Category: Love

Categories
art Gay Love

Stephen Fry: National Treasure

Gore Vidal with Dennis and Elizabeth Kucinich

The past few days have been lovely.

Breakups are never usually times to relish but this breakup has been very good to me.

This is exactly the time in my life to take action and find a new perspective.

I took action by finding my peers in gay AA who might, in turn, shed some light on my relationship with the other.

In the scheme of things I was just an inconsequential blip in his life and I would be kidding myself if I thought differently.

I certainly could not compare with his other enduring relationships.    Anyhow, we seem to be communicating like friends and I am largely over what he may or may not be doing-though sitting here alone writing causes me a certain doleful curiosity.

Let me tell you about the past few days.

On Saturday I went to the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills to see the Andreas Gursky show with my friend Dom.  We ate lunch at the Montage-he had the steak tartar and I, the charcouterie.

The Gursky show was good but uninspiring.  Huge photographs framed in monstrous oak frames.    Big forgettable pictures…that’s all.

Huge photographs of the insides of neutrino splitting machines buried miles under Japan and filled with super purified water.  Satellite images of the great oceans.  It was all spectacle and no substance.

After our gallery visit I bought a pair of very baggy white trousers in some outlet store.  Gucci $48.

We popped into the new Missoni on Rodeo designed by my once boyfriend Patrick Kinmonth.  The outside is PERFECT, like a huge basket, woven metal softening the corner of Rodeo and Little Santa Monica.

The inside, however, is a bit of a mess.

I suppose the concept is the shopper wanders down a grand boulevard with variously sized vitrine to grab ones attention.   It was too theatrical.

The men’s area, the woman’s area, the home store etc.  It doesn’t work, it’s a mess. The interior finishes are very beautiful but the layout left too much to be desired.

Again, the outside is exquisite.

I could tell you very wonderful stories about Patrick but I will save them for another day.

The last time I saw Patrick Kinmonth he was reclining on a velvet sofa at the Chateau Marmont with Mario Testino.

He drawled that I could have been so much more than I was.  He is, after all,  a very grand queen; something I long abandoned aspiring to be but glad that I had the chance to meet.

For a few glorious months at the age of 21 he totally indulged me.

Sadly, I didn’t really fall for him.  I fell in love with his impeccable style.

Actually, he may very well be the Diana Vreeland of our age.  That plaudit might have been reserved for Hamish Bowles but Hamish doesn’t dress well enough or take enough care with his appearance.

Saturday night we celebrated Josh’s continuing testicular cancer treatment.  Every one of his friend brought ball-shaped hors d’œuvre to commiserate his recent loss and the chemo that began today.

He is an incredibly brave 29-year-old and described his cancer as an ‘inconvenience’.   I have huge respect for that young man.

GLADD awards and party on Saturday night that I was not invited to.  Odd really as I was the only out gay man in recovery ever on a Dr Drew show.  I am definitely not pretty enough for GLADD.

I suppose that this was the Velvet Mafia’s way of expressing their disapproval.   The sex addict message is not one the gays are eager to hear.

Even though conversion parties, bug chasing and crystal meth are discussed at length amongst the young gay men I know.  Perhaps this is only a myth?  A meth myth?  It is much easier for the gay community to concentrate on attacks from the outside than focus on the damage we do to ourselves.

Dane

On Sunday I met Gore Vidal again (the last time was with Dennis and Elizabeth Kucinich during Dennis’s run for President) he described the sad state of the USA, describing it as rotten and then said (rather surprisingly) that he would like his bones buried in France and not, as he has always said, beside his lover in Washington.

I wonder if he was just being dramatic.  It was lovely to see him…  even though he is beyond frail.

Others at the party included the divine Ben Barns who played the other Dorian Gray, he told me how disappointed by the film he was.

Quite right!  Not nearly as interesting as our deeply flawed Dorian.    Eric Mc Cormack, Rufus Sewell and Michael Sheen all friends from different places and all at Stephen’s party.  I had a wonderful time.

So nice to be included by someone who the British might describe as a National Treasure.

Stephen is, of course, the most gracious of all hosts.  The food was excellent, the Pellegrino..well there’s not much more I can’t tell you about Pellegrino.

I took my friend Dane who looked a bit like Tarzan.  He was wearing a tiny black vest… nipples like peanuts.

Met a British director called Toby and after Stephen’s we decided to hit WeHo where I met a whole host of adoring sex rehab fans but regardless of their drunken attempts to get into my boxer briefs-I slept alone.

It is simply too soon to start meeting folk again-especially after the feast of affection, love and intimacy I have gorged myself on this past few months.

If I miss anything about dear old HIM I miss that I will never kiss him again, that he will never nestle in my arms and sleep as lovers do.  Hey ho, that’s going to be a hard one to replicate any time soon.

Categories
Dogs Fantasy Fashion Gay Love Rant

Parking

Whitstable Carnival 1967

So.  My main obsession as of the 15th April is not some stray boy but this: I now have an assigned parking place at my apartment building in Hollywood.

I am free to come and go without fear of having nowhere to park.

This may mean nothing to those of you who live in parking heaven-like Kensington London or Bourke Street Sydney but to me in Hollywood club land where every miserable Saturday night I spent HOURS looking for somewhere to park  it is like driving through the pearly gates.

Bloody Hell!

I can now glide effortlessly behind my mechanized gate and slip into a glove of a parking place. Bliss.

Implications:  less gas used in car, less walking to and from the house, less time squandered looking for parking, accurate departure and arrival schedule.  I no longer curtail my pleasure in fear of no parking.

Oh brother, that I conned myself into not paying for assigned parking because I would save money!  I ended up paying $700 in parking tickets last year.  Can you believe it?

The little dog and I have an exciting day ahead of us.   Very glamorous party in Beverly Hills.  Dinner with Dane.  My morning meeting in West Hollywood first though.  Let’s get reconnected with God and AA and start today as I mean to go on, getting stronger, refilling my poor depleted heart with the love of mankind and not one man but all of you-the great collective.

Why in hells name is love so fucking painful?  Why do I do this to myself?  Why?  What lesson do I refuse to learn?

I know things are bad when I start imagining that I am a great chanteuse wearing Chanel.  At least YOU got a laugh out of it dear readers.

The truth will set me free.  That is all we have.  At the end of the day, that is all we have.

P.S. And I promise this is not some morbid recall.  One of the best things you know who did for me when he was being eager-beaver-boy was to start editing my blog for publication.

I must admit that it was really rather good.  This makes me think that I should pull out those ancient diaries and start cobbling together some sort of autobiography.   It would be selfish not to really, wouldn’t it?

Categories
Death Gay Love

Moving On (back to god)

Hours of conversation with a friend this morning and later this afternoon.

Feel like the skin has been burned off of 90% of my body.  Vulnerable to the memory of the Big Dog.  Remembering her broken and bloody body.  She comes to me and reminds me of what I am capable of.

The conversation was at first a crude attempt at land grab in the emotional terrain we had been inhabiting these past few months  but after a while we settled into a healthy dialogue about much-needed closure.

The last vestiges of what was are now stowed away.  The resentments are dealt with, every fact revealed, keeping my side of the street totally clean.  For that I am proud. In the realm of full disclosure I am king.

I had to listen to truths I would rather not hear.  I am smarting from words like ‘damaged’ and ‘unhealthy’.   I just took them on the chin.  It would be easy for me to fight back, to make excuses, to tell the story of my life but really..I consider the source.  Everything I am left with is for me to deal with without recrimination or harmful actions to the other.

The little dog is restless tonight, unable to find a place to get comfortable.  He perfectly reflects the way I feel.  After Josh’s cancer party we walked the streets of Hollywood and I gazed at men longingly, as if strange flesh would make my head ache less.

I wish that I could drink, sit in some bar somewhere and get totally wasted.  I wish I could take drugs like vicodin or morphine.  I wish I could open my veins to let out theses screaming demons.    I have only one solution and that is to pray.  That is my weapon of last resort.  As the obsession shrinks, the man diminishes, the heart fills full of love once again rather than the desiccated scarcely beating leaden thing that fills the place where my heart should be.

If I pray to that God others have such a problem believing in then all will be well.  I have been embarrassed by my belief in God when that was all I really had, what I came to believe, that gave me succor and a will to live!  I am alive today.  I did not die when I wanted to.  I chose to live so now I must live the best life possible however ‘damaged’ I might be.

Oh damn you addiction.  Damn you for taking me once again to the brink of oblivion.  Damn you for blinding me to the consequences.  The unenlightened live in a world without consequences.

The greatest insults were not leveled at me today, the ones I truly deserved.  That I had been willful and disobedient before my creator.    God had shown me the path to happiness elsewhere and I ignored it.   How embarrassing!  How totally and utterly embarrassing that I should have got caught up in some suburban drama, a bit player in some bad soap opera.  Acquainting myself with those who do not have the willingness, honesty and open-mindedness required for living a serene existence before God.

I am crushed by own actions.  I have no one else to blame.  I now retreat into what has held me for 13 years, that has continued to show me forgiveness and opened its doors and arms to me.  It is my true love, it is the only path I know that will help me achieve my initial desire when I first got sober:  Peace of Mind.

Remember the relief you felt when you first saw the word God written in the 12 steps?   I offered myself to God because I had nowhere else to turn.  Tomorrow I will do the same thing, I will sit with men and women who came to believe, who daily turn over their extraordinariness to a God of their understanding so that they might live a humble life with Peace of Mind their goal.

I know that they will understand, that they will forgive me and help me to forgive myself.

Categories
Gay Love Rant

Closure

Some people don’t like being blogged.

I’ve pissed off many people writing this blog .  Joe, Clare and Xan are just a few I can remember being outraged by my representation.  Perhaps they’re right, perhaps I shouldn’t have written about them so publicly and kept a private journal instead.

Of course I’ve edited certain events so they do not include certain people, intimate encounters, lovers… like during my recent trip to NYC.

I’m probably a lesser man for doing this.

As time marches on and the drama of the present recedes into the past we are just left with the written word.  Those who were angry or felt betrayed in the moment for me having shared what I felt or experienced are no lesser friends now than they once were.

In time, when weapons have been laid to rest, or love affairs are truly over those of you who have been mentioned may look back at this blog and remind yourself of a different time, a different space and may think twice if it was indeed a bad idea to have a record of where we once were.

I have kept a journal since I was 19 years old.  There are many leather-bound diaries sitting in a box waiting for some imaginary biographer to decipher my illegible hand writing.   This is my journal now-for good or bad.   It’s no longer the validation I crave.  It is simply that I must.  Every day I write these words and I know that I am alive.  This blog keeps me alive. Sometimes it is all I feel I have.  The blog and the Little Dog.

As for closure, you know we are lucky when we get it.  Some, like Kristian’s friends are not so lucky.  I had a little much-needed relief today from the drama of the past few weeks.  I’m cramming the love genie back into the bottle and as the magic vanishes so I am left in my own skin.  Acknowledging the knowing looks from those who warned me to avoid him… but so glad I got to taste for just a few moments what I’d been craving for a decade.

Tonight I’m going to a party that has been thrown to celebrate the recently removed testes of a good friend.  Some people are having a very hard time right now.  It’s best that I think about them than my own miserable self obsession.

It’s sad when you can’t imagine kissing someone that you have kissed, that you can’t replay the words ‘I love you’ when that was all that ever needed to be said.

Categories
Gay Hollywood Love

Indelible/Irrevocable

Had a great night out with my friend Ryan.  We headed over to Tod’s shoe store on Rodeo in Beverly Hills for a party that a bunch of worthy LAers  were throwing to welcome Jeffrey Deitch the new MOCA director to a bunch of LA’s finest.  Jessica Alba, Kate Beckinsale, Angelica Huston etc etc.

Met up with Miggy and her girlfriend and their charming journalist friend from the Sunday Times who had seen the sex rehab show.  He seemed really impressed. It is so odd to have left something indelible in the life of another.    It is even odder to have people come up to you who are well known (famous even) telling you how much you have helped them.   Ended up chatting to Gavin Rossdale about our friend Sebastian Horsley who is best known for crucifying himself in the Philippines-with real nails in his palms.   He then fell off the cross.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0n_ys40CrM]

Leaving something indelible stayed with me throughout dinner at the 101-where we ate the Thursday Fried Chicken Special of course.

I was going onto another party but bailed after dinner,  I need to be on my own.  To get used to it once again.

Indelible, irrevocable-something irrevocable.  Changing somebody irrevocably.  I may have done that too often to count on the fingers of two hands.

This time I am changed irrevocably.   Something has shifted in me.   Most of the people I have gotten close to recently have in some way been associated with or saw the sex rehab show.  My generous NYC friend, my recently ended relationship and Jennie, let’s not forget Jennie.  I think it maybe time to reconnect to those I knew before.

I think that even though these new friends know my story they don’t really take how seriously I believe in the power of recovery.   I really do believe in the tenets of AA.  I really do.

I came so close during the past month  to using alcohol and drugs because I so desperately wanted to fit in with my new friend.  I told him that I would take drugs so our sex life would get better.  I thought about taking a drink.  I seriously considered it.  But if I had what would I have been left with now?  Nothing.  No relationship, no sobriety, absolutely nothing.  At the end of the day all I own is my sobriety and my name.

There are fire trucks outside the building.

So, I pass through to the other side.  Where I am on my own again.  With out recourse to long, late night conversations.  I am on my own and happy to be so.

The other burgeoning relationship in my life is with a young man who came to me for help with his sex addiction.  He came along at just the right moment.  To help him recover from a masturbation addiction.  He checks in every day and God, yet again, is doing for me what I refuse to do for myself.  Rather than drowning in self-pity I am helping a man less fortunate than myself and so, yet again, I am changed, refocused.

I had a short text exchange with the other this evening and rather than making me hanker for him it just made things easier to deal with.  My darling New York boy is on his true path and that, I suppose, is something to do with me.  A helping hand out of the darkness and into the light.  An irrevocable change.

How many people fall in love with the person who helps save their life?  Not many.  Who is falling in love with the firemen or the nurse or the doctor?

Very sleepy now.  I need to sink under the sheets and tomorrow-well perhaps I will be able to write the other stuff I write.   Maybe.

Categories
Love

Day 2 No BF

Day two of having no boy friend, even though he wasn’t actually a boy friend because he told me so.  Not feeling quite as good as I felt yesterday.  Wondering if I was just too eager to say goodbye.  I know, deep down, that it was the right decision but I just miss talking to him.  I see him out there in face book land and I want to say hi but daren’t.   I just don’t want to get sucked into our weird co-dependent, obsessive love affair that has no name.

I had dinner with a friend yesterday evening but I really could not summon the energy to engage.   Almost fell asleep at the table.  Everything he said irritated me.  That night I had more erotic dreams about you-know-who.  I can only imagine having sex with him.   The idea of just taking my clothes off in front of another man fills me with icy horror.

I know that he is probably having group sex with half of Vanity Fair by now.  Joke.    Even if he was I can’t care.  I can’t make it my business.  I am in Malibu so am prone to morbid thinking.

I wandered around Hollywood last night snapping the neon signs with my new iphone app, the project was extraordinarily successful.

Dane came by and massaged my back until I fell asleep.  I like that he blows out the candles, turns out the lights and locks the door when he leaves.

This morning went to Palisades’s men’s meeting-full of monstrous egos and bad hair plugs.  One particularly vile Hollywood agent sitting smugly on his fat ass.   He isn’t really fat; he’s just pudgy really, like a Rubens nude.  Solid fat, not the kind of fat that squidges.  Firm fat but FAT all the same.  Not ‘precious’ fat.  Not morbidly obese either.  Just enough fat, that one thinks ‘I might catch the fat’, like a disease.  Thankfully he kept his mouth shut.

I don’t know what I would do if he were brave enough to get onto an airplane and come to me.  I think I might just forgive him-which is stupid as he obviously has a drug and alcohol problem.   Oh FUCK!!  It’s so damned hard to fall out of love when you don’t have a big bottle of whiskey to wipe the slate clean.

Party tonight, parties all weekend.   Can I really be bothered?  I should be mourning the loss of my non existent boyfriend.

Categories
Love

Send Me Somebody Who is Strong and Somewhat Sincere

I am not going to write about the other any more but I am going to write about what it feels to not have that delicious daily contact with a man who wants to hear your voice or get your emails.

Even though it just ended I am unusually happy.  It takes a great deal of energy maintaining a long distance relationship.    A great deal of wasted time wondering and planning.   If I asked once I asked a million times when he was going to come visit me.  It was that sort of anxiety I am happy to jettison.

Alone does not mean lonely.  I am not just going to let anyone in simply because I can’t face the idea of being on my own.

I am not lonely, I have so many extraordinary people who catch me as I begin to fall. Everyone at breakfast told me how happy I looked.  I am happy.  I made the right decision.  I did it right.

Look, as time passes the prospect of meeting anyone appropriate diminishes. I knew what I was getting myself into when I met him.  The intrigue was a powerful part of the attraction-until it wasn’t.  The prospect of being a boyfriend was quickly replaced with the role I am often cast in, that of rescuer, therapist and problem solver.

I had a wonderful morning with Jennie and Guinevere who is as funny as all hell.   I can’t possibly tell you what we spent today giggling about. It wasn’t, shall we say, politically correct.  That’s what you get when you drive around LA with a scriptwriter, an ex-porn star and two dogs in a beaten up F150.

Who do I turn to when things get really sad?  Joni Mitchell of course!

But here I am jigglin’ like a cabbage patch doll at my desk-not in my bed desperate for answers.   How did that happen?  Why am I not sad?  Is it because the sun is shining or because I am relived to be away from the emotional catastrophe?

Of course I miss him but when things end they end.  It’s not like we can’t see each other as friends.   In some future place when time has passed.    I wonder if that is possible?  If you compare him to my other friends is he up to par?  I hope so but I don’t know yet.  Love blinds one to the hard facts.    I remember when I used to stay with Celia in Yorkshire with some admirer and she would scowl at me because what I saw in my beau my more critical friends, like Celia, failed to see.

At the end of the day I don’t depend on another to make me happy, clinging to a man for validation.    When I sleep in an empty bed at night I sleep soundly, neither hankering for a man beside me or a warm body simply for the sake of it.

I spent the morning with my friends, firstly at breakfast then driving home.  Now I am sitting on my own, writing this and listening to Joni.  Jennie is coming by later to take me up Runyon. The little dog can’t wait!

What is the cure?  No, not love.  I loved him.  I loved them all.  The death of love has taught me that I am very dangerous.  But that is why I wake up every morning like a boy!  Even now.  Let me tell you once again, let me take to the roof of my apartment building in Hollywood California and shout out loud that I am not afraid.

Categories
Gay Love

It’s Over..

I had a great day today.  Started writing my script, the one that I intend to shoot this winter.  I am working with my deliciously talented co-writer GT.  This afternoon we sat for four hours  hammering out the big idea.  She is  wonderful, inspired and inspiring who generously and perfectly compliments the way I work.

It’s odd to be feeling so upbeat because this afternoon whilst I was out shopping with Jennie I ended my relationship with my NYC boy.

My relationship is over.   The past four months have been very emotional but actually so well worth the risk.  To fall in love and be loved.   To make love.  To risk saying I love you to another man..these are the gifts of sobriety.  We had, against the odds, a great deal of fun.  Not enough really but fun wasn’t the point.

He was so fragile and distraught when I met him.  In the short time I knew him he experienced momentous changes.  I was so blessed to have been given the time we spent together, to witness his bravery.   To see him tear down his old life and build another in the ruins.

It was wonderful, when we had the few chances we had, to lay in each other’s arms.  I loved every inch of his perfect body.  Even as he wept-and we did a great deal of crying-he was beautiful.  It was a beautiful and tender time.

I can tell you with my usual disarming candor-the best sex I ever had.

What, you may be asking did you end it for?  If I didn’t let him go I would have stolen something that he needed more than me-the chance to form a relationship with a man more his own age, a man who could fully give him what he needed and that man wasn’t going to be me.

To exit a relationship with grace and dignity is perhaps the hardest thing of all.  I needed with love to let this man go on his way.  Everything I ever let go of had cl;aw marks all over it..

In spite of the external problems we had a perfect chemistry.   Intellectually we were perfectly well matched, when we weren’t crying we laughed a great deal.  So, why the hell end this?  Why?  Couldn’t I have moved to NYC?  Couldn’t he have moved to LA?

I’m afraid that it all boiled down to one thing, and one thing only: my being sober.

When I met him I set aside my doubts.  I may not have trusted him to stay monogamous, something I’m afraid that the gays don’t do very well (please, dear readers, don’t give me a hard time for this accurate generalization) I forgave his constant references to his past relationship, his crippling guilt, his disapproving mother.  I chose to rationalize that I was in a relationship with a man who insisted that I was not allowed to call our relationship a RELATIONSHIP.   I loved a man who loved me but we were not allowed to call each other lovers.  We lived in the shadow of the wreckage of his past and it was slowly suffocating me.

I feel as if I have been living in somebody else’s closet.

To keep him I needed to change.  I became genius at having no expectations.  I was not genius at being patient so my patience very quickly ran out.  I overlooked the drinking and the pornography, the flirtations and half stories undermining my confidence in him.  I ignored that he kept me secret.  I could even overlook his occasional weed smoking. But late last night, after a hard time in the city. He drove home drunk.

He drove for one hour out of NYC DRUNK.

I was forced to admit the most profound difference between us: he continues to pickle his feelings with alcohol, drugs and sex.

When he drinks his personality changes and he makes appalling choices.

That, my friends, is the curse of every addict.

Driving home drunk is simply unforgivable to me, a recovering alcoholic.  Even if it were ‘just once’ it was once too often and by doing so he recklessly risked his own life and the lives of others. Within a matter of moments my desire for him crumbled.  Let’s face it, for the past few nights when we chatted on Skype he had been drunk, drunk or high or both.   It just made me feel very uncomfortable.

I really  loved my beautiful boy but I didn’t love his drinking.  I let this man into my life and by so doing put myself at risk of relapse.

Dinner with a stranger then driving home drunk.

Does this sound like a man who has any respect for himself?  How am I expected to respect a man who risks his own life by drinking and driving?   I can’t do this.  I didn’t get sober for this.

The neighbors are fighting again.  They may fight but they are in the same room.  They have a chance of making it work.  The cowardly end to this was to wait for time to pass, wait for our relationship to die of natural causes.

Tonight I am free to write my blog without censorship-without having to be obtuse.  I know that he is relieved, that tonight he will sleep better in his own skin.   I fear for him, I really do.  That he will sink into a world of gym hook ups, drinking and drugs and by doing so he will become just like every despicable gay we used to laugh about.

We are no longer lovers but we remain friends and I will help him as much as I can.

I even secretly entertain the idea of going to Europe with him one day.  If he pays for his own ticket.

Categories
Love

The Lies We Tell Ourselves

After dinner a few nights ago I had a moment of crippling paranoia.

Perhaps I should not have eaten so much cheese at the Mercantile?   My grandmother Margie who died last year often warned me that too much cheese before bedtime causes nightmares.

My chest tightened.  My heart beat faster.  My mouth dried.  I tried to sleep.  I could not sleep.  I could no longer employ any one of the very many coping skills I had learned during the past 13 years when the panic comes.  I lay down in fear.  I woke at dawn with the dawn chorus.  Not birds in the palm trees outside my window but to a miserable conference of those self hating voices that used to wake me every day of my life.  These episodes are so rare nowadays that when they come upon me I get very scared..terrified.

These are the lies I tell myself:

“Being in love tends to make one feel vulnerable and foolish…and, as we all know, there’s no fool like an old fool.”

“I know that I am loved.  I believe it.  I know that I can love.  But, when more is required-what then?   You got to give the man hope.”

I suddenly felt, I suddenly knew, I was being lied to.   I was convinced.

I said, “I became aware.  More was revealed.  You can’t con a conman.”

I felt violently sick, I began to dry heave: I said out loud, “My desire for authenticity isn’t being honored.”

The voice I heard was a child’s voice.  He said,

“I understand that it takes a very long time to acquaint yourself with the truth; when a lie comes so easily to your lips.  When a lie is easier than the truth, when deception is in your nature then rigorous honesty is something to be feared.”

I said, “But I had had to train myself to be honest.”

When I tried to defend myself the child impersonated my very own voice.

“I am sick of making excuses.  I am sick of trying to see it from the other side when my side of things is simply ignored.  I am tired of supporting and encouraging and making excuses when it turns out-I am the object of deception and not affection.”

I said, “When the other changes before your very eyes?”

The child laughed out loud and wanted to know who exactly I was kidding.

“I don’t take drugs, I don’t drink, I try and tell the truth, I don’t act out sexually…therefore I never have a day off from myself.    I am always here, present, in my own body.  I never have an excuse for bad behavior.   Ever.”

I could hear other children, laughing..at me.

“When you drink and you take drugs and you look at pornography you are taking time off from yourself.  I would love to do that-take time off from myself.”

By being present 24 hours of every day for nearly 13 years I thought that I had evolved.

Remember that stuff I wrote about self-love?   That the choices I made had to reflect the respect I had for myself?

The first gay men I ever saw in film were Farnsworth and his boy friend being thrown out of their high rise apartment windows, begging for their lives, by the FBI in The Man who Fell to earth.  I must have been 13 years old.  I watched it with Linda my house mother from school,  Canterbury.  She vomited on me after seeing the film.

That’s what’s going on.

So, what’s it all about?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3_2bDqf32I&feature=related]

Categories
Love

Happy Today

I am happy today.  You know there are so many good things happening to me and more importantly to those around me.

It’s so easy to write about being miserable.  It’s easy to indulge our fears.  It’s easy to blame the world for all of the bad things but I ALWAYS forget to tell you when I am happy.  Perhaps I am not sitting at my desk when the happiness comes?  I think that may be the truth because I am out in the world experiencing my joy.

I am with friends, climbing the canyon, writing and reading.

My joy is NOT dependant on any one person.  My joy comes from listening to Joni Mitchell, sitting in the sunlight of the spirit and reveling in the triumph of watching my friend Jennie celebrate her one year of continuous sobriety.  Oh, and before you say it, I am sure I am not meant to be discussing her ONE-YEAR publicly but I am.  After all she has worked so hard to get to this place of authenticity.

Most of you witnessed how she changed on TV.  How we all began this remarkable rescue mission-rescuing ourselves from oblivion, self-hatred and isolation.

Change comes in great gobs never in dribs and drabs.    So this change is all about not wanting to be at the mercy of others, understanding that I can never trust my perception.  It is always wrong.   This change comes from giving into not wanting to change the way I feel.   I have put a lifetimes of effort into separating myself from everyone.  Emotional Boom and Bust.

By watching Jennie flourish I can hitch my wagon to her well planned recovery.  I learn from everyone who comes into my life.  Everyone.

If I have to be on my own then so be it.  But I needn’t punish the world by keeping those around me at arms length.  It’s time to let you in.  Let you be my friend, my colleague, my lover, my mother and my brother.

Being happy does not mean that I ignore suffering, ignore inequity, ignore insensitivity but I don’t have to make it mine.  I needn’t own the suffering of the world and use that as a reason to ruin my own chances.

There are hurdles, great ravines and deep chasms that hinder the direct path that any man needs to take in the great journey of life.    But rather than dwell on what may or may not get in my way I can enjoy the wind in my hair and the sun on my face as I get to where I am going.

I would rather wear a compass than a watch-after all it is best to know where I am going than what time I get there.

When I am scary I am most probably scared.

I don’t want to be that scary man I can be.  I want to be free and if I only get a glimpse of freedom today and just for a few hours then as least I have experienced the feeling and have something to work toward, something I am capable of.

Have a great day everyone.  Remember that there is a solution-so start living in it.