The Flock is going communal, again...without the cheese smell this time.

I have added a link on the right hand side to the Flock Hall 2.0 blog. It will detail accounts of random debauchery that we will undoubtedly get ourselves into over the next year.

This weekend seems like it, the one where Flock Hall 2.0 finally comes together. Tessa and Mark get here tonight, and are unpacking Tessa tomorrow. Linus is finishing up packing and moving in on Saturday as well, and I am in process of throwing things in totes to be ready to move into on Sunday. Kt has already moved all her stuff in and is currently on a plane flying back to the UK for the next 7 weeks.

The next weeks will become a challenge as we try to find our own niches in the house, unpacking, reorganizing. Making the house we are moving into a home for ourselves, which won’t be too hard. I think for a lot of us, home is with the family we have created for ourselves, our family at Flock Hall. I once wrote that yes, home is where the heart is, but what if you have lost your heart? What if you dropped it along side the gutter while packing up your life, accidentally lost it along the way? I have found my heart again, it has gone through some landfills, and was quite dusty and mangled. I’m still finding pieces scattered about, some down the street from me in the neighbor’s yard and under car tires. Some pieces were just lost in between all the papers I had forgotten about and had yet to unpack. I know some pieces I will never find again and I am ok with that. I have enough now to start molding my heart back together one piece at a time with some duct tape and super glue. I’m not too worried about the missing parts; those will become filled in with time, like much of the mangled pieces, healed by time, love, and laughter.

“watching as you drive
it's good to be alive
and i'm alive, i'm alive
you're alive, we're alive, oh

your smile is the manhattan skyline” –Gina Young

Our Pride

Everybody wants to talk about love, but it takes a lot to give. Everybody wants to talk about faith but it takes a lot to risk.

Pride
–noun
1. a high or inordinate opinion of one's own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority, whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed in bearing, conduct, etc.
2. the state or feeling of being proud.
3. a becoming or dignified sense of what is due to oneself or one's position or character; self-respect; self-esteem.
4. pleasure or satisfaction taken in something done by or belonging to oneself or believed to reflect credit upon oneself.

Also a weekend to acknowledge one’s on importance and merit as a member of the queer community. Being proud to be dignified of who you are, proud of who you are becoming. Pride, a weekend of celebration for the proms you never went to, the Christmas parties you were not out at, and all of the celebrations you could not truly be yourself at. A weekend of massive chaos and partying, drinking and dancing, and truly not caring what anyone else thinks for three days. It was awesome!

I went down to Denver to hang out with Jim and party like a rock star on Saturday morning. We arrived with bathing suits in hand, and got started on the lounging around the pool with cocktails and sun bathing. What a great way to start a weekend, huh? I thought so! Saturday afternoon eventually turned into evening, and we figured if we were going out dancing there should be food eventually. Dinner was found, and naps were taken, (a must to be at top game when dancing), and a plan was forged for the evening. Since I am still a baby and can’t quite go play with the big kids at the regular bars, I headed off to Tracks, a gay dance club doing 18+ for pride, to meet up with some of the other Laramites. I am shy, and I am become even more shy around really hot girls, imagine that. So I danced and had fun, and they gay boys used me to dance as well. Around midnight I headed off to an after hours dance club, where I played with glow sticks and poi until the wee hours of the morning, (close to 4:30am) with the gang. It was a lot of fun and there, there was half naked girls running around in bathing suit tops…and I, yes I, kissed one of them. (squeee!!!) By the time we got back to the condo we were staying at there was maybe 2 hours of sleep to be had, even with all the dancing that had happened I slept very lightly and was ready to go for brunch/mimosas at 8! The parade was a lot of fun, but it got very hot very quickly, and Squid + Heat = cranky pants. So for all of those who put up with me during the park and walking around thanks for not killing me, I realize I was horribly whiny. It was an awesome weekend, and a much needed break!

“The love you get is equal to the love you give.”

Dunn Dunnn DUUUHH!!!!!

Note: click on video to make it play, and you need sound for the full effect.

hhehe I can't stop watching it.

And yes, I, your beloved Alter Boi, the left hand of the Black Pope, have made my debut in the Black Vatican webcomic! Go, see, laugh, and read all the archives of the comic! Now!

I have Brian's stick!!

And no not Doktor Brian:

and that is why a girl is called a tease
and that is why a guy is called a sleaze
and that's why god made escort agencies
one life to live and mace and GHB

and that's the way it is in minnesota
and that's the way it is in oklahoma
that's the way since the animals and noah
first climbed onto the shores of california

must not be too kind
stop thinking love is blind
clench your fists yeah write
“she's just not my type...”

why all these conflicting specifications
maybe to prevent overpopulation
all I know is that all around the nation
the girls are crying and the boys are masturbating –Shores of California

It’s good to be home. It is even more amazing to have friends in your life that welcome you back and make sure you are recuperating properly. The weekend I came home I was surrounded by friends constantly, and it was great. That Sunday Max and I went down to Denver for the True Colors Tour, which couldn’t have been a greater welcome home present. One of the bands that played was The Dresden Dolls, yes I love them, am in love with them, want to make love to them, and so on, and so forth. So when Margret Cho announced that they would be talking to fans and signing autographs, I well, I freaked out. Tapped Jim on the shoulder frantically and asked “D Do do you think, they would sign my ticket!?” Jim smiled and shrugged and said “I don’t know, probably.” So after that I raced down the row, trying not to trip over people, ran down the stairs almost knocking someone over and waited, as patiently as possibly for Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione to start signing tickets. Yes, I know, I sound like a squealing little fan girl, and however much I hate to admit, you’re right I was. For the concert I was sporting, proudly, the official casual wear of the BCP’s and when I walked up to Brian he thought the shirt was kick ass and just for that gave me one of his drum sticks that he played the show with and signed it!!! (insert SQUEEEEE!!!!!!!!!! At an ear piercing volume here to fully grasp how excited I was.) When Amanda asked who to sign the ticket to I of course said Squid. She looked for a moment and said, “Like the animal thing.” While flailing her arms in a squid-like motion, yes this really happened. She then laughed and asked how I got the nickname and I explained it to her, all the while she listened to my story.
See? I have reason to be a squealing little fan girl.

If this world makes you crazy
And you've taken all you can bear
You call me up
Because you know I'll be there

And I'll see your true colors
Shining through
I see your true colors
And that's why I love you –True Colors by: Cyndi Lauper

There is always a break in the clouds.

I went to my step-sister's graduation from middle school on Monday night. The area my parents live and my step-sisters live is in really rich Suburban Upper Middle-class White America. So walking into the gymnasium I automatically felt the stares. I was automatically looked down upon, and it is the first time in a long time that I have felt small. Between the looks and the whispers, especially from Aidan's parents (his mom was wearing an Armani suit) and one point there was a horrid comment about the metal in my face, ("I hope she gets struck by lighting") from Aidan's mom.

My step-sisters hardly said more than a handful of words to me, and I was not invited for family pictures afterwards. I stood off to the side in a swarm of people willing myself not to cry, I didn't want to let them see that I was actually hurt. Standing off to the side feeling really displaced, a girl who had just graduated came by looked at me, and put her head down and walked forward, but then stopped and turned back and stood next to me. A second passed and I was curious as to where this was going to lead, then she leaned over and said,"Ssshhh don't tell anyone but I have a lip piercing too," I looked at her and she had a little clear plastic one barely visible. Then she said, "But don't tell anyone here, nobody knows, actually there are a lot of things no one knows about me here."
I looked at her and smiled and said, "Yeah? I know the feeling. I really know that feeling, but don't worry your secret is safe with me."

She said, "Yeah I can't wait to meet people I can actually feel like can be my friends, true friends." I told her, "be patient, I know it is hard, but it will happen. Trust me, you'll find your friends and they can become your family." She said, "really?!" I smiled and nodded, then she gave me a half hug and said "thank you very much." I said "No worries, my lips are sealed." I made the zipper motion, she smiled and walked away.

Eventhough I was in hell for the night, I made someone else feel like they weren't such a freak, in the minds of every one around us. I got the chance to make someone smile, when I was on the verge of tears. I like to think I also put some hope in her life that things will get better, gave me the hope that I can get through this week with little blessing like that. Blessings of any kind can come in the smallest packages, the gloomy storm over had a break in the clouds for a brief second, and I connected with a life that I will probably never meet again.

"But they’ll still look in your eyes

To find the human inside
You know there’s always something in there to see."

I’m stuck. I’m stuck in the middle of the largest plane I have ever been on, and we are just waiting. We have at least an hour delay before we can take off, due to a storm pattern over Chicago. I never sleep well the night before a day of travel, and I really can’t sleep on planes. The drive to Denver this morning was the normal 2 or so hours, nothing too eventful, although I hate leaving my safety net. I hate leaving my family behind to go visit my mom, I end up feeling like I am 12 again. Yes, I know my mother only has as much over as I give her, but it doesn’t really feel that way. Walking into the airport this morning felt like leaving my security blanket at home. I was rushed with the feeling of displacement; lost, tossed into the confusion of a million different lives intersecting for one short, brilliant moment in time. Even though I had been surrounded by hundreds, thousands, of people I felt so alone in those first moments in the airport. Airports, like said in Love Actually, can be great places of love and happiness, but they can also be one of the loneliest places. Surrounded by so many lives, but still so remote that you don’t even come out as a blip on most peoples radar, who pass through that airport.
Looking over the upper-level balcony in DIA onto the waiting line to pass through security was almost breath taking, (mainly because I didn’t want to stand in the friggin’ line), the shear number of bodies that inhabited that space, waiting to disperse from here. Standing in line, I was nervous, wondering if I was going to get yelled at for anything: I have no liquids, check. No knives, check. No bombs, check. Check check and check. When people get ready to depart there are no smiles, no expressions of joy, or exchanges of hugs that we see when people arrive to where there are going. Instead there are just stern somber faces, following rules just like everyone else, screaming children, upset mothers, and agitated lovers. It is odd to think that so many people pass through this one single place, so many different pairs of feet have treaded this exact same path. There are so many possibilities for lives to intersect, to make some sort of contact with another human life, but do we? No. And I am no exception, too scared to take the first step.

Walking to my gate I pass people I will never know, never meet, and probably never see again. But for one brief moment our lives intersected, there was no hello, head nod, or even eye contact, for we live in an age of isolation. Next time I think I will say hello to see who you are.

My stop in Chicago is just a layover, a fueling stop for a lot of people on this flight. They are headed to Amsterdam. I always like walking around the terminal looking at where all the other flights are headed, were everyone else’s lives are going, and imagine what it would be like to be on that flight. The plane I am sitting in is a Boeing 777 and it is pretty sweet, in front of me in the back of the seat is a built in mini-screen – yes I get cable on my flight to Chicago. Another nifty feature is that it has a map feature letting the passenger approximately know where they are in the sky. We took off about an hour ago and are somewhere over Iowa. I have my passport on me, would they let me just fly all the way to Amsterdam? Skipping Chicago completely. Never getting off at the layover, sleeping until we are well over the Atlantic? I think I’ll close my eyes and see if it happens.



p.s. They wouldn't let me stay on the plane, so I walked down the long plank to baggage claim, holding my breath.