I just went and got a refund on all of my events for the day. I just couldn't handle the way the pain and inflammation were spiking. Even popping pills like candy hasn't been able to buy me functionality in these sort of conditions. It's fine when I'm in the room lying around but having to walk around and actually do things just exacerbates the problem. Luckily, the events I dropped today were all optional ones. That'll change tomorrow when I have to start running events for playroom. I am not sanguine about things.

I just dunno. For the first time I really feel like a cripple. In the past, I was always screwy but I knew that I could bull through it if I needed to. There were always steroids or extensive pill popping and I could go to the con or make any event I really wanted to go to. This might be the first time I'm just really non-functional. I always said that I did not want to go through surgery again, no matter what happened, but it may be time to reconsider if I can even find a surgeon willing to do the work. The pain and horror from last time are still vivid in my mind but it might be the only option left. With the amount of healing time required, I'd be be out of commission for a good chunk of time. Feh. I just don't know....

I was always a procrastinator by nature but ever since the medical whozits turned up, it's gotten even more extreme. It's human nature to want to put off unpleasant tasks but you'll find that when everything in your life comes with a pain tax, you seldom get anything done. I was just reminded today that I should really contact the social security people at some point and try to get my status changed. When I applied for the program I listed my circumstances as being "receiving support and maintanance", which is true enough. The problem is that that category nets me $200 less a month from SSI payments. That might not seem like a lot of money for most of you out there, but considering the fact that I currently have less income than your average paperboy, it's something to think about.

As far as I can figure, in order to qualify for the $200 boost, I need to show them that I'm not longer receiving monetary support. That means, in effect, that I can pay an equal share of the household expenses. That in itself is a pretty laughable proposition, but it only really has to work out on paper. It's not like they'll actually check to see where each dollar actually goes. It's almost like a sort of math puzzle. The obnoxious part is I'll probably need documentation to at least prove things like property taxes, utilities, and food bills. I don't think it'll get any more nit picky than that. I really, _really_ don't want to have to go back and deal with the SSA though. The previous trips to their office have been unbearable. I can only imagine it'd be worse now with the more pain issues I've been having recently, not to mention the fact that there's no guarantee this whole thing will pan out anyway.

Still, it is $200.

Gah.

Things continue on in various levels of suck. I finally took the time to wade through all the byzantine levels of HMOs and other health care gobbily gook today. I had to pick a HMO a few weeks ago but because of my disability status, I don't actually have to stay with a HMO. Instead, for some inexplicable reason, they require me to sign up for one and then the moment I'm registered to request to be taken off of it. Since I haven't seen a doctor in almost a year, it's really a moot point all around. I'm actually more concerned about the dental coverage. I've got a wisdom tooth that's falling apart at the seams just like the last one and while it's no longer causing me pain, I just know that any day now it's going to start howling like the blazes. I definitely want to make sure I have some sort of coverage when that sucker needs to be yanked.

Those fucking wisdom teeth. If it weren't for the fact that I was such a coward, I would have had all four of them out a decade ago. The dentist had wanted to pull them right off the bat, and no wonder considering the easy money he'd make doing the procedure. He claimed that they would never come in normally and would jut out of my jaw in crazy directions. I have a phobia for needles and put it off and when they ended up popping in just fine, I just chalked it up to him being a money grubbing liar and never even considered having them yanked. Now, years later, I'm forced to get them pulled one at a time. I could have just shortcutted the whole process if I had known better.

All in all, life continues to suck pretty much unabated. Pain issues seem to have plateaued for the moment, neither getting better nor getting worse. That's not exactly helpful considering that overall, this has been a pretty unpleasant stretch. Due to the increased amount of badgering, I'll probably have to see a doctor at some point and see if there's anything they can do for me. I know that the steroids will work but I'm really afraid of taking away the one thing that I know will work in a pinch. The last time I went on them for a continuous basis, they had less and less effect over time. I need to have something for Origins and Gencon where I know I can be more functional for a short period of time. Feh. Nothing to do but sacrifice the present for the hope of the future.

So, tomorrow I will be going to court in the city of Elizabeth in an attempt to not have to pay the 50-someodd dollar parking ticket and, if I'm lucky, get my towing fee refunded. I have no idea how the situation will work itself out. It's not like I've been in many of these sort of situations before. In fact, I can only recall two off the top of my head. The first was having to go to court for parking in a handicapped spot when I was 19 or so. (Ya, I know, the irony is rich.) Instead of having a sign denoting the spot, they had instead painted a blue handicapped symbol on the street. I didn't notice the darn thing at night and ended up having to pay a $100 fine for it and spend a couple hours at the courthouse. The second time was due to an accident I had where I slid through an intersection on a major highway during a rain storm and t-boned a crossing car. The guy ended up suing me for an entire laundry list of issues including 'anhedonia', a loss of joy in his life. I was sort of pissy about that at time since I felt he should have to at least prove that he had joy in his life to begin with. In the end, I showed up at the courthouse and waited for hours. He and his lawyers never showed and they ended up settling out of court with my insurance company.

I guess that's my best hope this time around too. If the police officer who ordered the car towed dosen't show up that means I win, right? I'm not sure exactly where I stand on this whole thing legally. I mean, I was blocking what could have theoreticly been a driveway. I've never seen any cars in it and it's all fenced off, but it does have a sloping curb in front. I just don't see how in the world they can fine me for parking in what was clearly marked as a handicapped parking spot. It's not like it was a private, reserved spot either from what I could see. In the end, I figure that if I win, it'll be because the judge exercised his or her discretion. I'm probably borked by the letter of the law, even if it makes no sense.

Hmmm, I just checked the notice, and it seems that I'll have to get to the courthouse by 8:45 am. My day will start even earlier than that since I still have to make a run to a Walgreens to get the pictures I took printed out. I have no clue if it'll make a difference but it'd be stupid to not have a picture or two documenting the sign and spot just in case.

Anyway, I'll let you all know how it ends up going tomorrow.

So, today was the deadline for when I had to call in and sign for up an HMO. I had been sent a huge packet of crap a couple months ago and since I didn't want to bother with it, I foisted it off on my sister the pharmacist. She's ended up being the go-to person to deal with all of the health care related crap in our family nowadays. It's not like I couldn't have simply read the forms and booklets on my own, mind you. It's just that they were thick, likely to be extremely boring, and I didn't wanna. So I let her make the choice for me and after she picked one, I called earlier today to inform the government of my decision. And there's where the odd part kicks in.

When I told the woman on the phone all my id numbers and information, she informed me that based on my circumstances I wasn't required to pick an HMO at all. That I could just ride along on the general medicaid system which is much better. That sounded spiffy to me so I said I would much rather go with that. I was then informed that if I didn't pick an HMO though, they would pick one for me. Eh, come again?

It seems that despite the fact that I'm allowed to not have a HMO, I must first, however, pick a HMO and then tell them after I'm enrolled that I don't want a HMO. Seems a bit roundabout to me, not to mention that according to the woman on the phone it takes 30-40 days to add and then 30-40 more days to remove you from a HMO. So basically 60-80 days to resolve a pointless pain in the ass that only serves to annoy me. I can only assume that signing up for a HMO gives the government a kickback or somehow benefits them financially because I can't figure out why these obnoxious hurdles would be there.

In the end, it doesn't mater anyway. I haven't seen a doctor in over 9 months a this point and I don't feel any need to do so. There's never any good news and I hate doctors in general. About all I do require are some incredibly cheap prescription medications. You'd think my goal in life was to save the system money.

After a few hours sleep on Sunday, I roamed back to Elizabeth in order to try to get the car back. I had googled driving directions and set off with my dad in tow. The basic process is you go to the tow yard, collect your registration and insurance from the car, go to the police station, get a pass to pick up your car, and then go back to the yard to pay the fine and get the car. There were all sorts of small fubars in this process. Everything from not having current insurance cards in the car, almost not having a key along to open the door, the tow yard only accepting cash, and the lazy pig-like police officers of the city of Elizabeth. Lets focus on the last of these for a moment.

In general, I've always had a good deal of respect for cops. I almost always give them the benefit of the doubt and in my experience, they've been good people doing an often obnoxious and thankless job. All of those positive feelings were put to the test on Sunday. When I got to the police station, the goomba at the window was downright rude. He was obviously put out that he actually had to do his job instead of just goofing around. There was some old tub of lard sitting behind him, straining the springs of a chair with his feet proped up on a desk and bullshitting with those around him. It looked like some scene out of a movie. I thought there was some sort of physical fitness requirement to be a cop nowadays. Bloato back there looked like he'd get winded unwrapping a candy bar. Dickless at the window wasn't hugely better. He was just snippy and a general pain in the ass. When I passed him the information, he saw the expired insurance card and said 'This is shit'. Eventually I got foisted over onto another cop who displayed about as much interest in my issue as the first asshole, but at last didn't make exageratedly slow movements and sigh a lot at having to actually type on his keyboard and look at documents. Eventually, I managed to get the slip of paper I needed and then it was back to the tow yard.

$120. That's how much it fucking cost for the tow. $120. Do you believe this bullshit? Not only that but they don't take credit cards to boot. I was just lucky I was able to scrounge enough cash together to get the car out of hock. Oh, and I didn't even get around to mentioning what I got towed for. I got hit with a $54 ticket for 'blocking a driveway'. It turns out that as long as the curb slopes down, it's considered a driveway even if there's a damn handicap parking spot right there. The whole property was fenced and it never occured to me that they could still be referring to it as a driveway. There were no farging cars on it and weren't even at 3am the night before. So basically, I went from up $20 from playing cards to possibly being down $154 by the end.

I still haven't decided if I want to go to court and fight the ticket or not. My tags, according to the state of NJ website, gives me the right to park in _any_ handicapped spot. I don't see how it can possibly be my fucking fault if they put one in front of a driveway. On the otherhand, I'm not sure I can tolerate any more interactions with the city of Elizabeth. The city is a fucking sewar and their public employees are gibbering assmonkeys. All I know for sure is I know which house it is and one of these days, I'm going back there to break some windows.

Towed for parking in a handicap spot.

Welp, I finally made it back a few minutes ago. The entire damn fiasco ended up taking over 3 and a half hours from start to finish. The appointment itself lasted all of 5 minutes and basically consisted of them asking me the same questions I had answered a couple months ago. I guess they were just curious if I had recently become a convicted felon since we had last chatted. God knows why they don't just send me a form I can check off or conduct a phone interview. Either option would have been much faster and simpler. Not to mention it would probably help the unbelievable backlog of people in their office. The place was crammed full and more or less looked like what you would expect if a bus load of boatpeople rammed into a bus full of senior citizens.

Oh well. The person there did mention that this is a yearly checkup so hopefully that means I won't have to go through this irritation again for quite a stretch. It just ended up being a tremendous waste of time.

I want a candy bar.

Yesterday was incredibly unpleasant. If it's no fun being on hold with SSA for 2 hours, imagine what it was like to stand in their waiting room for over 5 hours. I can't imagine Purgatory could be worse with all the wailing and gnashing of teeth. I can't even begin to list all the horrors and indignities without getting pissy. Suffice to say, a lot of my anger has to do with the fact that they ended up losing my name on the waiting list at some point resulting in a 3 hour plus delay. Add that to discovering the fact that the reason I hadn't gotten any response in over a month was because the person handling my case decided to take a two and a half week vacation and my appeal letter was still sitting unopened on her god damn desk.

When I finally got to the front of the line again (for the second time), I was able to pass over the documents needed and things wrapped up pretty quickly. The $3.57 ended up costing me hundreds of dollars due to a couple months of lost eligability, but by the end, I got my approval. It was certainly one of the fastest turnaround I'd ever heard of, even with the unexpected bumps in the road. Again, I guess it can only mean that I'm more fucked up than I thought compared to the rest of the schlubs who end up applying for this crap.

I just can't help but be incredibly angry and bitter over all of this as a whole. The entire process just makes me think about the loss and waste and rage.

Bleh. I fucking hate the SSA. It's worse than just about any organization I've ever had to deal with, bar none. Not only are there absurdly rigid policies, such as the $3.57 fiasco, but I end up failing to receive all sorts of mail from them I should be getting and it's impossible to get through to them on the phone.

It's been around a month since I sent back the documents needed for the informal meeting appeal and I've gotten absolutely zilch back. It's as if the entire thing fell into the black hole of bureaucracy and vanished. I decided to call last Thursday and after spending a good chunk of time on hold, got transferred to the person who was supposed to be handling my case. Of course, I never got to speak to her since it went automatically to voicemail where I dutifully left my information like in times past. I have never received a call back or any indication that any of my messages have gotten through either in the past or in this particular instance.

I tried calling again today and spent over 2 hours on hold. Actually, it may have been longer since at some point I actually fell asleep waiting for someone to pick up. One of the most infuriating parts of this entire pissy situation is the god damn voice recordings I'm forced to listen to that repeat every 30 seconds or so. After around 15-minutes, I'm overwhelmed with the need to find the woman who recorded the message and shoot her in the face. What's incredibly galling is that the message always starts with her saying 'Here's an idear(sic)'. There's no fucking 'r' in idea you stupid, gibbering cretin. NO FUCKING 'R'! It's not idear, it's idea, god damnit. Listening to her say 'idear' over and over is like pounding a screwdriver into my ear and I can't think of any rational response other than swift and blinding violence.

I fucking hate the SSA. I fucking hate this woman. I hope the god damn building explodes killing all those within.

Well, I'm back. We finally rolled in sometime after 1am last night and everyone scattered like bats out of hell. It was late and the exhaustion level was high. I dragged all of my crap into the house and went upstairs to check email and fiddle around with things that I had left untended. I was just nekkid and about to step into the shower when I got a call from Joyce and Matt, asking if I had seen his laptop case. After dressing again and stumbling outside, I found it in the street where it had been overlooked in the hasty exodus. It was just a lucky thing that no one had run over it. In the end, I got to bed somewhere around 4am I think and managed to sleep a bit longer than usual, no doubt due to excessive sleep deprivation.

I was forced to get up early in the afternoon and fill out some forms for the social security office. They mailed a 10 pg questionaire to the house during my absence and the thing had to be post-marked by today or there would be dire consequences. It was basically a medical evaluation sheet which asked about the extent of my problems and how it affected every aspect of daily life. It was tedious as all fuck and frankly, has left me a bit depressed in general. It's never much fun to wallow in that sort of thing much less have to put it down on paper. Add it to the fact that handwriting anything is tedious for me and that there was never enough space on the pages to answer and it was a generally unpleasant task. Still, it's been sent off and it's one less thing I have to worry about. I should get their ruling within the next 3-4 months and once that comes in I'll have a better idea of how shitty the rest of the process will be.

Looking over the voice posts that I sent from origins, I'm sort of confused why only some of them were auto-transcribed. You'd think that it'd be all or nothing, but I can't figure out what the malfunction might be. The transcriber clearly isn't perfect, but it seems better than I would have given it credit for. The accuracy seems to be up around 90% or so, though there are still a few glaring errors. I'll try to get around to uploading the pictures I took and recapping the trip in the next few days.

Just got back from running errands and the trip to the social security office. All in all, the entire process took around a hour and change. Most of it was spent watching the woman taking the info typing at her computer through what seemed to be a truly prodigous number of charts and forms and then getting up to retrieve printouts. My part in the whole situation is pretty much done at this point, though they'll give me a ring and let me know if I'll need to set up an appointment to see one of their doctors. I should know what the decision is within 130 days. I've pretty much acknowledged to myself it's almost certainly going to be a rejection. That seems to be the general motis operandi from what I've read online. About the only way the process is really streamlined is if you happen to be blind or missing limbs. Just about everything else is stamped rejected as matter of course. It's then on to the endless appeals and followup rejections and followup appeals until a court date is spawned where things usually go through. It reminds me of those lawsuits against insurance companies where they would simply delay in providing coverage, making people jump through hoops of meaningless, yet aggravating paperwork. The idea being that unless you really needed the coverage, you wouldn't bother with the thankless task of trying to acquire it after a while.

While I was at the office, I also managed to finish filling out the form so I can get Enbrel gratis. I ended up having to swing by a notary to get the documents stamped but it's all done and I should hear back in only a couple weeks. No surprise, a private company is more streamlined than the government. I'm still not feeling all that great about the Enbrel. I'm almost certain it'll do some good based on the studies I've seen, but I absolutely loathe needles. Having to inject myself a couple times a week does not sound pleasant. It hasn't been all that long since I would threaten the health and lives of doctors who approached me with anything sharp and pointy.

On a sidenote, I failed to get a pricematch at Walmart today too. I should just stop already, but I keep reading about other people having no problems and it gives me the hope to try again. Instead, I end up hot, pissed, and worked into a lather over the whole thing. I really pushed at the Walmart, asking not only to see the manager, but asking for a copy of the store's official policy and when denied that, asked that the manager handwrite his ruling out on paper and sign it so I had proof. At some point, I was just pushing buttons to be a dick. The end result is the same though. No pricematch. Feh.

It's been a hot and obnoxious day so far, though hopefully the rest of it will be pretty sedate. I'm planning to spend the rest of it loafing about in air-conditioned comfort while playing my DS and listening the Robert Jordan's Eye of the World.

After reading online that certain people had luck gettin Circuit City to pricematch the deal at Toys R Us, I went out and figured I'd give it another shot. If nothing else, there were still a few games that friends had me on the lookout for and I knew that at the very least the new Transformers game would be out today. There was absolutely nothing worth getting at the first store I checked and by that time it was scorching out and I decided to check the other one later in the evening when it had cooled down a bit. Soon after getting back my sister called me. It turns out that she had been in an accident on a highway nearby and couldn't find her insurance or registration. I ended up having to go and turn the house upside down looking for the damn things while juggling 2-3 phone conversations. I ended up finding the insurance info, but just too late as it turned out. The cop on the scene had her car impounded and despite the fact that I was only 5-10 minutes or so away, once it was on the flatbed we were SOL. I ended up having to go pick her up and she was not a happy campter either.

Since I was already out, I decided to drop her off and head to the second Circuit City. After getting lost and going around 10 miles out of my way, I found it, limped my way in and after much searching discovered games I actually wanted. Yay! I then went to the customer service desk upon which I was told they didn't price match B2G1 deals. Feh. What's galling is that I know other people have had success trying it elsewhere but there was nothing I could do but trek home, hot, sweaty and generally pissed off.

Tommorrow I have my appointment with the social security office, and I'm hoping that dosen't turn out to be a complete fubar. I've heard everything from the process being quick and easy to it being a multi-year nightmare with far more of the latter than the former. I just don't want to deal with any of it....but if it works out, it's like free money. If nothing else, it'll offset some of the financial burdens and that would be nice.

I need money. Lots and lots of money.

I want the pie in the sky
I want money lots and lots of money
So don't be asking me why
I wanna be rich, oh
I wanna be rich....

Erm, bit of an unexpected musical interlude there. Hadn't planned on it but you can't stop a song once it pops into your head and starts jumping on your auditory cortex.

Anyway, back to the point of it. I need more money. I've already spent more than I should have on True Dungeon treasure tokens and I want more. I NEED more. It's a horrible addiction and it's driving me bonkers. I'm hardly one of the real 'big spenders' with one person this year dropping around 6k and another 4k. In addition to that, there were at least around a half dozen that spent in the 2k range. My dropping of $750 would seem to be miniscule kept in comparrison but viewed objectively might be an act of insanity.

The real difference between me and those nutjobs spending more is that I have no real source of income right now. The medical issues have left me completely disabled when it comes to employment and it's pretty depressing to know that all those years of education and prep work have ended up coming to naught. At this point, what I should be doing is filing for disability through social security so that I can pick up some support, but it's hard to bring myself to go through the process. I've never actually worked before, and since the payments are based on past income, chances are I'm going to be put into a bracket crowded with crackheads and welfare moms. As far as I know, level of education and whatnot plays no part. Since my problems became incapacitating before I picked up a job (though even that would have been pretty pathetic pay as a post-doc or some such), I'd have gotten the proverbial shaft no matter what.

I guess that something is better than nothing. I should at least see how much the benefits accrue to. The only fun thing about this process is I hear it takes up to 5 years or so to resolve. That's always pleasant to know that I could be waiting that long just to pick up a few hundred dollars a month.