a year ago, i was just getting settled in my first real job, becoming a commuter,

mid-october, i was looking at the pacific ocean for the first time, getting a new boss, and starting to

thanksgiving, i was being surprised in chicago and making new bonds with old friends.

new year's eve, i was playing on the stage of the 40 watt club while my heart was breaking.

then i stopped feeling, in time for the new year, and got a job.

in april i came out of my shell and started writing for myself again.

in may i started a new project where i let other people write through their past pain.

in august, i got my picture taken, i engaged in deft wordplay over the transatlantic wires, and i went to france and was happy.

last week i decided that i had stopped writing for myself, and so i stopped cold, and turned inward.

this weekend i went to chicago.

and now i am back, and waiting to see what will happen next.

maura {maura@maura.com}

Reeling from the Real By A. Tares

I'm eye-level with this guy's crotch as he comes up to my table in the sidewalk café. "Tell me about your life this year," he says. I put my newspaper down and look up. He's gazing deeply into my soul.

Pretending to look back down at my coffee, I check out his crotch in case there's a bulge warning me to grab my handbag and get the hell out of the restaurant fast. No hardening… at least nothing too obvious.

So I look back up. He leans closer to me with a brazen, "And make it real."

His surprise come-on. His bold indifference to my Dior business suit and what's been labeled as my intimidating refinement. His quiet intensity. The amused smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. I can feel the muscles of my cunt contract. I need more of that in this year's life so I gesture for him to sit. Hiding his own surprise that this is actually working, and eases himself into the empty chair.

Over a flood of images of 365 days of chewing--swallowing--digesting--frenetically work to make ends meets--peeing-- drinks and dinner with friends to schmooz and kvetch-- peeing more-- shitting-- end-games with my estranged husband and piles of repair manuals on Conscious Loving, Passionate Marriage and Verbally Abusive Relationships--farting-- time for joy in the chaos of childraising-- trying to get to sleep-- tossing and longing for lovers-- midnight witnessing of Giraldo's wild-eyed conservative tv lawyers spitting venom to destroy Clinton's presidency because he lied when asked a private question about his sex life that no one should have asked in the first place-- turning off the repressed sex ranting to focus on true sensuality as I press against my clit, rubbing, swirling, sometimes blessed with release, sometimes falling asleep at the wheel-- sleeping-- jolting awake to the alarm-- brushing my teeth-- and starting all over again, I look back into his eyes, hold his gaze, and whisper--

"You don't want it real."

"I want it as real as you can give it," he says. But I doubt it. I mean, what if he hadn't really come on to me this way. What if he'd just sent me an email out of the blue, a stranger asking me to write myself? Reality sucks. But so does living in denial, wishful thinking and fantasy. We're only on this planet once in our own particular pulsating, throbbing package of wetware.

"What if," I ask, feeling my fingertips circling around the rim of my coffee cup, "reality lies in the intersection of action and mind?"

"I'm here with you now. That's real," he says with a provocative shrug. "What kinds of people were part of your life last year? What did you do that really mattered? You know, what was truly real in your life last year?"

"I'm not sure," I fidget. "You're sitting there. I'm here. But so what? The fusion of mind with all this external stuff is what's really real. So I don't know what's going on right now any more than I know what was real in all the millions of memories that jammed my brain when you asked about last year. If I just start narrating, I'll fall asleep before you do."

"Are you hiding your behind your words?" he asks, lightening his insight by casually signaling the waitress as he speaks.

"The half-baked reality is that a stranger has asked me to tell him about my last year of life," I say, as I notice my fingertips resting on the back of his hand. "What's the full reality? That maybe you came over to my table because you're a writer, collecting stories about Manhattan lives? Or maybe you opened yourself to the flow of cosmic energy, let it draw you to me. And by getting me to talk about last year, you'll find ways to open me up to you until I lift my skirt and let you shove your thickening cock into my cunt?"

His eyes were sparkling now, as the amused crinkling around his eyes became electrified. He should be surging right now. His cool move had just turned very hot. We let our eyes soak each other up. Just when I felt a need for a new dramatic rhythm, the waitress arrived. This stranger who felt so familiar broke contact to ask for - a tall glass of ice water. Then he turned back to me.

"I wanted to figure out some way to talk to you. Find out if you're involved with anyone seriously, you know, without triggering an immediate 'Get lost!' from you. But I only expected to hear about what you did last year."

"That's what you just heard about," I say, taking my hand away from his as I realize he needs the chase. He looks perplexed, so I explain. "You asked me to tell you about last year. And to be real. If I strip away all the 'And then I did this and then I felt that's', like get rid of all the static in my mind, what's the true reality of my last year? I just told you. Longing."

"Thank you," he says, graciously. Then adds, "I realize you meant any thickening cock, not just mine. Which by the way is about ready to burst through my seams. But thank you for the thought, even if I shouldn't take it personally."

"Take it personally," I say, sitting on my own sticky wetness. " I wouldn't have responded this way to just anyone."

"Now who's got to get real. Look, I don't have the kind of looks that usually attracts women to the honey pot," he says, giving a realistic assessment of his packaging. "But, hey, if you need to use me as your sex object, glad you asked..."

I ignore the self-deprecation. I find conventionally handsome men too often vapid, too prone to rest on their lucky genes. I even appreciate the bounty of a small prick - the well-endowed man with a small prick moves in me, his pubic bone makes lasciviously close contact with my clit, over and over, giving a simultaneous vaginal g-spot orgasm with a clitoral meltdown. Larger cocks can do that too, but the owner think about how to position himself. Men with smaller cocks can just go for it and I'm well-serviced automatically. But I didn't want to turn the moment into my ego-tripping rap session about physical attributes, so I focused only on what he said.

"That's the reality thing again," I comment. "The sensuality of your mind... the corners of your eyes crinkling into a smile of appreciation… your sexy courage... that's what I see. The genetic configuration of your facial cells is just a small part of you. I'm very attracted to men who are comfortable in their skin."

His look of relieved appreciation reminds me that even the bravest warriors sometimes doubt their own value. "Your year should have been full of lust and sensuality, not lying along at night I your bed" he says, with concern. "Or were you just kidding that it had been a year of longing?"

"Longing. Sensual isolation. But you're right. I could have had many men. It was my choice not to create a sexual life with others. I guess for me last year was a year of learning how far I can go to put my needs on hold while someone I love does what he needs to do, before I fall over into co-dependency and masochism."

"You have a lover?" He looks disappointed.

"In my mind, yes. But no one physically. So what's real? The only man I want is a close friend who has retreated from me to heal emotional wounds from a difficult divorce. Not ready to trust the love that had been growing between us, he fled into his cave, only emailing me once or twice a month to see how I was, let me know I was still in his thoughts. Although he knew the marriage was over, his wife left first. He didn't anticipate how devastated he would feel, losing his child from his home. Being cast off.

"I knew I should kill my love for him... Plunge into the arms of willing men to drink lethe from their lips. But every time I saw the look in another man's eyes inviting me to his bed, I cast my own eyes down, like a chaste Islamic woman. I transferred sexual energy into my children, work, friends, community crises, supporting union actions - don't worry, my business suit is just costume for my work. Or I'd go to parties and beaches crowded with relatively AIDs-free potential lovers."

"You must have met someone during the last year...?" he asked, with an incredulous look. "I mean, the way you just talked to me. I can't imagine you'd go home alone from a party!"

"Sure I met people who turned me on. And several times that magical sense of "knowing" someone took over. I knew I could welcome that new man into my body and my soul. But before I could signal how I felt, I'd be overcome with a longing to be with my virtual lover. A longing more powerful than my longing for the sensuality and closeness I was about to get. I'd be filled with this outrageous sense that I was one with him, inseparable -- a man I had rarely seen for two years of a carefully non-emotional friendship in cyberspace.

Odd sentiments for me, a woman who theoretically thinks monogamy is a ridiculous constraint that kills true love by enslaving the lovers. But what is real? I could not change the reality of my feeling that a joining with any new man, even just for a few hours, would destroy the preciousness of our non-existent love. Non-existent, but not fantasy. Before he retreated into his cave of healing, he promised to let me know if anything changed and he would not come back. He would free me, although he never asked me to wait for him.

" I know I can free myself. I've done it before when I had to. But I don't want to. So I guess, if I distill out all the details, last year was a year of living in the reality of spirit... and watching for the point at which romantic commitment becomes neurosis."

All the details of last year were crying out in my mind - tell me, tell the story of last February when... Tell about how in May... I stopped reeling in the real. I didn't want to turn the pain into commodity. It was too real for story. We sat in silence for a moment. His presence felt comforting.

"I don't know why I thought I had the right to go around asking people about their life last year," he said, as he stood up to leave. "I'm sorry if I stirred up the memories."

"Sure was an unexpected conversation," I said. But what was really unexpected was my longing to keep him with me.

"I'll never forget this conversation," he said, giving me money to cover his order which still had not come.

"But wait...!" I gasped as he started to leave. He turned a moment. I wasn't sure what to say. I didn't know what I was really thinking although many thoughts were spinning in my mind - I'd moved too fast, set up the choice -- either fuck him or never speak to him again. Lose this real man or lose my mind's lover - "I want you to stay. I really do. I mean, that 's real!"

He gave me such a kind look. "So is the love in your heart," he said. "I must go." And he left. I sat stunned. Alone. I could see him walking farther and farther away, becoming a faint speck of individual humanity in the distance. Soon he'd be gone. Deep inside me I felt a stirring. Something far stronger than all the verbal chatter in my mind. It was coming from the same source that had kept me in unwanted celibate limbo all year. From the place where I'm free to choose deep love.. and equally free to choose to embrace the sensual joy of the moment. I found myself standing up, walking away from the table, away from the restaurant, walking faster and faster, now running towards the disappearing speck.

…And as I run, I'm thinking, thanks, Derek, for emailing your interest in my life this past year. Whoever you are.

A. Tares

This story is a sad one depending on how you see it,but most see it the way I do. I have a loving and caring dad so I thought but the day came the day I wish never did. It was a sunny day I was on my way home with 2 of my Best Friend's when I walked in I noticed that my dad had been drinking a lot.I was scared so I decided to go and sit in my room My dad just walked in and started hitting me I was crying ,yelling, screaming trying my hardest to get out but I couldn't.The next day my dad said did you learn your lesson.I just got up from the table and left.My point being is Fray you have got a loving and caring father who is the best.I just want to say Lift up your heart and the thing's you want in life will come true.Have a Happy Birthday and keep looking on the postive and not the negative.

Amanda {Bumblebee_12345@gurlmail.com}

I count years from July to July -- because my birthday is July 1st. The day before last year ended, I met someone who has, and who continues, to change my life. He has made me rethink large portions of my life. He has made me angrier than anyone ever has. He has taught me that my compassion is surprising to some people. He has posed hard questions to me, ones that I am still answering.

Happy birthday, Fray. Keep it real.

jodi shapiro {lexico@interport.net}

Congratulations and many thanks to {fray} and derek and everybody who makes this site come alive.

The best thing that happened to me this year is that my wife lori and I rode our bikes in the DC AIDS ride, a 350 mile, four-day ride from Raleigh NC to Washington DC. We rode our little asses off, spent many a miserable weekend in the saddle, and raised $4800 of the $2 million that went directly from the Ride to Whitman Walker Clinic and Food and Friends (local AIDS charities).

A lot of people will tell you that the AIDS Ride changed their life. It altered mine--threw it into relief. Mainly I remember the last night. We lived in tent cities, thousands of people holed up for a night on a high school lawn about 50 miles from home. Lori and I were walking back from dinner, creaking on aching legs through rows of tents, identical blue domes with socks and bike shorts hanging down like buddhist prayer flags. It was the night of the talent show, by turns hilarious and heartbreaking as riders and crew entertained with homespun standup, lip synch, and music. As we got to our tent I paused to look back toward the pavilion, just visible in the dusk, and listened as a man played a song written for a long-departed partner. Piano drizzled down across the tent city, pretty and slow and frail like the sound from a child's windup toy, and I had one of those moments that happen too seldom, when you realize how lucky you are and how thankful you should be for everything and everybody in your life.

That feeling has stayed with me, more or less, ever since. In a year, I hope I'll still remember.

Thanks again everybody!

dave {dave_housley@hotmail.com}

Oh dear, so much happens in a year. Especially when you're a teenager.

I've been lonely, I've been happy, I've been in and out of love. It's amazing how much I've changed in just a year.

A significant change? Well... it's been brought on by (dun dun dah!) the internet. I went from not even owning a computer (well, a computer with more than DOS and has a mouse) to understanding and using HTML.

Now I'm an internet junkie.

I'm on the net at least twice a day. Always working on something new, and always getting better.

It's a whole world, really. And I love it.

I've found role models and best friends on the net. Some people simple amaze me (ahem!maggydonea). I've been to sites and thought...wow. I want to be able to do that.

And I plan on it. You just watch. ;)

sprite {sprite-girl@usa.net}

Well just like Amanda I have lived not the best life! I was also hit by a parent but mine was my mom! Ever since the age of 8 I was hit till I even could not sit on my bum I also have had to live thourgh my parents splitting up! And now I live with my dad but the othere 5 live with my mom and my other brother lives on his own! But it is also very hard to ajust to being the only child waking up for christmas no other brother or sister to wake up and get excited with! Being the only kid looking for there Easter basket! And all of the little things! When you just think of all of the fun that you when you playing with your brothers and sister thinking of all of the times that got in fights with them it just makes you wish that you could go back in time and just get along! And so this for everyone if you have a younger or older brother or sister be happy that you have them treat them with respect! Because you never know when you wont have them anymore! Thank you for listing to my story!

Bammer {bammerhanson@gurlmail.com}