Happy World AIDS Day.
Merry World AIDS Day...? Have a very merry, holly jolly World AIDS Day? – hmm doesn't quite work, does it. We definitely need a different way of talking about our holidays.
I am, as anyone might have expected, still fussing over my unwritten speech for today. I was first asked to give one in 2004, and my immediate experience of traveling gave me material for a successful tour de force; speeches in 2005 and 2006 were okay, but it was hard to find anything with quite so much impact.
It'll be more complicated today, because instead of a quiet indoor vigil, not really competing with the big political gallery event, they've been put together into a march and a (at times rather loud – do we really have three percussion groups?) 'celebration' at the local concert hall. Oh well, I know it's not about the rhetorical flourishes, I can just introduce people and mention a few big statistics and such.
I wonder if Churchill had these problems?... of course, "blood, sweat and tears" sounds a bit nasty in a viral context.
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Other fragments of other days... Mitchell visited from Los Angeles for three days; that was fun, and in fact very enjoyable from several angles, even when we briefly got peeved at each other. He got along fabulously with Patrick – their minds interlock quite well, and Patrick is always so happy to meet anyone who really understands what he's talking about.
While he was here, I kept talking, in a rather incoherent way, about a big house in the country where the people who matter to me could find a place to live: separate apartments (Mitchell said "chambers"), but shared rooms, kitchens, etc. I suppose I'm rather afraid of the financial, emotional and logistical future, for myself and for them – and it would seem so ridiculous if I, Mitchell, Trisha, Sophie, Patrick, Susan H., and all the others living alone and trying to get through middle age – and fairly soon older age – were stuck doing it in isolated apartments here and there. Oh well; perhaps I should have moved to the ashram years ago....
My dear John, from Australia, sent a long message with lots of pictures (he's as beautiful as ever in the 'normal' pictures, but I will confess to finding the bronzed-and-oiled bodybuilding pictures a a bit peculiar – I shall assume it's a laudable fad; he did win, after all, and now he can just make sure he lets his body come back to normal, carefully). He's doing well, and gave some background on the new Australian political situation; and invited me there... well, we'll see.
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All right: rather obviously, I have to go work on this speech. About five or six hours left – and then of course there's the proposal due to Fred, and a shortened version of the presentation for him to give in Mexico....
Back to work.
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