What's Your Fucking Problem? Shredded Linoleum Edition. (WYFP!)

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Saturday September 23, 2006 · 5:39 PM PDT

2006/09/23 · 17:39

** Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?

WYFP is our community's Saturday evening gathering to talk about our problems, empathize with one another, and perhaps share advice. Everyone and all sorts of troubles are welcome. May we find peace and healing here. :-)

Earl Grey the timneh African grey parrot has been with me for about 13 years--since I was in high school. He is intelligent, loyal, affectionate, funny, beautiful, and very dear to my heart. I love him so much actually that I tend to look right past his more difficult aspects. Like chewing up the kitchen. Read More

What's Your Fucking Problem? Garage Edition. (WYFP!)

Elizabeth D

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Saturday September 16, 2006 · 5:36 PM PDT

2006/09/16 · 17:36

** Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?

I and my boyfriend will both be moving within the coming months, I to a different apartment in the same city, he to another state. So, we spent some time today sorting through all our crap in the garage. What to keep? What to sell? What to give away? Read More

What's Your Fucking Problem? Inspiration edition. (WYFP!)

Elizabeth D

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Saturday September 09, 2006 · 5:16 PM PDT

2006/09/09 · 17:16

** Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?

Spent the day at Fighting Bob Fest at the Baraboo, Wisconsin County Fairgrounds, with fellow kossacks EconAtheist and OrangeClouds. This is a great annual event, a progressive "chautauqua" with excellent speakers and a relaxed, folksy atmosphere. It was unseasonably nippy, but it didn't rain on us. The highlights, to me, were the speeches by 96 year old Doris "Granny D" Haddock and independent journalist Amy Goodman--both of them awesomely strong, brilliant, passionate, prophetic women. Granny D's speech was a rare and stirring masterpiece of rhetoric by a woman weakening in body but clearly not in any other way. Amy's was... well, you probably know she's pretty intense--she makes you contemplate the stark suffering there is in the world. It's a challenge to do something about it. Read More

What's Your Fucking Problem? Annoyance edition. (WYFP!)

Elizabeth D

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Saturday September 02, 2006 · 5:29 PM PDT

2006/09/02 · 17:29

** Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?

I don't have a problem tonight, really. Or at least not one simple enough to know how to write about. Read More

What's Your Fucking Problem? (WYFP!)

Elizabeth D

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday August 26, 2006 · 5:26 PM PDT

2006/08/26 · 17:26

** Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?

Many longtime WYFP readers know that I have a combination of mild to moderate disabilities (traumatic brain injury and asperger's syndrome) that have kept me unemployed for 3 or 4 years, during which time I've been trying to get Social Security Disability benefits. I applied, got turned down, moped for too long to start the appeal process and then re-applied, received a presumptive approval of my claim (some will remember this), then had the claim turned down. I appealed it, with some new medical evidence, and just yesterday afternoon I received a phone call letting me know a real, final decision has been made in my favor. I will start receiving Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments right away. Read More

What's Your Fucking Problem? (WYFP!)

Elizabeth D

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday August 19, 2006 · 5:30 PM PDT

2006/08/19 · 17:30

** Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?

I am broke, so I am trying to figure out what I can sell on eBay. Some of the things are tough choices... do I keep it because of its sentimental value or sell it for the monetary value? And, for what I think it's "really" worth, or what people will actually pay for it (this can be an especially ouchy issue with art items I've put a lot of hours into)? I'm leaning toward the conclusion that stuff is just stuff, especially when it's stuff I don't need, and it is more important to be able to buy food and pay bills. This can be looked at either as depressing or as liberating, I think. If I can detach myself from the stuff, I feel lighter somehow. Read More

What's Your Fucking Problem? Loneliness edition. (WYFP!)

Elizabeth D

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday August 12, 2006 · 5:34 PM PDT

2006/08/12 · 17:34

** Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?

I spend a lot of time by myself in my apartment, and though generally I do well with that, it can get lonely sometimes. I'd been struggling a bit with it lately... it's painful, though I'd been musing that there's some benefit in being reminded that I'm not entirely self-sufficient in my (relative) solitude, that I do need other people, and not just on the internet! Well, yesterday I made a new friend, a woman about my age (28) whom I'd known slightly for a while but was happy to get to know more personally. We had lunch together and I learned that for a couple years she was a Missionary of Charity, a member of Mother Teresa's religious order--which I thought was really cool. She is a very gentle, humble and generous person as you might expect. I find people like that very refreshing to be around. Read More

What's Your Fucking Problem? "Meditate on reality" edition. (WYFP!)

Elizabeth D

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday July 29, 2006 · 5:32 PM PDT

2006/07/29 · 17:32

** Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?

Trappist monk and spirituality author Thomas Merton once wrote in a magazine article "if you've never meditated on Auschwitz, you don't know anything about meditation." I don't have the quote in front of me, so that's a close paraphrase, and I don't know the exact context of the remark, but I suspect I know what he meant. In Christian monastic tradition, "meditation" means prayerful mental reflection, for instance on a scene from religious scripture, like Jesus being nailed to the cross. I think Merton was bringing the practice down to earth, down to its essential intent, by insisting that this needs to be a practice of developing real, rather than theoretical or emotional, compassion. Read More

What's Your Fucking Problem? (WYFP!)

Elizabeth D

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday July 22, 2006 · 5:42 PM PDT

2006/07/22 · 17:42

** Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?

I can't for the life of me get my brain in gear tonight... how's your life doing?

What's Your Fucking Problem? Stay cool edition. (WYFP?)

Elizabeth D

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday July 15, 2006 · 5:40 PM PDT

2006/07/15 · 17:40

** Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?

It got up into the low 90s today here in Wisconsin, which is quite warm, but I think about the merciless heat all summer when I lived in San Antonio TX, and I feel pretty grateful. 90 degrees is lemonade weather; 104 degrees can be dangerous. Supposedly violent crime goes up when it gets really hot; I guess it is harder to be rational and to "cool" down if one is angry. Read More

What's Your Fucking Problem? Peace Edition. (WYFP!)

Elizabeth D

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday July 08, 2006 · 5:23 PM PDT

2006/07/08 · 17:23

** Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?

I wish I knew how to do better at writing stuff for wyfp, but I have been struggling with that.

Today all that is coming to mind is a question, but it's a pretty good one, so I thought I'd throw it out there for discussion in addition to our various problems:

What brings you peace? Like, real inner peace and rest, especially when you've been stressed or anxious or angry? Read More

What's Your Fucking Problem, Emily Dickinson? (WYFP!)

Elizabeth D

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)