When the Moon is in the Seventh House,
And Jupiter aligns with Mars,
Then peace will guide the planets,
And love will steer the stars
Christmas has come and gone and the year's end is just around the corner. And I'm guilty yet again of letting my ennui overcome me. But I think this time around, it's a good thing. Mainly because I can use the New Year as a starting point to implement a pogrom to annihilate
the demons of my worse disposition. Well, not all, but some that I believe I have an upper-hand over; I know (wait for it, a cliché cometh) there will be some battles lost, but I'm here for the war to win! (Gee, I sound eerily too much like Bush and his cronies.) Let me defuse the warmongering rhetoric and infuse this post with some New Agey dictum: the New Year will usher in a new chapter of my life, heralding a new age...
This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius...
***
What? Oh, you want to know why I'm talking about the age of
Aquarius? Well, I've been singing this damn song for nearly two whole weeks. Forget allowing Christmas carols even a chance to enter into my mind's iTune playlist:
Aquarius has been on repeat and it won't be deleted. The blame lies with me, of course, for making a
BestBuy run, succumbing, finally, to purchasing and thus inadvertently giving credibility to the unauthorized tale of my sorry ass life in this:
Sure, Universal Studios have decided to make our virgin hero white, about two hands full older, and a hetero; and the hero's name is Andy. And granted, Andy is obsessed with amassing action figures, whereas I am obsessed with
eyeballing action shots attaining nirvana. But Andy is shy and overlooked, a relative loner, a regimented dork; Andy is kind-hearted, a loyal friend, a good guy;
and Andy is
asexual... just like me. We are the same: Andy is me, ergo I is Andy. The point I am making is this: Universal Studios claim that "The characters...depicted in this movie are fictitious." Yeah, sure, whatever! "Fictitious," my never-been-poked ass!
***
A never-been-poked ass... Well, might as well, since we're on the subject, we should talk about it. I'm serious. We need to discuss this very important topic.
You know me as Jake, but in reality I have another given name; it's my
Korean name, which my American passport now indicates as my middle name. But let me
briefly explain about Korean names. As an example, I'll use one of the most recognized Korean names, the one of "Dear Leader," the crazy one, the despot of North Korea, Kim Jung Il (김정일/金正日). Firstly, by tradition, the family name or what we normally call "last" name, in our example, "Kim (김/金)," comes first...
(
Um... yeah, briefly... Right. You know what, skip what's to follow, if you don't want to be educated.)
...Secondly, the given name or first name, "Jung Il (정일/正日)," follows. Many westerners think that there are three parts, the first, the middle, and the last, in a Korean name. Sorry, they're idiots; and Koreans who explain it to them as such are bigger idiots.
Now, in a traditional Korean family, such as mine, where being Korean is a religion, the naming of the baby boy is a prerogative of the paternal grandfather, but he has to follow certain conventions taught by some crazy Chinese philosopher, I think, Confucius, and implemented by the clan's patriarch. The patriarch has to make sure each male member of his clan know his place in the clan hierarchy, lest he speak informally and use improper words to his elder, thus causing the ancestors to turn over in their graves in dismay and shock and causing some catastrophic calamity to befall the clan.
Let me use my name as an example: Dongjoon, 동준 (東俊) or Eastern Excellence. Although I was not named by my grandfather, because he had passed away before I was born, my name satisfies the clan's rules. My paternal male cousins of the same generational line and I share the first syllable (Dong/동), or if we look at the Chinese character (
hanja), the first
hanja (東), of our given names. My grandfather's two brothers, older (Big) and younger (Small), have grandsons. Now some of Big Grandfather's grandsons are in their sixty's and both Small Grandfather's grandsons are in their teens; and we all are in the same generational line, sharing the same
hanja (東). What I find remarkable is that the Korean language is hierarchical: how and what you say, or the correct form of speech, is determined by the person you are speaking to. As Korean customs dictate, the honorific language must be spoken to those who are in an elevated position, like your parents, teachers, leaders, bosses...and as a general rule of thumb, someone who's older than you. But my sixty-something year old cousins, when speaking to a couple of my father's younger brothers and to Small Grandfather's two sons, my uncles, all younger than them, these cousins of mine must use the honorific language. If they were total strangers meeting for the first time, the ones using the honorific language would be the younger ones—in this case, my uncles; it's a total role reversal!
(
Anyways, my father whose name is Seoktae, 석태 (晳泰), shares the second syllable (hanja
), Tae, 태 (泰) with his brothers and cousins. If I have a son and if I want to give him a Korean name, he will share the second syllable (hanja
), Sup (○섭/○燮), with his brothers and cousins as well.)
***
(
Wow, I can't believe you've stuck around this long, reading something I'm sure is dull as hell. Wow!)
So, as I've mentioned, my cousins and I share the same first syllable in our names: 동 (Dong). Yet... yet... yet...
Well, you know, if we replace the "o" from Dong with a "u," we have... you know. Well, in Korean, if you add a consonant, ㄷ (d), to 동 (dong), you have 똥 (ttong), which has the same meaning as... just guess. So, as I've mentioned, my cousins and I share the same first syllable in our names: 동 (Dong). Yet I get stuck with being called 똥 (ttong)! To the Korean language's credit, though, 똥 (ttong) has a cuter, childish connotation than dung, like poop, doo-doo, and turd. Still, I'd rather have a different nickname. Also to make the matter worse, the person who started calling me 똥 (ttong) is none other than my very own mother! Sigh... All because since my childhood, the uncooperative tail end of my alimentary canal has found me frequenting the porcelain throne for some explosive evacuations. My many visits to the toilet has earned me an unfortunate monicker.
***
Yes, in a way, this brings us back to my never-been-poked ass.
Now, like every healthy (or read, horny) male
Homo sapient in this world, my head is frequently penetrated with prurient thoughts, some of lascivious deeds, sure to scandalize if expressed at a family dinner table. Yes, I indeed think about sex. More so, since I'm trying to shed my
asexual façade. And with the added benefit of being a
Homo—times two with a flash of pink—
sapient, I think about SEX.
But as I have heard, "when you're gay, you are either young or 29," and as I can attest to missing out on the "young" portion of my gay existence, I have a lot of catching up to do. Granted, my pre-pubescent years were sometimes fraught with
inappropriate hands touching me, leading me, at the age of ten, to
play with a boy and a girl two to three years my junior, and then getting caught—my impropriety, my shame brazenly exposed—thus thrusting me to a prison of asexuality. It's time the pendulum swung the other way: I subsisted at the hypo-sexual end of the Sexual
Standard Deviation curve for far too long, the inner whore needs to be let out, ushering in...
the age of Aquarius; the age of Aquarius
Still...
My gastrointestinal tract gives me trouble. Once when a bloody stool found me on an examination table with the good doctor's finger up my ass circling around my rectum compacted with what I'm sure was brown caca with patches of scarlet, let's just say, I was thoroughly embarrassed. Once in the throes of a self (ahem)
exploration session, upon an
accidental insertion of an index digit into the nether-regions thought to be fully evacuated and cleaned, and on contact with some gut-churned remnants, let's just say, I was thoroughly grossed out. So, in a way, I'm deterred from the acts of penetration, as a giver and definitely as a taker. But the very nature of hot sex, from what I gather, is spontaneity. Does one, then, if he's a bottom, carry around an enema kit? And it's such a mood killer, too. "Would you pardon me for a moment? I need to prepare." Yuck!
But I'm adaptable. I won't
not withhold the battering ramp from an opened gate and I won't
not keep the gate shut.
So, I declare to you the gate is open, so...
When the Moon is in the Seventh House,
And Jupiter aligns with Mars,
Then peace will guide the planets,
And love will steer the stars,
This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius,
The age of Aquarius, the age of Aquarius
minus 11 years, reflecting back on 2005. I admit it hasn't been an easy year. It's been one of struggles, trying my best to keep the darkside, like the one of 
from overwhelming and consuming me into oblivion. Indeed, it has been a year of realization: I've cradled for far too long too many of my hang-ups and fears. But it has also been a year of recognition: like 
, I need to confront my short-comings, letting them not become a crutch and growing to become a man I should be. Whether I'd be a sidekick or a hero, like those from 
, I have to know that I am a man with tremendous worth, a man who is a hero to himself. I've too long dwelled on my limitations, real and perceived, like Sofi from 
. But through her trials and tribulations, Sofi found a diamond within her, something precious and something strong. Once she gained her power, she was able to save her true love. That's the power of loving the person you are! So, I shall shed my 
and I shall let love in, empowering me to be unashamed and happy. Yes, Jake, you must grow up like 
is growing up. So Jake, hustle,
, hustle!!! I don't know what 2006 will hold for me, but I feel good things will happen to me. I've always thought that I needed to 
friendship, because I'm always uprooted, from one place to another, leaving behind loved ones and carrying only memories. No, this time around, with the friends I have, I'll root myself deeper into their bed of friendship; with the friends I will make, I'll embrace them with all of myself. Yes, I feel good things will happen to me. Perhaps even romance will 
right into my life, heating up the coldest recess of my heart. Once I find romance, I won't have one memory, one place, like 
, be the end of all; I shall fight for love! I am ready to crawl into the wardrobe, brushing aside from fur coats to fir trees, finding myself in 
to become a King!
