me no pop i

i absolutely loved the cartoon character popeye. he was such a galoof. he was basically a puny guy who joined the navy to make something of himself. he was gentle hearted and wouldn't hurt a fly intentionally. but he often found himself in the middle of some intrigue and shade, and needed to call upon his strength (which he found in a can of spinach) in order to set things right again. many many times, this would revolve around the his ideal or his innocence which came in the form of the highly captivating and very awkward olive oyl.

i have been co-chairing a committee which decides the categories that receive ryan white funding. this priorities process has been going on for over a decade, but i am now realizing that it is very often a dance rather than a thoughtful and vital activity. there has definitely been a shift in the urgency of services, and it has been said that ryan white grantees have become their own welfare system in a bubble.

i gather that the main reasons for the separate funding stream of ryan white are twofold. firstly, when the ryan white care act was created, the humiliation that many inflicted with the virus was at a high level, including outright rejection and isolation. and the sheer magnitude of very rapid deaths in proportion to infections was overwhelming. the second reason is that the majority of affected individuals were very pro-active in exercising their civil rights and protesting the prejudices of the system and the ineffectiveness of existing policies. here i refer to such creations as actup, the redribbon campaign, the aids quilt, and world aids day. because of the very loud and brave voices of citizens demanding their rights, many policies of the medical community, the shift in stigma of disease in general, the streamlining process of experimental drugs have all shifted to respond in their wake.

i have really come to realize all this information as a result of sitting on this committee. but it is necessary to help shift the direction of the funds and shift the process. the parameters have really changed. the urgency is not the same at all. the microcosm of ryan white care is no doubt shifting. i am not sure which direction it needs to move. i am sure i believe i needs to decrease it's enabling of people to remain stuck. it needs to start empowering people to succeed, to get into health care, and to find ways to live independently with a renewed commitment to self-management. there needs to be a shift from people treating emergency funds like their paycheck. this needs to occur amidst compassion, understanding, and belief. and i believe the committee i co-chair needs to help navigate this whole enchilada.

i wonder where i can find a can of spinach to help me with all this.

today's sound choice is an old favorite of mine by coati mundi- me no pop i by kid creole and the coconuts circa 1981

i got the music in me

The best teachers teach from the heart, not from the book. ~Author Unknown

all right- did michele obama rock da house last night or what? quite a public speaker..


anyway, happy birthday to me.... i left one of my hiv meds at home. i brought two bottles of another in error. i only had to speak to a concierge and i got the name of a local pharmacy, emailed my doctor to call in a scrip, then i had to call 2 numbers at my insurance company to see if they would approve a 2nd scrip within a month. thank god i have vacation privileges with meds...

today was the first day of the hrsa ryan white grantee conference 2008. i must say i started out feeling a bit out of place, but then i always do. once i had a coffee i realized that i was completely where i should be. i am an acting co-chair for planning council for the mohr denver. i have the responsibility to understand what programs are going on in in the rest of the country. and i have the privilege of seeking new directions that might fit our city.

the peer to peer programming is probably the most intriguing to me. i know that, in denver, there is not really poz involvement in outreach for prevention, nor is there any real poz presence in diagnosis assimilation processes. i think this a damn shame. i have learned through the 12step process that having people around who have successfully worked through their issues helped me immensely. in the beginning it helped me even believe that i could do it. then further in, with the help of a triumphant predecessor, i have been able to meander through this emotional and situational minefield called life with my own meager success.

i hold the belief that if you have done it, you have the skill to help someone else. if you have not, you may help, but you are not an expert. i am prejudiced in this way, but i am not married to being right.

i do know that i love working with folks with hiv now. after 12 years of living in fear and denial about it, followed by 10 years on meds, i have come to realize that i have some terrain knowledge of this journey. i have a skill set for troubleshooting that can be a great asset for someone. i know there are others like me. and i think they can benefit from just re-learning this about themselves. not to mention the benefit to the new poz that hasn't a clue.

i'm working on helping build a poz network of poz guys working together in my town. i know that we need one. and when i say we, i mean the whole community needs us to have a stronger poz network. it's a win-win. and the poz guys have done a lot of the footwork already. we just have to remember we can do this.