I Am Conflicted
Facebook shows me groups and/or pages that they think I might want to follow. And for the group in the feature photo today, I am conflicted.
I am Conflicted – Should I Follow Something That Makes Me Sad?
Facebook often suggests that I follow The AIDS Memorial page. And they always show a photo of a beautiful man who most likely died back in the eighties.
Almost every photo they show is of a man who looks like so many of the guys I knew when I first came out in the eighties. The guy today reminds me a lot of the best friend of a good friend. My first thought is always one of a memory of a beautiful time in my life. The next thought comes very quickly, reminding me of an awful time of my life. Almost every one of these photos reminds me of the sadness of so many amazing men lost to this awful disease. Each an every photo makes my eyes fill with tears and so I usually scroll away to something else.
I am grateful for the reminder. And I’m also grateful that I’m in a strong emotional state where this kind of memory doesn’t send me into a tailspin.
So I guess I’m not that conflicted. I will continue to have all the feelings that come along with these Facebook recommendations. But I don’t think I’ll ever follow the group…an infrequent reminder is sufficient.
Current Knitting
On a much brighter note, I was able to finish the Tipsy Tiles Scarflet by NevetsKnits.
The pattern calls for increasing until you have 40 stitches across before decreasing. I added a extra repeats and went up to 45 stitches.
The resulting “scarflet” is 74 inches long (188 cm). The length and the narrowness of the scarflet allow for a lot of different ways to style this beauty.
Here’s my favorite way.
Congratulations on your beautiful Tipsy Tiles. The editor in me is compelled to share that 74″ is 6 feet, 2 inches, not 7 feet as labeled in your photo. That would be 86 inches. Ah, details, details! Thanks for all the photos. As I’m a few years older than you, I also lived through that awful ghostly parade of illness and death, first in NYC, then in NC. Joel Crothers pictured above was among the actors to succeed Robert Redford in the original Broadway production of Barefoot in the Park in 1966-67. Cheers to you and all my fellow Joe followers.
I was an ER RN in the early 90’s on Long Island, which at that time had the highest suburban HIV rates in the country. It was a constant parade of death, in both the gay and straight populations. The saddest situations were the children that died of it, and the families of gay men taking over and kicking long-term partners out when the patients were dying. Which is exactly why gay people need to be married, because then that partner is the legal closest relative, and can make the decisions. I’m straight but I’ve never understood why or how two people of the same gender getting married affects anyone else.