(I suddenly remembered I sort of promised a pic of those bright Nike shorts I don't think I dare wear in England . . .)
Thursday, 25 June 2009
Short post. . .
(I suddenly remembered I sort of promised a pic of those bright Nike shorts I don't think I dare wear in England . . .)
Saturday, 20 June 2009
Cool about Calvin
“Calvin Klein is under fire for a sexually explicit new billboard that's caught the eyes — and turned the stomachs — of many people who have seen it in New York. The blue-jeans giant has unveiled a jumbo ad that shows two young men and a young woman entwined in a semi-nude threesome, as another man undresses.”
That’s how Fox described it. Not very accurately, but then, what do you expect? Threesome, yes, but ‘entwined’? Not really, they’re just sort of lying on top of each other. And judging by their typically vacuous (even for fashion models) expressions either they’re all gay or they don’t know how to really enjoy themselves. I’ve entwined better than that in my time, I can tell you.
And the guy on the floor doesn’t look to me as though he’s either about to get his kit off to play or is getting it on after getting off, either. He looks to me like an anorexic Elvis Presley. Difficult to imagine, I know, but do try. Looks as though he’s flaked out, too, but not from post-coital exhaustion, more like tummy ache from a dodgy prawn. . .
And that sofa. I’ve seen ones like that in porn pix from the seventies. God. Upholstered in that nylon fake velvet stuff that gives you burn marks if you move too quickly. (Don’t start guessing games about my age. I know somebody who actually collected that stuff, but that’s as much about that episode you’re going to get.)
I don’t get it. The same country that pumps out all that spam porn and ‘get your free viagra now’ seems to have got its knickers in a twist over a threesome on a sofa. And an amazingly unerotic one, at that. It didn’t give me a bulge in my Calvin Kleins. (Now I look at it again, they’ve had their jeans shrunk on to them I reckon, so getting a hard-on in those could be a bit painful, I’d guess. No wonder they look like that.
Anyway, I just don’t really go for guys who look like that. Or girls that look that scary either. Quite liked her bum, though.
Some of the comments I found though were just the sort that gets a gay picture blog on Google killed off, I realised. Post pix of nude guys who look anything under thirty and you get people yelling “under age”. Always from the US.
And that seems to have been one of the main cries this ad aroused. But under what age? And the age for what? Some Americans just don’t seem to get that the age of sexual consent in Europe (gay, hetero or bi) is 16. Or that not all 20-year olds have thirty-year old bodies. (I do seem to see rather a lot of those in real life, though, I must say. At least in some of the gay hangouts in London.) Google obviously doesn’t.
But they don't care if its girls who look (sometimes very suspiciously) younger than 18 or 21. Hmmm.
So much porn, and so much prudery. Weird.
Thursday, 18 June 2009
Hair Today . . .
If you bother to read this blog, you’ll know I wear glasses. I have mentioned it. I'm not shy.
By-the-by, it’s funny in a way how many more people I see wearing them, even kids, and people don’t seem to ask why I don’t wear contacts instead any more. Nice to see glasses fashionable. Hope it lasts.
The reason I don’t wear contacts, btw, is I’m so short sighted that if I put my glasses down anywhere bit in the usual place when I go to bed, I have to find my spare pair so I can look for them.
It can be damned awkward. I remember an extremely embarrassing morning-after-the-night-before when I couldn’t for the life of me remember where me and a boy had dropped all our stuff in a sudden onset of lust. (Well, finding socks and underpants and jeans and things is easy if you’re short-sighted. Wandering around the flat, you just tread on them. Doesn’t necessarily mean you end up wearing the right ones at first, of course. At least once getting into a pair of jeans I was a bit taken aback by the amount of weight I’d apparently gained overnight.) But glasses . . .
I couldn’t remember where I’d put my spare pair, either. (In fact, I never did find them.) Boy-from-the-night-before found me crawling naked on the floor cautiously feeling with my hands spread out in front of me, bum on the air. After a brief moment of misunderstanding the purpose of the posture, he spotted them eventually. But more than once, without a boy handy I’ve had to admit defeat and ask a neighbour or GF to come and help look for the damn things.
Anyway, as you’ll have grasped, I’m so short-sighted that I can hardly see anything without them unless it is literally up against the tip of my nose. And I don’t wear glasses in the shower. So for three days I’ve been wondering why the hell I haven’t seemed to be able to get my hair clean. At first I thought it was the water. I’ve been in the south of France, where the water is soft, and London water is much harder. All the same, it seemed odd that it could have got that much harder in just a few weeks . . .
But I got the real answer last night when I picked up the bottle of shampoo before I took my glasses off. It wasn’t. It was conditioner. What had confused me was the colour of the bottle: they’ve changed it, so the conditioner is now in the colour of bottle that the same brand of shampoo used to be in . . . Why do they do that? It’s not fair on people like me who can’t read the small print and rely on the colours.
It reminds me of a near-disaster when I was staying at GF’s a couple of years ago. She had some shampoo that came in big tubes instead of bottles, and I grabbed one in the shower, squeezed a good dollop into my hands (don’t get too excited now!) and was just about to rub it into my wet hair when I thought “that smells a bit funny for shampoo.” So I stuck the tube right up against my nose, and after a bit of squinting managed to make out it was French hair-removal cream . . .
It gives me the shivers to think of what might have happened. I wouldn’t have wanted to come out until it all grew back again. I mean, it’s one thing to stick your arm round the bathroom door and yell “Hey, I need a towel!” But quite another to scream “Help! I need a wig!”ff
So, today, I can’t stop feeling my hair. I used loads of real shampoo. And conditioner. And it’s soft and silky (and, irritatingly, flying about in the slightest breeze, so I’ll have to get it cut again) and it feels great. But I’ve noticed people looking at me in the street, obviously thinking I’m vain about it, when actually I’m not. But I can’t explain to them why I’m doing it, can I?
By-the-by, it’s funny in a way how many more people I see wearing them, even kids, and people don’t seem to ask why I don’t wear contacts instead any more. Nice to see glasses fashionable. Hope it lasts.
The reason I don’t wear contacts, btw, is I’m so short sighted that if I put my glasses down anywhere bit in the usual place when I go to bed, I have to find my spare pair so I can look for them.
It can be damned awkward. I remember an extremely embarrassing morning-after-the-night-before when I couldn’t for the life of me remember where me and a boy had dropped all our stuff in a sudden onset of lust. (Well, finding socks and underpants and jeans and things is easy if you’re short-sighted. Wandering around the flat, you just tread on them. Doesn’t necessarily mean you end up wearing the right ones at first, of course. At least once getting into a pair of jeans I was a bit taken aback by the amount of weight I’d apparently gained overnight.) But glasses . . .
I couldn’t remember where I’d put my spare pair, either. (In fact, I never did find them.) Boy-from-the-night-before found me crawling naked on the floor cautiously feeling with my hands spread out in front of me, bum on the air. After a brief moment of misunderstanding the purpose of the posture, he spotted them eventually. But more than once, without a boy handy I’ve had to admit defeat and ask a neighbour or GF to come and help look for the damn things.
Anyway, as you’ll have grasped, I’m so short-sighted that I can hardly see anything without them unless it is literally up against the tip of my nose. And I don’t wear glasses in the shower. So for three days I’ve been wondering why the hell I haven’t seemed to be able to get my hair clean. At first I thought it was the water. I’ve been in the south of France, where the water is soft, and London water is much harder. All the same, it seemed odd that it could have got that much harder in just a few weeks . . .
But I got the real answer last night when I picked up the bottle of shampoo before I took my glasses off. It wasn’t. It was conditioner. What had confused me was the colour of the bottle: they’ve changed it, so the conditioner is now in the colour of bottle that the same brand of shampoo used to be in . . . Why do they do that? It’s not fair on people like me who can’t read the small print and rely on the colours.
It reminds me of a near-disaster when I was staying at GF’s a couple of years ago. She had some shampoo that came in big tubes instead of bottles, and I grabbed one in the shower, squeezed a good dollop into my hands (don’t get too excited now!) and was just about to rub it into my wet hair when I thought “that smells a bit funny for shampoo.” So I stuck the tube right up against my nose, and after a bit of squinting managed to make out it was French hair-removal cream . . .
It gives me the shivers to think of what might have happened. I wouldn’t have wanted to come out until it all grew back again. I mean, it’s one thing to stick your arm round the bathroom door and yell “Hey, I need a towel!” But quite another to scream “Help! I need a wig!”ff
So, today, I can’t stop feeling my hair. I used loads of real shampoo. And conditioner. And it’s soft and silky (and, irritatingly, flying about in the slightest breeze, so I’ll have to get it cut again) and it feels great. But I’ve noticed people looking at me in the street, obviously thinking I’m vain about it, when actually I’m not. But I can’t explain to them why I’m doing it, can I?
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
Disorderly Conduct
I’ve just come across something called ‘Bodymorph Disorder’. Amazing how disorderly psychiatrists are managing to make life, isn’t it?
Apparently, it’s not liking the way you look. In this context it’s something some teenagers in the US need to be treated for. Very expensively, presumably.
Now I’m not going to claim I’m supremely well-adjusted. I mean, I probably wouldn’t go camerawhoring if I was, and I probably wouldn’t have run away to join a travelling theatre either, but by-and-large, I think I mostly cope all right.
But not liking the way you look when you’re in your teens? I thought that was normal. I didn’t. I was usually described as (‘derided for’ might be a better phrase) being ‘skinny’. I just fattened up a bit later after I discovered beer and burgers. Not a huge amount. Once briefly got to 66 kilos (lot of dedicated eating and drinking involved to get there) and felt like a Sumo wrestler.
But I was very conscious of having thin arms and wrists. (The arms have bulked out a bit now, though, it’s one of the consequences of using a wheelchair for spells, tends to build up the muscles, they’re hard things to pole around, I can tell you.) To such an extent, I avoided wearing short-sleeved T’s or pushing sweatshirt sleeves up to my elbows.
I got over it, after someone introduced me to the phrase ‘small-boned’, but it had never occurred to me before that it might have been a ‘disorder’ that needed treatment. Like I said, I thought it was normal. For god’s sake, one of the most conventionally beautiful (and blonde, and everybody thought so) girls I knew at Uni once kept me awake all night, and utterly confounded me, confiding (and sobbing her heart out) that she hated the way she looked. She thought she was too small, and couldn’t see why guys hit on her so often just because of a face she couldn’t see was different to anybody else’s.
Rather took my attention off my arms and wrists, that. (I quite liked ‘small-boned’ and adopted it, though it had actually been something of an expression of disappointment uttered by a boy who had obviously been hoping for something a bit heftier until I’d stripped off my bulky winter jumper and was down to my underpants; he just hadn’t dared to say ‘skinny’.) And my legs and bum which rather too many bullies at school had kept on at me about being a girl’s, though I got around to seeing that as kind of not such a bad thing later. I don’t have the sort of looks the girl had, but it was nice once to overhear two girls saying they wished they had legs like mine . . .But I’d got a bit more confident about being attracted (and sometimes even attractive) to men by then.
But apparently it gets worse. It leads to some sort of ‘societal disorder’ too. You kind of shun company or are awkward in it. Course you do, ffs. Especially that of chavs taunting you about your legs and bum and long hair. (I didn’t like my hair then, either. A girl cousin once told me she and her friends wished they had wavy hair like mine, and how did I do it? Told her I couldn’t helpit, it grew like that whatever I did, and they could take it. I spent years envying boys whose hair was straight, but I hated it short even more.) And especially if you’re a teenager. I thought that was normal, too.
You know, it’s a very scary thought when what you think is normal becomes something that should be ‘treated’. By people who either never went through it, or forgot they did, or decided it was abnormal. Like being gay, maybe?
Apparently, it’s not liking the way you look. In this context it’s something some teenagers in the US need to be treated for. Very expensively, presumably.
Now I’m not going to claim I’m supremely well-adjusted. I mean, I probably wouldn’t go camerawhoring if I was, and I probably wouldn’t have run away to join a travelling theatre either, but by-and-large, I think I mostly cope all right.
But not liking the way you look when you’re in your teens? I thought that was normal. I didn’t. I was usually described as (‘derided for’ might be a better phrase) being ‘skinny’. I just fattened up a bit later after I discovered beer and burgers. Not a huge amount. Once briefly got to 66 kilos (lot of dedicated eating and drinking involved to get there) and felt like a Sumo wrestler.
But I was very conscious of having thin arms and wrists. (The arms have bulked out a bit now, though, it’s one of the consequences of using a wheelchair for spells, tends to build up the muscles, they’re hard things to pole around, I can tell you.) To such an extent, I avoided wearing short-sleeved T’s or pushing sweatshirt sleeves up to my elbows.
I got over it, after someone introduced me to the phrase ‘small-boned’, but it had never occurred to me before that it might have been a ‘disorder’ that needed treatment. Like I said, I thought it was normal. For god’s sake, one of the most conventionally beautiful (and blonde, and everybody thought so) girls I knew at Uni once kept me awake all night, and utterly confounded me, confiding (and sobbing her heart out) that she hated the way she looked. She thought she was too small, and couldn’t see why guys hit on her so often just because of a face she couldn’t see was different to anybody else’s.
Rather took my attention off my arms and wrists, that. (I quite liked ‘small-boned’ and adopted it, though it had actually been something of an expression of disappointment uttered by a boy who had obviously been hoping for something a bit heftier until I’d stripped off my bulky winter jumper and was down to my underpants; he just hadn’t dared to say ‘skinny’.) And my legs and bum which rather too many bullies at school had kept on at me about being a girl’s, though I got around to seeing that as kind of not such a bad thing later. I don’t have the sort of looks the girl had, but it was nice once to overhear two girls saying they wished they had legs like mine . . .But I’d got a bit more confident about being attracted (and sometimes even attractive) to men by then.
But apparently it gets worse. It leads to some sort of ‘societal disorder’ too. You kind of shun company or are awkward in it. Course you do, ffs. Especially that of chavs taunting you about your legs and bum and long hair. (I didn’t like my hair then, either. A girl cousin once told me she and her friends wished they had wavy hair like mine, and how did I do it? Told her I couldn’t helpit, it grew like that whatever I did, and they could take it. I spent years envying boys whose hair was straight, but I hated it short even more.) And especially if you’re a teenager. I thought that was normal, too.
You know, it’s a very scary thought when what you think is normal becomes something that should be ‘treated’. By people who either never went through it, or forgot they did, or decided it was abnormal. Like being gay, maybe?
Sunday, 14 June 2009
Gaydar Malfunction. Again.
I mentioned once before that my gaydar is practically useless. It's happened again. there I was, walking along with GF, and she suddenly says, "That guy was really looking at you. He fancied you."
Me: "What guy? Where?"
GF: "The one who just walked past us."
Me: "Eh? What guy walked . . .'
Honestly, if I was an airbus, I'd crash.
Me: "What guy? Where?"
GF: "The one who just walked past us."
Me: "Eh? What guy walked . . .'
Honestly, if I was an airbus, I'd crash.
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
Truth, lies, and (seldom) video
I’ve been scouting around for other writing blogs, and I’ve begun to wonder about some of them.
But before you start wondering about this one, let me explain something. Everything I write here is true. But (and it’s an important ‘but’) it’s not the whole truth. Camerawhore is not all of me. I do have other interests, even (though some may doubt it!) more of a ‘life’. It’s just that I choose not to give too much about that other x-per-cent of my existence away.
I’m mentioning this for a couple of reasons, the main one being that I’d simply forgotten back in January that I’d enabled that ‘Followers’ thingy, and I feel a bit guilty now I didn’t warn people I might disappear from the blogosphere for a while, so if any were expecting to read more, kept coming back and were disappointed, I’m sorry.
That’s assuming anyone cared, of course, but we won’t go there, I think. Camerawhores afflicted by the withdrawal of attention (and affection) cry easily, you see. We’re not all hard-boiled rentboys.
Another reason is that I shall soon be embarking on some ‘real’ work on the internet, which is going to take up a lot of time. Sort of ‘real writing’ I have to research, think about hard, and has tight deadlines, so I probably won’t have much time for camerawhore stuff ‘tween later this month and the end of August. Since it’s part of that ‘x-per-cent other’, I’d rather you didn’t know about it here, if you don’t mind. Seeing a different aspect of me might just confuse you. And if my ‘significant other’ readers elsewhere backtracked here, it’d certainly bloody well confuse them. And worse, maybe give some an easy handle and reason for not taking my other stuff seriously, and since I really am a pro (-fessional, I mean!) at it, I really don’t want to risk that.
Now, that out of the way, why have I suddenly got a bit suspicious about some of the blogs I’ve come across? I’m not convinced they’re true, that’s why. I’ve hit on a few (oops, inappropriate verb, there, maybe!) purportedly written by young teens in the throes or angst of coming (or not coming) out. But what seems to me a bit odd is that some of them offer up MSN or Facebook links, and that strikes me as either at the least naive or a bit stupid. Especially when you don’t find a pic on the profile of someone real, or, especially, it’s cropped from one you recognise off a porn site or a porn blog . . .
And that’s what’s made me wonder. Like most others I guess, I’ve also come across a few of those blogs that concentrate on kids in underpants or speedos, and that also invite messaging or emails, and it’s been obvious to me, thiough I suppose I could be wrong, that few of those are put up by kids the same age. Can’t see why you would, really. I mean, in my early teens it wasn’t pre-pubescent boys (or girls) that held any interest for me: it’s an age when size really does matter, if you see what I mean. And I can’t imagine it’s changed much since I got over the trauma of not being nineteen and legally a teenager (and turned into a twink, I suppose, and I hate that word) any longer.
So, if you’re reading this and you’re anything like me when I was 15 or 16, be careful. You might just find yourself getting into some online relationship—or even a physical one—that turns a lot nastier than you might imagine.
It’s a sad truth (and not one you’ll read in blogs that often) that some gay guys can be pretty brutal, and not just physically, either. And a lot of the time they’re the ones that are best at appearing soft and sentimental, and caring, until the moment you find yourself face down yelling “No! Don’t! You’re hurting me!” into the pillow.
Been there. Done that. (Or I should say, had it done to me.) And cried into the T shirt afterwatds. As you might have guessed from reading this blog.
So, if any of this applies to you, be careful.
(I might do another pic for you. Bought these sort of bright green and yellow Nike shorts when I was away. GF saw me eyeing them and said “They’re too gay”—pun intended, I think. Don’t think I’d dare wear them in England, though. Too bright. And pricey: my God, I got them at a bargain rate in a sale, but, 30 Euros originally?!!!!! They’re a bit too big as well. As is the neat Nike hoody, bought for a quarter of the normal price in the shops. Good jib I like them loose and baggy, the only others they had were like tents when I tried them on. . . But I can’t find anything labelled ‘small’ any more. Or even ‘medium’ most of the time, and even then I swear they are what was labelled “Large’” just a couple of years ago. Hell, last time I went to buy a pair of jeans, I spent ages on it and walked out with the only two pairs with a 30inch waist in the entire shop. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m turning into a midget or something. But I’m not going to start shopping in the kid’s section. Might give people the wrong idea altogether.)
Monday, 8 June 2009
Limp-wristed . . .
My wrist hurts.
No. Not because of that. Wash your mind out with soap. Now.
It was because of a bus. I stayed a few days in Brussels on the way back from France. Now I know exactly how necessary those knobby (watch it!) yellow handrails on London buses are. The new buses in Brussels have smooth ones. And the damn things don’t ‘kneel’ like the London ones, either, so it can be a bit of a steep step up to get on as well.
So there I was, crutch on right elbow, left hand grabbing for the hand rail. And just as I was hauling myself up, wham! My hand slipped, I lost my grip completely, and I went right over, flat on my back on the bloody pavement. God it was so embarrassing as people helped me up and asked if I was really OK. Even the bus-driver, who wouldn't set off until he'd made sure someone had sat me down safely, which I’m not at all sure would happen in London.
The funny thing was that I only hurt my wrist a little. For obvious reasons, being crippled, I haven’t done what they call a ‘pratfall’ lately, in fact hardly ever, since I ran away to join a theatre and learnt how to do it there. If you don’t know what that is, to save you googling it, I’ll explain. A ‘pratfall’ is just the trick of falling that looks authentic without hurting yourself. Basically, as you fall backwards, and just before you hit the ground you slap both hands down hard so you come down the last few centimetres relatively gently and you don’t get hurt.
Your hands might sting a bit though.
(Don’t try this at home, though. It’s a professional trick, and you can break your wrist or do some nasty other damage if you screw it up because nobody showed you how to do it properly.)
Anyway, I didn’t get hurt (apart from my wrist feeling a bit sore) because as I went backwards off the bus’s step somehow I instinctively let my crutch go, got my arms and hands down and did a perfect pratfall. I couldn’t believe it. The people who helped me up thought the fall had stunned me a bit. It hadn’t: what I was a bit dazed by was that it had worked just how it should, and just by instinct. As easy as, well, falling off a bus. I really thought I’d have forgotten how to do it by now, never having practised it, like I said, for obvious reasons, for years.
Strange. Must be one of those things you don’t forget. Like riding a bike or how to swim. I’m bloody glad, though. I couldn’t have faced GF if I'd bee really hurt; she’d never have let me loose on my own again. Don’t tell her, for god’s sake, this is just between us, or she won’t, and I’ll never hear the last of it . . .
(The new buses in Brussels have strange one-and-a-half person seats. When they introduced them, they had an explanatory vid explaining these were to seat a child and one adult. I couldn’t credit that. I mean, a child and one adult can fit on a pair of one-adult seats, and so can two adults. These, you can’t get two adults on. I know. Tried it. Not even with a [now] touch under thirty inch waist camerawhore. [Looks a lot slimmer in inches than it does in cm, doesn't it?] So I decided they’re really for fat people, and I’ve taken to calling them the ‘fatties’ seats’, and being ‘shushed’ by GF for it. I’m sure that’s what they’re for, only the SNIB didn’t dare kind of say it out loud. Probably afraid of a ‘fatlash’*.)
* Fat people’s backlash, if you didn’t get it.
No. Not because of that. Wash your mind out with soap. Now.
It was because of a bus. I stayed a few days in Brussels on the way back from France. Now I know exactly how necessary those knobby (watch it!) yellow handrails on London buses are. The new buses in Brussels have smooth ones. And the damn things don’t ‘kneel’ like the London ones, either, so it can be a bit of a steep step up to get on as well.
So there I was, crutch on right elbow, left hand grabbing for the hand rail. And just as I was hauling myself up, wham! My hand slipped, I lost my grip completely, and I went right over, flat on my back on the bloody pavement. God it was so embarrassing as people helped me up and asked if I was really OK. Even the bus-driver, who wouldn't set off until he'd made sure someone had sat me down safely, which I’m not at all sure would happen in London.
The funny thing was that I only hurt my wrist a little. For obvious reasons, being crippled, I haven’t done what they call a ‘pratfall’ lately, in fact hardly ever, since I ran away to join a theatre and learnt how to do it there. If you don’t know what that is, to save you googling it, I’ll explain. A ‘pratfall’ is just the trick of falling that looks authentic without hurting yourself. Basically, as you fall backwards, and just before you hit the ground you slap both hands down hard so you come down the last few centimetres relatively gently and you don’t get hurt.
Your hands might sting a bit though.
(Don’t try this at home, though. It’s a professional trick, and you can break your wrist or do some nasty other damage if you screw it up because nobody showed you how to do it properly.)
Anyway, I didn’t get hurt (apart from my wrist feeling a bit sore) because as I went backwards off the bus’s step somehow I instinctively let my crutch go, got my arms and hands down and did a perfect pratfall. I couldn’t believe it. The people who helped me up thought the fall had stunned me a bit. It hadn’t: what I was a bit dazed by was that it had worked just how it should, and just by instinct. As easy as, well, falling off a bus. I really thought I’d have forgotten how to do it by now, never having practised it, like I said, for obvious reasons, for years.
Strange. Must be one of those things you don’t forget. Like riding a bike or how to swim. I’m bloody glad, though. I couldn’t have faced GF if I'd bee really hurt; she’d never have let me loose on my own again. Don’t tell her, for god’s sake, this is just between us, or she won’t, and I’ll never hear the last of it . . .
(The new buses in Brussels have strange one-and-a-half person seats. When they introduced them, they had an explanatory vid explaining these were to seat a child and one adult. I couldn’t credit that. I mean, a child and one adult can fit on a pair of one-adult seats, and so can two adults. These, you can’t get two adults on. I know. Tried it. Not even with a [now] touch under thirty inch waist camerawhore. [Looks a lot slimmer in inches than it does in cm, doesn't it?] So I decided they’re really for fat people, and I’ve taken to calling them the ‘fatties’ seats’, and being ‘shushed’ by GF for it. I’m sure that’s what they’re for, only the SNIB didn’t dare kind of say it out loud. Probably afraid of a ‘fatlash’*.)
* Fat people’s backlash, if you didn’t get it.
Sunday, 7 June 2009
SAD, innit?
Yeah, I know. I kinda left without saying goodbye. (Done that before. Out of shame, too often.) Thing was, I was going to abandon blogging, ‘cos I reckoned I’d run out of inspiration, and, as you know if you’ve bothered to go back over some of this stuff, I can’t be doing with that ‘dear diary’ crap. Or telling you all about the latest angst. Like so many.
Well, I might. Just a bit. As you’ll also know if you were paying attention, I had a fair bit of shit from the drug experiment. It took a hell of a long time to shake that off. Jesus, if addicts go through that when they do stuff ‘recreationally’ I’m damned if I can see how it’s worth it. My GP was a bit sceptical, said my reaction to the muck was unusual, but strangely, GF’s older brother it turns out was given the same stuff in France recently, and had the same reaction I did. Though not ending up with such crazy, paranoid, unnecessary rows with his sister, thank god.
Anyway, I’ve been doing some work, more physical than anything else, ‘cos I was panicking a bit about the muscle wastage I mentioned before, too. Maybe tell you about it some time, but GF decided I needed looking after a bit, so took me off to their house in the south of France. Just got back. And, after a few weeks of mostly sun, it’s bloody raining here.
Sad, isn’t it? Or maybe that should be SAD. I’ve never been wildly keen on these cutesy acronyms that sometimes seem to me to be invented just so American psycho(logist)s can cream off more money from the gullible by persuading them they suffer from something nobody otherwise would have known existed, but I do wonder if there’s something in this
'Seasonal Affective Disorder' thing..
I mean, I was in England over last summer, and as a summer, well, they might as well have renamed all the months ‘March’ . . . But sure as hell, I was pretty mis last year, and even allowing for the druggy debacle, getting mis-er all through the early part of this year. Amazing how the sunny south cheered me up though. And I discovered that GF (born in a very sunny part of the Med) has been taking vitamins for ages ‘cos her doc said she needed the, er, Vitamin D is it? you get from sunshine.
So it must be the Italian half of me that gets desperate without sun, I suppose. Except, sunless and in cloud the Italian half obviously expands to cover my entire genome, by the look of it. Does sun-deprivation get worse as you get older? I was never keen on winter when I was a kid, either, but I hope not. I don’t think I could stand it. I’d have to emigrate, and I can’t afford to, I don’t think. Couldn’t afford d the medical bills for a start. GF sprained her foot, and had to fork out fifty quid cash to see a ‘foot specialist’, then more for X-rays, and another fifty to find out that he thought it wasn’t serious and would heal itself in time . . . I told her that, and suggested she saw a doc in the UK when she came . . . And she ain’t getting all that back from the medical insurance . . .
Anyway, to the point. Went out on Saturday night. Thought I’d go up to a gay bar and show my nice dark tan off. Actually, doing that’s a bit awkward. I only dare show parts of it off. I tan very fast, and in consequence of a boat trip just one hot afternoon my face, neck and arms are markedly browner than the rest of me. (Had to wear a sleeveless T and jeans, ‘cos we were going to eat at a posh-ish restaurant later.) Stripped off, I look a bit like a brown zebra. Got to even that out, somehow. Sun-lamp/tanning parlour here I come, unless the bloody weather brightens up here in London sharpish.) Strange thing, though. Nobody noticed . . .
It was only when I looked at myself in the mirror behind the bar (something I usually avoid, even if you do think I’m vain after reading this blog) I realised I looked, apparently, almost as pale as all the others. (And omg, after being in the south of France, don’t the Brits here look weirdly pale? Positively unhealthy. Or Goth-like. Same thing?) Peculiar that. Must be the lighting. Perhaps they do it deliberately so they don’t stand out? On the night bus home, I had this feeling I was surrounded by wraiths.
The night out was a mistake, btw. Again. Same place I said I’d avoid months ago. Should have stuck to it, only there was nobody around to go with and I decided late on anyway. What is it these days about some gay bars in London? Why are some of them full of guys who have no more dress sense than a football fan on the lam in Ibiza? And none were anywhere as good-looking as Beckham, not by a long chalk. (Or by long chalky skin, for that matter.) And why are they all so burly and pushy? Makes me wish I’d grown a bit more. My nice Savile Row T got fucking soaked in crap fizzy lager . . . Ugh. (Bloody expensive crap lager, too. Gave me a hangover.) And the ‘security’ guys were just about the most obnoxious I’ve ever come across. You’d think homophobia would be the last bloody qualification to be ‘security’ in a gay bar, wouldn’t you? (There, you’d be wrong.) And, typically, when one totally pissed fat-arsed bastard fell over and flailed about on the floor spilling people’s drinks in all directions, where were they? Vanished into thin air, of course. But there’s nowhere else near home any more; all the gay bars and clubs out of town seem to have closed down. Oh, well. Have to start clubbing in town, I suppose, or give up altogether.
Might give up altogether, actually. I mean, I only saw too lookers last night and they were a couple. Everybody else looked just like, as an ex-boyfriend once described the inhabitants of a club we went to one Friday night, ‘East end barrer-boys just let out of Pentonville’. And the prettiest I’ve seen around near home since I’ve been back have been speaking Italian, Spanish or Portuguese . . . Maybe I’ve been spoilt by those trim, slim, tanned, dark-haired and brown-eyed boys in the south.
Well, spoilt by looking anyway. Daren’t do anything else: I stay in a small village, and people there know me by now. And, as you know, for some reason my gaydar is barely functional in England. Not sure it works at all in France, and I wouldn’t like to make any bad mistakes . . .not where lots of the men go hunting for wild boar and have shotguns. I don’t think I want to be married just yet. Assuming that’s the only use they’d find for the shotgun . . .
Well, I might. Just a bit. As you’ll also know if you were paying attention, I had a fair bit of shit from the drug experiment. It took a hell of a long time to shake that off. Jesus, if addicts go through that when they do stuff ‘recreationally’ I’m damned if I can see how it’s worth it. My GP was a bit sceptical, said my reaction to the muck was unusual, but strangely, GF’s older brother it turns out was given the same stuff in France recently, and had the same reaction I did. Though not ending up with such crazy, paranoid, unnecessary rows with his sister, thank god.
Anyway, I’ve been doing some work, more physical than anything else, ‘cos I was panicking a bit about the muscle wastage I mentioned before, too. Maybe tell you about it some time, but GF decided I needed looking after a bit, so took me off to their house in the south of France. Just got back. And, after a few weeks of mostly sun, it’s bloody raining here.
Sad, isn’t it? Or maybe that should be SAD. I’ve never been wildly keen on these cutesy acronyms that sometimes seem to me to be invented just so American psycho(logist)s can cream off more money from the gullible by persuading them they suffer from something nobody otherwise would have known existed, but I do wonder if there’s something in this
'Seasonal Affective Disorder' thing..
I mean, I was in England over last summer, and as a summer, well, they might as well have renamed all the months ‘March’ . . . But sure as hell, I was pretty mis last year, and even allowing for the druggy debacle, getting mis-er all through the early part of this year. Amazing how the sunny south cheered me up though. And I discovered that GF (born in a very sunny part of the Med) has been taking vitamins for ages ‘cos her doc said she needed the, er, Vitamin D is it? you get from sunshine.
So it must be the Italian half of me that gets desperate without sun, I suppose. Except, sunless and in cloud the Italian half obviously expands to cover my entire genome, by the look of it. Does sun-deprivation get worse as you get older? I was never keen on winter when I was a kid, either, but I hope not. I don’t think I could stand it. I’d have to emigrate, and I can’t afford to, I don’t think. Couldn’t afford d the medical bills for a start. GF sprained her foot, and had to fork out fifty quid cash to see a ‘foot specialist’, then more for X-rays, and another fifty to find out that he thought it wasn’t serious and would heal itself in time . . . I told her that, and suggested she saw a doc in the UK when she came . . . And she ain’t getting all that back from the medical insurance . . .
Anyway, to the point. Went out on Saturday night. Thought I’d go up to a gay bar and show my nice dark tan off. Actually, doing that’s a bit awkward. I only dare show parts of it off. I tan very fast, and in consequence of a boat trip just one hot afternoon my face, neck and arms are markedly browner than the rest of me. (Had to wear a sleeveless T and jeans, ‘cos we were going to eat at a posh-ish restaurant later.) Stripped off, I look a bit like a brown zebra. Got to even that out, somehow. Sun-lamp/tanning parlour here I come, unless the bloody weather brightens up here in London sharpish.) Strange thing, though. Nobody noticed . . .
It was only when I looked at myself in the mirror behind the bar (something I usually avoid, even if you do think I’m vain after reading this blog) I realised I looked, apparently, almost as pale as all the others. (And omg, after being in the south of France, don’t the Brits here look weirdly pale? Positively unhealthy. Or Goth-like. Same thing?) Peculiar that. Must be the lighting. Perhaps they do it deliberately so they don’t stand out? On the night bus home, I had this feeling I was surrounded by wraiths.
The night out was a mistake, btw. Again. Same place I said I’d avoid months ago. Should have stuck to it, only there was nobody around to go with and I decided late on anyway. What is it these days about some gay bars in London? Why are some of them full of guys who have no more dress sense than a football fan on the lam in Ibiza? And none were anywhere as good-looking as Beckham, not by a long chalk. (Or by long chalky skin, for that matter.) And why are they all so burly and pushy? Makes me wish I’d grown a bit more. My nice Savile Row T got fucking soaked in crap fizzy lager . . . Ugh. (Bloody expensive crap lager, too. Gave me a hangover.) And the ‘security’ guys were just about the most obnoxious I’ve ever come across. You’d think homophobia would be the last bloody qualification to be ‘security’ in a gay bar, wouldn’t you? (There, you’d be wrong.) And, typically, when one totally pissed fat-arsed bastard fell over and flailed about on the floor spilling people’s drinks in all directions, where were they? Vanished into thin air, of course. But there’s nowhere else near home any more; all the gay bars and clubs out of town seem to have closed down. Oh, well. Have to start clubbing in town, I suppose, or give up altogether.
Might give up altogether, actually. I mean, I only saw too lookers last night and they were a couple. Everybody else looked just like, as an ex-boyfriend once described the inhabitants of a club we went to one Friday night, ‘East end barrer-boys just let out of Pentonville’. And the prettiest I’ve seen around near home since I’ve been back have been speaking Italian, Spanish or Portuguese . . . Maybe I’ve been spoilt by those trim, slim, tanned, dark-haired and brown-eyed boys in the south.
Well, spoilt by looking anyway. Daren’t do anything else: I stay in a small village, and people there know me by now. And, as you know, for some reason my gaydar is barely functional in England. Not sure it works at all in France, and I wouldn’t like to make any bad mistakes . . .not where lots of the men go hunting for wild boar and have shotguns. I don’t think I want to be married just yet. Assuming that’s the only use they’d find for the shotgun . . .
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