Land of Towers and Chaos This is my safe place.

(Meow in the background. The meows continue through the video.)

So, (meow) today I am making... (meow) (snicker) pine- (meow) pinecone dice. (meow) (meow) My cat- (meow) He- (meow) He wants to narrate, too (meow). SHUT UP, THUNDER. (a beat.) He's not allowed in the bedroom (meow) 'cause he beats my other cat up (meow) and she's in here right now (meow) so he's throwing a fit.

Anyways, we're making pineco- (wheeze) i lost my train of thought.

So, I use- (meow) (exasperated) pi- i can't fucking these blank inserts (meow) to put the pinecones in (a series of meows interrupt) and then I put the pl- I had this all planned out and I was gonna explain exactly what I was doing and then the (meow)... the CAT... (meow) (a beat.) (Some purring) Can you (purring) hear that? Listen to that)(meow)

Anyways I hope you like the dice, bye.

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And he opens his bag and starts rustling through it and sets aside some YA novel that I don’t remember but that it had this absolutely lovely lavender purple cover. and then he pulls out his fucking knitting and just goes to town. Just, minding his own business, knitting away intently, listening to his earbuds.

And wasn’t a person on that train gonna say a DAMN thing about it. No one pointed or made any comments because this dude was built to crush motherfuckers. And he was knitting in public so you know he knew no fear and was happy and confident and then this little girl walked away from her mum and walked straight up to him and waved and her mother looked surprised (but not scared, this is NYC - we don’t know fear because we’re too busy). But the guy sees this little girl wave at him and just gives her the BIGGEST SMILE and waves back and takes out an earbud and says hi and they start talking about knitting and how he learned on his own and she wanted to learn and her mother didn’t know. But he suggested that there were knitting clubs and a lot of them were free and would happily help a new little knitter like her.

In the middle of one of these alarms, I had a lovely 7’ long red rat snake wrapped around me while I was cleaning up. (She was my favorite - active, but polite, never bit or struck or pulled back to threaten it, or musked me, no matter what I did with her). Of course, law of averages, there had to be one that was a “real” alarm. Bunch of big firefighters come in, demanded to know why we weren’t outside with everyone else, the work’s.

And then they started screaming.

High pitched, girly shrieks. As first one, then another, noticed I was wearing a snake.

And, of course, the screaming brought more fire fighters over, who also screamed… let’s just say I had three trucks worth of dudes gathered around me, stunned that I would -wear- a snake. Who, of course, saw new people and was doing her best to make friends.

Once the false alarm was sorted, they all came back, to a man, to meet the snakes. I had enough for each of them to “try one on.”

These big, buff dudes, who risk their lives running into raging fires without a thought, had to hype themselves up for me to put a young hog nose in their palms. Anxiety sweat dropped down their faces and soaked through their undershirts as I let the red and grey rat snakes cool around their arms. When the garden snake slipped down one guy’s collar, I thought he was going to drop dead from a heart attack, right there. But they all did it! And survived!

One weekend we were getting food at a diner after going to a couple of estate sales, and a lady with two little girls was seated at the table behind us. The two little girls saw us, went “Sonny!! HI SONNY HI HI!!” and basically started trying to climb him.

He panics and blocks her. He’s sponging off of his wife, and if he gets busted, there goes his gravy train.

And then the woman shows up. In his house. She just got a job working with his wife, who absolutely adores her, and brought her home for dinner. And she’s doing that movie maniac thing where the entire conversation is about Brian, but Rose is clueless and whenever Rose isn’t looking she’s got cold eyes on him.

He tries to stay calm, and act like everything’s normal, and he gets up to get a beer or something and when he turns around from the fridge, Patty is standing there.

“Unlock your phone and give it to me right now.”

“I’m not–”

“Right. Now.”

She installs something on it and hands it back.

“I’ll be in touch. Don’t try to change phones.”

He tries to convince his wife not to be friends with her, even tries the “I think she was coming on to me” line, to which the wife is “Oh, that was definitely in your head. Marge is a lesbian.”

And she just gets progressively scarier throughout the film. He gives her a small payoff. She wants more. She leaves a package for Rose on the front door, but conveniently he gets there first and opens it to find printouts of screenshots. More clues get left behind. He’s only able to keep her from finding out through a combination of sheer luck and her gullibility in believing every explanation he comes up with for his odd behavior. Finally he dips into the secret account he’s been using to hide money he’s been stealing from his wife, and it’s a HUGE payout, but she wants MORE.

And then he comes home to find Marge sitting cheerfully next to Rose’s dead body. And Marge is like “Man, the police always start looking at the husband, and they’re going to find a whole bunch of stuff when they look through your texts. You’ve been promising this woman you’re going to leave your wife. You’ve been sending her money. Oh, she’s a catfish from an untraceable IP, and your wife was talking to the bank JUST THIS AFTERNOON about some odd transactions. You panicked and killed her, and you’ve got NO evidence otherwise. I bet you could be on a flight to a non-extradition country before they find the body, though.” He runs out the door. Marge starts laughing.

Rose joins in.

They kiss.

As the credits roll, you see the events from Rose’s point of view– having drinks with the new girl from work, with whom she’s getting along amazingly, and Marge’s phone goes off. “God, it’s this asshole from Tinder. He keeps sending me dick pics. Sooner or later they’re going to learn. It’s not even a nice dick. LOOK AT THIS. Who finds that attractive???” “I… used to? Holy fuck, that’s my husband. ”

and the hatching of the plan, to just keep fucking with him, up to “Okay, so, I’m gonna leave it on the doorstep. Make sure you’re a few minutes late, HE has to find it” “Oh, god, he tried to tell me it was the mailman. At 8:30. It was so pathetic.”

“WHERE DID HE GET TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS FROM? I’m paying off his goddamn college loans!”

Rose reporting to the police that her husband has been embezzling money from her disabled mother’s trust fund.

This is the third state to pass this felony ban on trans care.

On the same day, Alabama passed another bill banning trans youth from gendered public spaces (like bathrooms), and a third bill banning any discussion of LGBTQ+ topics in schools.

Half of all U.S states are moving these exact same bills through their legislatures at lightning speeds, including my home state where I transitioned as a minor.

Texas is an honorable mention because, although banning trans medical care is not a state law, the governor has directed the families, doctors, and teachers of trans minors to report them to the state on counts of child abuse and separate them from their families.

States that have banned trans children from playing school sports are: MT, ID, SD, IA, WV, UT, AZ, TX, OK, AR, TN, MS, AL, and FL.

States that have banned any mention of LGBTQ+ topics in public schools are: MT, AZ, OK, TX, LA, MS, AR, TN, AL, and FL.

These have all happened in the last year with little to no media coverage or cis outrage. The states with Republican-dominated legislatures that haven’t yet passed all three of these bills will continue to propose them every single legislative session until they pass.