Of Terms & Conditions

The Archipels

That Time of The Year

42

Break the pattern.

Wadi el Rayyan Hiking Trip

The hiking trip to Wadi el Rayyan in Fayoum was wonderful. It was a visceral day of firsts. I realized that I'm at my most comfortable outside of my comfort zone, and that there's fun to be found if you're willing to jump in. Here's a time-reel!

First time at Fayoum. First time having 'mesh' for breakfast. First time hiking. 

First time sand-boarding.



First time horseback riding.

First time parasailing!

First time having a smoke on the beach smack in the middle of winter.

First time seeing a waterfall!

First time taking a felouka into the sunset.

First time hiking into a mountain valley in pitch darkness!

First time having a bonfire

And later partying in the mountain valley.

The Jerusalem Syndrome

"As long as four million Israelis and as many Palestinians are facing off against one another, 300 million Arabs and 1.5 billion Muslims are condemned to live in hate, bloody slaughter and desperation. And the rosier version: We just need peace in Jerusalem to put out the fires in Tehran, Karachi, Khartoum and Baghdad and to set the course for universal harmony.

Have our sages gone crazy? Do they really believe that sans Israeli-Palestinian conflict nothing bad would have happened, neither the deadly Khomeini Revolution, nor the bloody Baathist dictatorships in Syria and Iraq, nor the decade of Islamic terrorism in Algeria, nor the Taliban in Afghanistan, nor the angry warriors of God the world over? The sad, reverse hypothesis is seldom posed, but it is actually much more likely: Every truce along the Jordan is fleeting, as long as the palaces and streets, the majority of the intelligentsia and the officials of the Muslim world hang on to their anti-western passion. Globalization (which entails the dismantling of economic barriers but more importantly all social and mental barriers) necessarily leads to tough and terrible defensive reactions. The development of anti-western ideologies in Germany, from Fichte to Hitler, does not depend on the foundation of the Zionist state. The anti-western affect is constantly renewed in Russia, from the tsars to Stalin and on up through Putin. And it would be naive to presume that the Iranian lust for power, in search of its Khomeinistic force de frappe, uses the "Jewish question" as anything more than a pretence for a universal Jihad. Does anyone think that the green subversion, after erasing Israel from the map, will mark its success by laying down its weapons?

A hypocritical geopolitics, which ordains the Mideast as a basic pillar of the world order, has become the religion of the European Union, the belief of the unbelievers and of the doubters of the west. Post-modern thinkers have no justification in proclaiming the end of all ideologies. In fact, we are swimming in an ideological illusion and have secretly exchanged our deceptive hopes for a final battle with a fearful incantation conjuring a catastrophe to end all catastrophes, that is just as absolute. While our head swarms with surrealistic ghosts, our heart perceives, in every photo from Lebanon, the death of humankind. Jerusalem is only the centre of the world because it is considered the centre of the end of the world. Our illusions feed on apocalyptic notions.

And so every Mideast conflict is like a rehearsal for the end of days. Just look at the undefinable war of cultures, if you need convincing. And anyone taking that position is resigned to a self-fulfilling prophecy. The years of bombing of Israeli cities by the rockets of the Party of God become a foretaste of the Iranian godfather's promised destruction. And so, as Clausewitz already noted with irony, it is not the aggressor who starts the war. Instead it is he who steps in to stop the aggression. So Israel is guilty. Guilty of a collectively fomented fantasy of the end of days. From surrealistic geopolitics to delusion - just one step."

~ An excerpt from the Jerusalem Syndrome by Andre Glucksmann.

Yellow Snow

I'm freezing my fingers off writing this. Winter is here, finally. Except it's bipolar winter so I'm rocking a hoodie and shorts, simultaneously. I ain't complaining, with some luck we'll poke global warming hard enough to get some snow around here. Maybe I'll even get to build a snowman in the garden overlooking our condo. Itchy and Scratchy would pee all over it though. Come to think of it, everybody will pee all over it. Egypt will have more yellow snow than any other country in the world. Yuck.

I like winter nights. 3-5 am in particular, I wish it were always this quiet and slow. I should be sleeping; I've wanted to go back to bed ever since I got out of it. Do all days blur into one another when you're an adult? Is it part of the package?

I'm going on a hiking trip in a couple of days. A much needed change of pace, with all that's been happening. It's got horseback riding, para-sailing, sand-surfing, volleyball and even a boat ride over the lake, then later at night there's gonna be a bonfire and a music party. I'm pretty excited. Everybody who's ever been to the area says it's one of the most beautiful places in here, but I'm taking that with a grain of salt. Well, with the right state of mind, you can have about as much fun as anybody, with whatever a place has to offer. I wonder where we'll pee tho? I hope they have facilities.
< /citygirlrant >

I'll tell you all about that when I'm back. For now, I got some relaxing to catch up on.

The Strange Persistence of First Languages

http://nautil.us/issue/30/identity/the-strange-persistence-of-first-languages

The Perks Of Being An Advertising Major

Buddhism realised that achieving peace = having nothing to lose, and it's been trying to say that without actually saying that.

The ones who actually reached nirvana through scripture actually got there backwards. Which is ironic, really.

But what isn't?

Best. Campaign. Ever.

Of Lying Turtles, Coping & The Treacherous Invisibility Cloak.

Hemingway always said: "Write drunk. Edit sober". I detest Hemingway.

But not tonight.

Itchy and Scratchy are out tonight. Watching them, I felt guilty for naming them. They're too beautiful and free for that. They don't have names. In my selfish recounts, they're Itchy and Scratchy. I haven't hung out with them for a while. If I'm up for it by day break I will pack some food and pay them a visit. I don't know if they'll still be there by then, and that's probably part of what makes them great. 

Most people would look at that picture and think "oh my, what a chill night." I'd hate to disappoint you. Well, it is chilly. But what I see are three methods to run from communist brain, and the fact that I ended up here means I failed. Albeit not miserably, thanks to that blonde stud on the right.

Death and I have been going out for the past 3 weeks. On and off, but in the last couple of days it's been serious. So hitchcocking serious, in fact, that I got an ultimatum. Predictably, he gave it after taking away my last measure of control. Much like any person at the wrong end of the barrel - come to think of it, which end IS the right end of the barrel? - My head has been wandering off the commonly trodden path, into some unmarked graveyards and desecrated bushes.

Control. How very human. How utterly delusional.

Controlling thought makes writing boring. A scattered brain is more likely to get sent drinks from strangers. Strangers with stories that are often boring but blown up for banging potential.

I was hanging out with dad today. We were mad at how things were, so we bought toasted peanuts, munched and littered. It was the first time either of us littered. To us, it was a gesture of sheer vengeance. To the world, as always, no one cared. We joined their ranks when the bag was over, and the gesture died in half lives, sporadically and in a wimpy fashion, like most classy gestures do.

Perspective.

Real fucker, that one. But ever so sweet. Humans have always had a thing for assholes anyway, don't look at me. I'm only human. 

One thing, I'll tell you that, death is nothing like it's portrayed in literature or motion pictures. Death is not peaceful, comforting or sudden. Death is not graceful, or cooperative enough to prove a point and pick good timing. Death doesn't pick. Death is violent, and ugly. Death takes people out before it kills them. The person you know, and the last semblance of the person you know, is defeated and beaten out of their bodies before they die. They're wild animals, ones that aren't in the spotlight. They don't even get to die being who they are, that is beaten out of them too. Whoever told you any different in passing conversation or intimate solace really fucking cares about you and never had the heart to tell you, hoping they'd still be around when you crashed. Go drop them a nice message.

Every last measure of control you had, or thought you had, every last measure of control they had, or though they had, is taken away, without courtesy or ubiquity. It does not possess enough gallantry, or understand what that is, to try and make it fit on one relatable side. Grace is not in its dictionary, it has not been registered in its realm. It does not try to register in yours. It comes from a different dimension than the one human beings have signed their consciousness into. Blame it on human beings? They're only coping. We're beings who need things to make sense in a world where nothing makes sense. Life is wasted on coping. Coping is glamorized and stripped of its label, divided into conceptual abstracts and romanticized into notions that entail a measure of choice. But in the end, it's all an elaborate ruse at coping. You cope subconsciously, because when the horror has a major scale that transcends understanding, even coping has to be re-assigned to the subconscious. We're all helpless. And we grow up every time we get a glimpse of how helpless we really are. Even growing up is romanticized, beaten into size by consequences that prove bigger than us even though human beings, consciousness and consequences are not of the same nature. The equation isn't valid, even by our own laws, but even that slides. 

Itchy and Scratchy are barking. I wonder what imaginary danger they rationalized into imminent threat by there monochromatic, instinctive, humanly in-congruent awareness to stop themselves from being helpless? What threat have they conjured up out of their de-synchronization with human abstraction in order chip in and survive? Life is clingy, fragile and clueless. All the forms are convulsing to fit in, none of them really do. But they can't know that. Survival instinct doesn't leave room for hard facts. Those are for free time and entertaining ideas. We exist in a nihilist bootcamp and the fittest are the hopeless romantics, they're hard to kill. They're hard to insult too; it's hard to reach someone with so many filters. They can't even be insulted properly. They're insulted within their accepted, registered abstracts, that are variations of truth that couldn't be further from the truth. They're about as close to it as incense is to volcanoes. Go figure? You don't have to, you probably already have if you walk on twos with opposable thumbs. 

Life is wasted on coping. Have I already mentioned that? It needs to be said again. We wouldn't have to cope if we never latch, and we wouldn't latch if our survival instincts got into a fight with our self-conscious intelligence and created a parallel world that has nothing to do with the tangible world that is made up of nothing but cruelty and rigidness and making fucking fire. Anything more than twos doesn't connect. 

Buildings are fucking lies. Grasp that. 

Who the fuck needs opposable thumbs anyway? I envy Itchy and Scratchy. Much like us, they don't know what they really have to deal with and are caught up in their own versions of reality. However, much UNLIKE us, their realities are much closer to the rigidity of actual reality. Not much is romanticized, perhaps, than the occasional treat and pooping retreat. 

Here's a sight for sore eyes: In trying to accept the death of a loved one, I've rejected consciousness itself. Have you seen that? It doesn't get anymore hopelessly romantic than that. Had it been BC, I would have been tossed aside as a faulty prototype at the first testing phase. Too bad I was saved. Oh wait, that's another load of bull made up in an effort of coping at a life that is horrifyingly beyond self-conscious beings in its simple, cruel chaos. Oh well. At least I get a medal at the all singing, all dancing nihilist boot camp that the source code of life is built up to compute.

This is me breaking down. Good thing no one really knows me. Who the fuck can keep up with this, let alone handle it? 

In my hopeless nerdiness, I thought the joker said it. - Or should I say Heath Ledger said it? The movies got nothing on the comic books anyway - He said: "Oh and you know the thing about chaos? It's fair." I thought he had it all going, silly me. But he barely touched upon it. The real keyword here is not chaos, it's fair. Fair is an abstraction. At its very core, it's an intangible coping prop, made up to sustain the very helix of human consciousness, was funnily enough never seen in nature or has a precedent outside of subjective projection, and is completely rootless and utterly bogus. Much like the concept of time; made up to sustain the point where mathematics was applied in physics and has no other existence outside of prepaid, stock-order, cut-to-size, made up reality. 

Wonderful character, the joker is. Transcends morality, but not nearly dangerous enough to see the actual truth. What's a few lives but another coping mechanism? Try getting your coping mechanism taken away, then I'll personally shove you on a podium and we'll talk. I'll bet my bottom dollar you'll have less than 5 characters to verbalize, and if you're actually lucky they won't be the truth. 

Consciousness is overrated. If you didn't get to that point by yourself, you should have terminated

this post at the second mention of Itchy and Scratchy. 

You wanna meet a real guru? Meet Durden, he touched upon the truth, had his entire belief system collapse upon itself, tried to fallback on capitalism, got stuck in a loop and came up with fight club. That's called second-degree coping. It's one step ahead, but it's the same god damn algorithm. That's just how much humans can't cope. 

Mine is abstraction, phrased and bent to shape by a raw feeling of loss that most are too desensitized to experience. I see the truth alright, but I'll be damned if it makes me special. I can't register it either. I'm that wedding crashed who never got invited but showed up anyway and can see everything as what it really is by virtue of the worst curse of all: Empathy. I'd sell it on eBay for 25 dollars in exchange for a Darth Vader mask, but even that measure of control was taken away from me. Was it ever given? Oops, I did it again. 

Third party note: If you've managed to get this far with complete understanding, I apologize for the identity crisis. Technically speaking, it's an existential crisis, but if you didn't get there on your own, you probably can't register the full momentum of an existential crisis and have labelled it identity crisis. If you're not sober, you'll slip to the latter, in which case I'm so, so sorry. Raised to a Tennant degree of an improbability factor of eight-million, seven-hundred-and-sixty-seven-thousand, one-hundred-and-twenty-eight to one against. 

See what I did there? If you did, you're probably tired of seeing, and would take being blind to a wife in the Bahamas with three Chihuahuas, and a goddamn Bugatti on the side. 

Whoever said poets don't measure up until they describe how bored god was after the seventh day - Was it Nietzsche? Sounds like him, he was fond of Sabbath, all sorts of Sabbaths - really didn't know what he was talking about. It's peculiarly egotistical and so expectedly human-believer type that would think god was bored after that, little did he know that THAT'S when the fun really started. A human being one-step-over on the awareness scale would rationalize, using humane idealistic standards built on harm/no harm values that god is a sadistic, abusive bastard and any relationship with him is not only abusive but punishable by law as far away as Ohio. Someone who is aware but hasn't registered the full scale of his awareness would see god himself (Level 100 would say itself but I don't want to have you choke on your own respective drinks) is a fucking coping mechanism. A true nihilist would get the hint of all that's true but remain unable to connect the dots by that esoteric romanticism that comes with all differential high-minority labels. You cripple yourselves, truly, you've come so close, faithful turtles, and failed to live up the fairy tale. Disgrace upon your gender, unreal as it always has been. 

Actuality is a true bastardo. How could a concept, so intangible, be rooted into the human consciousness with the equivalent level of reality as the chair you relinquish gravity for? It's a dichotomous assumption that reality is equivalent with actuality on the instinctive scale. Even the assignment of variables was given to variation in an attempt to save us from slitting our own throats in the first 24 seconds. Trust nothing as a given, amirite?

Here's a man with all the goddamn answers. Thing is, he isn't a man, and he doesn't even exist. But when has that ever stopped us? 

What I mean is, after all, why should you stop at that?

Why should you be concerned? Because survival needs anchors, and Grandma is an anchor. The best anchor they ever made, by accident, in an equilibrium-based attempt to destroy their indestructible selves. The best anchor that managed to get through the system after all the loopholes were automatically discarded by a hyper-intelligent machinated algorithm built to solely weed out any hope of truth or attachment that by a fucking miracle, somehow missed. It missed to create a singularity around which all the point of coincidence was built, between reality and actuality and what is really out there, and that singularity is dying. In horrible, extended agony. Fighting against a foe it cannot name, a face it cannot make out, a concept it cannot register, an importance it cannot fathom. How can life ever be the same? And yet it keeps tumbling on. Life stops for no one, not even if life depended on it to live. 

22 years old, and I still don't get the hang of acceptance. Live and learn? Learn what, internationally accepted coping mechanisms that have failed to make the universal standard, in a metaphysical context? Fuck you. Why don't you try having the world crash down on you with real-reality given particles, mass and theoretically calculated weight and then judge? 

I'll be 23 soon. If she's still around, she'd wish I'd find a husband already. I'd denounce monogamy on socio-biological level, she wouldn't understand.

Who am I kidding? Death never wiggles its ultimatums. Its ultimatum is the only ultimatum that remains an ultimatum without giving you imposable control, because life - in its dual sense - is ironic like that.

Irony, the closest we ever got to truth. All due respect to the joker, your real value lies in marvel universe, a subconscious appeal to raw idealism and shameless emotional extortion.

Dissociation. We send people to asylums for that. We used to drill their heads and now we electrocute them for it. Little did we know it was all an attempt to stop them from suspending our suspended disbelief. Wake up, if you can handle it and remain willfully awake.

Acceptance. Moving on. Never really got the hang of those. 

No. No, like we can say it. No, like we have the fucking capacity, let alone the jurisdiction, to say it. Yes is the only answer we got. We either never get to the majestic, anesthetic yes or have pre-installed delusion capacitors to allow for a yes without a system reboot. We should all be crashing. And I am crashing around the one singularity I managed to touch. Maybe there are many and they all lead to one. It would take entire civilizations crashing around their respective singularities to find that common one that unites them all. But we can't handle it. Rewind to paragraph...I lost count. It's all relative really. It depends on how slow you are. 

You want sense? You can't handle it. If you can see it at a time of your life when you're still capable of feeling, while having vigil of the actual source instead of the ego-stroking, pattern-conjuring habit of intelligent mortals, you'd kill yourself. And that goes against survival instinct. Coincidentally, they both go against the truth.

Take your pick. Do you really have one?

Keep up, bitch.

Young people are really hard to kill, you probably already know that. What you don't know is that it's all a ploy, and it goes back to something as meaningless and weightless as goddamn survival instinct, in case you got hipster lingo dangling off your amygdala. Unsightly scene, if you can sincerely see.

Consciousness truly is a tragic misstep in evolution. Too bad the only insight, the one true-to-(insert omnipotent sanity prop) concept handed down our generation was an advertising added-value in a washed down, ratings-oriented mid budget script, assigned to be uttered by a Rust Cohle, who was unfortunately after a yellow god just to set you off track. 

Improbability factor of eight-million, seven-hundred-and-sixty-seven-thousand, one-hundred-and-twenty-eight to one and dropping. I'd give up if I could. Believe me I've tried. It's just that non-diluted inert gases are harder to come by than plastic bags and I'm not that big on brain damage. 

But I am out. I turned in anyway, a long time ago anyway. Grandma was just a rude awakening. 

Even that is ironic. 

See? Patterns are there. Sense? Not so much. That was a coping mechanism too. 

Miracles? The only miracles we're allowed have to do with a klutzy average between  overpriced gadgets and gravity. Even miracles are a lazy concept; the least sincere delusion of them all. Whoever made up that didn't even try. And he wrote a whole book; one of the bestselling across the history of humanity. 

Good night. Rest assured, even the goodness bias is a coping mechanism. Try to sleep knowing that.

All Hallows' Eve

They say pets take after their owners, and my gadgets take that too much to heart. For instance, My laptop is a lot like me, my pride and joy, the gaming monolith I call za3faran, doesn't like to talk about its feelings or ask for help. One second I'm watching Modern Family on my laptop in the bathroom because I slept 18 hours more than I should have and it messed up my sleeping/studying schedule, and the next it just dies on me. Don't do that, laptop! Just tell me you need power, it's not like I'm gonna hold back.

I am, I am gonna hold back. Za3faran knows me too well, bless its processor.

Freak outs aside, I'm having my first senior-year induced panic attack, airing from my shell of solitude that is the can. Hello and welcome to the screening of the first senior year panic attack. Nice to have you all, take a seat. And on to our first show, we have a WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING TAKING AN APPLIED ARTS COURSE I CAN'T FUCKING DRAW.

Senior year is turning into a real roller coaster. Pressure has taken on a new meaning; no assignment is just 'that assignment', and no midterm is just 'that day I have to wake up early then come home and recover with a 7-hour sitcom marathon', everything is fallout boy: Nobody leaves a baby in the corner level. All freak-outs are can-worthy, not just every other freak-out or the occasional 'what the fuck happened last night' freak-out like it used to be. Good days.

Midterm mania is a whole other breed of midterms week too. If Frankenstein had a baby with abou regl masloukha, their devil spawn love child would be senior midterms week. I dread to think what finals would be like. Good thing I got support. Meet my best friend Wilson, the coffee thermos. He's been there for me so far and I got a feeling he won't let me down. He cheats on me with a sleazy pack of luckies every now and again, but they let me watch.

Halloween was a blast tho. Let it be known that on the night on my first senior year midterm, I was out partying. Plot twist: I still did great. And that's what I would like to call a win for evolution. This nerd has evolved, baby!

But has not quite shed its skin, given that I went as a white walker. 

I win Halloween.

And of course, the morning after.

"This droid is in power-saving mode. Please do not voice 

commands for another 47 minutes. Bleep."

Some pictures will never see daylight, as per the holiday tradition. I'll come back later with some juicy details and half-assed anecdotes that'll fly over most of your heads, but now I gotta run. I got a midterm slur this week that I know next to nothing about. Wish me luck and a full-limbed escape.

Don't Answer The Door

A chilly winter night, a beer, a smoke, a rocking chair and BB King. What more can a girl ask for, eh?

Present vocabulary, ideally.

It's good to be vacant sometimes. Those fleeting, eleventh hour reprieves. Not that it's sustainable.

But then again, no matter how great you feel, you'll never feel as great as the deluded old man Eric Clapton is calling King and writing a song about riding with.

Itchy & Scratchy

Cherry Bomb

The Censored Lady on the Subway

I saw this the other day on the tube, on my way home from work.

There was this lady in a nikab, cradling two children, a toddler and a baby. I was sitting on her right and we were both facing the opposite window. When the subway went into the underground tunnel, the lady's entire upper body - her head and shoulders - were swallowed up in the black reflection. She assimilated into the pitch black darkness. Even the outlines were barely there, almost entirely gone.

Looking into the opposite window, I could see wires and the unfinished, rough fieldstone inline of the tunnel swooshing by in the opposite direction at subway speed, with flowy black arms coming out of it, cradling drowsy children. I could not see her head in the reflection, it physically disappeared, blended into the background; its existence could only be realistically assumed, or rather extrapolated.

It barely looked human.

It was one of those rare, poignant moments where reality transcends metaphor and it leaves you gaping and lost for words.

It was as if the lady was censored. In real life. By a rare coincidence of physical laws and light show, her identity was bleeped, and the only part of her that existed in our plane was the part responsible for taking care of the children.

The censored lady on the subway. Try forgetting this.

Martian Child (2007)

"Dennis, can I just say one last thing about Mars? - which may be strange coming from a Science-Fiction writer - But right now, you and me here, put together entirely of atoms, sitting on this round rock with a core of liquid iron, held down by this force that seems to trouble you, called gravity, all the while spinning around the sun at 67,000 miles an hour and whizzing through the milky way at 600,000 miles an hour in a universe that very well may be chasing its own tail at the speed of light; And amidst all this frantic activity, fully cognizant of our own eminent demise - which is our own pretty way of saying we all know we're gonna die - We reach out to one another. Sometimes for the sake of vanity, sometimes for reasons you're not old enough to understand yet, but a lot of the time we just reach out and expect nothing in return.

Isn't that strange?

Isn't that weird?

Isn't that weird enough?

The heck do ya need to be from Mars for?"

Eureka

I found out why I like Neil Gaiman.

He's the only writer who can make me feel truth, rather than merely see it.

The Abstract

Of a Beady Beetle

The Doctor (Tom Baker): "You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering."

Nostalgia Radio

Space Camp!

I have much and more to document! Words escape me, for the closer the topic is to my heart, I struggle to bear it. Blasphemous habit for a writer, self-styled notwithstanding. It's at times like these that I wish I could borrow someone else's voice. Probably John Cleese. 

You thought I was gonna say Morgan Freeman, didn't you? You mainstream little bastard, get off my blog.

Let me try. It's comforting to know that hitting the delete button could send it all into the ether. Jump out, little words. If I don't like you, I'll go Sparta all over your ass. Come on, don't be shy. Self-preservation be damned, you're not sentient, stop acting the part!

On a sleepless night, one of many, I stumbled upon this shady little page that organized trips to the Kattameya Space Observatory. Merlin's beard, I had no idea we even had an observatory! I got so excited the alien inside me almost jumped out of its skin suit trying to phone home. I registered myself and a dear friend, called the organizer so many times he decided to be friends with me out of self defense, made calls at 1 in the morning to a fellow alien asking her how the hell people pack sandwiches, whipped out my prized space bag (yes, I have one and it's glorious) and packed for the ride. 

And I'm glad I did, if I had the least sense of survival, I would have missed out on what turned out to be - arguably - the best 16 hours of my summer break, thus far. Worry not, I'll top my own charts soon enough.

It was a ride of good music and dry energy bars, funny songs and tailgating professional bikers down the Ain Sokhna road. One of the bikers was a friend, and we honked the hell out of his tight-wearing ass. It's only fair. 

We followed the winding roads between mountains that bore all kinds of trespass warnings, from military and animals alike. The suspension on my friend's car was shot, so we got a crunkin' cruise down the unpaved, pebbly paths. 

Road trip!

We felt like thugs while we're at it, too. As the little black dude inside of me was appeased, the alien inside of me spasmodically fangirled at the sight of the observatory dome that peaked its head out of its hiding place soon after. I unabashedly gaped and shamelessly squealed. I would have waved, had it been socially acceptable to animatedly greet objects.

Arriving there, after our guide led a brief introduction to break the ice, I stashed some metaphorical icicle shards beneath my shirt just in case. Realistically, I packed some spare change in a book like the nerd I am, then packed the book into the camera case like the fangirl I am, then gave my camera case to my friend, like the hobbit I am. He's less likely to ruin the taters, I thought, and stumbled forth. 

And it was good thinking, for within the next 30 minutes of exploring the site, I had amassed 6 different injuries, to the amused giggles of my friend. We had breakfast with our feet dangling off the farthest ledge of the encampment, looking onto the nothingness that fringed distant civilization. Desolation was beautiful, for it had the rare quality of non-habitability; humans ruin everything they touch, and they had not touched this place. I feasted upon the silence as we snacked on our clumsily packed sandwiches. 

The campsite was built by the English, back when they colonized Egypt. The encampments were built in the style of lavish barracks, and mostly closed off to tourists. Organized trips were set by the staff during maintenance period, so it was mostly desolate. "Is that where scientists live?", I naively asked my friend who choked on his food at the suggestion of existing scientists in this shit hole. "I can totally see myself living in that one on that dune over there with a bunch of dogs. Who needs humans?", he concurred.  

Space exploration wasn't set to start for another 15 minutes, so some terrestrial exploration was due. Having ignored the guides' disclaimer to stay close to grounds due to small predator attacks, we decided to ignore the guides' disclaimer to follow the program next. We scaled every unlocked building in site, and climbed up the steel-beamed ladder of the smaller observatory. It was there that I unearthed a primal truth; short people are scared of heights. My friend took turns morally supporting, threatening, pranking and taunting me to release my deathly grip of the ladder that I'd clasped onto for dear life mid-way, and I finally got up and took shitty pictures of great scenes. 

The guide called us back to the first chapter of the day; he introduced us to different types of telescopes; comparing their history, usage, components and science behind them. I unblinkingly stared ahead, trying to retain as much information as the class pet presented himself for validation; a buff, square-torso'd bald man in his mid-thirties, who knew more about space than anyone I've ever met. At that point, I hadn't met the others, so it was true at the time. 

We were herded to the biggest observatory, built in 1955 and renovated in the 70s and 90s. Mostly manual when it was built, workers manned the cogs, monstrous control gizmos and lever-based contraptions that now collected dust and stares on the sides. A button-choked sealed cupboard now automated the entire process. The renovation was sparked by the breakdown of the mirror of the gigantic telescope when oil leaked into the pressurized vault during cleaning. Maintenance expenses exceeded purchase expenses, so they went ahead and bought a new one, and replaced the motors while they're at it. 

Ground control to major Rory!

We were taken inside, and a huge speech was given about the workings of the gigantic machine that stood before us, then later led into the control room where we saw the monitor and he explained the process behind the scenes. A talk of parameters and physics, of space and machination, of lenses concavity angles and calculated rate of relative rotation, of passion and custom programming, I could cry. But the best was yet to come. 

Pressing buttons, he led us outside. We climbed to the higher landing and stood sentry at the circular walls of the observatory, cameras cocked and ready. At the click of a button on a giant, generously colored remote control with an antenna thicker than a human finger, the walls started rotating. A shred of the ceiling slowly opened and attracted the giant telescope, which started gravitating towards the opening. I took pictures of the first glimpses, then I must have spaced out. I was too busy watching this giant ET finger call home. A scene for sore eyes, outdated as it were.

Sex!

Night had fallen by the time we were out, and the breeze almost knocked us off our feet as we hurried to the car in pitch darkness, as fast as our clattering teeth would allow us. We put on all the extra clothing we had in the trunk; several unwashed t-shirts, shirts and a couple of jackets. Civilized we'd rushed in, and hobos we'd trudged out. We headed to the kitchen to make coffee, then retraced our steps to the clearing where the first several telescopes were laid out. It was still too early in the night to get clear view of the sky, so the people took their time setting up camera gear and settling down, to the cozy murmur of the guide prattling on about constellations and galaxies.

I had given up on figuring out how to handle and manipulate a professional camera on  short notice. Defeated by the runes of aperture and shutter hexes, ISO charms and tripod curses, I went back to the car to bury my borrowed camera and take a bunch of energy bars, my inhalers and an extra plaid shirt instead. We used the time to have a meal of shrimp leftovers; my friend knew I'd accidentally starve us. He knows me too well. I gratefully nommed. 

By the time we were back, the sky had settled and let us have a look under her skirts. We had a 5-hour window to sate our hungry eyes before the protective moon came home late from work and obliterated all chance of glances by his meager 18% clarity, chasing off all the chattering girlfriend stars and pulling the darkness coverlets for a night of uninterrupted slumber. 

We made do. We saw most major constellations, as well as Messier 4, Messier 7 and the dwarf constellation of Messier 32. We saw the nearest galaxy, Andromeda, and shamelessly peaked in on our neighbors, discussing the possibility of sentient life. We saw NGC 6268 and NGC 6281, as well as the Prawn Nebula IC 4628. We peaked in on Venus and Saturn, and heard origin myths of Ursa major and Ursa minor, Scorpius and Sagittarius, and dispelled ignorant doubts that they had any hold over our fates against astrology enthusiasts through self-entitled, sarcasm-choked, pseudo intellectual debates. We talked of black holes and wormholes, until a loud ignorant creationist dispelled one-way-ticket space exploration journeys as suicidal, and although I had the knowledge and energy to dispel her very cognitive structure into the space junk belt where it belongs and pull her head out of her tight little sheep ass, I shoved an energy bar into my mouth and pretended it's astronaut food. 

I took over the guide's green laser pointer with my midget charms - best use of childlike body type if you ask me - and completely spazzed at the possibilities. It extended in a long visible line into space, and the guide used it to point out constellations mid-speeches as if space itself were a two-dimensional canvas. Dragging my friend by the sleeve to show him my recent, prized loot item, we lay on our backs in the middle of the clearing and pointed to space. We wrote our names on constellations, we wrote mirrored messages to aliens, perchance one happened to be looking for one out there, and tried to persuade momma ship to come back and beam us home with an "I forgive you" note, in case she was worried about the holidays. "What would we wish for if we happen upon a shooting star?", I asked him. "That it crashes into earth?", he pontificated. We happened upon four shooting stars, and wished upon every one. Each wish stupider than the former. But most importantly, that it crashes into earth. 

The moon was due in 45 minutes, and people were hungrily groping for any visible constellations they might have missed. We shortly froze our asses off and ran back to the car for a woolen blanket. We swapped jackets because mine was warmer and I was less affected by the cold, then we came back and claimed our spots; smack in the middle of the clearing, right under the most crowded hub of stars. We made a blanket sandwich and snuggled in, and napped under the stars while the others hurried to catch the best photo. I can't speak for the both of us, but that star-speckled view is ingrained my living memory, better than any flimsy film could etch on ephemeral paper or imaginary bytes. Visceral develops best; all memory blemishes serve as color correction anyway. 

We woke up an hour later, when I mistakenly thought the rustling of wind-carried paper wrappers were hyenas sneaking up to ravage our throats. Shivering, we went for coffee, then headed to the common hall. Most people were sleeping by then, napping before sunrise, only the staff was up. The engineer sat balled up on the couch, watching a vapid late-night show. One lid closed, we joined him, and we talked about space. Covering a wide range of topics; we had all sorts of questions, and later tried to suggest a program to bring people in. All that place needed was advertising and good planning, but it had a lot of potential. I was curious about him as a person. The man had come to give me hope, an astronomer and space researcher in his own right, and I was baffled as to how Egypt could let me have that.

Wonderful man. 

As passionate as he was about his field, and as good as he was at it, he'd ended up in the space department by mistake. "Small department it was at al Azhar, run just so the government would say it's there, housing 6 students in most years, and 15 at its most fruitful year. I heard that it was fun, so I jumped in, and here I am! Thankfully I graduated top of my class, worked as a TA then was conveniently shipped off here, where I've been working since. They have nowhere else to send us, really. As you can see, it's a ghost town up here, the best work this place does is help people write their masters, but that's about it. We get a sheepish 0.003% of the national budget a year. We had a lot of plans for this place, money-aside, but it falls on deaf ears. Not much we can do but do what we do."

I asked him what his PhD was about, he said he was still working on it, and he said it was about the effects of cataclysmic variable stars, and mentioned the red giant star being in its last state of stellar evolution and how it affects neighboring stars that it ensnares in example. I asked him what the most awe-inspiring thing it was he'd seen in his years and years of work, and he said he saw two constellations in their long, drawn-out process of collision, on their way to becoming one, back when he was a doe-eyed researcher. I secretly wondered if that man knew how cool his job was. Wonderful man, with a millennial kid sitting across the couch wanting to be him, and he had no idea. 

Talking to my friend about space stations and the James Webb telescope over our last sips of coffee, we walked out of the common hall and were surprised it was light out. Sunrise wasn't for another 38 minutes, so we walked. Most people were setting up camera gear again, to prepare for shooting a time lapse of the sunrise. We went back to the clearing to get a glimpse of the moon, and we did. We said goodbye to Galileo's telescope, Newton's telescope and Dmitry Dmitrievich Maksutov's telescope. 

Trudging into the desert where people have gathered near a construction site for what will soon turn out to be the most recent installment to the place; an auditorium, we said our good mornings and snuck in, mapping out what everything will be from the looks of the helix, then climbing up to the roof and drooling at the scenery. We came down just in time, and stood quietly facing the sun like a crowd of grim reapers, behind a row of tripods holding all kinds of cameras that could be bought with mortal coin, to Red Hot Chili Peppers' Californication jingling out of a pocketed phone, followed by several other songs that stood the test of time we were wrestling against to catch those videos. It was beautiful. 

Soon, it was time to go. We were called back by the guide to gather our things and head for the cars and parked bus. I cleaned my friend's car, then we had a light breakfast on the ledge that started the trip in a desperate attempt at closure, went back for group photo, said goodbye to our old astronomer friend and got into the car. 

And we dreamily bounced off into the artificial horizon, that stood stubbornly poking out at the skies and chasing off all stars and planets with the dreams that they carry, separating what is and what could be by a white and black layered fart cloud, chalking the horizon.

Mom's Spaghetti

Yesterday I learned that if you pitch the human in you against the animal in you, even if the human had his word, the animal will always win. And that the real struggle lies in aligning them so that they find common ground in a manner that will still leave you a choice.

Of Witches, Landslides & Three-eyed Crows

Went down a massive memory lane, hell, more like a landslide, when I had to back up my pictures. So many people that aren't here anymore, so many people that aren't me anymore, so many me's that I no longer am, so many we's that changed to they's that changed to those who must not be named. I terribly miss all the them's, us's and me's, but I wouldn't contact any of them if I had a gun to my head. Everything changes so fast; it feels like I've had a thousand lives mushed into one. 

The way I see it, I hope that never stops, I hope that a couple of years from now I'll have made a thousand more, ones that hurt like a motherfucker and ones that ease you into puppy heaven. I'll have it all, thank you very much, with fries on the side. 

Real touchy area, memories are. I can see why they can break people. When you come to think of it, it's not about how much you look into it, but how you look at it. It's all about the vantage point. Running with that particularly shitty metaphor to make it even shittier, that's what sets assassins and targets apart, but at the end of the day, the bird's view wins and the bird takes home the house cup with a glorious dump on either party. 

Bird's the word.

Summer break is almost here, merely a couple of days away, and I went online to scout any available internships that I could dive into and scab me some knees. Usual routine, I drew up my CV and made a few changes, and while I was editing it I scrolled up to the naive part where I state my short-term and long-term objectives. To my surprise, I found that in between now and the time I last edited it - being less than four months ago - all of them have changed. I no longer wanted any of those things. Shit, I thought, I'm gonna have to re-write that, but I was too tired, so I stumbled off to the bathroom and it was over there that it really hit me. The last surprise was the lighter news of the two, what really caught me off guard was the realization that holy fucking shit I think I know what I wanna do with my life. And guess what? Right down to the letter, it happened on the can. 

At 8:12 PM, on the 28th of May 2015, during my third year of college, right around the time of my life where my cynical nature and my sense of humour made an iron clad truce that left me swinging blind and begging for mercy in equal measure, when my reality was largely an elaboration on that field out there where right and wrong don't exist but dragons and gremlins do, on an irrelevant evening while sitting on the can; it came to me. Or should I say I got there? Who knows how the hell it works, or if it works at all. 

You'd think this shit takes spreadsheets you know? You'd think it takes trudging up slippery mountains of unimaginable heights to meet a recluse hermit and beg him for truth in exchange of that lost treasure you had to dig out of an alabastar cave where it nestled in a monster's lair and you had to snatch it out of the claws of a violent, insomniac bear or some shit. 

I haven't even given it any thought, I just knew. Kind of like how I knew when I was in danger, or how I knew when I was in love. But I repeat myself. 

I know what I wanna be you guys, the tough part's over. 

Or is it? Now comes the part after I know it where I want it, get attached to it, build hopes on it, pursue it, get jilted time and time again, get rejected over and over, not find the opportunity, fail to perform when I get one, and the great possibility of it not working out at all. 

Aw man, here we go again. 

But the I can see all the obstacles in my way part is a story for another time. 

For now, back on the I can see clearly now the rain is gone bit. 

Whether sunshine is ever in, I couldn't tell. Unfortunately I'm not psychic.

A change of heart marks a great transition, and a shift in aspiration definitely marks a change of heart. This might be the first major transition - that's not forced upon me by extenuating circumstances but came from within - that I'm conscious of. To be honest, I don't remember what made 5-year-old me give up on 3-year-old me's dream of being an astronaut to being a painter, but this one I'm old enough to see, feel and remember. This one I get to cherish in words rather than just viscerally. That is if I can find them.

So let's see, first conscious transition, what it's like you ask? If a sigh of relief was driving a car at 900 mph jammed into a truck hauling 500 tons of options that have been eliminated, the part of the explosion that contaminates the air of the observable universe but merely scratches the surface of what is happening on a molecular level brackets the spectrum of how it feels, alone. Definition of each escapes adrenalin-choked me, who only registers exhileration at the sight of the biggest show of fireworks my mortal eyes have ever seen. 

What it's like in my head at the point of collision sees the molecular cirque-du-soleil act and raises it, giving the celestial dealer the biggest boner he's ever had, sapping out his mental energy in what appears to the philosophical onlooker as equilibrium helplessly resetting itself, while reason scuttles away and re-asserts herself in the far corner, out of sight, where she can dignifiably adjust her stockings without a greedy host making a move on her. As to how I'm gonna remember it, that's for future me to know, and present me to wonder about, as if she doesn't have enough to wonder about already. 

One thing I can say for sure though, seeing years-worth of things and not having the capacity to register them in my tender, human pod, and it is this: I pity witches. Getting burned at the stake must have been a mercy kill. No wonder witches died laughing.

This Lady

Grandma went home today - she'd been staying over for about a month and a half - and I can feel a vacuum where her presence should be, and it’s sucking the life out of me every time I drift towards it. If it were possible for a person to be made entirely out of love, it would be Teita.

Of the Shadows of the World

I got a drunk dial from a fan today; she stumbled upon this blog and liked what she saw. If you're sober and you found your way back here, and somehow STILL liked what you saw, you get a shoutout; Greetings fine lady! You absolutely made my day.

Moving on.

It's a quiet night, haven't had one of those in a long time. I finally got to finish American Gods, and I take back most of what I said about it. It took its sweetass time coming together and I gotta say it came together quite beautifully. I knew my faith in Neil Gaiman shouldn't have wavered, but we're all human after all. Falter we do, and falter I did. Forgive me, oh Gaiman. In all your Gaimaness, you've outgaimaned yourself. *Curtsies and scuttles out of royal court*

Bit of an afterthought, I think the main reason why it took so long to hit home with me was because I already believed in most of what he was trying to say throughout the book. It wasn't that it was betrayed by its premise, it was the fact that it took him 90% of the book trying to build an argument for everybody else, then in the last 80 pages came the long drawn-out breath of AHA! Only it wasn't an "AHA!" for me, more of a "Heh, I see what you did there." I kind of envy all the shitheads that Neil Gaiman converted through this book, or even the ones who weren't all that confused that he gave something to think about; building seeds of doubt on the expanse between what is and what isn't, sprouting several could be's out of the cracks. You lucky fuckers, you got an epic on your hands. Here's to hoping his arguments aren't wasted on you. I wish I'd read this book 4 or 5 years back, when I was a shithead myself. That would have been nice. 

Having missed out on the full-effect of this book, what really got to me were the acknowledgements at the end. It was a little something he mentioned while thanking all the people involved. I'll get to that in a bit, let me copy part of it here before I fangirl.

"It’s been a long book, and a long journey, and I owe many people a great deal.

Mrs. Hawley lent me her Florida house to write in, and all I had to do in return was scare away the vultures. She lent me her Irish house to finish it in and cautioned me not to scare away the ghosts. My thanks to her and Mr. Hawley for all their kindness and generosity. Jonathan and Jane lent me their house and hammock to write in, and all I had to do was fish the occasional peculiar Floridian beastie out of the lizard pool. 

I’m very grateful to them all. Dan Johnson, M.D., gave me medical information whenever I needed it, pointed out stray and unintentional anglicisms (everybody else did this as well), answered the oddest questions, and, on one July day, even flew me around northern Wisconsin in a tiny plane. In addition to keeping my life going by proxy while I wrote this book, my assistant, the fabulous Lorraine Garland, became very blasé about finding out the population of small American towns for me; I’m still not sure quite how she did it. (She’s part of a band called The Flash Girls; buy their new record, Play Each Morning, Wild Queen, and make her happy.) Terry Pratchett helped unlock a knotty plot point for me on the train to Gothenburg."

And here it is, "In addition to keeping my life going by proxy while I wrote this book...", that's what got to me. 

Perhaps it wouldn't resonate with you the same way it did with me, but that's what being a writer is all about. Hemingway said it; "You just sit at a typewriter and bleed." Now, it's gonna get a little cliche starting here so bear with me. 

How did writing start out? What was the first person thinking about when he sat down and wrote the first manuscript known to man? What made neanderthals get the urge to scribble on the cave walls? It wasn't all ego, it wasn't all a matter of record. (The first cave man wouldn't have known he'd die or multiply until he got there, probably by accident.) The way I see it, it was awe. Perhaps the only way writers are different from the rest of the people is the way they're always outsiders; they're always very conscious of their nature as vessels, and they're always struggling to document every aspect of the human condition. They struggle against word limitations, against abstract sensations that don't quite have semantic vehicles to transfer that exact experience to another human being. In a lot of ways, a writer is a child trapped in an adult's body, pointing at things and tugging at his companions' sleeves so they could see it too.

He's not the first or last person to get there, a lot of writers mastered delivering ideas, others mastered delivering ideas and feelings, other make money by expertly sending the reader on an emotional rollercoaster (Looking at you, Stephen King. You big cheat.) Few, though, got past those, and into that place where great, honest writing comes out. Borrowing a term from American Gods, I guess the only way you could describe it is this: They slipped into the backstage. And we all know what happens to mortals when they slip backstage.

And a lot of authors went mad in that process; they went mad trying to contain the human condition using various combinations of 26 petty letters on lacking, 2 dimensional paper sheets. The process is exhausting, frustrating and in a lot of ways excruciating, but the worst part about it to writers - and I mean real writers, not commercial writers or professional word smiths - is that the process is also needy. It pulls at you, it takes a lot out of you, and it consumes you. It makes you vulnerable, it stretches your confines threadbare and it makes you very conscious of what you're failing to pin down. It demands to be carried out, even if it takes you out with it. Pages and years are spent, and you still feel mute, because some things just can't be put down. Not with the tools we have at our expense anyway. 

And god, the pang of it.

What he said is a direct symptom of that. Which brings me to my next point; I now know exactly what I like about Gaiman, in all his lacking present ways, it's that he tries. And he sometimes touches upon great truths - visceral, intellectual, subliminal, emotional or what have you - that weren't communicated before. And for all intents and purposes, he doesn't completely miss. He doesn't deliver the whole picture, and in his groping for words he may not have chosen the right ones, but I get some sense of the image, a fading impression, a threshold outline, albeit out of focus or distorted, and it hits home. 

There were a couple of other parts in the acknowledgement section that got to me. I found myself thinking about his next book. Not about it per se, but rather about how Terry won't be there to pick up the phone if he hits a stubborn knot in the plot. At the expense of sounding like an obsessed creep, their friendship was fragile, co-dependent, and the combination of both their minds tuned them in to frequencies that the rest of us mortals can't hope to listen in on, not even with dog ears sown on. This by no way implies that any of them is less of a writer than the other one, but when they came together they produced lightening bolts. It will never be the same, will it? 

It hurt to register that Terry is gone. In a lot of ways, pathetic as it may seem to you, it still hurts. I hadn't registered it till then, and it took that line to make it real.

The acknowledgement also got me daydreaming around the part he mentioned his friend let him lease out the house to write in. We don't have that kind of culture in here; the culture of taking care of an author along on his way down inspiration lane. It was heartwarming, reading about how a community came together to help him write this book. 

Excuse my fangirling, I assure you I'm sane. Although you may have caught a glimpse of the hopeless romantic inside of me that I keep chained away in a dungeon, down in the shadows and depths of myself, away from prying eyes. 

The acknowledgement section was another long, drawn-out sigh of relief in its own way. I guess I didn't leave empty-handed after all, even if a little unconventionally.