We Both Laughed in Pleasure

My 9 highlights

• Last night I did my bi weekly testosterone shot and T walked in my room. Later when I joined him he was asking why I keep “poking” myself when I know he doesn’t like it. I answered, “Don’t even tease me about it,” letting him know we’ve gone through this already. He said he wasn’t teasing, that it made him mad. I finally said, “Let’s put it this way: I’d rather lose you than stop my shots.” “You mean that chemical is more important to you than I am?” “No, I am more important to me than you are.”

• Another gay I see a lot is real nice came over to me said “If I was ever going to… if I ever did… if I ever went straight I’d turn queer for you!” I hugged him told him “well put.”

• Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ AIDS: The Ultimate Challenge

• I’ve always felt that when doctors come across something they don’t know what it is, they call it “cancer.”

• It was from Alyn that I got the phrase “Yours in liberation,” the closure I often use when signing off letters.

• All 60 close-up facial photos Jim Wigler took of men (and 2 women) diagnosed with AIDS were on display in the San Mateo County Hall of Justice will be [for another month]. He had black ribbons on 5 of them and it took me a while to realize that meant they were already dead.

• Told him I’m not talking bout gory details but I would like him to know…I have been seeing another guy for a couple of weeks… He got real taken back said real fast “OK!!!” He started squirming in his seat I said he didn’t have to be freaked out about it he said real sharp “All right!! You don’t have to tell me all about it!!”

• Whenever I’m alone (i.e., without a boyfriend) my crossdressing becomes more serious constant. In my search for the perfect male companion, I find myself. In my need for a man in my bed, I detach myself from my body and my body becomes his; I stroke his hair, I see his wrist. I feel the warm winds blowing my open shirt from my smooth, hard, flat chest. I catch the hungry eyes of another beautiful youngman.

• Surely AIDS is one of the only diseases cloaked in all this philosophizing moralizing about why it exists.