Sorry for the lack of posts, team.
Since being here, I've found that time has a way of getting away from you. And it's not so much that I've been doing a heap load of trip hopping - although I've already done a fair amount of that - no, it's just the everyday things that people do here that tend to eat up a lot of time. Like eat, go shopping, eat, visit friends, eat, sing karaoke, eat, go drinking, and did I say eat? My grandma has been cooking up a storm since we've all arrived and thank goodness for the month of detox diet I did before I left since I would seriously be the size of an elephant by now.
I've caught up with plenty of people, some I remember from when I was a child, a few I've just met and plenty that I no longer recognise. It really is awkward when they come up and greet me as I'm often stumped to think as to whom I'm speaking with. In any case, I seem to get by.
My sister's wedding comes up plenty in conversations as the whole town seems to know that she's going to tie the knot at the end of the week. Invariably, either one of two things will happen. The first is that I'll get asked when I will get wed myself? This usually happens when I'm speaking to someone who hasn't seen me since I was young and so feel the need to ask the question out of politeness or curiosity. After all, it's especially unusual here for the eldest child to not be already married before their younger sibling. I simply answer jokingly that I'm still having far too much of a good time.
The other thing that happen is the one that I find most amusing as well as the most curious. Instead of being asked the question, I will instead get the "look". You know the one, the "I-know-your-little-secret" look, which is usually coupled with a polite smile and not without a hint of pity. It doesn't faze me so much as it unhinges me in the way that some people get unhinged when confronted with something completely unfamiliar. With my not-so-close relatives, whom I haven't felt the need to say anything about my being gay, I can understand why I get the look. Things best left unsaid, and all that. They still treat me the same regardless, so I accept this as their unspoken acceptance (not that I'm after it, you should understand). But from complete strangers? That's something I still need to wrap my head around. I almost want to ask out loud what they know and how they know each time I get it from them. I feel like I'm in a middle of a Chinese Whispers game.
The funny thing is that it happens to some degree every time I go back home. This time around, though, I've found less of the former happening, and definitely more of the latter. I guess that it's a game that's been going around for a good long while.
Oh, and postscript, I'm fast becoming a big fan of Hen's Nights and Bridal Showers, especially since the stripper at my sister's gave a little private performance to, erm, yours truly. It was wicked.
