Thanks

Thanks to all who've wished me a happy birthday, either via text or blog comments. Hugs to you all; your kind thoughts and words are much appreciated.

As birthdays go it was a remarkably subdued one: work from 8am - 5.30pm (which meant I just missed a phonecall from Kerryn in Hong Kong, dammit - hi babe!), a couple of glasses of champagne at home with Mum, and dinner - a delicious dinner - at Claypots in Gertrude Street. Bleak weather meant we scurried straight home afterwards, skipping on a movie, deciding instead to eat strawberry icecream, polish of the champagne, and watch the first episode of the 1984 British tv series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which I just picked up on DVD. Jeremy Brett (left) was the quintessential Holmes, don't you think?

To cap it off, I was in bed by 11pm. I must be getting old. I shall make up for it tonight, at a certain cocktail party-cum-wedding I'm going to, I assure you...

Happy birthday to me

I turned 40 this morning, and of course, what with the closing of Q+A last week and a few other things on my plate, I totally forgot to organise anything special for my birthday. Instead, my mum is catching the train down from the country to take me out to dinner tonight. Whoooo, wild and crazy times!

Oh well, there's always next year...

What's a man to do?

I need your help. Not in a 'please may I have one of your kidneys' kind of way. Not even in a 'could you write a letter of support to the government for me?' way. No, I just need your advice.

Quite soon, on July 6, I turn 40. It's something that both delights and surprises me.

Delights because quite frankly, there have been times in my life (primary school in the years when a nuclear holocaust seemed imminent; adolescence when suicide seemed like an option; as a hell-raising 20-something) that I never thought I'd make it this far.

Surprised because I don't feel on the verge of 40. I know I certainly don't act 40; not by the standards of previous generations at any rate (by my age my parents already had two teenage children) or even in comparison to most of my peers, who by and large are tucked into bed and sound asleep at the times I'm still out and about and painting the town hot pink.

All that's besides the point, however. What the fuck am I going to do for my 40th birthday? For my 30th, I had a quite dinner at the Empress attended by my more sedate friends, followed by a gig at the Arthouse that I'd organised, at which four of my favourite local punk bands played, for my younger and more manic friends. How do I top that?

Last year was drinks and nibbles at home followed by a late night of debauchery at Control HQ. Been there, done that, and as much as I love Wally's bar, I think I want less familiar surroundings this year. Perhaps Der Raum? Or Panama? Decisions, decisions...

I await the wise suggestions of the blogosphere as to your recommendations for my 40th birthday celebrations. Comment away!

Surf, sand and sadly, no sex

Friday night witnessed the opening night of Midsumma, Melbourne's gay and lesbian cultural festival, at Federation Square. I've never been so glad to have been invited to the VIP opening drinks in my life, given that they were held in airconditioned comfort, as it was a horribly hot, muggy and humid night. Hurrah for being a media slut!

The opening itself was, I can happily say, the best Midsumma opening I've ever attended, with live bands, comedy and roaming performers entertaining the masses (although your more conservative gay types seemed slightly confronted by the live bands).

Afterwards, in the company of three lovely gentlemen - Graeme, Mick and Cam - we drove down the coast to Blairgowrie, on the Mornington Peninsula, where Cam's parents have a holiday house at which our mutual friend Glen was celebrating his birthday.

What a lovely weekend it was! There was drinking, drinking games, swimming in the surf at the Portsea back beach despite the rain, ridiculously cute lifesafers in speedos, hot surfie boys in boardshorts, complex games of trivial pursuit, more drinking, en-masse skinny-dipping as a consequence of said drinking, a drunken argument between the birthday boy and one of his guests as a result of an unflattering nickname that Glen had bestowed upon him, wildly expensive pizzas, stunning cloudscapes, lighting flickering on the horizon, excellent company, and much more.

The one sour note (apart from this morning's hangover - damn those wildly revealing drinking games!) was the fact that the one bloke in our poofter posse who I was actually interested in ended up hooking up with another of the gang rather than myself, but hey, you can't have everything - or everyone, as the case may be. Maybe I should be make my interest more obvious next time...

That said, my very mild case of jealousy was ameliorated by the fact that the two lads in question barely said a word to each other this morning - and no, I wasn't gloating, I was far too hungover for anything so energetic!

Then tonight, while running a couple of new anti-virus programs on this computer, I once again sobbed my heart out while rewatching Brokeback Mountain - the mastery of that film gets me every time.

I hope your weekend was as pleasent?