25 years...

It’s strange to think how much I’ve experienced in these past twenty-five years. So much learning, so many opportunities taken, many others passed on by. There has been such an abundance of individual growth. I wanted to take a moment to share with you some of the highlights, lowlights and other lights in between that have spent the last quarter of a century molding me into who you now know as Brogan.

Adult Problems...

My radiator leaks.

Mine’s only like drip, drip, drip, so a towel on the floor is enough to save me for now.

The heating system in this new apartment wants me to be warm so much that it’s expelling boiling droplets into my room.

I should feel honored.

I don’t.

Best Friends and Home Videos...

My best friend Dani and I go back a long, long, long way. I’ve known this amazing woman for 20 years now. For the record, I’m 24 years old. That makes her my longest known best friend, and I could not imagine another I would rather have in the position. We don’t talk nearly as much as we should, but when we do it’s as though absolutely no time has passed and we’re just catching up on yesterday’s news. We share a sense of humor, remember (most of) our secret handshake and will always have a friend in one another. That’s longevity, my friends.

Independently Happy...

In the past, my friends would refer to me as a serial monogamist. I cannot deny what is true, and therefore I cannot deny this accusation. For many years, I allowed myself to be drawn down by others because I needed to be needed. The addictive thrill of infatuation didn’t hurt either, but the real exhilaration comes from feeling for even one moment that you are the only person who can make someone else’s world right again. It isn’t true, but it feels damn good to think it is.

Online Gay-ting...

In this modern world of ours, many people turn to the online dating scene to meet people. Perhaps our lives are too busy. Perhaps society is changing in ways that make meeting people in conventional ways much more difficult. Perhaps we want to hide behind a screen until we feel comfortable enough to actually approach someone else. Whatever the case, my experiences in the online gay dating scene have been...interesting. So naturally I wrote a poem to express my feelings about it. Happy Monday Fun Day! Enjoy.

What are you so proud of?

I am not proud to be gay.

In fact, the concept of ‘gay pride’ has always kind of baffled me. It is my understanding that the community at large would like the people of the world to believe that, to quote Lady Gaga, we were just “born this way.” It’s in the genes. Part of the original blueprint. A stipulation in the contract that my soul signed before entering this body. By no means is it a choice.

A definition for you...

Exhaustion (n.):

1. The act or process of exhausting...all of my energy with two jobs and ballin' friends.
2. The state of being exhausted...a feeling somewhat permanent as of late.
3. Extreme weakness or fatigue...barely touched by an hour long bath.
4. The total consumption of something...my soul. The something is my soul.

Frozen Grapes...

Life is kind of tumbling out of control in the best possible way. For the next several months, I think I’ll be an incredibly busy person. Increasing responsibility at two jobs in two different boroughs, neither of which being the one I reside in, will be leaving me with what looks to be possibly one day off a week. Perhaps two if the odds are in my favor. Occasionally not even the one.

The Winds Blow Ever On...

Just last year around this time, the winds of change blew harder than they had in a long while for me. Instead of fighting it, rooting down and waiting it out in an exercise of futility, I decided to set sail on what has turned out to be the best adventure of my life. The winds have a habit of blowing harder and harder forcibly altering your life until you have no choice but to accept the changes they bring. But it turns out, my friends, that embracing the currents seems to make the changes easier and gives you at least some control of how to steer the ship.

I'm a big boy now...

Almost every Friday night for the last several months, since mid February if I remember correctly, I have spent my evenings well into the learly hours of the morning with an amazing group of flesh craving, heartbeat deprived lunatics. Not many people have the opportunity to spend time every week with a horde of seemingly insatiable zombies. Even fewer, I think, have the chance to willfully forfeit the living world for an eve and join the thralldom, enslaved by a never ending hunger for warm blood. We even get paid for this nonsense! I consider myself very lucky.

Put it on ya head...

About one week ago here in New York City, I found myself digging out a jacket from my little storage bin. I had put most of them away once the weather started to turn warm enough for comfortable open toed shoes on the regular. It seems that weather in the Big Apple is just as finicky as back in Florida, though, and so I found myself needing the warm makery once again.

Flash forward to the now times…it’s hot as balls! It feels like the sun decided to hop on down for a day of sitting directly on my head. You give me food, sun, you give me life. Don’t think I’m not appreciative, but holy fuck monkeys you’ve got to stay further away. We’re talking somewhere in the 80s at night, people. Several mornings now I have woken up in a puddle of my own sweat. A puddle! I sleep naked and uncovered…this should not be a thing. This weather, friends, is full of yuck.

Rescue Me...

Endless white as far as the eye can see. Can the eyes see here? There’s no horizon to speak of and not even a hint of walls or structure, so what is there to tell me if I’m seeing or simply blinded comfortably by light. My eyes don’t hurt here. There’s no strain to focus. Echoes of my footsteps reverberate back to me as an eerie tribal beat played on unseen alabaster drums. The sounds must be hitting something in this vast sea of white…mustn’t they? Passing fancies, these thoughts of mine. I’ve had them all before.

It’s just as it always is once I realize I’m in a dream.

Sandman, Schmandman...

It’s 3:42 in the god damned morning.

I really don’t think I’ll ever understand how this Sandman guy gets to keep his fucking job. My entire life all I’ve ever seen is a slacker and a half. He floats around doing who knows what to people’s eyes all night, and then what? Forgets about me? I don’t know whether to be furious or offended. Put that shit in my eyes, man!

When it rains...

There is an old saying I’ve heard once or twice recently that goes something like this: ‘When it rains, it pours.’ Now, like any good Floridian, I know this isn’t always the case. In fact, when it rains, it could simply mist all day in overcast annoyingness. Sometimes when it rains it drizzles incessantly. Occasionally, it hurricanes like a beast. More often than not, though, when it rains it simply rains until the clouds are done crying. But last weekend, my friend, it poured like a mother fucker.

FedUp...

I’m sitting on my couch.

My coffee pot is sputtering away heating up water for my second cup of tea. I haven’t been able to invest in a water filter bottle yet, so I heat up my water like MacGyver. It’s a thing…don’t worry about it. The incense cone I lit a while ago has burned a quarter of the way through. Much less mess, incense cones. Sticks have a tendency to ash up everything. Unless, of course, you have an enclosed incense box. Note to self: add that to my list of necessary investables.

Just a Quickie...

Hello my dearest friends and readers! This weekend, any of my normal dedicated writing time was taken up by various emergencies and life happenings, so I thought I would simply do an update post this go around. You know? Talk about what's good in the hood. And stuff. Yes...let's begin.

WORK:

I'm now a full time manager at my little metaphysical shop on Christopher St. We're a tiny family there, but I'm so happy I'm finally feeling like an actual member of the group. This store has been a life, faith and happiness saver, and I'm so grateful for it.

Also, every Friday night from around 9 to 12 I am a zombie at an attraction called Zombiefest. It is one of the most fun and ridiculous jobs I could have ever imagined having the pleasure to work. We (that is, we actor zombie peoples) run around with patrons for a few hours in the most epic game of laser tag I have ever experienced. Seriously, if you come to visit me, let's set up your run through the Asylum. I'll scare you shitless, you'll get to shoot me in the head. Fun!

WORLD:

People keep telling me it's Spring. Even the trees are waking up, flowers are fucking with my nose and I'm greeted by a chorus of chirping birds any time I arrive home too learly. The issue I'm having, though, is that it's still averaging around 50 degrees. We're way into April, world...get that shit together. I want to go busking, and I need some warmer times to make that a thing.

WOES:

My neck has been hurting. I think my body was just spoiled by years of a tempurpedic mattress. This spring nonsense just isn't cutting it. Might have to get some kind of cushy pad cover business.

Last Friday night, I received my first major zombie injury. A patron's gun made unintentional contact with my nose. It's a bit sore, but it's getting better. Should be totally alright in another day or so. Zombies don't die, and neither shall I!!!

I've been falling behind on my keeping in touch through letters resolution, and I'm sorry. If you're reading this, you have my permission to harass me into getting back on track. I'll appreciate it.


To keep it quick, I think that's it for now. I intend to take some time on a more creative post sometime between the Monday Fun Days this week. Sending love and light out to each and every one of you, my lovelies.

A Mouse in the House...

When I was little, one of my favorite books to read with my mother was A Mouse in the House by Henrietta. Honestly, there was very little reading involved. This beloved childhood book of mine was in actuality a large book of assorted two-page long pictures in which my mother and I were charged with finding a tiny mouse amidst a seemingly endless sea of refuse and household crap. Think of it as a Where’s Waldo? for rodents.

Now I’m grown, the book spends its days stored in a box within the closets of my mother’s North Carolina home, and I sometimes think back on the memories and smile. I find myself thinking back on all those fun pre-bedtime mouse hunts more often of late. The reason, you ask? It’s quite simple, dear reader. Now that I’m grown and sharing a big boy apartment with two lovely ladies in Brooklyn, I have my very own mouse in the house.

Big Scary L Word...

Today felt like another poetry kind of day, my friends. Welcome to what’s been on my mind recently. Enjoy.

Haha...Got Ya!

Having spent several years playing grown up now (you know, apartment hunting, paying bills, figuring out life and all that good stuff), I’ve made a pretty funny observation. An observation of something which is funny. Not funny-haha…more funny-what-the-shit. Understand?

Good.

Showers are the shit...

As anyone who has ever lived with me would likely attest, I can spend an exorbitant amount of time in the shower. To be fair to me, I’ve gotten much more conservative with my water usage as the adult times have taken hold. There was, however, a time (worst during those high school years if I recall correctly) when I could literally spend an hour or more draining the house of all hot water. Even now, when I’ve seemingly cut that time down to ten minutes or less, I have a tendency to wait until everyone else is asleep and get in another twenty minutes or so without worries of forcing my roommates to endure a frigid deluge. It’s an illness, an obsession, and my personal great love story. A love story as old as time…or at least as old as me. Whoever I end up marrying will have to accept the shower as our third member in matrimony, because I dare not trade away my time in the steamy waters for anyone. And just why is that, you ask?

Beautiful Inconvenience...

Having been born in the shaft of America’s penis, I am no stranger to extreme weather phenomena or the effects they seem to have. Hurricanes the size of Texas (or larger), tornadoes strong enough to wipe out entire trailer parks, wild fires complete with exploding palm trees, droughts that go on forever, floods to drown even the heaviest of duty vehicles, sunburns through t-shirts, trudging ever on in the gelatinous humidity and wishing you had a knife to cut your way through, winds whipping debris around fast enough to slice your limbs off…these are my childhood companions. We Floridians know how to party, let me tell you. As fun as all that sounds (and some of it really can be fun), each and every one of those things is on the list of reasons why I chose to leave Florida in a permanent kind of way.

The Animal Within...

If you were an animal, what would you be?

Seems like a simple enough question, right? All you have to do is close your eyes, search deep within yourself, release your inner child from the shackles of adulthood for a moment or two and let ‘em go to town. Every animal that has ever appeared cool, groovy, nifty, awesome, badass or in any other way even remotely the shit to you in your entire life will be put on rapid display behind your eyelids. Within mere moments, you and your itty bitty childhood self sort through images of winged assassins and slithering poison factories, furry bundles of cuteness and scales with teeth. All of these scenes play out in a matter of seconds. Feverishly, the two of you whittle away at the choices until you reach the conclusion that seems to be the most logical conclusion of all conclusions ever to have been concluded. Jeez, I don’t even know why you had to ask such a question. I can see it so clearly in my mind’s eye now…I thought it would be obvious.

I am a mother fucking dragon.

Customer Service is Customer Service...

Last May, I ended a seven year marathon of working in one of the largest grocery store chains in the south eastern United States. In that time, I learned a great deal about interacting with the public on a regular basis. Some people pop into your life for a brief moment or two and leave you feeling inspired. The other 99% of customers do their best to make you a jaded, crushed soul who hates everybody and trusts no one. After somehow retaining my sanity and a love for humanity, I terminated my employment, moved up to New York City and began the job hunt.

The Speechless City...

Last June, I made a great big life change and moved to New York City. While I don’t claim to be an expert yet, I certainly do feel like I know a thing or two at this point. Spending my days riding about on subway cars and walking the seemingly endless streets of this sleepless city, I’ve managed to make a surprising observation: the silence here is deafening!

Winter Wonderland...

I woke up this morning, and this poured forth from my brain to my fingertips. It’s really quite fitting. Happy Monday Fun Day, everyone, and here’s hoping you find a way to keep warm. Enjoy my string of haikus.

Dancing with death...

Fear is a stupid thing. Its sole purpose in life is to limit and control what we do. Sure, you could say there is such a thing as a ‘healthy dose of fear,’ but I prefer to call that sense. Fear is a silly idea of humanity that is twisted, warped, contorted and utterly abused in ways that keep us locked into whatever life our societies deem appropriate. I suppose the most ludicrous of fears is that of death.

Good, Bad and Ugly

If I’m ever to fulfill my dream of making a musical about New York City adventures, I’m going to need a lot of amazing character actors. This is not an assumption, because I know what happens when one assumes. Neither of us likes being an ass…forgive my speaking for you, but I think that’s a reasonable call on my part. It is cold, hard fact.