Well it was back to work today. I couldn’t fall asleep last night, wound up staying up until the ‘oh so late’ hour of 12:15. Not really that late but later than I am usually accustomed to.
Wound up sleeping until 6:45, which is way later than I usually get out of bed. Still I was in the office at 8:30. Second one in.
No crazy Asian woman with messages filling the mailbox, though she did call today and asked me why I haven’t married her yet. I told her I am gay- G-A-Y. Still she calls, still she cries and still she screams incoherently.
The day crawled somewhat. Vivek told me he had a rough weekend, he was acquainted with some people that were killed in Café Leopold in Mumbai. I was wondering if he was affected and here it turns out he was. I felt bad for him.
Here we are now in December, 24 days until I see my family in Hillsdale on Christmas Eve with Bill and his mother. And then it’s off to Garfield on Christmas day, once again with Bill and his mother. But that’s a few weeks away.
Today is World AIDS Day, a day of remembrance. I lost a few friends to that disease. But it’s all about celebrating their lives, not mourning.
Alphonso Portillo, who was Patrick Morrissey’s roommate/ex-boyfriend, was a designer. Did some pretty cool things. Made me a shirt type garment that hung down to my thighs with a paisley collar and cuffs and triangular buttons. I wore it once or twice and lost it during a move. That’s a bummer.
John Iserra was a waiter at McSwells and also worked in the Macys offices. He was a real sweetheart when I started working at McSwells. It was sad to see him go out like that.
Ricky Wilson, the excellent guitarist of the B-52’s, Cindy’s older brother passed away, went into the hospital on a Friday, and was dead on Sunday.
I remember I was still living with my family in Lodi when I went to a Gay Activists Alliance of Northern New Jersey (GAANNJ) and heard about GRID, Gay Related Immune Deficiency.
It was also known as the gay cancer. No one knew much about it in the early days, which added to the fear. I hardly ever had hook ups with anyone in New York City where along with San Francisco, most of the cases started to appear.
I lived with the fear for years, one time freaking out since I had a spot on my back. I could have sworn it was Kaposi’s Sarcoma. It was a pimple, which of course was a relief.
My dear friend Jet Watley also passed away from AIDS almost 20 years ago around the holidays. There’s a picture somewhere of me sitting on my parent’s couch, completely gutted with my mother standing behind me with a look on her face showing her concern for her youngest who never looked as bad as this before.
I wish they were all still alive, still around. They were genuinely good people.
It’s a damned shame that President Fucktard Reagan didn’t do a thing about the disease. So many lives could have been saved if only he would have released the funds for research, but he was of the ‘mindset’ that since it was only junkies and gay people dying from this disease, why say or do anything?
The disease is still here, millions lost partially due to the inaction of our then commander in chief and his cronies and his plans are still implemented to this day under the present fucktard in the White House.
Faith based initiatives, abstinence only sex education, life saving medications that ordinary people cannot afford while bastards like Rumsfeld sit on the boards of BigPharma making money off the suffering of people.
Now there is a chunk of a generation of gay people that are gone. Watching ‘Milk’ the other day I coldn’t help but wonder how Harvey Milk would have dealt with the AIDS epidemic. With that bullhorn he was loud enough to certainly have gotten attention on the matter.
It’s hard to believe that these friends have been dead for almost 20 years, sometimes more than that.
They say ‘get back, we say fight back!’