I've been outside wearing my device, I came back in wearing the same device as you

I miss my old room and my old house, full of stuff, with the window I always loved to look out of, wearing the scarf Nanny Sam made me.

taken December 3rd 2010

Christmas Tree 2010

This was taken during a sick day off work in December 2010. My memories of then were that I was still enjoying my job at Lush but I had been quite ill that year with gastroenteritis and dehydration and had recently been in hospital from dehydration. It might not look it, but I was actually quite unwell in this photo, and the hospital band is still on my wrist. This was the year where I stuffed 2 large stockings for my ex boyfriend. I think it was the last Christmas I ever actually enjoyed.

Desperate XXXmas: Why internet dating is doomed

At Christmas, us single guys probably get a little more desperate. There is something about the festive season that makes you think you should be waking up next to someone in a plush city centre apartment you both share, while your chic and modern Christmas tree twinkles as you make egg nog latte's to drink in bed. Instead, I wake up surrounded by snotty tissues dowsed in Olbas Oil, next to no one, in my parents house, with a fat lip and a waning ego.

The other day I realised that the nearer to Christmas we get, the lower our standards become. But it's stupid because in less than 4 weeks you aren't going to meet someone, make a settlement and then be wearing matching Christmas jumpers on Christmas Day drinking frothy Christmas hot chocolate next to each other soaking up each other's Christmasness. No? Well, you might be. Gays go through the motions like no other, and everything happens at the speed of light. By New Years Eve you'll be divorced. By Chinese New Year you'll be at the Nightingale, waiting for your rebound, drinking cheap fizzle piss from a bottle with a straw.

The irony though, Christmas for an adult who has lost the magic (and let's face it, if you're single, gay and work in retail, the magic is hard to hold on to), and as much as you understand the consequences and the irrationality, you still go ahead anyway, making plans in your head, hoping to get off with the guy from the other department at the Christmas party or like me, hoping in vain to meet someone in A&E. When did I become this? Oh wait... I've always been like this. Just very much in denial "I refuse to be tied down to anybody!". Yeah right.

The reality is this: the guy at the Christmas party will have a boyfriend. You will go home alone, or worse, go on to a sleazy bar in town where you will drown the rest of mid winter away in a rummy wave of despair, and go home with a guy who's old enough to be your dad grandad.

So, in spite of all that, you still hold onto the hope that is Internet Dating. Internet Dating is a strange thing for me, and it's a permanent fixture in a lot of gay guy's lives, to some it's always been there, they still have the same profile from 12 years ago, I know this because each time periodically I make a new one, they message me. Or like me, it's a certain bane of your life, providing you with enough drama to at least have something to fantasise about before you fall asleep at night, but never amounts to anything in real life.

I think, for me anyway, Internet dating is doomed. I was at work, and one thing I do when I am bored of repetitive folding and 'helloing' is daydreaming about an imaginary boyfriend or a relationship. However, what daydream starts with an online message 'wanna meet for a coffee sometime'? Is this what I have been reduced to? Having to adjust my daydreams to an online agenda? Because in my fantasy, I meet a guy in public, face to face, at a party, anywhere, and I go home thinking about the encounter, it stays on your mind. It's something to think about.

When you're online, it's already mapped out for you. You're already expecting the worst. And with how Christmas goes for me each year now, I already know that clicking reply won't get me anywhere good. But I'll still do it because I already know how it ends.

you'll be known as the boy who's always dancing

A weekend wasted on kindness, cars go by, in the city there's always people. A famous diver 'comes out'. A role model finalised, I think we now have one to be proud of (?). I look for them. Am I always going to be like this? Can I choose to not be walked on, pushed over, or is it part of who I am? I don't want to walk like a victim. I want to be someone you DON'T mess with.

I used to think I had beaten it, but I'm just as frightened now as I've always been. And I've never felt uglier. Fears flood back from far ago, like sitting in biology trying to remain dignified and cool while Martyn Carter kept knocking my glasses off my face. Laughing off humiliation is an art that is not nice to look at, and worse to create. Standing up for yourself can be hard on your face.

This December I want to try and write my blog every day, but with the theme of Christmas and being festive entwined in each post, no matter how irrelevant. It isn't cookies and egg nog and it isn't carols and candles. I understood last night once again the pointlessness of a time of year you have to really force yourself to enjoy when you see it for what it is. Charity starts at home, and it ends as blood spit in my mouth.

I won't give up on myself because that's stupid but I may give up on Christmas. I don't feel like it's something I will be able to notice. I don't give a shit. I really don't. I hate all this family shit. But I will remember stuff, and I will use it to help myself. It's around this time of year where I wish for summer, and I realise how good I look with a tan, and the happiest place to be ever is a tropical beach with your imaginary boyfriend.

Radar Receiver

The more I eat, the hungrier I get, the bigger my appetite becomes, the sexier I feel. I'm not trying to get fat. The whole food thing is a good start. I have a body type goal now, and I want to see if I can achieve it. The body type I'll talk about later, but for now I am proactive, even just to see if I can do it.

My mood has lifted and my mind has cleared. Everything seems to make automatic sense. I understand that there needs to be a balance of control and enjoyment in my life. One can't be applied without the other. I guess I got fed up of being frustrated with myself all the time.

 

good

bad

I can't be bothered with writing properly, so here's a list of everything I've been up to, in no particular order:

• ate loads of sweets
• went to Chipping Campden
• Went on a date with a 44 year old. Was unimpressed.
• Had a juicy steak
• Saw Greggers with Wiggy and Brother
• Carved my pumpkin
• Went on 2nd date with 44 year old. Was repulsed. Informed him that I will not be pursuing anything further with him. 
• Visited my friend in Moseley
• Went to a party with my friends
• Had a Halloween feast with Hayley
• Saw Captain Philips at cinema
• Went to the Nightingale
• Met what I consider Wiggy's future husband and the most nicest, attractive hunk ever. 
• Watched Teen Witch. Was really great.

 

This is the 3rd time I chose to 'go' as a woman:

2013

2012

2006

why you think I let you get away with all the things you say to me

no culture for the wicked

I realised today that I can't write about much without a job or money or my own place, and it's harder to be inspired when the highlight of the day was going to Redditch library. I couldn't find any books by George Orwell or Sylvia Plath but did find every book ever written by Katie Price, including the sexy looking festivity 'Santa Baby'. I grabbed a few books that looked interesting, and the one fiction I chose is called The Gay Divorcee. I've read the first few chapters, it's not great. Will 'review' it next week, if you like.

My shoulder still has a trapped nerve which is very painful. I feel I haven't seen my grandparents for a real visit in days. The post weekend drug guilt has worn off now and I no longer feel embarrassed about certain revelations and conversations or for exposing myself but I do however feel that I should be careful. I am also probably a lot more paranoid about life than I should be.

Some good news slash bad news - brother and Hay have to move out of their flat by the 4th of December after some bogus dispute etc etc, and seeing as I am intending on living with them, I will be living in town, job or no job, by Xmas!! I am inviting Ming to spend Xmas with me, despite everyone saying 'no' and 'who is he?' but I just simply can't stand the idea of someone alone and so far away from everything at Christmas. I will provide him with a loving family, home cooked Christmas treats, a stocking with a present inside and my nubile throbbing naked body pressing against his in a warm cozy bed room for two.

I am thinking, after Christmas, when this has settled, and Ming has gone, and everything is sorted, that I will start 'dating' (like it's easy?). Not, of course if I marry Ming in which case I can forget about dating forever. 

My Eyes Are Dry: NARS Exhibit A Blusher for the Eyes

So you've just killed Miss Scarlett with the candle stick in the pole dancing room, and stole this out of her handbag.

NARS Exhibit A is the first expensive make up I ever bought, if not the only make up I've ever bought in my life. The reason I bought it was to make my eyes look demonic on Halloween. However, I think I just wanted red eyes on a normal night out, with my Alexander McQueen scarf that bitch Neil Wayt stole. The eyes smudged, so it turned out to be a terrible faux pas. The mistake I made was that subtle wasn't enough; I just kept putting more and more on.

Red eyes and bloodshot eyes are an unavoidable feature of mine. It can indicate a few interesting facts about me: I maybe sometimes be incredibly stoned. Perhaps I have been crying. Some might suggest I have an association with the Devil, others claim I am just very tired and depressed. Whatever the reason, I get blamed for everything under the sun.

I prefer the sleepy option, like in that ridiculous yet wearable Viktor and Rolf collection. Models wore red eyes with their beds, and instantly I saw a look I wanted in on, to look like I'd just woken up, or better still was about to pass out, possibly to disguise the fact that I was really about to pass out.

The tiniest bit is all you need slowly and gently dabbed around the circumference of the eye. Don't go mad with it. Seems a bit pointless to spend £25 on a blusher you're putting on your eyes for a look that could go either way.

Remember, Exhibit A is actually a blusher, so it can also be used on the cheeks, obviously. I'd use it in this way if I wanted to look like I'd ran from Moor Street Station to Snow Hill and got slapped on the way, twice, separately, on both sides of my face.

For a while Exhibit A served as a place to hide my cocaine. Then one day, it just disappeared. 

All hail Satan rockin rockin around

Now I know I'm going to be living with Hayley and David in a Dream Apartment of Wonder, four days a taster, now I feel bored and lonely at home. You can wake up and choose your feelings. I constantly dream of my old house on Chestnut. Well, I dream other things. But they are always happening in there. I know this means I am unhappy with here. I'm unhappy because I don't feel like I belong anywhere. I hate having to 'come home', because there isn't anything fun here to do. It's all chores and guilt.

I can wake up and choose my feelings. I can wake up and choose hers. I take things way too personally and follow a mundane to-do list that includes messaging people back on OKCupid that I know I'll never meet. I wonder what the point is with these people. Next is applying for jobs, which has become easier. I still have to write back to Sian, an unfinished letter that is taking me months.

I get texts off the innocent. But I get offended that I don't hear back from people in days, and they respond finally from being so busy, and now they are ill, and they sound like me, but I've already withdrawn now. You missed your chance. I get messages from the cold side, as I come round, and find myself writhing and rubbing myself in my head slowly down and down till a shower slaps me awake and reminds me 'you're still in your own world'.

I am optimistic because I can see lights, and a promise and a future and a life but sometimes I wonder how abnormal can you get?

Give me something cheap, not enough sleep, which one do I keep? My nitelife in the 2nd City

According to Hayley, Gatecrasher's 5th Birthday consisted of music that could of been 'just one long, repetitive song', over priced drinks served in plastic cups and girls who prefer to believe class exists in the wardrobes of prostitutes and porn stars. I didn't go because I already knew it would be like that. It's just a shame Hayley had to pay £30 for a ticket so she could confirm this to me.

 In a preferable basement somewhere

The night before, I was with Wiggy and Goggy drinking a lot in the Village and playing with each other's nipples as predicted. After Goggy vomited blood we decided to go to Chic, our favourite club. It will always be my favourite and the only club I will go to in Birmingham now. At least the slags in there are friendly. That could just be the drugs though.

 

It wasn't terribly busy, and it makes no sense. But then I realised I wouldn't want to persuade outsiders to try out our club, spoiling it for everyone by being complete assholes (or just by being themselves, same difference). They should stay with their own kind, in a superclub that caters for a vast crowd that doesnt know any better, and do not want to know any better.

The confusing thing about it is they're having a part two on the 12th (same DJs). They make so much money, as tickets were sold out this weekend. This comforts me in the knowledge that for one night only the majority of Birmingham's twat-elite will be all tightly confined into one space. I did however laugh when Hayley marveled at the thought that some unlucky twat would be crying they didn't get a ticket in time, when she had one and didn't even want to be there. Let's hope they do us all a favour and stay on Broad Street, or better still, go home.

Home early so Goggy could sift through the sieve of disease that is Grindr while I dutifully took a very long confusing phone call from my Scottish ex boyfriend.

Memory Music Video - Jentina 'Bad Ass Strippa' (2001)

This came out around 2001, and I was in Angels bar one day with a friend who looked up at the square block TV screen it was playing from and said 'if she's such a bad ass stripper then why does she have to make a song about it?'. It made sense then as much as it did now, yet I felt sorry for Jentina. I still feel sorry for her. I think I was the only one who thought the song was OK. The video seemed a bit naff, but actually, I think it says a lot now about then, now that we have so much shit we consider pop music. 

I'm not sure if she has a cult following now or what, but considering how awful pop music is now, I don't think she was all that bad. However, she was deeply unpopular at the time, and I never remember the song coming on anywhere in public except that once in the daytime in Angels. (Angels is now called Sidewalk).

Jentina was marked to be quite successful before the music came out. I used to read The Face and they featured her in there one month, complete with cutting edge picture, red lips and white skin, eyes concealed by the shadow of a hat, everywhere dripping in excessive gold jewelry.

She was marketed as a sort of gypsy RnB pop singer. At first it was hard to understand why she was so disliked; she was good looking, young, and the song wasn't terrible. She could even kind of sing. There was no auto-tune then! Then I thought that maybe it's a reflection on how society feels about travellers. So hated she was, even Horror Queen of the Chavs Lady Sovereign made a cruel mock up parody of 'Bad Ass Strippa' which in her ghetto black twang she rips apart Jentina with bitchy threatening lyrics. Maybe one member of the working class felt threatened by another by their lower position in the league. Whatever the reason, I think Lady Sovereign is an ugly cunt. 

Like Princess Superstar's 'Bad Babysitter', I liked this song but as a 17 year old desperately wanting to fit in, I didn't admit I liked it to anyone. I used to listen to it at home because I liked the sound of the music, rather than the words, or her. It's not till later that I sort of realised what I liked about her and the whole package but again that could all be down to nostalgia.

The song takes me back to when I was discovering new music but in a new environment, one where you danced, and people can watch you, and I was learning to understand and like what was me, or what was cool to feel being me on the gay scene. I was fresh popped out of school, I felt I had a whole world to discover, and some of those times it was dirty, urban and frankly quite scary. Thinking of Birmingham back then reminds me of the taste of new chemicals, concrete and solvent, intentional aimlessness. I felt like sometimes I was part of a gang (albeit a very strange one).

I was coming out of an outgrown comfort zone, I was hanging round in Birmingham each weekend and not coming home, I was acting in vain to be tough, I was hanging out with kids who had been kicked out of their homes and lived in a youth hostel in the city, walking and hanging round in places I wouldn't even dream of going near now as an adult, whilst working in a bar illegally and being paid cash in hand, hanging out in front of Angels and Missing, drinking Red Stripe, tempting punters to come inside and forging friendships with the underbelly of the cities outcasts and homeless occupants. It was around this time that I had my first threesome with 2 work colleagues in their council flat.

It was hard to take Jentina seriously I guess. The concept was there, but I suppose the definition of chav was a lot specific back then. These days everything merges together, nothing is that clear in Birmingham. Even what was considered shit back then can have a shine to it now, considering the condition of things. Nothing lasts forever.