auckland | vancouver

I don't think I'd give this up for anything. 

There are moments of doubt. Moments when I'm loathe to roll out of bed..

Then I think of the people I've met, the experiences I've had, and the possibilities that lay before me... And I wonder how it took me so long to attempt this.

Saturday wasn't one of those moments [of doubt]. Though, I knew something was wrong the instant I awoke at 5:29am, seconds before my alarm could sound. Promptness on my part carries with it a definite sense of foreboding. If I'm early, packed and ready to go, it means something is going to throw a wrench in my day.

This wrench manifested in the form of a missing combi. Unbeknownst to me, it hadn't had enough passengers to make the ride home to the village the night before, and was postponed for two days—pay day is the last day of the month, and the demand for transport lessens as people run out of cash.

When I moved to Africa, asking people for rides was difficult for me. We don't frequently hitch rides with strangers in America. Especially women. We're forewarned against the practice from birth. Now.. I'll pester anyone in sight if I need to be somewhere.

I had to be in Rundu. It was required. For my sanity. A farewell party for group 36 volunteers closing out their service in Namibia. You never know what shenanigans will arise. Or what will, inevitably, be broken [or the mysterious manner in which they are broken].. Or who you might meet.

It worked. Forty minutes later we were on the road. I had cajoled a Bulgarian construction worker, who had otherwise planned to sleep that morning, into driving me, and other stranded villagers, to the Red Line so we could hike north.

I made it with time to spare. We had a house for the night... A little privacy is always a plus—where we can be loud and boisterous without being completely on display. Just a little break from being representatives of the States.

Between conversations, I fed myself fistfuls of couscous and apple cake in the kitchen (in my party dress, but not quite breaking a previously stated resolution). And eventually the excited and, frankly, loud conversations died down... After the few who wanted to go out dancing had abandoned us, and I'd taken a power nap and consumed 16 ounces of coffee—I got my second wind. We lowered the lights, relaxed on the couches, were serenaded by a few of the musically inclined—even if we couldn't remember all the words. 

At some point I made a new friend—a nomad and a writer—who tells [bad] jokes on request, and can speak with an easy earnestness that makes you forget you've only been acquainted for a couple hours. I only felt a minor twinge of guilt that we kept others up by talking.

And I felt no guilt for waylaying him the next day on the premise of repairing his guitar case. The bottom panel had been completely ripped open on one side, and I did have my sewing kit.. But I also just wanted a few more hours. Even if he had a long hike ahead of him, and should have started out at dawn.  I didn't let him out of my clutches until noon..

Moments, and people, like this... They disrupt your [occasionally low] expectations and add the colour to your experiences and memories. See you in Malawi, maybe. See you in Israel, definitely.

Now playing (on repeat): 

1 Album | 14 songs | 60 minutes, 37 seconds

Disclosure | Settle

out weekend resolutions.

This weekend I will not..

.. waste N$85 on a braai pack that I won't eat anyway.

.. make the mistake of purchasing 2 bottles of that tannin-less wine.. again.

.. stand drunkenly in the kitchen in my party dress shoveling delicious egg and potato salad into my mouth with a serving spoon out of the giant tub when I'm supposed to be bringing it outside..

This weekend I will..

..ah, I'm not sure, why limit myself? 

It's two o'clock on a Saturday morning. 

I've awoken from my hops soaked slumber to wrangle up some strawberry yogurt and edit the various typos from my last post. New rule. Read and edit before posting. 

Current horoscope (Freewill):

Week of 24 July: 

Hypothesis: The exciting qualities that attract you to someone in the first place will probably drive you a bit crazy if you go on to develop a long-term relationship. That doesn't mean you should avoid seeking connections with intriguing people who captivate your imagination. It does suggest you should have no illusions about what you are getting yourself into. It also implies that you should cultivate a sense of humor about how the experiences that rouse your passion often bring you the best tests and trials. And why am I discussing these eccentric truths with you right now? Because I suspect you will be living proof of them in the months to come. 

What if the Creator is like Rainer Maria Rilke's God, "like a webbing made of a hundred roots, that drink in silence"? What if the Source of All Life inhabits both the dark and the light, heals with strange splendor as much as with sweet insight, is hermaphroditic and omnisexual? What if the Source loves to give you riddles that push you past the boundaries of your understanding, forcing you to deepen your perceptions and change the way you think about everything? Close your eyes and imagine you can sense the presence of this tender, marvelous, difficult, entertaining intelligence. 

^ One could wonder if this is in reference to the one attractive Afrikaner I've ever met (yesterday) and is living next door? The one with the name in which you have to practically hock and spit to pronounce correctly? I have my doubts. 

Now playing:

Dizzy Gillespie | Groovin' High (Album)

grey area...

I've just watched a chicken get slaughtered. (Not my first time). Soup to nuts.

I ate the heart. And a leg and thigh. That stuff was not tender. 

Inadvertently, I dipped pap (porridge) in pre-cooked chicken juices due to lack of sopa (soup). If I have salmonella tomorrow, we know why.

Also, as an aside, I chase chickens. 

Not for extended distances or anything, but they're everywhere. 

One can barely walk the distance of two city blocks without encountering a chicken. 

So, I chase them. I feel it is deserved retribution for roosters crowing at 3am, ne?

In Namibia, like all places, villages tend to spring up near water sources, or places where there are abundant natural resources. My village is at the centrally located on the Kavango Cattle Ranch (KCR), which is made up of a large number of farms. We are the second largest cattle ranch in the world (or so I've been told), only recently usurped by some meddling Australians, and their sheep...

My village is an unnatural one. 

It's like a suburb—hundreds of kilometres from anything else resembling civilization.

The village, itself, is only a half century old.

We live here because the jobs are here.

Whereas in Namibia, most homesteads are spread out—to farm, to establish land rights, to give space between neighbors; we are a settlement.

Not quite a Katutura. (Herero translation: 'place where people do not want to live').

Not forcibly located, like in the past, but still shoved together.

No privacy. Humanity on display. 
One can look in any given direction and glance about to see directly into another's homestead, into the gaps of their mud huts or corrugated shelters, witness a family unit in motion. 

Almost like an urban center, complete, with lights lining the streets. An anomaly in the bush.

My village is shaped in the figure of the number nine.

The loop is in the west, ringed around the school grounds.

My side, or 'that side' is the stem, shooting off to the south east.

I live in a cement structure with plumbing, electricity, and gas.

All provided by the Namibian government.

Mama J—, L—, V—, and C— are my host family and roommates (ages ranging from 45 - 8).

I live in a three bedroom house—four if you consider mine is the wet-room off the garage.

I have little to complain about.

While I am isolated, surely—I am four to five hours from my shopping town... 
There are certain 'perks.' 

We are anomalous in that while only a village for 2,500, we possess the following: 
—a gas station* (M-F only)
—a mechanic
—a butcher (for KCR employees)
—a shop that sells milk and eggs (a new and exciting development this week)
—access to high(ish) speed internet (150-300kbps depending on whether there are strong winds)
—we have a pool—and a 'clubhouse' (that only a couple of Afrikaner ladies use)
—two back-up generators (as the power goes out constantly during the rainy season—November to April)
—a network of bore taps in every yard; no walking necessary to gather water
—and the MTC (major cell provider) tower sits in my front yard approximately twenty feet from my door (I have the best service in the village. People point their phones toward my house just to transmit a text into the ether...).

We still do not have community showers or toilets (but they've just been repaired from some major vandalism, and they're working on housing construction, so fingers crossed, a number of people can utilize them soon.)**

I live in an urban village in the middle of... where? How do I describe it?

It is not desolate—we have plant-life and wildlife abounding (in the wet season). It is not 'uncivilized'—we are living proof. But, it often feels like a grey area. I live in not quite a village.

Tonight I spent the evening with a number of my colleagues at F—'s Sport Bar, also affectionately known as: the Teacher's Canteen. They listed many of these plus and minuses and numerous others. What entices them to stay here at this place they were not raised in, so far from their homes. What makes them frustrated with this almost village.

What I know is this.

I live on the Red Line. Straddled on the border of two regions.

Otjozondjupa, and Kavango West.

I am surrounded by goats, chickens, and oh so many bovine.

I live in a village, but not quite a village.

And it takes me a hell of a long time to get everywhere.

*Having the benefit of a gas station this far into the bush is unheard of—except that my village, hell, my entire region, is owned/managed by the Namibian Development Corporation (NDC), in which a major stakeholder is the Namibian government. We are a major cog in Namibia's beef production. That said, again, it is unheard of. This is a country where on every map, towns with gas stations are prominently shown so that you do not become stranded and die from exposure of the harsh elements... or wild animals. It's strange. Truly, truly weird.

**The Namibian President recently visited a dam which was run by the Namibian Development Corporation (NDC), and found substandard living conditions for it's workers. He brought along news cameras, so the rest of the country saw them too... In my village they followed the developments and repercussions of this visit very closely—villagers actually were passing around newspapers, which you see rather infrequently here... Soon after, construction commenced... Coincidence? Hmm..

brown paper packages..

I've been here for a year.

Apart from what little clothing will survive the next year and two months, the bulk of what I'll end up shipping home is probably going to be the little pieces of my village, and host country that I've accumulated.. 

It's about time to buckle down and find gifts for people, right?

And stop gathering things for myself... Maybe?

These are a few of my new favorite things that I've assembled here in Africa:

—a fair condition 1954 edition of Bezinstation, by Sinclair Lewis, in Afrikaans, reclaimed in Windhoek.

—a brittle ivory and brown speckled snail shell found abandoned during the rainy season.

—eight mismatching hand-carved chess pieces from the dollar basket in a Swakopmund antique shop.

—two intricate, handwoven baskets in varying shades of brown from the Kavango region.

—a fair condition 1899 edition of Shakespeare's Tragedy of Hamlet, with etchings, published by Harper & Brother's Publishers, inscribed: Ernest Marvin, L.H.S. on the front inside cover—the back plays host to a longer inscription in cursive English, but I've yet to crack it—poached from the Rundu office.

—a handmade red seed necklace purchased at a craft vendor's stall in Nkhata Bay, Malawi.

—five vibrant multi-coloured akayhes [shitenges\kenti cloth wrap skirts] purchased in Namibia and Malawi, and drunkenly sewn by yours truly during quiet weekends in the village.

—a hand carved cane, stained deep brown—with a hand loop from the Caprivi \ Zambezi region.

—a substantial piece of clear quartz—I like to pretend its a massive diamond—found near the Botswana border during a hike.

—an assortment of feathers from exotic birds, and some lesser so, found during walks in the village, and in the bush.

Now playing:

17 songs | 1 hour, 26 minutes

Jamiroquai | Supersonic [The Love Mix]

Jamiroquai | Feels So Good

Jamiroquai | You Give Me Something

Jamiroquai | Picture Of My Life

Jamiroquai | Canned Heat

Jamiroquai | Planet Home

Jamiroquai | Black Capricorn Day

Jamiroquai | Soul Education

Jamiroquai | Falling

Jamiroquai | Destitute Illusions

Jamiroquai | Supersonic

Jamiroquai | Butterfly

Jamiroquai | Where Do We Go From Here?

Jamiroquai | King for a Day

Jamiroquai | Love Foolosophy

Jamiroquai | Virtual Insanity

Jamiroquai | Little L

pack light. and four sizes smaller.

One year ago, I moved to this country with three bags.

Three bags and a purse, really..

Two 50 litre bags, a small backpack with my electronics, and a wholly unnecessary, but positively supple, jade green leather Coach purse I'd bartered with my mother for a couple days earlier.

Before arriving at staging in Philly I believed I had grossly over-packed.

I was so wrong. Some people brought their entire wardrobes — in multiple pieces of luggage large enough for me to curl up in.. I am not a petite woman.

When I packed for life in Africa, I tried to take the harsh climate, constant walking, the necessity of carrying my pack every time I traveled... I expected to lose a little weight. A little. Ten pounds, tops. I packed clothes that fit me okay, but would fit me better, I assumed, in a matter of months.

One year and an accumulative fifty pound weight loss later, I am struggling.. Not with the weight loss. Whatever, I'll gain it back when I move back to the land of the free and home of the roast beef and mayonnaise sandwiches, tacos and craft beer...

Its the funds. I have been buying clothes at a breakneck pace. And I cannot seem to keep up with my metabolism, which, now six months shy of my 30^th birthday, is pretending it is in a pre-adolescent stage. I buy clothes that are too tight. They're too big two months later.

Imagine living on a peace corps budget. It's limited. Limit-ed. I look ridiculous with my pants hiked up to my natural waist, held by a belt that now wraps one and a half times around my waist. I look like a stingy penny pinching grandma who is too cheap to buy a new pair of jeans, and doesn't care that the fabric bunches at my nether regions. It makes me feel positively frumpy and sexless.

And if another person congratulates me on losing weight, I will jack them in the throat.

Just food for thought for the influx of 50 or so volunteers entering the country this week.

doodle.

It sounds like a euphemism. 

Like you're doing something naughty.. or dirty..
I swear I can recall some thousands of mothers asking their toddlers if they just did a doodle in their diaper.
Just me?

Anyway.
A doodle of mine.
What would an analyst say upon viewing this, and all the others?
Trying to control chaos? OCD?

i've never...

...missed an opportunity to steal a blue ballpoint pen left behind by a careless owner.

...sat in a meeting, training, or workshop without doodling some artwork on my paper.

...gone more than four days without reading a book.

...fully finished an art project.

...made love in the open air, nor within a body of water.

...been unfaithful in a relationship.

...sat comfortably at a family dinner.

...enjoyed answering questions about myself.

...been comfortable with dishonesty or omission.

...swam the entire length of a swimming pool.

...swam naked.

...mastered a hula-hoop.

...refused an offer of chocolate milk.

...successfully driven a manual transmission.

...slept under the stars without the protection of a tent.

...been on an island only accessible by boat or flight.

...ridden in a helicopter or air balloon.

...witnessed the aurora borealis.

...done anything dangerous, apart from reckless driving on long stretches of country road.

...parachuted, bungee-jumped, cliff-dived, para-sailed, zip-lined, or water-skied.

...rappelled down a rock-face or into an underground cave.

...stood at the base of, nor swam in the pool of, a waterfall.

...seen a volcano up close and personal.

A number of these, I'm just fine with never having had done them...

A few others... my goal is to cross them off this list within a years’ time.

** Updated eleven months later. 21 June 2015...

Manchewe Falls | Malawi

bear with me.

I'm going to ramble on for a bit.

Life is unerringly strange.

Every time I think I've got a handle on what just happened and what is coming next, I get thrown for a loop.

The current loop is in small part the mistake I made of watching a Woody Allen film, which has shifted my view of myself (as presented to the world), at least temporarily.

This film featured a character who was, basically, a conversational con artist.

No depth, no insight, just a rambling seduction of well placed of words and references.

While watching with a friend — this character was describing a past sexual encounter with someone they'd just met – I sat cringing. I asked, "I don't sound like this when I talk do I?" B— immediately replied, "I was just thinking she sounded like you."

I wanted to throw my shoe at the television.

I kept watching, hoping this person would redeem herself, that the character would develop. Considering it's maker, it wasn't a reasonable expectation or desire.

I wasn't a terribly good friend this weekend. It was a needed therapy to get out of my village, but I was distracted and withdrawn at a time when I could have spoken earnestly.

Everything seems so abstract and fractured right now. And such a long distance away.

I struggled with the words. I feel like I'm going to always struggle with the words.

I will never be an orator, most certainly; and I will never be a proper writer, but at least, for a while on the page or at the prompt of the flashing cursor I can get it out.

"It," Bobby Britain, being those words that are trapped and floating in my brain.

My parents have instilled in me numerous and equally bad habits.

My father is stubborn, and tends to be inclined toward an intense wave of angry silence in which he works his jaw and mentally fillets you. He erupts at some point, and an abstracted lecture begins in which past wrongs are brought to the table in addition to current issues. Nothing is ever forgiven, not really.

My mother uses angles to approach a topic, attempting to find the best way to come out with the upper hand. She also chatters on and makes every person she talks to the temporary center of her universe. Some of it is smoke in mirrors, some of it is manipulative, some of it is in earnest. When it comes down to it, though, she's a survivalist — and you can't really blame someone for that. Neither are fully coherent in their arguments.

I mirror these habits. Just like we all fear we will, and find it happening anyway.

The angry silence thing? I haven't mastered it; I'm working on its successful use — as in, avoiding eruption. I have this irascible need for people to know. Even though I know they don't care. I constantly want to work it out verbally.

The angles, I use them in an attempt to be understood, not to win an argument. Not that anyone seems to believe me — I find myself entrenched in verbal combat before I even realize the other person thinks I'm intent on walking away a victor. Then they think I'm being patronizing when I try to climb out of the conversational rabbit hole.

Nothing frustrates me more than the moment my inability to express myself rears its ugly head while i'm in a discussion with someone.

By the time we're on the same page — I've turned into Cecily Strong's SNL character: "Girl at a party you wish you hadn't started a conversation with."

I both love that bit and inwardly cringe while watching it.

Currently reading:

A Border Passage — From Cairo to America — A Woman's Journey

  —Leila Ahmed

On deck:

Night

  —Elie Wiesel, translation by Marion Wiesel

Now playing:

2 Albums | 27 songs | 1 hour, 46 minutes

Andrew Bird | Armchair Apocrypha (Album)

Andrew Bird | The Mysterious Production of Eggs (Album)

As to their mysterious production, in humans, we women have a set limit from the beginning. In hens on the homestead being prepped for storage... It's a trip.

Current (and past) Freewill horoscopes:

Week of 17 July:

Beginning in 1798, European cartographers who drew maps of West Africa included the Mountains of Kong, a range of peaks that extended more than a thousand miles east and west. It was 90 years before the French explorer Louis Gustave Binger realized that there were no such mountains. All the maps had been wrong, based on faulty information. Binger is known to history as the man who undiscovered the Mountains of Kong. I'm appointing him to be your role model in the coming weeks, Aquarius. May he inspire you to expose long-running delusions, strip away entrenched falsehoods, and restore the simple, shining truths.

Entomologist Justin O. Schmidt drew up an index to categorize the discomfort caused by stinging insects. The attack of the bald-faced hornet is "rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door." A paper wasp delivers pain that's "caustic and burning," with a "distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut." The sweat bee, on the other hand, can hurt you in a way that's "light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm."

Your homework is to create an equally nuanced and precise index of three experiences that feel really good.

Week of 10 July:

Expect nothing even as you ask for everything. Rebel against tradition with witty compassion, not cynical rage. Is there a personal taboo that no longer needs to remain taboo? Break it with tender glee. Do something playful, even prankish, in a building that has felt oppressive to you. Everywhere you go, carry gifts with you just in case you encounter beautiful souls who aren't lost in their own fantasies. You know that old niche you got stuck in as a way to preserve the peace? Escape it. At least for now, live without experts and without leaders – with no teachers other than what life brings you moment by moment.

"You can get a feel on Kaho'olawe of what it was like to live on Hawaii at the time of our ancestors," says Native Hawaiian Davianna McGregor. "We can practice our traditions there without it being a tourist attraction. It's one place we can go to be in communion with our natural life forces."

Each of us has a personal version of Kaho'olawe: a part of our psyche that has been stolen or colonized by hostile forces. To grow bolder in your explorations, you'll need to take back yours.

And these guys? In trying to find the least alarming picture of guinea fowl I could for a birthday greeting, I stumbled across this watercolour... I don't know what it is about it... 
It's perfect.

open hearts, open wallets.

I live and work in a small village school in central north Namibia in the Kavango region.

We have a population of around 2,500 people, mostly Rukwangali speakers. Most have lived and worked in the village their entire life. Many have not left the village in the better part of a decade.

Imagine living in a village with no car, surrounded by a maze of dirt roads that few cars travel on in which to catch a hike. You live without access to the internet, limited access to newspapers, and hold little first hand knowledge of the world around you, if only because you don't have the funds to travel, or the access to programs or educational events that might have facilitated an opportunity.

Each year, Peace Corps runs a series of programs to address this issue, and provide a series of activities and trainings which include cross-cultural awareness, address gender issues, facilitate leadership training, and AIDS awareness and prevention. These camps and trips run in conjunction with the boys and girls clubs that we, and other Namibian groups facilitate year round. 

One of these camps is called GLOW, which stands for "Guys and Girls Leading Our World."

This August, 85 Namibian learners from all fourteen regions will come together for for a leadership camp in Windhoek.  For most of these learners, it will be the first time they leave their village, the first time they spend time with people from another tribe, the first time they meet people who speak another language, the first time they travel to the nation's capital. 

We are still securing funding for our camp and we could definitely use your help!

Please click through here and donate to GLOW, and give a Namibian boy or girl the chance to tap into their potential, and expand their worldview. 

Every little bit helps – and for those of you who think that 10 dollars isn't very much, please keep in mind that $10 US = 107.5 South African Rand/Namibian Dollars. So, more bang for your buck. 

bonne chance..

Everything gets better after it gets worse.

Even a scorpion sting.

Such as masquerade parties in the south. 

Serendipitous, practically magical travel to get there. 

Cuddling, at times shamelessly.

Weird drunken conversations. 

John Roberts versus Ruth Bader Ginsberg. How was that even a debate? RBG. 

Back to teaching. 

Back to reality. 

Thanks for all the love, emails, chats and texts from the states, and from here in Namibia. 

Couldn't do it without you.

My mask, made on the fly, for the party... 

how to save your own life.

How perfectly apt.

And how lovely I just read this work.

Four years ago, I ended a relationship with a man I'd dated off and on – mostly on – for years.

He didn't love me, really, and he cheated and strayed, but I stayed about knowing he was my best friend, my family, and for the past decade, he has been there for me, even when we were both at our worst.

I never hoped for a reconciliation, I still don't, I never will.

I love him, but not in the way it is vital to love someone to make it work.

Several years ago, I moved on, began dating, shared the quibbles of dating life with him (as you would a best friend), defended him to my then boyfriends, explaining if you love me, then you'll try to understand why I keep this schmuck around. He's family.

They eventually understood. And that we (subsequent relationships) didn't work out had no bearing on him – why we didn't work out – more that I had (and continue to have) bad judgment when it comes to men.

Could it be any more insulting for someone to suggest that something that just happened to you has no bearing on your life? That has been the suggestion of my best friend for years. 'This is private.' An essential demand to not air our dirty laundry.

Screw dirty laundry (though what an ironic phrase, as laundry is usually that which has just been cleansed)..

So. Let the cleansing begin.

Not the list of dirty laundry.

That is too long, detailed, and petty for anyone in their right mind to want made public on the internet.

Just this bit. He just chucked me out of his life. Via email.

I'm not sure how to respond.. I'm reeling..

I thought that falling for that dimwit in the south and being rejected was a low point.

I thought letting it go and feeling goofy over another – was trending toward an up point...

It all went down. Down, down, down tonight.

Along the lines of this.

Don't respond to this email. I've removed you from my social media contacts. I want nothing further from you. But try me through video chat when she's not here to notice, I might still be able to be your clandestine friend. But I love her, you see, so you're out.

How anemic any reply must be from here.

Thousands of miles away.

Worst day of service in the Peace Corps. Wholly unrelated to service.

It really is vital to have loved ones behind you.

You tend to stumble when they let you down in an epic fashion.  

dah da da di dumb.

This last weekend was a trip.

Just a quick jaunt into my shopping town — and an exercise in social frustrations.

The height of entertainment is not a dive bar with swarms of clientele in ironic t-shirts whose owners reek of desperation, while a jukebox and various assorted amps and sub-woofers thrum out deafening and indecipherable music.. 

Or those who try to deter others from leaving the previously stated horror.

When dudes sidle up next to me and start running their fingers through my hair like I'm an object to pet rather than a human, I'm going to want to bounce.

You'd like to get to know me? I'd like to shove your giant beer down your fucking throat.

And just as I was escaping..

I nearly smacked a kid, who is usually pretty sweet, upside the head, and quite a bit my junior for making me explain the reason why I wanted to leave.

We were locked-stepped into some sexist absurdity because he had the keys.

The morning after.. 

I ducked out in the early hours and found a lodge to regroup.

Tucked myself into an overstuffed leather chair.

Ordered an obscenely expensive meal on my credit card.

Settled in for a couple hours of uninterrupted reading before my combi took leave.

And ignored a peacock who kept presenting his plumage to me..

(That last bit felt reminiscent of the previous evening).

Apologies owed (by me):

Home invasion, L—

Off-colour jokes, S—

Desertion, J—

Vandalism/thoughtlessness, P—

Books devoured today and yesterday:

An Ordinary Man: An Autobiography

—Paul Rusesabagina with Tom Zoellner

How to Save Your Own Life

—Erica Jong

In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World it Made

—Norman F. Cantour

Tomes on deck:

Panama Fever

—Matthew Parker

Half a Life

—V. S. Naipul

Vampire Forensics: Uncovering the Origins of an Enduring Legend

—Mark Collins Jenkins

Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy

—Sarah Bradford

Now Playing:

6 songs | 23 minutes, 40 seconds ... on repeat ...

The Detroit Experiment | Modeselektor

Flying Lotus | Modeselektor

Da Funk / Daftendirekt | Daft Punk

(Pirate Style—Track 2) | DJ Rupture

The Warning | Hot Chip

Kaliyon Ka Chaman vs... | Bhangra Tracks

Assorted (old) Free Will Horoscopes:

Week of 3 July

"I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean." So said British writer G. K. Chesterton. Now I'm passing his advice on to you just in time for the Purge and Purify Phase of your astrological cycle. In the coming weeks, you will generate good fortune for yourself whenever you wash your own brain and absolve your own heart and flush the shame out of your healthy sexual feelings. As you proceed with this work, it may expedite matters if you make a conscious choice to undergo a trial by fire.

Week of 26 June

This is a good time to risk a small leap of faith, but not a sprawling vault over a yawning abyss. Feel free and easy about exploring the outer borders of familiar territory, but be cautious about the prospect of wandering into the deep, dark unknown. Be willing to entertain stimulating new ideas but not cracked notions that have little evidence to back them up. Your task is to shake up the status quo just enough to invigorate everyone's emotional intelligence, even as you take care not to unleash an upheaval that makes everyone crazy.

— Am I being encouraged to cause trouble? Yes—No? That's the interpretation I'm choosing to go with. Also. A toilet plunger on a tarot card? Sure. Okay.