Man about the world: August 2008

After my Barcelona beach bumming, I elected to do a whistlestop tour of Paris, London, Toronto to see friends and celebrate my 44th (gasp!) birthday, before I landed up in Fire Island for a glorious week of tranquility and beauty. You are advised to read through, because there are great pictures of this very special place. But first, here's some pics, in locational order:

Paris
Gaspar behaving strangely outside the Francois Mitterand library. I think he ate some hallucinogenics. Gaspar has the lovely talent of always having fun wherever he goes. It's brilliant. He has a lovely boyfriend Chady, and I would have put up a photo of him too, except he would kill me if I put up the photo that I took of him. It didn't come out right.

My hot friend Herve, who takes the most beautiful photos of subway grafitti art, and is the ONLY gay I've ever met who's a huge heavy metal fan. He even plays the base. I learned more about Heavy Metal from him in a couple of days, than I'd learned in all the rest of my life. But I still don't really like it. (Sorry Herve!)

Clowning around at lunch in Paris. I look freakish with the glass in my eye, like some fish human mutant hybrid.

Me. Herve's photographic talents showing up.

Tony Abidou, who squired me with endless patience and heart palpitating sexiness around Paris. Big kiss and hug for him.

London:Celebrated my 44th birthday with dear friends, thanks to the deeply kind hospitality of James, David and Grant who kindly lent me their lovely flat. Here's James when I told him just how many people (20 or so) would be coming to the drinks "for 6 people". It's like something out of The Shining.

Here's the obligatory ex-wives line up in the next photo. Got three of the four significant men in my life (from middle tall one to the right, there's Ian, Mark, and Max. Only Llew was missing, selfishly having gone on holiday to Italy during the week of my birthday! Also in the photo are Gary and Richard, Max's delightful new partner.

Paul, me, AD (who was in my Barcelona photos previous chapter), and Richard. Fortunately there are no photos of German, AD's model boyfriend, because just makes everyone else look ridiculously bad when he's in a photo with them.

And then another night, my lovely friend Brad (far right) threw a birthday dinner for me, to which my divine friends Malcolm and Diana (also below) who so kindly always let me use their flat like a hotel when I come to London joined. And in the picture to follow are their two munchkins, making my bed into a trampoline and my room into a shriek box.

And lovely Ian and Agu, for breakfast.

Toronto:
Went to Toronto to visit my lesbian posse. We went out on a boat on the lake for my best friend Ruth's friend Dani, below on left with Ruth's girlfriend Susie. Dani captained the boat.

Debbie, Dani's girlfriend and Jennifer, Ruth's ex-girlfriend and yours truly:

Jennifer, looking lovely:

It's so nice when your current partner and your expartner are friends. Here's Susie and Jen:

Me and Ruth, as always:

Here's me, Ruth and Ruth's ex-once removed girlfriend Diane, showing all the money we won playing blackjack at the Canadian National Exhibition Centre casino one afternoon. We won about $600 in total I think. Goodness, gambling and winning is fun!

Me and Di, at dinner in the garden. She's divine.

One of my very oldest friends, Mike Kaneva (best friend of one of my ex-wives lineup, Mark) from the London photos above also came to dinner in the garden.

Gotta have a photo of the dog in there too!

And now, to glorious, beautiful, tranquil Fire Island. Here's the beach, which goes on for 30 miles.

There are no cars on the island, which is a giant sandbank. You get around by walking the boardwalks:

Here's my lovely friend Matthias, lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely. He's so lovely I just want to eat him - and this is not a sexual comment you dirty minded pervs - I really do. With his three puggles (cross between a beagle and a pug). They're called Poopy, Annie and Spanky. Don't ask me "Why Poopy?"