So they can't drive. Some days they can barely stand up, they're so dizzy.

They applied for SSDI. It took a year, from Nov. 2021 to just a few months ago. They were denied: the woman who did the psych eval flat-out lied on her assessment of roomie's status.

Note that roomie has a TBI & chronic vestibular dysfunction; they're dizzy or have vertigo 100% of the time, 24/7, whether they're awake or asleep, it doesn't matter.

They called 211 over a year ago to ask about housing assistance. 211 told them that if they wanted assistance, they should put all their stuff in storage & go live in their car.

This is pretty standard. They've been struggling to get various benefits for the past 3 years, and failing. They regularly spend hours on hold, daily. Most of the time, the phone system hangs up on them.

Today in the world of trying to obtain social welfare benefits in the United States: my roommate called the state's DSHS office to recertify their SNAP benefits today. They were on hold for 4 hours.

Authoritarians are opportunistic.

@Rstrahs My money's on another Boston Tea Party next.

So do we have a House Speaker yet?

Do I want to know?

@LarsTheWanderer This makes a great deal of sense on a basic level: iirc, the Founders believed in education, bc they believed an educated public would uphold democracy. Ergo, gut education, & you undermine democracy.

Basically, anyway.

Also, SMDH at Gaetz voting for TFG for speaker. What an unbelievable joke of a human being.

It's amazing to me that the GOP keeps voting again & again for a speaker. I mean I get that they have to, it's just sort of... wow. How many times are they going to keep doing the same thing & ending w/the same results? & what is that, again?

I cannot describe the glee I feel watching the GOP devour itself from the inside out. Pure, uncut, raw high-grade schadenfreude, right there.

How on earth do people get all their shit done with only 24 hours in a day?

No beautiful blues & greens right now. It's just dreary.

Normally it's beautiful down here any time of year, but honestly I have to say right now the weather is making this area look really gross.

It's gray, but there are thin spots in the clouds, so the gray is a sickly yellow. The recent king tide has left a lot of trash in the water, which is cloudy & brown from the recent rains too.

Checked the news & turns out we had a king tide.

Not a scientific term, just describes a SUUUUPER high tide: https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/kingtide.html

I'm at the beach right now. Just had high tide of 13.79. I think we might've had some flooding as well, because the water came up over the top of the bulkhead past the usual high tide line. I've never seen it this high in 50 years of visiting this place.

The weather warmed up. No more icicles on the cars; it's now warm, in the 50sF, with a winter rain falling.

I'm a night owl so I mostly don't mind nighttime, but even night owls need a bit of sunlight, especially the ones with depression...