For several weeks, I've been suffering varying degrees of anxiety about the big party I'd planned for Saturday night. I suppose in my head I'd been seeing it as some kind of popularity vote, as if I was still in high school. Speaking of which, I remember the one year in junior school when my parents let me have a big birthday party, and I (who was unpopular at school) invited all the popular kids. I was surprised that they all came, but I guess free food wasn't often turned down in working class South Shields.

Ben arrived early Friday evening, and we had a quiet evening at home, for once. Well, we did go out for dinner, to Catch, and then attempted to watch "After Sunrise", the movie that predates by almost ten years the movie we saw and loved in New York, recently, "Before Sunset". But I guess young love just isn't as interesting as love between two wiser, more experienced people in their late thirties, and we got distracted by our sexual desires and never ended up watching the second half of the movie.

Saturday was the day of the party, but I'd managed to arrange everything so that we didn't have to spend the whole day running around getting ready. We had an early breakfast at Cafe Flore, did a little bit of clothes shopping in the Castro (I should lock up my credit cards when Ben is around), then drove down to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to find out about each other's taste in art.

A propos of nothing, a photo of the dome of the old Emporium building. They're saving it for the new Bloomingdales.

Along the way through all this there was a lot of conversation about our certain knowledge that I'll be moving to Los Angeles to live with Ben sometime next year. It almost seems crazy to be talking about this so soon - after all it was only late June that I realized I was in love with Ben. I mean, we're giving lesbians a run for the money in terms of precipitancy. But we're comparing notes on furnishings, on privacy, on dog-friendliness, you name it. He's happy he gets to inherit some of my nice objects, my china, my flatware, my art originals. I'm excited about acquiring part ownership of his two magnificent dogs, his king-size bed, his two huge plasma TVs, and my own private study. But where will my expensive Italian, leather sofa go without it being ruined by two two-hundred pound dogs? We laugh when we talk about these things, because neither of us saw this coming. But we're so compatible in so many ways, that it's just a given. We're excited also about the idea of house hunting for something bigger - in fact we're going to some house openings next weekend when I'm in LA - not to buy, of course, just as a sort of preview of what's out there.

Once back in the Castro, I stopped by Cliffs Hardware (one of my favorite places - they sell everything from toys to drill bits - I can't go in there without fantasizing about buying a powertool) to pick up a sheet of glass I'd had cut to protect my coffee table. We came out with the glass and a $50 cuddly toy dog - a beautiful husky whom I instantly named Fluppy, in honor of my sister Sally's childhood stuffed dog. As we walked back to the car in the Castro, Fluppy in my arms, I felt like a kid again - felt so damned young. People smiled at us, two men in their late thirties, obviously in love with each other, the very tall guy carrying a cuddly toy, I put Fluppy in the back seat of the car, and wound down the window. He stopped traffic as we drove home.

Ben, Keith and Fluppy

Around four, it became time, finally, to start getting ready for the party. My friend Terry had already given me invaluable help in planning the party, and he'd offered to not only make up some of the food for me, but to come over early and cater the table for me. Without him, my party would have been a prime candidate for some "Queer Eye for the Gay Guy" treatment. And Ben was a great help too - I had him doing the vacuuming, and all the other chores that were beneath me. Boyfriends do come in useful.

Shortly after seven, Brett arrived, and during the next hour, guests started to trickle in. Just before eight, the hunky bartender (a gorgeous twenty-three-year-old, strapping, six-foot two hunk) arrived, just in time to prevent me poisoning my guests with my margarita mix. And by eight thirty, the living room was full. The place looked splendid - candles everywhere, and low lighting, and the table of food, catered by Terry, was a work of art. I finally began to enjoy myself, realizing that my long-planned party was going to be a success. I could concentrate on introducing friends to friends, showing off Ben, and making sure nobody was left by themselves in a corner.

Cecila, and Jim, my second oldest friend - we were best friends in grad school in Philly starting in 1986. We lost touch for years, then I ran into him in Berkely a couple of years ago.

Brett, looking very handsome, with Jenny, the wife of Jim. You can just make out Ben in the background.

Heike, who's become one of my best friends, and Mark, a great guy with whom I've worked for ten years at two different companies. His wife Rosalie came also. When Mark had told me he was bringing his twelve year old son, Tristan, I'd said - Great! It will add to the number of straight people. Hmm, he said, I don't know about that ...

Everybody said, either in the party or later, through phone or email, that they'd had a good time, and that everybody had been so nice. And I had to agree. Whether by luck or grace, I'm realizing how fortunate I am with the people in my life. Just a wonderful, diverse group of warm-hearted, unpretentious people. And in a way, the party felt like a sort of coming out. After a very rough decade in my life, from the age of 28 to 37, when I'd suffered through a horrible distructive relationship, followed by intense depression and chronic fatigue, and eventually a withdrawal into a rather isolated existence, I've arrived, just before turning fourty, at a wonderful place where I have excellent health, good friends, a beautiful apartment that speaks about who I am, a rich life, and a beautiful man who has become my prince, Ben. So the party was for me a kind of celebration of that journey.

Terry had played such a role in putting the party together - I was a bit worried that he might run around telling everybody "Keith is my creation!", since not only had he helped me plan the party, he'd catered it for me (with a spread of simple foods that looked so beautiful nobody wanted to eat), had guided the restyling of the furnishings in my apartment over the last few months, and had even highlighted my hair last week. (I gave in to the latter request only after repeated hints by Terry over the last year or so, and less subtle hints from Ben whose motive was possibly to prepare my personal appearance for my move to Los Angeles. When I first saw the final results in the mirror on Tuesday, I fairly screamed with shock. Later, at the gym, I noticed that the only men with highlighted hair were men in their fourties trying to look younger. If the shoe fits, I guess. But the pied look of my hair is growing on me, nonetheless. No pun intended,).

By eleven, though, I was beginning to feel wiped out. I began to wish people would leave. For a few moments, Ben and I huddled in my little office area - I think we were both a bit worn down. Ben suggested that if we started cleaning up, people might get the idea to leave. It took a while, but by twelve fifteen or so, we said the last of our goodbyes, and all the food items and dishes were cleared away. And for the first time in this series of weekends we've spent together, we didn't go out dancing. In bed, I found myself to be strangely melancholy. I think that four hours of being very nice must have reduced my seratonin level to zero. I was still melancholy in the morning, and longed for the comfort of Ben's arms around me when he woke up. We're both early risers, even on weekends (just another example of how amazingly compatible we are - okay you can stop throwing up now), so I didn't have to wait long.

On Sunday, we spent much of the day in the company of a professional photographer we'd asked to do a shoot with. I'd worked with him before on an advertising campaign for a tanning salon, so I knew ahead of time that he was fun and easy to work with. And he'd come to my party, so Ben and he had already hit it off. It was a cool day, with fog all around the city, so it wasn't easy to find locations. We illegally climbed up the magnificent, greco/romanesque structures of the Palace of Fine Arts to get some photos of Ben and I cuddling. But we got the best pictures across the Bay on Treasure Island. The island is home to block after block of abandoned industrial facilities. After a picnic on the Eastern edge of the island, overlooking the bay and the Bay Bridge, we found an old abandoned shed with various props we could make use of, like a huge picnic table, and a hose with a spray nozzle (oh that water was cold when sprayed on you at full jet). Now we just have to wait to see how the photos turned out.

Ben perching illegally high up in the Palace of Fine Arts

The evening ended with Ben and I going to see the Bourne Supremacy - a dark, emotional spy thriller with a genre-busting performance from Matt Damon. There's a scene early in the movie where Matt Damon's girlfriend is killed in front of his eyes. Their car plunges off a bridge into the river, and Damon's character tries to revive his girlfriend underwater. But she's gone, and the look of absolute grief on Damon's face touched Ben, like I knew it would. I saw him wipe away tears, and he grabbed my hand. I know what he was thinking. More than once I've found myself imagining getting a phone call from one of Ben's friends telling me that he'd been killed. What a huge tragedy we let ourselves in for by loving somebody.

A torrent of emotions this weekend, as usual. Moments of doubt. Times of sadness when I was left feeling alone. Anxiety that I was becoming too needy. Passion, of course. I feel sometimes as if I'm undergoing open heart surgery. Ben is the surgeon, plunging a scalpel deep into my heart, breaking up old scar tissue that comes to the surface, unrecognizable. Half the time I can't even identify the emotions I'm feeling. But what I'm left with now that he's gone again back to Los Angeles is a settled feeling of happiness.