why?
Why does
genocide carry a lighter sentence than
selling something to someone who wants it?
Why is it that my health falls to shit right when I've lost mt insurance?
Why am I completely addicted to
Pimp Wars?
Why I do I know that attempting to nerf the world around my daughter will keep her from ever really growing up, but feel so tempted to do so anyway?
pain
It's official. It is no longer the New Jersey food that's killing me. I've spent most of this evening/morning in agonizing pain after having eaten my favorite fast food. This is horrible.
So it looks like I'm on an exclusively soup diet.
Ruh Roh
I'm pasting this article here only because this is my only blog that nobody I know reads.
I'd suspected I might be suffering some post-Storm issues but convinced myself that I couldn't possibly be because I wasn't there for the flood. Reading this, I'm thinking I might have a problem.
Katrina Evacuees' Mental Health Eyed
By MEGAN REICHGOTT (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
March 16, 2006 2:25 PM EST
CHICAGO - When William Villavaso closes his eyes, the nightmare is waiting for him - the one about the 15 hours he spent in water slick with diesel fuel in New Orleans, a life jacket and a chunk of wood keeping him afloat until he was rescued.
Six months after losing his home and his possessions to Hurricane Katrina, the 49-year-old New Orleans native is now living in Chicago, where he has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and wakes up from bad dreams in a cold sweat.
On a scale from 1 to 10 - 10 being well - Villavaso says that emotionally, "right now I'm probably a 2."
"I hope to have normalcy again in my life," says Villavaso, who is trying to battle his depression at group counseling. "I'm just hoping for that stability."
As many as 500,000 Katrina evacuees around the country may need mental health counseling, according to the U.S. Substance and Mental Health Services Administration. And while Villavaso is getting help, the government says many others are not, and may not even know they need it.
Several states that took in evacuees are recognizing the problem, changing their focus from providing housing and jobs to offering counseling and emotional support.
In Illinois, about 20 counselors are tracking down approximately 7,000 evacuees, and officials are referring them to professionals.
"We know that there's several stages of emotional crisis that people go through," says Carol Adams, Illinois' human services secretary. "Right now, people are in the stage when they realize things won't work out quite how they thought."
People like 46-year-old Reginald Lucien, who like Villavaso came to Chicago from New Orleans' devastated Ninth Ward.
"When I first came to Chicago I thought it was easy to cope, I never questioned it," he says. "As time goes along I come to the realization that this is where I'll be for some time, it gets harder. I get anxious."
Dr. Anthony Ng, chair of the American Psychiatric Association's Committee on Psychiatric Dimensions of Disasters says Katrina evacuees run the risk of such problems as depression, recurring nightmares and drug and alcohol abuse.
"When people are talking about post-traumatic stress disorder, they usually talk about something like a plane crash, but this is more complicated than usual," Ng says. "What makes Katrina different is the scale of the disaster and the length of time people went through it."
Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, breaching levees and submerging 80 percent of New Orleans. It killed more than 1,300 people, most of them in Louisiana, and caused over $200 billion in damage. Hundreds of thousands of people were forced from their homes.
At first, evacuees "had sort of a honeymoon phase, when the assets, the Red Cross and volunteers are rolling in," says J.W. Holcomb, coordinator of mental health disaster response for the Illinois Division of Mental Health. "But just now they're coming to grips with the fact that, `Hey, I'm no better than I was before. I'll never get back my picture of Grandma or my high school yearbook. And I'm in a strange place.'"
To help evacuees handle the stress, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency have given states more than $67 million, including a $19.2 million grant announced this month.
The grant will go toward local mental health programs for Illinois, Texas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Missouri and Colorado. Texas - which received the largest share of the evacuees - will get most of the latest grant, about $12.1 million.
Almaz Oko, a Miami resident who came to Chicago after Hurricane Andrew destroyed her home in 1992, says Katrina's victims face a long recovery. She says she still suffers from insomnia and flashbacks.
"You'll be in the grocery store and you'll bust out crying and you're not sure why," says Oko, who helped process Katrina evacuees in Chicago for the Red Cross. "I also went through a hoarding stage when I just wanted to buy, buy, buy. I guess I was trying to buy back what I lost, to fill the hole."
Yep. Hording, depression, the realization that I'm stuck in a strange place for the long haul, the realization that I'm no better off than I was before only minus everything I owned (that meant anything).
Fuck, I evacuated before the storm and I'm still suffering PTSD? That is just too unfair.
Shoddy fucking levees.
I've been so worried about my friend Nick. Almost everything in his life for the past couple of years has been toxic, from his health to the people around him.
Now his favorite author and life's hero, Dennis Cooper, the writer he is most inspired by, is including one of his stories in a new anthology.
I can not even begin to express just how huge a deal this is for Nick. Not just the exposure and having his work published, but having his number one literary hero recognize and honor his writing in such a way.
Wow!
On a side note, it is pretty cool that I've probably found out about this even before Nick, because of the wonky hours I keep.
why even have a UN?
One of the main parts of the UN's charter is the requirement that ALL member nations act to end genocide when it happens throughout the world. Yet time and again, the United (in hypocracy) Nations goes out of their way to ignore genocide. Sure, after the killing is done they hold their little trials and express shock and horror but they do NOTHING to stop it. NOTHING. They just stand there (often in the countries involved, WATCHING) with their dicks in their hands, while the slaughter takes place around them. Hell, in Rwanda, French troops were even seen assisting Hutu militia dispose of the bodies.
Now the Arabs are slaughtering the blacks in the Sudan and Chad and, once again, the UN ignores it. The media is all over there, using every word except genocide, knowing full well that is what is taking place, and nobody steps in.
The United Nations is a useless organization that does so much harm around the world and not a bit of good.
Fuckers.
Random thoughts
Rights.
Everyone has the same rights everywhere in the world. Most people operate under the misconception that governments grant rights. They don't. A responsible government's only function is to protect the rights we all have at birth. An irresponsible government violates those rights. Read the Bill of Rights. It doesn't say "we're giving you these rights." It says "these rights won't be infringed upon."
So when people say that they're fighting for their right to marry, keep their earnings, have an abortion or carry a gun, they're missing the point. They already
have all of those rights. What they're doing is fighting to keep the government from infringing upon them or, ideally, to have the government perform it's function and protect them from being violated.
It doesn't matter if you live in Saudi Arabia, the United States or Cuba, everybody has the right to live however they want. We all have the right to do what we want, as long as it doesn't involve infringing upon the rights of others. The only difference between these places is the degree to which these rights are protected.
Since having Persephone I've gone from not being able to read about or watch portrayals of animal death and cruelty to not being able to watch anything about suffering children or animals. Being a mother has turned me into a pussy.
Even though the brother thing complicates matters, I'm hoping to get some, if not all, of the back child support that's going to be taken out of Bill's pay, so I can put it away toward rebuilding my house.
It's also good to know where he is so I can contest his will once he's dead. The man has money and I will get half of it when he's dead dead dead.
How do stories with obvious typos get published?
Drug and prostitution laws don't just make victims (and criminals) out of those involved but also all of society with the violence, theft and disease that goes along with black market economies.
I've gotten to be friends with several people I used to not get along with. All because of the internet.
ex-boyfriends contacted me after Katrina, to make sure I'd survived. My own father did not.
If Joe doesn't get the job he's interviewing for tomorrow, I will be very upset.
I need a legal copy of Photoshop CS .
It seems like just about everyone I know is in a state of crisis right now.
If Joe gets the job he's interviewing for tomorrow, I will be very upset.
I haven't felt like myself since Butch died my hair brown.
I really want to designe some things for Poppy's Cafe Press shops (she needs the money coming in almost as much as I do) but can't seem to find the energy to get started.
How Persephone got her name
Everybody knows the story of Persephone. It's has always been my favorite name for a girl. It's pretty. It comes from Greek mythology where Persephone's beauty prompts Hades to wisk her off to the underworld and make her his wife. Over time, she grows to love Hades and enjoy her position as queen of the dead. Of course, she also misses the world where her mother, Demeter, has made it very cold and killed all the plants to force her father, Zeus, to get her back. In order t have the best of both worlds, Persephone drinks the juice of a single pomegranet seed, making it so that she has to spend half the year in the underworld with her husband. This is where we get seasons.
Elizabeth is her Paternal Grandmother's name.
Dorner was her step-grandfathers middle name. It was also his mother's maiden name.
And I always thought I was an only child!
It's been 24 years so I had to be sure that this Bill Schorer
was the same one who divorced my mother and abandoned me when I was ten. It sure looked like him.
That's because it is.
And he live in Phoenix, in a new regional sales director at company called Astec and has a 15 year old son.
So I have a brother I never knew about and who probably has no idea about me.
He probably doesn't know that he has a sister, brother-in-law and baby niece.
He may not even know what a complete bastard his father is.
Yet.
Oh and just so you know, aunt tracked me down a few years ago (and flat out LIED about my having a sibling, bitch) so Bill Schorer knew full well that I live in New Orleans and he did NOTHING to find out whether I survived Katrina.
Random thoughts
I fucking
hate snow.
Hate it.
I've missed weddings and funerals to avoid it
I don't post this blog for public consumption. If people (and my, they must be bored to do so) decide to read it, I'm okay with that but I don't post with others in mind.
My friend, Nick, is very sick and under the influence of some extremely toxic people. I've only slightly more desire to move back to Michigan as I do to stay in New Jersey, so I don't know what I can do to help him.
Nick deserves all the best things in life and all he seems to end up with is shit.
I don't like always feeling so angry toward my mother. We've always had a very strong relationship and she is a vital part of my life. She's the sort who would not be able to handle hearing about why I'm so upset, so I do my best to hide it.
Katrina victim has become a part of who I am, almost as much as mother.
I don't know what to do with that.
All of my priorities have changed.
The things that make me happy, hell the things I even
think about are totally different from what they were before November.
24 is not a television show, it's a big, stupid video game and I hate that Joe makes me watch it.
New business idea: combination child daycare and kitty weight loss center. My two year old nephew's visit today was my inspiration. He adores my cats and I've never seen them run as fast as they did in trying to stay away from him.
Three days a week with Ryan and even the most obese cat would be the embodiment of fitness.
I left Michigan to keep from being "the other woman."
I have so many ideas that I feel paralyzed by them.
I should write them all down for when I don't have that "in the weeds" feeling.
I'm craving brie
It took something awful happening for me to discover that people are a kind and generous breed. They really do mean well.
These random thoughts are completely different from the ones I had (but didn'tmanage to post) yesterday.
Besides the discount and ARCs, my favorite thing about working in a bookstore was helping people choose books. I love it when they'd come in without a clue as to what they wanted and I was able to help them find something completely new.
Oh hell
I was going to to this whole, big random thoughts post but Persephone woke up and now I just don't feel like it.
Poor unkin's been cranky lately. With what I consider the parental equivalent to a man assuming every female bad mood is menstrual in nature, Joe assumes she's teething if she's cranky for more that a few minutes at a time.
shoddy fucking levees ruined my life pt. 1
Shoddy fucking levees ruined my life pt. 2
shoddy fucking levees ruined my life pt. 3
Shoddy fucking levees ruined my live pt. 4
shoddy fucking levees ruined my life pt. 5
It strikes me that I have much happier pictures to post now than I did a few months ago
I'm feeling less awful about my post-baby weight. I've been pregnant, sliced open like a fish and living in a place where I can't get any exercise because it's too fucking cold to have Persephone out.
Not many women wouldn'd be as big as a house under the same circumstances.
sigh
People used to tell me that I had too many books.
This used to annoy me.
In my opinion, there's no such thing as too many books. There's not enough space or not enough bookshelves, but not too many books.
I'd always wanted to leave my children a library.
Now I have a few paperbacks on a stubby shelf.
I miss my books.
:(
the neurologist and my fat ass
Persephone's visit to the neurologist went well. So far, she's not showing any signs of brain damage from her blood and oxygen loss at birth. He said that if she'd suffered any neurological consequenses, she'd probably be showing them by now. She is still having an EEG and will have to have a follow-up appointment in May, as there's still a chance she'll show some problems at later developmental stages. I sincerely hope that Joe finds a job with insurance by then as we can not afford the $450 a visit fees and I am not into the idea of Medicaid.
The in-laws took me non-maternity clothes shopping. I am now very very fat. Not to whine but I'd probably be a lot closer to my original size six if we were back home in the warmth, where I could be taking the baby out for stroller walks, instead of in the frozen fucking North.
I love that Persephone can be close to her paternal grandparents but that is the only thing that I don't hate about being here.
Right now I'd love to get my hands on every single mother-fucker in Congress that voted against building up our levees and restoring the wetlands and barrier islands. These are the same bastards who approved the bridge to nowhere in Alaska.
I'm now just a few supplies away from getting back to making my Voodoo dolls. It will be nice to feel productive and start bringing in money again!
bitter and humiliated on Ash Wednsday
I spent my Mardi Gras in a pit of self-centered depression, crying and whining about our being in New Jersey instead of HOME, catching beads, shoes and coconuts, finishing off eleven days of introducing Persephone to her first season of Carnival parades.
Right when I dragged my pathetic ass up to bed, Doug Shimell from NBC 10 called to ask to come over and interview his favorite pathetic Katrina family about this year's Mardi Gras. I didn't want to let Doug down.
I FUCKING
CRIED ON FUCKING
TV.
People lost family members and I cried about missing a few sacks of plastic beads.
On TV.
Christ.
Today I'm angry and bitter.
Angry with my mother for convincing me that my home wasn't worth saving. Angry that she dragged me away without a chance at salvaging what remained of my possessions, once she knew that she was getting her fucking hundred grand from the insurance company.
Angry that I did as I was told by my mother and husband, instead of fighting to clear my house and put it back together.
I'm angry with the Army Corps of Engineers for knowing they'd built shoddy levees and refusing to fix them before that bitch of a storm hit.
I'm angry with my husband for keeping my child and me here, claiming that this is the best place for him to find work, yet doing NOTHING to actually get a job.
I'm angry with the University of New Orleans for conveniently losing Persephone's insurance forms, leaving her uninsured now that they've fired my husband.
I'm even angry with my father, Bill "sack of shit" Schorer, for knowing I was in New Orleans and not even bothering to try to find out if I survived the storm. As far as he knows, I'm dead.
I've been so worried about my friend Nick. Almost everything in his life for the past couple of years has been toxic, from his health to the people around him. 
