Ya betta not shout, ya betta not cry...

I'm in Melbourne for two weeks working as the designer on a little gig for a friend. Of course I'm not getting paid! This gig's important for me as the artistic director of the Australian Ballet has been invited to the opening night. Also the principal choreographer of said company. Both have been told to look out for me by a friend and mentor who works in my field.

After a few thrills in the earlier stages, things are going smoothly and strangely I now seem to have very little to do just at the moment. That leaves time on my hands.... something I'm not good at filling productively lately.

You see, I've become obsessed about not being in a relationship.

It's something that crept up on me slowly over the years. I mean, I've always wanted to find someone, but it wasn't something that dominated my every waking moment. I'd only really feel the lack of companionship after a flingette failed. And as I've never made it to the paper anniversary with any of my relationships, I refer to them all as flings or flingettes depending on the duration. (Oh by the way, in gay years, the paper anniversary is at three months of successful dating!)

This obsession became amplified in the last year due to a series of unfortunate events - the death of my mum and falling in love with a confused bisexual frenchman! Both events deserve a post or several each or possibly a blog on their own, so I won't go into that now. Anyway, I dread having nothing to do because I find myself returning with monotonous regularity to the same issue. It's like emotional roadkill, I have to keep on going back to see if it's as messy as I remember.

And it's really starting to piss me off! I want to enjoy this time in Melbourne for a whole stack of reasons - least of all being that this is possibly the biggest break in my career so far, but also because I'm staying with two of my closest and dearest friends in the world. D & C. A beautiful couple, very much in love with each other. With a mutually supportive and respectful relationship. A committed and monogamous gay relationship.

Hmm. When planning this trip, somehow for a little while, I managed to forget the obsession. Great! Some progress at last! Those sessions with my therapist must be starting to pay off! And things were fine for the first day or so.

Until Sunday, bloody, Sunday.

The day of the Yuletide Shop-til-you-drop D & C extravaganza! Platinum Amexes whizzing like shuriken through eftpos terminal after eftpos terminal. Theirs - I've only a humble, ordinary mastercard which does very little whizzing and when it does my friend V scolds me soundly. I was being towed along in their festive wake.

I mean it was fun at first. But then, that mean little grinch that stole all my Christmasses at once, started whispering in my ear. "You'll never have this!" and "See how happy they are together" And the word together reverberates, a mocking little soundbite, over and over again.

It was their cosy domesticity that did me in. Watching the antics of which tree? The Canadian Fir or the Cantebury? My cranky boots getting ever larger and heavier, I helpfully suggest - that one over there! That really ugly silver tinsel number with the built in lights flashing at a speed garuanteed to give a non-epileptic convulsions. "No", they reply cheerfully, unware of the petulant child they're now babysitting, "the Canadian Fir!"

Not even the nativity scenes with fantasia light haloes could cheer me up. I could feel my bottom lip pouting lower and larger by the second. Surely, it's big enough now to shelter a family of refugees from a downpour!

With the Canadian Fir now safely in the boot of the car, we were off on the next leg of the unholy trinity tour. It was all that coupleness, the looks, the little jokes that only they could understand, the verbal shorthand and emotional hyperlinks in their pull down menues - that's what I want want for Christmas! And like a little helpful reminder, every store we entered ended up playing the same fucking lame Christmas song singing "All I want for Christmas is you!" I kid you not - every store!

I'm happy for all my family and friends who are in great relationships and feel myself lucky to be surrounded by so many examples of what a good relationship is like and I've seen so many unhappy couples to know that a good relationship is true platinum. I also know I'm very loved by the people in my life. So perhaps I should be content with that.

Maybe all I should want for Christmas this year is a can of grinch repellant!

A Night with Camp Terrorists

There were arabic women ululating! There were belly dancers. There were camels! And a one point there was a very strange Busby Berkleyesque episode about tiling the bathroom floor with all singing and dancing handmaidens and a grotesquely fat man in drag! And that was only on the video projection screen at the back of the dance floor.

It was mayhem, middle eastern style! A club night for Sydney's Gay and Lesbian middle eastern community. And I had a ticket.

S, a straight friend from Newcastle, had convinced me to come out for a night on the town. As I seemed to have turned into a bit of a hermit, he feels it's his duty to get me back into circulation. I guess being jaded by the whole gay old Sydney thing, I'm not really inclined to get down and boogie with the boys these days. I only decided to give it a go as I'd heard of this club night before leaving Sydney and it'd had sounded like fun. I'd thought that the usual crowd that you'd find in the clubs and bars in Sydney wouldn't be there. Also the music was reputed to be awesome.

After navigating a foyer transfigured for the evening in bedouin fantasia; the hugest hooka and more pink tenting you'd ever seen in your life; we found ourselves on the main dancefloor. At this early point in the evening, a few brave souls were whirling like dervishes, the rest of the patrons in the sparsly populated room were gathered at the bar, fueling up.

Oh, well, at least I won't have any trouble finding a spot under the mirror ball! Except there wasn't any mirror balls. And that's when I took notice of the video projection screen. It sort of dominated the night with a constant and strange melange of images. Perhaps it was my ignorance of middle eastern culture, but I guess a woman preparing a meal of what looked porridge in an apron, stockings with garters and a whopping great strap on is somewhat subversive.

And subversion became the theme of the night. But the emphasis became politcally subversive as the party progressed.

The venue filled surprisingly quickly and before you could say hommus and tabouli, it was packed! I never did get to have a good boogie, for even with the lack of mirror balls under which to dance, the floor was so jammed with bodies, you could only really wobble or jump up and down on the spot. I also managed to collect any witless dance companion with an overly energetic style that included excessive elbow action. Nursing bruised kidneys, I was forced to retire early from a promising career as a podium dancer, and retreated to the balcony to watch.

I couldn't help to notice that most of the anglo guys (of whom I recognised quite a few!) had coagulated together, shirtless in the middle of the dancefloor. They were quite uniform, in dress, in appearance, dance style and expression. A grim faced determination with furtive glances to see who, on the floor around them, might be watching.

It was in stark contrast the dusky lads and lasses, many dressed in bright hues, swirling in abandon around them. Arms raised, hands in constant arabesques of motion, heads thrown back, faces alight with mischief and humour.

And above them all, the screen presenting visual snippets of demented arabian life started scrolling transcriptions of daily brutality in Palastine. "..... my best friend shot in the back as we walked to school...." and ".... beaten senseless..." and ".... we were scared for our lives..."

Wandering around the venue, snatches of conversations overheard compiled into a multivoiced monologue, in iambic repetetion-sedition. The word seemed to be one everyone's lips.

With the new anti terror laws under discussion and the negative press and puplic opinion directed towards this community, partygoers were laughingly joking that we'd all be hauled off to be tried for sedition any day now and tee hee, do you think that guy over there is in the secret service?

Except it wasn't really that funny. I think most of us that night were aware, that if the proposed laws are passed, a dance party, arranged by a suspect community, could easily be interpreted as a protest. And under those laws, such protests would be illegal. And seditious.

Having a good time with all your clothes on had suddenly become subversive!

Post scriptum. It took me four attempts to publish this post. On three separate computers! I can't help but to imagine a bunker in Canberra with computer nerds paid to google "terrorist*" and "camp".

Friday's on my mind.

Gee I live such a thriling life! Today I have a day off from my oh-so-thrilling make do job in fashion retail. And what do I have on the agenda? Perhaps a luxurious day being pampered in a day spa? Or serial catch ups with arty friends, sipping chai and ruminating on the finer things. A day at Bondi Beach, you suggest! Oh you funny bugger you! Of course, it's everyone's favourite - a trip to the dentist!

Not that I begrudge visiting the dentist I mean it's one of those self maintenance thingys you have to do. I like to think of it as visiting a friend I haven't seen in a while. Perhaps a somewhat eccentric friend who likes to stick their fingers in my mouth, but a friend - sort of. An expensive sort of friend. OK who's kidding themselves! I'm paying money to someone I don't know whose probably going to cause me pain and leave me bleeding afterwards! Unfortunately, as I am a vanilla dinosaur, this prospect doesn't exactly give me frissons in anticipation.

The appointment is at 10.40am.

And next on the agenda? A follow up appointment with the dental hygenist! That's right! Ladies and gentlemen! Why pay for one visit, when you can have two for twice the price! Double the fun, you say! Hmm. I did visit a dungeon once- I mean, you have to do it. I was lucky at the time as a friend had just revealed that she was working as a dominatrix, so she snuck me in for free. I really couldn't see the point of it at all. I mean, some of the costumes where nice in a gothica sort of way - but hardly convenient day wear and a tad uncomfortable. A leather harness with tatas akimbo might cause comment at the local deli. But what really grabbed my attention was that no-one looked happy. It was positively funereal! Oh there was lot's of moaning and groaning - I mean we're talking adult entertainment here! I whispered to my shinny leather clad (and now alarmingly transformed) friend in an appalling stage whisper "What are they all doing here?" To which she brusquely replied (in character I think) "Having fun." "Oh! - and they're paying for it?" "Yes", she hissed, "they're paying A LOT for it!"

I like to keep as quite as possible on the dentist's chair. Just in case, you know! They might get the wrong idea.

In the beginning....

Yes, a lovely bibical reference to start my blog! An odd choice perhaps, as I'm hardly of the biblical persuasion. More of a buddhist bent you might say - or rather, more of a bent buddhist. Or, truthfully, I would say, more of a buddhist on a learner's permit - the type of guy who tends to take the corners too sharp or brake too hard or who has trouble staying in the middle of the drivers' lane.

But of course I don't drive. Which leaves public transport. And in Sydney; even with it's new and improved timetables; means running late, unscheduled stops in the middle of nowhere or transport that fails to appear. Sundays and any time you're running late seem particularly prone to mayhem. Hmm, on second thoughts perhaps I should call myself a buddhist on a weekly travel pass.

And now I've just bought my ticket to blog. Oh all right! Yes, I know it's free! But I'm just trying to extend the metaphor a little! Actually, the inspiration to start a blog came my way from a very close friend who's been blogging since the beginning of the year. I began reading only her blog and sort of got hooked. So here I am, the Vanilla Dinosaur! But you can call me Van Dino for short.

I suppose the most oportune time to start a blog is at the beginning of some phase or event in your life. Which in my case means I should have started this blog nine weeks ago when I moved back to Sydney after spending sixteen months in my hometown of Newcastle.

But with the trains hardly ever running on time, nine weeks later is a pretty good beginning.