Would You Like a Cup of Tea?

The gay internet just informed me that Chuck Palahniuk is a big homosexual. Huh, that doesn't make me like his books any better since they were obviously written by the worst computer program ever. (C:\violence+pop culture trivia\more trivia\"it was her brother all along!"\trivia) But I know so many macho road kill eating boys who worship at the altar of Tyler Durden that I can't help but think, "what a good prank."
Chuck P earned a reluctant place in my heart with his first prank, where people kept fainting during a reading of one particular story. Cara finally found a copy and the first line read: "Hold your breath while I read this story".

# posted by leah @ 12:02 AM 3 comments

OMG, Internet, I am so high and all I want to do is talk like I'm in the SLA. Death to bourgois parasites that sucks on the blood of the people! My name is Floofypants and I am a general in the revolutionary army! Boy, it's easy to make general when there's only like, ten of you.
I'm totally starting my own revolutionary peoples' army; just me and the cats. Turtle can be a corporal and Charlie, who is named after the Viet Cong* but is a little bit retarded can be a PFC.


*this is actually true.

My roomates were discussing 9/11 conspiracy theories and how it makes so much sense to them that George Bush orchestrated, with the help of the CIA, the entire hijacking. I went upstairs to help my more sensible roomates crumple dried catnip so avoid pounding the table and shouting.
I love the roomates and I'm not a shouting, conflict loving person. But I'm finding irrationality so frustrating these days. I don't believe in feeling realities, heart math, that tobacco is good for you, that I have too much metal in my chi or that the CIA controls Al Quaeda and I am so damn annoyed these days by people who do.
It's living in George Bush's America that's doing it to me. It's bad enough listening to left-wingers talk about how their new doctor discovered their allergy to wheat by making them touch a bagel. But then I read the newspaper and learn about the creationism themed amusement park and how George Bush's gut told him all about the WMDs and whole thing starts to feel more sinister.
What kind of society is this that's decided that facts are boring and square? I never used to be so dogmatic about the scientific method or iambic pentameter but now I feel like they are under attack by lazy people who haven't the intellectual energy to actually educate themselves. I don't want to spend my whole life being set up by sixteen year olds who read a couple Herman Hesse books and now think they know the secret of the universe or living under a baptist Taliban of gut-trusting cowboys.
In fact, it's all starting to seem like a conspiracy. Arggggh!

My mom has returned to the world of the internet by popular demand. Monday night I spent the night at her house and we watched the Patty Hearst documentary. God, I feel like such an amature left-wing militant compared those teenage wackjobs. It had never previously occured to me how great it would be to protest the Iraq war by brainwashing Paris Hilton. Sadly, the roomates feel the same way about bringing a scantily clad socialite into our house as they felt about me adopting five overweight cats.
Oh boy, oh boy is left-wing rhetoric embarrassing. Listening to twenty-something white girls say shit like "death to the bloodsucking pigs" and other mixed-metaphors made me renew my vow to avoid to stupid anarchist phrases and replace with actual English words.
While listening to Bankrobber Patty's Poignant tribute to the dead SLA members by mom began a voice over replacing them with the names and descriptions of my housemates, "Megan, who was a gymnatistics teacher.....Jesse who had turkeys and loved a good blunt..."
Thanks mom.

I've been reminded of the Humane Society and how much I love to go there so let me share this story:
When going with my sister to adopt her cat* I saw an old lady and someone who obviously her bored son and grandson come in wheeling a child's red wagon full of enormously fat grey cats. I think there were between four and six but they were all the same color and their stomachs sort of oozed into one silly-putty like pile of cat so I can't be sure. The old lady had to give up her cats to go a nursing home and she was crying, not hysterically but heart brokenly as she waved goodbye to them. My heart went so out to her. What bastard children would force a woman to give up her pets, so beloved they are morbidly obese, to cart her off to a home. I decided I hated the woman's children and which them horrible lives.
I was also reading the sign above the cat room that explained the fees. It went something like,
"Kittens: $80
Cats: $60
Cats Older than 7 years: $40
Cats that are companions: buy one get the next half off,
buy more than three get the fourth companion free"

I realized that, taking this sign to its logical conclusion, I could acquire over 150 pounds of cat for like twenty bucks. I almost did; I wanted to see that poor heartbroken woman's face when I stepped right up to be a home for her poor, chubby, hard to adopt kitties. I explained the plan to my sister and she said, voice of reason that she rarely is, "Your roomates will throw you out"

So here I am doing laundry at my mom's house and playing on the internet because the compound's internet is made of coconut shells. Now I've neglected the dryer cycle and am tardy to my weeding date with Stacey. Fortunatly, it's raining.
While in what my father in his phone call sunday night refered to as the City of Brotherly Love* I met Cara's new beau. He was in the thick of some frustrating internet scheme where he had to ask people on the internet questions and they would ask him questions. He had already given up on it by the time I realized that I had a question for him.
I never asked him if he ate garbage. I realized, in a stunning glow of knowledge, that I had simply assumed he did or was at least familiar, before his relationship with Cara, with garbage eating. I realized that I live in such a bubble these days that I conceptualize garbage eating as a "mainstream" activity.

I need to get out more, go to goth clubs or Republican parties.

J., who I am staying with, is about to receive $1,500 for two days work. What, you ask, is she doing that will pay her that amount of money in that amount of time?

Well, internet. J. will be arriving at an innocuous Baltimore clinic where she will be given grape juice and a powerful muscle relaxer ("if you get the placebo," said the nurse, "you will totally know") then put unconcious for 20 minutes.

Although the science of anesthesia and how the very legitimate risk of dying does concern J. (a qualifier for this study is having the shape of mouth that enables them to easiliy intubate you, yum) it's the drugs only concerned side effect that intrigues.

Evidently, it is not uncommon to people who take this drug to have an uncontrollable burning sensation in their butts.

I went to a show with CiderHouse* last night. There was rock and also roll but really, what the hell do I care about punk music. More importantly there were dogs. Two of the dogs were being repeatedly dressed in people clothes and not just t-shirts. No, thse people were creative. At one point in the night the pitbull was wearing daisy dukes and a tank-top and the "lab mix"** was wearing only a bra. A caveman looking man had also brought his dog, an elderly basset hound named Gunther.
I was undone. I completly ignored all the humans for a twenty minutes whild I squished the basset hound's ear and said things like, "you are the dog with not enough legs" and "you are the dog who is droopy". This is what I say when I am pleased.


*the house I'm staying at is named the Ciderhouse, "y'know because we rule". I realize that some of the internet may not exist in a sub-culture where people must name their houses but I don't understand how you weirdos can have conversations about whose home you are going to....now that I think about it's because normal people tend to only live 2 or maximum 3 to a house.

**The Michigan Humane Society uses the term lab mix to describe essentially any dog with four legs and a tail.

Right now I"m reading a book that I selected because I thought it would be a history of women pirates. It is sort of that but more a book of travel writing about a women visiting the various North Atlantic, God forsaken areas of the world and learning about how important the "fishgutting lassies" were to the dried haddock economies of Scandanavia. I was tricked, even though I'm enjoying the book. Travel writing was never a genre I really, y'know, got. I'm too pc, I guess. But anyway, reading this book is giving me anxiety about failng as a travel writer, although my destination, while sunnier than the Orkney Islands is much less exotic.
So I'm here in Baltimore. I rode down with the Eastern Shore housemates on their way to visit their moms.
The only real tourist attraction I wanted to experience while in Baltimore was the odwall dumpster and since we went last night I'm already counting this trip a success. My hosts have always believed that most activites are better with a soundtrack of Aqua and with dumpster diving I'm surprised how right they are. Having the cheerful fast beat of Barbie Girl in the background had every one digging furiously and we had a dance party in the parking lot once all the juice, smoothies and shakes were safely in the back of the mini-van.
This morning the housemates and I decided, really against our better judgement, to go to the local Infoshop for breakfast. We know anarchists; we don't want those people making us sandwiches. We are those people.
So we were frickin' shocked at the competence and respectability of the place. Not a damn thing about the decor suggested punk rock; it had customers and nobody glared at us. I even liked the books I saw on the shelves and food was tasty.

When I was in elementary school I responded to questions about my future career by saying I wanted to be the person who fed the seals at the aquarium.
In sixth grade I was asked to draw a picture of where I wanted to live when I grew up. Under the influence of my flaky aunt, who in her post-EST, pre-Guru Mai phase believed that the great plains would sink into a new ocean by 2010, I drew a commume on the shores of Colorado.
My brother, who is ten years older than me, used to send me comic books explaining things like the IRA and Communism when I was 10 or so. I love them. Since I was shy and we moved alot I played with barbies well into middle school. My barbies would be marxist guerrilas hiding in the mountains of my parents basement.
I read Laura Ingalls Wilder and used to play that I had my own farm. I secretly liked Prarie Home Companion all through my teen years.

What people never got about the Kids when we were a big media deal a few years back is what a wholesome bunch we all were and still are. We did a poll around the dinner table last night and every single member of my anti-government compound owned that "Ten Things Kids Can Do to Save the Earth" book and we all militantly cut up plastic soda bottle rings to keep from choking sea turtles. We were the kids who did fundraisers to Save the Rainforest and turned off the water while brushing our teeth.
I knew this guy, a trainhopping would-be eco-terrorist who looked like he belonged in a boy band and made really good hashbrowns. He spent last summer up tree with a guy named CrazyHippyMonkeyDude learning how to make tatto ink in prison. When he was a kid he was a boy scout. He earned tons of merit badges and went on hikes all through the mountains and redwoods of northern california.

I think teenager Leah wishes I had turned out a little cooler, with more makeup and a book deal. But God, elementary school Leah thinks I turned out exactly right.

I tried to make no-bake cookies using Cara's mom's recipe last night. I failed miserably. I burned the cocoa/sugar/oil mix and in the process burned my toes by spilling incredibly hot syrup on them. Now I'm a little bit screwed because all my shoes are uncomfortable on my burned toes and I'd go barefoot but alot of places I go in my everyday live are filled with poop.
I think I was being punished for trying to make vegan cookies with the blood of a slaughtered chicken still on my foot.

I tell the chickens that they will be reborn and have much happier lives, that they just have to be brave. I coo and them and try and soothe them before the cap'n slits their throats. I tell them that it's better anyway, because they were so miserable in those cages and that they were too mean to be let loose.
The Cap'n asked me after we'd hung up the corpses if I really believed in chicken heaven. I think I do, at least believe in a sense of restorative justice for animals, especially animals served so poorly by humanity. It wasn't the chickens fault they were fighting cocks and wanted to peck to death every male and rape every female they saw. It's not all those vicious pitbulls that the Humane Society euthanizes' fault that they been bred and trained to kill. The Universe should give humanity another chance or two, those chickens should be reborn as beloved house-cats or golden retrievers so they can see a better side of people.

Digging beds in the sidelot with Patrick meant I had to keep saying, "no! not there. That's where my cat is buried!" and then later, "no! that's my other cat!" It's emotionally difficult to arrange you garden around the graves of beloved pets.
It was harder up at the school where we stopped Paul just before he plowed right over the shallow grave of Snowball the cow's bones. It did not stop him, however from tilling up tons of well crushed cement, probably the foundation of a house.
This is one of the challenges of urban farming.
Andrew was pretty gleeful about it, even though it meant alot of work with the rake to mix up the cement with the compost. "what kind of soil do you have?" he said, immitating a conversation with other farmers, "sandy loam? loamy clay? No, no, concrete and house manure. That's what we have."
Andrew's pretty gleeful in general. He's always having epiphanies and making burritos. His scheme to get pregnant lesbians to spruce up the barnyard area is actually working. They recently painted the hen house bright red with poultry related terms in spanish and english written in yellow.

I've been neglecting to inform you internet how much my client's grandma is the bane of my existence. B (my client) and her mom, Sonia moved in with grandma just after New Years Eve, when, as an update for those of you who are new to this, Sonia's ex burned down their house. So for the past 4 months or so I have not only had to deal with being punched and kicked and peed on but I have to experience all that while a cruel, illiterate backwoods shrew from hell stood over me and screamed about how overpaid I am and how she suspects I steal from her.
Last week Sonia moved into a house that our collective owns but is in the slow process of selling. I was, to put it lightly, thrilled to imagine that I may never have to see grandma again. Unfortunatly, Sonia's moving process is slow and with B. wetting the bed so often she has to go to Grandma's to do laundry.
Today I almost beat the old hag to death with her own minitiure poodle. Poor B., the stress of listening to her grandmother emotionally abuse her mother tends to make her vomit. While I was hold B.'s head and handing her napkins, Grandma was speaking loudly to her friend about how she "may not be educated" but that for "ten friggin' dollars an hour" we are just making B. worse. "She never used to puke, it's those girls making her do things!"
Yeah...those girls. Did I mention that grandma never bothered to learn our names?

Okay, not exactly.
We were given some $200 dollars by the parents of our housemates who died in a carcrash 2 years ago to have a party. I never knew her and I met her mom once when she was up from Florida for a memorial party so I can't really reveal to the internet why they gave us this money except that they are obviously nice people.
So we had a party with a keg of microbrewed beer and bbq-ed deer. I did not eat the deer but I had to put that fact in here for rhyming purposes, duh. Since I'm old and square I went to bed by midnight, waking up every few hours to worry that the giant bonfire outside my window was going to spread out of control and kill me.
This morning someone was curled up next to the fire pit, sleeping peacefully despite it being noon and us living on a busy street. I was informed by Erin that not long after I went to bed Mr. Passed-Out had a brief moment of notoriety as Mr. Naked, stripping off all his clothes and prancing around the bonfire v. intouch with his pre-civilized self. Gah.
We had decided two weeks ago to ban drunken nakedness from our house parties but this dipshit didn't get the memo. So we gathered up a band of our tamest chickens and put them all around Mr. Naked's sleeping form.

I'm sorry this story doesn't have a dramatic ending. Mr. Naked slept on; the chickens got bored and started to eat worms, and I went off to celebrate Mother's Day.

They are in the process of closing the college that I'm in the process of applying to. ug. It's not as bad as it sounds; the clases and faculty and degree will all be the same but the college is being absorbed into the regular graduate school. It's a bummer because after going to a tiny rural school, I was hoping that a smaller college within a large public university would make the transition. Besides, it was the College of Urban Labor and Metropolitan Affairs, how lefty is that? It even has/had its own library called the Walter Reuther library.
In other bummers, I put on tons of sunscreen to protect my frail, northern european self from the cruel early spring sun. I neglect, and how embarrassing is this, the skin on my but that was exposed while I bent down planting cabbages for two hours. I have a frickin' plumber tan!
In other hilarities: While putting the finishing touches on the rabbit hutch I realized I'd left my staple gun in the barn. I walked in through the front door of the barn and was greeted with the umistakable smell mix of articificial strawberry flavor and marijuana and the sight of several student scurrying away. Now, I have no actual authority at the school so I couldn't have made them stop smoking strawberry blunts in the barn during lunch if I wanted to. I've made a note to jingle my keys loudly and maybe fall down a little before entering the barn in the future. It shouldn't be too hard. I fall down pretty frequently and my keys jingle on my way down.

Bunnies Bunnies Bunnies Bunnies Bunnies Bunnies
Bunnies Bunnies Bunnies Bunnies Bunnies Bunnies
Bunnies Bunnies Bunnies Bunnies Bunnies Bunnies
BUNNIES!

The bunnies are so cute. The girl bunny is about the size and shape of basketball made entirely of soft fuzziness; you really have to dig down to find the parts of her that are actually her to pick-up. Soon I will post pictures of the bunnies so that you too, internet, can marvel at their adorableness.

I was going somewhere else with this post, the theme of which was going to be that my roomate, Keith is very much like McGuyver. I'm pretty certain that as I type Keith is building a spinning wheel out bike parts and old crass records to turn our new bunnies fur into wooly mittens. So here I was thinking of an example of Keith's McGuyver-esque powers and I remembered his 4-needles-in-1 tattoing needle which allows for more sanitary tattoing practices and allowed me to have a Joyce Carol Oates inspired stick-and-poke tattoo in the matter of an hour.
It's more that Joyce Carol Oates created a more tattoo ready image; my tattoo is more an homage 20th century womens gothics like The Magic Toyshop and We Have Always Lived in the Castle and Foxfire which I've realized since I've just finished re-reading all three is my favorite sub-sub-genre of American literature.

stands for Bunny Day, which is today. I shouldn't even be typing this. I should be at Home Depot buying hardware wire, patronizing an evil corporate entity because I'm cheap and have a gift card which reminds of my big revelation last week that the fringe benefits of the non-profit industry do not come in comped champaigne dinners but in $5 home depot gift cards, kale transplants and watering cans. This would depress me into corporate America if I didn't really like kale and watering cans.
And the other major fringe benefits is free angora rabbits. I am so psyched internet, you have no idea. I will brush them and brush them until I have my own fuzzy majorette sweater and it will be awesome.

Yesterday, was T-day, stands for turkey day, not Thanksgiving. We drove up to 31 mile* to the baby turkey store and purchased six tiny birdies marked like pitbulls. I cuddled them the whole way home even though the cap'n kept saying I'd get pooped on. I did not get pooped on. ha!

* I'm only including this detail because while telling the story to Cara she said that knowing that there was a 31 mile road disrupted her world view. "What," she said, "is there a 6,000 mile road in California that only michigan residents can see?" I don't know the answer to this except to say that mile road numbers go up as you go farther north and they are all based on the 40th parrellel which is 8 mile. That's my fact for the day, but I could be wrong about it being the 40th parrellel, it may be the 45th.

Patrick's friends have a created an elaborate internet hoax involving Britney Spears' Oops I did it again. They have created a website claiming that Louis Armstrong is the original performing of the song and recorded a Louis Armstrong-esque version for download.
What astounds be about this is not the idea, nor that so many people believed them nor that people believed them even though the recording sounds alot like Cookie Monster. What astounds me is that by the time they went to all this effort they were surely no longer high.