Will I make it? That's the question. I'm planning to go out for a very rare late night tonight - to the big Saturday night club here, Club Universe. If you'd seen me last night, you'd have laughed at the idea. My energy level was so poor, that I got myself through my workout only through trying to psych myself out. Then I picked up food to go at Pasta Pomodoro, went home, and tried to stay awake to watch last Sunday's episode of "The Sopranos", which I'd recorded. Impossible. By 9.30, I was asleep on the sofa.

I'm not at all a big fan of the gay scene any more. I did my years on it: during my early twenties you'd have seen me out at my local club, Kurtz, in Philly almost every night. Even during my first relationship here in San Francisco, I'd go out fairly frequently - usually to Club Universe or The Cafe a couple of times per month.

But I eventually realized that I was no longer enjoying it - that what used to be fun, was now more of a chore - and that I was doing it because "that's what gay people do." So I stopped going out entirely. And I don't miss it at all. Except, every now and then, I hear some really good music at the gym, or coming from a car, and I suddenly feel that it would be fun to go out dancing. Then 10.00 comes round, and my eyelids are closing and it's lights out for the evening.

I was in the Castro last night, and saw enough of the scene to make me wonder whether I really should go tonight after all. On the way into the gym, running late, stressed out from a hard day at work, I passed someone who stopped and said "Hello Darling" to me. Later, I realized that he probably imagined this was the way strangers greet each other in the Castro. At the time, though, I genuinely thought it might be someone I knew, so I pushed my sunglasses up over my forehead and glowered at him. "Do I know you?", I asked him. The poor guy started to tremble a little bit, and mumbled something about he thought he knew me from somewhere, but he was clearly embarrassed by his own faux-pas.

After I'd worked out, it was only 7.30, but already, there were drunks staggering pathetically along the street, and in the pay toilet on the corner of Market and Castro, a crowd of firemen and police officers were trying to bust down the door - presumably to see if there'd been another overdose inside.

Yet there are two sides to the Castro - there's the overdone, over-lubricated, staring-desperate-eyes side; and there's the neighborhood, community, tree-lined streets side. On Thursday night, I went for a run from the Castro, up through Noe Valley and down towards the end of Dolores Street. It was a gorgeous, warm evening, and it was so peaceful to run through the long shadows, past the quiet sleeping houses. On one block, a five year old kid even started to run alongside me for as long as he could keep up (which wasn't very long :)

So with all my mixed feelings about the gay scene, why'm I going out tonight? I guess it's just something I've wanted to reexperience for several months now. I've been on at my friend Brett to get him to go with me, but he thinks he's now too fat to take his shirt off (an almost obligatory requirement if you're going to hot, sweaty Universe). If you saw him - 5 ft 11, and 145 lbs, thinking he's fat. As if! However, on Tuesday, I took Jed to see the benefit premiere of the first two episodes of "Further Tales of the City". In the reception afterwards, knowing that Jed likes to go out, I suggested that we go to Universe together this weekend.

So now it's Saturday. Come eleven tonight, will I be asleep, tucked up in bed (as usual), or will I be rubbing shoulders with sweaty, buff boys at Universe? Only the next journal entry will tell.