(no subject)

Good morning everyone, and welcome to Radio Free Monday!

Thanks to everyone for making it a short one this week. :D

Ways to Give:

sailorzeo linked to a fundraiser for a friend who had a stillborn daughter six months ago, and is trying to get a loss kit and a Cuddle Cot for their local hospital, to help other grieving families. You can read more and help out here.

amara1783 linked to Maddy, a trans woman living near Dallas who recently began a short-term disability leave from work due to anxiety and depression. She needs funds to get treatment for these conditions so she can get back on her feet. You can read more and find the donation link here or check out her YouCaring directly here.

Anon linked to phantisma, who is raising funds after a creditor deducted $3300 from her checking account instead of $330, and is refusing to return the money. The funds will go to rent and bills; you can read more and donate here or shop her ebay and purchase to support the fundraiser here.

maschalismos was recently diagnosed with lupus and fibromyalgia, and is struggling to cover medical bills for her diagnosis and for ongoing attempts at treatment. You can read more and help out with her medical bills here.

editrx has been struggling a lot lately, and is facing a lot of bills, a lien on her house, and overdue rent on her independent bookstore. She's currently raising $2250 to pay back rent to keep from being evicted; you can read more and help out here. She also has jewelry for sale on Etsy and her bookshop, Star Cat Books, sells through abebooks here.

Housing:

tzikeh is looking for a housemate to move into a condo in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood; it's a large bedroom and private bathroom for $805/mo plus utilities (which for Uptown, and to judge by the photos, is a hell of a deal). You can read more and get in touch here.

And this has been Radio Free Monday! Thank you for your time. You can post items for my attention at the Radio Free Monday submissions form or via email at copperbadge at gmail dot com. If you're not sure how to proceed, here is a little more about what I do and how you can help (or ask for help!).

(no subject)

It's not entirely warm out today, mostly due to the wind, but the sun is out and the cold, dry conditions of the last few days mean the entire city smells like dying grass. In California, you could smell that each fall, and we said (they maybe still do, I haven't been back in fifteen years) that it was fire weather.

When I was young (ish) in California we went up north from the Bay Area to pick pumpkins each year, up by Vacaville, which was real farm country then. Coming back one year -- twenty four years ago tomorrow, actually -- we started to see a pillar of smoke in the sky, and the closer we got the stronger the smell of fire was, until we began to really worry. That pillar just kept getting bigger on the horizon. When we were in radio range we turned on the radio, and we heard the first news reports of what would become the Oakland Hills Fire, which went on for days and killed at least twenty five people. It wasn't the only fire I encountered in California, but it certainly left an impression. The smell of dry grass and the smell of smoke are attached to each other for me, tied up in the idea of fire weather and October, the pumpkin patch and its goats-and-ponies petting zoo.

In several ancient cultures in the northern hemisphere, autumn is a time of dying, darkness cycling in as the days shorten. When I was a child I thought time literally contracted, that hours somehow fell shorter once we'd passed summer, and that was why night came sooner. But the closing darkness and the fire weather never seemed like an end to me the way it did to others; especially when I was a little older and understood the way a year moves in circles, it felt like a beginning. You start school in the autumn; the theatre season begins in September or thereabouts. The heat dissipates and people start coming inside. The furnaces get lit. The food is put up and a time of relative rest begins.

Autumn and winter are times of fire, artificial light and heat provided by humans to drive back the night. Candles, bonfires, the hearth, hot food cooking, the burning of dead leaves. That chemical reaction is a beginning, or at least it feels like one to me.

Fire weather.