On my recent visit to BC, apart from the official business of the family gathering, I had plenty of time to spend with my Dad and my siblings.

I don't expect us all to have a common position on the issues of the day, and I am seldom disappointed on this front. Two of my siblings don't get the idea behind harm reduction and sound a bit like our Prime Minister when talking about needle exchanges or supervised injection sites, despite not being on his page on numerous other issues.

The thing that actually confronted me was forced upon us by the news. Yet another of those hard cases of an HIV-positive man having exposed several partners to the risk of HIV transmission without disclosing his status to them, and the usual accompanying factor of police announcing his name and publishing his photo in the search for other victims. No, he has not been convicted; only accused.

These stories confront me on several levels. First, the whole situation of being convicted by public opinion (or the police) before the trial even takes place, something my legal training makes distasteful to me. Second, the issue of the criminalisation of HIV, which is really central to the work I do every day. I'm not going to explore the arguments here – most readers of this blog are probably familiar with them and I think I have learned over time that this is not a debate we will win before the court of public opinion.

The worst part of this for me at this particular time was to find that prevailing public opinion alive and well within the ranks of my own family. Not unanimously, but present. I really didn't expect that.

Alas, my postings of late have been few and far between, but this situation is about to get worse for the next couple of weeks!

I have been all preoccupied with my organisation's annual general meeting for the last couple of weeks. I am glad to be able to report that this multi-day extravaganza is now over, with some very positive moments (if you'll pardon the pun) and I am headed off to spend some time with my family in the interior of British Columbia.

I count myself lucky to have a very supportive and loving family, certainly a key component of my own response to HIV, and I am looking forward to spending time with them all. Unfortunately, a part of our gathering is about spreading the ashes of my mother, who died in December, but we will be glad to carry out her wish to have her ashes spread in a place she would have been afraid to go in life. (I'll talk more about that when I get back.)

I won't be able to post from BC, as my father has not joined the internet age (we're all working on him) and it's a very small town without a whole lot of WiFi and with a whole lot of mountains around it making even cell phone reception at Dad's house a mere dream. It will be nice to relax and be (relatively) unreachable for a while, particularly after the rush of preparing for this past week's meetings.

Alas, my postings of late have been few and far between, but this situation is about to get worse for the next couple of weeks!

I have been all preoccupied with my organisation's annual general meeting for the last couple of weeks. I am glad to be able to report that this multi-day extravaganza is now over, with some very positive moments (if you'll pardon the pun) and I am headed off to spend some time with my family in the interior of British Columbia.

I count myself lucky to have a very supportive and loving family, certainly a key component of my own response to HIV, and I am looking forward to spending time with them all. Unfortunately, a part of our gathering is about spreading the ashes of my mother, who died in December, but we will be glad to carry out her wish to have her ashes spread in a place she would have been afraid to go in life. (I'll talk more about that when I get back.)

I won't be able to post from BC, as my father has not joined the internet age (we're all working on him) and it's a very small town without a whole lot of WiFi and with a whole lot of mountains around it making even cell phone reception at Dad's house a mere dream. It will be nice to relax and be (relatively) unreachable for a while, particularly after the rush of preparing for this past week's meetings.

I'll see if I can't scare up some stories of being gay and poz in small town BC, even if it's only as an apostate returning for a short period.Alas, my postings of late have been few and far between, but this situation is about to get worse for the next couple of weeks!

I have been all preoccupied with my organisation's annual general meeting for the last couple of weeks. I am glad to be able to report that this multi-day extravaganza is now over, with some very positive moments (if you'll pardon the pun) and I am headed off to spend some time with my family in the interior of British Columbia.

I count myself lucky to have a very supportive and loving family, certainly a key component of my own response to HIV, and I am looking forward to spending time with them all. Unfortunately, a part of our gathering is about spreading the ashes of my mother, who died in December, but we will be glad to carry out her wish to have her ashes spread in a place she would have been afraid to go in life. (I'll talk more about that when I get back.)

I won't be able to post from BC, as my father has not joined the internet age (we're all working on him) and it's a very small town without a whole lot of WiFi and with a whole lot of mountains around it making even cell phone reception at Dad's house a mere dream. It will be nice to relax and be (relatively) unreachable for a while, particularly after the rush of preparing for this past week's meetings.

I went off one afternoon this week and got my hair cut. We know by the title of this post that I didn't go to some kind of fancy hair salon, and neither did I go to the little bike shop up the street that has been advertising "Lesbian haircuts" in the window for years. No, I went to the barbershop on the other side of downtown that I started frequenting – paradoxically – when I moved away from it.

There's been movement in the chairs at my barbershop over the years. From the early days of "four brothers, no waiting" as one of my friends put it, we have gradually come to a little more diversity in terms of age and ethnicity as the older Italian gentlemen retire and a new crop of younger Moroccan (?) barbers take their place.

Not only do I have a weakness for all things olive (the shores of the Mediterranean are just one ring of olive hotness in my eyes), but there is really only one of the remaining older gentlemen I want to cut my hair, the other being a little less gentle with my psoriasis-afflicted scalp and not the good kind of chatty I expect.

Now picture me walking into the shop this week and there are no customers there. One of the hot young barbers s lounging in his chair at the front of the shop, the other, as I would discover, is in the back. Chair 3 is abandoned (older gentleman I trust with my scalp not there), but back in chair 4 my last choice leaps to his feet and invites me back. Not a move from hot barber #1.

Therein lies my etiquette question. How can I actually choose the barber I want when the place is empty and one of the others is eager to get to work on my head? What about when there are more customers: can one wait for the barber one wants to be free and let others pass ahead of him? Who knew that a quick and regular task could provoke such reflection?

We have all done this. Not the work – mind you, we have all done that, too – I am talking about the naming of it.

Who among us has not, either in seriousness or in jest, called a friend a tramp or an acquaintance a whore, all to denote the other's – uh – sexual 'productivity'? I have a rather creative friend, an active participant in the writerly arts, who went so far into his thesaurus as to trot out 'doxy' on more than one occasion.

Now those of us active in the HIV/AIDS movement have all learned less offensive terminology to describe a certain target population that includes people doing everything from erotic dancing to the selling of actual sex services, on the phone or in person. We call these people sex trade workers. Yes, they get paid for it.

Now my friends and I, with few exceptions that I know of, have tended not to offer these services in return for any kind of monetary or non-monetary compensation, so what do we call ourselves? It dawned upon me this week that we have been Sex Trade Volunteers, selflessly giving of ourselves to bring pleasure to others.

If by chance there is some pleasure in this work for us as well, so much the better. Volunteering is all about getting the work done and having spin-off benefits for those who labour in the trenches.

So here at the end of National Volunteer Week, let us not forget these valiant contributors to the well-being of our society, the Sex Trade Volunteers. They are us, and we are praiseworthy.

Phew! The temperatures are now returning to something more like normal. This is a big relief to me, because I am totally unprepared for summer. More than a question of rotating the seasonal wardrobes from their cool storage to my closet and back, this has become a question of having to foresee new purchases when the temperatures change.

This is not because of the new rules that are now being applied to competitive swimming, diminishing the role of the borg suit, even limiting the amount and type of fabric that can be used for such purposes. I wish. I would happily go back to the Daniel Craig look in a classic swimsuit.

No, I have two challenges to face as the weather warms and the sun invades. The first is my classic 'prime candidate for melanoma' skin tone and my aversion to walking around like a greased pig (I don't want to make myself harder to catch, after all!). The second is my body's quest to see just how much fabric it can hog, how close it can come to requiring proof of identity just to read the labels: after a certain number of Xs, children not allowed.

I have half a mind to try to bring back the classic suits of the Victorian era, when seeing skin was a big no-no and my pasty complexion would have been a big hit. But no, I'm not sure that horizontal stripes would do me any favours either.

I'm just going to have to wade (pun intended) into the raging 'reasonable accommodation' debate here in Québec by getting myself a burkini.

This is the ideal response to the challenges facing a plus size gal like me seeking to avoid the penetrating gazes of the scantily clad passers by. Keeping my virtue – such as it is –  under wraps and my pallor intact, I could be seasonal and yet discreet. And if I should happen to wander into the 'wrong' neighbourhood….well, do you suppose I could get one in kevlar?