but what if

some of the rooms have fully stocked pantries with cooking equipment, some have movies like the one described above, some have books you're allowed to just take but people always put back- every day people bring things from the outside. artists often set up galleries there. there are rooms with mattresses and hammocks set up for people to sleep. one of the room is just a place where people leave shoes for the fun of it.

I spent several minutes just staring at them (and trying to convince them to bite my fingers.) When my sister’s violin lesson ended, her teacher came out to the yard and explained that these goldfish were the same small creatures that were often unfortunately sold in plastic bags at state fairs. They were only about two inches long apiece, when she bought them and put them in the new, empty pond. In essence, they were like every goldfish I had seen before, but they had been given a much larger, much richer environment in which to flourish. As a result, they had grown into some of the most remarkable, vibrant creatures my twelve-year-old self had ever met with. All because of a pond. 

-you're not going to understand the short answer

-you didn't ask the right question

-there is no short answer

-there's a dozen short answers and i think that's neat

-there's a much more interesting question you could have asked, buckle up

-this is going to be really funny in five minutes, hold on

-last time i said no you got mad but the answer is still no

-last time i said no you got sad and i can't take that again

-i've been thinking about neolithic bedbugs all day and you cracked the seal

-this reminds me of something more important than whatever you just said

-i just remembered what i meant to tell you last time you asked something sort of like this

-i don't like you so we're gonna talk about my thing instead of your thing

-i love you so here's the coolest thing i learned lately

-im not hungry so i forgot to do the part of the conversation where i tell you i dont want dinner when you asked what i wanted for dinner because i don't want anything so the question is returning a null integer. did you know bed bugs might have originated in neolithic caves and switched from infesting bat fur to infesting human furs when humans started inhabiting caves and driving all the bats out, and they've lived in our beds for a hundred thousand years. did you know that cellar spiders are almost always the descendants of cave spiders, carried from quarry to foundation and left to flourish for decades, centuries. did you know that a possible origin for the american house cockroach was probably a bark-dwelling species that kept getting transferred into the walls and roofs of new houses and then found an endless wealth of crumbs in their new big square tree. can you feel some kind of love and reverence for these strange neighbors of ours that we built into our homes over and over and to whom humans are an endless and eternal blessing. isn't it nice to think that to a few precious, annoying little critters, we're home.

Urban Harvest - global foraging maps

Food Not Bombs Global Chapter Locations (mostly vegan!)

USA - Find your local food bank