Show World

2003-07-15T00:35:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 1

Well, it's been almost a month now since my last post here, and to my regular readers, it must be obvious by now that Show World is going--quite gently--into that good night. It occurred to me today that I shouldn't let that happen without some kind of comment, to at least provide explanation and, perhaps, closure. Essentially, the deal is that I'm just not that jonesed about the idea of keeping a blog anymore. (That, and the simple fact that, like going to the gym, once you fall out of the habit of updating it for a prolonged spate, it's hard to return to it.) When I started this blog nearly a year ago, just after Labor Day, I was barely writing anything, except for the occasional piece here and there, and I was stuck in temp hell wondering if I'd ever get my journalistic career back on track. In that context, doing a blog appealed to me as a way to write on a steady basis. Since then, of course, not only did I start a great new job at a great magazine, but my real writing has really started to take off, both at the mag and at some regular freelance gigs; when you throw in the work I've recently begun dedicating to my long-planned book proposal (complete with sample chapters), it seems like I'm writing practically all the time these days. So not only do I have little time to post my little entries anymore, I also lack much of my former interest in doing so. And thus, I must bid this blog--and you--adieu.

For those readers who may want to keep in touch or simply stay aware of future developments in my life and work, please feel free to e-mail me at schroedernyc@hotmail.com. (If enough people are interested, I might even send out occasional Show World-like dispatches via e-mail.) Thanks for reading, and Godspeed.

2003-06-19T23:00:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 0

I actually bought a pack of Parliaments last night after a particularly stressful early close at work. Anyway, just wanted to post something, anything, to demonstrate that I'm still alive and kicking. To my faithful, sorry I've been so sluggish in writing; things have just been cray-zee lately, and I've been doing a lot of non-blog writing, so I have little time for the actual blog. But I promise to post an extensive item in the next few days filling you all in. Until then...

2003-06-08T22:59:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 1

Number of days since updating this blog...way longer. I know, I've been terrible about writing, but I've been really busy lately (yeah, yeah), not to mention the fact that writing about myself is increasingly becoming a bore. I come home from work at maybe 8 or 9 at night, turn on the tube to watch For Love or Money, or America's Next Top Model, or Fame (all of which I watched last week), and then just as soon as I think to blog I think why bother?

Anyway, I went to the soft opening of the new club Plaid, formerly Spa, last night, at which the band Interpol played. The space is radically reworked, so much so that I couldn't decipher the outline of Spa (not that I'd been there in at least two years, and then only once or twice), and it was packed to the brim with major scenesters of all stripes, including several colleagues of mine (whom I went with) and my boy G-spot, who I ran into unsurprisingly (he's basically my coolest friend). I might never have seen so fully dense and extensive a scene in all my three years in New York. And the best thing is we got in for free, received comp drinks, and, due to publicist confusion, even sat in the best banquette in the house for a time, directly overlooking the stage, until said publicist unglamorously ejected us. Oh, and Interpol? They were amazing, despite my being shoved up against the mixer booth all the way in the back and barely being able to glimpse lead singer Paul Banks' head through the snooty crowd. When we left at 2, there was a throng of "regular" folk penned up outside, asking us if it was worth 20 bucks (!) to get in. I said no.

Earlier I spent the day hanging out with Best Friend, who was in town the last week visiting her fam and attending the New Fest, in which she was screening a short film. We went to brunch at the Pink Pony, then to a few screenings, where we met up with T. and S. (whom I hadn't seen in ages--not since my birthday, in fact, back in February). Afterwards we all went to dinner at Moustache where, two languorous hours later, I left them reading the dried patterns of coffee grinds leftover in their cups, the way the Lebanese tend to do.

2003-05-29T23:43:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 5

I got my second dose of the hepatitis A/B vaccination this morning at Callen-Lorde, at the hand of the male nurse who I believe flirted like mad with Marvelous on a recent visit of his there, then proceeded to ask Marvelous out. He declined. But at least I'm on my way to being immune to hepatitis, God forbid I'm ever exposed to it. (And I found out the results of the lab work I had done weeks ago in connection with my recent STD: I tested negative for syphilis, chlamydia, and gonorrhea--even though I was obviously symptomatic for one of the latter two. Maybe it was too early for whatever I had to show up; at least the antibiotics killed it and it's gone.)

In other news, my therapy group officially disbanded after this Tuesday's meeting. Two of the members, including the new father, are joining my shrink's other group; the other father is going back to his personal shrink for individual sessions; and I'm going back to my shrink one on one. I decided to forgo more group therapy mostly because I can't afford to do it and individual therapy at the same time, and I just haven't been getting enough out of the group to warrant continued involvement. Plus, I feel like my voice has basically been marginalized--with all the other group members' almost ten or more years older than me and in committed relationships, living out their fantasies of domesticity, I didn't feel like I totally belonged. Of course, my shrink would reject this as a reason to leave, and almost did recently when he asked if such alienation prevented me from doing my own "work" in the group. Well, yes and no.

As soon as the new father, who just returned to group after a month-long absence in which he "took possession," as it were, of his newborn adopted daughter, started talking about his kid, which he did for more than ten minutes in a row, I knew I made the right decision. It was so insipid. Who really cares?

P.S. I still owe you guys the account of my crazy Saturday night. Perhaps I'll save it for a boring streak...

2003-05-26T21:07:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 2

Despite the atrocious weather (is this, like, the worst spring ever?), I still managed to have quite a lot of fun these past two nights. I've rarely left my apartment during daylight hours the last four days (I had Friday off too), but I've more than made up for it at night. Last night, for instance, I hung out for several hours with L.Ho and our friend C.B., visiting from D.C. We started off at Korova Milk Bar on Avenue A, which is possibly one of the worst bars in the city (I'd only been there once before), but C.B. wanted to check it out for its A Clockwork Orange-inspired everything, and I'm not one to disappoint out-of-town visitors. That, and I was basically just meeting them before moving on--there was no heavy time investment (in fact, I was there for under an hour).

Then we hightailed it to the Park for The Rambles, where, in addition to the usual festivities, an editor of one of the local gay rags, who happened to go to the same college as me, was hosting his birthday party upstairs in the lounge and deck area. I was expecting an open bar and a huge spread of food, even cake (!)--not to mention a big crowd--but I was disappointed on every count. So we descended to the actual Rambles party, where we partied down for the next two or three hours. That joint was packed, no doubt due in part to people's washed-out plans to go out of town. I've never seen so many people there (not that I've gone that many times, but still); when we were leaving, in fact, at 1:30, the line to get in stretched down the block. (Why people were even waiting in line so late, I don't know.) The crowded house made for an especially lively time, and the go-go boys, who seem to have increased in number, were in fine form. One of them, before we realized he was a dancer, was standing next to us by the bar, and smiled at C.B.; the next thing we knew, he was dancing on the bar clutching a pair of overalls over his crotch, pubes peeking out from the sides. Hot.

After catching the Cooler Kids' performance, which was fun if not as good as I might have expected, we jumped in a cab and headed to the Marquee for the Cheez Whiz reunion. I'd only been to the original Cheez Whiz once, so I was dying to check it out again (apparently its successor, Star Tartare, never quite got off the ground), and it certainly didn't disappoint. Sweetie was highly entertaining as usual--I'd say she's my fave queen on the scene these days--and the other performers (Juicy Absolute and Poison Ivy among them) were too. And SammyJo, the DJ, made for some tasty eye candy. I never had a chance to observe him so closely before--he's lovely. If only he weren't madly in love with Justin Bond (who was at the party, as was Kenny Mellman and who we think was Casey Spooner), I might fantasize about him.

After the performances, we danced around for awhile (the go-go boy from the Park who smiled at C.B., and who I thought was mad sexy, showed up, then proceeded to dance with C.B. for a hot minute or two to my chagrin), then called it a night. By then it was 3:30 or so, and the rain hadn't returned yet--nor, of course, had it started to get light out, as it did the night before, when I didn't get home until 6:30 a.m. But more on that tomorrow, I think.

2003-05-22T01:17:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 1

If Nicole Kidman can bum the occasional cigarette, then so can I--and I shouldn't feel guilty about it.

So I snagged a copy of the just-released new version of The Joy of Gay Sex at work yesterday (courtesy of a thoughtful colleague), and I've been enthralled ever since. I've always been curious about the information and descriptions, both verbal and pictorial, contained within the book; now that I've had a chance to peruse them, they certainly don't disappoint. The pictures alone, an interesting collision between middle-school health-class imagery and a hard-core porn aesthetic, have titillated me enough, so much so that last night while I laid in bed reading the book, I ended up jacking off. I got that hot. (Not, it should be noted, that everything the book covers is hot. The sober explanations of the dangers of barebacking and other ill-advised yet popular gay male activities are enough to chop down any woodie.)

Still, The Joy of Gay Sex is mostly entertaining. It even caught the attention of a seemingly straight boy at the bar Welcome to the Johnsons last night, where I was showing the book to L.Ho and M-dash (who departed today to tour Europe for several weeks with a punk band). They were just as bowled over by it as I was. Back to the boy, though, I saw him steal several glances at it from across the narrow aisle separating us from him and his friends. Of course, I also saw him steal several glances at me. In fact, he touched my foot with his own once while returning to his seat from a bathroom break, in such a way that it could've been premeditated. Not that anything came (pun intended) from any of this, except an emboldened sense of mine of the possibility of seducing straight hipster boys. (And may I add here that the bartender there last night was my ideal type: tall, lanky, with black greasy longish hair that fell in his face, and a tightie-whitie waistband that kept peeking out of his pants whenever he extended his body. Yummy.)

2003-05-20T00:03:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 0

Ugh, did you see the double coverage of blog culture in the Times yesterday? Both by Warren St. John, one on Elizabeth Spiers and my fave, Gawker; the other on blogs and bloggers in general, particularly those of the so-called "New York school" that St. John references in the Gawker piece. Totally atrocious and vomit-inducing all around.

Okay, well maybe not so much the Spiers article, although the bloggers mentioned in it (Jonathan Van Gieson, Lockhart Steele) are definitely obnoxious, pretentious, and, worst of all, boring. Van Gieson, for instance, who has only been blogging since December, perpetually refers to how "famous" he is, and how "exciting" he and his "famous" friends are, without the slightest trace of sarcasm or irony or self-deprecation. (Lockhart, at least, provides occasional scoops about goings-on in my neighborhood.) Can he really be so myopic and self-absorbed as to think that because he writes about himself he's somehow notable or worthy of attention? Isn't that taking the whole "I think, therefore I am" business a bit too far? It's not like the Times is an arbiter of cool, after all. They published a piece yesterday on trucker hats, which wannabe stylin' hipsters have been sporting for over a year and a half now. Pretty of the moment, eh?

But despite my love of Gawker, I have to say that Spiers seems to be getting a little too big for her britches. Reading articles like this one (not to mention her own constant self-promotion on the site) makes me wish that the concept of selling out never went out of vogue. If all the bloggers willingly interviewed in these two articles (Deirdre Clemente, Rick Bruner) aren't the definition of selling out, then I don't know what it means. And let's not forget the fact that for the most part, they're pretty bad blogs too.

Okay, blast off. For now. It's just shit like this really gets my goat. I never feel more out of step with my generation than when it comes to seemingly everyone's wild desire for publicity of any kind. Whatever happened to actually deserving attention because you were good at something, not because you demanded it, or sought it?

Anyway, in news of my own life, I had a wonderful set of beers in the cozy back garden of Iona in Williamsburg tonight with the married A. and A. and J-bird, none of whom I've seen in several weeks. It was so nice catching up with them and enjoying the pleasantly temperate weather, even though a tiny toy dog took a dump less than a foot from where we were sitting. It reminded me of the two toddlers who, with the assistance of their parents, took dumps onto mulch less than a few feet away from the group of us celebrating Edster's birthday yesterday afternoon in a park in Chelsea. That, of course, was much, much worse than the dog. At least his owner wasn't holding his forearms, pointing his ass to the ground, helping him to defecate in plain sight of people, as these parents were doing with their kids. Tactless.

2003-05-11T20:57:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 1

I got nicely drunk last night and ended up in the chat rooms of Gay.com at 3:15 in the morning, wondering what the hell I was doing. After all, I had just bragged to my shrink a mere few days earlier about a) not having had sex with anyone in almost three months (my escapade at Happy Ending notwithstanding) and b) not having gone online in a sex-related way in much longer. At least I had the gumption to refrain from meeting up with anyone, even though I was approached with participating in two separate threesomes, one with a 21-year-old. I knew they'd end up in disaster, so I allowed myself to take a pass. When I woke up this morning, I was so glad I did. Guess my therapy is working...

Still, I did meet one interesting guy, a Libra, whom I chatted with for quite some time and seemed to hit it off with. I've been dying to meet a guy of his astrological persuasion because it's my most compatible sign, and I've never not gotten along famously with a Libra. Anyway, we resolved to get together in person in the near future and see what happens, despite my dismal track record with converting online chemistry into its offline counterpart. We will see. He promised to call and, as yet, hasn't. Probably a good thing.

Had a fun time out on the town with Edster last night, whom I hadn't seen in awhile. We did the usual East Village bar crawl, which I haven't done in weeks, and were shocked to discover that Wonder Bar, fail-safe standby, was pretty dead for a Saturday night--especially for 12:30 a.m., when the joint is usually bumping. In fact, I've never seen as few people as were there last night. Which is not to say that it was deserted or anything, but that was almost the case. I waited for Edster to chat with some boring-looking acquaintances while I finished my drink and then we left for the Phoenix, where we also stayed for just one drink. Then it was back to the Slide/the Marquee for their High-Life/Low-Life party, produced by Danny Nardicio, where we had started the evening off a few hours earlier, when the fabulous bouncer let us in for free even though the cover was five bones at that point. I'd read in Page Six that Marc Jacobs and Pat Fields (who lives near the space on the Bowery) had shown up the week before, which made me feel like I was missing out on something. As I always say, at least to myself, if there's a scene, I want to be there, even if just to check it out.

And this party was definitely a scene. Edgy, electro-tinged dance music downstairs, which hipster rock-and-roll go-go boys were getting down to, and a live performance by the queer boy-fronted band Bullet upstairs, where host Sweetie was reigning free. There were sexy, entrancing, slightly threatening rocker boys galore, and I spotted Justin Bond in the crowd. (Later I bummed a smoke from Scotty the Blue Bunny, sans outfit, who apparently is involved in throwing the party. I regret not working him more so that I could ensure future free entries.) Although the age of most revelers seemed decidedly in the thirties--the adorable, fashionable mid-twenties gay boys so often seen in the East Village were few and far between, save for myself of course--the overall vibe made up for it. Which makes sense, when you consider the fact that most of them were around for the last significant flowering of the East Village scene, in the mid to late 90s, so they know how it's supposed to be. In any event, I'm planning to make this party a regular fixture of my nightlife schedule.

Earlier in the day I had gone to the Met, alone, where I caught the Thomas Struth photography show, which I had been jonesing to see, and the Manet/Velazquez exhibition, which was quite interesting if exhaustive (and exhausting). And I also, as is now customary, checked in on the remains of my favorite Egyptian mummy, Nany. I've been trying to write a poem about her for over a year now, and I'm happy to report that I was so inspired yesterday after seeing her that as soon as I got home, the words just spilled out of me, to the point where I now have a pretty good working draft of the poem. I'm thrilled, not least because I was beginning to think that my talent for writing poetry was beginning to fade away. Working and freelancing all the time (and planning to work on a book proposal and then not following through) are not particularly conducive to crafting personal creative visions.

As for Friday night, I stayed in, after seeing that new film Blue Car with some friends from work straight after work. It's really good. And tonight I'm going to stay in as well and watch the Masterpiece Theatre adaptation of Zadie Smith's White Teeth on PBS.

2003-05-07T00:11:00.001-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 3

So plugging that snapshot of La Zeta naked smoking has apparently driven my blog traffic through the roof--in fact, to heights I never thought my modest creation would ever reach. At first I thought the increased visitors were due to the blog's own merits--I thought perhaps some more famous blogger had discovered and linked to me--but then I noticed all the Google searches in my Sitemeter breakdown and realized the true reason. Not that I'm complaining. I'll take new readers any way I can, and hopefully keep some of them too. Just goes to show you that cigarettes ain't all bad.

Well, I made it through my mad week and on to La La Land, where I arrived a hair before midnight Thursday to visit my boy El Mar, whom I hadn't seen since he visited me here two months ago. We had the best time, even though, until Sunday, the weather was hardly representative of Southern California's famous sunny climate. But we persevered anyway, getting up at the crack of dawn Friday (after sleeping less than four hours) so that I could make my debut on talk radio as a guest on a morning drive-time show broadcast on the OutQ channel of the new Sirius satellite network, also available online. It went really well, and I look forward to more gigs in the future, possibly as a New York correspondent.

Later that day, after chilling and catching up on some sleep, we went to Santa Monica to have lunch with an old friend of mine from high school, whom I hadn't seen in almost five years, mostly because he basically disappeared as soon as he graduated from college. Then he was my rave buddy and drug guru; now he's a successful video game programmer with a chipped tooth who told me he made over $100,000 last year. I didn't protest when he offered to pick up the check.

That night we saw X2 with 9998 other people at this wonderful old-school, art-deco movie theater formerly owned by Fox in Westwood. I loved it, and the flick too. Then, while it poured out, we hit up the Pop Stars party at the West Hollywood club Ultra Suede with some of El Mar's friends (and some of their friends). It's basically like Pop Rocks here, but not nearly as cool (although Pop Rocks isn't all that either), yet El Mar paid no heed to my calls to go elsewhere as he was trying to, first, hook up with an HR employee at a new record label where he was trying to get a job and, second, hook up with an up-and-coming young agent at one of the top talent firms. (He's an actor, so sleeping around comes naturally to him.) He ended up going home with the latter, leaving me fairly drunk and alone. Somehow I managed to find the rental car (a convertible red Sebring, which I'd been upgraded to!) and drive back to his apartment a few blocks away.

The next morning we had brunch with the talk show host and an only-in-L.A. gaggle of his gay male friends (one of whom hugged me when we were introduced, then counseled me on the lessons of the Kabbalah) at a popular WeHo eat place. Then we hit up the main branch of the Museum of Contemporary Art downtown (I'd been to see a Takashi Murakami-curated show a few visits ago at the Pacific Design Center), where we sighted Lucy Liu (and her tall, white boyfriend, along with members of her family). Next I hit up the vintage shops of Melrose, scoring a Judds 1991 farewell concert tour t-shirt and a Michael Bolton "Time, Love, & Tenderness" one for five bucks each. And that night we checked out ex-New Yorker Mario Diaz's Hot Dog party at the Parlour, where I had one of the best times I've had out in quite some time. Although the boys weren't nearly as cool, or as cute, as the ones I've come to expect to see here, the vibe and music (electro-y but not too electro-y, with plenty of classics thrown in for good measure) were unmatched.

On my last day there, Sunday, the weather was absolutely gorgeous, so we mostly just drove around with the top down, zigzagging through the Hollywood Hills on Mulholland Drive, which I'd never been on, and going out to Malibu, where I hadn't been before either. I forgot to put sunscreen on, so my face got a little burned, but the ride--and scenery--was totally worth it. And on the way back to El Mar's apartment, we made the requisite stop at the Kabbalah Centre in Beverly Hills, the very one Madonna studies at. The whole place radiated "cult" to me, but that didn't stop me from purchasing a bottle of Kabbalah water (slogan: "cleansing the soul") as a souvenir, as well as a piece of red string that cost me 20 bucks and supposedly, if worn properly, will protect me from evil. I hope so, because these days, we need all the protection we can get.

2003-05-07T00:11:00.000-04:00

2003-04-29T23:59:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 2

Nothing like a swab stick shoved up a urethra to quash a libido. That's what happened to me on Friday when I went to have my STD treated at Callen-Lorde. After discussing my symptoms and the behavior that led to them, a very cute, strapping, thirtysomething male nurse asked me to pull down my jeans and underwear and then, er, sampled my penis with his cotton-topped wand. It hurt like hell; he told me to breathe. It reminded me of some of my experiences being fucked. And because I was totally crushing on the nurse the whole time I was in the examining room with him, I nearly got hard when I uncovered my dick. I tried my hardest not to.

Anyway, I haven't been able to stop thinking about him since then, but the important thing is that my little infection is no more. I still don't know what exactly I had--they haven't called me with the lab results yet--but I'm glad that whatever it is, it's gone.

I'm also glad--ecstatic actually--that I finished writing the two articles I had to do over the weekend. It was such a nightmare doing them at the same time, and I will make sure to never get myself caught in a similar bind again. The interviews were scheduled at the last possible moment (Saturday night, one before and one after the show they were connected to), leaving me only Sunday to take notes on the tapes and write the pieces in order to make their Monday deadlines. Turns out I was only able to get one in on time (for my regular gig), though the editor for the other one was totally cool and allowed me to turn it in today. But because I've been creatively blocked, as well as stuck at work late on deadline, I ended up getting up at 6:45 this morning to crank out the shit. Luckily it passed muster, despite the editor's fairly aggressive editing in certain parts. Which reminds me: he wants me to look it over and "restore my voice" if I feel that's necessary. Fuck my voice! I'm tired.

In other news, NBC and madonnarama.com have confirmed that American Life will debut at number one on the album chart tomorrow, which makes me happy. I watched the special Dateline interview with her tonight, and that made me happy too. When she strummed "Stairway to Heaven" on acoustic guitar, I almost died.

And last but not least, I found out today that I've been booked to appear on a gay talk radio show when I'm in L.A. on Friday! Well, it's not actually a radio show on the actual radio, but it is on the Web, which for now is good enough. Once I find out the details, like the exact time I'll be on, I'll post them here...

2003-04-24T23:50:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 9

I hope everyone got a chance to see the photos of a massively pregnant, smoking, topless Catherine Zeta Jones before they were taken down, apparently due to a cease-and-desist letter from her legal counsel. Her huge tits (and nipples!) glistening in the sun were classic. I was practically turned on! And the cigarette? A beautiful touch. I wonder why she didn't try to sell them to a tabloid...

As for the much-hyped new mag Radar, well, I managed to nab a copy last night after spying a whole row of them on a shelf in the tiny newsstand on one side of the passageway between the Rockefeller Center concourse and the 50th St. F train station. When I got home, I actually read it for two straight hours, and have been perusing it on and off ever since--I like it quite a lot. The cover story on monstrous celebs and other powermongers is hysterical!

And as for my under-hyped STD, I was able to schedule an appointment at the Sexual Health Clinic of Callen-Lorde tomorrow afternoon, just in time to be cured for my second date with T. (whom, you'll remember, I went out with three Wednesdays ago). We're getting sushi, and I can't wait.

2003-04-23T23:14:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 8

So remember my celebration of back room sex in my last post? Well, now that I think I have a fucking STD, I retract any such enthusiasm and, once again, renounce all sexual activity. That's right, I think one (or more) of the guys I blindly gave myself to at Happy Ending last week gave back in kind and rewarded me with an infection in my wee-wee. Thankfully it's not that nasty, but it has me upset--and slightly uncomfortable--just the same. This marks my second such situation, after contracting crabs back in college (I actually got it twice from the same guy). When I was writing the other day, I was going to make a crack about how the back room seemed like the perfect way to spread SARS; ironically--and unfortunately--I forgot about other more common contagious diseases. (And no, I don't have genital warts.)

Anyway, I'm going to try to make it to the Callen-Lorde Center tomorrow or Friday and take advantage of my newly acquired health insurance, which recently kicked in, by getting this shit sorted. Aside from maintaining my health, it's especially important that I get rid of this motherfucker because I have to be in tip-top shape this weekend: I have two articles to write, on the same topic, for two different rags, from two different angles. (One is for my steady gig, the other is for a new one for me.) Luckily the editors have been very understanding about the matter--as they should be, considering it's not my fault they both assigned me the same damn story. But even though it's a bit of a nightmare all around (mostly because I'm going to have to work all weekend long), it's also a bit flattering, I have to admit. And I think I'm up to the challenge.

In other news, I got Madonna's new set yesterday and LOVE it. I don't care what the naysayers (read: straight white men) say, American Life is hot--even if that does make me sound like every other fag in the world.

2003-04-22T00:23:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 6

Pretty good on the smoking tip, eh? And looks like smooth sailing ahead, as I'm not expecting to hang out with any of my smoking friends for the next few days.

So I made myself dinner tonight for the first time in ages. Ever since I moved into this joint almost two years ago, I've gone out to eat or gotten take-out (or ordered in) practically every night, and maybe two or three times I heated up some soup. But actually cook something? No. Lately, though, I've been getting sick of that routine, plus I've been trying to batten down the hatches in regards to my eating habits (with the warm weather coming on, I got to tone up), so I thought I'd pick up some organic eggs and cheese from the organic grocery store on Ludlow St. and make myself a nice, carb-free omelette. Which is what I did, and I was proud of myself. But I also managed to cut my right thumb opening the bottle of olive oil (for the skillet), which only reminded me of why I don't cook. At least no blood ended up in the omelette, thank God.

Afterwards, I watched the American Idol special, so I was finally able to catch up on all the contestants. (Now that the show airs at 8 on Tuesdays, I can never watch it due to my therapy session.) Kimberley and Clay are still my faves, but I'm perplexed as to why innuendoes and jokes about the latter's supposed straightness persist. Can't everyone tell he's just a big fag--literally (he's so tall!)? I mean, I know nothing as bold as his coming out could happen, but must everyone involved with the show conspire so conspicuously to obfuscate his sexuality (especially when two of the players, host Ryan Seacrest and judge Simon Cowell, are so obviously gay themselves)?

In other Idol news, I heard Kelly Clarkson's new single tonight and dug it.

Anyway, as I mentioned previously, I took three days off in my increasingly busy life to go home for Easter and chill like the villain I am. It was so restful, though not, of course, long enough to be truly restorative. It was also good to see the folks, and the weather was so warm that my bro and I tooled around Galveston Bay in my dad's convertible Mazda Miata (a 10-years-too-late mid-life crisis present to himself). After going to the two hour-plus Easter liturgy Saturday night, our big plans were to go the Dairy Queen and get Blizzards. Fun! Welcome to suburbia...

On the scandalous tip, Marvelous and I made our return to the Happy Endings party at Happy Ending last Tuesday and had a great time, despite the fact that the bitchy, out-of-it door girl tried to charge us ten bucks to get in even though the e-mail clearly stated the cover was five before 11 p.m. (She tried to do something similar the last time we were there, in late fall.) Bitter cold winter temperatures aside, I don't know why we hadn't gone back sooner: free drinks til midnight; groovy, mood-setting tunes; the cutest, sleaziest, coolest crowd of any current gay party; and oodles of commitment-free, anonymous sex in a dark steamy cube covered in square tiles. I loved it!

Last time I was there, I hooked up with two guys; this time, I technically only hooked up with one, but several others either touched or sucked my dick, backed up against the wall in the sardine can-like space as I was. It was truly liberating. Due to the pitch blackness, I couldn't tell what my paramour looked like, but I could hear him all right--he kept saying "Give it to me," which at first I took to mean that he wanted me to shove my finger up his ass. Only later did I realize he actually wanted to shove his dick up my ass--not that I let him do it. (The condom he was wearing should've been a giveaway.) I could, however, tell that he was a hottie, so that pleased me. We had a pleasurable tete-a-tete, which was only slightly interrupted when another, equally mysterious man sucked me off. Then guy no. 1 and I continued at it for a little while longer, until I decided I was fully spent and pulled my jeans up and buttoned them. I walked out of the back room area, bummed a smoke (that's right, smoking is still allowed there), and waited for Marvelous to appear. When he did, he told me he had yet to cum, which is usually his problem in these situations. I guess that's what happens when you're in a committed relationship like he is, albeit it with someone who lives across the country.

2003-04-21T01:13:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 5

Just a short post for now to let you know that I haven't vanished or anything. Well, actually, I did vanish, from the city at least--I was chilling with the 'rents in Houston for the past three days for the Easter holiday, and just got home about a half hour ago. I'm zonked, as you can imagine, and am about to down some Excedrin PMs and hit the hay. I promise a more detailed entry shortly, filled with sex and career progress!

2003-04-14T23:13:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 5

So I'm totally exhausted--my normal Monday night condition--and I haven't started on the article I'm supposed to write, which I had intended to begin working on as soon as I got home around 6:30, in an ambitious attempt to actually get a head start on something for once in my life. Instead, I sat around reading Instinct for hours, which I happened to come across while I was searching in vain for the new Radar. (I was told by the newsstand vendor that it would be out on Wednesday.) I haven't flipped through a copy of Instinct in quite some time, and I have to say, it's really improved. I've always thought it was funny, irreverent, and readable--much cooler than a mag like Out (though obviously less respectable)--but now it seems like it's a bit more professional than it used to be. And it's thicker and glossier. It all makes me want to send them my clips, despite suspecting that I might be compromised by writing for them. Still, I don't know how a no-name like Ned Stresen-Reuter made it onto the cover, aside from the fact that he's roomies with Instinct contributor Craig Chester.

If I couldn't rouse myself to work, though, at least I ordered in a healthy dinner of steamed tofu with basil, carrots, and snowpeas. (Too bad I also ordered the Vietnamese spring rolls, which contained some strange mystery meat-like substance I didn't particularly care for.) I've been veering dangerously far from my anti-carb stance lately, and I need to get serious again. And, considering I haven't been to a gym in more than a year, I'm going to start doing crunches in the morning. Plus I learned in Instinct how to tighten up my ass, so I'm going to try some of those exercises too. I might even buy some free weights! (Editor's note: I'm not fat.)

Oh, and the new Marc Jacobs jeans I rocked today? LOVED them.

2003-04-13T23:19:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 4

Today I did my part to usher in the warm weather by having an absolutely glorious day outside with my girl A., the one who recently got married. We haven't had quality time like we had this afternoon in ages, and it was so nice. It felt the way it used to feel when we would hang out two years ago, back in the spring and summer of 2001, when I still lived in Brooklyn (Greenpoint, to be exact) down the street from her, and she hadn't started seeing A., who eventually became her husband.

We met up in Soho, then took off straightaway to the Marc Jacobs enclave at Bleecker and W. 11th, where my newly hemmed jeans were waiting. (They only make them in a length 34, thus necessitating alterations for nearly everyone except sample-sized models, a species to which I do not belong.) We took our sweet little time meandering up Sixth Avenue and then along Bleecker, chatting away the whole time--even while it took forever for the sales boy to, first, locate my jeans and, second, to give them to me once they were found. I noticed that he, apparently a part of the sample-size ilk, had a very taut, pert ass, the kind you can ricochet quarters off of. (He also had a perfectly sculped torso, which I glimpsed through his sheer shirt.) Were it not for his glazed eyes, which gave away the fact that nobody was home upstairs, and his generic cuteness, I would've been impressed. What was impressive, though, was that he didn't make me pay for the alteration, normally a $15 charge. A. said that it was probably 'cause it took so long, but, at my prompting, she also said it was plausible that he just thought I was cute.

Instead of venturing to Magnolia for a cupcake afterwards, as we had planned, we went for a bite to eat at Petit Abeille, the cutest little Belgian cafe, directly across 14th St. from Pastis. We laid low there for awhile, then made our way back to Magnolia where, horror of horrors, they were temporarily out of yellow-cake cupcakes--A. doesn't eat the chocolate ones. So we kept wandering down Bleecker, finally coming across a gourmet ice cream shop, the name of which fails me now, and we ducked inside, ice cream striking us as an even better idea on a beautiful early spring day than a cupcake.

After indulging (she in chocolate sorbet, me in a fresh batch of tiramisu ice cream), we ended up in Washington Square Park, where we took in the scene for about an hour, still talking, commenting on the seemingly infinite variety of dogs (and dog owners) on display everywhere. We wondered whether there was a scientific explanation for a dog's desire to sniff another dog's ass. Then we walked up Broadway, stopped by the Strand (where I picked up a vintage copy of Tama Janowitz's Slaves of New York, complete with an early '80s graphic design scheme), then saw A. off at the L train. I nipped into the Virgin Megastore, listened to a bunch of CDs, and bought the new Turin Brakes' album Ether Song, which I've played three times already. It's awesome.

Anyway, today made up for not doing anything yesterday, aside from conducting a quickie phone interview for the latest piece I'm working on for the gay rag (my deadline, fortunately, was extended until Thursday) and reading more ZZ Packer stories. Was supposed to hang out at night with Edster and Dubya, a new friend I'm testing out, but our plans succumbed to their flakiness. And Friday? Well, Friday was apparently Indian pride day for me, as I went to lunch with my colleagues at a new Indian joint in Murray Hill that the mag I work for reviewed; to see the movie Bend It Like Beckham, about a female Indian-English soccer player, with my Indian friend A., after work; and, finally, for drinks to Barramundi, which is Indian in name if not in decor or vibe. As my brother put it, that's just the kind of culturally aware guy that I am.

2003-04-11T00:02:00.000-04:00

NOTE: By the way, it looks like my archives are all messed up again; please bear with me as I try to figure out how to fix them.

2003-04-10T23:55:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 1

Well, I'm totally zonked after busting my ass all day long at the mag, checking gossip column and party page shit, trying not to think about the article for the gay rag that's technically due tomorrow, which I haven't even started working on yet. (It was, however, assigned to me exceptionally late in the week.) I'm allowed to turn it in Saturday if I want, an option I'll have to take advantage of now--that is, if my subject calls me back. I left word on cell and landline earlier and she/he (a sometime drag queen) hasn't deigned to call me back yet. Writing every single week for them has become a bit overwhelming, especially when I'm working on my own, albeit short, article for my day job.

Another reason I'm exhausted is the coke binge with Court, Lazy, and J-bird at my apartment last night, after catching the Dopo Yume show at Bowery Ballroom. (They opened for OK Go, whom I had heard were good--seems like they have so much buzz right now--but who in fact aren't. Basically a frat band masquerading as an indie rock outfit. Dopo Yume, though, were the real thing. They rocked!) I did so many lines I lost track of them, and when the gang departed close to 2 a.m., I had a hard time falling asleep. No surprise, considering I was fucked up and my body was buzzing, but still. Eventually I drifted off, thank God, and managed to sleep the poison off, though when I woke up this morning, it hadn't entirely left my system. Didn't really until almost lunch.

Also had a date last night with this guy I met at a friend's house party a few weeks ago. He's older (33) and corporate (although he was an actor in his twenties), but well-educated and talkative. And he's taller and stronger than me, which I like. He was so cool, in fact, that when I accidentally flung most of the beer out of my glass--and all over the table and floor--less than 10 minutes after being there (don't ask), he didn't bat an eyelash. Instead, he laughed and suggested that we move tables. Maybe if I had gotten more than just a few drops on his knee, he would've reacted differently, but I won't question the reaction I got. He e-mailed me today saying he had a great time, commenting on how charming the combination of my "smarts" and "feistiness" was. Get a load of that! Older fellows have always appreciated me more than my peers...

2003-04-09T00:13:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 4

So my blog was discovered by a new friend of mine, the purveyor of his own blog--which means he's the only reader, as far as I can tell, who knows my identity. (Well, actually, I can think of one other, but I deliberately met him once.) Not that it would be that hard for anyone to suss it out, considering how thinly veiled the renderings of my life herein often are. It makes me think that maybe I should just drop my attempt at anonymity and come clean, especially since my adventures don't seem nearly as scandalous as they once were. Maybe they never were.

I saw the televised Cher concert tonight, and that was fun. I forget what an amazing career she's had, and even though she's a nut, she's still an icon. God love her. Watching the show, I remembered I own a vintage Cher album on which she covered all these diverse songs, including Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone." Seems an incompatible choice, but she really rocks it. I can't believe how many fags were in the audience, though, cheering and making fools out of themselves. It seemed like every guy there was gay. God love them.

Therapy group was strange tonight. Still getting used to the new member, a 41-year-old guy who lives with his partner of eight years in Westchester. They're about to adopt a baby girl. The chemistry is a little off, so I hope it comes around. The 34-year-old wasn't at the meeting, and I missed his presence, not only because we've become friends over the last several months, but also because he's closer to me in spirit (and age!) than the other two guys. Sometimes I feel like the group is merely a forum for the pedestrian gripes of middle-aged suburbanites, and that's so definitely not what I signed up for.

Anyway, I'm zonked, and I want to read some more of ZZ Packer's new (and only) book of short stories Drinking Coffee Elsewhere...

2003-04-06T23:08:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 2

Still trying to get back into the routine of posting here after my mini-sabbatical. As usual, I'm starting to mourn the loss of my Sunday, as the minutes tick away towards midnight, and then to the beginning of the work week. Ugh. I did nothing today except read the Times, which I haven't done so thoroughly in a long time, and watch The Simpsons and Alias, which was a repeat of an episode I hadn't seen guest-starring my baby Ethan Hawke. It was so good. I also happened to catch this new show on Fox called Oliver Beene, which follows The Simpsons, while I was fussing around on the Internet and, to my great surprise, discovered that the best friend of the 11-year-old title character is a budding fag! In fact, the episode tonight centered on the two boys' finding a straight porn magazine, at which the gay boy turned his nose up in disgust! Isn't that great?

Yesterday, I did almost nothing as well. Somehow I managed to sleep in til 4, then putzed around the apartment for the rest of the day and evening (and bear in mind, my apartment is about 200 square feet, so there's not much room to putz around in the fullest sense of the phrase), catching up on some magazines lying around and watching TV, including this awesome old documentary on MGM movie musicals on PBS. I also watched SNL and read this week's New Yorker cover to cover. Scintillating, I know--if I were a slug!

At least I had a productive week, pitching story ideas and firming up relationships, and writing another article for the gay weekly I've been contributing to. And Friday night, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I went to the opening of Andy Horwitz's Potty Mouth, directed by a member of my therapy group. It was good, much tighter than the last time I saw it, but what was really good was my bringing this new guy in my life, Dubya. He's a friend of El Mar's whom I've briefly hung with once or twice in the past, but then I ran into him at my boy Edster's housewarming party last Saturday (he just moved into an impressive duplex in Chelsea), and we totally cliqued, hanging out together the whole party. We ended up e-mailing all week, and then I invited him out Friday, to see the show and to get drinks with Andy and other assorted hangers-on (like ourselves) afterwards. It was fun up until he said he was tired and was going to go home, despite my offer for him to stay at my place, which, conveniently, was a mere 10-minute walk away from Urge, the site of said drinks. He declined, but when he got home, he sent me a highly effusive e-mail, thanking me for a great time. Is another date in the offing, or will he just become my latest partner in crime? Too soon to tell, I guess.

2003-04-04T21:11:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 2

Don't have time to fully post--I'm going to the opening of Andy Horwitz's Potty Mouth at the Marquee in a few--but wanted to link to the Salon.com exclusive bootleg copy of Madonna's spiked video for "American Life," which I discovered via Gawker. You have to watch a dumb-ass ad first (unless you actually have a paid subscription to Salon), but it's worth it, 'cause the video is cool. Pretty grainy, though, and seems to have more than a few gaps in it. Still, you get a good sense of what Madonna was trying to do. And, hearing the song in its entirety for the first time, I was pleasantly surprised: it's better than I thought it was going to be. In fact, I dig it. Conrad Ventur, electroclash guru Larry Tee's boyfriend and business partner, told me earlier this week that Madge's next single is called "Hollywood," and apparently it's dope, straight-up electro. Can't wait...

2003-04-03T01:30:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 0

Leave it to me to screw up taking advantage of the smoking ban, which I had hoped would help me not smoke, by smoking anyway. I just got back from XL, where I passed a posse of smokers on my way out the door and managed to not bum a cigarette. But earlier this evening, as my boy Marvelous and I were leaving a Chelsea television studio after waiting in line for an hour to sit in the audience for a taping of the Graham Norton show (on BBC and BBC America) only to not get a seat, I bummed a smoke from one of the walkie-talkie assistants simply because he asked me a question. Isn't that sick? Normally it's the reverse: I would bum a smoke at the bar and not even think to snag one at a non-bar. What's wrong with me?

Anyway, I know I've basically vanished from this blog for a few weeks now (two-and-a-half weeks to be precise), but I'm back in business, at least for the time being. I was kind of shocked to find that no one wrote to inquire about my well-being until yesterday, when a very nice, avid, anonymous reader e-mailed to see if I was okay. (Thank you for asking.) No one else did, though, which I have to say I find a bit troubling. The simple explanation for my absence is that I've been tremendously busy with work, houseguests (after El Mar, my ex-boyfriend, who seems to become more boring with time, came to visit for five days two weeks ago), and freelance writing (I'm in the process of writing my fourth article in four weeks for the gay weekly), and the last thing I've wanted to do in my down time is anything that requires too much effort, like this blog.

But now that I'm back in the saddle again (and hello, I hope that Urban Cowboy stays on Broadway long enough for me to see Matt Cavanaugh ride the mechanical bull!), it doesn't feel too bad.

2003-03-16T03:05:00.000-05:00

NOTE: I tried to post this much earlier today, but Blogger was malfunctioning.

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 3

I've got to dash off for my friend Nangstarr's art opening in Williamsburg--it's her first solo show--but wanted to try and post first. Unfortunately, I don't have that much to say as I totally wasted the day sleeping. I don't know what my problem is that I slept for nearly 14 hours last night! I woke up at 12:30 p.m., ready to face the day, but instead, I went to the bathroom, turned all the lights in my apartment on, and then got back into bed, planning to just lie there a little longer before getting up for real and doing my thing. Of course, I fell right back asleep and didn't wake until almost 4. Some day, huh? I'd been hoping to take advantage of the warm weather by going over to the Marc by Marc Jacobs shop on Bleecker St. and buying a new pair of jeans, followed by a cupcake at Magnolia on the other side of the corner. Now I'll have to do it tomorrow. At least the weather's supposed to be even higher then: 59, possibly even 60 degrees!

Wednesday night I went to see the play Fifth of July, starring Parker Posey and Robert Sean Leonard, with L.Ho, M-dash, and Court. It totally blew us away. The Lanford Wilson play, first staged in the late '70s, tells the story of several friends, former '60s radicals at Berkeley, who reunite on the Fourth of July holiday only to have a more personal kind of fireworks display go off between them. Leonard was brilliant, and Posey had more star power than the rest of the cast combined. But every performance was good, and the overall effect was quite powerful. There's nothing like great theater to really inspire and invigorate you--especially when you're in the front row, as we were. (If we wanted to, we could've grabbed a smoldering cigarette from an ashtray on the stage.) Afterwards, we headed down to the bar Revival near Union Square, where a bunch of exhibitionist, ugly middle-agers were slapping each other on the asses and smoking cigs clasped between people's toes. It was disgusting, and distracting. Somehow we managed to have a conversation anyway.

Thursday night I worked on an article for the gay weekly, doing the interviews and writing up the text. I turned it in Friday morning and my editor loved it. (I thought it was pretty good too.) Then he assigned me another piece due this Friday. As I've mentioned, with the huge pay cut I'm taking at my new job, I'm short some 200-300 bucks a month. If I have to write a story a week for the gay weekly, which pays terribly, to make up the difference, that's what I have to do.

2003-03-12T01:15:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 3

Gawker is my latest online reading fix, which I turn to after the Times, Romenesko, mediabistro.com, various local, national, and international newspapers, the Observer (depending on the day), Drudge, Page Six, and some others. And I can't forget my precious blogs, only a few of which I'm still reading, in part because a few of my faves have gone on "hiatus" and in part because I've lost interest in a few of the others. Eh. All good things must come to an end sometime. Or not.

I feel much better about the state of my finances today after receiving an e-mail from my mom counseling me to keep my apartment and after my therapist said I was "directing my energy" very well and being extremely proactive in considering a plan of action. He also dismissed El Mar's advice that I give up my apartment as just that, advice, and not Truth or anything, which especially improved my mood as El Mar's the one who got me in such a tizzy telling me to move--a suggestion, I should note, that no one else has made.

I forgot to post that I saw the hot-thing actor Michael Pitt on the downtown 6 train Friday night going home from the Whitney. He got in at Grand Central, but I forgot where he got off. He was wearing boring khaki pants, sneakers, and a nondescript shirt and jacket, and he was reading what I'd like to assume was a script. He looked directly into my eyes when he stepped on.

2003-03-10T23:03:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 2

Easy does it. That's one of the three slogans of many a 12-step group, such as Al-Anon or Debtors Anonymous, both of which my best friend happens to attend. (The other two slogans are "keep it simple" and "let go, let God.") She told me that saying over the weekend, when I was describing the extent of the financial crisis I've inadvertently fallen into with this atrociously low new salary I'm making at the magazine. Easy does it, she said. Don't make any rash decisions. Suss the situation out and see what happens. All of which makes sense to me; in fact, they're principles I tend to abide by in my life in general. But it meant a lot to me when she counseled me to take it easy, because at the time, I was on the verge of apoplexy from intensely meditating on the state of my financial affairs, desperately trying to figure out how to make this shit work. My best friend has always been brilliant and she's in the process of becoming a brilliant filmmaker, but she was especially brilliant in talking to me about everything, giving me some great ideas but, more importantly, some great support. I've felt much better about everything since our conversation.

Well, I've run the numbers a million times now and the verdict is that if I cut way back on my expenses (including, sadly, my therapy--after all, what's more important, not being insane or not being homeless?), I should be able to survive for the indefinite future, even paying the exorbitant rent I pay. It won't be pretty, but it's doable. And that's not including any extra money I can plausibly make writing for the mag or freelance writing for others. However, if it turns out that I can't ultimately swing it, then I'll just have to give up my apartment, despite my great love for it. There's no shortage of rooms for rent in two- or three-bedroom apartments in Manhattan neighborhoods I want to live in for $800 or $900 a month--for example, at El Mar's place, where there's a decent chance I can get in. To my mind, that's the best possible scenario at this point. Interestingly enough, though, after almost having a coronary when I told him how low the salary was, my pop intimated that he might try to help me out a little. We'll see. In the meantime, if anyone wants to make any donations, let me know. I'm serious. It's not like I'm getting paid to pour my sometimes scintillating, sometimes prosaic thoughts out like this, you know.

In other, less depressing news, El Mar returned to the West Coast in the early morning today after a whirlwind five-night stay in the city. We had a great time, even though I thought we might come to blows at a few points. I love him to death, but sometimes he drives me crazy. Our nightly itinerary for the duration of his visit went something like this:

Wednesday night: Bar d'O

Thursday night: Ryan McGinley and Spencer Product's Hot Monkey/Hot Ass party at Ivy South, followed by Metropolitan (both in Williamsburg)

Friday night: Ryan McGinley show (which sucked) and Diller + Scofidio show (which blew me away) at the Whitney, followed by Formika's Area 10009 party at Opaline, then Wonder Bar, Phoenix, and the Cock

Saturday night: party for El Mar at Barramundi, followed by the Slide, then Wonder Bar and Starlight

Sunday night: The Rambles party (at the Park), followed by B Bar, where Avenue D, El Mar's fave band, were performing (though I didn't stay to catch them due to the overwhelmingly annoying scenesters assembled, the worst such crowd I may have ever seen; also, I don't really like Avenue D)

The only major scandal was that Thursday night, after getting super-trashed, I ended up bringing this guy whom I met at Ivy South (and who actually used to live in the building immediately adjacent to mine, and who knew at least two people that I knew) home with me, despite the fact that El Mar was sleeping on the couch about three inches from my bed. The guy and I had sex, of course, while poor El Mar closed his eyes and tried not to move for fear of us hearing. Apparently we got it on for almost an hour and a half before I came and passed out, during which time El Mar was wide awake, hearing every little detail--details he took major pleasure in telling EVERYONE about in the days after. The whole thing was a really bad job on my part--I shouldn't have done it--and I was royally embarrassed, even though I'm a sexually open person. It was just plain rude, and I totally violated the golden rule, considering that I would never have wanted to be in El Mar's position. The sensible thing to do would've been to not hook up in the first place, but, failing that, I should've at least gone back to his place. Thank God the drama eventually blew over--El Mar, to his credit, was barely fazed, and our friends, to their credit, thought the whole thing was fucking hysterical and nothing more.

Anyway, needless to say, I'm wiped out, and now I'm going to sleep.

2003-03-06T22:14:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 1

But the smoke was entirely justified--I was officially hired at the magazine yesterday! Woo hoo! And in addition to all of the nice perks that come with being permanent, such as benefits, relative job security, and a masthead mention, I get business cards, which I've never had before (at least not from an employer--I have my own that I did myself). I'm totally psyched. El Mar and I cracked open the bottle of Veuve Clicquot I've had for nearly a year (I got it as a going-away present from the last magazine I worked at), poured it into the Cartier champagne flutes (also a going-away present) I'd been dying to christen, and downed it all while watching American Idol. It was just like old times. Later we grabbed a drink at Bar d'O with his old college friend (and sometime object of my affection) D. and his roomie F. That's when the smoking occurred. It felt well-deserved.

The bad news, as I discovered today, is that my salary is only 26K, a 10K decrease from what I'm currently making as a freelancer. (Only in the magazine biz!) Needless to say, this is quite a bit less than what I need to survive on, especially with the mad expensive rent I have to pay on my cushy l'il pad. I spent the whole day conceptualizing contingency plans and reworking my monthly budget in my head, trying to figure out how to make this financial disaster work. Basically, if I drastically sacrifice and cut corners (and if my parents are willing to resume "sponsoring" me, at least to a small degree), I think I can do it. The only saving grace is that I get paid $1 to a $1.75 a word for any articles I write for the mag, and I already have my second one assigned already. Plus I have my fairly steady, if paltry, income from the gay weekly I've been writing for. If I can just start writing regularly somewhere else too--or start hustling again (just kidding)--that would make a world of difference.

Either that, or I'm going to have to give up my place. El Mar's decided to move back to the city at the end of the summer and return to his old apartment on Waverly Place, which he's been subleasing out, so maybe I can move into one of the three bedrooms there, provided that someone moves out. Or maybe I can move in with my bro uptown; his roomie's graduating from law school in the spring, so he's gonna need another mate. If I had to choose between living with people or living outside of Manhattan, I'd much rather live with people, even though I hate that. I couldn't bear to move to an outer borough.

Anyway, any magnanimous financial professionals or lawyers interested in donating to my charity?

2003-03-05T01:26:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 2

So El Mar makes his return to New York in less than eight hours, after living in L.A. for the past seven months. He's only here until Monday, though, and then he goes back to Cali. Staying with me the whole time, which will be nice, even though we're sure to get on each other's nerves. The best thing is that I expect to have plenty of nightlife hijinks to report on over the next few days, considering that this is my former partner in crime--and let me be the first to say that this blog could use them. I spent most of the night cleaning up my rathole of a place; sadly to say, it really needed it. I'm not much of a cleaner. It's not much of an Aquarius trait.

Speaking of things Aquarian, my beautiful tattoo is beginning to peel. I know this is a normal part of the tattooing process, but I'm somewhat scared that my tattoo is going to be ruined. It can't be, can it? I love it too much for it to vanish...

2003-03-02T23:36:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 0

Eh, so I've fallen off the wagon in a major way again, having smoked the past three nights, even though I've been feeling slightly ill and have been trying to not get really ill. Luckily, despite the smoke, I've managed to thwart any impending sickness. At least for now.

Tonight we resumed book club after a two-and-a-half month hiatus, minus two members, but with our reading spirit intact, possibly even intensified. We'd read The Alienist by Caleb Carr, a bestseller in the early 1990s and a much more mass-market novel than we typically read. We met at Puck Fair in keeping with the 19th-century, old New York vibe of the book--notwithstanding the highly contemporary pop music the pub was blasting. It was the perfect occasion to show off my brand-new tattoo to Ashes, Court, J-bird, and A.J.

That's right, I finally got my much-anticipated tattoo!!! It happened last night, totally on the spur of the moment, when L.Ho, M-dash, and I stopped by New York Adorned (owned by a member of punk band Bouncing Souls and the place L'il Kim and my friend G-spot got their tattoos) on Second Avenue after checking out photographer Aaron Cobbett's opening up in Chelsea--and after snagging some stellar, priced-to-move merchandise at the DDC Lab sample sale. (I've always wanted to own something by that ultra-expensive label, and now I do!) Originally we'd planned to just scope out the tattoo artist books and to schedule an appointment for me later in the week. But then M-dash started jonesing to get an ear piercing of hers redone, and then she did it, so I was like, what the fuck, let me just get my tat now too. I wanted to seize the moment. Fortuitously, one of the artists I liked was just finishing up a job on someone else, so 15 minutes later, I was in the back, getting inked. L.Ho had already designed the image--a cartoony, stylized Aquarius sign--so the guy just traced it right below my left shoulder, then fired up the needle. It barely hurt, and less than a half hour later, I was the proud owner of a new body decoration. When I looked at it in the mirror, I was so thrilled. "It looks like a superhero symbol," I fairly shouted. "That's because you are a superhero, aren't you," the tattoo artist replied.

I could've kissed him. And he did have a point.

2003-02-28T22:53:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 6

Well, actually, I smoked four earlier tonight, but until then, I hadn't smoked for six days, which is pretty good.

I know many of you, faithful readers, may have feared I dropped off the face of the earth this past week and a half (not that I got any concerned e-mails or anything), but the truth of the matter is that my landline phone service was temporarily restricted because I hadn't paid my bill for several weeks, so I couldn't connect to the Internet. I could at work, of course, but I don't like to update my blog where people can see me, so I refrained from doing so. Know that you were all on my mind, though. I missed you terribly. And now that I've finally been getting regular paychecks at work--not to mention the fact that I'm going to be hired officially in a matter of days (I've been freelancing, remember)--Verizon should never be able to interrupt me from my blogging again.

Anyway, I'm a bit drunk (from happy hour at Barrage with Edster earlier), a bit sick, and a bit tired, so I'm going to sign off. More news tomorrow, for sure.

2003-02-19T00:07:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 3

Nothing stellar to report today. Work went fine, much better than expected actually. Group therapy was fine too, though I noticed again that I've been feeling disengaged with the whole thing lately. I almost voiced my discontent but then decided not to. I think I might bring it up during my solo session next week. Notably, I realized again that I'm just not that interested in what the fortysomething gay dad has to say anymore. He's always talking about the same issues, and though he's making progress in resolving them, I'm kind of sick of hearing about them. My shrink always asks us for our reactions to things group members say, and I just don't have any new reactions. Plus, when the father talks about things not directly related to his issues or our group--things like his self-described arduous commute home last Friday--I'm bored to tears. Of course, I'm sure he sometimes, or frequently, feels the same way about me, so whatever.

I also got into a bit of a friendly tiff with my shrink towards the end of the session about the difference between our worldviews and our perspective on things. He actually praised me for confronting him, which is one of the things that therapists do that I find so amusing. I told him essentially that we were of different generations (he's in his late 50s) and had different senses of the politics that frame gay culture, and that in general I thought he was more conservative than me, which often colored his assessment of my opinions or predicaments. The situation was provoked by a discussion of commitment and its definitions--I basically said that I didn't see myself ever being with the same person for my whole entire life, that I was more of a serial monogamist at heart and that I expected to have several meaningful long-term relationships over the long haul. In his response to that comment, I thought I detected a bit of criticism, that what I had just said somehow opposed commitment. Anyway, we hashed it out in the few minutes we had left, we reached a kind of middleground, and everything was fine.

And the fortysomething father? He didn't seem to get what I was talking about at all and proposed that when I was older, I would want to live together with someone for the rest of the time I was alive, which was his ideal kind of relationship. He's definitely not the brightest bulb I've ever met.

2003-02-17T23:34:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 2

If we're having a whiteout, how come I'm not getting high off the fumes?

As much as I'm sick of all the snow we've had this winter, I managed to enjoy this blizzard, at least today. Yesterday, when I woke up in D.C. to a foot of snow, all my social engagements for the day obviously cancelled, not having a hat or a sensible pair of shoes with me, I was less than thrilled. I was staying at the apartment of my ex-boyfriend (of four years ago) on Capitol Hill, and we trudged our way to one of the main drags there to have brunch, then trudged back to his place, where I quickly packed my shit. Then we left again and walked 30 minutes to Union Station in Antarctica-like conditions so that I could catch a train back here. It was total chaos, but I ended up on a train 10 minutes after arriving. Nearly seven hours later, after sitting for almost an hour in pitch blackness at the Philly station (chief among several interruptions) and having to weather the inane, boring chatter of my fellow passengers, who were more than a little stir crazy, I disembarked at Penn Station. Usually the trip takes three hours. It was just starting to snow hard in the city, and as the cab inched its way down to my apartment, I couldn't help but smile at the true winter wonderland beginning to take shape before my eyes.

I was in D.C. for my friends A. and A.'s wedding on Saturday, my foremost social obligation of the weekend, but I was also planning on seeing three old friends of mine during the day on Sunday before leaving. Ashes and J-bird and I roadtripped down Friday night in Ashes's sporty red car, getting to J-bird's 'rents place in the Virginia 'burbs around 1 a.m. (We'd left the city late, and had to drop one of Ashes's friends off in D.C. on the way.) We had a lot of fun chilling on the massive leather sectional in the basement (J-bird's dad is a heart surgeon, so the house was appropriately grand as well as luxuriously outfitted), watching cable and devouring food and wine. We got totally smashed and fell asleep.

In the morning, we took our sweet little time getting ready for the wedding and watched the middle portion of the movie crazy/beautiful, which was surprisingly good. It was nice to check out Jay Hernandez in action, an actor I'd pitched several times at a former job to no avail until a top talent agent told my editors' that he was the shit. Total hotness. Eventually we made it to the ceremony, which was minimalist, unorthodox, and completely contemporary. It took place in a Quaker meeting house in Dupont Circle, and I was blown away by the beauty of it all. Perfect flakes of snow fell in the giant square windows while A. and A. exchanged vows, and I couldn't keep my eyes from welling up. Ashes was so overcome that she practically choked at one point and accidentally blew snot rockets into the pew in front of her. Luckily no one was hurt.

The reception afterwards was equally unadorned, and I continued to be touched, especially when A. asked me to dance, making me one of the few guys other than A. or her relatives to be so honored. The whole experience was truly moving. I hadn't been to a wedding since the '80s, when my aunt and uncle were hitched, so the event was a major eye-opener for me. I feel like I finally got the significance of marriage--why it occupies such an important place in our culture, and why the various battles over it are so heated. The combination of love, hope, family, and community was intoxicating. It made me want to get married, even though I oppose the institution of marriage on principle. I found myself visualizing my own union to someone, and I decided that Central Park would be a good location for the ceremony. But considering that I think I'm more of a serial monogamist, I might have several such ceremonies. The more the better, right?

After the reception ended, I headed over to my ex's place, and we promptly went to Remington's, this gay country-western bar on Capitol Hill. The experience was just as moving as the one I had at the wedding. In fact, I think I may have found my calling. Watching all these guys--some buff and beautiful, others just earnest and ordinary, all wearing cool-looking cowboy boots--two-stepping and line dancing with each other was amazing. It reminded me of an earlier, less pressured time in the history of dating, one where codes of chivalry and courtship, which I'm trying to revive, were practiced too. It also reminded me of the Marlboro Man, and I realized that he's my ideal boyfriend.

Anyway, I've decided to pursue this new-found vocation here in the city via Big Apple Ranch, which sponsors dancing, including lessons, every Saturday night at a studio in the Flatiron district. I wish we had a full-fledged bar where I could hone my skills, but this will have to do for now. The only thing is that I'd prefer to have a partner in crime, and I highly doubt I can persuade any of my boys to check this scene out with me. Are there any game readers out there who'd like to accompany me? I think it's going to be so much fun...

2003-02-13T00:06:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 4

Apologies to my regular readers--whose support is much appreciated--for not posting over the past few days, but I've been insanely busy with work and with writing my latest article. I basically spent all night Monday and Tuesday working on it, and I e-mailed it to my editor this afternoon after covertly tweaking it during my mini-lunch break. It's decent, but could use a little tightening. Hopefully my editor will even send it back to me for a revise, but he doesn't seem to do that. I could use a little longer to work on it.

Either way, though, it'll be fine. I finally heard back from the new editor at another mag that I've written for in the past and she told me she doesn't have a budget to assign me anything. I was disappointed at first, but then realized the mag I'm working at now covers the same beat, pays more money, and is ultimately more reputable, so I'm not sweating it. I wish I could write for the Times.

Anyway, this is all boring careerist bullshit. M-dash's party last Saturday was fun, even if most of the crowd was a little on the young side for me. (She's taking courses at a local art school, so she's been hanging out with a lot of undergrads.) In fact, Nico's out-of-town friends were on the young side too--they were undergrads. So of course I wasn't in the slightest interested in them. We ended up drinking tons of cans of Tecate, taking bong hits (the holder to the glass catch was missing, which meant I burned my finger), watching Desperately Seeking Susan (which I'd never seen before if you can believe it), and flipping through an old Kate Moss book. I called the car service around 5 a.m. (she lives in Williamsburg) and arrived home shortly thereafter. Oh yeah, her new pad is much cooler than her old one.

Saw M-dash again on Sunday 'cause she needed to do some research on the Web and wanted to use my computer; then we went to dinner at the Hat, around the corner on Ludlow. Since then I haven't done anything but work.

I think one of the fashion assistants at work has a crush on me--every time we pass in the hall, he smiles at me so intently, it's obvious. I have to admit, it turns me on. He's actually cute, and tall, and a bit bulky, which is sometimes just the way I like it. Maybe he'll be the paramour my horoscope keeps threatening I'll meet on the job.

2003-02-08T20:32:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 3

I interviewed that photographer today, and we had a nice conversation, if not a scintillating one. He's one of those artists who isn't particularly articulate about his own work, which makes it tough for me as a writer to write about it. But I like a challenge. His new show's going to be dope--I saw the photos, which he jut finished printing, and they're great. M-dash and I are already planning the outfits we're going to wear to the opening.

Anyway, nothing else of note has happened today, though I'm going to be heading out to M-dash's housewarming party in a little bit, so maybe something will go down there. Nico's coming, along with two out-of-town friends, one of whom is an ex-boyfriend of his, whom I've been forbidden to hook up with. Seems a little extreme to me, but whatever. Bros before hos, right?

2003-02-07T22:09:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 2

So the fallout from calling in sick yesterday was non-existent. My boss didn't even care; in fact, she said it would've been "stupid" for me to have come in. Score one for me! But I paid for my absence by working my ass off today, even though all I wanted to do was chill. At least I got to leave around 5:30, as always on Fridays, contrary to my gig at the law firm and to my past magazine job, both of which often required me to stay way late on Fridays.

Not that I had any plans to get ready for--I've realized that my social life is completely in shambles. Last Sunday I went out with Marvelous and Edster to the Dugout, that bear bar (well, on Fridays and Sundays) all the way down Christopher by the West Side Highway, and then, finally, to the Rambles at the Park (which was fun if not blazin'). Since then, the only item on my social agenda was my birthday, which turned out to be a major event (especially considering I'm still a bit congested from the coke binge), but still, that's pretty shabby compared to past schedules of exploits. Thank God M-dash is having a housewarming party for her new pad, which is right over her old pad, where her roomies where wacko, tomorrow night. I should be able to kick it there, and at Metropolitan, the (relatively) new Williamsburg gay bar, afterwards.

Theoretically I stayed in tonight to prep for an interview I'm expecting to have this weekend with this downtown photographer for an article I'm writing on him for that weekly gay rag--but he hasn't yet responded to the two messages I left on his answering machine today (his mobile was out of service). Which means, of course, why bother preparing if I don't know when I'm doing it? I spoke to him on Wednesday, so he knows all about the article, but he doesn't seem that on top of things. Not that I am, or that many people are, but you'd think he'd be a little more disciplined about the free publicity I'm offering him here. (Speaking of free publicity, that performer boy I was trying to court a few weeks ago hasn't called since our last phone convo, so that's unfortunately dead in the water.)

Just now I heard one of the gay boys in my building walking up the stairs. I think there are two gay male residents, but their voices sound similar enough that I can never tell who's who when they're chatting it up on there cell phones while ascending the stairs, as they invariably do. I've caught glimpses of them in the stairwell before, and they're cute, but I've never had a full-on encounter. I'm curious to know what would happen if we did--would we try to cruise one another?

Anyway, I'm totally babbling here, and I'm suddenly distracted by ice cream. Mmm. I'm weighing the merits of venturing outside onto the slushy sidewalk to pick up a pint of Ben and Jerry's Concession Obsession or the new limited edition Bananas Foster flavor from Haagen-Dazs against the decided demerits of freezing to death and then tracking melting snow back into the house... At the rate I'm going, between ice cream and McDonald's and greasy ordered-in lo mein, even if it is vegetable, I might never leave my apartment again. How can you when you weigh 600 pounds?

2003-02-06T23:29:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 1

So I survived another birthday yesterday--in fact, I would say I rocked it. One of my colleagues baked me the most delicious gourmet chocolate cake, even though she was sick (which made me a bit squeamish about eating it), and the rest of the factcheckers took a break from work to gather together and wish me a happy birthday while we all ate. I think that means they like me, they really do! Especially considering I'm only freelancing, and I've only been there for three weeks. I was touched.

I wasn't so touched that we had an early deadline this week and I was at the office until 9:30 waiting for the article I'd checked to close. I was on the verge of having a coronary because people had been showing up at Bouche Bar, the site of my birthday celebration, since 9, but then my supervisor graciously let me go even though the editor in chief was still tinkering with the article. (Factually it was all correct at that point, so I wasn't particularly worried.) So I hopped in a cab and arrived at the bar 10 minutes later, where I found a bunch of my friends organized into a rough circle, charmingly chatting with each other, with more people on the way. Ultimately everyone was there: M-dash, L.Ho, J-bird, Court, Nicodemus, Marvelous, Edster, A. and A. (who are getting married next week), G-spot, T. and her latest boyfriend, S. and a friend of hers, and one or two others. It was exactly the way I wanted it to be. By the time J-bird, Court, and I called it a night around 2, we were doing tequila shots with the bartender and shouting boozily to each other "I love you." It was great.

Of course, J-bird wanted to hang out more, and so did I, so she came back to my pad, even though we both had to go to work in a few hours, and proceeded to burn through a bag of coke, which we had started back in the bathroom at the bar. I don't know what we were thinking, because we were already wasted, but we ended up doing lines, smoking cigarette after cigarette, and talking until 6, at which point I was really wasted. When the alarm went off at 9, I felt sick to my stomach and still fucked up (J-bird apparently only felt tired), and I realized I was in no condition to go to work. So I called in sick--not exactly the best thing to do when you've just started working somewhere. But I knew today would be really slow, and I thought it'd be better to stay home than to go in and risk puking on the subway or, worse, in the office. Then there were my totally blood-shot eyes, which would've looked suspicious.

Anyway, I feel better now, but leave it to me to potentially fuck up my new job situation by partying too hard. I've been praying all day long that the fallout will be minimal.

2003-02-04T23:56:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 5

I'm afraid that the 21-year-old intern I work with, who happens to be a cute little gay boy, thinks I'm cool. Today he not only told me, from behind I might add as he followed me up a flight of stairs, that he liked my jeans (a yellowish/greenish grafittied pair by Diesel that I love), and later, as he waited for me to don my black leather faux-motorcycle jacket so we could leave the building together at the end of the day, he said I looked "bad-ass" and jokingly asked if I had a motorcycle parked on the street. Isn't that cute? I always aspired to a rebel biker aesthetic with that particular jacket, but no one ever said as much to me. Leave it to the intern to do it.

Anyway, my birthday begins in less than five minutes. I have to sign off so I can cry.

2003-02-03T23:52:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 4

I wore my new refurbished brown boots to work today after not wearing them for several months because the soles were coming loose and not a single person commented on them. I was slightly disappointed, but every time I glanced down at the shiny burnt siena leather, I felt much better. They cost me $250 at Omari over two years ago, plus $28 to be repaired last week, so they're an investment at this point, but I love them so much--and they look so cool--that they're worth it. The cobbler, a sweet man with a no-frills storefront all the way down Delancey towards the bridge, added thin new rubber soles onto the decaying wooden ones, so they no longer make their satisying thumpity-thump as I walk, but I'll happily trade any ancillary noise delights for longer wearability.

Anyway, work was good--I chatted briefly with the cute, slightly puffy-faced editor in the elevator--though I think I probably should have stayed a tad longer tonight, because everyone else, including the intern, did, but it was impossible for me to make any more progress on my assignments, so why bother? All I wanted to do was go home...and go to McDonald's! I've been totally binging lately on Big and Tastees with cheese, fries, and vanilla milk shakes. Okay, just tonight and once last week, but for me, someone who rarely eats fast food, that constitutes a major binge. But I can't help myself: it just tastes so good. Mmm, grease and fat and sugar.

In other news, Long Island Boy replied sanely to the e-mail I sent him yesterday breaking off our tete-a-tete and said he agreed, that it didn't seem like we had a lot to talk about. He still wanted to stay in touch, though, which of course begs the question of why?

2003-02-02T19:57:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 3

L.Ho just came and went--she was down in Chinatown, catching the dregs of the New Year celebration, then swung by my place and we went around the corner to Fried Dumpling to get some of their scrumptiously delicious dumplings (Ruth Reichl of Gourmet once listed them among her top five New York food faves), which she's been dying to try. Of course, I totally forgot they only have pork dumplings, and L.Ho's a vegetarian, so she had to settle for some veggie spring rolls, but we were happy nevertheless. It was good to see her, considering I haven't seen anyone in almost 48 hours. For the most part, the virtual isolation was due to my desire to chill, but I think it also had something to do with my troubling "date" with Long Island Boy Friday night, which just bummed me out and put me in a borderline bad mood.

Not that he was mean or nasty or anything--it's just that I realized that we so totally didn't click. It was almost laughable. Instinctively I knew that we weren't a match made in heaven, but he was so sweet and gentlemanly, and so different from the other guys I usually date, that I thought it might be good for me to see him again, that maybe we could make something happen.

But right from the get-go I knew it wasn't to be. We were supposed to see Confessions of Dangerous Mind at the Union Square monstrosity, which I was all pumped about, but we hadn't bothered to get tickets earlier in the day, so the 8:00 show we were planning on seeing was sold out. I was crushed--there's nothing worse than finding out at the last minute that you can't see the very movie you've been psyching yourself up all week to see. Of course, there were several other flicks playing there I would've happily forked over ten bucks for--Chicago, About Schmidt, Antwone Fisher--but my date didn't want to see any of them. Then we checked out the Loews theater on 3rd Avenue and 12th Street, where The Pianist and The Quiet American were playing, both of which I want to see, but, again, he didn't want to see them. Final Destination 2 was playing, which he wanted to see, and although I wouldn't have minded seeing it, considering there were a ton of other movies I actually wanted to see, it would've been a grave injustice, for me and said movies, if I had. So we ended up scratching the whole movie thing, which was the first sign of impending disaster. I mean, if you can't go to the movies with someone, can you really date him?

Instead, we shifted to our post-movie plan of going porn shopping, which he was really keen to do. Of course, he wanted to go to a primarily straight porn shop a few blocks away on 14th Street, which had a minuscule queer section (and which, conveniently, was that much closer to his Grammercy Park pad), but I was so aghast at the idea that he agreed to go down to Harmony, that bi-level porn shop on Christopher Street. Not particularly scintillating conversation ensued as we walked there. We kept passing all these cute gay male couples who looked very sophisticated and probably had a lot in common, and I rued the fact that I wasn't with them. I even contemplated ending the date right then.

At Harmony, after dissing Asian boys and turning his nose up at the men-of-color videos that I was perusing, he purchased a cheesy European DVD. Then we went by Magnolia, at his suggestion, to get cupcakes, which slightly redeemed him in my eyes. Then we caught a cab and went back to his place, where, almost immediately, he inserted the porn, turned off the lights, and sat down on the bed next to me. A few minutes later, he started to stroke my back, then my crotch; pretty soon, he had my dick out and was busy slurping at it, just as he had asked me if he could do earlier in the week. It wasn't sexy at all. He jacked himself off as I came in his mouth, then went to the bathroom, spit my cum out, presumably cleaned himself, then came back out to the living area, pants buttoned up. Everything happened so clinically, and quickly, that I felt as if I was in a porno. I didn't like it.

Anyway, he turned off the porn, turned on HBO, which was showing the last 30 minutes of the dumb, early '90s Eddie Murphy movie The Distinguished Gentleman, and we just sat there, watching it. As soon as it was over, I got up and left. He didn't even try to kiss me. Still, by the time I got home an hour or so later (I'd stopped by the Virgin Megastore to listen to some CDs and try to exorcise the negative feelings leftover from the date), there was an e-mail from him saying how much he enjoyed hanging out. The next day, Saturday, when I still hadn't replied, there was another e-mail, asking if he was going to hear from me again, and hoping that the whole "sucking your dick thing" didn't make things awkward.

I replied, finally, today and said that although I thought he was a sweet guy, I just didn't think we had enough in common to continue seeing each other. Another one bites the dust, and I'm depressed as hell over it.

2003-01-29T23:44:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 4

As I suspected, I found out today that the two bar writeups I did for work were cut, though the cute, if slightly puffy-faced, editor (who I think has a bit of a crush on me, which I'm trying to work to my advantage) was totally nice about it, and even offered to pay me a kill fee for my effort, something I wasn't expecting. He also assigned me a new bar to write on--SX 137, conveniently around the corner from my apartment--so I called up L.Ho and she met me after work to check the place out. I'd been there once before, right after it opened in the summer of 2001, but unfortunately it hasn't worn very well. In fact, it looks like it's seriously struggling. Plus, the bartender didn't have the proper ingredients to make the specific drink I wanted to try. It wasn't an entirely negative experience, though: there was some Fader magazine event going on, so at least I got to pick up the latest issue for free. Then L.Ho and I jetted and caught a drink at Barramundi, after which we called it a night.

2003-01-28T23:36:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 3

Nothing really to report today. Well, my ongoing e-mail correspondence with Long Island Boy (he actually lives in Grammercy Park but was raised out there), whom I still haven't met up with for a second date yet (he had to work all weekend), took a turn for the worse when he asked me if I was a top or a bottom--a conversation we already had when we met online two months ago. Of course, this question came after he asked me yesterday whether he could go down on me when we hang out this Friday night (I said yes, naturally), and after we'd already agreed to go porn shopping together, also postponed to Friday, so it's not like this most recent question came totally out of the blue. It did, however, start to up the ante in direct opposition to my desire of late to get to know guys before I have sex with them, so I wanted to head off the trend ASAP. To his gentlemanly credit, he respected my wish to cease and desist, as he always does (for instance, he kept asking me to come over to his place and "chill," which means screw, and I kept resisting in favor of actually doing something, and he finally let up).

Too bad the exchange was turning me on--if only my principles got me so hard.

2003-01-28T00:19:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 2

I made it through another day of my new job today, and everything went fine, again. My supervisor was back from vacation, and I thought we worked together smoothly. I also submitted two short (and I mean real short) pieces that were assigned to me on Friday, but I peeked at the overall feature they're a part of before I left for the day and I think they might have been cut already, though the editor was nowhere near done with it, so he might just not have gotten to them yet. We'll see. I'm totally paranoid that I made mistakes in factchecking last week and that someone's going to notice in this week's issue, and that'll be it for me--they'll put the kibosh on me as fast as they can, and I'll be back to temp world. Which wouldn't necessarily be so bad...

I stayed in Friday night, but Saturday night I went out for a night on the town with Marvelous and Edster. We hit up Kava Lounge (on Hudson St.)--don't ask--then dropped by the Dugout all the way down on Christopher, where Marvelous was hoping to hang with some bears. (We found out that they're basically only there on Sundays, which Marvelous already knew, and Friday nights, which he didn't.) After a single drink each, we rolled by the Harmony porn shop so that Edster and I could show Marvelous the massive selection of porn and the "buddy booths," or whatever they're properly called, downstairs. Only half of them were occupied; Marvelous pointed out a fresh gob of cum on the floor of one of the empty booths.

Then we jumped in a cab and high-tailed it up to Red, that pseudo-hustler bar on E. 53rd. We'd only been there once before, on a weeknight, so we wanted to check out the scene on a weekend night, though we did have an ulterior motive: to see whether anyone would approach us about paying us to have sex. We were disappointed on both counts, as the "scene" certainly left something to be desired--the bar was only half-full, if that--and no one wanted to compensate us for the pleasure of our company. So after a drink, Marvelous (who was dog-watching and had to take his friend's dogs for a walk) and Edster bolted, while I stuck around to see if I'd have better luck by myself.

Turns out I did have some success, but I wasn't any richer for it. Pretty soon after the boys left, a thirtysomething, husky fellow from Baltimore, an architect in town for a weekend meeting, sat down at the stool next to me, and we struck up a conversation. At first I thought he might be willing to help me out financially, or at least contribute to my cab fund, but later, while we were having a drink at the Townhouse, which he wanted to check out, I actually indirectly asked him about his intention with regards to money, and he said that he wouldn't pay me to have sex with him. I could only shrug, because by that point I was so wasted and so committed to hooking up that I knew we'd be hitting it shortly back at his hotel anyway, the idea of which had something to do with my being so turned on. I don't know why I get off on doing it in hotel rooms, especially ones occupied by strangers, preferably covered by a corporate account, but I do. So of course that's what happened: we had a sweaty, messy, rough bout of sex, complete with his uttering "whore" several times. Then, within about two minutes of our cumming, he was dead asleep, snoring like the devil. I quickly went to the bathroom to clean myself up, donned my clothes, and jetted for the elevator down to the lobby, pausing only to curse the fact that I wasn't able to grab a twenty from him to subsidize my cab fare.

Still, I was happy to be gone and on my way back to my comfy bed, with its warm, white down comforter, underneath which I could happily hide and be alone. I woke up in the middle of the afternoon, sat around for awhile, read the long, interesting cover story in the Times magazine comparing the current President Bush to Ronald Reagan--which scared the shit out of me--then headed out in the snow to Astoria to L.Ho's place to watch the Super Bowl with her, her boyfriend, and G-spot, which is turning into an annual ritual for us. It was a lot of fun.

2003-01-25T01:42:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 1

I went five days without smoking before giving in and having a single one last night, after working my ass off all day until 10 at night. But I considered it a bit of a reward for making it through my first week at my new magazine gig--and doing, if I do say so myself, a great job. Obviously, truth is in the eye of the beholder, and my fate lies in other people's hands, but whatever, I got enough positive feedback to allow myself to feel the tiniest amount of assurance that I'll be hired permanently eventually.

I forgot how many gay guys work in magazines, though--seems like I'm surrounded by them at the mag, and many of them are highly covetable. One of my recent horoscopes suggested that I might soon be striking up a romance at work, which definitely seems possible. I need some new prospects anyway, considering that my current crush on that performer guy I interviewed last week doesn't seem like it's being reciprocated. Though we were supposed to get together Wednesday night, he ended up calling me, politely enough, twice to postpone (due to a rehearsal running long), then one more time to reschedule because he was "exhausted," and it was close to midnight regardless and I didn't feel like going out anymore. He said he would call me the next day, but still hasn't. I'm so not sweating it. My piece on him came out yesterday and it's so good that chances are he'll read it and fall madly in love with me. And if not, screw him.

I am, however, seeing another prospect for a second time tomorrow (as in Saturday): that boy I met online whom I've been e-mailing with for weeks now, and whom I first met three weeks ago when we went to Ben and Jerry's and then to the Virgin Megastore. We've been trying to hang ever since, but he works out of town five or so days out of every week, so it's been hard to schedule something. Apparently we're getting together to go porn shopping, which he proposed. It was a concept I couldn't resist, even though I've been strongly pushing for a movie or drink date versus the chilling-out-at-his-apartment (read: sex) date that he keeps advocating--and this activity is much closer in spirit to the latter than the former.

But when our movie date tonight fell through because he had to work late, we agreed to meet up tomorrow afternoon, and he mentioned going porn shopping, which I think he meant, to some degree, as a joke. It turned me on, though, and I also thought it would be fun, not least because I've been thinking lately about acquiring a video or two for myself, as a kind of novelty, as I rarely do the porn thing. So now we're going porn shopping, and he wants to watch whatever we buy afterwards, so we'll see how that goes. Oh, and we're getting brunch beforehand, so that I could feel some sense of propriety.

What the hell, even if he's no longer dateable--and by setting up this field trip of ours, he isn't--it'd be nice to have a dirty-minded fuck buddy for awhile.

2003-01-21T22:59:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 3

Seems like I'm starting to get a handle again on this whole smoking thing. It was really out of control for awhile there, especially during the middle of last week, when I did the unthinkable and actually purchased a pack of Parlies. (Actually, not so unthinkable, as I've purchased several packs of cigs in occasional moments of weakness since I officially "quit" smoking a year and a half ago.) I was into them until around late Thursday night when, feeling sick and congested, I did what I usually do and took the remaining cigarettes and ripped them in half one by one before tossing them in the trash. I felt much better about everything, but then, of course, I bummed a few cigs the following night, and the night after that one too. Now I seem to be in control, and am so not desiring nicotine. I'm not stressed either, which is usually a catalyst for binging.

Anyway, I made it through another day--my second--on the job today, and everything's still going well. I checked a longer, review-like piece and mostly breezed through it, which eased any feelings of trepidation I might have been experiencing. Then I sat back and tried to keep myself busy with other, non-work-related tasks, such as e-mailing a new editor of mine. Eventually the time drew near for me to leave and make my way to therapy (where, among other things, we talked about how I was feeling inspired by the fortysomething father lately, and why drinking makes me less likely to remember why I don't do something and go ahead and do it anyway, such as smoking, or having random sex). Now I'm home, having watched the tail-end of the American Idol premiere, feeling productively tired.

But the absolute best thing that happened to me today is that that boy I interviewed last week called me!!! Isn't that great? He wants to give me some tracks he's been working on, so we agreed to get together tomorrow night and hang out. I'm so excited. Totally out of the blue. I mean, of course, he said he would call, but whoever counts on that? However, one of my yearlong 2003 astrological forecasts did say that last Wednesday, when I met this guy, was a day particularly well suited to beginning a new romance, so I'm wondering if that's what's going to happen. I hope so.

2003-01-20T17:13:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 2

When I was taking the sheets off my bed this afternoon to have them washed along with my other shit by the nice Chinese ladies at the laundromat around the corner, I came upon a folded-up band aid. I don't use band aids, so it must have come from one of the guys I've hooked up with since I last had my sheets washed, which was sometime before the holidays (I know, I'm gross). I'm thoroughly disgusted by this, and am repulsed at the thought of how long it might have been stuck in the sheets, possibly trying to curl up with me at night. If there was ever a reason to stop sleeping around so much, this would be it.

So the big deal that happened over the weekend that I haven't yet blogged about is that I finally met the River Friday night. The River is a friend of my friend Court's friends M. and M. (who are also friends of mine, but they were Court's first, and she hangs out with them more), and all three girls have been telling me for months how great the River and I would get along--possibly so well that we would even fall madly in love with each other. He's the hot Indian dude I've referred to in previous posts, and he works for a major upscale fashion designer, and everyone says he's hot and extremely stylish. I was hoping to meet him at M.'s birthday party in December, but I ended up not making it; instead, I made his acquaintance at the other M.'s birthday party Friday night at Swim.

Before I went over there, though, I was having drinks with M-dash and L.Ho at Pianos, where the band of one of M-dash's friends was playing later on in the evening. Pianos, which is on Ludlow between Stanton and Rivington, happens to be right around the corner from Swim, which is on Orchard between the same cross streets, so Court met us for a drink, and then she, L.Ho, and I went to Swim. I was introduced to the River almost immediately, as well as to his cute photographer friend. Then they proceeded to ignore L.Ho and me while Court and them and the rest of the party revelers, who all seemed to know each other, talked up a storm.

Luckily this lasted for only a few minutes, and once a bigger table opened up, a bunch of us moved over to it (though not the River), and I was soon engrossed in conversation with the photographer. He was quite accomplished, actually, and it turned out that we knew several people in common in the magazine industry. Of course not too much later, while he and I, along with Court and one of the M. girls (L.Ho had gone back to Pianos), were having a quite animated discussion about bikini waxes, I managed to knock my three-quarters full vodka tonic all over the table. I tried to play it cool, even though--until I took a curtain and wiped everything up--the remains of the drink were slowly dripping onto my favorite Marc Jacobs jeans, but I suspect that his opinion of me might have been lowered. Whatever. I thought my party foul was entertainingly dramatic.

As the evening progressed I actually had a chance to hang with the River, and he was nice, although he was obviously tired and therefore not quite himself. We didn't really talk about anything substantial, but I got enough of an impression to know that we could become friends, especially with our mutual friends so keen to make that happen. (Apparently he has few, if any, gay male friends, and everyone thinks that we could be major partners in crime.) Aesthetically, he was definitely attractive, though not brutally so as I had been led to believe, and he was dressed well too, but not in an obvious, of-the-moment way, which I found refreshing. Yet even before L.Ho pointed out that his hairline was receding--and before she said I was hotter than him (though she always says that, which is one of the reasons I love her)--I'd realized that we weren't compatible romantically, despite his being an Aries. I just hadn't felt anything for him. Certainly nothing like what I'd felt for that guy I interviewed last week.

Still, as soon as his older, glamorpuss sister, who was also at the party, said that we "definitely" weren't right for each other relationship-wise (though she encouraged us to hang out as friends), I found myself desiring him. Isn't that sick? I guess I just always want what I can't have. That, and I've always liked a challenge.

I went home by myself that night and got on gay.com, where I met a 19-year-old NYU student and, after he e-mailed me shots of his huge dick, invited him over. We had fun for awhile--talk about displacement--and then he left.

2003-01-20T01:37:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 1

Had a rather boring, uneventful day today, and now I'm in a weird mood that I can't seem to get to the bottom of. Woke up late after going to sleep late, hung around the apartment, went out to dinner with Edster and four of his friends to Caffe Torino, that gay Italian restaurant in the West Village, which seems to be Edster's fave joint. I'd been there once before with him and wasn't exactly impressed; this time I decided that it's definitely mediocre, especially when compared to such great nearby Italian places as Piadina and Tanti Baci. Fun to hang with Edster and one of his exes-cum-friends, but the other three guys were rather unstimulating. As the party headed off for drinks elsewhere, I jumped in a cab for home, where I caught the last half of the Golden Globes.

Last night, in a culinary experience 180 degrees from the one I had tonight, I went to Oliva, that Spanish restaurant at Houston and Allen four blocks from my apartment, with E., who was visiting from out of town. I've wanted to check it out for over two years, and I'm so glad I finally did: it's amazing. Definitely my new favorite restaurant. And it's not even that expensive. E. and I ended up dropping 35 bucks each, but we over-ate and stuffed ourselves, so it probably could've been about 10 bucks cheaper, in which case it would've been a total deal. I haven't eaten that well since the holidays: white bean soup with truffle oil; light and airy (!) tortilla espanola; mussels; cod-stuffed piquillo peppers; and absolutely perfect calamari. I hardly ever eat out anymore due to lack of funds, so it was a major treat.

Afterwards E. and I had a drink at her hotel (usually she stays with me, but this time she had a friend in tow, so they opted for a room, which I appreciated), then hit up Bar 169 with L.Ho. for what seemed to be a down-low gay party. All I know is that the music was great, and there were a couple of really cute boys there--though the overall vibe wasn't cruisy enough for me. The biggest surprise? The sleek redecorating the bar's undergone since last I was there. I'm more open to going there now that it's no longer an irredeemably nasty dive.

2003-01-18T19:04:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 1

So much to post about since my last entry all the way at the beginning of the week! And my apologies for not writing sooner. On top of working insane hours at the law firm (until 10 or later every night), my editor at one of the local gay weeklies called to assign me an article on Tuesday, wanting it done by Friday. Which meant that I had to do the research on the person I was interviewing--a cute, young, multi-talented performer--that night, when I came home, wiped out, from two and a half hours of therapy (individual followed by group); the interview with him, which went almost two hours, late Wednesday night; and the actual writing of the story Thursday night, which was the night before I started my new freelance gig at one of the city weeklies.

So of course I was up until 3 a.m., chain smoking (I relapsed in a major way), trying to write, when really I should have been sound asleep, recharging my batteries for the first day of my new job, one I have to ace in order to be hired permanently. But I totally pulled it off! After sleeping for a few hours, I finished the article early Friday morning, sent it off to the editor (who later told me it was great, and thanked me profusely for turning it around so quickly), showered, tried not to throw up from nerves-induced nausea, dressed, and high-tailed it up to the magazine's offices in midtown. The whole day I was zonked and headache-y from stress and lack of sleep (though I think I may be developing a migraine condition), yet I managed to check my first piece, make pleasant conversation with my new colleagues, and generally do a good job. It was so nice to be back working in the media, in my little cubicle, with my fresh new white flat-screen Mac, my telephone, and writers all around me doing their thing. I felt completely that I was back in my element, after masquerading for months as a corporate drone downtown. I also realized, anxiety aside, that I can totally do the job (which is basically factchecking--though the title is "reporter"--with some opportunity to write). I'm psyched. Now I'm just praying that they like me enough to make me an official member of the staff down the line.

The really cool thing that happened this week, though, is that I met this awesome guy--the one I wrote my piece about. He's totally my type: brutally cute, Latin, talented, smart, laid-back, funny, with a similar set of values to mine (and he has six-pack to boot). As soon as I spotted him at the cafe we were meeting at, I realized that I would fall for him hook, line, and sinker, and that's exactly what happened. Major crush. And judging from the intense chemistry, the feeling seemed to be mutual. In fact, at one point we were talking about the kinds of guys we were into, and he described me to a T. (I managed to change the conversation when it was my turn to spill the beans, because I didn't want to end up describing him and come off too strong.) Of course, I was also trying to be professional and keep the interview as journalistically oriented as possible, but eventually I ran out of questions, turned the tape recorder off, and we just chatted, as if we were on a date. He even insisted on paying for the tab, even though I was interviewing him, and when we walked out into the bitter cold to catch cabs, he leaned in and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

I haven't felt this strongly attracted to someone in ages. It made me realize exactly what was missing in dicking around with all these other guys: desire.

2003-01-14T01:14:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 0

I spent the whole day today obsessed with the murder of a 25-year-old man that happened less than a block down the street from me early Sunday morning around 4. He had just moved to the city on Thursday, intent on starting a career in banking (he was to begin working at Bank of America), and he was staying with his younger sister in her ground-floor apartment on the Lower East Side while he settled himself and found his own place. He was shot in the chest just as he and a friend were about to open the door to his sister's apartment building after a night out on the town. The bullet punctured his heart, and despite his sister's frantic efforts to administer CPR as he lay wounded on the ground, he was pronounced dead at the hospital a short while later.

When I heard on the news this morning that this had happened, I was shocked, and scared. At first, as the news anchor stated, I thought the shooting was the result of an argument, perhaps some drunken altercation outside one of the cheesy bars on Orchard Street up closer to Houston, but later, as I scoured the papers and the Web, I learned that it was apparently totally random, and that it occurred on the more deserted stretch of Orchard where I live. As I was getting ready for work, my brother called and asked if I'd heard the news; he also inquired about my well-being. That's when I realized that the whole thing was more serious than I initially suspected.

One of the reasons I was so affected, I suppose, is the striking resemblance the victim bore to me, and to many of the other young dwellers of this vast urban metropolis. His ancestry was Irish, as mine mostly is; he was 25, which is close to my age; he was ambitious; a sibling of his lived in the city; he had his whole life in front of him, all that promise. I don't mean to sentimentalize what happened, or my feelings about it, and I don't mean to neglect the memory of all the other, less heralded (read: not white and affluent) young people who are killed on a regular basis in other parts of town, many of whose deaths never make any paper, let alone the front page of The New York Times metro section. But the incident really drove home for me the fact that it could have been me who was murdered that night. If I had left Wonder Bar a few minutes earlier, walked a little faster, I might have inadvertently entered the scope of the killer, and I might not be here now to write this.

The thing is, I returned home that night about ten minutes after everything went down. I remember seeing Broome Street cordoned off, and vague flashing lights beyond, but I was too tired and drunk to think anything of it, or to worry. My key stuck in the vestibule door as always before unlocking it. I stepped inside, walked up the stairs and into my pad, and went to sleep. I think my only thought was whether I'd be able to get up at a reasonable hour the next day, or whether I'd be able to drag myself into work for a few hours.

I called the 7th Precinct police station in the early evening and asked if they were planning to increase the police presence on the streets tonight. The officer told me pleasantly enough that he couldn't go into detail about such plans, but he advised me to not worry about it too much--that what happened was probably just an isolated event. In the car on the way home from work around 9 p.m. I spoke to my parents, who were concerned but not overly so. When I got home, I took a shit, quickly changed my clothes, and headed out to Urge to meet Nicodemus for drinks, which I was looking forward to. Walking back to our apartments afterwards (he lives in Nolita), we parted at the corner of busy Delancey and Chrystie, rather than at Broome as we usually do. I didn't feel like taking any chances.

2003-01-12T22:45:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 1

I just finished watching Alias for the first time in weeks, and I loved it as always. For some reason I'm hardly ever around to watch it on Sunday nights, but I dropped out of the world today, so I was home. Major hotness in the form of Michael Vartan, who plays agent Sydney Bristow's C.I.A. handler. When I fantasize about having a French boyfriend, I'm often visualizing him, even though he's only half-French. At least he was raised in France.

I was such a slug today that I think I watched seven hours of continuous television, which is so unlike me. It's excusable because I had a hardcore night out last night, which followed three days of working around the clock, but still. I first turned the TV on around 3 p.m., when I finally decided to wake up and face the day, and I didn't turn it off until five minutes ago. I watched the second half of the Tampa Bay/49ers game, which I was only mildly interested in, then the entire tragic loss of the Jets and the beating that my cutie pie Chad Pennington took at the hands of Oakland's defense (sacked four times!). Then 60 Minutes, which kept me company while I ate wonton soup that burned my tongue and the most aromatic chicken with basil leaves from this take-out joint that says it's Vietnamese but on whose menu Chinese dishes predominate. It's wonderful, regardless, but the factchecker in me is frustrated.

I guess I was still in an Asian food mood after last night's delicious dinner at Chow Bar in the West Village, where Marvelous's sardonic sister Mademoiselle and his friends L., M., and I kickstarted his 24th birthday celebration. (Even more delicious was our waiter, sporting a faint Mohican 'do and leather cuffs on either wrist, and darkly foreboding facial stubble. We had occasion twice to touch each other, once midway through dinner when I stopped him and asked if he could bring out a special dessert with a candle for Marvelous and he grabbed my arm; the second time as we were making our way out of the restaurant, and I put my hand on his back and thanked him for everything he did. If I hadn't been so drunk already on Veuve Clicquot and hefeweizen, I might have been more crafty and slipped him my number.)

I love Mademoiselle, who's a big-shot television news producer, immensely, and L. as well, but I rarely see them, so it was nice to hang. After dinner (and if you're curious, the special dessert turned out to be chocolate fondue with an assortment of small sweets and fruit to spear and dip) we headed to Bar d'O, where I haven't been in ages, to take in Raven O, Flotilla DeBarge, and some transsexual cowboy chick whose name I forgot (Joey Arias was on vacation, or "in jail," as Raven O put it, as she always does whenever Arias isn't there). It was fun, despite my loathing of musicals. Then, after watching all four shows, we split to the east side and had a nightcap at Wonder Bar, which I found seriously lacking. Where were all the cute hip boys I've come to associate with that bar? Though there were a few there, including Marvelous and me (touche!), most of the crowd was more wannabe than with it, and there were a plethora of straight people, not to mention over-the-hill trolls and too many trendoid college kids.

At least Barback Boy was there, as ever, and we made major eye contact as he passed me on his way to pick up some empty drink glasses. If only I had the guts to actually smile, or smile detectably, or even say something for a change. But as usual, I just kind of stood there, frozen, as he walked in and then back out of my life. Later, after the bar closed and I'd parted with the birthday gang and I was walking down Avenue A towards home, I wished that he were a reader of this blog, or that he would discover it and start reading it, and that he would e-mail me after reading this post. Then we'd go on a proper date, somewhere romantic and obscure, we'd talk for hours about our lives and ambitions (wouldn't it be great if he were a brilliant writer who works at the bar to subsidize his creative pursuits?), he might lean in to kiss me when I wasn't paying attention, he wouldn't pressure me to have sex, we would fall in love, and we'd live happily ever after, always maintaining separate apartments.

A boy's gotta dream, doesn't he?

2003-01-10T04:35:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 3

Hey--I'm not flaking out, I'm just working like mad at the law firm, like working-until-4-a.m.-tonight mad, so I haven't had time to post a proper entry. I promise to soon. Please don't hold it against me. Until then, meditate on this: is Tobey Maguire gay? The guy I hooked up with Monday (who hasn't contacted me since, by the way) said that he was--that his friends in L.A. see him out with his boyfriends all the time. I've heard that Tobey, who's one of my favorites, is gay before, but never quite believed it, despite the fact that I'm always proposing that so-and-so cute young actor is a fag.

Anyway, that's what I've been thinking about lately.

2003-01-08T01:00:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 1

So of course I ended up having sex with that guy I went on a date with last night, even though I told him that I didn't think we should have sex because it was my New Year's resolution to not hook up on the first date. I've been thinking a lot about it, and I realized I've been sabotaging the normal routine of courtship by having sex too quickly. I want to stop doing that, even though most guys seem like they couldn't care less about courtship and just want to get laid. I'm all for that as long as it's a one night stand, but if it's a guy I think I might want to date, I've decided to hit the brakes.

So last night we're having a really nice time at Bouche Bar--three hours of a nice time, in fact--and he's holding my hands, wanting to kiss me, and right after I tell him we shouldn't have sex, I find myself inviting him back to my apartment just to hang out and "see what happens." What happened is that we had sex, twice, the second time at dawn when I was half-unconscious, the grey early-morning light glinting across the bed. He sucks dick really well. He also came all over my chest without warning, which I can't help but consider tacky.

Anyway, in the morning, when he rose and was putting on his clothes, I tried to pretend I was deep asleep so he wouldn't wake me--so I wouldn't have to deal with saying goodbye, or negotiating when we'd see each other next, or any of the other sordid details of dating. Because I don't think I'm interested in dating him anymore, despite the fact that I was into him before the sex transpired. I believe my brain is wired now to immediately reject anyone I have sex with right away, even if I might be attracted to him.

I was discussing this for a good part of my therapy group today, and it was good to get it out of my system, even if it resulted in my shrink saying, and I'm paraphrasing (but not by much), "I can imagine how confusing this must be for you because it's so confusing to us hearing you talk about it." Ouch. Isn't he supposed to be providing clarity, not simply affirming my own confused state of mind? To his credit, he did help me to conclude that I need to feel more comfortable with guys before I have sex with them--which is exactly what I'm doing with that computer guy I went out with Saturday night.

In other news, my financial crisis looks to be resolved: I'm going back to my old law firm as of tomorrow (er, today, considering that it's already Wednesday), and I'll be working there until the start of my new magazine gig next week. Apparently they're mad busy, so I should make some major bank, which I desperately need.

Oh, and I saw The Hours tonight, by myself, after therapy. It was awesome, and moved me almost to tears. Afterwards I walked home from Union Square, snowflakes falling on me, and I began to feel that my dating dilemmas weren't so bad after all. At least I was alive, and living.

2003-01-06T18:38:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 1

I just counted, and in the past 45 minutes I've eaten 15 Hershey's Miniatures chocolates. Too bad I quit my membership at Crunch a few weeks ago, eh? The apartment still smells, faintly, of all the smoke emitted from the numerous cigarettes M-dash and I lit up last night. But at least the pad is clean, after I spent two-plus hours working to make it so yesterday. Living in such a small space, the tidier it is, the more I like.

I've been experiencing a low-grade anxiety all day today due to my ongoing brokeness. Not working the past two-and-half weeks, traveling to Europe--it's been great, but now I'm paying for it, or not, considering my funds are so low. Thing is that I quit my temporary law firm gig right before the holidays when I got called about that reporter gig at the weekly city magazine, which I was supposed to start today. Of course, this being the flaky magazine industry, I'm not starting until the end of next week now, which totally leaves me in the financial lurch. I'm praying that my temp agency can hook me up with short-term work between now and then, and if worst comes to worst, I can probably go back to the case I was working on. I'd like to avoid that, though, considering my departure was much ballyhooed. Thank God my dad gave me some dough last week. Now I just need a sugar dad to come to the rescue and really give me some dough...

Anyway, I'm going on a date tonight with yet another boy I met online late Saturday night. He's older (mid-30s), and intellectual, but also cute and youthful, so we'll see what happens. Nicodemus told me today that he has four dates in six days lined up, which blew me away, all the more because he wasn't aided by the Internet. I'm dying to find out how he did it.

2003-01-06T02:48:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 0

Made the mistake of going into the Crate & Barrel at Broadway and Houston today, where I encountered innumerable gay male couples acting out repulsive scenes of received domesticity--and all I wanted were a few wine glasses! It was totally gross, and if I can help it, I'm never setting foot in there again. All sorts of couples too: older/younger ones, Chelsea clone ones, fashion-forward ones, hipster ones, even some inexplicable combinations that boggled my mind. I tried to avert my eyes, but sometimes that didn't help too much because I could still overhear their dreary conversations about other things they had to do later in the day, together. I couldn't figure out why all these guys, most of whom seemed inferior to me, were involved in a relationship and I'm not.

Not that I'm bitter; I'm just making an observation. I guess I was in a bit of a bad mood anyway after failing to purchase the coolest pair of boots at Omari due to their only having one pair left, size seven (I'm a nine--the cute sales guy even checked the sole of the Omari boots I was wearing to confirm). And I guess I've been a bit bummed these past few days about my impending birthday, and about another year gone in which I didn't satisfactorily date anyone. I think the sight of those seemingly happy couples made me jealous, even if their copycat domestic rituals made me retch.

M-dash and I were discussing tonight the fact that we're both total catches and yet we still haven't had serious, long-term relationships. We decided, perhaps half-heartedly, that the delay only means that each of us is going to find someone really special, maybe not tomorrow or the next day, but eventually. We have to believe that at least. She'd come over to watch movies (we ended up only watching one, a wack French flick from last year called Baise Moi) and to give me a set of pictures she took on our trip to Amsterdam, as L.Ho (formerly known as L.) had done earlier in the evening. We totally bonded in Amsterdam, and I'm so glad, 'cause she's awesome. We even joked about having a child together, and in my experience with straight women, that means you're really tight. I think we'd have a cool kid.

2003-01-05T01:49:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 0

I suck that I keep smoking cigarettes. I tried not to smoke too many in Amsterdam, after not having smoked any for two straight weeks, but I'm practically addicted again. I didn't smoke any yesterday, but that's because I didn't do anything social. Tonight, when I was hanging out at the Bar with Marvelous, his visiting boyfriend (he lives in San Diego), and a friend of theirs also visiting town, I smoked at least four. And, because I'm actually allergic to smoke (not that it mattered when I was smoking a pack a day), my nose is all stuffy and itchy now. Poor me, I know.

It was nice to see Marvelous, though, after more than two weeks of being apart. We've really grown quite close since he moved here a year and a half ago. Aside from Nicodemus, he's the only gay boy I consider a good friend in New York--and I'm better friends with him than with Nico, mostly because we've known each other longer. His friend D., however, was a bit of a nightmare. Marvelous had feared that we might hit it off and hook up, but his inane blather against affirmative action in university admissions, not to mention his idiotic opinions about the gay former NFL football player Esera Tuaolo, completely turned me off. Then again, with his beady, bespectacled eyes and Rascally schoolboy haircut, he totally wasn't my type. Thank God he gave me cigarettes.

Another guy who's currently forcing me to think about my type is this boy I met online weeks ago with whom I finally went on a date tonight, before meeting up with Marvelous and company. He's this totally sweet computer software consultant, and we've managed to keep up an e-mail correspondence for about a month now, which is pretty good. But he's been working on some project on site in Minneapolis, so he's there about six days a week and consequently, we hadn't been able to meet in person until today. I wasn't sure what to expect, especially considering that he didn't want to get a drink at a bar because he doesn't like them--something about the smoke, he said. I found that strange, not only because EVERYONE goes to bars, but also because all I do is go to bars. It's my favorite pastime.

Instead, he proposed that we go to the Ben and Jerry's on Third Avenue (he lives in Gramercy Park) and get ice cream, which struck me as an endearingly cute and unusual thing to do for a date. So that's what we did. He was pleasant, definitely cute, but in a mutt-dog kind of way, and totally Long Island, where he was raised. He had the accent going, and he was rough around the edges--a bit less sophisticated than the guys I typically date. But he couldn't have been sweeter, and plus he paid for my ice cream, which was impressively chivalrous. (He also makes mad bank compared to me, so I felt it was justified.) After we ate, he wanted to go to the Virgin Megastore, which I thought was even more unusual, but I accompanied him anyway to see what would happen. We ended up listening to CDs (the new Roots album is awesome!) and walking around, looking at DVDs and casually chatting. It was rather fun. I was surprised. And despite the slight acne scarring on his face, I felt something like attraction towards him. He clearly felt it too--in fact, he said as much, both as we parted and later, in an e-mail. I'm not sure where this is going to lead, mostly because I've never imagined myself dating someone like him, but one thing's for sure: I'm definitely going to be discussing this in therapy on Tuesday.

2003-01-04T00:33:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 1.5

I'm back from Amsterdam and back in business everyone! Well, not totally back in business, considering that I slept for almost 16 hours last night and then left my apartment for only five minutes today, barely communicating with anyone, trying to shun the world and decompress. (All that weed--and alcohol, cigarettes, ecstasy, lack of sleep, and overall merriment--has left me a mess.) But at least I'm back in the city and back to my precious blog again, to which I'm rededicating myself after slacking off in recent weeks.

Needless to say, Amsterdam was a blast, thought I didn't meet a Friedrich, or a Hive, or a Hans, or a Dave (as one of the hot security guards I tried to flirt with at Schiphol airport was named) or any other Dutch guys for that matter. I didn't even really do the gay scene, as expansive as it is, save for two bars, but that's what happens when you travel with six women, and when everyone wants to do nighttime activities together. (I know what my own reaction is to a fag bringing several chicks with him to a bar, and I didn't want to provoke that reaction in others, especially in a foreign locale where I would've especially wanted to be accepted.) The guys I noticed, however, were mostly hot and stylish, so it was a bit of a missed opportunity. I plan to make it up in the future, the next time I hit the city, my own boys in tow.

Many of the boys in Amsterdam did seem to be experiencing a bit of confusion about their own sexual identifications, at least on New Year's Eve, when I flirted in vain with several revelers who weren't sure if they were gay or straight. The setting was the neighborhood bar around the corner from our hotel called Twsted (no "i," in some kind of punk shorthand), which was hosting an intimate, festive party. Three of the culprits were from Australian, and despite their various come-ons and queer stylings, they were all ultimately all talk and no action. Another was a cute Amsterdammer, just returned from a jaunt to Paris. He had seemed more promising initially, kissing me three times (albeit on the cheeks) and saying he wanted to visit me in New York, but in the end it was bullshit too. I gave him my card, though, so maybe he'll contact me.

That's a big maybe, I know. Earlier in the evening, in a more positive outcome, we'd celebrated the arrival of the new year in true Amsterdam style: outside on the street, right in the middle of the city center by the national monument, underneath a hailstorm of fireworks set off by people on the ground. Happy new year, Communism's dead. This, I thought, must be close to how it felt in Berlin immediately after the Wall fell, or how it felt in Romania after Ceaucescu was executed. Everyone was drinking, smoking, and singing (I believe I sang parts of the Moroccan national anthem at one point); it was quite a beautiful example of international brotherhood at work. When we walked down one of the main roads to the party at Twsted, skipping sometimes, yelling "happy new year" at every passing person and car, the sky alight, I felt like I was in a Kieslowski movie.

2002-12-28T01:51:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 11

I saw 25th Hour tonight, Spike Lee's latest, and was astounded by how good it is. Not astounded, because I think Lee is a great filmmaker, even though I've only seen two of his other films; more like literally blown away. Best Friend and I sat in the theater dissecting it until the credits finished, in marked contrast to the rest of the audience members in the packed theater, who waltzed out the doors quickly. Apparently not everyone was as enthused about it as we were. Some asshole even shouted, "Thank God," when the film ended. Granted, it dragged a bit, but give me a break. The amazing thing is that I sat through two-and-a-half hours of Ed (excuse me, Edward) Norton, whom I don't particularly like. I don't get him as an actor the way lots of other people do. But Anna Paquin and Rosario Dawson were great, as were Barry Pepper and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. And Brian Cox too, whom no less than Kim Cattrall was breathily praising for his performance in Adaptation at the reception following the screening I went to for that film a few weeks ago.

Geez, I'm dragging myself here. I wanted to see The Hours, which I've been sweating over for more than a year, but we screwed up and all the screenings all over town were sold out. It was fun just gallivanting around the city with Best Friend, though, like the old days. After returning these fresh high-top sneakers at the Adidas store that I bought in an ill-advised binge two weeks ago (they're just not my style, unfortunately, although I know I could rock them if I really wanted to), we schlepped from one theater to another before giving in and getting tickets to 25th Hour. Then we had a leisurely dinner at Sapporo East, our fave sushi joint, and dropped by the Strand before hitting the movie theater. Then I walked her to the express bus and walked myself home.

Oh, and the coolest thing about 25th Hour? The several extended scenes in Double Happiness, one of my top three fave bars in the city!

So I've been doing a terrible job keeping up this blog, and it won't be any different for at least the next week, as I'm leaving for Amsterdam in the late afternoon today and I won't be back til the end of next week. I'm going to celebrate New Year's with L. and Mochachild, our great friend in London, and M-dash, and some of Mochachild's pals from the UK. L. and Mochachild and I have this thing where we try to celebrate the new year each year in a different major world city. So far we've done London, New York, and, shortly, Amsterdam. And D.C., of course, back in the day, which is where I know them from, but I don't know if that lame-ass city counts as "major." Too bad it's going to rain the whole time. I didn't know the extent of precipitation in Amsterdam in the winter, or else I might have not decided to go.

Nah, of course I would've. I just would've purchased a poncho, and galoshes. Anyway, happy New Year! Here's to my coming back with a Dutch boyfriend, preferably named Friedrich, as in my hot new Dutch boyfriend Friedrich has a hot, huge, uncut European dick. I like the sound of that rhyme.

2002-12-21T18:25:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 5

So I flew down to my parents' house outside Houston last night for some much needed R&R and holiday cheer. Well, not so much the latter, as I've almost had it with bombastic Christmas-inspired mania, but if I have to put up with it to attain the former, so be it. I didn't get home until 12:30 a.m. (my flight was delayed almost two hours due to the bad weather in the city earlier in the day), and then my mom gave me two Excedrin PMs, which are even better than the Tylenol PMs I sometimes take. They totally knocked me out and I slept for 12 blissful hours. I feel so good today, and my skin is fairly glowing. Too bad I have nowhere to go and no people to show it off to.

It's 5:15 p.m. and it's still light out here, which is nice. The clouds are breaking and the diminishing sun is turning the sky pink. I'm happy to be away. The good news is that my interview Thursday with the weekly went really well, and I'm coming in the first full week in January to start freelancing as a reporter. Right now it's just a two-week commitment, but if it goes well, as it should, I'll keep coming back each successive week until I'm finally hired outright. I'm totally psyched, though it's taking a few days to sink in. It's enough of an opportunity that I quit my temp gig at the law firm yesterday, which I've been dying to do (although I'm going to miss everyone I worked with--who knew they would all be so cool and fun?). Now I just have to cross my fingers, pray, be absolutely perfect for a few days, and hope that this gig will lead to more and better things. Onward and upward, as El Mar said on the voicemail he just left me.

The one piece of bad news, which I can't help but see as offsetting the promising career progress, is that the 23-year-old kid from last Sunday whom I was so smitten with hasn't returned the call I left for him Wednesday night. At this point, I'm not nearly as intoxicated by him as I was--ah, the short-lived charms of infatuation--but I'm still kind of bummed. I think he's worth one more communique, though, even if I run the risk of seeming overbearing.

2002-12-18T01:23:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 1

Yes, I managed to smoke a single cigarette last night whilst at Urge with good ole Nicodemus, whom I haven't seen in ages. He's apparently quit smoking himself, at least for the time being, so the fact that I smoked despite the lack of instigation on his part is all the more remarkable. And sad.

Also sad is the news I received yesterday that I didn't get that job at the daily paper I was up for. But in the kind of brilliant rebalancing of the cosmological yin and yang I've come to count on in my life, today I was called, totally out of the blue, and asked to come in later this week to interview for a reporter opening at a local weekly magazine. You can imagine my excitement. I'm hoping this, finally, will be my ticket out of corporate temping hell. Not that I'm getting my hopes up or anything--they can be so quickly dashed, it's not worth it.

I've been so busy over the past week and some change that I haven't been able to update this blog properly, but let me try to briefly recap some of my recent stories. The best one, at least for me, is that I met another boy in person Sunday night whom I met initially online a week earlier. He's the hyper-cute architect boy who, upon chatting with me via instant messages for about three minutes, pronounced me "fascinating," and said he thought he could really get to like me. Being the cynical, skeptical, jaded asshole I am, I immediately dismissed the possibility of anything happening between us--how could it, when he's so obviously earnest and interested, two qualities I usually detest in men? I went through with meeting him anyway, though, mostly because he looked so cute. I wasn't disappointed. He was even cuter than his picture indicated; in fact, he was an adorable little puppy dog. I mean, really brutally cute, and pleasantly touchy-feely to boot. After we sat down on one of the window seats at Bouche Bar, he immediately touched my leg and complimented my jeans. Later he would draw so close to me that his face was literally a centimeter from mine, his crossed legs (we were sitting Indian style) bumping up against mine.

I walked him home, stopping at a curio shop on 1st Avenue on the way, then, against my stated intention, went up to his apartment. We violated another stated intention of mine when we ended up hooking up, but it was so fun and frisky I didn't mind. I really dug him, actually, which surprised me, and now I realize I'm hopelessly smitten. I thought I detected the same vibe from him, but I also haven't heard from him since Sunday night, so I'm not exactly sure where we stand. My horoscope yesterday advised that I should go slow with the object of my affection, so even though he didn't go slow with me at first, in the chatroom, I've got the brakes on for now. How much longer, I don't know.

As for Saturday night, I capped a supremely busy day (Xmas shopping, producing meeting, application writing, hanging out with L., waiting in line for 45 minutes at 24-hour post office, etc.) by hitting my bro's holiday party, which he kept referring to, terribly insensitively in my opinion, as a CHRISTMAS PARTY (his caps)--as if we, especially the non-Christians among us, need to be slammed over the head with the upcoming anniversary of Jesus' birth anymore than we already are. Aren't the holiday songs on morning television every day enough?

Anyway, his party was lovely, and I quite enjoyed myself. Of course, I had arrived so late that by the time I left, the birthday party back downtown in the East Village I was supposed to attend was breaking up, so I totally missed it, which meant I also missed meeting the hot Indian boy who works for Tom Ford whom his friend the birthday girl recently talked up to me as someone I might really get along with, and not just in a platonic way. (Court seconded that prediction, and I trust her taste immensely.) I seemed to hardly care, though, and headed down to meet up with some friends (J-bird and A-roc, among others) leaving the birthday party for Tiswas at Don Hill's, the weekly Saturday night '80s party I hadn't checked out yet. It was fun, and I met Justine D from the Motherfucker crew (A-roc somehow managed to score me a drink on her), but overall I thought the vibe was way too straight, and NYU, for me.

And Thursday night (Friday night I stayed in 'cause I was zonked), well, let's just say I was repeatedly accosted by drunken straight people, including a particularly smashed couple, at a holiday party thrown by some of my friends at work. For example, the male member of the couple must have asked me six or seven times whether I thought he was attractive (he is), but I demurred from answering. He also told me he considered it "flirting" when we exchanged ironical attitude at the copier a day or two earlier. Then he told me he was a virgin. Last but not least, he said his cock was huge--furthermore, that it was "girthy." All this while his dutiful girlfriend, whom he's managed to distract enough that she's missed several law school-application deadlines, stood right there. Man, talk about issues!

2002-12-13T02:03:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 0

Not to pull a Mariah Carey or anything (and let me take this opportunity to say that I saw her mini-concert on the Today show Wednesday morning and I was hardly impressed by her new songs, except for that '80s hair-band cover, which I could tell has the potential to be really great even if she didn't do such a great job of performing it), but my life is spiralling out of control, in a good way (if that's possible), and as a result I haven't been able to post here as I would like. I promise to post better starting tonight.

2002-12-11T01:18:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 3

So Saturday night I broke my self-imposed hibernation in a major way and had a great night out on the town. I also became, temporarily, a total sex maniac: I got laid twice in a span of about 10 hours. In fact, my two sexual encounters nicely bookended my evening.

The first one occurred with one of the guys I had met online last week, when I was inexplicably drawn to the gay.com chat rooms. We'd chatted Thursday night and agreed to get a cup of coffee on Saturday afternoon, which is what we did. He met me at my building and we walked up the street to the Pink Pony, where we had an entirely pleasant conversation that lasted about two hours. He was an older man, supposedly in his mid-40s, though by his shock of thick white hair I wouldn't be surprised if he were actually a few years older, possibly in his 50s, but he was in good shape and bore a striking resemblance to Richard Gere, whom I think is hot. Of course, I also have a thing for older men, but not men who are too old. In retrospect, this guy was on the fence in that regard.

Anyway, after coffee (I had green tea, as usual), we strode back to my pad, where I invited him up despite my ambivalence about whether I wanted to hook up or not. (For one thing, I had a rather nice streak going, not having had sex for two months, and I was keen to keep that alive--and no, that night at Happy Ending a few weeks ago didn't count as sex, with either guy.) But hook up we did, and he was very giving, even worshipful, and I simultaneously enjoyed the attention and was slightly put off by the intensity of it. He was so enraptured it was almost scary. By the time he left, saying as he did that the next time we got together he wanted me to spend the night, the feeling that I was being objectified, which had been brewing inside of me since the minute I met him, finally erupted. I realized then that we would never get together again.

Marvelous showed up about two hours later, around 10 p.m., to kickstart our night out, and within moments, whatever lingering discontent there was evaporated. Thank God for Marvelous, because he's always a savior like that. We downed a few drinks in my pad and caught up, then set out for a holiday party that our friend Mateo was having all the bloody way uptown near Columbia. We knew it wouldn't be all that, but we felt obligated to at least make a cameo appearance, and plus we'd be killing a bunch of birds at once by seeing several people at the same time whom we wouldn't otherwise want to make room for in our busy schedules.

So we did that. Afterwards, feeling intrepid after having ventured so many blocks out of our usual territory, we checked out the gay bar Saints, down the block from Mateo's apartment, where I was promptly come on to by a Columbia M.B.A. student--so not my style. Then Marvelous was cruised by another business-looking fellow, who seductively snapped his gum at him. Soon after we bolted, split a cab with Edster (who had left the party with us), dropped him off at home, and proceeded to ride down to Stella's, the so-called hustler bar in Times Square that one of my editors had recommended to me. Needless to say, Marvelous and I loved it, though by the time we left after last call, we were dismayed that no one had asked to pay us for sex.

We were also insanely drunk and strangely awake, so we decided, uncharacteristically for us, to search out an afterparty to attend, one that wasn't Roxy or Earth. We didn't have any ideas, but we brilliantly theorized that if we headed down to Chelsea, perhaps some of the boys there would have some suggestions. Unfortunately for us, that turned out to be a better theory in concept than in practice, because by the time we arrived at Eighth Avenue and 23rd Street, the streets were mostly empty, and the few passersby we accosted didn't have a clue. Well, except for the short mustachioed troll with the beer belly who said he was hosting an afterparty at his place. Survey says: I don't think so.

We were losing hope as we neared Barracuda, but then this beautiful guy suddenly appeared out of nowhere, like a religious vision, asking us, in a brutally sexy, accented voice, if we were looking for a party to go to too. We said yes, so he joined our mission. His name was Claudio, he was from Mexico City, he was in New York doing some kind of program at NYU in (ironically) business, and he spoke perfect, elegant English. I was immediately smitten. Which meant, of course, that when we gave up our search a short while later, having ended up in the Meatpacking District, I took a cue from the troll above and invited Claudio back to my apartment. He readily agreed, and the next thing I knew, we were naked, getting all sweaty on my bed. It was the most wonderful surprise. Every time he came up for air he cutely exclaimed, "This is a fun afterparty!"

He was gone when I woke up early Sunday afternoon, so hung over I was nauseated, but as soon as I pried my eyes open (I'd passed out with my contacts in), I spied the note he'd left on a paper towel. It said "Thanks 4 the Party!" and included his number.

2002-12-07T01:56:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 5

I've done remarkably little this week aside from working, which is totally unlike me. Hibernation has come early for me. Usually I spend the whole month of January in my apartment, then pop out for some cameo appearances around my birthday the first week of February, and then I hibernate some more until I can feel the first signs of the spring thaw in the air--usually around late February. But this year, winter came early, and I'm having to adapt sooner than expected.

Not that I've been too lazy to correspond with gay.com prospects, like the fortysomething Richard Gere look-a-like I'm getting coffee with tomorrow (or today, rather, considering it's Saturday already), or the brutally cute MTV bit player with the sexy southern accent i've been chatting with almost nightly--we're supposed to get a drink Tuesday night now. And there's the hyper-cute 23-year-old architect boy who wants to take me to dinner (he said he could really get to like me after we exchanged about three sentences worth of information) and, of course, the software consultant who keeps sending me the sweetest missives from Minneapolis, where he's on assignment right now, and vowing to show me the ropes of the video-game world. Then there's all the other guys online I've been wasting my time chatting with, like the loser from Rochester who was bragging to me about how many sartorial items he owns, e.g., 65 pairs of shoes, 25 coats, etc. I'm sure it's all shit. He's a hairdresser, which means he's poor, and he lives upstate, where there are no cool stores, so it would have to be, wouldn't it?

But I'm being unnecessarily catty. It's the holiday season, after all. I should be more generous (though I could make the case that I was being quite magnanimous in talking to that dude for as long as I did).

2002-12-04T23:51:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 3

So, just my luck, there were major delays with car services tonight (apparently due to the Rockefeller Center tree lighting) and instead of leaving work at 9 when I wanted to, I didn't get out of there until 10:15, by which point the PrimeTime Live special on Whitney Houston had been over for 15 minutes. I was dying to hear Miss Thing admit, as the Daily News reported today, that she's abused alcohol, weed, coke, and "pills" (use your imagination) in the past and that she's still abusing some of them. She also reportedly claims that she's addicted to sex, which I wanted to hear her say even more. (Bobby Brown, for his part, who was also interviewed, says that the only drug he does is weed, which he uses to treat his so-called "bipolar disorder" because it "levels" him out.)

But no worries, because Whitney says that Jesus loves her, so she'll be fine!

2002-12-04T01:47:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 2

First off, my archives mysteriously reappeared today, for which I am very grateful. I disciplined them severely for straying like that. I get so worried when I don't know where they are (though I'm trying not to use any form of the word "worry" anymore on my therapist's advice--he told me today that if I say that I'm worried, I'll feel worried, which is true, so I'm trying to use more positive, proactive words instead that don't stress me out). Alert reader and blogger Brian eased my pain by informing me the archives were present at least as recently as this weekend, so I guess it was just a momentary lapse after all.

Anyway, aside from two-and-a-half hours of therapy--my individual session and then the group session--nothing particularly dramatic happened to me today. Well, that's not entirely true: my heart was ripped out when I learned that the group member I've had a crush on for months now, DJ Boy, was leaving. Actually, he's only going on hiatus until his drastic financial crisis is resolved, but still, I won't get to see him every Tuesday for the foreseeable future, and that makes me so sad I almost cried in front of him. But then I pulled myself together and had a lightbulb moment: I realized that perhaps his absence from group is really a blessing in disguise insofar as I can date him now. He even said several times tonight that he wants to hang out, and he made mad eye contact with me all session long, much more so than he made with everyone else. And, he kissed me on the lips when he arrived and when he parted. Not bad, huh? Too bad his life's such a mess that I can't, in my right mind, date him...

Once I reentered the non-therapy zone that is the world, I had two chance encounters, in quick succession. The first was with Turkish Delight, whom I haven't seen in ages. I bumped into him on the downtown 6 train; he looked so cute, and his sexy international accent slayed me, as always. We chatted briefly before he disembarked at Astor Place, proposing from the platform that we hang out this weekend. I'm not sure if that will happen.

I stayed on the train until Bleecker St., at which point I transferred to the downtown F train, getting off at the Delancey St. stop and immediately proceeding to the ingeniously combined Taco Bell/KFC across the street. There I joined the back of a line that was headed by none other than one of the gay boys who live in the apartment building adjacent to mine, the one who isn't the DJ. I've noticed him on the street before--he's cute enough to catch my eye, but not, I'm afraid, to fantasize about--but never had I encountered him in such close, stationary proximity as this. He was short. He also took a rather long time to order, apparently because he couldn't make up his mind, to the consternation of the people behind him in line, including me.

The important detail, though, is that as he moved away from the register after completing his order, he totally cruised me. Then he got on the horn, which he clearly didn't have to do right there in the area you wait for your food, and began to talk rather audibly about his evening's plans, which apparently included a trip to the Happy Endings party--he kept saying, loudly, how it was "right down the street from my house, literally two minutes away." He added that he might also attend Beige. This was all obviously for my entertainment, yet I refused to indulge him by looking his way. By the time I calmly placed my order (two hard-shell beef tacos and a side order of potato wedges), he was on his way out. I don't know whether he looked over his shoulder at me as he left.

The funny thing is, this is not the first time I've seen a fellow gay boy in this particular Taco Bell/KFC, which leads me to wonder: How the hell do they stay so skinny if they're eating greasy, high-caloric fast food all the time? I suppose they could wonder the same thing about me, but I only eat that shit once in a while.

2002-12-02T23:21:00.000-05:00

NOTE: I just discovered that my archives appear to be missing, and probably have been since this blog began. I'm filled with horror at the thought that visitors have not been able to access them. Please bear with me as I try to remedy the situation, even though, at this point, I don't have a clue as to how to do that.

2002-12-02T22:18:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 1

Just to get it out of the way, yes, I did go two straight weeks without smoking a cigarette until I bummed a Parly from Ash last night after book club. I really wanted one. So what?

On to other disgusting habits: in a prolonged moment of weakness, I spent most of last night and Saturday night online in the gay.com Manhattan chat room, chatting with boys. This is a particularly nasty habit I thought I had kicked, especially since my last, disastrous Web-mediated hook up over the summer (the one with that guy who seems to be following me around town). In fact, I haven't visited the debauched online chat scene since then.

Until this weekend, when I decided to return, out of boredom I suppose. Nevermind that I had plenty of other productive things to do to occupy my time. Instead, I decided to completely waste my time talking to guys who use the word "heart" when they mean "love," e.g., when one grunge-influenced fellow from Seattle, who said he was graduating college in a few weeks and moving to either New York or L.A. to pursue a film career, said to me "I heart smokers," meaning, "I love smokers." (My online picture shows me smoking a cigarette; it was taken a few years ago.) Something is clearly amiss in the world when language has broken down as much as this synonym confusion seems to indicate. Anyway, the guy stopped chatting with me a few minutes later after I made a joke about him being in a grunge band.

Another guy, who wanted to pay me a hundred bucks to sit on his face, while he presumably ate my ass (although he never actually used that phrase), found it worthwhile to inform me, after we had briefly chatted on the phone (I know, I'm shameless), that I looked much "str8er" in my photo than I sounded in person. Then he said that he didn't mean it as an insult. I told him I would have a hard time construing that comment as derogatory.

On the plus side, however, I did meet one very nice young man, a software consultant, who couldn't have been sweeter, or cuter (though it's impossible to genuinely tell from any guy's photo); we've struck up a pleasant e-mail correspondence, which is making me want to meet him in the real world and go out. I also met another very nice young man, much funnier than the software consultant, though to be fair he seems to make his living that way, as some sort of comic musician, whatever the hell that is. We chatted two nights in a row and then exchanged numbers. I'm supposed to call him tonight or tomorrow. I think I will.

All this activity has got me wondering whether I might run into the cute gay boy who lives upstairs online sometime. After all, I did once chat with a cute DJ boy who lives in the building to the right of mine, even if nothing came of it. It would be so convenient if the one in my building could just come downstairs and have sex with me.

Then again, I'm trying to be strong and refrain from revisiting gay.com--and from having sex for that matter.

2002-12-01T00:04:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 12

My folks departed early this morning for Houston, wrapping up their three-day jaunt to the city to celebrate Thanksgiving with my bro and me. We all had a good time, even though we spent the vast majority of the time together in my brother's apartment. But he has cable, so I can't complain. In fact, it's the main reason I trek all the way up to his apartment on the Upper West Side. That, and seeing him, of course.

I was in a great mood last night after hanging with the fam and scoring a dope new winter coat from Club Monaco courtesy of my parents (it's black, long, very warm, and vaguely connotative of the old-school Russian military--and it was half off!) so I connected with M-dash for a long overdue night on the town. I hadn't seen her in three weeks and she's been depressed lately due to a fucked-up roommate situation that's driving her from her apartment, so we wanted to get wasted and have fun. Though she was almost two hours late, she looked really good and seemed pretty stable; she told me later she had finally switched mood-alterers from whatever she was on before to Wellbutrin, and she was doing much better. Plus, because Wellbutrin contains some kind of anti-nicotine agent, she'd effectively quit smoking, thus removing herself as a major instigator of my own on again-off again smoking habit. Neither of us smoked a cigarette the whole night, which is the first time that's happened with us.

Anyway, we spent most of the night at the month-old scenester bar Pianos on Ludlow St., where Jack Osbourne was spotted last weekend. It's the latest joint in the ever-expanding local rock and electro revival scene, with a rather tranquilly designed bar space in the front and a small, dark performance area in the back (there's also a loungey space upstairs, which we didn't check out). At the door I was shocked to find The Mouth, an old friend of mine from my college days who I rarely see nowadays and who I try to avoid if I do. He was collecting the $3 cover for the Gang Gang Dance, who were supposed to perform that night. He didn't make us pay, which was cool, though I expected to pay for the generous gesture later with a long, boring conversation--that's how he earned the nickname The Mouth among my social circle in college.

We didn't stay long enough to catch Gang Gang Dance, a duo of art-world chicks I've been slightly interested in hearing, but we did catch the last half of the set of a band called Dead Combo (we think), who were amazing and apparently Finnish. Then we darted around the corner to Arlene's Grocery for cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon, which spurred on our mounting drunkenness. After coining a new mantra for ourselves--"Life: Live It, Love It!," proclaimed in a boozy, faux-glamorous way--we called it a night. It was a good thing, because I kept seeing two M-dashes in front of me.

2002-11-29T00:31:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 10

As I type this my apartment is being sweetly perfumed by a cinnamon-scented candle that my mom bought for me. I'm watching a Will and Grace repeat and eating leftover apple and pumpkin pie. Not a bad end to a very good day.

2002-11-28T01:14:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 9

Last night I saw the new Spike Jonze/Charlie Kaufman film Adaptation at a special producer's screening at the Sony screening room, which A. invited me to (he worked for the producer prior to his current art museum gig). I've been waiting to see it for like two years--in addition to Jonze and Kaufman, the movie features Meryl Streep and Nic Cage, both of whom I love--so it was satisfying to finally be able to do it. I enjoyed it, though didn't think it was quite as brilliant as I expected to.

Post-screening I found myself more obsessed with the fact that I had sat directly behind Jonathan Safran Foer, the hotshot first-time author of this year's massively acclaimed novel Everything is Illuminated (which he published when he was 25, something that makes me sick to my stomach every time I think about it), and his girlfriend Nicole Krauss, who published (at an older age, thankfully) her own, slightly less acclaimed, debut novel Man Walks Into a Room, than with the actual film--another sign that it wasn't as stellar as it could have been. They darted away directly after the credits, leaving Kim Cattrall the only celebrity in our midst at the casual reception that followed. She more than made up for it: she was gorgeous, even better looking in person than she is on TV, and so tall she was practically an Amazon. Plus she was rocking these really fly suede boots. I tried to focus on what A. was saying to me but kept averting my eyes to steal looks at her. I don't think she noticed. Then again, she probably did.

Today I took the day off from work and went for an interview, finally, at the paper where I applied for a job more than two weeks ago. It went well, albeit briefly, and I expect to get called back for a second, more intense interview with a few of the other editors. At least I'm praying that I do. Then I hightailed it up to my bro's place on the Upper West Side and hung out with him and my folks, who are up from Texas for the holiday. That meant that my dad and I mostly watched TV (including the Dr. Phil show, which I've never seen) while my mom and my brother baked pie after pie after pie. Then we went to dinner and, afterwards, strolled past the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade floats that were being blown up and tamed on the two streets on either side of the American Museum of Natural History. It was freezing, and for awhile I thought I'd stepped in dog shit, but it was fun too.

2002-11-26T00:26:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 7

So the sickest thing that happened to me yesterday was running into the same nasty Internet trick I'd run into on the 1st Ave. L platform headed to Williamsburg about five weeks ago. Then I unfortunately made eye contact with him, albeit briefly and without any acknowledgement of anything on my part. Yesterday, luckily, I didn't even make eye contact. But his presence a single table away from me at Java 'n' Jazz, a quasi-coffeehouse a block north of Union Square that I didn't particularly care for (the green tea was gross, and one of the employees accidentally stained my $400 Diesel leather coat when she was clearing the table I was sitting at--the eye patch she was wearing might have explained the mishap, but still), unnerved me regardless. I was in the middle of discussing co-producing two plays with a friend of mine--actually a member of my therapy group--when I heard what I assumed was the voice of a gay male, so I sneaked a surreptitious look behind me to scope out the bearer of the voice and, to my great horror, noticed who it was. I shuddered and tried my best to concentrate on the conversation I was having until it concluded.

What have I done to deserve this regrettable karmic payback? I wouldn't enjoy running into any of my past online hook-ups, but this specific one is probably the least tolerable of them all. And to run into him not once, but twice (and who knows, considering this nascent pattern, how many more times)! It begs the question of why. Why me? Is it to remind me of what a good boy I've been in not soliciting sex in chat rooms since my dismal encounter with this guy over the summer?

Somehow I think the reason isn't nearly as redemptive as that rationale is.

2002-11-24T22:30:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 6

I'm totally exhausted from running myself into the ground the past few days, so this post will be brief. Let me just say that I had a most enjoyable time with Best Friend, who was in town since late Wednesday night to attend the MIX Festival, where her first short film was screened Thursday night. It was a pretty big deal, and it was great to see her film on a giant (or fairly giant--this is Anthology Film Archives after all) screen. There was a motley crew of us in attendance for the screening to cheer her on; afterwards, Best Friend, T., and I went for storefront Chinese food and furiously conversed, as is our wont. Then Best Friend and I went to the after party at Urge, where the festival's technical director flirted madly with me and the executive director, whom Best Friend had told earlier in the night that I thought he had a sexy voice, basically ignored me. We got drunk and went home at 4 a.m.

Friday night, after recovering from being hung over all day, she and I (and her sis) got sushi, then I went to Bowery Ballroom with L. to see Mr. Scruff, who dropped a great, highly danceable set. He's on Ninja Tune, which used to be one of my fave record labels.

Yesterday I worked all day, then went to the terrible bar Subtonic (underneath the rock club Tonic) for drinks with A. and A., my friends who are engaged. A friend of theirs was spinning there; otherwise we never would have stayed in that dingy dungeon filled with oversized former pickle barrels that customers were actually sitting inside. It was like a sick combination of The Brady Bunch family room and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Blech. I'd rather go to a water sports party than go there again.

And now--now I'm going to sleep.

2002-11-21T00:48:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 2

I stayed home tonight to watch the Victoria's Secret lingerie show on TV instead of attending the opening night of the MIX Festival. Talk about having your priorities out of order! But I'm kind of pissed at the MIX folks for denying me press accreditation, even though they gave it to me the past two years. I guess freelancing isn't as cool as a full-time media gig like I used to have. Reason number 234 that I need to get a full-time media gig again: to regain my status as a journalist.

Last night Marvelous and I checked out for the first time Jonny McGovern and Dean Johnson's "Happy Endings" party at the bar Happy Ending, which is a convenient four block stroll from my apartment. I've been hearing such scandalous reports about this latest venture of theirs, so I was looking forward to making the scene. And it was a scene, all right--but a very predictable one, composed of the same crowd that seems to show up at all their events. Lots of fashion tiredness. (Like, what's up with the poor-boy caps still? Weren't they trendy a year ago? Same goes for the thrift-shop truck-driver hats, the faux hawks, the Metallica t-shirts, and all the other formerly cool items many guys were sporting last night. Sheesh, move on!) Lots of music tiredness too, as Johnson was spinning all these old records, like Destiny's Child's "Survivor"--what's up with that? With all the hot music that's been coming out this fall, you'd think he'd be dropping some of that shit and actually making an effort to be hip. But probably the grossest aspect of the party (aside from the several instances of barebacking I witnessed later) was the presence of two seemingly prepubescent boys who were wandering around wearing white towels and clear plastic flip-flops and nothing else. When they first appeared in the jammed bar upstairs, it was like Moses parting the sea: almost everyone turned to stare, with all the older (read: anyone over 25) guys ogling them like mad, practically drooling. It was so sick, I thought I was going to throw up. Marvelous was equally appalled. And then you wonder why people sometimes lump gay men together with pedophiles... For the record, while the boys were standing near us at the bar, I leaned over and asked one of them how old he was, and he told me 21, although he admitted he looked younger.

But enough of my complaining. All in all, I had a fun time, though the back room, which made good use of the downstairs bar area, with its half moon-shaped banquettes and two red-lit ceramic-tiled rooms (where later I spied those twinkies were being blown by men twice their ages, whatever they actually are), was not nearly as scandalous as I had expected. In fact, it was downright friendly, and I hooked up with two guys. One was this nice, older (he looked like he was in his 30s) fellow named Lou, whom I happened to be standing next to at one point when Marvelous and I paused from circulating. He reached over and groped my crotch, and the next thing I knew, he was licking my ear and unbuttoning my jeans, pulling my dick out to stroke. When my eyes finally adjusted to the dark, I was pleasantly surprised to realize that he was cute too! And he was such a gentleman: after he sucked me off, not only did he not expect reciprocation, but he actually held me in his arms and massaged my back! I couldn't exactly believe I was in a raunchy, dehumanizing back room. It felt like Oz.

I wandered back to the front of the room and rejoined Marvelous, who hadn't been as successful as me yet. I dispatched him to find a brief moment of happiness, then entertained myself by watching the rest of the action, which I could survey quite well from the banquette I was kneeling on. I figured I'd get my voyeurism on some more, wait for Marvelous, and then bounce. But all of a sudden, this brutally cute guy, who had cruised me upstairs towards the beginning of the party, wandered into my view and sat down a foot or two away. I saw that he saw me, and just as I was wondering if anything would happen, he got up, walked behind me, and started stroking the side of my leg. I was so excited! I faked resistance for a few seconds, turned around, leaned into him; he undid my jeans, pulled them and my underwear down to my knees, and started jacking me off right there, in the better-lit part of the room, in front of several casual onlookers. Even though I had just came, I popped a major boner. I dragged him to a more secluded spot a few paces away and feverishly tried to undo his jeans but the buttons kept sticking. He kept working my dick and shoving his finger up my ass. Soon enough I freed his dick and tried to kiss him, but he avoided my lips, which I found unsettling but strangely alluring. I couldn't stop thinking about how skinny he was--he was literally a toothpick, with just the slightest hint of an ass--which, in turn, made me think that he was a drug addict. That only made me hotter for him.

Fast forward a few frames: he pulled up my shirt, pressed his dick against my stomach, and came all over it and my hand. Then he pulled his finger out of my ass and embraced me, and we just stood like that, frozen, for awhile. Eventually he pulled away, hiked up his jeans, walked out of the back room, and disappeared. I don't think I once looked at his face.

2002-11-19T00:18:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 0

Okay, I caved and had not one but two whole cigarettes tonight while feverishly conversing with C. about this new job I'm (hopefully) up for. She works at the place and has been doing major behind-the-scenes legwork for me, so we were strategizing, and she was giving me the lowdown all night long. Thank God for her. I haven't seen her for almost two months, so it was great to hang. We had a lot of catching up to do. Met up with her at the Slipper Room to catch this rather whitebread cabaret act, which she was checking out for an article she's currently reporting. Not nearly as good as the Fun Club, the monthly multi-culti burlesque show there that some friends of mine are involved with and that I've written about before here. Then we dropped by Lolita, right around the corner from my pad, for a few more drinks and some more fast-paced conversation.

Unfortunately, nothing else remotely interesting happened to me during the day, which is making me worried, considering that there was a huge spike in traffic to my blog today, thanks in part to my new friend Kel., the purveyor of that slash site I linked to yesterday. Also thanks in part to Justin Timberlake, whom people are really interested in from a queer perspective. Random web surfers across the world are apparently searching for info on him in connection with gayness, and they're stumbling across my humble little attempt at self-expression. I hope my scintillating writing keeps them coming back. That is, if I can achieve scintillation again now that I've effectively begun my winter hibernation and stopped being social (hence the worrying)...

Oh, and poor Justin! It's recently come to my attention that the newly emergent solo star has broken his foot! I hope that doesn't ruin his rise to world musical domination. It's bad enough that he has to compete with tons of major records coming out between now and the holidays--now he can't even perform! If he can't shake his cute little ass, what will become of him?

2002-11-18T00:15:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 8

Just a few links tonight, as I did absolutely nothing of note today, except for fantasizing about what my life would be like if I were rich. The other night, when I was in thrall to the "details" section of my blog's Sitemeter profile, I discovered the most interesting website, which was included, along with my blog and several other sites, in the results to a random person's Google search for "Justin Timberlake interview gay." Basically, all the stories contained in the website are a kind of "slash," which is an appropriative genre of writing where the writer depicts straight, fictional characters of popular culture in a decidedly queer context. But this particular slash, because it is constructed around non-fictional, real people (namely 'N Sync members), is known as real-people slash, which the creator of the website told me is highly controversial and frequently hated. I love it, though, and am now obsessed, to the point where I'm searching out as much as I can.

The author of those slash stories also referred me to an interesting article on the queerness of Justin Timberlake. You can read it here. And at the end of that article, I discovered a fascinating article from The Advocate a few years ago on the young gay boy following of boy bands in general.

And last but not least, when I was cleaning up my apartment yesterday I came across a catalog for Heifer International, a group which purchases animals, from cows to llamas, for indigent people across the world to help them prosper financially. For some reason I get a lot of socially engaged junk mail, so I'm used to these entreaties for money, but this organization is just plain weird. You tell me if it's real or satire.

2002-11-16T22:33:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 7

So I never made it to my therapy workshop this morning, which really doesn't surprise me at all. I wasn't properly registered to begin with, and when I woke up at 9:30, tired and feeling gloomy in solidarity with the weather, I decided it was too much effort on too bad a day to travel all the way up to 14th Street (all the way, I say--it's only 18 blocks, which is four stops on the F train!). Instead, I reset the alarm for 12:30, turned off the TV (I always set the TV and alarm, which go off simultaneously), and eventually dragged myself out of bed at 1:30. Actually, although I did surface out of the bed linens, I really have left my bed all day.

The only time I left the apartment, in fact, was to get a cup of tea with this British dude visiting from Manchester whom I met on mygaydar.com. We went a few blocks away to one of my fave cafes, Rivington 99, at the corner of Ludlow, and had an amiable chat. He was nice, but very British, if you know what I mean. He's a filmmaker, though interestingly enough, we didn't talk about film once. We did chat quite a lot about celebrities, mostly about my distaste for them, and about cosmetic surgery--in particular, Michael Jackson's recent nose-tip collapse, which was given big play in the Daily News earlier this week. I told him I was listening to the Streets lately, that British rapper from Manchester whose real name is Mike Skinner, and mentioned that Skinner was from the same territory as him, and he looked at me blankly, then said he didn't know that. I found that highly strange. Finally we parted, and he said something vague about dropping me a line in the future--I couldn't tell whether he meant the immediate future, i.e., next week when he's here, or whether he meant the Future. I also didn't care.

Now I'm just chilling at home, for the second straight night. I forget how much I dig this! I did a bit of redecorating, which normally I'm loathe to do: I hung in my window this glass orb an ex-paramour gave me, which has been sitting on a shelf since I moved in over a year ago; I rearranged the Donald Judd-inspired self-created sculpture on one of my walls; and I put up above the door to my bathroom this old Museum of Modern Art exhibition poster for a show on furniture by Mies van der Rohe. Hey, if I can't afford a chaise longue or a club chair designed by him, at least I can stare longingly at schematic renderings of them.

2002-11-16T01:15:00.000-05:00

Correction: Actually, those three magic words do appear in this blog--if I knew how to link to past entries, I'd show you the instance. They just don't happen to appear in the context the Google searcher was hoping for. NB: In verifying that information, I made the additional discovery that the Google searcher used the German-language version of the search engine.

2002-11-16T01:09:00.000-05:00

This just in: I was drowsily checking my Sitemeter statistics a moment ago when I noticed that someone visited this blog because it was listed as a result for a Google search for "Nicky Hilton pussy"!!! Isn't that awesome? I don't mean to embarrass the visitor, who may or may not be following my blog now, but I'm just bowled over by this discovery. It's the coolest thing ever, especially considering that, to the best of my knowledge, the proper name "Nicky Hilton" and the term "pussy" are nowhere to be found on these pages. But now they are...

2002-11-16T00:53:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 6

I feel like my social life is slowly crumbling. I've been increasingly neglecting it in the past few weeks, mostly because of the increasing cold and my increasing productivity on the job-searching front, not to mention the increase in workload at my day job. This week my stomach's been in knots most of the time due to the most current job prospect, which isn't exactly a condition conducive to having fun. One positive outcome of lessening my schedule: I'm finding out who calls me unprompted and who doesn't it. As it turns out, it's only one person in particular who hasn't been calling me whom I kind of thought would have been.

The good news is that two of the ideas I pitched to the publication I'm gunning for (I ended up staying home from work on Wednesday to write a four-page story memo) have actually shown up in the publication since I pitched them. Obviously their appearance has nothing to do with me--the stories had to have been in development before I applied for the job--but it does seem to indicate that I have the right sensibility, which I'm hoping the editors are in the process of realizing.

Tomorrow morning, or rather this morning, considering that it's officially Saturday even though I'm still living Friday, I'm supposed to go to this psychotherapy workshop at Identity House on images of gay men in the gay male community and the culture at large, and how those images affect us. I had planned to attend their September workshop on sex and dating but royally overslept after a particularly boisterous night out. I've never been to Identity House, nor to a therapy "workshop" before, but I'm hoping it's a good way to meet guys. I hope so, at least, because I'm starting to think I can only date boys who are also going to therapy.

2002-11-14T22:53:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 5

In route to meeting Court, J-bird, Lazy, and M. at Sea in Williamsburg tonight, the identical twin (only much bigger) of my fave Thai restaurant on Second Ave., I got caught in a literal jam as I was exiting the L stop at Bedford Ave.: a tall scraggly guy with a British accent was trying to enter through the same turnstile I was trying to leave through. Allow me to set the scene. Everyone's streaming up the stairs, flitting through the turnstiles by the tens, hurrying to meet people for dinner or a drink, or just eager to get home after a long day at work, and I'm following them. As I near the left-most turnstile, I spot the guy in question hovering near it on the side that I'm trying to get to, like the rest of the crowd, but I don't pay him any attention and proceed towards the bar, where suddenly I run up against him. Our chests meet, he drops his token into the slot, I attempt to push forward anyway but he blocks me, pushing back, nearly screaming, "Come on, man!" "Dude," I say, in the most annoyed tone I can muster, and glare at him. "I just put my money in," he shouts. Realizing that this means he'll lose his dollar fifty if I successfully dislodge him, I back away and take the high road, wordlessly moving into the turnstile lane to my immediate right. He's still not happy, though, and as he passes me he snarls, "For fuck's sake, I can't let everyone pass!"

Moments later I wished I had told him he was a dickhead, but right then I simply ignored him, not wanting to dwell on his negativity or allow it to invade me. As I bounded up the stairs to the street, I felt a rush of pride for standing up to him and forcing the issue--because, really, he was clearly in the wrong (why, yes, you can let everyone pass, that's the polite thing to do)--but the next second my eyes welled up and I thought I was going to cry. I didn't, but I was irritated that this total stranger had almost made me. It surprised me, and I couldn't figure out why I felt that way. I still can't.

2002-11-14T00:29:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 4

I just finished watching Nightline and the topic tonight was very interesting: a secret training program in North Carolina for U.S. military special forces units. Obviously it's not so secret now that Ted Koppel's has had his grubby hands all over it, but clearly it was a calculated ploy by the Department of Defense to gain some sympathetic publicity for once. The training program is set up so that the special forces trainees (in this case, they were training to be Green Berets) actually have to enact a military operation with the aid of freedom fighter guerillas against the enemy occupiers of their land. The whole thing takes place in a forest somewhere over two weeks, and real local citizens participate in the charade, which I found weird. For one thing, I apparently missed whether they were using live ammo or not, though I would assume they weren't. And yet, it sure looked like they were firing real rounds...

The weirdest thing was the names the military cooked up for the "countries" enmeshed in the pseudo-conflict. There was "OpForLand" to the north, which apparently comprised most of the mid-Atlantic region above North Carolina, "Pineland," which I believe comprised most of the South beneath North Carolina, and "Occupied Pineland," which was North Carolina. All of it. Which was being ruthlessly occupied by OpForLand.

Now, I don't even know what OpForLand could possibly mean or stand for or refer to, but I certainly know what Pineland is, and it's dumb as shit. Can't the military come up with a more creative name than that? Furthermore, how could anyone seriously defend a country called that?

If I were unfortunate enough to have been born in Pineland, I would definitely emigrate.

2002-11-12T23:12:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 3

So more job prospect-related stress: today I spoke with my ex-colleague who's one of the features editors at the publication where I'm applying for a job, and he strongly suggested I submit story ideas to the editor who's handling the hiring. I sort of knew he was going to say that, and was sort of hoping he wouldn't, so now, instead of venturing out to Happy Ending tonight to check out the McGovern and Johnson party (the official name of which I can't quite figure out from the various e-mails I've been getting, each calling it something slightly different), I'm sitting here typing up a list of them. Actually, procrastinating. Mostly because I'm apprehensive, because the ideas could make or break my candidacy, and I'm working from a disadvantaged position, considering that I lack the resources (such as lists of upcoming movie and music releases and regular communication with a plethora of entertainment publicists) I would have if I were currently employed at a publication.

I know, cry me a river, right? I'm doing my best, and I think it's going to be fine. At least that's what I keep repeating to myself.

2002-11-11T22:40:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 2

BUT, I went eight straight smoke-free days before having a cigarette (okay, three or four) on Saturday night. What could I do? I was hanging out with two smokers, and I felt like I deserved a reward for not smoking for so long.

Anyway, I'm zonked. I've been focusing all my mental energy lately on this great new job, which I'm absolutely perfect for, that I found out about late Thursday. Since then I've been marshaling every resource of mine (including two former colleagues who work on the publication that has the job vacancy) in order to snag it. The actual applying for the job has been easy, though I was making myself physically ill this afternoon when the fax machine I was using to send my stuff to my friend, who was going to hand it directly to the editor in charge of the hiring, kept screwing up the transmission. No, it's the sheer anxiety-inducing wait for something to happen that's killing me. But that's all I can say for now, lest I jinx the whole thing and not even get called in for an interview, God forbid. If you're reading this, please pray for me.

(FYI, if you're a devout media observer like myself, there's a fairly fascinating thread on mediabistro.com's boards right now in which various members of the media detail a day in their lives. It's all anonymous, unfortunately, but still interesting. I successfully wasted almost an hour reading this shit today.)

The other reason I'm tired is that my old college boyfriend and his current boyfriend, whom he's been seriously involved with for over a year, were in town, and I was entertaining them. Talk about focusing mental energy: mine was honed to a point so sharp it could kill. I mean, considering that I hadn't met my ex's boyfriend yet, I was ready to wield knives. Luckily I didn't need to--the boyfriend was surprisingly acceptable, and he got on my nerves in only a low-key fashion. I was afraid I might feel jealous, either of the boyfriend, despite the fact I was sure he wasn't going to be nearly as cool or as hot or as smart or as well-dressed as I am (and he wasn't), or of their relationship, which clearly blows out of the water my measly four month-long affair with my ex (which terminated over three years ago when he graduated from our college and moved to Berlin; I had another year left in school and was going to spend the summer in New York).

But I wasn't jealous at all. I was happy for them, and I was happy for myself. I realized they have their thing, and I have mine, and we're both satisfied. The only weird thing was that the current boyfriend kept touching me, sometimes even putting his arms around me, which I thought violated some kind of rule about how one should act in the company of the ex-beau of your current boyfriend. I occasionally wondered if said touching might lead to a threesome (which El Mar immediately suggested when I told him who I was hanging out with this weekend). After all, they were staying at the W Union Square Saturday night, and I would've loved to see their room.

Turns out, as my ex confessed last night, his boyfriend is rather conservative when it comes to incorporating others into their sex life, so a threesome was off the menu from the start. Which was fine, because neither of them turned me on.

2002-11-07T23:35:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 6

Tonight I reached a new milestone in my life, one which I hadn't even considered a milestone until after the fact: I met my first blogger. Because he is innocent, and because he already has a large, avid readership (and, for that matter, because I've previously linked to his blog in these entries and I'm not even getting paid to be his publicist), I will protect his identity by not naming him. But for the record, let me say that it was a quite enjoyable experience; I'm already looking forward to the sequel, and, perhaps, if the stars have ordained it, the whole franchise.

He has good taste, too, exemplified by his choice of Tea & Sympathy, the glorified British teahouse on Greenwich Ave., as our meeting spot. I've always wanted to check this joint out but, because I rarely venture to the West Village--especially since El Mar, who lived on Waverly Place, moved to L.A. in August--I'd never managed to do it. I'm so glad I finally did. It's wonderful, and now occupies a favored position on my list of local haunts to frequent. If only I could have deliciously homemade macaroni and cheese and a pot, preferably with adorable little teddy bears painted on, of green tea all the time. Then I think I could truly be happy.

2002-11-06T01:11:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 4

The best thing about Election Day, which is one of my favorite days of the year, aside from watching the election returns and listening to the TV talking heads dissect them, is that my sweetheart Terry Moran, ABC News's White House correspondent, gets lots of air time. Doesn't he look adorably cherubic in that publicity photo? I so want to be his boyfriend. Sometimes when he's answering Peter Jennings's questions on air, I imagine his formidable lips clamping down on my dick--what an appealing thought.

In other news, I'm feeling much less sick today, thanks to all the fluids I drank yesterday, which caused me to pee all the germs away. Also, I purchased J. Timberlake's album Justified, which the record store near my job was completely sold out of when I went at lunch (I had to go back after work), and I have to say, it's fucking amazing. No one's going to believe this, but I really think it's like the new Off the Wall. It's that good. It exerted such dominating power over me that while riding the smelly, slow-moving M15 bus to my back-to-back therapy appointments tonight, I was happily tapping my foot to the album's dope beats, barely noticing the fact that I was being crushed to death. Normally I would've nearly screamed; instead, I was smiling.

It's so good that I'm not even upset that Stanley Aronowitz, the Green Party gubernatorial candidate whom I voted for this morning, is--with 98% of precincts accounted for--some 10,000 votes short of the 50,000 he needed to get in order for his party to gain official status.

2002-11-04T22:37:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 3

So I'm sitting here on my bed, sniffling, slowly chafing the sides of my nose into oblivion, typing away on my computer (it's a lap-top, hence the reason I can sit on my bed and work), listening to my boy Justin Timberlake live on Z-100 answering questions and previewing his new album, which drops tomorrow. I just heard the next single, "Cry Me a River," and it's hot! I know it's totally cliched for a gay boy like myself to be digging on J.Tim., but I can't help it--he's the anointed one. He's got progressive musical tastes, the best producers (the Neptunes, Timbaland, et al.), major rock-star quality, a great voice, and he's the cutest thing ever. Verging on the obsessive, I also watched his interview with Barbara Walters earlier tonight on TV. My only comment is that he seems to have a strangely Oedipal relationship with his mother, constantly referring to her, thanking her, claiming that she's his best friend. She even appeared in half the interview! What is it with these gay (or seemingly gay) pop-cultural figures who, while self-consciously shoring up their straightness on the surface, also unconsciously paint themselves into psychologically revealing corners that seem to contradict their public discourse? Is it only noticeable to a queer theory-trained observer such as myself?

Anyway, to segue into a more self-pitying mode, I'm slightly ill, which I blame entirely on smoking too much last week. Now that I've quit, if I smoke too much, I irritate my sinus tracts. So I'm reaffirming, once again, my desire to forgo cigarettes completely. And I mean it.

Ooh, now they're playing "Senorita," another track off Timberlake's new record, and it's hot too!

2002-11-03T23:38:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 2

Had a blissfully low-key weekend, sans Friday night, when I got schlitzed at G-spot's under-attended cocktail party and at Wonder Bar afterwards. The only piece of news that emerged was that Nicodemus confirmed that he strongly dislikes Benji.

Yesterday I went to the Met with L. and Babydoll and saw the Avedon show, the Vija Celmins' prints show, and the Costume Institute's exhibition on the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and their coterie of society friends--all quite wonderful and satisfying. I also paid a visit to the spirit of Nany, an ancient Egyptian princess whose sarcophagus, wig, and turquoise scarab pendant are on display around the corner from the Temple of Dendur. I'm working on a piece of writing about her and needed to be re-inspired. I was.

Spent the rest of the night (we visited the museum late in the day) at home, slowly drinking one of the massive Russian beers my dad brought me from his trip to Moscow over the summer (it's been safely refrigerated since then) while first watching Mildred Pierce on PBS and then reading Peter Cameron's novel Leap Year, which Nicodemus lent me last week, proclaiming it one of his fave books ever. I went to sleep early and was very grateful to have stayed in for the first Saturday night in forever.

Today I went to work for a few hours, came home, finished reading Leap Year (it's a fun, quick, light read, but certainly not deep or brilliant or anything, making me question Nico's judgment in yet another realm, despite the fact that he's pursuing a humanities Ph.D. at a respectable university), watched Alias (Sydney discovered that her father programmed her to be a spy as a child!), and cleaned up around the apartment. Now I'm watching the Giants; soon I'm going to sleep.

2002-11-01T21:41:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 2

Happy fucking belated Halloween!

Last night came close to being a total washout; were it not for the heroic efforts of Marvelous, who stayed true when others couldn't or wouldn't, I would've never left my apartment (which is what I had planned to do originally, as this year I was completely not into dressing up or any of the rigamarole that goes with it). Ended up at Phoenix for a cocktail, then to Wonder Bar, where the staff was costumed and the ceiling had cute, home-made, Caspar-like ghosts hanging from it, for a nightcap. Then Marvelous and I parted ways and I went home. Score one in the not-being-accosted-by-crazily-attired-nut-jobs column.

Wednesday night I hit up the Fun Club new wave-burlesque Halloween-themed show at the Slipper Room, up the street from my humble abode. Ash was decked out as some character from Star Wars, complete with a Java the Hut constructed out of a mobile garment trolley. How she was planning to ambulate around the city Thursday night with that accessory, I don't know. Court and J-bird were totally drunk, which I found amusing. We agreed to start a regular movie night at J-bird's new loft--she just purchased a film projector, and she has the wall space to use it properly. We also quasi-feverishly discussed Halloween plans that, less than 24 hours later, they inexplicably quashed. It's okay, though; I love them too much to hold it against them.

This morning I had a physical check up at the Callen-Lorde Community Service Center and found out a) that I don't have testicular cancer (I was concerned about a mysterious lump I had noticed a few weeks ago in the shower, which I was told was not a tumor or anything cancer-related but was, in fact, my epididymis); and b) that my apparent occasional heart palpitations are perfectly normal for someone my age. My doctor suggested that I refrain from consuming caffeine, which probably causes them. Too bad I just slurped down a Diet Coke.

2002-10-29T23:18:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 2

It sounds like it's sleeting outside, which is a scary thought, considering that it's not even November yet. I am so not a wintry-mix kind of guy. I'm more like a palm tree--I like warm, sunny, breezy weather.

Anyway, I'm amused that the purveyor of one of my fave blogs found himself ruminating today on the meaning of love, which is the very same topic that Nicodemus and I were arguing, fairly drunkenly, about Friday night while ensconced in his cozy apartment, sheltered from the rain. We, however, were deliberating on the finer points of attraction, which, although clearly not the same as love, is certainly intimately bound up with it. Essentially, the discussion was thus: Nicodemus, romantic that he seemingly is, strongly supported the idea that there is such a thing as falling head over heels for someone--that you can be intensely attracted to a guy, which is to say that your body registers said attraction as a strong, identifiable feeling--whereas, being the jaded cynic that I am, I refuted that claim, writing such a sense of attraction off as mere infatuation, a druggy sensation (as my therapist describes it) utterly without content. I proposed that what attraction actually is is just the desire to spend time with someone who treats you well and whom you enjoy hanging out with, and with whom you can have a satisfying sexual relationship. Everything else ascribed to attraction, I said, was simply the product of Hollywood and the rest of the culture and wasn't real.

You can imagine the machinations at work in a conversation like this at 3:00 a.m. after depleting a bottle of Absolut. But I came away thinking that the truth about love and attraction is somewhere close to halfway between Nico's opinion and mine.

In other news, I lost my Cheez Whiz virginity Sunday night and I was laughing the whole time! I was relieved, as well, to find out that although the party is ending at the Parkside Lounge next Sunday, it will resume shortly thereafter at Rare (formerly the Cooler), at which point it will be called Star Tartare. Thank the Lord, because this is the best party I've been to in awhile...

2002-10-27T20:51:00.000-05:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST SMOKING A CIGARETTE: .5

Well, I suppose everyone knew this day would come, yours truly included, but I have completely fallen off the wagon with this nicotine thing. Smoked several cigarettes (Gauloises, of all brands!) Friday night when I was hanging out at Nicodemus's place, which we didn't leave the whole night due to the pouring rain but also to the convenience (free drinks, the ability to choose our own music, book-borrowing privileges). Had a great time. Too bad he's not interested in me romantically or sexually, because I think I'm in love with him. At least when I'm drunk, that is. Swooning my way down Broome St. after leaving his place at 4 a.m., I couldn't stop thinking about him; when I awoke early Saturday afternoon, I laughed at myself and didn't feel a single pang of attraction.

Smoked several more cigarettes last night at J-bird's party for Nangstarr's birthday, but then I was drunk and coked up, so it was excusable. Couldn't help but think of the last time I was at J-bird's for a party, about six weeks ago, when I was drunk and coked up and successfully avoided all nicotine. Wish I could reclaim that will power.

Or maybe not--am planning to smoke again tonight when L., M-dash, Babydoll (who's up from D.C. for two weeks freelancing at L.'s firm), and I check out Cheez Whiz for the first time. I read here that this evening is the penultimate edition of the party, so I gotta make it there while I still can. I'm sure it's going to be awesome and I'm going to regret the fact that I could've been going every week, but que sera sera. Something else will likely come through the pipeline to replace it.

Saw the movie Heaven this afternoon and loved it. It was strange, beautiful, affecting, and the acting, courtesy of Cate Blanchett and Giovanni Ribisi, is top notch. And the best part of all is that the script is by an all-time favorite of mine: the late, great Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski. It felt good to be able to commune with his spirit again. Tom Tykwer's own direction was quite inspired, but I couldn't help but wonder what the film would've been like if Kieslowski had been alive to helm it.

2002-10-25T22:10:00.000-04:00

P.S. RIP Paul Wellstone.

2002-10-25T22:08:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 4

But I'm going out with Nicodemus tonight, so my short non-smoking streak will likely end. It's a shame.

Internet boy, amazingly enough, still hasn't contacted me, via phone or e-mail, so I guess the whole things is really off now. That's also a shame. His loss, though. I was sort of expecting him to get in touch today with some lame excuse, apologizing for our not getting together last night, and I would give him some shit, then fold and reschedule, just so I could have sex with an ex-porn model with a huge tattoo blasting his name across his lower arm. Sounds heavenly to me. Too bad it's not gonna happen.

At least my fortune-cookie fortunes came through for me for a change. I got five cookies from one of the take-out joints I order from, and after being a total pig and scarfing down a huge egg roll, mounds of pork-fried rice, and some chicken chow mein (it wasn't that good, and plus I had chicken on my salad at lunch today), I proceeded to crack open four of them (I'm giving the last one to Nico when I see him in a bit) and discovered what destiny has in store for me. Looks pretty good:

1) "A chance meeting opens new doors to success and friendship."

2) "You will step on the soil of many countries."

3) "Romance moves you in a new direction."

4) "You will be awarded some great honor."

I wonder what Nico's fortune will say?

2002-10-24T22:56:00.000-04:00

To take my mind off of my Internet-date fiasco, I've been reading up on my new love, Ty Murray, the famous bull-riding champion. He's a real man. He would never stand me up like this. If we were dating and I was suffering from the cold, all I'd have to do is call him and he'd be over in a jiffy to warm me up. And if I couldn't date him, I'd date one of his fellow bull riders on the PBR circuit. I was blown away by these boys when I happened to catch their competition in Columbus, OH, this past weekend on TV. If they can ride bulls like that, can you imagine what they could do in bed? Perhaps, on occasion, just for fun, wearing their long leather chaps?

2002-10-24T22:34:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 3

Apparently my Internet date has stood me up. That's right, the former Playguy model (how many times have I invoked that credential thus far?), whom I was supposed to meet in person for the first time tonight. We'd agreed that I'd call him yesterday to sort out the details, which I did, although later in the day than he probably expected (around 10 p.m., when I got home from work). He wasn't there, so I left a message, and the bastard has yet to call me back. Can you believe it?

I can, because this is what happens more often than not, to me at least, when it comes to online dating. It's like the complete lack of physical presence emboldens people to do whatever the hell they want, including dispensing with normal standards of etiquette such as returning a fucking phone call or refusing to follow through on obvious sexual chemistry. If this guy is half the pig he says he is, he would've been dying to hook up, in the fullest possible definition of the word.

Eh, I'm just being dramatic. I don't really care. What with the cold weather and all--and I'm really irked by the seeming super-early onset of winter--I don't feel like going out anyway. I did manage to step out for a spell after work, though, and catch a few drinks with one of my current editors--in fact, the only editor who's currently publishing my work. It was long overdue, but we more than made up for it. I didn't realize what a fascinating history he has. Aside from being around the block enough times that he's probably run a marathon by now, it actually turns out that we worked at the same magazine, albeit it many years apart. I thought that was cool. Alas, our get together yielded no writing assignment, but I have a few new ideas that I'm getting around to pitching him, so hopefully one of those will stick.

2002-10-22T00:28:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 0

I called in sick to work today, ostensibly so that I could devote the day to my own work (i.e., applying for permanent jobs in my chosen profession), but all I did was watch The People's Court, read magazines, pay a few bills, and sleep. I also got drinks with a certain ex-colleague, a social engagement I've been avoiding for several months, and watched that new legal drama on Fox called girls club. I have to say, I was entertained. It's no Melrose Place, but it's definitely got potential to be my guilty pleasure this television season.

All in all, though, nothing to brag about in the accomplishments department. The only thing of note that happened today is that I had a conversation, finally, with that guy from mygaydar.com that I blogged about last week. Unfortunately, I was majorly disappointed--he's a total fashionista who, crushingly, works as a fashion publicist! As far as I'm concerned, that's the greatest sin of all! Why do I always attract this type of guy? And in the face of the fact that I've sworn off them, because it just never works out. They're too appearance oriented (this guy actually managed to refer to the vintage Yves Saint Laurent blazer he was wearing tonight in the second sentence of our phone call), pretentious, or queeny for me--and thus far, this guy seems to possess all three traits. Plus he radiated flakiness, which is another turn off. Obviously, I'm disappointed, especially considering that his profile and e-mails conveyed the impression that he was a genuine skater boy, the complete opposite of what he really is.

But I'm going through with seeing him anyway, on Thursday, not least because of his huge cock (he posed for Playguy back in the day) and his tattoos and his general laissez-faire attitude. We'll see what happens.

In more positive news, Nicodemus is back in town after a two-week jaunt to Morocco and, no, I'm sorry to report, he didn't seduce any young Arab boys. He did, however, make an alarmingly serious effort to pick up this raspberry Stoli and Sprite-swilling boy at Wonder Bar last night while we were celebrating his return home. How you can respect anyone who drinks a drink like that is beyond me.

Okay, I'm going to go sort the color copies I made of my writing clips the other day in a last-ditch attempt to salvage an otherwise wasted day.

2002-10-20T21:09:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 1

Between last night and the course of today, I have encountered a medley of boys that I've had and that I have not had but would like to have. In fact, this afternoon, while sitting on a bench on the Brooklyn-bound platform of the 1st Ave. L train stop, I was literally nauseated. Sitting next to me was this 100% fine guy, absolutely beautiful, stick thin, wearing a sexy outfit, who I believe checked me out as he sat down. As I was meditating on the serendipitous cruelty of having to sit next to him and yet not be able to do anything about it, I caught out of the corner of my eye the visage of some Internet trick of mine from way back in the middle of the summer who was walking past me with two girlfriends. Unfortunately I think he saw me look but thankfully didn't stop to say anything--I hadn't really dug him, and when he asked for my number as he was leaving my apartment after the dirty deed had been done, I refused to give it to him. In this present moment, the combination of the powerful distaste I felt seeing him and the powerful attraction I felt for the hot number to my right made me want to throw up. To make matters worse, the hottie didn't seem to look at me once when we were actually on the train.

Later on, after scoping out some cuties at Beacon's Closet in Williamsburgh, one of my two fave vintage clothing stores, but failing to purchase anything stellar (I almost snagged this funky beat-up old brown pleather jacket, but it didn't fit quite right), I was back in the city, buying an over-the-door hook rack from Surprise! Surprise! and a new bottle of Ultra Facial Moisturizer from the Kiehl's store (I got samples of their rosewater skin toner!!!). I checked out the new Japanese supermarket further down Third Ave., then stopped in St. Mark's Bookshop, where I discovered Butt magazine--as well as another boy I wanted, a member of the scruffy trio at Wonder Bar from Friday night, who was right in front of me on line and who was also getting a copy of Butt! I wanted desperately to talk to him--I saw that he noticed me too--but in the quiet atmosphere of the check-out area, I felt extra-insecure at the prospect. I saw him take a right as he exited the shop, so I thought I could follow him, but, alas, when I turned right, he was nowhere to be found.

On top of these events, I had a fairly disorienting and depressing time last night at my friend T.'s housewarming party at her new apartment in Prospect Heights, to which I brought M., Nicodemus's friend whom I had sex with and who later disappointed me that Saturday afternoon a few weeks back. I guess I thought he was worth another shot, and, sure, I wanted to get laid and I enjoyed our hook up the last time. Plus, he's college friends with the editor of HX, so I'm hoping he can introduce me to him so I can start writing for that rag. However, though we did have really hot sex again after the party and though he is a genuinely nice guy, I've concluded that we're simply not compatible, so I'm going to have to kick him to the curb.

That revelation--yet another potential paramour come and gone!--was one reason I had a bad time last night. The other reason was the presence of T.'s Cousin, a short Lebanese guy who teaches at NYU and who possesses the most beautiful, deep, inviting eyes. I hadn't seen him since the first week in August, when we fucked right underneath the nose of his long-term, live-in boyfriend. All day yesterday, when I realized I was going to see him at the party, I was hoping I was going to be able to withstand the spell he usually casts over me; as soon as I arrived, though, I realized that would be hopeless. He kept talking to me, leaning in close, touching my stomach, complimenting the new shirt I was wearing from Vice, calling me sweetheart in Arabic, even with his boyfriend hovering nearby, and it was clear that he still harbors a crush for me. He was endearingly attitudinal towards M., less endearingly passive aggressive when he introduced me to this awful, older professor friend of his, then split. (The professor proceeded to nearly obliterate me with his boring conversation and later groped my crotch, which set off minor controversy when I told T.'s Cousin, who broadcasted the info to everyone.)

Not even the fact that T.'s Cousin and his boyfriend were dressed almost identically in black leather pants and black tops was enough to prevent me from feeling like I was in love with him.

2002-10-19T19:56:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 1

I went five straight days without smoking, actually, then broke down last night, when out with Benji, G-rod, Marvelous (and his friend from out of town), Edster (and his friend from out of town), and, of all people, the 48-year-old father from my therapy group. He'd heard I was going to see Potty Mouth, directed by a fellow group member of ours, and e-mailed me to meet up at the show. Which was fine, if a little weird. So that's what we did, me with Benji and G-rod in tow (Marvelous's friend's train was delayed so long that they had to miss the show). They seemed rather amused by Father, as I usually am, but were great sports about his tagging along after the show when we went to Wonder Bar. That hadn't been in the original plan, but as soon as I sat down at the show, he happened to mention that his friends keep telling him how great that joint is (which is strange, if you ask me, considering that they're all older, and W.B. caters to a much younger crowd), as if reading my mind, because we had already agreed to meet Edster and co. there.

Anyway, there was a fun crowd at W.B., though they weren't really that down with dancing, except for this trio of scuffy boys (whom, if I weren't trying to be celibate lately, I would've made an effort to bag) and this other tall black dude who danced with me, while singing the lyrics, to a No Doubt track. It was too crowded to dance properly as usual, but that's pretty much the only reason I go to this bar. Edster and his friend departed for Starlight; Father got a booty call (!) and jetted (which I found ironic); G-rod and Benji called it a night. Marvelous, his friend, and I went to Urge, where we found Edster and his friend sitting by a pack of brutally cute, majorly drunk college boys, who kept making eyes at us. They were all talk and no action. My friend S., who I bumped into, was also all talk and no action: he kept calling me his little "boo boo" while fondling my ass and trying to rub my nose with his, yet never actually said he wanted to hook up. Not that I would have, but still, it would've been nice if he had asked.

At the end of the night, it was just me and Edster's friend, who desperately wanted to get laid and who was then, at 3:45 a.m., playing tonsil hockey with a seductive Latin guy named Alvaro. I was surprisingly unmoved. I was also tired and had to get up at 10 to let my super in to investigate what I thought was a gas leak in my apartment, so I bummed a smoke from Alvaro, said my goodbyes, and walked home, braced by the cool night air.

2002-10-16T00:25:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 2

I'm exhausted and should be asleep, but, as usual, I can never seem to go to sleep before 12:30. On rare occasions I'll conk out at 11:30, but that's the earliest I remember retiring in a long ass time. And what have I been doing that's preventing me from bedding down? Certainly not job search-related shit, like I'm supposed to be doing. No, I was reading other people's blogs and fussing with my own.

Anyway, got a nice surprise today when checking my messages at mygaydar.com (an automated e-mail showed up in my inbox reminding me that I hadn't been to the site since June, when I created my online ad, and saying that I had several new messages). Apparently some super cute, 26-year-old, "inked sk8tor boy" (his description), horny as hell, has the hots for me, and after reading his message and accompanying profile, I feel the same about him. He's like the man of my dreams, almost too good to be true. My favorite line in his ad is "I like a boy who's a pig on the inside but who's still nice enough on the outside to bring home to mom." How romantic. He posed for Playguy a few years ago and has the pictures to prove it. He only likes uncut dick, which, thankfully, I have. I wrote him back, so hopefully he'll respond, even though it's been more than four months since he originally contacted me. I've always had a fantasy about getting with a skater boy--maybe it'll finally come true?

In other news, the new member of my group failed to show his face today, and didn't show up at the solo appointment he had scheduled before the meeting either, so I think he might have freaked on the whole psychotherapy thing and bailed. I hope not. We could use some fresh blood. Spent the whole time discussing the financial and career woes of the member I have a crush on, problems I strongly identified with. Afterwards, before he invited me to a book reading by Dan Savage on Thursday (which unfortunately I can't make due to a "fall harvest" drinking session with colleagues that evening that I've already committed to), he told me, when we were by ourselves by the elevator, that I made a lot of great comments and he really appreciated it. I was touched. I felt he was looking deep into my eyes and I wondered, for the umpteenth time, whether he was attracted to me. I forgot to mention that his hair looked amazing tonight.

2002-10-15T00:45:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 1

Failure, again. Failure of a different kind a moment ago when, after spending an hour carefully composing an e-mail to this features editor at a downtown fashion magazine I've been trying to write for, all four of her plausible e-mail addresses didn't work, and said e-mail bounced back to me. Four times. Reminding me what a stupid idiot I am. Because, of course, I could just call her and ask for her address instead of wasting all this time. I did speak to her once before, over the summer, after I sent her some clips at the suggestion of my friend who works with her (who, inexplicably, hasn't returned my queries about her e-mail). But calling her is scarier than just e-mailing her, even though the latter option now seems impossible. Guess I'm going to have to get some balls and do it anyway. At least I followed up with this guy at this hip hop/street culture magazine that I also want to write for, who's a friend of J-bird's. I can't wait to see his reaction after he reads my decidedly queer clips.

Yesterday turned out to be a fun-filled, long day. Got brunch with E., who was back in town but thoughtfully stayed with G-spot this time because she knew how much I had been working. Then we went shopping (we always go shopping--sometimes I think it's her only bona fide cultural pursuit), dropping by the Triple Five Soul sample sale (nada) and then Barney's Coop, where I was surrounded by attractive, attitudinal, fashionable gay boys, just like I love/hate them. Discovered that the Seven denim line now makes men's jeans (as does Earl Jeans), though when I tried on this dope pair they basically looked like girls jeans, and I don't like that look on me, or on any guys for that matter. I was secretly thrilled that they fit, considering that they were a 30 and they run very small. Alas, the pair of jeans I did want, by Paper Denim & Cloth, they didn't have in my size.

E. departed fairly soon after that to visit her relatives in Jersey and I went home to deal with more Amsterdam accommodations shit. Talked on the phone for almost two hours with Best Friend, who unsettled me by strenuously arguing, completely out of the blue, that I should move out of my apartment into a much cheaper space, possibly in Brooklyn, with roommates. Then went to my book club meeting, in which Court did a great job of contextualizing the The Body Artist's idiosyncrasies for me, which I had mostly found repellent. Still don't like the book that much, but have a greater appreciation for it.

Last appointment of the day was a tete-a-tete with an old college friend of mine who was visiting town. After almost two hours of chatter at Bouche Bar I was pretty much ready to call it a night, but he wanted to check out that wine bar Simone on 1st Avenue, and as I hadn't been there in ages and I was drunk (I'd been drinking wine since book club), I said what the hell. Got more drunk there and found myself fancying having sex with him, wondering what it would be like, even though he's straight and developing a gut (then again, we all are) and a bit ungainly and someone I frequently hated in college and, again, straight, and I'm never attracted to straight guys in principle. I'm sure part of that desire had something to do with my feeling pity for him for having such a hard time getting laid, being straight and all, as he told me at length, and part of it was surely due to the alcohol in my blood. In fact, most of it was due to the alcohol in my blood. I think I need to stop drinking. It's one thing if I'm tempted to smoke when intoxicated, but it's an entirely different ball game if I'm tempted to screw straight people. That could kill me.

2002-10-13T02:53:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 4

Spent the whole day relaxing after a punishing week at work--I was there past 11 p.m. every night since Wednesday, and until 5 a.m. Saturday morning. Managed to scuttle my whole schedule today, giving myself the day off, which I desperately needed. Read most of The Body Artist for book club tomorrow night (it's short) and caught up on bills and this week's issue of The New Yorker. Even washed some of the dishes in the sink, which I hate doing, and researched and queried places to stay in Amsterdam over New Year's, which, with seven people (a crew of three from New York and four from London), is not as easy as it would be otherwise. We bought our plane tickets this week so it's mega-important that we get this accommodations shit sorted. Slightly scared that all of our choices are booked already.

Still pondering one of the topics at group this week--the possibility that some of us might be attracted to one or more of the others. I initiated the conversation accidentally (or not--I've been meditating lately on my own attraction to one of the members, which comes and goes, so perhaps there was a half-conscious motivation there) by asking, after our shrink mentioned that one of his new clients is interested in joining our group, whether he was attractive (apparently he's 27 and an actor, so I thought, what the hell, might as well prepare my expectations as much as possible). Next thing I knew, he reflected the question back to all of us, trying to make us talk about what it would mean if an attraction surfaced among us. Awkward silence. One member, who lives with his long-term boyfriend, volunteered that he was attracted to all of us at different times on different levels, but ended his comment at that. No one else said anything at all, or anything worth remembering. Meanwhile, I was sitting there practically burning up, hoping I wasn't betraying my little crush by blushing. Of course, my little crush didn't say anything, so who knows how he feels. He once said that his physical ideal, embodied by his boyfriend (now ex) at the time, was tall, well built, and clean cut, which isn't exactly me. Then again, from our group conversations, I know he likes sex a lot and has it frequently, often hooking up with online mates, so his libido would clearly be amenable to the prospect. The whole question is moot anyway because romantic and/or sexual relationships between group members is strongly discouraged, and I love the group so much that I wouldn't want to ruin our dynamic, honed over so many weeks over so many months, with an ill-advised affair, which probably wouldn't even last.

2002-10-11T02:34:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 2

As the statistics plainly point out, I'm not doing too good with this whole anti-nicotine kick I've been on. Copped one--a single one--leaving the Townhouse Tuesday night when I was more drunk than I realized at the time (I realized it about 10 minutes later when Marvelous and I stopped to catch a cab back downtown and I felt wobbly). It was good, but was it worth ruining my streak?

We'd started off that night at Red, where we've never been before, at the Jocks party that this dude K.C. Guy promotes. Apparently McGovern & Johnson were throwing yet another raunchy party that night at Happy Ending, this cool bilevel bar about five blocks directly west of my apartment, for some porn star or some shit like that (I didn't read Formika's e-mail carefully enough to remember), but I wasn't feeling it. In fact, I slightly resented their taking over of a fairly unknown, favorite bar of mine, and I balked, as I usually do, at their 10-dollar cover. It also made me wonder if they're worried at all about becoming overexposed, played out. They're starting to get that way for me.

So instead Marvelous and I caught the M-15 bus up to Red on E. 53rd for what I hoped would be a nice contrast to the two-and-a-half hours of therapy I had undergone earlier in the evening, first in a solo session, then in the group. I was talking to El Mar (who moved to L.A. two months ago) as I walked to Marvelous's and he said he once tried to go to Red but was freaked out after seeing a hooker enter. That only made me want to go more, to see if all the hype about the hustlers and sugar daddies was true.

As it turned out, the hype wasn't true--there were definitely lots of older gents there, and many very young guys (some of whom were obviously trying to mack on their more mature counterparts), but there were guys of ages in between those two extremes present as well. And although a hustler aesthetic was prominent among some of the patrons (including yours truly), there were no, at least to my eye, bona fide hustlers actually working the crowd. There was, however, a crew of extremely youthful guys hanging out in the back room of the bar who seemed to have been plucked straight from the ghetto and instructed to look as cute as possible while dancing like *NSYNC and eating Doritos (and giving back massages to their girl friends). Marvelous and I theorized that they were queer runaways who were drawn into prostitution and were currently being loaned out by their john to add some flair to the festivities at Red, much like up-and-coming models would be. But, man, they had their dance moves down! These dudes must have watched that instructional teen-pop dance video for weeks while they nailed down every aspect of each routine. When "Oops, I Did It Again" came on, three of them launched into a perfect, harmonious rendition of the video's choreography. They were so cute I could've eaten them.

Anyway, Marvelous and I dug the strange, mixed crowd, the hustler ambition, the faux exclusivity (the glazed-over door is unmarked), and the downtown decor so much that, upon departing Red, we vowed to make it our regular joint, at least for the time being, before we get bored again. I was getting sick of the East Village circuit; this could be a way to jazz up my routine.

We dropped by the Townhouse next, where we had a drink and nothing exciting happened. The last time I was there with Marvelous, two days before 9/11/01, we managed to lure a fun thirtysomething business traveler into a hot threesome in his hotel room (it was his idea). I was disappointed that nothing similar happened this time.

2002-10-07T22:35:00.000-04:00

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE LAST SMOKING A CIGARETTE: 2

Didn't make it to Jonny McGovern and Dean Johnson's new party The Rambles last night due to the continued presence of straight girl friend in town and my own exhaustion (and the manuscript that Marvelous, who was going to be my partner in crime, has been editing for days for work). Haven't read any reviews from any of the blogs I've been following yet either. Whattup with that?

Woke up this morning super early to a) see my friend off and b) let my super in to replace the lightbulb in my bathroom ceiling lamp and ended up catching Natalie Krinsky, sex columnist for the Yale Daily News, on the Today show. This Carrie Bradshaw/Candace Bushnell wannabe was featured in the Times on Friday on the cover of the metro section (read the article here) along with several other collegiate sexual muckrakers, and Today picked up the story, which only fueled my curiosity about her. So I spent a good chunk of the work day covertly reading her columns (you can do the same here) and was totally hooked. I'm fairly jealous--of her gig, her writing talent, and her new-found fame. Bitch.