New Year's Resolution

This is probably going to be my shortest New Year's Resolution List of my life.

Why?

Because how could I possibly top this year?

I came out to my biological family, who disowned me, but I gained the awesomest family in the world.

I'm living my life as the gay man I was always supposed to be.

I got engaged to Daniel.


I moved.

I'm a published author.

I'm a bestselling published author.

I'm writing a 100K word novel.

I'm about to get my name changed.

So I only have six things I want to do next year.

1. I will publish at least 6 books by the end of the year.
2. I will marry Daniel (b/c my life will just be 100 times better when I put that wedding band on his finger)
3. I will get in shape (b/c oh my gosh if I get told that I'm "technically" 2 lbs overweight I'm going to scream)
4. I will go back to school for business, so that I can get the process started for my group home for at-risk teens.
5. I will get my name changed legally (I'm going to scream the day that happens).
6. I will become the best version of myself that I can be. The best writer. The best younger brother. The best older brother. The best uncle. The best son. The best husband. The best future dad in the world.

Anything else is just extra, but I'm resolving that at the end of 2012 I'll be telling you that I have accomplished all six of those things.

It's going to happen.

I hope you all have a great New Year's and that all of your resolutions are attainable and that this upcoming year is the greatest one you've ever had and that it only improves for you.

To love, to life, to family, to growth, to healing, to understanding, to compassion, to tolerance, to faith, to peace...

To hope.

Hugz, Squeezes and Fist Bumpz.

Happy New Year's All!!

-Vicktor Aleksandr B.

P.S. Daniel baby, you're perfect for me, even if you're not "perfect" yourself. You make me long to be a better man, the best man, for you. I love waking up and knowing that I have you to look forward to. Je t'aime mon amour. Te amo mucho. Te quiero. Tu es mi corazon. Lovdorish you Dangelina. Love Always, Forever, Together, and Never-Ending. Your BradVic

What a Brave Guy!

This soldier came out to his dad and filmed it all on Youtube right after DADT was repealed.

Life-Changing Song: Skyscraper by Demi Lovato

So I got this really, really mean and nasty email from someone through the blog.  I'll admit, it had me upset, but it didn't hurt me, which I am sure, was the guy's intention.  I don't really handle homophobic, racist assholes with any type of dignity or aplomb, usually I just have this sort of Sylvester Stallone in "Rambo" moment where I pull out my guns and go in blazing.  So after I tore this guy a few new ones and Jack "talked me down" reminding me that it wasn't true, the guy was an idiot, it was good that I'd blocked him, I thought of the song "Skyscraper" by Demi Lovato.  It's the song I listened to after my mother told me that she didn't have to accept me when I came out to her.  It's the song that I listened to when I started getting the emails, text messages and phone calls from family members and their friends and old friends of mine, condemning me to hell if I didn't "turn away from sin and my abomination", it's the song I listened to when I finished reading "Nowhere Ranch," and today, it's the song that I'm listening to help calm me down when this idiot told me that "God was trying to kill" me and that's why I mixed up the pills and why my body reacted.  *Rolls eyes*  So, since this idiot is a "lurker," (which seriously if you are a lurker, don't call yourself that okay?  Just...creepy) and all I had was his email address which I blocked immediately, I am actually hoping that he still reads this blog.  Idiot, I want you to listen to this song and realize that it will take a lot more than an email telling me that God was trying to kill me yesterday to make me stop living my truth.  I am an educated African-American woman living in Polk County, I've had rocks thrown at me, received death threats, etc.  You are child's play compared to them.  Seriously.  For the rest of you, remember that NO MATTER WHAT, you can overcome anything, you can rise above anything that tries to break you or wound you or hold you down.  For every one person that will try to put you down there are five more, ready to pick you back up.  Stay strong, we deserve to love, to live, to breathe, to survive, to have families, to learn and to be just like everyone else!!

{HUGZ AND SQUEEZES AND FIST BUMPS}


Vic

Life-Changing Book: Nowhere Ranch by Heidi Cullinan

Nowhere Ranch by Heidi Cullinan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I read L.A. Witt's "Static" I had a panic attack because it made me come face-to-face with some truths about myself that I'd been hiding.  When I read this book I cried because Heidi described the heartbreak I experienced at my own coming out, the grief, the despair, the hopelessness that ate away at me with my family's reaction, the need to erect walls to keep oneself safe from any more emotional hurt, the fight and struggle for healing and the overwhelming power of hope, forgiveness and acceptance, not of others but the acceptance of yourself.

When I first started reading this book, I didn't know what to expect.  It had been recommended to me by Pati Maye, someone who after hearing about my family's reaction to my coming out told me that she'd adopt me.  So I read this expecting to read a story of how a family accepted someone's decision to live their truth.  I didn't even read the blurb, I just started reading.  When I read Roe's family's reaction to finding out he was gay I felt as if Heidi had hidden cameras in my home (which wouldn't make sense as this book was written and published before I came out).  I could feel the lost feeling that ate away at Roe's insides and when Roe began working at Nowhere Ranch and he met up with Travis Loving, the ranch owner, in a gay bar, I don't think I've ever rooted so hard for a couple before.

Heidi's words and the flow of her sentences made this book gritty and raw with emotion, I ached with the need for Roe to realize he wasn't evil for loving someone, I desperately needed for Travis to catch Roe if he ever ran if he ever fell, because Heidi's way with words had me feeling as if Roe's struggle was my own.

The sex was hot, rough, passionate, sweaty, and I cringed and clenched through most of it, feeling as if Travis was standing over me giving me orders or telling me what he was about to do to me.  It was wonderful how Travis always knew what Roe needed, even when Roe didn't, and he always gave it to him, whether he was being rough or gentle, paddling him or yes, fisting him (gasp!).  It was all so hardcore, so raunchy and so gripping that I purposefully read the scenes to my boyfriend just to see his reactions.

Haley's determination for Roe to have happiness, the way she fought for him, fought for his well-being, fought for his acceptance, fought for his right to love who he wanted, to have the family and the life he wanted, made me smile and root for her, making her one of the FIRST female friends in a M/M romance book that I actually WANTED to read about.  At one point, I even clapped for her after she gave a long speech.

The best thing about this book was the ending.  It was the greatest, sweetest ending ever.  I nodded, wiped away the tears that had escaped from my eyes pages before and felt "The Epilogue Whore" within me give a great big sigh of relief that Heidi had satisfied us both, the reader who longs for the story and the E.W. who longs for the "After" in Happily Ever After.

Rarely do I read a story that affects me so much that when it's over I've realized that I had such a visceral reaction to it, but when I read one that does, I know that it's one that I will read over and over and over again.  I would recommend this book to everyone.  To those who were able to come out with no adverse reaction from their family, so that they can appreciate that experience and express their love and gratefulness for that.  To those who came out and whose parents had a negative reaction, disowned them, kicked them out, beat them up, etc. so that they can see that our desire to love, our ability to love someone even when others say that it's wrong is not wrong, is not evil, is not a sin, that being who we are, living our own individual truths is the greatest example of purity, of righteousness, of holiness that there could ever be.  To those who have had someone that they know, someone that they love come out and they reacted positively or negatively so that they can see that love, no matter its form, its gender, its race or religion, is just love.

And to those who still dare to dream, dare to hope, dare to love, this is the perfect book for you.


View all my reviews

Damien & Roman: Forever (Part Two)

Damien's Introduction:


     I came out to my parents when I was sixteen.  Neither of them were upset, though both of them were shocked.  You see, I'm not the stereotypical image of a gay man.  I look like an athlete, a big, huge muscle-bound athlete.  I've always looked that way and so I played into it.  I played sports all throughout high school and college.  Football, baseball, hockey, soccer.  It didn't matter what I was playing as long as there were sweaty men involved.
     My mother became the most supportive "gay mother" that I've ever known.  She joined PFLAG, she marched in pride parades, protested, signed petitions, she even joined Twitter so that she could meet more gays and get involved.
     My father was another story entirely.  While he didn't disown me or disparage me about what he called my "lifestyle choice," we never talked about it...ever.  When I brought boyfriends over for dinner he ignored them or treated them like they were just my friends and not my boyfriends.  As it was, after a few times of his indifference, I stopped bringing them over.
     Other than that my life was pretty normal.  I went to work, hung out with my friends, all of whom are gay, went on a couple of dates, worked out religiously, was extremely active in gay rights and spent an exorbitant amount of time online blogging and tweeting.
     Yes, my life was predictable and boring.  The thing is, I didn't know that it was.  I lived in blissful ignorance of how stale I was.  I watched my friends fall in love, get married, start families and thought that my time would surely come and I didn't have to change my routine at all.
     I have never been so wrong in my life.  There were so many missed opportunities, missed friendships, missed chances at relationships.  As a result, not only was I blissfully ignorant of how boring my life was, I was also ignorant of life in general.  Which I guess is the only excuse, or explanation, that I can offer for a lot of the mistakes that I made.  It is a common misconception that gays are extremely promiscuous or worldly, that as soon as we "come out" we instantly become knowledgeable of all things "sexually gay", all things worldly, all things business, real estate, political, fashionable or social.  We have to learn things just like everyone else.
     It's just that we tend to look so much more fashionable while we're learning it.
     I was actually still pretty ignorant by the time I met Roman, who was still technically Rachelle at the time.  The good thing is that my ignorance of life in general made me ignorant of how people who were transgender or bigender were "supposed" to be treated and viewed.  There was just something about Roman that called to me, something I responded to, something that made me long for him and fall in love with him.  I have never been so happy to be so ignorant in all of my life.

Damien & Roman: Forever (Part One)

Blurb:

Damien & Roman Forever:

     Meet Roman.  He is a gay romance writer, a screenwriter and a father of quads.  He also used to be a woman.  Roman was born Rachelle and after coming out to his parents and having surgery is now living his life as Roman.
     Meet Damien. He is an architect who is also an out and proud gay man. He is a father of quads and is happily married to Roman.
     Join Damien and Roman as they share the tale of their lives.  Their coming out stories, how they met, fell in love, started a family and coped with being not only a gay couple, but an interracial gay couple raising children in modern day America, with one of the parents being transgender.
     Told as if Damien and Roman are being interviewed, "Damien & Roman: Forever" gives you the reader a chance to experience a side of the LGBT community that few if any, are ever privy to.

Part One:

Roman's Introduction

     I'd always hated my vagina.  I think that's the reason it was so easy for me to get the surgery done.  I had spent most of my life pretending as if it didn't exist.  I walked around, acted and even fucked as if I was born with a cock in between my legs.  I should have been born that way.

     By some strange twist of fate, divine, pre-retribution for all of the shit that I would create later on in life, I was born a woman.  Not even a curvaceous, sexy one at that.  Oh, don't get me wrong, I had my moments.  There were times when even I stood and stared at myself in awe, but they weren't many.

     My parents had five other children.  I was just one of six, so I was expendable, replaceable, which they proved to me the day I sat them down and told them I was a gay man on the inside and not the straight woman that they expected me to be.

     I expected the anger, the venomous words, the Scripture that they hurled at me, the fire and brimstone that they tried calling down.  I didn't expect the hysterical laughter that proceeded it.

     "I'm a gay man too Rachelle," my mother giggled, sitting between my father and stepfather.  Bot of whom grinned widely at what they thought was my obvious sense of humor.  I'm hilarious.  I spent a lot of time making people laugh, but I'd only recently come to the conclusion that if I made them laugh then they were too busy to see how miserable I really was.  It was why I had devoted most of my life to making others smile and being the life of the party, making sure that everyone had fun and that they were all laughing.  No one paid much attention to the ravaged look of hopelessness and despair on your face when you were making them laugh all the time.

     My parents continued laughing and I let them.  Their hysterical laughter was so much better than what i knew was coming.  When their laughter stopped I cleared my throat and handed them the pamphlets and the copies of the receipts that I had made for my genital reassignment surgery.  The surgery wasn't cheap, neither was the therapist that I'd been seeing so that I could get the surgery.  I had invested a lot of time and money into this.  This chance, this opportunity for me to be happy finally, to be comfortable in my own body.

     I was serious.  And now they knew.

     I told them that I'd had to do therapy first, and then I'd had to take testosterone treatments but that I would be having the surgery soon...with or without their support.  They said it would be without it...seconds before kicking me out of their house and disowning me.

     It was a good thing I'd already packed up my car.

     I didn't look back.  I just grabbed the keys to my white SUV that I'd left on the kitchen counter and walked out of the door.  I climbed in my vehicle that was stuffed with all of my belongings and drove away.  I had no idea where I was going, only that I was going.  I drove for hours with a large smile on my face, singing along to Lady Gaga's new album.

     I may have lost my family, but I'd found myself, which was so much better.  And you know what?  If I had not left that day, I wouldn't have ended up where I did.  I wouldn't have met Cody who is married to Kelvin who has a brother named Damien, who ended up being the love of my life.

Life-Changing Movie: The Help

When it comes to movies based on books, I usually read the book first, but I didn't this time.  My mother wanted me to see the movie and then tell her if it was worth it.

I cringed, I got angry, I cried, I gasped, I felt sick to my stomach, I yelled at the screen, but most of all, I felt something in me finally snap.

I have always kept it in my brain about the sacrifices that my ancestors made in order for me to be able to have the life that I have.  I have never forgotten that many of them died so that I could have freedom from slavery, that they died so that I could have an education, a home of my own, a job that pays me equal to everyone else, so that I could marry a white man, so I could ride on the bus and sit anywhere I wanted to on it and so many other things that I know I take for granted on many days even though I don't intend to.

As I watched this movie I felt humbled by the things that older blacks, my ancestors had to suffer in order to be "separate, but equal," and I realized that they took risks, steps for equality, to be seen as equal in every way.  They knew that the color of their skin did not make them second-class citizens, that they had souls and the capacity to learn and be educated, that they could love and grow and contribute just as much, just as well as the whites that hired them and oppressed them.

I knew after watching this movie that if these women could be brave and stand for what was right, for what was due them, stand up for who they really were, then I could also.

I deserve the right to be who I am, to love who I want, to live how I want.  I should be afforded the same rights, the same privileges, the same consideration as those who are only male, only female and straight.  I have taken a stand for gay rights.  I always have, even when I had to go behind my parents' back to do so.  I have fought for marriage equality, performed ceremonies for "alternative" couples, but I was always the "supporter," "the sympathizer."  I was, in essence, the white people who marched for black rights, the ones who fought for an end to slavery.  The one fighting for others.  I never let people know, never claimed that I was just like them, that I was one of them.

Oh, I teased that I was a gay man on the inside, but never told people that that was actually true.  As I watched this movie I realized that I had to start telling the truth, about myself, to my family, to my friends, to those in my "real" life and not just to those in my "online" life.  So, mark it on your calendars, because I'll be marking mine September 04, 2011 is Veronica Victorian's Coming Out Birthday!

If I F-to-M Transition, Will I Grow a Prostate?

Yeah, I seriously asked my doctor that question today.

*Shrug*

It's not that I thought I could SERIOUSLY grow one...I mean, I'm not a COMPLETE airhead, but she was going on and on and ON about the wonders of modern medicine and technology and about how they could take some of my eggs and harvest them and then when I'm ready I can either have them implanted in me or in a surrogate (this conversation came about because of the fact that when you're disabled in the line of duty they always want to see if your reproductive system has been "compromised," and while I can still GET pregnant, the fact that I'm in a wheelchair, apparently isn't conducive to having men line up at the proverbial door-the military feels responsible-hmmm....I wonder why?).

"You have to understand the strides that we are making everyday to improve the quality of people's lives.  I mean, it's quite remarkable."-My doctor.

"Really?  So...let's say I decide that I want to be a man..."-Me

"Do you feel like you're a man?  That you should have been born as a man?  Because we have people on staff you can talk to and if that's something you feel you need done, we can check into options.  The only thing is that you wouldn't be able to impregnate your partner."-My doctor.

"Oh that's no problem.  If I was a man I'd be gay anyway.  Which is what I wanted to talk to you about.  Since you all are making such strides in the medical field.  If I decide to do the whole female to male transition thing, will I grow a prostate?  Because I hear those things are great to have.  Especially you know, because I'll be gay and all."-Me

Apparently, she didn't like my questions, she told me no it wasn't possible and then she suddenly had to go.  How rude!  LOL.

I'm sorry I love to ask questions that flabbergast people.  When I was fourteen, I asked my parents, our pastors, our deacons and my Sunday school teacher about hermaphrodites.  (The parents choose the gender, but they choose what they want, what if that's not the gender that child identifies with?  Shouldn't it be up to the child?  And doesn't that apply to everything?  Even who they have sex with?)  LOL.  They tried to throw scripture at the last part, but they couldn't at the first part which tore down their whole argument.  I believe that pastor is still studying trying to find a response.  That was thirteen years ago.

I don't try to be a pest....okay, sometimes I do, my whole goal is just to make people think before they open their mouths, especially when they're attempting to condemn someone.  My doctor?  Well, I just like to piss that bitch off, it's fun.  Plus, her son, Jonathan, is one of the kids in the Gay Teens Support Groups that I talk to (you know about how there are straight people out there who support them and that there are alternatives and people to go to when they're being bullied, etc), his mother is EXTREMELY homophobic (blame it on her serving in the US military for YEARS and coming from an extremely Conservative household) and I think she's against "race mixing."  So she rubs my craw wrong all the way around.  I have to continue to annoy her, my plan is for her to be so angry at me that when her son Jon comes out in two years to her when he turns 18, she'll blame me and be angry at me and not him.

It's my plan anyway, and if I get to poke the bear and have fun a little bit along the way?  Well, that's just a bonus.