My Journey with AIDS

Holiday weekend pictures – and a splash of misadventure – from Perth and Calabogie

by kenngc Click on the pic for the complete album. There’s a story to go with the final handful of pictures from Allan’s Mill, one of my favourite spots. As I walked along the banks of the creek, walking backwards mind you so as to get the...

Published Tue, Apr 10 2012 9:49 AM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: family, autobiography, photography

Scanned: my first post-positive lab results

I found this in a plastic-covered folder in my Rubbermaid file drawer: My physician at that time, the late Ed Kamski, ordered these tests as a baseline after giving me the results of my “positive” HIV-antibody test. (He also told me that a...

Published Tue, Apr 03 2012 9:01 AM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: autobiography, AIDS and HIV, mental health, CD-4, PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder)

Honouring Dad for his birthday

This Sunday, yes April Fools Day, would have been my father’s eighty-fifth birthday. I last saw him when the whole family gathered in Perth to mark his seventy-fifth, within months of his first stroke. It was a very happy occasion, given the warning...

Published Fri, Mar 30 2012 3:03 PM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: family, autobiography, photography, Perth, Salaberry-de-Valleyfield QC

Ending the week on a positive note

I checked in with my doctor today to get results from my latest blood tests and the news was all good! CD-4: 310 (up from January) viral load: undetectable Hemoglobin A1c: .063 Weight: 144 lbs. So I’m good again until June, by which time I’ll...

Published Fri, Mar 30 2012 1:38 PM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: autobiography, AIDS and HIV, medical update, viral load, CD-4, type-II diabetes

With this early spring, Toronto’s Forsythia Festival (in Cabbagetown) is blooming far sooner than May!

27 thousand words Cabbagetown, Riverdale Far Read More...

Published Wed, Mar 28 2012 10:43 AM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: photography, Toronto, Riverdale Farm, Cabbagetown, Allan Gardens, magnolia, forsythia

No sentence could undo the harms caused by Graham James

I join the outcry today over the sentencing of convicted serial pedophile Graham James to two years in prison for the sexual abuse of Theo Fleury and Todd Holt. Counter-intuitively (because I knew it would just get me stirred up) I watched the news coverage...

Published Tue, Mar 20 2012 3:25 PM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: grief, youth, autobiography, child abuse, activism, mental health, stigma, sexual abuse, justice, recovery, youth suicide, post-traumatic stress

Two names to be added to Craig Chaplin Memorial Award

This spring’s presentation of the award in my brother’s memory will include a couple of firsts – two individuals are being cited and they’re from across the Canada-U.S. border in neighbouring Vermont. To be more accurate, one-half...

Published Mon, Mar 19 2012 10:40 AM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: spirituality, human rights, social justice, sexual orientation, Chaplin Memorial Fund (United Theological College), Craig Chaplin, faith, church

Adieu Madeleine Parent

I was sad to learn of the death last night of the iconic Québec labour activist Madeleine Parent. She was 93 so I knew that when I wrote this tribute to her more than five years ago I would more than likely outlive her. One thing is certain – the...

Published Mon, Mar 12 2012 4:08 PM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: activism, social justice, Québec, Salaberry-de-Valleyfield QC

Smoked meat, Céline-lean

It’s official – the families of Céline Dion and well–known restaurateur Paul Nakis have purchased the 84-year old Montréal institution Schwartz’s deli. Opened in 1928 on Montreal’s fabled “Main” (St....

Published Tue, Mar 06 2012 7:05 AM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: Montréal, smoked-meat, Schwartz's

So three lawyers walk into the Ontario Legislature…

…but this is no joke! There’s a friendly exercise each morning that the Ontario Legislature sits when Members have the opportunity to introduce guests seated in the gallery – family members of one of the high school student pages, perhaps a visiting township...

Published Mon, Mar 05 2012 9:39 AM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: activism, politics, human rights, social justice, sexual orientation, Toronto Centre, homosexuality, homophobia, Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill, EGALE Canada, Glen Murray

Recalling the optimism of Expo ’67

It’s hard to believe that it will be forty-five years ago this spring since the opening of Canada’s first World’s Fair – Expo ’67. I have assembled a number of post-card images from that summer (some photos, a few just artist’s...

Published Mon, Feb 20 2012 12:00 PM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: autobiography, photography, Québec, Montréal, architecture, Expo '67, universal exposition, moshe safdie

Finding Émile

I reached another marker this week in my posthumous, intriguing, fan-like relationship with Montréal poet Émile Nelligan (1879-1941) when Craig’s partner, Claude, drove me to the site of his burial in Cimetière Notre-Dame-des-Neiges. Even with a...

Published Wed, Feb 08 2012 2:35 PM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: youth, mental illness, photography, creative arts, Québec, Montréal, Émile Nelligan, André Gagnon, poetry, biography/autobiography, Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery

An authentic winter weekend in Montréal

Click here for a link to an album of pictures from my busy weekend in Montréal. (As I write this I still have a half-day left here so there will be more pictures added eventually.) Arriving here mid-afternoon Friday I`ve experienced the city in winter...

Published Mon, Feb 06 2012 9:39 AM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: autobiography, photography, Montréal

Perth & environs, Lanark Cty., Ontario, Canada – December, 2011

Perth & environs, Lanark Cty., Ontario, Canada – December, 2011, a set on Flickr. It looked like it was going to be a green (more like brown) holiday in eastern Ontario until about 15 cm of sticky snow arrived on December 23rd. Perfect! Read...

Published Fri, Dec 30 2011 8:51 AM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: Uncategorized

Something that made me think “Huh?” on World AIDS Day

As I do every Thursday, I spent two hours late this afternoon with a group of gay men. We range in age from something like 35 to just over 60. I was curious, then disappointed, to see whether the subject of World AIDS Day would come up in the course of...

Published Thu, Dec 01 2011 4:38 PM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: autobiography, AIDS and HIV, Planet Earth has AIDS, stigma, World AIDS Day, friendship

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