aMMusing

The results of New Brunswick’s provincial election on Monday “is another classic illustration of how voters say one thing with their ballots but the [current] system ends up giving them something different,” says the executive director of Fair Vote Canada.

I found the report of New Brunswick electoral reform commission. Taking note of the four regions the commission proposes* and correcting a mistake in the calculation formula in my spreadsheet (which I’ll amend on all other spreadsheets one day), I recrunched the numbers.

Proportional representation isn’t perfect, but it would indeed be a lot better. With my calculation fix, the NDP would still have been shut out of the N.B. Legislature, and with barely 5% of the vote, I begrudgingly admit that’s how it should be. Consequently, the recrunch shows that the election would still have yielded a slim majority …but for the Progressive Conservatives, not the Liberals.

North
Actual: Lib: 9; PC: 5; NDP: 0
MPP: Lib: 7; PC: 7; NDP: 0
Central **
Actual: Lib: 9; PC: 4; NDP: 0
MPP: Lib: 7; PC: 7; NDP: 0
Southwest
Actual: Lib: 7; PC: 7; NDP: 0
MPP: Lib: 7; PC: 7; NDP: 0
Southeast
Actual: Lib: 4; PC: 10; NDP: 0
MPP: Lib: 6; PC: 8; NDP: 0
PROVINCE WIDE
Actual: Lib: 29; PC: 26; NDP: 0
MPP: Lib: 27; PC: 29; NDP: 0

In other words, not only would the results have been opposite, but they would have better reflected the popular vote, even though only 1,359 votes separate the PCs and the Liberals province-wide.

* Being from New Brunswick, the four regions I had created had an unequal number of ridings but, in my mind, were geographically and “culturally” logical. For instance, knowing how the roads are in this province, I thought it would impractical for a regional MLA to cover a region like “North,” which takes in Grand Falls/Grand-Sault in the northwest and Shippagan in the northeast. Similarly, having a region with Fredericton and Woodstock with Miramichi is not as “intuitive” to me as one with Fredericton and Saint John, although I realize my view would place two of three major centres in the same region. Sometimes, a strictly mathematical division is fair but not practical or responsive to cultural bonds. The “Brayons” of the northwest are very different from the “Acadiens” of the northeast even though both groups are francophone, not to mention that the northwest is in better shape economically than the northeast. But that said, I recognize that a mathematical approach is not as arbitrary and, thus, probably better.

** Extra regional seat to make region equally weighted.

You just have to read this story.

I should point out that the guy has since been reinstated in his position. Still, the thought of forcing civil servants to write “the new government of Canada” makes me want to wretch.

The New Brunswick provincial election yesterday has led to showing the door to Progressive Conservative Premier Bernard Lord, but by no means was he creamed. With less than half a percentage point’s difference in the popular vote in favour of the PCs, Shawn Graham’s Liberals have formed a majority goverment: 29 Libs, 26 PCs, 0 NDP. The NDP’s showing under leader Allison Brewer was a disgrace: from a hair under 10% of the popular vote and 1 seat in 2003 to a hair above 5% this year and no seats.

Of course, I took an hour tonight and crunched the number in my trusty MPP spreadsheet. One way of looking at the data with MPP lens would have given New Brunswickers a PC minority: 27 PCs, 27 Libs and 2 NDP. It would have been a PC government due to their incumbent status, unless the Libs and NDP had agreed to a coalition and the Lieutenant-Governor called on them to form the government.

I’m still looking forward to the day when I have leisure time to create that website with tons of elections results, that would represent the data in different scenarios. But that won’t be for a while given the way things are going for me work-wise.

I went to bed around 11:30 last night, exhausted out of my mind. Yes, me, in bed before midnight on a Friday night. Unbelievable as it still is after 6 or 7 months of having switched my internal clock from nights to days, and as much as I’m overextended by work, I have to be honest with myself: I’m not feeling as exhausted as I felt when I was a night owl. Despite what I think is still my propensity to be a night person, I have to concede that I’m probably getting more and better sleep as a day person. I still wish I could operate on less sleep, but I can’t do that anymore at 41.

Today, September 16, 2006, would have been my father’s 81st birthday. That means today’s exactly two-and-a-half days since his funeral — March 16, 2004. Of course, I would always call him on his birthday. I remember one year in particular — I think in the late ’90s — when we were having these fantastic, very summer-like Septembers, he reported having gone for a walk all the way to Main Street in Moncton on the morning of his birthday — a walk of more than 2 miles — and claimed he hadn’t needed to wear a jacket. Funny how we remember trivial remarks like that.

Although it’s been autumn-like in the Maritimes since the end of August, today and tomorrow are shaping up like those warm late-summer days of a few years ago. The sun rises around 7:00 and sets before 7:30 at this time of year, but although the days are much shorter than they are in late June or early July, it’s clear it will feel like summer today, with temperatures well into the mid-20s C. Normally that would be enough for me to pack my gear and take advantage of the warm season’s swan song, but this year I can’t justify that. I have to work, and that’s that. I have to remind myself how I told myself that this year has to be one of sacrifice so that I can climb out of debt. It’s not a glamourous objective, but it’s worthwhile.

Yesterday I picked up my mail at my post office box and found a cheque from the client I was telling you about last Saturday. There was a short, handwritten note from the organization’s treasurer, dated 12 September, that explained that he was sending the cheque even though he hadn’t received my regular monthly bill. As I mentioned to you, even though all my friends have advised me otherwise, I intended not to bill the client this month because that’s just the way I am. It doesn’t matter to me that I’ve consistently done more work than what I’ve been paid for; I can’t bring myself to charge for work not done. Consequently, I don’t plan to cash the cheque, unless the client insists that I do so as part of the new arrangements I’m working on. I do find interesting that the cheque was cut the day after I spoke to a member of the client’s executive board. Perhaps he reported that not only am I trying to come up with a solution, which I intend to bring to the board shortly; he may also have reported that I’m feeling remorseful about the current situation.

Meanwhile, my day job yesterday was pure hell. One call — the third conversion call of the day — lasted three hours. It had to because it’s a large account requiring a lot of setup, but I had to cut the call short because I had another appointment that started at 5:00 my time. Just as I was to start the training component of the call, I found out that the client wasn’t enrolled to the services to which I thought it was enrolled, and theirs was the only type of conversion I cannot do. I immediately called my colleague JR who, fortunately, wasn’t on the phone and agreed to continue my call. In exchange, however, I agreed to call someone he had promised to call at 4:30 EDT.

I only got the client’s voice mail when I tried calling, so then I called another client I had on my “to call today” list and, surprisingly, closed that conversion. A voice-mail message was waiting for me when I closed that conversion and it was from the client for whom I had left the voice mail, so feeling obliged to both JR and the client and despite the fact it was now almost 6:00 EDT, I return the client’s call. I immediately started by asking the client if it was too late but the client very kindly said, “Oh no, I very much appreciate the call.” But there ended the niceties. Here’s a call that should have lasted 30 minutes — 40 at the very most — lasting an hour and a quarter. Not only was he the kind of client I end up having to explain how to operate a computer, but also he was the kind who kept trying to anticipate what I would ask him to do next and wouldn’t pay attention to anything I would say. At one point I said something mildly rude, but he didn’t seem to be offended: “Sir,” I said, “can you please slow down. We’re all going to make it to Sunday at the same time.” Normally I would only pause and tell the client to “bear with me” and “trust me” since I’ve done hundreds of these conversions and have developed an orderly technique to get through a conversion. But being so tired by that point of the day and given this was my 6th substantive call of the day, my patience had worn thin. Despite thinking I came across as rude and impatient, I guess I didn’t come across that way because he was very profusive in thanking me at the end of the call.

Meanwhile, all week at the day job, I had the nagging feeling I was forgetting something but no amount of riffling through my files helped me remember what that was, if anything. Finally, between my surprise conversion closing and the difficult call I just described, it came to me. One of my colleagues in Toronto pulled a snafu — that’s okay, we’re all allowed to pull one of those once in a while — but then she essentially threw the ball back in my court to call the client and fix up her mess. That bugs me on several levels: first, our m.o. at the bank is to take personal responsibility for our mistakes, and that’s clearly not what she was doing; and second, this is a client we’ve had a lot of trouble nailing down for a conversion and is extremely difficult to reach, so this is the worst kind of client to fuck around. Unfortunately, with my remembering only Friday evening what I was supposed to do, chances are we won’t be able to cut through the red tape and fix what needs to be fixed in time for my appointment with the client late Monday afternoon. Last week there were nearly a dozen snafus by my Toronto colleagues that directly affected my work, and with my load of appointments last week being 125% what it should have been, I’m finding that I can’t keep up.

Anyway, enough of this crap. I have to get to work …and I mean it this time. Sadly I’ll be missing out on the last nice days of summer. I just have to remind myself that there’s a purpose to all of this.

Someone I know once said about his work, “I love my job; there’s just too much of it.” Now, more than ever, I can relate with that comment. I often used to feel that way while I was “only” running my little business, but now that’s a perpetual state.

By the end of today (and thus the work week for the day job), I will have done 19 conversion calls. Not all were successfully completed, but still, the number expected of me is 15 per week — i.e., 3 per day. The last time I looked, I have a potential of five appointment slots until the end of September, as 3 days (25, 26 & 27) are a write-off for calls because the day job is flying me to Toronto. Then I’m scheduled to be on vacation for 6 work days in October, which I think I desperately need even though I had a week off in August, but that further complicates the scheduling of appointments.

Meanwhile, over the next 7 days, in addition to the above, I’m expected to [a] put together my midterm performance evaluation and discuss it with my supervisor, [b] complete the data entry and programming for one of my other-job client, [c] prepare a proposal and contracts for another one of my other-job clients. Then, while in Toronto, I’ll be meeting one afternoon with the client in [b] above. Upon my return, I’ll probably have a few kinks to iron out for [b], plus I’ll have to finish [c] and create the infrastructure programming to support it, and complete the job for a third of my other-job clients. On the one hand, time-wise, I can’t afford to take a week off in October, but on the other hand, mentally and physically speaking, I can’t sustain this pace of 10 to 12 hours, 7 days a week, and retain my sanity.

{Interruption to do a conversion call for day job…}

Anyway, I have to get back to the day job. I wish I could stay mentally alert for 48 hours non-stop and plough through all that needs to be done. But since that’s not feasible, I’m trying to figure out what’s going to give.

Brian posted a rant yesterday about a site advocating serosorting as a means of preventing further HIV infections. Understandably, Brian’s pissed.

Some HIV positive guys only link together with other HIV positive guys. There is nothing wrong with that, but to pretend that this is some wave of the future of HIV prevention by attempting to ghettoize something that you cannot contain in a ghetto, is complete folly (to be nice). There is no nice little line that you can draw between “us and them” when it comes to preventing risk of transmission.

Someone left a long comment on Brian’s post to say that he “completely disagree[s]” with him on this point and concludes by asking him, “[I]s it really a festering resentment about the HIV-negative guys who reject guys who are poz?” Once again, as happened with Jeff and his article I called a misfire, critics are coming out to proffer pseudo psychoanalyses in an attempt to explain the author’s motivations. The only thing I’ll grant the commentor is that Brian’s posts can be abrasive at times, but he does warn everyone who enters his blog that “You are entering my mind, it’s not always pretty!”

Logically, if serodiscordant sexual contacts were to end immediately, there wouldn’t be new cases of transmission to “neggies.” But this is not only unlikely to happen; it’s also a division that shouldn’t happen. As Brian writes, clearly “stupidity falls on both sides of the sero-spectrum.” This advocating of serosorting coming from someone who’s poz is proof, as it is a position that [a] absolves everyone from taking responsibility for themselves and [b] could encourage a throwback to the hysteria of the early- and mid-’80s when some people feared that a handshake or breathing the same air could cause someone to seroconvert. To me, the notion of serosorting is as odious and has echoes of ethnic cleansing, which surely no one in his or her right mind would advocate.

So, I lied.

In my previous entry, I wrote that I would get to work immediately after I posted that entry. But I wrote that sentence well before the last paragraph in which I did my coming out as having a “work-identified” personality. Yes, believe it or not, that was another Oprah lightbulb moment for me.

That, in itself, is really quite funny. While it may have been an cunning insight for me, for anyone who knows me, that statement probably caused several sets of eyeballs to roll back so hard that now I’m probably responsible for said sets of eyeballs to have fallen out of their sockets. But finally I’ve come to a better understanding of why work for me is so damn personal.

So, instead of getting back to work like I said I would, I called the Queen of Sheba to see what she was doing on this fine, sunny Saturday. While she’s remotely acquainted with some of the actors [from the client I wrote about in the last post], she’s infinitely more detached than I am. She suggested an immediate audience over coffee in her garden, and I steadfastly accepted her indulgence. As I was leaving my apartment, I thought of swinging by Julien’s next door for pastries. Then, as I was driving to the Queen’s quarters, another thought crossed my mind: the problem for someone like me who has to fix situations like the one I’m facing is that they require taking non-existing time to figure them out. Like stealing from Peter to pay Paul, my taking time out right then and there could lead to pissing off another client, but by not taking the time out, I’d risk (at best) never resolving anything or (at worst) eventually losing everything.

As I wrote previously, I had been mulling over a few ideas in the previous 12 hours. What I was hoping for — and got — from my audience with the Queen were specific suggestions and leads. She also advised that I put a firm, take-it-or-leave-it proposal on the table, with only very few flexible points for compromise. In essence, I would finally [a] resolve the problem at hand while [b] start making my business work for me rather than only and always work for my business.

Buoyant from my audience with the Queen, I then visited BeeGoddess M, Stephanie and my too-adorable-for-words nephew Jackson. They (except Jackson who was too busy licking my face to care) agreed that the plan I devised with the Queen is sound. So, tonight as I’m heading to bed, I do fear a little if and how the plan will fly but, overall, I feel better because at least my having a plan is a much better position to be in than where I was last night as I went to bed.

Unbelievably, I woke up, got up and showered at 7:00 this morning — a Saturday. Gone are my days as a night owl; now I tend to wake up before my alarm goes off or, on days like today when I didn’t set the alarm before going the bed, before my alarm would have gone off on a weekday. And although I do sleep soundly because I’m completely drained when I hit the hay, all my dreams feature some aspect of work, be it the day job or the former job I’m barely managing on a part-time basis.

Yet this morning I just wasted. Instead of working as I should have, I caught up on blog reading and the news of the week. On the one hand, I feel guilty; on the other, I know that working constantly is no way to live. But as soon as I post this entry, I’ll finally get to work.

Thankfully, my supervisor at the day job is very supportive and understanding. She recognizes that I’m going flat out and, in fact, probably overdoing it. “Don’t burn yourself out or you’ll be of no use to me,” she frequently says to me. While it may not come across in the literal words she uses, she says that with genuinely caring tone in her voice. “Don’t lose any sleep and don’t worry about ‘that’ deadline” — the deadline we all know we can’t achieve but are collectively pretending is real. In truth, though, I’m not losing any sleep, for as I just wrote, by the time I go to bed, I’m so exhausted that I’m out like a light a few minutes after I rest my head on the pillow.

I still don’t know what awaits me after this contract officially ends. However, I do get the sense that some people who matter would like me to continue in one capacity or another. The only thing that worries me — although, again, not enough to lose any sleep — is that I might be urged to relocate in Toronto if I want to stay on. But the problem is that Toronto is one of the last places I want to be. My concern, therefore, is if I stand firm on this point, I might be pegged as someone who’s unwilling to “develop” his career. Yet in this day and age, especially given the work I’m doing, my locale shouldn’t be a problem.

Meanwhile, there’s the job I thought I’d be able to continue on a part-time basis. Reality is really setting in now. After working 9 …10 …sometimes 11 hours a day with breaks only to pour myself another cup of coffee or go to the bathroom, I can barely bring myself to make myself some supper, let alone consider working some more. Some days this week I tried to squeeze in a few hours on the part-time job before starting the day job, but I couldn’t even do that yesterday and Thursday. As a result, I’m keenly aware that I’m royally fucking up on the part-time gig.

Last night, someone kindly and confidentially gave me the head’s up on the possible impact of one of those fuck ups. Interestingly, aware of my fuck up, I had already decided not to bill the client in question this month (or send a bill for $0). What I find frustrating in this particular instance is that I tried so hard to prepare this client to be self-sufficient prior to starting my day job, but the client never grasped — and still doesn’t — everything I did for them on top of what I was formally hired to do. In fact, the way I over-serve my clients but don’t bill them commensurately is the very reason why I had to put my small business on ice. For that the blame rests squarely on my shoulders, not my clients’ (or my daytime employer’s, for that matter). I clearly see the pattern: I overextend myself over and over, and when I reach my breaking point and start dropping balls all over the place, clients get upset because they’re no longer getting the level of service to which they’ve become accustomed. I consistently get too involved with my clients’ business rather than sticking to my role of webmastering services. In short, I recognize that I’m the architect of my own downfall.

Several of my friends have advised me to just let the above client go. And truth be said, I’ve given it a lot of thought in recent weeks. But a few things keep nagging me and preventing me from doing so. I can’t stand the thought of years’ of work being flushed down the toilet and sending the client to start from scratch (although I would never really leave a client empty-handed). I also hate the thought of burning bridges, for if nothing materializes at the end of my day-job contract, what would I fall back on? And, additionally, I despise seeing what has been a good long-standing relationship — both professionally and personally — possibly coming to an end, ploughed under a wave of acrimony.

I’ve been mulling over some ideas in the last 12 hours that might allow me to save the farm in this case — an arrangement that would take the client out of the lurch it’s in while preserving my honour and reputation, so to speak. However, based on some of the things my informant told me last night, I can’t help wonder why I should be so accommodating. I tried to avoid this debacle, but the client didn’t comprehend that’s what I was trying to do……

When I think about it, I guess I’m finally figuring out what’s at the crux of my problem in general. I have what could be called a strong “work-identified” personality. It’s so strong that work is very personal for me. Too personal. It’s hard for me to separate the two. And when I come to a situation like this one, I find it difficult, if not impossible, to be cold and simply say, “Business is business.” Instead, I just feel numb and have a big knot in my stomach, and come as close as I’m capable of to crying.

Funny that Brian just posted an editorial from fab on roughly the topic I wrote about in my last post. It does not address specifically the motives for barebacking, aside, perhaps, that it’s “mechanically” better for some guys. However, interesting is the mention that being seen as slutty holds a stigma that can make one less desirable and so on.

Well, for the record, I guess I can count myself among the lucky ones: condoms do not induce any “problems of performance” on my part. It may also be generational for me in that I became sexually active just around the time that HIV/AIDS was identified and condoms, short of abstinence, were tauted as the best protection, so they have always been something with which I’ve had to be inventive so that they don’t become an obstruction to fun. Yes, I consider myself lucky that, for me, they’re as automatic as putting on my seatbelt when I sit in a car.

I still can’t comprehend how some guys figure that if they contract HIV, they plan to simply say, “Oh well, I’ll just go on the drugs the rest of my life.” I mean, thank gawd those damn drugs exist, but since when are we suppose to take so lightly the thought of going on chimotherapy? Then again, I should confess that I dislike the thought of taking any medication. One time, I didn’t bother get one for antibiotics filled since I figured it was useless and alarmist, and, some 5 years later, I don’t think I’m worse off for not having taken the prescription. But setting aside my personal aversion to prescription drugs, I still say that the effects of antiretrovirals is one picnic I’d rather avoid.

It must be at least two years now that I’ve had a link to Jeff’s blog. I seldom leave him a comment, but there’s something I like about his blog and Jeff himself that keeps me going back, although I can’t quite put my finger on what. I like the fact he’s articulate; I like the fact he’s flawed just as we all are as humans; I like the fact he chooses to write on a eclectic range of esoteric topics, to the point of being a bit of a nerd. That said, I don’t think that we have much in common and I’m not sure we’d have much to say to each other if we met in person. Perhaps that’s why I continue to read him: we live a world apart, although, in fact, we’re only two hours apart by plane.

Jeff is an aspiring writer. He’s been wanting to write professionally long before he got laid off his State job earlier this year. And finally, with the appearance of an opinion piece he wrote last month for a “traditional” media outlet (as opposed to the blogesphere), he is now a published writer. His opinion piece is a reflection upon viewing the documentary Gay Sex in the ’70s, which has recently been released on DVD but that I, personally, have not seen.

Unfortunately for him, but understandably if you take the time to read his article, it has generated a storm of controversy and nasty comments. I say “understandably,” for I have to agree with his critics that the tone of his writing is judgemental and condescending towards — and downright pitying of — the New York men who engaged in wanton anonymous sex in the ’70s, not to mention that his comparison with the Nazi Holocaust of the ’40s is completely off. But more to the point, in my humble opinion as a former editor, the main problem with his article is not so much that he struck the wrong tone or may (or may not) have engaged in some serious projection based on his own sexual biases and taboos. Rather, the problem I detect is that he failed to account for the historical context.

Indeed, it’s insufficent to point out that “we know today what they didn’t know back then — that unprotected sex can kill.” Even though I was too young to be an active participant, I understand that the mindset in the ’70s was one whereby gay men could have as much sex as they wanted and not have to worry about their acts leading to an unwanted pregnancy — a situation, I’m sure, many straight men either secretly or openly envied. Granted, sexually transmitted diseases were a concern then as now; however, not only was it a concern shared by gays and straights alike, but also, as Jeff points out, in the ’70s, we “lived in a world in which modern Western medicine seemed to be conquering disease.”

Yet more significantly, the ’70s were a time when very few put into question the practice of discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation; therefore, furtive and “discreet” encounters was the era’s “protected sex” that most gay men required to shield themselves from a very real, existing threat at the time. As much as there is still a long way to go in many jurisdictions with regard to gay rights, today’s conjuncture places wanton anonymous sex in the realms of choice and thrill, whereas in the ’70s, necessity dictated that most closet doors could only be opened a crack. In short, while I take issue with Jeff’s comment piece, I am not about to proffer cheap putdowns or another (pseudo) psychoanalysis on his biases as some of his critics have done. Instead, I’m choosing to phrase my reservations on the grounds that I think his article is a misfire, and it misses the mark because it views an historical period through presentist normative lens.

The odd thing, though, is that I stumbled on Jeff’s article just as I’ve been meaning — and hesitating for some time — to write about the rise in recent years in the desire for unprotected sex among some gay men. I don’t have much free time these days, but occasionally when I do, for kicks, I look at online ads placed by guys from around the world. (Yeah, yeah …nekkid guys.) And on these profiles, many are those — HIV negative or positive, top or bottom — who state outright that they have and want only unprotected sex.

Whenever I read that, my heart sinks a little. I don’t understand it. To be blunt, the short-term sensual benefits of a guy engaging in barebacking simply don’t stack up against the long-term effects. Even if the parties involved are all “poz,” it seems to me that it’s rather defeatist, as in “I’ve ‘got it’ already, so why bother?” I’ve come to know guys who take their poz status to paint themselves as victims, and others, like Brian (via his blog writing), who take a totally opposite view. But there’s one thing both groups of guys have in common: the effin’ drugs they end up having to take. Although being poz is no longer the death sentence it was in the ’80s and early-’90s, it’s by no means a picnic. Certainly, as someone who has the good fortune of being negative, I certainly want to avoid that “little bit of fun.”

Lately, in an attempt to try to understand the barebackers rather than judge them, I have been taking a look at my own risky behaviour outside the sexual realm. Take, for instance, the fact I’ve gone back to smoking despite coming so close to quitting last year. I cognitively know and understand that what I’m doing is not only irrational, but it could lead to a slow and painful death. In fact, lately that thought has been bothering me a lot (again). So why am I so freakin’ unable to knock some sense into myself and quit while I might still have a chance? I don’t know if it’s possible or fair to make such inferences given how chemical addiction complicates smoking cessation. However, I suspect there are possibly more psychological than chemical factors that make quitting the weed so difficult. Is it possible that a similar set of factors come into play among those who choose to bareback, either occasionally or exclusively?

Here’s the rub (pun intended or not): I have no problem with anonymous sex. In fact, I like it a lot. But not so much that I would take senseless risks. For instance, I remember one time a few years ago being in the dark back room of a bathhouse in Montreal after having spent the evening in several Village bars and getting pretty drunk, and suffice it to say that I was far from alone in said back room. At one point, however, some guy behind me attempted to stick his unshielded you-know-what in my you-know-where. Yet despite my state of intoxication — from both alcohol and what was going on in the room — I managed to firmly prevent the “intrusion” and remove myself from a …err …position that would have given Mister Bare an opportunity to try again.

I’m not telling you this to feel holier-than-thou, for let’s not forget where the hell I was in the first place. But it struck me only a few minutes later that [A] I was really drunk yet [B] I still assumed responsibility for myself. I guess one could call my m.o. “healthy distrust,” and I don’t care if it makes me seem like I’m buying into the faulty assumption that all gay guys are poz. Cognitively I know that’s not the case, but it’s akin to the little trick I play on myself every morning by setting the time 7 or 8 minutes ahead on my alarm clock. By the time I figure out in my sleepy mind what 7 or 8 minutes before 7:03 is, I’m reminded that I set the clock ahead for a reason — in that case, that I’m the slowest morning starter you’ll likely ever meet. Similarly, assuming everyone’s poz status reminds me of why I make that assumption and alerts me to the risk if not the fact — evidently even when I’m drunk.

In the same vein, the reason I have never done drugs (aside from the garden variety C.A.N. — caffeine, alcohol and nicotine) is not because I haven’t had the opportunity, but because I know myself to have an addictive personality. It is possible that I wouldn’t get addicted after one try, but it’s probable that I might. To me, the pleasant short-term trip is not worth the difficult long-term recovery.

Often, one will hear or read pop-psychology theories that attempt to explain why some people willingly engage in self-destructive behaviour. Commonly cited are ills such as low self-esteem, depression, low sense of worth, having a death wish or a desire to become a victim, and so on. But taking again as an example my own addiction to cigarettes, that doesn’t seem to fit. While I have my moments of self-doubt like everybody else, generally I’m satisfied with what I’ve accomplished and what I’ve become. I know there are a lot of things I suck at, but there are many endeavours in which I know I excel. I very fortunately do not suffer from dysmorphia; while I know I’m physically not a gift from the gods, I do think I’m the kind of guy that another guy wouldn’t mind bringing home to Ma and Pa. I’m far from perfect, for no one is; but I have few regrets so far and I’d like to continue this adventure as long as I can. Yet I persist in smoking.

Maybe it’s hedonism, pure and simple — both on my part and on the part of barebackers. Maybe it’s a simple, matter-of-fact acknowledgement that we’re all going to die one way or another. Maybe for some it’s a decision derived from seeing people spending their life doing all the healthy things, only to die of some horrible cancer in the span of six months, which could lead them to the conclusion that cause/effect relationships are nebulous (e.g., “My 93-year-old aunt has been smoking two packs a day since she’s 20″ or “This poz guy stuck it up my ass three years ago and I’m still neg”).

Could it be as simple as saying that smokers and barebackers are engaging in some weird game of Russian roulette?