Christmas Day.

Woke up too late after getting too little sleep. Picked up the guy to take him to the party, stopping once at a truck stop to try and find lettuce or salad. Yep, it was the only place open. Opened the floodgates of memory for him being there.

Then to the party. Small gathering, just nine people, but very good. Nearly got lost getting out there. Of course both of us chatted up a storm going out there: for him oh yeah I dated someone out here, for me, oh yeah, that's where I came to bail my neighbour's cousin out of jail. Both of us laughing heartily over some really truly fucked up memories. Food was delicious. Company was great. It's like a real extended family; I'm getting really comfortable around these people. Got a polaroid camera in white elephant gift exchange that I may wind up giving to the bar so we have something to shoot troublemakers with besides *my* cameraphone which I don't want getting smashed, *ever*. I've got a good mind to put a little triangle in a circle bumper sticker on it.

Have heard from several people in the program (not all of them even gay) these last 24 hours that Foxes is a "good place", to which I always have to add "for a bar". It's gratifying to hear but let's not romanticize it any more than we have to. I do more than enough of that on my own for everyone else in this town combined. It's pretty bloody awful sometimes. But for whatever reasons we seem to enjoy a certain standing other gay bars don't in the community. Is it deserved? I guess so. They all do *something* to give back, but Foxes seems always to do a little more, each time. Still not enough. How much is enough? I don't know. How many people ruin their lives there? Hook up with guys who give 'em nasty bugs? Run into drugs and casually go along for the ride? Drink themselves into a hundred kinds of near-perfect oblivion? How much do we make off their doing so? So we have rubbers and phone numbers and support x, y, and z charities. Is it enough? Never. Maybe the difference is simply that we know it never is.

Tomorrow I have to get cat litter and do laundry. That should take roughly two hours if I can get myself up in time. I should just go to bed right now, but we will see -- I make no promises except that I'll sleep when I die. Then at four I'm meeting zzigzzag at Flying Star to gather stories. His memories of Foxes, he says, aren't terribly happy but it's all part of the project that my working there's become. He's got a lot of good information that serves to clarify what I hear from people inside the bar while they're drinking enough to make decades blend into eachother and places meld clear across town.