Month: August 2006

do I really have to?

My parents called me on my birthday. I didn’t return their call. My sister called me on my birthday. I didn’t return her call. I am working on getting my issues with them out in the open, but it is going to take a lot of time. In the mean time, I am avoiding them.

The best possible strategy? Probably not. But I don’t HAVE to do anything.

My friend’s mom was in town this weekend, and told me I have to maintain a relationship with my nephew, whom I have never even met nor heard anything about, other than his name. But I don’t want to. I don’t see why I have to build and maintain a relationship with someone whom I have never met, and unless I go out of my way to establish said relationship and go to meet him, I will never meet.

Why is it that people only want to maintain a relationship with you if you are willing to do all of the work? Sometimes, you get to the point where enough is enough, and you start to ask yourself, “do I really have to?”. The answer is no, duane. No, you don’t.

a dream, a nightmare, a reality…

Every once and a while, I dream this dream. I am in school. College. I am taking lots of classes. One class in particular seems to fall to the wayside, and I end up skating through the semester without attending regularly. Two weeks before the end of the semester ends, I realize that not only does this class have an attendance requirement, I have also missed too much content to successfully pass the class. Panic sets in. Just before I fail, and after as much anguish and turmoil possible is felt, I wake up.

This is my dream; but it is also my life. I don’t want to be cryptic, but I am living this dream. I am often missing classes, and always fumbling to catch up. The worst part is, that like in the dream, I have to reason for missing the class or not participating; it just happens. But worse than it just happening, is that I am powerless to stop it. I am powerless to help myself get out of a cycle that is causing me to fail. And that causes me extreme anxiety. Last night I couldn’t fall asleep until 3:30, and it was mainly because this dream was in the front of my mind.

Sometimes our dreams can be good reminders of what we want to achieve, and help us on our way. Other times, they can be grizzly reminders of how we are powerless to help ourselves; no matter how much we may want to do so. Sometimes wanting to be better, wanting to change, and wanting to do more doesn’t mean shit; sometimes, you just can’t.

birthday, birthday, BIRTHDAY!!!!

Yep. Today’s my birthday. WOO HOO!

Thanks to everyone that is helping me celebrate, has helped me celebrate, and will help me celebrate, both IRL, URL, and whatever. YAY!

Something interesting for you to think about (well, it was interesting to me, anyway); yesterday, I went to get a mani/pedi for my birthday. I wanted to be pampered, and all I can say, is that I will definitely be getting these things more regularly from now on. But what was interesting to me about the experience, is that when I walked in, there was an instant feeling of “what the hell is he doing here” in the room. Then, I was ignored by the people that worked there, because they thought I was with the girl in front of me. After I was finally seated and being pampered like a queen, I could still feel the awkwardness related to the fact that I was a man doing something traditionally enjoyed only by women (at least in this shop). In fact, they continually asked me throughout the hour how I knew about the shop, which one of my girlfriends told me to come there, and so on. It was a constant questioning of my motives for coming in to be pampered. Interesting. I just found it interesting, because while driving to get the mani/pedi, I was actually a little skittish because I was going alone, and wanted to avoid the very thing that happened when I went in; those feelings of “what is he doing here”, and the “judgement”. It wasn’t a negative experience, and I would (will) do it again in a heartbeat, but I just found it interesting that feeling that goes with participating in gender specific activities if you are the opposite sex that normally partakes in them.

I was told that next time I will have to go to midtown to get one, because I am pretty sure I won’t be an anomaly… the gays love the mani/pedi’s! I can’t wait till my next one!

Also, as a final note, if you are leaving comments, I know that the site can sometimes take a few minutes to load and whatever, so just hit the button ONCE, and wait. If you hit it several times, it posts it that many times. It is my stupid server that does it, not my site stuff, so please be patient. I appreciate it in advance!

how cool is cool?

Yeah, so I mentioned yesterday that I was going to make it my mission last night to find out how to get Mario on my phone… well, I succeeded. take a look at these shots I took this morning. There is a NES emulator, a SNES emulator, a Genesis emulator… tons! THIS is what I can do with that 1gb memory card! No solitaire for me when I am bored!! Mario baby!!! (you can officially praise my phone as the coolest in the land, now… now I just have to get google talk on there and we will be all set.)

Also, what FANTASTIC NEWS!!!!! Plan B is going over the counter for 18 and up! It still sucks that women under 18 will have to get a doctor’s note, but how fantastic is it that Plan B will be available without prescription! This tells me that we are at least beginning to take women’s health seriously, and hopefully, will continue on that path. Hey, let’s celebrate, it’s rare when we get a victory!!! Now, if they could only fill your birth control without judgement or the ability to opt out… back to the fight…

what’s going through my head right this minute:

In an effort to show you a window into my mind, which races constantly from topic to topic, issue to issue, song to song, etc, I thought I would give you a list of things I am thinking about right this minute. Here we go. Also, I may update this list as things enter and exit my busy, busy mind.
— I think that I might have to buy this shirt (image to the right, yo). It is wicked cute.
— When you are a “conscientious driver” that doesn’t put up with other people’s shit on the road; does that necessarily equate with road rage? This of course refers to my actions when people blindly drive about in complete ignorance of other cars; most importantly, mine.
— Why does it itch when your tattoo is healing? Other scabs don’t itch (necessarily), so why does this? Ugh… I really want to scratch it but I can’t!
— We had dinner with friends last night. Are having dinner with friends tonight. I love having dinner with friends, and I truly mean it every time I say, “We should do this more often”. So why don’t we do it more often?
— The words to “Sleep on It” by Danity Kane. (remember, I said song lyrics… there is usually at least one in there at all times. I look at it as my soundtrack to life. It only sucks when you get something like Matchbox 20 stuck in there. Ugh.)
— The Thai Peanut salad at Doc Chey’s is extremely delicious. Too bad I left my Karma Card at the office and couldn’t cash in my free birthday bucks.
— I REALLY hate it when I am reading an article, or see a title of an article and there are one or more misspelled words in it. Seriously, do you not proof read what you put out for the whole wide world to see? And they make spell checkers people! You already know how “rediculous” I think missed misspellings are.
— I read that I can install an NES emulator on my new phone, and play Mario 3 on it. Jesus, I love that. I am going to seriously try and take care of that tonight… stay tuned.
— I wonder if I will get anything cool for my birthday? Hope so!

Perhaps more later, but that’s it for now!

my very own “tunesday”

There are a ton of bloggers out there that do the Tunesday Tuesdays, and I finally have a reason to do my very own! I have been watching Making the Band 3 for the past two seasons (let’s not get into how gay it is that Diddy’s dream (HA!) was to make a girl group that will “take over the world”… um, gay!), and even though I tried to resist, I fell in love with those girls, and I honestly couldn’t wait until their CD came out; which incidentally, was today! I have to say that they definitely delivered, and it is a fun hip hop CD that I really am digging right now. Those of you that know my taste in music, it is rare for me to like a “hip hop” album (save the occasional song here and there), so it is definitely hard for me to endorse any hip hop albums… but not this! It is great! I read somewhere that they were like the hip hop version of the Spice Girls, and I honestly love that; because whether you admit it or not, everyone liked the Spice Girls at least a little bit. HA!

Also, I got the CD for 30 Seconds to Mars, and it kicks ass. The dreamy Jared Leto definitely has a set of pipes on him, and the songs, while definitely for the hard rock fan, are emotional and well written (as well as well performed). I went in liking one song, and came away loving the whole album. Definitely worth checking out if you like groups like Linkin Park and Incubus. You will definitely see it in my car!

As for other music I am currently loving, here is a random list of songs I am digging:
Will Young – All Time Love, Who Am I
Beyonce – Deja Vu
PCD – Buttons (THE song of the summer in my opinion)
Christina – Ain’t No Other Man
KT Tunstall – Suddenly I See
Five For Fighting – I Just Love You
Rascal Flatts – What Hurts the Most
Cheyenne – Hanging On
Jessica Simpson – A Public Affair (I know, I know)
Nelly Furtado – Promiscuous (I am almost over this one though… too much airplay)
Nick Lachey – I Can’t Hate You Anymore

And in case you were wondering (fags), I HATE Sexyback by JT. It sucks. I doesn’t change pitch or tone the entire song. It could have been great, but it isn’t. Boo. Hopefully his next single will make up for it.

What are you guys feeling? I am CRAVING some new music, and luckily, this is the time of year albums start coming out. Let me know what you are listening to!

it’s oh so quiet, shh, shh, it’s oh so still…

It seems as the though it is a bit quiet in my corner of the blogosphere as of late; but perhaps that is just because I having said anything worth commenting on. Sadly, that will probably be the consensus on today’s post as well; there just isn’t that much going on!

First of all, it is the beginning of birthday week. Fun times to be had. All week. I hope.

This weekend was a lot of fun. We went bowling on Friday night, I got tattooed on Saturday night, and my friends Rayne and David came over afterwards. Then, on Sunday, I hung out with a good friend that I haven’t seen in a while, which I realize has been too long. We must hang out more often. Overall, it was a busy weekend, but fun!

Also on Saturday night, I decided I wanted my 1/4 sleeve to be a 1/2 sleeve, so I made appointments for more tattoo work to be done. Blast me for spending money; I don’t give a shit… I can’t wait to see the final product! My love of tattoos is taking over! I promise that I will stop at the half sleeve; at least for now.

Hope everyone else’s Monday is great!

it’s friday! woo hoo!

Last night was the monthly APWBWGTTD, and it was a lot of fun. I had nachos. Take a look at the pictures I took here. There really isn’t much going upstairs for me today, other than repeating the phrase, “I can’t wait to get off of work!”. So, not much intellectual banter today… I do hope everyone is having a great day.

I had sushi for lunch! YAY! Thanks for a fun lunch, Lori.

Also, you should check out my friend Byron‘s blog… he has some interesting things to say about the new “I am African” campaign. I can’t believe that Gwyneth! I know her heart is in the right place, but, African? They should have used Jolie… at least she has an African child! LOL

Happy Friday Ya’ll! Also, I guess no one was feeling the Moonlight Mile related post from yesterday… no worries, it is still a great movie!

I am just living to be lying by your side…

But I’m just about a moonlight mile on down the road.

Last night, I watched one of my favorite movies, Moonlight Mile, again (no, it isn’t my one of my favorites JUST because Jake is in it; but that doesn’t hurt). James told me to pick something slow that he could fall asleep to, and I knew this would do the trick for him. But for me, as I sat there watching it again, I realized how sometimes a thought, a feeling, an expression, or even, a song, can challenge you to really feel something. You can watch what people go through in their lives, and see how something can shake you so hard to the core, that you can’t figure out which direction to head in next. Life can come to a stand still in an instant, for whatever reason, and you might not be able to figure out how to get it moving again.

I love this movie, mainly because it teaches you about honesty, relationships, understanding, compassion, and finding the courage to do what’s right; even if it doesn’t feel like the right thing to do. I don’t know if you have seen this movie, and I don’t know if you care, but definitely check it out if you haven’t; you are bound to find something in it you like. It is definitely about something unforeseen that can shatter a life, and helps you to understand what different people might do in that situation.

It honestly gives me hope that I can get moving again.

Sidenote: We also tried to watch Wasabi Tuna, and let me just pose this question; why in the hell aren’t there more good gay movies out there? We couldn’t even make it through 10 minutes of this “comedy”. I am starved for good gay cinema that depicts gay people in real life; will no one hear my cry?

[photo from iheartjakemedia.com]

Listen:
Rolling Stones – Moonlight Mile
Van Morrison – I’ll Be Your Lover Too
Elton John – Razor Face