The rise and fall of the world’s greatest nations, Rome, Athens, the Austro-Hungarian empire, is one of a slow upward trajectory followed by a quick downward spiral that is always heralded by internal repression and external aggression. Anyone with half a brain can see the United States, in a fit of self-consuming devolution, is on this path today.

We are not slowly, but quickly, devolving in this country. Our government is turning its back on science and reason in favor of mysticism and religion, conjecture and biblical magic. How else does one explain the attempts by Christian fanatics in this country to force the teaching of nonsensical theories like Intelligent Design and Creationism? Twenty years ago would it have even been discussed?

If you listen carefully you can hear the executive and legislative branches of government creaking and groaning under the weight of their own corruption. The external wars aren’t working anymore and neither is the internal oppression. People are questioning and angry and the man behind the curtain just isn’t doing the trick. Yes we can change government, but can we stop the inevitable decline of this nation after we rid ourselves of the magicians?

My cat has been missing now for almost 6 days. Peachez has never NOT shown up when I’ve called her, and now she’s no where to be found. I’ve walked the neighborhood, driven Twin Peaks Road and looked on-line at the ASPCA’s found cat pictures but as of yet, no luck.

I miss my little baby. In the 1 and 1/2 years I have had Peachez I’ve never been at home a day without her around me, and I keep thinking I see her out of the corner of my eye, or hear her scratching at the door to get in.

I just returned from the store where I purchased the final few items we need to take to my mom’s house for Thanksgiving, free-range turkey, wine, ice.

While there I was surprised to see a small, neon green card taped to the front of the register that stated the following: “We’re sorry to inform you that due to San Francisco grocery bag policies we’ll be unable to offer double-bagging after November 7, 2005. A supply of high-quality, reusable bags will be made available for you to purchase after this date.”

Huh? How is eliminating double-bagging going to reduce waste? At our home we use paper grocery bags as garbage bags, they decompose far quicker than plastic, allow air inside to speed the decomposition process and they’re made with far fewer toxic waste products than plastic. So now the City of San Francisco, in its seemingly never-ending attempts to control every single lifestyle choice of its inhabitants, has decided that I need to switch to plastic bags. Thereby adding more plastic to the waste stream, using more chemicals and costing me more money.

More smart moves from the government of the city that can never seem to get its act together.

Saturday The Good Doc and I ran errands and then came home to get ready for dinner out with friends.

We met our realtor for dinner at 7:00 PM and later met his friends at Mecca, a restaurant I love due to the availability of valet parking, a rarity in San Francisco.

One of the couples at the dinner was this guy named Abdul and his boyfriend. Abdul is a bitchy, little Palestinian with overly-waxed eyebrows and an attitude to match. I hadn’t seen him since our housewarming last year where we got into an argument about the “right of return” for Palestinians. I don’t remember how the argument ended but I found it strange, in a Jewish home, that he would walk in with such a chip on his shoulder.

I sat with Abdul’s boyfriend on my right and The Good Doc to my left. Abdul’s boyfriend pressed his leg against mine and then started rubbing my leg underneath the table. I didn’t return the admiration in any way, but I think Abdul noticed something because as dinner wound on he became meaner and bitchier.

The bitchiness reached its logical conclusion when after I mentioned that I was studying Judaism Abdul said “Why are you converting to Judaism? Because Madonna told you too?” This was followed by a nasty little laugh. I answered “Why are you a Muslim, because Osama Bin Laden said you should be?” and then the shit hit the fan. He called me a bigot, I told him he was the real bigot and then he and his boyfriend got up and left the table.

I was ready, for the sake of inter-religious peace, to tell him I was sorry. But then he returned to the table, leaned over and put his face in front of mine and said “Everyone around you knows you’re nothing but a gold-digging bigot” to which I replied “I think you’d better go, now” and then he and his boyfriend left, supposedly not for home but a bar around the corner.

Needless to say being called a “gold digger” put a bit of a damper on my evening. I know some of my boyfriend’s “friends” still think, despite us being together longer than two years, that I’m with Glenn for his money. It’s a perception, due to my age, that I’ll probably never be able to overcome. That’s not what really bothered me though. What bothered me is that I didn’t smash a plate in the side of his fucking face or stab him through the throat with my steak knife. I relish confrontation and not immediately turning to that as a source of resolution must mean I’m learning and growing from my study of kabbalah, and I guess the realization of change can be more upsetting than than one realized.

After we left Mecca we went to Anu for drinks and then End Up. My boyfriend left at 2:00 AM but for some reason I kept going. I went to some quasi-circuit party (Adonis) at which I danced with some guy who tried to sloppily kiss me while his shirtless torso ground into mine. I could tell he was G’d out of his mind so I took him upstairs to an alcove, sat him down and wiped the sweat off his arms and chest while he rested. I sat there thinking about how long it had been since I’d been to a party like that and yet how much of it is still so familiar to me. The drugs, the side-effects of the drugs, the music, the shirtless boys, it’s all like it’s still 1999 and all we thought would lie ahead were more golden times.

Eventually, as anyone who has experienced too much G will tell you, he passed out. I checked his pulse and then went back downstairs, found my friends and brought them back up to the alcove. The guy’s friend had found him and he told me “Don’t leave him like that, he could have been taken out in an ambulance!” I looked at him, confused, because I’d forgotten one of the rules of the gay dancefloor: “when someone is attempting to make out with you and they then pass out you’re responsible for them afterwards.”

I bought the guy a Red Bull and caught a cab. It was 10:00 AM. I’d danced with ghosts for long enough that night, some good and some bad. It was time for me to come home.

This has been really exhausting year for both myself and my boyfriend.

I started this year working at Palm, project managing an enormous monstrosity of a project that seemed like it would never end (and it didn’t, the primary reason I quit.) I also backed and promoted three summer pool parties, took a great trip to Switzerland, visited London twice, Paris once and Toronto again. My ex-boyfriend, the first person really close to me, died. I weathered another San Francisco summer, played Dad for two weeks to my niece, danced at Cielo and Cain in NYC, snorted too much cocaine, drank a lot, smoked too many ciggies and in the end, I’m a happier and healthier person than before.

My boyfriend’s company is in the process of being taken over by a Swiss multinational. He’s developed sleep apnea, is stressed from work but overall, he’s happy. Especially because he just got satellite radio in his car. He’s looking at other positions in other companies, here and in Southern California and in New York.

So to end out this entertaining year we’re going to Maui in December for 5 days, the 24th through the 29th. We were going to go to Canyon Ranch in Tuscon but realized it was actually easier to go to Maui, stay in Wailea and get tan. A nice way to wrap up what has otherwise been a very tumultuous but exciting year for us both.

What’s up with the trend of old bags wearing enormous, owlish-looking black-framed glasses? Do they think these ridiculous glasses will distract attention from their wrinkled (and in some cases hideously taut) faces and sagging breasts?

These hideous Harry Potter-on-steroids frames are a menace that must be challenged and fought at every turn. Glasses like these wouldn’t look good on a corpse, and while the woman pictured may indeed resemble a corpse she’s actually alive, kickin’ and insulting my eyes with her frightening, halloween-style eyeglasses.

I’m pleased the NRA is filing a lawsuit to overturn the ridiculous ban on handguns passed by San Francisco voters last week. As a matter of fact if the NRA didn’t already have plaintiffs for the lawsuit myself and my boyfriend would have been the first to volunteer.

As much as some may wish it weren’t so, owning a firearm in California is a constitutionally mandated right that cannot be taken away except by an amendment to the Constitution. I don’t care what laws are passed at a local level, owning firearms is legal and no one is going to tell me I can’t have a handgun to protect myself if my home is broken into or my life is threatened. I know wrong-headed bloggers like Ryan will scream, but you can’t have it both ways. The Constitution does contain a right to privacy as well as a right to own firearms, and while both are equally important I’d rather be a gay man with a gun that one without.

This is another example of the brain-dead Board of Supervisors here passing laws that have no practical effect but make them feel like they’re actually “doing something.” It will result in no reduction in deaths caused by firearms (when did criminals pay attention to laws anyway?) and will cost myself and my boyfriend that much more in property taxes as the City wastes everyone’s times and money defending a law which is idiotic and unconstitutional.

I’m going to go out on a limb and state that I believe the Supreme Court should overturn Roe vs. Wade, and thusly overturn the guaranteed right to abortion that presently exists for American women nationwide.

I’m pro-choice, I’m probably more radically pro-choice than most in that I believe that any reason a woman chooses to have an abortion is a valid reason. So why am I in favor of overturning Roe?

Simple. Because I’m tired of working my ass off to ensure that women in states that would ban abortion, states like Alabama, Mississippi and Minnesota, will always have that right despite them consistently voting for senators, representatives and presidents that would eradicate their right to abortion.

Let me be a little clearer here. Voters in red states have known for a long time that they can indulge themselves by hypocritically voting for candidates who want to outlaw abortion while secretly believing that this will never pass because the Supreme Court will always vote to ensure the right to abortion. They’ve known they can vote conservatively and still enjoy the benefits of liberal democracy because so many of the rights they’ve come to enjoy, rights like full access to contraception and abortion, are virtually guaranteed.

No longer. And when these rights are returned to the states to decide those women will be the first ones to pay. Not me, I live in true-blue California and am from the West coast. Abortion, contraception and domestic partnerships are always going to be a fact of life in Oregon, Washington and California. My sister, cousins and nieces will always enjoy these rights. It will be the women of the red states, women who usually vote Republican, who will pay the dearest price when the rights they thought were guaranteed suddenly no longer exist.

The realistic embodiment of “thinking locally” is just what I am describing. It’s time we let the voters of the red states reap their ill-gotten rewards. We know in the blue states our gains for women and minorities are guaranteed. Why waste our time struggling to ensure those same rights exist in states that consistently vote against us?

It’s such a nice day here in San Francisco. Sunny and around 82 degrees. It almost makes up for the 4 months of fog we’ve had so far this year.

I’m sad that I’ve had no visits from the police regarding my still-standing death threat against doddering televangelist and messenger-from-God Pat Robertson. In case anyone didn’t read the previous post: I want Pat Robertson DEAD!

Tomorrow I’m leaving for a day trip to LA for an interview with a multinational corporation famous for their animated movies. Guesses anyone?

Pat Robertson seems to have no problem in calling for the assassination of legally elected leaders in South America or in calling for the destruction of cities that oppose his wishes in Pennsylvania. So I now have no problem in calling for his assassination and killing.

That’s right, I am now calling for someone to kill Pat Robertson. Kill him, slice off his head, slit his throat, disembowel him, cut out Pat Robertson’s (useless) tongue. Cut his eyes out, drain his blood, crucify (on second thought: not such a good idea, no use in making a martyr out of the useless prick) him.

Pat Robertson should be killed. He’s a waste of space on this planet and if there is a G-d in heaven he will make sure that Robertson is castrated, killed and murdered within the next month.