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Four of Cups – Rewards – The Past

The road to Burning Man was a tough one. I wanted this year to be so special, I worked really hard to gather everything needed, find us a camp, and plan out all the little details in a more organized fashion that I’ve ever done before. Granted, I’ve only been twice, but both times were so memorable and different in very unique ways, that third time’s the charm, right? Also, this was the first time my best friend was going and I was happy to have a companion with me. I wanted it to be perfect for her and provide her with everything she would need for her first burn. And being that since my last time was five years ago, I felt like a virgin again in some aspects and I wanted this to be extra special for me as well.

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Just for the hell of it, I set my iPod on shuffle and these are the first 10 songs that come up (+ 1 bonus track for good measure). Let’s see if the universe is trying to tell me something through music…

Wow – Snow Patrol
Trap Door – OneRepublic
Summer Day – Coconut Records
Never Say Never – That Dog
I Do Not Hook Up – The Gaslight Anthem
Fire In A Bottle – Tone396
Kickin With You – Jason Mraz
Phonesmack (Riva Starr Remix) – Rene Van Munster
So Many Nights – The Cat Empire
Burn This Disco Out – Michael Jackson

Bonus Track:
Witness – Sarah McLachlan

June is Pride Month and I’ve often wondered what it is to be “proud.” I came out over ten years ago when I was 19. I didn’t go through a lot of trials and tribulations in high school that most gay men have. I went through some, but I was never public about it. In fact, in high school, I convinced myself I wasn’t fully gay, so why did I need to say anything to anyone? I thought I was capable of suppressing whatever part of me had gay feelings so that I could marry a nice girl and live a “normal” life. It turns out that the part of me I was trying to suppress took up a whole lot more of me than I led myself to believe.

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Way back when in high school, one of my oldest friends Aisha and I discovered horoscopes and star signs. We would spend hours in book stores as kids reading our daily horoscopes and peeking into the weeks ahead. We would read all about our star signs and look at all the different romantic combinations and what they meant to us. To this day, I’m still not sure what they mean or if they really do reveal secrets to a person’s personality, but for years I’ve noticed trends and some truths to what I’ve read.

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I started watching The Big Bang Theory last night. Figured I’d download the first season to see if it was a show I could get into. I will have to admit the laugh track was a little jarring at first. I almost didn’t expect it. I watch so many “sitcoms” without a laugh track, I almost got used to there not being one. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I watched a show that had one. It was kind of distracting.

Sure, the show had all the flavors of a sitcom. It has the obvious deliberate staging of the actors and the comedic timing between jokes to let the punch line sink in or let the slapstick play out. All these things that seem archaic left a bad feeling in my mouth. I had to stop after the pilot and watch something else on Hulu.com and get back to it.

I watched the next two episodes and started to notice the brilliance in it. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been on this 30-day no bar/restaurant spending kick for about a week now and this weekend is proof that this is going to be a piece of cake. I’ve had one of the most wonderful and eventful weekends. The weather was nice, I hung out with friends, and I stepped outside the box a little bit. It was what I needed to remind me that I do have a lot in my life to be thankful for. And maybe I’m not stuck in a rut. I just need to put the right effort out there to get the results I want.

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