Today is Flag Day, a moment traditionally set aside to honor the adoption of the American flag and what it represents. But with the current administration using the occasion to stage a highly controversial military parade—one timed to double as a birthday celebration for Donald Trump—it’s hard to feel the usual patriotic pride. The event, laden with tanks, fighter jets, and political spectacle, has drawn criticism for politicizing the military, straining budgets, and veering disturbingly close to authoritarian pageantry. So instead of celebrating with stars and stripes draped in nationalism, I’ll be sharing images of flags that reflect the spirit, resilience, and identity of myself and many of my readers—flags that speak to inclusion, struggle, and pride in the face of adversity.
Today marks a bittersweet milestone: my last one-on-one workout with my trainer. Over the past weeks, he’s been a fantastic motivator, guide, and friend as I’ve navigated this fitness journey. He’s taught me so much—not just about exercise routines and proper form but also about determination, consistency, and pushing past my own limits.
When he told me on Monday that this week would be emotional, I understood exactly what he meant. It’s clear how much he loves training and helping people achieve their goals. Sadly, Planet Fitness doesn’t compensate their trainers enough, prompting him to seek a promotion into management. I fully support his decision—he deserves recognition and reward for his hard work—but I’ll genuinely miss our regular sessions.
Fortunately, this isn’t a total farewell. He’ll still be around as an assistant manager, offering advice, answering questions, and checking in on my progress. He’s even promised to write up a personalized plan summarizing what we’ve done so far and outlining how I should continue. It’s comforting to know I’ll have that guidance moving forward. I’m genuinely motivated to continue my workouts and keep improving my health and fitness.
And let’s be honest, I’ll definitely enjoy seeing him around the gym still—his cute little butt and the perfect way he fills out those sweatpants are perks I won’t easily forget!
Here’s wishing everyone a wonderful weekend filled with smiles and relaxation. Keep moving forward, and remember: every step counts!
Sometimes I just don’t know what to write about. This week has not been particularly exciting—it’s been one of those stretches where the days blur together, marked mainly by their lack of notable events. On top of that, I’ve been dealing with a migraine since Monday. Though it’s better this morning, it’s still lingering, a quiet reminder that it’s not quite ready to leave.
Migraine fog has a way of clouding thoughts and making inspiration especially elusive. It leaves me feeling disconnected, struggling to find the right words or any words at all. I sit down at the keyboard, hoping something will spark—perhaps a memory, a piece of news, or a passing thought that might grow into a meaningful reflection. But today, the page feels particularly daunting in its emptiness, my thoughts muted by the dull haze of discomfort.
Yet, there’s comfort even in admitting the absence of excitement or inspiration. Writing honestly about these quiet, difficult moments feels genuine, relatable. It’s a reminder that life isn’t always about milestones or major events. Sometimes, it’s simply about getting through a dull week or coping with a persistent headache and its accompanying fog.
So today, I’m writing this—acknowledging the quiet, the uneventful, and the struggle to find words through the haze. It’s a small step, but sometimes, that’s enough.
Isabella Pic of the Week: Ever attentive, Isabella is probably pondering life’s great feline mysteries—or perhaps just wondering when I’ll go to bed so I can get up early enough to feed her.
“Braschi Antinous”, also known (wrongly) as Albani Antinous, the statue is composed of an antique head of Antinous and an antique body of Hercules, 2nd century AD, (Louvre Museum)
While the concept of Gay Pride as we know it—public marches, rainbow flags, and open celebration of LGBTQ+ identity—is a relatively recent phenomenon, the spirit of gay pride has long found expression through art. For centuries, queer individuals used artistic media to celebrate same-sex desire, intimacy, and identity in ways that defied societal norms and preserved a sense of dignity and joy. Long before the world was ready for open affirmation, LGBTQ+ artists—and their allies—used beauty, symbolism, and coded language to proclaim their existence and their worth.
Ganymede, Rome, 2nd century CE. (Vatican Museums, Rome)
Art has always provided a refuge for queer expression, especially in eras and regions where same-sex love was criminalized or pathologized. From the sensual male nudes of classical antiquity to the romantic portraits of Renaissance companions, art offered what public discourse denied: a space to affirm beauty and love between men. The sculptures of ancient Greece and Rome—Apollo, Ganymede, Antinous—didn’t just celebrate form; they canonized homoerotic ideals in marble and bronze. Even when later societies sought to suppress these themes, artists returned to them time and again, as if retrieving a sacred truth buried beneath centuries of shame.
David and Jonathan. Samuel & Pharaohs Daughter and the Infant Moses from Simeon Solomon’s 1854 Sketchbook (Jewish Museum London)
During the 19th century, artists such as Simeon Solomon in Britain and Wilhelm von Gloeden in Italy dared to depict love between men with unmistakable tenderness and eroticism. Solomon’s watercolors of biblical figures—David and Jonathan, Ruth and Naomi—recast religious stories as queer allegories, while von Gloeden’s photographs of young men in Sicily, staged in classical poses, cloaked desire in the guise of nostalgia and antiquity. Their works were often persecuted, sometimes destroyed, but they endure today as testimonies of queer pride in the face of rejection.
Photograph titled “Pastoral Idyll,” Wilhelm von Gloeden, 1913 (Private Collection)
In the 20th century, as queer identity began to coalesce into more defined social and political movements, art took on a sharper edge. Artists like Keith Haring and David Wojnarowicz turned pride into protest. Their works channeled anger, loss, celebration, and eroticism in ways that were unapologetically queer—bold lines, graphic imagery, public installations, and furious calls to action during the AIDS crisis. At the same time, the poetry of Audre Lorde, the paintings of Paul Cadmus, and the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe revealed the many facets of queer life—from intimacy and sensuality to community and struggle.
“Untitled (565), Paul Cadmus, 1968, (Originally, the property of actor, cabaret singer, and Paul Cadmus’ muse and lover, Jon F. Anderson)
What unites these expressions across time is a fundamental belief: that same-sex love is beautiful, worthy of representation, and part of the human story. Whether through coded glances in Renaissance paintings or blazing neon activism in contemporary murals, gay pride has always found a way to speak. Even when silenced, it painted itself into the margins, waiting for a world that could see it clearly.
Today, we celebrate openly. But let us also remember and honor those who celebrated in secret—those who, through brushstroke and verse, camera and chisel, gave voice to a pride they couldn’t proclaim aloud. They remind us that Pride is not only about visibility, but also about creation. And art, in all its forms, remains one of the truest expressions of queer existence and resilience.
You said: “I’ll go to another country, go to another shore, find another city better than this one. Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong and my heart lies buried like something dead. How long can I let my mind moulder in this place? Wherever I turn, wherever I look, I see the black ruins of my life, here, where I’ve spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally.”
You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore. This city will always pursue you. You’ll walk the same streets, grow old in the same neighborhoods, turn gray in these same houses. You’ll always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere: there’s no ship for you, there’s no road. Now that you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner, you’ve destroyed it everywhere in the world.
About the Poem
You said: “I’ll go to another land, I’ll go to another sea. Another city will turn up, one better than this…”
You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore. This city will always pursue you.
In “The City”, C.P. Cavafy offers a haunting meditation on the inability to escape oneself. The speaker dreams of abandoning the city—representing failure, disappointment, and perhaps forbidden desires—for another, better place. But the poem undermines this fantasy, repeating the refrain that the city, and all it symbolizes, “will always pursue you.” The “city” becomes not just a literal place, but a psychological and emotional state—a metaphor for internalized shame, regret, or the burden of identity.
This theme has particular resonance in queer readings of the poem. For many LGBTQ+ individuals, especially in the early 20th century when Cavafy was writing, fleeing from one’s environment did not mean freedom from judgment or repression. The city follows not because of geography, but because it lives within the self. The speaker’s disillusionment—“You won’t find new places, you won’t find other seas”—echoes the pain of those who have tried to escape their own truths or reinvent themselves in new places, only to discover that what haunts them is internal.
Cavafy’s strength lies in this subtlety. He rarely wrote directly about homosexuality, but his poems are filled with coded longing, remembrance of fleeting encounters, and the quiet ache of unfulfilled desires. “The City” is often paired with poems like “Days of 1903” or “The Afternoon Sun” in queer readings, all of which evoke nostalgia for past loves or unspoken yearnings. The city becomes both the scene of desire and the prison of repression. During Pride Month, “The City” reminds us that visibility, acceptance, and healing must begin within—even as we fight for it in the world outside.
About the Poet
Constantine P. Cavafy (1863–1933) was a Greek poet who lived most of his life in Alexandria, Egypt. Though he worked as a civil servant by day, his poetry carved a powerful legacy that would influence generations of queer and modernist writers. His work often blends historical references from Hellenistic and Byzantine eras with deeply personal emotional landscapes. Published sparingly during his lifetime, many of his poems circulated privately among friends and admirers, adding to their aura of intimacy and secrecy.
Cavafy was a gay man writing in a conservative society, and he developed a poetic language that allowed him to express homoerotic longing while veiling it in allegory, history, and metaphor. He never married and lived a relatively reclusive life, but his poetry reveals a rich inner world of desire, memory, and loss. After his death, his work gained international recognition, with poets like E.M. Forster championing his genius and his role as a pioneer of queer literature.
In poems like “The City,” Cavafy’s voice is timeless. His ability to fuse the personal with the universal, the erotic with the philosophical, continues to speak to readers who have wrestled with identity, regret, and the yearning for a different life. For LGBTQ+ audiences, his poetry offers not just reflection, but connection—a bridge across time and silence.
Here we are again—Monday. Somehow it always manages to arrive faster than we expect, doesn’t it?
This morning began the usual way: me standing in front of my closet, staring blankly at the hanging shirts like they might whisper the answer to “What should I wear today?” I finally settled on something practical—comfort matters when you’re spending most of the day alone in the office. Yes, alone. The joy of summer at a university museum means most folks are off on vacation, faculty are scattered to the winds, and students are few and far between. It’s quiet, still, and honestly… kind of blissful. There’s something peaceful about being the only one here. No meetings. No interruptions. Just me and the hum of the air conditioning.
Of course, with summer also comes the slow trickle of tasks. There’s not much to prep, no classes and not many programs to plan, and the daily to-do list is shorter than usual. I can’t say I’m complaining, but it does leave a lot of room for reflection—and daydreaming.
One of those daydreams involves my fitness routine. Today marks the next-to-last session with my trainer, and I’m already thinking about what comes next. Do I keep going in the afternoons, even though I know I’ll be tired from work? (Let’s be honest—not having much to do can sometimes be more exhausting than being busy.) It’s easy to talk myself out of going when I’m dragging by the end of the day. That said, I’ve genuinely enjoyed working out, even if it’s just a 20–30 minute walk on the treadmill. I haven’t quite worked up the courage to use the machines on my own yet, but that’ll need to change next week. Or maybe… maybe I try becoming one of those people who works out before work. I used to do that—twenty years ago—when I had college classes later in the day instead of a full-time job. I’ve always admired folks with the discipline to exercise before the sun’s fully up. Could that be me? We’ll see. I’ve got one more session to decide if I’m ready to trade evenings for early mornings.
Wherever you are this Monday—whether you’re easing into the week or sprinting out of the gate—I hope your weekend brought you some rest, some joy, or at least a good story to tell. Here’s hoping this week treats you kindly, and that you find a few quiet moments of your own, even if you’re not alone in an office.
The Closet Professor 