the greatest thing, you'll ever learn ... is just to love and be loved in return

My sweet prince … was this weekend past | a dream | a reality | or something in between on a completely different level of consciousness | the longing, the intense feelings of togetherness, the physical, the loving, the exhilaration of being in each others presence | the holding of hands in the crowds of humanity who know not our deepness and emotional inter connectivity | my joy is your joy is our joy | my kiss is yours …

Inception | the movie | was strangely and coincidentally symbolic of our weekend and Exit through the Gift shop was a reminder that what is seen on the surface betrays a complexity in the depths of experience that few perceive

That is us

Opening the door | moving from my Tasmanian ‘room’ to my ‘Douglas’ room and back again | I can’t wait for the door to open again …

are families natural?

this morning I saw my mother for the 1st time in 16 months | words can't articulate the visual impact of a parent weighing 39 kilos | who is 63 and looks 93 | the need to present a relaxed and understanding face to my mother under these circumstances requires immense self control

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she looks absolutely awful | today has been an intense reality check and confirmation how mortal we all really are | I hugged her in her chair and all one could feel were skin and bones | we talked for about an hour | updating each other as what is happening around the traps |she is eating some food and liquids | still so visually challenging | how challenging this must be for her at her youngish age | such a conflicting image of the vibrant, beautiful and stylish young woman I always remember my mother being

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I am naturally taking a leadership role with my siblings | am organising a gathering next Saturday afternoon so all interested parties are together | effectively bringing together for the first time in 3 years all of us

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I miss Douglas so much and the difference between my relationship with him and observing other siblings relationships ... | the contrast is extreme | how did I end up with such a beautiful and intelligent person in the form of Douglas? | I am truly blessed

gates of paradise

autumn in Tasmania has left us finally | our arcadian paradise reached new heights of serenity and beauty after 8 years of waiting for this achievement | enjoy

“when you’re fighting off the alligators, it’s hard to remember you were trying to drain the swamp”

a fascinating week in Australian history in a macro sense [1st female prime minister] and some micro ‘rent asunder’ moments at the micro level for oneself

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having just returned last Tuesday morning on the Spirit of Tasmania from Melbourne | that ship can only be described as a floating RSL | I was required to front up to a conciliation session with the Australian Human Rights Commission in the afternoon | needless to say the content of the session must forever remain confidential | however the process, the experience and the outcome of that journey has acted as a shocking and immediate catalyst for re-evaluating one’s professional life and the phenomenal level of commitment I have made to my existing leadership role within the organisation I work for

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that evening my oldest sister contacted me, in some panic, indicating that our mother has been starving herself to facilitate her own death | now I am good in a crisis and went immediately into task focus mode | putting all emotions into an intellectual glove compartment until I could determine the seriousness of the situation and what I was going to do

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in a strange but epiphany-like way the personally and professionally unsatisfying experience of the Australian Human Rights Commission earlier | provided a turning point in the priority I needed to give family, friends, Douglas and myself | consequently I had no hesitation in deciding to make plans to go to South Australia and if necessary be with my mother and siblings in her final days or weeks

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Douglas has been a model partner throughout the week and what can I say | he is the best!

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My work life now takes about 4^th place in my life and being away ffrom Tasmania for sometime will provide an opportunity to re-evaluate what I want to do in this area for the next year or so | having invested a phenomenal amount of time, intellectual endeavour and intellectual warfare and sheer hard work into my role for the last year | I feel it has been like pushing shit up a hill all the way | is it worth it in the long term? | it is particularly sobering to remind oneself that when you leave an organisation you only have about a 3 to 4 month history after you leave | then you effectively disappear and really didn’t matter …

max raabe is gemutlichkeit ... ya

having recently come across lots of marilyn manson music clips on youtube | and watching interviews by appallingly lame and tedious USA journalists ... marilyn intelligently rebuffing their journalist buffoonery | i discovered that a person called max raabe performed at marilyn manson and ditta von teese's wedding



wow!


check out max raabe on youtube | in particular his cover of tainted love | an absolutely brilliant weimar republic style rendition of this classic | makes me want to bring double brested suits and a swing band for our wedding

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ6zkW1khfw


am officially obsessed

douglas turns 50

my beautiful, handsome, creative and sexy man ... douglas turned 50 and we had a fantastic party in melbourne with about 30 of his friends at the end of february

what a night!

people who had not seen each other for years experienced another of our legendary 'meet' fests that we put on about once every four years | some flying in from tasmania, south australia, new south wales | can you believe the alcohol didn't run out and not through lack of trying and the birthday cake completely eliminated any impure thoughts about food catering ... it was the chocolate equivalent of a bear orgy, a good one that is ...

douglas in his unique way had everyone hanging off his words of thanks and drew a great path through the decades and how so many of his friends entered various periods of his life and remain friends to this day

a few tears of joy were shed and even more when, although nauseaous with nerves ... I proposed marriage to douglas in front of all of his friends as part of a thank you speech ... wow! it took me about 3 months to work up the courage and to find the appropriate and relevant quotes from that popular culture whore, britney spears ... lol

after about 15 seconds ... he accepted | what the fuck would i do if he didn't? that contingency wasn't necessary as i knew it wouldn't be

the amusing and slightly scary thing is ... people love weddings and all crap that goes around them ... everyone wants to get involved and people go all goey over the idea, and ask lots of questions about an unplanned for event ... i never really thought about the aftermarth in any specific kinda way ...

elopement is definitely an option ... stay tuned

happy birthday to my mother

my mother is 62 | my mother is an institution | she is a cross between kath day-night, nana mouskouri & queen mary [the person, not the ship ...]

after a year of having not spoken to each other I finally relented, mobile in hand and dialled ... curious how we remember our mothers telephone number ... including area code! well, we picked up from the moment we last spoke to each other and both had lots of news to share about families, sibling [mine cover every possible 'demon'graphic in known to the australian bureau of statistics and more | you know the usual stuff ... who's rooting whom, when & where, nieces and nephews and associated good and bad behaviour, boyfriends, girlfriends, the weather, the bushfires [we lived through one once ... 'lived' being the key word here], marriage, birthdays, the price of vegetables and gin, and so on and so on ...

the sweetest thing about my mother, is that she never holds a grudge against me for my appalling lack of consistency in attention to her .. perhaps that is the only benefit of being the oldest child ... it must be the only one ...

we do love one another unconditionally even though we operate at opposite ends of the spectrum in our approach to life ... happy birthday to you

honi soi que maly pense

yes ... i'm a blogger truant and a number of friends have expressed that they are suffering from blogger deprivation disorder so after almost six month of absenteeism | i have returned

get your face out of my coconut ruff . . .

. . . how exquisite it is when the unwritten intellectual & experiential intimacies between two people can reduce them to hopeless uncontrollable laughter & mirth with statements such as the above | we spent many a moment in mirth ... | a partner & mate who can still break me up into side splitting laughter is a treasure beyond definition

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it is said that context is everything | & this weekend through to today was a period of fast paced socialising & longer periods of serene quiet with episodes of unbridled lust & desire | languid in each others arms & wallowing in a certain kind of masculine sharing | yes, my douglas graced the shores of elba & the lips of the islands prisoner

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always when driving from the airport after our goodbyes | a piece of music will play that cajoles those bittersweet feelings | farewell, distance, intensity of emotional connection, temporary loss | love ... for all it's inadequacy as a word | tears will well up, the taste of salt & I relish in that bittersweet stuff | the melancholia of absence & the joy of return ...

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contributing to the sense of romance & serenity is that spring in tasmania is upon us | that first sense of warm on your back from the sun | the inky blue sky as the sun is setting, promising still summer nights to come ... of sensuous times ahead ... | of eating amongst the beauty & linearity of our somewhat overly designed garden paradise for months on end ... check out da garden at drum house

pathos as physical pain

for 3 years i have put off watching 'brokeback mountain' | a pattern of mine to ignore perceived popular culture experience until i want to consume it | for some reason i came across shorts of the film on youtube & got hooked into the film & bought it mid last week

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strangely i have been seeking a cathartic crying experience for several weeks | not easy being an emotional control freak & i kinda believed that if i watched this film the catharsis would occur & i would experience the needed crying

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putting off watching the film until last night | i hopped into bed & glued myself to the laptop from beginning to end ...

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the result was one of intense physical pain ... in my chest, the oddest feeling of both emotional torture as the observer & of a profoundity that hasn't yet left me | i don't buy into love stories & believe the word is so ridiculously inadequate for the plethora of feelings one can have for another | i actually didn't see it as a love story but as a tragedy so personal, so near experienced by myself, so invisible to the world and such a intimate grief | a real sense of the experience of being an other in the world | & i don't believe that unless one has spent a significant amount of one's life being an óther' that real understanding of the gravity of this pathos occurs

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perhaps some of this is the projection on the film by myself, of the exquisite pain of intense feelings for another & how shockingly close one can be to having that rent asunder by fate or circumstances | all i could think about today is of the monumental & indefinable level of grief i would experience if my man disappeared, died or was taken away from me suddenly | i realise that we are separated physically, often, with occasional re-unions of passion, lust & emotional intensity, most likely all the way through until to the end of 2009 ... perhaps this also contributes

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but to even contemplate that i may never see or be with him again due to some freak of fate | stops me dead in my tracks ... | it is immobilising me & makes all other cares in life seem irrelevant

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i had coffee with my great friend wendy today & she made the observation that her view of us is one of a highly entwined emotional connection that is rarely seen | interestingly enough a number of friends have commented that they would hunt us down & kill us both if we ever broke apart | douglas & i seem to have created some unique phenomena that elicits this fervour of threat by others ... i feel both empowered & frightened & scared | my emotional resilience & my "i am an island" psychological view of self has been significantly dented

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i would have not believed a cinematic experience would lead me in this direction

enjoyment in july

after 4 weeks of this new management role i can finally say i had an enjoyable day | it is a tough assignment ... not the toughest i have had and only 6 months to facilitate so much that i believe needs to be done | am finding some tasmanian government organisations and particularly in this instance seem to be a time machine journey backwards, 15 if not 20 years

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am distinctly missing my man this week, even though i hardly have enough energy after work to mumble more than a few syllables | am missing the physical closeness, the warmth & the hilarity of our day to day lives

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but relief is in sight this weekend as the hairy D touches down on Elba bringing relief, great wine & company the not to be sniffed at, delicious physical pleasures of intimate understanding ... lol ... & enjoyment

birthday men | droo

it was my great mate's birthday a week ago | a mercurial, amusing & handsome fella i have known for not even 2 years yet but who has had an influence on my thinking & life that he is not even aware of | we see each other occasionally as i pass his abode every march & sometimes in melbourne when visiting for male to male or male to many males primal experiences | droo & i share a love for the word cunt & he is the only gen Y fella i really know | i will no doubt spend the rest of my life trying to see inside a gen Y brain, ouch! ... he is the guinea pig | heh droo ... thanks for just being droo

birthday women | janiece

it is my great friend Janiece's birthday this july | we went to Uni together & were both viewed as a bit wacky by most | she is the only person to make me laugh with a mouthful full of cheesecake & the result being a large projectile spray of cheesecake granules & biscuit base over the front window of a neat adelaidean cafe for all on the street & inside the cafe to see | Janiece is my closest link to the Empress Eugenie of France, caus she looks like her love child! lol | happy birthday to such an important friend of which no subject is verbotten & who i miss dreadfully on my island paradise

birthday women | judy

it is my great friend Judy's birthday this july | a former employee who's joie de vive knows no bounds | we clicked the day we met & have been touchstones for each other & helped each other discover that men & careers are a fine balance & that 'teams' in the workplace are a crap concept way past its use by date ... we both believe in benevolent aesthetic facism as a leadership approach | Judy is my only link to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis as she is her love child, true! | happy birthday to JB & much love & affection to a friend who has been so supportive & ready to wisk me off to the latest & grooviest eateries & bars of Melbourne ... miss you awfully

phrases not sentences

after much cajoling from mates of mine, virtual & physical, i have scheduled time in to update | but not in a long winded way | am going to use the traditional literature form of arab culture & use phrases to communicate rapidly! | read Naguib Mahfouz and you will understand

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listened to Camille Saint-Saens 3 movement from his Organ Symphony this morning & cried | finished Anne de Courcy's sometimes light but galloping newly published bio of Lord Snowdon & discovered another human being who, like me, compartmentalises his life | am nursing 2 dogs & 1 cat after a job lot, group discount on desexing on Thursday & all are languorous, sad, resentful & planning revenge in my absence | am completely shattered by my new mega $ management role & mustn't fall into past behaviour of letting it control not only my waking but also my non-waking hours | the beautiful douglas spent last weekend with a shell 'shlocked' me | my mate ian moved out to work & live in bendigo | am alone again & enjoying the hermit like existence & raking leaves whenever there is light on this island | haven't thought of sex or smiled at any hot pulp mill worker for 5 days until right now ... aw shit, that's my reflection! lol | saw sex n the city ... yawn really, as it was a bit lame & i was not convinced of 'big's character | he being my favourite character as i am so like him | went with my female alta ego Wendy [see below] my intellectual sparring partner so naturally we picked the script to death but did laugh at all the right places, although no one else in the audience did | does that mean gen y & 'gen-lite' don't get irony? | maybe USA cultural imports are finally inflitrating to the core of the ironic australian psyche | caus in my experience, admittedly of many USA men [rephrase ... beefy hot but ultimately dull men] , the irony thing just don't happen with em!

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participated in a landmark Tasmanian community engagement project yesterday as a 'living book' as part of the 'living library launceston' program | my book title is 'not the only gay in the village' | talk about being popular! | 3 people 'read' me in the space of 2 hrs ... felt like being on an extreme chat show where the audience does the interviewing & not some tedious baby boomer presenter | a fantastic & rare opportunity to dispel some myths about a gay man who ain't 100% gay

knowing what you want

a tough day of analysing what i want re work | da money or da gun? | being sick & pathetic with a head cold, tedious as that is, is no excuse not to resolve my situation | had been offered a fantastic role but at the bottom rung of salary ... piss off! | i haven't reached the age of 43 without a bucket load of skills, knowledge, competencies, corporate & govt management experience & a track record of producing the best teams & change management scenarios

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am experiencing that contemporary experience of the ápple isle' | amateurism | & here is an opportunity for me to lead & change to the benefit of a whole lot of people however for some reason the decision makers can't see back beyond the previous 18 months, as if one didn't have any success on the big northern island ... | tomorrow is D day

a man & a man & a love affair

for the last 3 days i have had the pleasure of spending much of my time in the furrie arms of my dream still true | the handsome douglas

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words, as limited as they can sometimes can be, to describe our time together would include | lust . wine . rope . gardens . indiana jones . furr . masculinity . embrace . luv . passion . warmth . saint-saens . chests . ink . omlettes . dogs . intensity . restraint . fires . electric blankets . icecream . romance

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the most important physical pleasure for us is to hold hands ... always ... love to D forever

4 jUne 200eight

obama in ... hillary somewhere ... extraordinary | long overdue & perhaps proof that rhetoric over experience wins the minds of many | very Elizabeth I who's ability to call upon the skills of rhetoric, she learned under the tutelage of tutor Robert Ascham in the 16th century, ensured a place in history, even if she was variable in her monarchial skill

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the matching of rhetoric & emotional intelligence far outweighs years of experience | experience doesn't always prepare you for the unknown | emotional intelligence always does | if you keep having the same experience, you will also repeat the same mistakes

intense week

whoa | intense week of outcomes, milestones, deadlines, committees, planning, unplanning, creating havoc & so on

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i left Sydney & Melbourne & the corporate intensity of both to spend a couple of years planting gardens | being with the man i love, adore, challenge & love even more | & renovating this historic pile bricks we call 'home' | now with my man in Melbourne & me on the green isle @ the bottom of the planet | i am now considering re-entering the 'fray' of higher level management & people leadeership ...

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i have had the needed rest from it all for 4 years & am energized to jump in again & excite a new group of people | the years away have also enabled me to reflect on what i am great at, less great at & what i should avoid ... lol | this i believe is called wisdom | am also feeling fairly damn self confident these days in terms of what i want, need & want | is that arrogant? or is wisdom arrogant? | whatever!

bill henson II

reading all of the hyperbolic & semantic tardiness that passes for much, but not all, journalism in Australia's Saturday morning newspapers | it is with some intellectual & yes, elitist pleasure, because we are all elitists of some sort, that The Australian | yes ... shocked aren't you! | has published a short, factual, rational, reality-check article on the Bill Henson fracas | that has Australia's third rate politicians in another mini-moral panic

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http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23749126-16947,00.html

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and this person 'Hetty etc' ... perhaps she could rationally explain to the Australian populace where the child abuse element is in all of this? | í see art, therefore i abuse'? | i wonder statistically, how many of the 65,000 individuals who saw the Henson exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW in 2005 [not sure of the year], including myself | after the exhibition went home and abused children

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you see, that is why even governments in the Westminster parliamentary setup are answerable to the legal system | and ain't that a good thing

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i am looking forward to the day 'Hetty intellectual free-zone' will have mud on her face | & sadly & morally no child would have been saved from the horrors of abuse in Australia over the whole stunt | now explain the morality of that?

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by the way the photograph is mine & i have copyright over it