~joe@TTBP

25 march 2023

It's been a long time since I posted here. Things are different. I am trying to ensure I stay sane. I went from being a depressive to being an anxious person. I am nervous a lot of the time over pretty useless things.

I was in love with someone for a long time. I still love him as a friend. He was probably the greatest love I'll ever know. I had to let him go because he wanted something else, something other than a love relationship.

I'm working for Airbnb these days. I like my job, but it is the hardest job I have ever had. It is an easy job though! It just usually involves a lot of planning and hyper-communicating, which is something I'm not used to doing. I've worked in tech almost seven years now, and it is honestly surprising how many people don't care about you despite saying they do... I don't like to be lied to so much in this job. Part of it also involves not really caring so much about the job to begin with.

I am glad to say I am getting back into writing again. I wrote a book in 2021 and published it in 2022. I am working on just one more short story. I will continue to write for as long as I need to. It is the one thing keeping me sane these days.

11 february 2023

it has honestly been such a long time since I've logged on!

things are so wildly unbelievably fun, i can't describe it all. i'm actually really happy for the first time in my life.

31 march 2022

it's been a while since I last posted; things are very good, i am in good health

i have been given the opportunity of a lifetime to publish a book of short stories i've been writing for some time now

i am also very much in love with someone; he is a poet named chris and we've known each other ~7 or so years. he was married to a lady but then came out of the closet and amicably ended said relationship.

we spent most of the pandemic getting to know one another all over again and finally hung out on our first date back in november of last year.

i honestly could not be any happier

22 december 2020

merry christmas! 2020 was the worst year ever.

i am losing a bunch of weight b/c i've been on a new diet. the diet itself feels super easy and i'm glad to see a lot of progress being made.

26 september 2020

i am having major surgery on october 26

so much has changed in the last year. my aunt died in november of last year and it was utterly devastating.

then my little brother and two of our mutual friends contracted COVID-19. my little brother survived (thankfully) but the scare was very much a real thing. my brother smokes and drinks and has very bad eating habits. i had to plead with him to lose weight if he got over COVID-19 if not for recontracting this terrible illness and he thinks i am being crazy. our other two friends--they were very fat and had a number of health conditions--they contracted it and died within weeks. i remember that the last thing i told them before they contracted was that weight was a predisposing factor in whether a person could survive COVID-19 or not.

they'd been bedridden in their house for sometime; they both died of ARDS which is a complication of COVID-19.

my company is letting me work from home which is a blessing; i can't go to the gym these days so i follow a HIIT workout via youtube and lift weights and go on three walks a day

i became a vegan, if only for just a few months before this major life-altering surgery

i still think about jumblesale

i still try to keep in touch with ~vilmibm and i fondly miss them

bobby and me are working on changes to sereno so when they hit i will post the pdf here

i miss old days of tilde. six years and the town has changed so much; i wonder who is new here. i have so many folks to say hello to.

chris found me in march and we've been talking. i had such a huge crush on him about five years ago. he's a firefighter.

the smoke here was terrible and we all suffered for nearly two weeks with awful AQIs in the thousands, the sky was obscured, the birds did not sing, everything was in mourning

now it's raining and normal and i couldn't be happier.

god help my country, which is suffering from so much. america is dying and it is dying hard in a mire of racism and xenophobia and capitalism. i hope it cracks and burns and i hope it takes every evil thing it brought with it

(edit) i failed to mention that i am in therapy now and i am getting the help i've needed for a while. i have complex ptsd

23 february 2020

i miss my aunt—she passed away on november 12 of last year, very close to her 68th birthday. she went very quick. for four months i observed mourning and did not wear colors.

on february 29 i will be going home to see my mother. we have needed a vacation for some time now, and i hope we have a good time.

19 june 2019

I saw Bobby on Father's Day. I didn't cry, but I did enjoy seeing him. We went out to Manzana in Lake O for lunch and then he left for the airport. He's lost some weight. I mainly just spent a lot of time listening to his stories about Nanjing.

13 june 2019

Do you know who I miss? ~vilmibm.

Cameron asked me about him last night. I know they moved to Chicago with ~spinecone. A flood of memories filled my heart. I teared up and remembered the time they had me over for chili. They like their chili spicy hot and I could barely finish, but it was one of the best chilis I've ever had. It was a vegan chili.

Things have been hard this year. My father passed away, unfortunately. We were not close but I observed four months of mourning, in accordance with our family's old traditions. Cameron's father fell and broke his hip. My mother is losing her eyesight. I'm still working but any dreams of breaking into big publishing are gone.

Many of our friends have moved away. Some said they were friends but were not. Some were really good friends. Some friends are in heaven. Life has to go on somehow. It is very disappointing to have learned that several people on tilde.town have been in contravention of the aup and code of conduct. I stopped in on Saturday in the chat to watch a very disagreeable exchange.

I am trying not to give up on life. I forget how much I am loved. How much I am needed. How much people need me. After Dad died, I tried to kill myself. I was in very deep mourning for three weeks, and I wore nothing but black. Even now I wear black now and then. I don't just do it for my natural father, but for my maternal grandfather, who raised me as his son. When Mommy dies I will wear black for the rest of my life.

I published a book in late May. I hate it. It was part of a program I participated in here in Portland.

Other than that my life is quiet. I work mainly. I am trying to put the mistakes of my youth in perspective. I don't want to stick around life very much longer.

28 august 2018

things got bad super quick & i don't know what will happen next

i quit my job

i was being micromanaged & i wasn't happy--and it all more or less came while i was getting recognized for my work on the article for "The Believer"

the article was amazing btw

my ex's brother died in a car accident, then ~abraxas died and that was very sad.

i have now worn mourning for some thirteen days now.

i am relieved i don't have to work a desk job anymore, that i am a writer and that's how it should be, but it has been very hard this month and things are only going to get tougher.

of course no one cares or has any money, i'm always out of money

but i am confident things will pan out well like they always have. we can only be positive.

cuddling with riley seemed to help yesterday

doing cam shows for $$$ seems to be working albeit it's a very unusual way to make money

someone sent me a $5 bag of gummi bears

it's about 1/3 gone now

22 march 2018

i'm staying up late on a wednesday night/thursday morning woo

i just have realized how far apart i've grown from this community. y'all have been the only real friends i've had. i hate that I've had to neglect the artistic part of me to make money.

i'm staying in tomorrow and not going to work. I don't feel all that good -- i have a molar i have to have looked at, it's giving me a lot of pain and I've been hopped up on antibiotics/tylenol/sleep medicine, and I haven't been sleeping that well either.

i saw bobby today and that was nice, i love him <3

he always makes me feel like i can do anything, i wish i could just marry him already

10 february 2018

i saw klint tonight. i made him portuguese rice and he liked it a lot :)

talked about dude stuff, ~ town stuff, and we put on the new hope sandoval album and OMG this album is AMAAAAAAAZING. i had no idea she had put out a new album!

i'm going to sleep and dream about rainbows and hearts and pillows and glitter and summer days. I really miss sitting in the summer in a loose tank top and skinny shorts and feeling the cool grass on my legs

i love youuuu ~ ~ ~

06 february 2018

I want you all to know I greatly appreciate your emails. I am scared and it's OK. I'm going to be okay, I promise.

I worked all day today and I actually survived. My boss was back having been refreshed and he was sunny and pleasant so we all had a wonderful time at work

Mike had another panic attack at work, texted me, said he was going home, went home, and now I am thinking he is hypomanic because his bipolar disorder is ramped up and the panic attacks are making it worse. I'm worried he's going to do something dangerous.

I'm really wanting to get out of my house right now >_<

omg bitmoji came out with an update and I can finally make myself look like the hot gay i've always wanted to lol

I love you all, I miss being on here. I promise once I figure out how to get my phone to work with ssh I can stop by and say hello.

I've been listening to alot of fado and playing Animal Crossing on my new DS. I have a lot of anxiety with this Mike situation, more than I can handle right now. I took three melatonin pills and prayed to Jesus to help us all. I specifically asked the Lord to help us, and I asked Him to forgive me for all my shortcomings, that may have gotten Mike into this situation. I just want him to be OK.

04 february 2018

it's been a long long time since i updated here. i'm working a lot these days and me and cameron broke up for good. this happened in september 2017. he basically said he got tired of living in portland, and since he couldn't find a job and his father had fallen and broken his hip, decided to return to texas. it took a long time to recover from that, after a summer in which in 1) i nearly died and 2) most of my friends moved away from portland.

i am still living in portland. this has been a hard week because i am depressed. i ate junk food all this week with my roommate mike and our new roommate ethan, who is a huge pothead. mike had a nervous breakdown after falling into anaphylactic shock from ingesting a contraindication of antibiotics. at work, my boss left me and another coworker alone to face off with customers and it all hit the fan on friday evening when some crazy old woman called in basically accusing my company of discriminating against her because she couldn't get a ductless heat pump installed in her home (my company is an energy conservation services consulancy).

i finally finished writing my novella in october 2017. this work took about five years to complete and was a very difficult work to produce. it was my first crime procedural piece, and one that resonates with my south texas roots. I have been thinking alot about what south texas has mean to me as a writer and author, especially in the last few years. i would like to go home for good. my mother is elderly and frail and i would like to be closer to her. i do not think i will be getting married any time soon. whatever aspirations i had toward a normal adulthood have been compromised, alas, by circumstances that are out of my control.

i cannot tell you what adulthood has done to me. i feel like i can't have anything like a normal life, which is OK. i'm always out of money which i suppose is my fault--either from paying bills or just overindulging myself. the white philosophers who have always had enough privilege tell me i am just unbalanced, when it really is that the whole world is unbalanced, and we are all teetering toward the abyss of our bad decisions.

i haven't written anything in a long time. i have developed feelings for a man who may or may not be in love with me. he is tall and thin and handsome and a brilliant writer and just so much fun to be around. but i am also scared of scaring him away with all of my unresolved messes. he's such a sweetheart. i dedicated my novella to him. i hope i don't fuck up this relationship like i did all the others

sometimes i wish i just wasn't alive anymore, but what good would that do?

~vilmibm and ~terian moved away and i didn't get to say goodbye, i cried all the way home on the day my friend jonny moved away from portland. all these people who came to portland to get away from the nightmare that is this country have all learned their lesson. i may end up going back home, where i belong, and never leaving home ever again.

i still long for warm tropical days and rain and the smell of this rain on the flowers. part of my conundrum is not having a car. i have never needed a car because i always had public transportation, but even in texas it is hard to come by. and where i'm from, their public transportation system is still evolving and will take many years to develop, so even if i get a good job back home it will still be a long time before i can make even keel.

i have been through so much. i have so much pain inside me, more than i know what to do with. all of the relationships i have are fractured and broken by circumstance in some way, and i feel i am to blame for it. but there's not much else i can do with this pain but to make art. it is all i know how to do.

17 may 2017

i'm really glad i have friends here who love me and care about me.

i don't think i'd know what to do if i didn't have someone on tilde.town to look at my web pages.

<3

16 april 2017

wow so many people are leaving portland, what the fuck

actually scratch that never mind i've understood why after at least five years of living with impatient white people who are upset that everyone else wants to confront them on their bullshit

09 april 2017

i don't feel sexy. i feel old, ugly, fat & gross.

01 april 2017

i got paid today

28 march 2017

sometimes i feel like crying but then i remember how lucky i am to be alive to have a good job & good friends and i feel better

<3

07 march 2017

hetero people are fucking disgusting

so cameron said to me tonight, like right after i published the following blog "you are not coloring yr hair pink" and i was like OK.

this has been the first time in a long time i actually feel normal.

cam is buying me a bodybuilder pendant so that i can wear to the gym. he wants me to start taking pride in my body. i feel weird b/c i'm not where i want to be with my body just yet, but maybe to have it on me will confirm how serious i am about it.

starbucks fave drinks: -pink drink

bottom status: confirmed.

at some point i also want to have my hair the color of a pink drink.

i just realized that i don't have very good relationships with gay men, that for some strange reason I can't get along with them. I want to, but i also want to be sure i'm not gonna get made fun of for being fat or having the wrong shirt or whatever.

today the corita art center liked my drawing of corita kent on insta and i literally DIED.

also the arnold was great!≈

01 march 2017

idgaf about toxic masculinity

& personally speaking i'm super tired of seeing it at the gym

dudes will beef over nothing: cars, tv shows, food. it's like watching birds peck at one another over the slice of bread people toss to them in the park (don't do this tho, it's bad for the birds)

u know wat i also gaf abt?

like toxic white supremacy that takes on humor as a way to rehash old racist notions in the style of old-fashioned insult comedy

ppl i don't like in this vein:

1) joe rogan (don't get me started on how much of an idiot i think he is) 2) doug stanhope 3) george carlin - the holy grail of white male comedians who love to be racist and claim it's being apolitically correct 4) bill maher

breaking a rule of ~ civics, which is to not add hate to feels, but i am bugged the fuck out of guys like these. it conjures up alot of nasty feels about masculinity and hetero stuff that i can't get my mind around.

also: why do people drink beer? like, what is the point of drinking something sour tasting? it's like drinking a bottle of sprite someone has pissed into imho

26 february 2017

i feeeeeeel so sick

and all because a boy kissed me on the cheek at a poetry reading on friday and i stayed out in the cold because I missed a bus home so ¯_(ツ)_/¯

i'm actually not at all that sick though, just kinda scratchy in the throat

i had bodybuilding boot camp on saturday, so i really wasn't here all that much. great being with my dudes again lifting shit, but i learned a hard lesson: panda express will kill your diet for sure

ok so i had a great idea for chicken mozambique: 1 lb chicken breast, cubed1 cup flour 1/2 cup of cornstarchsalt pepper (I like the fancy Goan kind you get from the Indian market), crackedgarlic powder onion powder1 cup of diced green and red bell pepper 1 jalapenho pepper, membranes removed and sliced into rings (you can also use a chile ancho, reconstituted in hot water, seeds and membranes removed)1/2 Spanish onion, finely diced 2 cloves of garlic, peeled, smashed and diced1/4 cup of chunky peanut better 2 tbsp of curry (but not Madras curry powder)3 eggs, beaten

You will need a large shallow pan lined with paper towels, and enough oil to deep fry.

Assemble a workstation: 1) Season the cubed chicken with enough salt and pepper. Reserve in a ceramic bowl and keep in the fridge until you're ready to coat it. 2) Combine the flours in a large mixing bowl and mix well. 3) Crack the eggs and mix them in a medium bowl. Reserve. 4) Remove the chicken and season with garlic powder, mixing well. The chicken, when properly seasoned, should have the texture of sand, with salt, pepper and garlic powder covering all sides.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Have ready by the stove the shallow pan lined with paper towels.

Heat about 2 cups of oil (or thereabouts) in a large, deep nonstick skillet. The oil is hot when you place a wooden spoon in the oil and small bubbles rise to the top of the oil. The oil should never be so hot that it smokes. If it does, lower the heat to medium.

Bread the chicken: 1) Add some garlic powder to the flours if you like (you don't have to). 2) Dredge a small portion of the chicken in the flours. 3) Shake off the excess, then dip into the egg mixture. Allow the egg to coat all sides of the chicken.

Fry the chicken: 1) Working in small batches, gently place the chicken in the hot oil. Do not get aggressive in stirring. Gently turn over the chicken so that the breading fries to a medium, but not thoroughly done, brown. 2) Fry all of the chicken, lifting and reserving the chicken in the shallow pan, until all of the chicken has been thoroughly fried.

Bake the chicken: 1) Remove the paper towel and discard. 2) Immediately place the pan into the oven. 3) Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes, or until the chicken is uniformly brown all over and crispy.

Clean up your workstation. Wash the dishes and remove the oil from the fire. ALlow it to cool, and reserve all but 2 tablespoons of cooking oil.

Make the sauce: 1) Saute the garlic, onions, bell pepper in the oil. Be careful in not burning the garlic. Reduce the flame once the garlic has thoroughly browned, and continue cooking until the bell pepper is soft and pliable and the onions are very nearly carmelized. 2) To this add the curry powder, making sure the powder covers the vegetables. Stir. 3) Add about 1/4 to 1/3 of water, along with the jalapenho pepper. 4) Add the peanut butter. The peanut butter will be thick, so make sure to take the time to stir it into the water so that it dissolves completely. 5) Raise the heat so a medium rollicking simmer. When the sauce has reached a consistency that resembles a stew broth, lower the heat to a mild simmer. 6) Simmer for 15 minutes. 7) About 5-10 minutes before serving, add the chicken to the sauce. Coat the chicken entirely by turning over the chicken pieces with a broad wooden spoon. 8) Serve immediately with naan bread with coriander leaves and hot rice or noodles.

(This recipe is a modification of a Portuguese recipe that was taught to me by Mrs Joanne Ko, a teacher in Macau).

21 february 2017

day 1

i get panicky, okay. a fact of my life is that at least at point, ~joe, evangelist at tilde.town and all around cool person, will have a panic attack.

finally, after more than three months of not existing, not wanting for things to get better, the slightest hint comes through the aether that they actually might, and you have to wait at least three whole days for it.

three days!

too long for such good news.

you know who i miss? ~jumblesale. ~jumblesale is like cameron in that he can make me laugh. him and ~karlen did a podcast that was two hours long. on the way into work i listened to the whole thing, not necessarily rapt, but pleasantly amused.

at work there are 30-somethings who because of an overarching need to dress professionally (and because they're coders) will only dress in ralph lauren separates (i know b/c i like ralph lauren) and this year the pullover sweater with a zipper is a huge hit. like for example if you wear a plaid RL shirt with a pullover, this means people in the financial dep't will think you are some sort of sexy badass and that you cannot be fucked with. also that you are most likely gay, and if not gay, then a cat lover.

here is why i don't update my page too much: i am not so much busy as i am feeling uninspired. i want to include more on mysticism, on suffering, but i also worry that the greater demands for making people safe in a donald trump world have exhausted whatever good feelings i can offer as an artist. i am also producing a series of prints rn which require a lot of artistic energy. hopefully you'll get to see some of these prints soon.

things i currently like rn:

the color blue (b/c i colored my hair blue in october and i miss it): blue roses, blue ribbons. the color blue on things like buttons.
moonstone rings (and not the cheap cloudy moonstone).
wearing all black for ensembles (although i was tempted to shop on ASOS and look for longline t-shirts in white that would offset my chub)
butts (like most gay tops usually do)
~jumblesale (disclaimer: i have a huge aching bromance with jumblesale. we send each other long typed out emails. i have also sent him art in the past, and i should send more)
the #resistance
chili sauce chicken

i can't wait to get my phone turned back on so that i can spam the world with my bitmoji