SIGNS

Something shared with me that I'm now deciding to share with you. Well worth the 12 minutes it'll take out of your day...

Amidst finality

Am I the only one who's amazed that "finality" is actually a word?!

I was planning on an update following finals week, but upon Jess's prompting here I am.

We'll start with a small update of my family life. Three major things to touch on this time, two of which are a continuation of previous issues.

My last blog was greatly dedicated to my sister and her apparent loss of sanity. Since that last blog she went home, but only for a short while. She is currently back at UNMH, or something like that in the psych ward. Shortly after returning from her last visit she had an outburst in which she punched a hole in the wall of her room, then locked herself in her closet. Once she emerged from the closet at the urging of the police it was made apparent there was some sort of suicide attempt with a hanger. Back to the psych ward she went, and as been there for over two weeks now. Causing a ruckus up there too. Biggest issue of this as of right now is my parents' insurance refusing to further pay for Jamie's time at this shelter. So they are currently in three battles, one with the issue mentioned in the last blog, one against the insurance company so they can stop paying $1000 a day for Jamie's care, and finally the battle to get medicaid to take over the payments.

Next issue around the family, my grandmother. Due to her deteriorating health it is looking less and less likely that she will be on chemotherapy for much longer. Her liver is deteriorating and because of her severe loss of appetite she's not eating enough to support the trauma her body is undergoing. My mother has to look into what to do with my grandmother over the next few months until the inevitable happens... A lot to wait for...

Finally, this weekend I will be attending one of my "cousins'" high school graduation party. It'll be interesting to see some of the family I haven't been in contact with for sometime. As twisted as it may seem I'm rather excited for the possibility of confrontation. They have, since my last interaction with them, joined an extremely right-wing christian church. Needless to say they would be extremely opposed to my homosexuality. I will not make it a point to be sure everyone knows I'm gay, but I won't hide it if for some reason it comes up in conversation... who knows, perhaps I'll have an awesome story to tell in my next blog!!!!

Now on to something I told myself I would not blog about in this new blog very often... Relationships. It has been some time since I have been excited about a new guy, but for a short while last month I was. To add to that, it was reciprocated. Because of this, I had two dates to our prom (sorry Jess!). Dea said "at this rate you'll be boyfriends in like two weeks," and it certainly seemed that way... but yet again out of left field... he called it off. Now I'm not devistated at all, it wasn't a very long dating period and I hadn't grown all that attached to him, but it did suck. I had in my sights something that I've wanted for some time and then it was gone. Once again... back to the "sitting, waiting, wishing." The more time goes by the more I return to the possibly comforting plan of just waiting till my departure from New Mexico to find someone.

To conclude my blog, a glimpse at my future. Following this summer, and the ending of my lease at my house, I will be moving into an apartment by myself for the first time in my life. My parents have already helped a ton by purchasing new pots and pans, plates, bowls, and knives for me. I've got some huge plans for my life after this move, first starting with a new fitness routine. I think the power of those obnoxious infomercials (in combination with youtube users' postings) has finally swayed me to give P90X a chance... completely ridiculous! Once I start it I'll be relying on you guys a lot to keep me motivated, though I have faith I can stick to it through the 3 months of intense workouts and specific eating requirements.
Then there's RENT. The Golden Shoes this year made me realize that RENT is my last chance to do something worthwhile at UNM... So here's hoping my last production at UNM gives me something to proudly leave behind once I graduate.


SoOoOoO... I suppose that's it... for now. With any luck I will have more entertaining/substantial things to report on. For your entertainment... please check out adult.engrish.com

I personally love this one!

My Parents' Investment

My family life is, for lack of a better word, interesting right now. I don't worry about writing this kind of stuff in my blog because I know my readers are my close friends and maybe a few other stragglers who find it, which I'm okay with.

There are two major things happening in my family life, the first is my grandmother. She agreed to undergo chemotherapy, but because of her poor health (not including the cancer) she is ineligible for radiation treatment or surgery. All this means that this cancer will kill her, the chemo is just a means to slow down the spreading of the cancer and prolong what time she has left. My aunt is coming into town during the beginning of next month to sort things out with my mother about how the remaining months will be played out. My grandmother cannot live alone for much longer leaving her with few options, move in with my aunt, move in with my parents, or move into a nursing home. I haven't had to deal with the death of someone I knew well since Johnny's death my senior year of high school. It's just weird, the business behind this death... it's something I never had to deal with before. I suppose there might be some kind of peace behind knowing that you're taking care of everything before you go, but knowing that its right around the corner has got to be torture. As if waiting for this wasn't enough for my parents, we have the drama with my younger sister...

Raising children is dangerous... Yeah there's potential that you will raise the perfect child, someone who's compassionate, understanding and just an all around good person. But there's also the chance that something out of your control will turn your child's thoughts and feelings against them. My younger sister was adopted. We first met her when she was 2 years old, the next few years she bounced back and forth between her grandmother and our family, until finally the adoption became final. I remember one night during this time we had a glimpse at some of her less than perfect behavior, and we had a long discussion on whether or not adoption was something our family was really ready for. The four of us ultimately decided that as much as she needed us, we had come to need her too.

Well here we are, over ten years later. My younger sister is concluding her stay in a psych hospital for suicidal teens here in Abq. Her behavior has been spiraling downward over the past year for some reason unknown to us, which pushed her to threaten to kill my parents and herself last week. Here's where I struggle... I consider myself lucky that I haven't had to bare witness to all of this.... and then I think more and realize I consider myself lucky that I do not have to make the decisions on what to do.

My dear friend and former confirmation mentor today told me that your only choice is to love her unconditionally, keep with it, don't give up on her despite all the horrible things she says and does. My parents' have invested a ton in their children, but when can you decide enough is enough, or can you decide that? Jamie has told my parents she is changing her last name back to Lewis after she turns 18, she tells them she hates them, she threatens to kill them and nearly does by grabbing at the steering wheel when they are driving. So how do you keep telling yourself it's not her, it's bipolar disorder? She's obviously a physical threat to herself and those around her.

I don't have an answer for this... I really don't. I don't know how to deal with it as her brother, and cannot imagine what it would be like to be my parents. They keep trying. I'm in awe of them, and unsure how I would react were I in their shoes. How do you love someone unconditionally when every action they do shows that they do not feel the same?

Sorry for this heavy blog. It's not supposed to be heavy with emotion, but rather just a laying out of the things I'm struggling to come up with answers for. I hope to write on something more positive in my next blog.

SORRY!!!

It's been waaaaaaay too long and I'm sorry. To be honest I just haven't felt there's been much to post about, but this will be my attempt.

I deleted my last blog because I had messed with something in the HTML part... woops!It made everything I posted unreadable. I ended it saying that I was going to try something risky in my love life, and well the risk didn't pan out. Things are fine now, as far as I can tell the damage done was minimal. Each one of these failed attempts at dating I feel one step closer to just quitting the dating scene until I move. Possibly a little over a year till I move and I'm still terrified. I'm still struggling with what to do with my living situation next year before the move. Since I will be moving to Denver alone (unless some miracle changes that) I'm trying to decide if it would be best to live alone. Get used to it before I leave all my friends behind.

Next year's musical theatre oppertunities are amazing and I truely can't wait to see what will happen. RENT is a definite and Bare is still in the works, I'm trying to forget about the former for as long as I can. I think too much about RENT and I'll drive myself crazy wanting to just audition already!

Family life is a confusing topic. There was a time when I felt my family was falling apart while I was watching from the outside. While there is still many things to overcome, it seems to be getting better. My grandmother has begun kimo (or however the hell you spell that) and she actually seems to be happier. I don't know what she's going through but it will at least improve her quality of life for some time. My mom does not believe I will have a grandma this time next year, a though that I'm gonna have to learn to accept. As for now, she's alive and seems to be happier than she has been in sometime. As a family we'll take what we can get.

(random thought of hilarity: Listening to Dan Savages podcast right now made me laugh because he ranted for about 4 minutes about how people need to avoid Centaur fetishes. Evidently the Axe Bodywash commercial is having some very strange effects on people.... wooooow)

But yeah, I'm alive. Have my ups, have my downs. Generally I sit in the middle watching things go by. I'm certainly ready for some positive change in my life. Though I will say, I called it when I said 2009 would be better than its predecessor. Things are a hell of a lot better than they were, and I'm looking forward to see where this year will go!

After this long.

I just got home from class, I have a little more than thirty minutes before I have to run off to our opening of Broadway Your Way! This is how I choose to spend that time.

I rarely drive during rush hour as my schedule doesn't normally permit it, with rehearsal and all I'm rarely on the road shortly after five. Today was an exception. On my way home I witnessed two things that really bothered me. The first was a small sedan that drove past me, two adults in the front and a baby in a car seat accompanied by a woman in the back. The baby couldn't have been more than two months old. The woman sitting next to the child was smoking a cigarette, the window was crack in what would appear to be a pathetic attempt to not fill the cabin with cigarette smoke. The second situation was a few minutes later when the airport shuttle van in front of me had a still smoking cigarette butt fly out the window onto the asphalt.

Now here's my problem, and I'll start with my less extreme stance and then move to the more extreme one. I completely support the ban of smoking in public places, it is a disgusting activity that is a danger to not only the person lighting up. Take for instance the baby in the back seat of that car. AN INFANT!! The child cannot choose to not inhale the vast amounts of smoke polluting his(or her) air supply. The complete lack of responsibility on the part of the adults in that car is revolting. The slit in the window was only wide enough for the smoker to knock the embers off of the end of the cigarette when it was called for. This child will grow up with several lung defects from the atrocious display of parenting.

Next we have the asshole working for the airport shuttle service. It's windy today, very windy. This cigarette butt jettisoned from the drivers window could very easily have blown into the front yard of the house lying downwind of the van. Fire could have sparked, burning down whatever the wind directed it to. Yes this is an extreme outcome, and it didn't happen (I think). Even if it didn't start a fire there is still that used filter lying on the ground somewhere as a disgusting reminder of someone's deadly addiction and careless attitude towards the environment.

I feel very strongly that cigarettes should be made illegal. My grandmother stopped smoking nearly 22 years ago and is still suffering from the effects of them, currently in the form of lung cancer. So why is it that we still allow this shit? It smells awful, it does absolutely nothing good for our bodies or minds, and it kills people... millions of people! Children whose parents aren't responsible enough to smoke away from their children are forever going to be scarred, the people who actually do the smoking will suffer even more.

Yeah, I've heard it, they're addicting... All that says to me is weakness. If you don't like something about yourself or what you do, then you fix it. You stop. If you're killing yourself a little with each puff then why the fuck do you continue?! You have the power to stop it, that baby doesn't...

Closure

To start, I said that this would be a more positive blog. Meaning I would not dive into negativity, I would not throw myself pity parties, and I am going to hold true to that. That does not mean I will not write a serious blog now and then. This is one of them.

Today must have been one of the most interesting days of the past year of my life. Lee and I got together to finally talk through everything. He had been reading my old blog and had seen every post I had put up about him, which subconsciously was the goal of it all I think. I was angry with him, and after seeing my blogs he was angry with me, rightly so. Despite the anger leading up to the meeting, it was really subdued and mature.

We talked through everything I had posted, everything that I had learned of/thought about since we broke up a little over a year ago. Then we talked bout things inside our relationship that we hadn't talked about before, things that maybe we had been dishonest about. I apologized for the blogs, and for villainizing him for so long to both myself and my friends. We walked to Popejoy Hall so I could get to rehearsal on time and gave each other a hug goodbye. I trusted everything he told me, because he told me things that he didn't have to. Things I didn't need to know, and would possibly never know had he never told me.

Last January I posted a blog on my Livejournal about how I had suffered a broken heart but was going to use it to better myself. The last line of that read "Broken hearts are shit, but be thankful that the person who hurt you is chasing something new, and do the same. Love will always come around again, just give it time, and there is nothing wrong with remembering who you loved to get there." Today was a reprise of that statement and a finale to the longest relationship I have had at this point in my life. I finally feel that it is over, I no longer hold any negativity to the situation or the person it surrounds.

Right now... I feel lonely. I guess it's to be expected. I was reminded once again today that Lee is not a bad person, though I tried to cast him in the role of the antagonist. I fell in love with a great guy, now we've both moved on. I'm grateful I have our relationship behind me to remind me of what I am capable of.

Each Day a New Step!

I'm actually really surprising myself these days. Talking down the guy in my costume class gave me a boost of confidence that isn't going away. Here's the story, which I think the only two people who read this have already heard.

There's this really cute guy I work with, I've seen him over the past month or so and of course never had the guts to talk to him. Waved to him a few times but that's about it. I wasn't sure if he was even gay. I decided I would try and find a way to ask him out yesterday while at work, there were a few problems with this. 1) He was possibly straight, just because he's cute doesn't make him gay, this is not Queer as Folk after all! 2) He worked in a different area than me, an area that I had no reason to ever be in. and finally 3) I'm a chicken when it comes to cute guys, even if I could get up the courage to talk to him I'd never be able to ask him out. Well today things worked out well for my plan.
I was asked to do something new at my job, something that required me to share a work area with him. For the first few hours there were these two girls in the same area complaining about everything, I figured it probably wasn't a good idea to try and find out if he was gay with them around. Finally they left, I cleverly used that as a cue to ask for sticky notes and introduce myself. (LOL Corny as hell I know, but it worked) Well after that we talked for the next three hours of work. He was awesome, we were able to joke about a lot, he had a good appreciation for music, it was awesome. The gay thing never came up, but I was pretty certain he was by this point.
Work ended and we walked out together, he had to head to the Q lot shuttle, and I to the South lot shuttle, so I figured if I was going to do it, that was the time. I asked him if he'd like to get coffee sometime. (WHOW!! GUTSY!!!) To which he responded "Sure, but only as friends. I have a boyfriend." O_O