I need to sit down and write - there is so much to write, but it deserves it's moment and I want to express all that's been going on in my life and my head accurately.

One day I will re-read these words and that is the greatest purpose of my writing - as powerful as the ability to connect with others over like experiences, dreams and pain; so I can look back and understood who I was and what I was going thru at the time.

I'll be 35 in eleven days, I'll drive out to Palm Springs, lay by a pool, read, maybe have some dirty sex - and heal. Friday the 13th is the anniversary of HERO's suicide - how friggin appropo, I can't be in my house on the day at 5:45am...but I hit my low last week - a dirty, humiliating, dark, empty low and it made me furious - absolutely fucking crazed - I will not be controlled - by drugs, booze, depression, or myself.

At that moment I decided enough was enough - I had to purge myself of everything. I called my ex-therapist and asked him to help me to put an end to this - to redirect me, remind me that I have a future before I ended up dead.

So I want to write an entry that does the past two weeks justice - that is gritty and real and fucked up and probably will scare the shit out of my readers - just know the reason; I need to read that entry a year from now, when I'm in love and healthy and feel joy again - and here on this blog I'll see how bad things can get and it will be a high for me to know how far I've climbed out of this abyss.

I went - and it was good.

Very, very good.

C and I laughed and traded barbs - I can't believe how fucking pale I've become - a ghost of my former self in many ways I guess. I decided not to weigh myself - I really don't want to know, I'll do it in four weeks. We're gonna go again on Saturday - C's making a pact with me to get back 4 days a week. Take it easy - make it fun - just get back to where I used to be.

I can't just get back the body I had.
I can't wish I would stop hurting over HERO's death.
I can't keep beating the mental shit out of myself.
I can't dread the rest of my life,
I can't keep all of this in to make my friends more comfortable.
I can't change my past.

I'm glad I felt a bit myself tonight, it was a good feeling.

alrighty - news alert - after a self-imposed, body-neglecting hiatus - I'm starting back to the gym tonight; it doesn't take Mr. Science to figure out that blowing off the gym for two months and investing that time in boozing, crap food etc. haven't done wonders for my morale or gotten me through this emotional rough period - at first I told myself that the aspect of replacing gym time with reading time would mean I was making a greater effort to enhance the inner me, but alas my inner-n-outer me are pretty much connected so if I look like I shit - I feel like shit. Ideally I just need to connect the two - start reading while I run at the gym (just hurts my brain)and feel like I'm feeding both beasts....and no Donald, no pictures will be posted til I, er - regain my girlish figure.

...sometimes I shut down for a little while - hold up on my couch with a varsity bumper up my nose and some Vodka in my belly and stop interacting, with this blog, my family, my friends...and in all viens I am plagued by the same feeling - talking about the pain - shuts people out.
 
But then there I sit, many layers deep in a K-hole, drunk and too messy to answer the phone - and the phone rings - and rings unanswered.
 
So here is how those states come about.
 
Lately I keep waking - usually around 4am, but then lately even earlier, no matter what a stupor I drink myself into - the curious dark stirs around me and I'm awake. Sometimes I feel like he's there sitting at the edge of the bed - sometimes closer - "don't wake him, let me watch him sleep", he says.
 
So Wednesday night, I avoided friends, the gym, I drank, weaved my way to the Jack-In-The box and ate food that reminded me of being 19. I slept - my three retrievers surrounding me - I slept not next to them - but amongst them - part of the litter, the runt, the one who may not survive.

There was a nightmare - there is almost always a nightmare - the last guy I slept with on an on going basis told me who the screams would wake him in the middle of the night.
 
In the dream I was at a party in a beautiful, skyrise penthouse, my brother - still younger than his impending marriage, still 40 lbs away from giving in, attending with me - we brought our beloved nephew - a mere baby boy would had just learned to walk.

In the dream - the party switched unexpectedly from a cocktail party to leather - my brother was charming men near the wall on the penthouse floor - he let my nephew perform acrobats on the railing - in the dream I ran to the wall screaming and screaming to my brother "Get him away from the wall!", my brother startled turned and his arms sent my nephew flying outwards - grasping at empty, night air and then falling and falling in to an nighttime abyss...I screamed and cried - "Oh my GOD - OH MY GOD !!" - my brother and others turned and looked at me - "Look what you've done - YOU, YOU'VE KILLED him", the guilt swelled, yet I knew I couldn't be responsible for this - "...but, I did nothing I stammered!?", my brother screamed, "You saw what you did, you know this is YOUR fault!!". I cried and the guilt filled me - I need to die - I'm cursed - I ran for the wall and stoped short grabbing the edge - I don't want to die yet, I thought - I'm not ready.
 
I awoke - my breathing harried, heart racing, tears spilling on to my  pillow - I killed him, I cried - this is all my fault, but I'm not ready to die.
 
I paced up and down my hallway - I wasn't stupid, it was all starting again - the guilt, the blame 0 I grabbed a dvd and pulled all my pillows around me - and with bumper at hand sailed far away and felt peaceful again.

Ok - a few too many people didn't read the last post close enough to realize that pic is me LAST year....I'm not EVEN gonna show you a pic of the new fat tummy! Anyway - Its this great excuse to constantly issue statements - "Ya know my age and my waist line have been in synch since my late twenties and now that I'm about to hit my mid-thirties - not so sure I like the evolving scale"

We had our first monsoon blow through last night - I have three words for your this morning:

Filthy Muddy Dogs

Ugh...guess my dinner plans tonite will be followed by three dirty dogs, naked me, Lavender Shampoo and a much needed bath.

I'm one of those dumb shmucks who admits all his faults (like I would rip Augusten Burroughs out of rehab and stuff my cock down his throat - AND THEN tell him maybe I'm not good enough for him)...

This is the pic I put on Gay-waste-alot-of-my-friggin-time.com and well yeah the torso was looking pretty sweet - but as a college "reality" major - the tummy is well a little more bearish. A lot of boozing, fast food, comfort food and for the first time in my entire life - a complete lack of working out - well I look like a pretty straight guy - 'cept the pretty and definately except the straight.

Maybe the Keebler Elves will want to bone me...

So as mentioned by the biggest reason to be a top, I kinda double-posted the last entry - alright, ALRIGHT I was a little shook up, I mean first the gray chest hairs, then the NY Post makes a mistake and the one of the Olsen twins falls from grace - it's been a hard week!

So I went for sissy, fancy drinks at a high end straight bar with my best friend from Arizona who pointed out a few things to me:

• I become incredibly distant when I'm hurting
  
• That I'm lousy at returning phone calls
  
• Money has become my only motivator
  

To this I thought - well shit - nothing makes me happier than ignoring close friends and buying pretty things..ok, I'm joking (well except for when I'm butin Etro or Paul Smith, I get all catatonic and shit)...yeah, I've become a dick, yes I've become an overwhelming, obnoxious drunk and your right; I've been spending alot of time hurting. I also spend a lot of time reading and working and with my dogs and working on my house - I'm just trying to survive this summer and the 1 year anniversary (on friggin Friday the 13th - no less)...and if I haven't mentioned NYC is the unlikely city to host me, my fucked up emotions and my 35th bday come August 14th (book your Florida time shares NOW)

So I really need to choke the beast SO, I leave you with this list:

Remember when....

• You could say Kajagoogoo and people didn't think you had sneezed
  
• Kitty Dukakis wasn't a drag name - just an apllicant at Betty Ford
  
• Bush was the worst threat to the global economy, gays, liberals, free-thinkers...oh, well I guess never mind that one.
  
• People actually thought Ronald Reagan was leading this country - well I mean forget about that one to - that's just plain silly!
  
• Nothing said "I love you" like a mixed tape.
  
• Your parents were concerned you might get a girl pregnant - hahahahahhahahahah - yeah like butt-babies live!
  
• You thought you were misunderstood - uh, well I mean present company excepted (and yeah how many of us thought it was - "present company accepted")
  
• The Olsen Twins WERE cute and loveable
  
• Paris was a place in Texas (ok, ok - France for you fancy folk) and Nikki was a cute greek, buy in your American Government class
  

Ok - done - commence personal fondling - NOW!

(dance - a little, yeah to the right, now shake a little to the left)

I got stood up tonight, er -uh - STOOD UP.

I'll turn 35 in August and I find myself reflective - have I ever been blown off before ?

I mean certainly, I have - admit it everyone has, even if the uneasy other party later claims a "misunderstanding" - you know like the "temporary insanity defense" !

Though I have to admit - it brought on the worst hour of two Woody Allen nerousy (I'm kinda making that word up, or I just spelled it terribly!).
Here hows it goes (uh, please respect me after this - it's really pathetic):

Background Situation: Saturday Nite SL and I are out causing some trouble; we meet some pretty YOUNG things at Hamburger Mary's (INSERT HERE: Oh HCL, will you ever learn??), well after a lil lip-lock with said pretty boy and damn really he was fucking sweet and pretty - he ASKS if he can give me his number, I may be goin on 35 - but I swear they still call this a come-on.
Well I read through my SWINGERS manuscript and decide two days is a coolio amount to wait, I call yesterday and we arrange a dinner date for 7pm tonight - I mean, really - tell me know already if you didn't mean yes.

ANYWAY - so I call on my home from work to ask where he would like to go - Elements, Pizzeria Bianco, Fermier, T Cooks - i mean this guy (uh, ME)is an awesome and genrous first date, and - er, well, with all embarrassment and humility, the boy never calls back - and since I never bother to hold back on this site I will admit to you I even took my new Motorola cell in the shower - hiding it behind a shampoo bottle so I wouldn't miss my ringer.
I feel like a fucking tool.

So I get ready - don my new Dolce and Gabbana shirt and Big Star jeans - and well, kinda look at the clock. Tick - Dork - Tock- Friggin Loser.

So then the nerves kick in:

• I see it, he brags to his friend we're going on a date - his friend in mock horror says "Oh Gawddddd, not him - he put his last boyfriend in a grave not him!"
• He recalls that maybe the last month I took off the gym would mean less entree for him and more for the "tummy monster"
  
• Maybe the AC/DC t-shirt I was wearing when I met him was little TOO retro.
  
• Three words: Male Pattern Baldness
  
• I am cursed, I wanted this date out of sheer horniness "Me See Pretty Boy, Must stick Dick in Pretty Boy!"
  
• Many other self-mutilating thoughts.
  

So this is what I managed to do til about 8pm.

Well then I buck up and think - well men suck - but COMMERCE IS ALIVE - and went and bought myself a bright shiny 22 inch (ok, ok - it's 21.3 but we all round up - admit it) flat panel monitor for my computer...I mean, really I SAVED at least $300 on dinner - it was like a discount off the retail price.
Well - my love/sex life sucks - but I have pretty things....

Hmmmmmm, I'll just keep telling myself this is healthy.

...are your REAL?

I admittedly had to giggle - think Catholic Girl, no panties, past her first kiss, well on her way to her first blow job - metallic-braced teeth rubbing on the Catholic Prep Quarterback's cock - giggle...when reading a comment on Joseph's site

I am in fact very real - I can be sexy, stupid, arrogant, charming, intense, pensive, vunerable, depressing, cruel, loving, guillable...but dear anonymous friend - I am very fucking real...I dont make up what I write - I live it, and if you think I wanted to live the past year and half of my life the way I did...well I'm sorry I've confused you.

So I guess I'm not giggling so much as I am thinking - is this who we are, distrusting, uncaring, movie-of-the-week drama queens - your bullshit trumps my bullshit....

I issued this warning over what is now what three years ago - read me if you dare - my vasicillating desire, my pathetic need, my big-hearted hope to humor, charm, woo, freak, fuck, with, piss-off and clear my pysch...is mine

- and ANONYMOUS it is real - oh, so fuckin' real.

Less than a couple of months after HERO died - I had an opportunity to fuck the hottest guy I have ever known. We used to always run into each other in my circuit party days and while the G - or K - or E played with my seratonin - I felt inextricably drawn to him. He was movie star handsome - but in an indie movie way - he was quiet, intelligent, confident and full of a sexual fire. He was italian - dark, thick hair and knowing brown eyes, he spoke slowly and would as soon as discuss Dick Cheney's multiple short-comings as whisper "I want you to fuck the shit out of me".

I knew him when I was still with Lucky and Lucky would allow me to flirt, even once let us flirtatiously compare cocks in a bathroom stall - but cut me short when my mouth wanted to do the measuring.

As luck - or lack of - would have it, he happened to be visiting Phoenix one weekend and casually cruised me at Padlock, not realizing for a brief second that I was me. Does grief physically change you, or was it my need to be drunk by 9pm every night after Hero's death. When we connected it was fully-charged, and I realized how badly I wanted to feel a man next to me, to pull my arms around him, slide my cock in his mouth, fuck him holding his hips as I pushed into him again and again and again.

We passed our phone numbers to each other and went on our ways.

The next day - hanging in the yard playing catch with Hope, I hear my cell phone ring - I ignore it, I always ignore it, I've become some sort of apparition in my own home - unsure if my ghostly fingers can hold the ringing phone to my face. My curiosity always begs the lesser of me and the ghost finds a way to pick-up the phone. The message is from him and he isn't shy about asking for what he wants - would I like to have sex with him this afternoon ?

My well-worn heart races, my unsettled stomach flips - I think, I'll have shot my load before I even return the call. I call him back - the conversation uses only enough words to seal the deal. I pick him up and bring him back to my house - we begin to talk and talk and talk and suddenly, I worry - oh shit this is way too much talking - nervously trying to remember how to make a move - suddenly, irrationally, I stammer - would you still like to do what you came here for ???

Before he can answer I've crossed the room, my mouth and tongue exploring his - he pulls his shirt off, I push his pants to his knee's - I take his perfect, beautiful cock in my mouth while fumbling with my own clothes - it's hot, it's fucking red hot - but I keep issuing commands to myself inside my head - "don't freak out, don't freak out - you've always wanted this - oh God he's so fucking perfect".

We move to my bedroom and I push him face down - I tease him, rimming his hole - knowing how hungry he his - and as I rise to pull a condom over my hard-on - I begin to weep.

Suddenly, I'm unable to breathe - "oh my god what kinda bastard am I - what am I fucking doing - I'm horrible, this is horrible, I haven't fucked anyone but Hero since, since...fuck, oh fuck"...

I feel his perfect, muscular back tense, this is one of those moments, sexual humility - shame...disgrace.

My dick recedes, erection-regression...the hottest moment of my life is about to become the most humilating. He looks back at me over his shoulder - he seems so beautiful - pained, confused, horny; he wants to give a shit - but I can see in his eyes, he didn't come here to see me fall apart.

Without a wasted word, I push him back down and pull his ass to my face, and with tears still streaming down my cheeks, I alternate rimming him and sucking his beautiful cock - mindlessly working my way back and forth - fucking him with my tongue, then working my tongue to the fat head of his cock - I keep thinking, if I make him cum I can be alone, I can cry alone. After several minutes of dedicated effort his knees buckle and he shoots between his legs on the brown fur of my summer-tanned chest.

I sense that we both have found relief.

I drive him to where he's staying,
I apologize,
he tells me it was hot.

He waves as I drive away, I turn up the radio to drown out the sound of my own tears.

So there I am starved - doing my least favorite activity as a single man:

Grocery Shopping

I mean seriously as a married man - it has this sweet flirtatious vibe:

Hey losers - Look I'm off the market, domestic bliss, I like the Starkist Tunafish Packets in the handy do it yourself, take-em and go packaging...him? Oh he loves the sensibly cut carrot sticks - I mean REALLY who has time to cut carrot sticks anymore !!!.

You trot around AJ's not holding hands, but we see the invisible-domesticated-partner-leash as we stand in the "single-serve" aisle, just from the gym (well actually not lately - El Flabo be Me) finding ourselves fondling the Ben & Jerry's "Chubby Hubby" while eyeing yours - you throw us that I'll scratch your eyes out and leave you for kitten milk look.

Hey, if you can't have a happy home, Momma says wreck one. Kiddin - KIDDIN...well, kinda.

So with a strut and a mince - I walk up and down the aisles thinking "This is such BULLSHIT", I mean either I'm gonna end up going out for dinner tonight, or I'll order pizza, or even maybe be thrifty (choke!) and eat the rest of the large pizza I JUST ORDERED LAST NIGHT.

Then I think ...well I am here.

So I trot on over to the liquor section - cursing to myself - Bastards! would it kill their P&L guy to go on a limb and start buying Hanger One, so slumming I grab a bottle of Level (Vodka).

Suddenly, I start thinking - Oh I might look like a drunk, get something else - get something else - so, I grab a package of dental floss - not any dental floss - but the kind that's for one time use and has a little handle - cuz, I mean really the only thing more exasperating than shaving and cutting your OWN carrots, has got to be the two-handed, dental flossing manuever we were all taught in grade school - I mean really - HOW BARBARIC !!!

Feeling more respectable,I proceed to the "Ten Items or Less Line" (and yes I AM a 10 ITEMS or LESS VIGILANTE - if I see you trying to convince the cashier that 10 watermelons are 1 item by some misguided logic that because she only has to enter watermelon once than multiply it times ten - well you got another thing coming)

With the luck of the Patron Saint of Kristi McNichols Career, I end up in line with a woman with red hair made from straw, who accidently drops her debit card; which I subsequently stept on, I mean the debit card not the hair made from straw:

Sssscuse me - I hate to be well - FRESH - but your standing on my card.

Worried and confused that this may be some new-fangled-jargon for "clitoris", I leap 3 feet ahead. Somewhere in my vagina-ladened-fear she see's something that convinces her to continue speaking to me.

She references with what I can only suggest to be a squeal of delight - think HEE-HAW, she asks me if my dental floss - is in fact "one of those pretend tooth brushes".......suddenly I would rather she asked me if I was a drunk.

The clerk interupts - my savior in bad glasses - and says "Oh no these are just floss" and have after an understanding pause:

"Sir, the booze is yours too right???"

- sister - I think - you don't even know.

I think, tonight I floss, tonight I pound my bishop and I drink to you.

Anyway - I guess that will cover my grocery shopping for the month - anyone have a take out menu ?

What is 'Luck' ?

I have always been divided on if I have it, or not.

At 34 - I have buried two boyfriends (both suicide) and more friends than I can mention, I have cried more than my share of tears, I have fallen more times than I deserve...but still my friends tell me how lucky I am, my job, my life, my family.

So what makes us lucky - the fact that we haven't ended up married to Britney ?? Or that we make as much as much as one of the lawyers anolling her last marriage ?

Where does it begin that we envy anothers circumstance and call them "lucky". Or that we see anothers pain as 'misfortune', regardless of his net worth ?

Blah, blah, blah...but really folks where do we begin to envy and where do we begin to forgive ?

Let's face it - I'm single and I'm friggin horny - This weekend I work on a BIGMUSCLE.COM entry, boy needs some sugar - or even better protein.

Music is my mistress, holding me through bad times, getting me hard when I'm fucking, and rocking my hips to the dance floor when I need to create some sweat, here's a list from my recent shopping excursion to BORDERS (yeah - an Oooooh so hip music store, welcome to my thirties!)

• Grandaddy - SUMDAY: Awesome, Reflective and Fun.
  
  
  
• KD Lang - Live By Request: Well I am a dyke at heart.
  
  
  
• Julie Roberts - Debut Album: Country is meant for the broken-hearted...nuf' said
  
  
  
• Echo and the Bunneymen - Songs to Learn and Sing: If you know it, there's no need to explain it
  
  
  
• Indigo Girls - All That We Let In: See KD Lang comments, see Country Music comments
  
  
  
• Joss Stone - The Soul Sessions: Like I said, we all need something to fuck to
  
  
• Buzzin' Fly (Ben Watt) - Volume One: Too sublime to be hip, to hip to be average
  
  
  
• Hoobastank - The Reason: This album either makes me cool with kids or means I'm a dirty 34 year old who likes (gasp!) BOY BANDS
  
  
  
• Modest Mouse - Good New For People Who Love Bad News: Just makes me dance around and laugh - naked of course!
  
  
  
• This Mortal Coil - This Mortal Coil: Homage to the days I smoked cloves, read Camus, sported a mohawk and wrote poetry
  

Ok feeling kinda stupid because my posts seem to only be showing up when I look at them in VIEW.

Jason - my thoughts are with you - your one of the few I really have spent any time with in person - and your as adorable and cool as any guy can imagine - to see you hurting, well it fuckin hurts.

My boss broke his hand and wrist while I was in LA so everything is in overdirve for me right now, had a great little post to write but fuck that - it's late, need to tenderize my meat and get some shut-eye.

Ciao.

You've got that look in your eye, Leo -- that slightly demented, fervently giddy expression I see in you every now and then. Judging from previous experience, I surmise you're about to either launch a brave quest to the frontiers of your understanding or else hurl yourself into a sticky abyss where all the demons adore you. You realize there's a difference, right? One is scary fun and the other is glamorous torment. Please go to your room, take a hundred deep, slow breaths, and meditate about what you should do next to prove how much you love yourself.

LEO Horoscope - courtesy Free Will Astrology

Ok - back from La-La-Land.

I may have done one or ALL of the things from the following list:

• Drank a wee too much
  
• Drank way, way too fucking much
  
• Had a five fucking hour delay on the outbound flight
  
• Had sex with a complete stranger while he was at work with people passing by on a busy street
  
• Fucked with a guys head
  
• Run into my ex-roomate from college who I haven't laid eyes on in 8 years
  
• Spent a LOT of friggin money at Dolce&Gabanna, Fred Segal, Traffic and the vintage t-shirt mart (though I feel fucking hot in my vintage black Sex Pistols tshirt)
  
• Realized that ALMOST 90% of the hot waiters at gay bars in LA are straight - which some how really, REALLY offends me.
  
• Went to Abbey, O-Bar, HERE and a couple really, friggin scuzzy bars
  
• Been asked (opening hit-on line) "So what makes you interesting?" - I'll have to get into my answer later.
  
• Been interviewed in a man-on-the-street interview for some documentary - where I hopefully looked smart and not fat.
  
• Spent alot of really good time with two of my closet friends in the world and then managed to cap of the weekend - by being an-uber dick to one of them (make mental note: the doctors gave you those little pills to take for a reason)
  

...so, uh through this whole little experience I picked up some old bad habits (INSERT HERE: Drugs), stopped some bad habits (INSERT HERE: Drinking heavily) - then round your partner, round and round - swapped bad habits.

I ponder this as I wake up this morning with my face buried in a suede seat cushion of my tv room couch that I'm kinda sleeping on - but more likely past out on several hours before. My three dogs - um, yeah, did I forget to mention I got two more since last year - why yes, I understand that's probably one dog away from me wearing black socks to my knees held to my plaid shorts with suspenders and standing in my front lawn screaming at the kids for coming on my lawn - oh how the mighty have fallen...so anyway, my dogs (Hope, Faith and Cody) are runnning in and out of the back door which I left open for some reason and I have the facial imprints of s-video cables that were laying under me with the now dog-eaten Tivo/DVR instructions ripped to shreds and littered around me. Nice.

Thank god I'm going to Los Angeles this weekend - I need to be drunk in a pretty hotel.

Where do we go - when we only manage to disappear inside of ourselves?

Deeper and deeper under layers of hardened skin, worn muscles and aching bones to a place beyond life-bearing organs, fierce-pumping blood to find refuge within our battered soul.

I've been missing for quite awhile now, removed and distant. My apologies to my friends that I've been distant too - my grief didn't allow room for friends, I should have tried harder to run the show myself.

Healing is of all things, a most unusual process. Maybe I thought I would never come back - maybe I thought I would have come back sooner than this. Perhaps the wounds have healed enough, perhaps the stitches have never correctly healed and the scars are more visible than I think.

I wanted to be able to say that I'm 100% - that I'm Jesus Lil Beam O' Sunshine, but then it dawned on me, I never really was. I was a beer-swilling, foul-mouth, sex-obsessed, overworked and overwrought, silly and tough, rough trade fag who drafted his issues in to a spreading tattoo and wrung his heart out in his dirt-stained hands for all to see.

But for some reason, it's here I'm most comfortable - the online shrinks office - playing with my wounds, giggling at my fumbles and running at break-neck speed into oncoming traffic.

I haven't written a word since that last terrible post - I guess I probably have a lot to get out.

This is the worst entry that I have ever had to write.

This will also be the last entry I write at HCL.

On August 13th, the day before my 34th birthday - HERO ended his life.

As I slept, my dog Hope cuddling by my side, sickly-sweet smells of carbon monoxide filled my home. On the other side of my house, my black BMW sat idling in the dark pushing lethal gas into the garage and through an entry door to the house that wasn't up to code.

I keep wondering where the start of this story is: Was it the day I met HERO ? Was it the fight we had that night, standing outside my bedroom, just hours before? Or was it when HERO was five and after his Father left his Mother and she in turn took her own life in the same manner ?

The night before had been great - just last Tuesday. We had gathered at T's house with the boys to watch the Bravo line-up and pig out on snacks and desserts. Before hand I had hit the gym and while I showered, he groomed and we bantered back and forth. We were listening to Lucinda Williams and when I compared her to Bonnie Riatt, he commented how he had listened to her song "I Can't Make You Love Me" every day for the past two weeks. I let the comment pass - I was in a great mood. I've listened to that song probably 20 times since yesterday and the lyrics send a chill through my heart everytime. We had picked up a few bottles of wine and a white-chocolate cheesecake and a peanut-butter pie at AJ's before the shows. We had chided each other and spoken to a homeless woman in need of water. I teased him how easily he made new friends. I teased him in general, because I adored him and he was leaving to go back to college in a week for his last semester - and I didn't know how to say I loved him and I would miss him. He had been like a Mini-Dish-Water-Blond-Blue-Eyed-21-Year-Old-Tornado in my life these past three months - leaving my home in a constant revolving state of disarray and boyish home-making. I knew I yearned to have my house to myself again - but I knew it would seem half as big and twice as quiet as it seemed when he stood laughing in a room.

Something happened to me this summer, I found a relationship I had never forged before, what had started as a lover had become a little brother, even a son. He had become my family and I thought he was here to stay. I felt the type of love for him that I reserved for those that would become the strongest threads that I would weave into the tapestry of my life. Even after we broke up two weeks ago - I knew I loved him more than I could as a boyfriend. I was his protector. I wanted to protect him from everything bad - I never knew that I should have protected him from himself.

HERO had the tendency - as we all do - to be greatly affected by the excess consumption of alcohol. This night was not an exception, instead it was a clear example. It had appeared that, though quietly and respectfully, we had both moved on with our romantic lives. He had already had his first over-nighter - but regreted it badly the next day. He was still living in my house until school started, but he seemed ok - busily helping my friends plan for my birthday party and spending his days with Hope while I was work. He seemed like HERO. I never thought...I never knew. I had been holding back from him emotionally out of fear of confusing him with attention he might consider romantic. I hugged him rarely and had moved to just mussing his hair and half-hugs when I wanted him to know I still cared. I would kill to bear hug him now - I would squeeze and squeeze til he begged to be let go.. I kept any details about dates on the back-burner. When he asked questions, I gave information sparingly, hoping to avoid hurting him in any way. I would later realize, it was this lack of sharing - my confused sense of decency, that hurt him even worse. In the confines of my house, it was difficult - if not impossible - to have secrets.

As we drove home - he talked about our feelings - or more accurately he brought up that he didn't feel I was really comfortable around him anymore - that he had become a burden. I was taken aback. I tried to explain a poorly, executable logic - that when I really feel that close to another person - beyond a boyfriend - to the point of family - I found it difficult to show them constant physical affection - that I locked up. I went on to say I loved him very much, that I wanted to know him for the rest of my life. I should have said more. I should have told him how I looked forward to his graduation day, how I envisioned him bringing his boyfriends back down looking for my brotherly approval, how he would call me when needed advice or a laugh - I saw a future and he was part of it. I was attempting to shield him from post-break-up confusion - I had and would be even more so, unsuccessful.

I had made a phone call as we entered the house - BK, he and I talked and flirted and laughed, both a little drunk. As I circled my room telling BK stories about the evening I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Half hidden by the doorway, sitting in the dark - in my office, sat HERO on the floor. Listening. It was close to midnight when I ended my call, HERO came to my door and asked questions about BK, he asked questions about Me. I asked him why he considered it appropriate to eavesdrop on my conversations - I was feeling tinged with anger. He became upset, his voice stressed "I want to know you - your cutting me off - you don't let me in - you don't really love me". I explained I did, it was impossible to me to believe he didn't know that - why would I take him to San Diego, why would I still let him live in my home, why couldn't he believe it when I said it ? I was taking off my clothes to go to bed and he wouldn't budge. He began to disrobe - I asked him to stop. Please just hold me, he said - I need you - I need you to love me - I LOVE YOU - it's not going away - I don't know what to do. He began to cry and I told him I loved him, that we weren't meant to be, I hadn't wanted to hurt him - that I had known weeks before - we weren't meant to be. He said it would be easier for him if I hated him - he could get through this. I told him I would never hate him - he told me he would find a way to make me hate him, he kept saying he would find a way. It's hard to let go of certain words in the aftermath.

He followed me from room to room. My anger swelled. I began to lose my cool, I asked him how could I want to be with him when he pushed like this - harder and harder. I hate those words now, I hate the condescending tone I used. I begged him to let me sleep - he wanted this out now, and I wanted it over. I pushed him to the bedroom door and said goodnight, I want you to leave me alone now, I said - shutting the bedroom door.

I would have never thought of that moment; argumentative, but loving, insignificant - then unbearable - as the last time I would ever see HERO alive again. The police would later tell me that shutting the bedroom door had probably saved my life - and pulling my dog on to the bed instead of letting her sleep on the floor probably saved hers.

I don't remember if I dreamed that night. HOPE had woken me more then once and grogily I had fallen right back asleep. She was restless, she kept nudging me - I ignored her - I wanted to teach her to sleep through the night. The detective told me that her acute sense of smell was alarming her, she had been reacting nervously to something she didn't understand, something she smelled. I finally subcumbed to her nudging and got up at 5:45am to take her outside to pee.

Disoriented and half awake I pulled on only underwear and shuffled down the hall lit only by the grey-blue light of pre-dawn. I didn't have my contacts in, or my glasses on and the shape of the white comforter on the couch was enough to convince me that it was HERO sleeping there. I cut through the kitchen so HOPE wouldn't wake him. My head was pounding and I was very sleepy. As I opened the door to the backyard I remember wondering why HERO was doing laundry at such and odd hour - I had mistaken the drone of the engine for the rattle of the washer. I stood outside, dawn - not dark, not light surrounding me. Hope did number one and number two, I clapped half-heartedly as I felt I might fall back asleep - eyes closed while on my feet. When we came back in the house I noticed little things - my alarm clock had gone off (it must be 6am I thought) HERO's pillow was laying on the floor in the TV room, and the washer sounded funny. As I raced back to shut off my alarm clock I noticed the white comforter on the beige couch was empty - no sleeping HERO, just pillows and air. I felt nervous. Had he taken off over our fight ? I grabbed my glasses. I thought of my car - that sound, it's my car - what is he doing?

I got to the door that enters to the garage. A hold out from when the house must of had just a carport in the 50's, a white, wooden door with a window. It hadn't been to code the house inspector had said. I barely ever really thought of replacing it. There are some things that will stay with you forever, when I reached the door, when I say him lying just on the other side - I found one of those things. Panic rushed up, trying to pass the disorienting fugue brought on by the fumes - had he fallen? Ridiculously I actually thought for a moment - had he falling while doing laundry. I grabbed the unlocked door knob, but when I pushed it only went a few inches. Lying face down on the cement, garage floor, head akwardly to the side, his arm pinned under him - his feet were blocking the door. Hysteria rushed in. Logic rushed out.

I began to scream, I began to yell as far as the yell would travel..................NO, NO, NO.

I shoved and threw myself against the door. Tears streaming down my cheeks - my heart was pounding - the weak aortic valve was ripping - my heart was going to come undone. I lifted the window and smashed out the screen - waves of gas surrounded me. I ran to the kitchen and grabbed my phone. I climbed through the window and fell on HERO. He didn't move - he didn't scream, he did nothing. I hit the garage door opener. The fumes were making me dizzy, nauseous. Sunlight mixed with fumes. The garage was hot, oppressively hot. I grabbed the keys and turned of the ignition - dialing 911 at the same time. I was screaming - I hadn't stop screaming. The operator attempted to calm me down asking for my address - is he cold he said ?. I answered, NO - not thinking - he was hot, he had been baking. The operator asked me to roll him on his back. When I did I saw his eyes. Those beautiful grey-blue eyes - were nothing but a hazy white grey. I had passed to somewhere else by this point - somewhere outside of myself - maybe just a string connecting me and reality.

I attempted CPR.

I tried to hold on to that string.

I tried to save him.

I failed.

I yelled profanities. I cursed a god I don't believe in. I cursed HERO.

Why? WHY? Why ?

Curious neighbors came out to their lawns. The freak show had begun. First one cop car, then another, then another, then another. The cops watched me as they approached. The neighbors stared blankly. I sat in my underwear cradling HERO's dead body in my arms - and I still continued to scream.

Many moments came after that. Racing by, yet freezing for a horrific second to become amazingly clear - and then, racing on again. The cops sat me on my driveway. I sat huddled against a 2 ft brick fence - sobbing. They needed to know what happened, had we argued, what was my relationship to him, how long had he lived with me, were we homosexual, how do they reach his next of kin ? I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. This wasn't, this couldn't - really be happening. Tomorrow's my fucking birthday , I told one of the nervously pacing police officers - uncomfortable with the disclosure that we had been "more than friends" - HERO would have been 22 in just 6 days from that moment as well. At this moment - almost seeming triumphant - a cop came carrying out of the garage - the suicide note. I called my boss, I called T and C and BK....not able to make out what I was saying. They hopped in cars and raced to my home. The cops sat outside, already sweating at 630AM on a hot, Arizona summer morning while they strung up police line. The neighbors nervously went back to their lives, their sane, normal lives. The police opened all the windows in the house to air the carbon monoxide out of the house - you're lucky you're alive one said. At the moment I didn't feel alive - I felt hollow, sickenly empty and confused. The next hours involved detectives and questions, the arrival of my terrified friends and their tears. Hope ran from the police officers to my friends, unabashedly unaware that we weren't playing 'chase'.

The first days involved shock, crying, grieving, moving me temporarily to BK's, a constant flow, no - parade - of friends. And the phone rang and it rang, call after call, after call. Each call tearing at my soul, leaving me in a pile, unable to speak - unable to tell the full story. Only one thing seemed consistent to each day. The sense of loss, the feeling of hurt and the feeling that life had turned inside out. I came back to my house the next day - my birthday - only to pack his belongings. The next day I came back again to hand those same belongings to his devastated Aunt and Uncle and 8 month pregnant sister. We cancelled all the plans associated with my birthday and it seemingly came and went - except for the occassional painful and akward call from a family member or a friend - cut off half way through the 'birthday song' to be told the heart-breaking news.

The funeral came on Saturday, and then the Wake. I've just moved from one item to another - on the saddest checklist I've ever made. I've been drunk everyday but one. The Horrible Days, give way to Bad Days, and now a week later to just a sense of numbness.

There is so much more to talk about. So much else that has happened, but I'm tired, and I truly can never really remember feeling this tired before. Maybe it was when I read the suicide note asking me to " let him go", maybe it was the moment I found an entry from this site in HERO's car, maybe it's when I found letters written (but never given) to me detailing how he began to read this site against my wishes and had planned to continue to do so, maybe it's when I saw his best friend sobbing hysterically at the funeral - unable to return my gaze, maybe it's the first night I came back to sleep in my own home after 5 days away terrified to be in my home - the place he took his life, maybe it's when his father who abandoned him at 5 (gay himself and a meth addict) called me looking to connect with the man his son loved (yet he didn't even know was gay) - maybe it was any of these moments, none of these moments or ones I have even yet to comprehend - that I realized my life was forever changed.

HCL served a purpose for me at one time. I have grown alot as person sharing and learning about myself and my life here. Maybe after two years and almost 100,000 vistors - I want to live a more private life. I just don't have it in me anymore. There's so much else I need to work on now, so much more important stuff to do. Maybe in a year I'll come back - reinvented - with a softer approach.

Thank you for the times you've read me. Thank you for the emails, the laughs, the friendships, the calls, the pictures. I've made people think, I've made people laugh, I've made people angry and I hope I've made people care. I'll still read and email. I'll still care and learn.

For now though, I want to take care of me. I want to take my grief private and rebuild.

TO HERO (from my testimonial at his funeral):

You were my superhero,
not able to leap tall buildings
or fly through the night air.

But you had superhero powers
though less visible
that were always present...

You could light up a dark place
with your blue eyes and generous smile.
You could discern between "infer" and "imply"
(God knows I never could)

You could convince any world traveler
from any space on this weary earth,
that you had traveled to their country
and visited their sacred monuments,
to only respond, when asked:
Why no I've never been there
- in fact you had never left the country.

I wish you had seen your own smile
and watched it radiate in a room of boys.
I wish you were here to critique these words
and feign horror at my poor grammar.
I wish you had stayed around...
to travel
with your family
and your friends
and me -
to those far off places you knew so well
but had never been
or seen.

I love you and I miss you deeply.