Motley Moose – Archive

Hi, it’s me again, about the AIDS Walk again. Yeah, I know, it gets old, me always asking for money. But this is money to help people, right now. AIDS Walk Austin benefits organizations that have foodbanks & are giving out food right now, that are helping people keep their housing, that help people get to their gazillion medical appointments. Donating to this cause today will help someone tomorrow. If you want to help & don’t want to hear the music, here’s my AIDS Walk Austin page.  

I’m doing AIDS Walk Austin for the 26th time on October 20. Twenty-six years. How can it have been that long?? Back in the old days, I used to shyly ask for donations. Now that I know so many who are affected, I walk up to total strangers & ask — I’m not asking for something for myself, but for funding that keeps friends of mine getting the meds they need. Anyway, here I am again, asking for money for the Walk. Below the fold are the ways it helps, but first, here’s my AIDS Walk Austin page. Please donate if you can.

Today, starting at 8am, donations of $100 or more will be matched, up to $20,000 for the Ride. The Ride is in a week – next Saturday the 27th – and they are only at 39% of the goal raised. So, if you can, please pitch in $100 today (or pool your resources & donate together, to total $100 or more)

I have some t-shirts from past years, in various sizes that I got in order to give away. People who donate $100 or more will get one. I’ll figure out how to mail them later, but I’ve got shirts & I need donations, so come read the rest of the diary for some music (you didn’t think I was going to post a diary without music, did you?). Or you could donate at my Hill Country Ride page. If you want a shirt and I have one in your size, we’ll figure out the mailing thing.

I don’t know about you, but for me, this year has sucked. Like, a lot. But I’ve been trying to think about helping others who need it, as a way of getting out of my own space. I do the Hill Country Ride for AIDS every year, because the agencies it benefits help people out every day. They have a food bank, for people who really need it – and people with AIDS have to be very mindful about nutrition, about the timing, and what they eat…. so there are people who counsel about that. There’s legal assistance, medical subsidies, volunteers to drive people to appointments….. Just help, that their clients really need.

So I was thinking about why. Why help? What do I get out of it? I did some searching, and the results of my quest are below the squiggly thing. Of course, if you want to skip the inspirational quotes, the video & the U2 song, you could donate at my Hill Country Ride page now.

Oh – and a picture. Here’s a picture from the year I was top fundraiser (not gonna happen this year, I’m in 16th place right now), but anyway:

I’m doing the Hill Country Ride for AIDS in 2 1/2 weeks. I’m nowhere near my goal, but I’m not moving the goalposts until after the opening dinner the night before the ride. This diary is to tell you about the people helped by your donations. If you want to bypass all the heartwarming stuff, you can just donate here at my Hill Country Ride page. But if you want to read some great stories about people getting the help they need, come below the squiggly thing. Be warned, since the Ride is only at 27% of their goal, I’m going to pull on your heartstrings all I can. And here’s a picture of me at last year’s ride:

So I wrote one diary about what your money does, here. And here’s a picture of me with our then-director, the year I was top fundraiser (not that that’s a hint):

I thought I’d tell y’all some more things your donations do. Of course, if you’re already convinced this is a good cause, you can go straight to  my Hill Country Ride for AIDS page and donate. Also – with 3 weeks to go, the Ride as a whole has only raised 21% of the goal. This is money that, as you will see, goes directly to help people. Research is great, but feeding people who need it is better; counseling for families affected by HIV is needed, helping with rent or legal aid — all of these help real people, right now.

Did you know that only one third of all HIV-infected people get anti-retroviral therapy? I didn’t. What if everyone who needed it could get it? How much better off would we all be?

Well if we’ve met you know I have 2 big passions besides electing more & better Democrats – AIDS Walk Austin (for which I have been the top fundraiser) and the Hill Country Ride for AIDS, which I’ll be participating in for the 14th time in  – gulp – 5 weeks. I’ve been the top fundraiser for the Ride before & both the Ride and I had big fundraising goals this year. I wanted to be the top fundraiser, but that was disrupted by numerous trips to visit my mother in the hospital, so now my goal is to make it over $1,000. The Ride has a goal of $500,000. If you want to skip my cheesy U2 worshipping diary, here’s my Hill Country Ride for AIDS page.

Hello, it’s me again with another diary about the Hill Country Ride for AIDS. Here’s a picture of me & my friend David the year I was top fundraiser:

I haven’t done as many of these as I’d like, February wasn’t the best month for me. But this is important so I wanted to squeeze this in. If you want to cut to the chase, here’s my Hill Country Ride for AIDS page, but I hope you’ll come with into the extended diary for a good story. And of course music.

Hello, I know a lot of people here at MM, but maybe not everyone, so I should introduce myself.Here’s a picture of me last fall at the AIDS Walk, with the Director od AIDS Services of Austin (who is movie star handsome) and a gorgeous sash they made me for having done the AIDS Walk every one of the 25 years it has been in existence:

I live in Austin & besides progressive politics, the most important thing in the world to me is the AIDS Walk that is in October & the Hill Country Ride for AIDS, in April. The Ride is really my love & my heart. Because it takes training to get ready for, you get to know people better & I have come to know many people involved with it, including many people who are HIV+. Some of the people I love best in this world – people who have done so much good I can’t even tell you – are HIV+ & I want them to have the care they need. Even more than that, I want total strangers, who may not have done great things, to have the care they need. They need more care, the people who don’t have the support networks. So that’s why I work so hard to raise money for this cause, so everyone can get the care they need.

This April, I’ll be doing the Hill Country Ride for AIDS once again. The Ride is a beautiful, magical, wonderful event. If you are in the Austin area, I highly recommend participating. There are ride distances varying from 11 to 100 miles, and this year there is a train run/walk, also – with 5K, 10K & half-marathon options. It is super family-friendly, with lots of stuff for kids to do. and the food — cyclists know their food & this event has really amazing food. If you can’t participate, maybe you could donate — here’s my the Hill Country Ride for AIDS page. If you want to participate, when you sign up, please join Team RunTex, as I’m the captain & I need team members! (any MM people in Central Texas — free training groups for riding or running, on Saturdays & Sundays, and free yoga, too!)

Today I wanted to tell y’all what your donations do.

I’d like to discuss HIV/AIDS as it pertains to mental health, since I think it’s a topic that deserves more emphasis. I think it’s fairly intuitive that living with a disease like HIV/AIDS would be likely to have an adverse impact on one’s mental health. This goes for living with a lot of illnesses, especially life-threatening ones, but I believe there is still a special social stigma attached to HIV/AIDS which makes the reality of coping with it in a sometimes cold and judgmental world all that much harder. For the purposes of this diary, I will not be delving heavily into signs/symptoms or statistics for the populations affected. Rather, I want to focus on the mental health concerns that go along it.

As one might expect, depression and anxiety are prevalent amongst people with HIV/AIDS. The psychological strain of dealing with the condition itself can be intense, and the added burden of trying to cope with social stigma only increases the risk of developing mental health problems. Common responses to an initial diagnosis of the disease are denial, anger, sadness/depression, fear/anxiety, and general stress. Even for those who have never suffered from a life-threatening illness, I think it’s pretty easy to understand why someone would have those reactions. Sympathizing is, perhaps, a relatively simple task – truly empathizing is not. It is impossible for someone who does not have to live with HIV/AIDS to “understand” how these patients feel.