(From 04-04-2014) Following a “massive stroke” my beautiful friend of almost exactly fifteen years has left me. Emma (short for Emerald, the colour of her eyes) dropped to one side, sprawled on the floor, and let out a yell worthy of her Siamese ancestors. Now my breaths draw up sobs
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My journey with AIDS...and more!: R.I.P. Emma
(From 04-04-2014) Following a “massive stroke” my beautiful friend of almost exactly fifteen years has left me. Emma (short for Emerald, the colour of her eyes) dropped to one side, sprawled on the floor, and let out a yell worthy of her Siamese ancestors. Now my breaths draw up sobs
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Blog CPR
Facebook and Twitter have become my primary means of internet communication as of late but there is within me a desire to give my writer’s block the angioplasty treatment it may need. In the meantime, evidence that I have continued my love of photography:
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Blog CPR
Facebook and Twitter have become my primary means of internet communication as of late but there is within me a desire to give my writer’s block the angioplasty treatment it may need. In the meantime, evidence that I have continued my love of photography:
Continue readingMy 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!: 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!: 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!: 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!: 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!: For those who loved Kyle
I’ve been wrestling all day – less with what to write than how to write it – so I thought I’d begin with an absurd fruit-plate. Leading with humour is something I’ve done for as long as I can remember. Regardless of what was going on inside, my outside presentation
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Cathedral Bluffs, Scarborough (Toronto), sunrise, June 27
Hopped up on sugar and caffeine early this morning I had the bright idea of seeing if I could get to the Scarborough Bluffs in time for some sunrise photos. I won’t disclose how I got there other than to say that it involved the kindness of neither stranger nor
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Jerry Sandusky guilty, now what?
In the hours following the conviction of their once-revered Jerry Sandusky, Penn State is most anxious to move on. After my exclamation on Facebook of “Yes! Yes! Yes!”, attached to a media account of the guilty verdicts on Friday, I wondered how the victim-survivors were feeling. Having invested my emotions,
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Five Years Since a Critical Day One
It was an early night to bed on Tuesday, June 19, 2007. I had absolutely no more drinking to do and decided that the last day of this particular spring was a bitterly appropriate day to reach out for sobriety. Ruminations of suicide the past few days signalled to me
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Prom Night and Father’s Day
Skimming my home-town newspapers’ web sites I noticed that this is Prom weekend for some of the high schools in the area. Tomorrow is Father’s Day. I’m not sure if the two occasions shared the same weekend in my time. Some quick math, all in my head mind you, and
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Wherefore art thou, Cardinals – Oh!
This was a landmark day in the lives of Ontario high school students who have been exercising their democratic rights, without the vote even, for the passage of Bill 13, the Ontario provincial government’s gay-straight alliance (GSA) initiative. It passed in the Ontario Legislative Assembly with 65 votes in support,
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Craig`s timing
When Craig died five years ago today he could not have ordained that his memory would loom large during this week each year as the award in his name is presented at today`s Convocation ceremonies of United Theological College. He would not have chosen, for Mom`s sake at least, to
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Nine years older nine years later
It’s been so long I had to look up what SARS stood for (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome). That was part of the underlying score as I spent five weeks in two hospitals starting nine years ago early this morning. Why was I laid up? Well an item from Montréal in
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