If I have learned nothing else about my bipolar II today, it is that I am certainly not the only one in similar circumstances who has found photography to be a healing past-time. Facebook is teeming today with some of the creative works of the bipolar support community.
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My journey with AIDS...and more!: Another important day for self-acceptance
If I have learned nothing else about my bipolar II today, it is that I am certainly not the only one in similar circumstances who has found photography to be a healing past-time. Facebook is teeming today with some of the creative works of the bipolar support community.
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: DARE ME – and help raise funds for the Stephen Lewis Foundation
I realize it’s been many months since I have blogged. (You’re more likely to find me on Facebook or Twitter.) As my HIV has to compete with everything else that ails me, and those activities which bring me relaxed pleasure, it takes a special occasion to spring me into action
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Post #1031: My latest ‘Aha!’ moment
I’m very close to finishing the book Survivor – Auschwitz, The Death March and My Fight for Freedom by Sam Pivnik and some two-thirds of the way through I was jolted by this passage: We could have run, could have made it, could have reached the welcoming arms of the
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Review (and a personal retrospective) – Behind the Candelabra
With only the most scant help from Google I have been trying to remember more about my personal, professional meeting with Liberace (“Please, call me Lee.”) It was some time in the mid-1980s, while I was working at a St. Catharines, Ontario radio station, when the subject of last night’s
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Lunch with Vito Russo
Disclaimer: My memories have been assisted by Google and a piece of paper, 8-1/2″ x 11″ divided in half, on which is written the following: After signing up for The Movie Network again recently, I came upon the film “Vito: A Man For All Seasons”. I was immediately transported back to
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Early morning, April 25, 2007
A prompt this week to write about something in a health-care context brought out this story which, despite having been told over and over in my head, had heretofore not made it down in writing. It wasn’t quite 5:30 am and Janice was already waiting for me on the main
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Shaun Fryday, whose faith community emulates his personal hospitality, to be this year’s recipient of the Craig Chaplin Memorial Award
Rev Shaun Fryday has been selected by Montreal’s United Theological College to receive the award, established by my late brother, at the UTC Convocation on May 8th, 2013. Fittingly, the ceremonies will take place in Shaun’s congregation of Beaconsfield United Church. When he received the news, Shaun is said to
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: “A Winter Night” by Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796)
When biting Boreas, fell and doure, Sharp shivers thro’ the leafless bow’r; When Phoebus gies a short-liv’d glow’r, Far south the lift, Dim-dark’ning thro’ the flaky show’r, Or whirling drift: Ae night the storm the steeples rocked, Poor Labour sweet in sleep was locked, While burns, wi’ snawy wreeths upchoked,
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Coming out as the end of a beginning
This morning on CTV’s Canada AM Kevin Newman, of Question Period fame, was promoting a very important segment on this weekend’s W5 program (Saturday at 7 p.m. ET) and, in the accompanying online article he wrote, “Coming out is toward the end of the process for our gay children” –
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: For a young peoples’ video look at the history of the Tay Canal please click the link below, by which I mean…
…this one! I am so proud! Not that I had anything to do with this (and I didn’t) but because the video shows how the appreciation of Perth (Lanark County, Ontario, Canada) history is, and will continue to be, alive and well! Congratulations to everyone, particularly the young people and
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Re-visiting Windigo ( a poem I wrote about a place I loved)
I know I’ve posted this before but I ventured to submit it to Northern Cardinal Review, an online magazine I happened upon today: Windigo Ripples lick the rocks As the pines and birch politely applaud Gulls catching their petits déjeuners In the waking lake. Sky’s amethyst shroud cascades
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: There are at least a few, if not many, important people with whom I need to have my own conversation about…
…this! It’s certainly not too early to think about Mental Illness Awareness Week When I read the Ottawa Citizen article (linked above) I immediately thought, “Mom will have read that yesterday,” and what an opening it would give me to discuss my own mental health history with her. Not long
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Oh look! It’s happened again!
I’m delighted to be at the top of the list, perhaps it’s random, of 16 Five Star Rated AIDS Information Sites & Blogs – and I’ve found a few fellow travelers in the process!
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: My 1,000th post! (with help from The Equality Mantra’s “A Letter to My Sons”)
What I really like about this is that it could just as easily have been said by my Mom or Dad. (They said and wrote almost exactly similar sentiments when Craig and I came out 31 and 35 years ago, respectively.) So there you have it, according to WordPress and
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: I’m sure that Craig would be proud of his United Church of Canada electing a gay man as Moderator
The criteria my brother Craig set out for the United Theological College award in his name reads in part: To recognize the powerful and passionate ministries of gay and lesbian persons and to honour one whose life’s work has been particularly distinguished in its clear commitment to such central Gospel
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