The Death of Imagination

So for a while now, I've toyed with the idea of doing a kind of Spotify Wrapped for my hookup app. I wasn't sure who I'd really want to share it with beyond one person, the one who took the top stop on the list of men I'd shtupped. Even though things didn't work out, I thought he'd be amused and maybe a bit touched.

During break, I reached out to him to see if we could FaceTime and got a surprise: He told me he'd be "hanging out with the boyfriend". It hit me like a splash of cold water to the face and tossed my Sniffies Bound idea into the closet. (I may yet dust it off when my one-year anniversary rolls around.) I guess I was holding a bit of a torch for him in spite of myself.

I'd like to be happy for him. He hasn't had great success with relationships. By the time I was his age, I was on my third LTR so I can afford to be generous. But the recency of our intimacy combined with the fact that he only mentioned it in passing makes me want to walk away instead.

Meanwhile, on New Year's Day I was forced to confront the fact that, yes, three years on I'm still in love with BB. Which is fine, it's kind of what I expected, and it's not something that comes up very often. It would be completely fine, honestly, if I could just let go of that tiny bit of hope I can't seem to shake that someday, something might change in the way he feels about it.

Recently I was forced to confront that foolish little hope. He lost his closest companion, his dog Louie, back in November. It was a long time coming and, during that time, I allowed myself to fantasise that when the moment came, it's me he would turn to for solace. Of course, that's not what happened. It was his sister who flew out to help him put poor Louie down and I ended up being unavailable much of the week afterwards.

In theory, he's got a lot more free time now and I could be doing more to create opportunities for us to spend time together. But I realise that I'd still be hoping throughout for some change, some incremental movement toward emotional intimacy. It's just not going to happen. I don't know why I'm struggling so hard to accept that.

So in the meantime, I'm back to my whoring ways. I excused them last year by saying I was making a game of it and seeing how many notches I could rack up simply because it was something I'd never done before. But we're two weeks into 2025 and I've already knocked off 7 guys so clearly I'm not done sowing these oats yet. This isn't sustainable, I know it's dominating my thoughts and harming my nonsexual relationships, yet I'm still afraid of what I might have to deal with if I pause it.

Here it is, the second week of December, and right on schedule my seasonal depression is kicking in. I imagine when I say that, most of y'all interpret it to mean seasonal affective disorder, but while the lack of light doesn't help, in my case it's something else. This is the height of what I cheekily call Death Season, when all my various death anniversaries start piling up.

The big one, of course, is Cam's. If anyone besides Mozhu remembered, they didn't take the time to reach out, but I guess that's only to be expected after eight years. She has the advantage that her husband's yortsait is only five days later. Over the years, we've marked the dual anniversary in various ways and we're planning to do that again this year.

This year's birthday will go down in the books as a perfectly adequate one--not as brilliant as last year's daytrip to Milwaukee, but well beyond the time I pissed it away in a hospital room waiting for Monshu to be discharged.

With Clint still recovering, planning a trip seemed ill-advised, so I made dinner reservations with BB. Sometime around 11 am, as I was still lingering in bed reading through my avalanche of good wishes, I get a notification that the reservation had been cancelled. As there was no explanation, I called the restaurant and got some some kind of limp excuse about an equipment failure.

I texted BB about what to do next and he predictably left it all up to me. I wasn't feeling particularly motivated about finding another restaurant on short notice or about rescheduling with the one that had just ruined my evening and complained about this to Clint, who pointed out that he'd bought some lamb rosettes for my birthday dinner. He'd been planning to grill them sometime over the weekend, but he could just as easily do them that evening.

With that sorted, I turned my attention toward the afternoon. I'd talked to a friend they day before about maybe doing some shopping, but it was a muggy afternoon with intermittent rain and I didn't want to deal with that, so I just hung around the house until it was time for dinner. We ate out on the porch and bantered with the Yahoo Twins for a bit before making it an early evening.

The next day, which I'd also taken off, started out similar but I had a fun hookup come over shortly before noon. I took care of some errands in the afternoon and then met up with the Daddies Who Drink at Meeting House, swinging by Middle Eastern Bakery first for some sweets. With rain threatening, I hopped into a Lyft to get to Bayan Ko, where BB had managed to snag us a table.

It was a good meal though we both felt it peaked with the second dish. I thought the wagyu was the weakest course, but enjoyed the lechón and bibingka--though I took only a few bites and passed the rest to BB. He was predictably too full to want to go out afterwards but I moved on first to Max's and then SoFo, where I spent the rest of the evening.

There I ran into a bunch of furry friends who mentioned they'd be meeting up to do the Glenwood Arts Festival the next day. I made it there about four pm and immediately ran smack into them near the entrance. Apparently, there usual practice is to hang out at a friend's place nearby and make forays into the festival, so I followed suit and followed them back to their friend's place a couple of times, eventually closing out my evening there.

Sunday I might not have done much if anything if Babalu (one of the furries) hadn't hit me up about hitting a bookstore. He drove us down to Unabridged in Lakeview, which was much better than I'd remembered it being, and I bought four books, three of which I'd been looking to pick up for quite some time. Then we drove back to his place and watched Starstruck as his husband made us fajitas on the grill.

All in all, I really nice birthday weekend even if I never made it out of town.

So all the way back in February, I was complaining about the electrician who I thought was becoming a regular thing very much not becoming one. Have we gotten together since then? Not a once. He still texts occasionally to tell me he misses me, and today I finally pointed out to him how insincere that sounds to me when every opportunity he had during the last seven months to choose to spend time with me he chose something else instead.

He took it to heart and acknowledged that--despite the fact that it's been a crazy year for him for a number of reasons--it's ultimately due to his priorities that we haven't spent time together. Which is helpful to hear, but still doesn't do anything about the fact that he hasn't chosen to spend time with me.

What about the last guy I posted about, the one I'd had a couple of enjoyable dates with? We briefly became a thing. But then he came to two significant decisions: the first was that, although he really enjoyed being with me, he ultimately thought we were looking for different things. He still wanted to remains FWBs though, which I considered kind of an ideal situation since I'd independently come to the conclusion that, although I also enjoyed spending time with him and could see us continuing to "date" for a while, I wasn't willing to settle for not being in love with someone I consider a romantic partner. But the second decision was that he needed to move back to Florida for a while and get his life together, so so much for having regular fun times together. His birthday is in 11 days and he plans to come back for that but that may be the last we see of each other for a while.

I did have a good second date with someone last Thursday but it's hard to say how much potential there is there. So I'm back to being awash in sexual partners and bereft of much in the way of romantic prospects, something I have mixed feelings about. Back when Florida Man and I were hooking up a couple times a week and I was starting to bring him to social events, I felt a certain sexual FOMO. But I still feel that would be different if I had someone I was truly crazy for instead of just a solid interesting guy who likes my dick. We may never know.

It is amusing how much my taste in men overlaps with that of my Chilean bestie. And now that he's free to play without his husband and we're on the same app, the pool of men we've both slept with is only growing. It's convenient, since I was already going to him for dating advice and now he's likely to have additional insight into the personalities involved.

I needed that after what happened yesterday. First a little background: This boy (he's 29) and I began chatting about a month ago. We seemed to hit it off, but he's a grad student who's begun looking for work so scheduling time together has been tricky. Finally, a week ago Saturday, we were able to make it work. It was an afternoon filled with lovely surprises and if I'd made a post the Monday after that, it would have been very different to this one.

Things went so well, in fact, that he immediately proposed another meet-up and I immediately accepted. He proposed the Sunday after my cocktail night; I warned him I might be a bit listless and tired but he wasn't overly concerned. We kept chatting during the week. Then early Sunday afternoon, as I was struggling to get out of bed for the second time that day, he texted to confirm.

So far, so good. As I was running late, I messaged him once the bus had pulled away from the stop to let him know I was on the way. Next thing I know, he hits me with this: "I fear I'm not in much of a sexy mood today unfortunately Hopefully that doesn't bother".

Reader, how would you have reacted?

I was torn. On the one hand, you could read it in a quite flattering light: Even though I'm not up for it, I still want to spend time with you. And the truth is we enjoyed ourselves as much outside of the bed as in it last time. On the other, we met on a hookup app and this is only our second meeting. Perhaps he's interested in being FWB but we're not friends yet. So why exactly and I riding a bus an hour across town on a beautiful day just to sip tequila and shoot the shit? I could have walked five minutes to a purely platonic friend's house in the neighbourhood and had the same experience. And why is waiting until just after I've fully committed to coming to him instead of giving me more warning in case I'd rather reschedule?

I didn't say any of these things. I didn't even ask for clarification. I decided it would be best just to follow through with it and see how things played out. Maybe he meant he wasn't up for bottoming, but he'd be fine with cuddling. And there are many reasons to be not in a "sexy mood". Maybe he wasn't feeling well, like the boy who cancelled the previous Sunday due to tummy trouble. It would seem churlish to cancel under those circumstances.

As it turns out, "not in much of a sexy mood" means "I don't want to be touched." And he speculated that the reason he felt that way--and had the day before as well--was that he'd hooked up with someone else early on Friday. I can't fault that per se--I spent my lunch break on Thursday getting a bj after all. But I knew that wouldn't interfere with having fun on Sunday. Early Sunday morning, in fact, one of the cocktail guests who crashed over tried to get something started with me and I held off. And for what?

I did my best to put aside my disappointment and enjoy the afternoon for what it was. And it was enjoyable--like before, we chatted and joked. But without the physical aspect, it all felt diminished. In my moody post-party state, I couldn't decide if I was being too selfish, so I checked in with my bestie (who's fooled around with the same guy) and another veteran of the scene, just for good measure. They both validated my feelings of being somewhat hard done by. My Chilean friend, looking for some explanation, even asked, "Is it possible he forgot about the date?"

Now we have a good two weeks before we could possibly get back together. I'm not sure I want to. At the very least, I'm going to make quite clear in advance what the expectations are AND I think it's high time he travelled to me for a change. Hearing me rhapsodise about our first afternoon together, my friend told me, "You two should date." That's not appealing now.

Years ago now, I got an invitation to Southernillinois to view the eclipse. It came from a guy I'd picked up at Touché who'd since moved away to live in the boonies with his husband. I filed it away, not at all sure what my situation would be like when 2024 rolled around again.

Flash forward to a couple months ago. The old invite was already on my mind when I saw an FB post giving details of the party and cautioning that crash space was "extremely limited". I told my pal I was still interested but that I wasn't sure I could convince my friend Clint to drive that far.

To my surprise, he raised the subject with me himself a little while later. "I want to go see the eclipse," he told me.

"Where are you planning to go?"

"I was thinking of driving to Cleveland."

"Do you know anyone in Cleveland?"

"No."

So I told him about the invite. He was hesitant at first, but when he learned it was exactly the same distance as Cleveland (about five-and-a-half hours under normal conditions), he came around.

Since we weren't sure exactly what the sleeping conditions would be like and we didn't want to impose more than we needed to, we decided we'd drive down to St Louis on Sunday, stay with my mom, drive over to Alto Pass (a small winery town near Carbondale) the morning of, crash there that night, and then drive back Tuesday.

Despite heavy rain leaving Chicago, the first leg went fine. The sun came out mid-state and was shining hatefully into Clint's eyes as we reached St Louis at dinnertime. We'd promised Mom dinner and she'd suggested a barbecue place in the Delmar Loop. Fortunately we had the sense to order ahead of time because it was completely jammed up; it was a beautiful day in town and the whole world was out.

Mom's "new" place is nice. It's awesome to finally be able to move through it without having to navigate around stacks of rubbish. She and Clint enjoy each other and we had a good lowkey evening. Unfortunately, Clint had a sleepless night. He was still okay to drive the next day, but I think it cut into his ability to people.

And there was a lot of peopling to be done. Chuck and Bill had the whole clan present, from Chuck's wheelchair-riding father to his trans masc nephew and his trans fem SO. Fortunately the property was huge--14 acres--and Clint was able to find a comfortable perch on the porch of a little shed next to the pond where he was only occasionally accosted.

If I'm honest, I was a bit underwhelmed by the eclipse itself. I've experienced a couple partials in the past, so I knew the drill. I was taken aback by the temperature drop as the shadow passed over us and seeing Baily's beads for the first time was pretty cool, but I was expecting, I dunno, a shudder of awe to pass through me and that never took place.

The weather was gorgeous, though, as was the locale, and I would happily have hung out for the rest of the day, but Clint was anxious to get back and sleep in his own bed. Amazingly, the massive traffic jams I was expecting based on my friends' experience 7 years ago never materialised; the return trip took only a half hour longer than usual and we were home before midnight (though we still took the next day off to recover from the travel).

All in all, it was a fun little trip. Despite all the togetherness, we never really rubbed each other the wrong way, which is something I can't say about many people who have travelled with me. I don't know that we'll drive down for the next total in 2045, but I think we'll find some excuse for another mini road trip soon.

So Saturday afternoon, in between sleeping off my hangover from the night before and frantically preparing the house for cocktail night, I got the phone call from my sister I've been dreading for some time now. Our stepmother, who had entered hospice last fall, had finally passed away.

A week earlier, when I got word that her condition had taken a turn for the worse, I resigned myself to the fact that her children (who had waited several days to give us the news) weren't going to let us see her before she died. I consoled myself with the fact that our last visit had been wonderful. Realising that the only thing I had left to say to her at that point was "goodbye", I texted my farewell (she wasn't accepting calls) and then began living as if she'd already gone.

It's tough. Not only was she a wonderful caring and fascinating person in her own right, she was also one of the strongest links left to both my father and Monshu. Every time I visited, she would mention how Monshu was her "special friend" and how much she'd enjoyed being with him. And up until the end, she was still telling me stories and tidbits about my father which I hadn't ever known.

As far as the memorial goes, I'm bracing myself for a rerun of my stepsister's wedding, at which we were all present but completely sidelined. At least I learned today that it's a family friend planning it and not her children. Still, I promised my sister that, if need be, the three of us siblings could have our own little service if necessary. As my brother texted earlier, we know what kind of relationship we had with her and no one can take that from us.

So we got off to an odd and unpromising start when I woke up shivering non New Year's Day despite having just slept in a brand-new set of the thickest and warmest flannel sheets I've ever owned. That led to temperature check which led to a COVID test which led to staying home and isolating for two weeks. Then literally my first day back at work, I caught a head cold that knocked me down for several more days. Things went better after that, though I am just getting over a sore throat that threatened to wreck Mardi Gras and Valentine's Day for me.

Not that I had any great plans. Tuesday night, I went over to JR's to see Saltburn so I could finally participate in the discourse. I'd been fascinated with it since the first trailers but I didn't expect it to receive such mainstream attention so I was in no hurry to see it. I did a decent job of avoiding spoilers but they still managed to suck a bit of the enjoyment out of it. Like many, I was also disappointed by the ending, which seemed to undermine the story and the development of the main character, making both less ambiguous and interesting.

This was my second time this year hanging with JR in a low-key sort of way. The first time came after the memorial for ChefBearItalia. I stayed until the end, hoping maybe my friends would invite me back to hang out with them for a bit, but they didn't and I started heading back. Realising that Clint was not likely to be very interactive that evening and not wanting to stew alone, I reached out to JR and invited myself over. We rewatched Barbie, ate a little dinner, I called my mom for her birthday and then went home.

It was exactly the kind of intimate unstructured time I've wanted with him since we first met. The only thing lacking is some physical intimacy. I'm hoping that eventually he'll relax to the point where he'll accept some friendly cuddling. He has gotten better about that in other contexts (such as a friends' Lunar New Year Party last weekend), but I think one-on-one is harder for him. I particularly worry about him becoming touch-starved once his dog passes away, since his dating life is as quiet as it's ever been.

As for my dating life? It's still very unsettled. Once again, none of the possibilities enumerated in previous posts (plus a couple more which had cropped up since then) have panned out. Overall I'm getting pretty tired of folks telling me, yes, absolutely, they do want to get together and then somehow never making any plans, even though I've been guilty of that myself. The closest I've come to a steady thing is my mustachioed electrician, who seems very chuffed that I've taken to calling him "lover" after we've gotten together two or three times. Unfortunately he's signed up for lots of long hours and overtime in order to make the pots of money he needs for the dream house he wants to build, leaving him with almost no time free to drive the hour each way up here to frolic with me.

So against that background, it was pretty crazy what happened yesterday. First, let me introduce Big Dick Down Low Daddy or BDDLD (not to be confused with Big Dick Rick or any other Big Dicks I might have mentioned here). He showed up out of the blue at Daddy Daycare late last November, having been invited by one of our mutuals. To the extent that I have a type which Monshu was the embodiment of, he was a classic exemplar, a burly bearded white-haired daddy with a big smile and roving hands. He convinced me to blow him in the restroom after refusing to give me his number and I impulsively asked him to ditch the Daddies and come back with me, which he did.

It was a lot of fun, though not as much as it would have been if we hadn't both been fairly loaded. Fortunately, we got a rematch the next day when he came back to retrieve the cap he'd left behind. At the time he told me he was usually "one and done" (presumably to avoid getting too attached to anyone). So I'd filed away the bonus session as a fluke owing to unusual circumstances. He mentioned he'd try to come to a future event and I joked about him making his way through our circle of daddy-chasers like a new illness. I didn't abandon all hope of getting with him again, but I didn't consider it especially likely either.

Then, a couple weeks ago, he came down again. I hadn't been feeling great and was planning on a quiet night in when he texted and asked if I was coming to the meetup. My response was swift: "I guess I am now." This time we didn't even make it to the bathroom and I was probably present all of 30 minutes before we left together. I joked that it would have made much more sense for him to stop by on his way into town instead.

So when yesterday I saw a phone call from him (via Messenger, our only channel of communication), I thought maybe he proposing just that. He was actually calling just to tell me that he wouldn't be coming down because he had too much to do before leaving for Florida in a week or so for an extended stay that would keep him away until at least April. So why tell me? Because he saw me comment in the group chat, realised all this, and hoped to rendezvous again in two months. "But I started thinking, I'm kind of a one-sided guy, maybe he doesn't want to see me again."

It was kind of touching, after having so many folks tell me they like me and want to be with me and then not follow through to have someone reverse the script and tell me not to expect anything only to then ask, "We are going to see each other again, aren't we?" Will we? Only time will tell. But it gave me a certain warm fuzzy feeling which set the tone for the evening.

So I didn't really care later when, at the gathering, I saw Useless Fuckboi and he studiously ignored me despite having texted only a week earlier inviting me to get a drink with him (and again afterwards to explain that he "needed time with my friend", i.e. date). And I flirted with the cute boy in the ice cream parlour without any real expectation of it leading anywhere (even though we did spend a chunk of today sexting each other and planning a future session). And I took it in stride when a little cutie showed up at my elbow at SoFo and practically begged me to chat him up. A friend asked me today if all this fleeting attention was making me "jaded". I'm not sure that's the word I'd use. I'm trying to enjoy it without expecting anything to come of it--something I was terrible at in my youth and seem to finally have something of a knack for now. Yay, wisdom of age!

"Cuffing season" has arrived in the Upper Midwest. This is the time of year when gays supposedly pair up to get through the winter before returning to their whoring ways when the weather gets warm again. It's a term I've been hearing used jokingly for several years but I've never really experienced it myself. But lately? Daaammmn.

So, Saturday night I was hoping to get together with this hot Italian bear who works the Christkindlmarket. Our texts were heading in a good direction and then he just stopped replying. Eager not to sit around feeling like an idiot, I headed out to join a friend who was celebrating his birthday at 2Bears, stopping on the way for "one drink" at the Anvil.

Surprisingly, it actually was one drink, in no small part because I found some cuties out back to flirt with. One of them I looked up on the el ride south and sent a friend request. Almost immediately, he was in my DMs begging for me to do him so we set something up for Sunday evening. When that failed to happen, he asked if we could meet Tuesday evening instead and I agreed, knowing he'd probably cancel.

He did, of course, but in the meantime Hump Day had hit me up asking if I was free. I told him I had tentative plans but I'd keep him in mind, knowing he wasn't likely to try to schedule with anyone else. So when your man cancelled (via a long wheedling text all but begging me to give him another chance this Saturday), I gave it a respectful hour and reached out.

As a result, we had a really lovely evening together. I still don't feel the same way I did before our split over the summer (I tried very hard not to approach things yesterday evening with the mentality that this was a modest substitution for what I really wanted to do) but he did quite a good job of reminding me of the qualities that have always attracted me to him, like his playfulness and eagerness.

When I looked at my phone afterwards, there were 7 or 8 messages from the trans bear I last saw a week ago Friday (who I will henceforth be referring to as "Socks" for my own obscure reasons). He'd first texted about a half an hour into my sesh with Hump Day asking if I wanted to hang out. I initially assumed he was trying to plan something for later but, no, he was ready to hop into a Lyft and show up at my house at 9:30 on a school night for sloppy seconds because "I want you, you weirdo". So if Hump Day had not been available, I would've had an alternative to my alternative.

And that's not all. On Blackout Wednesday, I'd run into two guys I've been trying to get with off and on for at least half a decade, Big Dick Rick and ChefBearItalia. BDR and I had actually been ready to go home together but he was so drunk he got lost trying to follow me out of the bar and I was so drunk I mistyped my phone number, with the result that he sent a naughty text to a complete stranger.

Fortunately, I thought to reach out to a mutual for his number. He hit me back immediately and asked for a picture. This gave me pause, because at least three times now someone has done that and then immediately ghosted me afterwards, but I complied and was rewarded with a promise to find some time after this week.

This got me thinking of the last person who'd ghosted me and I did what I often do--take advantage of the momentary lift of some positive attention to reach out to someone who's disappointed me but I still want. And--to my surprise--this also paid off, with him immediately hitting me back, sending me smut, and telling me he'd also try to find some time for me soon.

Now, while I was outside the bar waiting in vain for Big Dick Rick to come out, I happened to plop down on a bench next to someone I initially didn't recognise. This is ChefBearItalia, who I first met at a house party in Naperhell before Monshu died and seem to run into again roughly every other year. I'd actually seen him at SoFo this summer, sent him a message about getting together, and heard nothing.

So it's not particularly surprising that I forgot all about the encounter until yesterday, when I idly messaged the last number I had on file. Today, about a half hour before Hump Day was to arrive, CBI hit me up on Messenger. He also sounded eager to get together with me sooner rather than later but before we could finalise some plans I had to jump off to answer the door.

When it rains, it really comes down in torrents.

It's flattering, but also a bit overwhelming and perhaps even detrimental. Two or three weeks ago, when I felt like I was putting more effort into this realm than I thought I was getting back, I reminded myself what a mug's game basing your self-esteem on the windsock desires of gay men is. And while I still fundamentally believe that, the lesson risks getting lost in the whirlwind of gay male desire surrounding me at the moment. I'm hoping for some balance soon but right now I just want to enjoy the ride for a bit.

If I'm posting again, it must be about boys, right? I should probably just rename this "Fuckboy Diary" to more accurately reflect its contents. A couple of the latest batch might be actual decent blokes though.

For some reason, my dating life is suddenly hotting up. One could even say it's gotten overheated. I thought I had two dates last week and I had none: one cancelled due to anxiety and the other had only agreed to a date in principle not--as I misunderstood--an actual date on a particular day. I dealt with that disappointment by packing my calendar and now I've got dates from tonight through Sunday. Let's take them in order.

• Thursday night: Drinks at Nobody's Darling with SPM. This is the one I'm most excited about despite having met under the most fuckboy of circumstances: I was drunk at the Anvil with friends when a mutual brought him to join our group and I almost immediately started making out with him. Despite living around the corner, he didn't want to take anyone home that night so we exchanged digits and said "another time". Well, hopefully that other time is tonight.
• Friday night: Drinks at My Buddy's with JD. We met under interesting circumstances: A birthday party we were both mildly surprised to be invited to. I didn't feel out of place but he did and I capitalised on this by making out with him a bit. We've had one date that went well enough but he cancelled the follow-up we had for last week. (He seems to suffer from a fair degree of social anxiety, which is annoying but so far not a dealbreaker.) Oh, and he's trans, which is a new thing for me, and says he hasn't dated a cis gay man before, which has my curiosity piqued.
• Saturday morning: Birthday sex with a daddy I've known for several years now. A reliably good time and a welcome palate-cleanser if one or both of the aforementioned dates leaves bad taste in my mouth.
• Saturday night or Sunday afternoon: This is a pretty humpy electrician from near Romeoville who was brought to one of my parties by two of my most reliable providers of available mens. About a month later he told me he was into me and we've been trying ever since to get our schedules to align so I can nail him. Hopefully this is the weekend it finally happens!
• Sunday morning: Another find from one of my parties. Literally someone one of the invitees plucked off the street. He spent the night coming onto to me and--to the surprise of few--after most others had left, we ended up in bed together. I thought he just wanted to hook up again but it seems he's actually angling for a proper date so I'm looking forward to hearing more of his story

So have I bit off too much? Probably. Fingers crossed I don't suddenly come down with some horrible bug that wipes my calendar clean--especially since my family comes into town next week and I'm also looking to take off a day or two to hang with JR/BB. (We had a "date night" of our own yesterday where he gifted me the very clothes I'll be wearing to meet my latest prince tonight. Hopefully they've been laundered thoroughly enough that his luck isn't also clinging to them!)