vespa

the other morning, i was sitting on the back of a vespa with one arm holding onto a fresh baguette, the other holding on to g as we zoomed through the cobble-stoned streets of the city of lovers, and i thought: this is paris. there's no other way to explore this wonderful city. the vespa is a metaphor. paris is a metaphor. and in those metaphors, you will find love.

lucky faggot

i met someone yesterday who was 47 years old, with a wife and two children and a well paid, professional position in a pharmaceutical company here in paris. this man was handsome, funny, well travelled, and seemed to have a perfect life. except that of all the people in his family, his workplace, and all of his close friends, not a single one of them knew that he was gay.

and it made me reflect upon my own life. i came out in my late teens, and for the last decade, i have never hidden my homosexuality from anyone. i have never, ever, felt that i were less than anyone else, i have never, ever, felt that any love that i felt for someone were not 100% valid. i have never questioned it. it would never even have occurred to me to question it. i have always felt like a complete person, and have always felt comfortable pursuing my dreams in life - whatever they may be - with a rock-hard sense of self. i cannot remember having a conversation with any family member or friend in the last decade in which anything gay was treated differently to what it would have been had it been straight. it's a complete non-issue, none of us even thinks about it any more - why the hell am i even wasting time writing about it?!

because it's not like that for everyone. and when i get reminded of those people out there who are hiding, or ashamed, or are getting discriminated against, i realise how lucky i am to be living exactly the life i want to live without ever even thinking twice about it. i am a lucky man. a lucky gay man! and though part of that is having grown up in a wonderful open city like melbourne, and a lot of it is due to my wonderful friends who support me in whatever i do in life, the basis of any gay person's happiness - and i cannot understate how important this is - is how their family accepts them. and that's where i struck gold, because my sister, and my mum, and my dad, have always, always been unquestioning and unwavering in their love for me. always.

thank you all for loving me for who i am. thank you!

cultural revelations #5: waste

Q: what's the one thing seen by everyone who visits paris, but photographed by almost no-one?
A: rubbish!

with 22 million visitors per year, the earth's number one tourist destination certainly generates its fair share of waste. sometimes the 50 metres between bins is simply too much for people buckling under the weight of a chocolate wrapper, so a lot of rubbish ends up on the ground (or perhaps it's a case of people imitating the locals who don't seem to give a shit). so, how is it that paris is not being smothered by its own refuse?

it's because of the secret army! that's right: there's a secret army of rubbish collectors who groom the main tourist districts at dawn before the hordes arrive, and make everything just perfect for the photo of your authentic parisian experience. it turns out you can have your cake, eat it too, and then just discard the box it came in on the grass somewhere, assured that by doing so you're keeping people meaningfully employed.

but surely they can't pick up everything? what about the cigarette butts? we all know that there's an international smoking convention that bans smokers from properly discarding their rubbish: as if choking on noxious fumes wasn't enough, these poor people are obliged to flick their cigarette butts onto the street and pretend that they really don't care. that's where the paris street wash comes in, and this is seriously parisian stuff: twice a day at intervals, spouts along almost all parisian streets vomit out water from the seine to wash away all those nasty cigarette butts, dog shit, and whatever else is lying in the gutter, so that people don't have to be harassed by the presence of the incriminating evidence of their negligence, and can continue on with their wonderfully chic, cigarette butt-flicking lives in comfort.

bikram yoga, exhaustion and hyponatremia

so i've been doing bikram yoga for about 3 weeks now, maybe 4 weeks if you include the last week in berlin where i discovered it. it's a form of yoga that was created and then patented by an indian dude - bikram - who moved to the states and opened his franchise/personality cult there in the 70s, and it's gone supersonic from there. it's a series of 26 postures, always the same, always done over the course of 90 minutes, and always performed in a room that's heated to 40 degrees. that's right: 40 degrees: hotter than the human body. to boot, the room's at ~40-50% humidity, so even before you start the exercises you're sweating like a bitch.

it's not a secret that i love heat and humidity, and with my long and ever-increasing list of musculo-skeletal/neurological problems (+/- psychosomatic elements whose overall contribution i am unsure of), i've been in need of some regular stretching and exercise since forever. perhaps since i was a foetus. this seemed like the ticket. so i went for it.

here are my results at week 3:

1) self-love. at some stage during the first week of bikram in berlin, i came home and said to g: "i think i'm falling in love with my body". now this may sound ridiculous or narcissistic (no surprise there i hear you cry!), but let's face it: no-one's 100% comfortable with their bodies. he or she among you who is prepared to stand naked in front of a crowd laughing and pointing and not feel a bit insecure should cast the first stone. but 90 minutes a day sweating in front of a mirror wearing nothing but a tight red bather-bottom has left me thinking "you know what...i'm sort of loving what i'm seeing right now". apparently g is too...

2) flexibility. my memory does not extend far enough back to a point in my life where i could actually touch my toes without bending my knees, if such a point ever existed, which i increasingly doubt it ever did. 6 months ago i was able to touch a point just below my knees (perhaps my tibial tuberosities on a good day), now i'm one third of the way down my shin. that's almost 10cm extra! happy? i'm ecstatic! we can't be martin luther king jr all the time: sometimes our dreams are not so lofty, sometimes our dreams are in fact quite selfish and material. my dream is to touch my toes.

3) pain. i'm not sure about this, but i think my back's hurting less. hope interferes with perception, so i'll have to get back to you about this one.

4) exhaustion. it's true that one sweats like a bitch and i drench my towel every session, losing what i estimate to be a good litre of sweat in those 90 minutes. though i feel good-ish for doing the yoga, overall i have to admit that i've been quite exhausted, have had to take nanna-naps in the afternoon on the days that i do the yoga in the morning, and have had two minor viral illnesses and two coldsores in the last 2 weeks. i'm not sure what it is, so i've started taking a multivitamin, trying to increase my electrolyte and protein intake, and even had some meat the other week in an act of desperation. still trying to work this one out...

and that's where i'm at three weeks into it. ultimately i want to do a 6-month challenge: three months in paris and three months in (? insert location after paris). i'll keep you posted :)