Tag: no rebogs please

It was actually extremely weird to me, that one time my partner got laid off after the company he was working for got bought out, and was out of work for almost a year.

After too much experience with one or both of my parents* repeatedly getting laid off (and my mom in and out of work for years because disability), I was automatically and immediately off into panic mode. Especially with me unable to work even then, and feeling more like crap about it. But, there was not nearly as much call for panic? Even with neither of us having family anywhere near.

Yeah, that was pretty stressful, and we needed to watch expenses carefully. But, it was a totally different thing, without all the scrambling and screaming. No utilities got shut off at any point, and we weren’t on a steady diet of beans plus whatever I could dig up from the reduced section.

Also a pretty good personal demonstration of the difference between having an actually middle-class safety cushion in place, and the much more precarious situation most people are stuck in.

Getting laid off isn’t nearly as devastating when you are able to build some savings, and set up things like decent mortgage insurance just in case. Who’da thunk it? 😩 I knew that, but didn’t fully appreciate it until I saw it in action.

* It was also more fun whenever my dad got laid off, with the state seizing 25% of his unemployment over medical debt to MCV. Because Virginia is just awesome that way. Even with the full $800/month or whatever–as long as it lasted, at least–that still wouldn’t have been great.

Thinking again that “quare” probably covers it better than a lot of things.

That’s kind of like queer, but more Appalachian. And, at least IME, way less conducive to certain brands of nonsense.

(Or Irish, apparently. Which didn’t greatly surprise me to find out.)

clatterbane:

I was starting to get a little worried, thinking that Mr. C might have gotten stuck on the way home thanks to overheated train rails.

(One tabloid take from today: SHOCK RAIL WARNING: Trains to stop running within HOURS as 37C heat MELTS tracks across UK 🙄)

Erm, nope, but I have gotten stuck between stations in a baking tin can for at least an hour at a time before–thanks to unsafely expanded tracks not rated for higher temperatures. Not much fun, to say the least.

Anyway, I finally messaged him after 8 p.m. to find out where he was. Not train delays, just an after work end of the month pub stop. Which is fine in itself, but now I’m not so much concerned as irked that he didn’t think to drop a message again 😬

And, just about 3 hours later:

(Guessing the diner is supposed to be a doner kebab with chips instead of the pita, to make it vaguely celiac friendly.)

He may be worse at keeping track of time than I am once he’s had so much as a drop, and he seems to forget that phones exist. But he is offering to feed me, so I’m slightly less put out now 😅

How fun. Some British Gas guy just came to the door. There’s apparently a leak somewhere, with a smell around the junction box across the corner from us. He asked about our meter, and I said it was under the stairs but hard to get to right now.

Hoping he won’t need to come back and try to look at it, because I am going to be very very sorry if I try to move Mr. C’s clutter out of the way. And of course he’s still not home to do it himself 😈

I’m not at all happy about that situation anyway. Not much I can do about it right now, though. Worrying and guilting myself more over getting too disabled to deal with all of the freaking mess myself sure won’t help anything.

Maybe my favorite dead relative episode was the time my mother felt a need to call and pass on some information from her uncle who had died the year before.

Apparently he told her that (a) I was having some trouble, and (b) that was because my grandmother–his sister–was basically some kind of psychic vampire who didn’t want to let people go. That was also apparently urgent enough to call for a dream visit specifically to tell her, the only time she ever mentioned hearing from him.

I didn’t really know what to say to that. But I’m still not sure any of it was actually wrong.

I would go further with this one.

If kids are limited to “simple plots, with clearly defined teachable morals, uncomplicated characters, explicit statements on what you should take away from the story, etc. etc.”…how/when are they going to learn to deal with more complexity or ambiguity?

That seems like an excellent way to get adults who do continue to have trouble with this. And who too often do want to restrict everyone else’s access For Their Own Good. It’s kinda self-perpetuating, no matter the ideological details that behavior comes wrapped up in.

I mean, I have written a little before about how disconcerting some common base assumptions can be, to a former hyperlexic kid with some weird special interests raised by a librarian. (With a decent grounding in critical thinking, very much including “anybody sufficiently motivated can write any type of horseshit they want, and likely get it published”.) Not going to repeat half of that now.

But, I am personally not so sure that “[a]lso, children should not be reading material dealing with that stuff anyway” is a safe starting assumption.

Actually, that was also another decent example of people trying to make you feel like shit for needing any help.

Never mind that I did have other trouble reliably going shopping, and really was running up against some harassment. It all got cast as some individual mental health problem that I just needed to toughen up and get over–a.k.a. “Stop Being So Ridiculous (Yet Again)!” and “If You Would Handle Situations Properly, There Wouldn’t Even Be Any Problem!”

Meanwhile, that really was not causing extra trouble for anyone. She was doing the exact same shopping as usual–and at that point my parents usually had their own food stamps, thanks to both being disabled and often unable to work. It was still apparently necessary to snark and act like that about it whenever she was having a bad day and needed somebody to unload some of that on.

(That also occurred to me as an unfortunately good example of some of the reasons why I still hesitate to say anything when I am having trouble or need even relatively simple/routine help. Especially if it could be interpreted as Clatterbane Just Being Inconveniently Ridiculous.

And too relevant an example, given some of the reasons I haven’t been getting out much lately. Which also involve often not having the spoons to also deal with actual bad behavior from complete fucking strangers out in public when I am already struggling. I know my partner is unlikely to pull that shit, but it still makes me nervous just thinking about it. Not to mention needing to ask anybody to take up more slack.)

For that matter, I’m pretty sure I was regularly committing some of that Dread Food Stamp Fraud, back when they were way more obtrusive Monopoly money-looking physical coupons.

I would usually just give my mom the huge roughly $25/month worth that I became eligible for once I got on SSI. Largely because of anxiety.

I was having a rough enough time without also devoting spoons I didn’t have to dealing with the high likelihood of shittiness out of cashiers and/or other customers as soon as you pulled them out. She was more up to it. (And probably didn’t face the exact same types of judgy bullshit, not being an apparently healthy-looking person in their 20s.)

Anyway, I had other problems getting out shopping. And shopping assistance is allowed for disabled adults. What likely pushed it over into technical “fraud” was that I just handed that big $25 over for her to use as she saw fit. That food was not bought/prepared separately from the rest of the household supplies.

Just reminded of that, as another example of (fairly common) “fraud” that’s really not hurting anybody. And is not what most people will think of, at all.

Also had to think again about my mom being very aware that she mostly rushed into marrying my biodad, when she was still in college, to get away from home. They were some of the people who got married after he got drafted and was about to get shipped to Germany. An even better opportunity: put an ocean between herself and my grandmother! Who wasn’t that sorry to have her gone.

(ETA: She had already almost married some Ecuadorian guy who was expecting to go back after getting his degree. But, his racist mama pretty much broke that one up.)

That didn’t work out so well, though she kept trying for like 12 years in spite of some appalling behavior. And eventually she could take a little better look at why she felt like she needed to do that.

The worst thing that ever happened for her mental health and general stability was moving back to where she was in daily contact with my grandmother again. And I don’t know that she could ever really look at that, either. Another story, though.

But…I don’t know that my mother would have ever let herself see any similarities to my own decision to hare off across the Atlantic and marry somebody I had known in person for less than a year at that point.

The situation was a little different. (For one thing, she actively tried to get me to stay there when I went back to help out in 2006. Wouldn’t come out and say it directly, but the endless stream of crises never would have stopped. Never. I finally got out again after 6 months of going progressively crazier myself 😵)

But, I really needed a change of scene at that point in my life. As kinda implied in tags on that last post, with not necessarily expecting to see 30. And I felt like I needed to take a chance, and at least try living with someone who had honestly already been treating me with a lot more respect.

Good thing that’s been a continuing pattern, but yeah. I don’t know that any of my family would want to understand. She’s been gone for almost 10 years, so that’s really not gonna happen.