SHORT TAKES & SUCH: Anti-Obammunist Tea-Bagging Patriots, Queen City Man Molesters, Rambling Attempts at Activism, & The Whammo Kid Strikes...

DAYTON, Ohio (ZP) -- Unashamed and unrepentant, the balding middle-aged gentleman announced that he was proud of his role in promoting tea-bagging as a form of protest against what he called "Obammunism."

Ya know, for some reason, when a strange old fucker tells me how much he likes tea-bagging, it always reminds me of similar conversations in The Castro...

I'd made the mistake of opening my mouth in an airport bar. I am, at times, a dumbass.

But, well, in all fairness, it's not often a "freedom-loving American businessman" gets a chance to discuss politics with a younger dude who thinks massive public debt designed to help select elite maintain a chokehold on a monstrously large government is a bad idea.

It was the piece I was reading at the time at the airport bar, a selection from Samuel (Dolgoff) Weiner's Ethics and American Unionism, that started it. Apparently lonely and looking for conversation, the guy'd asked me what I was reading. As soon as I said "...well, it's this essay written by this libertarian housepainter from New York...," the guy slithered up beside me, slurred a drink order to the server, a round on him.

For the record, there's no such thing as a free drink in this world...

He'd been at the so-called Tea Party protests in Chicago earlier in the year, a protest of what many on the Economic Far-Right associate with something akin to Socialism and financial nationalization...

... And yes, he even defined, for a young fella like myself, what he meant when he said libertarian: a libertarian, in this Age of Regression, refers to a fundamentalist born-again Christian, gay-hating, anti-reproductive-rights, flag-waving Patriot, the owner of a four-bedroom, three-bath home in the Columbus suburbs, owner of a chain of stores that sold Chinese-manufactured goods and provided minimal employee benefits, a downsizer of the Masses who was proud - PROUD - of the fact that he'd saved the economy (i.e. his own ass) by laying off about a dozen people...

Oh sure, buddy. And when the economy was lining your capitalist pockets, you jerked off to Reaganomics and Ayn Rand novels...

And, lord, the guy just wouldn't shut up about how much he loved tea-bagging, being a tea-bagger.

I didn't have the heart to explain that Samuel Dolgoff was actually a proud member of the Industrial Workers of the World, the man who coined one of my favorite phrases to describe the Bush/Obama bailouts (i.e. "State Corporate Welfarism"), a bona fide Wobbly revolutionary who loved freedom and his fellow workingman, an anarcho-syndicalist Jew from the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

And that guy, trust me, wouldn't have taken a free drink from a such a libertarian without an argument about how how Rush Limbaugh is supposedly right.

Motherfucker, please.

- MORE -

CINCINNATI (ZP) -- It was a clear case of mistaken identity. The woman thought I was someone else.

But, well, it's not often a middle-aged woman walks up behind me just outside of Paul Brown Stadium, grabs my ass, and bites my neck.

Well, not while sober, with nary a bar in sight, in the middle of a beautiful sunny day. I couldn't smell any booze on her breath but, well, hot chick in a low-cut blouse and whole lack-of-a-bra/ tid bit nipply there thing was sorta interfering with my perception.

"Oh, you're not Tommy's son, are you?"

"Um... no."

"You're sure? You're not _______?"

"No ma'am."

"Do you play football at [a smaller Ohio university]? I'll bet you play football...?"

I guess the question-and-answer session was her way of coping with embarrassment. Went on for about five minutes before I rather awkwardly excused myself from the discussion.

Okay, so maybe the woman was on something other than booze. But, well, from the looks of her, and given her rather obvious fondness for small college football players, well...

Whoever Tommy's son is, he's one lucky bastard if that Desperate Housewife has her way.

- MORE -

RANDOM COLLEGE TOWN, Ind. (ZP) -- I'm a lousy educator. I'm usually the first to admit it.

But I guess I'm fairly decent at bluffing my way through situations where a real presenter or lecturer would feel more at ease.

It's a gift. Or a curse. Not sure which.

The free wine and pizza helped.

The gathering's hostwwwess stood up in front of her coffee table, tapped her glass, and introduced me as "one of Ohio's most controversial bloggers, a librarian and cultural critic..."

Jesus, everybody hates a critic, I thought, trying not to smirk.

I was invited, this time, not to talk about librarianship, or blogging, or, well, being critical.

Nope, I was here to talk about life, about social networking and privacy, about how nobody, in the 21st Century, really buys that ...And the Meek shall inherit the Earth shit of sermons and puritanical patriotism.

But yep, sometimes that all overlaps with the information sciences, blogging, and critical examination of the world's systems of power.

C'est la motherfucking vie.

"Well, thanks...um...that was a wonderful introduction. Let me start by thanking _____ for hosting this great party...

"...And I'll try not to bore you with, heh, batshit and rambling stories...

"...And who owns the content of our World Wide Web? This fucking company owns that site, owns that server... but who owns the Internet? The answer is simple - humanity... The Web is bigger than any company, andy government, any one group..."

I tried my damnedest not to ramble. Honest-to-God. But, well, wine... room full of college kids...

And yes, for some reason, there's a bunch of undergrads (mostly female) in the U.S. and Canada who think I'm some younger version of Noam Chomsky because of my political rantings as of late...

Though having the chance to say I'd rather not be compared to anybody but myself, in person during casual conversation over glasses of box wine, does wonders for the ol' ego...

The Literate, the Life Scholar, and the Free of Thought have no patience for inheritance, a relic of an increasingly transparent capitalistic world filled with product-driven media, church dogma, greed, systems of oppression and coercion, and political partisanship...

That was, well, the point I hope I conveyed in what ended up being a somewhat batshit, rambling discussion, full of questions and comments, head nods and darting eyes.

Lecturing's a lot tougher than blogging.

Especially when there's box wine involved.

- MORE -

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- The Whammo Kid had me backed into a corner, two six-shooters aimed squarely at my chest.

I was a goner. I didn't even know my offense or crime. He made no demands whatsoever. His guns glistened in the sunlight.

And no one in Martin Luther King, Jr., Park offered any help. Nobody even gave my assault a second glance, in fact.

What a way to go...

The Kid's cowboy hat sat cocked to one side, his jeans dirty and shirt stained. A wicked grin cut a tight-lipped canyon in his otherwise smooth face.

"Gimme your money!" The Whammo Kid finally demanded.

"But... Kid... I don't have any money...that's why I'm going to the bank..."

Sweat was beginning to fill my own Stetson, the moisture soaking down into the brim beneath the summer sun.

"Why?" The gunslinger asked. "Gimme FIVE DOLLARS FOR ICE CREAM!"

I felt my assailant's eyes cutting through me like a thousand daggers.

"Kid, I don't have any," I said. "Is...is...eh...your mom or dad... somewhere?"

"NO! I AM A ROBBER!"

I was ready for the end. Having no money to give my preteen thief, nothing of value, I watched in horror as The Kid aimed his plastic water pistols, fired.

Squirt. Squirt Squirt.

Squirtsquirtsquirt.

It was all over in less than a second. Being nowhere near tall enough to get off a body shot, his two-foot frame had to settle for a crotch shot.

My pants were soaked.

And with his first victim a mere notch on his summertime belt, the Whammo Kid took off running, ran all the way to a blanket in the park. A young woman looked up from her book as the kid pointed my way, blushed, and mouthed a silent apology.

I laughed, waved as if it didn't matter, and kept walking towards the ATM.

Kid, be glad I don't have a Supersoaker handy.

Where I come from, we don't bushwhack another cowboy in front of the bank...

- # # # -

ZEN AND THE ART OF RADICAL COUNTRY FOLK: Twilight Brunswick Stew at a Commune, The Revolutionary South, & Resisting Culture Wars Reconstruction

RURAL VIRGINIA (ZP) -- I have no fucking clue why she was being so secretive.

A large convenience store/fast food joint near the highway, an all-night place with old burnt coffee tormenting the air with the smell of its age, a dozen or so idle, slightly marijuana-eyed teenagers in baggy pants pacing back and forth at the entrance, a fat sheriff's deputy creeping slowly in a dark-brown cruiser as I pulled in.

Ya know... I told her we could just meet at the Huddle House down the road... I'm not fucking Batman... Good Gawd... I'm in the hometown to visit family, not to hunt down the fucking Riddler...

* * * *

I found a seat at a booth farthest from the door, stirred a cup of the worst truck-stop coffee I've ever had (and trust me, former reporters know shitty coffee), watched the door patiently, enjoyed a strip of venison jerky.

Not being able to eat any other red meat and now living in an Ohio town where eating Bambi is often frowned upon, I savored every bite of the forbidden deer flesh, like a man savors every drop of water in the desert. The coffee may have tasted like it was brewed with Lucifer's ball sweat, but I was glad I'd bought the venison treat earlier in the night at another gas station.

There are, of course, numerous things I miss about living in the Rural South - the food is one of them.

I had a good idea who I was looking for, despite never meeting my subject in person. I'd committed her photo to memory - or, at least, the online avatar she presented as an authentic, true image. One can never be too sure...

Four large white women in too-tight clothing, one Asian kid, a toothless man in a Stars & Bars adorned biker teeshirt, an elderly couple stopping by the counter to ask directions passed through the front doors as I waited.

I had my shitty coffee and my venison to keep me company. It's late at night on a Sunday, and I'm supposed to be on a family vacation. Instead, I'm alone and waiting for a complete stranger in a damned truck stop.

Kinda normal Sunday night for me, now that I think about it...

* * * *

Somehow, she managed to sneak by me. Into the booth slid a young woman, dressed in a black hooded sweat shirt, Capri-style jeans, and eco-friendly sneakers.

"Sorry I'm late. Please tell me you're Jason, because this'll be really creepy if you're not."

"That's me. You must be ________... because if you're not it's more than fucking creepy."

A few moments pass. My twilight stranger seems to be studying me, as if she's suddenly noticed some typo in a favorite book or loose thread in a favorite shirt, some flaw that she's never noticed before.

"You're really Jason? Oxford Fucking Ohio Jason? You know, you weren't kidding when you said you look like a fratboy or a cop..."

I get that a lot, for some reason. I pretend to be insulted, then grin politely. There are worse things to be mistaken for when one reaches an age over 30. Like, well, a senior citizen, for instance...

"Get that a lot. Don't sweat it. Hey... tell you what... so where are we going? This coffee -"

She nodded. This was, she explained, the rendezvous spot. She wanted to make sure I wasn't a serial killer, or psycho-rapist, or, well, a cop or fratboy, in a place with lots of witnesses.

Completely understandable. Use the same technique myself.

Frequently.

* * * *

We headed out to the parking lot, she gave me directions in case I found myself lost, and we hit the road in our separate vehicles down country roads I'd once navigated daily but, a decade later, seemed almost foreign.

I tapped on the steering wheel as I followed her late-model pickup's taillights. The regional country/bluegrass station was playing a familiar standard, the Carter Family's version of Wildwood Flower.

Down cracked gray asphalt and beneath a canopy of oaks and pines, I followed close behind, not trusting my sense of direction. Finally, we turned onto a gravel road, a driveway.

At the end, an old farmhouse, windows lit and welcoming, tucked inside a cocoon of dark treetops. A bonfire burned to one side, with six figures crouched around it, a keg of beer and a table full of homemade food glowing in the light...

Well, I'll be damned. Beer? Beats the hell out of hash browns and eggs at a diner...

FUCKING SWEET! I like these folks already.

* * * *

For the record, not my first visit to an honest-to-God anarchist commune.

First such trip, however, to one in Virginia, of all places, under the cover of darkness and maybe 30 minutes from the farm where I was raised.

Not at all shocking, in retrospect - it is, after all, the mainstream media who's made a big deal about the Old Dominion going from some mythological Red State to some equally illusionary Blue State status during the last few elections, that a governor of Virginia is the chairman of the DNC, that it's the influx of supposedly "progressive," educated-class white liberals from more civilized urban centers who've somehow changed the Commonwealth...

The mainstream media, for the record, knows absolutely jack and shit about the people of my home state, the nature of the Rural South, or the appeal it has for both the collectivist and the individualist, the philosophical socialist and ideological libertarian.

Instead, they've merely constructed an easily digestible version of what being a Virginian means, as if we're somehow not the descendants of Powhatan, General George Patton, Robert E. Lee, Jefferson and George Mason, Patrick Henry, as if we're all good ol' boys, toothless yokels, and former slaves in need of another fascist Reconstruction.

The powerful tend to do such things, after all, because it's easier to simply construct a stereotype than to acknowledge the true diversity and beauty of a group of people, or of individuals, or the dread unwashed masses that scare the living shit out of Republicans and Democrats alike.

Widgets and demographic-based stereotypes are easier to brand with the marks of conformity than reality.

Red State? Blue State? Good God, aren't we a nation of people anymore? Is this now the United Two-Color Crayola Box of America? Who the fuck came up with that dehumanizing jingoist horseshit anyway?

* * * *

The young woman's boyfriend, a big burly man with long hair and bushy beard, greeted me at the car. It was an honor to meet me in person after our communications back and forth the last few months, he said, and he was glad to welcome me to their little experiment in 21st century cooperative living and mutual aid.

A small group, sure, but nice enough and realistic in approach. They're not isolationists, not ideologues, not even professional protesters. My hosts, it turned out, represented folks from all sectors of society...

The boyfriend was a few years older than me, a former dot-com venture capitalist from the West Coast who'd developed a conscience and actually owned the land, the oldest gentleman held two post-grad degrees, the other man a self-described "professional drifter" who never finished high school and was trained as a mechanic. The women, too, were equally diverse - my escort was a trained horticulturist, the other two college drop-outs.

A few other folks drifted in and out from the house - neighbors. A couple of local guys were manning a spit above the fire, roasting a pig (friends of the college girls, my hosts explained) and smoking what smelled like homegrown tobacco from pipes. There were a few women quilting on the porch - one was the mother of the mechanic, visiting, while the rest were friends.

There was even, yes, homemade corn liquor in Mason jars. A fine vintage. I'm a bit of a connoisseur of homemade bootleg spirits...

My arrival coincided with the tail-end of what looked to be one hell of a neighborhood cook-out.

* * * *

It would be easy to write the group off, in fact, as just another midlife attempt at a hippie commune, an attempt to turn back the clock not to a simpler America but to that romanticized, failed agrarian reproach of the 1960s counterculture.

No, that would be unfair. These weren't folks who'd come out to the country to grow weed, fight the Man, or tune out of the modern world in favor of manufactured primitivism. All but the Charlie Daniels-looking owner of the property were from the South; half of the group were native Virginians.

"Out here, we're just able to be ourselves, free. And you're welcome to join us."

That was the common refrain of the night. The conversation was wonderful, the company good, and political debate intriguing. Discussing my own political philosophies online does, indeed, sometimes lead to some very interesting offline situations.

* * * *

A learning experience and, yes, a social experiment that as someone from Virginia, I can claim as evidence that "Change You Can Believe In" comes not from Blue State/Red State rhetoric, not from chest-beating politicians or their campaigns, not from power-hungry Washington or Richmond plutocrats but from individuals, from people.

And one of the benefits to a Libertarian former venture-capitalist and a Green Party - supporting plant expert falling I love, buying a farm in the middle of fucking nowhere, inviting friends willing to work for their supper a place to live rent-free?

Best homemade organic salsa and home-cooked Brunswick Stew (made with free-range chicken and mechanic-shot squirrel, vegetables from the garden) I've had in a long time.

Went well with the beer. And the White Lightning didn't hurt.

Sure beat the hell out of hanging out in the hometown alone, in a damned truck stop, drinking shitty coffee.

EPILOGUE

I made my way back to the lovely hometown at about one in the morning, swung by the Huddle House to use the WiFi and start writing again.

I hit the sack at three in the morning, curled up with a book of my father's, found on a relative's bookshelf recently, from his supposedly "conservative" college days, something I used to read in secret, as a teenager, more than his stash of Playboys...

...A book called Patterns of Anarchy, a literary anthology. Quite entertaining, actually. Especially passages underlined, back in the 1960s, well before I was born...

And to think... the Old Man, in his march towards senior-citizenship, thinks I gained my knowledge of radical political thought from "Communist" undergrad professors or, worse, "Liberals."

Please, Dad.

Heh, I learned it from you, Dad. Thanks for never throwing out books and encouraging me to read things other than the fucking Hardy Boys!

Maybe that ol' Rebel spirit the South is known for, well, maybe it's not dead after all.

- # # # -

VIRGINIA CONFIDENTIAL: Racial Identity, Culture Politics, Elderly Church Ladies, & Two Cartons of Vanilla-Flavored Soymilk

FARMVILLE, Va. (ZP) -- The elderly woman scrunched up her nose as two kids in front of us at the checkout counter held hands.

The girl rested her head against the boy's arm - he was a good foot and a half taller than her. The boy had his arm wrapped around her, was chewing on a straw and rubbing the girl's hip.

She had that giddy look to her, blonde and athletic in build, tan already so early in a preemptive summer. The guy wore a tee-shirt bearing a familiar and comfortable emblem, that of my own high school's mascot, the letters PECHS sprawled above a gold colored eagle, its talons poised for attack.

And they were oblivious to the people in line behind them at the grocery store. They could've cared less about visiting former residents or wrinkly old women with wrinkled brows full of disapproval.

As soon as the couple were out of earshot, the elderly woman felt the need to speak her mind, as old women tend to do at times.

"I don't know who raises their chil'ren to behave like that," she said. "They probably don't get no churching at home."

I nodded in acknowledgment of her comment, not in concurrence. There is no sense, after all, in starting a debate in a checkout line with a woman who appeared to be in her late 80s or early 90s. Those debates rarely end well...

"My daddy would've taken the belt to me or my people if we were all over each other like that..."

"Yes, ma'am. Times change."

That seemed to quiet her down a bit. Old people, for the record, sometimes say things merely because there is someone present to hear them speak.

There is a certain loneliness in aging, especially in tiny rural communities where the only things one has to look forward to in those advanced years are church suppers, bridge games, garden clubs, and reading the obituaries in a twice -a- week town paper.

Sometimes feeling as if you're always right, believing that your children and grandchildren's generations are turning everything to shit, is all you have left...

* * * *

The cashier grinned. She was eavesdropping as the elderly woman talked at me, offered me all sorts of advice on all sorts of things.

Including interracial dating. She was, well, not a fan, to say the least.

"That boy probably don't know what a black woman is," she said, digging her brown-yellow hand into her purse, "Or what that does to our women when a fine black boy like that goes running around with white women."

The cashier, a mocha-skinned young black woman, who looked to be a high school kid herself, started to snicker, then choked her momentary outburst down.

* * * *

It is really funny, you know.

Here's this elderly light-complexioned "black" woman only a shade "blacker" than the "white" 30ish dude she's talking to, attempting to explain the disgrace of a dark-complexioned, well-built black kid holding hands, in public no less, with a rather attractive white girl who looked kinda like a certain bubbly, blonde, Disney-raised pop singer from Louisiana.

I kept listening, nodding, and saying "Yes Ma'am" frequently as the woman doled out her coupons, did her These kids today rant, counted out her $10s and $20s to buy her groceries.

I was trying hard to be polite, a true gentleman, courteous and respectful of my elders. The cashier, too, was trying to be polite.

But then the woman went to the one place I didn't figure she'd go.

"If that boy wanted to be a real man and represent OUR people, he'd pull those pants up and respect himself, like OUR President ..."

I lost it.

I know. Very Rude. Laughing at old people's never a polite thing...

* * * *

Ya mean the Mom-was-a-white-chick, Dad-an-African-immigrant, multiethnic, only- a- shade- less- white- than- his- redfaced- cracker- from- Delaware- Vice-President President Obama?

The one whose American family history includes a history of slave ownership but no direct descendency from what's commonly thought of as the single largest signifier of "African-Americanism," that of having been actually related to former slaves?

So a black dude holding hands and getting all PDA with a white girl is disrespecting an entire ethnic cultural heritage, and if he just pulls his pants up, finds some religion, and looks up to a "black" president whose mom was a white woman, he'll somehow... somehow...

* * * *

Somehow what?

Grow up with the same sort of belief in preserving and defending a downright mythified African-American "race," in much the same way as some white Southerners grow up believing that they're somehow preserving the "White" race by waving a Confederate flag around, going to Klan meetings, or bitching about maintaining some fairy-tale racial purity that never existed?

Hell, hasn't that sort of thinking already proved to be the biggest embarrassment to the culture of these United States? Our eagerness to cling onto our often manufactured, self-sustaining ideas on race through social division at home, while condemning ethnic strife abroad in our media and diplomatic rhetoric?

People in the U.S. often live and die by racial history like dog breeders cling to kennel club papers - a dog is worthy of a dog show, after all, not because the dog is a dog but because his or her pedigree can be proven worthy to obsessive record keepers and judges.

* * * *

"That lady's a trip," the cashier said as she scanned my purchases. "But, I mean, for real though..."

I shrugged, swiped my bank card through the reader.

"Hey, I just try to respect my elders and let old people talk. How I was raised I guess."

The cashier had these gorgeous eyes when she smiled.

"You know, I was raised that way too. And I've got aunt like that."

"Hey, we all have relatives like that. It's how they grew up."

Nice to know that things are progressing just fine in my ol' hometown, all on their own, one youthful generation and one elderly rant at a time.

- # # # -

CHARMED LIVES & TROUBLED SOULS: Of Imaginary Closets, Beautiful Nerd Girls, and Things We Hide Sometimes, in Plain Sight, from the "Religious"

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- When she was young, other kids teased her for being flat-chested and lanky and awkward, for being tomboyish and uninterested in dolls or tea parties with imaginary princes, for being a bona fide, honest-to-God dork.

In high school, she was the smart girl, trapped halfway between being stereotyped as her school's cute but intimidating stuck-up bitch and arrogant, smart-ass Nerd Queen.

Her friends were all older, all went to other schools or were in college. Her parents overbearing, her mother a veritable control-freak of a life planner. She lettered in two sports she hated, just because her father scared her into thinking colleges only took the smart, beautiful, AND athletic...

She was quite popular with kids in her school, sure, but after a half-dozen or so jocks, cool kids, and preppy chachballs, she finally figured out her popularity was tied to her willingness to go farther than going down on somebody in a dark movie theater.

Being one of the few girls in your conservative Christian high school who failed to buy into such silly things as Promise Rings and Abstinence Pledges, well, tends to lead to such popularity - even if those equally self-righteous, pious kids refused to even say hi in the hallways or at church after sex in hot tubs and in parked cars.

And at night, alone in her bedroom, surrounded by college application essays and AP Exam practice guides, she'd huddle beneath her bedsheets late at night, well after her folks and her siblings fell asleep, she'd read about all sorts of interesting, forbidden things, in books and magazines mostly, since her parents monitored her Internet access and had installed filtering software on her MacBook.

She read Hunter S. Thompson's Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas in a few hours, Charles Bukowski's Women in one night, and William Burroughs' Naked Lunch in two.

And actually, all through college, she's been keeping those controversial literature juices flowing. She even picked up two of her new favorite authors - Michelle Tea & Amelie Nothromb - on the recommendation of some fucking shithead librarian she's been cyberstalking (joke) since her second semester.

Smart girl. Well-read. Downright oozing with sex and sultry feminine bravado. A prototypical female college student living in the 21st century.

But, in all honesty, she wouldn't be a Local U. student if she weren't driven by something unseen, rebelling in secret, living some sort of lie.

That's the myth of the Public Ivy university - everything looks ancient and traditional and conservative on the surface but beneath the decaying brick facades, on the other side of the creeping vines, at the edge of the higher education darkness...

* * * *

"And -- Ohmygod, have you ever read 'Keeping You a Secret?' It's by Julie...something...Peters. Fucking awesome."

She picks up the bottle of wine, pours me a third glass and herself a fourth. We're on our second bottle. It's 4:18 in the morning, a Saturday, and we've only been talking in her living room for a half hour.

At least one of her roommates is already home, upstairs in bed. And from the sounds of it, well, she brought home something from the bars to play with - squeaks and muffled giggles creep down the stairs.

"The first girl I was with," she whispers, "bought it for me, then turned out to be a fucking bitch so I quit reading it the first time. It was right before I came here..."

Her voice trails off as she stands up, grins, and twirls with her arms outstretched.

"...Here to LOVELY MOTHERFUCKING OXFORD FUCKING OHIO."

Hey, if there's one place in the world that can possibly create the world's most entertainingly cynical closeted lesbians, it'd be Oxford Fucking Ohio.

* * * *

"so... okay. I'm fucking drunk."

"Really, chica?" I feign shock like buzzards feign disinterest in roadkill. My host snickers.

"Oh yeah. Fucking wasted, dude. Too bad you don't smoke..."

I take out another Marlboro Virginia Blend, offer her one, light them both.

"Chica, see. I smoke. But being clean for a decade means I only smoke tobacco."

She inhales long on the cigarette, kills off her wine as she exhales into her glass. Pure sex. One hundred and ten percent. And with a body like hers, a brain, well... the lesbian community's lucky to--

"You know, I'm not a closetcase. Fuck, I go to Lexington and Columbus sometimes. Really cool scenes. I just can't fucking stand the bitches here or Cincinnati, ya know? The fucking hipsters..."

"Hey, straight dudes are in the same boat, chica."

"Yeah, but it's different. It's not like the chicks you hook up with around here ever text you to march in some fucking pride parade the next day."

She leans forward over the ratty, textbooks-and-bills covered coffee table, grabs the third bottle of wine. She knocks over my glass, right onto my first two napkins full of notes and quotes. Fortunately, I've been playing catch-up; only a thimbleful of shitty drugstore burgundy spoils the ballpoint ink...

Only lost half a paragraph, but, well, to sum up for you, dear reader, the conversation veered off into the realm of sex toys, lubricant, fingers, and fists.

Think you get the picture.

* * * *

She never did the whole GLBT student group thing, for the same reason she doesn't go trolling for women in Oxford, Dayton, or Cincinnati bars - a lot of Lesbians Until Graduation, a lot of really hot girls to make out with after last call, but, well, it's just not her bag.

"You'd be surprised how many lesbians here are just as fucking annoyed gay dudes as straight guys," she pauses to crush out her cigarette and open a window. "...kinda like the drag queen boy scouts."

And finally, I hit the tough question.

I ask when she plans on telling her roommates. After all, they've lived together a whole year. They must at least suspect...?

"Okay, look, love 'em to death but they're kinda dense. We've been friends since last year. They think I'm just kinda bi.

"And they're both really fucking religious and shit. Like Catholic religious."

Drunk, I feel myself fall off the ratty student-shabby loveseat.

Within seconds, I'm rolling on the floor, clutching my head - I caught the corner of the coffee table with my skull. My sides hurt. I can't breathe.

Every time I try to stop laughing, to catch my breath even for a moment, I hear that same giggling, followed by moaning, drifting down from upstairs, the religious sounds of "Oh God! Oh FUCK! OhYESFUCKMEYES!" praise and worship songs coming from some unseen bedroom directly above me.

* * * *

In all fairness, she gave me the finger as she shut the door on me as I left at sunrise.

"Dude, if you make me out to be some lipstick in the closet, I'll cut your dick off."

"So... can I make fun of your roommate's prayer groups? And is the other one that cute and 'religious?'"

Again, another one fingered salute. And a wink.

Best one night stand with a hot, NOT lipstick-in-the-closet lesbian in ages.

And trust me, this here dispatch is probably by far the strangest graduation gift any student has ever asked for and received from a local (hetero) librarian.

- # # # -