A stinking cold today ... have stayed in with the heat full on and spent an awfully long time on the phone to An, trying to decide on where to go out to tonight. At the end of the conversation(s) I felt so exhuasted the last thing I felt like was going out. But out one must go - it's Saturday and last night I deliberately didnt return Da's text asking if I was around because I wanted a steak, bottle of Rioja and DVD night. Watched Dogville, which was great though it was too long. It was expensive as well - I hadnt been back to the video shop becuase I owed them a shed load of money from the last film I borrowed back in July. I wasnt sure whether to play angry or weepy about it, and had forgotten to prepare my urgent surgery story so fell back on 'oh yes that was when I was on holiday...' which meant I had pulled the rug from under my own feet completley and was only left with the angry option. They said I could pay the £10 in installments, but still, £8.50 to watch a bleeding DVD - I could have gone up West for that price. Anyway, tonight we're going to see Green Frogs in Quup or something at the King's Head, Islington. Described as carry on up the Amazon with lots of raised eyebrow campiness to it in Time Out. An then wants us to go to Punk Karaoke at the Garage, which sounds fab, but cant see Da going for that. It will be time for his dinner and that will be hard to override.

Got back from Vigo yesterday - not so much a rest as a change. Puro Almodavar - what obsessive behaviour! Drugs, music, art and of course love. The more dangerous the better it would seem, involving rent boys, bunny boilers and jealous partners.

A got propositioned by an ex pop star and boyfriend, a fact which was declared 'un triunfo' by X - the pop star is the most sought after shag in Vigo apparently. A turned him (them) down. Just as well it turned out ... seems the boyfriend (who it is rumoured is an ex-rent boy) is possesive as hell and it could well have turned nasty - or just desperate. The pop star struck me as a nitwit - X told us later his wits were shot by too many drugs.

X is being stalked in his own home by a faghag (sounds better in Spanish but I've forgotten the word) who he let stay (for nothing) sometime back as she had been particularly helpful during the ending of his relationship. Now she turns the TV over when he goes for a piss, tells him how awful his art is, and spits at him when he tells her of his latest success. She is madly jealous when he goes on holiday. He has to get rid of her, but I'd be terrified in his position. We spent ages trying to build his courage up, though I'm afraid he wont be able to do it until she rushes at him with a knife ...

J just happened to run into an ex-partner who is an actor and decided to have a fling with him. The new partner - of some standing it would seem - floundered helplessly, as they stoked each other's horniness in a non-stop coked up flirt in Popers (pronounced poppers of course, or at least popairrrrs). It all seemed rather set up when J put on La Traviata in the morning (well afternoon actually) and made us listen to the lines 'amo me Alfredo', making this easier by handing us the libretto which he had brought with him from Barcelona for the weekend. It made me suspicious of his wild expressions of amazement at the unlikelihood of this meeting. He later set off in X's car and left us in the lurch the next day as he didnt come back until the evening. Typical J behaviour: a hidden agenda, a bravura performance which we all end up being complicit in by finding terribly amusing and a complete lack of scruples in taking advantage of friends. A thought his behaviour ghastly, but then he, unlike his long suffering friends, is not in love with him.

I am still in love with him after twenty years. He was the first man I ever fell in love with, and our relationship lasted three months. I have never met anyone since who I have let everything go for, except perhaps T this spring, and that lasted for a weekend. I wonder if this is very common. I dont really believe those people who to seem to fall in love serially. There just arent that many people who one can fall in love with. My observation is that many people's relationships are based on social conditioning - if it wasnt for the fact that the individuals would feel inadequate being single, they wouldnt put up with the sheer inconvenience that those relationships seem to mainly consist of.

The extraordinary thing about J is that he is most amazingly lucky. Cut out of his father's will, he stayed in the large rambling property in Barcelona which was the family home in defiance of 'the evil sisters' who tried to get him out. The evil sisters eventually gave up the fight (only becuase they couldnt afford it anymore) and the rest of the family who had by then all moved out anyway felt no desire to contest it. He now rents the further reaches out to five students and lives in some luxury in the rest of it.

(When I stay there, I sit and quietly rehearse the memories of sitting on the terrace and meeting J's family for the first time, fucking madly and his brother waltzing in and asking why we couldnt do it more quietly, and the fury of later rushing into the same room in a jealous rage and finding the room empty.)

Secondly, he is 42 and yet still has the wonderful body and pretty much the face I knew so well those twenty years back, despite never having devoted a second to deliberate exercise in all those years. I never met anyone else who has this gift. Yes of course there are those who never put weight on, and those who look younger than they are, but Joan remains toned and supple while eating whatever he wants and doing no more exercise than walking the dogs round the block. If you could sell what he has you would knock the head of Shell into a cocked hat I imagine.

Oh, and lastly, he has been positive for over 15 years and has never suffered more than a temperature as far as I know. If you could market that along with the secret of eternal youth, you would knock the heads of several oil companies into a cocked hat.

I hope his luck lasts. For as long as it does, I will always be able to become 25 again for no more than the cost of an EasyJet flight to Barcelona.