How long will I be picking up the pieces

Finally updating on my Awesome-tastic Wednesday!!

My friend Amy and I had tickets to the Pick Up The Phone tour featuring Blue October. Blue October is one of my favorite bands and I've been eagerly waiting for them to come to San Francisco. I'm pretty sure I bought my tickets the second they went on sale. LOL.

While Blue October was in town, they did a short acoustic set at Crissy Field for Please Don't Jump. This group was created to help save a San Francisco resident who sent in an anonymous postcard to Postsecret threatening to throw themself off the Golden Gate Bridge this summer.


At this event, there were speakers from the Suicide Hotline as well as family members of 2 people who took their lives jumping from the bridge and a bridge jumping survivor. He jumped from the bridge 10 years ago today and is grateful to be alive and is working towards building a suicide barrier to prevent anyone else from joining the list of 1500 known jumpers who have died.


Here's one of the songs they sang. Should Be Loved.


It was a very beautiful event. We were invited to sign the banner.



After this event, Amy and I killed some time by hanging out in Crissy Field since it was a gorgeous day, then headed downtown for lunch at Max's Opera Cafe and get in line for the 7pm concert (which ended up being at 8, but whatever). We got really great spots in the venue. We were at The Regency Ballroom. There's no handicap seating (Amy's in a wheelchair), but we got there early enough to get a spot in the front row at the left side of the stage. We were OK there for a while, but this ignorant girl standing in front of Amy kept backing into Amy and accusing Amy of ramming her in the ankles. I almost punched the bitch out. If I hadn't been so excited to see Blue October, I would have. She was so damn rude, I couldn't believe it.

The concert was awesome!! The energy was amazing. Justin Furstenfeld is one of the best performers I've ever seen. He and Jared Leto take the cake. They live their lyrics, but Justin really takes it to a whole new level. He writes everything that he feels. A lot of it is real dark and most of Blue October's fans are people who have experienced a lot of those dark feelings and thoughts he's had. This is the second time I've seen them live and was just as amazed and blown away as the first.

Me and Amy


Justin (we were SUPER close!!!)


Here's my video of "18th Floor Balcony". This is one of my favorite songs of theirs.


After the concert, we waited around back to see if we could maybe get an autograph.....WE DID!! And got pics with Justin!!



He squished his face on my face!!!! OMG! I had my arm around his sweaty back and his was around mine. OMG. Swooooooon!!!!


After that epic day, I have been on a serious awesome letdown. LOL. I don't know how any other show will top this day.

If you want to see the entire day in pictures, click here.

Procrastination

Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow? That's always been my motto. I consider myself to be one of the greatest procrastinators of all time. I've always been this way. If I'm told I have a deadline for something, I wait until the 11th hour, if I even do it at all. School homework was often late. Work projects are completed minutes before they need to be turned in. Most of the time my procrastination was never an issue, just maybe a small kick in the pants when I got something done late and got into trouble for it.

However, I've come to realize that my procrastination has really caught up with me and I'm not happy.

I'm an SA advocate and novice activist. SA is Size Acceptance. It's taken me a long time to learn to love my body and accept that I'll never be a size 2, or even a size 10. It really does take a lot of work to get to this place - to see myself as being beautiful when society tells me I'm disgusting.

While I do have a strong belief that genetics and hormones have aided me in becoming the size I am, I know that what I put into my body doesn't help and neither does my lack of exercise. That being said, I do need to state that my cholesterol is just fine, as is the rest of my bloodwork. Yes, I do have slightly elevated blood pressure, but that is due to the fact that I am a smoker. So, while I may be out of shape, I am not unhealthy.

What has gotten me upset is that I weighed myself recently and discovered that I weigh 20 pounds more than I thought. I am now greatly aware that my belly sticks out farther than my breasts. 20 pounds ago, that wasn't the case.

Now, where does the procrastination come in, you ask. I have an elliptical machine in my garage. It's collecting dust. I haven't used it once since we moved last November and have used it less than a dozen times since I bought it from a friend 2 years ago. I always say "Oh, I'll start using it tomorrow." or "I'll start my exercise program on Monday." Tomorrow and Monday always comes and goes and I have yet to set foot in my garage to use it and now it's caught up with me.

I hate exercising. It's really the bane of my existence. But I know that exercising makes me feel better (once the burn wears off), I have more energy, and my mood is greatly improved. But I have no energy to get down there in the first place. At least, I think, I've found motivation - to make my belly smaller than my boobs again.

I'll never be skinny, nor will I ever be thin. I'll always be "thick" or fat. It's a fact of life, and that's just fine with me. I just don't feel good where I'm at right now. My first goal is just to get back under 250. Idealy, I would like to weigh under 220, but we'll see how getting under 250 goes. Although, to be honest, I don't really care what I weigh. I don't give a crap about that number. It's the fact that I look down and see belly first, not my toes.

The number that I actually do care about is my pant size. I currently wear a size 22 (which, oddly enough, is what I wore 20 pounds ago. LOL. That's how I didn't even notice I gained weight!!) in pants. My top size did go up, though. I'm now in a 3x top. That bugs me. I would like to get down to a 1x top and a "teen" pant size; out of the 20's.

And this is where you come in! I need help. I need people to be on my ass about getting some of this weight off. I need help to get my ass downstairs, into the garage, and onto the elliptical. I do have some inspiration (Jen @ The Amazing Trips, Lani @ Triplets: Who Knew?, Gen @ The McNulty Quads, and Emily @ The Wright Five) for not just sitting around on my butt all day. These women are either on weight loss journeys or are training for marathons and walks for cancer research. Jen's What's In You Wednesdays always strike a chord in me, but I never do anything about it. It really eats at me just how lazy I am.

I don't want to do that anymore. A year ago, a good friend of mine was diagnosed with HIV and I pledged to do the AIDS walk this year. I didn't do it. I've always wanted to do the Bay to Breakers. I never have. I want to do the Avon 3 Day Walk for Breast Cancer. I never have. I know I don't have to be skinny to do these things, but if I get my energy up, I can do them. If I stop being a procrastinator I can do them.

So maybe now that I've put this out there for the world to see, I'll hold myself accountable and stop putting things off for tomorrow. I know it'll be hard work, but I can't have this mentality anymore. It's caused me to miss out on a lot of things/people/stuff and I don't want to continue on that path.

Perhaps I'll start "Motivation Mondays" and blog about my progress with my procrastination issue. Maybe if I just work at keeping things in the forefront of my mind (and my blog) I'll be more likely to stick with working on this and not just give up after only one or two tries. We'll see how this goes, but hopefully even this entry will be motivation enough.

Wish me luck!

How long have you been heterosexual?

This is a repost from Queers United:

The Heterosexual Questionnaire was created back in 1972 to put heterosexual people in the shoes of a gay person for just a moment. Questions and assumptions made of Gays and Lesbians that are unfair, are reversed and this time asked to the straight people.

This is a fun survey, but also an activist survey. Please repost this to your email list, myspace bulletin, use it in a group setting, have fun with it but also let the point be made.

1. What do you think caused your heterosexuality?

2. When and where did you decide you were a heterosexual?

3. Is it possible this is just a phase and you will out grow it?

4. Is it possible that your sexual orientation has stemmed from a neurotic fear of others of the same sex?

5. Do your parents know you are straight? Do your friends know- how did they react?

6. If you have never slept with a person of the same sex, is it just possible that all you need is a good gay lover?

7. Why do you insist on flaunting your heterosexuality... can’t you just be who you are and keep it quiet?

8. Why do heterosexuals place so much emphasis on sex?

9. Why do heterosexuals try to recruit others into this lifestyle?

10. A disproportionate majority of child molesters are heterosexual... Do you consider it safe to expose children to heterosexual teachers?

11. Just what do men and women do in bed together? How can they truly know how to please each other, being so anatomically different?

12. With all the societal support marriage receives, the divorce rate is spiraling. Why are there so few stable relationships among heterosexuals?

13. How can you become a whole person if you limit yourself to compulsive, exclusive heterosexuality?

14. Considering the menace of overpopulation how could the human race survive if everyone were heterosexual?

15. Could you trust a heterosexual therapist to be objective? Don't you feel that he or she might be inclined to influence you in the direction of his orher leanings?

16. There seem to very few happy heterosexuals. Techniques have been developed that might enable you to change if you really want to.

17. Have you considered trying aversion therapy?

- Martin Rochlin, Ph.D., 1972

Not good

Yesterday was kind of a rough day for me. First off, it was the 11th anniversary of losing my one and only pregnancy. I haven't gotten sad about that for a few years, but I think it hit me kind of hard because I'm now trying for a baby. So because of that, I was already kind of sad.

And then I found out someone close to me was just diagnosed as HIV+. I've known people in the past, and know someone now who is HIV+, but this is someone I call a friend. Someone I truly care for. I am incredibly sad for him. I know he will lead the healthiest life possible and I almost bet he'll outlive me. I know he'll lead an almost perfect life. But to know that he's positive and to know that it will still take a toll on his bod makes me so mad. Not at him, of course, but at the disease. It's such a horrible, horrible disease that's completely incurable. Sure, there are meds out there that will delay the inevitable, but, ultimately, his end will not be a pleasant one.

I have told him that I loved him and that I'm here if he needs anything. He'll still be "uncle" to my babies and he'll still be the most beautiful drag queen I've ever seen. He's still J.

But I want to punch that disease in the mouth.

So now I'm going to do what I can to help fight the disease. I don't have much money, nor will I once I have babies, but I'll definitely see what I can do to volunteer at events or something. And I'll definitely be walking in next year's AIDS Walk (provided I'm not hugely pregnant).

If you have the means or the time, I urge you to do anything to help fund research to find a cure.

If you wear make up, buy MAC's Viva Glam products - all proceeds go towards the MAC AIDS Fund.

If you don't wear make up, but you have time to give, find local fund raising events and show your support.

I'd always donate money to the MAC AIDS Fund when J did charity drag shows (anywhere between $40 and $100), but now that the disease has hit so close to home, I want to take a more active role in finding a cure. Obviously I'm not a scientist so I can't find the cure, but I sure as hell can be vocal and raise awareness. The Lord knows my mouth is big enough. LOL.

Thank you for letting me vent, for reading this, and, hopefully, helping spread the word and not letting people forget about AIDS. You never know who could be diagnosed next.