Mama Mia and other stuff

Well my brother took me this weekend to see "Mama Mia" the movie and well kids I just adored every flipping Abba minute of it. If you have seen the movie, my brother says I am the Christine Baranski character "Tanya", she gets her 6 inch stiletto heel stuck between the boards in the dock, wears some absolutely stunning outfits, has this hysterical bed scene where she can not get her boots off, another hung over in bed scene that is just to rich and then this fabulous beach scene with near naked humpy boys who she is making goo-goo eyes at----doesn't sound a thing like me . It was pure fun, a lot of laughs and boy can our girl Meryl SING!!!!! Makes me want to see the stage version that is coming to Cleveland Playhouse next month!

It was such a relief after this very long week of darn near 100 degrees for days here in Ohio and kids if you are in Ohio in 100 degrees you know it ain't any fun! With that and 4 days worth of diarrhea because of these new medications I have been a proverbial mess. Things are somewhat returning to normal I hope to G-d or I am sticking my head in the oven !

Jim's cataract surgery went very well and he goes this Wednesday to have the other one done. It went much easier than I thought--thank heavens. Well till next time

Chapter 7 of "A New Earth"

Well I sort of kept everyone hanging about "A New Earth" by Eckart Tolle and the last three chapters, so I wanted to take the time and let you in on some of what I had learned while reading this book and taking the online class with Oprah Winfrey, which is now in summer sessions--so you can still watch the webcasts.

Chapter 7

Eckart had suggeted in the clas of making a list of "Who I am not" which basically means the things you are not like selfish, self absorbed and so on then also a list of the things what I am not--could be something as simple as---- I am not artistic. As well as making a list of the things you are--loving, caring, supportive and so so, for all the catorgies list as many as possible. This one really opened my eyes.

"Knowing yourself deeply has nothing to do with whatever ideas are floating around in your mind. Knowing yourself is to be rooted in Being, instead of lost in your mind". page 186

Being sacred is being in the now. You are the observer of everything going on aroud you, you literally the witnessing presence.

"I am never upset for the reason I think" Being upset about the situation does nothing. What is more important is "What can I do".

Suffering happens because you refuse to accept the now-----

I am going to stop with this one as I want to talk a little about this from my perspective and especially the last few days I have been through. I feel that what Eckart is trying to say that by living in the past, with all of those wonderfully rich memories and instances may for a while be an OK thing but in the long run it causes pain because the situations we are dwelling on are gone, never to be repeated. In those moments we had something magical---the now but by remaining in the past we can not see the now either.

While if all we are focused on is the future than we maybe sadly disappointed that in some cases the future never arrives--the I will quit........... tomorrow, I start............. tomorrow, and tomorrow never comes. Or we plan for this really incredible experience and then the experience is not what we expected it to be.

Suffering has it real pain, that can destoy a person from the inside out. I am not just talking just physical suffering here I am also taking about a spiritual suffering and emotional suffering as well. A suffering that is profound and so deep that it rips the very core of who are out of is, leaving us with absolutely nothing for anyone including ourselves. A darkness that engulfs everything we do, everyone we meet, everywhere we go.

I think there are so many people that are exactly in this position for one reason or another just seeking a divine answer if you will. Something that will make them stop long enough to realize where they are and why. I think for me right now this book has done that--it has made me stop and realize I was, and to a degree still, in the abyss of suffering.

I invite you to share your toughts about suffering with me and maybe even with those that do read this blog, maybe somewhere along the way we all learn something to help us cope.

Chapter 7 of "A New Earth"

Summer Break--- A simpler time

You know that last week of school, when we were children and we literally counted down the minutes till summer break? Remember how the time seemed to drag on and we thought the last day would never come, ever? Than it was those hot hazy days of picnics, going to the beach, amusement parks, getting a tan, the county fair and it was all sadly over. The days of summer break had somehow flown by with out our knowing it.

Well today July 16, 2008 is a mix of both of those days. I woke up this morning, that yes indeed, I had made the hurdle and at 7:45 a.m. I have officially 17 years living with AIDS. The time has flown by like those childhood summer breaks we used to have, except there has been just brief moments---- of the beach, the circus-- those moments of sheer happiness are what makes that time stand out clear as they were yesterday. Those are the moments I cherish with my every being, that I cling to like a child does to his teddy bear, maybe that's why I collect them.



Then there are also those moments of anger, sorrow, despair, unbelievable pain and sadness. The kind that comes lurking int he middle of the night like the "boogie man" that lived our under beds and we knew was going to cause us nightmares unless our parents chased him away. The problem is the "boogie man" under the bed is a real thing, something that in moments of fear has made our nightmares true.

Somehow, somewhere G-d in his/her wisdom knew for some reason I was built to survive this for the long haul, while literally everyone I knew ---that was in my small world of gay friends-- was dying or already dead. Literally pages of names, dates and obituary notices. But yet somehow I have had the strength and courage to continue on, in a holocaust of the heart and soul.



Places that have become etched in my mind like eternal memorials if you will, as real as the Vietnam War Memorial or even Lincoln's Memorial. A building or store front on the street that reminds me of a person who has been gone for years. The wonderful silly time we had, those heart rendering moments of truth and in some instances facing the horrific--their demise. In many instances I can still see their faces and her their voices in the dark recesses of the night.

The problem though with this picture is the other half of this picture when the "summer break" is over and we all go back to school. In other words when we see in the headlines "A Cure Found: Millions Rejoice" and we have the life we had before we ever heard the words HIV/AIDS.

I am not saying I want a time when we were foolish and did what ever we want, with whom ever we want, where ever we want. I am talking about a time that we felt more secure, more safe, more trusting in a future we knew would be there for us. A time we could retire and enjoy "the good life" whatever that meant to each of us.



When our friends would gather around and say "You remember when....." and the room would fill with roars of laughter at our silliness and childish behaviour. When we no longer had to attend a funeral for man in his thirties who was ripped to shreds by a disease that we could not cure or even at the time manage while his family was ripped apart at the seams half loving him, half hating him because of his life style.

It has been on my mind so much lately, the sheer magnitude of what this disease has caused in the lives of the people it reaches into. The sheer force of what this disease is, it no regards of race, religion, color, creed, wealth or religion, it just marches on and takes its course in many different ways in many different people. Some of which are in my shoes, some of which the story is even much worse--that is who my heart goes out to the most.

All By Myself................................

Some days I don't need words to say what is the deepst things in my hearts of hearts.....

My deepest thoughts for the day

If you have been reading my blog than you know I have been reading "Chronicle of A Plague, Revisted: AIDS and its Aftermath" by Andrew Holleran. I did a post with a few quotes from his book because I felt it spoke volumnes of what I have been trying to figure out for years. With that said I would like to share some more with you this morning........

"Looking at some of the guests I can tell which ones are celibate; which ones are having less, more cautious sex; and which ones are going right on with the ld ways. It has nothing to do with one's degree of personal exposure to the dying; it has to do with temperament, with the way different minds respond to the same facts. We face each other, after all, over freshly dug graves. There are ghosts among us. We are teh actresses who meet in the ruined theater in Follies. We're teh tourists who have been admited to an exhibit of our own former lives".

"Were AIDS a disease which one contracted, brought death within forty-eight hours of exposure, it would be far more easily avoided illness-but because it is not, because it is invisible, unknown, for such a long period of time, because it is something people got before they even knew it existed (with each passing year, the time gets longer), the Fear of AIDS is limitless....There's a memory--of an evening, an incident--to justify every fear. And nothing exists that will guarntee the fearful that even if they are functioning now they will not get caught in the future".

This topic has been on my mind so much the last few days, and that is why I haven't posted more, it seems at moments to invade cell of thought I have. I have been in so many ways so blessed beyond words--loving, caring supportive parents, same for my brother who was in the very early years of my own illness my rock and salvation. As far as my love life I have been gifted with three very wonderful and supportive men who have loved me more than I can begin to describe. My health the last 5 years has has it severe downs and than leveled off to where I am better. I have a nice home with Jim, a business that is doing fairly well considering the economy, two incredibly loving Shi Itzu's. As a freind pointed out last night--who could ask for anything more.

So many of my gay friends never made it past two years with this illness, so many never lived to 40 and many have never had as well as I have. Thats where this idea of this disease being international hit me--the starving, dying child on a dirt floor who parents have already been killed by AIDS with no doctor, no hopital, no medicines, no home and NO HOPE! It just overwhelms me that yes we have come so far in twenty years but we have so far to go yet as well, and I hope to live long enough to see it.

New Med's

Well the news at the doctor's wasn't so hot as you can guess by the title of this post. The old medications I grew resistant too and were not working any longer so he prescribed three new medications which I have now been on a week.

The first one I have been on before but helps boost one of the others he prescribed. This drug is called Norvir which if I remeber right made me awful nauseous.

The second one is brand spanking new and is call Isentress. It has been on the market only a month now but is the newest format in which they are fighting AIDS. This drug is suppose to be fighting the virus cell from the inside of the cell out, something till now has not been done.

The last one is called Przista and attacks the virus cells from the outside goin inward which in combination of the previous drug will allegedly kill the virus cell completely, which until know has not been either.

If it sounds confusing it is--at least for me and while the temperature here is hovering between high 80's to 100 degrees and all these new medications I have not been the best camper. Very nauseous mos tof the time, looking at food makes my stomach turn sour and there are some rather intense headachs as well. But so far nothing the doctor hasn't worn me about. It does make trying to get doll work done hard but I am hoping this will pass in an other week and half.

Jim is schedudled for catarac surgery Monday so I ask you keep him your prayers and then the following week he has his other eye done.

Otherwise things have been just busy as usual and now with laying down in the middle of the afternoon becaus I am so naseous the day just seems to fly by. Hope all of you had a safe and wonderful Fourth of July and as always I ask that you keep me in your prayers.

Some thoughts for today

I am reading this book called "Chronicle Of A Plague, Revisted: AIDS and Its Aftermath" by Andrew Holleran and I wanted to share some of the very profound and touching passages I have read today. It speaks volumnes of things I have had no words to say. So with that said..............

"AIDS quickly converted people in their twenties into old men who were blind, mad, wasting away, racked with fevers, chills, pneumonia, diaherrea, Kapposi Scarcoma, dementia, and other diseases made possible by a total breakdown in the immune system....I wrote, I felt like attending a dinner party at which some of the guests were being taken outside and shot, while making small talk. Let me update this: AIDS worked its way through.... with the malicious eye of the sectarians in Iraq--assaniating, it seemed, all the best people first".

"The final balkanization of gay life, however, was that some of us lived, others died. "How wonderful it will be," a friend of mine said to me one evening in the seventies, "when we get old--we'll all go from house to the other visting!" BUt friendships that would have evolved over time were tested by AIDS long before old age could. AIDS made people ask" What are we to one another? ....Walking into a hospital and identifying oneself to the person at the desk, the word "friend" sounded flimsy. Then there was the final breach as you watched your friends burning up in a furance you could not enter. What a way to end one's life! Did it seem like life's final penalty for being homosexual"?

"It still seems a scandal that an item scientists do not even define as living-- a microbe that can't paint angels, trumpets, clouds, or gods upon a ceiling--can devour a creature who can. It still seems a reproach that a virus can return us from the twentieth century to the Stone Age".

With those few simple thought I want to leave you tonight with my love, my prayers and my support as always my friends I think of you warmly, fondly and very often. After all "I'm here"..............................

July 4th Weekend

Well I wanted tot take the time and tell all of you that I hope you are having a wonderful July 4th weekend. This one for us has been my family was down yesterday for a cook out with had with the neighbors and friends there in total about 30 people at their home. So many people, so much food and my lord the booze. it was every where.
By night fall it was time for the fireworks that neighbors shot off--the same one's with all the food, people and booze-- almost a full hour of fireworks and none of this sissy stuff. It was just as nice as our towns Canal Days Fireworks and in all actually even better. Rumor has it three of them went in together and bought them all and rumor has a total value of damn near $2,000 in fireworks. It was such a nice time.

Today the party at the neighbors continues with Pulled Pork Sandwiches and even more company for them. Yesterday I made a Touch Down Taco Dip, A Spinach Seafood dip with pumpernickel bread, and nacho chips and took 30 cans of BEER. Today it is a Lobster pizza I made served could with a sour cream/mayo/cream cheese base and cocktail sauce over that with cucumbers, green onions and shredded cheese, Jim and I then made about 30 homemade donuts and took over there for everybody for breakfast and last but not least Paula Deen's Corn Casserole.

New today in the paper also mention that Conservative Seantor Jesse Helms has died yesterday rather peacefully in a nursing home. Some of you may remember him from his days as a senator cutting funding for the arts, and AIDS and many other worth while causes. The biggest fight though was in the arena of AIDS and his obstinate stance against doing anything for "those worthless faggots, who got what they deserved". I find it so ironic in a way that he died so peacfully when in all reality between him and Ronald Reagan so many people in the USA died horribly from a disease they felt we deserved.

Well I will get off my soap box and finish by saying I hope that the Helms family kind find peace in this their time of loss and somehow get to the point where they are paying it forward as some people say.


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