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tanuki in disguise
@mossbeard  ·  activity timestamp 6 days ago

I have just had my nose waxed for the first time.


We've been going to a Kurdish barber shop in Seaton for about a year now. I'm trying to learn a little Kurmanji, and I practice with the men who work there and get them to tell me about politics. They are amazingly good with my smallest offspring's luxuriant hair, which would shame a gorgon. I have rather less, which they mow short. But confronted with my disorganised facial scraggle they somehow find symmetry of a sort.


Today there was a Significant Pause. The neat moustache was wholly ruined by what lurked above. In fact I am careful to trim my nostrils, though obviously not to their standard.


"Wax your nose?"

"Errrrrmmmm..."

Every man in there was watching me.

"Okay."


So now, for all you doubters, I have joined the ranks of cis men who have had gender affirming surgery.


I fully intend to keep the sparse grey scrub elsewhere, and in fact I am put off by unnatural hairlessness in others, but at least I know a bit about what it's like now.

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tanuki in disguise
@mossbeard  ·  activity timestamp last week

I have made a significant investment in my retirement. In about 5 years, I will reach state pension age, and with luck I will finally be able to stop working. Perhaps, by that time, I will still feel like returning to research and writing. But I owe myself, and those around me, some cheer and inspiration.


My investment? A banjo. I am teaching myself folk songs, Pete Seeger style. If I get a chance (finally!) to visit West Africa I hope to learn from xalam or ngoni players. I tried to play a banjo many years ago, when I had seen Taj Mahal and Tony Trischka, and simply gave up. Now I know why I am learning, and I have no expectation that I will ever be any good; I just want to bring a bit of music with me. If I keep at it for a few years I should know some songs.

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tanuki in disguise
@mossbeard  ·  activity timestamp 2 weeks ago

I was going to say


While I sat in meditation

The snow recovered the path

I had cleared to feed the hungry birds


But then I learned that in that same time the USA had started another war for oil.


In this weather, I shall have to clear the path and feed the birds again.

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Hiti

हिति , in Nepāl Bhāṣā, is the word for a shared community water tap. Even in modern Newar cities, these ancient structures still pour out fresh mountain water piped through ancient underground filters and conduits. They are a place to wash, to talk, to drink, to meet the locals: a nourishing, refreshing social-ecological place.

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