Happy New Year or something.

Yesterday was incredibly exciting, where I spent all sorts of time gathering computer equipment for recycling. A friend wanted to take it all to freegeek to get rid of it and I had it all ready go to on Thursday. But he postponed until Friday, and then until Saturday, and they weren’t open on Friday. Perfect. So to consolidate some of the crap, I took apart all the computer cases, separated out all the electronic bits from the plastic and the metal, and took the metal in for recycling. The plastic is garbage, and the electronic bits have to be taken to the people who deal with electronic bits.

For some reason this really tired me out and I went to bed at 7PM. I didn’t get up until 8:30AM. While the first bit took some effort (I kept waking up in the evening) the rest wasn’t so bad.

Which leads me into tonight, New Year’s Eve. I did go out to lunch with friends where we had dim sum. Unless you were one of the picky eaters and then you just watched the rest of us eat the dim sum. On the way out of Portland’s Chinatown, I picked up some roast duck. Just like in A Christmas Story, it came with the head attached, but I only ordered half so the guy cut it up for me. He then started talking to me in some language I do not speak.

After dinner I had to start making all my year-end donations, because I forgot to do it last week. My sister asked if I do it for the tax break, or if I do it to be a good person. Honestly, I don’t give enough to be a good person and my selection process is a bit off. Besides, I’m a good tax-and-spend liberal and I don’t believe we pay too much in taxes. I’m kind of a worrier, so instead of thinking about all the horrible things that happen and how I could alleviate the suffering in the world, my selection has a bit more basis in things that I find funny. St. Francis Dining hall, for example, feeds the homeless and really annoys their neighbors because they attract homeless people to the neighborhood. They get a donation from me. I haven’t donated much to environmental causes, but it seems like 1000 Friends of Oregon are always ticking off the developers, so they get a donation from me. I’m pro-choice, of course, so NARAL and Planned Parenthood are on my list.

I suppose there’s nothing really annoying about the American Red Cross, or Doctors Without Borders, or Mercy Corps, or International Rescue Committee, or Oregon Food Bank, or Oregon Heat, or American Friends Service Committee, so it’s not all about annoying people. I did have to call VISA and have them unlock my account because they were afraid someone had stolen my card and started giving donations to all these charities. In total, I don’t think I hit my yearly target of a couple of thousand dollars, but whatever. I’m trying not to be a worrier about it all.

I’m not going to like my VISA bill next month, am I?