Just Julio

Posted on 17 Aug 2008 at 06:03 UTC

2008-08-17T01:03:00.001-05:00

My energy to the Universe: I vow to me healthy and make healthy decisions in my life, especially for my mind and soul. I will surround myself with HEALTHY people to my heart an soul and I shall not give into unhealthy carnal temptation.

Posted on 28 Jul 2008 at 04:49 UTC

2008-07-27T23:45:00.001-05:00

Uploaded by www.cellspin.net

Posted on 28 Jul 2008 at 04:49 UTC

2008-07-27T23:44:00.001-05:00

We had a blast this weekend. Brandon the LSU made it easy to forget he was around. He was super shy and quiet to the extreme. We had fun anyway watching The Dark Knight and eating waay too much.

Friday night we had a "double date" of sorts with Brandon's cool ass Cussie friend Pam and my infamous LB Mo. Miguel came later to make it so not a date. The Thais really put their foot in it that night and the image of poor Mo staring at the drag show at Be Bar was classic!

Saturday we went to Nellie's and got drunk. At some point Brandon went to go to sleep in my car (right). The best part of the night was kicking it with my frarors (and running into another one being messy) at Town. Bacardi voguing his ass off and making this queen rip her pants to the crotch revealing her bare ass was the highlight of the evening haha!

testing

2008-07-25T18:00:00.001-05:00

Testing One Two

NYC Pride 2008

2008-06-30T13:25:00.006-05:00

Pride this year in New York was a lot of things! The pics will come when I can motivate
my lazy ass to download the pictures from my camera and get the appropriate releases from
those involved.

A few highlights:

1) The LGB NALFO convention at Krash Friday night and round of sorority calls reverberating
over the music. I won best imitation and longest duration of the Sigma Lambda Upsilon call.

2) Seeing my arch-nemesis and hiding behind Miguel before I was spotted anyway and kicking myself for being momentarily (a NANO second) happy to see him.

3) The Greek "ice-breaker" afterwards at the dorms at NYU ;)

4) "You got lube, right?" *Smack my head*

5) Running the OOONLY P4 with my Hermano.

6) The make-shift tent.

7) Realizing I had out-grown Escuelita's sometime at the turn of the millenium. I still
tipped the stripper and felt "it". (Just to make sure I had out-grown it).

8) Bobby voguing his FUCKIN' ASS OFF at Mr. Black's and being the epitome of
absolute FOOLISHNESS!

9) Running back and forth across Manhattan lugging bags with Melvin .

10) Another awesome Pride Parade (though in the rain).

11) "I am not responsible for your emotions, GGRRRRL!". Thank you Bobby for
making me realize I am not the only one that feels this way!

12) Flirting with the creepy old guys to get a free drink but then realizing they had
already closed their tab. I need more lessons from Bobby. I'm going to practice clearing throat
loudly.

13) Actually meeting a NICE bouncer at Krash.

14) Incredible Hulk and Red Devil.

15) Finally remembering who Maurice was. He was a great sport and didn't hold it against
me. Thanks for the honey roasted peanuts!

16) Medium Pinkberry with mango, strawberries and pineapple.

17) Falling out on a bus at 4am and sleeping uncomfortably for 4 hours then going right to work.

All in all it was a great time and can't wait to do it again!

16)

Warning Labels

2008-04-22T10:05:00.028-05:00

So last night my oldest sister and I take our next younger sister to go see Chris Rock at Constitution Hall. She had just turned 18 and we figured we'd take her to her first adult comedy show. Chris Rock was HYSTERICAL and we all had a really good time.

While there I remembered another comedienne by the name of S'more and she had a joke where she talked about how cool it would be if guys had warning labels that were legible as they walked by so you can decide whether or not to approach them.

This weekend I came across two situations where warning labels would have been appropriate. In one situation, I was an interloper looking in, literally, into a situation. The other situation was much more personal and as such, extremely frustrating and exasperating.

Warning #1:

WARNING! This ninja is a grimey LIAR. He is liable to tell you that the dude he's been with for the last two years and who moved 250 miles from home to be with him is "just a friend." Said ninja is also stupid as hell and thus incapable of effectively maintaining said lie. Said stupidity is evident by bringing you around the people that knew the aforementioned "just friend" and whom are naturally curious as to where the hell YOU and your gender-ambiguous best friend came from.

Warning #2:

WARNING! This ninja is the most emotionally codependent and depressed bama you ever met in your life. He is incapable of understanding or respecting the fact that though you are attracted to him and find him cool to hang out with (sometimes) you do not want a relationship with him. Subsequently, he throws throws a temper tantrum demanding you never contact him again and actually IGNORE any attempts of HIM contacting YOU whenever he is reminded of your feelings. Said ninja is also prone to alcoholism, blacking out and drunk texting all of which he does not recall later.

He has a breath-taking lack of self-esteem. He has a tendency of befriending only very attractive people in a weak attempt to shore up his own lack of self-esteem. He is not beyond going through your friend list and randomly adding people whom he feels is attractive. Said ninja is capable of planning a trip to YOUR city to visit another ex after planning to have you come up to HIS city to visit him.

What is ironic about these warning labels (and the punchline of S'more's joke) is that even if people had warning labels, she'd "still *uck with them anway" hahahaha. And though people dont have warning LABELS, they often have warning SIGNS which go equally unheeded.

And I won't even front like *I* probably shouldn't have a warning label. In fact, here it goes:

WARNING! This ninja is blunt, insensitive and sometimes just doesn't give a *uck about your feelings, ego or self-esteem. He has a tendency to let any and every opinion about they way you do things fall out of his mouth under the auspices of attempting to help you better yourself when really all he's done is spill your little feelings all over the floor and defecate on them.

WARNING! This ninja suffers from Wandering-Eye Syndrome (WES) especially when the weather is warm and folks are more inclined to show some skin. You must have a solid self-esteem to deal with this ninja's wandering eyes as he is not just satisfied looking, but needs to touch and taste as well. AND he will tell you so in very graphic and EXTRA terms. (see previous warning.)

Snowy Wonderland

2008-01-17T14:16:00.000-05:00

So the first real snow of the winter of 2008-2009 is falling today (at least in Maryland) and it looks like I'm going to be stuck here at least until they decide to salt the icy back roads of Carrol County. So I'm going to blog a bit.

I know I still owe pictures of Halloween, Christmas, New Years, my little sister's engagement (and of her rock which she does NOT STOP showing off) and now my interesting little trip to Texas. One of my friends recently made it back from Iraq (alive and in one piece unlike thousands of other American soldiers) and I promised I would visit him in Austin, where he bought his first house, which by the way is FABULOUSSSSSSSSS!

And to be perfectly honest, me and G.I. Joe have kind of been feeling each other for a very long time, despite our... unusual meeting (grin). But instead of a hot passionate weekend (with him at least), I walked away with a very sour taste in my mouth (not from what you think). My Army friend showed his ass in a way that I've only heard of but never had the pleasure of experiencing. Apparently he wanted to make me feel jealous by kissing on this Mexican dude (with a GREAT personality btw... ). He gets off on having someone he is dating fly off in a jealous rampage. It lets them now that they REALLY care about him. He was also pissed because of a revelation I gave him which I didn't think was a big deal but apparently in the land of childish immaturity, acting like a prick is an acceptable form of communicating ones displeasure at unwanted (but honest) information.

The weekend wasn't a total loss. I met some new people and had a blast with G.I. Joe's friends in Dallas (including the Mexican guy with a GREAT personality.) And we kind of resolved our issues on the 2 hour drive back to Austin. Being forced in a car for 2 hours kind of facilitates talking about shit. I think I would visit again though under slightly different pretenses.

So looks like I'm oh- and two when it comes to the long distance thing. Speaking of long-distance, it appears I was incorrect about Dominic's Christmas gift. Apparently someone at Amazon copied the address label wrong and sent it to "Manager" instead of "Night Manager" and removed his name from it. Thats how it ended up in the "Managers" area. So I apologize for insinuating he might be a liar (and from what I know, the manager who received the package never wore them). And the reason I sent him really cute underwear is because all his underwear looked alike which gave the erroneous impression that he never changed his draws. Well regardless, the end result was the same: the shit got sent back to me hahaha. Now it looks like *I* have a cute set of draws, though they may be a little tight.

It stung a little that we couldnt be friends or at least cordial, but hey thats life I guess. And thats all I got to say about that.

Yup..

2008-01-08T16:01:00.000-05:00

.. sure hope SOMEone in NY is enjoying that underwear!

Shipping Carrier: USPS

Ship Date: 17-December-2007

Shipping Speed: StandardCarrier

Tracking ID: 9101003589913008983050

Your shipping address:

Attn: D------ S-- J----, Night Manager

Hotel Elysee,

60 E 54th St

New York, NY 10022-4642

United States

Closing 2007

2007-12-31T05:12:00.001-05:00

What better way to close out 2007 than to be drunk as shit and at a keyboard the last morning of the year! I am just getting back home after a fabulous night with my best friend Miguel, my new (and improved) room mate Carlos, Miguel's hot mixed (white-boy loving) coworker at Apple and their other weird attention-seeking skinny awkward co-worker. (Also at Apple.)

I don't know. Maybe I'm in a fucking philosophical mood. Or maybe I'm just stark-raving mad. Or maybe I'm just (irritated or annoyed or dumbfounded) by Dominic's passive-aggressivity over his "secret" blog.

Maybe I'm just super-pissed at Republican hypocrisy. They want to close the border to the Mexican invasion however 6 years after 9/11 the containers that carry the billions of pounds of poisonous Chinese shit through our ports still go unchecked. They blame the damn Mexicans for stealing American jobs however support corporations who want to ship American jobs over to India and (giggle) Mexico because Mr. Patel and Mr. Gonzalez work in countries where such things as the minimum wage are unheard of.

But enough of that. Hopefully Hilary (Obama?) will point that out when s(he) wins the primary. All I can worry about is me... in the here and now and shit that I feel I need to get off my chest.

To "no one in particular":

- For the record, USPS "confirmed" a delivery to the address in question. Either you are lying or someone else that works at the Hotel Elysee is sporting some fresh new undies. I guess its a moot point seeing as how you were sending them back.

- You needn't worry of me ever contacting you again. I've done as you requested and deleted your contact information. I was foolish (optimistic?) to think that you would choose to let go of the victim role and move on from the past. It seems like you enjoy holding onto past pain and using it as an excuse to not gain the emotional "evolution" you say (and sing) that you lack.

- Slow your roll next time you start dating someone. SLOW DOWN! Maybe not everyone falls in love as quickly as you do. You need to respect that someone may not feel as strongly for you as you do for them. Its life and the risk you take when you put your heart in someone else's hands.

- I honest to whatever God exists wish you the best in life and that you find happiness, if not in 2008, then sometime soon.

To America:

Stop being afraid of people you don't understand, be they Mexican or Muslim. We can once again be a truly powerful and respected nation if we stop all the BULLSHIT and get back on track.

To Myself:

This was a good year. Sad as it may sound, you've finally grown up and are an adult at 28 years old. You've learned to value the valuable and to see things as close as possible to as they are and not as how you think they are, or should be. You've learned what you want out of life and people and have learned to not compromise yourself for nobody. You've finally learned how to love yourself and to LET THE FUCK GO of things that penultimately do not matter.

Look at how far you've come from the fat kid with Coke-bottle glasses walking home with tears down your chubby cheeks wondering what would be the quickest way to end your misery. What man can tear you down today, other than yourself?

And that is the last obstacle that stands before you right now: yourself. How much more could you have accomplished in 2007 had you simply the will to? How much more will you leave undone in 2008 because you simply lacked the motivation to do so?

Oh, BTW, check out Mary's new album. That joint is FIYAH!!

What's On My Mind

2007-11-29T23:57:00.000-05:00

Okay so my 28th birthday came and went last month. I am less than two years away from being 30 years old!! Jesus H. Christ!! Birthdays are my time of reflection (not the more common New Year's Eve) and I take stock of where I've been and where I want to be. This year was no exception though the weekend before the 31st I spent in New York with friends and plastered silly. (Pictures and details to come later.)

So far I haven't had much time to sit still and focus on the past and future. I have been too grounded in the present. Here is a short list about whats been on my mind:

1) Painting the computer room: My good friend Carlos is moving in with me at the end of December. Its definitely going to be a great financial and dietary (the bitch puts his FOOT in it each and every time in the kitchen.) We also get along very well. I have to admit I'm a bit nervous about moving someone else in, but I think we can work something out. Its also motivated me to finally finish my home improvements. All thats left after painting the computer room is to install some flooring and redo th2e bathroom. OH, OH, OH!! I paid off my car last month so automatically I'm getting to keep a nice chunk of change each pay period. I'm definitely loving the increased financial security.

2) School: I'm on my second to last grad school class before I have my Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering and this class is awesome! Its really brought out the geek in me. My main project is investigating the video compression techniques used on the iPhone (my own personal favorite toy). FYI, the iPhone and iPod touch both use the MPEG4 standard as well as H.264 portion of the MPEG4 standard which is awesome though very slow to encode. I am working on a multi-processing system (with a few PC's that have dropped in my lap recently) that should make encoding long (< 30 minutes) H.264 videos less painful. Mind you this is probably going to be a hobby.

3) Gym: Been noticing a few more changes since hitting the gym harder starting from last years reflection. I definitely have a long way to go before I can stop being friends with Ana. (You know, Miss Rexia!) but the changes are definitely great motivational material.

4) Love: I dont have time for it, but it seems my mind has all the time in the world to think about a certain past situation that recently ended. "Situation" .. I need to stop using that word before I piss off someone else I care about. Looking back, I don't regret my decision. Every fiber of my experience and intuition was screaming for me to remove myself from that... relationship. Even after the fibers were done screaming along with most of my friends, I stayed around to see what would happen next. Maybe a miracle.

In any case, I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss him. Or if I said I didn't have feelings for him. It would be a total fabrication to say that I hadn't felt drawn to him. He had such great qualities and compatibilities with me that I felt it was too good to be true. Unfortunately it was. More on that later.

Market Days: 2007!

2007-08-23T03:22:00.001-05:00

Okay its been a while since I posted pictures. Here are some pictures from Market Days in Chicago 2007!!!!

Me and Miguel at his frat sisters apartment in Chicago getting ready to go out for Market Days.
I believe he was trying to pretend like he still had a gag reflex.

Ryan showing us the very artistic and interesting pictures on his cell phone. I loved the angles!

Dinner at an Italian restaurant. I had a salad. Italian is not one of my favorite foods. Damn can I get a Thai place?!

At Ryan's place either doing Dream Girls or about to do the AKA lean without the handsigns. Um, you will not catch us taking pictures throwing up NPHC sorority signs like some certain messy queens online. I do however reserve the right to throw up my sister's sunflower. (See later.)

Ryan's mom who fed us like we were her own children! I love her! She totally reminds me of the Filipina mama from "Rick and Steve".

So Matt (or Mike) rush was at Market Days walking around looking all hot and shit. He isn't my favorite of porn stars (until I went home and found him on xtube... *drool*). The person on the right did a lot of running around that evening, apparently after me. *grin*

Dome about to drop it like its hot. Can you tell that I have been drinking all day?!

Me and Lewis. This was before I got so drunk that I "took a break" outside of Circuit. This cutie was kind enough to make sure nobody took my iPhone, wallet or my mangina while I was "taking a break" on the sidewalk outside of Circuit. Later we wandered all over Lincoln Park for his van which we never found. Drunk, tired, and a tad pissed I set him off in a cab before crashing into my nice sofa bed.

Um... I believe this image speaks for itself. I'm 99% gay but I just love titties. After assuring these ladies that I was family (as if the pink shirt and white belt didn't give it away) I was allowed to photograph them in their natural lesbionic environs.

Pic of the Chicago-Washington Heights crew at Roscoes. Them pitchers sneak up on ya dont they?

Me and JP. We saw each other eye to eye this night.. We always seem to agree on philosophies on life, love and relationships! We are different sides of the same coin.

Some random morning shot. Here we are all bright eyed and bushy tailed :) The Avengers shirt was given to me by someone special.

Temporal Pregnancy

2007-08-23T02:48:00.001-05:00

It is almost 4 in the morning and I just can't seem to get to sleep. I need a quick writing fix and I feel the need to save this moment for posterity. I feel as if I'm playing "Doom 3D" and I'm at a "safe" point in the game where I have plenty of ammo, my health meter is full and all the zombies in the room have been blown to bits. I am in front of the heavy steel door I just found the key for and I know I have to open it to advance in the game. So while its "safe" I will "save" my game so I can reload it in case some weed-inspired awful monstrosity rips me to shreds.

If only life were like that huh? I've imagined (when very drunk and looking at something meaningful like a star or the moon) that I could somehow preserve whatever moment I was in and revisit it in case my life goes to shit sometime after that point. I've also imagined that we re-live our lives over and over again until we live our lives the best way possible. I've imagined a God so merciful that we have as many opportunities as we need to correct past regrets, mistakes and bad decisions and with each iteration our soul becomes more perfect.

Truth be told I have been in this "safe" room for a long time only there are many doors where I am and all open into fantastic, dangerous, risky and unknown locales. There is possibly an exciting new job opportunity through one door; a financial venture through the other. There exists the possibility of moving to an entirely new city; I left the nest a long time ago though I have yet to really leave the tree. Through another door lies the possibility of a brand new love... from the most unexpected of places. This is perhaps the most frightening of all. I know how to move to a new city. I know how to go about finding a new job. I know how to seek out new experiences and new people and new locations. Am I ready to "go there" again? Part of the safety of this room has been owning a complete heart once again.

Which doors should I open and when? I'm locked and loaded. I know it would be a waste to sit, safely, where I am indefinitely. At some point it becomes disrespectful of the limited time we have alive. With the end of grad school next spring comes the awkward silence from that awesomely terrible question: What next?

iPhone Mania!!

2007-07-08T23:03:00.000-05:00

So this is the first picture taken with my new 8 GIG iPhone!!
Yes, I was one of the millions of iLunatics waiting in line in front of an Apple store for one of these amazing gadgets. Fortunately, not too many people know of "Columbia, MD" so I was able to get BOTH my iPhones (I was going to hustle one on eBay but got royally screwed so I am returning it) with minimal fuss. I was about to drop kick all the happy cheery white people when they opened the store. Okay, the iPhone is amazing.. I get it. But did you really need to applaud as everyone that bought one walked out of the store?

I digress. I have not become SO shallow that I am dedicating this entire blog entry to my new little toy, but rather I want to comment on an interesting choice related to the iPhone. When switching to AT&T wireless, I had the choice of transferring the old phone number I had since 2001 or getting a totally brand new number. For weeks, I had been toying with using my new iPhone as an excuse to purge my life of certain people whom were not contributing to it in a positive way. I chose the latter option. (And saved myself an iHeadache in waiting for Sprint to let go of my loyal account.)

While my new phone has dramatically fewer contacts, I've come to realize that making bold statements and proclamations are just another way of getting attention from the people I think I want to cut out. Secretly I hope they ask me why I haven't contacted them with my new number. There is one person in particular to whom this applies and I am glad I have realized this before doing something stupid and rash.

But the damage is done I guess. My old number is gone and my old phone has been retired to the back of the closet. As for my new phone, I guess I will have to be more judicious than I was with the old one as to who I let have that type of access to me.

Death As Your Advisor

2007-02-02T00:08:00.000-05:00

I have been feeling down this week. Its stupid really. This guy (that I was not even looking at like THAT who approached ME) has been dissing me. (Please, no one is THAT busy that they can't send a text, email, or short phone call). Anyway, thats not the point. This kid I have gotten to like ain't been acting right. And I find that I have been blue this week because he has not contacted me since we spoke last Sunday. (Since *I* called him!!!)

But then I went to the wake of my distant cousin, by marriage Sintia Mesa. She was found, dead, in the trunk of her own car this last Monday. Police are looking for her boyfriend, a heroin dealer.

Her wake this evening was a WAKE-up call. A little message from Him upstairs. The only thing I remember reading from "Journey to Ixtlan" was the advice this old Indian gave this peyote-eager white guy: "Let death be your advisor." Basically, whenever you are going through some shit, look over your left shoulder at Death, waiting until that time when YOUR time on this Earth is over. Look over at Death and ask "Is the shit I'm going through right now really that DEEP when it comes to the context of my entire life? If I were to die tomorrow, would I want to have been going through this shit when it happens?" More often than not, the answer is NO.

For all my claiming not to be "Filling the Void", it still hurts like shit when the boy you like doesn't like you back. Or doesn't like you enough to MAKE time to at least let you know that they have crossed your mind. But then like Erykah Badu said... "been such a long time.. I forgot that I was fine." I just been so worried about finding someone "to come up behind me and kiss me on my neck... and breathe on my neck" that I forgot to be thankful for all the shit that *IS* going right for me at the moment. And that is of penultimate importance.

So I've shaken it off. If 'ole boy wants to holla so be it. But I shan't be waiting for no one as I've found myself doing lately.

My Pimp Poem

2007-01-31T09:15:00.000-05:00

Polite

by Julio Liriano

My momma always said,

Be POLITE,

When I speak to a lady.

So when my lady,

Is acting shady,

Sayin' she ain't got my cheese,

Before I smack huh in huh face,

I tell huh,

BITCH PLEASE!!

Happy New Years!

2007-01-29T22:46:00.000-05:00

The year 2007 is actually a month past and I am happy to say that I have made it past another year stronger, wiser, healthier and more in touch with my soul and spirit. In the past year I have felt pain but have also experienced growth. I have fallen down several times but have learned not only to get up, but to also heed the lesson that was taught.

I have made great strides in excorising my inner demons. I catch them every so often attempting to rear their thorny heads but I have learned how to recognize them. I have learned that my thoughts are what hold me back and that to take things personally is simultaneously arrogant and fearful.

My personal relationships (both platonic and non) have benefitted greatly. Long gone are the days of unhealthy relationships and situations. I've (finally) learned to be HONEST with myself and with others... most the times *wink*.

This year will be my year of focus professionally, academically and physically. I got a bit of a wake up call (for which I kept hitting the snooze button) last year during performance evaluations at work. I did less than stellar and I immediately recognized my problem: lack of motivation. Since then I have been proactive in seeking assignments at work that play to my skills and interests. I have realized that I have been coasting career-wise, just floating along and doing what others want me to do instead of being proactive with my career. No more. I have also been proactive in maintaining and sticking to a SCHEDULE. Again, I have been coasting in that regard. But no more. Going to my FABULOUS gym (Lifetime Fitness) has also been something that I have been coasting on. No more. With my new schedule I have created a very aggressive workout schedule for myself and have thus far been able to keep it with some encouraging results.

I've also decided to get braces. I was tired of my baby teeth looking like little pieces of white corn stuck between my other teeth. I had a double extraction (of the baby canines) and an exposure of the adult teeth. By exposure I mean a surgeon cut open my gums and chiseled my skull to expose the adult canines that never came down. The braces pulling them down into position are nothing compared to the pain of recovering from the surgery. Also, being high on laughing gas is no joke. I had some real real deep existential thoughts that kind of scared the shit out of me. Unfortunately one of the chains recently popped so I had to go in for a third time to get the damn bracket put back on my left impacted tooth. Fortunately, they seem to be moving which is great news for me. I am still very self-conscious about having two of my teeth temporarily missing. I've grown a "Miss Celie" complex about smiling and laughing. I cover them hoes up!!

What else? OOOH! The Dems have finally wrested control from the Republifascists!! Nanci Pelosi is gearing up to deliver a fierce ass kick to the President. I hope they impeach him I really do. I mean come on! Clinton gets impeached for getting his caaauck sucked and lying about it but Bush lies about WMD's, gets our soldiers killed and... okay that is for another post. Anyway, I am just glad that I have no Republican representation anymore. (That Macaca Lt. Governor is gone as well as his boss and we have a new Democratic senator in Congress.) Not to mention our new Lt. Governor, Anthony Brown is a cutie-patootie!

Anyway, I ramble. My next post will be a selection of pictures from 2006 that I have on my hard-drive waiting to get printed. I am curious as to what this new year will bring and I pray that I have the courage and conviction to continue focusing on what I need to in my life.

Why I Can't Stand This Macaca

2006-10-08T13:24:00.000-05:00

Senate candidates for the state of Maryland former Baltimore Mayor, Ben Cardin and Lt. Governor Michael Steele have been adamant at refusing to acknowledge the large and awkward racial elephant in the room. In fact, Mike Steele has ignored the biggest elephant of all: that is in fact, a Republican.

Now how anyone can consider themselves a Republican after the abysmal four years they have had under the leadership of President George "El Diablo" Bush is beyond me. When Clinton got his dick sucked, the Republicans got into a furor over morality and its lack in the Oval Office. But all-in-all the Republicans remain complicit in the immoralities of the Bush Administration with their silence about the insanity with which he has run the country. For some reason, its especially odious when a minority, especially a black man, is a Republican. Why? Because the Republican Party, as Kanye so eloquently put it, "does not care about black people." Their policies are at best insensitive to race and at worst are down-right racist. (What was so hard about extending the Voters Rights Act?) This is why when any minority joins the Republican Party they lose all credibility in my eyes. The Democrats are not perfect, however. They absolutely need to include more color in the folks they put up for political office. But rather than abandon them, as Republicans suggest, maybe we should kindly remind them who has traditionally supported them and to not take our vote for granted.

And despite the fact that no where on his website, political signs or commercials does Lt. Governor Steele admit to being a Republican, Ben Cardin does a GREAT job in pointing out how close Steele is to the current White House in this commercial. What Cardin will NOT do, and probably to his benefit, is discuss the Republican strategy in using Steele as their token black man. In recent years, the Republicans have learned that there are minorities willing to sell out for the same reasons that there are modern-day Republicans in the first place: either they are the rich corporate types that want to stay rich or they are right-wing religious nuts. To their credit, they have placed more minorities in leadership positions than the Democrats have. (Hellou!: Condoleeza Rice is third in line for the White House should Bush, Cheney and Hastert die in some tragic accident.) In doing so, they appear to be much more racially inclusive than the Democrats, whom blacks have traditionally voted for.

This strategy worked for Maryland Governor Ehrlich and Steele when they ran against incumbent Katherine Kennedy Townsend in 2002. I remember the Republican ads on the "black" stations like WPGC suggesting that blacks vote Republican to elect Maryland's first black Lieutenant Governor. And it worked. The Republicans realized that race loyalty is a very powerful election tool. Unfortunately, thanks to having a Republican governor, our BGE energy bills have sky-rocketed by 72% because in traditional Republican fashion, Ehrlich cares more about special interests and the rich than he does about the middle and lower class.

If Ben Cardin wishes to maintain the black vote, he needs to make it clear that it is better to have a white man in the U.S. Senate that will be a champion for minority issues than it is to have a black man that will be another rubber-stamp for the Bush Administration for the next two years. He is currenty leading in the polls so I hope people are getting that message.

I'm Back... Least for now

2006-09-26T22:01:00.000-05:00

Bless me Blog for I have sinned. Its been eight months since my last blog entry! So much has happened since New Year's. Reading my last entry, I find that I have accomplished one of my goals and have made significant progress on the other two.

So much has happened since January:


-Finished my basement and currently
renting to a good friend

-Remodeled my kitchen (fiercely I might add)
-Got into a serious relationship with my first (full) Puerto Rican

-Finally reached a peaceful place concerning my ex, the motivation for this
blog in the first place

-Had memorable trips to Puerto Rico, Miami (2x) and Chicago with my Juana,
Miguel.  I got into a little bit of trouble on that last trip to Chicago. More on
that in a later entry called "Why People Like Playing The Victim".

-Come to the decision to get braces. Thats happening today. My orthodontist
is installing the brackets and I'll be getting oral surgery next week to remove
my baby teeth and expose the adult ones so they can be moved into position.
Needless to say I'm scared not just cause I hate the dentist but because
between braces and my kitchen, I'm going to be dead ass broke!

I have also grown anxious as the mid-term elections come around. Are the
Democrats going to win back the House? the Senate? Or we will we continue
sliding into morbid decay as the right wing religious nut jobs tighten their
grip on the government all in the name of God, money and oil? Sounds dramtic,
but if you aren't pissed off, you simply have not been paying attention. In any
case, my next car is going to be a hybrid with an extra battery. I WILL be doing
my part.

I have tons of pics to share and hopefully I will get the chance to
post them soon.

Happy New Years!

2006-01-10T02:49:00.000-05:00

Well Happy Belated New Years to all! As with most of my past journals/diaries/bitchfests, I started off strong and then got lazy, tied up or too busy filling my void with some sort of meaningless overly-sexual, of-little-substance relationship(s) to keep up with it. Two out of three aint too bad this time around *wink*.

But with the New Year's come new resolutions that of course will be buried and forgotten by mid-January like the still-born offsprings of the weak-willed minds that create them. February tops. But until then I've decided to try to see if I can perhaps maybe focus a little bit on the following areas:

1) My Basement - Okay, so I decided to be more of a Bob Vila when I should have stuck to Martha Stuart. Sue me. My basement still remains in shambles as I lack the time and motivation to finish the massive undertaking that is remodeling my basement. I should have hired one of the Salvadorean crews that hangs out in front of Home Depot and called it a day. Maybe its not too late *rubs chin thoughtfully*.

2) My Body - Its about damn time I started admiring those hot manly bodies from my full length mirror instead of relying on my collection of pornographic yahoo groups! I'm tired of being fat/chunky/thick/big-boned. Choose what euphemism you will. These love handles have been holding on for dear life long enough. To that end I can at least say I've been doing somewhat well for myself since my birthday (another time of meaningless resolutions). Maybe I should post body shots to show my progress? NOT! The fact remains, I am going to be in Puerto Rico for Memorial Day weekend this year (sans the sand) and I am going to wear the whorish-leaves-nothing-to-the-imagination bathing suit I bought years ago in the Village and foolishly used to tack to my fridge in hopes that it would keep me from sneaking in a midnight snack. (With the lights off, I always missed it anyway.)

3) My Interpersonal Relationships - This has been a very long time in coming. Paradoxically, my interpersonal relationships have a lot more to do with my intrapersonal relationship, i.e. what goes on inside my head and my proactions and reactions to certain external stimuli. More on this fascinating topic in my next posting.

4) This blog - I DO have two ideas (one rant and one introspective) for an upcoming entry so at least this resolution isn't bullshit! I promise!

Ding-Dong The Witch Is Dead!

2005-10-27T12:17:00.000-05:00

Surprise, surprise! The woman that said herself that if confirmed she would need a "crash course" in Constitutional Law has at least shown she is smart enough to avoid the embarassment of uniting the Democrats and Republicans in defeating her nomination. This is a good thing because she would have been the Michael Brown of this country's judicial system. It would have been Katrina all over reproductive rights, civil rights and environmental protection.

But what now? What a pickle Bush is in! He might actually have to sit down and actually think about who he should nominate instead of handing the job over to one of his cronies. Get someone too liberal or "unknown" in their decisions (assuming that they are judges) the conservatives will be up in arms. Get someone leaning too far to the right and the Democrats (if they still have a pair of balls between the lot of them) will raise hell, filibuster and drag Congressional business to a halt.

Maybe the strain will be too much on our fragile-minded president and he will start hitting that bottle again, God willing. At least then we'd have an excuse to impeach him. (As if starting a war on lies, letting thousands of poor people die in Katrina's floodwaters, stealing from the poor and elderly to give to the rich, destroying our environment and doing nothing about gas prices and our dependence on foreign oil is not enough reason.) Needless to say I will be waiting to see who the next nominee is.

At least its not this heiffer. She looks like she could scare the justice out of any legal proceeding.

Good Times in the Chi...

2005-09-13T00:49:00.000-05:00

So I have taken two trips to Chicago in the last two months and I am planning another trip at the end of October for my birthday celebration. What gives?

The truth is that I have fallen in love with Chicago. From the straight forward arrangement of streets (though I still prefer the numbered and ordered simplicity of DC) to the very way cool people I have met from there and presently there, Chicago has not only enchanted me, it has captured the attentions of my future plans. Yes, thats right kids, I am presently working towards moving to Chicago sometime within the next 3-4 years. In this time frame, I expect to have finished my master's degree in electrical engineering at Johns Hopkins, finished all renovations to my house and have ten years of engineering experience under my belt. It also does not hurt that my company has a site out (relatively) close to Chicago in Rolling Meadows.

What I've found in Chicago is a city as liberal and as alive as New York City without the preposterous cost of living and claustrophobic, turn-of-the-century living conditions. There is no way that Washington DC would ever foot a penny towards recognizing Dupont Circle as a "gay-friendly" area as Chicago does with Boystown. There is no place in DC that continues to serve liquor past 2am. With the exception of perhaps New York and San Francisco, there is no other city where an obvious drag-queen/tranny would just casually climb on the elliptical next to me at the gym and start her workout without drawing gawks and stares.

These may seem like crazy and superficial reasons to uproot and move to an entirely new city; however, the real reason has more to do with the wander bug finally taking a big and juicy bite out of my plump and complacent ass. It is not until recently that I have had the financial capability to really start traveling. Before this time, I was quite happy having been born and raised in the general vicinity of the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. It was not until I saw New York, Chicago and Miami that I really and truly started wondering what it would be like to live in another city. We Scorpios do not make irrational decisions however; after seeing the price of real estate (because there is no way I am ever renting again) in Miami and New York, I knew I'd never be able to live there without becoming some greedy landlords butt-boy. Chicago, however, has relatively cheap real estate in and relatively close to the city. This instantly piqued my attention and here I am, making plans to move there someday.

As promised, here are some pictures from my last and before last trip to Chicago:

Me and my Juana, Miguel. Fresh off the plane and I am already drunk off my ass.

Here I am giving you femme-trade-face-in-white belt. Yes, I just recently started appreciating white belts and yes I wanted to get it in before Labor Day!

Oh my... is it a little hot in here? This picture makes me want to run to the bathroom with a spoon after every meal. And for the record, I was NOT trying to rub his nipple!

Some boy that I always run into but I always forget his name as easily as he obviously forgets the Jergens on his elbows. He serves beautiful face though! Aawwo!

Sweet but sad and unrequited Jonathan. How can someone so sweet be so damn single! Chicago, WAKE UP and come snatch this boy up!

Now normally I am not into the big girls but this one could have got it on the flo' baaybaaay! He look like he could have whipped up a tasty breakfast in the morning too. Alas, I had too many of that guy on my shirt to remember his name..

Gorgeous green eyes? Check. Very talented dancer? Check. More cheese in a smile than the whole state of Wisconsin? Check. Fierce snatched eyebrows peeking from under a sickening hat? Check!! Domenico bettah work!

Me in just about the gayest shirt I have ever worn. Appropriate as I was about to go to the gayest event ever: Miss Continental, the apex of drag competition.

At a BBQ. Something about putting my ear on Carino's breast makes me happy. Also his red shirt is the plate upon which I can serve FACE!!

Ooh, I'm a little moist. A whole night of dancing at the Prop House and a few of their creative, colorful and POWERful drinks and this is the result: A hot, moist, sweaty mess! Danny is dry by comparison. He must have adapted!

Okay I'm drunk, Ryan is too but Miss Dominic is giving us thug-face for no damn reason!

Hot picture of my future Chicago fam. I didnt' know I could give thug face too but there you go!

Me and Dome about to do a pop-and-lock on the dance floor. Eat your heart out Darren's Dance Grooves!

Yes it looks just as stupid when YOU do it. For the record I am a non-smoker!

Why does it look like I am up to no good? Whats going on? And why does that lollipop look so damn good? This is when we were there for Market Days. The hair was a lot shorter!

OOOOH.. I hope this doesnt' spark an inter-fraternal incident! Despite the sentiments of some of my Hermanos, I got mad love for the Betas... (the ones I like that is!)

.... I told you I was up to no good. Gotta love Prop House for handing out watermelon Now & Later lollipops with their sour melon ghetto-tinis!

..... fun picture with Carino. I just love resting my head on his breasticles! Love you girrrrrrrr!

... eyebrow competition with my new white friend Dominic. Sad to say but he wins hands DOWN. Gotta love him! So after I tell him my name is JULIO he asks "so are you black or something"? LOL!!!

.. ashy elbows or not, this boy has what I call OFFTG.. (ovah face for the gawds!!)

And thats it kiddies. I leave for Chicago yet again tomorrow. (Yes, its taken me this long to finish this post. There is a lot going on. More on that later!).

It's God's Fault!

2005-09-12T14:39:00.000-05:00

I've got a bone to pick and its with this asshole right here. According to people like Pat Robertson and Alan Keyes, both posessing seemingly sharp insight into the mind of God, all the awful shit that has happened to us within the last five years is actually God punishing us for among other things abortion, letting the gays run amok, pornography and teaching evolution in schools. Pat Robertson even went as far to predict where catastrophes will strike next based on who has kicked God out of their community.

In all seriousness, the whole "God Is Punishing" us mentality is dangerous, it is lazy and it is simply just not true. Believing such a fabrication only makes it easier for our elected officials to shirk responsibility for the catastrophes that have visited our nation.

Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING that has gone wrong in the US within the last few years has been completely preventable and has occurred not only because of human error, but an unwillingless to LISTEN and to ACT. Shall we take them one by one?

September 11
did not happen because of abortion in this country, as Keyes would have you believe. Osama bin Laden was a monster that the U.S. created starting in the '80's. That's right, the CIA trained and funded him although we knew he was an extremist. The big bad wolf back then was the Soviet Union and we made a deal with the Devil. It came back to bite us in the ass that morning when the trade towers came down and the Pentagon was attacked. Lets not also forget that memo warning of an imminent attack which was ignored by the powers that be.

Have we learned our lesson? Doesn't seem so. Our biggest "ally" in the "war on terror" seems to be Saudi Arabia where public beheadings and other barbaric punishments are still practiced. How long before they stab us in the back as well? When we they run out of oil or when we stop needing it as much?

Katrina
did not happen because of the promiscuous gays acting a fool in the French Quarters (which was spared most of the damage.) Although nothing could have been done about the hurricane, scientists and engineers had been saying for years that the levees would not hold against a category 4 or 5 hurricane. Environmentalists had been saying for years that the destruction of the ocean-swell absorbing marshlands around New Orleans could mean disasterous flooding in New Orleans. FEMA even had simulations of what a theoretical Hurricane Pam could do to New Orleans. All this was known way ahead of the hurricane. Instead of building stronger levees, our elected officials chose to under-fund them. Instead of piecing together a contingency plan that included rich and poor people alike, the government sat on its ass. To add insult to injury, Bush AND our Congress appointed someone with zero disaster experience to handle the crucial job of running FEMA. It was not God that flooded New Orleans, it was the unwillingness of our government to listen to the folks who knew better than anyone what needed to be done.

Ariel Sharon's Stroke
seemed to be caused more from his age and carelessness when it came to diet and exercise than any act of God. Had a blood-clot mysteriously appeared in the brain of an otherwise healthy man, then maybe you can run for cover, clutching your Bible and praying to be one of the few to be Raptured into heaven. But anyone with a eyes can see the man loved having his cake and eating it too.

The sad part is that Sharon was key to finally achieving peace. What Robertson claimed was "dividing God's land" was actually returning land that Israel had no business keeping. Signs indicate that Sharon's successor may not be as open to compromise as Sharon was. This coupled with Hamas now being the dominant party among the Palestinians cannot bode well for peace.

Man kind has been blaming catastrophe on an angry God(s) for millenia. Its only natural that we do it now. But honestly, lets give God a break. Afterall, He evolved us to have a highly sophisticated brain so that we can solve our own problems.

The Epiphany

2005-09-08T14:34:00.000-05:00

So I have just returned from my super long Labor Day weekend in Chicago with my best friend Miguel and my new best friend in the Chi, Miss Dominic "Dawgs". Good times were had by all as will be shown at a later post (once I am done Photoshopping the pictures from my new camera.) No I am not airbrushing, just cropping and reducing size. *Giggle* okay not even I believed that one!

The trip was not, however, without its low points. Specifically, I felt depression's downward tug while driving on Lake Shore downtown and at Club Zentra. Significant events relevant to my last relationship unfolded at these exact two locations. My memory was vivid enough on Lake Shore that I was able to recall what was said as we passed each ridiculously over-priced store. Being at Zentra also brought back vivid memories of that bitterly cold weekend. It brought back more than I cared to remember around the group of people who were there with me to have a good time. But as the saying goes, God does not close a Walgreen's without opening a CVS. Or something like that. If you are lucky He also opens a Target.

My epiphany came so quickly and with such crystal clarity that I am tempted to believe that it was divinely inspired; or maybe I was just lit and my brain farted. Who knows? The point is, epiphany in mind, I got my hot sweaty ass off of depression's bench and brought it to the dance floor. What happened was that I finally saw the blessing in the lesson that had been evading me from the moment I became single (yet again).

And here is this lesson:
Nothing in this life is truly yours, be it a person, place or thing. The moment you buy into the delusion that someone(thing) is yours, you open yourself to loss. (I made the concession later that perhaps your soul/mind/conscious is the only thing(s) in life that you truly own.)

I realized that (like the rest of the world) I was buying into the societal deception that you are somehow less of a person if you are not married or at the very least "bunned" up. It seems we also need to own the person we are dating/married to in order to be someone acceptable to society. The idea of ownership when it comes to dating/marriage is quite evident in our very language: "He is my man/woman." "I am his/her husband/wife/girl/boyfriend." "I belong to you." Virtually every love song and broken heart song has at its core one person owning another at least in an emotional sense.

So what if two people want to own each other? What is so damn wrong with that? Well the answer is absolutely nothing. The problem is that more often than not, one and sometimes both members of mutually ownership-based relationship erroneously believe that they are in one! Just that weekend I saw two examples of MRI (mistaken relationship identity), where what someone assumed about their relationship was in fact not the reality. What made these situations all the more tragic was that though the true nature of the relationship was painfully obvious to everyone external to the "situation", the party internal to the situation was absolutely clueless. Since coming back from Chicago I have seen even more examples of MRI's in both hetero and homosexual relationships.

No, this is not my personal endorsement of open relationships. (Though it seems to me that the longest lasting gay relationships are those in which there is some sort of "agreement" between the parties though upon close reflection, I know I would never be able to successfully participate in a relationship with these "agreements".) What this is an endorsement of is a total revamping of my outlook on my personal relationships, platonic as well as non-platonic (while I am at it).

People are not meant to be owned either literally or emotionally and up until this point that is the expectation and the assumption I have been making with the people I dated seriously. This only sets me up for frustration and irrational anger when it becomes obvious that 1) the person does not want to be owned and/or 2) they dont want to own you.

After acknowledging what the problem is, I have caught myself reacting in the "old" way several times. More often than not, I can stop, run a mental diagnostic, analyze and then move on. Sometimes even knowing it, I react anyway like the knuckle head I sometimes am. If only personal re-programming were as easy as recording my favorite shows on my DVR...

My PhotoShop Addiction

2005-08-26T09:45:00.000-05:00

I have long accepted the fact that unlike the rest of the world, I do not have the best skin. While others get by using Dove and water, I have to do a little extra just to maintain a decently acne-free grill. It does not help that my philosophy is that of "pick and pop" as opposed to "dry and treat." (I have been working on this and I think I have finally made some progress.) It does not help either that though I am Latino, I am "black enough" to have to deal with skin issues faced by those with more direct African descent; hyperpigmentation and ingrown hairs for example. This makes taking pictures all the more traumatic for me, especially when I am not having such a good skin day.

But then the good folks at Adobe created Photoshop. Now every time I take pictures I have the confidence knowing that any of natures little tantrums on my face can easily be corrected with software. It was a little tricky at first but the more pictures I edited the better I became. In about 15 minutes I would have a picture that was blemish-free and ready to be made into prints.

Then came the addiction. What started out as rubbing out pimples and marks eventually degenerated into the digital equivalent of beating my face only instead I was using pixels instead of Mac. Its not like I did it all the time and I could stop when I wanted to right? I finally hit rock bottom after this picture and decided that I needed help.

I had simply wanted to go over some blemishes but I could not stop! I kept changing, editing, paint brushing, blurring until I ended up looking like J. Lo in that advertisement for Glow.

I started attending PA meetings (Photoshopaholics Anonymous) and learned that I was not the only one. There were folks that ended up looking like aliens from having photoshopped their faces so much. Then there were those that did things like changed their eye and hair color. It was a mess!

I am glad to say that I am now better. I have bought stock in Mac and now everytime I take a picture I make sure to cake my face with foundation.

Thank You Pat Robertson!

2005-08-24T11:39:00.000-05:00

The news media was in a frenzy yesterday as televangelist Pat Robertson called for the assassination of the democratically elected president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. While everyone was busy responding to this latest outrage from the so called "Christian right", I sat back, chuckling and sent a prayer of thanks heavenward.

This is not the first time Robertson has made controversial statements. On his television program, the 700 Club, Roberts prayed for more "vacancies" on the Supreme Court which presumably would lead to more conservatives appointees from his hero, President Bush. (FYI for those who did not pay attention in civics: Supreme Court vacancies occur when a judge dies or retires). So indirectly, Roberts has prayed for the death of Supreme Court judges; or their retirement. Either one will suit him. Roberts is also on record for blaming 9/11 on pagans, gays and abortions rather than blaming the Islamic extremists who were piloting the planes. He seems to have overlooked the fact that one of the people who helped crash one of the planes in Pennsylvania (thus keeping it from smacking a 4th building) just so happened to be a gay man. Maybe he recognized the face of religious extremism when he saw it and did not like the similarity to his own reflection.

I thanked whatever supreme intelligence runs the universe for Robertson finally exposing the ugly face of the Christian right-wing extremists that have taken over the GOP. They (the GOP) were bad enough in the good old days of laissez-faire, less government involvement and destroying the environment. However, now that they have convinced themselves that they have God on their side, they have persistently tried to control the lives and moralities of Americans and those they see fit in the rest of the world. From the Terri Schiavo fiasco and the proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage to invading a sovereign nation on lies and fabrication without properly preparing our troops or making sure we had substantial allies, the GOP has made it their mission to force their religious views on us. This makes them no better than the Taliban, al Qaeda or any of the other religious extremists we find ourselves fighting today.

Being such a staunch supporter of the GOP and especially Bush, I also pray that in 2006 people will remember Robertson's comments and pay careful attention to whom he gives campaign funds. The country needs to wake up out of this religious stupor and get back to reality.

Finally, let me end this with a prayer. Let us hold hands, brothers and sisters, bow our heads and pray for non-death related GOP vacancies in not only the House and Senate but in state governments as well. Amen.

Why Are People So Nasty?

2005-08-22T07:47:00.000-05:00

Okay, I've had enough! It seem as though the older you get the less common your courtesy becomes. Allow me to explain.

Picure it: A well known and reputable engineering firm after lunch. I've had my light lunch consisting of mostly vegetables and a chicken sandwich. Naturally, I will need to relieve myself in the bathroom after consuming so many greens. I head to the largest bathroom in the plant consisting of several toilet stalls and choose one far from the door and in a corner. Unlike some folks, I like to keep my personal doings in a bathroom to myself.

No sooner have I "taken a seat" then some 350 lb old white man, sweating from his trip to the bathroom and breathing like Darth Vadar plops down in the stall RIGHT NEXT to me. Mind you, there are about 20 stalls in the entire bathroom and this a-hole decides he likes the one adjacent to where I am. I watch in muted horror as his feet turn and point towards the stall door in the "number 2" position. Trapped by my own bodily calamities, I have no choice but to stare like a white woman trapped in a closet with an ax murderer on the loose as the aforementioned monster unceremoniously lowers the jeans his wife bought in 1985 and claps his generous ass cheeks on the toilet stall.

What occurs next is no less than the brutal raping of my ears. In between the animalistic grunts and groans comes a sound more at home in an Iraqi battlefield than in a civilian bathroom. Someone did not take their Metamucil this morning! I cover my ears and begin to rock back and forth, "Dear God, make me a bird so I can fly... fly far far away. Dear God, make me a bird, so I can fly... fly far far away."

After quickly finishing my own business, I run to the sink, hurriedly wash my hands and run out of the bathroom, feeling like I could collapse in tears in a hot shower after scouring my flesh with a Brillo pad.

Why the hell do people do this? Its not like I am hiding my feet so that you can not see that you are jumping into a stall right next to someone else. Perhaps they think I need the companionship or maybe a hand to hold?
Fuck it. I'm just going to go home after lunch from now on.

Good times in Chicago!

2005-08-19T14:16:00.000-05:00

Two weeks ago I went to Chicago with my best friend and had a blast! We saw a very entertaining drag show, went to two clubs and attended a two day festival known in Chicago as "Market Days". I bought two pairs of earrings and got a very handsome local celebrity to put them on me (THAT tea is classified!) I also ran into a frat brother celebrating his birthday that weekend and we had a blast getting shit-faced! I almost threw up (but didn't) Thank God! I pride myself on my control with alcohol.

Happy Birthday Hermano! (And yes, I noticed the shirt looks painted on but I assure you it was NOT!)

These are just about the coolest people I met
while out there: my new white friend and someone that has smaller eyes than me! Yay!

Me and my best friend in the whole wide world. We're thinking of starting a band: The Pastel Crew. Thanks for the great time in Chicago and for helping me through this rough time. You're the best!

Emotional Analgesic...

2005-08-19T12:26:00.000-05:00

Quite recently, (since I started filling the void), I have discovered an analgesic of sorts. Doing this one simple action has lead to drastic changes in my everyday life. I have more energy and I will even go as far as to say it has helped alter my outlook on life. What did I do? I took my ass to bed!

On average, I would get around 5 hours of sleep per night during the week. Sometimes I would only get 4. Occasionally I would be forced to decide between taking a three hour nap and risk getting to work around noon or just staying up and getting to work ultra-early. (The fact that my job only cares that its employees get 40 hours a week and not exactly WHEN you work them does not help.) Either way, the next day would be spent being tired as all hell, extremely irritable and sometimes too tired to hit the gym. The weekends would be even worse! I'd stay up very late at night and then practically sleep away the entire day. Seeing as how most of my home improvement time is on the weekend, its a wonder I've gotten as far as I have in remodeling my house. This has been my schedule for the longest time now; so long in fact, that I forgot what a good nights sleep felt like and just accepted for "normal" how miserable I was at work during the day.

What was I doing that I was staying up so late during the week? I was either visiting the sig O (significant other) or watching TV or playing video games or watching a movie. I'd go to sleep late, wake up late, get to work late, leave late and then go to bed late. It was a vicious cycle and I am not alone. The average American adult gets 5-6 hours of sleep a night. Its no wonder that StarBucks is making billions selling caffeine to people! The reason, at least for me, was that there is SO much information to process. There's the TV, my books, the radio and my sig O. Or rather there was the sig O but when I had one, our relationship would take up much of my time.

It was the absence of the sig O in my life that started getting me to bed on time as well as the motivation to start hitting the gym a lot harder and more frequently than I had been. I made up my mind to start prioritizing my interests so that I'd be in bed by 9-10pm so that I could be up and out of the house by 6:15 the next day. My DVR from Comcast also helped a lot. My two favorite programs (The Daily Show and Family Guy) come on late at night. Rather than staying up late and watching them, I'd record the shows and watch them the next day or on the weekend have a little mini-marathon.

The results were dramatic. Every morning I would literally have to drag myself out of bed and into the shower. Nowadays, I am awake and energized a little before the alarm goes off. I find it a lot easier to focus at work whereas before I would make very silly mistakes as well as spend a lot of time correcting them. I also find myself more at peace and a lot less irritable. The morbidly obese diabetic man on crutches sounding like Darth Vadar who works near me no longer annoys me to tears with his heavy breathing (from hobbling to the bathroom) or his snacking. There was a point where I considered asking to be moved as to not be around him. His noises are still a mild annoyance though (more on that at a later post). I have also managed to paint over the burn stains in the kitchen. I woke up early enough on a Saturday and just got it done. Much to my delight, I had enough day time left to go to other things! I have also been to the gym a lot more nowadays than I used to before. Where I would take days off because I was too tired, now I have the energy to do what I need to do at the gym as well. The results will be the subject of yet another later post.

Who would have known that such a small thing as making sure you get enough sleep would lead to such drastic changes? I encourage anyone who feels irritable at work, is ready to pass out at 2pm or who goes home and just falls out to look at their sleep habits and to MAKE time to get at least eight hours each night. I gaurantee that it will help. (Unless you got some kind of sickness, are taking drugs or your irritability at work has more to do with your coworkers than your sleep; in that case, I can't help you there!)

In retrospect, my lack of decent sleep was, at the end of the day part of The Void. Restful sleep was yet another personal sacrifice I made for a relationship. Some were worse than others; "Murray" lived a lot further away and so I had to get up a lot earlier to make it to work at a decent hour. Sometimes I'd eat up some vacation time by taking an impromptu day off.

One thing is for certain. Whether it be books or video games, Comedy Central or "The Family Guy", new "situation" as Erykah puts it or a date, I will make sure to get enough rest, at least during the week!

Filling the Void

2005-08-19T10:27:00.000-05:00

You never know how much someone was a part of your life until they are gone. In their place there is a big gaping void that leaves you feeling incomplete.

When I say “incomplete” I mean it in a very real way. When “Dorian” and I were together, just about all the time I was not at work or school was spent with him or driving to see him or planning on seeing him over the phone. Any “spare” time I had was based on his schedule; for example, I’d go to the gym or hang out with friends when he was in class or visiting his family (who despised me, more on that later). This was “filler” time for when I could not be with him. Often I would bring him around my friends to hang out with both at the same time. (This brought about another headache, again, for later). Now that “Dorian” and I have parted ways, I experience the void as a lot of free time. Those with little free time are right to want to jump up and punch me in the face for not seeing this as a blessing. Maybe in time I will. But how do I begin to fill this void?

I had an epiphany today, while at the gym. It was not really an epiphany but more of a cognizance of something I have heard before from various people. Allow me to explain the mental avalanche that lead to my pseudo-epiphany. I was contemplating the void and various ways with which to fill it. After pondering the obvious (like my poor burned house, my fitness goals, fraternity stuff, maybe some volunteering), I wondered what was filling the void before “Doryan” and I got together. This is from whence the epiphany came. I stopped dead on the elliptical as what many friends have known and I have refused to acknowledge suddenly hit home: the void has always been filled with someone not something. Before “Dorian” there was “Murry” and before him there was someone else and so forth. (In fact there was a point where both Murry and Doryan were filling the void, a fact of which I am neither proud nor boasting about, simply stating). For the last eight years of my life I have either been in a relationship or dealing with someone on a non-platonic level. When I was not filling the void by pouring myself emotionally, financially, sexually, intellectually and/or spiritually into a relationship, I was out looking for the next “void-filler” and was not complete until I found him. This is not to say I did not love them. I have loved several times and been in love twice. I guess you can say my motives were not entirely pure in entering these situations however; I needed someone to fill this void in my life.

Looking further back I realized that the void was not always as large as it has become. In high school I was a social hermit. I had made the decision a very long time ago (before I even remember consciously making this choice) that I was not going to pretend to be what I am not; that is, heterosexual. At the same time, I did not want to deal with what I perceived to be the incredible ignorance and homophobia of my peers when it came to this subject. The result was that I only went to school to attend classes and to keep to myself. Even though I participated in extracurricular activities such as the National Honor Society and wrestling, I had constructed an impenetrable barrier so that no one could know who I really was. I had no friends outside of the associates I communicated with during school hours and though I was lonely at times, I was also very self-reliant.

During this period in my life, I lived in my head and no where else. I was fine watching my sci-fi shows, reading my Stephen King books and doing my schoolwork. I remember reading Dante’s Inferno and being challenged by my junior English teacher to write our own version of Hell. I practically re-wrote the entire thing only with my vision of who should be punished and where. I had that much free time on my hands. Needless to say, I received an A for my efforts and glowing compliments from my teacher. When I was not tearing through assignments I was either reading, playing video games or watching Star Trek. I realized I was a geek and that I was missing out on the social aspects of my life and that I could find some friends somewhere but I did not see the need. I was getting very good grades that would eventually lead to a free college education and more importantly, I was happy. This is not to say I did not have my dark days. I got depressed like any other gay teenager but I always managed to pull myself out of it. My being happy was totally my responsibility and for the most part, I took care of myself. This was not the case however, once I started college.

With college came unbounded freedom to be myself. Ten years of repressed sexuality came out and fairly quickly I became notorious among the LGB community at College Park. I simply loved the idea of finally being able to express myself sexually and possibly even have a boyfriend. This is where the void came into being. Before I was complete and needed little from the outside world (except for family), but in order to make time for my new “hobby” (men), I had to create the space. Thus, I started diverting more of my time and energy into processing situations that I found myself in, whether positive or negative. Looking back, most were negative although with them came valuable life lessons which were as important as my positive experiences. Pretty soon, however, a cycle of addiction came into being. The more I interacted with the LGB community, especially the men, the more time and energy I devoted to it and the less time I spent on myself. Now, some people have had it worse than me. I never failed out of school, or did drugs or anything SUPER destructive, however, slowly but surely I shifted responsibility for my own happiness into the hands of others and every time, I would be let down. This experience in itself has taught me much about myself and people in general, however I am somewhat of a hard-head when it comes to life lessons. It appears I still have not learned because here I am almost nine years later, repeating the same mistakes. After yet another failed relationship, I feel detached and floating in the world; I feel purposeless.

So now what? A history lesson is no good without having learned from it. All philosophical contemplations aside, I am someone that deals in specific plans and actions and words; I have trouble dealing with abstract emotional concepts as they apply to real life. Maybe that’s why I am so hard-headed. So what is the plan? Well this blog is step one. I’ve always found writing to be very therapeutic in the past though I have not written poetry or “blog-like” articles in a long time. I guess writing was one of those things I sacrificed to create the aforementioned void. I actually had a novel in mind a few years back that I started to write. Who knows? Secondly, I am going to continue this Mary-J-Blige/Tweet/Keyshia-Cole “I’m going to take care and love myself marathon”. As cliché as many R&B artists (mostly women) make this process, it truly has been remarkable how much I have been neglecting myself and my needs and how much better the world seems once I stopped doing that. Since painting the burn marks and cabinets in my kitchen (the one my blessed little sister made) I’ve been a lot less depressed when going to the kitchen. Since getting to bed early (a luxury that living in Laurel and filling the void with someone who lives far away did not permit), I have had much more energy and a more positive out look on live and much more motivation to hit the gym. It has been these “me” types of activities that have kept me sane and have made the healing process all the more bearable.

Now, I will not make the unrealistic and cliché denouncement of all men that everyone seems to make after experiencing a particularly heart-wrenching break up. No, I am not about to retract all I have said thus far; instead, I am just going to be real. Just because I am going through it and have decided to do a lot of “me” things, does not mean that “me” will not need some “attention”. Even if its from a “maintenance” man. The key is that I will make sure that I have taken care of all my personal responsibilities to Julio before I go devoting any of my resources to someone else. And that’s REAL.