Time to talk trash I'm loathed to admit it, but after watching the so-so last Matrix movie, I switched channels and became engrossed in the season finale of ITV's paean to naked, trashy satire, Footballers' Wives



Besides the obvious allure of half-naked athletic bodies, the show is quite good fun. Camp acting, ludicrous storylines, and laugh-out-loud dramatic moments (the hemaphrodite baby!). Now that Jason's gone, I don't really think there are any fanciable men, but Zoe Lucker deserves an award for being so over-the-top trashy. Classic moment last night, Tanya discovering her dead sugar-daddy had been sabotaging their condoms. Fantastic.



Now, as penance, I'm going to have to read the entire oeuvre of French existentialism to redress an aesthetic balance, but it was worth it.

The Da Vinci Code Reading Dan Brown's the Da Vinci Code. It's an interesting book. Not brilliant literature. A reliance on unnecessary adjectives. A lot of predictable sentences in italics. I don't know if there's a lot of fact behind it, but it's an intriguing idea that there are forces in the Catholic Church that seek to erase substantial parts of the early days of the church. I won't give more than that away. It brings back memories of worries about Opus Dei's shadowy operations -- they have spies who report on anything unconventional. At uni, I went to a very progressive student church that was in constant fear of espionage by these conversative hypocrites. It's very satisfying, therefore, to see them so maligned.

I'm surrounded, but can't surrender Friday night, expecting to be overwhelmed by the competitiveness of our quarterly games of mah jongg (well, overwhelmed by the wine we drink as well as the task of remembering how mah jongg is played). I, instead, sat whilst K. & A. and L. & A. filled the conversation with pregnancies and babies and house repairs. Even when they attempted to about something else under the guise of not leave me out it sprinted back to those topics. We didn't even play mah jongg.



I've became that rarest of animal. A gay man in a sea of breeding homeowners.



I'm not being judgmental. I don't begrudge them anything. I don't find it tiresome. I don't pout and push the conversation back to me.



I'm envious. Louise and Andrew have a new stunning home. Acres of bedrooms. A bathroom the size of my entire flat with a sunken tub. Kirsten and Andrew took that first leap onto the property ladder and fill their weekends at B&Q and bloody Mothercare and await a little Rose.



Me, I bought a rug. A 3x5 foot Kashmiri tribal rug. It's now the most significant thing I own, besides the television. Yes, a tv and a rug are my most worthy domestic purchases.



Pathetic.

To miss someone

For the last year and some months T.'s shouldered the burden of daily pesterings about things great and small. The weather, television, work frustrations, my fears and insecurities. Well, he's been on holiday for two weeks and the emails have been unwritten, unsent, unexpressed. They fester and grow like a grit of sand in an oyster inside my chest and now I'm looking at this thing, this object as imaginary as hope and as real as despair and wondering what the hell I do with it.



But beyond that, I begin to think what I've not been doing or needing or searching out or expressing or dealing with because, for whatever purpose or willingness or aptitude, T.'s become my outlet of intimacy. Is it a rope tying me to a phantom pier or is it a tether keeping me from being adrift? Is it too heavy a burden for something that's essentially an email friendship -- another example of my ability to mis-aim with precision and intensity?



And why the drama? Why not enjoy what it is, ignore what it doesn't mean, stop seeking the shadows and dark corners? Feed the hunger, not the ache. Get some sleep. Stop dreaming of hibernation and smile at Spring.

Welcome back, days of British Summer Time. Clocks changed on Saturday and suddenly the day was rife with light. Maybe not sunlight, but light nonetheless. Ah, the long days and the chance to work a day and still enjoy the light on your face in the garden of some pub.



Reading the Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown which despite an annoying tendency to attach an adjective to everything is engrossing.



Listening to Franz Ferdinand.



Enjoying Moulton & Brown templetree bath gel.



Getting ready for John and Jason's visit.



Starting to think about summer holidays.

I was enjoying our office view of the Thames until I read that it's a potential weakness for terrorist strikes. Great. Glad I sit on the Strand side of the building. It's unlikely that they would hit around here what with the Parliament downstream and Canary Wharf upstream.



I wondered if either Bush or Blair are nervous about the surprise win in Spain by the Socialist party which is spending it's first days in office withdrawing troops from Iraq. Spain was one of Britain's closest allies in the lead up to the war and there aren't many now in the EU who would believe countries that seem to have gotten their intelligence so badly formed.



Spent last night in the elegant bar at the Cinnamon Club drinking to a colleague's bon voyage. But my heart wasn't in it. I was, instead, thinking about a conversation Kirsten and I were having. She's tackling life head on - marriage, pregnancy, new house. I feel positively stuck in the mud and seeing very few ways out of it, or rather many ways of indeterminate effect. Vaguely unhappy in life, but realising it's quite possible I'd remain so for years -- going through the motions, doing what has to be done, missing romance, and reminding myself to be satisfied with little things.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.



I'm trying not to be one of those people who never keep their blogs up-to-date but it happens, you know?



Robert's in town keeping me liquored up. Over-indulged in the weekend and dragged my arse to the gym to make up for it.



Watched two fantastic films: Belleville Rendez-vous and Goodbye Lenin. Goodbye Lenin made me yearn for the late 80s. And strangely interested in Berlin post-reunification. Belleville has stunning characterisation and a theme song that stays glued to your brain.