A LOOK BACK @ 18MTHS. OF HOPE!!

A LOOK BACK! At 60DAYS SOBER, ... I once concluded that "I JUST have an UGLY face." However, despite the devastation of disfigurement, I was/am still conscience & cognizant of the fact that my Seventh Chakra shines – Sahasrara : "The Thousand-Petaled Lotus" – "signifying & assuring QHereKidSF of his supreme consciousness & sublime connection to the cerebral, spiritual & physical worlds" (cf. http://youtu.be/gg8mjhUqSpw – below).

At 1YR. CLEAN, I affirmed "BEAUTY!" ... "But, only at God's speed. God willing" : the choice words Director Daniel Cardone & I used to frame the closing of CONSTRUCT, our "epic" (not in length, but rather in magnitude of reverberation & depth) experimental docu-short, filmed as part of The HIV Story Project's STILL AROUND 2010 compilation (Exec. Producer: Jörg Fockele; Producer: Marc Smolowitz), which together feature a day-in-the-life of 15 individual PWA (i.e., People With AIDS) protagonists.

Now, today... At 18.5MTHS. OF HOPE (not dope!), I take the stage in a short time to proclaim how indeed I am finally & once again ablaze with "DESIRE" : red hot & risen, redeemed & reborn; as a "PHOENIX a'FIRE" (cf. "Resident Alien" - the Sins Invalid Artists In Residence Show), who prances, dances and sings poemsongs of Paphian pleasantries, indulgences & delights...

As my Sins Invalid artist bio reads, I am: "grateful for God's boundless love of & faith in [my] own purely imperfect and human desire 'for elaborate beautification & solemn self-betterment" (cf. CONSTRUCT, 2011). "But, then again, I'll be quick to say: We live to die and die to live... Forever! Come what may." (cf. JEER NOT! FEAR NOT!!; "Resident Alien," 2011).

STAY TUNED!! for my "flagrantly unfettered" foretelling of a future full of fortitude, good fortune, and truly "fag-o-licious fabulosity" of face... SUBSCRIBE TO MY YouTube® CHANNEL – mindflux | matt(e)o | mayhem : http://youtube.com/qherekidsf.

Cheers! Ciao & Namaste...
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
matthew@qherekidsf.com
http://bit.ly/qherekidsf

San Francisco, CA USA
[20110125T071435PST]

Facebook® POST (RE: R. Starner Jones, MD)

"CULTURE CRISIS" vs. "HEALTH CARE CRISIS"
Late, on the evening of September 20, 2010, I confirmed a Facebook® FRIEND Request from Matthew A. Elliott, a random acquaintance made via cyberspace connections to current Facebook® FRIENDS: Brandon Broehl-Phifer, and candidate for San Francisco District 8 City Supervisor, Raphael Mandelman. Out of plain & simple curiosity, I chose to indulge in exploring this new FRIEND'S Facebook® PROFILE, where I was shocked to find the following WALL Post, originating from one Richard Meckstroth, but re-posted recently to his own WALL by Mr. Elliott, himself:

Pictured is a young physician by the name of Dr. Roger Starner Jones. His short two-paragraph letter to the White House accurately puts the blame on a "Culture Crisis" instead of a "Health Care Crisis"...

It's worth a quick read:

Dear Mr. President:

During my shift in the Emergency Room last night, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient whose smile revealed an expensive shiny gold tooth, whose body was adorned with a wide assortment of elaborate and costly tattoos, who wore a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and who chatted on a new cellular telephone equipped with a popular R&B ringtone.

While glancing over her patient chart, I happened to notice that her payer status was listed as "Medicaid"! During my examination of her, the patient informed me that she smokes more than one pack of cigarettes every day, eats only at fast-food take-outs, and somehow still has money to buy pretzels and beer. And, you and our Congress expect me to pay for this woman's health care? I contend that our nation's "health care crisis" is not the result of a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. Rather, it is the result of a "crisis of culture" a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on luxuries and vices while refusing to take care of one's self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance. It is a culture based in the irresponsible credo that "I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me". Once you fix this "culture crisis" that rewards irresponsibility and dependency, you'll be amazed at how quickly our nation's health care difficulties will disappear.

Respectfully,
ROGER STARNER JONES, MD

If you agree... Pass it on!
FACEBOOK WALL POST
By: Richard Meckstroth

The COMMENT(S) I shared on Mr. Elliott's Facebook® WALL were an abbreviated version of what I am now publishing to my own social media space on the Web. I'm altogether willing & ready to acknowledge that I had intended for this entire article to be shared with Mr. Elliot and his FRIENDS; although, I did do my best to condense my COMMENT(S) in a way that preserved the overall "positively progressive" tone of my extemporaneous opinion essay.  Here's what I wrote at length, without any omissions:

Does he have a point, really? 

Let me counter the argument extemporaneously,...

I've suffered from a disabling HIV/AIDS diagnosis since leaving The College of William & Mary (Williamsburg, VA) two months before graduation, in 2002. Conceivably (depending on your point of view and/or level of intimate experience living a closeted college life on the campus of an elite, albeit very conservative, small public "Southern Ivy" university), I was all but forced to leave.

Traipsing cross country in search of the solace of acceptance & understanding from like-minded, health-conscious homos, I chose to make San Francisco my home. Only upon arriving, without a penny in my pocket and desperately in need of support, did I sign on as a client with Bay Area Young Positives, Inc. (BAY Positives) & Larkin Street Youth Services (LSYS).

Both agencies offered much needed assistance, but what they offered that proved most invaluable to me was the means and wherewithal (i.e., advocacy, linkages & coordination of services) with which to apply and be accepted immediately for Supplemental Security Income & Medicaid.

I freely and shamelessly admit that, back then, I was little aware and in no position to be convinced of what good fortune I had run into; what, with access to universal health care and all. In spite of the care, guidance & supportive services I was receiving on a daily basis, I let my once promising life degrade into a dangerously absurd cacophony of unmitigated drug dependency/abuse and unmonitored, unmedicated manic depression & HIV/AIDS disease.

It was only after having recovered from a six month messianic schizoid-delusional borderline personality psychosis and AIDS-related PCP pneumonia that I was coaxed into pursuing employment by the gentleman who was then Prevention Outreach Coordinator and is now Executive Director of BAY Positives: my very dear friend/provider/colleague, Curtis Moore, MPH.  In January 2006, with a great turn of luck, I was hired on by FOLSOM STREET EVENTS® (FSE) as their Administrative Coordinator.

During a single year of employment in the charitable nonprofit events planning & fundraising sector, I was able/invited to catch a quick but fleeting glimpse of true independence. Since arriving to San Francisco, my time with FSE was the only time ever in the last nine years that I’ve been able to afford simple mundane luxuries, such as the immense pleasure of going on spontaneous shopping sprees to buy new clothes or amenities & accouterments for my TenderNob/CathedraLoin studio apartment.

In early 2007, after my employment with FSE came to an abrupt and untimely end, my life immediately reverted into a state of perpetual degradation. I freely (although, this time quite shamefully) admit that, at that point, I was still very much unable to accept or acknowledge the very fortunate position in which I had been.

Consequently, I once again allowed myself to turn down the dismally dark, dreary & dangerous path of the "party scene." Of the nearly $30,000USD worth of Unemployment Insurance Benefits I received from the California Employment Development Department (EDD) throughout 2007, I spent a total of $22,758.00USD solely on illicit substances & paraphernalia. Again, unmitigated drug dependency/abuse & unmonitored, unmedicated HIV/AIDS disease lead to what turned out to be my most cataclysmic & death-defying demise.

On October 7, 2007, I was discovered alone, lying unconscious & half-dead in my own bed, drenched in my own blood, vomit & defecation. My face was blackened with necrosis; nearly all my teeth had fallen out. For a second time already in my short, young life, I suffered from an AIDS-related PCP Pneumonia; although, this particular instance of the disease was drastically & dangerously compounded by an unrelenting, out-of-control necrotizing poly-microbial bacterial infection of the face.

Sirens blaring; the SFFD rushed me to the hospital, where I stayed in forced comatose sedation for eight (8) weeks. During that time, only San Francisco's best diagnosticians, doctors & surgeons fought to subdue, control & obliterate the pneumonia. At that, they were successful; however, they sadly sorely failed at doing the same with the bacterial infection that had devastated & destroyed my face. In order to save my sorry specimen of a warped & wasted life, they were forced to amputate my entire upper jaw, mouth and nearly two thirds of my nose.

The only good fortune I can boast of having during this tragic period in my sorry life is that, thankfully, the many millions of dollars that I have incurred in medical costs since late 2007 – when I literally lost all face to the devastation of illness & injury – have been fully covered by the federal & state public health insurance systems (i.e., Medicare & Medicaid).

I have had 11 surgical reconstructions since doctors first debrided the necrotic skin & bone of my face, in late 2007; I still have what will end up most likely being more than 12 facial reconstructions left on the books. As you might assume (what with the direction this article/essay has taken up 'til now!), I expect all of these costs to be covered by a public health care & insurance system.

Don't imagine for a single instance, however, that I haven't been intensely jarred, jawed and jogged into sublime, unadulterated consciousness (maybe, okay probably, for the first time ever in my young, short life) by the terribly unconscionable tragedies that have befallen me, recently. In fact, my life is on an upstart path toward resoundingly resolute redemption!

Despite the ubiquity of my bitterly unbecoming and brutish ugliness, I am on a path towards elaborate beautification and self-betterment. Since clearing the myriad mile-high hurdles of disease, depression, drug dependency and disfigurement, I have discovered a more righteous path toward self-acceptance, sobriety, sanctity and salvation.

In turn, I’ve finally allowed the potency of my profoundly pertinent story of and perspective on survival to turn me no longer in the direction of dependency (i.e., neither on State, on System, nor on DRUGS!!), but along a more promising path of fulfillment through autonomy & altruism (i.e., enough independence to be of worthwhile service to others).

Rest assured!! No matter what direction my writing has taken presently, I am as resolutely committed to living sane, safe and sober, as I am devoutly determined to do so without being reliant upon the System for sustenance & support.

Yet, as for this moment of my life in particular, I am desperately in need of immediate, enduring supportive services & care from a government which practices, as it preaches, in policies protecting our universal rights to progress & peace...

No matter what those other sad, sorry specimens of mankind choose to do with their lives in any given instance, I resolutely & astutely believe that we’ve also a universal right to be hoped for & hoped upon, as well as to have the realization of our purely plebeian potential for salvation through redemption shamelessly, solemnly sanctified, supported & assured by a government founded on what I call “fore-fathered philosophies of happily helped & unhampered human fulfillment.”

Without Medicare & Medicaid, I would have been nothing but left for dead. Now, if anything, I can boast of having not only a marred & mangled, most misfortunate, Tina-torn & AIDS-quilted tapestry of scars, skin-grafts, and flaps of flesh festooning my funny, freakish face, but also a very potent & powerful determination to survive beyond all odds, to beat the odds, and become one hell of a stand-up, admirable, fabulously fagged-out & fortunate Fog City fellow, who’s done something smart with his story of sheer, shamefully scary stupidity & selfishness.

Who knows!? Maybe in writing this comment here on the “WALL” of some random new Facebook® FRIEND of mine, I have effectively furthered my first few footsteps of foray down the path of right direction (although, albeit skewed way to the far left of some people’s fancy!!).

Maybe in writing this comment, I have effectively initiated my endeavor to affect truly positive change in the world; otherwise, I don’t imagine that the giant PLUS SIGN (+) plastered on every last page of my medical record would prove to amount to much of any sort of inspiration for my own (or anyone else, for that matter!) piety, pedantry, and purely pulchritudinous progress in the World. Let’s hope the best for us!! For, if not, nothing’s left but the worst of us…

Most respectfully, and…
Sincerely submitted,

Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
San Francisco, CA USA
[20100921T011437PST]

http://bit.ly/qherekidsf
http://twitter.com/QHereKidSF
http://facebook.com/mblanchard79

What do you think, after reading this?? Whose side do you favor; that of the conservative interpretation of "CULTURE CRISIS" (How very "TEAPARTY," n'est-ce pas?) or that of the progressive's point of view: the ulterior acceptance and mainstream, status quo point of view of "HEALTH CARE CRISIS"?

What I can say in defense of the conservative interpretation is that "CHANGE" in my life has been slow in coming; but when it did finally come, it came in heaps & heaps, loads & loads, bounds & bounds, and tons & tons of tough-knuckled know-how, not begot happiness, self-betterment, beatitude & beautification!

I'm not sure if "CHANGE" is meant to come at the same pace for everyone on this Earth; however, as for myself, I am oh-so-glad that change has arrived and is in the works for me. Still, I mean/t every word I have herein writ. So, in closing, I will gladly reiterate: "Let's hope the best for us!! For, if not, nothing's left but the worst of us..."

UBIQUITY OF MY UGLINESS...

Years before a corrosive, killer HIV/AIDS and Crystal Meth Combo cut a gaping hole in the middle of my face, stealing of me my beauty in one nightmarish turn of a page, a more curious and less caustic HIV/AIDS Crystal Meth Combo calamitously curtailed my intellectual and creative development.

The first chaotic combo interrupted and/or either suspended my bright young life for a good long while by stealing of me my sanity, my serenity and by forcing me into a manic messianic schizo-delusional psychosis.

Coincidentally, while my second doomsday downfall damn near destroyed all real remnants of my tangible, physical beauty, the AIDS & Crystal Meth Combo of my first foray with death through delusions brought be into a celestially sublime connection with the pure essence of beauty.

Back when the better bastion of boyhood me beamed smiling and sexy, you would have heard me brag in brash whispers of secrecy that my unmitigated drug dependency, coupled with my not-yet-medicated, unmonitored manic depression and HIV/AIDS disease likely stole a few good inches from my inseam and waist line. Drugs, depression and disease had turned me into the tweaked-out top-hungry twenty-something twink slut barebacking bottom boy I was better off born to me. By God!!

With legs freshly shaven, I used to like to try my way at prancing and dancing in heals. I had the posture of a princess back then, or better yet, of a QUEEN!! Taut, toned, tender and tanned, my thighs tightly tucked into tawdry, sultry, see-through silk-striped stockings, topped with frilly, flamboyant, fluorescent pink tutus & leotards, a black leather-laced bodice and breasts of bagged basmati. I dreamed of doing DRAG!!... And, my delusions brought me as close as I'd ever be to a diva's starlit status.

What are the odds that a poor, sorry, solitary, sad, sick, insane queer kid for sale on the streets of Skid Row, new to San Francisco, might remember in rich vivid clarity, in multi-dimensional Technicolor timbres and tonalities, his actual psychological demise from climax to cure, from onset to overture? Well, I do!!

I recall with great delight the drug-induced, yet truly transmundane delusions that seemed — For six months, let's say! That's a safe bet. — more reasonable and real, more true to me than ordinary and onerous everyday life, thanks to the immaculate bliss and beauty that back-lit every waking instant of my insanity.

Yet I couldn't, wouldn't waiver on the whims of consciousness long enough to remember much the long stretch of days three years ago that would prove to be so much more dramatically life-changing for me: twelve days of comatose confinement caged up in my stuffy, sterile studio, asleep, unconscious. My face pressed flat onto a putrid, pestilent pillow, under the heavy weight of my aching, dying brain. Saliva dripping down my cheek and chin to the sullied, soiled, sickening sheets only to invite infection in!!

Context may help! ... Here goes!! Far before October 2007, when I was found alone, half-dead in my apartment; on the brink of dehydration, starvation and brain damage; desperately in need of dialysis; having survived only by some heavenly happenstance the devastating detriment of PCP pneumonia and a necrotizing poly-microbial bacterial infection of the face... Far before a team of California's leading diagnosticians, doctors and surgeons attempted valiantly yet albeit failed so sorely to salvage my once so cute and charismatic, gorgeous gay boy grin...

Far before I woke from coma to gasp and gawk at my godforsaken, gruesomely grotesque, ghastly, ghoulish gaping hole of a grimace, I was so long ago quite blessed — Or cursed? However the story goes! — to have had a right entrancing, sexy smile.

Before my brutal, bestial, ferocious fall from grace and yet thanks still then too to drugs, depression and disease, I could boast the beauty of a primped, polished pansy boy physique made potent by the unrelenting rush of salacious, sex-crazed hedonism which happened to hammer out haphazardly into hormonal hot flashes and "meth'merized" highs.

Oh!! And shan't I forget the illicit, alluring beauty of my tight little tush and thighs that tempted and fed far too many a head-spun, tail-furious tweaker top tucked away either between the bathhouse backrooms of Berkeley or beneath the bent, broken branches and burning bush there best past bedtime in Buena Vista Park.

Now, today, post-op eleven-fold with twelve more surgical reconstructions on the books, I'm nothing but a torn, tattered tapestry of scars, skin grafts and flaps of flesh festooning my funny, freakish face.

My legs, once softened and smoothed by the razor's edge, are now covered in patches of naked, hairless, flimsy flesh only a few layers fine. Coincidence now predominates, for the large surgical scar that defiles to devastating depths my sorry specimen of a lower left leg seems to be far smoother and softer, far more delicate and lady-like that it e'er had been before, despite the patterned ripples of a serrated texture that rises and rolls along the "miscontours" of my crippled calf.

I should be thankful then that hair still groups from the pair of embossed rectangular skin graft scars that are slowly fading from the front of my lower left thigh. But, I'm not grateful to have my torso tarnished by the twisted pucker of a scar in the middle of my gut where a G.I. tube once hung for fourteen months, two weeks and five days past the point it first proved futile at feeding me.

I call it my "Octo-Orifice!!;" although, it's shut tight & leaks no more. I call it also my "Second Bellybutton," because in all actuality, that's exactly what it is. Yet, instead of being nourished by placenta pumped to my stomach through an umbilical cord, I was this second time around, at the moment of my rebirth, fed synthetic, high-protein, carb-loaded "blender'ized" slop seeped into me through a twelve foot long number three plastic tube that hung between my belly and an upside down bottle of so-called sustenance like a drip-line. In all actuality, that's exactly what it was...

Moving onward and upward, we arrive at the loosely bandaged, still wide open hole in my neck, where my tracheotomy tube once hung. Honestly, I don't know whether or not I am more grateful to be rid of the tube that took so much time and attention to tend to, or if I am madly resentful of my own eight layers of healthy, still living skin and of the thick musculature of my tender trachea for taking so long a time to heal up and seal up.

So, still I wait... Committed to a daily ritual of stripping Xeroform® and four-by-four gauze sponges from the sweaty, scratchy hole in my neck, still I wait... I wait only still to be enslaved to a stolid, chin-strapped schedule for showering, in which I must each morn tightly velcro a water-hazard choke-guard security-sheath above my shoulders and below my chin, before stepping in to let my cleansing begin.

No wonder that I avoid the shower spigot like SARS or Swine Flu: the plagues which passersby suppose sicken me. ME! The sorry, sad face behind the surgical mask who meanders mindlessly, miserably amid mankind's miscreant misjudgments of much of my own mad, mad melancholic misfortune.

And, By God!! I sure as hell am not one infinitesimally small grain of grit grateful for this muddled mutant monstrosity of a quasimodo mouth I've been melded into for the moment. I don't have enough fingers or toes or hairs growing from my forehead flap of a nose... There are a lot of them; mind you! Bet your life on it! Hairs grow hoggishly long and hamstrung from the impenetrable depths of my makeshift nostril, nose and septum to curl down the coarse discolored curvature of my leg flap look-alike lip. And, Hell Man!! Fuck!! Do they itch or what??

Truth be told; I don't even have enough holes, appendages, protrusions, flaps of flesh, scars or skin grafts on my body to be able to begin to count the magnanimous mind's eye momentum of hatred and disgust that I have for this gruesome, ghoulish, ghastly grin of mine!

And, Yet Alas!! I've stayed safe, sane and sober over one full year, and for what reason? Because despite the ubiquity of my bitterly unbecoming and brutish ugliness, I've somehow retained remnants and remembrances enough of a time in my life when in my bitterly unbecoming and brutish insanity, I discovered the true meaning of beauty.

Beyond the awkward, obtuse, abstract, anthropomorphic aesthetic of the Tina-torn, AIDS-quilted, quizzical contours of my monstrosity of a mouth, I seen endless opportunity for elaborate beautification and solemn self-betterment. Buried not too deeply behind the dug-out disfigurements of my blasphemed, begotten, brutalized body and face — For sure! I'm certain. — there lies alive immaculately innocent, blessedly beautiful baby blue boy eyes...

Respectfully Submitted,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
San Francisco, CA USA
[2010.07.14@20:29PST]

AIDS IS A PERVASIVE PANDEMIC THAT BLEEDS THROUGH
THE LINES OF COLOR, CREED & CAPITULATES TO NO ONE BUT
THE POSITIVELY AWARE & PREVENTION-MINDED SURVIVORS.
— Matthew D. Blanchard

THE SUBJECT NO LONGER HAS TO BE MENTIONED BY NAME.
SOMEONE IS SICK. SOMEONE ELSE IS FEELING BETTER NOW.
A FRIEND HAS JUST GONE BACK INTO THE HOSPITAL.
ANOTHER HAS DIED. THE UNSPOKEN NAME, OF COURSE, IS AIDS.
— David W. Dunlap

OVER & OVER, THESE MEN CRY OUT AGAINST THE WEIGHT OF
SO MANY LOSSES — NOT JUST A LOVER DEAD, BUT FRIENDS,
AND FRIENDS OF FRIENDS, DOZENS OF THEM, UNTIL IT SEEMS
THAT AIDS IS ALL THERE IS AND ALL THERE EVER WILL BE.
— Jane Gross

POTENCY OF "POWERLESSNESS!!"

Midweek already and I feel like I’m living a dream. Not a schizoid manic maneuvering or mulling over my own misery and mayhem, but a blessed vision of beauty, betterment & beatitude… “Plentiful Beatitude” is what I see here sat slumped over my computer at an unconscionable hour, a reprehensible hour of late night / early morning rambling rumination and running in circles.  Naw! I kid. For, there is a very distinct clarity to my vision, my dreams, and my self-revelation.

I’ll keep the text of this journal entry simple and succinct, relaying only the remaniés of my ruminations on recovery and reconstructions via an embedding of my most recent YouTube® video upload:

 

Mindflux | Matt(e)o | Mayhem -- Meet ME!! : Matt, Matthew, Mathieu, Matthias, Mattia, "Il MATTO Matt(e)o!!" My sweet enunciation of sacred self : "Gift from God," a story of blessings, beauty, betterment & beatitude -- "Plentiful Beatitude!!" QHereKidSF celebrates six months of sobriety and his sixth surgical reconstruction, ever more grateful of his own once fabled (now forever) fortune, fortitude & FABULOSITY!! -- © 2010 QHereKidSF (a.k.a., Matthew D. Blanchard) | All Rights Reserved.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V_-P6n9ZJQ
http://www.youtube.com/qherekidsf

The good humor and clarity with which I express myself in this video is not so sterile that it's striking; but rather, the jovial, unsanctified spirit of this monologue surmounts sterility and vapidity to tend more toward an extemporaneously tender, telling exposé – an elaboratively "sweet enunciation of sacred self," as so poignantly posited in the description of this video upload and post (above.)

But that which was forcedly stricken from my meditation on mis(sed)-fortune – no longer! – is mention of the mindful, miraculous, meditative revelations that came of me subsequent to this seemingly sagacious soliloquy, only after I was ironically able to enunciate an elaboration on this exquisite expression of my unsuspected/(ing) shift in perspective on the Program, its potential and its “promises.”

My realization came quick, pounding my peripheral lobe with the profound potency of powerlessness and the plentiful pretences and possibilities for perfection (i.e., the “spiritual awakening”) of which the Twelfth Step presupposes, after I posted my most recent, previous entry, entitled “May Today There Be Peace Within…”

I came to a timely, telling conclusion – No! I shouldn’t call this a “conclusion.” A word exists, I know, that better evokes beginning, rather than end, for that is what this is: a seedling, a serendipitous sprouting & savoring of spiritual revelation…and yes, perhaps premature “awakening!” – during a group therapy session at my LGBTQ Mental Health and Substance Abuse Recovery Center here in San Francisco, the day after my surgery (i.e., only just yesterday!!).

I must respect the unequivocal expectation of confidentiality in this retelling of my in-group revelation, so I ask both my readers and the well-respected, well-meaning members of my Abstinence Support Group to allow me the liberty and right to tergiversate an equivocation of my in-group pontifications and feedback without any indulgent unveiling of identities through ambiguity and ambivalence.  

Here’s a synopsis of my statements to my Recovery Community that I’d like to make available on the public domain as a testament of the potential for a consummate conclusive curtailing of our old misguidance and of a tendency toward a cyclic sharing of life’s lessons learnt through long-lasting, sustained sobriety:

These past few weeks – especially, the last three days – have been quite transformative for me, and I mean “transformative” both in the literal and figurative sense, in the physical, mental and emotional sense tending toward a complete shift in perspective and a reshaping & saving of face.     

Fortunately, after indulging the heed by my Sponsor of my obligations to the Program to acquire and begin to read the canonical tome of Twelve Step literature: The Big Book, I found that I had been suddenly and spontaneously convinced by the sumptuous eloquence of its words, and that my perspective had suddenly shifted in its logic and leanings.     

I live today in stark contrast to the shape & form of my former perspective, reason, logic and emotion: that of “active” addiction. There has been so much drastic imminent change in my life, both physically and spiritually, during the last two and a half years – particularly, during the last six months, and I owe it all to my sobriety.  That’s an amazing, self-affirming realization for me and a lesson to others.     

For prior to my discovery of the “promises” of the Program, I held such a indomitable contempt for life and for circumstance and for fate and for kharma and for my Higher Power’s so-called “plan” for me.  But now, after so much transformation physically and emotionally and circumstantially, my perspective on the Program (and on my blessings, beauty, betterment & beatitude – “Plentiful Beatitude!”) has subsequently transformed into something distinctly positive and grateful.

This is what I did not mention in my video: an erstwhile realization or discovery to which I have only hitherto come. This is the essence of my share with the Recovery Community, and I sum it up in a solemn spiritually promising message to the Newcomer(s):  Keep coming back! It works!! I am only evidence of this otherwhile indomitable truth and promise of the Program. Thank God for that! Amen. Alleluia!! 

Respectfully submitted,

Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF

Matthew D. Blanchard

San Francisco, CA USA

[2010.01.07@5:03PST]

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WHEN WE HONESTLY ASK OURSELVES WHICH PERSON
IN OUR LIVES MEANS THE MOST TO US, WE OFTEN FIND
THAT IT IS THOSE WHO, INSTEAD OF GIVING MUCH ADVICE,
SOLUTIONS OR CURES, HAVE CHOSEN RATHER TO SHARE
OUR PAIN & TOUCH OUR WOUNDS WITH A GENTLE AND
TENDER HAND. THE FRIEND WHO CAN BE SILENT WITH US
IN A MOMENT OF DESPAIR OR CONFUSION, WHO CAN STAY
WITH US IN AN HOUR OF GRIEF & BEREAVEMENT, WHO CAN
TOLERATE NOT KNOWING, NOT CURING, NOT HEALING AND
FACE WITH US THE REALITY OF OUR POWERLESSNESS,
THAT IS A FRIEND WHO CARES.
— Unknown

Rough Draft : Retelling My Ruination

I am a young gay man living with AIDS, who has already on numerous occasions fallen to the detriment and devastation of this horrifying disease. And, I am only 30 years old! This rough draft retelling of my ruination serves a specific intention: to catalog both the tender touching and terribly traumatic moments of my miserable mayhem, for the sake of both posterity and universal accessibility.

My intention here is to be brave and bold in the broad casting of my courage, contentment, and collected wisdom through written narrative, while refining my eloquence through an evocative enunciation of the eternal conflict and reconciliation between external/internal beauty and ulteriorly ultimate, indomitable integrity inspired by such doomsday devastation as disease(s) and disfigurement(s).

In late 2007, I was living a very isolated, lonely life... addicted to crystal meth and ignoring the obvious signs of the deterioration of my health, when I acquired PCP pneumonia (but didn't know it!), fell unconscious (for what my doctors now believe was between ten to twelve days!) alone in my stark, sterile studio apartment. Laying face down on my pillow in bed, I allowed eminently dangerous bacteria to enter my mouth through the constant streaming of saliva and drool that dripped from the curl of my lips and cheek.

At some point during my apparent coma, I was infected by a poly-microbial bacterial infection similar to, but much more destructive, aggressive and incurable than, say, MRSA (staph infection) or Gangrene. This bacterial infection invaded my face and began necrotizing the flesh and bone of my upper jaw, mouth and nose.

On October 7, 2007, I was found less than a few vacant steps away from death, by the San Francisco Fire Department, who came and busted down my door. I remember being woken by their inexorably loud pounding, so I peeled myself out of my urine- & blood-soaked sheets, in the daze of dying, and stumbled to the hallway that directly faced my front door. I saw the door collapse, the fire fighters and my property manager standing there calling my name. Then I in turn collapsed, fainted, again unconscious and was rushed to the hospital, where I remained in medically induced coma for eight weeks.

During this time, my doctors attempted to cure a pervasive PCP pneumonia, as well as the ultimately incurable bacterial infection in my face. While they succeeded in curbing the affects of the pneumonia, the heavy, heavy doses of antibiotics that they were injecting into me had no significant affect on the bacterial infection, which kept eating away at my face. Tragically, during the third week of my hospitalization, while i was still unconscious, my doctors were forced to amputate my entire upper jaw & palette, my upper and left lower lips, my left nostril and septum.

Five weeks later, I woke form the coma and was presented a mirror by a terribly awkward and forcibly compassionate student doctor. He told me to take it into my hands, directed me to lift the mirror above my head and to bring it down slowly, with calm and reserve, so that I wouldn't be too terribly "terrified." So, I did what he said.

I gazed through the mirror, first at the top of my head, where wisps of hair stuck out in all directions, noticed that it was getting long...longer than I had remembered it to be, and that it was pretty awfully disheveled. I brought the mirror down to my eyes and stared intently into them, begging to know what I was about to see, and then I slowly dragged the mirror down the length of my nose.

Before I had any chance to gasp for breath, I saw the start of it: my nose had been cut in half at it's tip; I could see inside of it. Suddenly, I experienced an astounding jolt of excitement, awe and curiosity in such a way that I had never experienced before; so, without fear, i continued to pull the mirror down the length of my distorted, disfigured face, and I saw the rest of it. From the edge of where my nose had been cut off, a large gaping hole obliterated, obscured and obstructed what were once the familiar features of my beautiful face and awkward, crooked smile.

I could see through to the back of my throat, to my uvula. I could see my tongue flinching hesitantly, reluctantly, with reserve, itching the few bottom teeth that remained. I realized just then that I had never once noticed nor recognized how gargantuan my tongue is: just a testament to how big my mouth once was, and still was just then.

I hated what I saw. It certainly intrigued me, but it horrified me very much just the same. So much so that I remained expressionless: my eyes void of emotion, as I continued to stare. I felt so many diverse, painful emotions in that one single instance, that I could not even bear to cry; however, the student doctor was determined that I should. He grabbed my hand and held it tightly, with angst and force; although, I did not want him to touch me. He explained the trauma I had experienced and stressed stoically that with modern advancements in the science and practice of plastic surgery, my face could...would...be restored.

I wouldn't, couldn't find the grace and courage and hope within myself to believe him, so I pulled my hand out of his and tenderly touched it to my my teeth and tongue, trembling. As if, with a single touch, I could denounce and defy the reality of my destruction. He noticed that no tears were coming out, and his eyebrows slumped downward in obvious concern. He said that he wouldn't leave my side until I cried. Almost whimpering, with a quivering lip and trembling eyes, suffering himself the agony of the moment, he desperately cajoled me: "You are supposed to cry, Matthew. What has happened to you... It's devastating."

I realized just then that I hated that word: "devastating," but that from that moment onward, it would be one of the only few words I could ever find to describe the full magnanimous force of the mayhem and misery that had befallen me. I was angry. I was puzzled. I was horrified. I was immensely, terribly, devastatingly saddened by what I saw staring back at me in that mirror: a ghastly, grotesque, gruesome grimace gone awry. And, I was very frustrated with this man who was just sitting there, watching me suffer, urging my suffering on, expecting me... asking me... telling me... to "CRY!!"

So, to appease and abet a little the young student doctor's dutiful determination and perhaps, in one way or another, to see if his sympathy was sincere, I let a tear tarry a second on the tip of my lashes, then drip down my swollen, scarred, scarlet cheek to fall into the chasm at the center of my face. And Goddammit! Then, do you know what he did? He immediately swiped the mirror from my tight grip, stoop up, began shuffling backward towards the door and muttered, "So, I guess we're done here. I'll check in on you tomorrow. Don't let this get you down, Matthew. Try to smile!" TRY TO SMILE!! That's what he said to me. The bastard! Then, he walked away, and I never saw him again. To this day, I don't know if I have ever hated anyone in one moment more than I hated that student doctor then.

It's been almost two years since my eight-month hospitalization came to an end. I eventually returned home, again to be isolated, alone in my studio apartment, where I began the tedious, depressive struggle of trudging onward through five consecutive surgical reconstructions, so far. My face is a tattered tapestry of flesh and bone taken from my lower left leg and hanging from my forehead. I'm currently awaiting with great anticipation my next surgery: "a division & revision of the left nasal flap," scheduled for January 4, 2010. Reconstructions will continue well into 2011, progressing at a steady six week pace if, and only if, I remain sober.

One redemptive aspect of my story: a "Saving Grace," per say, is that while my addiction resurfaced just after I returned home to isolation and to a $350.00USD baggy of crystal meth laying next to a dirty, used bulb-pipe at the center of my desk, I have fought long and hard to conquer this ulterior disease of drug dependency, ever since. As recent as July 14, 2009, I entered a ninety-day triple diagnoses residential rehabilitative recovery & transitional housing program called Ferguson Place, through Baker Places, Inc. of San Francisco.

Rehab was an immensely transformative, successful experience, and I have remained sober since graduating the program on October 11, 2009. I feel very secure in my recovery, thanks to my very strong support network, which includes doctors, surgeons, nurses, a psychiatrist, a therapist, a L.I.F.E. coach, a Care Navigator, a sponsor, friends, family and other sober members of my recovery community.

My concern during this tedious time of continuously tentative transformations, is the temptation that will doubtlessly seep through the walls of my studio apartment as I sit alone, day in and day out, in isolation. Isolation and inactivity can only lead to a progression of my disease(s). In fact, that is exactly what got me into the this predicament in the first place, I believe. Truth is: It's difficult for me to get up and get active, and to exercise with lots of strenuous motion, because I'm missing my left fibula.

The majority of the bone (save an inch & a half at either end, where the tendons and ligaments attach) was removed during my first extremely invasive, debilitating (although, quite successful!) maxillofacial reconstruction, only to be sawed, separated, screwed and secured to my face in an effort to recreate my upper jaw. So, I have a lot of trouble walking with stability and speed. I'm also only about five months clean and sober, as I alluded, previously.

For these reasons (and many more!), I am in need of the companionship and responsibility that comes with caring for a supportive service/assistance pet: in order to 1.) maintain sobriety, 2.) to get some exercise on a daily basis, and 3.) to venture out into the world, where I might encounter real people; instead of being always shut up at home.

The next two years of reconstructions are going to be long and arduous, but I maintain hope, determination and ambition. I'm looking forward to going back to school to get my Master's in Social Work (MSW), as well as either an NPA Professional Certificate (Non-Profit Administration) from U.C. Berkeley, or an only Master's in Nonprofit Management (MNM) from Regis University (based out of Boulder, Colorado). I intend to fully utilize all the various resources at my disposal as a resident of San Francisco, California, such as benefits I expect will be awarded to me by the Department of Rehabilitation: a state-run bureaucratic social services division that funds eduction and training for disabled peoples whom are aiming to return to work.

I am fully committed to positively impacting my community through expressions of compassion, courage, empathy & autobiography. I anticipate the moment when I am able and invited to share my story with the broader recovery community, to down my mask and recount the wretched horrifying lowdown depths to which addiction can thrust someone with utmost turbulence, and without the slightest pause in consideration of one's imminent trepidation and trauma.

For now, I practice my telling narrative nearer to the people, passed along via the ebbing, flowing tide of cyberwaves, broadcasting my story to the world here via this dynamic social media infrastructure in the off chance that some solitary sober someone may stumble out of the "ROOMS" and into my "WORDS," before I sound off for once on my own back where we both are bound to face my face, face-to-face, together. C'est à dire, « dans des SALLES!! » At which point, I will always end in saying, "Thank you for your acceptance. Thank you for listening. Next time, I'll be sure to bring some lil' smoked sausages to go with those NUTS!!" ;oP

Respectfully submitted,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
San Francisco, CA USA
[MDB2009.12.06@19:31]

Sixty Days Sober, Sanity & Surgery The Seventh Chakra: Sahasrara

Introducing my first foray into video-blogging!! I'd like to post the following video in honor of my 60th day of sobriety, September 11th (God bless the 2,993 lives lost on that infamous, tragic day eight years ago!), my sanity, my pearl & sapphire stone birthday celebration, my surgery (soon to come!) and my seventh chakra: Sahasrara – "The Thousand Petalled Lotus" – signifying supreme consciousness & connection to the cerebral, spiritual and concrete world.

I won't do much writing here, besides to say that I'm a lil' frustrated with my webcam movie maker, because its somehow configured only to record one 10 minute segment of video at a time (a requirement for YouTube uploads). Coincidentally, my minutes sped to an abrupt end right at the single second after I say in such a straightforward, matter of fact way, something of the sort: "I just have an ugly face." Period. And, then the screen stops and skips backward to the first frame for a replay.

I meant for that comment to be followed by a shrug of the shoulders and a sardonic slap to my screwy smile, so that single statement would not be taken so seriously. So, remember that, when watching!! I don't think I'm ugly, really. Really, I know I'm beautiful ... especially, where it counts: on the inside!! And, that I hope is demonstrated by my provocative video performance & storytelling. Here, just watch! ...

©2009 Matthew Blanchard | San Francisco, CA USA

This video was recorded using the HP MediaSmart Webcam & on my new HP Pavilion dv4-1435dx Entertainment Notebook PC. Please be aware that this video and all original photos, pictures, images, audio & video posted to this blog is legally copyrighted to the author; therefore, you are prohibited by law from copying, distributing, manipulating, rendering, altering, editing, selling, posting or making public all copyrighted works without explicit written permission from the author/owner. Thank you for respecting these terms of use. Please enjoy! And, be prepared for more to come...

THE SEVENTH CHAKRA

WHEN KUNDALINI SHAKTI UNITES WITH SHIVA
AT HIS ABODE AT THE SAHASRARA,
THE THOUSAND PETALLED LOTUS UNFOLDS.

There are seven chakras, or vortices of energy, in the subtle body, located along the spine. Each of them has different functions and certain attributes assigned to them. The Sahasrara is the seventh chakra located at the crown of the head, depicted with a thousand petals. Its physical counterpart is the human brain.

The kundalini shakti, the creative life energy, lies dormant at the first plexus, the Muladhara, at the base of the spine. When she is awakened through meditation practices, she begins her journey up the spinal column, purifying and stabilizing all the chakras, until one day she reaches Lord Shiva, who resides at the Sahasrara.

With the Divine Union of Shiva and Shakti, the thousand petals bloom and rejoice. The yogi's samskaras (imprints and tendencies) are eliminated. He or she is liberated. Self-realization, the goal of all spiritual practices, is achieved. Nirvana consciousness becomes the yogi's permanent state.

©2009 Chandi Devi | Sahasrara - The Seventh Chakra:
The Thousand Petalled Lotus | Suite101.com (2009.09.11)

The Shanti L.I.F.E. Program | John Olesen

The L.I.F.E. Program is a training for HIV/AIDS positive individuals, offered by The Shanti Project of San Francisco, that teaches a comprehensive, holistic approach to self-care, promoting healthy lifestyle choices, so as to minimize the negative effects of HIV/AIDS on a participant's health, welfare, social & family life, employment, faith/spirituality, sobriety, etc.

To participate in the program, I was required to complete three health/welfaire & lifestyle surveys that asked questions ranging from "How much water do you drink in one day?" to "What are your substance abuse issues? How often do you use? Are you involved in a recovery program?" or "Are you a spiritual person? How does your faith play a role in your lifestyle choices?," etc.

The L.I.F.E. Program is reputed as being the premier health/social/spiritual welfare empowerment program for HIV/AIDS positive individuals in San Francisco; although, the Institute is practiced nationwide. In fact, John Olesen, MA is my National L.I.F.E. Trainer. I meet with him weekly, so that he can facilitate for me lifestyle lessons taught in The L.I.F.E. Program. in addition to facilitating my weekly one-on-one sessions, he leads group support trainings once a week for 16 weeks at a time (the duration of the program). He also travels all over the country to train social and health/welfare service providers in the HIV/AIDS Advocacy sector on how to facilitate the basic fundamental practices & lessons of The L.I.F.E. Program. John is a professional HIV/AIDS Care/Prevention Counselor as well; who has over 30 years of experience in industry work for NYC, San Francisco, and other cosmopolitan regions in the nation.

He's a fun, lively character…a good man, with lots of insight, wisdom and experience. He also happens to be a recovering addict/alcoholic, and does not hesitate to offer me support around my substance abuse issues. I will most definitely benefit from this relationship that I have set up with John and from our weekly check-in meetings.

To give an example of how the discussion topics for these meetings might prove to be tangential, I'll report that for our February 9, 2009 check-in, John focused the discussion on helping me implement new lifestyle changes related to my living space. We basically discussed for an hour the conceptualization of a design for the interiror of my studio apartment. I even drew him graphic diagrams of how I envisioned my apartment being arranged vs. how it is arranged at present. We also discussed paint colors and chatchka decorations, window drapes and textile fabric color choices for a "Blue/Sunshine" thened design and a "Moroccan Kazbah" themed design.

I think he happened to prefer the "Moroccan Kazbah" themed design concept himself. I just am afraid of the color red, even though, I know that it can be a very peaceful, relaxing, warming color. I find blue to be peaceful, relaxing and calming or cooling, which would be my initial preference; although, I do like the idea of having my own private Kazbah den for relaxing and meditating and toking on the shookah. Hehehe! As if that would ever happen in the life that I am now leading.

We also discussed setting up a savings plan to develop funds for redesigning the interior of my apartment. A redesign will definitely cost money that I just don't have right now, given that I happen to be still using (which shouldn't be lasting much longer now, if I hope to continue on with my cycles of reconstructions and recovery in the near future).

The meetings will provide me with an outlet for thoughtfully expressing and considering my daily lifestyle choices and concerns; whatever they might be! I look forward to meeting with John every Monday morning at 11:00AM for the next few months, until I am ready to participate fully in the group sessions of The L.I.F.E. Program. John will be a good sounding board for my anxieties, aspirations, obstacles, frustrations and dreams.

— — — — — — — — — — — — —
[MDB2009.02.19@04:07PMPST]
Microsoft™ Office® Outlook™
Calendar Entry Description:
Monday, Feb. 23 @ 11:00AM
[Reoccurring Weekly (X15)].

"An Escape Hatch for a Troubled Intellect!"

The following is the text from an email thread dialogue I am continue to have with a former Facebook™ Friend: Jeff Parker. I am entering this text into my blog as a public record of this insightful, illuminating correspondence. I hope that in sharing these words with my followers, I might impart a sense of the divine purpose that I feel having been bestowed upon me by God (or a Higher Power) in light of my death-defying, tragic illness and injury.  
 
I sincerely hope as well that Jeff doesn't have any qualms with me making this dialogue public. I do so in a way to honor him, for "the fragments of Enlightenment" that we have shared with one another through written conversation. First is the text that Jeff Parker wrote me in response to my Facebook™ Email message (see blog entry: "An Irreverent, Licentious Remark on God!"), and then you will find the long, tedious, rambling remarks that I wrote to him just this evening on Facebook™. 

JEFF PARKER'S FACEBOOK™ MESSAGE TO ME:

Hi Matthew,
Divine faith is neither. It is an escape hatch for a troubled intellect. I believe only in Science and curiosity. Only science can achieve the sublime and find universal truths. With that said, everyone's spiritual journey is different. Your's is especially challenging, but you will get through it. Do whatever works for you, but know that Science is your friend. The pastors & priests make promises for some future paradise, some with good intentions, some with cynical and corrupt motives.

Let them take care of your spirt until your body is healed, and even cured, by Science, as mine was. I am amazed every day by the beauty of the natural world around me. Heaven is here right now. Don't miss it. And know that I wish you the best.

RE: MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY HOLIDAYS! Email Correspondance.
Jeff Parker, Facebook™; January 5, 2009 at 11:34 AM.
Retrieved on January 13, 2009 at 03:17 AM.

MY RESPONSE TO JEFF PARKER'S FACEBOOK® MESSAGE:

Jeff, I'm sorry to regret having sent you these preachy, pious and proselytizing emails which only provoke your atheism and rational faith in Science, while making me sound like a completely ignorant, brain-washed ascetic. I want you to know that I do also very much believe in Science as the ultimate source for universal truths and healing.

While I have in the past year tired to open myself up to my faith, believing that both it and Science are not a diametrically opposed binary but instead work cohesively together in broadening our understanding of humankind and all things greater than the human intellect, I have at the same time completely abandoned myself to the process of healing though Science.

Science can answer many questions on the mysteries of life, but there are some questions, I believe, that cannot be answered through Science. That's why we have Faith and Religion—to answer the greater preponderances of the human intellect. Major, predominant, contemporary philosophical theories of a Supreme Being and the Divine argue this same thesis.

I agree with you, as I've said, that Science can lead us to many universal truths, but I do not want to be misled to put all my faith excludively into Science; especially now, during my time of immense struggle, discovery and reawakening. I am not a born again Christian. I have been saved not figuratively in the Evangelical sense of the word, but literally both by the miracles of Science and by the miracles of God. Or so I choose to believe!

This, my mutually respective, combined faith in Science and in God, has allowed me to develop a deeper sense of faith in Myself, believing out of circumstance and necessity, that since I have survived death-defying, brutal illness and injury, then I must have a certain calling or purpose in this life that is yet unacheived and still ahead of me to be accomplished and bestowed upon me by a greater being or power that has some important impact on and influence over how the World works.

Is it wrong, in your opinion, to believe that I am meant for something greater, something special, because I have survived? Science doesn't seem to answer the or'looming questions of human intentions, actions and purpose in life. Or, at least, no Science that I have been introduced to answers those questions. If you know of any secular, scientific teaching that could enlighten me as to my purpose in life, please indulge me with the answer!

For now, I'll continue to uphold my faith both in the Divine and in Science, as both will strengthen me in different ways (some physical/tangible and others more abstract/spiritual) and allow me to heal and to survive. Please, do not judge me any less of a person because I hold my faith in the Divine close to my heart, because I am also and equally a firm believer in the miracles, mysteries and mayhem of Science.

In that way, I agree with you! You might be right in saying (although, I'd be hellbent on defending myself against the accusation, if I weren't the victim and survivor of such unspeakable tragedy) that I, like many, use Faith as "an escape hatch for a troubled intellect." I have sought such escape on after falling to an unfathomable low, having my life threatened and saved by Science and by God. And after having my perceptions of the world, my perspective, drastically changed and challenged, flipped upside down onto its dirty underbelly, weak and vulnerable to intimidations of outside forces.

My spiritual journey is "especially challenging!" I ask you though, in admitting this, to not take my faith for granted and denigrate it with awful, licentious remarks.

I have never talked to my priest (or rather, my priest has never discussed with me) about any "promise for some future paradise." He doesn't mention some ulterior, celestial heaven; but instead, he talks to me about demonstrating God's love though our good intentions, actions and experiences with others and about thereby creating a degree or amount or experience of Heaven on Earth: "Heaven is here right now!"

And my priest has yet to answer all my questions and resolve all my doubts. For example, I still wonder how, if God is this blessed, divine, all powerful and eminently/entirely loving being, he could have allowed for this awful tragedy to befall me. Why has he allowed for such great sufferance in my short, young life (delusions, disease, dysfunction, and disfigurement)?

If my faith cannot answer these questions, then I still don't see Science readily offering me any answers or affirmations of life well-lived and good health deserved. Just as much as Faith is a source of great doubt in my life, Science will always be, in my mind, the harbinger of death and disease, not Enlightenment or Salvation. I'll tell you...I'd be a Buddhist, if only I knew enough about that religion to follow their belief system.

My priest does not have "cynical and corrupt motives." He is a well-intentioned, kindhearted, blessed man who only wants to provide me with absolution of my trespasses, assurances of my forward path in Faith, and affirmations of my life and of my miraculous survival/salvation: redemption and reward and recompense in God and in Science.

Finally, in closing, I ask why have you canceled our friend connection on Facebook™? Is it simply because you so wholeheartedly disagree with and were offended by my reverent proselytizing or do you have ulterior motives? I would very much like to have you as a Facebook™ connection, so that we can stay up-to-date on and informed of developments in each others' lives, and because frankly... honestly... truly, I do very much enjoy and benefit from our interactions and correspondence.

Still however, I do not want to be such a burden or offense to you. I just hope that we both can continue to enjoy the beautiful fragments of Enlightenment that we gain from each others in our binary, opposed perspectives on the world. Please, re-accept my invitation to connect on Facebook™, as I would be very grateful to call you a Friend. I want to continue a dialogue with you and hope that you would be interested to know periodically of how I am doing (as I would of you!).

Please, let this be an continuation of our conversation, another jumping off point and not a final, abrupt end to our cyber-interactions. Indulge me, please! Invite me in! Talk to me and continue to share your wisdom with me. I am many times over a better person for what I have gained and will gain from our experience corresponding together.

As always, thank you for reading this email and for offering me your time and attention. Thank you for being willing to consider my thoughts as legitimate and sane and not as merely "an escape hatch for a trouble intellect." And thank you for responding thoughtfully to my remarks! God Speed! Peac Out! Blessings! Until some time soon...

Your Friend,

Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF

P.S., Onto a tangent, I digress: Are you familiar with LinkedIn®, the professional development and networking web service that connects colleagues and classmates though effect and active Internet linkages? Well, if you are not familiar with it, then I encourage you to set up a profile and to connect with me directly there as a member of the College of William & Mary Alumni Network Group.

My public LinkedIn® profile URL is http://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewblanchard/. From there, you will be able to set up an account of your own and request a connection with me.

http://qherekidsf.blogspot.com/
http://www.bebo.com/qherekidsf/
http://www.myspace.com/qherekidsf/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewblanchard/
http://www.pandora.com/people/mblanchard79/
http://www.wmalumni.com/member/mblanchard2002/

THE GREAT ENEMY OF TRUTH IS VERY OFTEN NOT
THE LIE, DELIBERATE, CONTRIVED AND DISHONEST,
BUT THE MYTH, PERSISTENT, PERSUASIVE AND UNREALISTIC.
— John F. Kennedy

SI ON SAIT EXACTEMENT CE QU'ON VA FAIRE,
À QUOI BON LE FAIRE?
If we know exactly what we are going to do,
What's the good of doing it?
— Pablo Picasso

An Escape Hatch for a Troubled Intellect! Email Correspondence.

Matthew Blanchard, Facebook™; January 13, 2009 at 3:04 AM.

Retrieved on January 13, 2009 at 3:24 AM.

"DRAWN TOGETHER" | Healing Arts Project

In March & April 2008, while I was a patient at Laguna Honda Hospital & Rehabilitation Center (LHH), I participated in a Healing Arts Print-Making Workshop, entitled "DRAWN TOGETHER" and organized by an LHH Visiting Artist: Helena Keeffe, under the auspices of the dedicated volunteer organization for the hospital (i.e., Laguna Honda Volunteers, Inc.). Mrs. Keeffe single-handedly organized the entire project, applying & receiving grant monies, supervising budgets, purchasing materials & tools, recruiting participants, and facilitating the twice-weekly workshops. The project began with yarn & cloth block print portraits created with photographic portraits of the participants as templates. Then the participants began sketching landscape & foliage designs from photographs taken from off the LHH campus to prepare for the design of rubber block stamps & printing.

Because, the majority of the participants were elderly and infirm, many had trouble grappling with the delicate tools for carving the rubber block. To my amazement though, some very striking stamp images were designed by the more senile of patients. It was an interesting experience for me as an observer, as I discovered the innate artistic talent of some of the least obviously in-tuned participants.

Personally, for myself, I drew four sketches of foliage & flowers from the photographs provided and developed two of the images into floral print rubber stamps. I then printed the stamps in repetitive circular patterns and dual tones of color, creating an assortment of striking, original designs for stationery (See images below). Various original prints by the workshop participants (including my one of my floral prints) have been incorporated into two distinctive designs for hospital garments, to be sold to the Nursing Staff of Laguna Honda Hospital and distributed to numerous residents of the facility.

I left Laguna Honda Hospital to return home to my studio apartment yet was able to continue my association with the LHH Visiting Artist. Upon my bequest, Helena Keeffe agreed to collaborate with me on a Healing Arts Portrait Project, chronicling my physical transformations after my disfiguring facial injury and multiple reconstructions. Our work on this independent collaboration is scheduled to be exhibited in the foyer window kiosque of the Plug In | Institute of Contemporary Art (I.C.A.) in Winnipeg, Canada later this month. Helena also invited me to assist her in facilitating the summer session of the "DRAWN TOGETHER" Workshop at Laguna Honda Hospital.

Assisting in the facilitation of a Healing Arts Project offered me the opportunity to further discover the curious, innocent, selfless artistic talent of the aged and sickly participants. I was able to escape once in a while from my own anguish & suffering and to inhabit the guise of Teacher, leading workshop participants through the more complicated exercises of carving rubber block and print-making. I realized that I had long ago lost or forgotten my own profound passion for the fine arts. It was all-in-all a very rewarding experience: the workshop & the collaboration, alike. So much so, that I dearly hope that the collaboration continues past the terminal end of the Winnipeg exhibit and develops into a deeper, more intimate & challenging exploration of my artist talent in the midst of recovery from further reconstructions, as I acquire a new face.

For the Press Release, announcing the Final "DRAWN TOGETHER" Workshop Reception to be held on Saturday, January 24, 2008 from 2:00PM-4:00PM in the third floor Moran Hall of Laguna Honda Hospital, Helena requested that I write a personal response to my experience for her to cite in conversational text snippets. The following text is my extended citation, written on December 8, 2008, in response to my experiences with the "DRAWN TOGETHER" Healing Arts Project at Laguna Honda Honda Hospital & Rehabilitation Center:

« Helena Keeffe brought to the residents of Laguna Honda Hospital more than just the gift of artistic expression; she brought inspiration, escape, quietude and discovery! The "DRAWN TOGETHER" experience was for her an enunciation of humanity and grace. For the workshop participants (including for myself), the experience was a blessing! To be drawn together out of the humdrum sterility and monotony of clinical rehabilitation and into a brief but engaging creative withdrawal—where art is used as another more potent mechanism for healing—engenders a renewed sense of youthful exuberance and strength in the minds and hearts of the elderly and infirm.

« The joy and spiritual fulfillment of those patients that were drawn together by this project was profound! LHH residents were challenged and inspired to practice a little bit of spontaneous, liberated self-expression—corralled around crayons, cutting boards and blank blocks of rubber that were begging to be sketched on, scraped at, sculpted and stylized into timeless works of art. And what a gift we now have for the nursing staff that is so selflessly dedicated to our care! Mrs. Keeffe and her students have proudly fashioned an artistic legacy that is meant to be shared with and admired by the entire LHH community. I hope each and every member of the LHH nursing staff will wear with equal pride the gorgeous garments we have had printed for them in limited edition, with our original facial and floral designs. Much tremendous gratitude goes to Mrs. Keeffe for her creativity, generosity, ingenuity and initiative. Thank you, Helena! »

— Matthew Blanchard
Former LHH Patient & Resident
"DRAWN TOGETHER" Participant
(December 8, 2008).

I appended my personal response with remarks about my "pedantic verbosity" and "crippling, adolescent perfectionism," hoping that Helena would be able to find some phrase or words from this text suitable for the Press Release. To my chagrin, Mrs. Keeffe simplified my words into quotidian, uninspired statements to better conform to the conversational tone of her Press Release. In return for losing my integrity of authorship, I proposed that I could read my personal response in its entirety as a prologue or prelude to the Final Workshop Reception, figuring that it would be a fitting, powerful introduction in words to the "DRAWN TOGETHER" experience for the LHH community to hear. We'll see if this is the format she'll decide to take for the program.

I only hope that she was fully able to appreciate the honesty and depth of my remarks, all of which "were meant from the heart—from my uplifted, inspired poetic soul!" I am eternally indebted to Helena Keeffe for all the wonderful experiences she has brought into my life. She has been a saving grace for me this past year, fostering my altruism, creativity and artistic talent in everything we do together.
I hope she knows that!