At the Asian market on Route 27, I like to stock up on staples. This is accomplished by the peculiar process of walking slowly up and down the aisles playing a rousing game of Guess The Contents Of This Interesting Can! I’ve had some spectacular successes and failures. I define successes as those cans the contents of which I praise for their utter deliciousness. I define failure as anything I eat and try to chase down with Chlorox. So. What’s in this can, then?

I don’t know. But it’s tasty! It’s braised gluten, flavored to taste like favorite foods. The texture reminds me of boiled chicken. The curry’s okay but a little greasy and the sauce is curiously gritty. My assessment is much the same as this gentle reviewer’s.

I prefer the mock duck, and I am not alone in my enthusiasm for this product. A vegan internet grocery store called Food Fight! says:

Dude, you TOTALLY need a can of fake duck.

Dude! I’ve totally got three, but what I can’t find is nutrition facts for what’s in them. Yes, this the second or third time since we all got hardwired to the net that I’ve gone looking for gluten data. I mean, toast naan or pita, slather it with tamarind chutney and tear up some romaine, then slice pieces of fake duck on top and devour this delicious sandwich! But, and I have asked myself this question many times in a startling variety of exciting circumstances, what am I eating?

Does this contain protein? Is it an aid to digestion? Should I be pairing it with anything in particular to make it more nutritious, or should I avoid pairing it with things like eggplant that, while yummy, provide a glamorous diner with little in the way of substance? A gal needs to know! I can’t find anything, and too often, with vegetarians and vegetarian products, I have or hear this conversation:

Tata: Fantastic, what is it?
Vegan: It doesn’t have any animal products at all.
Tata: That’s great. They’re all out. What’s in?
Vegan: See right here, it’s made by a collective of formerly starving women and canned by deserving endangered species.
Tata: Awesome. I clap my cloven hooves for them. How do I add this to a sensible diet?
Vegan: Fry it, saute it, boil it, serve it raw.
Tata: I don’t mean to be testy but if I were trapped on a desert island with nothing but this product and an endless supply of zinfandel, what would kill me first?
Vegan: Well, obviously the sommelier. Geez! Zinfandel?

…so: vegetables, some other protein source like rice and beans, maybe some cheese. I’m not a vegetarian; I’d like to know if adding this to chicken stew, say, means I should eschew starches like dumplings. Is making a sandwich like breading my bread?

Miss Sasha has been calling me two and three times a day for over a week.

Miss Sasha: Mommy! My in-laws have been here twenty-four hours and I already have stories to tell you.
Tata: Sweetheart, you’re not really good at this yet. The people you’re talking about are standing right next to you, aren’t they? Scream, “OH MY VAGINA!” and call me from your bathroom.
Miss Sasha: We just came back from New Orleans and all Mr. Sasha’s father can say is, “…fucking unbelievable…”
Tata: Does he have any actual thoughts or – this is a stretch – feelings?
Miss Sasha: Not yet. Or anytime soon. He paces around grumbling, “…fucking unbelievable…”

She called to ask about my grandmother’s holiday menus. She called to ask how my grandmother composed salads. She called half-way through Thanksgiving dinner to describe appetizers in minute detail. I could tell she was pleased and perplexed because she didn’t realize she was shouting at the tops of her delightful lungs. As the days of the visit passed, the calls became more bizarre.

Miss Sasha: What are you doing?
Tata: Uh – nothing!
Miss Sasha: You’re grounded, young lady. We’re going out to a bar. I’ll call you when we get thrown out. Love you!
Tata: Love you, sweetie! Say hi to the bouncers!

I like Mr. Sasha, and hope he continues to like my delicate daughter a whole bunch because the prospect of her divorcing him and moving back to New Jersey fills me with adorable terror. So in a way, it’s her or me.

Tata: Darling, whatever you do, don’t poison your terrible in-laws.
Miss Sasha: Why?
Tata: I must destroy my archenemy, the Mother of the Groom, myself. A gal can’t outsource that!
Miss Sasha: Last night, we were in a bar and on the TV was that Michael Richards thing and my father-in-law was good and drunk and he shouted, “Whaddya want, you’re Black!” and the whole bar went silent. That was when I noticed that bar was wall-to-wall white people.
Tata: Well, except for your husband, your mother-in-law and, technically, you.
Miss Sasha: I’m just sayin’.

It’s ON.

I. On Saturday afternoon, I walked home from the family store in twilight as golden as November twilight gets. The persistent honking of geese in formation caught my attention, and who knows why because after the age of six, we ignore such things. Honk! Honk! Honk! I looked up, and the flock was flying toward me from my left. I looked around for the sun and found it to my right. West was to my right, which meant the geese were flying north. A man I’ve never seen before was walking on the sidewalk across the street. “Look! The geese are flying the wrong way!”

Man: What? Are you crazy? Those geese are flying south.
Tata: That’s west, so that way is north.

He couldn’t really walk away from me fast enough.

II. The other day, I read a post on Sadly, No! that so filled me with Word Glee I promptly forgot where I’d seen it or what it was about even as I was skipping around my apartment, singing Gavin’s words. Last night, I found it again.

Alas, once you let yourself get behind in your Powerline reading, the stupidity starts piling up like a big, stupid closet full of stupefacting stupidness — such that when you finally open the door, it all crashes out on top of you like a roaring stupelanche.

A roaring stupelanche! The rest of the post makes Gavin my newest Heart’s Delight, and the footnote is keenly refrainy. When I get a minute, I will probably write him a breathless fan letter. I want to watch him use more words. Because I like those.

III. My co-worker Jennifer practices the fine art of good nutrition. This would not ordinarily require comment except half the office goes cross-eyed at 11:30 every morning when Jennifer digs her baby carrots out of the fridge for a snack. The crunching of every bite is mildly annoying. The loud, deliberate SNAP! of each bite is making the rest of us positively homicidal. Will my office see the world’s first vegetable-based mob violence? And does one use a salad fork or tongs?

Dear Morgan,

How are you? I hear that you’re well. Last night, I saw your girlfriend at Siobhan’s birthday dinner. I’ve known the lovely Kitty for years and positively adore her. I wish the two of you nothing but happiness, and mean that with my whole black heart.

This winter, I’ve taken up baking bread. When one is up to her elbows in whole wheat flour, a person gets to thinking, which as you may recall was always my strongest suit – unless the topic was you. On 28 September, it was 10 years ago that our huge art project and our daily involvement in each other’s lives ended. Ten years. We used to have such exciting conversations.

Tata: I wish I were in love with the grownup you’ll be in ten years.
Morgan: Fuck you! We don’t love each other now.

Yes, our stormy one-year relationship was a tsunami descending on a tiny matchstick fishing village. I don’t miss living with a man who slept with my friends and neighbors, and seldom miss being a raging, single-minded harpy with an ambition problem. I would have done anything to keep you, which led to hilarious antics, like fights in the middle of the night on busy streets. I’m sure we both remember fondly the day we moved house and on the way you decided not to move in, or how you left me three times. And who can forget the kneeslapper that was your moving in and refusing to sleep with me? Oh, how we laughed when I slept with my exes in self-defense!

A person can discover a great deal about herself in the process of learning to bake bread. Before a few weeks ago, I did not have the patience to try it. Baking – especially for the beginner – requires a certain attention, a presence with the tasks at hand I could not have imagined possessing when we were together. I was consumed with making good art, making a name for myself, and making you love me enough to stay. One of the most instructive lessons of breadmaking is that skipping steps in the process leads to unpleasant results. The artwork we made was fantastic and I certainly made a name for myself, but there was no holding your attention, so ultimately, when I think of you, I feel like the lover I worshipped walked straight up to me and shot me in the chest. I couldn’t write anymore. I lost my home, my work, my memory, my health, my Self. From a distance, I’m sure this looked like just another BANG! and out popped a flag that said BANG! and so it’s funny when the clown falls over. But all I felt and feel when I think of you is a pointless, profound sense of my own failure, and what could be more uproarious than that?

Dad – you remember Dad – found me a recipe in the NYTimes for no-knead bread. In an amusing turn of events, after I couldn’t write anymore my hands quit working. I know! That’s an absolute riot! Anyway, if you’ll pardon the pun, kneading is fundamental but I can’t do it yet, so this recipe is a good place for me to start. A batch of this dough is proofing in my kitchen as I write. In half an hour, I’ll turn on the oven. Half an hour after that, I’ll turn out the dough into my Le Creuset dutch oven and bake it. Last week’s dough contained a tablespoon of garlic powder and a teaspoon of dry mustard. I felt it was too specific and lacked a metaphoric range. Today’s contains parsley and some basil. I have a lot of hope for today’s effort. A few weeks ago, Siobhan asked if you would mind not coming to the birthday dinner, and you said you didn’t. That was damned decent of you. Much of that preparation happened without me.

Tata: If you want Morgan and Kitty at your party, I don’t have to go. It’s okay.
Siobhan: Oh, no. I’m wearing a silver dress and a faux fur shrug. You will be there.
Tata: Oh.

Frankly, I’m tired now, bored with these struggles, and I don’t need to participate in them anymore. Most of my time is spent alone, and I prefer it that way. For years, I was out every night, on stage anywhere with a liquor license and dating everyone who could quote Trout Fishing In America. I don’t have a stake in that life anymore, and in this life, I have no competitors, which brings me back to last night. The dinner was going well. Siobhan was surrounded by admirers, the food was tasty; everyone brought presents made of booze and trimmed with marabou, and Mila was sitting next to the unsuspecting man she’ll sleep with for a weekend and he’ll be crushed for the next three years, so all was right with the world. Then Spooky walked up the Old Bay’s spiral staircase and across the dining room. After that terrible business you two got into years ago where everyone including me was wrong and no one was right, I felt a murderous rage every time I saw her, but that’s cooled to contempt lately.

I looked at Siobhan.

Siobhan looked at me.

We looked at each other. A long moment passed.

Siobhan said, “Sorry. I forgot.” This dinner was not about me, and everyone was all dressed up, so I said nothing. Spooky stayed on the far side of the room and mostly out of my line of sight. I didn’t have to look at this parasite so most of the evening was fine. I took the first ride across the bridge home because I’d walked to the Old Bay from where I live on the other side of the river. This morning, I called Siobhan to find out if she’d deliberately created a situation where Spooky and I would be in the same room together and Siobhan said she had not, but she was proud of the way I seemed to be moving on. I informed her that she was, hilariously, mistaken. Looking at Spooky is looking at you, only with that added piquancy of lying, stealing and friendly, oblivious betrayal.

The oven is heating, and I’ve come to the part of the recipe where I must pay close attention to what I’m doing. This is good news because Siobhan won’t have another conversation with you like the one where she asked you to do this nice thing for me and stay away. See, even when you try to treat me decently it gets fucked up somewhere along the line. I’ve told Siobhan it’s over, and as funny as it’s been to occasionally surprise the audience with yet another clowny public gunfight, I’m peeling off my clown nose and hitting the showers. The traveling circus is all yours, Morgan.

Go in peace, my old friend, but please keep going.

Our lives are so different, yours and mine. Sometimes I wonder if we can find the middle ground I am certain exists between us. Then I see this.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) – Enraged Shiites burned people to death, torched mosques and denounced Sunni leaders and the United States a day after a bloody assault on Sadr City, the Iraq capital’s Shiite bastion. That coordinated strike, which killed more than 200 and wounded more 250 Thursday, is considered the worst of the Iraq war, and Sunni militants are widely assumed to have carried it out. Witnesses said Shiite gunmen on Friday attacked two mosques with rocket-propelled grenades and burned two other Sunni mosques in the largely Shiite area of Hurriya in northwestern Baghdad. (Watch as all-out civil war threatens to overtake Iraq ) They reported people attacking Sunni houses with hand grenades and rocket-propelled grenades. Shiite militiamen are also said to have doused Sunnis with kerosene and burned them, and shot at other people. One witness reported at least five people were killed. An official with the Association of Muslim Scholars, a Sunni group, said many more were killed and wounded but could not confirm numbers.

This is a gently sanitized version of the story I read a few hours ago. In that version, CNN reported that six men were corralled. Kerosene was poured on them and they were set on fire. No matter what happens to me in this lifetime, no matter what I witness or hardship I endure, I hope nothing can rob me of my humanity and permit what’s left of me to do something this savage.

This is what we unleashed because our government was too stupid to realize that unlike in the US, where we can’t remember back two or three months, in the Middle East, grudges go back centuries. You cannot change that with rhetoric. It is simply the character of things in real life, and we must accept this.

Somewhere, in the expanse between us, where I have been saying for five years that we’re being stupid with millions of lives and where you’ve been saying we have to fight terrorism where we find it, lies the historical notion that nations choose their own governments. I don’t get to pick what happens in any country in the world, but current events remind us that you don’t, either.

Is it so hard to recognize that you are as powerless to influence world events as anyone else? Or as powerful?

Yesterday, we finished reading the Constitution and today I have off from both my jobs. When I used to work in food service, I worked every holiday. Once, I worked a full shift in a nursing home kitchen on Easter Sunday, went home to find my family, such as it was then, gathered around the table, then I washed the dishes. Food service, I found, was not for me, what with the stupid hours, endless personal demands, and the requisite superhuman stamina. I could use a nap, just thinking about it. Instead, I got up this morning with a short list of tasks I wanted to accomplish. This is not what you expected to read, huh?

I have made a career of delivering unexpected speeches.

Tata: Hey! Remember when I essentially ran away from home a year ago?
Mom: Vividly.
Tata: Wanna meet your granddaughter?

And –

Tata: My ex-husband is getting re-married and I’m so happy!
Mathilde: Did you hit your head? Let me take your temperature!
Tata: I’ll be a “first wife”! It’s not every day I get new adjectives!
Mathilde: You’re supposed to be jealous. Why aren’t you jealous?
Tata: Is that really a rule? What if I like them and want them to be happy?

And –

About 30 Different People: Got plans for Thanksgiving?
Tata: Oooh, I do! I’m going to order take-out Chinese duck, lock my door and refuse to answer the phone! I can’t can’t can’t wait!
About 30 Different People: GASP! What happened? Did your family finally hear something you said and throw you out?
Tata: Not at all! Last year, my sister Daria lured me out of my house by giving me a new car. This year, she offered me the spare set of keys. I said thank you and asked her to mail me some mashed potatoes.
About 30 Different People: Are you…are you sure?
Tata: Sure? I’m ecstatic!

After a delightful breakfast that in another life constituted about one-third of a pupu platter and fresh coffee, I did two loads of laundry. This probably sounds like a tremendous April-fresh drag to anyone who does the household washing for a household larger than mine, but it wasn’t. I took down the sheers in my living room and threw them in the washer. I put up my late grandmother’s glamorous drapes. Nobody knows how long ago Edith bought the drapes but a sure sign that they’ve aged well is that the dry cleaner both didn’t want to clean them and was thrilled with his results. Let’s say they’re about forty years old, and a gentle metallic green found exclusively in the living rooms of Italians. The drapes block drafts and light. My living room is now a warm cave. The sheers are hanging in my bedroom. My bedroom floor was vacuumed with extreme prejudice.

I could make a list of things for which I am thankful but if you read PIC on any kind of regular basis you already know or can guess. Let me not detain you. Over the past week, several of my little projects came to fruition and passed into history along with summer, prompting the need for drapes, and making room for new projects and possibly hibernation. A good think on what’s next is required. I am open to ideas. What will you be doing this winter?

Tonight, Sharkey and I are going to see Jack Klugman and we’re bringing a phone book, in case he would like to sit in a chair and read it to us. A few years ago, we saw John Astin do a one-man Edgar Allen Poe showcase and we mewed like contented kittens. Good thing we’re both secure in our manhood.

Section 3. New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress.

The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular state.

Section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.

Last week, I heard three stories that took my breath away. I’m still looking for a way to describe these utterly outlandish occurrences without, you know, inspiring people who know where I live to show up wielding lead pipes, but at least one I might get away with since Daria gets lost easily, especially when she’s pissed. I never underestimate her propensity for hilarious violence. I once saw her throw her crutches down a long flight of stairs and hobble after a smartass girl to kick that poor girl’s ass. And though I did have lie down to laugh hard enough, that girl never said Boo! to Daria again.

Article V
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

I dunno. That article is kind of like telling your children to redecorate the guest bathroom and any old colors will be okay. You’re in for trouble, my friend!

Article VI
All debts contracted and engagements entered into, before the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

Yeah yeah, we’ll have the United States home by 11:30 and no, we will not at all have played Strip Twister with a gallon jug of Crisco on the beach. What’s that last thing, though? No religious test? I’m glad to hear that. And how long was the United States supposed to stay in that prom dress anyhow?

Article VII
The ratification of the conventions of nine states, shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the states so ratifying the same.

I hate to say it, but if you’ve been hanging out here since 30 September, you’ve read the Constitution.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Technorati tags: u.s. constitution, bill of rights,
bush, impeach bush, progressive.

Before I say anything else, let me just say I was not at all injured in any of the following antics, so please do not call the ASPCA. I am not an animal! I mean – of course, I’m an animal in a biological sense but that doesn’t mean I’m foregoing soup spoons and the cheese course to keep my paws off the table!

So I consulted anyone who would answer my email about what a 20-year-old Marine would want in a care package from a complete stranger. I assembled a shopping list and picked up bags of stuff. Siobhan and I sat in my living room Saturday night and talked about each little item – twice, in most cases because almost anything I picked up, I bought two. It was very exciting. I dumped shopping bags, divided things into His and Hers piles and sat between the piles. I looked back and forth between the piles. Siobhan got bored with my contemplation almost immediately and ordered sashimi to be delivered, which arrived really soon and was very delicious. No one was hurt in the shopping, surveying or the eating, as if these things were meant to be.

Section 2. The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.

No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.

This morning, I dragged shopping bags full of stuff to work. Actually, getting to the car was awfully exciting when I also had to put out trash and recycling and bring lunch. I always bring lunch. So it was not at all surprising that I forgot something. What was surprising was that what I forgot was to shut the passenger-side door, and that when I parked the car, the door was just resting gently against the car. Nothing had fallen out, nothing was missing, I still had all my fingers and toes. Look! A fucking miracle! Gleeful, I packed these following things into padded boxes addressed to My Marines.

Post-its
Ricola cough drops
Insoles
Notebook
moist towelettes
Deck of cards
Foot cream
Sour nerds
Floss
Instant macaroni & cheese
Body powder
Giant rubber bands
Pens
Tea bags, instant apple cider, cocoa
Nail clippers
Starburst
Gum
Lip balm
Cashews
Eye drops
hand sanitizer
moisturizer
lifesavers
beef jerky
Mrs. Dash lemon pepper
Bandaids
OB Tampons

Just for Her:
antiperspirant (I’d bought a six-pack at Costco for myself, so it was in the house.)
box of tampons

I learned a lot compiling these objects. For instance, I had no idea the technology of store brand macaroni and cheese had surpassed all common sense and gone instant. This suggests, from a cultural perspective, that people who do not know how to cook can ingest 350 empty calories almost before their brains have time to suggest a nutritious salad as a better meal option. Well, at least these kids are marching and suggestions about vegetables are made in the imperative.

Also, no matter what I saw in the stores, I had to think very hard about my own motives in choosing items to send. As I walked through the aisles, I asked myself why I was looking for certain items and why others didn’t interest me. Was I assuming my interest was the same as what theirs would be? No, I knew. Because of the age and generational differences between us, I forced myself to assume that what I would pick they would not, and vice versa. This was very exciting work for my brain. Further, my name appears nowhere on the packages and not on the notes I wrote them. My signature looks like a broken EKG. I wanted that package to be as close as it could be to coming from anyone in New Brunswick, and to that end I had to guard against Ego Creep. Every item in the shopping cart and eventually in the boxes took on enormous meaning when I started to think about it as the only package I might send. All things – my ego included – assumed ordinary proportions when taken as one package among others, and My Marines would get packages from their families that would be infinitely more important. Everything from me was simply extra. Of course, then I wished I’d boxed up a crate of snow globes and sock puppets because, you know, that would be funny. On the other hand, abdicating my position at the Center of the Universe however temporarily gave me a slight headache. Finally, I mailed the packages, which was gallingly expensive.

Poor Impulsives: our friends at Coalition of the Swilling inform us that more Marines need correspondents to selfishly apply possessive pronouns, i.e.: my and our. If I managed it, you can do it, and I recommend this exercise to anyone who’s feeling a little blue or isolated. You don’t have to spend a lot of money. You don’t have to wonder if you’re helping someone, because you are. It’s a quick project – zip, zip, zip! and you’re done. I hope some of you will make contact and send packages, and this brings me back to Me:

I am so sick to my stomach every time I see one of those God-forsaken yellow ribbon magnets I curse Tony Orlando, who – really – never did anything to Me. The same people who shout down dissenters with, “Support the troops, lowlife scum!” wouldn’t dream of lifting a hand as the Veterans’ Administration budget is cut, as the federal deficit – with which our future workforce must contend – mushrooms, and as the middle class is shredded. Time is not on our side. As a nation, we are repeating mistakes right and left that we will pay for for decades, but there’s one mistake we must not repeat. Soldiers returning from Vietnam were greeted with silence and shame, called terrible names and denied honor. Regardless of the mistakes our governing fathers make, let us not shame our children and in the process ourselves. Let us at least know we learned this desperately important something.

Technorati tags: u.s. constitution, bill of rights,
bush, impeach bush, progressive, shopping, my Marines.

Pondering meaning and effect and so forth is not easy when you are small and covered with fur, but even an aggressive Nairing won’t necessarily clarify things. I worry that my life’s acquired knowledge may sum up to “Don’t scratch that.” It won’t look great embroidered onto pillows my great-grandchildren will cherish, which causes me to wonder if my grandparents considered such things – for instance when Grandpa took Daria and me to Unberto’s, pointed to a magical spot and said, “That’s where Joey Gallo was murdered, girls. Let’s sit at the bar and get calamari.” If Grandpa hadn’t joined the Choir Invisible 28 years ago, we might’ve learned a great deal from him, like why this particular murder rated a lunchdate with his tiny granddaughters, and whether there were other New York City crime scenes where we might get a decent sandwich.

This morning, Dad emailed the family at large this holiday decorating idea. I personally can’t see myself making up one of the wire molds for only one use. These things take up so much room in the closets! But they’re reusable, too, and I grudgingly agreed these cornucopia molds will come in handy as hat forms in the time to come when we skip due process altogether and return to burning unpopular persons in the public square. Even I can’t argue with that kind of versatility!

Section 1. Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.

Section 2. The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.

No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.

This morning, Chuan appeared as if by magic in my cubicle doorway. Poof!

Chuan: Have ever sued anybody in small claims court?

I love this question! This is such a good question I’ve never asked anyone before but now must ask everyone. It is yet another thing I do not know, and I must!

Tata: Oooh, we’re asking personal questions! Okay, um, I feel a little unprepared. How about: On your last tax return, did you check the box that donates your refund to wildlife? Because they don’t have pockets –
Chuan: My former landlord isn’t exactly refusing to return my security deposit but they won’t give it to me, either.
Tata: While it was much more fun for me to ask pointless personal questions, I think you should phone the Housing Coalition in New Brunswick to get answers to real ones.

Oh snap! It’s like I learned something at last, though it surely wasn’t enough, because again today I visited New Jersey’s shining bureaucratic achievement Motor Vehicle Services for – what? – the third time this year, and for the third time I was told I was not adequately identifying myself. And now I want a cheeseburger. I can’t explain that. This time, I know something for absolutely certain: the individual screeners at the different offices are making up ID rules as it suits them, and I’m contemplating a complaint.

This is a very serious thing. It is a fact of life in New Jersey: Motor Vehicles will fuck with you. If you fuck with Motor Vehicles, you’d better be prepared to move out of state. I have to think this over a bit because – seriously – other than Manhattan or Provincetown, where am I going to move that pitchfork-wielding mobs won’t smell me from miles away?

Yesterday, Miss Sasha informed me of another serious thing I hadn’t heard before. Maybe it’s true, I don’t know. Mr. Sasha’s in the Air Force, so she’d certainly have better information than I do about All Things Care-Packagey, right? One thing they really need is OB Tampons, she said.

Tata: Even the boys?
Miss Sasha: Especially the boys. Tampons get stuffed into bullet wounds.
Tata: What? What are you talking about? Is that really a good idea?
Miss Sasha: Mommy –

All married and everything, she still calls me “Mommy.”

Miss Sasha: – it’s like in high school when wrestlers break their noses someone stuffs a tampon up there to stop the bleeding.
Tata: I will never look at The Rock and not wonder if he likes the plugs with plastic applicators.
Miss Sasha: And it’s even more important with bullet wounds to stop the bleeding really fast.
Tata: Okay, then. My Marines get the last tampons left over from before my hysterectomy because I’ll never need another one myself! Ha ha ha ha ha!
Miss Sasha: Bitch!

She calls me that, too.

Technorati tags: u.s. constitution, bill of rights,
bush, impeach bush, progressive, shopping, my Marines.

Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.

It’s amazes me that reading the Constitution has been for the most part a straight-forward exercise, and we’ve finished three of four sections. I’m thinking Mr. Scalia should drop and give us 20. I think we’ve earned those.

Meanwhile, back at Rancho Rococco, which is to say my happy one-bedroom apartment, I, which is to say I, am making up the shopping list for the mysterious figures I – again: I – think of as My Marines, one male and one female. Were it truly up to me, I’d mail them tickets home on Air Jamaica, but one doesn’t always get to choose the best gift options, and nowhere in the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog does one find a six-pack of Skillful MidEast Diplomats, which is what these kids truly need. Yesterday, I sent out an email to a handful of my favorite people, asking the musical question, “What should I send them? How shall I send them?” I got a few responses but for the most part, even my very favorite people do not at all want to talk about this, which is interesting but not surprising. Here’s what I’ve got so far.

notebook
Kleenex
beef jerky
eye drops
nail clippers
lip balm
gum
candy
pens
writing paper/envelopes
tea
instant coffee
instant foods
bungee cords/giant twist ties
pads
tampons
tweezers
socks
gloves
scarf
razors
bandaids
floss
magnets/wall hooks
bandana
foot care stuff
herbed salt
scotch/duct tape
unscented moisturizer
puzzle magazine
Post-Its
Rolling Stone/People/Ya got me, what?

I’d assume my male Marine doesn’t require tampons but one hates to assume anything. Perhaps he could trade them for something he wants, like nail polish.

So, what do you think? Are items obviously missing from this list?

Update: My friend Theresa added:
deck of cards

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bush, impeach bush, progressive, shopping.