Leah calls Sunday afternoon.
"On Thursday, I got a call inviting me to San Diego for Shabbat. So I flew in. And I ended up getting stabbed?"
Luke: "What happened?"
Leah: "I was up late drinking Heinekens with the rabbi. We were playing with the knife, throwing it back and forth. It landed in my foot. The s— you’ve got to do to get a rabbi to touch you. So he bandaged me up. I went to sleep. I took a vicodin for the pain because it was killing me. I had been drinking with him so there was a lot more blood. I woke up in the morning and they unwrapped it and it was shooting everywhere. Of course they’ve got a white couch. So I went to the hospital. They cut a bunch of junk out of it. They stitched me up and sent me home."
Luke: "Did he stab you on purpose?"
Leah: "NO! We were playing. We were flinging the knife around and it landed in my foot."
Luke: "Is this a traditional pasttime for you on Shabbat?"
Leah: "NO. This was Thursday night. It was two in the morning and too many Heinekens… And now I’m limping."
Luke: "How deep did it go into your foot? Did it go right through?"
Leah: "No, it didn’t. It got an artery. The blood was coming out of it like a fountain, like a water fountain squirting everywhere."
"They told me I had to come back in seven to ten days to take ’em out. I told ’em I can’t. I’m leaving on Monday. So give me the removal kit and I’ll do it myself. So they gave it to me. I’ll have to send it to New York because they are not going to let me take it on the plane. I can’t get on the plane as it is. I don’t have any ID. I have to go through at terrorist check."
Luke: "Why don’t you have any ID?"
Leah: "Because I keep losing it and they keep taking it when they put me away somewhere special."
Luke: "When was the last time you got put away?"
Leah: "When I was in Illinois in July."
Luke: "You seem pretty mellow the past few months. You’re not blogging."
Leah: "I am very mellow. I’m taking my meds and being a mommy and being very mellow."
Luke: "Yeah. You’ve totally changed."
Leah: "Yeah, I’m staying out of trouble. Then I come to the land of sunshine and all of a sudden, bam, it hits me."
Luke: "What meds are you on?"
Leah: "I’m taking Aderrall for ADHD. I wasn’t taking it for a while. I stopped taking it again a month ago and then started again three days ago."
Luke: "Why did you stop?"
Leah: "Because I have no insurance and it’s three hundred and something bucks a month. Once you stop, you’re head goes woo hooo and you forget about it… Then when I got here, they happened to have a bottle of it laying around that one of their kids didn’t need. So they put me back on it."
"So now I’m going to the beach to get sand in my wound."
"I brought my Illinois phone with me. I figured that if he doesn’t want to pay child support, he doesn’t want to pay for his children, he doesn’t want to call his children, he doesn’t want anything, the least I can do is to give him a $2,000 roaming bill. Right? I get his bank statements every month. He’s making good money. He’s having fun. He’s partying. He’s driving a Mercedes. He’s living the good life. He can’t send my kids $100 for their birthday. So I figured he’ll pay for it this way."
Luke: "How do you like living in Crown Heights?"
Leah: "It’s a madhouse. It’s full of mad insane people. It’s kinda like going to The Addams Family. You have these insane people running around the streets with yellow flags screaming moshiach. There are fights everywhere. If you want to see untznious (immodest) women, that’s the place to go. Oh yeah, everyone wants a Crown Heights girl. Guys from Williamsburg drive through Crown Heights just to look at the girls."
Luke: "But they’re frum girls?"
Leah: "They’re frum promiscuous untznious girls."
Luke: "Ohhhh."
Wheels turn in my head.
Leah: "They’re known for being the worst. I walk around taking pictures of them."
Luke: "How do they dress?"
Leah: "Their skirts are as tight as f— and if they bend down, I think they’ll split. Their knees, some of them are covered, but barely. They act like they walked out of Hollywood. They try to act tznious but they’re not. They wear jeans underneath their skirts and say it’s because it’s cold, but the jeans are as tight at hell with seven inch stiletto heels and big long red fingernails. Every guy wants a Chabad girl? Why you haven’t?"
Luke: "I haven’t, but I’m tempted now."
Leah: "On Shabbos, they’re funny. They take walks before or after the meal. You can see the bacherim walking around just to look at the girls and the girls are walking around just to be looked at. There are certain spots on the street that they walk on that are jam packed."
"If you want good writing, go to Crown Heights for a Shabbos. You could get all the mussar in the world and more untznious things than you could imagine."
"Somebody asked me to write something about why so many frum kids are gay."
Luke: "Do you feel good about the way your life is going?"
Leah: "I’d be a lot happier if my ex fell off a tree and had a life insurance policy."
Luke: "Where do you want to live?"
Leah: "My kids love it in Crown Heights. They think it’s awesome. It’s a free-for-all. It’s not like the regular world where kids don’t get to do anything by themselves. My kid is off learning every day with some rabbi. He’s eating at his rebbe’s house. He’s running around being Mitzvah Man. There’s a video of my kid on YouTube that was on CrownHeights.info. That site hates my guts. They blew up a big picture of his chumash party. He won’t wear his tzitzit under his shirt. In Chabad, they do that. He wears his tzitzit out. He says, ‘How are people supposed to know I’m Jewish?’"
"I’ve got a new tattoo. It’s on my back beneath ‘Birchas Cohanim." It says [in Hebrew ‘Thank you God for not making me a Gentile’]. I want to get some pictures of it but I don’t think the shluchim want to do it for me. I’ll wait till I get back to New York."
Luke: "I’m just getting over the flu, so I’m going back to bed."
Leah: "Why are you always sick? It’s all in your head. Drink a Red Bull and you’ll get rid of your CFS."
