Hola Amigos,

I told a few friends about the whole Jeff thing. 3 of them are male. 2 of the males are gay. Every reaction was essentially the same, except my straight male friend. Here's his response:

"I am inclined to guess that he just didn’t think about the consequences of telling you. He probably thought 'Leslie will be overjoyed to hear that I got the dog fixed!' Not thinking about what your follow up question would be and how that would affect you."

There's nothing wrong with his response, maybe he's right. But it's just so funny to me that he would differ so greatly from everyone else. And one of my friends is very blunt, honest and the straightest gay guy I know, and he thought Jeff was messed up. So what gives?

I could start a study, I swear. "Heterosexual Male Response to Differing Social Situations." PhD in psychology, here I come.

It's getting better. I get depressed if I think about it too much, but mostly I've been thinking in a very general way. The missed opportunity, what's going to become of me, will my luck get better, etc.

But, enough about that. Here's a bit about my trip to NYC. It was relatively unexciting. A good trip, but my knee was bothering me so much that I didn't do nearly as much as I normally do. My friend Therese (I've known her since high school) came for 3 days, as did my friend Tim's girlfriend Gina. And as odds would have it, Tim's friend Brian brought him to NYC while we were all there (for his 40th birthday celebration) and we ended up spending a Sunday together. It was surreal, that all these friends of mine were with me in New York. We started out at Carnegie Deli, which doles out the world's largest portions of whatever you order, then took a walk and ended up in Central Park watching ice skaters. It was a beautiful day, sunny and not too cold.

Mostly I spent my time (that is when my friends weren't there) at the apartment icing my knee and watching old movies on TV. You know, it was OK, I needed the rest. It's messed up my inner clock coming back here since I just sort of got up when I felt like it. But it was good for me.

My friends in NYC have the world's weirdest dog. He's a shih tzu. Very fat and sassy. He's the only dog I know who doesn't get excited when you get his leash. He doesn't react at all. He just stares. You have to go up to him and put it on him, and then he'll go for walkies. He does hate being outdoors. I never get further than 1/2 a block in either direction before he's ready to go back inside. Once I got him around the block and that was only because there was someone with me (for some reason it's less hateful to walk when he's got more than one human being with him). He eats 3 cans (trays?) of that Cesar dog food every day. They say that's all he'll eat. It stinks. See, I've never had a dog that wouldn't eat what I gave him. Maybe it took some getting used to, but they get hungry and they eat. My dogs have never been too discriminating. But this dog, jeez. He takes the cake.

All in all it was a good trip, and I'm super glad that I went. There is a lot more to tell, of course, but I don't want to get boring. Just get yourself to NYC and you'll understand why I keep going back. It's my favorite city.

The day I got back Therese and I went to the Body Worlds exhibit at the Museum. It was fascinating! A teenager was looking at a cross section of a very fat person, and said "How does someone get that fat???" and I thought, kid, it's easier than you'll ever know. There was really only one morbidly obese example. I figured there'd be more, you know, hoping that I'd get scared straight. What they had a lot of was smoker's lungs. Probably because most of the people who donated were European and they sure know how to smoke over there.

Anyway, it was really interesting and very well done. And I didn't really get grossed out or anything. It's absolutely amazing how intricate our systems are. The coolest were the ones that just had our circulatory systems. After seeing that I can totally understand why a papercut can make you bleed like a stuck pig.

There was some sort of Body Worlds knock off showing in NYC while I was there. My friend Rick said that it was supposed to be terrible, and was run by some shady person and he thinks organ stealing was involved. Strangely, it wasn't in Chinatown, which is the knock-off capital of the world. Alas, I didn't go, since Body Worlds is obviously the Cadillac of the dead bodies exhibited interestingly milieu.

I guess some people find BW offensive. It is a bit bizarre, but these people willed their bodies to Gunter what's his name for this express purpose. So...don't go if you will be offended. Nobody's forcing anyone to watch. That was pretty cool about being there. Everyone was so reverent, quiet, polite, and obviously interested.

I actually wouldn't mind being a part of that display, but I figure that with its popularity they've probably got bodies lined up for ages. I'll just stick to my original plan of being cremated.