's wedding. This female cousin was his best friend and closest family member, so he was very excited and was going for the entire two weeks of festivities. This must have been early to mid-August. I remember him wishing me a happy birthday and ribbing me for being such an old man. I got an offline instant message from him a few weeks later on AIM saying that he had so much to tell me about his trip home to Dubai. That was the last time that I ever heard from him.

I sent him text messages, I tried to instant message him, I called his phone number, I sent emails on the ridiculous social networking website where we had met. Nothing. I did Google News searches for his name, hoping that I wouldn't find any mention of him in any New York newspaper obituaries. I called his work phone number, sent emails to his work address, and got no answer. Left voicemails, kept trying over the course of several months. Then I gave up.

**************************************

New Year's Eve, just a few days ago, 8 o'clock, getting ready to go out for a big night. I started my congratulatory, well-wishing texting a bit early, expecting that the place where I was going for the evening would be packed and noisy and I would be drinking and it would be impossible to do much with those tiny phone keys under the influence of that wicked combination. I'm not sure exactly why I sent this message, some combination at the crossing of sentimentality and fatality, I suppose. But I sent it.

Outgoing Text, 12/31/09 7:59 pm CST
"Happy New Year, Ashar, wherever you are and whatever the hell happened to you. I still think of you fondly. <3 David..."

When my phone buzzed a few minutes later and I saw his name on the screen, strangely, inexplicably, I felt nothing. Not surprise, not excitement, nothing.

Incoming Text, 12/31/09 8:01 pm CST "I think you messaged the wrong person?"

Now I know why those messages weren't returned. His phone was deactivated, he's moved, someone else has his number now.

Outgoing Text, 12/31/09 8:02 pm CST "Sorry! I must have an old number. Happy New Year to you, anyway! hahaha"

Well, that's over. I can delete his number from my contacts for sure now. Continue getting ready, fiddling with hair, etc.

Incoming Text, 12/31/09 8:09 pm CST "Are you trying to reach Ashar Khan?"

Sproing!!! Sweet, surprising, a lead!

Outgoing Text, 12/31/09 8:11 pm CST "Indeed! Do you know him? Do you know how I can get in touch with him?"

Incoming Text, 12/31/09 8:14 pm CST "This is his wife; I have his phone."

Oh. My. Allah. (I say this as a prayer, and not in vain. A prayer of total shock. Prayer as punchline.)

Outgoing Text, 12/31/09 8:19 pm CST "Is he in the US? Can you give me his new number or some other way to contact him?"

Incoming Text, 12/31/09 8:29 pm CST "Are you talking about Ashar Xxxx from Xxxxx Xxxxx? May I know who this is?" (Family and employer names redacted to protect the innocent from Google search results)

Okay, time to panic. Wait, must reread initial messages to make sure I didn't say anything inappropriate. Okay, besides the <3, everything is quite tame and asexual. But what if I'm not the first, just another piece of evidence in a mounting case against his heterosexuality? Is this an arranged marriage? Did he marry his cousin? Must act quickly, must lie creatively, accurately, and convincingly.

Outgoing Text, 12/31/09 8:32 pm CST "This is his friend David from Chicago. We went to UPenn together. Can you send me his number?"

And that's pretty much the end. I made one more unanswered attempt a few minutes later.

Outgoing Text, 12/31/09 8:57 pm CST "Alright, thanks anyway. Please tell Ashar that his friend David in Chicago says Happy New Year if you have a chance. Take care!"

Waiting in line at the 53rd and 6th Halal food cart in midtown Manhattan with Ashar, 2 am, May 2009.

Currently Listening to:
John Mayer's Battle Studies

Favorite Music, 2009

It is the end of the year! Yes, yes, it is. For my year-end music list this year, I've decided to choose the top five artists that have carried me through this turbulent annum. My list of favorite songs for this year seems so inadequate, so scatter-shot, and an album list just wouldn't do justice to the depth of the work of these artists that I was introduced to or discovered or loved in the past twelve months.

#5 - Lucinda Williams



Yeah, I've had a rough year, but this rock goddess helps me put it in perspective: it occurred to me the other day that no one on earth has probably written more songs about suicide than Lucinda Williams. I had the opportunity to attend a three-night concert event here in Chicago celebrating the 30th anniversary of her recording career back in October, and it was a huge highlight of the year for me. The first night especially, when she focused on performing songs from her earliest three records, singing songs that have fallen by the wayside over the years and are rarely performed any more, was sublime and will be memorable for such a long time to come. "Crescent City," "Sharp Cutting Wings," "The Night's Too Long," "Little Angel, Little Brother," "Sweet Old World" - magnificent. And hearing her sing "Learning How to Live" and "Everything Has Changed" from the West album was one of the most transcendent, healing moments of my year. Those three days, indeed.


#4 - The Avett Brothers



Scott and Tami have been raving about these guys for a few years now, but I'd never made any moves towards checking them out until early this year when those generous Camerons gifted me the Emotionalism album. "All My Mistakes," "I Would Be Sad," "Die Die Die," "Shame" - perfect. Later this year, when I and Love and You was streaming on NPR, I became fully, completely smitten. I picked that one up right after it was released, and now those songs are the ones popping into my head at opportune times, the ones that I'm singing along to while washing the dishes. And I feel pretty good about the fact that the most discriminating 2 year-old music fan in the world, Asher Scott Cameron, and I have the same favorite song: "Kick Drum Heart." If I'm picking a best album of 2009, it is I and Love and You. Also, if I'm picking worst album cover art, it is that one, too. "Get Out!"

#3 - The Format



I found out this year that I like people from Phoenix, Arizona; I should have known this already, because this band from Phoenix has been rocking my world with their prescient, perfect lyrics for a couple of years now. I don't have much more to say this year than I did last, when I picked Interventions and Lullabies as my favorite album of the year. The Format never came off of my mp3 player this year; maybe they never will.

#2 - The Weepies



This husband and wife duo specialize in simplicity, melody, and heart-searing lyrics. I downloaded their most recent album, Hideaway, this past spring when it was the $1.99 daily deal at the Amazon mp3 Store (by the way, if you use iTunes, you are paying too much for your downloads). Just a few minutes of previews, and I knew that this was my kind of music. There's some really great break-up songs and a delicious mellowness to the album that were just what I wanted for wallowing in a bit of sorrow. There's "Can't Go Back Now" and "Lighting Candles" and "How You Survived the War" and "All Good Things (Come to an End)." Just the titles probably give you a sufficient idea. I met a nice boy named Zach a few months later, and we had The Weepies in common. He gave me a copy of their earlier album Say I Am You, which is equally awesome but with slightly more oblique titles like "Painting by Chagall," "Living in Twilight," and "Riga Girls." The best song title of 2009 for me? "Not Your Year." Yeah, I feel that. Thanks to The Weepies for, appropriately, some healthy tears and beautiful poetry.

#1 - Sun Kil Moon



I am fully aware that this choice is drenched in irony. Kevin introduced me to the music of Mark Kozelek back in 2005; his former band was Red House Painters, sometimes he releases self-billed, and now he's performing under this name. I bought both April, his most recent release, and Ghosts of the Great Highway this year, and I am now firmly, resolutely convinced that no artist captures pain, despair, tragedy, loss, and unfulfilled longing more acutely, more perfectly in his voice and lyrics than Mark Kozelek. Of course, these are not necessarily emotions that you want to be reminded of on a daily basis, so this isn't everyday music. This is difficult, raw, often unpleasant stuff, but couched in such beauty, sometimes such ethereal, exquisite, delicate beauty. "Lost Verses" and "Tonight the Sky" are both 10-minute tracks on April, and such an incredible journey of 10 minutes it is. "Salvador Sanchez" is a brilliant, shimmering rocker on Ghosts and its twin "Pancho Villa" is a beautiful, stripped-down version. The bonus track cover of "Somewhere" from West Side Story teases with a bit of hope ("Someday, a place for us, somewhere a time for us...We'll find a way of living, we'll find a way of forgiving."), but also just enough melodic dissonance to make you wonder, really?

***************************************************

Honorable mentions: Kris Allen, who made me truly, completely excited about "American Idol" - The Killers, who I think are actually wildly underrated for a popular band - Coldplay, who put on a fantastic live show for me and some friends up in Wisconsin this summer - Pink and Kelly Clarkson, whose albums this year were honest and awesome - Andrew Bird and St. Vincent, whose unique artistry is enjoyable, novel, and quirky.

Favorite Radio Artist to Love to Hate While Singing Along With - Taylor Swift

Favorite Dance Songs - Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance," Pink's "So What" and "Please Don't Leave Me," Shakira's "She Wolf"

Most Infectious Song - Miley Cyrus's "Party in the USA"

Most Eye-Rolling Lyrics of the Year (tie) -
Owl City's "Cave In" - Please take a long hard look through your text book /'Cause I'm history...Riding a dirtbike down a turnpike/Always takes its toll on me
Owl City's "Dental Care" - I've been to the dentist a thousand times / So I know the drill

Most Unfortunate Song Title to an Awesome Song - Kelly Clarkson's "My Life Would Suck Without You"

Best Song That You've Never Heard - Miles Fisher's "This Must Be the Place"

Most Disappointing Albums - Conor Oberst et al's Outer South and Mindy Smith's Stupid Love

Favorite Fun, Profanity-Filled Song - Lily Allen's "F@#$ You"

Concert that I am Suddenly Thrilled that I Didn't Go To With the Hipster Boy that Invited Me - Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

Tears

I am better now. This is just a reflection, a memory.

I read something tonight as I neared the end of a book, a scene where the past catches up with a character, and he cries. "He locked himself in the bathroom and cried, slowly, until his last tear was shed. Only then did he have the courage to admit to himself how much he had loved her."

I remember the first time I cried in front of Kevin. I was moving out of my apartment, my lovely little one bedroom Chattanooga apartment, the place where I lived for two years while teaching at Grace. It was the most wonderful little place. I was overwhelmed with sadness, probably scared about the uncertainty of my future, of where we were going and what we were going to be doing - which we didn't know. I had to move back in with my parents for a few weeks; this was very frustrating. I started crying, and I was so embarrased. I fled into the bathroom and sat on the toilet in the dark and cried. And he came in, and he was comforting in a stolid, awkward, standoff-ish way, as was natural and correct. We had been dating only two or three months. There was a hand on the shoulder, there was a neck squeeze. Crying in the bathroom is so inelegant.

I remember another time more than a year later, we had just arrived in Asia, we were a few days in to a two-week trip in Thailand. We had this dumb-luck penthouse room in a bizarrely empty guesthouse in Phuket. No shower curtain, but the view from the balcony was amazing, the sunset I guarantee would melt the heart of the most jaded, flinty bitch on earth. The beach outside our windows was still ruined, still scarred by the tsunami's rapage some 20 months earlier. But there was tension inside too, there was more uncertainty, there was limbo, there was DW-TV. We felt like maybe we didn't know what we were getting into with this around-the-world move, and having all these suitcases with us and no idea what next week would hold caught up with us and got to be a bit overwhelming. I remember Kevin's head resting on me that night, his hot tears falling onto my chest, I remember exactly how that felt, and I knew for sure that was the most love that I had ever felt in my life.

I've cried more in this past year than I ever have and ever hope to again, I'm sure. I have a tiny measure of courage, I can admit that. But it is over now, I am better now. This is just a reflection, a memory.

Just finished reading
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez-

MC

One drowsy spring afternoon in Modern American Literature class, my professor accused me of being a romantic. We are talking personality-wise here, not in the literary or aesthetic-sense. Loudly, in front of the entire class, with basically no context, he said, "Now David, I think he's a romantic. Aren't you, David?" (I think he was probably flirting with me. He loved hugs from boys, asked for them frequently, but I can't remember ever seeing him hug a girl.) After a modicum of teasing by my friendly classmates and about eight years of reflection, today I find that he was correct. I am something of a romantic. (Sometimes our teachers tell us what to become, and sometimes they help us become what we already are. I'm not qualified to say which is the case here.)

This romantic made a dinner date last Friday night with his girl-buddy Happy. We went to HB, which is a bit more upscale of a restaurant than I usually frequent in Chicago (read: no counter service here). Also, inexplicably, though it is nestled deep in the gayest cockles of the heart of this city, it was chock-full of guy/girl couples. We fit in! But boy, did we have them fooled. After dinner, we moved a few doors down for some fun at my favorite nightspot. Some other friends joined; we were filled with spirits and merriment; we whiled the hours away on the dance floor and in the more conversation-friendly courtyard with great joy.

Then this happened: I noticed a boy. I danced with him. I wrote a missed connection about it. Maybe this was a flare-up of my romantic temperament. Maybe it was silly. Either way, I posted it.

David Visiting from Phoenix, AZ - m4m - 30

I pulled you away from your group of friends late tonight at Roscoe's and asked you to dance with me. You were quite obliging, and by far the cutest guy among hundreds of cute guys at the bar tonight. I am not into hookups or one-nighters, and I got the feeling that you aren't either, so this was going nowhere fast. But I also got the feeling that you are much more than a smoking hot, stylish, vest-wearing guy; you seemed incredibly sweet and kind in the few minutes that I got to spend with you. Thanks again for dancing with me, and I hope that you enjoy your long weekend here in Chicago.

David from Tennessee...
Location: Roscoe's, Friday Night



Yes, friends, I got a hot guy to dance with me. It was a great moment for me, because I am usually not the go-get-'em, instigator type. You can probably glean everything that you need to know about our fabulous ten minutes together from this posting: we danced, we talked, we found out that we were both named David, he told me that he was just visiting for the weekend from Phoenix, we said goodbye. We said goodbye several times, actually. Once on the dance floor. Once when we left the dance floor. Once at the coat check. Once when our groups of friends pushed us towards each other and told us that we should go home together. One last time outside on the sidewalk, replete with fleeting glances and overly dramatic goodbye waves. Yeah, that was me.

Then I went home and wrote the missed connection that you just read. I was pleased to have met him, and felt like I needed to express some thanks and well-wishes. I spent the rest of the weekend hoping that I would run into him and his friends somewhere in the neighborhood, just for laughs. There's really no use having actual hopes or expectations in a situation like this, is there? No, there isn't. Wise words, level-headed perspective there, David #1.

Fast forward to Monday night, when this shows up in my email:

From: davidxxxxxxxx@gmail.com (davidxxxxxxxx@gmail.com)

Wow... I can't tell you how many times my friends told me I was dumb for walking away after we danced & not following up with you before we left the bar. I guess impairment can also affect your judgment negatively to cause you to pass up something good just as much as it can cause you to do something bad. Clearly I missed out on something good here... Hit me back?

and then this:

From: David X Xxxxxxxxxx (davidxxxxxxxxx@gmail.com)

Ok, so first of all I've never done this before and didn't know if my reply would post straight to craigslist, or if it went straight to you, so I didn't include any personal info in my last email. Then, I realized "how would he even know it's actually me and not some creeper?!" So, do this - check my facebook (facebook.com/davidxxxxxxxxx) or just take a look at the pic I've attached. (ooh, the shirt and tie in the pic were actually the same ones I wore under my black vest! But don't tell anyone that... haha! jk) I wish I had some pics from the trip to send, but no such luck.

But yeah, like I mentioned before, I'd definitely like to catch up/keep in touch, if for no other reason than to continue kicking myself for being so overwhelmed by the fun of my first trip to Chicago that I missed a chance to get to know a cute and intelligent guy. I'll stop now before I start/continue to sound crazy...

Hope to talk soon.

Imagine my joy! Imagine my excitement! Imagine a missed connection actually working! Imagine the fact that my eyes seem to water now every time I get really excited about a boy. It isn't crying; it is watery eyes. Bizarre but true.

So I wrote him back tonight. You don't get to know what that email said just yet, but I'll post an update if there is more news to share.

Currently Listening to:
Funhouse by P!nk

PDX Food

And now for something completely different and wholly unexpected, a food photo blog from this Pringles and chicken nuggets connoisseur. If one of you posted this on your blog, I would probably be like, "Snooze!" But it seems like I'm the only person that I know who isn't completely, totally in love with food - so who knows! Maybe you'll enjoy it.

Delicious, decadent chocolate bouquet filled with some sort of mousse and chocolate cake from Pix. It was so incredibly rich that I couldn't finish it. I always finish everything.

Breakfast, a farm scramble with eggs, bacon, peppers, onions, and other assorted vegetables, from New Deal, a lovely restaurant a mere two blocks from Liza's abode. Also, that biscuit was almost perfect, a little heartier and buttery-er than should be allowed by law. Also, a very good book by a Nobel Prize winner.

This was a delicious lunch discovery from the Pearl District: a bowl of brown rice and red and black beans garnished with a slice of avocado, black olives, a generous pinch of cilantro and cheddar cheese, and awakened by a yellow tali sauce that had hints of mustard and paprika. The Whole Bowl. Fantastic, unpretentious, everything that a person who doesn't care about food secretly wants his food to be.

Pizza from HOTLIPS on Hawthorne. The Friday veggie special was green chilis, roasted peppers, mushrooms, feta, and cilantro pesto. It was outrageously delicious. There was a salad on the side also, so I basically got more vegetables in one meal there than I do in a month here at home.

I did a lot of breakfast-time hanging out and reading. This trio was at a nice working bakery/cafe near Liza's home in the Hollywood District called Fleur de Lis. The cinnamon roll was uninspired but satisfying, the chocolate croissant was delicious with a remarkably generous vein of chocolate running through the middle, and the coffee was bold, tasty, and not devastating to my caffeine-sensitive constitution.

Late one afternoon during my Portland wanderings, I found a bubble tea shop that fairly and adequatley approximated the Taiwanese tea experience that I miss so dreadfully. Here is an iced mango green tea and the netbook on which I am currently typing this blog. Web 2.0 can be so eye-rollingly meta.

And now, my friends, the piece de resistance: a $5 bucket of day-old doughnuts from Voodoo Doughnuts. This is no small bucket; this is a 3 gallon bucket. I would guess there were between 20 and 25 doughnuts inside, and then 6 enormous fritters that were as big as your face. I don't exaggerate when it comes to baked goods, people. This may be the second best reason to move to Portland. A convincing case, indeed.

There is some focus on incorporating different kinds of cereal as doughnut toppings. You'll notice Froot Loops and Cocoa Puffs here. That little voodoo man contained some strawberry jam filling, which was appropriate and wonderful. That's also a pentagram doughnut. Didn't get eaten.

We played and posed with the doughnuts for longer than you'd like to know.

The fritters aren't as photo-friendly, but they were enormous and delicious. A winning combination, right?

Just one more: my last night in Portland we went to Branch, a new restaurant and whiskey bar. We had delicious drinks and fantastic food. I actually had a steak, which doesn't happen more than once a year, because who really likes to eat an enormous slab and/or pile of animal flesh? NRA members, that's who. And that's not me. But anyway, the steak was served on sauteed kale with potatoes and wonderful garlic and spices that I could not begin to isolate. It was divine.

Sorry that I overused the word delicious, but I'm fairly vocabulary-limited when it comes to taste descriptors. Guess I should start downloading Top Chef.

Currently Not Downloading:
Top Chef