Thanksgiving came and went with the usual fanfare and even more usual suspects--except Kelly, first time to the misfit meal. As always there was great food, fun times and a lot of televised sporting events... Things of note that happened included Kelly and Bess getting drunk, mildly in Kelly's case and not so mild in Bess. However, I couldn not drink because of the meds but had a grand time with Bess and dancing wildly in the yard to the neighbors party--the boys house was very low key this year and little music... That being said, it was fun and wild to enjoy someone else's drunken spree.... Though I don't think Mick (her fiance) was quite as pleased at the end of the evening....

Another fun development was that Jonesy was out of town on a "special road trip". I didn't think much of this and figured it was either a girl or some strange geeky comic/film thing that wouldn't really impress me. Well, when Kelly, Lizzy, and I were having a little nap time Skylar came in and made some mention of the trip. Kelly was curious and Skylar allowed us to guess about what it was and gave yes/no answers.... After awhile, and bewtten the three of us, we figured out what it was and Skylar gave us a stern lecture about not spilling the beans. In particluar, he attacked me and said to keep my mouth shut about it. Lizzy and Kelly both laughed and argeed that I was the gossip. They all seemed to miss the fact that Skylar himself had spilt the beans and that he would be the one to blame if any of us spilt the secert. That, and I didn't think that Jonesy's thing would be coming up in my life anytime soon. We're not close and he's not on the front page of people I even would bother to talk about.

And what would Thanksgiving be without me fucking up? I was taking with the smokers outside and somehow the topic of Mac (the new roommate) came up. Kelly asked what she was doing and I said that she and Billie (the x-roomie) were at the apartment, making cakes and pigging out to bad movies. Well, Willis (Billie's ex) was there and he got pissed that Billie was even brought up... Needless to say, he left early and I felt like crap.... So per the norm, I managed to ruin someone's thanksgiving...

Every year I make the joke about not going home cause the holidays are to dysfunctional.... Well they are here too... I guess this group of friends is like a misfit family--filled with love and spite and jealously and kindess.... There's always the unexpected hand to help and the well meaning momenet gone awary. So if people do ask if I'm spending the holidays with my family the answere is yes, my hand-picked one. The one with faults and dreams and a million wonderful things....

I am a mouth piece of the religious right... I found this out the other day when, a little bored and curious, I typed my name into the AOL search engine. Imagine to my surprise when I saw a webpage quoting one of my pieces from XY. Intrigued, I visited the website and discovered that they were using excerpts of my column to prove that gays are sad, unhappy and bitter litttle creatures.... Well, after a good laugh because come on.... it is a little ironic.... I decided to see what I could do about getting myself pulled off of said webpage. Needless to say, it apprears to be a daunting task and one that I might not be able to pull off. There is a question of ownership of my piece, copyrioght, as well as several other problems with said situtation. Of course, now I am even more upset and ready to rumble and I am about to release some serious whoop-ass on some unsuspecting preacher and his wife..... The best part is this preacher is a "former" homosexual but I had to wonder--what the hell is he doing reading XY anyway? Hmm.... I really wish they had taught a class back at Emerson about copyright and one's intellencual properties.... Okay... Well, I guess I keep you all abreast of my current sitatuation..... and before I forget....


HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL. MAY YOU AND ALL WHO LOVE YOU BE BLESSED BY THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT.... (gobble, gobble....)

Just when life seems doomed to keep me down--along comes a surpirise that makes me stop and think.... Maybe I should believe in things more... So, during my recent bout of sickness I also had a panic attack. Mostly cuased by my lovely Mother... I know she meant well but when one's child can barely stop for more than a half an hour--one might think that this is not the time to call them with job postings.... As it is, I have been paniced of awhile now about my jobless situtation as have been a small core of my friends as such and part of the reason I did wait on the doctor thing was the realization that I had no insurence, no job and that the medical bills were the last thing I needed added to my plate.... But sometimes the body shuts down and one is left with no recourse...

Trying to be some type of productive after the nphone ncall with Mom, I dcided to check my pain thershold by walking to my mail box and getting some bills, junk mail and hopefully a good magazine to read while bed prone. Imagine to my surprise when I open a letter that has a check for me in it..... One from a website that I had been trying to use to get some free lance work... I had posting a couple of differnt pieces that I had, hopefully so that some editor would get a sense of my style and want to order me to whip something up.

Well, turns out that the Gay/Lesbian/Everyone else newspaper 365gay.com had bought and published one of my piece a couple of weeks ago. This was the first time I had been paid for something I wrote.... (those it was really only enough for a subway sub, a pack of smokes and a diet coke....) And it was just the boast I needed to reconfirm what I had all ready been thinking... Which was that I am a good writing and talenetd or at least lucky... Look out world, here comes Rory "Bradshaw" Lapointe. Just goes to prove that I should trsut in things a little more.....

Sorry it has ben so lon since I wrote... Just that last Wedensday I woke up and couldn't move... Uh-huh... No possible body movement. Turns out that the big bad sickness was just what I thought it was, a nasty virual infection in my intesties that caused them to swell... So it was pushing around everything else inside and making walking up right (one of the few things that seperates us from aniamlas and babies) extermly painful.

So after a long internal debate about who to call to take me to the emergency room... (when you don't have health insurence it just seems rather stupid to call for an ambluence when you won't ever be able to pay that cost) I randomly called my friend Charity to see if she was around. Turns out she was up the street hanging out at my old job and stuff. Taking this as a sign, I managed to get out what was going on and she was upset that I had waited to even ask her for help. We then spent six hours in the emergency room, during which time I blacked out once, got really crabby several times and the rest I don't remember. I then proceeded to get examed by a man older than my grandfather, who had a habit of questioning my answers to his questions. "When was the last time you were in a foreign country? Years ago.... Are you sure? Yes... Well, have you had sex with any recent immagrents recently? No, I have had sex recently... Are you sure? Yes.....) This conversation went on for about 45 minutes then I finally got some perscriptions and got out of Dodge....

Then Charity and I did the hunt for drugs and pay full price cause of no insurnce... Needless to say, my next job will have some type of benefits and I will take them.... But after a couple of vicadin and comfort food.... I did start to feel a littlke better... Though it did take me till today, four days later, to be able to sit up right long enough to write this all down.... So, I guess I'm better now... Can walk across the apartment without crying out at all... And that is a major improvement. Just in case you wanted to know.

So Skylar and Penn have a big shiny agent..... Found this out last night at Kelly and Lizzy's Monday Night Madness.... Now before anyone assumes that I have sour grapes about this new deveolpemnt.... I don't. I guess my problem is in how the whole event was handled. They made the announcement in a big way, champaigne toast and all. The room cheered them on, a slight speech was made... And this pissed me off....

I guess it is mostly because in my group of friends there is a pecking order of sorts, a line-up to popluarity, who gets supported and who doesn't. If Skylar has a screening then we all to be there but no one buys or even borrow's a magzine if someone's been published. It's just that the first time I was published nationally, in a sizable magazine, no body bottered to pick it up and only a handful even read it. I am sure of this and each time it has happened since then, the reaction has been similar. I don't want to make a whole lot of noise but it is a big deal that I did those things--had that level of success... All on my own, people writing me to say how it touched them and most of my friends can't be bothered.

And it hurts. To feel that one's art is as an important as anothers. That people just don't care, or can't be bothered to put in some effort. I think what I did was hard, important and special..... All I ask is that my friends respect that. And I do know that on some level they do but.... (It has also occured to me that the boys showed up with the champaigne, chose to make the huge effort... And then I'm the drama queen....the one who tries to hard.... go figure...)

I guess the upside is that this iccident has fueled the fire, the "bring it on" sentiment within myself.... I am a better writer, I already have done more and now I will get back into the game full time. I will be bigger than they can even dare to hope to be... So I guess it is on!!!!

Okay...sorry it has been awhile since I wrote but all the time has brought much more interesting things for me to write about... First of all.... I am sick and have been since last Thursday... And we're not talking run of the mill, grab-some-hankies-and-some-nyquil-and-stop-bitching-sick but the whole-go-to-the-doctor-after-looking-up-symptoms-on-the-internet-sick... Of course, the only funny thing about the entire sernario is that I don't get sick often but when I do, it is bad... (I have only been sick once in LA....that required anything like drugs or sleep..)

I will be honest and say that I am terrified... That what had started as a simple fever with nothing else going on...it was taken huge steps towards becoming big and nasty and I am scared of it.... I am doing my guy thing by not making the next step....because I feel slightly better though the major symptons haven't gone away and the longer I wait to see a doctor....the worse the possible treatment... (we taking surgery.....) And the best of all of this is why I am not being active.... Frankly, I am more scared of the debt I will occure if this is the big baddie it seems then of the actual sickness....

And this is crazy...it is because I have no health care, no benefits and even in my best jobs.... Th benefits were either so expensive compared to the coverage you got or so restricted.....interms of wHAt you were allowed to be covered for.... And this has started me thinking about there is a huge number of people out there with no medical insurance, people my age, friends of mine.. Just going about and living their lives and , on some level, hoping and praying that they don't get sick, or in an accident, or need anything major from a doctor.... And there are most likely people like me, who know their sick, that something is wrong, but don't go to the doctor because they are scared of how are they going to pay? Especially when it is so expensive for certain things.... And they let things go till finally something has got to give.... And it is usually their health.....

Not that I am going to do that.... Nope... NOt me....

Sorry it has been so long since the last post--and that it was rather boring too.... Have had a stressfull couple of days when it was felt as though I have been conspired against.... There was another (I know...another!!!) mistake with my unemployment and they were refusing to give me a check.. They claimed that because I had checked off the wrong box that I wasn't really working for a mjob... All this even though they called two of the places I interviewed when I went to that stupid meeting in Canoga PArk.... Well, I was upset, hyperventilated for a bit and then got down to brass tacks and forced them to cut me a check... Nonetheless, this was really annoying and not the way to start one's week....
And if that wasn't enough... I wnet to the Pier and visited Vera.... It wasn't my intention but just so happened she was there when I stopped by. It was a little strange and stuff but what can you do? I think she thinks that I just want to use her to see Enrique which isn't really true though it would be a nice side deveoplment. It lend to an inner debate as to why do I create situtations if there is no good outcome. (this does not mean that I'm doing them for the wrong reasons....just that nbothing is really going to change all that much...) Is to make up for a lack of excitement? Maybe, though I'm not that bored with things as of late... Or am I? Hmm.... I just need to get things moving agin and that will happpen soon enough.... I have a plan..... (cue swelling organ music..)

Joni's B-day party last night ended up being more fun than I thought it would be. It was hard, forcing myself to go consider how much I find her lacking at points but she was great fun last night.... And a lot of random people were there--Irene and her hollywood friends, Grant, Kelly, Willis, Benji.... Everyone got along and it was interesting just for that reason... Hmmm....

So went out with Charity tonight for dinner... She's a great friend and always a good time... I told her about the San Fran move and she seemed to respect it.. It was nice to have somebody who seemed to support me....

It was good... ANd in an interesting twist, well, just found out that Vera is working back at Pier One imports in Studio city... This is a fun development because she is not only living with Enrique (the ex who never should have been around as long as he) but because she had I have unfinished business... See, when Enrique and I broke up she picked sides, even though it was a mutal thing, even though I was friends with her first.... And of course, I want to see Enrique cause he and I have unfinished business... We were supposed to be friends but that didn't seem to happen. His ex-roomie/boyfriend told me it was because he was still in love with me..... Nice eh? So now the potenial for drama is there and who am I not to take the ball and run with it?

It is strange when you realize that the world sometimes is in your place and makes you wonder if that is the big Cosmic sign... I have been reading my friend Chloe's blog and for some strange reason...she and I are in synch without having even really talked in the last couple months... Our friendship on some level has always worked this way--being in the same space at the same time with little to no communication. Makes you wonder about soul mates or bodhisattvas... A hindu idea of a soul spilt in two and destined to reconnect...

And my friendship with Chloe has always been like this, same thoughts, same dreams, so hope and always finding something the same in each other. I still remeber exactly the first time we met... It was at a pool party at Naomi's first apartment, a welcome to La bash for newbie Emerson kids taking their first steps into the land of sun and internships. She found me by the water's edge, smoking a cigarette and drinking some scary, girlie, mixed drink.

"Lucy said I should look you up when I get to La...." The first thing she said to me. So brazen and ballsy. Like she new we were gonna be friends and that she was just jumping over the introduction hurdle... And we did just that.... In the course of an afternoon we talked nd laughed and smoked and drank and whether or not we were friends then, I knew she would be important... And she was, is, and most likely will continue to be. Even if there is space bewteen us at times....

And now she's planning to run away, up the coast, near Lucy and City Lights and the Power Arcade and millions things that I want too and I can't help but believe.... Is this that sign I have been waiting for? Maybe it is...but only Chloe would know that for sure I guess.. And now is just prep time for everything I have every wanted..... And it is good to be prepared.....?

Okay...

So I have been a little MIA the last couple of days.. The truth is that I have been trying to work out certain issues in myn own head before posting them to the world at large... Monday night I was terribly upset, on the verge of crying type of mood and helpless to change it. For all of my "it was fate" feelings about the TLA interview, I was upset that I wasn't able to do it... Especially since an hour after I got home it was bright and shiny outside and warm and just taunting me.

So as I crept in my bad mood place I decided to face certain facts. The number one is I NEED TO LEAVE LA! Not that I don't love it here and all of my friends and the weather and my beatiful cheap apartemnt and a million other things but... LA is not working out for me, it is not a place where I can have any of things that I truly want career wise, love life wise, or certain other things.

Part of me is able to act like certain things don't affect my life in Los Angeles... The not-having-a-car-thing is a much bigger thing than I ever let own. That by not having transportation I do have a harder time getting solid work, and I don't get great pay with any of the local jobs that I have taken, and instead of moving up finanically as I get older.... I'm stuck in the same place and feel trapped by certain elements of my life.

The other part of the anti-LA thing is... I want to go back to school and (car thing again) I can't seem to figure out a way to do that in La. I would love to go to San Fran, a state school, and get my degree in child developement and the child pyschology and I just think that I could do a better job of that in San Francisico where things are so dependant on cars, better pblic transportation....

The last reason is the hardest to write.... I have to find my own way, my own life away from where I am at now.... I live my life for these people, have given up certain elemants of myself, have always played the martyr, the who just nods his head and agrees to the statis quo. And this is not their fault, and I don't want anyone to read it that way... It's just I have to find who I am and that's not something I can do here.... That going home last time made me realize that I have changed alot and not in good ways--that I always knew that I wanted to do certain things and I have been hiding behind fear, mistrust and convience... And it is time to stop that. SO...

who knows....I'm working on me and it may take awhile... Why can't things be easy eh?

Fate & whatever....
SO Today I was supposed to go to the second interview with TLA--the place I was at on Thursday... I have been hemming and hawing about this job thing because it is not something that I thought I would want to do... It's sport advertising, 60 plus hours, for 6.75 an hour.... It would be different if this jon would have served some major purpose career-wise but.... I was really torn as what to do....

Then fate entered the picture.... It was raining kind of hard when I woke up, and since it was a walk to the interview--about an hour and a half.... I debated not going on in.... Then I decided that I should get ready and then if the rain has let up, I would just throw on a rain coat and go... Just give it a shot, that there was nothing else I had to do.... So I left on time, was havinga great time walking ther when about twenty minutes from the office it started to rain, rain hard....

There I am, standing in a wool suit, rain coat but no umbrella, just getting soaked... I decided to keep going towards the office and just before the final bend I look down and the blue suit has bled onto my white shirt and I see myself in a store window.... Soaking wet, hair destroyed and just looking like an idiot. (A grinning one though, cause I love the rain....) I had a choice to make... Did I blow off the interview and try to reschedule it? Did I just go to the office and try and rise above the wetness even though it would make me look dumb? Or did I just aknowledge that this was fate's way of deciding that I really didn't want this job--something I was already thinking? Well.... I didn't go in, walked all the way back home rocking out on my walk-man and am about to call the office and see if I can reschedule.... If it's not meant to be...well....what can you do?

well..just came back from the huge 7th annual Halloween party at Detriot St. I honestly think it is my favorite party of the year.... The dancing, the costumes as well as the random people you see. I had this great moment on the dance floor, surrounded by people and realized---hey these are my friends and my secondary family.. And I loved it, and them too. I don't think I have been that happy in a long time.... TGhank God for little mircales.. eh? And if you were wondering, went as a dominatrix with my Curious George Moneky all bound up... Every one loved the costum and the whip.... I had a great time.... There was also two hot guys as Adam and STeve (not Adam and Eve) and they were in next to nothing all night.... Cold but that made certain things impressive... LOL I dream of them tonight.. Yikes.

Okay... so the halloween experience has begun.... I went to Billie's party last night with Kelly, Lizzy, Dack and some other people.... I went as Paul McCrain's character from Fame.... The wig was hot but the parties were a nice warm up for the party tonite.... Hopefully will all have fun tonight..... Wish us luck..... More to come some.