On Saturday before catching the bus to Toronto, we stopped at The Nutty Chocalatier in Old Quebec Street. We both had truffles in mind. Danny bought one. I went to the back to find a package of brandy beans like I bought a couple weeks ago. For only $2.99 I couldn't resist. On my way to the till, the fudge counter distracted me. I took one hundred grams of the eggnog flavour. On the way to Toronto I ate the whole wedge of fudge. Two days later, riding home in a snowstorm, I finished most of the package of chocolates.

What makes people laugh at two lovers being mushy?

Sometimes it is their foolishness. We see them making mistakes we have made or observed before. I know a man making promises he cannot keep, changing himself to hold onto something. He craves security, and mistakes his longing for love. He thinks he is happy, but confusion and loneliness overwhelm him when he is separated from his lover. He sees his emptiness within, but believes that this other human being can fill it.

Experience turns us all to mockers and cynics. Sometimes we poke fun at two people simply being happy.

On Saturday before catching the bus to Toronto, we stopped at The Nutty Chocalatier in Old Quebec Street. We both had truffles in mind. Danny bought one. I went to the back to find a package of brandy beans like I bought a couple weeks ago. For only $2.99 I couldn't resist. On my way to the till, the fudge counter distracted me. I took one hundred grams of the eggnog flavour. On the way to Toronto I ate the whole wedge of fudge. Two days later, riding home in a snowstorm, I finished most of the package of chocolates.

Les says he snuggles up to an extra pillow at night. Someone else suggested I should sleep with a teddy bear when I'm alone. When Danny heard this, he showed me a picture of a knitted teddy. It has adorable, beady, close-set brown eyes that make me want to snatch it off the computer screen for a hug. Suddenly teddies become associated in my mind with Danny. I can't look at one without feeling mushy. Brobear, the soft teddy who normally sits on my couch, has moved to the bedroom. This is the same sensation I get from eating fudge.

For a guy who lives alone, it's a treat to come home to my own place, walk upstairs and find a handsome man snoozing on the futon. It has been a long day. Tonight was the dress rehearsal for tomorrow night's choir concert, so he arrived while I was out. I am exhausted. All I can do is collapse in his arms and ask him to take me to bed. We will hold each other tight, barely moving, let desire kindle in our members and smoulder in the night when we roll over, half asleep. We'll save release for morning.

I made Madeira mushroom and leek soup for lunch, a new favourite recipe from a low fat cookbook, but ultimately the point of healthy eating was lost. Meanwhile three loaves of pumpkin bread went into the oven: flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, eggs, oil, walnuts, two cups of pumpkin, and sugar, sugar, sugar. Not particularly healthy, but unbearably tasty. One loaf got cut up on a plate for the reception after tonight's concert. This afternoon we sat on the couch playing Scrabble and consuming most of the second loaf one sweet slice at a time. It was delicious.

In the past I dated a couple men who loved to give blowjobs. I have a special weakness for one who can do it expertly. Such men have power over me. They quickly find my sexual buttons and learn to touch, tease and reduce me to helpless pulp slouched in a chair. I can't say no. The physical pleasure is entirely mine, and yet I begin to resent their influence. Pleasure without reciprocation soon becomes emotionally empty. I try to resist, but their skill entraps me. I am drawn endlessly to the bait, just as a child cannot resist candy.

Shortbread. I need to bake shortbread today. Apparently it tastes better if you make it several weeks ahead and let it sit. I wouldn't know. Shortbread never lasts long around me. The question is, if I bake it now will any last until Christmas? And does it matter? This is all about indulgence. If I can't partake in a little pleasure, I'll have nothing to give. This is the season for fudge, pecan cookies, chocolate truffles, marzipan, liqueurs, peppermint candy ice cream, eggnog with a sprinkle of nutmeg, and snowflake pudding with red raspberry sauce. This is all about sweetness.

I'm going into withdrawal. People have been too kind to me for a while, and now I'm not sure they mean it. I can't be bothered to find out.

I went to the liquor store to buy Cointreau so I can make mandarin marmalade. I also picked up three cans of cider (fair enough) and a bottle of red wine to give Les for all the times he has driven me places. Then I added to the cart a bottle of Bailey's, so sweet.

No, I can't afford that. I put it back, like returning a friend to his shelf.

I have liked sweet liqueurs ever since I was a teenager. My parents used to let me have crème de menthe or Kahlua drizzled over ice cream. The first time I ever got tipsy at the end of first year university was when I drank half a bottle of Amaretto di Saronno. I don't know how my stomach stood up to that. I was young. I didn't discover Frangelico or Jägermeister until a few years ago. I still like them. I have a bottle of Hungarian Golden Pear liqueur in the cupboard, cloyingly sweet. Putting back that Bailey's was hard.

The temperature has fallen through the night and descends below freezing this afternoon. The dark mud along the riverside trail has formed a thin crust, like fresh icing. Snow falls so fine it is almost invisible in the grey air, but on the dark alluvial earth it shows as bright white granules like powdered sugar. It reminds me of the pecan cookies I want to make, my ex-wife's recipe. Warm out of the oven, you roll them in fruit sugar. I can't understand her making sweets she would rarely eat. She didn't do it for me. What was their purpose?

Depression can be compared to diabetes. Some people are predisposed to diabetes and others are not. Some bring the disease upon themselves by abusing their bodies with too much alcohol or bad eating habits. It has various degrees of severity. Some people can treat it by adjusting their lifestyles, while others can't survive without medication.

Depression is similar. It is also a chemical imbalance. Some people inherit it, while the stresses and tragedies of life throw others into it. Sometimes it arises from self-abuse.

But the abuses are different. Diabetes comes from too much sweetness, depression from indulging in misery.

The dance last night saw heavy flirtation but I came home alone, stoned enough that I didn't care. This morning I wake with bright sunshine pressing behind the curtain. Thoughts of him nestling here make my cock start to swell under the duvet. I reach up and grasp the headboard with both hands, and then imagine him sitting on my chest and sliding his uncircumcised cock into my mouth. He feeds me his orgasm and then he keeps going and I take his sweetness again and again. I am content to lie revelling, feeling the exquisite strain in my groin.

A solid blanket of snow fell on Friday afternoon. Yesterday the sky cleared. The sun shone out of sapphire and dazzled the white world along the river. This morning more snow comes, slow and steady, spreading winter like heavy batter in a cake pan. Delicate, striated white crystals decorate an amorphous ice sheet that has spread along the shore. Teasels and thistles bear creamy dollops of white. Swaths of thick, powdery confectionery decorate the limbs of spruces and balsam firs. In the park I pass a woman walking her dog. "Good morning she says. "It's a nice morning. Very wintry."

I found out Danny likes marmalade. Last year I made mandarin marmalade and gave a jar to Sylvie for Christmas. She raved about it. But Danny might like oranges and not mandarins, so last time he visited I bought mandarins and left them on the table, just to make sure. They were a hit.

Last night I pealed them, chopped the fruit and cut the peel into slivers. Today I added the sugar and cooked it. After it comes off the stove, you add a quarter cup of Cointreau. Upon hitting the hot jam, the alcohol vaporizes with a sizzle.

Making jam set without added pectin is a tricky method I haven't mastered. Certain fruits, like citrus, grapes and sour apples, contain enough natural pectin. Adding a bit of lemon juice helps get the balance. But the jam still has to be cooked longer and tested constantly. The recipe said to cook the fruit for thirty-five minutes, but it took closer to an hour. You chill a plate, put a drop of marmalade on it and return it to the freezer for a minute. When the cool jam forms a skin that wrinkles when you touch it, it is ready.

Just a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down, the medicine go down, medicine go down. Just a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down in the most delightful way.

I have very little time to rest, with neighbours getting drunk and yelling in the street, breaking down doors, and tramping up and down stairs at 3 a.m. Who knows what this has to do with medicine, but despite all these attacks on my psyche, I feel better than last week. The medicine was acknowledging I felt depressed and taking some action. So where's the sugar?

Last night the choir went to The Albion for a party instead of rehearsing. Bob and I sat together. Today he came over to borrow a book of jam recipes so he can make marmalade to take to Mark's parents for Christmas. I made a pot of coffee and we chatted in the living room for a couple hours. We had started to drift apart. I didn't realize the extent of his unhappiness this fall. He told it all. I told him, too, how I feel like I can't talk to any of my friends about my relationship with Danny.

Bob was on the phone again this morning to tell me the old computer monitor I donated to the choir is working fine. He was already in the midst of making a batch of marmalade. He couldn't believe how much sugar it requires. He needed nine cups. Some jams have as much sugar as fruit. They don't make jam that way in Europe, he said. I wonder where North Americans got the notion. The pioneers certainly would not have cane sugar. Denmark gets much of its sugar from beets, Bob told me. They have fields and fields of sugar beets.

I paid him a quick visit in Toronto before he flies to Winnipeg for Christmas. Two weeks ago when we visited I was limp and weary after the concert. Last night I had some of my old energy back. What a consolation I felt in holding him again! Then I went down on him, eager to show him the pleasure he so often gives. How sweet it is to give delight. I have never considered myself good at delivering oral sex, but the way he responds to me, I want to do it again and again. I am gaining confidence.

I feel compelled to spend money on food more than usual. With my family, Christmas was not about religion but about getting together, and being together always required indulgence. We had food, then we opened presents, then we had more food, and then we went back to presents with more food and drink always available. It was a celebration of wealth more than love. And money still substitutes for love. So easily it does! Now I crave food, and not just any food, it must be food that someone else has prepared. I have nowhere to turn but a restaurant.

My daughters have arrived for the holidays. We decorated the tree, then had dinner, then made Hello Dollies. Melt a quarter cup of butter in a baking pan, then add one cup of graham cracker crumbs, then one cup of chocolate chips, then one cup of pecan halves, then one cup of coconut, and then a can of sweetened condensed milk drizzled overtop. Bake at 325 for half an hour. It's that easy. It has already come out of the oven, and the girls are picking at the gooey sweetness in the pan. Don't mess them all up, I say.

Why do kids like candy so much? When I was little, I was mad for it. Mom didn't give me much candy, but Nana and Bumpa would bring some every time they came to visit. I especially remember the little hard sugary blobs pasted on long strands of waxy paper, and the sweet-sour powder in straws that makes my mouth water right now, just thinking about it. Now I have moved on to more adult things: cheese, shellfish, mushrooms, alcohol, sex and the occasional joint. When I was a kid, sugar was the only kind of high I ever had.

This evening we made spicy orange ginger cookies. Danny expressed interest when I said I was planning to make some. I will save a few to take to Toronto next week. That has me thinking about him. He has gone to visit his parents in Winnipeg with no access to email for a few days. He normally sends me messages almost every day. It keeps me thinking about him. Now I haven't heard from him in four days. I don't have much time to think about it with my daughters here, but I would rather have him in my head.

This morning the girls slept until 7:10. I barely heard Brenna slip into the living room, then disappear again to rouse her sister. Marian slumped onto the couch beside me, complaining about being wakened so early, but when I suggested taking down their stockings she was on her feet in a flash. For dessert tonight we made special apple crisp. Marian peeled and sliced the apples. I flubbed the recipe and used too much brown sugar, but no matter, it's Christmas. Some extra sugary sweetness is allowable today. In fact I think I'll have another shot of Baileys Irish Cream.

I have a hard enough time disciplining myself to eat well, but Marian is another matter. If left to her own devices, she would eat and drink nothing but Coke, coffee, chocolate, candy, cookies and the occasional peanut butter and jam sandwich. To be honest, I can imagine myself doing the same thing if my body and temper allowed it. Maybe that's the difference between kids and adults. After a few years we start to feel what bad food does to our bodies. Can I teach my children better judgment, or just allow them to make their own dietary mistakes?

Today I feel dragged out and heavy, like everything I ate this week has gone to my head and now sits there clogging the neurons. Actually the eating has barely started. Tomorrow will be Christmas dinner at Mom's table, with more holiday food to follow at Bill and Danny's.

Is it possible to overindulge in love? Years ago I started going to a twelve-step group called Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous. Then I discovered I wasn't addicted, just undernourished. Love addiction is an oxymoron anyway. You can't get too much of it. The real problem is people isolate themselves emotionally.

My favourite photograph of Danny was taken on October 18. He stands in a dark trench coat on the walking bridge across the Speed River. The surface shines with rain. He wears his hand-knitted hat, which picks up all the colours of autumn leaves on the far shore. The look in his eyes exudes the gentle warmth and generosity, tinged with patient humour, which characterize his manner toward me. Looking into that gaze practically gives me a sugar rush. I am so addicted to him now. Tonight: Christmas dinner with my parents. Tomorrow night I will be in his arms.

Christmas at my parents' last night involved too much food. Today they took us out for lunch at Red Lobster, a rare treat, but again I had too much food. I have been getting bad heartburn lately due to a faulty stomach valve. The best thing is to avoid coffee, but if I hadn't had a cup on the way to Toronto today I would have had to fight off sleep all the way. As it was I had to pop Rolaids like candy. I've been trying to cut back on those, too. I am afraid they'll cause kidney stones.

Today Danny and I went shopping on Bloor Street and stopped at Future's Bakery for lunch. The special was Chicken Kiev, a good deal for less than six dollars. Throughout the meal I kept eyeing the dessert counter, but by the time I finished I had no room left. Eventually we went and looked at the shelves of decadent pies and cakes. Most interesting of all was a cheesecake with meringue topping. My stomach was still bothering me, though, calling for moderation. It was a feast for the eyes only. Sometimes I wish life didn't have to be so balanced.

This is a time of year when people try to change their ways. I don't think I'll make any resolutions. My mind and body exert enough pressure on me as it is. If I'm not disciplined about indulgence, I start to fall apart. The only way to survive is by finding a tricky balance, a fine line somewhere between gluttony and starvation. It applies to my social life, too. The security of solitude entices me. So does the sweetness of intimacy with others. I can only find the balance by paying attention to how I feel at each turning point.