The Great Massachusetts H1N1 Debacle

So, I'm chagrined and angry. Not annoyed, or irritated, or even irked. I'm actually red-in-the-face embarrassed and pissed off. My state has decided to include prisoners in the high risk category for H1N1. Finding out exactly what this means is tough because the statehouse is saying one thing and the press has been saying another. However, if I were to be totally honest, I don't really care for what either source is saying. I want our babies and pregnant women vaccinated before the shots go out to prisons. End of conversation. 

Here is a copy of what I sent to the statehouse:

I believe that the press regarding prisoners getting the H1N1 vaccine before other people is generally inflated, and I don't want to sound like chicken little crying about a falling sky, but I have first hand knowledge that we are having a problem getting the vaccine to all of the high risk patients in the general public that are electing to vaccinate. I have a problem with vaccinating any inmates while babies and pregnant women wait for their shots.

While I understand the rationale behind offering the vaccine to prisoners because it is a closed system, I think this should take a back seat until all babies, children and pregnant women receive their doses. I don't want riots in the prisons, or infected ex-inmates infecting the general population. And I'm not a blood thirsty vigilante who wants prisoners to suffer. I just want pregnant women and children to get access to the vaccine first.

As of now, this is NOT the case. I have 2 children under 3 (one is a 9 month old baby), and I am being told that no one has the vaccine right now. When I called about the shot (pediatricians won't call patients because this vaccine is in such great demand that they never get enough for the people on their waiting lists, so you apparently have to get lucky and call on the right day) I was told that they ran out of it in a matter of hours. The women I work with, all highly educated school teachers and nurses, are also having no luck vaccinating their children. My sister in law, a pregnant pharmacist, can't find the vaccine for herself.

I'm glad that "tens of thousands of H1N1 vaccine doses" were sent "to hundreds of medical sites around the state," but it was clearly not enough to cover even the highest priority of the high risk groups. Shouldn't we address this problem before we start discussing who to give this elusive vaccine to next?

House on Mango Street

I feel like Sandra Cisneros as I write this, but my hometown is a tough place to live. I don't want to sound like an NPR douche, but it just doesn't match my values. I think I have to leave, or burn it down, or something. My husband, Homemaker Man, and I bought our house almost 2 years ago. I really wanted to own a home and we don't make much money (with my job as a teacher and his as a homemaker), so we needed to move out of the urbane neighborhoods we'd been living in for almost 20 years. Basically, we couldn't afford to own where we lived.

So... Cue drum roll... I suggested my old city. After all, it is reasonably safe for a working class town, the schools still have strong art and sports programs. The people are hard working, and neighborly. I'd be able to give something back.  And, best of all, we could afford it. Sounds good, right?

My G-D, was I delusional.

Right now, in this moment, I have no idea why I did this. I hated living here as a kid. I hated it so much that I left at 16 on my own, and didn't return until now, in my mid-thirties. There were other factors in my exodus, but hating this town was high on the list. It is provincial, narrow, racist, ignorant, dirty and poor. The local politicians are so ass-backwards that they make the most idiotic, lazy mistakes. The business owners don't invest in their community; they are like absentee landlords. And the citizens don't get actively involved in anything but complaining.  

Everything good about the town (and there are good things) is sucked out by this all-encompassing self-loathing shame that the citizens seem to feel for their community. As a group, they hate change and resist it at all cost, and they fear the unknown.  They hate themselves for still living here, but they hate the thought of leaving. As individuals, they are generous, neighborly and thoughtful. They take pride in their homes and families. They are very difficult people.

My town is the fat paste-eater in preschool. It's the smelly kid in grade school. It's the stupid, white trash bully in middle school. It's the pregnant chick smoking outside of study hall in high school. My town sucks. Why did I move back here?

I am planning my next exodus; it should take about 5 years. Moving with kids is way more complicated. I wish I could just run away again.