Drama, Much?

What a week.

My friends Jess & Alex got married over the weekend and had a beautiful ceremony with a small gathering of family and friends. There were laughs and lots and lots of tears.

Then there was me snapping and letting my youngest cat go - he had become extremely territorial and aggressive over the past few weeks and had been attacking my oldest cat. It was very distressing to come home to clumps of fur all over the house and growling and hissing. I'm sure the guilt will hit me at some point, but I'd rather have 2 happy cats than 3 stressed out pets.

I have to read up on diabetes 'cos my dad's medical condition is not getting any better. And I have to learn to deal with a very good friend's HIV positive status and how that will impact his life and affect ours.

Drama. But then again, that's life, isn't it?

Space.

Today marks the one-year anniversary of my having been made redundant from my previous job. No biggie, but I'm back in the city that I used to call home for 6 years. On the drive from the airport to my downtown hotel, I looked out at all the houses and condominiums and just longed and craved and missed one thing.

Space.

I never thought I would miss living in an 1,100-square feet apartment. Who would need so much space anyway? Give me something smaller, I used to say, and I'll be fine.

Well, I do have something smaller now. 623square feet on paper, but the actual space works out to be something like 480square feet. I think. And that's too small. Even my cats are going slightly stir crazy.

They're all boys and used to have their own corners and little domains but in my current apartment, there's way too much overlap, and it's stressing them out. For the past 2 weeks, I've come home from work to clumps of fur and pissed off growling and howling. It's stressing me out.

On some levels, I feel bad that I cannot give them more space to do their thing, and that kinda dovetails into my need for more space, I guess. It's odd. But maybe it's not that odd, given that most of my friends have 'proper-sized', grown-up apartments.

Things are going OK for me and I should remain positive and look at the bright side. Work's coming along fine, I'm doing OK health-wise and I'm slowly beginning to enjoy my new home.

But it's a bit hard to focus on all that when a good friend calls you to tell you that he tested positive for HIV. And then your mum calls to say that dad - who suffers from diabetes - has a swollen foot and is not responding to medication.

And in 2 days, I'm gonna be a bride's mate at a friend's wedding.

Intense.

Rewind: HK

As I approach my sixth month in HK (yes, I keep track too much), I had a very odd Saturday which brought me back to many, many years ago.

I meet with a friend for lunch, and he had a friend from out of town who was staying with him. So we head for one of HK's more famous must-eat locations for lunch. We walk up the stairs in a single file to the restaurant, tell the staff we needed a table for 3, and proceeded to wait for our number to be called. And that's when we discovered that the visiting friend had disappeared.

See, said visiting friend is not totally out of the closet and apparently he had seen someone who knew him at the restaurant we were at, and that totally spooked him. I totally understand the gay-by-association thing, 'cos I had my own issues about that years ago, but I never had to leave any restaurant because I might be outed. That's just sad and totally effed up.

I mean, I can empathize on some levels, but the guy is almost 30 and I think it's just silly that you cannot even eat lunch because someone might see you. How do you live like that?

Later that evening, I headed out to another friend's birthday and housewarming and it was a muggy evening but the company was great. And I meet another guest at the party who was smart and charming and pretty cool...and like a teenager, I had the worst case of insta-crush. Hate it when that happens. But I think I kinda kept it under wraps enough that my friend's didn't have to hose me down.

Back in the day, when I lived in HK the first time around, I suffered from insta-crushes all the time. I reckon it's a result of not knowing how to express affection within limits (does that make sense?) so much so that anyone who gave me attention, I would just cling on.

Deja vu is a funny, random thing. And hindsight is lovely, even on a muggy day in a country house by the beach. Maybe my date on Monday night will help give me some perspective.

Inglourious Basterds

Just because Brad Pitt's working with Quentin Tarantino with a crazy accent. And yes, that's how the movie title's spelled.

Keith Haring. Just Because.

I've always been slightly intrigued by the man behind the crazy figures and squiggly lines whose artistry was both unique and accessible.

I don't know much about Keith Haring besides the fact that he wore glasses, he was gay and that he died from AIDS. Later, I was surprised to learn from watching Madonna interviews that she was friends with Keith, and that they were both the same age. She even used his artwork in one of the performances on her Sticky & Sweet Tour.



So today, in my daily trawling of the internet for random bits of info, I came across this documentary posted on Towleroad which made real the man behind the name. (The intro's in Dutch but the rest of the program's in English)


Keith Haring Documentary from ovicone on Vimeo.
Thoroughly fascinating. I can watch this over and over again. Until they remove it, of course.

The Best Reality Show

Real life trumps fiction as the financial crisis brings up this soon-to-classic scolding that a NY congressman lays on the Securities & Exchange Commission for failing to do their job.



I could watch this all day...

Drugs Are Bad (And Funny)

Long Time No Blog

I know, it's been a while. Funny how time flies when you let a series of little things sorta overwhelm your schedule until you find that it's 2am and something like 15 weeks since you last blogged.

I'm settling nicely into HK, enjoying the cooler weather and smaller spaces, and re-learning the joys of doing a lot of walking. There some nice new people, there are some nicer older friends and work's keeping me busy. I'll try to be more regular here.

But enough about me. Here's a sampling of some of the fun things I'm enjoying.

Here's the awesome Annie Lennox and her new single "Shining Light". Loving this.



You might have already read about and heard Christian Bale's on-set meltdown with the Director of Photography for his new movie, Terminator: Salvation. Here's the meltdown mixed into a pretty kicking dance mix that I want to download to my IPod.



And Lego continues being cool in the age of Obama.


You can see more here.

And speaking of Obama, I love this piece from Fox News on the touchy-feelyness that has come to characterize America's First Couple.



For the uninitiated, fisting is quite an extreme display of affection.

And finally, I catch myself missing KL every now and again.