Quit playing games with my heart!

Men, oh we are such simple yet complicated beings. It amazes me to this day how immature men can be, even when they pass a certain age. I have usually been attracted to older men, at first I could attribute that to unresolved daddy issues, but after all that was worked out, I basically remained attracted to them because I found them to be better in bed, and they knew what they wanted, and didn't tip toe around. The problem for me though has been that most mature men in their 40s only want to date other men in their 40s, and those who want to date younger men usually have some unresolved issues themselves. Either they feel more powerful, or they came out late in life, I really don't know. But I haven't met any quality MEN lately, for example this one hot daddy I know from meetings flirts heavily with me all the time, at one point he texted me every morning and ever night to wish me a good morning/night. But I found him to be a player, he loved playing games with my head, like making sexual innuendos but never following through, and he would start grabbing on some guys arms, and hands while looking back at me making sure that I was looking at him and his new little friend. Of course it worked at first, I would make my jealous face and then I'd play 20 questions with him about this guy. Finally I grew tired of this bullshit, he may be hot, but he's not THAT hot. It's taken me a while but I've let go of any attraction towards him, or so I thought till last night. So I saw him at a meeting, with someone else who I had a crush on (though this one I had NO CHANCE IN HELL of ever landing) so they are a cutesy little pair now, and that just brought everything out of me. I became jealous, passive aggressive to the nines, I luckily was with my good friend Tim who was in a bit of a funk , so I was gladly distracted by trying to get him out of his head. And I guess that is a tool that I learned from the program, whenever you are too in your head you should always reach out to another addict, and/or friend and it will help get you out of your head.

As for the guy that I was talking a couple of posts ago about, my attraction to him has dissipated. Don't get me wrong I still find him very hot physically, but my actions were brought into light when I was sitting at a meeting the other day, and saw this guy who was 4 or 5 years of sobriety with his hands all over this other guy who has 45 or so days, and it grossed me out to no extent, it was such an appalling sight to see that guy with time sort of taking advantage of this newcomer for his own pleasure. That is when my little light bulb went on and said, you know Gerson, that is exactly what you would be doing with that guy that you like. I will be seeing him tonight at my meeting I'm sure, and I really hope I can keep it in my pants and behave myself and keep my promise to myself, I have told everybody and their mother about whats going on, so hopefully they will all keep me in check if they see me venturing of f the path. We'll see...

Anyway, my video for this week was introduced to me by one of my blogger inspirations, and ex-roommate Joe.My.God, and it is one of my favorite songs of all time, and I dedicate it to my friends Eric and Chad.

Mommy, WOW, i'm a big kid now!

Well this scared little shy boy is definitely beginning to show signs of maturity by taking care of myself and my sobriety. There are two recent incidents that show how I've done so. The first and most recent one, was today I finally went up to Brian the head guy at my rehab, and told him that there was a strong mutual attraction between me and a current resident of his rehab. He brought up all the points that others have brought up (he's newly sober, it's not good for me, etc.) but he also made me think outside of myself. See, he said that when a newcomer knows that someone is attracted to him, it distracts him from working fully on himself, and that totally took me back to when I was in rehab and I was totally head over heels “in love” with this guy Matt, who not only was a fucking stud muffin, but was also a genuine sweetheart. He was also, not quite all available for a relationship, obviously, and it did distract me quite a bit, of course he didn't know how much he distracted me, this was all my issue. I would sit there and figure out what would he like me to do, what would he enjoy doing, and I would sometimes ignore my sobriety work, in order to “take care of him” i.e. rent movies, make him a meal, etc. but I learned the great tool of telling on myself, in other words putting it out there so that others know what is going on with me, and to get an outside perspective on the situation. Learning this tool has been a great asset for me, because it takes away the power of the situation, and it helps me to quiet my inner monologue of insecurity. So I am glad that I told him that, because I could see how a relationship with this hot man would affect us both in so many different ways.

The other thing I did recently that I am very proud of has to do with someone talking down to me. I used to let people walk all over me, and yell at me in public, and never call them out on how it would make me feel. A couple of weeks ago I was at an AA meeting for which I was the chip person ,(in 12 step programs, we celebrate various lengths of recovery time with chips, such as 30 days, 6months, etc) and since alcohol wasn't the thing that brought me to my knees, crystal meth did, I usually identify as an addict, which I did when I introduced myself before passing out the chips. During the meeting's break, John, who was my counselor in rehab, proceeded to rip me a new one in front of the whole room telling me that since it was an AA meeting, I HAD to identify as an alcoholic. Now, I no longer have issues with identifying as such, it was just the tone in his voice, and his having reamed me in front of a group of my friends and fellow alcoholics/addicts. I think that because during groups he was so used to reaming me, and calling me out on my shit that he felt he could do so in public. That is where he was wrong, because we were both at a meeting as addicts, not in a room in rehab being counseled by him. I stewed with a resentment on this for a whole week, I spoke to friends, and to my sponsor. One week later, when I saw him again at the meeting, I went up to him and said I didn't appreciate his tone, that I had no problem with identifying as an addict/alcoholic, but that in a public setting, he is not to talk to me like that. He sort of brushed it off, and half heartedly apologized for it. It wasn't the response I wanted, but I have come to accept that we are all humans, and I must just take his apology and move on. It was such a great learning experience for me to stand up for myself, not only to someone who I felt insulted me, but to someone who I still see as having a position of power over me. So those are my two crowning achievements that are possible thanks to sobriety.

Maybe your crazy, just like me...

So a couple of days ago, when I shared about my roommate relapsing, I said that I had originally planned on sharing about this new guy I met. So here is the deal, first of all I'm a crazy Latin man, which means I'm very jealous, possessive, but also very passionate and loving. I am usually not attracted to Latin me, but last Saturday I met a man so beautiful in looks that my heart went pitter patter, and my pants grew immediately

I was heading over to do the setup for my CMA meeting (Saturdays at 7pm )at Frank's House(2530 Hyperion Ave) which is the rehab that I went to. So, before heading downstairs I talked to my friend and blog fan Thom, going on and on about how bad I was feeling at always checking out the newcomers at meetings. Which to those of you not in the program, it is frowned upon to date or sleep with newcomers. There is a saying, that newcomers are like retards: it's OK for them to fuck each other, but when you do it it's just wrong; but I digress...I had gone on a whole spiel on how I wanted to change my predatory ways and just stick to working on my recovery, and then I walk downstairs to meet this new guy in the house who was just beautiful as all hell, and very sweet. We proceeded to flirt heavily with each other and during the meeting we were very touchy feely with each other. I wanted to cross that line so bad, it has been a while since someone that I found attractive was attracted to me. Don't get me wrong, I don't feel like the hunchback of Notre dame, but I feel like all the attractive men who have time, still think of me as respectively new; and are therefore backing off. The only guys hitting on me are creepy older pervs.
ANYWHO, as I am sitting at the meeting being all flirty with this guy, my friends the Anthony's walk in, and immediately they start giving me these dirty looks until I finally pulled one aside, where he proceeded to warn me about this guy's clingy-ness. He of course thought that this would scare me away, but quite the opposite, I feel like: FINALLY, someone who speaks my kind of crazy! Now I know that I wont be doing anything with him for a while, first of all because if we were to get caught we would both get kicked out, and I am not about to become a homeless queen...I don't do homeless it would NOT be cute! Second of all he is a newcomer, and when you are in your first couple of months of recovery your head is still foggy, and you are still learning to love yourself, and how could you expect someone to love you if you don't even love yourself. So I feel that with my putting all this out there, and letting people in on whats going on, then it takes away any chance of me sneaking around and doing the wrong thing. Who the hell knows if he is the future Mr. Rapoport, stranger things have happened, we'll see.

What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us...

So it is said that on the 7th day God rested, but who am I to rest? I've mentioned God a bit in my blog, and I have stated that I am a Jew, but me and God haven't always had this amazing relationship that we have today.

I was raised roman catholic, I've been baptized and confirmed. But I've never really fallen for the hype of this Jesus fella, don't get me wrong, I do think that he was a real person, and that he did good things in his time, but I don't believe that he was/is the son of God, well no more than you and I are children of God. My father is Jewish, but not very religious, we celebrated channukah, but that was about it. I've been to Israel twice, to visit my uncle Steve and his gazillion kids, who are all hasidic.

In high school I said that I was an atheist, but that was just to fit in with my god-less communist friends, I always believed in something greater than myself. I never gave it a name, but I learned from my mother how to be spiritual, to be thankful for what I had, and to be open to whatever is out there. I guess I always have been spiritual, I feel like I've had a conversation with God almost every day. I know this might sound crazy, but I feel like God talks to me through the best way he knows how. Media. He definitely has always talked to me through music, whether it be an amazing rendition of a Vivaldi concerto, or getting me to dance my ass off with a new Madonna jam! I also know he talks to me through TV, I am a huge TV junkie, and I feel like he knows how to reach me that way.

Let me sight you a few examples, during this last relapse it seems that God arranged for every one of my favorite shows had “a very special episode” about some sort of addiction. I felt that he was trying to get me to stop, but I wasn't ready to listen. But my theory was quite prevalent on my last day of using, I had been up for almost 10 days or so, and I was taking my TV break, which usually consisted of 3 or 4 hours of catching up on my TiVo and eating an apple. In my head I was totally getting ready for another week of amoral sex, and endless days of constant slamming (shooting dope), but for the moment I was catching up on my Law & Order: Criminal Intent's. In this episode, entitled “Brother's Keeper”, while detective Goren ( Vincent D'Onofrio) was in the process of solving a crime, he runs into his junkie brother, and it shows him struggling with how to help this broken man he loves so much. Halfway through the episode, I hear a knock at the door, my paranoia makes me think it's the police coming to get me, but as I stare through the peephole I see my brother in law and my sister standing there. Every inch of my body tells me to escape out my balcony door, but I thankfully answered the door, after some coaxing, I let them in, and they proceed to tell me how my whole family is worried about me, and how much they love me. That was my moment of clarity for me, they were all I needed to finally see how far away from my true self I had gone.

After a couple of weeks in rehab, I was invited to attend services at one of the gay temples here in town for Rosh Hashanah, and never in my life had I been so moved in a religious setting to the point of tears. It was then that I was totally in love with this temple and its teachings, and I hope to become more involved in judaism and its complex history, I look forward to my conversations with God every day because he is there for me, and I don't want this to scare away anyone from reading my blog, I am by no means I Torah thumping Jew, I still have a lot to learn about myself and Judaism, but la'haim and the amazing journey ahead of me!

I hate you so much right now, I hate you so much right now, AHHHH!

OK, so I was all ready to blog about some new hottie at a meeting, but unfortunately I got a text from one of my housemates telling me that he had relapsed. I immediately let out the most unappealing yelp you could imagine, which surprised the hell out of another one of my housemates, who was busy facebooking.

My friend who relapsed was someone I love very much, we were sisters in this newly found sober life. The sad thing though, is that even though I am upset, and disappointed ,it is not overwhelming me. It's sad but a lot of my friends who I got close to in this sobriety have gone out, most of them thank God have come back, but some of them are still out there. So that is why I'm so fucking angry at this fucking disease/drug! That is who I hate so much right now, the drug, the disease that told my friend that he could go out once more, and that it would be fun. That shit ain't fun, it ain't cute no more. Not for us, we are addicts through and through, no doubt about it. One thing that makes me proud though, is that my friend was able to let me know what was going on, and was able to man up and face whatever music is coming his way. Because, if it was me I would still be out there, getting more and more fucked up. Performing all kinds of demoralizing acts to get more and more fucked up. The shortest amount of time that my relapse has lasted was this last time, 8 months. When I go out, I fucking stay out and disappear, my family doesn't hear from me, my friends don't know where the fuck I am, I don't show up for my responsibilities.

I have to go back to being grateful, to my sobriety, to my friends, and family. Today, was a pretty good day, very low key, which is what my Saturdays have been looking like lately, and I like it that way. Usually by Saturday I'd be on day 4 or 5 of my high, and it wasn't pretty. So the video I pick for this week's post will be dedicated to my friend who went out, and to all those of my friends who are still out there without a solution.

But this time its different, I don't even feel the distance, I'm not missing, I'm not missing you...

So I was removing the battery from my car so that I can recharge it (I know very butch of me), and as I am under my hood, this guy I met at rehab (who left before he was supposed to) came up to me, and girl was cracked out of his head. I was of course stuck under the hood till I was done with my task, so I became a target for his verbal vomit. He proceeded to regale me with story after story about his drug use, the things he has to do to get his drugs, the gross people he has to put up with.
A couple of months ago that would have given me a raging boner, and I would've gotten all antsy and hungry to get high, but today it simply just annoyed the hell out of me. It also made me thank God for my sobriety, it is a big part of the program to be grateful for what you have, but it is so easy to forget, and to focus on what you don't have, or what you USED to have. For example, this past Sunday I went to the beach with a couple of sober friends, and it was a fucking blast! We walked out to the Santa Monica Pier, rode the rollercoaster, and had an all around great day. I got to know three amazing people who I didn't know that well, and enjoyed each others company, I am truly grateful for that day.
This morning we also had a very productive morning in the house, we had our house meeting were we bring up issues we may have with each other, and as high school-y as we all can be, it was a pretty grown up, we all brought up our issues and we discussed whatever things we thought were going on with ourselves. Luckily other than my not feeling so hot the last couple of days (which is why I haven't posted on here for a bit), I am doing pretty good. Anyway I am grateful for everything that God has provided for me today, especially my sobriety.

What you find-ah, what you feel now, what you know-a, to be real...

Boy is this TV junkie in 7th heaven right now, first of all I fucking LOVED the first new episode of Battlestar Galactica, it's still one of, if not THE best show on television today. Anyway, Saturday is usually my day to catch up on my Tivo, and I have a new old favorite show. Let me explain, I used to watch the Real World RELIGIOUSLY, in fact Pedro Zamora was one of my role models as a young gay latino man, it got a little too repetitive after a while tho. I believe the last season I watched completely was probably Chicago. Anyway, I was intrigued to watch this season for two reasons, one its in Brooklyn (and I figured they would be in Manhattan half the time), but more importantly they have their first trans gendered person. It was nice to see the Real World kinda get back to a Pedro Zamora kind of mindset, in educating “the kids” about taboo subjects.
I have been pleasantly surprised at how for the most part it is a non-issue with the housemates. I think they picked a great cast this year, first of all they have 8 housemates instead of 7. There is studly bodybuilder Scott, tattooed hipster Sarah, frat boy Ryan, hip hopper wanna be Baya, black beauty pageant queen Devyn, Mormon closet case Chet, pretty boy south beach queen JD and Katelynn the aforementioned trans. They are only on the second episode, and most of each episode has revolved around Katelynn's little secret. Anyway its one of my new guilty pleasures along with Celine Dion, and the Fairly Oddparents. I'm sure the drama will ensue this season and I will share if necessary.
So as a DJ/VJ with no musical outlet at the moment, I have decided that every Saturday I will share one of my favorite videos with y'all, all three of you...and hopefully I will remind you of some little gem that you hadn't thought of or seen recently. Enjoy this week's choice: Shakespeare's Sister "Stay", which goes out to me best girl Chad!

Ground control to Major Thom!

Hi my name is Gerson, and I'm a scifi geek. (group mumbles: “Hi Gerson”)
So I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited because in just a few hours the first of ten new and final episodes of one of my favorite TV shows of all time begins, Battlestar Galactica! Now you may look at me and think how the hell did this showtune hairdressing queen ever get to be a scifi geek?
Let's start with the fact I was first addicted to Stargate:Atlantis; that came about because I have this weird connection to a lot of water related phenomena, like Titanic, and Atlantis. So when I heard a show called Stargate: Atlantis was starting on the SciFi channel a couple of years ago I tuned in, and got hooked immediately. I wasn't a big scifi geek as a child, I mean I enjoyed Star Wars like any kid does, but that was about it. While my best friend and his friends would play Dungeons and Dragons and watch anime, I would be watching MTV and prancing around to Madonna and showtunes. But I digress, Stargate: Atlantis came on, and I was hooked, that led me to start catching up on the Stargate SG-1 shows I had missed (almost 7 seasons) and was pretty much hooked on those immediately as well.
So fast forward to about 3 years ago or so ,my New Years Eve plans of endless tweeking were shattered by my health. Crystal Meth had obviously fucked my body up to such an extreme that I was bed ridden for two weeks. ANYWHOO I had returned all my netflix movies and hadn't gotten back any in time for New Years Eve, and so as I am flipping through the channels and stopped because I saw an ad for Stargate: Atlantis on the SciFi channel, after it was done I notice I have stumbled upon a show recapping the first season of Battlestar Galactica, and I fall in love immediately.
Of course being a big ol' fag, I love all the drama it has in it, but I feel that it's much more than just a bunch of humans and robots fighting in outer space. I feel that the writers have done such a beautiful job of incorporating real life situations into this scifi universe. I mean their parallel of the insurgents suicide bombers on New Caprica was a brilliant mirror to what was going on around the world at the time. Something that hit close for me was when humans had partnered up with cylons, and how they were ostracized, I'm not sure that the writers were trying to make it a gay parallel, but as a gay man I sure did take it that way.
On that note, I do wish that scifi had some frackin gay characters for christ's sake! I mean, it doesn't have to be a big storyline, like the usual “special episodes” that TV shows do, and then the gay characters are never to be heard of again! Just incorporate a gay citizen, and have him go about doing the usual space-y things. That would be a refreshing take on sci phi for me. But for now I will settle for my last ten episodes of Battlestar, and wonder what the hell I'm gonna watch after it's done since Atlantis has also signed off. I guess I'll just have to look forward to the new Star Trek movie. Anyway may the Gods bless us with a great couple of episodes!

I'm obssesive when just the thought of you comes up

Alright, so Wednesday we had a new student join our little band of misfits at night school, and I thought he was yummy! That is putting it mildly actually. Whenever I meet a man I map out our whole relationship in my head. I imagine how our first flirtation will be, then how we will start dating, how our dates are gonna be, who's moving in with whom, are we gonna get a pet together, are we gonna have an open relationship, what our first fight will be like, where will we get married, will we adopt one or two kids, etc.
The school environment facilitated my talking to him since there are only 8 or so of us in the class total, but when I start crushing on guys at meetings for example ,I am a total doofus! It can be weeks, even months till I get the balls to actually introduce myself to the guy, I think the main reason for me to not talk to them for such a long time is that I like to keep the mystery of what the guy is really like, and how he will probably not live up to my head's standards. For example the guy in my class, I found out tonight, is straight...and of course I was disappointed, not because I really thought we had a chance of ever being something, but because I was enjoying the fantasy that my head was creating, it's a lot easier for me to live out my life that way I guess. I would like to change that, and start dating for real. People keep telling me that you shouldn't date in early sobriety, but i'm so antsy just because the last time I was in a relationship, President Bush was still popular, if that tells you anything!! I know, I know...someday my prince will come, but WHEN!? I want him NOW DADDY!

Try not to get worried, try not to turn onto problems that upset you,,,

I am quite the big worrier, I most likely learned that from my mother, she is the picture of a worrier. It has been known to take over my life, I try to fix other people instead of working on fixing myself. And something I learned in rehab was that you can't love others without loving yourself first. So it's been really hard for me go about my life when one of my closest friends in the world has been MIA, and I don't mean he's on tour with the singer, or chatting it up with the Golden Girls in MIAmi....I just mean he has fallen off the face of the earth. To those of you who don't have friends or family members with drug problems, then you may not be familiar with the fact that when we are on drugs we tend to disappear on our loved ones. I have been MIA on my friends and family countless amounts of times, and I guess maybe I'm having a taste of my own medicine. I spoke to this said friend about a week and a half ago briefly and he said he was still out there tweeking it up, and one thing I can tell you was that he sounded so sad, desperate to get back to a life where he is loved for who he is, and not for what he has (drugs, sex, etc.)
A couple of months ago something like this would have completely taken over my life, in fact when I first went to rehab 4 years ago, I left the rehab and sobriety because one of my close friends had relapsed and I spent days trying to track him down all over the city, when I finally did find him, at a seedy motel in West Hollywood, instead of calling my sponsor, or a friend in the program I picked up and outright joined him. I didn't come back into the program for another two and a half years or so. I used to think of myself as Captain Save-a-ho, trying to nurture big ol' messes into a normal state of being. Boy did I fail at that, and it wasn't till this last go around in rehab that I learned how to take care of myself first, how to put myself first. So I believe that that's what i've been doing lately. I am still going to school, I am still going to meetings, I am still hanging out with my friends who ARE sober. I still worry about my confidant, and want nothing more than to have him back with me, so we can go back to gaying it up around town listening to Cher; but all I can do is just let him know that I am here for him when he's ready and that I love him SO fucking much!

Where my girls at?

So yesterday I got my first F (I would like to say it was my first one ever, but that would be a lie, DAMN YOU trigonometry!!) in school. The reason I got it is simple, I don't know any girls. See last Friday we had our first test on a real person, now all we've learned so far are women's haircuts so we had to bring in a girl ourselves, immediately after getting the assignment I looked through my phone and found only ONE woman's name on there (my mother and sister don't count) and she no longer lives in LA. So one of the girls who works in the retail store at school said she would get me and this other girl at school a couple of models for our test. So the day before our test I asked if we were still on (I admit I should have checked earlier in the week) and she told me that her friends had canceled. I was all bent out of shape trying to find someone with long hair to use for Friday, with no avail. So I just didn't go to school that day, cause I was gonna get an F either way with no model there, instead I did some home work, and went to go see Rachel Getting Married (which I FUCKING LOVED btw), luckily I will get to make up for it in the next couple of weeks.
This event did make me start to think why I don't have any girlfriends, and the answer is pure and simple I don't like girls. Don't get me wrong, women I love, it's just a lot of these LA girls my age act so bimbo-y and stupid. I can barely tolerate when boys do it, but girls just annoy me when they are all giggling and going “like OH MY GOD, did you watch the Hills last night!? Can you believe what Spencer fucking did to Heidi, like WOW” I can hear my friends right now saying: “But thats how YOU act”...TRUE, but i'm me...I mean I guess its probably true what they say that you hate in others what you don't like about yourself. Also I shouldn't just write off all girls cause of what they look like. So I guess i'm gonna open my mind into opening my life to include girls in it.
Something I don't want though to be honest is to have a Will & Grace relationship, as funny as that show was I used to find myself yelling at Will half the time “DUMP THAT BITCH ALREADY”...those two were in DIRE need of a CODA meeting(co-dependents anonymous). The last time I had a fag hag in my life was in college (shout out to my girl Melinda Gallucci) and i'm fine with that. Maybe I should just try a new way of having girl friends, smart funny women who have some substance to them, and with long hair of course.
BTW I've never watch an episode of the Hills, i've just heard their fucking names repeatedly and figured that would be a show that vapid brainless bimbos would watch

A New Day Has Come...

As I get ready to go to bed tonight at 230 in the morning I am grateful that I have gotten through another day drug free; and today was quite the stressful one for me. It started calmly enough by heading over to my sponsor's for our weekly meeting, and that went quite well, but the rest of my day was one of doubt, realization, and acceptance. The first little bump in the road was when a friend of mine asked me to cut his hair. Mind you i've only been in school for 5 weeks and have had no hair experience before in my life. It was supposed to have been an easy trim of the hair, but him being obsessive compulsive and me being a zygote in haircutting did not a good combo make. I was sweating like Amy Winehouse going through customs from the stress, and lo and behold I fucked it up, and he proceeded to ask me to just shave it all off, which I did . He said it was no big deal, which I believed , but I still beat myself up, it totally created so much doubt in me as to weather I will be a great hairdresser someday or not.
Cut to hours later going to my old apartment in West Hollywood to get my car jumped so I could get a friend of mine to drive it to my sober living's neighborhood (I still haven't gotten my drivers license back from my DUIs), first the battery died midway home, and we had to get towed the rest of the way home via rope, not truck (which I don't really recommend for anyone) and because we didn't want to hit some old lady crossing the street (your welcome you old coot) we swerved suddenly and my car hit my friends car and left quite the little dent on him. ANYWAY, when I got home I realized that it was the last bit of my past life that I had left. It saddened me for a while, but then I realized that even though in that life I had a car, and a one bedroom apartment, I didn't have any real friends. When I was out using I couldn't get anyone to go with me to the movies , let alone take time out of their day to help me move my car. So even though I find myself shopping at the 99 cent store quite often (something I SWORE I would never do before) I welcome this new day with open arms.

Who am I anyway? Am I my resume? That is a picture of a person I don't know...

I am a 29 year old gay (hence the Chorus Line reference above) jewish (hence the OY) puertorican (hence the PAPI) living in Los Angeles, CA. I am also HIV and HEP C positive, and a crystal meth addict in recovery.
A little history about me, I was technically born in Bogota, Colombia (South America) I was immediately adopted by Alan and Marilu Rapoport of San Juan, Puerto Rico; so even though I was born in Colombia I consider myself puertorican because that is where I was raised. My childhood was great, I was the youngest of three ( I have one sister Millie, and one brother Willie) , the baby of the family, and therefor quite the spoiled boy. My parents have always been supporting of everything, my artistic tendencies and then the gay thing when they found out. I went to an arts boarding school in Natick, MA to study musical theater; after graduating high school I tried a year of college at Wagner in Staten Island, NY; that didn't last for long. I tried a conservatory in Manhattan as well, but nothing seemed to stick with me.
I then fell into the club world by mistake, I started handing out fliers for a party called 1984 in the East Village, from there I became assistant to Chip Duckett (the promoter) in his PR firm; at some point after that we came up with this idea for a party where straight out pop of the day was played, NO REMIXES EVER! We called this little idea Pop Rocks! , I being the most knowledgeable in current pop music was delegated to DJ, after a couple of months in the basement at the Pyramid Club, we moved to Flamingo East where the party grew and grew and soon became THE it party for college boys and their fag hags, we got written up in all kinds of magazines, we were even mentioned on VH1 and Rolling Stone. Anyway while my life looked fabulous to anyone who looked at me, I had been exposed to cocaine by my friends and co-workers; which one infamous night in 1999 led me to being introduced to cyrstal meth at a bathhouse in NYC. I quickly fell in love with it, and was able to handle it quite well for a good couple of years. Then September 11th happened, I grew weary of the world we were living in and began using more heavily, also I had moved in with my boyfriend of the time Michael, who I felt was my soul mate to the point where I proposed to him, which he sort of accepted. Looking back on it we didn't know much about each other to have made such a big step, which I guess maybe he figured out because he decided to move back to New Jersey. After he left, my drug use escalated immensely, to the point where I had start shooting up; and let me tell you after I did so...all bets were off, my life quickly began to crumble.
NYC was kicking my ass, and I pulled what they call in AA/CMA a geographic, I moved to LA in September 2004 where I did my first stint at rehab. I managed to weasel my way out of there (since my parents were paying for my whole life at this point) and began using again for almost 3 years. I came back to sobriety in January 15th of 2007. I managed to stay crystal meth free for one year one month and one week, somewhere in the middle of this sobriety I decided I wasn't an alcoholic and started to drink again, this worked for a while but soon caught up with me in the form of two DUI's. Anyway so in February of 2008 I decided to go ahead and start tweeking again, I was out this time till August 29th.
My new life began when I heard a knock on the door to my trashy west hollywood apartment, and finding my sister and brother in law at my door, telling me that I needed to do something about my problem, their love and support was my moment of clarity and I thank God for them and my parents every day, without them I wouldn't be where I am today. I threw away all my drugs and paraphernalia on August 30th, and I checked into rehab on September 2nd ,the same one I had attended previously, and after graduating 2 months later, I moved into their sober living. On December 1st I began attending The Aveda Institute to work towards getting my cosmetology license . So what the hell will my blog be about? Well it'll be my diary, where I will try to keep as honest as possible. I will blog about recovery, life in sober living, school, friends, family, music, dance, theater,politics, TV, my struggles in finding a man, in finding a job, in dealing with bitches in the program...ANYTHING that comes to my mind that particular day I am blogging, it may be trivial or it may be insightful, who the hell knows? As you can tell I am not the best writer in the world, but i'm working with what I got, and if ONE person gets something out of it then it will be worth it.