“Philip’s not going to talk to me anymore.”

from the diary: “Thursday 2/26/87

“Yesterday and today were Club Days. We had the [Gay & Lesbian Student Union] table pretty well manned yesterday. I sat in for a couple hours – 12 to 2.

“Teresa made a lovely banner and taped up some nice rainbow flags. … Philip, the custodian at the library, walked by at one point – shortly after I’d arrived. He said, ‘What are you doing in there?’ I said, ‘Sitting.’ He gave me an odd look and kept walking. I thought, ‘Oh, well. Philip’s not going to talk to me anymore.’

"Today at lunch [Philip] sat down at the table in the cafeteria where I was eating and said he was real surprised. He’d never suspected. He asked about my family. I got the feeling he was fishing for ‘the reason’ – the gensis of my [homosexuality]. He seemed satisfied when I said my parents are divorced. But he’s not rancorous or condemning, rather more bewildered. He asked me if I didn’t think I’d cause AIDS. I said something about you can catch herpes, too, if you’re not careful; you can fall down the stairs and break your head. He told me the library could be mine when he left. He was giving it to me.

“And I thought he wouldn’t talk to me?”