Synthetic Division Playing Tonight in Charlottesville
August 10, 2010
Am playing a show tonight at Rapture, for all you locals. Hope to see you there! If you click on the flyer, it goes to the Facebook Event page.
Filmmakers Looking For Young Females With HIV
August 10, 2010
A couple of weeks ago I posted this blog entry about an upcoming MTV Staying Alive film. Seems that they are looking for young female positoids (someone living with HIV) for the project. If you are up for disclosing your status and taking part, check out the previous blog entry.
Positively Yours,
Shawn
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Website: ShawnandGwenn.com Also check out the lovely Gwenn’s Fashion/Coffee Blog
Like what you’ve read? Then buy me an iced mocha or check out my new CD: Synthetic Division, A Symptom of Life, which is now on iTunes!
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8: Bad Proposition, Good Ruling
August 9, 2010
Last week the big news was that Proposition 8 was overturned and ruled unconstitutional. I welcomed the ruling whole-heartedly because I just don’t understand why it’s an issue and why the people are bothered about it care enough to launch the campaigns they do to, ultimately, “defeat” love, or the pursuit of love by others.
Get a life, is my thought, and let others simply live theirs.
Despite the victory, I feel guarded about the good news. Especially if the endgame is getting this to the Supreme Court for a vote. I don’t have any faith in the Court’s ability to rule fairly on this issue. It also upsets me greatly that President Obama is against gay marriage, especially when his own parents wouldn’t have been able to marry in a handful of this country’s states as recently as the 1960′s. It took sweeping federal law to end the insanity and gross injustice that occurs when the moral deficiency of a popular vote reveals the darkest aspirations of the human heart.
In terms of living with HIV, I think back to my earliest experiences of dating… and hoping I could find love and someone who would accept me. And the endgame was always the thought of marriage, the romantic notion that some other human would commit- or at least commit to the thought of giving it their best effort- to you for the rest of their life.
To deny same sex couples this lofty goal is an injustice.
Positively Yours,
Shawn
Watch, Friend and Follow me on:YouTube, Facebook and Twitter
Website: ShawnandGwenn.com Also check out the lovely Gwenn’s Fashion/Coffee Blog
Like what you’ve read? Then buy me an iced mocha or check out my new CD: Synthetic Division, A Symptom of Life, which is now on iTunes!
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Tag Team of the Century: Hot Beef Injection
August 5, 2010
One of the best things about Legends of Wrestlemania is that you can create tag teams and then name them. And the name comes up on the screen in the same font that was used on the television shows when I was a kid.
If I’d been booking wrestling matches and calling the shots back in the day the way I’m doing it on this game, then the “Hot Rod” Rowdy Roddy Piper and Brutus Beefcake would have been a tag team. And, stealing a line from John Bender from The Breakfast Club movie, I would have named them none other than the “Hot Beef Injection”.
It’s the simple joys in life, right?
Positively Yours,
Shawn
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Website: ShawnandGwenn.com Also check out the lovely Gwenn’s Fashion/Coffee Blog
Like what you’ve read? Then buy me an iced mocha or check out my new CD: Synthetic Division, A Symptom of Life, which is now on iTunes!
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Kilt the Sick Days Counter
August 4, 2010
I had a little tally of “sick days” for this year going on the blog in super small font- so small it seems to have disappeared on me. Oh well, if I knowingly off’d it, then all the better, especially since this year has- thankfully- been good to me healthwise.
Last week I had a few downer days, a sore throat likely caused by the extreme summer heat combined with the extreme summer air conditioning. The timing of those blah days was made especially annoying because it prevented me from getting to Stephen’s 10-year memorial service. Poz posted pictures on their Facebook page. If anyone would understand my absence, it would have been Stephen (or all the familiar faces that were there). I felt better the day after the gathering, and have felt great ever since.
I don’t want to ever dwell on the sick days, or even be reminded of them with a number/tally. When they arrive as they have every so often for the last two decades, I usually just chill out… like last week, when I put in a lot of miles on my new xBox, a birthday gift from my friend Andy, the friend who posted that playfully “nasty” rumor about me not having AIDS. (Thanks Andy, for the laugh and the sweet new gaming system!) Instead of focusing on my sore throat, I just focused on my new game, The Legends of Wrestlemania, where “Rowdy” Roddy Piper has enjoyed the extended World Title reign he never got to have back in the day.
I think one of my best qualities, and one that is directly related to my longevity, is that I rest easy and I’m an easy sickboy. And really, I don’t think I could have tallied last week’s blah days as sick days even if the counter were still anchoring this blog, because I was well enough to leave the house at least once a day for an iced mocha. Which is really the mark of whether or not I’m feeling bad bad, or just blah bad.
Bad bad is not feeling up for an iced mocha.
And it’s not a skirt, it’s a quilt kilt. That one is for all you fellow 1980′s wrestling fans.
Positively Yours,
Shawn
PS… in my original post I mistakenly wrote the word “quilt” where “kilt” should have been. It was late, I know the difference, really… though for many years I always wondered why the AIDS Quilt wasn’t plaid. ;O)
Watch, Friend and Follow me on:YouTube, Facebook and Twitter Website: ShawnandGwenn.com
Also check out the lovely Gwenn’s Fashion/Coffee Blog
Like what you’ve read? Then buy me an iced mocha or check out my new CD:
Synthetic Division, A Symptom of Life, which is now on iTunes!
SHARE THE BLOG. NOT THE VIRUS.
Remembering Stephen Gendin
August 1, 2010
Ten years ago I was getting a few emails from a friend about a special party for a positoid pal who “wasn’t doing too well”. But I couldn’t imagine the Stephen I knew- blue, red, green hair and all- as anything less than vibrant, and at the time, I was wiped out from my own failing health and starting on HIV meds. A trip to NYC just seemed exhausting, I was in no mood to party so I didn’t go…
Six months later, Stephen was dead. And I was in NYC for a funeral. I was heartbroken.
One of the first openly HIV positive people I met, Stephen Gendin offered me a job at his HIV prescription mail order service, prompting a short-lived (uh, 3 weeks I believe) move to NYC that made me realize for the first time in my life that I was operating on very low levels of energy thanks to HIV. It was a tough pill to swallow. One night, as I told my boss and friend that I was packing my bags and heading back to Virginia to focus on my blog and sleeping schedule, he told me there was another way.
He asked if I ever thought about starting on HIV medications.
Stephen’s hope for survival rested in the advent of new medications. He was a longtime activist, the get-in-the-street and get arrested kind, the kind that are embedded in the AIDS community’s history and identity as being responsible letting drug companies and the feds know that people were dying. He’d signed up for drug trials, used his own body to further research, and was always looking for the next miracle drug.
As we sat on the steps of the old Poz office in the West Village that night in 1996 one of us was hopeful, the other scared shitless about all these new medications. In the field of hemophilia treatment, miracle drugs were the reason why I had hep B, C and HIV. The reason why I was tucking tail as the going got tough. I didn’t make a big deal about how I became infected, and looking back I don’t think I could articulate my fears about the HIV medications even as I was showing the first signs that I needed them.
To his credit, Stephen kindly accepted my resignation and refusal to give the pills a try. He was deeply confused why a 21-year old would choose to return to small town Virginia when he could start meds, get some energy, and pursue a new life in the city. But he was a friend, he said his peace and let me go in peace- it was a beautiful moment I’ll never forget, probably the defining moment of our friendship.
Most of my memories of Stephen are at Poz, which he helped found, or at his former company Community Prescription Service- the entire staff comprised of people living with HIV. I recall tooling around together at a few Poz Life Expos (where the picture above was taken) and I’m glad I kept in touch with him after I left NYC, embarrassed by my lack of staying power at the job he’d so kindly presented to me.
In 1999 when I decided to start medications after my failing health left me with no alternative, I let Stephen know, and he never said or implied that he told me so. He just told me how happy he was for me on all fronts, most excited of which was the fact that my new girlfriend, Gwenn, had recently moved in with me.
Looking back, I envied Stephen’s easy style, and was honored by his friendship and how he showed me that HIV- and people living with it- could be cool as hell. I miss ya buddy, a few years was not enough to know you, but I’m glad I got them. You were, and will always be, a huge influence on this little positoid’s life.
Positively Yours,
Shawn
To learn more about Stephen Gendin, check out Poz Magazine’s October 2000 memorial issue of the magazine in Stephen’s honor.
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Mad Men Hilarity
July 30, 2010
Thanks for all the messages on Facebook, email, twitter, cyberverse regarding yesterday’s blog post. I’ve been feeling much better the last couple of weeks and am glad I posted about what’s been going on.
Since I’m writing about all things personal, I felt compelled to share a site that has brought Gwenn and I much joy over the last week. Banana Republic is working with the hit TV show Mad Men (hilariously spoofed here by Ben Hoffman of my favorite TV show, Infomania), who is putting on a contest inviting people to dress up in the style of the television show for a chance to have a walk on role.
Pretty simple, right?
Well, check out the entries. People submit- or friends submit their friends unknowingly- with the most random photos. Some are senior portraits, others are actor’s headshots, a lot are just dudes holding martini glasses and wearing a modern (meaning mid 1990′s) suit. The loudest laughs I’ve had recently have been scrolling through this site… and so far, this guy is my favorite. His name is Charlie, and I’m endorsing him to be on the show that I don’t watch, but Gwenn does.
To vote for Charlie, just click on his picture below.
And a big thanks to Bob G. for the pick-me-up iced mocha. Maybe I should submit this picture to the contest? Nothing says early 1960′s businessman like a safer sex shirt and an iced espresso drink.
Positively Yours,
Shawn
Watch, Friend and Follow me on:
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Also check out the lovely Gwenn’s Fashion/Coffee Blog
Like what you’ve read? Then buy me an iced mocha or check out my new CD:
Synthetic Division, A Symptom of Life, which is now on iTunes!
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The Summertime Blues
July 28, 2010
I won’t lie- this summer has been rough. I wrote about dealing with fatigue, the physical kind that can be temporarily alleviated by the occasional nap. But I haven’t written about the emotional side of fatigue; namely, depression.
It’s a word that comes with a lot of weight, and isn’t one I use loosely. I have serious respect and empathy for anyone who deals with recurrent mental health issues because, in many ways, it is the root cause for a lot of the problems that people put band-aides on without acknowledging the emotional trigger. (Mental health issues and depression can lead to excess drinking, drugging, unsafe sex, etc.) Am I drinking and drugging and giving up condoms? No. But I have felt a little blue for about a month. Maybe longer. I don’t know, I stopped counting the days of my malaise and, like most people, I kept these feelings to myself largely, only really confiding in Gwenn.
I have a wonderful life. One I wouldn’t trade. I love being a writer and an HIV educator and providing laughs and inspiration to those who are already positive; I really feel like that’s my purpose, and I’ve been fortunate to have fulfilled that goal. Hell, I found love, and have met a ton of incredible people, all because I stood up to my virus fourteen years ago and decided to attack life and let the chips fall where they may.
But part of my slump has been that I want to do more. I know firsthand how HIV has affected me, and am growing increasingly frustrated with how lightly regarded the topic of sexual health seems to be and, every summer after the Spring semester is over (Gwenn and I speak mostly at colleges and universities) it seems like we are barely getting by. It didn’t help my mood that one of the last talks of the semester was canceled- or, uh, postponed- the day before because someone at the university was uncomfortable with our presence there. It was a costly error in judgment, not just for the students who will have to wait six months-to-never to hear the message of health- of freaking health!- but also for Gwenn and I. In that regard, despite all of my successes in reaching thousands of people through my book, talks and various media outlets, I feel like a complete failure who is unable to provide for his household. That one missed talk is the difference between getting through a summer without sweating the bills. If it weren’t for a class action settlement that basically bought the townhouse we live, there is no possible way we could do what we do.
All in all, in the current state of the economy and world- I am lucky. I am loved, I am healthy against all the odds I was given so many years ago… and I am never hungry. All the basic human needs are, and have always been, met. I am aware of this good fortunate daily, and that only makes me embarrassed for these feelings I have been harboring. I’m feeling better about everything now, but I think one of the keys to not letting this build up again is allowing myself the freedom to write about it without being worried about bumming out everyone, or being viewed as weak.
Or whatever everyone’s excuse is for not talking about the natural pendulum swing of emotions that we all go through.
Back when I started blogging in 1996 I had a simple goal: to write about my life honestly and let the chips fall where they may. It’s time to get back to that, if for nothing more than my own mental well-being.
Positively Yours,
Shawn
Watch, Friend and Follow me on:
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Website: ShawnandGwenn.com
Also check out the lovely Gwenn’s Fashion/Coffee Blog
Like what you’ve read? Then buy me an iced mocha or check out my new CD:
Synthetic Division, A Symptom of Life, which is now on iTunes!
SHARE THE BLOG. NOT THE VIRUS.
Filmmakers Looking For Young People With HIV
July 23, 2010
Got a message from my friends at the MTV Staying Alive Foundation about an upcoming film about young people and how they deal with HIV. Filming will begin in 3 weeks, so if you’re interested in participating then fill out the Contact Form on my website and I’ll forward your information along.
You must be:
- in your late teens or early 20′s
- willing to go public with your HIV status
- willing to participate in a hot dog eating contest…
Okay, the last bullet point I made up.
The filmmaker explained to me that the main goal of the project is to show that young people with HIV lead full and constructive lives, show how they integrate the issue of protection into their sexual lives and also convey the (emotional) transition into adulthood. Sounds interesting, right? The MTV Staying Alive Foundation has put out such great programming about youth and HIV issues over the last ten years, I’m so happy that they continue to show that those of us with HIV are just regular people with regular human emotions.
Hope everyone has a nice weekend ahead of ‘em. Don’t eat too many hot dogs.
Positively Yours,
Shawn
Watch, Friend and Follow me on:
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Website: ShawnandGwenn.com Also check out the lovely Gwenn’s Fashion/Coffee Blog
Like what you’ve read? Then buy me an iced mocha or check out my new CD: Synthetic Division, A Symptom of Life, which is now on iTunes!
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Microbicides, Men and HIV
July 21, 2010
This year’s International AIDS Conference, which happens every two years, is taking place right now, and Poz is reporting on all of the exciting news coming out of Vienna. One of the bits of news that is generating the most interest is a study of the use of HIV preventative microbicides.
Basically, it’s an HIV-fighting drug in gel form, which can applied inside the vagina before having sex, thus reducing the risk of HIV transmission. Though the gel is due for more trials and is likely several years away from being made available at your neighborhood drug store, the initial results have been promising, and the evolution of moving away from condom negotiations and putting women’s safety into women’s hands (and vaginas) is being hailed as a “game changer”.
When Gwenn and I were discussing this news item, my first thought was a personal one: I’d love to have that gel in my nightstand. I’d love to say goodbye to my old friend, the condom, and see what all this skin-on-skin penis-to-vagina fuss is all about. But she made a very astute point, “Once again, the woman has to bear all the responsibility.” She likened it to a woman not wanting to get pregnant, thus having to go on birth control because a lot of guys don’t like condoms, or get offended, or whatever the excuse is.
And ultimately, the excitement the AIDS community feels has to be recognized for what it is- an admittance that man has failed. A deadly virus that is transmitted through sexual contact, in the end, wasn’t motivation enough to take safe sex and condoms seriously. A scientific knowledge of how this virus is transmitted couldn’t combat the moralistic “ban” on condoms, including the United States eight-year ban on comprehensive sex education under President Bush Jr.
It really disgusts me. Sexual evolution is a slow and- in modern times- needlessly painful process. I know I view sexual health through the lens of my own infection, which occurred very early in my life and caused me to adapt to the reality of being infectious and juggling that with my own sexual urges. I’ve made it work, and have a partner in Gwenn who is HIV negative, open to talking about sex, and we have a relationship that is healthy and keeps her safe.
So what happens when the gel becomes available? Does she have to ingest pills (birth control) and cram medication up her vagina just so my penis can enjoy a little extra sensitivity? And, in the end, is that fair?
Ultimately, the game changer needs to be an adjustment of the time-honored, religiously backed theory that man is superior to woman, and that man knows better and is to be obeyed. We are all biological equals- gay, straight, white, black, female, male, hermaphrodite, whatever the case may be. What HIV has taught us over the last twenty years is that, when it comes to sexual decision-making, the male has proven to be unqualified for the role of sexual decision-maker.
And, if anything, our excitement and hopes over this new gel only proves that point.
Positively Yours,
Shawn
Watch, Friend and Follow me on:
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Website: ShawnandGwenn.com Also check out the lovely Gwenn’s Fashion/Coffee Blog
Like what you’ve read? Then buy me an iced mocha or check out my new CD: Synthetic Division, A Symptom of Life, which is now on iTunes!
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