I’m not sure what this means, but Alan and I found this sign while wandering around Soho and I thought it was vaguely creepy and photoworthy.

We attended a “Gay Bloggers Meetup” (I’m not sure if there was an official title or not) loosely based around the “Gay Bloggers” Tribe on Tribe.net. Basically a bunch of folks (mostly men) who had been communicating around and on each other’s blogs agreed to gather at a predetermined place and time in New York. Since a lot of the folks in that group are already living in New York, that kind of works out. For some of the rest, that meant a trip to the Big Apple, which was for us a great excuse to get out of Michigan and visit friends in the World’s Capitol.

These folks are, as a group and individuals, at least as interesting and charming as their online personae, with the added advantage that they buy you drinks and occasionally set articles of your clothing on fire. I’m not sure the fire bit was actually charming, but since it was incurred in the act of having my picture taken with a tall, handsome fella, not a total waste. The Perry Ellis shirt has been written off as a “casualty of whore”, although it may make a reappearance in a short-sleeve incarnation (although my husband insists you can make french cuffs work on a short-sleeve shirt, which I cannot visualize without giggling).

What struck me most about the New York Homo Blogger Meetup is that we (the giant, collective we that we all belong to, like it or not) can create community out of just about anything. The chemistry at Barrage on Friday night among the group was quite good, and people were being very friendly and open with one another. I would guess that the same group of men, without the prior knowledge of one another and the excuse of the blogging commonality, would have had very limited interactions otherwise. That is to say, I generally find gay men to not be terribly friendly in “socializing with strangers” situations, and New York is always a rather tough and competitive social environment. Social spaces in the leather and bear communities can be less so - although they have their own set of problems, as they don’t live up to the inclusive ideals that they sometimes espouse.

But creating communities, however fragile and tenuous, seems to be what we humans do best. Or at least, we do a lot of it, and it gives us a lot of satisfaction.

I also got a better sense of how and why New York ‘works’ as a place to live. In the past I have mostly found Manhattan to be a stressful place to spend time. But if you spend enough time walking around (which requires some getting used to if one is accustomed to less walking, as has been the case in my rather car-oriented lifestyle these days, hence the extra poundage) you will come across these quiet moments in an otherwise very busy and crowded city. You can be walking down a street in the West Village, turn a corner, and suddenly the noise of the traffic fades to nothing and a moment of peace descends on you like an unexpected gift. I have experienced similar moments in San Francisco, which is similarly dense and crowded. The conveniences of a city with real and extensive public transport (a definite must in any urban future) are wonderful: I could easily envision a car-free lifestyle.