Celebrating seasons

I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.

                                       - F. Scott Fitzgerald

This is it. Times flies like rains in Spring, when you hear the rustling and are just about to embrace it, it shies away. The next thing you know, bang, they are lighting up the Tree again. 

At the tail of the year, it seems unavoidable to be reflective on the past 300ish days. The BBC is showing all the predominant figures of the year who passed away for the year, repeatedly and tirelessly that made me wonder if it takes extra joy in doing so. 

Oxford dictionary has chosen the word 'selfie' as the word of the year, I was intending to resume the manner to choose a word for my own word of the year, but I failed to come up a magic word can describe my whole year, so after a while thinking I think I would just draw up the classics and borrow the wisdom from Mr.Fitzgerald, hence the prologue.

Precisely as described in the prologue, my year of 2013 was in between the fascination to all kinds of attractions around me but also my natural tendencies of avoiding such: complication has been like an echoing rhythm in my life throughout this year, where I feel that there have been numerous inner battles within myself: for example, the more eastern mind of conservative and family centred tradition and the more western mind of embracing mind freedom and self accepting has been a keynote to dominate my romanic relationship life.  

This year I had brief stories with handful guys and no girls so far, nevertheless none of them are proper dates, apart from one which was a tragic fail.  It was with an Aussie opera singer who had authentic deep bass voice who speaks as if water drops from the cleanest and clearest mineral spring hidden in a remote forest, listening to it can bring to me freshness. He came across as a perfect young gentleman and a rare find among now the noise world filled with commodity fetishism. He was well presented, attired in a black casual suit with every inch of neatness on it, patent leather shoes and a Fedora hat has been the signature of him as it magically brought out the man in him: Decent, slightly a bit of english Old Schooled but also with a slice of frivolous brought probably from 'the Land down under'.  We met in a pub, exchanged conversation with a couple of wine, beer and whiskey until the time got into the way and we parted the way.   The apart had been saddened by the no response from him, however it is an opera singer and a business man, what can I expect? The common interests between us hardly filled any time when we were together at the pub, the excessive drinks did.

I also came across two boys who I truly felt sorry for them, one was M and another was another boy named T (Not the T as in my previous blog). They were both at their early 20s and had no clue of their future heads and was struggling between rents and getting a job to serve at the bar.  I felt for them because I saw my own mirror in them, if I was in their situation. They were struggling in life, got kicked out from one house to another for falling behind their rents, they cannot secure a proper job for their distorted way of dealing with people and handling a normal office relationship, their family cannot afford the comfort and security, hence they are like canoes drifting on the sea without sight of a beacon. I really feel for them because I know that a difference of their canoes drifting or capsizing on the sea was a matter of storm, and what is sad to me is all we know that the storm will come. The main reason I was empathetic with them is down to the key reason that we, me, M and T all share the same loneliness about life, despite the success of our professional life or our economic conditions. Money cannot buy happiness, friendship or love, I assume it's because the latter ones are too invaluable to be measured by any monetary forms.   I can only sincerely hope that M and T can get better ahead in the new year and grow into a more mature person with more confidence and better condition to handle their life more smoothly and find happiness.

Well, feeling that it is enough to write up for now, time to finish up. New year wishes, as tacky as it is.  After a year exploring into my side with guys, with little successful stories to tell, I was frustrated, in a sense, and eastern side of me is going to, I predict, lose to the western side of me, so I will open up further up in the new year 2014 to start to learn to accept myself and start properly set up a few dates and see how the new year will take me to. It is bold but I think I am getting closer and closer to embrace the true side of myself, and I think it should be good, as at least it worth trying while I am young.

Best of luck in the new year to all my readers who care to read into my blog and share my life journey along the way. :)

We leave the station barely moving
And slowly begin to accelerate
So we raise our glasses for a last time
I don’t remember what we celebrate

And we said our first hello
On the Orient Express
We got plenty of time to kill
And we sang and danced away
On the Orient Express
To the rhythm of the wheels of steel

I can hear them laughing 
In the restaurant
You took me walking down the avenue
So we blow the candles
Make our wishes
How I wonder if they’re ever coming true

And we said our first hello
On the Orient Express
We got plenty of time to kill
And we sang and danced away
On the Orient Express
To the rhythm of the wheels of steel

We’re getting closer to hundred miles an hour
When I saw a figure standing on the rails
I start to panic as the train’s approaching
It’s too late to pull the breaks

And we said our first hello
On the Orient Express
We got plenty of time to kill
And we sang and danced away
On the Orient Express
To the rhythm of the wheels of steel

And we fell in love
On the Orient Express
On this never ending journey home
And we kissed our last goodbye
On the Orient Express
There’s no turning back along the road

Lemongrass midnight

Be yourself.  Everyone else is already taken.

- Oscar Wilde

Approaching midnight now. The world calms down very swiftly as time tickling away on a typical Tuesday workday evening, like a very disciplined boy knowing his bedtime well. To me, this seems like an ideal night: no drunk screamers on the street, and people are rushing out of gym after 20:00 giving me much more space into exercising. The evening was also not be disturbed by any party invitation calls, no emails flooding in, like someone carefully planned this out, or my Internet was cut off? Ohhh, wait, it is actually fine. Phew.

In such a pleasant evening, I could not wait but to throw myself into the swimming for 40 mins which was so refreshing that I think I still smells a bit bleaching from the pool 4 hours ago, such a shame that people can create all kinds of perfume or fragrance for so many things and into so many products but they seems quite forgetful to add a bit 'smell of Ocean' into any swimming pool water, so I have regular Bleaching smelling, 3 times a 

week.

The last couple of months had been absolutely hectic times, I was like a moth flying in and out of frustration, excitements and happiness. But all in all, things are looking up and bright, which at least comforting to me. Finally decide to leave a moment to myself tonight before slipping into my dream to write up something here.

Recently personal life has been a very empty page to me, despite loads loads of messages receiving on various apps and handful messages exchanged with some people. High 6 drive turned into gym efforts successfully, which in return contributed to the more and more solid physique that I am going to be very proud of in the next couple of months. It caught me a bit surprise, however I believe it is a good thing that I gradually stepped away from the g@y dating apps, as I started to lose interest in pointless greetings and rarely I could really find anyone who can really caught my attention. Increasing felt that the little profile page of these dating apps is really like a marketing tool and if so, many people just failed tragically in doing so. Speedy and instant hook up really is not my thing these days, as my days at work and night in gym have already exhausted my energy, plus my hands are so handy so really there is not much space for something extra. Having said this, I came into a surprise encounter with a guy on an app who I met in a business occasion in real life. Let us call him 'S' for now.

The first time I saw S was in a business networking event where I was looking for the venue and he was standing outside the venue with this friend. He and his strong solid big muscly arms. The first glance at him made me think that I wish I knew how to train to get those arms done, while walking towards him to interpose into their conversation to ask for clarification about the venue location. He clearly paused and answered my question and jumped straight back into his chat with his mate. During the network events, somehow I was sitting next to him briefly and we had a brief chat again, and my vague memory told me that we shook hands twice, first time as normal social greeting, and I guess my little inner lust jumped out and created the second leaving handshake myself. I really fancied the two strong big arms and bulging biceps, either as an physical attraction but also from a normal person who is in training to get into solid shape.  One night I opened a dating app briefly, and received a message from a profile photo of solid chest and strong upper body without a head, and after a brief 'hi', a headshot came back, and I instantly smiled and laughed, it was a photo of S's head on my phone screen with a gentle smile and posed like a formal ID pass or office shot.  What a nice coincidence and I then noticed that he was living just around 350 meters away from me. My first instinct was that 'is him using the same gym as mine? Could we become gym buddy so I can learn from his training to get the same strong arms?'. Well, of course I followed up on the conversation, and I found out that we had many similar experiences, career wise, and he was interviewing with some top consulting firms and investment banks which I had some bizarre failures and proud victories to share with him, and we were also in similar professional background and we even shared one major sports in common. So smooth chatting along the way so I decided to let him know that I met him before chatting on the app without reminding him too much about our meeting, and clearly I did not leave a strong impression back then, so he could not really figure out who I was, but he did not get to the bottom of it, which was good for me as I am not sure how I would handle this 'new neighbour' 'relationship', so for example, if I did not meet him on dating app, then I ran into him on the street nearby then I would say 'Hi', since it was a good chatting with him at the business event. However now since we chatted on a g@y dating app, then should I say 'Hi' or not when seeing each other on the street? Probably not, because somehow I would feel wired, like I was shouting on the street to scream: I wanna do you and your arms. It is just like coming from from swimming pool with smelling of bleach on me, coming off a dating app to reality would make most meet ups with people somehow comes off a bit 6sual, no matter what the original genuine intentions are. 

So me and S kept exchanging messages not only on the app, but also with texts, on things that we felt commonly interested in. The whole situation still sits in the comfort zone that I knew him but he does not really remember who I am. I occasionally would think about meeting him in person and what would things like, but I guess I do not really have strong drive to meet him as well, since our last encounter did not leave a mark on his side, I doubt any meeting offline would be a good idea. To be honest, to pair up with him in gym training was actually weigh much more than wanting something extra from S. So I guess there will not be further stories to tell between me and S, he is just a sexy young man with sexy biceps who exchanges social messages with a stranger from time to time on the phone. 

Speaking here, it reminds me that in last of months, I also met a senior banker who discovered his sexualities in mid-40s and a young decent opera singer who is settling down in London. However the stories are to be told for another night. Now it is time to call it a day.

By the by, I quoted Oscar Wilde at the beginning as a response to the brave come out message from Tom Daley and that is also a message I want to tell to myself. I am not a massive fan of Tom or not even a supporter or such, however I think it is a courageous move for him to be honest with his choice and not afraid to step up to what he believes in. From this boy, I think that I should really learn from him to be more open and to embrace the freedom comes after it. However, it is always easier to be said than done. 

Lemongrass midnight? Nothing special, simply put a steamer on with lemongrass essential oil, then you can have one too, in an unnoisy Tuesday evening or at the tail of the sunset of Sunday, highly recommended. :)

Good night.