But the story was never that simple.
June 3, 2013 12:09 PM Subscribe
‘People Think It’s Over’
Spared Death, Aging People With H.I.V. Struggle to Live
My good friend (and collaborator) Steve is featured in this article.
Steve is one of the true gems in my life. I actually found his website when I was a teenager in 1999, when I was struggling with depression and coming out issues. In the middle of the night, while doing a search on the internet for “gay teen suicide” I happened upon his online diary. It turns out Steve is good friends with Gabi Clayton, a mom who lost her bisexual teen son to suicide. At that point, he had been writing in his online diary for three years or so. I clicked back to the beginning of the diary, and was surprised to see that he had started it on my 16th birthday. So of course, I had to read through it.
Anyway, about 8 hours later, having not killed myself, but knowing a lot more about a songwriter maybe not dying of AIDS in Los Angeles, I wrote a long and rambling email to him, telling him that we were about to be good friends. Steve helped me a great deal with coming out to my parents, and has been a very good friend to me. I have traveled the country seeing productions of his shows, and have made a lot of great friends.
In 2006, he and his partner moved to New York to do an off-Broadway run of their second show, “The Big Voice: God or Merman?” and I did some assistance work on the show. We had a lot of downtime, and Steve taught me how to turn my poetry into lyrics. We spent hours and hours with the craft of songwriting over a few months.
Eventually, he encouraged me to apply to a very prestigious songwriting workshop. Well, imagine my surprise when I got in. However, more meaningful than the fact that I write lyrics now is that at my audition for the workshop, I met my husband. We just celebrated our fifth anniversary together.
So, uh, I am extremely glad that Steve is alive and well.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:25 PM on June 3, 2013 [40 favorites]
Steve is one of the true gems in my life. I actually found his website when I was a teenager in 1999, when I was struggling with depression and coming out issues. In the middle of the night, while doing a search on the internet for “gay teen suicide” I happened upon his online diary. It turns out Steve is good friends with Gabi Clayton, a mom who lost her bisexual teen son to suicide. At that point, he had been writing in his online diary for three years or so. I clicked back to the beginning of the diary, and was surprised to see that he had started it on my 16th birthday. So of course, I had to read through it.
Anyway, about 8 hours later, having not killed myself, but knowing a lot more about a songwriter maybe not dying of AIDS in Los Angeles, I wrote a long and rambling email to him, telling him that we were about to be good friends. Steve helped me a great deal with coming out to my parents, and has been a very good friend to me. I have traveled the country seeing productions of his shows, and have made a lot of great friends.
In 2006, he and his partner moved to New York to do an off-Broadway run of their second show, “The Big Voice: God or Merman?” and I did some assistance work on the show. We had a lot of downtime, and Steve taught me how to turn my poetry into lyrics. We spent hours and hours with the craft of songwriting over a few months.
Eventually, he encouraged me to apply to a very prestigious songwriting workshop. Well, imagine my surprise when I got in. However, more meaningful than the fact that I write lyrics now is that at my audition for the workshop, I met my husband. We just celebrated our fifth anniversary together.
So, uh, I am extremely glad that Steve is alive and well.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:25 PM on June 3, 2013 [40 favorites]
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Still, I can't imagine being in the situation of assuming you'd be dead in a few years, and 20 years later wondering what you're going to do with your life.
posted by petrilli at 12:20 PM on June 3, 2013