In which The Gay Recluse presents a gay/impressionistic alternative to this week’s Modern Love offering in The Times. Those looking for our quantitative analysis should click here.
By JULIE BUXBAUM and THE GAY RECLUSE
Published: May 11, 2008

SEVEN months ago, I was married in an ivory lace dress to a woman in a gray suit on [...]

In which The Gay Recluse suggests a link.
The most beautiful ads are always for dead companies.

Like this one we recently took on 35th Street between 5th and 6th Avenue.

Does this company still exist? We hope not, because we don’t want to have to think about buying anything.

New York City is filled with ads for dead [...]

In which The Gay Recluse documents the sunset of a dream.

Today the tide seemed to finally turn against Hillary Clinton.

We felt bad about it, but mostly on behalf of our mother. She’s in her seventies now and really wanted Hillary to win.

She’s spent the better part of four decades fighting for women’s “equality.” As people [...]

In which The Gay Recluse is entranced by the lowly marigold.
Time/Location: Sunday afternoon at the Green Valley Nursery in Westchester.

Yellow marigolds.

Red marigolds.

Orange marigolds.

In which The Gay Recluse leaves New York.

Last month we went to Pittsburgh for a few days.

Even though we “grew up” there, it was almost like visiting a new (as in unfamiliar) city.

We always lived in the suburbs, and almost never went into the city except to see the Penguins!

This time though, we stayed downtown [...]

In which The Gay Recluse holds a contest. Sort of.
Today we received two unofficial entries for the contest, “unofficial” because 1) the first statue is in Europe and we are primarily interested in locating the hottest gay statues in the U.S., and 2) the second statue doesn’t exist except in someone’s photoshopallucination! Yet we still [...]

In which The Gay Recluse contemplates an old friend.
Date of Picture: April 24, 2008
Location: Our garden in Washington Heights.

Even as a child in Pittsburgh, we loved this table.

All winter it would sit out on the porch as we stared longingly at it.

Every May, when it was finally warm enough (this obviously before global warming), [...]

In which The Gay Recluse appreciates Miranda.
Many years ago we had a friend named Miranda. She was the coolest! She wore the smallest backpack ever! It was gold and she used it to carry her cigarettes in it and nothing else, and even that was a tight fit. She was a photographer and a filmmaker [...]

In which The Gay Recluse has a bad day and indulges in a lil rant.
Here’s a shot of one seriously fucking annoying thing some people do on the subway, i.e., leave their shopping bags on the seat next to them when the entire train is filled with passengers. Most days we would just tell the [...]

In which The Gay Recluse ponders random acts of beauty garbage.
So yesterday we wrote about a giant-tote-bag-and-broken-sawhorse installation on 35th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues. Today we are happy to report that not only has the installation survived, but that it has grown!

This is facing west. We like the way the new and more [...]

In which The Gay Recluse provides a gay alternative to this week’s Modern Love offering in The Times. Those looking for our quantitative analysis should click here.
When The Chutney’s Gone (or Before I Came Out as a Lesbian, I Was the Worst Kind of Scary Sadshaw)
By SUZANNE FINNAMORE and THE GAY RECLUSE
Published: April 5, 2008
As [...]

In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with The George Washington Bridge.
Time and date of photographs: April 3, 2008, wheneverness.

Work was difficult this week.

It was hard to concentrate.

Life felt very distant.

We wished we could take a nap.

Somehow it never ends.
“I, too am obsessed with the George Washington Bridge, and have been ever since as stoned [...]

In which Deirdre’s Terrain checks in with The Gay Recluse.
Today we received this startling news report and follow-up analysis from our Manhattan correspondent Deirdre’s Terrain:
ieeww I hate people who post picts & videos of their KIDS at the beach taking a bath etc etc… playing with their iPhone.. YUCK! why do parents post boring picts [...]

In which The Gay Recluse is momentarily disturbed.
Of all the natural vistas we have encountered — desert landscapes, arctic tundra, the badlands — the rooftops of Washington Heights remain one of the most tranquil and undisturbed. Originally carved from the bedrock some 10,000 years ago by the retreating glaciers, the surreal beauty of these structures [...]

In which The Gay Recluse turns forty.
Today we received the following note from Harry, a reader in Washington Heights:
Subj: YOU
Mess: It is none my business to know, but! My curiosity is tweaked. Who are you? Have you posted something somewhere to give a more detailed bio? or do I have to continue to read between [...]

In which The Gay Recluse provides a gay alternative to this week’s Modern Love offering in The Times. Those looking for our quantitative analysis should click here.
How We Got From Grief to Pancakes
By PATTY DANN and THE GAY RECLUSE
Published: March 30, 2008
I WAS nervous about meeting my new partner’s parents, even though — omg! [...]

In which The Gay Recluse reads a book five years later and says wtf.
Last fall, after we posted our thoughts on the suffocation of the gay voice in American literature, a reader suggested that for the sake of comparison we check out The Yacoubian Building, by Alaa al Aswany, which said reader described to us [...]

In which The Gay Recluse celebrates Easter.
It was not until eleventh grade — in Mrs. S____’s English class — that we began to appreciate the obsessive and illogical side of literature, which of course is to say we were reading Wuthering Heights. Do you remember Mrs. S____? How thin and small and severe she was? [...]

In which The Gay Recluse updates his informal but rather telling quantitative analysis of Modern Love, the weekly Style Section (of The Times) column in which openly gay writers almost never appear, and even less frequently describe a romantic relationship.
This week’s piece: Mom, It’s Me, Your Son, Finally
Subject: A man in mid-life crisis tries [...]

In which The Gay Recluse provides a gay alternative to this week’s Modern Love offering in The Times.
Mom, It’s Me, Your Gay Son, Finally
By PETE MacDONALD and THE GAY RECLUSE
Published: March 22, 2008
A YEAR after my partner Alan left me, and on the day before my estranged mother would have turned 77, I [...]