Park Sloping

On Saturday, we took the Q to Park Slope which is a Brooklyn neighborhood called such, according to my husband, because it slopes down from Prospect Park which, again according to my husband who knows stuff, was the park preferred by Olmstead over Central Park.( More on that and our trip to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens some other time.) We arrived at Bill Hawley's spacious secret apartment for dinner and good company. There were Stash and Jeff and Frank, two charming dogs, a savory stew, home-baked bread and home-made ice cream. A moment of silent reverence for the departed Bea Arthur was the only break in the chain of lively, including the merits of adult circumcision, sex in the navy, how to define camp and whether to bother, the new influenza in Mexico, Bloomberg's contentious third term, Team New York Aquatics, the Jersey shore and stalking Patrick Stuart. Rule of thumb: when a group of gay men of no previous acquaintance gather for dinner, politics and religion may be avoided, but nothing bonds better than the sharing of coming out stories, especially the ones that involve Jewish or Italian families.


Here are Jeff, C, Bill, Frank, Stash and I.




Nothing tells you more about a man than his refrigerator magnets.