After six months in New York, I'm finally on my way home, on the first of what will be nine airflights from now until New Years Eve. It was a furiously busy final week, since my project at work was moving past a crucial milestone on Friday night. So on top of packing up and shipping many of my belongings home, I also had to work long, hard hours, and try to squeeze into precious few evening hours the enjoyment of my last week in New York.

Even this morning, everything got done at the last minute. Fifteen minutes before my car was due to arrive to take me to the airport, I was still trying to find a way to stuff my blender, my running shoes, and my toiletries bag into two large pieces of luggage that were already full to the bursting point. In the end, something had to give, and I had to put my blender into my carry-on luggage (which provoked a curious stare from the people on the security line at check-in).

I spent my last evening hanging out with my two new New York friends, Chris and Phoenix. I had dinner with Chris, and we then met up with Phoenix at XL for drinks. We ended our evening at Pyramid, in the East Village, where they play 80s music on Fridays. With all the great music from that era, I was dissapointed with most of their choices. But the trip was worthwhile for the one song I danced to by the Jacksons, "Can You Feel It" What a pure, simple joy it is to dance to something like that. It's so sad that a figure of genius like Michael Jackson, who's given so much pleasure to hundreds of millions of people, should be ending his career on such a horribly sordid note.

We decided to give Splash a chance, late in the evening, and made our way over to Sixth Avenue. We stopped in a pizza place so that Chris could grab a slice, and it was there that Phoenix started a curiously sharp argument about race. I've never bought the modern, liberal argument that race is a social construction, but I guess I could have been more tactful in expressing my disagreement when Phoenix stated his case. It was only later, when I started to think about what he'd said, that I concluded that he's partly correct. I think the problem is that the statement "race is a social construction" is too general. As a blunt statement, I completely disagree with it; there's no question that race is biological. And it's always disturbed me that in the name of political correctness, people make claims like this in order to somehow suggest that we're all the same. But Phoenix is correct that today fewer and fewer people have their genetic inheritance from a single race. And, in that sense, when we say that black people have such-and-such qualities, I think what we really mean is that cultures that are built up around a shared understanding of racial identity exhibit behaviors and speach patterns that are unique to that culture. So in that sense, race is a social construction. At least I think that's what he's saying. Anyway, one in the morning on a frosty-cold night, in a 6th Avenue pizza place, is not the time or place to have an argument about race.

When we finally made it to Splash, we discovered that the cover charge was $20.00, and we backed out of the idea. So ended my final night in New York, and Chris dropped me back at my apartment. I felt a genuine sadness at saying goodbye to him. I know I'll see him again; I expect to be back frequently in the New Year since the project is still going on into a new phase. Moreover, he's promised to come out to San Francisco in January. But it was the end of a six-month period of having a good friend who's a part of your life, and I'll miss him.

It's possibly too early to assess how New York has changed me. One thing that has been proven to me is that you can't expect a new environment to change your underlying problems. I experienced just as much intermittent depression and loneliness in New York as in San Francisco. I have yet to pull together all the strands of how to make for myself a life of even, consistent contentment. If that's even possible, I suppose.

It's not too early, on the other hand, to make some broad generalizations about New York; or at least generalizations that make good for me. I've found the gay New York community to be surprisingly shallow; people don't seem to want to make contact on any level other than convenience. Almost everybody seems to be seeking sex alone. And since people are ten-a-penny here, few people go far out of their way to accomodate new people in their lives, assuming that amidst their long work hours, they even have time for it. And in gay bars and gyms, and on the streets of Chelsea, you see a lot of the same affected, self-involved, empty-eyed faces that you see in West Hollywood, in Los Angeles, that city that supposedly takes the biscuit for shallowness. If this seems a little harsh, I have to admit that I haven't truly given New York it's full chance. I wasn't there long enough to do more than sample the easiest opportunites to socialize. For instance, I never took a class, nor joined a club or a sports group. But nonetheless, my dominant feeling in returning to San Francisco is that of returning to a kinder, gentler place.

I wish that my apartment had been in a different neighborhood. My bland midtown location, in blocks of delis, office buildings and ugly residential high-rises, never felt like it could be a home. New York has so many fascinating, diverse neighborhoods, each with a unique character of their own. I feel that if I'd been in one of those locations - say the East or West Village - that I might have had a rich enough experience to warrant making a different decision than the one I recently made: to stay in San Francisco for my new job rather than relocating.

I don't feel that I took all the opportunities I might have done. I was too busy traveling back frequently to San Francisco, going to the gym, working late, or entertaining out-of-town visitors. I went to one each of theaters, dance-performances, pop concerts, and symphony orchestras; a few museums; excursions to Provincetown, D.C. (twice) and Philly, and that's about it, except for multiple nights out dancing. I didn't meet the fascinating range of people I'd hoped to meet. I have to conclude, all in all, that I didn't quite make the most of my stay in New York. On the other hand, I can also say that there remains something more to pull me back here again. I haven't totally given up on the idea that I might someday come here to live permanently.

The experiences that stand out are the blackout of course: lugging my heavy luggage twenty blocks up a sweltering 8th Avenue clogged with angry, barely moving vehicles; the delight of my first snowfall in years; the first night I went out dancing with Chris, where we kissed on the dance floor; rebuilding, over the course of five visits with each other, my friendship with my ex-boyfriend, Shaun; a charity gallery sale in Chelsea where I bought six post-card sized original works of art for $250; running shirtless in the warm, evening sunshine, up the bridle path in Central Park; Times Square at midnight on a hot, Summer evening, electric with energy; a day-trip up the Hudson Valley with old friends; the cameraderie and sense of achievement in doing the best professional work of my career on this project; and seeing the magnificent QE2 ocean liner pushing down the Hudson River back lit by a red sunset.