So this page has been silent for a while. But it has been with good reason.

I''ve been spending weekdays in Boston for the last month, doing work-related things. It is a melancholy sort of city. Waslking down the streets and looking at people's faces one sees a longing for sunshine (even on sunshiney days), for a good thing, for a better lot. Not that Boston's residents are wandering examples of disfunction, but all the forlorn faces and the shrugs and cocked eyebrows signal a sense of malaise. There are striving, intelligent and creative people, yet somehow they seem stifled, as if their creativity is being dampened by the tall buildings and salty ocean breezes.

This is one of the few cities I've seen where the gay part of town seems undistinguishable. Occasional rainbow flags dot a bay window here and there, but in general the difference between the South End and Fenway Park or the North End seems mostly geographic. For a group of people that seeks pride in colorful things, my forays into the Ghetto reveal mostly brownstone and gray. I should give it another shot, for sure.

Of course, people always help the dulling of others. After I walked my friend Patricia to her sister's place after a ballgame, I crossed looks with a fellow a couple of blocks from there. We said hello, started talking, and ended up going for coffee. In the first five minutes of our chat it became very apparent that this man had a lot to talk about, had lived great experiences, and had various interests. However, he kept on saying that he was a boring guy--all of this because his friends said he was boring. Why? Because he has a collection of 500 movies, all subtitled. Because he listens to music in spanish even though he's a native Bostonian. Because he speaks spanish, french, is studying italian and wants to take up portuguese. Because he spent a year abroad living with different people. Or, as a summary, because he doesn't seem to be a professional homosexual in exactly the same way as those around him. So from feeling he is boring, jumping to feeling alone is not all that difficult, and then jumping into heavy depression because of solitude is only a few lonely evenings away. Much of the time I spent with him I basically served as a sounding board, letting him know that there IS a world outside of the Cher-worshipping land of A&F. He seemed to have that "I never thought there were others out there like me" realization. It's beyond shameful that Fagland USA can, because of its dastardly push to homogenize homosexuality, drive someone so full of interesting perspectives into considering suicide. Fags should know better. Problem is, so many don't have a clue about what goes on beyond the point of their carefully gelled TinTin cowlick.

The jewels that do sparkle in the pewter crown, however, are bright and luminescent. For example, I went to see a fantastic performance last week of a set of performance artists called the Blue Man Group. Drums, lights, video and chaos theory merge into a fantastic, glow-in-the-dark statement about isolation, technological overload and groupthink. More on that soon.

Good things:

• I finished the application for the Marshall Scholarship. With good luck, I'll be in Edinburgh come Fall 2000.
• I got a raise. A good one. I can stop bitching. I can now pay my credit card bills
• Finally saw The Blair Witch Project. If it hadn't been raining today, I would have gone on a hike in Maryland trying to follow their path.