Tomorrow - A Day to Remember

I turn 27 tomorrow.  I would like a new electric shaver and a uni-lazy.  A uni-lazy is basically a onesie for adults with a hood.  I really want one.  I've outgrown my last one.  I don't mean this as a joke meaning I haven't had one since I was a child.  I mean I had a red fleece onesie in college, but after going through the wash it shrunk.

These amazing, practical and fashionable adult onesies can be found at www.foreverlazy.com.

INVICTUS

INVICTUS

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle Corporation

"Whatever I want, I get," Ellison once said. "That's the beauty of being worth $26 billion. I thoroughly recommend it.”

William Blake

Life’s dim window of the soul

distorts the heavens from pole to pole,

and leads you to believe a lie,

when you see with, not through, the eye.

a gay man, dying of AIDS, learns to pray

An excerpt from "And the Band Played On" by Randy Shilts:

Alone, Bill sat on a stone bench, staring at the statue of the Virgin Mary in the grotto. The words "Jesus" and "God" crossed his thoughts, and he automatically began to push them out of his mind, as he had for many years. As Bill watched the other pilgrims and contemplated the statue, he realized that he should not dismiss the thought of Jesus, as if he were some nuisance. The essence of the Christ figure was loving and compassionate, no matter how the message of Jesus may have been corrupted by Christianity.
He realized that the bitterness he had held against the church had alienated him from this elemental source of strength. He had been separated from the fount of love and forgiveness that Jesus had to offer, and it was not right. God knew that. It all was very clear to Bill now, and for the first time in many years, he prayed.

258 AD

"This seems a cheerful world, Donatus, when I view it from this fair garden, under the shadow of these vines. But if I climbed some great mountain and looked out over the wide lands, you know very well what I would see - brigands (bandits) on the high roads, pirates on the seas; in the amphitheaters men murdered to please applauding crowds; under all roofs misery and selfishness. It is really a bad world, Donatus, an incredibly bad world. Yet in the midst of it I have found a quiet and holy people. They have discovered a joy which is a thousand times better than any pleasures of this sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They have overcome the world. These people, Donatus, are the Christians - and I am one of them."

- St. Cyprian, c. 258, a letter

Thank God for HIV

So, I was talking with a guy this morning who is HIV positive. He told me about a guy he met who was also HIV positive. The guy in the story was speaking at an HIV support group. This guy got up and said, "I thank God for HIV." The guy I was talking with heard him say this and was immediately confused. What is there to be thankful for if you have HIV? It is a terrible disease that destroys your body and slowly sucks the life out of you until only a shell remains, and then you die. And why would you thank God for it. Shouldn't you be angry at God, if anything. Well, then this guy who was speaking at the support group said, "if I hadn't been diagnosed with HIV, I would still be an addict out on the street. I wouldn't care about my health, and I wouldn't be here today. I thank God for HIV."