Tag: iPod

Categories
Gay Love Malibu

Am I Weak?

I had no idea yesterday was Friday. I thought it was Wednesday. That’s how disorienting the mountain can be.

I have been trapping squirrels. Peanut butter and Weetabix. My secret weapon. The little dog at my side. Spent the rest of the day under the deck clearing dead leaves.

Paid water bill in Malibu, picked up some milk.

Dinner with friends. Crappy Cafe Habana. The rudest waitress on the planet.

Cold mist over the mountain. The weather is totally fucked up.

Apparently The ‘A’ List is very amusing.  Ian had an advance screener.  I probably don’t come off very well.  Never mind.  I am, according to Ian…referred to as ‘smelly’.   Watch the show on Logo, Monday night.  More will be revealed.

Because you love me (huh?) an anonymous ‘friend’ out there decided to send a recent picture of Jake.

Please don’t do it. As you are well aware, it just inflames the situation.

I don’t want to see him or hear anything about him.  I am at peace with him. Want the best for him.

I forgave him for writing that horrible email, for lying to me.  His lies, in retrospect, were perfectly understandable.  He was in a terrible situation.  I forgive you for being selfish and insensitive….for doing what perhaps all your non-sober friends would think perfectly reasonable.

I forgive you for wanting me to be something I never was.  I forgive you because you didn’t know.

What is my part in all of this? When everyone around me was warning not to get involved I ignored you all. I ignored John. I ignored Mr. P. I ignored Dr. D and my therapist Jill.  Instead of going to meetings and connecting with dependable friends I sank into my addiction. Acting out with a straight identified man.

Regardless of what he morphed into…he was not mine to love.  It is indeed very alluring to be told that you are loved but I am old enough, experienced enough to have seen it for what it was.  I chose not to.

I’m sorry I wasn’t stronger. I’m sorry for bruising you inside and out. I’m sorry that I couldn’t stop myself from loving you. I’m sorry that I was insensitive and selfish. I’m sorry for shouting.  I’m sorry I lied.  Most of all, I was wrong to have waged this war against you, not least because I have done myself irreparable damage.

I was wrong.

I was weak.

I fell for him…as many will.

You are a beautiful, sexy, romantic, intelligent man. Above all…you are curious.  If you are not already, you will make someone very happy, very proud.  You will make some equally honorable man a great husband, you will be a good father.

I wanted you for myself. In a different narrative that wouldn’t be so bad. But you had just come out, bravely left one life to make something brand new.   I should have been a support, a conduit.

Peace comes from acceptance and forgiveness.

I hope one day you will find it in your heart to forgive.  I don’t need to know that you have.

My Whitstable mash up…I was his age when I made that video and it reminded me of what sort of man I was. Unprepared. I was unprepared and willful.

I imagine that he is out there doing his best to be honest. Living in New York, working every day.

Connecting to his new gay life.

I hope he marvels at his good fortune: his new gay life. The opportunities it affords. With marriage and babies and freedom…it’s a great time in New York to be a gay man.

Both Zach and Dan told me that I should stop writing about Jake.  Zach told me that it made me sound weak.  Well, that maybe.  Weak or not, it’s time to move on.

At some point soon I have to remove (yet again) any reference to him from this blog. Any photograph, his name etc. It just has to be.  Not because I am being forced but because it is the right thing to do.  As if it never happened. As if we never happened.

This blog and his name written here ties him to me as much as I have strapped myself to him like a suicide bomb.

So, Adieu my friend.

I am writing this at The Country Mart in Malibu waiting for Karim as he stands in line for our lunch.

He is off to Patmos, Paris, Antibes and Athens for the rest of the summer. Places I love.

Some of those places we visited.  I will cherish those memories.  I will overlook the problems.  I will keep quiet now about what we loved most because only we know.

Categories
Hollywood Rant

London Hotel West Hollywood

Really!  What has happened to the London Hotel West Hollywood?

My friends Michael and Yaniv who are visiting from New York very sweetly invited me to lunch there yesterday.

I loved their room which has a nice, easterly view over the Hollywood Hills and a huge bathroom.

Lunch was less charming.

According to the verbose London Hotel website:

“Gordon Ramsay has recreated the Hollywood culinary scene, with dining inspired by the sunny, savvy and social setting of L.A. From his Michelin-starred signature restaurant and casual bistro, to private, poolside and in-suite dining, cuisine is truly superb, highlighting California’s fresh abundance of produce.”

The luxurious appointment that was The London when it first opened is no more.  The faux suede walls, the marble foyer, the topiary…has dated incredibly quickly.

The poolside dining was a disgrace.

The astro turfed roof looks a mess.  It looks unkempt.  The tables strewn rather than arranged.  The staff uniform one step away from Macdonald’s, with the ubiquitous polo shirt and a hideous recent (?) addition…a huge corporate name tag stamped in shiny silver and black plastic pinned haphazardly onto the waitresses grubby white outfit.

We ordered from the polite and attentive young waitress, two salads and one burger.

Gordon must agree that the Devil/God is in the detail.  So, whenever I am in any of his restaurants my expectations are high.   Surely his personal standards should be greater than those he insists of his hapless TV show victims.

Am I being unreasonable?

Like going to the theatre or a movie, when I sit down in any restaurant I don’t go looking for trouble.  I want to be delighted.  Especially when my lunch is being paid for.

Unlike a movie or the theatre, however, when I sit down to eat it doesn’t take much to please me.  I have never walked out of a restaurant half way through a meal whereas I often leave the theatre/cinema huffing and puffing with disgust.

Authenticity delights me.  Generosity too.  Appropriateness thrills.  Detail is everything.

It was an uncomfortable experience.

The table and chairs were crammed behind an immovable planter.  Three big men at a very small table.  We were all a little surprised that the condiments were served in ugly plastic sachet.

We ordered drinks.

My Arnold Palmer was far too tart.   Too much lemon and not enough iced tea.

We had loads to talk about so waiting a little bit longer for our lunch didn’t seem to matter.

When Yaniv’s burger finally arrived the bun was crushed.  It looked cheap.  It looked unloved.  The miserable burger sat forlornly on the plate.  Instead of fries it was served with a tiny cup of chips (crisps).

My skirt steak salad was pathetic.  The undressed salad of various leaves including raddiccio dwarfing the tiny amount of steak.  No ‘abundance of Californian product‘ here.

We thought better of desert.

We ordered coffee.  Yaniv was amused to note that every sugar sachet bar one was empty.

It served as a fitting metaphor.

The experience of being at The London West Hollywood looks like it might be full of surprises but ends up an empty promise.

BTW the London Hotel website ‘poolside lunch’ menu is inaccurate as of 21st July 2011.

We drove to Santa Monica where we met the gorgeous Jeff.  Ate a late dessert on Third Street.  Wandered around the new Santa Monica Place.  Walked to the beach where we watched my friend Armand, as nimble as a monkey, work the rings.

Went home to dogs who were delighted to see me and bounced around crying with pleasure.

Must make coffee.  I have desk work to do today.  Need to write to Jake’s lawyer re iPod incident.

Categories
Christmas

Snowed In


Totally trapped in Whitstable!  So many old friends to be trapped in the town with.  Lovely seeing everyone.  Had tea in Wheelers with Anita and Michael.  Adam and I drank more tea and ate mince pies by the fire at Carol’s house.  Saw Tim at Tea and Times where Ronnie came a’visiting and I caught up on all the local gossip.

Ronnie showed us pictures on his phone of a dead polar bear.

Meant to be in London today dealing with Jake’s iPod fiasco but God dumped a trillion tons of snow on Kent so we are all stranded.  Hurrah!

The Little Dog just LOVES the snow as you can see from these pictures.

[wpvideo 1ChbTjQG]

I am rather hoping that I get stranded here for Christmas!

By the way, did I ever mention to you that whilst I was in the police cell that miserable day in July Jake met a man from Manhunt and sex with him.    That was supportive wasn’t it?

Categories
Money Rant

Just Not Into It

CNN wasn’t much fun this evening.  I just wasn’t into it.  I was on for the entire programme.   I prefer to spar a little and no amount of coffee was going to lift me out of my sowhatness.

What the hell am I doing here having opinions about Tiger Woods?

Therapy this morning.  Huge English Breakfast.  Chatted with my Mother.  Lunch with a friend.

I forgot to mention that yesterday on the way back from letting in the new and adorable renters I chatted with Nicola H all the way from the PCH to Robertson.  We hadn’t spoken for years.  Lost each other.  She lives in France.  Dione’s daughter.  Trying to have a baby.

She found me via reading my blog.  It was a perfect example of just how this blog works for me rather than against me.   Occasionally full disclosure has its benefits.

Back to the renters..the ones that left Sunday morning at 10 had broken every single rule but I handed back their deposit.  I could have so easily kept it.  Smoking, under age, party..etc.  I just smiled as they tried concealing their tracks.  Nothing broken, no stains.  Used their own sheets.

The new renters were charming.  A middle-aged man and his wife and small dog.  Very sweet.  They leave on Thursday.  I am going to fill the truck with stuff and take it over there.

Facebook etiquette.   Jake’s great hobby (other hobby given his obsession with online hook ups) is Facebook where he regularly trawls through the lives of others, mocking his old school friends and their marriages and babies.

As if to prove my famewhore monika I now discover that pearshaped Jake made the right move by Facebook defriending people he met through me yet, I notice, not everyone..he kept hold of friends of mine on Facebook who he considered useful..including my talented chanteuse friend who, upon meeting him, wondered why I had chosen such a ‘dull man’ to make my lover.  Mind you, it was one of those scintillating evenings when he just could not get off his iPod or texting on his phone.

I realize now that when he is so intensely involved with his phone/iPod/laptop he is busy with other fuckbuddies.

I begin my small claims action against him today.

Categories
Gay Health Hollywood Love

You Don’t Know What I Fear

You know what I’m doing?  I’m going out!  Started the evening feeling sorry myself.  Fuck that.

I sent an SOS to Amanda that I may or may not need.  But most of all, I am not going to be beaten by 5mm of something black on my balls.  It’s not a death sentence.  It’s black on the scan.  I wonder what color it is in real life?

I’m listening to very loud music.

Old fashioned shit.  I know.  But I’m allowed to.  I don’t have to answer to anybody.

I bought Jasper Conran‘s beautiful book Country.   Packed with so many beautiful images.  Try looking at THAT on a fucking kindle.

I cleaned the apartment.  I sorted my papers.  I totally forgot that I had to call the police station in London to deal with the iPod incident.  Never mind.  I would rather be in a cell than have this maggot growing inside me.  It’s all relative.  I read Michael’s brilliant script.  After I finish writing this I will take the little dog to see the cats on Cherokee so he can squeal like a pig with excitement.   Cat!  Cat!

I have to submit my HLN idea.  I received a lovely text message from an old lover in NYC who is eager to get together..balls or no balls.

Meeting Seb at SHLA at 11pm.  Fuck this sitting around shit.  I need solution!  have I LEARNED nothing from all those years sitting in church halls and masonic lodges reading the recipe of the 12 steps?

Take action my friends!  Get out of that shit relationship.  Don’t be bowed by illness!  Eat!  If you feel lonely get out onto the streets!   Don’t give in to the furies.  TAKE ACTION.

December 21st, 2009-August 12th, 2010

Jake has been in my life..for months…for most of it was an acting out dream come true.

Oh I WILLINGLY gave up my sexual sober time.

We talked almost every day.  Why trash those precious few months?  For the time being I will celebrate the time we spent together.  Although, sooner or later it will just feel…embarrassing.

In the long run it will mean far more to him than it will to me,  Try as he might he will never be able to unstitch me from his story.  I am, after all, the one who tore him out of the closet and in so doing rescued that poor girl from just one more day of deceit and lies.

I said to him on February 9th:

All I know is as the years pass this will weigh heavier on your mind and every time you look at J your girlfriend/wife/mother of your child you will know that there is a fundamental deceit.

If it is not me or the Hungarian it will be another man..and another and the outcome will always be the same.

One day you will meet a perfect man and then you will resent her, begin to hate her because it is not him…

I am the FUCKING HERO.  Beautifully written…don’t you think?

And for all you guys and gals who have been shat on..here is a shitty, campy song for you to remind yourself that we can all laugh at how stupid we have been:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxxwNuTpdd8]

Categories
Rant

Forgiveness and Acceptance

Anger disguises sadness. My anger disguises my sadness.

I am trying to forgive him. I know that my anger toward him merely disguises just how rotten this breakup feels. Whilst it is easy to blame him for his insensitivity I will sooner or later have to totally accept my part in this drama. Accept that I wanted him to be something he could never be.

Accept that I chose to overlook his drinking and drugging and manhunting because I wanted him more than I was prepared to know what was good for me.

Forgiveness comes in waves. Acceptance too. I must forgive him and accept that things are exactly how they are meant to be.

The truth is (as per the tenets of AA) sooner or later I will have to totally forgive him and make my amends..a living amends in this case.

I was so happy when I came back from Europe! I felt and looked like a different person. Everybody noticed it and commented. Now look.

I just want to sleep. Get back into my bed and stay there all day long. I have another article to write and a proposal to submit. I have to wrap the art in bubble wrap to take to NYC. I must do these things or he steals even more than he has already stolen.

When we got home all I wanted was an open and honest relationship.

I woke early this morning and drove to the beach where I walked the lil dog for an hour. On the way there I passed a cute man in a sleek convertible and chatted with him briefly at the intersection of Fountain and Labrea. He looked lovely. We continued our chat at red lights on and off until I turned onto the 10.

What must he have thought of my battered truck?

The promenade in Venice early morning is a cess pit of vagrants and drug dealers. Rich folk unlock their homes overlooking the ocean and tip huge dogs into the melee.

Here it comes again: I am so angry with him. Yet, just like I was broken when the big dog was killed and every death and loss and separation came to be healed as I sobbed for her poor broken body so now when the tears come it is for every man I have ever left behind.

No tears yet.

I wish the tears would come. I am dry-eyed, emotionally arid.

When I am not feeling angry, I feel like a fool. It was such a waste taking him home to Whitstable. I thought I was taking someone who would appreciate what he was being given but all he did was lose his iPod and cause trouble and make a fool of me.

He took a huge shit at the very heart of my life. Did you notice that he was always on his lap top when we were in Europe? Couldn’t keep him away from it. He’s addicted to intensity, to fantasy.

Everyone else could see that he was just a using fame whore. I hadn’t had anyone want me just because I had been on TV. I genuinely thought he wanted me.

8 months of Jake.

Last night Michael and I watched Goddess with Kim Stanley. Written by Paddy Chayefsky. It’s a really camp half-telling of the Marilyn Monroe story. One huge, cumbersome monologue after another. There couldn’t have been a single conversation during the entire movie.

The film eerily anticipates Monroe’s demise.

As we lay on his bed watching the film the Lil Dog kept an eye on Michael’s cat who hissed and spat until we left for SHLA stopping briefly at Boa where we met Bryan Singer and Toby. Up in the house we were assaulted by three very drunk people who wanted to be our friends who, in fact, totally ruined our evening so we scarpered.

I had a massage at my house at 11pm..no not one of those…and fell asleep.

I wrote to Jake today telling him to cough up what he owes me. I suppose he will force me to do what I am telling Irene to do. Go to small claims. It’s a fucking bore but I’ll do it.

I want to drop an atom bomb on him for hurting me. I want everyone to appreciate the injustice. That I did nothing to chase him, lost my sexual sober time.. As I look back over the months we spent together every beautiful moment is lost in the dark cloud of resentment that blocks the sun out of my life.

I must pray for acceptance. It’s the only way.

Categories
prison Rant Travel

Stealing Virginity

We are in Marseilles.   Bad hotel in the port but very welcome after our long journey from Calais.

Our trip?  A spontaneous event.  Bought a ticket and jumped on a train.  The train was packed and we were moved around a lot.  The dog was in good spirits. The coffee was delicious.  In Lille I ran to Monoprix and bought ham and cheese forgetting that Jake doesn’t eat cheese.

We sat next to very good looking man and his gf who I befriended.

The last part of my stay in London was irritatingly dramatic.  A largely drama free vacation morphed into the worst kind of melodrama.

Firstly, the iPod turned up.   Whether it was in fact stolen or not is another matter.  It was not my iPod.    Yes, you heard me.  It wasn’t even my iPod.  Yet, I felt incredibly responsible.  It was Jake’s iPod – and critically, if not found, would jeopardize my relationship with whomever the fucking iPod belonged to…Jake.   Pride before a fall.   My pride before my fall.

I have only myself to blame.

A little more information about the incident:

The cast of characters I mentioned yesterday included a tall spotty boy who was recently expelled from school for stealing a girl’s virginity in the school toilets.  Ruby, a small, fat girl with bright red hair with a nasty mouth and attitude – until she wants something of course, like a fag then she sweetens up pretty damned fast.  The ugly gay friend and his pretty Greek ‘best friend’ were perhaps the worst of the lot.

Paul, Phil’s long-term man friend explained to us how rude and impossible he found them all.   He told me that Ruby was a thief.  Actually he really fanned the flames once the iPod went missing.   It seemed like there was no other reasonable explanation.

Sure I over reacted but nobody tried to help.   Yet, it was none of my damned business.  The moment it went missing I offered to pay for it as if I were somehow responsible.  Why?

I had no reason to feel responsible for somebody else’s stuff.  Especially as they were drunk and had lost the damned thing.  I was sober and didn’t lose anything.    When I left my sunglasses in Whitstable I didn’t expect anyone to pay for them yet for some extraordinary reason the moment someone else loses something I feel as if it were my fault.

As I was sitting in the cell I had a series of catastrophic thoughts.  The dog was dead, my friend was dead, my stuff had been ransacked.  I sat on the edge of the bed blaming myself for introducing someone essentially blameless into a den of thieves.

As it turned out the kids had not stolen the fucking iPod and it was LOST.   I was angry with myself that I had brought a sweet, kind, good person into a den of thieves but as it turned out I brought a forgetful person and my temper into a largely innocent adolescent smoking den.

As much as I loathed them for their promiscuity, their smoking and rudeness I had no reason to jump to conclusions.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

There is an Indian woman taking very loud telephone calls on her very large phone with a very loud alarm that goes off with appalling regularity.   I think every train should have a mobile/cell free zone where other travelers can escape.

Delightful dinner with Charlie Parsons at Dean Street Town House.  Just me Jake, Charlie and delicious food.  Calves liver.  Bumped into at least twenty old friends on the streets of Soho including Tania who was in Clancy’s Kitchen.  Ended up at Soho House with Richard and his friend.

Today we are going to rent a car and aim toward Monte Carlo.  The streets at night around the port are transformed this morning.  I am wearing a brightly patterned Etro shirt and my black sandals.   I am tired but eager to get on the road.