Author: paulattinello
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Last day of….
It is, approximately, the last warm day (or, the "last," "warm" day). Which means that today was in the low 70s – warm for the North Sea – and tomorrow is a fading version of the same, without sun. Then we drop to fall temperatures. Sometimes we have a burst of late summer at the…
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Summer’s day
I am a bit tired today – a mistake in minor medications, a mildly bad night… and, as so often, I only realized at about five or six a.m. what the obvious mistake must have been, and why my guts were churning as a result. Not terrible. A bit exasperating. And two different friends, eager…
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Familiar
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by
in Academia, AIDS/HIV, Death, Illness, Imagined, Memory, Music, On writing, Personal, Psychology, TelevisionThe image seems clear, even obvious, to me – it could be from one of the better-written fantasies, or from a film about some medieval saga… an old man living alone in the woods; there is a shift in the wind, or the light – he looks up, creases his forehead slightly, sniffs the air…
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Writing a Story for You
[A 1991 story written in Terry Wolverton's writing group; about Reid Beitrusten, who died 2 December 1983.] You’re dead, but you wanted to write stories. You were just about to get published, just about to start making it. So I’m writing a story for you, I started it in the laundromat, I went next door…
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Ah, I’m getting it now
Alison Bechdel, Fun Home. Yes, it's thirteen years old now, and was actually turned into a stage show… what can I say, I'm behind the times. I've just read it. *** The blurbs treated it as complex and subtle and unexpected: by the time I was a bit less than halfway through, I was pleased,…
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Ancient history
I'm in a casual, student-y restaurant in August: which means it's fairly empty. The big, friendly black cook looks at me inquiringly – I'll stick with this cider (yes, it's fruit-flavored, shut up you) and won't have dinner for another half hour or so. I'm finally working on that proposal for the shorter of the…
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Defense / critique
2:18 a.m. Zürich time: my thesis defense at the Jung-Institut is at 9 am. My phone's alarm is set for 6:20 – very early for me; and because I frequently get annoying side effects at night (headaches, itching, stomach aches) I did not take my HIV meds at dinner. It's okay – statistically 95-98% compliance…
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A night on the town
Saturday of a three-day weekend. A benefit for the gay rugby team… they're sweet guys, I know I'll go to this thing… but last night (i.e. Friday of the three-day weekend) I did a presentation for the new student Youth Stop AIDS group (yes, I was clear that I wasn't the 'youth' part) and we…
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Anniversary
Well… not quite the anniversary. It was thirteen years since this blog was begun… as of yesterday. A day late, that's appropriate for a thirteenth anniversary, yes? ••• No posts since the new year; which doesn't mean I'm giving up on this. I do like the blog, I like writing it…. I want to transfer it…
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Finishing the year
When you read older fiction and someone refers to dragging a steel bath into the kitchen and filling it with kettles of boiling water, do you wonder… what would that be like? I don't think I could stand it. ••• I didn't quite have a Christmas to speak of this year – it was interrupted…
Paul Attinello 