2006
Not so much fun
Unfortunately, death from HIV from friends continues unabated and suddenly mid decade it seems as if we are back in the worst of it. So, unfortunately while I wanted to do some obits, two more people have died that are all intertwined into my life in many ways as close to Steven, so writing obits will be put aside unless I can think of wonderful ways to elevate those closest to me into something uplifting instead of having to mark the 25 year of this tragedy with a tyrannical number of obits. So, in order of death, we started with losing Steven, then Michael, now Rob and Frank have joined the procession. As much as I love San Francisco and try to keep some sense of positive spin on reality, it's as dour and sad as it seems it has been in as many of year. as soon as I can get them written and pictures together etc.
Unfortunately, death from HIV from friends continues unabated and suddenly mid decade it seems as if we are back in the worst of it. So, unfortunately while I wanted to do some obits, especially of the first the last of my triad of friends from my first year in the City, dies in January and then recently another loss hit hard from a newer but no less loved friend, Michael, who just died. Although I have no verbiage yet, here's a picture of "Deb" until I can get more done.
Then two more people have died that are all intertwined into my life in many ways as close as Steven, so writing obits will be put aside unless I can think of wonderful ways to elevate those closest to me into something uplifting instead of having to mark the 25 year of this tragedy with a tyrannical number of obits. So, in order of death, we started with losing Steven, then Michael, now Rob and Frank have joined the procession. And, although she is more natural, due to age, my Aunt died the same week as Steven did. As much as I love San Francisco and try to keep some sense of positive spin on reality, it does dour the soul and sadden the heart that almost everyone I have ever known and loved here are now gone with the wind
But as they say in show biz, the show must go on! So hopefully in the very near future I will have some dedications to these dear friends and some photos from happier days, when everyone would gather here before gay events, we'd party go out and have fun, now I'm always alone, since it is too difficult to go out when you can't wear shoes. It seems as if I really show look for some cheap land in California Valley or maybe around King City and see if I could buy some land and go live on it.
On a lighter note, if it exists, is this where I have to put stuff about thoroughly modern millie, or me. There was an old page which will have to do for the moment until I can spend some time updating it into something worth more than in and out as it were, from the page. Having just looked at it, I think I'll wait, it makes sense only if you were aware of my educational pursuits in the late 1990s. But more will come and hopefully the site will start to fill with more stuff for those who are interested as I add stuff to each of the designated eras.
As our wrap on 2006, which is now what this page will become, we find the final part of the year a painful mix of responsibilities and then Mother growing frail to the point of hopitalization and then only escaping assisted living with lots of in home care of various nature and our need to get rid of autos, plants and an assortment of items as well as do all of these things for her which we do as is the love for her. It it appears she will make it 2007, but it seems unlikely much further beyond that will not occur, at least at home.
Unknown note: Please note: these pictures are here for relative, and friends to take should you desire. I don't have the ability to have you add, but if you have pictures, you may send them via email, ensure they are 300 ppi. And be sure to download the image in the middle unless you want only the thumbnail.
2007
On the Home Front
The year started off, much as the last year ended, with David and I trading off different actions as needed by our Mother who had become more infirm at 88 years of age and was currently paying to have someone come in daily, per her doctors orders. Upon going down to sell her 1980 Olds, which was just a bit of luck, in one fell swoop she was in rehabilitation, the bathroom flooded and the sitting water seeped into the bedroom rug and suddenly my one day stay turned into a week, then except for brief returns homes, nearly the whole month.
This lasted into February, upon which I was finally able to return and stay home for a couple of weeks, until I need to return to empty her home and no doubt will bring home way more stuff than I really care too, and then David will take the stuff that we need to go through back to Palm Springs where during future holidays we will go through stuff, sit and cry. While she wasn't able to go home and needed the kind of care only available in a nursling home, her mind is still sharp and she seems to accept her current fate as most must in dealing with the ravages of time and the slow decay of the body from its robust nature that now last well into the the 40s.
Fortunately, after a long absence, I had been able to return David to the fold of two, which is certainly helpful for me but most importantly, it was good for our mother.
Once mother's home has been dealt with and things have settled down I should be redoing the EFC9 as we move to our new educational institution, and maybe later in the year, I may try and buy something (as in condo of some type) that can be brought through the mayor's office with whatever resources that might be available to me, as my only hedge against the future.
Political Hopes and Concerns
Of course the current madman in the White House continues his invasion and occupation of another country that is now so unstable, whether we can leave and have it regroup as a nation is unclear and of course somehow it has become the Iraq's people fault, which is just insidious thinking by the neo cons as if they invited us in to do what we did. Although I fully supported the Afghanistan effort, I never supported and could not figure out why we were being misled into this stupid move in invading Iraq, although to
"And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." ~ Abe Lincoln
After suffering with sleep apnea for more than a couple of years, where I was in such a state as to fall asleep at red light or stop sign, I was confronted with yet another medical drama. This one is a long and storied affair, which I can't tell yet except for the outline. Originally when I moved here, just in time for Christmas I got non-A /B Hepatitis, and unfortunately remember it all too well. I will try and return to continue this more than thrilling life time story of misery, disappointment and love lost, how how can one person be so able to attune themselves to find a story line that sucks as bad as this one? I can't imagine a more talented person than one who could do that.
2008
Well, 2008 brought some of more of the the same, my brother's husband of almost 40 years died, having a massive stroke and then having those who have been legally responsible, required to make a decision most of us do not want to make. So, does this protray the year or is the last gasps of yet another horrible Bush Presidency year. I say it that way in that it seems he was the sources of all that was wrong, along with 2007 and 2006; 2005; 2004, etc. And so I go to my Thrive meeting, in which I find out via the person who does walks through the Castro, yes there is more than one, that he will lead one on the 21st, and it should be special since, the Castro is to be reborn back into 1977, a time in which I visited, but did not live here and if there's anything everyone remembers it's Toad Hall, now part of Walgreens, which bought the existing pharmacy at the corner before expanding, in preparation for the filming of Harvey Milk.
Of course it will seem lonely with so many gone now, but that was then and this is now and it should be way too much fun to see the Castro transformed into the one I knew, starting with my first visit to my dear friend Wendy and her new husband Alan, who had moved backed here to finish college (Wendy), she didn't like SoCal, and they lived out on Taraval. And in those days the underground did not yet exist to Castro. BART and thus Muni in the downtown had been completed or at least BART , but the Chruch and Castro Street were still under construction, and so to go west, the trains came and went through the tunnel.
Wendy says, oh you'll know it, you'll come out from the tunnel and there's this big sign for the Castro Threater, get off there and you find what you are looking for. I did and I really never forgot I suspect. But, how fun Castro the way it was in my youth. Having never given much consideration to a day to day reality of life at this age, there was the time when 1996 was probably it, so whether past my prime or time, it is not something I've thought much about.
What will 2008 bring for most of us? Is it too early to ask? Could we expect that someone would come out of the woodwork and say hey! You, yeah you! WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO GIVE UP to save the planet as well as uplift the level of poverty that most of the world lives?
In contemplating this concept, ask yourself, what would give up first, how might you reorganize your life, or reduce etc. to meet some similar aspiration as expressed by President John Kennedy when he challenged the nation to go to the moon? Between what you consider most important to you and (for those who think other people exist) what might fit best in this cog in order to achieve the above ideas, then is there an intersection? For those of you who might not think allot about any of this for one reason or another, for those of you who do and realize the demons of chemicals in our lives, and for the animal activitist who realize that we are consuming all of the usable and now almost all species are on the brink due to ever rising population of humans, DO ANY OF YOU EVER GET IT?
IT IS NOT A TESLA CAR, it is a tesla home, and we need to shrink or microorganize our lives along the lives that has occurred with electronics. Are there any of you, assuming there are any of you reading, can read, or care to read sort of finally thinking of what the real answer might be? Forget that we can't do this or that or what have you, just from the plain perspective of an answer, there is, has been and until or unless there are techological advances, which do not end other concerns, IS AN ANSWER!
Since 1972 I have been against and fought for the elimination of the automobile. I actually hate automobles, but that does not necessary have anything to do with it. It is what it does and has done and continues to do to our lives and the rest of the planet. And, now that day of reckoning beyond a chance of salvation has arrived, and has nothing to do with any doomsday except our own for our own stupidity. And that is for stupidity in not remembering history and to think, if lead can bring down the upper or all levels of Roman life, does it not occur to you that placing our lives, even if we believe that just because we do nothing more than drive our vehicle, that we are immune from the chemicals spewed forth by gasoline, oil and rubber?
And that hatred it is not because I am not anti progress or some odd ball thing, just, why so much so land, the planet, our home, should we really give over to this belching beast, to satisfy our desire to be able to put space between what and ourselves? Are we so afraid of each other that we can't imagine that we can live close together with lot's of space?
Oh, but you say, we are so industrial, how will we accomodate the vastness of already huge population? We do what we did with electronics, we microize our lives. That means we begin to reorient our City's to a non auto development.
