missing Delirium

DEATH: Del...? That's not for eating. I think it's a table decoration.

DELIRIUM: It's nice. It tastes a bit like forever. I like the way colors taste. Except I don't like crimsons... or turquoises... especially when they put their heads into their shells and won't play. And when you break their shells to let them out, they die...

DEATH: That's turtles, dear. Or tortoises.

DELIRIUM: I think it's turquoise.


~ Neil Gaiman, Sandman series, Chapter Three: In Which We Wake

November 18: Pour Vous

Exactly one year ago, I did something I wanted to do since I joined my current work (i.e. for 2 years before that date). I walked from my office to Zamalek. It was during some hotshot soccer match so the streets were perfectly deserted, and I had an enjoyable stroll with my friend (because I wouldn't cross the corniche to take a cab).

The memory is nothing, or ya3ni not much.. The reason I remember the date is that this date (November 18) is a date I have always noted, for reasons that make no sense to anyone now, but that made some sense to me more than 10 years ago. The fact that this lovely incident took place on that particular date is the only reason I remember when it happened..

And so on that rooftop, over some shared spring rolls, a cup of Turkish coffee, a glass of tea, and a shisha, many stories were told and an interesting friendship was born. Interesting would even be an understatement!

I also remember I was freezing, but too proud (shy?) to admit it.

Concrete Proof of (In)Sanity

I was thinking recently of the reason behind all this, what I write and share here.. I am not entirely a private person, not to my close ones and not to all details, however, I find it a bit "cheap" to share deep and private emotions over a blog for anyone (not worthy enough!) to read.. I realize am a bit judgmental (cheap, not worthy, yes!)..

And this thinking led me to some conclusions.. I do like sharing, but I do not always like relating. I realized, therefore, I was doing this for me. I was doing this to have some concrete proof of my (in)sanity. Taking snapshots of my life. Not necessarily as it is but as it appears to be. Chosen recorded moments, over a span of almost 6 years now. Impressive..

A lot has changed.. Going back and reading, sometimes I don't even understand what made me write something or the other.. Sometimes I even forget that I felt this way about something or someone.

The frequency of posts is proportionate (directly or inversely I don't need to tell!) to the intensity of actions and feelings..

It is like spying on myself from outside my head. I find that amusing! The happiness, the bitterness, the nostalgia, the anger, the cynicism, and -occasionally- the temporary peace..

My concrete proof of sanity.. this time without the doubting parentheses.

تذكرة بانتحار غير مكتمل

موت ثان


حين تعثرون على الجسد
إعملوا له شاهدا من أحمر يليق
وانقشوا عليه
...ولما فرح"
...ضوَى
"فلم يخطئه الردى

..bein el gamar wel thoraya..

ودي صالحة يا صلوح يـــا شمعة القلب والروح
ومنيـــــن آجي واروح وأنا على الفرش مطروح
يا بنــــــــــــات الهنود يا راخييــــــــــن العدايب
وما ترحموا العليـــــل اللي على فرشه نايـــــــم
وافرشوا له سريــــــر ما بين القمر والثريـــــــا
وارموني في بيــــرَكُم وماورد رشوا عليّــــــــا
وماورد رشوا عليّــــا ردوا عليــــــــــا ثيــــابي
خبير دوايــا انا عندكم ولا تحرموني شبـــابــي
يـــــــا ابو محمد سعيد يـــــــا ابو المشالي تلاتة
كيف جرحك لم يطيب والعطر تحت الوســــادة
هيلا هيلا هيلا يلـــــلا آه ياسلام
يا حبيبي باحبك تعالالي آه يا سلام
اتمشى اتمشى وارجع تاني آه يا سلام
ياما سهرنا ع اللوز لاخضر
وبقيت انا املى يا عيني والحلو يشرب
طب هيلا هيلا هيلا يللا آه يا سلام
يا حبيبي باحبك تعالالي آه يا سلام
اتمشى اتمشى وارجع تاني آه يا سلام
وانا اسأل الله كريم يحنن
يا رب حنن يا عيني قلبه عليا
طب هيلا هيلا هيلا يللا آه يا سلام
يا حبيبي باحبك تعالالي آه يا سلام
اتمشى اتمشى وارجع تانى آه يا سلام
مين ف المُحبة المُحبة يعذر
غير اللي جرب يا عيني شاف العذاب أشكال والوان

~ a Tanbura folklore song, and memories of downtown

On Choices

"It will hurt less if you didn't have to choose."
"No it won't. If I will choose, it will be a deliberate choice. Deliberate choices don't hurt."


This has to be the understatement of the year.

...and in front of my eyes is this

... Il est pareil aux dieux, l'homme qui te regarde,
Sans craindre ton sourire, et tes yeux, et ta voix,
Moi, je tremble et je sue, et ma face est hagarde
Et mon cœur est aux abois...
La chaleur et le froid tour à tour m'envahissent ;
Je ne résiste pas au délire trop fort ;
Et ma gorge s'étrangle et mes genoux fléchissent,
Et je connais la mort...


~ Sappho

Colonization

Every time I check the origin label of a tshirt, jeans, or pair of sneakers, and find it's Made in Cambodia, or Vietnam, or Bangladesh, I freak out. I imagine little children with shiny beady eyes stitching up the hand-made work on that blouse. I imagine under-nourished, under-paid, mistreated women who stitch up my jeans or pair of Converse, for less than minimum wage, just to feed their families of shiny beady eyes..

Then I feel infinitely guilty for being part of this humanity. Being part of the colonization.

On a lighter note, I do not feel that when my item is made in China, because I think of it as little oompa-loompa robots doing the work.. I think of it as "internal" rather than external colonization; which somehow makes it better for me.

Am I helping the children or the colonies by buying? Am I going to help them by boycotting? How can I change such a sad sad reality? Is "Fair Trade" a reality or is it just a label we stick on our products to feel less guilty drinking that cup of coffee or wearing that beautiful handmade item?

Jealousy

"Hatred seems to operate the same glands as love: it even produces the same actions. If we had not been taught how to interpret the story of the Passion, would we have been able to say from their actions alone whether it was the jealous Judas or the cowardly Peter who loved Christ?"

~ Graham Greene, The End of the Affair

Gypsy

I had forgotten how much I loved this song and how much it meant... Melancholie..

You come from far away
With pictures in your eyes
Of coffeeshops and morning streets
In the blue and silent sunrise

But night is the cathedral
Where we recognized the sign
We strangers know each other now
As part of the whole design

Oh, hold me like a baby
That will not fall asleep
Curl me up inside you
And let me hear you through the heat

You are the jester of this courtyard
With a smile like a girl’s
Distracted by the women
With the dimples and the curls

By the pretty and the mischievous
By the timid and the blessed
By the blowing skirts of ladies
Who promise to gather you to their breast

Oh, hold me like a baby
That will not fall asleep
Curl me up inside you
And let me hear you through the heat

You have hands of raining water
And that earring in your ear
The wisdom on your face
Denies the number of your years

With the fingers of the potter
And the laughing tale of the fool
The arranger of disorder
With your strange and simple rules

Yes now I’ve met me another spinner
Of strange and gauzy threads
With a long and slender body
And a bump upon the head

Oh, hold me like a baby
That will not fall asleep
Curl me up inside you
And let me hear you through the heat

With a long and slender body
And the sweetest softest hands
And we’ll blow away forever soon
And go on to different lands

And please do not ever look for me
But with me you will stay
And you will hear yourself in song
Blowing by one day

Oh, hold me like a baby
That will not fall asleep
Curl me up inside you
And let me hear you through the heat

Et pourtant si douce

بداركم مشمشة وبدارنا خوخة
يا شجرة المشمشة مالت على الخوخة
حاجي تروح وتجي من تحت هالطاقة
يا رب رشقة مطر والأرض مشتاقة

Imaginary Conversation

"I miss you. Come back."
"But we just spoke for one hour, and we were just together a couple of days back."
"I know. I know, but I miss *you*."
"Hmmm.. okay, I don't know what to say."
"Nothing. I just wanted to acknowledge that I missed you."

INFP

"Under stress, it's not uncommon for INFPs to mis-use hard logic in the heat of anger, throwing out fact after (often inaccurate) fact in an emotional outburst... They focus on the way that the conflict makes them feel, and indeed don't really care whether or not they're right. They don't want to feel badly. This trait sometimes makes them appear irrational and illogical in conflict situations."

lol

Do you think I can refute these claims based on hearsay?

Beurk!

So, thanks to round-eyed Nunu, I can now be disgusted in French!

how cool..

Pessimism..

Diwan Heliopolis

The upstairs cafe on a Thursday night..

A girl in her 20's sitting with 3 guys in their early 20s discussing some business or group of a sort.. I'm a couple of meters away from them so it is -as always- easy to eavesdrop. Apparently the girl represents some company that recruits salespeople who work from home and get paid only on commission based on performance by end of year, etc.. Something that sounds too fishy and slightly too good to be true.. For some reason, she is only addressing one of the guys. The other two seem like they are the guy's friends, but also like they are already in the girl's team somehow.

The guy -as all guys do- is trying to act 'fetek'. Like he is asking all the "right" questions, and what if this, and what if that, and what guarantees, etc. But it also seems he's game..

So in the middle of it all, I hear a sentence that was going to make me laugh out loud.

Girl: so, f aswa2 el zoroof, you will have 10 contacts.

Guy: tayeb, howa fee aswa2 men aswa2 el zoroof?

Girl: Enta motasha2em bardo?

I thought they called it aswa2 el zoroof for a reason..

des lettres qu'on ne poste pas

"When that anger sets in, WRITE IT! Write the letters. But don't send them. You never want to leave concrete proof of insanity."

~ Jane Fonda

Software Ageing and the Single Girl

So, while AN was studying for her midterm in Software Maintenance, she came across this one and felt it was too good to pass..

"....The software has aged even though nobody has touched it. It has actually aged because nobody bothered to touch it."

Fascinating how women are just like software..

The End of the Affair

"The sense of unhappiness is so much easier to convey than that of happiness. In misery we seem aware of our own existence, even though it may be in the form of a monstrous egotism: this pain of mine is individual, this nerve that winces belong to me and to no other. But happiness annihilates us: we lose our identity."

~ Graham Greene, The End of the Affair

p.s. Can you smell the air in the photograph too?

Monochrome

"I began dividing life in absolutes... Things and people were either perfectly bad, or perfectly good, and when life didn't obey this black-and-white rule, when things or people were complex or contradictory, I pretended otherwise. I turned every defeat into a disaster, every success into an epic triumph, and separated all people into heroes or villains. Unable to bear ambiguity, I built a barricade of delusions against it."

~ J. R. Moehringer


p.s. Thank you Nerro for the stolen quote.

Si méchante