I like things. Things create vistas, provide the stage dressing for affairs and heartbreak. The things you have, your shit...all of it reflects something fundamental about you. I like to keep my space clean, free of clutter; maybe to highlight those things I do choose to be with: several plants; just the right amount of condoms to suggest I may actually be having sex; some books; half a dozen ties draped over a flimsy wooden divider masquerading as a wall.

The just recently re-discovered painting of a handsome, young Shakespeare, the only thought to have been painted in his lifetime, had been in the home of the aristocratic Cobbe family for 300 years.


I believe the oldest things I have are some articles of clothing from each of my grandfathers. From one: an unblemished, cream polyester jacket with a wide, imitation mink collar, two sizes too big. From the other: a worn, pale blue terrycloth bathrobe. They're really the only way I know these men.