The Local Stuff-- Why is it that so many people want me hospitalized against my will for speaking the truth while they are also denying I have a real mental disability?

Hee-hee. I finally walked myself all of the way over to Hindley last week on Tuesday to make appointments live and in person at my GP's office. I went back on Wednesday for my intake with the nurse. Her last name was Rimmer, and it made me want to call her Smeghead.

Many things were discussed. She made notes on the absurd number of scars only on my arms. I forgot to mention that there is a moving numb spot on my right big toe. It became clear after I got on the scale that I had lost 8 Kg since last month due to living on £5 a day under the "good graces" of the NASS subdivision of the UKBA and having to walk an hour one-way to be able to use the internet here at the public library.

The living-on-mere-pennies thing I am used to; that is how I have spent my entire adult life. Wow! What a luxurious lifestyle I have always lived! The good news is, it does not take much money to change the world for the better. Yey! I have made that one obvious by now.

A week ago yesterday while walking home from this particular library, I stopped in the Bargain Booze store to look for the cheapest bottle of tawny port I could get my hands on. I use it to make a tasty chicken marinade involving a little olive oil, rosemary, and sea salt. They did not have one of low enough quality for cooking. However, most impressively, the man behind the counter there treated me like a human. I almost did not know what to do when he acknowledged my physical presence and showed concern for my actual cooking needs involving a tasty alcohol-based form of yumminess of which he is a professional purveyor.

THE RANDOM BRUISE UPDATE
Two big, ugly bruises popped up Wednesday night. This means I was likely beaten on my writing hand and arm the previous night and "somehow" forgot it ever happened. It is possible that it occured when I tripped and fell Wednesday afternoon when coming home from the green grocer carrying my fruits and vegetables. I have no tread and only half of the heels left on the only shoes I own in which I am able to walk around at all... And since the buses are prohibitively expensive, walking is the only way I am able to do things like visit my doctor's office, buy groceries, or go to the library. Then again, when I fell I landed on the wrong side of my right arm for it to have caused these bruises.

If they are still here on Friday when I see my GP, I will be able to discuss it with her. But we all know that I heal very very very quickly.

THE UPM UPDATE
We received a statement at our address from United Utilities, the local water company, last week. It stated that our home was still listed in their books as vacant and urged that we tell them whether or not it is occupied, so that our water would not be shut off. I mailed to them the means to contact our landlords, suppliers of our NASS provided housing for financially destitute (due to what resources we are allowed to control ourselves) asylum seekers. Oddly, I have been returning mail in all shapes and sizes to the post office ever since I arrived that was intended for previous asylum seekers that had lived at that address before me and my roommates. I wonder how long the house I live in has actually been in the possession of United Property Management.

Hmmmm... UPM has also neglected to acknowledge most of my concerns in my first two complaint(s) forms, as well. Here is my third. I just emailed it to them earlier today. As always, click on any thumbnails to make them full size.

In an odd turn of events, the flame went out in our water heater late Saturday night, and although I had left a note for my roommates Katie and Margie asking them to call the emergency help line for UPM to have it fixed, they both decided to go all weekend and through yesterday's bank holiday without heat. I am the one in the house who cannot afford a mobile phone at all on our meager NASS allowance, so I was completely unable to call. I thought that their insistence on refusing to have heat and hot water in our home was an odd choice.

Friday afternoon, our fourth roommate left screaming for her life back to London on a coach ticket bought for her by an exboyfriend of hers... or so she claimed. She had spent all eighteen days worth of her initial NASS provided money in her first four days after her arrival at our home. She spent most of it on cigarettes and mobile phone time. I know this because I was the one who was constantly cleaning her cigarette butts and mobile phone receipts out of where they were randomly tossed in the back garden. She called NASS and insisted on more money, and they gladly obliged. So, she spent twenty-five days worth of NASS funding in nine days at our home before fleeing for her life.

She spent the entire time pestering me for more money (though she openly had more money that I the entire time), asking me personal questions about things she should could have only ever known about me if she were watching me use these library computers all day (which we all know she could not have been... because that is illegal), spreading out her personal belongings in the common areas (but only after she found me already sitting there eating or writing snail-mail), asking me for help on problems she does not really have (while ignoring any actual advice I gave her to fix what she was describing as her problems), and being the genetically and socially engineered example of how not to impress me as a living creature. I kept trying to make it clear that she needed to remove the speaker from her ear canal. I treated her with the respect any human is due; though, that was clearly not any "favor" she was willing to give to me.

Luckily, though, after insisting that she needed me to give her money to be able to afford to flee for her life back to London, she reappeared this morning to fix our water heater for us. I can only imagine what she will be living on for money while she is here. But, it is nice to have heat again in our house. And why would she return? Did she have nowhere to go to take her in when she got to London? I wish I could help her, but she always ignores what I actually have to say about anything. Until she is actually willing to solve her real problems, there is very little I can do for her.

THE ROYALMAIL UPDATE
So, Friday, 23April2010, I received a we-tried-to-deliver-mail-to-you-that-you-need-to-sign-for note from the Royal Mail. So, I went to the redelivery website listed on the note, and they confirmed for me a guaranteed delivery to my home for the letter on Monday, 26April2010. Instead, they waited until I was not home on Tuesday, 27April2010 to attempt to redeliver the letter. This was most odd because late the previous afternoon, as I had requested, they had already confirmed and guaranteed it would be delivered to the Hindley Green post office for me to pick up at my leisure starting Wednesday, 28April2010. As of late on Friday, 30April2010, it was still not there.

When I was there on Friday, though, I did have the opportunity to tell the postal employee working there that my mother had confirmed to me herself already that her package of clothes, shoes, make-up, etc... for me from my former home in San Francisco was already in the mail and due to arrive sometime by Friday this week. Let's see if they can get that one right.

THE PODPEOPLE UPDATE
The local people still had chips in their heads last week when I first started my notes for this blog post. The still pretend they do not recognize me when it is clear that they think they do, but since the woman they believe they see in me is usually not the real woman that I am, this is not too distressful at this immediate moment. When I have a solid guarantee that all of the chips have been removed from their heads... which will most likely be born from prolonged time watching them have independent thought and free will again; then, I will know for sure they will be fine. Human rights should never be this rare.

The flag of England AND the Union Jack are both flying in different places outside this library today. It is about damn time.

THE UKBA SOLUTIONS-I-RECOMMEND-FOR-THEIR-INSISTENCE-I-DO-NOT-EXIST LIST
I am here, at the very least, until this culture cleans up its own mess. The further benchmarks of such include but are not limited to...

1.) ... a clear indication of all speakers removed from all ear canals and a guarantee they will not return. These are a people, a culture, a population. They are not toys for anyone to control.

2.) ... my eventual ability to communicate with dear, old friends and family here. I have family in Scotland related to me on my mom's side, and I have been allowed no methods through which I could be able to contact them. Huh... it would mean that I would finally be able to move out of my NASS provided accomodation.

3.) ... a strong and healthy relationship between the people of England and the rest of the United Kingdom. This is a nation of many cultures. They need to maintain their abilities to be a cohesive people.

4.) ... the ability for me to receive my own personal mail and control my own resources and personal property. The fact this one is an issue at all has reached from incriminating-against-the-national-authorities straight into dramatic-show-of-inhumane-behavior-as-a-way-to-hide-a-pathetic-lack-of-logical-justifications-for-refusing-human-rights-to-an-innocent-woman. It is the sign of a morally weak and highly corrupt government whose democratic population is having some problems properly controlling. Sadly, it is still more functional than the one in the US away from which I am seeking humanitarian protection. We already know that taking away someone's human rights must be justified legally before they are all removed; just as a person must be put on trial to defend herself before she can be incarcerated.

5.) ... a sign that my Mr. Love-of-my-Life has received my mail for him, a sign that the public around me are free to discuss any topics they wish with any people they choose, and of course, my being treated as at least a human by all people who encounter me in the public sphere. Oh, and the fact that the people around here only bother to confront the people who lie to them about any and all topics instead of attacking me over things that do not really exist, have never been true, or have never actually happened.

Now, there are many ways for me to live within the UKBA parameters for political asylum seekers here in the United Kingdom while we all work on these things to save this society together that will finally remove me from NASS provided housing and the meager £5-a-day-for-any-all-expenses NASS allowance. I have never wanted to be a financial burden on this government. Had I been given a choice about any of this, I never would have been.

In special circumstances, employment can be allowed to an asylum seeker. I would not mind a temporary work visa for any occupation that fits any niche skill set I already possess. Look at that, it would even make me a contributing member of this society.

A student visa is another option. There are so many things in this world I would love the freedom to learn about still. At my age of thirty-plus years, I know that I should technically be tenured already, but why not study study study, again? One can never know enough.

Again, click any thumbnail to view the whole image.