This. Is. Beautiful.

A good Chinese friend of mine was getting her bangs trimmed when I randomly saw her through a salon’s window and stopped in to see her this time early in 2008. She asked how I was doing and in response to all the many odd mishaps that seemed to be happening to me she replied with: Well, 2008 is the year of the rat. It’s going to be a tough one. Especially if you were born a dog.
Now, I’m not one of those ‘ ohhhhh I live by the astrological forces’ types of guys, but I do believe in some of these things. I mean, who am I to say there aren’t forces bigger than us that are ruled by stars and all that stuff? Who I am to assume we are in full power? You know?
I was born the year of the dog and as I look back at 2008, there was major struggle. Of course, there will always be struggles in every year. It’s life. It’s what we do. But 2008 seemed to be tough for everyone, everywhere. Just think about it. Right?!
Today marks the new Chinese New Year: The Ox. Which means it’s a year for hard work. It’s a year for changes. It’s a year for evolution. It’s a year of progress. It’s a year to become stronger. It’s a year to realize the weaknesses and decide whether you can handle them or if you have to let them go.
While doing my research of what it really means to be in the year of the Ox, I found people who were born in the years of the Ox(which means, for them, they are meant to shine) which will make this their year.
One of those people: Barack Obama.
No. Joke.
I think this going to be a year. A damn good year for everyone.
Sidenote: You can get your prediction here for whatever animal you are. Dude, lighten up. Even if you don’t believe in it, it still can be interesting, right?!

I got to interview a television actress. The first time I got to be on a movie set. The first time I was published in a mainstream magazine. The first time I feel like, wow, I love my job.
Check out The Advocate Magazine interview I had with Sharon Gless!

Meet Chance:

a sing-a-long! from graham kostic on Vimeo.
(He’s the one wearing the yellow shirt on the left.)
I met Chance a few weeks ago. It started like this:
Chance: Hi, this is a sassy Facebook message telling you that we should meet when I’m in from L.A. I read your blog. You owe me at least coffee for reading it.
Byron: Hi, this is a return sassy Facebook message saying “Let’s do this.”
And we did. (Ahem, our messages were a little more inventive than above, but you get the picture).
And what did we do? We sat at a diner for, like… God… how long, Chance? Four hours?
It was one the best times I’ve ever had with someone who, well, I just pretty much met off my blog. We laughed. We cried. We told stories. We people watched. We people judged. He had great hair. We solved world dilemmas(like which Sex in the City moment IS the best?) and we even discovered we know the same people since he used to live in Chicago.
After he went back to L.A. I thought: Hmph. He’s totally going to go on with his West coast life and we’ll never keep in touch and wa wa wa.
We’ve kept in touch every day.
When we were kids, making friends seemed so magical. You form a bond with someone on the playground and you have that moment where you just think: Wow, this kid really knows how to build a fort out of cushions! But as we get older, making friends is more about finding people who can make the forts, but will be there when the fort collapses and you need help picking up some of the pieces.
It’s even better when you meet someone that makes you laugh and gets you and it feels like you’ve known each other longer than some of the friends you’ve known forever through a blog that you thought no one would ever care about.
It’s even better when you finally realize that there will days that are hard and bumpy and achy. Those are the days to remember that there are Chances(YOU KNEW THE PUN WAS COMING!) worth taking, like risking meeting someone that you now can’t imagine without.

My brother is tall, I’m short. My brother has blond hair, mine is dark brown. My brother wears Express, I wear Diesel. My brother adores math, I’d rather stab my eyes with rusty nails that have bits of glass at the tip than solve a trig problem.
With all the differences, my brother and I are the closest that any two brothers can be. We call each other a couple times a week. We’ve been told that we even have our own language that involves faces and noises that mean something to just the two of us.
I adore him.
He just graduated college a few weeks ago. He’s now living in a house with one of those nine to five jobs that parents beg their kids to get when they graduate. You know, the ones that have salaries and retirement benefits and even medical coverage.
Everything I don’t have. He’s everything I am not.
While having a quick visit in Wisconsin this past weekend, the four of us sat at the table reading the Sunday paper. My dad started to ask my brother questions about dividends and benefits that his new job is giving him. My brother, the smart guy that he is, gave all the right answers(apparently) because the ending of the conversation left my dad smiling and nodding his head in approval. The same conversation left my stomach in knots.
It felt like the time I was locked in the elevator, at the first college I attended in Wisconsin, with a bunch of French foreign exchange students. While they panicked in French, I was more upset that I couldn’t figure out their game plan because they were speaking something I had no knowledge in more than the fact that I was in a tiny space that I had no clue how long I was going to be trapped in. It was a moment where I felt so out of loop.
It’s always been this way, really. My parents often joke that I’m probably the son of the milkman which my mom doesn’t think is funny because she always insists there was never a milkman and I don’t think it’s funny because I don’t like milk.
On my train ride back to Chicago, I started to ask myself what I was wrong with me. Why couldn’t I be like my brother? Why couldn’t I have all those sharp answers? A perfect dog? A cute house to live in? A nice car? A solid savings account? What was I doing wrong? Where did I go wrong?
It’s something a lot of us do. We tend to look for the grass on the other side. Often it is greener. Often it’s mowed really nicely while yours may seem a little out of hand. Often there seems to be no bare spots and no weeds. It’s totally human nature to judge only what you know about other people’s lives and then compare to what you don’t have. But what happens when it seems like the other person’s grass actually seems to be growing faster than yours?
As I dragged my suitcase down State Street to catch the 146 bus, a guy was playing the drums outside of a drugstore. His eyes were closed. He was bobbing his head up and down to his own beat. It was a solid “Boom TISK boom boom Tisk. Boom Tisk boom boom Tisk.” Every head bob and every slam of the stick to the drum had the man smiling. Occasionally he’d yell out a “WOOOOOW!” and sang a few lines of a song he probably made up. Most importantly, though, he. was. happy.
Then there are times where you forget that not everyone needs grass. Some people are born to not take a path made of green pastures, but of cement sidewalks. Sure, the path can be tougher and harder than the softness of plush grass, but when you’re born to move to your own beat, well, grass tends dull the beautiful noise you’re making and will make for the rest of your life.

These are the types of things that make me believe there may be powers bigger than us:

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Today Josh and I were discussing possible ways that I can make a bit of extra money.
Byron: You know, though… no matter what… I’m not going to stop writing. Even if I work a ten hour day, I’m going to come home and focus and keep writing. No matter what!
Josh: Well, that’s good. You should.
Byron: Yeah, you know Toni Morrison? She had, like, a million kids she had to take care of… and after a long day of dealing what she would write until the early morning…exhausted… but she would do it!
Josh: Wow… I didn’t know.
Byron: I KNOW! And if Toni Morrison could do it… I can do it…
Josh: Totally.
Byron: Yeah, cause what does Toni Morrison have that I don’t! Seriously! What makes her better than me!
Josh: She has a Pulitzer.
Byron: Huh.

He’s still alive! I just saw him. He winked. It’s going to be a good 2009.