It’s World AIDS Day, and like thousands, if not millions of my fellow webloggers, I should be writing about the ways in which the disease–or, more properly, the syndrome–has touched my life, the sorrow it’s brought, the special memories it’s fostered. I should tell stories about the first person I knew to be HIV-positive (the brother of the man who directed me in my first-ever play), the humbling and/or awkward encounters I’ve had with AIDS activists, patients, and caregivers (at a dance concert, being thanked profusely by a group of Belle Reve patients to whom I’d given a handful of tickets that I couldn’t have sold anyway), or the many people I know who are persevering and have been for a decade or more (including a New Orleans doctor who ranks as one of my favorite people in the world).
I should be doing all that, but I’m not. For seven years, December 1st has meant something quite different to me. I know it’s selfish and more than a little hokey, but there’s nothing I can do about it.
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