Hikaruland: Search results for cancer

Perhaps you've noticed something different this year, particularly a big drop in posts. I haven't mentioned it all this year, but there's been an underlying theme in my posts particularly in the second half of 2007: Cancer.

First, my aforementioned ex was diagnosed and treated for Prostate Cancer in July & August. The next month, my mother was diagnosed with Breast Cancer and is currently undergoing treatment. (Fortunately, it was caught very early.) Two weeks later, my great aunt died from Lung Cancer. (My extended family--like my immediate family--is very small, so this was quite a huge deal.)

As for myself, I've so far been declared healthy by several doctors, which is good, especially since this year, I seem to hear and see cancer everywhere. Yet, as a result of these medical issues, I've taken on some extra non-writing work in order to lighten the load of those recovering.

Although it's likely I'll post again before January: Good health to all who read this (even Jonathan Capehart) in 2008.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Every little bit helps

Some time ago I mentioned that Ariel Aparacio's cover of Pretty In Pink.

Well, it has come to my attention that until April 30th. 54 cents of every download will go to the Susan G. Komen foundation for the cure for Breast Cancer.

Frequent readers know that I have had several close family members affected by this disease, and I cannot emphasise enough how important it is that we work hard to find a cure.

Please, if you can, download Pretty In Pink.

Every little bit helps.

Saturday, September 06, 2008

If You Can Please Donate

The multi-network Cancer initiative, StandUp2Cancer is tonight.

Given how much it's taken a toll on me this past year--as someone who has had several people close to me affected by it, I cannot stress how important it is that this disease in its many forms be fought.

The event may have a daft name, but its cause is just.

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

The Importance of Same Sex Marriage Comes Home

While I have always been in favour of Same Sex Marriage, it never really hit home for me until this past Winter when my fiance (at the time, boyfriend) was hospitalised with double pneumonia and septic shock, further complicated by his HIV.*

* We are a sero-discordant couple. He is HIV+, I am HIV-.

Every day, I had to fight to get information on what was going on in respect to his health. While I figure that a heterosexual would be in the same position (at least in New York), it made me realise that in the future, were he to be hospitalised again and we were married, I would have little legal protection to ensure I was kept informed.

You see, at the time, I was also dealing with my mother's battle with breast cancer (which is in remission and likely to stay that way). In that situation, as a family member, I was privy to every bit of information and had strong legal protection.

I feel fortunate in that in both situations, I had no one else with an ulterior motive trying to keep me out of the loop, but many do have to deal with that.

Now that we are engaged, we are moving to a country where the situation is similar, but the chances are higher that it will change to an equal footing...although it is not going to be smooth sailing at all.

Nonetheless, it is sad and unacceptable that some couples in California may have to consider leaving their homes and lives in order to be treated with dignity and respect.

I reckon that I am preaching to the choir here, but in the chance this post may reach someone who will be voting in California, I strongly encourage you to vote No on Proposition 8. It is a matter of equal rights, and equal respect.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Fearless Leader: Trisha Goddard

I have been spending my down time here in Australia reading the biography of talk show host Trisha Goddard, who I really only knew as the black woman who took over Vanessa Feltz's talk show in the UK during my college years.

Well, consider me newly schooled.

Apart from the fact that she became the first black presenter on Australian television, her life was quite remarkable before she even got in front of the camera: including a stint as a wife of a closeted right-wing politician, flight attendant, and survivor of domestic abuse as well as an air crash.

Her autobiography, called As I Am (which does not delve into her recent battle with breast cancer) is most likely not to be found at US outlets, but if you can scrounge up a copy, it is certainly worth it, as Goddard is very candid, frank, and avoids new age speak.

Monday, July 25, 2005

Of Delayed Trains, Family Dining in Chelsea, and Matthew Rush

Further proof of Mercury Retrograde:

Yesterday, my mother flew into New York to start her "Auntie Mame" weekend. She invited her two close friends from college, her cousins (1st, 2nd, and 3rd--all women), and her aunts. Indeed, I will basically be the only male present during this 3 day celebration.

My day started at 7 am, when I got a call from my great aunts stating that they still had yet to leave the train station in Lynchburg, Virginia. The train was running 4 hours late due to track problems in North Carolina. I check Amtrak's website and it said that the train was estimated to arrive at 4:10, instead of 2:33; optimistically, Amtrak thought it could make up that much of a delay.

When I go to the airport to meet my mother, I pass on this piece of news and her reaction is akin to "oh, what can you do." It would radically change as the day wore on.

First setback, her room at the hotel is not ready. So we drop off her bags and head off to lunch.

After lunch, we go back to the hotel and the room is ready. After unpacking, we call Amtrak. The train is now scheduled to arrive at 5:27. Mother gets a little peeved. She has the concierge check to make sure that is the case.

(A little sidenote here: Amtrak now has an automated "assistant" called "Julie" helping you over the phone. It's creepy, because "Julie" uses collaqialisms like: "and that's for today, right?" Freaked me out.)

Meanwhile, mother starts the first of several calling blitzes to reschedule the limo to pick up herself and her aunts from Penn Station to the hotel, as well as the limo taking her aunts, her cousins, and herself from the hotel to that night's restaurant and back.

Come 4:30, we get a taxi over to Penn Station, because by now, it's apparent that the train could come in at any time. We go over to the Customer Service office, and the train is now estimated to arrive at 5:40. Mother smiles widely at the agent. Oh boy, she's angry. You see, my mother is one of those people who when she receives bad news, she doesn't openly fly into a rage, but displays the exact opposite emotion. The wider she smiles, the more irked she is.

We sit down, and I have two beers. (Sunday is one of my drinking days.) After a leisurely jaunt across Penn Station to find an elusive seating area, we opt again to go back to the Customer Service office. A nice Irish lady informs us that the train's arrival is now 6:30! Mother smiles widely. The woman tells my mother "you keep smiling, dear." Oh, if she only knew.

Eventually finding a place to sit, Mother lets her hair down...figuratively, and says that she wished she hadn't planned this. I mention "Mercury Retrograde," and add that she didn't necessarily have to invite her aunts nor her cousins. (The original plan was basically for her old college friends and myself.) Alas, she admits that guilt got the better of her, so she invited her Regional Jet-phobic aunts.

Somehow, through some miracle, her aunts do appear via wheelchair. I have to say, the women in my family are hardcore. These two women have been through breast cancer, heart trouble, and all other sorts of maladies, and the travel chaos of the day strikes them as funny. (They had been up since 4 am.) Mother on the other hand is fit to be tied. Her irritation shows when she tries to tell the limo driver to "drive! You're going to get paid. Just drive!" I tell her to "breathe and relax.")

When they get to the hotel, I break to go back to my apartment, because frankly I'm stinky by this point. The group, however, is hellbent on going to dinner. This means that I have to dash down the apartment, change, and basically sprint down 10 blocks to get to the restaurant. I had probably smoked about 8 cigarettes during the sprint/walk down there to calm myself down. Hysteria is contagious.

The resturant is a Southern & Jamaican place in Chelsea. Go figure, it's busy with Chelsea boys and their Guyland* female friends. Into this mix comes our group, 4 full-figured black women, a 2 year old girl, and myself. The toddler is in her assert-my-independence stage and I am seated right next to her. So throughout the meal all the conversation is peppered with "YAAAAAH!" and "Noooo!" right in my ear. I asked my mother if she spiked my milk when I was that age. She smiled and said "no." Uh huh.

*"Guyland" = "Lawn Guyland" aka Long Island

I can honestly say that was one of the longest meals of my life. Made even longer by the fact that my appetite was already shot by lunch. Fortunately, the benefits of eating Chelsea, means that it's just a skip and a jump back home via Splash.

Oh yes, I needed Splash after that day. I do love my relatives, but that was just too much for me. It was now just about 10, and I find a nice seat downstairs, and order a beer. Around the time of the second beer, the PA starts barking "Mattttthew Ruuuush is in the house." Oh lord.
It becomes like a chant, "Matthew Rush, Matthew Rush, Matthew Rush." I think that I can withstand the curiosity factor. No, I'm not that strong. So I mosey on upstairs and indeed see Matthew Rush dancing his heart out for dollars.

I have to say, he has always struck me as being overly muscled onscreen, but in real life, he does look more proportionate. He certainly is quite the energetic dancer, and when he finishes his set he ends it with a kiss to the audience and a "I LOVE YOU GUYS!"

Things can only get more Lewis Carroll-esque for the next three weeks.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

As corrupt as they are, sometimes I miss Ozaukee County elections

Democracy for New York (affiliated with Howard Dean's Democracy for America group) has three candidates for their endorsement for Manhattan Borough President:

Brian Ellner: Attractive, partnered, gay man living in Chelsea; Lawyer, with a previous stint on the District 2 School Board; uses "proud" and pink lettering in his campaign posters.
Bill Perkins: Black (grew up in Harlem); colon cancer survivor; community activist, councilman ("third highest ranking council member"); described by The Nation as "one of eight 'Progressive City Leaders' for effectiveness in dealing with local and national issues;" not officially on the ballot, but has a website up and running.
Scott Stringer: Six-term NYS assembly member (Upper West Side & Hell's Kitchen); authored a bill mandating that police officers serve orders of protection to battered women; led fight against the proliferation of LED ads; authored legislation allowing for same-day voter registration; appears to have a slew of endorsements; website doesn't mention much about his personal life, but if he's straight, then isn't it interesting that he got the endorsement of the Gay & Lesbian Independent Democrats instead of Ellner?

So it seems like a choice between Will Truman, Bill Cosby, and Alan Alda. This is quite tough, to be honest. Ellner's gay and pro-Arts, but doesn't seem to have much experience. Perkins looks like he could get stuff done, but isn't officially on the ballot. Stringer looks attractive to my conscience (especially with the anti-LED ad fight), but might not live up to his promise.

I miss just merely marking my ballot for the rare sacrificial lamb up against the Autocrat Republicans up in Port Washington.

(In honour of Pride Week, this week's post will be in Pride colours.)

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Slightly Evil Things I Have Done

I'm going to try to keep this blog from becoming "true confessions," but a conversation I had today at lunch with an extremely handsome man caused me to mention several of the huge lies I have perpetrated on unsuspecting people. (Listen, who doesn't babble nonsensically in front of a good looking guy?)

On a flight from Milwaukee to New York I told a very stereotypical Wisconsin woman (clearly going on vacation) that I was Anderson Cooper's husband. Not boyfriend, but husband. She bought it, but in order to keep her in the dark I had to sneak my way around baggage claim.
In Palm Springs, a good looking guy (from Minnesota no less, and heretofore referred to as "R") & I started flirting at a bar. We then went off to one bar where I played eye candy to impress his friends. (I did this knowingly and got a perverse thrill out of it. I believe I was a geisha in a prior life.) We then went to a leather/cruise bar (not my thing, but I was on vacation and am always seeking out opportunities to try something new) where some other man remarked how good R & I looked together. I grabbed R's arm and mentioned that we were newlyweds. The guy bought it, which was quite remarkable considering that I added on the fact that we had been together for 10 years, which means that R started dating me when I was 15 and he was in his late thirties.
I told a slightly off man in a bookstore in Milwaukee that I was part Tahitian and part Russian and distantly related to Marlon Brando.
I seriously considered going into prostitution while in college. A straight male friend of mine was going to service female clients and I would take the males. (It was going to be a cartel like operation.) The charge: 50 pounds, roughly $100.
While in college in Boston I routinely gave incorrect directions to tourists, frequently sending them into the sleazier parts of Chinatown or Dorchester.
To this day when tourists irk me, I send them to Staten Island or Morrisiana in The Bronx. (Not a slight, it's just that those aren't tourist locales.) You'd be surprised how some people actually believe me when I tell them that the Empire State Building is in Grant City.
"Oh yes, I just enjoyed bottoming for you." (Usually followed by a quick escape out of their apartment.)
At some internships, I have acted like a dumb spoiled slut so that everybody pities me and I don't have to do any work.

That's all the disclosure for today. Now you naughty Europeans can continue your search for naked Helena Paparizou pictures and praying at the altar of Cameron Cartio.

RIP Saul Bellow and best wishes for Peter Jennings as he fights against lung cancer. (His statement about his condition at the end of tonight's World News Tonight was moving in a very subtle but profound way.)

Sunday, January 30, 2005

Dad upstaged me

It's nearing February 4th, which would mark the 3rd anniversary of my father's death. I'm pretty certain in the coming days, I'm going to spinning more interesting tales about him, but I'm going to start from his death, because it illustrates our fractuous and competitive relationship.

Before I get this ball rolling, let me say one thing. It may seem like I didn't like my father, but I did. It took a long time for us to be able look past what we thought the other one should be, and see what the other one is. We never did have the "Dad, I'm gay" conversation, but I certainly never made any attempts to hide my attraction to men in front of him--such as a room full of male pin-ups--and he never expressed any hatred towards me vis-a-vis my own homosexuality.

Some (astrological) background: I don't know how many of you out there are only sons, but I am. In our house, there was myself, my mother, and father, and we didn't cotton too friendly to strangers. (We didn't cotton too friendly to relatives either, but they had the genetic excuse.) So the basic demographics were two men and one woman, so there was a lot of testosterone flying about. Let's factor in personalities now. I'm going to use astrology here, because it's great for personality assessment. (Note well, playwrights, note well.) I'm an Aquarius, my mother is a Leo, and my father was a Cancer. That's two fixed signs (read: stubborn as hell) and one mutable sign (read: indecisive and manipulative) and also an Air sign (read: opinionated and chatty), a Fire sign (read: Confident), and a Water sign (read: emotional). Air and Fire get on very well (respect amongst the equally powerful); Fire and Water get on decently (provided Water respects Fire's authority); Air and Water...not too friendly. I've had Water sign boyfriends, and while we could get along, at time it is like two people speaking two separate languages. Water is obsessed with feeling, Air is obsessed with logic and reasoning. Long and short of it is this: my mother & I got along perfectly, my mother & my father got along without much fuss, and my father & I got along like a parrot in at the North Pole.

Now onto the story.

Late in the evening on February 4th, I get a call from my mother. Sounding very cool, she says "your father is dead." She explained to me that she had called him downstairs in the basement and recieved no response. Thinking something was wrong, she went down to check on him and found him collapsed on a treadmill, dead from a heart attack. I remember being very together about this piece of news. There was no crying or angry thrashing of nearby items. In fact, I remember being angrier trying to get a berevement ticket to Milwaukee.

I make it back to Mequon, and my mother is...functional. No crying, no jaunts off to nostalgia, just handling the details. We're both more interested in hammering out the details of my father's estate. Then she tells me that the relatives are coming in three waves as the funeral nears. The first wave consists of members from my mother's family. They are all coordial, consoling, and very Virginian, which in this particular case could be interpreted as the Southern equivalent of being from Connecticut. The second wave, consisting of the first part of my father's family, arrived on February 6th. At the time, had you told me it was my birthday, I would've said that you were absolutely crazy. So when my mother turned to me and remarked that she's getting me a cake, I was puzzled.

That evening, I am greeted with the truly too-meta-for-words sight of a birthday cake being plopped down in front of me while assorted relatives sing "Happy Birthday." This was too bizarre. My birthday had always been celebrated with my mom & I going off to New York, while my Dad grunted a "happy birthday." It never really mattered to me what he said, because I knew on that day, he had to at least try not to rile me up. As I took in the surreal scene, it was then that I realised that I'd never again have the chance to act smug in front of my father on my birthday; nor would I ever be able to engage in one of our many arguments (he liked to call them "discussions," though I have never "discussed" anything with someone while speaking rapidly and in a high pitched tone) from Mitchell Field to the airport. When I blew out the candles, I talked myself out of making the first birthday wish that came to my head: "I'd like to see my father one last time." Yep, for once, he deservingly got one over on me.

As for the funeral, there's several other stories tell, but for now, this is all about my father.

An interesting postscript: The day after his funeral, one of the Encore movie channels aired The Karen Carpenter Story. Mourners in the house or not, I was hell-bent on seeing this. (By the way, Mitchell Anderson as Richard Carpenter...inspired casting.) So I sit down and make it through the movie. At the end of the film, there's an onscreen blurb that says that Karen Carpenter died on February 4th. Eerie, I tell you. Even more unsettling, is that while my father died of a heart attack, it was basically brought on by obesity...so now February 4th is now seared in my head as the day people with eating disorders die. (This somewhat makes me freak out since I'm a recovering anorexic myself. They aren't kidding when they say that eating disorders are genetic.)

Hikaruland

Thursday, December 27, 2007

The Year That It Was (On Here): 2007