Dear Social Security Administration
Ever wonder what it would be like to be completely honest with a government agency?
I'm almost considering sending this...possibly written in crayon.
***
Dear SSA:
As part of the written evaluation used to determine my ability to work, you asked what I do from the time I get up until the time I go to sleep.
I had every intention of completing this evaluation today (the same intention I had yesterday...and the day before) so I guess you can also cross-reference this answer under the question, “Are you able to complete tasks...?"
I have been absolutely stumped by this question of what my day consists of. As you well know, I'm jobless. I completely lack any framework which would give my day structure. Without a concrete plot line, I'm having trouble giving the vaguest idea of what a typical day is like in my world.
"Having trouble" is my way of saying that I've been staring at this question off and on for three fucking days and am no closer to answering it than when I started.
Having come to a complete stalemate in my wrestling match with more traditional methods of answering your question, I decided to try a new tactic--Essentially, writing about a day which has largely revolved around your forms and questions. Hopefully in the process I can both answer some of these questions and explain why this whole method is just not working for me.
I have an entire pot of coffee (plus a few of those nifty “black coffee shots” that you’re supposed to drink no more than two of a day) gnawing its way through my stomach lining and I am properly (if illegally) medicated with the dosage of amphetamines that supposedly helps me concentrate. Consequently, though I’ve been awake for close to 24 hours, I’m not sure at what point I will no longer be awake.
Generally, I sleep when I realize my eyes are refusing to focus, when I run low on cigarettes or when something bothers me to the point I decide that consciousness should be avoided at all cost. If one of the latter two reasons is the impetus for me to drag myself to bed (or to the couch, depending on my mood), I will probably lay there for an hour or two dwelling on something important like whether or not time exists or how depressing it is that I can’t even seem to complete my crazy person paperwork.
If I’m having a particularly loony day, I may get up several times, pace, smoke more, drink bladder-bursting amounts of tea while muttering to myself. Sometimes, if this goes on for too long, I rummage through the medicine cabinet (backpack, cabinets in general, under couch cushions, extra stash upstairs...) in search of sedatives and usually end up taking something or other that, coupled with exhaustion, knocks me out for 14-16 hours.
This makes me a complete time whore. I sleep my way around the clock, am completely indiscriminate. I recognize that this is aberrant behavior and can probably be found in the DSM as some sort of insomnia-related paraphilia, which should add another layer of validity to my already well-founded claim.
I’m fighting the temptation to see if there’s a word for “clock fetish” that I can combine with “pan-" and “somnolence” to make a yet another inside-joke word for myself.
...I wonder how much my attention span has decreased since the advent of Google.
Alright. I need to put the brakes on here. Besides being a little off topic, I’m way ahead of myself...
Due to the aforementioned pansomnophilia (Doesn't quite work but fuck it, I had to do something with that idea before it ate my brain...), I woke up sometime late yesterday afternoon.
Since I fell out on the couch instead of making the arduous journey to my bedroom, I woke up with my dog standing on me, bouncing a tennis ball off my chest. I threw her on the floor and tried to orient myself to reality (and tried to figure out what part of the clock I was in bed with this time) before opening my eyes. The dog jumped back on me and I shoved her off again.
After a few minutes of this, I gave up and wobbled into the kitchen to feed her and turn the coffee pot on.
I brushed my teeth. You’ll notice that the “no difficulties with personal hygiene” box on your forms is dutifully and honestly checked.
I took my illegally gotten drug cocktail. No, this is not self-medicating or drug abuse. It’s a bad case of I’m lacking transportation/too broke to make it to the psychiatrist who would prescribe the exact same shit I’m taking now.
Dog outside, vital substances consumed or in the process thereof, I sat down to watch half of the previous night’s news segments from my network of choice.
I don’t mean that I selected half of them to watch. I mean, I watched half of multiple segments. Normally I make it through at least a few of them in their entirety but, well, it was primary night. You know, polls closed so they had to discuss the various results but not enough time passed for the pundits to decide what to think or for any public figures to do anything insane. Pretty fucking boring.
I decided that I would feel more alert if I got up and moved around. So I did dishes, mopped, dusted. I think I tried to do all of these at once, failed, sat at the computer doing dumb shit, repeated the process until somehow everything was finished.
I started working on these questions. I dug out all the W-2s from every job I’ve had since 1999 and wrote down my work history. But I got bogged down in how to answer questions involving how much I had to lift for how much of the day.
Too many variables...I think I need to refresh my knowledge of basic algebra before proceeding.
Unless, of course, you should, in your infinite beurocratic wisdom decide that it doesn't really make a fuck how often in a day I can climb stairs without collapsing from over-exertion.
So, to give myself a break from such knotty problems, I skipped over to the assessment of my ability to function and answered all the questions that involved nice neat check marks in nice neat boxes. I felt all kinds of productive, let me tell you...Almost like I might be capable of doing low-paying clerical work!
But then I got to this question...
I tried to skip past it but there were too many others involving the same kind of brain-work.
"Can you complete tasks?"
"List household chores you can do. How often do you do these things and how long does it take you to do each of these things?"
"What are your hobbies and interests? How often and how well do you do these things?"
"How far can you walk without sitting down?"
(Should I test this last one or is it okay to just say, "far enough that it isn't an issue."
I grumbled, paced, marched to the computer and wrote a slightly incoherent but very sincere email to my sister about how I don’t know how my crazy looks from the outside...I just know it feels like hell and trying to answer this shit is depressing the fuck out of me.
How the fuck do you explain on a nice, neat, meets the “paperwork reduction act” form that you have difficulty mowing your grass because you’re scared of “hidden things?!”
I tried though. At one point, forms, W-2s, notes about my “disability” were all spread out on the table, in spite of the difficulty of protecting them from the dog’s attempts to bounce her drool-coated tennis ball off of ever surfaces in the house for as many hours as possible. On the computer were more notes and multiple windows open to pertinent web sites. The phone was off to “minimize distractions.”
But next thing I knew I was actively seeking out a diverse selection of Madonna covers on Youtube.
I also learned that, thanks to hydroponics, wasabi is now a cash crop in North Carolina.
There was an incident with a palmetto bug that thoroughly rattled my fragile nervous system, like “need Jack Daniel’s with my coffee because I’m running low on Xanax” kind of rattled.
Those motherfuckers are made of pure brainless, skittering evil. Ick.
By 9 a.m. I’d managed to get past the check boxes and note that I wear glasses or contact lenses “whenever I need to see.” Frustrated at my general lack of progress, I ranted about this to my sister (this time on the phone...a captive audience via family loyalty and a bit of a cold keeping her indoors). I threatened to take 3 or 4 times my normal dosage of speed and complete this all in one go after another day or so without sleep. Even better, I considered using the same method to complete the telephone version.
I’ll love to enlighten someone from your agency more extensively about wasabi as a cash crop.
Instead, since psych meds don't grow on trees, I made another pot of coffee and read the Uncyclopedia article on “tea and strumpets.”
Some great stuff there:
"In Germany, beer is the drink of preference, and having sex with prostitutes while drinking beer has spawned many extremely long angry-sounding compound words to describe the process, including Biergutesbrustefickengemütlichkeit, meaning 'the warm, pleasant, homely feeling one gets from tit-fucking a prostitute while said prostitute holds your beer stein.'"
Speaking of Germany, did you know that in 1943 Disney put out a cartoon where Donald Duck was a Nazi? It involves a trombone slide in a Nazi’s ass-crack accompanied by the lyrics, “When Der Fuehrer says, "We ist der master race" We HEIL! HEIL! Right in Der Fuehrer's face!”
There’s even a Hitler cuckoo clock.
Shit’s fucking hilarious.
More pacing...more grumbling...more smoking...more having a tennis ball bounced off my knee over and fucking over...
After putting away towels I forgot to deal with after doing laundry last week, I finally decided to write this letter since the problem obviously isn’t a lack of effort on my part since I'm fucking exhausted and feeling crazier than ever; It’s that there is no room in your form for my unique brand of mental illness(es).
If you would like, you can give me a few days and I’ll have all your questions answered (extensively) in this form, since it is much more suited to my personal communication style.
Honestly, I can’t wait to tell you about my difficulties with “hidden things” and my theories about how this aspect of my “disability” came into being.
But, just so I don’t waste your time, I’m first sending this letter to you (No shit, right?) as well as the good folk at Vocational Rehab.
Should either of you know of a job (that pays a livable wage) that requires stream-of-consciousness research which occasionally (albeit unreliably) results in self-indulgent ranting (of which this is a prime example), please let me know and I'll end this correspondence immediately and apply myself thoroughly to...whatever the hell you come up with.
By the way, my qualifications also include a rather extensive first-hand knowledge of pharmaceuticals (and other much less useful information on a variety of vigorously researched subjects), experience creating penises and sperm cells with people's faces on them in Photoshop, a sparkling sense of humor and the ability to manage my personal hygiene without assistance.
I can floss like a bat out of hell.
However, if no career path exists that suits these particular talents while accommodating my, admittedly plentiful, limitations, please send me another SASE so I can get my bank account information out to you and you can start paying my bills while I continue to educate myself on such useful subjects as wasabi farming, wartime propaganda through the ages and the intricacies of goat-herding.
Sincerely yours,
The Crazy Bitch in the Swamp Who Never Cuts Her Grass
I'm almost considering sending this...possibly written in crayon.
***
Dear SSA:
As part of the written evaluation used to determine my ability to work, you asked what I do from the time I get up until the time I go to sleep.
I had every intention of completing this evaluation today (the same intention I had yesterday...and the day before) so I guess you can also cross-reference this answer under the question, “Are you able to complete tasks...?"
I have been absolutely stumped by this question of what my day consists of. As you well know, I'm jobless. I completely lack any framework which would give my day structure. Without a concrete plot line, I'm having trouble giving the vaguest idea of what a typical day is like in my world.
"Having trouble" is my way of saying that I've been staring at this question off and on for three fucking days and am no closer to answering it than when I started.
Having come to a complete stalemate in my wrestling match with more traditional methods of answering your question, I decided to try a new tactic--Essentially, writing about a day which has largely revolved around your forms and questions. Hopefully in the process I can both answer some of these questions and explain why this whole method is just not working for me.
I have an entire pot of coffee (plus a few of those nifty “black coffee shots” that you’re supposed to drink no more than two of a day) gnawing its way through my stomach lining and I am properly (if illegally) medicated with the dosage of amphetamines that supposedly helps me concentrate. Consequently, though I’ve been awake for close to 24 hours, I’m not sure at what point I will no longer be awake.
Generally, I sleep when I realize my eyes are refusing to focus, when I run low on cigarettes or when something bothers me to the point I decide that consciousness should be avoided at all cost. If one of the latter two reasons is the impetus for me to drag myself to bed (or to the couch, depending on my mood), I will probably lay there for an hour or two dwelling on something important like whether or not time exists or how depressing it is that I can’t even seem to complete my crazy person paperwork.
If I’m having a particularly loony day, I may get up several times, pace, smoke more, drink bladder-bursting amounts of tea while muttering to myself. Sometimes, if this goes on for too long, I rummage through the medicine cabinet (backpack, cabinets in general, under couch cushions, extra stash upstairs...) in search of sedatives and usually end up taking something or other that, coupled with exhaustion, knocks me out for 14-16 hours.
This makes me a complete time whore. I sleep my way around the clock, am completely indiscriminate. I recognize that this is aberrant behavior and can probably be found in the DSM as some sort of insomnia-related paraphilia, which should add another layer of validity to my already well-founded claim.
I’m fighting the temptation to see if there’s a word for “clock fetish” that I can combine with “pan-" and “somnolence” to make a yet another inside-joke word for myself.
...I wonder how much my attention span has decreased since the advent of Google.
Alright. I need to put the brakes on here. Besides being a little off topic, I’m way ahead of myself...
Due to the aforementioned pansomnophilia (Doesn't quite work but fuck it, I had to do something with that idea before it ate my brain...), I woke up sometime late yesterday afternoon.
Since I fell out on the couch instead of making the arduous journey to my bedroom, I woke up with my dog standing on me, bouncing a tennis ball off my chest. I threw her on the floor and tried to orient myself to reality (and tried to figure out what part of the clock I was in bed with this time) before opening my eyes. The dog jumped back on me and I shoved her off again.
After a few minutes of this, I gave up and wobbled into the kitchen to feed her and turn the coffee pot on.
I brushed my teeth. You’ll notice that the “no difficulties with personal hygiene” box on your forms is dutifully and honestly checked.
I took my illegally gotten drug cocktail. No, this is not self-medicating or drug abuse. It’s a bad case of I’m lacking transportation/too broke to make it to the psychiatrist who would prescribe the exact same shit I’m taking now.
Dog outside, vital substances consumed or in the process thereof, I sat down to watch half of the previous night’s news segments from my network of choice.
I don’t mean that I selected half of them to watch. I mean, I watched half of multiple segments. Normally I make it through at least a few of them in their entirety but, well, it was primary night. You know, polls closed so they had to discuss the various results but not enough time passed for the pundits to decide what to think or for any public figures to do anything insane. Pretty fucking boring.
I decided that I would feel more alert if I got up and moved around. So I did dishes, mopped, dusted. I think I tried to do all of these at once, failed, sat at the computer doing dumb shit, repeated the process until somehow everything was finished.
I started working on these questions. I dug out all the W-2s from every job I’ve had since 1999 and wrote down my work history. But I got bogged down in how to answer questions involving how much I had to lift for how much of the day.
Too many variables...I think I need to refresh my knowledge of basic algebra before proceeding.
Unless, of course, you should, in your infinite beurocratic wisdom decide that it doesn't really make a fuck how often in a day I can climb stairs without collapsing from over-exertion.
So, to give myself a break from such knotty problems, I skipped over to the assessment of my ability to function and answered all the questions that involved nice neat check marks in nice neat boxes. I felt all kinds of productive, let me tell you...Almost like I might be capable of doing low-paying clerical work!
But then I got to this question...
I tried to skip past it but there were too many others involving the same kind of brain-work.
"Can you complete tasks?"
"List household chores you can do. How often do you do these things and how long does it take you to do each of these things?"
"What are your hobbies and interests? How often and how well do you do these things?"
"How far can you walk without sitting down?"
(Should I test this last one or is it okay to just say, "far enough that it isn't an issue."
I grumbled, paced, marched to the computer and wrote a slightly incoherent but very sincere email to my sister about how I don’t know how my crazy looks from the outside...I just know it feels like hell and trying to answer this shit is depressing the fuck out of me.
How the fuck do you explain on a nice, neat, meets the “paperwork reduction act” form that you have difficulty mowing your grass because you’re scared of “hidden things?!”
I tried though. At one point, forms, W-2s, notes about my “disability” were all spread out on the table, in spite of the difficulty of protecting them from the dog’s attempts to bounce her drool-coated tennis ball off of ever surfaces in the house for as many hours as possible. On the computer were more notes and multiple windows open to pertinent web sites. The phone was off to “minimize distractions.”
But next thing I knew I was actively seeking out a diverse selection of Madonna covers on Youtube.
I also learned that, thanks to hydroponics, wasabi is now a cash crop in North Carolina.
There was an incident with a palmetto bug that thoroughly rattled my fragile nervous system, like “need Jack Daniel’s with my coffee because I’m running low on Xanax” kind of rattled.
Those motherfuckers are made of pure brainless, skittering evil. Ick.
By 9 a.m. I’d managed to get past the check boxes and note that I wear glasses or contact lenses “whenever I need to see.” Frustrated at my general lack of progress, I ranted about this to my sister (this time on the phone...a captive audience via family loyalty and a bit of a cold keeping her indoors). I threatened to take 3 or 4 times my normal dosage of speed and complete this all in one go after another day or so without sleep. Even better, I considered using the same method to complete the telephone version.
I’ll love to enlighten someone from your agency more extensively about wasabi as a cash crop.
Instead, since psych meds don't grow on trees, I made another pot of coffee and read the Uncyclopedia article on “tea and strumpets.”
Some great stuff there:
"In Germany, beer is the drink of preference, and having sex with prostitutes while drinking beer has spawned many extremely long angry-sounding compound words to describe the process, including Biergutesbrustefickengemütlichkeit, meaning 'the warm, pleasant, homely feeling one gets from tit-fucking a prostitute while said prostitute holds your beer stein.'"
Speaking of Germany, did you know that in 1943 Disney put out a cartoon where Donald Duck was a Nazi? It involves a trombone slide in a Nazi’s ass-crack accompanied by the lyrics, “When Der Fuehrer says, "We ist der master race" We HEIL! HEIL! Right in Der Fuehrer's face!”
There’s even a Hitler cuckoo clock.
Shit’s fucking hilarious.
More pacing...more grumbling...more smoking...more having a tennis ball bounced off my knee over and fucking over...
After putting away towels I forgot to deal with after doing laundry last week, I finally decided to write this letter since the problem obviously isn’t a lack of effort on my part since I'm fucking exhausted and feeling crazier than ever; It’s that there is no room in your form for my unique brand of mental illness(es).
If you would like, you can give me a few days and I’ll have all your questions answered (extensively) in this form, since it is much more suited to my personal communication style.
Honestly, I can’t wait to tell you about my difficulties with “hidden things” and my theories about how this aspect of my “disability” came into being.
But, just so I don’t waste your time, I’m first sending this letter to you (No shit, right?) as well as the good folk at Vocational Rehab.
Should either of you know of a job (that pays a livable wage) that requires stream-of-consciousness research which occasionally (albeit unreliably) results in self-indulgent ranting (of which this is a prime example), please let me know and I'll end this correspondence immediately and apply myself thoroughly to...whatever the hell you come up with.
By the way, my qualifications also include a rather extensive first-hand knowledge of pharmaceuticals (and other much less useful information on a variety of vigorously researched subjects), experience creating penises and sperm cells with people's faces on them in Photoshop, a sparkling sense of humor and the ability to manage my personal hygiene without assistance.
I can floss like a bat out of hell.
However, if no career path exists that suits these particular talents while accommodating my, admittedly plentiful, limitations, please send me another SASE so I can get my bank account information out to you and you can start paying my bills while I continue to educate myself on such useful subjects as wasabi farming, wartime propaganda through the ages and the intricacies of goat-herding.
Sincerely yours,
The Crazy Bitch in the Swamp Who Never Cuts Her Grass