THERE IS NO CODE INTENDED BY ME ON THIS PAGE.
April 29, 2011
--The other night, I saw a black lady putting gas in her car as I walked by a gas station. It was a nice car, and after I’d walked by I thought about how long it had taken for black people to have any rights in the United States. I thought about all the people who suffered and died in the years before the Civil Rights movement, and that the fact that there were people who fought for their rights was the only reason that it was nothing out of the ordinary for me to see that black lady putting gas in her nice car at a gas station that isn’t supposed to be able to discriminate against people on the basis of race.
I thought about how, despite the fact that the United States now has a black President, black people still don’t have everything that white people do. I thought about how much racism there still is, despite how long there have been people combating racism. Then I wondered how much longer the President is going to try to turn the clock back for women. I wondered how much longer I’m going to keep being abused, and how much longer the whole campaign to destroy women’s lives is going to continue. I wondered if I’m going to lose; I wondered if the President and all who support him are going to turn women fully back into second class citizens and then some, all over the world.
It’s the same gas station where I was told, a couple of weeks ago, that the bathroom was out of order and had been “leaking everywhere.” It’s the same gas station that now has a plastic fishbowl of “Tropical Seas Hand Sanitizer” sitting next to the newspaper rack that holds the Times Argus and the Burlington Free Press. It’s neither the Shell station of the “Fish Kabobs,” nor the Gulf station that I’m about to talk about in a few paragraphs.
--At the Department of Labor, the overweight staff person and the staff person who had all the harassing references up all over her office now cough whenever they see me.
--By 12:00 p.m. today, the following had happened:
--The man who runs the small breakfast for the homeless and impoverished at one of the churches was wearing a “Ducks Unlimited” baseball hat. It was 8:45 a.m. when I walked in the door; I had been sitting on the steps of the church for an hour, waiting for it to open. I hadn’t been going to the church food places much, because I had found a lot of them to be participants in the harassment and also showing signs of being supportive of pedophilia. Since the Shell station where I had been buying orange juice put up the “Fish Kabobs” box of jelly stick-candy, I really haven’t wanted to go back there.
--I went to a Gulf station that’s a bit more of a walk. I got the orange juice out of the refrigerator, and went looking throughout the store for something that wasn’t junkfood that I could have for lunch. As I was looking, I heard the guy behind the counter say “We’ve got some fresh pizza here,” to a couple of people he’d been talking to who I think might either have been delivery people or regular customers. I’m sure that the guy hadn’t read anything else I’d written online by then, today.
I could feel that my temper was rising, so I picked out a small bowl of to-go cereal and approached the counter. As I was waiting for the lady behind the register to take my food stamps card, I saw that the Gulf store now ALSO has the same box of “Fish Kabobs” jelly candy that I mentioned the Shell station had the other day. My first instinct was to pick it up and put it somewhere else, forcefully, but I didn’t. As I was waiting for my sale to be processed, the same guy said AGAIN, to the same people “We’ve got some fresh pizza here,” and then I couldn’t stop myself from saying “I think they’ve already heard you. I heard you myself, the first time you said it, and I was all the way down the other side of that aisle.” I saw him smirking at me.
I asked the lady cashier if I could put some of the milk that was in a closed pitcher on the coffee station in my cereal. At first I didn’t think she’d heard me, because she didn’t say anything and the expression on her face didn’t change. I stood there and looked at her, and she said, almost without her lips moving at all “I guess. It’s for the coffee.”
I walked to the pitcher and said “Why do you sell the cereal then?”
She said “You don’t need to be rude.”
I said “I don’t think that I’m the one who’s being rude.”
I poured the milk into my cereal, and then I realized that there were no spoons out on the counter and I knew that there was no point in asking for spoons.
I walked out of the store, wondering how I was going to eat the cereal without a spoon. I ended up not having to solve that problem because within a minute after I’d walked out the door the cereal was on the outside of the store’s window. I couldn’t help it.
I think I might have heard the lady cashier yelling at me a few minutes after I’d walked away, but I didn’t turn around to see.
This tends to be my biggest fear, that I’m not going to be able to control my temper. I don’t feel any shame; at this point, I certainly have nothing to feel bad about that I haven’t already apologized for a million times. I still have some concern that I’m going to be attacked, raped, beaten or killed; I think that’s still a danger. Most of the time, though, what I worry about is that the constant abuse that I’m still going through all day is going to get a reaction out of me, and then I’ll get arrested.
After what I went through at the Vermont State Hospital, where 90% of the staff, including nurses, knew about the situation outside the hospital and LIED to the doctors who initially didn’t know that any of it was true and TOLD THE DOCTORS THAT I NEEDED ANTIPSYCHOTICS while they themselves, and psychiatric technicians, and everyone at the Treatment Mall, and even the dietician with the menus she created, were literally making “fish” and “wetness” and “cheese” comments and coughing all the time, to the point where I would lose my temper, and then I’d get documented for that, or advanced on in a threatening way by psychiatric technicians who could have put me in restraints and/or in seclusion, after the fact of the doctor himself making comments to me all the time, before and after he knew I wasn’t schizophrenic; after that experience, I’m sure that I would die in jail. I’m sure; I have no doubt that the guards would look away if I were getting abused and/or beaten to death. I doubt I’d last as long as a couple of months.
At what point do the people who are responsible for this feel shame?
Don’t think that the moment is going to come when they get me to feel ashamed of myself or that they get me to apologize to them for their behavior; as many and as large as some of my fears are, I accept those fears as part of this new, bad reality.
Copyright L. Kochman April 29, 2011 @ 2:31 p.m.
April 29, 2011
--The other night, I saw a black lady putting gas in her car as I walked by a gas station. It was a nice car, and after I’d walked by I thought about how long it had taken for black people to have any rights in the United States. I thought about all the people who suffered and died in the years before the Civil Rights movement, and that the fact that there were people who fought for their rights was the only reason that it was nothing out of the ordinary for me to see that black lady putting gas in her nice car at a gas station that isn’t supposed to be able to discriminate against people on the basis of race.
I thought about how, despite the fact that the United States now has a black President, black people still don’t have everything that white people do. I thought about how much racism there still is, despite how long there have been people combating racism. Then I wondered how much longer the President is going to try to turn the clock back for women. I wondered how much longer I’m going to keep being abused, and how much longer the whole campaign to destroy women’s lives is going to continue. I wondered if I’m going to lose; I wondered if the President and all who support him are going to turn women fully back into second class citizens and then some, all over the world.
It’s the same gas station where I was told, a couple of weeks ago, that the bathroom was out of order and had been “leaking everywhere.” It’s the same gas station that now has a plastic fishbowl of “Tropical Seas Hand Sanitizer” sitting next to the newspaper rack that holds the Times Argus and the Burlington Free Press. It’s neither the Shell station of the “Fish Kabobs,” nor the Gulf station that I’m about to talk about in a few paragraphs.
--At the Department of Labor, the overweight staff person and the staff person who had all the harassing references up all over her office now cough whenever they see me.
--By 12:00 p.m. today, the following had happened:
--The man who runs the small breakfast for the homeless and impoverished at one of the churches was wearing a “Ducks Unlimited” baseball hat. It was 8:45 a.m. when I walked in the door; I had been sitting on the steps of the church for an hour, waiting for it to open. I hadn’t been going to the church food places much, because I had found a lot of them to be participants in the harassment and also showing signs of being supportive of pedophilia. Since the Shell station where I had been buying orange juice put up the “Fish Kabobs” box of jelly stick-candy, I really haven’t wanted to go back there.
--I went to a Gulf station that’s a bit more of a walk. I got the orange juice out of the refrigerator, and went looking throughout the store for something that wasn’t junkfood that I could have for lunch. As I was looking, I heard the guy behind the counter say “We’ve got some fresh pizza here,” to a couple of people he’d been talking to who I think might either have been delivery people or regular customers. I’m sure that the guy hadn’t read anything else I’d written online by then, today.
I could feel that my temper was rising, so I picked out a small bowl of to-go cereal and approached the counter. As I was waiting for the lady behind the register to take my food stamps card, I saw that the Gulf store now ALSO has the same box of “Fish Kabobs” jelly candy that I mentioned the Shell station had the other day. My first instinct was to pick it up and put it somewhere else, forcefully, but I didn’t. As I was waiting for my sale to be processed, the same guy said AGAIN, to the same people “We’ve got some fresh pizza here,” and then I couldn’t stop myself from saying “I think they’ve already heard you. I heard you myself, the first time you said it, and I was all the way down the other side of that aisle.” I saw him smirking at me.
I asked the lady cashier if I could put some of the milk that was in a closed pitcher on the coffee station in my cereal. At first I didn’t think she’d heard me, because she didn’t say anything and the expression on her face didn’t change. I stood there and looked at her, and she said, almost without her lips moving at all “I guess. It’s for the coffee.”
I walked to the pitcher and said “Why do you sell the cereal then?”
She said “You don’t need to be rude.”
I said “I don’t think that I’m the one who’s being rude.”
I poured the milk into my cereal, and then I realized that there were no spoons out on the counter and I knew that there was no point in asking for spoons.
I walked out of the store, wondering how I was going to eat the cereal without a spoon. I ended up not having to solve that problem because within a minute after I’d walked out the door the cereal was on the outside of the store’s window. I couldn’t help it.
I think I might have heard the lady cashier yelling at me a few minutes after I’d walked away, but I didn’t turn around to see.
This tends to be my biggest fear, that I’m not going to be able to control my temper. I don’t feel any shame; at this point, I certainly have nothing to feel bad about that I haven’t already apologized for a million times. I still have some concern that I’m going to be attacked, raped, beaten or killed; I think that’s still a danger. Most of the time, though, what I worry about is that the constant abuse that I’m still going through all day is going to get a reaction out of me, and then I’ll get arrested.
After what I went through at the Vermont State Hospital, where 90% of the staff, including nurses, knew about the situation outside the hospital and LIED to the doctors who initially didn’t know that any of it was true and TOLD THE DOCTORS THAT I NEEDED ANTIPSYCHOTICS while they themselves, and psychiatric technicians, and everyone at the Treatment Mall, and even the dietician with the menus she created, were literally making “fish” and “wetness” and “cheese” comments and coughing all the time, to the point where I would lose my temper, and then I’d get documented for that, or advanced on in a threatening way by psychiatric technicians who could have put me in restraints and/or in seclusion, after the fact of the doctor himself making comments to me all the time, before and after he knew I wasn’t schizophrenic; after that experience, I’m sure that I would die in jail. I’m sure; I have no doubt that the guards would look away if I were getting abused and/or beaten to death. I doubt I’d last as long as a couple of months.
At what point do the people who are responsible for this feel shame?
Don’t think that the moment is going to come when they get me to feel ashamed of myself or that they get me to apologize to them for their behavior; as many and as large as some of my fears are, I accept those fears as part of this new, bad reality.
Copyright L. Kochman April 29, 2011 @ 2:31 p.m.