where have all the flowers gone?

I was just thinking about the love affair Massachusetts voters had with Deval Patrick when he was running for Governor, so I thought I'd check out press from his Inauguration Day. Here's how the Boston Globe led off the article:

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Patrick vows inclusion in inaugural address

By Frank Phillips and Andrea Estes, Globe Staff | January 5, 2007

Deval Patrick took the oath of office yesterday as the state's 71st governor, and the first African-American, presenting himself as a symbol of optimism and change who will restore faith in government after 16 years of Republican rule.

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And, from Patrick's speech:

"For a very long time now, we have been told that government is bad, that it exists only to serve the powerful and well-connected, that its job is not important enough to be done by anyone competent, let alone committed, and that all of us are on our own," he said. "Today, we join together in common cause to lay that fallacy to rest, and to extend a great movement based on shared responsibility from the corner office to the corner of your block and back again."

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Sigh. I know I won't hit it all, but what have we gotten in the past couple of years? First there was the Cadillac/helicopter/drapes scandal. His wife's $72,000 "personal assistant" who also happened to be a campaign supporter. The BFD is being investigated by the FBI for disability fraud. Sen. Dianne Wilkerson is caught on tape taking a bribe and stuffing it into her bra. Sen. James Marzilli is charged with groping women in Lowell. Patrick appoints Sen. Marian Walsh to a post vacant for 12 years with a salary of $175,000 (oh, she's accepted $120,000 to quell public fury.) Toll takers are caught robbing the Commonwealth in various ways. The Aloisi siblings. Hacks collecting pensions and working second taxpayer-funded lip service jobs. $23,000 raises for County Sheriff in counties where pretty much nothing ever happens (one of which doesn't even have any prisoners.) Discgraced councilman Chuck Turner, also caught taking bribes. That dude from the Somerville - Register of Probate? something like that - who was caught on tape stealing money from the copy machines. The list just goes on and on and on.

Has there been any good progress? I'm sure there has. I just don't know what it is. I'm sure I'll think of something. Maybe the police details thing? But the police are still at every detail I've seen in my hometown. And my property value has plummeted but - ha! - I'm still paying the same real estate taxes on the property!

bleeding money

Hm. Since January 1:

PT costs for my frozen shoulder for this year: $250 in co-pays and $300 lost wages.
Prescription drugs: $176.80
Pneumonia-related office co-pays: $50
Other office co-pays, thus far: $150
Co-pays for the next two week's worth of appointments: $150

Total: more than I can really afford.

But what if I didn't have health insurance? What if we had socialized medicine? I'd probably still have pneumonia, and I'd have to wait until next summer to see the specialists I need instead of next week. And I probably wouldn't have been able to choose which specialists I see. I'm probably costing more than I'm paying to the insurance company; but dang, that's not gonna help me come up with the money for summer camp.

I hope the tax refund is good! And I sure miss MIT Medical.

what do you hear in these sounds?

So I finally caved, or went insane enough, that I decided to start seeing a counselor. Going to therapy.

And I did, today.

I think there a lot of issues. After laying out all I could think of, one issue stood out - although it's tied in to other things from the past and the present - and really, what it boiled down to was one thing.

heal the wound

Well, I tried. I thought it might work...even be momentous. But, alas. Life was just...life.

I went to see my former Professor/MIT supervisor, his new wife and their 51 week-old daughter a couple of weeks ago. I had visions of some kind of release or epiphany, but I was hoping for too much. I'm the only one still haunted by my past. I'm sure Ms. M. never thinks of me at all, or all she cost me. MIT as an institution had no problem lying to me and I dropped off their radar the day they blackmailed me into resigning.

Heal the wound and leave the scar? I'm still bleeding, and it seems it's never going to stop.

It will be four years next month.