Birthday Boy
Well, my birthday weekend started well. I met Fred
at Gay's The Word and we went to an Italian across the road for lunch.
Lunch took an hour. Coffee back at Fred's took a further two hours.
This wasn't actually unexpected as Fred and I have been enjoying more and more of each other's company over the past week. Still, it felt somewhat decadent to return to work after a three hour lunch still feeling a bit wobbly on my legs.
Saturday brought another accupuncture session followed by more coffee with Fred. Honestly, I really just went to his place for coffee. But I wasn't complaining when he dragged me into his bedroom.
Colin arrived from Lowestoft in the afternoon, by which time I had done some tidying in advance of the party. I do value his good sense and refusal to take me seriously. We exchanged gifts. I'd gotten him some duty-free vodka and his birthday prezzie for me turned out to be some apricot schnapps which is absolutely sensational.
That night, we ate out locally and dined off ostrich - which is an interesting meat like a slightly gamey steak but more spongy in texture. The meal was somewhat marred by the (so-called) live music. It would have made a delightful contribution to the ambiance of a tacky bar in Torremolinos but was wasted in North-East London. When the guy began to play Lara's Theme from Dr Zhivago, I was glad we'd reached the coffee.
Sunday is a bit of a blur though everyone says it went very well. It was pleasing that so many of my friends and colleagues took the trouble to attend and there was enough food and drink of all sorts. Pleasing also to note that, despite the variety of people there, people mingled without incident.
During the course of the day, I seemed to quaff a couple of snifters of vodka, a goodly amount of the apricot schnapps, the equivalent of a bottle of wine and half a dozen or so bottles of beer. Only James II and I seemed to want to smoke any of the Mid-Life Crisis Survival Kit that he'd brought for me but we did anyway. A number of people were complimentary about my rolling technique. Most people had drifted away by 8pm. But someone suggested it might be a good idea to go to the pub and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Somewhere round about 3am, as I was unsuccessfully trying to sleep, I realised that I'd totally forgotten to eat all day.
I spent Monday in de-tox.
Tuesday was a wicked day culminating in a strenuous rehearsal. I'm obviously getting back to normal because, even a few months ago, I couldn't have maintained this schedule.
Wednesday now and, coming into work this morning, I'm reading Radio Times and there's an article about Lois and Clark's up-and-coming marriage and an interview with Dean Cain in which he talks about the possibility of Superman becoming a father. The mag goes on to say This reasoning is probably swayed by the 29-year-old's own paternal yearnings. He wants to get married and have children himself "more than anything else in the world." But his own super-career could make his more domestic ambitions difficult.
Yeh, yeh, yeh. That's way up there in the Big League along with Nicole and Tom saying the only reason they can't have children of their own is because Tom's impotent.
Cheez. Duplicity on duplicity.
A tough HelpDesk session followed by a strenuous training course in which half the participants are badly behaved and it's evening and I'm heading off, with a spring in my step, to meet Fred who has now finished his exams.
Fred really has given me more than he can ever know. I really didn't think that I would be capable of sharing such intimacy with anyone for quite some time. I feel more whole and more content than I have in an age.