The List

Yeah. I AM getting older. For one thing, I am slowly, very slowly realizing that there IS such a thing as too much television. You know, the old I-Need-To-Stop-Watching-And-Start-Living-eroo.

For another thing, my birthday is coming up. I’ll be 24 in about 4 days’ time. Wow. When I was younger, I thought by the age of 21, I’d have my own house, my own car, and be fiercely independent and career-oriented. Like I said, too much television, especially considering I had always envisioned myself living in Jeddah for the rest of my very debatable life. Of course now I am about 3 years older than my hitherto imagined self, I still live in Jeddah at my parents’ house, women still aren’t allowed to drive, and I am not only fiercely dependent on everybody else including the hobo that lives on the street next to our house, I am also very career-confused and very lame-jokey.

A-hey-ny-way-hey. Here it is, my wishlist for the annual celebration of my mediocrity, which is organized into categories:

The Radical

-A vanity set with a huge mirror with dressing-room lights around the frame

-An iMac, any color

-2 months worth of sessions with a psychiatrist (so I could, of course, talk about nothing but myself – an elitist alternative to this tedious blogging business)

-3 bottles of Smirnoff Mules, alcoholic

-A Nokia N95

-Weight loss. Or okay, a gym membership. Ha ha ha.

The Super

-A lens upgrade for my Nikon

-A guitar signed by a real (performing) guitarist/s

-Jewelry (I’m allergic to silver and I prefer white gold)

-A 30gb iPod, white

-BOSE headphones

The Fabulous-o

-Music CDs (John Legend, India Arie, Marvin Gaye, Eryka Badu, et al.)

-A bottle of Chanel Chance perfume, the green one

-Mascara, Max Factor (in the spirit of elitism, and because I’m allergic to all other brands)

-A T-Shirt that says Nessreen in the front, and “I don’t have friends, they all call me Master” in the back

-A watch

-Books, books, books!! *evil, greedy laugh* For a list of the books I already own, please go here

-A photo-shoot of all my friends with me as the photographer

-The Sopranos DVD set

Disclaimers

- You are under no obligation to get me anything for my birthday, as I never celebrated my birthday up until last year, and I’m not used to receiving birthday presents, hence the audacity. Except if you’re reading this. THEN, you really MUST get me something out of courtesy. I mean, in my country... so on and so forth.

The Gray Anatomy

"Nobody knows where we might end up.. Nobody knows..
Suppose we never know?"

Grey’s Anatomy moves me. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m me, and I live vicariously through the movies and the TV shows that I love to watch. Or if it’s because this one inspires me to be better at my job, pushes me to do my best and make a difference in people’s lives, pushes me to love and respect what I do. Or if it’s because it makes me realize that I AM an important member of this community that is behind the success of one company. Or if it just makes me sad to think that if I’d done better in school, if I’d made better decisions, that I’d be so much more than I am right now. Maybe I would’ve been a good doctor, maybe a great lawyer. I know this is just me, the slave to society, speaking. How bad is it to be a teacher, an excellent teacher, if it means I’m helping my family at the same time I’m supporting a company – two things that are bigger than myself? Why do I have to be a cliché?

Why can’t I be content with what good I’m getting from my current situation – considering my achievements or lack thereof?

Why is it so hard to accept the fact that maybe, just maybe, this is what I was always meant to do?

Why does it feel like I’m always just settling for second best? All the friggin time? And why am I stuck in a rut when I should be flourishing at this age, when I should be pushing myself to my greatest potential? What IS my greatest potential? I never had the chance to find out. I don’t know if I ever will.

“Waking is better than sleeping.”

And yet, every day at work, when I go out with my friends, when I get home, I can’t wait to sleep. I might have mastered the art of time suckage without even knowing it.

“Why do I keep hitting my head with a sledgehammer? Because it feels SO GOOD when I stop.”

***

Dr Grey reminds me so much of Jehanifah. The straight hair & that fringe, the scrubs, the shirt-sleeves underneath the scrub, the eyes that look like she's just woken up. Why was I even surprised when I found out that she watches this show? I so know she would be attached to it as much as I am. We are both suckers for hard work, excellence, and prestige disguised as profundity, indifference, and good-quality sweaters. Yes, this has always been our bond. Cold weather coupled with warm comforts like cigarettes, cups of coffee, epiphanies, and cashmere. And that’s what I think of when I watch Dr Grey. I don’t even like her character. She is too... fluid. She doesn’t have clear lines, she is all fuzzy. I can’t tell where she begins and where she ends. She is a mishmash of too many personalities.

Stay Tuned

The thing about TV shows that are narrated in the first person is that it is far from real life. Think Grey’s Anatomy, Scrubs, Sex and the City. Each episode usually starts off with the main character telling the story of the day, and then ends with some epiphany or other. It wouldn’t bother me so much if the epiphanies weren’t as vague or redundant or slightly stupid as they usually are most days.

“I made my way home and that’s when I realized, we HAVE to be who we are.”

Or “It suddenly struck me that people do the things they do for a reason.”

Gimme a break.

The thing of it is that we watch these people stumble through their daily lives, their jobs, and then ultimately idolize them. We find ourselves the following day waking up and acting like there’s a whole crew of people videotaping our lives. Then we make our way home and start realizing equally meaningless things. I do it more and more each day. Only last night, I was in the car on the way home when I realized, people ARE different from each other, even if they’re all the same.

It’s funny, isn’t it. People started making movies to imitate real life. But now, people live their lives in imitation of movies. (See what I mean about epiphanies?)

Of course, before these TV shows, there was MTV. I still remember when I was in my early teens, when my friends and I lived our lives like it was a drawn-out music video. If you’re a bastard child of the 80s, you know what I’m talking about. The Slow-Mo Syndrome, we call it. If you had a problem, you sit prettily by the edge of your bed, cry theatrical tears, have flashbacks of happier times in slow motion, and pretend you were a teen pop star singing a ballad. The flashbacks were the best part. They usually involve a group of pretty young things with their heads thrown back in laughter, spraying each other with water. Slow motion is key.

In real life, of course, flashbacks aren’t that vivid or detailed. In real life, there are no epiphanies, except if you’ve had too much to drink. In real life, there isn’t always a story to tell, there isn’t always a moral lesson.

As I wrap up this entry, I realize that life isn’t always what it’s supposed to be. At the end of the day, we are who we are. People go on with their lives, and most of the time, so do I.