thoughts on bluedragon

I mentioned in my kissing post the other day that there was a post somewhere in the wind about BlueDragon, but I just had to pin it down... it looks like this weekend is going to be all about big posts, so here goes...

The scary thing is that at this point in my relationship with him I still don't really quite know what category we fits into... we've been a little bit of everything to each other... friends, soulbrothers, long distance partners, ex-partners, lovers very briefly... and I guess I'm having trouble classifying what the current status of my relationship with him is, because we're not really one thing or another at this point.

We'll go with "friend" for the time being I guess, its not completely accurate, but it will do.

The other scary thing is that because I've kept all of his emails in the eight years we've been friends, I can actually give completely accurate dates about a lot of things... which is just too disturbing for words.

Anyway... BD and I "met" on 10 March 1998 (see, told you), when he sent me an email through a website I had just started, a fan site for a graphic novel series we both enjoyed... His original message was quite generic, just one of those "hi, how you doing" type things, so I sent him back an equally generic reply. Then we started with those "where are you, what do you do" type questions. Turned out he lived in Random Town, New Jersey, USA, but it wasn't the first time I'd chatted back and forth with someone half a world away, so we started this email friendship, even though, as far as I knew at that point, he was straight (he was certainly dating a woman at the time) and all it was going to be was an email buddy.

Then the flirting started... actually it started fairly early on, but I'm a huge flirt via email, way more so than I am in real life, and if someone flirts with me, I flirt back.

Eventually the truth came out, and after some gentle persuasion from me, so did he... or, at least, more out. And he and I just got, well, complicated... To be completely honest though, I think things would still have been complicated even if he had lived across the street... granted, it would have been a whole different set of problems than the "he lives halfway around the planet" set we were (and for better or worse, still are) dealing with, but still complicated.

It took about three months of chatting before BD told me he was in love with me... at which point I did what has become an unfortunately repeating pattern in our ongoing relationship and ran for the hills. One thing I will say about him, he doesn't give up, and while I technically wasn't talking to him, he still sent me a few emails. Eventually (four months later) I caved in and replied, but on the stipulation that we were just going to be friends.

We were mostly doing okay at that point, he finally stopped dating the woman, and I was assisting him to get in touch with his inner faygola... it was weird, because at that stage I was well past all that "everyone must know I'm a homosexual" stage, and he was just entering it, so I got to, once again, be all mentory...

Around the beginning of 1999 he decided that he was going to spend his vacation (and a huge chunk of change) that year by coming to visit me. I think at one point the original plan might have been for me to go to the US, but since he was living at home and had way more disposable income than I did, the plan got switched around.

By the time his visit was getting closer, we both knew that when he did make it here, there was no way that we weren't going to end up sleeping together (both literally in in the euphamistic sense). In the couple of months preceding his visit not only had our emailing back and forth increased to just about daily, but the flirting had too.

Then the fateful day arrived... Thursday, 19 May 1999 (yep, seven years ago next Friday, which I only just realised)... His visit was for ten days and we were both a bundle of nerves in the week leading up to the day. On the day itself, Ma was going to do the honours of picking him up from the airport and dropping him off at my place since I had to work, but at the last minute (and possibly because I was a big ball of nervous energy that morning) my boss at the time told me to take a couple of hours off, go pick him up and deposit him home, then come back into work.

Which I did... and that's where the first kiss came about. It was interesting actually, for reasons that I still don't understand I wasn't ready to rush into going "all the way" with him, and we actually decided put it off until the Wednesday after he arrived (we'd planned a whole date night, going out to dinner and all, and I had thought about stopping on the way home to get him some flowers, but he met me at work that night and walked home with me, so I had no chance, but when I walked in the door there was a vase with 6 red and 6 white roses sitting on my kitchen counter... all together now... awwwww), but on the Tuesday night we'd been to Marion with Ma (possibly to see a movie, I don't remember), and we were sitting in the back seat together on the way home and I just whispered in his ear that I wanted to take that extra step (although I think I described it a little more graphically at the time).

Even before that though, I couldn't keep my hands off him... we went out to lunch with some girls I used to work with and I held his hand in the cafe because I couldn't NOT touch him. Yeah, he annoyed me a little (complaining he was cold and running the heater while wandering around shirtless... grrr, put some clothes on dammit), and by the end of the ten days we really did need a break from each other (my apartment is just too damn small for two people on a regular basis), but having him here was great, and there are a bunch of memories (both G rated and X rated) that I hold onto fondly from his trip.

During his last couple of days here we started talking about the future... our future... and if we were going to spend it together, and what we were going to have to do to make that happen. In the end we decided to investigate the possibilities of him moving out here permanently, although I think we were both fairly nervous about the idea. And at the same time I made a commitment to start saving for a trip to the US to visit him. I started a separate savings account and everything so that I wouldn't spend the money I was supposed to be saving.

And then the bottom fell out of my world...

I got fired from the job I'd been in since the beginning of that year. I still don't like going into details, but while I didn't do anything illegal, it was still completely my own fault. Unfortunately though, because I was fairly ashamed of myself at the time, I closed up, not only about that, but a little in general, and started shutting BD out of my life...

So much so that he got involved with someone else online (which in itself was a comedy of errors, since as I discovered much later the person in question had lied to him all along, not only about their age, but also their gender and the whole relationship was just doomed even before it began). When he finally confessed to me about this other person in January 2000, predictably, I was less than pleased... and basically "broke up with him". I did give him one parting shot though, an uber-crafted email designed to hit every single one of his emotional buttons/sore spots... I figured if he was going to choose someone else over me, then there was no way I was going to make that easy for him to go.

At that point I was officially through with him... he sent me a few message on and off (to confess about "The Other Woman" and her deception amongst other things), but I didn't reply to any of them, I was completely and utterly done with the whole situation.

Then around August 2000, he sent me a message that read halfway between a goodbye message and a suicide note. And even with all the other crap that had gone on between us I couldn't sit idly by if he was thinking of killing himself, even if I was on the other side of the planet and couldn't physically do anything. So after a rather panicked phone call to Lownee to discuss what she thought about his message and whether I was overreacting or not, I emailed him back, taking a pretty hard line... in fact the first line of my email was "Don't you dare, you selfish little shit, don't you DARE kill yourself!"...

Whether he had actually intended to kill himself or not I'm still not sure, I think it had crossed his mind, but he hadn't attempted anything, and while I can't say that my letter stopped him I think his email was a cry for help, whether he recognises it or not. That was the point that we started emailing again though. Kind of slowly and tentatively at first, it was over a month before either of us started using opening salutations in the emails... I don't even remember why now, but it just seemed appropriate at the time.

We got back into a fairly regular emailing groove for a while, for two years actually... but then we started rehashing old traumas and drama and having the same discussions and arguments over and over again... and we both said some hurtful things and there was a lot of anger there, so in the end, I just stopped writing.

But as we know, everything happens for a reason (and the Universe likes to mess with me), and on Lownee's birthday that year (which would make it 19 December 2003, which was after she and Ludo had disappeared out of my life) my brain exploded...

I'd set my mobile phone to give me reminders on people's birthdays, and when my phone went off at work that morning, telling me it was Lownee's birthday, I just sat there for a couple of minutes looking at it. I thought about her a couple of times on and off through the day, and when I got home, I opened my mailbox and found a card from BlueDragon's mother... which had a little letter in it, the last line of which said something along the lines of "BD is still alone".

That was enough to make me lose it, but what made it about a million times worse is that the one person I wanted to call and discuss it with was Lownee. Who else would get it, who else had I run to for every other major mindfuck about BD... Lownee... and I couldn't.... which of course, made it worse. And that was about the time my brain exploded and I just dissolved into a puddle.

I ended up calling Ma and bitching, crying and talking to her for a good long while, when, because it was December and stinking hot I threw myself in the shower to cool off before sitting down at the computer and checking my email.

And guess who the first email was from? Yep, that's right... BlueDragon...

The final act in my own personal three act Greek tragedy....

But, since the universe was obviously trying to tell me something, I both read it, and then replied.

And since then we've been pretty good for the most part. One or other of us gets really slack (okay, its mostly me) and doesn't write for a couple of months, but we haven't had a major falling out (at least that I can remember or find in my emails) since then.

I still love him (although I'm not in love with him) and he still bugs the crap out of me on occasion... and I do sometimes wonder that if I was actually supposed to be with ANYONE on this turn of the wheel, whether it was meant to be him... but then I figure if that had been the case then it would have happened already... right? At the same time I actually wonder whether it's him, or the idea of him that I'm still so attached to... and that's one I still can't answer.

Current Mood:

playtime with marc

Well, that was interesting...

After all the associated drama-rama involved in actually getting Marc here, tonight was a highly enjoyable evening... I'm hoping it didn't end on a slightly sour note (which is kind of the way I feel right now), but the rest of it was quite enjoyable...

I'd been in a vague state of random nerves since about 3:30 this afternoon, and by about 5, I'd had enough of it, so I stuck The Emperor's New Groove, which I got today, in the DVD player to kill the hour and a half before Marc was due to get here... it actually worked really well, completely distracted me from, well, myself basically, and so when he SMS'ed me just before the movie ended saying he was on his way I was doing okay.

Unfortunately there was a gap of time between the movie ending and him arriving that led to me doing my usual pacing around and occasional curtain peeking... I can't help it... I'm not a patient person.

Anyhow, he arrived pretty much on time (as always, point to him) and we did the brief banter thing about the apartment and how he went the wrong way on my street, etc... and then he gave me some cheesily appropriate opening line that I could respond to by kissing him, and things progressed from the living room to the bedroom.

Its interesting... I'm kind of stuck for words about the sex... don't get me wrong, it was enjoyable, but it possibly wasn't the best part of the evening... if I'm being completely and totally 100% honest, it wasn't even the best sex I've ever had (although defining what and when the best sex I've ever had was may be an ordeal in itself, although there are two possible finalists that spring to mind)... but luckily it was the thing that I quoted in a previous post about "friends with benefits"...

The advantages of friends with privileges is that sex is easy and comfortable, without all the pressures and limitations of a relationship.

Maybe it's just because we've already gotten that "getting to know you" sex out of the way at the sauna... maybe it's because I'm approaching this as a true "friends with benefits" scenario rather than just as a casual hookup, but after an initial (and I'll admit, typical) moment of unease on my part, the sex was exactly that... easy and comfortable... and fun. Yes, we're each still learning what the other likes (and conversely, doesn't like), but I had no qualms about pointing him in appropriate directions (like biting my neck, which after I initially said he could do it, he said "but my teeth are sharp", and I replied "so?" to which he countered with "it'll hurt", and I replied "so?"... although I doubt that the marks that he did leave will even last the weekend... amateur *grin*), or quizzing him on certain practices and issues, or just diving in when and where it felt appropriate.

Interestingly, while the sex wasn't in the top ten, I would have to rate my orgasm as amongst the more intense (although whether it was a direct result of the effort and actions I did to achieve it or not, I don't know... which sounds odd, but I actually can't word it any better than that right now, and I know that I mean)... I actually couldn't do very much but kneel and breathe for a good couple of minutes afterwards... and I think it was only because of a straying (and unintentionally tickling) hand from Marc that I actually regained my powers of speech.

We did the post-coital snuggle after that, but because he wouldn't stop either attempting to tickle me, or after that mostly failed, blowing raspberries on any part of me he could reach, our snuggle turned into a wrestling match, with me trying to stop him from tickling and raspberrying, and, in the end, succeeding thanks to my double jointed wrists and hands and flexible legs (not to mention my both height and weight advantage over him). That was actually really fun, completely unsexual, even though we were both naked, but enjoyable in a whole other way (that really stupid and childish way mostly).

Having said that though, I may have tweaked my back slightly (not completely his fault, since I think I tweaked it initially sitting in my car this afternoon), and either stretched or tweaked my wrist, since that is bugging me at the moment.

Oh this weak and feeble shell, how I curse thee... or something...

At any rate, we got slightly overheated from all the rasslin' (well, him more than me, since I'm, as he put it, like a big hot water bottle... I do have a very warm body temp normally and can put out a lot of heat in the right situation), and he decided he was going to go outside and have a smoke break (and I'm repeating again, big point off from his overall score for that) which, in the end, actually made a natural act break between the "bedroom playtime" and the "living room friend time". I was actually surprise to find, when I checked the clock on the microwave, that we'd been in the bedroom for about an hour and a half... between the sexin' and the rasslin'... not bad really...

The one downside to having a buddy like my buddy J, is that all conversations you have with other people, you have an unfortunate tendency to use the conversations with J as the measuring scale everyone else gets rated against.

I also think I partly know why some of the conversations with J have gone on into the very wee small hours of the morning, because it's only once you've talked through all the superficial drivel that you get to the good stuff... which is kind of how the conversation went with Marc and I, but we didn't get to as much of the good stuff as I would have liked. And I take full responsibility for my part in that... I probably could have steered the conversation in that direction earlier, but I just didn't. What I did find interesting was that I found myself quoting various things I've written here almost word for word... like I said in one of my earlier posts about Marc, a lot of the stuff in my brain has already been aired out and given some semblance of order thanks to the blog, so, for the most part, I was able to articulate myself better than if I'd just been flying off the cuff.

One thing that does annoy me about Marc though... and that is him cutting me off partway through a story and telling a story of his own that gets us to a tangent place from where we were that then it's really difficult to come back from (J and I do that too, but we do what we call "The Billy Connolly Effect", where we tend to go back and finish off each of the abandoned conversations at the end). That, and the fact that once or twice it almost felt as though we were talking at cross purposes, or he wasn't always getting where I was coming from... but then I do talk a million miles an hour on occasion, and my brain is wired up in a singularly unique way and sometimes it does take a little while for people to get used to that.

And for the record, I did end up asking him the two questions I mentioned in my last post about him... namely, was he imposing a "time limit" on our time so he had an "escape"... and was he planning on heading to the sauna after he left here. I almost didn't... not because I chickened out, but because, after having spent the evening with him, they actually didn't seem as important as they did a couple of days ago. To be honest, the time limit one just seemed dumb after part of the conversation we'd had (and it turned out he actually left just after 10:30, an hour later than he had initially mentioned), but it was actually the second question that threw me for a slightly loop. It was answered, but I never actually asked it. It had floated around my brain, and I just though "I actually don't need to ask this", which is what I said to Marc, that it wasn't an important enough question to actually ask... but then he proceeded to answer it as though I'd just verbalised the question. And he did it without skipping a beat. Turns out that he had thought about it, but had decided against it because he needed the sleep (the cynic in me wonders if he did actually go or not, but without evidence to the contrary I can only go with what he tells me).

Where I initially thought the evening ended on a sour note (but I'm now not thinking that it really matters all that much) was when I asked him if he would consider spending the night at some stage... I asked partly for two reasons, the first being completely selfish, it's been a really long time since I did have anyone stay the night, and it would just be nice... and secondly (but, if I'm being completely honest, the much lesser reason) that I'd enjoyed tonight and would enjoy spending the night with him. Unfortunately I'm still not perfect at reading him yet, at least before I've verbalised something, and if I'd actually let myself think about it I probably wouldn't have asked.

I think (okay, thats not true, I pretty much know) that he's had more than a couple of bad experiences with people getting too attached to him too soon, because that was part of what he said to me, that it was too early to ask that question (although I don't agree, since I like to work on a "If you don't ask, you don't get" basis... even though asking for it doesn't mean I get it), and that, for him, that would be a much bigger step than actually coming over (since even getting him over here was the first big step)... I kinda doubt it will make him pull away from this whole thing we've finally gotten started... and I'm hoping that he enjoyed tonight enough to come back for more (which I think he did).

Do I think I'll develop "the wrong kind" of feelings for him and overcomplicate things... I think the jury is still out on that one, but at this stage I wouldn't think it's a high likelihood, I still believe there's enough about him that will keep me sufficiently at bay and stop me from getting over attatched... but you never know I guess.

Current Mood:

my ben and jerry's flavour is...

You Are "In a Crunch" Ice Cream

The perfect combo: a completely nuts person who likes to be touched

What Flavor Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Are You?

Current Mood:

photo friday: building art

I took this while I was in town getting my hair cut this morning...

It's on what used to be the David Jones building, and I have no idea if it has a name, but between the statue and the facade of the building it's actually quite striking.

This is unfortunately the best angle I could get of it, since there's a tree and a phonebox in the way that stopped me from getting more "head on" to it.

Current Mood:

ongoing hair adventures

You know, it's been two whole months since I last had my hair done! And if I'm being completely honest, it had actually started looking a little ratty around the edges before I went off to work for a week, but I figured that if I could actually wait the extra week, then I could afford to have it coloured and cut...

I was originally hoping I could go tomorrow morning, but when I went in to book last week, some rude person had already booked my hairdressing girly, Tink, for first thing Saturday, so I had to settle for first thing this morning.

As usual this morning, the walk came first, and I got home around 8:10, jumped in the shower, and to my horror, when I jumped out of the shower again it was smack on 8:30... which was the time I wanted to leave and catch the bus into the city. So I dressed at turbo speed and took off to catch the bus. Luckily one rocked up just after I got to the stop, and I was actually in the city with 10 mintues to spare (just enough time to go and grab an Iced Coffee) before my 9am appointment. Phew...

Turns out I wasn't the only one running almost nearly late... when I got to the hairdressers, the door was open, but there was nobody around, and the door buzzer thing didn't go off when I went inside... I called out hello, and eventually Tink appeared from the basement... she'd gotten in a little later than usual, and it turned out that at least three of the other staff were going to be off, and, like me, she hadn't even had time for breakfast...

It was nice having the place to ourselves for a bit (even if she did have to keep stopping to answer the phone)... but being that it was a weekday morning, when the other customers did start to come in, they were mostly little old ladies having their weekly perm or whatever...

Anyway, when Tink asked what we were doing, I told her that we were pretty much going with the same cut and colour as we have in previous sessions, but that I wanted to try going a little lighter with the colour... but not a lot... just something subtle... she suggested we get rid of the half 6%, and go with with half 9A half 510, 9% developer... which I decided sounded like a plan... and I also asked her to make the cut a little more textured, which she did.

The colour didn't turn out half bad actually, it's a little lighter than I expected, but it almost exactly matches my very pale eyebrows, so it still looks natural, which has always been the point.

And while my colour was doing it's thing, Tink was chatting to the little old lady next to me, and I found out that she's leaving for at least three months, possibly for good... grrrr... and just when I had her trained to do my hair the way I like. That seems to happen with me and hairdressers all the time... in fact, the last time it happened, when Rachael went to Scotland, that's when I got Tink... looks like I'll be going back to Rachael, at least until she has her baby... and hopefully, if Tink is coming back, she'll be back when Rachael does go on maternity leave...

Current Mood:

space cadet reprise

On Monday I mentioned that Marc was supposed to call me Monday or Tuesday...

I didn't hear from him Monday night... I didn't hear from him while I was at Camera Club on Tuesday night... I didn't hear from him last night...

And I swear, before Lost started tonight (and, if I'm being completely honest, on and off all day today in various forms), I was thinking... if I say I'm going to call someone, I call them, when I said I was going to call them (usually), or, if I completely wuss out, I usually send them a text message... I really should be going back to the "He's Just Not That Into You" thing... if he was interested in hooking up, or even just being friends, he would have called... so forget that whole thing, just let it go... and ACTUALLY let it go this time... not like last time...

Then after Lost was over, I came back to the computer to goof off for a bit before I went to bed, and I got a text message. From Marc. Asking if it was okay to call.

Bloody men.

I texted him back to tell him that any time before 10:30 was usually good, then hooked the hands free kit up to the phone so I could chat comfortably. After we got the hello's out of the way, he apologised straight off for not calling (again)... and I have to admit, I did the polite thing and just went "that's okay"... which it really wasn't, but we can have that conversation later, after we've had some more sex. To be completely honest I just let him talk for the most part... not that I didn't reply appropriately, I just let him talk (sometimes you learn more just by letting them talk... of course, sometimes you don't, but sometimes it's a good bullshit detector).

Eventually he mentioned that he had wanted to get together this week (as was the plan originally if had called me when he said he was going to), and since Sunday was out (Mother's Day), he wondered what I was up to on Saturday. Saturday late afternoon/evening/night was fine (although last week when it was cold and raining elephants and hippos and I was really in need of a snugglebuddy would have been better), but then suddenly he was checking what his parents were doing (he's staying with them at the moment), and seemed to be inviting me to his place, and was mentioning some weird card game...

I nearly let him babble on about it, but the back part of my brain (you know, the bit in charge of sex, the unevolved caveman bit) was busy screaming at the top of its primitive lungs "THIS IS NOT WHAT WE ASKED FOR"... so I stopped him and basically told him that I had envisioned a rather more "fleshy" meeting than the one he was outlining, and that I didn't know that I was ready to meet his parents just yet anyway (yeah, lets try and avoid that one for as long as humanly possible, shall we).

And then I was, once again, brutally honest and overly direct about how I'd imagined this playtime would go... and that I was all for having interesting, meaningful and deep conversation... but AFTER the sex. Since it's taken nearly a month and a half to get to this stage of actually getting him through the door to my apartment, there is no way on earth I'm not having sex with him this time... I'm just really, really lucky he appreciates the direct approach.

So, Saturday evening he's coming here... it's interesting though, given what I said on Monday about me thinking that he wanted to play "in a controlled fashion, at least the first time, so that he has an out if he needs one as far as time goes"... I think I was pretty much dead on... since he's talking about coming over until around 9:30 so he can still go home and chill out. I am wondering though whether he will go home, or off to the sauna... since that seems to be his regular Saturday night routine... suppose it depends how good the sex is...

And don't think I won't ask him both of those things... but not until AFTER the sex, obviously...

Saturday looks like it could be an interesting evening... does mean I'll have to spend tomorrow afternoon and Saturday morning making sure my place is tidy though...

Current Mood:

random teddy hotness

Today's Random Hotness actually comes courtesy of last Saturday's Video Hits... I was lazing around on my sofa, watching the music videos, when suddenly Teddy Geiger appeared on my screen.

I couldn't tell you what his song was called, but I was instantly captured by his eyes... he has the best eyes! I have to say though that he looks better in motion than in photos. And it looks like I'm not the only one who noticed him this week, given he got a mention over at Tottyworld too...

Current Mood:

what's on my bookshelves

I'm a sucker for a decent meme... and I'm even more of a sucker for anything book related...

Which is why I couldn't go past the What's On Your Bookshelves? meme that Andrew posted yesterday...

Unfortunately due to size restrictions (ie my apartment is tiny) I a) wasn't able to take just one shot to include my two bookshelves, and b) don't have as many books as I once did... although there is still a smallish (kinda) overflow living in a trunk at Ma's place... there is one other bookcase (just to the left of the CD rack) that is mostly full of DVD's but the bottom shelf of which has a lot of my large books, photography stuff for the most part.

Before I get to the books I will point out that the two Buddhas, the Laughing Buddha on the left and the multi-armed Buddha on the right, have appeared in posts before, as has the glitter lamp behind the multi-armed Buddha... the two Buddhas both sit on my stereo speakers, which flank my teevee, which is between the two bookshelves (you can see a tiny corner of it at the bottom left of the right hand pic).

And yes, there are pieces of tape on my fairy lights... that's to remind me which of the bulbs have blown... I must get around to replacing them someday...

And yes, that obviously is a naked male headless, armless and legless pseudo-Classical statue on the bottom right... another Cheap As Chips find... I think it was around $15, and although it looks like it's made of plaster, it's actually metal (and hollow).

But onto the books...

The left bookcase is "the good stuff"... the right bookcase is "the other stuff"...

Going down the shelves, some of the highlights of the left bookcase are.... top shelf, Laurell K Hamilton's pretty much entire Anita Blake and Meredith Gentry collection... second shelf, Harry Potter and assorted gay photo books, particularly stuff by Howard Roffman... third shelf, almost completely Terry Pratchett's Discworld series... fourth shelf, the collected works of Matthew Reilly and Armistead Maupin's Tales series... fifth shelf is fairly random... bottom shelf, although it's hard to see, on the left hand side there are my folders containing my photographic portfolio and negatives, and on the right, a pile of old DNA magazines.

On the right bookcase... the top shelf is completely Anne McCaffrey, although to be honest, a large section of those are going to be "donated" to Ma (possibly on Mother's Day), since I'm kind of over them... second shelf, my incomplete Katharine Kerr collection including Daggerspell, the book I mentioned in my reincarnation post... on the third shelf we have a mixture of things, including (the blue book next to the big lime green one) my "bible" when it comes to all things astrology, The Only Astrology Book You'll Ever Need (which looks like it's out in a new edition according to Amazon.com... woohoo) and on the right side of that shelf, under a glass dome we have my collectible figure of Oz (Seth Green) from Buffy, this way he doesn't get dusty, and right next to him is my collection of bookmarks (I like to change bookmarks when I start a new book)... the fourth shelf has a lot of Agatha Christie... the fifth shelf is random again, although it does contain a couple of my Anne Rice books, and tucked away in the corner on the right hand side are my old Noddy books... and on the bottom shelf, a box of comics, my unused mini photo albums and a pile of random stuff...

And yes, for the record (and I did mention this once before), all my books are arranged from tallest on the left, to the shortest on the right on each shelf, and all the books are lined up with the edge of the shelf...

Eddy... don't say anything... not a damn word... you have no moral highground here...

Want to know something funny... for the vast majority of time while I was writing this meme, I could (and still can) smell old paper... you know, that old book smell, musty but comforting... and I have no idea where it's coming from! Weird!

Current Mood:

yet another camera club

Dammit and double dammit... I wrote this when I got back from Camera Club, but Blogger fell on it's head as I went to post it, and although I thought there might have been a chance that it actually got saved, it looks like I was out of luck... I'll have to try and recreate it from scratch...

I think maybe I'm a little bit over Camera Club, both in general and just at present. Yes, it's been a month since I was last there, so yes, it was nice to see my folks again, but I get kinda over it fast.

Tonight's set subject was Shadowplay/Silhouettes... and although I probably could have gone through my stuff and pulled out a couple of appropriate images, I just never bothered... instead I went through my magic bag of existing images and pulled out four... unfortunately the magic bag is looking decidedly bare these days, especially since I haven't done a shoot with a model in a really, really, really long time.

Anyway, the judge did seem to be a little all over the place with his scoring at first, but since the B Graders go first, it gave me a chance to settle down before he got to us... in the end I ended up with some scores that mostly weren't that surprising.

Craig (bottom left) scored a 9, which did actually surprise me, I knew it was pretty good, but I hadn't thought it was 9-worthy... The Boxer (top left) got an 8... Dark Denim (bottom right) managed a 7, mostly because in the full version his face is a little soft (focus-wise), and I knew that going in (but really, are you going to be looking at his face?), and I have thought about doing a harder crop to cut down the amount of out of focus face in the shot... and finally Star (top right) got a 6, which didn't surprise me in the least, since it was only there to make up the numbers to be honest.

I think part of why I was over it last night was that I came to a realisation... while Adelaide Camera Club is supposedly one of the more progressive clubs around (from what I've heard anyway), when we have competitions, the vast majority of our judges are from the other suburban clubs... which means they are then judging us by their standards and their expectations, not those of our club (if that makes sense). I do complain about the judging a lot though, so I suppose I should just be used to it and either alter my work to please the ludite judges, or else not care what they think and do what I like... guess which way I choose... which is basically the same way I've been going for a while, I just need to whinge about it from time to time.

Current Mood:

montage monday: city

Well, not suprisingly, this week's Monday Montage, like last week's Photo Friday, was taken during my time in the city... actually during my lunchbreaks mostly, and is the buildings in and around where I was working.

After last Monday's day off from my walk, I did manage to get my walk in for the rest of the week... but because I was setting off at 6am, it was actually still pretty much pitch black outside, so that was a little odd to say the least. By the time I was getting back it was around the same time I would normally have been setting off though, so that was okay. I did however get rained on at least twice, which was less fun, but I kept going anyway, what's a little rain really...

Last week was just generally odd though... I didn't really get in the routine groove like I have done before when I've been working. Maybe it was because I had the additional task of walking, which chewed up the available time in the mornings, but I felt like I was playing catch up all week, trying to get everything done here.

On Thursday night I looked at some new dress pants... after last week's "clown pants" I just had to, there is no way I could keep on wearing them. Unfortunately, the only decent pants with a flat rather than a pleated front (which just don't work on me, even though it's what I've been wearing) were horrible static-y fabric with weird pocket shapes (high and towards the front of the pants instead of low and on the side seams)... they were pretty much what I would call "gay dress pants"... they just had that look about them. Suffice to say, I didn't end up getting them... but hopefully I can find a similar pair in a better material before I work next... either that or it's Static City for me...

To keep all the drama in my life up to date, I messaged Marc on Friday like I said I would... he called me later in the evening when he'd finished work, it's good actually, without actually asking him to, I've gotten him to call me three times now, twice with online messages, once with a text message. Anyway he passed on my offer to come and see me on Saturday for some playtime... which, I have to admit, wasn't unexpected... I think he does want to spend some playtime with me, but it's possible that he wants to do it in a "controlled" fashion, at least the first time, so that he has an "out" if he needs one as far as time goes. I could be totally wrong about that, but I doubt it... even if he's not really aware of it himself. He mentioned coming to see me one day, possibly this week, in the morning before work, which would give us a window of 7-9am (and also mean I would need to walk before or after, or else take a second day off, shock horror), but he said he would call me either today or tomorrow, so we'll have to wait and see what happens... still...

Urgh... it's so grey and wet outside at the moment, especially since the forecast on the radio this morning said it was going to be 27°C... at the moment it doesn't look that way at all. It's been really cold and wet for all of the weekend actually... it rained pretty much non stop for most of Saturday night, and we even briefly had very small hail on Sunday morning... brrrr... winter is definitely on it's way!

Crap... it's Camera Club tomorrow and I'm so not prepared... I need to go through the few remaining photos I have and see what I'm going to enter...

Oh a positive note, J comes back to Adelaide in 11 days... yaaaaay! Then his boy, D, turns up about a week or so later and they stay until the end of June I think. I was chatting with him this morning, and I offered to pick him up from the airport if he needs me to... I'm guessing some member of his family with the capacity to drive will be taking the day off to go get him, but you never know.

It's weird how stuff happens in groups... after last week's Random Hotness starring the Naked Cowboy, I got a hot image of him with a bunch of other half naked guys in my email and was thinking about posting it... and then I found the same image on OPIEblue.

And since the final word in my Monday Musings for the past couple of weeks has been Big Brother related, I had to keep up the theme... luckily I'm not the only one interested in naked past and present Big Brother Boys... there are a ton of images over at All Aussie Beef. Enjoy!

Current Mood: