I'm writing this entry aboard the R/V Point Sur, a 120 foot research vessel. As part of my regular employment (yes I'm officially employed again!) I've gone to sea for the last five days to conduct oceanographic research. I won't physically post this message until tomorrow, when I can upload it my web host, but I am writing it on my laptop at sea. I've written in this journal before about going to sea, as its something I do two or three times a year, so rather than write about it in detail here again, I think I'll share with you a descriptive letter about it that I wrote for a friend today...

Hi Andy,

It's Rob coming to you live and direct from the Pacific Ocean, about 100 miles off the coast of San Francisco, aboard the R/V Point Sur. Today is day 5 of a 6 day cruise. The weather has been warm, for this part of the world, with the air and sea surface temps about 58 degrees. It has been unusually windy, around 35 mph, which has resulted in high seas - about 12 foot swells.

The Point Sur is not a big ship. It's about 120 feet long. There are 15 of us living aboard the ship this week, nine scientists and six crewmen. The crewmen take care of things like cooking the meals, running the engines, and steering the ship from the bridge. The science party, of which I am a member, operate the ship's sensors and data collection systems. The science party is divided into three groups of three people. Each group, or watch section, stands watch four hours on and eight hours off around the clock. It costs the government a lot of money to put a research ship to sea so the work must never stop.

We have a computer data collection system which continually records the GMT, ship's position, sea surface temperature, winds, and air temperature. Another device, the Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler or ADCP, looks down in the water below the ship and measures sea currents down to about 200 meters using sound echos. Those systems pretty much tend to themselves and need only occasional attention if thier programs crash. The bulk of the time the science watch is operating an instrument package called a CTD, which stands for Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth.

The name is a bit of a misnomer as it actually measures water pressure and calculates depth from it, and although it actually measures the electrical conductivity of seawater it calculates the salinity of the water from the conductivity data. Its the salt content we're interested in. The CTD is physically a cylindrical frame about seven feet high and three feet in diameter. The lower part holds pressure housings for the water pump and electronic instrumentation. They are about the size of scuba tanks and are mounted horizontally. The bulk of the CTD frame is filled out by a rossette of 12 vertically mounted plastic water tanks which start the mission open to the air, but can be tripped to close remotely. The entire package weighs about 200 pounds.

We travel in striaght lines, orthagonal to the coast, for 200 miles stopping every 10 miles to do a CTD station. The transit time between stations is about :45 minutes. Once on station we use a hydraulic winch and J arm to raise the CTD off the deck and swing it out over the side. This is tough work on deck and usually involves getting cold and wet as the waves often break over the rail. Its especially tricky at night when you can't see the waves coming until its too late! Once we get the instrument into the water we dry off and run inside to the electronics lab where we can control the package remotely. The winch lowers it at 60 meters per minute down to 1000 meters. We see a real time temperature and salinity vs. depth plot appear on the computer monitor as it descends. If we're in close to the shore the bottom can be less than 1000 meters so we have to be careful not to lower the package too far. Touching bottom would damage the instruments.

The water sample bottles are left open on the way down. If we closed one high in the water column, it would later implode as the pressure around it increased. Instead, we take water samples on the way up. The overpressure simply leaks out the seals while preventing water from higher up contaminating the deep sample. Once we've wrestled the whole thing back down onto the deck (heavier now that it's filled with water) we collect water from the sample bottles into smaller glass lab bottles for later analysis on shore. The 1000 meter water is always ice cold. The average ocean temperature at 1000 meters is a fairly uniform 35 degrees F no matter where you are on the globe. Drawing that 1000 meter sample always makes my hands go numb! Sure makes you appreciate how deep, cold, and dark the sea really is.

TTFN, Rob

While cruising between CTD stations and while not on watch, there's not a whole lot to do around the ship. I've been catching up on a lot of reading (two books on Mt. Everest, one on Apollo 17, and 8 or 9 Time Magazines). I've also had plenty of time for thinking about things, which should pay off in terms of journal entries here over the next month. Hmm... I'm hearing dolphins again on the other side of the steel bulkhead sepparating my bunk from the Pacific Ocean. That's an amazing sound to drift off to sleep to...

The R/V Point Sur will be pulling into port and tying up at the pier in about an hour. The shore is close enough to see in detail now, so I thought I'd try my mobile phone. It worked, and I called Brent. Without even thinking about it, he was the first person I wanted to call. To some extent it was a practical call to make, we talked about when I'd be arriving back on land and when I could come over to his house. But, I called him not so much for logistics. I called him because I wanted to. You know what he said? Brent said he had missed for the last six days.

I'm not used to that. We've been boyfriends for three years now and he's told me he missed me before, but I'm still not used to it. I just don't see what's so likeable about me that someone could actually miss me in a matter of days. There's a lot not to miss about me.

I'm prone to mood swings from gregorious to shy to sulking. I think about things too much. I'm a terrible snob, but I have no money. I struggle against a tendancy towards racism and mysogeny. I'm a show off. I'm often self-centered. I don't live up to my potential. I lack self disipline. I have a very poor work ethic. I like making really bad puns and often do.

I could go on listing my personality flaws, but eventually I'd run out of disk space. I think I made my point. Why does Brent love me? How could he possibly miss someone like me? What is it that is so charming about me he's willing to look past all the eggregious facets of my character and actually want me around? Nope, I can't figure it out.

I guess I'm pretty lucky to have found the boy.

Monday September 6th, 1999

A change of scene and a change of season greet September as September gets it's stride. I'm back from the sea, as ever rewarded by the open three hundred and sixty degree horizon, by the elemental essence of sky and sea and nothing more. All the vagaries and colors of life are reduced to basics at sea. A blue plane crowned by a blue dome, the line between them an infinite combination of curves. Only a mechanical contrivance supports me on its wallowing back and suffices me to exist in the unforgiving environment of the ocean. Being at sea, with all the normalcies of life removed, a razor sharp view of life on land becomes effortless, yet easily forgotten once the distractions of the shore are restored.

Distractions like work. My job has returned full-time with the new month. I guess I'm pleased to be fully employed again, but I'm not entirely happy with the idea. I'm feeling like a draught animal that was free to roam for a short time, but has put back on the yoke. And that after only one day back! I really need to find some way of financially justifying my existence that doesn't involve selling away my time on earth to someone else by the hour. Its just not right. My first night back from the cruise I got to spend with Brent at his house. He made me a wonderful soup with Thai noodles and spices for dinner. We tried to watch a little TV after dinner, but then a smooch turned into a kiss, which became a deep kiss, which lead to... well, two guys making each other very happy. More than once.

The next day Brent and I both had to go to work. Well, I had to go to work that day and Brent had to sleep all day so he could work through the next night. He's still working 12 hour night shifts, so I don't get to see him Friday through Monday. Without Brent's good influences around, I went to happy hour on Friday night with a friend from the ski program.

Big mistake. My ski program friend, Renee, had just met a cute guy at the bar when I arrived. She was rather taken with him and introduced me so we could all socialize through happy hour. What Renee didn't know was that I found our new acquaintance, John, rather cute too. I didn't really mean anything by it, but I guess as we went through one Martini after another, I was getting kind of flirty with John - and he was responding! It was even funnier because Renee was trying to flirt with John too, and also having success. It became a drunken and silly contest between us. Not a cutthroat competition, but a fun one. Renee and I were both giggling together and comparing notes whenever John would leave us alone together for a few moments. We both had a wonderful time. In the end, I just decided to get wasted (haven't pitched a good drunk like that in many months) and concede John to Renee. We all had a blast, including John who was quite aware of what was going on and game for a laugh too. I even got a nice neck message from John!

Saturday was pure hell. We didn't eat any food, and I had no water before going to bed. Oh boy was I hung over. I didn't get up until 1pm, and then only managed to drink some coffee and watch the Grand Prix of Belgium on videotape for a few hours. It was 5:00 p.m. before I felt like doing anything at all. Anything consisted of logging on the computer and web surfing. You know, just following from one link to the next on a whim. There sure are a lot of cute guys out there with web pages!

Sunday started with a call from Brent as he drove home from work. His grandfather past away during the previous day and he was going to be helping his grandma through it all for the next few days. This is one of the areas that Brent excels in. He has an amazing ability to be there for his family, because they are family and no other reason. You've got to respect that. I know I don't take time with my relatives enough. Brent also handles death very well. It can be mournful for him, but he intuitively recognizes death as a healthy, normal part of life and doesn't feel cheated or robbed by the mortal frailty of those close to him. I'll be a much better person if I can only get a little of his sensibility about death to rub off on me.

I've offered to support him as best I can. That, so far, has meant simply leaving him alone to take care of his family needs. He is really the only responsible family his grandparents have and it is falling on his young shoulders to do a lot of the ghoulish chores you'd normally expect someone older to do when there's a death in the family. He's been helping his grandma make the funeral and wake arrangements and helping her with her shock and grief. Twenty-six-year-olds shouldn't have to be doing this stuff. Brent is amazing! I've called him once each day since then. He's doing great, but wants to take some time for himself to recharge his psyche tomorrow and has called me in to give him the boost he needs. I'll be at his house tomorrow. Don't expect an entry unless I sneak one in during work.

While he's been dealing with all this I've been going shopping. I don't shop that much. By shopping here, I mean clothes shopping. I loathe it. But, it's been about two years since I bought any non-technical clothing and my daily wear is getting pretty rough. I sucked it up and allowed Visa to buy me three new pairs of Khakis, two new shirts, and a new pair of shoes. Now I'm all set for the new year. (I've mentioned in this journal before that the year starts for me in September, not January.) I love autumn! It is *my* season. The season of new beginnings. The clothes were very symbolic of new beginnings, I thought. I'm also shopping for a new stereo receiver because at some point, while John and Renee were over here drinking excessively with me, we managed to ruin mine. I can't go more than a few days without music - can I?

Tuesday September 7th, 1999

---

It'll be time to go home from work in a few more minutes, but I've decided to stay a little later and write a short journal entry. Work today didn't go as badly as I'd dreaded. I spent most of the day pieceing together seven year old computer from a big dusty storage closet attempting to restore an old Sun Sparc1. For those of you not familiar with the Unix side of computing, a Sparc1 was a kick-ass network workstation in 1991, before PCs even thought of networking. Nowadays, a Sparc1 is a joke, slower than an aging Pentium I 120MHz and only 10kb bandwidth. This particular Sun has an ability to talk to an AIT tape drive, which is why I am attempting to resurect it. So far, so good. It's kind of an interesting and fun project.

I'll be headed over to my friend Stuart's shop as soon as I leave here. He works for an audiophile electronics shop and will help me get a good discount on a new receiver to replace the one I destroyed on Friday. I'm going to look at equiment by Naim, Rotel,and Bang & Olufsen . I've always wanted a B&O system, but they're best bought fully integrated rather than as a single componant. I'll look at them, but prolly end up getting one of the others.

After shopping with Stuart, I'm headed over to Brent's house. I haven't seen him since Thurdsay, although we spoke on the phone for a few minutes on each of the four intervening days. He's still doing a lot of family things, but looking forward to seeing me. I'm looking forward to visiting with him too.

Thursday September 9th, 1999

---

What a spectacular night it was in Monterey last night! In a given year, Monterey has about four lightning events consisting of a few flashes each, ususally occuring in February or March. In the spirit of globaly freeky weather Monterey offered up an electrical storm worthy of the East Coast last night. It was amazing, beautiful, and a little frightening. I haven't seen lightning in more than a year, and I don't know if I've ever seen it flashing every five to ten seconds for eight sustained hours before. Just awesome!

In life's daily news, Stuart stood me up at the stereo shop, so I'll be going without music even longer. (sigh) The equipment I want is tres expensive anyways. If he can't get me an incredible deal, I'll prolly just have to settle for consumer grade equipment from Fry's or Circuit City. (sigh again) I need to be rich, I'd be good at it.

Brent came over to watch the lightning storm with me late last night. Today he's off doing family business again - his Grandfather's funeral service is today. He's still dealing with everything incredibly well. I'll spend some time with him this evening and then he begins another four day work phase when I won't see him at all.

I won't miss him too much, however. The Indy Cars are here in Monterey for a race! 32 cars, each making 750 horsepower, with big open wheels, open cockpits and wings to hold them to the track - all screaming around the 11 turns and through the hills and valleys of Laguna Seca! I can't wait. It's one of the few races a year I just go spectate at. I saw them race through the streets of Long Beach back in April. Last weekend they were racing in the rain through the streets of Mickey's adopted home town, Vancouver. This week they'll be here in the California sun. I'll be, kicking back, sipping wine, and watching all fast cars and cute boys that pass by. If the temperature gets about 70 degrees or more, the shirts start coming off. At that point, also dependant on the amount of wine sipped, I end up paying more attention to the guys than the cars. I'm so pathetic sometimes.

Saturday September 11th, 1999

---

Have you ever heard it said you have to take the good with the bad? Well, I had ample helpings of both while at the race track today. I started the day at the track enjoying myself. I met up with old friends on the Indy Car circuit, I watched some cars going very fast, and I started doing some guy watching as the temperature went up.

Then, I got an idea. I'm always trying to tell you guys about how I've got to put up with so many good looking guys at the track all the time. So I decided to start taking some pictures and making a gallery of cute guys I saw this weekend. I did just that, and you may see the results by clicking on the picture of my friend, Mark, who just happened to pass by me and made the gallery without knowing it! (You may recall Mark from last month, he's the guy I'm not sure is str8t and friendly, questioning, or outright gay and after me. I still don't know.) The gallery will be updated again with more pics during the coming week.

Ya'll will have to let me know who you like best. Just send an e mail with your top 3. They are numbered from left to right, top to bottom, just like reading a book. You can vote for Mark too. I've always thought he was pretty cute. I'll score 'em and let you know here who was Mr. Laguna Seca 1999.

That was all the good part. Now for the bad that I had to take with it. It was about as bad as bad can get. A rookie driver, driving for Marlboro Team Penske (whom I was a guest of) crashed heavily at a turn known as "the Corkscrew". I was very close to the site of the crash and came upon the aftermath a minute or two later. The rescue crew used tarpolines to cover their rescue efforts from prying eyes, but it only took ten minutes of watching the proceedings before I fully realized that they were not rescuing an injured driver, but rather investigating the death of the driver.

I've seen this happen on live TV a few times, but I've never seen it in person before. I've never been very good with death, and it really knocked me back when I realized what I was seeing. Most of the crowd standing around me, only casually familiar with racing, had no idea what they were witnessing. I had to go away and sit under a tree for a while. The offical announcement did not come for three more hours, during which time very few spectators knew anything was wrong. It was surreal moving through the happy, excited crowd, knowing what I knew about the practice session.

After the announcement the mood at the track was subdued. Racing is supposed to be fun after all, and even the deceased driver would have agreed with that statement a few hours before, but the day was never quite the same. Team Penske withdrew from tomorrow's race and all the other drivers elected not to drive in the final qualifying session as a mark of respect and grief for their fallen cohort.

I'm going to return to the track tomorrow and enjoy it. Racing is a big part of my life and I can't let this tragic setback ruin it for me forever. Our racing community has worked hard to make racing as safe as possible. The last fatal Indy Car accident was in 1996, and before that 1993. Considering in the early 70's they used to loose drivers four or five times a year, this is pretty good. The drivers are all well aware of the risks of driving inches apart at 200 mph. They are also aware of the joys. You've got to take the good with the bad.

Monday September 13th, 1999

---

Life is picking up it's pace again. I had a few quiet weeks towards the end of August, but as we move into the new Fall season, new activities call. The Indy Car race yesterday was fun. I had a good time despite Saturday's tragedy. The overall mood was perhaps a bit more subdued than it might have otherwise been, but it was still fun. An American, Bryan Herta, won the race.

I've got five more race weekends this year that I'm working at. That's almost one every other week for the rest of the century. Having a weekend off only every twelve days would constitute being busy on its own, but the ski season is approaching fast with more demands on my time. I've been meeting with some of the other tour guides in the evening after work once a week for an hour to plan our operations and training of new guides for the season. There are only five veterans returning and we will need to recruit and train at least 20 new guides before December. The training program will demand a lot of my time. I'll have to be at the ski shop for two hours every Tuesday and Thursday evening from now until the skiing part of the year begins in December. Then I really get busy assigning guides to tours.

The five of us returning old timers are planning a camping trip together to kick off the season! We're going to go up to Yosemite National Park on Friday the 24th and camp for three days. We'll take one of the ski shop tour vans to make it easier. The camping trip should be a lot of fun, but of course it's another weekend gone without rest. I'm going to try to get to the summit of Half Dome on the trip, but how much hiking I do may be dependant on how much beer flows around the campfire in the evening. It's entirely possible I won't feel much like getting up to hike.

My friend Mark is one of those invited to go on the trip. I'm hoping he comes because it might be a nice opportunity to talk with him. He still confuses the hell out of me. He makes a lot of eye contact, holds my hand a bit too long when shaking hands goodbye, and there's always this awkward moment whenever we sepparate that feels like it should be filled with a hug or even a smooch. There are also signs he's not gay, for instance I've heard him refer once to an ex-girlfriend. I could be projecting my feelings on him just because he's a nice guy and he's cute. I'm not even entirely sure if he knows I'm gay. If he is gay, I can't really get involved with him that way because I've already got a boyfriend whom I love and have an exclusive dating relationship with. I'd just like to be there for him as a friend if he needs one to help him come out. Maybe the camping trip would be a good oportunity for us to bond at a closer level (I've only known him from the ski program for a year) and get some answers.

Some other bits and pieces: Mickey quoted 'lil ole me in his journal this week! And the even more well-read Robb put me in his links section! Today, I recieved an email from Bryan whom I haven't heard from in a while. It was exciting to hear from him. I was happy to know he was just busy and not the victim of some terrible circumstance. I'm hoping Bryan will remain a friend for a long time to come. I give a one-time read to a lot of online journals every week, and most of them don't keep my interest. Bryan, for some reason, was right on my wavelength and I've tried to keep up with his entries since July. He's a very nice and intelligent guy with a lot of common sense. More common sense than I have anyway. I think I found his journal via Zup , another sincere and deep thinking guy whom I like a lot and met via Mickey, thus completeing that little web ring.

I really need to get my links section up section up and running soon! I have to say I enjoy keeping up with all my web and journaling friends on the 'net. This is a relatively new social pheonomemon I think - being able to have friends in places like Washington, Ohio, Missouri, DC, Australia, Tennessee, etc. even though I live in California. I honestly do like all my 'net friends and think of you all in the same way as I do of my local friends. You all have a place in my heart no matter where you live or if we've met in person. (Even if I've come to your home town and failed to give you a call - sheepish look at Micheal).

Sunday September 19th, 1999

---

On an impulse I went to San Francisco this weekend. I didn't actually have anything planned, and decided I needed to replace the rainbow flag window sticker that used to adorn the back window of my car. My delightful little hometown of Monterey has nowhere you can buy homo paraphernalia such as rainbow flags, so I decided to make it a quest for adventure and head to the City.

Before I leap headlong onto the open road, I'd like to digress a moment and discuss the significance of the rainbow flag on my back window. I have no idea of the history of the flag, or symbolism of the colors - it doesn't mater. The flag now solidly represents homosexuals and their assertion to coexist alongside others in equality. I once had a heated discussion with another very butch, but yet gay, friend of mine over having the sticker. He thought it was unnecessary to have such a sticker on my car. He said str8ts don't put hetro stickers all over their cars advertising their sexual orientation. Well I don't have the sticker to advertise. I certainly am not cruising America's highways looking for gayboys with my flag.

I display my rainbow flag in order to stand up and be counted. I want the general population to know that gay people are all around them. Gays aren't confined to the Castro and Greenwich Village. But most of all, I display my flag for all the closet cases out there. I remember when I was deep in the closet (and despair) seeing the occasional rainbow flag on a car with a nice looking, normal guy driving and feeling much better about myself. I want my flag to be a sign of solidarity and a sign of hope.

Despite my little flag's noble purpose, it had faded in the sun over the last two years to the point that I could no longer proudly show it. It was time for a new flag, so I headed off to the City on Saturday morning. I called my friend Alexis on the way up to see if she wanted to meet there. She lives in Oakland, across the bay from SF, where she just graduated from Mills College. She's gay and I hadn't seen her in a while, so I thought she might enjoy hanging out with me in the Castro.

We met at the corner of Castro and Market Streets about 1:00pm and decided to have lunch. SF is a big, indifferent city, but generally gay friendly. The Castro is SF's gay district, geographically at the very center of the City and nestled in a pleasant valley rising slowly up to Twin Peaks. A lot of queer rights history was played out in the streets of the Castro in the 70s and 80s. I feel an odd sense of reverence and gratitude whenever I visit the Castro for the generations of queer folk before me that made my life so much better and easier than theirs were by working so hard for social reform.

I also feel disdain and disgust for the Castro. Gay people of the past were so shunned and marginalized by polite society that they seemed to develop a collective psychosis. All that business with the camp and the showtunes and The Bird Cage. Then came the clones of the disco era with their gym-and-steroid-built bodies, Village People mustaches, tight jeans and rolled sleeved white T-shirts. The damaged psyches of an entire community resonate in the Castro. AIDS hit the Castro very hard and left a lot of middle aged and older guys single again. A sleazy club culture of endless techno, booze and drugs, strutting about, groping, and one night tricks is still de rigour there.

I feel a bit paranoid when I'm in the Castro. Like I'm constantly being looked up and down. In other contexts, I like getting checked out, but not by hundreds of guys all day long. It feels almost like that old nightmare when you discover, far too late, that you've gone to class bare naked. The men in the Castro are generally older and far more concerned with being gay men than with just being themselves. By contrast, the gay part of Seattle, Capitol Hill, is much more youthful and laid back. Sure, they're gay in Seattle, but that fact doesn't define their lifestyles, it merely defines who they date. In the Castro they're gay first and any other facet of personality takes a distant second.

The Castro is not without its nicer features, however. Out of the way of the sleazy clubs and sex shops there is a wonderful residential area of San Francsician Victorian houses filled with happy gay couples. Rainbow flags are proudly on display all over the place. Men (and to a lesser extent women) walk around hand in hand on the sidewalks. There is a strong feeling of community there, unlike anywhere else in San Fransico. The Castro is, if nothing else, a neighborhood.

Alexis and I had lunch, then went into downtown SF to buy CDs and the Virgin Mega Store. I bought a very cool CD by the Damned and a concert video of REM filmed in the late 80's. (I'm such an 80s guy!) We must have taken two or three hours there, then had coffee before hopping on the tram back up to the Castro (where our cars were parked) for dinner and to complete my quest for a rainbow flag.

At dinner, the Castro redeemed itself for this trip by serving up the cutest young couple having a dinner date! They caught me looking once and smiled. They were about 18 to 20 years old, and both were drop-dead gorgeous. But, before you accuse me of the same lavatious leering that I was complaining went on all too often in the Castro, let me make my point. It wasn't their good looks that made me feel so good about seeing them - it was the fact that they were so obviously enjoying each other's company. They were completely lost in each other! In most of the country guys can't look lovingly into each others eyes while dinning together alone at a restaurant and not feel out of sorts. Here, it was as perfectly natural to those all around as it clearly was to them. It made my whole day just to see those two boyfriends so happy together like that.

After dinner, we stopped at a bookstore where I bought a couple of gay oriented psychology books and my pride flag. I proudly pasted it up on the back window of my car before driving home.

Tuesday September 21th, 1999

---

I'm so ungrateful and unappreciative of how nice my life is at the moment. Particularly in regard to my boyfriend. I don't think I appreciate his companionship enough. I'm serious, I love him and all, but I still don't think I'm fully conceptualizing how nice it is.

I can remember a time, when I was first coming out, little more than three years ago. I was sooooo miserable. In fact, clinically depressed is more like it. I had spent previous five years hopelessly in love with my straight best friend Chris. I was never quite sure if he could be 'bent' or not. That is, until he got a girlfriend. I became insane with jelousy. Spending more and more time alone while my best friend of years was off with some girl was more than I could bear. I was tired of falling for straight guys and realized the only way I was going to have any kind of a decent life at all was if I could just get over my homophobia and become outwardly gay, instead of being gay only in my fantasies.

Its a bit of a problem when you want to come out and need to talk about it with your best friend - except your best friend is also the object of your affection and source of your problems. I made the mistake of coming out to him anyways, and quickly lost his friendship. Now I was not only starving for love, but I'd been rejected by the person who meant the most to me. Depression set in big time. I spent a lot of nights getting drunk alone to dull the pain. Some nights, the pain was so bad that drinking would lead to some very scary thoughts about death. I learned to aviod drinking on the evenings the pain was particularly bad. Instead I'd spend all night alternately pacing in my short hallway and lying immobile on the floor. The phone was thunderous with sound of nobody calling.

It took a lot of time for me to get beyond that state. I had to come out to my friends, I had to make some gay friends, I had to come out to my parents (oh, god, was that tough!) and I had to have to time to realize that my heart didn't need Chris to survive.

In the midst of all that I met Brent. I didn't assume that he was 'The One' when we met. I just thought it might be nice to get to know him, and he seemed like he might be gay too. We figured each other out on our second date with a kiss. It was my first kiss with a date whom I was actually attracted to and liked! Pity it came about 10 years later than it should have.

In the three years since then, our relationship has grown. I can honestly say I love the boy. His personality compliments my own in many positive ways. For still unknown reasons, he cares for me a lot. We're quite good together.

This is where I feel unappreciative of what I've got. Here's this guy who brings me joy and fits into my life so well, yet I'm still not quite sure he's "The One". He should be. Its just I'm not ready to meet "The One". How many straight guys marry the first girl they kiss? I will never find another Brent, no one else can ever add to my life what he does. The question that still occasionaly creeps into my head is could anyone else provide different things that would even be better? What a terrible thing to think! What am I doing? Am I holding out for a devestatingly sexy billionaire boy to sweep me off my feet? Am I wanting to go out and fuck around for a while before I settle down with someone?

All those things seem so small, and pathetic to me - ungrateful for the wonderful life I have right now. I love Brent and he loves me. Things have changed so much for me since the middle part of this decade. My life is worth living again. I'm becoming a relatively well adjusted gay male. But if I'm so well adjusted, why can't I just step up and accept Brent into my life permanently? My 'net nickname is Foxwald, because I identify with foxes (particularly the Fox Robin Hood in Disney's animated film whom I loved as a child, and still sort of see myself as) but when it comes to this I feel more like a sleezy weasle.



Friday September 24th, 1999

---

I'm off for a weekend of camping with 9 of the other Ski Program Tour Guides. Its going to be a sort of team building trip. Its also not going to be my normal sort of wilderness experience. We're taking two 14 passenger tour vans, but only 10 people. The rest of the room in the vans will be laden with huge tents, grills, fancy food, and last but not least a lot of booze. It's going to be a lost weekend of excessive drinking in the high Sierra. Woohoo!

I know one of the other guides is gay, but he doesn't know I know. He was accidentally outed to me by a third party not involved with the trip. My friend Cute Mark is also going so I hope I can resolve him this weekend too. I think a lot of the guides have no idea I'm gay, so it could turn into a big coming out weekend for me. We'll see.

Expect no further news or live webcam through the weekend.

Monday September 27th, 1999

---

What a wonderful, fun, and productive weekend I had camping at King's Canyon National Park with eight of my friends who are involved in the Ski Tour Guide program with me. Our purpose was to go up to the mountains and relax together, bonding, before beginning a new ski season. It couldn't have gone better.

I was a bit concerned that as we got to know each other better, outside the context of conducting a ski tour, I might be in for a big coming out experience. First, some background. When I finaly to accepted the fact that I was gay and that I needed to just deal with it instead of continuing trying to hide it or stifle it, I made a decision; Once I came out, I'd assume everyone knew I was gay. I didn't want to play the endless mind games of who knows and who doesn't and what can I say around whom. To me, that just defeats the whole purpose of being 'out'. Its not worth the stress.

I don't make big coming out speeches or take people aside and have private interviews with them to explain that I need romantic relationships with other guys rather than chicks. I just live my life the way I see fit and let them figure it out. If I'm asked if I've got a girlfriend, I say no, I've got a wonderful boyfriend just as matter-of-factly as I can. Last month I was invited to a play by a group of straight friends that probably didn't have me figured out yet. They said I could have an extra ticket if I wanted to bring a date. I took Brent. (No one lifted an eyebrow, but I had fun watching them try to figure it out - they just didn't quite believe what was right before their eyes! :-) )

I envisioned someone would ask me the old girlfriend question on the camping trip and then I'd answer and suddenly become the center of an intense conversation around the campfire for hours after. That would have cleared things up, but it would have been a drag. Fortunately, it turned out much better than that. As a policy, I don't keep track of rumors, but it seems that they'd been spreading a little bit recently. I never had to make a coming out speech. I never uttered the words "I'm gay." Everyone acted like they already knew and had fun with it! It was soooo kewl!

Among our group of guides, most of whom range between 20 to 40 in age and are single, there's a lot of joking around and flirting. With all the booze and the intimacy of a camp site there was even more of that than usual. Any lawyers who might have overheard our conversations would no doubt have drooled with thoughts of lucrative sexual harassment suits.

Now that my orientation was open, the girls in the group included me and encouraged me in checking out cute guys we found swimming in the stream or around the camp site. (Not that I was being cast into the role of "One of the Girls". I'm way too much a guy for that! We were just enjoying a common interest in the boys together.) The straightboys in the group started teasing me right along with the girls when the shirts came off to take some sun on the rocks. They played right along with knowing I liked what I saw - even when it was time to make a moonlight hike up to a swimming hole for a bit of skinny dipping! I never knew straightboys could enjoy showing themselves off so much when they knew the audience included a gayboy.

You know what was really refreshing to my peace of mind? I was able to make sexual jokes and innuedoes about what I found attractive right along with everyone else. In the past, I've always felt so much like an outsider when partying with friends and the jokes and flirting began. The guys would start talking about tits and suddenly I would feel completely alone and ignored because I had nothing to say. This time I was allowed to laugh and joke and be part of the fun without anything other than playful needling about my sexual preference for guys. It was just a really cool experience.

My friend Cute Mark isn't gay. I never told him (or anyone else) outright that I am gay, and I don't think he was in on the rumors about me that circulated before the trip, but he must have figured things out while we were in the mountains, unless he's just hugely naive. In any case, his rather confusing attitude toward me never changed. He's still a little friendlier with me than most str8tboys - you know the signs, he holds eye contact a little longer, he holds my hand while shaking hands a little longer, stuff like that. He's also just a really sweet and intelligent person. Most str8tboys don't like to show that side of their character too much. We spent a lot of time paired off together while hiking or hanging around the campfire. We were even tent mates.

Despite all that, I've decided he's not gay. He's too nice and polite to be lewd with his comments about girls, but its obvious he's attracted to them. Painfully so when he ditched for an hour to talk with a well-endowed girl ready to fall out of her low cut shirt who walked over from another campsite to socialize. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that realization disapointed me. I wasn't about to leave my boyfriend of three years for him, but if I weren't already seeing someone I would definitely think of Mark as good boyfriend material.

After spending the weekend in close company with Mark I've decided I'm not imagining the fact that our personalities 'click' and that we have a special friendship. None the less, it's definitely a good thing I'm not still closeted. Mark is one of those straight guys (like two others before him) that in my closeted days I would have fallen for completely. Nothing has hurt me more than the two times I've fallen in love with guys I could never have a truly romantic relationship with.

One final thought along these lines, and I'm having difficulty finding the English to convey exactly the right idea I want to here... No, I don't have the words. This thought is going to have to stay in my mind until its more fully formed and able to take shape in this space.

Wednesday September 29th, 1999

---

I'm doing some housekeeping chores around my Backpages this week. Nothing radical, just a little evolutionary change. I'm happy with the style and look of the site, you will notice no difference in that. I'm just trying to flesh things out a bit more, to add more features on the home page.

As things come up this week, expect to find broken links and things moving around until I decide where they should go. This would be a good time to bitch at me if you've found it difficult to quickly get to my latest updates, or to find anything you're looking for. Random bitching will be ignored, but those with good suggestions and ideas will be taken into account.

What am I adding? A simple list of current things going on in my life like what movies have I seen and what books am I reading. A gallery of snaps from my webcam (please feel free to contribute!). A page of links - my recommended reading list. A page where I can write about my years growing up in the closet and later coming out - to be called my Wayback pages. An explanation of just what the hell Backpages means. An update to my photos page.

I'm going to put a fair dinkum amount of time into the page expansion, and for that reason I'm going to cut my thoughts here short for today. Suffice it to say, getting the new pages going is foremost in my thoughts this evening.