Moving House

Hello, reader. I'm closing down this blog soon. I have moved to a new blogsite. For the new address, please email me.

Thank you for reading me. It's been great.

Kids

Kids have cooties. Boys AND girls.

This is the number one reason I avoid dealing with them as much as I possibly can. They're little people who have no control over their emotions; all of their emotions are insanely heightened. When they're happy, they're HAPPY. When they're angry, they're ANGRY. When they're hungry, oh they're HUNGRY. When they're sad, you get the gist. 

They know no social, political or socio-economic boundaries.

They have no control over the range of their voices. Decibels to them is a name given to a mystical community of mermaids and mermen. 

They say things they're not supposed to, and then they don't say things they're supposed to.

They have very limited vocabulary.

They don't have a sense of limitations, they don't know when to stop. Repetition is funny to them. How crass. 

Their characters are underdeveloped. Like Sylar. No, like Mohinder Suresh. No, like Parkman. 

They don't have finesse, no appreciation for art, or the senses. 

They think the manifestation of power lie solely in physical outbursts. How asinine. How utterly crass.

Kids. Unimpressive.

I don't know why people have them.

Maybe they remind me too much of myself, or of the things I want to be now, me, a non-kid. 

I'm *fortunate* enough to have the *magnificent* opportunity to always be surrounded by kids. Yes, I started teaching kids again after a whole year. Well, it was a fun first day. My class consisted of a bunch of 10-11 year old children who were so bursting with fruit flavor that all I wanted to do was take a stick and bang it on the board twice to shock them into silence. I did the next best thing: stare at them quietly for a few minutes. It worked. Once I got their attention, I took their attendance, had them introduce themselves, and start on their classwork. It was fun. I referred to them as ladies and gentlemen. It was almost a business 101 class. I'm quite proud of them. At the end of the class, they pushed their chairs in, cued up quietly and left. 

I like kids who understand my power. *snicker*

***

The best kids class I ever taught was 2 years ago, a level 4 English class, a smart funny artsy ridiculously insane group of kids. I miss them now. I came across a piece of paper they all wrote on and handed to me on the very last day of class. It's filled with inside jokes, the kind of stuff I cherish.

(sic)

to my favorite teacher ms nesreen, I wish for you a happy future. good by mr cris*. 

Raba'a

dear mr. cris, Hi and bye and I wish you will be lean again ;-) and I wish your next B-4* are worse than yours now. good by. miss nissreen i wish you will become mrs.!!! don't forget us.

Aliah

Thank you for teaching me and you are a good teacher and good luck in you life and don't eat a lot! and if I saw Adnan Fallatah* I will tell him my teacher says hello.

Yazeed

Thank you for study me mr cris and I wish you have good life.

Ibrahim

Hi Hi to my teacher thanks for you to be my teacher & for helping me. I wish to see you another time.

from Shams (Maha!)

* Inside the classroom, we each had alter-egos. Mine was Mr. Cris, the know-it-all 50-year-old English teacher with a horrible British accent.

* B-4 is the name they gave to their class.

* Adnan Fallatah of the Ittihad football club was a favorite classroom meme. All the students were hard-core Ittihad fans.

I ran into a couple of these students early this year. They've all grown up, shed the cooties, moved on to teenage drama. Me? I'm still racing around the teacher's room in a swivel chair.

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.

***

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

I Think It's...

Sweet when people wave good bye without actually waving, with just a firm hand, like a frozen high-five.

 

Sweet when your friends and your other friends get along so well that it doesn't feel like you introduced them to each other, like they'd known each other forever. Friends-in-law.

 

Sweet when you receive presents that may otherwise be extraordinarily ordinary, and yet are just what you need or want. Like bookends. A snapshot of you in mid-laugh. A candy bar.

 

Sweet when people tilt their heads sideways a little bit and smile at you across the noise in a huge room.

 

Sweet when people look out into the wide unknown and contemplate their future, with that preoccupied look on their face.

 

Sweet when sunlight shines through the curtains and tiny, little nothings float around in the sunlight.

 

Sweet when you catch people smile into their pillows first thing in the morning.

 

Sweet when you close your eyes against a cool breeze, sun-kist.

 

Sweet when you hear a song you could've written.

 

Sweet when someone remembers.

 

Sweet.

 

 

And a little romance never hurt anyone.

- 14 November 2007

Definition of Madness?

Noun. A moment in one's life when, inexplicably, wrong just seems right.

What do Ted Bundy (serial killer), Albert Einstein (theoretical physicist), Dave Chapelle (crazy) and I have in common?

Yep. I'm a murderer, a genius, and all kinds of crazy. Also, I broke my fast for a cigarette.

The thing about moments of madness is that there's always an after-party in your head, where the guests are guilt, remorse, and a trapped feeling of knowing you will have to pay for your sins sometime in the foreseeable future. 

The question is, is the fleeting euphoria associated with it worth all the trouble?

If I can bottle the guilt that comes after this "crime of passion", I might just solve the energy crisis.

Here is, instead, a list of situations that, put together, might equal the guilt of breaking fast for no reason other than a futile assertion of cool. Might.

* Skipping a credit card payment.

* Cancelling a class.

* Calling in sick at work to laze around with friends.

* Not returning prized DVDs of close friends.

* Sneaking out of a parent's house.

* Sneaking peeks at a sibling's diary.

* Flinging a mobile phone across the room in anger.

* Eloping.

* Lying.

* Shopping mindlessly during sale season.

* Not paying a restaurant bill because they missed a charge.

* Joking at the expense of someone else.

* Using the work phone to make overseas calls.

* Stealing someone else's lighter.

* Not removing make-up before sleep. 

* Avoiding a phone call.

* Wearing an outrageous outfit at a relative's wedding.

* Getting drunk at an office party.

I hate morning-afters, and their counterparts.

Remembering The Tinman

Broken hearts have terrible memories. They forget what it was like.

*****


So this is what heartbreak is.

You feel so crushed you're almost numb. You're sitting there, with your jittery hands, and your pounding heart, and your averted gaze, and your embarrassing nails, and your out-of-place bag, and your unwanted food, and you are crushed.


You almost believed it. For the first time in years, you remember The Tinman, who stole your heart, the smile from your face.

What robber, what thief, who took away the part so essential to the whole, who stole your heart, who took it away, knowing that without it you can't live.

You had faith in this, that it would work, because it was so unexpected, because it came to you at a time when you weren't looking, or expecting anything from anyone of such close proximity.

Sometimes, before tonight, you would mentally shake yourself, and hit yourself on the back of the head, and suspect that there is some dark magic involved that made you so preoccupied with him, that dark magic you've only ever heard of, that dark magic that manipulates vulnerable souls into thinking they are attracted to someone.

Sometimes, the shaking and the hitting would work for a few seconds, and you would convince yourself that you were right; why else would you be so besotted by someone you wouldn't ordinarily be besotted by. Why else? But it would only last a few minutes, and then you're back to the kidding-yourself.



Was it a trickster using mirrors and sleight of hand

A strong elixir or a potion that you drank?

Who hurt your heart

Bruised it in a place?



And some neighborhoods away, there lies your friend in her bed, crying her eyes out because you know her and you know that she IS crying, and you feel her pain, a pain that is probably identical to yours. And you want to share with her the story of the Tinman, but you know you can't because you've kept so much from her. You are so crushed that no tears come to your eyes.



You are so embarrassed that you said the things you said. You would think you knew better.



You are crushed by the images that cross your mind, of a happy ever after that will never be yours.



You are reminded by all the things that you don't have that could be the reason behind this loneliness. You are reminded by the profoundness of the pathetic situation you are in, of how deeply sorry it is. You are reminded of the neglect that is the only thing you possess, neglect of self, neglect by others, neglect by friends, neglect by family.



You are forced to rise from this. You are forced to pretend nothing happened, that there was no heartbreak, that you didn't have to give up anything because you never owned up to anything to begin with.



Your arms feel weak, your knees.



And you feel even worse by your friends' concern for you. That their concern should explicitly imply that you have, in fact, lost before you've even begun the game.



You are now forced to dust yourself off, and to remind yourself over and over again: Wrong person, wrong time.



Remind yourself, over and over and over:




If you can tear down the walls
Throw your armor away, remove all roadblocks, barricades
If you can forget there are bandits and dragons to slay
And don't forget that you defend an empty space
And remember, the Tinman
Found he had what he thought he lacked
Remember the Tinman
Go find your heart and take it back


Who stole your heart?
Maybe no one can say
One day you will find it I pray...



You are forced to convince yourself that everything's gonna be alright, from here on out. If you just hold yourself together. Like you always have.



*****

Citations Needed

The Berlitz Wikipedia

Instructor's Manual (n) bulky book you take everywhere, presumably to prepare lessons. Main purpose is to cause extreme discomfort on account of its heaviness. To be read in the car on the way to work for maximum cramming.

Student (n) the number one cause of violence and thoughts of murder.

Cleaning Lady (n) i.e. Khala Zahrah; person who witnesses increasing signs of teacher madness, when you deliberately slide down the hallways en route to your class. *cough*

Break Time (n) a 15-minute-period between classes dedicated to catching up on gossip and acquiring any number of diseases from 2nd-hand smoke.

Thursday (n) when the countdown starts for Saturday, when you have to work again.

Friday (n) the day you spend being miserable about tomorrow being Saturday, when you have to work again.

Saturday (n) damn it.

Senior Instructor (n) instructors who have been working at Berlitz for at least 2 years, who can't stop talking about WadhHa, the greatest center director of all time.

Junior Instructor (n) new instructors who are probably getting really tired of hearing about it.

Cafeteria Lady (n) person who knows when an instructor is PMS-ing, based on how much candy and chocolate the instructor consumes.

Twix (n) the Berlitz instructor's kryptonite.

Bulletin Board (n) where you should post a document you don't want anyone to read.

Receptionist (n) person whose job all instructors want.

WadhHa (n) the greatest center director of all time.

Snort, Snort

My dahling friends. I know you're all planning on getting me some ridiculously expensive birthday present, or getting me a really hot dude inside a huge cake, or a new Mac, or expensive photographer stuff I won't know how to use (but will be happy to own and show off).

You don't have to.

All I want this year is for you guys to be with me on my birthday, and that is enough.

Okay, I lie.

I also want books. More books. Muwahahaha!! MUHUWAHAHAHAHA!! (That's supposed to be the evil laugh behind the closed doors, Sonja and Linzi.)

Lots and lots of books.

So here's a list of books that I want to hoard. I have divided them into categories, so that it's easier for you to judge me and my taste in books.

***
FICTION:

1. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera
2. Baudolino by Umberto Eco
3. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
4. The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure by Michael Henry Heim
5. Then We Came To The End by Joshua Ferris
6. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
7. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
8. The Coma by Alex Garland
9. Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami
10. Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen
11. Lord of the Flies by William Golding

***
NON FICTION:

1. On Bullshit by Harry Frankfurt
2. 21 Nights by Prince (I totally love this, by the way)
3. Poor People by William T. Vollmann
4. The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature by Steven Pinker
5. The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
6. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks
7. The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness by Elyn R. Saks
8. Testosterone, Inc: Tales of CEOs Gone Wild by Christopher Byron
9. The Emperors of Chocolate by Joel Glenn Brenner
10. Her Husband by Diane Middlebrook
11. Ash Wednesday by Ethan Hawke (I think he's hot.)

***
COMIC / GRAPHIC NOVELS:

1. A Million Little Pieces of Feces by Python Bonkers
2. Cosmic Banditos by A.C. Weisbecker
3. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
4. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
5. V For Vendetta by Alan Moore


I could go on forever, except I think I lost you at NONFICTION.
Anyhoo. Some of the books here, especially the fiction ones, are available at Jarir. The rest are only available in remote countries like Trkalejhooli (true story).

Of course, if you know me, you know that I read just about anything anyway, so you can just get me any book by any author, except Dan Brown.

I can't wait to not have the time to read the books!!

Thank you (in advance)!! I promise to be very happy, and to not be online so much.

PS Stop muttering "nerd" under your breath. I can hear you.

xoxo

It Does

Everything happens for a reason.

(That reason is, most probably, me.)

*snicker, snicker*

The Self-Help

To get rid of arrogance:

Read the following. Repeat 5 times. Flush out arrogance from system, as it apparently serves no purpose.

I am the language you never learned

I am the clique you are excluded from

I am the shutter speed, the ISO

I am that little smile from across the room

I am the twinkle in the eye

I am the future contemplated

I am the preoccupation

I am the wide unknown

I am the sunshine through the window

And then I am the tiny little nothings that float around in that sunlight

I am the "sleight of hand"

I am the "strong elixir"

I am the alternate ending

I am that snapshot of you mid-laugh

I am the bookends

I am the tilt of head sideways

I am the flip of hair

I am that wave you missed

I am the karate chop

I am the monochrome

I am the "lighter to the cigarette"

I am the mother's superior

I am the preposition of place

I am every man woman child you never met

I am the sixth degree of separation

I am the shindig: you can't stop, you're addicted

I am the right place, the right time

I am the manifestation the infiltration the self-validation

I am Billie Jean, and the kid IS his son

I am the pop culture

I am the shit, shit, rebel, rebel

I am the moments before you drift off to sleep

I am the heartfelt laughter, the hahahaha

I am the soup Nazi

I am the new unread message

I am the sound of light

I am The Great White Hope

I am all the books you never read

I am the lyrics

I am the song that nobody knows

I am the baby's smile

I am the wine glass

I am the killing blow

I am the subject and I am the object

I am the new car smell the fresh laundry the Crabtree & Evelyn

You know what? I am The Body Shop.

I am the "nonsense that exercises your brain"

I am the before and I am the after

I am the sunrise and the sunset and the fear of commitment

I am the attitude

I am The Beatle

I am the velvet rope

I am the supercalifra-

I am the dream that came true

I am the original high



You got nothing on me

Who the f*ck are you?

How To Be A Photographer

~




Like most everything else, there's the long way, and then there's the short, easy way. If you're smart, you listen to me.

Here are the top ten short, easy ways to be a photographer. Pencils ready, ladies.

1. Nikon VS Canon.

Pick a side. With Canon, You Can. With Nikon, You Can And You WILL. It's a war, people.

2. Express yourself.

Insert the sentence "I'm a photographer myself" in your conversations every chance you get. There's no point if nobody else knows it but you.

3. Network, network, network.

Make fast friends with photographers. Join an organization. Hopefully, their photography jargon will rub off on you.

4. Show it off.

Use the jargon you learned on non-photographers. Speak photographese to them . Deliberately make comments they won't understand, like "Well, this is an excellent picture, but it lacks composition. Also, the exposure level could've been adjusted to highlight the foreground, you know what I mean?" Then quickly walk away.

5. Don't say picture, say photograph.

They are two very different things.

6. Philosophize.

Take random photos of ordinary things and elaborate on their profundity. For example, take a photo of the edge of a table, and title it "The Edge of Reason".

7. Accessorize!

Buy equipment you don't know how to use. Buy books on photography and don't read them. But make sure to display them.

8. The joke is on you.

Tell jokes that end with, "... it's the white balance that's the problem, not your eyesight! Hahaha! Get it? White balance! Hahaha!" Smack the person for effect.

9. Cuss like a photographer.

Train yourself to drip with ISO sarcasm. Condemn your enemies to the hellfires of camera-settings ignorance.

10. Give advice.

It's time to give back to society. Help other aspiring photographers. Write an article. Lead a workshop. Open a Photographers Anonymous forum. Extol on the virtues of the Nikon.

And don't forget to be condescending.

Previously, on "The World Revolves Around Nessreen"...

~

I'D LIKE TO GIVE TITLES to each of my blog entries, in the tradition of all these new TV shows. I'd like the titles to be titles of songs. Even though my life isn't nearly half as eventful as even the most boring episode of these TV shows. I can hear myself narrate the events as they happen in my own personal Meredith Grey voice.

I'D LIKE TO TELL A story in each entry, to have a cohesive beginning and ending, to have a moral lesson, and to have a vague little one-liner at the end.

IN EVERY EPISODE, I'D LIKE that guy with the deep voice to refresh my readers' memories with his usual line: Previously, on Nessreen's Highly-Anticipated and Followed Life..., followed by little flashbacks of my theatrics and histrionics of the past week.

AS A SPECIAL TREAT FOR my loyal readers, my TV-like blog would be linked to a YouTube video clip of a gag reel of my bloopers. Little mistakes here and there where I would, together with my co-stars, burst out laughing, or make funny faces and sounds, or mispronounce a word, or say "f*ck" and have it bleeped.

IT WOULD ALSO HAVE A behind-the-scenes commentary special blog entry. Watch me talk about myself for a good half hour. Fun stuff.

Now how about that.

Do Not Valentine!

In their attempt to put out the infidel flames of Valentine celebrations, the "authorities" have successfully, albeit inadvertently, made people more aware of Valentine’s Day than they ever were. Take for instance the story of a man who just happened to be wearing his red shirt that day. He was apprehended, lectured, reprimanded and sent home to change his red-shirt-wearing ways. The man head-scratchingly goes home, marks his calendar for next year: VALENTINE’S DAY, MUST ABSTAIN FROM RED, and proceeds to tell everyone in his circle about what happened to him.

8 out of 10 people he told had either forgotten, not known or simply not cared about Valentine’s Day. Those 8 people went home to THEIR calendars and marked them correspondingly, and also proceeded to tell THEIR circle of friends. 8 out of 10 people each of those 8 people told had either forgotten, not known, so on and so forth, you get the picture. It’s a little like Pay It Forward, or the Six Degrees of Separation theory, or, ultimately, like Facebook. They might as well have their own group or application on Facebook. Or wait, they actually might already have one.

February 14 in Jeddah is now like February 14 in any Valentine-celebrating city, except people are trying harder to inform everyone else about the alleged insignificance of this wildly popular and uncelebrated celebrated holiday.

Here’s how it is purposely not celebrated in Jeddah. We have any number of urban legends and freak stories about it. Men in long beards and long cloaks allegedly roam the streets in search of people wearing or carrying – and in the process, promoting - the color red. The following items are absolute profanities: red shirts, red caps, red shoes, and if you’re wearing red pants and your name ain’t Michael Jackson, you really deserve to be in prison. Heart shapes and flowers are deeply discouraged, red or otherwise, and flower shops are known to be surrounded by cops and maybe a couple of idiots who haven’t heard of my story of the man in the red shirt and are therefore still trying to buy flowers for their 12-year-old girlfriends. If we are patient, within a few seconds, the idiots will hopefully be shot to death. Restaurants are earmarked in case more of these idiots survived the flower shop drama and are now in the middle of dates with said girlfriends. For the ladies, it has been said that red nail polish and hot red lipstick attract attention you don’t want on this day. In supermarkets, malls and shops, any product remotely related to hearts, flowers, red, love and Michael Jackson are pulled off the shelves. So far, I’ve only heard jokes about red cars, and apparently, only the shimag [red-and-white checked headdress for men] can pull off the color red on this highly-charged day.

So what exactly happens when someone is caught not not-celebrating Valentine’s Day? More urban legends. Supposedly, there is a camp on the outskirts of Jeddah where these violators are thrown and imprisoned for an unknown length of time. As punishment, they are forced to listen to Tamer Hosni love songs all day and all night. To make it even worse, everytime “love” is mentioned in the song, they bleep it out. Ah, the agony.

Valentine’s Day was never a part of Saudi culture or religion. People should start respecting law, culture, and more importantly, religion. I mean, let’s talk open-minded here.

Aren’t we always the first to volunteer the fact that we are open-minded? What constitutes open-mindedness? Respect for another individual’s opinions and beliefs. The power to, in the words of The Beatles, Let It Be. To be able to listen to someone talk about their culture and not mock, or in any way offend them. When the National Association Of People Who Make Up And Release Cliche Sayings And Proverbs (NAPWMURCSP for short) said: “When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” they really meant: “When in INSERT NAME OF COUNTRY, do as the INSERT NATIONALITY OF PEOPLE FROM SAID COUNTRY do.” Trust me, I was an honorary member of the organization.

So how about, for now, let’s respect? No more crazy talk about the Day of Love, at least until next year. Mark your calendars, errbody. And stay away from Michael Jackson.

Pride

There is a part of us, some section of our brain that communicates to us that there is, somewhere in our hearts, compassion for the human race. We feel the injustice, we are enveloped in that sadness, that empathetic helplessness when someone is being grossly maltreated. We feel in ourselves that desire to better our person, to avoid being one of those people who dole out prejudice and bias, that urge to erase those people off completely.

I do not have black skin, I am not of African descent. Whatever discrimination and antagonism I get from other people where my race is concerned isn’t even half of what others get. But I feel. I empathize. I strive to make others feel as minimally pre-judged as possible.

I do resent the fact that films like Pride sensationalize something that some people have worked so hard to wipe out. Now that the Afro-Americans have it better going than ever before, these films relight that fire, that anger, that resentment. People have different reactions to success stories like these. Some might withdraw from a certain level of socializing with those that caused so much pain to their forebears, while others, as what the producers directors writers probably initially envisioned, use it positively: as a means to value their fortunate predicaments, their current status, to remember what they have fought for and not take it all for granted.

Still, I respect. I understand. Or at least I try. It can’t be easy.

I get a small taste of this pain every time I have to deny my nationality and state my fake Americanism. It’s all ok, only a means to an end, until I start believing the lies. It gets dangerous when I do forget who I really am and get sucked into a lifestyle, an entity that is really not mine.

I love all the undertones and overtones of this film. I especially love the feelings of determination and eventual success that it inspires. I feel like I can do anything. I feel like I can apply these things to my daily activities, to my job, to my health, to my family life. I love the splash of water as the swimmers dive into the pool, that perceptible muting of sound as soon as they are submerged, and the fight they fight as they swim for the win. It’s all very metaphoric.

I love the photography. I love noticing the subtle and the significant differences between still photography and movement. I love acknowledging and appreciating the fact that it took a lot of motivation, a lot of hard work to finish a piece of artful storytelling and showing such as this film.

I love watching Terrence Howard and that held-back aggression he possesses, the one that radiates from his oddly coloured eyes, from the set of his mouth, and his unsteady but no less strong voice. He was noticeably more fit in this film, and absolutely hotter than ever. I love his posture, and his walk, and his shoulders, his unrefined hands, his laugh. It’s amazing how much respect he inspires, just by being such a multi-faceted actor, a dynamic talent. He has so many faces, so many angles to his character: he can be a thug and a highly-educated black man at the exact same time.

This film moved me.

The Thobe Identity

A couple of nights back, some friends and I decided to hang out by the Corniche. We drove along the long stretch of seaside looking for a spot to sit and have our dinner and meaningless conversations. We would check the people already sitting to gauge the safety of the spot of our choice. Finally, we decided to sit some distance from a group of guys that looked harmless. They weren't loud, they weren't playing music, they weren't monkeying around, and they didn't seem to be wearing thobes.

As we unpacked and got ready to settle down, one of the guys from that group stood up. He was, in fact, wearing a thobe. There was an undeniable pause and an audible gasp from our group. Crap. We just might get harassed after all.

We ended up staying anyway, and the guys left us alone. We weren't assaulted.

***

"You don't change the city; the city changes you."

This city suffers from acute racism. Discrimination, stereotyping, prejudice, bias, judgment, typecasting, labeling, you name it whatever politically incorrect *gasp* scandalous term you want, it's here. It's such a commonplace thing to do that it has become a valid justification.

Here's a snippet of a typical conversation:

"Oh, that's horrible! Why do you think that happened?"

"What do you expect? He is *insert nationality after changing tone to one of disgust*."

"Ah." *insert bright background beam of enlightenment*

Yeah, what a shame, since there are people from all kinds of countries and cultures residing here. We are the ultimate cliché of a melting pot.

There are layers of discrimination, too. It's very organized-crime-ish.

People here are divided into two:

1. The locals, i.e. Saudis
2. The foreigners, i.e. expatriates

The locals are further subdivided into:

1. The Bedouins. People that are so backward-thinking that they slam against their own backs. They buy techie gadgets and sacreligiously misuse them. They are blind followers of ancient cultural norms; they stink of the sand from the deserts and the tents from whence they come. They wear unflattering sacks they call clothes and even though they have kept up with fashion trends, they're still 10 years behind. They drink their coffee, and talk their talk, and dance their dance, and sing their music, all of them painfully old-fashioned and out-of-date.
2. The New Age Saudis. You see them cruising around with their expensive cars and their trendy thobes and gilded abayas, speaking their English, drinking their franchise-café lattes. They shop in high-end boutiques and they smell of French perfume. They tell stories of summer vacations in Europe and they live for big family matches and milkahs and weddings. They are "open-minded", they are Western, they are upper middle upper-middle class. The young men with their raging hormones chasing after the young women at malls. The young women inviting harassment from their male counterparts with their coy glances and painted nails. Some of them are wildly educated, quoting literary icons and asserting their political views and their distaste of the mainstream pop culture. They are the bohemian bourgeoisie.
3. The Hybrids. The half-Saudi, half-something else. The ones with the western accents, the mixture of features, the confused where-am-I-from rhetoric , the identity crises. They are outsiders through and through, too foreign to the Saudis and too Saudi to the foreigners.

Which brings us to the foreigners. They could have lived their whole lives in this city, learned the language, absorbed the standards of behavior and the points of view. Or they could have just moved to the city from their home countries, staying for work, or staying with their working parents. They are subdivided into the following major categories:

1. Zee Arabs. The Lebanese, the Syrians, the Egyptians, the Morroccans, the Jordanians, the Palestinians, the Turks, the Tunisians, the Iranians, who cares what continent sub-continent they come from - they look Arab, they sound Arab. Them with their food, and their men and women, and their wild hair, their music and their dancing, their morals, and why can't they speak with proper Arabic accents, and why are they influencing the youth?
2. The Asians. The little people. Indonesians and Filipinos. Excellent kitchen people. They clean your house, raise your kids, steal your jewelry, seduce your husbands, cast spells on your family. You have to squint your eyes to understand what they're saying when they swallow the consonants and the crucial vowels and they bastardize your language. Third world people who corrupt societies with their DBDs DBDs, buy-the-latest-DBD-sadik, and their homosexuals bisexuals multisexualities.
3. The South Asians. Indians, Pakistanis, Bengalis, Sri Lankans. The rolling tongue accents and the beads on their foreheads and on their clothes and on their hands and their bellies, and their saris, and that slicked-back hair, and the onions and spices, and the ignorance, the deceit.
4. The Africans. The thievery, the conning, that dark dark skin, always suspect. Oh, they bring in drugs and prostitution and HIV, they deal in their little adobes and they walk around with their deep baritones and the white eyes.
5. The Westerners. Australians, Americans, British, Europeans. They knock the culture of this city off its feet and replace it with blond hair and blue eyes. They push people out of the box of chastity and humility and set them free into a world of underground booze and partying and mixing-of-the-sexes.

That's right, GASP. Be SHOCKED. This is a fine form of discrimination staring you in the face. Can you handle it's unadulterated consistency? Are you mad, furious, because you can make fun of your own race and other people shouldn't, that you can throw racial slurs if you're from the same race but that no one else should? Does it infuriate you that you have every right to criticize your own culture but others shouldn't, and yet they do?

Nobody has earned that right. Nobody is entitled to any kind of judgment or prejudice. Not anybody, and certainly not you, you Arab Asian Western infidel uneducated outcast leper ugly beggar skank whore son-of-a-nobody.

And yet..

History revolves around the same axis, it orbits around the same nucleus of hatred and looking-down-on-other-people.

Culture is beautiful. Songs have been sung about them, poems recited, books written, worlds fused. But to this city, there exists a fine line between the appreciation of beauty in culture, and the overdose of it.

Hate begets hate. The chicken begot the egg. The egg begot the chicken. Potatoe potah-toe. Same banana.

Are you a discriminator, or are you discriminated against?

The first step to solving a problem is to acknowledge that there IS a problem.

Hi. My name is Nessreen and I am a racist.

The Diarization Process

I’m doing a very bad job if I want to be a diarist. I’m always thinking of the honesty factor: Should I be shamelessly honest in my entries, or should I manipulate them according to my audience? Am I really going to allow access to my personal “journals”?

Anyhoo, while the ideas above are left to cook, let’s try the diarization process, shall we?

***

Friends should be excused from pleasantries. The whole how-are-you routine is wasted on friends. It doesn’t really serve a purpose in our relationships; we always know it’s coming, and we always know the answer to it. “Hey, how are you?” “I’m good, yourself?” “I’m good.” That’s about 10 seconds wasted. We know what’s coming next, too. There’s nothing else to follow that except, “How’s your family? Boyfriend? Work?” And the answer is the same. “All good”. Which is about 20 more seconds wasted. This leads to about 5 more seconds of time wastage when there is a very short, awkward silence while friends try to figure out the best way to segue into what’s really happening in their lives.

***

I’ve been spending most of my time watching Desperate Housewives. I have only good things to say about it. It seemed pretty superficial and mundane to me at first, just mindless entertainment and pure soap opera of the telenovela kind. And yet, there is profundity in all its simple glory. I am all the characters of this TV series, every man, woman, child.

***

James Bond lives in an unreal world of (get ready for a series of keywords) luxury, cars, tailored suits, European women, five-star hotels, expensive gadgets, betrayal, sex, and travel. That’s a lot of money in one sentence. I enjoyed the last one only because I’m so used to the Bond culture; I grew up with men idolizing him. The new Bond actor (Craig something or other, I think) is sexy enough. He’s got the body, and his face, however comical, has its own uncultured charm, lent to it by the role he is playing. His looks are very cruel, though, and his eyes... not mischievous, that’s too cute a word, maybe a little sinister, and the set of his mouth stubborn. There’s nothing else to discuss about this movie, it’s not exactly profound. Besides, the main character is bigger than the movie.

The Size of Asia

Asia is the largest continent in the world. According to Microsoft Encarta, it covers an estimated 44,391,000 sq km (17,139,000 sq mi), or about 30 percent of the world’s total land area. Its peoples account for three-fifths of the world’s population.

I have thoughts in my head the size of Asia. They come rushing through my brain and I struggle to keep them organized into countries, cities, little islands. I think of every little detail, of every little gesture and all its tiny, tiny implications.

My Asia is bounded on the north by the great waters of my Ambition. I long to be the best, to be looked up on, to be envied. On the east, my relationships with my family and their extended family, on the South by the vast sea of people I meet and make friends out of. On the west lies my long stream of weaknesses, a stream that continues along the mountains of insecurities and on to a huge waterfall of failure that I am frightened of and yet am unable to avoid.

Because of its vast size and diverse character, my Asia is divided into five realms: 1) who I am when nobody is watching, 2) who I am with my friends, 3) who I am with my siblings, 4) who I am when everybody else is listening, 5) and who my parents would like me to be.

I have excess baggage the size of Asia. They come in many forms. For instance, the shoes that I hoard and never wear. I have boxes and boxes of stilletoes, pumps, peep-toes, boots, round-toes, kitten heels, sandals, slip-ons, flip-flops that gather dust under the hung clothes. I have tons of paper and books that are piled on top of each other, dangerously teetering. I have notes I've written down throughout the years, sitting, waiting to be published.

I have ambitions the size of Asia. I want to be a doctor, a lawyer, an interior designer, a marketing manager, a creative director, a businesswoman, a lyricist, an actor.

I have identity issues the size of Asia. My patriotic pride lies under thick layers of embarrassment, of apologetic remarks that defend my people's behaviour, under layers of American accents and deep denial. I am Asian.

I have obsessions the size of Asia.

I have dreams the size of Asia.

The size of Asia moves me.

A Photographic Lie

I've been a bad, bad photographer today. I took overexposed pictures, I didn't change my ISO and white balance as necessary, I didn't carry my camera in its bag, and ultimately, I took a picture of a policeman's motorcycle and lied profusely about it.

So, what happened was, I went to the hospital earlier today with my friends to visit Sheri who gave birth to the most precious baby girl. After much fussing over baby, we went downstairs to the baqalah next door to buy some stuff. Right outside the store, Sharifa and I, caught up in a photographer's frenzy, noticed this beautiful golden door that had lots of potential. In a burst of misplaced bravado, I bullied her into taking pictures of it with me.



Before you proceed on murdering this photo with your comments, let me assure you that wasn't the worst part.

Across this door was a small police station. It had windows that were tinted and closed. Parked outside it was a motorcycle with the cop radio on, so that I knew the policeman was somewhere nearby. But because I'm such a hippo, I proceeded to take pictures of the motorcycle. They were nice pictures, taken with excellent settings, at a very profound angle. They would have garnered lots of photo comments and smiley faces on my deviantart.

As I was getting ready to run, however, the window opened and out came the policeman's head. He attacked me with an onslaught of brisk Arabic accusations, pointing wildly at my camera. I shook my head in feign miscomprehension. Let me tell you something, that delete button? It has never been pressed as fast as I did when I was deleting the pictures I took of his motorcycle. I am actually proud of myself, for at least mastering the art of deleting pictures. So I walk over to him to prove that I am a good liar, and that Wallahi, no pictures of motorcycle in my camera, only baby and Filipino nurses. I had to go through 200 pictures with him, clutching my camera like mad (I think I left a few scratches on screen, I was clutching it like a maniac) because he wanted to take it and look through it himself. My short life as a photographer flashed before my eyes, and I could see the JUArtists shaking their heads in disdain and disapproval. With renewed determination, I clutched some more, and lied some even more. Idiot was pressing all kinds of buttons on my camera, saying I hid the pictures somewhere, and in the process, changed all my settings. After he got tired of looking at the pictures of nurses, he let go of the camera, and warned me that I could be under investigation for taking pictures. I think I also heard him say that my pictures were overexposed, but I can’t be too sure, I was too shaken to look through my English-Arabic Dictionary.

As I walked away, my friends soothing me and assuring me he had no right to do that and that my pictures were perfectly exposed, I couldn’t help but think of how much we suffer for art. What price beauty? What price profound angles? Mokhtar once said that photographers in Saudi Arabia are so restricted and constrained, but it only makes them more creative and more aware of the little things, little details that they ARE allowed to photograph. It took today for me to realize how true that is. We are the oppressed. We are the muted voices. We are the social pariahs.

I suffered for art.

I am shaken, but not quite stirred. Because at least, I was able to share Mikayla Angelina Soares’ baby pictures to that po-po, and he was given the golden opportunity to look at a baby so beautiful, so full of life, that I’m sure as he rode that ugly motorcycle, he pondered the splendour of existence and the true meaning of humanity. Idiot. I hope he buys a camera and never learns how to adjust his settings.

Ode to My Family

When we were younger, one of my father's template sermons was the one about studying hard and striving to be successful so as not to grow up to be "servants" of much wealthier uncles, aunts, and/or cousins. This was something we scoffed at; nonsense, we said. I now see the wisdom behind this motivational technique (one that, in my opinion, didn't work). By "servant" I mean "errand boy", someone who is asked to do any number of menial jobs around the house, a social pariah, useless, therefore, pushed around. As a result of the stigma my father has put on this particular kind of servitude to relatives, I fear it above all. I resent all my relatives who ask favours of me, be it something as simple as handing over something, to bigger favours. I’m always fuming inside, indignant, “do they think I am some kind of a slave?”

Is it arrogance on my part?

***

My cousin Kaka Cody passed away Eid morning at about 7am, Jeddah time. I felt a momentary shock, as per usual, but the moment passed so quickly it was almost not worth acknowledging. This could be an indication that I handle shock very well, or it could be a warning sign that sometime in the future, I will break down mightily and... I don’t know, lose it big-time.

I never knew Kaka Cody very well. He was, to me, one of our many well-off relatives. When we were younger, we would go to Riyadh and visit him in his home. We loved his IKEA furniture and his surround sound system. He was, like most of our relatives from our father’s family, an articulate man, always conversing with us as if we were adults. He was a chain-smoker, too, I remember, he was never without a cigarette. He was always very casual, an approachable adult, very rare. We knew he and my father were inseparable when they were growing up, even though they were cousin and uncle.

My father was devastated. He stayed in bed most of the day. I can only imagine how he must've felt. It must be a complete shock for him, and quite scary as well, because he and Kaka Cody are exactly the same age. I imagine he must’ve thought he would still see him sometime in the future, perhaps when they’re both much, much older, retired maybe, reminiscing the past, playing chess. He must’ve been thinking how much he wants to do for him and his family now that he has passed on, the way we all do when we think of our very close friends. It must crush him the thought that he isn’t capable of doing anything, being so far away from HIS own family, being financially unstable, and being so disconnected from everyone else who knew Kaka Cody as well as he did.

It’s sad, and at the same time, quite fortunate that it takes death to reunite a family. People are suddenly very forgiving of each other, and reminiscing better times has always softened people towards one another. We spent our Eid morning, as did all our Tamano relatives, in collective mourning, sitting solemnly in my Mom’s living room. We had a quiet breakfast, after which we sat around in groups, teenagers together, 20-somethings together, in-laws together, listening to my father tell stories of our cousin, who was well-loved, who was a very kind soul. In some ways, it was a celebration – of family ties that bind us together, of a decent man / father / son / brother’s passing, and ultimately, of life.

Pilgrimage

Having had about 15 years of experience performing Umrah, I have made some observations.

** Never underestimate the strength of old lady pilgrims. They have big, calloused hands, the better to push you with. Encountering one, which is a huge possibility, constitutes an 80-year-old lady manhandling and roughhousing you, and you not being able to do anything about it.

** Wear extra thick socks to cushion the blow of stepping on date cores/seeds, especially if you're going to perform your Umrah around Maghreb time.

** No, it is NOT a mosh pit, NOT an extreme sport, and NOT Amazing Race, no matter how much you have convinced yourself that it kinda is. So concentrate on praying, not winning or yelling "Unbelievable!" at rude people.

** I'm a Bring-Your-Own-Scissors kind of girl, so it always annoys me when I reach the end of my Umrah - and I'm this close to finally sitting down and resting my over-flexed calves - and I can't get a move on because my scissors are being passed on from one family to the next, cutting hair by the fistfuls. It's extremely humbling to be reminded of patience and generosity. What's the harm in lending scissors? We tend to forget.

** We tend to forget that we're there for: worship. So let's keep the cussing at zero. Don't cuss out the female security who always shove you in attempts to keep the crowding at a minimum. They're just doing their job. I repeat, resist the urge to cuss. Not even in spelling. (Oooh, that bee-eye-tee-see-etch!)

** The biggest fear of all pilgrims is to get lost, to break away from their group never to be found again. This is where the Universal Green Light comes in. Everyone goes to the green light if they're lost. Can't find your way? Green Light. Looking for someone? Green Light. Not sure where to start your Tawaf? Green Light.

** Get that tune out of your head! Sometimes, the whole experience of Umrah is so exhilarating that one wants to break into song. Make Du'a instead; pray.

Outside of these observations...

I am humbled by the magnificence of Al-Haram, by the unity of the Muslim Ummah in prayer.

I am amazed by the extent of human generosity.

I am overwhelmed by the power of faith and prayer.

I am humbled by Allah's might.

*****

It's good when a group of friends party and have fun together. Even better when they pray together.

May Allah accept our prayers, may He bless us, and guide us to the right path.

Ameen!

Ramadan Kareem, errbody!