it took the team of movers 1 hour and 45 minutes to swoop in, wrap/box/bubblewrap all of my worldly possessions, and rush it to the airport. well, except for this laptop, which i’m obviously writing on. or am i? buwahahaha…

ding ding, i’m in the final round. i’ve got this moving-to-a-foreign-country thing down pat, i reckon, as i haven’t had a nervous breakdown or nervous veins throbbing on my forehead. yet. maybe when i try to sneak my extensive chinchilla pelt collection through customs i might unravel during the certain long hours of interrogation.

after the flurry of goodbyes last saturday and my big partay, i’ve spent much of the week sorting through the scragglers [i just made that word up but you know what it means!], with more somber farewells to kerrieanne as she conversely flees to new zealand, and a delish dinner last night with stuart and felix. the dinner started out friendly and light and happy and fun, and then about halfway through i think it hit them and me all at once, oh my god you’re actually leaving and oh my god this is probably the last time i’ll see you… for… a… while.

so many different types of goodbyes. some are straightforward, sad but straightforward, knowing that i probably will never see them again, unless strange circumstances present themselves [e.g. we both actually make an effort to keep in touch, or they find themselves living in los angeles]. sometimes the goodbye isn’t really a goodbye, as we both know we’re going to stay as close as we are now. sometimes, the goodbye is elaborate yet, well, sort of meaningless. but amusing nonetheless:

stopped by friendly society, presumably my favorite bar in london, where i shared a cute and flirty 20-minute goodbye with scott, the bartender whom i’ve now snogged on three continents. a while later, i saw him send maria, the hilariously eclectic owner, over to our table, presumably telling her, you know eric, right? of course you know eric, right? we’ll he’s leaving to california, you should go say goodbye!

she stumbles over my way, and i look up with a smile. she sits down next to me, and proceeds to chat to some random boy sat opposite. so, i hear you’re leaving! i’d expect nothing less from maria, the princess of air-kisses and oh hellllllo dahlink! greetings. eventually she figures out her gaffe, and proceeds to sit on top of me for 10 minutes as we discuss the merits of pretentious l.a. life versus boozy london life, throwing in some random kylie references… apparently she’s always in friendly when she tours london.

my leaving party was a smash, a success, a wonderful send-off. as a funeral provides emotional closure after the death of a loved one, my leaving bash provided a way for friends to tangibly say goodbye, and for me to punctuate the end of this segment of my life in london.

in the end, maybe 80 people showed up, which was touching and wonderful and just borderline overwhelming. from 7pm when i showed up till 1am when we finally shut the party down, it seemed i was constantly turning and chatting with a new smiling face—the six hours honestly went by in what seemed to me like 45 minutes. so many memories, so many familiar faces, so many long-lost friends, so many promises to keep in touch. perfect.

the weather wasn’t as perfectly warm and sunny as i had hoped, so at the last minute, michael [the grumpy but efficient owner of the english maid boat pub] and i changed from an upper-deck barbecue to a lower-deck smorgasbord, starting with finger foods and later serving salads and bangers and mash, which a surprising number of my friends gobbled down. who knew that gay boys liked stodge?

the proprietor seemed to have a permanent scowl as he observed the goings-on of my party [lots of gay antics, smooches, embraces, giggles] but maybe he just has permanent churchill-esque scowl jowls. i dunno. he and his staff did a brilliant job with the food, the drinks [even if i had to explain what a mojito is], and letting me blast my music. but i think most of my friends got weirded out by the way he just kept circulating the crowd shooting everyone evils. he was probably in love with one of the poofs, i dunno.

i put out a big book, called eric’s big black book, for everyone to write a little farewell message. it seemed as if it was constantly being written in throughout the evening, and i’ve decided that i’m not going to even peek at it until i arrive in los angeles… presumably the first lonely night in my empty flat. i can’t wait.

after the party, 25 of us trekked back to my flat, where we had an impromptu party. we somehow managed to keep everyone lubricated for a few hours, with just a half-bottle of vodka, a fifth of whiskey, some absinthe and an old bottle of port. i’m such a creative bartender, i tell thee! woke up the morning after with an ex in my bed [a lovely surprise, surely!] and mixed feelings about the night before.

on one hand, it was a beautiful send-off and a lovely party and a lot of surprises showed up. on the other hand, a lot of good friends who had rsvp’ed several times neglected to show up. several “top tier” friends whom i expected to be first to show up and last to leave, didn’t even bother to come, nor did they call to cancel or send a text the next morning to apologize. i’m still waiting for their excuses to trickle in.

these no-shows probably hurt me the most, but at the same time, i realize that that’s the nature of transient, over-socialized london. so many comings and goings, so many arrivals and departures, so many parties on a saturday night, how can one possibly keep up, prioritize and juggle? but, the more i think about it, i would never ever miss out on their leaving parties.

i know i’m gonna forget some people, but i’ve just gotta rattle them off… it was so sweet to see sam from brighton, whom i hadn’t seen in years and whom i renewed my pact to marry at some point. also alex, who is still intelligent and sexy and makes me laugh, nervously. keith, aka dog collar boy, still sweet and innocent and nervous. charlie from glasgow sent a troupe of boys, the hot scottish boyband celtic love, which was confusing and amusing. was so sweet for the yahoo boys to come out… it was great to escape the gauntlet of all of my exes by chilling with them to talk shop for a bit. ben was looking as handsome as ever, and i could tell it took a bit of bravery to show up after our breakup a few months ago. sad to say goodbye fluffer ian and chris, to the always-charming, always-flattering oliver and the handsome gift he brought [rob], to my favorite lesbian angie, to surrogate mum and dad william and claire, to spikey james [whom i never managed to seduce], to doctor craig, to brothers tim and mark. the .heaven boys [manny and ash and his crew, and you can't forget ruaraidh rory], last-minute arrivals eliel and marie… and all the rest.

and thanks to my darling posse for always being there for me… atif and .greg, mark and mitch, wes and marcos. it’s most easy to say goodbye to them since i know goodbye really means see you soon.

tonight was my last visit to .popstarz, the unique-to-london club that has defined, reflected and served as a backdrop for much of my london misadventures. perfect timing, of course, because it coincided with their amazing 10th birthday bash.

my tummy’s been all askew since some binge drinking wednesday night with chip [more on that later], so i’ve been staying away from the sauce for the time being. i’m quite glad that i managed to dance for 4 hours last night at .discotec, stone cold sober, and then again tonight i moshed round .popstarz for 4 hours, gleeful as ever [perhaps less slutty though] just chugging lemonade or water.

it’s been a while since i’ve gotten such a sweaty workout [standing up in public that wasn't sex], and i enjoyed every minute of it. when i’m sober, and when the rest of the club is trolleyed [about 1050pm at .discotec, and about 1am at .popstarz], i dance so well [relatively speaking] that people stare at me as if i’m justin timberlake incarnate. tonight i was busting the moves, for real, hands in the air, fingers snapping, goofy expressions and my wild hair punctuating it all.

said goodbye to sooooooooooo many people tonight. it’s amazing how a 2000-person gay indie club can feel like a local bar. i seriously recognized maybe 100 faces tonight, and that’s a wonderful thing. spent most of the evening in the company of mitch, .greg and a very smiley stuart. lots of noooooo! you can’t be leaving! and london won’t be the same without you and now who am i supposed to flirt with? and so on. i feel loved.

electric six did a 5* song set tonight at .popstarz, at what i hear is their first performance at a gay bar. ironic, of course, since their biggest hit song is entitled gay bar. but, seeing them all strut out tonight, you can see that perhaps they’re a bit fratty, a bit blokey, a bit straight. they looked like your typical group of boozing frat brothers, just 5 years after getting kicked out of school.

they were quirky and zany and nonsensical and full of pure rawk-and-roll energy. i was slamdancing with the drunken queens, with the smothered straights, and bowled over plenty of angry lesbians. i enjoyed dance epidemic way too much, and was perhaps a bit too enthusiastic with my clapping for radio gaga, and was only disappointed by their omission of jimmy carter from their set list.

for their encore, they played gay bar. 5 times. in a row. they probably would have played it another 5 times if mikey hadn’t kicked ‘em off the stage. i think there’s something not quite right in the lead singer’s head—and i’d expect nothing less from a rock star.

oh, so, yeah, last night hit .discotec with atif and mark. again stone-cold sober, recovering from wednesday. what happened wednesday?

started off simple enough… some summer wine with .greg, mitch, marky, my mumsy and her boyfriend mike. then an absolutely mind-blowing performance of mary poppins, with the most astounding multi-billion dollar set, the most astoundingly perfect child actors, and [luckily] the best seats in the house. unfortunately, the wine i slurped back during interval tasted like rotten cork, but i didn’t notice until it was too late.

next thing i know, i’m letting chip aka skaterboy aka the boy i obsess about way too much and blog about and love to hate and hate to love and whose boyfriend reads my blog and must think i’m the biggest asshole on the planet convince me convince him convince me to go out dancing to .heaven.

we meet up inside, and we start ordering our drinks entirely too quickly, buying rounds in rapid-fire succession, sprinting whereas we should have been running a marathon. we’re playing our usual games of him flirting with me, me obsessing over him, him pissing me off, me ditching him, him apologizing and flirting some more, me hitting on someone else, him getting insecure. rinse, lather, repeat. and drink.

around 230am, i decided to haul myself home. i said my goodbyes to chip, presumably hopped on the night bus, and found my way home.

i wake up at 1pm or so with one of the worst hangovers of my life. and that’s saying a lot, coming from a professional alcoholic like myself. i blame the dodgy wine at mary poppins, but it could’ve been a combination of that plus our frantic drinking plus whatever else. needless to say, it’s now 48 hours later and i’m still feeling a bit off-kilter.

around 3pm or so, i hear from chip. he’s in hospital. he woke up with an i.v. drip, two black eyes, a possibly broken nose, and no idea how he got there. no idea if/when he left the club. or who beat him up, or why, or where. it wasn’t a robbery as he still had his wallet and phone. he doesn’t even know how he got to the hospital.

the awful thing is, for the first few minutes i didn’t believe him, as he’s played some pretty complicated mind games on me in the past. but once i hear the fear and shaky sadness in his voice, i realize he’s telling the truth. i dig deep into my drunken memory, looking for any clues, but come up empty.

how much am i to blame for getting this 24yo lad drunk? i think back to the first time we hooked up, when he polished off a half bottle of absinthe on his own, and i realize that maybe i’m not solely to blame for his overconsumption of alcohol that night. maybe i should have stayed, maybe i should have kept an eye on him, but our relationship isn’t exactly what you’d term as a straightforward, mutually-beneficial, even-keeled friendship. it’s a twisted, lust-ridden, uneven, unhealthy acquaintance.

regardless, i feel so sorry for him, and hope he regains his handsome features in no time. i’ve been trying to offer my help and support, but i think his boyfriend has stepped in. boyfriend must really despise me now. i’m such a bad influence, sometimes.