Simply Love

Hello again, those of you who still read these few blogs I actually post. I do hope that today finds you well in whatever endeavors you set forth to do.

I have been up all night, bored, and flitting about the internet just to expand my personal knowledge of life and the world. I am sad to say that I ended up finding a random post by Westboro Baptist Church (I'm not exactly sure how that happened, really) and it got me to thinking. For those of you who are not familiar with WBC, they are a congregation who thinks it best to fill the world with their message of hate. They set up protests at the funerals of soldiers killed overseas waving signs that say "Pray for more dead soldiers," "Thank god for 9/11," and "Thank god for IED's." They are also anti-American, often making displays like burning the Flag or changing the words to popular songs to suit their agenda of hate. "God Hates America" (God Bless America) and "God Will Always Hate You" (I Will Always Love You) are among their favorites. They even went so far as to make their website address GodHatesFags.com. I have honestly never felt so dirty after looking at anything as I did after I checked their site for myself to see just how bad it really is. I was horrified. To know that there are people on this planet with so much hate in their heart that they'll go to such lengths to throw it in other people's faces astounds me. Actually...it makes me sick to my stomach.

After I saw that, I kept looking around the net at instances of religious intolerance. It all got me to thinking about how petty it is to harbor violent feelings for someone else based simply on what they choose to believe. Actually, I find it pretentious and preposterous. That being said, I decided to take the time today to share my stance on an individual's beliefs:

I believe that everyone has their own path to follow. I do not follow the path that I am on because it's "popular" or because it makes me a "rebel." I am on it because after EXTENSIVE research and "experimentation," it was where I felt more at home. For some people, Christianity may be that path. For others it might be Shintoism or Daoism. All I have ever asked of people is that they respect my faith as much as I respect theirs. I have friends who follow religions varying from Mormonism, to Christianity, to Buddhism, even a few who are Atheist. The one thing that we all have in common is that we are all respectful of what the others follow. That's not to say that there are not moments where we have some nice heated debates, but they are waged respectfully and intellectually, and they always end in much the same manner...With us agreeing to disagree and changing the subject. The object of another's faith does not have to turn into a warzone simply because you don't believe the same way that they do. My mother is a great example of this. I was raised Methodist, so when I came out of the Spiritual closet to my family, she took it the hardest. For a while things were rough, but it's better now. Now whenever she feels that there's a presence in her house, she'll get me to come do a cleansing, and then tell me that I'm going to hell for knowing how to do it. I know that she actually believes that, but by that same token, she has developed a respect for me and my path to the point where she allows me to help with things beyond her control.

The lesson to be learned here is simply to love. I don't have to believe what you believe to love you as a person. I'm sure some of the people here don't believe the same things, that doesn't keep us from coming together as a group and celebrating our time on this rock. It's just sad that there are plenty of people who will never learn this message. :/

Love, Light, and Blessings. )O(

Confusion, Delirium, and Psychosis

So it would appear that I have been terrible with this whole blogging thing. I'd like to say that my life has just been too awesome to find the time to write, but this would be a lie. And as a dear friend once told me, lying is ALWAYS out of the question, so I'll just admit that I have been lazy on this front.

As the title to this blog might suggest, I have been dealing with some very interesting feelings as of late. Those of you who know me, know that I find my base, center, and strength through music. This is never more prevalent than when I am feeling like life is trying to crush me. I find myself more and more sinking back into the shell that I used to live in. It feels more safe, more natural, and, quite frankly, for the best. Perhaps all of the things that are plaguing me now are because I took a chance and moved out of my comfort zone. It is called a "comfort" zone for a reason.

The entirety of my life, I have been, more or less, optimistic. That's not to say that I haven't had moments of GLARING weakness, as a few of you may or may not know, and done things that were detrimental to personal and physical growth. However, through all of the bullshit and torture that I've survived, I've always had the outlook that things were going to get better. I'm starting to think that I might have been mislead. What if right now is as good as it's ever going to get? Can I dare to consider that I'm in the position that I'm going to spend the rest of my life? I not exactly young, perhaps I've reached, or worse missed, my potential.

Oh well, if my suspicions are accurate, then I guess I'll have to make sure that my brain never realizes it. I've always had such grandiose plans. It would be terrible to find out that they will always amount to naught, and I'll never achieve them.

"For Good"

Hello, my 2-3 readers who can tolerate my mindless droll about my life. Even though it's earlier than I had scheduled I decided to include another blog entry. This may or may not have an impact on how long it is before the next one.

I've been re-listening to Wicked lately and, as music generally does, it set me to thinking. Especially when I listen to "For Good". Looking back over the course of my life, I realize that I haven't always made the best decisions. As a matter of fact for most of it I seemed to always choose the most self-destructive path that I possibly could. However, I've also noticed that there has always been great people in my life that have tried to make me do better, and would pick me back up whenever I fell flat on my face. First there was Salem and Tammy. These two were responsible for bringing me out of the most destructive phase of my life. As a few of you know I used to be a user. I can remember going through about $1000 worth of my particular fix in a weekend. I'm still not exactly sure what I was running from, but apparently I was REALLY trying to get away from it. When I first met Salem he was what is commonly referred to now as straightedge. He didn't even smoke. After about a year of being friends, he and I got an apartment together, and I am embarrassed to say that being around me all the time took its toll. It started with him smoking ciggs with me because he was bored and wanted something to do. One thing you need to know is that was how he operated. When he was bored he would always want to try new things to see how they would affect his body. Unlike me, he also had the willpower to not get addicted to things as easily as I did. After about a month of him smoking, I was able to talk him into smoking some green with me, because my logic was is I wasn't doing it alone it made it ok. Then I got into harder things because smoking just wasn't doing the trick anymore. Thankfully this was his line. After the bender that I mentioned earlier, he had had enough of me tearing myself apart and took drastic steps in helping me to recover. I won't go into the details here because quite frankly it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. After about a month or so I was able to cut it down to just ciggs, which he deemed was acceptable. Prior to him breaking me, we were having parties almost every night. And after I recovered we still had a few of the more tame people hanging around. This was around the time that I met Tammy. For those of you who don't know, Tammy was my first serious relationship. She was a key in helping me fight my urges to return to my previous lifestyle. There are really no words that I could express to tell both of them how grateful I was to have them in my life at a time when I needed them the most.

In the last few years I have met some wonderful people who have helped me to grow personally, and have really taught me a lot. You guys know who you are because I have expressed it to most of you, and I would like to take another opportunity to thank you for just being you. Because being you is the greatest thing any of you could ever do. 

"Who can say if I've been changed for the better, but because I knew you, I have been changed for good."

Everything has a beginning...

I would like to start this blog out on the right foot by saying that this will not be an every day blog, but I will keep the key events in my life posted here.

I decided to start blogging because I always feel like there is so many emotions swirling around inside of me that I should let out so that people can better understand why I am the way that I am, and who knows. It may even help someone face what they are dealing with from another perspective. When I sat down and started to make this blog account it asked me for a name of my blog. At this moment, I realized that I had not thought once about what I was going to call it. So I did some thinking about my life and what I really wanted to do with it, and decided on "Thoughts from the Cutting Room Floor." Now for the explanation of the name.

For those of you who don't know, I absolutely LOVE theater and acting, especially musicals. I was in a local casting of RENT that went magically and I couldn't ask for anything more because that was one of my lifelong dreams. It's not often that you get to cash one of those in. Shortly after we finished the production, my (or what I call my) tragedy struck. I contracted Bell's Palsy. For those of you who have never heard of it, it's where there is swelling around the nerves between your ear and your jaw and it basically makes them ineffective. This leads to total paralysis of the side of the face that it happens on. I will admit that I panicked. I went to see doctor's and they told me that I would be fine. They told me that I should get complete control of the muscles on the left side of my face within nine months. However, they mentioned a little statistic. Apparently 3% of people who get Bell's Palsy never regain total control of the muscles, and apparently I am one of those 3%. It's been almost a year and a half now and I still don't have complete control. When I chew, smile, or raise my eyebrows my left eye tries to close. This is why I chose the name that I did, and refer to myself as the "Broken Performer" because I know how the business is. Broadway wants perfection, and perfection in acting is just something that I can no longer even attempt to do. I'm not saying that I was perfect before, but I was working on it. The only comfort that I take away from this is that there are a lot more people like me that are left lying on the Cutting Room Floor than there are living the life that we all wish we had.

There, now that the back story is out of the way, here's to hoping for happy, funny blogs in the future.