Tabula Rasa

Happy New Year!

I had an enjoyable New Year’s Eve in SoHo. The host lives in this huge loft by herself. Two bathrooms, even! I met lots of Yalies; had a couple of potent mixed drinks and some rose champagne; hung out with Dan, my Buffy-tape donator who invited me to the party; and generally had a good time.

At around 2 in the morning, Dan and I left the party and walked all the way up to the 9th Street PATH station after unsuccessfully trying to hail a cab. The train came just as we got to the station, which was a wonderful stroke of luck. We sat down in the front car.

As the train pulled into the next stop — the Christopher Street station — there was a small explosion directly behind me and Dan, just outside the train car. I saw sparks and red and yellow smoke. The motor of the train turned off. Within a few minutes, about ten police officers had come down to examine the scene. Everyone in the front car had to get off.

After a few minutes of strangeness, we were on our way again. Um… okay.

So I guess 2002 started with a bang.

I haven’t been doing much today. I’ve read the paper, done the crossword. Right now I’m watching a rerun of the very first episode of “90210” on FX. It’s from the fall of 1990. Man, remember how cool that show used to be?

And tonight… FX begins rebroadcasting all the Buffy episodes from the beginning! Two shows a night! I bought a bunch of blank videotapes yesterday. I’m gonna watch them all from the beginning, and I’m gonna build me a library.

As for New Year’s resolutions:

I think Beau’s New Year’s resolution is a good example to follow — “be better.” Always a good thing. I will try to do the same, as well as the following:

Continue trying to live life to the fullest. Make good memories. Worry less. Continue working on my New York social life. Meet more people. Go on more dates. Try to talk to more people at bars.

Also, try to reintegrate myself into the gay blogging circuit. I haven’t been very good at this over the last few months. It was easier when I could sit at work and click my way around the Web all day; in my current job, I can’t really do that, my Web destinations being monitored and all. So I’ve fallen behind in much of my blog reading. But I want to try to become more a part of that community again.

Anyway — welcome to the second palindromic year in eleven years. It’s been about a thousand years since two palindromic years have been this close together. And speaking of fun with years, did you know that we haven’t had a year with four different digits since 1987, and that we won’t have another one until 2013? Totally insignificant in the scheme of things, but interesting anyway.

So, a new year. A blank slate. A tabula rasa. Twelve empty months ahead, 365 empty days to be filled. Who knows what will happen? Who knows whom you’ll meet? What you’ll do? Where you’ll go? How you’ll grow? When we ring in 2003 a year from now, what new people will you have in your life? What moments will you remember most? What new things will you have learned? What new things will you have experienced? How will this year be defined?

Nobody knows!

Exciting, isn’t it?

Winter Darkness and Media Slaves

First off, it’s that time of year again — time to choose nominees for the annual Bloggies.

Second off, you know what? I’ve discovered how totally out of the mainstream I am. I’ve discovered how totally un-American I am. I’ve discovered Yahoo!’s top 20 search terms of 2001.

Britney? WWF? What the heck is wrong with this country? Why can’t people think for themselves? What is this hold that the mass media have over people? Why do people fall asleep at night watching CNN? Why do people go see “Pearl Harbor”? Why do people read John Grisham novels?

I don’t get it. Teenagers see awful movies and watch fake wrestling and play shiny videogames. And suddenly all these things transcend adolescence and become the Number One items in their respective categories for people of all ages. It’s like the entire nation lives in one big Peoria shopping mall patrolled by AOL security guards who carry Quidditch broomsticks and live off McDonald’s hamburgers. What’s wrong with everyone? And what’s with the Britney-mania, even now? Everyone becomes obsessed with these powerful, beautiful blond bombshells and nobody steps in to tell them they’re all becoming media slaves.

Oh, by the way, have I mentioned how I’m totally getting into “Buffy”?

Um. I watched episodes three and four today after taping them off a nationally-carried cable channel owned by a major media conglomerate.

Oh, yeah, “The Lord of the Rings” movie was cool, too.

Both times.

Ahem. Anyway.

Today was my first day back at work after a five-day mini-vacation. January is so depressing. Why can’t Christmas be the start of the holiday season instead of the end of it? It’s not fair. For a month we see all these beautiful Christmas lights and colorful decorations and throw holiday parties and eat sugar-filled foods, and it all leads up to this big blowout at midnight on December 31. And then suddenly you wake up on the morning of January 2nd, and you have to go back to work, and just like that it’s gone. The holiday season is over, and there’s nothing ahead but a long, cold winter, devoid of light. And my hands are so dry that the skin on my knuckles is starting to crack.

Cruel.

Why can’t people just keep their Christmas lights up through the end of February?

I want to go bury myself deep, deep under the earth. Wake me when it’s April.

Or when you find me a boyfriend.

Whichever comes first, really.

Oh, I almost forgot:

I was hanging out online last night. While in a chatroom, I found myself chatting with this gay Jewish New York lawyer guy. He sent me his photo, and I recognized it. See, if you’re a personal-ad-website veteran like I am, you come to recognize certain people after a while; the same people start popping up everywhere.

So we were chatting for a while, and he told me where he went to law school. Something clicked inside my head, and I told him I knew someone who’d gone there, too, around the same time he was there. I told him the guy’s name, and it turns out he knows him.

The guy I asked him about was Scott. It turns out I’d been chatting with someone who knows Scott.

I didn’t tell this guy any of the story, but yeah — he knows Scott, and apparently he might know how to contact him, too.

Now that would be interesting.

Toeing the Line

Sometimes it’s the little things that make life beautiful.

Yesterday morning, after getting out of the shower and wrapping a towel around myself, I walked back into my bedroom and smashed my left pinky toe against the side of a full-length mirror that’s leaning against one wall of my room. Ow, that wasn’t fun, I thought. But I didn’t feel much pain.

Then, as I started to get dressed for work, I looked down at the toe and saw that it was covered in bright red blood.

Ow.

I’ll spare you the gory details, but basically, the blood kept flowing and wouldn’t stop, despite my applying pressure to it with toilet paper. If I’d been thinking, instead of running around in my usual rush to get ready for work (created by my consistent practice of staying up too late at night and then hitting the snooze bar the next morning far too many times than is healthy), I would have sat down somewhere and elevated my leg. But no. So the blood didn’t stop. It did slow down a bit, though, so I Neosporined it (ooh, just created a new verb there) and wrapped a bandage around it and put on my sock. I sort of hobbled around for most of the morning, although not in a major way, because the pinky toe really isn’t as necessary for human balance as… well, as any of the other toes, I guess.

Later in the day I took off my shoe and sock. The part of my sock that had covered the toe was caked in blood and there was a little gash on the top of the toe.

Okay, so much for sparing you the gory details.

And I would have blogged about this last night — as well as been on Instant Messenger, which I told someone else I probably would be — except that when I got home from work last night, my phone line was dead.

So I went out and bought a new phone cord. Came home and plugged it in. Still dead, as Chevy Chase used to say about Francisco Franco on SNL.

Tried plugging the line into my computer modem. That didn’t work either. NOOOO!

So I called up Verizon and they tested the line and after all was said and done (though probably more was said than done) they told me they could send someone the following morning (a.k.a. this morning) between 8 a.m. and noon. Okay. Could be 8 a.m., could be 10:43, could be noon. How Delphic. And they told me that if any work was required inside my actual apartment, the fee would be 82 bucks for the first half-hour (or maybe it was for the first hour) and 30-something bucks for every additional half-hour, because I don’t have a maintenance plan.

Who makes 80 bucks an hour? Not even first-year law firm associates make 80 bucks an hour.

I’m a dialer-upper, so with no phone line I had no Internet access. A whole night with no way to chat online or surf the Web or blog.

I managed to ride through the low-level panic and withdrawal symptoms by watching TV and doing the crossword and actually talking to someone on the phone (my cellphone). Yep, turns out you can actually use the darn thing to talk to people with your larynx. I will note this for future reference.

In the end, everything went smoothly. I went to bed way earlier than I would have, I slept until the phone guy called at 9, I read the paper until they showed up at 10:45, and they didn’t have to repair anything inside my apartment. Turned out they needed to fix a wire outside.

So now I’m blogging at work, which I rarely do.

And I guess I’m better off today than I was yesterday. One healing toe, one repaired phone line, a few hours’ extra sleep, one fewer chance to get crabs.

Ain’t life grand?

Someone Who Seems Great, and

A Night at Date Bait

I think I might be in love.

Well, I’m exaggerating. But I met a guy today who’s totally stunning.

I was tooling around online this afternoon, hanging out in a chatroom, when this guy started chatting with me. I’d never seen the name before. Turns out he’s new to Jersey City. His stats were nice, and he was my age, and he’s a grad student, so he was smart, too.

We were chatting for a while, and eventually I asked if he had a photo. He didn’t have one. In fact, he asked me if I knew of any places around that could scan his photos for him. I didn’t know of any places for certain, but I mentioned that I had a scanner and that I’d be happy to do it. Hehe.

It turned out that he lived right around the corner from me. Up the street, around the corner. We’re probably talking a three-minute walk, tops. Even closer to me than Wes. So I invited him over. He warned me that he probably wouldn’t be interested in hooking up right at the moment. Okay, no biggie. So I showered and changed and he came over.

Wow.

Not only is he gorgeous, and also intelligent, but he’s also incredibly nice and polite. I mean, those characteristics aren’t all supposed to exist in the same package, are they? If they’re gorgeous they’re supposed to be cocky, or if they’re gorgeous and nice they’re supposed to be dumb as a post. But he was gorgeous and smart and friendly and gentlemanly.

He loved my apartment. He admired all the books on my bookshelves. He remarked that he, like me, has only the 1994 edition of the World Almanac and none of the later editions. He complimented me on my huge classical CD collection. Apparently he’s a fan, too.

So I scanned his photos (which were gorgeous, too), and we talked for a while, and then he had to go home and continue unpacking. He just moved in yesterday. I’m the first person he’s met here. He said he definitely wants to hang out again. We exchanged phone numbers. He left.

I was all aflutter. And I’m usually one of those “straight-acting” guys, so I don’t get all aflutter. But I was aflutter.

So! Who knows. I have a new friend. Part of my brain is travelling down the path, extrapolating based on my experience with Wes. I’ll totally fall for this guy, and it’ll turn out he won’t be interested in me in that way, and he’ll meet someone better, and yada yada yada. But the other part of my brain is saying, ah, relax, enjoy the ride. I’ve been saying that a lot lately.

Mostly because I know that if I don’t say it, my blog readers will say it for me! Hehehehe. And they’ll be right.

So, that was today. Now I’ll talk about last night.

Last night I went to Date Bait again.

Just in case you don’t feel like clicking on the above link, here’s how Date Bait works. You pay 15 bucks and enter a room with a bunch of other guys. You sit on chairs in a big circle (or in two concentric circles, depending on how many people there are). Each person is assigned a number and is given a computer card. Everyone has up to a minute to stand up and speak about themselves. You take notes on the guys who interest you. After everyone has spoken, there’s a half-hour mingling session in which you talk with whomever you want, get to know people better, that sort of thing.

After that’s done, you take your computer card and write down the ID numbers of the guys with whom you’d like to go on a date. All the cards are fed into a computer. If two people have written down each other’s numbers, you find out, and you set up a date with that person. And the up side is that if you write down someone’s number and they didn’t write down yours, they’ll never know you were interested, so there’s nothing to lose.

Last time I went, in June, I wrote down nine numbers and got no matches. It felt kinda sucky. But this time I figured, hey, it’s a new year, time to meet new people, time to try again. So I went again last night.

Last time there were 48 guys there. This time there were 94.

I walked in and sat down. Took note of a few cute guys.

Last time I wasn’t happy with my one-minute schpiel. Because I was nervous, I hadn’t smiled — I hadn’t even realized that I wasn’t smiling — and I hadn’t said anything funny. And I’d planned out beforehand what I wanted to say. I was lame-o boring sincere.

So this time my numero uno goal was to smile. Before the microphone got to me, I kept reminding myself, Smile. Smile. By God, if you do nothing else, smile! And I tried not to plan out my speech too much.

When the mike got to me, I stood up. I smiled and said my name and said “Wow, I’m nervous,” and launched into a slightly rambling but fast-paced speech about myself, trying to be relaxed and not nervous, and trying to keep the formation of a smile on my face, which is hard to do when you’re speaking. “I don’t really have high expectations here. Not that I’m pessimistic. I’m optimistic. It’s just that, uh, dates are weird, because when you go on a date with someone, you start evaluating each other too much and you start imagining what the other person’s gonna look like in thirty years.” Laughter. “So I guess I’m basically looking for friends, people to hang out with. I’m not looking for anyone to take over my life” — laughter — “and I’m not looking to take over someone else’s life. Um, I’m a lawyer, so I guess I do, like, legal stuff… I tend to get very passionate about things for a few weeks and then forget about them… I guess I’m intellectual, in sort of a geeky way. But not in a nerdy way.” Et cetera.

After everyone had finished speaking, I looked down at my scratch paper and I’d written down eight guys. And then the mingling period began.

I didn’t go up to anybody. I can’t start conversations with people in bars, and I couldn’t do it at Date Bait, either. I didn’t even make a New Year’s resolution to start more conversations with people at bars, because it just totally petrifies me. Once I’m in a conversation, I can be charismatic and friendly and all, it’s just starting the conversation that I can’t do.

Three guys came up to me. One of them had a notepad and kept glancing down at it as he talked to me, keeping his place with his pencil. It was almost like an interview. The other two seemed nice enough. But I wasn’t interested in any of them.

For the rest of the mingling period I just stood there with a relaxed, bemused look on my face, trying to look comfortable. And I didn’t really care what happened. I mean, I couldn’t do any worse than last time, when I got no matches. So it was all good.

On my computer card I wrote down the numbers of the eight guys in whom I was interested. (I hadn’t actually talked with any of them.) Then we all gave our cards to the volunteers and hung around waiting while they all got fed into the computer. I mentally prepared myself for getting no matches.

The emcee (who must make a killing, getting 15 bucks from each of us) announced that 72 percent of the attendees had received at least one match, higher than average. And he said that 39 percent had received more than one match. Oh, great. I’m gonna be in that unlucky 28 percent.

When I picked up my card, wouldn’t you know it? Of the eight guys I’d written down, I had two matches! And I hadn’t even talked to these guys.

I turned around and one them was standing right there. I’d noticed him when I’d first entered the room, because he was sitting almost directly across from me; he was tallish, with dreamy eyes and sideburns, wearing a pastel-colored shirt and tie (dressy for Date Bait), and kinda quiet. In his speech he’d mentioned that he was an historic preservationist.

Since we hadn’t spoken earlier, we talked for a little while, and we’re planning to meet up on Thursday.

As for my other match, I thought I saw him right after I received my card, but after talking with the first guy for a few minutes, he was nowhere to be found. So I got his phone number from the emcee. I can’t remember anything about him — but I should probably call him and arrange a date. It’s kind of weird that he disappeared on me, though.

Anyway. The lesson? Smile.

Date Bait, a stunning guy. What a weekend.

B4 d t+ k++ s+ u- f i- o+ x+ e+ l c+

Best meme EVER.

1) Although frankly, I think it was just a ruse by Ron to find out how many bloggers his fellow bloggers have slept with.

2) Is anyone really surprised that that’s the only factor people are interested in?

3) Just goes to show: give people a chance to reveal sexual information about themselves in a creative way, and they’ll do it.

4) Gives new meaning to the phrase blogging community.

5) Ron, you rock.

Friday Night

I got to meet one of my readers last night. We’d been corresponding occasionally via e-mail over the last couple of months, and when my birthday rolled around, he told me he had a “Buffy”-related birthday present for me. As he lives in New York, I suggested we meet up, so last night we had a couple of drinks together.

And he gave me the coolest birthday present! It’s a CD of the tracks from the “Buffy” musical episode, complete with CD cover art! Awesome!

We had an enjoyable time and some good, enlightening conversation. It’s always interesting to hear a civilian’s take on the blogging world. My favorite story, though, was how he told a friend of his that he was going to be meeting me, and how they surfed on over to my site so he could show his friend what my site’s all about, and how the very first sentence on my page that day was, “Last night I had an orgasm at a urinal.” Greeeeeat. “You sure you want to meet this guy?” his friend must have said to him.

Anyway, I hope he found the evening worthwhile. I had a very nice time, and I think perhaps I’ve made a new friend.

In other news —

I’m kind of bummed about something. Er, someone. The guy I met last Sunday.

We chatted on Monday evening, and he invited me to lunch sometime this weekend. A few days went by, and then on Thursday night I called him to arrange plans. I got his voicemail, so I left a message. I didn’t hear back from him.

So I called him again last night, suggesting we get together Saturday (today), because Sunday (tomorrow) I’m having brunch with some very special people. And I still haven’t heard back from him. And here it is, Saturday, lunchtime.

I haven’t even seen him online in the last few days. He’s been completely incognito. I don’t get it.

Maybe he’s dead. Maybe he had a family emergency. Maybe, to paraphrase Billy Crystal in “When Harry Met Sally,” he desperately wants to talk to me but he’s trapped under something heavy. Maybe he knows about my website and he was freaked out to read what I thought about him. Maybe he’s a jerk. Maybe he has amnesia. Maybe he works for the CIA. I have no fucking clue.

So, like, whatever.

On the other hand, I do have an Internet date tonight. Yes, a real date thing. Not a sex thing. A date thing. Jewish, around my age, cute-looking. We shall see. I’m gonna continue to try out my new non-jumping-into-bed-with-people lifestyle. Of course, if I do jump into bed with him, I’m not necessarily gonna write about it here.

Strange as it may seem, I don’t reveal everything here that I do or think or feel. Just lots of it.

Mwahahahaha.
—–

Several of us blogger-types had brunch this afternoon. Brad Graham was in town, all the way from Missouri, and he put together a little cross-blog-world get-together — some gay types and some non-gay types.

Click the photo to make it larger. Left side, front to back: Mike (gay), David (not gay), Anil (not gay), the torso and arm of Richard (boyfriend d’Jonno, so yeah, gay). Right side, front to back: Dan (gay), Brad (gay), Choire (gay), and someone who I don’t think has a blog but reads them. Not pictured: Cameron (not gay); me (gay, and taking the photo).

This was the first time I’d met any straight bloggers. Strange, no? It was kind of refreshing. With all the talk of SXSW and FilePile and MetaFilter get-togethers, I almost felt like I was at some big A-List festival.

Anyway, we all sat around for three hours and I doused my glass of lemonade with a pound of sugar. Hilarious one-liners all over the place, mostly from Brad and Anil, with an occasional off-the-wall yet right-on-target comment from Choire. And of course there was the sexy, sharply-dressed Richard, whom I’d never met before. Having now met both of them, I finally understand why Richard and Jonno are so happy together. Sigh…

So, it was quite nice. I’m sure there’ll soon be other accounts appearing shortly. Thanks for bringing us all together, Brad.

In the evening, I had my second date of the weekend. I had a date with someone last night, I had a date with someone tonight, and I have a date with someone tomorrow night. I’m gonna be exhausted by the time this is all over.

The date tonight was with one of my DateBait matches. To refresh your memories, I got two matches at DateBait, but one of the guys disappeared immediately afterward and I never got to talk to him. So I got his number from the emcee and called him, and we made plans to meet up tonight. We met up for drinks at the Duplex, a gay bar on Christopher Street.

I got there and I was looking around, and someone was gesturing to me to come over. It’s a good thing he recognized me, because I totally didn’t recognize him. I don’t even remember seeing him before. But apparently he was DateBait Attendee #43, because that’s one of the numbers I wrote down.

We wound up talking for almost two hours over a couple of beers each. Not incredibly attracted to the guy, but we had a really nice conversation — got along quite well.

And yet I still don’t remember seeing him at DateBait.

I mean, I must have seen him there, but I guess I’d only seen him from far away. And “43” was on the list of numbers I wrote down for matches on my scratch paper that night. So I guess either I didn’t recognize the guy, or I’d really written down some number other than 43 when I was taking notes. Upon consulting my notes, though, it looks pretty clearly like 43. So I don’t know. I guess I’m having a great big mind fart.

The date last night was pretty nice, too. I met up with last night’s guy at the Phoenix in the East Village — also over drinks. He was pretty darn cute, though kind of East-Villagey (which makes sense, because he lives in the East Village) and alternative-y. I tend to go for more straight-laced, conservative-looking guys. Not that I wouldn’t hang out with him again, though.

And you know what? No sex at all, the entire weekend!

And that’s a GOOD thing. Not because these guys weren’t attractive — but because it made the dates more enjoyable and special, in a way. On both dates, the guy and I got into a position where his leg was resting against mine. I’ve always seen that as a tactic — a come-on, a prelude to an Evening of Fun. But it wasn’t a tactic, with either guy. It was just a nice, warm-ish gesture, one that felt nice and enticing and physically enjoyable and all that good stuff. One that leaves things open for future dates, too.

I’m feeling my way through this new world. This new, non-sex-type world.

It’s kinda fun so far.

Second Dates

Tonight was the third in our nightly series: “First Dates With the Tin Man.”

Tonight’s date — my second DateBait match — was tall, intelligent, friendly, well-spoken, and polite, with very dreamy eyes. We sat and talked over dinner.

This dating thing is kinda fun.

I’m sleepy, and I have “Buffy” episodes to watch. So I’ll turn this over to you, my readers, with a question. Because a questioning Tin Man is a happy Tin Man. I also mean it to be sort of a discussion-provoker.

First of all, most of us have heard that old joke:

Q: What does a lesbian bring on a second date?

A: What second date?

Forget the gay-male stereotype for a moment. Because I really wanna know:

How do you know if you should go on a second date with someone?

Study Assigns HIV Odds to Various Sex Acts.
—–

Well, I’m entering the world of blogging. I first read about blogging in the New York Times’ Circuits section a few weeks ago, and it was intriguing. An easy way to publish mental diarrhea!

— The Tin Man, January 16, 2001

Yup. It was one year ago today that I started this damn thing.

What a long-range strip it’s been.

My baby. My monster. Attack of the evil blog. It came from Mars. The thing that ate Jeff’s life.

Yeah. My baby’s one year old today. So if this entry goes on too long, if it’s overblown, if it’s all complete bunk, I don’t really care today.

I’m giddy and it’s all mine.

I. How it Happened

II. How It Got Its Name

III. How It’s Changed Me

IV. My Favorite Entries

I. How It Happened

I began it on a complete whim. I was sitting at my desk at work one afternoon, some time on my hands, and I decided to check out the website of Rebecca Mead, a writer for the New Yorker. I’d recently read one of her articles in the magazine, and her URL had been listed inside. So I clicked on over and I stumbled upon this article, all about blogging.

I was hooked.

I’d heard vaguely about blogging before — in fact, I’d briefly followed this gay guy’s online journal a few years earlier. The guy had quite a following. I thought it was pretty cool — and pretty nuts — that someone would write about his life online, publicizing excerpts from e-mail exchanges, accounts of his dates, and so forth. I figured that anyone who did such a thing had to be a little bit bonkers. And also a little bit full of himself.

But then one cold afternoon in January 2001, I read Rebecca Mead’s article, and I thought, hmmm… looks like these blogger-types have their own little community going on here. I’d always loved to write, and I’d kept my own journal since I was 13 years old. So I decided to give it a try.

Before I even started, I tried to find some other blogs written by gay males. I must have typed “gay blog” into a search engine or something.

And the very first blog I found was that of Closet Boy.

That site had to be gay, right? I mean come on. “Closet Boy.” So I clicked on over.

I was impressed by two things on his site.

The first was the quality of the guy’s writing. Good stuff. (It still is.)

The second was his long list of links to other people’s blogs.

Wow… look at all those other gay blogs out there!

I clicked my way through a bunch of them. Besides Closet Boy, I noticed one other site that kept showing up on people’s link lists: The Daily Dean. So I checked out his site. It contained short, snappy, sexy entries of erudite world-weariness and intelligent academia. And he was also pretty buff-looking.

So I decided, cool — I’ll start a blog of my own. I already had my own website on Geocities, so I just hopped on over to Blogger.com and within 10 or 15 minutes it was set up. I now had a blog on my website.

But what to do with it? I knew I wasn’t going to be crazy enough to post my innermost thoughts online. One reason I have a website is so that people can find out about me, and divulging all my innermost troubling thoughts (we all have them, don’t even pretend you don’t) isn’t really the best way to be appealing, is it?

Yeah. I’ll never post my personal thoughts here. Heh. Heheh. Heheheheh. MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! My spleen is about to burst I’m laughing so hard. That’s funny, isn’t it? Cripes. If only I’d known.

So I wrote a couple of short entries, and then I wrote admiring e-mails to both Closet Boy and Daily Dean, naively doing the “Hey, do you mind if I link to your site? Check out mine if you want!” thing, hint hint hint hint hint. Strangely, it worked, and they linked to me. (Actually, in the very same post in which Dean introduced me, he also introduced a couple of other guys who are still around. Because of that entry, I’ve always felt this odd little kinship with “RJ” and “Flip.” It’s like we came out at the very same debutante ball.)

So, off I went. Not gonna write about anything personal, huh? Well, within a week I found myself writing about Steve and his stupid eight dollars and fifty cents. I’d always written about my personal life, but only in my private journal. Now I was doing it for others to read. And it was kinda fun. A little scary, a little unsettling — but very liberating.

If I was going to do this, I had to separate the blog from my personal website. So I created a new Geocities account for it. Much better. (Eventually I moved to Blog*spot, and finally I took up Greymatter and set up my own domain name.)

I began writing a little more openly about my personal life. And then more. And then more.

I never stopped.

II. How It Got Its Name

First I didn’t know what to call it. Because my name’s Jeff, I hit upon “Jeffervescence.” But that sounded like a black drag queen. It was gone after a couple of days. So I changed the name to “Jeffluvia.” That was just ugly. And then…

…when I was in fifth grade, I had these three friends. The four of us hung out together, two boys and two girls. One day — lord knows why — we decided we’d be the characters from “The Wizard of Oz.” Zoe was the budding little diva, so she got to be Dorothy. Derek had something feline about him, so he was the Cowardly Lion. Liz, she was the Scarecrow. And me — well, I guess that made me the Tin Man. My teachers had always kidded me about being too serious. I was a brain. I liked my brain. Heart? Emotion? What’s that? I never trusted my feelings. You couldn’t explain feelings. You couldn’t prove feelings were right or wrong. Feelings weren’t real. I liked logic. Logic was real. Logic was solid and reliable. It was nice to pretend I had a metal body. So I became the Tin Man.

This all lasted about a week, and then I forgot about it for a long, long time.

Years later I had to set up an IM account, and I remembered it. Tin Man. Short and sweet.

And I knew I was gay now. Tin Man. Friend of Dorothy.

And after a few years of therapy, I’d learned to become more comfortable with my emotions. After all, law school taught me that logic could be twisted to prove anything you wanted it to prove. But emotions — emotions really existed. They were real. I didn’t have to change them. I only had to listen to them. Accept them. Emotions were true. It turned out I’d had a heart all along.

Just like the Tin Man.

Booyah.

III. How It’s Changed Me

Wow.

First, I’ve met some wonderful people. The very first blogger I ever met in person was Choire. Choire, do you remember?

(Actually, that’s not true. The very first blogger I ever met in person was a blogger I met through the personals, but that was before I decided to start a blog and before I knew he had one of his own. I’d name him now, if only he hadn’t stayed the night with me after our date, making such a mention seem indecorous now.)

Eventually, I met others in person. My gosh! A year ago, none of the following sounded like real words: ultrasparky, leatheregg, mermaniac, jonno, blogstalker. Now I feel like I’ve always known those names. And I’ve read lots more. All these words that would have made no sense to me a year ago — they’ve become part of my everyday language. What’s a kottke? What’s an evhead? What’s a megnut? Grey matter is that stuff inside your head, right? What’s a linkslut? Archives only exist in libraries. What’s a blogmeet? What the fuck’s a blog? Metafilter’s not a word.

I’ve learned a lot from so many people.

And I’ve become a more confident writer. When I kept a private journal on paper, the words would tumble from my pen whenever and wherever and however they wanted. This site was going to be different; I knew other people would be reading it. I could wear pajamas at home, but I wanted to get dressed when I went outside. So now — I write sentences. If they don’t look right, I change them. I add some. I get rid of some. I fix the grammar. This needs to be more pithy. I need to explain that better. Whoops, I screwed up a link. Hey, why is my entire entry in italics?

In college and law school I was a newspaper columnist. We had to write miniature essays, and they had to have some sort of internal structure, and they had to make a point. It was fun to do that, so it stuck with me. When I write my blog entries, I try to make a point. It doesn’t always happen, because some days are boring. But I try to say something insightful.

And I don’t think I could do it any other way. It’s just the way I am. I think too much. I’ve always thought too much, my whole life long. I’ve always gotten worried or stressed or anxious or curious or excited about one thing or another. I’ve always wanted to solve things with my brain. If I could just think my way through this! If I could just think my way to a solution!

I’m fully aware that sometimes it’s too much. That sometimes you get tired of it. Why aren’t I good at cruising should I really be having all this sex I wish I lived in New York my job is boring I can’t believe it actually happened pornolicious pecs what a weekend what a date when do you go on a second date how do I get myself into these things what do we have in common what’s the proper balance between gratitude and dissatisfaction should I get my chest waxed?

Christ, there goes the Tin Man again. Why can’t he just relax? Why can’t he just let it be? And he sure could use an editor.

It’s therapeutic. I do it for me. I’ve learned so much from putting my musings into words. I’ve learned so much from people’s responses to those musings. I’ve learned so much — from in-person meetings, from IM chats, from e-mails, from blog comments, from threads that spread to other people’s blogs. Erotic racism. Hairy guys versus smooth guys. Too much sex. Too little sex.

And I’ve learned to trust my own voice more. To trust my own thoughts. To listen to myself better than I thought I already did. I’ve learned that it’s okay to think weird things, because everyone does. I’ve learned that it’s okay to feel neurotic. I’ve learned to write about things even if it scares the crap out me that other people will read them. Hell, I’ve learned to write about things because it scares the crap out of me that other people will read them. I’ve learned that this is my brain and this is my life and this is my site and I can do what I want and write what I want and think and feel what I want and be what I want and it doesn’t matter.

Actually, I’m still learning all of those things.

I love the fact that I can write about my life, that I can write about what I’m thinking and feeling, that I can write about sex and worries and gay life and whatever the hell pops into my mind, that I can link to any damn thing I please, and that people will read it. Why? I don’t know. But it’s a thrill.

Who knew I could do this for a year? But if you’ve blogged for any length of time, you know it’s not that hard. You just do it. Day after day. Week after week. You don’t need a plan. You just write about your day. A lot. And suddenly a year has gone by.

Just like life.

But again. Why? Why do I do this?

I wrote the answer several years ago. I wrote it in my final college newspaper column.

I am an emotional exhibitionist. I have a strange desire to tell people how I feel. Every few weeks I give ten thousand readers my deepest thoughts. I often tell my friends how I feel as well, sometimes too much. Also, sometimes I go overboard with e-mail, giving my friends more soliloquies than they would like to hear. It sometimes gets on their nerves, but I can’t seem to stop. I enjoy it too much. Perhaps it’s an addiction.

I don’t like telling people how to think; instead, I prefer telling them how I feel. I do that in the hope that something I write will touch a chord. I want people to read what I write and discover my humanity, but I want them to see their own as well. We are all connected. Yet, at the same time, we will all leave this school with nothing but ourselves.

Only connect.

IV. My Favorite Entries

No anniversary entry would be complete without some of my faves. For whatever reason, the following entries from the past year stick out in my mind.

Do you remember:

+ The Top Ten Slogans for My Blog?

+ My e-mail exchange with a gay-basher?

+ My conversation with myself?

+ My conversation with Professor Al Gore?

+ Why I Write?

+ The first time I touched on one of my recurring inner conflicts?

+ The strange way in which I lost my glasses?

+ The time the Blogstalker and I went to a sex club?

+ The time I got mugged right after an HIV test?

+ The night I met Wes?

+ The story of Kirk?

+ The story of Scott?

+ My all-night walk up Park Avenue — which ended beautifully — a couple of days before the world changed?

+ September 11, 2001?

Jewish Lesbian Rock!

My busy social week continues. Last night I went to this thing called Pub Night with Mike and our mutual friends Dan and Russ. We all started out with a bunch of people at this bar called Fiddlesticks and then made our own way down to the Duplex. Nice time. Intelligent company. Beer. Music. Good.

As for tonight, tonight was Gay Jewish Night.

I went to this little meeting at this gay-friendly synagogue on the Upper West Side. It was a meeting to figure out how the gay wing of the synagogue can better serve its gay members. More beer, and also pizza, all free. A gab-fest. About 25 Jewish gay people of all ages. A gorgeous young rabbi. Entertainment by these two Jewish lesbian rockers who call themselves Estrogen. I swear. These two lesbians got up at the front of the room with guitars and did a few little folky Indigo-Girlish numbers, albeit explicitly lesbianish. It was like being at lesbian summer camp. And we were a room mostly full of men.

During the pizza-‘n’-beer mingling, I was talking with this one guy. After a while, he asked me, “Are you Tin Man?”

Oh, jeez.

I confessed. I said, “Yup… so I assume you read my site, or you used to read it until you got tired of it, or something…”

He seemed a little confused, and then he said his name, and I realized that he didn’t know my website at all. He knew me from a gay chatroom, in which I also use the name Tin Man. Creative of me, huh?

So he probably had no idea what I was talking about.

Anyway, he was uber-Jewish and so forth. And knew a lot more about Judaism than I do. He’s a grad student at the Jewish Theological Seminary, which would explain it.

You know what? I’m not sure what kind of religion I want in a guy. I don’t know if I want a Jewish guy, even. I don’t know. I think I basically want someone who’s religion-neutral. I could do without someone who’s going to drag me to Shabbat services all the time. You know what? Gay Jews can be pushy. Especially New York gay Jews. What a combination. I don’t want a pushy activist boyfriend.

Okay, so here I go, stereotyping my own sexual orientation and ethnic group and geographic locale all at the same time. Could I be any more awful?

An Insider’s Take on an

Outsider’s Take on Blogging

I’ve come across an interesting critique of blogging. It was written by a friend of mine. I think the analysis is pretty accurate and interesting and worth reading.

I should point out that I think it’s applicable only to blogs in which an author discusses his or her personal life. There are plenty of blogs out there that deal only with current events, or media happenings, or linkage, or whatever, and reveal next to nothing about what’s going on in the author’s life.

And yet there are low entry costs to blogging. Go to Blogger and you can set one up in minutes. Those low entry costs encourage a wide selection of people to create blogs. Anyone can do one. And most people like to write about what they know. And the things that most people are most informed about are their own lives. So a majority of blogs probably do serve primarily as personal diaries.

The piece raises several issues I’ve thought about before.

“Blogging sets up an incentive to create and overanalyze issues.”

I happen to know that that that sentence was prompted, at least in part, by some of my recent entries. So I’d like to comment.

I’m not quite sure the statement is true, at least not with respect to me. I don’t create and overanalyze issues because I blog; I blog because I create and overanalyze issues. If I didn’t blog, I would still create and overanalyze issues. It’s just that the blog gives me a public forum in which to do so.

But on the other hand… hmmm. Publish or perish, right? We all like having readers. And the best way to draw more eyeballs (and, more importantly, to keep those eyeballs) is by making sure your blog becomes a habitual read, which you do by updating your blog regularly. And this creates pressure to write — even when I may not have anything exciting to say. And it’s possible that in recounting my day in a way that makes it accessible to my audience, I’ll come up with things I hadn’t thought about. And that I’ll write about those things.

But is that bad? Well:

“I believe these ruminations ultimately do the primary author a dis-service. I’m all for analysis. But sometimes it’s good to stop and let the world go by. I would argue that a number of bloggers get so caught up in the very practice of blogging that they prevent themselves from enjoying any one day too much… I often wonder how paths would change if a compulsive blogger simply took a vacation for awhile.”

Okay. As a compulsive blogger, I think that’s a valid point. Again, though — if I weren’t writing about these thoughts, I’d still be thinking them. At least with a blog I’m exposed to some alternative viewpoints instead of thinking my thoughts in a echo chamber.

Also, I get to meet new people.

I can’t say I haven’t thought about it, though. Sometimes I try to remember what things were like before my life had a glass wall (or a translucent one, anyway). I like the interaction it’s brought me, though. So I’ll keep doing it.

Here’s a great issue:

“What happens when bloggers do things with people in real life, especially those who don’t blog but nonetheless know the blog exists? What happens is that the outsider starts reading about him or herself on a Web site. Social engagements become akin to those anxious meetings with journalists—you’re never sure what exactly will be on or off the record.”

Excellent point, one I’ve worried about. If I meet someone who reads my blog, will that reader feel inhibited when we hang out? If the reader starts to worry about being written about, that could get in the way of natural human interactions.

And it causes problems not only for the written-about reader, but for the writer, too.

It’s something I didn’t think about until I started meeting some of my readers. Until then, the barriers between blog and life were relatively watertight. When I started to meet my readers, I needed to create rules.

I’ve made it a practice not to write too much about the readers I’ve met. I once met one of my readers and thought he was totally cute, but I didn’t write about it here, because I was afraid of what he’d think if he knew.

(And yet, I haven’t heard from him since I first met him. Perhaps he just doesn’t want to read about himself here.)

Also, I rarely use a person’s real name here — reader or otherwise — unless the person is a fellow blogger, or unless it would be pointless to protect the person’s identity. For example, Mike and I know some of the same people, and he’s already used their real names, so there’s really no more identity-protecting I can do there.

In general, though, I try to avoid embarrassing a reader. I try not to reveal something that the reader wouldn’t want other people to know. If I had sex with a reader, I don’t think I’d write about it here.

This non-embarrassment clause also applies to people I interact with through e-mail or Instant Messenger or whatever.

Blogging is a power. It is a power that must be used wisely. It is a power that can fall into the wrong hands. (Cue “Lord of the Rings” theme music here.)

It is a power that can be used as a cop-out. If you want one of your readers to know something, and it would be embarrassing or awkward to tell that thing to the person directly, it could be tempting to tell the person by writing about it in your blog instead.

That isn’t something I’ve done yet — I don’t think. But it’s certainly possible. Because it’s easier.

And of course, there’s another danger in blogging — an obvious danger. A danger you can’t protect against. It’s the danger that someone in your life reads your blog regularly — and you, the writer, don’t know it.

Yikes.

And there’s a paradox inherent in quasi-anonymous personal blogging, too. On the one hand, I like getting more readers. On the other hand, I get nervous that some of those new readers will be people who I don’t want reading my blog: employers, parents, elderly relatives, or people who are mentioned here. For instance, when I agreed to be interviewed for an AP article about blogging a few months ago, I was thrilled by the possibility that it could bring in more readers. But it didn’t — and now, because of that article, you can find my blog by typing my name into Google. That was a big mistake on my part.

We bloggers — those of us who write about our personal lives, anyway — often adhere to the fiction that our blogs are unconnected to the real world, that what we write about doesn’t affect anything outside the blogging universe, that we can write whatever we want, that we don’t have to worry about how our words might affect others.

It’s important to remember that the walls are not watertight, that we don’t live in a parallel universe.

Only in a postmodern one.

Live, from the Bell Jar

Looks like I’m going to have to go out and read me some Sylvia Plath, seeing as how I’ve just been voted her soul sister. I was thinking to myself, wow, cool, I’ve won something! Then I surfed on over to the category descriptions. Ouch. Thanks, I think. Well — I’ll just try to keep a good sense of humor about the whole thing. And congratulations to all the other award recipients!

Neurotic and self-obsessed little drama queen that I am, I’ll move on and describe my weekend.

First of all, I had absolutely no sex with Wes last night.

That’s not particularly unusual. On most nights I have absolutely no sex with Wes. But last night I actually hung out with Wes, and hanging-out-with-Wes always leads to hooking-up-with-Wes. Except for last night.

Because I have a three-day weekend, I was going to go to Splash last night. But one friend came down with “stomach issues,” and then I realized I was all barred-and-clubbed out after two nights in a row at Barracuda, so I decided not to go. Then I ran into Wes online. We hadn’t seen each other in about two months, so he suggested we go out to Uncle Joe’s, Jersey City’s neighborhood gay bar. I’d never been there, so I decided, sure.

Pretty empty. Brightly colored walls with framed abstract paintings. Pool table. Jukebox. It was bring-your-own-vinyl-records night, so some random guy was spinning these random trance-like records for an audience of three. We played pool and had some drinks and talked for a couple of hours. More people trickled in. He started to yawn. He was tired and he mentioned heading home to “sleep like a baby.” So we left. Walked back to our neighborhood. Got to his apartment first. I managed to invite myself upstairs so I could reclaim a videotape (ahem) he’d borrowed from me a couple of months ago. I got my tape, but no sex. He gave me a quick smooch and we said our goodnights. Oh well.

But even if there was no sex, it was nice to hang out with him, as it usually is.

Perhaps this is God’s form of punishment. You wanna have less sex? Fine. How about I give you no sex at all? Ha! How do you like them apples?

Those apples are okay, but could I have some meaningful sex to go with them?

The rest of my weekend has been nice. On Saturday night I went to Barracuda with a friend, and we enjoyed all the nice scenery. It was productive in that I actually managed to talk to some of the scenery, which I’m usually too petrified to do.

See, my friend and I watched one guy introduce himself to another guy. Then we watched them talk for about an hour. Then we watched the second guy go off to another part of the bar by himself. I thought the first guy looked a little bit cute. Then we watched a wacky hunched old man with a fedora go up to him. He was making it clear he wasn’t interested — mostly by looking away, nodding half-heartedly to the old man’s muttered comments, and so forth. I figured this was my chance to intervene and rescue him, so I walked past him and we made eye contact and said hi. But I stupidly walked on without stopping.

Fortunately, the old man left him alone — and a few minutes later, after several deep breaths and some contradictory thoughts, I went over to him and said hi and smiled.

“Sorry about my lame attempt to rescue you from that old guy,” I said.

“Oh, that’s okay,” he said.

We talked for about 20 minutes. A university librarian who just moved to New York. Nice guy. I wasn’t particularly into him, though. Eventually I smiled, said “well, it was nice talking with you,” and excused myself.

I was proud of myself for talking with the guy. Because my problem isn’t conversing. My problem is actually going up to the guy in the first place. It’s nearly impossible for me. But I did it. Hooray!

As for this week, I’ve got two second dates, starting today. Should be nice.

Well — one neurotic and self-obsessed little drama queen, over and out.

Cost-Benefit Analysis

So. Anyone who knows my name can find my blog. This has made me hesitant lately.

Nevertheless, if I don’t write, you people are all gonna leave, and it’s like therapy for me anyway. So I’ll get on with it.

I’ve gone on two second dates this week. Both of them were movie dates. One of them included dinner beforehand. One of the movies was “The Royal Tennenbaums.” One of the movies was “Black Hawk Down.” Both movies were good. Neither date involved handholding or the least bit of physical contact. Neither guy even made an attempt at physical contact.

Well, okay, there was some. One of the second dates ended with a hug. The other second date ended with a goodbye handshake. Both guys expressed interest in third dates, though.

I’m frustrated.

To get to Union Square, I exit the PATH train at 14th Street and Sixth Avenue and walk along 14th Street for two or three long blocks. That stretch of avenue has such a high concentration of hot guys.

It’s frustrating.

I want a boyfriend. Lately. Lately I’ve really wanted a boyfriend. And I look at those guys walking along 14th Street, and I sit and watch “Black Hawk Down” and see all these hot guys with military haircuts, and then we say goodnight and I walk back to the PATH and I see more hot guys, and then I look at myself in the mirror and I think to myself, I need a haircut.

Oh, and I fell off the wagon the other night. If you want to call it that.

I’d changed my chat room profile. I’d added the line, “Not looking for insta-hookups.” But consequently, fewer people were talking to me. So I removed the line, hoping that at least more people would feel like chatting.

And some people did. I was approached by a few different people. Horny people. And after weighing it in my mind and telling one of the guys, “Lately I’ve been trying to get to know people first before having sex,” he told me that in all honesty he was horny. And I decided, argh, dammit, no, yes, no, yes, no, well, okay, I guess I’m sorta horny too. But I wasn’t. Yeah, my body was. But my mind didn’t want to have sex.

I was walking over to meet him and I was telling myself that I wanted to turn back. I didn’t want to do it. I wanted to go home. But my feet kept moving. It had been so long. It was like part of me needed to do it.

So I did it. And it wasn’t very exciting. It wasn’t even all that extensive, actually. And there wasn’t even any kissing. There was a very satisfying explosive ending on my part, but I went home feeling unsatisfied, emotionally and mentally.

A couple of people have told me not to be hard on myself about having done this. So I won’t be. Or at least I’ll try to move on.

I’m frustrated though. I’m craving a companion lately.

So.

Anyone who knows my name can find my blog.

So it may be detrimental to me to be writing about these things.

Yet I’m doing it anyway.

Cost-benefit analysis.

I guess I’ve decided the benefits to myself outweigh the potential costs.

Right now, at least.

photos of the Manhattan skyline, taken a short walk from my apartment

Unblock

Yep, I haven’t written in a while. It’s amazing how not getting nominated for a Bloggie for Best GLBT Weblog can give a guy so much writer’s block.

To get unblocked, I wrote this long heartfelt entry about how pissed I am. I’m not going to post it, though, because I wrote some not-particularly-nice things about some people. Instead, I’ll just echo Jonno: no fucking comment.

Anyway.

Last night I went to this party in the meatpacking district. Lots of cute gay guys, and a disproportionate number of short ones, which always makes me happy. And it all felt so New Yorky. The casting director for “Survivor” cut in front of me on the bathroom line. James Gandolfini lived directly upstairs. So cool.

After the party, I met up with a friend who’s just moved from Brooklyn to the East Village, and we went to the Phoenix, everyone’s favorite East Village gay bar. I ran into two dates there.

First off, I ran into this East Village guy whom I met for drinks a couple of weekends ago. He’d been cute, but a little too East Villagey for me. And the night had ended with no sex. He’d yawned and had been tired and had needed to leave or something.

And so I ran into him last night.

The weird thing is, I ran into him on Friday night, too, at Barracuda. He was there with a friend, and I wound up hanging out with the two of them. He’d IM’d me at work that day, but at Barracuda, he didn’t seem to want me around. I was getting a bad vibe from him. His friend was nice, though, so I stayed.

And then I saw him last night at Phoenix. This time he was with a different guy. I didn’t want to be rude, so I dragged my friend over and we said hi and then we moved on.

A few seconds later, I turned around and he was kissing the guy he was with.

I don’t even want to date the guy, but for some reason this pissed me off. It was like passive-aggressive rejection or something.

A few minutes later my friend and I ran into one of my Date Bait dates, who was there with a friend. Apparently yesterday was his 30th birthday.

We’d seen a movie earlier in the week, and afterwards, he’d suggested we get together again this weekend so we could have a date that involved talking. But neither of us had called the other yet this weekend. And last night at the bar, after talking with us for a few minutes, he left with his friend. That was that.

So I don’t know what’s going on.

Man, this is the lamest entry ever.

You know, I’ve been considering taking a vacation from blogging. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. At any rate, not getting a Bloggie nomination, and the increasing lack of anonymity, and a dry spell in my life — all are making me question why I’m doing this. I just haven’t felt like putting in the effort lately.

So I’ll just end this entry now before it gets any lamer.

Cleansed

I feel better now.

I’ve read your comments. And I’ve done lots of thinking. (Big surprise there.)

Alan is right. All of you were right, in fact. (At least those of you who left your names. Hey, Mr. Oy Vey: I hope you’re enjoying NYU Medical School.)

It’s so simple, really. This is mine. I do it for me. If you get some enjoyment out of it, that’s even better. If you don’t, it doesn’t matter.

I’ve always had this problem. I’ve always spent way too much time worrying about the people who don’t like me. That’s stupid, especially with something like a blog.

Oh, and I’m going to stop worrying about whether this is a blog or an online journal.

I’m happy with my site. I’m happy with the people who are happy with my site. I’m glad people find value in it. That’s great.

And your comments were great, too:

Dezz is right. I’ve hungered for external sources of validation too much.

Alan stated what my site is, when all is well: “It comes across as itself.” I’m going to try to remember that more. It is what it is. Nothing more and nothing less.

Finally, Huntington is right in quoting Eleanor. No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Anyway, I had therapy tonight. Just picture me trying to explain the Bloggies to my therapist. So, you know this website I have… well, they call these things ‘blogs’… it’s short for ‘weblogs’… wow, it’s always weird to say the word ‘blog’ out loud…

We talked about the Bloggies.

We talked about sex. (I’ve still been having it, a little.)

We talked about boyfriends.

We talked about my hair. (Here’s a tidbit: my biggest insecurity about my physical appearance is my hair. I have curly hair, and I had a big afro when I was a kid. Have you seen “The Royal Tennenbaums”? Remember the little boys, Ari and Uzi? They were me. Except I had much tighter curls.)

We talked about how I’m too judgmental of myself — and of other people. Those are related, ya know.

We talked about me wanting to be less shy in bars.

It was a pretty productive 45 minutes.

In other news: I watched “Buffy” tonight. I’ve been steadily working my way through the daily double dose on FX, and it’s fun to follow the story by actually watching the episodes in order. So it’s strange when there’s a new episode on UPN. Thoughts about tonight’s show:

1) Ewwwww.

2) I can’t believe there were commercials for Wendy’s and McDonald’s during the hour! What were they thinking?

3) I miss Tara. (I miss Giles, too.)

4) Addiction storylines: *shiver.* I’ve never done well with addiction storylines. Drugs, magic, whatever; the idea of addiction has always freaked me out. I’ve smoked exactly one-half of a cigarette in my life, and I’ve never done drugs. And I never want to. There was an article in the Times today about gay men and crystal meth and I got all queasy and shaky after the first few paragraphs.

I also watched “Smallville” tonight. I’ve been watching it for a couple of months. It’s not as good as “Buffy,” but it’s better than most shows on TV. And Tom Welling is so wholesome and yummy.

Anyway, to sum up:

We’re back.

Fuck Off, Mrs. Roosevelt

So, you might remember that a few weeks ago, on a Sunday afternoon, I met this guy online who was totally stunning. He came to my apartment, and I graciously scanned his photos, and I totally fell for him. Nothing happened sexually, but he was really nice and friendly and said he “definitely” wanted to hang out again sometime. We exchanged phone numbers.

The next night, Monday, we were chatting online again, and he invited me to have lunch that upcoming weekend. He said he’d be in contact later in the week.

By Thursday, he hadn’t contacted me. So Thursday night I left him a message. No response. The next night I left another message, suggesting we meet on Saturday. No response. Saturday came and he didn’t call. Didn’t call me Sunday, either. And I didn’t even see him online at all during this time.

Granted, I didn’t leave him my phone number, because I knew he already had it.

At the end of the following week I sent him an e-mail from my Yahoo account.

Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 15:19:25 -0800 (PST)

Jeff

And that was that. Still hadn’t heard from him.

Now it’s tonight. I’m on Instant Messenger. And for the first time since we chatted online, his screen name pops up on my buddy list. Holy shit. He’s actually online.

So I decide to IM him.

I’ve left the timestamps in, so you can see how much time elapses before each of my responses to him.

I was also having a chat with a friend at the time, and I was continually conferring with the friend about the chat below as it was happening. You’ll pretty much have to infer my thoughts, though.

TinMan1973JC (12:26:47 AM): hey there…

[Him] (12:27:04 AM): i swear to god that I was just writing an apology reply to your note

TinMan1973JC (12:27:14 AM): whoa! ESP…

[Him] (12:27:20 AM): there is the first sentence in your mail

TinMan1973JC (12:27:50 AM): my yahoo mail?

[Him] (12:28:09 AM): the reason why you have not heard from me is for two reasons: the start of the semester and dissertation and a new man in my life. (yes, the yahoo mail)

TinMan1973JC (12:28:31 AM): oh, wow, cool

[Him] (12:28:59 AM): it is cool, but i never know how to proceed appropriately wioth these things…to fast, to slow. you know?

TinMan1973JC (12:29:27 AM): well, you probably can’t do a disseration too fast or too slow :-)

[Him] (12:29:58 AM): i wish i could

TinMan1973JC (12:30:01 AM): yeah.

[Him] (12:30:03 AM): fast, i mean

TinMan1973JC (12:30:12 AM): well, congrats on the guy.

[Him] (12:30:36 AM): thank you. so what are your plans next week – for a meal at [xxxxx] or something

[Him] (12:30:43 AM): ?

TinMan1973JC (12:30:52 AM): i think next week’s pretty empty so far

TinMan1973JC (12:31:04 AM): ok, so all of a sudden that weekend you got busy?

[Him] (12:31:33 AM): all of a sudden i spent the entire weekend with him, from start to finish – a late finish i might add

TinMan1973JC (12:31:54 AM): gotcha

[Him] (12:31:57 AM): and it was totally inappropriate that i did not even call.

[Him] (12:32:02 AM): i apologize

TinMan1973JC (12:32:21 AM): well, it’s ok… i figured i was just getting the brush-off. actually i didn’t even know what to think.

TinMan1973JC (12:33:08 AM): i thought you were giving me the brush-off, but then i thought, no, he seemed like an incredibly nice guy and he said he definitely wanted to hang out again, so maybe i’ll just assume it was something else…

[Him] (12:33:28 AM): i like that you thought that, thank you

[Him] (12:34:07 AM): so how is wednesday night at about 7:30 at [xxxxx] – if i don’t show, then you can think that i am an asshole

TinMan1973JC (12:35:04 AM): that should probably work.

[Him] (12:35:17 AM): excellent

TinMan1973JC (12:35:40 AM): anyway, congrats for you — how’d you meet?

[Him] (12:35:55 AM): walking in hoboken

TinMan1973JC (12:36:06 AM): ah

TinMan1973JC (12:36:07 AM): wow

[Him] (12:36:30 AM): it has never happened that way for me before

TinMan1973JC (12:37:40 AM): that’s cool.

[Him] (12:37:46 AM): so how is it in the law front

TinMan1973JC (12:37:52 AM): not bad

[Him] (12:38:00 AM): good

TinMan1973JC (12:38:02 AM): unexciting

TinMan1973JC (12:38:05 AM): laid-back

TinMan1973JC (12:38:08 AM): nonstressful

[Him] (12:38:18 AM): lol

[Him] (12:39:33 AM): ok, well i have to run. are we good for wed @ 7:30 @ [xxxxx]?

TinMan1973JC (12:39:54 AM): sure. am i still getting an email? or did you basically say what you were going to?

[Him] (12:40:14 AM): do you know why i did not call you back? becuase i could not find your number and when my phone is off the caller id does not work and you did not leave it again

TinMan1973JC (12:40:33 AM): ah

TinMan1973JC (12:40:57 AM): anyway, if my plans change i’ll let you know…

TinMan1973JC (12:41:03 AM): otherwise, wed 7:30 sounds good…

[Him] (12:41:17 AM): perfect. the email that is best for me is [xxxxxx]

TinMan1973JC (12:41:28 AM): got it.

[Him] (12:41:41 AM): cool. talk to you (see you) soon.

TinMan1973JC (12:41:44 AM): see ya!

I was feeling devstated. I was feeling upset. My stomach was actually queasy.

But of course things have to turn out this way. He’s this totally good-looking and smart guy who once won an underwear contest at Splash. And I’m me. What other result should there be? No, he can’t just blow me off; no, he has to have MET someone, too. And it’s probably some totally hot gorgeous model guy, because those types of people always wind up with each other.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. No one can make —

Oh, screw you, Mrs. Roosevelt.

Those guys never want me.

Okay, okay, Eleanor Roosevelt was right. And you know what? I actually hooked up with this tall, cute, smart, club-kid-lookin’ guy last night, after having coffee and a long conversation and then going back to his place and ordering Chinese food. And I was kind of amazed that he was interested in me.

But this still hurts. Because I’m me.

Oh — and as for Mr. Stunning: he certainly did have my phone number, once I sent him that e-mail. And I know he still has that e-mail, because he sent me the first sentence of his response tonight, and the subject line was “Re:” my original subject line. So, nice try, pal.

Anyway. Will I have dinner with him on Wednesday? I don’t know. I’m afraid I’ll get angry at him.

You know what? I’m always so afraid of getting angry at people directly. I’m always afraid they’ll respond with even more hostility. I’m also afraid I’ll come off seeming like a lunatic — I’m afraid I’ll lose control and start saying things that are totally illogical and don’t make any sense. And logic and calmness are always my finest weapons. But maybe I’m being too much of a lawyer. Maybe I’m being too much of the Tin Man.

But screw it. I think I’m going to write him a letter. Right now as I write this I don’t want to keep it all buried. I want him to know how pissed off I am. I want him to know how pissed I am that he totally blew me off. I want him to know how pissed I am that he showed me zero respect as a person.

(By the way, yeah, the time of this entry is earlier than the times on the IM chat. That’s because I actually posted an empty entry earlier tonight so I could fill it in later, not knowing what I was going to write about. And then the IM chat happened.)