Are potatoes really vegetables?
How did Elvis Die?
How far do you park form a fire hydrant?
What are the code colors for airport security?
Are Highways the same as Biways?
How many movies does Star Trek have?
What is the capital of Texas?
Is it wine before beer in the clear?
Do hunters have to wear orange?
Do horses really sleep standing up?

What street does Carrie Bradshaw live on in NYC?

Duh. Obvious. I have good reason. It was the most phenomenal year.

It was the year of the ox. It was the year of a new president. It was the year Saved By the Bell reunited. It was the year we lost car companies to bankruptcy. It was the year we found ourselves in more debt after bailing out banks. It was the year Kanye West was a douchebag. It was the year people realized Kanye West has always been a douchebag.

It was the year I fell in love with this song:

And this song:

It was the year, one morning, I happenstance-ly slowed dance with the best man I've ever had the honor to dance with to this song:

It was the year this show reminded me what it meant to be in love and to be in love with J.J Abrams. It was the year I wish I wrote this book. It was year I was surprised with the best concert of my life performed by this woman.

It was the year I realized that it's when we lose is the same time we learn. It was the year I realized that friendships can change too quickly and so can your own life. It was the year I learned what it meant to not have health insurance. It was the year I thought that my life was in danger. It was the year I learned that if I was ever in danger I would have some of the biggest hearts to help me through it. It was the year money was the tightest and I was the smartest at saving it. It was the year that I learned that writing may not always pay, but sometimes the pay can't measure up to being published in a national magazine or winning a story slam or knowing you are doing what you are meant to be doing.

It was the year I explored New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Toronto--- including the people of my life that live there. It was the year I knew that I want to travel the world as a career.

It was the year I learned what it meant to be OK with being single. It was the year I learned you have to be OK being single so when you're not single anymore... you have to be best you you'll ever be before you are the best with anyone else.

It was the year I fell madly in love and learned that madly in love isn't a temporary feeling that is later replaced with animosity. Falling madly in love is a way of life. It's knowing that no matter how many friends disappear, you still have one. It's knowing no matter how many career bumps, you still have some one that bumps you to keep going. It's knowing he's there for the ride:

So I may be the worse blog updater of 2009, but it feels really nice having a darn-good reason why.

Later 2009 and thank you.

Nurse: How old are you?
Me: Twenty-seven.
Nurse: Well, now you're old enough to not hate shots.
Me: Do you like shots?
Nurse: Well, no. No one likes shots.

I have this problem with spiders.
I don't like them.

Here's the deal: I also don't like to kill them. I'm not sure why. I just feel bad about wrapping the little guys in toilet paper and flushing them to a swirling death down the toilet. It just seems like bad karma. It just seems so cruel. The other problem: they keep popping up through the window, making webs, and arriving uninvited in my shower.

"Maybe you're a Buddhist. Buddhists don't like killing living things," my friend Mark jokes with me while we're sharing a soft pretzel at a street fair. I'm telling him about my spider predicament while walking through the throngs of fall-dressed patrons.

Read the rest of the this column, here.

"Do you think our kids will ask us why it was a big deal for two men to get married one day?"

Nate asks me this a few nights ago while we're watching a news clip of anti-gay marriage after running out of tivo-ed episodes of the shows we're addicted to.

"Yes."

I instantly respond not peeling my eyes off the television screen where a powder-white- haired man spits and fusses about gay people ruining what marriage is and what marriage does and blah... blah... blah. I've been seeing so much of this lately. I mean, everyone has. But something about it doesn't just get me upset it makes me feel incredibly fortunate. My mom and I had this conversation the other day (We have these conversations like how friends have conversations. See, that was something no one ever told me. Your parents sort of become your friends as you get older. They aren't the ones that remind you how much you cost them to raise or how often you don't make it home. They become really great and have conversations that remind you that getting older(aside from the wrinkles and falling apart thing) is pretty awesome.) where she told me that I've always been the one that's taken the long way. "But that's what makes you interesting. That's what makes you exciting. That's what makes me proud of you."

She not so much talking about the long road of getting what, you know, anyone deserves(ahem, cough...rights). She talking about the stories and the experiences that have taught me all the stuff that some people never learn... or, in the future, some people may never understand.

Maybe that's why I'm a writer. A storyteller. A teacher. A gay man.

I'm living in one of the biggest historical movements, currently, in my lifetime. There are people trying to change the constitution. There are people dedicating their lives to allow me to marry another man. There are people doing everything possible so that one day I can experience that moment my kid to comes up to me and says: Dad, why was it such a big deal to for you to marry Dad?

I'll explain to my kid (while he or she plays on a hover-craft) the story of the how some people chose to take a really long road in life and on October 11th, 2009 in Washington D.C.

Equality Across America

So I was invited to this dinner party at an Indian family's house. I'm at their front door knocking and wondering what to expect. I mean, I've never been to a dinner party at an Indian family's house. Their house was tucked in a subdivision in some suburb and their front yard looked like my parent's front hard except there were more rose bushes and less grass to mow. The door opened and it was this beautiful Indian woman. She was wearing a Sari and had a bindi on her forehead and she smiled. She was smiling at me until she looked at my pants. No! No! No! She screams in a thick accent. I look down at my pants and they're these dark pairs of jeans I love because they fit me really well and they go with everything and someone(I'm remembering in the moment of being yelled at even said they were the best jeans I even own!). "I'm sorry!" I keep saying. And all of the sudden she started speaking in a language I didn't understand and threw me her car keys and pushed me out the door and somehow without speaking the language I totally understood what she was saying. "Buy a new pair of pants, now!"

I panic because I don't know how to drive stick shift in her car that I think is a Lexus. I'm pretty sure it was a Lexus. I mean, I didn't have a chance to look because the Indian woman was still yelling at me from her front door. Then the panic started setting in. "I don't know where I am!" I started yelping while making a right turn. "I don't know what city I'm in!" I started shaking. The wheel is sort of jiggling. One turn looked like a street in Chicago. Another turn looked like I was in my grandma's neck of the woods. I looked at my jeans. "I love these jeans!" I kept saying. "Why can't I wear jeans to a Indian dinner party!" I kept stuttering. "I hate showing up to a party under-dressed!" I said trying to look for the nearest mall. "I hate the mall" I remember saying when I realized that's where I had to go to get new pants. " I hate shopping for pants!" I said crying.

Nate shakes me awake.

"What's wrong! You were having a nightmare!" He yelps in the dark. "Are you OK?" He asks rubbing my arm.

"It was the worse! An Indian woman told me she didn't like my jeans and I had to find a pair at the mall!"

Nate sighs then kisses me on my head falling back to sleep. No questions asked.

He thanks me when I had him the metal canister.
I thank him because he reminded me that sometimes we need to ask for help when we can't see what we need is right in front of us.

"This building old as shit."
Byron's Russian Landlord (2009).

(As compiled from one very long night)

- Buzzer goes on/off continually. I answer. No response. I go downstairs. No one there.

- Three hours later toilet starts flushing on its own.

- Two hours later bedroom light turns on and off on its own.

Because of this.

I'm sharing licorice and a one-straw-two-people-soda with Nate at a movie the other night. I'm not going to lie, it's a romantic-comedy. I'm not going to lie, it's opening night. I'm not going to lie, I have the best boyfriend who will humor my chick-flick desires(while secretly he admits loving them too). When out of nowhere Nate says: Where our people at? He says it just like that because he's cute and even though he's from a small town in Ohio, he likes to sound like he grew up in the city. Anyway, I'm like: What people? And he's like: Our people? And with that he means "gay people".

So I scan the room and he's right. There are groups of girls sharing a big bag of popcorn and there are guys with girls and husbands with wives, but no guys sitting right next to guys. It's a scenario I never really get used to. I mean, I'm not much of a "hood" guy. With that I mean "gay neighborhood". Chicago is all super great with it's 'Gay'borhood. You can go to bars to feel safe and eat at restaurants without feeling like your being ogled by others. But there's a whole big city out there and I'm not going to restrain to a neighborhood just because it's 'friendly'. Some people do this. Not me.

For whatever reason I start to get hyper nervous about being the only gay couple in the room. I'm not usually like this, you know? But when it kicks in, it really kicks in. I start getting all high-horse-like. I start getting all political. I start preaching in my head. I get on my imaginary soapbox (a tall one because I'm short): "I just want to go places without thinking someone's going to say something!" I pretend to scream. "I don't even want to think twice this stuff anymore!" I imagine yelping. "I! Just! Want ! To! Feel! Safe! With! THE! GUY! I! LOVE!"

Then, without speaking, Nate takes my hand and holds it.

9 a.m- Beyonce, "Single Ladies"

9:30- Britney Spears, "Womanizer"

10:15- Beyonce, "Single Ladies"

11:30- Justin Timberlake, "Sexy Back"

12pm- Beyonce, "Single Ladies"

12:30- Beyonce, "Single Ladies"

4:15- Beyonce, "Single Ladies"

(Cough, cough. You can catch up on any others you've missed here. AHEM).

The sun-filled apartment smells of cardboard boxes as I watch the movers haul out Jeff and his wife's packed goods.

"Moving is a pain in the ass. " Jeff says to himself as he seals the top of a large box with tape. The loud screech of tape coming off the roll mixes with footsteps of the movers, the nervous pacing of paws from his pets, and the sound of cars passing on the busy street in front.

"It feels like you just did it." I say while chipping at my fingernails. It's what I do when I'm nervous and don't want to face the reality of something.

Continue Reading the column, here.