FLASHBACK: until i met David, my sole long-term lover, i ate only Wheaties whenever i ate cereal for breakfast which was nearly every day . . . don't u ever get tired of the same flavor? he demanded, eyeing the variety pack he insisted that we also buy over my economical objections . . . he had the same attitude when it came to men . . . one morning, a month or two after we began living together in a studio apartment, David, an Ohio boy who literally had stepped off the bus from Newton Falls two weeks before we met, proudly "shared" news of his latest conquest . . . i hurled the box of Wheaties at him in a fit of jealous rage and crossed my very own Rubicon. . . u can't imagine the significance of this moment: not only had an anal retentive Virgo thrown an open box of cereal across the room, scattering crispy brown flakes as far as the unmade bed where we had just fucked our brains out, but i also had abandoned a romantic idealism for a cynical pragmatism that has endured to this day . . . what's good for the goose is good for the gander, particulary when David left New York to design sets for summer stock three months every year . . . these separations seemed to strengthen our relationship as much as they changed my eating habits . . . Wheaties, Cheerios, Special K, Total, i ate 'em all . . . my appetite for variety was limited only by the size of the pantry, which could accomodate only two large boxes of cereal at a time . . . my heart didn't have much more room either.

come rain or come shine every Saturday morning i found myself shopping for the week's groceries at Fairway when it was still a small store favored mostly by elderly Jewish women who often seemed to think they were fighting over marked down schmattes at Filene's bargain basement instead of radishes . . . this routine usually didn't afford many opportunities for cruising, but one hot July i noticed a cute, short guy with brown hair and dreamy bedroom eyes in his early 30s watching my every move . . . this went on for aisles and aisles tho we chose separate check out lines . . . he finished first and when i left the store i saw him standing at the corner of 75th and Broadway . . . if this goes on much longer, my ice cream is going to melt . . . he laughed, and within moments we were walking uptown together . . . he displayed none of the reticence that had characterized his cruising technique once i broke the ice . . . why would he? . . . a song and dance man, he had starred in Very Good Eddie, even snagging a Tony Award nomination . . . where is Charles Repole today? . . . directing community theater somewhere i'll bet but that night in 1981 he had a date with me to see Blow Out, the latest Brian De Palma movie . . . we came back to my place after the movie and had nice sex, memorable more for who he was than what we did . . . he was no David, after all, but he was eager to spend the night and his body fit snugly into my arms . . . around 2 a.m. the phone rang, something it never had done before . . . i miss u whispered David, words he never had spoken to me before . . . guilt surged throughout my body like that radioactive dye used in some medical imaging tests . . . fortunately, the complexity of the flim i had just seen gave me plenty to talk about especially since Charles , like most Broadway babies, couldn't have cared less about my favorite director's camera movements . . . i managed not to disclose to David that a minor celebrity was sleeping on his side of the bed . . . Charles had a question of his own when i hung up . . . was that your lover? . . . i explained our situation and managed to go back to sleep in spite of my exhiliration.

i awoke early on Sunday and baked blueberry bran muffins while Charles slept . . . when i summoned him to breakfast he approached the table tentatively . . . what's this? he asked looking at the muffins, the sectioned grapefruit and the steaming coffee . . . what does it look like? . . . no one ever baked me muffins before, he said, wiping a tear from his eye (I KID U NOT) . . . talk about a drama queen! . . . little did he know that i would have made the same breakfast whether he had been there or not . . . and when he asked me why are all the good ones taken?, i smiled like the Sphinx. . . weeks later, long after Charles had been replaced by a less fruity brand of cereal, David returned from Beverly, MA . . . as soon as we sat down to our first Sunday breakfast, i confessed, not because of any guilt, which had evaporated as soon as we hung up that night, but because i couldn't resist telling such a good story and reminding him that my domesticity, while routinized, had been appreciated by no less than a Broadway star . . . to his credit, David laughed and ate heartily (histrionics weren't his style) . . . he even gave a name to the breakfast i served him every other Sunday for the duration of our five-year relationship: J's heartbreaker bran muffins.

THE PARABLE OF THE BLUEBERRIES

the produce department of your local grocery store is chock full of gay lifestyle metaphors, something i recognized long before a recent episode of Queer As Folk, the Showtime series that leaves no cliche unfilmed (Brian and another guy silently but successfully cruised one another by each grabbing zuchinnis that kept escalating in size) . . . many years ago, i purchased a pint of the plumpest, bluest blueberries u ever have seen at Fairway, the famous discount market on Manhattan's Upper West Side . . . they transformed my bowl of cereal into something worthy of Martha Stewart's Living, blueberries almost the size of grape tomatoes bobbing on top of the whole milk (like i said, years ago) among the flakes of Special K that quickly grew soggy during my rapturous contemplation . . . but when i lifted these perfect little crown-festooned globes to my mouth in a spoon, practically delirious with anticipation, i discovered they were absolutely tasteless . . . not long afterward, i bought another pint . . . if not for their color, these blueberries might have been mistaken for currants, so small were they . . . they stimulated no mouth-watering anticipation, they merely filled my desire for seasonal fruit and quickly sank to the bottom of the bowl . . . do i have to tell u that my unsuspecting taste buds exploded with pleasure? . . . these tiny berries reminded me of the skinny guy, usually from the East Village, who u don't pay much attention to when he's surrounded by Chelsea Boys with bubble butts and worked-out pecs thrust so far forward in their tight t-shirts that they look like Vargas girls in sweaters . . . but get him in bed and discover that the meat closest to the bone is the sweetest.

so it's 11 o'clock on a Sunday night . . . u have scrolled thru at least half a dozen M4M chat rooms several times and haven't found anybody of interest . . . no one has IM'd u since 8 p.m. . . . u have seen one screen name that makes u lick your lips but u discover that he doesn't appear on your buddy list because he has blocked YOUR name, despite a couple of friendly chats initiated by HIM after one hot hook up under a different screen name . . . what's that all about? u wonder, filing away the slight in a part of your brain activated in early adolescence and that has long since overflowed with the kind of casual rejections that thicken your skin if not your psyche . . . why is he avoiding me even though he keeps IMing me and making comments like interesting how i keep IMing u no matter what name u r using ? . . . but then, while u r deep in a New Yorker article, you hear the sound that makes u jump like a Pavlovian dog and it's him, flirting with u, inviting u over to see his new sleigh bed . . . do u swallow your pride and go? . . . of course i did, eagerly, because after all i never have hooked up with anyone like him on AOL . . . but when i get there i notice he has trouble looking at me in the eye . . . immediately, he leads me to his bedroom and we undress . . . i simply cannot believe i am kissing a man as beautiful as he . . . flawless face, shoulders, chest, dick and legs, all in perfect proportion, with the demeanor of a student council president who also played quarterback . . . and no denying it, we do have a sexual chemistry which leads me to recognize that he likes to get off the same way i do: so i fuck him in the mouth as he lays below me, twisting his nipples hard, until i shoot and he shoots all over his defined, lightly hairy pecs . . . 10 minutes later i am riding my bike home happy to have been chosen . . . sometimes just being the right cock at the right time is all that matters . . . but more than that, the experience teaches me something about AOL cruising: your profile alone can help establish an ineffable connection more often than not destroyed by the exchange of pics . . . maybe sensibility could be just as important as the sex thing if we'd just let it.

would the White Party have been any more exciting if i had found myself, like D, in the ladies room with some big lunk rimming me during Robbie Leslie's late morning set? . . . or is the Saint-At-Large just a tired brand favored by the first generation of AIDS survivors trying to recapture their youth and ignorance? . . . when we arrived at 5:30 a.m. Roseland seemed oddly empty though most of the guys did conform to the dress code, with white Levis and black boots the most common expression of the theme . . . i wore white nylon pants and a t-shirt which had been intended to distinguish me from the crowd with a screen print of Courtney Love and her lyric i want to be the girl with the most cake . . . but when in Rome, do as Romans so i checked it and wandered upstairs to join a 1000 more bare chests . . . D had taken his X in the cab, but i held on to mine, wondering if i might possibly enjoy this experience without chemicals . . . after all, i had a good night's sleep and i do love to dance . . . but two minutes later, the bitter pill of happiness was dissolving under my tongue . . . early morning clarity offers little defense against circuit boy attitude . . . as D led the way to the northwest corner, where he made arrangements to join his buddies, we met our Fire Island Pines housemate DA and began our own little cluster on the outer edges of the dance floor where D had enough room to wave his arms ecstatically and move back and forth as freely as he desired . . . DA and I prefer the middle where we eventually moved, under the descending disco ball (did someone say tired?) when our cluster achieved critical mass . . . u always manage to find the sleazy center which is just fine with me said DA, who is far more aggressive than i am about inserting himself into attractive groups . . . actually i just prefer dancing among as many sweaty bodies as possible . . . greater opportunity for anonymous contact that depends more on physical attraction and rhythm than who u are or what u do, which is nothing for me at the moment . . . who knew that synchronized butt dancing with some cute Puerto Rican kid for an entire song would lift me out of a depression that has been building since i lost my job two weeks ago? . . . no doubt about it, we would have won the gold medal if it were an Olympic sport . . . i still can feel the heat of his body and the sweat pouring off our backs as my butt kept perfect time pressed against his, moving round and round and pumping back and forth . . . we ended our brief tryst with a smile, which suited me just fine and provided far more ego gratification than a hello kiss from somebody i used to work for, a guy New York magazine described as one of the city's most powerful gay men . . . unfortunately, it also meant that i let my guard down and broke the first rule of tribal dancing: always check out your surroundings or you may find yourself in the arms of somebody who in face-to-face circumstances will have u fleeing in the opposite direction . . . i suppose u could argue that if it feels good, what does it matter who's filling your dance card, but i don't think all the X in the world would help me overcome my resistance to guys who don't make my cock tingle . . . i spent the rest of the morning avoiding someone whose embrace felt like heaven until i turned around . . . does this make me a circuit boy? . . . perhaps in attitude only, because quite unexpectedly (i.e. no manuevering on our part) DA and i found ourselves next to the perfect physical specimen: a Brooklyn Adonis who parted the crowd as easily as Moses did the Red Sea . . . do you come by the pound? asked DA, whose irreverence was rewarded with a smile that must have felt like God touching Adam's finger on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel . . . i fell back into my typical observer role as the music receded in time and a steadily older crowd filled the dance floor . . . three guys engaged in faux sex nearby and D hooked up with a massive guy nearly a full head taller than D's six feet . . . imagine my surprise to witness my normally reserved sister looking adoringly upward at the man who held him against his beer belly and submissively nibbling on the his nipple . . . well, i've never done that before he said with a shit-eating grin after disappearing for half an hour . . . u mean have sex at a circuit party, u slut? i asked, jealous of the circumstances if not the man who had a tweaked fuck buddy in tow and a lover at home, of course . . . D didn't give me the full story until we spoke on the phone later . . . it especially amused me to hear that the big lunk was fastidious enough to wipe the toilet seat with paper before sitting down and inserting his tongue into D's ass . . . talk about the telling detail!