Supposedly, enfj’s are my ideal mate. So, who are y’all? And where can I find me one? 😉
http://www.personalitypage.com/INFP_rel.html
Category: Uncategorized
Rousing controversy
Well,
My weekend
Friday: counseling skills training. We did a couple role plays, and I started getting into it. I may not be able to summon greater elementals as a drugged out barebacking fiend worried about his std status, but one could convincingly argue that it’s more of a personality stretch for me.
Afterwards, Ro and I picked up
Saturday, I made some bread from scratch, worked with Ro at the laudromat whilst our laundries spun. Came back home, whipped some of the bread into bread pudding, prepared a tomato based pasta sauce with spinach, zucchini & mushroom with some penne, and tossed a salad together.
Up early on sunday for advanced topics training (optional) the final training of the season. Yay. Involved a urethral swab. MegaBOO. It _still_ hurts when I pee. And I still get a little blood out when I urinate. Like 9 hours later. Fortunately, it’s feeling not-as-bad now. Never again. Urine tests, or I’ll just live in ignorance. But, I got a free lunch for sticking my swab in farthest. (so not worth it)
Kinda meant to go to political discussion group in rockridge. Didn’t get around to it. Got sucked into medic stuff. Enh, oh well. Mostly female (they commented that I would bring some welcome testosterone. Ummmm…), and they sound more chatty than activist. I wanna _do_ stuff.
One of the medics passed the 2,500 clients seen mark. He took the rest of us out to a tasty chinese dinner. Biked home. Another medic spontaneously invited me out to see the bay area from atop the oakland hills. Very pretty view. Nice conversation. Would have liked to have held medic, but didn’t want to send wrong signals, besides, would have been hard to do so in vehicle.
Home now, sleep soon. Work early tomorrow, then date in afternoon. Wall climbing and south indian fare. Here’s hopin 😉
stuff
Cute guy whose planetout ad I replied to contacted me today via im. Numbers have been exchanged. Hopefully soon we will be doing something in real life. Email to this effect just sent, proposing climbing followed by south indian for dinner, this is my idea of a date. =)
Did do some work-y foo, but the lack of direction and motivation has me in its lair and has already begun to devour my brain. The best laid plans gang aft aglay, and this plan was not well laid.
Did hit scrabble group, had a very nice game. Ended up 325 to 323, (I won, but damn was it close) and I was invited to their new years eve party. Woo =)
Then went and worked out. Membership at Y is very useful. Feeling much better. Home and chatty with roomies, blah, blah, blah. Trivial pursuit last night w/
My opinions on HIV and responsibility
This is my day of negative opinion, I guess. =)
I posted a couple of comments to a journal entry of
So, I’m kinda radical within the gay community in my opinion on this one, but the words “negligent homicide” always come to mind when I hear people say it’s okay not to volunteer the information. My straight friends have generally been even more vociferous in this position. I admit I’ve more often not asked than asked, and I’ve only ever asked about hiv, not about other fatals, incurables, or even curable inconveniences, so my own ass is on the line, though, given my tricking habits (similar to yours, but I have used condoms a couple of times during oral sex, once when the guy had what looked like a small scab on his penis). I’ve also stated that if I do seroconvert, I’m heading off to a tattoo parlor to get a biohazard symbol with the letters H.I.V. right above it, probably front and back. I feel pretty confident I would follow through on that.
The party line is that unprotected oral sex is even less risky than protected anal sex, but not zero risk. If you’re curious, I can get a little into the why’s and wherefore’s of that.
I feel it is the moral duty of the positive to inform their partners, and of the at-risk to stay informed of their own status. I feel it is a sensible survival strategy of the negative to ask their partners, and to only sleep with people they trust. There’s a huge disincentive to tell, in that the guy that you are currently so very hot for might say ‘no’, will almost certainly limit what’s going to happen in some way, and may even become hostile, vicious, unfriendly, whatever.
People absolutely are less conscientious now that there is a treatment available. Before reliable treatment came on the scene, as people were dying in droves, the gay subculture started shifting towards greater sexual responsibility, either through natural selection, or (I’d like to think) through a raising awareness of the potential consequences of our actions. It’s good that people are lasting longer, and I’m certainly not advocating a ‘wedding night virgin’ approach, or even serial monogamy, necessarily. There are other ways of being responsible. But there are also a whole lotta people who are being irresponsible, while glossing over the consequences, both for themselves, and for others.
to clarify a couple of points:
1) a whole lotta people
Not just gay people, and certainly not a large portion of any demographic you care to name. But it’s very possible for a small group of the highly irresponsible to do alot of harm to a much larger group of fairly responsible people.
2) Accusatory/Finger-waggling stance
There are people doing seriously bad shit, moderately bad shit, and minorly bad shit out there. This is a fact of life, and applies to more than just stds. Protecting yourself is always a good move. But those who do not protect themselves do not deserve the harm. Nobody does. And some accusation and finger waggling is entirely appropriate to my mind, and distinctly underused.
From a more constructive viewpoint, in my ideal world: Morally, people would keep informed of their own health status, and inform people of the risk they would be taking. Sensibly, people would take some basic precautions with anyone, even the apparently healthy, and would take further measures to protect themselves from known infectious individuals.
This would be one of those rare moments when I get dogmatic, we now return you to your regularly scheduled me.
The Two Towers: more specifically
Geek nights
Last night, I saw the two towers at midnight, vaguely guilty feeling about not plugging away with Ro at the code for work for his presentation foo. But oh well, I so would not have motivated myself to do work.
Dinner was cool, the movie was good, though not nearly so good as fellowship, imho. I genuinely liked the editing they did for the first one. This one amended many important bits and pieces that made me cranky. No spoilers. But bleh.
Tonight, wc3 with
Also thinking of chicago reminds me of Nicholas Alan Dickey. I wish I still had pictures of him. He was pretty. And we had a really cool dynamic, when it got going. Ah well, some things not meant to be.
Much interesting conversation. Home and long chat w/
Individuals vs Societies
So, something that shows up often (for instance, in the voyager episode I just watched, and the evolutionary viability of societies, blah, blah, blah), is the question of the good of the individual v the good of the society. In many ways, serving one serves the other. But at times, they do come in to conflict. But where they do, societies favoring the good of the whole tend to out survive those favoring the good of the individual. This is not good news.
My day
I started off the day by buzzing most of my hair off. Didn’t do too bad a job. Ro called, to say he had stuff to do in the city, so work later in the day. No prob. Hang out, fooling around on simon’s laptop. Eventually, I played a game of wc3 with Simon’s Brother Jake against two easy computers. We got trashed. Walked to Ro’s. Met him at corner while he was parking. Talked about my transcontinental biking plan, and a possible reasonable amendment to it, wherein I stop off at various intentional living communities on the way (as well as with friends and families). Exploring alternative living structures. Maybe I could even write a book. Hm…. =)
Lunch blehs. Not much on euclid that’s doing it for me these days. Need to find something new there. Or, more sensibly, need to cook stuff before hand. I’ll get up early tomorrow, and cook lentil stew, yeah, that’s the ticket, lentil stew.
Slogged through more work stuff. The insights I gained working on it on Saturday (by myself, in, admittedly, a not terribly structured sort of way) appear to have collapsed into mush. Insert noises of whiny frustration here. But still progress was made.
Back to my place, hooked Ro up with lj. Power cord from Tom finally arrived. Stupid UPS, YAY TOM! I have my clunky old laptop back online. No more work today. Bad me. <duck head in shame>. Nap on couch. Off to the clinic to get info on another training for me and Jason.
Afterwards, I headed off to the YMCA w/ Ro, who bought me a membership (I owe him half. He’s treating this like an employment benefit). Yay Ro. Worked out separately for a couple hours. Then we went off to the White Horse. Karaoke night. Lots of the younger GMHC medics were there. Lots of other pretty guys too.
I’m generally awkward in bars, and bad about approaching people. While at the bar, though, it seemed I kept ending up chatting with Ro.
Tomorrow, my plans are for much work and a trip to see the Two Towers with da roomies, and some friends. When informed of this plan, Ro was interested. Which is cool, hooked him up with the info.
I like Ro. He’s a great guy. His presence has had a big influence on my life out here. I like spending time with him, we have alot in common, and we have great communication. But I need to spend time with other people. And neither of our romantic lives are prospering at present. <shrug>.
Social initiative, from me, that’ll happen.
Is that a bird? A plane? Why, no, it’s a pig!
“Not the place where you live, but the place where you belong”
Today was my final exam (written, multiple choice) & full mock (blood draw, physical exam, oral swab, etc). I passed both. Then I came back. Got yelled at gently for not being willing to do exams & stuff. Started off helping the swamped paperworker, moved to giving results over the phone, then in person, and finally saw 4 appointments (supervised, and my supervisor did the blood draws).
It was actually cool stuff. I liked it, had fun, saw some very interesting people.
But I’m almost done with classes. Bonus classes include every cool thing we could cram into 2 hours that will make you an amazing medic, and counseling skills.
So, in truth, just one more week. Hmmm. How strange is that going to be. I won’t have a substitute for a life on friday evenings. =)