Fifty-nine snapshots from Barcelona, where Brent and I have been at the XIV International AIDS Conference. Continue reading
Barcelona Pictures
buggery.org
Better than a poke in the eye with a wet fish
Filed under virus …
Whole Health
(Originally published in the Sydney Star Observer)
Sexual health, mental health and drug and alcohol issues are the key health concerns which a broad-based ACON should address, according to health professionals working in the gay and lesbian communities. Rather than diluting ACONÂ’s primary focus, they say, ACON will be able to deliver better HIV/AIDS services by taking a more holistic approach. Continue reading
A miserable, cantankerous, self-absorbed, attention-demanding, whining bastard
(Recycled from the House of Love)
God, that was rough.
I’ve been sick — sick as a dog — for the last ten days, and I hated every minute of it. You’d think after fifteen years of wrestling with Iris the Virus and the assorted opportunistic infections that she has brought into my life it’d take more than a bit of a bad cold to bring me down, but no.
I have been lying in a cold sweat, with a fever of 41ºC, deliriously contemplating my own mortality in the not-nice way and not coping with it at all well. I am not what you would call an "easy patient". Sick, I am a miserable, cantankerous, self-absorbed, attention-demanding, whining bastard. How I’ll ever manage when something really nasty strikes me down I do not know. The worst part of it is that, now that Hep Cindy has taken up residence in my liver, I can hardly even swallow an aspirin without having to contemplate the potentially dire consequences it will have on my liver and my long-term survival (or, as the medical researchers so prosaically put it, quot;clinical endpoint".)
Anyhow, I survived, and indeed I have a greater and stronger sense that I am up to the challenge of dealing with the "lifestyle adjustments" that hep C requires. It’s just about the end of March and I can tell you exactly how much alcohol I’ve had this month. A thimbleful of champagne before the Mardi Gras parade, one gin-and-tonic, and two glasses of claret. This from a man who used to have three or four drinks a day until quite recently, and to be quite honest I don’t miss it much. And drugs — yes, well, yes, it was Mardi Gras you know. That is behind us now, at least until Inquisition, a month from now.
So, I can’t drink and I can’t take drugs, that leaves gardening. Brent and I had a busy weekend in the garden, ripping out a lot of last season’s growth and cleaning up for winter, and putting in some winter colour. New Guinea Impatiens, Ixora, Viola, Primula, Flannel flower … should give us a bit of brightness through the gloom. We also put down an artichoke — not sure if that will succeed in a tub but if it does I will be mighty pleased, ‘cos we’re nuts for artichokes in this house — and a valerian, which meets my insatiable urge to grow medicinal herbs I neither need nor have the foggiest idea how to use. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
All of this is, I realise, a bit vague and rambling and less than my usual glamorous self but there is a point. I don’t want to start dispensing homespun wisdom of the type you can stich on a sampler, but there are simple pleasures. I’ve lived the high life and swung from a few chandeliers (well, not chandeliers exactly, but I’ve swung, believe me) and I will continue to do so as long as my weary frame will allow. But that does not mean that these simple joys — an afternoon spent in the garden with the man I love, a home-cooked meal, just one glass of really good claret, the parrots in the treetops, a moment of absolute silence — don’t have every bit as much value and aren’t just as great a thrill, in their way.
How the Grinch stole Mardi Gras
(Recycled from the House of Love)
December 23, 1970. A little boy sits on his father’s knee. He’s just six years old — old enough to carry a gun in Michigan, but still a child here in the Australia of the early 70s. His father, a stern man, red-faced, white-haired, with eyebrows that seemed to be constructed of steel wool, looks down on his offspring. For a moment nothing is said, while he gathers the courage to tell his son his decision.
Then, he speaks.
"Christmas," he says to the youngster, "is cancelled." The little boy is frozen with horror. Everything that makes his life worthwhile has been snatched away from him in an instant, his entire world is in uproar. The idea that December 25 could come and go without presents, fun, games, and too much food is beyond comprehension.
"All of your brothers and sisters, all your friends at school, everyone up and down our street will be having Christmas but you can stay in your room."
Death be not proud
(Recycled from the House of Love)
I’ve been thinking about dying. Probably not so unusual for someone in my position, but as my health has improved over the last couple of years or so I’ve developed a sense of immortality that, like all notions of immortality, is somewhat over-optimistic. Continue reading
Efavirenz dreaming: Dirt!
(Recycled from the House of Love)
(There’d been a news item the night before about a T-Rex skeleton for sale on ebay)
I’m in a forest clearing with Annie McW., who is telling me that she has discovered that the rich volcanic soil in this area makes a delicious and nourishing drink when mixed with water. I’m not sure what to make of this idea but she mixes some dirt and water together in a glass and gives it to me to try.
It’s a bit gritty and murky but it does taste good. Annie explains that she’s planning to market the stuff and she wants me to come up with a marketing campaign. I’m not sure how to go about marketing dirt-mixed-with-water to a sophisticated global beverage market, so I decide to study Coca-Cola’s marketing strategies to find the answer.
Meanwhile, Annie’s son Johti, who I learn has been appointed head of excavations for this new venture, arrives with disturbing news: while digging up the raw material for our assault on the beverage industry, he has unearthed a complete tyrannosaurus rex skeleton right in the middle of the part of the forest where the best drinking dirt is located. We head off to investigate.
Sure enough, it’s a T-Rex, the giant, majestic creature perfectly preserved in the loose soil. We hold an emergency meeting of the Dirt Marketing Corporation (Annie, Jo and I) on T-Rex’s tail to discuss the implications of the find.
It’s clear we have to keep this quiet: if word gets out we’ll be inundated with archaeologists and palaeontologists and every other kind of do-gooder-ologists and our plans to dominate the black gritty beverage market will be ruined.
Jo, who in spite of his young age is an explosives expert, suggests blowing the skeleton up. It’s not a bad idea and we consider it for a while, but decide against it just as the first jeepload of palaeontologists arrives.
Efavirenz dreaming: prison dance
(Recycled from the House of Love)
I’m in a prison. My friend John D. is in there with me, I don’t know why but it seems to be a rather well-appointed and comfortable prison. John’s doing an interpretive dance on the theme of imprisonment. He dances divinely, sublimely, defying gravity and employing various props — the cell is well stocked with objets d’art — in a truly breathtaking performance.
A member of the audience [Audience? In prison? It's a dream, remember] takes one of the props and won’t give it back, spoiling the dance. I have to wrestle this object away from the spoiler and return it to John.
The dance is over and I’m having sex with another prisoner (not John, worse luck) — I’ll spare you the details. Afterwards, he walks through the automatic glass doors [!] of the prison, out into the snow. I can’t follow him, and he can’t return. I assume he’ll freeze to death out there.