I am actually writhing on the carpet of the Lorraine apartment. Watching Trump lie incessantly, while Biden is just... so weak. Overwhelmed. The child inside me is screaming,
January 6!
Just say January 6!
Point at him.
Say it over and over.
I've been gasping for breath on the weed pen.
Like a swarm of red ants crawling in from my ears and chewing on my brain. A black ocean of fear spreads within me.
Once, I looked at Lorraine on the couch, thinking about starting a sexual relationship with him. In twenty years of friendship, it had never even come close to happening. But on Thursday night - I really considered it. I needed to create something weirder to escape what was happening on the TV.
Do you like sucking cock, I asked Lorraine.
Amadeus answered for him.
Miss Jan, we’ve had discussions before.
On your birthday!
My memory is zero. No, none.
Did he say yes or no?
They started cackling.
Then they started calling me, Hey, Joe Biden!
How do people like me (the latter, political engagement, gay, immigrant POC) deal with such debates?
As I twitched and prayed for exorcism, Amadeus (she's a smart, beautiful, Mexican-American tech millennial - when I first met her, she exclusively hung out with gay people; but she didn't do much gay stuff after the biological countdown started laughing and joking during the debate.
She said, All countries have gone through this a little. She was talking about the end of our democracy. It hasn't happened in America yet.
She shrugged. Two old white men deciding America's future.
I won’t let it affect my mental health.
Unlike Amadeus, I care. I care a lot. Honestly, I don’t know how I will handle my mental health in the next four months. Since Obama '08, every presidential election, I’ve trekked to Nevada on my own time, with little funding. To vote or monitor polling stations to protect voting rights. As an immigrant, I am a grateful and happy person.
Call it my American dream: you won’t die on my watch.
Anyway, that soul-crushing debate on Thursday night marked the official start of my Pride weekend.
I had less than 24 hours to transition to the opposite mindset. I had no choice. I paid a penny for the Pride party I chose for myself.
Lorraine was at the Electroluxx party on Friday night, with over 2000 gay people in attendance, you might be the only one on the weed.
[Technically, that’s not correct. Around midnight, I took a quarter of Adderall. I wanted to stay at the party longer.]
But Mary Jane lost a lot of her magic for me after the debate. I couldn’t shake off my impending American death.
In college, I took a modern Chinese literature course that began with the rise of World War II. The novels and stories we read were set during the fall of China from its exalted height as the "center of the universe." It couldn’t adapt and develop at the speed of modernity. The authors of that era shared a common spirit: saving the nation.
Translation: Save our country from death; the plot survives.
After the debate, I wondered: how did the writers and artists of that era live with such impending doom? How did they remain optimistic - when the only hope action must be torture, how did they laugh, eat, drink, continue writing, and continue falling in love?
Maybe that’s why, subconsciously, I missed the Pride party on Saturday night. I went to the wrong place - on the other side of town. I might have smoked too much weed. Or maybe I really turned into Joe Biden. Either way, I went home frustrated.
That was when I started writing this piece. I put myself in the Burgundy writing recliner.
It hit me: I am a character in a literary novel. From the beginning it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. We are witnessing an epic tragedy. Take a deep breath, people. Do you know what’s going to happen?
We are all going to die. Eventually.
The next day is Pride Sunday.
In the past few years, my Sundays have started with Lindy in the Park, a weekly free dance party held in Golden Gate Park. Among the regulars, I usually dance with gay men (and a few cool straight guys), but mainly as a male male in an abnormal world, I dance with women.
It’s okay.
The key is, I dance.
When do gay men stop dancing? Does dancing die with the death of disco?
Girl...
I might turn into Joe Biden.
My soul doesn’t belong to this era.
But, I am of this era. All the violations I committed during my college years in the 90s will become reality - concepts like gender and sexual fluidity - all of this is happening. (To be honest, a part of me never really believed this was possible. I feel really lucky to see the promised land.) I remind myself: I am part of the wave that makes this happen.
Yes, I. Eddie Jen. I know how far we’ve come. Me and America. I remind myself how I became who I am today: childhood bullying, failed businesses, financial bankruptcy, and cancer.
I also deeply ride the burning people on bikes in Playa. This is the profound wisdom I bring back:
No one can do better than me, for the Muggle world.
So, on Pride Sunday, I was deeply struck.
I wore that outfit. I strapped on a pair of high heels, slung a transparent vinyl purse over my shoulder, and then ventured to Lindy in the park. At 11 a.m. on Sunday, a fabulous performer appeared in Golden Gate Park. It reminded me of a day in elementary school when I got on the bus wearing a loud Hawaiian shirt with neon purple shorts and a backpack, only to find that once I got to school, my look was too much. I was mocked by the kids all day long. Its memory traumatized me for years.
But, years later, that experience would give me some interesting writing.
I am not afraid.
Do you know what modernity is?
It’s the fairy tale broken, “they lived happily ever after.”
Change is beyond our control. No one has the answers.
For me, I’m not looking for Mollie, Connie, or Ketamina, but any queen that my people prefer as a destination: joy. I just don’t feel shocked by the influencers who force me to be a certain way.
I am yellow and mellow. Mary Jane is my journey or death. She just shows me what Dorothy saw when she opened that door from the black-and-white world, but Mary Jane didn’t force me through it. I have to cross that threshold myself. It’s up to me: how I dress; how I let my inner chutzpah satisfy this magical time.
Double-click hit rate further drives itself.
As a writer.
For me.
America.
Writing is optimistic. When we bring thoughts down to words and then condense them into sentences, life becomes bearable. We say, when we place a period, this thought ends here. I will start a new sentence. I will wear an asymmetrical metallic dress.
Mary Jane is still my good friend. She holds my hand and says, Girl, you got this.
You are not afraid.
Together, we will save America.