Tonight, I am rewatching the movie Queer with my new friend Adam Sigel. We are sitting on my bed criss-cross applesauce. We have just come back from dinner and are watching the movie with crayons in our hands. We both agreed that the movie felt really long so we had to call for the Pokemon coloring pages as reinforcements. I press unpause and I think about how it has been a lifetime since the first time I watched this movie.
A year ago. October, New York Film Festival, a Monday. I skipped class to go. Lili Tanghe and I walk over and it is windy. She is wearing her black fishnets with crosses on them and a Joy Division t-shirt. I am wearing my sheer pink dress and a ribbon around my neck. We sit in our seats and smile at each other and then the movie plays. I think to myself that Lili and I don’t know each other well enough to be watching Omar Apollo grip Daniel Craig’s buttcheeks together. Outside of the theatre, Lili says that she loved the movie. I say that I didn’t like it. But I say that there were two scenes that I did really like.
Six months ago. BCD Tofu, Koreatown, New York. I tell Lili about this monologue from my favorite rom-com, The Half of It.
“The Ancient Greeks believed humans once had four arms, four legs, and a single head made of two faces. We were happy. Complete. So complete that the gods—fearing our wholeness would quell our need for worship—cleaved us in two, leaving our split-selves to wander the earth in misery, forever longing… longing… longing… for the other half of our soul. It is said that when one half finds its other there is an unspoken understanding, a unity. And each would know no greater joy than this.” — Alice Wu, The Half of It
In Queer, there are two scenes that I love. The first is when Lee and Allerton lock eyes over a cockfight and “Come as You Are” by Nirvana plays. The second is when Lee and Allerton take ayahuasca and hallucinate themselves throwing up their hearts and becoming one body. I think that in those two scenes, Lee and Allerton were connected and whole. The rest of the movie is Lee trying to connect with Allerton again. I explained this all a little too loud over our bubbling soon-tofu and I think the people in the tables around us may have stared.
A couple of months ago. Times Square, New York. It is past midnight and I have a plane to catch in the morning. But the glow of the advertisements makes a rainbow on the pavement and the air is peppery and cold. This is one of those infinite moments that exist outside of before and after. There is only now. I look at Lili and I smile.
I used to love stories because they were an escape. Now stories have become a touchstone. They remind me of who I was when that story first spoke to me and who was there with me. The movie Queer plays and I can feel the orange New Jersey sun streaming through the train windows and the textures against my hand as I look through the clothing racks at Search and Destroy. I can hear the song “Sunspots” by Nine Inch Nails and the taste of roast pork over rice from Ming Wong on my tongue. I can feel Lili’s hand in mine as we run through Times Square. I can smell fancy floral Diptyque perfume as I text this to Lili to tell her that I miss her dearly.