It's hard to believe, but after nearly three years on this board, Robert and I know so few of our fellow CPIers. Maybe it's because we're too private or maybe we're just too addled at some of the p rties. And yet, in spite of knowing only a few of you from direct introduction, so many of the people on this board are a part of our private language, the shorthand dialect that a couple develops over time.

Reading this board daily, we know so many of you from what you write. We know your opinions, of course, and your preferences, and most often of all, we feel as if we know your sense of humors, and we co-opt certain phrases -- beyond the obvious such as "gurk" --and make them a part of our shared language. We've never met Drew, but there are at least two things we say which originated with him, and we don't know ScottVanTuesday, but we're still laughing from a posting he made a month or so ago, and we always listen for Alan's history lessons and we love hearing what Josh and Doug consider worthy of mention about Montreal and South Beach. And Nurse, we vicariously live her odysseys, and so many other people who have developed distinct personalities in our minds, in our life, as a consequence of what they write here.

And because so many of you are so real for us, even though we don't know you, not well enough to pick you out of a crowd, we almost always feel as if a bunch of you are with us when we party. We don't know who legupnow is, but we know an awful lot about him, and therefore, we sometimes try to figure out which one he is in the crowds around us. And last night, at Alegria, I was almost sure I'd figured it out, given legupnow's description of what he'd be wearing to the party, and in the men's room, I grabbed this guy and said, "Are you lepupnow?" and this guy looks down at me as if I'm speaking Polish and he says, "What?" "Never mind," I said quickly, and raced after Robert.

And I was so sure those were brown rhinestones on his cowboy hat...

All of this is to say that last night at Alegria, more than maybe other Alegrias, it felt as if we were in the middle of a great CPI circuit family -- even if we didn't know who anyone was. Maybe this was because we brought with us two friends, Tim and John, who've just moved to New York after three years spent living in South Beach, and they're young, not even twenty-five, and this was their first ever Alegria, and they've only been living in New York for six weeks, and this was their first ever New York club party experience -- and so why not the best, that's how we figured it, and so maybe we were seeing some of last night's Alegria through their wide eyes.

Usually, I focus so much on the music, and especially when Abel's at the helm, and I get lost in his world and that's probably another reason we know hardly anyone from CPI because we're mostly dancing and not really jabbering -- not that there's anything wrong with jabbering, mind you.

Last night, though, I don't know, but my focus splintered into about a dozen shards and I was wonderfully overwhelmed by the production elements -- a two-horse covered wagon stagecoach with rider suspended over the floor, and a field of cactus, and a main street consisting of HOTEL, SALOON, and JAIL -- the three archetypal settings for all gay male sex -- and equally overwhelmed by all the boys whom I don't seem ever to see at our gym or along Eighth Avenue or at Barney's Warehouse Sale. Where are they all piped in from? And at one point, John yells into my ear, "God, I wasn't expecting this crowd to be so way more beautiful than South Beach." Well, I smiled and was happy to hear it -- though I didn't remind him that there is a huge difference in size in the populations of New York and South Beach.

Furthermore, it was particularly validating for us to hear John exclaim as such, because earlier, he and Tim had been told by their new realtor, a New Yorker, that "Alegria parties are sometimes hit or miss."

What? Hit or miss? Alegria? Ha. Hardly. Clearly this fool realtor is a straight man, that's all we can imagine. And our boys Tim and John were clearly having the time of their lives.

And there was so much energy, so much good energy, and the sense of a burden having been lifted now that the Republicans were out of town and Hurricane Frances was winding down and Abel was on a tear and we didn't see but one fall-out and even that wasn't total because Robert kept slapping the fool's ass and making him snap to it rather than collapse in a heap.

And for some reason, I couldn't stop smiling. Well, there might be a couple reasons, but it was one of those nights when I was so happy to be a part of this crowd, surrounded by so many people who feel like friends even if I don't really know them to speak to them and even if I only know them from this board or what I imagine them to be like and I was thinking again, anew, about how the circuit can be so enabling, such a positive force in our lives, for what is there not to love about dancing to music with people you love?

And okay, so maybe there was a kind of retrospective quality to some of Abel's song selections, and yet, even those songs which you start out thinking, Oh, God, no, not this one, not again -- somehow, it either worked and made us move -- or else we sneaked off to the Prop Room for Eddie Elias.

And that's another thing, there was so much going on, no matter where you went. It was a veritable Western carnival. From the Reed Room, where people were spinning and flagging, and on to the Prop Room where there were cowgirls in triplicate, and so many cowboy hats -- and I had one too, which my father gave to me last week when we went to visit him in North Carolina, and I told him we needed hats for a party in New York, and he produced a perfect Marlboro hat, which suited me just fine. Except first it tried to get away from me when the wind picked it up and sent it sailing beneath the cab, but fortunately, Robert rescued it, and then later, up in VIP, my cowboy hat sailed along the plexiglass railing as if it were about to topple into the crowd, but Marion rescued it this time and kept the hat as a reward, which was right because it looked better on her than on me, and last we saw of that hat, it was bobbing through the crowd.

There was also the show. The Alegria theme song, and by then, we'd lost Tim and John, and we were so hoping that they were somewhere able to catch this number, the boys so brilliantly adept at performing their stylized cowboy moves, while Inda Matrix worked over the crowd and the crowd gave it back to her. I love it when the crowd gets all worked up like that. The collective response, all of us cheering and screaming -- and getting another energy boost to keep us buoyant through the morning.

Everywhere we danced, people were so friendly. People were so polite. New York doing nice. Friendly and flirty and frisky. I love how the circuit does affection. Such open displays.

And one of our all-time favorite couples was there, two men who are so sweet and beautiful and it was a joy to see them again, to tell them how happy they make us, and because they're together still, and the one now without dreadlocks, making him even more sexy, as if that were humanly possible.

Near the end of our night, say around eight a.m., Robert and I were standing at the back bar, getting a last long look at the entire realm that is Alegria and we were silent for a while, absorbing it, and then Robert said to me, "Can you imagine being known the world over for producing the world's best parties? Is that a rush or what?" And I nodded and thought, Hell, yeah, there are worse ways to spend one's life.

But what I also thought was how great it is that we, all of us who attend these parties, these amazing events, are able to witness it firsthand, up close and personal -- the joy that is Alegria.

Thanks to all on this board who fill our life with so much laughter, beauty and color. We are very grateful.