My father died on my forty-first birthday; my friends and life partners were coming down with AIDS. For seven years we would produce artwork entirely about AIDS. I thought about death and how to deal with death. I began a series of intense trainings in bodywork at the Body Electric School in California, earning ten certificates in massage, rebirthing, tantric massage and other techniques. By the time my two partners and most of my best friends had died in 1994, I found myself on a path that had more to do with living than dying.