depending on the gonads in question, of course

{{{spidra}}} I fear having nothing to offer but ~ma that a perfect housing solution miraculously appears allowing you to get out from under your parent's thumb. The situation just sounds worse and worse.

This. I'm sorry, sweetie.

Also, job~ma to smonster.

Peoples! I am speaking with you (Americans) from the future! It is Monday morning, and news is telling me that the world is still turning, and people are still pretty much themselves (read: stupid).

Am I an optimist to hope for a better future, wrt less stupid people?

Am I an optimist to hope for a better future, wrt less stupid people?

I might be a bad person, but people are bad.

People are people. And full of surprises. They are never as good or as bad as you expect.

There's been a lot of snow here, and I'm debating whether or not to go in to uni. If they haven't gritted the campus, I could fall and dislocate things. Or I could see if my wheelchair can cope with frozen-over snow. Might be like skiing! Or it might be like getting stuck.

Shir, I'm sorry to hear you got hate mail, but it's also a sign that you're doing well. We quite enjoy the 'you people are nothing but scrounger scum' e-mails/comments we get at Where's the Benefit, being a sign that we're really reaching people. Continuing congrats on all the good stuff that's coming out of this.

{{{Spidra}}} It sucks that you're still in this situation. I hope there are ways forward soon.

That is fantastic. I trust he won't misconstrue the message as being "I only want you for your gonads".

That IS the message! Also "I want to dissolve your internal organs."

Seska, I saw that there has been record snowfall in the UK. I don't know what you guys typically get.

Oh, geez. I'm messed up today. I looked at that article, Seska, on social isolation in care homes (how the government desires to increase it by ending certain benefits to persons with disabilities), and thought for a moment that it sounded wonderful. I know that's not accurate. Social isolation isn't the same as blessed solitude. And it's way the hell and gone on the other side of the stadium from choosing one's level of social involvement. Those who suffer from it face depression, loss of quality of life, and are even more vulnerable to abuse and neglect by professional carers.

I feel tired, and I feel crowded.

ETA: Seska, I hope you stay safe, whatever you decide about venturing out today.

Wishing you less tiredness, Andi. There are, of course, different views on these things. I subscribe to the idea of disabled people having choice and control, at the very least, over how they live their lives. With the government taking away the mobility allowance that many of them will use to lease cars or arrange taxis, that choice and control will be seriously limited. And it's so few people, too, that the government is hardly saving any money at all. But how awful for those few hundred people it applies to. I'm very worried about all of this. My friend lost her DLA benefit (equivalent of SSI, I think) in the middle of the coldest November on record. She can't afford to turn on her heating anymore. Government cut-backs are hitting disabled people here really hard.

ETA: I came in, and they've gritted the campus. So I'm fairly safe!

The state social workers don't think I get out enough.(Well, neither do I, but I very much suspect we mean different things by "Community involvement") They have obviously never experienced the "struggle to get out to sit in a crowded room where nobody *gets* me" thing that I have, and it insults me(although I really don't think they mean it to) that they seem to believe I should live my life as a giant field trip. Whatever is missing from my life, I don't think it can be solved by discount circus tickets, but I can't tell them that, either, or I'll get, you know, the Mood Patrol. "How long have you felt frustrated?" "Birth." Not a good answer around people who believe no healthy person ever "Haz a sad,", much less a " pissed" or a "wallow" or an oosting.