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These pages are dedicated to the memory of the many, many men whom I have personally lost in the epidemic. It is my intention only to remember them, and to represent my memories. No-one should think that what I write, or what I reproduce here -- be it graphic, literary or sound -- is meant as a total statement on anyone or anything. Each of my dead friends was a whole person; were any of them alive, I daresay they would have created web pages bearing no resemblance to what I present here. But they are not alive, except in memories and artifacts. That will have to do, for that is all we have.
If these sites seem, by turns, lugubrious or corny at times, or if it seems that I am engaging in navel-gazing, then so be it. I have placed upon myself only the discipline of being true to my memories and my passions for these men. What is here is what I have mounted, and that will have to be good enough.
Memories and Artifacts: There are three types of pages attached here. Firstly, there is a list of all the men (and a few women) who touched my life and have died of AIDS. Secondly, there is an occasional diary wherein I record my thoughts and speculations as I create this site. Thirdly, and most importantly, there is a series of pages dedicated to particular individuals. A list of those pages follows below. I will add more pages as I find the time, the memories and the artifacts.
I have "big" thoughts about the epidemic, and perhaps some of those thoughts will seep into view in the pages attached here. But that is not the purpose of these pages. Perhaps you have "big" thoughts about the epidemic. If you have something you want to share with me, please do so by sending mail to me (see bottom of this or any of these pages). More importantly, perhaps, if you know any of the men listed here, write me if the impulse strikes you.
November, 1997: I've been away from these pages for a year and a half, buried in work on my now completed dissertation. Rereading my writing here has shown me how far I have traveled in coming to grips with the aftermath of "the Deaths," as I call them. In the last few years, I have lost few friends, and most of my positive friends are doing amazingly well on the new drug combos.
But now I have more time than I've had, so I'll be adding pix and writing more regularly. I don't intend to delete or radically alter anything that is already here, but I may well add later thoughts, less mired in the gloom of the immediacy of death and more reflective of the joys that are the real memories, that most solid of matters we can retain from those who have left before we do.
These texts may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of U.S. copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of these texts on any terms, in any medium, requires the consent and notification of the author at stephen at this domain name .
