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I'll be totally honest. I felt compelled to write after seeing your face in the Kenneth Cole ad--you are very beautiful, and I suppose that's why I googled your name to find out about you at all. I kept wanting the details of your story, how it happened, I imagined someone promiscuous, careless--I guess I looked at the whole thing with a bit of shock--like passing by a bad accident on the street. Then I read something where you said that the details of how you got it were unimportant, and I felt bad for wanting to know in the first place because I felt you were right, and it was really none of my damn business how or why it happened, just that it did. I think that your beauty is certainly a strength that you bring to the campaign for "awareness" of AIDS. The WASPS (like me) will undoubtedly think there is something tragic about a beautiful upper-class white female getting such a dreadful disease--and if that's why they listen to you, then I guess it doesn't matter does it? When I was in London with my wife we went to a couple of trendy parties and during the silence on the way home we looked at each other and talked about the people at the party--we were both scared, and happy that we were not dating as we felt that the "scene" we had just witnessed was probably full of people with personality pitfalls, and dreadful STD's--or at least that was our fear talking. . . it protected us then (our fear) but it is also the fear that made me me very aware of sharing the wine glasses of people I knew at that party. What I am saying is that the same "fear" that we loathe in ourselves when we talk in damaging generalizations about people with AIDS (or anyone who is different) is the same fear that we rely on to protect us in certain situations. I have never reconciled the two, and I have concern for the human condition where it functions on such contradictory terms. . .as in our fear of Iraqi people, our fear of foreigners, muslims, etc.. How can we rely on our fears to help us and yet avoid its ruinous tendencies? Your life is a metaphor that expresses this dialectic in a really poignant fashion. . . at least it has done so for me. All the best to you in your endeavors. T
Regan, dear. You are an inspiration to everyone, pozes and negs. Congratulations for your bravery. Thank you so much. Keep shining.
I would like to add something about some forgotten people living outside of the scope of most all philanthropic organizations purview. A Guam-based AIDS Service Organization (GUAHAN Project, http://www.guahanproject.org/index.php) with very limited funds provides HIV prevention and care services to impoverished people who live in the U.S. affiliated Pacific region--American Samoa, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of Palau, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Guam--which suffers enormous health disparities due in part to limited Federal assistance, and in part due to the post-colonial era per capita income: for example, it is only $2,900 in the Marshall Islands, and $2,300 in the Federated States of Micronesia. For comparison, the U.S. per capita income is $46,000. This organization and the fragile societies of incredibly unique, indigenous people it serves really need support. A small donation to the GUAHAN Project can make a huge difference in stemming the tide of HIV in these small, culturally rich enclaves that could be destroyed by HIV/AIDS.
You don't strike me as a tattoo person, Regan, but if you do take that plunge, my guess is that you'll make it very small and inconspicuous.
R- Are you the same Regan Hofmann that spent spring semester of 1988 in London? p
Dragonette
I think it's exceptionally good, sincere, beautiful, brave... I wish I had seen it earlier. Thanks.
May 6, 2008