5/02/2005
4/28/2005
Once Again, Trolling the Blogosphere
And finding some very cool stuff:
Trust me, you have no idea how much I hate Bush -- and Dick isn't that great, either
I like this woman's perspective: The Catharine Chronicles
Planet Revolution
Trust me, you have no idea how much I hate Bush -- and Dick isn't that great, either
I like this woman's perspective: The Catharine Chronicles
Planet Revolution
4/27/2005
I Shocked You Last Night
Don't deny it; I know I did. I could tell by the silence that descended when I had finished my brief speech. I sat there, feeling like a bug, silent tears sliding down my face, unable to look up as I waited for your response. So glad that the antidepressants had built up enough in my system to spare me the humiliation of the full-on weeping that would have ensued only a week ago.
Still I felt ashamed to be in that position: needing the help, and having to ask you for it. Some would say that there's no shame in it, but that's not how I was raised. I was raised to believe that to need help is shameful, and to ask for that help is even more so.
But then, I was raised to expect that I would by now have all the things you seem to take for granted: houses, cars, trips all over the world, not to have to worry about having enough to get by. Instead, here I am, working full-time but still living hand to mouth, lurching from one crisis to the next, never knowing if the current crisis (or the next one) is the one that finally costs me everything. And though I have occasionally made reference to being broke, I've never really come right out and told you before just how broke I am.
You think being broke means that you can't go to Europe this year; for me it means counting all my change to make sure I have enough for the transit fare to work and back till payday. For you, it's a question of whether you can put a new deck on your vacation home; for me, it's whether I can pay this month's rent on time. For you, it means paying a slightly higher co-pay so you can have the brand-name medication; for me, it's meant going without my medication so that I can get honey the most critical of hers - not even all of them.
Do you see a pattern here? You represent the affluent gays that the media assumes we all are. I, ostensibly in the same class, have none of that comfort. You tell me about your latest trip, or how you're remodeling your house, or buying another car. I smile and say "how nice", and you never see how every word grinds like glass in my heart.
Please understand: I'm not jealous of what you have; I don't begrudge you a bit of it. When I say that I'm happy for you, I am, really. It's just that you speak of it all so casually, as if everyone you know lives this way. It never occurs to you that I have to treat a trip to the coffee shop as an indulgence. What hurts is that I was raised to expect that I would have all these things that you have, that I would be so affluent. What hurts is realizing that no matter how hard I work, I will probably never have the life you have; that my life will never be so easy, so comfortable. I will never own one home, much less two. I will never have a new car; in order to buy a used car so that my honey isn't completely housebound, I'll have to decide what other essentials to shortchange.
And what really hurts is that last night I had to let you see that, because I had no other choice.
Still I felt ashamed to be in that position: needing the help, and having to ask you for it. Some would say that there's no shame in it, but that's not how I was raised. I was raised to believe that to need help is shameful, and to ask for that help is even more so.
But then, I was raised to expect that I would by now have all the things you seem to take for granted: houses, cars, trips all over the world, not to have to worry about having enough to get by. Instead, here I am, working full-time but still living hand to mouth, lurching from one crisis to the next, never knowing if the current crisis (or the next one) is the one that finally costs me everything. And though I have occasionally made reference to being broke, I've never really come right out and told you before just how broke I am.
You think being broke means that you can't go to Europe this year; for me it means counting all my change to make sure I have enough for the transit fare to work and back till payday. For you, it's a question of whether you can put a new deck on your vacation home; for me, it's whether I can pay this month's rent on time. For you, it means paying a slightly higher co-pay so you can have the brand-name medication; for me, it's meant going without my medication so that I can get honey the most critical of hers - not even all of them.
Do you see a pattern here? You represent the affluent gays that the media assumes we all are. I, ostensibly in the same class, have none of that comfort. You tell me about your latest trip, or how you're remodeling your house, or buying another car. I smile and say "how nice", and you never see how every word grinds like glass in my heart.
Please understand: I'm not jealous of what you have; I don't begrudge you a bit of it. When I say that I'm happy for you, I am, really. It's just that you speak of it all so casually, as if everyone you know lives this way. It never occurs to you that I have to treat a trip to the coffee shop as an indulgence. What hurts is that I was raised to expect that I would have all these things that you have, that I would be so affluent. What hurts is realizing that no matter how hard I work, I will probably never have the life you have; that my life will never be so easy, so comfortable. I will never own one home, much less two. I will never have a new car; in order to buy a used car so that my honey isn't completely housebound, I'll have to decide what other essentials to shortchange.
And what really hurts is that last night I had to let you see that, because I had no other choice.
4/25/2005
Surfing the Blogosphere (or, Cool Stuff You Can Find If You Hit "Next Blog" Enough Times)
This young woman is intelligent and articulate. Besides the fact that I agree with a lot of what she says, I really like the way she thinks and writes.
Third Wave Agenda
An American woman with a global perspective: Culture of Life News II
In the "hoisting the religious right on their own petard" category: PowersOnPolitics
Political Discussion: The Citizens
Fellow Fiber Fondler: Woolarina
And from NYC: Jon-Marc's Manhattan
It's Recess-time Somewhere
And I really like Waiter Rant
Third Wave Agenda
An American woman with a global perspective: Culture of Life News II
In the "hoisting the religious right on their own petard" category: PowersOnPolitics
Political Discussion: The Citizens
Fellow Fiber Fondler: Woolarina
And from NYC: Jon-Marc's Manhattan
It's Recess-time Somewhere
And I really like Waiter Rant
4/20/2005
I'm having a crisis here
Emotional, spiritual, financial. I am so fucked up and feeling fucked over on so many levels right now. Although my whole adult life has been an exercise in crisis management, of robbing Peter to pay Paul - my life as Job, or Charlie Brown. I really don't know how much more I can take.
I've been battling depression all my life - literally, since I was a little girl, although it went unremarked and disbelieved then, back in the days when everyone believed that children had no stress and nothing to worry about. Then, as now, I had plenty to be depressed about, and there was no help for me anywhere, and I was taught to ask for nothing. About 4 years ago, when I started the job before this one and got really good health benefits, I got on anti-depressants for the first time in my life. It didn't make life stop sucking, but at least I could deal with it calmly.
Last year, when I got laid off, the benefits (obviously) stopped. No way could I afford COBRA and also pay my honey's meds out of pocket and wait for reimbursement, though I tried for a couple of months. Try paying rent, meds (do you know what Oxycontin costs? I do), COBRA, plus all the other normal operating expenses (food, transit, utilities, etc.) on an unemployment check that barely exceeds rent. So I went off my meds, figuring I could tough it out for a few months, and honey and I picked the most essential of her meds, and tried to get by. All we really managed to do wasget farther and farther behind - on everything.
Right before the winter holidays, I started a new job - better than unemployment by a long shot, but about 20% less than my previous job, and certainly not enough to get caught up yet, especially since I was still paying honey's meds out of pocket in amounts that approach that of rent.
This month, the benefits at my new job finally kick in, and we're down to reasonable co-pays on things. Not as good as the benefits I had at the old job, but better then out-of-pocket by a long shot. But also this month, I started getting tagged for back taxes in a roughly equivalent amount. So I'm still behind, and gonna be that way for the rest of the summer. My preliminary estimate is that the last of those payments will be in September.
Meanwhile, the landlord has finally lost patience with my pleading and paying late every month. I have until the end of this month to come up with this month's rent ($1205 including late fee), and I have to pay next month's rent no later than May 5th - no excuses, no lenience, no nothing. Right this minute, I have no idea how I'm going to come up with it. Every week, I'm paying the past-due balance on some bill or other (while setting aside whole flocks of dunning notices), or buying meds, or groceries, or transit or something equally frivolous and extravagant. I've had to back out of my commitment to help host the scholarship awards dinner (of which organization I'm co-chair), because I can't even pretend that I can afford the costs of attending it.
I've tried contacting several agencies to see if I can get some help, at least with the current rent crisis, but - not surprisingly - they are no help to me at all. I say not surprisingly because it's typical of my life. I can't get any help because either it's not available when I need it or it is available but I don't qualify.
I wish I could say that my current situation is unusual, but it's actually quite typical of my adult life. I've never been able to get ahead. The closest I've ever managed to get to making ends meet is getting them within hailing distance. Every time they get close enough that I start to think that this time I'll catch up to break-even status something happens - a new expense, the loss of a job, frequently both at once - and I find myself wishing I could just get the ends to maybe email or phone each other. All my life, the light at the end of the tunnel has consistently turned out to be the headlamp of an oncoming train.
Which brings me to the spiritual crisis. Despite all the crap I've been through (which included spending my childhood and adolescence being abused in every possible way by my stepfather while my mother both expected me to be perfect and denied the abuse was happening (which she still does, btw)), I maintained my belief in a benevolent Deity. I considered my spiritual person, and even spent years as a practicing shaman-teacher-healer-guide-counselor; although, unlike many such practitioners, I never could figure out a way to get paid for my services that felt honorable to me. I figured that all my suffering was redeemed in my ability to relate to those I was helping, thus furthering my ability to help them. I continued to believe that the Deity was essentially benevolent. I'd observe that I always got what I needed - mind you, not one scrap more nor one second sooner than absolutely necessary to drag my sorry ass just that fraction of an inch back from the edge of utter disaster - so I believed, and blamed my panic about the crumbling cliff edge on a shortage of faith on my part. I thought that maybe if I just kept believing that the Deity wouldn't really let mefall, then maybe I'd be allowed to walk on firmer footing.
That hope has never yet been fulfilled, and I have recently come to the conclusion that it never will. I feel that I have suffered enough in the nearly five decades I've spent on this planet that even if the rest of my life went swimmingly from here on out, I'll never forget how it feels to go through this crap. I'll never lose the ability to relate to others who are going through it - I could still help people. Hell, if I could quit worrying about having enough to keep a roof over me and mine, it would be easier for me to help others. I know this, because whenever I've had even a little to share, I've done so. I can't believe that I'd quit doing so, just because I had more to share.
Therefore, I find myself facing two semi-opposing alternatives to my belief in a benevolent Deity (which is almost completely gone):
If you're still reading this, and are by some chance inclined to contribute to the Lady Cat Emergency Relief Fund (aka the Keep Lady Cat Out Of Debtor's Prison Fund), you can Paypal your donations to the email address in my profile.
If you are instead inclined to try to sign me up with your God - please - save it for someone who hasn't already been to that party and come away hungry.
I've been battling depression all my life - literally, since I was a little girl, although it went unremarked and disbelieved then, back in the days when everyone believed that children had no stress and nothing to worry about. Then, as now, I had plenty to be depressed about, and there was no help for me anywhere, and I was taught to ask for nothing. About 4 years ago, when I started the job before this one and got really good health benefits, I got on anti-depressants for the first time in my life. It didn't make life stop sucking, but at least I could deal with it calmly.
Last year, when I got laid off, the benefits (obviously) stopped. No way could I afford COBRA and also pay my honey's meds out of pocket and wait for reimbursement, though I tried for a couple of months. Try paying rent, meds (do you know what Oxycontin costs? I do), COBRA, plus all the other normal operating expenses (food, transit, utilities, etc.) on an unemployment check that barely exceeds rent. So I went off my meds, figuring I could tough it out for a few months, and honey and I picked the most essential of her meds, and tried to get by. All we really managed to do wasget farther and farther behind - on everything.
Right before the winter holidays, I started a new job - better than unemployment by a long shot, but about 20% less than my previous job, and certainly not enough to get caught up yet, especially since I was still paying honey's meds out of pocket in amounts that approach that of rent.
This month, the benefits at my new job finally kick in, and we're down to reasonable co-pays on things. Not as good as the benefits I had at the old job, but better then out-of-pocket by a long shot. But also this month, I started getting tagged for back taxes in a roughly equivalent amount. So I'm still behind, and gonna be that way for the rest of the summer. My preliminary estimate is that the last of those payments will be in September.
Meanwhile, the landlord has finally lost patience with my pleading and paying late every month. I have until the end of this month to come up with this month's rent ($1205 including late fee), and I have to pay next month's rent no later than May 5th - no excuses, no lenience, no nothing. Right this minute, I have no idea how I'm going to come up with it. Every week, I'm paying the past-due balance on some bill or other (while setting aside whole flocks of dunning notices), or buying meds, or groceries, or transit or something equally frivolous and extravagant. I've had to back out of my commitment to help host the scholarship awards dinner (of which organization I'm co-chair), because I can't even pretend that I can afford the costs of attending it.
I've tried contacting several agencies to see if I can get some help, at least with the current rent crisis, but - not surprisingly - they are no help to me at all. I say not surprisingly because it's typical of my life. I can't get any help because either it's not available when I need it or it is available but I don't qualify.
I wish I could say that my current situation is unusual, but it's actually quite typical of my adult life. I've never been able to get ahead. The closest I've ever managed to get to making ends meet is getting them within hailing distance. Every time they get close enough that I start to think that this time I'll catch up to break-even status something happens - a new expense, the loss of a job, frequently both at once - and I find myself wishing I could just get the ends to maybe email or phone each other. All my life, the light at the end of the tunnel has consistently turned out to be the headlamp of an oncoming train.
Which brings me to the spiritual crisis. Despite all the crap I've been through (which included spending my childhood and adolescence being abused in every possible way by my stepfather while my mother both expected me to be perfect and denied the abuse was happening (which she still does, btw)), I maintained my belief in a benevolent Deity. I considered my spiritual person, and even spent years as a practicing shaman-teacher-healer-guide-counselor; although, unlike many such practitioners, I never could figure out a way to get paid for my services that felt honorable to me. I figured that all my suffering was redeemed in my ability to relate to those I was helping, thus furthering my ability to help them. I continued to believe that the Deity was essentially benevolent. I'd observe that I always got what I needed - mind you, not one scrap more nor one second sooner than absolutely necessary to drag my sorry ass just that fraction of an inch back from the edge of utter disaster - so I believed, and blamed my panic about the crumbling cliff edge on a shortage of faith on my part. I thought that maybe if I just kept believing that the Deity wouldn't really let mefall, then maybe I'd be allowed to walk on firmer footing.
That hope has never yet been fulfilled, and I have recently come to the conclusion that it never will. I feel that I have suffered enough in the nearly five decades I've spent on this planet that even if the rest of my life went swimmingly from here on out, I'll never forget how it feels to go through this crap. I'll never lose the ability to relate to others who are going through it - I could still help people. Hell, if I could quit worrying about having enough to keep a roof over me and mine, it would be easier for me to help others. I know this, because whenever I've had even a little to share, I've done so. I can't believe that I'd quit doing so, just because I had more to share.
Therefore, I find myself facing two semi-opposing alternatives to my belief in a benevolent Deity (which is almost completely gone):
- There is no Deity, no higher power, and therefore no reason for my suffering, or
- The Deity which has pretended benevolence only to the degree necessary to keep my hopes up is in reality a sadistic bastard who tortures me for no reason other than It's own sick pleasure.
If you're still reading this, and are by some chance inclined to contribute to the Lady Cat Emergency Relief Fund (aka the Keep Lady Cat Out Of Debtor's Prison Fund), you can Paypal your donations to the email address in my profile.
If you are instead inclined to try to sign me up with your God - please - save it for someone who hasn't already been to that party and come away hungry.
4/19/2005
Don't Ask
Don't ask me how I feel today
I'm likely to tell you
Spill my heart all over the floor
You stand there stunned
Covered in gore
You didn't really want to know
Just being sociable
But I'm broken here
Held together with wire
and bits of tape
So for both our sakes
It's better if you just
Don't ask
I'm likely to tell you
Spill my heart all over the floor
You stand there stunned
Covered in gore
You didn't really want to know
Just being sociable
But I'm broken here
Held together with wire
and bits of tape
So for both our sakes
It's better if you just
Don't ask
4/15/2005
The Trouble With Titles....
...is that they so often bear no resemblance to the contents of the blog. Grrrr....
I like to check the "recently updated blogs" section of the Dashboard page, just to see who's out there writing what. All well and good, you say....right. So I hit the link for one called "Kill All Hats", thinking this will be something quirky and whimsical. I like offbeat humor; I'm like that, okay? The page loads, and I'm faced with a page full of Google dumps. Why, people? Why?
I hit another cool-sounding title, only to find that the title is the only part of the blog that's in English; the rest is in some other language, and about half the time, in some other alphabet! Please! If you're not going to write in English, that's fine. Sometimes I enjoy seeing how much of my school Spanish or French remains in my brain. But if you're not writing in English, why use it for the title?
And while I'm at it, what's with these little java app windows that load in front of the page so that you have to click on each and every one of the little fuckers before you can see the blog itself? And the pages that are so crammed full of separate little frames that you can't read it anyway when you get there?
I'm just saying....
I like to check the "recently updated blogs" section of the Dashboard page, just to see who's out there writing what. All well and good, you say....right. So I hit the link for one called "Kill All Hats", thinking this will be something quirky and whimsical. I like offbeat humor; I'm like that, okay? The page loads, and I'm faced with a page full of Google dumps. Why, people? Why?
I hit another cool-sounding title, only to find that the title is the only part of the blog that's in English; the rest is in some other language, and about half the time, in some other alphabet! Please! If you're not going to write in English, that's fine. Sometimes I enjoy seeing how much of my school Spanish or French remains in my brain. But if you're not writing in English, why use it for the title?
And while I'm at it, what's with these little java app windows that load in front of the page so that you have to click on each and every one of the little fuckers before you can see the blog itself? And the pages that are so crammed full of separate little frames that you can't read it anyway when you get there?
I'm just saying....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
