For the first time in months, I've left my New York apartment wearing more than a t-shirt. A brisk, blustery wind is stirring up the dust on Broadway tonight, and there's a definite premonition of Fall in the air. In fact, we haven't had any true Summer weather since the day before Labor Day. One night last week, I went running after dark in Central Park for the first time. It had rained all day, and the damp ground shone under pools of sodium street light. The next day, it was beautiful, sunny, warm, with scarcely any humidity, and it stayed that way until this afternoon, when the clouds came in.

I'm so looking forward to Fall; my first Fall since moving to San Francisco over ten years ago. My stay in New York has been extended again, until the end of November, so I'll not only experience Fall but also, most likely, a touch of Winter. I didn't bring many warm clothes with me, so I hope they don't extend it into December. I'm greatly appreciative of the opportunity I've had to live here for so many months. But I'm finding that I need to get my life moving again, by returning to San Francisco. At least until I've decided whether I want to relocate back to the East Coast permanently. I'm kind of in stasis here without putting down permanent roots; I can't take any classes because I don't know when I'll be leaving, I can't really pursue any film projects, and my ability to develop relationships is hampered by the knowledge that I'll be leaving eventually.

Speaking of relationships, I noticed that there were an awful lot of gay couples in Provincetown. That, and the failure of my relationship with Chris (I mean the romantic failure - fortunately, we've continued seeing each other here as friends), made me unusually gloomy, in the week after coming back from Ptown, about my relationship prospects. Apart from the six months I spent with Jed a couple of years ago, I've been essentially single now for almost eight years. I've been spending some time trying to figure out why it's been so hard for me to find what so many others seem to find with ease. During those eight years, there've been only two men I've dated that I thought I could likely fall in love with. And they were the only two men who dumped me. But if it hadn't been for those two, I'd probably have come to the conclusion by now that I was incapable of developing those types of feelings.

Hudson River Park in the West Village, late on a perfect Sunday afternoon

Maybe my understanding of love is incorrect, who knows. The only way I can understand what love is, is when I find myself wanting to do things selflessly, and consistently for someone. In situations where that's combined with physical attraction, then I'd say I'm in love. Or is it infatuation? I mean, I've only ever been in love once, and that was with a guy who wasn't in love with me, and it lasted only a couple of years. Maybe I don't really know what love is, and I've been looking for the wrong symptoms.

When I think of the kind of guy I feel I could fall for; when I think of the two guys I've developed feelings for over the last eight years; I see boyish, vulnerable guys with good natures, nice physiques, and active, intelligent minds. But at the age of thirty-eight, maybe I'm getting too old to attract many guys who are still "boyishly vulnerable". So what to do. You can't, exactly, change what you're attracted to. Maybe I just have to settle for being alone. I go through cycles lasting even years where that's relatively easy to do. But like the inevitability of the seasons, there eventually returns the longing for companionship.

Cat nap in the Meatpacking District