My tenure on the blogroll of the New York Times came to a hilariously abrupt end after two days.  One day Dogpoet was there, the next day not. With no explanation given, I can only hazard a guess that it wasn’t so much due to my coy mentions of hot man-on-man action, but rather one of categorization. They had listed me under “Arts and Entertainment” for the San Francisco Bay Area, a clumsy fit at best. Since the Times has no “Personal Blogs” section, no “Stubborn, Cantankerous and Somewhat Misanthropic Writers” section, Dogpoet just fell through the cracks.

Thus the woeful story of my life as a writer, never quite fitting into the right category.  I’d like to earnestly believe that a guy could fashion his own category, and let the accolades follow.  But until then I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing, now that I no longer have to worry about offending the cultivated sensibilities of the Times’ readership. Like boring you with photos that the Manly Fireplug and I took at the top of the tramway in Palm Springs, looking down at the Coachella Valley from the San Jacinto Peak.

I’m smiling because I hadn’t seen the Fireplug in two weeks. Also I’m afraid of heights and my balls felt funny.

I am hiding in the desert, staying in my gay dads’ empty condo in Palm Springs, where the 1984 International Male catalog models have all retired and let themselves go. I am finishing up a two-week stay, revising and polishing my book in relative solitude, though I do drag myself to the gym  occasionally to keep up appearances.

After a couple of work-outs I’ve realized that there are a few qualities that act, for me, as immediate disqualifications in matters of sexual attraction:

1. Frosted hair on any guy over the age of 22. Scratch that, frosted hair on any guy period.

2. Fine-mesh tank tops, which haven’t aged well since the 1984 International Male Catalog.

3. An enormous, deeply-tanned bicep around which is strapped a tiny pink iPod.

However, if you can leave the house sporting ALL OF THE ABOVE, then you have bigger ones than I could ever dream of growing.

I’ve been talking about this damn book for several years now, and I realize I’ve tested the patience of many friend, reader, and family member. I wish I were faster than I am. But I just can’t compromise on this thing. It has to be as great as I can possibly make it. Fortunately I’ve worked my ass off here in the desert, revising 200 pages in two days. I think of the thing like a diamond necklace or something; each scene, each section, needs to be finely polished. But the whole thing needs to hang together real pretty too. I’m trying to cover thirty years of a family, and I have a whole lot more respect now for anyone that can even bang out a coherent book-length narrative, let alone a really good one.

I worry that I’m piling all of my eggs into this tiny, unpredictably-constructed basket. And that if I fail at this I will have nothing else to show for my life. Not that I’m ever, like, melodramatic or anything.

Two weeks is the longest that the Manly Fireplug and I have ever spent apart, and I sense a combustible reunion when he comes down to retrieve me on Sunday. An explosion at the end of the tunnel, and all that. I would happily share the details with you, but thanks to local lit man Kemble Scott, my blog is now listed in the San Francisco Bay section of the New York Times, and I have to consider these new readers’ delicate constitutions.