playing now..

11 songs | 49 minutes; 17 seconds

Paid in Full/Mini Madness – Eric B & Rakim
Mr. Brown: Biddy Bi-Bi Remix Turkmene/Pharao Version – DJ Rupture
Obstacles/Music Monks – DJ Rupture
The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly) – Missy Elliot
Rushing – Moby
At the River – Groove Armada
6 Underground – Sneaker Pimps
Solea – Miles Davis & Gil Evans
On My Way to Nowhere – Spyritual
Wolves – Dead Prez
Get By – Talib Kweli

But what’s usually on repeat in the morning as I ready for school…
4 songs | 16 minutes; 40 seconds

Higher – K-os
Erotic City – George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic
Get By – Talib Kweli
Life is Better – Q-Tip ft. Norah Jones 

i'm a sucker...

... for the sky during sunsets.

I live on the west side of the house..
And right as the light starts to fade, I burst out to the back yard..
To see what she's got in store for me that night.

Even better when you are in the hills of Grootfontein; with the expanse of bush below and open sky for days.

Or sitting atop the hills overlooking the Kavango River, and the Angolan border in Rundu..

No, offense, Montana...
You've got some game and all...
But this here – this is 'big sky country'

summer reading list...

(because it is summer in this hemisphere )

books consumed:

Dambisa Moyo – Dead Aid

Neil Gaiman – Stardust

D. H. Lawrence – Lady Chatterley’s Lover

Helen Fielding – Bridget Jones Diary

Agatha Christie – The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

David Wong – John Dies at the End

in progress:

Jack Kerouac – The Dharma Bums

on deck:

Neil Gaiman – The Graveyard Book

George Orwell – Animal Farm

Douglas Adams – So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish

Richard Dawkins – The Greatest Show on Earth

Dante – The Divine Comedy

Phillip K. Dick – Ubik

Christopher Hitchens – The Portable Atheist

Douglas Adams – Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency

Edgar Allen Poe – Collection of Tales and Poems

William Goldman – The Princess Bride

Fodor Dostoevsky – The Idiot

Daniel Defoe – Moll Flanders

Gustave Flaubert – Madame Bovary

Niccolo Machiavelli – The Prince

drunk tree [fall hard]

Woke up around 3:00 AM with the imprint of my house keys on my cheek.

Parched and famished, stumbled over to the freezer and yanked out my Nalgene and stumbled back into my cave.

And what do you know..

A Tupperware of feta and bacon pizza w/ onion rings at the foot of my bed.

And a bottle of chili sauce.

Knew that would come in handy later.

Woke up for the second time at 6:00 AM, an imprint of my keys on my arm now..

Didn’t bother to move them off bed.

Then again, slept with my feet atop my computer and my mobile under my spine.

Testing my limbs, realize am filthy and covered in a few choice bruises.

And in possession of a pernicious hangover.

Opted to forgo pain relievers.

I think this one I deserve.

Evidence of an evening well spent.

And punishment for the drunk texts shot off to the south last night.

a snake in my boot.

Stayed up late tonight, and as I went to turn off the light... I see that I've startled something in the garage... and am witness to a small, but significant, snake slither under my door. My bedroom door.

Locating it behind the jerry cans in my room, I hover at the doorway.
It looks like a mamba. Worse, it's a young one, with less control of venom release during a bite..
But, I'm not sure, so I reach over and grab the identification book on snakes and reptiles.
Hmm. It's definitely venomous. But is the mamba, or the boomslang?
One kills you in an hour or so... One kills you in a day... [1] 

I eyed my bed longingly.
Maybe if I tucked in my net really, really well... I could just go back to sleep.

I sat down in on the sofa in the living room, working on my nerve, before waking up the ladies of the house. There are enough poisonous snakes in this country that I needn’t be stupidly heroic and sleep alongside one.

I woke up my host sister first. She questioningly yells "Snake?!" after I'm forced to repeat the tale twice (as she's sleepy and confused.)  My hawk-eared host mother needs no repetition of the story, as her door burst open, and she repeats "A snake? There's a snake?! Where?!"  [2] 

I lead them over to my room, but they're a good five metres from the door.
Making me feel a little foolish, as I've been pretty close to the snake, eyeing it from the door, maybe a metre and a half away... I also had walked past it once, to turn off the music on my pc.

Once they realized I was serious. Guys, there really is a snake in my bedroom... The two women jumped into action, in the opposite direction, and spirited seven young boys from a neighboring house, conscripting them into a snake killing posse.

Armed with sticks, they shrieked from my doorway - too scared to enter - and jostled the jerry cans from as far as they could manage. The chaos persuaded the snake to slither back into the garage. The boys went running 'round to the other garage door and corner the little reptile and beat its brains out. Screaming the whole time.

All while my host mother was loudly praying/cursing.
Once dead, they paraded it out of the house, draped over a stick. Teasing my host mother a little and pretending to drop it on the floor. Elevating her yelps to shrieks.
Eleven year old conquering heroes, you would think, by the sight of them; so confident they were after the fact. [3]

And now I am uneasily abed… bracing myself for the next invasion.

This evening’s latest disturbance may be karmic retribution for murdering yet another giant spider this afternoon. It had a 6+ inch leg span. I just want to be left in peace some days, creepy crawlies.

[1] Now, considering how timid the snake was, when encountering seven boys with sticks.. And little old me.. I think it was a boomslang, and not a mamba..
[2] No one is fond of snakes less than my host mother, Julia. Last year a python made its way up a drainpipe and into a window two metres off the ground. Julia heard the thud as it fell through the window and turns around to see a giant snake settling onto the floor. She was not a fan..
 [3] Rather wish I had taken a photo after the fact.. but at the time... I had other things on my mind..

[Edit: My mom really hates snakes. Two days later, kick panels were installed on all of the exterior doors to narrow the gaps along the door jams.. We're snake proof -- or at least we're slightly more confident about being snake-free.. For now.]

remember, remember…

And here I was having a mediocre day…

I read The Book Thief today and sobbed uncontrollably for a bit.. 

So that was great, actually.

[I mean really great. I might read it again tonight.]

But the part leading up to that… mostly mediocre.

To the point.

My adopted state of Illinois became lucky number fifteen and passed marriage equality legislation in both houses on November 5^th. 

Now onto Governor Quinn for his John Hancock.

So I am drinking celebratory wine [two days later] in a tiny village in Africa. 

And am tearing up all over again...

Wish I could've been there with everyone celebrating in Springfield – or Chicago... 

I heard there was champagne flowing in the office... About damn time!

So proud of the amazing work of the ACLU of Illinois, along with the rest of the Illinois Unites for Marriage Coalition, and of course the legislators who made it happen...

Though my wine-addled brain is curious to know if any bumpkins were wearing Guy Fawkes masks during the proceedings… Hmm.. What?

the ridiculous.

I’d argue that the trivial and the absurd are the best things life has going for it right now.

Of course… one does love the significant, the sentimental, the warm and fuzzies…

But those don’t happen on an everyday basis.

Not when your new home is eight thousand miles, and across an ocean, from your last one.

More likely you encounter the frustrating, the confusing, and the downright aggravating.

Thank goodness for the absurd.

I like to channel the Ministry of Silly Walks.

Minus the bowler hat, suit jacket, and striped slacks.

Now that would look ridiculous.

Am currently listening to The Reminder (Feist, 2007), downing a bowl of Rice Krispies, lazily perusing palm reading diagrams (more on that later).

Life isn't all bad.

total eclipse of the sun.

When the mooon is in the second ha-ouse.. and Ju-pi-ter aliiiiiigns with… Nevermind. [1]

The last time I had the chance to see a total eclipse of the sun was 11 August 1999.

I was in Belgium with my mother, who it must be noted can be a bit hysterical at times – and thinks everyone else in the world is a moron.. She proceeds to flip out and drag me down into the subway so that I would not be tempted to stare at the event and thus burn my retinas, etc.…

She misses the concept that it was a total eclipse, and that for a few brief moments one could safely view the eclipse with the naked eye, as the sun was completely covered... Also there were hundreds of thousands of special glasses being sold throughout the city.. But do we buy a couple pairs? Nope.

Did I mention she’s a bit hysterical? [2]

Fourteen years and some change later. 

A hybrid solar eclipse decides to waltz across Equatorial Africa. 

And here I am living on the Tropic of Capricorn in Africa…[3]

Anyway.. My eyesight is still intact (or at least any damage done to them wasn’t done so today)…

And unfortunately, I was too far south on the African continent to see a full solar eclipse…

I'm not bitter... Maybe a little.

^[1] Yes, I am aware that I allude to ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ (Bonnie Tyler) and switch gears to ‘Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In’ (The 5^th Dimension). Adapt... Word of the day.

[2] Apologies, Mother, but its the truth. You went a bit cracked on the streets of Brussels that day.
[3] And now I’m thinking of Seinfeld and late fees at the NY Public Library..