What can you give?

Life plays such strange tricks. This year, it seems like I've spent about half my time -- at least most of the really significant moments -- in New Orleans. Now that beautiful city has been all but wiped off the map.

I visited my boyfriend there just last week. Well-timed whimsy led us to do some touristy stuff, like a ghost tour of the French Quarter, a self-guided ramble through a historic cemetery, and an overnight trip to a casino in Biloxi. I'm glad we did. None of those places will ever be the same.

My boyfriend and his family are safe, holed up in Alabama. It so happens that many of my circle of friends here in Gainesville have ties to New Orleans. Most of us have spent the week watching way too much CNN and combing through blogs and satellite photos for any sign of what things are like at the homes of our friends and families. The amount of information out there is never enough, but still phenomenal. Hooray for things like Digital Globe, which let me peek in on the rooftops of New Orleans, just like I did on a plane trip not so long ago.

I found this news of corporate donations interesting. I'm not sure how useful the contents of five possibly flooded Office Depots will be, but the pharmaceutical company giving 40,000 vials of insulin warms my heart.

Years in school and in relatively low-paying jobs have made me into someone who's more likely to give stuff to charity than money. That's about to change. I am in the process of moving, and feel like I haven't got two dimes to rub together, but you can be sure that when I get that first paycheck, a chunk of it is going to the Red Cross for hurricane relief.

Those of you in a better place financially today should do your part as soon as possible.