Your tour guide

Madison was my mecca at the moment. I didn't even know about the Twin Cities yet. I was working at the grocery store in my hometown until at least 10 pm Friday night. The festival was Saturday. I called Jenny from work and said, "How would you like to go on a road trip?" The drive would take us 4 hours and we would encounter severe thunderstorms along the way. We left home at midnight, listened to TOP 40 pop music, drank convenience store coffee and smoked Marlboro lights the entire trip. Picture it: America' Dairyland. June, 1994 . We stayed at my friend Kristina’s place. We crashed on the floor because young people can sleep on the floor then wake up fresh and ready for the day ahead. I probably used a balled up sweatshirt for a pillow. I remember waking sweaty. I don't think I even knew that there were gay pride celebrations until I went to Madison hellbent on going to one. The sun was shining. I think I saw my first ever guy/guy couple holding hands...

So much has occurred since my last entry. Read on to catch up with my story. At Christmas I drove to Wausau to pick up my mother and then we drove on together to Kaukauna near Appleton to stay with my brother Andy, his wife Joan, my nephew AJ, and my niece Ava. Before i left i had an oil change and i was well aware the tire pressure gauge on at least one tire is defective and needs to be replaced. The technician at the dealership where i bought my used GMC said he thought i should think about a new set of tires soon. I did not expect that i would blowout a tire near Waupaca with my mom in the car 40 miles from my brother's house. But everything turned out OK as we were ahead of schedule and i had roadside assistance show up to put on the donut  in 15 minutes. During my stay in Wisconsin i ended up buying all new tires so that the drive back would be uneventful. I had a classic holiday . We played Rock Band as a family and i got introduced to the show 90 Day Fiance, a guilty pleas...

I began to notice a lot of number 11s showing up in my life lately to the point where I mentioned it to Aaron and Cole among others. I moved into an apartment on the 11th floor of a building on 11th street and my parking space is number 211. We are now in the 11th month and tomorrow i finally sell the home i bought in 2011. Tonight I looked this up online to try to find out if anyone had any theories about what it means when certain numbers present themselves in your life. I know it sounds like some kind of stupid superstition. Maybe it is. In the same way that cooking makes me feel closer to my beloved grandmother and whenever I see a train on a track I think of my grandfather what's the harm in it? This makes me feel good. What if there is a message that we are dismissing because we can not explain it? Here is what I found: If you repeatedly see the number 11, it is a message from the angels to  pay attention  and  take action . The number 11 is a message th...

I never thought I would be here in a million years if you would have told me, let's say, a year ago. How do I describe and recap 2018 so far with the dignity and the severity that it deserves? I have not written about the end of my 12 year relationship much or posted publicly about it on social media out of respect for a true love that was all at once so deep and so real that I fear I may never find anything else like it. Now with Aaron's blessing and in large part so that I don't forget how important this phase feels I want to document and share with you some of the details that have led up to this point. As of today I am at a total weight loss of 85 lbs. and I am down at least 5 pants sizes depending upon the store and the brand. Just before my last blog post around the time of my 40th birthday Aaron and me agreed that we would try an open relationship. This feels like the beginning of the end to me whenever other couples have told me they are going to stay t...

I got a room at the top of the world tonight I can see everything tonight I got a room where everyone Can have a drink and forget those things That went wrong in their life I got a room at the top of the world tonight I got a room at the top of the world tonight I got a room at the top of the world tonight And I ain't comin' down, I ain't comin' down from the song Room at the Top by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers We returned July 2 from a few days in San Francisco, California where I celebrated my 40th birthday amongst friends. This is one of my favorite cities I have ever visited. I reunited with dear friends. We toured Alcatraz and enjoyed photographing the Golden Gate Bridge. We also toured the Winchester Mystery House and dined at Wayfare Tavern, Jones, and Chart House. We had drinks at Club Fugazi for a performance of "Beach Blanket Babylon" then Vesuvio as well as Harvey's later. I have recently reached a 9 year anniversary wor...

14,245. That's the number of days old I am going to be tomorrow. 341,880 is the number of hours old I am going to be tomorrow. 20,512,800 is the number of minutes old I am going to be. My point is I have got to remember that age really is just a number and if I rally am only as old as I feel most days I am about 28. Of course there are also days when I feel 108. When I turned 30 years old I freaked out a little because my 20s were over but I made myself feel better somehow by saying 'well at least I am not turning 40'. When the end of something hits me like a ton of bricks my reaction has always been downward spiral. Self medicate, self pity... and now here I am in this positive place of making a newer, better, stronger me with confidence and power and a milestone birthday comes along and threatens to throw it all into a tailspin. I have daydreams of me "relapsing" where I just overeat and drink to excess and lose all the progress that I have made over this ...

About two years ago a woman named Kathy from my hometown died from terminal breast cancer. She was my third cousin i think and she had one son Billy if I remember that correctly from her one marriage that ended when Billy was 4 years old. While he was high functioning he lived with special needs. I am unsure if those needs were affiliated with autism or maybe a traumatic brain injury but he needed to be medicated and looked after. He lived in a trailer park with his mother his entire life. Kathy was sweet and kind to me on Facebook and if i would ever run into her back home. I only met Billy once for about 5 minutes and he literally said nothing and never made eye contact. when his mother passed i think he was sort of lost with no direction and no idea what to do next. his father was never in the picture. still alive but a hopeless alcoholic whose whereabouts were unknown, nor did anyone really care. His closest living relative was his u...

Next month is Pride month and as LGBTQ Americans especially those of us who were born here we sometimes forget or take for granted the freedoms that we have and we overlook the reason we celebrate Pride every June. Look up the Stonewall Rebellion and read about what happened in June 1969 New York City. Become familiar with the spark that lit the fire in the fight for equal rights and the change that would come.  Almost 50 years later we must continue to tell the stories of places where people are often attacked, tortured, imprisoned, and murdered for being honest about their sexual orientations or gender identities. Here is one such story:  Last Monday at my church Pastor Dwayne got a call from a jail in Sherburne County. I don’t know my Minnesota counties so I don't know where that is precisely. On the other end of the telephone line was Yousef, a young Somali man who had been pulled over for a traffic violation and was being det...

I want to preserve a couple of stories about one woman named Gloria that our guest pastor shared with us this past  Sunday  at church. He spends a good deal of time talking with and prays with people in hospice care who may not have long to live and it is during those conversations in their final days when people share secrets with him that they have carried for a lifetime. Parts of the story are paraphrased and/or they may be partly fiction based on my recollection. When he arrived that day she was eating a bowl of fresh strawberries as she often did. She enjoyed eating them so much that they were the only things she would request when anyone would offer to bring her anything. The pastor asked her why and she said it was because it reminded her of the farm. And so the story began. “Did you grow up on a farm?” he asked. “No,” she said. “but every  Sunday  after church my mother and all of us kids would change into our play clothes and drive out to the co...

it's been about a year since i began the doctor assisted weight loss journey. I wanted to tell you what i have learned and how far i have come. i hope you will listen. in 12 months i have lost 36 lbs. I now weigh less than i did in 2007 but i still weigh more than i did in 2009. that is the last time i wore MY SKINNY JEANS. maybe i can wear them this summer in san francisco on my 40th birthday!? goals. I have tried a few medications including naltrexone, welbutrin, phentermine, topamax, and finally found a combination that works for me called qysmia. I am on a low dose and i have seen a steady comfortable loss of about 2 lbs per week over the last 2 months. it has actually changed my brain chemistry so that i no longer obsess about the next meal i am going to have.  I don't think about food as a reward ("i was good today so i can have ice cream for dessert"). i don't really have cravings anymore. I can think to myself something sounds good but i don't ha...

I have learned to love my dad even though we are very different and he has learned to love me. He is born again, loves 45, conceals and carries, has long hair, a long beard, and is no slave to fashion .   You would not believe he was even related to me by looking at him . Picture a grumpy old man with a limited perspective glued to Fox news with an opinion on everything . I only called because i wanted to check in and catch up. he said the usual things at first like “how is work?” i said, “good. We have a contract coming up.” for years as an adult i have been so careful to avoid the landmines/triggers with him whenever we talk because i don't want the conversations that we have to be arguments. I need to spend time with him not resenting him plus i have just been so tired and stressed out with midterms in school, always behind on sleep. So I can't explain why but at some point i ask "why can't the people who love guns so much just give up the automatic weapon...

It has been a long time and there is lots to tell. specifically i am finally losing weight on a doctor's prescription after 10 months and a few failed attempts i think i found combination that is working. total pounds gone = 22 since mar 01 2017. I got an A in both classes last semester and i am finally beginning some marketing coursework this semester. two months ago I got a new to me used 2010 GMC Terrain with AWD leather interior sunroof backup camera MP3 and about 70k miles and so far i love it. Now onto heavier subject matter. we just returned from a cruise and if you follow my facebook feed you know some of the next few items i am about to cover. here is the play by play from our trip for those who wish to know how it all happened. Jan 21 2018 sunday woke up 5 am, flew out of MPLS 830 am landed Miami 1 pm checked into our hotel on south beach. we were hungry so we got some food and a huge bahama mama. walked to Walgreens for water and diet coke then laid on the b...