Diary #2 Summary
Bob begins this diary by telling us about his new life. He is now in Mill Valley, a town north of the busy and “rapidly changing” San Francisco with his boyfriend at the time Ken who works nearby. In their new home in Mill Valley, they start a garden which the diary is used to detail the cycles of the plants in the garden such as the Daphne bush and Bryce cherry tree.
On his 31st birthday, July 3, 1985, Bob wishes to stay in the house with Ken for the rest of his years. Bob seems to idolize Ken having his happiness be somewhat dependent on Ken’s presence but he does acknowledge that they have their bad days and when they do, he remembers that they understand one another and will eventually be able to move past whatever the subject of the discord is.
The date of the entry is unknown, but after seeing Mishima at the Castro Theatre, Bob sees Buzzy, someone who he hasn’t seen in nearly two years and also is Bob’s first contact with someone with AIDS. He describes how seeing the Kaposi Sarcoma he wanted to ask if he’d known that he was getting sick but instead made casual conversation. He also notes how Castro Boy, a disco song glorifying the lavish lifestyle of a “butch” gay, makes him cry because it reminds him of “young men dying”.
As we’ve seen, a recurring theme within Bob’s life is his relationship with sex, claiming that in society, though characteristics like faithfulness and honesty are important, sex is ultimately what brings two individuals together, highlighting the cultural pressure to be sexy and having one’s value be placed in their sexiness. At times he feels as if he is not having enough sex with Ken, whether that is a self-imposed assessment or from Ken himself is not explicitly stated but is likely a combination of the two. As the year 1985 comes to an end in an entry from December, Bob is truly enjoying his life with Ken. He how the only way to truly enjoy everything would be to live forever but aging is a constant reminder that forever doesn’t exist. This also happens to be the first time that he explicitly expresses concern for having the AIDS virus, constantly checking for signs, regretting how careless he was but also at the time, there wasn’t really any cause for concern.
In an entry in mid-February of 1986, Bob mentions that the Army suggests doing nationwide testing for AIDS and quarantining those with the virus and possibly requiring them to wear badges. This sort of blindness to gateways to discrimination in spite of rhetoric about equality and freedom is, as Bob says, one of the reasons he never became a citizen.
