This is not easy to write. Around seven years ago I completely disappeared from the face of the Earth for many who were in my life. It was very abrupt, and unceremonious. Many who I was close to still may have been left wondering if I was alive or dead. I hope that is not the case, but if it is, I am sorry, and take full responsibility for running away the way that I did.

The short is that I was already housing insecure while living in my hometown, we had a nightmarish election cycle, and I felt like my life and safety was in danger staying where I was. I already felt like a burden on the people who were supporting my house hopping as a vagabond and didn't want to bring others into what I was going through, so I left. I had my car and I packed everything I could including my bed pad, and drove south early one morning.

I went to North Carolina, and started over. I was homeless for several years. I had my car which was comfortable to sleep in the back of. I'd go to free meal programs each day and when I had the spoons for it wash dishes or bus tables as a volunteer. Break bread with a lot of different people.  Learned a lot around harm reduction, mutual aid, and peer support. And I'd get involved with food recovery programs. Everything from dumpster diving, to church-grocer partnerships where we'd get thousands of pounds of fresh food retail waste from a well-known grocery chain located nearby every Tuesday for six months.

By then in 2019 I was able to get back into housing with the financial help of my family. I don't know if I would be alive without them.  That half of the year we'd get mountains of apples every week that were overstock and otherwise would have likely been thrown away to the landfill. At the very least, if it can't be distributed while it's fresh, it can always food for hogs. But I started taking them home with me and wanted to figure something to do with hundreds of pounds of apples in a home kitchen. So I chipped them. Since the apples were almost always free through a program, the product couldn't be sold, so they mostly get given out for free as gifts. They aren't the easiest to mail either. Can't really get them in stores and even if I could it's not an effective or helpful way to go about it. They make good stuffers for gift bags. Last season was the fourth chipping season so far, and I started to use cellophane (biodegradable plant-plastic) packaging and wamped up the packaging.

I'm working on the website too, all this year. I'm doing so while taking courses for digital media, and web development. The goal is to make helpful content on a variety of topics I have some disposition or experience around. Since I am working on it alongside school, I have to be wary of what I share publicly on there. It's still a mess on there, but it would be nice if you interacted with some of the content, or sought me out on my site. There's a chat widget on there. The idea is for there to be hundreds of fun apple facts that each correspond to a blog article.

Am I using first contact in six or more years with a bunch of people I care a lot about to shamelessly plug my projects? Yes. 🤷‍♀️

It would be really nice to re-connect, and if it's not kind, we don't need to either.

Also my name is April now. Can use whatever pronouns - they / he / she. It doesn't matter.