Thar's golld in that thar Outback, and I struck it. Maybe.

Hooo-eee. So I went to the Lure on Saturday (after spending six hours installing Mac OS X on my trusty iBook. I'm way unimpressed so far. It was a fairly busy night. The scuttlebutt is that the Lure's lease is up in May, and they're looking for a smaller space. Alternatively, I've heard they're closing in December. Hope not, but either way, I'm sort of savoring the place.

But anyway, had a good time as always. Saw a few people I know, including the newly sashed East Coast Mr. Rubber. Or Mr. East Coast Ruubber. Or whatever. He was resplendently sashed. A few hot boys, but nobody that really caught my eye.

And then, he came up and said hello. He is a 6'4" Australian red head with amazing tattoo work. My thoughts (to the extent that what was happening with me could be considered cognitive, and that's a stretch) were 'Bingo!' or maybe, 'Well, so much for church tomorrow.' Because he's Australian, I asked if he did singletails, and of course he said 'yes,' and I said, 'of course you are, because you're Australian.' So we talked about how whips and whip-making are imbedded in Australian culture. And it turns out he knows ARt (who's whipping me in a wee five days), and the Internationally Renowned German Whipsman I met at Inferno. Thus began The Discussion. We talked about spiritual aspecst of S/M. We talked about art. We talked about politics. He lived two blocks away from the Lure (sent by God or what?), and suggested we get out of there, so we went to his place, and talked more about the spiritual aspects of S/M, art, and politics. And then we went to bed. Henceforth (and I'm dearly hoping there will be a henceforth, preferably a long one, the tall, red-headed Australian will be known as 'Schlitz,' as he recalled those supersize cans of Schlitz beer I remember from high school. The art he had in his apartment was great. We talked about hos art in NYC was all about ego, but in LA, it was creative and innovative and playful, and 'worked' more often than not. He grew up on a cattle ranch in rural Australia, near the lake where the world land-speed record was set. He does business consulting for firms seeking to do business in the western half of the Pacific Rim, and this involves a great deal of travel to LA, San Francisco, Sydney, Hong Kong, and the like. Sex was great, though sort of sleepy and dreamy. Sleeping with him totally rocked. We sent out for breakfast the next morning, exchanged numbers, and agreed to 'look for each other' later at Beerblast at the Dugout.

Then I high-tailed it over to the novices' group that GMSMA is conducted. (My rope bondage skills improved about a hundred fold in an afternoon. This should be indicative of how pathetic I was at the whole thing as of twenty-four hours ago.) I thought that the group concluded at 6pm, so I had told Schlitz that I'd see him at the Dugout at 7:30 or so. Alas, it ran until 7pm. And the Holland Tunnel was a parking lot going back to Jersey to walk my dog, and coming back into the city. And so I didn't end up getting to the Dugout until about quarter of nine. Things were still cooking, but Schlitz was not in sight.

Now I'm getting all het up about calling him. Should I wait for him to call? Will I appear pathetically anxious to call so soon and plead to get together? Should I wait for him to call? No, because I efffectively 'stood him up' at the Dugout, right? I should have called him when I got out of the novices group, right? But I didn't because I didn't have my cell phone with me.

Yo. What are you doing in the novices' group? Well there are a lot of things that I'm good at doing (I might even go so far as to say 'reallly good at doing'), but there are big gaps in my repertoire. Bondage, for example. And, like all GMSMA educational programs, it's an opportunity to learn with the best. (The equivalent of 'So you want to not embarass yourself in the upcoming Christmas caroling outing? Take a voice lesson with Placido Domingo.')

I met up with a guy I'm way hot for at the Dugout, El Bronx. We went to dinner and talked about psychopharmacology, evolutionary biology, brain functions, and drug-use related family tragedies. Damn I like my life.

As a side note, I'm really feeling angry at my Ex. Why did I stay in a relationship that didn't work for me for seven long years? Because I thought, he's probably the best that I could hope for. Wrong! Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. How many amazing men--strong, smart, kinky, sexy, and sane--have I met since I left? Innnumerable.

Life is good. However things go with Schlitz (my fantasy: 'Look, there's Drew and Schlitz. They're so hot, aren't they?' says the IML attendee or the Inferno participant), life is good. Life is sooooo good.

Things to do today:
Clean my apartment
Call my car insurance guy and demand he find me a cheaper policy
Check in with the folks at my old job (Uh... I'll clean out my desk when I stop by on Thursday)
Work on my departure memo, preferably while typing on my iBook at some lower Manhattan coffee place
Get a day pass and check out the 16th Street New York Sports Club before I make a decision about signing up.

Oh. And call Schlitz.

Okay, let's get going.