On this day last year, my first love died. I still find myself resisting that word, as if describing Daniel’s passing another way might make it feel softer or different somehow.
Daniel and I were together for nine years. We broke up in 2024, I moved to Paris, and roughly fourteen months later, he was gone.
We met in October 2014, both 24. A few messages on Grindr turned into him asking me out for coffee, and me asking if he knew how to install shelves instead. A slightly rude first date, but he was charmed.
I had just moved to New York from Boston to start an internship at Interview, and my first apartment in Bushwick was in total disarray. Daniel climbed three flights of stairs, greeted me at the door, unpacked a drill he’d brought along, and got to work, the motor humming as he fixed a pile of Formica shelves. We fell in love, and he began improving my life that day.
If you knew Daniel—as family, a friend, a colleague at IMG, or a client—you’ll remember the way he made you feel like everything was going to be okay when you were in his care. He had a quiet confidence, a kind of grace in how he spoke, how he moved, how he carried himself. He felt like an anachronism in our modern world.
He was my mirror, a living record of who I was and became. Finding love always felt somewhat improbable to me, especially as a gay person, and having someone to grow alongside, to build a life with for nearly a decade, even more so. Losing him at 35 is entirely incomprehensible.
This past year has felt like a daze. I can’t quite shake the sadness of his loss. Grief isn’t something you understand so much as something you endure. It arrives without warning, in ordinary moments, and rearranges your day.
I’m not quite sure who I would be, or where I’d be, had I not met Daniel. We were kids, and grew up together. And despite how we ended, and where life took us afterward, I’ve been trying to reframe the pangs of grief as small, sharp reminders that he’s still with me, still shaping who I am.
Spring cleaning. ‘The Bath’ by Paul Cadmus, Tempera on composition board, 1951, part of Whitney Museum of American Art’s permanent collection @whitneymuseum
Here’s ‘Dressing Right: A Guide for Men’ by Charles Hix. Published in 1978 by St. Martin’s Press and stacked with photographs by Herb Ritts, Hank Kemme, Bruce Weber, Michael O’Brien, and more. Equal parts menswear guide and horny visual footnote — and just enough instruction to pretend it’s educational ;) @bruce_weber@herbritts
Back to basics. ‘Chop Suey Club’ is one of my most treasured books — Bruce Weber’s striking portraits of model and muse Peter Johnson. First edition, Arena Editions, 1999 @bruce_weber
Hot child in the city. All works by Andy Warhol in various mediums :) @warholfoundation
1. ‘Male Model Torso’ Polaroid, 1980
2. ‘Torso,’ Polaroid, 1977
3. ‘Haircut’ polaroid, 1980
4. ‘Mr. Levi’s’, Polaroid, 1984
5. ‘Reel Basquiat’ 1984, Synthetic polymer and silkscreen ink on canvas
6. Shaun Cassidy captured on Polaroid for the cover of Interview, October 1978 @interviewmag
7. ‘Overhead drawing’, blue ballpoint pen on paper, 1955
8. Benjamin Liu Eating a Banana, Polaroid, 1982
9. ‘Bodybuilder’, graphite on paper, 1982
I just love being gay <3 Happy Pride to all. All photographs from the late 1970-80s by the dreamy #StanleyStellar, who captures queer culture so beautifully @kapp_kapp
Naked at the beach, barefoot on the street. Last weekend in Provincetown, I found this incredible gem at my favorite store — Tim’s Used Books — and am positively obsessed.
Photographed by Tony Patrioli, his book ‘Giro d’Italia’ features sun-kissed men he captured across Italy in the late 1980s. Published by Gay Men’s Press, 1991. If you visit Ptown this summer, please visit Tim’s — it’s such a gem and chockfull of so many queer treasures.
Running on 2 hours of sleep and three different time zones, but I’m back in my native land and ready for a saucy gay weekend in Ptown ;)
John F. Kennedy, Jr. captured in his skivvies in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, 1986
