If You are Disabled: The Republican Party is Your Enemy

                                     [one of my latest protest posters]

Well I know they are trying to repeal ACA again, and along with it, trying to make massive cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. The jerks don't want to give up! I don't know how anyone can support the Republican party anymore unless they have a serious lack of empathy. It would be different if the Republican party offered any other options but "Go die". Trump was pissed at McCain today. The big baby narcissist is ranting and raving on his low IQ and vocabulary tweets. It seems brain cancer has given McCain a little bit of empathy that Trump lacks. I am hoping Trumpcare fails again.


A Shift to Block Grants is a Threat to People with Disabilities

When You are Starting From Scratch

                   [picture by me]

  Part II: Never Get Involved in Abusive Relationships Again

"I think many survivors feel as if they have lived in a war zone, and after it is all over, they feel as though they are thrown into a cold desert as well. It is not an easy ride, and is quite painful for most of us."

Lise posted a good article, on dealing with the "cold desert" after leaving all your abusers and avoiding new ones. This is great advice. We must look for people who have feelings, and are not Cluster B. Sometimes it scares me how I had to go "scorched earth" to remove abusers from my life. Every relationship that I held in common with my mother was tainted beyond repair. There was so many people. I do have relief being away from them all. As I meet new people, I do ponder many things. I want nice people with emotions, not people out to fix me. I have met many new great friends online, and met one and her husband in real life that lives long distance. I also met someone who lives closer online as well. My body keeps getting in the way of social things locally but I have met some new nice acquaintances and kept contact with other friends who are kind.

It can hurt when you suspect "friends" see you the same way as your family did, and even as you remove yourself from the relationships, you do think of the "sunk costs" into friends who never cared. Even then the only solution is to walk. You are never going to get emotion from a stone. You are fixing the training of decades that set you up with toxic people. 

At least now, I am getting smarter about what to look for in people. Since leaving fundamentalism, I do feel more open to other people and not stuck with such a rigid world view, that only served to freeze people out. I never was a prig, but the whole religious wall thing was always there. I have been able to examine myself more too. I want "empaths" and people who have feelings, love, care and compassion.  I have found some, and what a world of difference there is.

Lise links to an article, where it points out the main two qualities of toxic people, "They lack empathy and they are manipulative". It serves as a guide to help people to know what to look for when they are back out in the world trying to rebuild their lives after abuse recovery. We have to be cautious not to let any new narcissists, sociopaths or Cluster Bs back into our lives.

The Heat That Never Ends

I'm housebound and it is Sept 24th. It is supposed to be very humid and hot and in the mid-80s. Something is very wrong with that picture. I am going to miss an annual stamp show today which I always go to. I live in the "north", not the south, and I have been at one of these stamp shows before where a few snow flurries have shown up. I hope as the stamp show people roast today in their un-air conditioned segment of the rural senior center, they move things back to October for next year. I hope none of those mostly elderly people get sick from the heat. This weather is dangerous.

My mind has changed about global warming and climate change. I am realizing in my past IFB/fundamentalist Christian circles, the taint of anti-science, and disbelief even when it came to evidence. How are people believing it is all a lie, and refusing to explain to themselves what they see first hand?

I am worried about making it to an art class next week. The high that day will be 82/83 degrees. I'll go early and probably wheeze and throw up to get there or home, but it is important I make it.  Yes I will push, because I got a scholarship and it was supposed to be one of my main activities this fall. At least it is air conditioned. The weather has become so punishing. My life is being destroyed by bad weather. I've been stuck indoors for an entire week. The housebound thing gets frustrating. Heat never relents. I told my husband we need to move more north, maybe 6 months of severe winter and having 6 months being able to live, is better then this. We don't have money to move. Go much further north in my state, you are entering wilderness. This weather makes me angry.

There's been so many hurricanes this year, the USA is becoming a constant disaster zone. When I was young weather wasn't always so horrible or a nightmare every second. Fall came with it's multiple colors and leaves fell. Last year, my state in the north didn't even have fall. I usually take pictures of some leaves and last year it was not possible. When the leaves were green in mid to late October, I felt a very ominous feeling. It didn't feel right. There was one moment I was crying over the loss of fall. No one around me seemed to notice or care, and that bothered me. I feel like crying now because fall hasn't shown up. Fall used to be my favorite season, and now it doesn't exist.

When Did Happiness Become a Contest?

That's a weird thought I had. It's like today you have to prove how happy you are and say things like "I love my life". I do think this is a place where the "think positive" movement went too far. Why not be balanced. I love egg sandwiches, old movies, the beach, art, books, and hate hot weather, leg infections, being broke and oatmeal.

It's another way they want us all to "prove" ourselves. If I am a more melancholic, goth person, isn't that who I am? I am an Aspie for heaven's sake, we analyze everything. Why do I have to change who I am to please someone else? Aren't artists supposed to be emotional?

Anyhow narcissists love to send sarcastic cards. I got this one from one the ex-millionaire friend. It's strange to me. They won't ever apologize or try to patch things up but will focus on how you have to "fix yourself". Why did you bother me in the first place if I never was "good" enough for you or didn't have a terrific enough life? The irony with her, is I shared many things I loved with her from art museums to coloring books to thrift store shopping.

It's a strange card to send to a very disabled woman. I don't believe in "The Secret" philosophies where I can think things into being. Anyhow as far as happiness goes, life becomes far happier with narcissists outside of it. I don't have to listen to endless put downs, or betrayals where I am never defended. There's no more of that cold,  dark, icky eggshelly feeling. One thing I hate the most about narcissists, is their never ending message that a person is not "good enough". They always focus on how you have to "change" to please them too.

I wrote on a friendship blog that has some interesting people on it that I want to meet people who are REAL. Don't give me the think positive contingent, give me the real ones, who maybe had a few failures and admit to them too. I meet great people online all the time and have great friends I met online and some I have met in real life too. If I won the Lotto the first thing I would do is take a trip to visit all my online and long distant friends. It is a strange message given in sarcasm, "Create a Life You Love". How is that even defined?

I am realizing around the good friends, they don't make me feel bad this way. They truly care. When an ACON comes out of the fog, you realize the attributes of the good people and how much they mean to you. I can have weaknesses, or unhappy moments and be poor even, and be this overweight and still be valued as a person. I don't have to constantly prove success [didn't I have some success in life becoming an art teacher earlier on?] or happiness.  If someone makes me feel like the family did, they have to be gone.

I'll never own an Amazon Alexa or Device Like It

I saw this episode. It was raunchy as usual. It is weird they got the TV to integrate with viewers devices but a cynical part of me thinks, "Ah yes a PR marketing campaign!" The topic of the latest South Park was annoying as they put down unemployed poor people, in general to make some confusing point about Charlottesville. Of course they showed some who were racists with Confederate flags, but it was kind of alarming to see the part where Randy Marsh tells one of the unemployed men, "Coal mining and truck driving are not exactly jobs of the future". You're stuck in another time, afraid to change."

That said, I know a tech gap is opening between me and many people of better means. It's happening in general almost forming a cultural divide. I know my refusal to get a smart phone all these years puts me aside, my refusal is from real economic realities and also wanting the freedom to be left alone when I am away from home. How do people afford all the fees for these different devices? Isn't this another 30 or 40 bucks a month?

I do not understand putting a device in your house, where it can listen to and record everything you say. That's nuts to me. Also how do you get the shopping list when you are away from home and need it, from the smart phone? When people say the word APP to me, I do not even barely know what an app is, I am very behind on all this stuff. Maybe that is a good thing. Why do people need to ask some round blob in their house or apartment what time is it? Go take a look at a clock. I write this blog on laptops in bed. I don't own a Kindle, a smart phone or an Alexa or an Echo and don't plan on it.

It is interesting most of the show's ire was for blue collars workers out of a job and not the racists. I know South Park has some annoying political rhetoric, and has for years. I think they helped to fuel some of the alt-right extremes, but what was the point of this show? To sell more Alexa's and Echoes? It wasn't very funny either.

On the Beach

A recent picture. I do hang out on the beach a lot. I love those days too with the poofy clouds in the sky.

Beatnik Birds

My husband made me a great birthday card. It had multiple panels, on good cardstock. I always laugh at the Beatnik Birds. Here is one, he has his beret, and his cup of coffee--you know at the coffee shop, where he or she does all his angst filled poetry to music. Oh the icon on his chest is a crossed out "L7". It means "No to Squares!".