Enjoy The Silence

I’ve lost many things in my time; my mother in a supermarket aged 3; my cherry (to both a boy and a lady); part of my septum; watches, wallets and so many mobile phones in one year that the last time I called to report it the lady at T-Mobile gasped, “Och, not again?” Every loss has pissed me off to a greater or lesser degree but this week I’ve lost something which has upset me so much I just want to scream. Except that I can’t scream because the precious thing I’ve lost this time is my voice. I’m not just a little bit hoarse either – a trip to the doctor’s first thing Wednesday morning, having woken up mute and in excruciating pain, saw me diagnosed with viral laryngitis.

Now, the irony of my having been struck dumb, when normally nothing and no-one can shut me up, has been lost on exactly nobody. While I know any ribbing is good natured, I know too that even my nearest and dearest are probably having a little chuckle that this most talkative and ebullient of men should - for once! – be rendered speechless. I have to rest my voice as much as possible for a week and then, fingers crossed, I should be back to my usual gobby self; for now I can at least talk to you, so let me fill you in on what’s been going on these last couple of weeks.

The most exciting thing I guess is that the silver lining to the cloud of having this bloody virus is the enforced cessation of smoking. I’d be lying if I claimed to have previously given giving up any more than the most tentative of passing thoughts, despite of course being fully aware of everything a pack a day was doing to my body. Unlike the drinking, which was having very tangible – and public – ill-effects, and my promiscuity, which I briefly hated but learned to accept as part of my make-up, smoking was the one vice I never really wanted to give up. It might sound crazy but because the damage smoking does is internal and unpredictable (sure you can get cancer, but you might not, whereas if you drink you will get pissed!) I’d carried on for 15 years with reckless abandon, stopping only twice – once for 48 hours pre- and post-surgery, and then for one stretch of about four weeks when The Ex and I decided to quit together but were lured back on to the weed by his mother, of all people. This time though it’s different as I finally have the impetus and incentive anyone needs to quit. The equation’s a simple one – quit and get voice back, keep smoking and enjoy chronic laryngitis for life. Talk about a no-brainer. Like the drinking, I know kicking the smokes is going to be a challenge so watch this space for progress reports.

Prior to falling ill I’d had a pretty fantastic run of engagements all of which served to show me how blessed I am when it comes to friendships. Thursday I went for drinks and dinner with The Ex and over pizza and Pinot we shared stories of exploits and sexploits that even a couple of months ago we probably wouldn’t have felt able to discuss. There’s certainly been a turning point in our relationship recently and I feel we’ve gone now from being Exes Who Stayed Friends to being, well, friends. The next evening I had a pure Sex and The City moment as Glenda, OLoC, ActiveWill and I descended on Suzie Wong, Soho’s latest swanky eaterie for cocktails and ‘Oriental tapas’. The place is gloriously fitted out in lacquer, paper screens and all manner of Chinoiserie, and staffed by an almost comedic cast of lady-like boys and, well, lady-boys. The food was fantastic, service was friendly if a little slapdash, the cocktails were strong and spirits were sky-high; if only someone had filmed it we could have sold it as a pilot to HBO.

From there OLoC and I travelled on to Brixton for PWdeK and the Duchess of Derbyshire’s joint birthday do at The Manse. I always love these occasions as the whole extended gang comes out to play, and this was no exception with The Other Ex, Best Straight Lady Friend and Big Rob among the revellers I’d not seen for a while. This was a permission-to-drink night so I got stuck into the vodka but managed to hold back from getting absolutely plastered. I may as well have not bothered though, for as the evening wore on, so the party favours came out, and two consonants and a vowel later I was staggering saucer-eyed for the nightbus, fascinated by the lights and the texture of the pavement (which I became better acquainted with at one point and have a cracking bruise on my left hand to show for it.)

Saturday morning came and in spite of the previous night’s excesses I woke up feeling moderately human (still a little wired if truth be told) and awaited the arrival of The South African who was accompanying me to lunch at my Second Favourite Lesbian’s pad up the road. The Saffa, while only my second favourite South African (Charlize Theron tops the chart), is rapidly qualifying as a New Best Friend what with his immense charm, gossipiness and bitchy-as-mine sense of humour. Being drop-dead gorgeous also helps – I do like my friends to be easy on the eye as well you know. He and 2FL, as well as Mrs 2FL and their other gorgeous gay guest, hit it off a treat and as the wine went down and the volume went up it became quickly apparent that we were in for a long afternoon. Sure enough with dessert digested we adjourned to the de facto gay boozer round the corner where, joined by The Saffa’s delightful Straight Lady Friend, we spent an enjoyable if fairly profane few hours until first The Lesbians and then I admitted defeat and headed home to collapse. The Brewers had been mooted but my stamina isn’t what it used to be and when I woke from my ‘disco nap’ at nearly midnight I realised that my Saturday was over.

On Sunday I enjoyed a new and thoroughly enriching experience – the inaugural Hollogays Learning Day. Adapting an idea given to me by the ever-creative Andrea Bianco, the boys and I had agreed a few weeks ago to assemble for lunch at Glenda’s on this day and each present to the others on a topic, in this case, oceans. ActiveWill kicked off with a very slick and well-researched PowerPoint presentation – as perhaps we should have expected from a man with as specialised a geology masters as he – on the Southern Ocean, complete with illustrations and fascinating facts (we were all agog at the giant kelp!) I followed with my bit on the Pacific; being by far the biggest ocean there’s so much to say about it that I chose to focus on its extremes – the widest this, the deepest that etcetera (I could have been talking about ActiveWill, come to think of it…) and we could all now tell you to the metre the depth of the Mariana Trench. Up next was OLoC who delivered a fantastic freestyle micro-lecture on the Arctic Ocean, about which he’d clearly developed such enthusiasm that it came across in his facial expressions and gestures as he regaled us with the movement of its currents. Glenda took the Indian Ocean from an interesting angle, glossing over the statistics to instead speak extensively and passionately about the socio-politics of the area. Did you know how scandalously Britain had treated the people of Diego Garcia? No neither did I until Sunday but believe me if you did, you’d be angry.

Finally it was Margo’s turn to teach us about the Atlantic and I guess we should have known that he’d do something a little bit off-the-wall. Just how off-the-wall took us all by surprise, despite having known him many years – because for the next half an hour we engaged in an experiential drama workshop, learning about Margo’s ocean through, variously, meditation, improvisation, group machine work, mime and performance. It was bonkers, but amazing, and if we laughed it was only through nervousness at exposing ourselves to each other in a totally new way. We all agreed that the day had been a roaring success and have already set the date and topic for the next Learning Day when I will be hosting the boys, plus Jerry, for The Six Wives of Henry VIII. We rounded off the day with a visit to the Kazbar where, joined by Jerry and his gorgeous mother, and bumping by chance into The Ex along with his New Man, Legally Binding and Mini-Lee, we toasted a thoroughly enjoyable and highly educational new experience.

This week was going to be a veritable social whirlwind, with dates in the diary to see Andrea Bianco for coffee and catch up and dinners with The Other Ex and BSLF, but these have of course had to be cancelled due to my tragic loss. Which takes us rather neatly back to the beginning and my state of silence; as I type this I am sitting, in monastic seclusion, at home where I fully expect to spend the next few days sipping hot drinks, gorging on comfort food (my stop smoking counsellor helpfully warned me that ‘You will put on weight’, at which I softly wept) and watching hour-after-hour of Golden Girls reruns. Which actually sounds rather good fun, so enjoy the silence y’all because that’s what I’m planning on doing!