It's not fair... the lodger's shag looks like a slightly stockier version of Simon Pegg - complete with rufty blonde hair and goatee.

He's just taking him off to try to stuggle through the tube strike into Central London for work. I jokingly offered to give him a backie on my bike.

I'd better go and tackle the rising damp.

posted at 9:20 AM •

Sex.

I'm not getting any.

How frustrating it was to read our happy little ex-gay going on and on about his numerous sordid bath-house encounters that were all in the past. I've been to a bath-house [sauna] - nothing happened. Not a single cock. I think there was the possibility of a verruca plaster at one point, but that's as racy as it got.

I admit it - I can't have casual sex. I'm a gay man who is incapable of casually exchanging fluids with other gay men - unless you count serving beer in the pub which I don't think you do. My current housemate has no end of casual tricks. He's in there now having a post-coital snuggle and chat - let's go and see shall we?

Let's not. I know it's a post-coital chat as he emerged from his room beaming from ear to ear half an hour ago carrying soggy spunkrags to put in the washing-machine while I was elbow deep in washing up.

I'm turning into Rigsby.

I'm a thirty year old man who is turning into Rigsby. Oh god, how depressing is that? It'll be cardigans and regret next, sipping Ovaltine (see previous post) and watching weepy rom-coms.

Of course, yes I'm just buying into a cultural stereotype that makes me feel inadequate for not shagging enough, and well hey, if you're not having sex then it doesn't get much safer than that. But.

The problem is I can't actually picture me having sex. I can't picture anyone wanting to have sex with me - well, not proper sex - I'm not counting jerking off into a webcam here folks (yes, frequently). I can't picture myself picking someone up, can't imagine doing things with someone I barely know anymore. I can barely picture myself sitting next to a stranger on the tube, so bonking one is well out of the question.

I don't really want sex you see - I want love. Of course, sex is a pretty good replacement for love - but then it gets messy if you say the L word at any time, so I feel it's best not to even bother and I don't even try.

This single life sucks.

posted at 12:34 AM •

I don't do film reviews. I look back on the one or two films I've written about, and cringe. Watching Lost in Translation last night I wished I could write them, but I just wouldn't be able to do it justice. A poem to lost meaning and lost connections. I felt myself somewhere between Charlotte and Bob, but sharing their utter confusion in the world - a psychological state manifested in the white noise of Tokyo.

Anyway, I finished watching the film in one go - unusual for me these days - and as I did, Dave came home from work, and I told him how wonderful I thought the film was.

"Oh god, I thought it was really boring - nothing happened - can't understand how it won an Oscar."

I made myself an Ovaltine and went to bed as he settled down to watch the Queen Latifah show, subject: "I'm addicted to sex".

posted at 12:07 PM •

White noise catatonia precipitating through the shattered glass. I cannot sleep. I have slept all day. I have slept all through the weekend. I cannot remember the future anymore. Am I still dreaming?

A week passes. I'm sitting on a beanbag the colour of a twighlight sky before a thunderstorm. I want to travel, to break free of meaning and significance.

Lost in Translation.

posted at 1:25 AM •

I've been waking up from a dream.

The last two months have been (thank you Peter) - an emotional rollercoaster. Actually, the last year has been the emotional equivalent of a whole fucking theme-park, and the last two months have been that last terrifying white-knuckle ride with the, "ahh, it's all over" moment before a huge 600mph drop to oblivion curving gently to the end of the ride.

But I really feel like the ride is over now. Sure, I'll probably have little moments to come where I get wobbly knees and fall over, puking my popcorn and candy-floss behind a bush, but I can move onto a different ride now.

Maybe I need to drop the breakup metaphors?

Anyway - the last couple of days have been - ahum - interesting to say the least. My contract came to an end fairly abruptly, and I left without saying goodbye to my busybusy colleagues from the company I worked at four years ago. There just didn't seem much point - they'd all been far too busy to ever go to lunch with me, to chat to me - so I thought it seemed disingenuous to pretend I was sad to see the back of them.

I had a date that evening, which just made me realise:

• Despite my better intentions of not wanting the blog to be a catalogue of failed romances and dates, they're such good material for writing so you can't really help it.
• Dating sucks for gay men
• French men are fucking arrogant

Straight after the date I had a job interview on Wednesday morning, freelance-to-go-permanent, which I got, but my head was still reeling from the day before, the weekend before that, and the two months before that, so it hasn't really started to sink in until now. I've got a job.

Now. Time to get things right. I know I promised myself two weeks in the sun before I started another job - I can't afford it right now, but I might be able to fit in a break towards the end of next week - either just get out of London on the bike, or take a little city-break somewhere (I fancy somewhere cultural - Dublin, Copenhagen?). I've got ten days to get things right before I start - it's not a big task, just a tweak here and there, tidying, getting round to those jobs I've been putting off for the last two months.

I've got a lodger/housemate who's settling in nicely apart from destroying the occasional fixture and fitting - we don't see much of each other and it works out just fine. I'll carry on a couple of shifts in the pub, just as a fallback if things don't work out at the new job, but only the weekend. Things are in place for this one to turn out right - just a couple of other bits to sort out.

I've decided I'm getting a cleaner - two hours a week, hoovering and a spot of cleaning the bathroom. It just makes so much sense for a single person with not a lot of time on his hands. I can't stand hoovering, and for £15 a week, to know that you'll come home from work to a nice, clean house I think is a good economy.

Time to get things back on track, on a different track.

posted at 12:15 PM •

You know, things have changed since John left me. What's changed the most is my outlook on life. John provided me with stability, but at a cost - complacency. John settled for what life gave him, which I suppose doesn't reflect too well on me, being the man he settled with. The flat could have fallen down around John's ears and he would've made do.

Anyway - my special gift in life is adaptation. I change accents, my behaviour, my whole outlook depending on who I'm around. I find it hard to find the centre sometimes, and having the stability of John was a calming influence on me.

And now? Now I find I don't have to be complacent. I don't have to settle for what life dumps on you, but sometimes you have to deal with it the dumps before you can move on. I find that there's a lot more out there than I realised when I was with John. Little things at first: going to Tescos and realising "I can buy beer". John didn't really drink. John certainly didn't drink in the house.

So now I can buy beer. I haven't actually bought any beer yet - trying to carry a box of Stella on the back of my bike would be a little tricky. But I can buy beer.

I can buy a lot of other things. I can buy soap in a pump-dispenser, because it looks nice and doesn't make a mess. I can buy things because I like the packaging. I can buy things I haven't bought before, just because I haven't bought them before.

I can do all this stuff that I didn't do before because I was paying for my stability with a man who told me not to look beyond the horizon.

I'm not knocking him, I'm not complaining. I probably made him worse - adaptive little me creating a feedback loop. The stability was nice, and it helped in 2002 - I hate to think what I would have been like without it. But now - now I'm starting to see beyond the horizon - and I'm starting to wonder about a lot of things.

posted at 11:41 PM •

I've been feeling like Adam's second wife - formed from viscera, sent out from the garden and forgotten. Wait, you did know Adam had three wives didn't you?

Lilith, the first wife was created like Adam, liked to go on top, thought she wore the trousers, that sort of thing. Adam wasn't too smitten, so God cast her out of The Garden, she went and shagged Lucifer and gave birth to the host of Hell. Just goes to show what happens when women get too ballsy.

God created the second nameless wife from scratch - bones, flesh, organs, blood, bile - while Adam watched. Needless to say he wasn't too turned on after watching this, so God went back to the drawing board.

He created Eve while Adam was sleeping, from Adam's rib.

And they lived happily ever after.

Folklore is fascinating isn't it?

posted at 10:50 AM •

If only I don't bend and break
I'll meet you on the other side
I'll meet you in the light
If only I don't suffocate
I'll meet you in the morning when you wake

That's two for two, Jocko. Now be a good spunky muscleboy and make sure you see Scissor Sisters at Virgin Megastore, Union Square on the 30th July. Tell Babydaddy Steve says "Hi" and "Thanks for the vodka and coke".

posted at 1:18 AM •

When did the future stop being somewhere we wanted to live?

I remember a time as a child when I wanted to be a spaceman. I wanted a silver-white suit and a helmet, living in a space-station high above the earth. I remember a time as a child when my sister and I shared an imaginary world of made-up creatures. Smugs and Cuties, silly childhood inventions of my sister - our secret language.

In the 1970's the future was coming to an end, and the hopes for a better tomorrow were replaced with a yearning for a golden past. Punk nuclear holocaust and pre-millennial anxiety.

My future came to an end after the 70's. My childhood stopped in 1984, the world I knew was taken away as my father vanished overnight. In the years that followed, my sister drifted away from me and I became alienated from the world. I closed myself off from the world and retreated into myself. I invented a world for myself, populated it with strong futuristic he-men, and my imaginings took over my life.

I lose a parent, I lose a soul-mate. The patterns repeat themselves over and over in my mind. Hopscotch numbers and rhymes jumbling in my head as my imagined world comes to the fore, and I retreat.

posted at 5:08 PM •

I'm nothing special, in fact I'm a bit of a bore.

If I tell a joke, you've probably heard it before.

Just having a little Abba moment to myself.

posted at 2:04 PM •

I'm having the laziest of Saturdays where I can bask for a day with no obligations. It's a fleeting feeling, as I'm in the pub tomorrow and then Monday - well, I'll think about Monday when I get there.

Reflections of blogging and working, blogging about working. So the contract thing is too hard for me? Maybe a little escapism? Maybe a little job somewhere that's enough to pay the bills but brings me a little stability?

What can I do? What can I do... hmm... reading the last few days posts... well, I suppose I could always try and get a job in a book-shop for a little while.

Oh, wait...

I already did that...

Once Upon A Time...

I worked in Waterstones for three months. Stoke-on-Trent, 1996 or 7 I think. It was up until that point my dream part-time job. It was before my career had dropped in my lap, before I had a clue what I was going to do after I'd graduated.

My dream job. What a fucking nightmare it was.

Thoughts of being surrounded by words and intelligence and sophistication slammed into a big fat fucking wall of Barbara Taylor Bradford books and morose disenfranchised booksellers.

There was one girl in particular - a graduate of the same university as me - who had a strict philosophy of "I Will Not Talk About My Private Life". We didn't exactly see eye to eye. OK, I hated her - stuck up cow she was. This being Waterstones (Hello? they have a gay section, it's, like, primo intelligent stud cruising ground?), and me being me, me and this girl soon got to dislike each other.

The job became pretty routine and dull, but it was tolerable. Three months into the job, I was working the Sunday shift and was called to see the manager, a softly-spoken wet wednesday of a man. I sat opposite in his teeny little office, expecting a little pat on the head and to be told my probation period was over.

"You haven't passed your probation. I've had complaints about your level of customer service."

I sat there, dumbfounded. What were the nature of the complaints, I asked.

You've been heard to make comments about the sexual attractiveness of customers. We don't feel this is appropriate and blah blah blah blah blah.

Ally McBeal moment - sitting opposite him in Hannibal Lecter outfit, a sexual deviant.

I finished immediately, and walked back to my student digs, feeling about 6 inches tall. The girl I disliked had complained about me, and I'd been dropped in favour of Ms Prim and Proper.

I learned a valuable lesson from that job: Always Get The Boot In Before They Do, and I crossed Waterstones off the list of possible employers.

posted at 5:11 PM •

Stuff I never got round to telling you.

This time last year, my employers were trying their hardest to fire me. I hadn't done enough for them to fire me outright, as essentially it came down to a clash of personalities between me and two of the directors (the company was only four directors and five employees).

It started going wrong in January 2002. I went back to the Isle of Man, not knowing what was going to happen with Mum. The first few days I was there I offered to carry on with work and work remotely, despite the fact that Mum was unconscious and I was being told odds for her to live. I don't remember anyone saying "Steve, you can't work with this hanging over you - stop worrying about work" - I certainly didn't feel like anyone was saying that at the company I worked at. So I worried. I worried when they got a contractor in to do my work. I worried that I would return to London without a job. I worried.

Mum died. John came over. We had the funeral. John went back to London. I spent a week or so with my Uncle sorting out my Mum's accounts. I worried. And I went back to London, back to this life, back to 'reality'.

Within about two weeks of Mum dying, I was back in work. I don't remember anyone saying to me "Steve, you cannot return to work this soon" - I wanted to get back to work, I worried about losing my job, and I do a good impression of someone who isn't falling apart - trust me on that one, I've been playing that role all my life.

Snapshots from those first months - Ed, the Research and Development director not saying a single word to me, not looking at me, never once offering a condolence. Julian, the -um- something director telling me after I'd had a little breakdown at work that he didn't know what my problems might be, blah, blah, blah.

What a fucking waste that year was. I wish now I'd left the day I returned back to London. I wish I'd stayed in the Isle of Man. I wish, I wish, iwishiwishwishwishwish...

Relations between myself and the two directors completely broke down. On top of everything else, we were getting paid late every month. It all came to a head when the little money I'd had from Mum's pension ran out. John wasn't working, and I snapped at work. I told them if we didn't get paid, I couldn't come in to work - which was actually nearly true, but in any case wasn't entirely unfair. "Borrow some money." Julian told me with a look of total disdain on his face, outraged that I should have said such a thing.

This is all the stuff that was going on last April that I couldn't write about - I blew up, and for the first time my employers realised that I might be a little unwell. They gave me two weeks off work (which was taken from my holiday entitlement. But on returning to work, I was handed a 'written warning' pertaining to my behaviour prior to the leave.

It was painted in a sweet fluffy light "we just thought we should put the agreements we reached in writing" - but basically it was the start of them trying to get rid of me. I decided to make the best of the situation, and tried to apply myself at work anew. But at the same time, John and I were in the slow process of splitting up - not that I realised it then. He was out of work and depressed, and my attempts to lift him out of that depression were fruitless. He got diagnosed with diabetes, money got tighter, and my resolve at work suffered.

Then the second warning was issued - this time it was pretty clear that I'd been playing on uneven ground. The directors that didn't get on with me wanted me gone - they had no intentions of clearing the air, they had nothing to gain from doing so. This time though, I had advice from someone who knew employment law fairly well - he pointed out that written warnings have to be issued as part of a disciplinary procedure. Complaints need to be issued formally, a disciplinary hearing has to be set, at which you are allowed to bring someone along as support. The disciplinary process then has an outcome - which may be a verbal or written warning, which you may then appeal against if you still feel it to be unfair. None of this had happened, and I pointed this out to my employers.

The next day, I came into work to find my desk had been moved directly in front of the two directors so they could keep an eye on me. From that point I knew my options were to either get out while I could, offer them the chance to make me redundant, or eventually get fired. They knew they hadn't treated me fairly, and they knew that I was right, so they worked within the rules to make me feel as uncomfortable as possible. A date was set for a proper disciplinary, and I nominated someone to come into the meeting with me.

Their financial situation intervened however, and finally I was made redundant, along with two other employees. I got a meagre payoff, and life lurched into the next trial.

So - you see, things have been pretty trying for two and a half years now. I've struggled through all of it, but now I just feel like I've run out of steam.

We'll see...

posted at 1:50 PM •

The contract has finished. I've got one day next week to finish some bits off (and who knows, they may find some other work) - but my hopes for this position going permanent seem to be dashed.

It's not like I didn't know this was going to happen, but the reality of a short-term rolling contract is pretty tough to deal with. Especially when you're struggling to make ends meet and dealing with a load of emotional problems at the same time. The last couple of weeks have been exhausting - mentally draining, especially with trying to take on some freelance work on top of everything else - and my concentration and motivation have suffered.

I need some stability, but I'm finding it harder each time after each tough break to find the strength to carry on. I need to find a job, any job, that I can get back on my feet with - contracting just feels too damaging to my wellbeing - but at the same time I can't picture myself winning an interview. There's just too much negativity in my mind, and I don't have the strength to turn it around. I know what I have to do, and my mind and body are just saying "no, I can't do it again".

Car crash time again.

posted at 1:24 PM •

There's this new contractor sitting on the desk next to me? She's from Melbourne? She keeps having converstions with people on her mobile? And it's starting to really bug me?

posted at 2:25 PM •

posted at 11:36 AM •

posted at 11:24 AM •

Drained.

posted at 10:19 AM •

Why the hell is it that "fundamentalist Christians" are so dead set on point scoring by shooting down reasoned comments with rhetoric and 'faith science'? Why is it that when they manage to draw people into their nonsense arguments they then jump round, frothing at the mouth claiming that "we must be right - you're just denying the truth because we're right and you know it".

Whenever I see their responses, I can't help but think of Rumplestiltskin. "It's not fair, they used logic!"

Take this comment I just came acrossDenial anger?

What the hell is denial anger? I'm agnostic (um, I think), so I can't speak for the atheist on the street, but this argument (which is really actually little more than a thought experiment) - is just infuriating.

The argument above essentially says: I can prove x has a creator, therefore all things must have a creator.

You can construct any argument based around this premise, but it doesn't mean it's true. The ex-gay lobby does a similar thing: x has turned away from homosexuality, therefore all homosexuals can turn away from homosexuality. They then extend this argument, and when people argue against them they just claim that they are being attacked because their 'proof' means that homosexual desire does not define a 'homosexual lifestyle', and since their definition of biblical law states homosexual desire is disfunctional, then homosexuality is a rogue disfunction. They then back this up with more pseudo-science - sociological rhetoric about masculinity, and thinly veiled data about gay male sexual heealth (the leopard doesn't change it's spots too much - it was not long ago that these same people referred to a 'gay plague'). Anyone who stands agains their science is told they are in denial.

It makes you realise that rational argument with anyone capable of coming out with this kind of playground diatribe is about as useful as using a chocolate herring to hammer a nail. You realise that these people are about as rational and sentient as a potato peeler, and yet they have one of the most powerful lobbies in the US, capable of swaying governing policy and public opinion in one of the most influential cultures in the west.

I'm not in denial - I'm bloody terrified.

posted at 9:53 AM •

After much deliberation, I am happy to announce the winner of the caption competition is John, with the winning line:The size of his biceps had absolutely no bearing on the results, and the judging was strictly impartial.
*cough* *cough* sexybastard *cough* *cough*

HP will be flying coach to you tomorrow to deliver the head massage.








[Neous - get on to Elaine Paige, pronto: see if she's still got her costume from Cats kicking around, tell her it's needed asafp. Promise her anything in return - Soapie Windsor owes me a favour I can call in if needs be - and book me a return to LA Virgin Upper Class for tomorrow]

posted at 5:41 PM •

Things are never black and white.

I seem to keep coming back to this statement - current events regarding certain religious groups have prompted me to realise this more and more. There are only arguments, positions, superpositions. Opinions are like quantum particles that only really start to make sense when we try to measure their speed or position. That's one of the reasons why 'a certain site' rings so false - the author is far too sure of himself, and with what little wisdom I've gained in my life, I've realised that anyone who is so sure of themselves is hiding something or running from something.

An interesting sidebar: The Cold War.
John once told me about a line of argument that states that the Cold War was actually quite a good thing. Think about it's name for a minute: The Cold War - a war where everything is frozen. That's exactly what happened in one respect - as the world poised on the brink of mutually assured annihilation, the political climate froze over. No-one other than the two superpowers dared do anything for fear of having a big target painted on them. Of course there were conflicts still going on, but arguably they were small potatoes compared with the larger picture.
So what happens when the big freeze is over? Everything melts and all the players start making a bid for whatever power is available. The Cold War ends and a new political climate emerges from it's wintery grip.

I'm not a political expert, but the shape of that argument made a lot of sense. The point is, things are always a lot more complex than we usually first imagine - and I wouldn't expect a 22 year old who believes in the literal word of the bible to understand that.

For instance, I've been shot down in a righteous barrage of flame by the fundamentalist 'Jesus Tribe' (and I use that term with a huge smirk on my face), but the thing about reading all of their commentary is it's so fixed in stone. All of their arguments hinge on the fact that there is a literal truth in the Bible that states that 'this is wrong' - 'that is right'. And so from that cultish standpoint, everything makes sense. But the world never makes sense, it's all just a case of best guesses from the available data.

I'm struggling to make sense of all the arguments, what they mean and why they exist. I'll ramble on and on until I find some enlightenment, or a new vantage point to see the arguments. At the moment I'm struggling to understand why homosexuality is reviled by certain groups. Is there some social agenda, or is the reason buried in antiquity?

posted at 12:06 PM •

Caption competition.

Just what is little HP (my adorable yet idiotic Manx cat) trying to tell me?

My last caption competition went down like a lead balloon, so I'm hesitant to offer a prize. Perhaps because I never give them out.

HP will come and give you a head massage if you win. A nice lovely head massage with claws.

posted at 4:43 PM •

posted at 12:04 PM •

When I wake up late - as I did this morning - my entire day changes. My dreams of abandonment and resentment and Esther Rantzen lipstick lesbian gameshows melt away to a waking dream of tube journeys and heat.

8:45am

Forty-five minutes to get to work. The journey on the bike would take me thirty minutes; coffee, shower, dress - fifteen minutes. Project that forward, that's 9:30am - just in time for work. Except there are no parking spaces in central London at 9:30am. None. I would end up riding round for half an hour trying to find a space, getting increasingly sweaty and anxious, my irritable bowel spasming and cramping as I spiral further and further out from ground zero in Piccadilly.

So I have to get the tube, and my entire day changes - that's half an hour lost getting home from work, but an hour's reading time gained. No blast of hot air and pollen in my eyes on the ride home, instead I will have to cram myself into a packed tube carriage, stand the whole way home, hot and sweating.

posted at 10:39 AM •

To do.

1. Go to ICA to unsuccessfully find copy of Butt magazine, walk up to uber-exclusive boutique on Broadwick Street - so uber and so exclusive that the name isn't on the shop-front - and find copy there.

2. Find nearest HSBC to pay in cheque from last round of freelance work completed for last employers. Stand in queue for 5 minutes worrying about smell emitted by sweaty armpits and wondering whether you should have fleeced the fuckers for more money.

3. Pop into Waterstones to purchase next Chuck Palahniuk novel on list to read: Survivor. Ensure you get served by the gorgeous bloke on the ground floor that looks like a young Lenin but whom you're pretty sure is straight. Say hello to his colleague in Travel who frequents the pub and on Saturday confessed a liking for you.

4. Buy food. Worry about not eating enough food. Buy more food.

posted at 2:13 PM •

Hope you enjoyed your weekend. Mine was spent as it has been for the last year working in the pub, watching a mixture of gorgeous blokes, mates, real-ale freaks and wankers get pissed. The cute bloke quotient was running high on Saturday and Sunday night, but as usual I was far too distant and knackered to do anything but watch and/or serve them beer.

So I dreamed instead. I dreamed of a time when I can stand the other side of the bar, and enjoy a drink and a conversation on my own time, not on time I borrowed third-hand from the memory of what it was like before the fall. I dreamed of a dreamtime spent in the gym, on my bike riding down some twisty country road rather than the brake-stop-start of central London. Time spent getting better and feeling well, reading and walking, joking and laughing. I dreamed of a nice clean house, living by myself, clean white bedsheets, a procession of gorgeous suitors, no financial worries, holidays, a Nobel prize, an Oscar, a family, a husband, a life.

There are one or two perks to being bar-staff though. You get to know promoters and DJ's from various clubs, as they flit from pub to pub depositing flyers and tickets to their venues. You usually get reduced or free entry to their clubs, and you get to know all the right people. Not that it does me much good usually as I'm far too tired to do much when I get to the clubs.

On Saturday night I ran into Chris, a young Canadian guy studying fashion who used to work in the pub a few months ago. Chris just sort of appeared on the scene eight months ago from nowhere, and in the space of about a week became friends with the coolest gays in town.

Chris was with his posse of friends, who he wearily informed me were stalking the Scissor Sisters. I wandered back with him trailing his friends to a spot near the back dancefloor of the club, where we stood opposite the two members of the band, looking fairly nondescript among the muscled glamour bears and daddies. I knew Chris already knew the band, after they had played a secret gig for one of his friends club nights, and after his rather desperate looking posse had departed for the dancefloor, Chris went over to chat to the Scissor Sisters.

After a second's thought, I went over to join him, and found myself chatting to two members of the coolest band on the planet. The two guys, Del and Scott [Babydaddy] were friendly and unpretentious - Scott/Babydaddy was shorter and less beary than I'd imagined him, and I wouldn't have known where to start to put the moves on him.

After a while we drifted off our separate ways, me back to my 31 hours a day working life, them back to their schedule of touring the world. But just for a few minutes I felt like all the hard work was worth it.

posted at 10:20 AM •

Waves at the fundamentalist christians mincing through in their sensible footwear.

(Freaks).

posted at 3:47 PM •

Oooo, oo, oo , oh, oo - can I pleeeease blog about the silly christians again? Canicanicanicanicani? Pleeeeeeeeease?

It's just - someone suggesting to our happy little ex-gay matryr that he might like to consider becoming a eunuch if the thought of marriage is too difficult.

I am so glad they ship religious nutters to the States.

Oh, and look - I've got a quote on his home page (that he judiciously pulled from one of my comment boxes):

I'm choking up with pride.

posted at 1:04 PM •

Does anybody else get that funny thing where your entire brain feels like it's made of cavity wall insulation foam, your eyes are two globs of molten lava, your muscles stop responding to the most basic of commands and your bowels spasm every five minutes, alternately cramping and expelling gasses normally only found coming from deep-sea thermal vents?

Just me then.

That'll be the chronic tiredness and hayfever then.

Fab.

Well, at least I look fabulous darling, sitting at my desk with my Oakleys permanently wrapped around my molten-lava eyes. No, I'm sorry, I can't take my shades off or I'll accidentally immolate you, yes, no, really, I'm sorry, just pretend I'm Jackie O or Audrey Hepburn - just a bit more butch.

Discovered 3 minutes and 19 seconds of free-time yesterday that somehow I had not accounted for, so I promptly agreed to do a freelance project for a mate. I've since realised that my calculations were a little adrift as I forgot to schedule any sleep and actually somehow I'm managing to fit 31 hours, 20 minutes and 18 seconds of activities into every day.

If the film Multiplicity weren't so god-damn offensive I'd empathise with Michael Keaton's character having to clone himself just to get everything done.

posted at 10:18 AM •

Ahhh, Will & Grace. If ever I'm feeling wound-up by the latest guise for homophobia I need to remember those three words. Nothing like a spot of primetime homotainment to remind you that:

• Anyone who is homophobic is wrong.
• Gay people are smart, funny and sexy.
• Ugly or unfashionable people are sport.

I think I need to do a bit of 'getting in touch with my inner beaverhausen'.

Oh honey - you're like the mother I had committed against her will.

I feel better already.

posted at 9:40 AM •

I've been blogging for just about eighteen months. Four hundred and sixty-nine posts, ninety three thousand, six hundred and ninety-six words, and apart from the occassional bout of ennui, I still enjoy it.

Through the course of writing every day, I've started to notice my writing and others a lot more. When I first started out I was working in a dead-end web company with no motivation and plenty to distract me. I frequently spent hours making a graphic to fit a post, usually when I should have working. Over time my writing changed - I began to write more about my internal world, and as time and working pressures changed, so the amount of time I had to write altered.

One thing I've begun to enjoy more and more is the creative writing aspect of the blog. The post I wrote this morning I bashed out from a small idea in about fifteen minutes. I wasn't on anything when I wrote it (cheeky piggy), but I had been reading Chuck Palahniuk on the journey into work and his prose had inspired me to narrate my ordinary life but turn it into something beautiful.

It's not the first bit of creative writing I've done - but it's the first time anyone has really commented, and I thought I should say 'thank you' to the people who have said nice things. It's got me thinking about the direction of my life - my immediate life, my goals and ambitions - and got me thinking about taking my writing further. Does anyone out there have any advice to budding authors? A creative writing course perhaps?

posted at 10:07 PM •

Who goes [in]? You decide.

Text KEN to 84444

I barely have time to wipe my arse at the moment, so I haven't a clue about this voting thing. I think I've mentioned before, but politics has always been a bit of a mystery to me. I grew up a Forces brat - moving from county to county, country to country, and my rootlessness contributed to a feeling of distance from a geographic community.

I settled in the Isle of Man and so again was apart from UK politics, and it wasn't until I was about 21 or 22 that I was first able to vote in the UK, and that one slipped me by.

I have a suspicion that elections are won by those with the most money and power. Power begets power. I look through the policies of the mayoral candidates, and for the most part they all make some sensible suggestions to how London should be 'governed' - but ultimately all policy plans are pulled in many directions and manifestos are made to be broken and rewritten to suit the political climate.

To be honest I don't even think I've got a voting slip - I'll have a look when I get home from a packed tube journey home.

posted at 1:04 PM •

I curl up at night, my eyes candied with pollen and smoke and ketamine, carbon-monoxide and ozone. I want out of my skin, the heat prickles and bites at my cock. I roll over onto my front, my face half buried in my pillows, my arse exposed to the tiniest of breezes blowing in through the sash window.

My alpha, beta and gamma waves slow to a perfect sine curve as my reality melts away to an overture of dreams, my brain starts it's nightly backup, spooling over the top of old memories, places, people, friends, lovers.

The sash window creaks. It's weight shifts on old worn-out ropes and pulleys and it drops like a guillotine. A moment of weightlessness before it crashes on the window-frame and the window-pane smashes. A shard of glass, the exact shape of a South American country that I am travelling to in my dreams falls from the window pane and lands in the yard below.

The sound, slam-smash-tinkle reverberates in my dreams and tiredness overtakes me.

posted at 10:52 AM •

I'm an addict. My drugs of choice are self-pity and self-obsession.

Even as you read these words I'm getting another fix - you, my audience, are my dealers, and I keep coming back to you for another score. Listen to my pain - look how far I've sunk this time, look at me looking at my reflection in a hundred mirrors, my vanity, my despair, my neurotic narcissism.

The sound of pain hitting the keyboard reassures me and comforts me as I sink into your arms, trembling with high of catharsis and the validation of "How Much I've Suffered".

Do I want to take the steps I need to recovery, or will I find another crisis to agonise over?

posted at 1:41 PM •

Till cynicism us do part.

In any relationship it seems that through the frail nature of human contact, we are doomed to live with fundamental inequalities and minunderstanding. One person will always love the other more, or there will be assumptions or expectations made that will cause disagreement and tension. Love conquers all - except doubt.

I used to believe that love was a simple wonderful thing. A meeting of minds and hearts, a look across a crowded room and all that crap. Now - now I just don't know - I look at couples in love and see something false - I see the flicker of infidelity and resentment, the over-compensating display of affection. Or worse - I see too simple people who are so dumbly unaware of anything around them, blissfully coddled by their own ignorance.

I'm sure that I'm sounding like either a pathetic lovelorn teenager or a sad bitter queen. I do at least have the hope that one day I will look back at this post and think "Fuck, what a miserable little twat", so don't feel like you have to point anything out to me.

So, this post is for anyone I ever loved or ever will love. This one's for you M - I couldn't give you what you wanted, I tried telling you that, but obviously I didn't do a particularly good job. I'm sorry I hurt you.

posted at 3:46 PM •

Listening to James Taylor - One Man Dog...

What were they on in the seventies?

Oh, right... Yes, yes of course...

*slinks away sheepishly*

posted at 4:01 PM •

I just saw Ian McShane of TV's Lovejoy (LoveJoy? Love Joy? Love joy? L'ove Jo y?) outside - walking, no less, down the street. Perhaps he's researching a new role where he has to walk down a street?

Very disappointing it was too - Costume? Make-up? Clever camera angles to make him look tall? Rolled-up jacket sleeves? No, none of these - in fact he resembled an ambulatory bearded walnut, some kind of freakish hybrid formed in an horrific teleporter accident.

I think he was wearing slippers too.

posted at 12:54 PM •

I feel like I'm some kind of super-hero, waging war against the forces of entropy. Current things in need of de-entropisation include the microwave, the door of which is now one-fifth melted off. This appears to have happened through some of thermodynamics that I must have been missed out on. Apparently it seems that heat rises, and as such it probably wasn't such a great idea to install it on microwave brackets above my gas oven with integral grill.

The inanimate objects around me are desperately trying to cause my untimely death. My motorbike is currently wearing a little thin on rear brake pads and it's a battle to see which of us cracks first - it or me, finally getting round to taking it to the garage. Bastard - I'll be on the road two weeks and it'll need something new doing to it.

And the funniest thing of all is I can't understand why everyone else isn't so obsessed with their own lives.

They are you say?

posted at 11:47 PM •

I'm slowly getting bored of the 'ex-gay' issue - but it's been an interesting experience to have my ideas challenged. I'll carry on believing what I believe, and the other side will do the same.

Ultimately, it's unlikely that anyone will be persuaded to change their minds, but just as reference - here's an alternative interpretation of the biblical passages pertaining to homosexuality.

Through all of this, my brain has been ticking away like mad, and I just had an idea to run a little experiment - it's the artist in me I suppose.

Leviticus 18:22:
You shall not lie with a male as those who lie with a female; it is an abomination.

Translated to Korean through babelfish:


Translated back to English:
With the woman whom it spreads out with them whom it deceives with the male will not deceive; It is a hatred.

posted at 12:56 PM •

Where am I?

Well, I'm still contracting - a month after I started here, and three projects later. The contract is still short-term rolling, no news of anything longer or more definite, so I'm not feeling particularly secure. I learned a couple of weeks ago that there are a few people from the department I'm working in on secondment in San Francisco, so I get the impression that once they're back there will be less work for contractors.

A little side note - all this whingeing about East European economic migrants really gets my back up - what about Commonwealth working tourists? My industry is full of them, and it gets damn frustrating to be on a short-term contract working alongside securely employed South Africans, Kiwis and Australians. We can't do the same as them - I can't just up sticks and go travelling around and work in South Africa for a few years, so why should we be allowing them to take long-term positions in this country? Sure, there will most likely be an economic argument that makes sense, but when I'm struggling to find full-time employment it's damn frustrating.

So - I don't know where I am going to be one week to the next, and it's incredibly tiring to think of having to get a full-time job and have to put all that energy into making a good initial impression.

The situation is forcing me to take stock - I've been struggling hand-to-mouth for a year now, working with very little time off - certainly no holidays - for what? To stay in London? To keep hold of the flat? The rewards are beginning to seem like millstones.

Oh well, time to get on to recruitment agencies again I think.

posted at 10:26 AM •

Think I've found my sense of humour again. Just looking through comments in 'that site' - and came across this diamond from the self-styled Michael-Paul...
Snigger... It helps if you read this out loud in a Rod/Todd Flanders voice - really, it's very funny if you do.

Do these children not watch The Simpsons? I'm loving all of the 'Jesus is kewl' style 'hood-speak, it's just hilarious.

Really, if 'heaven' is full of educationally disadvantaged dullards like this one, then I'm with the folks headed elsewhere - Nirvana or Limbo, or - oo, oo - Valhalla - mmm, Vikings.

Anyway, Michael-Paul - no, little boy, I don't have some 'real hate' towards Jesus - you're widely missing the point here. I don't hate anyone - but I do object to silly petty little people who call themselves 'Christians' espousing hateful anti-gay rhetoric wrapped up in botched translations pertaining to male temple prostitutes.

posted at 6:12 PM •

"I'm not trying to convert anyone."
Um, so can you explain this then?

posted at 5:41 PM •

Are any of us truly free?

What is 'freedom' anyway?

My idea of freedom is the ability to pursue personal happiness as long as it does not impinge on anyone else's pursuit of the same.

It's a balancing act, and a delicate one at that. Elements of morality and law obviously play a part in informing that pursuit, but these too should be fluid constructs. Justice is not blind, and it is not immutable - it changes and adapts as the society it watches over changes.

My idea of freedom is to be able to love who I want without people telling me it is wrong. I don't want to hurt anyone, I don't want to make anyone else follow my lifestyle, but when I am told that my sexual preference is 'faulty', I perceive this to be a direct threat to my being.

If one person decides that his or her sexuality is not right, that is their perogative - but to make sweeping generalisations about the happiness, health and lifestyles of gay people, to adopt the arguments of agencies who are trying to demonise gay people - these are the words of someone who has an ulterior motive.

I do not understand why elements of the Christian church have this agenda to destroy people's lives and happiness, but it does not feel like a Christian attitude to me.

Through all of this, I imagine their deity watching their decrepitude, their obsession with judging what is 'sinful', and shaking *his* head...

posted at 11:34 AM •