family & community

Everyone has a family. Some of us are genetically linked to a group of people through our biological parents, thus giving rise to an arcane industry called ancestry. These are people we may or may not care about, let alone love.

We also surround ourselves with and immerse ourselves in communities of others with whom we feel some sort of affinity and identity with.

Either group of people can bring love and support to our lives; challenge us to support them; and as often as not, end up causing us grief as well as joy and happiness.

  • Dear Momma

    Dear Momma,

    I’ve been thinking about you so much since you’ve been here. Yes, I thought about you a lot when you were in Colorado, too. Or in a pickup truck and travel trailer with Poppa. Or living in that incredible home you and he built “on the hill”—El Shadmir. I’m even recalling memories from Colby and the farm.

    You know, when Poppa was dying, I remember promising him that we would do everything possible to make sure you were ok. That you would live as good, happy and healthy life as we could possibly manage, and that if you ran out of money, we’d even make sure you get through that. I don’t know how many of the other sibs had a similar conversation and/or commitment, but I think it was most of us. He was just sure no one else knew you well enough—like him—to be up to the job.

  • The F word

    Enough already with the critics and detractors. I haven’t been doing a very good job lately of keeping current with documenting my personal story, which was and is one of the primary purposes of this blog.

    Despite the gruesome pictures from an earlier post, I am not currently experiencing any horribly disfiguring outbreaks, lumps or other obvious manifestations of poor health. The skin on my left leg has healed nicely and is completely intact, with no breaks, scabs or sores, for the first time in more than a year. The mystery lump on the right side of my face, under my jaw, has shrunk considerably, though I can still detect it. My smile is still crooked, due to what I assume is now permanent facial nerve damage resulting from Bell’s palsy. I also have a few persistent skin sores on my shoulders and back that are resisting healing.

    I can fall asleep anywhere, anytime.

    Other than these minor nuisances, my body seems fine, for the most part, and people who have known me for some time, assure me that I “look good”. What is not so obvious is the extreme fatigue (the F-word),

  • The Highland House

    In between blood clots and other speed bumps, I have spent much of my summer overseeing  the renovation of an investment property in our neighborhood that we call the Highland House. The project is an attempt to grow Michael’s retirement fund and improve our neighborhood at the same time.  The purchase and improvements are…

  • Post withdrawn

    Thank gawd for friends willing to help me get back on the road! Several caring close friends and family have asked me to remove my last post, mostly out of their concern for my own health and well-being.  What good is having friends if I’m not willing to trust them to see what I…

  • Breathe. Focus. Balance.

    (photo by: JuanJ) I admit that I am an erratic blogger.  When I started writing again a couple of years ago after a nearly decade-long break, there was a lot of pent-up inspiration to produce posts regularly.  What exactly I wanted to write about has taken a few turns along the way as well,…

  • What’s wrong with being #2?

    I’ve written before about my interest in geeky stuff like the Alexa website rankings.  A fellow AIDS dissident turned me on to Alexa last year, using it to point out how many Dissident websites and blogs there are out there, and how favorably many of them rank, especially compared to those websites that exist…