Making Your Way Back Home Thinking Oh No.

Of A Constant That Will Turn.

Life Lesson #161: ‘No eleventh hour reprieve. Keep your head above water, but don’t forget to breathe.’

Life Lesson #162: Ultimatums work if you’re a suicide bomber. Otherwise you’re just a little bugger flailing your arms in the middle of some department store that everybody’s gonna forget about over their TV dinner 7 minutes later. They even get to call themselves heroes because of it. They will, however, continue munching ‘heroically’ as you rot in a cell that smells like pickles.

Life Lesson #163: Muffins are bold cupcakes. It takes dough to go out without all that icing.

Life Lesson #164: No matter how many lessons you studiously pile up, you’ve still got a lot to learn kiddo, haven’t you?

Life Lesson #165: Take One: When all else fails; you’ve probably been trying too hard for anything to work.

Life Lesson #166: Take Two: When all else fails, you probably just need to tell it like it is.

Life Lesson #167: Take Three: Or you could just have a pickle. Pickles are nice.

Life Lesson #168: This goes out to Cee Lo Green: How could there be footprints on the ceiling again?

Life Lesson #169: It’s so cold I can feel the tip of my nose freezing, but then again I could never have felt the tip of my nose any other way.

But Time..Is On Your Side..It’s On Your Siiiiiiiiiiiide Nahoooow.

Do you know when you get so frustrated doing something that you start thinking about parallel abstract equivalents to pat the ego bump? I’ve been working on the same Maths sheet all day, and I’m not done yet. I’ve even missed Arabic class because I’d rather do Maths and because, well, who the fuck cares about Arabic class? It’s almost irrelevant. The dude just stands there and reads what we already have in the binders. We can read too, you know. Anywho, so I got frustrated with logarithms and started thinking that maybe the only reason I like Maths is because it’s one of the few things I haven’t already conquered, as egotistical as that sounds at the back of my head. There’s always a little more to know about it and you could never quite get the hang of it, it’s almost humbling how it accentuates your insignificance with just another couple of signs. Then I started thinking, maybe all I actually like about Maths is the challenge, like everything, and come to think of it, everyone, in my life. You know when you’re after something just because you just can’t get your arms around the fact that you might not be able to do it, and drop it as soon as you unlock whatever riddle it offers? In simpler words, maybe I’m the bedazzled dude and Maths is the hard-to-get chick.

And by God I’m getting that chick no matter what. I don’t care how long it takes. I’m a spoiled little stubborn brat who’s used to getting her way. Bring it on, Maths sheet. You think you’re so hot? Drop-dead gorgeous much? Mesh 3lya ya mama.

Ok I might have got a wee bit too emotional there.

*Looks to Maths sheet* I’m onto you.

December has been quite..what’s the word for it. Tempestuous? Nah. Maybe just a little too Beethoven-y for my taste; going all smooth then bursting out in symphonic epic harmonies that almost seem like they’re meant for you to go deaf in some karmic settling of scores. 2010 seems to have ‘catching up on some soul-reaping’ on its to-do list. Trying to go out with a bang, eh?

It’s still slow tho. It still has the ‘I-won’t-rush-if-my-life-depended-on-it’ feel, which after all metaphorically makes sense in a way. It is the last month of the year, innit?

2011 is an odd number. I like odd numbers. 2009 was an odd number tho. I hate odd numbers. 2010’s been even, a compromise, a package of pulsating aftermaths. I detest even numbers.

And cookies are awesome.

My Grandma Eloped?

So we couldn’t find my grandma this morning. Yeh. Apparently she wandered off into the sandstorm, and since she doesn’t believe in the use of cell phones as a tracking device, we kept calling up everybody directly related and indirectly attached to locate her. As a chilling exercise, I passed the time by pondering the sarcastic use of the phrase ‘we lost your Grandma’. We found her 3 hours later shopping for Christmas. Let me make this crystal clear for you in case you’re slow: My Grandmother willingly walked out of the door into a sandstorm, giving up the warmth of a nice sweater and a cup of tea in a weather as inhumanely menayyel as this to get me a Christmas present. Oh would you just fucking kill me now?

El sana deeeh lazem te-fucking-te5las 3la fekra.

They Will Not Listen To You; They Don’t Believe In Souls.

Life Lesson #160: You need to stop stewing in your own juices and start looking for a new pot.

My Fish Died.

You Don’t Counteract A Ruy Lopez With A Lativan Gambit.

Life Lesson #154: Levantine Hummus spiked up with Jerk seasoning is almost like Margaritas, except that they function without the aftermath of a skull-sucking hangover AND they make you feel a hell of a lot warmer. You’d have to temporarily give up on the use of most of your taste buds for the day tho. But hell, who needs that many anyway?

Life Lesson #155: ‘A cup of candles, oh they flicker. Oh they flicker and they float, and I’m up here holding onto all those chandeliers of hope. Like some drunkard Elvis singing, I go singing out of tune. Saying how I always loved you darling, and I always will. Oh when you’re still waiting for the snow to fall, it doesn’t really feel like Christmas at all.'

Life Lesson #156: It’s the little confirmations that there’s one thing you’re doing right, like a cheap-ass pen that epitomises that maths equation that nobody could solve but you. Who woulda thought that a little “Shatra” from your dad and maths teacher could have you regress into your three-year-old self and you end up smiling wide enough to catch flies in your teeth?

Life Lesson #157: Tying a watch to on of your two primary limbs will not help you keep time as much as gluing a compass to your forehead will help you have a better sense of direction. It just makes it the second most obsessed-over abstract principle ever concocted. And no, you don’t want me talking about the first. At least not when I’m experiencing a Levantine high and a Taoist low.

Life Lesson #158: “What do you mean you’re trying?  You don’t try, you do it.” – Dad.

Life Lesson #159: Knight to E4. Bishop to E4. Queen to E4. Pawn to E4. Rook to E8. Checkmate.

When You’re Still Waiting For The Snow To Fall, It Doesn’t Really Feel Like Christmas At All..

December.

I’m not sure I can quite explain it, but I’m glad December’s here. It’s has this air of closure to it, that somehow everything’s gonna be alright after all, and even if it’s not, it will be over nonetheless, which is almost just as soothing. You can see your breath now, and you’re gonna feel like your nose is going to freeze and fall off your face, and that’s the beauty of it. Everything feels like it’s there, in one way or another; whether it’s the breath you see or the glasses that blur in the chilly morning, your fingers that hurt when you press the piano keys because it’s too cold but you press em still, your toes that somehow still manage to freeze inside the socks. It has this austere ‘thereness’ to it, everything somehow waits and time slows down. For once, you know that you’re here now. That it will be over, and that it won’t rush.

Or maybe that just makes sense to me.

It was a long day today. I’ve been working non-stop for almost 10 hours. Work makes you stop thinking, as paradoxical as that may sound. If you do it hard enough, it’ll shush all the voices in your head.

But you might not need to do that if you don’t have voices, that is.

That’s why the voices are essential to a somehow functional life. Just figure out a way to shush the tiny buggers every once in a while. Maybe 7 hours of maths and 3 hours of chemistry aren’t always the recommendable method, but it works you know. You go with what works.

I got a mug today. The Maths teacher had em specially made with mathematical signs jumbled all over them and handed them out to those who aced the supposedly impossible maths evaluation quiz and I got one. That made my day. After a really long day of working at stuff you’re not sure you’re good at or will ever be good at you get this teeny tiny confirmation that maybe there’s one little thing you’re doing right. Numbers always make sense, they look all complicated and jumbled up, but if you know how it’s supposed to look like before you dig in, then it just can’t go wrong. Maths is easier than people. It makes sense, it just adds up. It has patterns and predictable algorithms. You draw on whatever you know and your head does the rest, and most importantly of all, if the equation has no solution, you tend to know it beforehand by checking on a couple of values and replacing figures here and there. That’s not the way with life. You never know how it’s gonna turn out. Or if it will turn out at all. With Maths you tend to know it’s going somewhere even if you’re not really sure where the hell that is, which is comforting, in an odd sort of way. It’s easy, dependable. It’s also ‘there’.

I got this song stuck in my head, which is odd since it’s one of those sappy songs, or rather pussy songs really, that get tossed for some other slightly emotionally-grounded song. Besides the feline-tinged voice and the pathetically patched up lyrics – seriously, ‘let the judges frown’? It actually makes sense, in some I-only-have-a-500-word-stash-of-chick-vocabulary sort of way. Try having “Goodbye My Lover – James Blunt” stuck in your head if you’ve had your brain folds reared to the reverberations of something along the lines of ‘Cemeteries of London’ or ‘Thistles And Weeds’ for over a year. It just doesn’t...sit well, you know? You think Amy Lee is emo? Try this androgyne.

And what’s with the squealing ‘I’m so hollow’ line anyway? TWSS much? Someone shoulda given him a heads up, if you catch my drift. It’s bad enough that he hits notes only canines can pick up, no need to ground the hermaphrodite allegations. Well, that Maroon 5 dude is an epicene too, so I guess that’s, like, the thing nowadays, or whatever.

life Lesson #153: Theocracy happens when Theology sleeps with Democracy. Not a good sight.

E=MC²

So apparently people can get headaches and tummy aches at the same time. It could also coincide with Chemistry dilemmas, accidents poking out on repressed shit and heartaches. So that’s all literal, figurative and metaphorical forms of agony all in the very same time tunnel. You’d think Einstein would come up with an equation for that, but all he came up with is Energy equals mass multiplied by quantum squared. So, if we can consider energy to be the actual agony, mass to be the literal and figurative agonies with quantum symbolizing the all too metaphorical but not any less realistic good ole heartache squared, I’m kinda on the same lane as the homologous psychological outcome of a fucking nuclear explosion, wouldn’t you say?

Whatever.

So Chemistry. The third most bullshit-filled, theoretically-based, illogically rationalizing science after Politics and Theology. How many exceptions can one friggin element have for god’s sake? And why am I required to know that Ionization of Sc +3 requires an exceptionally high amount of quantum to break the relatively stable Sc +2 configuration at this point of my life? There are only so many metaphors one can use to differentiate between Electron Affinity and Ionization energy, which, if I may add, included an explicit hoe metaphor to get it to stick. There I’ve said it. So, lemme put it easy for the kids, Ionization energy is the hoe who pushes everybody away but electron affinity is the one that releases equal amounts of energy in congruence with whatever relationshit she’s going through. Heartaches messing with head much? I knowww. You should see my chemistry book. Gooooooooooootta love metaphors.

I’m whining. I’m off.

Mom’s Birthday :)

Of Cabbies And Capes.

Apart from riding in a cab with a senile citizen who kept asking all the other unsuspecting cab riders what they thought about the elections just so he could say that the government, to him, is just like the French Occupation; “They have to be removed”. My “And where are you gonna put em?” quip was not appreciated. Life Lesson #152: When arguing with old people, it’s highly advisable to go with their version of the plot.

Cab rides are becoming almost the most entertaining faction of my, recently commuting-enhanced, day-to-day life. I gotta say, finding my mom singing the chorus to “a7eb el nas el ray2a” that she’d picked up on our way home from Arabic Class was one hell of a sight. I haven’t laughed that hard since I overheard her singing Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” all the way from the kitchen to the living room.

Did you ever notice that in folkloric Arabic songs, the musical instruments used are almost always of an unidentifiable origin? You can hear the tune, yes, but where is the tune coming from? Think about it, how else could one mix the sound of a stringed instrument with that of a wind instrument? There’s a sound, yes. But what is it?

It was mum’s birthday yesterday. It was nice because I don’t usually get to spend a lot of time with her, so we hung out most of the day, had yoghurt and vanilla ice cream and saw Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows. Yes, my mom’s cool enough for a half centenarian to see a cinematic alteration of a children’s book series on her birthday and still have fun, thank you.

On an unrelated note, ever noticed that despite the fact that all movie series, a different composer is almost always hired to transcribe the track but it’s only in the Harry Potter series that the track is different variations of the same idiosyncratic tune even though the composers come and go like pawns?  In the Twilight series, each movie of the three that have been released has had a different musical background, except for Carter Burwell’s Bella’s Lullaby off the first  movie that is somehow now still stuck in everybody’s head as the official soundtrack, even though it’s hardly there in the second and third movie. If my memory has not betrayed me, I don’t think it was there at all. Alexandre Desplat, the composer of the soundtrack of New Moon  and Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Pt.1, changed the entirety of the logo-worth musical body to the former while sticking to the same outlines of John William’s “Hedwig’s Theme” in the latter, which means that there’s a segment in the contract of the Harry Potter movies that states the tune should not be altered over the transcribing process for marketing purposes, thus limiting the composer’s freelancing power over it, quite outrageously to the work of another’s; which is a hard contract term for supposedly renowned composers to agree to unless the production is big enough that they have to overlook it to be a part of the produced body of work. Come to think of it though, it’s only when the music is constant that the fairytale is somehow..tangible, wouldn’t you say? I was thinking it could be a marketing legerdemain to contribute the rooting of the Harry-Potterism in the history of cinema as well as the minds of the beguiled audience as somehow a body of its own. Too many variables to one thing is fidgety whereas unvarying aspect, albeit transfixed, are grounded.

Format Em Neurotransmitters.

Life Lesson #151: ‘The bad news is, your choices and intentions, some people and places, those nights spent awake and all you've done, can lead you to the bottom of the pit. The good news is, this wouldn't be the first time someone's crawled, tooth and nail, out of hell.’ – IWTFY

Thanksgiving.

I was talking with a good friend of mine about what we’re doing for thanksgiving, and she told me she found a slip of paper inside a book she bought  from an old lady at a bazaar where she wrote that everybody should have at least 10 things to be thankful for every thanksgiving, listing hers. Besides how heart-wrenchingly adorable this is, it provides an excellent paradigm shift. People should stop to think about happy stuff more often, even if they’re not real. Oh and by the way, for thanksgiving, I went on a walk with dad till 3 am in the morning. Despite the fact that now almost a mile away people thought we were drunk and I was his girlfriend, nobody manages to laugh that hard and talk non-stop for three hours over a can of birrell and a sandwich of ta3meya except dad and I. :) I had the Birrell, he had the ta3meya, nuff said.

Here goes..

• My Dad. A couple of days ago, 5 am, neither of us could sleep and were just splayed there on the couch with the lights off watching some gory movie where a dude rushed into a room and kept punching someone’s face off saying “AND I LOVED YOU THE MOOOST!” then dad says, out of the blue, “..Remind me to kill you”.

• My Mug of Coffee that’s always there when I need it.

• People who stay alive.

• People who stay.

• Time.

• Derelict Pianos in old school buildings.

• My cathartic Jogging route.

• That Danny Elfmann, Dreaming, Coldplay, Maths and Rubik’s Cubes exist, in the same world that I do.

• Cussing. :)

• Selective memory.

Oh, and as a good friend suggested:

• “You could add annoying the fuck out of people with stupid music on my blog”.

I Really Fucked It Up This Time, Didn’t I My Dear?

It’s Getting Hard To Hide Em Sniffles.

In the Penn and Teller Bullshit show, if the fat guy is the one who does all the talking, then what’s the use of the shorter creep? They were trying to save money on props?

There’s not much going on really, I’m stuck with major exams all week long, fell out with a good friend, caught a cold in the process and am currently alternating Penn and Teller Bullshit show on Recycling myths with Barney Stinson’s CBS blog.

   Not my idea of a balanced equation.

I should start on the shitload of chemistry I have to get down before 8 pm, but in a bit. By all means, you gotta tickle the humour bone every now and then especially when you’re feeling so down in the gutters that you could supply for your own recycling mission, so it’s a good balance. I was gonna try and  slip in a couple of comics too, but there’s only so much you can do with a limited DSL connection. You thought I was gonna say head, didn’t you?

I’m trying to hide the cold from my mom, till after Thursday or Friday, so that I’m not on house arrest by then and manage to snatch a few outings before resuming the force-feeding of science, and in this case, antibiotics. That BBC spray thingie is evil. It’s designed by a dimwit who wanted to paralyse they’re smart mouth of an opponent’s speech abilities long enough to try and think of a decent comeback. I’ll quote a good friend who said what all of y’all are probably thinking by now: “You’re not supposed to spray it on your tongue, doofus! you put it way back in your throat. TWSS.” Still tho, that thing always makes its way down the road and I end up making sure that I didn’t swallow my tongue by mistake every couple of minutes for the next half hour. How else am I supposed to know that my tongue is still in my buccal cavity and not way back down the oesophagus if I can’t FRIGGIN FEEL ITS EXISTENCE ANYMORE!

A White Blank Page, And A Swelling Rage.

Life Lesson #150: “I'm sure you've met them. They say they’ll put you back together while they’re tearing everything apart. And they use the type of lips you can taste for years.” -IWTFY

Who Said Nuns Dunno How To Party?

Dead People Don’t Text Back, You Know.

Life Lesson #141: Whoever said overworking yourself makes you get over things was one pathetically desperate motherfucker.

Life Lesson #142: Whoever said overworking yourself makes you get over things was one pathetically desperate motherfucker who knew what he was talking about. Life Lesson #143: ‘You can’t jump the tracks we’re like cars on a cable.’

Life Lesson #144: Inhale. Now Exhale. There. Do that a couple of million times a day and you might, just might, feel better. Well, alive feels better, right? Now that I think of it, death probably feels better, because there are no feelings at all. It’s easy. You don’t have to do anything. Not one. Muscles relax, your fist unclenches and everything just stops. People stop. Then they Inhale. And Exhale. And they do that a couple of million times a day, and a couple of million more. You’re in peace and they’re hyperventilating, they’re making up for the couple of million inhalations and exhalations you’re behind on; just till the world gets used to the amount of oxygen you’re saving and water vapour you’re not producing. You were just a prop to complement the atmosphere. Nothing more, but nothing less all the same. Then they inhale, exhale, just a couple of million times this time around. That’s just how the world works. It doesn’t necessarily have to mean anything. It just is.

Life Lesson #145: Whoever said you had to, how do they know, and why should you listen to them in the first place?

Life Lesson #146: “Satellites contain us. Traffic lights control us. Rockets shoot us up into the stars. Letters keep us posted, numbers calculated. Nothing picks us up when we’re down.”

Life Lesson #147: It’s not you who’s drinking the coffee. It’s the coffee that’s drinking you. It’s not you who’s smoking that cig, it’s the cig that’s puffing you into thin air. But then again, so does everything else, at least this time it’s your choice, innit?

Life Lesson #148: Stop twitching, no one can hear it but you.

Life Lesson #149: “Common sense protects us. Everything affects us. To the outside light it’s paradise.”

What’s This About? Why Don’t You Just Read The Damn Thing?

I just wanna lay around and do nothing for a couple of extra millennia. I have tons of stuff to get done that I should’ve been working on during the vacation, and even tho most of the time I had absolutely nothing better to do, I just didn’t do any of em. Not everything tho, I mean, I’m behind on schoolwork but for some reason I’m working on three piano pieces at once. Basta3bat much? I knoooow I know. Meh. You gotta lay back every once in a while anyway. We’re back in the rat race in a couple of days anyhow, and I have no intention to waste the only time I have off just to lower the acceleration with which I inevitably burn out next week. It’s happening anyway, might as well lick as much whipped cream off the cake. That doesn’t sound right.

On an unrelated note, I believe phonetics were invented by a pompous cretin because if discernible is pronounced di’surnubul, why don’t they just fucking write it as they say it? Last time I checked that was the whole point of written language.

Did I tell you how much I like smoked salmon? Well, I do. And it got me thinking – you know since no other fish has that tingy aftertaste than salmon – that maybe people taste different too; to cannibals I mean. Every, sort of, species of fish has a different taste to it, doesn’t it also apply that people taste differently according to race, persona, genes and lineage? Short people genes make you taste slightly richer than tall ones, or maybe  assholes are more of the type that’s way too smelly to eat. I dunno. I reckon I’d taste like sashimi sushi, I’d hate to be tuna. Could the meek ones be sort of like the fillet of the party, all spineless and bland? There’s gotta be some truth about giving someone a piece of your mind other than the actual resulting interaction. Well, you get the picture. Nah?

Oh bite me.

You know, according to the theory of evolution, in a couple of years to come with the amount of office hours and the decreasing hours of actual socializing, man is bound to grow an inflated butt and have a protective epidermis formed on their mouths for lack of usage. Maybe we’d grow extra fingers on typing demand, that’s how amphibians developed you know, you grow hind legs instead of em extra set of flippers. I wonder why we still have an appendix tho, it’s always been there but it’s almost like all the other organs forgot what the hell it’s supposed to be doing in the first place, sort of like a second earlobe. What’s the use of earlobes anyway, they couldn’t have possibly been installed there because you might have thought of piercing it with some shiny sharp object and keeping it there so that the wound doesn’t close up. You know, come to think of it, I’d like to see who the fuck was so commercially-oriented so early on in evolution that they’d go as far as jabbing a metal rod into an flesh extension twice to look slightly better. How could they have known it would even look better? Going out on a limb and punching a hole into a part of your body for accessorizing is just gory. It’s good they thought of it tho, I’d like to get three more on each ear, except that I could never keep a set of earrings for longer than a day. What’s the friggin point anyway? Maybe they even thought of the hole before thinking of earrings, and the earring thing started out when that masochistic prehistoric emo wanted to keep all the old wounds instead of re-opening em every couple of days and keep track of how many times they threw a fit. Rationalize it for me, will ya? If you currently have nothing better to do I’d like you to ‘give me a piece of your mind’ about what the hell the first dude/dudette who thought of piercing was thinking. Oh, and while you’re at it, maybe you can think of what they were thinking using coal millimetres from their absorbent eyeballs or of colouring their eyelashes blue with liquid that doesn’t wash out and makes em stick together and stand on end like pricks. I swear to everything holy – and tasty for that matter – that if you know how body language explains the use of lipstick to improve your outer allure you’ll be more conscious of it than that ketchup stain on your white cashmere cardigan.

A Heartbeat, A Heartbeat, I Need A ..

Life Lesson #140: And then you call upon god.

So Who’s Victoria?

So apparently Victoria’s Secret makes hoodies now, and sweaters. You can feel both sweaty and hot. I wish they didn’t tho, I had a plan to totally bring down knock-offs that don’t properly research and cite brand names. Oh come on, if you have enough time to friggin steal the design, at least do it right. The extra 2 minutes the R&D dude could spend flipping through his notifications could have easily gone through the official website to see which brand they could pin the leaked blueprints on. Apparently he does tho, what a shame. His incompetency would have provided for an excellent waste of time. Meh. Next time I won’t get my hopes too high considering that almost all cyber geeks have Victoria’s secret app and diligently subscribe to the web feeds, eh? Why of course. Stupid me. A stereotypical developer would be an 18-21 year-old no-lifer stuck in a basement with glasses which size and thickness is inversely proportional to how active his social life is and directly proportional to how much time he spends interacting with static charges, buried under a truckload of consoles with a stripper as a background. Ha, how could I miss that?

I need new running pants too. Totally busted mine last fall, but I can’t quite imagine a Victoria’s secret sweat pants without an imprinted lingerie. I dunno, maybe a red thong on top of the actual pants 70’s style? Aaaah. Gotta love those. You can forget about going back home that day tho, so they should totally include some sort of brochure with the route printed on, not to mention charge for the kidnapping transportation and accommodation expenses as well as the fabric and design. I mean, the pimps just gotta have a cut man, it’s only fair.

I need sleep. I’ve been sleeping for 5 hours every couple of days and it’s just not enough. I can’t get myself to fall asleep even tho I’m so friggin sleepy all the time. It helps with blogging tho, because you always get the strangest ideas after hours, it’s kind of Irony’s way of going: “HA! IN YOUR FAAAAAAACE ASSHOLE!”. Like, why aren’t there any bumper stickers for Adha? Why and How could there be a sub-genre called Acid-Jazz if Jazz and Acid are both genres and there’s no sub-genre dubbed Reggae-Salsa or whatever?

So tell me now where was my fault in loving you with my whole heart?