I think of interesting plots and characters but when I sit down to type, all ideas leave.

Covering the recent death of author Tom Clancy, news reports liked to repeat his advice to "just sit and write".

At the gym today, half-heartedly completing "jack rabbits", the nearest TV monitor was showing a commercial for Abilify - the cartoon of a woman who struggled with depression, now completing everyday tasks. The woman, bearing a Mona Lisa-like pleasant expression, walks with colleagues to a meeting and distributes papers. At home, she carries a pitcher and glasses on a tray to join her family's cookout. Watching the ad with the sound muted, my life does not seem so different from that ad - the cartoons walk, look around, smile at one another. Is that all there is?

Later, I read an email from my soon-to-be-ex brother-in-law: "I have always loved","there are two sides to every story","I never yelled, never hit,""my first priority is our son","I would rather crawl through glass than". Of course I believe my sister is quietly crazy - there is more than a passing resemblance to the post-Abilify cartoon. I never saw what the big deal was with her husband, but he was harmless.

Is it terrible I don't think much of their son, my nephew? He is one of the generation that has never been left alone, surrounded with adoring encouragement and constant parent-provided stimulation. It would almost be better if he were a spoiled brat, but instead he politely asks you what he can do to help. I am reminded of the boy in the movie A.I. - if you don't interact or provide entertainment, he sits passively like molded plastic. What does a boy like that grow up to be? Not that I'm a big fan of any children.

My partner laughs because when we are around children, in a few minutes they surround me, chittering away. I don't know why or how it happens except to say that I'm paying attention to them and talking to them. I have survived those situations, no problem, with a giant sense of relief that it's over, only to dread the next interaction. I can understand why parents might be exhausted when out at restaurants or other public places, they let their little darlings run amuck, seemingly oblivious. Still, those are the times when I least like children and there's no excuse for unleashing the brats and expect a round of applause from an approving general public.

Twenty years ago, one of my ex's "line in the sand" - and there were many lines - was to adopt. He never ably answered the question "why" ("why not?"), except perhaps some obligation to prove gays were just like everyone else. So I wrapped my head around the adoption thing, researching how gay couples did that. I was moving towards the idea of a biological child, using a surrogate or a shared arrangement with a lesbian couple. Because my ex was HIV-positive, it would have been my sperm - my child.

When that relationship ended, I thought, would I still want a child? I asked a close lesbian friend what she thought, maybe we could share parentage, she said, "Having children hurts" - meaning the process of birthing. "I'd still consider it," I think I told myself, and then put off any further steps until later. And then, as with anything that was never a natural priority before, the idea just faded away. No feelings of loss or regret.

When someone asks that question of my partner and I, we both react as if the thought had never occurred to either of us.