Paulo Coelho

I have a new favorite author, he has written such works as The Alchemist, Eleven Minutes, and By the River Piedra I sat and Wept.

If you have not read any of his works I strongly recommend that you do.

Gift Suggestions

Most of you know I am horrible at selecting gifts for other people and will usually take the easy way out and buy gift certificates.
I need your help, Wade's Birthday is on October the 1st and I want to get him something good for his birthday. I thought about flying up there and surprising him but after looking over my budget last night I have decided that won't be possible.
Does anyone have any gift suggestion ideas?

No Se

Lo dice el o lo digo yo.

"Me Paso dias y dias delante de esos libros y cuadernos haciendo un esfuerzo sobrehumano para comprar mi propia esclavitud.

- Fatima from Paulo Coelho's A Orillas del Rio Piedra Me Sente Y Llore.

A Orillas Del rio Piedra Me Sente y Llore

Spontaneous

Who said I wasn't spontaneous?
I just purchased a ticket to go to San Francisco for the weekend. Spur of the moment, no prior planning. Who says people can't change.

It is either one of the craziest things I have ever done or the dumbest things I have ever done. But I was jogging and I a thought passed through my head and the next thing I know I am at home making flight reservations.

I am excited, I get to see Wade and spend some more time with him. We decided we were just going to hang out and spend time together, no heavy partying or wild and crazy nights. They are having a street fair so we will do that and we are also taking the ferry to Sausalito. I also have to go back and eat at In-N-Out and buy some chocolate.

Sometime between now and Friday I need to go get a digital camera to take with me.

Drugs = Good

It is amazing how good drugs can make you feel. I had some medical test done today and they had to put me to sleep and I feel amazing today. I got home around noon and I went directly to bed I woke up for a few minutes but went back to bed shortly after.
I feel more rested and relaxed than I have felt in a very long time. If it was up to me it would be a requirement to be sedated at least once every month.

The weekend

I had a pretty good weekend.

On Friday I went to the movies with Ivan, Chico, and Chico's friend Carrie. We went to see the movie Hero with Jet Li. The movie was really good, not as much martial arts as I would have liked but the colors and the symbolism were really good. After the movies Ivan and I went over to Starbucks and grabbed a cup of coffee and just talked. Well, I just talked. Ivan had to sit there and listen to me talk about Wade. After that conversation I promised that I will not talk about him as much, I annoyed myself.
Saturday was a pretty laid back day, I did a lot of house stuff and hanged out with family and friends. Nothing to terribly exciting.

Sunday we went to the Gay Pride Parade in Dallas, TX. It was my first time going and it wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be. There were way to many floats but they were all very plain. Next year I want to be on a float, so I need to get involved with an organization.

That is about it for now.

Oh, I got a call from Wade about 11:30 last night and...oh, I promised I wouldn't talk about Wade so much.

Silly Me Part 2

I admit....I have a problem....and admitting that you have a problem is half the battle. I sent him a text message earlier in an attempt to clarify what had been said and repair any damages. I believe my message went something like “Good Morning. I hope I didn’t scare you to much last night.”
His Reply:
“A better question would be what’s your intention? Given What you told me last night. What are you thinking?”

I figured we were better off having this conversation over the phone than through text messaging so I went home for lunch and we had another of our long conversations. It turns out my comments from last night lead him to believe I was not interested in him. I won’t get into to much details but we talked it out and we have come to the conclusion that we are both very interested in getting to know the other and we will continue talking and see where it takes us. He is still planning to come to DFW in the near future and we will have the opportunity to spend some time together and we will figure things out as we go along.

I am afraid of commitment, but he has made me feel the warm and fuzies that I have not felt in a long time and I think that deserves a shot. My heart may get broken or I may end up falling in love. It is a chance I am willing to take.

Silly Me

I don't know what it is about me, call it a defense mechanism, but every time I meet a guy that I like I always, unintentionally, push them away.
I was on the phone with Wade last night for almost two hours and we were just talking about our past etc. I don't know if I was to honest about the whole afraid of commitment thing....but I think I might have scared him.....why would anyone make an effort to start a relationship with someone who is afraid of commitment?
I am going to talk to him about it again tonight and try to explain myself. Hopefully I didn't scare him to much.

Digital Camera

I need a good, small, inexpensive digital camera. Does anyone have a good recommendation?

Wade

I was sitting in my 3 p.m. meeting when all of a sudden my pocket starts vibrating and it tells me I have a new message. I leave my meeting because I was hoping it was Wade :) and I retrieve my voice mails and it tells me I don't have any so I start playing with my phone and it is a text message (I never eve knew I had text messaging). The message was sent to me at 1:45 p.m. and it says

Yea. Crazy.

On Sunday night we were at a club and he asked me if I always say "Yea" and "Crazy" when there is nothing else going on. For the rest of the night he would look at me and just say those to words together. It was rather cute.

I told myself I wasn't going to call him, but after that how could I not? I am going to call him on the way home and see how he is doing. ;)

SF

I had a great time in SF these past few days. There was some unexpected drama but I had fun inspite of that.

I don't know where to start, I suppose the beginning is always a good place for that. I won't go into details but I will provide a summary of my trip.

Friday was a pretty uneventful day. We got there and we explore the city, we hit some of the big touristy stuff like the cable cars, and Lombard St. David, Kathy's brother, has pretty much taken control of the trip and I don't mind because we all wanted to do the same things and he had time to look at the maps, read the travel books, and do research on the city. After a few of the attractions it is very clear he does not know where he is going or what we are doing so I tried to take over and he gets upset. So I back down b/c he is Kathy's brother. And I like Kathy.

Maybe I should start by explaining who Kathy and David are. Kathy is my friend of six years and I love her to death. We have such a great time together every time we hang out. David is her gay brother who lives in Paris and who comes to visit once a year. I have only seen David once a year for the past few years and we have always gotten along just fine. Perhaps it is because there were always a lot more people around and it was always for a few hours. Who knows but it was always fine.

O.K. back to my story. The hotel we were staying at had cocktail hour from 4 p.m to 6 p.m. every day. I loved cocktail hour because we got to meet some great people that were staying in our hotel. The movie directory Marvin Catz and his wife were staying there and they were both nice people. The guy because a bit of a jerk after two hours of drinking but he was still fine.

I also met 4 gay guys (two couples) from Vancouver who were really cool. One of the couples has been together for 14.5 years, they were 18 when they met. I thought that was very encouraging. The other couple has been together for 5 years. All four of them were very cool people and Kathy and I got to know them more during the next couple of days. I exchanged information with them on Sunday, maybe we will keep in touch.

K, so after cocktail hour we headed off to a little Italian restaurant that had the best food in the world. The restaurant was very small and the line was out the door, we got there just in time so we only had to wait for 10 minutes, but by the time we left the wait was an hour and a half. The wait was worth it though. After we had dinner we decided to head over to the Castro, the gay district, and explore the bars. We were on the bus at 10:30 and they both asked me if I would mind going home. Of course I minded, we had been out all day and we had not done anything I wanted. So I told them and we went to the bars. We were at the bars and they were just boring people. After a few drinks I agreed to go because I was also very tired. It was close to 12 a.m. and it was 2 a.m. TX time. So we went home and went to bed.

The next morning I decided I did not want to hang out with them so I was going to go and explore the city on my own. If I heard the David talk about Paris and/or compare San Francisco to Paris one more time I was going to hit him. Or if he said "Reeealy" one more time..I swear....or if he complained about his food being to salty or if he said "uhmm, it's alright in (place of foreign city here)there is a little restaurant that makes the best (place whatever you are eating here)" one more time.....I just don't like the guy. He is so uptight, childish, and self-absorbed that I did not think I could spend another day with him.

Saturday was a great day. I went to the golden gate bridge and I met this nice Italian straight couple. I then went to Ghiradelli square and bought some chocolate, I went to the market, to Ffisherman's Wharf, and then I went to coit tower.
I was trying to walk to Coit tower and I got lost. I was heading into a dead-end street so I asked this black lady in her 40's for directions and that just started an immediate friendship. She was the funniest person ever. She was heading to the Safe Way to buy toiler paper for her neighbor who was in her 70's and could not leave the house. She said she would walk with me to the bus stop because it was way to hot to take the bus up there. And she was right, it was hot. After a 10-15 minute walk I headed to coit tower and had an amazing view of the city. After that I went to the Square in front of St Paul and St Peter church because they were having local artist displaying their art. At the square I met six Spaniards and I was chatting with them for a while. They had been in the US for almost a month and had been in Colorado, Vegas, Los Angeles, and were headed to NYC on Sunday. They wanted to go to SF's equivalent of Harlem and Spanish Harlem so I went to explore the city with them. We ended up getting lost and ended up off the maps we had. It was kind of scary, so we decided to turn back around and head to a more familiar place. We ended up in the black side of town and we did some exploring. They did not speak English very well so I had to translate for them. I like them they were a lot of fun.

After that I headed back to Cocktail hour at the hotel and I sat with the gay guys from Vancouver and just chatted. Kathy joined us later and her brother ended up going to sit with some old couple on the other side. Kathy and I had a great time and we drank way to much. After our drinks David tried to get the bartender, who was a really cool guy, to go with us to dinner because David want to talk to him about the politics in Burma. The guy kept saying no but David kept insisting, it was a little embarrassing. So off we went to a Thai restaurant that David choose. Kathy wasn't feeling good so we spent about 15 minutes in the restroom while she threw up and I held her hair back. When we returned we eat a bit and David is upset because we left him and because Kathy had to much to drink. I only wanted a soup because I wasn't hungry so I had my soup and I tried their food. The soup was pretty good but the food wasn't and Kathy made a comment about it and I agreed. Since David choose the restaurant it upset him and he told me "I am trying to have a good time with my sister but she choose to invite you ..." that was it. I went off on him. I had gone out of my way to make sure they had enough time alone and here he was telling me this crap? We got into an argument and Kathy joined in. It was pretty messy. I ended up leaving the restaurant and heading back to the hotel. I was so upset that I was crying as I got ready to go out to the clubs. I just couldn't believe it. I couldn't' believe it. Before I finished getting ready Kathy and David got back. David went off and Kathy stayed behind and apologized for David and told me that was the reason why her husband didn't want to go along.

So I went out to the clubs and I met some really interesting people. I met a guy name Wade and he took me to an after hours party and then we went back to his place. Wade is a great looking guy, he is Chinese, 5'9, 31, and he has a really tight body.

I went back to the hotel at 7:30 a.m. and had breakfast with Kathy and David and then went to bed for about an hour. I hit the town after I woke up but I was not feeling my best since I was very tired. I did not strike up any conversations with strangers that day. That evening we went to go see Beach Blanket Babylon and it was so funny. I had a great time. They went out to dinner afterwards but I did not join then b/c I was tired. I went back to the hotel and I had every intention of going to bed but after packing I decided to call Wade up and join him at a club that was half a block away from the hotel. To make a long story short...I did not return to the hotel until the next morning at 8:30'ish. Great times were had by all.

Monday I did some shopping before heading to the airport and when we go to the airport there was a flight that was going to be leaving in a few minutes so I decided to find out if I could take that flight instead of the one at 2:30 p.m.. It just so happened they had a few seats available and I was able to leave two hours earlier. Will picked me up at the airport so he got to hear the whole story in person complete with hand gestures, facial expressions, and all of the things that come with my story telling. We got home and Sarah came over and she got to hear it also.

I included a lot more details about Wade in my story to them so let me just say a few more things about him. I think he deserves at least a paragraph for making this trip special for me......
Wade is absolutely amazing. He is a great guy and I felt completely comfortable around him, it is as if we had known each other for a long time. I felt like I had a b/f in SF and it reminded me that having a b/f wasn't all that bad. We were walking down the street and he gave me a kiss on the cheeck and held my hand. We had some good pillow talk, he introduced me to his friends, and even checked up on me to make sure I had gotten back to the hotel o.k. He was perfect and I wonder what could have happened if we both lived in the same city. But being the realist that I am, I realize we will probably never see each other again or talk to each other again....so I will think of it fondly for what it was. Kathy asked me what the best part of the trip was and it was definitely seeing the view of SF from his apartment balcony while we held each other. Corny...I know...but true.

I am back from SF and I have stories

I will have to post about my trip later because right now all I want to do is go to sleep. I am very sleep deprived right now.

Proposition - NO MORE Bush and other ramblings

I was reading a news summary in the Dallas Voice titled Australian gays upset by new marriage law claim island, declare independence. A group of gay people in Australia who were upset on a ban over same-sex-marriage have taken over an uninhabited island in Australia. Their official flag is the rainbow flag (of course) and they will soon start printing pink money.

After watching the Republican Convention I want to do the same thing. Especially after President Bush's comment about how judges should not impose their personal beliefs on the country. What the fuck is this asshole doing? He is doing the exact same thing, he wants to impose his religions convictions on the rest of the world. I don't agree with him on abortion, I don't agree with him on the war, and I definitely don't agree with him on gay rights.

I have a proposition, I propose that we stop paying our taxes until we (gay and lesbian community) are treated and given the rights we deserve. Or we go find our own little island and declare independence.

I think it is going to take something drastic for this president to take notice and recognize we are an important part of this country. I feel like my hands are tied, I wish I could do something to speed this process along. Who knows, maybe with time we will have change. I don't want to wait that long. I will continue to be as active as I can and hope that others do the same thing.

If you are reading this, I hope you go out to the polls in November and vote for a change. Vote for Kerry.

Lucía Méndez, gira para gays y nuevo perfume unisex

Lucía Méndez, gira para gays y nuevo perfume unisex
MSN - News
http://latino.msn.com/entretenimiento/articles/830780.armx

La actriz y cantante mexicana es la de las que piensan que hay que buscar al público sea donde sea.

Ha causado sorpresa la gira que hará la veterana artista (de 49 años) solo por locales "gays" de Estados Unidos y México, que comenzará mañana martes en el "Score Night Club" de Miami Beach.

A los asistentes se les regalará gratis una muestra de su perfume "Lucía Méndez Exótica", que -con una fórmula que incluye feromonas- se anuncia en el local como "La esencia que enamora unisex".

En unas declaraciones a la prensa mexicana, Lucía Méndez dijo que tras un tratamiento de feromonas, "mi sensualidad se ha incrementado y noto que Arturo (su pareja) se siente mas atraído hacia mi".

La talentosa artista mexicana, que vive en Miami, se casó recientemente, en segundas nupcias, con el empresario cubano americano Arturo Jordan.

También reveló un secreto: le gusta que le besen los pies. "Me encanta, me pone muy cachondona".

La gira por Miami, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland (California), Houston (Texas), Monterrey y Puerto Vallarta, (México), ha sido anunciada para el público gay, al que califica como "sus máximos admiradores".

La diva mexicana aprovechará también para promocionar su nuevo disco "Vive", que incluye dos duetos con Mario Quintero de "Los Tucanes de Tijuana" y canciones, entre otros, de Juan Gabriel, Kike Santander y Frankie Marcos.
*************************************************************
Lucia Mendez - Diva?
Los gays son "sus maximos admiradores"?

No se, pienso que lo esta haciendo por que el resto de la comunidad latina se ha olvidado quien es. Pero quien sabe, esa es solo mi opinion.

Book: Dear Friends

Friends
Originally uploaded by kai7710.

I stopped by the bookstore today and I found a book that I found very interesting. It is called Dear Friends: American Photographs of Men Together, 1840-1918 by David Deitcher.

As the book suggest, there are a lot of pictures of men together. Although the people in the pictures have passed away and their identity is not known, some of the pictures have a homosexual undertone and some of them are clearly gay. There are pictures of men holding hands, caressing each other, or just posing with their leg on top of each other. There is even a picture of a man with a beard in a dress next to a man in a suit, clearly very gay. Although I don't think all of the men in the pictures are gay, it is very obvious that some of them are.

I guess what surprised me about the book is the bravery, if you can call it that, of the men who posed for these pictures. If people are not completely accepting of homosexuality in this day in age, I can only imagine what it must have been like in 1840. I am adding this book to my list of books to read; if you are in the bookstore make sure you pick it up and take a look at it.

I loved my weekend.

I had one of the best weekends I have had in a very long time. It is going to sound corny but I am going to say it anyway...I saw most of the people I care about this weekend. My friends...my family...life is good.

My friend Kerry came in from Minnesota to visit and we hanged out all weekend. Having her in the house made me wish I had a roommate but I wonder if I enjoyed it so much because it was Kerry and because I knew it was temporary? Regardless, we had a great time (or at least I hope she did too).

She flew in on Thursday and we got home from the airport around 10:30 p.m., we wanted to go to Don Pablo’s for their $2 margaritas but they were close so we decided to just go home have a drink and watch a movie. I made Sip-&-Strip and we watched Chocolat. If you have not watched this movie, I definitely recommend it, it was very good and it might have even been funny. Kerry and I kept laughing; it could have been that we were drunk or that the movie was funny. I don’t really know.
Friday wasn't as fun, I went to work and she ran errands. At night we went to my sister’s house for her b-day party. The food was GREAT.

Saturday we went shopping all day and I spent way too much money but I did get some really good deals. That night we were picked up Chico to go to the bars in gayville. When we got to Chico's house he had already been drinking, what a lush, a bottle of wine. He did leave some for us 
We met up with Ash and Seyd at the bars and later by one of their friends. We went to our usual bars…drank a little and danced a little.

Kerry left me today. It was sad to see her go but she called me a while ago and told me her husband was waiting for her at her apartment when she got there. I thought that was the sweetest thing because he had to drive three hours to see her. I knew that Darin was a good guy.

After I dropped Kerry off at the airport I went to my friend Sarah and Will's house, we ordered food and had a good chat. I am so glad they live so close to me, it helps them having them so close to me.

I have to go back to work tomorrow…..I am not looking forward to that. I think I am catching a cold, I hope I get over it before my trip next weekend.

Kerry/Edwards Lawn Sign

I put up a new John Kerry and John Edwards lawn sign up last night.
For those of you who have not heard my story here it is, I will give you the condensed version.

My last lawn sign was stolen from my yard and my bumper sticker was removed from my car. I don't know who would be brave enough to go to someone else's property and remove something that they have put up.

On to other news:

Last night I was invited to a lawn sign making party. A lady in Fort Worth purchased 1,000 signs with her own money, that is about $10,000 to $15,000 once you take into account the stakes, nails, etc.
Yesterday a bunch of people went to her house and helped her put the signs together. It was a little assembly line. Some people stapled, others nailed, stacked, and bundled. It was great. We were able to put most of the 1,000 signs together before the sun went down. She is selling them for $2 if anyone is interested. Once she is able to get rid of all of these she is going to purchase 1,000 more and distribute those as well.
I am really excited, I hope to see all of those 1,000 signs out in Fort Worth over the next few weeks. Next time I see a lawn sign in a yard I will wonder if it was one of the ones I helped put together.

Isn't activism great? Last night I felt as if I was actually making a difference.

School

So I start school on Monday and I at first I was looking forward to it but today I remembered how much time and effort you have to put into it so I am not so excited anymore.
The good thing is that the school I am going to has trimesters so I will be done with classes faster.

Wish me luck.

I snapped

I snapped at my boss today and it wasn't pretty. I feel bad for snapping at him, after all, he is my boss.
I just got tired of it. We were on one topic, and he was on another and trying to seem like he knew what he was talking about. He was making assumptions left and right and I rolled my eyes at him and snapped.
The good thing is that there was only one other person in the room so it didn't look to bad.

I will see how he treats me tomorrow. Hopefully he will overlook my snap because I did him the favor of driving him to his mechanics during lunch to pick up his car.

Reviews are coming up. :(