what could be better than being in the Pines with the house practically all to myself when the temperature is expected to hit 90 on a nearly perfect summer day? . . . few eyebrows were raised over my pierced navel which i have decided looks like a cheap wedding ring suspended in a bowl of strawberry jello after three days of sunburning my tummy . . . u did it just to write about it, said R, my always perceptive housemate, who also observed that i was entering my eccentric phase when i told him i had begun a blog . . . but he got the concept immediately . . . thought i would have a terrific entry on Monday . . . NAKEDMUSCLENYC@AOL.COM instant messaged me as UWSTOPSYTURVY@AOL.COM the night before i left the city . . . as soon as we exchanged pictures i realized we had done it already a couple of times, once in the Ramble and once on Wanker's Way, a section of the beach at the eastern end of the Pines where nude guys exhibit their big dicks like pervs offering candy to children . . . how could i forget someone who kept asking me to punch him in the gut? . . . i remember u know how to take controlhe typed . . . [of everything but my career, i think] . . . then he began addressing me as "SIR" and goaded me into making a date for a domination scenario that includes him already stripped and ready for abuse when we meet (too bad i didn't think to save the chat--i won't make that mistake again!) . . . he must have guessed that my heart wasn't in his humiliation because when i showed up on Burma Road, which runs parallel to the Great South Bay between the Pines and Barrett Beach, 15 minutes past the appointed time (shouldn't a slave expect to be kept waiting by his master?), he was nowhere to be found . . . . . perhaps it's a ploy to get me angry enough to do all the things he likes when our paths cross again.

GAY GEOGRAPHY LESSON: the Pines is a community located on Fire Island about an hour's drive east from New York City, accessible only by ferry . . . no cars are permitted . . . barely a mile long and less than a quarter mile wide, during the high season in July and August, it probably has the highest concentration of gay men per square foot in the world . . . which once made it ground zero for the first AIDS epidemic in North America. . . many of us would sell our mothers into white slavery to buy a share in one of seven hundred or so houses in this ghettoway for the fabulous . . . operating on the male pleasure principle, it has been described both as paradise on a narrow strip of sand and high school with money . . . some say it has lost cachet since the early 70s when celebrities like the (young) Calvin Klein danced with Puerto Rican busboys at a disco that many insist has never been renovated but I say the tattooed and pierced new media boys u see marching in the flesh parade will one day be remembering the summer of 2001 as the good old days too . . . as the world changes, so does the Pines . . . except, of course, for the schedule: sleep late, go to the beach or lay by the pool all day (weather permitting), dress up for a theme party or drink too many cocktails at tea, eat with your housemates, nap, do drugs, dance all night . . . and of course, indulge in the endless opportunities to spill your seed . . . Onan's playground, indeed.

FLASHBACK; spring of 1988 . . . D, my ex-boyfriend, takes a Pines share for the first time . . . i guess that means you are now a major fag,i observe acidly but quickly accept his invitation to do a Sunday night guest spot in the "TV House" which, when viewed from the beach at night, looks like a giant television set because any activity inside can be seen clearly through the enormous rectangular glass facade . . . a moonlit visit to the Meatrack, an infamous wooded cruising area between the Pines and Cherry Grove (a gay community to the west more popular with lesbians) persuades me to take a half share (every other weekend) the next year . . . before my first season ends, i'm hooked . . . D and i decide to organize a house of our own . . . we sign a lease for the Muller Cottage, which sleeps six and boasts the only kidney shaped swimming pool in the Pines, nicknaming it "Casa Donna Reed " because the interior looks the set of a late 50s sit com and because i discover i have been born to play the role of perfect house mother . . . serving margaridas with chips and guacamole on the deck overlooking the Great South Bay becomes my first ritual, one that lasts for nine seasons until the house is bought from under us and renovated.

first a goatee, then a blog now a pierced bellybutton . . . am i going through a textbook case of a midlife crisis or what? . . . everything i know about piercing i learned from Daria who got a navel ring just to please Trent, the guy both she and i have a crush on (is it sick to have a crush on a straight cartoon character? . . . he's so coooooooool) . . . anyway, i just returned from Triple XXX Tattoo in the garment district . . . after carefully laying out her equipment (rubber gloves, Q tips, Bactine, forceps, a piercing tool that resembled a nail without a head, a ring and a bead) on a stainless steel tray, a shy young multiracial woman with a lion grabbing both her shoulders told me to lay back and lift up my shirt while Billy Corgan sang in the background . . . "breathe in hard, and out" she instructed, once, twice and a third time before i finally felt the tip of the piercing tool break completely through the fold of skin she had clamped together . . . i hope i can stand the itching as it heals better than Daria . . . according to the aftercare instructions, i have to avoid both the pool and the sauna for a month to prevent infection . . . that will be very hard for this instant gratification junkie since exhibitionism was definitely the primary factor in my decision to join the pierced crowd.

FLASHBACK: i'm feeling up some preppy looking guy five or six years ago and discover that his navel is pierced, which excites me tremendously . . . "if i pull on it will you say 'please fuck me,' like some gay sex doll?" . . . he laughs and says "people look at me differently now. it definitely gives me an edge I didn't have before, especially at the gym."

here we go . . . spotting HapaGoalie while cruising an M4MNYC chatroom on AOL led me to this new place . . . as soon as i visited his blog (which reminds me of the work of David Wojnarowicz), like most baby boomers i said "i want one of those, too!" . . . voluntary unemployment will give me the time to maintain my very own blog, plus i have more than 20 years of navel gazing experience in keeping a handwritten journal that usually amuses my friends whenever i read aloud from it . . . so begins this picaresque tale of an aging homo in Manhattan and Fire Island Pines . . . my only fear now is that the Blog will kill the Journal, sort of like Video Killed the Radio Star (if i really knew what i was doing, you'd be able to play that great Buggles tune NOW).