Out of bed. Considered writing yesterday (like everyday). In fact, I just remembered that I had actually opened the Movable Type new entry page. Never stroked a single key, though. Some more important diversion (which I can’t recall now) distracted me.
Considered writing of love–that was two days ago. I wonder if this will catch on (like the original 100 things, maybe): make a list of–lets make it challenging–100 people who you love or have loved, and why. Be brief.
Let me clarify my format for this list: Some identification of the person loved precedes the semicolon; my motivation for loving, brief and vastly oversimplified, follows the semicolon.
1. My third grade teacher, Mrs. Tupper; because she loved me first.
2. My brother; he was my first best friend.
3. Not Elton John; he lied when what I needed most of all was the truth.
4. Not me; same as above.
5. Andrew, my landlord’s grandson (he manages the building); because he’s sweet and sincere and beautiful.
6. David Ackley, who was the very first one; because he was beautiful long before I had any clue how to appreciate beauty.
7. Juan Valdez; coffee.
8. Duke, my dog when I was a teenager; for being absolutely innocent, and for being a dog.
9. The shirtless young man with the tattoo and the necklace, who I see on his porch from my kitchen window; because he’s cute. (And, apparently, straight.)
10. My friend, John, in Boston; because he’s as loyal as a dog—and probably as innocent, too. Oh, and because he loves me.
11. Anne, my supervisor at work; because she sees behind my disguises and its OK.
12. Jimmy B., a straight boy who I had a crush on in my twenties; because he was irresistable to me then, I still have no idea why.
13. David F., another straight-boy crush, earlier than Jimmy, when I was a teenager; because Dave accepted me loving him, and he loved me. He probably still does.
14. The Thompson Twins; for Hold Me Now.
15. Neil Michael Medin, who is not remarkably pretty but is terribly attractive, who has sold me every bike I have owned for fifteen years; for his sincere kindness and integrity, and for his knowing without saying.
16. The cab driver who comes over for sex; for knowing where to go, how to get me there, and for always coming back, no matter how many times I told him not to.
17. My great-aunt Helen; for staying kind against all odds, and for teaching me—when I was nine—how to crochet and how to love no matter what.
18. My kindergarten teacher, Mary Winning; for inventing the world for me.
19. Boy George; for always being himself, unfinished, unconventional, unapologetic.
20. My ex-friend, Scott M.; for letting me love him, sans sex, which must have been more difficult for him to do than I can possibly imagine. (He was a hustler.)
21. Bobby, the love of my life, with whom I realized that making love did not necessarily make anything at all like love; because he’s guilless, abused yet endlessly forgiving, strong as a rock and good to the core but as delicate and sensitive as the morning’s most fleeting and precious dream.
22. Mary, the Half Mad Spinster; for laughing and smiling and reading and writing, for occasionally crying right out loud (and hearing me when I do), and for being a person as sturdy and honest as anybody I have ever met—in person, or not.
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23. A bellboy/pianist I met when I worked on Cape Cod in the summer of 1989, Christopher Castle; because he had nearly as much—or perhaps even more—affection for me than I had for him.
24. Peter, the pastry chef, who was my best friend during that same season on the Cape; because he loved me and because I never told him that I loved him. 
25. Tim W., my boss that year on the Cape (it would seem I love just about everyone I met that year!); I love Tim because he was tough, open-minded, hugely energetic, playful, sweetly charming, kind, understanding… and he told me at the end of the season that he wished I would stay through the winter and be his friend.
What is broken in me that I keep failing to grab such ropes of love thrown to me here in isolation drowning?
26. And of previous fame in this blog, also from that year on Cape Cod—I need a break from this reminiscing—Peter Wiedenman; for being the one person who, even though I thought he would never notice the likes of me because he was so cool, not only noticed me, but focused on me.
27. Tara, who is a spectacular person, a nurse where I work, an actress, an athlete, and a person with C.P.; because she has a heart of gold, and because she shows it to me, often.
28. reX; because he shares everything, and that is no small gift to me.
29. Stephanie, the one I work with, who I am so close to that I can’t see her, and whose death I worry about irrationally; for being light, life, and love in flesh.
30. Tommy, Stephanie’s brother, who is hot as hell, and possesses a fair amount of Stephanies best qualities in his own right; because he put my shoulder back in its socket with a simple gentleness—even though he hates doing that sort of thing—after I dislocated it dancing at his brother’s wedding.
31. Paul, the owner of Tech Pizza, where I get most of my meals when I am at home; for just being kind, always kind.
32. Paul’s (I think oldest) son; for being not only kind, but for possessing a particular gentle compassion, borne of a secret personal suffering of his own that I wish I could heal.
33. Julie, the admissions department nurse where I work; for coming to work—like me—in utter dread and agony every day but, despite this, appreciating even more than I do my sense of the absurd.
Scratch that. It stays in the list because I believed it when I wrote it, but I was oh, so wrong—oh so very wrong. Lesson learned.
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34. My sister; for loving me even in my estrangement.
35. Bill Lyver, my only friend when I was a teenager who I did not want to sleep with; for being, very simply, an excellent friend.
36. Paul M., who was the other first one back in 1984; for touching-off in me a desire that never was and, fortunately, never will be fully satisfied or extinguished.
37. Kenny A., who fanned that desire into a fucking conflagration; despite the burns, I love him for the fire.
I have wrung from my heart as much as I can for today.
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