I'm in a far better mood than I have any right to be considering I have a cold. As I sit here listening to the sweeping, rich tones of Debussy's "La Mer", my trusty teapot by my side, I'm aware of a bubbling undercurrent of joi de vivre which has been with me frequently these past few weeks. You could put part of it down to just having spoken, last night, with Jed, for the first time since we broke up. You could perhaps ascribe part of it too to the sweet, cute boy who's coming over this afternoon to keep me company for a while (more on that later).

But it's more than that. I've talked frequently about my favorite author, Patrick O'Brian, and his "Aubrey/Maturin" series of novels, set in the Napoloenic Wars. One phrase from one of these books particularly struck home with me when I first read it a few years ago. It goes something like this:

"Most mornings Jack woke up with a singularly lively expectation of enjoying the day."

The reason that struck me so was that, at the time, I was aware that I could scarcely ever make such a statement about myself. It's that joy of life that has often seemed lacking. It's a spark that ignites all of your interactions, and fills you with ideas, when it's there.

Over the last ten years or so, it's been more often absent than present, I have to admit. It has often made me wonder if this is the normal way of life for most people. I've found myself looking at people in elevators, or coffee shops, and wondering if the lively expressions on their faces represent their true inner lives, or are just momentary expressions. It's the kind of thing it's hard to find out. I mean, if you ask your friends if they're happy, they usually say yes. I suppose most people would be unwilling to admit they're not. Or, I suppose, perhaps most people are happy, and it's just me. I doubt it though. I'd wager that many of you reading this now have thought similar thoughts yourself.

I should make clear that I'm not saying I've been intrinsically unhappy all these years. Obviously, there have been many great times, and months and weeks on end of contentment or happiness. But the times where I've wondered "Is this all?" have probably outnumbered the good times.

At any rate, to experience a month or so of joi-de-vivre is a blessing. I've noticed recently that those strangers in coffee shops and elevators are more likely to make conversation with me than in the past. I've noticed too that I've been getting more wandering eyes directed my way at the gym. I don't believe it's because I've suddenly become God's gift to gay men; I surmise that it's body language. If you feel good about yourself, you can't help but show it, I suppose. And where, in other times, I'd have ground out a cursory greeting to colleagues I run into in the hallways at work, now I can't help but come out with some bouncy, chirpy comments.

This journal entry is quickly turning into the kind of entry I swore to myself I wouldn't write here (when I first started the journal) - way too introspective. Twisting and turning inside, and double-backing on myself. I'll probably read it in a few months or years when I'm down in the dumps again, and think how impossibly naive I was. Oh well.

Back to the cute boy who's coming over this afternoon. Two or three weeks ago I wrote how I'd posted a classifieds ad, which was a kind of romantic sex ad, if you like. Well I had a couple of dates this week, and one of them took me by surprise. This hunky Vietnamese guy sent me a photo of himself emerging, wet from the waves carrying a surfboard, and naturally, I wrote back (who wouldn't!). In our ensuing email interactions, I painted myself a picture of him as being, I suppose, a "player" (in the gay partyboy sense, not like in Hollywood or business).

When it came time for us to get together, I was taken aback, though, by how different he was than I expected. He was certainly cute: strong, toned, endlessly smooth. But he had a joy of his own that surpassed the difficulties he'd faced in his life, and a strong, emotional intelligence. After a difficult start (after all, it's never that easy to make a connection with a complete stranger who's sitting in your living room), I realized that I was becoming interested in knowing more than his body, so I proposed that we went out for a bite to eat.

Over dinner at Fuzio, we really began to click. His sense of joy was infectious, and we were giggling like schoolkids. It seemed, then, entirely natural once we got back to my place to start to smooch, without the usual nervous preamble.

Now come on, you know what I mean when I talk of that nervous preamble: you're sitting next to each other listening to music, but both scared to make a move. Then one of you takes the other one's hand, and says one of:

a) Can I look at your life-line?
b) What big/small hands you have!
c) Wow, what smooth hands you have!

Then you hope that things will lead on from there.

This time, though, I just sat down behind him, as he perched on the edge of the bed, and kissed his neck. That seemed to get things started, and we ended up having a great time.

Still, no fear of a repeat today, considering my cold. Come to think of it, I probably caught it of him. He swears that he never gets sick, and, you know what, I believe him. He seems to have more than the ordinary share of lifeforce. But in my current state, I won't be participating in his lifeforce this afternoon, much as I'd like. Although I do hope he brings me some chicken soup :)