I Am a Vampire

With all the fuss over Twilight this weekend, the new teen vampire movie, a lot of people are going to miss the other vampire movie playing, Let the Right One In. Of course not many people were going to see this second movie anyway seeing as it's an import from Sweden and only playing in the city at the Angelika (which was packed with people lining up to see Slumdog Millionaire.)

I can't say I'm the biggest fan of vampire movies. In fact, I can't think of a single one I've seen. Maybe I felt possessed to see one today because I've been feeling a lot like a living dead person--just going through the motions, unable to find death. An end. Resolution. Something. I called up a couple of people to see it, but no one was answering their phones. Maybe they're all dead, too.

Let the Right One In is about two 12 year-old kids, a boy and a girl, both desperately lonely, and in desperate situations. It was amazing that two such young kids could wring out such powerful performances, something I will have to remember when writing future screenplays. Watching this movie, one learns that a vampire must be invited into a room before it can enter; otherwise, it dies. I'm not sure if this rule is part of the original vampire lore, but for someone like me, I accepted it at face value. And after I finished watching, I realized what a brilliant metaphor the filmmaker had created.

A lot of us are vampires. We certainly didn't start out that way. But somewhere along the way, we inadvertently invited the wrong people to enter into our lives. People who sucked the blood out of us without managing to kill us. Not because they were necessarily evil but because that was what they had to do in order to survive. And once a vampire has bitten us without killing us, we are destined to be vampires forever. Until we choose to walk into the light. And meet our deaths.

I am a vampire. If you are kind to me, and invite me into your heart, I won't harm you. But if you're one of those who ends up crossing me, pray that I kill you. It's no fun being a vampire. Always alone. In search of the blood that lets you live for another lonely night.

A Handful of Water

So I did something kind of crazy on my birthday Sunday. I answered an ad on craigslist and went hiking with a guy I had never met before. He was a nice kid; intelligent, well-spoken; but not much of that elusive chemistry. So what was it that possessed both of us to meet without so much as an exchange of pictures? Plain and simple: loneliness. There's just a lot of loneliness in this city. It's what makes us go full speed ahead from one thing to another so we can just forget about the loneliness, even if just for a moment. I think a lot of us choose our loneliness. The alternative, of course, is choosing to be with someone you don't really feel much anything for. Which is worse? Is it better to die alone, proud not to have settled for someone we didn't much care for? Or better to die knowing you never met the person you really wanted to meet in this lifetime? We meet so many people in this city. Like a handful of water that slips through the fingers.

No Regret

Last night I finally got around to watching No Regret, the 2006 Korean movie about the tortured relationship between an 18 year-old orphan who works in a male brothel and a twenty-something son of a rich businessman. Straight folks were up in arms about its graphic scenes and taboo themes; the gay ones, about how cute the two main characters were. A lot of what I saw, incredulously, was a reenactment of my own sordid past. How I used to frequent the brothels to ease my loneliness. How I became attached to one of the guys who claimed to have no family. How I let him move in with me for a while. In hindsight, I wish I could have done more to hold on to him. Not because he looked well in the Jilsander clothes he favored, or that he was tall and handsome with a strong physique. But because he genuinely seemed to be alone in his life. As I was, but couldn't bring myself to admit. Which is why our relationship never had any chance of succeeding. I told him he had to leave my apartment. He ended up taking refuge in a Buddhist monastery. Some months later, I got a call from him. He said he wanted to see me again, to see how I was doing. But he was the one dressed in a monk's garb with his head shaved. And I was the one feeling that the stranger taking tea with me was my own confused shadow. If only I had known then what I realize now. Love isn't always about finding someone who makes you happy. Sometimes it's about being with someone who simply understands your sadness.

My Real Imaginary Date

Just when I was thinking that 2007 has been an unremarkable year for movies, I'm given a reason to reconsider (and yes, cry) after seeing Lars and the Real Girl, an original fable about one man's loneliness and what an entire town will do to help him out of it. These past four years, I have tried my hardest not to think of myself as a victim of HIV, and for the most part, I think I have succeeded with the help of my family and doctors. But I have also stopped denying that I have become an extremely lonely person, similar to Lars. On the weekends, I get dressed up as if I were going out to meet someone special, as I did tonight. And of course, there is no one waiting for me when I show up at the movie theater. But it's still nice, maybe even essential, to pretend that there is. I recognize the irony--that a delusion is what keeps me going, what stops me from totally withdrawing into myself and shutting out the world. Lars had a plastic doll he called Bianca; I make do with my imaginary date whom I have yet to name. When I walked into the crowded movie theater tonight, there were two empty seats in the back row. And I thought to myself, "Wow, two empty seats just waiting for us to fill them." But while this kind of thinking might be poignant on a movie screen, I'm not so sure it's just plain pathetic in real life. After the movie ended, outside of the theater, purely by chance I ran into Chad, a guy I've asked out and been rejected by countless times, a guy who always said he would call but never did. He was going to see a movie with his group of five friends. Normally, I would have been happy to see Chad. But not so tonight. Tonight I was with Evan.