I Love Beauty

As a child, her beauty hurt.

As an adult, this beauty makes me melt.

I am a gay man who loves women and beauty.

I am the man who sprang from a boy who, after seeing the film, Boy on a Dolphin, told his mother: “Mother, were we to rank the most beautiful women of the world in order, Sophia Loren would be at the top followed by a huge gap, after which would be all the rest of the women in the world in one big fat tie.”

Sophia, as I saw her in her films, embodied the passion of love. So did Maureen O’Hara who somehow managed to make integrity manifest. These women taught me that the beauty I loved came from without and within.

Grace Kelly’s beauty felt glacial and Marilyn Monroe’s public behavior made her beauty seem crass, and common. Instead, I felt rapture looking at images of the exquisite grace of Ingrid Bergman and Isabella Rossellini.

Recently I saw the photo above of Michelle Dockery as Lady Mary in a livery costume. It made me swoon like the little boy who’ just seen Boy on a Dolphin. Then I saw this clip of her on the Tonight Show. In it, Hugh Bonneville, Allan Leech (sigh) and Ms Dockery are asked to read a Downton scene with American accents. It gives us a chance to see that Mr. Bonneville was typecast whereas Mr. Leech and Ms Dockery are actors of range.

She nails every line, generously supports her peers and reveals a comfortable and easy capacity to laugh and I am now officially smitten with Ms Dockery (and Mr Leech).

2015 ended in a way that made it grand to leave behind.

I finally found a handsome man who was interested in me and capable of seeing past my HIV status. But he is not a man for me. Sigh. And there were other issues (and migraines), plus I put on weight over the holidays.

But it’s a new year….

2016 will definitely bring some news about my screenplay. I can say that because the option agreement we signed ends in June. It will have to be renewed if they want to proceed. Renewal would be good news as it would indicate continued interest.

During the January - April period, I am taking fourteen cooking classes in two different schools. I have never taken cooking classes before. I liked learning as a child, but not classes because of my introverted nature but I think because it is cooking that I will have fun.

And then comes Spring and Summer, my two favourite words in the English language.