It wasn't an OK day. I've been sitting staring at a couple of things given to me around graduation from the doctoral program at University of Kentucky. I've had the beautiful jade Buddha and the marble name plate on a lot of desks over the years. I'm still the person that acheived the degree, but where they sit now is VASTLY different from where they've sat in the past. How I'm generally "seen" now is also greatly different. I'm not naive and know the world is not just and perceptions are as messed up as they can be around issues of race, sexual identity, gender, income, etc... If I wanted to, I can pass as not being "other" on race and sexual identity, I suppose. I don't care to do that and more than willingly am the first to tell someone I'm not. I don't often outright say I'm not a pure caucasion, even though I'm also proud I'm not. It's just that it's not usually something that easily comes up in general conversation, especially since I didn't even learn until I was in high school that my biological great-grandfather was hung for daring to love my greatgrandmother in the south and then getting caught. My parents were in their mid forties when they had me as an only child and their parents were older, so some of my relatives are from the 1800s... I mean that is completely crazy to me. But regardless, today I'm having a bad day because of the income thing. I truly have seen both sides - how I was treated as "Dr Dawn Cook" living in Atlanta with a highly successful practice, nice clothes, good car, etc and this "Ms. Dawn Cook" as I'm always addressed (despite them knowing better) by the public housing apartments I live in and the food assistance I now must receive to survive. I just bought shoes for the first time in years that weren't from goodwill (altough even if I could buy anywhere, i'd still probably go to goodwill these days for clothes.. no biggie there since I don't wear suits anymore). So, I understand I don't necessarily "look" like a doctor. But how we are treated here... sigh... What got me a bit "ragey" today and made me start "vent posting" is receiving a recertification letter for food assistance that supposedly was created May 13. Of course, it comes today with no actual postmark receipt showing it wasn't sent when they say. This happens all the time - from both them and housing. The recert form says it's due June 1. I'm pretty sure today is June 3, right? But I have until the 15th before it'll be delayed and we won't receive assistance July 1. Fine. Still time to complete a drop off, right? But let's factor in one more issue - my car. My 1999 Ford Expedition has been sitting in front of the apt for over two years now since there's too much to fix with what my small disability allowance can manage. So, there's a plethora of issues that come with the idea someone might have of just quickly dropping off something like the recertification letter before the 15th. I take Uber/Lyft or a taxi once a week for the grocery store or other stops. More than that per week is too much generally to afford and still pay the rent, bills... Pausing here, I'm pretty sure anyone would say it's crazy I'm choosing to write this because everyone has problems/challenges and it's not doing much for making me look very good or whatever. Well, I disagree. What's bad for me is not being authentic about who I am and how I am. What will kill me is trying to pretend that I go out a lot and can take pictures and post them with friends. Or that I'm even in a place to have friends at all - other than those I make at the grocery store or whatever. I'm generally trapped in a horrid little place everyday and there's more personal stress in here than you can imagine. I have no motivation except brutal honesty. But being treated as I have been since I've been poor IS brutal. I became poor because I had the audacity to be diagnosed with MS, and then be denied disability since I went to school for too long to put enough into social security to receive anything but SSI disability. I became more impoverished from resources drying up because I didn't have the money to fix things, like my car, needed to make an extra buck. There's some explaination as to why I'm not performing right now or teaching guitar/voice. And there's one other thing - as if the living situation, lack of car, old clothes etc were not enough.... Let's talk about my smile. There's a reason I am not grinning showing my pearly whites on the camera these days. Do you know what intensive steroid infusions for a number of years does to someone born with a genetic tooth enamel disorder? I've had vaneers or caps in much of my past adult life since adolescence. Two of my front ones finally gave up nearly two years ago. Since then, I ground down most of the teeth in my mouth since I had very patchy amounts of enamel anyway. SSI Disability comes with Medicaid. That's great. I can afford the medicine cabinet of drugs I must take. Medicaid does not equal dental. I know most insurance doesn't but the teeth are a problem, and not just cosmetically. Getting enough calories when chewing is a painful adventure and not for the faint of heart - especially for someone who's been primarily vegan for years. But cosmetically (and I suppose superficially), I wear a mask when I go out. I just refuse to promote any stereotypes that come with being a "poor person" by looking like I'm also a longterm meth user because of how my "teeth" look. At this point, I'm kinda wondering if maybe I should. But other than going the full Sia route and wearing a disguise to cover my mouth, I have no idea if performing will ever happen again. I have been having some trouble responding to any "fan" I might hear from about when new music is coming out or when will I perform again. Because I don't know. The excitement for this music being out in the world is amazing. But it's also tempered by some real heartache of what I miss so desparately. Feeling trapped inside is not good. Feelin like I can't just walk outside without a mask is aweful, and not talking to people is not an option, so I wear a mask. But it's hot and I hate it and it all just sucks. But how do you take happy snaps of any of this to throw on social media? How, when your day basically consists of you looking out windows at the same things wishing you could go for a walk, can you find new things to post about? How do you manage when, even if you decided to brave a walk outside without a mask, you probably won't since you don't have great running shoes anymore to support years of damage from running on flat feet. And you are NOT going to ruin your one pair of new shoes (cause they are very cool new shows I'll actually take a pic of... Converse RunStar Motion lol.. but they're not really for running... completely for how they look and I love them like a baby.. sigh). Meanwhile, other than the aweful aesthetics of a 1970s institutional look indoors, the apt's floor is so painful and hard, it kills feet/knees/back. It is falling apart and decaying without things like a fan in the bathroom. You can hear right through the duplex wall to the neighbor, so practicing music here got complicated. They often have "inspections" that can come anytime and "repairs" that are announced with little warning. The only information really given, for instance, is that maintanence men will come one day during an upcoming week Monday through Thursday between the hours of 8:00am to 6:00pm for an indefinite length of time to usually do an undefined type of work. Once it involved being here preventing entry to the bathroom for nearly 5 hours.. they've damaged my things in the past, like when they wanted better appearances for the outside of the unit and tore out the entire front and back walls of the main "living room" area (where I have a desk and my only few instruments left). Imagine what all that type of treatment as a "tenant" does to your stress level when it is against your lease to lock your screen door (that they don't have a key to) during this time knowing that they can barge into your living space anytime (if you're told 24 hrs in advance) It doesn't matter if you are asleep and don't hear them, are using the bathroom, taking a shower or whatever. It's happened that we've woken up and suddenly we're hearing men's voices in the hall. So on those weeks, you can never really concentrate. I feel less like a tenant and more like someone on strict parole, but my only crime is being very poor. I obviously did something to put myself in this position, right? But, now I'm writing and can't seem to stop when all this really just started with needing to rant over a form I received in the mail today. I needed to rant about how things like that keep happening, and I lose complete focus on what my music promotion/social media updating/whatever goals were today (after I'd already had.. never mind that). But it really wasn't just about a form was it? Life is not normal here. It's not something that's completely easy to relate to overall because there are so many parts to it all. There are so many unreasonable stresses here and very few, if any, support. So... I have squirrels for friends. Right now I'm hoping they are OK since today we woke up to violent shuddering of the whole apartment and a huge thump like a mortar going off - I immediately flashed back to the hurricane shudders and thumps when massive trees fell. Turns out, that's what it was - not a hurricane. Trees. No one bothered to tell us they'd be falling a couple of huge trees immediately outside the back door in the backyard today. What's new? It never stops