So I need to take a break from studying for finals/finishing up final projects and protocols and do some writing. I'm feeling particularly shitty today, so I thought I'd remind myself of how happy I was last night, walking home from the flower-dumpster with an armload of beautiful flowers and a bunch of bananas and some cranberry sauce, singing my version of "All you need is love."
Why was I so happy last night, besides the bounty of flower and yummy fruit? Well, I'd just gotten my period, which is always a good thing (no babies, also it is fun to bleed and contemplate making Christmas cards with my menstrual blood to send to all my relatives..I don't know how many would appreciate that though!) Also, I was happy because I'd been at Powell's books with Andrew and Ian, looking at pop-up books about famous fairy tales. Andrew had insisted on being really close to me the whole time and insisted that I read to him, rather then Ian. I felt like some kind of rock star, getting Andrew's unwavering attention! He showed me sticker books of superheros and asked me to read him the names of each superhero, and I showed him plant books and asked him to identify the plants I knew he knew.
"Oregon grape! You can tell 'cuze it's got grapes...!" Andrew pointed to the picture of the grapes hanging under the shiny, spiky leaves. Andrew had correctly pointed out Oregon grape when we'd been on a walk the other day, so I knew he knew it. He did not know Stinging Nettles from the picture I showed him, but he did know the plant in forest park. We looked at Staghorn Sumac, Yarrow, Plantain and others. Andrew showed me Supergirl, Storm, Batman and the Fantastic Four. We looked at a pop-up book of Peter Pan. Suddenly, looking at a lovely picture of the Lost Boys all snuggling into a big bed inside a hollow tree, along with Peter Pan, Wendy, her brothers and Tinker Bell, I said "that is my ideal lifestyle..."
And it is. I'm tried of rolling over in the morning and being alone, rather then rolling over and bumping into bodies; opening my eyes simultaneously with my tribe mates and looking into their eyes; buck-skinned beauties all crowded together on the same mattress made of duck feathers and moss; all of us sharing the same elk-hides and buffalo robes for warmth. I want to wake up with my arms around someone else's baby; I want to share nursing responsibilities and teach other people's kids to identify edible plants. I want to have many lovers; I want men and women to follow me into the forest when I go to collect hawthorne berries, nettles or blackberries, mushrooms and wild ginger....I want them to follow me and for us together find a dry place under an overhanging rock or a tree that pulled half of its' roots out of the ground...I want to make love in the dirt, and not worry about using condoms, because another baby in the tribe would be a blessing, not a problem. I want to laugh as we pull ourselves from the dirt, shaking pine nettles out of our dreaded up hair and clothes.
I want to pee wherever and whenever I feel the urge. I don't want to have to wait to find a restroom, a porcelain toilet bowl...I want to return all of my wastes back to the Earth. I want to bleed all over the place...I want my lovers to follow my trail of blood to find me! I want to nurse babies who aren't biologically connected to me; I want to carry babies who aren't mine on my back, on my hips, in a buckskin sling. I want to sing and dance for people just because I love them; I want to feel secure in many arms as I sleep at night. I want to warm myself beside a communal fire; I want to send entire bad-weather days in bed, with the rest of my tribe, telling each other stories and farting on each other! I want to laugh like a twelve year old in the heat of getting breasts, hormones and a sex drive...all my life! I want to feel passionately in love with fifty or more people all my life! I never want to be in one house, with one man, making babies that are just our own..because really, nobody owns the babies...babies own themselves!
I want to give birth in the woods....I want ten or twelve lovely wild women in the woods with me, building up a big fire and singing to me as I give birth. I want to not be sure who the daddy of the baby I'm giving birth is...because I don't want anyone to "own" me, or "own" my baby. I want my baby to be a surprise....will he have dark hair like one lover or light hair like another? I want my baby to come into the world raw, shocked, surprised, and go straight to my breast like a lover.
I want to nurse my child for four or more years....I want to have a love affair with a baby who is a complete surprise and utter blessing. I want days, weeks maybe even months when other mothers take this baby as their own and let me be a free woman, let me wander into the woods to harvest things alone, or with a lover.
I want my life to be centered around the sensuousness that really is life...not this internet, cell phone, mega store mall and downtown rush that we call "life," what a set of stupid and utter illusions....
I like hearing my new lover talking about snuggling at a punk party with some other buxom girl on a mattress in a bedroom; I love feeling the sensuousness from the story as he tells it....
Love ya,
Carrot
these thoughts...they'd try to match the greatness of your words but they'd feel empty and heartless compared to the ones penned by you.
So...thanks, is what I would choose.
"A person doesn't die when he should but when he can."
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
"close your eyes, clear your heart..." Allama Iqbal...An Ode to the Cup Bearer<
except I want to keep my baby always and never run away from her to be '"free."
I'll let you play with her though!
"Consistency is not a human trait" - Maude, from Harold and Maude
so I don't know if I'd actually feel that way or not, but I'm sure it would be nice to have that option...
I'd love to play with your baby Turtlesuds...she looks so cute!
Love ya,
Carrot
amazing!!!!
i would love to have over fifty lovers and not care about using a condom.
you expose so much about our way of lives with this blog.
The blog shows us that we are ashamed of our bodies, posessive, and ashamed of sexual experience.
and all of this is unnatural
Neat! There are so many things in your write-up that I wish I could do.
------------------------------------------------
It always seems impossible until it is done-Nelson Mandela.
I'd feel a lot more positive about you enjoying your back to nature carefree lifestyle if I was not being taxed to pay for your foodstamp card.
Get a real job and quit mooching.
and you did...congrats.
"A person doesn't die when he should but when he can."
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
"close your eyes, clear your heart..." Allama Iqbal...An Ode to the Cup Bearer<
Thank you! I'll take it as a compliment even though I have some suspicion that it was not intended that way.
In another blog you gave the strong impression that you had aspirations of succeeding in life. At some point that probably means that you too will be a heavy taxpayer. You'll find out what I'm talking about when you realize just how hard it is to succeed when about half of the money you work very hard to earn is confiscated and given to able bodied and mentally competent people who have decided to game the system and live alternative lifestyles while the rest of us pick up the tab.
if I am fed, clothed, sheltered and loved...I'll be happy and money...it comes and goes.
you might be right...I don't know how right
I live in a family where only my dad works, his paycheck covers everything from food, to clothes, bills, car payments, check ups, mortgage and I am happy..no...
I am grateful and full of life with just that one paycheck :)
"A person doesn't die when he should but when he can."
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
"close your eyes, clear your heart..." Allama Iqbal...An Ode to the Cup Bearer<
I'm no mooch...I've worked my ass off since I was thirteen...actually before that, since my parents where farmers who strongly believed in child labor.
I feel shitty enough as it is right now because I'm unemployed and barely surviving...thanks for making me feel worse....
I'm taking as little as possible from taxpayers...I only asked the government for food stamps, although they said it might be possible for me to get other benefits, because I feel shitty enough needing food stamps...
Someday, as a midwife, I'm sure I'll curse people who need some help too...I'll probably turn into a cynical old woman who doesn't remember the days when I needed a little help.
Ok, now that you mention it, I think I'll refuse my food stamps and starve to death.
Love ya,
Carrot
Your comments are actually funny and seemingly go against your entire post. You celebrate the fact that you are free from any sort of responsibilities, that to another person or yourself. You imagine living in some sort of ultra-free society where there is no real care or really true emotional ties, even to that of your children. On a side not, as both a man and a father, you can have you orgy of fun, I would die if I did not know that my children were mine!
I guess if you want to be taken seriously by those of us who are...adults, then don't celebrate your throwback lifestyle to tribal/beatnik communities in one breath and then complain when it is then turned back against you. I guess I am say make up your mind, either celebrate being a mooch or fight against it. From your history of posts, I don't get the impression that mind taking. Even your utopia is a very self centered view where it is all about your feelings and lack of real human attachments, even to that of your children.
Helping people that need help and are wanting to help themselves is one thing. However, what you are talking about is the virtual human example of the grass hopper and the ant parable.
Sorry ,seen to much horror and suffering in my life by people who would love to prove themselves in a society that offers them unlimited possibilities to worry about you starving to death.
these kinds of responses on a blog, they would bother to look at what else the person has written.
I also wish that people would realize that when they are coming from a completely different perspective, they would leave the original poster alone in their blog and go write a blog where you vent your own frustration.
Carrot is wonderful, and you don't get her. Now go away from here and do your own thing. She is not always "consistent" and if you care to look at my signature you might have a clue as to why that doesn't matter.
She is daydreaming in this post, she knows this isn't reality. She is not suggesting that you join her in this orgy. She also lives a very complex life, and makes very interesting observations from her perspective, one that few people have, and refreshingly innocent and raw at the same time. She also writes a lot about fear. While she has taken the risk to live on the outskirts of society, she also functions in it, learns from it, and gives back to it.
You pissed in our neverland yard. Booooooo :hmph:
"Consistency is not a human trait" - Maude, from Harold and Maude
"A person doesn't die when he should but when he can."
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
"close your eyes, clear your heart..." Allama Iqbal...An Ode to the Cup Bearer<
I've been reading Carrot's posts since she got here. I've found them quite entertaining. I've read about here protesting seal shooters, organic farming, not wanting to have children, using her menstrual blood as fertilizer, eating roadkill, threatening to blow up dams and wipe out whole towns (that was not entertaining), hitchhiking across the country, harvesting rice, living essentially the vagabond lifestyle, goriila farming, wanting to have children, dumpster diving,, etc. The one thing I don't ever recall reading about was a job that payed money.
All of that stuff is fine with me except the ecco terrorism. If Carrot can put her daily bread on the table by growing stuff organically with her menstrual blood and can otherwise supplement her diet by living the life of a hunter gatherer, and scavenger then, while it would not be the life I chose, it is fine with me.
But then I find out that I find out I am being taxed to support this self-indulgent lifestyle and the whole thing starts to seem like a fraud. Carrot is no less a drain on the environment then any of the rest of us. She is completely dependent on modern society for her daily bread. She lets the rest of us do the hard work of trying to scratch out a living in this modern world while she indulges herself with fantacies and visions of being some sort of child of nature living in harmony and giving her blood ,,,blah, blah, blah and what she is really doing is just mooching.
The foodstamp system is supposed to be a safety net, not a lifestyle. There are going to be plenty of hardworking people in the next 40 or so months who want to work and contribute but who through no fault of their own are going to need that safety net and it is going to come under huge strain. We are going to see parts of the safety net in some of the most broke states collapse. I don't have much tolerance for people who refuse to contribute scamming the system.
If Carrot wants to be in harmony with nature and all that then she should really do it. Organic farming is HARD, Being a successful hunter gatherer scavenger is HARD. I have no problem with somebody choosing to make their living that way but they should ACTUALLY MAKE THEIR OWN LIVING.
I have actually had paying jobs while all of these other things have been going on...low paying jobs, but hard, construction jobs mostly....
I know all about how hard organic farming is; I've done quite a bit of it in my time...also, many, many jobs on commercial farms...
I believe i have no fantasies anymore about the harshness of the gatherer-hunter lifestyle; the wild rice harvest proved to me just how tough it is going to be...
I am currently in a large metropolitan area (Portland OR,) where it is a little harder to get all the food you need from farming/gathering-hunting. I do manage to eat quite a bit of wild/foraged food despite that, however. For one thing, I'm living a lot off of the rice I harvested this summer.
Food stamps don't cover my monthly food expenses, I'd say 50% of the food I'm eating at the moment are either 1) foraged 2) dumpstered 3) grown in a garden I have helped with...so I feel that I am moving in the direction I have purposed to want to move in...
I'm in an in-between stage at the moment; I'm still in midwifery college, which is why I'm in a large city, learning how to safely bring babies into the world, so that when I live with my tribe of "mooches," I'll be able to be a responsible one, stopping hemorrhages, suturing people, helping mommas establish breastfeeding, etc.
I believe I'm working toward honorable and worthwhile goals...and sometimes, yeah, even the most hardworking of us needs some assistance...
I am looking for a wage job at the moment as well...but with an unemployment rate here in Oregon of about 8%, it isn't easy...
Love ya,
Carrot
and your kids' futures, you would be more productive if you chose to figure out what is wrong with the welfare system. If you think carrot doesn't qualify, that means someone in the government is doing a poor job of assessing need.
Carrot is one person, there are many on foodstamps, and many who need them far less than carrot.
"Consistency is not a human trait" - Maude, from Harold and Maude
There are plenty of people scamming the system. That does not make it right for them or Carrot.
I particularly react to Carrot because over the past several months she has made her contempt for the modern economy clear. It is fine for her to feel that way about the economy. I don't agree but I respect her opinion.
But then I find out that this whole time she has been bashing the economy she has also been collecting welfare from that same system that I get taxed hard to provide. And while she scams the system system like a bananna slug sucking on a dog turd she just continues to express her contempt.. No word of thanks, no gratitude, just contempt. Here is what she said most recently:
I might have to rely a tiny bit on the system I so despise....
It is the height of hypocrisy. She just needs to take it if I now choose to heap a small serving of contemp back at her. I happen to like the modern economy. Nothing else in human history has allowed so many to live so well. I have thrived in it and it sickens me to listen to her bash it while admitting it is all that stands between her and starvation.
while carrot the banana slug sucks on turds and collects food stamps. I see now how she is such a threat to you.
I guess carrot should "grow up" and start leeching in the more appropriate capitalist way by living off of credit cards and student loans, incurring debt exponentially and one day claim bankruptcy or foreclosure.
That's right, let's not dare criticize all those loan sharks and idiot consumers who followed the pied piper of money and ownership without ever having or hoping to have the means to support their fantasy lifestyle.
"Consistency is not a human trait" - Maude, from Harold and Maude
Carrot was a nanny until very recently. That's real, paying job.
"Never go with a hippy to a second location."
~Jack Donaghy
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
To start, pissing in your neverland yard, classic. Laughed till it hurt. I am going to use that.
Second, I don't care what she chooses to do or not do. However, to get offended because someone does not believe that they should pay for her food stamps when she chooses to live in the environment that she does, well, I will give blow back on that. I guess that the most succinct way I can put it is suck it up. However, if you feel differently, please feel free to write her and everyone else who CHOOSES to live as she does checks out of your bank account. By all means, just don't take my money to support her. I would rather it go to MY children. That way she can refuse her food stamps and not starve to death. Everyone wins.
foodstamp users suck. If this blog was actually about foodstamps your comment would have been appropriate. Meaning if instead of sharing a daydream, carrot was proposing a position that foodstamps are good, and why she is justified in using them, I would not have bothered to defend her.
"Consistency is not a human trait" - Maude, from Harold and Maude
"To start, pissing in your neverland yard, classic. Laughed till it hurt. I am going to use that."
I suggest, "pissing in your Neverland Playground." Sounds better.
"Consistency is not a human trait" - Maude, from Harold and Maude
I was walking by the river last night, thinking about this paradox, which is, in fact, how I'm feeling at the moment...
On the one hand, I do want to live in a "free society," (I desire free food, which actually, isn't free at all, since gathering and hunting is really, really incredibly hard work, as I discovered this summer in Minnesota, harvesting wild rice. I would actually be working just as hard as having a "real" job, only I'd be working in a different way.) Someday, I hope to be completely independent of this system, at the moment, I am relying to some degree on food stamps to eat, although I do also eat lots of roadkill, dumpstered food, foraged and gardened food....so I am taking the steps toward the independent lifestyle I so desire.
On the other hand, I am caught in this miserable guilt, because I have a family (like most families,) who are pressuring me toward "normalcy", a career, food all purchased at a store, one house with one man (definitely no women partners, too weird for my family,) some kids and a dog....I feel pressure from our entire culture/civilization as well...
I came to the conclusion that this is an "in between" stage for me; that as I adapt to the gatherer-hunter lifestyle I desire; (and I have in fact made big strides in this past year in that direction,) I might have to rely a tiny bit on the system I so despise....
We all go through periods of growth and change when we may require a little assistance..(and really, the assistance I am getting is so tiny, I don't know why I'm worried about it,)
Love ya,
Carrot
I feel that pressure too. That's why I want to have a farm eventually. So I can be independent (mostly) and tell those who are so concerned with their tax dollars to shove it up their ass. Although I do want a "real" job since I'm seeking a teaching degree. I hate when people say "real job." I'd like to know where these make believe jobs are.
While jackbenimble's comments may have been harsh, you're going to have to get used to it. When you post your opinions on this site, you are putting yourself out there and you may be criticized or even ridiculed. That's life. Especially when presenting views as controversial as yours can be.
Like what you've read? Well, then here's more:
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tricia0711
that MY views are controversial? :-O
I think this comment was meant for me, but I can't tell. And if I am controversial, well I welcome opposition. I love a good fight. I just think a person should be a little aware of the context of a post before attacking a person's beliefs.
I know it happens a lot. It's funny, but sometimes plain mean. I love a blog that has the word "atheist" in it with a bunch of comments about Jesus. Why don't the Jesus lovers blog about Jesus? Of course it will never stop, I just think its silly.
In this case, this is personal story, not an argument or a position. Treating it like it is something to debate is silly.
"Consistency is not a human trait" - Maude, from Harold and Maude
No, it was to Carrot. I replied to one of her replies much earlier so it is hard to tell.
Her original blog is not an argument or a position, but one has developed in the comments. All I am doing is saying that Carrot cannot expect everyone to be happy with what they say. I do not agree with jackbenimble bringing his own agenda into everything he discusses, but he has the right to do it if he can connect it in any way to the blog or discussion.
Basically, I'm just telling Carrot that she can't get upset over responses. Basically, I love argument. The bright side of this discussion is that every time you come to this blog to make a response, you are giving Carrot blog reads which helps her position in the scholarship contest. jackbenimble, if you think Carrot is a moocher, why do you help her win free money?
Sorry for that last comment, but I wanted to join in on the controversy fun. I guess it won't happen if I apologize for what I say though. I LOVE CAPITALISM! does that do it?
Like what you've read? Well, then here's more:
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tricia0711
Great post! Love it! I love carrot and I will track her account and read every blog she posts and comment wherever I can! YAY Capitalism!
"Consistency is not a human trait" - Maude, from Harold and Maude
Yeah, thanks for the clarification. I agree that I can't get mad when people have a different viewpoint then my own, a trait I am working on.
The other day, I working for a trauma surgeon, to who I owe some money. She spent two hours ridiculing me and the lifestyle I've chosen. Fine. That is her choice, she lives very differently from me, she happens to believe the way she lives is the right one, and mine is not. I went home and bawled my eyes out. I then realized that I really need to grow a thicker skin. People will continue to question how I live, probably as long as I am alive, since midwifery and dumpstering and humanmanure and roadkill as food and many, many of the other things I do are very not mainstream and are considered radical. I'm sure I'll always be the end of jokes at some parties; I'm sure many people like the trauma surgeon will tell me how I live is "wrong" for forever...I need to get used to that and be ok with that.
Because, after much soul-searching, I realized that the lifestyle I am living is much, much closer to how I believe I should live then any previous lifestyle I've tried out. I'm getting closer to being who I want to be, and that makes me proud. I should not let comments like hers or like the ones I've been getting here determine how I feel or how I live my life.
Love ya,
Carrot