president. i think herbert hoover would have been a great president if not for the great crash and the depression. if herbert hoover had been elected eight years earlier in 1920 he would have been terrific. he had the mindset. he had a talent for dealing with the status quo, extending and preserving the status quo. but when things changed dramatically right beneath his feet he didn't have the flexibility to deal with it. having said that i think, there's one other aspect of a roosevelt gridlock. well, you might say good luck in coming down with polio, yeah, if roosevelt had not come down with polio in 1921, he probably would have been nominated for president in 1924. or if not in 1924, 1928. neither one of those years was a democratic year he would have lost and he would have been damaged and that would have been that. the fact that he had polio required him, allowed him to stay out of the political arena until things turned around. by the time he ran in 1930, 1932, roosevelt was elected in

1932 because he was frank and roosevelt. he was elected because he wasn't herbert hoover. and it was his good fortune to be elected under those circumstances, but it could go on and make the most of it. thank you very much. and, needless to say i will be happy to sign any books. [applause] h. depew brands is the author of several books including andrew jackson, the age of gold, and the first american, the life and times of benjamin franklin. that was a finalist for the pulitzer prize in irb. mr. brandt is currently a history professor at the university of texas. for more information visit the author's website. >> this summer book tv is asking what are you reading?

>> mary matalin what are you reading? >> my political books in the genre of going back to the future. i am reading liberty and tierney. i just got a first edition set up. 12 volumes which is fascinating, not good beach books but it's a good thing. and the 5000 year late. i am rereading the 17 volumes of vince flynn and this new young author named lisa lutz i think is her name. she is young, hip, great, funny reader. and writer. if i can get through that this summer i will feel good. >> i am looking for to my summer vacation and reading. i'm going to read adam .net. this is a long shot but i will be reading about the story of lincoln and modern life.

that's my lead-in. and then i carry my books about lincoln and books about fdr, they take on each book and i forget to read. i will do that in the summer. >> to see more summer reading list and other program information visit our website at booktv.org. >> according to the centers for disease control hiv aids is a leading cause of death for african-american women aged 25 through 34. marvelyn brown recalls her diagnosis as hiv-positive at the age of 19. the subsequent alienation by her family and community. g., now 24 years old, works with hiv aids awareness group. this event hosted by davis kid booksellers in nashville is 40 minutes. >> hello.

hi, everyone. i'm going to start with reading to you some pieces in my book. always for the latecomer. there in my family. sometimes i have to find my place. [laughter] >> okay. there was no way out. there was nothing i could do but just lie there and think, what the hell is this test for. all these things are beginning to scare me. i've never known anyone who had gotten all these. why do they keep coming back negative. what are these doctors looking for. what's really wrong with me? i have some kind of freakish, unknown disease. they keep doing test after test. i was starting to panic and i remember that the doctors had warned me if i moved i would

have to do the task all over again. the last thing i wanted was more time in this tiny tube. what i wanted was some answers. one way or another, i just wanted to know was i going to die. i was tested for all types of cancer. negative. then there was the meningitis, negative. after a week and a half in icu after dozens of gas, no one knew what was wrong with me and i was still deathly ill. my mom continued to plan my funeral. two weeks after being in the hospital, i finally learned my fate that i was asleep when the doctor knocked on the door. come in, i said quietly. unable to whisper more than inaudible sound. the door slowly opened and he came in and sat down next to my bed. how are you feeling? all right. i said. after two weeks in the hospital with no answers. so you know you have pneumonia. i'm not in. they told me this much. we just don't know what has caused it.

we have test results that i think we should go over. okay. i said slowly. what the hell this doctor was trying to get after it turns out i'm hiv-positive. it was one of those moments that kind when one life and and another he gives when you find someone has died or someone is pregnant or your younger sibling is getting married and you're still single. but it's funny, no matter how many times i thought about these kind of moments they never seem real, at least not at the time. with the doctors of those three letters, hiv followed by the word positive, my heart didn't lurch. my stomach didn't try. my mighty medially plunged into action. so what does this really mean? what do i need to do for that? what sort of life changes are required? the real questions, the question that everyone else would immediately think, am i going to die did not even cross my mind.

i don't know why. i was more aware of the fact this doctor was ignoring me. talking so slowly, acting like i was a breakable doll and i was that he had just informing i had an incurable disease. are you okay? yeah, i'm fine i answered. usually people don't take this news so, well, so in stride. are you sure you aren't shocked? what you expect me to do? throw up, scream at him? i'm fine i repeated. so what do i do? well, he said, getting up from his chair, we can talk about the other stuff later. there is actual doctor on staff who is very interested in your case since it appears to have been living in your body for such a short time. so now i'm a specimen for research, great. but we will talk about all that later. right now i think you should just focus on getting used to idea, taking it in, processing

it to what it means to your life. well, what does it mean i asked? getting more annoyed by the moment. was this guy wanting to give me any more information. how many times did he have to play rock paper scissors before he made a beat to the other interns. could you give me some more information or something? information, yes, absolutely. i will bring you some right away he said. inching towards the door. will you promise me you will not hurt yourself in the meantime? hurt myself? i could hardly move. had disguising all over my mouth, had he seen how hard it wasn't for me to get out of the bed and go to the bathroom. i won't hurt myself, i assured him. okay. good. i will be right back he said. disappearing out the door. good, i thought. at least i know what was wrong with a. now i just have to figure out what hiv really is. so that was a moment in the hospital where i had found out my diagnosis. and after i found out, i really

did want to know more information about hiv. one of my most common questions is did you not know about hiv. the truth is i had heard about it but i just didn't didn't think it could happen to me. i didn't feel it was an issue of mine so i never cared to learn about it. so when the doctor told me i had hiv, i really truly didn't know what it was, i just new groups of people who i thought it affected from gay men and drug users and prostitutes, all these things i was not. so i immediately picked up the phone and i began calling people. the first person i called was my best friend, and i told her that i was hiv-positive. she told me she was at work and when she got off work she would come up to the hospital and see me. and she did. at the next person i called was my friend who was eight months pregnant, i was supposed to be the godmother of her child. and i told my friends, you talk your friends about everything. you talk to them about and i just thought i could call them a

talk to them about hiv and they would assure me that everything would be okay. but i was about to learn, you know, truly what it was. so when i told my friend who was eight months pregnant that i was hiv-positive, she said, she don't want me to have anything to do with her child. since i told her that information. i hung up the phone and i called my sister, i called my head and then i called my mom a. and i remember, you'll come calling my mom and saying don't tell anyone anything. don't tell them any information. although she did say i called her first. of course i had already told some people. i was surely wasn't going to tell anyone else. i knew the kind of seriousness and my mom's voice so i decided don't tell anyone anything. and i didn't have to. because of those like people i don't told by people and they told by people, and they told by people. and i found out i was hiv-positive on july 172003, and it seemed like the rest of my

national community, it seemed like word had spread. so immediately when i came out of the hospital, i was a college student and i was forced to go back to college in order to keep my health insurance, so i was able to, you know, treat this virus. and i remember being at school, you know, from the semester before i was the girl on campus. and now it was like i was walking to class by myself. no one wanted to do class projects with a. since i was on medicine i had to take them everyday at 9:00 in the morning. and usually at this time your in class, and you know, i would look at the teacher and i would say, you know, i would just give him a look and he would excuse me to go take my medicine. it was like everyone was aware that i was hiv-positive and i had to take this medicine. and the bathroom stall actually became one of my best friends when i was in school because i would take this medicine, and my doctor gave me a 52nd rule. she said count to five, and at five you can throw up, you can

use the bathroom, you can do whatever you wanted it but you have to hold it in for five minutes. and so that's what i had to do. and i was going to church, and it just seemed like at church, it was just so hard. the signal was still there and also real that i just dropped, i quit going to church. and eventually i dropped out of school. and being at home, i was so scared of affecting someone else or someone else not being comfortable with me being around that i just ate all the plates and plastic silverware. i just wanted to wash my clothes because i didn't want to pose harm on anyone else. it was just so much that i decided, you know, i started living in my car and i stayed in the wal-mart parking lot. the i remember just wanted that, am i going to die. this is so hard. this is too much. and i never cried, but talking about is is so real.

but i remember -- sorry. i remember, okay, one day since i was staying at wal-mart it was pretty convenient to just go in there and take pictures. and i was like, you know what, i'm going to take a picture, i'm going to take my obituary picture. i thought i was going to die. and then at least it will be nice. at least it will be cute. because so many people, they look at me and they say she is so strong, you know. she's my hero. she is my inspiration, and yes,

i am. but role models cry also. and hiv is a very real, very hard disease to live with. yeah, i'm cute and everything else, and i'm fine. but i mean, it's really hard. and the stuff that i went through and still going through, people are still being affected everyday with it. people, i talked to a guy the other day, and he said it's nothing to it's like diabetes. i said no, it ain't. it ain't that easy. i mean, it really was hard. and so i was going to make sure my obituary picture if i was going to die, it was going to look good so i walked into wal-mart and i said take my picture. and i remember walking out with my proofs and i was like this will look good. i'm fine. i can die. and so i just went home, you know, on with the motions,

waiting to die. i lost weight at this time because the medicine was affecting my liver so much that my eyes have turned yellow. it was so hard. it was now, you know, people are know that i am hiv-positive so i just really stayed to myself. and i remember one day i was in the car, coming home, you know, the wal-mart parking lot. [laughter] >> i remember looking up and i seem brake lights, and i was, i'm about to hit this car. and i was like i really don't want to hit the car because at the time i was still on my mom's insurance and i didn't want to hear her bath and i thought i had to do something. and i remember jerking the car steering wheel sideways whited hit this car. and i jerked the car and it went spinning and it went across four lanes of traffic and it spans all the way around and i was

watching a tractor-trailer coming at me head on. and i just remember closing my eyes. when i closed my eyes and opened them, i seen smoke. i wasn't touched. my car wasn't touch and a tractor-trailer was inches away from my bumper. it was at that moment that i realized i had almost died and it had nothing to do with hiv. and i'm sitting here like i wasted so much time out of my life, i'm going to die, i wanted to die. and it was just like so what, if i had hiv. it didn't define the. it did make up who i was. am i going to live life with this or am i just going to sit here waiting to die not even knowing what i'm going to die. as i said, okay, you know what? i'm going to get myself together, and then months later on world aids day i gave my first speaking engagement six-month after my diagnosis. and i went, i didn't know what to say so i just said my name is

marvelyn, i'm hiv-positive. do you have any questions. and the questions lasted about two hours. so i did my job. i didn't have to, you know, say too much. i seen people hunger for this one to know, it was at this time i decided it was going to be a fight. but it truly affected who i was and who i have. i just like i'm going to live. and so, you know, afterwards people say you're my hero. you're my inspiration. i'm not my own hero. i'm not my own inspiration, how am i going to be yours? and it just tears me so much to see, you know, so many people truly uneducated about this virus and to see their hunger. i was like i don't want to be this example. i would rather somebody talk about it and not be involved in it. and so i went into hiding. i moved 30 minutes outside of

nashville. and i started going by my middle name of sharif which is less unique than marvelyn. and i was out there and i got my own place and i start, you know, doing my thing. and i'm going to tell you about the day i started going by sharif. it still funny because i still have people to say, call me sheree. now this is the page i did, and i really wouldn't have cried if my mom didn't try. i see my mom tried to walk away, she tried to be hard also but she was crying. she was crying, and it's surreal. it's really happy tears because i've overcome it all. and so it truly is great. now if i can just find this piece. all right.

sheree, can you come here. i'm swamped. i have an order already and he wants coffee, my coworker, sheree. no response. she repeated, i suddenly realize she was talking to me. yeah, i got it i replied as i walked to the table. i noticed the man sitting there reading the sunday paper and turning to the life section. the steaming hot coffee began to spill over my hands and all over my uniform. that is why you are supposed to carry a tray, said the manager. i compose myself as i walked toward the table. there was, my face on the cover of the tennessean's life section. the man couldn't possibly know who i was. i have changed my name to the unrecognizable but i was still nervous that my identity would be revealed. i put on my straightfaced and i started to take his order. hello, sir. my name is sheree and i will be taking care of you. i held it together and had someone else take red states and sell out to his order. i grabbed the newspaper from the

bar and ran to the bathroom as fast as i could. as i looked at the paper, i try to feel myself with happy thoughts your eye will be helping so many people and changing so many lives. but negatives ones following. maybe that's what the reporter said so he could get the story. a few tears snuck up in the corner of my eyes but i immediately wipe them away as i looked at the first word and the title of the story. courage. i repeated it over and over again. the reporter had worked on my study for months and i figured that he knew me better than anyone else at this point. it took courage to do what i had just done i reminded myself that i walked out of the bathroom. who is marvelyn? people have been calling all morning asking for marvelyn. oh, that's me i said. sheree is just my middle name. every time i have for marvelyn for the last year i had heard something that filled me with disgust and shame. i started my new life and outside of nashville it is sheree. sheree didn't have to deal with

the stigma of being hiv-positive. she got a glass of life doing her thing. budget also i realize it's just a moment didn't have the courage that marvelyn did. i said i'm actually marvelyn, and then grabbed the bottle and proceeded to the next table was a huge smile of relief on my face. so i was working as a server. because that was a job i had not. and i just hate the name sheree. it so backwards because then i hated marvelyn and now i hated sheree. what name is marvelyn? it was a real moment because it was different because the speaking engagement i did, it was, not with no one i was personally around. it was like the story in the tennessean made it a little more real. it was real. it was in printer didn't go anywhere. and it would forever be there and i knew i could just, you know, truly itself you know, what i was doing and know that god didn't punish me for hiv. with hiv.

i could still use, you know, myself and my diagnosis to help other people because i know that i didn't have anyone that looked like me. because they said, no, came and talked about hiv. but it better look like me. it never made me feel like it could happen to me. i was just hearing so many rumors, you know, like they were coming up to me and say i heard you're dying and all this. i was like, finally i was with a little while and i was looking good and it's all backwards. some people would come up to me and said i heard the rumors. that's just messed up what they are saying about you. by, it couldn't be me and therefore it couldn't be real because heaven forbid them knowing, you know hiv. so i did want to go out and educate people about this virus because it is a human disease that infects us all. and i travel around the country and the world, for that matter, you know, sharing my story of living with hiv.

and i always leave people with three important parts and one of them is to get educated. because if you look back on the second person i called, who was eight months pregnant, she really couldn't see even me at the moment, i couldn't see. she got fixed and got pregnant. i had and had hiv. our rules could have easily been fixed. we could have easily gotten both. but she didn't look at like that. i didn't look at it like that. and it came down to, basically us not being educated to know that hiv was asexually transmitted disease. people say, how did you not know that? when i heard stds in the school, it was stds and hiv. when i thought of as tds was under the umbrella, gonorrhea, chlamydia. hiv is not under that. that only affects gay men. that's why it's there but that's not completely there. you know, and so that's why i tell people to go out and get educated because i didn't care

about hiv. until it happened to me. i really impressed people to be proactive, you know, with this virus because it is preventable. i wasn't born with a. i didn't get from a blood transfusion. i didn't get it from a mistake he did. i got a pro-choicpro-choice, a choice that i made and now that i have to chase consequences for the choices and decisions i made. that's what i tell people this disease is serious. you don't want it. and i also tell them to get tested because it took me to be sick on my deathbed to be testified and tested for hiv because i didn't think it would happen to me. i never would have voluntarily gotten an hiv test. here is, i've been living with hiv for five years. the scariest part would be not knowing that i was hiv-positive. not only because who i could have infected, but i wouldn't have been able to take control of matters the way i had because hiv would have weakened the immune system.

my immune system would have been very weak when i found out, you know, 18 years later when i truly would've been on my deathbed dying from aids. so in this situation, and very important to get tested early. and i also tell people to be responsible because i can check the hiv from a man i considered to be prince charming. he was an older guy. i was 19. 23. he had his own place, his own car. he looked good. he smelled good. i would tell my friends about him, and they would say, girl, you got it going on. i'm jealous of you. i'm saying, yeah. i'm really thinking, you know, i'm special. when he told me he loved me it made me love myself that much more. when he told me i was cute, i felt cute. but i didn't feel to him as he told me i was cute. so that when i he told me he didn't have a condom and i was thinking, you know, he wants me to be his baby's momma. that was the worst thing i

thought could happen from is pregnancy. and here and all my life, don't get pregnant, don't get pregnant. i'm 19 years old i can get pregnant now so it wasn't a big issue. it wasn't a big deal. and it took me to be, you know, about a month and a half, no, like four or five weeks to be sick and in the hospital told i had pneumonia and i had hiv. so i called him and i told him, i said the doctor told me that i am hiv-positive. and he said, i'm sorry. that's all he said. people always ask me did he know he was infected with hiv when he gave it to you? but really why does it matter? because truth be told it didn't matter if he had it or if he did have it, i mean he had or he didn't have it, when i lay down to him, the only thing i should have been concerned about is protecting myself or what if he had the virus and he didn't know like so many people living in this world because they never got an hiv test because they are

scared or fearful of getting it. i still had hiv. the fact that he know or didn't know it didn't stop my choice that i played in a situation. i have to take responsibility for the action that i played. it's very important to be responsible. gill, my book really isn't a book about hiv. it's something i have but it's not my life. the first eight chapters i wasn't even infected with hiv. it was my high school years and, you know, the leading up to my diagnosis because there's other issues i faced way before, you know, hiv. it's really about my journey of finding self-love, and it's sad because i have no regret of anything that i've done. and i am very happy hiv came into my life because it talked me to value myself and accept myself of what i have. i don't need clarification from anyone else as i finally have a clarification for myself. i found my true self and i found

i can love myself even more. self-love is a disease in itself. there's a lot worse than hiv if you don't have it. a lot of different things, you know, come out of a person not letting themselves here and that's really what my book is about. so with that being said i want to open up the floor for questions because for whatever reason i'm about to cry again and i don't even know why. i don't. it really feels good to be back at nashville, but i haven't done it in years because i live in brooklyn, new york, now and one of the reason i live, is because it was so hard that it was a hard, you know, speaking to people that i went to school with that, you know, look babysitting me. or just weird stuff. you know, it really feels good to come back because in so many ways i thought i was running, but i'm facing it now. [applause]

>> to you all have any questions? i strongly encourage questions. >> you have to wait on the microphone. >> yes, could you tell me, marvelyn brown, how frequently do you have to go to the doctor now that you find you have hiv? >> well, it's different for different people. i don't have to see my doctor, but every three months. and so i go to the doctor every three months, but i do have to take seven horse pills each and every day of my life. they are horse pills. asked mary. how big are my pills? [inaudible] [laughter] >> yeah, they're pretty big. and they really do make me sick to my stomach. vomiting, diarrhea, just all the side effects you could possibly imagine. and then i have to take care of

myself as far as exercising, eating right. there's so many different parts that come along with, you know, dealing with hiv. he had a two-parter. >> okay. well then, the second part of the question, have you been able to find a good resource counseling you for your health, for working out, for your nutrition, for your beauty products, for your lifestyle? >> i don't need beauty products. [laughter] >> okay. what was your question? >> let me just say welcome back to nashville. i appreciate you, okay? >> okay. thank you. think you. you did say something about counseling and, you know,

support and things like that. i was really diagnosed, i didn't have a support system as far as people living with hiv and aids. because i couldn't relate to them. i went to the program and it was on iv drug users and always things that i was not so it was very hard for me, you know, sit in and find what to look up to. so i talk about rome all that i had in the book it was hiv positive, none of, because you are going to buy the book and tell me about it. but i did have someone who was there. i really started looking at myself. i'm making that. [inaudible] >> i would just like to commend you on being a strong, young black woman and you are an inspiration because me, myself, i don't know if i could stand up everyday and do what you do so you keep on being you and remember, just a member it's not

over until god says so. [applause] >> thank you. don't worry, we will get to all of you beautiful people. >> my question is i know for a fact that you used to do art and i was wondering if your artistic, your visual art to stick blessings, are you still using those along with writing the book? >> what kind of art that i used to do? >> you painted a piece for my son, georgia, and gave it to him and signed it. and george still cherishes that. and he has that in his apartment in college. >> i am very happy he still has the painting that i remember nothing about. all, my god. did i really used to paint? i mean i have so many different talents, people, that i truly cannot keep up with all of them.

[laughter] >> but i do, what i do is a form of art. you know, even now. so much of what i had as a child. you know, because i was involved in different, you know, sports and different activities. i really played into the type of person i am today and i use those skills and information that i got so long ago now in my everyday life. it took art to do my hair, girl. [laughter] >> welcome back to nashville also. but i have been scanning through this book and i say you have a picture of a rosanna lyn, and she was one of my favorites. she came to the metro politan to our world aids day. and although she is gone now you do look a lot like. >> everyone, i've heard it before. >> you do favor a law. and she -- she is talking about my hero. she is trying to spoil it for you all. >> lindh was in nashville in

also, and she and her mother, there are both ms. now. but we are hanging in there for you. >> thank you. >> again, thank you for being you and the strength that you come to this event with. at i guess my question is i know you spoke at a high school this afternoon. i know you spoke at tsu today i think as well. can you talk a little bit about what i was like in terms of the youth that you spoke with and the response with the questions in terms of where they are at, and especially with the high school kids because i know they probably flavor much of what you said in terms of not knowing and not technology. so i wonder if you could comment on that? >> yeah, i did speak at tennessee state university today and high schools and colleges, came out to even. and it's always refreshing to talking to you is because i feel like peer-to-peer education is very important because i talk to

parents, and you know, it's always like your not preaching absence only because it's not realistic and your child is having just like you were when you were in high school. you know, children are not doing anything new. has been around forever like sexual beings. it's not that, you know, absence is a beautiful thing but in my situation i feel like, you know, if i would have just remained abstinence until i was married the only difference is i would be hiv positive with a wedding ring on my hand because i was told to remain abstinence and was not told about education and the danger of catching hiv and aids. so i really do feel they need to go hand-in-hand. abstinence is great, but realistically? they are having. so it's always great to have young people because they are more honest. one of the young people after the presentation came today and came to me and said i want you to know that you make hiv real for me. and that's all i wanted to do.

>> i did mean to make you all cry, i'm sorry, and i didn't mean. i really didn't. >> i really enjoyed your talk. what did you want to do when you are a child when you grew up, and do you think you'll ever go back to school? >> well, looking back, knee being 19, hardheaded, vulnerable and all these different things, honestly i didn't know what i wanted to be at 19 years old. , going to school. i had other concerns in mind, and that was the guy that i was dealing with in so many different issues, you know, one of my ultimate dreams is to go back to school, and i will go back to school when the time is right. yeah. education is key, people. yes. are there any more questions?

>> hello. thank you for being here. i am a mother, a grandmother, and a great-grandmother. >> so is my grandmother. >> and i have, oh god, can't even count how many girls and how many boys, but i do know that some of them are sexually active. okay. how, what do i say to them if one of them or two or three of them come to me and say, grande, i'm hiv positive. what do i say to them? how do i live my life with that? >> what do you mean how do you live your life with that? >> i'm saying, i mean, if i'm talking about my grands or my

children, i just think it would be devastating to me, okay, because for the longest i was a single, single parent. even though i had husband, i was still a single parent because i was the one that raised my children, raised my grandchildren, and i feel like i'm alpha and omega, the mother and the father, the beginning in the end. and a lot of them, especially migrans, they still like that, that i am their alpha and omega. so how do i prepare myself for something like this? what do i say? >> well, i can tell you what to say to your child if he comes back positive, but as far as being in your situation with them being affected, i don't know, you know, what to tell the. i imagine it would be devastating for a grandmother or mother or sister, or anyone, but

since i was the one infected, i don't know that answer, you know. you can talk to someone on the subject you would be more able to help you, but as far as what you say to your grandchild, there is nothing you can say. they key thing is to just know that it's a virus. your grandchild would have, and the thing is to not act different because your grandchild is no different. you know, you can only be what you need before and people not changing, and you know, letting her grandchild as you did before. but, i mean, in no way should a parent or anyone blame themselves if their child becomes infected with hiv because it was a choice and it was a decision i made. i could have had people all around me talking about hiv and aids, but until i got it in my head that i wasn't going to contract a comment like that in my head that i'd sort of protect myself i could have still got the virus. >> would you say dolby

overprotective? >> i'm not a mother. [laughter] >> you know, there is no key way of raising a child. there is no speaker. find a book on it, but i can't help you. [laughter] >> i've got a comment about that. i'm a mother. you know, that's why it's so important, i work in a hospital, to educate yourself. you have to educate yourself about this virus. you know, it's not a play. somebody come to u.s.a., a family member, you wrap your arms around him and support them, and that's what they need. that's why it's so important. educate yourself. education or family. don't take them to the curb because they need that support. they need that love. they need all that they can get. >> i agree. anymore questions, my marvelous

people? >> how is dating? is a difficult? is it normal like it was? >> let's get to the rule. you're talking about dating or are we talking about? >> both. >> let's go to dating first. we will deal with dating first. as far as dating, i never stopped dating. it became a bit difficult because i was hiv positive, but there's always a great thing too because i tell these people the first conversation, you know, that i have and if you read my book you will find that my love for a man grows within minutes. so i don't want any feelings to be there when, you know, i don't want anything is to be there and i tell a guy i'm hiv positive because that will possibly hurt

me. so i tell them right up front, you know, i get it all on the table. and if he stays, i know that he, you know, truly wants to get to know me other than, you know, my virus and he wants to, you know, get to know me for me. but if he chooses to lay i'm like yes, good, good, good. i don't need energy and you only want and i can't help you anyway. so it's great, you know. that's the good thing. now, okay, this is my theory on. so people living with hiv stress is a main killer. stress plays a very important part in this. and we all know that relieves stress. that's all i'm going to say. [laughter] that's all going to say. mom might not want to hear that, but it is what it is.

it is what it is. now, i do protect myself and my partner because although i am living with hiv i don't want to reinvent myself with hiv. i don't want to pass the virus onto my partner. and just because i got hiv doesn't mean i can't get appetizers, her hepatitis. but is dangerous and i do protect myself. [inaudible] >> you asked was new york treating myself good? >> they have great food and nice shopping. [inaudible] >> i know there's a lot of support there if you want and lots of good people, and i just wonder whether or not you are connected in that way in new york at all? >> i'm based in new york but i do so much, like yeah, i do so much traveling that -- new york

you can blend in and i really got to find myself and who i was in new york city and i'm great in new york city offered me that. but i don't do a lot of work in new york city because i'm so, you know, out there. but new york is a great support system. >> no more questions? okay, buy the book. [laughter] >> and i will sign a book i will not sign any papers. i will not take no pictures. if you did not buy notebook. [laughter] >> and thank you. [applause] >> marvelyn brown currently works with several hiv awareness groups. she is a ceo and hiv consultant