HausOfImps

Nov 11, 2024: another ongoing family emergency. Will send swaps on time but probably close to deadline. Apologies!

October 16, 2024: I have updated my profile and hopefully made it easier to navigate. If you are looking to just glance quickly for a swap, "about me" has an image header and several wishlist formats underneath. I am easy to please.

August 31, 2024: It has come to my attention that someone has been continuously hacking into my account since January 2022 and acting like an obnoxious, pretentious POS. If "I" ever said or did something you didn't like, sorry! It was that person. Btw I don't know how to get them to stop hacking my account so it's going to keep happening.

I lived in the eternal now until middle school. And you know what? It sucked.

"And those who were seen fearfully and compulsively practicing a highly choreographed dance routine were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the steady, foreboding beat of the claves."

• Friedrich Nietzsche

It seems a shame to have to sneak to get to the truth. To make the truth such a dirty old nasty thing. You gotta sneak to get to the truth, the truth is condemned.

May 4, 2024: After a year of hiatus, I'm baaaack!

March 16, 2023: We regret that you have waited so long. We are doing our best to answer your message. HausOfImps, Inc. provides monthly swaps to over 5 different Swap-Bot users. As a result, we do have busy periods. We are taking messages in the order in which they came.

Please have handy your Swap-Bot username and any recent mail we may have sent you. This information will help us serve you better.

Greetings! My name is Lisa and I'm a 37-year-old woman living in Chicago. I try to keep my life pretty low-key and spend most of my time with my partner or my family. I like to read, craft, and send mail. I also like old Dateline episodes, bad Lifetime movies, and weird old Christian fraudster interviews and documentaries.

I have taught ESL and adult basic education here and there, and I miss it dearly! While I am not confident in being able to return to that type of work, it sure would be nice. I am considered disabled due to mental illness and so is half of everyone on here so that shouldn't be too surprising. I do have all sorts of weird foreign language book pages and flashcards and stuff as a result, though -- always up to trade!

I am a Furby collector, a McLuhanite, a Scott McCloud fangirl, a satirist, and the Original Rat Bastard (according to Gallup polls). I am an edgelord and I simply cannot pretend that this is not the case. I love philosophy, comparative mythology, proboscideans, and avian dinosaurs. I was raised in a lapsed-interfaith household and as a result, believe in nothing but Hell and occasionally myself.

I'm currently into clowning and legerdemain, card tricks, theme parks, roller coasters, and amusement in general. I am learning to play the electric bass guitar. I like to collage and have a lot of fun making envelopes, flipbooks, zines, etc. I like playing pranks and silly little jokes of all sorts.

If you don't want to receive mail from a Satanist, that's weird and I'm sending to you anyway if you're assigned as my partner. Get a grip. I don't have straight 5's from cursing people, other than the three 5 ratings I got from that curse swap series I hosted a couple years back. But that was consensual.

Meet the gang!

Outdated picture, but here are most of my children. They are all very precious to me and have complex inner lives.

I am always on the lookout for anything featuring Charlie Manson (especially postcards), anything with Teddy Roosevelt or the Rough Riders, playing cards or postcards related to Six Flags Great America (IL) or Hersheypark (PA), and firsthand trip reports from you (if you are a hedonist and a dirty dr-g user). I'd also love stuff from theme parks in other countries.

While not practicing, I do happily accept Catholic iconography (especially related to Saint Jude) and well wishes for the major Christian and Muslim holidays, as I was not raised in a contextless vacuum. I'd pop a gasket in a good way over unused US postage in general, but I have never felt justified buying Eid stamps for myself and would love to receive some.

Of course, if you venerate Satan or practice demonolatry, or even just Qabalah or ceremonial magick, I may be interested in a more specific trade. I have had a nice time making items that are not charged but could be consecrated for an altar if the recipient so desired. I do not use RHP/Wiccan/Catholic/etc items in my practice unless I have purchased or made them myself, out of respect for those sharing their faith with me.

I collect Joker playing cards, Wheel of Fortune, The Devil, and gaff cards. Especially if you have double backs you do not use. The face and back on Jokers especially are both interesting to me, so plain or standard backs with interesting faces are a-ok with me.

I love cold weather and the Chicago Wolves. I live close enough to Wrigley Field that I can procure Cubs item(TM) if you are a baseball fan. I also can get transit maps somewhat easily. I'm a Marxist but I can't help it, I really am just from Chicago. If you want me to gloat about our infrastructure, just let me know. I will.

If you like true crime, the FBI FOIA Vault (vault.fbi.gov) is a real trip. Their files on Israel Keyes are especially fascinating. Trust me. That's not a mistake or anything.

I would really love some empty "body bags" if you or someone you know works for USPS -- just packaging for damaged mail -- or really, anything USPS official. If you are the kind of person who snatched things like "fresh paint" signs, shame on you. That's illegal and you should message me.

"And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy."

• Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, 1927 • full poem

Favorite colors: pastels, black, vibrant colors, neon colors, gold, turquoise, maroon, scarlet. All psychedelica, tie dye, paisley, fractals which we're getting pretty far from "colors" now but oh well

Favorite video games: arcade, pinball, Atari (esp Blueprint), all Nintendo systems, Mario franchise, Pokemon, Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, Civilization franchise, Master of Orion franchise, RCT3. My favorite Pokemon are Mr Mime and his compatriots.

Other games: I collect Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, Pokemon cards, Magic the Gathering cards, and Metazoo cards. I collect any kind of swap card as well, and practice divination.

Edible items: I prefer not to receive food unless it's hard candy. I also like tea (all kinds), coffee, and drink packets. No restrictions or allergies, though if the packet is not in English, please tell me what it is! Please send course ground or instant coffees only.

Favorite Movies: horror, exploitation, thrillers, gore, Studio Ghibli

Favorite Music: grew up on hardcore, thrash, and folk punk. Currently getting into extreme metal and revisiting grunge.

ABC's of Me

• A - arabesque, aliens, anatomy, architecture, angels, Anatolia, altered states of consciousness, Aztec art

• B - beluga whales, Bigfoot, bright and tacky colors, body horror, Baphomet, banknotes, bringing Sabrina home

• C - collage, cryptids, Charles Manson, capybaras, cultural stuff, crabs, cacti, conspiracy theories, ceremonial magick, cowboys, colobus monkeys, clowns & mimes, cockatoos, cults, Central Asia, cassowaries, Canadian geese, crocodiles, comics, coffee

• D - daruma dolls, dinosaurs, demons, dreams

• E - elephants, Erlik Khan, Ancient Egypt, esotericism

• F - Furby, folklore, food (on washi and stickers), friendship bracelets, flowers

• G - gnomes, guinea pigs, glitter or foil stickers, gods/goddesses, gargoyles, Great Lakes, ghosts,

• H - history (important leaders, military, etc), Hindi, the Hodag

• I - interesting facts, India (Dravidian architecture!), Israel Keyes

• J - jesters, Furby (jester edition), journaling, John Wayne Gacy

• K - kawaii, Kirby, keychains

• L - Lisa Frank, lobsters, lion dance

• M - marabou storks, mastodons, mushrooms, mythology, Mega Man, maneki-neko, Mr. Rime, musth (not to be confused with musk), militaria, mosques (imagery), mass murderers, mummies (especially non-Egyptian)

• N - Nintendo, Nibiru, New Age imagery, nazar beads, Native American beadwork

• O - Oranguru, occultism, organized crime (as a subset of true crime)

• P - philosophy, Pokemon, penguins, pyramids, postcards, photos, pastels, Pennsylvania Dutch, psychedelica, paranormal, Paul Bunyan, early US presidents, pigeons, peacocks, propaganda, public transit

• Q - quotes, Qabalah

• R - religions/sites of worship, ruins, Russia/Russian, Regigigas, The Rough Riders, rubber stamps (unmounted or cling foam), recipes

• S - stickers in general, shoebills, storks, South & South East Asia, stamps (foreign), Sanrio, San-X, Satanic Panic, space/galaxy, skeletons, spiders, Studio Ghibli, Sufi-inspired art, swamps, Super Ghouls N Ghosts, Sumikko Gurashi, serial killers, Siberia, swans, secret societies, street art

• T - Turkey, Turkic peoples, Teddy Roosevelt, Tamagotchi, tourism postcards, Trevenant, Turkic mythology, trading cards, tarot, tea, true crime

• U - urban photography, Urdu, UFOs, used books

• V - volcanos, Volcanion, video games, Virgo (sun sign)

• W - woolly mammoths, washi tape, writing systems, weird stuff, WWII imagery

• X -

• Y - Yokai, Yakutia

• Z - zeybek dance, zines, zodiac

Ultimate Wishlist: postcards or souvenirs from the La Brea Tar Pits & Museum, anything related to the Hodag, Furby-related anything, Pennsylvania Dutch folk art (imagery on postcards or playing cards, larger trades), Doreen Virtue angel cards, postcards or handmade art featuring serial killers, anything Teddy Roosevelt or Rough Riders, unique rubber stamps (unmounted or cling foam), anything related to Yakutia, anything related to Central Asian Turkic peoples (including books/book pages and art), anything former Soviet Union (I can read some Russian), anything vintage Chicago, postcards and art featuring serial killers, food-related washi (especially if it's not kawaii/sweets/breads), jokers from interesting decks of cards, anything featuring depictions of demons or the devil, trip reports

Normal wishlist: kawaii sticker flakes, loose playing cards, loose tarot or Oracle cards, loose Pokemon cards, loose playing cards, anything in Cyrillic, Devanagari, Arabic/Perso-Arabic (any language ok), washi samples, blank postcards related to any of my interests, damaged postage and CTOs, memo sheets, stickers again (vintage, partial sheets, small stickers, flakes, imperfect stickers, I'll take all of it other than reward/little kid stickers -- I use some of the weirder stuff in art projects), handmade paper, ATC backings, used train/bus tickets, etc

Here are some silly little topics that interest me:

• philosophy of mind, especially philosophy of pain as it relates to chronic pain with unknown etiology

• deception in primates and the social utility of deception in general, as well as its relation to cooperation and empathy

• group dynamics, in general

• the role of ritual, ceremony, and play in society, especially its prioritization across cultures and functional utility in forming healthy self-concept

• the concept of inborn "psychopathy" as rebranded Calvinism and a societal ill in and of itself

• true crime stories that involve extreme cruelty and no motive beyond "I wanted to see what it felt like/I just get the urge to do these things"

• AMUSEMENT!!!

religious materials meant to convert or proselytize, anything dirty, kiddie stickers or reward stickers, fabric/lace/ribbon scraps (just don't have a use for them). And I can't believe I have to say this, but please no items with mold or spores, and please make sure your hands are relatively clean when making or putting together mail.

I have an immature sense of humor, but I have no desire to receive anything "erotic" or sex-related in nature that is intended to be taken seriously or is a relaying of someone's real life extracurriculars. Jokes about sex are fine.

I do not support doxxing. Doxxing includes sharing someone's full name, street name, APARTMENT NUMBER, city, and state. This isn't 4chan. Your behavior is pathetic.

My old account is benevolentghost -- I cannot access it and was hoping to merge it with this one, and have been attempting to do so for two years now. It ain't happening. I'm a dirty double profiler and accept my fate, except my cumulative rating between both is now probably closer to 4.97 than 4.96, which is where it was at a year ago. Feel free to check and correct me if you're an OG user of this fine website. :)

NB, ☞, etc: *I was graciously rated a 5 instead of a 3 for a swap I made up in March 2022. My rating of 4.96+ stands Proof

Curious about why I bold key information?

If you don't receive a swap of mine, please message me before downrating. I usually take photos and I'm happy to resend either way.

If I haven't rated you and you think I should have your swap, don't hesitate to message me. I don't find it rude.

Please be patient, I'm sure I'll edit this profile a million times. And, as always, please feel free to reach out if you'd like to swap, if you have a question or problem with a swap I'm hosting (or my group), or if ya just want to chat!

If you've gotten this far, I will trade goods of similar value for employee swag from different locations, ie: uniform t-shirt or polos, store-branded lanyards, etc. Just message me and we'll work something out.

I wrote something very long here earlier, but here is an abbreviated version:

I vet swappers, I check in with people, I mediate conflict if someone sends something the other isn't happy with. I angel when necessary.

All I ask from participants is open and direct communication, and maybe a little bit of mutual respect. I am very lenient with a lot of things (and totally nonjudgmental) as long as they're presented honestly and in plain language. I am not intimidating, I promise. Gonna be late? Tell me. We'll figure it out.

That's all!

Add me and my partner, then message me your username! We've both gotten a couple adds at the same time recently, but I think our FCs are in a couple other places -- I prioritize SB users for gifts and try to get him to do the same. :P Our postcards have "modern" Scatterbug attached.

Me: 5301 3376 5281

Bf: 7637 3042 2189