Thursday, December 31, 2009

Happy New Year!

FAVORITE SONG OF 2009!



This has quite possibly been one of the best weeks of my 24 years on planet Earth. I am ending this year with the biggest goofiest grin plastered across my face and it feels pretty damn good! For anybody that really knows me, they know goofy grins are like the opposite of who I am as a person; so it's kind of a big deal! This is one of those crazy moments where it actually feels good to be me. Happy new year everybody!

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Give it up for the ladies...




This year has been crazy! Thinking about how it started, I feel extremely grateful it's ending in such a positive way. There's so much love in my life, from my friends, to my family, to my boyfriend. It feels pretty amazing to be me right about now!

I just wanted to wish everybody a VERY Merry Christmas! I hope all of you guys are with people that will make you smile this holiday and are getting ready for some crazy awesome festivities over the next couple days. Don't forget to pace yourselves and drink plenty of fluids! Once again, Merry Christmas!

Sunday, December 20, 2009

long week

This has been the BUSIEST week of my life! Last Saturday I drove up North to be with Bradley because he finished his semester and we haven't had a lot of time this last month because of his finals and my crazy work schedule. It worked out well that he and I take a long weekend with each other because I needed to be in NorCal for some business on Tuesday.

I am kind of known for my "action sports" (I fucking hate that label!) productions. I have a very strong idea of how I want things to be perceived when I am shooting and editing a project and I won't stop until I get EXACTLY what I want. I am known for my unique style and I guess it's pretty easy to spot me in anything I have done because, if you know what you are looking for, I leave myself all over everything I do and I guess people like that. What can I say? In those early developmental years I was seriously affected by Jason Lee's (Side note: Jason Lee used to be the most awesome guy EVER in my eyes! Both as a skater and a person I thought this dude was AWESOME! Then he had to go and ruin it with this fucking Chipmunks SQUEAKQUEL BULLSHIT! FUCK YOU JASON LEE! YOU CAN HAVE YOUR AIRWALKS BACK CUS I DON'T WANT THEM ANYMORE!) skate videos in the early 90's, and shit like that has stayed with me the rest of my life!

ANYWAY, this company up north asked me to meet with them because they wanted me to work with them on this MASSIVE project for this new series of related videos. They had a super impressive sales pitch and I got WAY excited listening to what was actually being offered to me. I have never been offered so much creative control with a company this large and at some point I am pretty sure I squealed out loud thinking about it! The issue is that I just don't have the time to dedicate myself to something like this. I am working 60 hour weeks and I am going to be tied down to this job until at least April. Yeah this new opportunity is crazy amazing, but I made a commitment and that's a lot more important to me than some bullshit job. Granted if I hadn't made the commitment to Mr. Tyler, I probably would have quit, but I did so now I am going to see it through to the end no matter what gets thrown in my face along the way.

After the sales pitch was done and I had regretfully turned them down (seriously I think I had to fight back tears at one point), I hopped on a plane and flew down to LA where Brad was waiting for me at the airport. From there we had 2 1/2 hours to get to my house, pack, and then get to the airport. Which basically meant I had 20 minutes to pack my shit into a suitcase or I would miss my flight to NYC, and seeing as it was the last flight to NYC for the day, it would screw up the rest of my week if I did! Somehow we managed to get home, pack, and then drive back to the airport in the time alloted.

We were flying to NYC because I recently sold a few painting at this gallery my friend works for, and the guy who bought them wanted to meet me. When it comes to being an "artist" I am torn on my feelings about it. On one hand I sometimes enjoy being artistic, but on the other I FUCKING HATE THE ART SCENE A LOT! It's full of overly pretentious fakes that all just need to get a swift punch in the face to knock their smug self satisfied snarls into next Tuesday. This kind of attitude makes it difficult to be a successful artist because 9/10 of being successful is networking in these circles and honestly I'd rather make a living giving hand jobs in an alleyway.

My whole NYC trip lasted a day and a half. It was short, unsatisfying and kind of sucked in every way it could. After we checked in, I decided to take a walk to my old apartment building. It made me a little sad walking passed the building and not really being able to go up to my old place, but it was also kind of important visually confirming that this was no longer mine. Next I met with my friend who sold the paintings and she briefed me on the guy who bought them and what he's like. She told me all about the questions he had as a buyer and what he was expecting from this encounter with me. I felt like a cheap whore. Afterward, I met the guy. I could tell I wasn't what he expected, I seldom am. Toward the end of our meeting he asked if I would be open to working on something personal for him. I told him I was booked solid until September, and politely declined his offer.

The next morning Brad and I woke up around 8 and had to get to the airport for our noon flight back to LA. By the time we got back to my house in LA it was dark and I was exhausted! I had work the next day and was completely dreading it because all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep until Monday! It felt like I had just closed my eyes when my alarm went off at 8am the next morning. Bradley was already awake and had made breakfast and a large pot of coffee. The lucky bastard was going to lounge around the house all day and then meet me at my office around 4pm for my office Christmas party. I was in a pretty bad mood when I got into the office, and it was only further exacerbated turning on the lights and walking into my office (this is going to get it's own post once I have had time to process what's going on in there, but for now let's just say its a shock to the system).

Though technically I only was in the office for 5 hours, it was a long day! Brad arrived at my office on time and upon seeing the newly redecorated space, began to laugh hysterically. I kissed him to shut him up and then I realized that I hadn't told anybody in the office I am gay so this was probably not only inappropriate, but a huge shock to anybody looking. Lucky for me I was so far passed caring that I just enjoyed the moment and filed it away to stress out about at a later time. We had a few hours to kill before the party so we went to a local skatepark and shred the gnar for awhile until we were nice and sweaty. That was definitely what I had needed all week long, because after we were done I was in a much better mood and actually feeling like smiling for the first time since the week started. We showered and went to the work Christmas party, had a decent time, then went home and had an even better time ;).

The office is closed until January and I am so elated that I keep on spontaneously screaming out in excitement whenever I think about it. I have no idea what I am doing this week, but I hope it involves long naps, lots of alcohol, and plenty of marijuana.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Part 2

The crux of the drama centered around my mother and my sisters. It's been slow progress but I definitely feel like little by little they are opening up to the idea of having a couple of gays in the family. Through a combination of my patience and my brother's impatience, they have been gradually warming up to the fact that this isn't going away and they can't change it. Then I drop this bombshell on my little bro, also known as my blog, and my brother goes from being impatient with them to being DONE with them.

I know I have said that I could care less about a relationship with my mother and I still mean it, BUT it kills me that my little brother might be doing the same thing! Family is the most important thing in the world to me and I can't even deal with the idea that my brother might lose a part of his over me. We spent all night talking and crying, and arguing and crying some more. Outside of Bradley and maybe Tyler, Never in my life have I ever communicated so much of myself to another person in such a small period of time. It was quite possibly the most emotionally exhausting thing I have ever done EVER. In the end I definitely think we became a lot closer than we have ever been and it felt good thinking about my little brother as somebody who's there to look out for me like I do for him. We also decided that he wasn't going to read my blog anymore because we all need a little privacy and this is mine and he respects that.

Still he wasn't done. The thing about my brother is he's a spoiled rotten brat that doesn't really understand things like tact or respect for those who don't agree with him. He's the baby of the family and he's spent his whole life being taken care of by his 5 older siblings and dealing with 2 parents that have been worn down by the half dozen kids that came before him. Without my permission, he printed out that post from my blog and took it over to my mother's house. He read it to my mom and my sisters and in the process made them feel like absolute shit. Then he told them that if they ever did anything like this to him, or did anything that made him feel like less of a man than he is, he's not going to give them another chance to treat him like that again. He meant it and they knew it.

My sisters were calling me crying as they apologized to me for treating me the way the have been treating me and they all reaffirmed the fact that they loved me. I don't do well with emotions, both mine or other people's. They all make me feel extremely uncomfortable and all I want to do is find a dark hole and hide myself in it until people go back to acting like robots! After my 3 sisters that have been giving me a hard time called to apologize I was WAY PASSED my raw emotions threshold and I spent the next 2 days with my phone off getting wasted, skateboarding, and having a whole bunch of sex with my boyfriend; somehow hoping that this would all those icky feelings go away. The skateboarding and drinking helped, and the sex was great too, but even three weeks later I am still feeling a little burned out from all that BS.

I think I am broken because I am pretty sure I should be nothing but smiles after all this positivity and love and what not. But for some reason I have been feeling the need to be alone and I am feeling the opposite of happy. And if I am being honest here, I am almost dreading the idea of reconciliation with my family because that would mean I would have to spend more time with them which means more feelings and grossness I just don't want to be around for. Fucking hell! Now I feel like a total bastard for admitting that.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Brother drama

I have been putting off writing this post for a couple weeks now, on the count of its serious subject matter. Usually I find writing these things down cathartic, but this time around it feels like pulling teeth and that's just not fun for anybody! I guess I should start off by saying this was all triggered by an old post I wrote on my old blog "The Underground Notes" and its also posted below just so you guys won't have to click a link to get to it. This old entry was probably written at one of the lowest points in my entire life and even now that I am in a completely different place mentally, it still affects me in a way that almost reduces me to tears every time I read it. Still I don't think I have ever received so much feedback over something I have written and even to this day I receive emails on this post and how it relates to the people who've read it, which is really kind of amazing when I stop to think about it. So obviously I have mixed feelings on this entry especially as it relates to recent events in my life.

Downward Spiral

My mother called me over to the house on Friday. Against my better judgment I decided that I should go. It did not go well. I feel like every time I start to feel good about myself, my mother comes along to remind me that I have absolutely nothing to feel good about.

I didn’t want to write about it here until I had a chance to talk about it with Eddie. I also had no desire to talk to Eddie about it right before our awesome snowboarding weekend. So I did my best to put a smile on my face and have a great time hanging out with my best friends and my man.

Eddie was asking me what was wrong while we were packing our stuff into the SUV before we even started our road trip! I hate the fact that he can read me so well. I was doing an excellent job smiling and cracking jokes, so I was more than mildly annoyed when the dude that I love figured me out. By the time Tyler and Josh showed up I was a mess! Complete with snot and tears. It was awful! Still I was determined to have an excellent weekend inspite of the drama that had occured a few hours earlier.

what happened...

I saw the preacher’s car in my mother’s driveway the second I turned onto the block. There were a few seconds where I debated turning around and getting the fuck out of there. I really didn’t need to listen to my mom and a hypocritical preacher tell me that I am going to hell! For some reason I still wanted to give my mother the benefit of the doubt and believe that she was there waiting for me to come in so she could tell me that she loves me and she always will.

Of course they weren’t there to support me. The moment I sat down they started to point out all of my flaws and how they had both seen this coming for awhile. At one point they started to get really mean, repeating how I was a sinner and how long ago I stopped being a worthwhile human being.

My mother looked and me and she told me how she was doing her best to love the sinner but hate the sin, but my unwillingness to change was making it really hard on her to love me. I did my best to sit there and take it. I honestly did. I bit my tongue, I squeezed my hands into tight fists, and I counted to 100. None of it worked, and before I knew it I was screaming at my mother and a holy man. I have never in my life been so blatantly disrespectful to an adult in my life, but I couldn’t help myself.

I stood up, and for a second, I was just going to walk out. Then my mom asked me if I was going to take off again. Just like I did when I moved out; abandoning my entire family and all of my responsibilities just to pursue a sin. I fucking snapped! How dare she try and lay a guilt trip on me after all of this bullshit that she’s put me through my entire life! How could I keep my mouth shut and let her walk all over me without saying anything to defend myself and how things really are!? I only have two speeds. Relaxed and fucking crazy. I went crazy.

It started off with me calling my mother sanctimonious because she had been married and divorced 3 times in the last 15 years but the only sin that she could identify is the one that I am committing. Then again, I called her a hypocrite because she was getting angry at me for abandoning my responsibilities, when clearly the kids weren’t taking care of themselves when she was out scouring the countryside in search of her next victim/husband! I have sacrificed my happiness, freedom and safety for my family because it was my place to do so. I wasn’t ever expecting to get a medal because I have bled for my family, but I did hope my family would give me the same respect and love that I have given to them. Then I told her this was the last time we were going to have this conversation. I can’t deal with becoming completely incapacitated every time my mother decides to tell me how and why I am going to burn in hell. I asked why she was doing this to me, but at that point she was crying too hard to answer me. I guess that I didn’t really need her to tell me that she was doing this because God hates fags.

So I left.

I didn’t have a good weekend. I drank too much. I was angry and snapped at everybody around me. Even when I was smiling and having a good time I found a way to ruin it and make everybody miserable. Nobody got mad at me though, everybody understood that I was going through something major. Of course, that only made me feel worse than I already did. So I took off on my own Saturday morning before everybody else woke up. By noon I was so messed up on a bunch of different pills and alcohol that I didn’t even realize I had lost my cell, my jacket and my wallet. My next clear memory was of Tyler crying as he helped me into the shower to wash all of the vomit off.

We were on our way home first thing in the morning. Eddie called my dad, and he was at the house by the time we got home. They think that I was trying to O.D. I can’t say for sure that at some point this didn’t become the objective. I only know that now that my head is clear, I don’t want to die. Everybody is in my house now. I can hear my aunts, my father, my friends and my boyfriend all talking about me in hushed voices. They are scared that I am going to do something like this again.

I have never felt as worthless as I do right now. There’s a room filled with people that care about me so much that they are all losing sleep trying to figure out how they can help me. For some reason that only makes me hurt more. It hurts so much and I don’t know what I can do to make it all go away.


During my birthday weekend extravaganza a few weeks ago, my buddy Trevor introduced my little brother to my blog. Of course my brother was instantly hooked on it and spent almost all his free time reading through my archives from the beginning. This obviously made me uncomfortable because he's my little brother and I prefer he see me a certain way and this blog doesn't always show me at my best. But short of deleting my entire blog and refusing to ever post again, there was no way from really stopping him from reading. A few days later is when he happened upon this post. He was upset. Actually, he was fucking furious and the shocking part was a little bit of that anger was directed at me!

My brother and I have very different ideas of the kind of relationship we should have with each other. As the older brother I feel like it's my job to protect him from all the bullshit and negativity I can, because life is hard enough without me adding my drama on top of his! He feels like he should know what's going on in my life as much as I know what's going on in his because it's his job to be there for me as much as I am there for him because he's my brother and he loves me. Sometimes I forget how mature he is and how he is actually equipped to handle a lot more than I give him credit for, but I stand behind not telling him about this incident because it happened when he was 12! Still my little bro huffed and puffed and pouted until I saw his point of view and promised to be more open with what's going on in my head.

The second part of the problem was a lot messier and not nearly as easy to deal with. I think my brother really felt my pain in a way that nobody but him could understand, and it hurt him as much as it hurt me when it happened. The thing about my brother is we cope in very different ways. I like to internalize everything and keep it bottled up way down until magically it all just goes away! My brother likes to do the exact opposite, and his way is probably a lot healthier but I just don't have it in me because it's also really draining!

I need to take a break from this. This shit is wearing me down like nobody's business. Sorry guys, more to come...

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Playing Hookey!

I need to get a tattoo somewhere on my body that says, "I make terrible life decisions!". This morning I blew off work to go surfing because the surf report said there were going to be 8ft waves breaking pretty far out! I couldn't pass that up no matter what! I didn't care that I had a HUGE project at work I was still trying to get a handle on, or that it rained a couple of days ago so the ocean water was still WAY TOXIC! All I knew was that there was some serious goings ons happening in the Pacific and I NEEDED to be a part of it.

So I went into the garage and I pulled out my 5/4 wetsuit and then I went through my box of swag and found this awesome electric warming vest (it goes underneath your wetsuit and is powered by a battery pack kind of jabbed up against your ribs) that I have been DYING to try out and I headed for the beach for some serious surfing! The waves were HUGE as promised, the yellow flag was up, and as the morning progressed the sets just GOT cleaner with the surf breaking several feet overhead! I was out there until the battery pack in my vest died, and then I started to get REALLY REALLY COLD, so I got out of the water for some food and a quick rest. I was exhausted and EXTREMELY out of shape after having done nothing but sit behind a desk for the last several weeks.

I ate and then I called all my surfing buddies to let them know it was imperative they all leave work and join me for the rest of the afternoon for some AWESOME waves. By the end of my meal Tyler and Johnny had joined me along with 7 of our closest friends and I got my suit back on and got ready for round 2! I lasted about a half hour before I was just soo exhausted I couldn't even paddle back to the beach. So when I eventually made it back to shore I just collapsed on the sand and stayed there for a very long time. Once everybody else had had enough, we all went out for some more food and then everybody headed off to wherever people go when they aren't hanging out with me. I went home and fell asleep immediately because I was so freaking exhausted it was the only option!

Two hours later, I have 5 voicemails from work and more emails than I care to count. Also my body aches all over and it feels like I have just ran a full marathon! Seriously it actually hurts to open my eyes too wide. Today I was reminded that I am no longer a teenager and if I am going to do crazy shit like surf in toxic waters with huge ass waves, there's a certain amount of conditioning and stretching I should do beforehand to not feel like a 90 year old arthritic man. Oh well! I always say that if you get to the end of your life and everything on your body still works as it should, then you obviously haven't lived much of a life.

I am still debating with myself whether or not I should go into the office for a few hours. I have a buttload of work to do and taking a whole day off isn't going to make my job any easier tomorrow. But on the other hand, the day is practically over and I don't really think I have much of a mind for work at the moment. I am leaning towards going to the sauna for awhile and then going out for a couple beers and maybe some grub with my homies. I have been working 60 hour weeks and everybody needs to blow off some steam every once in awhile. Like I said at the beginning, I make terrible life decisions, so it shouldn't be a surprise to anybody on what I am going to do with the remainder of my day.

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Lies the valley told me.

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