Would You Like a Cup of Tea?

My sister is coming home from rehab in two days. I haven't been back to my house in two days. I feel like this time without her is a vacation and I should spend every peaceful moment of it with my parents. It's been so nice to do things with my mom, to talk to her and go out to dinner without Gina blah-blah-blah heroin talking in the seat next to me or calling my mom's cell phone all indignant because she wants "gas money" or cigarettes or just being worried that she's going to be laying blue faced on the bed with her cat starting to eat her and The West Wing playing in the background.
I don't really think she's going to come home a better person; best case scenario she's the same old narcissistic bitch without the drug addiction. She's lost two years of her life; she's like an 18 year old in a 20 year old's body and I wouldn't have thought that there is a real difference in experience in those two years but I know from my own life how big the difference is. Sometime in those two years you learn a little humility, you starting hanging out with people who are smarter than you and who challenge you to grow intellectually, you start to imagine a future for yourself, however hazy, you make mistakes and you handle them, you get a lousy job that you hate and you save your money and buy yourself something nice.
She's done none of that. She's still an arrogant teenager who thinks she's too good for crappy jobs and who's never bought herself anything nice because all her money got spent on heroin. She's been a drug using hermit who's chased away all her friends and still has to be the smartest person in the room.
We're close to ages Helen and Cara were when they started being friends again. I envy the people I know who are close to their siblings; I've given up hope of ever having that kind of relationship with her.

Thursday I helped the Cap'n supervise a crew of thirty or so suburban high schoolers who came to the farm to fullfill some sort of community service (and not the court ordered kind) quota. The Cap'n got to give a brief introduction where he talked about the farm before we got to work. Speeches are not the Cap'n strong point and I'm used to, at this point, wincing my way through them, but his speech class seems to have done the trick and the Cap'n got through the whole talk without a single "shit", "fuck", or "goddamn".
These kids were great. They were determined to, so help them, do their part for their community! Even if it meant shoveling manure. In fact, they would seek us out to ask us if they could shovel more manure.
There's an evil, self-righteous part of my soul that wants to make fun of these kids for their $200 blonde highlights and tanning booth tans and their charmingly ambitious talk of college applications but I, too, am a child of the upper middle class so I got no right.
I'll you what though, I didn't do no damn community service. I knew then, as I seem to have forgotten now, that community service is for suckers and there are colleges that will accept anyone with a pulse. So why not sleep in on saturdays?

Speaking of which: I think I got into grad school. I think so even though the bureaucrats in the basement lost both my application and one of my reference letters. Actual quote from dude, "well, unless you letter shows up and says you're an ax murderer, I don't see a problem with you registering for class this fall".

Somehow this is kind of a letdown.

I was kidding, internet, honest. I know all the good reasons why voting is dumb. Please dont' kick me out of the party. I really like the party; there is almost always cake.
In fact, If one were to google my full name one would find a strident editorial about the evils of voting left over from my college newspapers days. But I'm not going to tell you my full name, internet. You'd probably just use it for credit card fraud and to find incriminating pictures of my clumily made leftist knitwear.

One

I think that recently the universe noticed that I've been wanting a boyfriend...and decided to play a little prank on me. My new boyfriend is the local schizophrenic, which wouldn't both me so much, except that he's spent the past ten years of so self-medicating...with crack. My boyfriend really wants to impress me and the best way he can think of is by showing off his wood splitting skills. I have this little policy that people on crack shouldn't really be swinging axes, at least in my presence. I also have this policy against making crack using, mentally unstable, boyfriend who are holding axes angry, so my solution is to be gracious and polite in my suggestions, "um boyfriend....that's really really sweet of you but I think we have enough wood to get us through the summer."
He's been taking my terror induced politeness as a sign that I return his affections. And around and around we go.

Two
I'm writing in our neighbor, B., for the mayoral election this fall, even though I exist in this wacky ideological world where we aren't supposed to vote*. B., as far as I can tell, retired young and spends his days wandering our neighborhood soft of like the homeless and crazy. Except, instead of gathering soda bottles and spare change he gathers and distributes neighborhood gossip.
Yesterday, while in the driveway painting tomato cages*, I heard B. yelling from the alley. I saw him holding onto his pants and dragging our stolen goat by some sort of leash. Getting closer, I realized that the leash was actually his belt, which is what necessitated him holding his pants up. Our goat had escaped, and was clip-clopping down the sidewalk when B. had the presence of mind to catch and return her.
After helping me secure the goat pen a little better, B. continued on his ramblings, only to return a few minutes later with one of our baby turkeys, which had also escaped and was standing in the middle of the side-street, peeping for all to see.

Three

The grounds of the compound are starting to get a little too Texas Chainsaw Massacre for my liking. Now that it's summer Keith seems to be moving onto the next stage in processing his racoon hide. This step seems to entail draping it on the picnic table like a warning to any raccoons who may be in the area. There is a large pole sitting on the table next to the skin which is causing me to worry that Keith's overall goal is to hang the skin from this pole like a creepy totem.
It doesn't, of course, help that there is a stolen goat bleeting for attention nearby.



*Voting is said to be unproductive and disempowering, unlike say, shouting at world leaders which is said, somehow, to be productive. Yeah, it doesn't make much sense to be either.
*I was painting tomato cages, not because I'm boujie or think the neighbors will care but only to prevent rust, okay?

One
Let's just get one thing straight, internet: I am as excited as shit about Land of the Dead and I am no longer ashamed to admit it.
When Cara and I were in college we had this gig driving literary dignities to and from the various airports. Budget be damned and in the face of the logic that they only needed one driver, we both got paid. Alone, each of us was a glorified taxi driver but together we were tag-team comedy gold. The dignitaries, we could only assume, couldn't get enough of us. "They knit poorly constructed hats and are strongly opposed to the policies of the International Monetary Fund, how charming." They would say at the hoity-toity functions they attended and the English department opened its coffers gladly.

So anway, we were assigned to drive the poet, Li-Young Lee, who is brilliant and thoughtful and who we desperatly wanted to impress. So desperatly that we couldn't think of a thing to say. Finally, about 30 minutes into the drive Li-Young Lee said, "so, do you like horror movies?" We sputtered something to suggest that we liked some but not the low-brow ones and won't you please like us Mr. Famous Poet .....untill he interupted us to say, "I love them, especially zombie movies".
It was one of those great ice-breaker moments and we spent the rest of the drive animatedly discussing how we all felt that the Nightmare on Elm Street series is vastly superior to Friday the Thirteenth.

TWO

Tracy was in town today so, in my limited expertise as tour guide took him to the cheapest Mexican restaurant I know of. The menu features, along with $1.25 tacos, an exotic array of meat options from deep friend pork tongue to beef head to tripe. I have only ever gone here with other vegetarians and it's been a small life dream of mine to see a meat eater I know order one of the unusual meats...you know, for humor. Tracy ordered burritos....with beef head!
Puns about 'good head' were, of course, made throughout the meal.

For reasons too complicated to explain, Megan and I had to steal a goat this friday.
Due to circumstances, again, too complicated to explain, Megan came home in a funk; she was faced with two possible courses of action: either break up with her boyfriend (which meant she would have to move out because no way in hell are either of them capable of living together after a breakup, which would in turn mean she would have to find a place to live...a place where she, her 'lab mix', bantam rooster, feather footed bantam hen and three baby chicks would all be able to live) or, kind-of, sort-of (and with my help) steal this goat.
It doesn't really, I feel, count as stealing when you call the owner of the goat in question to inform him that you are taking his goat. It may, possibly, count as stealing when you leave a message on the owner of the diputed goat's answering machine while loading the goat into the back of a Ford Focus*.
I should be blase about the whole thing; this is not the first, fifth or tenth time I have found myself participating in something of seriously dubious legality that involves livestock. But, this stuff just doesn't ever get old. Megan even got out of her funk. Normal people, we agreed, don't know what they are missing.
The goat was sad living alone in the chicken pen and started to baaaa pitifully. Obviously, (and if this is not obvious to you, gentle internet, you have not been following my life as thoroughly as you should) we had to bring her in the house. Somehow, Megan's mom had allowed Megan use of a digital camera for the weekend. We filled it's memory chip with a slideshow of absurdity: goat on couch, goat on Leah on couch, goat eating tea bag, goat in bathtub, goat going up stairs, goat going down stairs; goat vs. dog; exhausted goat collapsing on the couch with her head on the pillow.


*hatchback

My mother's been having fantasies about murdering my sister after discovering she's stolen around $4000 over the past three months. Once the fantasies got to the level of "and then I'll wrap the body in a tarp...." specificity derived from a devotion to Law And Order reruns it was time to pack the little sugar pie off to rehab (again).
It's like a great weight has been lifted off me, having her gone. Just being able to come and go from my parent's house without the fear of finding her corpse or not finding her corpse and leaving it for my mom to discover makes it like fucking Christmas.
This morning my darling was selecting her most fetching tank tops and prompting me to sing, to the tune of "Leaving on a Jetplane" a song about dressing sexy for a new rehab boyfriend. But later tonight she called my parents in a less chipper mood. I'd like to be able to say that we are all immune to her pity inducing cries but damn, nothing does pathetic like a narcissistic junkie and we decided that it didn't strictly violate the new tough-love standards to bring her her blankie...but she's not getting it until thursday.

So, I was listening to Jack White get interviewed on NPR today and y'know, there's just something about the flat atonal Detroit accent that just doesn't say "Celebrity". He can talk and talk about how he paraded poor Loretta Lynn around the Corridor (excuse me, Midtown) to show all his hipster friends but he still just sounds like some dude. And does it creep anybody else out that Meg White never, ever talks? Just "hee hee...giggle giggle".
I'm jealous of Baltimore. All I can do is complain about local celebrities; Baltimore's artistic culture got it a mention on the BBC. Evidently Baltimore cops are trying to combat the popular local DVD, "Stop Snitching" with their own, called, "Keep Talking". It makes me think of the anti-drug "rap videos" we had to watch in middle school sex ed.

I'm on strike, internet. I haven't done a goddamn thing in three days except bitch about the heat and loaf places. Yesterday I did my loafing at the house we are trying to sell, waiting for the city inspector to come and tell us that it is in no condition to be lived in by human beings and we should just burn it to the ground. I was not looking forward to my encounter with the city inspector who I imagine to be kind of like those robot assassin dudes in The Matrix but like, more slovenly.
I also wasn't looking forward to sitting at the house from 8 a.m to 4 p.m, the time frame within which the city inspector was likely to arrive. So Paul and I called them after much debate, Paul expressing both sides of it. "This is going to annoy them" He said, "But what do they expect. No reasonable human being wants to be told to wait between 8 and 4, of course we're going to call." The bureaucrat was only slightly annoyed but could give us no information.
The city inspetor showed up around 10:30, just as I started to get that greyhound-disassociative state of the truly bored. He was a sixty-something white guy in a ponytail, slovenly, but not bureaucrat I was expecting. I think he took pity on me and realized I was obviously too young and iresponsible and poorly dressed to be a genuine slumlord.
We didn't pass, duh, but we weren't aiming to pass. One step closer to getting rid of that money pit and when we're done I'm throwing a paryt.

We always forget how many brown hens we have which is the only justifiable reason that we didn't notice that one of them was hiding under the wheelchair ramp for at least 21 days. We noticed only when the peep peep of her six baby chicks. Of course all activity has to stop for at least an hour to give everyone a chance to coo, "baby chickens!" and get ferociously pecked by the mama.
The segues (er, gingers) into the topic of the day, which is Mandatory Dicking Around Time; concept named by Cara's high school friend to describe the time that must be alloted for in any trip for: losing your keys; finding your keys; getting a cup of cofee; running into somebody; having to find your wallet etc... Budgeting in the 20 minutes or so of Mandatory Dicking Around Time makes spacy but punctual people like myself much happier.
I have noticed lately the Mandatory Dicking Around Time at the compound is like, quadruple what it should be. You set a goal, you make a plan and then someone comes home with a funny story or the bees swarm or the cat falls through the ceiling and suddenly an hour has passed. Or if you are me last thursday, you make a plan and write a to-do list and then just before you leave for breakfast, Keith says, "how about we split that weed brownie my boss gave me? You forget the rule about grown-ups and the quality of weed they tend to have and 2o minutes later you are lying on your bed listening to the disembodied voice of your 7th grade DARE instructor. You realize then that you didn't have a seventh grade DARE instructor and that the voice is off your roomate, Patrick who is pranking you by speaking through the hole in your ceiling. When you finally get your brain back around night time the to-do list is their, mocking you.

What a good day.

I did nothing but pet kitties, lounge and file a fafsa. My fafsa came back with the following joyful announcement: Expected Family Contribution (EFC)= $0.

Does that mean I'll get a stipend to cover my living expenses? Oh boy, do I hope so and not only for practical reasons. The government is going to give me money that I am going to give to an anti-government compound? Is that how it works? oh yeah.

It's such a good idea. We could turn the basements into swimming pools and build our own individual huts out of the rubble. I got a little bit too drunk at the house meeting. It was one of those. You may not know about those house meetings, internet, because you may have a more civilized way of running your household. But you could be Mormon so you'll know exactly what I'm talking about; like when Wife #4 inappropriatly disciplined Wife #3's child and it's all passive agressive and then Wife #2 over-bleached your sacred underwear. Yeah, just like that.
I planted okra today, and tomatoes. My new gardening technique is unstoppable. I got so much done and still spent the entire afternoon lounging.