For a reason I have yet to fathom, both "Out" and "The Advocate" are regularly delivered to my apartment. These glossy queer magazines are usually chock-full of underwear ads, interviews with Melissa Etheridge, and reviews of the latest episode of Queer As Folk. It is not the sort of thing I would buy off a magazine rack (unless someone really hot was on the cover), much less anything I would spend money on for a full subscription, but they show up wrapped in their opaque plastic envelopes (which I assume conceals the fact that a homo lives at the offending address) all the same. My only hypothesis is that some mysterious benefactor with a penchant for throw pillows has decided these magazines are something I need.
Normally when one arrives I flip through, perhaps skimming an article on the gay boys in "The Real World," reading about some queer-friendly celebrity, or casually looking for underwear ads. Last night, however, was different:
Spider-Man's Gay Hands.
There was an article in The Advocate about the fellow who supplied Tobey Maguire's stunt hands for the upcoming movie. The fellow mentioned at the bottom of the page here, in fact. The fellow who kissed me at a birthday party a few weeks ago during the heyday of my last nebulous relationship and said "I only wanted to do that because now I can't have you." I have been kissed by someone in The Advocate. I find that more than passing strange.
I do not think I will look at those innocent color spreads on gay funeral directors or singer/songwriters or what-have-you the same way again -- I will always think that there is someone reading it and thinking, "Whoa, freaky -- I've kissed someone in The Advocate."
(Side note to all concerned parties: I ended up having moo shu chicken for dinner last night, although spaghetti was seriously considered.)