PASSING FOR NORMAL

2011-04-17T15:50:00.000-04:00

Definitely reviving!

2010-10-08T14:58:00.000-04:00

He's leaving .. On a midnight train ..

She made his morning coffee, and sat beside him
Would you stay longer, she asked..
No little girl I have to go,your flowers are wilting now.
but I’ll give you snow, she begged..
I have to go,
to where the air smells like a million treasures,
and the children play… to the green meadows .. to the land of oblivion..
he decided.
Cold in his posture, he gave her a kiss on the cheek
and they walked ..
she stood as the train left,
as she waved, he wept..
she smiled,
she knew she had planted her seed…
she knew she will haunt him forever…

2010-10-08T00:45:00.003-04:00

First caresses of autumn calmly
sneak into her flesh this crisp morning …
Through curled lashes
she looks at the white
and wonders what happened to the blue,
as she waits for you,
to come home
Seasons have turned
She still has not unlearned
That this love remains and stands true
She digs out her old memories
Her old songs and stories
Her black box
Yours will always be untitled poems
Broken letters
Broken by time
She listens to her favorite singer and wonders
Was it truly unclear this woman
was on the verge of death
this world can be so blind
despair was hardly hidden in that woman's words
like love drips out of hers
She almost can smell your skin
Under the fresh morning dew
her chalk-white skin crumbles
of excitement of what is to come
and under the tree two more boxes
She tied her hair and tied her fate to yours
The day she loved you is the day she close all doors
once again living and giving …
and once again,
it takes the audacity of a woman
but sometimes it takes two ...

2010-02-20T06:57:00.000-05:00

2010-02-14T06:41:00.002-05:00

Still trying..
I promised Ghada to keep on at it and we decided with me her and Lirun we can bring this habit back!!
Someohow.. _Z is right, it felt as if i do not have anything to say in a while and i still might not have anything to say so i am turning this into a mere self indulgence space .. A therapy session .. When i first started this blog i called it Passing for Normal, after an old book that told the story of a woman suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder. Though my compulsive habits do not take a debilitating form in my life, i tend to be more on the obsessive side and that does take its toll on me. When i do anything, it has to be full and consistent and complete. This is why during the war, i had to cover every single little event and show every picture there is on this site. This is why, when i do not have the time to blog, or the time to blog to the max, i stop all together. This is why when i am missing on some spices, i stop cooking all together.. and most importantly and severely, this is why when i work, i work all the time..
It had made me sad and just all around insane in my habits and my hours..
I will try to change and this right here is a start..
Writing this from scratch and with no spell check and with no end and no start

2010-01-22T03:20:00.004-05:00

Bringing this thing alive ...
In my noncommittal phase, i am not fit to committ not even to a virtual space, so Q and A style, for you, for now ..
I think we are all hunters, men and women, contrary to the misconception .. That woman in the cave going over her options, mating with the strongest, the best at hunting, well isn't that hunting, isn't that selection and determining the species? Isn't that the biggest hunter of all? In the wild the female always chooses, sits back while the males face off .. she nitpicks and nests and lures and seduces.. she fluffs her feathers .. she bites heads when done with the mate.. Some female ducks even evolved complex genitalia to thwart unwelcome mating attempts, since mallards have the nasty habit of attemting to rape females .. In a nutshell, they set the terms and choose the appealing DNA and they are set on reproducing .. Is it a man's world? Or is it that all of us, men or women, males and females, have been equipped and have evolved to repopulate and propagate the species .. It seems that in these measures, males guard and protect the women, they guard and protect the guardians .. Women choose and use and go on with it .. So no one wants to committ anyway, females come off like they do because they are the guardians of the species and so need to organize the progeny .. The illusion that we need devotion, men or women, comes from pride ..
As for the second question, and if we agree that we are all hunters after all, i think we are moved by the challenge, an apple tastes better taken from the arms of a tree right? and so sadly might be misconstrued by the most addicted eternal hunters as the ultimate validation of one's skills ..

Pride that we could keep a mate just to ourselves, fear of aging alone.. valid reasons to seek out loyalty and commitment ..

Picking our apples from the tree, now that's just nasty ..

2009-05-24T07:13:00.002-04:00

Genetic speed dating

I think couples genetic counseling should include a phylogenetic tree where the lineages can be spread as much as possible. Imagine that?! It turns out, we are driven by pheromones after all and it is genetically determined ..

"Preferences for mates that possess genes dissimilar to one's own at the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), a polymorphic group of loci associated with the immune system, have been found in mice, birds, fish, and humans. These preferences may help individuals choose genetically compatible mates and may adaptively function to prevent inbreeding or to increase heterozygosity and thereby immunocompetence of offspring. MHC-dissimilar mate preferences may influence the psychology of sexual attraction. We investigated whether MHC similarity among romantically involved couples (N= 48) predicted aspects of their sexual relationship. All women in our sample normally ovulated, and alleles at three MHC loci were typed for each person. As the proportion of MHC alleles couples shared increased, women's sexual responsivity to their partners decreased, their number of extrapair sexual partners increased, and their attraction to men other than their primary partners increased, particularly during the fertile phase of their cycles."

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118597273/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

2009-05-19T13:11:00.003-04:00

From the heart .. to T.
Gosh, it has been so long but he enticed me to write again,
Something about him makes me stop in my track ...
The way he's atonal and all around on that planet of his. The way he pauses after making a point, looking so satisfied .. just by the mere fact he is living and trying and listening and helping .. The way he knows and notices that i always use two points in my suspension points and the fact he is the only one able to figure this reference out .. the way he says okhte .. his vast ability for understanding and his love for the water and the sun .. his ability to love and to contain me even when i do not contain myself .. the way he is protective in the most gentle effort and he is distant at the same time .. i have never .. and i will never .. feel enchanted and puzzled by a man .. the way i feel ..
Exquisite is this raw feeling .. this little adventure that had a "time table" and took on a life .. a force .. strange is this gentle energy that calms mine down to the point of starting to use the word energy ..
Not writing poetry yet but certainly writing ...

2009-01-04T19:55:00.000-05:00

http://uk.youtube.com/user/AlternateFocus

2009-01-04T19:20:00.001-05:00

2009-01-04T19:19:00.001-05:00

http://a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com/

2009-01-03T19:42:00.002-05:00

Gaza and the world: Will things ever change?
By Ramzy Baroud

"In times of crisis, most Arabs watch the news. Sometimes it’s comforting for the truth to be stated the way it is, with all of its gory and unsettling details, without blemishes and without censorship. When Israel carried out massive air strikes against Gaza on Saturday, December 27, terrorizing an already hostage and malnourished population, I too tuned in to Arab satellite channels.
Within seconds I learned of the tally: 290 deaths and climbing, with 700 more wounded, all in one day. But as dramatic as this event may have seemed – the highest Israeli inflicted death toll in one day in Palestine since Israel’s establishment in 1948 – there was nothing new to learn. Tragedies anywhere - natural or manmade – tend to lead to social, cultural, economic and political upheavals, revolutions even, that somehow alter the social, cultural, economic and ultimately political landscapes in the affected regions, save in Palestine.
I gazed pointlessly at the screen. Learning of the aftermath of such tragedies seems more of a ritual than a purposeful habit. The Arab and international responses to the killings can only serve as a reminder of how ineffectual and irrelevant, if not complacent their timid mutterings are.
Once again the US blamed Palestinians, and the Hamas “thugs” using words that defy logic, such as “Israel has the right to defend itself.” The statement remains as ludicrous as ever, for a country like Israel with an army that possesses the world’s most lethal weapons, including nuclear arms, cannot possibly feel threatened by an imprisoned population whose only defense mechanism are fertilizer-based homemade rockets. While Israel has killed and wounded thousands of Palestinians in Gaza (one thousand on Saturday alone) a handful of Israelis have reportedly died as a direct result of the Palestinian rockets in years. Do numbers matter at all?
European governments chose their words carefully, “expressing concern”, “calling on Israel to use restraint” and so on. Arab governments were, as usual, distracted with trivialities, protocols and easily lost sight of the crisis at hand.
Then, the same, ever predictable outbursts began. Passionate callers from all over the world called various TV and radio stations in the Middle East and shouted, yelled, cried, vented, called on God, called on Arab leaders, called on all of those with “living conscience” to do something. In turn, audiences too cried at home as they listened to the heated commentary and watched footage of heaps of Palestinian bodies throughout the Gaza Strip.
The passion soon spilled to the streets of Arab capitals, of course under the ever-vigilant eyes of Arab police and secret services. Flags of U.S. and Israel, and in some cases Egypt were sat ablaze along with effigies of Bush and Israeli leaders.
‘Rising up to the occasion’ some Arab governments declared, with much hype their intention to send an airplane or two of medicine and food to Gaza, a few boxes clad with the donor country’s flag, flashed endlessly on local media. Meanwhile, news reports spoke of Palestinians attempting to flee the Gaza prison into the Sinai desert. They were met with decisive Egyptian security presence at the border.
Strangely enough, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas remained faithful to the script, despite Gaza’s unprecedented tragedy. On Sunday, he blamed Hamas for the bloodbath. "We talked to them (Hamas) and we told them, 'please, we ask you, do not end the truce. Let the truce continue and not stop", so that we could have avoided what happened."
Was Mr. Abbas informed of the fact that Hamas hasn’t carried out one suicide bombing since 2005? Or that the ‘truce’ never compelled Israel to allow Palestinians in Gaza access to basic necessities and medicine? Or that it was Israel that attacked Gaza in November, killing several people, claiming that it obtained information of a secret Hamas plot?
Even stranger that while Abbas has chosen such a position, many Israelis are not convinced that the war on Gaza was at all related to the Hamas’ rockets, and is in fact an election ploy for desperate politicians vying for Israel’s dominating right wing vote in the upcoming February elections. In fact, the Israeli design against Gaza had little to do with the ‘escalation’ of the rocket attacks of mid December.
"Long-term preparation, careful gathering of information, secret discussions, operational deception and the misleading of the public - all these stood behind the Israel Defense Forces "Cast Lead" operation against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip," wrote the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz on December 28, which also revealed that the plan had been in effect for six months.
"Like the U.S. assault on Iraq and the Israeli response to the abduction of IDF reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser at the outset of the Second Lebanon War, little to no weight was apparently devoted to the question of harming innocent civilians," said Haaretz.
And why should Israel devote a moment to the question of harming civilians or violating international law or any such seemingly irrelevant notions – as far as Israel is concerned - as long as their “Palestinian partners”, the Arab League, or the international community continue to teeter between silence, complacency, rhetoric and inaction?
By Thursday, January 1, the death toll climbed to 420, according to Palestinian medics and news reports, and over 2000 wounded. A doctor from a Khan Yunis clinic in Gaza told me on the phone, “scores of the wounded are clinically dead. Others are so badly disfigured; I felt that death is of greater mercy for them than living. We had no more room at the Qarara Clinic. Body parts cluttered the hallways. People screamed in endless agony and we had not enough medicine or pain killers. So we had to choose which ones to treat and which not to. In that moment I genuinely wished I was killed in the Israeli strikes myself, but I kept running trying to do something, anything.”
Until Arab countries and nations translate their chants and condemnations into a practical and meaningful political action that can bring an end to the Israeli onslaughts against Palestinians, all that is likely to change are the numbers of dead and wounded. But still, one has to wonder if Israel kills a thousand more, ten thousand, or half of Gaza, will the US still blame Palestinians? Will Egypt open its Gaza border? Will Europe express the same “deep concern”? Will the Arabs issue the same redundant statements? Will things ever change? Ever?"

As i read this, a well-coiffed female CNN reporter asks a chief palestinian negotiator who is askign for a cease-fire, "you were given 6 months of cease-fire and you still had political divides between Hamas and the palestinian authorities so why should you be given another cease-fire?"
Anyone else finds this question insane? Is stopping the kilings and the atrocities a luxury that this largely irrelevant reporter cannot grant?

I don't think anything will even change. I might live to see the end of this, or not. I might witness a total ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian race but like Baroud said, even is a thousand, tens of thousands are killed, even when no Palestinian flags are allowed in the anti-war protests by the Israeli government, even when nothing is been done, how do you wipe out a nation? how do you kill a culture? a history? you simply cannot. There will always be a Palestine as long as there are Palestinians. Palestine will always be in our hearts and in our culture and in our conscience.
After all the Jews are living proof that you cannot wipe a people, are they not?

2009-01-03T19:02:00.002-05:00

It is getting much much worse it seems..
Israel is going on the ground offensive, as they call it. They say it will be a long operation. I'm not sure what the death toll is at this moment..
I don't know what to feel anymore. Thousands of casualties already and a hundred or so Palestinian children, according to CNN.. just don't know what to say...

2009-01-02T16:06:00.006-05:00

Back there ...

Back frozen on the net, surfing for news, trying to get some work done but aching ..

I am tired of this, i am physically tired of this ..

I cannot look away.

I woke up, the tv was still on since yesterday, i cleaned my face and cleaned my face and cleaned my face, lait, toner, lait, what else do i have ..

I do those compulsive things when i want to feel more in control.. I cleaned my face but i don't remember looking into my face, and then i started cleaning the house .. and cleaning ... I have some exams to correct. The semester is almost over. I have to write the final exams and i have around 8 lectures left to prepare in each class. I have to update the system too. All the new typing. People are asking for results and i cannot fall behind schedule. I have to finish writing this paper. Why is the kitchen floor all wet? I should reorganize my closets and set up next week's appointments. Let's see, there's the Armenian expedition .. That spa day thing i got, i don't have time for that .. maybe i'll give it to someone but i do need it .. I have to go to Beirut sometime next week. My brakes are still busted and i still have to go to the bank. *Mental note = don't lose your mind*. That lady gave me all these creams to use every day, what is she nuts? I don't have that kind of time, i have a job, but she said my skin is suffering .. I miss my nephews. How come i'm 31? All the sitcoms with the cool people we like were younger, friends and that new one.. Seinfeld, i think they were over 30.. but still 31!! maybe i should use those creams.. i have to do that MRI sometime soon too *mental note, call the insurance company*. I need light bulbs and a man to fix them. I have gained weight. I hate winter. those pants used to fit when i was in san diego, that wasn't a long time ago. i should lose weight. maybe i'll try that yogurt diet again. i just need to exercise again. but i don't have time for this.. i need to fix my hair before Thursday *make an appointment with the hairdresser*. I need to change hairdresser since i cried at mine last time i was there. shit. Let's see what's on the news. I can get to all this crap tomorrow. I'll start with that diet now.. or maybe put the yogurt on my face..

2009-01-01T20:37:00.002-05:00

Tzipi Livni, said that there is "no humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip"
She rejected a 48-hour cease-fire to allow humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip, saying that Israel keeps the humanitarian situation..... Ready?
"completely as it should be" by distinguishing between soldiers and civilians.

"Health officials in Gaza say at least 400 people have been killed during Israel's six-day assault on Hamas. The United Nations estimates that about one-quarter of those killed were civilians" (i saw the pictures of the wounded children on cbs news). "One-point-five million Gazans are left with little food or supplies".

2009-01-01T17:20:00.002-05:00

2009

Right...

It feels quite odd to be looking at this space trying to fill it up again and i cannot remember how i did that before. I seem to be growing increasingly private and get increasingly isolated..
Hmmm...
I see the pictures from the Gaza massacre and in my busy schedule, i hear of what is happening and my heart breaks but i do not feel worthy to even blog it or talk about it. I feel the most dignified thing i can do is to slip into despair and try to survive in my cheap denial. And who am I to say anything or to even have an opinion. Even thinking about my words not so long ago, I feel ashamed. What is happening in Palestine is not a seasonal affair and I cannot ‘get into’ it based on what is happening in Lebanon. I think this is what I have been doing. To be honest. It started in summer 06 after the war in Lebanon and I remember not sleeping and I remember my rage and my blood boiling at the sight of all the blood and the deaths.. I was turning into something I am not familiar with. I saw how easily people can slip into narrow mindedness and hate. It did indeed start based on the events in Lebanon, but before I know it, I was more outraged but the incessant heartbreak in Palestine. The idea of the loss of hope, I could taste it.. and it got to me… I promised myself to try and make a difference.. I could not exist away anymore and I wanted to come back and be at the heart of it…
What happened since then? Where did I disappear to?
People want to have opinions
It’s in vogue to have opinions
Well I don’t anymore.. I’m paralyzed again. I’m just very very sad..
I don’t have solutions and I don’t have opinions and I feel too small to comment on what is happening and I feel like a hypocrite ..
A hypocrite to feel involved only when disaster strikes and a liar to make any more promises to myself to try and do something…
We get sidetracked and we get sucked into our small problems and small lives and we then dare to think we’re humane when we stop at those horrendous pictures and actually feel something..
It’s almost inhumane to keep going after you do…
And because today, faced with my inhumanity, I have to keep going..
I will go back to my denial.. I will not read your comments or encourage your sad attempts to self-assure by linking images to your sites or expressing disgust in social settings or, better yet, refrain from celebrating the new year in solidarity.. you are as cowardice as I am and as paralyzed by today’s demands as I am and the first one to claim humanity among us by shedding only a tear at the sight of those pictures, the first one to oppose massacres, the most devoted opinionated oppose among us, is the most inhumane of all ….

2008-11-01T15:38:00.002-04:00

It's finally out!

http://download.cell.com/AJHG/pdf/PIIS0002929708005478.pdf?intermediate=true

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/science/31genes.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7700356.stm
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SCI_PHOENICIANS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE49T8AL20081030

2008-09-15T05:53:00.016-04:00

Old Saida

2008-09-11T13:26:00.007-04:00

9/11
When i started blogging, the thing that excited me the most about writing about my life is the idea of capturing feelings and emotions with a picture, a collection of words, a quote ... It was a mere selfish need to keep my memories safe and alive. I thought it would be a lot of fun to go back to old posts years down the road and re-live some of what i have been through.. It works ... It mostly works when it's about me and not people who read this. This is why i needed the distance. The purpose of these pages on the web was lost when i started writing to please and caring too much about comments i get ... So here .. I said it ..

And he interrupts ...

9/11, 7 years ago, was it?
This was Zee's idea, so here goes ..

I had not been in the States for long, a matter of months actually. I was in Upstate New York, it had not snowed yet. I was going out with Mike, a guy from New York city, your typical white suburban guy and i had made a friend, Claudine, a very unusual little girl who was second generation American of Egyptian origins. We had just made it back from the city having driven for a total of 15 hours that weekend. Come Monday, we all went back to our classes. I was leaving an early class and going to the hospital to have my usual coffee break with Mike when a guy stopped me in the hallway to tell me that they hit the twin towers. I had no idea what he was talking about. I had heard of the towers but did not really understand what the significance of what had happened was. I walked the long hall towards Blackwell, around me people looked panicked and in a frenzy. I probably got scared for a second thinking maybe Upstate will get hit as well, but who was doing that and why? I had no clue. I did not see Mike on the bench and i couldn't wait for him to show up. It was a half hour to the next class anyway and it was all the way up on Adams street. I mostly had this feeling that i should keep moving .. My heart started pounding .. It felt the way war used to feel in Beirut. I felt so alone ..
The class got canceled. It was an ethics class and the professor elected to use the two hours to have a discussion about our feelings towards what happened. I collected some idea about what went on from what people were saying and only then i understood the gravity of the event. I was sad but i was very defensive as well. In retrospect, it was very silly to feel persecuted since what happened did not concern me but i remember the looks i was getting that day. I was suddenly too self-conscious with my long black hair and my Arabic features. The misled discussion covered various stereotypical misconceptions regarding culture and politics and religion, where Muslim got lumped with Arabic with Afghani with Irani .. I still remember my shock that day. I found myself defending myself but getting blank looks and i understood for the first time that some preconceptions and misconceptions are there to stay and are there just because .. I felt that some people will look down on you because they think they can. White America. I understood why on my visa papers it said that i am of color, when i'm pale as a ghost and i understood why at orientation lunch, that lady was making an extra effort to be extra friendly to me and to the Indian guy in the class ... I became too defensive, back in those days, until i got over my insecurities, i would just go out of my way to point out all of what is wrong with Americans so i would not feel i'm the one being attacked for being different.. With time i learned to phase it out, to stick with close friends who will not treat me any less for being Arabic and to try and stay away from stereotypes.. That day 7 years ago, though, i learned all about the bigotry that is nationalism.
Mike and I broke up later that day...

My posts will be as unfocused and all over the place as i am these days .. Far from romance and extroverted to the point of shallow.. but summer will be over soon ..

2008-09-01T15:51:00.001-04:00

2008-07-08T14:51:00.001-04:00

Ephemeral soul bouts

There are times when I am excited about my hair, my job, the people around me, when I cook, I read, I write, I dance and there are times when I just cease to .. live … I just collapse onto myself and I start obsessing about all the mistakes I had done in my life, all the people I wronged, all the opportunities lost … It is not consolation enough anymore to think that other people go through the same periods of inexistence. It is certainly not relevant to my daily life to think of all the madness and misery in the world and I certainly do not feel blessed by comparison. People who do, in my opinion, are self-absorbed disillusioned small-minded pricks. If anything the collective despair in the world nowadays adds to my little circle of hopelessness and the guilt adds to my self-loathing and helplessness.
I never have the tolerance for bringing the metaphysical into my life in order to reconcile with the universe, never believe in self-help life styles, and I make fun of people who insert an abstract vocabulary in their sentences as a way to find excuses or reasons for their unhappiness or lack of purpose or lack of .. well.. living. My friend brought me ‘the secret’ on DVD to make me sit down and listen, having dismissed all of his attempts to quote to me from the book over the phone. He knows that I tend to worry a lot and tend to be negative even to the point of being deeply suspicious of what other people might perceive as happiness or even success, it is my curse .. I keep items in the fridge that normally are perfectly fine at room temperature because I would be anxious otherwise. I procrastinate because I am afraid of facing failure, because I am afraid of facing success … and I live in guilt.
‘The secret’ just pissed me off. It basically goes back to tell you that any misfortune in your life is your fault because you have summoned the negative thoughts that, according to the concept, materialize into your actual life. What a load of crap. It made me mad. One of the main exercises to live by the rules of ‘the secret’ is to make a visual board, where you have pictures that represent goals you want to achieve and things you want to acquire, and according to ‘the secret’ you should be able to obtain those things if you put them ‘out there’ in ‘the universe’.
I’m so sick and tired of people trying to find reasons for why we are not happy. I’m sick and tired of the exploitation of the self-help and the self-improvement business, the affirmative attitude, the books , the seminars, the people on tv whining because they’re single or broke or because they’re sloppy or lazy … Doesn’t it always go back to the same thing, the same question, the same reason for feeling lost and unfulfilled? The same disappointment faced with shackles that anchor our soul, shackles and responsibilities and commitments we willingly fell into in order to feel more relevant in this world. We are trapped when we think we’re not and we are sad when we think we’re not and we are not living when we think we are, and we need ‘the secret’ to explain that? We are trapped. We are slaves to the everyday rhythm, to the acceptable weight, the acceptable shade, the respectable bank account or title or power. We cannot but remain ‘connected’ on virtual venues and 3D virtual venues and venues about virtual venues fearing to fall out of ‘life’ or the life that someone had convinced us we should have. We look at photos of current friends and previous friends and feel inferior and not nearly happy enough. We feel lonely. We run to achieve a crust, a crust of glamour, a layer of shine. Stuck in half-finished projects, half-finished relationships, in the quest for the most intimidating look, the most prestigious hobby and sadly the most empowering charity case. Stuck in a shape for life, a grammar for a society, a calendar.
Our calendar has become our ‘visual board’. Our calendar includes no more dreams, no more aspirations but appointments and commitments and steps on the quest towards social acceptance. We need to feel relevant and the best forms we have come up with yet are organized traditions and religions and fanaticism and conformity. In societies where individualism became the structure of societies, we lost track of what should drive us and so we became collective consumers of similar foods and similar thoughts and similar ideas, albeit behind closed doors and in a more lonely fashion. The self-help crap is just another form of organized thought.
The human soul that suffers. I have decided to call soul that thing that keeps us hoping. That extra thing, the extra twinkle in our eyes when we cease to just be, when we get to live. We suffer even more intensely because we have known a time when we were not suffering. Because we miss the bouts of our ephemeral souls. We live in nostalgia to moments where we felt our soul awakening. Same in love. Same in every human emotion. When we love and lose, we grab onto those memories and we suffer because we miss the bouts of our soul. We live on the memory of loving ourselves and of simply living when allowed for a soul awakening. We hold on and not let go and try to cram the memory into our present life, faced with the possibility of another stretch of empty soul.
There’s really no answer and people who do not relate to any of that also piss me off. The people who live just blissfully on the surface of life, perfectly content with their small achievements and small thoughts .. you know .. the lucky ones!
I miss my soul these days.
I’ll just wait for a stimulus to bring it back. In the meantime, I go on automatically, I cease to live, I cease to celebrate the days … it’s ok .. it only makes the next adventure more interesting …
So I put up a ‘visual board’, on it is my picture smiling …

2008-06-24T14:33:00.002-04:00

George Carlin is dead!!

2008-06-03T14:04:00.006-04:00

June

She stepped on some rotten leaves on her way to see him.. she stopped in her track to wipe her shoes.. she had her new white scandals on to go with her summer look.. she ran to the back to freshen up.. on her way to the wash room, she saw her reflection in the mirror.. something caught her eye and her intrigue.. for the first time in her life she was not sure of what she looked at.. for the first time she did not like what she saw.. someone odd was looking back at her.. a stranger.. She ran tens of scenarios in her head of a life together, of days with loved ones and laughter and nights of longing, of work and happiness and sorrows and effort to keep going on.. she suddenly collapsed.. and ran home…

Milky spills in the wedges of her tiles fade out
Sutured letters stitched in her blanket wear out
The charcoal lines on her face hide your trace
Hide her stories her turning every night
She closes her palm hides your scent in her arms
If she cannot need you she will not ...

The June rays dribble down the days, slowly
The shine in her hair falls down slowly
Color climbs onto her cheeks and onto the creases of her neck
She evens the plights in her mind and her life slips into a wreck
Her pillow case drips in bits of her memories pieces of her soul
She had always been forgetful ...

If she does not find you she will shed her skin
She will plow her light her compass from within
Your face will mystify but your name will echo through
You are there as she fights through
And when she tucks the sun away, washes the salt from her hair
As she finds herself again
She will find you
If she cannot need you
she will not
but love you she will ...

2008-05-25T17:11:00.017-04:00

The day after ....

The storm seems to have passed. I have no idea how and why and for what reasons those who have died or suffered just did ... Since i don't know why things have worked out, i have no way of knowing if it will presist .. Maybe we have to hope Syria and Israel "indirect" negotiations work so that we can have this summer ...
We are capable of healing like no other people and capable of living when given the chance ...
Some pictures a day after the "demonstration" in downtown had ceased and a day before the "election"

my baby sister

2 hours of traffic to get to downtown Beirut

All the cafes were full .. you had to wait for half an hour to get a table anywhere..

All the beaches and resorts that weekend were full capacity..

Street traffic in Beirut

And i went out drinking and dancing for the first time in almost a year.. No reason to celebrate .. Just drinking away the stress of the past days and reloading for another round of insanity..

Oh let's just laugh and be silly for now ..

let's try to look fresh and put together

let's celebrate old beirut and new beirut

let's try and leave that Lebanese cynicism and pessimism behind for one season ..

2008-05-20T12:38:00.019-04:00

Two years and some ...

So what becomes of her .. Your love
When it gets dark and her head falls resting, far from the light,
When a moment of bliss dissipates in the dark,
When the waves shatter explode splatter
Absolutely no where
When the lack of screams squeeze her heart
With despair
What becomes of years,
Alone, in life, out there,
When the images fade and the soul of her soul wilts away
When rays of dryness melt away
Leaving tracks of deafness of colorless days
What becomes of a whisper, a smile, a face
Notches in the fabric of time
Shades that creep away
What will become of her
Will you still love her?

Two years and some since i started writing, since i started hoping to keep you close,
since i gave myself the right to keep you alive through my words ...
Two years and some ...
I have been waiting ...

2008-05-20T12:38:00.013-04:00

Weekend with the kids ...

2008-05-16T13:35:00.001-04:00

The politicians are out of the country.. Life is back to normal

2008-05-14T06:05:00.003-04:00

Round one!

It seems that it had passed. Those who died died. Those who stayed are only more depressed and frustrated and feel a little more worthless. Those who were contemplating coming back to this country are now thinking twice. Boys and girls that belong to the social and intellectual ranks, we would all be richer and luckier having them come back and invest what they learned and what they are able to achieve in this country, are now, again, hesitating. People i was proud when i met, human rights activists, human rights lawyers, scientists, writers, thinkers and even diplomats, the Lebanese expariates who will now almost live and die in the hope of a chance of rebuilding their country. People who should, they are the ones who should, invade our culture and invade our streets and our hearts, and not the aspects of violence and backwardness.

On a positive note, it had indeed calmed down. I know how worried we usually are when we are stuck outside of Lebanon feeling totally helpless, so do not worry. It was another political hiccup, let's call it that, and it's dissolving as we speak.

The 'fitne' already happened? Something leaders are chanting, as if a sectarian split is another bargaining card right now, as if one side could be threatened without the other. As if the leaders are threatening with death and destruction that will reach each and everyone of us. They cannot possibly mean that. We cannot possibly come out of each others' hearts. We cannot hate anyone, let alone the people we grew up with, our families, our partners, our neighbors (neighbors in Lebanon had taken a negative connotation with Syria and Israel being our neighbors, but i mean your neighbor who will protect your home when you're weak) and people we share a language, a history, a culture and a country with.

We do not and will not hate each other under any command and never for any leader! What will we be left with if we did?

I don't know, let's try ..

2008-05-11T16:30:00.009-04:00

The USSCole is coming back to the Mediterranean
Typical American manoeuvre.

I find it curious that the policies in Syria shifted after Assad the father, leading to a manifestation of these policies (assassinations in political figures in Lebanon/reinvention of some old symbols/Militia-based forces in the region) that is totally in-sync with the manifestation of the American policies in the region.

I find it curious that the Americans are staging a state of fundemental clash with Iran while they seem to work harmoniously over the split of benefits with the Iranis in Iraqs. At the same time, the major benificiary of instating Iran as a major Arabic enemy and threat is the US arm trade. I find it interesting that Iran (along with its allies) is playing along.

Who knows? Who cares?

What i am saying is either it is very obvious or very wrong or very well the opposite.

The drive, however, is always money. Such as the contractors and the oil in Iraq. Such as the American arm industry. I just find it sad that in this day and age, we still lose life for more money and that the wars are always engineered in our part of the globe, as if it is easier to sell to the public opinion since we are already labeled as barbarians.

I do not see a future war in between Sicily and Sardinia to keep the American arm money going. After all, western countries are too busy advancing humanity. For that, wars should never end on our side and our reasons to start wars will always be encouraged and stressed upon.

Eastern Europe is impoverished, African states have their fair share of disasters and the post-USSR world and the -stan world is left under check. The 'civilized' west is compliant and in fear, the 'moderate' Arabic states are good investments which leaves China and North Korea for future uses ...

Our region is keeping the money flow for now. The tools, the collaborates ... Who cares? the political scene changes all the time. In the meantime, the victims are always the same.

My first observation when i first started interacting with Americans was that they are not very well-rounded as far as politics went. I think this is blissfull. They did not care much because they did not need to. Because they would never find themselves having to be directly involved in individual conflicts to defend some political party. This is mainly because they are not driven by ideologies or tribal feelings. We are. We care about politics. I wish we cared less. I wish we knew less. Americans are sadly now driven by blind nationalism in the post-9/11 world, towards war. It is always the ignorant bunch, the poor bunch, the desperate bunch.

Ideologies, racism, nationalism, religion, just mere hate .. reasons to kill each other, to destroy each other's homes and streets and hopes, to want to humitiate each other ..

Forget about all what i said. Forget about Conspiracies and about politics all together.

I want to believe that HA, albeit financially supported by Iran, is a mere resistance movement that wants to free Palestine or defend Lebanon in the future against possible Israeli invasion etc. Let's say this is the case (which is something i had believed in for a while). Taken all this as 'fact' if you will and after what HA did these past days, i do not want it as Lebanese resistance. Why should i live with such threat to be prepared in the event of another. why do i have to harbor a power that turned against me? against my home? against the street that raised me?

Why do i have to accept a political side, a resistance, that does not give me a choice, better yet, that condemns any alternative opinion i might have and considers it reason to persecute me and threaten my well-being, leaving no room for tolerance and understanding, reminiscent of the perpetrator this resistance opposes. Why can't i choose how to fight? Why am i belittled if i did not share the same ideology? Why do i have to respect their titles when they do not respect my life? Why can't i fight, as a human being, with my mind? Why can't we build consistently towards a culture, towards winning? Why are we not allowed to learn from our mistakes? Why are the children being raised on divides, on hate? Why do they raise future generations ready and willing to fight and to follow blindly, if they do not plan on keeping us in the dark and keeping us fighting each other for their gain? Why don't they raise minds like others did?

Why do i have to turn to politicians to know if i will be able to go to work the next day, if i will be able to leave the country if i want to, come back to my country and not be trapped in some foreign country that, soon, would want to expell me, if my nephews will be able to sleep in their beds, to sleep, if they will go to their schools, if i will be able to follow up on my medical treatment, if i will get paid ..

Why are we to be kept weak? kept silent, kept hypnotized, kept distracted, kept busy kept stupid. Why are we kept small? kept divided?
Why is my life made wortheless?

2008-05-10T06:03:00.003-04:00

العربية: قتيل و 3 جرحى في إطلاق نار على موكب تشييع في الطريق الجديدة
or 4 dead and 6 injured according to other sources.

Currently they say things calmed down after HA (i say HA because it is) had taken over west Beirut.
Some March 14 leaders are still stuck in their homes, the roads are blocked again ...
I still don't get it

Saniyoura is speaking at 2:00 pm

2008-05-10T03:22:00.001-04:00

2008-05-09T14:14:00.004-04:00

During the war last summer, i cried the most when i heard that the Baalbek ruins are being threatened.
Not equally dramatic but equally tragic, it seems that all the archives of future tv got totally destroyed! (18 years worth of records)
Some local treasures, including history in all it forms, belong to no one to destroy. It is far more important than any of us.

2008-05-09T14:09:00.003-04:00

Discussing the Palestinian cause with Israelis was always hard on me. I always found their rhetoric to be exhausting but it always helped, at least for the sake of keeping my sanity, to go back to the basics. To go back to the facts, away from propaganda and inflammatory name calling and useless history lessons.
To me, it was always easy and logical to try and set a platform of commonly accepted undisputed facts, in the hope of reaching some common understanding.
The equation was that unfairness and a bullying attitude had to emanate from power:
Fact: Israel is obviously more powerful and it exercises a very tight control over Palestinians.
Fact: Israel had launched wider scale attacks on its opponents.
Fact: Israel had trespassed to land given to the Palestinians by UN resolutions.
Fact: Israel had controlled the media inside Israel/Palestine and had been able to solicit international support.
Power is a tricky one. It always leads to unfairness. It must be easy, for some, to cross lines of human rights of safety and freedom of one’s religious expression and political loyalty, when one is drunk with power.
Fact: power corrupts
Fact: the party trespassing is automatically held accountable for all what follows. Especially when trespassing while spreading fear and chaos.
Fact: muffling media outlets is the highest form of corruption and the closest form to injustice and totalitarian control.
Fact: wi2am wahhab is a total freak, and delusional no less.

Beirut is surrounded. They say Beirut fell. Was Beirut a war front?
Wanting to intimidate the government? Wanting to parade strength? What is the point of what happened today?
I know people are sick and tired of all politicians. People are craving peace of mind, one carefree summer, going to work, being able to feed their families. They are too depleted to stand against any political compromise, any new decision. Only the politicians have this kind of drive. Only the politicians have this kind of interest, so why are the people being punished again?

2008-05-09T13:41:00.002-04:00

The Hariri foundation that had given many loans over the years to many of us students, regardless of sect and religion, had been tampered with. What do you call that?

2008-05-09T02:31:00.003-04:00

And it goes on ..

I blame -- for intimidating the other party and all of Lebanon, for the mere fact that they have developed material superiority. I think -- are promoting a state of dictatorship where thay do not take into account the needs, orientation or opinions of the other party. -- are ruling with power (a form of it at least) and keeping the interest of the people, down to the more basic of it, totally ignored and their hope of survival destroyed. At least part of the people anyway.

-- = who cares?

2008-05-08T12:31:00.003-04:00

Civil war

For reasons not clear to me, Beirut is being attacked. My mother is stuck and the area where she lives turned into a battle ground (she just told me that my sister's building was hit by missiles, my sister is fine, so are her two children). I cannot get to them and they cannot get to me. It is milishia men, with snipers no less, against unarmed inhabitants of Beirut. It seems armed men are attacking people in their homes, hitting buildings with missiles, stopping people in cars and checking IDs. They're shooting and bombing with no specific aims but unarmed folks. Interestingly too, people are not allowed to flee. The civil war has started?

2008-05-07T12:16:00.007-04:00

The curse of the Phoenicians

My goodness.. Since the beginning of our history, we have just been our worst enemy. At every turn of millennium, of century, of decade, we make sure to destroy and clean up any trace of our previous achievements and any kind of contribution to human culture and heritage. We never cease to implode from within. We will never agree on anything from street to the next, from city to the next, from district, governorate, sect, orientation, media outlet to the next. We fight about our roots. From Canaanites to Phoenicians to Levantines, historians, anthropologists and scientists have not agreed on any kind of distinction within our race on the level of geography, religion or tribe. We do not accept that though. We are semites, or not, some came from the Agean sea, some derived from Hittites, from Mesopotamia, we mixed with Aramens, we were visited by Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians and we were once part of Hellenistic Greece and we interacted with Romans … That not to mention the traces of modern history, the Crusades, the families migrating from the Arabian peninsula, the Ottoman rule, the French… all are different waves of people that had built on the existing semitic race. There is no way to separate religion from another or sect from another, based on roots. Even family by family, the distinction is almost impossible to make. We are, as it turns out, the same race. This has been scientifically backed up. The paternal lineage in Lebanon and neighboring countries follows the same roots. That within Lebanon does not show any significant variation from one region to another or from one religion to another. We do show genetic traces of haplogroups that typically exist in modern European and Arabic populations, possibly due to migration to Lebanon and possibly due to migrations from Lebanon especially in Phoenician times during establishment of Phoenician colonies. The main issue is that all these haplogroups are equally represented in all the religious sects.
So as far as race goes, we are the same race.
But who cares? Right. Following one’s race is just another sorry excuse of bigotry and elitism anyway so there will always be alternative excuses for separation and self-righteousness.
We keep imploding from within.
The Phoenicians, as a culture, were as glorious as the Greeks and the Romans. In fact, at the time, those wondrous traders, writers, philosophers, and artists have given the competing Greek and Roman cultures the alphabet, their Gods (Aphrodite and Melqart), the name Europe (from the myth of Europa, the daughter of the king of Tyre). Politically speaking, if the punic wars have gone the way of the Phoenicians, the whole history of the western worl could have been very different today. Typical to our culture, however, the Phoenicians were city states. As a nation, they never called themselves Phoenicians. This was a name given to them by their neighbors. They called themselves by the city they belonged to and they acted upon it. Their loyalty was to their immediate business and their interest. They helped the invaders against their countrymen and they competed from one city to the next and from one harbor to the next. Due to invasions, all traces of that glorious culture are now gone. The Phoenician art mainly consisted of small pieces that were directed towards gain and of large vessels that were exported to Egyptians and other countries. The writings, the history.. all gone. How different the scenario would have been if the Phoenician had some perspective. If they would have worked together and built a strong nation. If they had focused on defense and if their colonies and trading posts were not autonomous. They could have at least lived more vividly in history books.

It is the curse of our fathers that we should never be together, that we should always be divided. That we should destroy everything we achieve. That we should work against each other. That we should always leave the next generation in dire despair and faced with the challenge of re-building a name for themselves and their country, until we ruin it all, all over again.

Feiruz is stuck at the airport!

Will we ever be taken seriously again, be respected again? When we do not trust ourselves, we exhaust ourselves, we self-destroy and we will .. inevitably .. implode from within!

2008-04-23T14:45:00.002-04:00

Back to the 'place'

I came home .. worked out .. cooked lunch .. and then spent the afternoon sitting in the sun, taking in the salty air, the summer warmth .. fishermen bickering under my balcony .. my favorite music in the background ... Such a blissful afternoon ... I had the world and i did not need more .. sat still .. looking at the waves, at the people walking by, at the skies, at my life ...

The simple pleasures ... The moments that leave you content and almost.. happy...
Of course there is the breakup.. the reactions from people.. those strange attempts by your family to help you .. to help you get over it, get busy finding another ... knowing they will never support you in your decision of being happy just on your own.. why do people think they need to live in couples to be happy? odd!

"No regrets...
Although our love affair has gone astray...
still in my heart you'll be...
forever mine... "

i love my affairs, love the beginning and the end, the sweet nostalgia, the sweet sorrow when seperating, the passion at first .. most importantly, i love being alone in between affairs. i will never be able to give that up .. so here .. i said it ... i think i'm good! i cannot fake sadness, cannot fake loneliness..

What i had mistaken for apathy all this time might as well just be contentment .. a frightening thought still but very freeing .. it might be scary, especially to someone like me, to think that i can be content.. i have always worked and kept on leading to a goal ... going towards something i want, something i dream about, something i thought i needed and could not live without .. so i worked, dreamt and lived .. towards something ... something specific and within my reach ..

i do not dream anymore.. do you? i don't have dreams anymore. that i think is the scary part about being content, about being apathetic towards challenges ... towards overanalyzing problems.. towards caring about rules and protocols and projections and expectations ..

I do not care … simply .. not because i am apathetic towards life.. simply because i am content... i am apathetic towards the problems of life...

2008-04-21T13:12:00.000-04:00

Ring off !

God damn it..

2008-03-20T12:24:00.002-04:00

Oh and confession #4

He gave me a ring,

We're official!

2008-03-20T12:20:00.002-04:00

So it's coming together ..

and i found my hello kitty shirt

2008-03-07T03:58:00.002-05:00

Confession #3

I have a very addictive personality and I am addicted to the people i love. Addiction in its worst form with visual cue triggers, withdrawal and total emotional dependence. There was that science paper that showed that the the brain registers the high from drugs in a distant place from where it registers the memory and need for the drug. Based on a lot of advances in this field, where the brain circuits and centers are understood and functions mapped in live patients reponding to stimuli, there is the near promise of a drug or a procedure to zap the trigger out at once. I think it will help with nostalgia too. The ramifications of it ... Scary!

2008-03-07T02:36:00.003-05:00

I'm genetically depressed!

So apparently there is this finding now that happiness could be inherited. With that too, i got screwed!! So i always thought that people with 'happier' more active more positive parents, tend to inherit the lifestyle and the approach and end up being more trained to go to the sunny side but it appears that there is a 'happiness gene' that is passed down along with the environmental influence. For the less 'sunny' of us, this sucks!!

"Some people born with 'happiness gene'

"It is often said some people by nature have a sunny disposition. Now scientists could have discovered why. Psychologists, who used data from 900 pairs of twins, identified evidence for common genes which result in certain personality traits that predispose individuals to happiness whatever their circumstances. The findings suggest those lucky enough to have the right inherited personality mix have a "reserve" of happiness which can be called upon in stressful times."

2008-02-29T16:01:00.001-05:00

Confession #2

I hate most people

2008-02-21T15:37:00.002-05:00

Confession #1

I'm afraid of ghosts. I sleep with the lights on and the TV on. Oh and i'm 30 and fairly balanced and i don't believe in an after life but i'm afraid of ghosts!

2008-02-19T16:17:00.002-05:00

m'ami

l'ete prochain

promis

2008-02-16T13:15:00.014-05:00

Another day here in Lebanon ...

2008-02-15T18:11:00.013-05:00

Taking the long way home ..

2008-02-11T15:36:00.000-05:00

Awesomest!

Awesomer!

2008-02-11T15:23:00.001-05:00

Awesome!

2008-02-10T19:11:00.000-05:00

2008-02-10T17:26:00.000-05:00

And you ...

2008-02-10T14:06:00.000-05:00

As for the present …

Those little things that lighten up your day. Those little things that keep you breathing, day after day. Your right to a hot cup of coffee in the morning. Your right to dance behind closed doors. Your right to enjoy the most eclectic playlist on your ipod. Your right to wear a scarf on a sunny day, to cross the street with arms behind your back, to step out in the middle of the day to feel the sun on your skin. Your right to be. The things we enjoy in the present. When we can’t see ahead. My right to call you by a different name, every time I see you, my right not to see you, my right to love you or hate you, my right to laugh in the face of discomfort, to walk barefoot in my yard, to get a dog. My right for a bubble bath on a Wednesday, for a cigarette before bed, for lipstick on your cup. Those little things I do everywhere. Things that resist our tolerance, that no matter how long we expose ourselves to, we still enjoy, we still feel and react to every time. Making a new friend, talking to complete strangers on a night out, remembering a dream, finding something you thought you lost, finding something from the past. Looking at pictures, taking pictures, spreading color pencils all over the floor and coloring with the kids, planning the next vacation, going on the next vacation, writing a new post, writing a poem, watching people through their windows and imagining how their life could be, movies night. To hear yourself reciting those couple of sentences you learned in a new language, to hear him say your name for the first time, to hear birds sing and know winter will come to an end, summers. Swimming in May, arranging the inside of my purse, singing my heart out in the shower, a kiss in the corner of my mouth, getting an unexpected letter after years of being away from him, wearing colors, getting a massage, better yet giving a massage, cooking with no recipe, living with no recipe …

The little things i enjoy…

2008-02-09T17:08:00.000-05:00

February

Politicians keep provoking one another saying they’re not afraid …

Ummm ...

I am … !!!???

Dying as collateral while some figure is being targeted in the heart of the city ... Stupid way to die!!

That scares me!

The streets were furnished with gutted shells as I ran across at night to my car, locked the doors, closed the windows and drove like mad woman to get home.

Dying by a stray bullet shot to celebrate a politician interview … what a ridiculous way to die ...

Thinking about death at every turn on your way to work when you're stuck in traffic when you're out at night when you pass one of the many streets that witnessed crimes when you watch the news and at every significant date every diplomatic visit every new event unfolding ....

What a ridiculous way to live!

2008-02-05T19:51:00.000-05:00

Words alone ...

I want to feel again ...

I want to scream and insult someone very harshly and also laugh very loudly and kiss till my lips hurt and jump like a kid and draw on the walls ... again ... I want another round, another stream of ups and downs another love that brings me to life that makes me want to dance and want to act up ... again ... I want another chance to start fresh only to mess it all up to mix it up ... again ... I want to lose my address lose my bags lose my notes forget my name and go on ... for another turn ... another time ... I want to fly ... I want to fly home ...

2008-02-04T16:16:00.000-05:00

Hopeless ...

Six years craving a saj man2ousheh ...
What i would do for a butternut squash muffin right now!

2008-02-03T11:56:00.000-05:00

BACK TO NORMAL

How do you tell your mom that you need to stay away, that it is what you have to do, that this time it will be for a while ...
How do you tell yourself that this is the right thing to do. How do pull yourself together and pull yourself stronger and look away ...
How do you tell that little child that you'll see him again one day ...
How do you ask a child to stop crying your name ... To stop loving you so much .. How do you ask him to kindly forget you for a while …
How do you shut the child crying inside of you ...
That inconvenient child that makes you want to stay, to give it all up ... How do you tell the child inside that this is the hand you were dealt? To keep leaving, to keep moving, to look for life away from your life …
Mama said, your destiny will lead you … How do you tell your mom that you don’t believe in destiny… that this is the weight you have to endure … the guilt of making the choice of being away from her and going back to yourself … so that you can survive, so that you won’t blame her if you miss yourself and you’ll only blame yourself when you miss her …

I think it's brutal to be ravaged with emotions this strong and to be faced with decisions this grave. I am not hiding anymore and not blaming myself for being shocked and being confused. It is sad. So very sad but we will survive this one too like we did before.

Thank you for the wakeup call!
I am already smiling again ...

2008-02-01T16:01:00.000-05:00

I miss you

My phenomenal you ..
Some people we write about, some we see, some we talk to, some we miss, some we have with us, in our hearts, really we do. Like emotional armor, they're secretly with us, to make us stronger, so we go on thinking we don't miss them, thinking we'll see them again soon, to go have lunch, to go for a walk, to talk for hours and let the hurt out ..
We think next time we'll break our heart, they'll be at the door, with our filet mignon and a Foreman grill, in case we didn't have one, cupcakes from Magnolia, will make you tea with one ice cube and sit down to listen. We think the next big evening we have, they’ll come over to take you shopping but not before taking you for appetizers at little Brazil and then lunch at Meza grill and then make sure you will get the chance to ask about your favorite chef. We think they’re down the hall, every day, waiting for you to drop by, with coffee, to make fun of the people who bother them and to tell them it will be ok, and to take them out for a beer that you hide in the cold room underneath the bacterial dishes. You think you’ll be there when their cat dies, when yours gets sick, when you feel like cooking Indian food, when you feel like Russian drinks. You think you will never have a Beaujolais nouveau without them, never run away from someone at the mall without them, never try a new hair color a new dress a new path without them … And you let yourself be vulnerable .. Thinking you will never have to cry alone … and you cry for the last time in the wind, in that new dress you never wore again, when you see them leaving and you know you will never be down the hall again .. They will never take care of you when you’re sick, you will never yell at a guy who was rude to them … We will never express absolute disgust with everything and everyone around us again … and we will never dance till the morning hours in the village again …
Some people are just there for you, never judging you, never labeling you, always available when you need them, always willing to understand and forgive and let go .. And when you think you have to, even let you go ..
Amazing in every way they are and more amazing is that they think you are …
I miss you my darling ..

2008-01-29T06:18:00.000-05:00

Misery loves company

and that's the tune of that...

powered by ODEO

Thanks for also being miserable these days ...

Second day in a row like that and it's driving me crazy...

Alright,

So photoshop is the barbie substitute for adult females,

The end result is always the same and always looks like one of those celebrities here. There are 3 or so formats now, like templates for how girls should look like and it's absolutely scary. You end up not recognizing yourself after a couple of strokes in a software, a couple of surgeries or a couple of hours in front of the mirror every morning. What they seem to do anyway. What's the point? Really what’s the point? What do people tell that girl? She’s a step away from being a star? From looking like a star? That’s she’s the best in a bunch of girls who look exactly like her? I think it’s the same phenomenon over and over.. let’s see … we all look the same, all drive the same car, all have facebook addresses.. maybe you were right.. maybe this is what killed the blogs.. was that a phenomenon or what? facebook being the easier faster more generic version. And it just happens somehow. Not that blogs didn’t offend people before us. It’s going so fast too.. the uniformity, the conformity that people seem to crave let alone fall for .. I know people who change their phone every week. What’s the point? Now it has this, next week there’s a new feature. What does it mean anymore? you see, everyone is on facebook.. you go through selection in life for a reason, no? not that I want to avoid anyone, or maybe I do.. you can’t avoid uniformity though.. we go through childhood fighting uniforms and through adulthood fighting routine and somehow we fall into its ugliest forms. I swear you look at people’s profiles and they all have the same life, take the same vacations, photograph the same … Remember print out photos before the digital age? I know i sound like my mother but really, remember how excited you were to expose that film you had in your drawer for a while? Or to sit down and go through albums with someone. Do you go through your digital albums with anyone really? Do you really want to make customized Christmas cards when it’s made so easy and generic? Everything is becoming generic. Cheap generic brands are good but we’re becoming cheap generic samples of humanity. When you increase noise by pixel in an image to increase contrast you sacrifice resolution. It’s always easier to go towards chaos like in thermodynamics. In life though, it’s always easier to go towards routine. Why did it become so hard to create chaos? To have a different face, a different phone, to not want to watch a certain show, or agree with a political opinion or follow a life choice or a fashion trend. Everything we own we do we have done seems to lose value, to become dispensable and redundant. Are we becoming that too? Replicas? Replicas of someone’s idea of what’s creative, what’s beautiful, what’s meaningful? I cannot add another number on my phone for someone who happens to find me on msn, someone I will never call. I cannot get another invitation or notification or poke on facebook, I cannot be stuck in another traffic, another line, another ‘image’ of what I should or should not be. It’s just too much. We keep wanting to run away. Did you catch yourself writing a list of people you should call back, or pay attention to, or apologize to, did the list include a high school friend you last saw 10 years ago? I keep wanting to run away and hide from all this nonsense. Present company excluded of course. You’re my peeps. The bloggers. In fact I miss you guys. I have lost you in all the traffic of past friends and faces of strangers ….
If you happen to stumble here by chance because you have looked me up, don’t talk to me, don’t comment and don’t add me to your email list and please don’t forward emails to me, send me pictures of your babies or poke me. I don’t care what kind of vampire you are, i don't know what your name means, I don’t know what kind of bride you are, I don’t care!!!
I know I sound like a bitch, in fact like a crazy bitch..

and oh yeah.. I’M FINE!!!
Not suicidal. I always write like that. It keeps me sane and harmless on a daily basis. Don’t check on me, don’t call someone to check on me and please, please don’t ask your mom to ask my mom to check on me.. most importantly don’t send me a virtual kiss, a virtual gift, a virtual drink or a virtual flirt. Wanna help me out? Leave a bottle of vodka by my door!!
Oufff
This is typical me rambling. I feel better..

2008-01-28T04:24:00.000-05:00

One of those days ...

It's another day of mourning here and everything is closed. I still get busy on Sunday nights preparing for Monday mornings so that the very stressful day would go by as smoothly as possible. This Monday is a mourning day though and I’m even more distraught with the continuous inability to accomplish anything here with the general mood of lack of purpose and uncertainty. It’s another blurry day.. another lazy day …

I managed to clean and do laundry and the dishes and do some readings and send out some emails and analyze data and exercise and take my pills and do my grocery shopping and pace back and forth in the yard and I still have most of the day to spare so I sat down with a beer and popcorn to watch the actors guild awards.

I know this sounds weird but I’m totally heartbroken over the death of Heath Ledgers. Actually I’m writing this as an excuse to talk about that. It’s ripping my heart out. The first time I saw the news, it did not affect me really. I was more surprised and waiting to see how it happened. The more I saw his pictures everywhere the more I got upset about it.

When Daniel Day-Lewis talked about him today, I started crying, especially when he referred to the last scene of Brokeback mountain. I remember sobbing when I saw that scene in the movie. It was so real and so sad like life giving life and life ceasing at a loss. It’s so sad that he died. It’s so sad how he stopped being just like that, how he stopped existing… it’s so sad that in real life, life around him will go on after him …

I don't know why it got me so sad.

It's nobody's business really that he died or why he died ...

Maybe, again, it's the general mood of death and mourning here and my constant state of denial of everything around me and that his death is a more focused glamorized image of death ... If death can be glamorized anyway ...

I guess it's one of those days.

I don't know ...

2008-01-26T17:50:00.000-05:00

She is not a melody but a scream ...
A scream of desire of euphoria of rage of gut wrenching pain.
A scream of disbelief of surrender of loneliness of confusion …
she was not a melody to be repeated when he lost his rhythm,
she was a knot in his throat when he decided to cry …

In the night, in the crowd, in the distance, he saw her …
He saw the shine in her eyes,
the cryptic signs in her looks,
cheated him, defeated him, brought him to life …
like an affair,
like the memory of her voice,
like it was yesterday …
and she took him away,
she took him back, to where it all began,
she summoned his past on command, yet again …
to the day she decided to love him …
weak and trembling,
her hair hiding her shoulders,
her twisted wrist hiding her eyes …
to the day he decided to love her,
to leave her, to daunt her,
to haunt her pieces of the moon on her wrist …
A piece of him on her wrist …
circles of crystals on her wrist …

To where it all began
To walks with no end,
to the Sundays,
to cities that haunted them
and books that shaped their life together
and shaped their history apart,
to her fits and breakdowns and falls at night falls,
to his anxiety in the morning that numbed him senseless,
that went away at the sight of her face,
as she smiled to him with all the tenderness
and the playfulness she possessed,
to restlessness that dissipated as she let him be heard,
to strokes of luck and misfortune
strokes of his fingers on her door,
strokes of music he wrote for her,
to the feeling of being shared
and understood, no matter what.

In the crowd,
in the distance,
she tucked her hair under her collar,
she always did that on a rainy day …
she always complained about the rain …
she was leaving …
she could never stand still …
she always ran away …
she was evasive explosive frustrating arrhythmic
like a scream
like a dream …
she always came back, to start again,
she came back in the night
unannounced unplanned invasive chaotic
like a scream,
like he had prayed in a dream …
strokes on his door, knocks on his soul …
he always took her back …
like it was destined …
silent vows, bitter taste of surrender
to her malice to her obnoxious certitude,
like a hypnotic need, like a fact,
like the pain she was in …
like the pain she was …

She always ran away …
only to come back …
Except for that night …
a life ago …
The candles were still lit …
she vanished in the night …
he had imagined her …
far away,
drinking and dancing and loving and laughing
without him,
he had imagined how she looked into the night
for him,
how she looked younger and looked older,
how she stopped eating for days,
how she stopped sleeping night after night,
how she stopped crying stopped hurting and stopped writing.
Night after night,
he had imagined her in peace and it confused him.
Much worse,
he imagined her not needing him anymore and it killed him …
life had quieted down for him …
and it was deafening …

She had her coat on,
she was ready to leave somewhere,
she pushed her hair slowly …
slowly enough for him to see the circles on her wrist …
and she smiled …

He rushed home,
played their song on repeat,
sprayed the scent that she loves in the air
and left the door unlocked …

she never came home that night …

My darling you ....
like the circles that i find .. in the windmills of my mind ...
like the circles on my wrist,
like the vows i recited to always be yours,
the vows that repeated like the echo of my time
i always find you,
i always have you with me..
saving me each day at a time
wiping my tears
and holding my shattered wrist..

2008-01-20T18:32:00.000-05:00

In the name of change

Why is change so scary when it is supposed to be exciting and healthy

I never believed in sudden change since my whole system of beliefs revolves around cumulative and progressive steps that lead to a solid outcome, to a fact. The rules of nature, the rules of science, the rules of life. I never expected that events would shape so promptly that change would be tangible and almost painful. It seems though that at certain junctions in life, and even if you fight it with all what you have and what you know, change will hit. It seems that even some medical outcomes follow a very timely fashion in a very short constant period, to the extent where you almost see the change and feel it and can even time it. It seems that age does matter and I’m not sure if it is our inbuilt social and psychological perception of age that dictates how our behavior should reflect our age or if it is the other way around, but it’s there. Denial is there too, so is fear. This new road I call the road home, my new operating system, a new culture, my sister’s new hair color, a new job, a new emotion ... Life will not stand still for me, not for a second, and why should it? We live … we die … everything in between is changing as we are evolving. At every junction, you embrace a new role, a new pattern of behavior and you pass your old craziness and irresponsibility and need for adventure down, to new minds, to new hearts.

I heard a couple of young students talking in the hall,
- I think working abroad is much better than here. At least you’d feel you’re working towards something.
- But it’s far from family and friends
- Yes but you have to compromise …….. blah blah ….

Right. That conversation.

Even when I am not a mere observer and I am asked to be part of that conversation,

… So how was it for you? Why did you come back? Why did you leave in the first place? Did you cry at first? Did you miss it here?

I either feel too exhausted to talk about living away, too hurt that I am assumed to be done with it, or unworthy to answer since I ended up not knowing anything anyway.

Right now I seem to be stuck in between two eras. I have not grown into the stiffness I need to acquire to be accepted as an adult and I cannot keep up with the kids anymore. It is true. It happened! I cannot keep up …
I want to come home after a long day at work. I cannot keep all the names of the pubs in Jemmayzeh straight. I cannot wear high heels to work. My body did change and I cannot wear that skirt anymore.

That skirt …

Damn I looked good in that skirt. You know what skirt … The one you can’t wear anymore because now you actually weigh something. Because your metabolism every five years gets closer to that of a polar bear. That skirt that made him chase you (if you think this is dull, you obviously did not have that skirt).

I have replaced clubbing most of the nights with quiet evenings at home most of the nights and I have tucked that skirt in the back of my closet forever.
I have not grown into a prude yet. I am resentful when I see the young girls prancing around in their skirts. This has to be a good sign.
They look good though, in their skirts, dolled up for their guys, all fresh and loud and in your face, dropping their Martinis after a couple of glasses, and I look good, with my shy hair cut and my overstuffed purse.
Not quite the suitcase yet, not over denim yet … I still do cuffed trousers with pumas.

Maybe even the most tangible the most scary change is only a small step forward, maybe it is gentle after all, it is progressive, it is cumulative … like nature should be, like my shy hair cut, not quite the shaved head, not quite the up do.

Life will not stand still. Not for me, not for anyone. We have to keep going forward and better do it while loving the new operating systems, loving the new generation and while gracefully smiling.
The freckles that add up on my face at the first sun ray and hide back all winter, leave a new one every year. A new constant one. One that I lose track of anyway the next summer. One that reminds me to wait for the summer, all winter long.

Those smiling lines that are increasing, only increase because we have more smiles under our sleeves, those hips are wider because they loved more and those eyes deeper with the weight of all the blissful days in the backs of our minds.

I love my freckles, but that skirt will stay in my closet … For warmer days anyway, behind the doors, maybe, for him ... It will always fit ...

2008-01-14T13:57:00.000-05:00

She said life seems to be gray …

Unforgettable, she broke the silence,
she came back from a midnight of sorrows ..
From a world far from her innocent laughter,
far from her grace,
her black hair still tender, still the same,
crowning her delicate face,
her erring looks hold candor when striking.
She talked about yesterday,
about the days of our age,
our age that always seemed to be lost
between two wars, between the times, between two generations
an age of innocence that does not belong anywhere

... Widows behind the dark glass,
Colors that melt in a grim horizon ..
We were not born there,
We were a generation of middle children, never belonging
We left our pride and self-indulgence and even silly dreams
We left vanity and rebellion
and we matured our way into total indifference

Do not let my past mock my present, do not pain me
Keep the memories locked in your eyes, in your heart,
I see them, i know them, i lock them in my heart ...
Keep quiet dear friend,
Do it for me
Be gentle ...

A generation of middle children
All wanting the attention, all loners all wanderers,
all cold hearted and all terrified
all living in gray …
Not quite brilliant stars, not quite happy …
Not quite in love

She said life is gray
And she said that is ok …

Go, old friend …
Go,
The year I see you, the moment I see you, again one day,
You would still be in my mind … dreams ago, a life ago … a moment ago …
Go so that you come back in the summer
When I come to life, when we might all come together
And be loners together, and be outsiders together…
Go and come back
It’s ok …

2008-01-02T16:44:00.000-05:00

She crossed the road in the afternoon
It was about the little things now. The little treasures. The little moments. Her memory of him is not that of a lifetime but a second in time. She knew she remembered how his skin tasted more than she did his name or his address.
She crossed the road to get some cherries
Cherries in the winter. The little things. She did not summon joy when she thought of places she has been to, dances she danced or all the kisses in the world. She remembered home, still tasted the cherries, still craved the feeling of peace and sadness and stillness in his arms for moments, for seconds.
She crossed the road to get some coffee beans and magazines
The lush burgundy mat that hugged her ankles after a warm bath in the winter, the smell of wet leaves and cinnamon in her tea, his smile, all the little things … His voice. His voice that came across the night, across the times, uninvited, uninterrupted, alarming …

She had a new hair color, a new air to her... She took softer steps and crossed the road ...

She crossed the road to get some cigarettes.

She sat in her chair and thought of the little things... It was quiet, she could hear some laughs in the distance, her phone ringing ... she closed her eyes ... and she thought of him ...

2007-12-29T19:23:00.000-05:00

From A to _Z

I don’t know where to start so I just will.
Things have been going really fast. I have taken a sudden detour in my life, switched all my plans around and it is something I usually do not do, being as hesitant as I am. The change made my head spin. I did not think this one through, I just wanted to follow my instinct and I cannot safely say I regret what I did, I can only say that I am not sure yet and I do not think I will ever know if what I did was the right thing to do. Anyway, it was fast. I did not give myself time to chicken out. I did so much in so little time to settle and to make things feel like home. So much happened, so much that I wanted to talk about and share. So many discoveries and resolutions and events. A blogger’s dream in a way. I was overwhelmed with ideas and emotions that I froze. With time I lost track of where I came from. Then I made a decision to share news about my new life and my new problems and my new disappointments. That stopped me. That scared me. You can imagine. Only you can. Only another hopeless nostalgic. What I longed for, the excuse of living ‘temporarily’ as you call it, was an illusion. I had carried all my weakness, my failure, my sadness with me and in a short time I created an exact replica of my previous life, here. My apartment, by the beach, gorgeous, looks just like my place in nyc, my job, awkward, add to it the complete lack of intellectual freedom with the lack of funds here, my social life, still lacking but appears not to be. That is when it hit me. This is who I am. That is when I learned to forgive myself for my shortcomings, my solitude, my longing, my constant fear and hesitation and stagnation but I felt like I knew nothing. Like I had nothing to share. Like nothing I said before holds. Like I never had any answers. I still am as alone as ever. I still hate change, I still am nostalgic… Now I miss your writings. I miss my new York. I miss my friends. I miss having an excuse to complain. How pathetic is that? I miss the illusion of a temporary life. When this is supposed to be it. So this is it?

I am sorry. I will try to write more.
So this is what has been up. In a nutshell. From A to _Z.

How you've been?

2007-12-17T18:03:00.000-05:00

The art of being a child

2007-11-23T18:48:00.000-05:00

The worst part of my day …
Is road kill…
Nothing feels, smells or sounds interesting
It all adds up, layers upon layers
Nothing feels, smells or sounds real
A blur
The extravagant colors and textures and shiny words
Dark roads accessorized chests and jeweled bistros
Hands knocking on mats on spreads and tears
Heads knocking against the knots of time
Against the walls against a million question
The oblivion that wipes the days the dreams the laughs the fears
The nothingness
Of belonging of age of knowledge of love,
The empty road of tomorrow

The best part of my day is the sunset
As I drive by the beach
As I think of you …

I would tell you where I am
Friend, only if I knew ...

2007-09-02T17:37:00.000-04:00

Revolving truths

Our personal truth remains our main reference ...

it imprints and dictates our perception of the world around us ...

rendering the circumstances, the love we share, the world we live in a mere background to our true selves ...

Revolving lives, same truth ...

Somewhat appeasing but troubling at the same time ...

2007-08-29T07:34:00.000-04:00

Moving back ...

It is so difficult to face the blank sometimes, to break the insolence of a pale page, to conquer the blankness of life …
Where do I start? Which cliché do I leave behind? Is that the cycle of things?
In between worlds, when all is gutted, meaningless, so far behind like a lifetime away like a pain subsiding like a memory like your face that faded. When all that meant so deeply so intensely does not now. When the person you have grown into does not apply. When a clash is more than a clash and a step is like a leap in time. So many emotions so much fear and so much confusion … I need to write to hear my thoughts, to understand how I feel. For the first time in a while I truly am not sure of anything and have no reference to fall back on. For the first time in years I truly miss you and I truly need you.

People here talk about money in terms of achievement, about the least amount of work possible describing a good job, about their families and their kids and the heat and their cell phones and their car payments and their sibling who got a greencard and about politics and the next war ... People there go to work, pay the bills, eat dinner, sleep while thinking of the weekends and pay in advance for the next vacation. People here look for work, fix things up, get things going, talk about people, eat out, don’t sleep and live a vacation. People there give themselves small treats to do the work, a coffee break, a cigarette break, people here do the work because they have to, all the while hating the system and cursing the boss.

People in a richer more stable country have the luxury to talk. To really talk. They talk about feelings but only theirs. People here do not talk. Do you ever crave a conversation? A real heart to heart. It takes some humility, some security some real sense of self to open up and be honest. We still have the same taboos. We are afraid to show our weaknesses, afraid to learn and most of all to admit to a mistake. All we talk is small talk is empty talk is endless chatter about nothing. I felt that we would never get anywhere politically listening to two people with the same opinions conversing about politics only to go round and round with no aim of the conversation. Life here is a hypothesis with no intent to proving it. The pattern repeats with everything here. Hence the aimless jobs with no aspirations to make changes, hence raising our kids with the same lazy inherited values, hence the passive lazy dreams. Who is to be blamed with the ‘situation’ we are in but, really? Did we not historically end up in this situation every time because of our passive attitude? Maybe? Or not … People would be the same everywhere possibly given the chance. If their jobs were secured by their connections, they would give up on creativity and initiative, they would freeze up and all follows … It’s a country post-existentialist struggles living with no rules but their own, tortured by their own, and with the sole restriction of money.

It is almost another culture shock. I find myself lost and confused half of the time and then amazed and impressed by the will to live and to go on … By the conviction with what one has and the ability to settle and be content with the denial of one’s rights and the loss of the basic need to feel involved and secure and meaningful. Amazed but observant and nearly understanding of the process of denial of the past and forced shortsightedness of the future. I analyze to find the difference much slimmer than what I originally expected and felt. Global shortsightedness is what we witness. Differing causes but same result. The feeling of lack of control over the mood of the world, over what nature hides, over what tomorrow brings, we live life by installments. Little installments of love, of fun, of happiness and short term goals and dreams. Little dreams. Little goals along the way that keep us going. We are emotionally lazy.
lazy attitude, our lazy loyalty to one figure who will protect our lazy inherited social and tribal identity? It is frustrating. The sense of helplessness that does not start with one self and will not end with one self. The feeling of collective helplessness and surrender.

In the meantime, some things remain strong. We still pray and still believe in a sub-sect vastly opposing and fundamentally clashing with the sect in the neighboring block. This will drive us into endless discussions and will instigate our will to fight and to struggle. We hold on to dying ideas and traditions and superstitions. We still have separate graveyards, we still are ashamed to wear glasses, we have a maid a Mercedes and the business card of a plastic surgeon in every middle class home, we overspend and under-produce, we are morally bankrupt but where do we start?

Talking smack about my people, seems I’m fitting in after all …

2007-07-02T18:15:00.001-04:00

My latest distraction ...

This summer ...

The only thing there is to be done is to ignore the news and try to find a peaceful artistic space within ..

I regress to simpler days and take out my colors my pencils and my old small dreams ..

2007-06-28T08:55:00.000-04:00

Stagnating waters

Bits of a bird-
On the sidewalk, remnants of the high sky and pieces from a sparrow
There is a boy with curled lashes empty stares behind the deep brown eyes
Thin skins had fallen in cracks of wisdom and the creases of tomorrow
Tears in the streams gun powder on the walls and hidden lazy sighs

Bits of a bird, twisted feathers,
Anemones draining on the concrete wet and oozing with silent sorrows
Thickened with ailment petals shriveled roots flailing stem standing shy
Venom dripping in the green veins growing stiff growing narrow
What makes a flower a flower- What makes a bird fly?

Bits of a bird, stuttering tunes,
There is a singing voice, shrieking voice fading in the shadows
There is a lady reenacting the nightmares of the past waiting to die,
Regret repeating, shame-
some of it new, some inherited and some borrowed
There is a singing voice, there is a prayer echoing in the corridors of time
There is a silenced voice, silenced dreams, silenced hopes,
A silenced sparrow …

Bits of a bird,
Bits of a soul,

What makes a woman a woman?
What makes a country a country?
What makes a bird fly?

2007-06-27T17:27:00.000-04:00

Love me by all costs

Love me when I do not deserve
That is when I need it the most
Love me when I deter you
When I hide and when I bleed in silence
Worry,
About me when I do not cry
Love my weakness, my failing heart
My fractured insides
Worry …
When I need you not to,
The most …

Love me when I push you away
When I leave you behind
When I speak a different language
When my limbs burn, when my people die
When I shy from help
When all is gone and none is left
And what stays behind is weak and gray …

Love me
You are all I have
All I learned all I owned all I lost
And all I am today …

2007-06-14T20:30:00.000-04:00

Last published June 4 ...

Eh dakhlak we ni7na lyom shou?
maba3ref.. walid 3ido was killed yesterday
tayyeb monot walla jimmayzeh
all the same.. all dead anyway.. it's a ghost town
and so i heard..
kiss ikhto malla balad
mafi a7la minno hal balad
halla2 kamen
we law shou masar
tu reviens toi?
je suis amoureuse moi. i went to the embassy and tried to explain.. ya khayye.. i live there..
where?
you know.. not here.. for now.. halla2 wataniyyeh?
yalla salami we cheese?
la2 za3tar
tayyib we ba3den biscuit 3al jimmayzeh and a chocolate shot
let's give it a shot... is it open?
they said they will except for sundays we lamma bisir infijar
wlak shou masar... ana hon sehraneh

2007-06-04T00:25:00.000-04:00

June ...

My soul cringing in anticipation of the next disaster, a fate we have to master, at the lingering emptiness the clinging accusation of a wilting identity of a withering existence. Carrying life in suitcases afraid of the night under new skies afraid of tomorrow ransoming dignities blackmailed for survival at every arrival. Running away from hearts from a tear at every port from an embrace that takes you back that makes your world crumble that melts the concrete and wipes the colors away from the pages of your days. Hiding forever trembling at the encounter at the onset of a moment of truth a moment of belittlement of awe that ages you every step of the way.

2007-04-29T02:14:00.000-04:00

What’s left of life?

Empty is the life of a romantic, dark is a life of a poet, blissful is a life with no dreams… Table for one, trip cut in half and memories kept in frames …
So tender when he does not expect it. Sensitive when he will not want it. His alarming heart warming masculine vulnerability. Raw and child like when he cries, uninhibited. The tight lines around his lips that shivered when kissed .. That shivered when in rage… That shivered when touched, only by the skin on the back of her hand. That smirk he is left with, when struck by her smell, when deep in his thoughts. Almost blushing almost feeling her breath on his neck almost tasting her again. His naked tender musky face in the morning. His bare skin glowing without him knowing only to be tucked in under a coat of street dust at the end of the day. Under a coat of sorrows. His fine wrists juxtaposed to his overworked hands. His head resting in his arms when weary. His hair slipping between his fingers. The way he thinks he is immortal. The way he crumbles in pain. The way she turned out mortal. Her trace in his bed, her trace in his life, the trace she left on his chest with her carefully planned kisses… The trace of her face fading with every moment his eyes find rest. Every time he shuts his lids on the memory of her smile. An eternal sense of betrayal with every morning that meets him. His hollow existence meets him. His bare skin meets him. The tyrannous intimacy of winter fault of the warmth of her touch leaves him in despair.
Empty is a life with no feelings, dark is a life with no love, even with the alarming heart wrenching vulnerability that follows …

2007-04-21T01:43:00.000-04:00

I wear the gray pants laying carelessly on the dresser, a clean shirt, and the boots thrown in the back of the closet. My hair in a knot and some concealer to hide the marks of a night spent thinking of you.
I drink my coffee listening to the morning news; refill the cat plate and throw some papers together for work, carelessly…
I throw my coat on my chair, check my messages and run out to my eye exam. I am told my eyes do not relax enough and I laugh. I throw my reading glasses in my purse, carelessly and I pick up some lunch.
I sit under the sun and eat slowly, looking around me, carelessly. I make some appointments, hair … facial… I have an important evening coming up … without you …
I sit at my desk, I look at my screen, carelessly. I book my plans for the summer and make some phone calls. I let my hair down and I stare in the void.
What am I doing, here, without you?
You told me there is nothing that I cannot do but how come I cannot do this? How come I cannot forget you?
I call you …
I stop …
We did leave each other. This did happen but I cannot accept it.
I go back to work and I pass the time … I let the day go by in a daze of disbelief, just like the day before.
I let the day go by, carelessly, to go home and think of you. To go home and miss you silently and mourn, quietly …
This is too real. Too painful. Too great of a pain for me to handle.
Too real …
I lay down, helplessly and I close my eyes.
My eyes that cannot relax …
My tears warm up my pillow and i fall asleep ...
And I think of you …

2007-04-16T01:44:00.000-04:00

From a distance ...

You caught me in the act. In the most devious act I committed. Why should I wonder how you know. How you always know. I project and you embrace. I explode in tone deaf words, no punctuations, no intonations and you put me back in order. You punctuate and i breathe. You are kept informed and i feel at ease. This is what you do. You bring order to my life. Time goes by and I get more short-breathed and you add calmer tunes to my episodes. You should have known by now. You should have understood that I am tired of your order. That for years gone by, I long for your voice coming unexpectedly through the night and waking me from my sleep. Your voice never comes unexpectedly. Your voice is allotted and your concerns studied and carefully delivered. It kills me. You know the first rain in New York. How wet leaves swaddle up the curbs and exposed guts of earth worms pave a nature disaster under your feet. I am rotting from within. My emotions are spread too thin. I am a prisoner of us. I am panting with ecstatic comfort chocking up with the known and dreading the unknown. I am pinned and I feel the heaviness. I embroidered the distance with stories not to let you drift. I flooded the hours with details and threw it all out. Fearing your estrangement, fearing that one day you will think you did not have all of me. You became a poet and drifted ever more. You drifted with your imagery and delved in your head. My love for you is not a projection of past events. My love cannot be studied and carefully delivered. Us. us? We cannot be a routine anymore. I need more. The Static is between us... The distance is suffocating ... The carefully planned silence is deafening ...

- Hello. Yeah did you hear that?
- I did but let me call you tonight and we’ll discuss it
- I’ll call you before bed. I’ll play our music as we talk tonight
- Later love …

I will not read you anymore ... I cannot read you ... I only have you from a distance

2007-04-01T07:00:00.000-04:00

Another break (3anjadd)

April ... My favorite month :)

The Lebanese wave of shou fi ma fi moved to facebook.. Blogs are down it seems.
Le2ouna hounik. Zouzou ba3d fi inta masheftak.
Anyway, khbar about this blogger and some pictures are over there for now ...
Posting again after coming back from Lebanon, in few months, and after settling down and will tell you shou bisir.. Shifnekon ..

2007-03-31T21:34:00.000-04:00

No hoods. No electric shocks. No beatings. These Iranians clearly are a very uncivilised bunch

Terry Jones
Saturday March 31, 2007
The Guardian

"I share the outrage expressed in the British press over the treatment of our naval personnel accused by Iran of illegally entering their waters. It is a disgrace. We would never dream of treating captives like this - allowing them to smoke cigarettes, for example, even though it has been proven that smoking kills. And as for compelling poor servicewoman Faye Turney to wear a black headscarf, and then allowing the picture to be posted around the world - have the Iranians no concept of civilised behaviour? For God's sake, what's wrong with putting a bag over her head? That's what we do with the Muslims we capture: we put bags over their heads, so it's hard to breathe. Then it's perfectly acceptable to take photographs of them and circulate them to the press because the captives can't be recognised and humiliated in the way these unfortunate British service people are.

It is also unacceptable that these British captives should be made to talk on television and say things that they may regret later. If the Iranians put duct tape over their mouths, like we do to our captives, they wouldn't be able to talk at all. Of course they'd probably find it even harder to breathe - especially with a bag over their head - but at least they wouldn't be humiliated.

And what's all this about allowing the captives to write letters home saying they are all right? It's time the Iranians fell into line with the rest of the civilised world: they should allow their captives the privacy of solitary confinement. That's one of the many privileges the US grants to its captives in Guantánamo Bay.

The true mark of a civilised country is that it doesn't rush into charging people whom it has arbitrarily arrested in places it's just invaded. The inmates of Guantánamo, for example, have been enjoying all the privacy they want for almost five years, and the first inmate has only just been charged. What a contrast to the disgraceful Iranian rush to parade their captives before the cameras!

What's more, it is clear that the Iranians are not giving their British prisoners any decent physical exercise. The US military make sure that their Iraqi captives enjoy PT. This takes the form of exciting "stress positions", which the captives are expected to hold for hours on end so as to improve their stomach and calf muscles. A common exercise is where they are made to stand on the balls of their feet and then squat so that their thighs are parallel to the ground. This creates intense pain and, finally, muscle failure. It's all good healthy fun and has the bonus that the captives will confess to anything to get out of it.

And this brings me to my final point. It is clear from her TV appearance that servicewoman Turney has been put under pressure. The newspapers have persuaded behavioural psychologists to examine the footage and they all conclude that she is "unhappy and stressed".

What is so appalling is the underhand way in which the Iranians have got her "unhappy and stressed". She shows no signs of electrocution or burn marks and there are no signs of beating on her face. This is unacceptable. If captives are to be put under duress, such as by forcing them into compromising sexual positions, or having electric shocks to their genitals, they should be photographed, as they were in Abu Ghraib. The photographs should then be circulated around the civilised world so that everyone can see exactly what has been going on.

As Stephen Glover pointed out in the Daily Mail, perhaps it would not be right to bomb Iran in retaliation for the humiliation of our servicemen, but clearly the Iranian people must be made to suffer - whether by beefing up sanctions, as the Mail suggests, or simply by getting President Bush to hurry up and invade, as he intends to anyway, and bring democracy and western values to the country, as he has in Iraq."

2007-03-31T21:32:00.000-04:00

Saturday talk

- I’m killing myself this afternoon
- Already? I thought 33 is the age. And did you find the best way yet?
- Yes I did. Care to join me?
- No I can’t.
- Why not?
- I have an experiment planned
- On a Saturday?
- Keeps me from killing myself
- Will you miss me
-Block the sun, block the moon, don’t let the water specks kiss the shore
Tear down that smile and close your eyes now
Hold yourself, hide yourself cover up and close the door
And say you miss me, I’ll say I miss you even more…
- And you won’t be sad?
- I’m used to it by now. That’ll be the third time a friend of mine kills himself.

2007-03-30T08:56:00.000-04:00

For the time being ...

I'll keep the picture up ...

2007-03-27T01:04:00.000-04:00

For the time being ...

- What did you have for lunch?
- I grabbed a tuna sandwich from the coffee shop
- I thought you weren’t eating bread anymore
- I was in a hurry. So what’s up?
- I’m leaving you
- Yeah I figured that much
- We’re not in love
- No we’re not. We tried though
- We did. We have a good thing here.
- Great but not enough yeah?
- Yeah. Right?
- I don’t know. I know I love you as much as I can love these days
- That’s bullshit
- Yes it is. Ok then
- Oh well. It is what it is...
- Aha yes. Anyone in mind?
- Not really. Well …
- You bastard
- What?
- See I still feel jealous. I must love you then.
- Na.. We both know how possessive you are
- Yeah you’re right but why am I always scared to leave you?
- Because you also hate change. This has nothing to do with me.
- Yeah true. See how much you know me? Who will know me like you? No we’re staying together.
- We are?
- Yeah. Hey for now at least. I mean I am leaving anyway. Oh did I tell you I’m leaving? Yes I found a job in California and I’m leaving in 3 months. Sorry I haven’t told you about my plans but I figured you were about to leave me soon.
- No worries
- Cool.. You should come visit. It’s a nice place on the beach
- You already found a place?
- Yes I did when I went last weekend
- You were away last weekend?
- See how distracted you are? So I went and found a place. The weekend was fun. We went fishing.. I used to go fishing with my dad when I was a kid…
- Who’s we?
- Oh… Did I tell you I’m wearing my hair curly again?

2007-03-26T09:15:00.000-04:00

What sells?

Even if your heart is in it, even if your hard work and devotion was put forth, it is all in the presentation. This is the American way. It is all about a clean extensive consistent brainwashing propaganda.

From advertising to journalism, bridging the gap between manufacturer and consumer, between leader and followers, the means are by all means and the story behind the news is news in itself. Flooding the markets with rotten products and our life and brains with rotten concepts and mere lies, you have to leave some credit sometimes for their imagination and initiative and their respect of our intellect and our approval. There is nothing I like more than a smart ad. It gives me the illusion that I, as a target audience, matter.

What pains me today though, is that it is all there for us to see. Nothing is covertly hidden for our common basic human taste. The teeth of the empire snatch morsels from the world and it is all done in arrogance and distaste and condescension. How could we not wake up angered every morning when a quick glimpse into media outlets to check on our beloved world throws us in dire despair? It is weaved for you to believe that the world is too screwed up too angry to hateful for you to comprehend and that it should be left for the experts to handle. You are made to believe that you almost cannot carry a sympathy feeling long enough for a people who are trained to hate you and destined to die, let alone carry a thought long enough when journalism gives in to advertising to bombard your life with worries and needs and cheap entertainment.

What pains me is that it is all there for us to see. They are not even trying to cover up. The stupid nationalism that blindly drove us to believe in the absurdity of wars and being ruled and being told what to do and what to say and what to think, the fear that took over our dignity and right to live, the misanthropist drive that closes us up and tucks us in, will kill us all.

What pains me is that it is all there for us to see in so many ways if we only care enough and respect ourselves enough to want to know and to want to make a change yet we choose not to look, we look the other way. We are selfish and animalistic more so every day and we are endangering our kind. They are not smart enough to hide the abject poverty starting here, the injustice, the torture, the double standards, the cries for help from children all around the world.

It really pains me that they don’t care to hide it and that we have willingly given our freedom away.

Today's article
Today's lyrics
And from apartheid, read here (from transient's blog) and here.

2007-03-25T07:09:00.000-04:00

Don't want to grow up!

We don't want to give stupid lectures and have stupid jobs and carry stupid labtops around to stupid meetings ...

We want to dance and be silly and never grow up and never leave each other...

Why is it that we have to keep saying stupid goodbyes in this country every couple of years...

Bad enough it takes so long to make a home for ourselves from scratch, we have to do this all the time now ... Everything is changing and it is my highest stress level possible ...

I'm having meltdowns ... No i know .. A lot of people do it all the time and get adapted fairly quickly ... Bastards!

We invest in our careers but we also invest in the people we love. We don't have to drift apart even when we're apart? not true! It's not the same. If i don't see you in a couple of years i probably will forget your face and your habits and why i loved you in the first place.

Someone said to me that i'm always stuck in the past. Well of course i am. My present keeps changing and my future 3a kaff 3afreet. 3afreet eh.

When we were kids we wanted this life. Remember? Vivre comme des vagabonds. Fresh starts at every step. Never buy furniture and never get too close or too attached but travel light and carry a pad to write each other ... Two drifters ...

Yeah? Well i'm tired of drifting. You drift away. I'm settling again another time but for the last time. I'm saying goodbye for the last time. I'm buying furniture and a washer and dryer and maybe i'll even get a mortgage ... Who knows ... I'm shipping my cats for the last time ... No more moving sales, no more address changes and no more life changes ...

For the next ten years you know where i will be ... Stuck in my stupid new place, in my stupid apartment, in my stupid job ... I have to grow up ...

We're no longer students forever, no longer starting over ... no writing fellowship in London or an editorial job in Barcelona. kbirna we t3ibna we 3eefouna ... It's over ... This is it my dear ... Shou? Coming?

2007-03-25T04:39:00.000-04:00

TUFFA7A

On a sleepless night ... She was born and she seemed sad ...

2007-03-25T03:04:00.000-04:00

Broken hymns of the olive land ...

I stand with open arms a chorus behind me with nothing to say and my eyes teary
I hang by a thread from base to abyss, my neck stretched and my back weary
The years unravel throwing morsels of letdowns and putdowns my way
I wait in patience and good faith for a gift from above for a much better day

Dark are my words dim are the signs endless is the night scary is a life without quest
I would have lived as I wished thrown of life what I wished and taken the best
Hair avalanching colors of life and arms inebriated with the moist peck of the ocean
Chuckles breaking in the background and hearts racing skipping beats without caution

Their shadows haunted mine imprisoned my heart in shackles and tied the rest
Far on the hills echoes of my madness cascading pain of the world on their chest
Their eyes on my walls their fingers in my daily bread my olives a bitter potion
A story of boiling hate that masks by the weight of living the magic of creation

I stand with open legs with twisted arms stories behind me and my eyes teary
I lay sweating and shivering forever forgotten, my words forgiven and my back weary
I wait in fear for your light for your revenge for your wisdom and for a much better day
You ask of my children to live and forgive and to smile, eyes to the heavens and I say; until I forgive you my rage my grief, my torture, my ailing limbs and my dismay,
My children will stand proud will look away from your heaven and will smile my way

2007-03-24T23:23:00.000-04:00

Left alone ...

We are more and more alienated.
More and more dispensable.
More and more unfairly treated, belittled, left alone,
More and more …
More and more mocked
by our spouses,
mocked
by our bosses,
mocked
by our governments,
Left alone ...
By our children, our neighbors, our loved ones,
our friends,
left alone ...
By the world, by the gods, by the skies
More and more endangered, enraged, entangled-
together-
on a stage,
and at the end left alone ...
Used and abused and stepped on and pushed aside.
Used and overused flipped and thrown by the tides.
Used and seduced and laid flat and left alone.
Panting and chanting and ranting and spinning,
a fever of pilgrimage from dusk to dawn,
a fever of passion turned paper-
turned stone.
Behind the scenes behind the curtains behind the doors,
left alone ...
Oozing squealing tiny screams from heads thrown-
on pillows of hay pillows of silk pillows of tears-
sawn with strings of light strings that break,
that disappear,
that fall apart,
till the morning light,
Left alone.
Images and words and colors and lies and blindness,
rushed flushed crushed with rudeness,
with lack of kindness.
Rage of the skies on virtues slipping-
on hearts ripping,
on life wasting life,
to be left alone ...
We are more and more,
alone.
More and more atone-
to one heart beat,
to one opinion one idea one road.
More and more predestined propositioned predisposed,
Pre-packed pre-peeled-
our fate sealed,
our souls torn.
From dusk till dawn we spin we grin,
we pre-paste our little titles and self pack in little bins,
we self code self erode and explode from within ...
Behind the doors,
behind the stage,
and left alone …

2007-03-21T18:58:00.001-04:00

The iron man
As the golden rays tenderly reinvade our days. As the shy Spring springs the first promise of summer and heat and fun, everyone around me seems to be falling in love. I am falling in love too. I am falling in love with Bobby Flay. I am. This is serious! I am clearly not one of those teenage girls who fall in love with television characters so where is this coming from? I really love him. I’m obsessing with the guy. I can talk about him for hours. I know everything about him. Anyone knows him? He’s a New Yorker so it’s not like I’m falling for a Hollywood personality. Now that would be tacky. He’s also very real so this is not coming from an immature fantasy. Real? He’s an iron chef.. How could that be real? Iron chef, how sexy is that? I need to be put behind iron bars, now that’s for certain. I have been staying up all night, every night for the past week to watch reruns of his show. I'm exhausted and very busy these days to be doing this. Again, anyone knows him? Seriously! Forget it. Forget I said all that.

2007-03-21T18:13:00.000-04:00

Happy mother's day!

I recommend this website if you want to send flowers back home. It's always on time and their flowers are beautiful.

2007-03-21T00:52:00.000-04:00

Suicide building, yeah right!

Palestinians need an impossible to obtain permit in order to escape the demolition of their homes built on land they own, while settlers get military protection but i gave up on fairness and empathy on the Israeli side long ago.

And nothing we didn't already know and argue here but i gave up on logic and honesty on that side long ago.

While you might be predisposed to some ideas growing up, the strongest opinions of others and the character-changing lessons in life are really the ones you form based on what you live and what you experience. We don't propagate hate, we just propagate ourselves. We are who society makes of us. We are the result of a global collective human interaction that will be affected by international politics, economics and culture. In today's wars, racism, commercialism and globalization of cheap ideas, cheap lives double lanes and fast gains, what a sad generation we must be raising!

2007-03-20T00:33:00.000-04:00

Ya 3youn Baghdad ...

2007-03-19T20:47:00.000-04:00

La Pedrera
Some chapter ...

She sat across the table from him, loosely following his gestures. Her lazy looks wandered around the old French cabin only to rest her eyes on her glass and then on his eyes. The tip of that decadent red encircled her existence that night. She oscillated between her half clear glass and her half-lit cigarette and half a smile. The smell of cognac invaded the intimate aroma of her wine which seemed to protect her from a world she was not ready for. He looked right through her. They locked eyes sporadically and it was enough to send fire through her spine. She guzzled her wine to allow her nerves to catch up with his.

She took the chance while he was deeply engaged in his conversation at the other end to examine him. His silence as he listened was somehow more forceful than his words. He had a pleasant air about him. He had a mysterious quality wrapped in his years. He had a fire inside him secretly disguised in his carefully pleated scarf that hid the color of his chest. While he looked distant, while they laughed and gesticulated around him, his gaze into the empty space got deeper.

Her body was wired to his intonations. She felt as if he was whispering to her across the table. He rested an arm on the linen and started caressing it with his fingers. She secretly touched the linen with her knee only to blush. It was as if he was caressing her skin. It was intoxicating but it seemed like she was the last thing on his mind that night. He listened to his host resting a look on her hand, which made her nervous. Her right hand suddenly felt bare of any sophistication and of necessary distractions.

She reached for her cigarette again. He still looked at her hand. It was strange. It was as if he was controlling her gestures now. As if he could see her nervousness. As if he knew that she was not to belong there. She laid her palm flat on the table with the cigarette still between her fingers. He could not possibly know who she was. He did not notice her but why does she feel like he knows her? Why does she feel calm when she looks in his alarming eyes? Why does he strike his conspiring fingers on the table to keep her breathing? Did he not invade her sanctum with his stares to let her know that he was there? Does he know all what went in her head that night?

She felt silly and she realized that she was silent. She came out of her deep thoughts to notice a silence around the table. She smiled nervously at their host and she felt her heart beats. He was looking at her. Quiet. Sure and relaxed in his seat. He looked at her with no explanation and no embarrassment. Like it was his right to sample her face now. To slowly work his eyes through her lips and through her cheeks and through her eyes like he did her fingers. She could not breathe. He tilted his head and smiled. That half smile that made her knees shake.

The host stood up to usher her friend to her room. That is when she realized that she was alone with him. They walked away and she could not get herself to look at him yet. He stood up and came to sit beside her.

- You have the most delicate air about you. He said. I have been distracted all night. I think you are charming. I am simply intrigued. I tried to get you to look at me. I tried to let you know that I was there.
- You did? She replied calmly while still looking away. I have not noticed. The smell of cognac gives me a headache.
- I thought we took common interest in each other tonight. The way you looked at me.
- I think it was all in your head and I wish you would refrain from whispering. My fiancé will return shortly...

2007-03-18T13:34:00.000-04:00

In bold letters
It took me years to forget the pain. I was dysfunctional for months at a time. I cried for almost a year. I loved you with all that I was and you were cold enough to have a secret life… back then … You shamed me in your disloyalty and shook my young pride to the core … back then … You were a set back in all my relationships. The challenge that haunted me since ... the distrust that came with the game since then …
As it turns out, I am not interested in glimpses of the past. I summon the pain to wash it out but I don’t have it in me anymore. The memory doesn’t hurt anymore. I am indifferent to who you are, where you are and what you do.
All I am to you now is a memory and this is how it should be. I said pack your memories and go and leave the past in the past …
Even the friendship had passed, just leave me be ...
I never want to see you again ..

2007-03-16T00:20:00.000-04:00

A pro-active care label (link)

2007-03-15T23:03:00.001-04:00

Very funny blog

2007-03-15T22:42:00.000-04:00

Douleur d’amour

And you had the heart to cheat my heart
My heart that loved you
and guarded you
You had the heart…

And tell me darling
When you planted your nails in her flesh
Did your fingers cringe?
Your fingers that know me
Like a shear blanket have thrown me
When your eyes gazed in her eyes
Where did your tears hide?
Your tears that adore me
Like a secret lover mourn me
When you rested your lips on her hair
Did you smell the desert night?
Did your lips fight?
Your lips that tasted my sweat
That shivered nights as I wept
When you squeezed her in your arms
Did your heart die?
You heart that belongs to me

Did you hear my sighs?
Crimson bed, rotten lilacs
Broken cribs
And cries

A life reduced to mockery
Break down the world
And turn off the skies

You had the heart to cheat my heart
My heart that loved you
and guarded you
Was it all lies?

May your heart forgive you
As mine will …

2007-03-14T23:57:00.000-04:00

Back to the region
It seems that we go into denial every now and then. Call it survival mechanism. If i don't read the news, they don't exist. Lebanon is not in turmoil still and Palestine is stable. Even more dangerous the proactive political sites that refuse to see and reflect the truth and all the truth. In Lebanon, things did indeed stand still. The sterile process of splitting the goods or the calm before another blow. We will wait and see. In Palestine, the silence is always deafening. Headlines that don’t abuse you and flash in your face only hide a fake stability. Every lack of reporting tells you that something very wrong is happening or will happen soon. What you don’t hear about is what you need to know. The lack of noise in the mainstream outlets, as we all know, only means a lack of spirit and a lack of resistance on ‘our side’. Trying to run away from the silence again..
So what do you call peace for peace?

2007-03-14T17:31:00.000-04:00

If you're in Lebanon, visit the pub on the corner
http://thecorner.skyblog.com/

2007-03-14T01:56:00.000-04:00

Leave the past in the past

Years had passed
He floated in as he dissolved away
Too magical to be true
too tender to be felt and tasted
Some encounters are better wasted
Better kept separate from the crudeness of the next day
The debt of past had passed
forgetfulness is its own bliss
Has it not been a decade since his last kiss?
Has she not gone-
pleasures forgone rights relinquished
Has she not lived tasteless-
her fires quenched
Has she crossed oceans to be followed with his dismay?

Some hearts love with no regrets
Some do it to forget
And some are torn to shreds
Leave the past in the past dear
It is just better this way …

2007-03-12T06:26:00.000-04:00

Some foolish things...

- You sound calm
- Renewed appreciation of disaster
- Like the girl I used to know
- Renewed sense of self
- You sound happier
- Renewed confidence in life
- Still lonely?
- Just alone
- And happier?
- I just sometimes need to be left alone
- Then why do you go out of your way to be loved?
- With accepting one’s mortality there’s a need to be remembered
- And calmer now why?
- The feeling of loss finally left me and my heart is full of hope
- The loss is still there, what have you gained?
- Everything I haven’t noticed in the meantime,
the birds in the sky
the salty breeze in July
the promise of winter days
Forgotten as the snow melts away
The moment you know you're shedding your last tear
The excitement of welcoming a new year
The feeling as you spread your arms
embracing the morning light
Your secret whispers to fate every night

your chukles under the sheets

the warm sand under your feet

Sunsets and flowers and smells you love
Missing every moment you were with someone you love
Songs that make you cry and tastes that you crave
Dreams that keep you going and souvenirs you save
Words and faces and kisses and embraces
And a hundred little tunes
A hundred times you hugged the moon
Little freckles and little lines
Scars you carry with you
Armed against the times
A thousand memories that you are
You lose some but you gain yourself
The marvel that you are
I found myself,
While looking I found you too
Not lonely, just left alone
Not away, I just came home…

(pic)