We will host, must be discreet.

We're looking for a new housemate, so we posted a rather bland, basic ad on craigslist. Being craigslist, well, we were expecting some odd respondents, but nothing like this:

I am looking for a home in the east bay, somewhere to live for multiple years, some where to put down roots.

Ideally I would live with witches (or witch friendly folks), there would be a garden, some shared meals, a fireplace, heat in the winter, a room with good light and possibly furniture, in a good neighborhood, with great accesses to public transit, bike storage, space for crafting herbal medicine and cats.

Even better A mother in law unit or cottage in the garden of a house full of witches.

There will be much laughter, music and support. We will communicate directly with compassionate truth. There will be alters all over the house. You may catch me doing odd sounding vocal warm ups. I will also be doing ritual, having friends over for meals or meetings. There will be still quiet moments as well as revelry, community, and indulgence.

I am looking to pay less than $600 for rent and utilities.


So if you know of somewhere or someone for this fey urban dryad to live please let me know.

Blessed Be!
[name]
--
feyness
adj.
Having or displaying an otherworldly, magical, or fairylike aspect or quality
Having visionary power; clairvoyant.
Appearing touched or crazy, as if under a spell.

We also got a fellow claiming to be a "professional gay male." As my housemate put it, "sounds like a sweet job. hard working stable boy. i say yes."

Memo From God

The following was written in response to a remedial english class that my co-workers and I have been submitted to because some folks in Manchester are incapable of writing coherent sentences. The assignment was essentially to write a memo.

TO: Kronos Titanes, Supreme King of the Cosmos

FROM: Zeus, Neglected Son

DATE: November 20th, 2008 [Note; I’ve included a contemporary date as instructed by the assignment]

SUBJECT: Proposal for Change in Management Style

It has been determined that the current system by which the cosmos is governed is unsatisfactory and a redistribution of power may be required.

To that end we submitted a random survey amongst the gods to evaluate possible solutions; the results of which were most disappointing. It would seem that Mother and my brother and sister gods are quite upset with your current leadership. Your opinion that you are entitled to cannibalize whomever you please does not sit well with your progeny and we request that you desist. If you do not reconsider your method, drastic action will be taken against you. While many of us would like to chastise you for your actions to date, our anger can be assuaged by your compliance.

Please note that this will be our last request regarding this issue. We would like to be able to resolve this conflict peaceably. This appears to be the only acceptable solution. Consider that this may be the only way to truly reconcile our differences. Thank you.

I am vastly unimpressed with the class, but at least I can keep my sanity by turning in the assignments half a day late and writing about random subjects that amuse me despite the annoyance of having to write in a certain format. I will have to rewrite this at another time to see if I can make it more humorous.

career path

I (somewhat) regularly correspond with my (now retired) high school biology teacher; a living legend and a rather alcoholic, crass, perverted gent. In response to my current occupation, he wrote the following, each paragraph from a different email. In the order they were received:

'I have a shy, young personal doctor at Kaiser who reminds me of you more than a little. In consideration of which I am considerate of her feelings. Maybe you should go to med school.Then you too can work with disgusting old people rather than young ones.'

'I think you should aim a touch above the classroom. Counseling maybe,or administration. You'd probably make a good principal.'

'I think you would make a great school administrator. Like an academic Julius Caesar.'

'AND as an academic caesar you could chop off the right hands of all male students,at one stroke getting rid of graffiti and masturbation.'

'You gotta get out of substituting.Your role in life is to lead. If a black lawyer can be president,so can a woman. Aim for the top.'


So I imagine that the overarching message is 'quit your job' but I like the progression of 'school counselor' to 'president of the United States' in just a few exchanges.

The med school thing, that's just crazy though.

baking powder and bacon fat

I've been looking everywhere for my baking powder the past day or two, and after searching through the communal shelves and my housemates' shelves, and other places where it isn't supposed to be, I found it behind the corn starch and the masa flour, about three inches from where it usually is. Oops, my bad.

But it got me thinking about my strange habit of hiding ingredients, particularly those often in high demand (olive oil, milk, butter, chocolate). It started in my first house in college, when I had 8 or 9 other housemates (plus significant others, plus couch-hoppers, plus the occasional rasta) and hiding certain foods meant that maybe I could eat it before it all disappeared. It wasn't a horrendously huge lets-call-a-house-meeting issue, it was just a little more thrifty to put your eggs at the bottom of the pile, and place the olive oil behind the hot sauce, where it wouldn't catch anyone's eye.
Certain housemates were bigger offenders than others; I didn't take issue with the occasional borrowing of milk to make white russians, or the tomatoes that went into the pasta sauce that was served for a house meal. But there are always those people who never find the time to go grocery shopping and have never bothered to buy basic essentials, because they're readily available elsewhere in the house. And really, borrowing a little butter isn't a big deal until it's 5 or 6 people doing it every day.
So it was rather gratifying when, one day, one of my less particular roomies came pounding frantically up the stairs, asking me what it was that I had in the little honey jar on my shelf. I had made some ghee (clarified butter) earlier in the month, and it keeps well outside of the fridge, so I had put it in an empty jar and placed it on my shelf. My housemate and several friends had made some tea, and, assuming that honey jars containe honey, had placed a large dollop in the pot. But honey is not usually greasy, and being vegetarians, they freaked out and assumed that they had just defiled their tea with bacon fat.
It was a good laugh, all around.

In my current household the only fatality is chocolate chips, which vanish with astonishing regularity when one certain dude is home.

abomination

Trying to sleep after an emotional night, lying in bed, exhausted, euphoric, anxious, and a whole mess of other feelings, the conversation on a bit of a roller coaster, we wonder whether Obama is the messiah (I'm jewish, so he'd be the first coming for me) and if he is, how would we know, and most importantly, what name would we give the new religion? Well, if you accept that Christ is a last name (which it isn't really, but it was late and we were incoherent) then it would be Obamatian- which is awkward and difficult to say. But, if you continue on that verbal roller coaster, and try to describe where we live now, you get Obamanation. Which, in the middle of the night after too much television, sounds a lot like a word with very different connotations, unless you are a member of the fanatic, psychotic, and conspiracy-heavy right.

Anyway, it made me laugh.