Oh dear. (Paragraph 6)

But there again... (Paragraph 2)

Although I did once say... (Paragraph 4)

The truth, I suspect, lies somewhere in between.

(No, not between the left one and the right one. Are you fixated or something?)

---

Update: I've left some extended spin-off thoughts in the comments. In many ways, they merit re-working into a proper post - but in other ways, I'm actually happier to leave them slightly buried. Yup, it's a return to "confessional" blogging...

Labels: confessional, genderpolitics, linkage, onetrack

1. Once again, K and I have become Big Brother's bitches. Once again, Grace Dent provides the sharpest commentary. Also on the telly tip, I was able to identify the precise moment when the hitherto flawless Shameless jumped the shark: namely, when an unconscious Frank Gallagher was dragged from his burning kitchen by his pet dog. I mean, really.

2. As the Hellen Affair rumbles on, Zinnia Cyclamen provides a neat rebuttal of his rebuttal.

3. Much to my surprise, since I'm not exactly Mister Gadget Man, I have been completely sucked into the Apple iPhone hype, and now find myself pining for ownership. Engadget has the most thorough explanation. Unfortunately, K's plans to surprise me with a Blackberry on my birthday now lie exposed and in tatters. If only he was going to Florida in June...

4. ...rather than today, six months short of the device hitting the shops. In preparation for this, my valeting services have been in great demand this week. We had a lovely time picking out fresh shirt-and-tie combinations for him a couple of evenings ago (does pink scream "Spring 2006", or can we get away with it for a while longer?), and I have never been far from an ironing board. Oh, I do have my practical uses.

5. Alarmingly, K will still be out of the country when the kitchen fitters arrive next week, thus leaving me as de facto Site Manager. But what if they ask me technical questions about, I don't know, angle brackets or something? I shall be all at sea. Thankfully, K's business partner's wife E - who is something of an expert in this field - has volunteered her services as Relief Manager. She knows her way round kitchens, does E. I don't usually stretch much further than the fridge, the kettle and the microwave.

6. Facing the prospect of being home alone with no working kitchen for a few nights, I intend to be Out and About as much as possible next week. Owt good at t'flicks?

7. My intensive pre-interview research into the Life and Times of Will Oldham/Bonnie 'Prince' Billy is yielding rich dividends. In particular, his most recent album The Letting Go is a quiet revelation. I don't have many alt-country moments these days, but this is one of them.

8. With the Amsterdam weekend imminent, blogging might be light, but Twittering will hopefully be moderate-to-heavy - so keep your eye on the newly expanded "we twitter" box on the sidebar. (I am SO PROUD at having hacked the code around for this, although it has rather buggered up my archived unordered lists.) In the meantime, why not refresh your memories with details of my previous visits in 1991 (in which I found myself the unwitting star of a Benny Hill sketch at a *cough* "men-only event") and 2002 (in which cracks appear in my carefully constructed professional facade)? Ah, for those heady devil-may-care early days, when Troubled Diva was still a byword for Too Much Information...

9. Preparations for Which Decade Is Tops For Pops and Post of the Week have taken up most of the rest of my spare time - and at the time of writing, there is still one more vacancy for another member of the Post of the Week editorial team. More details below.

10. If spin the list out to a nice round ten, I'll make myself late and miss my plane. Have a good weekend!

Labels: bigbrother, confessional, gadgets, journal, linkage, lists, media, onetrack, television, twitter

Mike answers: Do I think I'm sexy? Hmm, tricky. I have occasionally had the s-word said to me - but usually to fairly specific ends, and at a time and a place when certain people (and why am I even being gender/orientation non-specific about this, I mean GAY MEN of course) will say most anything to achieve those ends. So we can count them out for starters. The mercenary little scallywags.

There again, there was that one time in Finland, in the summer of 1994, when that awfully good-looking chap picked me up at a gay disco on a boat, and whisked me away to a wooden cabin on the edge of a pine forest, way out of town - and as we tumbled amongst the freshly-laundered linen while the soft magenta fingers of dawn stole through the shutters, he leant his face close into mine and, with that same disarming, shining-eyed, sincerity that had so won me over, breathed these words:

"You're beautiful."

(slight pause)

"But you're not sexy."

A harsh judgement, but then I'm not sure that I've ever really pulled off Sexy to any great effect. The sexy people - the truly sexy people - are the ones who are comfortable within their own skins, with an understated yet unmistakable confidence which allows them to forget about themselves and to concentrate on you. Well, that was never me. Back in my glory days - those ten years or so when my physical attributes were at their peak (and I'll admit to not being at the back of the queue looks-wise, which must have helped) - my strongest suits were flirting, and teasing, and exuding a sense of fun that could sometimes rub off on others. But these were milder, lighter, more diversionary powers, fit only for their limited and transitory purpose. Under the right sort of lighting, and in the right sort of outfits, and provided that it's-ten-to-two-you'll-do desperation hadn't set in, I could generally approximate a certain template of urban gay male foxiness. But true sexiness required a cooler eye and a steadier hand - and I knew the limits of my range, my scope and my aspirations. Flirting, teasing and mucking around suited me just fine.

As for these days - these days when I don't even bother putting lenses in for an evening out, and when I'd rather be chatting in the corner than making an exhibition of myself on raised surfaces - sexiness barely enters into it. As Molly Parkin once put it, the post-sexy experience feels rather like being unchained from a lunatic - and I don't miss that needy old tart one little bit.

Labels: confessional, gay, memoir, myself, questions

Pam asks: What is the most embarrassing story you know about somebody else?

It has to be the one about the secret underwear fetishist who forgot to lock the bathroom door at his party. However, if you think I'm going to wantonly violate the Unwritten But Tacitly Accepted Bloggers' Code in order to peddle a few cheap laughs... well bless my soul, what do you take me for? Away with you, temptress!

(But really, over his head? In front of the mirror? Goodness, how outré.)

Labels: confessional, questions

Milady de Winter asks:

Mike, as a gay man well versed in the modern world and this being World AIDS Day and all: what is your opinion on the archaic and, in my opinion, homophobic rule regarding gay men and giving blood? I've been on my soap box about this all day at work as the blood doners are coming round and I'm boycotting them.

Oh, lawks. This was supposed to be a bit of light-hearted fluff for a Friday - and now here I am, mentally knackered at the end of a rather trying Tuesday on the mainframe, and faced with the prospect of knocking out another extended essay on a Major Issue. You've got me confused with a Deep and Knowledgable Authority Figure Slash Spokesman For His Community, with carefully evaluated opinions on stuff that actually, you know, matters! Hay-ulp!

Although I have always rather shied away from making AIDS-related posts on December 1st (a.k.a. World AIDS Day), this doesn't mean to say that the day ever passes unremembered. Far from it. However - and perhaps this is surprising for someone of my generation, who came of Gay Age in 1982 - my direct personal experiences with the full-blown illness have been few and far between - and for the most part, they have occurred at one remove. I have never lost a friend to AIDS, and I have never been to the funeral of someone with AIDS. There have just been the occasional slight acquaintances, and friends of friends - and, OK, there was that one guy I slept with after a New Year's Eve party in the early 1990s, but we only ever met the once, and... you know how it goes, right?

Naturally, I have known (and indeed had sex with) a few HIV+ people over the years - and obviously many more whose positive status has never been made known to me - but (and how can I best put this?) their status has only ever hovered in the background between us: as an abstract piece of information, rather than as a tangible reality which has ever required a more direct personal engagement.

I have always, always practised safer sex, and have never been tempted to lapse. Not that this has been too difficult, given my historic lack of enthusiasm - in either role - for that particular act which is so often held to be virtually synonymous with gay male sexuality.

(In fact, that handy little phrase "Sorry, I don't have any condoms" has saved me from several potentially awkward situations over the years - and so, if anything, the global tragedy has worked very slightly in my favour. Talk about Survivor's Guilt.)

And so, as a mere remote observer, I have never quite liked to claim the disease for my own by dredging up some tangential reminiscences, seasoning them with a few well-meant homilies, offering them up on this site, and standing by for compliments in the comments box. It would feel a little stretched, a little forced - and even slightly exploitative. Such matters are best left to those with stories which are truly worth telling, and memories which should never be forgotten.

However, I do have a vivid memory of the screening interview which I attended about six years ago, at my previous place of employment, with the intention of donating my blood - and of the awkward surprise and embarrassment on the face of the rather ill-briefed young nurse, as she falteringly tried to explain why my blood could not be accepted. And yes, I remember feeling a sharp pang of wounded embarrassment of my own. After all, I prided myself on being clued up in such matters. So how could I not have known that all gay men - or indeed any men who had ever had even one same-sex experience, of any nature, no matter how long ago - were still being barred from donating blood, even though all donations were now being screened for possible infection?

Did I feel unfairly discriminated against? Hell, yeah. Any straight person who had ever had unprotected sex could donate, whereas Lil' Ol' Goody Two-Shoes Me couldn't. Where was the fairness in that?

Was it - indeed, is it still - evidence of institutionalised homophobia? In the light of all the recent legislative changes in this country, it is a viewpoint which has progressively become more and more untenable. Not so much homophobic, as hyper-cautious - maybe excessively cautious.

But is this caution truly excessive? Reading the explanatory document "Why we ask gay men not to give blood", as produced by the UK Blood Transfusion Service, I cannot help but feel that their case is, by and large, a sound one. Yes, all donated blood is screened - but this is not a perfect process, and infected blood can still slip through the net. It's a tiny risk, but a real one - and so, arguably, any measures which can significantly reduce that risk should be followed, regardless of the feelings of unjustified exclusion which they might cause. After all, what's more important here: sparing hurt feelings, or saving lives?

Of course, I could always choose to treat this exclusion as evidence of my continued status as a member of an Oppressed Minority - but in this case, I have actively chosen not to do this. In my experience - and counter-assimilationists amongst My People may commence hissing here - the less that we gay men consider ourselves to be marginalised victims, and the more that our social interactions spring from the assumption that we are already fully integrated and equal members of society, then the less that straight society will marginalise and victimise us.

I might be missing some important facts here, and my lurking inner Peter Tatchell would actually quite like to be proved wrong - so, if you know of any compelling counter-arguments which I might have missed, then (ahum) please deposit them in my box. (Now, that's an invitation you won't ever hear me issue lightly.)

Labels: confessional, gay, health, opinion, questions

I feel whacked out.

A couple of weeks ago, I took a couple of sick days, with what I took to be a viral infection. Constant fatigue, aching limbs - but no other symptoms. It passed, and I returned to work.

In the last few days, the fatigue has returned - but in a more subtle way, that I can't really attribute to a virus. I go to bed at a sensible time, sleep for 8 or 9 hours - and wake up feeling as tired as when I went to bed.

During the day, everything feels like an effort - even the most straightforward of everyday tasks, even getting up from my desk to make a cup of tea. Give you an example: even when busting for a pee, I'll stay at my desk until I'm absolutely desperate - because I can't even be bothered to go upstairs to the loo.

And it's not only fatigue. My piles have flared up; a couple of days ago, I was in severe pain just walking home from work. I'm back on the bum bullets and the prescription gel. They're under control now, but I'm having to be careful.

The eczema on both ankles has also flared up. I've treated the affected areas with hydrocortisone cream, every day for two weeks. It brings the eczema under control, but not to the point where it actually vanishes.

I went to the dentist today. The "nasty" area around my bottom left cavity has been giving me grief. The dentist says it's the early stages of gum disease, to be treated with a high-powered mouthwash to stop it spreading and doing damage.

Work has been tough for the past few months. I'm been out of my comfort zone all year. Every new task involves areas which are largely new to me, and the information which I need isn't readily available. The work is difficult, but not unsurmountably so. It's just taking a lot of will power to apply myself.

I started the year in China. Shortly after returning, I started commuting to London. For five months, I lived out of a suitcase. Keeping on top of things at home was another struggle, when all I wanted to do was flop out. In the middle of it all, K lost his sister. He has needed a lot of support, and so has his family.

Outside of work, I have taken on a considerable amount of freelance music journalism work. I've reviewed nearly thirty gigs, over a dozen albums, several dozen singles, and the Eurovision Song Contest in Athens. Most weeks during the Autumn, I've been doing two gigs a week, sometimes three.

So the physical problems that I'm experiencing: as K gently pointed out this evening, they have to be stress-related. I may not be climbing the walls with stress, but that doesn't mean that it's not taking a steady toll.

Mercifully - and I have last year's cognitive behavioural therapy course to thank for this - none of this has led the sort of depressive relapse which plagued me in the last half of 2004. I'm proud of this fact. Sure, there has been the odd wobble - but nothing which I haven't been able to challenge and rationalise.

Next week, we'll be on holiday, in gentle, tranquil, relaxing... Marrakech. Hahahahaha! But hey, a change is as good as a rest. I can't wait, and neither can he.

---

In amongst all the helpful comments which people have left me (see next post down), these two (from Boz) have particularly struck me.

"Expect to get lost - but don't mind if you do. Going with the flow is part of the fun."

"All the traders will be out for your money, but actually, it's part of the craic. Pretend you're Indiana Jones."

Excellent and much needed advice - because, by default, both situations could all too easily stress us out. I shall bear them in mind, Boz.

---

And finally, and just before I retire for the night: in amongst all the madness, we've still found time to cultivate a garden which looked like this, just before the village gardens open day in June. (It's a professionally taken photograph, which may be appearing in a garden design book some time next year. I'll tell you when I know more.)


I'm proud of this, as well.

In fact, I'm proud of the way that I've handled a lot of situations this year.

But oh my darlings, I'm whacked.

Labels: confessional, cottage, health, journal, myself, pdmg