America, after all, is a vast, wild frontier, where any man—only the right kind of any man, of course—can make his fortune! It’s a place filled with adventure and danger (to other people) and, most of all, freedom. A place where brave settlers defend themselves against savages, on the every edge of civilization! Where we fight tremendous wars, and they’re good, and they’re right. It’s a rough, beautiful land where men are men and women are women.

Look around. You don’t live there. Nobody lives there. We all live here, on bloody land stolen from people who don’t have the decency to either attack like wild animals or lie down and die. In a place where black and brown people freely walk the streets as though they belong, as though their lives are anything but an uncomfortable reminder that the triumphant throne of whiteness is stacked on a pile of bodies that could overflow a thousand mass graves. Where people with cardboard signs saying veteran. disabled. please help line the streets because they didn’t get the memo that you’re supposed to come back perfect and whole and blonde or in a box or a bag or not at all. It’s hard to live here—hard because the government takes everything to give to those lucky brown immigrants, hard because your Social Security check isn’t near big enough, hard because they keep showing bleeding, broken children on the news like it’s our fault they were in the way of our bombs, hard because you can’t just shoot a man on the street or slap some sense into your woman.

It was better, back then. Better in the past. The past, after all, is the only place where America lives. Maybe it was your parents’ time, or their parents’ time, or maybe if you’re lucky and old enough it was your own childhood, but whenever it was, that—that place, seen through the perfectly smudged glasses of memory—that was America.

Of course Liberty Land is a hoax—Extruded Liberty Product With Real Freedom Filling. Everyone knows that. But maybe it’s enough for now. It’s just a taste to keep us going. To remind us of what it will be like when we bring it back. When we kick out the fakes, the immigrants, the interlopers. When we bring back real America, where men are men and women are women and our wars are just and our lives are simple, clean, and good.

I just ate a piece of pizza. I know that it is making me fat. I am aware that it contains polyunsaturated something-or-other, hydrolyzed this-or-that, and also sugar and, god help me, corn.

I know that half of what I just ate is giving me cancer even as the other half is preventing it. I know the wheat is shredding my intestines even as it murders my children. I know that the corn is genetically engineered and that it’s giving me cancer, because as everyone knows, genes cause cancer. I know that I probably need more B12 or B7 or K or something, I know that fructose is the new cyanide, I know that I’m probably allergic to goddamned near everything, and yes, I know that if I add a teaspoon of sugar to my tea I may as well be mainlining crystal meth.

Oh, and hey look! Something about gut bacteria. My gut bacteria, or possibly my lack thereof, are making me fat and maybe also killing me. Okay, I know that now, too.

I know that I need to work out more. God, do I ever I know that. I know that I should be working out RIGHT NOW THIS SECOND. (And yes, I know that the aspartame I just sipped in my diet coke is killing me in exactly the same way as sugar, but with a funny aftertaste.)

But you know what, Internet? I just. Don’t. Care. The aggregate cost of filtering, processing, and understanding a constantly-shifting stream of breathless information about THIS thing which causes toe cancer in genetically engineered lab rats or THAT thing which prevents aging in soybean nematodes—let alone the vast array of things that affect my chakral alignment or the quantum moment of my vitreous humors—has just become far higher than any conceivable benefit.

When you can show me a living person who is 300 years old and who doesn’t look a day over, say, 50, then we can talk.

Until then: please, please, shut the fuck up.

<3
~ v.

p.s. I either ALREADY HAVE brain cancer, or I NEVER WILL. Either way, unless you’re whining about the antenna in the fucking iPhone 4, please shut the fuck up about cell phones, too. Actually, on second thought, don’t say anything about the iPhone 4, either.

That’s kindof a big deal. Cooking is one of the few things I can do reliably and well. I’ll fuck up crazy experimental food (what happens… if I stuff peanut butter into this bell pepper?!?! Nothing good, it turns out.), but this was pancakes.

Pancakes are not experimental.

What’s more, I failed at pancakes by adding too much baking soda. That’s like failing at partying because you took too much ecstasy (and, incidentally, tastes similar).

Two days ago, I burned Daal. I’m not becoming a fantasy writer (“the Da’al wound their way up the to’wer, donning their ky’aap’es and activating their læn’tyrr”iens”). Daal is lentils. Lentils in a pot. With spices. I burned lentils in a pot with spices. I still don’t know how I did this.

I just tried another pancake, made with new batter. It’s vaguely tolerable. I think I still added too much baking soda, or maybe my baking soda has been absorbing the taste of ass. Maybe it absorbed the smoke from the burnt Daal.

I think I need a time-out. No, wait, what’s the thing in that Canadian game, with the sticks? I need to go into the penalty box. The ingredients will have a power play in my kitchen during which I will not cook them, because apparently I pissed off M’oskyo’wyts, the goddess of cooking stuff.

I’m going to get stoned now, and eat the rest of my vaguely ass-absorbed pancakes.

FORT HOOD, Texas — An Army psychiatrist who led a ground assault against U.S. forces stationed at Fort Hood said that yesterday’s ground assault was a “surgical operation,” and that reports of civilian casualties are “likely overblown.”

“We will be performing a full and thorough investigation,” he continued, “Provided we are able to secure the support of authorities on the ground.” U.S. authorities have thus far not allowed Hasan access to the area in which the attack was conducted.

“Of course, caring for injured soldiers remains our top priority,” Hasan said, his breathing assisted by a ventilator, “But I’m actually feeling pretty good right now.”

The U.S. has alleged that anywhere from two to five civilians were caught up in Hasan’s attack. The allegations have not yet been substantiated. Military police refused to comment, citing an ongoing investigation.

Meanwhile, Afghan and Iraqi leaders have offered tepid, sarcastic condolences to the families of those killed. “Yeah, wow, that sucks.” Iraqi president Jalal Talabani wrote in a press statement, “I can’t even imagine. Twelve lives lost. And for what?”

“Well, never mind that,” the statement continued, “CNN is so depressing. What else is on TV? There must be something good. Isn’t it sweeps week?”

“The first three digits are 666,” I said, “Number of the beast.”
“That’s bad luck.”
“Yeah, it is.”

On the way back home, we got a little turned around. They’ve been building up new apartments all around where we live. They just finished a complex a block away, and it still hasn’t quite sunk into the city. It still looks strange and alien and not all there, like maybe it’s a backdrop for a movie someone’s filming, and when they’re finished they’ll kick out the two-by-fours and carry the fake brick sheets off to a back lot somewhere. It’s draped with a huge NOW LEASING sign, though, and the windows are open so you can see inside. All the lights in the building are on full, showing off six stories of bright, clean apartments. Empty, to a one.

He is fucking me. On a thin blanket laid out on a concrete floor in the middle of a tiny Indian apartment, he is fucking me. I can smell the faint residue of his Bidis and whiskey on his face. His chin and cheeks rub roughly against my face as he thrusts, my makeup smearing. He grunts with each thrust. I’ve wrapped my legs around him, and I’m trying to keep up. Together, we smell like beer and smoke and sandalwood and sex.

His cock pulls me wider, wider, more open.

I scream as he fucks, and it’s part pain, part pleasure, part the raw intensity of the sensation.

“Hijra pussy is the best,” He says between grunts, and I don’t correct him.

(more…)

One more episode (digression: are these “episodes?” “installments?” “chapters?” anyway, there’s one, or maybe two, left), then something a little different.

Update: Ooh, see Ann for some delightful notes we found in the Sweetpea Bakery. Actually, I found them and she photographed them, so it was kindof a team effort. (Either that, or she stole my frag.)

My mother cries the night before her mother’s funeral. I know this because we—her, the cousins, her brother—are sharing a room, a cramped sleeping space next to a larger one, where her sisters are sleeping. Her brother speaks to her in Hindi for a while, hugging her, but eventually, even he has to go to sleep.

I am sleeping just next to her. She puts a hand on my shoulder; I tense.

“You were always such a beautiful boy,” she whispers in the darkness. “I think I’m losing you.”

“I’m just afraid,” she says.

(more…)