The gym is more crowded than ever, recently, as the date for the White Party creeps closer. The White Party is the grand dame of circuit parties, taking place each Easter in Palm Springs. And as the time approaches, the local gym crowd spends ever more time in the gym perfecting those pecs and abs for exposure on the harshest stage in the country, the main floor of the Palm Springs Convention Center on the Saturday night before Easter.

I'm going to the White Party for the first (and probably the last) time this year. For years, I've thought that it's just not my thing. Circuit parties seemed such shallow endeavors - spending a lot of money just to try to be accepted in a market place where the only currency is the smoothness of your skin and the tightness of your biceps.

So why am I going then? Well, I'll admit that it's for the same shallow reason everybody else goes. I've been enjoying an unexpected spell of clubbing in my old age. I can't deny that it's been a thrill to go out on a dance floor, take my shirt off, and meet cute guys. For two weekends in a row, now, I've gone clubbing and found myself dancing in a sandwich between two shirtless, muscular men. The next logical step was to go to the White Party.

I'll be staying with a friend of my long-time friend, John Paul (who'll also be travelling up from West Hollywood for the weekend), so we'll be away from the aspects of the circuit party culture I'm not crazy about (the all-night drug and sex parties in the hotels). And we're not even going to the main event on Saturday night. Paying $100 to dance in a huge, boring convention-center seems a waste, even if Christina Aguilera is singing. (I wouldn't know one of her songs if it was shoved up my ass, pardon the expression.)

Speaking of shoving things up your ass, I went to my first sex party this week. A friend of mine was holding one for a small, select group of men. As the day approached, I hummed and hawed about going. I knew, without any shadow of a doubt, that sex parties were not my milieu. I need to have friendly and social intercourse before sex, even if I'm only with one man, let alone a group. But in this year where I've been expanding my horizons, and pushing myself into new experiences, I felt that if I didn't go, I'd be doing so for the wrong reasons: fear. So I strengthened my courage with a double shot of sherry (you old fogey you), and walked in.

It was really nothing like I'd expected. I'd pictured a room of fully dressed men, eyeing each other shyly, waiting for someone to make the first move. Instead, there were two men just at the beginning stage of undressing each other, and there was the host mixing drinks. Another two men drifted in shortly afterwards, and we all stood around making nervous small talk. I returned to the drinks room to find the host, my friend, and saw that the two first arivees were now fully naked, engaged in oral sex. Embarrassed, I returned to the other room and realized that I'd been right. Sex parties were definitely not for me. So I parked my drink, said goodbye to the host, and took off. So much for experience.

Two weeks ago, I met a beautiful, charming, soulful guy at the Stud and spent a wonderful night with him (see last journal entry), and, ever since, I've been thinking about him, knowing that he's not really available, but half hoping that something, nonetheless, would develop. A few days ago, we spoke on the phone and made plans to get together tomorrow to go hiking. He lives in Santa Cruz, a beach town South of San Jose. The darnedest thing is that the very next day after we made our plans I came down with a cold, which I'm still nursing. I'm hoping that a couple of days during which I've drowned myself in tea, gargled with a noxious vinegar-pepper-honey drink, and consumed numerous aspirin and vitamin-C tablets will chase the cold off, but so far this morning, I'm still feeling like I'm in the thick of it. Since he lives an hour-and-a-quarter away, and since I'm going away next weekend, if I don't seem him tomorrow, it will be at least two weeks before we can get together. I feel like a kid all over again, butterfly-ridden, with a crush on the most popular guy in school.