I do.

I have always been proud to be a New Yorker, but I have never been prouder to declare it then today.

I have always been Bisexual, but I have never been prouder to declare it then today.

Today is a historic day. New York State passed a bill 33-29 that legalized gay marriage.

Upon hearing that the vote was pending last week, I spent this entire week on edge; constantly checking news media for updates on whether or not the Senate had yet reached a decision. And of course, tonight, while I am napping, I wake up to find that the amazing news I have been waiting for has finally arrived. I literally jumped out of bed, started crying, began jumping up and down in my room shouting HOORAY! and clapping. Shaking. Overwhelmed with emotion. Grateful that this day had finally come for members of the Gay and Lesbian community who fought so long and hard for this right.

This is not just a step towards equality for all, this is a GIANT. FUCKING. LEAP.

To all the Homophobes and the haters and the Religious zealots and the doubters:

FUCK YOU - We're here, we're Queer, get fucking used to it already! We're not going away. We are not going to stop our fights. This achievement is only going to make us fight harder, push stronger and make it known that we will not let anything stand in our way. We will not stop trying to make sure that Gays & Lesbians everywhere get the rights that they deserve. To ensure that the Gay youth have a future that they can look forward to without hiding in the closet, without having to hide who they are, without worrying about being bullied or denied a job based on who they choose to love or being denied basic domestic benefits because they just happen to be in a same sex relationship. We are all human; we should all be treated the same.

Hopefully one day soon, we can all emerge from our naps and jump up and down with excitement as we celebrate the victory for the legalization of Gay Marriage in other states, the entire United States of America, and all over the world.

Love is Love. Equality for All. I can't wait to see the pictures from Pride this weekend in NYC. It won't just be a celebration, it will be a god damned victory march!

Miss Misery

In case you weren't already aware (and sorry to put it so bluntly) I fucking hate it here in Philly. It makes me miserable. There is just something about living in this area: the traffic, the erratic and reckless driving, the awful accents (South Philly and the borderline southern redneck ones), the sport fans, the lack of culture and diversity, the lack of decent pizza, the bizarre and atrocious liquor laws, the people... I could go on about it all day.

Ok, yes, I know, being a total New York snob, I'm probably not giving this place much of a chance. But there is just something in the air here that makes me feel like I'm sticking out like a sore thumb. I drove home this weekend and as I drove deeper and deeper through Jersey towards the George Washington Bridge, I could feel the calm wash over me. And as I hit my stretch of I-95 from the Bronx all the way up through Connecticut, something clicked: I was home.

I spent all day Saturday soaking in the essence of New York City: Riding the 6 train and people watching, looking longingly over Japanese fashions in the FIT museum, walking those long city streets, eating in a cute little restaurant in Greenwich Village, sipping delicious drinks with friends in an underground speakeasy, watching the Yankees play on TV in an Irish pub, mingling with the masses in Times Square. From the Bronx, into Manhattan, rounding the night out in Queens - where I hope to live in when I move back to NY next year, pointing out bars and restaurants I've already tagged on a Google map to acquaint myself with my future neighborhood - and back to the Bronx, I felt wide awake in the City that Never Sleeps.

And then I had to drive back to PA today. Despite the weather being beautiful compared to the torrential rain I drove up to CT in, a pit just sank deeper in my stomach as I got closer and closer to this place that I am currently calling "home". New York just makes me feel so alive. My life constantly feels like one of those video games where a little line is in the upper right corner, monitoring your character's health. Every day that I am here, those green lines slowly start fading into yellow and then dangerously close to red. But going home re-energizes me, and those green lines are all filled up again.

...........

Being alone in this city doesn't help, either. Emmett is gone, away having the most amazing experience of his life and I can't even compete with that. That just makes me more miserable. Between crying over him and crying over being stuck here, I should seriously invest in Kleenex stock. I just wish I could be with him, watching him be happy and being happy together, smiling this smile I swear he only smiles for me that makes me melt. I'm happy for him but I suppose jealous in a way, too. I had hoped Philly would be the same enlightening, life changing, eye opening experience; a way to turn my life around and start over from the awful stand-still spot it was stuck in, just like he's doing now. (I also hoped that moving here would mean we'd be closer and together.) And again, I know people will say I'm not giving this place enough of a shot, but I shouldn't have to force it. I shouldn't have to force myself to enjoy it here or to feel an emotion about this place that doesn't exist and probably never will.

I hate being the silly, crying girl who worries all the time. I hate feeling clingy and awful and miserable and don't want to bring everyone else down so I don't talk about it. I hold everything inside, which I guess makes me even more miserable. I am trying to distance myself from the obsessive and longing feelings that I have for Emmett. I put away pictures of us and keep trying to stop thinking about him and how great he is and the little things that he does that make me smile, the memories of us that make me smile. I am trying to push past this wave of emotion and outrun it - to move beyond this intangible relationship that will never happen, to move beyond feeling like I'm not good enough when it has nothing to do with me, to move beyond thinking that he never thinks about me and doesn't care because I am always thinking about him and I always care - all I do is think and care. I need to just lock all that part of my life up in a little box and throw away the key. Otherwise, it will continue to consume me and eat away at me and completely devoid my life of the happiness that I am not allowing myself. (In that aspect of my life, anyway.)

And so, everything I built up in my head, these fictitious scenarios about the future stemming from our real life interactions and conversations; I have to break them down slowly brick by brick and start to lay the mortar around my heart and move those cinder blocks back to rebuild the wall that had been up for so long before I met him.

.........

you make me come
you make me complete
you make me completely miserable


...........

Its so hard to let go, but sometimes love isn't enough of a reason to keep on hanging on.

So Happy I Could Die

In October 2008, I went to the New Kids on the Block Reunion concert at Madison Square Garden. Listed as the opening acts were Natasha Beddingfield, of into theme to "The Hills" fame, and someone calling herself "Lady Gaga". When she hit the stage in an all white ensemble and long platinum blond wig with half naked men writhing around to house music, literally everyone in the 20,000 seat venue went "Who's this bitch?" I thought maybe she was some kind of Euro-pop star that was just starting to get big over here in the U.S. so I Googled her on my Blackberry. Turns out she was just some broad from Yonkers. The last song she played sounded familiar - it was "Just Dance" and Z-100 had just started playing it recently. I went, "Hey, I know this song. I like this song." Of course, my Main Gay already was all over the Lady Gaga thing, raving about how great she was, so I downloaded her album. It was fun, quirky dance music. I remember listening it to as I walked from the train to my job the next week on a brisk, November morning and instantly, I was on Team Gaga.  Before she had 6 million followers on Twitter, I remember clicking on that button to follow her when she had roughly 150,000 followers - and imagine my surprise when a few days later, I received an email telling me that Lady Gaga was following ME on Twitter now too!

"Just Dance" soon took over the radio and the rest of her pop anthems slowly crept over the rest of society, with "Poker Face" became musical crack-cocaine, the stuttering and catchy lyrics getting stuck in everyone's heads. By Spring 2009, Gaga-Fever had swept the nation; Gaga's crazy outfits and antics were getting the attention of everyone from Toledo to Tokyo. She graced the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in an outfit made entirely of bubbles. Her video for "Paparazzi" (with the oh-so-yummy Alexander Skarsgaard from 'True Blood') garnered so much attention that when she performed it live at the VMAs, in a show where Kanye West snatched a mic from Taylor Swift, Gaga doubled up and "hung" herself from the ceiling of Radio City Music Hall, dripping in fake blood, it was one of the most EPIC performances ever to grace the stage. (Unfortunately, because of Kanye's antics, the proposed tour with him and Lady Gaga was canceled. It would have been one of the best tours ever I believe.) I even dressed up as Lady Gaga for Halloween in a lavender bodysuit, blond wig complete with hairbow and hula hoops around my body ala the promotional pictures for her upcoming tour, "The Monster Ball" and I came in 2nd place in a Karaoke contest for singing "Poker Face".

And so, with the release of her 2nd album, The Fame Monster, Gaga-mania was in full effect. She was everywhere. She was Marching for Gay Rights, she was collaborating with Beyonce, she was meeting the Queen of England, she was opening the Grammys with Elton John in another EPIC performance that brought tears to my eyes and she was touring non-stop all over the globe, selling out every show in every city, bringing much joy to the masses and much money into the pockets of scalpers who could get away with charging whatever they wanted in the midst of Gaga-fever.

As the Monster Ball made its way around the globe, I tried from January to July, desperately trying to get tickets for her shows in NYC - both mine and Lady Gaga's hometowns... Turns out, she wasn't from Yonkers after all. She was from NYC, born and raised, and dispelled the myth of her birth as the "worst rumor she had ever heard about herself" on Jay Leno's show. Even when I was in Japan in the spring and Gaga was doing 4 shows in Kobe and Yokohama, I still couldn't get tickets.... Until this week that is.

Lady Gaga was doing a 2 night stint here in Philadelphia. I looked on Stubhub, Ebay and Craigslist, desperately trying to find a decent price for a single ticket. People wanted $150-$200 for obscured view, club box and even nosebleed tickets. I wasn't willing to settle. I kept looking. And to my luck, there was one posting that read "1 Lady Gaga Ticket 9/15 - $95" and I checked it out. A girl was selling her FLOOR ticket at almost half the price as people wanted for seats! I quickly emailed her asking if it was still available, and it was. I told her I'd meet her the next day, cash in hand. At 12:35 the next afternoon, I had procured my ticket and had the biggest smile on my face for the rest of the day.

I rushed home and amended my Halloween costume from last year, included a leather jacket and some ankle boots and using a LOT of Aquanet and bobby pins, rolled my hair up in some soda cans like in the "Telephone" video. I set out for the venue and proudly strutted my way to the entrance to the floor, got a beer, and found my spot for the show. When the lights dimmed and the music started pumping, my heart started beating and with those opening notes to "Dance in the Dark", the crowd went wild and I was transported on the 2 hour journey that was the Monster Ball. I cheered and put my paws up. I laughed at her jokes. I screamed when she said scream and jumped when she said jump. I cried when she emerged from the stage wearing a movable piece of art and fashion she calls "The Living Dress" and performed my favorite song, "So Happy I could Die" - a platform elevating her high above the crowd and I looked up as tears streamed down my face, ruining my mascara. At that moment, I was truly so happy I could have died. And when she came out for her final encore, those unmistakable notes of "Bad Romance", the crowd went wild and moved in unison as one giant Little Monster.

That night, I came to see what all the fuss about her live shows has been about: Her vision is truly remarkable and can be seen in every detail in her show from the sets to the lighting to the costumes to the interludes. She is beautiful, intelligent, talented and has an amazing voice. She speaks her mind. She loves one and all unconditionally and holds no judgment. Everything she does is for her fans and completely selfless. She tells her fans to love themselves and be who they are and to not be afraid, because she will be there for them. She has given me hope and strength in myself through her music and her persona, making me feel empowered and beautiful.

I grew up hating my big Italian nose, but thanks to Lady Gaga, who is also a beautiful, big nosed Italian girl, I just now at 26 years old have grown to love how I look and embrace it as part of who I am.Your flaws are not flaws at all; they are what makes you who you are, they make you beautiful and you were BORN THAT WAY.

Lady Gaga is loved, hated, revered, abhorred, idolized, feared and celebrated the world over. She is only 24 years old and already a force to be reckoned with. I can't wait to see what is next to come from this amazing woman in the years to come, but I can't even begin to imagine how she will top herself next.

The Cheater

So, as you may or may not already know, I have been in a year long relationship with the City of Philadelphia. We had a few sparks at the beginning when we first met, but somewhere over the past few months, the magic has started to wear off. We never really had a lot in common to begin with: its public transportation system was lacking in all areas, its highways were always unnecessarily traffic laden, the outdated alcohol laws made me angry and frustrated and let's not even get started about their baseball team. The city itself was central and lively, but too small to really get a feel for. And if you strayed too far from the bright lights and touristy areas (which was pretty easy to do if you went a street too far) you found yourself in some ne'er-do-well parts of town . I yearned for long city blocks and a girthy and easy to navigate grid system, where neighborhoods were separate and rarely interspersed with the nightlife.

And so, yesterday, I cheated on Philadelphia with my first love, New York City.

I snuck out early in the morning and told Philly I would see it later on that night, giving it a obligatory kiss on the cheek goodbye, and hopped a bus at 30th Street Station into NYC. A mere two hours later, I was staring at New York's sprawling skyline across the Hudson river and stepping off the bus onto 8th ave, we were reunited. It felt so good to be part of the crowds and buildings and hustle and bustle. Tourists, street vendors, flyer giver-outers, business men and women on lunch, and vagrants surrounded me on all side as I caught my good ol' New Yorker stride and made my way through those hot and beautifully dirty city streets. I weaved in and out of the slow walkers, ignored requests for spare change, free samples and discounted lunches.I know these streets like the back of my hand. And riding the subway? It's just like second nature.

As my day went on and I enjoyed sitting in cafes and five star restaurants, watching yellow cabs pass by, I didn't want this reunion to end. I wanted to curl up in New York's big, strong, sprawling arms and lay there forever, letting it hold me in a loving embrace with all its lights and sounds and smells and strange nuiances. I walked through Grand Central with a swift immediacy as I had to run and catch my bus back to Philly, worried that if I didn't make it back in time my current partner would know something was amiss. But with each quickened foot step, each flat shoe that pounded the pavement as I ran to catch that bus, something deep inside me longed for a day where I would never have to run again, where I would never have to worry about leaving, where I would never have to worry about making it home because, I'd already be there.

.....

Unfortunately, Philadelphia and I are still in a relationship for at least another year thanks to this little binding contract known as a lease. But a year from now, I know I'll be back in New York's embrace, reunited like long lost lovers (and hopefully with my own long lost lover). And when it asks me if I'll be there forever, til death do us part? With tears in my eyes, I'll proudly say "I will."