My friend Jean-Marc was visiting from Paris, this week, like a breath of fresh air.

Life is good. It's a beautiful day in San Francisco; I'm playing tennis this afternoon for the first time in a couple of years; it's a date, which makes it even nicer; my best friend Chris is coming from New York on Thursday - a lot of things to be thankful for. I even bought myself some flowers today. There are no less than three flower shops on my short walk home from the gym, but I always prefer the one closest to my apartment. You just look in the window, and you know it's run by gay men; every sprig artfully placed. As the owner, a slim, moustached older gentleman, wrapped my flowers, he asked me if I had anything planned for the weekend. I told him about my date, and asked what he had planned. Drag bingo, he replied. Only in San Francisco, I started to think. He suddenly looked at my height and exclaimed, you'd make a terrific drag queen! Not in this lifetime.

If there's a downside to the hectic social pace I'm keeping to right now, it's that I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by all the little details of life that are accumulating at a steady pace. My car lease is almost up, and I have to decide to either lease a new car, or buy out the lease. I want to work on my apartment; my plan is to finally get a dining room table and chairs and start entertaining. (Of course, I'll have to learn how to cook first.) I'm making extensive changes to one of my other websites, and the work never seems to be done. And work itself is constantly intruding; on weekdays I routinely get called in the evenings. And since it's people from New York calling, that means it's ten or later in the evening back there.

Oops, there's my tennis date at the door. I'll have to finish this later.

He's in the shower, so I have a few moments to write. It was delightful playing tennis in the warm afternoon sunshine. We played until he couldn't take any more punishment; and I don't mean I wiped the floor with him. I was pretty awful, but it was fun. We're going to the theater tonight, to see a play at the Nude - I mean - New Conservatory Theater. (It's a playhouse which has an annual gay season filled with gratuitous flesh - only reason I'm going is that my friend Scott has a major role - he says he's been working out so that he looks good in his nude scenes.) Anyway, we have a few hours until then in which to lounge about.

We just got back from the play. Or actually, I should say, I just got back. We were both very tired, and decided to call it a night. Well, I guess, he actually decided to call it a night. You know, I like this guy very much. In some ways, of all the people I've ever dated, he's the best match for me. We have so much in common, despite our incredibly different backgrounds. But my one warning bell was that he's never had a relationship before. I began to detect that he was pulling back a little bit as the day went on. We shall see.

The play, "Seduction", was surprisingly good; tight dialogue, amusing, well acted. It was also germane to my thoughts about my date with D, since the theme of the play seemed to be about the differing expectations we bring to relationships, and how that lack of understanding leads so often to dashed hopes. I thought my friend Scott contributed to some of the best moments, but then maybe I'm biased. I certainly felt that the best moment of truth came from Scott. It was just a "Goodnight", but the way he said it carried such loneliness. I hope Scott's boyfriend David was okay with seeing Scott make out with two cute, hunky guys.