Month: May 2010

Categories
Gay Love

White Chocolate

The 18th Century Man has just peeled beets and the little dog is sleeping on the sofa.

This evening he very kindly bought a huge chunk of white chocolate for me at Wholefoods.  In no time at all we seem to have settled into a harmonious domestic routine.  We do not challenge each other unnecessarily nor do we expect anything more from each other than this moment where we exist right now.

He is cooking gnocchi.  His accent is becoming apparently British and he is threatening to shave his beard revealing just how young he looks without it.

It was a beautiful early morning yesterday above the marine layer when I drove to my meeting in Hollywood, saw my breakfast boys then drove back to Malibu so I could take him to work.  Carless because his spunky roommate had borrowed his baby blue Mustang-yes, he has a baby blue Mustang.

I have been on the West Side all week.  Seriously thinking about getting a studio in Venice rather than keeping a place in Hollywood.  I will have ‘community’ and be able to get to Malibu and my meetings and go to the gym without travelling 60 miles.

The 18th Century Man and me seem to cause some of you consternation.  What do you expect?  That I settle down into some miserable, suburban co-existence with a man more my own age because it suits your idea of what is ‘best’ for me?  The reality is-I have no expectation, we have no expectations.  We are having fun.  The sex that I should have had for three months with the other I am still not having in abundance because I am not breaking my vow!  We are getting to know each other! Getting to know what it feels like so if and when the moment comes-and it seems to be coming..imminently then it will be the right moment with the right man.

He is not a boy.  He is a grown up man packaged in a boyish body.  Men just like him are presently going down mines, being blown up in wars or designing bridges like the wunderkind Thomas Telford.

I don’t care if you approve of my choices or me.  I am obviously not the kind of man the average mother is going to approve of or the best-girl-friend.  Women get it so wrong when they imagine what is best for men together.  They really have no clue.   I am never going to get the best-girl-friend to love me as often the best-girl-friend has carved out a place in her heart for him that is never going to include anyone-ever.

So, for my many detractors:

I think that a lot of you forget that whilst you were out there having sex with multiple partners, or even one partner I was not.  I was at home on my own cosseted away from the world of sex looking at the Internet or simply too scared to have sexual relations.  Don’t give me a hard time now I have learned how to do it.

You can be a very punitive bunch. Wouldn’t you wish a condemned man a few days of happiness?

You know what I adore about him?  He gets it.  Night Jasmin, white chocolate, black glazed cotton.  But the best thing about this friendship is that we both understand that any narrative will have a beginning, middle and an end.  Remember, he isn’t on the rebound, he isn’t new from some sweaty closet, and he hasn’t come to me riddled with self-doubt or jaded by relations with many, many men.

I have looked into the eyes of too many men who were simply not there.

Categories
Gay Malibu

Happy Go Lucky

One has a moment in life when the horizon comes into view.  Unable to hold onto old ideas we strive to recreate ourselves as perfectly as we can.  I am in Malibu looking over the sea and I am not driven to look at porn nor throw a warm wank blanket over the day.   My American spell check doesn’t recognize the word wank-but you all know what that means don’t you?

I am listening to Joni, her words either fill me full of hope or throw me into a terrible funk-thankfully I am happy today.  There is a cool sea breeze to remind me that the ocean is just there, at the bottom of the hill.  Sadly in the Gulf of Mexico avarice is ruining the water.  More oil, more goddamned oil from which we refuse to wean ourselves.  Sarah Palin has kept remarkably quiet about this environmental disaster that she said could never happen.

I have spent the past few nights with my 18th Century Man and it has been such a delight.  Of course it’s hard not to compare what one had with what one has.  The most significant difference is the proximity.   I will never have a long distance love affair ever again.  I am simply too fragile.

I will never again make the mistake of falling in love with a man who is not available.  I am not the sort of person who can keep a secret, especially when it is steeped in shame.  I have, in the words of my deceased Grandmother, lived a shameless life.  She used the word pejoratively but actually she was right, I have been shameless and I am proud to be so.  My proximity to the toxic shame of others is just as bad as experiencing ones own.

Even though I was born into shame I was a shameless boy.  When I was a shameless boy they tried to tell me that I should be ashamed of who I was, the colour of my skin, my flamboyance, my birth, my teeth, my love, my understandable mistakes.

I hoped that I might meet a beautiful man and I have.  It is wonderful to just experience the spontaneity, to drive to a coffee chop in Venice, to reach out and run your fingers through flaxen hair.

Last night we cooked dinner at his house in Venice with his super cool room-mate who incidentally knows Anna and Gwen and my lesbian art contingent.   The night before we ate dinner at Axe.   Roasted beats, huge chunks of halibut.

Of course I miss talking to that boy in NYC (of course I do) but I am enjoying the simplicity of what I have found here-the eagerness, the delicacy of his touch.  The difference between men.   I have no idea what I miss about what was.  I think it was the rabid intensity that kept me diving into those choppy waters expecting not to be battered by the huge waves.

The moment I have any sort of expectation I am doomed.  I feel battered from the last few months.  Battered by doomed love.  Battered by not knowing.  Battered by resentment.

So, here I am-just as I have always been-on my own but with my eyes wide open.  I have to read the treatment Ms Turner has sent me.  I have to make my peace with writing once again.  Writing and reading.  I have to make peace with myself.

I am fast approaching a huge birthday and don’t really know how to celebrate it.  I dare not ask fifty people for dinner but that’s what I think I would like to do.

On another note I have two sponsees in the 12-step programme I belong to and they give me such joy.  Joy.  Spent Sunday with one of them trying on hats and celebrating his birthday.  The other keeps in touch daily reminding me why I am sober.    It is time to keep the door open on recovery and all that means.

Categories
Gay Hollywood

Date Night

My date last night was perhaps the first proper date that I had ever had.  We were meeting to see if we could sustain more than a moment of initial attraction.  Isn’t that what a date is all about?  I had been looking forward to it all week not least because I am so eager to get over the hesitant, unwilling Mr. NYC…should I start using his name rather than some acronym?

Whenever one is transitioning from one relationship to another it is almost impossible not to compare what was with what is on offer.  So, in order to beat that particular demon we talked about last loves and expectations.  Frankly it was wonderful to just be in the same room as a man who one found attractive rather than the constant yearning of the past 6 months.   The more I sat with this strange new boy the more at ease I became and the more attractive he seemed to me.  But unlike the last I would have to work a great deal harder to capture this butterfly.

For a start-I am not and will never be his physical type.   If we have types…I suppose I may surpass types.   I am the charismatic, art collecting, goat rearing, F150 driving, Vivienne Westwood wearing anomaly so getting to have dinner with me is just about me and who I am.

Of course he knew more about me than I him as my life is flayed all over the Internet.   He looked at me with curious blue eyes.  At times he was deliciously coy. This man/boy is incredibly well-educated with a compelling story and good connections.   A bit deaf-or maybe I was mumbling.  Our recent experiences with men have confused us.  I urged him not to let these last encounters destroy what we love most about men…anyhow it is the very essence of jade that is peculiar to gay men and is as attractive to me as rat poison.   It is true to say however that we are both a little bruised by recent loves, a little reticent.   I want to meet men unfettered and with abandon.  It is my aim.

He is a recent émigré to LA so enjoying all that the city has to offer.  Irritatingly, unable to stop myself, I began a tirade against my adopted home and found myself saying things to him that I didn’t even believe anymore-it’s just easier to gripe about Los Angeles rather than take ownership of it.

Of course he is strikingly good looking…a willowy boy, tall, and slim like an 18th century romantic hero.   An extraordinary gait.   Floppy blond hair and the most beautiful nose.  He drank one glass of white wine, which scarcely seemed to affect him at all.   We ordered three courses because I knew that today I was going to go on a diet and start my gym training with David at Gold’s in Venice.

Rabbit good.  Bratwurst bad.  Cakes divine.

I have no idea if I will kiss his neck or sweep the blond hair out of his eyes.  I have no idea if we will meet in Paris or drive to San Francisco on a whim but there’s a chance that we may and if we don’t, well…I know I made good choices tonight.  Good for my brimming heart.

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