I’m proud to be opening a plump digital mailbag after just a week of posting. I’ll never understand why many of you are interested in my personal life. It’s flattering, but I value my privacy. I will limit my responses. Sorry, but TBIMB.

No, I’m not a professional writer. (But thank you.) My degree leans toward the technical side, with some artistry.

I’m glad some people think I’m funny. Feel free to laugh with me—or at me, if you must.

I suppose I look like a white guy from the Midwest. I’m a bit taller than average, but not tall. I’m trim, but not thin. My hair is neither light nor dark; it’s shaggy, but not what you’d call long. I’m clean-shaven. (My dad convulsed unforgettably at my early whiskers; he said I had “a baseball mustache—nine players on each side.”)

MY VILLAGE REALLY HAS EVERYTHINGOkay, I have a wide face and eyes that change with the weather. Mostly I wear dark clothes. I’m a moderate Bohemian, good-looking in a Germanic way.

I live in one of New York City’s infamous neighborhoods, home to generations of immigrants. There’s a nearby Tenement Museum. Closer is a big old-time Jesus Saves cross that advertises an active evangelical mission. There are lots of bars, world food. Sometimes the East Village feels like a small town full of college kids, but I like it.

All kinds of music appeals to me when it’s performed with spirit and taste, but most pop bores me. Here’s a rock song I’ll never tire of—Shotgun, from Earl Greyhound.

I hate Internet jargon, and clichés in general. You’ll have to get your LOLs and ROTFLMAOs elsewhere. I don’t know what most of these things mean, and I don’t care. I’m in no hurry, anyway. Unless I’ve miscalculated, I have loads of time to type.

The real words I won’t use here are curiously known as curse words. Not because I don’t swear when a taxi runs clean over my foot, as once happened (without damage) to me in London. I simply don’t want censorious spider software to bar kids from accessing my thoughts. I welcome anyone who stumbles into my blog. You’ll never leave, hehe.

Mahesh Pops the Big Question: Am I Gay?

Sadly, one question engages a disturbing number of readers—particularly an Indian gentleman named Mahesh. He lives in Mysore (which he kindly explains is near Bangalore) and he demands to know if I am homosexual. (I hope that word doesn’t activate those danged spiders.)

Unlike some Americans who ask the same question, Mahesh didn’t try to coat his query by saying the answer makes no difference to him. Obviously it matters to a lot of people. But Mahesh is desperate. My talk of having a male ‘partner’—as well as a roommate of unspecified gender—has traumatized him. He fears they are one monstrous gay person.

“Please assure me that you are in no way one of these filthy, cursed buggers,” Mahesh pleads so elegantly.

Will he disbelieve my comments about H5N1 if I say I like men? Will Mahesh toss his mask into the rubbish heap?

I’m tempted to stop blogging altogether and join my mysterious roommate in an orgy of strip poker and movie streaming. (Do they have that in Mysore?) Or I could do the politically correct thing and refuse to answer.

But some of you intolerant souls are evidently nice people. Some inquiries even come from people of various genders who seem to be trying to flirt with me. So I’ll bite the bullet by declaring that my roommate is a woman who is indeed my girlfriend and we are vigorously living in sin because of H5N1.

This damsel took refuge in my cramped apartment two months ago. I was predicting a world depression from the effects of bird flu (sure, that looks easy now) and I wanted her safe with me for the duration. She tends to her job at a mega-global bank from this very computer during the day. Her iMac never sleeps.

She is no longer my unofficial editor unless she secretly reads my blog. Let’s see if she complains about tonight’s post. (I’ll test her: Please brush those teeth, honey.)

Did I mention we’re in love? I hope people respect this and stop bugging me about my personal life. I could truthfully add that my best friend is gay, but clichés are abominable.

So Mr. Mahesh, I hope you are not engulfed in aak-chheen or aak-chhoon over in Mysore. I gathered that Hindus have two ways of sneezing. Is one manlier?

I bow to any readers who figured out that TBIMB means too bad it’s my blog.