Results tagged “hiv”

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The new face of HIV may surprise you.

For those of you who missed it, Monday was National Women's and Girls' HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. Don't worry, it isn't too late to celebrate. Rather than baking the traditional red ribbon sugar cookies you make every year, here are some new ideas:

HIV and AIDS aren't in the news so much these days. With the creation of "the cocktail," it sometimes seems as if the media has downgraded the gravity of these diseases to something akin to Hepatitis: take care of yourself, take your pills, and use condoms – and you, too, can live a healthy life. We don't really hear about it anymore. For those whose lives haven't been touched by HIV or the AIDS virus, it's not at the forefront of our sexual consciousness anymore.

Phillyist has been known to run with an older crowd, maybe because inexplicably we were/are the youngest by at least 10 years at most of our places of employ. A fun game to play if you have a good decade to work with is “what was different?” This sometimes devolves into discussions of Slinky (yes, we are old enough to remember when they were exclusively made of metal). When working with a more serious bunch, though (sexual health clinics can be trying), we realized that, perhaps more than anything else, the fact that we do not remember a world before AIDS informs our perspective and marks us as belonging to a particular generation, one that doesn’t really remember a world without crack, either. Growing up in the thick of the early days of the epidemic, back when most people were still worried about sharing a water fountain with a positive person, made us appreciate the enormity of the crisis. It did not, however, have the same devastating impact upon us that it had on many people who had to watch as staggering numbers of friends and colleagues succumbed to the mysterious syndrome. Harvey Fierstein commented once that AIDS nearly killed Broadway—and he wasn’t kidding.

Nothing about talking about AIDS is pleasant. It's a disease that still has an enormous stigma attached to it, based largely on decades-old misunderstandings of what it is and who gets it. To me, it always seemed like an abstract concept well beyond my level of comprehension, like quantum physics. I knew it was out there, and I knew it was important, but I didn't feel qualified to weigh in on those rare occasions during which it came up.

Yikes! I must not be very good at this gig, because this is the second time since I took up editorial duties last February that I need to apologize to an outstanding cast for my very un-critic-like behavior. I came in late. To a tiny theatre that you enter by walking pretty much on the stage. For whatever reason, I got the theatre location wrong. By about thirty blocks. I made good time, but not great time, and I missed the first five or so minutes of Simpatico Theatre Project's production of Patient A.

Dear Readers: If I tell you that I feel old, I’m not looking for you to tell me, “oh, but twenty-three is still so young, you still have so much of your life ahead of you!” I’m telling you I feel old because, goddammit, I feel old. You going to argue with me about my emotions now? Seriously? It’s been happening for a while. I mean, I threw my back out for the first time...

Phillyist has been suffering through an extreme bout of insomnia lately, which we mentioned to you last week. That, combined with our currently heavy workload, makes us lament the mere two days we get every weekend and kind of think about moving to France and joining up with our Parisian sister site. If only we spoke the language...

Phillyist will be attending ChefAid 2006, now in its 13th year, this Sunday at the Ritz Carlton.The annual black-tie event features the talents of more then 15 generous local Chefs from regional restaurants who donate their time and effort for the cocktail hour and five course meal to benefit MANNAParticipating Chefs and restaurants this year include Kiong Banhm, Twenty Manning; Thien Ngo, Fork; Jim Coleman, Coleman Restaurant; Joseph Poon; and Justin Rambo-Garwood from Philadelphia Fish & Company. Moore Brothers Wine Company and Southern Wine and Spirits of Pennsylvania are among the many beverage sponsors. Founded in 1990, MANNA provides hot, home delivered meals and nutritional counseling throughout the tri-state area to men women and children living with HIV/AIDS.

This Thursday, restaurants all over the city will take part in Dining Out for Life, an annual fundraiser for local services for those living with HIV and AIDS. Participating restaurants will contribute 33% of their sales from the day.

To Whom it May Concern: We’d like to tell you a little about our friend and fellow contributor, “Phillial” columnist Jessica Haralson. As we’ve mentioned before, Jessica co-edits a little publication called Quake. Although Quake isn’t the first magazine of its kind, it is the first literary erotica magazine at Penn. Jessica got some great press last month from Philadelphia Weekly, and two weeks ago, the magazine’s first print issue arrived. Of course – and...

From here on out, being smart about your sexual health may be a little more public than we'd like. Philadelphia has long withstood pressure by the state to turn in the names of those testing positive for HIV. Until two weeks ago, that is.