Well i'm not so sure i've mentioned it yet...i might have...
I have a BA Honours in Political Science with a minor in Women's Studies. The Honours in Canada means it takes four years to do the program full time (i did part full time, part of it part time) and that it is a pregraduate ie what you take before you MA. It means decent marks but the "Honours" in the marks isn't for really high marks.....i'm not sure how that works in the US and i don't want to claim more than i did. Honours means at least a c+ (about 67-69%) in your major and somewhat less in your other courses. Unfortunately (for me) the next step is High Honours which requires a B+ in your area and a B- in your overall average (77-79% and 70-74). I average mid B in my area and overall, which doesn't have a category (and i did a lot better overall than you had too). But it wouldn't have made a difference in grad school..i don't want to look like i'm claiming what i didn't get. Of course there may be large differences in how school determine what a letter or a grade mark is (i've put up the standards at my university...in fact they used numbers that corresponded so they could get more exact averages overall and in majors. In a very wierd statistical fluke i actually had a mid B+ average in my minor---higher than in my major...but i'd originally planned to do a combined major so i had a lot of courses...some of them were required for the minor but many weren't so they picked the one's with the highest grades that weren't on the required list. So i'm interested in politics. And i read a ton of newspaper coverage, especially before an election. In Ontario we have had a provincial and federal election within a year of each other and the federal election resulted in a minority government.....so i'm watching that closely.
For international coverage i find that for papers in English the UK has the best coverage (IMHO). I'm a left winger...i read the Guardian Unlimited site, which has both the Guardian and The Observer on it (the Observer is a Sunday round up the week paper such as i haven't seen in Canada for years....(although in Canada it was a Saturday paper). Both papers are full of opinion, especially the Observer, which is as much about analysis and comment as just the news.....from what i can tell (i'm not in the UK and i haven't checked) there is likely both a Guardian newspaper and a Observer on Sundays.
I've been following up on elections...i was thinking maybe i shouldn't try a list like this so early into the blogging, but i've decided to anyway. I'll state my opinion again. Please vote for Kerry....but even if not, even if for Bush please do go out and vote. A basic necessity for a democracy to work is for the citizens to vote, and this election will be close. Even if you are not in a swing state your vote is important....because when it is this close if one candidate wins the Electoral College the percentage of the vote they get will count. Electoral college won but a minority of votes makes it more difficult to do stuff (refered to in some book i've got as a minority presidency...term i'd never heard before but Woodward uses it in ). And while the Electoral college system has some benefits it can also distort. Its important that it be clear what people want...not just what the people of the swing states want.
So following is coverage. Most of it is from todays Observer. But the first two i'm going to post in full....as part one...if you want the rest of the blog go up to the next subject. These are important enought for a subject all their ownt....after that standard blog style...title, perhaps a small intro and link.
The first story appeared a while ago. I was amazed when i saw it, even if we all knew there was problems in Florida in the last vote. In this article Jimmy Carter explains why the organization he runs that makes sure elections in fragile democracies are fair would not work in Florida even if their mandate allowed them to work in the United States. And he explains why. It originally appeared in the Washington Post.
These are very important. If someone finds this blog (its new) it would be nice if you linked to it. But i've deliberately left links in for two reasons 1. If you don't believe it was in the newspaper you can look (because it is strange and scary and wierd political stuff) and 2. Its important it get around. I only started blogging last week. I figured out how to do a link TODAY. If you think its important link here. If you don't want to do that take the links. If anyone bothers to take the links (fine no problem with me...no arguments) it would be nice if you let me know, although obviously you don't have any need to. If you do want to let me know email me a bmarcie@intergate.com and let me know where your page is so that i can come and look at it (if you care about it that much i want to see your page----Bush or Democrat Supporter, Independent, whatever although i suppose these are not generally well loved stories by Republicans). The second articles is a British commentary on the first article. Take a moment and look at what some of the people in the country allied with you are saying about what Jimmy Carter had to say.
Jimmy Carter Tuesday September 28, 2004 The Guardian
After the debacle in Florida four years ago, former president Gerald Ford and I were asked to lead a blue-ribbon commission to recommend changes in the American electoral process. After months of concerted effort by a dedicated and bipartisan group of experts, we presented unanimous recommendations to the president and Congress. The government responded with the Help America Vote Act of October 2002. Unfortunately, however, many of the act's key provisions have not been implemented because of inadequate funding or political disputes. The disturbing fact is that a repetition of the problems of 2000 now seems likely, even as many other nations are conducting elections that are internationally certified to be transparent, honest and fair.
The Carter Centre has monitored more than 50 elections, all of them held under contentious, troubled or dangerous conditions. When I describe these activities, either in the US or in foreign forums, the almost inevitable questions are "Why don't you observe the election in Florida?" and "How do you explain the serious problems with elections there?"
The answer to the first question is that we can monitor only about five elections each year, and meeting crucial needs in other nations is our top priority. (Our most recent ones were in Venezuela and Indonesia, and the next will be in Mozambique.) A partial answer to the other question is that some basic international requirements for a fair election are missing in Florida.
The most significant of these are:
· A non-partisan electoral commission or a trusted and non-partisan official who will be responsible for organising and conducting the electoral process before, during and after the actual voting takes place. Although rarely perfect in their objectivity, such top administrators are at least subject to public scrutiny and responsible for the integrity of their decisions. Florida voting officials have proved to be highly partisan, brazenly violating a basic need for an unbiased and universally trusted authority to manage all elements of the electoral process.
· Uniformity in voting procedures, so that all citizens, regardless of their social or financial status, have equal assurance that their votes are cast in the same way and will be tabulated with equal accuracy. Modern technology is already in use that makes electronic voting possible, with accurate and almost immediate tabulation and with paper ballot printouts so all voters can have confidence in the integrity of the process. There is no reason these proven techniques, used overseas and in some US states, could not be used in Florida.
It was obvious that in 2000 these basic standards were not met in Florida, and there are disturbing signs that once again, as we prepare for a presidential election, some of the state's leading officials hold strong political biases that prevent necessary reforms.
Four years ago, the top election official, the Florida secretary of state, Katherine Harris, was also the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney state campaign committee. The same strong bias has become evident in her successor, Glenda Hood, who was a highly partisan elector for George Bush in 2000. Several thousand ballots of African Americans were thrown out on technicalities in 2000, and a fumbling attempt has been made recently to disqualify 22,000 African Americans (likely Democrats), but only 61 Hispanics (likely Republicans), as alleged felons.
The top election official has also played a leading role in qualifying Ralph Nader as a candidate, knowing that two-thirds of his votes in the previous election came at the expense of Al Gore. She ordered Nader's name be included on absentee ballots even before the state supreme court ruled on the controversial issue.
Florida's governor, Jeb Bush, naturally a strong supporter of his brother, has taken no steps to correct these departures from principles of fair and equal treatment or to prevent them in the future.
It is unconscionable to perpetuate fraudulent or biased electoral practices in any nation. It is especially objectionable among us Americans, who have prided ourselves on setting a global example for pure democracy. With reforms unlikely at this late stage of the election, perhaps the only recourse will be to focus maximum public scrutiny on the suspicious process in Florida.
Jimmy Carter fears repeat of election fiasco in Florida
Julian Borger in Washington Tuesday September 28, 2004 The Guardian
Jimmy Carter, the former US president, has said Florida lacks "some basic international requirements for a fair election" and that a repeat of the 2000 election fiasco "seems likely". He said reforms recommended after the recount in Florida had still not been implemented "because of inadequate funding or political disputes".
Mr Carter, who runs an election and human rights centre in Atlanta, accused election officials working for Florida's governor, Jeb Bush, the president's brother, of being "highly partisan".
They were "brazenly violating a basic need for an unbiased and universally trusted authority to manage all elements of the electoral process".
"The disturbing fact is that a repetition of the problems of 2000 now seems likely, even as many other nations are conducting elections that are internationally certified to be transparent, honest and fair," Mr Carter writes in a commentary reprinted in today's Guardian.
Busy with the fourth hurricane to hit Florida in six weeks, the governor's office did not return calls seeking comment yesterday. But Mark Foley, a Republican congressman from Florida, rejected Democratic criticism of the state's election preparations.
"They're alleging somehow we're a third-world nation in our ability to handle ballots," he told CNN. "There is no way the supervisors of elections in 67 counties can't handle the proper job of tabulating ballots."
During the 2000 recount, the Florida state government was accused of trying to orchestrate George Bush's victory by certifying doubtful results and by disenfranchising thousands of mainly black voters with the use of flawed criminal records.
Under Florida's laws, former convicts who have completed their sentence remain ineligible to vote for life, unless they receive a specific act of clemency. It is a racially charged issue as 58% of Florida's 600,000 former felons are African-Ameri cans, most convicted of drug offences for which they are more frequently charged than whites.
In May, Florida's secretary of state, Glenda Hood (a Bush family partisan), distributed a secret list of 48,000 alleged former felons and instructed county election supervisors to remove them from the voter rolls. When a court ordered the list be published, it was found that more than 20,000 people on the list were black (black Floridians vote Democratic by more than nine to one) and only 61 were Hispanics (who are much more likely to vote Republican). The Miami Herald newspaper found at least 2,000 people should not have been on the list, having regained their voting rights.
In his commentary, Mr Carter called the distribution of the list a "fumbling attempt" to disenfranchise black people. It was dropped after it became public, but by then 14 counties had sent letters to the residents named, informing them they would be ineligible to vote.
It is not easy for the state's former felons to regain the right to vote. According to the Florida Justice Institute, a civil rights organisation, it requires a hearing by the state's clemency board, chaired by Governor Bush, which meets only four times a year and reviews only 50 cases each time. The all-Republican board can turn down requests without giving reasons.
Randall Berg, the head of the institute, said the number of former convicts who win back their right to vote each year was "a drop in the bucket".
Another source of controversy in the 2000 election was the use, in some counties, of punch-card ballot papers which sometimes could not be read by machines because of loose fragments of cardboard (chads) that stuck to them.
Mr Carter was a member of a commission that recommended modernising the state's voting equipment, but he says those reforms have been patchy. There are no statewide regulations on keeping a paper record of the vote in the event of another recount.
First off i'll mention the colour and borders...obviously i've been playing with them and i'm still playing with them actually (which is why at the moment there are different borders on the right and left---i wanted to compare them).
Colours will likely stay the same...i've tried to get the subject bar the same colour as the side panels...it looks a touch different but i'm beginning to think its just all the yellow around it.
I did a lot and had a busy day. I'll likely write about it later today or tomorrow. There was one nice thing to note. I saw DK at the Samhein ritual (and AM). He came up early on and said he was still reading my email and hadn't had a chance to answer yet but it might be quicker to talk about things and i said there was no rush and i hadn't expected any answer today (it was already clear from other rituals that me, DK and AM can get along fine in rituals)...and that was about all i saw of him personally. AM showed quite an interest in a prayer i wrote for the ceremony (but which i only read a part of at the ritual...the rest is for me to do on my own) for P's cancer and D's need to have strength now. She has been working on writing ritual, so i imagine that is why its interesting...verifies she's not real uncomfortable with me though... And she had a new cloak which was nice...when people left he didn't offer me a ride (a few months ago he always would have...but he's well aware that i'm much more mobile than she is because downtown is quite easy to get too) and i'm right on the way to drop her off....but then i didn't ask or move over that way...i was going to be dropping off at MMs to borrow a book.
So i was at MM's for a while when DK shows up(he had made arrangements to pick up some papers on a topic that interested him...MM's place is full of that type of stuff) which i hadn't been expecting.....and immediately (and honestly) said he hadn't realized he hadn't offered me a ride home until he was a few kilometers away and that he vaguely had the idea it might give me the wrong message...i looked at him and he realized it did make me wonder, although as i said i didn't push it either so it wasn't definitive in my mind (it wasn't because he didn't want to be with me for a ride hom and his immediate reaction was honest and so it shows it was just accident and not in the habit anymore---and like i said i didn't ask or hang real close by).
So we hung around and talked with MM and his wife. He gave me a lift home and we talked a bit. We agreed talking would work better generally but the idea of me writing where i could be careful and say what i meant as a first step did had made sense. And my suggestion that i join DK and AM at one of the activities they enjoy together has apparently gone over well.
He still needs time to digest and think about the letter. But the response is enough to let me know i'll have some place likely, other than just politeness and acceptance in the circle we both work in, (which i thought was already likely but wasn't sure). Also if he's talking to AM about it (or maybe just the type of activity and then i'll come) its a good start. By the way AM was around me at the ritual i would doubt it would be a problem regardless, although since he knows both of us (AM and me) better than we know each other its a bit easier to try and figure out how to think of doing things with his input.
I pointed out he's always been slow with his email right away (at the beginning when i first got to know him). I said i'd put something at the end saying it wasn't immediate (i think i did....) i certainly didn't expect immediate...he is so slow at getting back to email i expect a minimum of a week and possibly just a reply saying " i'm still thinking" or "i've thought but have no time to write at the moment" at that point. I said there was no big rush on any of what i wrote and it would keep. I think he appreciated me saying that when he walked up before the ritual (no need to worry and no big fuss or conversation better held with less folk around, and no big worry on either side)...although i still had nerves (but i was also there for worship) and it moved there quickly although not altogether competely for the whole ritual. And as i said later he did admit he could see why writing was a good start---and i pointed out i'd spent a lot of time thinking but his letter that he missed me at an event i would usually attend but was unable to go to was what got me writing. But i've had about 8 weeks to think (although the first 4 couldn't go beyond general upset and outside problems cause by the accident with the generic antidepressant and other matters)......so he can have some time too....in fact it sounds a lot more positive than i thought it could be so soon, just from chatter on the way home in the car. I didn't think it would likely be an unsolvable mess....but it seems the situation is likely far better than i thought. Time can be a good thing i guess, possibly on both sides (likely more needed on my side).
DK has found a new job that is in his field which is terrific. He's been looking since i met him (and before that). He's well skilled but there are not a lot of jobs available in his field at the moment.The new job is right up his alley and uses his abilities well he says...sounds very happy about it. I'm glad to hear it too for him. Being unemployed or employed temporarily in fields not your own is not the best thing...and that had been his situation for a while. His finances have of course been hit, but in another few months he said it would have been a lot worse (he was living partly off a golden handshake for a while).
I had talked with MM before the ritual about trying to find what my pagan path was...i know its not likely the one MM is involved in but he's a wonderful person and i thought i might as if he could give guidance until i find a teacher or help me find good information. So i went back to his house to borrow a book he thought would be good, and i could borrow it if i found it interesting (i think Wicca is the right area...but there are lots of sub groups there and i just don't have a lot of basic knowledge..i'd prefer to learn in classes but i still want to learn more quickly.) I respect MM's tradition and his rituals are often quite good (he still writes the majority of the rituals for his group with a few other people). But it isn't quite the right area for me. Although today's ritual was very good spiritually (i get this kind of feeling when its working spiritually/religiously ....hasn't happened before at his groups rituals much...it happened a lot today.....and yes i did get this kind of thing in conventional religion, the thing was it was maybe once or twice a year maximum and never for so the same length as in the Pagan community...one of the reasons i feel i have found the right place. And no it doesn't appear at every single ritual i go to either, nor would i expect it to).
Well it turns out the book is not encyclopedic (which i thought it might be) much shorter, but much more engaging looking. And at first i thought it was a young women's guide to living the Magikal life because of how feminine the book looks. So its different than i thought but it will be a much easier read. More importantly its cheap a far as those thing go (trade paperback 17.95 CAN when bought likely somewhat more now) meaning if i like it i can easily order in a copy for myself (i haven't had a lot of luck with previous books i've bought so i've been leery.....not bad books but they didn't suit me well and i don't have the $ to make to many mistakes).
If this one doesn't list other books that interest me MM likely has other material---or knows someone who does. Also his house is just packed with books
Packed with books of many types Period
Its on a scale larger than me (although a lot of my books are in storage--he still has more than if mine weren't...although when i am his age i might have as many as he has at his age now.)
He's in a different tradition than i think i'll be but he's interested enough in the basics of all sorts of religions that i can likely get good information from him and good book titles (as opposed to just pulling them out at random). I could likely get good info on most world religions and he certainly has an interest in all kinds of pagan traditions (which he admits to).I'm looking forward to more learning even if it does end up being mostly by book (i would prefer in person lessons in groups but it can take time...its not like there is a Sunday school that is convinient where all the pagan stuff is taught---there are many paths, and we don't have a lot of people overall so organizing stuff is harder).
And i always end up having great conversations with him when we are at the same events. Hiis wife is very interesting to talk to on her own (he was out doing errands part of the time i was there and i talked with her alone on topics we have in common that i knew about from visiting once before at his house after a ritual)...he always invites folks back...i took him up on it once, and this time i knew i'd be droping in at least to see if i wanted to borrow the book. The topic changed immediately when DK came in though (not the type of thing she'd share with him in all likelyhood she barely knows him...we both have ADD although we cope differently and we were off on an tangent on the topic). She likely doesn't even know that DK knows i have ADD....its like that when you have a disability...you are careful of who you talk with and when until you are sure its OK in all ways how much to say, instead of just continue the conversation (also would have been boring for DK is the other thing). Its been a long time since i've used the skill of change the topic immediatly but appear to be on the same level of conversation as before. Believe me its a skill and one you need to learn for privacy (or talk about stuff you don't want others to hear while they are there) or to make it seem quite ackward when someone else comes in. She was better than me at it partly just because i'm out of shape in that area...but i don't think DK would get any idea other than the topic might have changed a bit because he was there or even just because someone came in and broke the train of thought for a moment. And that is all it really is...a change of topic. Unfortunately if you aren't used to it, it can be ackward and hard to find a new topic ,and you will get a dead silence that occurs when someone who doesn't have the disability you are talking about and whom you don't want to have in the conversation walks in if you don't work at it.
The new year is beginning (the Pagan New Year is on the night of the 31st of October or Samhein). To everyone have a good year....and to other pagans, hello fellow traveller...blessed be.
Am i still here...yah...i'm still fidling (with colour this time). One of the problems of ADHD that is seldome discussed is overfocussing...my brother is doing his PHD and is borderline ADHD and he thinks its great he can study for 10 hours straight (or something like that).
Overfocus isn't helped as much by the dexedrine and it can be made slightly worse, albeit you can get a bit more control over it when you are aware of it which is more likely on the drug. In fact my preffered dose (dr prescribed and she's seen me on it) is somewhat higher in effect that what i read should be the effect on some newsgroups and webpages...i don't seem to have found a dose that is perfect...its slightly overfocussed or still having troubles with distractions. I might not have found the dose because this one is the one that "feels" natural to me. Some folks on the groups are overobssessed with the effect has to be exactly in this window and do exactly this. My dose i a fair bit lower than it could be given my weight (its related) or just what i read generally (in the middle-middle high depending on how much you factor in weight. I usually just ignore those who try and tell me what is good for me (but who don't know me). Some people i really respected made some comments to others on a group about which way it had to be....before fully answering back i explained the differences in my experience and the dutch women's....her answer was that there is no one right thing that suits everyone and it seemed that i was satisfied with the dose i was one (and asked if it was a problem...did i want to take less when i took it?). I said i was quite happy with the dose it was just that this women's certainty that the type of experience i had with the drug was too much had worried me and also i had wanted to write something back about the variatoin being OK if it was....so i went back to post saying the effect could be somewhat different than what the women was describing, how it was for me when i got the right dose, but of course to check with your doctor....i wanted to let him know there was a wider range of OK, although he hadn't even had enough time to figure out what was OK for him....he was just new on meds and was talking about the experience (very common to adult adhd groups).
I've now been doing this for 5 hours...i need to go....somebody drag me off please
(computer are known as one of the worst overfocus producers...i was on it a good 3 before i took any meds)
ok...so you are likely going what the hell is a dexedrine day? I take dexedrine for concentration and staying on task becaus e my ADHD makes this very difficult. While it would be quite normal to take it every day i often don't (i did when i was in university for long periods). What it means is that its a day when i'm feeling good, could use the focussing and concentration help and feel like i can get stuff done.
Now that isn't the only day i'll use dexedrine. I call that type of day my "Dexedrine day" because its when it works the best, and when i'm getting a lot (or likely to) stuff done...for example i've already spent 3 hours working on this page to get the links up on the side and stuff....no Dexedrine. Generally its a good day overall to start off with or it wouldn't get listed as a Dexedrine day, even if i'm a touch on the sleepy side today---caffeine would be sufficient for that and i still drink it...i can sleep on a good dose of Dexedrine if i'm tired or real bored...but at low doses it doesn't work the same for folks with ADHD as others...also the effect of swallowing the pills is very different (from what i hear, no experienced) that snorting or shooting it up....which is where a lot of the big problems came from.
So it'll likely be a nice productive day....good after yesterday.
here is a little more info on the software i linked to. Again i use most of this (all of it except that i don't use all of Mozilla's products, everyone decides what works best for there system...generally these are programs for Windows and will run on ME...i pass it on in good faith...i'm not however an expert at evaluating software or the problems it can cause. At the moment the links for the programs are on the left hand pane...i haven't moved them over here yet
Note: I'm still working on the colour...at some point the links should become easier than other text to see not harder , hopefully soon
*(the only one at the moment with a star)
Free Download Manager
This program is very popular (you can look around their site for their ratings. I absolutely love it and i've been looking for a good freeward downloader for several years. It can be set up to be complex and advanced and easy, and the parts to learn don't all need to be known at once (ie i learned how to split downloads and still had no idea how to turn the timer on so it would download when i was asleep...i keep on meaning to do it and forget!). I did come across some complaints about it being somewhat difficult to remove. To be honest a lot of programs are its a good idea to clean your registry now and then with a progrm (i usually download a trial ware one fix it up and then go for months). They did have a solution although i'm not quite sure Iknow how to run it. But this is a really amazing progrm for downloading---its the best i've used and its free.
(read above star about how some programs can be difficult to remove...AFAIK the others aren't a problem but its a good caution...i don't pay that much attention to how easy it is to remove something...as i said i'm not an expert in any way)
Mozilla
(note not compatible with beta engine to edit on Tblogs but has a very good suite and other useful programs that are often still in trials but useful---although those are more at your own risk...they explain)
Enigma Browser
Runs on top of Explorer but is faster....very configurable settings so you see what you want to see plus skins.
Ad Aware*
directions and be careful in removing spyware...it can sometimes cause problems, but keeping it can cause problems too...i have found this relatively easy to use.Download this from Lavasoft. There are a number of spyware companies that are apparently using very similar titles in hopes of getting folks to download the program. It works well for me.
Spyware Blaster
helps to keep spyware off your machine...but using Ad Aware at the same time is important as it doesn't catch all things and depending on your system can ignore spyware cookies
Zone Alarm
This is a firewall for those of us out there that don't understand firewalls but want to protect our computers...i tried a zillion different "easy" firewalls that drove me nuts because you had to OK everything your computer did. This one works on the basis that whatever your computer is doing off the net is usually fine and only deals with internet stuff. Fairly easy to learn, although it takes a bit of time. Free. They sell a pro version but if you want something fancier i would suggest just getting another fancy freeware firewall and figuring out how to work it. I have an old system and there is very little here to steal but the program says its blocked over 13000 tries to get in since i put it on in late Aug. Most of which would have done nothing but then i keep a relatively empty system AND i'm on ME. It did make me aware that realplayer was trying to connect to its host all the time--i knew it did it sometimes but this is every time you boot up---it only connects now if i really need to use it and override the rules i've set. IF you need help with this one let me know....its worth running though in my opinion.
Clean Ram
Optomizes your RAM usage if you don't have all that much. Easy to set up, comes with good instructions on how to set it up for your needs and it does result in a cleaner flow of stuff, as if you had more ram. Big favourite of mine. From what i understand it does this by keeping track of areas where RAM is not being used but is usually kept there (such as a printer or something). I'm not into technical...but it works. I wouldn't suggest bothering unless you are in the 90% or RAM or more being used...i'm at 99% at times...when it goes over 100 it goes into virutal memory which slows your computer down a lot (and 99% is just fine...this program helps it stay below 100 for me)
This is a public service announcement for those i write to now and then and who read this blog*Over time you have likely noticed that Marcie is a Canadian Nationalist of the type that isn't very comfortable with the American electoral system or with laisez fair economics that is often big on the Republican slate of ideas (AK Thatcheromics, Reagonomic, Vodoo Economics and whatever they call what G. W. Bush is doing at the moment).
Although she is still trying to encourage you all to vote for Kerry. Marcie wishes to state that while she thinks the American political system sucks (and she understands Electoral College and why Colarado may be real important this time around) Marcie doesn't dislike Americans on principle although as stated she doesn't think you have the best electoral system or politicians...on either side for that matter...but then she thinks there are much better systems than in Canada too, although she believes we are a bit ahead of you and far behind Europe. In fact if you had a different system she might suggest you vote for a third party candidate, and if you feel strongly like doing so she encourages you to vote your mind, she encourages everyone to vote, even Bush supporters,...however unfortunately you only really have a two party system which makes third party candidates hard...she wants to point out though that in 1988 they were calling Canada's Parliament a two and a half party system or two party modified (ie smaller third party) but that now we have a multiparty system with 4 parties currently, but it was still five 5 parties a year or so ago so there is hope (and a minority government at the moment).
She spent a lot of time camping in the US as a kid and the folks were real nice. Although she found it quite amusing when she could convince folks, in DC and Virginia, that when they came down from her home city on a school trip in March (when she was 17) that they transfered from the dog sleds into the buses at the US border she only played that trick because she couldn't believe some friends who said they got away with it in New York City. She must admit as a child camping in areas with a fair amount of Canadians she often wondered why Canadian 2 dollar bills got much stranger look than the rest of Canadian money when trying to use a two dollar bill (we use a coin now alas) but the folk generally were very nice. The news covereage however was lousy
*I must admit i mean what i write here....but its also tounge in cheek so don't take it too personally ok? And i had to learn electoral college because i did my degree in Poli sci...i know way wiered stuff like how they elect Germany's Parliament. But then they taught us the basics of Electoral College in Grade 12 American History...it might be worth wondering why they don't seem that interested in teaching it to Americans in the US but that would be another topic.
End of Public Service Announcement. Brief coverage of Alternate newspapers I think are worth reading coming up on the election There is acutally pretty good news coverage of the election in the UK with a different view. My favourite is The Guardian www.guardian.co.uk which has a section at the top where you can locate the US election section which actually (along with lots of other coverage) explains electoral college although i has not previewed it to make sure its perfect, it is meant to explain to Brits how it works. The Guardian is however a left wing paper. i don't often read a lot of other papers in the UK but i thinks you would still find interestingly different coverage in the Telegraph or the Sunday Telegraph...the more Conservative (right wing) newspapers (you get to look that link up if you want to read it though....i found it by googling easy enough a couple of years ago, although you might want to try adding in English or UK when looking for it). Besides i didn't give you the exact URL for the US election coverage on the paper i like cause i don't want to have to look it up...if you are interested with a bit you will find what you want.
The Guardian is to the left of the New Labour Party but then in the UK that isn't saying a hell of a lot....from what she understands they used to be in better step with the Labour Party before they became New Labour(as they are commonly refered to)Marcie
Apparently the more complicated WYSIWYG editor can not recognized basic hmtl code (and is still going back and forth on the bold...most betas i use work better than this....<sigh>). I've jsut spent two hours getting this ready...i don't have the time to redo all the bits and pieces of coding i did because i'm used to them...i used the beta engine because i'm not good at lists...i'll try and fix it tomroorow. Otherwise its readable without a bit problem from what i can see M
Well i usually prefer firefox (mozilla) and do the easy coding on my own...i knew how to do lists a while ago and there is a book in the house on them (and i know where it is) but i'm not in the mood...so you may find the editing is slightly different on this post (i'm using explorer to access this so i can use the WYSIWYG editor. And for some reason its forcing this paragraph to be large...(i might be able to fix it in plain editor)
Cost of Health
I live on a Provincial Disability amount. Which means that i don't live on very much at all. More than a state disability amount, quite a bit more than some states i understand, but Canada is different on issues like this although it is moving more towards the US model (and i protest every step of the way including the things that have no noticeable daily impact on my life).
I live in subsidized housing. It has benefits and drawbacks. The drawbacks is that forcing a group who are all low income to live in one building has been shown to lead to more problems than when they are mixed with the general population (one of the local progressive housing corporations that is non-profit allots every 4th apt. as low income and subsidizes it or gets help from the government to subsidize it----thus no "ghetto" type effect...although i'm loath to use that word to describe where i live). It does mean you get more problems at times. The rent is low, but you don't recieve the difference back...you are given less money for rent from Disability or Welfare...if you are working your rent is based more on income, quite closely just about 30%. The economic benefit to me is that
1. My insurance is paid by ODSP if my rent is less than the minimum and
2. The difference in either what i would have to pay above the maximum allowable rent to get a decent apartment (which would come out of daily food and other stuff) or a much smaller place.
And those are advantages...its just that there are a lot of folk out there who think i get the difference in the maximum allowable rent and that my cheque is thus much larger or i'm hiding part of it.
These apartments have been assessed about about $550, although its been a while an they have likely apreciated. The maximum rental amount is $410...plus my $18 in insurance that i get so yes i get utility out of it....but not more money....or as much over the market rate as folks think (they are very small). Part of the reason they are smaller here is because this is officially Supportive Housing although at many times i've found it less than supportive. What it means is that there are housing workers downstairs that will try and connect you up with the right folk if you need something or listen, or maybe help you clean up your spot if you need help...heck one went with me the both times i went to see a bankruptcy office to get an idea of what i needed to do (i was looking into a plan where you pay off a percentage but its geared to higher income and higher debt).
Unfortunately my experience has been that in many ways they are not supportive and in fact can totally drive me up the wall. I did security here (volunteer with a very small honorarium---you did not do it for the money although that was nice) and that did bring me in closer contact with staff. In little over the past year i've had to deal with racist/islamaphobic, sexist and abelist comments from the staff (and executive director). When my apt. had a lot of damage after a flood when they were renovating they tried to play me for dumb and wanted my insurance policy #...ah i think not...its not for when you fuck up....and as it was i only got about half of the value of what i lost after months of effort when i made it clear it was going to tribunal and my rent was going in trust. Story is longer and more horrific and not for today.
So i'm not given all that much money. In fact once i take in all my expenses for the month i'm once again short on food money and some other stuff---not like i've spent a lot i just don't get a lot . Now here is where part of the problem comes in (title of the blog). My health costs are supposed to be covered, so i'm not supposed to be having to pay for it out of my meagre allowance. But a lot of it isn't.
Keeping in mind my diet is not the best one available because of funds (i love lots of healthy food but its expensive) i incur about this much in vitamin costs
These are all approximate and don't include the taxes...add 15% to get the tax included price...also until recently i was taking maternal vitamins even though i was not pregnant. My old pharmacist thought with my weight and the vast types of pills i take i might not be absorbing stuff right. The last blood tests looked good so i moved to the Centrum Fort (ie there is a reason for having a brand name there). It was actually quite a deal (these are all generally deals)...i saw another store of the same type selling 100 tablets for 21.99 earlier this week!
I take Vitamin C mostly in the winter (i tend not to get enough and get annoying sores around the edges of my mouth if i don't...and if that is showing its also likely to cause other problems. So i take 3 Vitamin C tablets a day. I take 3 Calcium tablets a day (without the Vitamin D if i can find them that way at a decent price in the summe). My mom has austeoperosis (where your bones break easy)...and i don't want to follow suit (she's only 58). Chances are i won't and there are likely other medical causes...but i'm still low on Calcium for a women---and she ate lots of Calcium stuff. I don't know very many women who can get the 1500mg you are supposed to get in a day! The Vitamin B complex is an experiment. Its supposed to be good with stress and depression. One a day. One multivatiman as well.
Then come the supplements my doctors want me to take:
Glucosamine (its for arthritis) 360 tablets 10.95
Omega Fatty Acids 3, 6, 9 180 tablets 23.99
Card for discount per year on Omega Fatty acids $15
Vitamin E 180 pills ~$10.00
and i've recently added Flaxseed Oil 1000mg 180 ~$15
The Glucosamine was suggested when i started to develop early arthritis. Its in my hands and with my LD causing problems with my hands and writing and the fact that i can't write an online diary (well you may laugh but its not the same...although my writing is decreasing) I need to take Celebrex. But i'm always hoping the Glucosamine (suggested by my doctor to see after a few month if it would be sufficient) would help...doesn't seem to help my hands but it helps other joints (such as my knee...which was almost as bad although not arthritis but was a knee not a hand). So i continue to take it....they also say it can stop further damage...and some say renew cartiledge...i'm not banking on repair or even totally stop damage although stop is a nice idea...the arthritis in hands runs in the family. I'm not in touch with my parents at all at the moment but i remeber fairly young (they had to be less than 35) asking why they took off their wedding bands now and then (and they had a solid if not imho good marriage and still do). I was told they did it when their fingers swelled because of arthritis...this was before my youngest brother was born, by quite a bit i think and my mother had him at 36. So its on both sides and not a totally big suprise. I take 3 Glucosamine a day.
My Shrink suggested Omega Fatty Acids...some folks have had very good results with them and bipolar 2...some of her patients have found its a terrific help...others haven't. What i found was that i think it increased my physical health (especially when i was having troubles eating earlier this year but generally too). Makes some sense when there isn't much way for me to get it otherwise....fish is expensive. So i take 3 a day. The Vitamine E i put under supplements because if you are taking Omega Fatty Acids you are supposed to take some Vitamin E otherwise they can cause damage as radicals....at one capsule a day it rates in as cheap actually (you can't take much of it as it builds up in your fat and can make you sick if you get too much...talk to a doctor if you are curious). My doctor wanted good quality Omega Fatty Acids and they aren't big yet...even looking at the cheap ones i was able to see that at the doses she wanted i could get a special vitamin store brand for less than Jamison if i bought large bottles (180) at once and bought one of their cards ($15 for the year...there are two prices on everything the difference in one bottle of Omega Fatty Acids is $6 plus the difference in tax...it does pay off).
The flaxseed oil was on the suggestion of a Pagan i know that is into alternative solutions for mental health problems...trying to prevent or use supplements to help instead of pills (in my case the goal is to reduce pills or get more stable...i'm in worse shape off meds than she is). I got very lucky today and found a bottle for about $15 pre tax with 180 tablets. Because its an Omega Fatty Acid (but one that tends to be lower in depression accoring to her and my shrink didn't think it was nonsense although she didn't really know) and i'm already taking them i only have to take one a day...or i'm likely to get too much.
So here is a monthly total on Vitamins
Vitamin C $2.34, Calcium $2.70, Daily Vitamin $0.10, Vitamin B complex )$0.08 TOTAL 5.94 /month. Add the sales taxes $6.83/month
Supplements
Glucosamine $2.50, Omega Fatty Acids $12.00, Cost of discount card per month $1.25, Vitamin E $1.66 Flaxseed Oil 2.50 Total $19.91/month. Add sales tax $22.89.
Now keep in mind i'm getting the best buys i can. Yes i'm more picky on some than others (i figure with that much Calcium and Vitamin C a day i don't need to be as picky on if they are fancy...it'll do the trick kinda like a Mack truck). But its a reasonable idea. And getting the costs down that low are hard if you are low income because you need to be able to buy ahead month in advance....200 Calcium are often 7.99 or more (store name). If you can get together 14.99 you can get 500, which is much cheaper, but i've only been able to start doing this lately because of the overhead. Other stuff is a steal. You don't find Glucosamine that cheap anywhere and its an excellent brand (as good as Jameson according to my pharmacist---who i don't actually buy off of generally because of cost so he was likely telling the truth when i said i had about a year's worth at home and i was wondering how good they were because my previous pharmacist was non-committal). My pharmacy lately has been selling it for $16 for 360 tablets...i stocked up over two sales when it was on "half price" from $20 at a local discount store. I got my vitamin E the same way, and my flaxseed oil (all from the same company although the Vitamine E is packaged similar but somewhat different because its not Natural and Natural is part of their name). Apparently they make most of the house brands too... They seem to have an interesting idea on how to sell...sell in large amounts at X price per bottle in this type of store, medium amounts of at same X price per bottle at fancier stores and small amounts at price X at expensive shops (although some like my current pharmacy are figuring it out...i pointed out early on how much cheaper per pill i was getting the exact same manufacturer's pill in a larger bottle and they now order it in! They seem to think between $15-20 per bottle is the right amount to charge (generally---others are different prices but the idea holds) and how much in the bottle gets bigger at the cheaper stores...and the stuff has the same best before date on it. So when there is a sale at the discount stores (a likely lost looser but i keep my eye out about when they happen and i go there anyway---someone told me to look for Glucosamine there and that the did Vitamins every now and then) it gets down to $10-15 a bottle, and its big bottles.
So what is my point in all of this (if you have made it here). The point is that just with Vitamins and Supplements my doctors think i should be taking for medical reasons or to help given the fact i don't have the best income for diet....i'm already putting out about $30/month on vitamin and supplement costs---money there is no need to say i don't have,and they don't mention when they say we are covered.
Maybe the list seems quacky to you but each thing on it has a good reason, is generally the best price you will find (or close) and more than half were specifically suggested by a doctor and my doctors think all of them make some sense and might well help, and the flaxseed oil is actually a slightly different move on what my doctor already suggested and she thinks it has as good a chance as the original of possibly working...well maybe a touch lower since the other didn't help with mental health, but word is you need to push that particular one, more than all three for depression. And actually i've finally run the costs down in getting some of the big bottles...it was costing me more than that a few months ago, although i was still getting a good deal on the pills per size of bottle...i mean i bought glucosamine almost a year ahead of when i'd need it to save the extra money---2 bottles at one sale at half price good for 8 months and again at the next sale.
Then you need to add in the cost of my counsellor. She's a student doing work at a clinic that seemed good to my specific needs after i realized i wasn't going to find what i wanted in the medical community...and i looked. She's new and still learning but she's had experience in life (not her first career). I specifically said i wanted Feminist Counselling, which means more than a feminist counsellor (my shrink is a feminist). She doesn't have any experience in feminist counselling but was interested and is a feminist. I visited with her for a while and i like her---and a good match is as important as anything else...so we are seeing how it will go (i only started in mid August.). Now their clinic is very pricey (over $80 and hour). The students get the folks like me who have called in, been told they don't take pro bono generally, just when their clients loose jobs or such, and still leave a message saying they would like to be contacted regarding some type of pro bono counselling. Carol and me negotiated $5 per session----$20 is really the least amount a month you can expect, although she's made it pretty clear if we are going somewhere and its twice a week it won't likely go up. But she got hell from the director...they think the minimum should be $20 per session for the poor like me! Carol knows that $20/month is already a lot of money for me and is loosing the idea that money helps treatment fast likely partly as a result of me (she knows its a drag on my finances and see's i pay for many other things for my health and take my shrink just as seriously and in Canada my shrink is free for me and paid by medicare, which is something every citizen and most permanent residents have). Its just one school of psychology that goes that way and believes that...but i've talked at least two people out of it quite successfully (if you count her) in pointing out that i pay other costs, i volunteer and i know my shrink isn't free and that i've often tried to access services which were different but not covered.
I think it may work well with her....we are just getting beyond the edges of getting to know one another, and for a month we went over poetry i'd written and associations from it and whatnot as well as one poem i liked by Anne Sexton called the double image. Her daughter is a poet so i got a much more interesting conversation than usual, and its a way to talk about yourself and just share without it being too threatening. I also take longer to go through the "get to know" stage with just about everyone...my shrink is pretty sure its because of how often i got screwed by folks supposed to be doing the same job when i was a kid. Two and a half months isn't all that bad for me actually, and its not like we haven't discussed anything....or like i won't necessarily pull out a new poem some week either.
What makes a big difference is she takes me seriously. I lent her a book i had from university on how to approach eating disorders from a feminist counselling view (as well as how to look at eating disorders from a feminist view). She borrowed it and promptly went through it! Then she found a book that was more 2nd wave feminism but much more specific on feminist counselling (showed it to me to think what i thought which was i didn't know the authors, but it looked like it has some interesting topics although some stuff had changed since the mid 80's). When i lent her my Sexton book so she could photocopy the poem (i thought she might "see" it differently reading it...although she said she didn't---but i think she liked it too) i teased her that i needed it back and she still had my other book. Well apparently she's started cross referencing the two books on feminist counselling she now has...mine and the older but more particular one.
Last week i also brought in a "primer" on Feminist theory---first year book, there are at least 3 i want her to read. I wasn't sure how it would go over---we hadn't specifically talked of it, but she's not taking women studies and she is going to need the theory from somewhere to get the ideas better. My books are dated but i know them and most are classics. Not perturbed at all and was glad to have it and thanked me...i mentioned there were two others minimum that i thought were a good intro (likely in storage, not in the house) and she's interested in them too when she gets through this one.
All of this shows that even if they aren't teaching Feminist Counselling at her university she's damn interested. And she's willing to recognize i'm smart and generally well educated and might have an interest in some of what she is learning...she was talking of post-modern theory on counselling the other day and i said, wasn't it post-structuralist and the stuff by Derrida...well no apparently there was a new school that was developing in the 1990's not the stuff from the 1950 (although updated) that was wierd to me (although i liked many other aspects of post-modern and post structuralist theory)....i may drag it in for her when i do go through my storage! Anway so we talked of it and how it could be useful and i pointed out the only problem with all of the theory there is its good for deconstructing and looking at things but if you take it too far everything is a unit of one person and you can't go anywhere (ie there aren't women's rights just individual women who have individual rights who can't work together on it because of how individual their experience is-----you can replace women with just about any group you want and it will work). And yes she could see that but this part was intersting....
....this is the type of thing i need with a counsellor. Not for the whole session but here and there. She's got respect for me and i appreciate that. I've got respect for her...she's kinda jumping in where she doesn't have to and where it could be harder, but she wants to learn and she'll take suggestion in specific areas from me if i know areas or some ideas. What is Feminist Counselling is not that big a mystery...its getting people to actually do it that is difficult (it includes stuff like really interacting with the person you are counselling, being aware of how sexism impacts on people, racism, anti-semitism etc...its kinda coming from a certain framework...but the hardest part is "getting" the framework, not picking up the actual knowledge IMHO. That doesn't mean i'd make a great counsellor, although i did use to sit in quite a bit for friends and i often knew where to send them, but i would know a lot of "how" Feminist Counselling was done just from being a feminist and an academic one (not neccessarily needed), active in the feminist movement and just my values.
As to "why a feminist counsellor?". Because i did some short term counselling on a sexual assault and i found it worked way better for me than anything else i'd tried. Likely because it fits into my values (mostly--i certainly am not a match for every feminist cousellor out there and i've run into problems with discrimination based on disability---no one group is perfect no matter what it wants to be...i know racist Jews for that matter too... anyway i went through a trial with 2 more long term counsellors before Carol who were actually trained in the area--mind you finding someone on the third shot isn't bad...although its not exactly third shot because i've got better instincts from over the years. (hope that p makes sense will clarify if needed).
So i couldn't find a shrink in the area i looked elsewhere. At the place i'm at i left a long detailed case history hoping it would catch someone's eye, since officially they didn't take Pro Bono from what they'd said...but the secretary had been simpathetic. A few weeks ago i asked Carol "did i just come up on the list or did you pick me (ie my case history)"(part of Feminist counselling is you can talk about these types of things...its interactive not just uhmmms)." She said she was given a list of low income folks like me and she officially was supposed to go from the top, but no she decided what i was looking for and my history looked more interesting. Now either way it would be fine...but i guess i was curious about her interest in feminist counselling and if it had been mostly of her own volition (as it was) or if she was somewhat more pushed there. Also i wanted to see if my tactic of leaving a very long (but completely honest) history had helped. It wast he first time i really did that. And apparently it did....so when i need a new counsellor i can try it again (or if i need...i certainly wouldn't think of moving at the moment but she may only be available for a couple years while she is in school.....and over time people grow in different ways and may not seem compatible...and i'm still trying to fix up my life from all the shit i lived through when i was younger (not much of which is in here if memory serves....but there is a lot.)
So it seemed to work which is good to know (with patience i was on the list at least 6-9 months)
So i also pay a counsellor another $21.66 an average a month....because shrinks in the tradition i need are very few and impossible to get appointments with....
Not likely on the next topic but sometime soon (or late) i will pick up the topic of other basic costs that i need to cover that aren't covered by the government or i'm having to appeal over all the time....and why even on disability as opposed to welfare its very hard to make ends meet in the real world (aside from the fact that its a ridiculously small amount in the first place). It ranges to a appeal i'm about to start on transportation costs (based on the language of the law vs. a new stricter interpretation of what medical needs are) to drugs that aren't covered and what do you do if you need one of them and other stuff
Just finished dyeing my hair...i don't tend to dye it when its long but its been short since late December and i'm surprised i haven't done it before now...i already had the dye from previous interest.
The other thing is that is the Pagan new year tomorrow (well most Pagans of European kind of tradition...and its been adoped some other places) and i thought it would be nice to do something to bring in the year.
The thing that is frustrating with dyeing my hair is its very very dark browh...as brown as you generally get in a caucasian...which makes it very very hard to dye, especially on your own (i don't have the money to get it dyed elsewhere....once in university i got it highlighted professionally on a sale). So it will look more like highlights and show in the sun...also i figured i'd put a bit more one the larger part of the part than the other (i part on the side) and you can see it a touch there more....people these days just like to have fun dyeing their hair...i have a aquaintance that works for the government whose gone through a whole slew of colours and combonations.
The company that made the dye i used today is selling a new one they say will stay (an implying it will work better). I've spent (and somewhat overspent) spare funds so i figured i'd try what i had in the house already. One thing was nice....it actually did work more like a cream or gel and didn't drip all over me or give me trouble keeping out of my eyes while it waited (about 45 minutes...i always run it a bit longer than needed because it can help with the dark hair).
Eventually if i want to really get it lighter (say dark auburn) i'll likely have to peroxide the hair first...but there are some highlighting kits that look like they could have an interesting effect and that i'm pretty sure those with dark hair are getting some success with ( i see it too often for it to be proffesional). Just a day in a life of being a woman, now and then.
Head is a lot clearer although book might have to wait until tomorrow. Dry mouth is the main side effect left (annoying but in the short term dealable with)
Well i'm awake at this point and although i may go to bed early i will likely stay awake for the rest of the day i think.
I'm going to come up with a few different initials for folks....just in case (i don't really expect folks would find this unless they knew of it...Marcie is a common blog name). More for others privacy...i think i'll do couplets of letters after states or countries....
I'm going to look at my budget...i was thinking of dying my hair recently and today's definetly that kind of day (i'm not likely to be able to read anything serious like my new book sitting there)
Well i did finally get to sleep and i'm likely to crawl back in soon but i wanted to move a bit.
The meds i took yesterday did get me to sleep ( a good sign its likely just taking all of one dose together rather than split which caused the problem) but my head feels like its full of cotton bating today,and it won't likely be back to normal until after that. I'll be able to start doing most stuff tomorrow, not a lot today. One of the reasons i seldom take that drug (these are normal side effects).
Friday 3AM...hypomanic or on the verge/glasses ordered
Because of the problems once i started the generic of the Remeron(see earlier stuff) i've been adding a little bit of Luvox to the mix i take (i mean a little). I was splitting it because about 1 pill a day seemed right after i got used to it....and once it was clearly in my system all day my doc said i could likely just take it at night (it makes you sleepy).
Well doesn't look like it.....i've got all the signs of a minor or impending hypomania...my doc says i'm the best in her practice at catching it....although i'm not sure if i'd call it exactly that.
What it does mean is that i can't sleep, i'm jumpy, i feel like spending money on stuff i can't do this month, anxious and tired but not sleepy enough to sleep. More worried about email i'm expecting from DK at some point (he is very slow at answering there is absolutely no point in worrying at this point....not for a few weeks anyway! And i feel a bit more talkitive (although not more writitive---earlier post was before all of this)
If you are looking at this and going what does all this have to do with being overly happy...its part of the game...its not all just happiness...and you can get mixed states where you are depressed and manic (or hypomanic in my case). I have a big tendency to go mixed states eventually, which is a good reason to keep better track of it than others perhaps....also i'm just aware of my body more than others (one shrink pointed out i likely annyed not a few doctors coming in for treatment for something i knew i had [example bronchitis] where they could hear nothing...send me home and a week later they would give me anti-biotics because guess what i had bronchitis. Now this doesn't mean i can tell everything but if i've had it before i often can. My GP doesn't bother running urine samples on me anymore when i say i have an urinary track infection (i'm somewhat predisposed...mainly means i can't use bubble bath which is a pain but not the end of the world). After me getting it right (where she would test) quite a few times she decided i was as accurate as the test was going to be...now she'll call in the rx without necessarily seeing me (i want to see a doc if its something new and i don't know how to handle it but when its obvious why bother?)
I did get my glasses today...now i'll worry a bit about them until they come in...the bridge needs a little movement. Its plastic and they say it won't move, but i made sure she said plastic. It would likely be OK and i could get used to it regardless....but if you know how a good blow dryer can soften it up a bit to make it fit better (not recommended unless you've seen them do it a lot and know how to....you could fuck your frame---i've done it once or twice, gently). The frames are solid black (which is a type of cultural sign in Canada if connected with other stuff---which i often am. Its been a while since i've been able to find a plastic frame. In the end they gave me the coatings i wanted ($35) and asked another $10 for the "free frame". Since that is better than i usually do with an old frame i took it (they had a good sale on the coatings---half price---i could get them cheaper at their normal price but the half price was very good deal. I"m looking forward to seeing them although they are getting strong and i'm going to need a medium index soon. If i had insurance i would have gotten the ineex but its expensive....next time i may try and retalk my eye doctor into medium index....he knows i'm getting close and it can be covered if they are causing a problem...OTOH when i filled the one's i had now they were worried and its fine...its hard to tell how much is sale and how much is truth or where the two blend.
So i've taken an old anti-psychotic i've got in the house for Big crisis days or hypomania...it might help me get to sleep but i'm not going to count on it...i guess i'll see in about 45 minutes to an hour. By old i mean its an older type of drug with more side effects but one can be good sometimes---it can make you very sleepy...i don't need it for psychosis, but it has occaisional other uses (i think Aug was the last time i touched it)
Early Friday evening/Samhein plans/life/ld stuff/blog readership
Its no longer early...i had to spend quite a bit of time making sure names were down to initials after i typed some in (i find it hard to see...see LD's). I noticed a few brackets don't match but it makes sense generally...i really need to get off this one for now and do something else. It won't get any better today and i'm not likely to change it any time soon...i'm too tired to find the errors now
Its early Friday evening. I got my copy of Plan of Attack earlier today although i didn't really start into it until 5 (about 15 pages before then)...after the first 15 i called PA who i dated a long long time ago but with home i'm still friends, although we need to stay out of each others hair to a certain extent....i was right he could appreciate my enjoyment and disbelief with some of the stuff (well not quite disbelief...i believe it which is what is scarier).
I'm having an easier time reading it than Viel which was the first book i read by Woodward. But then that was about the Reagan administration and i'm young enough that i don't even remember when it he became President (i have vague memories of a change of President...and i certainly knew him and that i didn't support him by the next election, but i was 7 when he was elected so i feel i can be forgiven for not remembering much. I have some memories of the 1984 elections (not supporting Reagan and I was watching stuff by the time Bush the first was elected.....although i only started reading much of the news around Bush, and the Free Trade Agreement at the time. Oh and i also kept a close eye on the contra affair and how the US kept on trying to overthrow Latin American countries. i can reference that if it interests anyone...from what i understand the newspapers can be quite limited in the US...i know during the recent war i often pointed to good British articles and translated some French for a usenet group i was on that was collecting info...which had nothing to do with the group but it was 10 people about from several groups. I remember one guy came across a CP article (Canadian Press) Canadian but kinda like AP but less right wing and was surprised by how different it was (meanwhile i was reading foreign to get my news and i'm Canadian.
I actually travelled a lot in the US and i was reading newspaper regularly by grade 3 i'd say (took me until grade 2 learn to read much English or much French (i was in French immersion) so it would be a bit after that (by great three i made it up to Nancy Drew and could read the newspaper and my parents didn't require it but encouraged the interest...and i read the news when we travelled (we spent one whole summer in Vermont). We did get some national papers, but now i know why my parents were always trying to find a copy of the Toronto Star or perhaps the Globe and Mail. You can often get better political coverage (imho) than from US newspapers...and i do drop by the Washington Post now and then......they had transcripts and good articles on the debates!
In terms of learning to read late....that was a LD that wasn't much found because the proccess of learning to read was slowed down some by French immersion, and its likely actually worked to my advantage...except the most likely LD that i had (dyslexia) was never diagnosed because i could read! In fact i fit it pretty well (with other Ld's to match) and i remember how i finally figured out how to tell those nasty g's from q's and b's from d's (etc). I learned how to read in phonics and i just spoke it out until i eventually got it right and eventually (after a long while for me...i was frustrated i wanted to learn to read at 3 and definetly at 4 certainly by 5) figured out that in one direction they made sense....and also got a visual vocab...what i would do with how they teach reading these days would likely be FAIL until someone taught me phonics.
Its funny from what i know (and my parents are always hiding stuff) neither of my parents had problems reading. But they had a book to check reading readiness and i never made it far up the list. They were very clear that reading was good and they read to me everyday, so i didn't miss a hell of a lot. But they were also clear that everyone got ready to read at different points and that they didn't want me to try real hard and not do well and i didn't seem ready yet.
Both me and my brother can easily be called dyslexic although the term was out by then and we both had other LD's. But i wonder....was it somewhere in the family? My dad did teach at a school for slow learners (i think he got the book on loan from there) but it was a high school.But then at another time he taught the university entrance course too. And heck they did a WISC-R (similar to an IQ test but broader) on me when i was 6 and some parts were done when i was 5...so they knew i wasn't stupid (in fact the main reason it was done when i was six was because my parents were told i was just average and that was why i was getting average marks. The tests showed enough to say i wasn't average per say although they don't get too accurate until a few years later because of how everyone learns different (so each time i was tested on which i had the results i officiallly got smarter)...i dont' have the full results on the one i did at 18 because someone getting her PHd did the testingh and it was interpreted by a Phd which makes it unofficial.....but i know i suprised the hell out of the tester. The university forced me to retests despite a 13 year old test and a 15 year old neurological test which showed a real neurological basis for some of the problems...too old they said...what they don't expect is for someone being tested for LD at 18 on the ADULT version of the test to get one word wrong on the Vocabulary. But actually LD students often show big strenghts, and weaknesses, in fact that is one definition people use for it (a certain spread of scores on a test taht looks at different areas) She also gave me the results on reading...comprehension in the 98th percentil (ie best 2% of those tested) and at a speed of the 88th percentile (ie best 12 percent)...but LD folks often test taht way..i did real lousy in some sections...they also did a short term memory test that was seperate from the WAIS where i got wonderful scores in the 30th percentile and such (70 percent of the population could do it better than i could) Anyway ..very quickly i felt i was being studied for more than LD's) So i learned to read somehow...but my dad still maintains (and is likely right) that i learned some other way from the average, that was faster in the end and more efficient...but i did it really starting in grade 2 (i could read a very small touch of French before that). Mind you that is grade 1 for the non-french immersion...you fall a year behind in both english and french because you spend the first year (kindergarten) just learning vocab, but the studies show almost everyone in Early French immersion catches up to average on both by grade 8---although my formal English grammar always suffered---i could write fine just not remember yet another set of rules of grammar! Even when i did learn them in Grade 8 i failed them in Grade 9 (small part of the course). It was suggested i take the English course on Grammar and i demurely declined (it wasn't needed for my diploma).
I add in here that i think all of these tests are culturally biased and their main strength is in idenfying LD's. In fact the original Binet was written to help identify LD's and maybe how to deal with them...when it came to the US and became the Standford-Binet (Binet i think,Standford after the university i think..can't remember if there is a "d" memory fails me) it got very politicized. For example they would send immigrants they didn't much in the US (depending on current times) want back for failing the test during several time periods,(deliberatley not taking into account the people didn't speak a word of English---and the test was given in English so they would get classified as Morons.
In grade 11 they gave us the equivalent knowledge test for if we'd grown up in a black ghetto...and believe me the whole class scored moron level. I already believed the tests were culture based (i've had strong opinon early) but that showed it....also i get a crudy score on some of the subtests where i do ok but not great on the topic...hard topic for me but i might like it. but some of the comments based on my WISCR test scores (which are broader in general) were strange
...i had some done on me as a follow up to a study i was in when i was fivewhen i was 18 (university started at 19 for most at the time but i was in pre university courses) and the women said i wasn't to be frustrated if i only got to grade 11 math or was in the general stream (non-academic). OK i did almost fail grade 11 math but i'd just gotten an 80 in grade 12 math and was doing Calculus....not wonderfuly but not real bad (scores weren't so great because i usually understood things when the next thing was taught...and the teacher thought i did no work for some reason even though it was the course i put the most time in that semester
....anyway i pointed this out to her and she said i had outperformed my ability...and what the hell does that mean? I've got first year university Calculus and a Stats course i needed for my degree....although i needed the formula in the stats course for the exam (not with an explanation on how to use...just the formula)...but that was because i reverse stuff easily when i don't know where its derived from[read dyselxia, i also reverse numbers unless there is a specific meaning like 3.14 for pie..it doesn't take much to figure out why i can't remember them...they can't be sounded out [ie they have no meaning inherantly] I generally didn't have a problem iin calculus we did all the deriviations and i knew where it came from so it wasn't random anymore.I got the formulas for several reasons 1. the prof to go through the derivations with me so i could understand (he couldn't he didn't have enough Calculus...thats where they get stats formula's,) and 2. i'd gone to the math department to try and get help as he suggested...they weren't intersted and 3. i did all of this very early in the term and also bought a book so it wasn't as if i hadn't tried to get it explained to me in a way that i could remember, even if it would mean a lot more work...and the easy stuff that i could tell how you got there i could understand and remember (standard deviation, mean etc.). I could see the calculus in some of the rest but not enough to get it....but i could see that derivatives or integration looked like it had been used now and then....anyway i got right on the curve on the exam (ie average on the exam....which brought my mark down as i was in the 70's and i got 63 on the exam...so if i didn't get the formula having it didn't help.)
Yes i have some problems in math...i tried to get the pre university algebra twice and i couldn't do it.....just didn't make sense...so i suppose there was a problem, and i always had a better idea how to solve a Calculus problem than doing the algebra involved....but oversucceded my ability is a crock i think...maybe somewhat better than expected but how can you exceed what ability you have. More like i found ways around some of the difficulties and was willing to get lower grades in the area if i wanted the topic...in Calculus, Alegbra and geomotry was hopeless. But heck a lot of people don't get any calculus or algebra but i bet a lot of them could get a better score on that ability test than i did!
So by 13 everyone but me was sure i was going into Political Science (i made up my mind after most of the first year of university...the first year i took but which didn't have the full number of credits for first year (0.5 short...over the years i would learn that would be the highest i would be able to do with my disabilities generally and sometimes less).
So that would mean by 1986 i had already been following stuff closesly for years...at least since 9 i would say...the main thing from Clark's government was A)some of my parents friends played in his band for the leadership or election and they didn't approve and B) he looked a hell of a lot fatter (in fact hard to recognize i needed to make sure) when he became prominent again around 1984 or so.
But what can i say about not remembering much of Reagan getting in .i was only 7 when he took office (my earliest political memory is of Joe Clark's minority governemnt which was elected in 1979...and lasted into 1980 before it fell. But i don't remeber much offrom then it except the budget issue he got voted against (and which meant a vote of confidence, which he lost and then the new election) was promptly brought in by the Liberal party a few months after they won the election....
Clark didn't turn up much for a few years...i started paying attention to stuff somewhere around 81---i remember reading the first stories about "gay cancer" the first term they used for AIDS and following the story...not that much made it out as Reagan was trying to keep it quiet although i think we got more in Canada than the US. A good book to read on how all of that unfolded is And the Band Played on: Politics, People and the AIDS epidemic by Randy Shilts...a very good book, execellent in fact. And i picked up a reissued version in 2000, so its likely still available or at least in the library (where i read it from...at the time the Pink Triangle Library but i'm sure it was in all sorts of libraries. Its copyright 1987,1988 [ i think some of the stuff they push in university never totally gets away..i'm tempted to list the publisher too...well why not its St. Martin's Press which is distributed by a large book company (i used to work in bookstore...7 years ago i could have told you which publisher at a drop of a hat....even 5 years ago with a thought...not sure now...)likely it will come to me but people likely don't care...and the distribution would be different in the US anyway.
Samhein is over the weekend. It is one of the major Pagan Sabbats (their are eight one's 4 more important than the others...this is an important one). I made plans to maybe go with a friend to a ritual tomorrow and to invite a common friend if she wanted to come as long as he made sure she didn't rope him into driving her if she came and he wasn't (she lives in the burbs...but i could easily meet her downtown and then get there....he has a very busy life and i don't want to invite her and automatically have him giving her a ride when he's decided he's likely to busy to go.)
In fact i called him earlier (this is DK) because i thought we were going to the same ritual based on AM's big enthuasiam for the group i was going to and his interest. He'd made plans to go to a rit with with a second group i knew but was interested (one was Saturday and one was Sunday some people are more purist than others... buses are easier on Saturday). Turned out the reason we were confused on dates was because we'd chosen different groups. I missed seeing DK and AM at the circle for the month this year and he did write a letter saying he had missed me at it. And they are the two main folks i hang around with in the Pagan community (although i know quite a few others after two years, i just know them better and socialize outside the community somewhat.). So i had thought it would be nice if we all went together since i thought we were all going...i'm still on the shy side...which is why i called him up (i'm still getting to know folks at this group---safety in numbers i say when shy---although the last time we went to the group together IE with DK with AM i spent most of my time talking with different folk than him or her (we all talked with different folks...the ritual ws less than hour the rest was a bit potluck after and socializing before and after the ritual).
He was busy(he leads quite a busy life) and as often happens when we get off the phone (but not much while we were dating...but before and after sometimes) i felt like i got it kinda wrong...but not real wrong or that he thought it was wrong...just wrong. Maybe its the psychic side or some precognitive thing (or unconscious side if you prefer---they are related) kicking in. Those aren't my strongest features but i have a good habit of calling people when they are thinking of calling me (i'm serious!)
Eventually i figured out what i wanted to say and said it made much better sense for me to go to both rituals and see folks that way....but if he wanted to invite AM to go with me i could take her by bus (she doesn't know that part of the system very well...i've lived all over the city and know most of the busses or close enough to get directions that will work from the info line---although they always give the most direct the route which is often slower---, and the main reason i hadn't asked her was i didn't ask was because i didn't want her then bugging him for a drive...sort of causing it from one step away, if then he feels he should drive her, after he says he's really to busy. He's also extreemly kind and giving which is why i was worried about it. He seemed to think that was a good idea...so i go and check my mail....and they got the date wrong and the group i thought was doing the rit tomorrow is doing it next Saturday(apparently they accidently posted two dates...one tomorrow) .Maybe not having come up with a good way to get AM there without making DK commit was what was bugging me....cause i'd like to see her there just as much as him, but i don't want him put out as a result and i know she hates going on the more complicated bus trips where she doesn't know the area.
I also sent a bit of a letter saying since it had been a while since i had dated either of them and had no interest in them in the future, that i did however miss them as friends and wanted to know what he thought about me spending some of the time hanging out that i used to...one of the issues was time available...and my limits are very different between friends and partners (if you call dating for a week partner...i don't quite but it was dating and me and DK lasted a bit over a month later). So a lot less time was not as big a deal in friendship.
Why send it? Well he did express he missed me and i'd been thinking about it vaguely for a while (sometimes it takes until afterward to put it together....it was on my mind). Are either of them ideal in interest matches...not really they are a better match themselves for that (not at all romantically involved though....although if it made them happy i'd be fine with it...but i don't think they are that compatible), although i'm closer to his age so in some ways we have more in common (when we got rained out at a festival i didn't put the stuff out to dry until it had definetly stopped raining....AM insisted he help put it out as soon as the rain stopped...and she got soacked when it started shortly after!
But you know they are the people i seem to click the best with that i know in the pagan community. Over time there will likely be other folk, but they will be the first group i really hung around with (their was a fourth for a while) and i've been doing so since early spring [except the last month and a half i took to myself] They are nice people and to be honest i don't have that many friends. Also DK understands me more than just anybody in the community because we did date long enough for him to learn more of me that i present to a community generally (but not all my secrets and stuff, girl always keeps something to herself for quite a while). And the three of us continued to hang out over the summer even when not dating although not all that often (all running around doing other stuff too). And i camped with the two of them this summer (three seperate tents though and while they tended to do stuff together i did my own thing....but it was nice when we were hanging around the campsite)...and when i was close to heat exhaustion (actually had it briefly but realized it) he knew i was prone to it and didn't make a big fuss when i spent a good part of the day running around for another dip in the pond, and we had to reschedule some stuff we had planned loosely together. I did have to point out that was the problem and as long as we didn't stay away from the pond for too long i could still do a lot of stuff...but considering he had little experience with heat exhaustion he took it quite well and didn't gossip on it either, although i told a few others.
Basically it meant i could still go around and socialize and such like we were planning that day but now and then i'd have to be in the pond for a bit again [and i had to make sure i drank more liquids but that isn't hard] (i'm not much shy about it...i'm glad i can usually catch it early---and i did get it fairly early---the predisposition comes from several of the drugs i need to take---when i first had to learn to deal with it that was hard).
I did tell PA about starting the blog (person i talked about the book with). He found the idea kind of amusing i think (i didn't say much specifically about it...)he said if i'm still doing it in a few months he might be more interested in part of the idea...and that i had been planning to get a website up for a while so this was an easy way to do it...i think i'll still be up to it in a few months....
From what i can tell i think there are between 15-40 readers out there (i'd guess closer to at least 20) although i could be totally wrong. I'm on the free service so it only tells me how many hits in total not who at all or if its the same folks. Its kinda neat...i wasn't sure if i'd get ANY readership....its a small number but then i'm just starting and for all i know its terrific for a week. I'm not disapointed, i wasn't sure i'd get so many folk. You know even if i could get half of the readers to understand those of us with disabilities better (i can't talk for everyone with one only provide a different framework to use in looking at folks with disabilities) and especially mental illness/psychiatric disability i think it would be worth it. Mostly we are jsut like everyone else and most of us you can't pick off as being as such (i'm not all that easily picked off although some notice the ADD or similar...in that case its just better to explain a bit usually i find) in a crowd. We are all over the place....and some are only in our midst for a short time (which is good for them) whereas others like me are kinda permanently there in that we always need to take meds and when they get bumped around (or in my case often once in a year regardless...although the current problem is a bump in medicatio) we have real lives...where do i get the time to write...well i've just moved it from other stuff....although i do have more free time than some...i also try to structure it....since i'm not doing well enough to volunteer at the moment i decided to put it in here and the Wikipedia and keep up with the usual around the house stuff (reading, internet etc).
I must admit i'm not all that interested in the bells and whistels that come with with T dollars...i'm too much of a socialist for that (PA who is a Marxist although exists in the real world finds the idea quite amusing...or at least he used to consider himself a Marxist--not sure anymore, but he's still very left, but lives in the real worl (ie we aren't having a revolution now...work and such are important as well...i hope you get the idea people get the wrong ideas..).he wasn't even a member of the communist party or any of that but the NDP and he wasn't all that involved with the Marxist bloc from what i remembered although he was aware of them (he might not have talked of it...i got their email for a while and they are nice folk),the same party i'm a member of although i believe he'd lapsed part of the time we were dating. He voted NDP often because it was more likely to get someone leftish elected. I hope it doesn't turn of US readers...i've often found it wierd...we have two communists parties in Canada and we haven't had any problems yet----except that one of the got the Supreme Court to change the rules on funding of small parties (all small parties, right wing and left wing )when the government tried to make it difficult to run, but not in the vast majority of ridings. Why two...well they had a split in the 70's. In fact one of my profs ran for the Communists a few years ago...i still voted NDP...the NDP (New Democratic Party) is a socialist democratic party....think similar to Sweden or look it up on the Wikipedia.
I'm not sure the stuff intersted for T dollars interests me...if i wanted a fancy page i could put it up on my website, and the graphics i collected don't have much in common with the graphics offered here when you get sufficient points. I guess i might eventually put up a picture...but i might not...as i've said i like my privacy. Still its an interesting feature, one i wouldn't have thought of, and it can get you thinking as to how they give them out (i noticed they erased the page that explained it by someone). I wanted something relatively ad free (which i like about this spot) with something fairly easy to set up...yeah it would be nice to be able to use some more of the graphics i collected but the point isn't to have a real fancy page anyway....if i need to go with their graphics of mine i may well stay very simple.
So thanks to the readers...t dollars may not much interest me but the readership level does quite a bit, and i'm happy folks are reading. Maybe its a touch crass, but if you have a friend who might find it interesting or is going through something similar could you suggest it? I'm not going to go big into trying to advertize (at the very least not for the first three months or so, likely not then) but i would like to spead the word to those it might touch or help. .[ignore at will]
(in case you are wondering i do this mostly from a plain text editor because i use mozilla and the faces go in funny taking up a couple of lines)
I guess i've wandered around (i've been at this about 2 hours ) a fair bit but its a bit more in the life of Marcie...which can come in big and small parts (small near the end of the month or some other times)
Well i've been out a few hours, and i'm feeling human again. Most of the bills i can pay (some are long in the distance and will go in the bankruptcy) are paid. Telephone, Cable etc. I also paid rent, got my bus pass and a bit of food (i'll do shopping later when i'm not hunger....don't shop when hungry...bad combonation...tip from Marcie).
I also picked up the book i special ordered and i'm looking forward to starting to read it although i'd prefer the food start to get my mind started. In case you missed the post its Plan of Attack by Woodward and i've been waiting for it on back order for while...so long it came out in softcover and i got one of the (likely) somewhat earlier versions because i was on back order (big stores and US stores still usually get precedent). Usually $20 CAN but the store i buy from (local) sells it at 15.99 plus tax (8% on books in Canada i'm pretty sure...used to know it off the top of my head anyway its 7% or 8%, one is a provincial tax which doesn't tax books the other is a Goods and Services [fed] tax that does.
Once i wake up more fully i'll have a nice shower, wait until lunch hour is over and go and negotiate on glasses. I must say it annoys the hell out of me that they want $ for one of their free frames. They may make less money than average for my glasses, but my rx is stronger than average so they'll come out making the same as if they had a light prescription in all likelyhood. Plus its just not fair to say "free" in big letters and decide it isn't. I mean of course they mean with lenses but then i need the lenses as my rx has gone up quite a bit (i've put off buying them because i like a scratch and reflection coat which is not cheap...but it happens to be on sale now which is lucky for me because i just can't see well enough with the old one's...also i called around and several places have dropped the cost for ODSP folks so i'll know where to go next time). My eyes keep changing, which is a pain...because i like having my 2nd pair up to date, but i can't manage that if the rx is changing every year and a half....i may fill the extra frame from a cheapy store in the burbs which makes its money charging for frames and has a gimick of $29 for lenses to pull folks in...with scratch it comes to $59 which i might be able to budget in at some point and which could be useful although i wouldn't want to wear them all that much (the coatings i get give you a clearear view...also people can see your face--they are the norm these days if you wear your glasses all the time...of course nobody bothers if you only use them to watch TV). I'll see how comfortable i find myself with one pair with a decent frame (the burb place also has free frames all decidely and deliberately ugly).
Well its morning and in about 20 or 30 minutes i can go to line up for my cheque (this is why i usually prefer direct deposit..it would be in my account already by now...my bank doesn't open for another 45 minutes so i don't need to get to the office right away (which luckily is only 10 minutes away on the bus by chance).
Does this mean i'm going to be flush with money. No. In fact there is very little left after what needs to be organized into it.....like less than $100 and that has to include my food(ie most of it just not available). There are a few things i need that are in...Woowards Plan of Attack came into the store i special ordered it from, so its time to pick up up and there is $50 in there for glasses (the actual glass part is covered by disability but not some of the coatings needed) The absolute cheapest on the coatinsg i could find was $35 which is a sale price i found].The store with the sale offers free frames except i'm finding out they aren't acutally free if you are poor. I'm hoping to get a "free" frame put in for about $15...they don't want to give me a frame on their free area because disability pays less for the lenses than on average...but i really can't go above $15...if it gets annoying enough i'll get an old frame that may not last all that much longer but which i can get filled for the $35 done...its decreases the amount of time it will be good for though and i like to maximize that when possible.
ODSP only pays once every 3 years for a frame. Mine will often just barely go 3 years...the thing is i'm at the point that without my glasses i can't find my glasses unless i put them someplace obvious, which is what i usually do, but i'm not perfect at it.So i need to have 2 working pairs around...although one pair doesn't need to be "right on" in terms of the prescription....although its a lot nicer when it is. Its very annoying to have a set of free frames (they were on a special rack) not be free because they get somewhat less for my lenses...i know someone who used to work in the shops and the frames cost them almost nothing and they are still making money on my lenses....today is the day to go and negotiate the whole thing although i think i'll wait unitl the afternoon when i'm feeling more together after food,cola and time to think.
If your frames don't go three years you can be in real trouble....very few places have free frames, and the one's they do are often ugly (the place i'm looking at usually only has ugly they got enough complaints they put a few ok pairs in). I know one guy that is wearing obviously women's frames because they were about all that fit...not to mention people taping up their frames....it used to be every 2 years you could get frames which was more in keeping in how long they last...unless you can throw some money on them you are usually limited to cheap frames as it is. My backup is about 3 or 4 but it was a normal frame on sale someone helped me pay for...the new one (current one) doesn't look like it will go much more (maybe the year or so needed?). The older pair is in better shape and if i have to refill instead of frame i'll likely to with those (they are both very similar i needed the second pair to find the first......the newer pair fits better but doesn't look like it will last as long).
I'm lucky in that i need to see an eye doctor once a year (very occaisionally more) because there is a lot of eye problems in the family. He knows why i need to have two pairs around and knows i already put a lot of my own money into my glasses (if i get these for $50 it will be the least i've put in on a pair in a LONG time). So if i do see him the year i'm up for frames my prescription will often change a very small amount (in fact within the range of error when they make them anyway) so i can get the second pair i'm going to need around the house, or maybe for change. Also if one pair goes (which is likely sometime) there is another pair there. Also this year he is helping me get sunglases which are almost never covered. I should be able to get them (and really need them) because my meds make my eyes more sensitive to the sun...and a bunch of them do so it adds up....so he's written a letter to the effect that i pretty much need them to go outside and see clearly (although there are exceptions, but not many)My currrent pair over seven years old and need repairs which they won't live through. And i paid for those myself...all of the cost, but i can't absorb it all the time...especially when they are supposed to be covered in my case (last year i had them checked at a few spots and one place said they might be too dark to legally drive in...i'm talking i need them and i need them dark. But i'm going to go for that one after these normal ones are filled. That's all for now folks
Well the wait is almost over...in less than hours i'll have a bit of money again...not a lot in discretionary, but it'll have to do...but it makes it hard to get through ...although hopefully i'll do better than this month the next.
I eventually decided on asking DK if him and or him and AM would be at a cirlce i would this weekend....and that i had missed seeing them (if him only briefly) during lessons a couple of weeks ago.
I've got a creditor to call back tomorrow. They are all annoying, this one somewhat less than most i suppose except i can't pay him back everything at once ( i could in a few months it not a lot) but he refuses to take it in a few parts...not likely a good talk but there isn't a lot he can do at this point because i'm on ODSP...some people that i can get rid of fast (ie don't owe much too) are payed back in total this month...but then they took a part payment over three months.
I got an email from DK this morning saying that he missed me at the circle and that it seemed very unmarcie like to look around the circle and not see me there (we gather for the full moon). You know you need more food and you are getting sobby when something like that almost moves you to tears...
Well not completely because of those things...i dated DK earlier this year and it did not work out although he was very kind in the break up. We both liked each other but had little in common i suppose and different ideas about the use of time. I also dated (a fair bit earlier in the year) a friend of DK's who is AM. I actually felt much stronger about AM, but she hadn't really been in a relationship with a women before although she definetly identified as Lesbian. She just had no way to make the time or even desire to for a relationship ...funny how both of them were similar that way but find time to spend together, while each is not interested in each other romantically. But they actually share more interests in common than with me. Although i found both of them attractive people in their own ways and they intereseted me. AM and me only dated a week, i don't even usually put that into my idea of who i dated. DK and i dated about a month but it was more serious...my cut off on what i consider a relationship (not for scalps...its mostly kept to myself just a way of classifying) is usually 6 weeks, but i think i'll keep it in there. And the time leading up the dating AM was quite a bit more...
This summer at a Pagan festival i camped with them (when i was dating neither). It was quite nice although we only really saw each other around the campsite most of the time...different interests in different workshops as well as different ways of trying to deal with getting a lot of rain (like close to 5 or 6 inches) while camping in tents (i did the wake and bake thing socially in the morning and went back to sleep on one of the mornings...social for a while, then back to bed...they socialized elsewhere).
I realize i would like to camp with them again if i go to a festival. They are the folks i know the best (not really from the relationshing side with AM, but just generally). I know DK wanted us all to camp there again at the end of the fest because we went looking for better sites for next year (its always held in the same private campground). And a letter kinda asking where i was/disapointed you didn't turn up seems to suggest there aren't any hard feelings (i didn't think there were, but its still hard to tell....if i was him i would likely have hard feelings, but then that's part of the way we are different.
The day it became clear things were not going to go again (we had set a date to try) i actually did some cutting (cutting refers to cutting of an area that is not meant to cause any permanent damage except perhaps a scar, its non-lethal---some folks do it regularly i do it only a few times a year when very frustrated of upset...its a way of expressing frustration....and that was when my drugs we off). Unfortantely even though i barely scrapped the service of the skin it got infected which wasn't hard to treat (i put bactroban on it) but which means there is quite a scan which is unusual for me...i avoided places they might turn up &/ wore long sleaves for the first few. The scar is still visisble but faded enough but still dark enough that i can give a vague answer about when it happens if DK asks (my guess would be even in he noticed he wouldn't ask, unless i brought it up).
I think we will likely be at the same event for Samhein on the weekend...i could write and ask perhaps. I should answer the email with something although i'm not particularly sure what to answer it with i mean
" sorry i was too low on food and cigarettes and needed to do laundry and too tired as a result do much of anythign and figures i would come off bad''
would be the honest answer....but it is going a bit over the non dating personal side, although he is well aware that my budget it tight...i suppose i'll figure out what to write back today or tomorrow and answer...or i could ignore it. I'm pretty good usually about answering mail but he isn't---so i could just play the same trick on him and not answer before i saw him again because of ways our lives bump against each others as they do in small communities. Maybe i'll wait until after Saturday and if he's not at the same event as i am i'll write back. I'd expect to see him there though...both DK and AM (and me although i'm more cautious) wanted to join the same pagan group last time i went with them (June 21st) so i'd assume they'd likely be showing up....it also means i'll likely get a drive home which is nice but not neccessary (saves time and the cold) because DK will often drop AM downtown to where she can transfer to a good bus.....it is quite a larger step to go to her house though an his car is old. I live downtown so i'll often hop in the car and get off at about the same spot.
Its nice to be missed now and then....even if you don't know how to answer the comment about it.
I'm definitely feeling the decrease in nicotine quite a bit....people seem to be talking to much and in annoying ways (i was just over getting breakfast at the SA). Part of it is also likely caffeine withdrawal but it can't be that far along (or its past that point) because i don't have a migraine (aren't addictive products great).
In case you were wondering caffiene and nicotine are used quite a bit by folks with ADHD who were not medicated...take a lot...they are stimumlants, just like the normal treatments for ADD are...but they don't work as well. I'm pretty sure its on of the things that makes it a lot harder to quit. I stopped smoking for 7 months but i was still on the patch and the gum. Yes i know its an unusual combo...i got my doctors permission first (so its not suggested anyone else out there do it without your docs permission ok?) Also i wasn't allowed nearly as many pieces as someone who is only using the gum is. My health was good and with the amount i smoked it was clear i wasn't going to get enough of the patch. In the 7 months i managed to go down to the less strong gum, chew less and was changing down to the less high patch. I saved almost nada the whole time in terms of money although it was very good for my health i must admit.
Today i go to get my budget help. The picture does not look rosy (i've been doing preliminaries at home...something i wasn't able to do with any accuracy before)...so i get a final kind of idea today (it never gets followed perfectly but it gives me a very good idea of where it can and can't be followed....and it does serve as a good path).
My meeting is at 10 and will likely run to 11:30. I think when i get home i will just take a large amount of Valium and try to sleep as much of the day off as possible (i might change my mind but not if my head continues to feel like this)....and no i don't have to go over the prescribed amount to take enough to knock me out....although its very rare for me to take that much.
Had a panic attack yesterday...i dont' usually get them all that often, but who knows? I do still get them occaisionally when my meds are right on and they aren't so i suppose it isn't a big deal. They aren't comfortable but you do learn to live with them somewhat and learn to know what meds to have on hand if the standard calm yourself down techniques don't help (i'm all for trying the meds free approach first).
They fixed the light main light in my apt. (it needed something to cover the bulb) but only 60 watt bulbs can be used and i had 120 in it before...now i have to turn on all the lights around the apt. during the evening and it still seems darkish. Why someone would develop something like that for only 60 watts i don't know...its the main light for the main area...the other lights are all mine that i brought...you need to get to the hallway before you hit another light.
But even if i have to replace a lot of normal bulbs it will be cheaper than the bulb i was using to keep it from looking from a basement which was $6 a shot. I may fiddle and see if any of my lights will take more than a 60W (they all say the same thing but then they are houselamps not the main lamp for the entire apt.
My shrink finds the whole idea of folks blogging annonymously interesting but different... i pointed out that Usenet used to be similar in a lot of ways before it became really commercialized and that was in 1992---she commented on how recently that was....how differences in ages show....
The Orgenon rep hasn't shown up again since talking with her....i'm hoping he'll get back to her soon...i have a very tight budget running this month coming up and it would help to know if i'm going to have to pay the extra money towards the brand name normal tablets (they have a ton of the new fast disolve one's but they didn't work for me...)he said he'd get me the old one's until they stopped making them. An example of how drug reps can be helpful and not pushers (my old view before i didn't have any private insurance). He may get around to it this month...i would think certainly by next month unless he's told it can't be done....its about $25 out of my budget so i'd just as soon see it out of my budget as soon as possible.
To keep in mind. All of these government health plans that say they cover all your medical needs don't. I guess for American's reading that would be no surprise but then you might not expect stuff to be covered. In one of my earlier blo
