all good things

clements, botanic...

belated happy 14th february.

i was pretty down on all things valentine this year... which i'm aware was not because i'm unromantic but speaks to just how romantic i probably am but refuse to admit...

in truth there were moments in the past few days when i would've happily nuked the entire male species (well, the straight ones anyway) but i decided to err on caution and put it down to PMS...better to be safe than sorry. and it has to be acknowledged that stuarty and mark proved themselves to be fine upstanding representatives of their fellow men... the former created a fantastic lunch for his good wife and myself, complete with red roses for the table. the latter called over in the evening and he and i had great chats over a picnic of cheese and assorted delicacies, washed down with a bottle of muscat he brought back from last year's jaunt to Provence - a little dessert number we drank in copious quantities and like all good muscats tastes like an elixer of the gods... we drank it from martini glasses...
it was a great way to spend the evening and my spirits lifted greatly, although my half of the bottle of muscat may have played a little role in my improving humour... we talked of what matters to us and the people that matter to us and quietly acknowledged that (rather frustratingly) you can't tell your heart what or who to fall in love with... part of life is just feeling stuff and the challenge is to know how to live with that uncontrollability...to live with intent... to be fully alive... and that running from oneself is a futile pursuit that takes us nowhere... to wonder what the hell that thing i call the zing is, that spontaneous sensation of a stomach flip at the mere sight of another, and whether it's enough, and what caring looks like...

i'm so glad marky is back in the neighbourhood... we texted jude, both mindful that were he still in london it would no doubt be to her doorstop he'd have gone to celebrate friendship rather than mourn singledom...

so the day lacked any sigur ros soundtracked big gestures of passionate undying love but rather the warm generosity of friendship... and maybe that's what i needed this 14th february... thanks gents.

::

since the arrival of the 'Pod, i've discovered the sucking vortex of expenditure that is the iTunes store... so right now i'm listenign to Red, the second album by the communards, which was one of my favourite albums in my early to mid teens.
somewhere i still have an essay i wrote for my very own "captain, my captain" although it's taken me the best part of 20 years to start seeing in me what i think he saw back then... he asked us to write about our favourite song and in what seems now like a very 'me' thing to do, i chose 2...both songs from this album, contrasting in terms of style but together making social point...

no one had up to this point educated me in gay rights, in fact i'd suggest the opposite, but with the mere glimpse of the first gay couple in eastenders and a subsequent household ban of said programme, (the daily mail was delivered to our house at the time and i have doubt it was probably up in arms), i went with my gut... i suspect if my parents had had any idea what i was playing on my walkman it would have been confiscated... so my early teenage listening was heavily weighted toward british gay pop acts (although at the time i didn't make the connection between some of favourite acts...) my younger brother would educate me away on the path to very different sounds over the coming years, but relistening to this album for me still feels like a private but somehow innately political act... moving one moment, celebratory the next... undoubtedly synth-ridden but this is a great 80s album... it does what it does very well, and i feel like i'm coming home listening to it...

if i ever find that paper i wrote amongst my boxes of stuff from the past i'll post it here (in all its unedited defiant teenage and no doubt fairly naive glory) along with the comments from my english teacher... 'cause funny thing is, i'm pretty sure there's little i'd change with it and be pretty proud that i held a passionate conviction that would last well into adulthood and not be replaced but only added to with the arguments to back it up... as new friend tim said over coffee, "oh to go back to your 13 year old self for a night with the experience you carry in your 33 year old self"...to offer some encouragement amidst the excruciating insecurity...

::

last night i saw the episode of the west wing where toby is confronted by a group of rather convincing child suffrage activists. as i realised with shame and bemusement that i somehow didn't get myself round to registering to vote in the upcoming elections, i kinda wish i'd had the vote when i was 13, before i learnt what cynicism was, or at least, before apathy set in... i can't believe i didn't register...women died to get me the vote. i consider this nothing short of an insult to their memory...

::

ooh shuffle has just offered mmm mmm mmm mmm by crash test dummies. i must take a religious moment...

::

spent the last few hours having a long overdue one-on-one conversation with Pete (he who spawned ikon). we've been at the ikon table a lot in recent weeks one way or another and as my feet very naturally firmly swing back under said table, (after spending much of 2006 on self imposed 'sabbatical' to concentrate on giving my inner world some attention), i've been looking forward to getting some time for intentional discussion...
in the ongoing collective conversations those of us who are sometimes called ::old skoolers:: often find ourselves re-walking what is for us well trodden ground with the newer folks in the crowd, or clarifying one's vocabulary or individual perspective with those whom one does not share a history. this is typically pretty exciting and challenging, and i love hearing fresh perspectives of others, but on days like today it's just really nice being able to converse with the full knowledge that one is standing on mutually understood ground with rarely any need for translation...i guess it's just a rather different kind of conversation... so we explored with length and depth all things ikon and then some... this kind of time with Pete is something i treasure as friends as much as collaborators, and it is a marker to me of our shared commitment to our friendship in the passage of time that we have learned how to communicate together... our conversations are unique to us... i think we've learned to give each other space to try ideas on for size and not rush ourselves into decisions or hard held positions... and in doing so find a nice kind of shared perspective which still reflects our individualities amidst this dynamic crowd... colour me energised and thinking this is shaping up to being a good year for the crowd...

::

right, better drag my ass home and get me some dinner...

LB,x