One new blog I’ve recently discovered is Tort(e). It’s written by two gay men, each in a different city, and they’ve got this quirkiness that I like:

Tort(e) is about whether things in our respective lives are torts against us, torts committed by us, tortes because of how great they taste (even if they’re bad for us)… or some combo of all of that.

Check it out for yourselves.

While I’m at it, there’s a blogger I’ve been meaning to thank. He starting blogging during the week that I stopped, so we never crossed paths, which sort of makes us the Cordelia and Riley of the Blogiverse. I stumbled across his site a few months ago and was charmed by his writing and wit, as many others already had been. His entries reminded me of how much fun blogging could be. I began to envy the fact that he was doing it and I wasn’t. There are several reasons why I began blogging again, and Dr. Faustus is one of them.

I’ve already thanked him privately, so I guess this is the public one.

After you’ve sat in a bar with him and talked for an hour and a half; after lulls in the conversation that are filled with two-second gazes into each other’s eyes (a longer time than it sounds, really), gazes broken by mutual shyness; after you’ve asked him if he’d like to go, and he’s picked up the tab himself; after you’ve walked a few blocks back to the area where you both live, after you’ve asked him if he’d like to hang out a while longer, after he’s responded by inviting you back to his place; after you’ve sat there on opposite ends of his couch, facing each other, continuing to talk for another hour or so, and he’s broken every silence by asking you questions about yourself; after you’ve decided it’s time to say it, so this time you break the silence and say to him, “You’re cute,” but it comes out sounding much more abrupt and blunt than you hoped it would; after all of that, how would you hope for him to respond?

Thank you. So are you.

or

Thank you. You’re adorable.

But he responds:

Thank you.

and his eyes dart away awkwardly.

I can actually hear the crickets chirp.

Points of ellipsis struggle to form in the air… and evaporate.

“I guess I shouldn’t have said that,” I say; “I guess you don’t think I’m cute,” trying to sound flirty and jokey.

“I didn’t say that.”

But you didn’t not.

Dot dot dot.

The night still ends with kissing and clothed cuddling on the couch.

And ambiguity.

Yesterday my best friend called me from the South Pole to ask for legal advice.

I swear I am not making this up.