LittleBuddhaTW

Very excellent chapter, Dom, as usual ... and it was a nice looooong one! There have been a few really sweet moments in this story, and Milo's saying at the end, "I am you boyfriend," now ranks up there as one of the sweetest. Two other notable items in this chapter: 1) we now know what's up with Juanita, and 2) the goat returns! One very subtle thing I noticed is that Nelson admitted to having a good time at that Halloween party, and he didn't even have to get drunk. He also admitted that he would ennjoy a quiet, boring Saturday night alone with Milo rather than going out partying. Perhaps he's slowly, unconsciously learning something important? Milo Trust is already changing Nelson, just like Nelson is changing things about Milo. As for Assface, I think he again showed himself to be a total ASSFACE in this chapter, and I think I've been vindicated in my beliefs due to the fact that Chad (who likes everyone, and who everyone likes) also dislikes Assface. I agree that Nelson should try to be nicer to Assface, for Milo's sake, and that Caleb can be a dick at points, too. But Assface is still Assface.

At least take the hug ... hugs are good! Sounds like he's at least a pretty open and affectionate person, so even if he's not gay, he could very well be a safe person to come out to. Just play it by ear ... you know him better than any of us, you can see his body language and the way he looks at you, and stuff like that. Good luck, Adam!

Of course! Because despite the frustration that Taiwan has occasionally caused me, I've also had some very good times here, learned a lot, and met some wonderful people. Taiwan will always be a part of me, and hold a very special place in my heart. And, I'm sure that I will return, not to live, but certainly to visit. While I'm anxious to go back to the States and start my new life, I will miss it here.

I think I'm now officially going through "With Trust" withdrawal ... I'd say it's worse than heroin withdrawal, but I've never been a heroin addict ... or addicted to anything else either ... but it's still pretty bad, anyway ... *sigh*

I think you have to probably be the most absolutely cheerful person on the face of the earth ... hehe

Today, I took Simba (my youngest cat) to get the first of his preventative vaccines. He can be really sweet when he wants to, and also really evil. This afternoon, he decided to be evil, and clawed a chunk of skin out of my hand when I went to pick him up to go to the vet -- he must have sensed that he was going to get a shot. Anyway, that was the first step to going back to the States. I have so many silly hoops to jump through to take my cats back to the States that it's not even funny. First, I have to get a document from my regular vet that certifies that they've had all of the necessary vaccines (basic preventative vaccines, plus rabies), then I have to take that to another "government-authorized" vet to have them examined and have another form filled out and micro-chips implanted. Then, I have to take that form, plus the three cats, plus my passport and airline ticket to the Taipei Bureau of Commodity Inspection & Quarantine to have the prior form certified, another form filled out, and final confirmation that the cats are healthy. Finally, they have to be given another inspection at the airport the day I leave. And that's just to get them out of the friggin' country! To get into the US, guess what I need? Nothing -- just the one form from the government bureau here ... cats aren't even required by the US side to have micro-chips or rabies shots (only dogs are). So, Taiwan is totally insane, and just has to have one final jab at me before I get out of it's clutches! Grrrrrr! Anyway, now I have to wait a month for Simba to get his booster shot, and once that's done, I need to wait until June to get the other stuff done. In the meantime, it's time to start boxing up books and other crap that I'm going to ship home, and take the boxes one by one to the post office. That's going to be a pain in the butt, too. I also will have to try and sell as much of my furniture as I can, and then find out how to get rid of what I can't sell. I have no idea how to do that, however, and neither does anyone else. I'd leave sooner, but I need to wait until after July 5th so I can pick up the last of my scholarship money and my final month's paycheck from work, which will total about US$1,000 ... I'm not going to give up that much money just to get out of here a week or two sooner ... that's going to be the down-payment on my new car. I'm also hoping my landlord doesn't try to cheat me on returning my deposit, which is about another US$1,000 ... unfortunately, Taiwanese landlords have a tendency to try to find any little reason to not return the deposit, and since I'll be leaving the country, there's not much I can do if she just decides on a whim to not return it. I really hope she does, because 1) it's my money (and the apartment is in perfect condition, and 2) I really need it so I don't have to rely on my parents at all when I get back (other than a roof over my head until I get a job offer -- although if that takes more than a month, I'll probably get my own place anyway because my parents will drive me insane). I also still have to take the oral exam for my M.A. I'm not worried about that, though. I'm still waiting for my professor to finish going over it, and I'll probably have to make a few minor corrections, but nothing major since my classmates (my professor's #1 student who is going to study for her Ph.D. at Tokyo University now) went over it three times already. As for writing stuff ... Kitty has already finished the first edit of "Seeking Nirvana," and should have the final edit back to me soon. So expect that to be posted within a few days. I'm not sure when Ch. 10 of "Someday Out Of the Blue" will be done, but hopefully not too long (hint, hint ). But I'm sure reading the new story will make up for any minor delay ... I think it's pretty good, and will give everyone a little better insight into my philosophies on life and why my name is "LittleBuddha" (the "TW" part means "Taiwan," if you hadn't figured that out already). And ... this blog entry is dedicated to Ben's bum (BoyNeedsTherapy) ... and such a beautiful bum it is! lol Finally ... *gasping for air* ... since everyone seems to be listing a song of the day or whatever, I'll jump on that little bandwagon, too, and recommend "A Love That Will Never Grow Old," sung by Emmylou Harris, from the film "Brokeback Mountain." It won a Grammy (as I hope everyone here knows), and the guy who wrote the lyrics, Bernie Taupin, is the guy who writes the lyrics for all of Elton John's songs.

I'm glad you all are enjoying it. It's been a lot of fun to write, and I've learned a lot working with Kitty. Chapter 10 might take a little while, because Kitty's currently working on editing a short story I sent her, although it's a pretty long short story. But hopefully both will be posted sometime in the next couple of weeks. But Kitty does such an excellent job cleaning up the stories, so I think in the end it's worth the wait. I'm currently writing Chapter 13 now. I'm also sure everyone noticed the "dedication" on Chapter 9! lol I really am sappy and pathetic, aren't I? lol For members of the Yahoo! group, there's a poll where you can vote on your favorite character so far. It's been updated to include choices like Cody and his mom, Tatyana (aka "Petunia"). http://groups.yahoo.com/group/littlebuddhatw_stories LBTW

Congratulations on becoming an author! Your story is definitely on my list of things to read! Good luck! *Hugz*

Chapter 9 is now up ... http://members.gayauthors.org/littlebuddhatw/SOOTB9.html So ... what does everyone think of Connor's new friend, Cody? lol And of course, his mom ...

I really can't wait to read the new story ... so please hurry up and finish it!

Norfolk.

I've finally made my decision, with a little help from my parents (I still look for their approval ... can't help it! lol) So ... anyway ... I'm moving back to the States, probably in early July. I've decided not to take the Ph.D. entrance exam. I've been here for five years now, and the past year and a half has made me realize that I would be better off back home. I want to get a real job, settle down, and begin the rest of my life. The whole moving thing is gonna be a major pain in the butt, but at least I have three months to prepare, and nothing else much to do during that time, other than take the oral exam for my M.A. thesis, which won't be a big deal at all. So, now I just need to figure out what to do first! I'll probably start packing up books and shipping them home soon, and make sure my cats are all caught up on their vaccinnations. Once I get home and recover from the jet lag, my first priorities are getting a cell phone, buying a new car (Toyota RAZ4 mini-SUV, baby! hehe), and sending in my online job applications. Once that's taken care of, there's a certain somebody in Virginia that I need to go pay a little visit to ... if he's not being to stubborn! That is NOT my reason for moving back to the States, though ... this has been a long time coming, and I'm ready. So, anyway ... yeah ... I guess I need to get busy. It's nice to not have the stress of that stupid Ph.D. entrance exam on my mind now. As for my story, Kitty has already done the first set of revisions on Ch. 9, so hopefully I'll have the final edit back from her soon. I've also sent her the rough draft of "Seeking Nirvana." So there should be new stuff up on my website and GA this week ... probably in a few days. That's about it for now ...

*Sigh* I remember my high school trip to France ... a one-eyed homeless guy tried to steal my gyro sandwich from me at about 1 a.m. in the Greek section of Paris, so I squealed and hid behind my French teacher ... Madame Clem ... with fiery red hair ... fun times ... Anyway, welcome aboard GA, and I look forward to reading your story!

Happy B-day, Lugh! **1,000 kisses from the Buddha**

If you're into horror flicks, definitely check out some Japanese and Hong Kong horror movies ... I've been hooked on them for a few years now, and they always scare the sh*t out of me. Hollywood has tried to jump on that bandwagon and done remakes of "The Ring" and "The Grudge," but the originals are still much scarier. You just might have trouble sleeping for a while ... although that's nothing a cute guy in bed next to you can't take care of ...

It's great to have you joining us! I've loved both of your stories and recommend them to people all the time. And one of my cats is named 'Kitty', too.

I tend to agree with Green. Dom likes to write ... I think that's pretty clear. He's kind enough to share his talents with the rest of us, and the process of writing may have some degree of cathartic benefit for him. And I also think that he knows that there are messages in his stories that will reach young people and give them the courage or hope that they need to deal with whatever situation they find themselves in. But that's just a guess, since I don't know Dom, nor do I know what type of person he is. He obviously values his privacy and has valid reasons for doing so. But does it really matter *why* he does it? I don't think so ... But Ann, you're his friend ... why don't you just ask him? Also, I don't think there have been that many negative comments. I think the vast, vasy majority of readers greatly appreciate what Dom does and try to respect his privacy, right to have a life outside of feeding us the latest chapters of whichever story he's working on, etc. But everyone who is willing to put there writing or whatever out there for public consumption has to accept that there will be negative responses, there may be psycho stalkers, they may have undue pressure put on them, blah blah blah ... Dom's obviously not stupid, and when he made the conscious choice to start sharing his stories with the public, he knew would receive all kinds of different feedback (although perhaps not on the massive scale that he has). That's something he'll have to accept and deal with it, unless (god forbid) he decides to stop writing. But that's up to Dom, and hopefully he'll remain sane enough to keep going!!!

I agree with Ben ... although I'd pretty much agree with anything Ben says ... *giggling like a little school girl* Anywho, I don't think Nelson is deeply closeted at all ... he just isn't ready to come out to his friends yet, but I don't think he's petrified of it like Milo (or Quinn) ... I think he figures it will happen at some point, but isn't going to lose too much sleep over it.

I don't think I've ever written two blog entries in as many days ... but it probably has to due with the fact that I'm procrastinating for a few more minutes before I get back to my translation project ... ugh!!! I was up at 4 a.m. this morning, after getting to sleep at around 1:30 a.m., and it's now 5:00 a.m. as I'm writing this ... while listening to the "Brokeback Mountain" soundtrack which I bought yesterday (along with Billy Joel's "Millenium Concert" and the latest Eurythmics greatest hits collection -- which has two new songs, by the way). Anywho, I jumped through all of the stupid little hoops yesterday to get that stupid form so I could pick up my scholarship money next month, but when I got to the Office of International Scholarly Exchanges to actually pick up the form, they informed me that I no longer needed to do any of that stuff (even though they harrassed me last week via e-mail like three times to come into the office to do it). I was about ready to drop kick all those stupid giggling office girls yesterday. GRRRRR!!!! I also had to sit in the office at the Graduate Institute for Taiwanese Literature for like an hour until my graduate advisor got out of a meeting ... fortunately, there was a really HOT student-worker there, and my eyes were totally glued to his ass every time he had to get up and go answer the telephone. He was sooo gorgeous. There are definitely some really hot boys here, and that'll be the one downside of leaving Taiwan. I just have to keep reminding myself that most of them are incredibly immature and way too closeted to have a serious relationship with. At any rate, I finally got to give the final draft of my thesis to my advisor (after she told me I looked like I'd put on weight ... ) It really annoys me sometimes how Taiwanese are so direct when it comes to things like telling you you look fatter, or pointing out that you have a pimple on your face, or asking you how much money you make ... but when it comes to other things, they're just so vague, or tell you what they think you want to hear, while meaning something entirely different (like how the Taiwanese president basically pulled a fast one on the U.S. regarding the 'abolition' of the National Unification Council). I finally finished the first draft of "Seeking Nirvana" and sent it off to Kitty, although I told her that SOOTB still takes precedence. So I don't know how long it will take to get it back (and we always go through two revisions to make sure we catch everything). The story is quite long, about 75KB, which translates to about thirty pages or so (I'm just guess-timating). I haven't received the first set of revisions for Ch. 9 back yet, so I'm not sure when it'll be posted ... I'm hoping it will be ready by the middle of next week, but no promises. And the only thing I'll say is that you'll get to see a lot more of Cody starting in Ch. 9. The character of his mom is loosely based on someone I actually knew ... and yes, people like that do exist! haha Anyway, back to my translating ... the most boring work in the whole world ... **sigh** BTW, Dan's comment in my last blog totally made my day! hehe

Sounds like a potentially good scene for "Service" ... but, of course, after Jarred seduces the youth pastor (following an interesting back-and-forth debate on Mormonism), Jarred introduces him to the wonders of gay sex, forcing him to verbally foresake his "God," cum on the Book of Mormon, and then when that's over, tear his throat out with his fangs (since he doesn't have the potential to be a familiar). Or would that be too risque???

Sweet, sweet Dan ... now is that the kind of example we want to be setting for our younger readers? hehe Everyone knows that the best way to overcome a bad case of the blues is to have a nice cup of tea and read the Bible.

Very excellent chapter! So now Nels and Milo are officially "together" ... Milo is showing a bit more aggressiveness ... but it seems like the drama is about to get messy ... But anyway, YAY for Nels and Milo ... it was so cute the way Milo took care of Nelson when he was drunk, and how Milo actually initiated a kiss with Nelson, and the way he admitted that they were "together" ... so, so cute ... **sigh** No cliffhanger, but I'm already itching for more ...

Hmmm ... mine said: "LittleBuddhaTW is 63% Gay! Careful! You're not a gay clich yet, but well on your way. Bet all the girlie girls just adore you!" Ok ... so whatever that means ...

You're lucky, Dom ... I'm in that kind of mood almost every day ...

I have had the weirdest sleeping habits lately. I get to bed at a normal time, usually between midnight and 1 a.m., but then only sleep for a couple hours. Then I'm up for the day, then go to sleep again in the late afternoon and sleep until around 8 or 9 p.m., then repeat the cycle. I've tried forcing myself to stay awake to reset my internal clock, as well as sleeping medication from my doctor, but it doesn't work. One benefit of this, though, is that I do my best work in the early hours of the morning. Speaking of work, I'm finally forcing myself to do this stupid translation project that I got assigned. It's a bunch of translators, actually, translating this bilingual guide book of Taiwan. I got assigned the section on some place that I've never heard of called Wuri Township in Taichung County. None of my friends have heard of it either. For such an unknown place, they've certainly written enough about it, which I have to go and translate. There's stuff like the kinds of orchids they cultivate there, some beer factory that's supposedly famous, some old textile mills that represent the early days of Taiwan's industrialization, and then some not-so-famous people who were early settlers of the area. Very, very boring stuff. The pay's not too shabby, though ... about US$400. Today is going to be an annoying day (besides working on this stupid translation) because I have to drag my butt all the way to my school just because they've come up with new regulations for picking up our scholarship money. First, I have to go to the cashier's office and pay NT$20 to get a copy of my transcript, then go to the Office of Graduate Student Affairs to actually pick up the transcript. After that, I have to go to the Office for International Scholarly Exchange in an entirely different building, give them the copy of my transcript, then pick up another form from them, and finally, come back again to the cashier the following week to pick up my money ... and I have to do this every month! When it comes to bureaucracy and red tape, the Chinese and Taiwanese are the worst ... GRRRR!!!! Fortunately, my graduate advisor has a meeting at the school today at noon, so I can drop off my completed M.A. thesis to her to go over for the last time while I'm there, as well as return some books at the library (even though it's all the way on the other side of the campus). Unfortunately, this will all be during my new "sleep time," so I'll be dead tired and in a pissy mood, and school administrators here are so incompetent, I just know I'm gonna go off on someone. As for my story(ies), I posted Ch. 8 of SOOTB early, since I didn't see the point in waiting until later in the week when it was already done and edited. It was my first time writing a 'sex scene,' although no one has commented yet as to how well that part was written. Kitty said she liked it, but that's only one person's perspective. Also, I'm almost finished writing my short story "Seeking Nirvana." It's ended up being longer than I'd planned, and it's also a bit "philosophical," so I'm not sure if everyone's gonna like it, or even get it. But I've spent A LOT of time working on it, re-writing parts, tweaking other parts, so I'd might as well finish it and post it. Also, since my alias is "LittleBuddhaTW," I figured I should write at least one thing with a bit of a Buddhist slant to it. Anyway, that's it for now ... it's 3:14 a.m. here in Taiwan, and I shouldn't even be awake, but I am ... and now I have to get back to this stupid translation project. **sigh**