january 2025 donation

my january donation was a special one! i was with a and g at books inc in berkeley and saw that they had a shelf dedicated to books requested by incarcerated folks. you could pick a book (or more) and the bookstore would donate the books through the Prisoners Literature Project. there are a lot of rules about what goes in and out of prisons, so a regular person is generally unable to personally donate books. 

i LOVE this idea!! not only would i be supporting a local and independent bookseller, but i would also be helping some incarcerated people. plus, there were actually requested books, not just stuff that i thought people might like to read. and even better? a lot of the books were on sale!! hahaha, so i picked three books that made up about my usual $25 donation and purchased them to donate.

this donation is especially meaningful to me because j and i have been listening a lot to ear hustle, a podcast out of san quentin state prison that interviews currently and previously incarcerated people to talk about life both inside and outside prison. g introduced it to me many years ago, and while i did like it, this kind of storytelling podcast isn't really my thing so i kind of forgot about it for a while. then, somewhere along our cross country road trip from boston to la, i was running out of our regular podcasts and remembered this on. j likes the moth so i figured he might like this one, and lo and behold, he does. :)

2024 donation list

my giving list for 2024 is different from previous because, well, i've been traveling! i didn't expect to give "so much" to local orgs but i'm glad that it's turned out as such. my little way of giving back to the community which I called home for the last several months, i guess.

january - grounds krewe (nola)
february and march - gno caring collective (nola)
april and may - friend's gofundme for a palistinian family
june - wbur (boston)
july - boston landmarks orchestra (boston)
august and september - algalita and moore institute thru long beach gives
october - ballotpedia
november - ywca south florida
december - wikipedia

2023 donation list

2022 donation list

2021 donation list

2020 donation list

december 2024 donation

this month i donated to wikipedia because i go at least once a month to look up random stuff. they are a great resource for a semi-deep dive on a ton of topics.

happy too, that a few weeks after I donated, elon musk said something or other about wikipedia and a ton of people donated to them as a fuck you to him. gotta love the internet sometimes :)

impressions: road trip

i have ALWAYS wanted to do a cross-country road trip, and i finally have! with my parents, as a kid, we did many almost cross-country trips: OC to vancouver, OC to nola, OC to yellowstone. but this fall, j and i actually drove from boston back to OC. that's almost as nearly cross-country as it gets! we spent about 8 days on the trip, but someday I'd really love to really be able to take my time with it.

some impressions of a few of the cities we passed thru:

pittsburg
people park on sidewalks / very low curbs
windy, narrow streets / hilly
feels very working class
smoking permitted indoors
lots of trees!
mostly two story houses, which are narrower than I'm used to seeing

columbus
a real college town

indianapolis
no charm :(

st louis
so many empty buildings
city itself is very empty

tulsa
will have to return!! lots of fun route 66 stuff here

november 2024 donation

 

 

this month I donated to the miami YWCA thru the Miami Foundation's Give Day. a bestie of mine works for them and solicited my donation. i'm not sure about all the work they do, but i definitely trust my friend so was happy to give!

october 2024 donation

 

for october, i donated to ballotpedia because i always depend on them for info when i vote. i mostly use them to see "where the money is coming from."