Just Checking

What have I been doing recently?

Nightlife: I feel asleep at 6:15 PM on Saturday of the Gay Pride Festival, woke up at 9:30 PM, and watched a documentary about poor people living in Skid Row. I was sort of proud of that.

Television: I've watched the first two seasons of Bob's Burgers three times on Netflix (reminder: not my own account), and have once again begun to watch 30 Rock in its entirety for approximately the 9th time. Every weeknight, I watch The Nanny like a good gay. I'm very grateful that Dance Moms is back. I also recently discovered that Sabrina, the Teenage Witch is available for free on Hulu...the future is bright.

Writing: I haven't blogged since Father's Day, but I have been writing two different web series for a friend of mine in New York. One is called Boob Cam. It's a working title...

Love: HahahahahahahahahahahaOHGodIwilldiealone

Dining: I eat a PB&J every day for lunch because I'm too poor to afford anything else.

Music: I recently had my first round of auditions for a singing competition at the bar below my apartment. My best friend went with me. I left feeling like I was Top 2. She was pretty sure I was somewhere near the Top 5. She bought the drinks, so I didn't rebut.

Well, that about sums it up. Thanks for checking in, America.

Don't worry. Things won't stay boring for long. They rarely do.

Buckle up,

TJB: Making It

Of Dads and Sons

TV-5 Best of the Class 07. Dad is crying because he's so proud.

I was raised by a psychologist, so I blame pretty much everything on that. But I also credit almost everything I am and have achieved to that same man.

My dad is probably the best dad a boy could ask for, especially a boy like me. He took me to dance class every week, then drove me to swimming lessons, then to piano, then to baseball, basketball, soccer, track, play rehearsal, and on and on and on. My dad never missed a game or recital, and though he worked through quite a few family dinners, he always came home with a smile.

And he always says, "I love you."

The J of TJB is for him. James. I started using my middle initial in 4th grade when I decided I was going to be famous. I thought I should include a piece of my dad as a way to thank him for giving me so much. Since I'll never be able to thank him enough, the J will stay forever.

When you're gay, everybody wants to know your coming out story. Was it hard? How did your parents take it? How did your dad take it? Did you have an absent father? Oh, your father is a psychologist, so he must have been fine with it, right?

I think it's hard to raise a son you feel so close to for 17 years and then find out there was a piece he was ashamed to share with you. Sure, I could be a pretty flamboyant little shit, and I don't think anybody was surprised, but I still don't think my dad expected it. Why would you ever expect your kids to keep a secret from you? I remember feeling kind of stupid when it was all over. I almost wanted to go back to my first dance class, give him a high kick and say, "DAD, I'm gay, now get in the car, I have a game to win."

Years later, my dad has had dinner with countless boyfriends, gives great relationship advice, and even humors a more liberal discussions of politics (though we both still would've liked to see McCain with a worthy running mate). In the 24 years I've known him, he's been my best friend. And I'm surprised because I once woke him up to smack him in the face with a wooden spoon. Oh, to be 3 again.

But Dad also keeps me humble. My dad gave me one piece of advice that I repeat daily:

"We are legends in our own minds."

I remember that even though I am to receive an abundance of fame and glory, at the end of the day we are living for ourselves and the world will go on with or without us. So just live.

I think my parents should have had more children. This world would be lucky to have a few more little Jims running around.

I'm about to head to the roof for a beer. I'll be holding it up towards lake Michigan to cheers you, Jimbo.

I love you Dad,

TJB: Making It

Runaway Pride

I was feeling a little overwhelmed today. You know those times when you look at your bank account and wonder how you can work so hard and be so exhausted and still buying generic brands to save 20 cents? Then you feel guilty when you buy a $6 beer, even though it was the highlight of your week, but you tip $2 anyway because you know the bartender feels the same as you do and at least you can pretend to see the gratitude in her eyes when she thanks you.

I decided to grab a coffee (I got a medium even though I wanted a large because I wanted to save 40 cents) and take a walk. There was a rock under a tree by the lake - very Lion King - and I sat down alone with my earbuds in, phone on silent, no fucks given.

There's a running path just below the rock ledge. At first, watching all of the runners made me feel incredibly lazy, as I was the only person not moving within sight. But I decided to just do what I do best.

Look good and judge people.

Some of them were beautiful. Some of them should never wear a tank top in public again. Some of them had clearly just started their run. Some of them were covered in sweat, but seemed to have no intention of stopping anytime soon. Some were slowing down to a walk as they approached their finish. A few had bikes and sped past the runners. A lot of them wore collegiate t-shirts, though many of their college days were years behind them. In fact, I worried some might keel over any second.

All of them were alone.

Solitary, focused, moving. In almost an hour, I didn't see any words exchanged between people. And though each of them was incredibly different from the others, I realized they had all made the same conscious decision before setting out on this path:

To be better. To be healthier. To live longer and be stronger.

It was then I realized how many of them were probably just as exhausted, overworked, and broke as I was. But here they were making the investment to improve the only aspect of their lives they had control over.

Themselves.

Because nobody else can make you run. They can motivate you, sure, but you're just dead weight until you
lift one leg to stride past the other. So I got up and walked.

Alone, but empowered.

I somehow felt more connected to the world and the girls with the neon laces or the old men in windbreakers. I was even OK with the bikers who sped past me, because though I was moving slow, I was moving. We were all sharing a path I knew I would make it to the end of in my own time.

I'm buying a beer tonight,

TJB: Making It

While You Were Out

Fridays are my favorite day of the week. If you screw up Friday night, you still have Saturday!

Oh boy did I screw up Friday.

I left work feeling accomplished and fulfilled, knowing my best friend was ready to rage the night away. I didn't even care when my Sperry Top-sider laces came untied because nothing was going to trip me up! I took the stairs to the train two at a time and hummed showtunes the whole way! LIFE WAS BEAUTIFUL! IT WAS FRIDAY!

Then, my friend called saying she had a sinus infection and would be staying in.

Well, fuck.

I tied my laces and ditched the showtunes. Having years of experience in the Friday night industry, I knew there was no bouncing back from plans that were canceled after 6PM. I had to succumb to the inevitable, so I stopped at Walmart, purchased two bottles of wine, ordered chicken Pad Thai, and went over to my friends to watch her pop Nyquil and Sudafed. At least I would get some social interaction before she passed out (from the G&Ts I poured, not the Nyquil).

The real problems started when she turned on Dateline. I probably haven't watched Dateline since I was 10 years old sitting in The Great Room of my upper-middle-class family's mansion in the woods. You know, back when the only struggles I knew of the world came from Friday night prime-time. Oh, and from being a flaming gay kid in the middle of a conservative Christian town. Now, I can't seem to get enough struggle in my life.

BRING IT ON JOSH MANKIEWICZ!

As soon as the first Twitter pop-up appeared in the corner of the screen, I was in for the kill. I was practically narrating the show though a live Twitter feed. Once news anchor Josh Mankiewicz and Dateline NBC started responding, something changed in me. I felt powerful, I felt important, I felt on top of the world.

Two hours and 67 Tweets later, I have plans to get lunch with Mr. Mankiewicz and Dateline whenever I'm back in NYC.

I finished my G&T, remembered that I was in my best friend's apartment, acknowledged her presence one final time, and took my wine to have a good cry.

You know those times when you need a good cry? You're not really sad, but you haven't been sad in a while, and you just need to let it all out or else the next time you are really sad you'll either stab somebody or adopt a cat? I decided two bottles of wine was a good time to do it.

I stopped and started approximately 12 movies on my Netflix

- and by my Netflix, I mean my friend Ian's Netflix because what kind of bougie person has their own Netflix account -

I just couldn't find the right crying material. I needed something that would get to my gut but not make me feel unattractive.

Just at that moment, the universe could tell I needed help. My ex-boyfriend (the dancer, not the mini-jerk or the movie mogul) texted that he would be visiting Chicago in the coming weeks.

And it hit me. Only one person in the world could make me cry like I needed to. The one person who could understand what I've been through, and what I still have yet to go through, more than anyone.

Judy Garland

I scoured YouTube and found Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows. I'm not sure if you've ever seen this made-for-TV masterpiece, but you can find all 3 glorious hours right on the very screen you're currently staring at. I highly suggest you culture yourself and do so.

I had my cry. I sobbed and sobbed and felt what Judy felt, and we connected beyond the decades that separated us through the lyrics of Arlen and Gershwin and a bunch of other gays.

Then I woke up in bed alone next to an empty bottle of wine and pile of tissues.

Thank GOD I still have Saturday,

TJB: Making It

People Who Need People

Long before I started a blog, I had this plan to write a book where each chapter was dedicated to a person who had somehow influenced my life's direction in chronological order. I started a draft of it on the first computer my family owned when I was in 6th grade. Somewhere on a Gateway hard-drive in the back of my parent's basement is Chapter 1. It's about a girl I had a crush on in pre-school whose name I couldn't remember until I met her again when she was on my sister's softball team 7 years later. I offered her half of my last piece of gum. True chivalry. She declined.

I had a conversation this weekend with someone I had just met who asked about why I moved back to Chicago. I gestured to a group of my friends and said, "People." The rest of the conversation went something like this:

Him: You moved back here for them?
Me: No, I moved back here because I wanted to spend time with them.
Him: And because you wanted to give up acting?
Me: I don't remember saying that.
Him: But you're not acting.
Me: Correct.
Him: So what are you doing?
Me: Spending time with them.

Yes, I was purposefully trying to be a dick, but I feel we too often complicate the reason we do things, or rather, complicate what we think we should  be doing.

For instance, people who crave soup. I'm not trying to generalize by saying that everyone who has ever said they're craving soup is full of shit. However, I think most people are afraid to say, "I'm feeling fat, so I should keep my calorie intake under 300," or, "I'm broke-ass, so I shouldn't spend more than $3."

But to be clear, nobody craves hot water with vegetables in it.

Today as I was on my run (because I don't want to be fat and have a poor body-image), I began thinking about what an influential man had once taught me. You have to know exactly why you're doing something in order to get any real fulfillment out of it. Rarely is that reason complicated. Unfortunately, we often feel pressured to make it so. You want artistic fulfillment? Great, but if you really just want to be rich and famous, you won't get either. If you could just admit you want to be rich and famous from the get-go, you still might not get it...but you'll at least expedite the process of false soul-searching and approach it with the necessary drive.

Why am I doing what I'm doing? Because I want to be happy and have fun. My life since graduating college has been a clusterf*ck, but every decision I've made has been in the pursuit of fun. Sure, some people see that as noncommittal and irresponsible, but everything I've done, I've given it 110%.

I also want to be rich and famous and have everyone think I'm really pretty. But, we all want that.

What do I need to achieve those dreams? People. We all need people. And you might as well like the people you need, because if you don't, it will feel empty every time they tell you how pretty you are.

Now let me skip the false soul-searching and say this: I will continue to make a lot of sporadic and off-the-cuff decisions in the pursuit of myself. But oh my GOD is it fun. If it weren't, you probably would've stopped reading this piece of shit blog years ago.

But if you stick with it, there might just be a chapter reserved for you somewhere on a Gateway hard drive.

I'm off to eat some soup because I'm feeling fat and broke-ass,

TJB: Making It

I Try

Many people spent the weekend reuniting with friends and family at barbecues. I would bet that few of those friends and families put on a full-blown concert. I agree that "friends are the family we choose", but The Freshman Fifteen is the family that chooses you.

I didn't plan on auditioning for an all-male a cappella group when I went to Northwestern. I didn't think I could hold up against all that testosterone, which does exist despite the homo-eroticism. Somehow, one of the bros convinced me via a text message while I was in the bathroom at Barnes & Noble. I went to audition on the spot and somehow ended up in the most beautiful fluke of my life.

I usually start writing these blog posts knowing what to say. I cry a lot when I write them even when they're funny, because there's something incredibly humbling yet terrifying about being able to see your life in writing. I'm also just a really amazing writer. But I can't remember ever feeling this moved or confused or completely overwhelmed by emotions...

and I think that's exactly F15.

This weekend, I stood on stage, and sat in the audience, and shotgunned beers, and had brunch with, and laughed with, and cried with the men who have spanned 15 years of what I hold to be the #1 reason I don't regret spending $200,000 on a degree. Had it not been for them, I might have actually submitted one of the five transfer applications I filled out to UMich the beginning of freshman year.

During a road trip senior year, I earnestly asked some of them, "How do people make friends if they're not in F15?" Thankfully, I'll never really know the answer.

There are some I love to hate, some I love to irritate, and even some I've fallen in love with. But there isn't a single one I don't love in some sense of the word. Plenty I don't like, but none I don't love. Some of them know all too well what they have done for me, and I can only hope to return a small majority of what's been given. But debt does not exist in the bank of brotherhood.

...that was...pretty good...

When the weekend was coming to an end, I don't think any of us really knew how to say goodbye. So, we just stood in a circle and sang every song we could remember until we peeled away one by one to head to airports, parents, and more drinking.

I first performed "I Try" at a show that took place the weekend of my grandmother's funeral. My parents knew how important the 10th anniversary show was to me, and I remember looking at these guys before I started singing and knowing that this song described just how I felt about them. Five years later, at the 15th anniversary, nothing has changed. Nothing will ever change.

and I think that's exactly F15.

ILU,

TJB: Making It

Trust the T, not the B

My blog just hit 40,000 views and I just watched an unaired episode of a cancelled TV show that stripped my soul bare and showed me the truth about my life in under 20 minutes.

That show is the enormously underrated, assuredly award-winning Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23. 

Long story short, Midwestern blonde bitch moves to NYC and has a sassy and fabulous roommate with which to have endless shenanigans that end in quirky life lessons. In the aforementioned episode, the sassy fabulous one teaches the Midwestern blonde one that she never really wanted to be with that boy she liked in 7th grade, but only thought she did because she never got it out of her system and kept asking, "What if?"

Essentially, there are a lot of awesome things going on in my life. I have my own apartment. I pay my own bills. I discovered an amazing hairstyle that over-compliments my bone structure. I have a job I thought I had no business doing but somehow ended up being really good at. Hell, I was just asked to come back to be seen by the artistic team of a Broadway show...OK, it's on a cruise ship, but still. Six months later, somebody is still interested in me.

So 24 years later, why am I not still interested in myself?

Because I let a boy get to me. Because for years, I've been treating him like the one that got away, when in reality

I let myself get away.

*clutch tissues to mouth and squint eyes*

I moved back to Chicago for a lot of strange reasons. For one, I really wanted to party here for New Year's Eve and couldn't afford a round-trip ticket. I also felt like I had to prove I wasn't wasting my brain while trying to be an actor. There's also an insane reunion of my a cappella group next weekend that I was worried I wouldn't get to be a part of because I was such a great actor and would surely be filming somewhere.

But to be bluntly honest, I sort of thought love-struck 17 year old me had some unfinished business to move back for.

OK FINE I WAS 18! I just don't like feeling old.

Turns out, America (and I think I'm big in Spain now), I was the only one who thought so. Apparently, I just needed a sassy girl on a nixed sitcom to tell me. And if I can take rejection from Broadway, I can take rejection from this.

What's next? I don't really know.

Just kidding, I have so much more bad TV to watch and a really cute outfit planned for tomorrow.

There's Pad Thai all over my pillow,

TJB: Making It