Wes' Journal -- 1997 (part 4)
From the two weeks December 19, 1997 - January 2, 1998:
Having told the truth about our lives to the entire family for the last six years -- and about the lives of gays and lesbians in general -- the final printed version of our annual Christmas letter was mailed December 19. The significance of this final printed version is that most of the family is not online, so they will not be receiving future editions. We accomplished what we set out to do: We succeeded in preventing Priscilla, Queen of the Northwest from
slandering gays and lesbians unchallenged, and from erasing the true me -- a gay man who happens to have AIDS (and the man who loves me!) -- from the extended family's knowledge.
As requested in the letter from Priscilla's attorney two years ago, we did not mail a copy to her. (She presumably hears about the contents from other family members, however.)
Welcome to the twenty eighth and perhaps final addition to The Letter Wars:
From the week December 12 - 19, 1997:
- Openly lesbian (and highly qualified) Annise Parker won her December 6 runoff for an at-large position on Houston's city council! Nationwide, only two other openly gay elected officials -- Los Angeles County Assessor Ken Hahn and Cook County, Illinois (Chicago area) Judge Sebastian Patti -- represent larger constituencies.
- Wes went to The Center for AIDS' THIRD HOLIDAY SCHMOOZE on Thursday the 11th. (It was a lovely gathering: Held at the board chairman's house, there was a string quartet playing, a guest performance by the Houston Gay Men's Chorus, and a bountiful food spread.) To explain the Schmooze' purpose, here's how the invitation read:
Since 1995 The Center for AIDS: Hope and Remembrance Project has been working to empower those with HIV/AIDS with the knowledge necessary to live with the virus, without desperation and with hope. The storefront information center at 1407 Hawthorne opened new doors one year ago to provide life-saving treatment information to all people affected by HIV/AIDS. Because new developments in HIV/AIDS research are occurring so rapidly, The Center for AIDS' role of keeping current with and sharing treatment information is more and more demanding and more and more critical.
The only HIV/AIDS treatment information center in this region of the country, The Center for AIDS does not compete for government funding. The THIRD HOLIDAY SCHMOOZE is an opportunity for individuals to support its unique and increasingly vital role in our community.
- And what fun surprise happened at the Schmooze? Wes got a volunteer appreciation certificate!
- We will have this year's addition to The Letter Wars ready by next Friday!
From the week December 5 - 12, 1997:
- What's up this coming week? We're having our entire heating and air-conditioning system replaced. This means Wes will be spending most of the time in our guest quarters (cool, eh?!) to protect Mr. Nose from all the crud the work unleashes. But, as part of the work, we're having a house-wide HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air) filter system put in to get rid of 99.97% of particulate matter. Mr. Nose should be much happier! (Thank you, Tom, for managing yet another house project.) There's a chance there will be no update Friday the 12th because of the construction, but I do hope to have this year's addition to The Letter Wars ready by then.
- Late-breaking news: Tom had his 3rd calculus test Tuesday. We got the results yesterday. He scored a 104!!! (It's more than 100 because he got the bonus question.) That means he got "A"s on all three tests -- and doesn't have to take the dreaded final!
[big sighs of relief]
- As I reported last week, my toes had gotten cold. First we thought it was just because we had a cold spell. Then -- just as we were adding $1,500 in insulation underneath the house -- I realized I was having peripheral neuropathy. I wasn't very concerned at the time, as it could have been caused by my 21mg nicotine patch or a couple other drugs. But now I'm at week five of not smoking, and so have been on the reduced 14mg patch for a week. Plus I got the okay Wednesday to go off Sporanox and tetracycline (both related to Mr. Nose). Any change in the toes? Nope. It was amusing at first. Now it's getting pretty darn annoying.
- Since I just mentioned my own not-smoking, I have to brag on my hubby: Friday, December 5, is Tom's first cigarette-free day! I'm sure he'd welcome supportive e-mail at:
ta2000
at
westom.com
- World AIDS Day was December 1. Check out this wonderful article about our friend, artist Michael Golden.
- Quick recap on other things:
- Our bud Mike Geinzer is still out of the hospital after more than a week. Seems like the nerve block (which wore off after a few days) worked long enough to allow Mike to move around and rebuild some of the muscle atrophy caused by three weeks of being in the hospital. (Go, Mike!) He still has pain, but at least he's at home now and reasonably functional.
- My computer's power supply died on Wednesday. While I was working on a related project (replacing a surge protector behind a file cabinet), I was stretching, stretching, stretching to reach it. Do you see where this is headed? Yup. I pulled a ligament in my shoulder.
- Houstonians: Don't forget to vote for openly lesbian (and highly qualified) Annise Parker in the December 6 runoff for city council!
From the two weeks November 21 - December 5, 1997:
- Our 6th anniversary is November 24!
- Hey, the Cool Site! passed our 20,000th unique visitor on November 19th!
- Update on Priscilla, Queen of the Northwest (co-star in The Letter Wars): As you may recall, my father mentioned November 9 that she had a tumor pushing against her stomach but they didn't know yet if it were benign or malignant. When I last visited with him he said they'd gone in to do a biopsy -- but could not find it. Pretty amazing. Makes me wonder if
- the first test showing a tumor was in error, or
- the person doing the biopsy was incompetent, or
- if she truly had a miracle in her life and had a tumor disappear.
The last one would be pretty cool, though I must say I know many people more deserving of a medical miracle.
- Speaking of more deserving people, my friend Mike Geinzer (who, FYI, I originally met in the National Leather Assocation:Houston chapter several years ago) is going through a rollercoaster with his bone cancer. He seems to be handling the "six-months-to-live" diagnosis pretty well, but the intense pain he's been going through has been much harder to deal with. After deciding that a morphine pump was just no way to live (too conked out; unable to do much but lay around), they tried a "nerve block" this past week. Now, whenever I've heard "nerve block" before I figured they inserted something into a nerve and severed it, or something like that. At least in Mike's case it was 70 (yes, seven-zero) steroid injections into the area in his back that was generating the most pain. I'll let you know how that turns out.
- We'll be having three out of town guests stay with us over the long (American) Thanksgiving holiday. One arrives from Florida on the 26th, and two arrive from Dallas on the 28th.
- Speaking of visitors, my cousin Melanie (see the family tree) was in town to interview with Compaq. Tom and I had a good time taking her to dinner and showing her the city.
- FYI, my November 12th bloodwork is in and the results were stable. (This surprised me, considering that I'd just had pneumonia and sinus surgery three weeks prior.) For specifics, check out our t-cell and viral load pages.
-
My toes got cold when we had our first cold-spell. (It got almost down to freezing, which is unusual for Houston in November.) So, on the 22nd we had our floors insulated with Celbar. I knew it would make the house warmer. What I wasn't expecting is that it silenced most of the squeeky spots in our wooden floors!
- Anyway, more on cold toes: My toes got cold on Tuesday. I started wearing thick socks. On Thursday they were still cold. Then I went outside and discovered that the cold front had disappeared: It was a nice day. Why were my toes still cold? Well on Friday I got the answer. Apparently I don't really touch my toes when I'm putting on my socks, but on Friday I bumped one with a finger. And it caught my attention. Why? My hand felt it but my toe didn't. I touched my toes one by one. Crap! Peripheral neuropathy again! (Peripheral neuropathy, for those who don't already know, is a numbness or tingly -- or even complete lack of -- sensation, in the "periphery" of the body, especially the toes and fingers; or arms and legs.) I'm not worried this time, as I'm pretty sure it is some odd combination of the 21mg nicotine patch I'm on (nicotine constricts the blood vessels) and something else. But if it doesn't go away in a few days when I cycle down to the 14mg patch, I'll start investigating further; particularly looking into possible diabetes or other circulatory problems.
- Tom has started the smoking cessation pill called Zyban (bupropion hydrochloride). So far, it doesn't seem to make him as overly-perky as it made me when I tried it about 6 weeks ago. Send us good thoughts. We may be "testy."
- In my third post sinus surgery followup this past Wednesday, Mr. Nose was finally pronounced "clear!" And on Friday the preliminary results of last week's culture came in: No fungus!
- This week I have the wording for the Human Rights Campaign humanitarian award I mentioned last week that my pal Joel Martinez (from where I volunteer at The Center for AIDS) got at the Houston Black Tie Dinner:
For the past six years, Mr. Martinez has been an HIV/AIDS treatment activist, representing Houston and the interests of persons living with HIV/AIDS in our community at the national level. In 1995, Mr. Martinez co-founded The Center for AIDS: Hope & Remembrance Project. One of the goals of his new organization is to help share the national AIDS agenda [in] both ... the public, as well as the private sector.
He serves as the Community Constituency Representative from this area to the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFar) and for the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG); he is co-founder of the Houston Protease Inhibitor Task Force; and most recently served on an FDA advisory panel.
Mr. Martinez has initiated relationships with pharmaceutical companies to insure they are responsive to the needs of the HIV/AIDS community and helps them mold their drug development programs in ways that provide the greatest access to the most diverse population possible. His voice makes a difference in the quality of life for people living with AIDS in this part of the country.
Through all of his activities Mr. Martinez presents our HIV/AIDS community's needs in a manner that is compelling and effective.
- Houstonians: Don't forget to vote for openly lesbian (and highly qualified) Annise Parker in the December 6 runoff for city council..
From the week November 14 - 21, 1997:
- We found out on the 13th that TOM GOT ACCEPTED INTO THE MBA PROGRAM at the University of Houston for January 1998! (He's been taking the final pre-requisites since summer school began.)
- In my conversation with my dad on the 9th, he told me that Priscilla, Queen of the Northwest has a tumor pushing against her stomach. They don't know yet if it is benign or malignant. He asked if I would mind if he sent her some flowers or something (they essentially haven't been speaking to each other since The Letter Wars) with a note along the lines of "I'm not responsible for what my children do, and neither are you. But we will both defend our children when they are attacked. Let's put this behind us. Hope the tests come out well." Despite the crap she put me through, I was sorry to hear that she may have cancer.
But, while we're on the subject of Priscilla, this is a good time to address some items from The Letter Wars that have always bugged me. Frankly, I was hypocritical for simplicity's sake on two issues that I know of:
- Pedophiles (in the literal meaning, "child lovers," not the slang meaning, "child molesters")
- Leather folk
In The Letter Wars, Priscilla went off on homosexuals as being leather folk and pedophiles. I simply responded that most homosexuals were not either one, but that there were some homosexuals (just like there are some heterosexuals) who were.
If I had been more honest, I would have explained that my first lover (from February of 1980 - October 1983) was a true pedophile in the Roman tradition. When we first met, I was 16 and he was 33, just over twice my age. I cannot tell you how invaluable and beautiful his love, support and guidance were through my turbulent "coming out" and "coming of age" years. (For a good feel for what I'm talking about, read this excerpt from More Tales of the City.)
I also would have taken the opportunity to "come out of the closet" as a leatherman myself. Though foreign to her, and many others, the leather community has some truly wonderful, loving people in it.
There. Now I've said it.
- I returned from my (fun but tiring) Dallas trip to a week of doctor stuff:
- In my second post sinus surgery followup, we had to do some major nose suction. In the words of my ENT, "We're making progress." What's happened is that some of the "dissolvable" packing that was used to stop the bleeding after surgery has not dissolved, and has instead cemented itself to the sides of my sinuses. I'm doing what I can on my end by drinking lots of water and hosing my nose with saline spray. While he was in there, he took a culture from deep in my sinuses to see if there is any aspergillus (fungus) remaining.
- I also went to my primary doctor to followup on my pneumonia. She's concerned the aspergillus infection is systemic (throughout my body) and wants me on intravenous Amphotericin B three times a week. I'm holding off, hoping that my stamina is still off just because of my surgery and general anesthesia. The results of the nose culture, above, may determine what we do.
- My pal Joel Martinez, from where I volunteer at The Center for AIDS, got the humanitarian award at the Human Rights Campaign Houston Black Tie Dinner Saturday November 8th. Dr. Jocelyn Elders was the keynote speaker.
- Updates on things I mentioned last time:
- The "bug" that Tom came down with on October 28th turned out to be a light case of...pneumonia! (It makes me wonder if he got it from me.)
- I'm still not smoking. "The patch" is definitely helping, but I must admit I've been "testy" and pretty sensitive, emotionally. (Friends have suggested it might be due to morphine/codeine withdrawal from my hospitalization and after surgery.)
- I had a really nice time in Dallas November 7 -9 at NLA:Dallas' Beyond Vanilla, which featured our friends
Robert & Mary Dante, publishers of the well-known fetish magazine, Boudoir Noir. In fact, I had such a nice time I can't write about it. [big grin!]
- Openly lesbian (and highly qualified) Annise Parker made it into the December runoff for city council in Houston's November 4th voting.
From the two weeks October 31 - November 14, 1997:
- There will be no update next week because Wes is travelling to Dallas for NLA:Dallas' Beyond Vanilla, which will feature our friends
Robert & Mary Dante, publishers of the well-known fetish magazine, Boudoir Noir.
- Health stuff:
- If you live in Houston, you can help make local history by voting for openly lesbian (and highly qualified) Annise Parker for city council on Tuesday, November 4th.
- As recent visitors know, I've had a sinus infection that we tried nose suction to get rid of, been in the hospital with pneumonia, then had my
fourth sinus surgery Monday the 20th.
- The pathology report from my sinus surgery showed that I had a nasty aspergillus (fungal) infection. So now I'm on Sporanox, an antifungal.
- I had the stitches in my gumline (the ones from my sinus surgery) removed Friday, October 31st. This is a Good Thing, as they've been irritating.
- Last week, I had blown off stopping smoking using the smoking cessation product called Zyban (bupropion hydrochloride). It made me hyper, and also made it very difficult to sleep. But today, October 31st, is my first smoke-free day, using "the patch" plus some anti-anxiety pills. I could use encouraging e-mail.
- In Tom news, he came down with some kind of bug on Tuesday, October 28th.
- If this week's update is kinda boring and you missed last week's, definitely check it out in Wes' Journals.
- I did tons of site maintenance this past week. (It was good stuff to do while stuck at home not feeling so good):
- For those who didn't get to see my George Foreman autograph last week because it was too huge, I worked for hours reducing it down from 300kb to 6kb. So now check it out.
- I spent hours and hours adding meta tag descriptions (which help the search engines describe pages) to all of The Letter Wars files. (To see what the meta tags look like and do, choose View/Source in your browser and look near the top of the source code. Check out the tags meta name="description" and meta http-equiv="keywords" and look what follows after them.)
- Similarly, I went through and added "img src" .GIF dimensions to the images in those files, so that browsers can render the pages faster.
- Per Tom's suggestion, I moved "What's New" back near the top of the page where everyone can see it right away. 'What's New" had been at the top before, but it resulted in some strange descriptions in search engines: Instead of a general site description, the search engine would show "What's new this week" which really doesn't tell a surfer anything. It made the search hits clearer, but the downside was that return-surfers had to scroll down to see if anything had changed. The strange, tiny, general site description at the top is intended for those engines that ignore meta tags -- to help them not list just "What's New." (Some search engines utilize meta tags, while others go strictly by what's on the page.)
- I utilized HotDog's mass find-and-replace feature (which works on any files specified, not just open files) to clean up some coding from when I'd first begun this site in early 1996. At that time, I didn't realize that UPPERCASE tags are just hard on the eyes. So I spent hours converting the case of each and every tag. It may not sound like much, but if someone cares to look at the source code for Wes & Tom's Cool Site, it now looks much cleaner.
From the week October 24 - 31, 1997:
It's been a busy, exhausting time around here (we're talking a vacation, my hospitalization with pneumonia, my sinus surgery, and Tom's calculus test). But, despite all this, we now present to you our really cool update!
- I went to Folsom Street Fair in late September. This is my pictorial account.
- I'd been feeling run-down before vacation, but it was worse when I got back.
- My sinuses weren't doing well. I went in for nose suction. I also did neti pots (sinus washes) at home. (Speaking of sinuses, I re-worked the Things From Wes' Nose section to make it more educational. Check it out.)
- I was also diagnosed with walking pneumonia. The sinuses weren't helping. But we couldn't operate until the pneumonia was clearer. So,
- I was put in the hospital to clear up the pneumonia so that we could operate. (I wound up meeting George Foreman as an indirect result of my pneumonia.)
- I had my fourth sinus surgery Monday the 20th. This time we pulled up my gums to take pictures of the stitches!
- As you might have guessed, I blew off the stopping smoking. The smoking cessation product called Zyban (bupropion hydrochloride) made me hyper, and also made it very difficult to sleep.
- Latest word from my doctor appointment Thursday the 23rd is that my lungs are clearer. (I'm still short of breath, however.)
- The sinus packing comes out Friday the 24th! Oh happy day! Now I won't have to mouth-breathe at night! (It really makes the throat raw.)
From the week October 17 - 24, 1997:
- "Last week, as you'll recall..." (the opening line to Lost in Space episodes) Wes had pneumonia that was being exacerbated by a nasty sinus infection. (For details, look back a week in the journals.) This week, things got much More Serious:
- I went in on Monday the 13th to have major sinus operations done at my Ear/Nose/Throat doctor's. (Basically he did everything possible without having me under general anethesthia.)
For fans of gross things, I thought ahead and had brought my camera! Yes indeedy, I had my ENT's assistant take lots of action shots on the 13th as my ENT used all sorts of instruments to pull, poke, snip and suction out my encrusted infection, with little results. ("I got maybe half of it, but the rest of it is out of reach. It's as thick as peanut butter.") I knew from previous discussions what he really needed in order to get the rest of it: We needed to poke a hole directly into the cavity that keeps getting encrusted. (We'd done this before, but apparently not large enough to access everything. Think of it in terms of one end of a U-turn: The previous hole had given us access to one end, but we needed a hole into the other end as well.)
- Monday night was hell. Enough things had been moved around in my nose that it dripped down my throat all night. And, as I mentioned before, these drippings are like battery acid. A few drops, and the raw throat would wake me up -- and I'd be up for hours until the throat would calm down.
- By Tuesday morning, I had a plan. I went into my wonderful doctor's (look for pictures of her, too!) and called my ENT on the way. Could my ENT schedule me for surgery the coming Monday? Yes if -- as I had suspected -- the pneumonia were gone. I talked with my doctor about the Catch-22 I was in: I was going to have pneumonia until the sinus was cleared up. I was going to have nasty sinusses until I could have the current infection scraped out and have a big hole (delicately called a "window") whacked into the offending spot, so that it could be suctioned on an outpatient basis as needed. But no anesthesiologist would put me under for sinus surgery given my current pneumonia. She knew what to do:
- Later Tuesday, and on into Friday, I was hospitalized to receive intraveneous antibiotics to counter the pneumonia, plus morphine to give me the rest the raw throat had been preventing. It was heaven-sent.
- On Friday the 17th, I was released to make way for my surgery Monday. Tom had arrived at the hospital at 6 a.m. to talk with our doctor about my situation. Through his endurance, we made it through:
- my hospital check-out (think mini-move)
- a trip by my doctor's for antibiotic samples ("Levaquin") to get me through the weekend, plus a prescription for a pain killer
- a trip to the ENT's for final pre-operation paperwork there
- an un-godly long pre-registration process at Saint Luke's Episcopal Hospital, where the surgery will be on Monday
- filling my prescriptions at Walgreen's.
- Now we will just try and keep me knocked out and full of antibiotics until my sinus surgery Monday the 20th (note: this contains a 100kb .GIF file), so that the pneumonia can clear more and I can get some rest. Exciting week, eh?!
- Hey, Monday October 20th is the day I've marked to be free of nicotine. For the last 8 days, I've been ramping up on a new Smoking Cessation product called Zyban (bupropion hydrochloride). It's a modified form of Wellbutrin, an antidepressant. The theory is that Zyban will help provide (in about 30% of patients, per my reading of the material) a "calm enough" sensation that people can kick the habit. Wish me well. I can use lots of support on stopping smoking. It's going to be hard too: Tom (who has always willingly agreed to try stopping at the same time) will not be joining me this time -- pressures of school and work.
- I'll still pull together some fun things from Folsom, but the pneumonia and hospitalization have really just interrupted my schedule. (Imagine that!) In the meantime, enjoy this shot of the wonderful people I stayed with. (Friends Jeffrey and rusty not captured in this shot.)
Left-to-right: Kael, Me, Pokey, and our host Jeff
From the week October 10 - 17, 1997:
- Well, we may have new "Things From Wes' Nose" in a bit. Yes, it turns out that my walking pneumonia (which is only slightly better) is having a hard time letting go because... Mr. Nose has another encrusted infection. I really don't like to complain, but I must say this is a royal pain in the butt. Since the infection is encrusted, I am trying to drink ONE GALLON of water a day to help loosen it up. Plus use lots of saline nose spray. PLUS wash out my sinusses with a "neti pot" each day. (It's a technique from India, using a device that looks like a teapot. After boiling water [to sterilize the water] and letting it cool [so that you don't shriek in pain], you put the spout up to one nostril, tilt the neti pot, and let the water run through the sinusses and out the other nostril.) I know the neti pot is helpful, but it makes Mr. Nose very angry. He likes to sneeze and generally throw a fit for maybe half an hour afterward. Plus the things that drain into my throat seem like battery acid, because my throat gets instantly RAW from the drainage. All in all, pretty darn icky.
- Related to all the above, it was a four doctor appointment week. On Monday I went to my wonderful ENT (Ear/Nose/Throat) doctor, who drained what he could from my sinusses. (Remember, the stuff is crusty.) On Tuesday I was at my regular doctor so that she could give me a second shot of rocephin (an antibiotic) for my pneumonia. On Thursday I was back there again for a third shot plus an X-ray. (These shots are in addition to LOTS of oral antibiotics.) Then on Friday I was back at the ENT to have him try to chisel more stuff out of my sinusses.
- As if that weren't enough, Mr. Nose has a habit of deciding to drain when I lie down to sleep. Which of course means that the "battery acid" stuff drips down my throat and I wake up with an awful sore throat that keeps me up for a couple of hours while throat lozenges and sleeping pills kick in. I basically feel like crap.
- But, there is some fun news! As I mentioned last week, October 3 was Tom's 45th birthday. What I couldn't mention then was that our friends Vernon & Orlin were hosting a surprise birthday gathering for him. It was fun: He was completely taken by surprise.
- I haven't forgotten to tell tales from Folsom Street Fair, it's just that the pictures are not back yet from Seattle Film Works. (Last time I'll use mail-order. With cheaper one-hour service all around the city, what's the point?!)
- For those of you who don't read the comic strips, a big gay event is happening this week in "Luann." Luann's main heart-throb of many years, Aaron Hill, is telling her that he likes her -- but...
- Late-breaking news about our wonderful friend Mike Geinzer, who was in the hospital after being diagnosed with bone cancer. The radiation treatments of his left leg really brought the pain level down, and he is able to walk again. He was released to his home on Saturday the 11th. He will continue to get radiation treatments Monday-Friday on an outpatient basis.
From the week October 3 - 10, 1997:
- October 3 is Tom's 45th birthday!
- Part of the reason this update is skimpy is Wes (who does the updates) was diagnosed with walking pneumonia this week. It's not bad, he's just a bit tired and fevery.
- The other reason this update is skimpy is we were just informed last night that our good friend Mike Geinzer was diagnosed Wednesday with terminal bone cancer. So, it was important (duh) for us to go get some flowers and spend time with him today -- when we normally do the update.
- We have lots of fun tales from Wes' trip to San Francisco last week for Folsom Street Fair. We're saving those for next week, though, when we'll also have pictures to post. In the meantime, check out the gorgeous Chippewa 17" high shine engineer's boots that Wes got from Stompers Boots:
From the two weeks September 19 - October 3, 1997:
- We won't be doing an update September 26 as Wes will be on vacation the 25th - 29th in San Francisco for Folsom Street Fair.
- Since two weeks is a long time to wait for an update, we leave you with a really fun new item in Things From Wes' Mind to enjoy and pass along to your friends: Is Homophobia Associated with Homosexual Arousal?
- Our thanks to new pal Suzanne for the addition of the We put the fun back in dysfunctional! subtitle to the "What's our site about?" section.
- And, questions from e-Pal Alastair made us realize that some basic information about us was not present in the "Who are we?" section below. Now it is.
: )
- Saturday, September 20th update, midnight: Wow! We just got back from watching
Houston Industries' "Power of Houston" spectacular -- along with 1 million other Houstonians! It was the biggest laser, light and fireworks show in North American history. Truly spectacular. If you've got the bandwidth, here is a 175kb picture of the fireworks.
From the week September 12 - 19, 1997:
From the week September 5 - 12, 1997:
- Tom's mother had her heart valve "scoped" on Tuesday, September 2. The scope did show deterioration, so she had heart valve replacement surgery that Thursday, September 4. It was a long process, but she came through it. Tom is now up in Abilene visiting her. (She had told him not to miss his Thursday calculus class.)
- Congratulations to boydavid for winning the title of "San Francisco Leather Daddy's Boy XV" on Sunday, August 31!
- New in our e-Pals section:
- Kristina lives in the Milwaukee area and, as you can tell by her Scully's Journal, she really likes the X-Files. "Until recently, my life had been relatively untouched by AIDS." But then she met her Hero, a gay man living with AIDS who rides as "Teddy Man" in the Tanqueray AIDS Rides. He wears bear ears during his rides. His bike is wrapped in fur & is known as "Wooly Bear." And, you'll notice over the rear wheel a stuffed bear riding along. That's "Road Kill." (He was found in the median of a California expressway.)
- Long-time e-pal Kelly Warner has added a Why Kelly Doesn't Hide In The Closet section to explain the importance to her of being out as a bisexual, even though she is happily married to a man.
- We put last week's question from a reader about What is an Uncles' Party? into the index for The Letter Wars.
- The AIDS Links page is now part of the HIV Awareness Ring.
- Wonderful person & out lesbian
Annise Parker now has a Web site for her campaign for Houston City Council At-Large, Position 1.
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