28
October

Kick-You-In-The-Crotch, Spit-On-Your-Neck Fantastic

Remember how I was in a bad mood yesterday because my Apple ID had been disabled and because I was told that my SSI limit wouldn’t be increased because I wasn’t (and couldn’t) contribute my “fair share” to the household expenses?  What would you say if I said that those two things might be the highlight of my week?

I was overjoyed when I finally got my Apple account reset.   I was not so overjoyed when I saw that there had been a charge to my account for a $19.99 app.  Of course, since I have no iPhone, iPad, or app-loving iPod Touch, I have absolutely no use for any apps.  So, nice-going whoever ordered that.  That was a big honking clue that that account had been compromised.  It is now back to being disabled.

I’ve also put a fraud alert on my credit and will be closing out money-related accounts ASAP.

Luckily, my Apple account appears to have only been compromised on the twenty-fourth of October, so it was caught rather quickly.  Still, this is all going to be a pain in the ass.  I guess I couldn’t appreciate the not-so-great, okay, mediocre, or semi-good (and sometimes very good/downright awesome) if there were moments that really sucked.

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28
October

Why Do I Even Bother

Mom just got a call from her mom. Apparently, I’ve been up to no good again and saying “bad things” about certain people. I thought this was weird because I haven’t been saying anything recently about certain people. The last thing that I could find that is public is something from September. It was a rant about my mom taking me for granted while glorifying a particular family member, who I was (and still am) annoyed with over the lack of participation in my mom’s recovery process. I still feel my rant is justified. Of course, I still feel my rant from January is justified and I feel the rant I made in 2002 was justified, too. I also think that they have been taken way too seriously in some respects, while not seriously enough in others.

Since I know that those people are probably reading and will probably continue reading, I want to say this:

I have specifically asked, many times, that you not read this site if you don’t like what I say. I have also asked that you not take it off the computer or try to use it against me with other family. Apparently, this isn’t possible.

I am sorry that you were offended by what I said, but I’m not sorry that I said it. That may sound childish or rude, but let’s face it, I’m not exactly thought of as the most mature member of the family.

I do think that it was unfair in 2002 to shut me out of your life for 9 months until you suddenly decided that something might happen and that you couldn’t live with yourself if it did. I think it was even more unfair that for the next 9 years, even when I tried to make up for the 2002 post, I was basically ostracized within my own family. I think it was unfair that I spent two Thanksgivings when I was severely depressed wondering what I would have to do to make you spend time with me on a holiday that we used to enjoy together.

I think it is unfair that I am the bad one about the January thing in general. I find out something that was apparently so private that people who share DNA couldn’t know, but that was okay for hundreds of thousands of strangers to find out at the same time as those strangers. I get pissed about it. I make one tiny little comment, then become public enemy number one. Meanwhile, it is okay that that post that got her so upset was found only 6 or 7 hours after it was made meaning: she was checking up on me. Yeah, you can say that I apparently needed to be constantly monitored, but the thing is that I didn’t.

I also think that it was unfair that in January, when you talked to her after the post, you didn’t somehow emphasize that making a phone call to me would only further agitate me. You have known me since I was a little kid. Have I ever really been comfortable on the phone? No. Have I ever really been able to vocally defend myself? No. Didn’t it occur to you or to her husband or to anyone who may have thought that call was a good idea that it was, in fact, a bad one?

I shouldn’t be forced to feel guilty because I said things you didn’t like. I shouldn’t have to be told not to write about things that you don’t like. If I cater to you or to anyone else, then I won’t be writing about what is upsetting me anymore. I won’t be doing what the blog was basically set up for. Writing about my issues is how I deal with them. If I don’t write about them, I go more crazy than I already am. If that happens, then I go to the hospital. If that happens, then what? Are you going to move my mom and dad down to your house to make sure that they’re taken care of? Are you going to try to keep up with their health problems? Are you going to give my mom shots (insulin or otherwise) when she’s so out of it that she can’t give them to herself? If I don’t write about these things, these are questions that you will have to have answers for.

What I say doesn’t actually hurt this family in anyway. How have you been harmed by my words? Offended? Maybe, but not hurt. Whereas, I’ve dealt with having my education called into question multiple times, been treated like a dangerous fiend since my time IP, and hearing speculation that my grandmother (and then my mother) have drug problems because of their use of pain medicine. I’ve seen our family get torn apart because suddenly there is only room in the family for you and my uncle plus your son, his wife, and their son, and maybe your mom’s “adoptive” sister that you apparently communicate with more than you do with your own biological sister.

I will not quit writing about things. I will not apologize about your getting upset by them. I will not pretend that I’m okay that this family has been so dysfunctional for years now. I will remind you that you are an adult, you have a choice about what you do when you’re on the internet, and you make the choice to read these things. You know what you will find and you do it anyway because that justifies the anger that you have toward me. The subsequent acting-like-Janet-is-a-subhuman attitude is then okay because I brought it on myself. If you don’t want to be angry with me, then don’t read things I say. If you don’t want to know that I’m frustrated about you, then don’t read it. Or learn to skip posts that are categorized as “family” because they “might” be about you and they might be negative.

So, I shall say this now: back off and try to get over it. Oh, and stop opening that entry over-and-over. It will not be going away. It will not be edited. You need to move on.

I’m guessing this feud will probably hamper any Thanksgiving plans, but…it might be worth it. Sure, Thanksgiving is one of those rare days where I actually do eat a significant amount of food, and it is one of the few days that I get to see people I’m related to that aren’t my mother or father, but if I’m going to have to put up with this crap then I don’t want to spend the holiday with them. I want to spend it with Nana. At least she’s loved me and actually tried to be there for me through all of this.

I shouldn’t spend a family holiday with people who clearly don’t want me to be a part of their family.  I want to be where I’m wanted, and that probably won’t ever be in a room where she is.

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27
October

I Hate Thursdays

There used to be a simple reason that I didn’t look forward to Thursdays: no matter what was going on, my dad was always in a bad mood that day of the week. Now, though, it isn’t quite so simple.

I got on my computer today and was going to do something very, very simple. I was going to set up Genius on iTunes. For some reason, I couldn’t get my password to work with my Apple ID. I tried to reset it, but couldn’t do so the simple (get an email from them) way because I no longer have that email account. I tried to reset it with the security answer, but I couldn’t remember the answer. So, I am waiting on a response from the support folks at Apple. I’m guessing that that will take forever.

I decided that I would call Social Security to check in, once-again, about getting the rest of my disability. I asked why, even though I submitted the paperwork years ago, I still was considered to not be paying my fair share. She asked if I paid a third of the living expenses for the household. Well, as it was defined to me when I started receiving SSI/SSDI, I do. I told her this. She asked how much rent is. I told her we don’t have “rent” since the mortgage is paid off. She asked how much I pay in utilities, and I was taken aback. No one told me in 2004/2005 that I was supposed to pay a third of the monthly utilities. I was told food and rent/taxes. Apparently, by not paying rent and not paying utilities, I am not paying my fair share. Of course, this whole thing fails to take into account that I can’t pay the “fair share.”

No matter how we try to cut back on expenses, monthly expenses (that we still have, since the mortgage is paid off and since I no longer have to cover property taxes for my house) breakdown like this:

Food: between $250-$400/week or $1200-$1600 per month
Utilities: about $260/month
Telephone: about $100 per month

That means that the total maximum monthly expense for the entire household would be about $1960. I am expected to pay one-third of this amount. One-third of $1960 is $653.33. I only get around $470. The total I could get if I got the maximum SSI amount is like $670. How the fuck am I supposed to cover the $653.33 with $470? Even at the minimum amounts, I would be expected to put forth $520 per month. Will someone please tell me how I would ever be able to pay the one-third amount because I don’t think it is possible?

Also, if I am expected to pay for things like utilities and the telephone, then why wasn’t I told this all those years ago? Why was it specifically food and shelter? And why was I told that the amount I was expected to pay was (at most) $250?

So, thank you Social Security Administration, you have helped to make sure that this day really is shitty for me. Oh, and I am supposed to be waiting for someone from the local office to call. They don’t usually call. When they do, they usually can’t find things or they’ll have the wrong information. (I think it was someone from the local office that reported that I had too many resources a while back, which was when I got stripped of benefits for a while.)

I hope that tomorrow doesn’t suck so much. Of course, I’m going to see my rheumatologist and that hasn’t been an enjoyable experience in a very, very long time. Except for the fact that he gives me medicine for my pain, I don’t really get any help from seeing him.

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28
September

I Blame Lily Allen

I finally understood what causes some people to act out in an irrational and improper way. I know that you would think that I would have learned this after 27 years of having a mother who is prone to acting out on impulse or having a father who has been diagnosed with an explosive anger problem or having relatives who, for all intents and purposes, were sociopaths when they were in their prime. Oh, no. I finally got it today in court, when the city attorney pulled me and my dad into a corridor to tell us that we had two more weeks to get our backyard mowed. My father and I kept trying to express to this man that we’d had the lawn mowed many times over the past few months, and he said that if that were true then we clearly were not getting what we were paying for. (I just love how it is an “if” when we say it or when I show images [on my camera] that were taken this morning and show a cut lawn, but the city just has to have 2 images on regular printer paper with dates scribbled on the paper in ink. That doesn’t prove the pictures were legit. I would like to see the Exif information on them.) So, after much frustration and belittling from him, I uttered two words that I should feel remorse for saying. I muttered, under my breath, “Fuck you.” I didn’t say them to the judge, but since I said them to a “court officer” and was showing him such disrespect, my outburst will be taken into account when they decide how much to fine me and if I get jail time. (This is what he told my father, after I’d walked away.)

First of all, I would like to state that the attorney got very lucky that all I said was, “Fuck you.” I had this urge to shove him into a wall or otherwise inflict physical harm on him. Muttering the “f-bomb” near him was immature and disrespectful, but it was a hell of a lot better than physically accosting him. I think if they’re going to take into account that I said 1 profane word to a court officer, then they should also take into account that my mental illness worsens under stress, which is well-documented throughout my 20 year history of seeing mental health professionals, and that I was also feeling physically unwell after experiencing two absence spells. (There were flickering fluorescent lights in the court, which I didn’t notice until I’d gone through 2 of these spells.) Of course, these things wouldn’t be taken into account because that would mean showing some level of compassion or understanding, which is clearly not a concern for this particular court officer.

Secondly, I think it is weird that the images that were used were of the backyard. The images were from an angle and showed certain things that could only be spotted from a particular spot in our yard. This means that yesterday sometime there was a person from the community development part of the city in my yard. They were trespassing to even get the photos. They claimed that this was what my neighbors see from their backyards, which is utter bullshit. I can truly call bullshit on this one because:

  1. In my lifetime, only two houses have had a good view of my backyard. One of these is the next-door neighbor’s house, which is the house where the person who mows are lawn lives. The other is on a different street. The latter homeowner hasn’t been able to see our yard for more than 10 years. though. The former, though, has only been kept from seeing the yard for 6 or 7 years.
  2. I know that it isn’t visible to either of those houses because on that side of the backyard, there are cypress trees that are about as tall as a two-story house.
  3. There is only one other family that may have, at any time in history, seen our backyard from theirs. Our neighbors directly behind us (though we have the same street in our address) cannot see our yard from their backyard because they’ve had a “popsicle fence” for at least 27 years.
  4. Even if those neighbors didn’t have the fence, we have cedar trees along that property line that are about as tall as the cypress trees. That means that they would have to be in the backyard to see the backyard.
  5. Even though we live on a corner, we have lots of trees between the part in violation and the street. These trees would make it almost impossible to see any of the bad part of the yard from the street. In fact, it is so difficult that I haven’t seen that part of the yard from the street since I was a little kid.

Okay, so basically, this whole premise is ludicrous because, in order for someone to be offended by the height of the grass, the someone would have to be standing in our yard. Also, the idea that neighbors are complaining about it is crazy. The only neighbors that we would continuously bicker with moved to Florida a while ago. (And they were such upstanding people that we used to get anonymous hate [snail] mail and threats from them…yes, you can tell who anonymous hate mail is from.) The rest of the neighbors get along with us now. And those that we don’t know wouldn’t want to complain to the city about our yard because they generally have bad yards or some other city violations that they wouldn’t want to be discovered. So, this whole convoluted idea that the neighbors are complaining is just a bit disturbing.

So, now we have two weeks to fix this problem and then I apparently will be sentenced in some way, shape, or form. It seems ridiculous that I will be the one who gets convicted of a “crime”, even though they have trespassed, lied, withheld evidence (by not specifying who complained, they are denying me the right to confront my accuser), and violated who knows what other laws and amendments that are supposed to protect people from being treated unjustly by their government. I think this whole thing sucks, and I don’t see how any of this does the city any good. Putting a person on trial because their backyard, which you can only see from the backyard, isn’t in tip-top shape is just petty. I mean, it is outright petty. If the city is so hard up for money, then maybe they should come up with a better system of punishing actual criminals. I see people who go into the court who have been cruel to animals or who have violated various laws created to keep people safe and they get no more than a slap on the wrist, but months of court dates, accusations, etc. are going on with me over overgrown grass. This whole this is just ridiculous and infuriating and causes all kinds of stress and anxiety that I really don’t enjoy going through.

Honestly, at this point, I would almost want to be in jail. Being in jail might actually give the city a good idea of what it is like to deal with me, my psychological crap, my physical crap, and my tendency to be a whiny, spoiled brat. I think that they might really appreciate my effort about the lawn if they learned what it was like to deal with an even more stressed out version of me on daily basis. A simple “fuck you” would seem almost like a compliment to them after that. If they don’t think so, then they should check out what was probably written down about me while I was in Decatur General West when I was 17. If a psych hospital found me tiresome, annoying, and rude, then I don’t think a city jail would really like having me around for any length of time.

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31
August

Not So Pleasantly Surprised

A few months ago, I started receiving calls from Jamaica.  It was the typical scam call, which was easily identified.  I had a little bit of fun with it, for a while, because I liked listening to their pitch.  (Sometimes, listening to a lie is fun when you know that it is a lie.)  At first, it was the typical sweepstakes stuff.  Then, they started saying how they were from U.S. Customs.  I guess that they didn’t realize that U.S. Customs wouldn’t show up as being from Kingston, Jamaica.

Yesterday, the scammers got a bit more brazen.  I’d heard of Caller ID spoofing, and I knew that they did it some of the time, usually in the second or third call that they would make in a row.  I just didn’t expect my family to get one of those calls.  Well, we did get one.  Actually, I guess my mom got the call.  It was from Humana, which is the company her Medicare supplemental coverage is through.  Unfortunately, getting my mom to start giving out personal information can be a fairly easy, especially when she has just woken up.  It is even more easy when she thinks it is someone she can trust.  She was expecting a call about something from her case worker/nurse at Humana, so she thought nothing about them calling.

About four minutes into the call, the Caller ID switched from the fake number to the real number, which lo and behold was in Jamaica.  They were about to get some private details before my dad and I got her attention and told her that it was a scam.  This woke her up, and she tried to get their contact information from them.  They didn’t give legit information and she told them that if she was interested that she would call back.  She thought my dad was mad at her for almost giving out the information, which he was a little perturbed and wasn’t afraid to express this emotion toward her.  When he calmed down, we finally were able to get across how we were going to have to be especially vigilant  about these calls and not giving out any information to anyone unless we were absolutely certain that they were legit.  We also talked about how companies and organizations that we normally will deal with are not going to ask for things like account numbers or socials or anything like that.  They might ask for the last four digits (for some) or some information that isn’t really of any use to identity thieves and other forms of scammers.

It’s weird how this new level of deceitful behavior with scams kind of mirrors some of the new types of comment spam that I have seen lately.  Once upon a time, the comment spam would be easy to distinguish.  It would have BBCode instead of HTML.  It would be filled with drug names or sex-related topics.  Now, though, it looks like the spammers are actually reading the entries that they are commenting on, because the comments almost look like normal comments.  They even seem to get past things like Akismet and moderation filters.  I guess it makes sense that spammers would eventually learn how to adapt so that they could possibly get more exposure and might reel in more people to buy their product/service/nonexistent-entity-that-they’ve-made-up-so that-people-will-pay-them-lots-of-cash.  I just don’t like that they’ve adapted.  It makes being on the internet a lot less fun.  Plus, they’re on basically every site.  I’m used to them at fuzzypinkslippers.com and LiveJournal, and I’m almost used to them at Facebook and Twitter.  Finding them at Tumblr is really annoying, though.  I know that that site is growing in popularity, but I don’t like that so many of my likes lately have belonged to spammers, including “porn”-spam.  Really not cool.  I guess no place on the internet can escape the spam.

I guess I should just get used to these people, shouldn’t I?  They don’t seem to be going anywhere, so I guess I should accept it.  It just doesn’t seem like it should be something that I have to accept.  People shouldn’t have to worry that calls that they receive might take the little money that they might have in an account or might fraudulently use their insurance.  People shouldn’t have to worry that the next comment that they get might be from a spammer who, at best, wants them to buy something once that is not worth a dime or, at worst, might unleash holy hell on their bank account or their computer or cost them in some other way.

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10
August

I Want My A/C

My family has been enduring one of those things that could break a lot of people.  August in Alabama with no air conditioning.  That might not seem so bad if you live in one of those oddball places where summer temperatures never get over 80°F, but in Alabama, even in the northern parts, August is known as one of the most brutal months of the year.  It is always hot, and it is usually humid.  Right now, at 8:49PM, with the sun having been down an hour, the temperature outside is almost 83°F.  That 83° is about 20° cooler than it is inside my house.

The last window air conditioner that had a working compressor quit doing anything more than blowing air about 3 days ago.  Before that, it had been making this God-awful sound for a few weeks.  My mom called a handyman to see if they could install a “new” one (one that was purchased a while back, but never installed) and they said that they could for $200.  Since our family lacks the ability to pay that $200, we’re not getting an air conditioner put in.  We would ask for help from the church, but as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, we wouldn’t expect anyone to actually end up helping.  My mom tried asking CASA if they could do it, but apparently that is yet another community outreach project that they “no longer do” because of lack of volunteers.

So, we sit in the heat.  We go through all of the ice that is made and use up the ice packs fairly quickly every day.  It isn’t really a pleasant experience. It’s made even more unpleasant by my overheating issues and the fact that I can’t seem to eat anything that is above (normal) room temperature while it is so hot.  Basically, I get to have water and crackers all day.  Fun, right?

I’m hoping it either cools off soon, which would be a miracle, or we find someone who can help us get a window unit in.  We don’t have a central unit because it never worked for more than a few months at a time.  So, as a kid, it was getting fixed every single summer.  I’m almost tempted to call my Nana and ask her if I can please come stay at her house, where there’s A/C.  Of course, that house has no internet and very few channels on the television.  I would get to read and to sleep, and that’s about it.  Of course, I would get to do it with cool air blowing on me.  That might be worth missing the internet and television.

Ugh.  Just found out that I might get to participate in yearly (or more often) drug testing because I happen to receive Medicaid.  Apparently, I might be one of those people who does drugs.  Oddly, according to the bill, if I were a resident of the penal system (prison), then I wouldn’t have to have the test.  Apparently, prisoners who receive health care from the state aren’t likely to be on drugs, which is nuts since, in some prison systems, around 1000 incidents involving drugs occur every single year.  I know you can’t keep prisoners from receiving health care, but it seems like proposing taking away their health care if they got caught with drugs would help the state’s finances more than doing drug tests on every person who doesn’t reside in a facility for criminals, the mentally ill, or the elderly.  So, I get to have the tests done in order to keep my insurance. Not to worry, there were more dumb bills introduced to the state legislature this session.

Oh, I’m curious about something. I’ve noticed that there is a repeat reader to the site (actually to more than one) from Guntersville and Albertville.  Now, that wouldn’t set off any alarm bells expect that they seem to use the search function on here.  They also seem to come on a weekly basis, so it is making me a little worried.  I’m thinking that it is a particular family member checking up on me on behalf of a certain relative, or it might be a friend of that relative.  Anyway, if it is anyone from my family or checking for my aunt, cousin-in-law, cousin, etc., then I would like to say something to them (and you can tell them to visit the site, since their IP addresses are no longer blocked and hasn’t been for a few months now):

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