A week or so after my birthday, my friend Sam Densmore (whom I met while working at the Academy of Art College) was going to be in town doing a few gigs. He was accompanying a new singer/songwriter from Olympia, Washington by the name of Ted Connelly. Sam had produced Ted's latest CD (called "www.tedconnelly.com") as well as provided the backups with his band Frequency db. I knew I had to see Sam. He is one of my favorite people that I've met in SF. I had never seen Sam perform live. I have Frequency db's CD called "Blue Down Where the Diver Goes" (which you can order from amazon.com). I looked forward to watching him play. I saw Ted and Sam at the Paradise Lounge one night and then the Boomerang Club the next night. Both shows were amazing. Both are painfully talented. And both absolutely love what they are doing. Touring, singing, writing songs, and making music. For those nights, I was their unofficial roadie and biggest fan. I am so proud of Sam and impressed by both of them. It is the passion they both have for their art and their lives that I want to spark in my own life.

Just do it. Way too easy to say. Awesome to make true.

The year or so right before I moved from Maryland to SF was one of the most amazing times of my life. Those momentous events in my life seemed to be crystallizing in positive ways, in illuminating ways. I was teaching. I was active in the LGBTA and campus community. I was leading. I was creating. I was integrating my sexuality with my life. I was playing, falling in love for the first time, living on my own, exploring DC, and facing the world proactively. In the end, all of it gave me the strength and the impetus to move, to rediscover myself, to take on a cross-continental challenge.

Where is that energy now? I peaked then. I'm in the valley now. I'm weary. It's passion fatigue. And I've taken myself out of almost all of the structures that gave me the affirmation to strive to succeed. I'm rebuilding. I'm recovering. How do I resurrect the motivation that got me here in the first place? The vision is still there. The goal is still in sight. But the topography has changed and the roadmap is no longer familiar.

I AM THE ONE THAT I WANT >>

The last year and a half have been barely expressible. I know I have changed in powerful ways. I am stronger. I am more self-reliant. I am an explorer. It is no surprise to me that most spiritual awakenings begin with a paradigm shift, a leap of faith, a cataclysmic event, a slaying of a monster. And I am coming-of-age. I am leaving Walton's Mountain. Saturn has returned and gone to begin another twenty-nine year odyssey. This has been a prolonged vision quest.

It isn't over yet. I have a few monsters to vanquish first. The largest of demons is my fear. Being out of reach of all the usual routines, all the usual havens, all the usual armor I depended on in Maryland, my San Franciscan journey has forced me to take stock in myself, in my behavior, and in my esteem. Courage, in the deepest sense, is just the transformation of fear. I conquered my fear to live in a strange, new city and discovered I had an adventurous courage afterall. Now, I face different kinds of fear and have yet to overcome them. I guess it is a start that I name them.

Fear is the mind-killer. A line from the movie Dune. The Sci-Fi Channel just aired Dune a few weeks ago. And that single line has echoed long in my pop culture driven mind. I fear a lot of things: success, failure, hardship, judgement, criticism, indecision, limbo. Do I mostly fear myself?

At the beginning of June, through my sister's company www.homestead.com, Alenda, Ben, Sarah, and myself got to go see Margaret Cho's new stand-up show, "I'm the One that I Want." She was amazing, funny, poignant, powerful, and all Margaret Cho. Unapologetic. Self-aware. Critical of the media. And proudly queer (accentuating the idea that even heterosexuals can be queer, too). She describes her struggle with Hollywood, her struggle with our culture's obsession with a certain kind of beauty, her struggle with her Asian American-ness, her struggle with her self-worth, and her struggle with her art. For me, it was a brilliant arc -- since I never made it back to UMCP to see Cho perform -- reaching not only to my Maryland past but into my San Francisco present. I related -- all to well.

I ask again, do I mostly fear myself? I do. Such a statement is almost comedic in itself. I struggle with internalized phobia all the time. Maybe I'm too sensitive. Maybe I worry far too much. I do feel like I missed out on the "ignorance is bliss" pamphlet when I was dropped into this world. I think about my life all of the time. I think about my actions. I think about my words. I think about my silences.

I defeat myself all of the time. I don't know when this all began. But I literally convince myself that an opportunity is doomed to failure, is a waste of time, is too difficult to do, or is simply out of my league before I even step out the door, pick up the phone, or make an attempt. It takes my full concentration to leave my apartment some days. It is taking my full effort to put all of these thoughts down.

I think, why should I finish Tellings? I'm not playing it anymore. I think, why should I go to the club? I'm not going to have a good time. I think, why should I go back to school? I don't cut it as a scholar. I think, why should I try talking to that guy? I'm not attractive enough.

Fortunately, all is not lost; I do get out of the house, I do make attempts. I do try. But it's very hard. Harder than I can adequately express most of the time. And that frustrates me even more. I want people to understand that I am struggling, I am reinventing myself, I am finding myself again. I think part of my recent prolonged silence has been because I didn't know what to say (and as your reading this I'm sure you're having a hard time believing that) and I didn't really want the usual responses. I am apprehensive of the easy answer, the self-help mantras, and the pop therapy. I know my friends mean well. It just aggravates me when I take the time (and the dozens and dozens of paragraphs) to express myself and all of it is micronized, compartmentalized, minimized to a response vaguely equivalent to "just get over it." Bah humbug. I know the easy answers. I have them taped to my computer and quoted on my webpage. I need the six-million-dollar-man answers. They have to be bionic.