The Grace Pages

He lives and breathes

Going for three and a half weeks without blogging is almost as great a feat as going three and a half weeks without smoking. I feel justly proud that I have accomplished both.

I didn't set out deliberately to do either: I intended to cut down the smokes to save money, and somehow one day rolled into the next and then the next, and now it's been almost a month; blogging has just fallen by the wayside as a natural result of being busy.

By the way, this is the outfit that has been providing the vast majority of my income recently. What it lacks in impressive financial rewards, it makes up for in sheer enjoyment. I am paid to research and answer whatever questions anyone wants to throw at me.

I'm progressing bit by bit making a career as a freelance writer. I managed to get a regular gig writing copy for the webzine of a major brand, and I have a few articles commissioned. I'm not rolling in money by a long shot, but the first time in a while I might not have the bank calling every five minutes to check I haven't fled the country.

Those of you who wonder about Dave Rattigan will probably want to know how things are going with a) the anxiety/depression and b) the gay lifestyle.

The anxiety has had its ups and downs. While on the whole I've not been depressive like I was for several years before discovering anti-depressants, I have had some phases where the anxiety has returned and really thrown me for six. Being so busy for the first time in months probably partly explains it. The approaching Christmas season is also a time of mixed blessings for me, too. For about the past six years it's always been marked for me by stress as much as enjoyment, and the association with stress can itself induce stress. Argh.

The gay lifestyle has been fantastic. I've had my hair bleached, my nipples pierced, and I have several handsome young men in my bed every night (after I've returned from the sauna). Well, okay, it hasn't been quite like that. It's been more like, well, here's me before when I was "straight", and here I am now and I'm just the same, except I kinda like guys and don't mind sayin' it.

I'd like to get back to blogging every day, but it's something that you really need to get into a rhythm with. Part of the reason the blog lost its rhythm in the first place, apart from the general busyness of life, was that it lost its focus. When I started the Grace Pages, I had an awful lot I wanted to say about the journey out of fundamentalism, and that became almost the raison d'etre of the blog. That's a stage I've been through, and isn't so prominent in my mind, anymore. Biblical studies and theology, another traditional mainstay of the blog, have not excited me much in the last few months, either.

So, we'll see where this goes. Keep checking in, and I may get inspired. Thanks to the folks who have been in touch and inquired after me.

Ciao. :¬)

Goodbye to all that

Quite a few months ago now, I came out of the closet. I admitted I was into fags. I confessed -- publicly, here on this blog -- that there was nothing I was into more than a big puff.

But I've seen the error of my ways.

I haven't done it for three days now.

That's right. I'm converted. God hates fags.

I've given up the cigarettes. (Come on, American readers, you knew I meant 'cigarettes', right?)

Actually, I haven't "given up". I have problems with the whole philosophy of "giving up" and "quitting". It's like when as teenage evangelicals we had to "quit" masturbating and then spent our entire adolescence (and some) obsessed with not masturbating. You only end up inordinately preoccupied with trying not to do things, and then you get swallowed up in guilt and crippling feelings of failure when you slip up.

I didn't make a conscious decision to quit smoking. I did decide I was going to cut down somewhat, but I just sort of slid into not smoking at all. I somehow went all Saturday without having a smoke, and then woke up on Sunday and thought, Well, I'll just go with the flow and see if I can get by. Then Monday came and went, and now it's Tuesday morning and exactly 72 hours since my last smoke.

If I'm honest, the health issue isn't what's prompted me. As for most smokers, I expect, the health risks are just remote "facts" to which I might intellectually assent, but which don't really click or mean much practically. It's the money, really; money I don't have.

There is one cigarette in my pack sitting on the living-room table. I may or may not have it. Frankly, it's easy enough anyway for me to go downstairs to my dad's shop, take a pack of smokes and put it on the tab, but there are too many benefits to not smoking. For a start, my bedroom-cum-office doesn't smell like a bar anymore. (It does smell like a guys' locker-room, but that's a whole nother issue.)

Well, I'm off downtown to put some of that cigarette money into my bank account.