Hello friends,

 

Hope your hangovers (whether booze or dessert induced) are easing some from your New Year's celebration.  I had a great time hitting some parties here in my new home, San Francisco, with my fantastic new roommate, Harry, and fun buddy Andy.  Woah, SF has got some really cute guys, who know how to cook really good side dishes.  And as is always the way, we ended up side tracked at one party watching Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin dishing "girl talk" in Times Square before the ball dropped there.  I'm sure Anderson dropped his balls later...

 

SF has been an incredibly welcoming city for both myself and Strength In Numbers as our new official international headquarters.  Amazing local groups like Thriving SF, Positive Force, the SF AIDS Foundation, STOP AIDS Project, Magnet SF, the Positive Resource Center, and Healing Waters to name a few are helping SIN San Francisco forge new and exciting partnerships.  That means we can expand our presence in a town where it's estimated that at least 25% of the gay men are HIV positive.  That's tens of thousands of guys who are interested in meeting another poz guy to date or find friendship with other poz guys who understand there struggles.  We'll be working hard to make sure that SIN SF is here to provide a safe space to learn and grow for all of them.  This year SIN also will be welcoming in chapters serving Oklahoma City, Bogata (Colombia) and the entire Scandinavian region.  That's a lot of gay guys who know how to cook damn good side dishes!

 

Recently, the film director Gus Van Zandt starting making his biopic "MILK" here in the Castro and other SF hoods, telling the story of Harvey Milk, the first gay supervisor elected in the city, who was later tragically assassinated along with the city's mayor, George Mascone.  It's been a time of reflection for the gay community as San Francisco fully re-emerges as one of the world's leading GLBT hubs after losing almost an entire generation of gay men to AIDS.  But it's a city that is also rapidly changing, where the historic Castro village is not the same as it was when Harvey opened his camera shop several decades ago.  It's exciting to be a part of this vibrant community, where change, although at times uncomfortable or uncertain, can produce a more diverse and empowered society than one we ever dared imagined.

 

So 2008 will be great!  We'll make it great.  There are a lot of troubling things happening out there in the world.  Horrible violence in third world countries.  Uncertainty about the world's economic systems.  The continuing collapse of Britney Spears' career.  But seriously, we're still facing a grime fact that HIV keeps spreading fast across Africa and Asia, and still continues to spread very quickly across the gay communities here in industrialized nations.  We've got a chance to rally together as HIV+ gay men, if even just one potluck party at a time, to build friendships, share invaluable information and change lives.

 

Thanks for being a part of Strength In Numbers.  Thank you for helping change my life.  Thanks to San Francisco for making me feel so welcome.  And thanks to all of my friends for all of their support.  ALSO, PLEASE SPONSOR ME IN THE CALIFORNIA AIDS LIFE/CYCLE RIDE, see link below! 

Love,
Bryan

Founder, SIN

"Being the best is possible only if your desire to succeed is greater than your fear of failure."
Please sponsor me for AIDS Life/Cycle 2008 at: http://www.aidslifecycle.org/5065