Muddling Through Thursday Into Friday Morning

I did not want to move out of bed yesterday morning. I did better today. Yesterday, no caffeine; today, had a jolt of sugar and caffeine.

I checked out food banks. I had one planned for the evening. Which I could fit into going to go register with the sheriff in the afternoon, and then to food stamps. I cannot recall the last time I was this broke. I am not very happy with the new job or with food stamps. With food stamps, I went from around $200 to $36. I interviewed with Red Lobster on Monday, but I was not optimistic. Turned out I was right to be pessimistic, as I did not get an email asking me back. I have an interview tomorrow with MCL and with a motel. I checked the work schedule, I am not closing on Sunday night - which means no damp walk back at midnight. I will be working Monday and Tuesday, which I think evens up the hours. I will have to see about that.

As NPR is reporting, everyone is getting their SNAP benefits cut: 'Back to one meal a day': SNAP benefits drop as food prices climb

I worked on the pretrial detention journal until I had to catch the 1:45 bus downtown, waited around the bus station for the 2:30 bus out to the courthouse. I got KH on the phone, he wanted to know if I needed money, and I wanted to talk about "Road Tripping." I agreed to help without getting to talk about my story. Then I had a bright idea: walk up from the courthouse to FSSA. All I had to do was walk north on Tillotson until I got to 12th Street, go right and then cross the railroad tracks and Kilgore Avenue before the rain started. I called my sister while I walked and got her scheduled for next Thursday. While talking to her, I passed a dead deer on the road; not much more than a yearling, and wondered why the vultures had not found it. No problem there. The problem came when at 12th and Memorial when I adjusted my belt and it broke. I had to walk very carefully the rest of the way, the rest of the day. But, at least, I was not road kill.

The ladies of the FSSA were quite nice but bewildered why I got only $36 for food stamps. One mystery was solved, they had me working for a company I did not know, and I asked where they got the information. I was fed up with my telling them I did not work for the company, did not know them, and still be asked for income information. Well, it was McAllister's which hired me and I had to quit the same day.

I did not have to wait long for the bus. In fact, I felt good about being ahead of where I would have been otherwise. Then I missed the Whitely bus. I had to wait 40 minutes at the station, trying not to move. It was getting colder and damper. I texted K and CC about the belt breaking. I thought it was funny. But the bus came, and I got home around 5. Well, that killed the one food bank. CC texted me, all frantic about not being able to help me and the bad luck I was having. I called her and let her know I was not stressing, but thought it was funny. More proof I am not the guy you take along to the casino. 

After changing my pants, I raised my pennies and made my way to McClure's for cigarettes. Zoloft does a good job, but I decided I needed nicotine.

I ate a salad and worked on the predetention journal. I called KH and got to talk about the story and a bunch of other stuff. I got him to laugh about the belt.

I got in a half hour of LizBot. Pleasures are taken where they can be found.

 Then it was Rhythm Highways.

I submitted "Road Tripping" to Apocalypse Party. KH helped with my cover/query letter.

Back to the journal and the blog.

This morning, it has been email and updating my Saint Patrick's Day Playlist. Listened to a big chunk of Imelda May.

Some items from yesterday:

 The Georgia Review’s Spring 2023 issue is now available.

Granta 81: Best of Young British Novelists 2003 

From Southern Humanities, Tablet Lullabies by Helena Olufsen is a scary piece. Brilliant. And I thought giving kids Benadryl was bad enough.

I knew of Jim Gordon as the drummer for Derek and the Dominoes, never knew more until this came through from Daily Kos: The death of drummer icon Jim Gordon and the sorry state of mental health treatment in America:

 The non-stop work Jim was involved in took a heavy toll on him, and a dark side that laid dormant in him came to the surface.  In the 1970’s he had several psychiatric episodes, which were misdiagnosed as alcohol abuse.  In 1976, he murdered his mother after hearing voices which told him to do so. During his trial, he was finally properly diagnosed with schizophrenia, but instead of getting treatment, he was handed a sentence of 18 years to life in prison, where his illness continued to not be properly treated.  He never showed up for any of his parole hearings, and was unable to function in any meaningful way.  This was his state when he died today.  Mental health treatment has come a long way, but in some ways, American society is still in the dark ages where it comes to mental health.

But we are a people easily scared and prison a place to hide what scares us.

Jstor's Was She Really Rosie? is the history of the "We Can Do It" poster. It seems to me this is an example of a movement latching onto and repurposing an image or an idea, and replacing the original purpose with its new purpose.

I wound up over at The Irish Examiner, read an article on literary magazines and created a post that will be published this coming Tuesday, but on the newspaper's opening page I saw this headline: Terry Prone: Revisionism isn’t always a bad thing — and it may help us learn from mistakes. Well, this is one of the themes of "Road Tripping" and I wanted to see what I might learn. The op/ed piece is about Covid, and on that it has its points, but it does help me with thinking I am on point with my story.

After all, revisionist kicking is not going to retrospectively supply protective clothing that works and it might make people unwilling to take risks in a future pandemic, when risk-taking is always necessary in the face of a chaotic threat.

Also, it might — with the wisdom of hindsight — dent the reputation of people who up to now were seen as having done a stellar job, using the data available to them at the time.

That’s a fair point. But the reality is that if we look at the history of medicine, we find one recurring truth: Improvements come about because of two factors — innovation and revisionism. Innovation creates historic heroes. Revisionism drills a hole in these heroes.

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What bloodletting, cupping and a bunch of other once-respected therapies prove is that, while practice doesn’t always make perfect, practitioners are rarely willing to acknowledge that — rather the reverse, in fact. Their very sense of self can become enmeshed in whatever barking therapy they’re used to delivering.

And one from a few days ago, my second rejection of "True Love Ways Gone Astray":

Thank you for submitting "True Love Ways Gone Astray" to The Journal. We read every submission with care, and while we can only publish a small fraction of what we receive, the most exciting part of our job is reading such a wide variety of work. 

Though your manuscript does not suit our current needs, we wish you the best of luck placing it elsewhere.

Thanks again,

The Editors

This was from The Journal.

 Now, I have to get to a food bank!

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