Vacay!

With the stress of the move behind us, we're going on vacation!

Anyone got any recommendations for Amsterdam/Belgium?

Domesticity and stuff and stuff

Domesticity Update

Chris moved his stuff in last week! We've been living together for about 2 weeks, really, and we had our first party here on Memorial day and it was a total success!

I told my Dad and he didn't sound super thrilled actually, but whatever, I'll let them be. Haven't talked to my Mom directly about it yet.

My new favorite thing

So this is a conversation I've had about 3 times in the past month.

Friend: Wow you guys are moving in!
Me: Yep.
Friend: That's huge! Moving in is like, the gay equivalent of getting married!
Me: [straight face] I would hope that getting married is the gay equivalent of getting married.
Friend: [liberal guilt for the rest of their life].

Hehe. I know, I'm bad.

Speaking of weddings

I have like 7 weddings to go to this year, most in California. It's costing me a fortune in plane tickets, hotels, and gifts. The monetary hit wouldn't feel quite so sharp if it wasn't all in support of such a shamelessly unequal institution. I know this all sounds a little tired, but there it is. So I think starting in 2011, I'm going to be up front with my friends and family and let them know that I just am not going to attend any weddings in states that don't allow gay marriage. I dunno if i'll be able to commit to this for real, but we'll see.

Oh yeah

Anyone have any recommendations on how to stop the ridiculous comment spam? I even turned on the captcha thing and I still get flooded with it.

Movin' right along in search of good times and good news

We move in next Saturday! Apartment is picked, lease is signed! The place is really sweet, by manhattan standards. Huge, usable kitchen, top floor of an elevator building so no street noise or stomping neighbors above you, new appliances, outdoor space (!), washer/dryer unit IN the apartment (!). Even with all that, the two of us will be paying less combined rent than we did before which is great. It doesn't seem so great right this second when I just had to shell out a 2 month deposit, and I still haven't gotten the deposit from my old apartment back, but it will be really great. I may post a picture once we get the whole place set up, although with the 2 of us moving in, and having to decide who is keeping what, that may be a while.

I met Chris's Mom and aunt yesterday and they are both amazing- I think things are better with my parents too, but I haven't had a chance to tell them about our moving in yet. They have been great about stuff recently, but I never know when I have big announcements like this.

Anyway, that's what's up with me. I dunno what's going on with all these chinese spam commenters.

Start your Engines!

I'm super obsessed with RuPaul's drag race this season. I think I'm going to have a big viewing party for the Finale next Monday!

My favorite by far is Jujubee, the token Asian. I wasn't that big a fan to tell the truth, as she did this "bowing" thing on the runway that I was taken aback by, but she won me over with her killer reading skills a few episodes back.

So I thought I'd try out this tool http://www.dragulator.com/, promoted by the site. Here's what I came up with:


I may have missed my calling. So I need some help coming up with a drag name, y'all!

[UPDATE: OH! And I forgot to give you guys an update on how the meet and greet with the parents went. It went great! My parents have totally come around. They brought Chris a box of chocolates, and after dinner the second night, my Mom gave Chris a hug! I was super impressed with them (although I'm pretty sure my sister called them up and yelled at them to get them to behave). However it happened, it was amazing, and I'm really happy that they've come around and are still a big part of my life. I'm gonna meet Chris's Mom some time next month]

Updates on everything

Been super busy with work, and friends visiting, and planning the move and everything. Quick update hit-and-run:

• Picked the charities to donate to! I picked HRC and the Empire State Pride Agenda! One cool tool I found when doing this is Charity Navigator, which offers some metrics on how efficiently some charities are run, and suggests similar charities based on their focus.
• Chris and I are gonna start looking for places soon! Eep, I gotta start packing, and selling a ton of crap I can't bring myself to move again. I have like 4 boxes of old comic books that really should just not be taking up space in my new apartment.
• So my parents are coming in 2 weeks, and I decided to give them the option of whether or not they wanted to meet Chris this visit, and they actually sounded pretty open to the idea! I definitely did NOT mention that we were talking about moving in yet, and I think I'll probably tell them way later, depending on how well the in-person meeting goes.

So that's what's going on with me. Aight, I have to get caught up on my blogs. And my porn.

Happy Gayversary!

Well, I'm actually a little late on this, but I thought I'd like to thank you all for coming to celebrate my gayversary. My first "coming out speech" was just over a year ago, at the beginning of February last year. What a long, strange, trip it has been.

I've managed to come out to pretty much all of my close family members. There are a few family members that just haven't been easy to contact logistically. I have 2 cousins in Australia that I've always felt close to, but I have had trouble finding convenient times to call, and calling someone out of the blue to come out seems so forced, although I guess I did that a lot. I have also heard, and this is completely not based on my experiences with my cousins, that Australians are in generally more socially conservative? I have never broached this subject with them, and I just don't want to trip some kind of cultural minefield.

In relationship news, I spent the first 3 months of my gay life being a big whore :), and then I met Chris and suddenly became a relationship gay. To be honest, looking back on it, I really probably thought I would be single for over a year, and date more, but I really don't regret any of it. I am really happy in my relationship right now.

Which... brings us to the newest piece of news... Chris and I are going to move in together! We're going to start looking at places when my lease is up in June. I'm so excited! He basically already spends every day at my apartment anyway, and it would be economical and practical, but MORE than that, I CANNOT WAIT to live with him! Ugh, now I'm getting all gushy. Still, it is exciting building a life with someone in a way that, 2 years ago, I had completely blocked myself off to.

The only snag is he still hasn't met my parents. I really think my parents will flip out if I move in with someone they've never met (but to be honest... they're going to flip out anyway, right?). Ugh, I need some advice on how to handle this one.

Holidays and Charity

So the past two weeks were a blast. My friends cooked a big Chinese New Year feast last week and it was amazing. I won a hundred bucks in my superbowl pool. My sister came to town and I finally saw Wicked. And I probably had about the best valentine's day ever.

So things are going pretty good for me personally. It's also the time of year that my company does charity matching, and since everything's so good for me, I really want to give something back and donate to a charity that is important. I have already donated to a few causes this year. Haiti, a lymphoma society that my friends are running a triathalon for. However, for this, since it's matched and ostensibly from my company, I kind of feel like I should donate to a high profile LGBT advocacy group. I don't really know many. The only ones I know of are GLAAD and Marriage Equality USA. Between the two, I'm kind of inclined to go with Marriage Equality, but are there any other high profile, worthwhile gay advocacy groups I should consider?