Saturday dawned clear and warm, and I drove to the foot of Griffith Park to take a run in the lovely heat. John Paul had warned me that the the paths were steep, but I'd laughed it off. I live in the City of Hills - how could Los Angeles be a problem. But John Paul was right, they were steep, and I frequently had to walk while I got my breath back. It was beautiful, and serene up there, on the parched hiking paths leading up to the observatory. There was virtually nobody else on the paths; I had them all to myself, and a few rodents, lizards and song birds.

I drove over to John Paul's, afterwards, where I took a shower before we went to brunch at a burrito place in West Hollywood. My friendship with John Paul, whom I've known now for over ten years, always takes off right where we left it. Easy, impassioned, opinionated chit-chat. He loves to talk about ideas, and he's the only friend with whom I can have a certain type of conversation; a conversation where I can share some of my feelings about things and know that he'll get it.

I told him about a movie I'd seen in New York, called "My Architect". The movie was made by the son of Louis Kahn, the famous architect who died in the 80s. Kahn kept three families, fathering sons and daughters in all three of them, and parceling out days of his life in between his travels amongst the families. So his son didn't really get to know his father. He decided to make a documentary about him as a sort of quest to understand how his father could be so cavalier in his treatment of his families. He traveled the world, visiting Kahn's buildings, and talking to people who knew him. But it was only when he visited his father's greatest work, the Capitol Buildings in Bangladesh, that he suddenly felt he'd found his Dad. The buildings are transcendantly spritual, even on film (I can't imagine the power they must have in the flesh), and the idea that one of the most backward and poor countries in the world would chose an oddball like Kahn to build their Capitol, and then the fact that the buildings were built, over many years, by hand, showed his son the power of Kahn's ideas. And more than that. The buildings were a gift from the heart to the people of Bangladesh. His son saw that Kahn had done something great out of a kind of love of humanity, and in that moment he was able to forgive his father, and reconcile with the idea that greatness sometimes comes in packages that aren't always easy to live with. I managed to explain all this to John Paul, and he was affected by it as I was. I don't think many others would listen to me spout such a long creed, and then feel what I felt.

We continued our conversation at the big Starbucks on Santa Monica Boulevard, watching the pretty and not so pretty boys pass by. It was a delicious afternoon of bathing in the warmth of the air, enjoying each other's company, and just lazing around.

Back in the hotel, early evening, I showered and changed to get ready for my big date with B. I met B a few weeks ago when he was visiting San Francisco for a conference. We'd gone out for drinks, and I'd been much taken with his good looks, his self confidence, and his wicked smarts (he runs an AIDS research lab). Last night, he picked me up at my hotel and we drove up, under a full moon, into the Hollywood hills to a huge, beautiful restaurant called Yamashiro. Throughout dinner, we continued in the same vein that began when we met in San Francisco; a bare hint of flirtation, mostly just good conversation. But I had a strong feeling about how the evening would play out, and I proved dead right. Although I underestimated the degree of chemistry we'd ultimately have together.

I was dressed somewhat demurely for dinner. Yeah, I was wearing my "porn star" jeans - low hung, tight Diesel jeans with a few small rips (they come like this when you buy them). But I was also wearing a nice v-neck black sweater. After we left the restaurant, though, and parked in West Hollywood in order to go to the Abbey, I stripped off my sweater to reveal my favorite faded t-shirt, with cut off sleeves, and the logo "The best girls come from Pinkney, Michigan. I was ready for a fun, sexy night.

I remember when the Abbey was just a coffee and desert place, with a patio. Since I was last there, it's expanded enormously into a huge night lounge, pulling a wide assortment of people, including some straights. We had drinks there, and started smiling at each other more freely, and giving each other the occasional bicep grip here, and pat on the shoulder there that were given and understood as promises of later physical intimacy. That intimacy didn't take long to materialize at Factory, the regular Saturday night club just down the street from the Abbey. Soon, B had his shirt off, and I got to feast my eyes on what I'd previously just seen in photographs, a perfect torso, with wide strong shoulders, suculent biceps and a v-shaped back tapering to what looked like a nice, firm butt. My shirt came off shortly thereafter, and exactly according to plan, we spent the rest of our time at the club dancing in close physical contact. It's an intoxicating feeling dancing like that with a hot guy you like. Such a feeling of life, energy, vitality, even youth.

We spent the night together at his house just over into the Valley, and I'll do a discrete fade out here, except for admitting that it was a wonderful night. I only slept about three hours, however, for at around 7.00 I was awoken by the large wet tongue of his St Bernard; it's a beautiful, handsome, friendly dog, but I wasn't keen on furthering my acquaintance with her so early in the morning. She wouldn't take no for an answer, though, and before I could stop her, she'd climbed up on top of the bed, and nestled herself between me and B. I tried to push her off the bed, but she just thought I wanted to wrestle, and became even more playful. Besides, it's not easy to push a one hundred and fifty pound dog off the bed, so I gave up, finally laughing as she turned on her back and tried to reach my face with her tongue.

All three of us lay there for an hour or so (she soon quietened down, and B had remained asleep throughout), and I tried to get back to sleep in the tiny sliver of bed that was left to me. But B's other huge dog, an equally gorgeous dog that looked like a St Bernard but was actually (I think) a Tibetan mountain dog, started to scratch at the back door because she wanted to pee. So I got up to let her out into the back yard. It was a completely gorgeous day, already in the 70s, and I understood why people like LA as I stood there on the garden path, naked, with the warmth on my skin, listening to the birds singing.