Minor update...

[johnpalmer]

Well, a week ago last Monday, Chris finally left the apartment for Cleveland. After some minor mishaps on the road, she made it home safely. (I *told* her to have the water pump replaced when changing the timing belt on a 1992 Ford Escort, for fear that a siezing water pump would strip the timing belt... ah well. Good news is, replacing the water pump and timing belt at a dealership in Wisconsin cost less than replacing just the timing belt and doing some other maintenance work at the mechanic in Kent.)

So, I'm living alone for the first time in I-don't-know-how-long... but more than a dozen years. All jokes about leaving the toilet seat up or down, however I prefer, aside, it's a strange feeling.

To add to my stress, after leaving my work in January, I was supposed to be allowed to continue my medical insurance under COBRA. February 1 was when COBRA kicked in. Well, I'm now signed up for the *wrong* medical plan. Somehow, the COBRA person decided that I was on the "buy up" plan, not the regular.

Some of you may know I'm on meds for maintenance of ADHD. Well, I can't afford them without insurance. The cheap one is over $100 a month. Now, there's one thing worse than being afraid to take my meds, for fear I'll run out before I can get a new supply... and that's running out, and not being able to get any, period.

If I don't take my adderall, but I still have some ("in case things get really bad"), well, that's unpleasant, but if I *can't* take my adderall, that's *bad*. So, I'm mostly going medless. For the past three weeks, that wasn't too bad. Why? Well, for the past three weeks, I've been sick. I got some really heavy duty infection in my sinuses that migrated back and forth from there to my lungs and back, and it took a full three weeks for me to start feeling 'right' again. Why didn't I go to the doctor? Well, two reasons. First, this was a sneaky thing... each day, I felt "wow, that was worse than I thought! If I'd known it was this bad, I'd have gone to the doctor a day or two ago." It always seemed like the worst was mostly over. Second... I don't have any useful health insurance! Sure, I'm paying for it... but who the heck knows if anything will ever get straightened out?

So, I felt like crap, but, I had a reason to feel like crap. If I was tired when trying to concentrate no something, hey, no problem, I was sick.

Now that I'm mostly healthy again, I'm remembering *why* I'm on meds for ADHD.

Oh, did I mention that my job doesn't give me sick time? I'm a contractor, paid hourly. So, having to miss work was a major financial burden.

However, I have some beloved folks who had money to help out, so Chris got off okay, and rent and insurance premiums got paid.

Other fun stuff:

I came home on Tuesday to find a "vacancy" sign inside my mailbox. Apparently, someone thought that Chris's change of address was a family move, not an individual. I filled out the form, and noted "my wife and I have separated!!" (I figured people would understand what had happened, and why, from that), and the next few days I got mail. Yesterday, the first day I could receive an important piece of mail (read as: the rollover check for my 401(k), over $13,000), it appears that my mailbox lock has changed.

(Mailbox key doesn't work, lock looks strangely new and shiny - I don't *think* it looked that new and shiny a week ago, but would I have noticed if it had?).

The number of phone calls I'm having to make to try to have some semblance of a normal life at a very stressful time of my life is starting to irk me. I guess it's good that my writing has kept me in a semi-mellow mood.

See, you probably remember the book I wrote from November through January. The thesis of the book is "Some Republican supporters have declared an ideological war on people who oppose them. They are using successful tactics, which encourage others to use the same tactics. This has built up until we have a wall of hatred built between our friends and neighbors and it's long past time to start tearing it down... even if you disagree with my beliefs about who started the war."

After writing about how important it is to be calm, and remember the essential goodness of our fellow humans, it's hard to start yelling at people on the phone without feeling like a hypocrite. Plus, yelling at customer service people is usually not very productive.

Still, my patience is worn out, and it's not like my medless state is a good one for remaining calm. Right beneath the surface is the raging scream of "To *you*, this is a bothersome customer service problem, to *ME*, it's part of my life that I need put back in order you (multiple expletives deleted)"

Oh well... time for me to head home, and see if my mailbox problems are fixed (if my lock was changed how will they get the new keys to me? I'm sure the obvious joke has occurred to everyone by now....)

(What's even funnier is that they have a set of package delivery boxes they use. "No, no, no, we didn't put your keys in your MAILBOX! We're not stupid! We put them in the package delivery box, so that you could unlock them with the key that we... leave in your mailbox. Ooops.")

Comments

[blackthornglade.livejournal.com]

*gah* *hugs* You'll get used to the living alone thing. It just takes time. Once I adjusted to it, I found I liked it a lot.