Charlie

I saw a review yesterday of a book written by a woman who was conceived through a prolific sperm donor. She has so far discovered 35 half-siblings, and has established relationships with a number of them.

That is NOT the photo on the cover of the edition of the book that I have, although it is one of the photos within the book. The photo on the cover of my book is of a tall, athletic-looking, handsome man, probably in his thirties, lounging in a chair with his booted legs crossed, dressed in a rather fancy cowboy outfit, staring boldly at the photographer. The photo above is of Wister as an uneasy young Philadelphia lawyer. Correction: As I looked later at the photo on my book cover, I realized that he is actually dressed as a dude, but in a wide-brimmed hat, in a photo taken in Wyoming in the early 1890s. He has a dark beard and mustache, and looks very conscious of his hot pose.

When I read the title, I thought, "Which king is Alexandre the 21st?"

Darwin Payne, Owen Wister: Chronicler of the West, Gentleman of the East. Southern Methodist University Press, 1985.

I have just finished reading a biography of Owen Wister, a writer most famous as the author of The Virginian, the novel that set the pattern for all the cowboy stories, movies, TV Westerns and musicals of the past century. I took it out of the library, because the stunningly sexy photo of Wister on the cover fascinated me--it was one he could have used on Rent.men, and would have made me interested in hiring him. Although he fathered six children by a strong woman, my gaydar still tells me that he was a closeted homosexual. He had a domineering mother, daughter of a famous English actress, and a weak, withdrawn father, a member of a leading Philadelphia family . He lived from 1860 to 1938, so of course he wasn't "out" in our sense, but he had intense friendships with many men of all sorts, from Henry James and Theodore Roosevelt to young men whom he hired to take him on camping and hunting expeditions in the wilds of Wyoming. In his early 20s, he became obsessed by a pair of Harvard undergrads, whom he described as, "No friends of my youth surpassed, and very few others ever equaled, the wit and humor of that pair of gay seniors." The first time he was approached by a female prostitute, he fled in horror. He didn't seem to have any interest in women younger than his mother until he was 38, when he suddenly decided he needed a wife, and married a much younger cousin. He frequently left her for extended periods to "recover his health" in the company of rough young ranch hands and military men in the West. Although he was a robust athlete, he often suffered and was treated for obviously psychosomatic illnesses, often triggered by long stretches of heterosexual family life, and he recovered by getting away in exclusively male company. He was also a passionate opera lover and composer, who wrote music and script for Broadway musicals. He loved to dress up in fancy costumes and perform on stage. When he was in prep school, he needed a date for the theater, so he took a younger male classmate, dressed convincingly as a woman. The biography, by Darwin Payne of Southern Methodist University, was written almost a half century ago, and Payne never touches the question of sexual orientation or activity, but everything in the picture he paints of Wister screams classic gay man to me.

Is Taylor Swift an escort on rent.men?

One fucked standing up, of course--that's what trees are for!

I remember my first experience trying to deal with pounds, shillings and pence. Oh, and also my first experience with LSD.

I had to laugh when I read this, because I had just received a phone call from someone I haven't seen in years, a German friend whose last name is Kayser. He did not have an arm like Wilhelm.

Sonny was a successful songwriter before he teamed with Cher, and he wrote and produced all of their hits together. He even wrote some of her songs after they were divorced. All four of Sonny's wives survived him (Cher was #2). His last wife, Mary, succeeded him in Congress.

It isn't so surprising that your masseur didn't know "Sonny & Cher": their career together only lasted about ten years, and was over before he was born. Cher's entertainment career has lasted much longer as a solo performer, but Sonny went into local politics instead, and would be remembered primarily by those of us in SoCal, where he became mayor of Palm Springs and then a Congressman; he has been dead for almost a quarter century. There has been controversy recently in Palm Springs about statues honoring former mayors, and some have pointed out that Sonny was a Republican who was opposed to gay marriage.

It's cheaper to buy Arrowhead in bulk.

And because of drought and water use restrictions, people with new pools are having trouble obtaining the water to fill them.

It sounds like the same person wrote the texts for both ads, with slight differences, and then chose some photos that would fit the written description.

When my spouse and I retired, we downsized to upsize. We sold our Center City townhouse in Philadelphia, and used the money to buy a ranch house with a two car garage, on a large lot of land with fruit trees and a swimming pool, in Palm Springs. We also bought a second car, something we never needed in the city. And we had money left over for our new lifestyle. However, after thirteen years, we were ready to downsize again, but this time for real: we sold our desert oasis and moved into a smaller house on a tiny piece of land, in a 55-plus community. Once again, we sold our house for more than we paid for our new residence. But the next downsize will probably be to a unit in an assisted living facility. We are already preparing to go back to only one car when the lease on our second car runs out at the end of this year. Depending on how old you are and what condition you are in, there is no one right way to adjust your lifestyle when you retire. The important point is to know what your options really are, and plan accordingly, recognizing that what you want and what you can do may change--retirement can last a long time, and you need to remain flexible.

Kyrgios is a fantastically talented player, but I have difficulty watching him, because his constant chatter drives me crazy, especially his criticism of his team--what on earth does he expect them to do?! He reminds me of John MacEnroe at his worst. (I couldn't stand watching him either in his playing days.) Novak is looking more and more like a dignified spokeman for the sport, regardless of his anti-vax nonsense. With the sound turned off, however, it was great fun to watch the match, which I did from beginning to end.

The Russian Tennis Federation has proudly claimed that Rybakina is "our product," and to a large extent, that is true--she was in the Russian program until she was 18; what Kazakhstan has provided is really the proper packaging and marketing of the product. I feel sorry for her, because she has to tiptoe carefully around the minefield that her international success has caused, as she tries to thank everyone appropriately without stepping on any political mines. So far her natural shyness and reticence have served her well, and I hope Putin continues to stay off the subject.

If you had come by the house at 3:30, you would have found it was 115 here, too.

Mack appears to have developed a beer gut.

I normally play tennis on Sunday morning from 7:30 to 9:30, but the four of unanimously agreed to stop playing our match at 9:05 this morning, when the temperature hit 100F.

One might note that Goolagong was also a mother when she won.

Well, a Russian has won Wimbledon in spite of the AELTC. Although Rybakina officially represents Kazakstan, she still lives in Moscow, but she was diplomatic enough in her acceptance speech not to say anything about being Russian, though she did mention that her parents couldn't be there to watch the match.

And Goolagong was Ash Barty's model.

"Of course"? (Careful: we're veering into Politics here.)

The Russian federation didn't want to invest in developing her, so she found another former Soviet Republic which did. She is certainly not alone in that regard (see Kukushkin, Putinseva, etc.).