Musings on a Quiet Day

Today has been quiet. Without a psycho roomie & with the roommate out of town in Orange County [*shudder*], I sat up late working and reading. This morning I got up pretty early, did a bunch of reading & studied some Syriac.

The weather is nice. I keep an eye on the weather in Seoul and Rarotonga for reasons what may escape you, o delightful reader, but it is quite a joy to watch the temperature rocket from 50 F to 85 F & then drop back down to 50 in the former location. I'm imagining the fall; such a beautiful season & here it mostly just means cloudy/misty mornings. Oh! The only season I miss from places that have them is fall. The sweater days, the lacrosse & field hockey games, the leaves burning on the boughs...

*sigh* You can't move from somewhere that has a Fall to a place that doesn't without having a weak moment or two. Still, I'm not going back anywhere that has one anytime soon. The not-frozen, not-dried-out-skin feeling all the time is too wonderful to give up for a moment of sweet near-frost on a carpet of banana-yellow leaves for one week out of the year.

I should plan a vacation for next time the leaves come around so I can be there when they turn, then come back to sanity here on the giant dry lands of the southwest.

I can't believe there used to be one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world west of San Diego as recently as the 15th century...

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I am currently listening to: "Swordfish" soundtrack (P. Oakenfeld)
I am currently reading: "Introduction to Syriac"

Cranky 'bout Christmas; Kicking Her Sorry Ass Out

Q: What do I want for Christmas?

A: 1. Nothing, i fucking hate Christmas. 2. Not to have Christmas.

What do I care about? Not Christmas. I want to have the universe realigned. I want to have my body realigned. I want to meet a sweetie.

I wonder if I can arrange to get to the L.A. Retreat with Lama Khyimsar Rinpoche, founder of the Tibetan Yungdrung B�n Institute (USA) on the weekend of 29-30 novembre. I think it would make my year to go on it: it's a retreat with ng�ndro for newcomers & is a special nonresident retreat for the Healing Rite of Ye shes dBal mo, emanation of the female divinity Srid pa rGyal mo, chief protector of g.Yung drung Bon & its practitioners. I could use some damn healing, that's for sure.

Ilhan Ersahin rocks.

My kitty is helping type. Thanks, Spanky.

Well, I suppose I need to explain what happened to my roomie, 5665. After an argument, 4785 & I thought it best to ax him to leave since he was acting very erratically, refused to admit the problem & treats us badly. However, when we got home he had already packed. He was sulking like a little teenage bitch to boot, which didn't improve our mood or impression of him. When I asked him some simple questions about what was happening, he replied quite negatively & petulantly, then started yelling.

I don't take schei� from anyone. Get it? Kids tried to stone me, I went after them. A gang of men in a car tried to bash me, I went after them. Naval personnel called & harassed me, I filed a police report of a hate crime.

When he started to yell at me, I fucking lost it. Nobody gets to treat me like that in my own home. I never once treated him badly & I only asked a simple & direct question. So I went after him. I stepped into his personal space to push his threat back (he had stood up when starting to shout) and told him to leave the house in the scariest, most forceful voice I had.

I didn't touch him but I really had to try not to smack him for acting like that. Fucking child. Don't make me toss you out on your ass. You want trouble, I got it for you. I speak softly but I carry a big stick. Step off, motherfucker. I been sweet, polite & kind; I was hungry because we were supporting you. Try to start shit with me & I will fucking end it.

Shit, that really tweaks my fucking nipple. Ungrateful little shit.

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I am currently listening to: stoopid television blather; nothing good on now that Dead Like Me's season finale came on earlier tonight but I got nothing to do.
I am currently reading: nothing, I'm watching television like a mouthbreather tonite so fuck reading

Bitch is Gone!

First order of business: I'm using a trial .RSS publishing system fra the ease of readers; it will be hosted at my Cox homepage but no news yet.

In other news:

What a day vendredi was. Long & complicated & more will be reported later, but in short, the roomie [not the roommate, 5665, but the roomie, 4785] is gone. He packed up himself & then I kicked his ass to the curb when he got uppity bitch with me without a single apparent reason to do so. He needs help but we can't provide it anymore.

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I am currently reading: the newspaper
I am currently listening to: Yoko Kanno, "Chicken Bone", Soundtrack to Cowboy Bebop

Munny sucks. I hate dealing with it.

My right wrist hurts so I'm mousing with the left, which is fairly silly to watch.

Big O is a fantastic show & only getting better. I miss the mummy-dude, though. I hear he's deceased, found dead in the desert south of Paradigm City.

I've been cleaning the house & my room, the latter less effectively; I have put most of the books in order, catalogued maybe 85% of the collection (301 in the current database) & am preparing to put everything in Library of Congress Call Order.

Speaking of which, I hear the Dewey Decimal Hotel in NYC is being sued by the copyright holders of the Dewey Decimal System for unlicensed use a.k.a. copyright infringement. Turns out libraries PAY these people like $500 a year to use the Dewey Decimal System. Can someone please explain to me why they don't simply use the LOC system instead? It's free & included in modern printings. Also, it isn't stupid, which can't be said for the DDS.

I need to get a library sticky-thing so I can add call numbers to the books... boy, that'd be the day. Of anality.

I think I should lie down, read some more, then sleep. Presumably to dream of crazy things I can't ever remember in the morning. Hence the repetitious Story I tell myself, different each time in some way (either subtle or not). I should call it iDream. I should make a program called iDream wherein you can write the different scenes of your dreams with prompts for assistance: describe what you remember seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling in each scene, with sum-up at top.

Wish I could program; I'd be all over that. Maybe I should keep reading the Husky book...

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I am currently listening to: My kitty's neck-bell as she bathes before bed
I am currently reading: Luigi Luca & Francesco Cavalli-Sforza 1996: Great Human Diasporas: The History of Diversity & Evolution, Helix Books NY & Clive Gamble 1999: Palaeolithic Societies of Europe, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK

Today was a lovely day. I slept quite a bit this afternoon and busted ass all morning cleaning house & working on the wood floors with wood soap. The result is very satisfying although I'm not sure what my roommate will think about it.

I've been on quite a tear for the last few days; I didn't post much because I was in such a pissed off mood.

Ya. More later.

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I am currently listening to: Busta Rhymes & le Tigre
I am currently reading: Howard Eilberg-Schwartz 1994: "God's Phallus: & Other Problems for Men & Monotheism"

GET OFF THE COMPUTER!

Damn, I'm gonna get RSI if I keep this up.

MUST... READ... TEXTFEED...

I'm a reg'lar junkie. Props to FeedMe for making me one & a special shout out to my homies in the District for driving our country str8 into the earth as fast as they can.

Downside to the New World Order:
- America might experience complete & total economic & political meltdown
- I have to get a gun.
/put ammo in gun/
//you can not put the ammo there.//
/load gun/
//with a satisfying click, you slide the clip home. the gun is loaded!//
/push safety/
//I don't understand what you want to do.//
*merde*
- I might even have to lock my doors at night!
- the price of coffee will definitely skyrocket with the advent of civil war

Upside:
- no more RSI
- much fewer living people
- I'd look good in a post-apocalyptic wasteland in leather pants. Where's my "Blue Gender"?

C'mon, kitty. Let's go to bed like civilised savages & leave this crazy iWorld behind.

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I am currently listening to: blessed, blessed silence. oops, no, now there is a police helicopter. damnit.

Today I am very, very cranky. It might be hormonal. I am fit to kick ass & I don't care from taking names, nu. At least there's a new "Enterprise" on at 20. (How do you say that, twenty-hundred hours?)

My roomie & I are deliberating on how to earn some money to live on; therefore I might be soon engaged in a home business. I got the time to spend but not the money. Wish I were a programmer; PayPal would be my lifeline.

I'm reading the Husky book on the Darwin kernel, the UNIX system Mac OSX is based on; it's the hardest reading I've done in ten years because it's solid math thinking. It's nice, though, because it resembles linguistics in some odd way. Program away, me girl! Girl nerd.

We went to Fry's today to get some stuff. I wanted to get a keychain drive very badly but have only $25 to my name so I can't really do that. I'm stuck upgrading the Old Man's hard drive the old way: upload to server, download from server. It's annoying, time-consuming & remarkably satisfying.

I was wondering about working on a serious project with my roomie beyond the work at home thing: dropping some ducats on an Xbox, hacking it with said Bunnie Huang guide or using the online guides, installing a Linux system and using it as a "front end" or user interface with which to run our television.

We'd need to bone up serious on our programming and suchlike skills to do it, but there is a whole legion of nerds out there doing this kind of homebrew TiVO - check out mythTV to see a choice example of Linux-based TiVO with support for Xbox modders.

"What?!?" you ask in astonishment. English, then: buy micro$oft's gaming platform, the Xbox. Recognise it is simply just a highly specialised PC computer designed for web access and TV output: Bunnie Huang of MIT cracked one open and reverse engineered it, and it's just your basic PC.

Now take the freeware Linux system and install. Add programming to interpret and reformat and record the cable system - legally, since it goes between the cable box and the TV, and you are paying for the cable - and you have a computer that is specialised to run your TV like a little genie. It is a TiVO with the flexibility of a regular computer and the screen speed and output that the real cable modem cannot possibly match. It is beautiful and it will "record" your shows, sans-commercials, as a large .jpeg file; you can then burn said file to disc should you wish to keep it, after massively editing and cleaning it up so it's just perfect, of course.

Amazing, utterly amazing. But hard work; I don't know if we can pull it off.

Oops, speaking of which I gotta go help my roommate, who is freaking out.

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I am currently listening to: 96.9 FM [Pirate Radio San Diego]
I am currently reading: the Husky book [O'Reilly / UNIX for Mac OSX]; "A Heart Turned East: Among the Muslims of Europe & America" [Adam Lebor]

Tuesday. Shit.

First, props to the BlogSpeak community for coming to the aid of BlogSpeak. In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, BlogSpeak is the service-cum-person who wrote the software that enables you to send me nasty comments - see below this entry for an example thereof.

Anyway, Mr. BlogSpeak has been doing all this work for free; when his load became too much for his service provider, he appealed to his BlogSpeak-enabled community to pitch in and cough up a couple dollar$ each so he could pay for a better service. He's been shelling out for us all this time.

So thanks to everyone who passed the hat through PayPal. Word to my peeps. I have to stick to a kind note because I don't have money for peanut butter right now - I had to borrow it from a neighbour.

Today I also downloaded the karma pa wallpaper designed by Karmadulgu of Singapore. Here's a random way to juice up your computer... pictures of a sprul sku (pronounced and often written tulku) surrounded by pictures and portraits of his sixteen predecessors.

The karma pa heads up one of the five religious schools of Tibet, namely the karma bka' rgyud (pronounced Gahma Gahjü and usually written Karma Kagyud); I am not a bka' rgyud pa but rather more interested in the ris med (zhee may) or Nonsectarian movement. Nonetheless, the karma pa has always been an important figure and teacher for Buddhists and I'm happy to look at his face. You won't appreciate it quite as much unless you are Buddhist, but it is a neat image anyway. Thanks, Karmadulgu.

I have been kind of bored and also a little irritated that the Girl didn't call. Oh well, chalk one more up to no-show. Oy, Kalki! My roommate and our guest took off several times without me today, which is kind of confounding. I don't always need to be there but I'd like to be there sometimes. I'm out of money right now and would have liked to have something to do, but they left me home twice today without asking if I wanted to go. Maybe I'm annoying them somehow.

I'm not worried about them reading this; they never read anything I send to them. Then again, who does?

I went into LIBRARY overdrive the last few days but still need to refresh my webpages. They don't have all the books there. I've also started adding comments and reviews for the finest books. There prolly seem to be a lot of books given lots of stars because I had a staggeringly huge library before I moved to San Diego from New England and had to cull it into about ten percent of the original size, thereby ensuring that most everything I kept was
1. super-excellent, one of my favourite fiction or non-fiction books [i.e. monkey v. robot, the divinity student, roanoake
2. an excellent resource despite flaws (i.e. the roman army from Caesar to Trajan)
3. or was one of the few books that snuck in that suck.

At least it's Sunday. Used to hate Sundays back in the day but now it means that after a two-day hiatus, Adult Swim will be on tonite.

Boy, do I have lots of nothing to say today, eh?

Tell me something. The link to comment is right here.

17 That Conversation, Redux

Had another one of Those Conversations today; I have one about once a day but only comment on a few. This guy looked creepy on his profile, which I checked once he tried to IM me, but he wasn't particularly repulsive in conversation so I didn't lose my temper. For once.

Why don't I just block users whom I don't already have on my list? Because then I wouldn't meet people I want to meet. Defeats the purpose. Wish I could block, say, all male users I don't know.

BTW yes, the conversation below does refer to a meeting I'm supposed to have tonight with a girl. Don't have any idea what the result will be given that I'm transgendered, but I don't mind meeting new people. [Nota Bene: she never called; there was no meeting.]

Him (15:06:24): Good afternoon
Me (15:23:12): hello
Me (15:23:17): do I know u?
Him (15:23:26): not yet Hi...
Me (15:23:29): hi
Him (15:23:49): hiya Having a good day?
Me (15:24:18): so far, yes
Him (15:24:34): but there is always time for the day to go to heck, eh?
Me (15:24:47): y, meeting a girl tonite for the first time
Me (15:24:53): could be ugly, could be good
Him (15:24:55):
Him (15:24:58):
Him (15:25:07): blind date?
Me (15:25:11): no
Me (15:25:19): she liked my womanline profile
Him (15:25:24): Just not sure if you will get along
Me (15:25:42): well, we've not met in the flesh, so no idea how it will go
Me (15:26:01): what made you decide to email me? did you search for san diego or..
Him (15:26:01): flesh.. I love the sound of that
Him (15:26:36): Yes, I searched SD, and noticed the trans referance in your profile
Me (15:27:14): uh oh
Me (15:27:32): what does that mean? not another one-handed typist?!?
Him (15:27:36): nope
Him (15:27:44): using both hands
Him (15:27:47): both even
Me (15:27:49): are you transgendered
Him (15:27:58): no, but I like t girls
Me (15:28:01): ah
Me (15:28:05): I don't date men
Him (15:28:40): Had that feeling

16 [feedme!]

Typhon's Cranky Children! Haven't you got [feedme!] yet? It's a sweet service eh.

You can now also subscribe to this blog using the link in the side panel of this page...

15 Cataloguing Oddities

Tonight I'm cataloguing oddities, including some of my comics. I realise that I have neither listened to nor read any J Kochalka since moving to San Diego, and also how incredibly wrong that is. Monkey v. Robot, for example, should be read as frequently as possible.

I don't have the audio CD for it, unfortunately. I should find some aminal and machine noises online and put together a reading companion: think Bj�rk's mind-melting [selmasongs] with industrial noises mixed with monkey cries. Maybe howler monkeys and birds?

I watched the first episode of this season's [enterprise]. If possible, our little Vulcan chiquita has become even more droolworthy than ever. I honestly think she is a sex object to me in the way almost no one else is. There are those whom I really wish I could date, but rarely if ever does a character make me get shiny-eyed and flushed.

I can think of another fictional moment that does that, and it's the explicit, raw, brutal sex scene between the two women protagonists of the film noir makeover [bound] that is the staple of every dyke's film library.

But that's only one scene. Our little Vulcan is one once a week with a new episode and even a new pink velour uniform can't slow down her unmitigated sex appeal.

Honestly, she shows her belly and it's the only public persona's belly that makes me groan and slide under the table. I see bellies all over the place and she's got the only one that does it for me like that. The rest ain't bad, they just don't trip the trigger.

I always did like the nerdy types. Think of my Tara crush - stuttering, nervous, with a well-wrapped body to cover nearly every inch of skin, but you know she's a love machine underneath. Think of poor Oz: "Do... do you know you smell like Willow? She's all OVER you!"

Yes, it is late at night. Yes, I need to go to bed. Just got to finish updating the books I imported first so it's all fresh in the morning.

Also I just gutted my friend's iMac G4 tonight. He hasn't reinstalled the software in years and is almost elderly, meaning that he has made it into a gigantic mess. I was overwhelmed with actual pleasure to burn a CD of his Word files and mail and then wipe the drive clean, set up a partition for future use as a storage space for files separate from the OS, and then to install OS X.

He has difficulty seeing and OSX is clean, smooth, sweet, and a thousand times more legible and user-friendly for him, especially since it has great support for the disabled. I might have to go back and install the 'Classic' mode, though; I think he needs it available to use his burner.

He won't be back for a week, so I've got time to fool around, update his software, firewire some freeware programs I've got in my partitioned backup over to him, tweak it all into shape just perfect for him. I have also fixed the complete disaster that was his OS by deleting and reformatting the hard drive; now it works just fine, just like it was supposed to.

Can't wait to work on it; I like having projects.

I need to investigate information management systems because I'm working on a database of Buddhist scholars and schools so I can keep flashcards and learn them. It's hard to keep the teachers in your head; I'll have the information I find all in one place, indexed using the TBRC system, for printing for resource and studying information, everything from texts to places to famous personages and their antecessors and predecessors.

Lineage data is hard to keep connected to teachers; they are not usually discussed in the same sources, making learning this stuff hard. I do want to go to school one day!

14 {WSW} = {WSM}: {FALSE}

Email arrives from my WOMEN SEEKING WOMEN ad account:

Absolutely love what you write. Bravo. I am very orally gifted and we will have some exciting and stimulating conversations together. I am a native Englander (British) with a "sexy accent" so they say. We should definitely have some interesting times (wink wink). It's very rare to find a breath of fresh air like you. Are you bi or 100% lesbian? I am very open and easy to get along with. Best Wishes, [a man].

What a frigging pig. If I wanted to meet men I'd label it WOMEN SEEKING MEN OR WOMEN. That's what that is there for.

Why is this idiot browsing the WOMEN SEEKING WOMEN profiles in the first place? I guess I need to settle down and simply recognise that I am nothing more than a sex toy for people with penises.

13 Cock in Hand is Worth Two in Bush, Guys

Why is it that the ONLY people who instant message me are men with cock in hand?

Today I get this IM from some guy. "You have time to talk to a 22yo guy?" He adds me as a friend. I check his profile: no face visible, bisexual, nothing else really.

"Yes," I say, "but I'm a dyke. I'm not trawling for man meat."

"Technically, neither am I," he says. Seems he's looking for a "cock on a woman's body".

Sweet Leaping Jesus, people. What the FUCK?

I informed him that I am not an escort service and that did I mention I'm a dyke?

He says my profile mentions I'm politically active as a transactivist. So somehow this apparently connects immediately in his head with me being able to line up some dick for him.

No offense. I'm glad there are people who are interested in persons who aspects of more than one sex; I could use one. But Christ, what part of DYKE was unclear? What made him think I was going to set up the alleged hordes of desperate trans or intersexed women with him what I keep in my back closet?

Oy. There's no cause for this kind of crap. What in god makes people act like that? I feel like a frigid, manhating bitch because I end up BEING one to protect myself from assholes online.

12 [library]

Why haven't I been blogging?

I have. Differently. I'm using [library] to put a catalogue of my books online.

I'm not sure if it's bragging or just flaunting my tastes, but either way it's what I've been doing with my time on the computer. The prospect of writing after I've been using the program all day, editing the entries to my preferences, is too much. I don't like being on the computer all day despite the joy it can create.

Right now I'm watching [bluegender], which is an increasingly interesting show. At first I found it a little emotionally strained and strange, but ever since the Blue arrived on the "Second Earth" satellite, the situation is creepy and "Resident Evil"-y. In the good way.

I guess it's officially yet another response to an entire lineage of science fiction that (officially) started with Heinlein's [starshiptroopers]. Joe Haldeman wrote a response to it in [foreverwar], then [endersgame] arrived in the 80s. Haldeman rewrote his 60s novel twice in the last decade, once as [foreverpeace] and again as [foreverfree].

The entire mass of discussion, reverberation and reaction to Heinlein's book created even continued as Verhoeven tried to update and translate it with his 1997 blockbuster of the same name; although the movie was pretty sucky as an adaption of Heinlein's book and also was a fairly lousy movie, Verhoeven did manage to convey his understanding by putting his "heroes" in appallingly Nazi-derived uniforms and political situations. Having survived Nazi occupation, Verhoeven really gets the mood of fascism going.

Translating the deeply disturbing political vision of Heinlein from pro to con was one nice touch, although I doubt many people understand that; even less do they understand the deliberateness with which he links "patriotic duty" with fascist politics and corporate political control.

Ooh, big words. In short, [starshiptroopers] was a lousy movie but a brilliant political satire of those who demand our allegiance in the name of culture, ethnicity, religion or even species. These points are similar to those other writers were trying to make in their response(s); it's a fascinating read to go through the whole series.

One last note: the most off-genre response to Heinlein is my favourite novel of all time: Ursula le Guin's [dispossessed], which comes right out and deals with communalistic and 'communistic' societies without using social insects as a prop. I think it is her best writing and the height of her career. It originally had a subtitle as well, [ambiguousutopia], but for some inexplicable reason she dropped it after the first printing. I'm lucky enough to have a rare, leatherbound, limited-edition printing of this work - thanks, 'rental units!

My homepage is here now. I'll post my library listings there.

11 Fei� & the iBrator

I just can't get over Ellen Feiss.

But the iBrator parody is almost as funny.

10 Ireland-Bound Rentals MIA

nineteen pacific standard time. my parents are leaving for �ire in the morning and i can't reach them. they're online with their ancient dial-up. what are they thinking?

9 It's Way Too Early to Be Blogging

awake at six pacific standard time, i was tempted to blog. after all, i mused, it was so nice and cool. it might be hot and icky like yesterday and i might have to struggle like i was still living somewhere weather-awful.

but i kept getting denials-of-service when i tried to post. it happened the other day, too. what's going on?

anyway, i'm trying to get my website up but apparently i need to find an FTP uploader. i can't imagine i don't have one on my computer but being fairly new to macs i don't know where it is although i did look. anyway there's a nice program i'm checking out from Fresh Meat; if it is interesting to use and catchless, i'll be sure to inform.

8 Hungry Again; Adventures in Bureaucracy

Oh, well.

This week has been downs more than ups, but amazingly I haven't seemed to care.

Okay: went to get food stamps. I'm on disability and there's isn't any way to survive on the stipend they give you. So I swallowed my pride and went for them. I fill out the fifty-fucking page form and wait two hours in the lobby of Health & Human Services with the other 50 women. Oh, wait, one man does show up, but only to ask a question and then leave.

All of the women, upon whom I have great compassion, have screaming children. I try very hard not to eat the children, with much success. I think that the Hariti-vow is working. I am able to transcend the agony of my brain and not think about yummy fajitas de hijos y hijas. The image of me lurking under a bridge to catch annoying breeder childers does not appear. Instead, I am able to repeat the MU ji kong an ("Does a dog have a buddha-nature?" "MU!") and wait the two hours without harming another living being.

They get my name wrong, but I am able to retrieve my own ID from the mangled wreckage, said mostly in Spanish. Johnson is not a good Spanish surname to have, let me recommend to you that you change it to Juárez - which is the translation anyway - should you have it and with to move to an Iberophone land. Like SoCal.

"You make too much money", says the woman apologetically. I manage not to add, "which is clearly insufficient for an adult human being to live on and isn't money I'm MAKING but rather receiving from YOU for being disabled due to trauma associated with being discriminated against in the workplace."

I say the MU a few times as I leave but am too distracted to be really hungry. I exit the building gracefully. I do not say anything to my companion waiting in the car, who was also refused a few minutes before on the grounds what he is receiving US $10 from SSI. In other words, because he worked and paid taxes once, he is ineligible to be assisted by the money he put into the system.

I try to just put it behind me; they did the same thing to me for healthcare, which is the most ludicrous thing I have ever heard since the only reason you are disabled is because of health reasons, all of which require healthcare. "FUUUUUUUUCKK YOOOOOUUUUU, UNCLE FUCKERS!" I don't scream.

I breathe and try to just sit there with my anger.

My roommate, who usually gets furious for being fucked over for being disabled, is going to speak. I await the onslaught; it's hard for me to work through the cold and hot blast of his venting sometimes.

"Hey, at least we're queer", he says in a mild voice.

That really angry bit inside me dissolves a lot and we drive home, eat cereal & take our afternoon anti-heat naps.

7 Oceana

If you haven't done so yet, you should hie thee on down to The Island Chronicles, a column cowritten by Boing-Boing Blog writer Mark Frauenfelder and his partner Carla Sinclair. As it explains on the L. A. Times website, which picked up his column soon after they started e-posting them, "[They] uprooted themselves from Los Angeles and moved to the South Pacific. Their first stop is Rarotonga. They brought their two young daughters with them."

Although the columns are brief, it is an entrance in to a world that has always been interesting to the Western observer: as with all similar inherited notions of the 'sauvage', we are torn between seeing the "South Seas" as a place of cannibalism and unrestrained sexuality: our ultimate borderlands, what the region between Europe and Central Asia was to Europeans, Africans & Asians alike. Our "dog men" (like St. Christopher, who has the head of a dog - betcha didn't learn that in Catholic School!) and Amazons are still trapped in our heads, only they are Gauguin's nekkid chicks and Margaret Meade's visions of perfectly unselfconscious virgin-whores face-à-face with stories of man-eaters and head-hunters.

Some things are true. A grain of truth lay behind each lie; my grandpa, a Marine who was stationed somewhere in the South Pacific (one of the many Natives who enlisted to protect the United States with the added benefit of escaping rural poverty), told me about an encounter with "some of those black birds" who were laughing and joking. When he asked the local liaison why they were staring at him, the liaison said they were "bushmen; they thinking of eating longpig". My grandpa bit and asked what longpig was. "You longpig," he said, grinning.

Anyway, life in the South Pacific. Read what it is like. The email list is especially nice: you get funny posts like the one from Mark with an e-photo of this nasty growth on his leg and a request that maybe someone could identify what the heck it is so he can treat it - there are no doctors for thousands upon thousands of miles.