O PAIS KALOS*

I blogged about this man almost a year ago. I mentioned in that blog post that the guy, now in his late 40s, was at age 25 the sexiest man in the world, even sexier than my dear Earl, whom I met a few years after this guy.

But it wasn't especially credible given the quality of the photo and his regrettably receding hairline.

For the past 20 years I've wished I had a good photo of him from his most pulchritudinous period, just for the pure aesthetic thrill of it.

And behold! The guy posted this recently on his Facebook page. It's a college photo from 1988, three years before I met him. This gives some idea of his mind-boggling beauty. By the time I met him, he'd only grown more beautiful - filled out just a tiny bit more. But he wasn't only beautiful, he was the whole package - funny and smart and liked good art and music and literature. And had a tiny gold stud in his ear. And had a cat. And he could do impressions. For some reason I adore men who can do impressions, dialects, accents.

And you can see the not insignificant resemblance to the young Harrison Ford. Just looking at this image causes memory aftershocks of that first cataclysmic sight of him.

Meeting him and working with him in the same small room for 6 months completely rocked my world. I've certainly had my share of unrequited or unavailable love since then, but nothing compares to what this guy did to my erotic Weltanschauung.

Look at him. You cannot possibly blame me for it.

*"O PAIS KALOS" or sometimes just "KALOS" was an inscription that frequently appeared on ancient Greek vases and means "the boy is beautiful."