It's been a while since I sat down and actually wrote one of these - but since I've reached a dead end on things I can resolve today - I might as well share.
If you're LOST on LOST, we've got you covered! Take it away untangled!
I live on a work in progress sailboat on the Oregon coast. It was an eventual living small goal that became a sudden necessary reality when the job situation started to turn for me. I also deal with some mental health issues - not crippling, but they have an impact. But while I am reasonably comfortable for my standards - bed! electric! dryness! - it pretty much horrifies people who live in houses to see it.
My parents are hardcore retired military Republicans in Louisiana. They LOVE them some Bobby Jindal and my mom is pushing the voting issue as they are worried about Romney's chances.
They are not really aware of how I live. I mean - they know I live on a tiny boat, they know things are tight and I have SNAP - but they don't grasp it on an emotional level.
They don't understand I don't have a door for the winter other than a blanket and a piece of plywood.
They don't understand that the closest grocery store is three miles each way on foot.
They don't understand that I wash my clothes in a bucket with a hose when I can't afford the $1.50 a load wash and $2.00 to dry. Or that I collect bottles and cans to make sure I can buy cat food and cat litter - and sometimes pasta.
They don't understand that the death of my phone means even with a replacement IN HAND, I still have to get to the next town to get it activated - I can't afford bus fare and the friend I gave my soda cans and bottle collection to for gas money blew me off.
They just can't grasp that I don't have the convenient access to what they are used to being there - car, door, food, communication. They don't understand that a dead car (I have a dead car! WOO!) is actually a burden on a poor person. I can't afford to get it fixed and plated - so I end up continually moving it - or losing it because it will get towed if I don't. I won't be able to afford to get it back if that happens. I'm not entitled to a parking space at the marina without the car plated and current, even as a resident. Instead of freedom - it's just a symbol of how I don't have access.
The grinding sameness of it all. The frustration of it all. Having to ask people for help only to be ignored or blown off - like with the phone today. I have a replacement. It was from a marketing test I did when things were better and forgot about in a box in storage - so it's even a pretty decent phone compared to the tired little flippy I was hunting for in storage.
You need a phone to get calls back about jobs - that's pretty basic shit. But getting there has been an ordeal of texting and emailing and waiting - to no avail. Which is why I have time to ramble about this. No one is going to hire someone they can't reach. Shabbos begins in a couple hours - and we have Sukkot starting on Sunday - I likely won't have a phone until after the 8 day holiday is over simply because I have to rely on other people.
So my mum actually gave me the poor people need less support crap. I explained how I live. I have some kind of special exception (whiteness? her child?) that makes it ok for me to be on SNAP - it's those OTHER PEOPLE you know. I pointed out I've been on them a couple years at this point. Ignored.
Then she went for the evil covering of healthcare for the poor. I reminded her I need medication to be a functioning member of society - and can't get it. But I'm not sick or dying enough to get help. They help my brother when he needs his insulin - he works for VoldeMart so you know he's broke too - but G-d forbid I get $4 for a script to not have to listen to the political opinions of herons at 3 am.
She doesn't understand a trip to the emergency room when I'm manic just causes more trauma and expense than it's worth - and it sure as hell isn't free. I have a couple thousand in bills from the pneumonia I had several months ago - when I thought I had coverage and made the mistake of trying not to die. I'd rather listen to the herons, they're not that bad as conversationalists really. Better than most Republicans I've met.
And then she hit me with Israel. My mum, who does not give a SHIT about yiddishkeit tried to tell me that Romney is more Toradik than Obama - and will BE there for Israel. Just - NO. Romney doesn't give a shit about me as an American citizen who votes - what difference does my being a Jew make? NONE. In fact it kind of smacked of - well you have to vote for Romney because you're religious - and he wants you to die for Jebus, YAY! Um, thanks, mum?
Back to the reality that I'm one step above a box. She doesn't have anything to say about that. She definitely sent money to Romney and other rethugs while her own eldest child struggles to stay off the street. And she pretends she doesn't know.
That's what it's like to be the defective child of a Republican. Invisible.
So on voting day I will walk my happy poor ass up the dock from my doorless home and I will cast my vote for president. Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. is getting my vote - he keeps me from starving to death.
Even the herons like him.