A week ago at this hour our plane was being de-iced and the snow was falling heavy and it looked like we were never going to leave New York for Miami.

Now we're back again. WinterParty 2003 -- already a memory. What is it with gay time? What's up with that? On the planet from which we originated, does time really fly -- while here on earth it meanders. Save when we're all together?

One of the best things about reading reviews on CPI is the way that it jogs your own memory. All the postings about WinterParty have given me back details that I thought I had forgotten. So maybe what I write here can do the same for some others.

WinterParty, for us, was about being with our Bal'meer friends, Will and Bill (aka Wilma and Banghim). They'd first experienced South Beach last year with us at WinterParty, which was also their first circuit event ever -- and so they made reservations back in April to do it all again. And this time, they knew better. This time they brought more than one pair of shades. And they ordered vitamins in advance and they knew to eat at the Front Porch for b'fast and where to shop for jewels.

So Thursday eve, all together again, we did the hotel cocktail pre-crack party in Wilma's ill-obtained oceanfront suite, and then cabbed down to SoFi for another pre-crack, and then back to Billboard by one a.m. for Warren Gluck, who sounded, to me, as good as all those delirious postings about his White Party NY appearance. It's true, as Josh said, that there was something in his beats which heralded a whole week of happiness.

Then Friday at the beach. The best beach day because everything was still in front of us, and the water so warm, and the beach so crowded with beauty.

We got to the Ice Palace around one-thirty a.m., just as our favorite It Boy of the Year was entering ahead of us -- so that boded well for the night. It's not our favorite venue, and this, primarily, because there is no second floor or mezzanine from which to look upon the throbbing mass of energy. But there was that delicious lawn upon which to sprawl, and the midway games, which we played for about an hour, and the half-sunk inflatable Titanic (which seered the asses of those we saw sliding). Tony Moran played just what I wanted to hear at this place, so that it seemed kind of like a depraved Island of Lost Boys -- or when Pinocchio gets lost on the midway. And Power's number, in that oversize 'fro, with that little scene-stealer alongside her, was so perfect for the night: werked and warped and love her, love her.

We were having so much fun -- and then all of a sudden, it seemed like the floor was only half-full, but there was Nurse, her arms thrown around the neck of some happy captive, and her tongue lolling and her smile wide, and we just stood there, watching her have such uninhibited fun.

Back to the sandbar on the bus, where everyone was chattering, so it must've been a good party, because people were still happy.

Then Saturday's pool party around two p.m. where the sun was shining and the ocean so blue and the sky also, and all the boys in the pool and the palms and Phil B. on the decks and the palm trees wrapped in orange and red mylar (Who gets this job? Dressing the palms? I want it next year.) and it was way more crowded than last year or the year before and only once, in San Francisco, had we heard Phil B.,when he was spinning at Mass, I think, and he did exactly the right thing by this party giving us sunny music with a groove, sexy and South Beach with the best of San Francisco mornings thrown in.

The Perrier cowboys were there again, just as the night before. Two lime green costumed cowboys, with spangled chaps, handing out Perrier to whomever wanted. Now how nice is that? Sign these sponsors again, and get another ten cowboys to make it an even dozen.

Wilma said, "This is the best party." Wilma and Banghim don't dance, so it's easy to see why that might be their take. But it just goes to show you: you don't need to dance to love a circuit party. (We'll break them next year -- they'll be on the boxes, God help us all.)

The cocktail party at Tony Moran and Beau Clarke's house was akin to going to a Petit Vizcaya. What a spread. What lovely gardens. What a pool (think the Raleigh). What views. It was all very too-too, de trop -- and easy to fall into. As if we should all live like this, all the time. Lovely to gaze into the rooms and imagine your own life there, and how you'd redecorate. Delicious food, served by even more delicious waiters -- who resurfaced at the parties thereafter. "Hey, weren't you at...." A jazz band on a terrace, cool lounge music oozing into your pores. Then I ate this hideous liqueured truffle which tasted like a bad jello shot -- so we tossed it into a planter and booked.

Sunday's beach party with Roland at the helm. We fell in love with Roland at a beach party, his grin so infectious, his leg working double-time. His music was a perfect complement to the fruit slices waving overhead, a tropical punch exploding mid-air, a bit of Rio and the Caribbean, and all the places where you've had fun in your life while dancing outside.

There was that odd incident where a fellow broke through the VIP barrier and was handcuffed (lime green handcuffs -- now that was a first for me), face in the sand, while his girlfriend begged for him to be let go -- which the police did, once they arrived, before escorting him out.

This, to me, was almost a kind of odd counterpoint to what is, for me, the worst part of South Beach, and that's the verbal harrassment one sometimes receives when walking, usually on Washington, but elsewhere as well. At least twice, homophobes yelled their slurs at us -- and while we tried to make light of it, or ignore it, it's a sad fact of American life. Never in Paris, Rome, Montreal, or Barcelona have we been the recipients of such vitriol. America -- get it together.

But let's not go there. Let's go on with the parties.

Return to Paragon at Level -- now that was a party. Abel -- we bow to you. He knew exactly what he was doing in this space. All the good karma from the years of Paragon, he summoned it all, and with Kitty and Power alongside him, this holy trinity made this the party of the week, and maybe the year, for me. It wasn't so much the music, or at least not only, and in fact, there was one time when I said, "We have to get off the floor. I'm not dancing to Donna Summer," but it was the way that everyone involved with this party brought such love and joy to the table and let us all feast on it. Think of Kitty's number, for example, and how she served it up, and what she was really singing about, and how all of us responded to that. And how the whole night, we did not witness any fall-outs, and instead, it was about having such fun with so many happy people.

And get this, Banghim danced. He danced in the VIP area, his arms in the air. And Robert nudged me, and we smiled: all resistance breaking down. The whole point getting through.

We could easily have stayed at Level right to the end, but there was also Victor, and the idea that we could do Abel and Victor, back to back, was too delicious to resist. So we left Level around two- thirty and headed up Washington (where no one slurred us because we were too many on that street at that hour) and into Crobar which was as packed as the party we'd left. Victor in control. The floor mobbed. The balconies lined. A deep and dark sexiness pervading the whole place. Wilma and Banghim looked a little shell-shocked. From Tropical Fiesta to Dante's Inferno. It required another vitamin, a little more estrogen.

But Victor's about the dance, the beat. And being on the floor is about giving in to what's going on around you. It's useless to try and dance as you would in the privacy of your apartment. You have to catch what's coming off the others. Circuit boy rock. Sweat and grind. Bye bye, Wilma and Banghim. Home to their own locomotive.

We stayed until nearly the end -- and then caught Victor out on 14th Street and gave him our blessings. He does know how to turn it out for us, without fail.

And that was all she wrote, for us. We saw no point in going beyond this moment. Last year, we did the DJ showcase, and had a good time, but this year, we liked going out at the peak of our orgasm.

South Beach is our second home, but there's nothing like South Beach when it's filled with so many sweet boys and loving men and happy people. Maybe we wouldn't want it to be WinterParty every day, but we love it when it's happening.

Many thanks to all the people who also love South Beach so much, and to all the volunteers who make WinterParty such a well-run exercise, and also to all the organizations who received monies from WinterParty and do the good work which will, over time, enable all of us, wherever we live, to walk proud and without fear.