Guh. It's been 25 years since the CDC first reported on AIDS. I first read about it in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report when it was still called GRID (Gay Related Immunodeficiency).
In 1982 and 1983, the infection rate within San Francisco's gay population was increasing at an astonishing 18 percent per year. Since those first puzzling cases, at least 18,000 people in San Francisco have died of the disease — six times the estimated toll of the earthquake and fire 100 years ago.
I moved here in '86 and they were just then closing down the bathhouses - an extremely unpopular move.
Happy Birthday, Dana!
At least crawling into an NO2 balloon would have been more fun.
Pelecanos fans are always sexy, Jesse.
Goes with the slamming musical taste.
Happy birthday, Dana!
We just came back from our godson's christening. Church, then Roscoes, then home for naps.
Guh. It's been 25 years since the CDC first reported on AIDS.
The really scary part? The first proven case died in 1959. (They went back and tested old blood samples from Zaire; they didn't know it till much, much later.) Can you imagine? The disease made its way through Zaire, from the countryside into the cities, and then jumped continents, and had
two decades
to flourish before anybody with any power noticed.
Happy Birthday Dana!
Managed to escape the Folk Fest with just one pair of earrings bought.(Dangly, of course. Red enamel with a black design which could be a flower or a letter in an exotic language, I don't know. I needed more red earrings, so there you go...)
Those sound pretty, Sheryl. And I admire your restraint.
Thanks, everyone!
Today is not only my birthday, but in approximately 45 minutes, I will have officially been on this earth for 30 years.
My father asked if it was traumatic, or if people just kept telling me it should be traumatic. So far, minimal trauma level. Large meal last night; today, I've been mostly glued to the computer, playing a game with lots of shooting and blowing up of things.
