The Whitney Museum's Idea Line is a collection of almost 200 Web-based artworks from 1995 to the present (including such classics as Superbad and jodi.org and previously overlooked gems like Marketa Bankova's New York City Map), organized into 32 cross-referenced categories and displayed in an interactive, undulating timeline format that's almost as much fun to explore as the artworks themselves: the perfect antidote to start your week if you're already tired of hearing about Tomahawk missiles and Enduring Freedoms and all their attendant consequences.

I wake up on this gorgeous, sunny Sunday afternoon to find out that Hitler was gay, that Paul Gauguin was a sadist, and that we're bombing the shit out of Afghanistan.

"Operation Enduring Freedom". Who writes these things?

And it was turning out to be such a pleasant weekend, too. I'm going back to sleep.

W. H. Auden: September 1, 1939

Richard left this morning for a five-day conference in Louisville, which my new atlas tells me is somewhere in Kentucky. I was invited to accompany him on the trip, and might've had it been to a more stimulating milieu - but Louisville? Really.

I spent this first day of my temporary bachelorhood on my hands and knees staining our new porch steps and sanding some baseboards inside the house. I supervised the installation of our security system (complete with fire alarm and motion detector), and met with our latest set of lesbian contractors to discuss the building of closets and bookshelves. I moved a refrigerator, decided I didn't like its new location, moved it back, almost severed my finger doing so, hooked up our washer and dryer, fixed a screen door that was falling off its hinges, browsed through this catalogue for things like corbels and flanges. Then I wandered over to the American Aquatic Gardens down the street to look at some waterlilies and a fountain for the corner of the backyard where I'm planning on putting in a garden pond someday, and picked out some plantings for the patch of soil under our bedroom window: sweet olive and Confederate jasmine. Our kitchen cabinets and sparkly new laminate countertops are going to be installed in a few days.

As much of an eighteen-month headache as the house has been, today it almost seemed like a new toy to play with. We should be moving in the next couple of weeks - maybe even in time for a combination birthday/housewarming celebration during the third weekend of this month.

I still feel like I'm moving around in a cloud of sadness as thick as pea soup. I still don't remember what food really tastes like, and this is the first time in days that I've sat at my computer and tried to write something without all the words slipping away from me. (And I really, really miss Richard.) But at least now I have something to look forward to.

It was my sincere, desperate hope that Glitter was going to be the new Showgirls. But I was wrong. Sincerely, desperately, horribly wrong. It's nowhere near as good (or as bad, depending how you look at it) as Showgirls. No over-the-top production numbers. No tongue-in-cheek, I-know-this-movie-is-ridiculous-but-I'm-having-a-good-time-anyway supporting performances a la Gina Gershon. Not even any lines as eminently quotable as "It must be weird not having anyone cum on you." Someone better buy me this before I get depressed again.

I'm up much later than I should be doing some long-promised astrological research for Noah (he of the captivating 10 fps smile). I entered my own birth data here and came up with the following:

Short Report - Personal Portrait
for John d'Addario, born on 22 October 1967

Sun in Libra, Moon in Gemini

You have an aptitude for establishing relationships with others, but you do not necessarily cement these friendships with loyalty. You are a good talker, but you do tend to chatter. When crossed, you can be traitorous and may even turn informer.

The overall picture is one of a versatile, communicative personality, who excels in speaking and writing, but who is rather undependable. Never content with the here and now, your mind focuses on past and future. The key to a more harmonious self lies in fixing your eye on one objective at a time. Develop consistency, and lengthen your span of attention.

Your style of lovemaking is supple and adaptable; you happily participate in any kind of loving that pleases your partner.

Ascendant in Libra, Venus in the Eleventh House

Your life will demonstrate your keenness of observation, and a tendency to effect comparisons largely of an aesthetic nature. You will not display too much energy in your actions and, therefore, there is a tendency toward following routine and the lines of the least resistance.

Some restlessness, changeability and lack of persistence is noted in your life. Your main feature is that of constantly favoring the fusing of two things or people together.

Unfortunately, this involvement with harmonizing and adjusting people to one another, tends to make the native a little unrealistic and lacking in action. You will be, however, easy going and congenial, socially oriented and preoccupied with adornments, clothing, social conventions, standards, and aesthetics.

Professionally, you will be inclined to activities which require a high degree of culture and even artistic knowledge.

You're very socially oriented and preoccupied with fashion and conventions. With your Ascendant in Libra, you have almost an addiction to physical beauty and grace in sexuality.

Sun in the First House

You are by nature energetic, proud and self-assertive. You project yourself enthusiastically and energetically into all situations. Your naturally outgoing disposition and personable manner usually make a good impression on people.

You often prefer to work alone. However, this is not your only choice, for you adapt well to working with people as long as you are free to express yourself. With a first-house Sun, there is a tendency to overestimate your own worth, but through repeated contacts with others you will inevitably come to a more realistic appraisal of your abilities and potential.

Elaborate courting is not your game.

Sun Conjunct Ascendant

The Sun conjunct the Ascendant shows that you have a great desire for recognition and are creative in finding ways to gain attention. You know how to win friends and influence people, and you use this talent effectively.

To be truly comfortable in your profession, you need to have a position of some authority over others.

Saturn in the Sixth House

In general, your work orientation and general health are not going to be very beneficial in life. You are going to find many problems in working or in finding employment and you may also be distressed by your relationships with subordinates or fellow employees. Most of these unfortunate circumstances should be regarded as tests of your character and viewed in this manner, you may obtain much enrichment in your psychic life from this knowledge and experience of pain.

Moon in the Eighth House

Since the Moon has intense qualities of perception, you may find that gradually there is an awakening of interests in sexual matters, psychic and spiritualistic research, and much mental speculation with ideas concerning the possibilities of existence after death.

At some point of your existence there will be possibilities of inheritance through members of the female sex or the maternal side of your family.

Venus in the Eleventh House

Your aspirations in life are very aesthetically oriented.

You strive for peace and harmony and if it were left up to you the whole world would be more humane, kind, and considerate. In your more personal relationships, Venus gives you the capability of obtaining substantial gain and assistance through your friends, who will desire to assist you with the best of intentions.

You prefer a lover who is well coordinated physically, emotionally and socially, someone you can show off proudly to your friends.

In this area your judgment must be very acute so that you can separate true substance from the showy or trendy. Try not to harry your partner unnecessarily about details of dress, image and social acceptance.

Mars in Sagittarius

You tend to approach any involvement, sexual or otherwise, with gusto, jumping right into what's happening without much ado.

Your sexual style borders on the athletic, providing a very energetic and healthful way of keeping yourself in trim. But take care not to neglect the more tender forms of love communication.

Mars in the Third House

You are likely to be a rather conversational lover, and your gracious or stimulating phrases add a great deal to lovemaking.

Weltschmerz (n. 'velt-"shmerts, German, from Welt world + Schmerz pain)

1 : a mental depression or apathy caused by comparison of the actual state of the world to an ideal state
2 : a mood of sentimental sadness

In a continuing effort to start feeling normal again, I put on my "Cocksuckers for Rugmunchers!" t-shirt last night and kicked off Gay Pride weekend here in the Big Swampy by tagging along in this year's Dyke March: scores of lovely fire-spinning ladies lighting up the air in Jackson Square (you'll be glad to hear that no one got arrested this time) and a surprisingly enthusiastic and supportive crowd lining the virulently heterosexual stretch of Bourbon Street where the march took place. Hopefully we stirred up enough positive energy to deal with these sad folks at the counterprotest at Canal Street later this afternoon.

It's amusing to think that this is about as "normal" as my life gets. But at least it beats worrying and thinking about things like this.

Regular and/or obsessive visitors to this page will notice I've been posting to this site sporadically over the past few days, only to go back and delete the posts a couple of minutes or hours later. That's because whatever I've written turns out to be something that's already been posted everywhere else, or something that's been circulated already via an email forward, or seen on television: everything, of course, relating somehow to the Current Situation.

Which I'm tired of thinking about, and reading about, and worrying about and losing sleep over, even if I can't seem to wrap my mind around anything else.

So: until I'm able to regain my ordinary scope of concentration and remember that there's more going on in the world besides ... well, you know ... go read something by someone who still has a sense of humor.

Who can think about sex at a time like this?

Well - plenty of us, actually. I don't think it's an accident that several good friends of mine have embarked upon new romances over the past two weeks, and The Cock on Saturday night was full of guys who were looking for something more than just a shoulder to cry on. Even my strolling companion and I couldn't help cruising a dreamy studlet in a paramedic uniform as we were lighting candles and tending the memorial in Union Square the other night.

After the unbelievable events of 9/11, sex is somehow the only thing that still seems real. Eros and thanatos, always and forever.

It struck me on the way home from the train station tonight that I spent almost as much time getting to and from New York this weekend as I was actually in New York.

The trip itself was mostly uneventful: miles and miles of kudzu-covered landscape, scores of little Southern towns looking like Walker Evans photographs come to life. Flags flying at half mast everywhere, of course. The train was comfortable, though, and between the gentle clackety-clack of the rails and the music playing in my headphones (and the fact that there weren't any viable erotic fantasy objects on board to distract my attention, despite expectations to the contrary), I managed to spend both legs of the journey pleasantly, munching on microwaved gardenburgers from the cafe, counting the minutes until the next designated smoking time in the lounge car, fitfully dozing off every now and again and thinking about What It Means To Be American.

Already it all seems like a dream: gasping when I first saw the amended Manhattan skyline when the train pulled out of Newark last Wednesday, a plume of smoke shaped like a question mark hovering at the end of the island; walking out of Penn Station on a brilliantly sunny September afternon and crying when I saw the first of the hundreds of posters I'd see over the next few days; stepping out of the Fulton Street subway on Saturday afternoon into silent streets full of people trying to understand the incomprehensible, and tracing my finger across the layer of grey dust that still covered the sidewalks and the buildings and trying not to think too hard about what the dust was made of; wandering through Union Square with Charlie on our way home from the bars that night, thousands of candles flickering in the soft early morning light; the tired, sad, and fearful look in the eyes of everyone, everywhere, all the time. Those are the parts of the dream that I wish weren't real, the parts that will haunt my real dreams for a long time to come.

And then there are the good parts of the dream: spending time with Chad and Charlie (and you too, Dex) and a bevy of other beautiful bloggers and old friends; late night matzoh-ball soup and toasted bran muffins at Chelsea Square; the wonder of the Oscar show and the shock of seeing Mr. Morgan's ghost at the Morgan Library (Charlie saw it too, I swear); scenes of goofy patriotism and urban survivors; the view of the city from the roof of the Met, green and whole and beautiful as ever.

On the train ride back to New Orleans a middle-aged woman with a bad dye job and puffy cheeks boarded somewhere in Virginia and immediately started complaining loudly about how uncomfortable the seats were, and how slow the train was going, and why the club car was closed because all she wanted to do was get drunk. I turned up my walkman, popped another Tylenol PM, and tried to get back to sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night I woke up and looked across the aisle to where she was sitting and saw her giving a hand job to this cute boy in an NYU sweatshirt whom I hadn't noticed was on the train. I watched out of the corner of my eye for a while and fell back asleep. Maybe I dreamt that too.

I've never been so happy to go to sleep next to Richard and the hounds as I am tonight.

I've often wondered exactly where my boyfriend came from, and exactly what I ever did to deserve him in the first place. At least now we know the answer to the first question ...