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After the world-wind that was London I wasn’t sure what to expect out of the last leg of my trip; or if I had the energy to meet ‘n greet, shop, sightsee, wine and dine the way I’d just experienced.

I looked through my clothes as I unpacked, smiling to myself while hanging my clothes in the contemporary armoire that substituted for a closet.

I’d made (most) of the right choices of wardrobe to…

I arrived at Schiphol, the international airport in Amsterdam still humming the score from “Phantom of the Opera”.

I couldn’t help but notice that it was quite a different experience as I walked though this modern facility in relative quiet compared to the volume of noise and people I’d just left at the world’s busiest airport.

But, as grand as Heathrow is, its terminals couldn’t compare with the…

In the winter of 1986 I decided to take a ‘holiday’.

I was starting to make a name for myself in the very competitive world of commercial art and advertising as a fashion illustrator so I was making good money for the first time in my life and I could afford to indulge myself alittle.

I’d been single for more than a year since the break-up with ‘The Teacher’ and it was definitely time to shake…

“What the hell is wrong with you? Terry said into my ear.

“Why are you standing there looking like a cow standing on it’s own udder?”

My friend Terry had walked over to where I’d followed my fantasy “Mr. Right” and stood beside me. I guess I was still frozen in the spot where I watched him walk out of the club and out of my life for all intents and purposes.

I wasn’t quite sure if I felt worse…

I spent the rest of the night trying not to stalk the tall stranger that looked like a matinee Idol of yesteryear but had quickly become my present obsession.

I tried not to watch him with his friends, seeing that he was quick to reach out and touch (whether it was a boy or girl) and move in close as they laughed and talked, only occasionally did he turn his gaze away from them to peer out into…

Looking back now after so many years it’s hard to describe what I felt that night but I do know that I’ve never had the same reaction to seeing someone for the first time, not before or since.

He was amongst a large group of about seven or eight boys and girls that walked into the club not long after my friends and me.

I don’t remember who saw whom first but I know that I held his gaze for as…

Turns out I needn’t have worried about what kind of impression I’d made that first weekend in the country.

I returned as a “Guest of a Guest” (always in the company of my best friend Terry) a few more times that summer until one weekend my hosts took me aside and told me that I should consider myself ‘their friend too’ which meant I didn’t have to wait for an invitation from ‘my friend’ to visit.

After meeting John and spending time with him that first weekend he seemed to me to be an enigma wrapped in a curmudgeonly conundrum.

He told me that he designed the unique ‘logo’ used throughout the house; in the front door, the staircase, inlaid on the floor in the foyer and the custom made furniture in the Music room, all executed by local woodworkers to his specifications.

He’d never had a…

  “…And we’ve got tons of *volunteers this year; tomatoes, pumpkins and even some squash!”

  I don’t know if I was more surprised by hearing the tail-end of what sounded like a non-sensical statement (tomatoes ‘volunteering’? For what? A vegetable fundraiser?), or that I saw more than one person when I walked into the kitchen behind Terry and George.

I’d expected to be meeting my other host…

Sitting in the car after a long bus ride, warmed by the summer sun, gently rocking side to side in the backseat over the country roads I almost fell asleep until Terry turned around to tell me that we were almost there.

“Almost there” was a gravel road off the main thoroughfare, lined on either side with tall mature trees and scrubs that acted as a privacy fence.

I realized it may just as well…

I finally got to see how the ‘other half’ lived thanks to my new ‘bff’ Terry during that first weekend in the cool countryside of rural Pennsylvania away from the hot, smoldering concrete jungle that is Manhattan in summer.

Some New Yorkers travel North during the summer months to the beach communities in The Hamptons or Fire Island, while others venture South to the farmlands in Bucks County, Pa.

After being “closed for renovations” for far too long I am happy to announce that the “Boyfriend Factory” is re-opened and is better than ever!

I apologize for not posting for some time but life has a way of stepping in and putting things on pause but the conveyor belt is now rolling along with all new boyfriends being built, tinkered & played with, discarded and/or swapped for (hopefully) a…

Memories of that boat ride and how I came to be part of Milton’s coterie were never far adrift because it was an oft-told tale at Milton’s soirees during that first year or so that I knew him.

I didn’t mind (who would) although sometimes it was all I…

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  The rest of the evening was a whirlwind.

I met so many people and shook so many hands (attached to faces that I’d only seen on a TV or movie screen) that I was beyond sensory overload.

I think that because I was so overwhelmed that I ‘appeared’ calm, as…

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 I knew my movie knowledge would come in handy one day.

Who knew I’d actually meet people who’s names had scrolled up the screen at the end of a movie I’d watched a million times…….’go know’.

I could see by my tablemates’ expressions that they were…

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