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Hollier than thouEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The old man shuffled under the gilded layered robes, his face clenched as he went entered the room. They were waiting, ready to take him around, wanting something, a Word, some Guidance. It was another attestation to His greatness, His mysterious ways, his infinite kindness and wisdom. And it was Work.Work needed to be done, because people were watching, and they needed to learn. His job was to shepherd them. He has been given the light, the sword, the kingdom, he was clutching to it, although he knew it could never be taken. Not while he was alive.But there was infinity to prove. The world was unimaginably different than ...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - May 14, 2009 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

The LeapEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Out of anger and resentment comes redemption. Out of jealously and bitterness comes acceptance. Out of chaos comes peace. But only if you believe. And that nonaction is a struggle that has to be repeated daily like a mantra and a chore. I have always been lax at daily maintenance whether my own, embarrassing to say but even hygiene, or that of my surroundings. It's safe to say there is at most a 50-50% chance of me doing something when I say that I will do it. I do however try to keep my promises and appointments which is why I find it so hard to commit, even return calls and uphold contacts, and why I am fundamentally lon...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - December 7, 2008 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

Bare necessitiesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Ron asked me, in a yet-unanswered email, if I have been doing any writing. The truth is that asides from the last posts and a couple archived ones that I published, I have been self destructing. When I speak about self destruction these days, it no longer involves punctured skin or chemicals or painful sex, but it still invariably involves the self loathing that would set these off, the anger, the idling, the panic, the stress, the fatigue, the despair, the gritted teeth and shallow breath and strained muscles, and of course, the eating. I wouldn’t call it binging because I have binged in the past and I know it doesn’t...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - November 29, 2008 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

Let's call it homeEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I come home and I dont take off my coat because its too cold indoors. I rub my chin and feel the tiny coarse hairs I have to tweeze every day now, and I wonder about my hormones. I will find out this month if I have entered early menopause or not and if that is the reason that more than a year's worth of syringes sperm-filled hasn't gotten me pregnant. I mean, maybe I am optimistic, maybe it will take more than a month to find out. I am not trying tp find out everything I can about this, I have spent too much time in skeptic, concerned, frentic HIV research mode to dive into fertility mode, I know I need to be informed, bu...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - November 18, 2008 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

Lovable, affordableEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
It's a sparkling automn day here in the lowlands, golden sunlight is seeping through the white curtains, and the air will be fresh and crisp when I emerge from the cluttered yet cozy apartment and let my well worn sneakers beat on the dappled pavements. Then I will rush home, it will be already after 10.00, and hope in the shower, ignoring the water that rises above the clogged drain, towel myself dry and rush out on my rusty little bike to work. I'll be sitting alone in my room with a nunch of papers, typing away, waiting for a text message from my brother, who is hopping on the Eurostar to come see me after more than a y...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - August 19, 2008 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

Blessed and tornEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
P is away planning a wedding. It's going to be huge. Well not as far as weddings go but as far as I ever imagined. I am here trying to hold on, exasperated with the oblivious, well intentioned people that surround me, resentful towards those that do want something, apologizing profusely whenever I suspect that my unkindness unveiled. At the moment, I am wedged on a precipice of superstition, terrified of jinxing myself, restless, shifty as though I was going something wrong, committing a crime instead of sanctifying a bond. Ashamed as the con that I am.Jogging through the rain soaked park in the last rays of overdue sunshi...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - July 10, 2008 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

Foreign affairsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I stay home, not because I planned to. I have work to do, that ain't new. Have to finish something so I will have something to say somewhere, and they want to know what it is I am going to say upfront. Speaking and writing are different, and I feel a hollow dread trying to fill the void between 15 frontal minutes and 5,000 backstage words. I falter, drinking coffee after coffee, wandering the net, burning time as I have been apt to lately, and here is half 2008 and I am 4 posts poor. I guess misery and loneliness really do feed creation. There is a topic that I have been wanting to write about here at least for a couple of...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - June 26, 2008 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

All you have to be is you (how to lose friends and alienate people)Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
When I was a young child I had this recurrent thought before I let myself drift off. I was in a warm, single-story house (we had always lived in apartments), and there was a storm raging outside in the night, a strom so fierce it might've been a war. All our friends and relatives were already tucked safely in the other rooms of the house, butjust to make sure, I'd go through a mental inventory of my dog, my brother, my grandparets, uncles and aunts on both sides, cousins, dad's cousin and his children, neighbours, my parents best friends, then I'd go through my collection furry animals, and then I'd start thinking of more ...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - March 29, 2008 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

Love, actuallyEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Real love is not just about sunsets and ancient bridges, it’s about taking what you can and seeing the best. It's about accepting the person and reality for what it is. Real life, like real love, is being in the moment, not escaping from it. If your loved one farts in the shower every morning, you joke about it, and if he snores, you accept it, maybe by moving to another bed (or sending him to sleep there). You learn not to expect or need big romantic gestures, they’re good for telling your friends about them but not as good as having your lover take time off work to meet the plumber or pick up food on the way home or ...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - March 27, 2008 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

MonologueEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I’ve been away for so long, due to a combination of factors. Actually what brought me back to the blog is the fact that I volunteered (seems a somewhat dramatic term, but can't think of something more accurate) to host (again seems overly dramatic) the upcoming edition of the International Carnival of Positivities.I've mentioned the ICP here last time I blogged. It's a collection of writing by different pozzies from all over the world and all ethnicities and background. Actually not only pozzies, anyone else involved, anyone else who cares, basically, can participate in it. It's Ron Hudson's baby, so I will stop sounding...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - February 3, 2008 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

ICP 2.8Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
...(dialogue)I am honored to feature the new edition of the International Carnival of Positivities, as usual, graciously assembled by Ron.The links in the Carnival are mostly categorized according to their writers' own classification.I've been trying to write some kind of adequate intro to this ICP for a while, to no avail. Just honored to be a small part of this really. And if you feel like me, please let the authors know. Even a little comment can mean an awful lot.NewsEdwin at Criminal HIV Transmission, a "collection of published news stories about criminal HIV exposure/transmission cases around the world, and other rel...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - February 3, 2008 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

Not the only one (thank you Ron)Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
When I started blogging, I didn’t know anyone like me online and only a couple offline. I didn’t even start using AIDSmeds yet. Now I know there are so many people like me. I knew there were 65 million of us, I just didn’t know any of us. I knew the names of some celebrities who died of AIDS – most recently, in Israel, Ofra Haza, a very famous singer who died secretly in her home and I am not even sure how the press got a hold of the fact that she was positive. I don’t know if she died from neglecting the disease so much and not seeking help until it was too late, and unprofessional help at that (because money wi...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - November 12, 2007 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

ExhaleEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I think that sums up pretty well how I feel now. Too tired to work, socialize or even have sex(!). Never mind sex, to tired to breath properly, so I hyperventilate. I drag myself to work every day, not even showering regularly anymore, not cooking, going to the gym maybe once-twice a week. Something's gotta give cos I am not used to living that way. Maybe it has to do with being deprived of sleep or my stomach being almost constantly upset due to the new medication. yes, new meds. Just 2-3 months after making the switch from Stokrin (Sustiva) to Viramune due to the severe insomnia and near psychotic thoughts that the forme...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - November 6, 2007 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

LearningEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
So just a few words before I rush off to the gym... I have been trying to fit in the virtual poz world, but it's not really working out. You can spend hours a day reading posts, keeping up with others' lives, learning their whims, but when you try to correspond with them, at least in my case, there is a serious breakdown in communication. I don't know if it because my English is not as good as it can be when I am interacting, or whether like in any group, in an online community there are only few people that can really get me, and I them. I do feel that I have a soft spot for pretty much everyone I meet online (with the ex...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - September 16, 2007 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

Violently happyEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I do take into account that the fact that I wake up and all I want to do is grab my work and delve into it, or slip into my jogging gear and out the door and into the exceedingly colder and wetter outdoors, or into P's bed (because we sleep separately most nights, that way I can toss and turn away my PN-like symptoms, and P can snore to his heart's content), could be just a pseudo-manic episode or a post-menstrual high. So instead of following up on any of these options I end up here, with oatmeal and Moroccan tea in front of the keyboard (the only time I don't eat in front of which is at dinner, when I trade the laptop sc...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - September 4, 2007 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

Just beEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This year has been a difficult one for writing. I don't mean 2007, I mean the 2nd year of diagnosis. I moved into something else, and it's something I am particulalrly fond of. Unchartered terittory. What I meant to write in the previous post was so different from what actually appeared on the screen. I wanted to write about how all my feelings and way of living are different now than what I could possibly imagine, but what came out was a rant, a distraction. That's because life keeps distracting me. Real or virtual events interfere with what goes on when everything is quiet, late at night, my real existence.I can't really...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - September 3, 2007 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

Unchartered territoryEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
You wake up one day into what is to become the nightmare version of your life, the inconceivable. This is the day that you will be branded a low-grade biohazard, although it will be done gently and considerably. Technically, nothing should change. In practice, everything does. You are stripped of your identity and must face the world in your new one. Like a prostitute in a shop window, you are naked, except maybe for a thin layer of liquid silicone to make your skin appear mannequin smooth. It is not even dry yet, and you are sent to stand on the street against the elements: the wind, the rain, the passers by. You are at t...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - July 28, 2007 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

The first stoneEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
It's been again ages since I wrote, once or twice I started a post and drafted them. The main excuse was my RSI, the secondary one was peripheral neuropathy playing havoc with my brain. I can be all relaxed doing my thing when all of a sudden a shooting painin my shins, or my feet feeling as numb as though they'd been wrapped in ice, or a tingling in my lips and tongue, or invisible spiders crawling of my limbs remind me that on paper I have AIDS and had it for a long time, that I am taking medications whose side effects are unknown but in any case not expected to be anything less than toxic, and that the poz guy on my cor...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - July 27, 2007 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

The FoolEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
For some obscure reason, I bumped into an tarot reading site and did an online reading. Since then I have been recieving a weekly lesson in tarot. This is not something I have ever been interested in, I am usually quite scared of people who dabble in anything psychic or astrological, not because I think they have some supernatural powers, just because I think that they might actually think that they do. Anyway this whole intro is apollogetically aimed at explaining the name of this post.Apparently, the fool is the very first card, and it indicates "innocence", "naivety", and "no fear of new experiences or change". One shou...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - July 16, 2007 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

The revolution will not be televisedEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I have severe RSI and am not supposed to write at all, so everyone tells me, the physiotherapist, the doctors, the work doctor. Today i cancelled a semniar to which I applied follishly just a couple days ago, mostly because the thought of having to prepare a presentation to a potentially very critical audience on top of my usual chores might leave me severly handicapped. I can't tell you how difficult it is not to write, even as I write this......P. stuff is trickling into my apartment, and we live here, but it isn't yet official, it's two months already that he is in the process of moving. Today, my Ukrainian Jewish frien...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - June 12, 2007 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

No one........Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I posted this on aidsmedsunder the title How I was diagnosed, disclosed, and met my boyfriend. I am up straight more than 24 hours working nonstop, losing circulation in my legs from sitting, ankles swollen, I took a couple hours and wrote this, cried and shook some. I kept going back and revising, finally this embarassed me, so I put the full version here. Maybe I should update there too, what the hell....No one told me to get a HIV test. Because I am a woman, I have a good job, I look good, i don't do drugs, I don't f. around and had good boyfriends with good jobs. I should mention that I used condoms almost all the time...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - May 30, 2007 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

Tunnel visionEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
1) Why did it hurt?Yesterday was an "off" day. I couldn't meet, or even talk, to anyone other than P., and felt like I am alone in the world. Sometimes I want to call someone, but there is no one, I look at the contact list on my phone and it is incredibly short, but I admit that it is partially, or even wholly, my own making. It is me who isolated myself all those years, and continue to do so. It is not that P. isn't enough, he is great - he even gave me flowers the other day, the most beautiful roses I have ever seen (pic to be uploaded soon), and we can talk, laugh, debate, about everything and anything. But sometimes I...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - May 27, 2007 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

The power of loveEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This post has been simmering for the last days, I have been meaning to write it, but didn't find time to, or when I did, didn't quite find the words. Finally, I am at work after another unremarkable did in which I hardly worked at all (save for a budget related meeting and drafting a letter), there is great weather outside, P. is off somewhere, presumably playing pool, and the building seems to be quite. Everybody's gone off to enjoy the weather, which, typically, should only last TILL the weekend...But what I have been thinking, or rather feeling, that is just so hard to explain. A kind of overwhelming thankfulness, peace...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - May 24, 2007 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

What's new pussycat?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The clock is ticking towards 11.00, I am home, in my bathrobe, unshowered, after a too-big breakfast (bowl of oatmeal followed by muesli and milk, double dose of confort food). Trying not to stress, to stiffle the panic that comes with every new day.I have take to writing on forums as I mentioned here. Yesterday one of the participants asked what we like to do, in our spare time, to take the mind off, to unwind. I gave a long list of things that I like, things that I do. But I don't do them enough, hardly ever, I do other things. And that's fine too I guess. The forums. Making love this morning, both of us late for work. R...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - May 23, 2007 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

How I changed since diagnosisEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Now that I gave the title (always a mistake, better to write first, caption later), I feel somewhat like a kid about to write the "what I did last summer" essay. But I know I have changed a great deal. Recently, I have been using HIV forums a lot, where I get get pretty much instant feedback and respond to others. But there is a limit to the amount of self-centeredness that these forums can take I guess. And I guess me realizing that is also part of the change.I used to be very self centered. I based my whole image and worth on how others percieved me, or rather, how I percieved others to percieve me. I objectified myself,...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - May 20, 2007 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

The pursuit of happinessEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Not long ago I watched The Pursuit of Happiness which for a Will Smith film was very good. Erase that.... It was a good film period and he acted incredibly well. At the end of the movie Will's character, ingratiated to his wits' end, is overwhelmed with happiness, can barely restrain himself from breaking down in the midst of a crowded street, because he has finally landed a secure job and his able to take care of his son, after going through the hell of slipping down the American capitalist structure without a safety net, all the way down to the bottom, as can happen.Today I remembered this when my friend M., who has also...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - April 23, 2007 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

19.4.2007Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Wow, I knew that it's been a long time since I posted but hadn't realized how long it really was. I came back from Spain. I came back from Israel. Winter changed into spring. I've fallen into depression, climbed back out, fallen again.... I am still struggling in this swamp and there is no way out. The sun outside in shining, I should be at work but I am in P's house typing away.I guess I should go back and sum up Spain, after all it caused me so much grief and stress at the time. In one word greathard or hardgreat. I did well, I looked well, I interacted, I seemed successful and bonded with people, I couldn't sleep, I vom...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - April 19, 2007 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

Bug life/niets is zekerEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
There is an advertisment on Dutch TV for an insurance company, niets is zeker (nothing is certain/secure). I don't need Delta Lloyd to tell me that niets is zeker, my CD4 is again under the red line, I don't know why. My VL is still undetectable, or was a few weeks ago, but my CD is just not rising. Besides, I doubt they would insure me anyway, or that I could afford their premia if they did.Insurance, what a strange concept. My health bill for 2006 came through, it was more than 13,000 Euro. Luckily the Dutch health system reformed. I mean, when I was diagnosed I wasn't even insured, but they changed the law as they do ev...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - March 8, 2007 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

An elephant in the fridgeEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A guy wakes up thirsty in the middle of the night, walks sleepily to his kitchen and opens the fridge. Incredibly, there is an elephant inside. As the guy stands there blinking in disbelief, the elephant opens its mouth and says: "fact".This is my life, full of facts that I try to ignore and that I can't believe are happening. I am about to go and present to the head of my institution, I am going to Spain in 10 days or so, and will not only present to 80 people or so, but also meet P's family again, alone this time and bearing some kind of gift, I have a boyfriend who loves me and is a commitment-phobe, I have parents that...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - February 28, 2007 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

InspiredEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I've been neglecting the blog, the gym, my hair, reading, all because of work. But on the bright side, it'll be over and done with somehow (but how?!) less than a month from now, not work itself of course but this immensly stressful period. I know I should go see P's family again when I am there, find the time, bring them something. It will be harder now because of the heat, less hiding possiblities.I have thrush. That sucks and maybe is too much information but since it impacts my mood I thought I would write it here. Today I have been working on the presentation, not trying it out, just writing the damn thing ('think "I ...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - February 24, 2007 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

HelpEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Swish, squish, thump, thump, drag, bang, whizz, hum, slam, crunch... and so on and on till infinity. I am not talking about the daily grind of my life but about the two (nice, polite, friendly, clean-cut) young women that live above me. Before them there was a guy and I hardly ever heard him, but now, when they are not walking, rearrenging furtiture, sweeping, and incredibly! vaccuming daily, then they simply are not home. What a pair of buttaches, and the thing is, they are nice (I know, I already asked them to stop moving the heavy sliding door that they placed between the dining and living room and feel a need to move 2...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - February 22, 2007 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

It's been too longEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Life is rushing past, actually not like whitewater but like a slow deep river, the Mekong maybe, which looks swimable, but once you lower yourself into it it's really hard to get back to shore, and when you do you are way downstream already.I went through one presentation of my work which went well, although I was nervous and felt unprofessional, but I just talked like a child in front of a class (or a teacher...). Now the big one is coming up, I have to go alone to another country (guess which) and stand in front of who knows how many people, podium, mike and all. At least my bulging thighs and portruding tummy will hopef...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - February 13, 2007 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

Building up to climaxEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I got through this week with what feels like a 1/3 of the normal amount of sleep but was probabaly something like 1/2. I can and do blame Stokrin, but I know that it only interacts with me insofar as I am stressed, mentaly unstable, or whatever term for looney you want to pick. Having said that, Stocrin has been known to drive patients to a psychotic or near-psychotic state, and this is not just an internet anecdote but something every honest professional working with it (like T., my beloved social worker) will be able to tell.This week, I asked P., who returned into my beckoning arms, to move in with me. There was always ...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - January 14, 2007 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

Drowning in mudEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I have been having an awful time of it at nights. All my anxieties, all the white noise of paranoia and fear tunes in at night so that I can choose between several readily available points on the dial, the "how did I get infected" channel; the blind anger station, directed at whoever mis-crossed me that day (admittedly some pretty fucking annoying twats cross my [online] path on Israely web forums), the "oh God I have infected/will infect P, these doctors don't know what they are talking about" channel, the "early menaupause, no children, die alone" channel, the parents' channels (broadcasting mainly dread of Alzheimer's a...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - January 12, 2007 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

Resistence. Resolve. ResolutionEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
It's been 3 days since I returned from Spain. At first I had a bit of a reverse culture shock (or was it weather shock?), but now I am getting back to myself, whatever that means.Spain was wonderful, and hard. It exceeded my positive expectations and challenged my negative ones. I mean, I had no social trouble whatsoever, au contraire. I was treated extremely well, and I couldn't have been made to feel more welcome by any of P's family members or friends. P himself was teriffic, and stuck by me through thick and thin. But I did have myself to put up with, and I suffered moods and fears and even nightmares, as well as sleep...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - January 6, 2007 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

So this is ChristmasEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I turn the TV on and watch some Christmas Day mass in a pacific island catherdral, in which a Frech speaking bishop speaks to a white wearning, grass endowed Samoan looking crowd, who break out in beautiful native chanting in response. I have no idea where it is, maybe where Gaugin made his paintings, except that everyone is fat in a healthy round way. I hope it's not somewhere I am banned from entering, because I'd like to see it sometime, if it isn't like Fiji, Malasia (where I have been), Hawaii, who are three of the long list of countries that prohibit HIV+ from entering. Then the program ends and the Pope is on the sc...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - December 25, 2006 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

RetrospectiveEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The year is coming to a close. The days are colder, but sunny, and global warming is evident. I have been more chaotic that usual, even for me, living always on the verge of what seems like collapse from over-emotion, fatigue, stress and confusion. But somehow I made it through the last weeks without major disasters and with some minor achievements, even if they are not glaringly obvious to anyone but me.A week from yesterday is the anniversary of my diagnosis, and a week from today I will be on a plane on my way to meet P's family in the South of Europe. I have been dead nervous about both events, building up scenarios, a...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - December 18, 2006 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

Not perfectEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
It's almost 2.00 and I can't asleep. I am in my apartment for a change and it seems ages since I have been here. Somehow my life has one again slipped out of my hands and bacame someone else's. My work, my romance, or whatever it is, my body is in the hands of something other than myself. I don't even know what to start with.In a week or so I will meet P.'s family and I feel so unready for that. I mean, I will not only meet them, but stay with them for 10 whole days. But I don't want to go anywhere. I gave myself one year, and the year is almost up. A lot has happened in this year, more than I can ever imagine, but right n...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - December 14, 2006 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

changing subjectEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I have been meaning to write for a few days but it was the weekend. It's much easier to write when you do it every day, like excercise, because you lose the inertia. On the other hand, taking a step backwards gives more of a bird's eye view.I saw the psychologist again. It was very different this time. I told him how sick I got last time, and we discussed many things. I told him that even so, the last meeting had a positive impact, because I stoppped smoking. But then, in the last 2 days I did smoke a couple of cigarettes. Anyway it was less about the fags and more about the state of mind that allowed me to re-prioritize. ...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - November 27, 2006 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

she's incredibleEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I haven't been this excited about a new musician for a long time:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD5sahXoj0Uhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty0v-VVvKsU&mode=related&search=Amy%20Winehouse%20Rehabhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKYTpzrJtX4&search=Amy%20Winehouse%20Rehabeven more awsome live:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dec9pQUnmCchttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjHQV-SuqNE&mode=related&search=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdILAAWxY_0&mode=related&search=
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - November 23, 2006 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

So...Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I don't write, I heard from a penpal that this blog is depressing, but I don't think so, I mean, it's hard for me to judge it objectively, I only know it helps me survive, when I get into the loop, when I isolate myself like I did today, staying in, confining myself to my apartment and the screen, mostly, trying to reach out but failing, trying to work but not quite managing.Sometimes I feel so out of touch with home, so far away. My mum called while I was trying to put together some mechanical task that would resemble some pretext of work, and I told her I was busy. I regretted it, but she was not online later. And my pho...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - November 23, 2006 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

There has to be another wayEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I am tense, so tense, and I hardly slept. But why is that, and how much of it is caused by me (all maybe?) and preventable?I met P. last night, it was great, that's not the problem. I somehow don't want to write about that here, too intimate. I will just say it was wonderful, but somehow I closed it off in the "wonderful" compartment, and that does nothing at all to eliminate my fears. If anything, might make them worse. And I latch on to something (in this case, a miscommunication/misunderstanding with R. at work) and amplify them, but in fact, what kept me awake at night asides from P.'s snoring was terrible fears of the...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - November 21, 2006 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

Toughing it outEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
It's morning (though all the curtains are drawn and it is back to being damp and dark after a brief burst of spring-like global warming side effect), and though I feel guilty for not being at work/going back to the pile of papers on my desk, I let myself off the hook by acknowledging that I worked for a bit yesterday. P. comes back today. He's only been gone 4 days but it feels like ages. Not because I missed him every single minute (though I did, but in my heart of hearts I am not letting go - explanations below), but because, when I am pushed into spending "quality time" with myself, I go places so far and so lonely and ...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - November 20, 2006 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

And you have to be perfect, because...?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Letter:Hi,I also cook great food ;0)I have been bad at updating my blog. there is too much going on in my life to write. This week I will be away most of the week and busy with work. I have to stay in a hotel in a city near Amsterdam, and I consider this a trial run for my trip to Xxxx (almost the same right?). It is not only Xxxx, Xxxx doesn't allow even tourists with HIV to enter but many countries will not give residency or more to HIV+, that means that in about half the world I will not be accepted as a worker, student, or a wife of a local (whether positive or not). This includes Australia, Israel, USA and some EU cou...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - November 6, 2006 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

PanicEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I don't even remeber if I used this title once before in this blog or not, but I am absoluetly overwhelmed and brimming with emotion, fear, sadness ... you name it, I'm feeling it, and all at once. And nothing can get me out of it right now, not work or sport or sex or food or a cigarette, nothing. I don't know why this is happening. It's not the hormonal thing cos I am not PMSing, it's something beyond, an accumulation of the past months, years maybe, that is threatening to break through the dam.I slept OK, I was in this mood last night too after writing here and rushing out to meet E., my former teacher. We had a very ha...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - November 3, 2006 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs

5 minutesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I have 5 minutes, 5 min b4 I leave the bldg and hop out into the cold Nov night, to meet friends. What a hectic day, life, I am exauhsted, breathlessly jumping for one thing to another, unable to complete even 5 min of concentration, random, erratic.I know I should be taking better care but I fell off the wagon somehow, kind of like an addict, yeah, like Kiedis' whose bio I am about to finish on the stepper, gone are the days when I would be reading a book a week or much much more.Where am I? I am lost, apparently alone in the workplace, even though it's only 20.00, everyone is long gone, and if I didn't have an appointmen...
Source: NotPerfectAtAll - November 2, 2006 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Dragonette Source Type: blogs