You may have noticed I haven’t been online for a few weeks. That’s because
I’ve been very sick with an upper respiratory infection that left me
hardly able to speak or leave bed for weeks, and cost me dearly in
medications.
I’ve just been to my fourth doctor appointment this month and been slapped with an enormous, unexpected bill. This has come atop my insurance premiums now taking a quarter of my tiny income each month, and being prescribed
important and expensive new medications not covered by insurance.
I was able
to work out a payment plan for my doctor bill but even the smallest
payment possible leaves me just barely enough to afford my prescriptions
for the month, with mayyyybe $10 left over for food and transportation
and any other necessities – including decongestants for the hacking,
horrible cough I still have.
I’m multiply disabled and even
before these huge medical expenses, my total income is around half what a full
time minimum wage job pays.
I hate to ask again, but I’m a
little desperate. If you’re a financially comfortable adult who
genuinely wants to help,
I have paypaland a wishlistof food and other necessities.
I would be deeply grateful for even a dollar. Please don’t feel pressured, though – I know things are tough for a
lot of people right now.
Dorothea Lange, Texas people, Brazos Bottom June 1938
“You could write a book of 500 pages on just the conditions of us. We have to stay lean all the time, work 13 to 16 hours for 85 or 90 cents.” Dorothea Lange, “Texas people”, field notes.
i spent christmas alone while my family got together and fought, and honestly i feel so good about this
i bought myself presents, cooked a big meal, drank wine and watched Home Alone 3 w/ my dog. I don’t feel sorry for myself at all.
meanwhile my sister threatened to disown my dad so he threatened to disown her, while my mom enabled and my other sister downed a bottle of wine to deal.
on the other side of the country, i was busy discovering, to my delight, that the that the 3rd installment of the Home Alone franchise not only stood up to the test of time, but contains some of the best oneliners and comedic timing I have ever seen.
honestly, keep toxic people out of your life. family isn’t everything, and bad family is often worse than no family. don’t be afraid to put in some distance, especially during high stress times like the holidays. you don’t actually owe them anything.
being alone for the holidays is so much better than being with people who make you unhappy.
i want to be clear that when i say that industrialized food production isn’t what disturbed people’s eating patterns, factory work is another story. i’m no expert on this particular history but labor conditions haven’t been kind to workers and their bodies, and this can absolutely cause disturbances in eating behaviors.
most obviously, if people aren’t given sufficient breaks for meals and snacks, their eating is at serious risk of becoming dysregulated, as the body tends to respond to deprivation during the day w reactive eating/bingeing at night. this is an adaptive behavior, and can also cause adaptive weight gain. but that just means the body is doing what it must to survive conditions which threaten the organism. this starve-binge cycle (also the hallmark of weight loss dieting) wreaks havoc on the mind and body both, and is associated w depression and anxiety as well as cardiovascular disease, insulin resistance, and other illness or risk states for which we popularly blame processed food and body fat
not to mention the ways that having our time and activity (even down to our bathroom use) controlled by some exploitative entity disconnects us from our bodies’ needs and cues. how else does one survive it? to stay attuned to our bodies would be intolerable under those conditions
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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