On Friday night, Cecilia and I drove over to Berkeley to see the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater. I knew exactly how Cecilia would be dressed; so, for fun, I dressed the same way - black jeans and boots, black shirt and black sweater. We looked like twins, apart from the fact that I'm about a foot taller than she is, and ... errr ... we look nothing alike.

Cecilia never wears anything but black. I always ascribed it to her having lived in New York for many years prior to moving to San Francisco. But she insisted, when I asked her about it, that she dressed this way even when she was growing up in Greece. Yeah, right.

The audience was a mix of the usual Berkeley hairy hipsters ("how Berkeley can you be?"), some willowy young things who were obviously aspiring dancers, grey-haired old ladies and fearsomely well-dressed black women with towering hairdos. It turned out to be the first modern dance performance I've attended where the audience not only clapped along with the music, but hollered and whooped as if we were watching an action movie ("kill the bitch!" etc.)

Mind, I even whooped myself at one point, because it was an exhilarating, uplifting evening. Lithe, muscular, athletic, half-naked black men will do it for me every time :) And jeez, were these guys FINE! It's odd, but even now, ten years after breaking up with my first serious boyfriend, Shawn, I still can't see a tall, strong black man without thinking tenderly about him.

But much more than just a strong physical reaction, there was an evening of true artistry - one of those electric moments when you feel you're seeing something special that thrills your heart. The women would burst on stage from the wings, flashing their colored dresses through the air, in a proud, strong strut. The music - a mix of avant-garde techno, disco, black spirituals, african chants and blues - was balanced with striking lighting effects, particularly in the second piece.

Mind, that second piece ruffled a few feathers with its homoerotic undertone. The row of black women in front of us weren't too keen on seeing two beautiful young black men hugging each other tightly on stage.

The final piece conveyed something about life's journey, beginning and ending with a beautiful, graceful procession to an ethereal song, while the middle sections included explosive choreography set to disco music (that was where the whooping came in).

This was all such a contrast to the dance performance, by the Lines Ballet, I attended with Jaxon the previous Friday at the Yerba Buena Center. There, the audience had a pseudo-hip look about it, as if they knew they'd come to watch something serious and inaccessable. While the evening had its moments, it was hard "to get" and at times, frankly, excrutiatingly boring. Still, it wasn't until I saw the Ailey troupe this Friday that I recognized the vast difference between the two approaches. Thinking about it, you could almost accuse the Ailey troupe of merely elevating the form of dancing you'd see as filler during the Oscar ceremonies. But, hey, if that's the case, I'll take the Ailey approach over the more "serious" one any day.

Wow, what a gorgeous day dawned on Saturday. After weeks of rain and gloom, the flawless blue sky and the spring temperatures were enough to send anyone's heart dancing. Even my own heart made a sort of heavy shuffle of its own, despite my lingering sadness about Jed, and the quite separate edge of depression which seems to have settled into an almost permanent background state.

I went for a run in the Marina, and the Golden Gate Bridge absolutely gleamed in the clear, still, crisp air. I ran past middle-aged chinese people (and the occasional adventurous white person) doing their Falung Gong, or whatever it is on Marina Green; young, athletic straight people in sleeveless fleece jackets, caps and sunglasses setting up their sailboats; and shrivelled Italian-Americans sipping coffees on Columbus Avenue. And I was once more so glad that I live in such a beautiful city.

But I don't understand my body right now. On the one hand, I think I'm more muscular than I've ever been before, while on the other, I think I have more noticeable fat on my stomach than in a year or so (possibly an inevitable consequence of age - the dreaded "thickening around the middle?"). The real mystery is that despite both these weight-inducing developments, I'm exactly the same weight I've been for two years - 199 lbs.

At the gym, later in the morning, with Cecilia, I commented on this mystery, and she dutifully pinched my midriff to assess the fat content. But answers, had she none.

Oh, and just to prove me wrong, she came to the gym wearing a bright yellow t-shirt instead of her usual black.