let there be BLOOD

I was trolling the interwebs today and stumbled across a message a stranger wrote in response to a Facebook post by George Takei asking us to sign a petition:

So just over a year ago my husband got the call for a pancreas transplant (he's Type 1 diabetic, the transplant ended up not happening for other reasons but anyway) and the dr came into the room and said "By law I'm required to let you know of some history of the pancreas and you're free to accept or reject the pancreas without jeopardizing your spot in line." then he went on to say that the donor was a homosexual man, had been in a monogamous relationship for several years with a man blah blah blah. Of course my husband was like "So?"

I flat out asked the dr "So you're alerting us for a gay man but would you get any information if it was a guy who had 500 female partners in the last 6 months or engaged in risky sex with prostitutes at the truck stop?" the dr laughed and said "Nope, wouldn't get or release that information...it's pretty messed up isn't it?"

Isn't that DISGUSTING?



That IS disgusting. More than 30 years since the outbreak of AIDS and HIV in America, despite all the scientific research and data to back it up, homosexual men specifically are not allowed to donate blood. How many more cases are like the one above? There was the gay man whose entire company donated blood, yet he wasn't allowed to: completely ostracizing him from his co-workers and outing him as homosexual when he had chosen to stay in the closet at work. Or the man who was asked if he had ever prostituted himself because he is gay and wanted to donate blood.

The American Medical Association voted to end the ban in 2013, partially due to extreme new lows in the nation's supply, but also because they lacked scientific evidence of gay men putting the blood supply at risk. Maybe the costs of testing the blood is too high, but if that is the case, shouldn't we all be worried about getting tainted blood that is not completely being tested by the FDA/CDC?

The American Red Cross, America’s Blood Centers, and Advancing Transfusion and Cellular Therapies Worldwide stated in a joint release in 2006 “that the current lifetime deferral for men who have had sex with other men is medically and scientifically unwarranted.” In a day and age where lgbtqia people are fighting for recognition and acceptance, blood donation denial is still a huge setback and a reality of the fact that gay men are labeled today as second class citizens.



There is an online petition that I would love for anyone and everyone reading this to sign. It is asking the White House and President Obama to intervene in this case and end this discriminatory policy. You can copy and paste the link below or you can check out George Takei's FB page or my own for a direct link.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/call-hhs-fda-end-their-ban-against-gay-bisexual-male-blood-donors/7mcCpPxl

Thanks for reading. Sometimes blood is thicker than water.

Dancing in My Underwear

I'll never forget meeting one cool January afternoon with my dear friend James Roman. I sought out Jim's advice because I knew that he was one of the few published writers that I was acquainted with. 

I picked my poor sensei's brain for over two hours with questions of what to do with my newly written rough draft of a collection of 16 autobiographical short stories from my life. He gave me excellent advice and first hand knowledge I mightn't've received elsewhere. 

One thing that he said struck me and I really didn't want to believe it: he said that from his rough draft completion to the time his first book was actually published was over two years in the making.

"Two years?!?" I thought at the time. "That is so NOT gonna be me and my book."

Now I look back and laugh. One year and 7 months later and I still haven't published my book. While I do not believe it will be a whole two years before its release, I do think there is validity in not rushing one's art. It's certainly not like I haven't been working my ass off on gettin' 'er done. 

This, what I deem now as my first collection of essays, has gone through more re-writes and edits than Joan Rivers' face. It has survived a name change, and story switch out, thousands of hours of editing, writing contests, countless nights of changes, shape shifting, and NYC street cup-game-esque switcheroos. What once was 16 is now my first anthology: delightfully and more appropriately re-titled as

 Dancing in My Underwear. 

After a lot of soul searching, researching, number crunching, and workshop attending, I have also presently decided to (bum bum buuuuum) SELF PUBLISH my work. This was not an easy decision to make, but one I stand by wih conviction. This way my first contribution to the art of literature is completely under my artistic and administrative control. This way I retain 100% of my originality and zaniness. This way it is released and presented to the public the way I want it to be. Self publishing allows me to release my art on my watch, on my terms, exactly how and when I want it to be expelled out into the world.

I have a lot of marketing strategies under my belt as a soon to be officially published abghes (Autobiographical gay humorist essayist). In the coming months, I'll be promoting more and more the release of the first part of Dancing in My Underwear and warn all my friends and love ones to bare with me as it will soon become all I can talk about. 

All I know is I am so very bloody excito to finally get DIMU out there so all you biatches who have been bugging me to read my stuff can finally get a chance to. That and I can finally divert my total creative energy into what I've been doing the last few months: finishing my SECOND book.

As always, dear people of my page:

Thanks for reading!

#grateful

#loveoneanotheralways

The End of a Thera

Yesterday was a great day for me and a personal milestone.

9 1/2 months ago I wanted to stop being so depressed: I was dealing with extreme personal secrets and troubles. It felt like the entire world was against me. I was in so much pain, emotionally, that I found it unbearable at times to handle. I would burst into tears all the time and confided with no one my deepest, darkest demons. I was able to keep up the charade of happiness for a while, but everytime I would look in the mirror, I didn't see my reflection looking back at me. I saw someone who was beaten down, lost, confused, and weakened.

Eventually I couldn't deal with seeing that person looking back at me any longer. I knew I needed help, but I was too confused and too damaged to reach out to those closest to me. I'm typically a very happy person who is content with my life and the journey that I am on. I realized that these depression bouts were not a normal facet of my life, nor was I willing to let them become as such.

Luckily for me, I live in one of the best cities in America, if not the world. Though I make fun of it and have nicknamed it STEPFORD due to it's residents being so prototypical, I am very fortunate to call the city of West Hollywood, California my home. Besides being its own seperate town surrounded on pretty much all sides by giant Los Angeles, we have our own laws, our own rights, and our own programs. One of the most liberal places in America, West Hollywood has a shit ton of services readily available for everyone.

As for me, I qualified for a free counseling program that the city of WEHO offers to its inhabitants. I was able to meet with one of the program heads pretty immediately and she soon there after placed me with my therapist. Up until yesterday when we met for our last session, I saw my "doc" once a week for every week for more than the length of my best friend's recent pregnancy.

Soon after I started seeing him, the healing began. Not because of anything my doctor was doing or saying necessarily--other than encouraging me at every session to take the lead and talk about and focus on what I wanted to discuss. But the change began with me. I knew that I was abnormally hurting inside and I knew that I wanted and needed help. Going to see him every week and setting goals for myself helped with the process, but the real definitive moment was when I admitted something was wrong and wanted to make a change. And was ready for it.

This whole process of therapy for me has been about realizing the internal changes I wanted to make for myself to be happier. I got to the point where I had settled for so many things in my life that I was unable to see any of my dreams becoming a reality. Nowadays, I watch as my dreams grow and instead of sitting by hoping they come true, I'm hands on working my ass off day by day making them a reality. 

Receiving counseling was one of the best choices I have ever made. We all have problems. We all have pasts. But we also have futures. To really wade through the fog and see my future, I needed to talk with someone and heal from previous situations. A third party perspective of myself and my relationships with people  from an outsider point of view was so important to me in this period of my journey on this earth that it literally saved my life. I'm so eternally grateful that I was able to get treatment when I needed it most.

I have used the last 9 1/2 months to make serious decisions in my life and reflect on my past while still looking ahead. My therapy allowed me to progress at my own pace while applying what I was learning. Though I knew that my time with my therapist would end, I really am sad to conclude our sessions with each other and move on. This seperation will be one of the most healthy closures of my life. Sometimes relationships--in whatever form--come to a close. Sometimes life changes. Things change. People change. Change is good.

I highly recommend it.

#neversettle