I got back to my New York apartment last night extraordinarily tired, with an even heavier "carry-on" bag than I'd set out with, fighting off a cold, but very happy after the perfect trip home to San Francisco.

It hadn't started out perfectly. The flight out had been delayed by three hours, which meant I didn't get to bed, at an airport hotel, until 1.30. And I slept fitfully. But it was a gorgeous California morning on Saturday, when I drove into San Francisco and parked in the Castro to go get my haircut. It was the beginning of a charmed weekend, where everything went off with perfect timing, and I floated from one encounter with a friend to the next, with perfect enjoyment.

Unlike my last trip, where I'd arrived to a city where half my friends were out-of-town, almost everybody had made time for me this time, and it was a pleasure to feel like a guest in my own city. I started off the afternoon with having lunch with Terry, then worked out at my gym for as strenuous an hour as I could manage after my poor night's sleep. Something inspired me to stop in the Diesel store, which was a mistake, because the manager there, a tall, exotic-looking black guy, always manages to make me buy something in the spirit of adventure. This time it was camouflage underpants, and the tightest, most low-slung jeans I've ever bought.

After I'd checked in with Cecilia, in whose apartment I was to sleep, I just had time to race downtown to go to Borders to get a new book to read. I'd underpacked books for this trip, and had already finished the single, solitary book I'd brought; a beautiful book by Edith Wharton "Sanctuary", masquerading as a novel, but really just a novella printed in very large type so that it looked like a longer book. I found a fifteen minute parking spot three blocks from Borders, and ran there and back to avoid risking a parking ticket, picking up "Absolutely American", a book documenting four years in the lives of cadets at West Point. (This has proved to be an inspired purchase. Tired though I was last night, I stayed up until 12.30, unable to put the book down.)

Then across the Bay Bridge for my usual dinner and movie date with Brett. This time we went to see "Twenty Eight Days Later", a bravura but grisly movie about a guy waking up in hospital to find London deserted after a plague had turned the few survivors into infected, blood-spewing zombies on speed. One of the scariest movies I remember seeing, and one of my favorite movies of the year so far.

I was in a famously good mood as I drove back into the city, and thought about going out dancing. But I hadn't spent any time with Cecilia yet, so I drove to her place and checked in for the night. We shared a wonderful port and some Italian chocolate, and got caught up with each other, while Zorro, her ancient female cat (a female cat who seems to be channeling a gay dog - it followed me everywhere, even to the john) lay purring in utter bliss in Cecilia's arms.

I was sleeping on the floor of Cecilia's spare room, which functioned as a combination office and work-out room. My bed was a futton with a tiny sheet and tinier blanket. I'm mildly allergic to cats, and since this room also usually contained Zorro's bed (Zorro went to bed in the kitchen this night, looking daggers at me for the betrayal), I spent an uncomfortable, chilly, congested night. Moreover, Cecilia lives in ground zero of the Castro, and if there aren't winos and drug-addicts screaming outside, they're humping all night in the apartment upstairs. So yet another night of little sleep.

I've no idea what I was functioning on the next day, but after only seven hours sleep stretched over the previous two days, I somehow managed to have breakfast with Heike and go for a walk with her, train at the gym with Cecilia, then squeeze into my brand new sexy jeans and head over to the Mission for a party, followed by a little interlude with a sex-buddy of mine, leaving just enough time to dash home again, and shower and change, before driving downtown to pickup my club-buddy, S, and go to the t-dance at Ruby Skye.

This Sunday was Dore-Alley-Fair day - the first of San Francisco's two, big, gay, leather street-fairs. So, I decided to wear my metal harness in public for the first time ever. It's really not me. I couldn't be further from the S&M scene in terms of what I enjoy about sex. And I knew I'd probably attract the wrong kind of guy. But it felt fun and liberating, so what the hell. As it happens, I ended up being dragged onto the dance floor by a succession of hunky Asian guys, and ended up with yet another very late night. Hence the return to New York last night tired, with a heavy flight bag, but happy.