I was going to write an entry about world AIDS day and how my life has been changed by the presence of this horrible, terrible, awful no good disease. but that was just too depressing. All I can say is that I am thankful in this season of thanksgiving to have my health and that none of my immediate friends are struggling to survive right now. I mean, I suppose we're all sort of struggling to survive all the time, but that is different. Because the struggle to survive with AIDS is such a horrific battle and takes such tolls on the body and on the psyche and on the family that there really are no words to describe it. Sure, I work with cancer and that's not small potatoes either, but an AIDS death defies even the imagination.

For Thanksgiving we had a friend over who is a visiting scholar from the Central African Republic. Before he joined us for dinner, sweets and I realized we knew very little about his country, so we looked him up on the internet. The statistics were mindblowing. a third of the population infected with HIV/AIDS. the average lifespan of a grown man is 47 years. Our friend is 29 years old. I cannot imagine being from a place where that is considered middle age. it's like they are living in cat years in the Central African Republic. Here we are, in the most priviledged of all places and our friend joins us from a land where a young man has to work in a diamond mine to make enough money to go to college. Anyway, we had a good dinner and ate so much it was embarassing and I don't think I could ever really look at this friend again without wondering what his life has been like before coming to New Haven.

So instead of writing about world AIDS day and how we all need to be more attentive to changing our world, I thought I would look at old photos. So I cruised through our little on-line photo album looking for baby pictures for a little while until I realized that I have no baby photos. Sweets has piles of photos scanned, but for me there are three photos of me before the age of 10. And that is all we have. the story goes that some deranged cousin of my mom's took all the baby photos from her and threw them in a swimming pool when she was at my grandfather's funeral. but that is just a story. so here is one of the few photos that survived.

Me in kindergarten, circa 1978. my aunt made the dress. I think I look a little concerned in this photo. I was probably worried that the photographer was going to attack me with his bright lights or something equally wierd.

I loved kindergarten, by the way. I loved being in school. I was in love with my kindergarten teacher and named my stuffed dog after her and wanted to be a kindergarten teacher when I grew up. I used to dawdle leaving school each day, taking little tiny steps because I didn't want the day to end. That is how much I loved school.

I'll try to do another show and tell next time. but you know me- I have a horrible memory.