This is not a Democracy

Obviously, I want folks to read this blog; that's why it's open to the public and I publish a lot of my posts on Facebook and encourage people to re-post/share. The positive feedback I have received is so totally awesome and welcome, especially on the "I am not ashamed but maybe you should be" series - it did require overcoming a lot of uncertainty to share information that's that private and personal, and it has been great to hear from everyone, but especially from those who do use or have used public assistance and have been the target of the stares, whispers, and criticism.

(Completely random photo from National Geographic
of a violin on display somewhere in Asheville.
I have a similarly-painted guitar that once hung
on the wall of my solo apartment; maybe I
should hang it up again)

Writing this now (Monday morning), I'm realizing how much even I have internalized the imposed shame about this issue - I have talked about the emotional and physical pain of my miscarriage, the worries and fears about David's future, and every other emotion in the book, but it's the fact that my kids and I are/were on Medicaid and WIC that took the most courage to share.

I received my first negative comment (anonymously) over the weekend. I chose to publish it despite my misgivings, you can see it if you want here . If my responses to it and the other anonymous e-mail notification I received seem defensive, You Have No Idea. I did not cry, which is an improvement over past reactions to some other feedback I received on a different subject. But it did make me angry, and the first two responses I came up with were much less kind. So what's currently published is very watered-down.

I have almost gotten tired of beating my head against a wall, which is what this fight feels like so far. Almost; I guess I feel that as a recipient who has an education and is a semi-decent writer and has a computer, I kind of should keep it up, because it's not an issue a lot of other similarly-fortunate "regular" people have chosen to take up.

If you'll look to your right, you'll see that positive comments are always welcome and negative are not. It's not that I don't wish to engage in discussion with folks with a different viewpoint, though I don't, not really. It's more that although I have chosen to talk about various political issues, especially this "welfare" thing, this is really still David's website, it's my blog, and I am dictator for life over this tiny corner of the world.

I know I have to re-grow the thick skin I used to have, before I finish/publish this book. I've already considered never logging onto amazon.com again once it's published, provided the book is sold there (that's still just a really weird thought to even have, you know?) - there's no way I would be able to not read reader reviews. Maybe Matt can isolate and print out all the positive ones for me to read; that way I wouldn't even have to know any one- or two-star reviews even exist.