Disneyland

I went to Disneyland by myself today. I had never been there alone before and since I have an annual pass, I decided to see how different it would be solo. I knew it wouldn't be weird or uncomfortable. I go places by myself all the time – the beach, the movies, Portugal. Hmm. Maybe later in the month I'll blog about that trip. It's a pretty good story. I wholeheartedly recommend going to a European country alone. One of the two or three best vacations of my life. But I digress (there's a shocker).

Purpose

Since so many people are at least partially responsible for me having the guts and the ability to apply for grad school, I thought I would share my statement of purpose with y'all.

I agonized over how to do this for weeks before I finally sat down Thursday afternoon to start writing it. Six hours (and 600 breaks and distractions) later, I had 800 dreadful words written. On the advice of a friend, I decided to just start writing it like it was just another blog post. In two hours I cranked out 2100 words. Success. Ish.

I turned it over to a couple of friends whose opinions I respect totally and asked them each to edit it. Here's the thing. I have almost never been edited in my entire writing life. When I worked at the newspaper I was the editor and the only one with a journalism background, so I had to edit my own stuff. At the HR website, I was the editor and did very little writing. And of course no one edits the stuff I write for my blog.

So when suggestions came back that required me to rethink parts of what I'd written, to say I was freaked out would be an understatement on par with “Lindsay Lohan is a bit spoiled.” I spent about two hours needing to be emailed and talked off the ledge. Ultimately, I took the suggestions (because they were good) and the end result is probably 30-50 percent better than the original. So here's what I submitted. It's basically my whole blog in 2000 words.

Doctor Smiley Surferdude

After almost 1500 words last night, how about a shorty tonight. I've had a ridiculous headache all night and apparently the cortisone shot that the doctor gave me in my elbow yesterday caused something called cortisone flare. We'll get to that in a moment or two.

First off, friggin' ADD strikes again. I had this whole plan laid out that I would wait until the middle of September to go to the doctor because I knew when I went I was going to have to stop working out for at least a couple of weeks (turns out it's longer). I have a couple of trips coming up and being a gay man, I certainly didn't want to have to stop working out until after all my gay travel was done.

Spanglish

How about one more short post about Schmoo? What the hell? We were together two-and-a-half years and good or bad, every day was interesting. The ingredients were just too perfect to not create masterpiece after masterpiece. What have we got here? Two giant egos on two smart guys who both think they're never wrong (and even when they know they're wrong will try to convince you that they're not). Add Schmoo's absurd storytelling ability – every story had three completely separate arcs that would all dovetail together like a Seinfeld episode just at the point where I was screaming, “What the fuck are you talking about?!” Stir in his impeccable timing with tossing out some fractured idiom or syntactically bizarre gem right in the middle of a vicious screaming match. Then top with literally pounds of methamphetamine.

Drinking Like a Gentleman*

When I first got sober, I was certain that the only substance I ever abused was crystal meth. Even when I finally started listening to the counselors in my outpatient program and agreed to stop all of it – the beer, the pot, the pills – I was only doing it to placate them. In those early months, I vowed that one day I would drink again because I had no problem with alcohol. Maybe I would smoke pot occasionally as well, because again, I had that under control.

It's a Wonderful Life

I have to take a little break from “what I was like” tonight. See, I'm exhausted. But it's the beautiful kind of exhausted that comes from having a full and wonderful life. So, I just want to write a little bit about this weekend and how my life is wonderful.

Charlie's K-ngels

So, just to give you an idea of what to expect as we go through the month, I plan on using an instruction from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous as my guide here. In the chapter How It Works it directs us to tell our story in a particular manner: What we were like, what happened and what we are like now. So that's my loose outline for my posts this month. Some posts may not have anything to do with my addiction and recovery, but for the ones that do you'll be seeing posts about those things that happened before about 2006 in the first third of the month, things that happened from mid-2006 to mid-2008 in the second third of the month and then things that have happened since 2008 in the final third. As I said, that's a loose outline. I may realize that I have more to say about one portion of my life than another and I'll adjust accordingly. But for the next ten days(ish), you'll be reading about the pre-terrifying times.

2011 Men's US Open Preview -- Young Gun Edition

Verdasco's a must have

The mens. Mens, mens, mens. My favorite thing about writing the men’s preview is looking for and posting the pictures. I’m a bit tired of the same ole same ole though. To mix things up a little, I’ll be posting pics of the next generation of potentially great players (but only the ones that are 18 or older – I’m not interested in being THAT creepy). If I remember I’ll caption them to let you know who they are. And there will probably be some of the regulars mixed in as well. Enjoy!

Ladies Gone Mild

The night I’d been anticipating all summer finally came on Thursday. My first trip to the Greek Theatre to see the Go-Go’s on Belinda Carlisle’s birthday. It was truly the most anticipated day in my year. I’ve seen them at least twice before and I’ve seen Belinda Carlisle solo three times, so it wasn’t so much that the concert was the main event, it was more the total experience. The 30th anniversary of Beauty and the Beat, one of my favorite albums of all time, in Los Angeles on Belinda’s birthday. It was a perfect Go-Go’s storm.

Mad About Her

Talk about living in someone’s shadow. Madonna not only had a monster career right on top of Belinda Carlisle’s, but she was born one day before Belinda in 1958.


I’m sure no one is surprised that today’s post is dedicated to Belinda and a handful of you were just sitting there waiting for it. Well, predictability be damned. Here it is. I’ve decided to focus solely on her videos, so the entire last half of her career is missing from this post.

Seven Timeless Songs From the Ageless Diva

Tomorrow (if I get this posted in the next seven minutes) is Madonna’s 53rd birthday. To celebrate, here are seven classic (or semi-classic) songs that FOR ME have passed the test of time. The only restriction I put on my list was that the song had to be at least ten years old. Other than that, I just went by what I still like. They are listed (I’m pretty sure) in chronological order.