To catch you up...

Yeah... I know... it's been a while.

And trust me... there is a shit load I need to catch you up on. I seriously have 42 started but unfinished blogs to publish... But that would take forever and honestly, I dont even know if anyone reads this thing anymore I've been gone so long. So, lets get on with it... to make it short, I'm going to start at the end, and go backward. So,  lets talk about the last year. Here's where I've been...

I've officially been single for a year. After coming to a mutually agreeable ending Danny and I officially stopped being a couple (in my mind) last November 7th, 5 years and two months after we met and started dating. I remember the day so well because it was also the day we got evicted from my wonderful home on Castro.

Yeah... that happened. I'm still raw about it. It was the longest place I had ever lived in my life. It was my first HOME. I still look up every time I'm in the neighborhood. It was empty for a long while in city time, but there are curtains now... But I still have the urge to throw things at the building when I'm near it, so I tend to stay on the other side of the street. The eviction is a long story and took 11 months in court battles before I ultimately lost.

Things got out of my grip and I couldnt hold all the strings together anymore. I had three roommates that stiffed me on a months rent and a couple months worth of bills all within about 7 months of each other, I lost my job and started temping again... I covered people more that I was able to and it eventually cost me the house. And I fought like hell, but sometimes the cards fall the other way.

After dropping Danny off at Bart to go home to his parents place in the east bay, AJ drove me down to his place in San Jose where I would stay with Jinx (my dog... oh yeah, I got a dog!!) until I could find a new place to live. I stayed there for a month, all the while working 7 days a week at two jobs for a year straight with no break (except the weekend I had to move of course). I commuted up to 4 hours a day and worked 8 hours a day. It nearly killed me, but I needed the money to stay afloat.

Oddly enough, the same week I lost my eviction case I also got offered a really great job at the place where I had been temping since my last lay-off. They brought me on and that paycheck was everything. After the month at AJ's I couldn't handle the commute any longer and for Christmas Danny and I stayed together with our dogs at Chad Fox's legendary pad in north beach. And as corny and disgusting as it sounds, the blinking lights from all those titty bar marquee's really made the mood in the air feel like a little magic Christmas... you know, from the right angle... above, without a clear line of sight. Anyways, it was a nice holiday after the rough go it had been. After that I found a cheap ($450 a week) and surprisingly nice hotel downtown to stay in while I kept looking for a room.

Danny had Jinx in the east bay at his mom's and it was utter hell trying to find a room to rent that would take a dog let alone getting her to the interview with me... anyways I didn't find a place until February, when my best friend Steph made the decision to move to Portland with her wife Jen. They needed to save some money and just happened to have a room to rent for me and Jinx. So from February through August I lived in that sweet odd little flat commonly known as "the Whorehouse", being treated like a right proper gay husband married to a good southern baptist housewife, who made me breakfast before work and had cocktails in the making when I got home. It was quite possibly the very thing that saved me.

When they moved to Portland I moved over to Liz and Shelly's place on Church and Market where they happened to have a room to rent for a short period of time... And thats where I am as I sit here typing. Oh... the other stuff...

So, while I had the good job, was making some extra money and living with Steph I decided to start taking this singing class that she has always been telling me about but I never had the money to go to. I started taking class at the Shari Carlson Studio in April and it was good and challenging. My vocal range grew, my abilities grew, and most interestingly, she began working with my entire body as an instrument and I have had astronomical growth since. It's an amazing studio, highly recommended. So for the last six months I have been taking two singing classes and one acting class a week. Because I remembered that I could sing, and I really did love it...

Then in May, my cousin Zach died at the age of 20. I dont know why it hit me so hard other than he was the first of my generation to die young. He and I had been facebook friends for a few years, having been seperated by time and space for most of his life. He was an amazing kid though, just... he drew you in and you were hooked. It's kind of like how you feel when you look at the sun, the warmth, the brightness, the joy... He died doing what he loved. Rock climbing. I feel robbed that I never got to spend the time that we were promised getting to know each other as family.

The next night in class I sang a song for him, "Bring him Home", from Les Miz. I've never preformed a song like that before, and I may never be able to draw that raw live emotion to the front again, but I cried like I hadn't in years, while singing in a tear wracked falsetto, my entire way through that song. There wasn't a dry eye in the the room and thats when I realized, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm supposed to be an actor. I'd almost let the dream go. I'd almost settled for almost, and at that moment I realized how close I had come to putting it all down and walking away. And I decided that if I were to die young, I want to have done what I love.

Since May... I've been in two webseries pilots. Seven short films. Three stage plays. Four commercials and next week I am going to get an agent.

So... All caught up? I know... the other 42 articles, I'm on it! Did I mention that I finally got a computer again... thanks Mom.