I Want It That Way

I have not had a very good start to the week.

Yesterday I went to a funeral, and while funerals are never pleasant affairs, it just seems that much more miserable when it's the first thing you do on a Monday. Gay Best Friend, whom I have not seen much of since we moved out of Woolwich, texted me just under three weeks ago to tell me his husband had died. I had met M a few times. Our first encounter springs to mind, when he arrived after work at our Woolwich local where GBF and I, who were down a good 4 glasses of wine apiece, were holding court on the centre couch. As he walked in, he was bombarded by the two of us launching ourselves at him and both trying to talk over each other to tell him the story of our day. I distinctly remember dumping the contents of my bag all over his lap in a drunken attempt to find my missing keys. Luckily he was very patient by nature, and saw the humour in our rather unorthodox meeting.

When GBF told me the news, I was shocked. M was suffering from Crohn's disease, an inflammatory bowel disease for which there is currently no cure. Many Crohn's sufferers live a long and good quality life by adhering to a strict agenda of drug and lifestyle choices, much like diabietics. M, however, was one of the unlucky ones. His condition was so chronic that he was on 17 different meds a day to control the symptoms. He was also overweight. He died from a sudden and unexpected heart attack, brought about by the combination of meds and general poor health.

It was a good few days after I received the news that I was finally able to contact GBF. He was kept busy for a while with all the arrangements that come with someone passing, and he was holding up remarkably well. At the service yesterday, he read a short but beautiful letter he had written to M, and then dedicated the song Footprints In The Sand to him. It was simple and poignant, but I found it difficult to sit through. This is only the third funeral I have attended, and the first for a non-family member. The fact that he was young, and it was so unexpected..... it sat like a stone in my chest. I felt such despair as the curtain closed on his coffin, and seeing GBF's naked pain was so hard to watch.

We retired afterwards to the pub for the wake, as is tradition in the UK, and it was there that we chanced upon a story that made us all laugh so hard we cried genuine tears of joy. Two of the guests, good friends of both M and GBF, had arrived a little early for the service. The crematorium has two chapels, and there are two services going on simultaneously. They also churn the services out - they run 15 minutes apart all day from 9am to 6pm. Somehow, Sharon and Julia ended up in a waiting room, and stood around, ahem, waiting, for someone to call them for M's funeral. A funeral director appeared from a side door and ushered them into one of the chapels, saying they were ready to begin. Shazza and Jules sat dutifully in a pew at the back, and turned to watch the coffin being wheeled in. A Catholic priest took to the podium (I know this is not the right word, but I can't remember what is?!?!) and said a prayer, inviting the guests to cross themselves in Catholic tradition. Shazza and Jules followed his lead, although both were a little confused, as they had never known M to be a religious man. The coffin was lifted up onto the platform, and Jules suddenly noticed the flowers adorning it. Carnations! GBF is a florist by trade, and M had an insider's knowledge of and attachment to flowers. If there was one thing Jules knew, it was that M did not like carnations. The light dawned, and she broke into a fit of giggles as she realised she and Shazza were at the wrong funeral. The giggles quickly became tears of hysterical laughter, and she bolted from her seat and out the back door. Shazza, thinking her friend was just overcome with emotion, stayed put, and continued to observe the Catholic tradition of saying goodbye to their dead. It was only once everybody was seated and the first family member was halfway through his speech that the light dawned for her also, but by then it was too late to go anywhere. Shazza sat through a random stranger's funeral, all the while biting her lip to prevent from causing major disruption to the service. Jules spent the 40 minutes doubled over in the corridor, struggling to breathe through a laughing fit the likes of which she had never encountered before.

It lightened the mood, and we all felt that M was laughing with us - how could he not?!!?!?

So that is the one thing that has me feeling a bit down. The other is further complications with my visa. I'll keep it short: I need to write a test before I am allowed to book an appointment for my new settlement visa in July. This test used to be compulsory only for people applying for citizenship, but the government has decided that everyone applying for indefinite leave to remain (ie permanent residence) must now also write it. I can't book my appointment until I have my test results, and I can't write my test until my passport comes back from the Home Office because that is the only form of ID the test centre will accept. I already had a small window in which to organise all these visas in time to travel in August - this new factor has narrowed that window by a whole lot more. The pressure is building and I am incredibly frustrated at how I am being thwarted at every turn. If giving up was an option, yesterday I would have done it - I was that gatvol (had enough). Unfortunately, giving up would mean I'd have to return to Cape Town for good in August, and I'm not ready to do that yet. So while this does decrease my chances of going to Portugal and Spain, I have to press on and hope for the best. Now I have to decide whether or not I am going to buy my non-refundable flights along with everybody else this weekend or if I'm going to wait and see what happens, and pay perhaps double closer to the time.

As you can, it is sucking big time to be me at the moment. If I had one wish right now, I'd wish for a British passport. I can't actually think of anything in the world I want more. Anyway, onwards and upwards. I'll keep you posted.

When Shoes Shuffled His Feet

So, our dinner party with GBF was fantastic - way better than expected! I didn't have high hopes initially, as when Eyes enquired of Shoes last night whether he was coming to gym, Shoes replied that we were going to the gay guys for dinner and proceeded to sigh and huff like the big bad wolf. We left our flat and I had to stop halfway to go back for Shoes' lip that was dragging along behind us.

I was feeling surprisingly at ease in the beginning. Usually, I am so aware of Shoes' resentment at being dragged along, that I tend to spend most of my time watching him out the corner of my eye for signs of panic / excessive drinking / glaring shyness (which is often misconstrued as an air of disinterest), and frantically trying to bail him out of awkward situations. The first and most welcome icebreaker was Luna, GBF's 2 year old staffie puppy. I had already heard everything about Luna, from her eating and sleeping habits to what she got for her birthday (a £100 pound swarovski crystal collar and 2 x £50 fancy plastic food bowls), but I had yet to meet her. Shoes' dream dog is a staffie, and he frequently talks about his longing to own one when we eventually go back home. Luna was the best kind of therapy for this newp event - she provided conversation of mutual interest, she was boisterous and made us laugh, and when there was a lull in talking, GBF made her show off all the tricks she can do. Soon after we got there, D and Zen arrived. They are the other couple I have met through my volunteer work at the RSPCA, and they are absolute gems. Very quickly I realised that something was missing. That sense of constantly being on edge, worrying that Shoes was going to look pointedly at his watch one too many times... it wasn't there!

I've mentioned before how I am a little obssessed by this freebie website where I get free movie tickets and the like. D was the one to first tell me about this, and I knew she and Zen shared my love of cutting corners in entertainment costs. What I didn't know is that these people are professionals. They could write a book on how to get things for free. Movie tickets and mini samples? Pah, they've got two laptops, a tv and even a weekend away! I won't go into the how to right now, except to say that it's all legit and there's no theft involved, but suffice it to say, once the conversation turned to this topic and we realised just how much they take the piss, we were all in stitches for the rest of the evening.

Shoes appeared to be genuinely comfortable, and not once did I need to bail him out of a social faux pas. We'd agreed on an exit time before we came - 10pm. Finally, at 11:15pm, Shoes looked at his watch and gave me the eyes. I was nothing short of relieved; the wine and rich food had made me sleepy, and I could quite happily have left half an hour before!

As we all said goodnight and made promises to hook up again in the future, Shoes and I started in the direction of our flat and I asked him the all important question: "That wasn't so bad, was it?" His reply? "Not at all, it was cool. They are actually very cool people." And that, right there, is the highest compliment that Shoes can give. :-)

Crowded House

You know you've still got it when you're 27 and you get asked for ID when buying wine in Sainsbury's. Yes, that really happened to me this morning, and I am still absurdly pleased about it.

I'm pretty sure from the way she was staring puzzledly at it that the cashier was unfamiliar with the South African drivers license. I could feel her rising panic as she scrutinised my card, flipping it over and back again, looking for that elusive proof that I was of age. I helpfully pointed out the date with a perfectly manicured fingernail - do 17 year olds even have perfectly manicured fingernails? - and enunciated clearly "1980", but she still scowled at me suspisciously. I could practically hear her thoughts: Is this a trick? Is this a fake ID I'm supposed to recognise and instantly alert my superior to? It didn't help that while she was struggling with her sense of morality and power, I was standing there with an inane grin on my face. It's no wonder she was reluctant to give in. We had a brief face-off - she stared me down while my inane grin widened to a moronic one, and finally she conceded. The battle was over. I had won my prize. Well, won the opportunity to pay a fiver for a bottle of wine, anyway.

The wine is for an early Christmas dinner that Shoes and I are attending tonight. GBF, who's been off my radar for a couple of weeks (I must have really scared him at our last drunken meeting) invited us along with another couple who we've met through our RSPCA work. I'm excited; Shoes, not so much. The thing about my boyfriend is that he is the most delightful person once you get to know him; around his friends he is relaxed, witty, uninhibited and positively sparkling in Christmas-tree-light style. It's the getting to know him part that presents problems for other people.

He's not unfriendly by any means; he just has an enormous psychological block against meeting new people. He's the person at the party who is so terrified by the thought of being in a crowd of people he doesn't know that he's apt to drink too enthusiastically too quickly for Dutch courage, and then needs to go home early (come to think of it, this is quite possibly a deliberate ploy). He's the guy for whom small talk is worse than the Bokke losing to England. He's said before he'd rather have no new friends for the rest of his life than suffer the agony of "So, what do you do?" conversations one more time. I refuse to take this seriously though, because even if he does mean it, I'm not about to let him hide in his cave so I am continuously forced to present myself as the swinging singleton whenever there's a dinner party/wedding/work function for Lopz plus one. I have made it my mission in life to help him get over his crippling phobia of "newps" (new people) by dragging him to various events where he knows no-one. This is for his own good, and one day when his sparkling repartee is the coveted centrepiece at every party in the neighbourhood, he will make a heartfelt speech in front of a crowd of VIPs about how he could never have done it withouth me. I only have his best interests at heart. Besides which, I have run out of excuses for reason why he is not with me at newp events. "Oh, he's having a guys' night out tonight" or "The footie's on, and he is just SO sports mad, ha ha *cough cough*" are no longer cutting it, and I have to deal with the looks of pity shot my way throughout the rest of evening. "Shame, they're obviously going through a rough patch" is what kinder half are thinking, while the others clearly snipe under their breath, "Boyfriend? Then why haven't we seen him in seven years; she's actually sad enough to make him up."

I am putting a stop to this right now. I see tonight as another opportunity to show him that the rest of the world does not bite; that in fact, there are some very pleasant people out there just dying to be his mates. The fact that he sees it as a form of slow torture is irrelevant - in the long run, this will only serve the greater good of coupledom.

Wannabe Fag-Hag (GBFriendship Never Ends)

Ohhhhh, I'm feeling rough today. I took the day off work yesterday to go to an RSPCA microchipping course, and ended up in a pub until late with my neighbour and fellow chipper, New Gay Best Friend (GBF), downing an unmentionable number of large glasses of cheap white wine. Eeewwww.

It started out innocently enough, as it always does. GBF and I met at a chipping event a few weeks ago, and decided to do this course together so we could actually do the microchipping of animals instead of only handling the paperwork. For those who don't know, microchipping is the process of inserting an electronic chip the size of a grain of rice into the skin between an animal's shoulder blades for identification purposes. Each chip has a unique number which is logged into a database and matched with the owner's name and contact details. If someone's pet gets lost or stolen and is returned to a local vet, the vet can scan the animal for a chip and reunite pet with owner in a matter of minutes.

I've been volunteering with the RSPCA for about 8 months now, mostly helping out at their free chipping events, and GBF has just recently joined to get as much experience as possible for his business that he's opening up - he is studying to be a Dog Adviser and Psychologist. We discovered on that event that we live practically next door to each other, and that both our boyfriends share the same first name. We have a lot in common, including a great passion for animals and shoes.

We both approached this chipping course with more than a little trepidation, as although it looks very easy - the process is exactly the same as getting your ear pierced - it's a little nerve-wracking when you're the one holding the gun and the animal is squirming and yelping like it's about to be murdered. I went first with a kitten, which was actually really easy, as they're so small it's easy to hold them still. GBF went next with a crazy half feral cat that tried to scratch his eyes out, but he managed it and neither of us killed either of the two animals we chipped. In fact, it's actually much harder to restrain the cats than it is to chip them. Only one girl out of the 15 of us on the course got bitten, and it was just a surface scratch - the dog responsible was immediately muzzled for the remainder of the procedure.

After we were finished, GBF and I decided we needed a drink, so we headed back to London and to our local pub, where "a couple of drinks" quickly got out of hand, and my attempts to leave and go to gym (yeah right) were repeatedly thwarted by mysterious glasses of wine that kept appearing on the table in front of me. We decided it would be a good idea for me to meet GBF's husband, who rocked up to find the two of us quite pissed already and talking over each other at great volume as we recounted the events of the day. GBF is the girl in the relationship, and eventually I think the two of us got too much for Husband, who retreated to the safety of another sane patron's company while GBF and I had a hug-fest and I declared my life-long ambition to be a fag-hag, which he embraced wholeheartedly. While we were promising to be each other's gay/straight best friend forever and planning on when next we were going shoe shopping on Oxford Street, I decided it would be a great idea to take them home and introduce them to my housemates.

Cue utter confusion at home as I waltzed through the door with 2 drunk gay men and introduced them as my new best friends. Later I sulked because I thought they'd been rude to my new pals, but looking back it was probably just bewilderment - not that they're gay, but that we were all rather pissed and loud and I have only just met them! Anyway, still waiting to hear from GBF this morning, I hope I didn't offend him with the series of drunken texts I sent him after he'd gone home. I usually don't text when I'm pissed for a reason, but oh dear, I broke my rules last night and I wouldn't be surprised if he thinks I've lost the plot.

Still waiting to hear about the job.... Agency Witch called yesterday to say they liked all three candidates and were still deciding.