Wednesday 19 November 2003

Birthday

Today is my darling feller's birthday, and I intend to talk about him at length, so this may turn into a soppy entry; you have been warned. 

Tuxedo and I have been together "in real life" (ie, geographically - we were together to all intents and purposes for some eight months before that) since May 2001, and every day I appreciate and love and respect him more and more.  He has made such a difference to my life; before Tuxedo (my life can be divided into BT and AT) my life was a pretty lonely sterile place.  I was not an unhappy person, per se, but I had plenty of unhappiness and little joy; life was work and pain and sleep, pretty much.  I was very lonely and alone, and had accepted that that was my lot.  Oh, I had friends - amazingly good and supportive friends, the type of friends you keep your whole life - and acquaintances, and a close family, but at some deep level I was very much alone and isolated from the world.  I called it being self-sufficient, its only now I can see how inaccurate that concept was.

Tuxedo has brought life and love and laughter; we are excellent friends, we enjoy each others' company, we spend hours and hours chatting and giggling and cracking each other up.  This is new for me; I was always very serious and intense, and my family has never been big on laughing and joking and taking the piss out of each other; so I never had much laughter, growing up. 

We are of mutual benefit; I mean, we're both good for the other.  Tuxedo brings out the funny cheeky side in me, has mellowed my intense nature and massively reduced my stressball quotient.  I was afraid, always, that any man taking me on would be giving and giving and not getting much out of the relationship, but it turns out I have a lot to give.  Affection and loyalty, of course, and pride and respect, all of which have really helped Tuxedo's somewhat battered self-esteem and confidence.  He's a lot happier in himself because of me, he stands up straighter, has more confidence; that's a very special feeling, knowing "I've done that".

We are amazingly wonderfully spectacularly good together as lovers.  Before May 2001 our relationship was non-physical (owing to a paltry 15,000 kms in between us) and so even though we had committed to each other, were going to get engaged and then married, and I was going to relocate to Northern Ireland, we'd only ever hugged before.  That was at our first meeting ever - I met Tux for real first, then our relationship burgeoned over telephone lines and internet connections - so I knew we were physically attractive to each other at least.  But there's quite a big jump between a hug and true love-making.  I was a bit worried, to be honest, how it would all work out, but we figured that we'd just go with the flow on that score, and after all we were both adult and experienced enough in that arena, and had compatible views (no hang-ups) to work out any problems. And wow did it ever work out.  Not to go into too much detail, but our first time together was something very very special and amazing, and we just keep getting better and better together.  All that physical and sexual stuff is a big part of our relationship; we love and need each others' touch.  That too, is new to me; oh sure I'd had physical relationships before, and had/have lots of affectionate friends,  but being and feeling so loved is a very different matter. 

So yeah.  My feller is everything to me; he has enriched my life in a way that I wonder at daily; to be incredibly cliched I'm like an ugly caterpillar only seeing in black and white, that has gone through the pupating process and emerged anew in a brightly coloured world.  Thank you for being in my life, my darling love.  Have a wonderful day and here's to the next year being even better than the last.

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Okay, mush over, you can stop gagging now.  Tux had a great day; he did very well on the gifts front*, and we had a lovely family meal (roast lamb with all the accompaniments, and a pavlova complete with a candle and family multi-part harmony rendition of "Happy Birthday") to celebrate.  That's another lovely thing, actually, the way Tux has become part of my family, and is so loved and appreciated, and to see him get along so so well with my brothers and sister-in-law.  Its great - nauseatingly heartwarming in fact.  Then on Saturday he and I are going out for a romantic dinner at a very posh and very very delicious Italian restaurant; should be fun.  We would love to do the dirty weekend at a hotel thing as we had done for my birthday but finances are too tight ... so we've merely postponed that until the first opportunity.  I'm really really looking forward to both dinner and TBC dirty weekend - I know my feller is.

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* I gave him; books - Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, and Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman; CDs - the Blade Runner soundtrack and a couple of other CDs by Vangelis in a boxed set; DVDs - The Usual Suspects Special Edition, Minority Report Special Edition and The Matrix, because he didn't have a Region 2 version; a Leatherman Wave tool - the ultimate gadget which makes a Swiss army knife look as useful as a plastic spoon; and a neoprene choker with solid silver pendant. 

The last was actually a big sore point for me; I'd designed a pendant/medallion way back in June, and a fine arts/metalworker/jeweller friend of mine was going to make it for me.  Then in October he told me he couldn't do it, I contacted several other jewellers none of whom would take the job, I finally found a jeweller - who'd done some work for me years ago - who said he'd make it no problems, then I didn't hear from him for some weeks and when I contacted him - in some anxiety - said it couldn't be done, or at least it could be but only hand-engraved and it would cost several times what I'd been quoted (we're talking hundreds of dollars) and mightn't turn out well anyway.  ARGH ARGH ARGH.  So I went shopping for something similar or halfway decent, because I had my heart set on the idea.  Could. Not. Find. Anything.  Absolutely impossible, there are no guy-appropriate silver pendants or chokers anywhere in Western Australia.  Anyway I finally ended up at a really fantastic silver shop - Antika if anyone's interested - who do beautiful work, and found a nice heavy but small oval pendant with vertical lines engraved on it.  No special meaning to it, but very nice to look at, feel and wear.  I did show Tuxedo my original design - at his insistence after I'd related the story - and he loved it, so we're going to try and get it made sometime.  This is it. 

Other gifts;  cash from my parents, he's going to buy shorts and a new lights rig for his bike; a bicycle computer from David and Micah - he loves his toys!; a remote control car from Jacob - already utilised to terrorise the cat; and a truly sensational gift from his parents, one of the Sideshow/WETA LOTR Collectibles - the Weapons Set (and was I ever fucking jealous), an amazing piece which will be displayed in pride of place once we have our own place. 

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