"I am so sick of that magazine!" grumped Mr. Lesbian, nose-deep in the current issue of Dogfighting for Sport & Profit. "What magazine?" I asked, trying not to look. "That pseudo-gay magazine you write for - the one that always has straight people on the cover." Oh no, I thought, she's going to take over another column. Memories of her last writing effort, If This Is My Community, Where's the Closet Door?, danced before my eyes. I felt faint.

"It's the New Year" she said, gazing at the Doberman with interest. "Things have got to change around here. I'm tired of reading these funny columns about meaningless things that you keep writing for The Advocate. I'm too old to read about meaningless things. I don't have that kind of time any more."

I groaned. "What do you want, then?"

"Let me write the next column."

My career flashed before my eyes. I tried desperately to make the best of it. "Honey, you're in law school; do you really have time?" She snickered. "Of course I don't have time - why waste an hour writing about being gay, something I've always taken for granted, when I can spend it learning how to keep drunk drivers out of jail? But a certain laissez-faire has crept into your work lately, and it seems to have infected everyone. Don't you people have ethics any more?"

Ethics? Hey, that's my middle name! "What do you mean?", I asked cautiously.

She sat up and glared. "Look into my eyes - what do you see?" I scrutinized them carefully -- still green, still beautiful. "No you idiot, not that stuff! Look again." I put on her reading glasses. "Those little lines around the edges?" I ventured. "Yes," she said with satisfaction, "those little lines. Each one a merit badge on the road to 50."

So that's all it was - fear of getting old. Time to nurture her. Time for compliments. Tell her I love her, all that stuff.

"Aha!" she pounced. "You say that because you are also older! What if you were just 20? even 30?" I hastened to reassure her: "Age doesn't matter; it's the heart that counts." She moved in closer for the kill. "If age doesn't matter, why aren't there any old people on these magazine covers?"

Uh oh. I moved quickly to counter-attack, or at least, to weasel out of her silent accusation. "I'm just a columnist, I have no control over their layouts"! She sniffed. "You're still aiding and abetting the enemy."

The enemy?

She sighed. "Honey, do you remember standing on the balcony of the National Press Club at the Triangle Ball in '92? Thousands of gay people gathered in Washington to celebrate the election of Hilary Clinton's love-slave. Remember?" I remembered it all too well; Pat maintained that any politician who reached the presidency was already crooked, and Clinton would jettison us as soon as possible. Starry-eyed with victory, I called her a hard-hearted cynic.

"We looked down at the dancing couples, and after a while you asked 'Where are all the old people?' And I reminded you of AIDs, and I told you that people on fixed incomes couldn't afford tickets, and you wept. Do you remember?" I remembered. "You had a great idea that night. You wanted The Advocate to do a special issue on older gays - people over 60, especially couples." Oh yeah, that's right; I'd gone home and written a letter to everyone I knew at the magazine, pitching the idea. "With the advent of nuclear families and the loss of agrarian culture, most young people today have very little contact with the elderly. For people in my age group, an issue focusing on older people would be reassurance that there is life beyond 40. And for your younger demographic, gay youth age 12-25, it could provide a framework for their futures that may not be accessible to them in their daily lives - the sight of old folks happy and healthy in their queerdom is something that benefits us all." It was a beautiful letter.

She continued. "You'd just met Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon. You'd told them how their book Sappho Was a Right-On Woman had changed your life back in 1972, when you were just a confused kid. You hoped to interview them for the cover of the magazine. Remember?" Of course I remembered. I grew up in a world where there were no happy gay couples in the books, where psychiatrists called us promiscuous by nature, and incapable of long-term relationships. Martin & Lyon were the first to make me see that a society which denies you the benefits of marriage, church, and state, also denies you the props that enable a community to function coherently.

I sighed. "It was a good idea..."

"No," she countered, " it was a great idea. Where'd it go?" Down the drain... every single editor found the idea 'intriguing but unsaleable', and I set it aside. I turned to her in reply. "They wouldn't go for it; too risky. Not 'sexy' enough for an entire issue."

As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I knew I was sunk. When you live with a budding lawyer, it's good to look around the corner before you offer your explanation.

My beloved slowly turned to me and said with a withering glance, "Not sexy enough...hmm. What will they say when they're pushing 50? When all the old people seem a lot younger than they used to be? No," she continued, warming to the subject, "I suppose there isn't anything attractive about sagging breasts or pot bellies. There's certainly nothing attractive about duty, or taking responsibility to the community you live off of, as they do...or in responding to the trust that community has placed in you."

I winced. That hit home. But surely there were good reasons!? I could try to think of a few. "Pat, you know it's a jungle out there, and doubly hard for the gay press. They're competing with hundreds of other magazines every month. If they don't sell copies, they won't stay in business. You know that!" She looked at me in disgust. "If they won't take risks, they don't deserve to stay in business."

I cringed, remembering their various responses - hushed phone calls from editors who "didn't really want to put this in writing, but our publisher wants us to skew toward a younger crowd with more disposable income", or form letters with a note scribbled at the bottom saying "Sorry... maybe 10 years ago when there wasn't any competition, but now we really need the advertising dollars those kids bring in". I'm ashamed I've let it go this long, and confused as to why every single magazine publisher seems to think people under 30 have no interest in their lineage. For once, my big mouth has absolutely no response to her accusations, except to hang my own head in shame. I could have more, somehow.

Or as Mr. Lesbian says, "A community that does not treasure its elders does not deserve their wisdom." And that about sums it up.