Christmas – Orphans’ Dinner

Christmas Day we were invited to some friends’ home for dinner – the “Christmas orphan’s” dinner for those not spending the evening with bio-family.  For me,  that evening was more familial than it would have been had I been with my bio-family.  The home was on a steep hill in the heart of the Castro, being the six month new home of two friends who have been boyfriends for a couple years.  It was decorated for the holidays – in a very tasteful not schlocky way.  The entire experience made me ponder the message of the book “The Velvet Rage” – everything about the evening felt quite “produced”, although effortlessly.  The result was very enjoyable for us guests.  One partner managed all the cooking – and the dinner was incredibly delicious.  He had also handmade a streudel for dessert – which turned out well but again made me think more about whether he did it because of love of cooking and sharing (I hope) or to impress.  His boyfriend stayed out of the kitchen the whole time except to fix the occasional cocktail and kept us all entertained.  The whole time I was glad to be with everyone, and the party provided good opportunity to de-focus my thinking about being HIV+.  On the other hand, the whole HIV situation never actually left my mind during the event and I practically wanted to scream out what had happened.  Someone had brought some special hybrid pot, and it was shared around – I partook which I normally don’t due to feelings of paranoia.  This time it was just relaxing, maybe the feelings of paranoia were just drowned out by all the other thoughts spinning around in me.