Paying Forward!

I received an email the other day from a guy named Scott offering to send me a copy of a book written by a fellow blogger, Max Atkinson, entitled Lend Me Your Ears. I was pleasantly surprised by this email as I had never read Scott's blog before and had only commented on Matt's blog once, at almost the exact same time Scott was also leaving a comment.

In his email Scott noted that he was a strong believer in the principle of paying forward. I was unsure what this meant until he explained the principle to me. Basically, the principle of paying it forward is where you do something nice for somebody else without any expectation of anything in return. Additionally, the act should encourage you to do something nice for another. Hence, pay it forward, rather than pay it back.

It dawned on me that I was aware of this principle but I didn't know that it had an actual term. It reminded me of a story a guy told me once about each time he's on a toll road he pays for the car behind him also. He says it makes him feel great knowing that the car behind will be pleasantly surprised at this random act of kindness.

I'll keep you, and Scott updated on how I pay this random act of kindness forward.

Sure a bit of roughness doesn't do anyone any harm.....

"Sure a bit of roughness doesn't do anyone any harm" you would hear my granny say from time to time.

Now before all your minds go into overload, she wasn't insinuating anything sexual, abusive or a three day stubble. What she meant was that sometimes when you were struggling with your finances that it did you good. I've heard her use this expression many times over the years and always thought, "how horrible." Though I'm starting to realise what she meant.

It wasn't that long ago when I would've seen a new gadget and if i thought I needed it, then I'd buy it. No questions asked, whether I needed it or convinced myself enough that I needed it, then I got it. Now I know that this sounds as if I'm spoilt or privileged, believe me I'm not, I earn my own money and buy my own things, it's been like that since I was about 12.

The first three weeks after having been made redundant I didn't really let it sink in that that also meant that my salary wasn't going to keep coming into my bank account, so I spent as if nothing had changed until one day the ATM gave me that heart sinking message "Insufficient Funds" Oooops, redundancy was well and truly here, staring me in the face through my own reflection in the ATM machine.

Since then the value of money now has a new net worth to me. A few weeks back I'd have thought nothing of spending a €100 on a pair of new jeans, a set of headphones or even a meal for two. In fact a hangover on a Sunday morning was cheap if it cost less than €100 the night before. €100 is now just under 50% of my weekly income and seems worth a whole lot more than it did a few weeks ago. I now think before I buy and it's no bad thing. I'm starting to realise how much money I wasted on things that I didn't actually need. I have a new appreciation for the value of money, €100, €50, €20 even €2, is worth a whole lot more than it was just a few weeks back.

I've been getting my bit of "roughness" for almost 9 weeks now and she was right, it isn't doing me any harm in fact it's doing me some good.

Divisive or Constructive?

I didn't expect my recent blog, "We need a Harvey Milk not a Panti Bar", to cause such a stir, though after re-reading the last line of my previous blog, "Stiring a man's blood and my 20 year plan", maybe my sub-conscious took over and caused the stir I was talking about.

Some of the comments that have been thrown at me, or blog, depending on your viewpoint, have been, that perhaps I'm a "self loathing homosexual" or even that I have a" 'thing' about Drag which stems from personal issues regarding sexuality",others felt that I didn't appreciate drag as an art form. Let me reassure you that

• I am not a self loathing homosexual.
• That I don't have a thing about drag which stems from personal issues regarding sexuality.
• And I do appreciate drag as an art form.

Other readers felt that my piece was divisive, while some felt that it was constructive. To clear up this matter, I can tell you that I was giving my opinion in what I feel was in a constructive manner. I stand by everything that I wrote and after all it’s only my opinion. We need to remove our personal bias or allegiances and be strategic in delivering our message to those who we need to hear it.

Now with that set to the side, I'm urging you all, under whichever banner you feel you belong,GLEN, Marriage Equality, LGBT Noise or just plain old you, to attend this event on 9th August, meeting City Hall , 1.30pm, More info is on this short you tube video.

See you there!

Time better spent writing to your T.D.

The photos appearing below have been sent to me via my blog email address as the Brenda Power / Panti debate rages on. I'm also led to believe that they appear in a photo album on facebook, belonging to an individual who shall remain unnamed. I am unable to verify this as they are not a direct friend of mine on the social networking site. Surely writing to their TD about marriage equality would have been time better spent. What are they trying to do? Show that we are not educated enough to construct an argument refuting her column or play into the hands of Brenda Power by giving her the ammunition to attack us for being small minded, bitter and resorting to playground tactics. Remind you of anyone?

This kind of behaviour my fellow gays may make you feel better about her comments but it won't do our cause one bit of good if in turn it's used against us.

Photo 1

The caption below this photo read as follows: Breedin' Power at the recent gay pride parade in Dublin. In this picture she can be seen raffling off her 5 children. She explains: "As you know, my brain has been fried since I became a total crack-whore. I needed to score some crack, so I offloaded the kids for some cash to some gays who will no doubt provide them with the stable and loving family environment which I myself am entirely unable to do since I'm a hate-filled bigot. It's a lucky thing I didn't abort them!".

*Note this is Brenda Power photoshopped onto Panti at gay pride 2009.

Photo 2

The caption below this photo read as follows: In a major departure from former Catholic doctrine, his Holiness Pope Breedin' Power X called for pregnant teenagers to seriously consider the option of abortion in order to prevent any chance of the child being adopted by gays. The pope took the unorthodox approach of espousing the new doctrine during Wednesday's Last Word on Today FM.

This photo was also sent, so inthe name of transparency I've included it also.

Photo 3

The caption below this photo read as follows: Using her super powers through the medium of radio, SuperPanti saves the gays yet again from Arch-bigot Breedin' Power.

****
To those outside this debate there are links to the articles written by Brenda Power in my previous post . This post has links to Marriage Equality, and Wikipedia profiles of both Brenda Power and Panti.

We need a Harvey Milk - Not a Panti Bar!

Gee bag, slut, whore! Just some of the words used by the "A gays" and the "regular" gays to respond to both of the Brenda Power articles in the Sunday Times. Well guys and gals I think we shot ourselves in the foot with those long thought out articulate responses!

Now let me set the record straight. I think Panti is a great drag artist and entertainer and I think that Brenda Power makes some valid points in her column.

I do disagree with Brenda's opinions regarding marriage, children, and the role of gay pride; I do recognise she has made a few sideways swipes at the LGBT community, however not once did she call us gee bags, sluts or whores, or some of the more regular insults we're used to, faggots, perverts, fudge-packers, dyke's, chicks with dicks; you get the picture.

The gay community need to get an important message across to the rest of society, especially to those that are complacent and / or conservative regarding their views on gay equality and marriage. Do we really want a man dressed as a woman being the public figure for this extremely important argument? I for one don't! I want a representative that is palatable to those who may question my relationship, who may have doubts that gay people can be in love, make a commitment and have a contributing role to play in society. What I certainly don't want people to be thinking is, "Is that a fella or a woman?", "Look at the state of yer man wearing a dress" or "oh I wonder where she got that little number from?".

I want a spokesperson who can relate to the mainstream. I want a spokesperson who can get the message across without the fact that they are wearing a dress or, if they they should be addressed as "he" or "she", distracting from the important and crucial points that need to be made. We need to build relationships with our neighbours, our detesters and our elected representatives not focus their minds on something else or alienate them further.

So the challenge here is for the LGBT community to get together and choose one or two figures who will represent our views, concerns and aspirations to the public, someone who will get the message across without any distractions? Who will unite us in our struggle for equality and who has the capability to identify with those who disagree with us.

Both Brenda and the LGBT community might learn some lessons from Harvey Milk "It takes no compromising to give people their rights. It takes no money to respect the individual."

We are not asking our fellow citizens to compromise but to give us absolute equality with them and when asking for this equality we need to respect the opinions of each individual within our democracy who may disagree with us. Responding to a newspaper column by calling someone a gee bag, slut or a whore promotes a lack of respect and understanding, something the gay community has been struggling for, for years.

*****

Definition

"A Gay" members of the gay community who see themselves at the top of the pecking order within their community and of which mere regular gays should aspire to become a member off. (Definition given to me by an "A gay")

Stirring a man's blood and my 20 year plan....

"Make no small plans....for they have not the power to stir a man's blood" Niccolo Machiavelli 1514

What have you done lately to plan for the future? Do we shape our future or is it destiny, or both? Having recently been made redundant I'm kinda thinking - what's next? I already thought i was sorted when I took my new job last year and chatted to the CEO about staying for 3-5 years. Destiny and the CEO's 'bury your head in the sand syndrome' has interrupted that plan. So what's next for me? Do I make a plan or leave it to destiny?

I've always thought that you've got to have some sort of plan. Looking back on my childhood and teenage years I seemed to have my next goal I wanted to achieve in mind, get to go on that trip to Belgium, prove my maths teacher wrong, get a full time job, etc etc but could they have come my way even if I hadn't have focused on them? Now, don't get me wrong, I was never the one to sit down and write a mission statement or have a dedicated life plan, but I always had a sketchy outline of what should be next in my head.

After attending a lecture last week on Management it made me think about life and how it's shaped. Should me make plans and focus on our future, our relationships, career, our motivation and our legacy? What impression to we want to leave behind when we're gone? I currently have a 20 year plan in my head and know exactly where I'd like to be in all those areas of life that are important to me. So it brought me some solace when I heard the quote attributed to Machiavelli in 1514, my plans are big, ambitious and they do 'stir my blood'.

So fuck redundancy, bring it on and lets hope I stir a few other peoples blood along the way. Here's to 2029!

What Michael Jackson taught me!

As a kid growing up I loved Michael Jackson and still do and while lots of his music reminds me of a time and place there is one life lesson that was taught to me by the King of Pop and my grandmother!

As far back as I can remember my granny always used to take me into Belfast shopping, she didn't have much money so it was to buy books at the second hand book shop or purchase new tights "simple shopping" but more importantly to take some time off from her duties as a housewife.

On one of those Saturdays I truly discovered what it was like to become a consumer and the power of money. As she was browsing in the bookstore come music shop I wondered off to have a look around. I discovered a Michael Jackson mirror, I fell in love with it immediately and asked her could I buy it and I'd pay her back the money weekly. She couldn't afford to do this so she asked the shop keeper could we leave it over and I would pay it off with my pocket money. My pocket money was 50p per week and it must have taken me 16 weeks to pay it off (I reckon it may have been a little less as i could have gotten some extra help from my mummy and granny) but it felt more like a year before I could take the mirror home.

I still have that mirror some 22 years later and the lessons that it taught me.

• you can't always get what you want immediately
• saving does pay off.

Just wish I could be more strict with the saving!

Choose Michael

This is a rip off from Train Spotting - wrote it a few years back.

Choose Michael James Patrick
Choose growing up in Belfast....
Choose starting work at the age of ten being the bingo ball roller and getting all the 2p’s and 1p’s for your wages. Choose feeling like a big lad buying your mum her favourite bar of choclate after work.
Choose getting knocked down by a black taxi and not even getting a claim, only a few days of school and no sympathy at all for not using the crossing
Choose your ma owning a sweet shop and you having the best lunch ever with super cans of coke, tayto cheese and onion Belfast bap, and as many packets of cola flavoured frosties you can stick in your pocket.
Choose being the oldest cousin so you tried everything first and always got caught
Choose going to La Salle school and your form teacher telling your ma that you really got up his nose and annoyed the fuck out of him for no real reason…choose me thinking I was great getting a letter of apology from my form teacher and the head brother.
Choose losing your mate at 16 and being afraid to try anything ever again. Choose discovering lots more mates and then trying lots more new things.
Choose falling in love with the girl next door Pauline Ferris who turned out to be a goth, choose falling out of love fairly quickly…..
Choose always being up for a bit of craic and always getting in trouble for it, I’m still choosing the craic and dealing with the trouble
Choose a ¼ bottle of vodka as your first carryout and not spotting the signs of gaydom
Choose thinking you wanted to look like your mates only to discover in later years that you probably really fancied them.
Choose your mum selling the shop and you losing about 3 stone…..no longer being able to do the huckle buckle shuffle from the goonies
Choose spending the next number of years trying to discover a new party piece only to discover you already had it. i.e. I never shut up at parties and can talk for ever
Choose being at parties and discovering people who can talk as much as you, choose being scared
Choose being your grannys blue eye and always being able to tap £20 of her for a night out. Choose realising £20 wouldn’t get you a night out in the cinema any more.
Choose having the same hairstyle for all your teenage years, choose finding a friend whos a hairdresser and puts you on the straight and narrow.

Choose playing oscar in Bugsy Malone and thinking it was amazing, choose learning every line from dirty dancing and still not realising your lived in gayville.

Choose working in a bookies and having to learn how to fight and clean up other peoples piss after a days drinking and losing their weeks wages, choose throwing them out all for £99 a week and thinking you were loaded.
Choose earning your own money and not having to wear white and navy Kappa tracksuits anymore. Aint that right Gemma!!
Choose drinking and partying all weekend then having no hangovers
Choose learning that hangovers come with age and not being able to do it anymore. Choose living in an area where everyone knew you as the guy who drives the luminous green car – choose not being able to do a thing without everyone knowing
Choose losing your license for mooning at a driving instructor, choose deciding never to lose it again.
Choose kissing a man you work with, Choose shock… then choosing to take a week of work and not speak to anyone. Choose your first gay love, choose thinking Jerry Springer was a fake only to discover you could be a guest……………….
choose being heartbroken and thinking your life was over.
Choose having fantastic friends who are always there no matter what. Choose them all. Choose evaluating your life in a far away land… choose coming home and loving it.
Choose travelling to TORONTO...and it being ur second home...along with Sydney and Boston
Choose ur dad sending for the nuns when he discovered you were gay and the nuns telling him its like having a disabled child, choose you not being happy with your dad or the nuns!!!
Choose making up with him and thanking the almighty god, as he died not long after. Choose life is too short for arguments and that to sort them before bed time.
Choose having an amazing nephews and god children...
Choose deciding to go to uni part time only to realise its all over too quickly
Choose to have the best mother ever who accept ya for u...even if ya are a wee bit wing dinged... blocked and phoning her from parties and making her chat to everyone...lol
CHOOSE TO BE LOVED BY A FEW RATHER THAN LIKED BY MANY....
Choose to LEARN from ur MISTAKES......
CHOOSE LIFE....CHOOSE LOVE....CHOOSE HAPPINESS....

CHOOSE MICHAEL xx

What happens when you don't make a list!

I didn't make a list and I got sucked into the vortex of the 42" Celtic Tiger Plasma. After my customary cup of tea, and two rounds of toast I turned on the TV to be greeted with "I'm raising a child I don't know if I'm the father" run of the mill Jeremy Kyle! I ignored the detail of this segment, logging onto the net to catch up with the mornings papers when my ears picked up.

"after the break we have my mums a 62 year old pensioner who can't stop sleeping around."

Well just the title of the segment had me in stitches, Maxie my golden lab pup was looking at me as if I wasn't wise! I can't believe the emotions that flowed through me as I watched it. " I thought 'how disgusting, then I felt sorry for her, then I thought 'fair fucks to her' then I got the shock of my life when her daughter shouted "but she's not even using condoms." The lady in question went on to explain that she'd been married for over 25 years and that she never got any bedroom action. Now that the husband is dead, she is she's loving sex, so much so that the snooker table of her local was the latest place she let someone park his cue! (corny but I couldn't resist) What a spark for life she had - lets just hope people don't keep judging her and that she's invested in some protection.

Then i made another cup of tea and flicked over to This Morning they had a segment "Dunk the Hunks" they were testing men's swimwear by dunking chippendale strippers into a bath of water to see if their speedos stayed on! Just a little eye candy for the mid-morning cup of tea.

and before I knew it there were the Loose Women chatting about everything from Michael Jackson to dressing up in sexy underwear, by the time it was over it was 2.30pm and I was still in my boxers!

p.s. make a list!

Redundancy came & I made a list!

Redundancy came knocking 7 weeks ago and it's not as bad as you might think. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather be working and earning a living than spending my days chasing my dole payment and traipsing all over Dublin like a tourist on a 48 hour visit trying to squeeze in all the sights from O' Connell Street to Dun Laoghire to Dundrum, just to get rent allowance. ( I think I'll save those rantings for another day ). However when I'm not chasing my social welfare payments I'm doing all those things that I never had time to do in the past. What I do most nights is create a list of things to do - it reduces the temptation of turning on the telly and getting sucked into Jeremy Kyle and the twosome over on ITV's This Morning Phil and Fern.

Items that have appeared on the list to date

• Contact the bank (let them know that my credit card payments are being reduced)
• Cancel gym membership - can't believe there are no public gyms in this city.
• Train the dog to sit, lie down, roll over, chase her tail, get up, get down and only eat treats when i tell her too
• Bake Cakes - and by god have I baked. Upside down pineapple cake, Guiness Choclate cake, Blueberry muffins, and pavlova. I'm thinking I'll bake a carrot cake next.
• Cook the majority of the meals - my partner works from home so for the past year or so I had dinner cooked for me most nights, now it was time to pay back the favour
• Have dinner partys - sitting in is the new going out! I'm having great fun trying new recepies on our friends and it's cheap.
• Shop at LIDL - it's so much cheaper.
• Re-upholster kitchen dining chairs - I couldn't believe how easy it was
• Go to the beach - been going every other day - it's great I'd recommend it
• Get back to writing hence the blog (i'm not in the right frame of mind to continue with my book)
• Laugh (at my revenge), everytime I get the feeling of having been made a fool of by my previous, unethical boss. *note to self* send her some cake and maybe even a link to this blog!

So redundancy hasn't been too bad apart from losing some financial freedoms. I'm really happy. I no longer work in a stressed environment where you didn't know if the boss was lying to you or being manipulative and all those things that were at the bottom of the list are now at the top.

Why Me? Why Blog?

OK OK I succumbed and I've decided to start blogging. What am I going to blog about? who knows - at this stage I reckon it will take on a bit of life of it's own! However my first few blogs are going to be about redundancy, my new dog, and daily goings on. I do have a lot of time on my hands since being made redundant.