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Student of Life, Art.

@raphaelart

Due to some stuff brought up in recent posts I believe it is time to once again extol the virtues of Ms-Demeanor's Patented Where Did I Put That Fucking Paper Organizational Binder.

Hello! I am a disorganized adult! This is the system by which I manage my important shit like pink slips for my car and medical records and tax information.

You're going to need:

  • A 3-Ring Binder
  • Transparent Sheet Protectors
  • Notebook dividers (optional but VERY useful)
  • A backpack (optional)

So the way this system works is you put the sheet protectors into the binder. You can either use the dividers to divide the binder into sections or you can label some of the sheet protectors to make different sections but what you are generally going to do is make sections of the binder labeled things like "taxes" or "vet" or "doctor" and put a few sheet protectors in each section.

Then all of your papers with important information get crammed in that folder. You don't organize them, you don't sort them by date, you don't alphabetize. You put things vaguely relating to taxes into the sheet protectors in the taxes section. You put things relating to cars in the cars section. You don't even attempt to make this readable - you're not using sheet protectors so that you can read each page and keep it legible, you're using sheet protectors because it's a cheap plastic bag that will sit nicely in a binder.

You CAN put stuff into the individual sheet protectors when you get it, but let's be realistic you probably WON'T do that, so just tuck individual papers into the front of the binder until you get to a critical mass of paperwork then take an hour to sit down and sort into categories and put it in the binder once every six months to three years (depending on how frequently you get paperwork). Sometimes these sections will outgrow their original allotted space - since my spouse had a transplant surgery the medical section has had to become its own folder - and that's okay. If you end up with multiple folders just keep them together (this is why the backpack is an option, and one I strongly recommend).

Because yeah, if my organization system relies on opening up a drawer and putting something where it belongs as soon as I get the paper, I will simply not be organized. It's not going to happen. But I can handle a messy stack of paper that sits in one place and grows until it is time to shove it into a binder. I can't organize things for thirty seconds a day every day but I can organize things for an hour once every year or so (maybe two hours every five years when I sort out stuff I don't need like copies of warranties for parts on a car I don't own anymore).

When my mom died she had about fifty pounds of paper files in her office that were neatly organized in a system that didn't make any sense to my dad, my sister, and I. I ended up sorting through those files for twenty hours, tossing out copies of paid invoices from ten years ago and student handbooks from my junior high school. I reduced one filing cabinet, two desk file drawers, and a foot-high stack to a six inch binder that I gave to my dad. My mom died five years ago; two months ago my dad asked me about a medical document and I was able to tell him to go look for it in the medical section of the binder. It was there, because ALL IMPORTANT SHIT GOES IN THE BINDER.

Where is my birth certificate? In the binder. Where is my tax return from 2017? In the binder. Where is the record of my dog's last rabies shot? In the binder. Where are the records for my life insurance? In the binder.

A lot of what people consider "being organized" breaks down to whether or not you can find the specific things that you're looking for. Does my binder look nice? Is it aesthetic? Does it have color-coded tabs and papers all laid out neatly? Absolutely fucking not. But if you ask me where to find a paper I know that I can do so within about five minutes of shuffling through the pile of letter-folded sheets that I pulled out of the appropriate section of the binder.

I've discussed the Where Did I Put that Fucking Paper Binder before, but now it is time to expand that concept to the Backpack of Important Shit.

You likely have Important Shit that does not fit in a binder. Some of my Important Shit that does not fit in a binder is stuff like jewelry and the spare key for my car. Other stuff - the reason I decided to bring this up at all - includes my backup hard drive and packaging (including product key codes) for pretty much all of the software that I own. This is also where I store printed out copies of the recovery codes for most of the online accounts that I have.

There's a lot of weird fiddly shit that we have to have that we might not access all that often. This is the kind of stuff that might end up in junk drawers or under sinks or in disused laptop bags or kicking around under a bunch of papers in a desk drawer.

It doesn't matter so much when that weird fiddly shit is a set of hex keys or a utility knife or a protractor or a copy of a student handbook but it DOES matter when it's something that you might need to put your hands on in a hurry. If your computer crashes, you're not going to want to track down the software in the back of a filing cabinet and the backup drive from somewhere in the bowels of your desk. If you lock your keys in your car you are not going to want to figure out if your spare is in a junk drawer or the old purse where you keep semi-important stuff or the tin on your desk that has buttons and pins and headphone covers. Just put it in the Backpack of Important Shit and when you need it you know where to look.

So anyway, if you are a person who is a minor disaster who has trouble finding important things when you need them please don't think that you have to get your life together and have a nice organized filing cabinet or clear plastic bins full of documents or a neatly divided storage closet where everything from board games to backup drives has its own neatly labeled place. Just assign ONE LOCATION for important shit and start putting the important shit there. It doesn't matter if you have a filing cabinet where you keep old copies of homework and printouts of online orders and family history records - you do not need to keep everything that is file-able in one place and depending on what level of catastrophe you are it might be detrimental to you if you try to do that. It doesn't matter if you have a jewelry box where you keep your collection of gauges and wrist cuffs; if you are going to stress out about where grandma's ring is when you're digging through your collection of cheap earrings and silver pendants then *do not keep grandma's ring or any other Important, Vital, Cannot Be Lost jewelry in with your day-to-day wear*.

I live someplace that has fires. My binder got upgraded to my Backpack of Important Shit when the fires were getting uncomfortably close to the house I was living in and I wanted to have one bag to grab if we had to get out fast. Once I did that, I never took the binder out of the backpack and the backpack has now made three moves with me and has meant that I've had my birth certificate handy when I needed it in the middle of a move between two states, I was able to provide a history of my cholesterol panel going back six years to a visiting nurse, and I was able to give the exact names and contact info of my spouse's previous surgeon to the hospital when I had unexpectedly moved to a new state with three bags and my work computer at the beginning of the pandemic.

Get yourself a backpack of important shit and a folder of where the fuck did i put that paper. It is so much easier to search a backpack for important shit than to go through an entire house and it is so much easier to flip through a binder than it is to dig through a filing cabinet.

Anyway good luck and happy adulting.

Criteria for determining what is important shit:

  1. Was the document difficult to get? Birth certificates, death certificates, deeds, pink slips for cars, etc. Falls into this category. If you had to spend more than an hour getting the document and if you would have to make at least one phone call to replace it, it is an important document.
  2. Was the paper difficult to generate? If you had to sit down and fuck around with a program and look at three other sheets of paper to make the document, keep a copy of the document you generated. This might be a tax return, this might be a college financial aid application, this might be an application for a home loan.
  3. Does it have an account number on it? You do not need to keep EVERY piece of paper with an account number on it, but it is a good idea to keep at least one piece of paper with an account number for accounts that send you paper. You should have one copy of a bank statement or a credit card statement or a life insurance policy number or your retirement savings number. A good way to determine what you should have is by asking "how many steps would I need to take to get this number if I was talking to someone on the phone about it." Maybe I don't need to keep a bank statement because it would be very easy for me to get a copy of my account number, but it would be difficult for me to track down my life insurance policy number online so a copy goes in the folder.
  4. Does the paper represent a legally binding agreement? This means is it a lease agreement, an insurance policy, a financing agreement? The whole document goes in the folder because you want a place where you can reference the agreement in case you need to file a claim or something like that.
  5. Is the paper current? It is good for me to have a record of my dog's rabies vaccines, but I do not need to keep a copy of every vaccine she has ever had in her life; I can discard old copies. It is good for me to have a copy of the insurance for my current car. I do not need a copy of the insurance for a car I no longer own.
  6. What would happen if someone asked for this document and I didn't have it? If a mechanic asked you for a copy of a receipt for a repair done at a different shop five years ago and you didn't have it, you would likely not have any problems. If you were asked to produce a copy of your birth certificate in order to get a marriage license and you didn't have the document, there would be problems.

Keeping paperwork is not a matter of sparking joy, it is a matter of covering ass. If you had to move to a new state on the other side of the country and establish yourself there for everything from getting an ID to requesting a pet license to applying for a loan or opening a bank account to proving your income history to a landlord, would you have the documents you needed to get it done? If you have those documents, they go in the folder.

Important shit!

Okay, I've seen a lot of people claiming that Biden is somehow responsible for the baby formula shortage. You're looking at the wrong president.

I've attached a picture of the man responsible below.

It's a fun picture of Trump with some other suits surrounded by piles of paper cutting a ribbon with a gold pair of scissors. This was to represent cutting regulations. This was the point where everyone who's ever worked in a lab started screaming.

See, those regulations weren't there because OSHA agents were bored and wanted to slap fines on people. They're there because people got hurt.

These were laws that said don't put workers around radioactive materials without hazmat suits--caused by the Radium Girls ingesting radium daily and daily. Don't leave meat out for hours on end and don't just pick maggots off--Upton Sinclair's The Jungle is about the meat packing industry and how unsanitary it was. Workers have to wear helmets where falling is a risky--helmets reduced death and paralysis. Use vents and fume hoods to move gases away from workers--look at all the people with different cancer from breathing in Lord knows what. Provide a fire escape and don't lock workers in--146 people died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Don't dump waste into the waterway--the Cuyahoga River literally caught fire. Don't produce medical equipment in unsterilized factories with unsterilized equipment--the Dalkon Shield caused millions of infections because it was made in a repurposed Chapstick factory with no sterilization (among other things).

These laws are written in blood.

Every single regulation that is part of the EPA, OSHA, the FDA, and the DOJ is there because people were grievously injuried or died. They're not there for fun. You might say that this is all common sense stuff but right now Amazon is tallying work place injuries faster than a textile factory at the start of the industrial revolution. Tesla refused to paint orange lines around machines, delineating where it was safe to stand. History tells us that capitalists will put profits first, worker safety be damned.

Now I haven't read the very, very long list of all the regulations that Mr. Trump decided was worth getting rid of. I don't think he read that list. But I'm guessing that there was a law about sterilizing equipment for food, maintenance for equipment, and/or consistent inspections that suddenly Abbott Laboratories no longer had to follow. And just like so many other big companies, they decided to put the profit over babies' lives.

Capitalism is the monster here, and this wouldn't have happened if one company didn't have a monopoly on making baby formula. But regulations were a muzzle on that monster and they kept rampant capitalism somewhat in check. With that gone, this is what happens. It's only a matter of time before we lose another important commodity because regulations were erased.

I remember the day this picture came out, and having worked in the food industry my whole life I knew it was going to lead to disaster...

Sorry i just always have to point this out when the Cuyahoga is brought up because I grew up along that river -

It wasn't just once. The one everyone talks about was in 1969, and it was certainly the worst one, but the Cuyahoga river has caught on fire at least 13 times. Most recently in 2020.

Now, that fire had a clear source - a car accident on the road above spilled fuel into the river and the fuel caught fire - but that river is still... worrying, to say the least. We were told as kids it was okay to swim in the river, just don't touch the mud at the bottom! And I don't know anyone who would willingly eat fish from there. It's been over 50 years and the Cuyahoga Valley is still... tainted by the industrial pollution that was so horrific it directly brought about the original Clean Water Act.

That's what Trump undid. That's what that picture up there represents to me. Trump lobbyists don't care that 50+ years on the Northeast Ohio area is still not fully recovered from what corporations did to our river - all they see is ways to save another couple pennies at the cost of the health of people, animals, and ecosystems.

Don't fall for the bs about how everything now is Biden's fault. He's not perfect, but he's trying to clean up a frankly catastrophic mess, and the people blaming him for everything still being pretty shit are the ones that want us to go back to when Trump was telling people to drink bleach to cure covid.

The GOP wonders why young people (and others) don't want to vote for them. Some wise scribe assembled this list.

1.) Your Reagan-era “trickle-down economics” strategy of tax breaks for billionaires that you continue to employ to this day has widened the gap between rich and poor so much that most of them will never be able to own a home, much less earn a living wage.

2.) You refuse to increase the federal minimum wage, which is still $7.25 an hour (since 2009). Even if it had just kept up with inflation, it would be $27 now. You’re forcing people of all ages but especially young people to work multiple jobs just to afford basic necessities.

3.) You fundamentally oppose and want to kill democracy; have done everything in your power to restrict access to the ballot box, particularly in areas with demographics that tend to vote Democratic (like young people and POC). You staged a fucking coup the last time you lost.

4.) You have abused your disproportionate senate control over the last three decades to pack the courts with religious extremists and idealogues, including SCOTUS—which has rolled back rights for women in ways that do nothing but kill more women and children and expand poverty.

5.) You refuse to enact common sense gun control laws to curb mass shootings like universal background checks and banning assault weapons; subjecting their entire generation to school shootings and drills that are traumatizing in and of themselves. You are owned by the NRA.

6.) You are unequivocally against combatting climate change to the extent that it’s as if you’ve made it your personal mission to ensure they inherit a planet that is beyond the point of no return in terms of remaining habitable for the human race beyond the next few generations.

7.) You oppose all programs that provide assistance to those who need it most. Your governors refused to expand Medicaid even during A PANDEMIC. You are against free school lunches, despite it being the only meal that millions of children can count on to actually receive each day

8.) You are banning books, defunding libraries, barring subject matter, and whitewashing history even more in a fascistic attempt to keep them ignorant of the systemic racism that this nation was literally founded upon and continues to this day in every action your party takes.

9.) You oppose universal healthcare and are still trying to repeal the ACA and rip healthcare from tens of millions of Americans and replace it with nothing. You are against lowering the cost of insulin and prescription drugs that millions need simply to LIVE/FUNCTION in society.

10.) You embrace white nationalists, Neo-Nazis, and other groups that are defined by their intractable racism, xenophobia, bigotry, and intolerance. You conspired with these groups on January 6th to try to overthrow the U.S. government via domestic terrorism that KILLED PEOPLE.

11.) You oppose every bill aimed at making life better for our nation’s youth; from education to extracurricular and financial/nutritional assistance programs. You say you want to “protect the children” while you elect/nominate pedophiles and attack trans youth and drag queens.

12.) You pretend to be offended by “anti-semitism” while literally supporting, electing, and speaking at events organized by Nazis. You pretend to hate “cancel culture” despite the fact that you invented it and it’s basically all you do.

13.) Every word you utter is a lie. You are the party of treason, hypocrisy, crime, and authoritarianism. You want to entrench rule by your aging minority because you know that you have nothing to offer young voters and they will never support you for all these reasons and more.

14.) You’re so hostile to even the notion of helping us overcome the mountain of debt that millions of us are forced to take on just to pay for our post K-12 education that you are suing to try to prevent a small fraction of us from getting even $10,000 in loan forgiveness.

15.) You opened the floodgates of money into politics via Citizens United; allowing our entire system of government to become a cesspool of corruption, crime, and greed. You are supposed to represent the American people whose taxes pay your salary but instead cater to rich donors.

16.) You respond to elected representatives standing in solidarity with their constituents to protest the ONGOING SLAUGHTER of children in schools via shootings by EXPELLING THEM FROM OFFICE & respond to your lack of popularity among young people by trying to raise the voting age.

17.) You impeach Democratic presidents over lying about a BJ but refuse to impeach (then vote twice to acquit) a guy whose entire “administration” was an international crime syndicate being run out of the WH who incited an insurrection to have you killed.

18.) You steal Supreme Court seats from democrats to prevent the only black POTUS we’ve ever had from appointing one and invent fake precedents that you later ignore all to take fundamental rights from Americans; and even your “legitimate” appointments consist of people like THIS (sub-thread refuting CJ Roberts criticisms of people attacking SCOTUS’ legitimacy).

19.) You support mass incarceration even for innocuous offenses or execution by cop for POC while doing nothing but protect rich white criminals who engage in such things as tax fraud, money laundering, sex trafficking, rape/sexual assault, falsifying business records, etc.

20.) You are the reason we can’t pass:—Universal background checks—An assault weapons ban—The ‘For the People/Freedom to vote’ Act or John Lewis Voting Rights Act—The ERA & Equality Act—The Climate Action Now Act—The (Stopping) Violence Against Women Act—SCOTUS expansion.

21.) You do not seek office to govern, represent, or serve the American people. You seek power solely for its own sake so you can impose your narrow-minded puritanical will on others at the expense of their most fundamental rights and freedoms like voting and bodily autonomy.

22.) Ok, last one. You are trying to eliminate social security and Medicare that tens of millions of our parents rely on and paid into their entire lives. And you did everything to maximize preventable deaths from COVID leaving millions of us in mourning.

Booooooy how people don’t want to look at this.

Arguably, with age, the majority of people do become disabled.

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“Why should healthy people pay for sick people?” “Because the only things separating healthy people from sick people are time and luck.”

All the previous reblogs with commentary being in 2019 is fucking haunting.