I was watching Workout, and Jackie called in a therapist who specialized in eating disorders. This therapist was a skelton who didn’t look like she had eaten in months. Then it hit me… in LA an eating disorder is that you do eat.

A friend sent me an email today, asking how I was holding up. In addition, to the loss of mutual friend, he knew that I went to Virginia Tech, and wondered how the week’s events had affected me. My answer: “It seems everything I touch dies these days.”

There, I said what has been rattling in my head for too long. For a 30-something, post AIDS crisis, gay male, I have lost too many people that have very important to me, and many others that, while not having such a profound effect on my life, were no less important to me.

It all seemed to start when I was in college, when my best friend Aislinn died of a malignant brain tumor. She was the one who taught me to be who I was with no apologies. When she died, I wandered without a clear rudder for years. Her strong sense of individuality and her beautiful heart stay with me to this day, and give me the strength to be as eccentric as I damn want to be.

Three years ago, I lost the man who taught me to truly love. Again, we had met during high school, and probably had the purist love I’ve known. We eventually chose entirely different paths. Still, we remained in contact until his death. A few weeks before he died in a car accident, he left me a message and I was too busy to call him back. I’ll always regret not having that final moment to at least speak with him. There are so many memories of him which stay with me, but most often it is his wedding reception, where the two of us were alone outside sobbing on each others shoulders, after I said that things would not be the same.

A year later, my uncle Tom died of melanoma. Tom was the uncle of many I have that I was closest to as a kid. He and his wife had me and my sister stay with them one summer in Indiana. I was the ring bearer in his wedding, he patiently taught me to water ski (more accurately tried), he brought me to the state fair… but most of all his infectious sense of humor stays with me. Almost as much as my parents, he showed me what family really means and keeps me focused on what’s really important.

Scattered in between those over that past 12 years or so:

• A college friend succumbed to HIV-related illness
• Two coworkers died in a small plane accident
• Two friends have committed suicide
• Another uncle died of a sudden heart attack
• A cousin died in a motorcycle accident
• My next door neighbor succumbed to cancer
• Another neighbor died of lung cancer

Most recently, of course, Jeff.

The deaths of a few distant acquaintances seem to have added to my gloom. Over the past 7 years, I have not gone more than a year without a funeral or memorial service. Over the past two years, the average has been every six months.

The list of near misses, where I haven’t known if friends and family were going to pull through due to accidents, illnesses, and such, is too numerous to put up here. I seem to go from crisis to crisis with no time between the end of one and the start of another.

So, am I the grim reaper, or is life truly this messy?

Today was my friend Jeff Shewey’s funeral. I have known Jeff for almost 15 years, and I still can’t comprehend that he is really gone. I have lost many friends due to a variety of causes, and every loss affects me deeply.

I met Jeff shortly after graduating college. At that moment, I was naive, and not sure what real adulthood would hold. I was immediately drawn to Jeff’s sense of humor and zest for life. In the years after, Jeff introduced me to many of the things that I hold dear. Jeff’s enthusiasm for all things fun and fabulous inspired me not just to live, but to live life like it is meant to be lived.

Most importantly, Jeff had fabulous taste in cars, and always drove cars that reflected that taste.

There are so many moments with Jeff that stick with me, among them:

• - Sitting in the backyard of the Buchanan Street rental on the perfect spring day after the perfect spring brunch
• - Riding in Jeff’s car at 90 mph on the 14th Street Bridge
• - Freaking out when Jeff was painting his dining room hours before a surprise birthday party for our friend Sean at Jeff’s place
• - Shopping at the Dollar Store in Rehoboth for theme party props, after too many cocktails
• - Getting over being dumped by my BF by sleazing around the Eagle

Jeff has left so many people who loved him now and throughout the years. If the measure of a man is how he is loved, Jeff is giant among men.

Throughout today, there is one vision that I can’t shake. Those who know Jeff understand:

This is not a post where I’m going to debate in my own head whether or not to continue this so-called blog. It will continue, despite the fact that I seem to accentuating the erratic part of it these days. This is an accounting how this came about, how I have come to this point, and what may be coming in the future.

Few people know that what is here is the third incarnation of this blog. I wiped clean two previous attempts. The first attempt was about 10 months after I first met Scott. Like it or not, I have to admit that he had a lot to do with the failures of the first two, and the fact that this one lived on. (Warning: This is going to get long.)

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