Unfair Housing

The following is from September 2016:

So while feminazis are raging about wage-gaps that don't exist and others are complaining about how only black lives matter (which I know a lot of people argue that the movement is about everyone's lives mattering, MANY leaders in the movement have stated that other races do NOT matter---so.. yeah) um, disabled people are still left with the short end of the stick here. The minimum wage in California is going up substantially, but disability is not budging.

An asshole manager man of an apartment was hating on disabled peoples. I wouldn't be surprised if he was sexist and racist, too, though. I ran across him looking for apartments back in September.

I cannot even begin to explain how much of a douche this man was to me. I wanted to ask a single question that was super basic before ANYTHING else. It was a make or break question of any apartment I am looking for. Why? What is it? Well, it is because I am slightly disabled. I wanted to know if the place was on the ground floor, or if an upper floor and had an elevator. [Where I am now is on an upper floor, with an elevator.]

Before I could even say, "Well, I just have a quick question--" I was cut off by this man saying that he was having an open house Friday. I said that I might be able to attend if it was during the right time, but I just had a quick question.... still....

But again, he interrupted me and began to pepper me with questions, and I still didn't find out if I could WALK or crawl or wheel into this place!! OMG!!! He asked about the number of people moving in, which I felt slightly offended, as if I were going to try to secret in a small army. He then stopped me before I could again, TRY, to ask my question. Well- what is my credit score.

I don't know my credit score. I'm in my 20s and I've never had a credit card. I've had no need for one. My friend has one and he pays it off every month. I've had medical bills, but I've never had any other issues. I mean... wtf. Then he was like, how much do you make a month? I mean... I am not applying for this place over the phone, I was just trying to get information...

I told him the truth, I told him that I was not sure, but we had plenty for the rent and bills, and we were expecting the deposit to be well over $3000, which we have ready. I am disabled, so I personally am on permanent steady income. Instead he began to take on an even crueler tone and say that I had nothing prepared and they only wanted "seeeeeerious" people to come to the open house. As a reminder I still wasn't sure if I even wanted to go to this place cause was it ground floor or upper with an elevator?!

Rolling my eyes and shaking my head I told him that in L.A. it was a little silly to expect someone to have income three times the rent the so they can "afford" to pay rent. Then he replied that he didn't want "lookey loos" there on Friday. I face palmed and, angry at him, said, "Well, your apartment wasn't a very nice looking one anyway. Thanks, sir. Sorry for wasting your time." He wished me a nice day, though he didn't mean it (I could tell he was being sarcastic lol), and hung up.

The funny part is that he probably believed that I thought that that place was awesome looking and I only claimed that I didn't like it. I must've said it wasn't nice because I wouldn't be able to have it, of course... Sadly it was the-very-last-apartment-that-I-tried-to-call-today. Yes, it looked and read so terribly that I wasn't sure if I should have called for additional details, and now I wish I hadn't.

818 572 7009-- If only I had a name. If anyone wants to find cheap apartments in L.A. and don't mind dealing with dicks.

I won't go into details of what other things he said to me. I brought up that I was disabled and he was discriminating my income level despite it being illegal and he told me to take him to court... so I am looking up the particular parts of the law that I CAN take him to civil court. He was quite specific that it was because I couldn't ever work again that he did not want me as a tenant... I mean, if THAT is not discrimination, what is? I mean, towards the end he was saying that I wasn't going to find any place to rent due to my condition...
[[[To be honest, I forgot about this guy and what he said to me... but now I remember. But it would have been a she-said he-said, and I had no actual proof unfortunately...]]]

I haven't blogged in quite a while. Life has just gotten odd. A weird mix of rights and wrongs. When I was younger I thought by this age my life was going to be a lot different. As a child I would have guessed that I was going to be a singer, or a scientist. As a pre-teen, I thought for sure, I was going to be a biologist or geologist. As a teenager I thought for SURE I would be a biologist or an actress, and my theatre teacher thought so, too.

Coming out to Hollywood though, the closest I got to was a controlling and emotionally abusive boyfriend. He threatened me physically without touching me, but damaging things nearby. He would smash a windshield or a wall when angry, almost as a threat as to what he would do to me. I hoped some day that I could escape and sit on a sunny balcony and just happily write or do artwork, and sit happily drinking some tea.

That sunny balcony I guess is very easy to achieve... but I'm still seeking it out.

Many people are needy, high maintenance, and hard to please. I recognize that I can be needy at times, but I am usually easy to please. Feed me and don't cage me and I will be happy. Unfortunately, my physical impairment, which has caused my inability to walk more than about fifty feet or less, is a cage to me... I just need to move to a place where it isn't.

Every place I look at that is friendly to disabled people I cannot afford. Why is this? This is not fair housing! 

I would be over-joyed with a place where I can move about freely and leave my home easily... and feel overwhelmed with happiness if I could leave it and move about the complex to a courtyard- and if it had a pool---that is freedom from my wheelchair. As I write this I can't stop my eyes from tearing up a little. I used to live near a YMCA, and I would swim for hours. In a pool I can hide that I have anything wrong at all; for a time I feel normal.

I've always looked back fondly at my move from Chicago to L.A. and realized that I do in fact miss several things and people... Even when it was only months that I had been gone.

Something that I thought that I would never have missed was the toxic effect that I seemed to have on males, so imagine my grief when I discovered that I still had the same issues here. Even today as I'm not seventeen and a size 2 any longer, I seem to burn the less fair half of the populous. I'm aware that a lot of the problem does lie with me- I am too nice, I cannot for the life of me tell people off if they have shown me kindness. And uh... well... No I guess, that is the biggest part.

Being female and liking video games, card games, comics, anime, board games, and other nerdy pursuits has put me into a small pool of desired females that my kindness is mistaken for 'OMG SHE LIKES ME!' And it is more, I am just a nice person. 

As I write this another one has finally bit the dust, and I am kind of ashamed to say it is to my relief. I've been feeling extremely uncomfortable by his behavior and comments to me, which has been wildly innapropriate, unsocialized nerd or not. What broke the camel's back? He felt too ashamed to hang out with me after I said that I "didn't miss him" because we've only hung out a handful of times in real life, and we text very often, and his constant barrages of saying that he misses me makes me slightly uncomfortable... True I was slightly dishonest, it makes me EXTREMELY uncomfortable, but he played it off claiming that every time he said that he missed me, it was a joke and now he feels that he cannot hang out with me now. So the dozens of times over the last two months that he has said that he missed me and wanted to do creepy things to me were jokes that I took wrong? Uh, sure... At least he's not gonna bother me, and if he does I can be like "lol, you wanna do what? Haha like I'm a cat!"

xxxxxxxxxx

December 3rd

So I moved and I have to admit, I am glad that a few people don't know where I live now. They were normal seeming at first, but I am happy they cannot look me up now. Mostly the person I mentioned above is of concern.

I have someone who was once a friend, and now I suppose is still a friend, but less. She now goes by a borrowed name, but I have to say that part of the name is borrowed from me and it upsets me. Blackwell is a real actual name I have, and she took part of my name, Black- for her name. I suppose it might have been meant to flatter or show that she was looking up to me, but I feel it hollows out my foundation as a person.

Where I live now there is a pool that I have used any day that it has been warm enough to venture in, which surprisingly there were many in September and October. In the pool I feel freedom because I can move nearly unlimitedly. It is amazing and wonderful. Also here I finally have a bathtub again. The last place I lived I had no tub, only a shower, so having a tub is wonderful. The tub is also quite old with no working that drains water once it gets too full, so I can fill it up really high without it draining. It helps my pain in my back and legs so much.

I can also use the kitchen easier. It is less of a walk, I don't have to walk over a mattress, and I can also litter objects I am using about the counters, heh heh. The oven is electric, which I have to get used to. At least once I turned the range on in the back when I meant to turn it on in the front and wondered why the pot wasn't getting hot and it took a while for me to notice. Allen, who I moved in with, also likes my cooking, which makes me happy. It encourages me to actually make food and eat more, which I chronically under-eat.

Video games in the living room on a large TV is awesome! I also got a 4 foot Christmas tree which is adorable and set it up. Darth Vader nutcracker, and a My Little Pony Cadance stocking I made. The couches we have are comfortable, though kinda ugly.

Finally we have a little balcony with no sun, but it is still nice. It is like my dream has come true. I can always find a nice sunny spot surrounded by plants in a chair by the pool... I have a home.

The price was not something that I can afford though.

Living here, I depend on Allen. All of my disability goes to rent and electricity. It still doesn't cover half. Allen got a raise and he was kind enough to pay a little more... So I wonder, what about those who are disabled and aren't able to pay less than half the rent at a place that is expensive and nice?

Even being here, where the kitchen is closer, everything is smaller, I am still suffering. Last night I couldn't leave the couch. The pain was so terrible. The nerve pain in back has been savage and raw. Getting water, food, going to the bathroom, it was all agony the last two days. Today, too, it is painful.

Always it seemed like my right leg was the culprit, but my left leg began giving me issues a couple months back. Three days ago I merely walked to the couch with a plate of food and as I stepped pain stabbed upwards in my right leg and since then mere walking has been agony for me. Pills don't help, so I don't take them. Lotions don't help, so I've given them up, patches don't work for me... oils I've stopped buying years ago. Only thing that even remotely has helped was Rx lidocaine, and that only barely... that any my baths with epsom salts.

There just seems irony that epsom salts which are something so primitive seeming would be so helpful.

Finding A Voice

I remember when I was very small that on the local news, it would actually show... well news.

Last night I endured about an hour of frivolous stories, and a few stories that were somewhat emotional, before hearing about things that are affecting thousands right now, and soon may affect millions. I am sorry that six hikers died because of a flash flood, and a toddler was killed, but I would much rather here more pressing matters about thousands of refugees fleeing Syria who are being starved and abused because Germany followed through with their threat to carry the quota of refugees allowed to their borders, and no one will take these poor people. What is more scary is that it seems no one is concerned that Russia has military presence in Syria, a country we are fighting a war in currently, and not long ago Russia was doing reconnaissance missions along the West Coast... But hearing about how cats and dogs need homes, and the best places to dine for the Emmy's is much more important to hear about.

Making matters worse is that I live with a house of very ignorant and racist people. It is ironic how much they are willing to bash on Obama but happily take benefits that he brought in with many of  his policies that he introduced. Not to step on toes, but they are typical "LA Republicans" except they are Mexican instead of hailing from mixed European descent. I'm impressed how quickly LA Republicanism is catching fire.

L.A. republicans like to pretend that they are smart, but they are usually quite uneducated. They will ask questions in answer to questions, instead of supplying a good answer. They will argue using the same "fact" reworded again and again. They also see the Bible as law, and usually as literal history, EXCEPT when it interferes with what they want or like... like shellfish, polyester blended clothing, eating pork...

So I saw an actually good, but very racist, caricature of Obama as a black-monkey person in the living room, and I was of course like, wow... yeah.. This family hates black people. They pretty much equate all black men to being criminals. I bet I could bring Neil DeGrasse Tyson into this house and they'd be ready to grab the wood baseball bat that is in the living room.

On the news was the whole debacle over Planned Parenthood and the supposed selling of fetal tissue to people or companies and the majority red-neck House decided to either defund PP or "stop government," according to the news. So it left Obama 14 days to decide. I immediately exclaimed that it was horrible...

Thinking about 3 million reported patients that they have a year, and the king of the hill of further south redneck's immediately replied, "I know, murdering all those babies..."

So again without thinking I replied, "No, those poor women. They barely do abortions compared to the STD and prenatal care they offer! I've taken so many girlfriends there for help. I don't condone abortions, so I'd never help with that, but I was surprised when I learned they do way more." And I should know. I worked in a pharmacy for years. Do you have any idea how many prescriptions for things like condoms or birth control come from clinics associated with PP?

I could tell I steamed him up, so I decided to look it up and found, "Only 3% of their services are abortions... if it's a problem stop the abortions, but continue prenatal care...." I again pleaded my case for all those places to stay open.

Later in the night I actually looked into the issue further, and the fetal tissue was possibly being given to a company illegally, without their knowledge, so they could treat people with cancer and other serious health issues... But the kicker to me was when I looked up the exact laws about abortion and federal funding........there is NONE.

Abortions cannot be funded by the government.

So closing every planned parenthood that exists would do nothing about the abortion problem, because girls aren't getting government aid to get them there! Women are getting government aid to have healthy babies at Planned Parenthood, or men and women are preventing STDs. All of the ignorant idiots in government and around the USA haven't even bothered to Google basic laws of how abortion works, and therefore are probably going to cause more baby deaths than ever because 3 million patients will lose clinic care for natal and sexual care. Good job America!

I recently did a stint in the hospital, too... which... god.. I can't even get into that now..


I was very jostled around, and eventually it all left me with a discharge and somehow over medicated and yet my pain not managed. I've been trying to speak up the whole time I was there, but I cannot help but wonder, is there anyone to hear me?

Lerner Rowe and FML

6.19

Today was a BIG day for me; a lawyer's office was going to call me and help me re-apply for SSDI or SSI. AGAIN. This office was different. It was motivated to really help me! Unfortunately about thirty minutes ago they called, and about fifteen minutes ago I ended the call intears, because it was completely pointless.

A friend asked me what the name 'Neptune Fallen' was from, or if it meant something, once. It is not from anything in particular, but it does mean something to me. Neptune is also known as Pluto, and was seen as the god of the underworld, or even heaven in ancient times. Also sometimes Neptune was viewed as the god of the waters, seas, and rivers. Neptune fallen is literally a depiction of a fallen god, of the heavens and or the seas. Especially today.

-Cops arrive and interrupt me writing.-

Then forty five minutes after they called the cops leave... Lovely. Where was I? Um, yes, the person at the lawyer's office who is helping me is a fucking idiot... I was beginning to feel better, but now I want to throw something hard against concrete and watch it break...

"Your claim is still active, he wants you to know that," the cop told me. No, not the claim from before, but the claim that I haven't even begun... The claim that is upsetting me. The claim that I haven't even gotten a chance to explain in my blog why it is upsetting me, because cops literally burst into my home and interrupted me! Ugh! I suppose he is a kind guy, and means very well, but his intelligence is something that is really lacking from the little I've dealt with him. Reminding me of the woman from Fry's and the cop Jams dealt with.

So I hear a firm knock at the door, and I assume that it is probably someone of the family I rent from, asking something from me, or notifying me of something... and I open the door to, a buncha cops. The cherry on top is that Maria Sr. the crazy Spanish speaking-only grandma is here, along with the army uncle who is nearly stalkerish in how much he follows people online, including me. Hope he likes this post, he isn't bad looking tbh, and is actually pretty cool and fun to hang out with.

I nearly run outside to the front yard, out of earshot of everyone inside, so we can talk there. Even if I had a giant room that could fit dozens inside, with how thin our walls are, I would choose the same spot. Immediately, but delicately, I am asked how am I doing, and I totally bomb it.

"I'm not doing too well," I blurted out, sitting on the grass, picking at some shoots. "I uh, well my back is hurting, I tweaked it trying to rush out here... But I am feeling better emotionally than I was. I had called a crisis line."

"Alright," the cop replied, I assume happy I admitted that I'd called a suicide help line. I wasn't going to try to pretend that I was totally happy for the last few hours. "Did you tell anyone in the last few hours that you would hurt yourself?"

"Uhhh... yeah on the crisis line, I had pills in my hand, and I was wanting to take them," I answered frankly, glancing nervously up a couple times. "After several minutes I was feeling better and didn't feel like that anymore."

The cop looked almost as if a fish had crawled out of a fish bowl and run away or something. I guess he wasn't used to people just admitting things so plainly. So he asked me more questions like about me hurting myself in the past.

"I used to, a long time ago. You can see scars on my arms, but it's been well over a year since I've actually done it. I might have urges, but I've not actually hurt myself in a long time." I explained.

"Yeah... I can see some of the scars," he glanced at my arms and gestured with a finger at the pale slices intermixed with the slightly darker skin. "When was the last time you did that?"

I scoffed slightly nearly a laugh, "Pff.... I don't even remember it's been so long," I shook my head. "Before I moved here, and I've been here a year."

"Okay," he nodded. I'd been very frank, he seemed to believe me so far, or at least seem to think I was being mostly truthful. My scars obviously are not from days ago, but do look like they could be weeks old I will admit. "Have you ever been to a mental health facility?"

"Like a clinic... or?"

"Like admitted. Have you been to Hillmont?" he asks this. I shudder and the cops notice my reaction. I laugh loudly.

"Yeah, I've been to Hillmont," I answer with a grin, "One of the last times I was there I needed to get my gallbladder out, they were giving me liquid antacid, as soon as I was released I had to rush to Santa Paula for emergency surgery. Hellmont just let it fester inside me. No offense to them, but that wasn't the first time they've injured my physical health. They make me worse than I feel, hehehe." I chuckle and shake my head.

"What about ....?" They mention a place I'd never been.

"Nope, I've never been there... and I was feeling depressed earlier, and I have been feeling down off and on recently. My psychiatrist lowered my dose of one of my meds, I wouldn't be against being admitted to a facility if it weren't Hillmont." I replied.

Again the cops stared at me as if I'd grown a third eyeball or something. I was just being so mellow.

"Heh I bet I could also get a shower, too!" I added with a grin.

"You can't get one here?" the younger male who's been silent asks.

"Uh.... nope," I answer, my voice still friendly, with a smile.

"Why not?" the main officer asks me, his eyes wide.

"I waste water apparently. I'm not supposed to take showers, cause I fall, and I can't take baths cause of our drains, and then I also waste water, but everyone else can bathe...." I explain with a sardonic smile. The officer finally is beginning to get a read on me, that perhaps though I seem mellow that there is more behind it.

"You need to find another place to live." he tells me. "But before that, can I see your cell phone?"

"Sure, no problem... and I've been looking for one."

I go and get my cell phone, while one of the cops watch me, and they are shocked by my messy room. The biggest contention of me living where I do. Before the cops left one of them jokingly laughed to me, "Yeah, and you should probably clean your room," with a kind smile. My landlords claim fire department people and police will fine or issue other things if they see it, but so far cops, paramedics, police chiefs, and more have seen my room in worse states than it currently is messy and are totally chill with it and only have parentaly suggested I should clean it up, with a smile and often a chuckle.

Anyways

The main cop has my cell phone and asks me, "Did you tell anyone that you might kill yourself today?"

"When I was online with the crisis hotline, yeah, I was talking about it. I did send a text insinuating it to my best friend, but other than that no..." I answered and then kind of fell onto my side.

The young man cop immediately reached his hands out towards me in worry, "Are you okay? Do you need a chair?"

"Oh no, I'm fine, well not fine... I hurt, but lying on my left side like this is best. Thank you, though." I reply with a smile. The main cop is looking through my phone and the other cops who are closer to my age are looking at me weird, as if how could I just hand my phone over to a cop? I didn't fight, try to erase things, try to explain things?! Nope, just gave him my phone. He can lol over funny texts between me and Jams.

Finally he asks me, "What did you say to... the crisis team... and to Dustin from the lawyer's?" I realize that he's gone through my texts and call history, and likely might have checked my skype and facebook and internet, too, in just that three minutes. I don't use them much.

"Dustin I admitted that the SSI application was pointless, everything in my life was pointless, I wanted to just give it up, terminate anything that had begun, there was no reason to keep it going. If I begin to receive assistance I will receive a gross amount less for rent and food than I currently get... and I began to cry uncontrollably and I was trying to get off the phone and just end the process of applying again... with the Crisis, I admitted I had a buncha pills I wanted to take, and got talked out of it, by realizing there are programs to help people who have nothing...." Finally the cop said he was going to make a few calls on it, and he walks away.

The younger girl cop asks me something I could tell she was dying to ask, "Do you always dye your hair like that?"

I chuckle, "Um, kind of... It was purple since October, but then I was trying to dye the purple out, and I got this pink." We all laugh at this explanation and then the younger man mentions the bright pink is reminiscent of the 80's, and I recall that I like it a lot because it is similar to Cadance from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

"Can I ask how you hurt your back?" the girl cop asks, her voice polite, but nervous.

"Yeah," I reply. "Back in December 2010 I was in a car accident and got 3 herniations, but then in 2012, this doctor Ashokan herniated on disc from 5mm to a centimeter. That made it so I couldn't walk at all for a long time."

"Oh wow..." she said, her eyes sympathetic.

"Yeah, I deal," I tried to smile encouragingly. This is my life, I can't live for myself. I have to pretend to be okay for other people. Finally the cop with my phone returns with my phone and tells me...

"Yeah Dustin from the lawyer's office wants you to know that your claim is far from being denied, it's still waiting to be approved even," at first my heart jumped before I realized.

"Wait.. you mean the claim, from today?" I ask, confirming the idiocy of trying to comfort me with the cold hard fact that pushed me into the warm comforting arms of the idea of unlife.

"Yes, the one from today," the cop replied. "It might not be a lot of money, but you should look at it like a happy accident."

I have to facepalm, but I don't. "The thing that upset me was that as soon as I get SSI, I won't get food stamps, because it is a California law... and the person helping me with rent will stop that aid, so together my total amount for food and rent will be a fraction of what it is now.... But I have program info to help now so I'll be okay somehow." I lie through my teeth at the end... yet the cold realization dawns on the cop. The person at that office duped him. The girl in the grass who is afraid of her landlords, SSI is going to possibly make it so she can't get food to eat, it might mean death from another mean that isn't suicide, which is why suicide is so tantalizing.

"Well, you seem to be pretty stable. Um, if we took you anywhere it'd be Hillmont, but..." the cop trailed off.

"That'd be worse, thanks for understanding," I finish for him.

"So you won't hurt yourself?" he clarifies.

"No, not on purpose." I answer, "I do hurt my back all the time just trying to walk around though, but it's all accidentally." to which I get the sad smile I was trying to get, while I chuckle, adjusting my pose to ease my back pain.

"Well if you need anything call us."

"Will do, thank you~!" and with that the cops leave.

--
6.20

Oh before they left, they did ask me what I was doing when they arrived, and I explained that I was literally in the middle of blogging, and they asked what about, and what I generally blog about. I told them that I blog about being disabled, and I was writing out my feelings about the idiot at the office I had dealt with.

What I failed to get into real details thus far was what Dustin from the office said to me that crawled under my skin.

The whole reason I had agreed to make a phone appointment with this office to discuss SSI or SSDI again, was because, it was mentioned that I might actually be able to get an amount that would be survivable on. When Dustin spoke with me, though, this became very apparent, not to be so. Dustin was very spoken that I was too old to have any sort of disability insurance.

“You are too old to have any disability insurance,” Dustin told me, as if I was some sort of idiot. His tone of voice was annoyed, like everyone should already know the information he divulged. “You never worked long enough to pay into it. You chose to stop working too early.”

“I’m sorry, I chose?” I repeated to him, a bit stunned. Was he referring the date of the last day of work?! The day that my best friend had to help carry me out of the store because I couldn’t walk unaided?!!

“You also didn’t choose to work full time.” He continued. “Because of your age, you have to have worked full time for five years… and you chose not to.” Dustin said this like a basic statement of facts. Twisting my horrible accident and torturous turn of my life and suffering into some sort of sweet fun flirtatious early life experimentation! Every time I heard him say “choose” or “chose” I felt like a knife was digging deeper into that injury already in the base of my spine.

“I never chose to not work full time,” I corrected him, my tone as polite as I could manage. “I had to work part time due to my physical limitations, as noted by doctors.” I explained clearly.

“Well, because you chose not to work for so long, and not to pay,” he continued to repeat as if he hadn’t heard me, nor read my case file that I have 5 herniated discs!! My spine doesn’t work!!!! What the fuck is wrong with this man?! “You’ll only be qualified for like SSI.”

Which would mean, basically no money, and under 300 a month. Food stamps would be cut off. The person aiding my rent would stop, also. And I would lose my housing, and my food in one swift active swing. I declared I wanted nothing of it, I wanted to give it all up, and he began to call me greedy that of course I was not entitled to a lot of money like ads on tv suggested… and that was never what I wanted. I want money to survive by. Pay rent, purchase food, medication.

This asshole is telling me that I have chosen to voluntarily, able-bodily-not-worked for most of my adult life, decided all of a sudden I am now disabled and want a lot of money and am now complaining that I can’t get a lot, and supposedly I guess all those injuries and issues pre 2014 do not exist, but he can begin to get me 200 dollars a month starting 2015, and that WILL be enough to live by, even in southern California. BECAUSE DUSTIN says so… Even if there are no places that cheap, nor places where I can find enough food for free even if I can find safe housing.

Thank you Dustin, even if I go to the social security office myself, you’ve made me look like an idiot.

The World Without Us [dual post]

So I often watch documentaries to fill time in my day, often to learn or just be entertained. Sometimes I watch very slanted ones simply for amusement, but today I revisited one that I had watched some time ago called The World Without Us.

Now a lot of the people on Netflix have given it bad reviews, but I am guessing that very few of them have taken college level world history classes. So many points in the movie echo true. Many countries depend on U.S. military force occupying them or a nearby country, yet so often Americans are resented.

There was a woman who was very angry at Clinton over her son’s death at the hand of Serbians. Yet, the entire situation was that Dutch military had come into the area, handed over their uniforms and weapons to the genocidal Serbs and stood by as the Serbs used this to trick thousands of people to their deaths with a promise of protection, pretending that they were with the Dutch. It seems much more that if the Dutch had not come, or at least not helped genocidal radicals, her son could very well be alive today yet she is angry at the U.S.

It covered Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and the hostilities that the USA handles and what might happen if the USA pulled out. You even saw people from countries stating frankly that they depend on America to defend them.

The reason I decided to watch it again was to try to fire up the urge to seek justice for myself and find inspiration for my novel series. The horrible injustices in North Korea and China, nearly the entire Middle East, most of Africa… At the end as the credits rolled, someone from Taiwan said that Americans take their democracy for granted, and it is true. Most of us go about life taking many things for granted, food to eat, a bed to sleep in, and safety. I did for the first seventeen years of my life, but after I was kicked out because my gold-digger step-mom didn’t want me in the picture, I began to learn to appreciate a lot.

I suppose I should perhaps explain that a little more. I have been on my own since shortly after my seventeenth birthday. My mother was advised to abort me before I was born, due to pre-eclampsia, high blood pressure caused from pregnancy. She wound up getting eclampsia and it damaged her kidneys, and she later had full kidney failure. My father on a whim got tested to see if he could donate when I was 6, and he was a near perfect match. He hadn’t been tested previously because the odds of a married couple being a match would be like one in a million. So he gave her a kidney, and she had to be on immunosuppressants to prevent rejection. This essentially made her like people who had AIDS before the 2000’s.

She began to die on a Friday night on February 2, 2001, and died early in the morning on the 3^rd after the life support machines had been removed. She had been in a coma for quite some time. By the next Saturday my father was dating the woman he is now married to.

Manipulative does not even begin to describe Nancy, who is an ex-drug user. She seemed kind to me while my elder sister was in the house. My older sister ran with a bad crowd, did poorly in school, skipped classes, and would argue with my parents constantly, even destroying the last thing that I made with my mom.. Literally tearing it to pieces in her rage, and throwing it at our father and step-mom.

Once my sister turned 18, my father was going to give her a month to move out, but my sister left on her own accord before he had a chance to even tell her. Then suddenly my parents began to have the same “problems” with me. I was not sleeping around with guys, I hadn't even kissed one! I was getting straight A’s, applying into a gifted program to take college classes in high school. Socially I was involved with church youth group activities.

Many times I was randomly taken to a doctor to have my blood drawn and tested for non existent drugs, that still to this day I have never partaken in, but my father travels to Narcotic Anonymous meetings internationally and claims that I did. I got a part time job once I turned sixteen, saved up and bought a car. Once I was seventeen I had church, job, school, theatre, and I cleaned the entire house and did half of the cooking, although I was not allowed to eat with my parents any longer.

The day I was kicked out my father attacked me, I blacked out for a second and I remember the water bottle that hit my head and him punching me, I curled up, trying to protect my head, when my step-mother’s sister finally yelled for the both of us to stop it. I was committing a wrong by doing nothing? It was all because I was told to find a second job, and I hadn't found one yet.

The school program I was in actually told parents to try to keep us students from even getting one job during the school year, the courses were so intense. It had nothing to do with money, as I mentioned he has spoken internationally, my father is well off.

I then learned how much it meant to have a bed, food, shelter, safety, warmth, health, and much more. It was then I decided that I wanted to be able to effect people for the good. In some of the documentaries I hear about people who have escaped from North Korea and they talk about how they only ate rice, and I recall when I would only have a bit of rice as a meal for the day myself- if even that. Perhaps that is why I watch so many of those films, even though those countries as a whole are so much worse off, I can sadly relate to many of the people.

Sleeping with several pairs of pants on, sweaters, and a coat, and you are still cold is not fun. You wake up in your bed, under your blanket, you are cold and you see your breath despite being indoors..... 

When I came to California and I received help from my now-ex boyfriend’s family, I was so grateful, to the point that they were often confused. Eating food everyday had become a novelty to me. Then when I began to work, a job that was dollars above the minimum wage, it was even more amazing. But they would ask me, why was I so happy just to have food offered to me? Why was I so happy to have new clothing? Why did it make me so overjoyed to get shoes?

Even now, after I got hurt, although it is difficult to survive off of only food stamps and the generosity of others, food stamps offer more than I ever expected from when after my mother died, until when I moved here. Then when I got hurt and I got state disability, I did not have money for food, ironically I got too much money from disability for food stamps, despite my medical bills leaving only around $20 a month for food. Food stamps now gives me $200 a month for food, and I don’t have medical bills.

What is wrong with our government? People who really need help do not get it, just because of numbers.