Kansas afternoons in late summer are peculiar and wondrous things. Often they are pregnant, if not over-ripe, with a pensive and latent energy that is utterly incapable of ever finding an adequate release for itself. This results in a palpable, almos...
The warmth of your heart is tauntingly near, but you reserve it as you shut me out in the lizard of your doubt. Is it because you don't understand the freakish assembly of my soul, a soul that was once broken? In some ways I guess I don't blame you. ...
The time and space in which I have been working on this cosmopolitan project have convinced me that the disparity between the ideal of cosmopolitan theology and the current sociopolitical configuration of hospitality, welcoming others, unconditional ...
The poor man retains the prejudices of his forefathers without their faith, and their ignorance without their virtues; he has adopted the doctrine of self-interest as the rule of his actions, without understanding the science which puts it to use; an...
The principle of equality, which makes men independent of each other, gives them a habit and a taste for following, in their private actions, no other guide but their own will. This complete independence, which they constantly enjoy towards their equ...
Liberating ourselves from the traditional strictures of marriage altogether, and/or transforming those strictures to include all of us -- gay, feminist, career-focused, baby crazy, monogamous, non-monogamous, skeptical, romantic, and everyone in betw...
Not only these were new kinds of stories, they were being told with a new kind of formal structure. [...] The result was a storytelling architecture you could picture as a colonnade - each episode a brick with its own solid, satisfying shape, but als...
For the first time his senses began to register the exotic, heady atmosphere of Mumbai...the odors most insistently demanded his attention. There were layers upon layers of them, all present at once but individually distinct. They shifted in strength...
I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prej...
Midland City had a goddess of discord all its own. This was a goddess who could not dance, would not dance, and hated everybody at the high school. She would like to claw away her face, she told us, so that people would stop seeing things in it that ...
I don't think science is hard to teach because humans aren't ready for it, or because it arose only through a fluke, or because, by and large, we don't have the brainpower to grapple with it. Instead, the enormous zest for science that I see in first...
I’m not the one who kissed you in the bathroom. In case you’re thinking I forgot about that, or somehow missed it, or …” “Kind of hard to miss,” Ian agreed. “Your lips, mine. A distinct smacking sound. Yup, that was me kissing you. Stil...
As Ian looked at her, he felt something in his chest slip and shift. The pressure came with a blood-tingling rush of triumph and satisfaction, pride and a deeply burning sense of possessiveness. His inner caveman warrior had been awakened and wanted ...
Did we have sex?" he asked directly. For about two minutes, this might actually be fun. "Eric," I said, "we had sex in every position I could imagine, and some I couldn’t. We had sex in every room in my house, and we had sex outdoors. You told me i...
This change did not bring me into the community of the others, did not make me closer to anyone, but actually made me even lonelier. My reformation seemed to point in the direction of Demian, but even this was a distant fate. I did not know myself, f...
My chest tightens: seeing him so upset breaks my own heart. 'Don't you ever wish you could make that bit go away?" I say, feeling angry at the past. 'That you could erase those painful memories, forget they every happened, just remember the happy tim...
We both grew up at a time when homosexuality was not even spoken about. There were certainly no books that could help a young person understand that two people of the same sex could build a happy, productive and loving life together. When we entered ...
The Army's new pitch was simple. Good pay, good benefits, a manageable amount of adventure... but don't worry, we're not looking to pick fights these days. For a country that had paid so dear a price for its recent military buccaneering, the message ...
I can wait in silence no longer, but I’m afraid I’m already too late. I am trapped between agony and hope—believing I have no right to speak, but knowing more how much I’d regret it if I did not. Tell me I’m not wrong. Tell me that, this ti...
Really, awfully, terribly, I had a sudden attack of hiccups. I was staring at the Doctor, murderously angry with him. And hiccuping... 'That's it. I'm going down there. I'm offering myself to them instead. If you're too much of a coward.' The Doctor ...
As I look back over the other best friendships I've had that also ended, I wonder if, in addition to simply having a finite amount of time for such intimacy, we also have certain periods in our lives in which we seek out people who seem to embody the...
