So we got into the housing program (provided my credit check doesn’t
come up with something too ugly. My credit is bad but I don’t owe any
back taxes or anything big). Now we have to find a cheap apartment and
then find stuff to go in it. we don’t own blankets, or pots and pans,
or silverware. We’ve got suitcases full of clothes, some textbooks and
the laptops. We don’t even have towels. Bahhhhhhhh. (That was both a
good bahh and a bad bahhh). But OMfuckingG we’re going to have our own
home again in the next few weeks.

I’m pretty sure it’s the oldest political trick in the book actually.
It goes like this: 1)we are all united against ____(insert elite
system here) and will fight together for freedom. 2)revolution, regime
change, etc. 3) women realize that while their warm bodies and labor
and martydom were needed to organize and fight, they aren’t actually
going to benefit from all the new freedom 4) douchebag dudes tell
woman to get back in the kitchen but not before commiting a little
sexual assualt just to make sure the ladies know their place.
We have to stop being fodder for revolutions that don’t explicity
state what our gains will be. We also have to stop giving our time and
labor and votes to polical parties whose platform is ‘we’re 2% less
misogynist than the other guys’. We are more than 50% of the
population, we deserve half the power.

Aeryl has a sprogglette heading off to middle school next year and wants smart advice on the pros/cons of an all girls middle school for her spawn. 

i think an all girl school would be rad for middle school, the years of first bras and periods and pimples. So much nicer to do that in an environment where your bra isn’t getting snapped on a daily basis and the tampons in your purse are fodder for some nightmarish game of cafeteria football should some dude get his hands on them. 

But I went to a coed ed middle school (actually I went to 3 of them) and consider middle school boys to be evil demon beasts. I am pretty sure that it was the middle school boys who tormented me on the school bus the last half of 8th grade (and by tormented I mean set on me like a pack of wild dogs and forcibly removed my bra, followed me home from the bus stop and terrified me) that made me decide to date only boys who had a car as soon as I hit high school. It was easier to fend off one handsy boyfriend than a pack of rape douchebags. There was also the rounds of competing with the boys in math for one of the coveted ap math spots. My test scores were better than most of the theirs, but I got offered a high school spanish class in lieu of the math spot.growl.


But would Aeryl’s young sprogglette miss out on “normal’ stuff if she is in a single sex school? There will still be all the normal, awkward weirdness that goes with middle school, but minus the sexual harassment and gender preference. I am of the opnion that the longer we keep girls from experiencing those things, the stronger they are at dealing with them later because they aren’t “normal” to that girl and she’s better able to see it as a crock of shit. Funny thing that, treating girls like full human beings makes it easier for them to recognize when someone isn’t treating them like a full human being.


Of course someone who went to an all girls school should fill in here. Maybe I am missing something, having no experience with it. Maybe all girls schools are actually just home ec classes and lessons on make up application for all I know.  Maybe I was extra traumatized by those awful middle school boys (and a seriously less than useful parental unit, whose response was to do nothing but yell at me for letting those boys near her house). 

(Off topic, but Aeryl aren’t you local? If you are, you should email me and come meet me for my birthday on the 19th. Actually any local readers who are not stalkers or trolls should email me if they want to meet up for birthday drinks. It is also the birthday of this here blog, 5 official years of bitchy bitchtasticness). 

So I had my interview with the housing fairies today. It went well, I think. I should know more on Thursday. I also got some information about this particular program. For one thing, it’s funded with the Obama stimulus money. If I get accepted, does that mean I have to suddenly change my mind about the crappiness that is His Royal Hopiness? No, because this is not a program for poor people, not for chronically poor people anyways. it’s meant for those of us whose bootstraps are merely short instead of non-existent (or more aptly, attached to the boot currently on our throats). 

I have to hope that I am the “good” kind of poor person. Not too sick, physically or mentally. Able to work long hours at whatever crappy job for less than a living wage that you can find. Not too angry, not too sad. Poor but without a lot of the trademarks of poverty like a horrible credit report, suspended drivers license, criminal history, an eviction. No self-medicating the pain and stress away with drugs or alcohol. Not too old, not too young, not poor for too long. Situational, as opposed to chronic poverty. But we all know that the situation has been bad for us on the bottom for so long that it is now chronic. 


Still, I’ll take what I can get. As far as poor people go, I am middling between good and bad. I have no addiction problems, at least not the ones that get you in trouble (caffeine and nicotine aside). I speak with an educated, middle-class diction and present as professional. My credit history is atrocious, but what I owe is a fraction of what is owed me in back child support. But the longer I am poor, the harder it is for me to put on the hopeful sunshine face and swallow my anger about the system in the presence of the workers who gatekeep help. 


But like I said, I find out Thursday if I am the right kind of poor person. It means we start looking for a home of our own right away, and we get a year of help with rent. So think happy thoughts. But even if I am the right kind of poor, or at least pass for the right kind of poor, I can’t stop writing and thinking and fighting for those who aren’t the right kind. It’s just a matter of time and continued lack of real change on the part of the audacious powers that be before I am the wrong kind of poor. 


(eta: It also helps that i am a white woman when I apply for these programs, and it would be disingenuous of me to ignore that. I get better services purely because of my race and class markers. )

i have an interview today with some low income housing fairies. i need
your luckiest thoughts and wishes that they find me to be a worthy
poor person and grant me a magical housing chance (yes, getting
assistance, especially for housing, is a bit like chasing a rainbow to
find a pot of gold). So yes, indulge me in a wee bit of magical
thinking, please. And maybe soon, very soon, Kid and i will actually
be able to unpack our suitcases for good.

—
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
Willem de Kooning

if you’ve always believed Obama is an opportunistic two-faced
douchenozzle. I’m talking about the resumption of military tribunals
and indefinite detention at Guantanamo. of course if this was Georgie
the second ordering this shit, we might get a wee dust up from the
fauxgressives and big orange cheetoh eaters, but IOKIODI (it’s ok if
Obama does it). We’re torturing Bradley Manning, we’re stiill fighting
2 wars and murdering innocent civilians, and that tropical torture
palace known as gitmo stays open to win enemies and thwart justice.
the only consolation i’ve got is to say ‘don’t blame me, i voted
green’. i’d rather have a decent government than my own smug
satisfaction, but i must take the tiny joys where i find them.

—
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
Willem de Kooning

i took my rx’s on a long walk to the big chain drugstore to be filled.
several of my prescriptions are for chronic nerve pain and that walk
wasn’t easy, but i steeled myself for it with thoughts of happy
medication and a promise to the kid of yummy food after. but, big
chain drugstore no longer takes poor people medicaid. i spent 20 bucks
on iron and vitamin d instead, since i had no idea how long it would
be before i found a pharmacy that doesn’t hate poor people and
dejectedly walked to the grocery store. then i saw it, the tiniest
little mom and pop russian pharmacy. they take medicaid. they got
mediccaid to pay for my iron and vitamin d evven. the pharmacist was
awesome and spent a long time with me while i geek out about how the
drugs work chemically. he told me to take vitamin d with ‘a good
dinner, lots of fat, no diet food’. i am more than happy to switch my
business to the mom and pop place from giant megachain that has pissed
me off for years and support a great small business.

—
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
Willem de Kooning

When trying to use “vagina” as a derogatory term, please spell it correctly. Actually, please also spell it correctly if you are merely trying to use it as an anatomical noun. The punch of your ever so witty (and by witty I mean inane) trolling is lost when you write poorly. It’s V-A-G-I-N-A, not viginia, which could also be the poor misspelling of the name or state of Virginia.

to be told that I have freakishly low vitamin d levels and am aneimic.
Grrrrrrrrrrrr. But, these two deficiencies may explain at least part
of why I’m all hurty and tired all the time. So yay! but damn, i’ve
been half joking for the last year about the weird ridges in my nails
being malnutrition. turns out it wasn’t actually a joke. but now i can
eat all the steak and broccoli want. And veal, yummy iron filled
babies.

—
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
Willem de Kooning

stereotyping and entire group of people with less priveldge than you,
a middle class, well educated person, as too stupid to know what’s
good for them is…..dumdumdum OPPRESSION.
If I, as a poor white woman were to say that middle class blacks
aren’t oppressed becuase, hello they’re middle class, i would deserve
a fat clue stick to the head for missing the obvious. if you, as a
middle class white woman, say that poor whites aren’t oppressed
because hello, they’re white, then you might want to examine the
privilege that blinds you to poverty. allies don’t treat you as too
dumb to know what’s good for you. (the post i am refering to is
today’s worst thing you’ll read at Shakesville, but since i’m a poor
white i can’t afford internet access to include the link).

—
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
Willem de Kooning