Well, the special birthday zone, embracing my 9/6 birthday and the 10/26 birthday of my first male lover, Larry Schourup, a time suffused with delighted memories of our coming together in the spring of 1969, the way that changed both our lives, and how it led to a lifelong affectionate friendship, rewarding for both of us (we exchanged e-mail yesterday, 57 years after those days).
Brief background. I’ve written extensively on this blog about LS — for a long period of time, under a pseudonym, because open mention would have been ruinous for his long life and career in Japan. But eventually I was able to open things up fully and even to hope that he could marry his partner Isao (it’s a work in progress, but we are all old men now). You should be able to find some of my recent blog postings about him.
9/6 to 10/16 is the month + day thing. Then there’s the year thing. Oh, 1940 for me, 1947 for him; in the spring of 1969, I was a ripe 28 (already a professor of some note), he was a fresh 21, and I could have been seen as corrupting the young (hold the hemlock!). On the other hand, he was politically engaged, fired up by Stonewall, and moved me by example. As I said, we changed each other’s lives. (And the sex was shivery good.)
Now, of course, a 7-year age difference just looks like rounding off; we are effectively, though not nominally, the same age.
And now. We’re enjoying the exercise of contrasting the interpretations we place on our time together. (LS: when our views differ slightly, yours often make me reconsider and adjust my own) And thinking about the parallels between our lives.
So: two old friends schmoozing. Well, for me our conversation does bring back, after all those years, the smell of his body and the feel of its landscape, two things that are way past schmoozing.
And then my message for our birthday zone:
Time to send gratitude, admiration, enduring affection, and hope for surviving a while longer.
September 6, 2026 at 6:33 am |
Happy birthday, Arnold!
September 6, 2026 at 6:38 am |
Good wishes are arriving, by all possible routes. Including blog comments. Thank you.
September 6, 2026 at 1:01 pm |
Happy birthday, Professor Zwicky! [AZ: please: Arnold, just Arnold] I’ve been a reader of your blog for decades, and I find it, in turns, interesting, informative, amusing and at times, surprising. Sometimes it just feels nice to know that there is such a person in the world. My birthday is 9/7, and I too have a sort of “birthday season”, being the time between my birthday and Michaelmas (my name is Michael), though it has more to do with weather than any personal connection. Best of luck to you in the coming year, and the years after
September 6, 2026 at 3:06 pm |
Well, reciprocal happy birthdays, Michael. And then you say some things that move me deeply. Crowned by this elegant appreciation of what I have tried to make of my life: Sometimes it just feels nice to know that there is such a person in the world.
These days I do get, from accomplished and perceptive people, a lot of complimentary declarations of the form I have never met anyone like you — recognizing the extravagant eccentricity of how I approach things. I start my response with a simple Thank you and go on from there.
I have twinges of anxiety that all this stroking from other people will give me a swelled head, set me to boasting and acting like a privileged asshole. Maybe saying that out loud here will be prophylactic.