The Weekend Recap

Rob and Mike returned home on Friday. The camp site initially told them that there were no spots available for the weekend and when a spot did open up, they were already mentally prepared to go home. The dogs were happy to see them, of course. :-)

I stuck around for the rest of the weekend, attending mai_neh's game day/birthday bash on Saturday and dating with Eric Sunday night. I worked from Rob and Mike's home on Monday, and went into DC that evening to meet with Bob R.

Eric and I went to the theatre at Silver Spring to watch the new movie Just Like Heaven, which was a pretty good date flick. Then we drove into DC and wandered around, enjoying the beautiful evening. We ended up having dinner at Dupont Italian Kitchen. Then back to Rob and Mike's house to soak in the hot tub and share a bed for the night.

I met with Bob Monday evening to help him with some computer questions, although events conspired to torpedo any significant progress on anything he wanted to accomplish. For instance, he wanted to get some files off an old computer, but he had no extra keyboard, monitor or mouse. :-)

He made dinner for us and we wandered into Adams Morgan to have some dessert at Maggie-Moo's. It was another nice evening and our conversation ranged far and wide. Bob and Ted broke up again, so we talked about that as well. I spent the night with him and got up early Tuesday morning to take a train back to Baltimore so I could be at my desk at 9:00 a.m.

Can HIV be a blessing?

One of the things that Eric and I talked about Sunday evening was the idea that you might hear from guys with HIV: that living with HIV can enrich your life, in a weird way.

In fact, another man once said that very thing to me in an email from May 2004: "In a weird way, living with HIV can enrich your life tremendously, I have found it so." Upon reading this, I stopped and carefully considered how it might apply to me. Then I composed a reply to him.

Here's part of what I said to him:

I found out that I had HIV in late August last year, so in many ways I'm still finding my way. I've wrestled with grief and shame and I believe that I've mostly come to terms with my condition on a day-to-day level. HIV has certainly changed my life; this notice of mortality provided a catalyst that led me to terminate a 13-year relationship that I wasn't really emotionally invested in, realizing that I could look for a more meaningful connection.

But do I feel enriched? I feel that HIV has given me an opportunity to realize a little more of what kind of man I am. How I respond to this knowledge. How I'm capable of betrayal in my own self-interest. Good things and bad things about myself. Knowing what kind of man I am gives me the chance to change; to become more of the man I want to be.

I have more of an eye for the future now -- now that HIV makes my future seem shorter. Despite the advances in treatment and the intellectual consolation that I can still lead a full and happy life, the emotional reaction is that I will die before I would without HIV. (Remember that emotions can't easily be reasoned with.) That feeling is one of the things that led me to participate in the CBE workshop -- the realization that none of us has time to put things off forever.

I'm a stickler for precisely speaking and writing, so I say that I agree with what I hear you saying: HIV gives us another opportunity to enrich our own lives. Even though it's been less than a year since I learned of my condition, I do feel that I have begun to take advantage of that opportunity. I have enriched my life since learning that I have HIV.

Over a year later, and I still feel the same way. I've done a lot of new things and met a lot of wonderful people in the two years since I found out that I have HIV, but the virus didn't do any of that — I did.

I was talking to Bob Monday night about a realization I've been processing for a few months — that all of my problems are consequences of my own actions. I own up to that responsibility. However, I'm also going to take credit for the good things in my life too. That's also mine.

When Eric mentioned that some of his friends with HIV said pretty much the same thing — that HIV can be a blessing — I tried to share this viewpoint with him, but I don't think that I was very articulate.

One of the things I like about myself is that I can talk about these things with my friends frankly and openly, instead of avoiding the subject or keeping it a secret.

Buzzed!

Before I left Rob and Mike on Monday, Mike gave me a hair cut. Here are the results:



I like the new cut a lot. I usually have my hair cut to about a quarter of an inch, then let it grow out until it's a curly mop. Then I cut it back again. I think I'll cut it all off from now on.

I think I have a sexy head. :-)