10.25.97

It turned cold on a dime. All of a sudden it's freakin' winter outside. Yesterday I was wearing a sweater and now I'm burdened with the North Face mega coat. Actually, I like wearing it, but I'm still not diggin' the weather, which was totally and quintessentially a Seattle winter day. You know: dark brooding clouds, cold temps, and heavy little raindrops that land like tiny ice missiles on your face. The chilly wind threatening to blow off my hood was a nice kicker too. Woulda been a nice day to stay indoors except that around 10 or so the bug spray guy came to the door. I was in my pj's when the doorbell rang so I bolted for the bedroom and left Dave to handle whomever it was. He handled it WRONG. Guess he didn't know would happen if you let a guy, sportin' a little white suit with a bigass can of chemicals, into your home. For my part, I shouldn't have planted myself out of sight. If I'd been there…. But I wasn't, so the guy totally plastered life killing chemicals not only near drains but on the inside of our food cupboards! I'm gonna die! I just know it! So we spent awhile opening windows, washing down everything the guy touched. And I got totally mad and chewed out Dave, which he didn't like. I blamed him for not being able to say, "No" to a stranger at the door and for not thinking about what it means to have chemicals sprayed in your home. He defended himself well - it's his forte. But I was relentless, as the stench of the carcinogens kept my blood running. The air cleared, we found some snacks, and made-up. Not dead yet. I was trying to explain to Linda (one of the women I met the other day) about how I sometimes feel angry at all the love and support the AIDS cause gets. I could tell immediately that she positioned her guard to counter my statement, so I relented a bit. Later I thought how quickly people will stop listening to what you actually say if you become critical of something that is considered universally a good thing. My anger about the AIDS support is that the disease is so new, gotten so much funding for research, and made such quick progress that there is now word of a vaccine. Meanwhile, effective "cures" for diseases that have been killing people for a lot longer are a lot slower in coming. My feeling is that it's because when a disease strikes particularly in a group of people who have the power and money to mobilize against it, naturally it will receive all of the resources. Let me set this straight: I never feel that anyone deserves to contract HIV. I hope for a cure ASAP and am happy at the news that science is moving toward a cure. WHAT I'M SAYING is that rich and famous people, whose life behaviors put them and their cronies at risk, are particularly interested in a cure. So they pile all kinds of money toward research and they do a lot of schmoozing with their politician friends who just happen to allocate research funding. The result is that certain diseases receive preferential treatment. For example, in the last 15 years since my mom died from breast cancer, research has not made any huge gains in saving people with similar conditions. But an even more poignant example is sickle cell anemia. The treatment for it hasn't changed in 50 years. Know who gets that particular disease more than anyone else? People of African descent. Now that's an example of racism if I ever saw one. Last night I savored a moment of gladness to be in Korea. We ate at a restaurant that serves traditional temple food and which also has traditional performances nightly. My favorite performance was of a woman in shaman's dress who was pounding on a drum. She used every part of the surface of the instrument to create different sounds. But the best part was the aggressive, powerful way in which she moved to the beat she was creating. I'm so accustomed to seeing women in this country trying to take up very little space, moving delicately, and acting fragile. I thought that it was a wonderful thing for this woman to be a dancer. Dave and I watched Lost Highway this afternoon via LD. Is David Lynch some kind of auditory genius or what? …Dave just reminded me that DL is pretty dang talented with the visual stuff too, particularly his use of darkness in this film. Uhh yeah, that too.

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