Fashion is not a luxury?

Wow. I can't say we've ever had to do something like this before. By definition—by the very fact that we're physicians—we're self-sufficient people. And now, all of a sudden, we've been told we need to ask people for support and for money. And not a small amount of money, mind you. Whopping, massive amounts of money.

(OK...not whopping and massive either. Somewhere in between Bildad and Goliath).

The support letter is drafted. I just can't get the courage up to send it, you know?

Though, I was pushed in that direction yesterday. I was waiting for a friend on the corner of 53rd and Madison, a corner flush with more money in a day than the combined annual gross domestic product of twelve African nations.

Filing past me were suits and tourists, models and actors, cell phones and ipods...the usual NYC street corner. One of the tourists was wearing a shirt that said, Fashion is not a luxury. And I thought, maybe she's right. Maybe we really don't think it is any more. After all, all of us, myself included, had spent more on what we were wearing that single day than...well, finishing that sentence is cliche.

And then I thought, OK. If this money isn't raised, then we're not headed to Sierra Leone. And if we're not headed to Sierra Leone, then work that we could do isn't going to get done. (These aren't delusions of grandeur...others could do the work just as well as we could). And if it doesn't get done, then we may well start believing fashion to be the new necessity.

Honestly...Are we going to change Sierra Leone when we're there? Are we going to change the clothing habits of our fellow gothamites?

No. To both. But we may just change the lives of a couple of people this year. Even if those couple of people are ourselves.

The letter still sits, drafted. One day—soon!—I'll send it.