"Mum, I would HATE to be gay."

This one is very close to my heart. See, it is my grand dream that no child should ever have to grow up feeling bad about being gay. It should just be. With each generation there have been massive shifts in perception and acceptance of homosexuals, just look at the difference in attitudes even between Gen X and Y, but there is still along way to go before being born gay is ‘normal’.

Today I am re-posting a story by the beautiful Edenland. While some of you may have already read it, it’s also really important to me that these words sit here on St. Murphy as well. For any of you who have spent time on Edenland’s blog you will already know she is a very special woman. The messages I take from this post are that with each generation acceptance will continue to improve and with people and parents like Edenland than equality is on the horizon, maybe even marriage. Over to Edenland...

Edenland

My nine-year old son was sitting at the table one day, looked up at me and said completely out of the blue, "Mum, I would HATE to be gay."

I was furious. I sat down with him, ready for a long discussion about equal rights and injustice and tolerance and ignorance. No child of mine was going to be homophobic goddamit. I don't know if it's right or wrong to enforce your own personal beliefs on to your children. I try to let them have their own views, give them space to make up their own assumptions about things.

But I was not letting him get up from that table until he got a crash course in respect and kindness. Until I had full assurance that he was not growing up homophobic. No kid of mine is going to be a homophobe. GODDAMIT.

Calmly, but with my head racing, I asked him why he said that. Was it because his dad and older brother are such macho manly men? Did he see something on TV? Goddamit.

He stopped his drawing, looked at me and said, "Well, because, if I was gay .... I would have to hide it."

My heart. Oh.

We sat there for a while in silence. Wrapping my head around the fact that not only was my son not being homophobic at all, he was coming from a place of empathy. He already knows that to be gay would be problematic. I thought of all of the children in his school ... there would be a percentage of them that ARE gay. And know that they are gay, and they would feel ashamed. Struggling to hide their Truth.

That's just so bloody sad.

I love gay people - specifically "out" gay people. I think it's because, they have struggled a lot to get where they are. People who go through struggles in their life, are often remarkable. They know themselves. They're battle-weary. They're deeper.

I told Max that yes, it would be hard to be gay, wouldn't it? But if he ever finds out that somebody is gay, to understand and never tease or judge them. He looked at me like I was an idiot. "Pfft! Of course I wouldn't do that, mum!"

And then I thought some more. "And, sweetheart ... if you were to ever tell me that you were gay? I would not care one bit. I love you so much, and ..."

"MUM. I'm not gay, I was just telling you something."

"Ok mate."

"Mum?"

"Yes mate?"

"Imagine if Rocco was gay! He would be the toughest gay guy in the world."

And we both laughed, because Rocco WOULD be the toughest gay guy around. Totes butch.

If any of my sons were gay, I would wave the rainbow flag from the highest rafter. I would beg to be in their float at mardi gras, I would hold dinner parties for all of their friends, and I would embrace them all with my whole heart. I would want to walk them down the aisle at their wedding. I would want them to be allowed to have a wedding.

This is my favourite "It gets better" video, from the wonder people at Pixar. The guy at 5 minutes and 35 seconds? Oh my god. I wonder how his mum reacted when he came out. I hope she loved him as fiercely as the love I felt for him when I first watched this.

I think most of all, if one of my kids came home and told me he was gay, I would feel instant sorrow. For the stupid straight world is hard to live in ... they'd be facing a lot of real-life ignorance and hate from stupid people. Life's hard enough, man.

Read Eden's original post here and spend some time in Edenland!

I’ve had a religious experience! His name was Christian.

I’ve been touched by an angel!

Well I’m not sure if he actually touched me but he did hand my credit card back to me so that’s pretty close. Ahhh, it was a beautiful moment.

Christian (pre his new honey highlights)

Let me paint the picture...

Saturday morning I was revolting and foul. Snot and phlegm from head to toe, still wearing my tracksuit pants and baseball cap. I was sick as a dog with the Man-Flu and feeling very sorry for myself.

My houseguest, The Sculptor, and I both needed food and I also needed an armoury of vitamins so we dragged ourselves up to Kings Cross. I have an addiction to supplements so for all my supplementary needs I am a Gold Member of GNC. So in we walked to...

“Holy Shit, he is beautiful!”, I muttered to The Sculptor at a volume I deemed subtle. The boy behind the counter literally lit up the store. We made our way over to the walls of glorious pills and I got all flustered when he came over to help. For the life of me I couldn’t remember if I’d come to pick up some Vitamin C or a Toyota. I think I pointed to my dripping nose to explain my needs. Way to make a great impression St. Murphy!

Christian was using words that even I as a professional bullshit artist couldn’t fake an understanding of. I vaguely remember something about 'eating the leaves of your greens', but seriously who would eat anything green??? I just looked at him blankly. By this stage we were back at the counter when I noticed this mag in front of me…

Mag cover with Christian

“Is that you?”, I asked. Best sentence I’d put together since entering the store. He confirmed nonchalantly that yes, it was! I just stood there and bathed in the warm glow that is Christian. But before you think I’m a weird stalker... the thing about this boy was not necessarily that he was good-looking, which of course he was, but hot boys are a dime a dozen in the Eastern Suburbs. It was more that he RADIATED good-health. He literally glowed! His skin had a sheen to it for gods sake. I have never seen health personified like this before. It was startling, magnetic and disturbing all at the same time.

You too can have a body like Christian if you do his Kettle Ball Workout, but ask you,
what the hell is a kettle ball???

Now The Sculptor is a cynical man who pleasures in the darker side of life. He likes his men rough around the edges and with a beard. He had taken a quiet, silent step back so he didn’t suffer any sunburn from Christian. As soon as we stepped out of the store the conversation went something like this…

TS: Holy shit! What was that?

StM: Oh my god, it was like he was glowing.

TS: It was like looking into the sun.

StM: I didn’t hear a word he said.

The Sculptors theory was that Christian had never done a bad thing to his body in his life. He went as far as to suggest that he wouldn’t know what a carb tasted like. Fuck we amused ourselves with this for ages.

To celebrate Christian’s good health and prosperity, The Sculptor and I went to Pie Face to enjoy the things that we knew Christian didn’t. I love a good pie. I then doubled my supplement dose so that one day I can look like Christian without having to go to the gym, or stop drinking, or limit fried food.

Surely the GNC Gold Member card can get me that!

My magic wand!

UPDATE: In research for this insightful article (and not because I’m a dirty old perv!) I think I’ve found Christian’s website. It seems he’s a published author. He has since had some frosted tips. Shot it through to The Sculptor to get his feedback and this was his response…

“I was thinking this morning that if you had the chance to touch him you would see a vision of the future where he would be fighting off the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse wearing ivory armour brandishing a sword of celery and a shield of isotopes.”

Sums it up perfectly! Sculptor, you are fucking hilarious!

Why can't I do more than one thing at once?

I am so easily distracted. And I’m not very good at doing more than ONE thing at once. Lets just say I’m pretty sure I will never be a CEO. Lets just take a look at 3 instances over the last week that have prevented me from carrying out the simplest of tasks, such as writing for this blog.


First off, the Airport Laptop incident...


So I'm coming through airport security last week and I was completely distracted by trying to avoid those awful people who want to stick their magic wand in my bag. Every time, and I mean EVERY time, I go through security they stop me. I’m sure it's because I’m a near 40yo dressing like a 21yo. I was so distracted trying to time my perfect run so as to avoid the wand that I left my beautiful, much loved, relatively new laptop on the security rollers. BLAH!!!! IDIOT!!!


I didn't realise until I'd landed back in Sydney. So dumb. I immediately tweet the beautiful people at Qantas Customer Service and they help me sort it out (I love the customer service benefits of Twitter! Qantas lead the way). I think it was Audrey who was a dream, then the wonderful Daryl at the Security checkpoint who found it and held for me. So relieved, so happy. Tweeted all my dramas and in the process found the wonderful MichelleLLeslie was coming through the airport later that day and she brought it home for me. So darling of her! Thanks Twitter for solving all my problems.


But alas, this was last Thursday and I still haven’t been able to pick it up from the lovely Michelle. Why you ask, its been 5 days??? Well the much dreaded repeat offender, the Man-Flu, has gripped me again!


So over it! By Sunday my chest was in trauma. Truth be known, I knew I was coming down with something on Thursday but stupidly, distractedly, completely wrote myself off on Thursday night. I thought my first vodka could be quite medicinal, sure as hell the 25th one wasn’t. Friday I do believe, in my Harden-The-Fuck-Up way, that I was close to death.


And I am the worlds worst sick person. I get so distracted by the fact that I’m sick that I can’t possibly do anything else. I sit on the lounge, watch Law & Orders and I pop pills. I had about 6 different pill boxes on the go at one point on Saturday. I am the world’s best self-medicator. Hasn’t seem to do much good though, but Monday night the dark cloud lifted somewhat. Dead keen to function like a normal human being on Tuesday.


And the icing on the distracted cake... I had a house guest for the weekend. Poor bastard. Had my dear friend (and ex-ex-boyfriend) The Sculptor up from Melbourne for the weekend. He had to fly solo on Friday and Sunday nights, a wingman covered in snot and phlegm is never a good look on Oxford St. So mature to be able to go cruising with your ex. Aschapelle and I are definitely not at that point yet, maybe some day, The Sculptor and I were 10 years ago. He was in town to teach bored rich housewives how to sculpt so I got no sympathy or support for my Man-Flu from him during the day. At least I had the lounge to myself to wallow in self-pity.


Next time he’s in town he’s taking me to manly leather bars. Can you imagine? 2011 is about broadening my horizons and that sure as hell will. The Sculptor is an expert. Dear lord what have I got myself into?


So my slackness in posting is because I’m a lazy, one-dimensional whinger who has a snot/phlegm problem. In a nutshell.


PLEASE NOTE: Sorry no pics because the 1980’s laptop I am temporarily using does not connect with any technology produced after ’91.

Boring and exhausting...

Do you ever get bored with yourself? I do.

I also find myself exhausting sometimes. Boring and exhausting.

That’s how I find myself today. I’m having one of those days where if I was friends with someone like me I would have left the room. Sadly I can’t do that while my mind is in this body. Unless of course I could meditate but I did a course on that once and I wasn’t very good. Kept falling asleep.

And do you find that when you start to find yourself boring and exhausting that you become even more boring and exhausting. I think this is because once you are self-absorbed enough to find yourself boring and exhausting than you are self absorbed beyond repair.

I also think, and I have been thinking a lot, that this is also a by-product of living alone. Little Sammy is adorable but he really doesn’t talk back much. I can also be very lazy – I blame middle age – so I’m not terribly pro-active in organising weeknight activities. In fact, I tend to avoid them. I love to potter around my little Man Pit; fluff the pillows, do a load of washing with 3 items, iron my clothes for work the next day, these things give me great pleasure. I’m a pfaffer!

So I can get kinda stuck in my own head a lot. No wonder I’m bored and exhausted with myself. That would be enough to send anyone all Charlie Sheen.

The other reason I think I’m feeling like this today is that I am not one of those steady-as-he-goes, even-keeled, solid-as-a-rock sorta people. Just ask my ex Aschapelle? The highs are high and the lows are mute and boring. I had a weekend of highs highs highs, and I think after a period like that my mind and body needs lows lows lows to rebalance itself.

When I get around other people I get excited. Probably too excited. Often embarrassingly excited. And I’ve been this way since I was 4. I have an instinctual desire to be central to everything. Try and stop me, and if there is alcohol involved than it is uncontrollable. It can be scary. Just ask my party-pals on Friday night! Best of times brings about the worst of times. Such a high-spirited dedication to good times always brings about the most shocking of hangovers for me. Goodbye Saturday.

Saturday night was very mentally draining. Through my employer, some colleagues and I manned the food van for the homeless and disadvantaged. It’s so clichéd, but this really knocked me around. I’d done it once before but this time it was really intense. The experience was this weird mix of fear, sadness, anger, warmth, happiness, then sadness and fear all over again. I recommend everyone do it. To be completely honest, its for two polar opposite reasons… to make a small difference in some peoples lives who really need it, and to selfishly make you feel better about yourself and less guilty about your own luxury.

Sunday was about catching up with two of my oldest and dearest friends. Just lovely. And I love some good storytelling. That’s the best part about catching up with old friends. Goddamn the stories that the 3 of us have shared with each over the last 15 years would curdle milk, make your hairs stand on end and corrupt the devil. A little less risqué these days, but only a little. Ahhh… I just got all warm and fuzzy thinking about them.

I’m very aware of my own faults, of which I have many. Doesn’t mean I can control them unfortunately. This high/low routine has never been something I could manage well.

But I tell you, just even writing this shit down makes it all seem so less boring and exhausting. I feel much better. This blogging thing is very good for my mental health.

A cathartic post today.

Papa Don't Preach

Startling news....


25 years ago this week Madonna's Papa Don't Preach hit No. 1.


25 YEARS!!!!!! I so clearly remember this coming out. WHat the hell happened to the last 25 years????


Oh dear, now I feel old. But if I feel old then jeez my Madonna must feel ancient.


Love you Mads for the immense joy you have bought me for nearly 30 years. xoxoxoxoxo

Loree Rudd; join in the laughter with me!

WARNING: loaded with sarcasm!

Do you know what, sometimes you just have to laugh! There are times that something is just so ridiculous that you have to laugh or the alternative, to take it seriously, would result in anger management issues. Laugh or punch the wall? Today I choose to laugh.

Loree and Kevin Rudd

My case in point today is the delightful sister of our Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd. Before yesterday I’d never heard of this charming senior citizen who is so obviously intimately connected with her community. Her name is Loree Rudd and she is just a sensitive, caring woman who has beauty in her heart. She believes, and has now stated very publicly, that gays lobbying for equal rights are akin to the Gestapo who slaughtered millions of innocent people.

Of course we are darling, just like the Gestapo!

See what I mean? Some things are just so ridiculous you just have to laugh.

Normally I turn a weird shade of purple and verbally abuse whenever I come across such ignorance in thinking. Possibly I’m getting old or my medication has finally kicked in, because today I choose to laugh. Even the great intellect and insight of Loree could not anger me. I do feel though that we need to discuss in more detail the comments of Loree, she deserves our attention.

Oh Loree, you look so sweet, but yet...

She first came to my attention in a story on The Australian website. The whole story is a lesson in true humanity, but particularly the last three paragraphs excite me…

Ms Rudd said she did not want to demonise gay people, but was bound by her faith that marriage is only between a man and woman.

She said there was a worldwide gay movement that "fed propaganda" to lobby for the changes.

"I call them the global gay Gestapo: it is the lobbying movement that is brainwashing people, particularly the young in the community that this (homosexuality) is an optional extra in life," she said.

Now I’m going to turn off my Sarcasm Switch that I have so obviously had on ON during the first half of this post, lets get down to seriousness. I need to make a number of points, just in reference to these final 3 paragraphs…

1.    The fact that she says that ‘she did not want to demonise gay people’ means that she already knows that she has. That is distinctly un-Christian behaviour Loree.

2.    Using ‘faith’ as an excuse to get away with saying and believing whatever suits your needs revolts me. Christianity is not an excuse to discriminate, alienate and force your beliefs on others.

3.   ‘fed propaganda’, I can’t even begin to understand what she means? Propaganda such as loving adult relationships, lifelong partnerships and a fundamental human desire for equality? Yes, I can see how someone as narrow-minded and as selfish as Loree could see that as propaganda.

4.    I’m resisting her Gestapo reference for the moment. Skipping along to the apparent ‘brainwashing’ that equality lobbyists are undertaking, as if being homosexual is like joining a cult or the Stockholm Syndrome. Fuck, if all it took was some brainwashing to turn someone gay don’t you think Brad Pitt would be batting for the better team by now?

5.    This was the absolute hardest opinion of Loree to ignore when deciding to laugh rather than be angry. She infers that this ‘brainwashing’ teaches the young that being gay is ‘an optional life extra’. I beg of you Loree, please speak with any gay or lesbian, ask them if they chose being gay or if they were lucky enough for it to choose them? Now I’m quietly confident that you have never associated yourself with an out, proud, confident, comfortable homosexual so call me and I’ll introduce you to some. Ask them if being gay is at the core of who they are, if it’s something they intuitively and fundamentally know about themselves and they will all have the same answer – YES! No one taught us, no one trained us, no one brainwashed us to be gay. We are gay because that is how we were born.

Loree, you deserve absolutely not a second more of my time, my anger or my frustration. What you get is laughter! I laugh at you! Someone as ignorant, as narrow-minded and as disrespectful as you does not deserve anything more. Actually, what you do deserve is my pity. I pity you because your ignorance of diversity will result in a sheltered, boring, little life.

Gay sermon over.

The Power Gays (artists formerly known as Gaystapo)

Truth be known, time to come clean: A group of fabulous friends and I recently started calling ourselves the Gaystapo. We’ve found this mildly amusing. Now to be very clear, we coined this name not because we aim to discriminate, vilify and ultimately kill millions of people but more because we are militant in our homosexuality and overt campness. See, we are as gay as Christmas and if a bar fight at Stonewall broke out we’d run like the wind. The term Gaystapo is truly ironic when applied to us. But after hearing Loree use this reference with the tone that she has I think we’ll return to calling ourselves the Power-Gays. Equally appropriate I think.

I'm a very bad communicator!

Such a question of the modern times, but is there such a thing as social media overload? This is a very strange question coming from me who is quite obviously obsessed with every form of social media possible. The reason I ask it is that I think I may have reached my threshold. I’ve spread myself too thin.

Recently I started getting messages via my LinkedIn account and it completely freaked me. I’m already appallingly bad at getting back to people without yet another place I need to be checking messages. So when I say ‘overload’ I do not mean the amount of time spent on social media, god forbid there aren’t enough hours in the day, but rather the amount of different places I now need to check messages. I am officially at capacity.

I guess if I was a better communicator this wouldn’t be a problem. Quite frankly I am too self-absorbed and lazy. What is frightening is that my day job is as a communications professional, so its rather disturbing that I am so bad at it. I feel horrible about this all the time. I wish I could be better. In my fantasy world all communication avenues are funneled into one giant receptacle that gives me everything I need to know via the one channel.

Work is all about the email and voicemail, both mobile and landline. That is pretty clear. I say to people all the time if you want to be sure that I will pay attention than the work email is the best way. Cause once you factor in social media the lines all become very blurry, adhoc and messy for me when it comes to communication. The LinkedIn messages started me thinking, and conducting a little social media inventory. Here are my findings and a scorecard for myself! Let me reiterate, very few people are as self-absorbed as I am…

Twitter: I don’t care who you are, what you are or where you’re from; if you tweet me I will tweet you back. Why? Because I love Twitter nearly as much as I love talking. Having said that, I am really bad at following my Timeline as I spend all my waking hours on Mentions – see, self-absorbed. But overall I’m quite good in this space.

FaceBook: Hit me up on my wall and I’ll see it no probs. Messages on FB are so full of crap from different groups, causes, fan-sites, etc that I follow that I have to scroll through too much to get to my friends. I gave up months ago. Subsequently I’m losing friends all over the place. I keep promising myself I’ll spend some time replying but somehow never get around to it. Bad St. Murphy, bad. See this is why my funnel idea would work brilliantly! (As a result of this post I’ve just been through my FB and deleted/’Unlike’d so much stuff)

Blog: Still not sure of what the protocol is with this one. I read everyone’s comments for sure, I love them, but it feels really self-indulgent (even for me) to be commenting on your own blog. Can anyone offer advice on that? What is the expectation?

LinkedIn: I’m ignoring this one. As I am not looking for a job ,and not particularly good or interested in networking , do I really need to partake in this one? Me thinks not. But of course I accept all friend requests regardless.

FourSquare: This one has died a slow death for me. Was fun when I was the mayor of everything, not so much anymore now I’ve been ousted. Still not really sure what the point of FourSquare ever was so lets let this one go through to the keeper moving forward.

Grindr: Being a newly single gay man Grindr was very exciting/satisfactory for approx. 3 weeks. Then something weird happened. I became old fashioned. Whatever happened to being sleazy in a bar or flirting with strangers in the hope of more. Grindr ruined all of that. One day I was frantic on Grindr, the next I was non-existent. Cie la vie. Was originally an A+ but now I’m a…

Yammer: The lovely digital boys at work got us all excited about this one, we all jumped on board. Now I don’t even think I have it bookmarked, let alone know my password.

Text Messages: Now I know this is not social media but the lines are so blurred when it comes to smart phones that anything that beeps I class as social media. I’m pretty good on this one. I tend to respond within 24-48 hours. Although my responses tend to be brief and grammatically correct.

So all up I’m faring pretty poorly on social media communication. See, I’ve spread myself too thin in my eagerness to be a part of everything. Jack of all trades, master of none. Lesson learned. The sad truth is I’m not about to dump any of my beloved social media, instead I’m going to fine-tune. Gone is Yammer, gone is messaging on LinkedIn. Culled are all the ‘Likes’ on my FB page and Grindr is disconnected. Phew, I feel better already. Possibly I may even become more social because of it.

Just please please please do not introduce anymore social media! Google+, heed the warning, I must ignore you!


Does anyone else have this problem????