You like Tomato and I like Tomahto ♪

Warning, personal post. Please use“Next Blog” on top to escape this page. Thank you.


I suspect that the very act of blogging is firmly predicated on the self-conscious, and there is something interesting about my colluding with the whole conceit. Alas, in spite, or because of, the petty little remarks I shall make a heroic effort to do away with my Weltschmerz. I will cast off Werther's yellow waistcoat, whilst keeping my vest pulled firmly down over my navel, to discourage gazing at it.

So. Where were we? 
Ah, yes 2001*my Odyssey.
I have a sneaking suspicion that this is a prelude to 'all gong and no dinner' postings.

I was single. Two -possibly two and a half - serious long-term relationships have come and gone (I am of course excising from the record the episode with a scoundrel because it was more than 30 years ago and the Statute of Limitations has expired) and I consider myself in retirement.

Or, more accurately, perhaps, in recovery.

Next you find Ms. Edna in 2007*, swooning over a hot color & texture scheme and at the same time being interrogated by friends and family about why I'm so resolutely uninterested in being invited to ‘little get-togethers’ in the interest of being appraised. Because, I know going to ‘little-get-togethers’ is merely the thin end of the wedge: some poor man will be there, and the next thing I know he will be upset when I say, I am not interested in kitchen sink drama.

However, this being the era of 'alive after fifty' I was intrigued by the notion of gallivanting as distinct from kitchen sink drama. I surreptitiously watched people, purely in the spirit of research, and learned that gallivanting appears to come without obligations. Nobodies life will be ruined if you do not watch the directors cut of 'Last year in Marienbad' with them.

So I accepted an invitation from someone who could spell and demonstrate correct usage of the apostrophe (oh come on... we have to have some standards). Every Good Boy Deserves Favor. Or a coffee.

For several weeks, I became LAMILL’s best customer. I drank coffees, espressi, capucchini, and machiati…

It did not progress to cocktails.

Because in the midst of all this coffee drinking, an e-mail message arrived. “I had to look-up Nureyev it said, but I guess that means I'm not gay."

… there was little more to say.

Some men give better email than others, though this is, sadly, no guarantee of fabulousness. I met up and discovered, that whilst his body was designed by Apple, his mind was definitely Microsoft Windows 2000, and realised that Cyrano must have been helping him with the fancier elements of his on-screen wooing. Sigh.

Me being inexperienced, there followed a certain Austen-esque etiquette to the ‘you're not my cup of coffee’ process. So, after a farewell consumption of coffee - LAMILL’s baristas being every bit as assiduous chaperons as Charlotte Bartlett was for Lucy Honeychurch - things ended in a ‘you're not my cup of coffee’ email.

Perhaps I have attention deficit disorder, but after several weeks of caffeine overdose I realised that I have-worked-through-THIS-issue. I am a quick study. What came next?

Well, friends, it's late....

* happy boyzzz?