It's hard work to be poor

Now that I've become poor, I realize that poor people have to work twice as hard to get anything.

Regular people, as I now think of the rest of you, sign a couple of pieces of paper and voila! you've got health insurance.

Regular people probably don't have evil, bad cravings for sushi and spend their last $15 on procuring same ...

Funny how stuff like that, which I used to take for granted, now looms so large in my life. I once scoffed at a story in read in which a woman on food stamps (in Michigan) was complaining because she couldn't afford hand cream and piano lessons for her daughter.

When you don't have money, hand cream seems paramount (luckily I have about 6 containers of hand cream, the result of small gifts I've received over the last year). I don't have a daughter, but if I did, I'd want for her what everyone around her has.

My cat, for instance, wants some pricey boots. I'm saving up.

But - I'm not really THAT poor (I've got a very supportive family and HBO); there are people a lot worse off than am I. So I have to wonder, what indignities do they have to suffer to get anything done?

You really do have to walk in someone else's skin for a while to get it ... it does, however, give me my favorite thing: fodder for even more stories!