maneuvering through life and illness is just a bunch of hooey kids. i stray towards the positive, find joy, stay centered train of thought to keep me from the way i used to live in anger and varying degrees of despair over being sick and tired. tired and sick.

it helps. there are things that are just on the dumb side of it all and what are you gonna do?

my SSA request was denied and am now in process of making the appeal. I got online and started filling out the forms, but was to S&T to do it, so I thought try again later. I was given a resource to help me through the process and am working on that, completing their forms so they can help me with the SSA process...sigh...all good, just slow to handle by the disabled me.

i got a call from the state wide ssa office requesting a return call. i have a no frills budget, this means no long distance calling plan for example and i use 10-10-987 plus 1 and the number to make those calls in a budget conscious manner.

my first attempt was to simply dial the number left by the agent. the message said i must use a 1 or a zero to complete the call. so then i used the us telecom number listed above, the system said that cannot be used in order to dial this number. that meant dialing direct and incurring the expensive per minute cost. such is life, nobody says we get easy....

so i call the number, talk to the agent, have the update conversation and after that generally frustrating conclusion where she kept saying they need new information if my condition has worsened, but not addressing the conditions that were not addressed in their denial letter, the very conditions that determine disability...anyway...the reason why disability is not granted the first time around and necessitates additional help and or attorneys to stay the course.....

so that aside, a continued battle for another day in the future, i did ask about the phone call being long distance. she said it is a toll free number, i said no, and relayed what i already told ya'll here earlier. she said did you dial the number on your caller id or the number i gave you. i said a no frills land line means no caller id as previously mentioned in our conversation and i gave her the number she left me to call her on. she again told me it is a toll free number, so i said ok, anyway...i live one suburb away, use a major company for service and the system tells me i must use a 1 or 0...and thinking the whole time if we can't communicate this simple information via this call how can we expect smooth sailing with any of it? duh, not happening. i just gave up and thought this totally sucks, that call costs me $5 or $6 bucks and for what really?

when i got off the phone i carefully redialed the number, taking full responsibility for the idea that it was my user error and again heard the exact same message, you must dial a 1 or 0 to complete this call. toll free my backside.

venting about this is dumb too, but there you go. my time and my dime.