I'm probably in the wrong October

Can I have my brain back yet, please?

click for youtube tutorial

Making lists isn't helping. We're down to WYSIWYG menu planning. Thank goodness for frozen prepackaged meals. Pop them in and *bam*. Supper. And I can still say cool words like chicken cordon bleu.

I've decided to negotiate with terrorists (per last post) to partially clear my financial planning path for wild success through pre-trimming potential backlash. Since I'm still making substantial payments on other health care (medicare plans are like playing poker, you gotta keep putting chips in the pot), I'm trying to find enough scraping togethering to make a first payment over the phone and then establish monthly auto pays. I hope they're small enough not to need to borrow $$ from @bonenado. I have juggled a lotta stuff this year and dropped a few Xanga eggs. Hoping I can pick those back up eventually.

I knew it was Wednesday because I asked if I needed to get Bunny ready for church tonight. An hour later I was excited about Monday night football coming on. 15 minutes later I was all silly me, it's Thursday night football, ohcrapbettersetmylineup! Did that and then asked @bonenado if this is Wednesday because something didn't feel right.

In the meantime, I'm making an eyeball slam list for a marathon external hard drive clearing outing so I can keep moving emergency short notice tiny child programming off the DVR before our incoming Gotham/Flash/everythingelseunderthesun piles bump themselves right off the timers. (I can't believe I'm 2 years behind in Ancient Aliens, Curse of Oak Island, AND Doctor Who. I know, right?) OH, and another author has sent me preview copies of a book I've been waiting at least 15 years to read. The files piling up on flash drives from actors and authors letting me see stuff is becoming embarrassing, since I can't even keep up with my own reading list, much less get my own hard copy out there. I'm trying to think of a great dedication on at least one of the books in my lineup that profusely thanks a tiny child for existing in my life and blowing me light years off my course. Because that's what human history is all about, isn't it?


No idea what those extra graphics say. I wanted the music.

les miserables

Happy Birthday to me. The U.S. Department of Treasury now holds my student loan. Among a very long list of collection measures are

• We can refer your debt to the U.S. Attorney for litigation.
• We can perform computer matches with other Federal agencies to determine if you are a government employee or a recipient of other Federal aid for purposes of offsetting all or a percentage of these funds.
• We can refer your debt to the Department of the Treasury for offset of Federal and/or State payment due you (including your Federal income tax refund). (Funny story- we're already having to file injured spouse for illegal garnishment of said refund one year without payback, so basically, the feds broke their own laws and didn't recompense.)

As per my Dear Gregory letter, loan forgiveness for complete disability means nothing, years of attempting to comply mean nothing, and the only way 'out' of this daily hammering is to pay all the debt right now (only half of which is actually debt) or set up repayment for the rest of my life that never touches principle. I could pay for 20 years and have less than 10% paid on principle. And now it's back, after being sold off multiple times for profit, in U.S. government hands.

I have been through several presidents on both sides during all this, so it has nothing to do with the president. This is how America does business. This is legal debtors prison, entrapment in a system that doesn't allow honest payback. If they had allowed me to make the payments I tried to make all along (even one dollar short is rejected entirely, so trying to arrange payments on limited income has been a hoot), this would already be paid off. I have not been able to generate income since 2006.

You guys can see if I sell an actual book I'll immediately get swooped on for collections, garnished on all sides, and never build up any level of credit. All income will go to the U.S. government. A domino effect of that will be my disability case being yanked back into review and going into lawsuit for the received moneys so far to be paid back. That's happened to me before (as a single parent on food stamps) because of a paperwork glitch, and once that ball gets rolling, it's just pure suck. The best advice a lawyer could give me was just don't answer the phone.

I'm not alone.

• They Thought They Qualified for Student Loan Forgiveness. Years Later, the Government Changes Its Mind.
• Teachers, Lawyers And Others Worry About The Fate Of Student Debt Forgiveness
• 11 Myths About Student Loan Forgiveness This one is very misleading.

Medicare even with medigap did not pay for my cancer testing. They don't pay for my eye exams and glasses. They don't pay a cent on dental. They are very strict on the kind of medical care I receive and for how long, no matter how limiting my life is. Thankfully, they have been more generous than insurance ever was, but in the end, setting up a monthly payment that exceeds 25% of my very limited 'income' from the government to go back to the government is about the stupidest thing I ever went through in my life, and all the people involved in all the paperwork are taking home better paychecks than I ever did on all my jobs, and have excellent healthcare coverage and other benefits.

You want to know why America has homeless and impoverished disabled? Because it's good business to sell and resell debt. It creates jobs out of thin air. The miserable are one of the shoulders our government rides on. It's all just a big legal game everyone is playing.

But I'm thankful we have real laws against actual debtors prison.

sad to see you go

Whadaya do when you find out a multiplayer server is about to be wiped for an upgrade? You put all your luxury blocks on display! I know, it's dorky and not the bigger deal it would have eventually been- a demonic temple of doom sitting on the platform over hell, under which the most terrifying of mobs howl around. Yes, emerald, diamond, lapis, iron, and gold blocks. Obsidian. All that redstone... Imagine it much taller with horns of fire spouting from pillars on the rooftop corners. This looks really bland compared to what I see in my head, more like the Golden Dragon restaurant in a town by me.

I've still got stacks of obsidian left. It's the black stuff, nearly unbreakable. I've also got enough redstone left to keep going way higher into a pointy tower if I want. I was originally picturing a sort of Eye of Sauron kind of thing. Maybe on the upgrade...

Plans going into the new server are to pummel a bunch of trees down as fast as I can before I go under, and then diagonally mine super way out under all the biomes until I get to some good ones without a bunch of building already going on. I can pop back out for food and more trees, but goal is to hoard materials in a stash bunker until I can claim my own land. One of the super mods that beta tested said the map is 90,000 square blocks, so plenty of room, and includes all the latest biome tweaks and new mobs and blocks and stuff.

Here is my last flyover vid.


I've got lots more, and I'm sad about losing my evil lair with my spider spawner conference room and movie theater and that cool mausoleum style house with the giant chessboard floor and the koch curve style chandelier that looks kind of hyperpolychoron-y when you walk under it, but those things can be recreated. I think my friend's tower is the awesomest, and I've got walk through vids and stills so it's not all lost. My pride and joy was networking an 8000+ block tunnel system connecting our far flung outposts and getting into village and temple restoration and preservation. If I had been on there for 4 years like a few other people, at least one of my villages would have developed into a fantastical spaceport complete with Jetsons and other futuristic stuffs. Really looking forward to growing rich and prolific on the upgrade.

Meanwhile, back to physical therapy. I missed one last week because stuff, kiddo got the all clear yesterday, so big reliefs and moving on, and me doing recovery and housekeeping for another big weekend. Might be Bunny's last swim weekend with Papa before the community pool gets drained for the winter, don't know yet if we'll cook out, but maybe I'll pick up some ribs and stuff just in case.

Been counting dimes making sure I can keep all my things going, and this year I put Lexx ahead of my own stuff financially, been a little tight. I've decided I need at least one more 5 subject spiral, need to line up my ducks and get super on top of my nickels the rest of the year if I want to keep my stuff floating. The holiday slide is upon us. If you're new to me, it's a Chutes and Ladders kind of lifestyle, where the entire autumn and winter season is like the depression roller coaster turning into a wild plunge ride down a crazy water slide or something, and you just hang on for dear life while all the pretty dazzle flies by and hope you don't drown at the end when you launch off New Year's and taxes are due. I was telling someone lately that a couple of years ago the govt tried to sue me for student loan default (after years of attempted compliance for loan forgiveness for complete disability- see Dear Gregory), and now we have to file injured spouse every year so that can't happen again, because our entire federal tax return was illegally garnished and we've never been able to get it back. THAT was going to pay our propane for the year. Really scraped pulling that money up, thanx govt.

Anyway, offence is the best defence, right? I try to prepare as much as I can way ahead of time, because I'm usually stressed out enough by mid October to start slipping, and by Thanksgiving I'm usually in full brain glitch. Last year was interesting because it didn't happen for the first time in more than a decade, but I launched back into glitchy mode when it all caught up with me around last Feb, and I've been hovering on a brink ever since, sometimes super with it and on top of all the things, sometimes batty as a fruitcake and people having to correct me. Just yesterday I mentioned the yogurt thing...

Here you go, back to school. Later, guys.

down to bizness

I have a nephew on the way who has already been named Rogue. Pinky approves. My first thought was Rogue Leader, since the wedding pictures have light sabers in them, but apparently it's something else. At any rate, I come from rogue parents, so it seems natural to me. I'm a rule changer, an over the line stepper, forging awkwardly ahead at all the wrong moments, and winding up in all the right and wrong places in synchronous nicks of time.

I've mentioned a few times that we're living on an edge of not knowing if and when our lives will drastically change without a lot of warning. @bonenado's work place has been on the market for a couple of years, and just recently one of the bids dropped out, leaving another bid to surge forward into finalizing paperwork IF an agreement is reached. We've managed to stay pretty calm through two years of what if with a new Bunny tossed into the mix for laughs. By the way, she's pretty awesome distraction.

I had a feeling we might be getting close, so I got my fees paid through the spring and am spending the summer paying for badly needed new glasses, restocked shoes and underwear, and now I'm focusing on clearing out my hard drive in preparation for the inevitable crash, now that my warranty and protection plans have officially expired. Our phone plans expired a long time ago, and we're not upgrading until we know how much our budget will get chopped. The last car and furniture payments are close to done, too, so we're on point with the when-the-ship-sinks Plan.

I don't like stressing out. I'm a denier. I block out and shut down and focus on the next meal, and if the stress gets through to my brain, I clean house like a banshee. I'm not afraid of being broke or poor, God knows how I literally starved and slept on floors or in a car in my younger days, and I even washed diapers in a bathtub for two months. I'm really good at spartan living, a natural Bohemian.

BUT. As tight as my own money belt already is, I have become accustomed to heavily using tech as a coping mechanism. I don't drink, I'm not on meds, I don't have friends in real life, I don't see family because we live so far apart- I'm alone. I spend 10-12 hours a day sometimes 6 days a week alone. My neighbors are usually gone, everything outside is toxic because super allergies, and tech is my only connection to other people. I don't even have a landline to call 9-1-1.

If my tech goes out, I may have to float a couple months or more before I reconnect. I'm crossing every phalange on my body that it doesn't come to that. I'm hoping that the rest of the summer is a productive spurt of me super organizing all my projects to help me calmly stay in denial. If I can't deal, I'ma try to stay off twitter because the last thing I want is my TL turning into a dump zone.

One of my disclaimers on some of my blogs is "I will never ask for or accept donations to keep this site going. Ever." I will respect my online friends a lot more if you do NOT try to help me. I see a lot of places on the webs asking for donations for everything from genuine local charities to a broad vague variety of entertainments. If you feel the need to give money away, please help pay for sick children's cancer treatments or lung transplants.

The reason I'm writing this post is 1) simple documention, this is a journal of sorts, and 2) I've mentioned a few times that I intend to never completely disappear off the internet again like I've done in the past, and if I do, that's how you know I died. Well, I don't want my friends thinking I died. I've got a few phone numbers, if my tech crashes while we're in limbo I'll have a couple twitter friends help me stay in contact or tweet links or something.

In the meantime, I'll keep popping out on twitter and facebook and keep writing and do my best to pretend none of this is happening while I go OCD all over my house and hard drive. Not worried, just antsy. It's all good. Distraction and staying busy is key.

Dear Gregory

Bill collectors are so cute when they get all excited just because I finally pick up and talk to them after weeks/months of ignored calls. Since this one already had everything he needed to find me all over the internet, perhaps I can leave an apology here for not calling back when I said I would after very clearly going on "This call may be recorded" record as being the sort of person who's not only been through epic brain fail and has memory problems that require an appointed financial guardian, but is super aspie about talking on phones, meaning I'll go six weeks and longer before I'll even commit to hearing my own daughter's voice, so I'm terribly sorry, Gregory, but like I did say, you caught me perfectly on a load of xanax after a big dental appointment, and I flamboyantly answered my phone without a qualm. (My hands still shake and I break out into a sweat just calling my beta reader, and I like talking to my beta reader.) (Just saying.)

Anyway, while we're at it, Gregory, since I know you espouse all that is wonderful and good about the Big O changing the default forgiveness rulz&regs and whatnot now (you know he didn't really just walk into a room and say 'Change that', right?), I'd like to reiterate, for public record, that we've still never received reimbursement on an illegally garnished tax return since well into his reign that has forced us to file 'injured spouse' ever since so the government can't continue to steal from someone who was never even involved with this, and we both know deep down that if there really were such a thing as loan forgiveness that I'd never have been forced into default in the first place, OR had my tax return ripped off, OR be getting calls for years and years that my lawyer tells me to ignore, because, admit it, (and I did say this to you, didn't I?) you're making more money in a week sitting around calling people than I am in a month on full disability, and half my SSI goes right back to medical insurance supplement plans on top of the part B that is already deducted. A one-time school loan default forgiveness offer through a 20 year repayment plan (that will probably tag me a criminal if I don't jump on and comply) on principle that has doubled since I stopped college (because every successive loan shark it's been sold off to lumps previous interest into principle before starting over again) is a joke that wouldn't be happening at all if I had been allowed to make payments that small from the very beginning like I tried to do and was told was unacceptable, and would've had that stupid loan paid off by now.

What I'm saying, Gregory, is that all this dancing around a government approved money laundering scam, against a person on full disability, no less, is making someone some big money or it wouldn't even be happening, and you guys really don't need my pennies drifting in to solve this problem. Debt forgiveness shouldn't be about slamming doors in the faces of compliant people who do everything they're told exactly how they're told to solve a problem, and then hounding them and ruining their lives and credit and garnishing severely limited incomes, and then offering loan forgiveness as long as they report annually and make monthly payments on money they never borrowed in the first place. Just because we don't have debtors prisons nowadays doesn't mean we have to negotiate with mild mannered terrorists trying to help us by shunting and locking us into forgiveness programs after we get slammed against our wills into default. Seriously, I tried so hard to offer payments after the doctors' confirmations were rejected over such stupid things as a comma (kind of odd that sending a copy of legal disability to a federal loan officer isn't permitted), so telling me now that I can do this for the rest of my life (since I'll be paying on so much interest now that I'll never touch the principle again) just isn't doing it for me. Like, I haven't had new glasses in years, dude. Years. Because medicare doesn't even pay for $50 frames on sale at a cheapie eyeglass factory outlet, does it? No, it doesn't.

Anyway, Gregory, I know I gave you permission to call, text, and email, but that doesn't obligate me to pick up calls, care about texts, or read emails. I hope you don't take it personally since I ignore the crap out of most of the world in general, not even noticing when people I cherish are calling, texting, and emailing because I'm so bad about forgetting I've left my phone on mute. Before I stop blathering on like this (I'm on xanax again), I just want you to know you were the kindest and most pleasant collection agent I've ever spoken to, and want to thank you again for being so patient with me. I'm sure you'll come to hate me soon enough, they all do, but for now, we'll always have the day I had a dentist appointment and flamboyantly answered my phone.

By the way, I also want to go on record that my strictly monitored low dosed xanax is part of the last vestiges of a failing 30-year pain management program, and anyone joking with me about it being recreational kind of pisses me off. Please take that last statement with a grain of salt. It's not often I just throw it all out there, but several weeks of writing intensely about what's under all those ripped off bandaids is kind of messing with me. I would just go underground and finish this, but I swore I'd never disappear like that again, so my love note to Gregory is me stepping out the door waving to let you guys know I'm ok.