An Aries (Who Knows Some Stuff)
AIDS Alabama devotes its energy and resources statewide to helping people with HIV and AIDS live healthy, independent lives, and works to prevent the spread of HIV. Their Web site has a wealth of information for Alabamians as well as links to other state HIV/AIDS assistance organizations.
This is AIDS Alabama’s logo.
This is the logo for the Mother Bear Project. The Minnesota-based Mother Bear Project is a grass-roots, non-profit group dedicated to providing comfort and hope to children, primarily those affected by HIV/AIDS in emerging nations, by giving them a gift of love in the form of hand-knit and crocheted bears.
Check out their Web site for more information and some very moving photographs of volunteer knitters, children who’ve received bears, and the children’s thank-yous to people who’ve reached out to them with kindness and compassion.
Even if you don’t knit or crochet, the organization has need of supplies and bear sponsors.
It’s 24 days until World AIDS Day on December 1. This year’s theme is STOP AIDS: Keep the Promise. Between now and then, I’ll be posting some of the logos of various HIV/AIDS organizations and link to them so you can brush up on your AIDS information. An informed population is a safer and more compassionate population.
Today’s feature organization is The World AIDS Campaign, which supports a global campaign for AIDS awareness and action. Each year, I publish a World AIDS Day newsletter, and this year, I’ll be including a link to their “Make the Promise” selection. Check it out on their Web site.
Here are a couple of not-great-quality versions of The World AIDS Campaign’s logo.
This ornament reminds me of their logo. I may have to tell Santa. 😉
If you’ve been a caregiver to people you love who died because of AIDS, then you know that a softly lit goodbye in a quiet hospital room, with you hovering over the shell of a person you once knew as he stoically yet weakly articulates some profundity that at once skewers the heartless and forgives the compassionate, is probably a Hollywood version of your reality.
This isn’t to say that I haven’t witnessed and been part of great stoicism, tremendous compassion, and tender goodbyes. But that’s only one chapter of any story, and along with it come the realities that provide a theme of John Weir’s WHAT I DID WRONG: rage and shit. Among other things, Weir’s is an AIDS novel, covering some part of the eighties and the nineties and ending just after Labor Day in New York City in 2001–that is, before a fresh horror would refocus energy and reshape the dilemma of dealing with the financial needs of the worst plague (so far) of our time.
click here for the rest of my review
Saturday night as we were preparing to leave Rouge, some of the wedding attendants were still there. They wanted to know if they could take the centerpieces, and of course the answer was a resounding, “Yes!” That still left about a half-dozen gorgeous table arrangements and the vase of flowers that was on the cake table. As Tom and Tim loaded gifts and other wedding things into the car, they added the flower arrangements.
On Sunday, Tim–I’m sorry, the Wedding Bitch–had a few more errands to run for The Brides. Today, I went into his apartment to put the carefully sealed top tier of the wedding cake into his freezer (for The Brides to eat on their first anniversary). I noticed something different and asked, “What did you do with the flowers?”
Until then, I hadn’t known that while he was handling Wedding Bitch business on Sunday, he took all the flowers to Omega House, a local residential hospice for people in the late stages of HIV/AIDS.
I’m sure The Brides will appreciate knowing the flowers that made their wedding and reception so lovely were given another opportunity to bring beauty and happiness into people’s lives.
My writing partner… I think I’ll keep him.
Today while taking a nap, I dreamed about my friend John. It was a silly dream, not worth repeating (as if anyone is ever interested in someone else’s dreams anyway), but it did remind me that John would have turned 41 on October 5.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, in October of 1996, Tom, our friend Amy (Rex’s first mom!), and I were in Washington, D.C., volunteering for what would be the last display in its entirety of the AIDS Memorial Quilt. I could write a book about those cold, amazing days in our capital, but I won’t do it here.
A brief history.
On October 11, 1987, the Quilt included 1,920 panels and was displayed for the first time on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. during the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. The Quilt returned to Washington, D.C. in October of 1988, when 8,288 panels were displayed on the Ellipse in front of the White House. The entire Quilt was again displayed on the National Mall in 1992 and 1996, when it contained approximately 37,440 individual panels.
Five panels that I’d made with the help of my mother and Tom, as well as my friends Amy, Lynne, Lisa, Vicki, Nora, Shawn, and Shelley, were among those 37,440.
After we returned from Washington, John and James were over for a visit. We looked at photos, but John didn’t really want to talk that much about the Quilt. One of my panels was for John’s former boyfriend, Jeff. However John may have grieved the loss of Jeff, he was looking forward to his future with James in that October when he turned 31.
None of us had the slightest inkling that two months later, John would be dead. What had seemed an early diagnosis of Kaposi’s Sarcoma, and the promise of the new protease inhibitors, all happened just a little too late to save him.
I know a lot of people don’t like autumn. The days get shorter. The weather turns cold. The falling leaves remind us of loss and decay. I don’t know why I love this season so much. But overall, I’d rather think of all the friends’ and family’s birthdays I celebrate during autumn, all the good people who’ve been part of my life, and all the ways that dark times are always, always followed by rebirth in the spring, new friendships, renewed hope, and a planet that has so much to teach us if we only pay attention to its cycles.
From the NAMES Project Foundation web site:
Funds Raised by the Quilt for Direct Services for People with AIDS: over $3,250,000 (U.S.)
Number of Visitors to the Quilt: 15,200,000
Number of 12’x12′ Sections of The Quilt: 5,748
Number of Panels in the Quilt: approximately 46,000
Number of Names on the Quilt: More than 83,900 (The names on the Quilt represent approximately 17.5% of all U.S. AIDS deaths.)
Size : 1,293,300 square feet (the equivalent of 275 NCAA basketball courts with walkway, 185 courts without walkway)
Miles of Fabric: 52.25 miles long (if all 3’x6′ panels were laid end to end)
Total Weight: More than 54 tons
NAMES Project Chapters: 20
International Affiliates: 43
There are some days when I can’t imagine living anywhere other than where I do. There was a lot of stuff to take care of Thursday (which made me miss an important phone call, but hopefully, the caller will be in touch on Friday).
One of my errands took me to see John, who works at the office that meets all my mother’s insurance needs. John helps put together Halloween Magic, which raises money to be distributed among HIV/AIDS assistance organizations. John’s wit and enthusiasm never fail to lift my spirits, and it was “Timothy James Beck’s” pleasure to donate two complete sets of signed novels for their charity auction. (And Debby, if you’re reading, John says it’s time for you to come back to Houston! He wants to laugh with you again.)
Back at The Compound, it was tempting to just sit still and appreciate the weather. In the fall, Houston provides some days so stunning that it’s easy to forget the summer. But I wasn’t idle. Tim and I had a good discussion about TJB5. We knew we weren’t going to have our usual Thursday night writers’ meeting because Jim is using that blocked off time to read and edit the manuscript.
Plus we had an important evening planned. Lynne came here after work and we ran a few errands, then Rhonda and Lindsey arrived because Tim, a/k/a The Wedding Bitch, had arranged for them to see and taste a sample of their wedding cake. It was fabulous and will be delicious and beautiful. I can’t believe their wedding is coming up so soon!
Tom had brought lots of pizza home, so we ate, watched Survivor, and devoured wedding cake. Then we just sat and talked and said a lot of things like, “Down, Rex.” “Margot, come in here!” and “No, Guinness, you already ate.” Tim said, “Shoes,” a lot. In fact, that was the first thing he said to me today, because of a video that I can’t link to because YouTube is down. He cracks me up.
Lindsey changed the wallpaper on my cell phone because she’s evil, but later, Rhonda changed it back. Lindsey has finished reading A COVENTRY CHRISTMAS, but since Lynne hasn’t read it yet, and Rhonda still has a chapter or so to go, Lindsey was considerate enough to reassure me that she liked the book without giving away any details. Yay, my first feedback other than from my writing partners or family members!
I loaned Rhonda A LITTLE TWIST OF TEXAS. I really enjoyed reading this book each night before I fell asleep. Since Rhonda has a motorcycle, I know she’ll enjoy it, too. But the book is about so much more than just a road trip. I’ll save more praise and specifics for a review.
You can’t beat a day when you feel like you’ve helped the community, gotten to hang out with great friends, and combined wedding cake with Survivor (right now, I’m all about the Puka tribe).
Oh, and check out these photos, because someone is leaving these in Austin and Houston–mostly all over our neighborhood. I love Montrose.
This cup mysteriously went missing for a while, then just as mysteriously reappeared. That crazy Rex and his coffee-drinking ways.
Today’s coffee cup (it’s blurry; so am I), brought to you by Tom, is from Alonti Cafe and Catering. It was part of a gift bag he received a few years ago while he was working on a Habitat for Humanity home through AIDS Foundation Houston. AFH is the third HIV/AIDS assistance organization with whom Tom has volunteered over the past eleven years. I think he’s a stand-up guy, that Tom. He can’t be doing it for the coffee cups, because we have an abundance.
For several days now, Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” has been a constant refrain playing through my head. In hopes of ridding myself of this earworm–even though it’s a good one–here’s one of my few posts that actually reveals personal information about my past. I’m sure I’ll only leave it up for a day or two before I become horrified and make it private and inaccessible.
One thing about Tom and me having no kids… There’s no captive audience for our longass boring stories. And you are free, too–you can save yourself by not reading:
