For an all hands meeting at work, I was asked if I wanted to share a story about my life and how I got here.
It has not been the easiest, holding all of these identities and selves, often in places that did not welcome me. I think sometimes of Merantau: of finding a home away from home. All of my parts and intersections make up the messy and glorious bits that I have lived and experienced.
I turn forty this year. I want so much to tell the four year old self: it's going to be fine, you're going to have fun, one day you are going to put up beautiful photos of your life and tell your story to everyone.
I have a new job, which also means new views! Million dollar views, in fact.
I so love this part of the world: when Sabrena and I first moved to California back in 2018, we were so excited to finally be somewhere where we could travel with our dog, Cookie. We booked a trip and came to Monterey for my birthday that year. I wanted to see the aquarium, and I wanted to experience being in a hotel room with Cookie. We got that and so much more.
7 years on, I now work at Monterey Bay Aquarium. How I got to this was pretty fun: I like going on long runs, and I like listening to podcasts on topics I know absolutely nothing about. Back in May, all of my running podcasts were about marine biology, marine science, oceanography and deep sea research. The podcasts often reference Monterey Bay Aquarium and our partner org, MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute). I was obsessed with the stories about deep sea research, and the Into the Deep exhibit. I resolved to visit again, and to see the exhibit.
A view of Monterey Bay.
While looking up information about the exhibit at the aquarium, I noticed that they were hiring a Director of Product Management — which is what I do! I applied, of course.
The rest is history. Never in a million years did I think I would end up with such a cool position. I have an interesting commute where, once a week I take a shuttle from SFO Airport that takes me right into downtown Monterey. While there, I spend a couple of days, in a cute little room I rent. I live with a few other queer people, we like cooking for each other, and watching Interview With the Vampire at night, so it's been quite ideal, actually.
After five years of almost fully remote work, or working two blocks from work, I was ready for a change of scene. I love to travel but can't travel too much internationally at the moment, so this was perfect for me.
Invasive ice plants near the water, right outside Costco in Seaside
Sabrena came to help me setup the IKEA furniture. It was sad not to have Cookie there with us this time, but I'm getting to get familiar with the Monterey, Pacific Grove, Seaside, Marina areas. The coastal trail is my favorite: I can bike or run or walk to work quite easily, without ever coming across a motorized vehicle. Last weekend, I ran to several Korean markets in Marina and Seaside, where I came across the happy 'secret' that Marina / Seaside have tons of great Korean grocery stores with homemade banchan and many types of homemade kimchi.
The produce that we get at San Francisco farmer's markets also all come from here, so the produce is cheap and good and plentiful. It's going to be hard living anywhere else after this. Good vegetables go for '3 for $5', which is a great deal (here in Monterey and in San Francisco).
Some days, I grieve the life I left behind in Singapore, but I also know this for a fact: we've built ourselves a wonderful and beautiful life here.
Even though the world feels like it's too much somes days, I feel unreasonably lucky to be here, to be able to work on things I care about, to be surrounded by people who give a shit about the world. And to be able to eat delicious food.
Nikon D810, 200-500mm lens. Alcatraz Island, just off San Francisco
In the early days of Covid-19, a friend said 'we're getting old let's do old people things', so we picked 'birding'. Looks like it stuck.
Here, a photo of some baby Western gulls on Alcatraz island, which has many types of birds, including falcons, and herons and more. While Western gulls are kind of 'boring', I do love how these baby gulls have spots on their heads.
I have a weird story about scallion pancakes. It goes like this.
Around this time last year, I was walking down my street in San Francisco when a woman waved something at me. I thought she needed help with something, so I went closer. Instead, she clicked something (she was waving a torch, the kind you ignite gas stoves with), and she held the flame in my face.
I had no idea what she was doing.
She said, "I'm going to burn you!"
"Why?" I was really confused.
"Because you're Chinese."
Oh.
That's what was happening. Until that point, I had largely avoided the worst of that stuff. I had no idea what to do. A bus arrived. I got into it.
As I was leaving, she kept pointing it at me, and she said, I'm also going to burn your dog! She is.. also Chinese!
I know she wasn't well.
I know that she needs help.
But I didn't know what I would do when that happened to me, finally.
Not much, maybe other than a lot of crying. I got to take time off work. I had therapy. I talked to a lot of people. I thought often of the moment, of what had happened, and I don't remember anything else about her now (I am face blind, that helps). If I saw her again on the streets (this happened around the corner where I live), I would not recognize her. But I remember the flame that she briefly lit, and how it changed everything about my life and my experience of the city that I had, up until that moment, thought of as home.
I don't think of her very much now. But it comes up when I least expect it. For example, when I took out a package of Trader Joe's Taiwanese Green Onions Pancake.
Now, it's probably a perfectly fine product for most people, but it's going to be forever remembered in my home now as The Time I Had Trader Joe's Scallion Pancakes and Absolutely Lost My Shit.
Somehow, the act of eating a frozen scallion pancake had unearthed all kinds of.. feelings. Mainly, why the hell am I here? There's racism, and there's frozen scallion pancakes! I would never accept frozen pancakes for any meal back home! Least of all scallion pancakes with COCONUT OIL made for WHITE PEOPLE, that aren't even flaky or layered.. or good!!!
I was inconsolable.
My wife never buys them anymore. She calls it my crying pancakes.
(We really like this one. It doesn't make me cry.)
My pancake nervous breakdown, that probably wasn't really about pancakes, but about immigration, identity, immigration, anxiety, concern about the state of the world and my personal safety, led me to book a flight back to Singapore.
More than anything else, I just needed to know that I was going to have the safety and comforts of home in my family house with my parents and with food I like. Where I was never going to have to eat anything frozen, ever. So I did that, shortly after my pancake breakdown.
And the first meal that I had when I got there was a scallion pancake. From here. Freshly made. By hand. Not frozen. Available for breakfast. For a buck or something. It was really good, and I did not cry.
But my parents could not understand why I so desperately wanted to eat a scallion pancake. It was not something I would crave, or ask for. It's not even really... Singaporean at all.
I could not explain how: between two scallion pancakes, one frozen and one fresh, laid the entire spectrum of my sadness and grief as well as my happiness and joy. I get to be queer, autistic, and to be with the person that I love. But I also get fires in my face, and frozen scallion pancakes that make me cry.
Whenever I can, I make the 45 minute walk to Chinatown in San Francisco to Dim Sum Bistro, my favorite 'cheap dimsum' spot. Sometimes, I take photos too.
I say this every chance I get: dimsum isn't always 'cheap' food. Dimsum can be fancy, and should be fancy, because to make large amounts of high quality dimsum you need a very large team. 'Nice dimsum' is a treat. It's a birthday meal, it's a treat you give your parents, it's going out to linger over nice tea and good ingredients to snack on dishes you probably won't make at home.
Cheap dimsum also has a place. But it should still be fresh and of relatively high quality. The menu should be large and the 'skin' of dumplings shouldn't be too thick. On these metrics, many of the other Chinatown dimsum places don't pass muster for me. But Dim Sum Bistro always delivers. So I'm glad it's here, and I'm glad I can have good, cheap dimsum.
As a person from the literal equator, I struggle a lot with winter. Not the cold, since it's not really that cold here in northern California, but with the increasingly shorter days. The best way I can describe it is that I feel as though my brain, happiness, and overall health is powered by the sun. The sun is my battery. The less of it there is, the worse I feel. Every year, without fail.
Going out for a run or walk daily has been the only thing that's worked to help me feel okay consistently. Even when it's grey and gloomy and rainy (the extent of winter here in San Francisco, but already way too awful for me), I try to go out for a run. I carry a tiny Olympus XA2 in my pocket and I take photos of the things that I see.
I see many beautiful things, because San Francisco is beautiful, and being outside in the beauty restores me.
Sunny, windy days.
Market days at Fort Mason.
Overcast but still lovely days.
(All photos taken on an Olympus XA2, Fuji Superia 400, self-developed at home with Bellini C-41 kit and scanned on Plustek 8200i)
I find myself spending more and more time in SF and Oakland Chinatowns. I love Chinese bakeries, so those are obviously the best places for me to get my fix. In SF Chinatown, check out Yummy Bakery and Stockton Bakery. In Oakland Chinatown I am partial to Napoleon Super Bakery. In all of those spots, pork floss bun, butter cream bun, hot dog bun, egg tarts: those are all classics. At Yummy Bakery definitely try the 'egg white tart', Japanese cheesecake and pineapple (bolo) bun. There are no pineapples in pineapple bun.
When I see old Chinese people staring at food in windows, I'm assured that that, too, is in my future. I mean I already stare at food in windows, especially in Chinatown, but I am looking forward to many more years of doing that.
It is only in my thirties that I have started to think this: growing up in a city-state where the 'capital of Singapore is Singapore' (from an Alfian Sa'at poem) is a unique experience not understood by many globally. That when nationalistic people in city-states say 'if you don't like it, leave', it's really about leaving your entire country behind. There is nowhere else to go.
So the idea that one can simply leave your city and find another one, is a way of thinking that has not really properly entered my mind. I have no sense of how large a country, or even a county can be. Back home, whenever I wanted a change of scene, I had to leave the country.
I spend some of my days in Alameda, a town accessible from San Francisco by ferry. Some people take the ferry to work. I've always found it quaint. It feels like the kind of small town America you might see on TV. I don't really see elements of this lifestyle (or urban setting) where I live in San Francisco. Some times, it's just nice to be able to be briefly away from what you know.
Birding at Elsie Roemer bird sanctuary.
Don't be deceived: beaches in Northern California look gorgeous, but the water is much too cold!
Textures.
Retro cars and homes.
Shoreline apartments.
Alameda has birds, food, coffee, and soon, good Singaporean food (at Mama Judy's), so I expect to be spending much more time there in the future.
All photos taken with Nikonos V, on Kodak 5222 film, developed in Rodinal 1:25 for 5:45 min, and scanned on Plustek 8200i.
Some thoughts on being a gaysian immigrant to California
Two weeks ago, I helped to plan and organize a Lunar New Year dinner for 120 queer and trans Asian people. It's a tradition that has been around for as long as I've been alive: the annual APIQWTC Banquet.
Despite its mouthful of a name (much easier if you read it as API CUTESY Banquet), it was an event that left me feeling extremely raw and emotional at the end of it.
I could not identify why exactly.
Could it be that these events—large format Chinese dinners I've only experienced in the context of societal rejection—were usually events I hated, events that were milestones I can never have because I was gay in a country that had not fully accepted it? I was never going to have the large Chinese wedding dinner. Even if I think those are horrible, it would have been nice to have known that was open to me.
Or they'd be a celebration of some kind of matriarch or patriarch, the sort of thing where your same sex or trans partner was often excluded from, unless things were Very Serious and they had already graduated into the Don't Ask, Don't Tell territory. At some point, people get old and it becomes possible to welcome same sex partners into these events: when you're old enough that you're thoroughly de-sexualized, is my guess.
But there's more, beyond mere social acceptance and the idea that it's possible to have a good time, I keep coming around to the thought: if I had been to such an event, if I had known these people, when I was a teenager struggling with my feelings and my identity, my life would have been different. Visibility in the media is important, and I already didn't really have that back then; but visibility in the form of knowing that it's possible to grow old, screw up, fall in love, get divorced, have children, or not, organize community events and be an advocate, or not, all of that would have been powerful visual indicators to me that it's possible to have any kind of life. That you're going to have a life at all.
Instead, growing up mainly among an older generation that was largely forced into the closet—and I do have strong memories of going to gay bars for the first time as a teenager that had just come of age, and seeing police raids rounding up gay men for 'vice', more than once—where the only people I knew to be gay or queer for sure were the advocates who were willing to put themselves out there to fight for our rights, document our stories, to tell our homophobic society that we exist. Those people served a purpose and they fought bravely. But I did not always want to be an activist. Even though eventually, I guess I sort of did.
By simply refusing to pretend to be straight, at some point I found myself thrust into a position of hypervisiblity in the queer community in Singapore. I did not want to be that person. I simply wanted to write about the heartbreak I had endured as a teenager: I was just the queer equivalent of a teenager anywhere Live-Journaling her heartbreak. But by not changing the pronouns of the person who had apparently broken my heart, I became, I suppose, a queer activist.
I did not know any queer couples or families until I was well into my early 20s. Other than the women I dated, and let's be frank, we were a mess, with no template or model or idea of what any of this was going to become. Information about queer people came into Singapore like a trickle: there were the gender studies books at Borders bookstore, the 'are they or aren't they' gay-guessing games of trying to figure out which celebrities were queer women (hint: it was mostly Angelina Jolie, at that time), I didn't really know what it meant to be queer. And I think I was already an extremely well-connected teenager for my time. (For a time, I ran a queer DVD lending library; I'd distribute movies and documentaries to other queer teens in my high school and elsewhere.)
I did not know what it meant to be a queer adult.
I had no idea what it meant to be in a committed relationship. Or what it meant to not be in one. I didn't know what my life was going to be. It was all a big blank, other than 'I guess I will have to go live overseas some day'. Even though Singapore has, anecdotally, a fairly large queer population, information about queerness is still suppressed by the state. We are still not allowed to see, for example, a reality TV show of a gay couple having their house revamped. It would be against the rules: you simply can't portray queer people in a non-negative manner.
So when I found myself surrounded by a hundred dancing Asian queer aunties, and a few other peers and younger people, I was mad.
I was mad to not have been exposed to the idea that I too, can some day be a dancing Chinese auntie in my 60s, prancing about on stage singing Teresa Teng songs at a karaoke in Oakland. I was mad that I never got to see people like M and her partner, an older interracial East- and South Asian couple, like Sabrena and I: with their children babbling about in several languages, the way it might look for us if we decided to have children some day.
Most of all, I was mad to know that this life wasn't possible for me back home. Not by a long stretch. I hardly knew many queer people in my mid 20s, and I definitely did not know that hundreds of queer people above the age of 60 existed. Nor did I have the chance to meet them in a multi-generational setting, the way I did here.
At the event, I met many people who were also immigrants from Southeast Asia like me. The first decade was hard, they said. They had to figure out how to exist in the US, and it was also at a time when the US didn't even have the laws it now does for same sex marriage. Many of them wouldn't have been able to move here or stay on here even if they had American spouses: not until Edith Windsor did us all a favor and defeated the Defense of Marriage Act, and enabled same sex marriage and other rights at the federal level.
In that regard, I have it a touch easier. I came here for a high paid tech job, I came here when California is already one of the easiest places to live in the world for a queer person, and I was able to bring my spouse with me. But some days are harder than others. Like many of these aunties, I am dealing with my first decade blues: does it ever get better? Why did I give up my life of privileges and comforts in Singapore for.. America? Unlike many other immigrants, I did not come here for economic or material improvements. I came here for far more abstract things, like 'my rights', but also for very concrete things like, 'my wife and I need a third country that recognizes our marriage so that we can actually live together somewhere, anywhere.'
A few months ago, I saw this image again: it was an image of Singaporean and Malaysian queer elders in what is clearly San Francisco, in 1993. I reached out to a few of them in the photo to ask: what was your life like? What did you struggle with? What's your life like now? Many of them said the same thing: the first couple of years are very, very hard. Some days you wonder if you will ever truly feel at home here. But, they said, we now have wives and lives, and that's more than we could have expected of our lives in Singapore and Malaysia.
Wives and lives. I have that too, but I also have had far less time than them in California. I still have one foot in the door; I am still not totally removed from existing in a space where I've had to hide myself, and my life. Even the most hyper-visible ways of being queer back home are just standard, everyday ways here.
One of them said, my wife is organizing this banquet, why don't you get involved? And so I did. I still don't have the answers, but I think I am starting to have the inkling of an idea.
I think it looks like dancing on stage at a Chinese restaurant singing a Teresa Teng song. I think it could be carrying an infant babbling in three languages. I think it might be nice to have the ability to work with younger Asian queer immigrants 25 years from now, who will hopefully have an easier time than all of us did. I think it could be fun. I think I have a life ahead of me of queer joy that I can celebrate.
I can be anyone I want to be. I did not always know that.
(Photo taken on a Minolta Hi-Matic 7S II, shot on Kodak 5222 film, self-developed in Rodinal 1+50 at ISO 800, and scanned on Plustek 8200i. For more film photography shenanigans, check out my film photo blog)
I had a drag-filled weekend that was full of trans joy. For that, I am grateful.
On Saturday, I went to the Drag Up, Fight Back march for drag and trans rights. Unless you've been living under a rock, trans people are under attack all over the world including in many parts of the US. California is not immune. It would be silly complacency to assume that because we are in San Francisco, things are going to be fine. In fact, a Republican in Riverside, CA, has just sponsored AB 1314 which would require educators to inform parents if their kids are trans. I hope I don't have to tell you how harmful that will be to trans people, and how that's just the start of more anti-trans legislation wrapped up in the supposed just-asking-questions 'concern' of 'children'. If they truly cared about the children, they would support an environment where all children, including queer and trans children, don't have to live in fear, where they can be who they are without being used as a political prop.
So we march.
I met a few other film photography enthusiasts!
Lots of people were being interviewed by all sorts of journalists.
Stop the joy destroyers, indeed!
Cistem of a down.
So much joy. Especially compared to the lone, sad, and hateful anti-trans protestor across the street who nobody could hear or care about. He had a Repent or Perish sign! Very stylish. But not as stylish as these folks on the right side of the protest.
Drag IS Joy.
All photos taken on Minolta Hi-Matic 7S II, Kodak 5222 film, developed in Rodinal 1:50 and scanned on Plustek 8200i
It was our first time attending a high society event in San Francisco. There was wonderful music. The multiple Grammy-winning San Francisco Girls Chorus sang a few select pieces, and we were also treated to the 'dark, velvety' operatic voice of Nikola Printz.
Since the theme of the evening was 'Out of the Woods', there were also fairies. Naturally. I took a photo of one of them here.
Photo taken on Leica M3, 50mm Summilux, Ektar 100. Developed and scanned by The Darkroom.
When you think of bakeries in San Francisco, perhaps you think of sourdough. Certainly, there are some well known bakeries in the city known for their sourdough, but that's not a style or type of bread I enjoy at all.
I don't think it's for everyone, but I like Chinese and Japanese bakeries. I like soft, pillowy breads that straddle the line between savory and sweet. I like hot dogs in my buns. I like ham in my bread. I like scallions in them, too. Barbecue pork. Eggs. All of it. My palate leans heavily on the savory side of things, and I also prefer my breads that way. Salty. Savory. I opine on that, and more, in this video.
As part of my increasing frustration at the perennial sour-ness of bread in the city I now live in, I seek out Chinese bakeries. Here are a few of my favorites.
Mee Mee bakery in Chinatown (pictured), is known for its 'cow ear cookies' or 'pig ear cookies', a savory spiral biscuit that's really more salty than sweet. I love that shit.
I also like Yummy Bakery for Hong Kong style 'paper cup cakes', which are fluffier and softer than American cupcakes; almost like a souffle, but like paper. If that makes sense. Also try their egg white tarts and wife cakes.
In the Outer Mission, Princess Bakery is an old school favorite. Try the coconut buns and the hot dog scallion buns. In the same neighborhood, Hong Kong Bakery is a classic. Don't sleep on the Excelsior: I think it has the highest density of my favorite Chinese food in the city, more than Chinatown and more than the Sunset or Richmond.
Lastly, Pineapple King Bakery, like I recommend in the YouTube show. Try literally anything there, and definitely don't skip the milk tea. I wish there were more Japanese bakeries in the city, but there are not. I'm glad people enjoy the sourdough of San Francisco, but I'm overjoyed that I have these alternatives here. I'm trying to take the perspective of "it's okay to not like things", but it is so goddamn hard when it's so hard to find good bread in this city that isn't surprisingly sour. (Recently, I bought a bag of bagels, and it was made of sourdough. Without warning. Sour simply isn't a flavor I enjoy: I also feel that way about American hot sauce.)
This is one of the photos that made me very glad I had a film camera in my pocket. I was able to jog alongside these friends, who were having so much fun on a Segway tour of San Francisco's Crissy Fields area near the Golden Gate Bridge, and they were very kind to pose for a photo for me.
Ever since I got my Olympus XA2, I've had a capable film camera in my pocket at all times, including when I'm out running. It's not my favorite camera, but it is very capable. It certainly fits the bill for 'everyday camera'. I did not have any issues zone focusing with it as I used to own one.
It was my first time using the Fuji Acros 100 II film, though. It's very sharp, very dark, very contrasty. I probably prefer the Tri-X and HP5 look in general, but it was fun to have tried something new. I don't think I would shoot the outdoors in black and white again; a big part of why I love this part of San Francisco is the sunshine and blue skies. Even when it's extremely foggy out, it still tends to be quite colorful. I'll probably end up shooting this area regularly with different types of film stock, and see what we end up with. I think I spend most of my time outdoors in the city in this area, at least four times a week.
More photos:
Yachts outside Fort Mason.
Which way? Near the Palace of Fine Arts.
All photos in this post taken with Olympus XA2, Fuji Acros 100 II, developed and scanned at Underdog Film Lab
I spent the past weekend hiking. Some of it was on a dried out waterfall, such as this one.
For a long time now I have wanted to lead a wilder life than the one I had. Earlier in my youth, wild meant something else altogether. Today, it means: backpacking, camping, going on long walks in the wilderness, birdwatching, and hiking.
Now that I live in California I have access to tremendously beautiful landscapes, often hemmed in by the Pacific Ocean. Local parks, state parks, national parks and more: there are lots of avenues for weekend exploration. While I didn't always feel fit enough, or brave enough, to join many of these activities, I've finally gotten around to making the most of this access. On foot or by bike, there are lots of outdoorsy options and this past weekend I did my first ever backpacking trip for 2 nights at Wildcat camp in Point Reyes.
I joined a local adventure club that organizes trips and activities and was quickly put into a carpool with one of the organizers. While I didn't know anyone from the trip, we did a Zoom call to say hello and discuss logistics.
The plan was for us to meet at Bear Valley Vistor Center in Point Reyes on Friday afternoon at noon. The drive from San Francisco's Marina district took just over 90 minutes, with a last minute Sports Basement Presidio scramble for camping lights and other forgotten items.
We met the other folks at the visitor center, 12 of us in all, where we enjoyed our last moments of Internet and restroom access.
The hike up the Bear Valley trail was not especially brutal, but for most of us this was our first time carrying full backpacks and walking up any amount of elevation. Carrying tents, sleeping bags and stoves, we slowly meandered up the hills of Point Reyes and nearly 3 hours later, made it to camp.
Wildcat camp was reasonably furnished with two clean toilets and a tap.
As quite a few people on the trip remarked, it's amazing how little you really need until you have to carry it on your back.
We hiked, swam, walked on sand, cooked basic meals on camping stoves, and thankfully nobody got hurt or into any type of accident other than a handful of blisters.
I was lucky to have sought advice from experienced camper friends who told me: do whatever, have fun, but you must have good shoes, good socks, good tents, and a very long spoon.
That advice brought me far. I then supplemented that with more essentials for myself: I brought Indomie, packets of mala fish tofu snacks, Japanese sea urchin cookies (a fave), along with the dire 'dehydrated backpacker meals', and had more of a blast than I thought I would.
I've now been initiated into a group of outdoorsy folks who have the organizational and logistical expertise to make these weekend trips happen, so I'm excited to finally have consistent outdoors plans in my life. Next up: bikepacking at China Camp.
Maybe one day I'll write a quick guide to how to do all of this stuff in the Bay Area without a car. It's time for me to learn how to drive (!!) so I can access more cool spots, but for now, I think I saw a lot of my region without ever knowing how.
In my younger years, meaning when I was a tween, I became acutely aware that my life would be different. I dated boys because I was supposed to, but whenever they said they loved me or that they wanted to marry me, I just shuddered. I don't like it when men sweat, I told them.
In hindsight, that was a big, red sign. I learned, in quick succession: I don't like it when men sweat. I don't like it when men sweat on me. I don't like the way men smell. I don't like men. Period.
When I was eighteen I felt like I was at a crossroads. "Am I bi? Am I gay? Am I... just a slut?" I could not tell. When you are a teenager, everything is possible. All doors are open. You can live anywhere, be anywhere, sleep with anybody.
And so on and on it went.
Eventually, I did find out: I am lesbian. I am a dyke. I will die on the hill of women-smells and women-sweat forever. I think I found that out when a man asked me to go to IKEA to pick out furniture with him. I told him he was really hot but, I would never go to IKEA with him, or with any man, now and always. It felt far more intimate than whatever we had gotten up to. I don't like man-sweat.
Even with that clarity behind me, I still had no clue what the hell I was supposed to do with that information. I lived in Singapore; I had gone abroad. I had flirted with the idea of going somewhere else. Nothing seemed clear. That sort of clarity, about what I would do and how I would do it, would only come later. (Again, that moment struck me like a thunderbolt, out of nowhere. It just did, and I don't know when it did.)
Yet I clung on to the idea of being thirty five as the day I should have 'figured it out'.
Maybe I did?
I have figured it out, in that I have learned that my sexual orientation, which once defined me as a person, continues to be a political position but it is not the entirety of who I am.
I have figured it out, in that I am married to a woman and we have a dog and a cat, just like I imagined when I was a wee tween, but I came to that very differently as well.
Dating in Singapore was strange, but not unlike being queer in any other major city. I was.. comfortable. I went on a few dates a week. At 35, I feel tired even thinking about the amount of energy I put into dating in my 20s. But it felt like the sort of thing to do a couple of times and get over with.
Love came to me in a way I could have never imagined. I was used to meeting women on the apps, meeting women in queer bars, meeting women everywhere I went, everywhere. But I had not yet done the classic queer woman move: I had not yet dated a woman who had dated the friend of a woman I had dated.
Who knew that would have solved all my problems?
From there, we went: Yishun, to Bali, to Bandung, to Kuala Lumpur, to Jakarta and then to San Francisco.
Our love (and life) here is exciting for the most part. It is also mundane in some ways. Gone are the days when I would stay up till 4 in the morning, excitedly watching soccer or drinking tea or poisoning my body and my brain in some other way. Instead, I run, skip, walk for miles in the beautiful city with my dog, and sleep ten hours a day. It helps.
It also helps, I think, that I finally have a job where my interests (doing good things that help people) with my skills (product management and mucking around with software generally) intersect. It truly makes a difference.
Even if I could not have foreseen that we would live in this country at its most vulnerable, in that it has a narcissistic Anti-Christ-like grifter at its helm, our life in its most expensive coastal city is generally... nice.
I stay up some nights trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Maybe it's nice to note that at 35, the things that will confuse me are external, instead of inside my head. Anything can happen in the next couple of days, weeks, months. There are some challenges relating to being a queer transnational couple and work visas and pets and things like that, but I'm still glad we have what we have.
Being able to live for the last two years, as we have, as a queer family with legal recognition (and insurance!), has been more than I imagined. At eighteen, or at any other time. The world goes on. I am a year older.
But this year, I am way better off than any version of 35 I imagined for myself.
