ONE FLU OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST Just another Corona jab.

“Your blogs just got too gay.” So was the comment of my dear friend in Auckland, the Emperor of Jupiter, when I meet him for a beer for the first time in years. I had commented on the blogs dwindling readership over the course of the tour. And perhaps he’s right. And perhaps there is good reason to…
    But no.
    There’s a part of me that should care about a dwindling readership. There’s also a part of me that should care about Iraq and homelessness and the popularity of shows like Britain’s Got Talent. (Which should be called Britain’s Got Brightly Lit Slackers Many of Whom You Wouldn’t Even Use in a Medical Trial Because They’d Try To Put The Tablets In Their Ears Just Piss Off You Boring Arses You’re All Dull.) But sometimes that part of me is a little out of reach. It’s clinging onto the Cliff of Hope as I stretch out a hand to drag it up onto the Flat Ground of Concern but my other hand is glued to a soy flat white with an extra shot and my body can only stretch itself so much. The coffee tastes good as I hear my empathy fall screaming to the canyon floor of Wha’ever!    So the gayness will contine. As will all those ads we watch on tele about straight couples getting mortgages or buying furniture or brushing their teeth or taking a holiday or eating cereal or ringing for a pizza or comparing insurance companies or fucking. There. Got that out of my system.
    So to you, gentle breeders, I take this moment to say Good On Ya for sticking around and logging on and checking out.  And yes I do read your comments and yes they do encourage me to keep going and yes you will be able to be smug and say “Oh I read that on-line ages ago…” when the paperback is released and wins the Gayest Touring Blog-Based Novel award in San Francisco a year from now, presented to me by The Pope in a desperate bid to purloin some gay Anglicans for his cult.
    And now, to some wordage I wrote a few of weeks ago which tells the small tale of an average man in a large New Zealand town where things happened…

    Ah the heart, the heart. Such a small percentage of the weft and weave of our physical being, and yet it drives the overall design, does it not? “More gayness?!”, I hear you scream. But this is not about being gay or being a buyer of nappies It’s about…what is it about? It’s about things happening when you least expect them to happen. It’s about being given something you didn’t even ask for. And some enchanted evening (an immediate apologia to Rodgers and Hammerstein), you may meet a stranger…you may meet a stranger across a crowded bar on K Road in Auckland. And somehow you know, you know even then, that you will take them back to your hotel and smile at them again and again.
    It’s about the fact that I realised - despite this year’s attempt to knit and wrap myself in a cardigan of comfortable cynicism - that I still have a romantic thread in my tapestry, and that it was plucked and pulled last Friday. If you’ve been reading these blogs, then you know I’ve had an interesting year as far as the men folk are concerned. And then, 3 nights ago (as I write this), a night when I’m not bothered, when I haven’t put on my L’Oréal Wrinkle De-Crease, or my Armani shirt, or arrived with intention, he walks up to me out of nowhere and starts talking and starts smiling and then a bit later on he kisses me on the neck in the middle of a crowd and he certainly doesn’t meet the No-One-Under-Thirty criteria. I even explain this rule to him, but he doesn’t care.
    (Don’t assume anything. This is this week’s theme. Or to recall the title of an old American television program: That‘s Incredible!)
    I excuse myself and go to the loo with some of his lip molecules still on my neck. My dear mate Abbie (stage manager, lovely lezzo) is coming out of the loo. “Is he too young for me?” I ask her. “Funny you should say tha’,” she says in her beautifully pouty accent. “ ’e just asked me if you were too old for ’im. Go for it.”
    We went for it. And damn me if I didn’t fall a little bit in love. I was utterly conscious of it happening, utterly aware that my heart was opening like a lotus flower, utterly aware that he was returning to Melbourne in two days time and that this was a fling, an episode, a small two-man festival that would soon be wrapped and the stage dismantled and the gates closed. But his weft and my weave made a rather lovely pattern and he stayed over and then tried to leave three times but he kept staying and eventually I had to go and do a show and we agreed to meet later that night and then…
    I didn’t see him again, despite texts and intentions. I was knackered. He was still 25 and already back out on K Road. He flew back to Australia today.  
    (Don’t assume anything. This is still this week’s theme. Or to recall the title of an old American television program that was never actually made: That‘s Disappointing!)
    So why the hell am I sharing this? On one level, I’m bragging. He was 25 and stupidly fit. So that level is clearly a pretty big level. On another level (much, much smaller, more of a mezzanine), I guess I’m saying anything can happen and I need to keep hold of that. On a third level (stay with me), I know I’m saying that this shit is still hard. Even when there’s clearly a lovely connection, the signal can suddenly get lost. Damn, I wish I could just be a whore and not care. (NB: every other blog entry.) So why did I suddenly care? I dunno. But I did. And he did. Possibly. I dunno.
    I haven’t lost most of my family to a tsunami. Or an earthquake. So I’m still charmed in many respects. And today I found the exactly right, white, V-necked t-shirt I’ve been looking for since I lost the one I bought in Malaysia. So that’s good. And I just had dinner at my very dear friend’s flat in Parnell and drank a lot of wine and ate excellent food and laughed and talked and didn’t mention the Melbourne guy once. I guess I’m okay.
    I never talk about you, do I? So let me add: I hope you are happy and well and content whether you are single or married or partnered or over it or wanting it or having a few problems. Just remember one thing: Don’t Assume Anything. And expect everything.

    Hasta Mañana ’til we meet again.

Addendum: Guess who just texted me from Melbourne?