"This Used to be Our Playground..."
Today is World AIDS Day, of course, and I was tempted not to do anything because I've done it all before. Feel free to go in the archives and see. My favorite thing I ever did was when I had my online journal long before blogging tools came along, back when we all hand-coded HTML, and I put up a completely black page on the front, so whoever clicked on links for my journal saw blackness. I did get several emails because it made no sense. If the journal were having a problem, there would have been an error page, not a black one. That was when World AIDS Day was associated with the Day Without Art.

Again, I didn't really know what to do today because I've followed various paths before, but something kept coming into my mind. I said in another entry that I'm looking forward to going to MLA in Philadelphia for personal reasons, and that's because I have not been to Philadelphia since Blane died.

I bet many people don't know the significant details of that. Blane was my first partner, and he died of AIDS in 1992. Though we met, had our commitment ceremony, and lived in Houston, he died in the small town outside Philadelphia where he grew up. He always told me that, when he became so ill that I had to start taking care of him, he would return to his family. He was very conscious at not becoming a burden, and I was so damn naive that I didn't think we'd have to deal with that for years. Of course the day he was buried was two months to the day after our ceremony. He'd been in Pennsylvania for two weeks at that point.

Of course, I was not able to get a bereavement fare since I was not family, and his family didn't want me there. After all, the obituary they published said he died of pancreatic cancer. A month later, in August, I flew to Philadelphia to see his grave, which I did on Sunday, August 9. Yes, it was horrible, but after an hour of sitting there, I had to get up and leave. And I was not leaving until the following Saturday.

I had made plans to get into NYC for the first time, a place he always wanted to show me. But I wasn't leaving until Tuesday. I had the rest of Sunday and Monday to go. I saw Buffy the Vampire Slayer and A League of Their Own. Seeing League was not the best idea. Remember the Madonna song at the end about how much we lose as we grow older? Yeah, that one. I also saw Bill Clinton speak at Independence Hall, which was quite cool. Later, when he won, he mentioned AIDS in the speech he made election night, and that had me crying. So many had avoided the word for so long.

But what I will always remember about that trip is sitting in Rittenhouse Square reading Madame Bovary. I think I was trying to prepare for the GRE subject exam by reading all of those classic texts I'd never touched before. But I sat on a bench and read for hours, until it was too dark to read any longer. Then, I went to Diner on the Square, which is no longer there according to a comment in this review. I always ate Mary's Chicken Salad, which was an English muffin split in half, two bacon slices in an X on each half with a scoop of chicken salad and a slice of swiss chess melted on top. I ate that every night I was in town.

So, I'm looking forward to going back to Philadelphia, especially since I'm staying at a hotel a block or so off Rittenhouse Square. Sure, I'll be interviewing people all day, but I'll be taking a few walks through the square.

I still have that copy of Madame Bovary, and I'm tempted to take it.
- posted by Nels @ 3:08 PM | | | Link |