From April 3, 1982 on, my life was simple. No need to be troubled by goals or dreams or plans. It was my job to survive as best I could. I lived with Jimmy and our son in a tiny one-room Manhattan apartment for which I paid $360 a month rent. This was 60.8 percent of my private Long-Term Disability check. Haircuts, dental care, prenatal exams and amniocentesis were out.

In May my son grabbed my glasses and threw them to the floor. One lens cracked and the frame snapped in the middle. I dug out the five-year-old pair I'd kept for emergencies. They were the wrong prescription. If I had to go back to wearing them, I'd have headaches. Something was wrong with the sidepieces, too. When I bent over the glasses slipped off my nose and fell to the floor.

I tied them on with strong and went to look at myself in the mirror. My face stared back at me, pale and hollow-eyed. The old glasses, bent in the middle, formed a funny-looking arch over my nose, and my hair stuck out at odd angles from behind my ears.

Pregnant, on an all-starch diet, I was fatter than I'd ever been in my life. My wardrobe consisted of discarded men's and women's clothes scavenged from my building's trash. I looked like a shopping bag lady, as I slit the seams open with razor blades to accommodate my growing belly.

Under the circumstances, I'd have preferred to stay hidden away in my apartment. But I had responsibilities. My son needed baby food and vegetables and formula and orange juice and milk. For him, I tied on my glasses, put on my thongs and my scavenged clothes, and went out to apply for Food Stamps. I made seven trips between April and July, Four were to my local Food Stamps office. One was to get my Food Stamp Identification card. One was to a Food Stamps hearing. And finally, I traveled to an Adjustments office in Brooklyn.

Before each trip, I had to gather together a body of paperwork. In the first three months I compiled documents from a Food Stamps list three separate times. My Birth Certificate. A Lease dated during the last year or three rent bills in the same amount - unacceptable, canceled checks. Three months of Con Edison and New York Telephone bills - unacceptable, canceled checks. The Termination Letter from Social Security for me and my son. Proof of my son's residence - unacceptable, his birth certificate, Social Security card, or a vaccination card from a private doctor. Three months of Bank Statements. A letter from my private Insurance Company, detailing my benefits. A copy of my Insurance Booklet and Insurance Card.

I had to make the first four trips - one each in April, May, June and July - because my insurance company's benefits were variable during these months. In April, nothing. In May $150. In June, when the Methodists notified me there was still an overpayment, $425. In July and thereafter, $592.

Although I had a letter to that effect, as long as I got checks in varying amounts I had to make separate visits and file separate applications month by month. Each time I had to bring in all the documents listed. Each visit took a minimum of three hours.

After a while I learned the ropes. I kept my paperwork organized, and brought along a paperback. Yet even here I was privileged, because I could leave my son with Jimmy. In every visit to Food Stamps, I saw the women who couldn't. Babies cried or crawled through the dust and dirt of the office floor. Bored or hungry children waited hours with their mothers, often to find out that some all-important piece of paper was missing and they had to go back home and start again.

How easy it would have been to set aside a little play area, to offer milk or juice and cookies or even books or used toys to make these hours bearable for the children. Instead, harried mothers sat shushing them, while childless applicants and workers stared at them disapprovingly.

"Let them scream," I thought. "Let them scream as loudly as they want to! If I could get away with it I'd scream myself." But after a while I became numb to the desperation going on around me, and buried my nose in my paperback to shut the children and the office out.

Six weeks after my first application trip, I received an emergency allotment with a notice that my regular Food Stamps benefit would be $10 a month. But before I could get it, I had to get a Food Stamp Identification Card.

I was sent to a midtown building. There I spent several hours walking along a line which wound from window to window, putting my signature in three or four places on various cards and forms. Finally, I was admitted to the photo room, where it turned out one of the clerks had neglected to sign a paper. I was told to go back to that window and start again.

When I received my Food Stamp Identification Card in the mail, the picture it bore was even worse than the image I'd seen in my mirror. This woman looked a good ten years older than I was. Her face was slack with exhaustion. Her eyes were glazed and unfocused, as if she were staring into an open coffin. How much of my life had I traded in for that $10 a month?

Eventually a packet arrived in the mail, telling me how much the bank's Food Stamp computers would dispense me for the "non-regular" months when I'd received variable payments. Work sheets were included. Looking them over I saw that - after all the required documentation - Food Stamps used a Standard Deduction sheet for rent, utilities, etc. I also noted that, although my Long-Term Disability Insurance carrier's letter clearly stated that I received no benefits at all during April, that month had mysteriously disappeared from Food Stamps calculations.

My Long-Term Disability company considered a check mailed to me at the end of a month to be benefits for the month it was mailed in. In other words, the check I got on June 1 was listed as benefits for May. Belatedly, I realized that my Social Security benefits were handled the same way.

My LongTerm Disability checks were from out of state, and my bank took eight business days to cash them. I wrote my old boss at the Methodist Church to ask if the Board would have its bank cash the checks for me. She sent me a reply that said the Methodist Legal Division informed her they had "no legal obligation" to assist me. Still, Food Stamps insisted that money I couldn't lay my hands on until June 12 was actually available for me to live on during May.

I was confused when I first went to Food Stamps. I didn't understand that everyone was paying me a month behind. I stated that I received full Social Security benefits in March. The worker wrote down. Then she credited my May Long-Term Disability check to April, with the result that the month in which I received no money simply dropped out of their calculations.

How much this inconsistency cost me wasn't clear. In addition to the dispute over which month my checks were credited for, someone had made an arithmetical error in either April or May. In April - when Food Stamps listed my income as $150 - I was allotted $38 worth of stamps. In May - when Food Stamps listed my income as $425 - my Food Stamp allotment almost doubled.

Putting together these discrepancies, I requested a Food Stamps review. This "fair hearing" was eventually conducted in a judicial office downtown. Again, I faced an Administrative Law Judge. This time he wore a business suit and sat at a rickety wooden table. I sat across from him, next to the Food Stamps representative. She was a bored young woman who came to state that my benefits had been figured correctly, and Food Stamps calculations could not be changed. I had to call the arithmetical error to her attention three times before she consented to look over the work sheets. Then, it was only to see if Food Stamps had overpaid me, so my future benefits could be reduced.

The Administrative Law Judge stated his only role in these proceedings was to tape-record them for the Food Stamps Central Office in Albany. He took a few notes and wrote down all the figures again. I repeated that my benefits had been figured in two different ways with the result that I'd received less than I would have if they'd been figured consistently. And then, of course, there was the error. Or was it Food Stamps policy to award me more stamps as my income went up? He replied these issues were for the Hearing Section in Albany to decide. Then, turning off his tape recorder, he said "This hearing is closed."

Eventually I received a decision from Albany. I won my "fair hearing" because the Food Stamps Representative failed to offer any evidence. I was told to go to an adjustment office in Brooklyn, present all my documentation from the three-month period in question, and have my benefits recomputed.

The Brooklyn trip took me a full day. The new Food Stamps Representative refused to listen to my explanation of the original problem or to look at my papers. Instead, she photocopied everything for future work on my case. I knew she'd make the identical mistake all over again, and I was right. However, in computing my benefits for that three-month period, she failed to realize I'd already received some Food Stamps for the months in question. The two errors canceled themselves out, and I received virtually the correct Food Stamps allotment.

I was finally plugged into the Food Stamps system, and only had to renew my application every three months. As time went on, I was glad I'd made the effort. An increase in Food Stamp allotments and the birth of my second child eventually raised my allowance to $85 a month.

I got through the system because I was persistent about trying to understand the paperwork it sent me. Also, because I wasn't afraid to ask for and attend a hearing. Also, because I had a rudimentary knowledge of Accounting. I couldn't imagine how many qualified applicants fell by the wayside. It must be tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, nationwide.

Later, I read in the paper that President Reagan was upping the requirements for Food Stamps. The program, he explained, was getting too costly. Lax standards were allowing people who were not "truly needy" to collect benefits.

When my benefit checks stopped in April of 1982, I called the City Council President's office for a legal referral. I was referred to Mr. Gianelli, the lawyer who "dumped" me. With no money and worse prospects, I moved on to Legal Aid. There I was assigned a paralegal, Mrs. Washington, who dealt with disability cases.

By mid-July, it was difficult to have any confidence in Mrs. Washington. After six visits to her office, each of them as time-consuming and frustrating as my trips to Food Stamps, she still didn't seem to know who I was or why I was there.

In mid-July I checked with my local Social Security office on the progress of my Reconsideration Appeal. A clerk told me there'd been a month-long delay in sending my medical file to the Determinations Office for reevaluation.

I made an appointment with Mrs. Washington to ask if we could file a protest, but she advised against it. She said it was a bad idea to try to make the Determinations Board come to a quick decision. "Listen, honey," she said, "Don't worry too much about this Reconsideration. The Determinations Board don't even read the stuff you send them, half the time."

I knew it was true. My personal life was in a shambles, but nothing legally significant had happened from the system's point of view. I was just being processed through the first stage of a paperwork "review." Never mind that my future depended on the outcome. There was nothing to do but wait.

I waited, but that didn't mean I was calm or sane. I was in a state of shock after my trip to Welfare and the Emergency Services Office. First I was sure I'd lose everything. Then I was miraculously saved and allowed to return to my upper West Side existence. Now I felt I must do something, anything, to once again "take charge" of my own life.

As the summer wore on, I devoted myself to saving money. I found ever more creative ways to do without. My check for $592 arrived on the second of the month. By the tenth I mailed out over $500 in monthly bills. But, I eked out a little more by selling the last few valuable objects I owned, settling for a fraction of their worth.

Next, I turned my attention to finding ways to save on our grocery bills. At the end of July, I asked Jimmy to put up shelves just below the hallway ceiling. These sheleves were to hold bulk purchases I planned to make by cashing in on coupons. I had a large supply of coupons. I got a few by swapping at the local library, but the majority came from scavenging through the trash.

Most of our neighbors were business people. They didn't think about the coupon inserts in the Sunday Times. They threw them out in sheets, and I was grateful. These coupons were the cornerstone of my new financial plan.

A week after the shelves went up, a supermarket in my neighborhood gave double coupons. I invested heavily in sale items. Toothpaste, Coffee, Detergent, Toilet Paper, and a year's supply of Raisin Bran. As Jimmy piled these packages on our shelves, I could barely contain my excitement. You see? One could manage to keep the amenities if one worked hard.

Now as I stood at the checkout counter, comparing the required number of products and product size against my meticulous list, I took satisfaction in being both scrupulous and exact. I might look odd as I handed the cashier my sheaf of coupons, but when she checked them over, she'd see that I was honest.

But as the weeks dragged on, I began to occasionally sneak things by. "After all," I told myself, "why not? Everyone else does."

In mid-August, I saved $1.00 on a pound of Ricotta Cheese. I had a 50 cent coupon good on the three-pound size. The store was giving double coupons. The cashier was indifferent, so I managed to buy the one-pound size for only 79 cents.

I came up in the elevator humming, holding the Ricotta Cheese aloft in my arms. Earlier that day I found a way to tie a folded cardboard box to the legs on one side of my table, thus preventing my son from crawling through into the area where Jimmy kept his dangerous stuff. I also received a coupon worth $2.00 in the mail. And finally, I found a penny in the elevator.

That night - as I sat down to a large bowl of Raisin Bran - I caught myself thinking with satisfaction, "It's been a good day, a successful day."

By my thirty-sixth birthday in August 1982, I was four months pregnant and almost as crazy as Jimmy. He whiled away his time playing the part of expectant father. He proudly showed off my stomach to friends and family as I stood smiling helplessly under their gaze, pretending I was "glowing." It was a closed-mouth smile. I'd been due for my regular teeth cleaning in May.

Every weekend, Dan came over and sat as pleasantly as ever amid the rubble of our lives. He took continual pictures of our son, but I discarded many of them later when I saw the backgrounds behind him. Dangling electric cords, piles of newspapers, stained venetian blinds. And - mixed in among our possessions - Jimmy's current obsession -- pets.

Jimmy had a reputation as an amateur veterinarian. Many of the animals and birds friends brought to him for treatment died. Others were eventually released. But now Jimmy began to "collect" animals, and to attempt to breed them.

It started with the tadpoles I helped him catch in Central Park when I was eight months pregnant with our son. I slid down the muddy bank, net in hand, determined to share this experience with him. Together we caught a dozen tadpoles. All of them survived. Jimmy spent the last week of my first pregnancy constructing an enormous Plexiglas tank for them to live in when they became frogs. Amazingly, all of them did. Not tiny little frogs like tree frogs, but bullfrogs. Many of them were larger than my hand.

To feed them, Jimmy bought crickets, and sometimes worms. Worms could be dug from the park at certain times of year, but an attempt he made to breed them failed dismally, leaving a rotting stench in one of his dresser drawers for better than a month. The crickets could be bred. He soon he had three glass tanks full of crickets at various stages of development. These cricket tanks didn't smell too good either, but the crickets made a pretty sound. Inevitably a few got out, and soon ours was the only apartment in Manhattan that had crickets instead of cockroaches.

When the frogs were still tadpoles, Jimmy bought some catfish to clean their water. No longer useful for this purpose, the catfish and their tank remained. Over the months, Jimmy experimented with adding other kinds of fish, always with varying success rates. Some of these could, if successfully bred, be used to feed our female Eastern Box Turtle. She took up residence after she survived being run over by a friend's car. Her tank was enormous, and her eating tastes very definite. Her favorite food was crickets, although we had to rip their legs off first. She was too slow to catch them otherwise.

Jimmy also had a black dward rabbit, who spent most of his time with his nose pressed up against the bars of his wire cage. And finally, there was Melody. She was a deaf long-haired white kitten, who had fun chasing whatever crickets got loose,.

Jimmy and I argued about this menagerie, about his methods of taking care of them, and the space they took in the apartment. Then there was the Gecko lizard Jimmy was afraid of. I tried to clean his cage three weeks after he arrived, only to have him bite my finger and refuse to let go. Resisting an urge to dash the creature's brains out against the glass wall of his tank, I stood screaming while Jimmy pried his jaws loose as blood poured down my hand. This time I won the "inappropriate" pet argument, and shortly another sucker came to take him home.

` But there were the cricket tanks, always dirty and now infested with a parasite which slaughtered them and upped the stench. The fish tank, so dirty you couldn't even see the goldfish when he put them in. The turtle tank, with its festering pool. The rabbit sitting helplessly in his urine. The cat, whom I was always protecting from Jimmy. He beat her every time she climbed on top of one of the piles he'd made of his things, explaining this was "dominance training."

All of the supplies to care for these pets cost money, money from Jimmy's pocket but food out of our collective mouths. But what could I say, and what was the point of arguing? Without some kind of "project" to excite him, Jimmy became depressed and didn't do well. If I wanted him to make $20 to contribute to the family, I had to close my eyes and let him spend $50 on his "pets" first.

Soon, the frogs began to starve. Jimmy kept cutting back on the crickets, saying it was good for them not to get too fat. A few of them got so thin the biggest one ate them. Still - in his telephone conversations with friends - Jimmy waxed ecstatic about his animal kingdom discoveries. He spoke knowledgeably about his experience in caring for box turtles, bullfrogs, crickets, catfish, lizards, and rabbits.

I threatened to leave him unless he left Melody the cat to me. Soon she slept with me, nestled purring against my stomach for hours on end. On the rare evenings Jimmy went out to play backgammon, I lay on our loft bed petting Melody and considered the chaos of our lives.

How was I going to pull this off, hold this together? But the answer always came to me - somehow I must. I must because sometimes Jimmy kept us from starving. I must because he watched the baby when I went to Food Stamps or to visit Mrs. Washington. Without him, I probably wouldn't make it.

I must because I'd already answered the question "Which would you rather do, live with a crazy man or lose your children?"

The problem was, this crazy man was smart enough to know it. He had the upper hand now. He could do whatever he liked. By mid-July, he dropped out of couples counseling. No need to make hard changes any more. I was stuck, and he knew it. I had to accept him, exactly as he was.

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