This is my fifth day in a row off work -- my real job anyway (at the moment, I am working on some freelance stuff while snacking on pie at Atlanta Bread Company). It reminds me how much I liked working for myself all those years, even though I also really enjoy my job and the folks I work with.

Had a good trip to Atlanta. It's sort of weird, given that I grew up in the south and have had many, many friends from/living in Atlanta that I've never really spent any time there. Like everyone else in America, I've spent far too many hours (and one memorably awful overnight) in the airport there. Nowadays, I also go to horse shows fairly frequently in nearby Conyers and Braselton, but I've just never hung around in the city, which I did a little bit this weekend. Very fun. Good company. Amusing activities. Tasty food. Can't complain.

As for the work I did while I was there, I gave several talks to a very nice audience.I did have one Mary Katherine Gallagher moment (well, more than one, as a friend pointed out to me after I stumbled into him repeatedly this weekend -- but one very public one) when I sort of tumbled down the stairs off the stage where I had been speaking. But overall, it went well.

While at this conference, I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Marian Tompson, one of the amazing, completely unassuming proto-feminists who founded La Leche League International in the 1950s. She's delightful and very interesting. She has started a new non-profit looking at the highly controversial issue of whether women in Africa are being misled when told that they absolutely should not breastfeed if they may be HIV positive.

Her group is pushing for more research (there is very, very little) into HIV transmission in human milk, as well as a deeper exploration into the risk-benefit analysis of maternal HIV transmission to third-world babies as opposed to the many hundreds of thousands of these babies who die each year from lack of breastfeeding.

In the third world, breastfeeding is critical. Not only does it provide super important immunologic benefots to babies living in a highly diseased physical environment, it's also nearly impossible for women in these areas to prepare infant formula (suboptimal in ideal prep circumstances) safely. There is no way to sterilize bottles; the water used to mix it is dirty, and women often dilute the stuff to save money, not realizing their babies can starve to death this way.

I am going to be learning more about Marian's organization -- while she was in Atlanta she met with AIDS policy experts from the CDC and Carter Center -- and hope to write something about their work in a magazine or newspaper within the next few months. Will post a link.