I woke up around 3.00 this morning, and couldn't get back to sleep. So I took a melatonin, turned on the light, and started to read. By 3.30, I was no nearer sleep, and I'd finished "Mr Scarborough's Family." With a small attack of the butterflies, I picked up the next book I had ready to read. The reason I was nervous is that this is the very last book in Trollope's Barsetshire and Palliser's series - after five thousand pages or so, this will be my last chance to pity the tormented Duke of Omnium, to cringe at Glencora's audacity, and to admire Phinneas Finn.

But immediately upon starting reading, I was drawn in - his first stroke was to kill Lady Glencora! The beauty of Trollope is that he creates complex characters and then throws them overboard to see how they swim. You almost get the feeling that he's discovering the outcome has he writes - each character is driven by their own inexorable logic.

Normally, my melatonin kicks in after reading for a while, but not last night. There was one subject after another rising to my conscious mind to be tossed around for a while. Like what to do on New Year's Eve. Brett and I have had a few different ideas, but so far we've settled on nothing.

From there, my mind moved on, and I admitted to myself that I'm beginning to question whether I'm actually ready to look for another job after all. Since my recent trip to our headquarters in the south, there have been several very promising signs that things will get better at my current company, and I will get the opportunity to do some interesting stuff.

I'm even finding that I'm starting to get some satisfaction from my current project. After weeks of exchanging emails with our clients, trying to unravel the mysteries of their existing systems while planning the application we're building for them, we've reached the point where we're pulling all the information together into a concrete document - something tangible, real, and useful.

And this job pays well; not to mention other perks like frequent travel. True, I'll never make an Internet-load of money at this job, but I can always try that in a year or two. If I was to work at a start-up now, I'd launch myself into 80 hour weeks, most likely. And that would leave me no time to do other things - find the right place to live, for one.

If I do stick around, I need to start developing some better friendships at my company. My failure there must come from insecurity. I've seen a few people whom I like and could imagine being friends with. But I lack the self-confidence to assume they'd want me as a friend: that they'd find me sufficiently compelling company in the face of other friends and committments. So I remain aloof.

Decisions, decisions. I have two interviews at start-ups next week. I guess inspiration as to the correct choice will come in a flash of light.

Out of nowhere, a stray thought brought back an unpleasant email I'd received on my birthday. My most recent ex (we broke up over four-years ago), sent me an email out of the blue saying that a "lawyer friend" of his had told him that I was operating a web journal, and that I mentioned his name. I'm betting that his lawyer friend is the same hack lawyer he used in the short-lived court battle that followed the end of our relationship - the same lawyer who seemed rather challenged by those pesky things known as "facts."

Around five thirty, I finally gave up on the idea of getting back to sleep, and by 6.30, I was logged onto work for a final "work-at-home" halfday, aswim in coffee.

After finishing around noon, I was getting changed to go running, while listening to my new CD, "Nightlife", by the Pet Shop Boys. They're really the only pop group I can listen to - I get a kick from their ironic, nerdy, gay sensibility, and love their rhythms. When I think back to my early years coming out, I remember breathless moments on the dance floor while their 1989 "Left to My Own Devices" built to an explosive climax. Listening to this new CD, I realized that I'd totally forgotten the excitement of great dance music. There's a groovy, energetic disco song called "New York Boy" on the album, and I felt like Princess Diana dancing around my apartment in my underwear with my Walkman.

Out in the Marina running, it was such a beautiful Christmas Eve. Cloudless, not a breath of wind, upper sixties. I ran for fourty minutes, and ended up on the deserted little beach on the spit of land that juts out into the Bay, ending in the "Wave Organ". It's my favorite place in San Francisco - you feel like you're on the very tip of the city.

It was a hectic day, in the end. I had too many committments I guess. But I enjoyed it. I had to get home quickly from my run so I could meet Cecilia at the gym for a workout. Then back home for a phone call from Bob and JRB in Ohio, before heading back out to the Castro for the Christmas Eve tradition of the Gay Men's Chorus at the Castro Theater with a couple of friends. It's not really my cup of tea, their kind of music. In fact, I was so run down by this point in the day, that I snoozed completely through the first half of the program. But I came back to life when we all stood up for the part I'd awaited - the chance to sing Christmas carols. Fifteen hundred of us singing "Hark the Herald" - it finally felt like Christmas!