CONTACTAbout UsCAREER OPPORTUNITIESADVERTISE WITH USPRIVACY POLICYPRIVACY PREFERENCESTERMS OF USELEGAL NOTICE
© 2025 Equal Entertainment LLC.
All Rights reserved
All Rights reserved
By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
We need your help
Your support makes The Advocate's original LGBTQ+ reporting possible. Become a member today to help us continue this work.
Your support makes The Advocate's original LGBTQ+ reporting possible. Become a member today to help us continue this work.
I live with an overeducated bitch.
Sophie is beautiful. She's an elegant blond with a bit of Grace Kelly hauteur. She has shared my bed for almost five years. She has the equivalent of a Ph.D. She is often photographed and has appeared in an Oprah magazine, on the Web, and in newspaper features. She assists with more than 100 clients a week. She is intelligent. She is good at getting her way. She hates to be left home alone.
By the way, she's a yellow Labrador.
Sophie was a guide dog for the blind, decommissioned at three years of age for "not wanting to work." She's just too social to be a seeing-eye dog. When she first came to live with me, I called her "The Stepford Dog" because she was too good to be real. As the years go by, she becomes less perfect and more of an individual, stubborn and wily and therefore even more lovable in my estimation.
Sophie is not my first dog. Knickerbocker was also a yellow Lab, rescued from the Santa Fe Animal Shelter at about two years of age. He was handsome and dignified, joining me as I turned 40. At that point in my life, I had real concerns about his outliving me. My will provided a fund for Knick and stated who was to get him in the event of my death (presumably from AIDS). He died in 2000. I am still here. Of course, Sophie might outlive me, but I now live with the expectation that I will see her age and die, that once again my heart will be broken and once again I will go on.
Everything in my life is predicated on different assumptions and possibilities than it was 15 or 20 years ago. As I approach 60, Sophie and I will peak at the same age and then, if nature takes its course, she will age more rapidly than I will. This is amazing to me. Still.
Outliving yourself brings with it so many gifts and certain challenges, such as outliving my father and my dogs, some of my friends and also, outliving my firm skin and springy knees. I'm not complaining. I'm observing it. I am savoring it.
My friend Wayde realized the other day that he is now the same age his father was when he died. He says every moment from now on he will, in a sense, have outlived his father's experience of life. Wayde is only 32. My father was almost 94 when he died, so I may or may not have the experience of outliving my father, but I live in it as a possibility. After all, my family's motto is "The Good Die Young. We Live Forever."
Recommended Stories for You
From our Sponsors
Most Popular
More Videos
0 seconds of 2 minutes, 43 secondsVolume 0%
Press shift question mark to access a list of keyboard shortcuts
Keyboard Shortcuts
Shortcuts Open/Close/ or ?
Play/PauseSPACE
Increase Volume↑
Decrease Volume↓
Seek Forward→
Seek Backward←
Captions On/Offc
Fullscreen/Exit Fullscreenf
Mute/Unmutem
Decrease Caption Size-
Increase Caption Size+ or =
Seek %0-9
Copied
Live
00:00
02:43
02:43
Watch Now: Pride Today
Latest Stories
Florida Republican official suspended for social posts mocking Pulse murder victims
July 14 2025 11:41 AM
Donald Trump threatens to revoke Rosie O'Donnell's citizenship — but he can't
July 12 2025 6:04 PM
Celebrated queer poet Andrea Gibson dead at 49
19 hours ago
Ellen DeGeneres shows unexpected support for Rosie O'Donnell in Trump feud
July 14 2025 12:19 PM
Louisiana Medicaid quietly stops reimbursing patients for gender-affirming care
July 11 2025 3:35 PM
19 photos from 1990s San Francisco show the roots of butch and femme culture
July 14 2025 2:12 PM
How drag artists can protect themselves from the far-right attacks
July 14 2025 6:00 AM
Ahead of deadly Texas floods, so many warnings from climate scientists were missed
July 12 2025 7:00 AM