P+P again

Oooooh that was comfy last night ...... like slipping on an old shoe ..... like finding your favourite sweater behind the sofa after you thought you'd lost it ..... and I'm not quite sure whether that was a good thing .....

Going to the Poz & Proud meeting last night for the first time in a very long time was no different than going to the last meeting. It felt wonderful to be with the boys again, arguing, discussing, sussing, encouraging, debating, moaning at the Schorer as usual, and I love them dearly.

But it didn't feel like a lot had been achieved in the in-between time.

There we were again, just like last year, just like the year before, complaining about the Schorer Stichting and their horrific Press handling of the Schorer Monitor 2006/07/08 etc.

I suppose its because the Schorer has never actually cared whether the people it is supposed to serve are happy or not. I suppose its because they've never had to. Or have never been made to.

It was good to be together again but it was depressing to be reminded of the lack of change.

Grace Jones - Corporate Cannibal

tip from GJ ....

RAPIDO laser show amsterdam november 2008

I'm somewhere in there .....

Rapido!

Just to prove I was there ....... me and Taco.

AMEN

Next Sunday in Church ....

democracy

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that there's a Democrat in the White House.

I just don't want you all to forget that it is a man who, because of his religious convictions, opposes same sex relationships.

That's all.

Health Care for the Rich

Its getting so that only the rich can afford to be ill these days, and I'm afraid it doesn't seem to be getting any better in the near future.

As chronically ill person it was distressing to hear that next year all the small tax deductibles will no longer be available. So no writing off extra medication, therapy, hospitalization etc that is not covered by the insurance companies. Its more than unfortunate of course that insurance companies these days have decided that even with very expensive policies usually not more than 75% of this kind of thing is claimable anyway.

Psychiatric help has also been dramatically reduced to a maximum of 12 sessions a year with any kind of psychiatric practitioner, psychiatrist or psycho-therapist. As if the government/insurance companies can determine that's enough. "Sorry sir but although you are chronically ill and have mental health issues that may or may not be related to this, you are officially healed after 12 sessions with a shrink".

Imagine my distress a couple of days ago when I found out that as per january 2009 all medication used to treat anxiety disorders, stress disorders, sleep disorders and the like will no longer be paid for by the insurance companies.

No, not even the most expensive policies will honour a prescription. People with mental health problems will have to pay for their own medication.

The logic?

According to the leaflet ....

"This sort of medication is only meant to be used for a short while. Having to pay for it yourself will help you to keep its use to a minimum."

On a day that one of the largest countries in the world decide who will be their leader, where one of the crucial questions is a National Health Care Plan, on the other side of the water what was the most liberal of all countries is rapidly demolishing its Health Care.

.... and no-one says a word ....

I'd start saving up for your HAART medication if I was you - after all - it was your own fault now wasn't it ....

Silence = Death

Bjork (Play Dead)

I play dead
it stops the sting
I play dead
and the hurt stops
its sometimes just like sleeping
curling up inside my private tortures
I nestle into pain
act suffering caressing me now

Hate Crimes

Although we tend to think that we are the only ones with problems here in Amsterdam its not true ....

(Edinburgh, Scotland) 

An examination of police complaints across Scotland reveals a tripling of hate crimes against members of the LGBT community, The Daily Record newspaper reported Monday.

The paper said that the situation may be worse than what it uncovered. A spokesperson for one police force admitted to The Record that it does not keep records on crimes based on the victim’s sexuality.

Of those forces which do keep records, the number of hate crimes has jumped from only a handful three years ago to the hundreds this year. The worst area was Strathclyde, where 50 crimes were reported in 2005, but so far this year, 216 have been reported.

Scottish civil rights leaders called the results of the study “horrific” and “appalling.”

source: 365Gay

Obesity mantra

Danny said something very strange last night when I, as usual, started making excuses for my being overweight.

"Its to protect you. When you don't need the protection anymore then it will go."

It just struck a chord somewhere in me.

flyer boeklaunch Schaduwland

GJ's Masterpiece

Worthy

"My dear young lady, there was a great deal of truth, I dare say, in what you said, and you looked very pretty while you said it, which is much more important."

“A Woman of No Importance” Oscar Wilde

What is a person worth? and how is that measured? What is self worth?

As a child it was expected of me to be successful in all I did. Assumed even. This didn't inspire me, or even motivate me. It wasn't a support or even a comfort to know that my parents expected excellence. On the contrary. It gave me the attitude in life that whatever I tried to achieve I would always fall short. In fact, why try at all knowing that I would always fail.

So what is a pretty boy worth?

Status, pride, bloodline .... an investment for old age?

What is a beautiful young man worth?

Status, sex, vitality .... to be bartered and traded? Shared and handed round?

And a handsome man?

Status, sex, money .... to be invested in, collecting dividends until he is sold on.

So how much is self worth? In cash? In pride? In status?

Normal

I don't know about you, but I get the feeling that the hiv+ emancipation wave has petered out and died.

Don't get me wrong. There are lots of men out there working hard for all kinds of rights and against all kinds of rules.

But emancipation?

We've settled back into being 'normal' again.

Being 'normal' is the natural dutch state of being. 

Being 'normal' is not being out of the ordinary, is being like everyone else, being the same.

Being 'normal' is also not being troublesome, not making a fuss, not being a pain in the ass.

Take a look at the Hiv Vereniging, 'normality' taken to extremes.

Washed, bleached, and sanitized. The douche has been in their ass for years making sure there is no awkward shit floating around inside.

But being 'normal' also indicates stagnation, and with stagnation comes decay, rotting, and ultimately an inevitable, albeit painless, death.

'Normality' - the Dutch disease

In Memoriam

Paul Newman

1925 - 2008

The only male actor in Hollywood not too scared to play the lead, Brick Pollitt, in Tennesse William's 'Cat On a Hot Tin Roof' in 1958.

Brick: One man has one great good true thing in his life. One great good thing which is true! I had friendship with Skipper. You are namin' it dirty!

A man who gave more than $250 million away to charity.

God bless his soul.

Denial

Are Hiv+ Gay Men really ill?

I know it sounds contentious, but honestly, do we look ill? sound ill? act ill?

Well, no. Or at least no-one sees us when we are. And when asked, we will sometimes acknowledge the fact but will almost always deny the results of being ill.

Its hardly surprising.

Chronically ill people can choose to accept or deny their chronic illness. 

Even though for a short while being 'Poz' may have had its heyday as 'trendy', being chronically ill does not fit into the traditional lifestyle of a Gay Man. 

Denial is in fact the only way out for many Hiv+ Gay Men.

Not denial of being hiv+, nor of the disease itself, but of being 'ill' because of it.

As a sub-sub-sub-culture, we have developed this extraordinary schizophrenic atitude towards our own 'Poz'ness'.

On the one hand we are chronically ill and in need of a constant supply of high end highly toxic expensive designer drugs to keep us alive, and on the other hand its 'life as usual'.

Not withstanding the Dutch tendency to minimise emotion, I find it incredible how our mind's self-defense mechanism kicks in when confronted with something of the magnitude of 'life threatening disease'. 

What does the mind use to avoid overload, you've guessed it, denial.

Its amazing to me how the media manages to present us as victim and perpetrator. What's even more amazing is the Aids machine in the Netherlands that manages to do exactly the same. But with one exception, the emphasis of the 'Prevention lobby' is on perpetrator and not victim.

We, as Hiv+ Gay men need to see ourselves as neither. 

We are not, always, sometimes, never have been patients, clients, victims, perps, murderers, crazies, junkies, drug abusers, sex addicts, pathetic, needy, healthy, hypochondriacs ....

We need to create our own image.

We need to stop the denial.

Optimism

No, I refuse to be optimistic about hiv and/or aids.

And no, that doesn't mean I have to be cynical either.

Realistic.

In New York, the third leading cause of death in men under the age of 65 is still aids.

People with hiv climb mountains, swim rivers, dance the tango .... and die.

Don't be silly. Honestly, who still dies from AIDS?

And no, I don't mean all the little brown babies in Africa.

In a world where people are still dying of opportunistic diseases as a result of suppressed immune systems I see no reason to lie.

I mean all the Western European Gay men whose HAART medication fails to handle the virus, whose liver gets eaten away by cancer because they are more at risk than non-hiv'ers, whose lungs rot because they smoke/have smoked and are 3 times more at risk of acquiring lung cancer.

Men who have never been tested and now see themselves as too old to catch hiv, die because the medication comes too late. Because they only find out they are infected when they wake up in the Emergency Room of their local hospital.

Men who have religiously taken their medication for 10 years or more and now die of rectal cancer, lung cancer, heart disease, stomach cancer, lymphoma's, liver and kidney failure etc. All or none of which may or may not be related to the hiv virus and/or medication against it.

Men who were infected with a hiv strain that is resistant to known drugs, who live day by day until the next new aids drug comes on the market. Brave men who sometimes just can't hold on long enough.

Men who lose faith in medicine, who turn to non-western doctors for a gentler way of surviving, who are tired of medication, tired of fighting.

No,

Being a Gay man with hiv is not something to be optimistic about.

I can live till I'm 90, but I will probably still have the problems to face that I face every day.

Chronic tiredness, swollen glands, diarrhea, opportunistic infections.

The anxiety of discovering a bruise, a mark, a sore, a pain, an ache. What is it? Its nothing. Its everything. Its nothing.

Optimism is a word we use to ignore hiv and aids.

Optimism makes it all go away.

It won't go away.

reference: New York Times Magazine

Leo

Has it really been 2 1/2 years since the beginnings of Poz + Proud? My lord, where does the time go? Especially when we were having so much fun ....

What did we start with?

Leo and his enthousiasm, energy, and bloody mindedness. Plus a small but vocal group of Hiv+ Gay men who were (are) very unhappy about how the world treats/handles/copes with them (us).

What has been achieved?

I'll leave that over to others now that I am no longer actively involved.

But the driving force was always (and I don't think Ton will mind me saying this), Leo.

Dear god I haven't/don't always agree with what he says, but I damn well listen when he says it.

X

Sorry ....

Sorry, sorry, sorry ...... Auntie Dottie has been taking over my life completely the last few weeks and leaving me little inclination to vent my feelings here.

Her new website is up and running thanks to Mike - www.dorothyglamour.com 

Lots of pics in 'Dottie's Albums', history in 'Dottie Herself', a blog in 'Dottie Rambles', and 'Ask Dottie' (because she's been dying to do an agony aunt column).

Have a look and see for yourself, but look back here once in a while ;-)

Archive

23 / 05 / 2006

Tired, sore, worried about my health in general.

I think the meeting went well and I presented myself well.

Waiting for Spaghetti Bolognese here in Terminal 1 at Heathrow.

Its cleaner than I remember but that's hardly difficult to achieve. So I'm trying to do the right thing by eating something.

Trying also to be nice to myself, gentle on myself. I've got the starting of a cold and it worries me more than I thought it ever would. Of course I wish I was home. Couldn't sleep last night in the hotel in spite of the sleeping pill (which has been knocking me out like a light lately). Strange environment? Airco? Whatever ....

Feeling sad now - maybe just the muzak, the tiredness.

If one thing has been proved the last 2 days in London is that I can still do this sort of job better than most other people .... and I'm not much older than some of the people in this company.

I wanna go home ....

I find myself looking at men and thinking 'is he?' .... 'the cheeks are sunken but does that mean ....?'

I can't feel like this the rest of my life and expect myself to function normally. One night away from home and I'm already ill. Sore throat, cold sores, bitten the inside of my mouth too .... and my arse .... its a bloody massacre down there.

I've got to find a doctor and probably get treated quickly because this is not what you would call normal, but how?

Damn it! How do I solve this?

My greatest concern is staying healthy enough to do this new job properly, and keep it.

Even my arm pain has returned, has to be stress, doesn't it? And the clicky joints, what's that all about? Is it all related? Possible? Probable?

Pull a mask over your nose and mouth and breathe normally .... get me the fuck back to Amsterdam ....

Julee Cruise - Rockin' Back Inside My Heart

So this is what that wedding guest meant ....