>Reading Re-Cap & AIDS Walk

>I just got home from my best reading yet at KGB Bar. Best because I held my own, was better paced, not nervous one bit and spot on. But, I did know pretty much every single person there except for five people. That’s lame. But the weather was beautiful and the reading was early, so I knew the crowd would be light.

The 20ish people there seemed to enjoy it and since a couple of readers cancelled, we did an impromptu Q&A with me. I felt it was very self-indulgent but, in all honesty, it was helpful in so many ways since I’ve never fielded questions from strangers before about a topic so sensitive. And these strangers hadn’t heard of the tin shed or prior attempted murder of my jailed deaf dad, so their questions were very focused on the story at hand. It was a lesson for me in how to not answer a question, how to prepare for odd back story stuff and to help me find the laughter in a very non-humorous story.

I got home to find this email from my hairdresser’s mother in my inbox:

Dear Kambri,
Thank you for being an important part of one of my best mothers-day. Daniel (I call him Dap as in Dapper Dan on his baby bib) and I enjoyed your performance. It hit me right in the heart. When I get my NY pictures I’ll forward to you. And Christian Finnegan … what a doll.
The best to you and yours.
Keep on keeping!
Daniel’s Mom Pat

I want her for my Mother’s Day every year and an email from her every time I’m not expecting it. Dap…Dapper Dan…Oh, I love her.

I also found notice of a few last minute additions to the AIDS Walk team. My inner cynic says, who officially signs up at 11:30 the night before a walk? It must be a spammer. But then really, who would be a douchebag to rob a charity fighting AIDS. Cynic says, “Someone very bored and angry with their life, that’s who.”

But I doubt they’re illegitimate as we knew we had some “maybes” and had planned for the potential extra guests so everyone would get their promised free tee. Also, those last minute adds have raised some cash. That makes me warm and fuzzy. Tonight I spoke of my lost family and friends, George, Lisa & Darrold, and remembered just why I spent time organizatng a group for tomorrow. They were dear to me and were lost in the early days when AIDS was “Gay Men’s Cancer” and feared and reviled and misunderstood. They were the pioneers of an illness, trying experimental drugs and succumbing nonetheless. Today, people live for years with AIDS and it makes me wonder what George, Lisa & Darrold would be doing if only AIDS had waited a year or two or six to find them. Who they would be and would they visit me in New York, attend my wedding, be proud of me?

—Kambri
Walking to *help* change the course of an epidemic.