Beautiful Stranger

There's a boy in Bombay i flirt with. Online. On Facebook. He's a... ummm... 'friend', you see.

He's a cute boy. Very sweet and smart. Almost shy. Except when he tells me he's come out of the shower. Naked. And that he's got a very sizable... ummmm.... 'tool'.

We talk about random things.

His mixed heritage. (Yes, he's an CBCD - Canadian Born Confused Desi.) The extra pounds I put on in Amreeka. My fabulously svelte new figure. (Thanks to yogurt, instead of ice cream.) Sex. Love. And rock 'n' roll. (Fine, not rock 'n' roll that much.) He bemoans the fact that he's single in the big, bad city I love to distraction. And it brings back memories of how I used to gripe and groan about much the same thing when I lived there. (But, no, let's not go down that road again now.) I tell him (in quite a long-winded, flirty way) that I find him terribly handsome. Tall, dark and handsome, to be precise. He moans that the men in Bombay seem to prefer gora Punjabi braawny hunks, with buns of steel and brains of rust. I tell myself (and him, albeit in that long-winded, flirty way) that if we were in the same city, I'd probably jump him.

That's when he reminds me: Don't you have a boyfriend?

Ummm... yes. That's why flirting with a handsome (tall, dark, etc.) stranger/'friend' is so much fun.

Passion Fruit

Ten minutes ago, I was in the shower and thinking about that big tub of strawberry yogurt ("creamy strawberry", the label announces) in the refrigerator, lying unopened since I'd bought the damn thing 3 weeks ago. A late-night blog post, instead of completing the Human Subjects Research Board test module, was the perfect occasion to say hello to it, I decided.

Lapping up yogurt in the dead of night, 3.15 a.m. to be exact, and I'm pretty sure I won't be waking up before noon. Suddenly, it's last year all over. Or perhaps, even earlier. It's as if the summer never existed. Nor does the window right over my bed, apparently, which always used to aim a sunbeam unerringly at my eyes. I've learnt to ignore it, it seems. And so I live the life of a vampire.

O, yes, it ties back to the 'Dracula' vintage movie posters framed atop my bed, its crazy lettering proclaiming: The strangest passion the world has ever known! And yes, he's chasing a group of panic-stricken men below the lettering. Of course I had to buy the poster as soon as I saw it!

Only, instead of blood or men, I get my strawberry yogurt. Mmmm.... creamy. :)

Spring Cleaning

In the eons long past, I would have a little scrap book of sorts, filled with ticket-stubs, pamphlets, brochures and other knick-knacks from my holidays. A keepsake of the vacation and the memories, I suppose. Nothing too fancy - it was usually a blank exercise book with all those little what-have-yous stapled in, and little notes scribbled on the side. And then, Blogger happened. There was no need anymore to go to all that trouble - it was much easier to post about the things I'd seen, the places I'd been to, (the people I'd shagged)... you get the point. :)

And then there was Facebook.



I asked a friend the other day via chat on FB whether he thought it was behind the death of blogging. The answer I got was hardly conclusive, but it's something I haven't been able to shake off, either. Satori pinged me the other day (well, to be honest, this was a couple of weeks ago!) on FB that it was about time I went back to blogging, and while I did agree with him in my response, it took me this long to get back on the wagon. The answer as to why (or why not!) is fodder for another post - hell, I need something to keep me going, right?! - and I won't talk about that now. Suffice to say, this my most recent return to Blogger (circa: now) is as much a return to blogging, as it is a return to the root causes of blogging.

I write my self. Think about that for a moment.

On the events side of things, I've been a busy, busy, busy boy. I finished writing up my thesis (in all its 240-page verbosity!), then defended it successfully, said goodbye to my Midwestern university, got accepted at my dream school for a Phd program (due to start in August), presented a couple of great papers at a global conference, embedded myself with Irish Coffee's family (especially, his dad!), spent a gorgeous week in Chicago (arguably the most amazing city in the world), and bought my tickets for a long-awaited trip back home to India later this month. Is it any wonder that I haven't had much time for blogging, so that status updates on Facebook were all that I was capable of? :)

On the personal life side of things, I've been equally busy. It's been interesting, fabulous and tantalizing, living in with Irish Coffee for the past month or so, since the semester closed. I've been experimenting with strange cocncoctions in the kitchen, which haven't been all bad, really. And I've been growing (maturing, I'd like to think) in my relationship, both with my lover and myself. I've been exploring boundaries and central cores both, and I think I've been the wiser for it. I don't mean to sound like a tored old man here - o, you should have seen me party in Chicago this past week! - but I do want to stress on how important that peculiar juxtaposition of stability and mercurial flows is. Perhaps I need to book a spot with The View ladies to elaborate on that one. :)

For the moment, though, I'm satisfied. Scratch that - 'satisfaction' is a bad word to use here. It's more like: content to be here at this space, excited for the crazy new stuff that I know is right around the corner, and clearing up my closet from the past.



Hello again, Self. :)

Tricks of the Tease

So I wasn't going to blog this week (you won't believe my jam-packed sked!) but then I sauntered over to Orange's blog, and saw the whole mess with the ex, and since I'm practically a Dowager Empress at the tender age of (ouch!) 27, it's pretty much expected I dole out expert advice on how to handle men. Bombay Style. :)



Expert advice on the 'ex', to be more precise.

At last count, it was 6, if I'm not mistaken. There's a way to handle such situations. It's a cool, calm, adult, easy, never-fails way. Read my lips. A-V-O-I-D.

That is, until you're looking drop-dead gorgeous, smoldering sexy siren, with a killer attitude to boot, and he's going to wish he was down on his knees in front of you, doing whatever it is that gets you off - the kinkier the better! :)

I jest, you think? Pah - amateurs!

Like I said before, there's a science to it. Essential items, of course, are fabulous friends who can tide you over while you lick those wounds, heal your pride, and are ready to claim your spot on the meat market again. Let's see, first there was the Call Center Boi in Delhi - broke up, moved away to Bombay, felt fag-ulous again, went back to Delhi for trips and had him splayed out on his apartment stairs... thrice! Salsa Guy? Same formula, works like a charm. Peacock Boi? Yuck. Too icky too even bother with, so I satisfy myself with bitchy smirks when I see him on-and-off in saddi dilli. Banker Boi - danced dirty all night long (lots of times!) at the bars with him, and left him high and dry every time. Nature Boy was different - he's my one best friend from all the dumb exes, but yes, the same formula applied. Avoid for some time, get back into 'fabulous' mode, hang around again, and have a steamy farewell fcuk (or two) in the shower. And as for the Gujju, I'm still playing him now and then - he's dying to get in my pants and I love turning him on, and it's extra-fun because he doesn't know that I'm with Irish Coffee, and he's never really going to get within ten yards of me. *grin*



I feel deliciously evil now. In a good way, if you know what I mean.

But fun and jokes aside - it's a cardinal rule. You bump into an ex when you're not ready - you RUN. There's a humanitarian twist in there, really. Why give him the satisfaction of knowing you're still broken up in there? Tantrums and scenes never really work, so you might as well forget all about them. Keep yourself intact, and put yourself back into your work and the next hunk who comes walking your way, and the rest, as they say, is easy as A-B-C. That's called the Tricks of the Tease.

Dear Diary

Coffee mug in hand, here I go...

• Christmas was beautiful. I fought tooth and nail with Irish Coffee and managed to keep the tree up for the better part of January, so his was the only house on the block which twinkled with fairy lights on India's Republic Day. :) We exchanged gifts on New Year's Eve and spent New Year's Day evening at the zoo, which was all lit up and looking spectacular. Yes, yes, very romantic and all that. (Though I'm not too sure if we held hands and did all that mushy stuff!) :)
  
  
• Work has been hectic. Preparing and mailing PhD applications has been taxing, both mentally and physically. The good news is, I've been accepted into all the great schools I applied. The bad news, bureaucracy is being a bitch and it's the same old Indian 3-year university system versus the US 4-year one that is making me want to pull my hair out (...which is, a big deal, really, since you probably know my haircut is buzzed). So, yes, I'm waiting and watching and hoping things get resolved soon.
  
  
• Talking about hairy issues, I almost stumbled in disbelief the other day upon spying not one but two (!) white hairs on my chest. Good God. So now it's official. I'm old. Not even 30 yet, and I've already been put out to pasture. Irish Coffee (smug bastard!) is thrilled. I, understandbly, am less so.
  
  
  
  
• I might be headed to NYC again for a quick trip - as part of the recruitment weekend for one of the graduate schools who've accepted me. Haven't worked out all the details yet, but I am hoping things will fall into place :) (Not too sure I'm going to accept their final offer though, but that's another matter...!)
  
  
• So I found out I have a lousy credit score. More accurately, I have a non-existent credit score.Which makes my obtaining a credit card terribly unlikely. Which makes my credit score remain perpetually low. Am I the only one who thinks the American credit score system is inherently flawed? Yes, Barrack, you do need change! :)
  
  
  
  
• I have re-discovered Dr. Pepper after a hiatus of several months. Not quite Cherry Coke, not quite Pepsi, not quite anything really - least of all, pepper-y! Now that I've re-discovered it, it's time for me to shun it once more, of course. So there.
  
  
  
  
• May is looking good for Chicago. I do love that city. I love the feel, the ambiance, the sky-scrapers, the Mag Mile, and Boystown. I'd love to live in Chicago some day. O, wait. Didn't I say that about Manhattan earlier? (And Pittsburgh? And Cleveland? And San Diego?)
  
  
• So I defended my thesis proposal successfully. That makes me (officially) a Masters Candidate, ripe for the PhD pickings. I've given myself about three months or so to complete the thesis (even though the official deadline is early June - o, wait, that does work out to three months, doesn't it? Whoops.). So, no more doodling on separate projects and papers that have nothing to do with getting that darned thesis complete and graduating.
  
  
• Is it strange that I find this random pic sexy - even though I can't see his face? Are tattoos and a hairy chest all I need to get intrigued? (Perhaps it's the shades?)
  
  

Season's Greetings... and All That Jazz

So this is likely to be the last post of the year, if my lethargy is any clue to go by. To anybody who regularly comes here, and to anyone who may have happened to stumble over... a Merry Christmas to you.



I've always been a sucker for Christmas, ever since I was a wee li'l gay boy. I guess I got the right idea since way back then: men look fabulous in wings, angels be damned! :)



Despite my belligerence about sitting at home twiddling my thumbs last weekend, my Christmas did go nicely. (Well of course you knew it would - I'm just a little shriek-y at times, but I usually have happy endings!) Irish Coffee managed to pick me up, and I've been here at his place since last week - and will be for another 2 weeks or so. The Christmas tree came down, we played carols and decked up the fairy lights (is there any other kind? *giggle*), and hogged like pigs on some grrrrrr-eat food over at the family's. So this was my second year as the gay umm-something-like-a-sonny-in-law, and it went pretty, well, OK. Even though Irish Coffee feels everyone's always been very comfy with me, I detected a warmer tone, a greater degree of comfort, with me second time around, and that was good. It made me feel good. :) Suddenly, I'm OK with him not being the black sheep in the family! The best part, of course, was getting Presents. Frankly, I was surprised they even got me any - but they did: three boxes of chocolates, a game, and a card. What can I say? (They wanna fatten me up, Evil American Family!) So, now, I'm all choked up! *grin*

Anyhow, there's just about a couple of days till it's buh-bye to 2008, and hullo 2009. Irish Coffee and I are planning to head down to the fancy Christmas lights over at the zoo tomorrow, and even though it's bound to be chilly, I'm looking forward to it. The two of us are exchanging gifts on New Year's Eve, since we don't really do much of a partying binge in this Midwestern town-let (new word, something like pig-let, and yes, you heard it in the Closet first!) - man, I wanna head back to NYC or Chicago! - so that should be a nice, romantic evening for the two of us. Some great wine, good food, gifts, and a couple of mind-bowing orgasms... each! *winks*

So, yes, in the event that I don't get to blog again till after 2009 gets here... a Happy New Year to everyone!



And, in place of my usual Sexy Santa spread, since I'm a bit fed up of red suits and hats and have taken a new 'shine' to fluttery feathers, here's a Fantabulous Fairy line-up... :)

Naughty or Nice?

So Christmas is fast coming up, and most of the stuff I'm supposed to get for Irish Coffee are terribly unexciting gadgetry for his fish-tank:

1. A carbon dioxide reactor.
   
2. A cave. NOT a fabulous Disney castle type cave, but a boring ole grumpy cave with moss on it.
   
3. Sand and gravel.
4. Fish: a pair of black wellies OR 10 rummy-nosed tetras. I mean, what happened to good ole cute goldfish? (Though, I do like the sound of the rummy-nosed things!)
5. A floor to ceiling plant stand.
   
6. A pair of hair clippers.
   
   

My Christmas list goes something like this:

1. Sex and the City DVD-cum-Music CD pack.
2. A fabulously sexy light rain jacket.
3. Britney Spears' Circus.
4. A pair of zippered black boots.
5. A sharp new Fedora (to make up for the one I left behind in New York!)
6. Steamy sex from Sexy Santa and perhaps a couple of his Elves!
   
   

Yes, I know, I'm the 'shallow' one. Ain't that great? *grin*

Ring-mistress

So Britney's back in the ring, and HOW! Circus has pretty much shattered all the records, following closely on the heels of her other hit single Womanizer. This is the part where I blush, shuffle my feet and admit that I'm one of the old-time Spears fans. I liked the masochistic school-girl with pigtails who liked being hit... one more time, and I loved her in Crazy, and I even liked her in that ridiculous poor-little-rich-girl Lucky song... And then I watched horrified as she spiraled down a horrible rollercoaster, amply helped in her smouldering descent by the media.

Let's not blame the paparazzi alone here. As someone pointed out on her Wikipedia page, Britney's a great example of how people become simultaneously valued/devalued as commodities rather than human beings. Suddenly, every little thing Britney did was news, every tantrum, every angry outburst was screaming at you from the front page - and yes, you were lapping it up! As Britney croons, all eyes on me in the center of the ring, just like a circus...!



Was she partly responsible for all that attention? Perhaps - but definitely not to the gruesome extent that it turned out to be. The Spears Phenomenon pretty much became a case study in media ethics on reporting privacy in my classroom - in fact, I encouraged my students to think about the media attention and whether it was merited even in the case of the most publicity-greedy celebs.

But this post is not about debating the pros and cons of media commoditification (yea, you probably won't find that word in Webster!). It's about how she actually came back from over the hill where she'd practically been hurled over and buried six feet under. It took more than one lunge from her, and several attempts to come back, fight for custody of her kids (an ongoing battle), fight to get back into shape, fight to get the right songs, and struggle to grow as a person. And I like to think she has. Circus is definitely a newer Britney: I see shades of her journey as a person through the awesome challenges thrown at her. And I like how she uses humor to channel her anger into some great ditties in the new album. Case in point: Womanizer.



K-Fed, duck for cover - she's opened the closet now, bitch! :-)

Let it be said...

Sarah Palin is not a nice person.



O, believe me, when I said that sentence aloud awhile back, there was something else at the end of it, other than "...not a nice person". But while I'm not exactly too shy of calling a spade a spade (or a bitch a bitch!) my refraining from using some of the 10,000-odd colorful invectives that are at the tip of my tongue right now serves to make a point. A point of contrast.

Not only is the woman stupid/dumb/moronic/take-your-pick, the woman is one of the most aggressive hate-mongering creatures from that right-wing bastion of the Republic National Party. (Yes, what makes you think I'm a liberal now? Just cuz I'm gay? *grin*) At yet another rally, she called Presidential candidate Obama a terrorist - something which even her running mate has desisted from (or tried to, at any rate, even though the infamous robot-calls kept up the hate on his behalf!). And to make matters more laughable, the conservative camp cries shrilly that Obama is lampooning Palin and denigrating women! The focus of their fury? - this perfectly tasteful ad that simply shows you her lack of experience and knowledge on (let's not get into numbers now) a wide variety of subjects!



O, except hate - she's very qualified at that!

You want the real deal? Here he is...



And let's not even get into the debate on why an international grad student should even care about American Presidential politics... I'm damned if I know... except that, yes, he's the real deal.

Truffle/Trifle

One thing common to love and stress is chocolates. When it's love, you're left panting for that next delicious mouthful of caramel from your main squeeze, and when it's stress, the squeeze-ball doesn't help much and it's all you can do to not pop the entire box of caramel down your gullet and directly to your waistline. *sigh*



Due to a host of circumstances involving both, I've been inundated by chocolates.

The love factor hasn't come exclusively from the boyfriend either. Several of my best friends back home are currently seeing people they believe (fingers crossed) to be the loves of their lives. They're doing the whole razzmatazz, so to speak: the bubbling champagne late-nights, the jet-setting holidays, the dancing-till-dawn and happy, happy, happy grins, and the jaw-dropping sex. Not too sure about the jaw-dropping sex, though, since my friends are by no means the kind of slut I was in my singleton days and even if they were, they know that if they tell me it's liable to end up here.

As for me, I've been indulging in the more homely kind of love-shove. As I told Vivian the other night, it's almost a shock to realize how domesticated my love life has become. I sit at the desk and write my academic papers while Irish Coffee potters around the fish tank and the television and his computer; we go for long walks together with the dog; we concoct fabulous (and not so fabulous) meals for dinner; I wake up in the morning and make a large pot of coffee for the both of us (OK, so he does coffee most of the time, I lied!); he slides a chocolate bar to me sometimes, a bottle of Diet Coke at others, when I'm busy working on my papers; we quietly watch his fish in the fish-tank swim in circles or ellipses or what-have-you; we go shopping for foodstuff, groceries and clothes (he hates the clothes-shopping part; I of course love it); dinner-time is followed by some snuggling on the couch and some late-night TV with the occasional white wine.

And no, I don't seem to part-ay any more.

My room-mate and his friends head out practically every Thursday and Friday, and I turn them down every week because I have tonnes of work to complete, books to read, papers to write, tests to grade, and basically be a melancholic old curmudgeon. My boyfriend tells me, I have much too much on my plate to be a frat-boy party animal like them, so it's OK to concentrate on my books and my studies. And while I do think he's right, and I DO try concentrate as much as I can on one other element besides the workload and the stress - that's my love - I can't help wondering sometimes: where did the party slut in Closetalk disappear to?



Where's that fagulous creature who loved to dance all night long, down his vodkas and shag a new guy practically every night? Why on earth did I have to turn *gasp* 27 - why can't I remain forever a "dancing queen, only seventeen"?! And, yes, how warped must I be to grumble at my comfortable life and yearn for that extra zing? Is this how married people get: all happy and complacent and whiney at the same time? But then, from my experience, that's also how single people usually are: happy and complacent and whiney about never meeting Mr. Right ! Trust me, not only have I been there/done that, I've seen firsthand so many accounts of that same avatar that it's quite... numbing.

You know what helps get rid of the numbing? Chocolate.

O, and porn comes a close second.

Nuthin' wrong with a bit of Brilliance...

One of the virtues of blogging, in my book, is the self-reflecting and pondering that it affords you. Blogging for me is less of an anonymous confession to the faceless masses of the internet, and more of a process whereby one writes one's self into existence... if that means anything. To be honest, this has been more of a process for me than anything else, as I have come to realize: the understanding that a blog moves from being personal to confessional to communal, and then somewhere along the way, all of the above! It's a strangely cathartic journey, where one encounters a variety of people (readers, commenters, other bloggers) who become as important as the original blog-writer in determining the flow of the blog.



I know: I'm a nerd. I'm supposed to say, this is just an online journal, and that's it. Enough of the high-falutin' crap. :) I'm a nerd, though, cuz I really do believe all that high-falutin' ummm... stuff.

The immediate cause for this sudden reflection was the conferral of a blog award to Talking Closets, from two bloggers whose writings I have followed (pretty) compulsively for a loooooong time. Now, usually, I'm not one for blog-awards - some inane part of me thinks that you need to be a techie to really go for that stuff - but I guess the Brilliante Weblog Award is a bit different. For one: it's less of an award, and more of a vote of confidence by your readers, commenters and the larger blogging community one tends to inhabit. And it's a process of discovery, wherein you help that community enlarge, by discovering new writers and readers. By virtue of its sheer fluidity and its lack of a restricted organizational backing (that is, any particular high-profile site or blog that bestows awards), it becomes that extra bit more... brilliant. :)



So... all thanks to Pepe and Iz for thinking I deserve an award. Let me take my virtual bow now, and applaud both of you.

Pepe is an enterprising young Filipino (or was it Malaysian? Pretty sure it was Filipino...) settled in Chennai, who blogs about the "jumbled blah blahs" in his life. Between the terribly endearing stories of his love life and his shockingly brash takes on high-end consumption, his blog is a treat to pore through: you get the real deal from Pepe, and some heart-warming advice. Thanks, you.

Iz is, quite simply, audacious. She is survived by her terribly nice hubby Father A, and a pooch whose name I cannot recall for the life of me - or did she have to get rid of him? (Yikes, as I approach 30, the brain cells dry up, methinks!) I have no recollection either of how I originally bumped into her blog - or Pepe's for that matter! - but she turned out to be an old friend of an old friend - and the hilarious part is, she stll has no idea who I'm talking about! *grin* Iz chats about the wacky forces of nature, her screwed up take on life, and some random nuggets that are too hilarious to be remembered - so that's my excuse. :) Iz, thank you.

In keeping with the conditions of the Brilliante Weblog award and the whole communal nature of blogging, I'm to plug seven blogs which are, according to me, "brilliant in their content and design". So, here goes...

• The Reluctant Observer is Mahesh, an immensely sensible, sensitive, interesting guy based in Bangalore, who blogs about his life, the world around him, and his interesting interpretations of it. The best part about Mahesh? - he inspires you to think. :)
  
  
• Humming Bird in Hyde is "Elegant. Stylish. Quick. Colorful.", as he puts it on his blog. A London-based desi - at least, I think so - he's full of fabulous tidbits about the strange people who occupy his personal and professional life... And to read him talk about his gorgeous boyfriend is an awwwwww moment, if ever there was one (or several, for that matter!).
  
  
• Satori Stephen is currently in... New York, New York! When he's not striding all across the globe, Stephen is writing about the people he meets on his travels, the amazing cuisine and places he scouts out, and yes, how can anyone forget those deeeeeep introspections on the nature of humanity? *grin*
  
  
• An Actor in Search of his Stage, or Clockwork Orange as he's known on my blogroll, is your average bursting-at-the-seams-with-knowledge-and-great-style engineering grad student. We have quite a lot in common, he and I: we're both desi grad students in the States, but then he's in fabulous Pittsburgh and I'm in my Midwestern hamlet. :)
  
  
• Confessions of a Rambunctious WhipperSnapper, or Whippy as I have christened him, is one blog that has most likely been nominated for this 'award' before: but knowing that he's "fat, alcoholic and gay" (his words, not mine!), it's doubtful that he's gotten around to actually posting about it - so maybe this is the nudge he needs! Whippy reminds me a lot of my fabulous friends back in Bombay - thanks for the nostalgia, you.
  
  
• Bedtime Stories are not all about sleaze, really; in fact, if you're sharing beds with Paul, you're most likely to giggle yourself to bits rather than end up in a sticky, sweaty, sweet mess - O, but then, what do I know, I haven't really been pyajama-pals with him off-line! *grin* I've been following Paul's blog forever, really, though I'm not a very prolific commenter, and while his manic quirks alarm me at times, they keep inducing those fits of giggles!
  
  
• The Gay Banker is, frankly, my kind of banker! I first came across his blog ages ago and have followed it ever since (though I'm a silent reader rather than an outspoken commenter most of the time), and his travails of poly-amory and his boyfriends numbers 1, 2, 3... have often entertained me, as well made me think more seriously about gay relationships. GB presents an alternative view of things: that it doesn't have to be all about heterosexualizing gay relationships with townhouses and picket-fences - but then, the final decision really is yours: what do you want? And take a moment (or two) to think about it.
  

While you're doing so, happy bloggin', y'all! :)

My Bel Ami Life

So Georgia's not the only flashpoint in East European affairs, you know. Here's a strange situation. Closetalk recently moved into a brand new apartment with a brand new room-mate. The room-mate is an East European hunk, in his early thirties, married but his wife lives some six hours away so he visits her on weekends. Bit of a chatterbox, but then, in a fun way, and the two of us yak well into the wee hours of the morning, about university gossip and nerdy research stuff. Welcome to boring Gradstudentville. But then what happens when Pavel (that's my nickname for him, after the o-so gorgeous East European hunk I've lusted after since I was 18) starts talking about ummm... the dearth of romance in his marriage?



Here's a sample:

Pavel: After having having our second child, the li'l woman says she just stopped feeling romantic. And she's not in the least apologetic about it. Says that's just the way she feels. But then... my feelings for romance haven't changed, and I'm not sure she gets that!

CT: Aha. OK.

Then, again;

Pavel: O, she's really great with the guilt trip. She tells me before I head over for college: I'm a good wife, so don't cheat on me. But then, I'm thinking: why did you have to tell me that?! I mean, I wasn't even thinking of cheating but then by saying something like that, it just makes it seem all the more forced, you know what I mean...? You're supposed to be with someone because you really want to... not out of guilt. Now, if she really wanted to be that 'good' a wife, she should have said: you can go ahead, honey! *guffaws*

CT: Ummmm.....!

Scene Three -

Pavel: Do you think it's wrong of me to totally find my sister-in-law smokin' hot?! I mean, she's totally awesome, and it's all I can do to help myself! *guffaws even louder*

CT: *blank*

And then, of course, there was the 'confession'...

Pavel: So, yea, I wanted to screw my bitch girlfiend in college, so then I went and slept with all of her room-mates... in fact, my roomie in the fraternity and I did her best friend together! And she called back saying we took advantage of her friend, but yea, we knew she wanted some of that stuff too: she asked, can I come over to study? And is your roomie at home too? *cackle* O yea, I was quite good at sleeping around during my undergrad years!

CT, talking to himself mostly: So, shall I study Discourse Analysis tonight or Humanistic Audience Research, do you think?

So now... I'm left wondering lots of things, really. Number one on the list: am I turning out to be, of all things ghastly and horrific, a prude *shudders*?! Number two: is Pavel looking to cheat on his wife? And far more interestingly, Number Three: what with all the talk about how he believes sexuality to be fluid and not straight versus gay, and his insistence on spotting me on the weights at the university gym, is he perchance looking to me to provide him with some... aah... relief till he gets to meet his wifey next? I mean, not to sound like a mutton-headed egoist who thinks everyone wants to get in his pants, but the fluid sexuality speech is pretty much used by most guys who wanna play gay now and then, and the whole gym-thing is so out of good ole 80's gay porn... so it does give me pause to think... What the fcuk am I getting myself into?



And you'd think, this would be something I'd keep to myself and not blab to the boyfriend, right? Wrong. I go and tell Irish Coffee everything about the Pavel-thing, and of course his reaction is to guffaw even louder than Pavel, and growl that he'll tell him to "keep his filthy mitts outta my boyfriend's knickers!" the next time he meets him. (Yes, Irish Coffee can be quite the archaic speaker at times.) While I'm quite positive that that speech isn't going to happen anytime soon, I am looking forward to my newfound gym-routine and chat sessions with Pavel, if for nothing else than to explore where this goes ahead - purely research interests, of course *harrrumph*. As I recall, married men are usually lots of fun to play with - especially insistent and fired up! Aa, but then if I were a prude, I wouldn't be having these thoughts now, would I?

Hallellujah and praise the 'lawd' for something! :)

Another Ever-After Story...

Once upon a time (it seems ages now!), in a gorgeous city perched by the sea, with neon lights and shining skyscrapers, a boy sat on his sea-facing verandah-flat, poring over his laptop and was going about his merry way finding a fcuk for the night, as all devastatingly witty and cute gay Bombay boys who're not very modest do. A chat-window suddenly opened, however, and it turned out to be an American. Older guy, but with a grin so impish that it made our hero grin back unconsciously to no one in particular.

CT: "So, are you here in Bombay for a vacation?"

Irish Coffee: "Nopes, I'm in the States. In TheCityWhereYou'reTravellingToIn4Months."



After the initial surprise had subsided, the boy decided that this was a great opportunity to make 'first contact', so to speak, with the people whom he was going to stay with for at least a year of his life, in the middle of the American Midwest. So CT and Irish Coffee chatted, they laughed and they talked, exchanged emoticons, and enquired about each other. Irish Coffee wasn't single, he was planning to visit Southeast Asia next month with his boyfriend of three years, but he was very amenable to befriending new people. He even offered to pick up CT from the airport and drop him to his university, when the time came, four months later, and CT actually considered it.

His friends however had other views. SnowWhite's Stepmum made an O with his lips, and charged that horrible horrible things might happen to the traveling Bombay boy: "You could get kidnapped, and then maybe raped and he could maybe do wierd kinky stuff to you in his basement!"

CT, pauses: "Ummm.. Tell me again, why that's a bad thing...?"

Despite the brevity, our hero decides to follow his friends' advice and not trust the stranger for a pick-up ride. "Plenty of time for him to pick me up later," CT grinned to himself. In fact, as the weeks drew close to his departure from the fabulous city of Bombay, he didn't come across Irish Coffee again. Till, finally, just a week or so before he was due to catch his flight, they bumped into each other - virtually, of course.

CT: "I'm dropping in about 10 days or so!"

Irish Coffee (paraphrased): "My asshole boyfriend dumped me, and I'm heartbroken."

CT (paraphrased): "Well, you can give me your number, and when I'm down there, I can cheer you up so that you can forget all about asshole ex."

Or something like that.

So, our hero lands in this sleepy Republican Midwestern hamlet, applies himself to loads of orientations and introductions, runs around helter-skelter in finding an apartment for himself, and lands himself with a most impolite form of strep-throat, so that he goes out of circulation for close to two weeks. When his birthday comes rolling around, though, he decides that he needs to take his mind off things - of course, he's also explored all the men in the hamlet by this time, strep-throat or no strep-throat - and that's when he discovers Irish Coffee's number, hastily scribbled onto a patch of paper, creased and crumpled in his wallet. Perfect: Irish Coffee lives in a nearby city, he might be willing to show our hero around a bit, which would be just the thing to get over his funk. So that's what he does: "Hello? I'm the sexy smart Indian guy you chatted with ages ago. I'm bored. Can we do something?"



Despite SS' brilliantly suggested itinerary, however, CT and Irish Coffee decided to start off with vanilla. So that weekend, Saturday to be exact, they met up: our hero standing at the corner of the road in front of the Subway, and Irish Coffee's car whizzing by twice, and then stopping on the third round, his head poking around, and: "You wouldn't be CT, would you?" Yes, I am, and off they head to the gay bars. They talk some more, tell each other about the kind of work they do, they laugh at silly things, Irish Coffee tells him about America and why he hates Evangelicals, CT tells him about gorgeous Bombay and living the fast life of a PR con and what he wants to study here, and while the drinks flow, the music thumps, and they dance (sort of), time somehow whiles away. They end up heading back to Irish Coffee's place. And our hero ends up staying the whole weekend there.

***

A story I recounted to my friend in Cleveland, when she asked me at the fantastically romantic Italian place we were at: "Tell me the story of how you and Irish Coffee met!" And so I did. And, seeing that we crossed our first-year anniversary a couple of days back, I decided to re-tell it here. If only for myself. :)

Whirlwind

The world has been turning (as ever), I've been busy with a gadzillion things, and even when I thought things would just kinda settle down, either they didn't or I didn't let them - and it's taken me this long to reclaim this space. I have a theory that I actually like being all busy and buried under a pile of books and responsibility - and of course, the bitching that comes with it. It's a theory that Irish Coffee won't dispute too much, seeing that he's usually the hapless victim of my bitching! :)

It's strange to think that it's been more than a year now since I hopped on that awfully long plane ride, snarled at Heathrow officials, marveled in Chicago, and then dropped my jaw on arriving at my Midwestern hamlet. From initially looking at a one-year stint and then planning on running back to good ole Bombay, here I am doing the Whole Nine Yards, falling in love (I'm the hapless one, really!), and quite at ease with the whole poor-grad-student routine. Mind-boggling. As that fabulously profound facebook one-liner goes: I can afford to be a Humanities scholar, I'm marrying rich! *grin*

Cleveland went by all too fast, though. The Little Italy historic district was a dream: lazing on the sidewalk patisserie munching on cannolis and licking white chocolate gelatos, and then that amazing dinner with violins playing in the background, the laughter of friends, and a blurry picture on my digicam to make it all perfect. Gawking at the Terminal and Key Towers downtown, bracing in the cool Lake Erie air, shimmering in front of the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, doodling around the Western Reserve Historical Society, drawing patterns in the grass of International Park, and hushed silence at the Cleveland Museum of Art... A strangely harmonious, whirlwind weekend which sped by with crazy laughter, heart-stopping tenderness, and a strange buzz.



But Cleveland is over, and I'm back; graduation ceremony was the other day, and a very close friend is leaving soon, and while I'm feeling a bit sad, I'm also a bit excited because it's a whole brand new year, a whole new thesis to catch up on, and that hunt for graduate schools starts all over again.



Told ya I had a theory... :)

Bollywood masala and Irish tom-foolery

A week or so ago, there was this end-of-term party at a professor's place, and I asked Irish Coffee to come along. This was going to be the big one, I decided: let's be clear and honest about who I am - a brilliant young gay scholar-in-the-making, and there's no denying it. According to my long-suffering boyfriend, of course, there was no need for any such grand gesture - as far as he was concerned, my "gayness can be seen from space", and everyone I come into contact with knows it. :) After all, my close friends and the profs I most interact with know I'm a flaming fag and all that jazz, but somehow, I guess I wanted to make it... official in some way.



Blame it on Pride Month!

So there we were, on a brilliant summer evening, over wine and amazing Indian food (yep, the prof is your quintessential NRI), me and the boyfriend talking with the prof and his wife, a bunch of other faculty members and grad students and their spouses, about all sorts of things under the sun. As is usually the case in such shindigs, after the booze and the great food, the host takes us down to his entertainment center, and shows off his collection of Hindi movies and Bollywood songs for his overwhelmingly White guests. So we all sit down, watch Ash dance around her hubby and dad-in-law to kajra re, Preity shake her booty asking where the party is, and Rani doing her balle-balles on a Sunday.



When the host announced that several Bollywood movies frequently depicted not just two women dancing steamily with each other, but also two men, Irish Coffee who was sitting in the front row let out a very audible Yay!

Of course, the room erupted into laughter. I guess I got my little "official announcement" after all. :)

Weight and watch

Alright then, so I've bitched here before about my propensity to gain weight unless I check my food intake and exercise regimen. But the thing is, I have a tendency to fall of the wagon, so to speak. Took an online quiz sometime last year that proclaimed I was one of the sad individuals who would forever be fighting to maintain their weight. *sigh* Such a tragedy for a cute gay boy like me. :( And though the boyfriend is terribly sweet to say he doesn't really care, somewhere there's that lost bit of Gay Thin Pride that's resurgent....

So, here I go again.



Realized the other night, that a large part of my keeping-trim strategy back in Bombay was thanks to the don't-give-a-damn nights of dancing at least once a week. And now that I'm this stick-in-the-mud academic who's up to his eyeballs in "Participatory Development..." and not really boogeying his way, it's no wonder that those ole skinny jeans are presenting an obstacle these days. *sigh* O, and the other thought was that, single boys get way more exercise than doubletons do - it's all that wham-bam-gimme-more-sam sex that Single Me used to have in those days that burnt up sooo many calories. Calorific sex doesn't happen quite as much, what with my being able to catch Irish Coffee only over the weekends! *double sigh*

It's like a curse, something like what supposedly happens to those Punjabi women after marriage. They have babies and eat a lot of dal makhni, and get fat. Gay academics don't have as much sex or dance as much as they did, and get fat. The sheer tragedy of it all.

(Can you believe I actually couldn't find a single pic of a "fat Punjabi woman" online to post at this spot, after hunting Google images for forty-fuckin-five minutes?! Damn Ekta Kapoor and her stereotype-busting, exercycle-running Punjabi bahus!)

But now, I'm on a Mission. Renewed my pledge to take my PHAT plan seriously, and really hit the exercise mats. No more fries with that burger. Get rid of the burger altogether, in fact. No more popcorn in the movie hall. Cereal in the morning - only, and no sugar. Lean chicken breast sandwich. Buy loads of those Lean Cuisine meals. Make sure to walk everyday. Buffets are bad, and sit-ups are sexy. Learn the new mantra. Dance everyday. Even if I'm the nerd who dances in the bedroom.

... O, and with the boyfriend due to return from his sister's place tonight, I can look forward to some calorie-burning sex, too! :)

Wanted: Sanity

So, yes, I tend to be a bit... over-the-top, as I revealed in the last post. I tend to be a bit... insecure, for the silliest of reasons, when I'm with a guy. And that's why having a gay best friend is so bloody important for me. And this silly present situation, where SnowWhite's Stepmum is halfway across the world in frikkin' Bombay doesn't really help. It's tough being in a situation where your boyfriend is your gay best friend, as is the case here with me. I tell him things I should probably not, and I don't tell him things I probably should have... and God only knows what he thinks of me, then. Thankfully, as I realized last night, he doesn't think I'm too weird. :)

So this is how it all unfolded:

Irish Coffee's supposed to go to his sister's place some 5 hours away, and that means our usual weekend sojourn isn't happening. While he was initially supposed to go yesterday, that plan got postponed to today. So... I proposed that he come pick me up, and we spend the night together. All good and fine, till he has this really hard day where he had to travel all over the city, so he returns home at night and asks me on the phone if he can put off the trip down to my place, and we just meet up later today. Ummm... that actually sounds pretty reasonable on hindsight. So then, why on earth did I get all whiny and try my very best to coax/persuade/pressure him to shrug off his tiredness and drive 45 minutes to come fetch me...? The charitable answer is, I don't know. The less charitable one is: I'm a needy prick.

*sigh*

So he says then, that he'll call me back in about 30 minutes and decide, and I go back to folding laundry... and then reason hits me. Hard. (Thank God.) I'm a dummy. He's tired. He's had a long day. Why on earth am I getting on his back and forcing him to make that long trip all the way here, and especially so, since he has to leave town in less than 24 hours?! O good gosh, I'm like one of those horribly nagging wives who want everything done their way. I've probably already irritated him, now I'm going to completely annoy him with my crap. Where on earth is SnowWhite's Stepmum, with all his brilliant advice on playing it cool in relationships and not throwing oneself at him... O, damn.

So, I called Irish Coffee back, told him I'd been acting like a dunce, told him why, and that I was sorry, and that he should understand I'm a flake, but usually reason does shine through (though it may be a bit late), and since he's got to make that horribly long trip in any case, it doesn't make sense for him to come by. He laughed, said I wasn't too weird after all, that he understood, and we ended up having a nice long chat over the phone, till we both got sleepy. And yes, he's coming over for a late lunch here, on his way to his sister's place.

All's well that ends well, I suppose, but see - flakes like me NEED gay best friends around in my immediate vicinity! *sigh* Perhaps I should put out an ad in the local paper or something.

Confessions. Confusion. Connotations. Conundrums... And, Closetalk.

Whippy wants to know ten secrets about me. Now, while I have done a me-me of this sort earlier (I think it was six secrets in that one, not ten!) I haven't been able to find that post in my archives, and since it's been absolutely ages since I've done a me-me (partly because I used to get inundated with them in the early blogger days, so much so that I hated them after a point of time), I thought I'd give it a shot. Not very sure about how "secret-y" they are, though - I pretty much do spill all the beans here in the closet...

1. I love to dance. I do, I do, I do. I always did. Ask any of my friends of boyfriends. I don't care much either whether what I'm doing is the right way or the wrong way. As far as I'm concerned, it's all just about expressing that I'm likin' it! *head jerk* So, I tap my toes, move my shoulders, wiggle my body, thrust my pelvis, and then we have lift-off. MY specialties: steamy dances in the gay clubs, to which SnowWhite's Stepmum will attest to, and a peculiar motion that Irish Coffee calls the "happy jig". Hint: the "happy jig" is performed without pants on. *giggle*
   
   
2. I love "dressing up". Ummmm... yes. That means, owning clothes in fabulously weird fits and patterns. That means, having an authentic pair of black tight overalls that I wear to the gay club. That means, buying Irish caps, leather duds, a fedora, a cowboy hat, pointy shoes, cloth mojras, silver dogtags with pink pigs emblazoned on them, tee shirts with wonderfully suggestive slogans and a host of other delightful accessories that I could never do without. :)
   
   
   
   
   
3. I'm histrionic, they say. And if you want an objective opinion, check out the results of the online quiz I took ages ago. I'd like to say I've improved, but I was never very good at lying. Why do ya think I switched from PR to Academese? :) In my defence, I have to quote good ole Willy: the world's a stage, guv'nor, and all of us got a part to play, so gimme more drama, blimey!!!
   
   
4. I can actually do without Indian food for an appreciably long amount of time. Not that I don't like Indian food - much to the contrary. But the thing is, I can actually survive on burgers and fries and salads and chicken breasts and American Chinese food for a loooong time, without turning green and sickly. That comes in for a lot of perplexed looks flashed my way from the Indians here in the midwest whom I may chance to meet - and that leads on to the number 5 below.
   
   
5. I'm persona non grata in the South Asian community in my teeny midwest hamlet. I don't become "best buds" with every Indian/South Asian around me, regardless of whether or not I like the person, have anything in common with him/her, have a reason to know the person. I don't take every opportunity to yak in either Hindi or my native language, and even dream in English. I don't try to flirt with Indian/ South Asian girls (and the boys are too yucky here). I take every opportunity to head off to the "big" city where Irish Coffee lives, rather than stick around for "desi" parties in the midwestern hamlet with the rest. Ergo.
   
   
6. I'm lazy. I'm lazing right now. I'm supposed to be doing a million other things. I'm supposed to be making coffee. I'm supposed to be researching my final term paper. I'm supposed to be rehashing scores of my earlier papers for publication. But... I like to vegetate. O, and surf porn. (Which is actually a fabulous way of vegetating...)
   
   
7. I write fast. I'm doing it right now. It's my saving grace, given my many deadlines and my tendency to procrastinate and vegetate. Irish Coffee says, my typing speed is in BPS - Bullshit Per Second. :)
   
   
8. I love being gay. Is there anything really to add to this? :) And yes, this isn't really a secret, since it's pretty clear in almost every post on this blog. Yet, it's a truth. An undeniable one. And so it bears mentioning.
   
   
9. I do care about the comments. There. I said it. I do, I do, I do. I told myself at first that this blog is about catharsis, and it's about me. That part is true enough. But I'm also honest enough to realize now that no blogger is an island. The comments and feedback that every blogger receives is so frikkin' important to the whole blogging process. It's about holding a mirror forth, it's about dialogue, it's about thinking how one blog post could be interpreted in so many different ways. And yes, let's be honest, looking at that surge in numbers on google analytics does feel good! :)
   
   
10. I've often toyed with posting a picture of myself here on the closet. But I guess that defeats the idea of "the closet", doesn't it? I mean, it's not that being in the closet in the conventional gay sense is all too important for me in the my current situation, but being faceless and nameless in the blogging community does afford you certain.. privileges. And yes, part of that is you get to be catty and melt into the darkness! :) But the picture idea is always tantalizing...
    
    
    

"Come out, come out, wherever you are...!"

Sometimes, you build up the coming-out thing way so big that you tend to scare yourself much more than you really need to. Not really the great words of wisdom you'd expect (or even want) to hear from the ole man of the mountain, I know, but there it is. Take it from me - the guy who writes behind the moniker of Closetalk/CT/what-have-you from a place called "Talking Closets" - coming out has its comedy of errors, as well as its fair share of melodrama. When I read accounts of how younger (gasp) gay South Asians manage and negotiate their gay-ness, there's a strange sense of "O, wow, I suppose I went through all this at one time too!", mingled with the curiosity of the external onlooker. That's especially true in the case of someone like me, who's "out" in almost all senses of the word - my friends know, my colleagues have no excuse to not guess at least - and yet, like so many other South Asian gay men, I'm not "out" to my family. Well, not officially, at least.



I mentioned in an earlier post, how I'd come out to brother, while we were in the Big Bad Apple. Now, I've had reason to believe for quite some time now that my brother knows I'm gay. Let's see: there was the instance, when I was seventeen, that I confessed I liked both guys and gals (I was lying, I never did have a thing for broads, no offence intended); then there was the completely intimate knowledge of fashion trends and styles, Bombay clubs and pubs, the glitteratti and all that jazz that no normal hetero guy can ever hope to pull off; the various smirks and jokes from dah-ling brother that indicated he knew I'd lost my (ummm..) cherry (?) and planted my own sapling (?) here and there; and of course, the insinuation that I was "busy" every night whenever there was a GB party underway... So... yep, I knew that he knew that I knew that he knew that I was gay. And the world is wonderfully knotty/naughty and comes full ellipse.

But sometimes, the thing of coming "out" is that even though you know that everyone knows, you want to spell it out explicitly. Kick of the sneakers and try out the stilletoes brazenly, as it were. You want to talk about the fact that you're a fag, that you think other fags (well, some of them) are hot/cute/delectable/whatever, and perhaps even that you're in love. And for sometime now, I've wanted to grab that bull by its horns, jerk it around a bit (no pun intended, believe me), and basically come out - officially - to my bro. Here's how it happened...

Plans were made, before leaving for NYC, on how, where, when etc to break the news... perhaps over a coffee, perhaps back at the hotel after a fun day out, perhaps on the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building (hope he doesn't jump!)... but all those planned events came and went, and I didn't say a word. In my nightly phone-calls to Irish Coffee, I said, there just hasn't been the right time, the right moment... it has to be natural, I don't want to force it... yadayadayada. So, anyhow, on day 3 (I think), we head to the Met and after a glorious three hours of exploration, I realize that we're separated. I don't have an international phone card on me, so I can't call him. Whoops. So I call Irish Coffee, instruct him to call up the brother and inform him where I'm waiting for him - and I settle down. As simple as that. He eventually does find me, many more hours pass, we carry on our New York tour, and suddenly at around 10.30 pm, on the walk from the subway station back to our hotel, something unfathomable seizes me, so that I turn back towards him and say, "You have known, for quite some time now, that your younger brother is gay, have you not?"

Bro (without skipping a beat): "Yep."

CT: "O... good."

CT (after walking in silence for 30 seconds, and then spills out in the rush to catch a hurrying train): "Cool, cuzIreallywantedtotellyou,becauseI'mactuallyprettymuchouttoallmyfriends,andIthoughtitdoesnt'treallymakesensetonotbeouttoyou,butthenyouknowhwatyourmumanddadarelike,soIkeptquiet,butthensinceit'syou,Ithoughtyou'veprobablyknown forquitesometime,andthere'sreallynoreasontokeepquietaboutit,sothereyouare."

Bro (smiling in the dark): "Ok."

CT: "O, and my friend who called you at the museum today, he's my boyfriend."

Bro: "Ok."

Ummm... ok, then. I must say, I was a bit pertubed about the lack of questions or queries or whatever from him, but I did call up Irish Coffee excitedly from the hotel and broke the news of my coming-out (officially). Was a bit puzzled about the lack of reaction from brother dah-ling, but since he went to bed early that night, there was no room for me to pursue my queries. As it turned out, however, I had little room to worry. The next day, over coffee at Starbucks, he grins at me, and remarks, "So... how come I'm not being introduced to Irish Coffee? Isn't this supposed to be Meet The Family?"



Well, at least I didn't get the coffee-confession thing totally wrong...!

Still Star-truck by the City...

So I'm back home in the Midwest, and (surprise, surprise!) I still have a NYC hangover. Apart from the long-awaited coming-out story, these last few days have been so amazing in so many ways. Walked out of the 42d street subway the other day, and found a great street fair in progress on Lexington Avenue, amazing street food, posters and artwork, and some fabulous scarfs and stoles. Picked up some swishy pashminas for mum and myself, and a I *heart* NY for dad, gulped a corn dog in true NYC style, and paddled over to Rockefeller Center. St. Patrick's Cathedral was amazing, and even though it felt so cheesy to snap pictures while some people were praying in the aisles, it didn't bother me too much. *grin* My feet tingled for ages, much after we got back to the hotel, because of our walks all across the city. Mmmmm...

And that's where the drink with the hunky Italian made up for sore feet. Yummy man, fabulous conversation, a dry martini and a happening bar. Now, that's NYC for you.



My trip ended with some other great vignettes: walking down Wall Street and contemplating the oncoming (?) US recession in front of the the NYSE; gazing up at Trinity Church reverentially; munching on some amazing lasagna and tiramisu at an authentic mom-and-pop Italian joint in Midtown; cursing the UN building authorities for taking down the world flags at night when we got there; walking through the lobby of Radio City Music Hall; eating chocolate softee ice cream cones at the Rockefeller Center; sorting through Prada and DKNY and pressing my nose against the Tiffany's glass window on 5th Avenue; reading the inscriptions on the WTC memorial wall and looking at the busy cranes working on the forthcoming (new and improved) WTC 2.0; hogging on some fantabulous Vietnamese fare at Chinatown (the one in Manhattan, not the others); sipping coffee in a funky Soho cafe; exploring Broadway and checking out the latest releases (again); wondering when I get to ride in the back of that marvelously white stretch limo snaking its way through Manhattan...

But it's good to be back here, with my baby. :) I missed yakking nineteen to the dozen with my Irish Coffee, missed snuggling with him on the sofa while watching moronic stuff on the telly; missed our long evening walks with the dog, and I'm certainly looking forward to cozying up in bed tonight! :) All those Jamaicans and Italians have got me horned up for the Irish tonight! *blush*