8/29/11 "Just one day"

Muscles  in arms, legs very weak.

  Hands and fingers also very weak, tough to hold a pen today.  It's like hundreds of bee stings in my hands and feet, 24 hours a day/ that's the nerve damage.

  My bedroom has been filling up with cigarette smoke and gas.

  It really doesn't matter how many times I move, I end up with heavy indoor toxins. Unless one has the means to purchase a  house way out in the country there just is no way around it. Noise pollution and air pollution are a HUGE  part of life for the poor.

My roomie discovered that the source of the gas coming into my bedroom is the 70's chevy van that the neighbor backs into the parking lot under my bedroom window. Neighbor admits bad gas leak but doesn't care that he is poisoning me so refuses to move it. I will settle this and he's not going to like how I settle it.

Dogs bark all night, and the other neighbor started his construction job in the yard at 4:30 a.m.  I am losing my mind. 

 Sleeping 2 hours a night if I'm lucky.

 After more then 18 yrs of living with similar conditions I can respond in 1 of 2 ways:

 a. give up and just accept the conditions or wake up and think:

 b. THis neighbor with the van is going to be very sorry that he fucked with me!

I've come to the sad conclusion that  "peaceful conflict mediation"  rarely works with fellow urban apt. dwellers in the average poor neighborhood!

Ran into Linda* at the bus stop. She was in the bunk bed above me for almost a month at the so called Christian shelter. She's my age with Down's but insists she has no disabilities.

She theoretically has no income but has been staying at the "ex-con" inn for 8 weeks. It costs 450 a month. I asked her how she is paying for it. She said her mother and the church. She said that her mother refused to help unless she cuts off ties with the "so called fiance in prison" Linda refused, so the mother gave in and helped anyway. Linda showed me a pic. of the convict and said she is moving to CA in Dec. and they are going to live happily ever after. She said she'd be "bedding" the guy in the motel room next door if it weren't for her promise to the convict. Linda looks alot like Shrek's wife.

So, somehow, Linda finds money to send to the guy in prison. When she bumps into me she monologues me and doesn't care what I or anyone thinks about her choices. When she told me that her mother gave her the ultimatum, I said I agreed with it, but Linda just rolled right over what I said and kept talking.

Thus is the life in this small mountain town, where most are unemployed, underemployed or homeless, unless they happen to be tourists on their way to the big sites............................

Rural apartment living

To say that I cannot STAND apartment living is the understatement of a lifetime. I feel most desperate to get out of here. 

 But I've lived in apartments for most of the last 35 years and they are ALL horrible.

I have heard that there are complexes that  have soundproofed walls and ceilings-but they must be few and far between because I've never lived in one.

There is round the clock banging here like there was at La Pew and I'm being blamed for it. My neighbors scream outside my bedroom window and this is after 1 a.m.!   Even with my windows closed if I'm on phone I cannot even hear the caller!

There is a thick, sick smell of cigarettes that seeps thru the eastern wall and southern wall of my apt. which means the smoke is coming from  2 separate apartments.

   I  burn incense or scented candles to get rid of the toxic odors.   The cooking smells make me sick to my stomach, nauseous, as they blend with stale cigarettes. I filled out my first application to get into Twisted Pines in 2002 most certain that it would raise my quality of life by leaps and bounds.

 I envisioned a sense of community and friendliness.

The last interaction I had with a neighbor was when she (don't know who she is) told me where I can and cannot park. She then said about herself: "You never know, I might be God for all you know!"

And of course there are the burglaries.

I was researching the possibility of living in Merida, Mex. but the forum participants explained to me that my disability check won't transfer to  Mexico so I would lose all of my benefits.

It is an absolute necessity for me to get out if I want any chance of getting healthier or happier but I am convinced that there is nowhere to run.

"Coping" with indoor and outdoor environments

This can't be healthy. Going from my 160 degree plus car, to a circa 50 degree café! in a flash.    One way that I try to lessen this unhealthy impact  is to eat outside. I've eaten 1 to 3 meals outside for the last 12 weeks.

I'm miserable inside most public places because I need to  a winter coat,  a scarf and hat... IN SUMMER!   The other problem with  indoor environments  is that they are often unbearably loud. 

Employees in virtually all restaurants cafes are cleaning when I'm in there. Whether they are windexing the glass, mopping, sweeping, whatever it is, I find it impossible to enjoy.   Many of the restaurants have outdoor tables, but at least 1/2 of the time;  muzak is being piped outside!

When I absolutely have to be indoors  I take my solar heated winter coat out of my car, put it on and go inside. Ironically the icy indoor environs cool off my coat very fast.............................

For me , living in a warm climate is an absolute necessity and I don't honestly know how I'll cope after about 10/15, when it's freezing outside and inside, and there are no public places to be enjoyed.

Google "over air conditioned public places" and you'll find that there are lots of people who are miserable like me with modern society.

Health Challenges

 I've had pneumonia twice since June, 2005.  The air quality in the Baltimore area far supersedes acceptable e.p.a. guidelines for healthy breathable air. I have alot of respiratory challenges. Poverty in and of itself tends to make people sick. With an increase in income, you can choose a healthier environ, therefore likely to improve your health.

My neighbor told me in passing in the hall, that her doctor told her that she has signs of having come into contact with asbestos! She is certain she was exposed to it in our homes. So that has also got me really worried. (about my own health)

And I'm wondering where in the building or in our individual apts. it is. I'll have to do some research on asbestos. I did learn a little bit about it last night, when watching one of my favorite shows......"extreme home makeover" One of the houses they renovated was in part because the family was being exposed to asbestos.

Oyyy. So many reasons to move out of "La Pew." Too many battles both inside and outside my building.

So many sick buildings in our society.

Familiar with "sick building syndrome"?