Red

A note: after finishing My Pet Virus (hey, it took me a while I have midterms) I can affirm that I am still in love with Sean Decker, but that I have additionally fallen in love with his “wife partner” Gwenn Barringer.

Is it a coincidence that I have just finished reading a memoir about a man with AIDS on the day that Bono goes on Oprah and launches his new (RED) campaign to raise money for HIV medication in third world countries? I think not. Shawn Decker’s story has personalized the AIDS epidemic for me. His is definitely a story of hope, and yet for the millions of people in Africa diagnosed with this virus it is a death sentence. It doesn’t have to be. I admire Bono more than words can express. His photo hangs on the door to my bedroom (no joke). (Side note: I’m a little confused about the whole Bono/Bush thing…but since he’s a philanthropist and he wrote “Where the Streets Have No Name” I suppose I can forgive and forget.) Anyway, Bono’s (RED) campaign is a line of merchandise sold through various stores whose profits will go toward buying anti-retroviral medication for “positoids” in Africa. If you want to find out more or get involved visit: joinred.com.

Funny Thing…

I tend to fall in love with the authors of really good books. I don’t mean fall in love as in “I love this author!,” I mean fall in love as in “truly, madly, deeply.” It happened with Jonathan Safran Foer, and it’s happening again with Shawn Decker, author of My Pet Virus, a memoir about his life as a hemophiliac/thinblood/aids sufferer/positoid. I’m not finished with the book yet, in fact I bought it last night and I’ve only read 22 pages. In fact, I’m not even planning on picking it up again until I’ve finished reading the Namesake (another amazing book whose author is immune to my infatuation, being that she is a female). And yet I have already fallen into an unhealthy one-sided love affair. It’s strange, it’s sick, it’s me and it happens a lot. One day, I’ll meet a nice boy who writes a book and maybe I’ll be satisfied. I think the reason for this phenomenon is the incredible intimacy that comes from reading a book written by a very talented writer, because an author with talent can show you his or her soul through their works. Either that or it’s the uncanny coincidence that both Decker and Foer happen to have the tall, dark, handsome features I so covet in the opposite sex. Now that I think about it though, either one of them could be obscenely short, so let’s cut that down to dark and handsome.

I’ve been trying out the new Youtube trend where you take a picture of yourself everyday and then watch the evolution of your features after a year or so. Only I forgot to do it yesterday so it’s pretty much botched now, isn’t it? Still, I’m thinking about posting the day’s picture with each entry that I write from now on. Now, does that sound like something you might be interested in?