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I'll speak to the printer about it later
1. So today's attempt to clear up my insurance was a bust: I went to the office ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
derspatchel has been dealing with (which seemed like the right one to both of us!) and they were very sympathetic, but referred me to another office which closed at five o'clock. I will try it on Monday. After that, there was really nothing to do with the evening but drink a lot of alcoholic ginger beer at the Squealing Pig and see the Magna Carta at the MFA. It is actually extremely neat to look at, especially since it's housed in the same exhibit as John Adams' manuscript copy of the Declaration of Independence. There are two portraits relating to a Massachusetts abolition case I'd never heard of and contemporary newspapers with marginal annotations by their collectors. All of this is next to the room of maritime art, filled with eighteenth-century models of cutters and clippers and ships of the line and figureheads and scrimshaw and random bits of wood from famous naval engagements; we were substantially delayed on our way in. We didn't get to Jamie Wyeth, teenybuffalo, but I recommend the Pictorialists (my favorite portrait of W.B. Yeats! Aubrey Beardsley looking exactly like one of his own drawings!) and the Meroitic gold and jewelry to anyone who can get to them. I am a little sad that we missed the exhibit of avant-garde photography, but it's not like I've never seen Man Ray before.
2. My back is in absolutely terrible shape. We need a new bedframe. Where does a person buy a queen-sized futon frame in this city? Dream On Futon in Inman is no longer an option; we tried them right after Readercon only to discover they had flown by night without alerting the majority of the internet or altering any of their signage—they left their name lettered on the storefront glass along with the website and hours of operation, but the showroom was dark, locked, and empty, occupied only by a motorcycle and an Oldsmobile. Rob took some pictures and it was absurdist, but not actually helpful. Boston Bedworks is expensive. I am taking recommendations; I need not to be in this amount of pain every day. It's like all the physical therapy I practiced from January to April never happened.
3. I had no idea goat towers were a thing. I'm so happy to know they are.
derspatchel has been dealing with (which seemed like the right one to both of us!) and they were very sympathetic, but referred me to another office which closed at five o'clock. I will try it on Monday. After that, there was really nothing to do with the evening but drink a lot of alcoholic ginger beer at the Squealing Pig and see the Magna Carta at the MFA. It is actually extremely neat to look at, especially since it's housed in the same exhibit as John Adams' manuscript copy of the Declaration of Independence. There are two portraits relating to a Massachusetts abolition case I'd never heard of and contemporary newspapers with marginal annotations by their collectors. All of this is next to the room of maritime art, filled with eighteenth-century models of cutters and clippers and ships of the line and figureheads and scrimshaw and random bits of wood from famous naval engagements; we were substantially delayed on our way in. We didn't get to Jamie Wyeth, teenybuffalo, but I recommend the Pictorialists (my favorite portrait of W.B. Yeats! Aubrey Beardsley looking exactly like one of his own drawings!) and the Meroitic gold and jewelry to anyone who can get to them. I am a little sad that we missed the exhibit of avant-garde photography, but it's not like I've never seen Man Ray before.2. My back is in absolutely terrible shape. We need a new bedframe. Where does a person buy a queen-sized futon frame in this city? Dream On Futon in Inman is no longer an option; we tried them right after Readercon only to discover they had flown by night without alerting the majority of the internet or altering any of their signage—they left their name lettered on the storefront glass along with the website and hours of operation, but the showroom was dark, locked, and empty, occupied only by a motorcycle and an Oldsmobile. Rob took some pictures and it was absurdist, but not actually helpful. Boston Bedworks is expensive. I am taking recommendations; I need not to be in this amount of pain every day. It's like all the physical therapy I practiced from January to April never happened.
3. I had no idea goat towers were a thing. I'm so happy to know they are.
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Nonoptimal solution, but the frames at IKEA are pretty decent and inexpensive.
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Nonoptimal solution, but the frames at IKEA are pretty decent and inexpensive.
I keep hearing this; we may have to consider them. After a year and a half of temporary beds, though, I'd really like something that's more toward the optimal end of the spectrum.
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Yeah, temporary beds suck. IKEA has higher-end frames as well as the cheaper kind, though I can't vouch for them. I am starting to reach the conclusion that IKEA furniture needs to be assembled with epoxy in the screw/bolt holes. :P
Our original frame was a lovely cherry wood piece we got at Heartwood Furniture on Mass Ave in Cambridge (between Harvard and Central, closer to Harvard). We got a cheap one then (it was our first bed), so it had a particle board platform) and the platform part gave up the ghost after more than 10 years -- it was probably reparable, but we opted for the IKEA bed instead. Heartwood used to have some really lovely work by New England artisans at fairly inexpensive prices, though I expect those prices have rather gone up in the fifteen years since we last bought something from them. (Fly By Night has similar pieces, but the delivery cost would be prohibitive from Noho.) I know they had more solidly-built beds there. I think their management has changed since we last visited (they moved to a smaller store too), but it might be worth a visit.
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They are the one I mentioned being expensive. I looked at their mattresses last year when I was moving to Winter Hill, although I bought mine eventually from Dream On before they magically ceased to exist; they make a fantastic floating storage bed, but it's (a) not slatted, which we need with the futon (b) not affordable, which we need no matter what. I will probably still check out their futon frames just in case, but I'm skeptical.
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I used to sleep on bare hardwood floors when I was in my twenties and Boston got real hot in the summers, and now the thought of ever doing so again makes me cringe.
Meanwhile, thank you for the goat tower link! That brightened my evening.
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It is an appalling catch-22 based on the fact that I applied for subsidized healthcare from the state of Massachusetts in February because I am broke, broke, broke, and the state's website crashed with my application—not to mention the applications of many, many other Massachusetts residents—in it. Everybody in my position got a sort of temporary health coverage while MassHealth sorted out the website. It was supposed to last until the end of June. It was just renewed through the end of the year because MassHealth has still not sorted out the website. The temporary health coverage does not cover several of my doctors—most critically, my therapist—and it does not cover an unpredictable range of medications, including at least one that I need on a regular basis. It is not possible for me to change to another plan that does cover all my doctors and all my medications because I don't strictly speaking have a plan in the first place; I have this makeshift temporary free apology which as far as I can tell is designed to cover the most cost-effective services, not necessarily the most successful ones. I admit it is better than having no healthcare at all, but that is literally right now my only other option; I could withdraw my application from February, get off the temporary coverage, and then be completely screwed, because the whole reason I was applying for subsidized healthcare in February is that I don't make enough money from any of my current jobs to afford a plan on my own. This is not functional in the long-term. Not being able to see a therapist regularly* has made the stresses of the spring and summer much, much, much worse than they might otherwise have been. The medication coverage issues have given me real trouble already and I'm not looking forward to finding out what else I can't afford to keep myself healthy with if this keeps up. I spent weeks on the phone in May and June, fruitlessly trying to find out if I had any options other than endure until 2015 and in the meantime watch my physical health crater and my emotional stability follow it down; I finally decided I should just go down to their office and sit there being unavoidable until someone had to talk to me. Except the office that helps Rob can't help me, apparently. So, on Monday, the other office had better be able to.
* I had three appointments over as many months before her office refused to make bookings for me any longer based on my lack of compatible insurance—for two of those visits I was under the impression the problem had been miraculously sorted out, because no one was asking me to pay three hundred dollars up front to get into Harvard Vanguard Behavioral Health, but it turned out that was just some kind of oversight on the part of the receptionist and no, they want that money from me after all. Found out on Tuesday. That was awful. Anyway, no more future visits until I have insurance again.
I used to sleep on bare hardwood floors when I was in my twenties and Boston got real hot in the summers, and now the thought of ever doing so again makes me cringe.
Aaaaaaaaaaaagh. Yeah. I slept on our current mattress on the floor from December until . . . whenever we got the bedframe which is now broken. Sometime in mid-May, I think. It was not fun and it was definitely not a good idea for my back. And then we got a hand-me-down bedframe and I was so hopeful. It was such a short-lived happiness!
Meanwhile, thank you for the goat tower link! That brightened my evening.
I'm so glad! Goat towers are the best.
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This is "good" to hear -- "good" in the very cramped sense of shared problems. One of my friends is in the same bucket, and has the same apologetic emergency coverage extended to December. Like you, she spent several weeks hammering on MassHealth via phone; eventually got someone saying "Nobody here can fix your problem until our web site is rebuilt." (Not "fixed", but a new system built to replace it.)
You'd think somebody could spend a week typing raw SQL commands into the database, but no. Government.
The worst part(*) is that you don't want to complain in public, lest some Tea Partier notice and decide that this screwup justifies everything the GOP has ever said. In fact *my* health care plan went through MassHealth with only minor hiccups -- because I didn't hit the "subsidized" option -- and it's been working fine. But this is no comfort to you folks.
(* Not actually the worst part. We know.)
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Man. I was afraid the problem was something like that, but I wanted to be wrong.
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NJ health insurance cancelled my dental insurance because I got married and told them so, but that doesn't hold a candle to this mess.
*sending as much sanity and hope as the wires will hold*
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That is entirely understandable. I have honestly tried to avoid Ikea for years—my desk in grad school was theirs; it did not survive even being taken downstairs to the curb when I had to leave New Haven—but I suppose if it is a choice between Ikea or crippling back pain, I'll have to get used to Ikea. At least I like lingonberries, although probably not if I have to eat them in a giant box store. I will pray for other options and hold this one in reserve.
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That said, our apartment is full of a whole lot of startlingly nice IKEA furniture, including the most comfortable pull-out couch I've ever sat or slept on. It's true that if you want to move house your best bet is to take all the furniture apart and reassemble it at your new place, but as long as you don't move the stuff around it's really quite useful, and very very reasonably priced.
--I'm wrong, you CAN mail-order bed frames! How about that. Here's the full list of beds, sorted by price. This one appears to be the least expensive. You'll also need slats to support the mattress.
They don't sell fold-into-couch futon frames there, but that one will do fine if you just need it to be a bed.
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Thank you; that is more positive than my experience with their furniture and helpful to know.
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Anyway, I would second the Ikea idea - this does not have to be the bed frame that serves you the rest of your life and through several moves, just the one that allows you to sleep NOW.
That being said, you might also see what Boston has in the way of discount furniture shops? Or there's always the mighty juggernaut that is Bob's Discount Furniture.
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I understand the virtue of a cheap and immediate solution, but I have been sleeping on temporary beds since last February and I would really like to stop. I am fairly certain my back is as fucked up as it is now because I was sleeping on a futon mattress on a flat piece of plywood when I injured it last May. We were supposed to get a permanent bed from my parents in the winter, but for a variety of reasons that plan is now on indefinite hold; I am not waiting for anyone else.
That being said, you might also see what Boston has in the way of discount furniture shops?
That's kind of how I'm leaning. I was just hoping there was another futon-specific option. Dream On would have been optimal; it's where I bought the mattress and where
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That being said, I have a strong recollection of a futon shop somewhere near the Allston/Brighton town line. I am uncertain that it is still there, as a desultory Google seems to pull up only Yelp links, but I feel that I have seen such a thing in the not so dim past.
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I really hope the insurance gets sorted out soon.
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Thanks. That's useful to know; see previous comment to
I really hope the insurance gets sorted out soon.
Aaaaaagh.
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ETA -- His name's Nathaniel Lyles.
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He certainly does here. It's partly the haircut, but partly the cheekbones. Cool.
ETA -- His name's Nathaniel Lyles.
And here he looks like a perfectly ordinary red-haired guy. I love photography.
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Erg. I wanna see the Magna Carta exhibit, but I do not think there is any way I will make it to Boston between now and September.
(Well, unless someone interviews me. Hm, motivation!)
I would, of course, probably wind up annoying everyone by sitting in front of the 1215 copy practicing transcription. (Dammit, internet, why do you not have a decent-sized image of it?)
Goat towers! that is indeed awesome.
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You've got almost a month!
Surely you can find the pretense of a job inteview.(Well, unless someone interviews me. Hm, motivation!)
Right, that!
I would, of course, probably wind up annoying everyone by sitting in front of the 1215 copy practicing transcription.
It's in a vertical glass cabinet that makes it difficult to get enough of a straight look at for easy reading, which is possibly the point, but you should still try.
Goat towers! that is indeed awesome.
I just think the world is a better place for their existence. I had no idea.
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Hoping you do find a good futon frame, and that the insurance gets sorted.
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No! When and where are they from? I've recently seen the mermaid and the pirate with tattoos.
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". . . some loans from a folk art museum with mermaid and sailor paintings: Chinese-style mermaids, mermaid burlesque, mermaid with cat and a sailor reading the paper - exactly 133 years before I was born); a cubist great blue heron; a drawing in India ink inspired by atomic structures, zooplankton, cnidarian polyps, jellyfish cross-sections, sea worms' nervous systems; Sailors' valentines made from mollusk shells and cuttlebones and spirula internal shells and something undetermined that may or may not belong to a glass sponge and sea urchin tests; nude terracotta women . . ."
SOLD.
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Yay!
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I appreciate the information all the same.
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I'd no idea about the goat towers, either. Thank you!
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It was information that seemed like it needed to be shared.