I seemed to enjoy it a lot more this time around, and found even more humor in it, which was nice. It was good to laugh.
And the kid who plays Tommy Gnosis didn't bug me this time. In the past, I really wasn't all that keen on that actor; he seemed doughy and uninteresting and kind of not real committed to the role.
This time around, I had a whole different take and really enjoyed his performance.
And I got misty during Midnight Radio, which is my second-favorite song on the soundtrack next to Origins of Love, and the message about becoming who you need to be and being set free (even if it WAS Hedwig who ultimately frees Yitzhak, although perhaps that doesn't need to be taken literally, since there's an element of fantasy about the whole story) really hits home with me.
But I have been contemplative since having received this news about my friend's positive diagnosis; I saw him at work the following day and he looked happy, his cheeks rosy, because he'd had a good check-up and I realize that this is how his life will go forward now: ups and downs based on the status of his health.
I thought about how I have known other people with HIV or full-blown AIDS who were already positive and living with it when I met them, but I have never known anyone pre-HIV who then transitioned into the status of being positive during the course of a friendship. This is something new for me, and I'm resentful that, as I get older, bits of innocence are being stripped from me.
I would be lying if I said I wasn't resentful about so much pertaining to this, in fact--that he's so young, that it's preventable, that it's a complex combination of personal responsibility and societal oppression that leads to risky behaviors (in many groups, not just among gays), that I feel like the Dominant Culture--of which I am a part--has won, once again. And it enrages me.
Which brings me to my next thought: I had this notion that the Midwest would be insulated, so much so, in fact, that I wouldn't be exposed to what I'd been exposed to on the west coast and maybe I'd get a bit of a break. And I see now how ridiculously naive that mindset had been. It all percolates here--Cancer, HIV/AIDS, child abuse, pet abuse, homelessness, alcoholism...it's just not as in-your-face as it is out west, and it all lies, radioactively toxic, beneath the surface of a benign celebration of "Family" as the only pursuit--hetero love, 2.5 kids, picket fences and corporate jobs. In spite of this culturally-ingrained Midwestern message, I feel as though coming here brought me face-to-face with my life in a way that living out west just never had. Which is weirdly ironic. If I wore rose-colored glasses when I moved here, I certainly lost them somewhere along the way for good.
But I also think I knew innately I needed to open myself to the world in the very ways that frightened me the most, because this was the only way I knew that would push me to grow. No, I have no control over what information is shared with me. I didn't know those words were going to spill from my friend's mouth when he said he had something to tell me. I don't purposely seek out bad news, and I can't un-know what I now know, but I don't hide from it anymore, either. And in a weird, profound way, maybe that was the best gift I could give myself, picking up and moving 1700 miles outside my comfort zone.
My friend's diagnosis was not my diagnosis; it's still his life to live, but now I am connected to him and his life in a way I had not anticipated. And, although this is not about me or my ego, it kind of is; it wasn't just his life that changed.
I get a sense that cosmically, more will be revealed to me, because I think I have finally learned that there are no accidents in life.
breathe feel love give free
know in your soul
like your blood knows the way
from your heart to your brain
knows that you're whole
and you're shining like the brightest star
a transmission on the midnight radio
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