Another Uberman's Sleep Schedule Blog. (cont.)

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12:20 AM Sunday June 6, 2004 - Well I've fallen into my routine fairly nicely, though there is some to be desired. I went Six Flags in New Jersey today, so that was interesting to say the least. It was my first day after not sleeping, and I was a little tired. Not to mention, I'd only slept in about one of the naps before this. So in twenty four hours I was running on about twenty minutes of sleep. Despite this, I went up to get my nap a little before 7 AM, because I knew they were leaving at 7:30. I finally fell asleep, and around 7:10, half-way through, they wake me up. I wasn't the happiest of creatures, but cinammon buns cure anything I suppose.

   I slept a bit more on the two hour trip down, probably more than I should have, but what can you do. At 11AM and 3PM, I managed to sneak out for my naps, but not without making the other people mad. They'll live. Then during the ride home, I was beat. I'd been running around the park all day, riding rides, playing games, with the what-not and the who-diddle. So I slept probably half to trip. Again, probably more than I should have, but it was needed. Got home, and after a while of the www I took my 11PM nap. That went well. I fell asleep fairly quickly, and got up with the alarm. Then I took a shower which helped wake me up a lot. So it's now midnight-thirty and I feel fine! I'm a little tired, but that can be expected. So far, this is working out, as long as I can keep my schedule and my life from conflicting too harshly. More tomorrow.

9:28 AM Sunday June 6, 2004 - I'm very angry right now, so I'm just gonna keep this short and sweet. Everything was going great, until I went to my 3AM nap. I don't know what happened. Maybe I didn't set the alarm right, maybe I turned it off, I don't know. But, I woke up again at 9:25. I don't know what this will do to my schedule, but it can't be good. The part that makes me angriest is that it was starting to work. I got a lot of work done last night. I could concentrate, I wasn't that tired. I think I may have just screwed it up, and after only a day!

Next
I'm back. I've been pretty much away for a while... I'll cite stress, school, and temporary insanity as thin excuses, if anyone actually missed me enough to need an excuse.

Life's pretty different now. VERY different, even.

I'm on indefinate medical leave from school. It just plain GOT to me. My anxieyt got out of control and I needed to step back until I was saner. I start my new job Monday--it's a shortterm, till the end of August, the bastard child of web design, reporting, and copy editing. It'll let me pad my resume with a good recommendation, with no quitting or being fired. I'll be taking on another job, at least short-term, until Christmas at the soonest.

Ideally, my plan would be to wait until mcc graduates (a year, year and a half from now), move away, both get jobs (ideally in California, Bay Area), work long enough to get state residency, then go back part-time, nights, until I can bring my grades up enough to transfer into Berkely for my final semester/year.

ALso, well... there are other major changes that have occoured. I'll just post a livejournal entry from a few days ago instead of trying to re-write it, at this point...

I..... I can't believe it.

A moment I've spent the past five or six years dreading has passsed... and I'm still here to talk about it. I'm not a whimpering pile on the floor.

I talked to my parents for the first time in four years, quite likely more. For about five hours...

We talked about a lot of the issues behind my anxiety problems. Why I can't trust them. Why I can't trust ME. My adoption, and a lot of nasty emotional reactions therein.

I think they finally understand where I'm coming from, at least a bit. I know dad does; mom's still processing.

We're going to start making some calls tomorrow so that I can start tracking down my half sister (same birth mother, different men, both adopted to different families.) We're going to start making some progress there.

...........and, in the process of the conversation...
since it made sense in context...
I ended up outing myself from the broom closet.

Mom's reaction was "I know."
Dad's was "so what does that mean"?

I explained in brief to dad (it was abotu 4 am at the time), and he said "That really doesnt' seem different from what I believe, in living life and treating others, save that you see a woman and I see a man. Ok. Can we go to barnes and noble tomorrow and you can get me some books so I can learn some more?"

I asked mom "HOW did you know?" She basically said "I actually didn't, I just strongly suspected. Something your freshman roommate said on the phone made me start wondering. But I accepted it as a very likely probabilyt, did some research... I don't agree with you, but... I got over the emotional shock years ago, and was ready for the eventuality. We can talk about it, I'm past overreacting. That's already out of my system."

I... just plain don't know how to respond.

This is the argument I was covnicned would have them pack me up from school, drag me home, and lock me up until I had been de-posessed by a priest. Convinced it would cost me everything I had.

And now it's over, and... I don't know how to process it. I keep waiting for the other shoe... but I dont think there IS another shoe for once, and that in itself is a shock.

I... just...

yeah.

Wow.

When I contemplate the US presidential hopefuls I am struck by my respect for John Kerry; not for his policies or his political philosophies - he doesn't appear to have any of either - but because he is a killer. He has killed. He has expressed the killing urge, face-to-face. He has pulled a trigger and ended the life of one who was weaker than him. He is a strong man, a man of will, and I respect that. But he is not Kali, albeit that he might take California, haha. He does not produce life. He only has two arms, and his necklace is made of silver rather than of human heads.

I respect Margaret Thatcher for converse but complimentary reasons, for she has produced life. The existence of her son, Mark Thatcher, is proof of this. She has borne a child, a healthy child, a child which was not sickly, a child which lived beyond infanthood. The fact of childbirth is also proof that Margaret Thatcher is a sexual being. It is impossible to tell whether John Kerry or George Bush have made love. Their children could have been sired by others. Margaret Thatcher, however, was intimate with a man. This is undeniable.

For these two reasons I respect Margaret Thatcher. She has produced life, and she has been intimate with another person, two things I could never do myself. Perhaps I might one day kill, indeed I would love to, but I cannot envisage myself giving birth to a child or being intimate with another person. I have a mortal fear of physical intimacy. The simplest physical contact - holding hands, hugging - is beyond me. Sexual congress is therefore impossible. Not because I lack desire, not at all. I have plenty of desire. Too much, perhaps, too much desire. No, I do not lack desire. I am Howard Dean, I have too much desire. I lack nothing; the force which prevents my contact with another is a disincentive, for I am repulsed by my own body, filled with a sense of shame at my own deficient physique. I cannot subject another person to the torture of my own body, a body which counterweighs my considerable mental gifts. My physical appearance has closed so many pathways which I might have taken; so many jobs, so many friends I lost because of my looks. I can never be accepted as an artist, or a poet, despite my hypercreativity, simply because I am not attractive, not pleasant to the eye. I do not smile. There are no ugly poets, ugly artists.

When she was in the prime of sexual life, Margaret Thatcher was pleasant to the eye, as was John Kerry. It is interesting to speculate on the offspring of their union, the union of killer and lifegiver. It cannot come to pass now, because Margaret Thatcher is no longer fertile. Would their child have been ultra-human? A force of good or evil? Or chaos, chaos being neither good nor evil? Would it have worn a necklace of human heads?

All children are the sons of lifegivers, yet few are the sons of killers, fewer still in this time of peace amongst the civilised people of the world. Perhaps one day our children will not be the sons of lifegivers, instead borne from a tube; cut off from the fundamental realities of life and death, of beginning and end. Will these people be better heirs than the ultra-humans?

I foolishly agreed to help some friends put a new roof on their lake cabin. The project took a day longer than we had planned, and I got wicked sunburnt from the waist up.

I'm home now, and the first thing I did this morning when I woke up with my skin on fire was take a Vicodin. After watching some television and dozing on the couch, I composed this little opus.

Vicodin
You take away my pain
My aching legs
My sunburnt torso
All feel better
When I have you

Also
You make me keenly aware
Of my tongue
And my heartbeat

I really hate drugs, even aspirin, but I love me some Vicodin.

Last night I was the old abandoned Internet, off on the edge of town on e2 and IRC until about 3 AM, when I started writing a long and rambling email that I ended up not sending. I rolled into bed at about 3:45 AM and was surprised to find that I couldn't sleep. Time passed.

At about 4:30 AM I was thinking about a book I was reading last summer. How The Mind Works by Stephen Pinker. Suddenly, the early morning light, the sleeplessness, and memory clicked, and I felt a wave of recollection of last summer.

That was a strange time for me. After GCSEs I had an extended summer holiday of about 9 weeks, which is, I think, the longest time off school I have had since I entered the educational system. That's an odd thought, too. I took a kind of sabbatical in those months. I barely saw or spoke to my freinds.

The rest of my family were all at work at that point. As always in long holidays, without restrictions on when I had to go to sleep or get up, my sleep schedule slowly moved round until I was sleeping at 3-5AM and waking up at noon. That meant that by the time I woke up, my family had left for work.

I spent a lot of time alone that summer. I'm not sure why, but it was something I needed to do.

I also cut off my hair, which I had let grow to shoulder length, the longest it has ever been. In fact, I shaved my head. That was an odd experience, and a valuable one.


Earlier last night I was talking to a friend on MSN Instant Messenger:

Me: something or other
Them: something or other
Me: Ah, life.
Them: yea it sucks doesn't it?
Me: It has it's ups and downs.
Me: In fact, it is a constant ocssillation of ups and downs
Them: yeah
Me: And I can't spell.

Then this morning I was reading Blue Mars (yes, again) and a character used the phrase "large grained chaos". He was describing a sort of chaotic rocky terrain with large structures in it, but it struck me as such an apt phrase to describe LIFE that I laughed out loud.

It also inspired me to create a Paint/Photoshop mishmash of layered and distorted Gaussian noise, blurring and 4 colour posterization that is objectively hideous but reminds me of that moment of recognition* so that it makes me smile when I see it.


* Choosing this word was the hardest part of writing this daylog.

Then as it was, then again it will be
And though the course may change sometimes
Rivers always reach the sea
Blind stars of fortune, each have several rays
On the wings of maybe, down in birds of prey
Kind of makes me feel sometimes, didn't have to grow
But as the eagle leaves the nest, it's got so far to go

--Led Zeppelin
Ten Years Gone

Every year I spend two days, the sixth and seventh of June, in somewhat quiet contemplation. Today marks the tenth year of these "holidays" which might seem a morbid celebration to many. It is the anniversary of my suicide and my return from death.

On the night of June 6th each year I have a party by myself, alone, with no concerns other than enjoying the moment. It is kind of a replay of the night of my suicide, except that I'm quite happy and enjoying myself and have absolutely no desire or intention to end my life.

Every June 7th I recharge and attempt to once again see the world in a different light and from a different angle.

And yet I've come to realize after an entire decade that I've been celebrating the wrong element. I've been celebrating my own existence instead of celebrating the existence of those people who have come and gone in my life in the time that has passed. And so, tonight I raise a toast to the beautiful people who have become part of my life these past ten years.

To Chris, the marvelously confused young woman looking for answers. A suicide herself with scars on her arms to prove what I cannot, she gave me the courage and the faith to reveal my story instead of hiding it. I'm sorry I didn't have any answers for you, Chris, but maybe we touched each other in ways that will reverberate throughout the rest of our lives.

To Bobby, my childhood best friend who killed himself after I did and didn't bother to come back. I hope you found peace and a way to forgive your father and your family. I pray you are not churning restlessly somewhere, for there has to be some way for you to regain balance. I feel the opportunity will be given you. Don't be afraid.

To Debra, who went mad with visions of Anastasia and the feeling that she was never going to mean anything to anyone. You couldn't hold it together. You saw things that induced paranoia and fear and then you stabbed yourself in the stomach when I told you goodbye. I hope you have found peace.

To Marci, who came back into my life and reminded me of what love really is. For it to be impossible to be with the one person who can touch the very fabric of your soul and weave it into new patterns with greater color was a lesson that taught me so much of what I needed to understand. Love isn't simple and it isn't black and white. Love is and it means nothing if it isn't unconditional.

To Ashley, the girl who was almost my adopted daughter. My scouting reports tell me you are doing very well. I used to want to cry when you called me "dad."

To Malhoit, Joe and Kevin. Together we formed possibly the most insane foursome even unleashed on the city of Worcester. Everyone always asked if we were out with our fathers and Kevin and I almost always said "yes" just for the fuck of it. And to Jerry, our Schneider-like neighbor with the work overalls, tool belt, six-pack of Meister Brau and the freshly rolled fatty. And to Ed and Bob for being the post office's version of Beavis and Butthead. And to the rest, Frank, Keigo, Dave, paranoid Scott, Larry, Donald, Nude Man, Maureen, Sue, Rick, and Ron. Those were indeed great days.

To Christine, who misunderstood me, but read my dark side all too well. You guided me to Orlando and wanted me to give myself to you completely. You couldn't accept the impossibility of that and so you left after giving me everything you could. I ask you to forgive me for not being able to give you in return so that we may be friends again.

To Victoria, for whom I could not stay in New Hampshire even though you made the entire state into sacred ground. It tore me apart to leave you, but you knew I could not stay. We had to let each other go three years later or we would have gone insane. More so.

To Tina, for being real and showing me that my death and the dreams were not a hallucination because you certainly were not. You always knew and understood more than you were willing to say. I could read it in your eyes. Thank you for all you did during the last days of my friend Don, who spent weeks in the hospital with terminal leukemia on your floor. May you find what you were looking for.

To Denise, the receptionist at my first job in Orlando who walked up to me my first day on the job and said, "You're dead, aren't you?" You saw a lot of crazy shit in every frame of life and you weren't afraid to be crazy. Keep on being crazy girl, the stars know your name.

To Chris, who became my closest friend in my early days in Orlando. There was something peculiar about me hanging out with a woman whose given name was Tina but went by "Chris." We held each other up often in those days, but our time together passed as our lives changed. I probably still owe you a drink.

To Doug and Mark at Haagen Dazs, who treated me like a brother during my employment there. Instead of empty jobs where no one knew me and no one wanted to know me, we became an infamous trio for a while. You were both the best sort of people, true to your word and always willing to laugh at yourselves.

To Christina, who passed away more than a year ago. The living dead girl to my living dead guy, you saw the future before it happened and you lived life at the edge every day, knowing you didn't have long to live. I loved you, and still do, and I'm sorry I didn't realize that I needed to let go before it was too late. Thank you for the reconciliation, and for telling Erin it was important to invite me to the funeral.

To Tammy, who saved my life with a handful of words that flowed so smoothly out of her mouth. You've always known who you are. As scatter-brained and clumsy as you are, the lost orphan on a mission, maybe the path you took didn't take you where you wanted to go. Maybe it took you where you needed to go. I have the feeling you had a daughter. I hope you are both doing well.

To Kris, the woman from the job I lost when my life fell apart, for being concerned and for reaching out, and for telling me you knew your mission with me had been accomplished.

To Chrissy, the woman from the agency who got me a job just before my dime in life expired. You disappeared not long after that, so I never really got a chance to thank you.

To Mark, who has been my closest friend for the past four years. Your paranoia and anger reminds me all too often of Martin, the best friend I left behind when I died. You're like an anchor that keeps me grounded, even though you're often staying ashore too often for your own good.

To Tammie, for showing me what it is really like when a person is torn apart and goes insane from obsession. It was a lesson I needed to be reminded of.

To English Don, who lived an extraordinary life just by living an ordinary life. You were a mentor to Mark as Malhoit was to me and you told me to look after him like a big brother, because you knew I could. We never had to explain ourselves to each other because we already understood. May you rest in peace and find the heaven you were looking for. George Harrison is about somewhere now. You finally have the opportunity to make up for waiting outside Apple Records for him in the late sixties because he was your favorite Beatle and didn't know what to say. You fumbled and said, "Oh, so how's John?" He probably doesn't even remember.

To Monica, my estranged wife, who continues to be a friend who loves, cares and listens. I gave you everything I could, but we both knew that we can't give each other what we really need. May your dreams eventually come true and may you learn to embrace and accept your free spirit once again.

To everyone on this website, and to those who have sought me out after reading something I wrote here. You've helped me discover the faith to know that I can speak the truth openly and know that there will be those that understand and know.

To Megan, for making me feel beautiful again, and for showing me that two people can accept their roles in each other's lives without asking for more and without cashing out. You really do have cute knees. I was just guessing, but I guessed right. We'll see each other again soon. Kissing you is like drinking a human cocktail, but mere words could never describe you.

To Joshua, for just being the person you are. You're much better as Mark's straight man than I am, but honestly, marrying a woman with the same first and middle name as your sister is just fucking creepy.

To Christina, the waitress who just might be the fourth queen prophesized to rise ten years after my death. You might be the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my life, in all aspects of the definition of beauty. If I were to design a woman I would have designed you. The fact that you tell me out of the blue that your philosophy of life is "Give everything you can to everyone you know" is just bizarre enough to be the most disturbing sign since Tina became a real person.

Often I see the world like a black and white photograph, although it isn't exactly like that. Some colors are simply more vibrant than others, and for the past ten years you have been the vibrant colors that I cannot help but see and smile at. I love you all. Unconditionally.

The only love there is, is the love we make.

Objects in the rear view mirror may appear closer than they are.

What do I do?

Why does this man hate me so much?

Why can't he act like a normal human being for a change?


My ex-husband and I have been divorced since April 28, 2004. We have two children together. He is supposed to get six weeks of visitation during the summer, in increments of no more than two weeks at a time. Standard visitation says he is to give me 60 days notice of when he wants them; in the divorce agreement I was nice, considering his military status, and only asked for 30 days.

2 months ago, I gave him a schedule which showed the dates I had blocked out for my vacation time with the kids, and asked him to fill in when he wanted the kids and return it to me. No response.

1 month ago I gave him another schedule with the same request. No response.

2 weeks ago I had my attorney write to his attorney reminding him of the fact that he needed to let me know when he wanted the kids. No response.

Friday at 4 pm his girlfriend called me to ask whether the kids could come to her roommate's daughter's birthday party. I told her no problem. She then informed me that Dave wanted to keep the kids for the weekend. I told her that I had no objection in principle, but that I needed him to let me know the schedule for him having the kids this summer first. I told her that he was welcome to call me and tell me the schedule while the kids were at the party, and if so, the kids could go to his house from there. She hemmed and hawed and fussed and didn't seem to get what I was saying, so finally I said "Look - if Dave calls me and tells me the schedule, then yes, but if he won't then no; no weekend visitation. If I really wanted to be a bitch I could hold him to the 30 days and not give him the kids til July 4th, but I don't; I just want to be able to plan for the summer." That didn't seem terribly unreasonable to me. I let the kids go with her to the party.

15 minutes later the phone rings and it's Dave. "Fuck you, I'm keeping the kids for the weekend." "Are you going to tell me when you want the kids this summer?" "fuck no" *click*

I called the sheriff's department and told them that he had taken the kids without permission. They told me there was nothing they could do about it since we have joint custody, but I have primary residential custody. I cried and cried from sheer frustration - I have papers saying when Dave can have the kids but do they mean anything? Apparently not.

Sunday (today) I was at Dave's house at 5 pm, since that is when his girlfriend had picked the kids up. I honked once. After about 10 minutes Dave slowly came walking down the driveway and checked his mailbox. He held up 6 fingers for 'six o'clock'. I shook my head and held up 5. He held up one - I think you guys can guess which - and wandered slowly over to his neighbor's house. I resigned myself to a long wait, since I certainly wasn't going to leave at that point, rolled the window down and started to read.

About 1/2 hour later I looked up and Dave was standing at the window of my car. He was holding the schedule I had sent him. He started yelling at me that this was his weekend, that my days didn't start til the ones I had blocked out, that I was a psycho bitch and a stupid fucking cunt. His spit actually sprayed my face, he was screaming so loud and so close. He kept on like this for awhile - I could see that his house doors and windows sere open, so I knew that my kids were hearing, if not the words, definitely the yelling. He finally stopped and moved away; I rolled the windows up, locked the doors and tried to go back to reading, shaking, trying to seem nonchalant and not to cry.

He paraded the kids across the street in front of me to go visit the neighbor, trying to taunt me and make me look like a psycho to his neighbors. I simply sat in the car and pretended to read. Finally he let the kids come to the car and go with me.

This is it - no more Ms. Nice Guy. Tomorrow I'm calling my lawyer and we're going to enforce the 30 days. Then I'm calling his First Sergeant and having a little chat about professionalism and a soldier's personal life. Then I'm going to go pick up my amendment to my taxes (because Dave claimed my kids without having any right to it), and I will watch with a smile on my face as he is anally raped by the IRS. And I will also call Social Services and let them know what happened.

I'm sure he hasn't come to the bottom of his bag of evil tricks - every time I think there's nothing he can do to me, he's done it all, he finds something new. But maybe, just for once, I can get some of my own back. A fleeting pleasure and a mean one, but beggars can't be choosers.

One of my housemates... let's call him "Bob"... came home Saturday afternoon with a new American flag for the house, which he promptly unpacked from its box and affixed at half mast to the included aluminum flag pole. He mounted it on the front of the house next to his bedroom window. When I saw it, I asked him who we were mourning. That's when he told me that Ronald Reagan had died.

"Bob" identifies himself as a gay Republican, by the way. This is a non-trivial detail.

That evening I had to endure the television news channels prattling on and on about Reagan and his legacy, while Bob watched the talking heads and gabbed on the phone for hours loudly to his friends about what a great man Reagan was. This made me angry and frustrated for a number of reasons, only some of which I was fully in touch with at the time. It's clear to me that Bob sees Reagan as a kind of father figure, above the simple adoration he holds for the man for political reasons. I just closed the door to my bedroom and played my music loud enough to drown out the idiot box.

I fell for Reagan's "Morning in America" feel-good campaign when I was a teenager. Hook, line, sinker. Later, after America reacted to the Iran-Contra scandal with a resounding "Who cares? What's on TV?", and when the Berlin Wall began to fall and everybody was crediting Reagan for the demise of Communism, I started getting really cynical about The Gipper. But he was fading rapidly from public view as his Alzheimer's worsened, and there seemed no point in further demonizing a man that most everyone clearly wanted to remain upon a pedestal.

So, it wasn't until I read this press release today that many of my fuzzy bad feelings about Reagan began to gel back together into identifiable forms. Bob would shrug this off and launch into the role of apologist if I even dared to bring it up, but I wouldn't. I find that I can't discuss politics with him for more than about three minutes, because his personal system of beliefs contradict his lifestyle choices so starkly that listening to his rationalizations makes me feel kind of sick. I'm lucky that I'm not filled with self loathing anymore. He reminds me all the time that some gay men don't ever get past that.

Anyway, I wanted to post this letter, so that you could read it. It's a press release and in the public domain, blah blah blah. I hope it makes you think. It didn't exactly make me angry, but it did remind me of one of the reasons why I have been feeling angry.

A Letter to My Best Friend, Steven Powsner, On the Death of Former President Ronald Reagan

Matt Foreman, Executive Director National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

June 6, 2004

Dear Steven,

I so much wish you were here today to tell me what to do. You would know if it's right to comment on the death of former President Reagan, or if I should just let pass the endless paeans to his greatness. But you're not here. The policies of the Reagan administration saw to that.

Yes, Steven, I do feel for the family and friends of the former President. The death of a loved one is always a profoundly sad occasion, and Mr. Reagan was loved by many. I have tremendous empathy and respect for Mrs. Reagan, who lovingly cared for him through excruciating years of Alzheimer's.

Sorry, Steven, but even on this day I'm not able to set aside the shaking anger I feel over Reagan's non-response to the AIDS epidemic or for the continuing anti-gay legacy of his administration. Is it personal? Of course. AIDS was first reported in 1981, but President Reagan could not bring himself to address the plague until March 31, 1987, at which time there were 60,000 reported cases of full-blown AIDS and 30,000 deaths. I remember that day, Steven - you were staying round-the-clock in Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital caring for your dying partner of over 15 years, Bruce Cooper. It was another 41 days of utter agony for both of you before Bruce died. During those years of White House silence and inaction, how many other dear friends did we see sicken and die hideous deaths?

Is it personal? Yes, Steven. I know for a fact that you would be alive today if the Reagan administration had mounted even a tepid response to the epidemic. If protease inhibitors had been available in July of 1995 instead of December, you'd still be here.

I wouldn't feel so angry if the Reagan administration's failing was due to ignorance or bureaucratic ineptitude. No, Steven, we knew then it was deliberate. The government's response was dictated by the grip of evangelical Christian conservatives who saw gay people as sinners and AIDS as God's well-deserved punishment. Remember? The White House Director of Communications, Patrick Buchanan, once argued in print that AIDS is nature's revenge on gay men. Reagan's Secretary of Education, William Bennett, and his domestic policy adviser, Gary Bauer, made sure that science (and basic tenets of Christianity, for that matter) never got in the way of politics or what they saw as "God's" work.

Even so, I think I could let go of this anger if this was just another overwhelmingly sad chapter in our nation's past. It is not. Steven, can you believe that the unholy pact President Reagan and the Republican Party entered with the forces of religious intolerance have not weakened, but grown exponentially stronger? Can you believe that the U.S. government is still bowing to right wing extremists and fighting condom distribution and explicit HIV education, even while AIDS is killing millions across the world? Or that "devout" Christians have forced the scrapping of AIDS prevention programs targeted at HIV-negative gay and bisexual men in favor of bullshit "abstinence only until marriage" initiatives? Or the shameless duplicity of these same forces seeking to forever outlaw even the hope of marriage for gay people? Or that Reagan stalwarts like Buchanan, Bennett and Bauer are still grinding their homophobic axes?

No, Steven, I do not presume to judge Ronald Reagan's soul or heart. He may very well have been a nice guy. In fact, I don't think that Reagan hated gay people -- I'm sure some of his and Nancy's best friends were gay. But I do know that the Reagan administration's policies on AIDS and anything gay-related resulted - and continue to result - in despair and death.

Oh, Steven, how I wish so much you were here.

Matt

(On November 20, 1995, Steven Powsner died of complications from AIDS at age 40. He had been President of the New York City Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center from 1992-1994.)


Founded in 1973, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force is the oldest national organization working to eliminate prejudice, violence and injustice against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people at the local, state and national level. The Task Force trains activists and leaders and organizes broad-based campaigns to defeat anti-LGBT referenda and advance pro-LGBT legislation. The Task Force Policy Institute, the community's premiere think tank, researches and reports on critical policy issues. As part of a broader social justice movement for freedom, justice and equality, the Task Force is creating a world that respects and celebrates the diversity of human expression and identity where all people may fully participate in society.

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