Love a holiday. Those three-day weekends -- with an Alegria sandwiched in the middle. The preparation, the anticipation, the long nap -- and then stepping out of the apartment at three a.m. -- into fresh snow. Snow falling gently in the quiet night and our footsteps are the first on the pavement as we walk to the avenue and hail a cab.

There's so much to be said for professionalism. From the moment we disembark from the cab and the security staff inquires, "Okay if I touch your coat?" Fine, if it has to be done, at least they ask politely.

And then we take a long wander through the club, delaying our entrance into the Big Room, prolonging the Big Bang -- until we hear the backbeat of Casa Bulga -- and in we go, into the shirtless hordes of swirling eye candy. Smiling faces, dancing boys, people moving to Abel's beat.

The club is minimally decorated. Four screens in each corner of the big room and the Alegria mirror ball in the center. Alegria's name on each screen. This Alegria was supposed to have been Tribal III but according to Ric Sena his box of magic tricks got left behind in Rio -- and so this party is called Light. Which means party on a budget.

So it's not an Alegria with all the trappings. Not one of those Alegrias with all the shows and all the props and in fact, the Prop Room isn't even open. Instead, the Big Room floor is packed tight enough for arm movements without elbows smashing into cheekbones.

For a while, we watch from our favorite SkyBox, waiting for a moment when we can no longer resist. Holding on before breaking out. Watching the crowd below. Paying attention to the lights because this is supposed to be Ross Berger's night. There's lots of lavender light and blue spots and maybe the lights are whipping about more than usual. We see Ric with his RIC t-shirt and there's Tony Moran dancing in the crowd below. And best of all, our favorite bartender from White Party at Vizcaya, he's the VIP bartender tonight and he's a playa who works his winks and body language at everyone who wiggles a dollar his way. Oh, such a cutie and so professional.

That's what this party is about. It's about the professionals. The floor below is packed with people who are here to dance to Abel's music. They don't care that it's cold outside and that it's probably easier to sleep in and they don't care that there aren't set decorations and they're not bothered that the crowd is mostly New Yorkers and New Jerseyites and a sprinkling of Philly boyz. The boys below look like a cross section of model gay citizens. Professional men who work on their bodies as hard as they work at their jobs. And they know how to party, as professionals. There are no messes here. These boys can party.

And then the music takes over and resistance is futile and the entire VIP is rocking the SkyBoxes and Ric is dancing on the catwalk and Tony's got his posse around him and isn't it nice to see a circuit deejay having such a good time at the parties of other circuit deejays -- and that's professional if you ask me.

And if this is second best, having Sunday nights and not Saturdays, then I'll take it. I'll take a roomful of beautiful men who know how to party with intent and keep it going. They know how to work it out. They know what their bodies need after working and pumping. They know that Abel delivers.

And he was on. He was on in a different way than he was two weeks ago in Miami for New Year's Eve. This party was his first-year anniversary spinning at Crobar -- and he's found a comfort level there in that booth. He knows the room. And all of us there know the club. And the club's security know us now. They're polite and unobtrusive. They know what we need. They know that, basically, we're professional.

And on the floor, there's Joey Cumley, with his posse, glow sticks adorning his neck. Joey's clinging to a boy and smiling, and there's Joe Caro, whom we haven't met before, not officially, so we introduce ourselves, which seems superfluous, given all that we know of Joe Caro already, thanks to his postings and his website -- and that story of his wandering through the Meatrack at FIP, which still makes us laugh, and also the night he baptized Junior's deejay booth before Junior arrived....

And I'm watching Joey Cumley and thinking about our friends John and Tim who are Joey's age and who moved to NYC from South Beach in August and we brought them to Alegria Labor Day in September, which they liked, but which, frankly, overwhelmed them. It was too much. It was too intense. It was too crowded. It was way too professional in that it takes a whole level of skills to navigate the night at an Alegria NYC party that they did not yet possess. And I'm thinking how the night that they most prefer in NYC is Sunday nights at HIRO (about which Alan F. wrote a good review this morning). And in watching Joey, I think about his journey from Kansas(?) and how it is that he's found the right combination of something which enables him to party at Alegria and still be so sweet and happy.

And there's Jerome and Jason and it's somehow reassuring to see them here too -- and that's the thing, how Abel and Alegria draw this crowd of familiar faces and bodies, which reminds me of the years when each Sunday morning you could arrive at Junior's house and know that you were going to see people that you didn't necessarily see the rest of the week. We all worshipped at the House of Junior.

And this is the House of Abel. Alegria's House. And we love being a part of it. We're looking out over the crowd of people as Abel is ripping us apart again, sending our hips and arms flying, and there's this song with some words about "Don't believe what you see. It's all an illusion," or some such metaphysical blather which sends me off into a vision of the floor below as the hold of a spaceship and how I would be proud to be flying through the galaxies with these people, my sisters and brothers, back to the Planet of Love where we originated.

"THESE ARE OUR SISTERS," I shout to Robert, my arms encompassing the crowd below -- and Robert gives me one of those bemused, tolerant looks.

I can't help it. I'm a sucker for a beat -- and Abel's beats just make me work. Sometimes you go out and you have a good time and sometimes you go to a yoga class and it's okay -- and then sometimes you get just what you need when you go out. This was one of those nights. It was about dancing to the music without any other interruptions. There was this crowd around us that we knew and loved and Abel was playing this stuff which wasn't at all fluffy or overly-vocal-circuity and Robert kept asking, "What's this? I like this one." But damned if I could tell him -- and Joe Caro was on the other side of the floor, and I didn't want to interrupt his perfectly-choreographed movements. He knows Abel's material so much that he never misses a beat.

Professional partying. It makes you feel good. A job well done. Six hours of partying and you hit your marks. You really let it out. Your body feels great. Your head is throbbing to the music. You can't quit smiling. You keep hearing snippets of songs. You keep seeing happy faces. The go-go boys in body paint. The girl in silver paillettes. The fabulous and the festive, the beautiful chests, the low-riding jeans, the treasure trails, the details, the chains and the bangles, the spangles and the bracelets, leather and gold, chains and lights flashing and all around you, Abel's music...

We leave the club at nine a.m. and walk out into the last bit of snowfall. Enough flakes to dust us as we walk.

What a nice party to carry us through the winter week.