Monday, December 29, 2008

Boulder problems

The last few days have been awful! There’s been rain and cold and more rain and FOOD! Oh my god! The amount food I have consumed over the last few days has been enough to feed a small village in Africa, and I felt like crap to prove it! Most people take this time to lounge around the house or go out to restaurants and eat more. However I have a friend visiting from South Africa, who happens to be a sponsored boulderer (on a side note who the fuck gets paid to climb a fucking ROCK!?), and a little brother that’s like the fucking energizer bunny! So instead I picked up my friend at his hotel and my little brother at home early in the morning yesterday and we hauled ass to New Jack for some rock climbing.

If I was born to surf, then my little brother was born to climb. He’s been climbing since he was a fetus and now he’s gotten to the point where he can scale a 20ft wall in a couple seconds without breaking a sweat. I like to climb but my brother NEEDS to climb and he’s so good at it I have this strange feeling that at some point in his life he must have been bitten by a radioactive spider. He really impressed my friend, plus he and my friend had a great time razzing me as I slowly traversed my way up the sides of these fucking cliffs like a 40yr old man. I am a seasoned climber and I have been doing this with my dad since forever ago, but these guys are inhumanly good at this shit! I swear they have some kind of magic in their fingers that lets them grip and grab things that no normal human should be able to hold on to.

After 4 hours of being humiliated by my little brother and my EVIL South African buddy I decided I had had enough! I mean seriously! I recently had a very intense Asthma attack and maybe I still needed a little more down time to fully recover! So we grabbed some lunch and then we hit this skate park I have been dying to check out in the Inland Empire for awhile now, but had never had the chance because who the fuck ever finds themselves anywhere near the fucking IE to begin with!? Anyway I felt like I needed to regain my position as alpha dog of my pack so I proceeded to own my 2 hecklers all over the park! When we had finished I felt they had learned their lesson and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am THE MAN!

I woke up this morning SOOOO sore I thought that maybe I might have pulled something. EVERYTHING aches! I spent an hour soaking in the hot tub and this afternoon I have a massage scheduled with the most awesome masseur in Southern California. I am getting way too old for this shit!

Monday, December 22, 2008

SB for the weekend

I jumped in my car at 4 in the morning to drive up to Santa Barbara. I had to see Bradley immediately, but I didn’t actually think this through as I drove up there from LA. I got there in an hour and it was still dark outside! So I went to the beach and I just took off jogging. The next thing I know it’s 6am and I have just ran a little over 5 miles. I couldn’t wait any longer! I pulled my cell out of my sweaty pocket and I called Bradley. He sounded so happy to hear my voice that it completely took me off guard and I almost hung up on him. I told him where I was and within 10 minutes he was sitting right next to me on the sand.

I don’t think I have ever felt so uncomfortable being around Bradley since EVER. My chest really hurt and I was having a lot of problems breathing, but this was where I wanted to be and this was what I wanted to do, so I swallowed that huge lump in my throat and I soldiered on. The words felt so alien and unnatural as they came out of my mouth, but despite how hard they were to say I meant each and every one of them. I hate feeling like I am doing something because somebody else is forcing me to. When I was growing up I used to always get in trouble because I refused to say sorry if somebody told me I had to say it. Even if I am about to do it, if somebody tells me to do it all of a sudden I just won’t! I always need to feel like I am the one in charge of me and even the perception of power over me is enough to have a HUGE freak out. The big thing that I realized during this whole painful process is that in this scenario I don't mind if Bradley is the one who holds this power. The things he asks of me are the same as the ones I ask of him.

I guess it was a combination of the cold air, the long unexpected jog, my lack of sleep, and my nerves, but out of nowhere I started to have a pretty major asthma attack. Of course since my last asthma attack was over 3 years ago I don't really carry an inhaler with me. So I kind of just laid down in the sand, put my arms up above my head and I did my best not to panic as I tried but failed to suck some oxygen into my lungs. My chest felt like it was about to cave in on itself and it got to the point where I couldn't even hear the crashing of the waves. I was completely out of it and in a whole lot of pain. Finally after a few minutes of Bradley squeezing my hand and totally freaking out I was able to regain enough of myself to get up and slowly walk to the cafe at the end of the beach. We sat there and talked for a while, by the time we got out of there it was already 2 in the afternoon.

My chest still hurt and I my breathing was still extremely labored, but i was pretty god damned happy. Things aren't perfect, and I have a feeling its because there's no such thing, but things are good. I have a long way to go before I can hold my own in this barely functional relationship but at least now I am aware of the things I need to work on. It also feels good to know I am going to have the opportunity to actually work them.

I am in Santa Barbara until Christmas, then Bradley and I are going to be spending New Years in Mexico with a couple dozen of our closest friends. Everybody have an awesome New Years because I know I will! ;) Once again thanks for all your emails, they were all great to read and very educational. If I have time I want to get in one more post before 2009. So wish me luck.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Just saying...

A few months back after coming out of the shower, we were lounging around in bed when you spent a half hour telling me all the things you loved about me and the things I do. It was the most intimate experience of my life. Some of the things you said were funny, others were serious, and some were so poignant that I swear I could hear Jane in the next room sighing out of jealousy! The way you so easily opened yourself up like that and shared yourself with me made me fall so much more in love with you I didn‘t even know it was possible. I wish I could be more like you. I wish I could be the kind of man who could tell you how truly amazing you really are and every little reason why.

I have never been good at expressing my feelings. Every time you tell me you love me I say it back in my head and I hope you know what I am thinking. Every time you cook dinner I psychically channel to you how special it made me feel and how much I appreciate it, hoping that somehow you can hear me and know in my heart what I don’t say out loud. When I am sad or disappointed you are always there to comfort me or make me smile and in those moments I am so grateful I would give you the moon and the stars or die trying.

Sometimes I want you to yell at me! I want you to shake me and tell me you don’t deserve to be treated like this and you deserve somebody who recognizes and appreciates everything you bring to a relationship. I really hate myself for being such a cold hearted bastard. I feel like such a disloyal ungrateful brat every time I have an opportunity to tell you how great you are and just let it pass.

We are having problems right now and its all my fault. I know they say it takes two, but in this case it was all me. The hardest part for me to deal with was when you tried to place some of the blame on yourself. It killed me because it just wasn’t true. You gave me everything you had and you never asked for anything in return. I took you for granted. I didn’t love you the way you needed to be loved, I didn’t take your feelings into consideration when I made decisions, and I didn’t tell you enough how special you are to me.

All relationships eventually come to a point where you have to decide if this is something you want to stick out and make it through the unpleasantness or if you should get out and cut your losses before things really get bad and leaving means your whole world falls apart. I am not ready for us to be over. I want to give everything I have into us and make things better than they ever were before. I want to be the kind of man worthy of all those things you once said to me in our bed. I love you and I need you and I promise one day I am actually going to tell you.

Friday, December 12, 2008

out!

I’ve been staying with Tom since Tuesday night. He called me Tuesday afternoon completely freaking out and asked me to come home (well to my mom’s house), so I did. 2 hours later I was in Tom’s room trying my best to get my little brother to smile. I guess after Sunday night he kind of felt like he was on a role, so Monday morning came along and by lunch time he’d told all his friends he was gay and they were all fine with it. Of course I knew they would be because Tom’s best friend is Johnny’s little brother and that family only spawns awesomeness!

His problem started when he got home. Basically he felt like this huge secret he’d been keeping for all these years was finally out and never before had he been so FREE to be himself, then he came home and it just felt a million times worse than it ever felt before. I guess I could totally relate to that myself, after I started coming out to all my friends things got so hard for me to deal with at home that I actually moved out. I knew exactly how and why he was feeling the way he did. I wasn’t going to try and console my brother in a matter that I would consider inconsolable, so the real question became, “where do we go from here?”

It really wasn’t much of a question for Tom as it was for me. He only saw one solution to his anxiety and that was to tell mom right then and there. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for full disclosure! I just wasn’t sure how I was going to react when my awful soulless mother started spewing her bullshit. When I get angry I get scary. I wasn’t worried about getting violent because that would NEVER happen, but words hurt just as bad and my tongue packs an even bigger punch than my right hook! The last thing I wanted to do was say something that I know I would end up regretting forever. Lucky for me my mom goes to bible study until well after midnight so I had at least the night to prepare myself for the coming shit storm!

Around 9 I finally had Tom settled down enough to get some homework done. Tom was sitting at his desk studying for his Pre-Calc final and I was on the floor working on some new designs for work when Bob came in and wanted to know what was going on. I guess something had to be up because I only spend this much time in the house when something is REALLY REALLY wrong! Bob’s a good boy, he’s spoiled rotten and selfish as fuck, but when it comes to his family, he’s a good boy. I looked up at Tom and I gave him the “do you want to tell your brother that you are gay look?” (trust me! This is definitely one of those situations that get its own look!) he nodded so I told Bob to come on in and shut the door behind him.

After being told Bob just got a HUGE smile on his face and said that they shared a laptop and he figured it out a while back when Tom started beating off to internet porn! I fell on the floor laughing my ass off. That’s right boys, I ROFL’d! After I calmed down Bob decided he had more to say and things got serious. I don’t really want to get into details because some things are just too special to try and retell. I guess I will just say that sometimes even my spoiled rotten fuck up of a brother (and I do mean that in the sweetest way possible) can be the sweetest most sentimental guy on the block and by the time he was done all 3 of us had shed a tear.

Wednesday morning came along and I think I probably got 45 minutes of sleep that night I was so nervous! We hadn’t really talked about a plan of attack with my mother in any detail. Were we going to tell her before she went to work, or after she came home from work? Were we going to do it casually over a meal between asking to pass the butter or were we going to be all ominous and ask her to take a seat on the couch and tell her we need to talk!? Tom didn’t know what he wanted to do and he kept asking me what I thought we should do. I didn’t want to show him I was freaking out also, so I used my big boy voice and I told him it didn’t matter where he told her because her reaction wasn’t going to change.

He decided he wanted to get it over with and do it right then. So we walked out of the room into the kitchen where my mom was drinking her coffee. She looked up at us, gave us both a smile, and said good morning. I looked over at Tom and saw that he’d completely lost his nerve, and I soooo wasn’t about to force him to do this, so I let it go. My mom finished pouring her coffee into her car mug, grabbed her briefcase and her purse, and told us to have a good day as she walked out the door. Tom was ready to tackle me the second she walked out the door. He was pretty angry I didn’t push him to say something, or actually just tell mom myself!

Tom didn’t go to school that morning. He was to busy having a freak out in the kitchen to even think about getting ready for school. He really did just want to get this all over with and insisted he wouldn’t be able to relax until it was done. So I asked Tom what he wanted to do. Tom sat there for a minute then looked at me and said, Tell her at lunch. I asked Tom if he was sure because the second we show up to lunch together on a school day when he was supposed to be in class, she’s going to know something is up and he won’t be able to back out like he did this morning. He agreed and said this was exactly why he wanted to do it this way.

I can say without any uncertainty that I was just as nervous (if not MORE nervous) than my brother as we drove to the restaurant I told mom to meet us at. I saw her sitting at a booth as we walked in and I think she figured it out right there on the spot. I could totally see it in her face as we took our seat across from her at the table. For a moment she just looked at me the she started getting up and told me this was all my fault. I swear that the way she said it, I almost believed her. Then she looked at my brother and asked him if he wanted to be like me and Tom said yeah.

She just left. Tom cried. I didn’t. I just hugged him as tight as I could and I did my best to make sure he knew that he was loved. I didn’t cry, I held it together and I didn’t cry. I was proud of myself for being able to stay in control. It was hard but I did it for my brother. After he’d calmed down we took off and I decided we should blow off some team by catching some super cold sub-par waves! As he was grabbing the wetsuits and boards I called his dad and told him what just happened. He told me to pack up all Tom’s stuff and have him there that night and he would call my mom and deal with her. He told me he was proud of me it almost completely made up for what my mom said to me earlier.

When we got home, Johnny and Tyler were already at the house ready to help me pack up all Tom’s stuff, so we were able to get in and out in only a couple of hours. I could tell that by the time we loaded the last of Tom’s stuff into the SUVs it was really starting to become real to him. For the millionth time this week all I felt completely powerless to do anything that could be remotely considered helpful.

Just as we finished unpacking Tom’s stuff in his room at his dad’s house, his dad came home. He came inside and Tom ran up to him and broke down crying all over again. OnceTom calmed down his dad walked up to me and he hugged me. He didn’t say anything for awhile, then I started to feel the tears coming on so I excused myself and told Tom I’d be back in a couple hours.

The second I got into Tyler’s car I started crying. For a million different reasons I felt like shit. Now that I am taking the time to write this stuff down, I can’t think of one rational reason why I felt this way, but when the fuck are feelings ever rational!? Now that I have had a few days to reflect on things I guess I kind of just feel like I am way too full of myself. This is happening to my brother not me, so he should be the only one allowed to freak out.

This post is getting way too long so I think I am just going to quit here. I just wanted to thank everybody who sent me an email after my last blog entry. I got a butt load and a half of emails and they were all super supportive, the ones I was able to get through, there were a lot more than I could read in the few times I had to check my email. Thanks guys, you are all super duper awesome!

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Big news

For the purposes of this post my delinquent brother will be Bob and my youngest brother will be Tom. The thing I hate the most about having so many siblings is that there is ALWAYS going to be some kind of earth shattering problem between the 6 of us. I guess since my brother got his 15 minutes of drama it would only be fair that my other brother got his too. I am approaching this topic all wrong so I am going to try this again.

I went over to my mom’s house Sunday to check on Bob and spend some time with him to make sure he’s being a good boy and staying out of trouble; good news, HE IS! We hung out all afternoon going for a jog around the peninsula, grabbing lunch, and then heading over to the driving range to hit a couple of buckets. We got home around 4 and I felt really good about how we were leaving things and for the first time in a long time I could tell Bob and I were finally repairing our relationship.

Right as I pulled into the driveway to drop Bob off Tom ran out to my car and asked if we could go for a ride. Tom and I have always been close, even when my whole family wasn’t speaking with me, Tom and I talked everyday. I know parents aren’t allowed to have favorite children, but siblings are allowed to have favorites and Tom is mine. From the day he was born it was always the two of us. He is my brother, I am his godfather, and we are as close as two siblings could be, so I was very shocked when we stopped at the switchbacks and he told me he was gay.

My first reaction was to go completely blank. There were absolutely no thoughts in my head I was very thankful we pulled over because I surely would have driven off a cliff had I been driving. Once I finally was able to gain some composure I asked if we could go for a hike down Ocean Trails and talk about this more. I remember feeling sooo proud of my brother as we walked down to the trail in silence. He was a man about the whole situation and he wasn’t going to waste all that time in denial like I did. He wasn’t going to have to spend all those years hating himself because here he was already admitting this about himself for no other reason than he wanted to.

When we got to the beach we sat down on the rocks and I had finally recovered enough from my initial shock and awe to continue or conversation. He told me he knew he was gay way before I had come out and when I did the first thing he wanted to do was tell me he was gay too. What stopped him was our mother’s reaction, which was just south of love and acceptance. He told me that every time we spoke on the phone all he wanted to do was tell me he was gay, and after we hung up he would sit in bed crying for hours because he didn’t say anything.

I felt sick thinking about all the shit I went through with my mom all over again because now I know all that shit fucked with him as much as it did me. Because everything she said and did to me would be exactly what she would do to him. I was paralyzed with all these thoughts racing through my head, at that moment I hated myself for not being there more for my brother this year and not being able to see what he was going through, I hated my mom for being such a bitch and making my brother feel like I did, and above all that I was just so proud of my brother and honored that he chose me to tell first.

I guess he saw I was a little overwhelmed and totally at a loss for words so he continued talking. He told me he was finally ready to stop lying and be who he is. He knows my mom isn’t going to change, but his dad will be a lot more accepting and he wanted me to drive him to his dad’s house so we could tell him together. He wanted to do it right then because he didn’t want to lose his nerve, so we went back to my car and drove to his dad’s house.

Out of all the dads my mother has given me, and trust me there have been A LOT! My brother’s dad is by far one of my top 2 dads of all time. I wasn’t worried about what he would say at all because he’s a good man with a good heart and I KNEW this was going to work out. Still before we walked into the house I told Tom no matter what happened here I was going to stay by his side and I loved him more than anything else on this planet. Then we walked in and he told his dad that he is gay in much more eloquent speech than I am capable of and after some time to get over the shock his dad was mostly okay with it.

Then Tom dropped the bomb and he asked for a favor. Tom never asks for anything! I am the Jock brother that played all the sports and threw all the parties, Bob is the spoiled rotten brother that gets all the attention and spends all the money, and Tom is the quiet studious one that helps out around the house and cooks dinner. So when he makes a request it’s never taken lightly. Basically he told us that living in mom’s house having to listen to all the hateful things our sisters and mom say makes him really depressed. Sometimes they say something about me and it affects him so much he has to run to his room and just cry. He no longer feels safe in her home and he wants to move in with his dad.

Hearing my brother saying these things about living in his own home I was furious because it was how I spent my entire life feeling also. It is the worst feeling in the world and I worked my ass off and gave my mother everything I could just so I could protect them from feeling how I felt. But here it was happening all over again! Same shit different day.

Of course Tom’s dad said it was okay he moves in with him, but there was still the issue of what we were going to tell mom. We all decided it would be best to wait until winter break in about two weeks. We would use this time to start planning the move and getting the logistics taken care of. There aren’t any custody issues because my mom never took Tom’s dad to court for any formal agreements because my mother has always felt strongly that her children get to decide who they live with. Also we are going to use this time to figure out if coming out to mom is something that he wants to do. In this instance I am all for hiding the truth and making up some stupid lie like catching the bird flu or small pox. But Tom is feeling strongly about biting the bullet and telling mom the truth.

All I know is if he comes out to mom and she has something to say about it, which she will, I’ll fucking lose it! It was fine when she was only doing this to me, I could totally deal with that. But now she’s bringing my brother into this and he’s a completely different story. FUCK! Just thinking about this makes me want to put my fist through the wall. I am pretty sure that deep down I still love my mother, I just can’t remember why I do anymore…

Saturday, December 06, 2008

EPIC FAIL!




We have postponed the rest of our snowboarding extravaganza due to the fact there wasn’t any fucking snow! Yeah I know, we fail at life! We all decided to head back to SD and try this whole thing again in January. Yesterday was a little warm so we decided to have a little fun in Johnny’s pool since none of us really had the energy to hit the beach.

Things are getting really crowded in my house as of late with my uncle, Bradley, and Jane living there for almost as long as I have had my place, and Tyler deciding to stay with us through January, I have finally run out of bedrooms! Of course I couldn’t be more thrilled to have Tyler in my house, and I totally won’t miss having a room dedicated to all mine and Bradley’s Trophies and such… All that shit has been relegated to the game room and the garage (where all that crap belongs! People already know how awesome I am without having to see an entire room full of reasons why!).

Bradley and I are working through some relationship drama which hasn’t been very fun. Basically I’m a self absorbed asshole and the biggest brat EVER and getting me to apologize or admit I might be a little wrong is like trying to split an atom with a chisel and a sledge hammer. Its crazy because I see that I am wrong, I know exactly how I can make it better and I know eventually I will give in and make things right, but I won’t do it until I look like the biggest asshole EVER and everybody is telling me so. One day Bradley is going to get really tired of always having to be the grown up and leave me for some kid in high school and ironically that kid will still be more mature than I am.

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Riot!!


It's day 5 of my totally awesome snowboarding trip and I have yet to go snowboarding. Can't say it wasn't expected, so we came with a couple of back up plans and have spent the last 5 days pool skating, rock climbing, EXTREME BIKING, and of course jumping into large bodies of water in 40 degree weather then running around half naked! While I can't really say that I have really spent a single moment bored, I am feeling a little unfulfilled not getting to use my snowboard!
We have been talking about abandoning our snowboarding plans for activities that we will actually be able to accomplish. I put my vote in for Hawaii where they are having 20 ft waves @ North Shore. Tyler's down, but Johnny's got his heart set on snowboarding and wants to hit Whistler which Jane is down for and I kind of a little bit but not really want to do that too. So I guess my point is that all is not lost for some alternative sport action! 

I am looking to do some serious damage on my credit card over the next few weeks because I am TOTALLY going to be making the big money staring in January! Not that I am really going to have many chances to actually use my credit card, but that's a different story that I don't really want to bitch about right now because I always feel like I come off a little petty and ridiculous. Argh! Basically Tyler still treats my like a baby and he pays for everything and he carries all the heavy things etc and its fucking annoying! Yeah I get that he's bigger/older/stronger/richer than I am but we could at least pretend that for an hour of every day that I am his equal, RIGHT!? Okay I'm done.  Of all the problems I have the one that bothers me the most is a friend that likes to take care of me, how much of a bitch am I!?