David is Living His Best Life

David left for Europe. He's been staying since last Friday, complaining about the cold, of course, as NSW people like to.

"You've come to Melbourne in Autumn," I say.

He's gone for 3 and half months. He is doing all sorts of stuff. Eurovision in Italy. The ABBA avatar show in London. Something in Vienna, I think, the new age bullshit he teaches to, what I assume are, bored, single women who can't find boyfriends, or husbands. (Oh yes, I know, that is sexist and, yes, all those things, but true too. He teaches bullshit and he makes a fortune) Sex clubs in Frankfurt. And he's going on a gay cruise.

He says he is my best friend. And I guess he is. (Maybe Sam is my best friend?) I'm not sure what I think about the concept of best friends anymore?

Funny concept the best friend. How many best friends do we have in one life time? I've been kind of hard on best friends. Mark was my best friend. Is still my best friend. Was once my long time boyfriend. Even when we'd been only going out for a year, people assumed we'd been going out for years. Mark moved away.

Tom was my best friend. Ah Tom. Now there was a best friend. You only get one Tom per life time. Seriously, the best best friend a boy could ask for. One of the smartest people I have ever know. Funniest. Coolest. Loveliest. He died of leukemia. He battled it for nearly 10 years, got to remission twice, but in the end he'd had just too much chemotherapy and a brain virus benign to the rest of us took him out in 3 days.

Anthony was my best friend. He was one of my first boyfriends. Well, kind of, back when we didn't know our arses from our elbows and we were only just working out what boyfriends are. We made better friends than boyfriends. He was smart. He was someone who always just got me. Always. He had mental health problems in the end. He went nuts, basically. We tried to rekindle our friendship more recently, but he was hitting the booze to cope with life and he was an angry drunk and I just had to raise my hands and say enough.

Fergus was my best friend. Oh, such a smart, funny, left of centre guy. Really one of a kind. He died of AIDS so many years ago now that... you know when you remember the idea of someone, even if you don't remember them exactly. Sad to say.

David is kind of the Ray Bradbury, chuckle, Steven Bradbury of best friends. Oh, I shouldn't say that, if he ever reads this... (Are you reading this?) As much as I love him, David is all consuming, of life - food, drugs, alcohol, people, whatever. David consumes them all for himself.

Anyway, David is living his best life. Good for him. Translation, travels the world for the Australian winter most years, desperately looking for a boyfriend, the likes of which seems to allude him.