Maybe I'm addicted, I'm out of control...but you're the only reason I'm trying...

I am so fucking excited that tonight marks the official beginning of the 2009 TV season! TV is truly my first addiction and I don't plan on ever doing anything about it, some of my favorites are coming back: How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, NCIS, Ghost Whisperer and Family Guy to name a few, there is also a show that I just became a fan off over the summer, that one is Bones, and of course Glee goes without saying as being one of my favorite new shows, which was created by the people who brought us Popular a while ago (one of my all time favorite shows) and of course there is the crop of new shows that I am looking forward to seeing: NCIS: LA, Flash Forward, Stargate: Universe, Eastwick and mid season replacement V! Tonight I already saw one of the newer shows I was interested in, and that one is Accidentally on Purpose, which is a sitcom on CBS starring Jenna Elfman, whom I LOVE from one of my ultimate fave shows Dharma & Greg (since I long to meet MY Greg sometime) it was cute, and promising, it has a cute premise: woman breaks up with commitment-phobic boyfriend, has a one night stand with a YOUNG guy from a bar, and gets pregnant with his kid,then ex boyfriend wants to get back together...the pilot was quite promising, but it's still to early to say whether it'll be able to keep bringing the funny week after week. I am just so grateful for my TiVo, and may I just briefly go on and on about my favorite little computer program, Tivo Desktop Plus!!?? What with my busy school/work/meeting schedule I don't always have time to watch ALL the things my TiVo records for me, so I can just transfer whatever show I wanna watch onto my computer and then convert it to an mp4 file so that I can watch it anywhere I take my Zune with me! I love the damn thing, because I have been able to take all the musical numbers from Glee and turn them into little music videos for myself, so fucking fun! Anyway, off I go to watch HIMYM and BBT before bed!

Last night I partied like it was 5769!

Don't worry kids, I did not “party” last night I was merely adapting a popular song for comical purposes of conveying what I did last night, which was I went to temple and partook in Rosh Hashana services at Kol Ami! I hadn't been to temple in a while, I know...bad bad Jew, but it totally was an amazing and spiritual experience for me. It made me contemplate my year, which has been one of some turmoil but in general has been great.

The temple that I go to is amazing, the rabbi is an amazing lesbian and the cantor is just to DIE FOR! His voice and the musical arrangements that he comes up with are just so moving and genius. My friend Rob, who got me into services for free offered to help me get a membership at our congregation (which is normally a very expensive thing) and I am definitely interested, the only thing holding me back is that I haven't officially converted to judaism. You see in judaism you're supposed to be your mother's religion and in Christianity your supposed to be your father's religion so I'm technically not supposed to have a religion at all. I went to church till I was around 10 or so, after which I could not handle all the hate that I heard from the priest, it confused me because my abuela (my mother's mother) was so religious and full of love, I could not understand why she belonged to such a hateful religion. I then learned that the religion itself isn't hateful, or at least it doesn't have to be. Anyway, I felt that judaism at least non orthodox judaism was far more welcoming than many other religions I have encountered, and the one I can identify with the most. I will most likely take a class at temple that is kind of an introduction to judaism and hopefully when I am done with school at Aveda, I will be able to fully take on classes to officially convert to judaism. I am by no means, a Torah thumper ( in fact I couldn't possibly quote you ANYTHING from the holy book) but I believe in this loving and caring God that I have been exposed to at Kol Ami, and look forward to growing not only as a man, but as a spiritual being.

It being Saturday, I will share with you a song that I had totally forgotten about till this fierce lady came out with her last album, and I went back to her older shit, I totally love this song, and would love sharing it with you, here is Robyn with “Show me Love”!

A sad state of affairs, this place could use a little repair...

I could say I am surprised, but then that would be a lie, I get home today from having an amazing evening with some friends to hear that they are canceling the meeting at my rehab, because they “allowed” me to take a cake there. I can understand them going on the record as being against my taking a cake, but to cancel a meeting that a lot of people depend on is just so fucking sad. Some of these people who have positions of “power” in recovery really let those positions get to their heads. I was going to take someone's advice and just stay quiet, and go to my meetings and get what I need from them and thats it, but that would be denying who I really am. People are just so fucking stupid with power sometimes!

I had an amazing session with my therapist today, which really cleared up a lot of things. I told him everything that had gone on this last week, with my controversy and to say he was enraged would be an understatement, this is a man who has 20+ years of sobriety, so it's not like he's someone ignorant to what 12 step programs are about. He likened those who are so angry about my taking a cake to people who wanted to pass Proposition 8, and extremist bible thumpers; who think that their way is THE way the program should be, when there is NOTHING in the 12 steps or traditions that mentions anything along these lines, as a matter of fact there is nothing in any of the books that even mentions celebrations of sobriety milestones. People say that drinking a glass of wine, or beer here and there is still affecting your head from thinking clearly. With that argument we should also be free of cigarettes, coffee, food, sex, should people who overindulge or stuff their feelings in addictive ways be prevented from taking cakes too? “Last week you shared about those 12 anonymous loads you took in a bush so you shouldn't take a cake, because that wasn't sober behavior” could be an argument made under that guise. It is just enraging to me how self important people who have time can be.

I will also repeat something I have said before, would you like me to start putting out lists of people who I KNOW for a fact have had alcohol, and even meth for that matter who have taken cakes for YEARS, when they barely have one under these small minded rules!? I am practicing MY PROGRAM of honesty, maybe the answer is to do what NYC does, not have sobriety milestones celebrations, how would you like THAT!? Then you would take away from all those new comers who have no idea what this lame bullshit debate is all about, people who have one or two days still coming down off of meth who see us bickering over somebody taking a cake!!?? A GOD DAMN CAKE!! You are more than welcome to use me as a cautionary tale if you want after I take a cake, tell them how my program is wrong all you want, but I am secure in the fact that I have not put a needle, pipe, straw, bump full of meth anywhere near me in over a year, and HURRAH for that! I am going to school, and taking care of business! So go ahead and put my program down all you want, I could really give two shits about what you have to say about it.

Imagine this scenario, a newcomer goes to his first meeting EVER, he is tired of getting fucked up on meth, his life has clearly become unmanageable and pathetic because of this horrendous drug he has been putting in his body for years, he doesn't think that alcohol is a problem for him, he hasn't really thought about drinking as an escape from his problems or feelings, he simply likes a glass of wine with dinner or the occasional Cosmo. He comes into a room where he expects love and kindness and help for his meth problem, but people keep yelling at him that he has to do it their way, or ELSE; so this guy doesn't come back into a meeting, and maybe he stays off meth for a bit, but he doesn't have a group of friends who know what he is going through, no one to share with when he craves that meth pipe every night, someone to call with his problems, so he just goes back to getting high over and over again. This should be a program of love and ACCEPTANCE, and it pains me to think that some people may not get the opportunity to make their lives better because somebody disagrees with the way I do MY program.

The end, is so much harder, when brought about by friends...

So as I mentioned yesterday, 8 years ago today I did something that forever changed my life. It was the day after we were attacked in NYC, the reality of it was slowly settling in. I had been partying recreationaly by then for about a year and a half now, keep it to once or twice a month at the most, and only on weekends. I was dealing with depression, though I hadn't started taking medicine for it. I was severely depressed and the tragic events had made me loose all faith and hope in humanity. I remember vaguely going to “party” with some hot little muscle boy on the Upper West Side for a while, but then I got a phone call from a friend of mine who lived in this palatial West Village penthouse, we had partied many times together, and he had offered to slam me many times before (slam is slang for shooting up, or injecting a drug intravenously) I had declined him, as I didn't want to be one of those kind of junkies; but as what little self respect and love that I had left inside me weakened I accepted his offer this time, and so began the beginning of my downward spiral. I remember feeling that first rush, how overwhelming it was, how “right” it felt, how I had finally found nirvana. Looking back on that day, I thankfully have mostly disgust rumbling around my body and mind. I often wonder where my life would have been had I never taken that first hit off the needle, but I never regret it, as it has brought me on the journey that I am on today.

Back then, I felt like I had joined an exclusive club. It's funny to me that before I shot up I looked at those who did as the lowest of the low, and felt such pity and disgust for them, but as soon as I became one of them, my feelings changed. Not that I felt that now that I was one of them, they weren't so bad, but the fact was that I was so proud of myself to be the lowest of the low. I can't believe how much my mind was warped by that awful drug. I am so happy to not be in that frame of mind anymore, but to be proud of where I am today, METH FREE for over a year now, it is so much clearer for me today that NO ONE, can fucking take that away from me. NO ONE!

This video, takes me back to college, one year before these tragic events, it's of a simpler time in my life. Here is Skid Row, with I Remember You!

Eight years ago today I woke up late (as always), and turned on my TV to NY1 while I got ready for work. I saw people standing outside there cars on the New Jersey side of the Holland Tunnel saying that this was one of the most horrifying things they had ever seen, I screamed at them “oh get over it, so they closed the Holland Tunnel again, stop being such whiny little bitches!” but then the reporter began explaining what had happened hours earlier, and they began showing the footage of the first plane hitting the tower. My knees instantly buckled, and I began to well up with emotion. I skipped my morning shower, and got dressed and ran to my office. I tried calling my parents on the way to work, but all cell reception was down. I could see a big cloud of smoke just rushing out of the downtown area (which was close to my office), when I got into the office my coworkers were all stunned as I was, and we did not know what to do with ourselves. I tried calling my parents again from my work phone, but that wasn't working either. I was in a panic, I did not know what to do, because I knew that my parents would be worried about me. I signed onto AOL and saw that somebody I went to college with was online, so I IM'd him and asked him to please call my parents, and tell them that I was OK. He did so, and as he acted as a mediator for me and my mother over the phone/internet I began sobbing uncontrollably.

I can barely recall the people I've slept with in the last couple of months, who I partied with two years ago, but I can remember the days surrounding September 11th impeccably. I remember that the night before I went to Musical Mondays with my friend Bryan, and that afterwards we went to have our usual post musical dinner at Cafeteria. I remember being in my office, when a friend of my boss' who worked near the towers walked up to our office covered in soot, and we had to move all the fliers and boxes we had in the shower so that he could clean himself off, I also remember what devastating act I performed the next day which I will blog about tomorrow, because that deserves a blog onto itself. I also remember that though this was meant as a devastating attack on our country, it brought us so much closer together for a while. There is this special bond between people that were there on that day, that can never be broken. NYC was forever changed, and I was part of that change, I will never forget that day. It is so weird for me to be out here, in California where most people don't “get” what this day meant to us new yorkers that were there, I am definitely in need of a meeting tonight, and in need of love, and I am sure that I will find it.

I'm not gonna take it, NO I ain't gonna take it, I'm not gonna take it...ANYMORE

Oh what a night, I hadn't planned on going to a meeting at my old rehab, much less taking a cake for one year off of meth at it, but seeing my good friend and supporter James there, inspired me to do so, and what a decision THAT turned out to be.

So as all of you know, I have had some drinks in the last year or so, I haven't hidden it, in fact I wasn't caught, I told on myself when I did drink. So I have been very open, and honest about the fact that I have drunk in the last year and week. So, as I was in the kitchen unpacking my cake, I was pulled aside by the secretary of the meeting, who had been approached by a number of people who didn't think I should be allowed to take a cake at this meeting. My inner addict wanted to RUN the fuck out of there, but I was given a tool in this program called contrary action. So I sat my ass down, and let God take it into his hands. After the speakers both shared their experience, strength and hope the meeting came to a screeching halt as we spent 15 minutes debating on whether or not I should take a cake. I was honestly ready to not take a cake, but surprisingly when the vote came up the majority voted for me to take my cake. It was so surreal to me that this was going on, I mean never before had I seen anybody's sobriety being voted on. It was so funny to me that people got to vote on my taking a cake, where I was honest about what I have done in the last year. I know of plenty of people who have taken cakes for years of sobriety and I know for a fact that they have had alcohol, and even meth. I decided to be honest and take my cake because to me it is a huge accomplishment. I am extremely proud of what I have done in this past year, and it surprises me how little it matters to me what other people think of me, and my program. In fact having half the meeting centered around me and MY program, really gave me quite the ego boost, which I need to get back in check because the world does NOT revolve around me. I am truly grateful for what occurred tonight, and it has indeed strengthened my spirit, and my self esteem.

OMIGOD, OMIGOD YOU GUYS! I am one!

So my one year off meth was last Sunday, and I sort of chickened out to go to the meeting I usually go to on Monday to take a cake for one year, but I finally got my balls back on Wednesday and decided to take a cake then, I also took a cake tonight at the meeting I started last November. It has been a great eye opening experience for me, to finally have my balls and bravery enough to go into a room with people who disagree with me, and judge me for my program, and take a cake and acknowledging that a year ago August, 30th I stopped getting fucked up on meth. It was truly an amazing experience having my mother, and sister here sharing with me their pride in me, they brought out a side of me that I hadn't seen in a while.

Something came to mind sometime this week while I was on my cake tour, and that is that not once in this whole year had I come close to doing meth. The last time I had a year, I had gone to my dealer's house twice, I went over to hang with someone who was using in order to get high once, and also I put a pipe in my mouth once, but thank God that the torch was out of gas, so I couldn't light it. This year I have had focus, and a purpose in life, and it has just been an incredible and amazing year. I am truly grateful for my cleanliness and the path that I am on now.

So I haven't posted a video in a while, and since it was my birthday I will be the musical theater dork that I am and love to be, last week on Tuesday I went to go see Legally Blonde: The Musical and I was expecting it to be mediocre and totally tacky, but it surprised me, very much like the movie it had a heart and some cute acting, so here is the opening number from it which I LOVE!