august 2022 donation

this month I donated $50 to a gofundme for a coworker's dog who died recently. it did feel weird to give money to a coworker's dog having so recently just given our dog away, but i guess that's how to goes sometimes.

and speaking of how it goes... her dog rather suddenly got really sick, and was throwing up for a full day. after a week and several visits to the vet, they decided to operate. jo had already opened up a few credit cards to charge the $15k for surgery but hercules died in the middle of the operation. hearing her story was really surprisingly, like, jesus... $15k in debt for a dog? i literally couldn't even be bothered to keep my dog around and not because he was sick but mostly because he was annoying and we wanted more freedom of being able to go where and when and for however long we wanted.

anyway, that's really neither here nor there. i hope her other dogs stay healthy. roux too. i hope he stays healthy for as long as steve wants him to.

july 2022 donation

whoops, totally forgot to donate last month since i was pretty wrapped up in dragon boat. anyway, i made up for it today by donating to Indigenous Women Rising which has a pretty dope logo. i like too that they have a midwifery fund in addition to an abortion fund. tho i donated to their general fund since they know best where that money is needed most.

free trees

i never really liked my previous made-up non-profit which was basically RIP Medical Debt because it doesn't actually address the issue. sure, it helps people, but it doesn't fix the bigger problem.

so i came up with a new non-profit! we would partner with local nurseries and buy like a half dozen variety of native trees, load them up in a truck, and drive around neighborhoods knocking on people's doors asking if they want a free tree. we would have a binder with info about the types of trees: how they'll look when they mature, how long that will take, maintenance, etc. so they can make informed decisions. we would also have either volunteers or day laborers (whom we would pay) to plant the tree. and we would leave a brochure behind with how to care for the it,

why?

• trees look nice
• trees are good for the environment in a lot of ways (invites wildlife, stabilizes soil, makes oxygen, etc.)
• trees cool homes and streets which is good for not just that particular homeowner who enjoys the shade, but if you have enough shady trees, it literally cools whole neighborhoods
• we would plant native trees, or at least nothing terribly invasive
• can also plant fruit trees!
• by partnering with local nurseries, we support local economies and communities
• if we hired day labors, we would also doubly be supporting local economies and communities
• "easy" for volunteers. as in, very little training and commitment with instant gratification. tho they would need to be in reasonably good shape.
• convenient for homeowners
• long lasting, easily duplicatable, numbers driven results (which is good for funders)

yeah, honestly, i only came up with this like last week, but i am SO into this! not quite wanting to actually start this non-profit on my own or anything, but way more jazzed about this than the last one i made up.

june 2022 donation

this month i donated to the National Abortion Federation, which is "the professional association of abortion providers." their mission is to "unite, represent, serve, and support abortion providers in delivering patient-centered, evidence-based care."

may 2022 donation

continuing in my pro-abortion donation streak, this month i donated to Just the Pill which provides a bunch of sexual health services, including birth control and plan b. they also help provide access to an actual abortion, including travel costs, etc.

words

apparently I started the following post on october 27, 2019 and just never got back to it. I guess I didn't have a good way to wrap it up, so i never finished it. I still don't, really. but imma post it anyway since, well, why not.

many no longer casually toss around the words "gay" and "retarded" as general insults.

i was listening to the radio about awhile ago and they had listeners call in to say "I'm so lame because I..." after a few callers, someone called to comment that they shouldn't use the word "lame" anymore because it could be construed as insulting people with physical disabilities. i mean, i guess. tho i wonder how many people know what lame means in that context. but okay, today's definition of lame doesn't have much to do with the original meaning. it does, but I can see how that would be used as a slight to someone with a disability.

in the same week, I heard a short segment on NPR where the reporter talked about the growing movement in avoiding the word "crazy." I wonder if I agree with this one tho. I do not use that word to describe people with mental illness. I use it to describe frantic situations or people who are illogical sure, I could say "he's illogical!" or "today was super busy!" but I don't know, for some reason I don't think that's quite the same thing?

personally, i don't think it's such a big deal to learn more diverse and more precise vocabulary. especially if my word choice offends people.