I spent most of the morning at the Metropolitan Gym, a pretty well-equipped gay gym in the Back Bay. Like the other time I worked out at the gym during my trip I worked out harder and longer than I do in San Francisco. I guess I just have more energy now that there is no work to drain it out of me. I recommend a month off for everyone!

At the gym

I found a cute little sidewalk restaurant (Marcellos Restaurant on Newbury Street - great caesar salad with chicken!) for lunch and wrote the following.

It's been a long time since I've felt so happy and so comfortable in my own skin. I'm almost bubbling over with contentment. I honestly didn't know that I had this high a capacity for enjoying myself.

In other ways I'm finding once more a part of me that I was sure I'd given up for good. In my first couple of years in the US, I discovered, quite by chance, that I liked to write. I was taking acting classes at the time - "The Method by Gordon Phillips", and Phillips encouraged us to keepa journal and observe life around us. It was a habit I took to easily, and I remember, for example, the 2nd time I visited New York, wandering around the Springtime streets for happy days making notes about how I was feeling.

But I gave all that up years ago, and became much more earthbound. Now, here I am again, 2.30 on a Boston Summer afternoon, sitting outside at a restaurant, trying to find the words to express how I feel RIGHT now.

Writing at Marcellos

The afternoon weather was beautiful again - sunny, warm, dry and breezy, with bulbous white clouds moving with great dignity across a deep blue sky.

Beautiful afternoon

A great day for shopping

I shopped Newbury and Boylston streets, and bought a white t-shirt at French Connection. The cutest Japanese guy helped me and when it came to bag it asked me "Paper or plastic?", a question I wasn't used to answering outside of a supermarket. I also tried on the strangest pair of pants - too short and about 10 inches too wide around the waist.

After all that shopping, I retired to Boston Public Gardens to lie down and stare at the clouds for a while. By the time I got home, I was quite fagged out (a Britishism meaning really rather tired), and couldn't face going out for dinner. So I grabbed some chinese and walked the one block to the Esplanade and watched yachts sail by on the river, and dreamy guys run past on the path.

One block from my hotel