Hail from Dyslexia

back in 1976 i had a 6 month lease on a one bdrm apt.and i had 2 kids.by the 5th mo. the 2 bdrm up stairs next door came up for rent for just about the same price so i went for it. i got someone to take over my lease and moved. i told the old landlord and he wanted me to pay him the last mo rent and he said he'd give back my deposit, of corse that was a crock. i said i need the rent money for the new apt so you keep the deposit and i'll give this money to the new landlord for first mo rent since you are letting the new person i got to move in on the day i move out, your not losing any money, your comming out ahead. he disagreed and took me to court,that was fine with me, i thought it was illeagle to charge two people rent for the same apt in the same month. when we shoed up the judge said 'hello joe' to the landlord,'what are you doing here today'[first name basis] he replied that he was taking care of another dead beat, the judge nodded and we began. the judge asked me to tell my side and informed us that "joe' had no loss of money and thier for not due any compensation,just as i thought. emajon my shock when the written judgement came in the mail that he ruled in favor of the plantive. $250+ court cost! how did that happen? 1st off i didn't have a lawer to monitor my interest and 2nd they knew each other and aparently had a nice chat outside the court room which whoul not have happned had i had a lawer in court that day. as i was in the poverty level a lawer was out of the question, and you might ask about legal aid, my experance is that they are almost as helpfull as no lawer at all.
what to do, i offered to pay restitution,if he would send me enough self addresses stamped envelopes, i would pay him$. 25 every 2 weeks as that is all i could afford, he then came and stabbed all of my car tires---- tough break for me,replacing all 4 tires with no money, it kept me carless for several months---- verry bad karma for him,i just do not like yuppies.

yesterday i wrote a lot of neg. things about my mother and being an adoptee, now i need to say some great things that happned that wouldn't have other wise. my mother can take any old piece of furniture and make it a show piecs,absolutly beautiful and profetional looking.when i eas 8 she turned my whole bedroom into a room that looked like it was for a princess, painted all of the furniture off white with gold trim, sewed curtains, bedspread and all of the other trimmings, when she was done it was a show room,50 years ago people didn't do thoes kind of things llike today. she reapulstered many a couch, one chair i call the roil chair, was in a trash heep when mom took it all apart, tihghtened it, reapoltered it in a goldish velviteen, in the 60's no one did that kind of handy work, i am always gratefull, mom redesigned the dining room ,made curtains then painted a hege murel onwal of the exact design as was in the curtain materal, the trees, and bridge exact,color, form sort of Monetish. [no formal art training] she would take old baby furniture and paint bunnies,make bedskirts so the baby room looked like a wonderfull nurcery,she gave me all of this,her ability to budget with very little money and look good is unmatched by anyone i've ever met. dad said she could squwwze a nickle till the bull screamed. that is the truth, she is one of the most progressive,energetic, emaginitive, vibrant women i know.she is pollished and lady like but don't let any of that fool you,no one gets over on her.we never looked like we were struggling. mom only wanted 2 kids[children to her] but ended up with 5 so there were babies all of the time until i was 18, since i was oldest, i got much experance before i had my first 3 years later, she made it look easy, i thought it was easy for a while, then i became amazed at how hard it realy was.i asked her one time how she made it look so easy...she almost past out laughing at me.well to tell the truth, if i had to have this interesting life i'm gratefull she taught me all of these skills, i couldn't have made it this far without them.

my mom was and is the queen of pretence,she's realy quite a charicter,at 7? i'm sure she could still kick my ass and in the middle answer the phone in a pleasant a tone as you ever heard[just incase it was the minister].it realy doesn't matter what hell is breaking loose, you can count on one thing,no one will be the wiser on her account. my mother can be so hopping mad even in public that her head is litteraly spinning round[only thoes of us that know her can see this majic trick] yet she will maintain perfect composure and decorem,perfect smile and even her tone will not give her away.some one WILL pay, but on her terms and time!when i was 8 to 12, we lived on the very famous Bond Ave. in upper darby, no matter where i go i bump into soneone who used to live on tha very street at one time or anogher.I t was there that i descovered my mothers many predjudusses,she didn;'t like italians, they were goash, hated anyone who was "new money" they were flashy and had no polish, hated poor people, well they were beneath us{her} she didn't like high strung indeviduals, people who screamed at thier peeps,crass,the dull witted,the list goes on and on.it wasn'nt like that at grandmoms,everyone was good people[except pop pop kidnt like blacks and i couldn't understand that at all.she didn't even like most of the people in her oun family,there was always something.she did like this woman Rosemary and her husband, every day my mother scrubbed a room [monday the living room,tuesday the diningroom, wed the kitechen and so on. the house cried of clenliness,and if mom was having guests in on saterday night the bathroom,bacebords and dusting HAD to be done. all the way up to show time nothing was good enough,i thought it was nuts, i used to tell her that if rosemary was bring her white glove,she wasn't realy a friend. i used to point out to her uitter exasperation that grandmons wasn't like that.i got no where,i was in pretence prisson.the joy of people was gone,now they had to be scrutenized under the most powerfull mikeriscope for any hint of umpropriety, feeling connected to the world was gone, the world was'nt good enough,feeling connected to my caretakers was gone, i wasn't good enough, they were so intence about everything ,nothing was ever good enough, not enough money-grandmom had no money but she was a jem to hangout with,not enough social status- again about grandmom- and i believed that my new father was a major part of this because while living at grandmoms with the aunt who adopted me she wasn't like this ,she was nice.i had neverbeen good with my peers but i missed the 'i'm ok your ok' accepting poeple as they are interaction. granndmom looked out her door and saw friends,mom looked out her door and saw enemies.i'm sure my mother thought i wa purposly tring to make her misersable but this wasn't my world or anything like it,i felt that my parents didn't like me,hell i didn't even like me- i just wanted to go home ,and could not understand why i couldn't, i knew grandmom and the gang liked me and over thier i liked mee too.it didn't make any sence to me , i couldn't even viset with my arunts, she had a reason for each one.seeing it now i believe mom had some valid reasons for being the way she was[stilll is] but then it seemed like she was an eauel opertunity hater.i felt like a pretend person in a pretend family.in my teens i just sort of gave up, i was opressed and depressed. a funny joak, [not then but now] i was born dislexic and HDAD, in the 50's no one knew about learning disabilities,you should never hand over a kid with ld's to a perfectionist with out telling them, its water on a rock, i drove her nuts too.i do have a dark sence of humor even at my own expence-mom was sure i was doing it on purpose.

do people in the middle class feel picked on from the lower class? i believe that is true. there are many down here who truly resent people who are doing well as if it were a plot against them, how stupid, i think that is unatractive too. i would say everyone who is franchized worked hard for what ever they haveand deserve to enjoy thier successes.i know the hard workers resent the have-nots because they reason, 'i did it,so can you' and i know that comparing people and thier abilities is not helpfull but arogant.there is a lot of anger on both sides.the desenfranchized are a vocal and angry bunch. it is very frustrating, you have,so much to avoid [preditors ] and not much hope. i know most of the people in the middle class live in deep debt and paycheck to paycheck,so i smell fear and defencevness from them. i know at regular intervals our country goes through ressessions,depressions and inflation so thoes tha are starting to do well get pushed back down under again [thats me,its disheartning].i believe its wrong to look at what someone else has and be resentfull of them,you never know what slice of hell they are living under the serface in order to stay solvent[loveless marrages,deceptions,and abuses people suffer tring to stay in a finantal comfort zone].i've seen to much to think all that glitters is gold.the thing i love about living in a middle class neighborhood is not knowing whats going on in your neighbors house, when i was a kid it was deceptive. all the things families do to each other, the meannesses or coldness thy show to each other,they only show you whar they want you to see. down here its in your face, we have the same problems but no one knows or cares in a middle class neighborhood, everyone turns a blind eye,here its in your livingroom. if a husband is beating his wife or mother beaing her kids, or there is a drug dealer, here you ger a front row seat - [ in the apt hrom hell at 7am there was a daily migration in the whole building fom the bedrooms to the bathrooms whitch were all stacked next to and on top of each other,with paper thin walls,-oh the joy of hearing everyone of your neighbors wake up,it was like a 17 piece harmonee, ...from hell, after that you don't see each other quite the same way, i often wondered why the building didnt just sink on that end each day], in a middle class neighborhood, not at all,you just don't hear or see it.i have to say people down here don't fight about money much, its a given, there is moaning and all but rairly is ther enough money to start a war over, there is less pretence too,since everyone knows everyone is struggling there is no sence in putting airs and most back bitting is more out in the open too, in a middle class neighborhood you might not ever know some one isn't your friend [thats the stedfordness i refer to].its funny, when i was a kid in my middle class neighborhood, i truly believed that every one else had nice lives,i mean very nice, like kind to each other ,carring and connected to each other,i thought in thier houses thier was warmth,and goodwill for each other,that the people in the houses treated each other with respect and dignety no matter what age you were,it felt like that to me when i lived at grandmoms [ i was to young to see the adult strattus much]. i was adopted by one of my aunts who lived at my grandmothers and after i was adopted i totaly lost my sence of real people.for decades i thought ours was the only troubled house.i think i was confused until only a few years ago.

a ledgen in her own time, my grandmother was wonderful, she is the person i most admire in the world,she was funny,strict,warm ,strong,intelegent, and wise,she is my hero and was my soft place to fall,she taught me unconditional love and i believe she rulled with an iron fist too.i would not be the person i am today with our her example on how to go through hell and land on your feet.she loved the perfune' midnight in paris', the poem 'i just want to live in a house by the side of the road and be a friend of man'.she lived in a row house out side Philly and i think she would have looked better jn one of thoes Tomas Kincade houses ,as a matter of fact, i'd like to have one right next door.it was wonderful to spend time with her, she got me and expected nothing from me except for me just to be myself.no pretence, no airs, no judgements or stress, just free and easy.as i understand it my grandparents came from money[the old kind,i point this out for reasons that will become clearer later] i think my grandfather fell from grace but as his job was to mix the colors for the 'rockwell' paintings on the 'saterday evening post' he made big bangen bucks.'. i heard it they hade a huge house on the 'main line' and one of the first carsin thier nieghborhood ect. they had 9 kids the first male and all frmale's after that.during the depresson they took in two elderly aunts of my grandmothers and a blind cousin with his wife and thier 2 kids. quite a house full, then my grandfather left my grandmother with my grandmothers best friend, they went to flardia. i herd that he sent money one time and no more after that ,i believe my mother was 8 or 12 and as she was second to last child born so you can only assume there were more kids in school to feed than could work, all the aunts that could had to drop out of shcool,get jobs[cleaning] and help keep the house afloat. there was no wellfair in thoes days or foodstamps so many days they eat oatmeal 3 times a day and used thier clothes and shoes until they were truly useless. as seperation and devorce was a scandle,this would have been my grandmothers worst nightmare ,it would have been better if he'd have just dropped dead but of corse no one would have known the atvantage as there would have been nothing to compair it to,i don't know how she managed,i've been a single parent of 4 , and often think of her when things get ugly,she single handedly keeps me going . my grandfather was a strict authoritarion so when he left we have a house full of people free falling, 8 girls, my aunts, running amock developing abandenment issues, serously compettitive sib riverlry issues, out minipulating and controling each other, then there was the housing downward spiral. then there was world war 2,that may have made to job situation better but 8 girls what were wealthy and secure,now ppore than dirt, and no boys or men,[ in thoes days femails ware expected to marry into thair adult life ] then the boys/men come back, we have issues heaven,can you emajon? i'd have to find a tall bridge if i were my grandmother. any how thats how my family became so highly strung and crazy,me, my bro's& sisters, most of my cousins needed thuripy in varring degrees. under thoes conditions i see how finantal securtity and a piece of the planet was absolutly the focus of that generation,and why being authenticyourself or functional relationships was not a reasonable concideration, maybe for the idle rich.[my family of ouigen thinks that shrinks are for sissys]to them if you servive ,its all gravy baby.so while i can not be with them because thier ways make me crazy, i miss them [they do put the fun in disfunctional] some of them fell to the bottom of our society, some climbed to the top and every where in between.i lived with my grandmother from 2 to 6 she was unpretentous, she always had empathy for other people's troubles,she did developed minulipulitive ways, [not with me i believe]i think she felt that it was the only way to keep 8 daughters in line,at least that is what i've gathered from my single parent stint-i needed lots of sissy theripy to help me with better parent skills.so to the family i was born in to, i love you all, i hope i get you,you all did the best you could under extreamly and unexpectedlly harsh circomstandes,your all fabulous ,you have all taught me so much each in your own way, when ypu were fun,you you were fun,so for what ever you've done or not,no harm no foul. i will use some of the stories to make my point however i will be as veg as i can be about who you are as your generation also believes in the whole 'i am what i look like' thing.

in the last entry i talked about my art teacher he's sort of laid back and nonjudgemental.we were talking about the katrena/poverty situation and he proceeded to tell me that he and his brother had disagreements about poverty.his brother blammed the vectems harshly and then he turned to me and said ' i was born of priveage, i have no idea what its like to struggle, but i know it's not good', thats all anyone ever has to say or think to anyone else while preceding to treating then with respect and dignety as a valued indevidual. he sais he cant figure it out eather. why do so many people who have neverstruggled have so much contempt for so many who are already going through so much?

now for people who have struggled and are in a better place now. i'm very happy for them,i hope to be one some day myself-that would be very nice. i know my parents (republicans) struggled for years,all through my childhood and behond.not until my dad died did my mother stop struggling finantialy (now they'er very good republicans).so when i fell through the cracks,and my family would say thoughtless mean nasty things about wellfair people or people in poverty in front of me [ as if eather i wasn't in the room or that i was in a much better situation than i was ] i felt hurt, invisable, vectimized and defencive.it was bad enough before the congress of 1996 but after then, it seemed to be open season on the poor.the more i would defend myself the more i felt like i was in a chineese handcuf.i became angry, selfconsous resentfull and felt like such a looser. finaly i had to stop having anything to do with the family i was born into and guess what ,i'm not angry( can get angry but its not part of my personality any more) i'm much less self consous and not resentfull at all of my life or my situation .i feel that the decisions i've made were correct, and i am gratefully living the consequences of thoes decisions. i'm happy i took the road less traveled, although many times it was realy very ugly, in the end my kids are much better adults than they would have been had i not made emotional well being the priority.had i made just making it look good on top,no matter what hell boiled under the serface, we and our society would be worse off. my kids have a better shot at a functional adulthood and finantal wellbeing. i believe they cam do both. i don't feel like a vectem anymore, but a woman with a strong sence of purpose, to be functional in relationships,and that all elucive sence of well being, and then find out how to become franchized on this society.you see i lived with my mother who's sence of purpose was status[great of you also function,but i dom't feel that my family of origen does] and i know the repercussions of that, most of my family look great but feel like loosers and are very angry people for the most part. i know my self worth more and i'm at peace with my world,except when i bump into condecending, mean sperited, small mimnded indeviduas who seem to feel it nessssary to vent thier prejudice at my for mot being them. even in small ways,like thoughtless remarks and so on, then i get frustrated. so the srtuggle is not the bad part,that seems to be part of what life is all about, its the predgudus on top that opresses me.

my daughter is still to buisy to download a spellchecker so i apoligize for the visual simanticks.soon, i hope

as i've said i have been on both sides of this clash clash and i have to say befor i was on sec 8 it never ocured to me that it was anyones falt that some of our population lived in poverty, cirtanly not thier own falt, not realy anyones falt,it is what it is. i never thought much about rich people eather -yay for them,thats all, it is what it is. i had not attached a stigma to it,for most of my life i thought that other people had a shared secret, a secret of well-being. they all seemed to have or know something i didn't. i always felt like i was on the outside of something.i can't put it into words but i believe i didn't recognize my own self worth, but i did recognize everyone elses worth. it was all good. people all had thier stories, it was sort of one soul to another, i was always quriuos ,it was interesting, and pleasant to hear so many diffrent stories from so many diffrent people.. so emagon my surprize when after being on sec 8 got not two long, i realized that there was a world of contempt,prejedus and anger at me and everyone around me.i didn't volenteer to fall through the cracks, it certanly sucks to fall through the cracks plus my mental health was on shaky ground,and all of this hostility didn't help.there is hostility all over the place, in the doctors offices when they know which insurence card you have, at the store when you need to use the food stamps, from strangers when they precieve you of being down in the lawer class and frome my own family and friends!.
its funny, in the 80's i was a hair stylist for a while. during the Ragen years companies and the govvt. downsized, you could literaly smell the fear,good people lost jobs and were overqualified for jobs avalible and you could just see the fear radate from them and thier friends ,you would have thought they had a contagous deseese.it was truly horable for so many.

i had a conversation with my art teacher several months ago[art class is my friend] he was helping me with the 'we the people' painting, i was telling him how hostle random people are when your in a working poor or in a lower situation and how i thought that Katrina would start some diolog about that attitude, so many people seemed truly scocked and apauled but much to my suprize, nothing, nothing of consequence happned. no changes happned on eather side of the class clash.the poor went back to being invisable and the middle class went back to vocolizing how the lower class is a huge parisite. personaly i believe it's corprate, government and personal greed, but thats just me. i'm sure we all know just how much profet exon/mobile made in the 3rd and 4th quarter last year when they said thier was a supply shortage due to the hericane's.if thats not price gouging i don't know what is.so back to my point, why so much anger at so many people just strugling so hard just to get by? why not shift the focus to the truly greedy? are they invisable too?

1)this entry is 3 storys in one, when my buest friend went to see the car her machanic had for her for $ 850she took a guy friend who is doing much better than he used to. She took him to help her decide if it was a good car or a lemmon. when she asked his opion he said "you get what you pay for, i wouldn't get anything without a warentee"lets get real now, if my friend had that kind of money,would she need a guy friend to help her decide if it was a doable car? i think not and wha makes this comment more hurtfull is the fact that this other friend knows what its like to struggle and need to buy cheep,dependable wheels,through his hard work he doesn't have that problem mow however how useless is that kind of thoughtless irrelivant help?
2)we were sitting around work, we are a deverce group in all areas color education finantal ect,so woth the happy news that the pa. minimim (big sp. problem there)so one of my co workers asked if we were getting a rais as we were working for $2 more thaan min.wage.there was some speculation and grumbling about the fairness ect. then one worker said that if we didn't like it we could always find another job, in a most off handed manor, and as a person who used to struggle and is able fortunantlly now obsorb bumps in the road and as an extention of mamagement,it felt perticularly harsh. most of us would get better jobs if we felt that we were able, i have to say i felt devalued and dismissed by the off handed remark.
3)as we are not always smart ot wise the conversation turned to how the mew min. wage would cut some jobs and force prices of nessitties up as companies will pass the burden of to the consumers,yup that is what usuly happens. this same person doubted that it would not even be a blip on the household budgets if the privec get risen at all, thier was descussoin of how gas prices have had that impact,again some disconferming behavor from this same indeviduel,it hasn't realy been a hardshil(nice for them, but i'm close to the crack people fall through and i have to tell you its scarry for me.then as if we hadn't have enough decent umong our little conversational group,i brought up how there is a housing glut caused by the influctsof 9,000 new people in the valley over the last 3 or 4 years,as well as the rate of apreciation in the housing market in the last 5 or6 years,and the remark was "there are housing projects popping up all over the place" she was reffering to all the executive mantions that are popping up in the farm lands like an underground popcorn urn amuck,yes i did notice the new local crop of hudge ass housed for realy rich people comuting from N.J., new yourk and up from philly,i was referring to he housing for the working poor that is no longer avalible as well as the price of rent esculating form an average of $853 for a 3 bedroom housr before xmas to over $1100 now just 6 mo. later.truly scarry .i believe you already know her solution,yup, just move. simplistec solutions for comples problems from people who know what its like to truggle, that s why its just not doable for thoes who have never struggled and feel entitled to other peoples money in washington or harisburg to try and problem solve poverty,thier solutions jus make it wors.

thankyou lani for your thoughts, aunt m was a big meeny, funny but also to the throat {not to be confused with aunt M in the hudge house.} any how the diffrence between aunt T's getto neighborhood in the 50's and early 60's is durgs,gangs and turf wars,to the serface anger and out in the open preditory behaviors. when i needed sec.8,i mixed and minglled with the lower class for the first time as an adult, it was a nightmare. i wasn't afraid going in, i felt it was nessessary and tempory. it was not tempory and preditors on both sides of the class clash make it so very few assend from poverty. i won't even start with ressessions,depressions and inflations, just whenstarting to see the light at the end of the tunnel,it just slips further away once again.its not just kids who get sick or hurt and need to go to the hosital and that kind of random backslide its also the government provrams come and go, criteria keeps changing and unless you've tried to get off any program, you will not believe how frightngly imposible it is, not many have the ability to make it to the other side.i have to tell you that the learning curve to surviving down here is also like learning rocket science if your goal is not to become prey. you have slum lords, crack head nieghbors, people steeling everything they can get thier hands on-when i lived in Darby[I used to call it Dodge, you had to dodge the bullets, the mayor got caught robbing a bank,at one time there were three rapest working our vicinity at one time, the sherif shook people down] after chrisrtmas i'd put the x-mas tree out for the trash men to pick up, and within 24 hours some one had stolen it! In Upper Darby, i had nighbors that woke me at 5am, they would go through the neighborhood,steel peoples batteries and anything else out of cars to sell.live on sec.8 paying on rent, even get a voucher check each month,and rent out rooms in thier apt. I had a neighbor who would come in say she didn't have anything to feed her kids, open my freezer, take out hotdogs and say thankyou and walk out, if you don't understand the term "fresh meat" save yourself, do not fall through the cracks.i can tell you story after story.these people overshadow the realy good people here that work hard love thier familys try to keep thier kids off the streets ect...thier are loads of them too, you just don't notice them because of the preditors who create so much over the top kaos and drauma.that was one hell of a learning curve.i had to learn way more than i ever wanted to know. i know why the middle class sees the lower class as they do . i see it to, but some of these problems are made by the rulling middle class.when getto kids were shooting each other in schools for decades no one seemed to notice,and parents were screaming for help, it wasnt in the middle class arias so society turned a blind eye. now that its in surban schools bulling and gangs are a force to deal with, if hat attitude were prevelant from the start in the cities,the problem would have not reached Colimbine status.for the money we spent on the drug war was for real,it would have been won and most of the gang and gun problems would not exsist.

i have to say i'm so lucky to have the kids i do, they are so suportive, the reply and questions to my last post is my very apricated son-in-law. thankyou for asking me to be more spicific and offering me examples,constructive anything is my friend.so --where to start?at the beginning is good.i wasn't very aware of class until i needed to be on section 8. at 38yre old due to that family truame i talked about earlier.i had always had a veg awareness that there was poverty, i lived with my gramdmother from 2 yrs old to 6, she had eight daughters who lived close some at her house,others in all diffrent areas ,some more getto parts of Philly [aunt T.]- to the Main Line [aunbt M.] and all inbetween, my grandnother would get a break taking care of little ol adorable me when any one of my aunts took me for a while,then i got to see how life was from 9 diffrent perspectives, personaly i loved it,all that traveling around and all thoes diferent people to check out in all thoes diffrent places. at aunt T.s [ one of my faverouts ] had 4 kids and lives just past Sears and 69th street,that was a mostly a black, sort of getto neighborhood,and thou they struggled to maintain life in places my parents, when i got parents, didn't want to visit much,i could see they were just like me and grandmom's neighborhood ,they were, funny , it was warm,honest,good,hard,soft all at once,but nostly i noticed ,they were unpretentous, there was a gritty sort of honesty about them, so when i got back home to the all white neighborhood and i would hear some of the people talking about blacks[not the term de jour]andor gettos i just couldn't get it. thoes row homes and families were just like ours,mom's brushing kids hair,I thought black girls were lucky, they didn't need thoes horable rubberbandslike my hair did,mine tore my hair out every day,i hated it. thier hair just staied all by its self [how amazing was that?] and all the kids and moms were very friendly moms were ironing everything under the son just like at grandmems, all the nighbors talked to each other ,kids running around playing dads at work or not,just like at gramdmoms so i think i decided very early on that thoes people who were saing thoes things were very stupid and full of shit.i used to cuss a lot when i lived with my grandmothers,she didn't curs but pop pop did and he thought it was a riot when i cussed, thoes were my faverout days,living with my grandmom. then i would go to my other faverout aunts who lived in a mantion on the Main line[at least to me it was hude!you could fit 4 or 5 row homes in thier, and it was so much fun they so many hiding places you can't even emagon,it had a spiral stair case in the front hall that went all the way to the 3rd floor that you could see from down stairs in the 1sr floor, and a grand piano that evry one seemed to play at random,someone would walk by and just sitdown and play music ,then someone else would pick up where they stopped, a lot of times they would play together and sing in harmony,it was beautiful , they had stairs from the kithen to upstairs which was the servants quarters[how amazing is that?]they had a vertual zoo there, a poney who would come into the pantry when it was to cold,cats,dogs and a monkey[herby i think]kids were aloud to be kids running around,teasing each other making noise and so on,no talk of black people or poverty,they were the first Quakers i knew of,i didn't know what that ment but they weren't mean to other people,maybe it was because they were insulated from blacks and gettos or maybe i was to young to notice subtles but it seemed all good to me,and thier neighbors were nice too,diffrent,they has lots more stuff and lots more space with much bigger houses, but nice.Aunt F. lived in havertown in a twin ,she had boys,the older one used to tell his friends i was an indian because i had long braids and olive complection,they believed him,we thought that was funny.Aunt m. lived further away in a rancher,she had a step son who wet the bed and she used to kick him to the bathroom every day screaming and saing horible things.she had a great sence of humor and delighted in embaricing everyone.this is the tip of the iceburg story wise, some of them drank some of them didn't same of them smoaked some not, some cursed,harsh and corce, some more refined, all facinating. i was happy and had a ball in all of thier worlds, sometimes structure is a good thing, this was better for me,i felt loved and valued, i had as much power as any kid in a deverce group of people.when i got adopted it all changed.

i haven't added anything to this blog but funny stuff from my family because writing about the clashes between the lower and middle class is painfull and not feeling safe for me. i,m used to the social mask i put on when i go out to do my day and mingle with middle class people[although i do like them in varing degrees when i show them sone of my reality it usualy ends up eather embaracing, agreeing to disgree-or disconferming behaviors which only make me insecure and angry or depressed.
my adventures into the class clashes began at birth.just the luck of the draw i came into the world under iffy conditionsin the late 40's, i learmed a lot very early.during that time a person reputation was everything-then during the 60's that wall came down.i thought this would be a good thing but our society seems to have replaced that judgement and related stigmes for afluenzia,yuppy hero worship,and its still about what it looks like not what it is but again not about real charicter.the other wasn't about charicter eather but the aperiance of charicter[a great player can pull of a wonderful reputation] it's still that way only with material and monitary things.so i don't believe its any better just difrent than it used to be,its still about unrealistic judgementalism.personaly i've had to live it amd while i have no real complaints on the finantal struggle [it is whatit is] i feel the judgementality of the middle class is hard.my daughter informs me that i'm clasless now- i don't like living in the lower class for odvous reasons but i feel repulsed by the 'stedferdness',contempt, unrealistic expectations,defenciveness and simplistic answers to complex situations of the middle class. i'm probably senciteve to the pompus entitlement as well as the smoak and merrors cloak for shallowness,that was prity much the environment i grew up in.in the 60's i believed we were also foxing eather poveryt or the stigme associated with it,fron where i am it seems alive and well- to well for the society we should and could be.poverty is not good but the fallout from many middle class attitudes is cripling,painfull and discracefull, i just hoped that we were goung to be better than that. as you can tell i'm not one to adjust to reality myself or this would not bother me.i wanted to use a fake name so i could feel safe with my social mask on to do my day but i have a feeling that that is part of the problem,it does nothing to stir the pot.[i liked the pot better in the 60's- just a little humor.]i think i'll stop for today ,i have gobbs more but i'm glad atleast i got this part out,please respond to your own thoughts ,feelings and experiances.i weold love to hear them,sometimes i feel like i'm the only one who sees classism this way.

I'm sory for the spiratic pace of this website. I'm tring to learn this and work paperwork on line ,how to e-mail and so on, i can only learn one thing at a time and even thats iffy.back to the cat story ,i had it written but didn't realize when i shut this down i should save what i'm doing or it gets wiped out,live and learn. so i was home alone for a few days[what heaven] and while leasurly soaking in the tub,thier was a hudge bang, actualy several of them. not one to panic i waited until i got out then realized that the screan door had been kicked out and a lamp next to a window in an other room was broken. we have a three cats ,one we call devel dog because he's perverce. he loves to tease and generaly just run a muck.he also loves birds and squirls, he went missing so it must have been him dashing his stelth little self back and forth from door to window, the way he gets youd think he sees them as mobile orderves and that he's starving.well affter a few days i started to worry, my daughter made some posters tittled "HE DOESNT ANSWER TO THE NAME 'DEVEL DOG'. That did the trick in just short of three hours a call came in frome one of the kids in the complex asking if we were the ones missing a cat. this little kid and his helpfull little friends are my heros [ about 8 of them all under 10]well the kids saw the poster and knew where the cat was,they went to get the cat and give it to us but lets face it 8 kids all wiggly and giggly with a cat rescue mission get a mob hero mentality, where they all want to be the chief and are no one very interested in being the indian.So they all sort of chaged Devel Dog and he ran up a whole in the pool house. Thats when they called, he was traumatized, i don't think he was expecting 8 ten year olds to rescu him just at that moment.so when we went to get him he was not cooperative,and there was the matter of the 8 ten yr olds still wiggling and giggling and all yelling orders to each other.myself and two of my kids tried in vain to gain some cooperation,while some of the kids could see some sence in the quiet plan others just could not hold it all in,so my one daughter who i call Dr.Doolittle got down in the dirt to try to talk him out ,no luck we got food, not going for that,he knew the kids were still there tring to rescue him and he clearly hated that plan. so I went and got catnip we put it in the dish and shoved the dish in the whol,he came close several times but i think Dr. Doolittle thought he should just walk out.finaly i asked her to grab a foot and pull the rest of him out before we needed to pack days worth of food and pith a tent. mean while every time the cat started to come out my little herro's all would get all excited and he'd run back up the whole.i believe it took us all one half an hour to grab the little devels one foot, he came out kicking and screaming,but we did get him home all safe and sound. so heres to all of my little heros,they even ran around gathering up all of the unneeded posters because they knew thet rescued the lost cat and the posters were no longer needed. not bad for an early summer evenings rescue work.i love little kids.

This is for all thoes MoMs who love and wory endlessly about thier peeps,becomming obsessive-compulsive along the way,even if thier not from the land dislexia.

My one daughter is living away from home, in the colage of hard knocks,with the man she intends to marry,living temporaryly with his parents,[he recently got out of the Mariens, and is regrouping for civilian life.as challanging as that is, sitting at home worring myself into a stomach ulser. seems to be harder, I've always been the action girl, not the "you have safe trip, hope the wind is at your back" sort. So this is forign to me and this back burner thing is just not for me.Maybe its the attention HIPER-ACTIVITY disorder but this sitting on the side lines watching my baby bird take her first major flight ,i just feel the need to fly under her to make sure she doesn't free fall.[ its driven me nuts,again i easily digress and obsess.] she calls me up[ she tells the most wonderfull stories]she starts saying that his sister[13] and her honey were having a a wrestlinng kind of play thing where his sister could not stop so he gave her a big brotherly swat and his sister started to cry and it all got rather weered.WWWellll,his sister and mothers name are simular and his mom is young and vibrant,so as she is telling me the story i see his mon, not his sister in the story. i got a very diffrent picture than the reality.my daughter told the story so matter of factly that i could not address my horror.when we hung up my ocd kicked up into overdrive and for 3 days i worried about how i was going to get her back nome with her cooroperation,[i will not bor you with ny many nitemares] as we started to talk, i started by sying "i'm going to talk to you as if you were my bet friend, You can not marry a mon whho hits his mother" then a moment of silence and then WHAT? WHO HIT WHO"S MOTHER? things got garbled for a second.. i said "he hit his mother?"...then she started to laugh...i had to asume i did't get the joak...she said I'd neaver stay with anyone who hit thier mother!" I said "who got hit?" you know the rest,

boy do i have a soap apra to undo thank God she has the same learning disabilities as i do and figured it out fast,i love her so much -mostly i love her sence fo humer.

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so after yesterdays news i thought 'no wonder i'm stressed and always feeling scared and angry.' sooo what to do, thier is usualy always something i can do.....my best friends mother lives in a sienior comunity, knowing that my friend is in desprat need of a car[single mon in my social eco level],had her test drive a car [ her moms 87 yr old friend giving up driving and is trying to sell her car] a 1987 plymoth horizon for $400. has 30000 miles on it and has been servesed on time as well as kept in a garage for 19 years.[now my friend needs to find a sugar daddy with one foot o a banna peel, oh thats right AnnaNicol got him.] my friend is not one to show hate at a time you should be showing gratitudelooked pleased, so her mom thought she liked the car and befor she could blink, the test drive wound up at a notery public where her very thoughtfull mom put down the money and told her she can take her time paying her back.my friend called me in a panic,[we take turns]she now has a car she hates, a broken car she likes wich in our world will cost up to $500 big bangin bucks to fix,and another car her machanic is willing to sell her for $850 which is dependable and one she likes.as i thought it over[ and thier are more many steps in this story i won't bor you with] i have a 1991 mishubichy galaunt i absolutly love, power everything and zoom-zoom to spare, yes it has good ol over drive, it had me at hellow. it saved my ass more than once [my kids and i took a trip to NewYork a few months ago, i'll give you a tip, if you can't drive in all of your merrors and windshield while swerving in and out of trafic and stop-start on a dime, don't drive in N,Y, city],sssssssooooooooooo maybe i should downsize,much of that i hate, but the car i love causts an arm and a leg to repair and maintain not to talk about gas, i put abouy $25-#30 a week in it to only do errands.i find i cant afford it this year,ouch, i love that car. it ends up I'll buy her car for $850 [i believe it's worth $1000 becarse of the condition and low milage], she can get the car she wants for $850, she will sell her broken car to pay back her mom,I will get a carshe hates, i can aford that i like but not love,and i will sell my car for $3000 to do other nessary things with like money to move,to help get my teeth fixed,to take a course for $500 dealing with how to deal with kids anger issues [well worth the money if you have foster kids living in your home 24/7.] lets face its .while downsizing is a blow to the igo and i'll miss all that overdrive and power, well i loved it while it lasted, i'll have fun in the new car. maybe i'll advertize my web site on it, mice thind bout junkers you can inhance them with out messing with the value of the car, all in all i'm proud of us, we done good.

i just figured put why i cant figre out how to use the spellchecker, thier are no dictiponaries dopwnloadec in it ,didn;t know you needed to do that ,i thought it just came with it after all it is called a spellchecker.i'll just have to ask my kids to fix that, i'm lucky that way, they don't seem to mind and we usualy get a laugh or two. well the front page validated my reality today, it states that housing has risen 54% in the last 5 years, I know i've been nervous and rent goes up almost $40 a month per year but everyone acts as though its no big deal,and the artical even stated that some families are doubling up, as if that wont sprinkle your head full of white hair. i can't live with a husband what the hell am i going to do with a whole other family? the news person was so nanshalant about it that i knew he was not one of thoes families in jepordy of doubling up.also in the buisness section was news in the gas driven inflation food and other stuf we're fond of ,I'm feeling nastalgic like the late 70's and 80's,the artical said that most middle classers are obsorbing the ----- [they don't call it inflation, i think they are referring to it as posible inflation] anyhou i'm glas middleclassers are thking it in stridebecause its realy unatractive when 98% of the country is nervous[the 2% upper class don' t seem to get nervous, they dopn't like it when the middle class gets nervous because then a lot of people start having mob mentality and that 2% feel threatened,and start rumersw about how the lower class are bleeding the m.c. dry.and it usuly works.I'm thinking that the m.c. doesn't know how much exon-moble made in profits this year.and thats another mystery to me, with numbers like that why is it so hard to prove price gouging? I believe we saw through Katrina that although the poor are blamed for being leaches,they don't have much,so when i saw that the government was scamed out of more than 1 billian dollers, I thought the poor have thier personaal greedy people too.i'm not convinced that it was strictly poor people, if we could get a head hount, i believ lots of people from all walks of life cashed in,after all thats the way it was after the World Trade Center.I do believe these indeviduals should be heald accountable by law, there were to many good people who needed the money, strugled and did the right things with the money[lets not forget the governments inability to manage a beaurocracy effeciently.

I wathced in horror, the news media and government twist this Katrina desaster into the largest debocle with consequences I've ever in 57 years witness.As I talked to some of my middle class friend,and realized they were as clueless at first as the media and government about what was so painfully clear to me,no car no money,no safty.I was in so much pain for these misunderstood people that i was compelled to paint about it,there was a time not so long ago that it would have been me and my peeps.Since I've been here in the lower class I realize that being invisable and misunderstood is the worst part of it.Please visit the blog and leave your won views and comments,I'd love to hear from you.

"Disconnect and Rescue" was inspired by my view that our government has not met many of the needs of the lower class which Katrina so perfectly luminated.The houses under water,to acknnolage to all thoes who had to leve thier homes ,and the chopper, in homage to thoes who left thier jobs,homes and families to do what ever they could to help. I so wanted to be one of thoes people, people mostly in the middle class came indroves from all over the U.S ,that was so beautiful, inspiring and hopeful.So where it seems that the media,government and most in the buisness comunity are disconnedted to this population, many of our people are not.Please come to the blog, and leave your own point of view. Disconnect and Rescue

yesterdays entry was about trying to put together some advertizement for this web site.i went toOffice Depo to check out photo paper so I could make some advertizement prints for my web site. I like how they do not make me feel like an idout for not knowing thier job or productsI find that rair and I will be happy to pass these tips along.[sometimes geezers don't deserve respect but we are needy for it, so when an outfit prides itself on costomer service i am first in line]anyhow they are selling 25 photo sheets for $16.99 buy one get 2 free. then they have a sale on copping,39 cence a sheet.thats cheep. I just found out that i couldn't usr that becausr they have a lazer printer so I had to go with special paper that wouldn't melt in the machien, still very inexpencive and they were very informitive and pleasant, i like that when someone has to derail my plan.So you can tell i'm still doing my happy dance. my one job [i have 2] which is very CIA[ not aloud to tell anyone due to confidentiality,and so on, thats all i can say or they will have to kill me] is having a retreat tonight so I will be handing out prints to my work peeps of my paintings and chatting up the blog.I'll let you know how it goes.my oldest daughter is my edditor and she took yesterdays entries , condenced it and made stickers to go on the back of the prints, but i don't know how to email yet so she sugested that i put on my blog what i'd like to say and she would work on it and send it back as comments to see if i like it[she's a fantastic writer,I'll shair some of her work on slow 'working poor' days, she'll love it.If I show up with Jimmy Hoffa you"l know what happned and the reason why.

I wathced the Katrina event unfold to my horror, the news media,government and the people who I talked to who were so angry at the people who were at the astrodome and on rooves "serves them right,why didn't they get out when they were told to"is what i heard. I became inraged, when I was on sec.8 often times there was no car. I would have been stuck with my little peeps! Even when I had a car there was absolutly no money in the checking acount,no savings at all, so noability to stay any where except our little apartment.Words can't describe watching the president tell us that everything is under control while news stations showed people on rooves, others looting [same clip over and over]calling the people at the astroderm"refugies. I was so wordless at this atrosity and misrepresentation I was driven to paint what I was seeing and feeling."We The People" emerged.Although I am white origionaly of the middle class, these are my people, not the coler of thier skin, but the class they are in and the dignety of who they are,my class of people are poor, working poor.I am poor, working poor.The people I know are loving family people,people who are invisabe people until such a moment,unpretentous gritty salt of the earth people. I believed there would be diolog about the invisable class we have in this country. That didn't happer, nothing happned. We are invisable again, I'm here to make noise,lots of noise,and to have a fea laughs at everyone's expence,to give voice to the invesable.My wish is to sell prints to keep this issue out in the publics eye, some of the procieds will go to help our fellow travelers rebuild thier lives.


After "We The People" I wanted to express just how our society, government and classism is so disconnected from the real needs and reality of the lower classes. Also this is about all of the people who left thier homes [the poor for good and the other beautiful people from all over the world who came to rescue and help any way they could.[ I so wanted to be one of thoes people,I was driven to paint instead].for the first time in decades I saw signs of hope in the people who left thier homes to help.I thought "finaly some diolog between the invisable and franchized!" My heart sunk however,when everyone went back to the same old attitudes.There was no diollog between the visible and disenfranchixed.To my mind in this country, it is benight us to just have thes big ol eliphant in the room.I'm here to make noise,The most dificult part about being poor for me is not the strugle, for me its the stigma.I'm here to address some of the things that are misunderstood, to give us voice andto have a sence of humor about our selves, to let the franchized know that being poor has its own challanges but being society's dumping ground is not true and not OK.I also want to give the franchized who believe that we're all gods children voice.All thoes people who showed up,and all of thoes who's heartwent even of they couldn't are part of the solutoin and need voice too. My wish is to sell print of these anbd other paintings I'm workin on to help nmy class become visable and the blog is to give voice to us the misunderstood and disenfranchizd.Some of this money will be going to the" Katrina"