#and i just got my new insurance in january and i never got a fucking insurance card

[coridallasmultipass]

Vent / medical

So I saw the back specialist today. After being scared shitless all last night, writing out my meticulous timeline of events that injured my back, and crying, and not sleeping well. I got questioned, but not questioned as much as I was prepared for. I got prodded, but not as badly as I was expecting.

The result? It's nothing operable, so that's good news. But the bad news? It's probably my fibromyalgia (with a dash of my arthritis). Lmao. I know it's a whole-ass medical condition, but being told that, felt like being told I'm just being a pussy and not steeling myself against the pain well enough. You'd think I would understand by now, considering I've been diagnosed for like 18/19 years, but it still feels insulting to be told like, "You have pain. That's all."

Also, the doctor: "You don't need to see me! Yay!"

Felt like a whole waste of time.

I'm also really upset because no medication I've ever taken has helped my fibromyalgia except painkillers. And that's an extremely hard medication to get a doctor to prescribe long-term, despite the fact that I have never abused them. (It was easier before like 2017ish).

As of January 2024, I had spent the past 5 years of my life suffering on every type of anti-depressants for my depression, and none of them helped. Anti-depressants are what doctors use to treat fibromyalgia. Like, literally the only recommended medication treatment. And I legit felt SO MUCH WORSE both in terms of mental health and pain while I was on anti-depressants. It was constant brain fog and pain and inability to function and fatigue, spending money irresponsibly and binge eating. As soon as I quit taking anti-depressants (during a different health disaster, going thru anti-depressant withdrawals during the hardest endometriosis flare up of my life), I started feeling a lot better and a lot more lucid and present in my life. I was able to start exercising again and being more productive. I started drawing again after like 5 years of a mental block preventing me from doing so. It was like anti-depressants gave me a Debuff and I just completely stalled while on them, and once I stopped I was able to go again.

So. I'm fucking pissed. Like, I'm glad I don't need surgery. But this means I have to live with my inability to walk normally and inability to stand for a reasonable amount of time. Like, how the fuck am I supposed to do anything at all???? I have suffered and basically been completely out of commission this whole year since the first injury started in MAY. AND IT'S NOW DECEMBER.

God, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I fucking hate getting hot-potatoed around by doctors. No one wants to treat me because my body doesn't respond the way it's supposed to, and I feel like my fibromyalgia is just being used as a scapegoat. I still can't walk and move the way I used to, and sitting in a car is unbearable on my back. I've never had this happen since getting diagnosed with fibro at age 12/13.

((Actually... now that I think about it, I was on crutches for fibro twice during high school with my knee problems. But I don't think it lasted this long before. Fuck. Maybe it really is fibro. But I already had a tooth problem dismissed as fibro, and 2 years later now I was right that the tooth DID have a problem that's finally showing now, and I'm gonna need tooth surgery now to fix it soon. So idk. Maybe 2 years from now my back problem will finally show something mechanically wrong on the xray and I can say, 'I told you so.' Maybe it'll get better in a few more months. Idk.))

"Try yoga and swimming." THOSE ARE NOT COVERED BY INSURANCE, AND EVEN IF THOSE WERE COVERED IT WOULD NOT BE COVERED IN MY TOWN. I didn't even get to explain how I was forcing myself to exercise through the pain every day, up until the 3rd time I injured the same spot. The exercise did not help the pain. And I was genuinely exercising, full workouts, just at an extremely slow pace. It never stopped being painful, even as I built muscle.

I still have physical therapy, but like, physical therapy isn't a cure. It might be helping, but I'm still in extreme pain, and I still can't touch one spot on my back.

Fuck my life, man. I need to fucking cry, but I'm all crude out.

[worryingthing]

tyn 2/10

The subway was extremely messed up this morning, but because of that I was late to work (nbd, I arrive half an hour before everyone else, also I did not get this week's building code at the time, so I would have had to stand there and wait had I been on time) there was no line for a croissant from Bourke Street Bakery. They have probably the best Pain au Chocolat I've ever had (outside the ones I had in Montreal as a kid when we visited), but the regular croissant is also stellar. As a true Taurus, I can bear the miseries of overlit banal office work if I have pastry.

Because the R was running on a Saturday schedule (?????) I took the M, which means transferring at 53rd. The escalator at mid platform is broken, and I accidentally walked all the way up it last week, resulting in barely being able to breathe at the end (it's like four stories, I am old and post-covid have asthma now). So now there are hundreds of people in line for the other, working, escalator and right in between is the elevator. I have never used a subway elevator, but this is also the first time in my life experiencing a physical disability. So I squeezed into the elevator, and it was fine. I think A LOT about accessibility since joining Access Oasis, a local community garden founded by a friend that has a mission to create an accessible outdoor space. It's done wonders for me as an audhd person to find community and understanding with others who have experiences similar to my own. Also digging in dirt is just, really, really good for you! I love plants. But yes, the angriest I get is usually about how inaccessible the subway is for anyone who would require a mobility aid. It makes me so angry, and so sad, but also in the last few years both of my home stations (previously Brooklyn, now Queens) have gotten upgraded with elevators. They're in process, and it's only two sets of stairs, but it still means more life for the people who need it. Change is slow!! Every station should be ADA approved already, but it's happening.

Oh and because I took the M and transferred at 53rd, there's a corridor you pass through to get to the 6. Many days there's a man standing in there preaching about God to 100s of in transit New Yorkers who are probably, like me, thinking "fuck my life, fuck this job, fuck the MTA" while a man shouts at us to thank Jesus for our lives. BUT he was not there today, and I will take that as the win it was. Sometimes I do begrudge him that he's right I should be thankful for my life but also fuck off.

Things are really wonderful with my friendships, community, and relationship and I'm not sure I've ever experienced that or felt so at ease and comfortable. It's really wonderful.

I'm back working at the last temp gig I had. I had been looking for work the entirety of November, December, and January. It was terrible, probably the lowest I've felt since I got out of my last relationship. But now the sun is setting after 5, and being busy and tired and active is good for me. But I'm here because the person who is normally here is sick. They do not know when he's coming back, but they like me and say I do good work. I don't really want to work in an office or open/sort/send out mail for an office of 200 people. But I want a work/life balance, and I would really, really like to have health insurance. Idk, it's an upswing and I needed it and I'll take it.

PITCHERS AND CATCHERS REPORT TO SPRING TRAINING TODAY!!! T O D A Y!!! FOOTBALL IS OVER, BASEBALL IS NIGH!!!! The golden period is coming (longer light, games on most nights, listening to radio broadcasts of games, going to the Coney Island Cyclones Pride Night every summer!!) During my worst periods of deep depression/suicidal ideation I would try to keep a mental list of names to stay alive for and things to look forward to. It helps and it works, and then I started to try and think of three things I was thankful for daily and one thing I am looking forward to (usually watching movies with friends or whatever plan). Anyway I went long and it's time for lunch, and I THINK it's sunny today? Blessed.

[seafoamchild]

another new year. we stayed in and watched Point Break for NYE. i reflected a little bit on 2024 and it was not an easy year. i was so depressed and anxious for most of it, especially at the beginning when i didn't know what i was going to do after moving out. i started a new relationship, moved out, traveled a lot. did not really have a home and lived out of suitcases and trash bags for like almost 5 months! no wonder i was stressed.

sober january was really fun, going to museums and drinking mocktails and exploring. our trip to florida was perfect and amazing. costa rica sucked; i learned that my mom's cousin who i looked up to all these years is actually one of those "i'm gonna heal myself with meditation and mushroom journeys and i'm such a compassionate badass woman who runs my own company" when actually she was one of the most self-centered and scatterbrained people i've met in quite a while, and her "company" was a joke. she had wild, unchecked ADHD and it was so annoying.

it was particularly annoying because i see so much of the same ADHD things in myself. the more i read about it, the more i'm certain i have it. it's affected me in tremendous ways. i started feeling like i was really stupid in high school because i started to get bad grades in math classes. i almost failed statistics. and it wasn't for lack of trying - i tried really hard and went in for extra help all the time. and i would always fuck up the tests because i missed a negative sign or a decimal place or some other little detail. it was always the little details that i would overlook. so i struggled in math and science, even though the concepts interested me - the tests made me feel so goddamn stupid and i got very depressed.

when i think about the whole decade of my 20s, so much seems obviously ADHD related - horrible experience in college, totally unwilling to take any classes that were "boring", very interested in doing drugs. unable to tolerate the same job for more than several months, maybe a year. i mean, to this DAY i have never had the same job for more than like, a year and a half with no extended breaks in between. i also couldn't live in the same place for long. my record is three and a half years. i would get SO bored and miserable after a while and the craving for dopamine/novelty was so overpowering that i HAD to go travel or do some seasonal job. i was an orchard worker, a landscaper, a conservation corps worker, a server, a bartender, a struggling web designer, a fruit seller, a kiwi picker, and an English teacher in Vietnam.

and i still cannot formulate an idea or a plan for what i want to do because i cannot focus long enough on something that is stressful. like today i sat down with my laptop with the intent of looking for career counselors and jobs and i ended up signing up for a bunch of paid medical studies and buying a new pair of running shoes. at the slightest bit of frustration or overwhelm (my tolerance is low) i start shutting down and feeling like i'm such a failure who is incapable of completing simple tasks. everything feels SO HARD. EVERYTHING. how i have to use so much sustained energy just to listen to someone who is talking to me and half the time i find that my mind has wandered and i didn't hear what they said. how my brain NEVER shuts up and it feels like there are 200 youtube videos playing at once, like all the time. as soon as i close my eyes to go to sleep, no matter how tired i am, my mind is like a tornado of thoughts and songs and ideas and scenarios and imagined conversations and random memories from 10 years ago.

i am just tired and frustrated and i feel isolated and alone. i don't have a therapist here yet because i haven't gotten my insurance card yet so i haven't been able to look for one. but i'm so tired of feeling like i'm trying to accomplish a task and then instead end up doing 12 things that aren't that task and feeling like i've failed and wasted time. i'm tired of not being able to finish what i start because the dopamine runs out and i get bored. and i'm tired of having so mcuh emotional dysregulation. i need help!

[bigskydreaming]

Bit of a vent post, bit of a housekeeping post, bit of a 'so that's what's been happening in Kalen-land' post:

So I have officially done everything that can be done to prepare for our relocation to a different site while they do construction on this one for the next year, which should be....any day now. Since it was originally supposed to happen on October 2nd, lol. Oh, bureaucracy.

If I wrote a memoir of the last two years specifically, 'Oh, Bureaucracy' would be the title, actually. So obviously its no secret that Moukie & I have been struggling for a long time, even after my surgery back in December 2021. But pretty much all of that has to do with our struggles to hack through bureaucracy to secure some actual stability and longterm living situation, since....oh, January 2022. We've finally secured a five year lease to stay in this place (with the exception of the next year, at a different site during construction, as I mentioned), but like....we only JUST got that agreement officially in writing, signed & notarized & all that...last week.

After being told it was basically a done deal but they couldn't finalize anything or put anything in writing until the building sold and the property changed hands and one city service took over oversight of this particular property from another one....pretty much every month since November of last year. They changed dates and timelines on us so many times it was like every three week we'd have a completely new timeline we were looking at for when we could expect to have everything finalized or for the relocation to happen, etc. Most recently, we were told with complete certainty that everyone HAD to be out October 2nd, that construction would be starting immediately after that, nobody would be allowed to stay in the building.

October 31st, and we're still here, lol.

So that's been a fun non-stop rollercoaster ride of stress, lol. The problem, of course, is that before my surgery (12/2021), I'd quite literally been homeless for at least the five years prior to that. Fortunately I never quite made it to the point of having to sleep outside, though there were plenty of times it got close, and spent most of that time living out of cheap motels & extended stay housing while working towards getting enough money together for my surgery, but as far as any landlord or potential renter is concerned, I was for all intents & purposes homeless during that time, and that's....not great when trying to secure housing in the middle of a pandemic right after basically starting your life over from scratch after the surgery to fix the problem that basically derailed your entire life, lol. Not to mention my credit score was practically nonexistent, all my credit cards were maxed out to pay for the surgery & insurance, my driver's license had been expired for years due to not being even able to drive while I had my issues w/my jaw & everything related to that, and getting it back was easier said than done because I'd had like, two unpaid parking tickets at the time of my medical issues beginning & they kinda completely dropped out of sight, out of mind, only to multiply w/fees that were fucking ridiculous to contemplate & going down to the DMV or traffic court to try and argue them down, while my medical issues were still ongoing, was a nonstarter due to how little travel I was capable of in that state....

LOL. Not a great starting point when rebooting for Kalen 2.0 - and of course I'm not going to get into why we had to use my ID & everything for renting & all that, instead of Moukie's, just trust that there were Reasons.

And of course there are programs to help people out with these kinds of circumstances, which is basically what we've been doing since January 2022....navigating that labyrinth of red tape, because actually ACCESSING those programs, proving eligibility, meeting all requirements, keeping consistent with all requirements throughout the months of waiting on a verdict from higher-ups your file's been passed up the chain to....MUCH easier said than done. The hoops are just. The stuff of legends. Especially when you're still having trouble consistently staying stocked on the meds you need to be productive & functional, or even just keeping your phone active. Oof. All of that was very Not Fun.

Which segues into a bit of that venting I was talking about, because over & over the past couple years we've had well-meaning (and not so well-meaning & largely just obnoxious) people asking us in response to our donation posts like, well why don't we just move to a cheaper city? LOL. I just. I wish people would stop to think that maybe if there's such an obvious solution that someone hasn't availed themselves to yet, there's probably a REASON for that.

We actually had several. For starters, there's the fact that I still have stuff related to my jaw to deal with....I still have no teeth, lol, and haven't really been able to even START getting the bone grafts I need to be able to get implants at some point, so I'm not stuck with dentures for the next fifty years....and it took me literal years to find dentists familiar with my situation, willing to work with me on payment plans & longterm strategizing, etc.....not that easy to just start over with all of that in another, smaller city. Not to mention if I do have any problems with my prosthetic, LA's one of the only places that has ANY surgeons that deal with this specific kind of jaw replacement surgery, so I'd always have to come back here for any further medical related stuff.

But then there's additionally the fact that all those programs meant to help people like us who are literally trying to restart their lives after medical issues, homelessness, etc.....they're pretty much all specific to their own city. They're all contingent on each individual city's resources, services, populations and a million other details.....so moving to a different city basically means having to start all over again with applying to THAT city's housing aid programs & navigating THAT city's bureaucracy from its beginning & forfeiting however much time or progress you've put in already in the city you're currently in. And frankly, most cities don't HAVE as good of aid programs as LA does....its just...it takes fucking forever to actually make full USE of such programs, as evident from the fact that after almost two years, we're only FINALLY to the point where one of those programs has been able to actionably help us secure longterm housing.

(And also there's the fact that when we don't even have enough money for groceries, how cheap do people thinking picking up and moving to another city actually IS? Like. You need starter money to even GET there & get on your feet or you wind up in an even worse situation than we were in).

But honestly, we didn't have it so bad, we have been able to stay housed & working various odd jobs for the past two years....its just been long, and stressful, never actually knowing when or even IF we'd get to the point where we stopped worrying about being kicked out at any given moment, and there were times that looking for housing or trying to deal with bureaucratic red tape was the equivalent of a full time job, in terms of hours required.

All of which is to say....be aware when assuming the worst of various donation posts & their posters, that except in the case of actual scammers, no matter what you may think of how a particular donation request was worded or described their situation, its almost always VASTLY more complicated than can be summed up in a couple of easy to read paragraphs that might actually get people to help. I promise you, if super obvious solutions seem evident to you, they've occurred to the people living with that situation 24/7, and there's a reason that they haven't tried that solution or maybe they even did & for whatever reason it didn't actually work out.

And that said, all of this is also to say just....thank you again for everyone who's helped us out over the years. I know it often seems unending or like we're never getting our acts together, lol, but trust me, it feels that way to us too, times a million, and like....we're working on it. Its just. Much easier said than done. For every hurdle cleared, there's usually another one waiting to pop up like a fucking whack-a-mole game from Hell. Since January 2022 we've been consistently working towards a longterm, stable housing situation and this is it, this is what we were working towards.....we've been fully approved for relocation to the other site for the next year & then returning to this one after construction/renovation, w/a lease agreement for the next five years.....and that's the dream, honestly.

Genuine stability, not having to worry about whether we'll have to move at any given moment, actual housing security....allowing us to FINALLY focus on building our lives back up, instead of constantly grinding just to keep a roof over our head & make sure nobody's about to kick us out....and having the room to breathe & for the first time in literal years (in my case, almost seven at this point) actually prioritize something OTHER than figuring out where we stand on paperwork, filing, tracking down various liaisons to bug them yet again about an accurate timeline for when we'd be notified of whether or not we'd been approved for this program or that one, when we'd actually be relocating, when we had to make x payment by to ensure we didn't lose our qualified status, etc.

And I, for one, definitely can not WAIT to give more of a shit about the absolute stupidest shit imaginable instead of like....warily checking the hall to see if new eviction notices popped up overnight. LMAO.

Anyway. Like I said, we finally have our agreement in writing, we know where we're relocating to, and as soon as that actually happens - which they keep insisting should be any day now, sigh - we'll finally be in a much better place. As part of the relocation program we landed in, our rent at the other site is covered during the year this site is under construction, so already just from that alone we'll be much better off financially.

Moukie's been sending around a donation post this month, and we'll probably keep it circulating up until the day the movers arrive and they finally pull the trigger on us leaving this site, because for the last three months they've been insisting that October 2nd was absolutely going to be our last day here, and we planned around that timetable....meaning that since October 2nd came and went with us still here, our only jobs at the moment are whatever freelance ones we can scrounge up, since the new place is far enough away a commute to & from a workplace around HERE wouldn't be viable, so I can't even go look for a new one to replace the last one until we're actually in the area we'll be spending next year in, lol. So in the meanwhile we've basically been surviving off donations since freelance work is painfully dry at the moment, and as it is, the company Moukie does editing work for still hasn't paid them for their last job yet, which was back in September, I believe? Its ridiculous, but it is what it is.

So yeah, we'll keep that post circulating a bit longer til we're out of here for good, basically just for food money until we're settled in the new place & can grab a new 9-5 and I would say something about that damn patreon I'm always claiming I'll make except I am a Proven Liar Not To Be Trusted On That Subject at this point, but hey, once we're in the new place, maybe that will finally change.

That's basically everything I set out to ramble about, I think, so....I'm done. Wait. Lemme check - yeah, no, that's it, I'm good. I've said it before but it'll never stop being true: we would not have survived if it weren't for the kindness of strangers & the help of mutuals & followers & we really are so much more appreciative of it than I can ever adequately express. I know that can come across as lip service, but genuinely, people here have done more for us and to help us and to see us succeed than our families ever did and we've been reduced to ugly-crying more than once as a result. Its gotten bad, guys. Like. When I go all out, it's not a pretty sight. I've got that pale Irish skin that gets all splotchy when I'm emotional, my nose gets all stopped up, I make scrunchy faces like a baby that KNOWS its not as pretty as its parents keep trying to pretend and is out to prove it....its a whole mess.

And on that note - and imagery - I'm officially done here. Thanks for reading!

[turnipstewdios]

Trans healthcare is Bullsh*t

Long vent post, cause I'm mad and need to release the feelings back into their natural habitat. Had less than two weeks to go before the hysterectomy I've been trying to get for almost five years, and insurance has denied my appeal. Again. Very clearly for the last time. The rejection letter deemed the surgery "Not medically necessary" and with the context of past interactions I don't think I could have heard the "Fuck off looser" more clearly if someone had told me in person. My first appointment for this surgery was in June, and I had already been waiting for years at that point. I thought had been very careful to get everything set up, and get all my letters of referral and paperwork strait before hand. Except my insurance specifically apparently had a whole extra qualification for this surgery, that does not apply to anyone else in my state, and that no one told me about because the provider I've been going through for my care has never had anyone bring up that requirement before. That being that I needed to have been seeing a therapist specifically for my gender dysphoria for at least 12 months before hand. So. Had to cancel my appointment for that. The new surgery date I got moved things for enough out that my two letters of referral for reproductive surgery, which have to be less than a year old, expired. For the third time. But that gave me a chance to try and fudge the therapist thing. I went back to the same therapists who gave me the letters last year, exactly one year after my last appointment, and they signed off that I'd been seeing them for 12 months. So we turned that in and filed an appeal. That's where it started getting really, really obvious that my insurance was bullshitting us. I currently make just barely too much money to qualify for my state's government insurance plan. (which sucks because Oregon state insurance actually covers transgender care.) But I don't have enough money to pay for my own insurance. I've been on a family plan from my parents. In fact I specifically moved back in with my parents so I would be covered by it. But I age out on my next birthday, which is January 10th. So it's become increasingly obvious over the last few months that insurance was just stalling for time until they didn't have to deal with me anymore. After I turned in the appeal with evidence that I'd been seeing a mental health provider for 12 months, along with my new letters of referral, I didn't hear back from them. Got to within a week of surgery. Contacted surgery scheduling, and they said I hadn't been approved. Contacted my rep. Apparently, they had never received any appeal letters. That was bull crap, btw, because when we re-scheduled things again, and me, my provider, and my rep all made absolutely sure to send things through the proper channels, the exact same thing happened a second time. And at that point it was late October, and the next appointment was Dec 4th. So we re-appealed. Again. My rep sent stuff up the chain directly, and made sure it got to the people who needed to see it. I was assured that I would have an answer within the week. Three weeks ago. Yesterday, I called my rep to check on things, and she read out my final rejection letter. So. Even if I had time to reschedule again before I age out in a month and a half, it's clearly just not happening on this plan. I'd already started looking for other insurance, but even if I find one I can afford that covers trans care, it will take long enough I'll have to renew all my letters again. The thing that really makes me mad about this is the wording of the rejection. "Not medically necessary." Because I've already had top surgery.

My insurance paid for the large, expensive, invasive, purely cosmetic breast surgery with high risk of complications without throwing a single wrench in things. But a minimally invasive reproductive surgery? When I have a history of painful cramping, irregular periods every 10 to 20 days, and bleeding so heavy and so often I suffer from mild blood loss if my weight dips below 175? When I am literally choosing not to loose weight so I don't constantly pass out, and have been doing so since my mid teens? When I have a family history of cervical or uterine cancer? Oh noooo. We cant have that. It's not medically necessary.

[viiridiangreen]

I’ve been neglecting the shit out of my destiny page + streams and stuff... but uh, for once it’s actually a positive?? I’ve officially survived my first month of full time half-remote office job & I’m currently making SOUMP

My partner Q is away with their dad talking about a gig at said dad’s company, & next weekend he’s also taking him to get looked at by the ophtalmologist again.

Q has been unable to work or do much of anything they enjoy for about three years on account of an undx’d eye condition. They’re a photographer... among other things that benefit from being able to look at stuff without debilitating pain. Hoping the doctor is finally able to help them.

We’re uhhh also about to buy a motorbike. Which is scary but also pretty exciting.

Sooo in addition to having gone from a part-time paid intern to a legit employee with double the salary plus insurance & bonuses, I won’t be the single earner anymore & we’ll have an actual method of transportation to our name, so we can go downtown without spending 1/8 of my monthly earnings on the round trip like before.

I haven’t needed to supply my income with the rent-an-egirl site, thinking of taking it up again & returning to Twitch too but focusing on building a comfortable space & striking a sustainable rhythm, remaining mindful of my comfort rather than like,, desperately trying to make enough to eat lol. Also any earnings from that are gonna go towards treats / personal projects / actual never-before-seen savings. Like this month I did empty out my acct bc the transitional period between internship and employment was fucking wild and we also had a friend staying with us before that so expenses kinda piled up. But. Apparently I’ll start to have an actual small surplus to stash away for emergencies soon.

Which means!! I can start thinking of updating the remaining fossil-like pieces on my PC, then maybe even getting a whole new one so I can do a better quality & more secure dual-machine stream & create Content(TM) from my gameplay more easily. I wanna learn 3D modeling too, start making custom VRChat avatars or Vtubers and whatnot.

And also!!! Tattooing equipment. And like my first actual tattoos for myself (I’ve done four for other folks, have none myself, mostly bc I want big large blackwork pieces that wrap around the body instead of just sitting in a little corner of it like a sticker. not that those aren’t cute but yeah). Q can probably get their arm piece touched up (it’s been on hiatus since they got it in JANUARY 2020 LMAO) and get the spine piece they’ve thought about so much.

Maybe we can even get a Little Guy To Live Alongside Us in the next few years???? Like an actual pet (which I’ve never ever had btw even as I’m a very Bonkers Over Animals person). While being confident that we can cover the costs of a good QOL for them ?!?!?! Insane.

TL;DR Shit’s going suspiciously well and I’m already plotting my eventual return to tattooing :3c

[accountingacademic]

New Year, Fresh Start

Daily Reflection Monday, 1 January, 2024

Things I'm Grateful For:

Having my ever-growing to-do list written down in my planner, so I don't have to forget those things I need to do.

Highlights:

Since I was up past midnight with friends, I made a final "fuck it, I'm staying up all night." After everyone logged off, I had a spurt of productivity and got a bunch of little odds and ends taken care of.

Even if it only really amounts to $1 per day, I enjoy the feeling like I'm setting myself up for success when I transfer some money into my investment account each month. Because January has 31 days, I transferred $31 this time. It's in a TFSA so I won't be taxed on what the money earns, and it's a zero-commission account, so everything that is put into that account will be mine when I withdraw it.

I didn't get everything on my to-do list done for the day, but I still managed to do quite a bit! I don't mind carrying over two tasks, especially when one of them is 90% done.

Challenges:

I couldn't get my money stuff taken care of when I first wanted to because my bank's online portal was down for maintenance. Bit of a nuisance, even though it's not really a huge deal--I don't have to deal with my money at 4:00am, it can wait until a more reasonable hour.

I accidentally ended up napping in the middle of the day. I laid down around 11:00am, and then dozed off and slept until about 2:30pm. So that took a chunk of time away from me that I could have used, but after an all-nighter, three and a half hours won't ruin everything.

Emotions:

I feel like an asshole, and a terrible friend. A friend of mine is going through a rough patch because a woman ran a red light the other day and fucked up his car. He's going through the process of trying to get proof for his insurance that he wasn't at fault, and trying to figure out what's going to happen to his car (he spent all his savings on it less than two months ago, and the odds are pretty much 50/50 that it could be written off). I fully understand that he needs to vent, but I just really don't like listening to that kind of thing. I want to just go and tune him out so it feels like a win-win (he gets to vent, I don't have to actually listen), but that also feels like a terrible thing to do.

The shoes I ordered with my Christmas money are supposed to be here tomorrow, according to FedEx. It's hard to say how accurate that is though, as it's been "we have your package" since the 28th, with the order itself placed on the 25th. If it's not in tomorrow, Wednesday would also work. I just want them in before I go back to school on Thursday.

Lessons Learned:

For all that my friends are usually there for me when I need it (even though I will rarely ask for help), I'm not great at doing the same for them. I think that's part of why I don't ask for help; I don't want to be one of those people who ask for help all the time but never offer anything in return. I want it to be fairly balanced, and unfortunately, holding back on my end is how I can help keep it that way.

Today's To-Do List:

Completed

Readjust the cat feeder to dispense at night.

Reorganize phone apps.

Find new wallpapers for my phone and laptop.

Divide my second student loan disbursement into GICs.

Pay board.

Clean out my D&D binder and prepare for the new campaign.

Renew my FitBit Premium membership.

Add $31 to my investment account.

Give the cats baths.

Put together the grocery list.

Uncompleted

Clean out my school binder and prepare for the new semester.

Finish catching up on laundry.

Tomorrow's To-Do List:

Buy a mirror that hangs off the door for my bedroom.

Buy a notebook to start a commonplace book.

Get groceries.

Nana's housework.

[sepdet]

My insurance company rejected treatment to keep me from losing my left eye after covid triggered my arthritis to start attacking it. Altogether, my family wound up paying about $20,000 in 2022 to save my eye and help me survive my autoimmune response to covid.

My insurance company jerks me around changing which drugs they'll cover. They keep abruptly cancelling my medications. One just got cancelled starting January 1, so I'm scrambling to reach my doctor to get a new not-as-good drug prescribed while getting my last refill of the old med before the end of the year, but it has to be delivered when I get back from visiting family, but I have to be home because it's refrigerated.

My premium is $1700/month.

I can't help being born with arthritis. Like the shooter, I deal with chronic pain, but the longterm stress and anxiety of constantly fighting to get healthcare and never having any assurance I won't lose it tomorrow is almost as exhausting as the illness.

I don't condone what he did, but I sure as hell understand it. I fucking HATE a system that blackmails us with our own illness. It's like that filthy rich Crassus in ancient Rome who employed a personal fire brigade of 500 men to show up at people's burning houses, extorting the owner to put the fire out.

And now the GOP may make good their longstanding threat to repeal Obamacare, before which I had no health coverage because of preexisting conditions.

I’ve got my tumblr inbox turned off so I really have to commend the person who actually emailed me to let me know they don’t like the things I’ve posted about the UnitedHealth CEO being murdered on their commitment to their beliefs.

But seen as how you emailed me from a dud email that appears to be bouncing back replies and I really wanted to address something you said to me about violence begetting violence:

My migraine medication, the medication I was given for my debilitating neurological disease that has gotten so bad I spent most of this year actively suicidal, costs $1300 a month.

My insurance covered it. But only because my doctors office went to fucking war for me because I’m a high anaphylaxis risk for the drugs the insurance wanted me to try.

Because that’s the thing.

My doctors knew, based on my documented medical history, I likely wouldn’t be a good fit for the “first line” of preventative migraine drugs, but because of insurance, I had to be given drugs that were contradictory to my other life threatening conditions, because otherwise insurance wouldn’t cover anything else.

I failed them. Spectacularly and with an anaphylactic reaction to one of them. And I was still warned insurance would fight me because I hadn’t tried the remaining drug they wanted me to try.

A drug which I would have to take in an ER waiting room because my mast cell disease is unpredictable but insurance wouldn’t cover in-patient treatment to let me try it safely under medical supervision.

Is that not violence?

Were all the times I was denied coverage for vital and necessary procedures that could have prevented my disabilities from worsening not violence?

Maybe not in the sense you mean. But I assure you it felt very much like violence to me.

Do I condone murder? No, obviously. But I’m also sick and tired of people pretending that what is happening to the American people every day isn’t eugenics through class warfare.

Violence begets violence.

It sure fucking does.

Maybe these insurance companies should have thought of that first.

[skeletonsinherheart]

I mention loss often. Because for some reason it seems to happen to me an inordinate amount of times. I've asked Steve if I was crazy or imagining it when it happens, and he vehemently assures me I'm not because he often watches it happen in real time.

And this time, in the span of a 3 day period I have permanently lost my health insurance, and I was fired via phone call from a job I have been with for 7 fucking years.

This thing, whatever it is I've stated before, what feels like universal targeted cruelty that other people don't seem to experience or understand. And it's not about people giving me solutions. It's about people not fucking listening about how much it fucking hurts to have such things taken. Often. Constantly.

As of the past few days I've permanently lost 2 things that have left me in fucking shambles once again. One being my health insurance, which includes my Xanax which for one helps me sleep when I often can't, for fucking days at a time, to the point where I hallucinate and see and hear shit. And it helps the constant night terrors and nightmares that wake me up whimpering and crying from, and that doesn't include the days where I get monumentally overwhelmed in the span of an instant and I am sobbing so hard I can't breathe and need to take them during the day. And that's assuming I have enough for when I need them, or assuming the medication is effective at all due to some mysterious medical thing nobody can explain to me where my tolerance for my Xanax will skyrocket after a day or two at most before they become completely ineffective

Normal tolerance when it comes to narcotics like Xanax should take weeks at the very very least to start becoming less effective. But not to become entirely ineffective. I literally take 10-15 or more of my peach colored .5mg Xanax pills three days after I fill my script which is "1 every 12 hours* and I will feel absolutely nothing. It cannot calm me, it doesn't even make me drowsy. At all.

And then for my Suboxone. To which I say, with no hint of irony that I would rather be dead and put a shotgun in my mouth than experience that withdrawal if I don't have my medication and I don't know what to do.

And then my fucking firing. I receive a phone call telling me that I was fucking fired from my job that I've been at for 7 fucking years. And them doing so knowing full well that Steve was just fired from his job back in November for a bullshit reason they've pulled on others and still hasn't had any luck finding a new job either.

They know this.

And when I asked why, she just said "it's all in your file." To which I texted her after the phone call, which consisted mostly of me just occasional noises of disbelief and I said "Email me that file." Which I have yet to receive.

And now, after this ridiculous bullshit fascist freezing of federal assets in the government and what not, I have no idea what the fuck that means for my unemployment as of the moment. And I just got a voicemail today from them asking them to call me as well and that I have an appointment with them on the 12th.

It may mean nothing, but what I'm nervous about is the fact that when I filed for unemployment like I do every year on January 1st when we close down for renovations for the hotel, whenever I file the paperwork it always asks if I'm still employed and if I expect to be recalled to this job which both answers are always yes. They have been for 7 years. And I don't know what this means now with unemployment. For me or for Steve. It might mean nothing and it's fine, but the point is is that I don't know., and that again I'm just in pain from a loss that I never in a million years expected to be possible, and a pain that I don't know how to process or deal with or move on from.

As contradictory as my existence at this job could feel or be, it was the only stable place where I felt a sense of stability among providing what in current times was actually semi decent financial stability. Which, if you don't live in this sort of area or other similar tourist destination where the summer is the sole and primary source of the entirety of revenue that supports the town (yet caters to the rich tourists) and is literally a fucking ghost town where part time or full time jobs are fuckin unicorns to find period, and whether the pay is sustainable is another matter entirely.

And this job like any other had their backwards methods and stupid shit nonsensical unfair decision making that pissed me off at times, because what fuckin job doesn't.

But it was the only job where it actually felt like a family. When one of us would leave for the day, we'd hug. Like really hug, and say "I love you" as though you were bidding your family goodbye. We'd all talk about our problems and things that bother us, hugs when we needed them. All of us. And generally places that claim "we're like a family here" is normally a huge and obvious red flag to any reasonable person searching for a job.

A majority of my coworkers were genuinely my non blood family. All I had left of any sort of friends or remote social circle I genuinely loved and cared for.

And just like my house burning down, Ryan, Matt, Blane...among literally countless other things and people in my life that I never once considered as things that were a possibility that they would be stolen or be taken from me, by force or by choice. I was there for 7 years. They were my family, everyone, including management.

And yet....did they forget that I was sexually assaulted on their property twice? And how they talked me out of going to the cops about it to make a police report at the time because they said the video footage of the first time wasn't clear enough that it wasn't worth filing a police report because if it went to court it wouldn't go anywhere and that I'd lose. Then they asked me what I wanted to do. I said that if they were still going to allow that piece of shit of an owner on this property, that THEY would pay me to NOT be there when he was.

Everything about it was fucked. And because he was just our hotel, there was no corporate, no HR. Our GM was HR.

And with my upbringing I've never had an issue standing up for myself except when it came to positions of authority with power over me. My relationship with anyone with power over me was complicated, especially at my job considering more recently one of my longtime friends became my superior. One I've known since we were teenagers. Marlene. We even dated the same kid when we were what, 15, 16. She's the one who got me the job. And she's the one who called to fire me. The last communication with her was my text to her telling her "Email me my file." I wonder if my file includes both sexual assaults and their subsequent actions after each of them. The second assault less than a year ago too, the day before my birthday actually. I still remember my FD manager boss's first reaction to my telling him about the second assault was to blame me for allowing myself to be within physical range for it to happen, as though it's reasonable to expect me to anticipate and subsequently interact with every single male in a professional environment as though I expect to be sexually assaulted, or it wouldn't have happened. So clearly being groped was my fault. And then that fucking condescending power tripping tone telling me "You need to calm down" when I began to get upset due to his continual dismissiveness the more I spoke about the incident.

And all this shit above? Is far more than the tip of the iceberg.

You'd think id be angrier than anything. What normal person would be. And the few people I have around me expecting me to be better, to improve, progress, get better. So long as the inconvenience of whatever I'm going through improves or disappears but it's not. And I just can't stop crying. Can't stop spiraling. And I can't stop going back and forth between trying to decide whether or not I actually want to keep living or not.

I just cannot fucking STAND THIS ANYMORE.

I can't fucking DO THIS ANYMORE.

I JUST WANT IT ALL TO STOP.

If you were here, you'd know what to do. You always did. You were a real, true super hero the earth never knew.

But you know. You always knew.

[andwhentheangelscome]

Almost four years here. And pretty fucking important ones, at that.

Is it just the new house that's making it so hard to walk away? I wanted this so badly, for so long, and now it's all here, and I feel... I feel like I'm being split in two. And it's nearly impossible for me to tell if that's the continually dying gasps of a years old self-esteem pattern that was fractured and self-defeating, or if it's the genuine distress at being moving into a new space that I'm uncertain of my ability to shape according to my designs.

It's probably both, if I'm really being honest. It's always hard to change. Even when the change is welcome. And it's an absolute rarity that basically every change before this is something that I chose, sought out, and felt was an authentic realization of my personal vision.

Every change except the one that set me on this path in the first place. Resiliency is something that is learned, and I've got some work to do.

I found a list of goals I had / have for the year, that I wrote in the early days of January, that I uncovered while putting every single object I own into boxes. I haven't made much progress on most of them. Or maybe not enough. I'm still starting classes in four (!!!!) weeks. Nothing could stop or change that, except for an unfortunate turn of fate.

I'm thinking about what to do with my camera once I move, and the classes I said I'd take but never started. I'm thinking about the grocery lists, and the lawn to be watered, and the neighbor's pit bull, who quite literally took up all the space between us the other night, as I wanted to introduce us, so that the space could feel a little less alien, and more like a neighborhood.

I'm thinking about the digital keyboard that Rosie already has, and the sewing machine, and the Costco runs, and the code I have to ship when I go back to work on Monday, and gym memberships and car insurance payments and wedding travel expenses and the anticipation of a funeral which we will all consider a blessing.

"This is what the living do," as the poet says. I've bought and built a pretty good life for myself, and if it's hard to keep my head up, it's not because there's no one there rooting me on. God, they all want to see me soar.

Everything is done except the last. It's time to light my shrine, maybe have a smoke, and say goodbye to the only home I've ever built entirely on my own (he says, knowing the falsity of extra hands, baking bread, art crafted that will sit on walls for decades, showing love, love, love-)

If I do nothing else,

let me say that from here on out

the responsibility of living my life will be not given to anyone else

but me.

[marcholasmoth]

OSRR: 3416

i had a zoom meeting today.

with a truck.

(please laugh, my hand hurts)

i got into a car accident today. i was blinded by the sun and there was suddenly a pickup truck stopped in front of me. airbag, crunched radiator, the whole shebang. and i do mean bang.

i'm pretty sure my car is totaled.

i'm gonna miss that girl. she's been so good to me. i think i'm most upset about losing her. idgaf if i'm injured. but my car-

(crying.)

but i got taken to the hospital to get checked out, where they just took my vitals and gave me an x-ray for my hand and sent me off. didn't check for vision, didn't check for a concussion, didn't actively check the mobility and feeling of my hand. no instructions about how to care for the burns on my hands, either - just "follow up with your pcp in a week or two, take some tylenol in the meantime." which isn't helpful because three fingers on my right hand are burned. it's probably four, actually. and my thumb definitely has something wrong, since there's a HUGE bruise and it's majorly swollen. the joints are intact, but the bone itself might've been chipped in the impact.

because, of course, the last thing i needed was another medical expense. i've nearly hit my deductible for an entire goddamn year in two fucking weeks. i swear to god if this ends up being broken i'm fucking leaving it until january. i hate this place. who do i have to prioritize my budget over my physical health? why do i have to pay so goddamn much for insurance and payments for doctors??? i'm never going to be able to pay off that fucking ambulance ride. "oh it's 30% coinsurance" yeah of ten fucking thousand dollars. i am going to fucking lose my goddamn mind.

christ i hate this system. i'm moving to another country. probably sweden, norway, or finland. where it's cold and their socialized healthcare is better than this bullshit. and where the higher education is free.

anyway.

i'm grateful for the systems on my phone and watch that alerted my ICE contacts AND 9-1-1. crash detection was one of the best things they could've put into those godforsaken pieces of technology.

because of that i didn't have to call everyone and say "hey i got into an accident." they all got text messages and asked me if i was okay and if i needed anything. joel was the first to call me after i got off the phone with the emts. then my mom. chels texted me after, which proved difficult because my hand was hurting.

but it's been a fucking fiasco all goddamn day.

i wish this were all a bad dream and i could wake up and go to work in my orange suv. now i'm gonna have to find a new car.

i'm gonna cry about it again.

just let me fuckin die.

[kaliina-catoe-blog]

I think about my rant often, ngl. And like. Little update for the few people who gaf:

It is January! My mum turned 50 today, her hubby turns 55 tomorrow, and I finally got my god damned diagnosis confirmed after FOUR YEARS of fighting for it.

No more tests, and poking, and prodding, and blood draws, and fighting with insurances, and arguowith doctors who don't fucking listen to me... No more!

I have an actual treatment plan! I have a Rheumatologist, Geneticist, Neurologist, Gynecologist, Oncology-Geneticist, a Social Worker, Physical Therapist, Therapist, and a GP! I have an entire TEAM of people now!!! It's exhausting to coordinate them all, and I won't see many of them until next month, but holy fuck. Four. Years.

FOUR YEARS.

And my new team managed to confirm my diagnosis within 2 hours.

I can finally get assistance! Real assistance! And with the new PT starting soon, we're hopeful that we can get me the right Mobility Aid(s) for me to start occupational rehab so I can try to find a job that will work with my disability! I'm so excited holy FUCK.

But I'm also really really angry that it took 4 years to even get to the starting line. I have known I was disabled for 4 entire years, and not one doctor took me seriously for 4 years. Not one tried a single thing except for "work out more, eat less, and try yoga". Which has led to years of me making my disability worse, eating disorders, and just generally hating myself because I didn't understand why I couldn't do shit when my doctors all insisted I was fine.

I am not fine!!! And it's not in my head! I'm not fucking crazy!!!! I am real, and I am alive, and I was RIGHT.

Four years!

Four!!!

I dislocated my hip when I was 17, it woke me up around 4am. I managed to wrestle it back into place, and then at 7am I walked to work and worked a 13 hour shift with no breaks. I COULD HAVE AVOIDED THAT.

Had even just one doctor believed me and helped me, I never would have had to do that. It was excruciatingly painful to do anything on that hip for a week! But I didn't have a choice because I was 17 and no one believed that I was in pain. Everyone thought I was just fat and lazy and didn't want to work.

All of my doctors ignored me for four years, because they thought I was too young, too fat, too stupid to know what I was talking about, and too lazy. I have never been lazy a day in my god damned life! And I know that! But FUCK ME if I have to convince someone else of that!

I'm still fucking glad that CEO was shot! Idgaf if Luigi is innocent or not, whoever shot him deserves a medal.

I didn't deserve 4 years of medical gaslighting. I deserve my ridiculous team of entirely too many fucking people who all care about my health and want to see me get better. I deserve my migraine medication, and housing assistance, and real actual medical care! I deserve to get on disability until I can do enough physical therapy/occupational rehab to work normally! I deserve to live a real life! One without constant pain, and anxiety, and fear that I'll be homeless again in a week!

I just. I just think I deserve more than I've had the last 4 years. And I'm so glad to finally reach the start line to get the "more" that Ive been needing.

Idk how much of this post even makes sense, I'm just rambling because I'm tired and I needed my brain to be empty.

I'm resurrecting a tumblr I haven't used since before I turned 18 just to give my two-bits on the United CEO shooting.

I. Do not. Give. A fuck. About. That man. And if you want to know why me and millions of others are glad he's dead: the above are screenshots from my notes app where I vented all my thoughts on the subject.

TLDR: Insurance companies are evil, and United is easily the worst one.

Deny. Defend. Depose.

[ourotteradventures]

Your Birthday and Life Updates

I have been wanting to make a post for a while, but with our move across states and all the other things that fell out (my car being totaled :,( rip) I didn’t have the energy. Thankfully, things have slowed down a little bit before this academy starts. Actually, let’s just start from the last time that I updated our blog. 

January/February time frame our work situation began to get a little messy. I was tired of certain people at the company taking advantage of my kindness and skills. As well as my time, that was being taken from my little one and it wasn’t even for good people or a good cause. Our mutual friendships blossomed in some ways and detached in others. For that, I’m sorry that it happened how it did because I never wanted that to be the end result. It was super fun though to go out with Austin and Kiara and Nicole to just have a good time without work being involved. March we returned to finish the rounds of testing for this new career. It was fun and we got to do some trails, but we also got rear ended (in the same damn car...bro what is the deal?!) and the meth head fled. We took a picture with my bumper to laugh it off as we went back home. I think that is one of my favorite things about you and our relationship. I don’t have to consume myself with dread and misery (I know, I know, but you’re “emo” *shush*) unnecessarily (see how I closed that out?). No matter how shitty the situation is, you find a way to make me smile and we take it on together. It’s the first time in my life that I haven’t been so uptight in a relationship.

April was an eternity as we prepared for our last month before the move. It was the anticipation stress that was killing us (me...it was mostly me). The tensions kept rising and I told Jason he could basically suck my dick - which he didn’t take well in the team area. Too bad bitch boy. Then Jason wanted to go to war in Signal, which is honestly so weird. What a weird platform and principle (being wrong) to die on bro? Like are you good? May was a whole year within the first week of the month. My official last day was the second. I got a giant nail in my tire with a washer on it (that’s convenient isn’t it?) and had to get a new set of tires.... to then get t-boned with my little one in the backseat...just trying to get Dingy his damn patch. Then he had a fever of 105.6 and I had to take him to urgent care, and of course they cancelled my health insurance early. My dad was in my uncle’s plane when it crashed. Honest to god, it was a country song and if we had a dog babe....it would have died. I cried at my munchkin’s Kindergarten graduation and everyone wanted to bring that up. Then came the move, the dreaded move and the insurmountable (so it seemed) move/road trip. The Uhaul reservation kept changing because they didn’t have a 20 footer available. Then the one we got had a check engine light on it so we had to go to a different location. When you started it that check engine light came on....then they forgot the dolly. Then my mom delayed our start time because she wanted her “last night of freedom”. Finally, once we touched down at the apartment... the fucking UHaul’s battery died mysteriously. It started to hail while my new car was in the open parking for us to download the garage and the maintenance dude pulled in when I was trying to get it to cover. You got to meet Minns though! I’m so glad you both liked each other and you had a good time listening to his stories - that dude is honestly the biggest life saver I have out here (aside from you now).

And now? June! Your birth month. The month that I usually pay no mind to and don’t really enjoy as I’m not the biggest summer fan (at least out in the desert, but here it is nice!) You started your new position while you build for your future. I’m doing the admin stuff to prep for the academy and we got a new kitten!! He’s such a snuggle bug and Athena ended up loving him. Hades has grown into the home and our family. So I decided that I was going to make you your favorite meal and get some of your favorite snacks. It turned out pretty ok! Honestly, I wish that there was more magical wording and pretty phrasing to  wrap everything up but my brain is only letting me use like 50-60% capacity. This? This is the best that we are getting currently. Let’s get to the photos already!

[raspberryconverse]

So back in January, Lola got an infected toe (see footnote on this entry). We thought she fell in one of Mable's holes, but the x-ray didn't show any broken bones, but it was an infection, not a tumor because it responded very well to antibiotics. After the $800 visit (which my spouse actually paid for, even though Lola is my dog, because I didn't have that much in savings*), my spouse suggested we get pet insurance for her. She's old (10½), so it'd be better to get her covered now before her health starts to decline because of age.

Well, that was a total crapshoot.

First off, the insurance company found in one of her vet records that she was an American Staffordshire Terrier and determined that meant she was not, in fact, a mixed breed dog (even though she totally is and is actually only 23% AmStaff) and they decided to raise the premium on her policy by about 50% unless I get the vet to send a letter saying that she's not (there was also a miscommunication because my spouse talked to the vet about it because phone anxiety and offered to write it and just have them sign and fax it over, but I didn't know my spouse was expecting me to do it because they said "we" have to write the letter). Now, I got an email saying they did a review of her vet records and are basically not going to cover a whole bunch of shit, including anything dental related because she has tartar buildup. So IDEK what I'm paying $150 a month for now.

I didn't even want to do the insurance thing in the first place because they tend to be expensive and not cover anything worthwhile, but I trusted my spouse and signed up for the plan they found. Now that I've found out it isn't going to cover anything, I've wasted at least $500 on premiums that could have gone to more important things. My spouse pulled their typical, "It's all my fault, I'm a bad person" deflection they always do when I get mad about something they did/said and that sent me off the deep end. I really lost my shit after that. Like hysterical sobbing.

But here's the kicker: I was eating lunch at the table and my spouse asks if I took my medicine today.

Oh, fuck no.

I can't even begin to go into how fucking insulting that question was. Like, I'm upset, so I must have forgotten to take my medication, right? You've got to be fucking kidding me.

"Well, I was just trying to make sure you were ok."

"No, I'm not fucking ok! I haven't been ok for a long time and I can't fucking doing anything about it because I can't get my fucking blood pressure under control!"

God, I really fucking hate myself.

Oh, and my spouse also offered to give me the money I spent on premiums for this shit insurance, but that doesn't fucking help with anything because it's still money lost. At the end of the day, it's still money that went to a scam of a company and no towards, IDK, a new screen door or something. Whether it came out of my account or my spouse's is irrelevant because we're supposed to be a team. I mean, my spouse's bonus is going towards stuff we need for the house. They don't have to spend it on that, but they're going to. So whether I paid it or my spouse did just doesn't matter because we still need to try to use both our incomes to pay for things that need to be done. Money I lost is still money that could have been put elsewhere.

*I also have my Petco credit card as the main payment method on our rewards account, so I actually had at least $800 put on my card towards cat food and litter in the last year without my spouse reimbursing me for it, so we determined we're even when it comes to that. Basically, Lola is my dog, Meeah is my spouse's cat and Mable is both of our responsibility. I got Lola before I met my spouse and I never wanted a cat, but Mable was a joint decision. Plus, we don't have all our money go into our joint accounts to allow us autonomy, but we do both throw extra money in there if we need it for something.

[runawaymarbles]

separating dental insurance from normal medical coverage and making it fucking impossible to navigate is evil, actually