“THE GREAT UNWEAVING”: I have a long piece at Inside Catholic: I’m sitting outside a downtown Starbucks with two George Washington University undergraduates, talking about sex, politics, and religion. Michele Walk and Conor Joseph Rogers fit my stereotype of contemporary American college students. They’re sincere, confident, and hyperaware of the ways in which they’re different from their parents. Michele and Conor also represent a growing demographic: They consider themselves both pro-life and supporters of gay marriage. more Read more

TODAY’S ACCOMPLISHMENTS: 1. Taking the GRE;2. Finally, after years of frustration, understanding what “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo” means. I feel I can recuse myself from adult responsibilities for the rest of the evening. Read more

I said, “My novel is purely autobiographical. Everything in it is exactly as it happened, moment by moment–sometimes even written down moments after the event. The main character bears my name. I’m writing it in order to persuade the love of my life to come back to me; I’m afraid it’s going to be a very long book. That’s the avant-garde technique I’ve invented: it’s called realism.”–Edmund White, The Farewell Symphony Read more

KITCHEN ADVENTURES: DON’T BE SCANTY WITH THAT SCAMPI! So peeled and deveined shrimp are on sale right now at my local Whole Foods. I realize that you may scoff at this shortcut, but both of these meals were so delicious that I find it hard to care. Ridiculously easy, too! First batch: Set oven for 375. Put baking dish inside to heat. Finely chopped garlic and rolled it in butter. Chopped one or two plum tomatoes and finely sliced about…... Read more

“THE MONSTER YOUR MAN COULD SMELL LIKE.” Posting this for Ratty. Read more

“GAY AND CATHOLIC: WHAT THE CHURCH GETS RIGHT AND WRONG ABOUT BEING GAY.” In which I am a “guest voice” at the Washington Post‘s On Faith site. My basic spiel, in almost exactly 750 words, and with a specific pitch to DC readers! Read more

GHOSTS OF HOPPERS: Sean Collins’s second review post in “Love and Rocktober”–his month-long series about Jaime and Gilbert (and sometimes Mario) Hernandez and the incredible comics they created–is even better than his first one. Comics vs. time, memory vs. death, backstory vs. change. Check out his posts… and read the comics. Read more

GOOD COP, SANS BAD COP: Via The Agitator (Radley Balko). Read more

YOU CAN HOLD ME ALL MY LIFE/BUT PARADISE CAN TAKE ME TWICE: Wesley Hill‘s book Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality is one of the very, excruciatingly few worthwhile books on Gay Christian Whatnot. (I’m honestly not sure if I can think of any others besides Beyond Gay, about which see here and here.) It’s a very quick read but very poignant. Hill basically tells his own story, with a focus on what the coming-out process is... Read more

THE TORTURE GARDEN: The other place I went in LA was the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach. We went to the main galleries, where the most memorable things for me were the Warhol-riffing Cuban soup cans sardonically lauding “America’s Favorite Revolution,” and a… lenticular?… picture in which the shining girders and industrial debris shimmered and shifted, if you tilted your head, to reveal a small overlooked human being at the far corner of the frame. But the... Read more