Rudynate

Or they might have ignored it not finding it noteworthy

Twice, I have hired guys to shave me almost completely for bodybuilding competitions. The first time was a guy who does manscaping. He shaved me completely, except for my head, in about an hour. It was uncomfortable because he worked from his apartment and we spent the hour in a chilly bathroom, but he did a perfect job. The second time, I hired a big gorgeous hunky provider. He knew a lot about hair removal because he stays completely smooth all the time, including his head. He shaved me everywhere -pubes, asshole, everywhere except my head and eyebrows. He wanted to do my head too, but I said some other time. He did a beautiful job, but it took three hours and I was really tired. He wanted to fool around after that, but I had to be up early next day for my show, so I declined.

That is a pretty rosy description of the Tenderloin, but it isn't untrue. The places they describe do exist and I have been to some of them. Now, whether a first-time visitor to San Francisco should seek them out depends on how confident and adventurous he/she is. Someone who has never ventured out of a squeaky-clean suburb in the midwest might feel very threatened. Someone who has traveled a lot and seen other urban areas might take it in stride. I remember the first time I visited Montreal when I was in high school. I couldn't believe how slummy and dive-y some parts of town were, but since I came from a city that had its own slums, it wasn't a big deal - just an adventure - obviously, I lived to tell about it.

You have to learn the lay of the land. The Tenderloin is a very bad neighborhood that has all the problems associated with very bad urban neighborhoods - drug-related crime, violent crime, lots of scary homeless people and so on. The thing is, San Francisco is a very compact city and the Tenderloin is adjacent to Nob Hill, one of the more desirable neighborhoods and Union Square - the retail district and Center of Everything in San Francisco. You can wander into the Tenderloin from Union Square without even knowing it. There is a transitional neighborood between the Tenderloin and Nob Hill that people who live there often call the "Tendernob." People can find relatively affordable housing there, and it isn't a very desirable neighborhood, but it isn't anywhere as gritty as the Tenderloin. Roughly speaking, anywhere west of Union Square, south of, maybe, Post Street, and north of Market Street is the Tenderloin. Oh - I forgot - East of Polk Street. So west of Union Square, south of Post Street, north of Market Street and east of Polk Street.

Often, people who live in cozy, affluent suburbs like Danville are fearful of the inner city and tend to magnify in their minds the poor conditions and the dangers associated therewith. I remember, when I lived in Rochester in the 80s, I happened on a job opportunity for my nephew who was in high school, who had grown up, and barely had ever been out of, a mid-scale suburb. When I called him and told him about it, he asked me if it was downtown, and I said yes. He responded "No way man. I'm not going downtown!!" Thing was, downtown Rochester had just been the object of an exhaustive urban renewal project and looked brand-spanking new. New convention center, hew hotels, vintage buildings renovated, etc. etc.

That's the way I feel, but I understand why people that are new in town wouldn't have learned that attitude yet.

With Cuban links - love em. I'm going to get one. I was going to get one around Christmas, Now they are almost twice the price because gold has gone up so much.

There is some difference of opinion in the scientific community as to whether viruses are a life form at all because they don't have all of the characteristics that the conventional definition of a life form specifies. It is true that a virus particles, before it infects a cell, is incapable of metabolism and reproduction. But once it infects a living cell, it takes over the cell and it's gangbusters. I consider them to be living organisms - intracellular parasites. Someone else will read this and disagree with me, and that's fine, because it is not a settled issue. I believe that prions definitely are not living organisms because they lack a genome coded in nucleic acids. There are also biologic entities called viroids, and I'm not sure what I think about those, They have a genome coded in nucleic acids but they lack the protein coat most viruses have. I lean in the direction of calling them living organisms.

If I have to work too hard to keep the conversation flowing.

I like the provider to host. It's more comfortable for me. I like peace and quiet and solitude when I'm getting together with a guy. One time, I hosted a provider. He was staying with friends in town and therefore couldn't host. I got us a room at a nice hotel in FiDi on a day rate so that it didn't cost much and it was very comfortable - nice hotels are my favorite venue. If I were single, I would be happy to host a provider at my place.

If they have an obnoxious laugh or if they laugh too much

I have lived here for more than 30 years. The only place I have ever felt unsafe was in the Hayes Valley neighborhood before they took out the Central Freeway. Nothing bad ever happened to me, but it was spooky after dark. The Tenderloin has gotten so crumby and seedy that I don't even like to drive through it - at any time of day or night. Yes, there are plenty of homeless everywhere and I could imagine someone feeling at least a little uncomfortable who has never been around such large numbers of them. And they can be intimidating because they are so angry and so miserable. It's still a great town though.

One of my favorite fantasies is that of fucking a man who has a vagina. He is a studly muscleman but he has a vagina instead of a dick. He's not a FTM trans- he is a man who has a vagina. It's incredibly erotic. I actually had a chance to fulfil this fantasy (sort of). There was a young guy (cis male he him) with a great athletic build who had a beautiful surgically-created vagina. I just wanted to fuck him silly (in his vagina) and eat him out. He was in LV and did not advertise for too long. Haven't seen him in a long time. His rate was pretty high - $1k/hour.

No, I wasn't thinking of polio. I thought I had remembered reading that isolated cases of smallpox still occur, but that is obviously not correct. As you say, the last reported case of naturally-acquired smallpox was in the 70s. Great public health achievement. Why can't we pull it together to do it again?

Risk mitigation. The fewer bareback encounters one has , the less one is at risk for STDs. You don't know what sort of risk mitigation is involved in the porn barebacking. And PrEP these days is exceedingly common.

That is effectively true, but an occasional case of small pox turns up now and then.

Another time I was on a train and an elderly French guy approached, gave me his card and invited me to come stay with him in Paris. Another time I met a guy on the street in Denver who just approached me and asked me to come have a beer with him. He was a real attractive, powerfully built black guy very sweet and friendly. I was so attracted to him that I was wet, but I was also afraid of him, so I didn't go anywhere with him. Over the years he kept turning up, and we would do the same thing - we would drink beer and I would sit there lusting after him because he was so hot and being afraid to go off with him. Eventually he disappeared and then turned up a long time later - he had just been released from prison. I think of him all the time as a missed opportunity because I was so hot for him.

Another time, I met an old German guy. It was 1973 and I was stationed at the US Army Hospital in Landstuhl. I don't remember exactly how we met - I think I was drinking beer in the cafe of the train station while waiting for a train. He started chatting me up and I do remember that we spoke German, no English, so my German must have been better than I remember it being. We chatted for awhile and he asked if we could meet again. I said yes, and a few days later, we met at the train station again. This got to be a regular thing -we would go swimming at the public pool, go hiking, visit museums, have lunch, etc. , always meeting at the train station and at the end of the afternoon, I would walk him back to the train station, never knew how to get in touch with him. There was never the slightest suggestion of sex - it was like spending an afternoon with your grandfather. I dont remember how it ended.

When I was 18, I met an older man in the men's bar of the Mont Royal Hotel in Montreal. He was very sweet and bought me drinks as he told me this improbable story - He told me that he was the Crown Prince of Poland, the rightful heir to the Polish throne. Even at 18, I knew the story was likely bullshilt, but I also thought, SOMEBODY has to be the heir to the Polish throne, why not him? He said he was involved in a lawsuit with the Canadian government to get them to return the crown jewels which they had taken for safekeeping from the Nazis. There is actually a kernel of truth to the story - the Canadian government did have to be forced to surrender some Polish art treasures many years after the war. Any way, he had a briefcase and showed me all storts of correspondence in the matter and the drinks kept coming. I talked for a long time with this guy because he was so nice and his story was so fascinating. He stayed in touch with me for years after that. It rattled my mother that I received notes and cards from all these strange men.

Sometime in the 70s, I was visiting San Francisco and I took a ferry across the bay to Larkspur or Sausalito . I met an older German couple. We had an enjoyable conversation on the way over. They asked me for my address, said they would like to keep in touch -and they did for years - notes, Christmas cards, etc.

I have connected with guys though work at least a couple times. I also connected with a guy attending a convention at Moscone Center. I was working for some medical publisher giving doctors little trainings in how to use the internet. I was walking around the exhibits on a break and locked eyes with a good-looking daddy who turned out to be a psychiatrist. Several times on the street, those same tell-tale eye-locks. I had a near-miss at a BNI meeting. A smokin' real estate agent kept turning in his seat to check me out. But that turned out to be all. I remember a couple of the work connections were when I was working in the hearing aid industry. There are lots of gay audiologists and I connected with a couple of those.

Depends on the weather - Winter its a hoody, sweatpants and a beanie hat. Summer its a pair of board shorts and a tank

Did it seem prietchy? Im sorry,

We had a '62 Ford station wagon that had an automatic transmission. My mother had a lot of difficulty getting used to it. She just couldn't get used to not having a clutch and not shifting between gears.