but that went to 0 as of today

That's excellent news.

Good luck askye.

Intellectually I know that but all my anxiety just.. makes it hard to remember. I know they have people who are struggling with this and it's just hard because I can't get in touch with anyone. I'm feeling calmer so maybe the medicine is working because I stopped myself from spiraling. So points for that I guess.

Askye, I think you can trust they WANT this to work for you. Filing is a shit show because of the circumstances, but they're on your side and will help you sort it out.

In New York, at least, the calls from unemployment are coming from "private caller" and give no number because some staff are using their personal phones. You might want to pick up things you normally would not.

there was a section to put an explanation and I literally wrote "I didn't think I had to look for work if I was furloughed because of covid 19" so maybe that will help. I just have to wait this out.

I'm trying to embrace the ethos of "our best is all we can do."

Because no one has any spoons at the moment; certainly not enough to actually do everything that needs to be done. So, we will put on our adult (inside) pants and do what we can without killing ourselves because this is apparently gonna be A Year, and we're in it for the long haul.

I have a nearly-full package of foil star stickers and I will send one to anyone who needs it.

There's a theory of bureaucracy -- I forget what it's called, but basically the idea is that you make applying for benefits (or jobs, or lotteries, or college) sufficiently difficult that only some people meet all the requirements on paper (even though many more people actually would meet the requirements, they just can't prove it). And then you don't have to pay out!

I learned this when I applied for UI in California about 7 years ago, and I couldn't believe how difficult it was. I'm a native English speaker with an advanced degree and lots of experience with bureaucracy--and I struggled and got it wrong and had them reject at least one of my claims.

So what I'm saying, Askye, is that it's not you: the system is designed to be difficult and confusing intentionally, in order to limit the amount of people who benefit. Do not take any difficulties as a statement on your ability -- it is not. The people who design these systems see their complexity as a feature rather than a bug. They do it on purpose.

Hack for wearing masks and glasses: fold up a piece of Kleenex into quarters length wise. Place it over the nose bridge on the inside. Staple or tape to hold in place. It will absorb some of your breath's moisture and break it up before glasses fog up. It works for me!

the idea is that you make applying for benefits (or jobs, or lotteries, or college) sufficiently difficult that only some people

Infamously, that's exactly how then Gov., now Sen. Rick Scott set up unemployment in Florida which is why it's a total shit show now.

Today, going through my dad's hall closet, I found a giant department store bag full of almost 30 years of photos all in a jumble of Fotomat envelopes and loose pictures and orphaned negatives and one crisp slide from 1958 and most of his elementary school class rosters, all of which are now mostly organized by year with the orphans, stuck-togethers and undated pictures of people I don't recognize set aside in their own separate containers.

I came away from the afternoon with two revelations: (1) My little brothers were unbelievably cute babies and toddlers, and (2) most people who knew our dad, if they had to guess what physical entity is lopsidedly overrepresented in this chaotic photo collection, would say golf tournaments or cars. Nope: it's cats. A good 3-4 times more pictures of his cats than anything else. This chaos bag ends at about 1996, so it's possible there's a newer chaos bag somewhere else full of nothing but jumbled-up grandchildren pictures, but from 1973 to a couple years after my youngest brother graduated from college there are waaaay more cats than any other single subject.

Nope: it's cats. A good 3-4 times more pictures of his cats than anything else. This chaos bag ends at about 1996, so it's possible there's a newer chaos bag somewhere else full of nothing but jumbled-up grandchildren pictures, but from 1973 to a couple years after my youngest brother graduated from college there are waaaay more cats than any other single subject.

I am so charmed by this.