I got a surprise early birthday gift (bday isn’t until August..lol), a new compost pit! I’m a compost enthusiast. My old pit was made from some old stakes and chicken wire and is a sad disaster because it’s been hit twice by falling giant tree parts. I had some other scraps (lattice and a pallet) and was going to make a new one - this weekend actually - and voila. Happy birthday surprise to me. It’s cool, and contains no bottom, which is important because I need the worms to do their thing and leave their little poops behind. Worm poop good.

So I was taking it out of the packaging and it said MADE IN ISRAEL! Woot!

Number one, finally, something NOT made in pet-killing, kidney-stealing, Tibetan-monk-beating, pooping-on-their-crops and poisoning Koreans….CHINA.

Number two, by total accident, it’s supporting Israel.

I.support.Israel. A billion percent.

I’m going to have to write down the name of this company, that makes gardening supplies, and make a conscious effort to buy more products from them.

It’s two, two, two mints in one. It’s a cool new compost pit that I don’t have to build (and has some coolio features), and it’s made in Israel.

A very good day in the neighborhood. Plus my neighbor’s little granddaughters were by for a visit (they used to live with her), and I missed them and they missed me. Ages 2 and 5, and now baby makes three….and he’s a little chub of a doll. So cute.

Tomorrow I fill my new compost pile! I have huge bags of sucked and crushed leaves using my Black and Decker garden vacuum/chopper thing. I need to call Starbucks and see if I can come by for a load of coffee grounds and I’m ready to roll. I also have a bag of dryer lint in the laundry that I’ve been saving for my new pile, plus some vacuum bags with pet hair, some underwear that’s seen better days (all cotton, good for the pile) and other assorted cotton garments that will be cut into pieces tomorrow and added to my pile.

It’s good to be home again and I didn’t go anywhere today. No errands, no family obligations, no work, nothing. I did laundry, got my new compost machine and visited with my sweet girls next door, plus tickled the feet of the baby.

This is why I love Ann Coulter….she’s hilarious and ruthless.

Her new column…haaaaaaa.

She totally cut this Keith Olbermeister guy a new one. I don’t really know who he is, other than he has a very square head.

But I guess he’s put people down for not having an Ivy League degree….and turns out he doesn’t either.

This is as good as the folks who say HEY! YOU SCREWED UP YOUR SPELLING AND GRAMMER.

Talk about getting a thrill up  my leg…I do every time I see grammar spelled like that when someone is trying to make a point. It’s a tingle.

I also got to see PLUMBER’S BUTT today. Seriously. I’ve only ever seen it in cartoons and movies, but I saw it for real. There were two plumber guys fixing a leak (200 dollars to stick some glue on..ha ha ha…doin my part to stimulate) and one guy was under the sink with his glue gun and I SAW HIS CRACK hangin out of his pants.

America is the greatest country on earth!

WOOT, what a great day in America. Dr. Sanjay “I suck the pole of pharmaceutical companies” Gupta has declined the post as Surgeon General.

::happy dance:::

Maybe Sheryl Crow wasn’t just a dingbat after all.

Or maybe she was. Shut the hell up and sing?

The United States is the largest market for toilet paper in the world, the newspaper reported, but tissue from 100 percent recycled fibers makes up less than 2 percent of sales for at-home use among conventional and premium brands. People from other countries throughout Europe and Latin America are far less picky about what they use to wipe.

I’m interested in toilet paper because when I lived in the former USSR we did, in fact, use Pravda newspapers. It was always told as a joke, but it was true. I had smashed a couple of rolls of Charmin in a suitcase, and boy, did I hoard that. In fact I was stingier than all get out when I lived there…wouldn’t share a darned thing with anyone. (Except some jeans, but I waited until I was leaving to sell those.) You know, if things were the same now as they were then and I had the great business sense (ha) that I have now, I could make a total fortune selling stuff. Even without the internet.

As it was, I was so stuffed with rubles I bought on the black market that I stocked up on beautiful silver things. My favorite, a silver plate with six tiny silver shot glasses. The only pain is that I always have to polish the silver. I need a maid real bad. I had to get rid of all those rubles before exiting the country, and it was fun just dumping money left and right on silly things. I couldn’t take them to the bank for conversion because the government kept track of all of your exchanges and would have known I was shopping na levo. Oops.

My grandmother and mom were on one of their crazy-headed European trips, and mom decided to gather a collection of toilet paper from every country she was in. It was hilarious when she brought all her samples out for show and tell.

Worst toilet paper in Europe (after Russia): Finland. You wouldn’t expect that, but man…weird stuff.

We’re so spoiled as Americans, and you know what? I like it. I need a new hat.

Viva dirty capitalism!

A man from Ethiopia who has been in the US for three years, allegedly sent envelopes to President Obama that contained dried blood loaded with HIV.

He’s now in custody waiting a mental health hearing, but they can’t find a translator. WTF?

Some other tidbits: he hasn’t held a job since coming here (I’ll choke if it turns out he’s getting some kind of assistance, especially if it’s due to his mental illness).

AND

He was arrested in 2006 for setting a fire in a Chicago intersection while waving the Koran and shouting Allah Akbar.

They didn’t even charge him. Just gave him some mental “treatment” and sent him on his way. Why wasn’t he sent back to Ethiopia then???

I have mental illness and am a psychiatric rights advocate. But. I don’t believe in using mental illness as an excuse for bad behavior. (Except in very rare cases when a person is clearly totally psychotic and hearing voices that tell him/her to do something. Rare.)

I do not understand why people can commit crimes and not face charges. And more, why people like this are allowed to continue living in our great country. Let Ethiopia deal with him.

Grrrrrr.

Great pics from DC. Michelle Malkin never takes a bad picture, does she? Geesh. So gorgeous.

I want her sweater.

LOVE LOVE LOVE the colonial outfits!

Today, protests are being held around the country. Tea parties! I think that is so fabulous, and wish I weren’t so averse to crowds or I’d be there. The tea party is to protest that ridiculous stimulus bill and all of the other mad spending.

I heard on St. Louis radio that some have shown up wearing colonial outfits. I LOVE THAT! I feel so left out darnit. I’m there in spirit, playing the fife. (I actually have one ancestor who was a fife player in the Revolutionary War…woodwinds are apparently in our blood.)

The most hilarious thing of the day so far: at the tea party in Iowa, the government swept in and forbid them from dumping tea into the river, saying it would discolor it. C’mon, Iowa is next door to the place (Chicago) where they turn the river green on St. Paddy’s Day. Get into the spirit, Iowa officials.

I’m thrilled to see people getting out and showing the country the goofy war protesters (where did they go??? the wars ain’t over yet, dudes!) aren’t the only Americans with spirit.

I LOVE THIS!

ROFL, just heard an update on St. Louis radio (my DANA is in charge of the event downtown….woot Dana! You go, girl!). They said 300 people are there, which is great for a Friday morning. Then Jamie Allman said “Or I could always use the Obama estimate and say 70,000.”

hahahaha

God I love this country!

Aww, that’s sweet. An orangutan at the National Zoo has taught herself to whistle. I love that zoo, and that’s one of the many things I miss now that I don’t go to DC for meetings all the time. That city is so wonderful!

http://www.yahoo.com/s/1036097

My little (haha, she’s always my little baby) cousin is studying to be a vet, and has kind of zeroed in on exotic animals. She’s been interning at the zoo, and really loves the big cats. (yeah, no kidding) Although now she’s thinking she might go the way of an holistic vet, which would also be way cool. That’s so needed. But I secretly hope she ends up as a zoo vet so I can hopefully get a backstage pass and get close to the animals. Even better would be if she became a panda vet…that would be MY DREAM COME TRUE! I’d stick to her like glue. Bears are beautiful.

Hi, I’m Elly Mae Clampett.

I always hate admitting when I watch (and worse - enjoy) a reality show. But I have no shame: I LOVE RU PAUL’S DRAG RACE!!! This is the best reality show ever, and these ladies are just fab!

Ongina brought me to tears tonight. She revealed that she’s living with HIV, after winning tonight’s challenge, which was to put together a commercial for Mac Cosmetics VIVA Glam. Mac donates 100 percent of the line to HIV/AIDs issues.

I’m such a Lancome girl, but I have been moved to at least give Mac cosmetics a try. They surely do have wonderful colors of eyeshadow.

My only complaint with this show: the prize is 20 grand, from Absolut Vodka (hurl…I’m a Stoli girl) and Mac. C’mon…who ever wins this surely deserves much, much more than that!

I just love, love, love this show! I really do have three favorites, although every one of the contestants has just been so gorgeous and talented. Ongina! Nina Flowers! Shannel! I think Ongina will end up winning…she’s just too precious.

I was once mistaken for a drag queen myself, and it was told to me as a compliment (by my hairdresser), but it hurt my feelings that some folks thought I was a man. The real reason: I’m a bazillion feet tall. I was out one night clubbing with friends, and when I go out clubbing, yes I do put on the ritz. Every hair is choreographed, my Lancome is flawless. And I even sometimes go nuts and put on heels, which makes me a bazillion feet four inches.

It was my hairdresser’s son and his friends, and the son told my hairdresser “What? She’s a real woman? She looks too GOOD for a woman.”

hahaha, that’s the compliment part, and I can laugh now, but I had to hide my horror when I heard it. DH thinks it’s a laugh riot and constantly screams: You look too GOOD to be a woman. Thanks, dude.

It’s no secret that I love drag queens. I think the reason is that they love makeup as much as I do. I’ve never had a girl friend who did. Oh sure, they mostly like makeup and wear it, but they go for the cheap shit and it’s not a way of life. Since I was a teenager, I’ve read every makeup how to book, practiced various techniques, and struggled to be dramatic but not look like a Wal Mart whore. So I save the drama for evenings out, which I don’t get much because we don’t go to the clubs much.

I don’t have any friends right now who are drag queens, and I wish I did. I could be best friends with every one of these ladies on the show, although they would never accept some of my rude political points of view.

My first drag queen: I went to high school with a guy named Larry and was home from college one weekend. Went to the mall with my friends and heard “Juliiiiiii!!!!!” and this gorgeous woman came running over and hugged me. I said Uh, do I know you? And she said “It’s me Lori, Lori (last name).” And I said “Wow, didn’t know Larry had a sister.”

haha, Larry was now Lori. AND SHE LOOKED FIERCE! I just loved it and loved that she was happy.

Then not so many years ago when I started going to NYC clubs, I would meet queens and we’d end up spending the night yakking makeup secrets. It was all so fun. I’ll tell ya, New York clubs are way different from clubs back in the boonies. Damn. Cool in their own way, although Fred’s Dance Barn had its own sort of charm.

Anyhoo, go Ongina! I love these ladies and I love this show. I really liked Tammie…she was groovin.

Now Sashay….away.

I’ve really got to go to ITunes and get me some RuPaul tunes and drive the hubby crazy.

I wonder if there will ever come a time when mental patients won’t be less than.

I just finished taking a peek at some bloggers who blog about celebrity stuff, curious to see who they chose as best and worst dressed. Fashion is fluffy fun and I enjoy snarky comments about kooky dresses and hair.

The bloggers are all gay and were overcome by the dude who wrote the screenplay for Milk, his acceptance speech. He used the term less than, saying to GLBT youth that they are not less than.

That’s all fine and good, but mental patients are. It wasn’t all that long ago when Lou Reed was electroshocked (the brain kind, not tasers) to shock him out of being gay. (Didn’t work.) I’ve heard from a number of people who were shocked for the same; I know people today who were shocked for it. It never cured the gay.

But that’s not the point. (For the record, I’m strongly pro-gay rights, although I’m on the fence about marriage. None of my many gay friends ever cared about that until it became a political agenda. Now all of a sudden, everybody wants a piece of paper.)

The point is that the mental patients’ union has somehow missed the boat.

We are less than, and I do not believe I’ll see a day when we aren’t.

I always go back to a conversation I had online a few years ago. The Hartford Courant had done a great series on unreported deaths in mental wards in Connecticut. The patients had all died while under restraints, some suffocating, some choking, and so on. It was a great piece of investigative reporting (a genre that seems to have evaporated).

Nobody cared that these people died, other than the reporter and people like me, mental health activists. What was finally said in the conversation was this: so what if these people died? They were mental patients and a few elderly folks. So what.

I’ve never gotten over that. The people who said this were not bad people. They weren’t raving maniacs; they were articulate and intelligent people. And it was okay that people died cruel deaths while being chained to beds, because they were mental patients.

They were less than.

I’m certain that’s the opinion of many folks out there. While everyone is patting themselves on the back because they voted for a black man, and they’re salivating over the fact that they aren’t racist, many of them - maybe most of them, believe that mental patients are less than. Less important, less than human.

Consider the mental patients who have been recruited as homicide bombers. It barely received a mention in the mainstream press. It was more important to whine about Gitmo and compare Bush to Hitler. As I recall, the only people who expressed any outrage were Michelle Malkin and Robert Spencer.

I once chatted with the guy who founded Act Up, the group that has used civil disobedience to bring about real change regarding AIDS issues. I had hoped that we (the psychiatric rights movement) could model ourselves after them and possibly affect some real change.

But we just can’t seem to organize correctly. There are wonderful coalitions of good people, and people are doing good works. But our agendas are so vast, and even opinions differ so widely.

I don’t know what the answer is. From time to time, I really lose heart.

Somehow all the kudos for this guy who wrote “Milk” and his wonderful speech pissed me off. Gays have a long history of being treated as crazy, losing their rights as any person with a psych history can, having “treatments” forced upon them.

Real issues. Bad things that have happened to gays under the guise of treatments. They were killed, along with the Jews, the gypsies and mental defectives in the camps.

And yet all that matters to their movement is being able to get a legal marriage certificate. I guess that’s what bothers me the most - there is still genuine mistreatment, genuine discrimination, every bad thing that has happened to marginalized groups in history still happens to psych patients.

There’s a bit of jealousy, too, if I’m being honest. I’m jealous that the GLBT community has been so successful in organizing, so successful in gaining public support, and the crazy community (with many gays and lesbians as well) can’t seem to get anything at all.

It’s okay if we die under bad conditions because…we’re less than.

I can’t imagine Hollywood wearing little ribbons to show solidarity with mental patients.

We need some kind of cool factor, but drooling, shaky hands, and sitting in a stupor after shock therapy isn’t very sexy, is it?