So last night’s booktour dispatch won me a rebuke from Dave Segal. My spelling, usually sterling, was off. Mr. Segal also disapproves of my insistence that booktour is one word. Perhaps it’s the tiny bit of German blood that flows in my veins (the Germans love to mash many words together into bignewwordsthatmeansomethingelse), but I feel that booktour is indeed one word, or should be. It will be in these tour posts.

One word I did misspell? Fellate has two Ls, not one. Sorry about that. Being this paper’s sex advice columnist—being the sex advice columnist for many, many papers—I should know how to spell fellate. But I flunked Latin in high school, Dave, and I tend to use slang in Savage Love (sucking cock, blowjobs, smoking pole, making rent, etc.), not Latin terms. So lay off, you cocksucker.

On to tonight’s reading: It was better. Barnes & Noble on Sixth Avenue in Chelsea is a better location, location, location for a book about gay marriage than some godforsaken bedroom “communityâ€� on Long Island somewhere. Don O’Keefe, the community relations manager, was gracious, the crowd was big, and save the forced removal of one nutcase (one word) who started screaming at me about Indian spirituality—who knew lunatics wander freely around Manhattan?—the reading went wonderfully well. Sold lots of books (buy one, why don’t you?), and met lots of nice folks.

The highlight, however, was this extremely cute boy who came up to get his book signed. He gave me a gift and a card that read….

A few years ago you gave me some sound advice about standing up as a bottom. You told me to basically never let a top talk me into sex w/out a condom. You told me to respect myself enough to insist. Having that sort of respect for myself really helped, and it was sparked by your advice…

Aww.

I’ve often said that, unlike other advice columnists, I don’t delude myself. I haven’t convinced myself that I’m actually helping people. I don’t sit down to write a column and think, “Gee, I’m going to help some folks today! I’m helping! HELPING!â€� I simply sit down and try to write something that will entertain my readers—frequently at the expense of the folks who seek out my advice. After all, just one person asks the question while millions of people are reading my response. So who’s the column for? The lone dope with the problem or the millions? The millions, of course, and they’re reading to be entertained, not helped or enlightened or uplifted or edified. I try not to lose sight of that fact, and not losing sight of that fact is part of the reason “Savage Loveâ€� has lasted.

But it’s gratifying to know that I nevertheless manage to help someone every once in a while. It’s not my intent, of course, it’s not my first priority, it’s not my goal—but, still, inflicting a little positive collateral damage once in while makes me feel less ridiculous. Hey, I do some good on the margins! Who knew?

After the reading I said goodbye to my Dutton publicist, Beth Parker, who I’ve had the pleasure of hanging around with for the last couple of days (she’ll be managing me from afar for the rest of the tour), and then went out to dinner with Brian Tart, the president of Dutton, my publisher, and my former editor. We’ve been working together for six or seven years now and have only been in the same room, like, two or three times. (My new book got handed off to Julie Doughty when Brian got promoted in the middle of the editing/writing processs.) We stuffed ourselves in an Indian restaurant, drank beer, talked about books and weekly papers and kids and real estate and George W. Bush, and then had doughnuts and cheesecake for dessert. I took one last stroll through Manhattan—from Union Square to Tribeca—on the way back to my hotel. Two impressions: this city is so fucking alive, and, my God, the men here are beautiful (particularly the cocktail waiters here at the Tribeca Grand ).

But I miss my man—also a beauty. I was sitting in the lobby of my hotel, typing away, when Saint Etienne came on the sound system. They’re one of Terry’s favorite pop bands, and it’s hard to hear their music without missing my boys.

Shit. It’s one in the morning and I’ve got to be up and at the airport by seven. Tomorrow, Atlanta.