happy birthday to me

Hi again.

I turn 44 today. Despite how old and washed I know I am, I'm also feeling pretty good about it. My forties have been fun. I'm very lucky. Life is great.

But let's talk about—surprise!—the fundraiser for a minute.

First of all, I just wanna say thank you. The campaign is basically done, though we're gonna keep it open through the weekend to catch any stragglers and hopefully run up the score a little more. To that end, if you haven't donated and would like to, please do that this weekend before we total everything up on Monday. Thank you.

For some context, last year was our biggest fundraiser at $32K. In 2023, we raised $25K, and in 2024 we raised $15K. This year is looking great: not the highest, but certainly not the lowest. We'll see where we end up on Monday.

But then! In a few months! Our friends from Undue Medical Debt will report back about how much debt we abolished and they'll share some testimonials from folks we helped and we can all have a happy little cry.

I started doing fundraisers for my birthday back in 2020. Mostly political stuff then, stuff that feels a little cringe now, but my heart was in the right place. In 2023, inspired by a bunch of "self-described gutter-pagan, mostly queer dirtbags" in Philadelphia, I hopped on the medical debt abolishing train and haven't looked back since. It's been fun and fulfilling, and y'all seem to enjoy it as well, which is encouraging. Thanks again.

I dunno what How I'd Fix Atlanta is or where it's going. It started as essays. It's been zines and readings and podcast interviews and so many stickers. Maybe it'll be a book someday. Who knows? Not me.

But if it continues to be a thing that wipes out millions of dollars in medical debt all over ATL every year, maybe that's enough. And hey, maybe one day there will no longer be medical debt to abolish. That's the dream, anyway.

Happy birthday to me. See you on the internet.