Ye shall Noam me by my works.

Sometimes, in the wee hours before I am awake, my brain has me read imaginary texts. This morning, I was treated to a Noam Chomsky review--in free verse--of a sex worker's memoir. He highlighted the hypocrisy of the criminalization of sex work in the US in terms of the recent Supreme Court decision for same-sex marriage, condemning capitalism, the patriarchy, and fake Christian morality.

I only remember this little sarcastic snippet:

What the market has joined together
Let no law put asunder.

Chomsky on gay marriage (hahaha)

Seven Days of Catsmas

For various reasons, including the high cost of airfare and the high stress related to certain family members, I stayed in the relative vicinity of my New England home for the late-December holiday season this year. While it is unusual for me not to spend Christmas with my family of origin, it is not unprecedented. A few years ago, I visited a friend in Austin, TX, and spent my vacation drinking whiskey and watching peacocks wander around a park. But usually I am with one of my parents and at least a couple of siblings and some kind of brightly lit tree, etc.

This year I decided that rather than just sit around my house alone during my time off work I would make myself useful, so I asked around to see if anyone in the area needed house or pet sitting and if I could live in their house like it was my vacation home. It just seemed like a good way to take care of myself and also my friends and also their animal friends. And I got so many responses! In the end, I booked myself at four places with the intention of riding throughout the land, spreading joy and petting cats all along Rte. 5 or I-91 or whatever.

As I write this, I'm in the middle of Catsmas Tour 2014, in a rural VT schoolhouse with a wood stove and two furry friends chasing each other around. You have left me candy, eggnog, play-doh, vets' phone numbers, and more. I have scooped poop. I have listened to your Wu-Tang tapes. And I have written you a song. Good luck trying to sing it.

On the 7th day of Catsmas, you all gave to Cat Santa:
7 furry felines
6 Goose Island Festivity Ales (okay I got those myself)
5 logs a-burning
4 wifi passwords
3 hours waiting (for takeout from the Chinese restaurant on Christmas Eve)
2 cool keychains
and a fish on top of a fridge.

Also, this happened:

If Santa Claus (1959) has taught me anything, it's that visiting homes at Christmastime
means occasionally getting in prank fights with gay, joker-pants Satan.

Queers of the Stone Age, or My Dinner with Homo Erectus

At dinner tonight (a Women's Freedom Center fundraiser at Fireworks), I was complaining (like I do) about having to eat multiple times a day in order to maintain the high metabolism of a warm-blooded mammal. I am missing the evolutionary characteristic of thinking about food between meals. I should have been a snake. Then I could eat once a month for about five hours, get a big kick out of it, and go back to living my life.

I suggested that, in the stone ages when there were no restaurants, I would have died already. Another friend, who wears glasses, worried they would also be dead, having been eaten by something big. Then it dawned on me that prehistoric us might have teamed up and saved each other's lives. My cave-buddy would remind me to eat, as I looked out for danger.

We think it would go a little something like this:

Haiku for Paleolithic Cooperation

There's no glasses yet
Hold my hand and run with me
There's a bear coming

Many hands make light work. And sometimes dinner.

Confessions of an occasional cook

If I haven't already told you, dear reader (because I tell anyone who will listen), I belong to a group of people who comprise four households and who all take turns cooking dinner for each other. Four nights a week, I get a home-cooked meal delivered to my door. One night every other week, I cook for eight.