I took a couple of short naps late yesterday evening then created flashcards until about four thirty am, didn't sleep after that, and I feel fine, not tired or drowsy at all. It seems that forcing myself to keep unsuitable hours is more fatiguing that insufficient sleep.

Forcing myself to keep unsuitable hours is an all but inevitable aspect of keeping most jobs, however. I'll have to find a way around that if I ever get around to getting a job. It's kind of amazing that I've spent so much of my adult life not working full-time or even anything close to full-time. But maybe not so amazing considering that I spent a chunk of my twenties sharing rent with family, spent nearly half a decade homeless, and have had a housing voucher for a decade.

I'm having one of those periods during which I pop ibuprofen after ibuprofen and the cramps never go away. And this is prescription-strength ibuprofen. So maybe I cannot have einkorn after all. I'll cut back and see what happens next period.

As crucial as a housing voucher has been for keeping me housed, using one is anxiety-provoking. Some landlords refuse to accept them, some do but don't want or cannot afford to wait the weeks it takes the housing authority to schedule, execute, and process the housing inspection. I have faced housing discrimination as a voucher-holder. As a homeless person and as a voucher-holder, I got/get a sense of not being wanted here. Money is the only thing that matters, and I never have any. So I don't feel terrible about leaving the voucher behind to go abroad even though I'll be homeless again and have to wait for another one if I ever come back.

Actually, I probably won't have to spend a single day homeless on the streets; there's a homeless shelter in Sacramento where veterans get first dibs and there are never many female veterans I think. I really really don't want to stay there, though. First day I was there (second time I was homeless), the intake guy asks me whether I have a shirt to put on because there are ex-felons on-site. I was wearing a sleeveless undershirt. Nah, better to stay away from that part of Sacramento. I wonder whether the homeless problem there has gotten any worse. Every time I'm there, there are like two whole streets lined, on both sides, with the tents and cardboard apartments of the unhoused as well as all the bikes and piles of crap they collect. It's jarring every time I see it.

I received a response concerning the language requirements of the philosophy program in which I'm most interested. The material is taught "mostly in Chinese," but a level CEFR B1 in English is required. A minimum level TOCFL A2 in Chinese is merely recommended. Who is going to be able to complete a Master's degree in philosophy at level A2 in Mandarin? Their guidelines make no sense and seem irresponsible. I've found that there is always an odd mismash of English and Chinese educational content, on both the university and government Taiwanese websites. Web pages that are supposed to be in English don't load or are blank. I never know what's up with these sites, so I'm disinclined to trust these academic departments on matters of language. My question about specializing in the philosophy of science wasn't really answered; perhaps I'm to infer from the re-iterated required courses whether there is any room for specialization.

Menstrual pads do not fit well into men's briefs. I didn't have a problem when I was using only cloth pads because they come with fasteners; as for disposable pads, however, I've resorted to taping them into place.

Thirty dollars for my six-month supply of vitamin d3. The bottle I get is a large expense for one month but it comes out to be the cheapest option because it lasts so long.

I also routinely buy vitamin b12, two kinds of melatonin, and magnesium. Fortunately, I think I can do without re-purchasing those this month. I'm also trying l-theanine as a sleep aid this month. The chocolate bars I take for caffeine/energy are also basically a kind of supplement. I really need to budget for those this month. I don't expect my sleep to get any better (so I'll still need caffeine for energy), and they can help with my diet.

I finally got a working humidifier. Someone was giving away an ancient one for free a couple of blocks away. (People give away such great stuff here. I've gotten computer monitors, a flat-screen TV, and tons of free produce.) I've found that old stuff is often a better value than newer stuff. Newer stuff is built cheaply, made of plastic, breaks quickly. All kinds of manufacturing is about making as much money as possible, not about quality. I have an old CD player and tape player, stuff I bought used from a thrift store, that still work long after the much newer mobile phones stopped functioning.

So I decided that grabbing this vaporizer/humidifier, as it says on the box, might be a good idea. And it was: It's warm here now even though the heating is off. Too bad I didn't have this earlier in the winter; my heating bill is now over a hundred dollars past due. The water tank is made of glass; most modern humidifiers are made of plastic. Something as sturdy as glass would cost a lot nowadays.

I also bought some squalene along with the vitamin d3. I'm expecting the squalene and the more humid air to improve my skin, help me recover from pih faster, and help me recover from any future skin peels without pih.

My enthusiasm for Mandarin is waning as I settle into the repetitive and time-consuming routine of absorbing new vocabulary. My textbook is better than Pimsleur, but I'm still learning not-very-useful terms such as water heater. I don't think I will be able to learn Cantonese or any other Chinese language any time soon because they all use the same script. I would be continually getting them confused with Mandarin. And one of the addons I'm using with the software I edited now has a strange bug that I don't know where to begin to fix. I am mentally exhausted with all the things I've done and time I've spent trying to force this software to conform to my study routine.

I looked up escaping the United States today and ended up on the Peace Corps' website via Reddit. They have job openings in Vietnam, so I took a look at the information they have about the country. The very first sentence indicated that mobile phones are ubiquitous. Great. Where do I have to go to escape these goddamned phones? Syria?

I don't even like to be seen pulling out the mobile phone I have, but it helps me continue to study while I'm out getting sunlight, which helps me sleep more deeply. That and profile pictures are the only things I use it for. It takes forever to start up, it's awkward to hold, and the menus and things are a pain in the ass to navigate.

I can't work the Peace Corps jobs anyhow. They are super strict about their volunteers conforming to local customs to integrate, to get the locals to trust them. For the job in Nepal, at least, they even require volunteers to live with a Nepalese family. I would never sleep again if I had to share a home with other people. It would be unbearable. I hear the air in Nepal is so bad that people are constantly hawking and spitting to clear their throats. Jesus Christ. Maybe that's just in the main city though? The job in Vietnam is a teaching position, and I don't have the energy to interact with people all day, whether students or a host family.

And I absolutely do not want to help spread English around the world. I don't like this capitalistic monoculture the world is moving towards, and I do not want to help create more developing countries to which first-world corporations can easily export jobs.

Maybe I should just transfer my housing voucher to SF county and live in or near one of the Asian enclaves. That way I won't have to deal with annoying American social overtures, I'll have a better chance of finding a boyfriend in person, and maybe I can practice my Mandarin. I'll still come across the insane, sidewalk-shitting homeless population when I travel across the city, but maybe not so much in my own neighborhood. But finding a place will be difficult. Everyone wants to live in SF.

California almost seems like a nice place when I think of it as a whole, but, when I zoom into the city level, there's no town here where I actually want to live. There's no town in this whole goddamned country where I actually want to live. I have to choose between relative quiet and safety plus liberal white racism on the one hand, versus more ethnic diversity/fairness plus more crime, filth, noise, and decay on the other hand. Oh, now I remember why I wanted to move to Taiwan. It's just looking so impossible.

If my sleep hasn't improved after a month of progesterone and the audiologist cannot help me manage my noise sensitivity, I'll re-evaluate my plan. I'll have to plan for long-term disability.

Trump has done some interesting things since taking office. He has taken steps to remove men from womyn and girls' sports and eliminate transition-related medical procedures for minors. His memorandum on the later issue indicates that the WPATH guidelines should be re-evaluated. I'm still waiting on him to do something about the men in womyn's prisons issue. There was something about increased investing in American citizens and targeting the increasing cost of living. It's too bad it took a damned felon to do this shit.

One stupid thing he's doing is renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Just what the hell.

I'm tired of fighting this ear piercing that will not heal. I'm going to have to switch to a hoop earring.

I missed food bank day again. I went to get blood drawn again instead. I want to get my medical issues resolved ASAP (however, my chronic sense of coldness isn't as pressing now that I have the humidifier). I was too tired to deal with the noise and bustle of the food bank anyhow.

Seeing people outdoors in cold weather with open-toed shoes bothers me.

I got yet another referral to yet another sleep department. I'm not at all confident they'll be able to help me sleep.

I'm waiting on my DOR counselor to send me a check for a yearly subscription to Flexjobs so that I can find a remote job. I don't really expect that to pan out either. My DOR counselor always seems to forget to do things, to ignore my emails, etc. I should report her. Maybe. But I don't think that'll accomplish much. I think she's overworked and unable to do anything about it. I wouldn't want her to be chastized by her supervisor and thereby stressed out even more than she might be now. And I don't want to switch to a new counselor. This is my second one at this branch of DOR.

I feel utterly overwhelmed with my housing search. Because I don't have a car nor money for hotels, it's all but impossible for me to go check out the new cities I'm considering moving to.

I want to start studying Korean but I have nothing left to put into it. No time, no energy. If I would just stop waking up so soon after going to bed, my life would start falling into place. It seems like such a simple thing, to stay asleep when sleep is so sorely needed, but apparently it is not so simple.

Last night I burned myself again. My leg this time. I've got to stop messing around with hot rocks. I wanted to avoid using my electric heaters to warm up my bedclothes because they give off radiation that increases my fatigue, but the fatigue is probably not worse than all these burns I've racked up.

My diet seems to be going well except I'm eating so little that I'm having issues with lightheadedness, headaches, etc. I just have no appetite. I think my new obsession is partially to blame for the lack of appetite, but so is all the fruit I'm eating. No one wants to gorge on fruit. I need to finally figure out the cause of my chronic hypoglycemia so that I can address it rather than simply eating to avoid it. Maybe this problem will go away once I'm slim enough such that I'm no longer under-eating.

I'm growing my ducktail out again. I've come to miss it so. I hope I'll be more motivated to take care of it this time. I care about my physical appearance more now that I'm sort of planning to date again. Awkward to start dating again at my age but I'm cheering myself on. I just have to find the right person.

I'm considering getting one of my ears pierced again. Not the lobes though. I have to look up the name of the piercing. I could probably get it done for cheap at the mall. Actually they might not do the one I want. It's a low-budget store for cheap accessories, they might do lobes only

Couldn't remember where I needed to disembark, got off at the wrong train station. The train doesn't come very often, so there was no taking the next one. Tried taking the bus knowing I'd arrive ten minutes late, ended up at the wrong bus stop. Both the county bus and the city bus stop at most bus stops, but I happened to be waiting at one of the exceptions. The correct bus stop turned out to be less than a block away. I should have known; I'd used it before. Insomnia and fatigue destroying my memory and other cognitive abilities.

So I ended up wasting hours and some money as well. Missed my appointment entirely and came home rather despondent.

I managed to get some extra sleep a couple of days ago but woke up with a migraine. The migraine came back yesterday and again today. I seem to have found some kind of unorthodox migraine treatment. Usually, looking at a computer screen while I have a migraine makes my head hurt worse. Hovever, when I play the computer game zaz, the pain subsides.

I'm afraid that I'm being discriminated against by the property management company to whom I've applied to rent a house. I've sent my application multiple times, and the person I've been interacting with keeps saying she hasn't received it. I sent it again today. They might be stalling, hoping that someone who does not have a housing voucher applies so that they can pretend that person was the first to submit a complete application. First-come, first-served is their policy.

This housing thing is exhausting and very distressing. I hate being at the mercy of other people for housing. I hate renting. I hate that money rules everything in this society. Housing-for-profit is disastrous for poor people, that's why there are so many on the streets. Without safe, stable, wholesome housing, I can't even compete on the money score. It's like I'm trapped. I can't get a job until I get my energy and cognitive function back, and I'm not getting that back until I get out of here.

If I don't get a response tomorrow, I'm going to report this place for discrimination. I don't even give a shit anymore. I can't take this. Maybe it'll ruin my chances, but at least this will be over and maybe they'll be less likely to try this with other prospective tenants.

Every morning, shortly after I wake up, I remember what my life is like, has been like, and my mood drops. I start the day off feeling like shit physically and psychologically, with no solution but distraction. But focusing on my distractions is becoming more and more difficult. It seems less and less possible that I can ever recover, even if I make it out of this country. I feel devastated and frozen because my life has been made so difficult by other people. I don't know how to deal with having so little control over my own life. My strategy is to simply keep going step-by-step, day-by-day, without berating myself too much for fatigue-induced poor choices or lack of productivity. Just study my Chinese every day and bide my time. Sooner or later, I'll get somewhere.

Nothing new is happening. I'm still grinding away trying to find a new home, trying to see an audiologist, trying to get my disability recognized, tryng to get more sleep, trying to get a job, trying to find a way to survive psychologically, trying to accomplish basic tasks with little energy and 5 hours of sleep per night.

I got another VOIP phone, and I'm having the same problems I had with my other VOIP providers: after I put down the receiver, the phone rings almost immediately, re-establishing the last connection. This never happened when I had proper landline service. Maybe I'll try a new phone anyhow. That's another thing I have to ask DOR for. I'm tired of asking DOR for stuff. It seems ridiculous that I have to ask for funds for a new phone and answering machine, but that's how poor I am. The answering machine was a four-dollar thrift-store-buy, so I'm not surprised at how soon it died. Shit, my keyboard is dying as well. I don't want to ask for funds, but I need them. Even a twenty-dollar keyboard or phone is a burden for me.

Today I wasted half my day going to view a house that's available to rent. I had a one-and-a-half hour, two-bus trip out. The house is at the other end of the county, in an unfamiliar location, and I could barely read signs because, as usual, I wasn't wearing my glasses. I missed my bus stop. Fortunately, the stop wasn't too far from the end of the line, so I was able to get off at the right place not too much later, on the trip back.

I found that the Craigslist ad wasn't truthful. The house wasn't in the listed city, but in a smaller, neighboring town. I'd known from my mapquest search that the place wasn't far from the highway, but I had no way of knowing how close. Once I got there, I found that it was so close that, as I walked away from the bus stop on the highway, I nearly walked right past it. The only thing between the house and the highway is a Mexican restaurant.

Proximity to the highway is a concern because of noise. Even though the highway is a small two-lane deal, the traffic is rather heavy and almost certainly nearly constant, and I wouldn't be able to handle living right next to it. I also disliked that the whole town seemed to be based on the highway, built around it, fanning out from it. If I lived there, I wouldn't be able to avoid the highway, the noise, as I walked around town, as I ran my errands. It's even worse than where I live now, a town that has two highways running through it.

There were no sidewalks on the street outside the house, and the road (more like an alley) was so narrow that I had to stand aside as cars passed. I walked up the street and took a peek at the rest of the neighborhood: no sidewalks there either. I left after that. I didn't stay to view the interior. There's something very unwelcoming about neighborhoods that lack sidewalks, and I walk a lot and wouldn't want to navigate such streets.

I was annoyed that whoever had written the Craigslist ad had wasted my time. Come to think of it, mapquest also said that the place was in the city named in the ad. I don't see how the house could be considered a part of the city given that it's a block away from the town's post office, with the post office closer to the city than the house is.

The day was quite hot. I had to walk in the heat to find a bathroom after so much time spent on the bus, and it was uncomfortable, particularly since I'd tried to dress nicely to make a good impression on the realtor.

I'd spent the inbound trip looking out my window so that I'd have some idea of what sort of area I'd be moving to. I found this part of the county brown, dry, and depressing, and it reminded me of all that I'd heard about fire risk in the area. Riding for over an hour through the dusty tan landscape, I felt that I didn't want to live there, that I was wasting my time and had decided against the place before I'd even arrived. I don't know what kind of fruit grapes are such that they can grow in such a climate. Maybe they grow in winter or fall? I don't know anything about them.

So that's one housing option that's off my list of potential new homes. The list is quite short. I doubt I'll be able to move out by the first of next month, which was my tentative goal. Maybe I'd have more options back in Santa Cruz county. But transferring my housing voucher to another county and finding housing there while I still live here would be a financial and logistical nightmare. The logistics wouldn't matter if I had enough money: I could simply stay in hotels, hire taxis, etc. until everything was settled. In my current circumstances, I'd be on all-day public transportation trips and risking homelessness.

I ended the day with the beginning of a migraine, most likely due to mild dehydration (I hadn't brought anything to drink, and the stomach-churning, unpleasant-tasting fountain water I had at the park next to the bus stop came too late). The only good thing about the day is that I got pizza at the end (stopped at the discount grocery store at the end of the bus ride back and spent my last four dollars' worth of food stamps) and that I have a clearer idea of what that end of the county is like. I'd rather live over here, in the more humid part of the county. I read on Reddit that at least one town further west in the county even gets mold, which seems like a helluva contrast to other parts of the county.

It's 9:30 pm and it's still hot!

I finally found a cheap slow-cooker at the thrift store last weekend, so I'm finally able to cook some of the legumes that have piled up in my kitchen cabinet. Cooking them in a pot, as I do with most of my food, is simply too impractical. It seems to take massive amounts of water, and the fifty cents per gallon I'm paying for filtered drinking/cooking water adds up.

I bought some kid's compression shirts because the company that sold my kid's tank tops isn't selling them anymore. I was going to simply buy tank tops from another company, then I decided that compression shirts would offer more support and more consistent support.

The new shirts were supposed to arrive yesterday, and I was eagerly awaiting them because I'm physically uncomfortable and self-conscious without proper support, plus I'm wasting money by continually re-washing and re-drying my few tank tops to re-shrink them (they loosen up each time I wear them). But there was an issue with my delivery address, so they didn't arrive until today, while I was out wasting my time, when I felt that I needed them the most because I'm self-conscious mainly when I have to be out in public thanks to men's sociopathic sexual behavior.

I'm wearing a boy's medium, size 8, compression shirt right now and it's not as supportive as I'd hoped it would be. It's surprisingly loose for child's clothing on an adult body. Or, rather, it's loose in the one place I needed tightness. A smaller size wouldn't fit over my gut (partially because I'm hellishly constipated but mainly because a small just wouldn't be long enough for my torso), where the shirt is tightest. The shirt is next tighest under the arms, then in the back. There's a noticeable drop-off in compression moving in from the arms. I can't feel much of a difference in support between this shirt and my size 10/12 tank tops when they're fresh from the dryer.

I'm sort of disappointed, partially in myself for not loosing weight faster so that I wouldn't have so much body fat to compress. I spent so much time shopping online and measuring myself and anticipating a sensation of physical relief that I'm disappointed with the way this purchase turned out.

Since I wouldn't fit a smaller size and don't know any better sort of shirt to buy (except maybe a gynecomastia shirt, which would be expensive and probably doesn't exist in my size), I don't know what to do but suffer with my purchase. It's too hot for a binder and they destroy ribs anyways. I guess I could look for a loose one but I couldn't afford more than one and I just really don't want a binder. That's not really appropriate for my situation and I'm not sure a loose one would even work.

This is the world men have given us

Today I finally submitted my request for reasonable accommodations to the housing authority. This request was the main reason I saw my medical provider a few days ago. Thinking up how to explain myself took me some time, plus I sort of took yesterday off to prepare my application to the county transportation system for disability services. I had an enraging experience on the bus a week ago, and I decided that I wouldn't take any more. I do not have the words to describe how sick and tired I am of having my disability ignored and aggravated by selfish morons. I can't even get my condition properly documented because doctors won't accept my health insurance. My last diagnosis is nearly ten years old, so I need to be re-evaluated. The cheapest re-evaluation I've found cost four hundred dollars. There's no way I can come up with that. I've have to save a third of my monthly income for nearly a year.

Without the documentation, I may not be approved for transportation services. So I can stay in town, order things online, or take the trail into town. I'd tentatively planned to take the trail today, but abdominal cramps plus the resultant fatigue derailed those plans and I ended up at a local supermarket buying the super firm tofu I normally buy out of town. It was only sale but still more expensive.

Things are taking forever, but step by step, I'm doing what I must to get out of this apartment, this medical predicament. I feel accomplished for finding just one housing unit I could apply for today.

I would like to post more about radical feminism on this blog, but my energy and attention are taken up with health issues and all the shit I have to do to treat and manage them. Not to mention suffering from them, the brain fog and fatigue that keep me from composing anything that requires much thought. So the blog is boring and narrowly focused until I get my shit together.

I was hoping to purchase an Arabic textbook this month, but my money ran low. Again. I can't find any texts without vowels (as Arabic is usually printed), so I'm going to settle for something with vowels and just...re-type some of it and not look at the be-vowelled vocab so much. It looks chaotic and cluttered now that I've learned to read without te vowels.

The government subsidy for my Internet ended. I can't afford Internet and phone service. I use the Internet waaaay more than I use the phone, so I dropped the phone service.

I think my ISP is bullshitting me. When I called about the phone service, I was told that I couldn't cancel it, that the phone+Internet package was the only service option in my area. Logged into my user account, I noticed a button to change my service and ended up downgrading to Internet only that way. Now I'm paying he same thing I was paying before, when the government was paying for my Internet. No, actually, I'm paying five bucks more. Forty bucks out of monthly income of $170.

Maybe I've destroyed what little chance I had of getting a job. I kind of don't care anymore. I've thought about lying to potential employers about having some kind of hearing impairment, but, applying online, I don't get the opportunity to do that; most likely, my resume/application will simply be ignored. I dislike lying anyhow. I do however get the sense that there is something disrespectful and dismissive on the employers' side of the job market, so the idea of misleading potential employers is not as unpleasant to me as it might previously have been.

I'm eagerly awaiting my medical appointment, which is in 6 days. I've had to wait forever for this appointment because it was rescheduled twice. I need something from a medical provider to request reasonable accommodations for EMF sensitivity from the county housing authority (that's who pays my rent).

That's the first hurdle. The next, and bigger, hurdle is to find alternative housing with whatever accommodations I get (if any). Housing options are distressingly limited. I really need to avoid apartment complexes because they are what's forcing me to deal with wi-fi. But apartment complexes are the main form of housing available aside from detached homes, which are likely to be outside the price range afforded by my housing voucher even if I do get a higher payment standard as a reasonable accommodation. There are a handful of cottages, tiny homes, etc. available to rent, but they tend to be on private land and I don't want to deal with living next door to a private landlord. Private rental owners are far more fickle than property management companies, who handle apartment rentals. They're also more likely to discriminate against potential renters. I would much prefer to deal with the facelessness of government-run housing than appeasing the personal prejudices of private property owners. Dealing with these landlords is a major source of anxiety.

(The problem with government-run housing, however, is that it'd end up being full of lower-class people, the very people I moved here to avoid. If public housing was somehow tiered or separated so that disabled people and people who are low-income/at risk of homelessness due to other issues didn't have to mix, that would be perfect. Being lumped in with ex-felons, ex-drug-addicts, and other riff-raff is a nightmare.)