say it ain't so

omg

is this going to be me in 40 years?

:-/ maybe...

just lent me explain...

dear Johnnie,

i have something to tell you -- something that may upset you. but first, i need you to know that this is not easy for me. so here goes: in short, i think we should take a break. but please let me explain.

even if you're not catholic (most Scotts are protestant, right?), you might already know that Lent begins today. you might have noticed a bunch of white people walking around with dirt (actually ash) on their foreheads.

i myself am not catholic, so i missed out on the joys of Ash Wednesday and no-meat-on-Fridays. but one part of Lent that i have been sure to participate in is the supposedly edifying self-deprivation of the season.

as a serious believer, i have made some very difficult sacrifices throughout the years, including:
-carbs
-bread
-peanut m&m's
-dates (not the food)
-instant messenger

and believe it or not, i had a pretty good showing, if not complete success, with all of these. despite growing up in churches that frowned upon flamboyant rituals and ceremonies, i've always enjoyed a good ritual.

and what better ritual than honoring Jesus's 40 days of lonely, hungry wandering through the wilderness than to spend 40 days soul-searching, praying, and -most of all- abstaining from chocolate?

but this year i've decided to give up something nearer and dearer to my heart than candy. i've decided to give up my nightcap. that's where you come in, Johnnie.


you have been a source of much warmth and comfort to me, Mr. Walker. you've joined me in bed with a good book on many a cold night. you've waited patiently at my bedside as the ice has melted. you've lulled me to sleep with your intoxicating symphony of flavor. you must know that i appreciate you, but now is a time for sacrifice and reflection.


we will meet again, in 40 days. i promise. until then, i'll think of you fondly as i wander through the lonely desert that is my nightcap-less evening, and as i stop to look at your bottle on my kitchen countertop.

yours truly,

M

like i said.

after MILK's big win at the Academy Awards the other night, the real Cleve Jones (played in the film by cutie Emile Hirsch) weighed in on the ongoing march toward gay rights:

Jones says:

You know, I think that for too long, we have accepted this failed strategy of allowing our rights to be debated state by state, county by county, city by city. We‘ve settled for compromises for far too long. We‘ve settled for fractions of equality. And I think that that is going to end. And we‘re now going to insist on full equality, equal protection under the law in all areas governed by civil law in all 50 states. And I hope people see this film and are inspired by what we did in San Francisco in 1978.

i feel the same way. we've settled for far too long. as i said a few months ago in a rant, i'm no longer interested in tolerance.

the only option going forward is equality.

outta my, outta my head

this ain't a movie no
no fairy tale conclusion, ya'll
it gets more confusing everyday
sometimes it's heaven sent
then we head back to hell again
we kiss, then we make up on the way

* * *

and though love sometimes hurts
i still put you first
and we'll make this thing work
but i think we should take it slow

* * *
maybe we should take it slow

whatever that means.

john legend. obvi.

not too far off

a monday morning chuckle for you, courtesy of my favorite news source, The Onion.

note to self

i'm allowed to change my mind, to feel differently, to forget the past, to fail at keeping my own resolutions, to have been wrong,

it's called learning. growing. evolution.

i can admit when i've been wrong, emotional, when i've overreacted. i'm a big enough person that i'll accept the embarrassment, if that's what you want to call it.

i make mistakes. that's who i am. and it's who you are, too.

maybe i can never erase the words on the page or whitewash the memories of my loved ones, but i can shrug my shoulders and say "eh... i guess i was wrong. so what?"

i'll come right out and say it: "i don't know." there.

sometimes i really just don't have a clue. why don't we all try to admit that more often?

i feel better now.

blake says...

If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite.

The story can resume...

The one I had been planning on that evening walk. I can become again the man who once crossed the surrey park at dusk, in my best suit, swaggering on the promise of life. The man who, with the clarity of passion, made love to you in the library.

The story can resume. I will return. Find you, love you, marry you and live without shame.

i've decided that Atonement is worth watching... even despite keira knightley.

today remind yourself

Something is going right.

You could be late, disorganized, upset, running with scissors in both hands, blindfolded, and engulfed in flames, but at least your shoes are tied.

A lot is going right in your life. You’re cute, snappy, self-sufficient, and fun. You got the goods and you better recognize!

Today remind yourself: Something is going right.

today's cup of optimism comes from one of my new favorite blogs, Daily Pep Talk from a Best Friend. i think this blogger might actually BE my new best friend.


oh, and thanks to m'gurl T for linking to this fresh blog. i like.

that's what i'm afraid of

june of 2007.
i broke a cardinal rule and over-shared at work.
to my boss.
about my personal life.
relationship troubles.
she has a way of getting people to talk. unfortunately.

i'll never forget her response.
at the time, it was very comforting.

No matter what happens in your personal life, you will always have your career. Your work will always keep you going.

my hero, part II

"i drink a lot."

"that's good, it's healthy. water's good."


(hat tip: ashokomo)

beckett says...

If you do not love me
I shall not be loved.

If I do not love you
I shall not love.

don't look back

"gaga ok - can i year your coat?"

"u wanna go out w/ up tonight?"

"i have on clue. ask Eric"

any of my friends will tell you that my txting skills have advanced leaps and bounds in the past month, since i went unlimited.

i finally explained to my mom (who pays my cell bill - don't judge - so that i'll always call home and also because i tell her i can't afford it... as i'm shopping for new jeans) that no one speaks over the phone anymore, so i absolutely had to have unlimited texting. she's so understanding that she got unlimited texting for herself, too. she'll probably send/receive about 10 messages this month.

yet no matter how much i've improved with practice, my messages still come out looking slightly dim-witted. it usually doesn't matter, as most of my friends are able to figure out that ON means "no" and UP means "us" GAGA obvi means "haha" and so on. only a few times have i received the response "??" from someone.

but it's embarrassing, as i look back over my SENT messages, how many errors i make.

i mean, ME! the grumpy grammarian! the spelling wiz! the perfectionist.

and you know why? because this world of crazy digicommunication is just too fast. we don't have time to think about what we're saying, let alone how we're saying it!

is this the world in which we now live? is this what we've become???

maybe the only solution is this: don't review your SENT folder. i definitely need to stop checking mine.

outta my outta my head

well i wish i could kill you, savor the sight
get into my car, drive into the night
then lie as i scream to the heavens above
that i was the last one you ever loved

porcelain. takes me back.

a much-needed reminder

a re-post from last may:

from Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat*Pray*Love, which i badly need to re-read:

* * *

I am burdened with what the Buddhists call the "monkey mind" -- the thoughts that swing from limb to limb, stopping only to scratch themselves, spit and howl. From the distant past to the unknowable future, my mind swings wildly through time, touching on dozens of ideas a minute, unharnessed and undisciplined. This in itself is not necessarily a problem; the problem is the emotional attachment that goes along with the thinking.

Happy thoughts make me happy, but - whoop! - how quickly I swing again into obsessive worry, blowing the mood; and then it's the remembrance of an angry moment and I start to get hot and pissed off all over again; and then my mind decides it might be a good time to start feeling sorry for itself, and loneliness follows promptly. You are, after all, what you think. Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.

The other problem with all this swinging through the vines of thought is that you are never where you are. You are always digging in the past or poking at the future, but rarely do you rest in this moment. It's sometimes like the habit of my dear friend Susan, who -- whenever she sees a beautiful place -- exclaims in near panic, "It's so beautiful here! I want to come back here someday!" and it takes all of my persuasive powers to try to convince her that she is already here.

If you're looking for union with the divine, this kind of forward/backward whirling is a problem. There's a reason they call God a presence - because God is right here, right now. In the present is the only place to find Him, and now is the only time...

my hero

in case you don't know, chelsea handler is my hero. well, one of them, right after martha stewart and hot stud scott peterson. such go-getters, the whole lot of 'em.

anyway, i just read My Horizontal Life, which was even better than Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea. even more fits of laughter-induced tears. even more of a page-turner. this one only takes 2 nights before bed and one afternoon to read. but read both. you have to.

chelsea's affinity for vodka, vicodin, and semi-anonymous sex inspires me. she makes me wish i were single, and a whore; if being a whore had a PR rep, it would be handler.

one of my fave parts of MHL:

* * *

Then I saw him. My little midget, wearing a sombrero filled with chips and salsa on his head! it was the most adorable thing I had ever laid eyes on. As if my night could get any better, he was topless but wearing an apron and white pants. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.

We hung out all night. I couldn't stop hugging him. He was one of the funniest midgets I'd ever met. Actually, he was the only midget I'd ever met -- if you don't count the Internet. He had the cutest little hands and a high-pitched voice. He was shaped like a perfect sphere. He kept telling me one racist joke after another, and I couldn't get enough of him. At one point I had to send him away because I needed to catch my breath. My stomach was aching. He kept slapping my chest when he laughed, leaving what looked like puppy's pawprints all over me. Then he started barking. I love a guy who doesn't take himself too seriously. He was a tricky little oompa loompa too. He kept giving me shot after shot of tequila, and he kept getting taller, and taller, and taller.

His name was Eric and he was from Cleveland. I wanted to call him Nugget but thought I'd wait until after we became better acquainted...

The sunburn combined with my fourteenth margarita was starting to cloud my head. I settled into a deep fog and didn't return to full 90 percent mental capacity until early the next morning.

The first thing I saw when I awoke were two tiny feet scurrying across the Spanish tile to the bathroom. I was so confused. At first I thought, Oh, great, I had a baby. Then I felt under the covers. My underwear was still on. I knew you could never have a baby with your underwear still on.

Then I heard what sounded like someone jumping off the toilet seat and landing on the floor. "Whew, these tiles are cold," said someone who sounded like he'd just inhaled an entire tank of helium. That squeaky little voice was too much. It all started coming back to me, and it was not good. My head was spinning and I was not in a good mood. I didn't know if things were going to get violent, but I did know one thing: Eric needed to be gone. But first I needed to know if I had slept with a midget, and I needed to know fast.

* * *

likely more to come.

sad or hopeful?

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

estrogen overload

oftentimes, picking a random dvd off the rental store shelf is a horrible idea. but sometimes it can turn out to be a good move.

on a lazy, hung over saturday i wandered over to my friendly gayborhood video store with nothing specific in mind. i took a risk by picking up a movie i had never heard of, but i figured that with meg ryan, anette bening, debra messing, jada pinkett-smith, and candice bergen (love her) on the cover, it couldn't be too bad. and although i made that mistake before with hugh jackman, this time it turned out to be a smart move.

The Women may be a straight-to-DVD hollywood failure, but i recommend it nonetheless. everyone in it is a star, even filling the minor roles (bette midler, debi mazar, eva mendes).

more interesting, though: everyone in the film is a woman. not one man -- neither cast nor extra nor random passer-by in the busy streets of manhattan, where it was filmed -- appears on the screen until the very end of the film (but i won't give anything a way, just in cases). it's kind of amazing.


according to annoying and obsolete Entertainment Weekly, which keeps sending me effing magazines despite my repeated cancellations, The Women has been in the works for over a decade. initially, meg "i'm cute. cute. cute!" ryan teamed up with julia roberts to make the project happen, but they faaaailed. finally meg had to do it on her own.

the film is a remake of a 1939 film, which was based on an earlier all-female play, all staying true to the original story: a group of women rally together to take care of a friend who has just learned of her husband's affair. inspiration and entertainment ensue.

you might be wondering why a guy like me would want to watch a melodrama with an all-female cast, but -- well, no. it's actually quite stereotypical of me.

at any rate, my fave moment of the film came when the amazing candice bergen, as a cool and collected socialite, cracks and opens up to meg ryan about her own relationship tribulations:

It feels like someone kicked you in the stomach. It feels like your heart stopped beating. Feels like that dream-- you know, the one when you're falling and you want so desperately to wake up before you hit the ground, but its all out of your control.
You can't trust anything anymore, no one is who they say they are, your life is changed forever.
And the only thing to come out of the whole ugly experience is that no one will be able to break your heart like that again....

if you haven't seen it (and i'm pretty sure no one has), do yourself a favor and spend your lazy, hung over weekend afternoon watching this netflix/rental store gem.

if for no other reason, watch this movie to see the amazing plastic work on this cast of gorgeous, tightly-pulled, fresh-faced stars. 3 words: meg ryan's lips.

it's encouraging to know that we can all look 25 and hot when we're in our 50's and 60's.

outta my, outta my head

the flames and smoke climbed out of every window
and disappeared
with everything that you held dear
but you shed not a single tear
for the things that you did not need
cause you knew you were finally free

my life would suck without you part II

I'm glad I met you, again.

i know i should probably move on and stop obsessing over these Six-Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak, but how can i?

for the past six months, strangers have been pouring out their hearts in six-word increments.

I didn't know I could leave.

it's like Postsecret, but updated countless times a day, with nearing a thousand responses. if only my blog got so many comments!

I am scared. Must be love.

check out the hundreds and hundreds of anonymous responses, and just try not to spend hours vicariously falling in love and getting your heart broken.

hypothetically

and if you did have a remote control, how far would you forward?

would you know when to stop? or would it be awfully tempting to hit the button and just keep pressing, to keep racing through all this muck?

upon reaching the end, you'd wish you had taken longer, slowed down, slow-motioned, even. for some parts.


i'm living for tomorrows -- many of us are -- but i'm genuinely trying to remind myself that every day has its purpose and its charm.

and those that don't seem charming simply need more spirits.

i'm gonna take you back.

my friend lee reminded me of Evan & Jaron, and wow...



i feel like i'm 17 again and dreaming about Pacey.

i always hated Joey. and i always will.

tracy says...

You are a living magnet.

What you attract into your life is in harmony with your dominant thoughts.