Hands Full of Glitter and Tofu : 2011 Day 121 (Sunday 1 May) - Wonderful Blast From the Past

Started the day off with brunch with my wonderful friend, Warren, in Newtown at Grub & Tucker, who do breakfasts! Funny how I don't think of restaurants doing breakfast but many of the general restaurants in Newtown do breakfast it seems so duly noted. We had a fantastic catch up chat, great food, and a spot of shopping afterwards. What's not to like?

Then, after a brief rest at home, I welcomed my friend Tim back into my present after not seeing him for 20 years (he's in Brisbane; I'm here and we just lost touch till Facebook reunited us early last year), and we had a BALL! I was very close friends with him back in church days in Brisbane, largely because he is questioning, irreverent, contemplative, articulate and fun, and we picked up the conversation like we had just stopped five minutes before. We spent the afternoon relaxing at the roof top bar at Coopers, in Newtown, eating great food, drinking wine, and largely catching up on each other's lives, and talking theology.

Yes theology! We talked a great deal about how Christianity is rethinking, at least in some circles, what the Bible actually says versus what dogma has built up (much of which is as Biblical as an episode of True Blood), a pertinent issue given that I am a gay man from a Christian background, who left the church because I couldn't reconcile the church's vehement hostility with who I was, and who I believe God made me. It was such an uplifting and encouraging chat, and reminded me that my faith does matter to me, just not the fossilised apparatus surrounding it.

A brilliantly great afternoon, made all the better by shopping with him for LPs for his son who's into sampling at Revolve Records in Erskineville, and having dinner with him and my beautiful man, Steve, at Stir Crazy Thai in Erskineville, where everything from computer databases to current affairs hit the conversation stream. Tim and Steve hit it off wonderfully well, and it capped off an awesome day.