Sue Katz: Consenting Adult

A Passion in the Desert

Funny how one gets turned on to literary treats. A writer friend posted a Facebook question: “What’s your favorite short story?” I thought the question a bit odd and I would have been likely to ask, “Who is your favorite short story writer?” And then, of course, I would be unable to whittle it down to a half-dozen, let alone one.

The first reply, from a journalist, was: “A Passion in the Desert,” by Honore de Balzac. I was unfamiliar with it, so I easily found the text online and printed it out. I’ve read it now and I simply cannot get the damned thing out of my head. What a wonderful piece of writing, one that creates the most unanticipated world and immerses the reader in it seamlessly.

Here’s a French chap writing in the first half of the nineteenth century who is not afraid to talk about passion between a man and a panther. A soldier and a cat. Two carnivores in a desert cave. It is a sensuous, physical story about seduction, deception, unwitting romance, sex, and betrayal. There is suspicion, there is attraction, there is violence, there is suspense in this world of sand and palm trees.

And yet, it is difficult to imagine the same story published today, except perhaps in some magazine that specializes in kinky, edgy tales that have been rejected by the commercial vehicles. The New Yorker likes urban, modern and middle class; they don’t mind a bit of sand, but they prefer it to be at a largish beach house in the Hamptons. The literary magazines might accept quirky but not to the point of man/animal drama.

And what strange bio would they print at the end? A man who falsified, or rather tarted up his name to pass as a bourgeoisie. A man who met the woman of his dreams via a newspaper ad, pursued her in an epistolary manner for 15 years until her husband finally died, and then beat out Franz Liszt for her hand, which Balzac only managed to hang onto for five months due to the fact that he then died. He seems to have known all about unusual relationships.

Reading “A Passion in the Desert” was sufficient motivation to catapult me into an orgy of Balzac. My poor local library is depleted of its inventory and I am resentful when I must work or sleep or visit and cannot read. What makes for an exceptional short story? One that is about nothing I know – military men, big cats, life in the wilds – but which nevertheless conquers my everyday reality and makes me commit, if we can judge by the height of the pile of library books, to an ongoing relationship to a writer I haven’t thought about for decades.

Laughing Makes me Choke

It is now the end of the fifth week since I got sick with the upper respiratory plague that has been affecting lots of people since last winter. I’d say I’m back to about 75% of my strength, although I tire very easily. But the worst of the lingering symptoms is that laughing still causes cough/choke attacks. I’m avoiding my funny friends and laying down strict limits on the wit of others. One giggle and I start to cough and nearly black out because of the “pressure” in my head – my doctor tells me – as a result of the contractions of my breathing apparatus. Or the upper parts of same.

But chuckling is not the only trigger. I also cough when I yawn – and have developed a rather face-distorting method of stifling such behavior. I cough when I bend over – not really the best development for someone who teaches fitness. And I lose it altogether if I try to dry my inner ears with a Q-tip after my shower, as I have done for six decades. My doctor, as appealing and progressive as she is, has no explanation for this latter conundrum, unique in her experience.

Although I practically lived on chicken soup and Canadian Wintergreens (that pink candy that serves me so splendidly as a cough drop), I did not lose weight. This may have to do with spending a month in the land of Catatonia. I did not train and I did not dance and I did not even shop. I had barely enough strength to turn the pages of the People magazine I accidentally “borrowed” from the clinic. (And returned.)

I can tell I’m much better because I can now read a whole short story in a day or two – although I have a way to go because I can’t seem to write one. Everyone says I have better color in my cheeks and that my voice is not so raspy. However, they probably suspect that I’ve become quite dour in my enfeebled state, because I grimace and turn away the moment someone starts to say something amusing.  The alternative is more unpleasant than a reputation for having become humorless.

Bloomberg Has it Ass Backwards

It’s not about the maximum, it’s about the minimum. NY Mayor Bloomberg thinks he’ll improve his city’s health by limiting sugary drinks to a top size of 16 oz, but that’s not the problem.The real issue is that there is no longer a reasonably small size available.

The mistaken way Bloomberg has framed it has led to a million off-topic retorts like “Fighting Freedom or Obesity?” The discussion has become all about choice and freedom and government intrusion and the like.

Want to talk about choice? Why can we order a small drink, say 8oz - which used to be standard? I have been to so many places where 16oz is the smallest option.

If you want to encourage better consumption habits, do some education about the perils of overindulging in these liquids and then insist that every place offer a small drink.

It’s the minimum, stupid, not the maximum.

Boston Pride 2012: all church & corporation

This was the 42nd annual Boston Pride and I remember only too well the first and second, small militant political marches with bulldaggers and radical faeries and our furious demands. In those days, if someone had told us that the Mayor, the Governor, and the banks would be marching with us, we would have raised a bewildered fist.

The march is no longer a march, it’s a parade. And funny enough, the parade is itself a bit tarnished, a reflection of the hard economic times, I suspect. But, let’s start at the beginning.

I am recovering from pneumonia and upper respiratory distress that kept me in the house, except for five visits to the Dr, for nearly four weeks. I was supposed to be living a dream by representing the National Writers Union at the premiere progressive social media conference Netroots Nation, but as both talking a lot and laughing catapult me into wheezy coughing fits, I had to face the fact that I would not be able to attend. (Luckily our union president promised I could go next year.)

On Friday night I went out for dinner and it was such a treat – having a real meal with meat instead of soup – that I thought I might be able to go watch Pride. My friend Lil Bro has been fighting very severe asthma, so the two of us decided to limp downtown and do Pride with as little stress as possible. We took the subway to a midway point and set out to identify a bathroom. We found the Bistro au Midi, a posh restaurant with empty tables right on Boylston Street and decided that two sick lasses deserve a treat. Between my iced tea and her fruit platter and spicy french fries, we paid a week’s wages to watch the first part of the parade from luxury seating. We soon, though, relocated to the street curb, as I was hoping to score some of the swag that just five years ago was tossed from the “floats” – i.e, company trucks.

As tradition dictates, a huge contingent of Dykes on Bikes opened the parade – in fact three clubs full of women riders (the first being Moving Violations), followed by one boys’ club, one member of which cruised along with a huge stuffed bear passenger at his back. Immediately after came Mayor Menino, long-time queer ally, sitting atop a white convertible in a white shirt, strong beams of sunlight illuminating him like an honorary Buddha. Behind, with all due modesty, walked Governor Deval (fetching in a peach top) and Diane Patrick , quiet but fully solid friends to the community – since long before their daughter came out.

Throughout the rest of the parade, we’d be feted by various-sized contingents of political candidates: the largest crowd for Obama (represented by a cardboard cut-out); the youngest contingent for Joseph Kennedy III (a redhead running on a platform and background of hereditary dynasty); the most estrogen-filled for Elizabeth Warren, a Republican in the not-so-distant past who has won popularity despite her refusal to support the Occupy movement, her drum-beating threats against Iran, and her ownership by the Democratic machine.

My highest moment came early in the parade when not one but two trolley buses full of my friends from the LGBT senior groups rode by and I was able to run up and shake hands with some of my friends. The trans community made a powerful showing, and one couple displayed a welcome if rare burst of humor as she held a sign saying, “20 Years Ago He was My Girlfriend,” and he held a sign saying, “20 Years Later She’s Still my Girlfriend.”

Remember the days when the Grand Marshall was likely to be some long-time activist in the fight against AIDS or the lawyer who won major pro-gay legislation? This time it was Fast Freddy Murphy, an A.M. radio DJ.

The vast majority of the contingents were churches. Churches. Churches. More churches. An Episcopal marcher had the best slogan from among the believers: “Non-Judgment Day is Coming!” What wasn’t a church was too often a corporation or bank or a bleedin health insurance company. The swag these companies were distributing was non-existent, although I managed to get a tiny tablet of post-its from Staples and one plastic shopping bag from TJ Maxx. Pathetic. Frito Lay did NOT distribute nibbles, although a sweet, passing photographer, hearing me berate them for their parsimonious ways, offered me a bag of chips he had in his backpack. Loved your beaded hat, dude!

Music was rare and mostly provided by gay Latin club trucks and one Freedom Trail Band. Some non-profits still had a presence, from Pflag (parents of gays) to The Network/La Red (lesbian/trans domestic violence). The union “Unite” had the only political signs that mentioned  homophobia and racism, but they didn’t seem to make much of an impact. The most unusual two groups I noted were the Animal Rescue League (do lesbians keep them in business with their aging cats?) and the Circle of Caring Hospice, which I was very glad to see there. The Temple of Witchcraft contingent had dozens of marchers, by the way. Don’t ask me, I don’t know.

We stopped to pee at our expensive restaurant and then took the train down to City Hall Plaza for the Pride Festival, amazed at our stamina, although we were being careful to conserve our energy by doing little walking and no yelling.

The Festival was full of tent booths with more or less the same identities as the parade, with the addition of “food” trucks selling overpriced poisons. An Italian ice in a dixie cup cost, to the embarrassment of the women working the booth, $5.00. The stage produced loud music but we didn’t really venture in that direction.

Overall, history was absent. Context was missing. Anger was lacking. And joy was not in attendance. It was a lackluster, apolitical, unimaginative event propelled by force of habit and mild interest on the part of the capitalists and Christians. Lil Bro and I didn’t stay too long. We wheezed our way back to our sick beds, neither cured nor inspired.