Q: Where Do Dictators Keep Their Armies?

A: In their sleevies.

Q: Is it difficult to enlist in the Army?
A: When you're a vagrant ex-hippie trying to land a job that requires security clearance... yes!

Apparently The Man frowns on multiple name changes, experimental drug usage, and couch-surfing for years at a time. Most of my friends are anti-military and have been less than encouraging. No one understands why a sensitive artist-type would do this. I don't fully understand, myself, except maybe to chalk it up to Contrarianism.

Now, amidst all the flack I'm getting from friends and family, I'm also getting discouraged by the very government I've volunteered to serve! Not directly, of course... I haven't yet run the full gauntlet and been rejected. It's just that the process thus far (the countless questions I find difficult to answer, given the life I've been leading for the past ten years) has left my freakishness in stark relief, and brings me to doubt my own qualifications for Representative Of Our Great Country and Bearer of Sensitive Government Information.

I just keep telling myself I have to represent, yo. But if they tell me I can't blog, I might have to reconsider.

Gynomite: The Secret Feminine History of Rockets

Q: Put gunpowder in tubes of bamboo and what do you have?
A: The first rockets, invented by (of course) the Chinese. These cylindrical explosives (used for warfare and for frightening spirits) made their way across Asia and into Europe around the 13th century.

The Eye-talians called this new invention rochetta, from rocca, the word for distaff. A distaff is an ancient cylindrical tool used in spinning, and its cylindrical-ness is most likely what led to the Italians naming the new explosive gunpowder tubes after it. As the word rochetta evolved into 'rocket', the word 'distaff' evolved into an adjective for all femininity and domesticity... because spinning fibers into yarn is traditionally women's work.

There you have it. When you use the word 'rocket' today (Jan. 7th is Distaff Day, btw), remember its ties to ancient femininity.