First of all, I’d like to apologize for the lack of both the spring and summer issues of Glen’s Homophobia Newsletter. I understand that you subscribed with the promise that this was to be a quarterly publication — four seasons’ worth of news from the front lines of our constant battle against oppression. That was my plan. It’s just that last spring and summer were so overwhelming that I, Glen, just couldn’t deal with it all.

I’m hoping you’ll understand. Please accept as consolation the fact that this issue is almost twice as long as the others. Keep in mind the fact that it’s not easy to work forty hours a week and produce a quarterly publication. Also, while I’m at it, I’d like to mention that it would be wonderful if everyone who read Glen’s Homophobia Newsletter also subscribed to Glen’s Homophobia Newsletter. It seems that many of you are very generous when it comes to lending issues to your friends and family. That is all well and good as everyone should understand the passion with which we as a people are hated beyond belief. But at the same time, it costs to put out a newsletter and every dollar helps. It costs to gather data, to Xerox, to staple and mail, let alone the cost of my personal time and energies. So if you don’t mind, I’d rather you mention Glen’s Homophobia Newsletter to everyone you know but tell them they’ll have to subscribe for themselves if they want the whole story. Thank you for understanding.

As I stated before, last spring and summer were very difficult for me. In late April Steve Dolger and I broke up and went our separate ways. Steve Dolger (see newsletters volume 2, nos. 14 and volume 3, no. 1) turned out to be the most homophobic homosexual I’ve ever had the displeasure of knowing. He lives in constant fear; afraid to make any kind of mature emotional commitment, afraid of growing old and losing what’s left of his hair, and afraid to file his state and federal income taxes (which he has not done since 1987). Someday, perhaps someday very soon, Steve Dolger’s past will come back to haunt him. We’ll see how Steve and his little seventeen-year-old boyfriend feel when it happens!

Steve was very devious and cold during our breakup. I felt the chill of him well through the spring and late months of summer. With deep feelings come deep consequences and I, Glen, spent the last two seasons of my life in what I can only describe as a waking coma — blind to the world around me, deaf to the cries of suffering others, mutely unable to express the stirrings of my wildly shifting emotions.

I just came out of it last Thursday.

What has Glen discovered? I have discovered that living blind to the world around you has its drawbacks but, strangely, it also has its rewards. While I was cut off from the joys of, say, good food and laughter, I was also blind to the overwhelming homophobia that is our everlasting cross to bear.