The first follow-up to my posting yesterday “A gay life”, which had material about my first male lover, Larry Schourup, from earlier postings of mine. About 55 years of the loving friendship that succeeded our original relationship, a lifelong conversation carried on through enormous changes in our lives. LS ended up in Japan, with a long-time Japanese partner, Isao; they had to conceal their homosexuality and their relationship for many years, until recently it became possible for them to live openly, and to apply for domestic partnership in Kyoto (which I now have learned was granted on 5/29/24, wonderful thing).
My intention was talk about integrating sexual lives, relationships, and identities with lives of accomplishment (like LS’s teaching and published research in linguistics) and value, with a bow to the poet Frank O’Hara (who LS introduced me to many years ago). I am, however, overwhelmed by the firehouse of fascism being sprayed on a daily basis by the overlords in my country, which needs a variety of responses, all of which take time — so I’ve trimmed this post down to its other aim, which is to report on the last year or so of the LS/AZ correspondence.