I slept next to Diego last night, slept in his bed, cuddling with him and kissing him throughout the night, so attracted to this person. I had met up with him at Eastern Bloc earlier in the night and we had had drinks and danced to various songs and at some point talked about things, him telling me that he didn't want to have sex with me anymore because he felt we were too fragile, me telling him that I wanted to continue to have sex with him, that I loved doing so. I talked about my feelings, he talked about his. A better understanding was reached or seemingly so.

We slept together naked and did not have sex despite my best efforts. I was kicked out this morning so he could go to the gym. I went home and we met up a few hours later and went to some sample sale in SoHo and then wandered around town, making our way to the Halloween store so I could purchase a mask. It was a nice and friendly day and night with him, and it has calmed me a great deal, things again feeling comfortable to me. s
Later in the afternoon today, I went to midtown and saw this John who had contacted me. He was staying at a fancy hotel on Madison Avenue. He had a wedding band on. When I was jerking off over him, I saw his shirt buttons, the detailing on them, "Brooks Brothers" engraved into each button, a detail I had never noticed about Brooks Brothers shirts before, me looking at them rather than looking at this man in this face, this man who said he wanted to be my slave and who was a boring lay and who gave me specific guided instructions in how he liked to be jerked off. I followed his instructions and he came pretty quickly. I was out of there early with a nice sum of cash. He rode the elevator down with me because he wanted to go get something to eat and didn't want to pay $25 for two slices of pizza from room service. This man clearly had money to be staying here and to be paying me a pricey sum for half an hour or so just to get off and yet something about the cost of room service irritated this man to the point that he would go outside in midtown to find a pizza place instead. This was about the only thing we talked about. I have no sense of this man, don't know his name, where he's from, anything really, other than how he wants someone to jerk him off and that he is offended by pricey room service.

I headed down to the Lower East Side to go to the "Brother, My Lover" reading series at Envoy. As had been the case every time I have gone, there were some really lovely pieces that I enjoyed. I got quite drunk off the free wine on offer and toward the end of the reading, the guy next to me started rubbing my foot and because I didn't say anything he took that as a sign that he could rub further up my leg and feel my crotch. He then whispered to me that he was going downstairs to the bathroom and that he wanted to see me soon. I said okay, and he left, perhaps thinking I would soon be following him, but I had more room now to stretch out my legs, did so, and enjoyed the last reading, this pro-femme piece about a cult of Trisha - maybe my favorite thing of the evening.

I chatted with some folks outside until I got bored, until I wanted to hear Wilco more than I wanted to hear them, and said bye, put on my headphones and listened to "I'll Fight" as I walked uptown.
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Tuesday night, I saw Cate Blanchett starring in "A Streetcar Named Desire" at BAM, in a production directed by Liv Ullman. It was a thrilling piece of theater, lit magically, and excellently performed. It was a near-perfect production. I have been seeing a lot of theater lately and none of it really standing out much in my mind. This, however, was fantastic.

And so what a thrill to see another fantastic production last night as well. I saw Manhattan Theater Club's production of "The Royal Family," and liked it perhaps even more than Streetcar. It closes in a week or so and so if you live in New York, I really recommend seeing it. It is loosely based on the Barrymores and is a portrait of this wacky family of actors, the Cavendishes. The love of theater that is woven through the play is really touching, as it is to see this family committed to the craft of acting above all else, even above domestic happiness. It's a big ensemble cast and each member brings something special to the proceedings, everyone allowed to camp it up a bit since they are playing these dramatic personas, stars of the stage when there was such a thing, right as film is taking off as a medium.

So many other things to see! The list of plays I want to see is about as long as it's ever been and this month is probably going to involve a great deal of theater to try to trim this list down a bit.