There are a zillion things I need to do today, many in the form of writing. Topping the list is taking my bike to the shop on Taraval for a checkup, deadlines be damned.

Vash and I hit The Magazine yesterday after work. On the way there from the car, we swung into Divas to piddle. Normally I don't like to do that sort of thing, just use a place's facilities without actually paying for anything, but my ego tells me I'm enough of a regular to get away with it. To slightly cover, I fibbed and said we'd be back in later. (Then again, maybe we would. You never know.) On our way back out, the bartender told me that the guy at the end wanted to buy us a drink. Damn, that was quick. I joked and said that he could if maybe he was still there when we returned later, and the bartender replied: you don't even have a time for one shot? I laughed and said that I was a in teasing mood today. I wasn't entirely sure what it meant as it was coming out of my mouth, and judging from the look on the bartender's face, she wasn't sure what it meant, either. Oh well. They can't all be winners.

I left The Magazine with a few old bondage publications to bring to Eva's place (though I doubt she's lacking in pictorial literature of her own, I figure it's still good to bring stuff to point at and say wanna), and we had dinner at that little Italian place at Post and Larkin, right across from the old Motherlode location. Better than one might expect for an Asian-owned Italian restaurant in the Tenderloin. Our primary destination was the Erotic Reading Circle, but the we got to the Center for Sex and Culture early, so we killed time by making a spectacle of ourselves against the glass doors of a consignment store. The Circle was terrific as always, and I think I've actually come up with an idea for an anthology Carol's editing—a hetero story, no less. Because I don't have enough of my plate as it is.

At the risk of jinxing myself before heading across the Bay to Eva's, the canker sore on my tongue has mostly healed. It may not even distract me when she busts out the needles and the electricity.

5:30pm

...beautifully pale and scrawny, her eyes dark and her hair tousled, a strung-out kewpie doll...

I think that sums it up nicely.

I had a few hours free when I got home, so I changed into bike-appropriate clothing and...well, drove to the bike shop on Taraval. I was in the market for a helmet, and it was super-windy outside, so it felt like tempting fate to pedal there. Unfortunately but not all surprisingly, most of their helmets—even the XL ones—were too small on me. Why? Because I have a ginormous head. Why should it be any different from the rest of my body? I hate being this big. I didn't ask for it, I don't want it, it does me not a damn bit of good, I have no choice but to live with it, and there's no point in crying over spilled deoxyribonucleic acid, but I have to get it out of my system all the same.

Ryder arrived around half past six. We talked for a while (this past year has been exceedingly rough on her, and I get why she disappeared), went to dinner, returned to my place to watch Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me, and then retired to the bedroom. A gnarly stress-related canker sore on my tongue proved an obstacle, but we did the best we could in my hobbled state.

My physical limitations aside, it was quite wonderful, though also a bit peculiar. I've never reunited with an ex-lover before, let alone someone whom I'd figured I'd never see again. That's probably because I've had very few partners (for a thirty-three year-old in San Francisco), and generally when I break up with someone, that's that. (There's exactly one in the short roster that I've considered contacting for booty call purposes.) The difference here is that it wasn't so much a breakup as a disappearance, ergo we aren't so much reuniting as picking up where we left off last May, a million years ago.

Vash and I are going to the Erotic Reading Circle tonight, and if all goes well (which it generally doesn't), my tongue will be healed by the time I see Eva Destruction tomorrow night.

Afterward, Vash and I headed into San Francisco. She went to a reading at Borderlands, and I caught the final performance of The Twilight Zone. We reconvened at The Stud for Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School, an art workshop hosted by Thomas Roche featuring burlesque dancers as models. Can't go wrong with that. Vash drew, and I got some writing done. I also talked to Roche regarding writing about The Power Exchange for Eros Zine. He seemed intrigued.

Dinner was (as usual) Taqueria Cancun across from The Dark Room, though Vash bailed before Bad Movie Night started, thus sparing her from the ordeal that was Spy Kids 3-D. (No fool, she.) Bad movie, but a fun show.

12:14pm

I'm seeing my new doctor this afternoon, and Ryder this evening. It's gonna be a glorious day. Perhaps.

Ryder has resurfaced.

Today, Vash and I met with Steven Leyba and his girlfriend Sarah at their house. Vash got to see his studio and his work in person (dried blood really doesn't have the same effect when it's reprinted in a book), and he took some full-frontal noodlety pictures of me for his new book of paintings, Alchemical Transectual. It'd be neat if he had the one of me presentable by the time he features at the Queer Open Mic in late April, but I'm not holding my breath.

Vash dropped me off at the BART Station afterwards. Sitting on bench on the platform looking for something in my bag, I discovered that I still had her housekeys, which she'd asked me to hold onto earlier. I called her and went up to the street so she could drive back by to get them from me. While I was waiting for her, four BART Police cars (three marked, one not) pulled up. Two of the officers who went downstairs were carrying heavy weaponry; one had a shotgun, and the other had what I think was either a sniper rifle or a machine gun of some persuasion. When Vash picked me up, it was decided that I'd just go back to Wonderland with her. Much safer that way.

Before the Queer Open Mic tonight, there's a vigil for a slain Motherlode Girl.

Heading to Sadie's house, where we will mostly likely be moistening each other's shoulders.

sometime after midnight

breathe...keep breathing