I was travelling for three months on my sabbatical when i heard she was gone.

I've come back to a house which misses one 20 year old cat who has been with me since college. I had Sue before i ever even had a boyfriend. She went through two decades of growing with me, made a wonderful fluffy pillow to cuddle when things were rough, got pissed off at me when i refused to make the rain stop, and mostly seemed to think that lobster was a really bad idea.

Her nicknames were "fluffalorium" for obvious hersuit reasons, "adolph" for the mark on her chin, "roach hound" which she promptly denounced upon meeting her first lobster one thanksgiving in Austin, when she realized the possibilities inherent in her previous favorite game, and "whoolers" which is what i put on her collar and what most of the neighborhood assumed was her real name. Susan B. Anthony was the name given the fluffy undignified kitten some people basically dumped on me when they decded to travel the country in a mobile home and realized that this cat had no intention of putting up with their foolish wanderlust. In her life with me, she moved over 26 times.

I miss her. She had a long and happy life, despite two cross-country road trips, and lived for the last few years only to be petted when she deigned to move off the couch where she slept a great deal.

Sue had a place on my webpage for ten years . .. and got email from fans as far aways as Japan.

Susan is my cat.

Susan is soft, furry, and more absorbant than cotton. Much like Hemp.

Sue was born in 1981. She will be 19. Pretty darned old for a cat. But she's still fiesty and a good guardcat, patrolling the backyard and keeping it free from . . . moths? no . . . bees? no . . . well, just free.

How, you might ask, did Sue become a Hemp Activist? And why is Sue the poster-cat for pot?

Well, Sue reminds me of many of the properties Hemp offers as a replacement for cotton fiber. Hemp is also useful for supplanting widespread use of petrochemicals and fossil fuels. But these latter facts don't actually remind me much of Sue.

Sue does not like the smell of gasoline. To be honest, she probably wouldn't much care for the smell of fuels made from Hemp either, but that's not really the point.

I think Hemp should be legalized. I should also point out that I don't smoke pot.

I thought I should mention that, even though I don't really give a chipmunk's butt what you might think if I did. I say this mostly to clarify that legalizing Hemp is not, for me, about toking it up in public or anything. It's about being American--this country was based on the certain rights and freedoms for its citizens. And it's about wanting the best for the Earth -- no I'm not going to break out into song . . . this ain't Disney fer chrissakes.

As for toking it up in public, I can say that I have friends with AIDS for whom Hemp has been a necessary medication. One problem with living with AIDS is that your appetite may go away. Getting the munchies helps keep the weight on, and consequently, keeps my friends healthier, happier, and, hell -- alive. Anything that can help keep my friends alive and happy is OK by me.

For more information about Hemp, check out these places:

High Times Yeah, we have a story about High Times from our live remote broadcast from Austin's South By Southwest Music Conference. Ask me about it sometime. Or ask Peggy O. She was there . . .

NORML

CAN: Cannabis.com

Oh yeah, about Sue. Sue was given to my college roommate, Cassandra Buchanan and I, when she was only a few months old. The people had already named her. I thought her name was pretty stupid for a cat. But she likes "Whoolers" -- a nickname my next college roommate, Julie Sapin dubbed her, and sometimes even "Eskimo Butt." Another roommate, Mike Lounsbury, who called her "Soooooo", asked me to include her on my WebPage because he loves her so much.

Grace, another roommate, had a cat that lived with us named Ambrose. Sue hated him. She hates all other cats. . . . even cute Maine Coons like Ambrose.

Sue follows me when I walk down the block. That used to be a problem when we lived in Austin, where Sue was born, because she'd follow me down and across a busy street near the Continental Club on my way to the laundry. But then Willie Nelson's mother complained to her son, the landlord, and he fixed the laundry room. Willie's mother lived there too. She had a very tall solid black beehive hairdo.

Oh yeah, back to Sue . . . She sleeps on my pillow during the Winter, and sits in my lap when I cry (that's where the more-absorbant-than-cotton comes in handy) and has been my friend for almost two decades. She has outlasted almost all of my boyfriends and moved with me over 26 times. She has never been to KFJC, because she hates the car. Passionately.

Sue didn't like Cairo, my African Pigmy Hedgehog much. He was the world's most boring pet. But awfully cute. He had the prettiest face you ever saw. Sadly, he is nore. He has ceased to be. He has shuffled off this mortal coil and gone to meet his maker . . . What does that have to do with Sue or Hemp? Not much. Nevermind... I was trying to write this like I was stoned . . . from an outsider's perspective.

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