I might as well have been naked

Today I got locked out of the house wearing nothing but scrubs w/leggings & tank top beneath. A well meaning stranger activated a lock for which there is no key, and there I was, standing outside the front door with nothing but an empty recycle bin. No keys, no phone -- just a vague idea of my landlord's nearby home address.

I've been meaning to start exercising (treadmill finally restored last weekend!) but in the end it was necessity -- not my good intentions or even my slowly upward creeping weight -- that drove me to action. The threat of ~40 degree cold got my ass in gear. I got a few strange looks, but I'm sure I looked completely normal running through the streets in scrubs without a coat. Oddly enough, my landlord drove right by me and said he figured I was taking a walk.

Thankfully, I found my landlord's house before I got too cold to move. His wonderful wife greeted me at the door with a warm coat. I feel a little pathetic admitting that 40 degrees is well below what I require to sustain my life. I wear 4 upper body layers plus scarf & gloves in the Fall around here. Maybe this Winter, my 3rd on the east coast, will be the one when I figure out how to stay warm without holing up inside. It's definitely the one where I figure out how to never again leave my house sans keys & coat.

Routine screening for HIV recommended by American Academy of Physicians

“Right now it’s estimated 1 million to 1.2 million Americans have H.I.V., but 24 to 27 percent are undiagnosed or unaware of their infection,” Dr. Qaseem said. “We’re recommending clinicians just adopt routine screening in their patients.”

Boy, the world sure has changed if we need to recommend regular HIV screening for everyone over 13 years old, as the NY Times reports today. Remember the days of going steady? All right, neither do I, but I've seen it in movies & I do remember the days when most 20-year olds could count their lifetime sex partners on one hand or less. Now I fantasize about locking my future profoundly socially-impaired daughter in an ivory tower until she's 25 & console myself that I can at least try to teach her how to best protect herself from life-threatening sexually transmitted disease & the herpes virus.

I'm glad to see the recent ACOP HIV-screening recommendation. It's impossible to fully know a patient's risk factors even when they don't actively lie about their behavior. What's more, people often don't realize their behavior is risky. I've encountered too many well-educated folks who have unprotected sex without knowing their partner's HIV status. Or one partner (usually the guy) gets tested to appease the other but doesn't ask for the same in return. "So you're telling me you've never asked any of your past partners to get tested for HIV? Great." Here's the thing: a professional degree & daily showers don't accurately reflect whether there are bad critters crawling in & around your potential partner's genitalia. Many clean-looking/-smelling people are dirty. There, I said it.

For these & other reasons, I always recommend dual HIV testing for couples planning to start a monogamous sexual relationship. Many people shy away from starting that conversation, but believe me, anyone who really wants to have sex with you (especially in a caring relationship) will get tested in a flash. There's nothing hotter than baseline HIV negative status all around.