peripathetic

New things, old things
Last night, I got home from a CV-delivery mission in town. Grr. And then made risotto for dinner, and dad gave me the usual praise for just how fantastic it tasted. :o) After dinner I got an SMS from Andy, and we arranged he'd come down to Belfast in the car and we'd go to the sauna. The gay sauna. The gay sauna I always said I'd never go to because 'that sort of thing disgusts me'. I generalise ignorantly just as much as the next person however, so read on.

So, I hung around, practised piano for a while, got called by Andy who needed directions, and then he came up the road in the rain.

It was the first time we'd met up in Belfast, and it was nice to be able to play host for a while. Dad was actually nice to him, which was unexpected and cool. I showed him brilliantly shit 70s and 80s photos of me and my family. Since I really couldn't decide whether or not we should go to the sauna, I thought fuck it, I'll have to go otherwise I'll be condemning something without having experienced it. As well as that, it'd been ages since I'd been in a proper sauna.

It's quite a big place. They have dance music playing and the lighting's quite subdued, and there was nobody there. Well, maybe about 5 other people but that was fine. We went in the jacuzzi which was *massive* and lovely, went into the sauna room itself which was very hot. We were swiftly joined by 3 of the other guys. We stopped talking and I avoided their feral bedroom eyes until they left again.

The steam room smells really strongly of Vick (that stuff your mum put on your chest when you were a kid and had a cold). Ugh. I made some remark about being reminded of being 5 or 6 - in a gay sauna. Surreal. But it was quite nice to breathe that astringent hotness in a way - until one of the earlier 'followers' turned up. We stopped talking again, moved on to different bits. There are showers, a room where you can watch porn DVDs (without the usual crappy music backing-track), cubicles (which you'd only find in a gay sauna, because they're not strictly *sauna* cubicles... ahem) and a cafe.

(My friend Jonny told me that one of his (straight) mates miraculously got through the door one night while pissed. He asked where 'the bar' was, and got laughed at by everyone there. :o)

The place is undoubtedly used as a sweaty gay shag-palace, but has its uses. Some of which I won't be making too much use of. But it's a good sauna, and I had a good night, and I'd go there just for the lovely sauna experience.

So my night started with expectations of dinner and a quiet night in, and ended with me having done what I've not done for about 3 years, and having gotten to play host! yay!, for a change. On the way back home, I had to direct Andy on a detour from the Ormeau Road because of a security alert (prelude to these). Of course then he had to drive all the way back up to Portstewart at 3.30am, but hey. It was worth it. :o)