#and donnie's greatest fear being that people will shun him or fear him for his freakiness is just so heartbreaking

[fluffyslug]

Apologies to anyone who follows me for other stuff. I have contracted tmnt and am deeply unwell.

[mystacoceti]

And when, not right away but still only three weeks later, he was accepted into the protocol for the new drug, which took considerable behind-the-scenes lobbying with the doctors, he talked less about being ill, according to Donny, which seemed like a good sign, Kate felt, a sign that he was not feeling like a victim, feeling not that he had a disease but, rather, was living with a disease (that was the right cliché, wasn’t it?), a more hospitable arrangement, said Jan, a kind of cohabitation which implied that it was something temporary, that it could be terminated, but terminated how, said Hilda, and when you say hospitable, Jan, I hear hospital. And it was encouraging, Stephen insisted, that from the start, at least from the time he was finally persuaded to make the telephone call to his doctor, he was willing to say the name of the disease, pronounce it often and easily, as if it were just another word, like boy or gallery or cigarette or money or deal, as in no big deal, Paolo interjected, because, as Stephen continued, to utter the name is a sign of health, a sign that one has accepted being who one is, mortal, vulnerable, not exempt, not an exception after all, it’s a sign that one is willing, truly willing, to fight for one’s life. And we must say the name, too, and often, Tanya added, we mustn’t lag behind him in honesty, or let him feel that, the effort of honesty having been made, it’s something done with and he can go on to other things. One is so much better prepared to help him, Wesley replied. In a way he’s fortunate, said Yvonne, who had taken care of a problem at the New York store and was flying back to London this evening, sure, fortunate, said Wesley, no one is shunning him, Yvonne went on, no one’s afraid to hug him or kiss him lightly on the mouth, in London we are, as usual, a few years behind you, people I know, people who would seem to be not even remotely at risk, are just terrified, but I’m impressed by how cool and rational you all are; you find us cool, asked Quentin. But I have to say, he’s reported to have said, I’m terrified, I find it very hard to read (and you know how he loves to read, said Greg; yes, reading is his television, said Paolo) or to think, but I don’t feel hysterical. I feel quite hysterical, Lewis said Yvonne. But you’re able to do something for him, that’s wonderful, how I wish I could stay longer, Yvonne answered, it’s rather beautiful, I can’t help thinking, this utopia of friendship you’ve assembled around him (this pathetic utopia, said Kate), so that the disease, Yvonne concluded, is not, anymore, out there. Yest, don’t you think we’re more at home here, with him, with the disease, said Tanya, because the imagined disease is so much worse than the reality of him, whom we all love, each in our fashion, having it. I know for me his getting it has quite demystified the disease, said Jan, I don’t feel afraid, spooked, as I did before he became ill, when it was only news about remote acquaintances, whom I never saw again after they became ill. But you know you’re not going to come down with the disease, Quentin said, to which Ellen replied, on her behalf, that’s not the point, and possibly untrue, my gynecologist says that everyone is at risk, everyone who has a sexual life, because sexuality is a chain that links each of us to many others, unknown others, and now the greatest chain of being has become a chain of death as well. It’s not the same for you, Quentin insisted, it’s no the same for you as it is for me or Lewis or Frank or Paolo or Max, I’m more and more frightened, and I have every reason to be. I don’t think about whether I’m at risk or not, said Hilda, I know I was afraid to know someone with the disease, afraid of what I’d see, what I’d feel, and after the first day I came to the hospital so relieved. I’ll never feel that way, that fear again; he doesn’t seem different from me; He’s not, Quentin said.

from “The Way We Live Now���, Susan Sontag