My life has been crazy
Well, it’s been pretty silent around here. I haven’t really had time to spend on my site, which is a shame because there are so many things going on that I should write about. There’s a reason things have been hectic for me…I’m starting my own business. I’m not going to go into details just yet, only a few people know of my plans, and I’m hardly done with any of it, so we’ll just wait till I’m ready before I announce it all.
When I first came to Cleveland I was thinking that I would consider my trip out here to be a visit. I wasn’t sure how things were going to go and I wasn’t sure where my life was taking me. And up until recently, that’s what I continued to think. But the more time I spend with Ness, the more I realize that I want her to continue to be a part of my life and so my trip to Cleveland is turning into a semi-permanent stay. Ness has another year of school left, plus a semester of student teaching, so that means we’ll be in Cleveland for at least another year and a half. After that, we might stay in Cleveland, or we might pack it up and start somewhere else. But at the moment, we’re planning on getting a place of our own here in Cleveland.
For the past two weeks, I haven’t felt well at all. I have Ulcerative Colitis, on top of having Crohn’s Disease and I haven’t been taking care of myself. Meaning, I’ve been eating shitty. Ramen noodles, burgers, fries, fried foods, grease, dairy…these are all things I should avoid, but when it came down to it, I just couldn’t. And so I caused myself to have a flare up. I haven’t been able to sleep well and I’ve been out of energy. I spent my time reading, dabbling with some internet things while I had the strength, and spending time with Ness.
There have been a couple of nights we decided to head to a friend’s house for a party. What I should have done at these parties is not drink so much beer. Well, I don’t drink a lot, but I drank enough to make my flare ups worse than they should have been. I should say that I’m starting to get back to normal now, and I plan on changing my diet so that I won’t have such a bad flare-up next time. But these parties are also good for making new friends, which I have, and for networking. I’m horrible at making new friends. Despite what you see around the internet, I’m shy. Crowds of people, or not even a crowd but just a few people, make me nervous. So being with Ness, who’s absolutely crazy and personable, is good for me. Her friends have become mine, and she has a great group of friends.
So in short, while my life has been busy, and even though I’ve not been feeling well, I’m happy. Things have been tough, but not the kind that I want to run away from. As I work to get on my own two feet here in Cleveland, expect to hear some announcements about my work life and personal life that will knock your socks off.
In the meantime, I’m planning a trip to Chicago. There’s a reason I’m going to Chicago, but at the moment that’s neither here nor there. So if you’re in the Chicago area, get in touch with me, because I’m going to need some help while I’m there, and you’re just the people I need to talk to.
Common - Finding Forever
Common’s seventh studio album is set to be released later this month on July 31st. “Finding Forever”, like 2005’s “Be”, is produced by Kanye West. As with most of Common’s albums, the lyrics are what drive me to listen to the tracks, and it’s no different with “Finding Forever.”
“Finding Forever” carries with it talent from Lily Allen, who sings the hook on “Driving Me Wild,” Kanye West, not only producing but also contributing vocally to “Start The Show” and “Southside.” Other notables: Dwele, Bilal, D’Angelo, and Will.I.Am. “So Far To Go” was produced by J. Dilla, “I Want You” was produced by Will.I.Am, and “Misunderstood” was produced by Devo Springsteen.
It might just be me, but Kanye West is kind of tiring me out. “Start The Show” and “Southside” were kind of ruined for me after listening to Kanye West. It seems the only thing he can do when he isn’t rapping is throwing in some “uh-huh’s” and “yea’s”. That’s just not my style.
Common again disses out another rapper on “Finding Forever.” Check out “Start The Show” and see for yourself. Some people say he’s dissing other rappers in general, some say G-Unit. I’ll leave it to you to decide.
Track List
- Intro
- Start The Show (Feat. Kanye West)
- The People (Feat. Dwele)
- Drivin’ Me Wild (Feat. Lily Allen)
- I Want You (Feat. Will.I.Am)
- Southside (Feat. Kanye West)
- The Game
- Black Maybe (Feat. Bilal)
- So Far To Go (Feat. D’Angelo)
- Break My Heart
- Misunderstood
- Forever Begins
Best Tracks: “The People,” “Misunderstood,” and “Forever Begins.”
The new version of Joshanastasia.com Coming Soon
About a month ago, I began working on a new version of my site. I wanted to challenge myself, do something that I’ve never done before, and push my limits. I’ve done all that and a bit more and I’m very proud of what I’ve done so far. With each re-design that I’ve previously done, I’ve tried more and more to make the focus of my site, my content. But in a lot of respects I’ve failed and missed the whole point of a content-centric theme. Don’t get me wrong, I think I’ve come pretty close sometimes, but I’ve never really been completely happy with what I’ve produced. But that’s about to change.
I’ve put a lot of thought into this re-design, and I’m still ironing out kinks, making changes here and there, and making it a better site, not just for myself, but for people that use my site. With this new design, you’re going to see a whole other side of me. I know that I’ve said that before, but this time I mean it. I wanted to challenge myself, and I have, and along with that I’ve come up with some ideas, some that I haven’t implemented yet, that will help you get to know me just that much more.
If you’ve noticed, it’s been a bit quiet around here lately. I barely Twitter anymore, Pownce is almost non-existent to me at the moment, I know longer participate as much as I used to on 9rules Notes, and my online life has all but diminished. But in the end, I’m sure you’ll see why, and hopefully it’ll have been worth it all.
With this re-design, I want to make sure that not only am I truly happy with it, but I want my readers to be as well. That’s why I have a favor to ask of you. I want this re-design to be as much about you as it is me. I have a few reasons for this. First, I plan to continue writing about my personal life as much as I can. I am going to continue podcasting, videocasting, and writing about my opinions, issues, fears, loves, hates, and worries just as I always have. But I plan on bringing in other types of content as well. I don’t want to feel limited with what I can write about, or what I can do. Hopefully, everyone will benefit from this.
So, on with the favor. Basically, I just want you to answer some questions. No, you won’t be graded. You can answer them any way you see fit. But I just want you to know that I truly appreciate you taking the time to answer these.
- What do you think can be improved about the current design? I want to learn from my mistakes, so don’t be afraid to be blunt. :) And yes, I know that the site is crap in IE6/7 and Opera. That will be rectified in the upcoming design.
- What are some things that can be improved content-wise? Do I need to work on my grammar? Do I need to spell-check some more? What kind of things do you like reading, or do you look forward to?
- What should I add, or take away, from my site currently that will make this upcoming design a better one? It’s important for you to know that when I’m finally ready to launch the new design, I’ll be shutting down my site for a bit. Yes, it’s that big of a re-design. It isn’t just a design, it’s a whole new site. But don’t worry, I’ll only be gone for a day or two, and no it’s not happening anytime soon. I plan on launching it in about a month.
That’s it for now. I’m pretty sure that’s all I wanted to ask, but if I come up with anymore questions, I’ll ask politely. I truly appreciate your answers and I look forward to them. Also, if you would like to help test the new site out, I’ll be needing some volunteers in about a week or two to help test out any kinks. If you’d like to help me with that, shoot me an e-mail or IM me. 
The Wait From Hell
On Sunday, Ness was still having her migraines. We went to CVS and grabbed up some Excedrin Migraine medicine because a combination of Ibuprofen and Tylenol just wasn’t doing shit for her headaches. It worked in 15 minutes. That was awesome. She was able to keep her food down and I was relieved, because I don’t want to see her shut down like that. But the migraine came back on Monday and the Excedrin conquered it again.
Ness went to work this morning and had another migraine. By the time she got off work at 4, her migraine was still there and the Excedrin wasn’t doing shit for it. I wanted her to go to the doctor, but she couldn’t go until Friday. But if she’s been having them everyday, waiting until Friday wasn’t going to help any. She was in so much pain, and from what she says it was the worst one yet, I immediately got ready to take her to the hospital. I’ve been suffering from a cold myself, so I figured one of us should be at least comfortable, and I know that my cold won’t be going away anytime soon. So hopefully, the people at the hospital would be able to help her.
When we arrived at around 5; we had to make a stop at IHOP to grab her insurance card from her dad, I realized that we arrived at the busiest time of the day. But I’m used to long waits at the hospital. I live in a town where our hospital is shit. I once had a severely broken leg and waited 5 hours just to get an X-Ray, even though I was the only patient in the whole ER.
A couple hours after we arrived, Ness’ headache started to ease up. She was called back so she could get registered and she grabbed my hand and made me come with her. I thought that finally we were getting somewhere; she had finally registered and had her wristband. But her dad came walking into the ER and we waited, and waited some more. It wasn’t until about 9:30PM-10PM that they took her back for a CT Scan and her Dad and I joined her in her curtained off room.
The whole time we were there, sitting in the waiting room, I observed people. I guess you could say I was being creepy, but I do that everywhere. One older man was sitting in a wheel chair next to his wife. He was waiting on test results, but they didn’t have any beds available, so he had to wait in the waiting room. He looked like he was in some pain, but when his wife would look at him, or glance at him, he would smile or hide the fact that he was in pain.
There was also this lady there, she was kind of annoying because she wouldn’t stop talking, but she made a phone call to her son. The way she talked to him about things, I realized that she was divorced and the wounds from it were still fresh. The reason she talked to everyone she could was probably because she was lonely.
There were two sisters there, both older, waiting for their mom to be brought in by ambulance. Their mother had Alzheimer’s and had had low blood sugar. Their mom’s friend had ridden in the ambulance with her. She didn’t speak much English and maybe that’s why she had come. Their mother wasn’t speaking in English and she had been translating in her own broken English. The sisters didn’t sit next to their mother’s friend, and when the one lady would talk to her, she would get frustrated, or annoyed, and would just leave her again. Snobs. Rich snobs. The complained to their husbands, when they arrived, that they should have taken her to a better hospital, one in “their” neighborhood, that would have given them better service. The way they said “their” made me think it wasn’t so much the service they were getting, but the people around them. Such as myself. When they had sat across from Ness and me, I glanced at them to smile, but they gave me a weird look and didn’t even care that I had acknowledged them. Thanks.
I don’t know why I happened to notice those things. I was bored and needed to pass the time. I didn’t feel like reading Good Housekeeping and I couldn’t find a newspaper around.
At any rate, they gave Ness some drugs, she felt better. She has a couple of prescriptions to fill that should help her loads when she gets another migraine and she’s to follow up with her doctor. At least she’s feeling better, keeping down food, and can finally go to sleep at a normal time.
Migraines from hell
The past few days, Ness has been suffering from some pretty bad migraines. The kind that make you sleep and puke. We’ve ended up sleeping more than we should because I go back to sleep when she does. Needless to say, we’ve been sleeping at least 12 hours a day. Now our sleeping habits are fucked up.
I used to get migraines a lot. When I would get them, nothing would work. Not medicine, not a change in diet, not sleeping. I would just have to let them run their course. Sometimes I’d be out of it for 3 weeks. Migraines make me non-functional. I can’t move, stand, walk, and I can barely roll over in bed. I’m awake for maybe 3 hours of the day, and those 3 hours I’m crying. So I feel her pain.
I’ve been doing some research and I’ve found some new things to try. Mostly things to do with a change in diet. Less sugar, more B Vitamins and more Magnesium. I’ve just kicked this off so I’m not sure if it works, but hey, it’s worth a shot.
I made her promise me that we’d go to a doctor, because for all we know, there could be something going on up in that head of hers and I just want to be sure. So she’s probably going to go tomorrow after work, but we’ll see how that goes.
In any case, I know a lot of people get migraines once in awhile. What do you do to help, to stop, or to prevent?
I saw Harry Potter!
Last night, Ness and I went and saw Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix along with her dad and her brother. If you’ve seen any of the previous movies, you know that they leave a lot of stuff out of the movies that were in the books. But that’s ok though, because the movies are still great.
We got our tickets early, knowing that it would be busy when Midnight came around and most likely would be sold out. The theater we went to had 5 movie theater’s open for Harry Potter. They were pretty full, but not quite sold out.
The atmosphere was really nice, which made the movie more enjoyable, and for the most part, people were polite about things and didn’t make it crappy. That’s always a good thing.
Ness and I were very excited to be able to watch the movie. We didn’t think we’d be able to go for a little bit longer, but we lucked out and convinced her brother to go see Harry Potter instead of The Transformers. We had some high expectations, and usually when I have high expectations, I’m disappointed at the end. I also took into consideration that the reviews I’ve seen for the movie have been 50/50.
When it was all said and done, the movie was excellent. It obviously didn’t cover everything in the books, but if it had, then it would’ve been a six hour movie. But I’m more than satisfied with everything that they did put in the movie. The only things they left out were things that I would have liked to see, but not anything that really needed to be seen.
If you haven’t seen this one yet, go get your tickets. All four of us loved it and I didn’t hear anyone at the movie theater complaining about it. It’s definitely a great movie, so go see it in the theater. There’s no need to wait till the DVD comes out.
What I love about Pownce
I haven’t seen this around much. Not even Facebook or MySpace does this, even though they have a huge community of trans people using their sites. More sites should do this. It pisses me off when there are only two genders, or worse yet, “Rather Not Say”. Well, of course I’d rather not say if who I am isn’t one of the options. Or is it, since I don’t click Male or Female, you just push me off to the side? You know what, just kiss my ass.
Dear Cleveland
Dear Cleveland,
I’d like to tell you about my 4th of July. Ness, my girlfriend, and I went to a party at a friend’s house and had some awesome food. My girlfriend decided to surprise me by taking me downtown for the fireworks. Apparently, it’s good. We took her dad along, he bought us some beer, and invited her friends as well. We got there 3 hours before the fireworks started.
In order to get some prime viewing seats, or at least we though, we sat behind the Rock Hall of Fame. You know, behind that big ass boat. We climbed down some rocks. I sat on a rock, that was very uncomfortable, for three hours. It was cool though, because while we were waiting for your fireworks to start, we could see some other towns shooting off their fireworks. One town’s fireworks lasted about an hour, and we could see them pretty well, even though they were on the other side of the lake.
I don’t know my way around here, as I’ve only been here since…May/June. But from what I gather, it was Lakewood’s fireworks, but I could be wrong. For all I know, it could have been Buffalo.
At 10PM, your fireworks started. It started off slow, but it built up, and you had some pretty neat fireworks going for a bit. But then you had your finale. I didn’t think it was your finale, because shit, it was only 15 minutes into the show. But when it ended, I knew it was really over.
First of all, you got ripped off. That was a really crappy show. We waited three hours for that? Can I have those three hours back? Please? Second, why’d you shoot them off where nobody was sitting? Why not shoot it in the water? People were on piers and such, but most of the people were behind that big ass boat. We could only see half of them. And most of the people were behind the big ass boat. Only a couple of dozen people actually saw the whole show.
I hear you spent $40k on that. Well, it was crap. No matter how much you spent on those fireworks, you got ripped off. I would have had a better time if I had stayed in my hick, hill-billy town and watched their fireworks. At least I would have known that they would be crappy, so I could have worked in the whole “wasting three hours of my life” thing. Don’t expect us their next year, unless you pay me to go, and provide me with some beer.
Josh
8 Random Facts
It’s been awhile since I’ve been tagged to do a meme, but then again, I haven’t been around to be tagged. My buddy Arthus tagged me this time around and I’m going to make it brief. I don’t even know if I can come up with 8 random facts, so we’ll see.
- I read a lot and I can read fast. I can usually get through an average sized book in a couple of hours. I read Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix in 6-8 hours while taking some breaks.
- I read the NY Times everyday. Whether its in print or online, I always read it.
- I have a Snoopy Snow Cone maker from back in the day. Amazing.
- I forgot how to tell time. I only use digital clocks now. Or rather, I’m just too lazy to take the 3 seconds to tell time.
- I’m addicted to freezer pops. I’m trying to cut back. It’s not working out too well.
- I sleep a lot. I wish I could sleep more, but if I did, people would think I’m weirder than I already am.
- I usually wear a hat. It’s very rare that you see me not wearing a hat. I don’t know why I wear them often, I always have.
- I have no idea why, but when I was a kid, Don Mattingly was my favorite baseball player. He played 1st base for the Yankees.
There you go. I thought of 8. I’m going to tag Ness, because it’ll be her first meme.
Turn The Radio Up Mixtape
Lisa and I were trying to decide the theme for this month’s mixtape, when Ness chimed in with this great idea. This month’s mixtape is all about songs that make you turn the radio up really loud, get you pumped, or you just have to sing along to. And in my case, sometimes do a little dance. Keep in mind I have no rhythm, so any dancing from me aside from the chicken dance, looks awful.
This mixtape is kind of special because Ness made one too. This is her first time participating and also, this is the first time I’m announcing her new site on my blog. So go check out her mixtape because I’m pretty sure she has a mixtape worthy of mention, and one that’s almost better than mine. 
Track List
- Daft Punk - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (3:46 | 320 kbps)
- Rage Against The Machine - Renegades of Funk (4:35 | 195 kbps (VBR))
- Akon - U Like My Swagga (3:42 | 184 kbps (VBR))
- Guster - Barrel of a Gun (3:11 | 128 kbps)
- Ram Jam -Black Betty (4:01 | 128 kbps)
- REO Speedwagon - Keep On Loving You (3:21 | 128 kbps)
- Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody (5:53 | 128 kbps)
- Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus (4:56 | 128 kbps)
- Quietdrive - Time After Time (3:07 | 245 kbps (VBR))
- Blur - Song 2 (2:01 | 214kbps (VBR))
- Weezer - Undone - The Sweater Song (5:05 | 242 kbps (VBR))
43.6 Minutes | 57 MB
Click here to download. *Yea, so I kept it up longer than a week, but you can’t download it anymore. I’m only keeping it up for a week, just like last time.
For your viewing pleasure, I’m going to post a clip from Wayne’s World. If you’re at least half as cool as you think you are, you know which clip I’m talking about.
The countdown to Harry Potter begins and some other stuff
The other day, Ness and I reserved our copies of the last Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, and our countdown began. Now that it’s July, we’ve also started to countdown to the new Harry Potter movie. I’m extremely excited for both. I don’t think words can even begin to describe the excitement flowing through my veins. I admit, I’m a geek. Anyone else waiting for either the movie, the book, or both? I’m hoping to see the movie the night it comes out, but we’ll see how it goes. But you can count on me waiting in line for tickets, that’s for damn sure.
Saturday, Ness and I were invited to go see some fireworks with our friends Leah and Derek. The fireworks were awesome. Keep in mind that I grew up in a very small town. Our grand finale was about 10 fireworks going off at the same time, so I was amazed to see a gazillion going off at once for the finale.
Afterwards, we went and played pool and had some beer at a bar not too far away. It was a nice, laid back night.
My parents are thinking about taking a mini-vacation out to Cleveland in a couple of weeks. It beats me going there, although I love the fact that my dad opened up our pool and we can swim whenever we want, but I don’t really feel comfortable around my family. It might be different now that I told my sisters about me being trans, but I don’t think it would change around my parents or grandparents. My grandparents love Ness by the way, but they only think she’s just a friend. I’m not sure if they’d act differently around her if they knew we were dating.
There’s more goodness to come. A new mixtape is in the works, a new design possibly, and some more pics.