Work Detail

OK, so when do we start? (“5985 and Counting,” March 1997) My time to be responsible has come. Count me in to help do what Larry Kramer calls “tedious, detailed-beyond-endurance work.” It will have rewards.

Push and Pull

Thanks for another great issue of my new favorite magazine. Just read Push after seeing it reviewed in POZ (“Glowing Sapphire,” October 1996) and cried for the first time in a year.

I am a PWA who has survived my lover of 10 years and all of my friends. Today my friends are people I have known only two years. This is not a bid for sympathy, but to let you know that when I have been able to afford POZ, I have been entertained, informed, educated and comforted. Thanks.

Date Scape

As an HIV positive single woman in the dating world, I am too familiar with the song and dance Shawn Decker describes when going out on a first date (“Sex and the Single Positoid,” March 1997). Being aware of my status has not put a hold on my life—it has given me more reason to live life to its fullest, including dating.

Native Sin

You stated that The New York Native (“Notes of a Native Son,” March 1997) did more than any paper “to air alternative ideas about the [AIDS] epidemic.” Bullshit. The Native did more than any paper to publish crackpot notions about AIDS. It seemed like wacky editor Chuck Ortleb and his acolytes were willing to accept virtually any pathogen except HIV as the cause of immune suppression.

From a Native Son

Before I began to receive POZ, I was spiritually lost, angry and generally maudlin, bellicose and drunk. Most of the articles I have since read have literally changed my life, my attitude toward living with HIV and the strength of my spirituality. Ironically, my CD4 counts and viral loads have improved without medication (except for sage, sweetgrass, cedar and tobacco). I look forward to—and travel far to obtain—your magazine.

Notes from the Underground

Thank you for Michael Brennan’s excellent article on prisons and HIV (“Prisoners in Desire,” February 1997). But it should be noted that the 21 percent conversion rate Brennan cites is a bit of an anomaly. The survey that produced the figure was based on a self-selected sample of prisoners. Other, non-self-selected samples have shown seroconversion rates of 0.19 percent and 0.41 percent, which are more in line with the 0.33 percent rate Brennan cites for Illinois.

Take Me Home

Derek (the prostitute interviewed in Hal Rubenstein’s “Trick Questions,” February 1997) sounds like someone I’d like to have known long ago when I was young. Once upon a time, we might have been in love. Ah, the power of the press.