Jake Tanner is a 31-year-old itinerant consultant, quasi-journalist and regular man-about-town in post dot com San Francisco. When he decides to add dilettante raconteur to his impressive list of credentials, he starts to capture the hopes, dreams and social commitments of the new millennium male - moments big and small... anecdotes of life, love and leisure. But when his relationship takes a sudden unexpected turn, he finds that narrating one's own life isn't...

Actually, this is Jake and I have to admit that I enjoy writing back cover copy even less than I like reading it, so I think I'll quit while I'm ahead. But I posed in my underwear for the painting on the cover, and I think that demonstrates real commitment to my craft.

From Chapter 3, “The Most Romantic Night on Earth”

Our narrator Jake recounts how he met his girlfriend of nearly 5 years, Gabrielle, during a post business school trip to France:

Pardon my hyperbole, but as I looked over at Gabrielle again, I had the warm feeling that I might have enjoyed the most romantic night on earth. Before this, that thought had never crossed my mind as I kissed a woman goodnight or turned out the lights to join someone in bed.

But, if there were an essay contest for the most romantic night on earth for this particular square on June’s calendar page, I felt for the first time in my life, I had a legitimate entry. Maybe the most romantic night on earth on another evening belonged to a couple in a rundown tenement in Beijing, who stared into each other’s eyes after both feeling they’d conceived the one child allowed them by law. Some other night in the past, it belonged to two German lovers, reunited after 20 years when the Berlin Wall crashed down.

But, I’m sure at some point, it belonged to two teens in rural Iowa experiencing their first kiss. Or two strangers at Club Med who found some real connection after winning the limbo contest. Maybe, on this night, it belonged to two people who were brought together by soccer hooligans, Donald Duck, Budweisers and “Baby Got Back.” Two people who strolled the Champs-Elysees, enjoyed fantastic red wine, danced like children around a carousel and shared breakfast as the sky above them transformed from steel blue into a gorgeous tableau of pink and salmon hues. view abbreviated excerpt only...

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