hi do you have new year resolution?

sorry, this is a bit late. i normally don’t do the "new year’s resolution" thing. however, i’ve contradicted myself this year & had a "delayed resolution". it was just a promise to myself to treat myself as well as i would treat others. in addition, "i resolve to be magical."
while we’re on it, here’s a great blog to read:
http://freshnessfactorfivethousand.blogspot.com/2010/12/now-heres-resolutions.html
cheers! – t

Ask me anything

words.

here’s a thought…

branded

the conversation and words keep burning in my head. i keep repeating the conversation, replaying every word i heard, taking it all in…

365 days – a photo a day.

so i’ve been feeling that i’ve been “half-assing” my life, lately. i remember times where i would jump and dive into anything i could get my hands on. lately, i realized i’ve been “maintaining” my life instead of living it.

so, i started a photoblog on my birthday (that recently passed).
i decided to take a photo a day for a year to remind myself to live to the fullest and to ensure I do just that.

feel free to follow & pass on. i hope you enjoy the process as much as i will. i’m curious to see what’s to come…

http://teadoughonthego.tumblr.com/

The Trevor Endeavor.

every time i come back home from visiting my second home (SF), i seem to re-spark my drive to make a difference. i’ve always said, i wanted to make a difference in the world…somehow, if even in the smallest way. i seem to get lost in all the bullshit when i’m in my daily grind.

this past weekend, i attended the SF PFLAG chapter meeting where the guest speaker was mike crane of The Trevor Project. mike and I spoke, briefly, before his talk with the group and he mentioned The Trevor Project was looking to branch out into the more conservative cities to cause awareness. since i’ve rejoined the speakers’ bureau of the OC PFLAG chapter, my hope is to bridge OC PFLAG & Trevor Project down here in Orange County (to start).

a bit about the trevor project, they focus on suicide prevention in the LGBTQ community. the 3rd most leading cause of death in teenagers is suicide and about 70% of those suicides are in part to do with LGBTQ issues…getting kicked out of the house therefore facing homelessness, rejected by parents & friends, bullied in the school system. These things can take a toll when already facing the difficult process of coming out.

anyhow, i talked with mike about spearheading the OC / LA chapter or at least doing what i can to help bring awareness out here in conservative OC. this is the philanthropist life i want to have. i, now, have the opportunity to make a difference in society and more so, in my own community.

mike & i have corresponded and it looks like we’re taking a step in the right direction in bringing this to the OC/Long Beach areas and the outlook for me being able to offer my energies to this movement is promising.

i hope the take me up on my offer to bridge various LGBTQ communities out here in OC with the Trevor Project.

if you want to know more about the trevor project, you can go here:
http://www.thetrevorproject.org/

and feel free to drop a good word for me, if you’re so inclined.

.torch

there is something about another’s skin against my own flesh.
warm energy surges & heals any wounds that may be open to healing & open to bleeding.

flesh speaks louder in volume than words, uttered out of one’s mouth, ever could.

there is no pride or fear. the utmost honesty & vulnerability lie in the silence of two bodies pressed against each other; with limbs entangled into & around the other.

this is, indeed, the greatest gift one can give to another.

womyn.

i’ve been wanting to attempt to write something beautiful for a bit now, but have been rarely inspired…so i thought.  however, everyday i have this reoccurring appreciation, sometimes in the back of my mind & other times in the forefront of my skull, for the most beautiful thing in my eyes – the beauty of womyn.  so here, i will attempt to put to words, my absolute love & admiration for the womyn form.

when i was younger, post coming out, i would chase after girls like a young school boy.  i wanted to be in the company of, talk about & think of girls all the time.  i was a little “girl crazy”.  however, the older i get the more i truly admire and appreciate the art-form of a womyn…the way her hips sway with each step towards anywhere her two feet take her & the lines of muscles that drape her back that gives her the strength to carry the world…the way only a womyn can.

there is something about the outline of a womyn’s body that runs like slow-moving infinite waves with no beginning and no end.  a womyn’s warm, soft & silk-like skin against mine can stop the world from spinning, send a surge through my veins and in that moment i am free.

it’s almost unbearable, this beauty of womyn, but it is an anguish i could not do without.

Herstory.

i had a pretty busy weekend this past weekend. i took the day off friday to spend with my mom…actually, to really bond with her. my mom is a very conservative old-fashioned vietnamese woman that does not speak much of her life. this was the single opportunity i had to learn about her experiences and all she went through to get here, to learn about her history. my mother was an immigrant from vietnam. she escaped the communists regime on April 30, 1975. last friday was a commemorative ceremony for the 3,000 refugees that escaped on the US naval ship; the USS Midway. my mother, step-dad and i drove to san diego for the ceremony on this same ship. my mom whispered to me as i parked the car, “that’s what it looks like. i was always on the ship then dropped off. i’ve never seen the outside of the ship that helped save my life.”

i learned a lot about my mother that day. while others escaped on the ship with family members and friends, my mother traveled alone with only an extra pair of clothes (which someone ended up stealing from her as she slept) and no money. she left her family behind and followed the flowing crowd running towards this ship taking them to an unknown destination. my mom got on this ship alone. she didn’t know where the ship was headed. all she knew was she was safe. during those 18 days aboard ship, eating mostly rice and salt, she met my father. they instantly became a team. their destination: Guam. they were truly starting a new life, only this time together. both of my parents left the only place they knew as “home”, left their families and journeyed to a foreign place; unfamiliar with…anything. they worked for meager wages in Guam. making a combined $5 an hour, they saved and saved for 6 months to make a life for themselves and to create one for me in CA.

my mom told me something that friday that i will never forget. she said, “when people look at me, they see that i might have a tough life now. i don’t make as much as other people but i work very hard. this is not hard. then, that was hard. so now, when i see people that are less fortunate, i always do what i can to help them.”

i love my mom.

to this day, this woman works so hard & doesn’t make much, yet still pays it forward.

on the drive over to san diego, my conservative catholic vietnamese mother said something else that about floored me. we were discussing prop 8 and human rights, and she got really pissed. she was angry that some people, including her own daughter, were not seen as equal deserving human beings. she turned to me and said, “baby, i don’t care. if somebody loves you, is nice to you & cares for you, i love them back.”

after coming out to her at the age of 17, lecturing me that she doesn’t want me to go to hell and never speaking about the subject for the next 13 years – i honestly never thought i’d hear something like this from her.

i came out of this experience with a more sense of dignity and self. my mother did not work so hard and sacrifice so much for anyone to walk all over her daughter and for me to settle for less. she didn’t struggle to travel all this way for me to half-ass my life.

my mom has truly shown me i am capable of, and can do, anything.

i am my mother’s daughter. i can do anything and i will not settle for less.

The Canyon Behind Her.

Does anybody feel this way
Does anybody feel like I do
Does anybody feel this way
Does anybody feel like I do

I built a wall
It stretched one thousand miles
Set it off
(Massacre)
It’s holding up the roof
Breast feed your heart
Set it off

I saw a distant port
With no water to support
Burning the bridge between

Does anybody feel this way
Does anybody feel like I do
Does anybody feel this way
Does anybody feel like I do

Never content nor satisfied
Tensions of self
The massacre changed history
Borderline paranoia
Yelling at their own rights
Set it off

Does anybody feel this way
Does anybody feel like I do
Though half of me is gone
The lonesome heart is there

I cannot find the other half
I cannot find the other half
I cannot find the other half
I cannot find the other half

Waking up is hard to do

My Sunday morning view; up north with my sleepy heads.