For some inexplicable reason, I found myself this afternoon in the gay(ish) magazine section of Borders, reading the fecal-glazed glossy Instinct. At least I think it was Instinct. It could have been Genre or Out or Metro. Hell, it could have been Men's Fitness, for all I know. They all slap "attractive" (read: muscular to the point of being physically grotesque) gym weasels on their covers, so they all look the same to me.

(Also, is it me, or did every gay magazine refer to its July release as "The SEX Issue"?!)

Call me cynical, but the magazine I was reading featured a brief Q&A with a club crawler clad in white spandex pants and a sailor cap, who is quoted as saying the thing he finds most sexy is "unabashed masculinity." I nearly burst out laughing (the guy was wearing glitter, for crying out loud!) until I realized the interview probably had a thinly veiled ironic subtext intended as a stereotype-shattering statement against preconceived notions of homosexuality, because, you know, Instinct is real hipster/subversive like that.

Speaking of hipster -- the August 2003 catalogue, I mean, edition of Genre supposedly has an article on gay webloggers. Trendy to the max! I mean, weblogs are so NOW -- no, of course their heyday wasn't in 1999, are you kidding me?

Now, I haven't been able to snag a copy yet, since I'm distanced from modern society in the rural enclave of Washington-fucking-DC, but I'm sure Borders will have it in stock eventually.

To my surprise (and to yours, as well, I'm sure), I was neither interviewed for nor mentioned in Genre's article. This is of little consequence to me, but if I was the editor of Genre, I'd be gravely concerned. After all, an article about gay webloggers that fails to mention Toby of vividblurry dot com suffers an extreme lack of credibility.

However, though the author overlooked my little home on the Web, I'm sure he was careful to use the word "blogosphere" with reckless abandon (duh). I've yet to come across a story on webloggers that makes even a scintilla of sense, so I'm not keeping my hopes high for this one.

By the way, for those in the DC-Metro area, there will be a very much belated article on gay webloggers in this week's Washington Blade. I was the only blogger from the DC-Metro area to be interviewed for the story (?!), so obviously I'm expecting professional journalistic integrity of NYT-proportions. Should be interesting nonetheless.