i clean up pretty well, see. scraggly studenty tshirty old me can, every once in a while, get glammed up, buttoned up, quaffed up, for special events. the special event on saturday night was the 21st birthday of adam, held at the new psuedo-exclusive members bar shaun & joe.

there are varying levels of pretentiousness in the members bars across soho… when shadow lounge first opened, it was fun and funky and if you were able to get in, you were sure to hobnob with celebs and have an otherwise high-quality evening. now most people look down their nose at you if you go there, since inside it’s filled with fat businessmen dancing poorly to wedding reception music.

sweet suite had potential, but took themselves too seriously, and pretended that they were even more exclusive than shadow lounge. i remember dining out in town a few weeks after they opened, and watched their purple cadillac pull up, and their gorgeous supermodel-cum-waiter-cum-flyer boys come up to our table and give us free passes to the club. fair enough, they were desparate to bring the punters in. after dinner we showed up to an otherwise empty club, and they tried making us queue for a few minutes, in order to make the place look busy. eric doesn’t queue, the sweet suite was blacklisted and went out of business weeks later.

the departure lounge at .heaven used to be A Big Deal. blagging was useless… you were either on the list and obviously fabulous, or you weren’t. it took me months of schmoozing and self-promoting before i was able to tiptoe in, to chat with sir ian, graham, neil and chris and george. now, anyone and their pet monkey can get in, with most of the crowd buying alcopops with handfuls 50p pieces.

from the outside, shaun & joe is perhaps daunting… a gratuitously long red carpet, two clipboarded bouncers at the door, and plenty of velvet ropes. but, i passed muster on saturday, and swimmed in with no explanation. i suppose i should feel validated or something?

inside i met the birthday boy, who, unfortunately i couldn’t ever remember meeting before in my entire life. we apparently met months ago, and apparently exchanged numbers, and he’s apparently keen on me. i figured, hey, it’s his birthday and adam seemed more than please that i arrived.

here, have some champagne, it’s £220 a bottle, you know! the attentive steward swims over with a crystal flute for me and pours me some bubbly. i toast adam, and try to suss him out. he seems mature, sure, and has a successful air of confidence. cute, i’d say. something’s not quite right, though, and i can’t put my finger on it.

so, i’ve just come back from miami where i just celebrated my birthday for real, he explains. picked up these wonderful shoes for only $800. okay, starting to see a pattern. we continue the polite conversation, and, somehow, within 10 minutes of meeting this boy i’ve learned his annual salary, a deliciously high number, but details of his job in i.t. are still a bit sketchy. one should always downplay one’s financial status, methinks?

shaun & joe is very cosy, funky and not horribly pretentious. people are mingling, smiling, dancing. 6 bottles of £220 bubbly later, and i’ve warmed up to the lad a little bit, but am still unsure about how everything fits together. he’s far from pretentious, but not quite down-to-earth enough for me. he’s mature and sophisticated, but, at the same time very much a 21-year-old. the wealth issue keeps coming up, and i just sort of grin in pain each time it does. it becomes obvious that at least several of his friends are aware of his attraction to me, as i see them sussing me up for later gossip with the birthday boy.

atif, being the wise and dear friend that he is, tears me away from champagne-fuelled conversation with adam, and within minutes we’re leaving shaun & joe, velvet ropes opening for us, and we walk past a queue [a queue?] of people anxious to get inside and be seen. we knowingly hop into a rickshaw and head to that sleazy local dive bar, .heaven, to meet up with friends and boyfriends.

push the button, don’t push the button

on sunday, flatmate mitch and i did a top-to-bottom cleaning of the flat, because our other flatmate adam is moving out and we’re having roommate candidates stop by. as i was sweeping out the hallway, i flipped on the light switch and -pop- the lightbulb shorted out. no worries, i replaced the bulb and reset the circuit breaker.

the next morning, [monday 2pm], i groggily stumbled into the shower, switched on the light, and -pop- the bulb shorted out. it took me a few not-really-awake-yet minutes to figure out how to unscrew the antiquated light fixture and replace the bulb.

the following morning [tuesday 3pm] i was cooking a big fry-up breakfast in the kitchen. i’m a lousy cook, and barely know how to fry bacon, much less also cook eggs and beans and toast at the same time without setting off the smoke alarm. as everything was sizzling on the grill and splattering on the countertop, i switched on the overhead light, the little one in the hood of the stove, so that i could see what i was doing. you guessed it, -pop-, the little 40w appliance bulb shorted out too.

at this point i became paranoid and shared my curse [i'm electrified!] with my flatmates. they assured me it was just a coincidence.

yesterday morning [wednesday] i woke up feeling quite electrified. so electrified that i skipped my morning cup of coffee, instead opting for a nice tall glass of orange juice from the kitchen. stumbling back into my office to check emails and so on, i switched on the overhead light, the one above my desk.

this time the bulb didn’t just -pop-, it actually exploded. in a big flash of light, and with a big -kerbang-, the bulb exploded, sending shards of glass all over the room, and the lampshade crashing to the ground. this shocked me so much that i also dropped my nice tall glass of orange juice, creating a giant sticky shardy i-just-woke-up-and-just-wanted-to-check-my-email-oh-well mess all over the office.

but, inspired by the delicious tom welling from smallville, i decided to not ignore nor hide my superpowers, but instead unleash them on london. i grabbed my cape and trudged over to the ica, mainly to check out audiovisualize [a audiovisual/music video installation from addictive tv], but also to surround myself by the über-trendy, über-artsy, über-caffeinated crowds at ica‘s café. i spent a few hours there, interfacing with the multimedia exhibits and building up an unhealthy static charge.

did some shopping, setting off the security alarms in each covent garden shop, before settling into the box and bar aquada with marky, .gregiño and greg’s colleague jerry. it was clear that although i hadn’t eaten all day, my batteries will still fully charged, as i short-circuited the fruit machines at retro bar before traipsing into .heaven.

sorta like when you shuffle your feet across a carpet, or rub a balloon through your hair, stroking my ego yesterday caused even more electricity to build up in my body. cruising across the dancefloors, i didn’t even drink or do any drugs and i was glowing this dim blue glow, from the wild brazilian boy throwing himself on me, the two naughty kappa slappers falling onto me, even millionaire daniel pinned me in a corner. i smelled a bit like the air after a lightning storm, very metallic and fresh.

walking up to the main bar, i patiently waited behind the rows and rows of punters waiting to be served by the 10 or so shirtless .heaven bartenders. i was in no hurry, but out of nowhere the cutest bartender, the only one [besides bar manager andrew] with a semblence of innocence or intelligence, the one with whom i’ve had 2-sentence flirtatious conversations with for the past few months, swims over, smiles and gives the universal push-through-the-crowd-i-want-to-serve-you bartender nod.

     have you been waiting long? he asks.
          nah, not too long, i reply.
     on the pull? he asks, as he looks over my shoulder for any potentials.
          me? never! just here to dance, of course!
     well, sorry to keep you waiting he says across the bar.
          waiting? it’s no problem, really!
     well, he deadpans, i’ve been waiting my whole life for you.

with that, he grabs my hand and kisses it, sending an electric shock through his glistening shirtless body, knocking him back a few feet. he looks up, gives me my virgin vodka-and-coke, leans across the bar and asks will you wait for me after work?

as i walk away, charge building, i smile, and say, we’ll see, we’ll see.

books
i just finished reading the spell by alan hollinghurst [swimming pool library]. an excellent depiction of london/dorset gay life, told in an [as is always the case in real-life] jumpy, interwoven fashion. friends and exes, father and son, tricks and drug dealers… it’s all quite romantic and respectible, and, for once, the author doesn’t really celebrate hedoism, but only acknowledges it.

teevee
you know all about bittorrent technology, right? it’s a new [amazing] distributed way to quickly download huge files [movies, teevee shows, pr0n]. rather than waiting until 2006 to see the latest american teevee, i’ve been on a downloading frenzy.

music
adam freeland [we want your soul]has taken electro and made it a bit harder, yet a bit dancier as well—amazing video!. i’m still rocking to richard x’s debut, and goldfrapp’s black cherry, and, of course peaches’ new one, fatherfucker. on the classic tip, been pogoing to the kinks [come dancing, you really got me, waterloo sunset].

happy birfday to me

thanks to everyone for the birthday love, the gifts, the drinks, the transatlantic phone calls, the emails and for making this ides of march absolutely spectabulous. it’s now monday evening, and i am nowhere near recovered.

met up with irish lee on friday for dinner [zizzi] and a movie [life of david gale]. we celebrated my birthday at midnight with some strawberries and champagne and… other gifts. i’ll do anything for those scooby snacks! :twisted:

for saturday i kept things really really simple. i didn’t want to have to make reservations or stress out about people being late or anything, so we just had dinner at satsuma, drinkies at friendly society and then some dancing at .ghetto. the night was just perfect… manny brought his cute finnish boy tamu [not as a gift for me, sadly], flatmates adam and steve brought their aussie charms, cousin michael brought cutie galam and a long-lost american lad. atif brought straight john and his other friend, charlie [how do you do!], of course my most fabulous friends .gregiño and marky were there [with fab gifts!], former flatmate felix was there with his aussie boyf brian, california zeke showed up, eventually. there were birthday smooches from simon the biter, brazilian wandson and fluffer ian.

… to me!

don’t tell anyone, but there were a total of six of my exes there saturday night. six! is there any other way for a gay man to accrue friends in this god-forsaken hamlet? in addition to the expected raunchy cards and sex toys, i got some spiffy shirts, a few books a dvd and plenty and plenty of cocktails. i don’t remember much of saturday except for snogging a few dozen peeps at friendly, and stealing cocktails at .ghetto while popstarz simon spun some awful tunes.

the party pretty much continued sunday, with a few more flatmate interviews and some lovin’ with lee. we found us a new flatmate to replace steve… his name is mitch, a zesty julliard-trained canadian new yorker. and [promise not to tell anyone] he sounds exactly like the first love of my life, jeff. just his voice, though, and not his looks, so there’s no worries there. lee hung out all day sunday too, even though i tried my best to get him to go home.

when he left this afternoon, i presented him with a certificate of acheivement for having spent 80 consecutive hours in my bed.

i left my flat yesterday morning to meet peter and adam for a trip on the london eye, and had the foresight to take vouchers to get into .heaven some 12 hours later. that’s what we call party readiness.

i used to work across the street from the eye for some 9 months… i’d sit at my desk and watch the giant ferris wheel go round and round and round… i always assumed i would never go on it, since i’m not one to succumb to the lure of cheesy tourist attractions. well, given the perfect excuse [american friends visiting], we went on it an i absolutely enjoyed it. highly recommended — lovely perspectives in every which way.

after an entirely disappointing night out at .heaven, andrew and i had an ole-fashioned slumber party at my flat… we laid in bed for hours chatting and giggling like little schoolgirls. since i met andrew many months ago, my respect for him and my desire for him have each grown at the same rate — which presents a tricky situation… he was comfortable enough with our friendship to share a bed with me, and i respect him enough to spare him my advances.

maybe a cold shower is in order. :shock: