fono: its the same shit here, but dirtier. i'm going to get a giant mortar and pestle to make peanut butter. one that's bigger than me.
me: where are you gonna get that?
fono: its normal household equipment.
me: something like that would cost $100 here. you'd get it at the pottery barn
fono: or the bombay company! and you'd put it in the corner as a conversation piece. and people would come over and look at your authentic piece from nigeria. could you make peanut butter with it?
me: no, that's not very authentic.

a list of foodstuffs that my cat loves to put in his cute little tummy:
- vegemite
- twinkies
- cheese
- french fries
- soy products
- sweet almond oil
- water from the side of the bath

a list of foodstuffs that my cat loves to put in his cute little tummy:
- vegemite
- twinkies
- cheese
- french fries
- soy products
- sweet almond oil
- water from the side of the bath

from an email i wrote to fono in nigeria, who has turned into my new livejournal...

"i hung out with cara and andy on saturday. we went for ethiopian food which we ate with our hands. the last time i was there was with ana and galen and trevor from habitat. also in attendance was cara's niece who is 13 and a woman who is now working with cara who went to elementary school with me during my year of hell in grade 6 when everyone hated me. small world hey?

after i hung out with cara and andy and co, chris kostoff showed up and we had some south african wine at this place on yonge. then i walked her all the way home to her condo at spadina and king, and then i biked home. im still biking even though its cold. it makes me feel good except my legs are always completely frozen for hours after (like frozen chicken legs) even if i have a shower or a bath.

i really like talking to kostoff. its like this constant stream where we have way more to talk to than we have time for. i told her about a show i sawon buddhist medicine the other day and the spoke about death as the waking upfrom the dream that is life. and then i realised that even life is normative... man, straight, white, life. woman, queer, ethic, death.

you know buddhist doctors are like a priest/rabbi, doctor and counsellor all in one? they treat the whole mind, body, spirit all together. its only westerners who make that distinction. western doctors treat me like i am some sort of robot and they give me some sort of status report on my functioning when i go see them.

in more superficial news, i also got my haircut at pop hair on saturday. melissa my hairdresser apparently had enough and quit. so i got some total 905er guy from woodbridge. he did a really good job, but insisted on pushing his crotch against my knee the whole time. that place is so weird, but they do good cheap cuts. i got kostoff to take a headshot of me, because they need one for sxsw."

globalkids and gamelab recently released a pretty impressive flash game called ayiti: the cost of life where you a play a family in haiti trying to get ahead. it's compelling and educational (and addictive). in playing, you directly experience the obstacles that keep people in the poverty cycle.

the first time i played, my whole family died of various tropical illnesses. it was upsetting. i did better the second time. the designers purposely made it so the game was hard, but not impossible. it gave me a better idea of the kinds of challenges people in developing countries face. you can "know" intellectually, but i think playing actually gave me a better sense, because it gave me the chance to understand through experience.

and then i started thinking, does this game count as civic engagement? the hardcore civic engagement people would say no, and probably more 'progressive' people would agree. it doesn't actually get me to act, but i think getting a better sense and having more empathy is something.

but then really, what is a tangible outcome of any form of civic engagement? the only one you can really measure is voting. i used to go to protests all the time, did anything change? not really. i keep myself informed and write about stuff on my blog, did my community improve? again, not really. ugh, i'm too pomo. i want revolutionary change on a grand scale!

maybe part of the problem is that no one really knows an effective method for making change in the world. humans are so slowwwww.