Xismosa Xit

Translation: One Year of Gossip and Shenanigans 

Hello all,

Today’s newsletter is sponsored by ONE YEAR AND 23 NEWSLETTERS LATER!!!

Prose of the Week

Xismosa Xit

A year ago, I needed something to keep me (arguably) sane. Writing has always kept me vaguely sane, but I wanted to push myself more. I didn’t want to be scared to show my writing anymore. Therefore, to be completely meta (Fuck Facebook), here is my writing ABOUT this newsletter, so you even get background on THAT. (Does it show that I love behind the scenes videos OF behind the scenes videos?). It’s not my best writing, because I was trying to write to a challenge just before the deadline. Hopefully it still gets the point across that this newsletter is still about me trying to figure myself out after quitting a straining job.

Sweetest Loves I’ve Known

It’s a list. I’m trying to avoid saying “it’s just a list,” because it’s a list of instances that are full of small and sweet love, and I love how common that can be. I try to take full advantage of love being common and free.

Rabbitholes

Things I’ve learned, laughed about, and/or obsessed over

• Who Wrote The Bible videos by Useful Charts (updated link) – I think it’s important to know the history of the Bible for context, and not take legends and myths at face value, like Christians tend to do with other beliefs. 
• Cute tomato butt

• Cute little pepper 

• I ate him

• Spite / aesthetic

• This Fool (2022) on Hulu, specifically the monologue at the end of the first episode 
• Ah, trash gremlins

Book Búho

What I’ve been reading/listening to bc audiobooks let me do both. Yes, comics count.

• Letter to a CES Director: My Search for Answers to My Mormon Doubts by Jeremy T. Runnells – Runnells was heavily involved in the Latter Day Saints (AKA Mormon) Church growing up, but started to have doubts when looking into historical and archeological evidence that did not back up the Book of Mormon. Therefore, he wrote to an LDS Church Education System (CES) Director hoping to get these questions answered, but none came. He also questions Old Testament God, concerns which I myself have had since I was little. 
• Sex at Dusk: Lifting the Shiny Wrapping from Sex at Dawn by Lynn Saxon – When I newly 18 and waiting to leave for college, my best high school friend and I went to downtown Tempe alone, and ventured into the High Happy Healthy Hippy shop. Iconic. We started a conversation with the woman behind the counter, and she extolled the book Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá and encouraged us to email her with any questions. I loved that conversation, and had the book on my To Read list for the past 8 years. I finally started reading it. A few pages in, I decided to go to its GoodReads page, which I try to avoid bc I like to form my own opinions. Yet, one review recommended Sex at Dusk as a good counter argument. Saxon is not arguing that sex is unhealthy, but she is arguing that sex is more intentional about prolonging the lives of genetics than Sex at Dawn would like to recognize. I like reading about science, and am trying to learn more about human sexuality in history.
• World Religions: An Illustrated Guide edited by Seán McLoughlin – I took a world religions 101 class in college. I learned nothing about the basics of each religion. I am learning more about the basics from this 2007 guide. But of course, there are only 2 pages on African religions. And they’re called exactly that – African religions. Still, I’m learning a lot about other religions, but of course the longest section is devoted to Christiatiny, and I sense that the authors of that section were particularly careful in their phrasing, more so than in other sections. Can’t offend the Christians.

Personal Chisme

chisme = gossip

• Apparently, I make stickers by request now, which is truly fun for me! Kim told me she’d buy this sticker if I made it.
• Money! What a concept!

The Void Shouts Back

If you would like to respond but don’t know what to say, answer the question below. If you don’t want to, just respond with keysmashing or send me a hug with your thoughts. If you don’t want to do that either, that’s okay too.

• Compared to where you were a year ago, what is something unexpected and pleasant that has happened to you?

Thank you for reading! If you would like to browse through the past year, please peruse Colochos de Flores, and perhaps even look at my stickers, as a treat?

Abrazos and/or high fives,

Ariana