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?

The art of being a child

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 ...

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 ...

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 …

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 ..

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?

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 …

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

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.

powered by ODEO

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 …

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 …

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

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 ..

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."

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.

For the time being ...

I'll keep the picture up ...

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?

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.

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?

TUFFA7A



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

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

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 …

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.

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.

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!

Ya 3youn Baghdad ...

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Four years ...

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...

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 ..

A pro-active care label (link)

Very funny blog

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 …

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?

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

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 …

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)

First sign of growing up








when sitting in men's laps puts them to sleep
second sign
when your body can’t catch up with you
when the best part of a late night out is coming back home
when flirting feels merely exhausting and getting men’s attention just irrelevant
when instead of wanting to dance all night, you want to talk and, if ever possible, connect to others..
when you don’t seek approval but you like to surround yourself by social behavior you approve of..
when your 57 year old professor says you became too cynical
The best part of growing up is loving who you are with all the good and the bad and realizing but embracing that it is too late to change and that you like that you can't..

Still on the road...

Still making our way to get there..

How many times i tell you the joy is in the journey

and how many times you say

we live tomorrow but we struggle today..

Tomorrow comes and the day after

and every Spring we dream of summer...

this blog is well over a year now,

nothing has changed

i remember your first post like it was yesterday

and you remember mine

we started this to get closer as you moved away...

i remember,

i remember well..

the first month was exciting. we found our lost love for poetry and writing. we stayed up to chat and comment and we met new people. the second month we started painting. we painted images of the night and of long walks in the park. the third we went on vacations and send letters from far away places. the fourth we shared a taste of what we love. we renewed our promises and we sang for each other. we explored the town day and night. the fifth we turned political and we hurt. the sixth we hurt some more. we bonded over war stories and memories of home. we ran away at first but a cynical world invaded our little virtual life... months followed and we lost it...

when it is all written to be seen and to be evaluated, what remains of the mystery and of the tender privacy of love and life...

i remember but let's start again..

as you always say...

we suffered yesterday and we suffer today

but we live tomorrow...

we live the dream of sunny days

the dream of comfort and calm

the dream of waking up happy

one day...

Under the sun ...

And away..

It has been a blur. Hotels and cabs and airports. Fix a talk here. Interview there. Give a talk here and there. In and between, i found my heaven ...

I can't remember the last time i was this happy...

As it turns out, life can be just amazing!

It is summer here but happy soon-to-be Spring everyone.

Broken Letters ...

Her,
Because she's mourning a lover
and it is the worst thing
to long for a sensation that you know
that you will never have again
you look at your fingertips
as if to summon some of him...
to long for a lover you lost
is to die
is to wake up every morning
chasing the tip of a dream
only to remember a nightmare
the feeling of loss
the deep endless source of numbness...

You,
Your limbs ruffling...
your eyes are open but you can't sleep
and you can't cry
bitterness to everything around you
you can't let people catch a sadness in your looks
you're too proud
your blank face refuses to be dismissed
refuses sympathy
you stray...
windows of white
windows of eternal light
of eternal emptiness
you still can't cry...
you will cry later and,
for now
you will suffer...

And I,
Don't you worry when i go,
you will be taken care of,
I saw the end today, love
I was ready but my only pain
was the image of your lost face
I know my time will precede yours,
and i cannot leave you behind,
the shame of your tears scares me
tonight i will take you in my arms
and we will worry tomorrow....

Pack your heart and leave your memories behind

travel light ...

And the mere exhaustion. Most of what will be too. The trembling shoulders. Moments of truth and trance. Mistakes made by one. Price will be paid by two.
He will come and visit her in the city she loves. He comes to take her back with him one day. His words were always commanding and she embraced the numbing feeling of being helpless in love. She gave in to his will when she had nothing to lose. Little does he know. Things have changed. She now has herself to lose. The gray crude city streets became tenderer than his touch over the years. He doesn’t know that she learned how to hide in the blinding lights more than she could ever hide from his eyes. He doesn’t know that she trembled in his arms more than she did in the cold nights of this strange place and that she never knew loneliness in all the years she lived alone as she did with him.
Drying skin and wet hands. Eyes roaming so fast. Another knot in her heart. Wrapping up and leaving now. How can you leave behind what lives in you? How do you shake off the shear weight of the past?
He said he’s a changed man but when will he truly listen?
Hearts might change but characters don’t…

powered by ODEO

Just pack and leave now...

The city of my heart ...

the people of my heart

and mloukhiyyeh ...

The weather these days
Gha2em joz2iyan …
I miss you too my darling
I don’t have time to think these days
But as soon as I do, I will think of you

Love algorithms ...

There is a delicious inexplicable level of charm in a woman grabbing on to her man, letting down of her guards and being vulnerable. Even the strongest most self-achieved most self-sufficient of us wait for the man who we would want to need. The man we need to need. It is not calculated vulnerability because the risk is never calculated ...

There is a most endearing most exciting feeling in witnessing a man’s attachment to his woman. Even the strongest most detached most nonchalant characters wait for the woman whose arms they can rest their head safely in knowing they’re home and forgetting challenges and pains even for a while. It is not calculated vulnerability because when you give yourself to a woman the risk is never there ...

Planning a life together when seperate worlds have already existed, when personal space and personal habits have already been established and fixed, coming together in shared stuff, shared bed, shared plans and dreams, limitations have to follow, what is gained and what is lost? What will compensate for the compromise? What will define it? What corrections are made to balance back individuality and shifting the equilibrium towards a dual state, is energy lost or gained? And how reversible is the process? Happiness is a tough one to measure ... Then again, that's the calculated risk ...

Remember L.?

"Mirvat:About a week ago I got an email from a distant relative by marriage ----Check it out--I'm sending you the whole chain of communications:"

This relative sends the following message around asking people to think about it!

"Something to think about.
Spanish newspaper
Article on Judaism
ALL EUROPEAN LIFE DIED IN AUSCHWITZ
By Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez

I walked down the street in Barcelona, and suddenly discovered a terrible truth - Europe died in Auschwitz. We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims. In Auschwitz we burned a culture, thought, creativity, talent. We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen, because they produced great and wonderful people who changed the world. The contribution of this people is felt in all areas of life: science, art international trade, and above all, as the conscience of the world. These are the people we burned. And under the pretense of tolerance, and because we wanted to prove to ourselves that we were cured of the disease of racism, we opened our gates to 20 million Muslims, who brought us stupidity and ignorance, religious extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and poverty due to an unwillingness to work and support their families with pride. They have turned our beautiful Spanish cities into the third world, drowning in filth and crime. Shut up in the apartments they receive free from the government. And thus, in our misery, we have exchanged culture for fanatical hatred, creative skill for destructive skill, intelligence for backwardness and superstition. We have exchanged the pursuit of peace of the Jews of Europe and their determined clinging to life because life is holy, for those who pursue death, for people consumed by the desire for death for themselves and others, for our children and theirs. What a terrible mistake was made by miserable Europe.

Please forward it on."

L. responds:

"I think it's interesting to note that this kind of stuff always circulates without a link or identifier of the original source. I suspect that some hate group thinks that connecting their anti-Moslem beliefs to some imaginary European source will make it seem more authentic, "cultured" etc and legitimate to "sophisticated", educated Jews in the US.

I think it'simportant to note that Islam is the world's largest religion, meaning that there are millions of quiet, industrious, peaceful family people who consider themselves to be Moslem and who are being gathered together inthese ugly generalizations. Such generalizations are meaningless to me indescribing ANY entire group of people and I consider them to resemble the anti-Semitic cartoons the Nazis used to describe the evil, dirty influences that the Jewish culture had on their "superior, innocent, virtuous Aryan people".

If this is, in fact, a real editorial from a Spanish newspaper, I would say it provides evidence that many (notice that I'm not including ALL Spaniards or Europeans in a sweeping generalization) Europeans--if not just Spaniards--haven't learned from the horrors of the Nazi era about the dangers of such racism but have simply found a new group on which to focus their anger, feelings of insecurity and bigotry. If people don't think carefully about such craziness, we will all soon be reliving the horrors of that period. More likely, I think it is an indication of where much of American (including American Jewish) consciousness, is today. G-d help us!

I would also ask Jews to recall the fact that when the rulers of Spain tossed all non-Christians off of the Iberian peninsula, it was this Moslem culture, primarily, that welcomed and tolerated the Jews and nurtured the likes of the physician named Maimonidees. The history of the European darkages is never presented in this country with the story of the Renaissance that was occurring in the Middle East among the Moslem world. You have to dig for it to realize that it wasn't primarily the catholic monks in Europe who carried the developments of ancient Greece through the dark ages to their continued development in Europe, but the continuing enlightenment in the Arab countries. It clearly suits the needs of some western bigots to forget and bury these facts and present a huge part of the world's population as being just genetically inferior.

Sorry, I'm a scientist and a well-read student of the misuse of science and statistics to rewrite history to foster hatred and bigotry. I don't drink that Koolaid as quickly as many others seem to! I have sought out and found beauty in many other cultures including those that are primarily Moslem and am always disgusted to find privileged, educated Jews who should have learned from history how dangerous it is to buy into such hateful garbage. Because of such a prevalence, I truly fear for my children and the other children of this world; the 21st century seems to be following in the violent footsteps of its predecessor. I hope you'll pass around this alternative view...but I don't expect it.
Sorrowfully yours,
L."

Just like that ..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHasRmKMUIM&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pSEd9K-__g&NR

tlat no2at ...
she always says it so smoothly, right from the heart and straight to the heart. no2ta 3al sater.

Rage (pic)

Many things stress me out, much more i get sad about, some frustrate me but i get angry about few things in life ...
i am happy then sad sometimes my emotions cover the spectrum from the ultra euphoric to the infra vehement depressive in the span of a span. I strut around with a flick and a bounce making staccatos with my stilettos then I grump and I slouch and I hide in my couch. I am bipolar and multipolar and I oscillate with unexpected amplitude and heightened attitudes but I get angry about very few things in life …
I get frustrated with details, with endless altercations, with meaningless compilations, with out of tune personalities. With people who talk too much. With stories with no punch lines. With cabs in Manhattan. With waiting for someone without knowing the time. With waiting for someone and knowing the time. With long lines at the supermarket that the best gossip column can’t divert me from. With people who drive too slow. With people who drive too fast, other than myself. With people who talk on the phone next to me, in any social scene. Now, in loud places and at the movies. I get frustrated with slow computers and slow minds and slow speakers and I’m a slow speaker myself. I get frustrated with being sad, with being happy and with being frustrated, but I get angry about very few things in life …
I get stressed out when I get frustrated …

Anger beyond control is a very rare feeling. It is a very rare exercise of our rights as well when its effects surpass us to affect others. It is a rare exercise because, only when rare, it might be understood, forgiven or even accepted.
I give you the right to be introverted but not to hold grudges, to be a loner but not to hurt, even to be passively rude but not purposefully impolite.
Anger is an emotion we allow ourselves based on feelings of moral superiority, based on being wronged and unfairly treated. Anger has to emanate from a tremendous sense of self and sense of one’s worth and it is a feeling completely emotionally detached from others and from the environment. Most examples of anger, and the reactions that it dictates, are acute and result of a sudden feeling of loss or wrong or accumulated frustration that builds up to a moment of exaggerated hate and the need for retaliation. I truly think that the most balanced of us must be able to fire up in anger once we face a subject of hate. Chronic anger is more characteristic of psychosis and a weak psyche in general. It builds up as a result of delusional paranoia and an overwhelming sense of betrayal by family and society that leads to dangerous self-pity. Chronic hate towards a specific subject might exist in all of us once faced with the subject of our hate. It is a conditioned response that will trigger the same reaction. The threshold to our rage depends on the nature of the trigger and how we internally label it.

Anger is then a personal feeling and in most cases might not be a feeling of the moment.

I understand collective hysteria (an aftermath), collective depression and even collective euphoria. Where does collective chronic anger come from?

I will assume that a whole population has the same reason to be angry about so in this case it is not a personal feeling anymore. I will also assume that this whole population cannot be psychotic so a whole population cannot be angry all the time unless it is under collective hypnosis and a severe manipulation of thoughts masquerading as anger. Whole populations brainwashed to believe that they have been wronged to the same extent by the same entity can undergo a wave of collective hysterical rage.

The reasons to get angry being true or false, a person cannot remain angry for a long time and anger might appease into frustration with time unless that anger comes from chronic hate. When we talk about a whole population being ready to fire up in anger at the same time to the same trigger, we have to be talking about chronic hate.

Do we chronically hate each other?
No leader can fire us up so quickly unless we already hate each other …
That is one of the few things that make me angry and I get angry about very few things in life …

My mama is very depressed

My mom is your typical strong smart do-it-yourself, be fair, treat others like you want them to treat you, always look at the positive (la takraho shay2an 3asaho khayran), always throw your sorrow in a prayer to God, always be patient and all will happen in time, Lebanese woman.

Her life was and is her family and children and now her grandchildren. She believes that work is like religion and she worked hard all her life. She loves to paint and to write and she loves her brother and her country and Rafi2 Hariri.

She was not afraid during all the wars we had and she got us through. She took care of her mother and of us under the shelling and this last bombing she got my sisters and my nephews and even my brother-in-law through.

She believes that every human being is prone to error and should be humble and she raised us to never be afraid when we are right. She liked listening to Nasrallah during the July events saying he made sense back then. She is future movement all the way.

She does not support Nasrallah in the recent developments. She thinks this sort of behavior is fueling our sectarian tension and divide. She is with Sanioura with all what he did and is doing and i respect her views and her opinions and i think we should all respect each other's opinions.

My mama got a threatening phone call today at her work. A person she helped a couple of days ago heard her cursing at all politicians, including Nasrallah. He got her extension, as she later found out, from a colleague and he called her to tell her that if she ever says anything about Nasrallah again .... you figure it out!!

A religious leader who can come up with any fatwa whenever he likes and that people follow blindly like a god is now the leader of opposition. It is one thing to oppose the ruling to get equal representation and equal rights. It's one thing to want to take the country in a different direction, politically. To discourage help from any Arabic country and western country, to discourage talking to other countries, to encourage acts of violence, for people to feel oppressed and not free to talk like we did under Syrian control.. What the hell is going on? Where are we heading? I am against hariri and co to say the least and against the american/israeli control in the region but i never gave anyone the right to sell me to Iran or to Syria. I never want to be afraid to say my opinions outloud ...

She said she's depressed ... I told her it's time to leave ...