05 June 2003 ~The mongoose problem...

Sometimes, I think this whole state is such a piece of shit. It's such a damned shame; it's almost ninety degrees out right now (it's probably snowing in Binghamton), the sun's brilliantly out, the Douglass Firs in the yard are sort of brushing against each other... And if I had the ambition to walk a little bit, I could stand there and stare up at Mount Rainier...

I went outside this morning to get the mail and smoke a cigarette, and then plop myself down in the grass to read. It's a perfect day in Olympia for mail-getting, smoking, and reading...

In the mail? A weird bill from Evergreen, and a bill from NWR. Bills aren't quite bad enough to make me unwilling to smoke and read on a beautiful sunny day, but the NWR one WAS enough to piss me off a bit...

NWR is an agency in town that provides drug treatment classes. And violence treatment classes. Jake has to go to them for his drug/alcohol thing, as mandated by the court last December. The court also recommended that he get evaluated for the violence classes, too.

NWR is a fucking piece of crap. First of all, the woman who first evaluated Jake insisted upon seeing me, before she'd write a letter to the court at all. But she wouldn't set up an appointment with me in the office. I would have to CALL to make an apppointment. I didn't have a phone, so I refused to leave until she'd make an appointment to see me. Fucking bitch. THEN, this stupid cunt told me I was an alcohol, advised me to pay her a hundred bucks (or she'd ensure I wouldn't see Jake for five years), and insisted on calling me a "victim," even after I told her not to. I refused to pay the hundred bucks. I wrote to the court instead, and told them all about how they'd tried to charge ME a hundred bucks for calling me an alcoholic. I told the court that Jake was basically a sweet boy.

I think you only have to have an associate's degree to get a job at NWR. Yeah; as in, I might have more education than this stupid woman, for all I know. And I'm not even qualified to flip burgers.

Anyway, the woman decided that Jake didn't have to go through violence classes. He's basically a sweet boy, she wrote in her assessment. But she didn't send that assessment to the right people. So Jake's probation officer sent him to another agency to get assessed. The woman at the other agency proclaimed that he seemed like basically a sweet boy, but that she'd have to see the other asssessment.

For almost eight months, this shit has been hanging over our heads. NWR keeps losing paperwork, forgetting to send out paperwork, and generally fucking things up. If they'd done their fucking job to begin with, Jake wouldn't be wondering whether or not he has to go to this stupid violence counseling thing. He would have stopped worrying about it EIGHT months ago.

There are two main reasons why the idea of violence counseling sucks. One, it's butt-ass expensive. I mean, it's nearly as much as rent would be on an apartment. Two, Jake does not have the kind of problem that NWR (or any of the other agencies) claim to heal. The typical "abuser" is a control-freak, a jealous bastard who won't let his woman out of the house. He threatens her, he isolates her, he has conniptions when she looks out her window and happens to notice another guy. He hits her sometimes; he sometimes throws things in fits of rage. Sometimes he threatens her with weapons. Sometimes he leaves marks, but rarely where other people will see them. Sometimes he rapes her. These are the things that are on the "characteristics of an abuser" lists these places give out. Oh, there are other things, milder things... But what the fuck? The worst domestic incident that Jake and I have had, post-arrest, was one evening when I was nibbling on Jake's ear, and bit him a little too hard. The worst act of violence Jake has perpetrated on me, post-arrest, was throwing huge wads of dandelion seeds at me, giggling like a little kid. Ohhhh, call in the feds...

Imagine, a reasonably well-adjusted human being, in a comfortable and happy relationship, spending about a million dollars, to be told that he's this kind of awful person, and that he needs help...

Come ON, social worker people! Have you NOTHING better to do with your time? Can't you make money off of counseling foster kids or something, like my mom?

Right. So, Jake still has a small chance of having to go through these classes, because NWR conveniently forgot to process their paperwork. I wonder if they even HAVE any paperwork. Jake, his parents, and I, paid dearly for that stupid paperwork to be done and sent to the right people, and it never did get sent to the right people. I kinda doubt any of us will get a refund though...

I mailed a letter to Agency # 2.

The letter said: will you please do me a favor and listen to Jake, listen to me, listen to US, instead of listening to police reports and court papers? We're good people. Jake's basically a sweet boy. Jake's biggest problem with violence is that I think his tiny little sister-in-law could probably take him out if they ever got into a rumble.

The lady at Agency # 2 is awaiting paperwork from NWR. But she called Jake and said she didn't think he'd have to go through the classes. Why? Well, because, "I asked Helena to send me a letter about you..."

No she didn't. I wrote the letter, then called her, and asked for her address so I could send it to her. Yeah, it's a really minor thing, but if this woman is conveniently forgetting what her interactions with me are, confusing them with actions I performed of my own volition, then what the fuck kind of counselor can she be?

I mean, really, it's a small thing. It shouldn't upset me at all. I've changed the exact wording of conversations. I've made myself the star of events I really had nothing to do with. Sometimes I've even told little fibs. But you know, this woman is supposed to be a professional.

The woman at NWR is a stupid, mean cuntrag who doesn't do her damned job, and the lady at Agency # 2 is a liar. Makes ME feel real good about things, huh?

All of these people have certificates from the state, allowing them to do all of the stupid shit they do. Jake was convicted and sentenced on December 12th, 2002. It is now June 05th, 2003. You do the math. That's how long we've been waiting for these stupid people to get their shit together.

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There were some protests in Seattle earlier this week. Some people were protesting about the LEIU. I urge you to look up some information about the LEIU; preferably from an independent news source. The police in Seattle pepper-sprayed innocent people, including news journalists. According to mostly everybody, it was a peaceful demonstration. According to the police, somebody had "thrown debris." What the fuck do they mean by "debris"? Like, dirt? Or Molotov Cocktails?

Anyway, the local news on television showed images of riot cops beating the shit out of people, and gassing them with huge clouds of pepper spray. There was one quick film clip of a Seattle police officer punching a small woman in the face. The woman had yelled something, or said something, but hadn't struck out, or moved in a meancing way. She was probably just making oinking noises or something. The cops punched her hard enough so that she was thrown backwards onto a parked car.

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I submit to you the following hypothesis: there are too fucking many Democrats in this state.

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I also submit to you THIS hypothesis: there are too many Republicans in this state.

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Sometimes, I think, though, that the real problem is that there are too many voters in this state. Voters who are Republicans, and Democrats, and even Green Party folks (I can't quite bring myself to call them Greeners). Voters who have this belief that somebody else, somebody vague and undefined, somebody they've never met, somebody under the category of "Government," one of the least defined, most socially constructed, most ridiculous words in the English language, ought to think for them.

Why is the human race so stupid that, in order to make things better for themselves in thei own homes, in their own lives, they elect somebody they've never met, to do it for them?

I'm telling you now: it's MY job to evaluate my fiancé, to decide if he's an abuser or not. Then, whether he is, or is not, an abuser, it is my job to decide to be with him or not. Two separate agencies, a probation officer, a bunch of lawyers, and a judge, have all down that for me, and I had to force my way into every one of their offices to have my voice heard. Nobody even ASKED me what I want my life to be like. Nobody ever asked Jake if he was an abuser. They just assumed what they wanted to assume, because somebody -- and it wasn't me -- decided to put these people in positions of authority. Authority over ME. And authority over Jake.

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A paraphrase from "Still Life With Woodpecker," by Tom Robbins: Hawaii had a rat problem. They didn't know what to do, so they imported a bunch of mongooses to eat the rats. Well, they got rid of the rats, but mongooses are notoriously mean. They started dragging off pets and small children, and getting rid of them, too. Hawaii now has a mongoose problem. We here have a crime problem. We don't know what to do about it. So we created a bunch of police officers... Needless to say, now we have a police problem.

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I'm tired of bitching. I think I'm in a slightly better mood now. I'm going to go eat, and read, and throw away the mail.

~ Helena