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Jeff, 1995. |
Jeff
July 7, 1995
MW: When you got shingles what did it mean for you?
Jeff: The first major illness, when I sero-converted, I really didn't know what it meant. I thought I would die a slow painful death in a year. So, I tried to kill myself. It took me several months to get my weight back, to recuperate. I felt the stigma of the disease and at that time it was all about pointing the finger and placing the blame. My lover had been through this- he took back his power and lived with HIV, I've always admired him for that. He's the one who taught me to live, to really live. When I got shingles, it was different.
I know people who have gotten it on their backs or their leg and when it's on your back it takes up an entire half of your back, if you can imagine from your shoulder to your hips, like one open sore. You can't wear clothes, you have to lie on your stomach, and try not to move. I got a nightcap and I had fun with it. I was moving on to the next level. Two weeks from the first day that I saw it, it was completely dried up. It was the first realization that this wasn't going to be quick or easy. It's going to be an arduous and painful process that I can never deny or choose out of.
MW: What was it like when you....
Jeff: Do you think this pink shirt complements the color of my hair? (His hair is bright blue).
MW: Oh definitely, and your eyes. (They are also blue).
Jeff: My style of dressing has become rather flashy and almost clown-like. I've been so wild with this Technicolor hair. I wear a lot of shirts with wild pictures on them, strange little hats, or sunglasses, or funky jewelry to kind of draw attention. Otherwise I'll put my hair up under hats so no one can see it. I've always been kind of a chameleon or shape shifter. I'll go through something extreme for a little while, then I'll hibernate at home for a couple weeks and then do something really drastic, so no one recognizes me. I always liked that kind of anonymity. A month ago I had red hair and eyebrows. My father's a redhead so I can get away with it, a bob... just to the line of my chin. Straight. Then I waxed my eyebrows off. It looked really trendy.
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