What's it gonna take?

I heard some bad news about you, brother.  I heard you were pretty much at death's door.  So I wanted to write you a letter, because, it's not that I think I'm going to miraculously save you by writing you a letter, but at least you'll know that I do love you and how much I love you and maybe you can take that with you where you're going because it looks like you're going down to a place where I can't follow you.  

I love you.  I always have.  I remember the first time I met you, and I remember so many things.  I remember watching you skate and when you popped your finger out of place.  I remember when you tried to teach me how to roll a joint out at the boat launch and how I always felt so special when you'd take me places just you and me.  I remember being in the Flats with you for hours and hours, we began at the top of the Shale Pile, and you were lost and sitting there and had gone down some tunnel far away in your mind and I looked into you in that moment and saw something I'd never seen in you before and something I'm sure you have most of the time tried to hide.  It's okay to hide that part of yourself sometimes, to protect it, because it is quite fragile, but there comes a time when you need to embrace it before it's concealment poisons you, and I think you should maybe think about it now.  

Listen, it's not enough for me to just say I love you and leave it at that.  I love you doesn't quite cut it.  Baby, I will do anything for you.  I would give pieces of myself for you.  Pounds of flesh and strips of my heart.  Do you need a mother?  I will be your mother.  I will let you rest your head on my chest and sing you to sleep.  I will hold you and hold the wolves of this world at bay.  I will cook you meals and make sure you tie your shoes and wash behind your ears. Is that what you need?  Do you need someone who will take away the hurt and become a veil between you and the world?  I will do it.  I will.  If this will save you.  And I'm sorry, I'm sorry that back in the Fall, I didn't hang out with you when you called me because I thought to myself "Well, I can't go to the bar because I'm sober now and I just can't really be around all that shit."  Maybe if I had just hung out with you, you'd have seen that you could have a friend who was sober and you maybe could have stayed clean, too.  I'm sorry.  I know, I shouldn't give myself so much credit, it probably wouldn't have been enough anyway because I know it's hard, but I just can't help thinking what if I'd been there for you more back then...and now maybe it's too late and I won't even get to hug you one last time.

I don't understand.  I know that this is obvious to you.  I don't understand why you are punishing yourself like this.  Why you are punishing the people who love you.  You are a smart person, I know this.  You are smart and you must see that death is very near to you.  And there are those who would say that death is near us at all times and that everyone dies so what's the big deal?  And I would say to you that I know that, I know that everyone dies, but I don't want you to die like this.  I don't want you to die like an animal, like a dog, who slinks off alone somewhere so he can die a quiet death without being ripped apart, or like a dog who is hunted down and exterminated by master's who have become it's enemy and who's body will be left for the crows.  I don't want you to die this way.  I don't want to go to your funeral and look at your body with a face I can't even recognize anymore either through violence or starvation.  

I want to hug you.  I want to hold you in my arms and smell your smell, your warm, clean, laundry and cologne smell.  I want to kiss your smooth face, your forehead, your cheekbones, your eyes.  I want to press my cheek against your cheek and hold you for a long time and let you feel something good that's real.  Not this good, this artificial good, this devil that has taken you and will take you from us all.  Something real.  Feel me, baby.  I love you, brother.  Feel me.  Feel me and know that I can make a wall between you and the world.  Feel me and know that I'm real and I'm a love that is a fire that you can step into and burn with love.

Some Republican probably Made that up

Ok, so I thought to myself how much I dislike the phrase "God helps those that helps themselves" because I think that was just some Republican's way of trying to get those good-for-nothing ne'er-do-wells to stop "loafing around" and get to work so they (the Republicans) didn't have to step over their (the poor people) malnourished bodies as they (the fat cats) made their way to the bank.  Because from what I know about God, and what it says in the Bible and other Holy Books, God helps those who call on him when they're in need, the helpless, you know the meek shall inherit the earth and all that.  Well guess what.  It's not in the Bible.  Our old friend Benjamin Franklin made it up in Poor Richard's Almanac.  So there.  Except I do like Benjamin Franklin, but maybe that's just because every time I think of him I think of the jovial version of him I saw in the Broadway musical adapted from stage to screen in 1972, "1776".  Seriously, check it out.  Hilarious.

Argument with a white man

So I was looking for a dentist yesterday, I had to perform a rigorous search on the internet because, believe it or not, once you have Medicaid, a lot of doctors and especially a lot of dentists do not want to see your broke ass sitting in their office.  In the course of this search I found out that in Michigan even fewer dentists than normal accept Medicaid, they organized some...organization to not take patients on Medicaid.  Apparently poor people deserve bad teeth.  But more on that later.  I also came across one of those forum questions where a woman (or man) was in a similar situation, asking the same question.  She got two answers, one was helpful (or as helpful as possible considering about the only thing you can do is call 1800-Dentist and hope you get a representative who's willing to take the time to help you find the list of clinics because 1800-Dentist only represents dentists who are rolling in it) and the other was some condescending prick offering one amendment to the first response and the ever so thoughtful follow-up "Hope you're doing something to get off Medicaid".  What a fucking dick.  

Here is my response to that guy (and he was obviously a white republican male):  

I hope you're doing something to become less of a douchebag.  You know what?  I'm on Medicaid too, sir.  You think I WANT to be broke?  You think I like having to fish around for medical care with physicians who all assume I am an idiot because I am poor?  Do you think my life is tra-la-la fucking great?  I need medical attention AND I have no money.  Why don't you make a couple inferences from that, ass.  Yea, you know what?  We should just start calling Medicaid "State Insurance" because that would probably carry less of a stigma.  I pay for my insurance, we all do, with our taxes, and it's not great.  You know what I hope YOU'RE doing?  I hope you're selling your cottage on the lake and getting rid of your second car (which is an SUV or a Lexus, or both I don't know, I don't know if you're that cool, but you probably are) and canceling that trip to Vegas where you were going to give your wife a diamond solitaire in a glass of champagne for your anniversary you unoriginal sleaze-bucket.  Yes, I hope you're cutting down on your superfluous expenses so it will be less of a pain in your ass to help your fellow human beings get what they need.  She wasn't asking for a fucking Wii, she wants to get her teeth checked out.  Asshole!  Asshole!

You know what you should be doing instead of responding to this question, since she already had gotten a helpful and non-pejorative answer?  You should be asking yourself whether its really going to make a difference if people "try doing something to get themselves off Medicaid" or if it would make more of a difference if the government and the insurance companies got out of bed with each other, tried having a little humanity and stopped blackmailing people for medical coverage.  The greatest country on Earth and we don't have universal healthcare?  What the fuck?  If it bothers you so much that you have to pay for someone else's healthcare coverage why don't you start harassing the government to do something about the insidious racket being run by insurance companies.  Not everyone can have what you have, dude, since you like your America the way it is, where some people succeed fiscally and some people don't (because to have such an inequitable class system as we do here, it necessitates the reality that some will exist in poverty and a few will have what they want) you better get used to the idea that you will have to shell out a few extra dollars to help those who actually are struggling to help themselves while you bitch about inflation and they don't have enough money to heat their houses in the winter.  Or would you like it better if we let the impoverished fend for themselves in some Thunderdome/Lord of the Flies/Road Warrior-esque scenario where rich people can buy tickets to watch the inhuman poor-ees rip each other to shreds for bologne sandwiches.  I just want to let you know that not all poor people are willfully unemployed.  You republicans seem to be dedicated to the delusional fantasy that all poor people are delinquent sycophantic laze-abouts who refuse to look for work and laugh at all you working-stiff suckers who have to foot their bills as they're cashing government checks.  The reality of it is most of them work their asses off in jobs where they get little or no respect for a pittance.  They usually have two jobs and work about 60 or 70 hours a week and they make less than $30,000 dollars a year.  Did you know that $6.20 an hour is not a living wage?  Neither is $8.20 or even $10.20.  $10.20 might be a living wage if we had free daycare and universal healthcare, but we don't so go fuck yourself.  Imagine doing much more irritating, less respected job for $6.20 an hour.  You don't want to do you, because it would fucking suck.  If you think it's ok for people to work for $6.20 an hour, get ready to help them pay for groceries, daycare and healthcare.  Otherwise, get writing your congressmen and do something about it you egotistical bastard.  

Excuse me, I'm not finished yet.  It must be nice to be white.  It must be nice to go to a decent school because of where you live growing up and actually have a chance in hell of getting into college.  It must be nice to have parents who can afford to help you go to college so you can have a chance at getting a decent job.  It must be nice to think you are above ever becoming poor and dependent on someone else for the necessities of life.  It must be nice to not have to struggle day in and day out with no end in sight and no realistic way out of your situation other than death and to see what your kids are getting set up for and to try so hard to do something about it and know you probably won't be able to.  It must be nice to not have to run a hose from your neighbor's house so you can have water or get your power shut off in the middle of January or not be able to give your kids shit for Christmas or have to put your name in the paper to ask for someone to please help you get your kid some fucking sweat pants and socks for Christmas.  I hope you get humble before it's too late, sir.  Maybe your son will end up addicted to Oxy-Contin and your daughter will be a single mother.  Maybe that will be enough.  But you seem like you will end up in a nursing home unloved and uncared for and then your underpaid caretakers (who you so conveniently brushed aside as deserving their lot) will be in the position to abuse you or treat you humanely, because I'm willing to bet that you are actually not all that rich, but just rich enough to be rich compared to these people.  

In conclusion, sir, I would like to inform you that I am actually not doing anything to get myself off Medicaid.  And since I know it will rub a little salt on your wounds, I now plan on doing nothing to get myself off Medicaid for a long long time.  I've paid for insurance before and I felt totally ripped off.  $120 bucks a month for some bullshit coverage that only gave me $1000 worth of lab fees for the whole year?  Fuck that.  If you've ever had to have bloodwork even once, you will know why I say this.  My Doctor's Office co-pays were $20 a pop.  And Emergency room Care coverage, $1000 for the year? No Vision care to speak of, no dental care to speak of.  And that's not even if I had added my child to my plan.  It would have been like another $90.  Not when I'm making less than $2000 a month.  You can kiss my indigent, cold little ass.  I will think of you from now on every time I use my Bridge Card and I want you to know that I was thinking about getting braces while I'm on State Insurance and now I will because it will be another dime out of your pocket, dude.  

I'd also like to add this:  has your wife called you an asshole lately?  'Cause you are one.

Oh, Brother

Hey, there is something we need to talk about.  I was going through my writing the other day and found all these poems I was writing to you.  They all say how much I love you and I'm trying, in them, to express gratitude for the way you treat me and make me feel about my self.  So I want to tell you that I'm sorry for what happened.  You don't know how embarrassed I feel.  A drunken phone call at 3 am and I'm ruining our friendship and now it's been 18 months since we've sat together on your porch drinking Miller High Life from those funny shaped bottles, talking about things, our journey, and listening to the lonely traffic roll up and through and over the dips on Hope Valley in the darkness of the earliest parts of morning before a white thread can be distinguished from a black.  We were two space cadets repairing the damage to our ships, taking turns holding the light for one another.  I had never felt so much less like a piece of  meat than when I was with you and even though you don't share so much of my genetic material, I think it was supposed to be that you were also my brother.  

So, I'm sorry.  How insulting it must have been to listen to me intoxicatedly insinuating that I needed something more from you.  The terrible ultimatum I delivered, "Oh look, when I get back home, I need to be with someone and it's either going to be you or this horrible horrible toolbox of a human being because I need somebody and I'll take what I can get."  I threw back into your face all of the secret jokes and looks and said they wouldn't be good enough anymore.  I demanded something more, something I didn't need and you couldn't give.  And I'll say it would have been enough to know that I was special and your sister, but in my wild desperate need to have everyone love me more than they love anyone else, I asked for what was not mine to have even though I know it wouldn't have been right.  And in my pettiness I was insulted, that somehow I wasn't good enough for you.  So I came back and gave myself to someone who didn't deserve me, and was too stupid to even know he was alive.  Ha.  How many of you really know you're alive?  What a terrible affront that in that I not only totally fucked our friendship, but I put you on his level.  Well it's either you or this ass-master.  Dude, I'm sorry.  I didn't mean it.  Can you just understand that I was terribly alone?  Can you just understand that what I needed was what I got from him and now I'm free?  Can you understand that my head wasn't working right and that I was still halfway between worlds after having almost left this one for another?

If there was someway to take it back, I wouldn't, though.  I have the greatest thing I may ever be allowed in this life.  At a price, yes, but what wouldn't I have paid to gain this?  And now you and I have fallen by the wayside and all I can do is stand in the light left by this comet's tail as it rises, rises.  

This is not sufficient.  This is not what I had thought it would be.  This is a poor attempt at assuaging the shame I feel and the guilt for hurting and degrading you and our friendship.  I may spend the rest of my life trying to articulate what I feel for you.  But this is the start of it.  I love you, Brother.  

If you should find it in you to forgive me, to condescend to keep some company with me, I will feed you and give you whatever it is that you need if only I get to laugh with you in your presence and feel you pleased to be with me one more time.   And I may pray it lasts a long time.

  If someday, the world is ending, and you should find yourself wanting to see me again, there will be an empty, comfortable chair on my porch in the nighttime next to me, under the stars where we can watch it all fall down.

Why I hate my dad

Maybe some of you opened this blog up and thought you were going to read something about how my dad cheated on my mom and then left the family and became a psychotic jerkface.  But you're not going to.  I don't hate Pops for that.  I mean, obviously, he's a piece, but he had already let me down.  I hate my dad because of, get ready for it, the sub-par sack-lunches he made for me to take to school.  There I sat in the cafeteria eating some variant of my three sandwich choices- 1. Turkey with cheese, iceberg lettuce and mayo, 2.  Peanut butter and jelly (with strawberry jam with actual strawberries in it which was super gross because the strawberries in preserve form took on this really bizarre texture which I would liken to raw meat, yea imagine biting into that, mmm) never with the right balance between the two spreads, or 3. Cheese sandwich with American cheese and sometimes a little Italian dressing (where he cooked that one up, I'll never know).  Sometimes I would have an apple or a branch of grapes.  Sometimes I would have a bag (never the fun-pack kind always janky looking in the sandwich baggie) pretzels or Cheez-its.  A toughened fruit roll up (mmm some dehydrated jelly to go with my regular jelly, thanks!) Then, Motts apple juice.  Where was my fruit punch, my Sunny D?  Where were my Gushers, snack size portions of Ruffles or Lays, or my Dunkaroos?  Huh Dad?  Where were my Dunkaroos?  What about a Hostess cupcake or some Twinkies?  Why didn't I ever get a Lunchables Pizza Pack for Friday as a special treat?  You bastard.  I'm scarred for life.  At least the other kids who brought their lunch didn't seem like they were eating a throw-back to the Eisenhower administration.  I sat there, eating my embarrassing lunch and washing it down with warm Mott's apple juice from a box.  I hate apple juice.  Oh and the piece de resistance...sometimes (Lauren stop reading this right now) I would be eating one of his carefully prepared cheese sandwiches and I'd try to swallow part of the bite only to have it stuck, hanging in my throat, dangling in my esophagus like a fishing lure on a line, still attached to the other half of the bite still betwixt my teeth by one of his overly-long well-groomed hairs rendering me to near choking.  At least twice this happened.  Fuck you, Dad.  

You know what Chrysalis Dreams? You know what?

I don't like you.  I don't like your jerk-off face, I don't like your jerk-off name, and I don't like you, jerk-off.  You are polluting the cynical, jaded world of blogging with your hopeful, effervescent, born-again, gratitude writings.  Why were you mentioned as a blog of note?  I want to know.  I read some of your stuff.  It gave me that feeling you get on Easter after eating too many Peeps and jelly beans.  I'm glad it makes you happy that you are  a blog of note.  I'm glad it makes you happy that you are saved, or whatever.  I don't think you deserve to be a blog of note just because of your immature and naive approach to your underdeveloped sense of faith.  Maybe that is why you are a blog of note, though.  Because you are not embittered like the rest of us.  Good for you.

Shouldering the Burden

There are some people who talk about having to shoulder the burden of those confounded Mexicans who keep jumping the border into our beloved country.  Then there's Fergie who will spend $40,000 in a few hours at a Calvin Klein store, which is more money than most people make in a year.  Nuh-uh, nuh-uh, you say, I make more than that.  Well, good for you.  But the fact of the matter is that 1% of the people possess 90% of the wealth.  Now, I'm no math wiz, no Will Hunting, if you will, but I think I can pretty fairly say that is an inexcusably uneven distribution.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think people should be required by law or forcibly compelled to share the wealth.  I just think that people should be nice and do it of their own free will.  The problem is that lots of people, too many, don't feel this way and so we have people starving right around the corner from people like me who is sitting around on her laptop with a full belly and the cable tv running for background noise.  I don't have much.  I live at my mom's house.  I'm on food stamps.  I'm unemployed.  But I have more than many thousands and millions of people around the country and around the world.  I have food.  I have clothes (old and second-hand, but still looking good).  I have a car.  I have the means to provide for my daughter.  Not fancy stuff, but what I need and enough so that sometimes I can also have what I want- the ability to buy my friends birthday presents, a book for myself or some ice cream, an outfit for Mimi.  Even with my modest means, I feel the need to help out others where I can.  One of the main reasons I want a decent job is that I want the ability to donate to charity.  I want others to have what they need and maybe even some of the things that they want.  I don't see what's so bad about forgoing some of the extravagances that we as Americans are used to so that people like my Grandma don't have to make a choice between medications and food.  I don't see why single people need to live in 4,000 or 5,000 or 10,000 sq. foot houses when there are families of 5 are living in 1 bedroom apartments.  And it's not because they're lazy or because they deserve it.  It's because many people have much more than they need or deserve.  It's shameful.  We're all in this together and we should stop pretending that it's every man for himself.  Because it's not.  We owe it to ourselves and to each other to give a little, just a little.  I don't mind.  I like it.  

However, in the end some people just don't feel that way and that's their right.  That just means people like me are going to have to work a little harder to help others and help themselves.  I can't change the core of someone's spirit, I can't change the manner of their heart.  And while I do feel we're all responsible for caring for and helping each other, at the very end of it all every man will stand accountable for his heart and his heart alone.