Hi there!

This journal is mostly friends-locked. If you would like to be defined as one of my friends, you can email me -- or if you're looking for an older entry that's locked, feel free to email me and ask me to unlock it. I'm available at dragonladyflame skibble gmail wibble com.

Some crowd-pleasers:

HIV Interventions for Vampires

The Lighthouse Chronicles

The beauty standards entry to end all entries on standards of beauty

Some book recommendations

That comic I drew about my mom

Food coloring and mischief
Followup, featuring shoes

Soft-Eyed Boy and the bookstore girl
The Return of Soft-Eyed Boy

Imagine yourself as a city

The misdelivered postcard

The passive-aggressive analysis

The Yes/No Spectrum

Recipes:
Orange cookies
Vegan chocolate chip bars
Lydia's Family Eggnog
Caramel brownies, Georgian chicken and yogurt spinach
The world's best chocolate cake
Chicken (or tofu) tikka masala and oatmeal cookies
Lydia's Family Spaghetti Sauce

Happy holidays, friends and lovers. And enemies. You too.

Yep, I still exist. And I still love you guys.

Lydia's Family Spaghetti Sauce

Basically the best recipe for spaghetti sauce ever. I consented to eating it despite being a vegetarian, but only on the condition that we make it with the most ethical possible, grass-fed, super-organic meat.

1 pound beef
1/8 pound ground pork
1 can tomato soup
1 can water
1 6-oz can tomato paste
1 8-oz can tomato sauce
1 pound cheddar cheese, as sharp as available
1 can diced mushrooms
Lots of garlic
At least two tablespoons of oregano
Half as much dried basil as oregano
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon sage
A little bit of rosemary, or not
1 teaspoon salt
Other Italian spices "to taste" (no, I'm not sure what that means either)

1) Break up ground beef and pork and sauté with at least half a full head of garlic.

2) Mix all tomato stuff together, plus water, and melt in cheddar cheese.

3) Throw mushrooms and meat into tomato sauce.

4) Throw in the herbs and salt.

5) Simmer for about half an hour or as long as you want.

Goes well with Lydia's Classic Family Eggnog.

This song makes me feel joyful.

...

foxfour (by email): I had a dream last night, in which you sheepishly admitted that you were behind all yeti and sasquatch myths, and showed us your extensive collection of cryptid costumes. Hope you're well!

me: That is now my favorite dream ever, and I didn't even have it myself.

kit: And you don't deny the truth of it?

me: I mean ... uh ... :sweatdrop: Too late for denial now, wouldn't you say?

kit: Your secret's safe with me.

...

Sudden Poll! Are you still reading livejournal? If so, how are you doing and what are you up to?

Most of my writing is elsewhere these days, as it has been increasingly for years. I don't think I'll shut this place down officially, but I've got a lot to move on with. Questions on this score may be filed by email.

Oh yeah, also I came back from Africa. Right now I'm in San Francisco (where else?) and I'll be back in Chicago in November.

SCENE: Reno, Nevada. 1.45 AM.

As lights flash everywhere, LYDIA and 8 others stumble out of a diner. One girl is wearing a multi-colored D.A.R.E. t-shirt. One guy is wearing pink paisley pants, a white poet-style shirt and a black waistcoat. Lydia is wearing a tiny red dress and knee-high black boots. Everyone is so thoroughly dusty that their hair is either dreaded or standing straight up.

A passing RANDOM WOMAN takes note of the group and smiles.

RANDOM WOMAN: (calling across the street) Hey, how was Burning Man?

...

Random Things I Write Down On Bits Of Paper And Put In My Purse To Be Found After the Post-Burning Man Dust Cleaning

Aragon commented that the suicidal nature of Germaine Berton's act, whatever its motivation, made her "the greatest rebel I know against slavery, the most beautiful protestation raised before the world against the hideous lie of happiness".
~ Malcolm Haslow (whoever that is)

But Sir Francis [Dashwood] had a newer project afoot [after the end of his Satanist orgy/debauchery club], the church mentioned by Wilkes in the passage in which he describes the gardens at West Wycomb. This fantastic building, designed probably as a central point from which to view the estate, topped with a gigantic gold ball, poised like some bizarre lighthouse above its villagers, aroused amazement but not gratitude in the hearts of its parishioners.
~ page 159, A History of Orgies by Burgo Partridge (1960) ... I'm pretty sure I wrote this down while caught up in the lighthouse project

Some other notes I found, written by myself, whose meaning I no longer wholly grasp (but some of which are probably book recommendations):
* rm @West Wycomb -- "locked since Queen Victoria's time, so indecent are its contents"
* Hercules & Love Affair
* Meluch -- Myriad
* bookstore postcards
* sundial!
* midget submarines/human torpedoes, England WWII: "The Midget Raiders", C.E.T. Warren & James Benson
* chance -- Invisible Cities -- she ranges them!
* motorcycle mechanic cryptologist obsessed w/ cyberpunk
* thread-pluck code

And some notes I found written by Jon Arnold, a former patron of Bookstore Y, who used to come into the store and bring me napkins with various things written upon them. Things like his fantasy version of himself as Sam Spade, which included me coming to see him to help solve a case, and of which I now regrettably only own one fragment:
"Surely, Mr. Spade, you must think that I'm a horrible, evil person!"
"It's not that Miss Lydia -- if that really is your name -- you see, we didn't really believe your cock-and-bull story about the Sacred Scarab of Nubia. We just believed your five hundred pieces of Ghirardelli chocolate. It's a San Francisco thing."
"And who is that red-headed fool who talks like Joe Cairo?"

He also gave me a sheet of copy paper, on the outside of which is written "Secret Interactions for Miss Bridget O'Shaughnessy", and which bears inside the following poem, credited to Ian Stewart / 1976 / The Year Of The Cat.

On the morning of a polecat movie
in a country where
they turn back time
we went strolling through the crowd
like Peter Lorre
contemplating a crime
She comes out of the sun
in a silk dress
running
like a watercolor
in the rain
Don't bother asking
for explanations
she'll just tell you
that she came

The Tale of the Tanzanian Taxi Driver

I went to Tanzania a few months ago with fellow Peace Corps Volunteer and boyfriend Rob. We were on a tour to learn all about the issues around coffee-growing, particularly fair trade coffee-growing. It was often incredibly interesting, though probably the most interesting thing we turned up was this awesome Obama calendar:



Spotted in a coffee processing factory.

The way the tour was structured, we didn't get to talk to the farmers much. Perhaps this is why the most affecting labor-related encounter we had was with a taxi driver.

Rob and I had split off from the rest of the coffee group two days early, because I insisted that it would be awesome to go to Zanzibar (and I was totally right; it was). On our way to and from Zanzibar, we passed through Dar Es Salaam for two nights and acquainted ourselves with a taxi driver named Frank. Because we had to catch a plane out of Dar Es Salaam in the early morning of our last day, we arranged for Frank to meet us around 5.30 AM at the hostel where we planned to stay.

On our last night in Dar Es Salaam, we went to the hostel and discovered that the running water wasn't working, and the place wasn't willing to provide buckets of water. This was no good -- not only were we thirsty, we were also covered in salt from jumping off a Zanzibari pier into the Indian Ocean. So we switched to the nearby YMCA, which had water and was cheaper anyway.

The next morning we had a brief adventure around 5 AM, when we realized that the YMCA didn't actually open until 6 AM and all the doors were locked. This meant that we had to break out of the place by climbing down a wall. Rob blazed the trail for me as usual, despite the fact that he was wearing loafers as usual. Breathless and laughing, we crept out into the dark streets of Dar Es Salaam and walked several blocks to meet Frank the taxi driver at our former hostel. On our way, a few taxi drivers offered to pick us up, but I figured that the only honorable thing to do was keep our appointment with Frank.

We were a little late, but Frank was there; so I apologized for our lateness, we packed our things into the taxi and drove off towards the airport. Rob and I sat chatting in the backseat about the local Tanzanian public transport -- here's what the public transport in Zanzibar looked like:



Zanzibari public transport is sort of like Swaziland's khumbi system, except that they're called dalla-dallas and they look ridiculously cool.

A few minutes into our conversation, Frank interrupted us. He seemed to be struggling with a strong emotion.

"Lydia," he said, "I have to say something."

"Okay," I said.

His voice was halting and seemed somewhat uncertain. "My English isn't good enough for this," he apologized, which was totally untrue. "But I am just very impressed and thankful that you came this morning. I am just a taxi driver, and tourists, they never think about me .... You had to leave the hostel last night because there was no water, and that was the right thing to do, because you should have water, but then when I heard that you had switched hostels without saying where you were going, I knew you would not be coming to meet me. But now I see that you came all the way back to the place you agreed to meet me, in the dark ... you worried about me and you came back to meet me. Even though I'm just a taxi driver!"

I wasn't sure what to say. I looked at Rob and Rob looked at me. Finally I said: "I mean, it seemed like the right thing to do. I didn't want to inconvenience you."

"Thank you," Frank said. The sincerity in his voice almost broke my heart. In the cities where I've lived in America, one never makes appointments with taxi drivers -- one simply calls a dispatcher or picks up a cab on the street when necessary -- but I found myself wondering whether drivers could be so affected by someone who was merely friendly and honorable. I mean, it's hard to imagine a New York taxi driver having such an emotional moment over a tourist who failed to be a thoughtless jerk, but maybe I just haven't paid enough attention to New York taxi drivers? Or maybe it really is that in Tanzania, the underclass tends to be treated much worse on an interpersonal level than they are in America, especially by tourists? Or maybe this is all just my white / cissexual / whatever privilege talking and it depends entirely on how customers perceive you? Or are there are lots of customer service jobs in America too where employees react to basic courtesy by feeling incredibly grateful? (Telemarketing?)

I mean, I spent years working in bookstores, and -- like all customer service jobs -- although I had some bad customers, I also had some really great customers. I think my strong reaction to Frank came from imagining what it would feel like to work customer service in a place where I'd be so heartbreakingly grateful to someone who wasn't thoughtless.

It's a cliché that the biggest impact Peace Corps Volunteers have is interpersonal, but it's also true. If most tourists are out there doing things like making unkept appointments with taxi drivers, or otherwise confirming awful colonial-ish stereotypes, then I guess we can make a major difference by failing to treat people like dirt. It's kind of sad to think that this is so necessary, but hey, at least we do it well.

If you're heading to Dar Es Salaam and want Frank's phone number, drop me an email! He gave it to me at the airport on our way out, and I promised to send him some business if I got the chance. And tell him I said hi, when you get there.

...

Amazing art done in car dust

Amazing super-tiny carvings in pencil lead

Exhibit on how colonialists looked through African eyes

The National Enquirer was nominated for a Pulitzer!
It didn't win, but still!

Zanzibarian Princess Salme was totally awesome
Growing up in the Zanzibar sultan's harem in the mid-1800s, she was not allowed to read or write, so she secretly taught herself to write using a camel's shoulder blade as a slate. Later she eloped with a German diplomat (who, alas, died only a year or two into her marriage) and spent the rest of her life in Europe, where she wrote the wildly popular Memoirs of an Arabian Princess. There's a whole room about her at the historical museum in Zanzibar! although it was kind of patchy and lacked a timeline, and therefore whetted my appetite for more information rather than answering questions.

For ages, I've been meaning to post about traditional healers (the politically incorrect, early-1900s anthropologist term would be "witch doctors"). They're completely fascinating -- I just hope that I don't make them uninteresting by talking overmuch about vocabulary. You guys will let me know if this entry is confusing, right?

Traditional healers are a major facet of Swazi consciousness, and South African too, and probably in other nearby countries as well, though I'm not sure how present they are in non-Swazi non-Zulu culture. (Swazi culture and Zulu culture seem quite similar to me, though I'm sure there are many important differences that an insider could swiftly enumerate!) These magicians are heavily intertwined with traditional ancestor worship and other religious beliefs. They're referenced in everything from movies -- if you haven't seen "District 9" then you really should -- to advertisements. My personal favorite piece of Swazi ephemera that I have so far collected is a leaflet from Nando's Restaurant that characterizes all the food in the terms of magical cures. For instance, over a picture of Burger Meal it says "To make your boss like you," over a picture of Full Pack Meal it says "To fix the family problems," and over a picture of Half Chicken Meal it says "To give your man more power." On the back it says, "Dr. N. A. Ndos Lemon and Herbalist: With New Powerful Herb, the African Bird Eye Chili," and gives further effects, such as "Makes employees happy at you", "Makes you to save the electricity," and "Makes enemies jealous." And on the bottom it says, "It's like magics." I love it so much.

The siSwati words for "traditional healer" are inyanga, plural tinyanga; also sangoma, plural tangoma; and a much less-used term, umfembi, plural bafembi. I am not entirely sure how most Swazis view the differences are among these terms; I tried to get some clarity on that question by asking around about the difference between tinyanga and tangoma during training last year, and ended up more confused:

* My host grandmother said that there is no difference.
* My friend's host sister said that tangoma are female but tinyanga are male, which doesn't seem to be 100% true from my experience.
* And the Peace Corps Training Manager, who is also Swazi, said the only difference is that tangoma dress traditionally while tinyanga don't.

After those three variant data points, I gave up ... you can already tell that it's tough to get good information on traditional healers, especially as an outsider. (Although at least one non-Swazi has undergone the initiation to become an inyanga. He wrote a book and everything!)

A Traditional Healer is Born

An oldish book about traditional healers by Lydia Phindile Makhubu informs me that tinyanga uniquely possess kushaya ematsambo, the bone-throwing skill, endowed upon them by the ancestors, which they use to diagnose illnesses. In contrast, tangoma diagnose by means of kubhula, communication with supernatural powers. The umfembi is similar to a sangoma, but rather than being tutored by benevolent spirits, an umfembi will be possessed by whatever evil spirits are causing the problems ze is diagnosing. Makhubu writes that for bafembi, "the spirits involved belong to people killed by members of the umfembi's family, perhaps in past wars." (In other sources, I've seen tinyanga referred to as "herbalists" as opposed to tangoma being "diviners".)



A traditional healer. Image taken from this site.

Makhubu mentions yet another type as well, the lugedla, which "evolves from those three" and whose skills are "acquired" rather than supernaturally inspired. That is, the lugedla learns how to be an traditional healer from existing healers ....

Which brings me to kwetfwasa. This is a process by which "ancestors manifest their presence in the subject who will eventually become a traditional healer," and it seems always to be attended by madness, illness, and/or omens. A lugedla does not undergo this, but the other types do. A person undergoing kwetfwasa is referred to as a litfwasa (plural ematfwasa); Makhubu describes past ematfwasa who disappear to a destination "as if hibernating", then return. Other accounts include:

* Periods of amnesia.
* A three-year submersion in water while learning techniques from "a woman with many necklaces".
* The litfwasa killing a python with his bare hands, then walking around with it wrapped around his neck.
* Families giving ematfwasa up for dead.
* Prophesies coming true, such as a cow behaving according to prophesy on the morning of a litfwasa's return.
* Loss of one's previous job has also been described as a kwetfwasa omen for at least one traditional healer.

Makhubu writes that "hibernation has disappeared" in "modern kwetfwasa," but a stage of incurable illness remains. A modern traditional healer named Priscilla Dlamini gave a lecture to Peace Corps Swaziland Volunteers in which she described her own kwetfwasa. She said that she experienced terrible aches and pains, but only between 6pm-7am, and that the aches defied all diagnoses. She went for everything up to and including an arthritis test and the doctors found nothing. These problems persisted until she had a dream of her call to healing, and then she felt quite suddenly better. (She was also careful to note that there's no consistency across healers -- two different healers can experience a completely different kwetfwasa.)

Sometimes ematfwasa are tested by their communities upon their return, to ensure that they're really enlightened -- like for example a family might hide articles and demand that a litfwasa use supernatural powers to find them. Or, as in one story, hide sacrificial animals and then demand that the litfwasa kill the animals without using a weapon -- just bare hands.

( Read more... )

And you know how at the end of my last entry I acknowledged that sometimes I feel oddly content?

An international organization whose name I will not reveal apparently gave its Swazi employees a January raise in living stipends ... except that the raise accidentally actually went to employees in Switzerland. They just noticed their mistake.

Rob hypothesizes that it happened because of acronyms (someone saw "SZD" and thought Switzerland), whereas I'm convinced that someone just read an internal memo and said, "Swaziland? Never heard of it! They must mean Switzerland." Also, Rob & I recently realized that our anniversary is September 11th.

While wandering around Mbabane, the below came up on my headphones. I recorded it with my friend Brett (no, not that Brett) before I left Chicago. My voice is awful with demon drink and secondhand smoke, but it could have been worse:
"Wish You Were Here", covered by Lydia

And then there's this picture:



The contents of this blog are mine personally and do not represent any position of the U.S. Government or the Peace Corps.

Some of my fellow Peace Corps Swaziland Volunteers have made a new Welcome Video, which is what we send incoming volunteers to prepare them for this madness. My friend Kris has uploaded it to his YouTube account, and you can view it by clicking here. They thoughtfully separated the video into many separate themed pieces, so you can easily skip the chapter on "single women" but still watch "education" or whatever, or even just "introduction". I tried to watch it, really, but I was too bored. :grin: The contents of this blog are mine personally and do not reflect any positions of the U.S. Government or Peace Corps.

I did watch enough to note that Rob's in the education clip, though, so if you want to see my boyfriend just in from the field looking scruffy, that may be the one for you (he starts around 1:30, I think). I'm probably in some of the clips, but I don't know which ones -- if y'all watch any, let me know where I am.

Also, I'm going to Tanzania! Be back in a couple weeks.

Every once in a while, someone will apologize to me for not reading what I write (or in Chicago, sometimes people would apologize for not attending my events). Seriously, this has happened occasionally for years -- e.g., actual conversations I've had:

Me: (during relevant conversation) Hmm, this reminds me of XYZ blog post I wrote. Did you read it?
Friend: (looking guilty) No ... I'm really sorry. I should read it.
(or)
Friend: (awkwardly) Umm ... (plainly considers lying) Well, actually, no, I didn't. But it's not because I don't love you, I swear!

This really bothers and frustrates me, because I don't want people who know me to feel obligated to read my writings or attend my programs/parties/whatever. Even my best friends, my lovers -- I never ever ever want them to do that kind of thing out of obligation. That feels like the opposite of a loving relationship, to me. Why on earth would I base my evaluation of your attachment to me on whether or not you've read one of my gender theory rants or science fiction theorizations?

Ideally, people who who read/attend my stuff are doing so out of genuine interest -- why would I want someone to do so for other reasons? I think friendships (all relationships, really) occupy certain dimensions and contexts, and it's okay by me if some of my relationships lie outside my writing or my other outputs. In other words, if you and I are the kind of friends who go out to lunch but not the kind of friends who read each other's writing, I don't see anything wrong with that. (Although I reserve the right to send someone a link to one of my blog posts, articles, or whatever, if they ask a question I don't feel like answering just then.)

Also, when I feel sure that people are experiencing my output out of genuine interest, that gives me genuine feedback to work with. If people are lying to me about being interested in something I produce because they're trying to be nice to me, or whatever, then that throws off my calculations about whether my creations are genuinely interesting.

This applies even when I've explicitly asked for your feedback about something. In fact, it's very helpful when someone I know tells me, "Jeez, Lydia, I was so incredibly bored / frustrated / whatever by XYZ that I couldn't finish reading it." This assists me in determining the correct audience for that piece. Sometimes I even send things to people I think may not like them, and it's usually because I'm curious to see if they'll surprise me -- so if they force themselves to read it and say something nice about it, I'll be surprised and modify my mental database about who that piece is good for. And that's not useful to me at all!

Also also, to be 100% honest, I think part of me is alarmed by it because it makes me suspect that these people expect me to read their work/attend their events/whatever just because we're friends, even if I'm not remotely interested in the content. And like ... that's just not gonna happen. Sorry. If I'm reading your stuff or attending your event, it's because I'm actually interested in the topic/venue/whatever. Why would you want me to read/attend something I find less than compelling?

...

For personal reasons, I'm going through some of my archives and locking them. Reading archives is an interesting thing. It's funny how my thoughts have evolved, and my writing too: I think I've become much more rigorous, much less facile. Also, I used to be much better at recording the funny things said by people I know -- here are some of the best I've noted:

Mom: Here's the Science "Times" for you.
Me: (taking in the headline: "A Critic Takes On The Logic of Female Orgasm") Oh, dear.
Mom: Yeah, nothing like knowing it's been dismissed as an artifact.

Thank you, Lydia, for reminding me that my friends are the most arrogant and intellectually elitist in the world.
-- Adam (from Simon's Rock)

Hey Lydia, can you do me a favour? Can you please have the general laws of the universe and probability apply to you for maybe half a minute? I'll give you a dollar.
-- Vinny

JeweledDragon4 (1:07:01 AM): like you
JeweledDragon4 (1:07:32 AM): something so random that turned out so well

...

A blog devoted to videogame music and videogame-like music and videogame music remixes and and and ...
What a beautiful world we live in.

Speculative fiction, feminist-tinged Ramayana anthology!
The Ramayana is an ancient Hindu epic and adventure story that I love beyond all reason and which shaped my childhood (though not as much as it's shaped, like, the entirety of southeast Asia over the past two thousand years). This is a call for submissions for a speculative fiction anthology of short stories based on the Ramayana, preferring a feminist slant! It's made for me, I tell you!

Many Ramayanas
The above call for submissions linked to the e-text of this book, entirely available online!, which features fascinating commentary on the many incarnations and retellings and forms of the Ramayana and how they've reflected their host cultures.

My ownership of shataina.com lapsed while I've been here, and Godaddy.com is being very unsympathetic and probably won't let me have it back (I guess someone else bought it?). So, if any of you fine people have links to it anywhere (I can't imagine why you would), those links should be updated to point to:
http://pandora.simons-rock.edu/~shataina/