Knots to Untangle

OK, it's not the absolute worst time for my computer to go tits up, but it's far from ideal. 

I'm back at Winston's on the shared machine, the only one of the two that doesn't have the same virus as my laptop.  Looks like I'll be dropping some unexpected cash on a new computer sooner than I'd hoped. 

My dad and stepmom recently divorced after more than two decades of marriage.  One of the hardest parts has been counseling my dad through the random shit that happens in life -- things that my stepmother used to just deal with for the both of them.  He gets so upset when an unexpected credit card fee pops up or when the Internet service he ordered and paid for turns out to be spotty at the river cottage he moved into this spring.  He takes it personally, and spins into rages at these little indignities.  "Dad, this is life, these kind of things happen all the time and they happen to everybody," my brother and I found ourselves saying over and over.

And tonight, I'm having to say it to myself.  Over and over.

grrrr. 

Bloggus Interruptus

I did not forget to post yesterday.  I wrote very dutifully about Little Ed and my crazy upstairs neighbor last night.  But posting was thwarted because my computer is infected with a virus or some type of malware (which is a very badass word). 

My five year old computer has been dying without dignity since January.  I'm taking her in the shop again tomorrow, but I fear the end is near.  I am posting this tonight from the free public computer at Winston's -- the leather-bar-turned-24-hour coffee-shop a couple of blocks down.  I may be the first patron in the establishment's history to use this computer for something other than cruising "HoTT BuTTs" or "Sinagaporean Sloppy Sluts." Or, you know, Facebook.

Anyway.  I will be back on track through Thursday, either on this borrowed machine or on my own computer now living on borrowed time.  Say a few Hail Marys for us, won't you?

Well, Excuse Me for Living

I retract my earlier statements about how nothing causes an existential crisis like updating your resume.  Applying for health insurance should be outlawed for violating our Eighth Amendment rights.

Backstory:  in the next few weeks, I will have exhausted my COBRA.  My new employer won't start offering health insurance until January.  So that leaves me vulnerable to car accidents, aneurysms and stray cats carrying the Ebola virus for a few months.

I have been insured by Blue Cross Blue Shield my entire life.  So, it would seem, it wouldn't be a bad idea for me to obtain one of their nifty little Temporary PPO plans to cover me in the interim.  It would seem.  They totally denied me.

I've applied for a couple of other individual plans, but it doesn't take an underwriter to see where this is heading.

The medical history questions went back ten years.  TEN.  And they asked about everything -- I was scrambling to look up names and addresses of doctors who have retired since I last saw them.  By the end of it, I was wracked with an exam-taking anxiety.  "Have you had a pap smear?" was one of the questions.  Yes.  Wait...is that a trick question?  Will they NOT cover me because I haven't been more thrifty with my ladyparts?  

This is Me Right Now.

The main issue appears to be that I receive treatment for anxiety and depression.  So, a disease that I inherited (both of my parents are medicated and/or in counseling.  Grandmothers on both sides have made octogenarian confessions to me that they think they have an anxiety disorder.  My uncle attempted suicide three times.) has turned me into an Untouchable in the eyes of the health insurance pantheon.

So, basically I'm being penalized for doing what American culture insists that we do: "take steps" and "make a plan" and "feel better."  I'm being penalized for not blowing my head off.

"Do you consider yourself cured?" the form asked.  And no, there wasn't a write-in box.  

On the upside, this seems to be one of the only times in recent years where my non-imminent production of offspring is a good thing. 

We all just went through a painful and intelligence-insulting national health care debate, so I'm not going to go into all that.  But if anyone knows a Canadian who wants to get married --  hook a sister up.