in a galaxy far far away

As promised many months ago, here's the video of the downtime during just another day at the epicenter of gayness, my little office in Chiang Mai. (Again, please excuse my very extremely heinous laughter in the background. I could not control it!)



I miss these fools. I really do.

more notes from the gay zone

Director: You must feel really safe with us.

Me: Why yes, I guess I do.

Director: I mean, absolutely none of us is or ever will be attracted to you.

Me: Oh, er, um, thanks, I guess.

back to bangkok, & then debauchery central

Imagine... a 12-hour overnight van ride to Bangkok, with every seat full of gays (except me), screaming & singing (to Kelly Clarkson or really really bad Thai love songs) the whole way there.

We arrived in Bangkok at 7AM & went straight from that hellish ride into a human rights conference. Oooog I was in paaaiiin. Grumpy from lack of sleep & from distorting my body for hours, trying in vain to find a comfortable position during the ride. And then... the conference was all in Thai. Meh! Pain & torture multiplied. BUT I did meet a lot of potentially valuable contacts, like the staff from the Human Rights Commission of Thailand.

And at least this time I wore proper clothing!

I asked to be excused from the next meeting, also all in Thai, & fewer attendees, so my nodding off in the middle of proceedings might be more noticeable & some may say "rude." So instead I just wandered the city streets & a vendor tried to rip me off with fake Ray-Bans for 1200 Baht. I cursed him out for insulting my intelligence & stomped off while he chased me down the street screaming "how much you want pay??!" Bitch, please. The only reason I was even slightly interested in your shoddy merchandise was because I had left my $6 H&M shades back in Chiang Mai & the Thai summer sun was scorching my eyeballs.

After all that, I was more than ready for some fun. From BKK we drove (more driving!!!) straight to Pattaya beach 1.5 hours away. It's by no means the nicest beach that Thailand has to offer, but it's close enough for the city dwellers to escape to for a weekend. Kinda like Batangas to Metro Manila. But not as beautiful, & a lot more trashy. Like A LOT more. To illustrate: it was crawling with white Euro men (usually of the bald, overweight, not-so-easy-on-the-eyes, middle-aged/elderly variety) & their Thai women (usually of the scantily clad, heavily made-up variety). The nightlife looks like this (you can click to enlarge any of these, FYI):

But the ice bar was super cool (ahaha, I kill me).

Those are my coworkers, by the way. I heart them. That's my boss doing the ice shot.

The next day I was all ready for the "meeting" that we supposedly had, which turned out to just be an entire day on the beach spent banana boating, riding roller coasters, feasting on seafood, & then an all-transgendered cabaret show. I had no complaints at all. Except when they told the one straight, semi-cute boy that had the balls (!) to talk to me (surrounded by 10 gay/trangendered men) that I was a ladyboy. And he actually believed them. And then tried to grab my crotch for further proof.

Then the 12-hour ride back to Chiang Mai. This time with 2 hits of Valium.

what i do

I am a health educator. That's why I'm here in Chiang Mai. I am working in a volunteer capacity doing HIV/AIDS prevention & outreach.

I'm super fortunate to be coming in at a time when the small organization I'm working with has just received a grant from the Australian Federation of AIDS Organizations to do a groundbreaking research project with sex workers & the MSM community (that is, "men who have sex with men." More explanation later).

Working with gay men has its perks. They know how to laugh. They know how to have fun. & that is so important in the workplace! After all, it is where you spend most of your waking hours, so it should be something you enjoy doing. Even when working on such serious issues, there's nothing that we can't laugh about. The atmosphere is warm & welcoming, as it should be for an organization that is so keen on human rights & equality & open exchange of ideas. This is my outdoor office.

But being around them all the time, I think I'm turning gayer & gayer everyday. Like we burst into song in the middle of meetings & scream to the high heavens when a bug crawls across the floor. Check out my coworker Jit, entertaining us during a break time. Please excuse my heinous laughter in the background. Those are 4-inch heels he's got on by the way:

Just another day at the office.
(* edit: this video is taking for-fuckin-ever to upload. Damn this archaic internet again! Hopefully it worked, but if not will try again at a later date. Worth the wait, trust me!)

Right now I'm working on developing a survey to research risky sexual practices so that we can address them more effectively. This is already super challenging given the very complex & graphic content, but throw in the language barrier & it just boggles the mind. Much hilarious pantomime & charades ensues. For example, how do you explain oral sex in terms we can all understand? Or the 69 position? Or ejaculating inside or outside the body? Or casual sex?

Me: Someone you have sex with only one time.

(looks of puzzlement)

Someone: One person?

Me: No no. One time. A one-night stand? Someone you have sex with for one night only?

Everyone (bursting into song): One night only!
(you know, the song from "Dreamgirls"? Hello gayness)

Seriously. Wow. By the end of the day my head is bursting with the words "cock," "suck," "fuck," "come," "ass" & every other graphic word that's worthy of an entire sexual thesaurus. It's so draining & brain-frying, but at least they make it fun. :)

unleash your inner gay

When I lived in Australia, I had the opportunity to take part in the most flaming & fabulous party in the whole world. That is The Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras. Costumes, wild partying, flamboyance, debauchery. I mean what's not to love? You don't have to be gay to appreciate the show (I'm not). It's all one love after all, right? And what a celebration of that love, in all its diverse & colorful glory.

I was recruiting men to complete the Sydney Gay Community Periodic Survey, which served to track trends in perceptions & risk behaviors associated with HIV/AIDS. The data was used to inform health education & prevention campaigns. HIV/AIDS has been inextricably linked to the gay community for as long as it's been known to exist. This is mainly because when the disease first started rearing its ugly head (around 1981), it was concentrated within the gay community, leading many to prematurely & incorrectly label it the "gay disease." Fast forward years later, & while we still can't shake some of these misguided perceptions, we now know with absolute certainty that HIV/AIDS is not prejudiced or elitist in any way- it is an equal opportunity killer.

I was working, but wow, what a spectacle.



(I wish I took these. But no, I jacked them from other parts of the web).

This year marks the festival's 30th anniversary, so it's bound to be even more fantabulous. And Conde Nast Traveler has even named it amongst the top ten costume parades in the world. The partay starts today, February 9, so if you find yourself in that part of the world this month, sashay shante & go go go! Send me a postcard.