Fun With Scanner

Look at this photograph

Every time I do it makes me laugh

How did our eyes get so red?

And what the hell is on Joey's head?

--Nickelback

I know my recent extended trips down Memory Lane have bordered on the pathologically narcissistic, even for a blog titled "Sanktastic." But since so many people from my past have reached out to me in the last few weeks -- and since I recently rediscovered a trove of old photos and figured out how to use my sexy Canon MP495 Pixma to scan them online (no easy feat, by the way) -- I decided to do one last nostalgic photo-blog. If you didn't find my Frat Life series entertaining, you might as well skip the rest of this post. But if you're at all curious about seeing some of the people I described (along with myself as a fresh young thing) read on.

The photos are from a big grey album I made and kept all through college. It's really one of the gayest things you've ever seen. Each page is organized chronologically and by theme, and I had cut out funny little pictures and phrases from magazines and glued them into the album to accompany the pictures. If you've ever seen one of those collages 13-year-olds make to commemorate a bar or bat mitzvah, it's that sort of thing. (At least that's what we did back when I was on the bar mitzvah circuit. Kids these days are probably far more high-tech.)

The album also serves to demonstrate just how abruptly and completely I came out. Sophomore year ends with a number of romantic, kissy-face photos of Jane and me. Turn the page, and there's me and Will shirtless at the Ann Arbor public pool, looking like we just came from a Pride parade. A few more pages, and there's me with my first boyfriend, Tony. From Jane to Tony in one year. I wish I could rebound from relationships now as quickly I did then. 

I found the album at my sister Laura's house in Summit. Laura and her family own a large barn in their back yard. At one time long before they owned it, it was an actual barn, with horse stables and a chicken coop and so forth. Now it's just a dark, drafty place where they store stuff. When I moved to San Diego in '08, I stashed about six boxes of my belongings, mostly old files, in the chicken coop. In the ensuing years, a number of creatures -- perhaps raccoons -- have made a comfortable home for themselves in my boxes, and a lot of the stuff I left behind is shredded beyond recognition.

Fortunately, the album survived. And now, on with the slide show. (You can enlarge each picture by clicking on it.)

Painfully hung over in my freshman room in East Quad.

I was REALLY skinny -- 5'10'' and about 140 lbs.

And I could eat whatever I wanted.

Little bitch.

This is not Jane. 
Her name is Heather, and she was my first college girlfriend.

Despite that terrible late-80s Michigan hair, she was actually rather beautiful.

The cast of "Best LIttle Whorehouse in Texas."

Future Tony nominee Hunter Foster is in the front row with his hands in the air.

Jules is diagonally up and to his right, wearing glasses and a pink top.

I am dead center at the top of the picture. 

No idea why I'm wearing Mickey Mouse ears.

My first picture as a frat guy. My big brother, Steve, is far left.

Jules is to his right.

On the other side is Becky, who was one of closest friends and roommates through most of college.

Surrounded by chicks at one of my first Chi Psi parties.

Lodge president Bill Lewis has his arm around me.

(At least, I think that's him.)

Jane and me soon after we started dating.

Faces have been blurred to protect the innocent.

Yes, that is a dangly earring hanging from my left lobe.

And check out my hairy chest. 

I hadn't yet discovered man-scaping.

With Colin at a lodge halloween party.

I went as Pat from "Saturday Night Live." 

I had removed the wig and pillow by that point in the night.

Colin is -- I think -- Billy Idol.

With Steve and an unidentified Alpha Chi at the lodge's "Great Gatsby" party.

This is why I loved Chi Psi. 

What other fraternity would have had a "Great Gatsby" party?!

At the Chi Psi formal in Windsor, Ontario, with Jane.

I refer to this picture as the last straight one ever taken.

Told ya -- it gets gay really fast.

With Will at the pool. 

There was another Chi Psi with us that day whom we were both convinced was gay . 

But he's now married with kids. 

I cut him out of the picture so as not to incriminate.

All gussied up with Elizabeth,

Sh was an older woman who played a big role in my coming-out summer.

And a mighty mysterious character, indeed.

Someday I'll write a whole blog about her.

With Colin at the lodge formal in Chicago in '92. 

I had come out to him and my other close friends --  including my date -- by then.

I don't know why it looks like our shirts are glowing.

Dipping Colin on the dance floor.

With Tony in Saugatuck, about three weeks after we started dating.

I had never been so in love and rarely have been since.

The final evolution in my becoming a homo.

It's not what you think.

I had the lead in a campus production of "Torch Song Trilogy."

So actually, it kind of is what you think.

And that's it, kids! Hope you enjoyed these.

Homo in pictures. ♥