Sobering News

Dear ones,

We’re feeling our way into the mixed blessing of modern technology. Assuming you have expressed an interest in getting this information, thank you. Your thoughts, prayers and warm well wishes are both welcome and felt. Bryn says he sometimes can sense an unseen safety net around him, buoying him up. We like to think that’s the web of connection making itself known. 

No promises as to how often we’ll post these updates: life is in flux and things are a whirl at the moment—we’re slow getting this first installment posted. That said, know that we appreciate your loving support.

Sincerely,

Dave and Bryn

Bryn

+ + +

At a glance:

October 2019.   Bryn feels unwell, can’t see any reason why. Throughout the month and the next one he sees the doctor several times and test after test comes back “all clear.” Except that is is not all clear and the pain continues. It started with the sensation of a knife stabbing into the base of the rib cage and being drug laterally across. Next the pain focuses on lower back, then middle-lower back, then gut, then lower back again. It ricochets  off off these three points, sometimes lighting up two or three areas at the same time. Since his doctor is finding nothing, Bryn seeks chiropractic treatments, hoping this will help. The pain continues to ramp up, as do the medical bills for (some expensive) tests that all say nothing is wrong. 

Over a given weekend the pain is especially severe. The doctor has no openings that Monday, so Bryn agrees to drive 45 minutes to a satellite office where he can see a nurse practitioner. She encourages him to get an ultrasound of the chest area. He refuses to throw more money down the rathole of tests that keep coming back clear. She bargains with him, “If I can find you a CT scan for under $400, will you have it done?” He agrees and she’s as good as her word. It’s a low-cost, low-res scan that will ultimately have to be repeated at high-res (and higher cost), but this is the test that comes back showing a suspicious growth on the pancreas. Thank heavens for nurse practitioners who listen to and are willing to work with their patients.

A high-res CT scan indicates the need for an endoscopic biopsy of the pancreatic tumor, Bryn’s first-ever surgery. He makes it through fine. That night the pain ramps out of control. “Take him to the emergency room,” Dave is told. Bryn refuses to go. He wants medicine for the pain, not a huge bill for a visit to the ER. Nothing doing. The surgeon’s fear is something may have gone dreadfully wrong and Bryn may die. Bryn counters that as pancreatic cancer carries a very similar prognosis it won’t make that much of a difference. He just wants something for the pain. Ain’t gonna happen.

Bryn survives the night. Dave calls Bryn’s regular doctor the next day. No, they won’t give out anything for pain since they didn’t do the surgery. Call the surgeon. Nope, surgeon insists Bryn go to ER. He’s just a once-and-done surgeon; pain management is the responsibility of the regular doctor. We call the regular doctor back. No, he didn’t make the referral to the surgeon. Contact the nurse practitioner. Meanwhile, the pain continues. Back to the surgeon who says, “Go to ER for a CT scan.” Sheesh.

In the end Bryn asks the surgeon to order the durn CT scan so as to avoid the ER charges. Bryn has the CT scan which shows the surgery went fine; he’s just in need of something for the pain. Even now the surgeon refuses. Pain management is not his responsibility.

Bryn can count on being up three or more hours each night with pain. Bed to couch, back to bed, back to couch, then soaking in a scalding hot bath, sleeping with a heating pad, making it through one moment to the next. Tylenol and Exederin within reason, pain a constant companion.

Ability to work is compromised. He misses more hours than he makes it in for. On Christmas Eve he meets with the top pancreatic surgeon in Indianapolis who delivers the news: it is inoperable pancreatic cancer. Chemo is suggested.

Bryn meets with an oncologist. She promises pain relief. And comes through for Bryn on the weekend the kids and grandkids and grandparents get together to celebrate Christmas. Bryn has a couple of days where he is able to be present to something and someone other than the pain. By Christmas Day the pain ramp way up again. Days continue like this...unremitting pain. A flurry of medical appointments. Surgery to have a port put in so Bryn can get started on chemotherapy. And still pain.

Then chemo. Not only pain, but nausea, diarrhea and other side effects as well. 

Bryn and Dave have some long talks about quality of life, the disease prognosis, goals for the time remaining. Bryn leans toward stopping chemo, asking for a focus on pain management, clarity enough to write a funeral oration, have some moments of being present to the grandkids, be able to put some of his affairs in order. He meets with the palliative care doctor, makes a cogent case for why he’s considering bowing out of chemo.

Says the doctor, “I don’t usually counsel any of my patients to stop chemo, but I’ve never met anyone quite like you.” The doc says he’s reviewed the chart, seen that no one’s promising chemo as a cure, says getting an additional month of life would be considered a good outcome. 

Bryn says he doesn’t care for an additional month if he’s going to be feeling as good as he has been. “This is not the quality of life that’s going to help me achieve my goals.” The doctor ups the dosage of pain medicine.

After further consideration, Bryn stops chemo after having had one round of it, signs on for hospice care. Has higher energy—four good days in a row, feels better in those four days than he has for three months. Makes progress on his funeral oration, other goals. Can finally summon energy for writing a little, talking on the phone, visiting in person.

Learns the hard way that energy is going to fluctuate. A hard day may follow a good one or not. No rhyme or reason. As word gets out, people email, telephone and schedule visits.

We schedule a photo shoot with a photographer who makes house calls. Have a lot of fun having our pictures taken.

Bryn and Dave caught in a snow globe

Bryn contacts Ball State University officials about their interest in accepting donation of his diaries and papers—a personal record of one man coming out gay at a unique time in the nation’s history. Yes, they’re interested in expanding the diversity of their holdings. And would you be interested in making a class presentation, review the story of your life? “Why, yes I would.” That presentation was on Wednesday of this week. It went well and Bryn enjoyed and appreciated the opportunity to share his story in this forum. As he was speaking one woman leaned over to Dave and whispered, “It looks like he’s in his element.” She was spot on. 

If we get a promised link to the video we’ll send it your way. Meanwhile, attached are a couple of proofs from the photo shoot. 

All this comes to you with gratitude for your support and caring and staying in touch. There is something to this unseen web, the cords of love that bind heart to heart to heart. I’m glad to be in it with you.

Thank you,

Bryn

Dear Boone Grove High School Librarian,

Dear Boone Grove High School librarian,

I feel rather sheepish coming to you this late in my life with an overdue book. OK, not overdue, stolen. A book I stole from the library 47 years ago when I was in eighth grade. My husband and I are cleaning house, setting my affairs in order. Today we started going through my books—I have a ton of them—and the race is on. Doctors tell me I have maybe two months left to live with pancreatic cancer.

One of the books I pulled from the shelf today was Wolf Brother by Jim Kjelgaard. I smiled when I found it, set it aside. I want to return it to you with my apologies.
Kjelgaard’s novel spoke to me back when I was a gay boy who did not then know he was gay. A goody two shoes, good church boy who worked in the library’s AV section, helping set up audio visual equipment for various classrooms. A bookish lad, shy, withdrawn, introverted, teased. Teased for what? For being gay, awkward, naive, stupid, foolish. For being a prick, a prig. A boy who identified with the main character in Wolf Brother.

It’s the story of an Apache youth who returns to his people after years in a white man’s boarding school. He gets caught up with a band of his people who refuse to remain confined to the reservation, choose to pursue freedom against overwhelming odds. The Apache are branded as cutthroat savages, hunted mercilessly. The boy earns the name Wolf Brother when he befriends a lonesome wolf cub and vice versa. This unlikely pair play an important role in the novel, come to each other’s rescue, are able to escape, eventually help carry hope back to the tribe. Wolf Brother serves as an example of how to make it through.

What spoke to me in this tale? Perhaps it was echoes of a boy who is on the outside, whose world is falling apart, who must find his way through tribulation and trial, anger and prejudice, make a way for himself and a life for those he loves.

Throughout my life is not Wolf who has been my totem, my spirit animal guide, but Bear. Bear came to me in a recurring dream throughout childhood. Time and time again he chased me around and around and around the garage at our house on Highway Two. It was always the same dream: me, running pell mell in terror, the bear hot on my heels. I would wake up sweating, panting, scared.

The dream came back to me after I'd come out as a gay man in mid life. Had left a wife and three small children, was living by myself in a ratty apartment in a building soon to be condemned by the city. Sleep was hard in those days. Eating was hard. Putting a life together was hard. Then Bear showed up to terrorize my night dreams.

I was angry, but had the wherewithal to say, I cannot go on like this. I will not. The next time this dream happens, I'm going to turn and face the bear. The dream came again with Bear chasing me around my parent's garage. As I ran through the pine trees I could feel its hot breath on my neck, slap of pine tree needles in my face.

I turned to face the bear, plunged my hands deep into its fur, yanked its face up towards mine. (My skin still gets goose pimples when I think of this.) I looked that animal straight in the eyes. It was me I was looking at. I was the bear. I was running from myself.

I realized I had always been running from myself.

I swore then to walk alongside Bear, rely on his power, strength, courage, wisdom. He has reappeared to me since. Never again in the dream chasing me. But whether in waking life or in the liminal world of sleep, I pay attention when Bear shows up.
After coming out I met and married a man whose animal totem Wolf is different than mine. Yet he understood and embraced the concept of an animal spirit guide. We share many similarities. Dave grew up on a farm in rural northwest Ohio; I grew up on a hobby farm in rural northwest Indiana. We share core values: simplicity, integrity, compassion. Value the unseen as much as the seen. Live without TV, cell phone and until recently internet connection. He's retired now after a long stint as chaplain with hospice. (I signed up for hospice yesterday.)

In partnership with this Wolf Brother of mine, I learned to live outside the rules of society. We made our way as two gay men in rural Indiana against blatant opposition from the legal system, religious system, society at large. In 24 years together our lives, our love has served as an example for others. They’ve told us so. I am grateful.

Grateful, too, for a story that spoke to me those many years ago. Grateful for the way I embraced the story, lived it, made it my own. My thanks to you for the lifetime loan of this book are long overdue.

Sincerely,
Bryn Marlow, Class of ’77
Boone Grove School
Home of the Wolves

on growing older, tigers, monsters and that thing called love

Dear son,

Today is your 30th birthday. Happy day! I’m celebrating with you.

Rather, celebrating without you.

Better yet, I’m celebrating you.

My mind flashes to the day you turned three. Your mother and I had been egging you on, promoting the belief that to turn three is a grand accomplishment, telling you how big you were going to be. To cement the date in your head we used the tune “Mary had a little lamb” and taught you these lyrics:

My birthday is February seventh,

February seventh, February seventh;

My birthday is February seventh,

And I’ll be three years old.

  You were a precocious child anyway, and armed with this information, you had a long-form response for anyone who asked how old you were.

You woke up the morning of your third birthday and raced to the sitting room, stood before the mirrored door of Grandma Brown’s antique wardrobe. And began to cry.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“I don’t look any bigger,” you said.

You dear child.

+ + +

Do you feel bigger today for having rounded the corner into your thirties?

I remember wrassling with you in the bedroom. We’d play “Tiger” with me as the striped beast on hands and knees and you the feckless hunter who would launch himself from atop the bed onto the unsuspecting feline’s back.

At 30, do you have the world by its tail?

I remember many post-divorce games of Monster at the playground beside the White River. I took the title role whilst you and your younger brothers sought refuge atop the slide, jungle gym, climbing structure. I gave chase. Somehow you were always able to elude me.

Do you still see me as a monster? Do you still live in a world where gay fathers are hell-bent on their sons' destruction and must be avoided at all costs?

Been a long time since you turned ten, since you told me, “Dad, I don’t want to see or talk to you for a while.” Curious, the twists life takes. Curious, how long it takes us sometimes to learn the simplest lessons. Yet there are many opportunities to grow.

We don’t always attain the heights we set for ourselves—or others set for us.

Why not take the world by tail? Launch yourself forth in exuberance, expectation, delight. And see what happens.

Keep your eyes peeled for danger, sure. And do your best to learn where true danger lies. All is not what it seems.

You get to make a fair amount of choices in this world. Make them as wisely as you can. There’s an awful lot beyond your control. Accept this with all the grace you can muster.

+ + +

These last 20 years have been a lesson for me in love, loss, what it is to love into loss. Love into the void. The red cords that tether heart to heart in spite of time, distance, emptiness. The power of memory, intention.

I've learned love lasts a lifetime. That we are surrounded by love—even from people we don’t know, choose not to know or remember. 

Here’s to you, son. In celebration of a milestone. In anticipation of whatever lies ahead. In life, in death, in love,

                 Dad

Guess who's coming to dinner?

Living in the rural Midwest, I’ve had to  develop a finely honed sense of gaydar as a means of self-defense. I want to know who’s a safe person for me, who’s not, before I open my mouth and render myself vulnerable. Sometimes the cues are fairly obvious: hair, voice, dress, mannerisms. Sometimes I see my former repressed self in a person and little bells in my head go ding, ding, ding.

My husband Dave and I arrive at our favorite charity’s fund-raising dinner to discover we’re assigned to table four. Feels a bit posh, reserved tables; a bit constrictive, assigned seats. Table four sits stage right, a round top with eight chairs, four people already seated. We know two of them—a married couple. We sit down next to them, leave two empty seats between us and the strangers. These are two women. We exchange names, greetings. Then one of the women pulls out her smartphone to check football scores, reports to the other. Ding, ding, ding.

Hmph. ’Might have sat closer to those two had I known they’re lesbians.

An African American couple joins us just as a local dignitary rises to say grace. 

Ah, ours is the diversity table: gays, lesbians, African Americans, and white Anglo-Saxon Catholic heterosexual allies. 

In my experience, people who value diversity are more relaxed, less uptight, more fun than the average sourpuss. Sure enough, ours is the table to be at. All through dinner we laugh and carry on loudly. Others cast glances our way—envious glances, I’m sure.

As the program concludes I pull the lesbians aside, ask them over for supper sometime. I am conscious of what I am doing—zeroing in on one couple to the exclusion of the other two. I have my reasons. The lesbian couple is most likely to be safe; after all, we speak a shared language of experience; we can compare notes on what it is to be queer in conservative rural Indiana. The WASC heterosexuals live too far away. The African American couple keeps a tremendously busy schedule. 

Too, I'm reading a book about our systemic racism, how in this country racism gets infused into our thinking, our belief systems, our very blood. No “c’m’on over for supper some night” gesture is enough. If I'm serious about addressing my internalized racism I need to meet my African American neighbors on their own turf. I need to make a serious and lifelong commitment to familiarizing myself with their culture, their area of town, their church traditions. I need to hang out in places where African American people hang out, eat in the establishments they frequent, shop where they do. Combatting the years of entrenched internal racism is no easy task. Nothing simple about it. No guarantee of success, only the promise of effort and energy. 

I don’t want to sign up for that gig. I don't want to work so hard. Easier for me to keep my life small, set my sights low. When I do open my door to new acquaintances I want them to be just like me. 

The irony smacks me upside the head. In coming out, I wanted my parents to understand what being gay means to me. I wanted them to meet my friends, read books, think critically about stereotypes they held. And would they? No. They clung to wilful ignorance and I faulted them for it. I wanted to holler, “For God’s sake—or mine, anyway—get outside your comfort zone and see what you’re missing.” 

Now here I am, doing my own version of their polka. Quick mincing steps. Limiting myself. Clinging to what feels safe. If I don’t stick my neck out it won’t get chopped off. But what do I know?

Several days after the charity fund-raiser I chance to meet the organization’s executive director, a friend of mine. “Dave and I were glad to be the gay male couple at the diversity table,” I tell her. “In fact, the lesbians we dined with are coming over for dinner next week.”

She looks at me with furrowed brows. “That wasn’t a diversity table,” she says. “I put people there who volunteer for us. And those women? They aren’t a couple as far as I know. They’re friends. They live a long ways from each other. Different counties. One has a husband and three children.”

This dinner party may prove more awkward than I imagined. 

Who Let the Cat In?

   They're all a little worse for wear, the figures in our nativity scene. They show their age, their hard knock lives. The shepherd has lost his nose. Our lone wise man has lost both his companions and a chip off his shoulder. Our baby Jesus was dropped as an infant. The fall cost him the toes on his left foot and severed his left arm at the shoulder.

     Ours is not an expensive set hand-carved in Italy. With the exception of a black cat made of resin and stamped Singapore, the characters who gather at our manger boast a French connection—they were formed when wet plaster of Paris was poured into little molds and left to harden. Still, some unknown artist(s) took time decorating the figures. Jesus' eyelashes rival any drag queen’s. The sheep exudes personality. A touch of rouge on Mary’s cheeks sets her face aglow.

    After my dad died my husband Dave and I helped my mom clean out his workshop in the garage. This manger scene was tucked away on a back shelf. I asked if we could have it. I don't know its history or how my father came to have it. It's not the nativity set I remember from childhood. Maybe he bought it at a garage sale.

    It dates to the 1930s or 40s. It’s been cared for, even if its plaster players have suffered setbacks over the years. A previous owner made them a plain wooden stable with three openings: a huge bay that leads onto the front patio, a little window, forward-facing, low and off to one side, and a round hole high up in the back that admits a single small lightbulb.

    The homemade manger looks like a watering trough to me. It’s long enough the shepherd could lay down and take a bath in it. We've filled it with grey downy feathers from our chickens to make a soft bed for the Baby Jesus. I bet he once looked cute with both arms intact, outstretched. But he wouldn’t have been able to lay in this skinny manger. With only one arm, he fits in just fine.

    This year most everybody huddles inside the stable. Only Jesus, the sheep and shepherd are out on the patio. The donkey sticks his nose out the wide entrance. His ears lie flat against his head. This was a design choice meant to keep them from breaking off, I'm sure, but he looks as if someone's slipped crank case oil into his oats. Or maybe he’s feeling pain in his right hind leg where a chunk of flesh is missing.

    O, we are broken people every one, none of us a stranger to injury, indignity and loss. Sometimes we stand on the outside, left in the cold. Sometimes we grouse and grumble from within. Sometimes we’re as befuddled as the shepherd, with a look on our faces every bit as blank and dull as his.

    Being human is no cake walk. “Life breaks everyone,” Hemingway wrote. “Afterward, many are strong at the broken places.”

    When I worked as editor of my alma mater's alumni magazine I insisted we do more than fill each issue with puff pieces about how wonderful everything was on campus. Who's gonna believe that and for how long? I wanted to remind readers we were human, real, honest.

    I relate best to folks who have suffered loss, who aren’t always at their best, who know the taste of defeat. Who keep showing up, year after year, scars and all. The people who scare me are the ones who know everything, have no doubts and no problems. They’re either delusional or divine. Either way I want to watch my step around them.

    Each December a black cat with no nose peers out the side window of our stable. I’d like to know where he fits into the story, how he came to join this crew. Yet I’m glad we’ve made room for the unexpected, the unexplained. So much of life is mystery. Let’s celebrate it for what it is.

Flying Lessons from an Unlikely Angel

    "The world had been sad since Tuesday." Gabriel Marquez grabs my attention with this line in his short story, "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings." The sad world expresses itself with ash-grey skies and sea, three days of constant rain.

     During the downpour the parents of a newborn baby find an aged man lying face down in their backyard. His bedraggled wings are stuck in the mud. They’re amazed at first, but then. . . . well, the man is ancient, bald, nearly toothless. He speaks what they guess is Norwegian. They take him for a shipwrecked sailor—until the wise woman of the village points out the obvious: he has wings; he must be an angel.

"Club him to death," she says.

    They lock him in the chicken coop instead and call for the priest. He finds the winged man suspect. The old geezer smells terribly human and doesn’t understand Latin, the language of God. A crowd gathers. Curiosity-seekers gawk and jeer. Pilgrims pray and petition. The homeowners fence off their yard and charge a nickel admission. The line stretches as far as they can see.

    The angel ignores them all. Eventually, the visitors and villagers lose interest, distracted by some new wonder. The courtyard falls silent. The angel’s hosts don’t mind. They’ve made enough money to better their situation.

    His eyes rheumy with age, the angel wanders house and yard, bumps into posts, seems not long for this world.

    Then one day the wife sees him attempt flight. He careens about the yard, crashes into the shed, ploughs into the vegetable garden. At last he lifts off. She breathes a sigh of relief, both for herself and for him, watches until he becomes a small dot on the horizon.

    End of story. And the beginning of its impact on me.

+ + +

    We human beings have such a messed up relationship with the divine. Sure, drop an angel in our laps and we’ll take notice—then take advantage or try to turn a profit. Soon enough our attention wanders. Magic unfolds beneath our noses and we count it beneath our notice. We’re messed up, indeed.

    Or maybe not. Maybe we’re simply human. T.S. Elliot writes: “‘Go, Go,’ said the bird. ‘Human kind cannot bear very much reality.’”

    The birds I live with keep driving this message home. Every day my pet chickens present me with fresh eggs—the stuff of miracle and mystery. Yet I take them for granted.

    You’ve seen the inside of an egg. Nothing magic there. A yellow ball of pus sailing a translucent sea of snot. Mmm. I’ll have mine over easy, please.

    But put a fertile egg in our home incubator—as we did this spring—and 21 days later a baby chick emerges. Mouths open, my husband Dave and I watched life literally unfold, take a deep breath, start kicking about and knocking into things.

    This little winged miracle has since lost its luster, become just another chicken in our home flock. Another mouth to feed and water, another bird to lock in at night. Another reason to clean out the coop.

    Chicken shit happens. And human kind cannot bear too much reality.

+ + +

    I might as well have been a Norwegian castaway dropped with a thump into the middle of my very straight, very conservative church-going family. It wasn’t wings but horns they thought I’d grown when I came out as a gay man. What to do with me? Club me to death? Call in the priest? Lock me away? They tried everything they knew.

    Not until my wings grew strong enough, not until I could unfurl them, careen about the place, finally take flight . . . not until I became a dot on their horizon did my true nature show itself.

+ + +

    Maybe that’s how it is for each of us—we are born with tattered feathers, thrash about, run headlong into walls. Only when we recognize the reality of the divine within, the miracle of our being, only then are we able to cut loose and fly.





Image: Louis Tiffany's window, "Angel of the Resurrection" (1904), Indianapolis Museum of Art, compliments of Wikipedia

WHAT’S WITH THESE LITTLE BITE MARKS ON MY NECK, ANYWAY?

  

 “Do you want me to make you anything special for your birthday?” Dave asks.

     “Yes,” I say, “cake.”

    His mouth falls open.

    “With ice cream. And hot fudge.”

    “Are you serious?” he asks. My husband’s expression, his entire body language shouts, I’ve been waiting all year for this!

    We decided to avoid sugar and artificial sweeteners this year as much as possible. The no’s started on New Year’s Day. No cake, no cookies, no candy, no chocolate chips. Worse, no ice cream.

    Amazing the prepared foods laced with sugar: bread, snack crackers, red beans, creamed corn, dried fruit, light mayo, marshmallows. Many others. 

    We’ve changed our eating habits. No coffee creamer. No dry cereal with any taste. We now dress salads with oil and vinegar. For dessert, bananas—or apples, almonds, plain yogurt, muffins made with fruit juice concentrate instead of sugar, and so on.

    I’ve been resolute. (Dave calls it stubborn.) I’m like that. Once my mind clamps down on an idea I’ll face hell and high water before I let go.

    Of late I’ve met Count Chocula’s gaze without flinching. Told the Nestlé bunny to get lost. And shed 30 pounds since January. This strengthens my resolve.

    So my birthday request surprises Dave. “What kind of cake do you want?” he asks.

    “Something light,” I say, grabbing a vintage cookbook. “Here: Dorothy’s Fabulous Oatmeal Cake. But just a half-recipe, please—one layer.”

    A few days later Dave unveils his masterpiece: a nine-inch round cut in half, stacked two layers high, slathered with coconut-pecan penuche. I forget to breathe.

    I want that cake. I WANT it. It surprises and shames me how much I want it. Want all of it. Am prepared to face down anyone who’d dare stop me, even Dave.

    I’ve forgotten sugar has this effect on me.

    My intense craving reminds me of a gruesome passage I read, maybe in one of Anne Rice’s vampire novels.


    Two sexy young men fall for each other. Their love is doomed. Not only does medieval society forbid such relationships, a vampire wants one of them as his new boy toy.

    The vampire stakes his claim during a bloody necking session. The youth resists the older man’s advances, then refuses to embrace his own fateful transformation.

    The young lovers are imprisoned separately in a castle dungeon. Jailers ply the one with food; they starve the other.

    Crazed with hunger and a thirst he’s never known, the boy toy collapses against his cell door. It opens. He wanders a dark corridor, senses a warm-blooded animal presence ahead. His lips pull back from his teeth. He snarls.

    He nearly flies down the hallway, attacks, eats, drinks. Only afterward does he realize he’s killed his lover. No matter. The transformation is complete. He is vampire.




    Eying my birthday cake, I can relate.

    Desire is the thing with teeth. I know this. Although I’m a novice when it comes to erotica, I can devote hours looking at pictures of sexy men. That photos still fascinate me my friend Jim finds quaint. Like most gay men I know, he prefers online videos.

    “A magazine with nude pictures used to excite me,” he says. “Now it’s passé. I’ve been desensitized. It takes more and more extreme images to get me off. Some nights I spend two hours surfing for the one video that will do it.”

    He pauses. “And you know what? It’s dampened my desire for one-on-one human contact. The men I meet in real life never measure up to what I can see online.”

    Another friend tells me he stopped watching internet porn after hearing a TED talk about how pornography zaps the power of the imagination. He abstained for three months.

    I’d probably last three days. My steadfast refusal to get wired is in part, self-preservation. If we had internet access at home I fear I’d turn vampire. I forget that eye candy, like ice cream, is best enjoyed in moderation. Desire bites the hand that feeds it. Sometimes the neck.


Image credit: detail, Temptation of Saint Anthony, by Grünewald