A little bit of perspective for Christmas

Christmas mornings are spent - like everyone else - lazing about the house with breakfast and presents. The usual suspects made their usual appearance in my pile - ties, books and shirts of course. An incredible silky green shirt - that's gonna look great with my new tie. Lovely Didius Falco mysteries from a certain gentleman in Jersey Island. The fantabulous Calvin & Hobbes Collection. Sigh!

And then my ISO decides to drop in with his little bit of Christmas cheer. There are times that I bitch about my ISO calling him names that he thoroughly deserves - and can't defend himself after all since he has yet to find my blog - but after all the shit I pile on him, he is still a good friend who does know me inside out. And deep inside that veneer of wicked good looks is a sweet man struggling to find himself :) Sometimes though it's admittedly harder to find.

Wait. I promised myself no evil thoughts today.

It sometimes takes a good friend to offer a fresh new perspective on things. This morning when the damned bastard came by with gifts ( Oops, I slipped and called him names again! ) to exchange, I finally broke down and told him what's been happening in my life. This was of course after he regaled me with tales of what he bought with his enviably large Christmas bonus - which includes the lovely green silk shirt he bought me. After a long tedious explanation of my odd relationship with Big Bicep Barry ( with some of the more lurid details omitted - not that there were that many to share ) ending with our last monosyllabic phone call, he burst out laughing for lengthy period before sending me a cocky grin and telling me, "Paul, I've said it before but you're a very scary man."

After whacking his head with the book I received, I started thinking. I was astonished to note that Barry did say something similar a while back. Once I started telling my ISO what's been happening, I realized that it does sound like I'm a crazed Machiavellian dictator plotting the downfall of an enemy with a deviousness and cunning unmatched since Atia of the Julii - or at least as she's wickedly portrayed in the television series, Rome.

Or as my ISO so elegantly put it, an obsessed predator single-mindedly hunting down a particularly delicious gazelle standing alone in the African plains. Not that Barry resembles a gazelle at all ( anyone with biceps the size of his bears no resemblance at all to a slim, lithe gazelle but the relentless grass grazing does sound hauntingly familiar ) but I was appalled at the decidedly uncomplimentary metaphors. It's only been three months since I've known him and I've been hounding the poor hapless man like the deranged furies out for vengeance. Just short of a psychotic stalker, I'm sure. No wonder the poor man's been looking at me recently with the stunned, wide-eyed stare usually reserved for doomed Bambis caught under the menacing headlights of a runaway Mack truck.


He's coming to get me!

So curbing my King Kong alpha-male tendencies to take action ( rather than twiddle my passive thumbs doing nothing ), I have resolved to slow down the insane, mindless pursuit and to allow things to develop as they should - if they ever would. Perhaps it is time to take it down a notch. So if you're reading this - whereupon I shall take the next immediate flight to a cloistered Tibetan monastery in the upper reaches of the Himalayas to hide from the utter shame! - the ball's in your court, Barry.

Oops. Okay. The resolve starts after tomorrow night since Barry already reserved tickets for King Kong.