I won’t shop at Target or Amazon or Walmart, etc. I avoid buying socks for donation at non-bin thrift stores. I do want to materially support my unhoused neighbors. It’s imperfect action in a broken world where I can be prone to ethical paralysis.

My personal boycott was tempered also swayed somewhat speaking with an ethically aligned queer friend who’d been working for decades in disaster relief at all levels. They were very positive on the material and unique good Salvation Army did in crisis via systematic disaster response.

Very understandable. Goodwill is exploitative as hell towards disabled people (varies regionally). I’ve wrestled with their anti-queer politics myself, and ultimately find them no more repugnant than any corporation and perhaps less in being less directly tied in to mass manufacture of new goods.

I'm pretty sure a lot of us are there because we're low-income, so I have been hesitant to grab warm jackets earlier in the afternoon. But I've not really noticed other people getting socks very regularly, so I've felt good grabbing warm ones to donate. Also much easier for me to carry on foot.

Personally, I prefer the vibe of the SA bins--the GO bins are way busier (there are 2-3 times as many). The SA bins are much more chill. People look out for each other (pointing out a matching part of an outfit, etc) + often little kids hanging out too.

The Goodwill Outlet bins just off the green line in St Paul is around $2.50/lb. The Salvation Army bins in the North Loop (basement of the store, not aware of elevator access) is $1.89/lb. Both have discounted pricing over 20lbs, I believe.

Goodwill Outlet is ~$2.50/lb. Salvation Army bins are $1.89/lb. (I found it difficult to manage coats, but put my pedestrian connoisseur skills to use in buying lots of quality winter socks for Supply Depot at the bins.)

Looks great! Are you following a recipe? I think my main tip that maybe isn’t mentioned is to have a tray under your jar, to catch overflow as it bubbles (even if you’re going with a jar you burp).

I also used up all the freezer lemons (insides left from zesting, a bag a friend dumpstered) to make the next batch of deodorant that should last for maybe the next two years?

I'm trying one jar without garlic, just to see how that flavor profile differs.

I've also roughly measured the weights and added salt per recommendations, rather than being completely unmeasured in salt-proportions as I have been previously (except in my topping off brine--that's 1T salt:2C water)

I’ve returned to these both again and again when I’ve needed to calibrate and ground myself, especially when I’ve felt bleak and bewildered by hate, oppression, and apathy around me.

I find the first more energizing/motivating, and the second helpful for resolve and connection in loneliness.

Back in the day, my church’s social justice group started every meeting with this poem/prayer, which I really love in that setting. For me, since ~2002, it’s mentally been paired with Otto Rene Castillo’s Before the Scales, Tomorrow.

It's in trying to navigate the new and emptier world that I've realized how deeply embedded and languageless all of this is. How truly destabilizing the slow erosion of it has been. How dangerous and flat I find the rhetoric/strategies of the dominant culture around me.

Part of my absence On Here has been trying to turn what little I know into words offered in love while in the wordlessness of the grief from the loss of and separation from those who've lived this way and loved me this way.

Wanting to gather with people with this as a core understanding (or an understanding we're working towards). Book/support/nourishing group, kind of? Bowls of rice + lentils, mending + conversation on the regular.

The tone of art-/writing-class critiques (as I've experienced them) is something I really appreciate being part of, on both sides. Editing (aka productive critique) as a practice is very much a love language in my family of origin and I miss that form of collaboration right now.

I've really appreciated the discipline in having consistent times to meet/write, as well as the way my own practice shifts when I'm engaged critically with people whose work resonates with me.

I'd really love to replicate that. Also open to similar broader art-making groups.