Scorpios are supposed to familiar with death. At least that is what I remember Risa telling me. I am sure I could be wrong, though.

Although, this week in particular, I feel surrounded like that death fog in the 10 Commandments. First the UCSC Chancellor, then a gay man activist from California, then my friend Luis Penelas in Miami. I have felt a great shift in the force.

This is part of the deal with having a Halloween birthday, having these intuitive massive feelings of unease. I felt it the first time I went to DC - right after the idiot in chief got elected - a massive pall of evil energy had descended on the district.

But maybe it could be because I wrestle with depression all the time.

I have been taking anti-depressants since 1994. There, I came out and said I am prone to depression. I take drugs for the depression. Sometimes I am so depressed I can feel it through my entire body into the core of the earth, a big black shadow like in the 10 Commandments. (Yeah why does that keep popping up?).

Obviously the Chancellor was depressed, suicidally depressed. Isn't it the supreme irony that the woman could be out about being a lesbian but not about her depression? Tipper Gore could talk about it. Betty Ford could talk about it. But the Chancellor couldn't talk about it and it cost her the life she had built for 45 years. Who knows how many others it will cost because of our silence?

Act Up was right. Silence=Death.