n i c k y n a x . c o m

As promised, the video footage of the trip Kevin and I took to Kentucky a couple weeks ago is finally ready for viewing, and I present it to you here. It’s a bit longer than YouTube’s time limitations allow, so it had to be chopped up into three parts, but what can you do? When you film that much usable footage, it becomes impossible to cut things. And maybe I’m biased, but I think he did a fantastic job editing it together in post production.

So, here they are!

Enjoy your Field Trip!

This is week eight in my personal “If… Project” in which I answer questions from the book “If… (Questions for the Game of Life)”

There are 125 pages of this book, each with four questions. I plan to take one page each week and answer the questions as thoroughly and honestly as I am able. In addition, I invite you to answer the questions along with me, whether it be in the comments section, your own personal blog, or just within your own thoughts.

Perhaps in doing so, we will get to know each other better, but even more importantly, get to know ourselves better.

This week’s questions:

If you could have one person from history live his or her full life over again, starting now, who would you pick?

I don’t think anyone would be surprised to hear that I’m picking Walt Disney. He did some amazing things in his lifetime, and I think were he to live his life over again in a world with today’s technology, the things that man could come up with would blow our minds.

If you could have witnessed one event in history, what would you want to have seen?

Dang, this one is tough. I’ve been sitting here for about ten minutes trying to figure out my answer. I keep coming back to openings/beginnings of things. Things like Opening Night of Rent on Broadway. Or the Grand Opening of Disneyland or Walt Disney World. Or perhaps some great moments in sports, like Kerri Strug winning the Olympic Gold for the women’s gymnastics team with her injured ankle. So many choices and these just scratch the surface.

If one of your parents was to be a famous person from any time in history, who would you want them to be?

I would definitely pick my mom. And I think I would want her to be someone who had an easy life full of glamour, as the life I’ve known her to lead hasn’t been that glamourous and certainly hasn’t been anything near easy. Maybe someone like Marilyn Monroe, but without the untimely and tragic death. Or someone like Princess Diana who was both beautiful inside and out. Plus, then I would be a prince, and that wouldn’t be too shabby.

if you could receive one small package this very moment, who would you want it to be from and what would be in it?

I don’t think I would care who it came from as long as it was from someone I loved. If it came from someone I didn’t, I would be very suspicious and wouldn’t be able to enjoy it. While it would be incredible if the package was a key to a brand new Prius or a new baby puppy, I think the thing that would make me the most excited right now would be a membership card to the Disney Vacation Club that someone had went ahead and purchased for me.

I love the direction the questions seem to be going in over the past few weeks. They aren’t too common to be boring and tend to make me actually stop and think a little bit before answering. Here’s hoping it continues like this.

Anyway…

Those are my answers to this week’s questions. What are yours?

I will gladly admit that I was wrong.

I was anticipating the worst when it came to driving halfway across the country to western Kentucky to attend the wedding of two strangers. As it turns out, it was actually pretty enjoyable!

We started driving at about 6:30 last Thursday night. We had a free upgrade to an SUV instead of an economy car, which also included a GPS navigation device (which we named Clarissa, because she explained it all) and XM Satellite Radio. So right off the bat, things were already better than I had anticipated they would be.

By about 2:00 am, we were starting to go crazy from exhaustion and decided to stop for the night. Everyone at worked had warned me not to stop in West Virginia (apparently not the most gay friendly state?), so we had to keep driving until we crossed the border. Once in Ohio we stopped at what had to have been the first one or two towns we came to, which I realize isn’t that much better than stopping in West Virginia itself, but when it’s 3:00 am and you’ve been driving for eight and a half hourse, you start to care about sleep more than you care about your safety.

So, we shacked up at a Days Inn in St. Clairsville, Ohio and fell asleep virtually the moment we got into the room.

Next morning we were up bright and early and back on the road by 9:00. After making it through Ohio and Kentucky and setting our clocks back an hour to allow for the time zone change, we finally made it to Owensboro by about 3:00.

Off to the wedding rehearsal since Kevin was a groomsman, then to the rehearsal dinner, and then we fought off some sleep long enough to catch the new Narnia movie.

The next morning Kevin showed me around Owensoboro, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it’s actually a charming little city. Large enough to have some great features, yet small enough to feel homey and comfortable.

The wedding was that evening and it was nice. Though, I have to admit that it’s a little weird going to a wedding where you don’t know the bride or the groom. It’s kind of like watching one on tv or in a movie. It’s hard to relate to the people involved since you don’t know them, so you spend most of the time just reflecting on what a wedding is and celebrating love in general instead of the specific love for the couple getting married.

After the reception I ended up driving the SUV back to the hotel since Kevin had had some wine, and even though he was completely sober enough to drive, I just wanted to err on the side of safety. Though, considering I haven’t really driven a car in about nine years, perhaps me driving wasn’t the safest option we had. Truth be told though, lately I’ve missed being behind the wheel of a car and was looking for an opportunity to try it out again.

A refresher course might have been a good idea though, as we pulled into the parking lot of a Denny’s next door to our hotel (which included me parking at about a 45 degree angle), and I turned off the car without putting it into park. Coupled with the fact that earlier that day I ran down the battery by playing the radio and using the air conditioning without the motor running. Yeah, it’s NOT just like riding a bike. You forget things.

The next morning we were up bright and early again and on the road by 9:30. We stopped in Louisville to have lunch with a friend of Kevin’s and shortly thereafter Kevin asked me to drive for a bit in order to give him a break. Now, I had secretly been kinda excited to drive on the streets of a small city, but going fast on an open freeway was perhaps the most terrifying thing I could think of, especially considering my two debacles the day before.

But, I agreed and hopped back into the driver’s seat. And I am very excited to announce that I drove from Florence, Kentucky to Columbus, Ohio. On the freeways. For 120 miles. Going really really fast. With giant semi trucks. And lanes merging.

And it felt good.

I’ve spent the past few days wishing I had a car again and wishing that I lived somewhere where I could actually drive a car. But here in NYC, it’s just not necessary. But that hasn’t stopped me from deciding that if I were to get a car, it would be a Prius. Because those things are just so damn cool.

We ended up arriving back home at about 1:30am after sixteen hours of driving. And it’s remarkable how you can spend sixteen hours sitting in one spot and still get so incredibly exhausted from it.

I took Bossy Bear with us, but didn’t take any pictures. There just weren’t any real landmarks or anything that inspired me to take one. Unless of course, you count the billboard along the way that said “HELL IS REAL!” But we couldn’t really slam on the brakes and run into the middle of the freeway to take a picture of a plastic bear wearing a cape and crown.

We did film about 50 minutes of footage during the entire weekend, and I’m just waiting (not so patiently) for Kevin to edit this one together. Once he does, I’ll share it here.

And before I could even get fully rested up from this wedding weekend, we already bought plane tickets (yes, we’re flying this time, thank jeebus!) to Columbus, Ohio for another wedding in mid-June.

This time…Cedar Point will also be involved.

This is week seven in my personal “If… Project” in which I answer questions from the book “If… (Questions for the Game of Life)”

There are 125 pages of this book, each with four questions. I plan to take one page each week and answer the questions as thoroughly and honestly as I am able. In addition, I invite you to answer the questions along with me, whether it be in the comments section, your own personal blog, or just within your own thoughts.

Perhaps in doing so, we will get to know each other better, but even more importantly, get to know ourselves better.

This week’s questions:

If you could be sculpted by any artist in history, who would you choose?

At the risk of admitting my ignorance for this medium of art, I have to confess that I don’t really know much about sculpture or any sculptors from history. Of course there is Michelangelo who made the masterpiece of David. And Rodin who created The Thinker. There’s also the Venus de Milo, which I’ve had the pleasure of seeing in person while in Paris about ten years ago, but I have no clue who the creator of that piece was. And that is pretty much the extent of my knowledge on the subject. So I guess I’d have to pick between them. So, at the risk of being Cliche McBoring, I’ll pick Michelangelo.

If you were to have your entire wardrobe designed for you by a single clothing designer for the rest of your life, who would you select?

Oh geez. Another topic about which I know nothing. When it comes to fashion the extent of my knowledge remains in the H&M and American Eagle vein. I don’t really follow fashion or fashion designers and the only piece of clothing that I own that I think is from a particular designer is a Michael Kors argyle sweater. I do love that sweater, so I guess by default, he wins my vote.

If you were to be stranded forever on a desert island and could have only one book to read, which would you want?

There it is! I was wondering how long it would be before we got to the desert island questions. Let it be known that on week seven, we finally got stranded! I think Conversations With God is a book that would keep me from going insane. Would also enjoy having The Chronicles of Narnia on hand, because it would be good to have a fantasy book to use as a means of escape from the current situation. With that argument Harry Potter and The Neverending Story would also be good choices. Maybe even Peter Pan. Did I just break the rules and pick more than one book? In that case, one book that included all of those. Take that, suckers!

If you could say one sentence to the current pope, what would it be?

“You gotta do something about that hat, dude.”

Those are my answers for this week’s questions. What are yours?

Let the roadtrip begin!

After work I am heading home and piling into a rental car with Kevin. At that point we will begin to play our own real life version of Oregon Trail and make our way westward to the mysterious land of Kentucky for some wedding.

I hope we don’t lose our oxen and die of dysentery.

Although that might make for a more exciting blog entry.

I won’t be back until very late Sunday night (or quite possibly very early Monday morning), but I’ve prewritten this week’s If… entry and it is scheduled to publish on Sunday so that I can keep on schedule.

Fingers crossed that during the 880 mile trek to Kentucky I’ll be able to convince Kevin to skip the wedding and instead go to Dollywood. Or Graceland. Or Both!

Eight weeks ago today I was at the orthodontist beginning the Invisalign process.

The only reason I bring this up is because on that day he told me that I would have my first set of aligners and could actually beginning wearing them “in six to eight weeks.”

And here it is, eight weeks later, and I still have not received them.

I’ve never been a patient person. Ever. I’m definitely a member of Generation Instant Gratification. These past eight weeks have been torturous for me. I’ve been waiting years for this, and now that the process had finally begun, I was forced to sit and wait another six to eight weeks before it could actually begin.

I called their offices a few days ago just to track my case and check the status of things and was told that the doctor was in the middle of making some adjustments to my procedure, and once those were finished, it would be about a week until they had the aligners in their offices for me to finally start wearing.

On one hand it’s really frustrating that it’s taking so long. But on the other hand…it’s still really frustrating that it’s taking so long.

I know that it’s better for me that he goes over things with a fine-toothed comb and makes these adjustments. I would much better he do things perfectly than do things fast. It would be ideal, of course, if it could be done both perfectly and fast.

I guess that part of this that has me the most frustrated is that even though I haven’t been able to start using the Invisalign yet, I’ve still been billed twice and already had to fork over more than 10% of the total cost.

You can’t give me the product I’m paying for in a timely fashion, but you can still charge me right on schedule? Yeah, I get it.

If you need me, I’ll be right here. Twiddling my thumbs. Just waiting for my Tardy Teeth.

Over the weekend I had some moments of boredom and stumbled across a program called MacOSaiX that makes photo mosaics for you. You just tell it what picture you want the final product to look like and what pictures to use in the mosaic and it does all the work itself while you sit back and watch. It was quite fascinating to watch as the pieces fell into place and the final image began to emerge.

I decided to test it out using the picture that I used to make the banner on top of this blog. It’s a picture of me on the deck of the Disney Magic as we set sail from Florida during the cruise last October. I have (thanks to my friend Tyler) well over 1000 pictures from that cruise, so I figured it would give me a huge source of related photographs from which to build the picture.

Here is the source image:

You’ll notice in the banner above I not only flipped the image, but I also made the water ans sky look bluer than it actually was in real life. Just ignore that little fact. I’d hate to ruin the photoshop magic. Or something.

Anyway, after pressing just a few buttons and letting MacOSaiX do all of the grunt work, I was presented with this delightful photo mosaic:

Pretty snazzy if I do say so myself!

That’s 1600 pictures taken from my personal library of photographs that I (and Tyler) took on that trip, all pooled together to recreate one of my favorite pictures from the cruise. And I used a large enough version of the source image that I could now print a pretty good sized version of the mosaic and have it matted and framed and actually hang it on my wall.

I think it makes a unique and personalized keepsake of the vacation.

This is week six in my personal “If… Project” in which I answer questions from the book “If… (Questions for the Game of Life)”

There are 125 pages of this book, each with four questions. I plan to take one page each week and answer the questions as thoroughly and honestly as I am able. In addition, I invite you to answer the questions along with me, whether it be in the comments section, your own personal blog, or just within your own thoughts.

Perhaps in doing so, we will get to know each other better, but even more importantly, get to know ourselves better.

This week’s questions:

If you could have permanent possession of any single object in the world, what would you want it to be?

The objects that I tend to covet are technology-based objects. The iPhone. The MacBook. The newest Digital Camera. A cool new camcorder. A large screen flat panel television. And such advances in technology are always being made, so if I had permanent possession of one of them, it would only be about a year or two until something newer and better will catch my eye and I won’t even want the first one anymore, nor would anyone else out there be jealous of my possession of it, because they’ll have something else which has now become far better. So I am going to choose an object that I’m not even sure really exists: a Lifetime Pass to all current (and future) Disney theme parks. Now THAT’s something I would cherish and would save me a lot of money. A LOT of money.

If you could have had the starring role in one film already made, which movie would you pick?

If I wanted to be clever I would be something that went on to spawn several sequels, thus assuring me a role in several subsequent movies. You know, something like Harry Potter or or Frodo Baggins. But I’m going to go with movies that I would actually want to be in instead, and since I can’t pick just one, I’m picking three. Sue me.

First off would be Home Alone. Yeah, this one would have spawned me a sequel also, but that’s not why I am picking it. This movie came out when I was about nine or ten, and at the point in my life where I had decided that I really really really wanted to be a movie star. So, I kinda latched on to every Macaulay Culkin at the time. He was the epitome of who I wanted to be, and Home Alone was the holy grail of movies.

Second choice is Mary Poppins. I have loved musicals since I was a zygote, and movie musicals were my first introduction to them. This one combined my love of musicals with the magic of Disney, and I wanted to be Michael Banks so badly growing up. I remember learning all of his lines and lyrics by watching the movie repeatedly and would act his scenes out in my bedroom pretending that I was filming the movie. And this was during the period of time before I fully understood that the magic of special effects wasn’t necessarily really magic. I thought they really were riding on runaway carousel horses and floating on the ceiling and those would have been a dream come true to take part in.

Third choice would be Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. I kind of fell in love with the thought of being in this movie because it was one of the first (the first, perhaps) movie I remember seeing where there was a kid named Nick in it, and he was roughly my same age. So why couldn’t I play him?! It was just so unfair! This one also looked like it was just a lot of fun to film. You got be dirty and messy the whole time. You got to swing on a giant broom. You got to fly through the air on a giant bumblebee. It was like a giant jungle gym with rides, in my imagination. The only thing that freaked me out about the idea of filming it was that scene with the larger-than-life scorpion attack. Always gave me the heebie-jeebies.

Now that I’m going through the list of movies I want(ed) to be in, I’m coming up with tons more. But since I’ve already picked two more than the question allows, I’ll stop for now.

If you could return for one year to one age in your life, knowing what you know now, to relive that year as you wish, which year would you go back to?

I would go back to 2001, I think. That was the year when I was offered an incredible job performing with a national tour of a musical, and for reasons that are too convoluted to get into right now, ended up not accepting the job. I often wonder what would have happened and how my life/career would be different now had I taken that job and continued in the business. Because that is also the point in life where I virtually gave up and stopped trying, because the experience caused me a lot of depression and caused me to get very disillusioned with the whole thing. Knowing what I know now, I think it would have been a better choice for me to have taken that job and continued down that path. I probably would be a much more fulfilled person now.

If you had to identically repeat any single year of your life to date, without changing a thing, which year would you relive?

Oh goodness, none! Good years have happened, but each of those good years also had its share of bad experiences. And honestly, I’m not sure I can see the benefit of living a year over again if you’re not given the option of changing the way you lived it (like in the previous question). I think dwelling on the past is a lot of what holds us back in life, and this seems to be an example of that. For the sake of the game, I’ll pick something though. I’ll pick the year I was in first grade. I had tons of friends. It was before any gay bashing starting. I loved school. And it was just overall a very happy time from what I can remember. And I was adorable. For reals.

Those are my answers for this week’s questions. What are yours?

This is week five in my personal “If… Project” in which I answer questions from the book “If… (Questions for the Game of Life)”

There are 125 pages of this book, each with four questions. I plan to take one page each week and answer the questions as thoroughly and honestly as I am able. In addition, I invite you to answer the questions along with me, whether it be in the comments section, your own personal blog, or just within your own thoughts.

Perhaps in doing so, we will get to know each other better, but even more importantly, get to know ourselves better.

This week’s questions:

If you could inherit a comfortable home in any city in the world that you could use but not sell, where would you want it to be?

Would it be lame if I said right here in New York City? I would love to have an entire brownstone on the Upper West Side or in Hell’s Kitchen. Or perhaps even a hot apartment in a high rise building with a nice balcony overlooking a view of the city. If I had to choose a city in which I don’t currently live, then maybe somewhere like London, though I wouldn’t want to live there full time. But I could use it as my home base for when I went to Europe, as I often imagine I will do in my future years when I am independently wealthy by means I have yet to figure out.

If you could inherit a vacation home anywhere in the world in which you could spend one month a year, but that you could never sell, where would it be?

Well, considering I already plan to buy into a timeshare at Disney World, I would say I would want my vacation home to be in Orlando. Not only would it give me that vacation property I want already, but it would save me from having to actually buy it myself. Although, I gotta say, maybe I should just buy the timeshare myself and pick something like Hawaii for this free inherited one.

If you could suddenly possess an extraordinary talent in one of the arts, what would you like it to be?

Oh, this one has me really torn. I have a pretty good affection for most branches of the arts and find participating them to all be quite fulfilling. I would really really really love to be a prodigy of a dancer, but now that I am 27, it wouldn’t really leave me that many more years to be able to actually do it, so while dancing may be my first choice, I’m going to have to pick something else for that reason. I would probably have to choose being a singer/songwriter. I can definitely carry a tune and went to a musical theatre academy here in the city, so I know I at least have the building blocks of the talent, but sadly, my skills never seemed to progress far enough to launch me into superstardom. And as far as singers go, I tend to really like those singer/songwriter types, so I would pick to have the songwriting ability as well. Basically, I’d want to be the male Jewel.

If you could be instantly fluent in one other language that you currently do not read or speak, which would it be?

Again, it’s a toss up between a few. I took Spanish in high school and really enjoyed it, but have since forgotten virtually all of it, so it would be nice to get that language back. I would also really love to be fluent in American Sign Language. Since meeting and becoming friends with Garrett, I’ve discovered that it’s actually a very beautiful and emotional language. And I’ve really enjoyed learning the little bit that I’ve picked up from him and from the books I bought on the subject. And it would just be really satisfying to be able to have an actual conversation with him someday without him having to dumb it down for me or resort to writing instead of signing.

Those are my answers for this week’s questions. What are yours?

About a month ago I published an entry in which I listed some of the items on my Life List, and it looks like one of those goals is going to happen in a couple weeks.

Though not exactly as I had envisioned.

In two weeks, Kevin has to attend a wedding of an old friend of his, and he asked me to be his date. The wedding is in Kentucky, which means we’re just making a nice weekend of it. The original plan was to fly there, but airline prices are higher than the actual planes, so that’s not really an option for us anymore. So, it has been determined that we will be driving.

ROAD TRIP!

To Kentucky.

And back.

In one weekend.

Gulp.

Let’s take a second to actually see what this will look like, shall we?

That’s no small potatoes. According to Google Maps, that’s 880 miles. And it will take just under 14 hours. Factor in bathroom breaks and stopping to eat along the way, and now we’re talking more like 16 hours or so.

Oh yeah, it’s also a round trip. So, let’s adjust our numbers. Now we’re talking about 1760 miles and about 32 hours of driving.

All in one weekend.

For reals? Is that even humanly possible?

Yes, I had a cross-country road trip on my Life List, but this isn’t exactly what I had in mind.

In my head, it would be a group of friends spending about a week or so driving around the country in a van and visiting random tourist traps along the way. You know, those places where water runs uphill. Or those places where giant balls of twine warrant attention. Or Dollywood.

Instead it’s going to be two gay guys going halfway across the country and back to a place that (from my limited knowledge of) isn’t the most homo-friendly place on the planet. And then we’ll don our gay apparel and be each others date. To a wedding. In Kentucky.

Not exactly the same as Dollywood.

Don’t get me wrong, I actually am still excited to go, because regardless of how pleasant or not it may end up being, it is a new experience and an adventure. And it will also get me out of the city for a couple days, and that can do the soul a world of good every now and then. I’ve never been to Kentucky before unless you count driving through a tiny portion of it on my way to and from Georgia when I was ten, so that will help to reach the Life List goal of visiting every state also.

And if my grade school geography taught me anything, I believe we will be driving through the Appalachian Mountains, which could be quite beautiful. I think we’re embarking on a Thursday evening, so depending on how things work out, we could end up in the mountains for a sunset and/or a sunrise, which would be an extra treat.

So, I’m focusing on the silver linings and as it draws closer find myself looking forward to it more and more. But from now on I’m just going to be more specific with these Life List items.

Much more specific.