I'm en route for New York yet again. This time my trip is scandalously brief: arriving late Wednesday night, returning early next Tuesday - just three days in the office, while staying an unnecessary weekend. A weekend that includes a visit from Ben. I was going to start this journal entry by saying let's see how far I can get into it without mentioning Ben. As you see, not very far, even if I don't count the first paragraph.

Over the last few twenty-four hours I've learned that being in love doesn't guarantee that I'll no longer have to suffer from depression. I fell into one last night, and it only deepened this morning. The mechanics of my depression are becoming clearer to me over time, not that this understanding gives me much power to fight them off. In a weird, probably slightly sick way, I almost welcomed the depression as proof that I wasn't totally lost in love all the time 24*7.

Depression seems to be my mind's way of surfacing chronic anxieties. I'm fairly certain that last night's depression was due to a horrible incident at work. But the much worse depression of this morning I attribute to my sending out email invitations, last night, for the big party I'm throwing in late July. It's the first party I've hosted in several years, and the first one in over a decade that shows promise of having a reasonably large number of attendees. But as the RSVPs started to come in this morning, there were an unexpected number of declinals due to vacations and business trips. My bet is that the depression came not from the direct worry that I wouldn't have the amply populated party I'd hoped for, but rather from nearby, half-interned memories of my childhood unpopularity. I'm sure everybody has a similar reaction mechanism; why mine lead to depression, and those of others to something more benign I wish I knew.

It's a horrible feeling, depression - a kind of helpless, physical drowning. But from time to time, thoughts of Ben would drift in. And I'd look at the framed picture of him on my desk, striding towards me, shirtless, with a big smile on his face, and I'd feel a little better. I feel as if knowing there is somebody else on this planet for whom I'm as important in his life as he is in mine, gives me a lifeline to pull myself out of drowning. By early afternoon, the depression had largely disappeared.

The event that had triggered my initial depression came after a very satisfying talk with my boss. Back in January, I'd switched groups inside my company, with the promise of a promotion to follow. By June, despite my occasional reminders, the prommised promotion had still not appeared. Finally, in early June, I wrote a stronger email to both my boss and his boss, hinting that I might have to start looking elsewhere for a job, and got the immediate response back that, oh, didn't I know, I'd already been promoted. It was rather bittersweet. On the one hand, I was now at the highest technical position you could get to in my company - a Principal Software Developer - without also being a direct manager, and that's something that very few people have achieved in our company. But the way it had been given made me feel I'd been taken for granted. Moreover, there'd been no announcement to the rest of my group, unlike what I've seen in other groups, and for new hires. And then there was the meagre salary increase. I'd been expecting - hoping for at least - twenty percent. What I got was somewhere less than three percent.

For a while, I contemplated my options. I felt that I'd been slapped in the face a little. But then I realized that I was, in fact, extraordinarily well paid for somebody in my position; and that I'd find it practically impossible to get a similar salary elsewhere. Indeed, when I spoke to our Human Resources department about the raise, I found out I'd received an eleven percent salary increase in 2002 and I'd never even noticed (I admit to never balancing my check book). Moreover, my company does, on the whole, treat me very well. Witness my staying the weekend in New York each time I come up here. So here I am, glad that I got the promotion, but feeling a little trapped in employment paradise. And I'm not sure where my next career advancement will come from. Going into management is the only possibility, but in my company such a move comes mainly to people with the right connections. I'm not a schmoozer, and I doubt I'll ever want to become one.

So I had a heart-to-heart, yesterday, with my manager; mostly about how the promotion had been handled, and the pathetic salary increase. We really cleared the air, and ended the conversation on much better terms, and with a stronger understanding of each other. I won't go into the boring details, but I felt much less aggrieved after this part of our conversation. The awful news with which my boss ended the conversation was what knocked me for six. He told me that a few weeks earlier, he'd received an anonymous, printed note in an internal-mail envelope telling him about my webcam site. His boss had received the same note. I was stunned speechless. He hastened to reassure me that neither he nor his boss cared one wit what I did in my personal life - it was completely irrelevant to them. I was extremely grateful for that, but I hung up feeling sick inside, violated. I wondered who, in the company, I'd so embittered that they would try to get me fired.

I have two or three ideas about who it could be. In all three cases, it would be a stretch, but since my boss still has the internal-mail envelope on which the sender had hand-written my boss's name and office address, I at least have one tiny little sample of their handwriting, which I hope to compare to samples from my three suspects which I'll have to surreptitiously acquire. My main worry, though, is that if somebody hates me enough to do this, then they could go further, and do something more dangerous. To minimize my risk, I did something I'd long contemplated, and took down my webcam site for good. If I do find some evidence against any of my suspects, I'll have to think long and hard about my next steps. My impulse is to walk into their office and confront them, but I'll ignore those impulses I think.

My twenty-four hour depression aside, I'm still an emotional wreck when it comes to Ben. My emotions are so close to the surface; just today I've teared up variously at the finale to Mahler's 1st, the final moments of an episode of the Amazing Race, a chance mention, in a novel, of the university where Ben is a professor, and, most absurdly, a commercial for the upcoming movie Thunderbirds Are Go. I remind myself of a character in a movie - I don't remember anything about the movie except for the character finding themself similarly emotional, and crying over one of those commercials for toilet paper where the cute little puppy gets all tangled up in bathroom tissue.

I wonder if I'm becoming an emotional junky. I think I've always had this side to my psyche, but it's been long suppressed. I'm remembering now watching Ordinary People over and over again trying, and failing, to cry, when I was a very young graduate student. And half wishing that the only other person I've ever loved, Shawn, might die in an accident so that I could lose him in a blaze of grief rather than knowing we'd ended the relationship because he didn't love me. Our uncensored thoughts can be scandalous.

More pics of Ben that I took the other day in Los Angeles

I want to end on a positive note - there definitely has been too much Beethoven in these last few journal entries. I think I've described in pretty good detail the process of falling in love with Ben, but I haven't really written much about Ben himself: who he is, and why I like him so much. He's 36, originally from Singapore, a professor running a research lab at a famous university in Southern California. He's the smartest guy I've ever met - he went to college at the age of sixteen. He just got out of a nine year relationsip, last Fall, with a man who would have tried the patience of many other men, which shows me that Ben is a care taker. He lives by himself just across the Hollywood Hills, with his two big beautiful dogs. And he's a find circle of friends, most of whom I've already met, and all of whom have been exceptionally welcoming and friendly.

As to why I like him so much, that's more difficult to explain - how do you account for chance, and chemistry? But there is very little about him to criticize so far, although I'm not blind to his faults. He's sweet-natured, generous, easy-going, impulsive, outgoing, friendly, easily touched, affectionate and romantic. He values communication, and seems unfailingly honest. He's funny, and fun to be around. We share similar strong interests in current events, politics, military history, reading, travel; and he's open to exploring with me things he hasn't had the time to learn about, like classical music. Our incomes are similar, which removes one source of tension I've experienced in almost every relationship. He's gorgeous (in my eyes, at least), of course, with a sexy, supple body, a beguiling smile, and eyes I could swim around in for hours. He's the best sex I've ever had, and loves to turn me on, and knows exactly how to do it. And he loves to go out dancing as much as I do. And he says all the right things; several times when he's seen me walking towards him from a distance, he's stared at me with greedy eyes, and said he loves looking at me - so hunky, he says. He makes me feel strong, worldy, wise, romantic, caring, loving. Oh, and he's a great cook. I mean - what is not to like? I've hit the jackpot.