Passing the Tip Jar for Summer

Hey friends,

This isn’t a real blog post, it’s just the once-every-three-months-or-so reminder that Steel Magnificat, and the author’s family, operate almost entirely on tips. I get a very small paycheck every other month, maybe as much as three figures, from Patheos for clicks in the United States. I get a bit of royalties from my books and a small check per article if I write for a paper instead of here. But the majority of my income is gratuities from readers who like my writing and want to see more of it. Some people just tip me a few dollars after reading a blog post they really like now and then, and some people sign up through PayPal to tip every month at the same time. Think of it as a horribly disorganized Patreon, or a magazine subscription where you pay what you think I’m worth and you get to keep reading even if you can’t afford to pay. Blogging is busking.

This past few months I got to write for the Herald-Star about the adventure of meeting the homeless woman who lived in my old car. Here at Patheos I’ve been writing about the saga of Jimmy taking apart my current car and putting it back together.  Adrienne got her diagnosis and discovered that she is a genius, which I always knew. I’ve been meditating in the garden again. I got to go back to the lake. I’ve been reluctantly going back to writing about politics and enthusiastically writing about the mystery of American Christianity. I’ve pondered what it means to be a queer Christian, and I’ve gone back to Mass and tried to make peace with that. As I keep saying on the blog, we’ll just see where we go from there.

I’m writing this in the afternoon of the tenth of the month. The middle of the month is always the most difficult for us, because we have our biggest regular subscribed tippers at the beginning of the month and not many in the middle, but rent is due to be mailed on the 15th. We’re making just enough to not qualify for much assistance in the state of Ohio but not enough to quite get by, I could use a big grocery stock-up instead of a trip to get two things like I’ve been doing and Adrienne needs a trip to the mall for jeans before school starts.

So, as always, I ask: if you like what you read, give me a tip when you can! Just go to the donate page here, click on the link, and PayPal will walk you through the rest. I’m still trying to figure out why it’s an icon of hands instead of the usual yellow button, but it’s not a charitable donation, it’s just an online tip jar. I pay taxes on it.

And I’ll be back on later today with a blog post worth your time!