Judy, Pride and a nap

Well I guess I didn't use all of the cool "Youtube" videos there were out there in regards to gay pride but I did want to kind of keep that frame of thinking going since the anniversary of Stonewall is actually this week. The video below addresses some of the real issues we deal with within the gay lesbian transgendered community--some of us very personally and some of us may even now someone who has dealt with these issues----are we really that different?

For me Gay Pride and Stonewall has always played a big part of my life, ever since coming out. For me it is the key to most of the freedoms I enjoy today, for me it is part of the key that helped advance AIDS research, funding and acceptance of us as a whole. Ellen, Rosie, Martina, "Will and Grace", Representative Barney Frank and the thousands of others that are in the positions they are in because of the brave and vocal folks involved with Gay Pride, ACT UP and Queer Nation. Not counting NOW, The ACLU and even the NAACP which have helped advance our thinking into what it is today.



Today was one of those days I guess where the fatigue really got to me and I ended up napping for 3 hours in the middle of the afternoon. There are some days like that now versus what it was like last year this time. There was the mononucleosis first, the fight with pneumonia the end of 2005, the resurface and battle with Hepatitis C again and then there was the weight loss last year, that made everything so much more problematic.

This year has had it moments, don't get me wrong--the skin rashes, the walking pneumonia, the neuropathy/RLS (Restless Leg Syndrome) and the fatigue have been the biggest hurdles but at least so far the medications are working and the weight --as much as I want anyway has come back--now its trying not to overdo it. I have to try to keep my boyish figure.

The weather here yesterday was scorching--or at least for this area this early-- a whopping 90 degrees but its the Ohio humidity that puts the whole thing over the top. Today was a little cooler and thankfully some rain, which for this part of Ohio we needed desperately. I did manage to get some work customers done today, not what I would have liked to have gotten done, but when the fatigue calls you grab your teddy and nap for as long as you need to.

The other thing I want to touch on is the anniversary of the death of one of the greatest stars and singers that has ever lived in my opinion--the timeless JUDY GARLAND. Gay Icon, tragic figure for some, died too soon, worked into drug and alcohol dependency but still an incomprehensible talent. June 22, 1969, some of have gone as far as saying that it was the death of Judy that prompted the riots in Stonewall, I don't know if I would go that far--but I do think the times what they were with Racial Segregation, The Civil Rights March, the hippie movement, the war in Vietnam--that as a whole it was a time of great turmoil and great sadness in some regards.

I was a mere 3 years old when Judy died, the age she was when her foot first hit the vaudeville stage but believe it or not she stilled played a huge role in my life like so many gay men my age and older. Like so many "The Wizard of Oz" remains my all time favorite movie of all time and even all these years later--66 to be exact since the release in theaters.