Let the conclave begin. My predictions.

Just published is my prediction for the papal election. My short list of 5 names, including info about which cardinals are gay and which ones would be good for women and gay Catholics. 

Sea and Symphony for Sebrina Alfonso

I loved interviewing the lesbian conductor of the South Florida Symphony, and her partner. (See how the comma after symphony is really important there? Sebrina does not conduct Jacqueline!) 

World AIDS Museum?

A great idea and Steve Stagon is making it happen.

Christopher Brosius Perfume God

Please check out page 8 of the newest issue of The Mirror for my profile of Christopher Brosius.

I don't think he'll mind that the editor calls him out as a "perfume god" on the cover.

The Mirror is a nationally distributed publication of sfgn.com but you can read it online.

Gay Press Gay Power

Check out my SFGN review of Tracy Baim's book Gay Press Gay Power. I enjoyed my conversation with her. She speaks with authority and insight. 

2013—The Year To Be Perfectly Queer

They asked for my predictions for 2013. (I'm particularly pleased with my "From Abercrombie & Fitch to Maclarens-for-hitched" line.)

You Got Power?

I rarely open the mail. Instead, I let it make a big pile of itself until it sloshes to one side or the other. Today we had a long purposeful rain to which I responded by scooping up the top third of a mound of envelopes and sitting down with it.  (If a check comes in the mail, I can feel it before I see it. That I’ll open like an addict. The rest? Why bother? Not like in the days of Jane Austin or Charles Dickens when revelations of inheritance or unforeseen cousins or declinations of affection came in the mail.)

I must have fallen asleep while opening these. My head jerked up and my eyes beheld a darker room. I heard the lady next door shouting in the hall, “You got power? You got power?” as she knocked on doors. She knocked on mine. “You got power in there?” I ignored her. She has no life.  The lights zapped themselves on. I saw the microwave and the alarm clock flashing in that eerie way that will continue after our race is extinct and no one is left to reset them. I had slept through an event. In my hand was a card from Starbucks offering me any drink for free because I have used my gold card so frequently. It is more than a month old but I know they will honor it. I need it now. Why wait? I put on clothes and go down the elevator mumbling to myself, “I got power. I got power. I got power.” I cross the lobby and burst through the door and onto the sidewalk where I come face to face with Olympia Dukakis who looks at me as if I were about to accost her. She holds onto her stylish shoulder bag with the wary reflex of a New Yorker. I draw in a startled breath and blurt, “I got power.” She looks at the card in my hands, and casts her eyes down with a slight smile as she steps around me and regains her stride.

I cross the street and push my way into Starbucks where I order a “grande bold no room black eye.” I take it home and the rain has stopped. I put the mound away and make plans to do the laundry tomorrow. I rarely do the laundry. Instead, I let it make a big pile of itself until it sloshes to one side or the other.