Paul Attinello

Category: AIDS/HIV

  • S.E.P.

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    paulattinello
    in

    Telephone call on a Sunday, from the police in a small village in the county south of here. Apparently someone has disappeared, and the neighbors are worried about him – someone I’ve never met: but someone who is on my list of contacts for HIV patients who want to talk to someone. This is a…

  • Maintenance

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    paulattinello
    in

    Tonight I was doing my rather intricate monthly bagging of pills – I’ve been doing it for years. It is a possibly somewhat over-meticulous response to, on the one hand, the intricate demands of HIV medications and the many supplements I take; and, on the other, my tendency to lose track of everyday actions unless…

  • aargh…

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    paulattinello
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    it ITCHES. Well, it did, anyway. After much rather frantic vacuuming, washing, and a happy improvement in the weather – now merely warm rather than hot – things are finally okay…. It started some years ago – must be about 1990/1991 – the summer that Steven was my roommate. It was after Paul P– moved…

  • Going to Japan

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    paulattinello
    in ,

    I’ve never been to Japan before. On a crowded street corner, breathing the acid tang of the gray air, I look at the little hand-drawn map and try to figure out where north is. The oval, blank faces flow past as though they ride on swift, efficient engines, though occasionally one glances at me: gaijin,…

  • Discomfortable moment

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    paulattinello
    in

    Last night was the last HIV patient presentation of the spring/summer; it was an odd one – not like our usual casual, confident get-together with people we know well, talking easily to young students who are always fascinated and slightly appalled. This was an elaborate, rather stiff, formal presentation run by some people up from…

  • One day

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    paulattinello
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    Overlapping experiences, overlapping responses to them: last night’s relaxed social dinner with colleagues and friends, today’s anxious management of some administration in a frantically brief time before going to the hospital to do another HIV presentation, then went to the nearby Indian grocery, then off to a festive department dinner, then a brief visit to…

  • Betwixt / between

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    paulattinello
    in

    The trick with posting to a blog: one wants a given post to have a certain integral focus. What, then, if "fate keeps on happening" (Loos)? This weekend, friends of Spurious in town; had an amusing time with them. My beloved friend P–– is doing very well. Had varying news from doctor, either bad or…

  • When the saints begin to speak

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    paulattinello
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    Every whisper sounds like thunder Everybody stares in wonder When the saints begin to speak [Manhattan Transfer, ‘Brasil’] Yesterday was the usual AIDS/HIV patient group presentation to medical students. (“Usual” – this is one of the things I do here, in this otherwise rather isolated place – it is both my claim to actually do…

  • Sunshine and queasiness

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    paulattinello
    in

    Frankly, I’m worried. The past couple of years, my experiences of free time – including those lovely, long Easter breaks we get here in the UK, and summers, with their long high-latitude days – have been characterized by mild illness, by an inertia that is ultimately frightening. Frightening because that inertia is the demon that…

  • Abruptness

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    paulattinello
    in

    Wakened by the phone. The doctor wants blood tests redone – liver functions awry, apparently; no surprise. And an argument over the many vitamins I take: we already had a rather boring and inconclusive squabble over this last week – it’s not exactly that he disapproves, but clearly he has latched on to them as…