I'm flying to Denver in a few hours for a couple weeks. I can't update this blog very easily but you can see my wacky (I'm sure they will be) adventures at http://electpaultran.com
I celebrate my gay birthday in May. My "May Day, Gay day" is when I celebrate the "beginning" of me being gay.
May 2004. I was confused. How could I have kissed a man?? Massachusetts legally married its first gay couples.
May 2005. I left the halls of the Texas legislature, knowing that the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in the state would go to a vote in November. A US District Judge in Nebraska ruled their gay marriage ban to be unconstitutional.
May 2006. Belgium allows same-sex couples to adopt children. They already allow marriage.
May 2007. Oregon legalizes domestic partnerships. New Hampshire legalizes civil unions.
May 2008. California legalizes gay marriages. Maryland legalizes domestic partnerships.
There have always been tell-tale signs of me being gay but I never acted on any of it until 2004. Since then, there has always been a fight over same-sex marriages. For as long as I have been out and trying to embrace my sexuality, there have been people arguing how I am less than a human being. They say that I'm trying to destroy the fabric of society and I can't be allowed near children. Their arguments are ridiculous to me so the words don't hurt as much. However, some gay people were raised in these atmospheres of hate and intolerance. It's little wonder to me that they would go through bouts of depression and instability. I see why suicide will happen.
A friend sits on the board of the Stonewall Democrats with me and she told me last night that she doesn't feel like she makes much of an impact with the organization. This was incredible to me! She is there on the front lines, countering these bigots, fighting for equality and showing that all people matter. In every month of my Gay Day, something good has happened to gay people. That could not have happened without those who hate who I am and those same things could not have happened without people like my friend. You are involved. That always makes a difference.
Now for a cute video of my friend Alonso getting married in California. He's the only gay guy I know who got married after it became legal there. Every lesbian friend I have except one is now legally married. CLICK HERE
A friend of mine is a chef who seems disgusted with my love of Sprinkles Cupcakes. As everyone knows, I have loved them for over a year now (try their recent chocolate marshmallow - HEAVEN - I normally don't like marshmallow). He says that cupcakes happens to be a specialty of his (as in he is famouse for them). I've never had them but I trust him that he's that good. My buddy says he can bake circles around Sprinkles. We're gonna see him try.
He says that he'll make any cupcake that I want and he will ship it to me. I told him I need some time to think on it. My next idea? I'll turn to my friends to figure this out. I have creative and clever friends. Please give me your suggestions and he will choose one idea. From that idea, he will create this confection and overnight to me (in dry ice, whatever). I'm gonna see what I can come up with as well. Thank you!
Yesterday, I drastically needed to clean my kitchen so I washed a few piles of laundry and washed a small mountain of dishes. I listed to a podcast called Savage Love and decided I'd bake a cookie in my crock pot.
I've been asked before how I accomplish this. It's not too hard.
Ingredients: 1 cup unsalted butter, room temp (I use buttery flavored Crisco) 2 eggs 1/2 cup brown sugar (firmly packed) or 1/4 cup Splenda brown baking sugar 1/2 granulated sugar or 1/4 cup Spenda granulated 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract 2 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips 1 cup whatever else you want, like walnuts or more chocolate chips (I just do one cup of chocolate chips)
Tear a piece of wax paper and line your slow cooker. Grease it up with a little of your butter. I use my hand by taking a scoop and smearing it around. I'm sure there's a more professional way to do this.
In a big bowl, beat the butter, eggs, brown sugar, granulated sugar and vanilla together. The bigger the whisk you use, the lighter and fluffier it will be. I use a fork. I can't find my whisk.
In a different bowl or container, stir the flour, baking soda and salt together. Pour this into the big bowl. Stir it into the butter mixture. This is where I get dirtyfun. I used one hand to really fold the flour into the butter. When it's looking good, I add my chocolate chips.
I scoop the dough into the slow cooker and even out the surface. Now, you get to lick your fingers. Gotta say - it's one of my favorite parts to baking cookies. Cover up the cooker and set it to low.
For the first two and a half hours, leave it be but for the last half hour, set the lid ajar.
Voila! You have a solid, huge mass of cookie. By this point, you'll probably notice that I neglected to do one thing with my cookie cake. I didn't put the ceramic bowl in the slow cooker. Because of this, I slightly burned my cookie cake. Oh well. It didn't stop me from eating it today.
I like to break the cookie cake up and put it in a bowl to pour milk over it or to scoop lactose free ice cream on it (lactose free is extra fluffy and light). Knock you socks off! Let me know if you do anything fun with it.
Another gay man I know was attacked last night. This time, it was a mugging. I'm extremely worried for him. Four people attacked him, trying to get his wallet, and three people came to his rescue. He doesn't recall much but he's home from the hospital. The mugging was unsuccessful.
He was attacked a block from his apartment after he left the bars and walked home in the gay area of Dallas, Oak Lawn.
Having been other places in the world that have incredible public transportation, I do fantasize about being able to walk, take a train or whatever back to my place. Living in areas of town densely populated by the LGBT community has its perks. Oak Lawn has a pretty interesting history. It used to be an area where hippies would go to...lounge. I'm told it wasn't uncommon to see one sleeping in the creek. For a while, there was a lot of crime and there still is a fair amount.
Yesterday morning around 2am, a friend of mine was gay bashed. I found out about an hour after it happened and he didn't look too good. He was walking with his partner and their friend when five people (3 men and 2 women) approached them. The woman said some inappropriate things and my friend was afraid for his partner. So, he put himself between the two of them.
When I hold my boyfriend's hand in public, I am aware this is a possibility. I look out for it. I shouldn't have to. I try to be ready in case anyone wants to start anything. When we hold hands, I feel hyper-sensitive to the world. There are looks thrown our way and occasional comments. I try to be aware. Should something happen, I'll admit I'm well equipped to handle myself and to protect him but it's not something I should have to worry about. If I feel especially close to him when we're together and want to hold his hand, it should be okay.
It would have been impossible for me to be there. There's no way that I could have been there to protect my friends. These "What If?" scenarios keep popping into my head. I think it's the thing my father fears the most for me but there will have to be an entire cultural shift before that happens. When my parents were young, people would point at them and say things. My mother is white and my father has brown skin. Society is going to have to get used to it. When I feel like it, I am going to hold my boyfriend's hand.
Party like a...Texas Democratic State Convention delegate
I have this long thing written up about what it was like to try to get through this year's state convention. It was too long. Too much happened. Too much was crazy and insane. It took place at the beginning of June and I still feel overwhelmed by it. To give you an idea of how busy it was, I give you the list of food I got to each day and the amount of hours I slept that night. I wish I could tell you that the lack of sleep was because of partying.
Thursday food: a McDs combo meal, an energy drink, coffee, Thai green curry fried rice, a bunch of cookies I slept a little over 3 hours.
Friday food: two breakfast tacos, coffee, a protein bar, water I slept a little over 2 hours.
Saturday food: a protein bar, a turkey sandwich, a cup of mixed fruit (mostly melon), coffee, half a bottle of rum, more coffee, vodka I slept for almost 5 hours
When some people get stressed, they eat more. I apparently stress-starve.
I was running for national delegate (cause I already got to be a delegate for precinct, senate district and state...why not go all the way). It was hard. I took myself out of one race that was easily winnable to increase the number of LGBT delegates came out of state so I ran for an at-large position. Never. Again. Screw the big picture. I stalked nine people for six hours and basically confined myself to the nominations room for another seven hours. My state representative came to me and told me that I shouldn't keep my hopes up since they needed to select more women to balance out all the elected men (see photo below, anyone who may or may not have been there is protected. I can't believe she sat with me for as long as she did…I love her). I was SAD that I might not get it.
It's hard to campaign against thousands of others. In an election, I am comfortable with running against someone I know. Someone with flaws. Someone I can name. How do I try to convince others that I am a more worthy selection than someone I don't even know. Of course, I highlight my experience and various titles (my slogan for when I ran as Student Government president back in college was "Vote Experience" which funny enough, didn't work so much for Hillary). End of the day, I will still be an activist and I will still be a Democrat so I could give up a potential seat to allow a better chance for one of those nameless strangers to go to our national convention. That person would go to our convention which is one of the highest honors anyone can achieve in Party politics. If I didn't make national delegate, I would have been there for the first weekend of the convention then go to Tucson to watch the big nomination acceptance speech with my boyfriend. I would save a lot more money and I would get to watch…think of it as watching the winning touchdown during a superbowl party and you're rooting for both teams. When I was there, though, something in me clicked. I wouldn't go down without a fight. I would try my hardest and if that wasn't good enough, I would know that I did my best.
In the end, I emerged out of the nominations committee. Those on the Hillary Clinton side told me they were "quite taken" with me. I AM A NATIONAL DELEGATE. I'm going to be there in person to watch that winning superbowl touchdown. It was funny to me that over five thousand state delegates solidified my place as a delegate about twelve hours after she suspended her campaign. In August, I am going to Denver to stand with many others and vote one more time for my candidate.
Until then, I have got to see which of my friends will give me money to send me there. I put a request in with Google to directly upload photos from my phone to Picasa. When I get back, I will have missed one week of school but this will be worth it. I will be one of the youngest delegates.
Party like a ... Democratic senatorial district delegate
I'm in the picture! Can you tell?
I had a really great day on the day of the Texas Democratic senatorial district convention a few Saturdays back. SO GREAT! This is the convention that is between the that big election day convention that happened on voting day about a month back and the Texas convention. Basically, we Texans have about 16 steps to get to the national convention (only a slight exaggeration).
I served as the chair of Platforms/Resolutions. This is pretty dear to me because I have two bills by Equality Texas that I want on the Texas Democratic Platform which would call for protection for LGBT children from being bullied in school and for protection for LGBTs from discrimination at work. I should explain something. There're four committees in every district (like mine) or county and those who led the other committees are really big in the community. There were two elected officials, one long-term and well respected activist then me. At least I was in good company.
We passed my resolutions without much of a fight and we even got a Comprehensive GLBT resolution through. Apparently, this is considered something of a miracle where I live (south Dallas). There was discussion on allowing marriage equality and partnership rights but in the end, we got it through. I didn't know what a coup this was until I read a letter to the editor that next day (look to the last letter). Yes, I am a miracle worker.
When I was lobbying the Texas legislature, there was a state representative who made an incredible impact on me. Representative Irma Rangel passed away in the middle of her term but every time I ever sat in her committee, she would hold each person who came into the chamber with the utmost respect. This is actually where I picked up the phrase, "Thank you so very much." I tried my best to emulate her in my committee by thanking every person who came in to present their resolution and really, I had an incredible committee. They were polite and friendly, no matter how tense things got in the room. Every time things got out of hand and I would try to talk, I would hear "Quiet! The chair is speaking!" (haha, oh grief) We were able to read through every resolution brought to us, another huge accomplishment.
When I gave my report, the old frat boy/student body president in me clicked on and I had the crowd cheering, shouting and clapping. It had been a long time.
This past weekend, the Texas Young Democrats met in Austin for their annual meeting. I accidentally got myself elected to the chair of the Minority Caucus and more importantly, I was able to mentor a few of the kids. I helped them through process and procedure and gave advice. It wasn't until one of them took the time to thank me for the help I gave that I thought about it. I like helping, mentoring, teaching. I like growing new leadership and I walked away from the conference, glad I could help.
