Happy Birthday Eliot!

It is my friend Eliot's birthday. I have not spoken with him in a few weeks and I want to wish him well on his special day.

Eliot and I have been friends since 1999 when we were both based in Chicago together while flying the friendly skies. We met on a flight from Vegas to Chicago late one night. I cornered him and dragged information begrudgingly from him. We were both retreads (products of other airlines that had come to United in search of a better life), both on reserve, and both hating life in Chicago. A month or so later, there was a big flight crew party in my apartment building. Little did I know, Eliot lived in said apartment temporarily and we reconnected.

Shortly after this, Eliot got his transfer to New York and I returned to San Francisco. We stayed in touch and became good friends. I moved to New Jersey a little while after 9/11 and Eliot and I got to hang out in New York City on my off days. I don't know why I moved to NJ, but I did. I quickly realized the error of my ways and headed back west. In the past couple of years since I left that glamorous yet low paying profession, Eliot has visited me frequently when he has layovers in San Francisco.

Eliot is 34 years young today. I hope he has a wonderful day and knows that he is loved by many, many people. Happy Birthday my friend. I wish you a birthday filled with much laughter, happiness, and good fortune.

The Songs o' my Life

We all have songs that remind us of different times in our lives. I've decided to compile a list of songs that take me back in time.

Silly Love Songs by Wings. My sisters used to put this 45 on and listen to it over and over. I remember the pattern of the sticker on the 45. I remember playing with the record player and switching the speed from 33 to 45 to 78. I must have been about 4 or so and we lived in Florida. My sisters also were big fans of Shawn Cassidy.

Everybody Wants You by Billy Squier. My sisters used to listen to this song a lot too. My sister Melissa had an ugly parakeet she named Larry Bird. I know, how original. Still, they used to put this song on and Larry used to go crazy for this song. I'm still not sure to this day if Larry truly liked the song or was just in pain due to some note Billy Squier was hitting.

Wanna Be Starting Something by Michael Jackson. Jason Leverone had a birthday party in July ,1984. His parents got him a Walkman with the cassette Thriller. I was invited to the slumber party even though I was the nerdy kid in the neighborhood. Most of the boys were busy trying to smuggle in a copy of Playboy and stay up all night. I was busy trying to get some sleep. This was the beginning of a long phase of me not fitting in with the boys. I always felt different, but those differences grew as we all got older. I do remember this was my first introduction to Michael Jackson though. (My parents were not exactly the modern music types.) After this, Thriller seemed to blow up on the music charts. I remember one of my friends told me in elementary school that if I called 1-800-MICHAEL, I'd get to speak with Michael Jackson. I immediately began calling the number for hours at a time. I do not know what one ever heard if they got through because I always got the "all circuits are busy now" recording. I do know that my father got call waiting after I started calling the number because I would tie up our home phone line for hours at a time.

Lean on Me by Club Nouveau. The mean girls of my junior high did this song for the eighth grade lip synch contest. It was a combining of forces amongst several mean girl cliques. I remember Terri Kinney and her crowd hooked up with Nancy Norton and her gang of girls. They all had different color baseball caps on during the number and this earned them the nickname of the Crayola Crayons.

Girlfriend by Pebbles. I was a freshman in high school, fat, unpopular, and inspired by French class. My parents, bless them, agreed to let me go on a trip to England and France. I love my parents dearly because I was incredibly spoiled compared to my brothers and sisters who were raised with very little. Even though they were tired from raising six kids and my dad commuted an hour plus everyday to work, they understood that I was different and that I needed to go on this trip. So we flew Virgin Atlantic Airways which had 2 planes total at the time. The song Girlfriend had become popular and I remember we listened to the song all across England and France. I have few memories from that trip beyond me losing everything from a plane ticket to my passport to my backpack all across the continent. I was a huge mess and look back on that trip with fond memories. I should have been a foreign exchange student, but my parents would never let me go.

Straight Up by Paula Abdul. I think my gay genes started to spike when I heard this song. I was a junior in high school and very unaware of any kind of pop culture around me. (I lived in rural New Hampshire and was a fish out of water to say the least. My parents refused to get cable, so the majority of my free time was spent watching Hogan's Heroes reruns.) One of the senior girls did this song and I was like, "Who sings that song????" A big queen bloomed from my ugly shell.

Rhythm Nation by Janet Jackson. I was a senior in high school and I was working at a Catholic Retreat Center doing overnight retreats. I spent a lot of time there watching cable tv because my parents refused to get it still. In the area where we lived, you couldn't get Fox without cable, so I had not seen Arsenio Hall yet. As a double whammy, Arsenio had Janet Jackson the first night I watched. I don't know what rock I lived under, but I had never heard of either of them. Janet and Rhythm Nation became a huge inspiration for me. I knew that with music by my side, I too could break the color lines of 99.8% white New Hampshire and solve the racist issues that plagued our small state.

Let's Talk About Sex by Salt 'N Pepa and OPP by Naughty by Nature. I had graduated from high school and was delivering pizza around town. I was a horrible pizza delivery driver and was all about songs that talked about sex even thought I wasn't having any sex. (That wouldn't be happening for about 5 more years.) Bad years, bad, bad.

Jump Around by House of Pain. One of my five roommates in college (Cory) LOVED this song and used to play it over and over and over. It was cool, but the screaming does get old after a while.

Erotica by Madonna. I remember buying Erotica the day it came out and listening to it immediately. Even though my conservative Catholic friends were disapproving, I was all about the cd. I didn't really get the Sex book, but the music definitely called to me. A young gay boy putting the pieces together.

Breakfast at Tiffany's by Deep Blue Something. I was in flight attendant training in Minneapolis, Minnesota, it was colder than fuck (it hit 80 degrees below zero when I was there), I had a London Fog raincoat for warmth, and I was coming out of the closet. The radio station in Minneapolis either had a low budget or really liked this song because they played it several times per hour.

Ray of Light by Madonna. I was in training in Chicago at my second airline and I met my first serious boyfriend all at the same time. The album made me a Madonna fan for life and that cd helped me make it through training. I used to listen to it after all of my exams and it took me to another place.

My Immortal by Evanescence. I was working at a mafia run pizzeria under the table in a small town in New Jersey. The cooks (who used to toss pasta in one hand while smoking a cigarette in the other) listened to this song on a horrible old flour covered cd player night after night after night. Ah Jersey, how I miss thee... The big hair, the car alarms, the small roads and neverending traffic, the Parkway, the price of car insurance being 3 times the norm. The Garden State at it's best.

Inevitable by Shakira and Promiscuous featuring Nelly Furtado. The soundtrack of my life right now. My boyfriend has Promiscuous as his ring tone and every time the song comes on, he's like, "Turn it up!" even if we've heard it twenty times that day already. Shakira did Inevitable at her show the other night and it was amazing. The song of my life. It makes me cry and want to cuddle with the man.

Alright kids. That's a brief overview of the soundtrack of my life. Cuidate.

Shakira, Shakira!

So Shakira was in San Jose last night and the boy and I caught her show. We both had a great time.

I am not a huge fan of the Shakira that the music companies have tried to sell here. Bleached blonde hair, singing in broken English, she just does not translate well. In Spanish, she is a force to be reckoned with. Her pre-English breakout cd Donde Estan los Ladrones? sold 7 million copies worldwide and gave Shakira the reputation of being a Latin Alanis Morrissette.


The concert tonight was a mix of old and new. She opened with Estoy Aqui and then kept up a rapid pace throughout the show. She was onstage for just over 2 hours, but rarely took a break. Both Inevitable and Si Te Vas are favorites of mine and she did them back to back. She finished up the concert with Ojos Asi and Hips Don't Lie featuring a duet with Wyclef Jean (who opened for her as well). In person, she is stunning and very petite. She has a gorgeous smile and has the audience in the palm of her hand. She doesn't have any dancers, so the attention is on her 98% of the time. Not an easy feat to keep an audience entertained without a lot of bells and whistles. Her voice is incredibly strong, you won't see any lipsynching here. Her band is terrific and features several of the musicians from her MTV Unplugged special. (If you truly want to appreciate Shakira's talent, buy the DVD of the Unplugged performance. It will be the best $12.95 you ever spend. I watch it constantly.) Her staging was also terrific. Not over the top like a Christmas Tree with too many decorations, no big pyrotechnics or explosions, just some cool lighting and costumes that show off her belly dancing talents.

If you have the chance to see her, I would highly recommend it. The Colombiana gives one heck of a show.

Cuidate everybody. I leave for Europe in less than a month!

Time's a Flying...

So summer is in full swing. It's started to cool down here a bit and act more like a Bay Area summer where you need a jacket, so that is cool. It's also started getting darker earlier which can only mean that fall is coming. I love autumn. It is my favorite season hands down. My birthday is in October and, growing up in New England, I always looked forward to the crisp nights and the beautiful colors of the foliage.

My boyfriend and I are headed to Europe in about a month. After last week's changes in carry on policies, it will be very interesting to see what I will and will not be able to carry on. If I'm not able to carry on a toothbrush and toothpaste, I have a feeling it will be a long ten hour flight! I have always liked to freshen up before landing and I don't travel anywhere without a toothbrush. If we can't bring our iPods or laptops either, this could put a serious dent in the enjoyment of our flights. I'm hopeful that they will come to a reasonable solution shortly. Thankfully we are taking British Airways, so they have good inflight entertainment. Now watch my in-seat tv be broken. That was always my luck at United.

So the first piece of furniture arrived this week at the flat. It's the leather chair that I liked so much. It's beautiful in person, but one small problem. The chair has no legs! The guy who delivered it looked through the packaging and remarked, "Wow, it's a good thing I delivered it and was supposed to set it up for you. Otherwise, the boss wouldn't have believed you if you said there was no legs that came with the chair." He assured me that they would obtain some legs for me, but I have yet to hear from the store since he dropped off the chair. Typical. So I have a beautiful chair that is a bit on the "low to the ground" side for now. The couch was supposed to be coming from China and should be here around the first week of September. The dining room table should be arriving in the next week or two as well. The flat looks slightly bare and disorganized right now, so I'm hoping the furniture will give it more of an occupied look. There's still loads to do in the decoration department, but this will be a great start.

I also got cable this week, so I'm catching up on the back episodes of Project Runway. The show is still really great. I have a hard time understanding the judges sometime. I hated Chloe's winning line from last year and really appreciated Santino's. Yet the judges hated Santino's collection. I suppose I have no understanding of what makes haute couture innovative and modern. Ah well, Old Navy stuff is more comfortable and more my style anyway. You can take the girl out of Hicksville, but you can't take the Hicksville outta the girl.

I got some new glasses last week. My old pair was over a year old and I had dropped them on a dance floor in Walnut Creek one night. Somebody stepped on them and they were never quite the same fit after that. The new ones are cool, they are Armanis and a bit more noticeable than my last pair. I'm going to get braces at the end of this year and next year, I think I will look into LASIK surgery. Wearing glasses has never really bothered me, but I've had several friends have the procedure done and no horror stories thus far. I suppose not wearing glasses would be a nice change of pace. I've always been worried to get LASIK because I've heard it can lead to night blindness in certain individuals. I seriously want to pursue a helicopter pilot career. I've been concerned that if I do get LASIK and it doesn't take, my career aspirations would be dashed. I haven't ever had any kind of surgery done beyond my wisdom teeth being pulled, so I suppose I am nervous about that as well. We'll see how things go. One step at a time.

Alright all, my bed is a calling. Hope you are all well. Cuidate.

Me? Grown Up?

I don't think of myself as a grown up. Seriously. As I gave more thought to this yesterday and today, a startling question hit me. When does one grow up?

When I was 17 or so, there was a guy I worked with a year or two older at Burger King who was killed while piloting a Cessna airplane. I remember the paper running the headline Derry Man Killed in Tragic Accident and thinking, "Oh, I guess he's a man because he's 18." But when I turned 18, I didn't really feel like an adult man. When I turned 21 I supposed I was an adult since I could drink alcohol legally, but still didn't feel quite like an adult. I am now 32, soon to be 33 years old. I do not feel like an adult. I don't own property, I don't have children (thankfully) and if I died today, I don't think I'd be leaving much behind materially speaking.

As this year has progressed, I'm definitely putting down roots in ways I didn't foresee. I paid off my car and bought a new one. I am now making enough money to have my own place. I have made several furniture purchases. I am in a relationship that I didn't ever see coming (considering my track record of the last five years). I suppose I am starting to feel grown up. I will likely be getting a dog in the early part of the new year and this is making me feel more adult than anything previously. Probably because I will have taken on the responsibility of another creature's life. The root cause of me beginning to feel like an adult is money. I have more money now that I have ever had in my lifetime. But is that truly what is the measure of an adult? That you have money or things?

The idea of being a parent scares the bejesus out of me. My mother had her first child at 22 and then proceeded to have three more in the next four years. When she had me at 33 (my age), she had six children and was raising them 90% of the time alone while my father was on deployment in the Navy. I suppose one plays with the hand of cards that they are dealt. Still, I don't know how my parents managed with all of us. To this day, I worry that they had too many kids and sacrificed their future well being on feeding, clothing, and educating all of us. I wonder when my mom or dad started feeling like an adult. I'm going to ask them.

My new job has also helped to stir up these thoughts. I have been faced with a couple of high stress situations which have made me realize that my job is very important and a lot of people's lives are depending on my actions. As a flight attendant, this seldom occurred to me because realistically, how often did I evacuate a burning plane? Never. In my new line of work, I am dealing with life and death situations daily and I am hopeful that I will be up to the challenge.

It's kind of a strange dichotomy for me because on one hand, I consider myself very capable and competent. There's this other side to me though that feels like a fourteen year old, always getting into trouble and hoping I don't get caught. Funny. Perhaps I should be a Gemini?

Cuidate everybody.

A Dangerous Job

Last night, a CHP officer Brent Clearman was killed in the line of duty in Oakland. This is the sixth CHP officer killed this year that I can recall. Far too many officers dying. This guy was relatively new, he only had 2 years with the Highway Patrol. CHP officers have a very dangerous and thankless job patroling and keeping the freeways safe for us all. Their dispatchers have a rough time too as they take nearly all of the 911 calls from cell phones across the state. My thoughts and prayers are with his family and all of the CHP staff across the state.

Things about me

I'm stealing this from a friend's blog. I like these introspective things every once in a while. Makes you stop and think about who you are at this moment in time.

My ex was...

A nice guy, immature, and a sexaholic. A definite learning experience and something I look on with fondness that I was able to escape.

My Family is...

Big, Catholic, fun, but distance is a good thing.

Maybe I should...

Clean up my apartment. I moved in, but still have boxes lying everywhere. I always procrastinate with this sort of thing.

I love...

San Francisco, dogs, documentary films, foreign films, cheap Thai restaurants, Latin men, fog, accents, the way a guy's neckline feels after he's just had a hair cut, soft beds, airplanes, a good hearty laugh, food in general, the ocean, music, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, and my boyfriend's smile

I don't understand...

Intolerance, war, Conservatives, organized religion, child proof caps that only a child can seem to open, existentialism, hate, oppression, Seinfeld, ignorance, apathy, Paris Hilton, vindictiveness, rudeness, people who use the phrase "family values", violence, Las Vegas, those plug earrings that stretch your earlobes

My favorite color is...

A bright color - either electric blue or a rich Mexican red or bright yellow, something that catches my eye

I lost my...

faith in governments or people or companies. It's every man or woman for his or herself and no one is going to look out for you, but you.

Walking on...

Walking on broken glass. (This one threw me.)

I want to...

Take care of people, spread more laughter, learn to speak Spanish fluently, read more, learn to talk less and listen more, get a dog, decorate my new place, see my parents, get married, and be a better person.

People would say I'm...

Smart, aloof, funny, gay, tall, loud, intriguing, kind, cold, blonde, white, insensitive, spiritual, curious, friendly, loving, a man of the world, independent, and my own person.

Love is...

Something we spend our whole lives looking for, but seldom find.

Somewhere, someone is...

Waking up and starting their day.

I will always...

Love to laugh, remember where I came from, have more to learn, and give thanks for all that I have.

Forever is...

A long time to be bitter.

I never want to...

Disappoint anyone.

I think the current President is...

The intellectual equivalent of Barney Fife.

When I wake up in the morning, I...

Get up, pee, and then check my e-mail.

Life is full of...

Ups and downs. You've got to stay positive and laugh a lot.

My past is incredibly

Sad, but beneficial as it made me the person I am today.

I get annoyed when...

People are judgmental and try to enforce their value structure on others.

Parties are for...

People who need an excuse to get drunk.

I wish...

That we could all live with one another in peace and celebrate, rather than accentuate our differences.

My dog is...

Going to be arriving in the next 6 months or so.

Kisses are the worst when...

The other person can't kiss and won't open their mouth and give up their tongue. People, it's not supposed to just sit there. Otherwise, it wouldn't move.

Tomorrow I'm going to...

Go to work. Nothing really exciting going on.

I really want...

A new government for our country or a president that can pronounce a word with more than two syllables. Preferably both. The current clowns are a fucking joke.

I have low tolerance for people who...

Are not empathetic and/or are rude. Can't we all just get along? It's not all about you.

If I had a million dollars...

I don't think my life would be that different. I would likely buy a flat in the city and invest the rest. I like my life and buying shit does not make me happy.

Guys are...

Pretty goofy overall. They are definitely cute, but without women, most guys are lost. Not the sharpest tacks in the box for sure.

Girls are...

Amazing creatures. They give birth to life, always make it work, and seldom complain. They are my heros.

Cuidate all.