(no subject)
Oct. 30th, 2008 10:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckI have an absentee ballot now. I hesitated over getting one because my disability is so complicated. I probably *could*-- at least in theory-- manage getting to our polling place, waiting in line, voting and getting home, all with Cordelia in tow. It would just half-kill me. I'm fine in elections where the wait to vote is short, where there aren't a lot of people crammed into that tiny room, where the lines don't run out the door and down the hill. I don't expect any of that to be true this time.
I'd probably still try it if Cordelia were going to be in school, but school's canceled on Tuesday. It's just too much. I might be able to do it if I take a vicodin, but I'm not convinced that voting while medicated, even if that medication doesn't normally affect my thought processes, is a wise move. An absentee ballot is a much better alternative.
(For those wondering, our polling place is far enough away that I can't walk both ways but close enough that I feel like a moron taking the bus. It's only a few blocks, two stops down the line. I have trouble standing for long periods, with 'long' defined as more than ten to fifteen minutes. I'm also agoraphobic and get more nervous when there are more people around and even more nervous when there are a lot of people in a small space. Add in that I'm asthmatic to cold air and start to ache when I'm out in the cold for very long.)
Getting the ballot at city hall yesterday was the last of a series of errands. Cordelia and I were out for four hours. I picked her up at school, and we went straight to the bus. We went to the post office first to mail one BookMooch package. Then I bought her lunch. After that, we went to the dentist for two more fillings. Then another bus to get close to city hall and into the building to get the absentee ballot. We walked two more blocks to get the bus home and had a long wait in the cold for it.
Cordelia cried and whined between the school and the bus stop. She was trying to convince me that she didn't need the fillings, that it's too scary, too exhausting, too painful. She tried to talk me out of the trip to the dentist several times after that. We have one more appointment, next week. I will be so relieved when we're done.
We got home after Scott did. He and I were both dead on our feet, but we dragged ourselves out to the pharmacy to see if his insurance would cover the Provigil. They would, so we left that to be filled while we got dinner.
The Big Boy on Plymouth Road has an excellent soup and salad bar. I wish they had more soups without green peppers and/or tomatoes (usually, there's only one), but the fruit is always good. We can get Cordelia to eat a really big meal there. She usually gets a kids' meal with scrambled egg, two pancakes and two strips of bacon and then eats fruit and cucumber from the salad bar. (We tried a different Big Boy in another town last week, and that salad bar was awful. It taught us to check before buying. Cordelia was really disappointed about it.)
Today will be split between cleaning and writing. The cleaning lady comes today, so I have to shift all the crap out of the living room so that she can get at the floor. (We can only afford her for two hours a week, so we don't want her tidying. We want her to do the stuff I really can't. I do what I can before she shows up so that what's left is what we want her to do.)
The writing.... I'm working on my![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
livelongnmarry fic. It's fighting me. I have a complete draft, but it suffers from the fact that I was halfway through it before I realized what the story was actually about. I'm trying to go back to fix that, to aim everything at the right place, but it's still...odd.
I promised to have it done on 1 November. I can have something done. I'm a little afraid that it won't be properly done then, but I'm also afraid of asking for an extension and discovering that more time doesn't make it a better fic. (If I ask for more time, I want the result to be worth that extra time.)
I don't think this is a bad fic. It simply has a couple of points that disconnect from each other and need better transitions and a different direction in the first half than in the second (which I suppose is another disconnect). Unfortunately, the one set of beta reading comments I've gotten on it were from someone who didn't realize that I had a deadline. Her suggestions might well work but would likely take me a lot more time to implement than I have to spend.
Anyway, laundry and dishes await. I also have to call the psychiatrist and the mother who's supposed to be taking Cordelia for a playdate after school. I need to clear up what we want to do about the dosage of the Provigil, and I have to be sure that the other mother still remembers the plans.
I'd probably still try it if Cordelia were going to be in school, but school's canceled on Tuesday. It's just too much. I might be able to do it if I take a vicodin, but I'm not convinced that voting while medicated, even if that medication doesn't normally affect my thought processes, is a wise move. An absentee ballot is a much better alternative.
(For those wondering, our polling place is far enough away that I can't walk both ways but close enough that I feel like a moron taking the bus. It's only a few blocks, two stops down the line. I have trouble standing for long periods, with 'long' defined as more than ten to fifteen minutes. I'm also agoraphobic and get more nervous when there are more people around and even more nervous when there are a lot of people in a small space. Add in that I'm asthmatic to cold air and start to ache when I'm out in the cold for very long.)
Getting the ballot at city hall yesterday was the last of a series of errands. Cordelia and I were out for four hours. I picked her up at school, and we went straight to the bus. We went to the post office first to mail one BookMooch package. Then I bought her lunch. After that, we went to the dentist for two more fillings. Then another bus to get close to city hall and into the building to get the absentee ballot. We walked two more blocks to get the bus home and had a long wait in the cold for it.
Cordelia cried and whined between the school and the bus stop. She was trying to convince me that she didn't need the fillings, that it's too scary, too exhausting, too painful. She tried to talk me out of the trip to the dentist several times after that. We have one more appointment, next week. I will be so relieved when we're done.
We got home after Scott did. He and I were both dead on our feet, but we dragged ourselves out to the pharmacy to see if his insurance would cover the Provigil. They would, so we left that to be filled while we got dinner.
The Big Boy on Plymouth Road has an excellent soup and salad bar. I wish they had more soups without green peppers and/or tomatoes (usually, there's only one), but the fruit is always good. We can get Cordelia to eat a really big meal there. She usually gets a kids' meal with scrambled egg, two pancakes and two strips of bacon and then eats fruit and cucumber from the salad bar. (We tried a different Big Boy in another town last week, and that salad bar was awful. It taught us to check before buying. Cordelia was really disappointed about it.)
Today will be split between cleaning and writing. The cleaning lady comes today, so I have to shift all the crap out of the living room so that she can get at the floor. (We can only afford her for two hours a week, so we don't want her tidying. We want her to do the stuff I really can't. I do what I can before she shows up so that what's left is what we want her to do.)
The writing.... I'm working on my
livelongnmarry fic. It's fighting me. I have a complete draft, but it suffers from the fact that I was halfway through it before I realized what the story was actually about. I'm trying to go back to fix that, to aim everything at the right place, but it's still...odd. I promised to have it done on 1 November. I can have something done. I'm a little afraid that it won't be properly done then, but I'm also afraid of asking for an extension and discovering that more time doesn't make it a better fic. (If I ask for more time, I want the result to be worth that extra time.)
I don't think this is a bad fic. It simply has a couple of points that disconnect from each other and need better transitions and a different direction in the first half than in the second (which I suppose is another disconnect). Unfortunately, the one set of beta reading comments I've gotten on it were from someone who didn't realize that I had a deadline. Her suggestions might well work but would likely take me a lot more time to implement than I have to spend.
Anyway, laundry and dishes await. I also have to call the psychiatrist and the mother who's supposed to be taking Cordelia for a playdate after school. I need to clear up what we want to do about the dosage of the Provigil, and I have to be sure that the other mother still remembers the plans.
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no subject
Date: 2008-10-30 06:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-30 06:48 pm (UTC)* 60 years of age or older
* absent from the community on Election Day
* physically unable to vote at the polls without assistance of another person
* unable to attend the polls because of religious beliefs
* appointed a pollworker in a precinct other than your own
* confined to jail awaiting trial or arraignment
'Unable' is, when applied to my conditions, a difficult word. I probably *could* do it. The cost would be higher than is sane under these circumstances, but that's not the same as 'unable.' I have trouble with the line a lot because it's not that I absolutely and firmly can't do things. It's that doing them carries risk and uses resources needed for other things. In this case, I'm being sensible because I can be.
I suspect that part of my problem is knowing that my disabilities are all invisible. I know there are people who don't believe in them. I know there are people who consider people like me to be liars and lazy. I can't prove my disabilities easily (I can prove them, or I wouldn't be getting disability). I think that I half expected to be told that my ability to take a bus and walk into city hall meant that I could handle going to our polling place on election day, even though the line at city hall was miniscule and there were chairs where Cordelia and I could wait.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-31 04:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-02 02:35 pm (UTC)I'm angry at Scott's employer, though. They're having a mandatory meeting after work on Tuesday. Scott should still get back to Ann Arbor before the polls close, but it'll be at least two hours later than he'd have arrived normally. Goodness knows how long he'll be at the polls. (My mother says that having a meeting on Election Day is, at best, legally dubious. She takes it as a clear effort to keep employees from voting instead of rank stupidity and incompetence.)