| 
I dreamt about Lady GaGa last night.
She was a robot, but became more human as we sought the deadly drug that turned humans into robots. | comments: 9 comments or Leave a comment   |
| There's a café beside work where I habitually take my measly 30-minute breaks.
Over the summer and at weekends since then, there's been a blonde, pretty waitress called Cathy working there.
Her parents own the place, she's a student in Limerick, she's got a boyfriend...
Oh, Cathy loves to talk. She never shuts the hell up, in fact.
I know everything there is to know about Cathy:
the kind of phone she owns, what she's studying, where she goes at weekends, her favourite snacks.
There's probably tons of other stuff too, I never pay much attention.
So yesterday, I go in as usual to grab a tea and a chocolate muffin.
I'm prepared for Cathy's usual joke about how she likes to have a shortbread Snack and suck the chocolate through the tea.
Every week, I don't try it, haha!
CATHY: Oh, hi!
ME: Hey there.
CATHY: How are you?
ME: Oh, fine, not too bad.
CATHY: Were you out last night?
ME: Yeah, Rob had a house party, it was fun...
CATHY: Score any birds?
I almost laughed in her face, but I was too horrified.
This girl has been talking to me for months.
Guys, I'm not the butchest mo on the block.
She's asked me about my books (dunno where she got that nugget from) and I've told her the first one is about gay sex and the IRA (thought it might shut her up).
WHAT DOES IT TAKE?
ME: NO! Bruno gave me a kiss, that was the closest I got to true love, HAHA. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| SATURDAY
- Checked into hotel
- Met Spencer there
- Wandered around Hackney looking for the guerilla Tranny Dining experience
- Was entertained over beef and crumble by our seven-breasted bearded lady hostess
- Queued interminably to get gowled, succumbing to drinking in the queue for Joiners
- Danced like a loon
SUNDAY
- Breakfast with Spencer, who wore the T-shirt I customized for him (!)
- Back to Hackney for lunch
- Horse Meat Disco somewhat lacking, despite the skustin' John Watters' films on show
- Naked person tolerated at bar
- Restrained self from stabbing annoying queens outside
- Fire til the wee small hours (FAIL)
MONDAY
- Shopping
- Dinner and drinks in Sohohoha
- Met Thingboxer in Ku Bar (short, cute, Spanish, "not gay, I just like guys sometimes...")
- Gaysian Pornographer (new friend of Owen's) enlightened us as to ins and outs of rent boys in QX mag (heavily photoshopped, prices negotiable)
- Stayed out til 4am with Thingboxer, no snoggage as he seemed to have a coldsore (oh well)
- Walked home in the rain and rather liked it
TUESDAY
- Actual birthday
- Guestlist for Brett Anderson - woot!
- Met Facebook guy who befriended me online after an Attitude article
- He snogged me in a bar, fuggit, sure it was me birthday
- New Brett album sounded good live
There are photos, but Photobucket is killing my internets.
RANDOM CONVERSATION
VINNIE: Who's your ideal guy?
ME: What do you mean?
VINNIE: Describe him.
OWEN: I don't really... Tall. Masculine. That's it.
VINNIE: Yeah.
ME: Total bottom. Not too tall. Dark skin. Not arty...
VINNIE: What? Not arty?
ME: I can't stand arty guys. I want a guy who's not creative, but is - aware. Like, the kind of guy who says things like, "I don't know anything about art, but looking at that Ed Ruscha painting makes me feel really lonely."
VINNIE: Very specific.
ME: Who's your ideal guy?
VINNIE: The exact opposite. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Am heading to London this weekend for my birthday next Tuesday.
It's also Spencer's birthday on Sunday. He gives really good prezzies, it's kinda hard to keep up.
So I decided to "be creative" and customized a T-shirt for him... Eep...
Think I'll stick to the day job.
Oh well, here's to Tranny Dining & Duckie on Saturday night, Horsemeat Disco Sunday night, and the end of my career as a fashionista. | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| ...and other such questions.
Well, it's been an age.
Big news: I got an Arts council grant.
This is big for several reasons.
Firstly, more people than ever applied for the Bursary grant this year - around 500.
Secondly, due to the slashing of government funding, there was less cash to go around.
Thirdly, I'd never applied for a grant before, and had no idea how good my chances were.
But mostly, having got it, I've been able to go part-time at work, and can spend the rest of the week writing.
Yay!
So I'm working on a new novel, a literary one (sticking to what I do best), and it's going well.
I'm pretty confident this one will be picked up in Britain and the States next year.
Aiming to get it done early 2010.
Watch this space... Or Facebook... | | comments: 17 comments or Leave a comment |
| It's probably not worth watching 90210 just for Tristan Wilds topless...
...but I might just do it, so that you guys don't have to.
I'm a good friend.
In other news, y'all can keep your creepy-eyed Zachary Quinto,
I'll have Chris Pine, ta.
 | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| In practical terms, I ought to be not very worse off now that the economy is in recession,
the middle classes are discovering just how little financial institutions really care about them
now that the courting period is over and all those expensive properties have racked up plentiful mortgages,
and The World Is About To End because Joe and Mary can no longer afford vanilla lattes,
never mind their brief, exalted position as petty landlords to the plebs.
Having very little in the way of assets,
I'm a little better off coz I'm paying less rent for a better apartment,
a little worse off coz of the extra tax hike and no pay rise,
but still "lucky" to have kept my job.
All in all, pretty much the same.
SO WHY AM I SO BROKE?
Is it because the recession has magically slid its necrotic fingers into my pocket, fondled my wallet, and stripped it bare?
Has the general malaise of the penny-pinching gloom-mongers infected all financial security with its money-melting breath?
Can I find someone to blame and lobby the government into propping up my personal financial affairs?
Alas, no, I have simply been living somewhat beyond my slender means.
It is time to hitch one's socks up, cut down on the expensive lunches and mini-breaks,
and do something pro-active about having less cash.
So I'm finally applying for rent relief (how many years later?),
I'm getting up earlier to buy lunch at M&S before work (saving €25 a week),
paying sensible amounts off my (thankfully not too badly abused) credit card,
reading the books and watching the DVDs I've accumulated but not got through yet,
pestering Attitude to pay me for the last couple of articles I wrote before writing any new ones,
and, in the long term, writing a commercially viable new novel to kickstart a financially stable life, should work go tits up.
I've always hated thinking about money, work, responsibility and all their encumbant woes, but one must sometimes swim with the tide.
After all, it's fashionable to count one's pennies at the mo, and never let it be said I am not acquainted - on nodding terms, even - with fashion. | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| 
Morrissey's Southpaw Grammar is being reissued next month with four extra tracks, a revised track order and new artwork!
I always liked it, despite the haterz, but this'll be a treat. | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| My fave part of Alternative Miss Ireland was the help, Jonny Woo.
http://www.myspace.com/jonnywoouk
I saw another thumbless gay boy in the bar.
Was gonna talk to him, then didn't bother.
Then the other day some lunatic was trying to open the locked doors of Chapters as I stood there like a butch thing.
It was Another Thumbless Gay Boy!
I told him we were closed and he laughed sheepishly and went away.
I'm sure the universe has plans for us, though*.
A contender for Song of the Year (it has to be a single with an amazing vid, right? Right.):
I do like Robyn's plaintive, needy, breathless vocals.
Speaking of robots, here is Girls Aloud edited version of "Untouchable",
complete with a video that makes it look like they're about to split up.
One of the great things about Girls Aloud is the Amazing Makeover of Nicola, from chav to high fashion queen.
MORE ROBOTS are on their way, courtesy of the finale of Battlestar Galactica.
It is downloading AS WE SPEAK at the approximate speed of a quadriplegic tortoise on sleeping pills.
*For example, I now have access to a convenient substitute body with which I can fake my own death in years to come. | | comments: 11 comments or Leave a comment |
| A much needed haircut:
A Thingboxerian English visitor:
A ravishing artistic muse:
I've also been amusing myself with making Suede "albums" out of their AMAZING b-sides* for my iPod.
If bands today** had to knock out 3 or 4 b-sides per single, they'd have spunked their creative load by album number two.
There are only a handful of really great bands whose b-sides matched their singles and album tracks, and Suede is one of them.
My favourite moment of the past three working weeks has been an old farmer type buying discounted 3D gay porn (minus the necessary glasses to render the images eye-popping) sandwiched between a Gaelic football book and a hurling annual.
*Ask your older brother.
**Grand-dad alert. "Next he'll be quoting Paul Weller," they groan. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Myself and Ronan have found a brand new gaff in Temple Bar.
Well, I found it, so the bigger bedroom's mine.
Photos to follow, when I properly move my stuff over in the next week or so.
"Shur Jaysus, tis me new local." | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| My Official, Never Ever Getting Back Together Break-Up with Shy Bi Guy couldn't have come at a better time.
I currently appear to be attractive to men on the internet.
This is probably because, online, I am:
a) older (young guys are just a mess online),
b) not camera shy (poser),
c) edited (guys who blab too much are off-putting).
Some lad on Thingbox (who ever scores on Thingbox?) wants to visit.
I will have to check my hectic schedule.
"What gay geekery is this?"
In other news, flat hunting is a bore.
As well as having the landlord's odious minions to contend with,
there's all the running-over-Dublin-to-view-squalid-lairs to navigate.
The first "apartment" I viewed was not self-contained.
The cottage I viewed was "open-plan" - a plan that encompassed the "bedrooms".
The third place was OK, if you wanted to work in the kebab shop below.
"The kebab shop below"
Hibernation from December - March is the new lifestyle choice for all discerning Homo Sapiens. | | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
| 
A drawing in progress;
the image I'm copying drawing inspiration from;
the Robot Pencil Sharpener prezzie from my recent Fitlads Gentleman Visitor;
a stack of books I haven't read yet.
Chapters is laying off staff all over the joint. It sucks.
One of the big attractions of the job is that most of us get on, and have fun.
It's not been very pretty watching folk get a week's (or an hour's) notice.
Had a meeting with the agent.
Murder mystery isn't going anywhere in book form, but she's still keen on TV.
I pitched another TV series instead, one with more American appeal.
Also going to get cracking on a new literary novel.
Am moving out of James Joyce Street to somewhere cheaper.
Peter's moving in with some lady friends, Ronan and I will probably get a place together.
I'd love a small townhouse but we'd have to move quite far.
Will try to find a convenient cottage, perhaps?
 | | comments: 10 comments or Leave a comment |
| 1)Was 2008 a good year for you?
It had its ups and downs.
Who would've thunk Ronan Keating so wise when he sang "life is a rollercoaster"? Not I.
2) What was your favourite moment of the year?
Walking down Fifth Avenue alone at midnight in the rain.
3) What was your least favourite moment of the year?
I had a couple of moments of despair at The Great Irish Public when faced with dodgy customers at work.
4) Where were you when 2008 began?
My cousin's house in Dundalk.
5) Who were you with?
Sarah-Jane, Alan, Luca, Katie, Rebecca, Gary.
6) Where will you be when 2008 ends?
Either Rob's house party, or at home listening to Moz and crying into a can of Heineken.
7) Who will you be with when 2008 ends?
Work gang, or Moz.
8) Did you keep your new years resolution of 2008?
No.
9) Do you have a new years resolution for 2008?
Yes.
10) Did you fall in love in 2007?
Nope.
11) If yes, with whom?
...but I had a crush on Crazy James.
12) If yes, do they know?
Sort of, not really.
13) Are you still in love with them?
No.
14) Do you regret it?
No.
15) Did you break up with anyone in 2008?
Yeah! Again.
16) Did you make any new friends in 2008?
Maybe.
17) Who are your favourite new friends?
We shall see if the gentleman visitor of the new year is friendworthy.
18) What was your favourite month of 2008?
I'll go with August, for no special reason.
19) Did you travel outside of Ireland in 2008?
Amsterdam; Brussels; London, Manchester, Oxford and Edinburgh; New York. Oh, and Barcelona!
20) How many different places did you travel to in 2008?
...and Dundalk.
21) Did you lose anybody close to you in 2008?
No.
22) Did you miss anybody in the past year?
I missed Gary on occasion.
23) What was your favourite movie that you saw in 2008?
Lust, Caution.
24) What was your favourite song from 2008?
Estelle feat. Kanye West, American Boy.
25) What was your favourite album from 2008?
Hercules and Love Affair.
26) How many concerts did you see in 2008?
All the good folk at RockWerchter; Neon, Neon; and I tried about a million times to find a band that Zbyszek and I could agree on, but it was not meant to be.
27) Did you have a favourite concert in 2008?
Neon, Neon were brilliant, as were Sigur Ros.
28) Did you drink a lot of alcohol in 2008?
Not really, but I still managed to suffer the consequences.
29) Did you do a lot of drugs in 2008?
None.
30) How many people did you sleep with in 2008?
Two. I got naked with someone else but we just kissed.
31) Did you do anything you are ashamed of this year?
Nope.
32) What was the biggest lie you told in 2008?
I can't think of any. I shall try to lie more in 2009 to provide a more entertaining answer.
33) What was the worst lie someone told you in 2008?
"Nice shirt," probably.
34) Did you treat somebody badly in 2008?
Maybe.
35) Did somebody treat you badly in 2008?
Don't think so.
36) How much money did you spend in 2008?
Oh, lots.
38) What was your most embarrassing moment of 2008?
I'm not easily embarrassed.
39) If you could go back in time to any moment of 2008 and change it, what would it be?
I'd personally restrain the thief who made off with €100 of a customer's cash, and not expect dumb security guards to do their job.
40) What are your plans for 2009?
Write more, save more (money, not trees, natch).
41)What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before?
Tied a bow-tie; read Ulysses; cried at a TV show.
42)Did anyone close to you give birth?
No.
43)What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
Next season's Prada gumboots.
44)What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
My memory is fading like the breeze in stark winter branches.
45)What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Finally getting a contract with my agent of choice. Edit: Hang on, that was last last year. So, um, nothing!
46)What was your biggest failure?
Not getting a book deal.
47)What was the best thing you bought?
Tickets to New York.
48)Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Mine! Dear reader, Oi tried my level best and you carn't say fairer that that.
49)Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Irish voters.
50)What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Nothing much.
51)Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Happier? I think.
ii. thinner or fatter? The same.
iii. richer or poorer? The same, but with more stuff.
52)What do you wish you'd done more of?
Reading.
53)What do you wish you'd done less of?
Internetting.
54)How will you be spending Christmas?
Christmas is dead! I spent it eating and sleeping and seeing my family.
55)How many one-night stands?
One.
56)What was your favourite TV program?
Trueblood is a good find. Have yet to see The Wire, but I know I'll like it. Also got the complete Sopranos and Shameless to while away the lonely hours in my ivory tower.
57)Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No.
58)What was the best book you read?
I really liked "And Then We Came to the End" by Joshua Ferris, and "Madame Bovary" by Flaubert.
59)What was your greatest musical discovery?
The ability to whistle the Irish national anthem through my left nostril.
60)What did you want and get?
More toast.
61)What did you want and not get?
Jam.
62)What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
On my 31st birthday, I had dinner with my friend Clare in New York, and then saw a bijou play of the gay British persuasion, which was quite good. Afterwards we went to a bar where they were auditioning for a new resident songstress. That was fun.
63)What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
The cleaner in our apartment block cleaning the lift more efficiently. It still smells of puke. Noice.
64)How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
I wore a lot of black and didn't shave terribly often.
65)What kept you sane?
"The plan for a better tomorrow," he sighed, dispatching his minions to carry out the terrible, but necessary work.
66)Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Ryan Kwanten, AKA Jason Stackhouse in Trueblood.
67)What political issue stirred you the most?
The Lisbon Treaty debacle.
68)Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.
If at first you don't succeed, pour a gin and tonic.
69)Quote a song lyric.
"So kiss me then make up your mind / I'm not the loving kind." | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Once upon a time, three gay boys and one straight boy sat in an apartment in Manchester, watching some old football match or other.
A god-like young man scored a goal and tore off his shirt.
Jarlath, Jamie and Colin spontaneously sighed, much to the bemusement of Martin (spot the straight).
Cristiano Ronaldo, you bring together those of all tastes, and none.
A moment please, while we all appreciate your bum.
Sigh. | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| ...the inebriated old git who tried to return lesbian porn a month after he'd "used" it.
I sold him a newer, more expensive book of lesbian porn.
Shy Bi Guy is talking to me again, after running into me in the George.
We talked. There was a whole lot of talking going on.
He came over on Monday night to talk some more.
It was vaguely depressing.
But it's my own fault for being a Bad Boyfriend.
One lives and learns...
In other news, various people on the internets have invited themselves to my house for sexy party times.
I've never so much as met someone off Gaydar for an anonymous blowjob*,
so I am quite bemused, but willing to be a good host in the name of sexual adventure.
*I've scored, let's see, 2 guys I met off Gaydar? After a pint, like.
That seems impossibly low... Let's see...
No. 1: Australian Dan who was 6'4"
No. 2: Green Gizmo who was, erm, a bit much
...
No, that's it.
Gosh. | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
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