Gun ownership is akin to being sex offender? That's the assertion of Christian Trejbal and is the attempted justification for the printing of the names and home addresses of concealed carry permit holders, including police officers and VICTIMS of domestic violence, in the Roanoke Times . The CNN piece exposing the fallout from the Roanoke Times article features a domestic violence victim now has her name and address listed publicly while her ex-husband who almost killed her won't have his information listed publicly when he gets out of prison. Who's lives are being put in danger here?

As to the assertions that public records should be public information, following that logic wouldn't the databases of holders of driver's licences need to be made public? Cars are potentially dangerous weapons, and I would like to know which of my neighbors might be driving one. That actually may not be too far off, for better or worse we are rapidly heading to a state of near-total information awareness.

Just 2.6 percent of Massachusetts drivers have junior operator's licenses or learner's permits, but when state laws governing these drivers change on Saturday, nearly everyone will be affected. The list includes teen drivers, their friends, their families, anyone who pays car insurance, and anyone who's ever been touched by stories of teens killed in high-speed crashes. The changes are aimed at making teenage drivers take safety seriously by toughening the punishment for those who don't. Junior operators -- new drivers under age 18 -- who get a speeding ticket will have their licenses automatically suspended for 90 days. Almost all basic offenses will carry suspensions, as well as fines and fees of up to $1,000. full article

Essentially, a teenager, naturally unfamiliar with the roads around where they live, accidentally goes down a one way street the wrong way and gets hit by $1000 in fines? Or maybe they didn't notice a speed limit changed and WHAM your family's not making rent this month! The fines for a simple error are outrageous and fly in the tradition of treating minors as less responsible for law breaking. Now teenagers will face fines over an order of magnitude larger than adults charged with the same violation.

This kind of fine-base approach, as in the state's shining "universal" healthcare law that provides healthcare to everyone by fining uninsured people who don't purchase health insurance just makes Massachusetts that much less affordable. And the cost of living in Massachusetts is the reason so many people are leaving this so-called liberal state.

When I arrived home from the asylum, I found a letter stating that I had yet another overdraft charge. I seem to be utterly incapable of keeping track of my balance and the $25 fees add up. I decided that I should just cash my SSDI check instead of depositing it and handle things in cash. I headed out to Arlington center, and only fell once on my way there and was able to get up quickly. I did end up sitting on a bench for 15 minutes shortly thereafter waiting to regain my coordination.

My first stop was Leader Bank. There I was told that since they are not publicly traded they are exempt from being required to cash treasury department checks for non-customers. No luck. I went on to Bank of America. There I was told as a non-customer I had to have two forms of identification for them to cash the check. I only had my licence with me. Strike two.

I decided to try my luck at Cambridge Savings Bank. I knew my account was negative there, but I hoped they would cash my with just one form of identification anyway. The teller told me the system wouldn't let her do it because my account was overdrawn. I asked by how much, and it was only $3.76. Aparently I had a little over $20 in the account when the overdraft fee hit. Seeing as the amount was so small, I told her to take the $3.76 out of the check, cash my check as a customer with one form of identification, then close my account. She did, and I'm now done with banks (except what will be my monthly trip to cash my check).

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purpleglitter drove me to my therapy appointment at 5:15. I signed in at the front desk and waited. 5:30, no therapist. The receptionist paged her. 5:45, no therapist. The receptionist paged her again, then noted that my appointment time was actually at 6:00 and not my normal time, and that's probably why my therapist wasn't responding. I had things to do, so I just left.

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purpleglitter dropped me off at the corner and went up to her house to bake merryperseis's birthday cake. I fell heading from the corner to my house, spilling my Monster. Several people asked if I was okay, but no one called anyone on me. I got back in the house and ended up lying in bed for some stupid reason and fell asleep. I drifted in and out of sleep and seizure for a couple hours, having nasty dreams that everything was getting worse and that I was being locked away forever. Finally, merryperseis came into my room and helped me out of bed. I ended up falling on the floor in the hall and sat there until I felt balanced enough to go down the stairs.

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recoiling, purpleglitter, and iamacliche were downstairs and we had quite a wonderful time celebrating the anniversary of merryperseis's birth. Towards 1:00 I started feeling very twitchy again, and couldn't really get up from the couch. All the non-residents of the house_of_clocks had left, and merryperseis had to go to purpleglitter's apartment and pick up my meds, my Metamucil cookies, and mazzycat's tuna for me. I was planning on just crashing on the couch, but did eventually make it up to my room and to sleep.

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Everyday is an adventure nowadays. Some moments I feel so elated I could fly, others I feel suicidal hopelessness, and others I'm simply on the ground. I have some very difficult moral choices to make. The kind where there is no good choice and I must find the one that is least wrong.

Another day today. Another day again. Days just seem to come one after another these days.

I'm going to be in the St. Louis area from the 17^th to the 24^th of next month. If anyone in the area wants to meet up you can comment here. However, I may or may not have a driver's license at that point, so the ride situation may be a bit iffy.

Good news: I'm out of the hospital.

Bad news: the house_of_clocks was struck by lightening last night. the router is fried. the cable modem is fried. merryperseis's computer is fried. and the good phone is fried. so we won't be online for some time.

More bad news: I've lost my license and my library card and bank card.

posted by purpleglitter

Last Thursday, I went to my 3:00pm evaluation at the Crisis Center at the Lexington Center for Mental Health. We were evaluated by a person name Susan for about half an hour and she determined we were in need of hospitalization. I was okay with that, but made it clear that we did not want to go back to Holy Family. I told them "Anywhere but Holy Family.".

After I had been waiting in the waiting room for quite some time (I don't know exactly how long, time was a blur), Susan came back and told us that she had section 12ed (involuntary committed) us to Holy Family. I told her I wasn't going to go. I asked her to find someplace else. I begged her to find someplace else. She replied that it was too late, I was already section 12ed to Holy Family.

I told her that I wasn't going to back to Holy Family. I started for the door. Susan told me that if I left, she'd have to call the police. I left anyway.

Knowing the police would be coming for me, and that they'd eventually find me, I made my way quickly to the Brooks Pharmacy in a nearby stripmall. At Brooks, I bought 2 bottles of Nyquil, a bottle of sleeping pills, and some candy.

Leaving Brooks, I saw a police car entering the parking lot. I quickly ducked into a clothing store. Pretending to browse behind the racks, I kept an eye on the window. The police car drove slowly by, but didn't see me.

A minute or two later, I peeked out of the store. The police car was still in the lot look in the windows. I quickly and calmly walked in the direction opposite the way the police were heading. I walked into McDonalds and out the other side.

I scurried off into the woods and took the sleeping pills, washing them down with one of the bottles of Nyquil. I also ate a few of the candies.

After the drugs had started taking effect, I decided I wanted to say goodbye to some of those I love. I was in a quite delirious state at the point, and didn't fully realize the risk of capture involved in such an endeavor. I left the woods and walked back to the strip mall. I brought my bag of goodies with me, because I didn't want to litter. I noticed another police car enter the lot, and I quickly ducked back into the McDonalds and sat down at one of the tables.

The police officers spotted me this time. I was pretty unmistakable in my satin and velvet pajamas, silk bathrobe, wild pigtails, and cats eye glasses. I'm sure the officers didn't have much of a problem identifying me at all.

As the police entered, I quickly finished what little was left the bottle of Nyquil, and downed a few stray sleeping pills that had fallen into the bag. Not the wisest move at that point, I admit, but I wasn't thinking very clearly.

The police asked me if I was Karen Luketin. To which I replied truthfully, "No". Our name is Beverly Luketin. I showed them our ID to prove it, holding my thumb over the word "Luketin". I said smugly, "See, my name is Beverly". Of course, the police took the ID, looked at it, and noted that my last name was Luketin. They knew I was who they were looking for.

The preceded to ask me about the pills, about which I was very cryptic. Knowing what I had taken, they called in an ambulance. They told me that they had me on a section 12, and there was nothing I could do.

When the ambulance arrived, the police told the paramedics that they were to wait, that the crisis center was sending it's own ambulance. However, when I collapsed simi-conscious onto the ground, the paramedics said they weren't waiting any longer, and rushed me to the emergency room at Waltham Deaconess Hospital.

The emergency room was a blur. I was plugged up to so many things, I felt like a borg. They fed me much charcoal. Apparently our heart rate went up to 175 while we were unconscious. Throughout the night I drifted in and out of consciousness. I made several delirious phone calls trying to tell people where I was. I kept talking to people, then turning my head to realize no one was there. I was hold and looking at things, only to find my hands were firmly and motionlessly folded on my stomach.

purpleglitter and zarthon tried to visit me around 3am, but the emergency room staff wouldn't let them see me. They were told that they weren't my "real" family, and that they would have to go. I didn't even find out that they had tried to visit until I talked to purpleglitter over the phone the following afternoon.

At some point after that, the emergency room staff decided we were in the clear physically. I was told that we were still going to Holy Family. I was very upset, and started ripping out the monitors and the IV. I told them there was no way I was still going after all that. Four orderlies held me down and I was given an quick injection. I awoke Friday afternoon at Holy Family.

riga_mortia just found my ID in my TransHealth book.

Tuesday morning, riga_mortia and I set off for Plattsburgh, New York. We got out of the house very early, and made good time to South Station. The air seemed hopeful and the prospect of leaving the city for a few days was very exciting.

Things started to go wrong when we got to the ticket counter at Greyhound. They ended up charging us a rate several hundred dollars over what they had quoted us over the phone. Not knowing of any other choice, we forked over the cash.

Quickly, I realized I had forgotten my ID. Realizing that this meant that the trip would be much more problematic, we went decided to take the next bus out, and take a taxi back to riga_mortia’s house and pick up my ID.

My ID wasn’t at her house, and we were running out of time, so we called another taxi to run back to my house, as I was sure I must have left it there.

On the way out to the taxi, riga_mortia had a nasty fall onto an evil metal thing laying on the sidewalk. She ended up with a nasty looking wound on her knee. I got our luggage together and she limped into the taxi.

My ID wasn’t at my house either. To add to the fun, we quickly discovered that riga_mortia had left her purse in the taxi.

grrldan arrived home and offered his help. And what a wonderful help he was. He patched up riga_mortia’s knee very skillfully and made us both much-needed cosmopolitans.

I decided to call the liquor store I had gone to the night before, in a last hope that it was where I lost my ID. I got on my computer to get the number for the store and found that my monitor had completely died.

grrldan looked up the number for me on his computer. However, when I called, I was told that my ID wasn’t there either.

Giving up on my ID, we called the taxi company and asked about riga_mortia’s purse. They had it and grrldan said he would give us a ride to retrieve it as well as anywhere else we needed to go. I can’t thank him enough for all the help he was to us.

riga_mortia and I figured out that it would actually be cheaper to rent a car and drive it to Plattsburgh than to take the bus, even with the 15% charge for returning the tickets. So, we called up several rental places to get a car. However, no one would rent us a car, because I don’t have a credit card or my own auto insurance (either one would have worked) and riga_mortia is under 25 and only has a permit.

We worked out a plan with katia25 (riga_mortia’s stepmother). We would wire her the money to rent a car. She would rent it, drive from Plattsburgh to Boston then drive us back up to Plattsburgh.

First thing was first, the tickets and the taxis had wiped out our cash reserves. We needed to go to my bank. As I had lost my bankcard the week before, and now didn’t have my ID, I wrote grrldan a check for the money I needed and he ran into the bank to cash it. A few minutes later, he came out and told me the people in the bank wanted to talk to me inside.

They told me that my check was suspect, because it was written out of sequence (another symptom of my absentmindedness). However, they had my signature card on file at the bank, and I was able to get the money out myself.

Next stop was Stop and Shop to wire the funds for the car. Again, grrldan came to the rescue. As the only one with an ID at that point, he had to be the one to actually send the money on its way.

After Stop and Shop, we went to the Yellow Cab office. On the journey there, we encountered a traffic jam. After waiting about 15 minutes in the baking sun, traffic began to move again, and we got riga_mortia’s purse.

Before he had to be on his way for his own scheduled activities for the day, grrldan dropped us off at the DMV so that I could get a temporary license for the trip.

When katia25 arrived, we grabbed our stuff and piled into the car. Our troubles were over, or so we thought.

We quickly got lost in Vermont. We spent a long time on the empty highways in the land of moose and bumps. After wandering and wandering, we found a hotel and asked for directions. We apparently missed our turn by an hour and a half. Instead of having to back track, we were directed on an alternative route. All in all, the 3 hour trip ended up taking more than 6, and by the time it was over both riga_mortia and I were both feeling slightly ill.

We checked into our hotel, only to find that it was a complete pit. It was more of a no-tell motel than anything else. The one redeeming quality, is that it had a rustic Bonnie and Clyde feel to it. I felt that the feds would be breaking in the door any minute.

In the morning, we carted ourselves over to the Super 8. A little more pricey, but a lot less shitty. At this point we both realized that the slightly ill we felt the night before was not going to simply go away. The slightly ill had definite plans of being more than slightly.

In the very late afternoon, we finally got over to see riga_mortia’s family. They were all very accepting and nice. I got along with all of them very well. We all got quite floopy, and Chantea (riga_mortia’s sister) got quite a bit too floopy.

katia25 dropped us off near the beach, where riga_mortia and I splashed together on the beautiful shores of Lake Champlain. It was probably the most beautiful part of the entire trip, however being wet in the chilly night air probably didn’t help us with our developing colds.

By the time we woke up the next morning, both riga_mortia and I were really feeling sick. Not only that, having spent so much time in close quarters with all the stress of the trip, we starting to get on each other’s nerves. We never yelled, but we definitely weren’t getting along very well.

Pat (riga_mortia’s dad) and katia25 took us to Ponderosa in the afternoon. I was worried there wouldn’t be anything to eat, but to my surprise the buffet had a selection of vegetarian options.

The food did not sit well with riga_mortia, who was rapidly getting more ill than me. She ended up getting sick all over the bathroom of Ponderosa. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel so she could get some rest.

In the evening, we went back to katia25’s and Pat’s house and watched The Way of the Gun with Ryan Phillippe. I enjoyed the movie, and definitely recommend it.

Back at the hotel we decided that with both of us feeling ill and the trip generally not going very well, that we should head back home Friday as originally planned, instead of Saturday morning as we had been considering.

On the ferry across Lake Champlain on the way home, I decided to take a picture of the mountains above the water. Of course, I dropped the camera. It bounced off the deck, and I watched in slow motion as it splashed into the water below. At least it wasn’t the one I had taken the pictures on earlier in the trip.

Back in Boston, I hoped that we could finally relax, but new drama has come forward. Things just don’t seem to settle down nowadays. Like the Energizer bunny, it just keeps going and going and going.