More Crafts

So much of what I make is for people's birthdays, and most of what I make creatively I give away. One of the reasons I started this blog was to share my nerdy joy in making things for people I like with scissors and glue and a room full of fabric scraps and images, and to have images of things I've made. The latest:

Birthday Card for Martha, Front & Interior

Congrats to Martha for heading off towards medical school. It's exciting to see friends learn and grow and figure out what life looks like post outreach / harm reduction work.

Birthday Card for Timmee, Front & Interior

Thanks to Timmee & Billay & Hank for taking us all to Fremont for Indian food and Bollywood. Pure inspiration. Can't wait to see the next one with the tranny boy cricket player!

The challenge now is to create the structure that making a present for someone else provides to pursue other creative goals. I'm excited for my new long distance writing group with my seisi Laurie! We're going to nerd out on academic papers we're trying to write. Fun! Maybe someday you'll see here a paper on overdose prevention history in San Francisco and some lessons learned from six years of naloxone distribution at syringe exchange programs here. Who knows?

the world is upside down, but it still has crafts

HIV prevention programs, HIV counseling and testing programs, and syringe exchange programs are losing major funding ($82 million) from the State, and possibly from counties, too, once the radiation from the Governor's budget line item veto leaks out like some kind of bureaucratic Bhopal. A lot of people I know may lose their jobs. Even the heads of the California Department of Public Health said they're concerned this will lead to new HIV infections.

Enough. It's time to lift the federal ban on funding for syringe exchange AND the amendment introduced in the House that would ban funding any syringe exchange that was within 1,000 feet of any place where children congregate (playgrounds, daycare centers, etc.). I want to believe that amendment is not just a ploy so members of Congress can look like they're taking action while effectively banning funding for syringe exchanges in urban areas.

I made some crafty things recently for other people, (one it was her b'day, one it wasn't). These things still make me happy, even if (and maybe because) they're small in scope.

Office Diorama for Sy, "Ye Olde Baitline Headquarters"

Card for Danielle, Even Though It Wasn't Actually Her B'Day

In other areas of hopeful news, worker collectives in Argentina are approaching full ownership of the factories they occupied when the Argentinian economy collapsed. Maybe we can do the same thing here while we're celebrating our gay, anticapitalist love.