Why I am on the opinion page

If opinion consisted solely of unique perspective, that would be the reason I'm here. For in no other way do I make any great effort to be contemporary. In fact, this column is relentlessly self-referential, a full-on blast of what I think. \nMy restless thought process has grabbed on two recent incidents in my life. The receipt of an anonymous cryptic note about my column at the IDS, the other a second-hand report of criticism of my speaking style. \nFirst, anonymous criticism is almost never necessary. It might be wise only if sending the president a threatening letter were on your list of things to do. Normally, people are moved to criticize in the hopes of swaying a negative event (or newspaper column) to a more positive event, at least in their view. \nA name means something, which I've learned in writing this column. A column about life with AIDS written by "anonymous" would have a different impact that one that is assigned to a real person with a real identity. The life anonymous wrote of could be more easily fictionalized, read like a serial, appreciated as an everyman's journey. The same could be said of criticism, but the anonymous critic remains a bogeyman, a fundamentalist fag-hater, a poster child for poor taste, whatever label happens to catch my fancy. \nDetail and honesty are relative terms, but two I try to employ when I write. The crap AIDS life and the good AIDS life are like Janus, the Roman god of gates and doorways -- two-faced, all the time. \nThere is no one way I feel about having AIDS all day every day. I am fed up with feeling sick, but other times it feels normal and I pay it no mind. I feel like either a circus freak or a botanical marvel. I am happy sometimes in spite of AIDS and also otherwise. \nSo, to my anonymous critic -- no, I don't need a therapist. I basically need a newspaper column, freshly ground coffee and an occasional single-malt Scotch. I occasionally wallow in the creamy depths of my self-pity, and I love it. A good miserable wallow is a balm to my normally even disposition. A column about AIDS that is continually happy would be written by a fool and treated like one of those e-mail angels with a frantic delete.\nIn regards to my "vague ramblings," try reading some parables or Faulkner sometime. \nWhen I do any type of public speaking, I'm admittedly tired of euphemisms concerning sex, the imprecisions of some sexually technical terminology. So the second-hand report had me offending a member of some audience somewhere with my vulgar language. \nI suppose while I'm sympathetic to the criticism, I can't entirely agree. No, I'm not G-rated unless the audience is -- but my idea of who needs "G" ratings is quite different from the idea of the majority. I tread as carefully as I can at the edge of the tulip garden of respectability, but I'm a flummoxing visitor. Having never really been considered respectable, I'm not sure how to act when I encounter the expectation. \nAnd I wonder what's on the mind of people when they criticize my language… have they watched television lately? Do they listen to the poorly-written, thinly veiled sexualized content of what's out there? What they watch, or their children watch?\nThe poor behavior of others is not, I know, an excuse to indulge your own. The problem with the comparison I've made is television is attempting to entertain (or, at least that's what is claimed for it), and I'm not focused so much on that. I am hammy enough to enjoy what I do and want those who hear it to enjoy it, or at least not fall asleep. \nI have also said probably too many times AIDS is boring, and taught about and discussed it in a very boring fashion. Never is it personalized, and it's rarely credited with being the sociological phenomenon I think it is. This is the truly fascinating part of my experience with AIDS, and the one I most want to discuss. \nBecause AIDS came about as a long series of choices in my life, I want to uncover the process of those choices, for myself as much as for anyone else. Because I think my life was (even without tossing in the gay thing) fairly out-of-kilter, I'm my favorite lab rat. \nAs opposed to television, I'm more about informing, but that information is born of an unraveling process within myself. A careful scene-by-scene examination of past events -- all as lived by me, experienced by me and described by me. \nI dislike the vulgarity of the world, too, but my definitions of vulgar involve things other than language. The political climate in this country is vulgar. Wearing clothes made in sweatshops is vulgar. Date rape is vulgar. But I digress -- yes, vulgar language is vulgar: I am a happy hypocrite. \nDespite criticism, I am on the opinion page primarily because I've asserted I deserve to be there. I have attempted to make the case for viewing the experience of terminal illness as a voice that should be heard. Better yet, that HIV is a central culprit in the making of the world we live in now, and how, and why.\nSo, don't be silly and send anonymous notes -- that's so primary school. I'm happy to entertain adjustments, to consider hypocrisies of various stripes -- both yours and mine.\nTo end, I'd like to note that Paul Nutter recently died. His extraordinary courage in documenting his diagnosis and treatment for cancer in the IDS helped me face living with AIDS -- in the IDS online, you can search the archives by his name and find the stories about him. I never knew Paul. I wish I had.