Reflections of a Rock Lobster

from the diary: “Thursday 4/10/86

“I just read Reflections of a Rock Lobster, Aaron Fricke’s story about growing up gay in Rhode Island. It also tells how he came to take a male date to his senior prom. I remember seeing him and Paul [the date] on DONAHUE. He appeared on DONAHUE again, I think, a couple years later, this was after his book was out, also after One Teenager in Ten was out, cuz I remember Donahue holding up the books. I got [Reflections] today from the library – it belongs to the Solano County library so I got in on an interlibrary loan. It had a big paper on the front hiding the cover, just like One Teenager but I took that off.

“[When Mom came home] I had Rock Lobster open in my lap and after she finished [telling me what she’d been up to] I said, ‘I’m reading a book by that guy who took a male date to the prom.’ I showed her the cover. I said I empathized with the way Aaron was treated in high school gym class.

“… Mom and I talked more really openly about sex than we ever have.”