The Gay Blade

A student came up to me after a lecture last week to thank me. I'd been doing my annual guest lecture on "Gay Auckland" and, among other things, talked of the way gay men tend to move to cities from small towns, and how that affects Auckland, and often then we move on overseas, to Sydney, or New York or London. This guy came up and told me how I'd described what he had done by coming to Auckland, and now he planned to move to Sydney or Melbourne when he graduated.  He recognised part of his life in what I was teaching, and that's important. Earlier this year, I had an email sent in the name of some queer students in another class of mine, who said how much they'd appreciated me working gay/queer themes into aspects of the course, and how this never happens normally. It made me realise just how invisible we still are, and reminded me just how important visibility is. If we don't see ourselves represented, whether it's on TV, in movies, or in t...

A friend died the other week, a lovely, warm and kind man, he was younger than me, and it was out of the blue. Heart attack while doing something he loved, so as deaths go, I guess it counts as a good one. Not for his husband or family of course, it was just awful, but I'd rather go like that with no long decline of sickness and hospitals - when I go I hope it's fast. At his funeral there was a lot of talk about enjoying life now, seizing the day, not putting things off. These are things we all say, but they became far more real and relevant in this setting. So that, and the fact I will be 50 next month, have made me sit back a bit and take stock, consider my life and what I'm doing and where it's heading. I am still surprised to be alive - I never thought I'd make it this long after getting my HIV diagnosis in 1988. I've been told twice by doctors to get ready to die, and I'm still here. You'd think I'd be pretty good at living in the moment, ...