The Audi is gone, long live the Audi

Well I did it. I have finally, after 7 years ( I got it in March 2000) I have retired the Audi. Today I went and I bought a 2007 VW Rabbit. The car is sooo much fun. It's black with grey interior and it's a standard!! I forgot how much fun a 5 speed is and this thing has some GREAT pickup.

It's also exciting because this is my first new car. Ever. This should be an experience.

Additionally I visited Patrick on Wednesday. It was great seeing him and we really need to get together more often. It made me realize how much I miss having him around.

Well, that's all for now. Ta ta!

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How they voted...

If you want to know how your representative or senator voted go here:
http://www.massequality.org/howtheyvoted.php

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151

We have won. After over 5 years of waiting and hoping and lots of holding of breath we have won. The latest attack on the right to marry for same-sex couples has been killed by the legislature in an up-and-down vote of the matter. No procedural maneuvers this time, not that I'd care if there were.

I don't doubt that anti-gay groups will still try attack gay marriage in Massachusetts but they will find that we are a stronger and more renewed group after today. We've seen the future and it involves continued full rights to gay marriage.

Here's a brief history of things. (A more complete history can be found here)

July 17, 2002 - First voter petition is killed in a procedural maneuver to adjourn the ConCon. 137-53

November 17, 2003 - The MA Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) allows Gay Marriage. Delays effect of ruling 180 days.

March 29, 2004 - the Legislature passes the legislatively initiated anti-gay marriage amendment.

May 17, 2004 - Gay Marriage is now legal. World doesn't end.

May 17, 2005 - First anniversary of Gay Marriage. World still hasn't ended.

September 14, 2005 - the Legislature kills the legislatively initiated anti-gay marriage amendment 157-39. This is mostly because a more conservative and restrictive version is being submitted via voter petition.

December 7, 2005 - the voter petition is certified to be voted at the next ConCon.

May 17, 2006 - Second anniversary of Gay Marriage. Still no apocalypse.

January 2, 2007 - The legislature finally votes on, and passes the voter petition 61-132. Not happy.

May 17, 2007 - Third anniversary of Gay Marriage. Are the four horsemen usually this tardy?

June 14, 2007 - 45-151. 151 Legislators vote against the amendment. It's over.

For more information here are blog posts from the years:

11.18.2003 - I do....
04.12.2004 - Cheney's Opinion Sucks
01.13.2004 - Delays, delays, delays….
02.04.2004 - Hurrah!! Hurrah!!
02.16.2004 - Marriage, Valentine's Day and other matters
03.29.2004 - Strike 1
09.07.2005 - Fuck the world
09.15.2005 - Well the world gets a repreive
09.20.2005 - "... it's going to be a fun time..."
07.11.2006 - And the fight continues...
09.09.2006 - Do I Dare to Dream?
01.02.2007 - Dissappointed

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What to say, what to say...

So I've had very little motivation to post lately. It's been a whirlwind since I returned to work. The wound is healing mostly well. If I sit wrong it feels like its pulling a bit and it's been bleeding a little since the stiches came out (I called and they said it was normal).

Living with Cate is going well at the moment. Additionally she's doing well in her classes which is key.

The main thing is that I want to get out and do fun things like go bike riding, or swimming or anything that I'm not supposed to do right now. I just want it to be healed and done with. *sigh* I suppose I should be thankful it was sutured and not packed and that its proceeding as fast as it is, but you always want more. :)

Let's see... what else...

Last week I went up to NH with Max. It was a great time and probably more strenuous than I should have been 2 days after stiches coming out. Ah well. We ended up staying in a Comfort Inn in North Conway. Pretty much everwhere was booked and all that was left was a smoking room. NEVER AGAIN. I will search through every last hotel, motel and/or B&B before I EVER take a smoking room again. It was the most vile, disgusting thing I've had to deal with in a while. The room was caked with the stale oder of cigarette smoke everywhere you went. Hell next time I'll just pop for the honeymoon suite (which was the only available non-smoking room) if that's all that's left. It'll be worth the money not to feel like my lungs were filling with toxins.

On Friday I went to the 25th anniversary concert for the Boston's Men's Gay Chorus. It was their annual concert for pride weekend and it was a great time. They had Linda Eder as a guest. Her "Don't Rain on My Parade" with the chorus just brought down the house, it was fantastic. Also great was the fact that they sang "Brothers Sing On" which is what the WPI Glee Club sings at every concert. For an encore Linda sang "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". My fraternity brother and fellow Glee Club alum JJ invited me to see the show. He's been trying to get me to a show for ages and schedules finally aligned. I decided to get two tickets and take someone with me. I initially invited Patrick but he couldn't go. After that I called up Judd and he was happy to come along. He loved it and was glad I "dragged him" there. :)

Afterwards Judd had to go home but I went over to JJ's along with Kurt and Pere and we caught up and had a great time. I ended up leaving Boston about 2:30 am, took a cab back to my car and then drove back to Worcester. I got to bed about 4 am and then slept until 3pm on Saturday.

Sunday I went to see Ocean's 13. It was good, I enjoyed it. I rented Ocean's 11 and 12 and watched them Friday. I liked both as well. For those who've seen the first two, 13 is more like 11. It's a straight out caper film.

After that I ended up getting tipsy with Martha and Dani. It was FANTASTIC.

Well that's all for now.

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A stitch in time...

Well I got my stiches taken out today. Oddly enough, this was the most painful part of the entire procedure and that included the 3 attempts to do my IV. It was the sharp pain when he pulled taut and then cut the sutures that really was source of the pain.

Granted, the actual cut had some pain, but it was more dull and simply "sore". I'm sure the vicodin the first few days helped in that regard.

So at this point I have to be careful for the next week so that I don't reopen the wound, not that the Doctor is really worried at 10+ days after the surgery.

I also can't do any strenuous activities for at least a month, so we're looking at July. Good thing I'm single ;)

At any rate, I'm doing quite well and will be back to work next Tuesday. I would have been back to work on Monday but I've requested Mondays off in June to get rid of vacation time.

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This is too funny

To help cope with the expense of raising a gay child, why don't you try Coming Out Insurance. ;)

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Healing coming along nicely

So it's now 3 days out and I'm doing much better. I am off the pain meds and only a little bit sore. I had the guys from work over for lunch so that was a nice treat.

The good news is that now that I'm off the meds I can drive again (if I have to) so I've regained a certain level of independence.

Cate has been a great help these past few days. It's made this experience a whole lot easier. Dani brought me a balloon and a card that was super cute.

All-in-all this experience has been great and has really reinforced what a great group friends I have around me.

Maybe I'll be good enough to actually do some vacation stuff next week instead of just lie on the couch healing. :) We'll see.

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Safe and Sound

I have returned safe and sound. I have lots of fabulous friends helping me out this week. I'm feeling good so if you want to visit just give me a ring :)

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Slice and Dice

So I'm in today for my surgery.

6am arrival time.

Ugh.

Remarkably I'm not nervous at all. The procedure should be done in less than an hour so I should be out of the hospital by late morning or early afternoon. I probably won't post again until tomorrow so, wish me luck! :)

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My Brother is a Married Man

So yeah... my little brother has been made an honest man and has taken Maureen to be his lawfully wedded wife.

So Thursday of last week was the rehearsal dinner. It was annoying a bit since no invitations were sent out ahead of time I didn't realize they were parting with convention and doing it Thursday instead of Friday night. This caused me to have to cancel hanging out with (and fixing the computer of) my ex Chad. We'll reschedule eventually but it's been too long.

The rehearsal was good, but I really didn't like the wedding coordinator. She had a very quick and impatient personality that just didn't make me feel that she cared about the way the wedding went as opposed to the paycheck at the end. She struck me as a person who would take a checklist, check off all the items as they were accomplished and care not whether they were done in such a way as to acheive the end goal fully. Can you tell she irked me? She decided that the brother of the bride and I needed to almost run down the side isles after walking up the grandmothers up. Hello! The audience is waiting. You don't need to have us run and ruin the picture of the stately wedding procedings. Anyways....

The dinner was good. I toasted Jon and got him to tear up a bit and I gave him Superman cufflinks. Now you have to understand that he is a MAJOR Superman fan. He's got tons of stuff and he mentioned when we got the tuxes that it'd be cool to have Superman cufflinks.

Fast foward to the wedding. I arrive at the hotel at about 4pm, change, get unofficial pictures with the groomsmen and then off to the wedding. We were all worried that we were late (we were supposed to be there at 4:30 to get flowers etc done and then be ready to usher people in) since we were getting there about 4:40. We needn't have worried. The florist didn't get there until 4:50 and the coordinator didn't get there until 5:00. Add to that the fact that the priest was taking 4pm Mass right up through about 5:05. That's just lovely with a 5:15 wedding.

We finally seat everyone and she's (the coordinator) after us to hurry up and finish since we're running late. I'm sorry, was I supposed to get the gong to get the priest of the alter? In all her rush she neglects to signal the music to start but they start without her. Since she assumed that since they were going rogue once that they'd go rogue again, she sent the grandmother's down the aisle at the next song. Then she is frantically waving me down the aisle (that I'm already walking at a brisk pace) to essentially run back. Little did she realize that it was filler music until she signaled them to start the processional music (you know.... umm... her job?). At this point the music people notice that they were playing the wrong music and came down to talk to her and we end up closing the doors and waiting for the entirety of Panis Angelicus to be played and the whole point of her rushing us is now completely nullified. *sigh*

From this point we process down the aisle, Jonathan is there waiting, Maureen comes up and they get married. Much more orderly cuz the priest was in charge.

Abreviated Wedding rites (in other words not a full mass).... how nice.

Off to the Reception for pictures.

We finish pictures and get corralled into a waiting room. Oh joy.... Private food platters. Woohoo! Free drinks! JOY! Waiting for almost an hour to go out.... boo.

We go out, we sit, the newlyweds dance their dance. We then get the salad course, they eventually cut the cake. Lots of dancing. Finally the parental dances. Then more dancing. Lots of drinking. The families all get along. Hallelujah.

All in all a fantastic wedding and Jon and Maureen, I wish you the best.

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