Well, This is Awkward

5/23/2024

Look, $20,000 is the worst amount of money to be handed.

If you suddenly come into, say, $5000, you can plan a trip to Disneyland and put the rest in savings.

If your wealthy grandfather left you a nice round $100,000 in his will, you could put a down payment on a home and plump up your retirement fund.

But when a near-stranger hands you a check for $20,000 and walks out of your life without a backwards glance, that’s just awkward.

What can you do with $20,000?

You could buy a car, I suppose, just like the one you have, but six years newer and sporting a bulkier trunk. A car that would lose most of the difference in its value over the older model the moment it left the lot.

You could go to college - for a semester or two. Then you could take your fourth unfinished degree and be thankful it didn’t put you further in debt.

You could put it in a retirement fund. I suppose there is always that. It feels awfully puny when you consider how long you hope that money’s gonna last, but every little bit counts.

You could have a baby in the hospital and, if all goes well, still be able to cover childcare expenses for a year. But only if you want a baby, which I do not.

I don’t know what to do with this check. I mean, deposit it, obviously. I’m not so pure-hearted as to declare I won’t use it. I just haven’t decided how to use it yet.

Honestly, I’m leaning towards a weekly spa day complete with full-body massage and blow out. I should be able to get just enough of those out of Robin’s blood money to make me really miss them when it runs out.

It would be very classic of me.

5/25/2024

Dear little black notebook,

I’m writing this from the spa. I had a lovely time today just relaxing. I also got so bored. There is no way I am keeping this up every week. So much for that idea.

I know you are wondering what’s up with all my money-related moaning (or not. You are a book, and a mostly blank one at that). Well, some weird dude (Robin to you, probably) handed me a check for $20,000 earlier this week. I had chatted with him sometimes at the library when he came in to use the computer.

Well, when he came in last Monday he handed me you (little black notebook) and said, “Ma’am, I would like you to have this. Please. My only condition is that you write about what you do with it, and if I ever come back you share it with me.”

As if that wasn’t nuts enough, after he walked out I opened the notebook (that’s you) and that’s when I saw the check for $20,000. The crazy man was already out of sight. What was I supposed to do?

I thought that spending money and writing down how I spent it would be pretty easy, but I am beginning to suspect this is some sort of diabolical experiment. I can’t even buy a donut now without thinking about how I would explain that here.

And since spa days aren’t going to fix what’s wrong with me, we are back to the drawing board. How does one spend $19,467.28?

6/1/2024

New month, new page, new existential crisis.

Just kidding! Still over here trying to decide how to spend an awkward amount of money.

I had an idea the other day: I could donate the money! Start a foundation, or give to Planned Parenthood or something.

Then I started looking at my options and now I’m back to classic Molly – indecisive and paralyzed by it.

Which do I want to be known for? Giving underprivileged girls a chance to play soccer, or supporting women in Pakistan? Or building homes in Haiti? Or...

Josie says I am making too big a deal out of this money. Just put it in savings, she says. Easy for Josie to say; she actually has a savings account!

AND (I’m starting to think this may be the biggest issue here) she doesn’t have to explain to a little black notebook – and the odd little man who gave it to her – what she’s doing with $20,000, or any amount of money for that matter.

6/17/2024

I nearly had a heart attack today – thought I saw Robin at the library, browsing the new titles. But the next time I glanced up it was just some high schooler in a hoodie.

This is really getting to me, little black notebook. I haven’t written here in a few weeks because I have nothing to write. I did open a savings account, just so I don’t have to do math every time I buy groceries to make sure I’m not spending blood money on ramen noodles.

Josie says my indecisiveness is approaching pathological and I should see a therapist. Joke’s on her. I’ve been seeing a therapist for 12 years now, and my indecision is finely honed as a result.

I can explain in great detail all the reasons I can’t decide anything. I know my own mind – it's just that my mind doesn’t know what it wants.

Fuck weird little Robin and his $20,000.

7/6/2024

Turns out talking to my therapist was a good idea after all (don’t tell Josie!), not because it helped me decide what to do with the money, but because it gave me a lot more to think about, and I haven’t even thought about how to spend that money once this week.

Instead, I’m thinking about Robin, and why he would do such a strange thing, and where the money came from, and why he gave it to me, and what crimes he might have committed that I’ve become complicit in by depositing his check.

Overthinking is underrated. It’s a gift, being able to dissect and argue any issue into infinity. I never have to deal with anything as long as I just keep thinking about it!

8/29/2024

At some point it occurred to me that I work in a library and have a degree in FINDING INFORMATION. I’ve been trying to find out more about Robin for the last several weeks and have learned two things:

1. Robin does not exist in any traceable way, and
2. The account that check was written from was closed the day after I cashed it

Something fishy is going on here.

Also, I have no idea how to spend this money.

10/24/2024

Okay, so I started to spend the money today.

It’s been bitterly cold the last week. We’ve had an influx of shivering homeless people at the library, coming in to warm up and get some shelter. It’s a public space, and I’m glad they have somewhere to go between 10 and 5 – but every year I wish I could do something more when it’s closing time and they have to go back out into the cold and the dark.

I was wishing this yesterday, when I realized that I absolutely can do something!

So today was my day off. I went on a shopping spree; my kitchen table looks like a flea market.

Sturdy, windproof jackets. Mittens, hats and scarfs. Sleeping bags.

Handwarmers. Protein bars. Cans of soup.

Tomorrow, when I have to ask all the homeless people to leave the library, I plan to follow them out the door. I may not be able to house everyone, but I can make a lot of people more comfortable.

I’ll have hot water, and a trunk full of food and warm clothes, and books the library is discarding (a little distraction never hurt anyone).

It’s not much, but it’s a start.

10/26/2024

Last night was eye-opening.

As I asked folks to leave, I directed them to the parking space behind the library where I planned to set up my ad hoc warming station. Josie loaned me one of the outdoor heaters from the restaurant, so we had light and heat.

I passed out cups of hot water with packets of instant soup, hot cocoa, tea and coffee.

Everyone who needed a jacket got one. One mother came by with two small children, and I was glad I had grabbed some kid-sized items.

How are you supposed to raise kids on the street when it’s freezing every night? How are you supposed to raise kids on the street at all?

I made sure she got extra protein bars, and slipped her some cash for a warm meal.

Surprisingly, there was no mad rush on supplies. One man declined a sleeping bag, saying he already had one. But he came back 20 minutes later, bringing an older friend who cried when I offered him a jacket and hat.

Many of the folks opened up as they got warm. Did you know that it’s illegal for homeless people to sleep in their cars?

Did you know that the police make a special round of the city between 2 and 3 a.m. for the sole purpose of waking up homeless people and making them move?

Of the 30 or so people who came by the car, at least 16 of them have college degrees. Twenty-three were either elderly or disabled in some way.

The most vulnerable members of our society are sleeping on the streets in freezing weather, constantly harassed.

11/13/2024

This is obscene.

In the last few weeks I have distributed food, clothing and warm bedding to at least 247 homeless citizens.

I asked around, and it turns out that we have 568 completely empty apartments in just this neighborhood.

The majority of these apartments are in two buildings on 15th Ave owned by a large offshore corporation. None of them are available for rent. Instead, they are “awaiting renovations.”

They have been awaiting renovations for 20 years.

It’s not like they aren’t livable. They aren’t condemned.

Whoever owns them is just...holding them until they are worth more.

Many of the folks I’ve talked to are living on the street or in their cars, not because they want to, or because they are lazy.

Most of them have jobs.

But they cannot afford the high rents, or they can’t qualify for a place because they don’t have a current address (seriously? What a load of ugh!) or there just aren’t enough open apartments, and they’ve been on a wait list for years, just hoping somewhere will open up.

Robin, wherever you are, your $20,000 are gone. I turned them into steaming cups of coffee and fluffy little jackets and dozens of pairs of gloves.

Twenty thousand dollars is still a ridiculous amount of money to be handed. In order to buy those apartment buildings and start actually renting out the wasted space, I need at least $400,000 for a down payment and to bring them up to code.

Just in case you were still in a giving mood.

Now, I have some grants to apply for and a lot of letters to write.

12/31/2024

Little black notebook,

I guess this is goodbye. I don’t know where Robin is, or if that’s his real name, or if I’ll ever see him again. But the money is spent, and there’s no reason to keep writing here.

Oddly, you (and the $20,000) have changed my life. I did start that foundation; grassroots supporters helped me raise enough to purchase one of those apartment buildings, and we plan to acquire the other next summer.

Maybe $20,000 isn’t such an awkward amount of money after all.