Living Proof

What makes a blog interesting? What lures you into a particular website on a daily basis? Is it their life, their writing style, their opinionated nature, advice, or perhaps just a morbid fascination with negative controversial topics that are begging for desperate attention? I’ve found quite a few bloggers who try to be another Perez Hilton, but just don’t make the cut. Most ‘attention begging’ blogs that I have seen hardly generate any traffic at all. Their Twitter accounts are less than 100 people and their fan pages that they sadly set up are still in the two digit phase. The unfortunate part is, they’re usually well written and you can obviously see that the blogger is intelligent for the most part. But here’s the drawback in my personal opinion: they have nothing positive to say about anything. It’s all about relentlessly bashing other people for the mere sake of possibly getting noticed. While it’s fun to read tabloid-like blogs, it’s also entertaining to see a positive spin,

W hat a spectacular season premier of The A-List NY - “housewives with balls”, as they call them, on LOGO. I’m hanging on the edge of my seat every single second. If you haven’t seen the show, it gives you an idea of the gay community in an upper class environment. These are all hard working boys (and now gal), and of course, they play hard as well. I have had the pleasure of working with Ryan Nickulas, celebrity hairdresser and owner of The Ryan Darius Salon in NYC. My wife also gets her hair done by Ryan. He is an absolute pleasure to be around. No aires, no ‘acts to put on’ -- all genuine realness is what we've experienced. This goes for his best friend, TJ Kelly as well. After the season premier, I scrolled down Twitter and other networking sites plus Google to see what people were saying about the show. I understand when people don’t particularly like a show, they may comment briefly and then let it go. But these boys are really getting hit hard by jealous and resentful gay m

Have you ever heard someone talk about their past with such enthusiasm that their eyes light up? I love seeing that each time my mom talks about her childhood years growing up in Brooklyn, NY. From her playing Jax in an alley with her friends to meeting my father at a church dance when they were only seventeen years old. All of her stories are so entertaining, even when she told me she used to use two tin cans attached to a string, sending one over a clothes line in the courtyard of her mom's tenement building to reach her best friend in the apartment over on the other side. They would have conversations at night using this ancient method. Back then, creativity was forced upon you. There were no cell phones, texting, computers or social networking sites to see what your friends were doing every single second of the day. You had to literally walk a few blocks to “check their statuses”. There was no such thing as an “obesity epidemic” - people actually walked to communicate, because

Every one of us have to go through some type of adaption phase, whether it’s a change of job, relationship or moving to a new location. Whatever it is, it’s not always easy. For some, it can be a relief - a happiness - ‘a long time coming’ type of transition, and for others, it can be the most frightening experience ever. Everyone’s different. I’ve done every one of these transitions mentioned above and I have come out of it alive, thank God. During the transition, it probably would have been best to wrap me up in a straight jacket and throw me in a padded room. Job change, relationship change, moving - all of those require time to adjust. All of them require patience. All require work - work towards sanity at some point. It’s especially difficult for me since I have zero patience and want everything done asap. ...Unrealistic. Since we have moved over to our new location, there have been a ton of things done, as far as renovating, which took time, money, patience, blood and sweat. Yo

Have you ever just sat there thinking about your life and wondering when it will ever ‘work out’? And truthfully, nobody really understands your situation, because they’re knee deep or higher in their own problems. “But my problems are so much worse.” ... Are they? Is your cross too heavy to bear? The young man was at the end of his rope. Seeing no way out, he dropped to his knees in prayer. “Lord, I can't go on,” he said. “I have too heavy of a cross to bear." The Lord replied, “My son, if you can't bear its weight, just place your cross inside this room. Then, open that other door and pick out any cross you wish.” The man was filled with relief. 'Thank you, Lord,” he sighed, and he did as he was told. Upon entering the other door, he saw many crosses, some so large the tops were not visible. Then, he spotted a tiny cross leaning against a far wall. “I'd like that one, Lord,” he whispered. And the Lord replied, “My son, that is the cross you just brought in.” Sha

Many times, I’ve found that it can be extremely difficult to write during certain periods of my life, especially when I was separated or going through a breakup, it was hard to write down all of my feelings and share it with the world. It was emotional, raw, angry, sad, vulnerable - all things that would make a writer “great”, or perhaps relatable. I remember I had written a post called, “Napkins”. Many people commented or emailed me about it, but one of my favorite writers had text me and said, “Wow, that was a really powerful post, Deb.” I deleted it because I didn’t want the person I spoke of to be worthy of my ‘ink’, or perhaps to have the feeling that she has some sort of faux power over me. The one thing I have that she didn’t was a medium to outlet my feelings and get advice and comments. Although it was such a long time after we parted, I would sometimes get overwhelmed by unanswered questions, lack of closure if you will. The reason why I’m writing this is because a wonderful

A friend of mine found me on Facebook the other day. We were catching up from years gone by. We went to high school together and even worked together for quite some time, but we never hung out or called one another like buddies for some reason. Now, as adults, we find ourselves in similar situations and lifestyles. I had no clue she was gay, and she didn’t know I was either. We both dated guys way back when, so it never occurred that we were both playing for the same team. There was one thing she said while flipping through my virtual photo albums on Facebook. “You really look happy, Deb.” Isn’t it funny how we glare at photos, assuming somebody’s life is ‘this way’, when sometimes, it can actually be a whole different story behind those pixels. Even with celebrities, they show their best faces, smiling, posing for the camera showing you their best side. God forbid a camera should catch me in the midst of a PMSing moment. People would definitely ask, “I wonder if she’s ok? I wonder i

(Madelene being such a great interviewer as I toggle around with that heavy camera in Ryan Nickulas' apartment in NYC.) This is just an update on our documentary, “ Gays & Lesbians of Faith ”. It was moving along quite well, until I hit a few road bumps that I wasn’t aware of, on the technical side and well, on the legal side too. While uploading extra segments up on my Youtube solely for the film, one of them was rejected due to copyright infringement. I was really confused because I was using royalty free music from www.freeplaymusic.com . You’d think it would be ‘free’ to use, but it’s not. You can use them for free if it’s a home movie that stays home - literally - no uploads for public viewing. This has been a major eye-opener for me as I had to remove many videos with background music from this website, however for the film in its entirety, I will be either playing my own music with my guitar or fiddling around with a music program I have on my Mac. I can hire someone

Michelle Bachman, the GOP congresswoman has put her foot down on gay marriage, and yes, pornography too. This may backfire on her, if she only knew the amount of smut on many right wing conservatives' hard drives. She should have just stuck to her guns with her attempt to ban gay marriage only. Now she’s included every single person on this planet, well maybe except the pope. In the New York Daily News , it states, “The GOP congresswoman is the first presidential candidate to sign a pledge that calls for banning all forms of pornography and gay marriage. It also requires fidelity between spouses.” So not only does she want to ban gay marriage and pornography, but she wants to stop infidelity as well. Honestly, this woman is off her rocker if she thinks she can control the lives of people living in a free country. She has to be out of her mind if she thinks she’s going to get any votes whatsoever. Being in a lesbian marriage myself, my wife and I have actually voted for president

(Above is a photo of Lashandra Armstrong & her son. Courtesy of The Associated Press.) A friend of mine had written a post about her distaste of the Casey Anthony verdict. There are tons of blogs and social networks are buzzing something fierce about this. I had a debate with someone regarding whether or not it was a good idea to talk about this case, or if it was healthy to even be fed by the media. He has a point to a degree, but this case took a whole other turn, in my opinion of course. I’ve heard a lot of people ask, “Well what about all the other children who are killed or missing? Why aren’t people talking about them?” See, if Casey Anthony was found guilty, this would have been a good example for many mothers out there thinking about doing the same. It would have been the voice for many untold cases and tragedies, if the verdict served justice.. .but it didn’t. For instance, not too far from where I live in Newburgh, NY was a woman named Lashandra Armstrong. She killed he

Words have power. Your thoughts that trickle into your words can manifest in your real world. For instance, through my own experience not too long ago, I was dealing with a lot of health issues. I always said, “Ugh I feel like crap” or “I don’t feel well” - negative statements that in fact, kept me feeling sick all the time. One day, I finally had enough and decided to change my thought process. I even thanked God for healing me before I was ever even healed, which instills faith. I would get up in the morning and say, “Thank you God for healing me!” I would also say, “I feel great today” - even if I had a pain where my gallbladder was supposed to be removed. I had a lot of stomach issues as well, which were all related. By the power of positive thinking and faith, my stomach problems seemed to have subsided. Don’t get me wrong, I still have issues from time to time, but it’s so much better than every single day being hurled over in some corner crying in pain. I tried explaining thi

As the old saying goes, opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. Although I do understand all sides, I also have to wonder about the opinions on the behavior of the lawyers, which sparked quite a controversial thread on my Facebook page. I put a status message up that said, “Casey Anthony’s defense team is out at a bar celebrating. Hrmm... Almost as insensitive as Casey out at a bar while her child was missing. Just sayin’...” Of course I was glued to Nancy Grace, who drilled the story about the celebration into a deep hole, but it does raise some pretty good questions. Why not take your celebration somewhere behind closed doors a bit farther than one block down the road from the courthouse, especially with this highly sensitive case full of mothers clutching their little ones, crying out for Caylee’s justice? That’s all I was trying to say. I absolutely agree that all lawyers have a right to celebrate a job well done, but in this case, wouldn’t have been a bit more tasteful to