The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Dear Diary. Gordon's party was tonight. Girlfriend still wouldn't let me go. So I threatened not to go to 6-year-old's judo belt ceremony.

"How can you not go to your son's judo belt ceremony?" she said, disgusted.

But it worked, because in the end, she let me go to Gordon's party.

It was almost 9 PM when I arrived at Gordon's party. It was at a grilled meat restaurant. There was a long table with seventeen people sitting along it. They were all old or middle-aged. I counted 13 women but only 4 men.

Gordon was at the head of the table. He was wearing purple. His suit was purple, his shirt was purple, and his tie was purple. The purple tie had purple stripes. From the neck down, he looked like the owner of a sweets factory. But from the neck up, with his glasses and bald head, he looked like a poor man's Harry Hill.

"Paul!" said Gordon. "I'm so glad you could come. It means a lot to me."

He showed me to my seat. In front of me on the table was a gold card with the word "PAUL" in a stylized, elegant script. Everyone else had a name card too.

Sitting next me was a woman in her early 40s. She was called Tia, short for Valetia. The bottom half of her half was dyed blue-green. Her husband was next sitting to her right. He was a balding man with greying hair wearing a chequered shirt. He looked like Antony Worrall Thompson but with less hair.

"My name's David," he said.

"Is that David Casey?" I asked him.

"Okay... that's creepy," said his wife.

"I saw his name in the WhatsApp group. Look, I wrote down all the names." I showed them my notebook.

The last person to arrive was the acting teacher, Antonella.

We ate dinner. My chicken was so dry that it could have given lessons in comic delivery to Alan Rickman. I was still chewing on the chicken when the waiters came to clear the tables.

"I reckon I could do a speech about Gordon," I said to Antonella, off-handedly. "I know his life story."

I only meant it as a joke, but Antonella said "You want to do a speech?", picked up her fork, and started hitting her glass with it. Everyone looked over at us and fell silent.

Shit.

I stood up. Everyone was looking at me.

"Hi," I said. "I'd like to do a speech for Gordon? I'm Paul."

Everyone was watching me now. I cleared my throat.

"Um, I met Gordon about three months ago? This is the eighth time we've met. I've been keeping track."

I didn't mean it as a joke but everyone laughed.

"So Gordon was born in Portsmouth, but 25 years ago to this day, he decided to leave England in search of adventure and fortune. And he's been to so many countries since then that I can't list them all."

Again, not a joke. There was more laughter.

"He's lived in Italy, Germany, even the Congo. But he finally came to Girona, and I'm so glad he did because I've met a man who's unlike any other person I've met before. Gordon, I'm proud to call you my friend and I'm really happy I met you. I'd like to do a toast. To Gordon."

Everyone raised their glasses and said, "To Gordon."

I sat back down.

"That was perfect," said Tia.

"Thanks," I said. "I had to do a speech for my brother's wedding last month, so I guess I just channelled that."

Next Gordon stood up and did a speech. His speech went on for about twenty minutes. At the end he addressed us one by one, expressing his gratitude to us and what we all meant to him. His speech moved everyone at the table. And Gordon cried at the end of it. I thought that was okay. In fact, I think it's good for men to cry at public events. It's not fair that women get to do stuff that men can't, like cry in public.

After the speech, somehow Antonella, Tia, and I got talking about cameras. Old 90's disposable cameras, specifically. "Remember when you took twenty photos, the camera stopped working and you had to buy another camera?" I said. Everyone around me laughed. I feel like I could do a stand-up routine about disposable cameras because I have so much material about them.

Then somehow we got to talking about voice memos. I showed them my voice memos on my phone. I have about 200. I just keep scrolling and scrolling. They were shocked by how many I had. One was marked "important: to do". It was from a year ago. "I have no idea what's on any of them. And I don't have time to listen to them," I said.

In a lull in conversation, I decided to tell Antonella about my dead mom.

"So in the last acting class we did, I thought the last improv scene was really nice," I said. (I had to pretend to be a child dancer and a Russian woman called Lana had to pretend to me my mom.) "Maybe this is too personal, but my mom died when I was young."

"Are you joking right now?" said Antonella.

"No."

"It's just that I don't know you that well and I don't know when you're joking," said Antonella.

"I wouldn't joke about something like that," I said. "And that part where I hugged Lana, and said "I love you, mom," I felt this strange feeling of peace. And I think it was because I was actually saying "I love you" to my real mom. I never got a chance to do that when she was alive."

I felt tears forming in my eyes. I blinked them away. My eyes tend to do that now. It happens 2-3 times a day. I think it's a side-effect from the testosterone gels I'm using.

"That's so nice," said Antonella, putting her hand to her heart. "I'm so happy you told me that. I never realised that improv could help people in that way."

"I'm looking forward to next week's class."

She stopped. "Didn't you see my message?"

"What message?"

"Paul you don't know? The classes are cancelled. Only four people wanted to carry on doing them. It's not enough even to rent the room. There's no more classes."

No more acting classes? My heart sank. I liked those acting classes. They increased my confidence and social skills. And it felt like I was making friends there. At the last one I was talking to an Australian girl called Kayla who I might never see again. She was quirky and cute and had an impeccable knowledge of 90s nostalgia, saying things like “Uh-oh! Spaghettios!” and knowing at least some of the words by heart to By The Way by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

Just then, Girlfriend called me. It was a passive-aggressive call because all she said was, "Where are you?" then hung up.

I said goodbye to everyone and left. It was raining. I ran home. On the way, a car slowed down and a man shouted out the window, "RUN! RUN!" at me.

I got home. Girlfriend was sitting on the sofa, waiting for me like a James Bond villian.

"You were supposed to be home at 11," she said.

'Yeah, I know," I said. "Sorry. It's just that I gave a speech, and then Gordon gave a speech too, and I couldn't leave in the middle of Gordon's speech. Plus I was feeling quite good because of the alcohol."

"I knew this would happen. I told you to be home at 11 and instead, you get back at 12. I can't trust you."

She went to bed still angry at me. Still though: at least I got to go to Gordon's party.