The Mind Dump

My favorite chair in the house is a black and white two-seater couch with detachable cushions. It used to be in my room. It now rests in the living room, where I usually sit until 5 or 6 in the mawnin, armed with laptop, iPod and cigarettes in pocket, waiting for that elusive phenomenon some people like to call Sleep.

What do I like to take with me everywhere? Let's see. My iPod, for one. My point-and-shoot whose features Souma and I were DSLR-snobbing just last night. My 2 phones, one of them really Summer's, but she has given it to me. Yes, she has. I keep these four things in a small, black Sony bag originally intended for my humangus headphones. I always carry a bottle of perfume, right now, Burberry Sheer Pink. I usually have at least 2 lighters in my bag, one of which is probably stolen from one of my smoker friends. I might also have a book in my bag, or a really rumpled 6-week-old copy of Time magazine, for when I choose not to walk around with my friends and stay back at a restaurant or cafe with a smoking area. I don't do wallets because I usually don't have any money anyway. 

My father has very precise handwriting. He jumps from casual scribble, to playful print, to pompous cursive, to full-blown calligraphy in both English and Arabic. He is cheating, of course, since he is an artist. He has more control of his handwriting's moods, and they usually don't betray what he's feeling at that moment. My mother has only one kind of handwriting. She doesn't do print, and her cursive has that distinct g-y curve, and small trails and loops on her Rs and Ps.

I remember school when I was very young. My earliest memory is coming home in the afternoon feeling extremely carsick, changing from my uncomfortable school uniform into my sun-dress, and coloring in the thick, white fonts of the Ikea catalogues of the 1980s. I would go through each page, ignore the furniture, and go straight for the labels, the captions, and painstakingly fill in each letter with a different color.

When I was little, I used to look forward to my parents grocery-shopping. It was such a treat to be chosen as The One. We were a whole army of kids, and it would've been mayhem to take all of us. Instead, my parents would choose 2 or 3 of us to go with them, while the rest are left at home. The good thing about being picked, is that we got to buy candy and push the buggy. The thing is, it was also such a treat to be left at home. Being left at home meant we didn't have to help with the grocery bags, and we had the house all to ourselves, wreaking havoc in all the rooms of the apartment. We could be as loud as we wanted, play basketball inside the house, pretend we were the World Wrestling Entertainment (I always wanted to be Rey Mysterio or at least one of the Wolf Pack gang, but of course I always just ended up as a "spectator"), and just literally Laugh Out Loud.

College for me was fun in the first half. I was filled with hope and idealism. By the third year, I had become too brooding and self-deprecating to hang out with my old high school friends. I spent the last quarter of college in my room with, again my brothers, and many many bottles of beer between us. If I wasn't there, I was at Sarah's with my college posse. 

Let's say I had the chance to leave a note before I died. The note would read: "You will never guess the passwords, suckers." I might want to write something profound that will resonate with angst and hidden meanings, but I would force myself not to.

The first time I fell in love, I was 17 or 18. I was in love for about 20 days. I can't remember why now, but I remember what it was like. It was a winter month, and I was always cold, I remember, I always had a jacket or a sweater, and I was always on the phone or out with him, and he was one of our childhood friends. By the 20th day, everything just fizzled, as expectizzled. He remains a good friend. 

I would put letters in a time capsule. Letters to people I haven't yet met, but will meet in the future. It will all be, of course, about me, but isn't that what writing is about? Everything is about the author. Whatever they tell you, however much they talk about something or someone else, it's always about the author.

We don't celebrate Christmas, but I have a favorite Christmas. It was 2004, the year I got to spend a whole week with all of my siblings, except for Omar who was in Riyadh, and Ayman and Othman who were both in Jeddah. Adnan made us some secret-recipe margaritas, Waleed, Zen and Pollock cooked and bbq-ed, Amir sang on the karaoke with me and my sister, and my sister's son MD snuck whole plates of food out to the stray cats and dogs. We hadn't been able to get together, all of us, for years at the time, and I don't know when we will be able to do that again. Nothing connects us now, except rusty telephone lines.

I don't like rainbows. Much.

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This was a creative writing exercise called The Mind Dump. Thank you for participating.