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a few things, briefly

Oct. 7th, 2017 12:36 am
carlyinrome: (gods: i needed to use your craft room)

I am back from my visit out west, and right now all I'm going to say is jetlag is real. It is real, y'all.

I have perfected my signup for Yuletide, adding in a link to my letter, filling in my optional details, and withdrawing one of my offers after looking through the letters with requests for that fandom and recognizing I just cannot write what they want. I also made a list of some prompts I might write treats for. I am offering a lot of new-to-me fandoms this year, and I have bookmarked several prompts from more new-to-me fandoms, so I'm feeling brave, I guess.

I have been invited to apply to an atelier program at my graduate alma mater. Basically I would be an artist in residence for three months, and SCAD would pay for every facet of my life while leaving me to work on a long form project. I have an idea--but no pages--for a novel, and a good friend of mine is applying, as well, and spending the spring writing with her is something I would very much enjoy, value, and benefit from, but at the same time, I'm worried about my health problems ruining everything, and I am also worried about the honorarium of unspecified size fucking up my disability stuff, and I am completely unsure how to understand the implications because any kind of research on or interaction with the SSA makes me want to cry, and apparently I have a case worker, but I leave message after message, and he never calls me back. I don't know. It's an amazing opportunity, and it would benefit me and I probably even deserve it, which likely means I can't have it.

I got my DNA results back from the depression study, and apparently I am the whitest man in America, and even geneticists are confused by my hair.

file under:

potpourri

Aug. 25th, 2017 11:19 pm
carlyinrome: (Default)

So, I emailed my lawyer about my newest social security shit storm, and he said it looks like my file has been flagged because the IRS told them I reported income during the time I said I was too sick to work. This is true! What is not true is what they appear to claim: that this money was wages from gainful employment. It was not. Some of the money came from my employer, yes, but it was all PTO I had already accrued, which short-term disability mandates you exhaust before the insurance company starts paying you benefits. That's what the rest of the money was: short-term disability payments from Liberty Mutual. On the forms I was provided, they list Liberty Mutual as my employer, which is 100% not accurate. If I could just get someone to listen to me when I explain this, I would be fine, but I can't do that with the forms they're demanding. I called the help number listed in the letter, but got voicemail. I left a message yesterday afternoon, but I didn't hear back today. I am feeling defeated and hopeless about this. It's like no one wants to help you. Everyone wants you to suffer.

Speaking of: earlier in the week, I called my neurologist AGAIN to explain AGAIN that the doctor she referred me to cannot see me until 23 February 2018, and that I need medicine to help me get there. All the AGAINs are because every time I call and beg, she calls in one prescription for nine Maxalt (taken as directed, a three day supply) or 20 toradol shots (taken as directed, a six day supply.) My insurance only pays for so many of each, so I pay out of pocket for about 75% of what I buy, but because she's so fucking stingy, I have to ration them very carefully. When I called, I had 10 shots and one Maxalt. (I take the Maxalt more often because there are dosage restrictions and bleeding risks with the toradol.) She called me in one refill on the toradol, none on the Maxalt. I have one Maxalt tablet to last me until… 23 February 2018? I am panicked and frustrated and hurt and, yeah, fucking angry, because wtf do you think I'm doing, getting my jollies freebasing migraine medicine? When doctors treat me like this--and they all do--it feels like they're saying, “Your pain isn't that bad. Deal with it.”

Fuck. Fuck them.

In happier news: I got tickets for me and my BFF to the Museum of Ice Cream when I'm in San Francisco next month! I am really, really, reeeeeaaaaaally excited omg it's going to be Willy Wonka's factory with less chance of a grisly end.

Also, today THE WORLD'S SPARKLIEST SHOES arrived:



They're even more amazing in person. I feel like Thriller Michael Jackson. My sister ordered them from some online club she belongs to, and even with shipping, they only cost $16, and are clearly worth every penny.

This evening, I had a legit bipolar blowout. LOW LOW SEROTONIN ALL FEELINGS MUST GO. Right before we were going to leave to go to dinner, I just got really physically uncomfortable. I felt like my clothes were strangling me. I should have realized then that I was Not Sane Right Now, but I changed my shirt and went to dinner. I was anxious af all through dinner, with racing thoughts and lots of compulsive movement. Then we went to Target so my mom could buy GotG 2, and my crazy grew like those little capsules you put in water and they become dinosaurs. So overstimulated. I felt like River Tam on Miranda--I feel everything, I see everything, I hear everything. At one point, I legitimately had the thought, I'm just going to lay on the floor by the jewelry counter and cry, and that will improve things.

By now I'm doing better, not good. Going to try to sleep, hopefully better in the morning.

But first, I need to talk about What Happened to Monday. Spoilers behind cut.

( Read more... )

My first definite holy crap I want that for Yuletide this year. (I am also thinking about Arrival and Atomic Blonde and maybe Stranger Things, but the timing of season two complicates things. I have had other fleeting thoughts, but clearly they've not stuck. I'm so in the mood for George Austin/Sam McPherson post-series Popular fic and apparently I have written the only story of that pairing in existence, but that's a short leash to put a Yulegoat on. Make notes about Yuletide recs from now on, self.)
file under:

like a whoopie cushion on the electric chair

Aug. 22nd, 2017 09:37 pm
carlyinrome: (val: better put a leash on your boy)
I spent two grueling years living on nothing, burning through my slim savings, jumping hoop after hoop, filling out reams of paperwork, giving depositions and seeing doctors and not being able to afford my meds or anything else, and finally I was approved for social security benefits while I am too sick to work. They told me I was guaranteed full benefits through 2018.

Today I got a letter from the SSA saying that I have 15 days to verify my income from working so they can determine whether I am still eligible for benefits. I thought, okay, no problem, I only made $250 this year, easy. But when I looked at the forms, I realized they require complete employment information from the day I first filed for short term disability benefits, September 15, 2014.

If I fail to submit complete documentation by the deadline, my benefits can be immediately canceled.

They want so much meticulously detailed information. They want exact dates and complete company profiles. They want weekly pay stubs for the past three years. I don't have them. No one gives out paper pay stubs anymore; they're all sent electronically to company emails that I no longer have access to because I stopped working--which the SSA must know already, because they legally designated me unable to work less than a year ago.

I am crushed and panicked and crying and angry and frustrated and desperate and sick. I don't know how I'm going to get the documentation they want. I have all my tax documents, of course, but the SSA's instructions are explicit in saying they want everything week by week, so W-2s won't cut it. Three years. That is 156 weeks to account for in depth, and did I mention that I am disabled and doing this kind of thing is extremely difficult or actually impossible for me. I don't know what to do. I don't understand.
file under:
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