Oh, it’s YOU. Hello, you!
It’s been Can’t Be Arsed Theme Week, here in Trodiland. Not so much at work (that’s actually been quite fun this week, mainly because I have been assigned a task that people actually Care About, with a deadline that Actually Matters, with a difficulty level that’s Stretching But Not Impossible), but my downtime has been just that for once. No commitments. No diary dates. No freelance assignments (ah, the good old Music Biz Summer Lull). And, what with K gadding about the US all week (contemporary art in the Catskill Mountains, TV interview in Pittsburgh, watching Little Feat in Missouri, the Richard Serra exhibition at MoMA in NYC), I’ve been all on my ownsome, and, well, lovehimtobitsandallthat, but it’s been NICE. A rest is as good as a change.
Telly. Pooter. Doing some mix CDs for this weekend’s Big Fat Civil Partnership Engagement Party in Clapham. Preparing mentally for predicted excesses of said forthcoming weekend. Recovering from predictable excesses of the last weekend, spent visiting Alan “Won A Blogging Award, Can No Longer Be Arsed” Reluctant-Nomad in Amsterdam.
Ey, it were great in Amsterdam. Bar crawling on the Friday, ending up down the Cockring, as you do. I’ve changed my mind about that place. Sure, you get a lot of drunk desperate people, stumbling around upstairs in the Last Chance Saloon – but down in the clubby bit in the basement, the vibe is relaxed and friendly. Stripped down funky tribal house, with warm, throbbing basslines and no cheesy breakdowns. Kinda womb-like. On an even level.
My New Best Friends were from Eindhoven and Leicestershire. Mr Eindhoven was all Boggle Eyed Thumbs Aloft Wa-hey, so I assumed heavy pill-age. Not so, not so. Somewhat unecessarily, Mr Leicestershire warned me about his rampant sluttishness. “That’s cool!” I reassured him. “I am taking it for what it is!” I do so love flirting, when there’s no question of a sticky follow-through. You know where you are. It’s a kicky little ego-tickle, and sometimes that’s all you need.
Over to my right, a blandly handsome and very drunk young man in a sewn-on singlet was not taking Alan’s No for an answer. (It might have been a Maybe, until certain rather outré, not to say messy, sexual suggestions were hissed in his ear.)
Opting to beat the 5am rush, we stumbled home, Alan once again displaying a quite astonishing lack of direction. How many months has he been there now?
Saturday shopping was quite mass market, by my foofy standards. A short sleeved check shirt from Dockers, and a slight variation on the same theme from H&M. Hell, I know my range. People of a certain age do tend to restrict themselves to the outfits that they wore in their heyday, and I seem to be no exception. Gorgeous, gorgeous Diesel jeans, just the business for that night’s Big Gay Circuit Party at the Odeon.
Dinner with my new desk neighbour E, also visiting for the weekend. She and I had hatched a plan to introduce our respective ex-pat Britgay friends, and it all seemed to work rather well. We were also joined at the dinner table by a couple of charming heterosexual pornographers, who run their own special-interest website (caveat clickor).
“And do you… sometimes… er, possibly… appear in front of the camera?”, I asked the female half of the couple, a petite Thai lady, choosing my words carefully.
“Of course I do! Well, come on, look at these!”
Goodness, I had quite failed to spot the capacious boobage below. Quelle faux pas! She seemed almost affronted.
(Etiquette tip: when meeting lady pornographers, a suitable compliment upon “the rack” is considered de rigeur.)
(Remember when One Track outed me as a knocker clocker? Perhaps I’ve been trying a little too hard to mend my ways. You can’t win, can you?)
The Big Gay Circuit Party was agreeable, if initially a little up its own arse. But then Amsterdam doesn’t have any regular major gay dance clubs, so there was bound to be a certain over-awed sense of occasion. Things loosened up nicely, though, despite a dodgy “retro hour” of the sort of horrible late 1990s/early 2000s trance which sent me scuttling off to the sanctuary of rural Derbyshire in the first place. And we did like the go-go dancers, led as they were by a middle-aged, barrel-chested, overweight Grotesque, be-wigged and be-horned, who revelled in a kind of imperiously sinister auto-eroticism throughout. As if to say: I Am Your Future, Circuit Boys, and I Care Not One Flying F**k What You Think. A neat and necessary little subversion of the proceedings, so it was.
Our new ex-pat Britgay chum danced “ironically”, on a raised step, going through every move in the handbook. He’s big – nay, evangelical – on something called Neurobics, which involves stimulating the brain cells by peforming everyday tasks in unexpected ways. Getting dressed with your eyes shut, that kind of thing. We tried Neurobic dancing, me pump-it-pump-it-pumping with my left fist instead of my right. Hmm, still not convinced. Alan and I beat the 5am rush again, and got drenched to the skin for our trouble. Yes, they’ve got the rain over there as well.
Sunday was spent in Smart Café Recovery Mode, firstly with Caroline (celebrating an impending change of job), and secondly with Non-Workingmonkey, with whom I conducted the official Post Of The Week Exit Interview (N-WM was one of our regular judges for a while). N-WM has been flat-sitting for friends, in The Most Gorgeous Canalside Apartment That One Could Possibly Wish For. It’s going up for sale soon, and Alan’s looking to buy. Ooh, serendipity. Contact details were duly exchanged. I am going to be staying there next time. No, I think you’ll find I am, actually.
It’s Nottingham Pride tomorrow. There was a preview piece in t’local paper today, liberally furnished with quotes from myself, but it’s not online and I didn’t write it, so you’ll have to manage without. (It was basically an edited remix of this old post, which basically says it all.) I won’t be attending (Clapham, remember), but you should. It’ll be fabulous! We’ve got Bananarama and everything!
Right, that’s your hour’s worth. Beer time. Also, Boots “Shapers” Salad Time. (I’ve been losing weight for the London boys, and dipped under 11 stone for the first time ever yesterday morning. Major milestone.) Is it Big Brother yet? Busy busy!
troubled diva 