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

when i had regular internet access i used to post pictures of weird
foods from the food bank, like the giant can of labeless ‘PORK WITH
JUICES’. i don’t even know what that is. but recent food bank stuff is
way better. i get cast off veggies from whole paycheck. but this week
i got my favorite food in the whole world, a food that has been nearly
impossible to get in the US for the last 20 years or so. a food that i
have only eaten in the last 20 years when i was in Paris. and after
reading a piece today about how animal rights groups are looking to
adopt the woman hating practices of the forced birther orgs, i am
proud to announce that right now i have a fridge full of freakin VEAL.
Breaded veal was one of the first things i learned to cook (with
canned green beans and boxed angel hair pasta). my cooking skills are
a bit more advanced now, and i can’t wait to show my true feminist
cred by eating delicious BABIES! Apologies to the many veggies who
don’t condone misogyny as a publicity stunt.

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

This will probably get me in trouble with other readers of high brow
fiction, but i hate, and i mean hate when authors include other
people’s peotry in their stories. i’m not a huge fan of poetry to
begin with. so much of it is crappy, mushy romantic schlock. i’m down
with the angry, political, cynical stuff though. but when it’s
included in my fiction i get growly. if i wanted to read poetry i
would buy the books (lord knows poets need the money) but i’m reading
fiction! i want an interesting narrative uninterrupted by the author’s
wish to show off how pretentious their own reading habits are.

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

the elites don’t need us, the american people. their markets for
buying and selling are the BRIC countries and their markets for labor
are anywhere that human rights, labor rights and the environment don’t
matter. so why would they put a dollar into housing, feeding,
educating, medicating, employing or infrastructuring a citizenry who
has nothing to hold over their heads. want better food, suck it cuase
giant agribussiness isn’t going to change when they know you’ll die
without them. want your kids to have better schools, why would the
elites educate kids when all their workers are overseas and their kids
go to private schools. every single dollar they pay AND we pay in
taxes is a dollar they think should be in their pockets. not ours, and
certainly not in bulk buying projects like updating power grids or
medicare for all. we have to stop imagining that we can ever appeal to
their sense of community, they have none. it is time to cut them out
of the country running process.

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