What I've Eaten Since Getting an MFA

Hi Chat,

Hi Dear Reader,

I have an MFA in dance now.

I'm writing from L&L BBQ in California. Not far from here I used to teach kids how to ride their bikes. That was in 2019. Not far from here is Google's complex. Not far from here I grew up learning how to ride a bike and how to google and what my order at L&L Hawaiian BBQ is. (This time I did a BBQ mixed plate with a spam musubi and Passion Orange Hawaiian Sun)

I'm here, in Palo Alto, visiting Vincent at Stanford. And to revisit california without the stress of 'what am i doing with my life?' of grad school to make me act like a little freak! The time I was in California before this was for my cousin's Bachelorette Party and everything was going great until I had a little meltdown after smoking and drinking a little too much. I had all these flashbacks! I was worried my dad was going to know I was there and come up and see me! I was Sheesh! It almost broke me. I wrote about this during grad school. That there was a lot about California culture that feels like the cause for the unraveling of our social fabric. Isolation breeds intolerance. Resource scarcity breeds fear. Breeds hoarding. Mistrust. tech just seems to really expediate what might always happen to empires, to democracies, to human nature.

But I'm here now, I'm not freaking out. I'm visiting my friend Vincent who I met because in college we started messaging on Instagram. He is a painter. he is a performance artist. They art Crystal. They wear wigs and high heels and do calligraphy. They constantly document queerness. They have introduced me to so many people with so much generosity. They were painting watercolor portraits of queer Asian Americans and asked for nudes to paint. And I thought... Well... Why not?

And it's been friendship ever since.

I graduated from UIUC 10 days ago. May 18th. Conal Adanya Mom and Lucy (dog) were there. We ate at The Urbana Speakeasy, The Urbana Goat Farm, Jacob and Joshua's old Champaign House, The Union, and the new Hotel in the Lincoln Mall that looks like a castle.

There is something I want to miss about Urbana. But as I begin to move through the world with more assurance, as I run through the California foothills where I used to brown in the sun, as I eat chicken katsu and salty, soggy, floppy, nostalgic In and Out fries, I realize... I will not miss the food.

In New York, I have this job, this job that I talk about that feels like a dream. This job dancing in New York City, for money! For A paycheck! This job I've dreamt about, since California. This job dancing in a company and dancing on a stage and going on tour.

Part of me is like, yes this was deserved, this is earned! You (gabe) came to this a town once again rootless. And you chose to move about freely. You chose to make the most and to build what was not there. And you chose to come and go to Chicago where your mother now lives, and you danced, and now you're going to go away. Part of me feels proud and part of me feels like there is a constant lie about what it is I do. What it is I want. Why dance speaks to me. How I got comfortable taking orders about my body through sending people nudes on instagram in the hopes maybe they'll paint me. Maybe this is a potential relationship.

As soon as I graduated, I flew to New York with my mother and met my brothers to watch my cousins dog and to eat. I have set my heart on New York for a long time. I felt like once I got the degree, once I got the award, once I got the job, I would feel like there was a reason for me to be there, there would be a joyousness.