Long time, no chat. Even though I write for the site on a daily basis, I haven’t written a Behind The Cast personal post since my coming out story. Since then, I’ve barely had time to breathe and catch my breath- it’s been a perfect storm of events that have kept me very occupied.

On this Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, I finally find myself with a moment to relax and talk about the events that have transpired recently. Currently, I am in the British Columbian Interior- Blind Bay to be exact. I’m here to spend time with Brian‘s family which I’ll get to later in the post. Based on my best recollection efforts, here are some of the events that have kept me busy the past few weeks in chronological order.

COMING OUT: THE AFTERMATH
I wish I could put some dramatic and interesting anecdote that resulted with me officially coming out, BUT unfortunately I’ve got nothing for you. The biggest difference between my life before and after- besides the overwhelming support I’ve received from my family, old straight friends, new friends and readers of the site- has got to be the huge burden I no longer carry on my back. I feel so much lighter and stress free, words can’t even describe how good this feels. A perfect example of my life post-closet-isolation occurred during my niece/goddaughter’s first birthday party. I arrived by myself because Brian was running late helping Topher with some final errands before he left for Amsterdam. When asked by my sister-in-law’s family on where Brian was, I answered truthfully and without worry. Normally, I would’ve carefully selected words and would’ve posed at least 100 hypotheticals in my head on how my answers could be perceived. This time, for the first time, I didn’t worry since I’m now longer hiding it from anyone- such a great feeling. I just wished I would’ve done it sooner so I could’ve saved myself years of pre-mature wrinkling stress. Lesson learned.

NIECE’S FIRST BIRTHDAY

As mentioned above, my niece Mackenzie celebrated her one year birthday recently. It was a nice small family event held at Cat’s Meow in Granville Island. Where does the time go? It just seemed like yesterday when she was born. She had a great time with her princess themed birthday party. After brunch, we all walked over to the Kid’s Market where she received her first haircut. In Filipino tradition/superstition, a baby’s hair isn’t cut until their first birthday for fear of bad luck. Kinda ridic, right? I know everyone says this about their kids/nieces/nephews, but Mackenzie has got to be one of the cutest kids out there. I love the little bugger so much and it’s only grown exponentially the past couple of months since I spend every Wednesdays with her. That’s right, I’m her caregiver babysitter that day. In the near future, I’ll be introducing my new series, THE MANNY DIARIES where I’ll highlight some our little adventures and admit new guilty pleasures acquired as a result of being exposed to toddler toys and TV shows. Yikes- I’m sad, I know. Haha.

SEATTLE

Speaking of princess themed birthday parties, Adam, Patrick and I drove down to Seattle to celebrate Homorazzi Dan and Seattle Dan’s birthday. Thankfully, they celebrated it on the Friday since my niece’s birthday was going to be held Sunday morning. Had they held it on Saturday night, I would’ve had to haul ass out of Seattle by 8am to make it in time for my family function. Even though Patrick and I stayed for only one night, it was great to see all of Seattle and Vancouver friends in one place having a great time. Topher and Brian were also supposed to come but Brian had to work Saturday and Topher was leaving on Sunday and had a few last minute things to take care of.

WEEKEND TIMELINE
Okay I won’t bore you with a day-to-day account but here’s how the aforementioned events fit into my hectic weekend.

STARTING FRIDAY SEPT 26 – Pick up rental car >> Drive to Seattle with Patrick and Adam >> Arrive at Steve H’s place and pre-drink >> Arrive late at Dan Squared Birthday Party >> Go to Cuff >> Find some post clubbing eats >> Wake up >> Nurse hangover >> Buy wigs (for Hills’ spoof) and niece’s birthday gift en route back to Vancouver >> Drop Patrick off >> Pick up Topher to help move a few final things >> Topher and a few friends hang out at Brian and my place for his last night in Vancouver >> Go to niece’s birthday >> Drop off Topher to airport >> Hold an open house to sell our current place >> Receive an offer for condo >> Pick up Jonny, Nic and Patrick for video shoot at English Bay >> Relax at home – ENDING SUNDAY SEPT 28

CAR ACCIDENT
If you read the previous paragraph, you’ll notice I added “pick up rental car” to the list. Why did I need a rental? Yours truly decided to crash into a bus during rush hour traffic. Eeks. I guess watching Sean Horlor do it made me want to try it out myself. I kid. I was so friggin’ embarrassed, I didn’t even get out of my car and let Brian take care of all the information swapping. Truth be told, I was also afraid to check out the damage incurred on my Jeep Rubicon and the bus. Since it was rush hour, the bus was jam packed with commuters. To make matters worse, the public transit users had to get off the bus and wait for the next bus since we would be awhile with the bus drivers. The number of scathing looks I incurred was too many to count. Thankfully, I had a great driving record (accident free for 15 years) and the money out of pocket is very nominal and my rates will only go up by a hundred dollars over the next two years. So where were Brian and I driving to? We were heading over to our lawyer/notary to finalize the sale of our current condo.

MOVING AGAIN
Brian had the foresight to talk me into investing in the real estate market a few years ago when the prices were low. We would purchase a place pre-completion, live in it for a year to receive tax credits, then either rent it out or sell it. Over the course of 7 years, we’ve done it 5 times and about to do it all over again (hopefully for the last). I’m so tired of moving, you can’t even imagine. With each move, it brings the headache of either selling our old place or finding renters. Then you have to deal with how your old furniture will fit into the new place and/or whether you should purchase new pieces which has often been the case. I won’t go too much into detail in this post but sufficed to say, the past two weeks have been occupied with organizing tradespeople to changing a few things at the new place, looking for new furniture and new design ideas. Even on the drive out to Blind Bay yesterday, we had to take care of a few things en route making us really late for his family’s event.

VIFF

With Vancouver hosting it’s annual Film Festival, Patrick and myself along with a few cast members have been busier than normal. Me alone, I’ve had to attend a couple of media red carpet events, a couple of screenings, and organizing things for the Homorazzi cast. When initially signing on for the event, I didn’t realize how many time units it would require. Another lesson learned. If VIFF is this insane, I can only imagine how TIFF, Cannes and Sundance could be.

CURLING
Sandwiched between all these events, Brian and I started the curling season a couple of weeks ago. Normally, I look forward to the two hours of winter time escape a curling game provides me. But given how hectic life has been, it’s been more of a nuisance rather than a relaxing time. Hopefully that will all change as things begin to calm down for me this week. Normally we join the league with our friends Chad & Greg but due to an injury, Chad is unable to join this year. We put in a request with the Pacific Rim organization crew to select a 4th member for our team. Thankfully our newest team member isn’t a crazy. Phew. His name is Brad and seems like a really nice guy. So far for the year, our record is 1-1-1. Expect more curling updates in future my Behind The Cast posts.

BLIND BAY
As mentioned in early on in this post, Brian and I are in Blind Bay, BC. It’s about 20 minutes away from Salmon Arm and situated right on the Shuswap Lake. Over the course of our 9 year relationship, Brian and I have been here numerous times since both sets of his grandparents live within 10 minutes of each other. The reason we made our way over here this time was to celebrate Brian’s paternal grandfather’s 80th birthday. I was a little timid about attending this event as I’ve only met Brian’s dad’s family side only a few times. For some reason, I’ve seen his mom’s side a lot more than his dad’s. No real reason, just logistics I guess. Considering I’ve only met them a few times, I was made to feel very welcome and had a great time and felt honored to be included to celebrate such a huge milestone.

I’m quickly going to finish this post because I should probably get my butt upstairs so I can start visiting with his other grandparents. Tonight, we celebrate Thanksgiving with his family and then drive back to Vancouver to celebrate with my family. Busy, busy, busy. It never stops does it. Of course mixing in the numerous times partying with friends also adds to the hecticness. Maybe I’ll cut that down. Yeah right.

Related Stories:
• Behind The Cast: Yup, Pigs Finally Flew
• Behind The Cast: Dan’s 26th Birthday
• Behind the Cast: Moving. Third Time’s the (C)Harm?