There's always a massive sense of anti-climax to a new year, particularly on your first day back at work. You roll into the office, see the same old familiar faces, sit down in the same chair and realize that it will be twelve months before you see Santa again. This feeling is particularly acute if you were never too excited about your job in the first place. This morning is my second day back at work - I arrived about ten minutes ago, read a few emails, and that's it - that's the full extent of work on my plate at this moment.

On the brighter side, at least I have time to write this journal :)

New Year's Eve - well, that was a bit of an anti-climax too, what with being thick with cold, and dizzy with jet-lag. I called Brett from the airport to find out how he was, and confirm with him that our big plans for New Year's Eve would have to be cancelled, since I wasn't feeling well. He was sounding very down on the phone, which isn't like him. So we agreed to hang out anyway for dinner and a movie - nothing too exciting, but at least we'd spend part of New Year's Eve together. He came over late on that beautiful, Spring-like afternoon - and I hadn't expected this - he was laden with presents for my birthday and Christmas. He's such a sweetie. All I had for him, I'm afraid, was a White House cookbook I'd picked up in D.C.

We walked over the skybridge to the Embarcadero Center, and had dinner at one of our usual spots, Fuzio. The manager there, a short, skinny, gay guy of indeterminate ethnicity (Indonesian?) is always extremely friendly to me. He calls me "boy", which, I suppose, is one way to my heart, and he swept us to a nice table as if we were VIPs, while Brett flashed me a knowing grin. Neither of us were in particular fine spirits, though, and we yawned our way through dinner, before walking over to the Metreon Center to see "Miss Congeniality", a light-hearted comedy with Sandra Bullock.

By the time I hugged Brett goodbye, and saw him off at the Bart station, the streets were streaming with revellers heading for the Ferry Building to see the fireworks, which were due to go off in a couple of hours. When I first signed the lease for my apartment back in April, it hadn't dawned on me that it would be the perfect location for seeing the July 4th and New Year's fireworks. Now though, drained and thick-headed, all I could think of was that the noise of the fireworks and all the people might keep me up all night!

Back in my apartment, I gathered up my photography gear, and walked out of my apartment, down the coridoor and outside to the fire escape, which has a little balcony looking East, towards the ferry building. It's possibly the best residential vantage point in the city to see the fireworks, and it was all mine ... at least for the moment. The crowds were gathering already, with 90 minutes still to go, and the ferry building was illuminated with shifting colored lights.

Now, I'd like to be able to show you photos of the actual fireworks. But truth be told, I couldn't stay awake, and I went straight to bed after taking that photo! I did wake up, briefly, at midnight, when the fireworks started booming, but I dozed comfortably through the noise, too lazy to get up again. Sorry - maybe next year :)

The next day, I wished that I'd not even gone out for dinner with Brett, since my cold had redoubled its force, and I felt pretty wretched. So I spent the day lying around, following my usual prescription for a quick recovery - absolute rest, no exposure to cold or stress, gallons of herbal tea and chicken soup - and several hours of taped episodes of "The Waltons." :)

By Thursday morning, I was feeling well enough to rejoin the human race. I went back to work - that first day of anti-climax I described - and even went to the gym in the evening, which wasn't, perhaps, terribly wise. I've joined my first new gym in five years, a big, fancy, yuppie independent club about ten minutes walk away from my apartment. I'd been getting very frustrated at having to battle rush-hour traffic three evenings per week to get over to my old gym in the Castro. I'm also hoping to take up playing squash again, and this gym is the only one in San Francisco which has squash courts. Now all I have to do is find a partner!

The atmosphere in my new gym is certainly very different from the Golds Gym I go to in the Castro (which I'm going to continue to attend twice a week, so that I can continue training with Cecilia.) Back at Golds, it's 99.9% gay - lots of men in tight tank-tops, stripey Adidas pants or skimpy shorts that look like underwear, darting eyes, and loud club music. Here, at my new gym, you have middle-aged men in artless, skimpy running shorts with a split in the side (they're wearing them not to show off but because they don't know any better), muscle-bound Italian-American men with overly deep tans, young business mens in loose t-shirts that conceal their gorgeous biceps, cute girls in spandex sports bras, old, grizzled bikers wearing bandanas, and no darting eyes (except mine). Oh, and you still have the club music, although, thankfully, not as loud. And I forgot to mention the basketball gym, which always features shirts vs skins!