Charlie

Whenever I am unhappy, bored, frustrated, etc., travel has always been my drug of choice. For the first time in my adult life, that option has been unavailable, and I have not been to any of the places I had originally planned to go during the past 18 months (visiting friends and family in Philly, DC, and London; two family weddings in Ohio; driving holidays in the Pacific Northwest; even short getaways to nearby cities). At the beginning of this month I planned a ten day drive up the coast to places both familiar and never visited before, but it proved unexpectedly stressful, and we were back home after only four nights. This will be the first year in the eighteen years I have lived in California that I don't expect to leave the state. Not knowing when or if the kind of carefree traveling I was accustomed to will be available again in the future--half of the fun of travel is the planning and anticipation--is the most depressing aspect for me, because I am even older than Lucky, and my spouse is ancient. I feel your pain, but it sounds like it is probably only temporary for you young folks.

I lived in the suburbs, but went into Manhattan looking for adventure. Although the name he gave me was French, I have no idea if it was his real name--he may have just liked the slightly exotic sound of it; a few years later I had an affair with another young man who looked very much like him, who called himself "Gino," until I discovered his name was actually Raymond.

Does his mother know he posts photos like this?!

Oh, my dear! Very "U."

I was 17, and had been picked up in a public men's room near Times Square by a guy who said he was 18 (he probably was a few years older, because in retrospect he seemed much too experienced to be that young). He was slender, a little taller than I was, with dark hair and beautiful blue eyes. He took me back to his room somewhere on the lower East Side. I had never done anything sexual with another guy, so I left all the initiative to him. We took off our clothes, and then to my surprise, instead of sucking or fucking, he took me in his arms and started kissing me, and soon his tongue was in my mouth. I had never imagined that kissing was part of sex between males, but I found it so exciting that I almost came without either of us touching our cocks. However, he stopped as soon as he realized how excited it made me, and took me to bed to teach me all the other things we could do with one another. After we had sucked one another and fucked one another, and both of us had cum, we lay beside one another for a few minutes. Then I said, "Can we kiss again?" He rolled on top of me and started to gently kiss me, and in a minute I was rock hard again. And so the dance continued for another hour, until I realized that I had to get back home. He wrote his name ("Michel"} and phone number on a matchbook and gave it to me, but I never saw him again. I still have the matchbook in a box of mementos.

Except for a brief fling with the predecessor to Boytoy, this is the only social media site in which I have ever participated (I have never even looked at FB or Twitter). I discovered the site in 1999 while looking for info about escorts, but over the years I have spent much more of my viewing and posting time in all the other fora, where I have told stories (too many?) about my many years of experience in the gay world since 1960. I have found useful information here about everything from STDs to how much to pay for a clergyman to officiate at my mother's burial. I have been amused, informed, comforted and outraged by other members. I have even found personal friendships with other members off the site. During the past 18 pandemic months it has formed one of my primary contacts with the outside world. I think it would take a team of professional historians to compile a full technical and social history of the many aspects of this site.

Talk about resurrecting an old post!! Almost two decades late, none of the gift escorts I mentioned is still active, and few of the posters are still here, either.

My knees would turn to jelly if a big dom leered at me and called me "my little chickadee." However, it has never happened.

If I am being kept alive by a feeding tube, I don't care what's in it (and probably won't recognize what the content is anyway). However, if I am healthy but know I am going to die shortly after dinner, I will order the garlic cauliflower appetizer and a fish curry with basmati rice from my favorite Indian restaurant.

? ? My gay primary care doctor does extensive blood tests in preparation for my physical, but he still has to ask me what medications and supplements I am taking.

Wow! Look at those...FINS!

Sofia Kenin--the last American to win a slam--is out because of a positive COVID test. I wonder how many more times that bell will be rung in the next three weeks. (Novak has had COVID, but I wonder if he could get it again.)

Venus and Serena have both withdrawn from the tournament.

At first it was described as an ankle injury, but later it was described as an aggravation of a hamstring problem. They have been pretty closed-mouthed about explaining how serious it is, but she has not played at all since then, and she still has time to officially pull out of the Open. just as the men did. She has always been known for managing to win slams with no competitive preparation, but not in recent years, and she will turn 40 right after the tournament. No serious analyst seems to be talking about her as a possible winner this time.

Novak has five times as many titles as the other two, and may increase that lead. Serena and Venus have more titles than the other 13 women combined, but I don't expect to see either of them in the final. The women's game seems much more competitive at the top these days than the men's game does.

There is an article in today's local paper about the gay bars in downtown PS essentially agreeing as a group to require proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test from all customers. Therefore, if if you are planning to visit from out of town, be sure to bring your CDC card or a photo of it on your phone.

Ad already gone.

The guy on the right. Uh, no, the guy on the left. Oh, wait, no, the guy in back with his arms crossed. OMG, I just noticed the one kneeling in front!

The problem is that they won't tell you what piece of information is the problem so you can correct it. To make matters worse, I went to the provider (Riverside University Health Systems--RUHS) this morning, and they said they weren't really the provider for our first shots, even though they are listed as such on our cards; they don't have our first shots in their records, and so far they haven't been able to provide the identity of the actual provider. Nevertheless, the state got MY first shot info correctly from whoever gave us the first shots, so I don't know if that is the cause of the mix-up with my spouse's registration. What a mess!

Instead of a cell phone number, I used my email address on all my interactions with the providers, and they always sent confirmation information to him at that email address.

When I went to the website yesterday, I filled in the info from my card, and I immediately got an email back from them with the scan for my code. However, when I did the same with the info from my spouse's card, the email came back saying his info didn't match the info in their registry, so now we have to go back to the vaccination provider to find out what went wrong.

Now everyone will be focused on Medvedev plus the newbies on the other side of the draw, because one of them will definitely make the final. And if Novak fails to make the final, then there will certainly be another first-time US Open champion (I am discounting the possibility of Cilic winning again🙄).

We were vaccinated in Riverside County, and we don't have codes on our cards either.

Or del Potro, who has never been the same since that first wrist injury.

Thiem announced today that he will not be playing for the rest of the year.