Hi all, I haven't been posting lately, and I've missed chatting with you all, and reading digests. i just got my browser and other corrupted stuff more or less fixed, after four months, and I'm feeling better (see below). My deep loving thanks for all the support you've all shown me in the last few months. I'm lucky to have you all as cyber-friends, and can't wait to meet many of you in a few weeks. I just wrote Anne Sandstrom a note, and decided to post a slightly abbreviated version of here since so many of you have asked me to keep you posted. Anne, hope you don't mind my sharing this with everybody.
hugs to you all, Walt Anne: << It's good to see you posting to the list. How are you doing?>> Me: So far, I've only posted to the Fest-list, but yeah. i was in a silly mood this morning, and made a few cracks. :-). <<I thought of you the other day. I heard a news story about a drug called T20. I guess it's about to get FDA approval and it's been very successful against HIV. (You're probably way ahead of me on this one...)>> I'm doing okay, good moments and bad. Brain isn't too damaged, and I've stopped the most likely culprit. I do indeed know about T-20, a fusion inhibitor, whole new category of antiretroviral. I tried a coupla times to get in a study starting two years ago, but then I stumbled on the regimen I'm still on, which worked really well -- until just the last few months, when I started slipping. The irony is -- and I'm sure you know about this kind of thing -- you have to be sick *enough* (numerically) to get on yet another study, and I'm not yet -- my numbers are still too "good" -- but at least T-20 has gotten easier to administer. Now it's an interdermal injection, self-administered, rather than an intravenous, which you'd need to go to someone to give to you *daily*, as it was two years ago. Maybe by the time I'm ready to switch regimens, T-20 will come in the form of a pat on the knee. ;-) <<Anyway, I think of you often and was beginning to worry that you weren't posting lately.>> Yeah, I'm sorry I've been out of touch so much. Things are *so* sucky here, financially, legally -- Robert's evil, stupid family (a gynocracy, excuse the expression, of sisters and nieces) letting him take care of his mom without any help from them for five years as she slowly lost her mind , *then* stepping in and insisting on being in total control -- against his mother's wishes, yadayadayada. She (Mom, Carmel) is a lovely woman with whom i have much in common -- we're both bibliophiles, and we used to talk for hours about various things we were reading, as Robert mowed the lawn or bought groceries. Carmel used to help Robert financially, and as everything has gotten more and more expensive, this has gone from being extra cash/fun money to being absolutely necessary for things like rent and food; and now that his sisters have come and ambushed R and his mom legally, that source of funds is completely unavailable. *My* mom tries to help, but she's 80 and not rich. We were assigned a pro-bono lawyer, but he turned out to be a lemon, missing two appointments with us, and more crucially, a filing deadline(!!!). So he basically made our situation worse. Sigh. In the end, we'll almost certainly have to leave the City (SanFran). I faced this last fall as utility prices shot up exponentially (thanks, Enron and all the other insanely avariscvious energy companies); Robert, who's lived here since birth, has found it harder to accept. But we're looking at a friend's house tomorrow in beautiful Yuba City (North of Scaramento, considered the armpit of California) for possible rental. Three bedrooms, with all the amenities and a backyard, for $700/mo!!! We're paying $1200 for a teensy one-bedroom now. The bad news: With any luck it'll only be 105 in the shade there... Give me fog anytime. ;-) Anyhoo, that's a brief (for me) synopsis of why I disappeared from the J-list, temporarily. Overwhelmed. Oh, also we got a piano!!! [Robert's mother's. As with her car, R's sisters had no objection to her giving these things to Robert *until* she became incompetent, so they could contest her giving him anything after the fact. Arrrgggh! Sorry, but the pointlessness of it gets to me sometimes...] I've been working on piano arrangments of various Joni (Gift of the Magi is real tough!) and Burt (Bacharach) songs for the last two months. Yehaa!!! Oh, and I've got the beginnings of a possible lyric! First one I've attempted since i was 14. It's silly, but it *might* work. Tentative title: Couch Potatuh (rhymes with procrastinatuh). I'm so looking forward to the Fest, to meeting you and everyone in person! And to the songwriting workshop -- speaking of which, what exactly is the workshop about -- working on lyrics, melody or both? Anne, how's your pain, your energy levels? *My* biggest problem now is fatigue, and i hope i can work out a schedule with naps so i can do *everything possible* at the fest; in any case, there's much will here, so there'll be a way. :-) Love to Ann (and to all), and counting the minutes to the Fest, Walt
