Strawberry Swing.

I don't understand why I'm not writing as much as I used to. I grew up having so much to say to the world. I guess you just get to a certain point of your life and realize that nothing you say or do will ever matter. That's what growing up is about, isn't it? Coming to terms with your insignificance and realizing that the cape you've been dragging around looks ridiculous.

It's been rough. Which I don't mind, what I do mind however is that I'm losing my sense of humor about it all. I'm having an odd case of incurable Senioritis in Sophomore year, which is apparently yet another widespread phenomenon that everybody somehow failed to mention in the college handbook. I've been eating nothing but junk food since January, and when I actually tried my hand at this whole grownupsy shopping for groceries and making myself a healthy meal deal, I ended up standing at the cash register looking down on a shopping cart filled almost exclusively with chocolate-based pseudo food. The only responsible choice I made was whole wheat bread, which was apparently a hard act to follow since there was nothing to spread on it.

The sad thing is that I don't even find this funny.

Another bit of news is that a while ago I took it upon myself to retreat into my bat cave and swore it on the old gods and the new that it'll take batman himself to get me back out again. The last time I made that decision I was 12, if I recall correctly, and it did take batman to get me back out, in the form of my dad, about 4 years later. During that interesting incubation period, I honed my hermit skills in the arts of dystopian literature and SciFi TV shows, became a self-sufficient misanthrope and emerged into the world a klutzy fumbling ball of oddments and eccentricities, with not a hint as to how humans work or how to interact with them, attracting the occasional lost soul with my formidable stash of geeky knowledge only to beat them off the threshold of my haunted house with a Nimbus 2000 when they confused me, which happened a lot. 

If only it were that easy.

And so many years later, at the golden age of 21, I'm back there again. And I wouldn't trade it for the world. Well to be perfectly honest, I would trade it, only for a better world, not this one. This one has humans, and they're horrible horrible beings. 

The Viking Conundrum.

Burn Notice.

There will always be one person who will turn your conscious no into an I can't. And there's nothing you can do about it.

Of Salt & Sand.

I don't get it. Why would grownups leave out all the important bits and fill kids' heads with shit they'll never use? It's counterproductive and rather mean. Besides, you'd think for someone that old, they'd know how to get the point of a freaking story.

I'm guessing the most prominent bit about growing up is functioning without comfort zones, after having lost them or never having found them at all. People talk of it as if it's a liberating experience, like comfort zones are crutches for the life-ly challenged. They flush their savings into some makeshift mountain hike and they think that counts. But it doesn't. It's not until you have nothing and no one to depend on that you get to realize how it's really like. The funny part is this, it has equal parts horror and ecstasy, and it will drive you up the wall sometimes by how amply you get your fill of each scope, and how often you shuffle the two. It's incredibly hard to find your feet after losing ground (more literally than metaphorically, for that's how it feels on more levels than one), and calling it hard is optimistic. You have no idea if you'll ever find ground, and every expectation you were ever naive to hold and nourish will fall to pieces as you come to terms with just how helpless you really are, and how hard it is to make it out there. It feels like slaying a dragon sometimes. With a toothpick. That you don't even have or know how to acquire.

Many would argue that what makes life feel great is the fact that you don't know how things will turn out. That's not quite what I'm talking about. I'm talking about losing the simple truths and having trouble knowing what's real from then on.

Comfort zones can be people, ideas or states of mind. They're the things you know will never change, and will be there waiting for you in case you need somewhere to hide and feel safe. They don't judge or demand, they don't question or budge. They don't leave. They're there, and they're neutral if not pleasant. But most of all, they're unchanging. They're portable homes. You know that no matter how many things go to shit, everything's gonna be okay because they're there and they make everything better without necessarily doing anything about it. They're the things that people take for granted.

People make terrible comfort zones, no matter how great they are. You don't even feel yourself opening up to them, and you have no idea they've been landmarked as one until they're gone and it feels like you've been hit in the head with Thor's hammer. Ideas make great comfort zones, you can build entire worlds out  of them that will engulf you and give you sustenance for as long as you need to retreat from the world of men. Too bad they're fickle, and having a world tumble is a lot harder than losing your feet in one that's pretty damn solid and cruel. States of mind are the greatest of all comfort zones. They're energy fields, stimuli filters and outworldly capes. Things don't have leverage where they don't have effects. They're emotional kaleidoscopes and they make for some damn beautiful illusions. What sucks is that they're not very selective with what they filter and become autonomous after a while, and I'll be damned if you can tell what's true and what's loch ness after a couple of months.

Pillars of salt and pillars of sand.

I'm rambling. 

He Got 99 Problems But A Jedi Ain't One.

Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle.

Fandom Threat Galore

Yara Alsayes:

"I will hunt you down and pull your head out of your ass"

"I will hunt you down, kill you and feed you to my cat"



Rory

HAHAHA

"I will hunt you down and sing you rains of castamere"



Yara Alsayes

ahahahaha

"I will hunt you down, drape you in velvet and leave you in the scorching Egyptian sun all day"

"I will hunt you down and feed you your own foot"



Rory

"I will hunt you down and make you have dinner with the step-freys"

"I will hunt you down and introduce you to fat walda"



Yara Alsayes

ahahahahaha

"I will hunt you down and let Thyon tell you his tales of woe"



Rory

"I will hunt you down and give Mycroft your social security number"



Yara Alsayes

"I will hunt you down and have the red lady unleash her vag-demons on you"



Rory

"I will hunt you down and set you up on a date with Ramsay, then tell Tina about it!"



Yara Alsayes

ahahahahahahaaa



Rory

LOL vag demons

HAHHAHAHAHHA



Yara Alsayes

this is perfect!



Rory

"I will hunt you down and have Sherlock plan your wedding"

"I will hunt you down and have GRRM plan your wedding!!"



Yara Alsayes

"I will hunt you down and tell the Daleks it's your birthday party"

*gasp* "I will hunt you down and I'll have the Macmanus brothers with me. 'nuff said"



Rory

"I will hunt you down and make you listen to vogon poetry"

"I will hunt you down and make you ask the spaceship computer for tea"



Yara Alsayes

ahahahahaa



Rory

"I will hunt you down and have Trillian make you tea!"

"I will hunt you down and moisturize you"

"I will hunt you down and seduce you in klingon"



Yara Alsayes

BAAHAHAHAHAA omg this is hilarious!



Rory

hahahhahhhhahaha

"I will hunt you down, and saber you, I will!"



Yara Alsayes

"I will hunt you down and tell Sontarans they can take over your apartment if they so please"



Rory

"I will hunt you down and make you strip out of a pigeon pie"



Yara Alsayes

"I will hunt you down and give you some of that pigeon pie"



Rory

"I will hunt you down and have you sing lullabies to the hound"



Yara Alsayes

ahahahaha omg

the internet should've exploded already



Rory

we're too good at this



Yara Alsayes

we are! We should write a coffee table book

just filled with fandom threats



Rory

"I will hunt you down and sell you as a contortionist to the Martells"

YES WE SHOULD

"I will hunt you down and have podrick payne give you a lap dance, and nothing else!"

"I will hunt you down, marry you to a thunderbolt then sell you to bronn!"



Yara Alsayes

"I will hunt you down, put a fur coat on you and introduce you to Elaine Benes"



Rory

HAHAHHAHAHA

"I will hunt you down, make sure you're phobic of canines and introduce you to costanza!"

scratch that, "I will hunt you down, and introduce you to costanza!"

#SugarBurn



Yara Alsayes

ahahahahaa



Rory

"I will hunt you down, kill your family and feed you lemon cakes"

"I will hunt you down and make you do the water dance with a needle"

"I will hunt you down, turn you into a warg then break both of your legs"

OH OH OH

"I will hunt you down and call you molly"

#TripleBurn

"I will hunt you down and tell you YOU CAN'T SIT WITH US!"

"I will hunt you down and tell  you your vintage plaid skirt is fab"



Yara Alsayes

ahahahahaa!



Ahmed Ghazy

I'll hunt you down and put you in a time lock



Ahmed Ghazy

I'll hunt you down and take you for a trip to the time vortex

I'll hunt you down and make you blink

I'll hunt you down and shoot your fez off



Rory

I will hunt you down and upgrade you

I will hunt you down and make you wear bowties after labour day



Ahmed Ghazy

I'll hunt you down and change the colour of your kidneys

I'll hunt you down and beat you with your cricket bat

I'll hunt you down and strangle you with your own scarf



Rory

I will hunt you down and make a ship out of you

I will hunt you down and give you second light source

i will hunt you down and eat your celery stick



Ahmed Ghazy

I will hunt you down and report you to the judoon



Rory

I will hunt you down and report you to the shadow proclamation!

Hell, i will hunt you down and report you to the queen



Ahmed Ghazy

oooooooh!

I will hunt you down and throw you to the rabid ood



Rory

I will hunt you down and make you an ood, then introduce the concept of labour unions



Ahmed Ghazy

I will hunt you down so hard your adipose will abandon you



Rory

HAHAHA

I will hunt you down so bad, you'll graffiti it.



Ahmed Ghazy

I'll hunt you down and send you to a concert with The Master



Rory

I will hunt you down and have you swallow the time vortex

I will hunt you out of your wits, your next regeneration will be a war doctor!



Ahmed Ghazy

I will hunt you down and shove you in a closet With Hitler



Rory

I will hunt you down and make you love the ponds

then I'll hunt down the ponds!

I will hunt you down, make you wear a pinstripe suit and have you take pictures with tennant every day of your life!



Ahmed Ghazy

I will hunt you down and shoot you in Chinatown



Rory

I will hunt you down and make you have a rap battle with Shakespeare and three waifs for your life



Ahmed Ghazy

I will hunt you down and lock you in a box for 2 millenia with only a plastic dude in sandals for company



Rory

I will hunt you down and tell you a story about how i met your mother that lasts 9 years, then kill her and marry your aunt.



Rory

I will hunt you down, teach you the bro code for 9 years, THEN steal your chick.



Ahmed Ghazy

I'll hunt you down and turn off your check engine light

I'll hunt you down and turn you into Aquaman

I will hunt you down and destroy all your suits

Some Things Are Better Left Unmangled.

Trip To The Moon

I found an old Ismail Yassin SciFi movie with robots, rockets and Roshdy Abaza leading a chick on the moon!

Of Dylan Moran, Dylan Moran, and more Dylan Moran.

I love this man. He is my soul-mate, he just doesn't know it yet.

Sunday April 06, 2014 at 11:42 pm

Goodbye, and thanks for all the fish.

Tangible Equilibrium.

Watching Wilhelm  Kempff play is perhaps the closest us mortals will get to beholding an act of creation at work.

Sequitur

Nothing is scarier than a woman who knows who she is, all that she is, and what she wants, perhaps even more so to the woman herself.

What You See Is What You Get.

When I was a kid, I used to stretch in the backseat of my dad's car and watch the stars follow me home every night. I remember feeling safe and having no sense of time. It always made me feel dizzy, but the good kind of dizzy where you don't feel sick but rather like you've been twirling for too long. A couple of days ago I visited grandma for mother's day, and on my way back I tried to lie back and watch the stars follow me home like I used to. I couldn't see any. There were no stars to follow me home that night, and all I could think about was how they didn't follow me home this time because they probably didn't know the address.

Booty Trap.

That sweet moment when your friends find out you have a crush, shamelessly kidnap him then text you saying 'ta3ali m3ana el wad.'

The Empty Jar Club

- Your definition of empty jar is not the same as mine.
- Yes, that's why I didn't get what you were saying the other day.
- I literally mean empty.
- But how does that feel?
- It's like you're full of nothing.
- That sounds like it would feel great.
- Not the good kind of nothing.
- I don't think there's a bad kind of nothing. There's a certain freedom that comes with having no attachments.
- Well it isn't that kind.
- that's why I don't get it.
- You're looking for a certain something to fill the nothing but you don't know what it is or where to find it or if it exists. And till you find it, the nothing is just there and it's unpleasant.
- kind of like me feeling homesick for a home that isn't there? Or that third eye that you always feel is missing on your forehead?
- Hmm maybe.
- We are empty jars.
- We're empty bottomless jars.

Of A Post-Apocalyptic Rainy Night.

Disclaimer: Dear reader, this one is not for you, I apologize for the inconvenience. I read this back to myself and it sounded just as choppy and stripped to the bone as my memory usually is, but then again the sentences fit into little snapshots and they triggered the right images in my head. So go make your own memories and then distort them with adjectives and sentence structure until it's pretty sounding enough that you can't place the memory anymore.

I need  to keep this memory.

I was lost in Zamalek for two hours last night when it started raining.

I was dragged to an outing where I wasn't welcome by an oblivious friend and decided to head home 15 minutes into it, so I started walking around trying to find a main street where I could take a cab or a bus home. It was pretty late, and 5 minutes into it, it started pouring and there was an onslaught of vicious thunder and lightening that split the sky in two every minute.

The streets were deserted, everyone was already home or hiding it out in cafes and shops. The lights were out as well, and other than a couple of forgotten lights here and there, it was pitch dark. There was no living soul as far as the eye could see, save for the occasional gang running around celebrating the rain tribal style. I was soaked through, I had a waterproof sweater in my bag that I put on, but my bag was soaked.

I couldn't see five feet in front of me properly because the rain had rendered my seeing glasses useless, and even without my glasses, you couldn't make out where the street started or ended because of the rain and the darkness. All of my books and college handouts and my cellphone and packet of cigarettes, they were useless, and it was useless to try and save them, but I didn't care. I knew it was dangerous, but I didn't care for that either. I felt liberated. It was a post-apocalyptic walk, without the zombies.

I had no idea where I was or how I'm gonna get home, I was alone with no one (civil) in sight, but I was happy. I knew that any minute I could get mugged or harassed or some car could come and try to pick me up and I wouldn't have been able to fight back, but none of that happened, and I didn't care that it could. It was freezing and I didn't have the right clothes on, but I didn't care for that either. I don't remember feeling more liberated in my entire life. I felt free, and there. There was an air of tangible presence that I haven't assumed in a long time. I felt small and insignificant, and somehow these two made me feel liberated and good. I had no control over anything. I felt like an empty opened jar.

I was the last human on earth, and I wasn't expected anywhere. I wasn't worried about. I was completely and utterly alone, and defenseless. And by god it was magic.

I was picked up by a cab that broke down on the bridge, and the cabbie was kind enough to call his cabbie friend and pick me up on the bridge. I left a butt print on the backseat going out, and the second one was in a hurry and splashed water meter-high when he sped off. We were lost there too, since you couldn't see through the windshield and his wipers were broken down, so we could have had an accident any minute. I didn't care for that either. We took a thousand wrong turns and it took another hour and a half to make it home, after ending up in two wrong districts. He'd soaked 6 people who were trying to stop the cab a little too desperately by driving too close. He dropped me off 15 minutes away since he couldn't figure out how to battle one-way streets, they were a little too urban for what he was used to, and elaborately voiced his indignation on the matter.

I ended up walking home in the rain for the second time, this time followed by a couple of bored guys, and later followed by 5 workers on the back of a pick-up truck. But that didn't matter, try as they might, they couldn't ruin my good mood.

I met my dad by chance at the foot of the building. He'd just come back from work at 1:30 am. He started ranting about a couple of issues of his own, and all I could think about was how beautiful this planet would be without its people, trashed and all.

There are so many reasons (stated and left out) why this could be a bad memory, but for some reason, that I can't place or make sense of, it's a happy one.

42.

Re-channel your obsessions, and displace your anger. That, is the secret to life.

Fuck Semantics.

Very few things have gone on for so long without people questioning their existence and/or integrity at one point. What baffles me is how taking people for their word has escaped that. It appears to me that there's an unspoken pact on earth that says 'People are what they say, you should base all of your judgement on that and only look to action for proof if you're the type of guy who washes his hands 8 times while singing REM's Everybody Hurts. If you get fucked over because of it, that's probably because you misunderstood them, were in denial or let a couple of hints slide.' But here's the thing about words, and it's not just that talk is cheap and that actions speak louder than words or all of that crap. It's the fact that actions are in fact the only thing that speak, words don't speak at all. 

Writing is a craft, you wield words and direct thought in a subtle manipulation of accepted beliefs and approaches that would cause people to have a voluntary mindfuck and eat that shit like hot popcorn. Talking is also an art, you can talk people into anything if you talk long enough, hard enough or smart enough. People know all of that, but they seem to only know it when they're on the giving side, then completely forget about it when they're on the receiving side; a convenient human dysfunction that makes it easier for them to fit in, or think they fit in sometimes.

Here's what I think; words are a little more musical than farts, but are taken more seriously for purely aesthetic reasons.

And because people are more inclined to take someone's shit because they're pretty, or let them get away with more shit because they're pretty, or give them things they don't deserve because they're pretty, or believe they're good-natured and good-hearted and fart and poo goodness because they're pretty, the same goes with words. But that's not just it.

Words label feelings that shouldn't be labeled lest they give people a false, effortless & undeserved sense of status. All you have to do is get a twitter account really, then your self-assurance is on steroids. You know all the answers to life, you have it all figured out. You know who you are and what you're doing here and how you're doing it and you're pimping it like you're Poppa Shizzles. Watch out, you'll slap a hoe. You'll slap all the hoes. And people fall for it, instead of the more logical 'Wow you're an egocentric delusional bullshit-spewing subhuman that can't help but pattern their toe-twiddling habit on a performance chart while failing to enact that self-righteous tweet if it came to life and smacked you in the face', they'll always assume 'Hey, look how conscientious she makes herself sound, she must really be all that she says she is. Let's be completely vulnerable with her for no good reason and hand her our asses on a silver platter. After all, she has a string of pretty adjectives that she made up in the heat of the moment to account for her in case she turns out to be a total cunt.'

Words also externalize things that should be private and utilized for survival and self-acceptance to set people apart by sheer pretence. I'm a firm believer that people are just about as good as it is convenient for them. And most of the time, that goodness only exists in human beings to allow them breathing space to co-exist with what remains of their shitty selves. Their many little good things are there to make their life easier by providing cartiledge between all the other things that make them who they are and help them survive out there, and cartiledge isn't meant to accomodate other human beings, it's put there so you don't experience excruciating pain everytime you want to move around. True goodness takes effort and sacrifice, and isn't limited to things that only affect the host. That comes in at about one in a million, and half the time it's a scam. What words do is that they take those things that only affect the host and make people believe that person has so many celestial kudos and ninja high life score for nothing. So what if you're organized? That means YOU like to live in an orderly fashion, it shouldn't imply that you're somehow better equipped at handling all of the office supplies. Oh, you sit side-saddle? That must mean you're a lady! You wash the dishes? Here, have my babies.

It's taken for granted how people use words to create false form with nonrefutable credibility rather than establish communication. Words are air we shoot around, and there is no guarantee of whether or not they're true, and most of the time they're not because our brains can't handle it. It's bad enough that it has to handle you, it doesn't have to handle all the other reflections of you there will be when you're infinitely mirrored by voicing all the things you know about yourself to other people who will do the same about themselves and handle you accordingly only to prove you were right about what you thought, thus providing new but identical input that has to be processed and re-released into an inexhaustible loop until you eventually fry your brains before making it to lunch. If a person tells you they're reliable, it's a 90% chance they're about as fickle as an ADHD-afflicted squirrel tripping off crystal meth, and it's meant to be that way so that they don't wake up one day realizing they're an ADHD-afflicted squirrel tripping off crystal meth and put a bullet through their ADHD-afflicted meth-choked squirrel heads.There is no way of knowing someone by talking to them; that's like going out in the real world and buying groceries with monopoly money. Talk isn't cheap, it's utterly worthless; if you really want to know someone, all you have to do is sit back and watch what they do about different things, or what a good friend likes to call 'watching the booty in its natural habitat.'

Words assign people imaginary values that everybody else considers facts. He said he's not pissed, there's no way he could be pissed! She said she's not hurt, that must mean she's not hurt. She said she'll keep my secret, she'll take it to her grave. He said he'll never leave, he definitely put a ring on it. She said she'll always be there for me, there's absolutely no reason why I should take care of myself like a grownup when I can pathetically fall to pieces and depend on her to put me back together. He said he despises cheaters, he's probably busy because he's an undercover operative on a top-secret mission in Iraq. He said he's honest, he's definitely not lying about his thrice-dead grandmother. She said she hates politicians, that must mean she's a total saint who's incapable of dirty work. She said she feels very strongly about bullying, she probably never bullied a person in her life! Well guess what? If they call themselves tolerant, chances are they've just listened to all of Lennon's discography and would take an axe to Yoko's head any day of the week if it means they'll tap that. No matter how honest a person is, there will still be a barrier between who the person is and who the person thinks he is. The only way a person's words will completely convey all that he is without alteration and with complete clarity is if the person is in fact an idea. No such clarity exists within the realms of men, because that barrier is put there so we could live with ourselves. It's a safety valve; because if you really see who you are you'll go all Dorian Gray on your ass and it won't be pretty.

Words also build and burn bridges when they aren't trusted to carry out trivial business transactions, which doesn't make a lot of sense. You wouldn't trust people with your money unless you have their neck handed to you on signed contract that would cost them half their property and two kids but you'd trust a person with your own emotional/physical/mental/psychological wellbeing on their word? Is it just me or does the world need to get its priorities straight?

Words also give people credit they don't deserve, and have done nothing to be eligibile for. They provide a slot that's just the right size for people to fill with all the things they like to hear and really want to believe about you.There is always that one person we've known long enough to realize that nothing they say means jackshit. They start talking and it's all white noise, because you know from experience that they speak for the same reason that a dog chases its tail; they just can't help it. What people don't realize though is that we are all that person, to different degrees. We may not be that confused puppy, but then again we'll probably chase that red dot like our lives depended on it and cough up hair balls until we choke on our own aquaphobia.

Happiness (n.):

Memory Blob.

    Ich wollt ich wär ein Huhn,
    ich hätt nicht viel zu tun.
    Ich legte vormittags ein Ei und nachmittags wär ich frei.
    Mich lockte auf der Welt,
    kein Ruhm mehr und kein Geld,
    und fände ich das große Los,
    dann fräße ich es bloß.

Bach's Coffee Cantata

Liesgen: 

Herr Vater, seid doch nicht so scharf!

Father, don’t be so hard!

Wenn ich des Tages nicht dreimal

If three times a day I can’t

Mein Schälchen Coffee trinken darf,

drink my little cup of coffee,

So werd ich ja zu meiner Qual

then I would become so upset

Wie ein verdorrtes Ziegenbrätchen

that I would be like dried up piece of roast goat.

4

Aria: Liesgen [Soprano]

Flauto traverso, Continuo

Ei! wie schmeckt der Coffee süße,

Ah! how sweet coffee tastes!

Lieblicher als tausend Küsse,

Lovelier than a thousand kisses,

Milder als Muskatenwein.

smoother than muscatel wine.

Coffee, Coffee muss ich haben,

Coffee, I must have coffee,

Und wenn jemand mich will laben,

and if anyone wants to give me a treat,

Ach, so schenkt mir Coffee ein!

ah!, just give me some coffee!

5

Recitative: Schlendrian [Bass], Liesgen [Soprano]

Continuo

Schlendrian:

Wenn du mir nicht den Coffee lässt,

If you don’t give up coffee,

So sollst du auf kein Hochzeitfest,

you won’t be going to any wedding

Auch nicht spazierengehn.

and you won’t go out walking either.

Liesgen: 

Ach ja!

Alright then !

Nur lasset mir den Coffee da!

Just leave me my coffee!

Full Translation Here: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Texts/BWV211-Eng3.htm

This exists, let's have a moment to appreciate it.

One Day.

Moral Myopia.

"One of the oldest and most universal moral precepts is the Golden Rule: Treat others as you want them to treat you. That mandate shows up in Confucianism and in the Code of Hammurabi. It was reiterated by Seneca and by the Buddha. It appears in the Bible, as the command to love thy neighbor as thyself. It might possibly have been taught to more people than any other notion in history.

It is also, on reflection, a little weird. For a guideline about how to treat others, the Golden Rule is strikingly egocentric. It does not urge us to consult our neighbors about their needs; it asks us only to generalize from ourselves—to imagine, in essence, that everyone’s idea of desirable treatment matches our own. As such, it makes a curiously narrow demand on our imagination, and, accordingly, on our behavior. Morality does not start with the self, it starts when we set the self aside. We dwell in moral myopia; literally and figuratively, we are too close to ourselves."

- Kathryn Schulz.

:)

Here Goes Nothing.

Milestone

GUESS WHO DID SO WELL ON HER GRAPHICS FINAL PROJECT THAT SHE GOT A TEACHER HUG AND BONBONAYA MEN KOL NOO3?

TODAY, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, IS A GOOD DAY. AND I AM AWESOME! AW HELL YEAH!