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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As long as I can remember, I’ve always been a pretty moody person. I like my routines and when those routines are disrupted, I can get cranky. I can also get pretty cranky if I don’t get enough sleep. I’m most definitely not a morning person. Every morning, I need a shower, coffee, something to eat, and a cigarette before I can even think about socializing with anyone else. When I get home from work, I’m pretty similar. I need some alone time to decompress, get something to eat, change out of work clothes, and then maybe I can start socializing.

Usually a disruption in these routines will make me cranky. Is this me being selfish or set in my ways? Where does come from? I can be pretty adaptable to any situation and can make things work. But the more I develop these routines, I like to keep them.

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I’d like to consider myself to be an optimistic person. I’ve always believed there is some sort of solution to every problem. And even when there is no apparent solution, the answer may be to accept the situation and move on. But, that in itself is the solution. It’s not always easy, but there really is an answer to everything. I’ve always made the effort to think things through and find an answer. I remember watching an episode of Mad Men recently and Don Draper says to Peggy Olson, “You’re not an artist… You solve problems”

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For as long as I can remember, I’ve never really been known to be confident and outgoing. It’s something that I’ve accepted about myself and something that I’ve always believed will never change. I’ve just gotten used to it so much that I don’t even notice the times when I am confident and outgoing. I’m definitely capable of it. I just don’t make the effort to try to be that way. In my mind, I will always be painfully shy and insecure.

Confidence is sexy. As much as I’m attracted to the shy nerdy type, I’ll have to admit that the arrogant jock type will make my head turn. Confidence often borderlines arrogance and maybe that’s why I end up dating or being attracted to so many assholes. It’s easy to confuse the two.

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