This morning I met the staff at my new job. I wore the almost-Prada black suit and the dark gray shirt. No tie. I came into the city early to get the gang doughnuts from Doughnut Plant. An obvious bid to get them to like me. I got off the subway and had a half an hour to kill, and it was starting to rain. So I ducked into Starbucks and got a decaf latte. And then I sat and did the crossword puzzle for twenty minutes. Time to go! Into the building, juggling my umbrella, my latte, and my box of doughnuts. When I got on the elevator, I put the latte on the box of doughnuts, using the box as a sort of tray. And spilled the latte all over me. So much for making a striking first impression. My confidence--which a minute ago had been at record levels--was just crushed. I was all flummoxed.

The meeting went well. They're all really sweet and young. Most of them are just out of college. They all want raises. Bad news. This, of course, is a problem. Members of the State Legislature get a fixed amount of money to run their offices. It's all about how you divvy it up. Since there's been some absences, it might be possible to juggle the budget a little bit. We'll see. I mean, they're all probably making less than their age, living in studio apartments with six roommates. I know exactly what that's like.

And I start there on October 21st. I may ask El Senadador if I can take that week off and start the next week (and my second day on the job we'll all go out for my birthday!). Why why why did I let my Board chair guilt me out of my oritinal plans to leave on the Thursday before Columbus Day weekend? Oh well.

Sadly, it seems that all the good issues in the office are taken. What the hell does that mean? Staff are assigned various areas of the District, and are responsible for keeping happy constituents that call from that area. And, they also get issues. Here's a run-down of the issues...

Uniformed Services
Prisons
Civil Liberties and XXX establishments
Access for People with Disabilities
Health Care/Mental Health
Arts/Theaters/Libraries
Public Housing
Environment
Transportation
Domestic Partnership
Poverty/Public Assistance/Homelessness
Seniors
Juvenile Justice/Youth
Animals

When I worked for El Senadador before, my issues included HIV/AIDS, Access for the Disabled, Public Housing, Public Assistance, Loft Tenants, and the Environment. I fought to have all of those.

Here's what I'd like to have this time around.

Economic Development and Markets
Arts/Public Art/Theaters/Libraries
Animals
Transportation and PATH
Landmarks and Parks
Uniformed Services

Those are the issues where I think I could do some good work but still be on the same page with El Senadador politically. Here I am, working for one of the most liberal elected officials in the City (and, therefore, the world). And I'm so... uh... not liberal.

The Governor's race heating up could mean it's a whole new landscape. I mean, as a minority member of the State Senate, El Senadador is still totally kneecapped as far as getting anything done legislatively, but if there was a Democrat in the Governor's Mansion, that could raise his stature considerably.

This is why this new job is so exciting to me. Who knows what tomorrow brings? With the current job, the only real excitment comes when something really bad happens. Other than that, it's just paperasserie. But no. Battles, drama, crises. But, for the most part, the issues are abstract. Turf wars. Win or lose, nothing really changes. But it will be fun. And it looks like the people I'll be working with will be fun, and smart, and energetic. So it's all good.

It's 12:45 am. I really should be in bed, but I'm totally juiced. GMSMA's program tonight, the first of the year, was devoted to single tail whips. The presenter was the guy who taught me how to throw all those many months ago, and who put into my hand a baby bullwhip made by none other than Joe Wheeler. So I spent the night in that dreamy place I go to when ever I'm around men and whips. Cracking must release positively charged ions into the air. The presenter, whom we'll call ARtist, concluded the program by demonstrating his technique on the back of the guy who lead the workshop with him last January. Time was short, so they started in without any warm up. Just a few strokes to give the audience an idea of what it looked like. Collectively, we all stepped out of time. Forty-five minutes passed.

I saw several men at Inferno who are recognized as being among the best in the world at whipping. In retrospect, they made me feel sort of inadequate. It was like watching a thunderstorm seeing them work. Relentless and driving as a force of nature. Nothing for the bottom to do but relent. Let the blows fall where they may. My approach, budding though it may be, is different. For me, it's all about connection. It's dancing. I match my moves and adjust constantly to my partner. I'm reacting to him reacting to me reacting to him in infinite regression. I'm leading the scene and the both of us only in the sense that I can see him but he can't see me. But that's a slender thread. Because I'm lost to the the music. Like splitting firewood, like batting a softball, like shooting a pistol at a target, your ego gets in the way. If you think about what you're doing, you think about you doing it, and you fail. Think no-thought. Find your center (your Chi). Focus on the point where you want the whip to kiss, the ax to fall, the ball to sail, the bullet to hit home. You don't exist, only that point does. Your body knows how to do the rest. Or learns over time. With practice.

And of course, absence of ego is critical to love. To the great Giving Up. Anyway, ARtist wielded the whip more sensually than anyone I've seen. And it's all about sensuality for me. Even though he was at the first session of Inferno, I had never seen ARtist do a scene before. All this to say that tonight was terrifically affirming for me. As in, "Yes! I'm doing it right!" As with writing, as with painting, you master technique, and then you develop your voice. You let what's been within you, dormant, all this time come out through this new medium.

After the meeting, I recruited some guys to help me carry my dis-assembled St. Andrew's Cross back to my jeep. Once loaded, Past President agreed to come sit with me while I (finally) got some food in my stomach. We talked the way we always do, like two people who have had eleven cups of coffee each talk. "Yes, and..." Exactly, like..." "And what's more..." "But you see..." Glorious. Past President seems to live life telescopicly (sp.?) Going at it full bore, with white hot intensity, drinking deeply and greedily. It reminds me of a snippet of a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson that I recall. Something like: "...crossing a field at night, frost glistening in the moonlight, I become a transparent eyeball." Ralph Waldo must have been chowing down on moldy rye bread.

Anyway, now I really really have to get to bed. Buona notte.

Uh... the three entries below are my One Hundred Things about me. Do me a favor. If you want to read through them, scroll down and read them in order. Okay? Is that asking too much?

Seventy-Six to One Hundred

76. I grew up in Point Pleasant, Pennsylvania. Well... actually outside of Point Pleasant. Suburban Point Pleasant. I was graduated from Central Bucks-East High School (barely) in 1983. I attended Alvernia College in Reading, Pennsylvania, and was graduated with a B.A. in English in 1987.
77. My first job that I needed a college degree to get was working as a paralegal for the law firm of Montgomery, McCracken, Walker & Rhodes in Philadelphia. It was really wrong.
78. I'm the youngest of three children. My brother is fifteen years my senior and my sister, now deceased, was thirteen years my senior. I was a total surprise.
78. I have a 401(k). I have no idea what it's down to.
79. I have a fly-paper mind. Odd little things get stuck there forever. For example, in the early '70s, there was a Saturday morning children's show (I was a child at the time) that featured Jim Nabors and Ruth Buzzi as robots who take two young earthlings into outer space. Basically, every week they'd land on a different planet and contend with whatever. At one point, they used a special weapon against whatever villain was threatening them: the Ronald Raygun.
80. You can see the Fort Lauderdale Eagle from the balcony of my condo.
81. I can ride a horse. I like to go fast.
82. After my father dies, I'm going to buy a motorcycle. This plan may sound callous, but I know for a fact that if I bought one prior to his demise, that purchase would cause his demise.
83. I sometimes talk in my sleep. However, I do not snore as far as I know.
84. I am an extraordinarily sound sleeper. I've fallen asleep at rollerrinks, nightclubs, leather bars (the Altar), all the time on the bus. Once when I was in college, I slept through an explosion that had my apartment mates convinced that Reading, Pennsylvania was under attack.
85. I was fairly sexually active as a teenager. Never with other teenagers, who didn't interest me much. Usually I was lying about my age to seduce older men into statutory rape. I was generally the seducer. All of these experiences were wonderful, I have no bad recollections. Some of these experiences were kinky sex. In a few instances, I was the Top, but in general, I was the bottom. (Imagine, if you will, a sixteen year old calling a thirty-five year old guy 'boy.' Doesn't work, does it?)
86. I love being drunk. Not falling down drunk. Not bed-spins drunk. But that warm, gushy feeling of a bottle of wine with dinner? Love that. Tragically, living in New Jersey and recreating in New York City means that I'm driving. I never drink when I have to drive home. O'Doul's Alcohol Free Beer is utter swill.
87. The first gay bar in New York City into which I ventured was Badlands, at the end of Christopher Street. I was 17 years old. All the guys hanging around the bar had looks on their faces like they were beholding the Second Coming when they turned around and saw me.
88. When I'm approached by an apparently one-legged panhandler in a wheelchair I'm always looking for the false bottom. When panhandlers on the subway are affecting spastic walks or limps or whatever I always look at their shoes. If the limps were real, their shoes would be worn in odd ways. Mostly they're not. Whenever anyone asks for my help that I don't know, I'm immediately suspicious. I live in dread of someone getting over on me. That said, it's fairly routine with me that when I'm in a deli or the supermarket and the person ahead of me is counting out change to buy food or diapers or beer or whatever I'll cover them. Similarly, I only give to charities that don't ask for me to give.
89. When I need to do some little thing like buy stamps, it will take me on the average two weeks to remember to take care of that.
90. I am heavily invested (perhaps overly so) in people thinking that I'm a nice guy. The fact of the matter is, I am a nice guy. Largely. (Albert Camus' novel The Fall is running through my mind here.)
91. I am currently serving a one year term as Treasurer of Gay Male S/M Activists, GMSMA. Wish me luck on that.
92. I really really really really miss my sister.
93. I have two incurable illnesses. Luckily, neither of them is fatal, or really cause me any problems of significance whatsoever. One is vasculitis. My immune system attacks my capilaries. The only place on my body where my immune system can do any damage is in my lower legs and feet, as the blood moves more slowly there. Consequently, I've got these brown-purple blotches on my ankles and calves. They don't hurt. The only real problem this has caused me is when tricks get panicky, thinking that with (what they assume to be) kaposi's sarcoma so severe, I'm not likely to last the night. The other thing is hypothyroidism. I have to take a wee thyroid shaped pill every day.
94. I am suspicious of people with allergies. When I was about eleven, I started having allergic reactions to chocolate. I like chocolate, and a life without chocolate was not a life worth living. So I would eat chocolate, get very sick, recover, and eat more chocolate. Eventually, I overcame my allergy. Unless it's something like bee stings, I always thing, 'You can, too! So quit whining."
95. I'm really glad that I'm gay. I've only benefitted from that. There have been no drawbacks whatsoever.
96. I like splitting firewood. It's meditative and has a Zen quality. It works your back and shoulder muscles. And I'm really good at it.
97. I have never, ever been lonely. Perhaps this is a result of growing up without sibilings in the house. Perhaps it's just because I'm such good company. I eat alone in restaurants without hesitation. I love traveling alone.
98. Last thing before I leave the house, I turn to my dog and say, "Now I want you to be a good dog today. That means no barking, no up on the sofa, and no pee pee in the house." I do it because he gets this look on his face of stunned disbelief. I know he doesn't understand a word I'm saying (for example, the only time he doesn't get up on the sofa is when it's loaded down with laundry or something.)
99. I'm a total creature of routine. Ritual might be a better word. It's not talismanic (I don't think that if I don't do it 'right' that bad things are gonna happen to me). It's just that I don't like to have to think about things like, 'Where shall I have lunch?' But it does pose a problem. For example, before I go to the gym, I have to go to Factory Cafe and have a latte. 'Wanna meet up before you go to the gym, Drew?' Uh, sorry, I can't.
100. If I could have any life I wanted--living at any time, in any place, and being anyone I would want--I'd pick this life. I have a great life.

Fifty-One to Seventy-Five

Jam on.

51. My favorite color is orange. Until about a year ago, I didn't have a favorite color.
52. I flag as follows. On the left: black, yellow, gray, navy blue. On the right, on rare occasions: gray. I could include red on the left, but II usually don't.
53. I am lousy at picking up guys. Just pathetic. I have no problem at all meeting them, introducing myself, doing chit chat. But for some reason, I can never manage to say, "Let's get out of here and go somewhere so I can work on your back."
54. I'm a big fan of Sex in the City.
55. Here's the iPod playlist I listen to while working out: Smells like Teen Spirit by Nirvana, Elevation by U2, Poprocks and Coke by Green Day, The Queen of the Night Aria, 3 am Eternal by KLF, Layla by Eric Clapton, I'm a Believer by Smashmouth, Disseminated by Soul Coughing, Electricity by Moby, Music by Madonna, Wonderful by the Stone Temple Pilots, Macho Man by the Village People, Justified and Ancient by KLF and Tammy Wynette, Yellow Ledbetter by Pearl Jam, When I Come Around by Green Day, Wild Sweet and Cool by the Crystal method, Bittersweet Symphony by Moby, Naked in the Rain by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Mission Impossible Theme by Moby, 1979 by Smashing Pumpkins, Super Bon Bon by Soul Coughing, Linger by the Cranberries, Dreams by the Cranberries, Gotcha Groove on by Limp Bizkit, YMCA by the Village People, Come Original by 311, Freedom 90 by George Michael, Roller Coaster by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Beautiful Day by U2, Dance of the Whip by Buttboy, Whipping by Pearl Jam, Rollin' (Urban Assault Vehicle) by Limp Bizkit, Beat a Drum by REM, the Fourth Movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Because the Night by the 10,000 Maniacs, Don't Stop Till You Get Enough by Michael Jackson, Carmina Buran by Karl Orff, Play That Funky Music White Boy by George Clinton, Eyes Without a Face by Billy Idol.
56. As I approach the altar to take communion at church on Sunday, I say the Prayer of Humble Access from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. It goes like this: "We do not presume to come to this Thy table Oh Merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs that fall from under this Thy table. But Thou art the same Lord whose property it is always to have mercy. Grant us therefore Gracious Lord that we may eat the flesh of Thy dear Son our Saviour, Jesus Christ, and drink his blood, that we may ever more dwell in Him, and He in Us. Amen."
57. I used to go to a gym run by Nicole Bass, the world's most powerful woman, and her husband Bob. They were great. It was heartwarming to watch them train together. And they'd yell out encouragement to you, like, "C'mon there Stud. Let's see another set. You didn't come here to sit there and look at yourself in the mirror."
58. I favor gray athletic socks.
59. I totally don't dig foot fetishists.
60. I paid a lot of money for a digital camera that I don't know how to use.
61. My people are from the coal regions of Pennsylvania, Pottsville and Wilkes Barre. Consequently, my ancestry is uncertain. From the Urals to the Bay of Biscay, lots of different bloodlines converged to make me. Notably, Russian, Polish, German, Dutch, French, Welsh, and English. Oh, and it's believed that I'm 1/16th Native American. My sister would say, "Iroquois," but it's my understanding that since the Iroquois were a Nation (composed of many tribes) rather than a tribe, that's like saying, "I'm European."
62. My dog is a mutt, too.
63. My second mother was a Scot. He full name was Robina McKye Cunningham Kramer. She went by 'Ruby.'
64. When I was 11 years old, I was running with my dog Moko through fields behind our house. It was winter and their was a full moon. The frost on the wheat was shimmering in the moonlight. I had a sort of waking hallucination that I became a wolf, and I was runnning next to my dog, keeping up effortlessly. My hearing and sense of smell were keen. I was on all fours.
65. There are only a few people--maybe five--on the planet that I totally can't stand. They probably have no idea that this is the case.
66. I think that being a vegetarian past the age of 26 is a sign of mental instability.
67. I drive a 2002 Jeep Liberty LE. I pay a ridiculous amount of money on my monthly lease--I'm embarrassed to say how much--because my Ex is an idiot.
68. When I was 22, I decided that I would never again ask my father for financial assistance. I only did that once, when I bought a house with my Ex.
69. My middle name is Devoe. Devoe was my great uncle. Everyone called him 'Uncle Bo' except me. My mother named me Drew because she liked Andrew but thought that anyone calling her child 'Andy' would be unacceptable. My last name spelled backwards is 'remark.'
70. I had lasik vision correction surgery several years ago.
71. I'd like to move back into Manhattan. This would mean I'd have to have a roommate. My share of the rent would have to be less than $1000. I smoke and I have a dog. My prospects are slim.
72. Although I didn't realize it at the time, my parents struggled financially all the time I was growing up.
73. Peter Gomes, the Baptist Minister at Harvard, has been quoted as saying something I find profound and wonderful: "It is a lie to say that homosexuality and Jesus Christ are irreconcilable, for they are reconciled in me." I say this to myself from time to time.
74. I wear size 10 and a half boots.
75. I find whip cracking to be incredibly soothing.

There's a phenom sweeping through blogdom: One Hundred Things About Me. Although I usually don't like to be so obvious in my narcisism, here goes...

1. Whenever I'm on a bridge crossing the Delaware River, I get teary eyed. I grew up on that river, and... well...
2. I've never been to San Francisco, and it's getting to be a 'thing.' I'll probably see how long I can go without going to San Francisco.
3. I'm good for nought in the morning until I have a cup of Yorkshire Gold tea with evaporated milk.
4. I know the details of how to inject yourself with heroin in such a way as to avoid abcesses and cause minimal damage to your veins and avoid an overdose, although I have never used heroin.
5. I'm an Episcopalian. For most of my life, I've wanted to be a priest. I came close, but blew it a year ago when the crime of ending my seven year relationship with my rage-a-holic Ex soured my rep with the priest who was sponsoring me.
6. If I had money enough and time, I'd forever be learning languages. I do alright with french, and I'd like to learn russian, italian, vietnamese, and latin.
7. When my mind is able to wander (in the shower, driving, on the subway) I usually invent speeches. Such as acceptance speeches (International Mr. Leather, MacArthur Genius Grant, greetings deliverd to President Vaclav Havel upon arriving in Prague to take up my post as U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic). I love public speaking.
8. I rarely watch tv, although I pay through the nose for HBO. I am a slavish devotee of public radio, however.
9. My first musical infatuation was with Billy Joel when I was in the 8th grade.
10. I have a tatoo depicting the head of a wolf over a banner that reads 'Stand Alone.' In the artist's book, it said, 'Lone Wolf,' and I thought that was a little cliche. The most recent book I had read when I got the tatoo about ten years ago was Freedom and Dignity by Erich Fromm, and a phrase in the book I found particularly resonant was 'Stand Alone and Live.'
11. I have a gap between my front teeth.
12. I smoke unfiltered Camels.
13. Although I'm fairly regular in my gym-going, I never do abs or aerobics. Only rarely do I do legs. My legs and my butt are pretty well developed without working them, I'll take a beer gut over washboard abs any day, and the minute there's any problem with my blood pressure or heartrate or whatever I'll start sitting on that damn Life Cycle.
14. When anyone asks me what my favorite movie is, I say, "The Third Man." I like the movie a lot, but the 'true' answer is likely to be the last movie I happened to see. A little intellectual snobism went into me settling into The Third Man as the answer to that question.
15. As a recent college graduate, I applied for the MFA-Creative Writing program at Temple University. I sent them a portfolio of my poetry. I was rejected. I've rarely written poetry since, and I now have a morbid fear of evaluation.
16. In the late 1980s early 1990s, I was very active with ACT UP. I have been arrested at demonstrations at City Hall in Philadelphia, the Varick Street offices of the Immigration and Naturalisation Services, City Hall in New York, Gracie Mansion, Hoffman LaRoche Pharmaceuticals in New Jersey, and probably one or two other places I'm forgetting. My name appeared in the New York Times when I stood up during a speech (then) Vice President Dan Quayle was giving at a New York Conservative Party fundraiser and shouted "What about AIDS, Dan? You can't dodge AIDS!"
17. No matter how many choices of ice cream I'm presented with, I usually ask for coffee ice cream.
18. The foods I don't like are eggplant, okra, and coconut.
19. While I was living in Philadelphia, I recognized the photo of a recently arrested serial killer of gay men that appeared in the paper as a trade-y guy I had picked up cruising in Judy Garland Park and brought home. Our night together was pleasant, and (comparatively) uneventful.
20. When I had the phone conversation in which I told my father that I was gay, we ended up debating whether or not Leonard Bernstein was also gay. My Dad and I are both really good at avoiding uncomfortable issues by discussing current events.
21. I was graduated from college with a 2.78 GPA. Every semester, there would be one course that I would get a D in. There's an F on my transcript for Italian II. I remember doing well in the class and enjoying it. I got A's in Irish Literature, Modern American Fiction, Metaphysics, Ethics, the Mystery of God, Modern American Poety, and a few other classes.
22. If you want me to be putty in your hands, just gently stroke the nape of my neck or my back.
23. I'm basically incapable of holding a grudge. Before too long, I want to call up whoever done me wrong and re-connect.
24. My mother died when I was three-and-a-half. I have almost no memory of her. My father re-married. My second mother died on the eve of my 12th birthday. My father re-married a second time. That was twenty five years ago.
25. I (secretly) look down on people who smoke pot into adulthood.
26. If I could start over again career-wise, I'd like to be either an architect, a cop, or a theoretical scientist such as an evolutionary biologist.
27. When Mark Messier played for the New York Rangers, there were three times when people on the street asked if I were he. This totally thrilled me.
28. Life has not presented me with any experiences that would contradict the Existentialist ideas I subscribed to in college.
29. My Myers-Briggs is INTP. Or at least it was when I was tested 17 years ago.
30. I own six single tail whips, four floggers, and one braided cat. All four floggers and the cat have been used on a back, but only two of the whips have.
31. I have to sit and think which is 'left' and which is 'right,' and usually need a mnemonic device of some kind to figure it out. Frequently, I'll make a mistake with this, telling someone to turn left when I mean right.
32. I love to dance, and I nurse the idea that I'm a really good dancer. And I live in terror that someone will disabuse me of this idea.
33. My belly button is an innie.
34. My dick is the standard six inches. It might be bigger than that, but I like to tell guys I'm six inches so they can say, "No way are you six inches. You're bigger than that!" My balls are the size of apricots.
35. From time to time, I fantasize about being pimped out.
36. I'm afraid of snakes, but not much else.
37. I liked The Bionic Woman more than I liked the Six Million Dollar Man.
38. I tend to collect stones and shells.
39. I've been swimming at the Jersey Shore in November and April. The water was really cold.
40. Look up 'Passive-Aggressive' in DSM IV and there's my picture. Although I'm a lot better with that than I have been.
41. I don't wear sweaters.
42. My New Year's resolution this year will probably be something like 'get really good at rope bondage.'
43. I was with Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Soap. Never in my life have I used cologne, anti-perspirant, or deoderant.
44. I don't like brie.
45. Kate Jackson was my favorite Angel.
46. I didn't discover masturbation until after I had had sex for the first time. (Uh... first three times.) I was reading an article in Philadelphia Magazine about teens at the beach in Wildwood, New Jersey. They had a picture accompanying the article of several jocky looking guys standing around a beer keg smoking cigarets. Without even touching myself I shot so hard I hit the ceiling. I was fifteen at the time. I quickly made up for lost time.
47. In being the Executive Director of a community based non-profit organization with a staff of twenty-four that realized $1.8m in revenue in the last fiscal year, I channel Kermit the Frog as he appeared on the Muppet Show.
48. There's not a lot I wouldn't do to have seventeen inch arms and a forty-eight inch chest. Unfortunately, one of the things I wouldn't do is see my nuts shrink down to the size of raisins.
49. I was totally devoted to Scooby-Doo. Hell, I still am. But not after they fucked it up with Scrappy-Doo.
50. I resent the fact that I never played ball with my father.

Okay. That's enough for now. This is pretty exhausting. I would go back and add clever links to some of those, but uh... I'm not gonna. Maybe later or tomorrow I'll see how I do with 51-100.

God, the West Village, and an Ode to Bears

Church was great yesterday. The scripture was the parable of the laborors in the field (the guys who start at 8am make the same as the guys who start at 5pm even though they're all done work at 6pm). The Old Testament passage was Noah and the bush. The sermon was okay, but with so much on which to meditate, I did better on my own. Thinking about the love of God. Poured out on all of us. "I am persuaded to believe that nothing can separate us from the love of God," said Saint Paul. A lot of people hate Paul for one reason or another. I find it hard to hate someone who says things like that.

After church, I had one of those great days in the West Village that I love. I had eggs at Espresso Bar. Bought anti-bacterial soap and Q-tips at the drug store (still cleaning Lake Michigan out of my piercings). Bought tea. Went to the gym. Had pizza. Hit the Dug Out for Beer Blast.

Can I just say, I love Bears. There are no bad ones, I swear. Lovers of life, with all of it's pleasure and pain. Revelers in the sensuous. Such joy. Such love.

For the un-initiaited, the Dug Out is a bar down at the end of Christopher Street. On Sunday afternoons and early evenings, they have a beer blast. It's packed. With Bears. I mean packed. Working your way from the door to the bar (a distance of about 15 feet) can take twenty minutes, and involves intimate bodily contact with probably fifty big, sweaty, shirtless men. In any other bar, I'd be headed for the door. But the Dug Out is different. It's good feelings all around. You see a hot guy. You give him a 'Woof,' work his nips, make out for a while. Taste and see the goodness. And because of the energy in the room, every guy is a hot guy.

I've only experienced this vibe with Bears. I've never been to a Bear event, but I'd sure like to go. I imagine a sort of wonderful bacchanalia. It's my understanding that Renaissance Faire's are popular with Bears. This makes perfect sense to me. I've never been to a Renaissance Faire where I didn't have to be carried out after all of that supping and quaffing.

On the whole, Bears seem to be total romantics, too. A few times in my life, I've watched two grown men fall head over heals in love with each other. All those men have been Bears.

Alas for me though: I like Bears, but Bears like other Bears. No, I'm built like an Armani model. And that just won't do at all. And I'm not all that hairy, either. Having a really bushy moustache counts for a lot, but I don't know that I'll ever be able to attain true Bear-hood.

Here's a Bear site.
Here's another one.
Here's a Bear event.
Some local Bears.
Oh cool! Here's a book on Bears I'll be reading soon.
Bear resources. Great site.

Go Bears!




And Cubs! Oh my God, are more desireable men imaginable? Big, life-lovin', romantic... and submissive!

Love this little bon mot:

"A conservative is no longer a liberal who's been mugged; now a conservative is a liberal who hasn't been mugged in a while, and realizes he has a conservative to thank."

--James Lileks

What do you get when you cross a a gorgeous onion with a good looking donkey?

An ass so beautiful it brings tears to your eyes.


This little joke came to mind tonight at the Eagle, where I met this stunning Brazilian boy. He was very proud of his ass, and well he should be. Like the hood of a Studdebaker. I have church tomorrow, but I got his number. Hope to be plowing that carnival of gluteal pulchritude before to long.

But I did bring home a trophy. A softball trophy. It's about 8 inches high, a statuette of a batter who just got a hit. It has my name on it. I'm pretty thrilled. It'll be right there on my desk when I start my new job.

And, met up with the Special Guy and we went to see a movie, Secretary. Superb. Wonderful. Surely the best representation of S/M I've seen in the media.

So Geez. The weekend is wide open. Except for a Softball Banquet and Awards Ceremony at the Eagle tomorrow night. What an odd thing a weekend is. It's Friday night, and it seems to be stretching out in front of me like a newly discovered continent. At some point on Sunday afternoon, I'll feel the icy hand of back-to-work-tomorrow get a firm grip on my spine.

Huh. There's an autumnal coolness in the air. And I'm starting to feel like I always do this time of year: meditative and wistful. On October 29th, I'll have attained my 38th year. I always get this way around my birthday. "At my back I always hear/Time's winged chariots drawing near."

I want a second chance at 33. What the hell is that supposed to mean? Well, I'll tell you. When I was in college, we were discussing Joyce's Ulysses in my Modern Novel class. Stephen Daedalus is 33 at the time of the action. Beth DeMeo, the prof, pointed out that 33 is a significant age in literature. Stephen is 33. Christ died at the age of 33. Hamlet was 33. In medieval thought, everyone would be 33 years old in heaven, regardless of their age at death. At 33, the fires of youth--the sense of assurance and optimism and wonder--are still burning. But, at 33 your own mortality--the fact that you will die and be forgotten, shuffling off this mortal coil--enters your consciousness in a big way. To the extent that I understand Heidegger (which is minimal), this is what starts Dasein on his way to Authenticity, the confrontation with nothingness. So 33 is like the tip of the mountain. Literally, the prime of life.

Now, don't get me wrong. Good things happened when I was thirty-three. Five years ago tonight, I was most likely sitting at my desk, typing away, just like I am now. But my desk was in a room over a liquor store on Cypress Avenue in the South Bronx. I was the coordinator of a network of needle exchange programs operating across New York State. I didn't know at that point that I really only had two and a half more months at that job. I was starting to embark on a major lobbying campaign up in Albany. I was really, really happy about the fact that once the Legislature was back in session I'd be spending a lot of time in Albany. Because Albany wasn't home.

My Ex and I were looking at houses, hoping for one to buy. We were living in Boerum Hill, a nice brownstone neighborhood in Brooklyn. We hadn't yet seen the house we were going to buy, located in Lefferts Manor, another neighborhood in Brooklyn. We were buying a house, it seems to me, the way heterosexual couples (wrongly) have children: to save the relationship. Again and again we would do something (move in together, move to Brooklyn together, buy a house together) to shackle ourselves more tightly to oneanother.

Five years ago, I was probably late at the office. Not because I had bunches of work to do, but because home was a place I tried to avoid. The binding wasn't working too well. My fantasy life was fairly rich. My fantasies were played out on America On Line. (I know. How pathetic is that?) I'd connect with some guy. Usually some guy with a mention of S/M in his profile. I'd work up to the point where he'd say 'Okay, let's meet,' and then I would present some excuse why I couldn't. Some of them were legit, most weren't. I just cringe thinking of my Walter Mitty self back then. Whining and moaning my way through therapy sessions every Thursday night.

During my 33rd year, we found a house, put in an offer, went into contract, I switched jobs and came here to my current job, we got approved for a mortgage, we closed on the house and moved in, we were featured in the Habitats column of the Real Estate section in the Sunday New York Times. At home, it was bicker, bicker, bicker. Mostly me getting yelled at for one thing or another. There were a lot of fights that first year on Lincoln Road. And, I came back from a meeting in December, 1997 where I was offered the job here and greeted at the door by my Ex. He told me that my sister was in the hospital. The doctors weren't giving her a lot of hope. She survived, miraculously, and would live for 19 more months. I visited her when I could, and each visit was an occasion for an blow-out with my Ex.

So that was my 33rd year. The year I had been 'looking forward to' since my Junior year at college. Truly I feel that I missed it. That it went by me. Why? Because I wasn't myself. I wasn't myself at all.

Now, I feel much more myself. I do what I want. I am who I am. I stand or fall on my own decisions. I take responsibility. I'm a person. People know me and like me. I'm meeting new people and forging new friendships. I'm learning new things. I'm dating a great guy. I'm in love for the first time in my life.

I think I'll go home and read the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. In response to an email I sent out to professional colleagues announcing my departure from my current job, I got an email back quoting a portion of it...

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, ³Do I dare?² and, ³Do I dare?²
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair‹
[They will say: ³How his hair is growing thin!²]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin‹
[They will say: ³But how his arms and legs are thin!²]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

I remember the part of the poem (and I'm bad at memorizing poetry, I always get it wrong) that goes:

Do I dare eat a peach?
Or wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach?
For I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
And I wonder, will they sing for me?
(something something something)
(something about frolicking with the mermaids in their sea chambers)
Till human voices wake us and we drown.
Let me find a link to the poem. See how close I came. Here it is. Huh. I didn't do too bad. Just left out a couple images. And Prufrock doubts the mermaids will sing to him, not wonders if they will.

Oh. My. God.
I thought I'd seen it all and done most of it. And then I run across this.
Take it from me--a man who gets sexually excited when his whip work on the back of a bound human target draws blood--this is weird and scary.

"Let's play 'Word Association!'"
"Okay!"
"Vin Diesel."
"Chained at my feet, soaked in my piss."

Yeah. Still.

Wonder when the dvd of XXX comes out.

So, when Baron von Philadelphia was watching my apartment, he went through 3 boxes of dog biscuits in 2 weeks. The routine: after we get back from the night walk, Prosper (that's my dog) gets a dog biscuit. Prosper is fine with this. At no other point in the day does he cast upward his wistful brown eyes. But now, every time I so much as look in the direction of the kitchen, guess what's on boy-boy's canine mind? So I'm weening him back to the prior, abstemious routine.

Last night, Special Guy slept over. (Great as usual. "Yeah! Right down my throat!" being the operative bon mot.) Before we went to bed, I heard the unmistakable *clunk* of a biscuit hitting the linoleum floor in the kitchen, followed by chewing. And then I heard it twice this morning.

What is going on here? Do my nearest and dearest believe that I'm some sort of Dr. Mengele? Slowly starving my dog? Is it a bid for my approval, as in, "I'll be nice to his dog, and then he'll like me more"? Folks, rub his tummy. Scratch that spot on his butt. Lay off the Milk Bones.

Dig. I just had lunch with Rabelais and Montaigne.

The book I'm reading is great. From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present, written by Jacques Barzun (Harper Collins, 2000). It's just magnificent. Perfect balance of breadth and telling details. Luckily, Barzun wrote a lot of books. I've only read The Culture We Deserve to date. Hate that when you read everything an author has written.

Wondering who I have in mind? Isaiah Berlin, Agatha Christie, Iris Murdoch (fiction), Larry Kramer, William Barrett, Wallace Stevens, Joe Orton, Jack Kerouac. Except for Kerouac, I just swallowed them. Like candy. Couldn't get enough. Jack took doing. Some of his stuff is sooooo tedious. "That's not writing, that's typing." There are probably a few others I'm not thinking of. And a few authors who have only published one book, and whaddyaknow, I read it. I think Stephen McCauley, who wrote the last book I read (True Enough) only has two others to his credit. And I read The Object of My Affection.

Oh. And Michael Cunningham. He wrote The Hours, which is one of the most brilliant books I've read. And I know him. He's such a total hottie. He was the friend of friends of mine, and we'd run across each other not infrequently in the early '90s. He always had a boyfriend. But there was always (always!) that certain electricity in the air whenever we ran into each other. Okay. I'll spill. I wanted him bad. He's tall and rangy and hairy. I bet he makes a lot of noise in bed. I bet his cum tastes like apricot preserves. I bet he loves to take it deep and slow.

*sigh*

Reading broadens one's perspective so.

I been thinkin'

I'm like way into this blog thing. Some of the people I know read my blog, and comment on it, or let me know they read it by asking "How is Special Guy?" When they do, I'm always sort of taken aback. It's like catching someone reading your journal. And yet, after the 'taken aback' fades, I'm sort of titillated. (Chances are I misspelled that word.) A friend of mine once sort of proclaimed Yoda-like: "Never tell people your dreams. It gives them insights into you that you yourself don't share." So maybe it's the power imbalance that I find exciting. Cagey as I am, I wonder if readers have a take on me, some glimmer of the answer to my karmic riddle.

But I continue to write. Regardless. Or because of.

And heeeeere's a wee bit of irony. Last October 1st was Liberation Day for me. I left my ex. Doing so, I packed only all of my stuff that I could fit in the car. One of the things that I left 'for later' was my desk, and the contents thereof. My ex found and read my journal. I was pretty stunned. "I wouldn't have done that to you!" (His response was that I left it there on purpose, because consciously or subconsciously I wanted him to read it." Months later, he packed up all the stuff I'd left behind (which wasn't a lot) and movers brought it to me at my new home in Jersey City. Sorting through it, I found that he had mistakenly included a box from the basement that held all of his old journals. All of them. From before he knew me, right up through the time when we were first living together. (I don't know for how long he continued to maintain a journal, so I don't know how far forward they go.) Anyway, after the day when I opened the box, wondered 'Hmm... what's this?", and opened one up and figured out what it was, I have not read a single word. During our short-lived attempt at counseling, I told him that in fact I had his journals and I hadn't read them. He was sort of flabbergasted. Well, he interrupted raging at me to be flabbergasted for a moment, then went back to raging at me. So he knows. But he hasn't asked for them back. And I'd be happy to mail them or even drop them off. But I still haven't read them.

And a second helping of irony. When I was a senior in high school, my step mother (my dad was widowed twice and remarried twice, she's still with us) found and read my journal. It was not pretty. At that time, things were verrrrry bad between me and my stepmother (better now), and I spilled a lot of ink slamming her. And there I was defending myself. Since that time, I continued to journal (done that my whole life), but I would do so in code. To the point that if I look at journals from my early twenties, I have no blessed idea what the hell I'm talking about. What does 'visit the museum' refer to? Who the hell is 'Heathcliffe' and what did he say to me when he was drunk? It's maddening. Over time, I overcame that. I allowed myself to be honest and forthright in my journal. And my ex read it.

And with all that experience under my belt, here I am typing away and clicking the 'Post & Publish" button for broadcast over the World Wide Web. How bout dat.

Yo. I'm not the only blogging leatherman in the world. John and Sparky got it goin' on.

But it looks like I'm the only blogging single tail top leatherman.

Patient Non-Compliance

About two years ago, I tried to get into a study at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital of a drug in Phase I trials, a smoking cessation aid. Part of the intake was bloodwork. My bloodwork came back and I was told that I was ineligible for the trial, and that I should contact my doctor. I did. It turns out that my bloodwork indicated that I was hypo-thyroidal. This means that my thyroid gland, which regulates metabolism, had slowed way down on the gladular secretions.

At this point I did a web search on hypothyroidism. Here are the symptoms:

Fatigue
Weakness
Weight gain or increased difficulty losing weight
Coarse, dry hair
Dry, rough pale skin
Hair loss
Cold intolerance (can't tolerate the cold like those around you)
Muscle cramps and frequent muscle aches
Constipation
Depression
Irritability
Memory loss
Abnormal menstrual cycles
Decreased libido

Uh... No. No. No. No. No. Yeah, but it predates my diagnosis by a decade. No. No. No. No. No. No. Not applicable. Definitely not.

At the time, I asked my doctor if it couldn't be the case that I was hyperthyroidal. That I was putting out too much of the stuff. Clearly not. She started me on hormone replacement therapy, and over the past two years, my dose has steadily increased.

Blah blah blah blah. What is this? Senior citizens grousing over Mah-Jong? Here's the thing. When I went away, I forgot to take my meds with me. So I had a two week thyroid medication vacation. Bad patient! So I come back from vacation (I felt fine, I wasn't depressed or irratible, and my libido was definitely in good working order) and I went for the gym for the first time in two weeks. I jumped on the scale, fearing the worst: that my weight had dropped into the 170s during two weeks of not working out. I weighed 188. The most I've ever weighed in my life. Two pounds away from 190, my goal weight for the past decade of lifting weights. I look great. Special Guy was like, "Damn! You're huge!" (I am not huge.)

So I've kind of been skipping doses of my medication. I once jokingly suggested to my doctor that I hold off on treatment until I put on some pounds. She laughed. Here's another fun fact: my thyroid medication, Levoxyl, is an abused pharmaceutical: it's taken by women who want to lose weight. Because it speeds up your metabolism. I read in some body-building magazine (no more unreliable source, I know) that what you try to do if you want to gain is slow down your metabolism. Sort of ironic that among my last blogs before I went on vacation was all about me mulling doing steroids.

Huh. I just noticed that the skin on my arm is dry and flakey.

Awnry and Irish (who rocks) responded to these questions, so I will to.

1. The Enormous Pickle
2. Sitting in the waiting room at GMHC's David Geffen Center waiting for the results of my HIV antibody test. Fear turned out to be unfounded.
3. Constant change ups or the mind tends to wander.
4. Uhh... Undisclosed location West of Chicago, East of Cleveland, North of St. Louis.
5. Whatever it is, I'm doing it on a volunteer basis, so it makes me feel great. And (most importantly) I don't need the money...
6. Tragically, I didn't get that gene. I do my best.
7. A hybrid bullwhip-signal whip made by Joe Wheeler. Bar none.
8. 15 oral. 22 anal. And I fisted a guy when I was 17. Really.
9. Speed dial. Even though I have an uncanny capacity to memorize numbers.
10. L'Essence de Moi. My handsoap doesn't even have a scent.

I heard this guy respond to a polite question with 'Hel-lo?'
I love that. An Alicia Silverstein in Clueless moment.

I've been giggling about it ever since. Imagining him just sort of prattling on like a cheerleader.

"Like, that is sooo ten minutes ago."
"Don't be that guy!"
"Fact!"

Here's an interesting thing. This website is basically photos of a demonstration in San Francisco during a visit paid by our Vice President, Dick Cheney. If you scroll down (and down and down and down) there's a picture of counter demonstrators (i.e., pro-Cheney). Beyond the fact that it's sort of news to me that Dick Cheney invokes such strong positive feelings that people would spend a day marching in a circle to express their love, I'm sort of charmed by one of the signs that reads, 'Cheney ROCKS.' I love that. From now on, whenever Dick Cheney's name comes up in conversation--whether I'm a part of that conversation or not--my lighter will be out of my pocket and lit over my head and I will be heard to exclaim, "Cheney rocks!"

Oh, and if I had the germ of an idea that it might be fun to live in San Francisco at some point in my life (and that is verrrrry unlikely), it's gone now.

September 11th, six days later.

Right. Last Wednesday. I was driving through Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio. I didn't think about it in advance, but that was a great way to spend the day. We passed flags at half mast. Folks behind the counter at Starbucks or Wendy's or whatever were wearing 'United We Stand' pins. I didn't have the news on. I was listening to REM and Staind and Crystal Method. I didn't think about it at all. I didn't think 'Gosh, it's 1pm. Last year at this time I was dialing my parents number over and over and over and over again to let them know I was safe in Brooklyn.' If I were in NYC last Wednesday, I don't know what I would have done.

Here's what's wrong for me. There was no news. My means of navigating life in general is to gather information and put it all together in a sort of constantly shifting mosaic of my understanding of the world. That's how I got through September 11th and it's aftermath last year. (Did you know that the World Trade Center, built on unstable landfill, sits in a sort of giant subterranean bathtub? A big concern was that the wall of the bathtub would be breached. Water from the Hudson River would flow in and fill up the bathtub. The other thing that penetrates the bathtub are the PATH trains. So the water would have flowed into the PATH tunnels, under the river to New Jersey, then back through the tunnels into Manhattan, where the PATH connects to the New York City subway system. The subways would flood, crippling the city, and there would be nothing that anyone could do to prevent it from happening due to the intricacy of the tunnel network. Did you know that? I did.) And there was no new information last Wednesday. And absent information, I'd just be sort of left with feeling. And we couldn't have that.

This site is just totally brilliant. Astonishing. Amazing.
Happy At Least You're Not A Snowboarder Day!
She says 'yo,' too.

One for the cosmos

Huh. Problems with the blogger server. When I try to look at my blog (and I guess when anyone else tries to look at my blog) I get a 'Template Not Found" error message. Dang. And I passed out the url to my site at Inferno to a bunch of potential new readers.

Mean

Okay okay okay. So I've been back from Inferno XXX! since Thursday and I haven't written. Been busy, y'know. Baron von Philadelphia was watching my apartment and my dog while I was away, so I had to spend some time with him. Specifically, we went down to Soho, where I did my best to reinvigorate our flagging economy by buying lots of chic clothes for my new job. And after two weeks of missing the Special Guy, I spent Thursday night with him. So wonderful to just hang out with him.

Oh. And my softball team did really well in the tournement we played in in Montreal. We got a bronze medal. As in, each of us got a bronze medal. As in, I now have a bronze medalion on a red ribbon earned from playing softball. As in, I haven't taken it off since I picked it up on Saturday night. Sheeee it. And it was a blast. In the games that counted that we played on Sunday (before I had to hit the road), I outran the ball and slid into home (after doing that thing that small animals do on the freeway before being flattened by an 18-wheeler, sort of scurrying back and forth between third and home plate). And, I hit the ball better than I have ever in my life. "Line drive right up the middle." All about creative visualization.

Past President (of GMSMA) was my traveling companion. Past President was the ideal traveling companion. He's an excellent navigator, and he doesn't drive. So there was no criticism (that he gave voice to anyway). And he was endlessly tolerant. No complaints about my musical selections. I was unable to pass a highway rest stop that offered Starbucks coffee... Not a problem.

After a drive that flew by, Past President and I arrived at The Site. Now, it seems to be A Thing that Inferno is not discussed outside of Inferno. And that's pretty cool. Perpetuating the mystique that surrounds the place. So, gotta be vague. I met some wonderful guys, including a Radical Faerie from a sanctuary in Tennessee, a guy who Does Mean Well from San Diego, and Siddharta Sadist from Denver. And, I got to know several guys I knew from New York and my friend the Gloved One from St. Louis so much better.

Scenes? There were scenes. Amazing scenes. Like watching Opera. And I did alright, too, on a more humble scale. I had the profound and moving experience of delivering floggings to two wonderful men, one of whom, Does Mean Well, returned the favor. I (briefly) single tailed a guy, fulfilling his fantasy. Literally. Gloved One electrocuted me. (There's probably a better way to put that.) Does Mean Well also gave me a massage, something that was absolutely a first for me. Siddharta Sa followed up with another massage that had an altogether hypnotic quality. I did a shaving scene with a guy I adore from NYC.

Beyond the scenes, there were a few other notable experiences. There was a Noted Author among us. A few, actually. But one Noted Author in particular provided me with quite an experience. I was there for set up, so I arrived at The Site a few days before the deluge of Infernals. After the big arrival, I noticed this guy noticing me. Intently. A lot. Which was cool. Until I learned who he was. After that, i went into celebrity mode. You'd think that living in New York for the past decade, where I'm climbing over them, I'd become hardened. But no, I eat at a restaurant owned by Al Lewis (aka Granpa Munster) and I'm just awed into silence. So one morning I'm headed out to get into some practice with my newly acquired whip. I come around the corner, trimming the lower brances of a willow tree with some well targeted cracks, and there's Noted Author, sitting alone, watching me as usual. For once in my life, I came up with something clever to say in the moment as opposwed to the next morning in the shower. "I wish I was as good at whipping backs as I am at whipping shrubery," sez I.

He laughed. A conversation ensued. (!) At one point he lowered the boom. "I've been observing you. I have to say that you bring a great spirit and energy to this gathering."

Yo.

So what's it all mean? Here's something I didn't expect. There was so much love there. It was everywhere. And here's what I took away from the experience: I will live my life for love. Nothing else. it's not about power or money (it never really was with me) or recognition (it always kinda was with me). It's all about love. Giving love. Bringing love into the world. Love is the priority.

And something I never, ever have done before: I let go. I surrendered. When having sex (in all it's wonderful variations), my concern is always on the pleasure of my partner. Getting a massage from Does Mean Well, getting a massage from Siddharta Sadist, getting flogged by Does Mean Well. I just let go. I submitted. It was sublime.

I feel much more me when I'm in charge, orchestrating, administering, giving, doing, bringing about. But I can be yin as well as yang.

And I can be mean. Does Mean Well and I co-topped in a scene. He did mean well. Getting all growley and nasty. But I was my loving sensuous self. Does Mean Well was sort of giving me signals (the bottom was blindfolded, natch) along the lines of 'No no no no no!'

So on the final night, I was invited to jump into an interrogation scene. And I made it happen. I found Mean. And Mean was great. Mean felt wonderful. I can be mean as I need to be.

Love. Mean. Inferno.

Parting is such sweet sorrow. I'm off to play softball in Montreal and whip some men in Michigan. Blogging again in the middle of the month, if not before.

I am so ready to turn my ass into a pin cushion.

What's up with that? Here's the deal. I can not get my weight over 186. I work out really really hard at the gym. I eat enough to feed a plough horse. It's genes. Damn them. I come from a long line of tall and lanky people. (Given the fact that my forbears were coal miners, they must have been bumping their heads fourteen times a day.)

I'm living in the 21st Century. And I'm a 21st Century kind of guy. I can change my eye color. I can get liposuction. I can avoid baldness. I can pierce any part of my body I feel like. I had my myopia and astygmatism corrected through laser surgery. I'm not used to to taking 'no' for an answer. Especially when what I want is something that seems fairly simple and straightforward: sixteen inch biceps and a forty-eight inch chest. I mean, it's not like I'm after (Heaven forfend) washboard abs.

Steroids proliferate. The obvious problem is the aggressiveness and moodswings. But I am such a low-key, even tempered guy that I doubt that would be a big problem with me. Maybe swing me up to normal. Normal for New York City anyway. And then there's the fact that abuse will turn your liver into pate de compagne. But, I rarely drink alcohol, and I could avoid Tylenol (processed by the liver), and drink lots of water. The liver is one of the few organs that can repair itself if you take care of it. So that leaves the issue of testicular diminution. Mine are nice. The size of apricots. I would hate to see them go. I wonder if they come back?

Maybe I should talk to my doctor about this. See if she can give me a compelling reason why not. But here's the thing. I know so many guys that use them--many with a doctor's prescription--that the credibility goalposts are already set pretty far back. I could probably score some without much difficulty. And I have all the sterile syringes that I could want. Gratis. A moral dilemma.

Off to see the Staten Island Yankees play ball. It's PEZ night!

Every affirmation is also a negation (said Georg Hegel). (Love saying 'Georg.') When you say 'yes' to something, it means that there is an infinity of possibilities that you're saying 'no' to at the same time. Love is the most profound affirmation. When we chose to love someone, not only is there a planet full of people that we are effectively deciding not to love, but there is so much that in the end, you're forgoing.

How jarring that realization is. For me, it's all about saying 'yes.' Me and Molly Bloom. If I'm going to affirm a relationship (and that's definitely where things are headed with the Special Guy), I want there to be as little 'no' as possible. Sound thinking? Realistic? Ay, there's the rub.

Finally! What a thrill! I'm blogging from my Jersey City digs. Y'see, I neglected to write down my password and user name, so attempts to sign on from home have been pretty fruitless. Finally, today, I figured out how to get that info from the fine folks at Blogger.

Jiminy. I'm so in love with the Special Guy. Still. The smell of him, the taste of him when we kiss, the feel of his hairy chest, the sound of his laugh. The way he looks at me with such kindness and intensity when I'm telling him about my day. Unfortunately, his sciatica is acting up again, so we won't be getting together tonight. Fortunately, we're good to go tomorrow after my the party for my softball team at Ty's (y'all come!) and possibly the next night, too. Can't wait. Sure nuff, Inferno (Inferno! Inferno!!) will provide many distractions, but that won't stop me from missing him the entire time I'm away.

It's official. Quasi. This morning I called the Senator and said 'yes.' At the staff meeting today I announced to everybody that I was out of here. Now I'm waiting for my board chair to get out of a meeting so that I can give her the news. I decided to make my start date October 21st. That way I can (hopefully) take some time in between jobs. I'll be available to meet with staff at the Senator's office and even do other stuff in the mean time. In fact, I'm pretty much a lame duck. Not like I can start anything. And (I've done such a good job at putting a management team in place that) the agency runs itself.

So, I guess between now and October 21st, there will be lengthy postings to my wee, humble blog.

My apartment is still a wreck. Well, half a wreck. The bedroom (formerly the livingroom) is tidy and pristine. But the livingroom (formerly the bedroom) is strewn with all manner of things. And tomorrow a.m. I leave for Our Nation's Capital to hook up with the Special Guy for a weekend of fun and frolic.

I met with the potential new boss today. We had a fun and free-wheeling conversation. (A definite downside: I'd have to wear nice clothes. Suits even. No more Carharrt shorts and tee shirts.) I have no idea. I wish this could have come down when my job was pissing me off. But nooooo... Everything is hunky dorey. And we're poised to launch our initiative targeting gay men who use crystal. Don't know that anyone would be picking up the ball on that were I to step out.

Mulling mulling mulling. I wish I could do both. I wonder if I could get a bartending job one night a week to make up for the lost income? Probably not. That would be sort of scandalous.

Huh. Another downside. I guess I would have to take my blog underground. Probably just obscuring my name somehow. Although I couldn't do that with archived stuff. Or, I could just not talk about work. Or politics. And, in a job like that, where your work becomes your life, that's a tall order. Maybe I'll just write about books I'm reading.

Still mulling that job offer, by the way. It's looking like I might be doing a Rhoda ("New York, this is your last chance!")

I wish I had a scanner. (I had access to one but left it with my Ex, who probably still has no clue how it works.)

Anyway, in this Japanese knick-knack catalog (don't ask) I found an illustration I love. The product in question are chocolate cookies shaped like teddybears clutching big hearts to their chests. Circular indentations for eyes with eyebrow indentations on the very top of their heads gives them a 'How about that!" sort of expression. In the photo, they're sort of stacked in and around a (cool looking) coffee mug.

The catalog is chock full of snippets of English such as 'Coffee makes me glad!" Y'know, the Japanese use of English words (even nonsensical English words) to cash in on American Cultural Imperialism.

So anyway, the part I love. One of the chocolate cookie bears has been given a little cartoon bubble over his head. He's saying (what else), "eat me." It's taped to my monitor. I look at it and giggle.

eat me.

Dang it all. The link I posted for the still of the punishment scene from Starship Troopers takes you into Yahoo Hell. Sorry bout that. I tried copying and pasting the pic, but that apparently is a no-go with Blogger. I watched the Punishment Scene (Casper von Dien strung up and given ten lashes with a snake whip) several times in slow motion last night and this morning. Technically it's brilliant. Only once is it obvious (at 1/7 time) that in one frame there's not a slash and in the next frame there's a slash). Also, the cuts left by a whip are much shorter. (Oh, I just know that. That's all.) And I know so many people who would love to own that suspension frame.

Funny thing. I have never been able to stay awake through (Starship Troopers Director) Paul Verhoeven's film The Fourth Man. Overt depictions of homoeroticism are less interesting than sublimated homoeroticism. Or maybe it's just that Starship Troopers has explosions and chase scenes and The Fourth Man has furtive glances in the well house. Or whatever.

And I also watched A League of Their Own. Loved it. I was sobbing at the end. Anything baseball always leaves me sobbing at the end. But what's up with Geena Davis? It's like she doesn't speak English and is reading her lines phonetically from a teleprompter. She just sort of stands there looking statuesque. Regardless. That was the first of many viewings. "Coffee!"

Whoa. I just got a job offer. For $7k less than I'm making now.

Isn't life funny?

Need to discuss this with someone. And gosh, I have my therapist tonight.

Geez. I'm just a bloggin' fool today.

Oh, by the way...

So wuddewhy look like? Go here (the website for Folsom Street East) and I'm four over and four down. The guy in the middle with the bushy mustache.

Here's a chart. The X's represent pics to click on.

X X X X X
X X X X X
X X X X X
X X X Me X
X X X X X
X X X X X
X X X X X

So now you know.

DVDope

Cool. The DVDs I ordered from Amazon.com just arrived. I sort of went to town. Yeah well. Here's the roster:

Sex and the City, Season One
A League of Their Own (all the inside jokes tossed around on my softball team came from this movie. I've never seen it, unless you count having every line recited by 14 gay softball players. Dirt in the skirt!)
Pitch Black (Uh, Vin Diesel appears in some really interesting bondage I hear.)
The Wild One (I've only read the MAD Magazine parody...
The Leather Boys (a really interesting film I've read about but never seen, made in England in 1962, very controversial in its time)
Starship Troopers (I bought the entire DVD of this dopey movie so I can watch this scene where Casper Van Dien gets whipped. What's up with that? Well, maybe I can sell it used on ebay. Nah, I do not have my act together enough to sell anything on ebay.)

Now all I need is to actually be in my apartment for a length of time sufficient to watch any one of these. Not very likely!

"I call my dog Eleanor because she's not much to look at and I can't keep her home."
You go, Eleanor!

I'm thinking about leaving New York. In part, it's an extension of my job malaise thing. Five years is a long time. In fact, I think if you're an Executive Director beyond five years, people don't think about 'loyalty' and 'stability,' they think about 'desperately clinging' and 'going nowhere.' So it's definitely time for a change in that department. And, I wouldn't mind getting out of the non-profit gig altogether. I doubt that my skills would be considered transferable in the for-profit arena, but who knows. So yeah, I'd like a new job.

And leaving New York? In part it's pragmatic. I work, I go to the gym, I hang out in coffee bars, I hang out in leather bars, I go to the movies. I could do that anywhere, and I wouldn't have to be spending upwards of $1500-a-month to keep a roof over my head and for public transportation to get to and from work. And then there's September 11th. I heard on NPR this morning a story about the report that McKinsey & Company did on how police and fire department operations could be improved, a sort of 'lessons learned' analysis. So FDNY radios are switching to UHF bands like police radios, and also getting boosters in sky-scrapers, like the police have, and FDNY commanders will be airborn in police helicopters, and a coordinated central command operation. At no point in the story did they say, "So next time..." but they might as well have. Now, I don't delude myself into thinking that I or my various haunts would be on any terrorists hit list. The possible exception would be the subway system, but even there, I rarely go north of the West 4th Street station. So I'm not imagining myself being maimed or killed. No, I just don't want to go through that again.

Y'know how people slow down for traffic accidents? I speed up. I don't look. I don't want to look. I don't want to have some horrible image burned into my psyche. We had no cable television where we were living in Brooklyn, so I saw just about no video footage of the planes hitting the buildings, and the people diving from windows, and the towers coming down. But beyond that... I mean, there's lots of talk about how New Yorkers pulled together, and how kind and empathetic we all were towards each other in the wake of the tragedy, and that's all true... but there was also the drama. For a week or more following the attack, you would see people walking around wearing surgical masks. At one point, I was sitting in a restaurant and a guy came in and sat next to me wearing a military issue looking gas mask. (He took it off to eat.) Granted, when the wind was blowing your way, you could smell the acrid smoke from the still smouldering debris (all that jet fuel). But c'mon. I concluded at the time that the gas mask/surgical mask phenomenon was a good thing, because it was nothing more than drama queens self-identifying, so you knew who to stay away from.

Once was enough.

Now LAX and the Golden Gate Bridge have been mentioned as targets, and these sound likely to me. But somehow I doubt that there are detailed plans of Fort Lauderdale thumb-tacked to the wall of some (government subsidized) apartment in Berlin that's home to an Al Quaeda cell. Los Angeles I could deal with though. It's such a non-interactive city in general. I imagine people would stay home and watch tv throughout. It definitely won't be Texas though. Not when stuff like this percolates up with alarming frequency.

So what about the argument that we've made it impossible for a similar terrorist strike on our shores to be pulled off again? I don't buy that. I think the Presidents military interventions have most likely crippled the Al Quaeda network, but terrorist organizations are usually pretty decentralized, operating in cells, and who knows what some little group has in the works. I remember--and funny this hasn't been mentioned lately--the discovery of what was essentially a bomb factory in an apartment in Brooklyn several years ago. (About 10 blocks from where I was living at the time.) The fledgling Department of Homeland Security is a colossal waste of resources. I hope that it either goes away or is significantly scaled back after November elections. The problem is hardly likely to be solved by more government. And in the unlikely event that there was another attempt to turn a jetliner into a missile, I don't doubt that would be thwarted not by the Keystone Kops airport security measures but by airline passengers following the lead of the brave group that brought the plane down in Pennsylvania. It was passenger intervention that foiled the shoe-bomber guy.

When the Special Guy and I meet up in DC on Friday, I'll explore how flexible he might be about making a move somewhere.

Met with my architects on Friday afternoon. Sooooo cool. Picture, if you will, a two bedroom condo with a balcony and a western view on the second floor. Walls are painted white. Powder-blue carpet in the large bedroom and the (absurdly) small bedroom. Cheap looking tile in the living room.

Enter the contractors.

All the bedroom walls are taken out, leaving a large room with three big windows. The floors are stripped down to concrete, sanded and glazed. A steel beam with a gentle serpentine curve is suspended from the ceiling. A t-shaped partition divides the bedroom end of the loft-like space from the rest of it. The wall over the bed is covered in corrugated aluminium. Transluscent sliding panels replace the doors going to the walk-in closet and the bathroom. The interior walls are painted a vibrant orange. The exterior wall (with the windows) is painted a pale yellow-green. Then ensued a discussion of what the t-shaped partition thingy would be painted. There's room on either side of it, and it doesn't go all the way to the ceiling. So I want it to be something of a sculptural object, rather than... y'know... a wall. I said, "I know! I want to paint it the same color and hue as the steel beam!" My architect, Johannes, said, "Since thin sheets of cold rolled steel are very inexpensive, why don't we just clad it in steel?"

At this point, I broke a sweat. A big steel monolith. Johannes said that the disadvantage of steel as a material you come in contact with is that it is very cold. In the winter, you would find it particularly annoying. But of course, in Fort Lauderdale, it's never winter. So I think a steel platform will be coming off the back of this thing to serve as a desk. Oh, and I'm going to wrap christmas lights around either end of the steel beam, illuminating the 'living room' and the 'bedroom.'

Love this guy.

Who's Ernie? Who's Bert?

It's pretty much an established fact that the folks at the Children's Television Workshop created Sesame Street's Ernie and Bert to socialize proto-homo viewers into the dynamics of gay male relationships. As a result, in every gay relationship there's an Ernie and a Bert. The Ernie is the larking, never serious, fun-lovin', spontaneous one. The Bert is the pragmatic, unimaginative, light-bill-is-paid-on-time, grounded one. There is no room for variation! With my Ex, we started out both vying to be the Bert. He won, and I was pretty unhappy being the Ernie. With the Special Guy, I think at the outset we were both vying to be the Ernie. I'm feeling myself slipping into the Bert role. And I'm liking it. I think I'll make a good Bert.

"Okay, Bert. I'm not going to eat crackers in bed... I'm going to eat crackers in YOUR bed!"

Yo. Here's a web page by a french guy devoted to Vin Diesel in bondage. Somehow I knew I wasn't alone in this...

Ever been to Moscow? Go to Moscow. My job sent me there several times over the past few years. My agency was partnered with a Moscow charitable organization so we could provide them with technical assistance to do HIV prevention work with drug users. The project was a mixed bag, but it turned out well in the end. I truly came to love the Russian people though. The like food and drinking and dancing and sunshine and snow. In fact, they have such a deep and wonderful appreciation of these simple, good things. Despite the fact that history down to the present has dealt them one losing hand after another.

The thing that will one day bring me back to Moscow--beyond the great seats for $6 at the Bolshoi Ballet, the Tretyakov Gallery, Red Square at midnight with falling snow, and the Mayakovski House Museum--is the Sandunovskii Banya (Banya + Baths). The Sandunovskii are the oldest baths in Moscow. Tchaikovsky went to the Sandunovskii. The entrance is this baroque spanish-turkish fantasmagoria. You pay the money (something like $12) and go up to the lounge. The lounge is this enormous room with a vaulted ceiling and high backed oaken benches. (If you want, you can spring for a curtained booth, but then you wouldn't get to see all the other men.) There are attendants who speak no English, so it's necessary to know the word for 'towel.' They give you as many as you need--enourmous turkish towels, but more like small bedsheets than bath towels. You strip and wrap this around yourself and head for the wet area. Big room. Sort of roman-bathish in design. Doric columns and such. You shower down to clean yourself off, then head for the sauna. The sauna. Blazing hot. Eyebrows singe. Your first time in the sauna, you can maybe last 45 seconds. Then, you head through the big shower room to the 'cold pool' opposite. The cold pool (again sort of classically inspired look to it) is water kept at about 40 degrees Fahrenheit. So it's cold. I prefer to dive in. Absolutely invigorating. Then back to the sauna, which you're now able to tolerate for a somewhat longer time. This gives you more time to notice your fellow sauna-takers. I swear, every time I was there, the Russian Army Wrestling Team was there. All these big, bearish Russian men... flagellating themselves and one another with birch branches. I mean, really going at it. The birch is a natural astringent, so it's good for the skin. And whipping yourself in the blazing heat gets the endorphins pumping. The birch leaves and sap turn the cold pool this amazing blue-green. So it's sauna to cold pool to sauna to cold pool. Eventually, you get to the point where you feel you could sit in the sauna or the cold pool forever. You've whipped your body into submission. You're relaxed. The feeling is incredible. You're floating. So blissful. All is well with the world.

Then you shower off, and head back to the lounge. You sit there and the kind attendants bring you food and drink. Salmon and blini. Chilled vodka, whatever. My preference was a bottle of mineralnay voda (mineral water) and chaya (tea). The tea is served with slices of lemon and honey. And so I would just sit there naked, smoking, totally blissed out, with all the other naked, smoking, toally blissed out enormous Russian men.

"Anything go on there?" is the question inevitably posed by my homo friends when I recount the pleasures of the Sandunovskii. Nothing genital, as far as I could tell. But that would be soooo totally beside the point. I mean, there you are, naked with these huge guys, your endorphins bathing your brain, in these beautiful surroundings. And this is somehow incomplete if somebody isn't caressing your tumescent dick? Puh-leeze.

The Muslim belief that martyrs go to paradise and are waited upon by fifty virgins was held up for ridicule in the US media in the wake of September 11th. Sort of viewed as being unsophisticated or something. I would much rather spend all of eternity in the Sandunovskii Banya than wave my palm branch before the throne of the lamb who was slain.

Vin grew up in Westbeth Artist Housing in the West Village. His mother is an astrologer and his father teaches acting. He was a bouncer at Tunnel (I think it was the Tunnel).

*sigh*
Feeling sort of wistful about my job today. Love my job. Love the people I work with. But I've been here for five years. I'm 37 years old, and I just can't figure out what to aspire to. Should I try to be the Executive Director of a larger and more prestigious non-profit organization? That doesn't resonate. Most of my peers go into consulting. I'm actually familiar with how consulting works (of a sort) due to a job I had a decade ago with Ernst & Young. I'm leery of working on a consultant basis though. Most everyone I know who does that works all the time, and much harder than I do. You never know if more work is coming your way, so you never say 'no.'

I talked to my architect today to set up a meeting so we can go over their ideas for my place in Fort Lauderdale. We were on the phone for a good 45 minutes talking about art and architecture and sculpture. If I had to do it all over again, I would have been an architect. Next time I see my Dad I'll whack him one for discouraging me from that. Now it's too late. When I was managing the relocation of our agency down here, I just loved that. Fianlizing the design, seeing it all go up, working with the contractors. I've looked into going back to school for Construction Management, but it just seems so unlikely that someone would hire a person with my background. I haven't built anything beyond a chicken coop. Which is still standing I'll have you know. But, I like the independence, the concern with design, consensus-building leadership skills... and the fact that it has such the butch cache... (I guess 'butch' and 'cache' really shouldn't be used together, huh?)

Last night I was talking to a friend of mine and I spilled my bartender fantasy. I should talk to a bartender. I think I'd make a good one. I wonder if bartenders regret that they're bartenders? Especially if I was living in a place like Fort Lauderdale, where my condo payments come to a whopping $420-a-month, could I get by with only working three or four days a week?

"Hi, Dad. How are things? Good, good. What's up with me? Well, not much. Oh yeah. I quit my job and I'm tending bar now."

When I filled out my application for Inferno XXXI, I was invited to describe my 'fantasy,' and assured that the Powers That Be would see about making my fantasy reality over the course of my time there. Subsequently, I was in email contact with one of those Powers That Be, and it turns out that he sits on the committee that is charged with realizing those fantasies. He described it as a mixed bag. Sooooo many fantasies involve getting abducted at dinner and tied to a tree out in the woods or whatever. Ho hum. But he said that every year there are a few that are just wonderful, and that really get the creative juices flowing.

And that's why I left that blank. I knew that would be the case. And if word ever reached me that my fantasy was deemed to be pedestrian, I'd have a frontal lobotomy and put a stop to all imaginative thinking altoghether. And, the better part of my fantasies, if enacted, would leave someone maimed. That's why they're fantasies. My fantasies that fall short of that I've already managed to realize.

Or have I? Any fantasy, O Powers That Be? Any fantasy at all?

How about...

Butterscotch sundaes for everybody!
A twelve month tan
A date with Vin
One of those jet propulsion back pack things a la Buck Rogers
A Svengali-like editor
A Svengali-like personal trainer
A Mac hand-held that combines MP3 player, cell phone, internet connectivity, email, contacts, and all those great Palm OS features
A certain idea of my next job and a way to obtain it
A Wolfe stove
Batting practice with Tino Martinez
Fluency in Russian

I doubt that even the Powers That Be are up for taking these on.

Oh. And a New York Times obituary. I once heard that to have an obituary in the Times (a write up, not the little paid notices), you had to have your name mentioned in that paper three times. I've made that. Most recently, I was quoted in an article about drug overdoses. My Ex and I were written up in the Habitats column in the Sunday Real Estate Section after we bought our house in Brooklyn. And, (my favorite) my name was mentioned in 1992 when I and three compadres from ACT UP interrupted a speech that then (but not for long) Vice President Dan Quayle was making at a fundraiser for the New York Conservative Party. I don't know if the three-times rule is true. I might do well to get a few more mentions for insurance. Well, not like I'll ever know.

Saw XXX. Vin appears handcuffed, has his hands bound behind his back, is suspended from the rafters by chains around his wrists while his compadres are bound and gagged, and is shackled and drenched in piss... Oops! That was from my own fertile imagination later that night. Anyway, loved the movie.

My softball team, Ty's Ballbreakers, took the division championship in two games on Saturday. Next to falling in love with the Special Guy, softball was truly the highlight of my summer.

Great time with the Special Guy yesterday. And last night. He met me at church. We went up to the Cloisters. We had an amazing conversation about faith and belief. (Well, the lowpoint was when he said that my religion was founded on the balls of a king.) Then we hit Beer Blast at the Dug Out. Always a good time. The Dug Out just does not disappoint. It's so friendly and chummy, but with a wonderful sexual energy. Sort of a bear-y bachanalia. Then dinner at the Belgian place on Hudson. Then home to Jersey City. Very, very hot time.

Something I was thinking about while we were at the Dug Out. I've always found couples to be really, really hot. Two hot guys, obviously hot for one another. I suppose it's hot because it mingles sexual desire with a desire for the connection between the two of them. Wanting not to be alone. That's sort of what sex is about anyway. So not only are you desiring connection, but you have connectedness modeled for you. When Special Guy and I were at the Dug Out, I sort of felt that we were a couple in that public way. It's sort of a type. I know a cop and a firefighter who fit the bill. The current Mr. Lure and his guy are another example. Two guys from Connecticut that I see frequently at the Lure would be in the mix, too. Although, lamentably, they die their beards jet black. Which looks goofy.

It's Still Vin Diesel Day

*sigh*

Vin was an English Major...

It's Vin Diesel Day At Last!!!

This is a website that just sums up for me everything wonderful about the www. The graphics could use some work, but I spent a thoroughly enjoyable hour rummaging around in here.

I found it from a link from this website. It's a site by and for men doing sex work. Although it's work related, I have to admit there's more than a professional interest for me here. Long, long have I harbored a fantasy of being a hustler. This fantasy foundered on the shoals of reality when it was explained to me by a friend who had supported himself that way for a number of years that your clients tend to be guys that you wouldn't want to have sex with. Alas.

Ananuthathing: This morning on my way to work, I passed a septuagenarian wearing (from the ground up) spectator shoes, silk knee socks, bermuda shorts, a tweed blazer, and a bowtie. "Yeah," you're thinking, "so what?" The thing that made it great was he had the best stone-cold 'What da fuck you lookin' at?' expression on his face. Ya gotta wonder about someone who wakes up in the morning and decides to invite that invitation to fisticuffs into his day.

Oh. It's Vin Diesel day. A pan of the movie in The Sun, but don't think that will slow me down. At one point they comment that Vin can't act. Like, that's an issue cuz why? It also mentions that he's drafted into spy work by being kidnapped. Uh huh.

This morning on Brian Lehrer's show on WNYC, Hilary Clinton (who I like, ever since she invited me to march with her in the Pride Parade a few years back) was discussing her advocacy for on-going health monitoring for volunteers who worked at Ground Zero. Who could be against that? Well, me. And the first caller after Senator Clinton had departed the airwaves. Choking on rage, he said something like, "How come every time I hear Hillary Clinton talk it involves spending money and raising taxes?"

I think that's an excellent point. Essentially, what Clinton is saying is this: people who worked at Ground Zero are experiencing onset of asthma and mental health issues. She wants on-going (and presumably lifetime) 'health monitoring' and medical care for these folks. The price tag is something like $20 million, and that money would go to Mount Sinai Medical Center to do that work. Now, not that it's a bad thing for the volunteers to have what essentially amounts to a lush, government financed health plan. I have nothing but respect and admiration for the folks that worked down there, several of whom I know well. But that's the thing. Of those I know well, all of them have health insurance. (One is an employee at my agency. I know for a fact she has full medical, including a prescription plan, and dental insurance. And since people came from across the country and around the world to volunteer at Ground Zero, is it really likely that they're going to schlep to New York to get health care at Mount Sinai?

But for arguments sake, let's assume that some of the folks who volunteered were uninsured. The average in New York State is something like 30%. I have no idea how many people we're talking about here, but let's assume that all told there were 10,000 people who volunteered in some capacity at one time or another at Ground Zero. For the seventy percent of them that have health insurance, the 'health monitoring' would be duplicative. So that leaves 3,000 who would otherwise be unable to pay for health monitoring. Hmmmm...$20million seems a lot to pay for health monitoring for 3,000 people. And, New York City has a system of public hospitals where no one is turned away for inability to pay. And if Gouverneur is pretty good. I'd go there. And, given the fact that the majority of volunteers were firefighters, police officers, and steel workers, I think that 3,000 is probably a gross overstatement. More likely, this money would go to build a new wing for Mount Sinai. Again, that's fine, but I don't think the Federal Government should be picking up the tab for that at a time when most government coffers are facing deficits and we're about to embark on what will doubtless be a costly war with Saddam Hussein.

And here's the thing that's so galling to me. It's just so scurvy, all of these folks dusting off whatever wish list they might have and lining up at the September 11th trough. I'm hard pressed to think of anything more cynical and depraved by way of response to such a tragedy.

Yikes. Special Guy has a slipped disk. He's worried about not being able to get to the gym for 9 months. That doesn't sound right to me. I think he should go for physical therapy. It's like having a personal trainer, only you're not stressing what's ailing you.

Surprise sleepover with the Special Guy last night. He was totally not in the Plan. The Plan was inspired in part by a book by Molly Peacock called Paradise Piece by Piece. Basically the book is a meditation on finding happiness and fulfilment as a heterosexual woman who never had children. I resolved that as a gay man, I would find my own paradise, piece by piece, being single, without a relationship. Flying solo.

I got into my last relationship (seven and a half years, basically the bulk of my thirties) largely due to logistical concerns: it's easier to manage a house or apartment with two people dividing the labor as opposed to one; with two incomes, there are more options available to you; you don't have to scare up someone to see a movie with. To be honest, a large part of what drove this decision was despair. Not deep, dark despair. More like the realization that you're probably not going to win the $35 million Lotto, so you'd better not resign from your job. More, "Oh, well." Essentially, it was, "Oh well, it's unlikely that I'd meet a man that combines all of the qualities I'm looking for." And then I did. On June 16th, 2002.

The more time we spend together, the more deeply I desire him. I feel like we've invented love. That no one has ever felt this way before. Now I know what all those Shakespearean heroes and heroines in the romance plays are always going on about.

Two days until the Vin Diesel movie opens. I'll be there.

Yo. My softball team, Ty's Ballbreakers, are #1 in our division (Upper Rainbow). We have--idunno--like 4 games in a row next Saturday to see if we can be #1 in the Rainbow League, thus gaining for ourselves the $700 grand prize, the enormous trophy, and the love of softball fans everywhere. The Yankees get a tickertape parade down Wall Street when they win. I wonder if we'll get a parade down Christopher Street?

Read all about it here. Oops. Or not. They haven't updated the web site with the playoff standings. So it still reads like we're #2 behind the Hellcats. We beat them on Saturday. That's how we won the playoffs.

Quel long day here! Had to go to NY Surrogates Court to protect my agency's client records from subpoena. It went well. The client ended up giving consent, so our confidentiality obligations weren't compromised. This whole thing was all about my be-a-lawyer fantasy. I was hoping I'd be able to mix it up, but no, we have to file papers.

Went home and changed out of the suit (I was heretofore resplendent in seersucker). Feels much, much better. Alas, Special Guy is in pain due to his back, so won't be up for a trip into the city tonight and a sleepover. So, I'm off to Piedro Blanco (aka Whitestone) to spend some time with him. Love that man soooooo much.

Paradise. Well... Paradise with sand flies.

Back at work today after spending the past three days on Fire Island with the Special Guy. It was wonderful. We went to the beach. I cooked some mighty fine dinners. We bought each other sarongs and wore them everywhere. Except when we weren't wearing anything. Which was not infrequent. The salt water was great for my piercings, and for his aching back. My dog Prosper behaved himself for the most part. And, t here were no major disasters while I was away. Things seem to have gone okay at work. I had at least a hundred emails in my box, and we have a virus, so my 'puter is sort of acting funny. But we're still here.

So the Special Guy and I did church (the liturgy of the word and the liturgy of the holy eucharist) while we were out there. The Roman church version. It was amazing. "Truly the presence of our God is in this place..."

And I hardly thought about Vin Diesel at all the entire time I was away!

When my softball team played on Saturday, we won the first game and lost the second. The second was largely the result from a truly devastating (for us) first inning. They scored something like 14 runs. The only guys on our team who didn't make errors (really, really bad errors) were the people that the ball didn't come to. It was horrible. And we never bounced back, either in terms of the score or psychologically. Repeating to ourselves "Okay, let's hold'em" as we took the field for the second inning was just pretty hard to take seriously.

But, for reasons I don't quite understand (since we came in 2nd in the division as a result of losing the 2nd game), we're in the playoffs this Saturday.

Y'know, I didn't think it was possible, but after 3 days with the Special Guy, I'm even more in love with him than I was before.