On Saturday night, Chris didn't want to go out, so I stayed up, pottering around, until around eleven thirty before taking off to head downtown to Mezzanine, to meet T. I'm not sure what to call my relationship with T. We've been seeing each other now for well over a month, and I've grown very fond of him. I don't remember any relationship I've been in going on for this long without being defined. T is a very easy person to be with; there's never any drama, no demands, no moodiness. Yet to me, our interaction has been mainly physical and affectionate, not emotionally intimate, lacking the sense of exploring each other for the potential of a serious relationship. Almost anybody else except T would have probably initiated a conversation by now along the lines of "What is this?" And since I'm happy with whatever it is, I haven't started the conversation either. What was I to make, then, of the Godiva truffles in a beautiful heart-shaped box that T dropped off on Valentine's Day?

Anyway, once I arrived at Mezzanine and checked my favorite denim shirt, it didn't take long for a similarly shirtless T to appear in front of me and wrap himself around me with a big smile. Mezzanine was crowded with holiday-weekend visitors, and the energy was infectious. I've never enjoyed this club in the past, but tonight people seemed to be letting their hair down, and I had a good time. I danced mostly with T and his friend.

But at one point, I went to a tiny little, hidden bar area to get a drink and made eye contact with a handsome, young man who looked like he was of mixed Spanish and Asian influence. As I bought my drink, I kept sending cautious glances his way. Now at a similar point throughout the past fifteen years of my life, I'd have paid up, picked up my drink, and headed away, too shy to approach. But I seem to be long past that point now. I sidled up to him and started up a conversation. I was much taken by his beautiful, large eyes. We chatted long enough for me to get his number, before returning to the dance floor to find T. I'd been away for perhaps fifteen minutes. Yet no "Where have you been" from T - just a smile and a hug.

By two-thirty, I was ready to call it a night. But T was still full of energy, and wanted to stay out, so I left him on the dance floor and drove home, happy to climb into bed. I was just about ready to put the light out when my cell rang and it was T, calling to ask if I wanted company. So he came over about twenty minutes later, when I was fighting to stay awake. I was horribly tired, but he was still high and wired. So neither of us got much sleep.

Sunday. Chris and I just managed to get in my favorite neighborhood walk before the rain started. We hiked over the surrounding hills, and through the pretty streets that nestle underneath Twin Peaks. Here's me on top of Corona Heights.

We made it down to the Castro, and brunch, just as the rain started coming on more heavily. Afterwards, it was too wet outside to really do anything except stay home, and read the papers, and rest up for the big event of the weekend, Fresh, my favorite club, which occurs the third Sunday of every month. It's a t-dance, which means doors open at 6.00 p.m., and by 6.45, when we arrived, it was already crowded.

Both Chris and I took a rare does of you-know-what, and I, for one, expanded into one of my most festive moods. It seemed like five hours passed in the blink of an eye. I was Mr Sociability, talking with and smiling at almost everybody, young, old, handsome, average. I think I met two Dereks, and no less than four Jeffries during the course of the evening, along with an assortment of Joes, Jacks, Bruces and so on. It was effortless and intoxicating. All through the evening, I spent time alternately with Chris, or T, or both at once, or dancing with a handsome older couple I'd met, or shouting into the ears of people who'd been strangers moments before.

Chris is the only man I've known who seems the same way when he's high as when he's sober; still tightly wound. It was impossible to know if he was truly having fun or not. But when I proposed that we follow T to the after party, called Sanctuary, when Fresh started to wind down around midnight, he agreed readily enough. There was a convoy of trucks and cars from Union Square to the Sound Factory space, under the approaches to the Bay Bridge, as the entire Fresh crowd, plus a sprinkling of bears who'd presumably been hibernating during the evening, congregated in the new location. Here, the music was harder, and the lights dimmer, and I finally started to think to myself that the idea of being in bed was awfully attractive. I'd entirely lost my shirt at this point, and Chris had driven home in my truck, so T offered to take me home in his friend's car. Something of a relief, since the alternative was to stand outside in the rain, shirtless, looking for a taxi.

Monday morning couldn't have been more unwelcome than the seven a.m. conference call I had to attend with my colleagues in New York. My voice sounded like I'd breakfasted on gravel, but I somehow made it through the conference call, then pleaded a sudden illness, and returned to bed for three hours. The rest of the day was very quiet, for both Chris and myself, as his trip wound down (he was to take the red-eye back to New York that night). Time to reflect on our weekend. And to figure out how and when I should talk to T about where our relationship is going.

Now it's three days later, and I still haven't quite recovered from our weekend. Got to New York Tuesday evening, and was pleasantly surprised by the warmer temperatures than last time. It's still cold - forty five - but not the horrid twenties of January. I'm wiped out. Been doing my usual New York thing of working out hard in the morning and evening, and doing long hard days in the office, and short changing myself on sleep. This trip, though, I get to stay the weekend, so I'm hoping to catch up with sleep. That is except for Saturday night when I'll almost certainly go to the Roxie with Chris and Phoenix. Hey, I'm in New York after all!