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Wednesday 9th May 2007: I thought I’d better put a few words in my diary before it healed over or something. I’ve been busy with one thing and another, contemplations of an interior kind, sorting out the garden, putting in bedding plants, running up debts on the internet that kind of thing, I always spend money when I want to cheer myself up. If truth be told and I’ve probably mentioned this truth before I’m a bit addicted to online shopping, it’s so seductively easy, lots of tempting goodies to look at and choose from, no money actually changes hands and there’s always something to look forward to in the post. It’s great, until your bank statement comes in that is and the illusory act of punching a plastic card number into a plastic computer keyboard takes on a concrete reality reminiscent of a smiling affable pimp who offers you five minutes of pleasure with his pretty indentured whore then suddenly turns ugly and demands his pound of flesh for your pound of flesh. Shane’s in London at the moment on business, Dick and I spent the Bank holiday weekend with him, it was really nice, we came home on Monday evening, but Shane won’t be home until Thursday possibly Friday. He’s been hard to live with lately, from my end of the evolutionary scale anyway, I understand why, but it doesn’t make it any easier. I’m on a leash so short I could win entry to The Royal Ballet School for my En Pointe technique, that’s walking on tiptoe to those of you that haven’t had classical dance training like what I have (I’ve watched Billy Elliot twice) If I thought I’d get an easier ride with just Dick at the helm, and I mean that in a non shagging sense, then I was sadly mistaken, as yesterday proved. I decided to abandon my household duties and take myself off to the pictures to see the new Spiderman film. It was good, I really enjoyed it and I’m not going to say anything by way of review in case it spoils it for anyone who hasn’t seen it and may want to, just be warned, take tissues. Its quite a longish film so I was home a bit later than I thought I would be, but wasn’t overly concerned thinking I still had plenty of time to rustle up dinner. However, Dick was home ahead of me, he’d finished early. I walked into the bedroom just as he was emerging from the shower, towel wrapped around his waist looking decidedly sexy. The trouser pup immediately jumped up in eager greeting, but did he pet it, did he heck. The only thing I found myself being intimate with was a corner of the bedroom wall with a handprint decorating the seat of my jeans along with a crisp instruction to stand still and stand silent. Being a bright type I deduced that I was in bother and wracked my brains to think why, but to no avail. Once he’d re-dressed he removed me from the corner using the thumb and finger method, as he clamped them to my left lug and led me protesting down the stairs to the telephone where he used his finger to press the button on the answer phone. The dulcet tones of the practice manager at my GP’s surgery crisply informed Mr Brown that if he didn’t show up for a blood test to monitor his medication levels ASAP as per the reminder letter that had been sent out then further prescriptions for medication would be withheld. I was outraged, it was medical intimidation that’s what it was, NHS thuggery. Dick was also outraged he was outraged that I’d neglected to go for the blood test I was supposed to go for since valproate recently replaced lamotrigine in my programme of epilepsy management due to a skin reaction from the latter. He caused me further skin reaction by giving my bare bottom a protracted over the knee lecture with his hand and then added insult to injury by setting me 100 lines: I will not neglect my blood tests and therefore risk cessation of necessary medication. I hate lines, I really, really hate them, especially lines that have a kind of sadistic sibilance to them and foolishly mentioned this fact i.e. I whined and sulked about it whereupon Dick upped them to 200 and set a time limit for completion along with threat of further punishment if it went unmet. I wisely kept my trap shut after that; our Dick can be just as unrelenting as Shane when the mood takes him. I went for my blood test this morning and showed Master Dick the puncture mark on my arm to prove it when he came home this evening. In return he withdrew the threat he’d made at breakfast to tell Daddy Shane what I’d done. A houseboy’s lot is not an easy one, certainly not when he’s got two Daddies on his case. Tuesday 15th May 2007: After several days of diaphanous steel rain the weather cleared this morning to reveal heliodor sunshine and aquamarine skies tinged here and there with streaks of morganite, excuse me waxing lyrical I’m under the heady influence of emulsion, I’m thinking of decorating the kitchen and I’ve been looking at paint charts, you can’t just call a colour a colour, it has to have a pseudonym, so grey becomes steel, yellow becomes heliodor, blue is aqua and pink is morganite, metals and gemstone names are apparently in this season (that must be a great job mustn’t it, naming paint colours) I thus decided to walk into the village, I had a few letters to post and some bills to pay at the Post Office so wearing nothing but a ripped t-shirt and slashed jeans I hastened abroad under aqua skies. The heliodor sunshine was deceptive, it hinted at heat, but failed to deliver, it was bloody perishing and by the time I got to the village my balls had shrivelled to the size of peanuts with the icy wind and my hands were a very unlovely shade of amethyst mauve, I thought my fingers were going to snap off. So much for global warming, my globes as viewed poking through the slits in the seat of my jeans were anything but warm, in fact they were cold enough to qualify as honorary icebergs and provide refuge for a colony of penguins. I was glad to get home and clap the heating on before proceeding with my houseboy duties. Who was it said that: ‘housework expands to fill the available time?’ I think it was some Sociology bod; I did a class at the education centre the year before last and I vaguely remember the phrase being bandied around shortly before slumping into a deep coma. God, that was one class I didn’t see through to Christmas, what a load of bollocks, by the time you fight your way through a cartload of invented terminology and buzz phrases all you have left is a poor version of social history. And the people who do it are so genuinely worthy, and so, so very earnest, I found myself losing the will to crack jokes and make facetious comments after about three classes (I’m tenacious, I like a challenge, but even I give up at some point) By the fourth class I was expressing an interest in wearing organic cotton dungarees and turning vegetarian, I knew then it was time to get out before I started trying to cook feng shui and organise the living room to chop suey principals. Anyway, I think whatever rabid feminist (it had to be one, sociology is full of rabid feminists, even the men who do it in depth are rabid feminists, though I mean no disrespect to rabid feminists, if you wanna be rabid, that’s fine by me, as long as you don’t foam in my direction) did say that housework expanded to fill the available time was right, it does, but then everything does, going out to work and shuffling papers in an office expands to fill the available time between clocking on at nine and off at five o clock or whenever, just breathing expands to fill the available time between being born and dying, so why make it sound like a bad thing? I like housework, though according to Shane I could like it a bit more, he found coffee stains down the front of a kitchen cupboard yesterday, anyone would think he’d found bloodstains from the way he carried on, I thought he was going to have me tried for murder. Housework is definitely under valued as a profession, I think some might consider it a step below prostitution, and that’s not fair. I don’t see why I should be looked down upon just because I’m in the business of expanding housework to fill the available time. I love all the tools of my trade, especially my Swiffer mop; I really, really love my Swiffer. I think in the event of a fire I might just save my Swiffer first and let the fire brigade rescue Dick and Shane. It’s so versatile and so much more than a mere floor duster: it’s a dance partner that snogs like a dream, an air guitar, sax, and a microphone in which to belt out rousing rock ballads as you whiz over the parquet. My grand finale comprises of sliding down the hall on my knees holding the Swiffer above my head to the imaginary cheers and screams of an auditorium of adoring fans while Eric Clapton stands forlornly in the wings knowing his days as one of the great guitarists are over: yeah Eric, time to retire cos Gilli’s in town with his Swiffer! Shane once caught me performing my grand finale, his face as he opened the front door to be greeted by a wall of sound and a houseboy flying down the hall looking like Toulouse Lautrec on wheels holding a Swiffer microphone had to be seen to believe, I bowled right into him. He was not amused and said houseboy’s bottom got a hearty smack. A word of advice, never dust to a rousing rock tune, the tempo is all wrong, you end up hurling pictures and ornaments left, right and centre, you need a more smoochy sort of sound for dusting, k.d. lang singing a Joni Mitchell song, or something similar. I broke my personal best record for dusting the living room this morning, six minutes and thirty seconds, I also broke an ornament, see, that was because I ignored the golden rule about dusting to an appropriate tempo and instead of switching tunes I kept on with the Killers, consequently track 10 of Hot Fuss: Midnight Show, brought about my downfall, some of the words go…Drive faster, boy…Or in my case Dust faster boy and I did, and disaster struck and the ornament I was dusting flew through the air as I got carried away with acting out the lyrics. The ornament in question is hideous, I think so anyway, it’s some kind of Indian Elephant God thing and it’s covered in phalluses, not so much a bull elephant as a cock elephant, if such a beast really existed it could fuck an entire herd of lady elephants simultaneously, or male elephants if it was a gay elephant. It was a gift to Dick, naturally, from his stepmother, or whatever you call the ladylove of your father when your mother is still alive and you’re thirty something, I don’t really know if the stepmother label applies in that context? Not that he calls her mother or even step, he calls her by her non-Christian name of Ula, a Celtic name that she adopted for herself and which apparently means ‘gem of the sea.’ I have no idea what her birth name is, I don’t think Dick does either, he’s only ever known her as Ula, and he’s exceptionally fond of her. I’ve met her a few times, she’s a bit of a strange lady, but nice, in a warm weird gothic kind of way. To be truthful, Dick’s family unnerve me a bit, they’re quite-I suppose you’d say bohemian. Dick’s parents actually do sort of still live together, but obviously they don’t love together. His mother lives in one portion of the ancestral pile and his father and Ula live in another. Dick’s father has been with Ula for 18 years in total, and earth-married to her for six of those years, whatever the fuck that means. Personally I think Ula makes things up as she goes along. The first time I met her she wound my key right round when she asked me if I wanted a coke and led me off to the kitchen and handed me a straw, now, I dunno about you, but I stopped drinking coke through a straw when I was about ten. The penny dropped when she laid two lines of white powder on the tabletop. I didn’t know what the hell to do, it seemed rude to refuse, but I’d never snorted coke, well, not the powdered kind anyway, I’ve shot the fizzy stuff out of my nostrils any number of times when I’ve gulped it too fast or laughed at the wrong moment and its gone down the wrong tube. Thankfully Dick came to my rescue, galloping into the kitchen he snatched the straw out of my hand and told Ula that I did not do drugs in general and icing sugar in particular and she was to stop teasing me. I must have looked blank because Dick rolled his eyes, licked his finger, stuck it in the powder and then made me lick it. It was sugar. Ula, he said was a wicked woman and I wasn’t to do anything she suggested or believe anything she said. She started laughing then and said she was sorry, it was just I looked so scared, wide eyed and innocent, she couldn’t resist teasing me and she wouldn’t really have let me sniff it. She also said she could quite see why Dick had wanted to make a pet of me, as I was adorable, well, one doesn’t like to boast, I do my best, though I’m not sure I like the thought of being viewed as a pet, if I was a pet the RSPCA would be called in to reduce my workload. I haven’t yet told Dick that I’ve clumsily snapped a couple of dicks off his dick-encrusted elephant, I’m hoping he won’t notice and if he does I’ll win him over by apologising with charm and sincerity as well as suggesting a novel use for the detached phalluses…see, I know my Dick, I know Dick’s dick as well and I know what makes it happy. Sunday 20th May: In lieu of dinner I’m sitting here eating handfuls of the cereal made especially for gay men, Sugar Puffs. I can’t be arsed messing on with cooking something just for myself. I’ve just finished painting the kitchen and I’m knackered, it looks really nice though, I chose a fresh light peppermint green for the walls and did the skirting and coving in a metallic old gold shade. So, where are the bears on this fine Sunday I hear you ask, either that or I’m developing schizophrenia, well, they’re tucking into something tasty at HIS house. The pleasure of my company was waived, as it was last evening when Dick and Shane went out to dine alone; apparently I’m an ill-mannered cur who isn’t fit to grace the table of sweet and gentle folk. As a certain iconic and rather annoying telly character might say, am I bovvered? Well, yes, I am a bit, not so much for missing out on a feast, though I admit HE does a very good meal; I’ll give HIM that, but rather because I don’t like being out of favour with the men folk. To be honest I’m not very proud of myself. Yesterday was not a good day as far as I was concerned. I fell out with Shane to begin with. I’m getting acne round my nose and on my chin; the spots are a side effect of my current epilepsy medicine. The lamotrigine caused my skin to flush and a rash develop, which apparently was a potentially dangerous reaction, thus why it was stopped, whereas there is no known recorded case of death by acne, my doctor reckons it will settle down when I get more used to the medicine. Dick and Shane both say I’m fussing over nothing, which is easy for the pure and spotless to say. I got up yesterday morning to find a cluster of fresh pustules throbbing on my fizzog like grenades just waiting to explode and spray pus everywhere. I wasn’t too chuffed and told Shane that I’d rather risk having a fit than walk around with a face full of painfully hideous spots and as such I was giving up the meds. Over his dead body was the general gist of his reply. I flung a tantrum; I also flung my tablets in the kitchen pedal bin. Shane accused me of acting like a fucking spoilt teenager to which I sarcastically replied that it must be the influence of the spots. I mean for fuck’s sake I’m almost 25 I shouldn’t be erupting in zits. I’ve been there done that bought the Clearasil. I went off to visit my mum, I’ve been doing that as often as I can, but she was having a bad day and was tired and to cap it all Frank, the bastard, came home early from work and started having a pop at me, we ended up doing what we always do, baying angry insults into each other’s faces. Mum ended up in tears and I felt so bad. I got home to discover HIS car on the drive. I entered the house just as HE was in process of leaving it. HE was totally offensive to me, smiling and saying hello, and asking how my mother was in what I considered to be a provocative and derogatory manner. In other words I was looking for a scapegoat on which to take out my bad feelings and temper and Leo would do very nicely. I more or less told him to mind his own fucking business and go fuck himself into the bargain before storming off upstairs. Neither Shane nor Dick would accept any justification for my behaviour, they understood that I was upset about my mother and Frank, but that didn’t excuse my offensive bad manners. Shane said that if I was going to persist in acting like a bad tempered and spoiled brat he was going to treat me like one and then proceeded to just about spank the skin off my bare backside before sending me to bed. I have apologised to HIM, he was very gracious in his acceptance and told me not to worry about it, bastard, he was just being nice in order to make me feel even guiltier. Ah well, some days are better than others. I suppose I’d better go start shifting stuff back into the kitchen, a handyman houseboy’s work is never done. With a bit of luck the bears will return soon and give me a hand, and hopefully not on the arse. Tuesday 22nd May 2007: I think my drug induced acne problem is definitely causing me to regress back into a pubescent life form, in fact I might even patent an acne elixir and pedal spots as being the secret to eternal youth: Break out in pimples and feel the years slip away, behave like a teenager again! I spent twenty minutes locked in the bathroom this morning furtively squeezing yet another fresh cluster that had slyly invaded and conquered my face during the night while Shane hammered on the door demanding to know what the fuck I was doing, as he wanted a shower. I pointed out that there was another bathroom just down the landing that he could avail himself of. He pointed out that he wanted to avail himself of the en suite one and if I didn’t let him in immediately he was going to be exceptionally annoyed. I flung open the door and flounced past him muttering darkly. He sharply told me that squeezing my spots would only make them worse; I snarled that he didn’t understand, they were my spots and if I wanted to squeeze them I would and why didn’t he just leave me alone. He rolled his eyes and said I was a tiresome boy and bloody impossible to understand. I went into the kitchen and whapped my newest CD into the player turning the volume to stun. Shane doesn’t do the latest music; he believes that a man should own a handful of records that he remains loyal to for the rest of his life. I have diverse tastes and my latest must play the arse of it cd is Tales Don’t Tell Themselves by Funeral for A Friend. It’s fantastic. Shane doesn’t agree, he can’t even get his head round their name let alone the sound they make, he came thundering quietly into the kitchen (I didn’t hear him because the volume was so loud) and smartly ejected my cd causing me to almost crap myself with fright at what I thought was sudden onset deafness and then proceeded to chew my ear off for being an inconsiderate pest, reminding me that not only was Dick still in bed, but so was half the neighbourhood and they didn’t deserve to be roused from slumber by a wall of incoherent sound. We had a row with me shouting that he was never off my fucking case and him shouting that if I wasn’t such a thoughtless pain in the arse he wouldn’t need to be on my case so much and incidentally he didn’t care for my attitude and I’d better adjust it pretty dam sharpish. Breakfast was served and consumed in silence, dour on his part, sullen on mine. Just before putting his jacket on prior to leaving for work Shane told me as per the routine we’ve established to take my medication. I told him I’d take it later, in others words: sod off Shane. He got a glass of water and my tablets and banged them down in front of me saying that he would consider any further stubbornness or argument to be a serious breach of discipline between us and act accordingly. I resentfully swallowed down the tablets and promptly burst into tears accusing him of wanting me to be revoltingly spotty so he had an excuse to dump me for someone prettier, then in one of those weird irrational asides that happen when your emotions are in turmoil I accused him of hating the way I’d decorated the kitchen, even though he’d actually told me what a great job I’d made of it when he got home on Sunday night. Smacking the heel of his hand against his forehead he said if I got anymore childish he’d have to give up sleeping with me, as it would be like fucking a foetus. Dick came down at that point and crisply informed us that we were really rather getting on his nerves. He told me off for being awkward and provocative and Shane off for being impatient and insensitive. Shane glared at me and said, ‘you’ve upset Dick now” then went off to work after issuing a warning that I’d better be much improved in temperament when he got home. I told him that I expected the same from him along with compliance to my demand that I cease all medication for a period to determine whether I actually did need them (Lie detector says: in your dreams pal) Oh alright, I didn’t say that, not out loud anyway, I knew only too well what his reply would be if I did and he’d send it via my rump. I went over to Eileen’s for coffee this afternoon and had a whinge about things to her; she did some motherly comfort clasping and told me that distilled witch hazel might be worth a try as an astringent and healer. I’ll get some from the chemist tomorrow, anything is worth a try, I hate having spots, and aside from being unlovely they’re bloody sore. My Daddies are taking me out for dinner tonight, to cheer me up, I’ve told them it has to be somewhere with dim lighting so that I don’t frighten other diners and put them off eating when they clap eyes on my festering mush. Better go, I can hear Shane revving the car engine, if I keep him waiting much longer he’ll swing in through the window SAS style and then drag me out at gunpoint. Tuesday 29th May 2007: Whoever decreed that the month of May be sandwiched between two bank holidays deserves to be hunted down and beaten heavily about the head and shoulders with a blunt weather barometer. We never get decent weather in May; the only months that should be freely festooned with bank holidays in this country are June, July and August to stand even an outside chance of fine weather falling on one of them, instead of the torrential rain that habitually falls on May bank holidays. It’s cold and wet again today. I’ve got a friend in New York telling me that they’ve been sweltering under a blanket of heat; it’s just not fair. I went to see my mum yesterday, I took her out for lunch, she looked fine, and we had a good natter. We’ve talked more these past weeks than we’ve ever talked before. I suppose when you have a clock audibly ticking down the hours in the back of your mind it makes you say words that you’d otherwise defer. I feel like I’m just getting to know the woman who gave me life, and I want to keep on getting to know her. After walking her home I went to the church I used to sing in as a choirboy and lit a votive candle. I haven’t prayed sincerely in a long, long time, you know the kind of praying I mean, the type that has desperate nowhere else to go belief at the root of it. You get moments in life where there’s nothing left to do but have belief in something beyond the here and now, because all the possibilities of here and now have been exhausted and you’re not ready to embrace the inevitable. I would have gone to visit Lee, but he and his brother and a few of their mates had ventured into deepest darkest Wales for the bank holiday weekend, I just hope the local sheep population was on red alert and huddling together for safety. I got the train back and headed to the Rose and Crown to share a couple of bevies with my lady friend Stella before heading home. Dick and Shane were supposed to spend the day sailing with HIM and some friends, but the weather was so bad they decided not to risk it and had gone back to HIS house for dinner instead, where Dick proceeded to get absolutely rat arsed drunk. By the time I got home he was in bed and out for the count. I could tell that Shane wasn’t too pleased, he wouldn’t discuss it with me though and I didn’t push it, some things do not require third party interference. I just took the opportunity to park myself on his lap for a chat, a cuddle and a bit of babying. I bemoaned my skin troubles once again and he kissed me tenderly and told me it would take more than a few spots to stop me being beautiful. I was happy. He and Dick had some sharp words this morning, and consequently they’re a bit cool with each other this evening. I love it when Dick sulks, he buffs his fingernails, pausing only to pay meticulous, head earnestly on one side, attention to any words that Shane addresses to him, it drives Shane up the wall. I’ll have to go, Shane wants a cup of tea and heaven forbid he get off his Godly arse and make one. I suppose I’d better make one for the sulking nail buffer as well, his nails must be gleaming like righteousness by now. |
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