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This has not been an active blog for a long time, but it's a blog and I wish to vent, so hello.
Turns out *re*applying for PIP is actually arguably worse than applying the first time, because now you a) know exactly how bad it's likely to get, and b) have DWP-PTSD from the first round.
I had a phone assessment scheduled for this morning, my wife booked the morning off work to translate for me when my auditory/verbal processing inevitably pack up, we were ready and waiting by the phone as sternly instructed by no less than five text reminders from Capita, and...no. Nothing.
Forty fucking minutes after the scheduled time, they finally deigned to call (on the wrong number) to tell us that the assessor had had to go home, so no assessment for you. Next available appointment in three weeks.
I know *I'm* a useless eater and a burden on the state and as such my time has no value, but my wife is a real person with a job which does not provide unlimited time off. They know I can't do this without a support person and my wife is my carer.
And I did, in fact, have stuff to do today which is not getting done because the dysautonomia does not like adrenaline dumps with no outlet. I will mostly be spending today breathing through the tachycardia and trying not to vomit.
And look, I know these things do happen, and I wouldn't be quite so pissed if it weren't for the fact that if I'd had to ask to reschedule for some reason, they'd have denied my claim flat-out and made me start my reapplication from the beginning, meaning another God knows how many months with no income.
Dicks.
Turns out *re*applying for PIP is actually arguably worse than applying the first time, because now you a) know exactly how bad it's likely to get, and b) have DWP-PTSD from the first round.
I had a phone assessment scheduled for this morning, my wife booked the morning off work to translate for me when my auditory/verbal processing inevitably pack up, we were ready and waiting by the phone as sternly instructed by no less than five text reminders from Capita, and...no. Nothing.
Forty fucking minutes after the scheduled time, they finally deigned to call (on the wrong number) to tell us that the assessor had had to go home, so no assessment for you. Next available appointment in three weeks.
I know *I'm* a useless eater and a burden on the state and as such my time has no value, but my wife is a real person with a job which does not provide unlimited time off. They know I can't do this without a support person and my wife is my carer.
And I did, in fact, have stuff to do today which is not getting done because the dysautonomia does not like adrenaline dumps with no outlet. I will mostly be spending today breathing through the tachycardia and trying not to vomit.
And look, I know these things do happen, and I wouldn't be quite so pissed if it weren't for the fact that if I'd had to ask to reschedule for some reason, they'd have denied my claim flat-out and made me start my reapplication from the beginning, meaning another God knows how many months with no income.
Dicks.
In Which I Have No Body Clock
Jun. 9th, 2013 05:24 amWhy does my brain want to be asleep at lunchtime, but is stubbornly wide awake at half-past five in the morning? WHY SHOULD THIS BE?
Maybe I should apply for jobs as a night watchman. I think I've seen too many horror movies for that to end well, though. The night watchman always gets it first.
Maybe I should apply for jobs as a night watchman. I think I've seen too many horror movies for that to end well, though. The night watchman always gets it first.
Good grief.
Dec. 13th, 2012 01:30 pmIf you're planning on saying something like, "I don't like going to foreign people's houses, they always smell funny," here are a few thoughts:
1) Don't. Some opinions don't need to be shared.
2) If you really feel you must, try judging your audience just a little bit. Who did you think was going to agree with you, the Kenyan Indian, the British Pakistani, the Hong Kong Chinese girl, the British West Indian or the Jew?
This is my very least favourite colleague, who has said things like this before and is magnificently oblivious to the less than enthusiastic reception she gets. We all just stood there looking at her, waiting for her to register the fact that there was not one single person in the room she'd shared this gem with who wasn't a smelly foreigner. She didn't, just stood there waiting for applause.
Sheesh.
1) Don't. Some opinions don't need to be shared.
2) If you really feel you must, try judging your audience just a little bit. Who did you think was going to agree with you, the Kenyan Indian, the British Pakistani, the Hong Kong Chinese girl, the British West Indian or the Jew?
This is my very least favourite colleague, who has said things like this before and is magnificently oblivious to the less than enthusiastic reception she gets. We all just stood there looking at her, waiting for her to register the fact that there was not one single person in the room she'd shared this gem with who wasn't a smelly foreigner. She didn't, just stood there waiting for applause.
Sheesh.
Now and again something happens that reminds me of the fact that my parents are basically very accepting people.
Just now, I was in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil. A fair proportion of my more eccentric behaviour happens while I'm waiting for the kettle to boil. Occasionally I'll read a newspaper like a normal person, if there's one there, but usually I pass the time by pacing up and down the kitchen very fast, doing hand stims and talking to myself. Or standing on the table. Or jumping up and down and spinning round until I fall over. Or opening and shutting the fridge door (I like the noise the rubber seal makes). Essentially, it's the perfect storm, where safe space + small amount of time to kill + low impulse control + autistic delight in specific sensory input = Art acts really oddly in the kitchen.
Anyway, on this occasion I'd picked up an enamel plate from the draining board, and was holding it up to my ear and tapping it with my knuckles. This produces a pleasant chimey vibration in the inner ear if done correctly. My dad was reading the paper at the kitchen table. The following dialogue ensued:
ART & PLATE: Clonggggg...clonggg...clongggg...clonggg clongggg.....clonggg....CLONNNGGGG AARGH!
ART'S DAD: What happened?
ART: OW MY EAR.
ART'S DAD: Bum note?
ART: That's kind of pleasant until it's not.
ART'S DAD: Ah yes. *returns to paper*
He's a very tolerant and non-judgemental man.
Just now, I was in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil. A fair proportion of my more eccentric behaviour happens while I'm waiting for the kettle to boil. Occasionally I'll read a newspaper like a normal person, if there's one there, but usually I pass the time by pacing up and down the kitchen very fast, doing hand stims and talking to myself. Or standing on the table. Or jumping up and down and spinning round until I fall over. Or opening and shutting the fridge door (I like the noise the rubber seal makes). Essentially, it's the perfect storm, where safe space + small amount of time to kill + low impulse control + autistic delight in specific sensory input = Art acts really oddly in the kitchen.
Anyway, on this occasion I'd picked up an enamel plate from the draining board, and was holding it up to my ear and tapping it with my knuckles. This produces a pleasant chimey vibration in the inner ear if done correctly. My dad was reading the paper at the kitchen table. The following dialogue ensued:
ART & PLATE: Clonggggg...clonggg...clongggg...clonggg clongggg.....clonggg....CLONNNGGGG AARGH!
ART'S DAD: What happened?
ART: OW MY EAR.
ART'S DAD: Bum note?
ART: That's kind of pleasant until it's not.
ART'S DAD: Ah yes. *returns to paper*
He's a very tolerant and non-judgemental man.
...where he died from wallpaper.
Oct. 8th, 2011 01:27 pmMy dad has just summarised Naploeon's career in a few well-chosen sentences, ending with "...and that was when they packed him off to St Helena where he died from wallpaper."
Stuff like this is a large part of the reason I still live at home. (That and poverty).
Stuff like this is a large part of the reason I still live at home. (That and poverty).
Toadling season!
Sep. 27th, 2011 11:26 pmIt's officially autumn. My house is overrun with tiny little toads half the size of my thumb, coming in looking for somewhere warm to hibernate. And I'm completely overcome with squee. Damn, they're adorable. They can hibernate under my couch all they want.
I'm doing something I've never done before.
I am eating an ice lolly in bed. A Mini Twister, to be exact.
I feel I ought to clarify that this isn't a long held ambition or anything. It's just that here I was, in bed, eating a Mini Twister, and I thought, I don't believe I've ever eaten an ice lolly in bed before. This is a New Life Experience.
Bear with me, it's been a very long day. Also, I miss my moustache.
In other news, they want to close down the Classics Department at Royal Holloway, which is my alma mater and a sanctuary for brilliant and entertaining eccentrics. It's also a very very good Classics department, and those are few and far between now. I'm speaking as someone who dumped the Classics course at Oxford after a year to transfer to RHUL, and never regretted it for a second; this department would be a terrible loss to the world of Classical academia.(Which I realise is not a sentence to spark a revolution, but it would). Also, it was the first university anywhere to offer a Classics degree to women, starting a hundred and twenty-five years ago. Be a shame to lose it now.
Here are some things my world and the world in general would be poorer without;
-Doctor Nick, who started my first Greek Lit lecture by hiding under a table when the Head of Department walked in unexpectedly, wore socks and sandals even when it was snowing, inexplicably had pockets that were larger than his trousers and was probably the best teacher I've ever encountered.
-Richard Alston, who has nothing to do with modern dance and once put his shoe on the lectern to prove the point that we wouldn't remember anything about that lecture except that he put his shoe on the lectern (he was right).
-The ineradicable memory of a corridor full of jittery and caffeine-demented Latinists trying to jam in last-minute revision by singing about Latin grammar to the tune of "Do The Locomotion' ("The dative and the ablative just don't make sense/but it will all be perfect in the future tense...")
-The fact that I can recite elegantly obscene poetry in Latin, and that is a skill not enough people have these days.
There is a Facebook group here. Please go and join it. There's a petition you can sign and stuff.
Classicists are a dying breed as it is, and the world may not need more people who eat ice lollies in bed and post about it on the internet, but it sure as hell needs more people who can do it in Latin.
I am eating an ice lolly in bed. A Mini Twister, to be exact.
I feel I ought to clarify that this isn't a long held ambition or anything. It's just that here I was, in bed, eating a Mini Twister, and I thought, I don't believe I've ever eaten an ice lolly in bed before. This is a New Life Experience.
Bear with me, it's been a very long day. Also, I miss my moustache.
In other news, they want to close down the Classics Department at Royal Holloway, which is my alma mater and a sanctuary for brilliant and entertaining eccentrics. It's also a very very good Classics department, and those are few and far between now. I'm speaking as someone who dumped the Classics course at Oxford after a year to transfer to RHUL, and never regretted it for a second; this department would be a terrible loss to the world of Classical academia.
Here are some things my world and the world in general would be poorer without;
-Doctor Nick, who started my first Greek Lit lecture by hiding under a table when the Head of Department walked in unexpectedly, wore socks and sandals even when it was snowing, inexplicably had pockets that were larger than his trousers and was probably the best teacher I've ever encountered.
-Richard Alston, who has nothing to do with modern dance and once put his shoe on the lectern to prove the point that we wouldn't remember anything about that lecture except that he put his shoe on the lectern (he was right).
-The ineradicable memory of a corridor full of jittery and caffeine-demented Latinists trying to jam in last-minute revision by singing about Latin grammar to the tune of "Do The Locomotion' ("The dative and the ablative just don't make sense/but it will all be perfect in the future tense...")
-The fact that I can recite elegantly obscene poetry in Latin, and that is a skill not enough people have these days.
There is a Facebook group here. Please go and join it. There's a petition you can sign and stuff.
Classicists are a dying breed as it is, and the world may not need more people who eat ice lollies in bed and post about it on the internet, but it sure as hell needs more people who can do it in Latin.
The kindest of all the Watsons...
May. 17th, 2011 10:17 pmAnd by all accounts a very kind and decent man.
If it was up to the Holmesians, Mr Hardwicke, every flag in the country would be flying at half-mast.
link to obit. (Apologies for the Torygraph, but it was that or the article from the Stage which is dominated by an animated Maltesers advert. Not quite the thing).
If it was up to the Holmesians, Mr Hardwicke, every flag in the country would be flying at half-mast.
link to obit.
This little boy...
May. 14th, 2011 09:07 pm ...is an awesome little boy.
He is probably currently the coolest little boy in the world. Fair play to you, young man.
He is probably currently the coolest little boy in the world. Fair play to you, young man.
I have struck a small blow for feminism in the workplace. I think. Anyway, it's definitely a blow for me getting my way, which is good enough for me.
It's come round again; New Uniform Ordering Time.( click for a Great Big Noisy Fuss )
It's come round again; New Uniform Ordering Time.( click for a Great Big Noisy Fuss )
The answer, my friends...
Mar. 13th, 2011 11:10 pm Just been to see Julie Felix at the Mission Theatre in Bath. (If you've never heard of her, go look her up. Proper old-school veteran hippy with a great line in protest songs).
She's amazing - 72 and still able to get a room full of middle-aged Brits singing "Blowing In The Wind" and "Peace Is A River." And do a high kick above her head. Dude, I can't do that.
She's amazing - 72 and still able to get a room full of middle-aged Brits singing "Blowing In The Wind" and "Peace Is A River." And do a high kick above her head. Dude, I can't do that.
I don't know about this...
Feb. 17th, 2011 06:24 pm Have you guys seen this? Everyone at work is getting very excited about it. I'm not so sure. It sounds an awful lot like what happened in Day of the Triffids, and we all know how well that turned out. Next thing you know, we'll all be living on the Isle of Wight.
