June 29, 2009 - Gay Pride New York City

I love this photograph from Sunday's gay pride parade. Forgive my obsession over couplehood, gay marriage and having kids. I already have couplehood in my life. I am waiting for marriage and kid(s) to follow.

For more photos of the parade go to New York magazine's Daily Intel or click on the link below:

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2009/06/pride_march.html#photo=15

June 26, 2009 - Gay Weddings New York Times

Since it seems I won't be saying "I Do" anytime soon despite being in a long-term relationship with someone I am completely and madly in love and who feels the same way about me, I thought it would make a great project to clip the gay wedding notices on the Wedding Section of the The New York Times.

I begin with Nick Salvato and Samuel Buggeln who were married at Niagara On The Lake on June 20, 2009. I wonder what the ceremony was like.... 

June 24, 2009 - Remember When

Could it be that we can now look back at the times we've spent together and begin our conversation with "Remember when?" How wonderful is it that we have strings of stories to call our own and scrapbooks of photographs to remember them by should in the future our memories fail us.

 

Last weekend, when were revisiting photographs of the trips we took, the parties we threw and the friends we've made in the three years that we have been together, I found myself incredibly happy - a happiness not wrought with nostalgia - but one that only saw forward.  If we were able to enrich our lives in so many ways in just three years, imagine what it will be like 5, 10, 20 years from now! Imagine the stories we will relive when we are gray and round on the sides. Oh Remember When.

photos: Doug Inglish for Out Magazine

June 23, 2009 - Devirginization

It took me a week after I created this blog to finally make a first entry. I did a lot of back and forth, thinking and over thinking about what words to commit to this blog. My first idea for the blog was for it to be a venue where I can pen down notes, plot ideas, character descriptions for the gay novel that I hope to write in the future. I also hope that— should it gain a following— it would be an avenue for discourse between me and the readers on how to go about writing the gay novel. I would give outlines and progress report and in turn readers can give me feedback—like a control group of sorts.

 

I decided that I want to write a gay novel after a rather a search for gay novels on Amazon.com let to an uninspired listing, most were cheesy explorations of gay life with cheesier double entendre titles and cover photos. Some were of the erotic version. None that really captured want I want to read.

There have been few novels with gay themes that have moved me chief among them is The Nightswimmer by Joseph Olshan which tackled the issues of longing and loss and how to cope with it with such deft of language and cadence that I find myself buying a copy at bookstores every time I see it. What I like about the book is that the story and its central themes move past the written page and into your life, making you question your own sense of longing for love lost and your life ahead.

Andre Aciman's Call Me By Your Name comes a close second to one of my favorite gay reads. Call Me By Your Name also talked about longing, sadness, finding love, losing it and moving forward

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The themes of the two books are the kinds of themes that I want to explore and hopefully this blog will be able to help me flesh out all the ideas brewing in my head.