Luke is in Puerto Rico with his chica and trying to go to Oxford. Oxford, Mississippi. It seems like a strange choice to me but who am I to judge?

Mick saved my ass on good Friday. Not a bad day to get your ass saved. He had a holiday but I did not. I had to do something hard at the office that I couldn't do without Mick and he took time off from his holiday to help me out. Mick's good that way and he saved my ass.

I had Easter dinner at a restaurant in Heckendorf. They had three different kinds of rabbit on the menu! Happy Easter! Have some bunny! The Germans are a special people.

Before that, I spent saturday in the sauna with Brad. The Munich sauna. I was mad at him because he had sex with a guy a couple days before whom he described as "hot" and then he found out that the guy was exactly MY age. Brad couldn't believe that he had sex with someone "decades older" than he ("decades older" my ass! - and, for the record, I am better looking than Brad who looks like a collection of spare parts gathered from all sides). But I'm not bitter.

On Saturday he couldn't attract any attention at all. There is nothing more tedious than a horny, bitchy queen who can't get laid. Fortunately for us all, his luck changed.

I, on the other hand, was having a spectacular day despite my advanced age.

Later, in fact, an even more closely extinguished ancien than myself invited me to be his paid escort for the night! I stipulated "no sex" and then agreed upon a price, expenses and logistics. It was a hoot. He was handsome even though he was decades older than I. For an extra thou I'd have thrown in the sex.

I suppose it wasn't a traditional Easter weekend but it seems less harmless than nailing a guy up, surreptitiously making off with the earthly remains and then checking out a tomb that you think was raided. Easter is a wierd holiday. I never did get it.

Now, at least, I'm getting it.

Flannery flayed me alive at lunch and feasted on my entrails. I walked straight into it too. Oh, it was all going nicely enough, and everyone was sure happy to see her walk in but then (me and my big mouth) I had to poke fun at Denis for ordering capuccino in an Italian restaurant after noon (I ordered espresso and the others had big, femmy latte macchiatos).

It all seemed to go over in good humor but then, after a suitable interval (having been lulled into a sense of false security) she let me HAVE it. She dressed me down like a school marm on speed, and all in that lovely, lilting brogue of hers! It was a fantastic display of a man being eviscerated in front of a group. I was speechless! Dumbfounded! And then, at the end of it, I was in awe. Oh that I posessed such a tounge, such an edge! And then the laughter came. It was a JOKE! The whole thing was a JOKE! Even as the others began laughing I sat there in dumb silence, not understanding.

It's no wonder we all love Flannery (I have a newfound respect for Scott).

Scott was lovely too. We bantered back and forth about important and banal things. He's a wonderful conversationalist. You'd think he had some Irish in him. He has a golden repartee. I've likely insulted him twice in one sentence. Irish heritage and a French gift of gab. If I'm not careful he'll set Flannery on me again.

Flan's wound up today because her twin sister Hector is coming to town for Easter. I can't imagine Flannery and Hector together with Scott between them. (Well, actually... no, never mind) anyway, it's going to be quite an Easter over there.

Sinead was great too. She has been in Germany so long that (despite her Irishness) she has become a didact. The subject of the day was Pygmy vision. I can't say I've ever had luncheon conversation about Pygmy physiognomy (Pygmyognomy??) but there's a first time for everything.

Under Sinead's careful guidance, we learned that Pygmies only have a visual distance range of about three feet. It has to do with their jungle habitat and their shortness of, well, everything. In short, Pygmies are short sighted.

I made a series of unfortunate Pygmy jokes... like "What is a Pygmy without any manners called?" "Pygmalion!" I shouted in triumph. "What is a Pygmy with more than one wife?" "Pygmamist!" I gleefully announced. And so it went until I saw Flannery's eyes narrow and her nostrils flare. That's when I made a hasty retreat to the bathroom.

By the time I got back the storm had passed.

This weekend is Easter. Our jolly table we hosted one unknown, one athiest, one pagan, one buddhist and one christian. We all agree that we like bunnies.

Happy Easter!

My once and maybe future lover Joe is still in Iraq duking it out with the insurgents in his role as a Marine Corps company commander. It's been ugly. We exchange emails whenever we have the chance.

Lately, we have been having an email argument about the Asam brothers churches. I hate em, he likes em. But then, he's a Marine and given to certain excesses. I think the excesses are because of the spartan dicipline imposed by his monastic career (editorial? I think not) but that doesn't sum up the argument we have. He just likes rennaissance, baroque and roccocco plain and simple. When he is old, he's going to have silly china patterns and curly que silver patterns, I am sure of it. He's made for Francis the first. Me? I'm a bauhaus / mid century modern boy. Plain and simple.

I like looking at the stuff but don't want to live with it. I like clean lines and simplicity of design.

Anyway, Joe and I have been arguing about the Asam Kirche (right next door to their house on Sendlinger Str) in Munich. I hate it. He doesn't.

He had just sent me a long missive about the whys and wherefores of it all, using terms like "sacred theater" and "counter reformation" etc., etc. (That university education really paid off)

I include my reply to him, not for benefit of THE ARGUMENT but to illustrate that I still can't get PRAGUE out of my system.

Here's my email to him from this morning:

Meine Liebste Herr Professor!! (note the germanic spelling of your last name to reinforce philosophical intent of lessons well learned) -

I THANK YOU for the lesson indeed! You bring to mind things I knew but forgot and maybe never knew. One must review it all now and again, anyway. How could I have misplaced that pesky detail, the counter-reformation?!

A series of bizarre cosmic twists surround your kind email to me. I will try to list them in a manner that lets you draw your own conclusions.

The cosimc evidence:

1. I received your email after I departed on my trip, thus had not read it until today (I extended my trip because I was enjoying it too much and it was ridiculously inexpensive and I was under budget).

2. I decided at the very last minute to go to Prague instead of Amsterdam because I didn't want to drive so far and I hadn't been to Prague since 1987.

3. I stopped in Rohr to see Maria Himmelfahrt on the way because to go to Prague you have to go through Regensburg anyway (I liked it).

4. St. John Nepomuk was thrown into the Vltava (Moldau) river to his death from the Charles Bridge by King Wenceslas the 4th. I saw his statue. I saw his church. I saw him EVERYWHERE in Prague, even on the astronomical clock!

There are a few other cosmic meteoric tails that I could list as well (surrounding my trip) but the cord is thickest at those listed above so I leave you to draw your own conclusions, especially in light of our recent visit and correspondence.

With regards to ROME. My habitual hotel in Rome is the BERNINI BRISTOL which is at a lovely triangle just below via Veneto at one of the best known Bernini fountains. One of my most often visited statues in Rome is Teresa in Ecstasy. I confess that when I visited that statue with my sister and her partner I made a quip of a different nature about Teresa in ecstasy but was hit hard (to the point of bruising) by both of them because nobody is allowed to call my sister Teresa anymore.

So, with thoughts of gothic, rennaissance, baroque and etc. in mind, I drove into Prague, arriving at a sensible 3 PM and finding my way directly through the old town, across a bridge and to my 4 star hotel with no difficulty. St Anthony of Padua was with me.

Joe - it's a ridiculous thing. My room was a SUITE with two rooms, a bath that was more a temple than a bathroom, a wet bar, a coffee bar and the biggest bed I have ever slept in. Including the parking in the garage (a technological 4 tiered wonder that beggars my little lift style garage at home: 4 bays each, 16 cars per side and all operated by a computer that measures and weighs your car before you put it in!!!!) oh - and including my breakfast (sumptuous): the entire cost per night was 73 dollars.

Needless to say, I parked the car and left it parked until my departure. Prague is a walker's delight.

Have you been there? When they say that it escaped bombing during the war and that the old buildings are all as they were, one hears that sort of thing but upon seeing it one comprehends what so many of the old European cities must have been before they were flattened. It is a breathtaking cityscape of spire after dome after tower after wall, etc. One on top of the other in every style and scale from the gothic to the modern. The cubist movement in architecture came to full flower there, Art Noveau rules the jewish quarter and new town, Gothic treasures beyond the pale and then, of course, the ubiquitous stamp of the Hapsburgs and the Kinskys are all over the place.

St. Vitas Cathedral (where good king Wenceslas no longer looks out but is buried) is a treasure that spans from the 14th century to modern times. The art nouveau window by Alphons Muca is breathtaking, as are many of the other modern, almost pointillistic windows. They are no better or worse than the much older ones. It's an intriguing, amazing cathedral. I aim to go back and spend several hours there with my notebook, sketchbook and camera.

Prague is young and vibrant feeling though. The people are wonderful, the restaurants are beyond the pale, there is live music (lots of jazz too) everywhere and the clubs don't open until 11 at night. The restaurants all serve supper until 5 in the morning. At three and four in the morning the streets were full of people.

I found a wonderful french restaurant (they are many), a wonderful italian restaurant (also many) and great czech stuff. And the beer! Those bavarians only THINK they know how to make beer.

On one sidewalk sandwich sign I saw was the following written in chalk: "BEER 6 kinds of goulash live jazz."

If I ever open up a restaurant, a jazz club or a gay bar I am going to name it "6 kinds of goulash."

You've probably heard everything I have to say about Prague. I know Jeff goes there alot and others. I hope I haven't been tedious.

I will just add, in closing, that it was an especially easy city for me because everyone there speaks Russian beautifully.

Oh! I forgot one thing... I met a terribly nice anthropologist / historian at St. Vitus. I had her as a private tour guide. When we were done, she invited me to join her for a cup of coffee and suggested a coffee bistro called THE FRANZ KAFKA CAFE but "I'll warn you" she said... "It's a little dark!"

Isn't that delicious?

Best Wishes and congratulations on finally skiing the great divide on your recent R&R trip.
Love from Me...
p.s., What are you doing for easter, sand fleas and goat? I will bask in comfort at the table of the absent minded professor and earth mother. Pleased don't hate me for saying so.

I didn't know what to expect in Prague. Oh, I'd heard from people who had been there that it is beautiful and unspoiled (whatever that means) but I went with an open mind.

I'd read that it's the GAY CAPITAL OF EASTERN EUROPE (whatever THAT means) but even so, I went with an open mind.

I was unprepared. When one hears that a place escaped bombing during the war and that it is called "the city of a hundred spires" as a result it gives a sort of idea but seeing it is something else altogether.

When you look back towards the castle from the Charles Bridge - just high enough so you've started to walk the small rise of the bridge and then turn around - you see what looks like all the old engravings you've ever seen of all the great cities before they were spoiled but this time it's in the clear light of day and it's huge and it's three dimensional and it's real. Breathtaking. Spires, towers, domes, more spires, well - you get the idea. On top of it all, the castle and St. Vitus cathedral where good old King Wenceslas no longer looks out because he's buried.

The Hapsburgs took down a lot of the old castle and built their italianate / baroque things, same as always but they are nice enough. There are some remnants of the very old.

That cathedral is amazing because it was finished in modern times, thus has some modern windows. They are beautiful. One is an art noveau window by Alphons Muca and some of the others look like they could have been painted by Utrillo but they weren't of course. It's the best stained glass I've seen in a long time.

The LOCALS are sure proud of their town. Rightly so.

I bought 300 bucks worth of bohemian crystal but was wondering what to do, come back for it? Go back to the hotel with it? What? The lady who owns the shop said "Where's your hotel? I'll have my son take it there." They did it too. When I returned to my room later that night (well, the next morning) there was my glass; boxed, wrapped, bagged and sitting on the sofa in my suite.

More sightseeing and picture taking and general wandering filled the day. I saw the theater where Mozart first staged DON GIOVANNI (don't be concerned by this, I am not an opera queen).

I decided to have dinner in a nice little jazz club and wouldn't you know it, my waiter was gay. He's nice and was flirty. He was about to finish his shift so I invited him to join me for a drink and he did. We listened to George Mraz and his trio play (superb) until 1:00 Am and then he suggested we go to a bar called "friends." They were friendly all right.

Then my new friend and I went to take a sauna at Babylonia so we did.

Babylonia is a nice place. It's owned and operated by two brothers, both gay, and employs a few other guys, all nice. Karel (Charles) is the masseur - he's a physical therapist and professional massage therapist and a singer in his spare time. He sings jazz and does it well, according to the Babylonia staff and regulars.

The sauna was ambient. They have the only hot tub in Prague and it's a big, clean one. The whole place was spotless. After we soaked and steamed we decided to get something to eat. No problem because the restaurants serve supper until 5:00 AM. It isn't Germany!

We went to a French restaurant. We had stroganoff and salads and chased it all down with a good Bordeaux while listening to a french gypsy group. Then, it being about 6 in the morning, I decided it was time for bed so I prepared to say farewell to my new pal. He said he had the next day off so I asked him if he lived far. "Not far." he said.

"Do you want to come back to my hotel with me?"
"Yes" he smiled.

We went in, not even raising an eyebrow of the front desk clerk. We went up to my room and put out the DO NOT DISTURB sign. While the sun was starting to come up we fell asleep in each others arms.

Bart Bink was good company and I was sorry to see him go. I got so relaxed and into his visit that I decided to abandon the office for the rest of the week. Thursday I went to Prague.

Before quitting Germany, Bart and I had a final romp. Then he headed south and I headed north. Appropriate given the recent give and take of our bedroom norths and souths.

Driving was EASY. There was no traffic. I left at 7 O'clock in the morning and by 1:00 PM my car was in the hotel garage. I parked between a red citroen and a yellow lancia.

Nice hotel; a sweet little 5 star with only 30 rooms situated just down the hill from the castle. The bathroom of the place is a temple and there's a sitting room with two plush leather sofas, a wet bar, a tv and all the comforts of home. The entire long wall of the room is full of windows that let in lots of light and air. The bed is huge and luxurious.

I decided to take a walk to orient myself to the town but then remembered that I had engaged a private tour guide to do just that at 3:00 O'clock so I opted for a light lunch and a nap.

The guide was fantastic. She is an anthropologist and historian by training but makes a better living as a tourguide. Typical. She showed me things in Prague that it would have taken me weeks of floundering around to find. Like an art noveau bank that was built as the first bank that did business in the Czech language and Czech currency. It was built at the end of the 19th century and the Hapsburgs were fond of putting a stick in the eye of their subjects. The banks and casinos and other businesses were all German speaking and in the currency of the Hapsburgs. Not this one though, it was built by the Prague nobles and it is a palace, literally, all done in the art noveau style. A working bank to this day, it qualifies without competition as the most elegant surroundings ever provided for an ATM machine. The tellers booths, offices, grand staircases, etc., are beyond the pale examples of Art Noveau.

My guide also gave me a good overview of the gay areas and explained to me that there was absolutely no stigma to being gay in Prague. When asked why, she explained that it was a holdover from Communism. Under Communism, no church. No church, no stigma.

Prague is an interesting place.

"Hi, my name's Bart Bink."
"What?" I said.
"Bink" he said. "Bart Bink."
"You're kidding, right? Bink? Bart Bink?"
"No," he said, "I'm not kidding. That's my name. I blame my mother for it. My dad wanted to name me Bill."
"That's hardly better," I said.
"I know" he said, "it's a curse having a name like Bink. A curse, I tell you. I think that's why I turned out gay. Imagine going through school with the name Bink. Pink Bink. Kink Bink. Blink Blink. I've heard 'em all."
"Well, Bink," I said, "nice to meet you."

And THAT is how it all started the other night at the bar at Kr@ft Akt. See, my friend Brad was getting ignored by his boyfriend and I thought I'd better get the hell out of the way before the fireworks started so I went and sat at the bar. That's when this other Amerikan abroad - Bart Bink - came along and introduced himself.

I sized Bart up. He stood about six feet and weighed about 175 and looked about 35 and had a buzz cut. Boyish but mature all at the same time. Not pretty not ugly just a guy. I liked Bart right away.

"What brings you to Munich, Bart?"
"Just travelling."
"Where to next?"
"I hear there's good skiing in Garmisch"
"Garmisch?"
"Yeah."

And THAT is how Bart Bink ended up in my apartment after a night of drinking and sauna in Munich and he is still there. He's not in the guest room either. Bart likes me as much as I like him. It can't last though, it's just a fling. I could never be Mrs. Bink and he would never give up a name like Bart Bink (now that he's over the shock of it he likes it) for a mundane surname like my own.

I worked all day thinking of him skiing all day and what waited for me when I got home.

Bart's not just a pretty face. A great dinner and a good wine and a great movie and some good conversation and MORE was what waited for me when I got home.

I don't know how long he's going to stay. He said something about going to Italy from here but wondered if maybe I wanted to take a couple days off and go to Amsterdam with him.

I think I might.

I could get used to Bart Bink.

Lucy the dog 

some photos 

The absent minded professor has fallen and he can't get up. On Thursday his legs went straight out from underneath him and he slammed flat on his back against the ground. The ice did it. We have so much snow and ice. It's no laughing matter. One of the lesbians that worked for me totalled her car on it on Thursday. Thursday was a bad day for a lot of people.

Friday was a bad day for Brad. We were in a coffee shop in Munich (Kr@ft Akt) surfing and drinking beers and just goofing off when his german boyfriend came in and sat at the bar. He didn't see us back there but we saw him. Flirt flirt flirt with cute guy at bar, whispers, kisses and they left together. Brad was ruined and so was the evening.

Saturday was a bad day for my housekeeper. She was almost run over by a crazy german driver and fell on the ice and hit her head. She seems sensible still but she has a headache. The doctor said "no concusion."

Sinead played phone tag with me and Flannery is back from Scotland but I haven't seen either of them.

Work is smelly. Where's my trust fund?

It's axiomatic that when straight friends start telling you their sex fantasies they are going to end the discussion with a proclamation of being "bi-curious." The assumption by the party of the first part is that the party of the second part will be ready and willing to assist the party of the first part because the party of the second part can never resist an opportunity to excercise the third part. Of course that is nonsense. It might work that way with dogs and cats but gays are slightly more complicated when it comes to "closing the deal."

Just such a thing happened in Berlin last night. The straight U.S. Army officer started telling me all about his sex fantasy and sure enough ended up the monologue with a declaration of bi curiousness. Happens every time. I suggested he get on the web and join a swingers group.

The next day he seemed more than vaguely disappointed with me and said "we have to talk" (as if to imply something more than a passing acquaintence).

Later that evening he talked. The more he talked the queasier I became. I ended up explaining to him that it is neither my mission nor my desire in life to help bi curious married men self actualize and again repeated my suggestion that he engage in a swingers group or something.

The point of mentioning it is that when people travel and are far from HOME they seem willing to say and do things that they haven't the courage to do otherwise.

I'm all for liberality, self expression and the like but I sure don't want to help thirty something army officers work through their crises. It can only go badly.

Two weeks ago I had an email from Joe the Marine in Iraq. His commander found out he was GAY because he walked in on Joe and another Marine doing the nasty in Joe's stateroom. GAY. No question.

Joe's commander said "If you think this is going to get you out of the Marine Corps and out of Iraq, think again."

Ironic, isn't it, that since we have a shooting - NO - a getting shot AT war going on, nobody minds the fact of a queer in uniform.

Since that incident, Joe emails, the word has crept out (as such word always does) and every guy in his company that has ever had a fantasy has come to him with it.

It is NOT the responsibility of gay people to educate or help straight curious or deeply closeted or any other category of person implement their secret desire.

Live and let live. Amazing though, how desperate these poor souls are who haven't been able to find their way through the maze of desire, society and conflicted feelings.

I feel for them but we all had to fight our way through that jungle and they do too. I blame Falwell and Robertson and their ilk for a lot of it. Would that people could just be themselves.

The rest of Berlin was good but a little gritty. Cold too. Germany is having winter.

The clubs and other establishments with gay clientele are edgy and fun but I wouldn't want a steady diet of them. Back to Catholic Bavaria and Munich. The boys there are different - more hesitant in a way but also better organized in their clubs, saunas, etc. Socially I like it better than Berlin. It's not Brussels or Paris though.

Ooo lah lah.

I am having the BEST week in Berlin. Yesterday I was at the BAUHAUS ARCHIVE looking at impossibly beautiful things. Things like Eireman drawings and Van der Rohe chairs and Breuer drawings and a lady wearing Corbu glasses and fused glass and concrete bricks from the KAISER WILHELM MEMORIAL CHURCH and lots of other beautiful things. That is when I saw HIM.

Tall and good looking and crew cutted and built. And staring at me. And then, again, later... there he was. And again. Then he approached and introduced himself. Andreas. And then invited me to coffee. And then to shop a little at KaDeWe and then for drinks up on the sixth floor and then. Well, then I woke up at his place the next morning.

He is charming and polite and knows what to do in bed. Today we are going out to a Sauna called the TREIBHAUS. It`s in the east ... old east Berlin at Shönhauser Allee. Keeping our Bauhaus theme, Andreas said 'it's an interesting sauna landscape.'

After a late breakfast we will head out there on the subway.

I like Berlin JUST FINE.

"I think it's a sneer more than a smile," I said. We were sitting in the lounge chairs in our towels, looking at magazines. "Not a smile at all. No way."

"She's smiling allright, like the cat that ate the damned canary" Brad said.

"Well, we know what she DIDN'T eat." I said (laughs all around).

"Jesus, look at that guy!" said Brad. I watched him pass. "Jesus" I answered.

Sunday afternoons at the sauna often lead to such topics but neither of us can get too excited about Camilla Parker-Bowles. She is going to be a PRINCESS CONSORT which is dumb. Princess Consort? That's like calling an aging drag queen a princess (Camilla kind of looks like an aging drag queen).

Gay people like William, tolerate Harry, yawn about Charles, could care less about Camilla and adored Diana. How does it happen? Why Judy and not Liza? Why Bette and Babs and Cher? Why Sir Elton and not Billy? Who knows how these things get started.

Camilla. Yawn. She's about as exciting as Wallace Simpson.

Just as I was about to say "the whole thing bores me silly," the guy walked past again. "Jesus" said Brad. "Yeah" I said.

"If he walks by a third time I'm following him into the steam room" Brad said.

"Go for it" I said.

He did and Brad did.

After about five minutes Brad came out. He sat down and looked at me with a sort of grin on his face.

"You were fast" I said. "Way fast" (not a compliment among our tribe).

"He wants to meet you." said Brad.

"You're kidding me."

"Nope. I'm not."

I went in the steam room and there he was. Waiting. Leaning against the wall, one leg up, flexed at the knee, flat foot against the tile. He was beautiful.

I stood next to him, casual-like and he looked over and smiled. Then he said hello. He's American! No mistaking the mid west accent.

Brad can't pick up an American to save his life but the German boys love him. Me, I'm king of the French, the Italian and the American pick up but can't get a German guy to look at me (except Sinead's hairdresser who thinks I'm hot).

As Mark and I were headed back to my rented room, we passed Brad, by now chatting with a German Jude Law. They watched us pass and the German guy said "Jesus."

When I said goodbye to Luke I thought it was going to be tough having him gone. It is but I feel oddly close to him anyway. He's such a friend and even though he's in New York and I am here, I feel close. We are emailing. That's the way of our postmodern friendship these days.

We exchanged St. Valentine's emails today which was nice. In his, I learned that he and his gal pal Veronica are going to a broadway show (where she plays the lead) and their new "couple friends" Hugh and Patrick are going with them. They will sit with the still as handsome as ever Luke while Veronica sings and dances her heart out on this closing night. Then they will all go out afterwards. What a happy foursome!

Now what are the odds of Luke falling in with homosexuals again? He is certainly not a red state kind of guy, that's for sure.

In a sense, having queer friends elevates one. It's terribly hip and even more hip if you pretend it's not hip and in fact isn't out of the ordinary at all. Gay slumming in the new conservative century. Closets for everyone! How terribly chic!

We know that they know and they know that we know and we all know that THEY don't know and won't and that THEY don't get it but we do because we all know. If it weren't so chic it could sure get tiring.

Have a nice Valentines date Luke and if you feel someone caressing your leg during the show, just go with it, it's probably Hugh thinking you're Patrick or vice versa.

Speaking of that, Luca and I are going to Venice and Verona. We are going to stay at the Hotel Aurora on Piazza Erbe (room 14) in Verona and at the Hotel Agli Alboretti in Venice.

Luca is Italian, originally from Milano and is working in Munich. He's a jazz piano player and handsomely latin (but not too hairy). I want him to meet Scott and Flannery because they will like him. Scott will analyze everything through good natured lenses and Flannery will lean forward into earnest conversations. I love Scott and Flannery and I do not say the "L" word lightly. I love them the same way I love Luke and Mick and Sinead and the absent minded professor and earth mother. Though I do not always see a lot of them, these people are my world here... my family.

I love Joe in a different way but now we are both used to the fact that as in two other key relationships at key times in my life the Marine Corps has administered the death knell to this, yet another military love affair. I will not do it again. I refuse to fall in love with another military man. Period.

Venice depresses Luke but I find it elevating. Glorious decay and remembered decadence. Maybe it's a gay thing although Venice is anything but a gay town. It's a conservative backwater, its population having shrunk to around 60,000 residents. It has been surviving on the respirator of tourism for the past few hundered years but doing so quite handsomely thank you very much.

During early Lent is just the time to go. The place is empty. It's the residents and you. I want to photograph, write, walk, lay in Luca's arms and enjoy carnal pleasures like eating and drinking too much. And other things. Not to put too fine a point on it.

Rodrigo and the crow are trying to fix me up with the fish king's ex now that Luke is out of the picture. It's the funniest thing. I TOLD them I am gay. I TOLD them I am in the early stages of seeing someone. I TOLD them that if I were going to be interested in a woman it would be either a tall thin black woman (doctor or lawyer) or Luke's mom (sorry Luke but she IS hot and she IS nice) but beyond all that, I could care for women and am not going to switch teams at this late date. Good Grief.

Apparently the fish king is back in the picture too. His pal who was working for Yukos jumped ship several months ago (before the court sold off all the assets) and is now working for LUKOIL. My god he has landed on his feet! (Why do I feel like Dominick Dunne just now?)

The fish king's ex has teased me with a phone call. How did she get my number? RodRIGO! (I'll bet the crow put him up to this)

She has told me that she wishes to meet me for coffee or dinner (I declined) and now she dangles the carrot of tranlsation contracts in front of my very nose! And a big contract.

Nothing that has to do with Russians and money comes without strings attached and anything that has to do with the fish king, his ex, LUCOIL or Yukos especially comes with strings attached. I wonder how they feel about translator homosexuals rebuffing the amorous advances of well healed and well spoiled ex wifes who also aren't so bad looking in a straight kind of way. Jesus I'm not going there.

I sure do wish my epal Dave would email me here, through the blog (buzz.nelson@gmail.com) because I cannot get into YAHOO and I have lost all contact with him and I have three new tattoos to tell him about and other things. I love you Dave. Happy Valentines Day. You too Luke, and Mick, and Sinead, and VERONICA, and Scott, and Flannery. ... and BRAD. You are ALL my valentines and I love you. I love you too absent minded professor and earth mother. Don't be pissed because I said you last.

Chemistry is a funny thing. You go to your hunky barber and you think he's flirting with you and you're gay and when you think about it you decide that he's just hunky and you're projecting and being stupid so you talk yourself out of the whole thing.

A lot of people don't trust chemistry. I have more and more faith in it. Chemistry, biology and all the other sciences.

I was at the sauna last night chatting up my Italian pal Marco (who was there with his boyfriend in their perennial quest for the perfect threesome). Then it happened. I heard a voice - sort of familiar - from behind. "That's a great looking haircut!" the voice said. I turned around. My hunky barber. Chemistry. We kissed and it was, as they say, ON.

Later I thought maybe I've made a mistake. What's it going to be like going to the barber now?

There's an insistent rain today. It's melting the snow. I'm glad I'm not outside, I hate the rain. I prefer snow to rain any day.

It's a sad thing to see a man so drunk he falls down the stairs but it happens. It's not just because it was Mardi Gras either. I've seen this guy before.

Sinead and Mick wouldn't have been caught dead in the place for all the cigarette smoke but God help me, I love it. Not least of which is because the Italian waiters are gorgeous and they flirt with me like nobody's business (I think Carlo who works the pizza oven is onto me though).

That guy was there again. I've seen him time and again out on the town with his horsey faced woman. They are bossy as hell and always a problem. I've been known to back out the door quietly if I see them before I am seated. They are that obnoxious and frankly I don't understand why the restaurant keeps letting them in. Especially on Mardi Gras. Fasching Dienstag (doesn't it sound just AWFUL in German?)... Carnevale.

The boys at the Italian joint close up shop a little early (11 PM) on Carnevale and then the party gets underway for the staff, their families and guests. I'm lucky enough to be a guest for the second year running and this time, my current squeeze got invited too. Probably because he's from Milano and charming not to mention good looking. LUCA. *sigh*

When it comes to looks and style those Italians are thick as theives. They could care less for gay but you'd better have a good looking white shirt, a great watch, sharp trousers and shoes and if you wear glasses they'd better be good ones. (I get mine at the fashion forward Ottica Urbani in Venice).

I took my guitar. I play great guitar. Mostly I'm a jazz guitar player but I can play Italian love songs like Grant took Richmond. LUCA loves it when I play Italian songs. Whereas I've never known him to be not in the mood, were he not, that would put him in which is silly because he's never not.

Those boys at the restaurant love my playing too and this Italian group that played for the party knows me. We play gypsy music too, not just Italian music. They're great. We're great.

That's when it happened. The pig man with his horsey woman came in the door thinking they were open still and, perceiving a party, proceeded to inflict himself upon the company.

When Nico, the owner, explained that it was a private gathering, the boozy bastard got loud (in loutish German vernacular) and was weaving about while waving his arms in the air. Before anyone knew what had happened he fell down the stairs in a hell of a crash. It almost knocked over the Venus di Milo lamp on the landing and did knock over the table and four chairs off to the side, at the bottom. The woman was braying after the man and hurling teutonic insults at Nico.

Nico was having none of it. He shut the door and returned to his guests. We launched into a kick ass version of "Minor Swing."

Somehow the descent of that ass made us all feel a little better because we each nurture our own hatred of those two. I wonder if they will go back? It's not the first time he has been that drunk and not the first time he has fallen down those stairs.

But last night, the Fat Tuesday night before Ash Wednesday and forty days of fasting and penitence, I think that maybe, just maybe... Nico might have given him a little push.

Later (four in the morning later) when we went to bed, Luca kissed me on the neck and said "I'll never push you down the stairs baby."

I learned about gay sex and GOOGLE from my big brother. One when he gave me the book "Everything you always wanted to blah blah blah" when I was still a teenager and the other later as it did not exist when I was a teenager. I've found both useful. It's a case of unitended consequence though.

My brother, a devout Christian, is mortified by the gay part and would be more mortified if he knew about some of the things I've GOOGLE'd.

The thing that prompted me thinking about this was a conversation I had with Mick and Sinead and SCOTT (enter SCOTT) on Friday night. The phone rang. It was Sinead inviting me to meet them for dinner.

I hadn't seen Sinead for an age and I hadn't seen Mick for a longer age. I saw Scott and his wife, Flannery before New Year's. Flannery couldn't come to dinner though. She's at her sinecure on a remote isle of the realm researching something or other.

Flannery is GERMAN but I thought she was SCOTTISH and I thought Scott was GERMAN. Then I heard them speak and I knew that Flannery was SCOTTISH and that Scott was BRITISH.

Scott has the inflection of an oxford don while Flannery sails verbally forth in a cutter blown by the winds of a lusty brogue. My GOD! Her language rolls over you. What a gal!

Later I found out that Flannery is GERMAN. I also realized that as long as I had known about Scott I had known on some level that he is SCOTTISH. I like his name. Scott. It means "wanderer" in Gaelic (a gaul told me that).

But none of this is getting any closer to gay sex or GOOGLE.

While at dinner, we were having a lusty discussion about Wanda Wadowski, a bleach blonde with big tits and a voracious appetite that used to work where we work. Wanda has bedded a lot of men. Me not included, neither Scott. Nor Mick. That doesn't mean she didn't try though. In my case she has real bragging rights because she is the only woman to ever put her tongue a lot of the way down my throat. (While it was happening I thought she had been an iguana in a past life. She has a lot of tounge).

Pretty soon I'll get to the GOOGLE part.

We were having such a great time with our Wanda stories. You'd have thought we were all dining on meow mix.

But then it happened. I said the "d" word. In context, of course. "Dildo." There it was. Now, gay people say this word a lot. In context, of course. But Sinead. Oh, Sinead! It was delicious. She had - for just the slightest moment - a stricken look and then a smile and then she said "I think that woman at the table next to us heard everything you said!"

I looked over. There, face down and ass up in a big plate of food and praising Jesus, sat one of the most baptist women I've ever seen. She was dressed so rigidly that she could have been John Ashcroft's wife out on the town. Taking my own turn to eavesdrop, I perceived dipthongs and wide vowels. Southerners, on vacation in our Shirley Temple of a town in the ALPS. Good GOD.

If I hadn't been with polite dinner company (by polite I mean NOT gay) I would have loudly recounted my recent adventures in homo-landia leaving out no detail. (I wonder, if hearing Scott's lovely british accent, she thought he was my husband? Many people who love Jesus think all people with British accents are gay).

Mick was charming. Amused and charming. Sinead was delightful and Scott, well, he's just a peach. We ordered more wine all around and dove headlong into the redmeat of more Wanda stories. Loud Wanda stories.

That's when I started to think of my brother the Christian and that LOOK he gave me the day he found Mike and me out on the deck snogging (that "snogging" is for you, Scott - see, I have vocabulary).

When I got home, I thought I would GOOGLE a little bit. Sinead told me that women don't use the "d" word, they say "vibrator." Therefore, I GOOGLE'd "vibrator" and GOOGLE'd the "d" word. The results were interesting, including several articles about the "d" word written by women. Hm. I think what Sinead meant was that POLITE women don't use the "d" word.

I'll bet Wanda uses the "d" word.

Sometimes in life there is a certain cruel irony. My ploy of calling in sick from Rome worked like a charm. It was precipitated by the fact that I was FED UP with meeting students at the airport. It worked, I didn't get caught out and Rome was fantastic. Oh, it rained a little and was chilly at times but it was fabulous. Rome always is.

My new clothes look wonderful (I spent a fortune), I got lots of attention from interesting Italian men (passion!) and I had a good rest away from work.

Having made a full recovery I attended the office on Monday morning only to be redirected to the AIRPORT! The homophobic mysanthrope who was supposed to work the airport duty for the last arriving students found something less like work and more like advancing his career through ass kissing to do. Therefore, I returned to the place of my rebellion. The Munich airport.

What a day. 14 hours in that artificial environment (and it ain't no Tom Hanks movie). Flights cancelled all over the place, drivers giving me trouble and the snow and more snow and then more snow. I am glad to see that day behind me. It almost erased Rome but not quite.

Work is dull and anticlimatic. But then, when was work ever exciting?

Winter is on with a vengeance but at least the skiing is good. An interesting man I met in Rome says he is coming up to ski this weekend. We'll see. In gaylandia they lie a lot.

I have just finished living at the Munich airport for 5 days meeting 150 of my closest friends get off airplanes from all over the world. It has been a whirlwind of lost luggage, frayed nerves and travel drama. I am spent.

They are not REALLY my closest friends though. They are the winter crop of new students and not just any students. These ones are all mid career all grown up professionals. Undergraduate students would be oh so much easier. These people have needs!

I was so tired and fed up that at the end of it all I went to the last minute fare counter, called in sick and bought a plane ticket. I am writing from Rome. ROME! So warm, so nice, so fashionable, no students.

I didn't even go home to get luggage, I just took my credit card, my backpack and my smile and got on my 75 Euro round trip flight. At DaVinci airport I got some more Euros from the ATM, hailed a cab and said "take me to a gay hotel." The driver thought I meant HAPPY because he took me to the Bernini Bristol just off the via Veneto and down from the imperial American embassy (and the Ritz and the Eden and all the other storied hotels). I talked with the guest services people and found a REAL gay hotel, not just a happy hotel. The cabbie was right though, those people at the Bernin Bristol were HAPPY. And happy to help.

When I got to my real gay hotel, an astonishingly handsome (all italians are astonishingly handsome even the old trolls who raise all the standards for troll-landia) met me with effusive kisses (cheeks not lips, damit) and showed me to my room after swooping my credit card through with a flourish.

It's a nice room and the bathroom is almost a religious experience.

He asked if I need a porter. "No."

"All you have is that backpack?"

"Yes."

"Do you need anything? Toothbrush? Razor? Lube? Condoms?"

I like gay hotels in Rome. I said "I need everything."

He said "What will you do for clothes??"

"Buy them!"

"So expensive!"

"I need them anyway, I have been loosing weight."

Then he gave me several good recommendations for places to buy clothes. I shall buy ONE good pair of black wool slacks (cuff, no pleat); ONE good black leather belt (I already have my good Italian shoes on - maybe another pair of shoes though...); THREE good black T shirts since I am here three days; THREE white pairs of boxer briefs since I look fabulous in them; ONE black cashmere V-neck sweater; ONE good white dress shirt since I love white Italian dress shirts and one or two white t-shirts.

In Amerika, when someone dresses all in black he is either goth or a Johnny Cash wannabe. In Rome (or New York or Paris for that matter) he is terribly chic. With my black hair (okay, Sinead, there are a FEW flecks of grey in it) and my steel blue eyes how will the Romans resist me? They won't!

I will also buy a smallish black bag to cart it all back to Munich. How vain and irresponsible I am being. This is the way to call in sick and I don't even CARE how much it all costs.

Isn't it wonderful that in ROME, when you arrive without the toothbrush at the gay hotel they ask if you need CONDOMS? What a city! The irony of all this planned shopping is that I'll probably find some fashionable sauna and spend most of the next day or so naked. But then, Rome is like that.

The pink and white woman in Munich was nightmare enough but then I had to come back to work today. It is a twilight zone existence on the best of days. Further, my epals who write me on YAHOO! are seemingly lost to me forever. I am too dysfunctional to keep their email addresses written down somewhere and YAHOO! won't let me on. Period. I've tried everything including a bizarre email exchange with their bot. Adam Gopnik quoted the french philosopher correctly. "There is no regulon in the semiosphere."

YAHOO! epals, if you are out there and you read this, email me through the blog. I put it on a recent post.

Luke, enjoy New York pal. I know it's grimy when you go to the doctor but all in all it beats working for the man.

I am having an email nightmare. YAHOO (why did I ever start with THEM?) has, somehow, made my email account go away on its own. Along with it all of my saved emails and the saved addresses in my address book. This is especially devastating because I have lost contact with my epal, Dave and of course didn't write down his e-dress on a piece of paper, being digital lately. Along with that, the address and thread of contact with my good, smart, funny epal, Steve, has also gone the way of the wicked... not to mention all the others. So guys, if any of you read this blog = and WHY SHOULD YOU I'VE BEEN SO BAD AT KEEPING IT CURRENT... please email me at: buzz.nelson@gmail.com.

I'm OVER yahoo.

Happy New Year.