you exist here

i work with unhoused people fleeing domestic violence, and i have a client rn whose driver's license expired in 2024, and she needs a new id to apply for apartments. ok, cool. problem is, she lost all her documents due to the domestic violence

so we call the dmv. dmv needs a birth certificate. like i said, she lost her birth certificate. she needs a new one. her birth certificate is from out of state

we look up how to get a new birth certificate. the birth certificate needs an id to order it. cool cool cool

ok then what about secondary options? well, she needs two secondary sources of identification to order a replacement birth certificate, and she only has one, because for everything else she needs an id. fishing license? need an id. fucking park pass? id. she could have her 18+ child use their birth certificate to vouch for her, except her abuser won't let her talk to her children, so that's a no go

ultimately we land on social security card. this is where we're at in the process rn. ofc she doesn't have her ss card, so we need to order that. social security also requires an id to request a new card, but they'll take a health insurance card with a picture attached (god fucking bless them). she has medicaid but doesn't have a physical copy of the card, so we have to figure out how to get that. then once we do that we have to upload it to the social security website, and if that doesn't work, we have to, god forbid, call the social security office (takes literal hours) and then make an appointment. she doesn't have transportation or cell service, so we would have to figure out a way to coordinate me getting her to the appointment in order to present the document

then we wait 10+ days for the replacement, that has to be mailed to me bc she is unhoused and doesn't have an address

then we need to submit her request for a new birth certificate, which we have to figure out how to pay for, bc it is not free. they're at least a month behind on requests, btw, so we are probably looking at may at the earliest for that to arrive

then we need to take the birth certificate to the dmv

dmv also requires two pieces of mail not from a po box. she doesn't have an address, she is unhoused. she can use the homeless shelter in town, but we will need to mail her stuff there and have her receive it first, and also then the homeless shelter address will now be on her new id, which landlords will recognize and may discriminate against her for

during all of this she is sleeping in a garage. it was negative one degrees this morning. also, forgot to mention, she is terminally ill. some days i legitimately don't know if she lived through the night. every day is a toss up

the absolute soonest she will have an id is probably late may. forget voter registration--most rentals won't let her apply without it. she won't be offered section 8 housing without it. she can't apply for ssdi without it. she is blocked at literally every corner without it, and the absolute soonest she can get it is late may. the dmv literally has her old card on file, and she knows the number by heart, but it doesn't matter. it doesn't count if it's expired, as if she's somehow become someone new

and that's all with the help of someone whose job it is to do this shit. imagine if she didn't have a caseworker. she has a ten year old donated iphone that only works on wifi, she can't even do her own research bc she doesn't have internet half the time. how the hell is she supposed to get anything done on her own?

happy 20 year anniversary of Neil banging out the tunes!

though every rat is special, it's a wonderful and unusual thing for their accomplishments to be remembered and cherished by so many people so many years later. we're all so fortunate to know about the rat who banged out the tunes!

thank you to all the people who sent me reference photos of their beloved rats for this piece!!! credits under the cut!

Six day week is superior to seven because a prime number week is stupid. There's a lot of things that people like to do every second or third day; in a six day week, this is always the same days each week.

All months are the same length. Advantages obvious.

Thirty days is a good round number for a month; it can be divided into so many smaller numbers. Convenient for things that need to be done regularly; you can do them on the same days each month and have the gaps between them all exactly the same.

Every month in a given year starts with the same day. If the 3rd is a Wednesday, every 3rd will be a Wednesday. This is a massive help in scheduling bullshit that ends up happening "second Tuesday of every month" or whatever, and also helps people track regular monthly things (if you have a monthly meeting on the 15th, it's going to be the same day of the week every time). Fitting weeks perfectly into months just offer so many improvements for scheduling and remembering stuff.

The days move back with each non-leap year -- if the 1st of every month in 2025 is a Tuesday, the 1st in every month in 2026 will be a Monday. (This also happens with out current calendar as neither 6 nor 7 fit into 365). This means that if your birthday is on a Monday or whatever, it won't be that way every year -- only the same day of the month WITHIN THE YEAR (2 years in a row for leap years) is the same. (I bring this up because last time I mentioned this people didn't do the math and thought that the days of the week would be consistent across years, somehow, mysteriously).