Tag: HSBC

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Gay

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The weeks and the months pass by.

Since my release from the county jail, life has become…tranquil…passes effortlessly…with relative ease.

I imagine this is what Percocet feels like?

I have settled back into my life but scarcely write about it.

The twins are living here with their friend Kevin. They move out on the 26th. We cook, we prepare good food. We eat at the table, we use the linen napkins before they are packed up or sold.

They drink red wine from crystal glasses they have no idea are as valuable as they are.

I know that these formal dinners are at odds not just with these youth but with all youth.

I am trapped in another universe, insensitive to their discomfort. They have no use for anything I know.

I am not sad. All I have to do is re-imagine life in jail and I am delivered from self-pity.

I have tried going back to AA but I’ve no stomach for it, nor the people. I am done with AA in LA. It’s over. Over.

Occasionally I have to go back to court and they hand me more papers to add to the huge stack I already have on my desk.

You can feel that neither the judge nor the DA has the enthusiasm for the case now I am not incarcerated.

Certainly, with the serious press and the ACLU in pursuit of answers re. my illegal incarceration and with a huge law suit in the offing…I can’t imagine that it’s party time at the DA’s office when they mention my name.

Anne Marie the special DA looked positively miserable when we saw her yesterday. Her hair looked good tho. Nicely quaffed and bouncy.

She was wearing a very chic black, cashmere coat belted at the waist with dramatic lapels and long hem line.

I was a bit hard on her in earlier blogs. She is prettier than Michelle Bachman.

I am most eager to go to court. To clear my name. To start the law suit against the realtor who started all this mess.

I am not allowed to sue him whilst we are in this criminal tangle. That’s the law…apparently.

Yet, even that may be taken out of my hands by HSBC, my lender.

The twins birthday on Monday. They will be 22 years old. Remember last year? How they bounced down stairs in the morning and sang Dave Mathews songs?

I met Miles when he was 19.

Robby has fallen for someone and my surrogate child spends nights on end away from the house with his new love.

I want him to be safe, he looks at me like I’m an idiot when I remind him to be true to himself.

Watching Robby grow into a fully formed young man, the young man he wants to be…not who I want him to be.

He reminds me of another young man who liberated himself from the closet not so long ago. Before my very eyes.

There are so many similarities. Robby and Jake. But the outcomes are so different.

Again, I play over those past events. The events of that doomed love affair. Wishing I had done things differently. Wishing I could have helped rather than hindered.

The death of love.

Mostly, as Robby reveals who he is, I have the same feeling I had when Jake came out. That he shouldn’t be betrayed, that they wouldn’t make the same mistakes I made.

It was so hard to let him go.

Now I can’t even remember that he was beside me in Paris or London or New York…because, I suppose…he was a ghost or I was never truly allowed to enjoy our time together.

He was tortured by self doubt. Guilt.

Sometime, I wish I could call him and listen to his voice, listen to his loves and losses. How he has evolved.

Then, seconds later, I know that I don’t want to hear anything. That it would still be too painful. Isn’t that absurd?

We are strangers. We are strangers. We will remain forever…strangers.

If I had lived in NYC when I was seeing him things would have been different. We both needed continuity. The goodbyes destroyed me. Every time he said goodbye. I was bereft.

Well, that was then…but even so, just writing about him again…my whole body ached. He was consuming and passionate and never mine to have.

Meanwhile on twitter Roseanne and I have been publicly sharing our philosophies and mutual revulsion of the way things are. Two old people meeting in the virtual town square putting the world back together the way we think it should be.

I like Roseanne.

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Categories
Hollywood Rant

Wreckage of My Past

There are occasions in life when no really means no.   I am not really the kind of guy who accepts no for an answer but occasionally I hear the word No and I can’t possibly ignore the implications.

When I first got sober I had to make endless amends to many people.  I had to address the wreckage of my past.  It is not always easy to hear an apology so I rarely use the word sorry.  When I had to make amends to people I had hurt whilst using drugs and alcohol I started any apology with these words:  “I was wrong.”  I was wrong to have stolen from you, I was wrong to have lied to you, I was wrong to have deceived you etc. etc.

Some people were simply no longer around to make amends to or some I had made so angry that they could never hear even one word from me let alone an apology so I made, what we call, a living amends, which meant that whatever I had done to the aggrieved I would never do again to another person.  That if I had cheated I would not cheat.  If I had stolen I would not steal.

Obviously they, the other, would not care either way if I cheated or stole ever again but my commitment to the living amends meant that I never need bring more people to the same sad conclusion about me.  This may seem obvious to you but to a selfish, self obsessed addict this is not obvious at all.

I am in an odd mood today.  I am happy but I am expecting the worst.  I am sure about my path but too lazy to take the next step.

Insanely busy day yesterday.  Climbed Runyon.  Popped over to see Amanda and Kay.  Saw Sean over in Malibu at his farm.  Had lunch with Mel.  Drove home, CRAWLED home on the congested 10 Freeway and then couldn’t, for the life of me, find parking so parked illegally.  I was just desperate to get under a hot shower.  Thankfully, I did not get another parking ticket.

Had delicious dinner last night at Osteria Mozza.  Actually, it was an OK dinner but the company was great.   The food was expensive and poorly executed.  I sent the first course back because it was literally inedible.  Bad food made better with inspiring conversation.   I left my phone in the car so when I got back there were lovely text messages to read.

I slept long and hard.

This morning had very long, shitty conversation with HSBC in the UK.  Really bad.  Then, on the way to Runyon, my friend JP called me to make a reservation for him at a restaurant he couldn’t get into but apparently I can.    Made me feel like a glorified personal assistant.  Had long, very long (but delightful) conversation with Philippa about my June trip back home to the UK.  I really can’t wait to get home for a little while.

The NO came after that.  It was so definite and clear but rather than it rattling me I simply asked to get my own needs met and handed the whole caboose and caboodle over to God.

Amen.

Categories
Rant

In Acceptance?

I woke up in acceptance.  I went to bed with a strange man sleeping on the sofa.

Yesterday morning I found myself explaining what made me happy to a large group of men.   I said, “I know when I’m happy because I don’t want to change anything.   I don’t want to change the way I feel with drugs or sex or shopping.  I don’t want to change where I live or rearrange my apartment.   I am just happy with things the way they are right now.”

Lunch with Eric at the Mercantile on Sunset where we ran into Bryan and his friend Carly Chaikin who is the second lead in the film The Last Song starring Miley Cyrus.  A very sweet girl.   Delicious lunch, lots of fun, I ate duck.

After lunch Eric and I drove to Soho House where we sat on the terrace overlooking Beverly Hills drinking latte-yes I was in a latte state o’mind.

As the day progressed I felt more uncomfortable.    There were practical irritations like: HSBC in the UK had closed my bank account for no apparent reason (apparently my crime was dormancy) with money still in it.   I cannot pay bills, transfer money, now I expect long conversations with random, computer generated Indian customer service advisors that must take place before I get to the bottom of this.

I received another nasty email from a woman claiming that she was at Kristian’s funeral and that my blogged account of it is all lies.  The Mother and Father must be furious that I continue to report how they disrespect our friend in death.   I have spoken to many, many people about the funeral and how Kristian’s boyfriend of SEVEN years was told to stay away, how he is now having to fight the family for what is rightfully his-his share of the property that he and Kristian owned in France and his part of the London property.

By the time I took my nap I was feeling decidedly testy.

Had brief chat with NYC friend who seems eager to go bar hopping/hooking up.  Whatever he has in mind for himself who am I to judge?  He wants to be like all the other gay men with penis privileges.

I tried explaining to him the 12 steps, which was as satisfying as trying to teach a baboon how to knit.

Felt WORSE.

So, a friend of Kristian’s came and took me to dinner-once again at the Mercantile. (I am trying to work my way through their delicious menu.)  We talked about Kristian and I shed a tear.  This was the first person I had actually sat down with since his death rather that being on the phone or random conversations on Face Book with people who had been denied entry to the funeral and had watched in amazement as Kristian’s coffin was dragged into the church, as Kristian’s mother laughed at the funeral, as she made Kristian’s boy friend of SEVEN years feel so uncomfortable at the wake he had organized he left rather than them.

As we left the restaurant I bumped into a good-looking strawberry blonde man with huge arms.   He introduced himself and we exchanged numbers.  Later that night the strawberry blond man came over and we talked until 3am.  It turns out that he is a porn performer who wants to get out of the porn performer business.  I told him that I would introduce him to Jennie.  I looked at his work on-line.  Getting fucked by men with names like Xavier and Brett.   Eagerly blowing other men with huge arms.  I thought that maybe my NYC friend would like to hook up with him at a bar.

It was good to talk to him about my own relationship with pornography.

I felt comfortable with him.  We were not about to have a conversation about God, he did not have a complicated story.  He told me about the men he had dated.  The life he has.  He looked tired so I told him he could stay over.  I hid my gold watch.  He slept on the sofa.

Earthquake the following day.  I lay in bed as it rumbled through town.  Dinner with Anna at Canele on Glendale Blvd.  Excellent roast lamb and equally delicious roast vegetables.   Met delightful Amanda and delightful Daniel.

 

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