Meus Parem Locus

Finally

It's been so long I barely know where to begin.  I think any fellow bloggers will recognise there come times when the urge to express and note your thoughts backs off somewhat.  This was definitely how it was for me. I had a lot of things going on.  But I'm back now

Anyhoo, what a month it has been.   To able to, not only be part of an event like last Saturday, but to actually be part of the reason for the event in the first place, still overwhelms me.   My speech at the reception was begun and abandoned many times until I hit the right note - and truly it was - I never, ever, EVER expected to be doing this.   As a gay man I had written the idea off many years ago - marriage was for straight people only.   Any amount of commitment ceremonies could not break through the meaning of the word.  How wrong I was.

All of the stress of organisation left me on the morning.  I entered a happy little cloud and any nerves I had leading up to the day had disappeared.  It was completely natural for me to do this and I couldn't think of any other way I could have been happier. 

A few people had given me advice before the big day.  "Just be in the moment" said one.  "It all happens so fast" said another.    At the time I couldn't see that this was true but a week later I understand a lot better - it DID fly past so quick - I remember feeling pain in my temples from smiling so much.   I remember so many hugs and tears of congratulation.  I remember desperately seeking out a meat pie to eat at the reception.  I remeber J's face when I looked at him for the first time when we came together at the ceremony, the look in our celebrant's eyes when he asked if we were ok and should begin, the flashes of faces in the crowd - some smiling, some teary, all with support. 

I remember my heart thumping in my chest as J spoke his vows to me.  And I remember my throat seizing with anticipation when I started to say mine.  

I've always thought of myself as a horrendously lucky bastard in life.   Maybe I bitch, groan and drama about little things, but how lucky a soul am I to have the life I do - now to share it with the man I love for all our future. 

Yes I'm having an indulgent moment here but I there has to be one sometime :-)

R and Awkward

It's friggin' cold

My hands are dry.  One hot shower and they age 10 years.  This is what happens to me at this time of year.  It's always a sign of a cold winter.   Or my age - I prefer the former though.   Another sign of this time of the year is the unending inflow of bills bills bills.   Just when I think I've got some structure to my finances, the annual home insurance bill, quarterly strata levies, annual council rates etc flood in.   It's enough to prompt me to some serious budgetary action - which is not a bad thing.   Although looking at my spending patterns on my credit card is never too much fun.

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The first heartbreak

Earlier this week I received a friend request on my facebook from an old schoolmate (lets call him R) back in 1993.  We repeated our Leaving Certificate year together in a school (long gone now) - just down the road from where I grew up.   He was the first boy I ever really had a BIG crush on.  We're talking MASSIVE crush here right?   Intense does not begin to describe it.   I did everything I could to be around him, spend time with him, make him laugh, make him think I was cool, and maybe - just maybe - fancy me.  It was a horribly awkward time (well - I was horribly awkward) coping with the first lust.  He was cool, calm, popular, good-looking and had everything going for him.  I idolised him and tried to be more like him.  I tried to get the same clothes and listen to the same music (which I hated).  I dragged a girlfriend along to Temple Bar to listen to his grungie band play in a dingy music club (this was before Temple Bar was uber trendy and touristy like today).   I tried everything to be his best mate and more - oh how I dreamed of more...

A potential "moment" in the basement of his parents house (well - I was thinking it could turn into a moment if I played my cards right - my first ever moment mind you - I didn't know what to do - but the opportunity was there for the taking) was spoiled by his mum coming downstairs and saying it was getting late and his father was on his way or some such nonsense.   I left the house and got into my mum's car outside - cursing the b*tch mother with tears of teenage anguish welling in my eyes.

Of course - it was all in vain.    R is straight; the "moment" I fantisised about would never have occurred - and if it did it would have been disastrous for everyone concerned. We finished our year at school, did our exams, and never really saw each other after that.  I got over it and promised myself not to be so stupid again.  If only I had kept that promise for the next time....    So when R emailed me on Facebook earlier this week with jolly hellos and how are yous - I was very tempted to tell him the whole story and oh! how we would laugh!  Or would we?  Who knows...  

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A Top 3 movies meme to finish off the post :-)

Top 3 comedies
Muriels Wedding
Airplane
Bird Cage

Top 3 tear jerkers
Beautiful Thing
Beauty and The Beast
Bright Eyes

Top 3 Sci Fi
2001 A Space Odyssey
2010
Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Top 3 Action
Total Recall
Where Eagles Dare
K-19

Top 3 80's
The Breakfast Club
Big Business
Trading Places

Top 3 Retro
All about Eve
Murder on the Nile
What's up Doc?

Top 3 Woody Allen
Sleeper
Play it again Sam
Love and Death

Ah!

Ah! the week after Mardi Gras.  Not that I partook in any of it this year.  Rightly or wrongly I decided to stay away from the festivities, and indeed remove myself entirely from them, by buggering off to Melbourne for the weekend.   

Ah! Melbourne.  I do love it so.  Everyone that knows me knows I feel this way about the place, so I won't labour the point here - although I wish I took a pic or two for Facebook.

Ah! Facebook.  What a funny and fickle little thing it can be.  It seems to have created an entire virtual universe of it's own and of course it's take up among the early thirtysomethings in my social circle has been reported at close to 80%.  These are my statistics, based on my Facebooked:Non-Facebooked friend ratio calculation.  Does this mean I actually have only another 20% of friends?   

Ah! statistics.  I love them.  I hoover them up whenever I can.   I am known in work to regularly browse the OECD website for fascinating figures on the GDP of nations I have neither heard of nor would I ever want to read about again.   I am a total anorak when it comes to these things.

Ah! Anoraks.  Remember them?  Not sure if anyone on this side of the hemisphere would be familiar with them but for their benefit (and it IS a wonderful piece of knowledge) an Anorak is a jacket/coat that is generally made of shiny synthetic material with padding and optional hood, for winter warmth and rain protection (in my day it didn't provide much of either).  And when I was just a wee young lad, they were all the rage among the inner-city offspring of my primary school (and any charming trendy associations of inner city upbringing a la Inner West of Sydney is NOT applicable to the scummy knackers that I am talking about). 
Myself - I would have preferred a leather coat but finances were tight.  So tight that a happy memory of mine was when my mother sent my father into "town" one Winter to buy myself and my two elder brothers some "lovely warm duffel coats" for the upcoming weather, she  somewhat naively let myself and my brothers tag along with Dad for the ride.   Now I'm not saying that my old man was an easy touch or easily misled, but we somehow managed to persuade him that Duffel coats were for peasants (they were, are, and always will be - I'd rather keep warm by carrying a lump of plutonium in my pocket) and that these shiny puffy new anoraks would do just as well and look "cooler" at the same time.   

Ah! My mother's face when we all came back through the door...