In my subversive attempts to access my blog at work, I’ve been using a “virtual” browser that doesn’t block sites and that, apparently, covers my web-surfing tracks. All this, and I don’t even surf for porn. Well, yesterday I made the discovery that if I try to update my template on the virtual browser, all hell breaks loose and my site becomes useless. So I spent a few hours last night tweaking the HTML (which I don’t actually know very well) so that you, the reader, can get your fix of the aesthetically brilliant combination of green and orange. Not to mention Louie’s sad-eyed photograph at right. There’s still some minor font crap going on, but eventually I needed sleep.

Thank you for the congratulations and blessings you’ve all sent my way the past few days. It’s been especially nice to hear from those of you writing me for the first time. If I haven’t said it before, I love hearing about your lives.

Louie and I love the new place, our only minor complaint being the extended walking commute to work; what used to take ten-minutes now takes forty, and the way home is ALL uphill. Soon I’ll get the car, so the sweat is worthwhile. Our street is lined with fragrant eucalyptus trees, and all I hear at night is the wind through the leaves. The fog blows over the hills and past my window at night, and even then my room gets more light than my last place; the pale orange glow of the city at night is cast across my bed, and I hug my pillow tightly as I drift off. I find I want to take more time off from work just to stay home and enjoy the place. But my ongoing campaign to become a human bullet demands attention. The alarm wakes me at 6, I burrow deeper under the covers for two snooze respites, and then I pull myself out of bed, go upstairs for coffee, then back down to pack the gym bag. By 7:30 I’ve dropped Louie off in the office and am struggling through sit-ups at the gym down the street. My routine stays disciplined only through momentum; I must be faithful.

While honing my physical shape, I quite naturally think a lot about sex. Love, too, but not as often. I hear myself telling friends lately that sex and love are the last areas not yet fully integrated with the rest of my life. I haven’t exactly lived up to the gay male promiscuity cliche the past year. No regrets. Besides, few men could have held on through the ride I’ve endured. The extended periods of abstinence haven’t exactly been by choice. If you’ve been reading the Campfire for awhile, you know I’d jump Ski if given half the chance. But an obessession doesn’t count as “integrated”; its shape and weight throw my life off-balance. I can’t yet say I’m completely ready to let it go, for whatever reason. Maybe I’m afraid it’s the last good chance I’ll get; a ridiculous idea. Of course there will be other men. Of course I’ll fall in love again. Of course it’ll hurt like hell. All this the mind knows. But the heart, the dick, they’re slow to learn.