I am on fire island. It is great here. The funny thing, though, is that the weather isn’t actually much better than it would’ve been in Berkeley. And the mosquito situation is far worse. But the physical environment is interesting. There are no roads. It’s all narrow boardwalks between rows of houses.

There are five or six communities along the island, and each one has a town center with a dock and a grocery store and a few nightclubs. But the communities aren’t really connected by Boardwalk. The only real way to get from one to the other is by walking on the beach. And, of course, it’s still at least 80% gay men. Really, it’s quite a place. I wonder how it all got started.