Malcontent

GMHC training is over, many of my friends (and most of my roomies) have taken off for the holiday, I had a slut spurt, I’m feeling stagnant again, I’m looking at an internship program which would let me teach high school math, perhaps starting really soon.

Maybe I should do those two little Access databases for the pittsburgh aclu, and then start volunteering for them out here. Blah. I want attention. <pout>

Dream Fragments

I had a couple of dreams about one medic at the clinic. One of the few that I find particularly appealing. In one dream I was out jogging, and he came blazing past (also jogging) then slowed down to keep me company. Later in that same dream, we were running through the upstairs of a house, which became flooded with water. I drowned, he somehow escaped.

In another one, same medic and I were in a locker room. In a bit vaguely reminiscent of the scene from “once were warriors”, he didn’t have pants (forgot to bring them?) and demanded mine. I pointed out that they wouldn’t fit, and this appeared to piss him off. I remember holding onto his shoulders and saying “I wanted to believe you were better than this.”

Hmm, another possible explanation for funky mood. Do feel better. Still workin out. Later.

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 , and a game of Settlers ensued at my place. Fun ensued.

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. took me and my little meal off to a holiday potluck in the south bay. I slept in transit, stayed up late, much chatter and general party tricks. (As it turns out, I can now put both feet behind my head. Now I want to see if I can get it to the point where I can do it by putting my legs behind my shoulder, the way the cool yoga guys do it.

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/ and . My community at present may not be precisely what one has in mind when one says “intentional community”, but it’s working fairly well for me. =)

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 that I’d like to repeat here:

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.