Welcome

Hey there folks. Just created this blog and still have some bugs to work out.I am writing this Blog to share some of the things I come across on my journey through life.

I was born in 1962 to Sharlet and Thomas, the last of 6 children.My father was a rising star firefighter. He started the firefighting programs at Madonna, U of M and Washtenaw Colleges, Fire Chief of Westland and was a great EMT. I think that tagging along with him to watch him train the fireman in life saving procedures inspired much of my interest in medical stuff. I also got my fathers Russian fire when it comes to debate and not letting go of any issue.

My Mother is made of very strong stuff. An artist, possessing of so many talents to make anyone jealous of her and how I love her paintings (most of all the hardedge, mod nudes, I love all stuff 60's.) While I appreciate the creative juices my mother passed down to me, I value my Mother's families long history of civil service, duty to humanity, humanistic thought and untiring liberalism. I have many fond memories of cutting up peace doves out of paper plates before we would go to peace rallies with my family and members of our church. The 60's seemed so vibrant to me, even with the war and all. It seemed that we always had a CO or two staying with us.The 70's were a real drag however. My folks split up and found other lovers. I started experiencing what I would find out later was bi-polar and obsessive/compulsive disorder. I obsessed on the world ending. Panicky obsession mixed with Sudifedrin for my allergies (since the once a week allergy shots never did a thing.) My family went through many trails in the 70's, but for the most part that is very old history and baggage that I try not to carry any more. My father married a woman named Janice from my church (UU) and 3 more children joined our family, Adam, Amy and Andy. Dad and Ma live up in Sugar Island across from Canada on the locks.Mom found a great man, Pete DiGiorigio one day at the laundry mat ( another Unitarian Univeralist,) and he and his son Marcus joined a very large family. Pop is great. He is always there for me and if I already didn't have a taste for political argument, Pete brought it on. I cant think of anyone that is to the left of me politically, but he comes pretty close. It's funny, if things had been different I could see him and my Father spending hours debating politics, religion and life.

I came out of the closet in the mid 70's very young. Mom and Pops were very supportive, my Father and Ma the polar opposite. I joined the Gay Liberation Front (something like that,) at Wayne State, the All Peoples Congress, was an officer in the Student senate at college (I did high school and college together towards the end,) and an officer of radical student group. At the same time I became a young slut and being a big boy, could get into the bars and clubs while still under age. After money for school ran out, started working as a security guard at clubs in Detroit (TNT, Menjos, Glass House, Gas Station, Back Street and the Hay Loft,) and staying most night in a room at TNT.

While working one Valentines Day in 1981, I spotted this hot guy dancing to "I Can't Go for That" by Hall & Oats. As cliché as it sounds I was love struck and I starved for him. Eddie and I had a very hot night, breakfast and moved in together in a one bedroom walk up in Palmer Park a couple days later. Lots more about him later.

A year later a good friend of ours, took us to Chicago for our first anniversary. My first big exposure to Leather and S&M, now a part of my soul and religious thought. When we got back to Detroit I started to experience symptoms of anal gonorrhea and went to see a doc at a new gay clinic on Woodward Ave.. While it wasn't the drip, the Doctor said a weird thing. He said that there was a strange disease attacking gay men (Gay Related Immune Deficiency Syndrome,) in big cities and since I could of been exposed that Eddie and I should move to Chicago so as not to expose anyone in Detroit to it. Since no good jobs were in Detroit, we packed up and moved to Chicago (after living in a trailer next to a gravel pit for a summer, but that's a long story.)

In Chicago, Eddie and I ran a sex shop for 15 years. We watched hundreds of clients, friends, sex partners get sick and die over a 10 year period. I started getting tattooed or pierced (I do most of my own piercing and will talk later of this,) each time a friend would die, I am pretty heavily tattooed.

I joined a study of gay men's immune function at Howard Brown Memorial Clinic, with many friends, all now gone. Each 6 months I would go to the clinic and have lots of blood drawn, give them a stool sample and semen sample. I always thought it was funny that they had freezers in the waiting room with my body samples in it. The study is still going on and has contributed heavily to the science of HIV. So one day they tell me the have at test for what was now known as HIV, I go in a little room and look at the slip of paper and it says that I am positive. I return to the study 6 months later and the little slip says I'm negative, what the fuck, Anyways , 6 months later the slip says I'm positive and now the tests have been perfected, so I'm positive. Lots of other stuffed happened in Chicago, so of which I'll share at another time. But one other thing I'll share is that I started working in HIV in the mid 80's, consulting on sex to many agencies, public and private, as well as working for Test Positive Aware Network. And of course you will hear about Karen, my piercing soul wife later on.

After most of our friends had died in Chicago, Eddie and I tried to escape to South Florida, didn't work. I spent time there with Care Resource (formally Health Crisis Network,) Coordinating the testing program, which they have many. It was fun driving around in a 27 foot RV on Ocean, testing the hottest guys in South Beach. What wasn't as fun was working in Over town and giving out hundreds of positive results.

Anyways a couple years ago Eddie (BTW only me and a few others call him that, his name is Edward,) and I moved back home to Michigan and now live in Ypsilanti. I spent a couple years helping run the Washtenaw Rainbow Action Project (local Queer community center in Ann Arbor,) and now am a Positive Prevention Specialist at the HIV/AIDS Resource Center in Ypsi. You will hear all about WRAP, HARC and another group that is very close to me, The Huron Valley Bears in the future.Eddie and I just celebrated our 24th year together, still deeply in love. Hopefully you'll hear allot more.That brings me to the present. If you read anymore from me try to remember a few things: My past has left a heavy mark on me, more than I realize most of the time. I am a peer worker with lots of experience, not a medical doctor. I sometime get carried away, but it's usually from a good place.

Peace Out