Nearly homeless & dancing as fast as I can (one of a million poverty...
The government is falling apart, and America as we knew it seems to have ceased to exist, but not much has changed in the households of the poorest of the poor: it’s the beginning of the month, and...
View ArticleWonderful Woozle Needs Vet Care Urgently
This is my dog Leonard, the best dog in the universe. He was picked up as a stray at around age 5 and rescued from the SPCA by a fostering program that helps little dogs. They neutered him and placed...
View ArticleMy Self-Defeating Shame of Poverty
In therapy, I am discovering some deep-seated stuff in my psyche; as it turns out I was raised to believe that I’m a bad person, deserving of punishment. And I internalized that idea of myself as an...
View ArticleHelp! and Advice--Can't--Reach--Safety
I’ve been underemployed for most of the past year. Last fall, I developed a plan. I won’t give up on using my MA in counseling; I’ll keep applying for jobs, knowing that it might take years to find a...
View ArticleMaking a garage habitable in 1 week: I don't know...
For now, we have to let go of judgement about whether or not renting an unfinished garage was a good idea. For various reasons, there was not another option. So I have to make the garage work. It does...
View ArticleWriting to Save my Life: What Mental Illness Feels Like
I always knew I was depressed, but I didn’t recognize my own anxiety. I thought everyone’s body was like a clenched fist, that everyone had a knot of fire between their shoulder blades. The odd person...
View ArticleI made a mistake: living in an unfinished garage is a terrible idea
Today I took my friend Blue over to meet the garage landlord. She was not impressed. She advised me quite strongly that I would be making a terrible mistake, and I should keep looking, because living...
View ArticleLife IS the Obstacles: Finding Housing in the PNW (also, is the internet...
After making a mistake with the garage thing, I have secured a safe and lovely place to live. It is in a nice quiet neighborhood with big lawns, north of town. My new landlady read my craigslist ad and...
View ArticleLandfill Time Capsules: My Gift to Future Garbage Miners
At times like this I find myself meditating upon what the world will be like in 500 years or so. It’s really looking like it won’t be pretty and it makes me feel sad for my descendants, and yours, that...
View ArticleWonderWoozle Needs Meds: Can you spare $1?
Hi everybody! I had hoped I’d never have to ask for help again. But being disabled means one never stops needing help, unfortunately, and my family doesn’t claim me. It’s just a small need, $125 for...
View ArticleEveryone Needs Health Care, with No Math Required.
Here in Oregon, which has expanded Medicaid through the ACA, there’s a slice of the population staying poor so we still qualify for the Oregon Health Plan (OHP.) The cut-off income is $1385 monthly. So...
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How You Came to Exist (an excerpt from "Dear Daughter")
I’ve always loved fireworks. I grew up near DC, and more years than not I spent July 4th there as an adult. I’m super patriotic, like most progressives, so I cry every year. On the night of July 4,...
View ArticleHarassed at the park on Easter Sunday
Today I thought I would go look at the river and have some quiet, contemplative time. But when I was walking through the park, a man greeted me, and I failed to respond with the right sort of delight...
View ArticleQuiz: Which kind of Republican are you?
Hello, Republican friends and neighbors and relatives. How are y’all? I hope you’re hanging in there. I miss you. I submit to you there are only two kinds of Republicans, and I only need to ask you one...
View ArticleAsperger's and Isolation: Dear Daughter
I’ve always processed emotion by writing. When I want to really communicate with someone, I write to them. For me, only writing feels like I’m fully expressing my thoughts and feelings. When I’m...
View ArticleFood Stamps Cancelled=Hunger. Thanks, Drumpf
My SNAP got cancelled, and I’m hungry. It was a clerical error, caused by the new work requirements that went into effect January 1. Although I’ve been working all along, I now have to prove, with...
View ArticleGuide Me, O Wise Ones: RV Living?
I worry about becoming homeless again. Maybe everyone who has been homeless has this worry, like a PTSD symptom. As I grow older, this sense of impending doom heightens: at some point, I won’t be able...
View ArticleHow I Lost My Daughter: The Only Story I Have to Tell
Originally published at my blog Dear DaughterI’ve been putting off trying to write this. I can’t write it without making myself look bad, and I can’t write it without making Mother and Daddy look bad....
View ArticleLenny the WonderWoozle Needs Vet Care: Anal gland surgery? Sisters and...
I took Leonard to the vet today to get his butt squeezed. As you know, he’s formerly unhoused, and at some point suffered a butt gland infection so he has a lot of scar tissue in one of his anal...
View ArticleUpdate on Lenny's WoozleButt, plus me
When we last spoke, a vet had said he might need to have his bad anal gland removed, and I wanted to seek a second opinion. Thanks to everyone who contributed to Lenny’s vet fund! The new vet said he...
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