California! I just got back from California for the second time – and it was awesome; I didn’t want to come back. My friends and I went to Palm Springs, Laguna Beach and Los Angeles. 

In Palm Springs, when we got there, the temperature was 39 degrees Celsius. It was hot, hot hot! We had rented a house since there were five of us. The house was beautiful, with a great pool, which we spent much time in. We made tasty drinks, and had tasty snacks. I got a great tan. 

My one friend who lives in L.A didn’t know I had HIV. I decided to use the opportunity to tell her. But first she was talking about how flaming my outfit was - pink shirt and lime green capri pants, and then for the pool I was wearing super short swim shorts. She said she didn’t remember me dressing like this. I told her I am so much more comfortable with myself now. She asked “what changed?” and I told her about the group therapy program I did last year and then I told her I have HIV. 

I was scared she might react badly, as she can be abrupt and abrasive sometimes. But instead she said, “I’m sorry and I love you” and hugged me.  And then we all had a big group hug and that was that. It was awesome; a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders and we continued like nothing happened. I have amazing friends! 

We tried to go shopping in Palm Springs but it was way too hot. We walked around for twenty minutes and decided to retreat back to the house. Nothing like a nice cold beer to cool you off. We spent four great days in Palm Springs. It was amazing just to relax and not have to worry about anything nor feel obligated to do anything. 

We then headed off to Laguna. I love Laguna; it is such a cute beach town, right on the ocean, with lots of cute, unique shops.  But one shop I didn’t like because the owner was insane! 

I tell my (women) friends I am going to go take a look  at a mens clothing store I’d seen. They head down the block. I was wearing pink shoes, lime green manpris (capris) and a pink shirt. As soon as I walk in, the woman in the store comes over and says “You’re so obviously not afraid of colour, this will be so much fun.” I smile and think “cool, she seems easy going.” 

She starts grabbing clothes - pants, shirts, and shorts - puts her arm around me and shoves me into the dressing room. I humour her. First I try on the shorts. I hear her say “my rule is you have to come out and show me.” I hate aggressive sales people, so I‘m annoyed but I humour her. I show her the shorts and shirts. I try on the pants, I love the pants! They are magically soft. I look at the price tag. My heart leaps, $185 for a pair of pants! I go out and show her, she swoons over them. I have to admit my butt look fabulous in them, I would do me. 

I go back in the dressing room and try to take them off but they are too tight. What if I can’t get them off? I will have to buy them. But I’m not paying $185 for a pair of pants. I’m struggling, trying not to grunt and I’m sweating profusely. After what feels like an hour, I breathe a sigh of relief and get those expensive things off my body. 

I hear another customer come in; I think to myself I can escape without buying anything. I slowly open the door and try to make a break for it. She cuts me off and stops me. Damn it, I was so close! She says “so are you going to take everything?” I reply “unfortunately not, I'm at the end of my vacation and the clothes are just too expensive. I really love the pants but I just can’t.” She takes me to the till and says, “what if I give you $30 off, that’s 16% off?” I tell her that’s generous but I can’t. She says, “what if I give you 25% off?. I tell her that I appreciate her offer but I have to think about it. 

Now she gets bitchy: “well I can’t give you anymore than that.” I tell her “I appreciate you offering but, like I said, I need to think about it..” I try to walk away but she follows me out of the store. I am ready to snap; this is way too aggressive! She says, “think about how much you spend on other things like food, you just have to decide what’s more important.” I just smile and quickly walk away. I thank my lucky stars I've escaped. 

After that we went to The Montage Hotel (for super rich people) for lunch, a very expensive lunch. My two mojitos and my steak melt sandwich and fries came to $74 with tip, but  worth every penny. They were the best mojitos I have ever tasted. My sandwich was amazing and the atmosphere and view of the ocean were great. Great too that my $74 went to food and not that crazy woman in the store. 

Then on to L.A. Our friend that was with us lives in L.A so we stayed at her place. The first night we went out for the best sushi I ever had, so yummy. My L.A friend ordered mussels – and  nicknamed them car tires, for good reason. They convinced me to try one, I quickly regretted it. My face cringed; I opened my mouth and shoved it in. I immediately wanted to cry. I couldn’t swallow it, I just couldn’t. I spat it out and quickly drank a lot of beer. 

The next day our L.A friend, who is Korean, took us out for Korean barbeque. In the middle of the table is a grill that you cook the various meats on. You get an insane amount of Korean side dishes and condiments. It was delicious, but I ate way too much.  We were walking to the car and I kept rubbing my belly like a pregnant lady. 

We decided to head to Trader Joes to pick up supplies for making mojitos. We get there and all of a sudden my stomach is angry, very angry. I yell I have to poop, now! Trader Joes doesn’t have bathrooms. I run across the street to this fancy burger joint. There is a waitress right there “ Can I seat you?" she asks. I try to casually walk to the washroom, clenching my ass as tight as I can. After I’m done I open the door and try to sneak out, but she is right around the corner.  “Where would you like to sit?” she asks  “Actually I just came in to get a pop.” “A what? Oh sorry, you just want a soda., “Yes that’s all I want”. She totally knows I came in there just to use their toilet. Whatever, the $2.35 was worth it to be able to not shit myself. 

It was a great trip and I am sad it’s over but I am also thankful that I am so fortunate that I get to travel. I had a great time. 

I just spent a few days in Berlin, capital of the Federal Republic of Germany and according to the brochure, the largest city between Moscow and Paris, working on an HIV-related project; of which, as it is big enough to literally affect all of us, much more detail later. But meanwhile, I’d warrant that Berlin itself deserves a story.

Start with the obvious: if you enjoy urban beauty or the elegance of a perfect cityscape, book a flight to Paris. Berlin is, to be blunt, ugly. It doesn’t have the richly layered history of Rome or London, the gilded perfection of Saint Petersburg, the raw pulsing energy of Hong Kong or New York. Berlin is too young to be profound, too compromised to be innocent or exuberant. Its nightlife can be of an order of decadence to make the Marquis de Sade blush; but alas, the local metro goes to sleep at one A.M., incomprehensibly, leaving one with a Hobson’s choice of a very long walk or the use of taxis that are literally beige. That’s right: beige. Nothing says “I just had epic sex with twin Siberian gymnasts in front of a paying audience” quite as clearly as a beige Mercedes-Benz. It is to weep. On the other hand, the city’s Lord Mayor, Klaus Wowereit, is openly gay.

Until recently divided by the monstrous Berlin Wall – one of my earliest memories is standing in front of it, and understanding even as a tot that I was looking at something abhorrent – Berlin has not yet truly become one city. What it has done instead, assisted by the largesse of the German taxpayer, is nonetheless remarkable: acknowledge the darker sides of its history with a frankness probably without equal anywhere else. That begs the question of how it got to where it is today.

Few places have been as central to the tragedies of the last century than this lightly wooded spot of sand, lakes and gravel roughly the geographic size of New York City (with rather a bit less than half as many people, no coast and no skyscrapers). It began the century as the ostentatiously nouveaux-riche capital of Imperial Germany, ruled by a man we in the English-speaking world know simply as the Kaiser, Emperor William II. He qualifies as a tragedy of his own. This is the complete jackass that practically single-handedly strangled four centuries of European world pre-eminence by dragging every great power of his day into a war none of them wanted to fight all that much, and despite most of them being ruled by members of his immediate family. He began his career as monarch by firing his chancellor, Otto Prince Bismarck, the man who in 1871 handed William’s grandfather and namesake King William III of Prussia the crown of a shiny new German Empire and then kept the peace of Europe for decades. “Jackass” may be an excess of charity, come to think of it.

His dynasty, the House of Hohenzollern, produced competent, hard-working and occasionally brilliant kings of Prussia over the course of several centuries, then two quite serviceable German emperors, but apparently had precious little left by way of talent, taste or administrative ability in the genetic larder for poor William. Those imperial buildings still standing, tragically mainly his, breathe an air more at home in a nightmare Las Vegas than the smaller, merely royal and more humanly modest Berlin that was the capital of the kingdom of Prussia. The aesthetic difference is roughly that between Wagner at his most loud and Mozart at his more sublime. What remains of Royal Berlin is one of the jewels of Europe. Imperial Berlin was then and is today a continental eyesore.

Empire and kingdom both fell in the course of a single day at the end of the Great War, the 9^th of November 1918, as Germany’s armies disintegrated in defeat on the bloody fields of northern France.  In the Commonwealth, this date is marked as Armistice Day; in Berlin, it saw the birth of the first German Republic, declared in a mix of exuberance, confusion and despair from the balcony of one of those Imperial buildings, the Reichstag or Imperial Parliament. There’s a certain irony inherent in the fact that this happened more or less by accident; the emperor had fled the capital for the Netherlands a day previously (maybe to avoid the fate of his cousin, the Czar, recently shot by the Bolsheviki), the crown prince refused the throne, no other male members of the Imperial House in the line of succession were to be found, and a republic was essentially the only option left that might prevent the full collapse not just of the already crumbling government, but of the state itself.

That republic, colloquially known simply as Weimar, was not long for this earth. It did manage to preserve the Reich as a united state, but never gained the broad legitimacy required to sustain itself. However, in fourteen short years it brought into being one of the great brilliant fireworks of human civilization, the sudden and gorgeous flowering of a new modern age. Modern cinema wasn’t born in Hollywood; its cradle rocked in Babelsberg. Without those few years in faraway Berlin, New York City’s iconic MoMA would be as interesting as a barn. A defeated, impoverished republican capital became the Chicago of Europe, a marvel of the world entirely beyond the imagination or capacity of imperial Berlin. And equally something contemporary, democratic Berlin would like to be again, but presently is not – and likely never will be.

Consider the losses:  Albert Einstein, Theodor Adorno, Walter Gropius, Greta Garbo, Mies van der Rohe, Wassily Kandinsky, Fritz Lang, Thomas Mann, Marlene Dietrich, Billy Wilder and too many others to count. No modern city since the sack of Constantinople has lost so much talent, so quickly; with one obvious exception: New York City in the age of AIDS.

Those halcyon days will not return for one simple reason: the force that extinguished them, the Nazi dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, murdered or drove into exile the very men and women who made them possible. Obviously, Hitler – who Berliners today are quick to point out was a native of Austria and never won an election in Berlin itself, accurate statements both – hated Jews to the point of genocide, along with gypsies, communists, homosexuals, trade unionists and many, many more. Precisely the groups that provided the yeast for the city’s ferment and made it das Rote Berlin, Red Berlin. This Red Berlin became Hitler’s first victim.

The infamous Reichstag fire, likely set by the Nazis themselves, provided the pretext for outlawing the powerful communist party and imprisoning its leaders and many of the rank and file in the first concentration camp at Sachsenhausen, an hour outside of the city limits.

The Nazi paramilitary organization SA stormed and burned to the ground the world’s first gay research institute near the Brandenburg Gate. Clubs and bars within larger buildings couldn’t yet be torched without consequence, but were sacked.  Meanwhile, Berlin’s 160,000 Jewish citizens – out of a population of four million – were systematically ghettoized, first economically and then physically, from the life of the city. The silence of the majority of Berliners at this very visible persecution was and remains a moral disgrace to the city’s people; it continued during the infamous Kristallnacht and until the last Jews were deported to the death camps in 1943, at which point the city was declared Judenrein, “cleansed of Jews”. At that time and in the following months and years, though, there wasn’t much of Berlin left, either; instead of Hitler’s fabled European capital Germania, it became just one more field of rubble among many on a continent in ruins. Nor is this ancient history; not in a city where the very stones seem to weep.

It is a matter of supreme irony that the regime’s crimes hit the city as devastatingly as they did; historically, Prussia was the first country in Europe to fully emancipate its Jewish population and grant Jews the rights of citizenship, in line with a royal decree, revolutionary at the time, that granted freedom of worship to all faiths. So many French Protestants fled the radically different policy of Louis XIV of France, the Sun King (and architect of Versailles), that at one time the language most widely spoken in Berlin was French. The kingdom of Prussia was a notoriously militarized and regimented state, but its capital was a place of intellectual and artistic ferment, a place where a brilliant Jewish woman, Rahel Varnhagen von Ense, in the latter half of the 18^th Century could lead the leading Enlightenment salon. She was a peer not merely of Christians or aristocrats, but of men as one of the first widely published female writers. In the late 19^th Century, the first modern gay rights group was founded in Berlin; around the same time, the first gay magazine was published there. The city that Christopher Isherwood scoured for male flesh was often a scene of hunger, riots, and pitched battles between Nazis and Communists, but das Rote Berlin had room for the outcasts of the world.

As did New York, and Toronto, and London, and all the other cities large and small scourged by AIDS. Berlin has something to teach them: how to preserve the memory of the lost. How, in the Part Two. 

I am tired all the time.

I thought that I would be back to my normal self, now that I know I have severe asthma. I make sure to take my inhaler twice a day every day and .fifteen minutes before any physical activity  I’ve noticed my breathing is much better. 

I thought maybe I was tired because I was getting used to being back at work full time after my medical leave. I have been back full time for a few weeks now and I am still tired all the time. I get home from work and always need to take a nap. Last night I fell asleep at 5 pm, woke up at 10:30 pm, ate and fell back asleep around midnight or one. 

The last year I have been to so many doctors appointments and to the hospital so many times I don’t want to go anymore. I am frustrated, I still get numbness on the side of my face, and my hands still seize up on me for no reason. I guess I am just destined to be tired all the time. 

Maybe it’s the HIV? But then again, my CD4 cells are at their highest, my last test they were around 840 I believe. When I was first diagnosed three years ago, they were 450. Sigh, I don’t know, hopefully one day I will figure it out. 

I do think some of the being tired comes from being stressed out at work. A couple of weeks ago, my co-worker that worked in the Accounts Payable mailroom with me was fired for no showing. They aren’t replacing her,  so now it’s just me, so everyday is extremely busy. Also they have been doing layoffs across the company, so everyday I am anxious I might be laid off. But even before the lay offs and my co-worker being fired I was still always so tired. If I do get let go I won’t be leaving with out my Tassimo! I joked with my co-worker if I get laid off, I will setup my Tassimo in the parking lot and start my own coffee business. I will undersell the cafeteria haha. The coffee in the cafeteria is horrific. 

I’ve been continuing to go to yoga. I love it; it’s such a great class. The yoga instructor is great, very engaging, and it’s always a great workout. (You know it’s been a good workout when you go to get up off the toilet and your legs tremble.) I have been going to yoga for about a month now, and I noticed I am slowly starting to get better and stronger. I was doing a headstand and was actually able to come off the wall and hold it for about ten seconds. Then I pretended to crash into my friend and gave her a heart attack. (I’m so evil.) The other day I was flat ironing my hair – that’s right I flat iron my hair! My arms were in the air and all of a sudden my bicep popped up. I was like ooh hello Mr. Bicep where did you come from, you sexy beast. Thank you yoga! Now if I could just eat healthy all the time. Damn you Dairy Queen, I love your chicken strips and onion rings! Yummy in my tummy! 

In other news, I am going to California for vacation.  I leave on April 29^th, we are going for eight nights! I am so excited! I haven’t been on a real vacation in a few years. In 2009 my friends and I went to Laguna Beach and L.A. The first night in Laguna Beach we were so excited we ate chips for dinner and drank way too much. I was so drunk, I kept going around saying “I’m soooooo happy, I’m soooo content right now.” Then I fell down the stairs and laughed because I was bleeding. I woke up with the worst hangover of my life. I wanted to die. But then I felt better by dinner and started drinking again – sorry liver! Hopefully I have learnt my lesson and will remember to eat a hearty meal this time. We are going to Palm Springs for four nights, Laguna Beach for two nights and then L.A for two nights.  Californiaaaaaaaaaaaaaa here I come!

Editor's note: Fatigue is not uncommon amongst people living with HIV. The causes can be difficult to pin down. But this article form CATIE is a good starting place.

I was lying in bed sweating, body aching all over. Sharp pains, burning sensations radiating throughout my stomach, I wanted to die. I was making deals with both God and the Devil. Please let it stop, please. I had the Norovirus. 

Yes I am being a bit dramatic, but oh my, it was horrible. I thought the diarrhea I get from having HIV/taking HIV medications was bad but this was insane. I was surprised I didn’t drop dead from instant dehydration.  I live with my best friend and her husband. He had it the weekend before; we thought he had really bad food poisoning, we were wrong. Then my friend got it and I got the lovely virus the next day.

The stomach pains were intense, they were almost as bad as the stomach pains I had when I had appendicitis. The only thing I was thankful about was, the stomach pains with Norovirus weren’t constant, they were off and on. I remember missing food,  and oh how I love food. My daily iced capp, from Tim Hortons. A can of Pepsi dancing across my tongue. I couldn’t even keep water down. The Norovirus is the flu on crack. Evil bastard! 

I finally started feeling better a couple of days ago. I ate five popsicles that day. They were magically delicious! I took my first lick and, oh my word, the flavor! It was amazing! I shoved that popsicle in my mouth and went to town on it. It reminds me of the first time I knew I was gay…. Hehehe. Thankfully I am back to eating normally. I love you, food! 

Before I contracted that evil, sinister Norovirus, I started going to yoga. It’s called Gayish yoga, it’s geared towards the gay community but of course anyone can go. I convinced my friend to go with me. Actually I didn’t convince her, she is always up for anything. I swear I could say I am going to jump off a downtown building with a parachute, wanna join? And she would reply "of course!"

I found the class listed on a local gay sports organizations website. It said it was beginner to intermediate yoga. 

Beginner to intermediate? Bullshit! My friend has been to many yoga classes over the years. We are on our yoga mats, sweat dripping between our faces. I look over to her and her legs and arms are in positions I didn’t know are possible. She looks at me and says, “This is the most intense yoga class I have ever been to!” I collapse and think to myself, thank god, I thought I was just really horrible at this.

Then I look over and I see this gorgeous man. Great body, sexy face and he’s wearing short shorts. I mean SHORT! They were shorter than my boxer briefs. We are in one of the warrior poses, I don’t remember which one, I was trying not to pass out. We turn to the left so I am staring at the back of gorgeous man, and what do I see? I see his left ball. That’s right, his left nut is out and about. The hazards of wearing short shorts, I guess. 

Even though this yoga class kicked my ass, I loved it! It was challenging, very challenging. The instructor is great, he is very engaging and makes the class very fun, even though I felt like I may die at any moment.

My friend and I have been to two of the classes so far. I didn’t go yesterday since I am still getting my energy back from that bastard call the Norovirus. I really wanted to go this week because I would have to go by myself. I am usually chicken shit and won’t do things by myself. I get extremely uncomfortable, awkward and stressed out. I really wanted to challenge myself.  Step outside my box and put myself out there.  This all relates back to my issues with self worth, which I have talked about in previous blog posts. 

I was bullied a lot in school and had a tumultuous child hood. Sexual abuse, alcoholic father, mother who hid at work. Needless to say it had a huge impact on me. I went through a group therapy program last year and it helped immensely but I am a work in progress - but a work in progress moving forward. I am extremely proud of myself. I’ve done a lot of work on myself in the last year and I plan to keep working on myself. For once in my life I finally feel like I’m worth it, I deserve it. I’ve realized that I can do this in small ways, such as taking a yoga class, trying to meet new people. One step at a time. 

Some great news for me, I am going to California at the end of April with my friends. It’s been a long time since I have been on a week long vacation and four years since I last went to California. We are going to spend four nights in Palm Springs, two nights in Laguna Beach and two nights in L.A. I am super duper excited! I can’t wait to be floating in the pool, a tasty drink in hand, soaking up the sun. 

The way I see it the Province should pay for my trip because medically it is necessary. I have extremely low Vitamin D levels, so I could say I have to go to California for the sunshine; there is no other option. If only that was true.  (I will keep on dreaming.) 

Sometimes when I read back on my blog posts, I feel like my thoughts are all over the place. I wonder if people reading them see the same thing.  I begin to question myself.  But then I realize, that’s me, that’s how my brain works. Blogging for me is therapeutic, it allows me to get those thoughts out of my head and sort them out.        

My plan for this night is to attend the StorySlam: Adventures in Food   event while I’m here in Tel Aviv. I figure this has to be in a restaurant or something. But it’s not. It is in a location in what starts to feel like a no-man’s land as I am entering an industrial area.  I am as directionally challenged as my dyslexic-like inability to spell, just to give a bit of context.) 

I manage to navigate my way there on foot without too many problems but still, I feel so unsure of where I am going. Only once I go the wrong way and have to back track. But it still takes me a long time to get there.  

The venue, as it turns out is a beer distillery called “The Dancing Camel” Approaching the door I see a sign, “Storyslam, yes you found it, come on in.” At least I’m not the only one. Apparently they changed locations as the last month they had over 100 people. It’s the only show of this kind here in English.

Just around the bar is a friendly woman with short brown hair sitting on a stool. “Are you here  for the storyslam?” It turns out she has family in Toronto. When I give her my card for my (and Erin Rodgers) show “Tales of…. “ She says, “Oh Bloor Street, great location”. Her name is Xoli, (and I’m sure to fuck this one up. You know me and names.)

I’m asked if I wanted to tell a story. I wasn’t expecting this. The theme is food. Do I tell a story or not? If I don’t I’ll be pissed off at myself afterward. I put my name down on a piece of paper and throw it in a bucket.

Soon all the organizers know there is a guy here from Toronto with a storytelling show. I feel special, yet pressured now. I’d better be fucking good after the buzz that is happening now.

The host for the evening who produces the show has a TV show on a local Israeli station about restaurants. He says it’s similar to what English TV does, which I’m not sure what that is. He is super nice.

Despite my getting lost I’m still really early. Outside I’m chatting with ex-pats from all over. I feel a sense of camaraderie with the ex-pats and the performing community. One Persian-American woman from LA, super outgoing, tells me she is friends with one of the guys on the reality show “The Shahs of Sunset.”  She pulls out her phone and shows me a photo. I’m now in love with her!

A couple of other people introduce themselves just out of the blue. How un-Toronto. Compare and contrast.

The original woman I met and her husband own a very well known café called XoHo, the name based on putting letters from both of their names together. I now have multiple invitiations from them and others who work there to come down and visit.

Prior to the show, they have a musical act playing, bluegrass kind of blues, complete with harmonica and violin. They are amazing, and a bit hipster looking. Voilà, I finally found some. I knew they were here somewhere. But hipster-Jew, one with a tzitzit, attached to his guitar belt (this is the fringe that is found on a prayer shawl).

Suddenly I realize these are the guys I had been listening to on YouTube performing “The Roommate Song” at a different venue. Wow, I’m amazed at how this is coming together.

Sitting on a stool I realize that there is an orthodox Jew sitting behind me complete in a black hat. “OL this should be interesting” as I project all my pre-judgments on him.

It turns out he is Yisrael Campbell, the very one who is a successful comic, actor and has the acclaimed one-man show called “Circumsize Me” that played in Toronto. More and more I’m realizing I’m participating in something really special

When it comes to Storytelling show time, I know what story I will tell. It is about the time I made pot brownies and had to go to the hospital with a cold-induced asthma attack and ate the brownies.

When it comes to loto (Editors’s note: I have no idea what this is. Lotto maybe?) spots, I either never get them, or I’m last when there is no longer an audience. The host picks a piece of paper and reads it, “Our first storyteller of the evening is Brian Finch.” “Fuck” is going through my head, as I’m nervous. This is the first time performing in a different country.

I tell my story, and I kill it. I don’t say that often. If I sucked, I’d say so.

After the show, all the producers tell me how much they enjoyed the story and how great that I was the first one up to start the show. Again, Wow! I was scared, and I get this wonderful warm reaction.

Now I’m invited to future musical events at this venue. I’ve met so many amazing and fun ex-pats.

It’s official. I have fallen in love with Tel Aviv.

I’m writing this as I’m desalinating from spending the day at the Dead Sea. For years I’ve hear of this wondrous place where one’s body becomes a floatation device.

At first when I arrived I thought I’d get a friend’s cousin in Tel Aviv to be my guide. As it turns out I’m having a Tel Aviv fling over the course of this month. Nothing serious, like planning a long distance relationship. I’m pretty sure as much fun as it is, the expiry date will be the moment I board the plane. Nonetheless, it is quite nice. It has been well over a year and a half since I’ve actually spent the night with someone. Twice in one week is a miracle, and very nice. 

We met because of a profile on the local gay site. He’s the only one so far I’m met. But over 70 messages later, I’ve been deprogramming myself from the old negative message track in my head, that is: I’m getting old, I’m not in shape like I used to be, I don’t have much to offer.

In Toronto the stand-up schedule does mean that time to meet guys is limited, let alone have anything sustainable. Also I tend to go from 0 to 60 to co-dependency mode in about three seconds. Even here, what I tell myself is go be independent and plan out what I want to do, and figure out where this other stuff can fit in. If not I turn into this big needy blob. But at least I can recognize it, which is why I have my next four or five days all planned up.

Weirdly though, the morning after spending the night together, I felt sad. Maybe because I know this is just a fleeting moment in my journey. Perhaps it’s a reflex from all those “paid” overnights. I started to wonder, “Have I become one of those guys who used to arrange nights with me due to the big gaping hole of intimacy in my life”.  A Chihuahua, after all,  can only do so much.

I did tell him I’m positive after hanging out a bit. I’ve since learned that this is something not many guys do here. But I had to. I’m just a Google away from him finding out anyway. Besides I can’t relax and feel authentic if I’m hiding something.

It was not a problem. Even when he asked whether doing such and such thing is safe, he was so cute and sweet about it.

Tonight I’m meeting with pretty much the biggest and most long term activist in Tel Aviv. Surprisingly enough, up only until now, he’s been the only public out positive person in Israel. There is a lot of work to do. He tells me that they have about six guys who are going public, which is great. A little context in which I disclosed.

My fling and I met up yesterday early and drove to the Dead Sea to his special spot. Not only did my dream of floating in the Dead Sea come true, I was doing it in the arms of a guy I really liked. It was this rare romantic moment. And then I blew him in one of the hot springs, just before a bunch of Haredim (Ultra Orthadox) men came down. This was the one time I was happy that they made the girls stay away at the top of the hill as we were butt naked floating in the water.

I panicked a little. I thought, “Please don’t bring the girls down!” Once I realized they weren’t coming down I was OK. I hear stories about the ultra-religious freaking out about stuff and wondered if our gayness was going to evoke a rant or something. It became clear everything was OK, though.

My camera got a bit mucked up so my photos (above right) aren’t too clear.

I’m off to a Storytelling Slam tonight about food, something about which Israelis are passionate. Then tomorrow night I’m going to attend the Tel Aviv’s gay men’s choir called Gayzmers.

On Friday I’m working out the details to head over to Jerusalem to meet a couple I know from Toronto who are studying here. Once a month there is a very musical and joyous Kabbalat Shabbat (the welcoming in of Shabbat). It is supposed to be very cool, and it’s looking like it will pan out.