leftovers

Messages flying into view with a mind designed to capture you Gadgets that send our words into space, spoken broken then interlaced Strength of will not to split in two, information stagnating in a mental queue Recreational knockoffs of the original toys that we used to love These are details of a modern life, oh oh oh These are the things required by a modern life, oh oh oh These are details of a modern life, oh oh oh These are the things required by a modern life, oh oh oh Wars hidden behind mirrors and smoke, too expensive to fix so discard when broke Laughing behind your poker face, the shortcuts are trampled in the human race Strength of will not to fall apart, trust mistakenly placed in the human heart Slipshod reproductions cast of the original ones that were built to last These are details of a modern life, oh oh oh These are the things required by a modern life, oh oh oh These are details of a modern life, oh oh oh These are the things inspired by a modern life,...

I am outraged, incensed and deeply saddened by President Elect Obama's choice of having pastor rick warren perform the invocation for his inauguration. When the news broke yesterday, I couldn't believe it. It felt like a bad dream. I held out hope that perhaps it was an error, or that someone else had made the decision and Obama would correct the situation. However, today, I was dismayed to find that not only did Obama take responsibility for the decision, but had the audacity to defend the choice in the name of "inclusion." How ironic that inclusion includes people who use religion to divide, demean, and destroy. If you don't understand why I am saying that, it's because rick warren preaches at a large church here in southern California, where he spews hate behind the pulpit, stating that same sex marriage is equal to incest, pedophilia, and polygamy. This is not some quote I am making up in order to be dramatic, you can watch the words coming out of h...

I write so often here about my hometown, that I have failed to include much about my new adopted hometown: Los Angeles, California. I moved here on Memorial Day weekend in 2000, just a matter of days after I received my Bachelor of Arts degree from Fort Hays State University. My brother and I had been planning the move together for quite some time, so as soon as I graduated and finished up the yearbook (I was editor), we packed our cars and headed west. The idea of moving to LA came to me when I was working as a desk clerk at Days Inn in Hays, Kansas, during college. We had an atlas there that I would sometimes peruse while I was bored in between customers. Probably something about the nature of working in a hotel, dealing with travelers from all over the place, inspired me to pour over the maps of all the 50 states in the atlas. In addition to the mystique of Hollywood, the fact that my mom and her family lived in Los Angeles for a short time during her childhood had always intere...

One thing about me that concerns my family is my complete infatuation with Long John Silver's, the fast-food restaurant chain. I never really realized how deeply I was smitten with the joint until I moved to LA, where locations are few and far between. My earliest memories of Long John's involve the store in Hays, Kansas, where my family would sometimes eat. I say sometimes because it was usually sort of a special occasion. See, Long John Silver's is a seafood restaurant, and as such, it was considered more expensive than regular fast food restaurants. Living in Kansas, seafood was somewhat of a novelty. The rare instances when we had seafood at home were on Christmas Eve when we had the traditional Strecker supper of Oyster Stew, or after my parents sent us kids to bed and they would have a clandestine crab-leg party in the kitchen (I often smelled the crab legs cooking and would eventually wander into the kitchen trying to guilt my parents into handing over some of ...

I can't believe that Thanksgiving is in two days! This year has really flown by. I guess we get to a point in life where we say that every year. Does it ever slow back down, even in retirement? At least I still remember long ago when a year seemed like such a long time. I'm glad that I am keeping this blog because it does help me keep track of just where the days go. Sometimes it's surreal though, reading back over past entries and realizing the actuality of the chronology of my life... certain events seem to have happened before others despite what my blog says, and some days seem so much more recent than they actually were. There are days in life that, although mundane, have burned themselves into memory like they were yesterday. It's weird and I always get a chill when something reminds me of one of those days. One of them I remember a lot is a day when I was a kid, I had spent the night at my cousin's house in Paradise, and my dad came to pick me up in the...

No, I don't actually have two fathers. I have a father and a mother, who have been married since 1974 - three years before I, their eldest child, was born. But, in the midst of all this commotion about same-gender marriage, I was reminded of the late '80's sitcom, "My Two Dads". I can't say I was some huge fan of the show, but I remember watching it often back when it was on television during my middle school days. For those of you who don't remember or were too young, it was a show where this girl's mom dies and a judge subsequently awards custody of the girl to the two men who had been competing for the late mother's affections. The comedy was provided by the fact that the girl, played by Staci Keenan, lived in a house with her two "fathers" (played by Paul Reiser and Greg Evigan ) who were an updated odd couple. Reiser's Michael was the straight-laced, by-the-books/suit-and-tie type of fellow, while Evigan's Joey was th...

I was baptized and confirmed into the Methodist Church, so it touched my heart the other day when I was driving down Highland Avenue in Hollywood and saw this sign at the Hollywood United Methodist Church. I no longer identify as a Methodist, as I no longer consider myself a Christian, but I believe in that old saying, "Never say Never".

As very few people know, I have been slaving away in my spare time on a collection of songs that I have written myself in the hopes of some day releasing a "solo album". I started writing songs when I was very young. My parents bought a piano, at what age I was I don't recall, and my mom and I began taking lessons from our neighbor, Peggy Anschutz , who lived on the farm just north of ours. I didn't always enjoy having to practice, but I did like playing the piano and inventing my own songs, so at my first recital Peggy let me play a song that I had written. It didn't have words except for in my head; I was always much too shy and scared to ever think of playing and singing at the same time throughout most of my childhood. It was only recently, in the past few years, that I finally started working on that. Despite that, I have been writing songs in my head for most of my life, some of them had made it to the point where I would sing them to myself when I was ...

Gays are now protesting and taking our fight for equal rights to the streets. It's getting loud, and it's getting messy. But there is HOPE. Today, gays began getting married legally, in Connecticut of all places! It's another step forward after the devastating backwards movement last week in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida and even here in California. But there is HOPE. We've learned that for the most part there is no point in arguing. People who don't want gays to be able to marry feel this way because they are uneducated. They believe that gays choose the gay lifestyle, and therefore must influence more people into becoming gay. They don't understand that gays are born that way. They believe that they are morally allowed, in fact obligated to demonize gays and discriminate against us. Most of them feel this way because they have never had an experience that expanded their minds the way that gays and our allies have had. Gays have gone through the process kno...

I am torn. Last night I witnessed such a powerful, happy, hopeful moment as Barack Obama was elected President of the United States of America. I am so thankful to have been able to share in that moment. I was almost unable to. After work yesterday, I went home and turned on the TV to watch the election coverage, alternating between CNN and MSNBC . In order to also keep updated about the battle against Proposition 8, I also had my laptop on the coffee table. My cell phone sat nearby, buzzing with text messages every few minutes. And then... darkness! The power had gone out in my whole neighborhood. I waited and waited, but it did not come back on. Finally, I took my laptop and went to Starbucks. I had heard they were giving away free coffee to people who voted so I figured I could sit there and at least watch the coverage online with my headphones. I did get free coffee, but was irked to discover that the Starbucks nearest my apartment doesn't offer WiFi ; they insisted th...

I had a really, really fun Halloween this year! It started, for the most part, on Thursday evening when my friend Ben and I volunteered at the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce's Foundation Fundraiser party at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. This is a party that I have volunteered at several times before because it is so fun, it's for a great cause, and I'm too cheap to actually pay to get in (ha ha)! I arrived at the cemetery around 2:30 to help set up for the party, which started at 5:30pm. My task for the evening was to hide in the cemetery, in costume, and scare groups of people on walking tours of the "haunted lake". I was so happy to find out that my friend Scott, of Dearly Departed Tours, was one of the two tour guides for the night! I had a lot of fun roaming around the cemetery, hiding behind trees and jumping out to scare people. The party was fun and I saw a lot of people there that I knew through work. Friday of course was the main event, though! I g...

I woke up this morning to the sounds of an elementary school halloween party and costume contest. There is a school just adjacent to our apartment building and the playground (if you can call a huge asphalt lot a playground) is just about 100 feet away from us. It was so soothing and comforting to hear songs like "The Monster Mash" being played in between announcements of "most creative costume" and "most colorful costume" and the sound of children cheering and laughing. It reminded me of all that's good in the world. Here's to a fun and safe Halloween! In celebration, I am posting my band's brand new, spooky video for "I'm a Vampire"... enjoy!

I wanted to take a break from all the politically infused blogging and write about something on a lighter note. With Halloween coming up, and a street near my house where there are actually some deciduous trees that have been shedding their leaves, I am filled with memories of Halloweens past. Oct. 31 has become one of my two favorite holidays, right up there with good ol ' Christmas. I am truly a sucker for holidays and decorating, and this year is no exception; my boyfriend says it looks like Halloween threw up in our apartment right about now. It's true, I go over the top and decorate with candles, garland, lights, window clings, props, and wall decorations. I've got spiders, ghosts, witches and bats all over the place. On the wall above our TV is my "black cat corner" with tons of cute kitties to be found. My memories of childhood Halloweens are all very fond. Some general things I always remember are going trick-or-treat at my grandparents farm before we ...

Type. Read. Delete. Type. Read. Delete. That's the constantly repeating cycle that I've been going through with regards to my blog, in this wacky and tense presidential election season that we're in here in America. So many nasty things being said, so many accusations being leveled, but scariest of all is the trotting out of the "extremists" and airing their ill-informed views on national news. Most of my life I prided myself on being fairly in the "middle" - I never even considered myself much of a political person and I'm ashamed to say, but have admitted it before, that I didn't even vote in the 2000 presidential election. And, just today in writing this blog, I went back and realized that I would have been eligible to vote for the first time in 1996, when Clinton ran for re-election against Bob Dole. Not only did I fail to vote in that election, but even if I had, it's very possible that I may have voted for Dole simply because he ...

For the past month or so, I've been active in volunteering not only for my usual cause of helping the homeless, but also for No On 8, The Equality For All Campaign. This marks the first time in my life I have been an active participant in a political campaign. The reason I have chosen to become involved is because this is a cause that is more near and dear to my heart than perhaps any other. Proposition 8 has been placed on the ballot by members of the religious right who seek to overturn the California Supreme Court's May 2008 ruling "that the California legislative and initiative measures limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples violate the state constitutional rights of same-sex couples and may not be used to preclude same-sex couples from marrying." Since this is my blog, I'd like to take a moment to tell my personal story. I knew from a very early age that I was gay, despite the constant awareness that, from my perspective, the whole world seemed to be ant...

So I thought this was going to be my first blog about the Emmys, but I looked back and saw I had written about it in 2006. For a brief refresher, my boyfriend has worked at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (the organization that puts on the Emmys) since before I knew him, and as such I get to be his guest at the awards show each year. Except, that is, for last year, when his friend Leah insisted that he take her instead. I was a good sport and let her go, although I was bemoaned the chance to attend the last Emmys at the Shrine. This year was the first time the ceremony took place at it's new home, the Nokia Theatre at LA Live. I had been there once before to see Duran Duran on their most recent tour in support of Red Carpet Massacre. While I thought the venue was decent for a concert, I didn't see how it would translate into a ritzy awards show. The first sign of trouble came when we pulled of the 110 freeway and approached the Nokia using the round-a-bout dir...

I had a weird dream last night. I was riding in a car with this guy I know (a friend of a friend) and he kept almost wrecking and killing us. I was very upset. After the third time, this old lady and her husband told me they were going to kill him. The lady gave me the keys to her SUV and house and told me I could have them since she would either be in hiding or going to jail. I drove off and heard a shotgun blast. Then I became someone else, a character, and that character met and fell in love with an older man. The character felt good because he already owned his own home and car (that the old murdering lady gave him) so he didn't feel like he was using the old man as a "sugar daddy". Thankfully I woke up before it got any stranger. Of course, after I woke up and got on the Internet I was reminded just how strange real life is at the moment. I couldn't avoid seeing the name Sarah Palin whether in the headlines or in my e-mail inbox. I remember back in 200...