soliloquee's New Writeupshttp://everything2.com/?node=New%20Writeups%20Atom%20Feed&foruser=soliloquee2002-05-03T03:47:29ZProstitution (thing)http://everything2.com/user/soliloquee/writeups/Prostitutionsoliloqueehttp://everything2.com/user/soliloquee2002-05-03T03:47:29Z2002-05-03T03:47:29Z<p><i>This is all true....</i></p>
<p>It's a <a href="/title/warm">warm</a> night. Several cars come around. Every time a pair of <a href="/title/headlights">headlights</a>, long reflected shimmers in the wet street, approaches, my heart speeds up. The girls stand in a little <a href="/title/grove">grove</a>, smoking, joking, tugging at their skirts. They <a href="/title/poke+fun">poke fun</a> at me, the kid- but not nearly as much as they would if Mandy weren't standing beside me with her hand resting purposefully on my <a href="/title/shoulder">shoulder</a>. I'm Mandy's girl. No one fucks with Mandy's girl.</p>
<p>The first three <a href="/title/john">john</a>s pick out Camille, Kisha, and Buffy, in that order. The fourth guy asks for me but Mandy won't let me go with him. She <a href="/title/whisper">whisper</a>s in my ear, her breath softened, but not yet slurred, with <a href="/title/cheap+wine">cheap wine</a>, "That guy's a fucking <a href="/title/scumbag">scumbag</a>. Crazy motherfucker. I'm gonna let you have a <a href="/title/gentle">gentle</a> first time, <a href="/title/sugar+pea">sugar pea</a>."</p>
<p>Mandy likes to <a href="/title/mother">mother</a> me. I like to be mothered. Living on <a href="/title/the+streets">the streets</a>, girls like us form strange families. We <a href="/title/crave">crave</a> love and echo the <a href="/title/dysfunction">dysfunction</a>s of the<!-- close unclosed tag --></p>…Falling in love with strangers (thing)http://everything2.com/user/soliloquee/writeups/Falling+in+love+with+strangerssoliloqueehttp://everything2.com/user/soliloquee2002-04-15T04:52:42Z2002-04-15T04:52:42Z<p><i>Number One comes in the morning:</i></p>
<p>The <a href="/title/waiting+room">waiting room</a> of the free health <a href="/title/clinic">clinic</a> is buzzing with angry noise: babies <a href="/title/howl">howl</a>ing and phones ringing above the pinched voices of tired nurses in white with their weary eyes, late enough in their <a href="/title/shift">shift</a> that annoyance has overwhelmed sympathy. She's sitting across from me on the plastic chairs, big and soft and dark as <a href="/title/coffee">coffee</a>. <a href="/title/Breasts">Breasts</a> like <a href="/title/melon">melon</a>s resting on an enormous stomach, one of those huge <a href="/title/black">black</a> women who doesn't seem overweight, but simply made to be that size, to be large and full and thick like sweet <a href="/title/biscuit">biscuit</a>s fresh from the oven, swollen with warmth and <a href="/title/sugar">sugar</a>. She looks young, in her twenties maybe, her thick <a href="/title/nappy+hair">nappy hair</a> pulled back so tightly that it seems visibly tense, like a caged animal ready to spring free or a taut <a href="/title/clothesline">clothesline</a> on a <a href="/title/summer">summer</a> day.</p>
<p>Her <a href="/title/skin">skin</a> is very dark but her eyes are startlingly <a href="/title/light">light</a>, a soft, watery brown like drops of <a href="/title/Yoo-hoo">Yoo-hoo</a> on the white kitchen counter. They are staring at<!-- close unclosed tag --></p>…Rape committed by women (idea)http://everything2.com/user/soliloquee/writeups/Rape+committed+by+womensoliloqueehttp://everything2.com/user/soliloquee2002-04-12T04:28:17Z2002-04-12T04:28:17Z<p>This <a href="/title/node">node</a> strikes a very personal <a href="/title/chord">chord</a> with me, and I've got a lot to say here, so bear with me. Or don't, either way. But don't say I didn't <a href="/title/warn">warn</a> you.</p>
<p><a href="/title/I+believe">I believe</a> that in some sense people always do <a href="/title/pay">pay</a> for their <a href="/title/action">action</a>s. When they <a href="/title/rape">rape</a> someone they pay with the price of their <a href="/title/soul">soul</a>, and that's arguably the worst <a href="/title/punishment">punishment</a> there can ever be. It's comforting in some small way to think that the <a href="/title/woman">woman</a> who raped me lost some part of herself that night, just the way I did, that she didn't emerge from that experience completely <a href="/title/unscathed">unscathed</a>. Her punishment is that she is a <a href="/title/rapist">rapist</a>, that she has caused <a href="/title/acute">acute</a> and awful <a href="/title/pain">pain</a> in <a href="/title/this+world">this world</a>, and she will never be able to undo that.</p>
<p>That being said, it still makes me <a href="/title/angry">angry</a>, makes me <a href="/title/dark">dark</a> and <a href="/title/bitter">bitter</a>. That she got away with what she did. That I was <a href="/title/ridicule">ridicule</a>d and held responsible for her actions. That I was denied the <a href="/title/validity">validity</a> of my <a href="/title/pain">pain</a> by people who insisted that I wasn't 'really' raped, that <a href="/title/rape">rape</a> by<!-- close unclosed tag --></p>…Fashoda Incident (place)http://everything2.com/user/soliloquee/writeups/Fashoda+Incidentsoliloqueehttp://everything2.com/user/soliloquee2002-02-10T04:47:43Z2002-02-10T04:47:43Z<p>It was <a href="/title/1898">1898</a>, and Fashoda was <a href="/title/nowhere">nowhere</a> and <a href="/title/nothing">nothing</a>. It lay, a small, unimposing fishing <a href="/title/village">village</a>, along the <a href="/title/White+Nile">White Nile</a>, somewhere in the transition land between the <a href="/title/Nubian+Desert">Nubian Desert</a> and the vast <a href="/title/Savanna">Savanna</a> of southern <a href="/title/Sudan">Sudan</a>. Sudan, at that time, was a whole lot of nowhere itself, the <a href="/title/wild">wild</a> and sparsely inhabited <a href="/title/Mahdia">Mahdia</a>, slowly falling to <a href="/title/British">British</a> rule. And Fashoda, little Fashoda, was the carefully measured center of nowhere, the nowhere town that almost sparked a premature <a href="/title/World+War+I">World War I</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="/title/problem">problem</a> was this: The <a href="/title/colonial+power">colonial power</a>s that be were in the process of devouring <a href="/title/Africa">Africa</a>, partitioning off the beautiful <a href="/title/continent">continent</a> piece by piece, squabbling over who would <a href="/title/rape">rape</a> what land and who would <a href="/title/repress">repress</a> which peoples. The colonial powers that be were a <a href="/title/proud">proud</a> and <a href="/title/ambitious">ambitious</a> lot, and two of the major players, <a href="/title/England">England</a> and <a href="/title/France">France</a>, would stubbornly butt heads at Fashoda.</p>
<p><a href="/title/England">England</a> was clearly expanding in a north-south direction, building a <a href="/title/contiguous">contiguous</a> <a href="/title/empire">empire</a><!-- close unclosed tag --></p>…Algeria (place)http://everything2.com/user/soliloquee/writeups/Algeriasoliloqueehttp://everything2.com/user/soliloquee2002-02-09T20:58:44Z2002-02-09T20:58:44Z<p><i>The Democratic and Popular Republic of</i><b> ALGERIA:</b></p>
<p>Algeria is the <a href="/title/world">world</a>'s tenth largest, and <a href="/title/Africa">Africa</a>'s second largest country, with an area of 919,590 square miles. In <a href="/title/US">US</a> terms, that's roughly three and a half times the size of <a href="/title/Texas">Texas</a>. It's located on the north edge of <a href="/title/Africa">Africa</a>, between <a href="/title/Morocco">Morocco</a> and <a href="/title/Tunisia">Tunisia</a> and <a href="/title/Libya">Libya</a>, above <a href="/title/Mauritania">Mauritania</a>, <a href="/title/Mali">Mali</a>, and <a href="/title/Niger">Niger</a>.
<p>In this <a href="/title/behemoth">behemoth</a> country, 90% of the people live in the green strip of <a href="/title/Mediterranean+Sea">Mediterranean Sea</a> coast called the <a href="/title/Tell">Tell</a>, where they can enjoy the mild Mediterranean clime: a regular <a href="/title/rainfall">rainfall</a> blesses this land, the <a href="/title/rainy+season">rainy season</a> stretching from <a href="/title/December">December</a> to <a href="/title/March">March</a>. The Tell is separated from the rest of Algeria by the <a href="/title/Atlas+Mountains">Atlas Mountains</a> and the Hauts Plateaux (highlands). The summer, even in the Tell, is hot and dry, and a hot, sandy wind called <i><a href="/title/sirocco">sirocco</a></i> is common. The rest of Algeria is part of the vast and verdureless <a href="/title/Sahara">Sahara</a>, where only an occasional <a href="/title/oasis">oasis</a> can support life.</p>
<p><b>HISTORY:<!-- close unclosed tag --></b><!-- close unclosed tag --></p><!-- close unclosed tag --></p>…Africa (place)http://everything2.com/user/soliloquee/writeups/Africasoliloqueehttp://everything2.com/user/soliloquee2002-02-09T04:18:31Z2002-02-09T04:18:31Z<p>A surprising <a href="/title/dearth">dearth</a> of <a href="/title/material">material</a> on the subject here, when there is so much to say!</p>
<p><i>Africa.</i></p>
<p>At 11,688,000 square miles (30,271,000 sq km), it is the world's second largest <a href="/title/continent">continent</a>, easily three times the size of the <a href="/title/United+States">United States</a>. It stretches 5,000 miles from the <a href="/title/Mediterranean+Sea">Mediterranean Sea</a> in the north to the <a href="/title/Cape+of+Good+Hope">Cape of Good Hope</a> in the south, and at its widest point is 4,600 miles across. It is bordered in the north by the Mediterranean, coming its closest to <a href="/title/Europe">Europe</a> at the <a href="/title/Strait+of+Gibraltar">Strait of Gibraltar</a>, where a little finger of <a href="/title/Morocco">Morocco</a> reaches upward towards <a href="/title/Spain">Spain</a> and the <a href="/title/Iberian+Peninsula">Iberian Peninsula</a>. On its west is the <a href="/title/Atlantic+Ocean">Atlantic Ocean</a>, curving into the <a href="/title/Gulf+of+Guinea">Gulf of Guinea</a>, and on its east is the <a href="/title/Indian+Ocean">Indian Ocean</a>, which passes between mainland <a href="/title/Africa">Africa</a> and the island nation of <a href="/title/Madagascar">Madagascar</a> through the 950 mile <a href="/title/Mozambique+Channel">Mozambique Channel</a>. Above Africa's jutting horn, <a href="/title/Asia+Minor">Asia Minor</a> hangs down, separated from <a href="/title/Ethiopia">Ethiopia</a>, <a href="/title/Djibouti">Djibouti</a>, and <a href="/title/Sudan">Sudan</a> by the <a href="/title/Red+Sea">Red Sea</a>. <a href="/title/Egypt">Egypt</a>, in the far northeast,<!-- close unclosed tag --></p>…