Last updated 3/8/2024.

Hi, I'm Jack Clayton, aka Jackdaw. I'm a 40-something nerd who's been making websites off and on since the 90s. I'm a husband and a dad, a writer and an artist. I like to describe myself with slightly disparaging terms like "disaster multipotentialite" and "dumpster phoenix" and "perennial sidekick".

You can think of me as a shadow. That's a kind of sidekick, isn't it? Or maybe the other way around, a sidekick is a kind of shadow, and to get out of the shadow, the sidekick has to step out on their own. I'm drawn to the sidekick's role because I'm more of a shadow. I don't want to be perceived. That's a joke so much of the time, but it's true. The thing that has given me the most panic attacks in the last fifteen years, probably even moreso than my health scares, is the mortifying ordeal of being known, of being found, of being seen. Of being known and misunderstood at the same time, of being perceived but not seen, perhaps. It's so easy to mistake a shadow for something else, isn't it?

Blogging

• Copper and Fire - This is my current long-form blog, where I'm most likely to be writing about everyday life and serious thoughts and books I've read and things like that. I do tend to make about half of my posts private to other Dreamwidth users I know but there's plenty there that's public to read.
• My Tumblr - This is blog is pretty active but it's almost all reblogging stuff, mostly fandom-related or pictures of dragons.
• Jack of Many Trades - This is an archive of blog posts on my sites from 2007 or so through last year. It's not particularly browsable but I like keeping it around, a bit of a digital security blanket.

Support

Almost all of my regular giving is local, because I believe that change starts on a community level and moves upward.

• The city: Street Books, Portland Street Medicine and Ground Score Association all work directly with houseless folks in Portland. Street Books is a bicycle-driven library, Street Medicine offers medical care and the Ground Score Association not only collects trash but recycles, repairs and reuses as much of what they collect as possible. Donating to them is not only a form of offering to Portlandia, but also supports other efforts I value.
• The library: Speaking of supporting libraries, I also support Friends of Multnomah County Library and Friends of the Ledding Library regularly, both because I regularly benefit from their services far beyond what I'm able to give, but also because I believe libraries are sacred places necessary for a healthy community.
• The land: Willamette Riverkeeper works to maintain the Willamette river from the Columbia down the valley, and so I make a monthly donation to them as a part of offering to the land. In addition, since I haven't found a Portland equivalent of Real Rent Duwamish I make a monthly donation to NAYA as a form of rent since I live on colonized land.
• Mara's hand: This is a bit different than a recurring donation like those outlined above. One of the ways that I make offerings to Mara is by making donations to gofundmes and other mutual aid requests. These are not necessarily local in a physical sense, but they're always requests I see through my networks on sites like Tumblr.

Want to support my writing? That's so awesome of you! You can pop over to myKo-fi page and make a donation, or you'll find my writing on Itch.io is largely pay-what-you-want.