RIGHT HERE, AT 2:40 AM, DRUNK AND EATING SPAM MUSUBI - YOU SEE? THIS IS WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT. this overwhelming clarity where you see the inside of the universe and what it's all about! that's it!!!

dc folks:

forget the american indian museum - the newest addition to the national mall is this portable hand washing station!



yes, i only saw one.

check out samson's bigweirdfeelings.com, where i got in on the mystery track review fun.

come back, dave.

check out the ny times story about the chinese in paris

friday, minnie and i paid almost $40 EACH for what was supposed to be a cheap burritos-and-margaritas meal. and i had my first deviled egg!

from our dinner on the potomac, DC field trip

the pre-photo direction was "smolder!" - the photographer's caption to this was "take me now + innocent smolder + very very good smolder." i think i look more like a small child who lost her mother.

need to work on that.

i just got a story draft back from a professor, with the edit note: "I'm stumped - what does LGBT mean?"

oh, tony.

...also, if you see a copy of may's filipinas magazine anywhere, check out my article on page 18.

another salon story for your TGIF reading pleasure. those crazy pinoys!

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2005/05/06/marry_me/print.html

Till death do me part
This weekend, Kevin Nadal will marry himself. He wants to make a statement that the choice to be single is as valid as the choice to get hitched. He also wants a new sno-cone maker.

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By Rebecca Traister

May 6, 2005 | Ah May, the time of year when the New York Times' Sunday Styles section fattens up with wedding pages, and blushing brides-to-be prompt statewide manhunts by lopping off their hair and booking bus tickets to Albuquerque.

There's one guy, here in New York City, who's not about to flee from his intended. That's because he is his intended. Meet Kevin Nadal, 26-year-old "psychologist and performance artist," who, according to an e-mail he sent last week, is kicking off "the hottest new trend to celebrate single life" by "getting married to himself" on Saturday, May 7, in Manhattan. Dress is black-and-white semiformal.

Nadal's save-the-date cum press release led me to his wedding Web page, where the mustachioed singleton poses loungily in a "Trust Me, I'm a Doctor" T-shirt. According to the Web site, "Friends and family are encouraged to fly into New York, in the same way that I am encouraged to fly to California or Michigan and Hawaii for their weddings ... But we won't be celebrating the love of two people; we will only be celebrating the love that one person has for himself, as well as the love that he has for his friends and family ... It's not just a party. It's my 'special day.' It's the day that a boy has been dreaming of all of his life."

Reached by phone, Nadal said that he started planning for his "special day" in January. Naturally, he was inspired by an episode of "Sex and the City" in which Carrie Bradshaw celebrates her independence by registering for a pair of Manolo Blahniks. (Incidentally, if anyone knows of a social or romantic trend that was not inspired by "Sex and the City," please contact this reporter.)

Nadal writes that though he doesn't plan on getting married (to anyone else) anytime soon (it would be a challenge in any case; Nadal is gay), he does "plan on living the wild, crazy, non-stop single life that I have been living ... remaining career-oriented, in pursuing my academic and entertainment dreams. Where is the celebration for that? Where can I register for that?"

Apparently, at Target, Amazon, and Bed Bath and Beyond. Among the many items on Nadal's wish list are a sno-cone maker, the Anti-Stress Comfort Wrap, a microdermabrasion kit, a heated eyelash curler, a Mr. Beer deluxe home microbrewery kit, a "Guys Gone Wild" tape, the book "Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora (Perverse Modernities)," and a lint remover. So far he has already received a Conair Nose/Ear Hair Trimmer. "What I didn't register for was sheets or linens or china or things like that," said Nadal. "I registered for things that would be practical for me."

Nadal has what he calls a "bridal party." "I don't know why I called them 'bridal,'" he said. "I never thought about calling it a groom's party." There are a maid of honor, best man, seven bridesmaids, seven groomsmen, one (grown-up) ring bearer, four (grown-up) flower girls, a "master of ceremonies," and 11 primary and secondary "sponsors." It's enough to make Jennifer Wilbanks hop a Greyhound.

Nadal is originally from San Francisco and has been in New York for three years, getting his Ph.D. in counseling psychology at Columbia. (The "Trust Me I'm a Doctor" T-shirt is a little premature.) Nadal has also toured the country with his one-man show, "Pinoy," about growing up Filipino in the United States. He describes himself as single, but "dating a lot of different guys at the same time."

Nadal said that he's having his wedding because "there isn't anything to show that my choice to be single is just as valuable as someone's choice to get married and have a family. Before, being single used to mean that no one wanted you, that you weren't attractive enough. Now it's a choice."

Also, he's a little testy about the cash he's hemorrhaged for rental cars, plane tickets, new outfits, and gifts for all of his hetero friends' celebratory passages into traditional family life. I asked him if this self-marriage was about exacting revenge. "I love going to friends' weddings to celebrate when they do find love and have kids, because I enjoy life and they've created life," said Nadal. "But there is a little bit of resentment because they get to live this life that is perceived as normal and celebrated all the time."

But, as I suggested to Nadal, perhaps those who choose to get married or have kids are doing something worth attention. Not because it puts them squarely in some heterosexual, traditional, femme-couvert camp of Bush-approved "family values," but because getting married and having kids is -- or should be -- a serious commitment. Those who choose to do it give up their independence; they pledge responsibility and fidelity and financial support to another human being. It's a big burden to take on.

But Nadal sees it differently. "Being single is just as difficult and just as much of a commitment," he argued. "It's a commitment you have to yourself. But it's just as straining and there are just as many hardships." He continued, "What about commitment to being career oriented? Or to finding love and not settling for anything else? Or to being alone and being satisfied? Who's setting these norms of what's considered commitment and what's considered an accomplishment?"

Nadal says he expects 120 guests at the wedding, which will take place at a loft space in the West Village that was -- sigh -- the set for Samantha's apartment on "Sex and the City." Nadal said the wedding will feature Filipino and American traditions like garter and bouquet tosses and a money dance, and that many members of his family will attend, though mostly cousins and siblings from his generation. His own parents, he said, "don't understand the concept" of the self-wedding" and will not be there. Guests will be coming from Oregon, Maryland, Massachusetts, California and Michigan. The night before there will be what Nadal calls "a rehearsal outing" to a local lounge or nightclub for the bridal party. He's paying the $6,000 wedding tab himself, saving money by serving catered hors d'oeuvres and avoiding what he called "the fancy hotel thing." "My single person's wedding doesn't have to be an extravagant sit-down dinner," he said. "The most important things are alcohol and a DJ."

There won't be an officiant, but Nadal will read himself some vows. "I'll say things like 'I take me to have and to hold and love and cherish through sickness and in health,'" explained Nadal. "I'll also say things people say in corny marriage vows, like that I have found the man of my dreams, my soul mate, the man I've been waiting for all my life."

I asked Nadal if he felt like his impending marriage will change his relationship ... with himself. "I'm generally happy with myself," he said. "I hope it will change the way others view single life. Maybe those who are happy having traditional families can understand that other people might not want that life."

But what if Nadal someday does want that life? He's 26, turning 27 on the day of his wedding. Right now he might be living the "wild, crazy, nonstop single life," but what if someday he falls in love? "I am open to meeting someone down the road," he said. "Now I want to celebrate being single. If I want to get married to someone else someday -- even though it might not be recognized in most states -- I'll do it again. When heterosexual couples have a second wedding, their friends have to go to that second wedding too."

story from today's salon shows that brazil is willing to give up $40 million to reject bush's pro-abstinence and anti-women's rights agenda.

Brazil won't be bullied
The nation declines $40 million in AIDS funds from the Bush administration, refusing to condemn prostitution as required.

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By Sarah Boseley and Suzanne Goldenberg

May 4, 2005 | Brazil Tuesday became the first country to take a public stand against the Bush administration's massive AIDS program, which is seen by many as seeking increasingly to press its anti-abortion, pro-abstinence sexual agenda on poorer countries.

Campaigners applauded Brazil's rejection of $40 million for its AIDS programs because it refuses to agree to a declaration condemning prostitution. The government and many AIDS organizations believe such a declaration would be a serious barrier to helping sex workers protect themselves and their clients from infection.

The demand from the U.S. administration, heavily influenced by the religious right, follows what is known as the "global gag" -- a ban on U.S. government funds to any foreign-based organization that has links to abortion. This has resulted in the removal of millions of dollars of funding from family-planning clinics worldwide.

Tuesday Pedro Chequer, the director of Brazil's HIV/AIDS program, said the government had managed to resist U.S. pressure during negotiations on the AIDS funding to focus on promoting abstinence and fidelity rather than condoms -- another ideological battle being waged by the religious right. But the U.S. negotiators insisted that the clause on prostitution had to stay.

"I would like to confirm that Brazil has taken this decision in order to preserve its autonomy on issues related to national policies on HIV/AIDS as well as ethical and human rights principles," Chequer told the Guardian.

Campaigners congratulated the Brazilian government for its stance, and voiced concerns that the declaration on prostitution could damage efforts to tackle AIDS among sex workers in many countries. Jodi Jacobson of the Center for Health and Gender Equity in the U.S. said that, unlike the global gag, the declaration on prostitution looked likely to be imposed on U.S.-based organizations as well as their subsidiaries abroad. The office of Randall Tobias, the global AIDS coordinator who is responsible for spending the $15 billion President Bush promised for the fight against AIDS, was working on the language to be adopted, she said.

"Any organization receiving U.S. global AIDS funding will have to agree to the policy," she said. That would include charities as large as Care, Save the Children and World Vision.

"It is a hugely problematic policy from the standpoint of public health alone. It goes against the entire grain of public health principles in not judging the people you are trying to reach."

But Sam Brownback, a leading Senate conservative, told the Wall Street Journal: "Obviously Brazil has the right to act however it chooses in this regard. We're talking about promotion of prostitution, which the majority of both the House and the Senate believes is harmful to women."

Most U.S. AIDS funding goes directly to organizations working in the field, and much will be channeled through faith organizations that back the no-abortion, pro-abstinence and anti-prostitution stance of U.S. conservatives.

But the Brazilian government has strong HIV/AIDS policies and insists that all negotiations go through its own committee. It also has a strong partnership between governmental and nongovernmental organizations, which encouraged a united response to Washington.

"This would be entirely in contradiction with Brazilian guidelines for a program that has been working very well for years. We are providing condoms, and doing a lot of prevention work with sex workers, and the rate of infection has stabilized and dropped since the 1980s," said Sonia Correa, an AIDS activist in Brazil and co-chairwoman of the International Working Group on Sexuality and Social Policy. "The U.S. is doing the same in other countries -- bullying, pushing and forcing -- but not every country has the possibility to say no."

Adrienne Germain, president of the International Women's Health Coalition, said: "The importance of the Brazilian government's decision can not be overstated."

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big ups to hardboiled for winning best undergrad publication this year!

or, as minnie's 11-year-old sister would say - PROPZZZZZ.

melobster

me + lobster 4 eva!

props, as minnie's sister would say

my life is now complete - i got a mention in gawker!

steve asked me to put this in:

last night -
me: "can you turn off the light?"
him: "goddamn you!! i just got all tucked in!!"

Princeton Incident Shows Extreme Case of Asian Fetish

reading dancing with cuba has made me want to 1) go to cuba and 2) take up modern dance. as you can see, i'm highly influenced by books. but i think i really will try to do both this year. just started readng my prof's book first there is a mountain, which is about yoga in india, so who knows what fancy will strike me next...

it is really neat to read books by your profs, especially when they are memoir-ish, b/c profs are usually so mysterious and detached. i have so much more respect for her since reading this, and i wish i had listened to her more when she taught!

my computer is really on its last legs. a virus ate my address book last night, so i had to spend an hour this morning putting everyone's info back in. but i only had the email addresses of people who were in my inbox, so everyone else won't be hearing from me soon. or ever. blahhh.

on a happier note, i made pancakes this morning! and i'm going to see the basquiat exhibit in brooklyn later today.

i'm going to be in dc saturday night thru tues. i can't remember fun things to do in dc!!! help!!!!!!!!!!! looking for: food, bars, museums, food, shopping, food...is c-town express still not so good?

i'm done with school.
new york is boring.
blah blah blah blah blah.