"This has probably been the best year of my life," says James, who is sitting Indian-style in a chair, his kicked-off clogs on the floor.

"I don't worry about a lot of the shit that I used to worry about. I mean, who has time left to bother with things like that?"

James was supposed to die last summer from AIDS.

Officially diagnosed with the HIV virus in November 1986, James believes he actually has been infected since 1982. This makes him a long-term survivor, or someone still living three years after diagnosis.

"Most people get to the point where they say, 'I have a really limited time left,' whether it's six weeks or a year or whatever," he says. "You know you are dying. And you get to the point like, I don't really give a shit about tomorrow or about what other people think. I want to go ahead and enjoy myself."

James, who is gay and in his mid-30s, is discussing his life as a PWA, or person with AIDS. His story is periodically interrupted by bouts of coughing, which he attributes to "exorbitant smoking." He sips a diet Coke and jokes good-naturedly, often about his own condition.

Healthy-looking and wearing khaki pants and a blue and white-striped oxford shirt, the Centre County native does not seem to fit the sickly, bedridden image often associated with PWA's.

"The vast majority of people infected with HIV are not in the last stages of dying. So we look just like normal people," he says, laughing. Then, suddenly serious, he adds, "Which is part of what's so scary about people being infected."

Because the HIV virus attacks the immune system, rendering it defenseless against disease, James has learned to live with a flu that doesn't go away.

"You are not sure what is wrong, you just feel . . . blechh," he said, describing one of his better days.

Currently battling a strep infection and bronchitis, James no longer lets his ill health get him down.

What keeps him going?

"Sex," he whispers jokingly, his eyes shining devilishly.

Seriously, he continues, "I just enjoy being alive. I guess that's what gets me up every morning. It's pretty boring lying in bed waiting to die."

-- -- --

It was never a secret that James was gay.

"Every place I have ever worked and all my friends have always known. I have never made a big deal of it, and I never made a secret of it," he said.

He added that being gay never posed any major problems.

"I sort of always thought it would be easier not to be gay," he explained. "But it is not something you have a choice about, so I never really struggled with it, like try to change or anything, because I don't think it's possible."

Chuckling, he added, "I never understood straight people too much, they were always an enigma to me."

James left his Centre County home when he was in his early 20s to live and work in the "gay ghetto" of an eastern metropolitan area. At the time, James considered himself part of a vibrant, explosive era.

"The whole thing was about gay liberation, sexual freedom, and saying 'Leave us alone. We have our own lifestyle.' And I fit right into that," he said.

An office director for a doctor's practice, he would usually go to a neighborhood bar after work to drink and socialize.

"Hundreds of men in three-piece business suits with their briefcases would stop in for a cocktail before going home for dinner," he said, adding that everyone knew each other and at one time or another had all been in bed with each other.

Twice in about six years James was monogamous. However, he said most of the time he was very promiscuous.

Later, when James found out he had AIDS, it never entered his mind to contact former sexual partners.

"Oh, good God," he said, with a laugh. "I mean that would be like several hundred guys in the entire bar standing up and saying, 'Well, we all slept with each other and we're all infected.' "

Probably 90 percent of those people, his age, are infected in that community, James said. He knows dozens of people who are sick and dozens of people who have died.

-- -- --

Living in the city in the early 1980s, James never worried about getting AIDS.

"At that time no one knew what caused it, and I really seemed pretty healthy . . . I was never a big drug user," he said. "I kind of ruled myself out. I just thought that was not something I was going to worry about."

In July 1986, as a result of a routine, biannual check-up for sexually transmitted diseases, James' blood test revealed a platelet count that was too low.

It turned out his abnormal blood count was indicating he had contracted a rare disease called immune thrombocytopenic purpura, or ITP. ITP is a disease like hemophilia, only it affects the immune system. The body destroys platelets, causing muscles and organs to hemorrhage internally.

James' doctor had been treating about 40 gay patients with ITP. It was estimated that 39 of them probably had AIDS.

"Even after I was diagnosed with ITP and the doctor said the chances were 99 percent that AIDS was what was causing the ITP, I said okay and kept going," he recalls.

The doctor convinced James and the other patients to donate blood samples to DuPont, a corporation which was developing drugs to treat HIV infections. James sent in several samples before results showed medium levels of the HIV virus and high levels of antibodies.

In November 1986, four months after he had begun donating the blood samples, it was confirmed. James had AIDS.

-- -- --

"I completely collapsed," he recalled. "I got in the car, came home, and walked into my parents' house a blubbering mess."

James explained his parents' reaction to the bad news.

"My mother at that point was still holding on to the 'mosquito theory (a false notion that mosquitoes can transmit AIDS).' She didn't want to admit, when it came right down to it, that I had to be doing that thing to get it . . . but they took it very well. As well as anybody can take being told that your son is going to die a horrible death."

In the first few months after being diagnosed, James experienced feelings of helplessness and frustration toward the virus that had invaded his body. His situation reminded him of an old horror film in which a monster bursts out of a man's chest.

"You just want to reach into yourself and rip yourself out. There is this thing inside you killing you and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it," he said, his voice quavering.

His feelings of "outright insanity" subsided after he realized the irreversible nature of the disease.

"I thought, 'I can't deal with it because there is no way to deal with it,' " he recalled. "And after that I decided, 'So, I've got to make the most of what's here.' Since then I've been pretty cool."

James has learned to live with the day-to-day aches and pains that plague his body. Often he wakes up to fits of coughing and finds it hard to keep breakfast down. Persistent flu symptoms such as diarrhea and muscle ache, as well as general fatigue, have become commonplace.

Currently, the only medication James is taking -- besides those to treat his current infections -- is valium, "lots of valium." His doctors prescribed the painkiller because they do not want him to experience too much stress, since it lowers resistance to illness even further.

Scientists have been working on various experimental drugs to treat AIDS, but James has not received any of these treatments.

"My T-cells are doing so well they are terrified to do anything that might mess (them) up," he said."I'm living and surviving . . . and they're trying to find out what my body's doing right."

James said there are 10 PWA's in the country with blood profiles like his, "ten out of all those thousands."

Although the virus renders him very susceptible to sickness, he no longer worries when he comes down with a cold.

"The only thing I worry about is if I'm going to feel bad enough that I'm not going to be able to go out tonight," he said.

-- -- --

James said AIDS has not slowed down his sex life.

"You can't enter a monastery just because you have AIDS," he said.

However, he now practices safe sex, by using condoms and modifying his sexual agenda.

"You can go to bed and have sex with someone and have no chance of infecting them whatsoever," he said. "You're not going to get AIDS from kissing someone, even heavy-duty kissing. And there's not a single case they've attributed to oral sex. It's not a transmission route at all."

James said a large percentage of gay AIDS is directly attributable to receptive anal intercourse.

"Someone could get AIDS from me if I was screwing them. I won't do that, condom or no condom," he said. "The thought terrifies me that I might infect someone else. I don't care how drunk we might be, I won't do it. The chances of giving it to someone the other way around are pretty slim, but you still use a condom." He warned that "even with a condom, you're not completely safe. Condoms break."

He said for the most part, AIDS has not changed people's attitudes toward him sexually. He said most of the people he encounters in the gay community would still have sex with him if the opportunity arose.

In fact, he has known people who wanted to have unsafe sex with him even after he told them he has AIDS. He said, however, last year one person walked away and never spoke to him again when James informed him of his condition and a couple of people have decided to keep their distance.

"I wouldn't even go out on a date with someone without making sure they know," he said.

James said as far as safe sex is concerned, everyone -- gay and straight -- should assume they are infected and work from there. He said gay men should definitely make the assumption they are infected and take the appropriate precautions.

-- -- --

James receives "a whole range of responses" when he informs people of his condition.

"The usual reaction I get is 'Wow, I never met someone who actually had it,' " he said.

He also encounters people who pull back in fear or disgust. He said that reaction bothers him because it shows people are ignorant and do not know any differently.

"It's a scary thing. Everyone copes differently, and God knows, I've been through enough shit in my life, I'm not gonna blame anyone from reacting any way," he said.

James has found people to be extremely supportive, almost to the point of being aggravating. On certain nights when James was extremely sick with ITP, he would receive over 30 calls from people wanting to know if he needed anything.

"I need sleep," was his usual response.

Today, when people ask what they can do for him he says, "Smile, shake my hand, buy me a beer."

James has been lucky, in terms of moral support, compared to other PWA's. He has friends with AIDS whose parents said to them, 'Get out of my face, I don't ever want to see you again.' He also knows people whose roommates threw their belongings out onto the sidewalk when they found out.

James' support system has included family, friends and co-workers. Currently he does not have a lover, but he says there are certain people he looks to in times of depression and turmoil. His family is also always there if he needs them, he said.

He said most people at work have really gone out of their way to offer support. Today, two years after James began receiving disability pay through a private insurance company, his boss is still shouldering various other expenses.

James claims having AIDS has given him a different, more realistic perspective on life. He pretty much lives each day as if it were his last.

"If you fall into the trap where you get pissed and want things to be over with, you might as well just crawl into bed and wait to die," he said.

Sitting calmly in the chair with a solemn look on his face, James said, "It brings out the best in a lot of people. It really does. It brings out the best in me sometimes."