Pride Begins Early

So I took on the job of planning some Pride parties with the other gay promoter in town, Craig. It's actually quite fun. Pride is all about community and unity (I just noticed that the word unity is in community, as in "communal unity," or everyone in the local to you -- the commune -- coming together in unity...nice!), and this party really represents different camps coming together to create an amazing experience for the community during Pride.

We're doing a Friday night party with Kimberly S., a Seattle favorite, a Saturday night with the return of Brian Gorr, a huge local talent with a large following and finally an afterhours party at Chapel with Rob Hall, who has attracted lots of different crowds throughout the years. This is the second year in a row I'll be going a Chapel party. Last year went well but this year will really play off the other two parties so it should be even better. The two big parties will be at Neumo's, a club that's changed drastically but that used to be Mo back in the mid-90s (get it, "New-Mo's"?) and that became AroSpace and Arena in time, both gay spaces with lots of happy memories for the boys. Craig threw a new party called Aria there a few weeks ago and we all loved what they had done with the space. Just enough like the old space to harken back to a different time and space, but just new enough to feel like a completely different place in which we can create all sorts of new memories.

Add these parties to an ever growing list of projects (let's see...there are restaurant menus to design, promotional materials for a competing Pride event at Timberline, product packaging for my friend Matt's company Body Wax, press updates for truescents, menu updates for McCormick and Schmick's...ugh, the list goes on and on) and this is one stressed out boy. It's nice to be busy but I'm hoping that July brings with it a little bit of down time. Tonight, I went to a birthday cocktail party for my new friend Ryan and his partner Anthony owns this create socially-aware media company and he says that he will always have work for me. So the idea of down time is an illusion. At the very least I'll have Africa to look forward to. Hear's to hoping Steve has enough money to go in the fall. Both of us realize it's the trip of a lifetime, and I don't want to keep putting off those sorts of experiences any longer.

Next week is my 34th birthday, and I'm feeling (and looking, incidentally) younger than ever. I'm in the best shape of my life. The only thing that I would change -- now probably not until after Pride -- is the smoking. I have total control over that but the addiction to nicotine is a mess. I'm far too stressed out right now to consider that over the next couple of weeks. I always thought I'd quit when I was 33, and I still can, but numbers like that don't seem to have much of a pull on me anymore. The biggest incentive I have to quit is so that my voice sounds better. I quit a couple of times this last month for ten day stretches and my voice sounded better and better with each passing day. I'm a fool if I don't quit soon. Well, I'm a fool anyhow but I'm really a fool if I don't drop it like a bad habit. Wait, that's exactly what it is.

More about recording my album and all the boys and goings-on later. This boy must head off to bed. Feeling very sleepy now...

You Gotta Laugh At Yourself

It's always nice to look back at posts you've done or journal entries you've written to see the confidence of somebody in the middle of making positive changes that haven't quite yet stuck. This has happened to me -- and it's no surprise that it did -- but I'd rather be in a better place, so...since I still control my own world, a better place I will attempt to get to.

Smoking has been my primary achilles heal for the past 13 years. I figured that 33 is a good year to stop being a boy and become a man, so I've made it my mission to move beyond that boyish habit, but it's proving a difficult task, I presume because of lack of will to make it so. When I'm not smoking, I feel great, it's just those times of tempation I don't seem to make it through as I would like. I've been back on the smoke for the last week or so and having another final cigarette. No big ceremony or anything, particularly this time, because I just want it to pass like anything else. I'll be recording next week and I found that when I wasn't smoking, the tone of my voice was markedly improved, so that's the primary motivation right now. Probably the best motivation I can come up with for the time being.

While I find it difficult to quit so often (3 times in the last month), I find that each time I discover a little bit more about my downfalls and a little bit more about how I can and will succeed. My free-spiritedness is my main trap, I find, with intimacy being a close second. I'm doing most everything else right for the time being and staying quite engaged with life. I'm exercising regularly, running, walking, playing my music, doing my work as I'm meant to, so everything is in place...just that one little thing.

Nothing to do but not do it. I've had problems in the past with doing certain things that I was supposed to do, but never so much difficulty NOT doing something I shouldn't do. It's quite a persistent habit, this smoking. If you have the opportunity to start, please don't. Because 13 years later you'll be trying to figure out why it's so damn hard to stop, and how much longer it will go on may seem like the great unknown quantity in your life. I have other habits I don't mind so much, but this one can go...please, go. I'm quite through with you.

You gotta laugh at yourself. We humans can be a weak lot sometimes, and it's amazing the things that occupy our minds and the time we spend each day. I can think of a hundred other things I'd rather do other than smoke. So I will.