a book of ordinary people

2012-01-27T21:18:00.000-08:00

There are times in your life that you find yourself in a free fall and there is nothing you can do to save yourself...
I was there last year, trying to figure out how it all went wrong? And right when I thought the world has given up on me , things started to look up....
Yesterday I found myself in the elevator going up to work and I just said out loud to myself ( i was alone in the elevator) :" What are you doing here?" and chuckled. I got out of the elevator and walked to the pharmacy, passing by the ICU. I took a deep inhale, hospitals always smell the same anywhere in the world and it has become the most reassuring smell to me.
I suppose that's what life is, sometimes it feels like a free fall and sometimes its just a smooth ride in the elevator to the place where your dreams come true.
And thats all that I have figured out about life so far....

2011-12-14T19:39:00.001-08:00

رودكي

ايآنكه غمگني وسزاواري وندرنهان سرشك هميباري

رفت آنكهرفت و آمدآنكه آمد بودآنچه بود خيره چه غمداري

هموار كردخواهي گيتي را؟ گيتياست كي پذيردهمواري

مستي مكنكه نشنود اومستي زاريمكن كه نشنوداو زاري

شو تاقيامت آيدزاري كن كيرفته را بهزاري باز آري

آزار بيشبيني تو زينگردون گرتو به هربهانه ايبيازاري

گوييگماشته استبلاي او برهر كه تو بر اودل بگماري

ابريپديد ني وكسوفي نه بگرفتماه و گشتجهان تاري

فرمانكني و يا نكنيترسم برخويشتن ظفرندهي باري

تابشكني سپاهغمان بر دل آنبه كه به ميبياري وبگساري

اندربلاي سخت پديدآيد فضلو بزرگواري وسالاري

2011-12-12T22:06:00.000-08:00

The doctor asked him why he did everything so fast? Ate fast, talked fast, walked fast and so on..
He responded : " I am trying to fast forward my life to death..."
No one will ever know what it is like to be mentally ill, sometimes at work we all look at each other wondering if there is any point to what we do? Sometimes I think maybe I should leave and do something more meaningful with my life, right when I have landed my dream job.....

2011-11-27T19:37:00.001-08:00

"You sound very content about your life" Somebody told me today.....

Mamihlapinatapai

2011-11-21T20:43:00.001-08:00

Mamihlapinatapai (sometimes spelled mamihlapinatapei) is a word from the Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego, listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as the "most succinct word", and is considered one of the hardest words to translate.

It refers to
"a look shared by two people, each wishing that the other will offer something that they both desire but are unwilling to do."

2011-11-20T09:34:00.001-08:00

If you don't let go you will never know what is your worth...

2011-11-03T23:31:00.001-07:00

حافظه باکتری دقیق
مثل آب دهان مرده رقیق
خاطره خود کلانتر جان است
بر سرت بشکند هوار شود
مثل زندان ژان والژان است
حافظه نفس را بدراند
صد گیگا بایت را بپراند

Tocco il cielò con un dito

2011-10-13T21:14:00.000-07:00

Italians have this saying of touching the sky with one fingertip…as if you are tickling the big blue above to embrace you with its depth…

  Imagine you could dream for something you really wanted, something not to let you down, something not to make you feel inadequate …imagine not feeling inadequate, imagine to touch the sky…while in here…imagine

Tocco il cielò con un dito

2011-09-20T20:13:00.000-07:00

"It is a lonely idea, a lonely condition, so terrifyingto think of that we usually don't. And so we talk toeach other, write and wire each other, call each othershort and long distance across land and sea, clasphands with each other at meeting and at parting, fighteach other and even destroy each other because of thisalways somewhat thwarted effort to break through wallsto each other. As a character in a play once said,"We're all of us sentenced to solitary confinementinside our own skins."
Personal lyricism is the outcry of prisoner toprisoner from the cell in solitary where each isconfined for the duration of his life."

Tennessee Williams

The modern world is indeed a lonely world, its uncharted territories for us human beings. Never in human history man (woman) had to take care of all her/his affairs on his/her own. Not so long ago, the marriages were arranged and were for land or some other property. Falling in and out of love, the heart breaks , the misunderstandings the betrayals all belonged to stories not real life. Marriage was a practical contract.
Job was what you did in your parents farm, or whatever your father did and you took over. The relationship was confined to the people that you grew up with and would die with...
And now we are on our own, we have to pick a job ,a partner (or more), friends, home. Its called choices, and choices belong to the modern world. And our choices is what is making us lonely and miserable

2011-09-14T22:24:00.000-07:00

Hospitals feel like a battle field, you are at the front all the time, getting shot at.... I just wanted to go to the Jacuzzi and relax, until i dipped my toes in the pool. The water was warm and nice and so was the weather and I knew I needed to dive in, and I did. I swam vigorously; for half an hour. Front crawl, back stroke , breast stroke, butterfly all four of them. I haven't swam so vigorously since undergraduate when I would practice 8 hours a day with my team. All those practices made me hate swimming for a long time, well to paraphrase it , it made me not enjoy swimming for a long time. But I needed it , there was a lot of anger inside of me that needed to come out. Today I was a college kid who needed to prove something to the world... Deep down I even wished that other people see me while doing my butterfly strokes....

2011-09-13T19:37:00.000-07:00

I ran into Sergio and he told me that I look like I am not enjoying my job at all, and I just shook my head :"No its just a case of mondays.." and walked away. And then I broke into tears walking towards the units, I did not want to go on anymore. All I wanted to do was to walk to my boss' office give my notice and then drive back home to my old job, where I knew everyone and everything and I can live an ordinary life making a whole lot more money.
But as I always do I walked to the unit to finish my job. I sat for hours, went through charts, labs, x-rays, talked to Dr.V about our new case. And somehow I pulled through and walked back to my desk feeling ok.
This job is getting under my skin, it is sucking all of my emotional energy out of me. Nobody knows though, my poker face is all that I have left .
But then I am happy, its a different kind of happiness, I have never felt it before. Equilibrium is all I can say about this feeling.
Everyday I feel like an intern who is being pushed to learn new things, even the occasional melt downs reminds me of pharmacy schools. When you are new to something you just do not know how to handle your emotions, the first time I went to ICU I sat outside and cried along the woman who was losing her husband of 25 years..
At the end of the day I saw an ambulance going to admissions, a new patient was there. And I wondered if she/he is diabetic, has uncontrolled hypertension, psychotic, or suffers from chronic constipation?
I have arrived, this is my life from now on....

2011-08-29T22:53:00.000-07:00

نمی دانم شما آیا نمی دانید ؟

درین همسایه جغدی هست ، و ویرانی

- درخشان از میان تیرگیهایش دو چشم ِ هول وحشتناک -

که می گویند روزی ، روزگاری خانه ای بوده ست ، یا باغی

ولی امروز

( به باز آورده ی جوپان ِ بد ماند )

چنانچون گوسفندی ، که ش دَرَد گرگی ،

ازو مانده همین داغی .

دلم می سوزد و کاری ز دستم بر نمی آید

الا یا سنگهای ِ خاره کر ، با گریبانهای زناری

نمی دانم کدامین چاره باید کرد ؟

نمی دانم که چون من یا شما آیا

گریبان پاره باید کرد ، یا دل را ز سنگ خاره باید کرد ؟

در حیاط کوچک پاییز، در زندان :درین همسایه
مهدی اخوان ثالث

درحیاط کوچک پاییز در زندان

2011-08-28T22:08:00.000-07:00

آمده بودند ملاقاتی دم زندان.همه مادر بودند

2011-08-24T22:55:00.000-07:00

بچه که بودیم و هنوز جنگ بود باباهرسال باید می رفت جبهه برای یک ماه طرح َِهمه دکترها باید سالی یک بار میرفتند طرح. آون سال آخر جنگ که دیگه وضع خیلی خراب شده بود و شیراز هم بمباران می شد.یکی به بابا گفت که بره داوطلب بشه بره داراب چون اونجا دکتر گوش و حلق وبینی ندارند. بابا هم از خدا خواسته طرحش رو انداخت داراب به جای اهواز و اندیمشک. شهر کوچکی بود ِ پشت کوه به معنای واقعی و امن.
ما توی یک خانه بزرگ و قدیمی زندگی می کردیم ِمثل اینکه زمانهای قدیم بیمارستان بوده.اون موقها شهرهای کوچک اینقدر کمبود پزشک داشتند که دولت از هند و بنگلادش دکتر وارد می کرد. توی باغی که ما زندگی می کردیم یک خانه دیگر هم بود. تویش یکی از همین دکترها زندگی می کرد. یادم است بعضی وقتها می رفتیم یواشکی تو عالم بچه گی نگاهش می کردیم از بیرون خانه.تنها می نشست تلویزیون نگاه می کرد. درست یادم نمی آید اما شاید تو عالم بچه گی دلم برایش می سوخت شاید هم اون موقع اصلا درک نمی کردم تنهایی چی هست؟
امروز صبح که از خواب بیدار شدم یکهو یادم به داراب و اون دکتر هندی افتاد. دیدم دست زمونه یک کمکی زندگی ما رو هم مثل اون کرده. توی یک شهر غریب وتنها صبح میرم بیمارستان شب میام.بین یک مشت آدم که هیچ غرابتی با دنیای من ندارند.
دلم عجیب تنگه برای بچه گی . دلم خونه مون رو می خواد با همه آدمهای تویش.شاید بزرگ شدن یعنی از اون خونه پر از آدم عقبی در بیایی و بری تو خونه جلویی و تک تنها بشی.
عجیب دلم تنگه

2011-07-02T19:20:00.000-07:00

The Doctor responded with a note," ok to refill this one time but have him make an appointment for the next time." It was his anti-nausea medicine, for chemotherapy. I was going to leave a note in his account for him and talk to him when he picks up his med, knowing that he has been really confused lately. But a warning came up:" The patient is deceased, please ...." and I did not read the rest.
" Mr.J is gone," I told Elizabeth. "
" I just called him yesterday, his brother answered." She shouted
-No wonder, but I suppose he is in a better place...
And there it was, my first tears at my job. I am not sure why I was crying, he was not a very special patient. A nice and friendly and more often than not confused elderly gentleman, not too old though in his mid-seventies maybe. But there was something like-able about him, I am not sure what it was.
Later that day out of the blue Elizabeth said:" That's one thing that I do not like about this job, losing people."
The next day a guy showed up with a bag full of medication and told us he is Mr.J's brother from Missouri, just like his brother he was very like-able too. He wanted to see how can he safely discard his late brother's medications. I have seen this before,a very normal part of grieving process, for the ones left behind. I gave him some phone numbers to call.
That night in the parking lot I realized that Mr.J will never ever walk through this parking lot again. He is gone for good, leaving us mortals behind.
Its very human to miss people, to cry for the ones who are gone. And death, I do not know, I always assumed that I am very braved when it comes to facing death. what was there to be scared of? The moment of becoming nothing, seeing nothing and feeling nothing? But that assumption was about my own death. I have a feeling that I will not find much of that bravery in me, when I am faced with the death of people who I have attachments to.

" In the memory of Karl J. Rest in peace."

October Surprise...

2010-12-08T12:25:00.001-08:00

1.We came to this world to pay for the vices of our fathers, that is the only truth of my generation...

2. I am not as brutally honest as I used to be even with myself, that is why I do not write much. I am in hiding

3.Sometimes I work so many days in a row, 7 ,8 or 9 ? ( who is counting) leaving the work late and coming back early the next day staying in a hotel for couple of days. In those stretches you reach a level of fatigue that no one can fathom. Tired to the point of nausea, tired to the point of uncontrollable crying, tired to point that all you do is staring at the wall your whole day off with no desire to socialize with others or do anything else for that matter.
My dad said the other day when he was a recent grad, he would do up to 16 surgeries per day to the point of numbness. He said he would get so tired that he could not even go to sleep, he had to smoke a pack of cigarettes so his brain his brain stop functioning all together and then he could some rest.

4. I like my current surreal life better than any life that I have ever lived. I like the detachment, the limbo and the too many secrets that burn me down at times. I am at the verge of reaching the point of indifference

2010-10-09T19:54:00.000-07:00

" There are two more steps left" I lie to myself. But I need to drag myself up, way up
the patients are waiting in the stairs staring at me...
One of them asks me if I have an appointment and I reply :" No, no I am...."
And I don't say anything, "Two more steps to go" I lie to myself and look at the stairs
It's dark here, not so clean, how do they say it in Spanish? "Rompio?" is it clean or dirty?
Why the heck the steps don't end, I used to go up in no time. It was the most pleasant part. Passing the lab and the smell of the alcohol and the patients waiting. Going to dad's office, or is it called an office?
Maybe Dad's practice.
It was dark, but it was never scary. I liked the staircases. I used to go there since I was a little kid. Things used to change a little when I was a little kid
I never quiet figured out why I was the only one being asked to go to office and help?
I was very young, I had to check on appointments, I had to check on copayments. I had to...
My older sister never had to do that, my younger sibling were never old enough. I was the only one who was always being asked to go and help
I am checking the waiting room, always somebody waiting
Everybody is waiting for him to arrive. The doctor is in somebody says and dad rushes into his room.
This office is the safest place in the world, dad is the king here and I am the princess. It overlooks the down town the whole city is walking beneath you.
I used to go there a lot as a little girl. After school, after my classes. To get a ride from dad,the location was convenient close to everywhere. It was the center of universe.
It took me a long time but today I finally sat down in front of my own pharmacy and looked at it. I am no longer dady's little girl trying to walk up the stairs, to reach my dad.
Now I am a woman who is his colleague
I do not need to go anywhere and ask anybody to protect me.
I have finally found myself. Somehow in the same world..
I no longer have to go up those stairs
That place is long gone anyways.
I do not have to wait for anyone
Now people wait for me.
I am even with dad, I have out grew him...
I have arrived..

The ghost symphony

2010-07-12T16:29:00.000-07:00

And I thought I have fathomed death...
I assumed walking by the dying or already dead people can help you understand death fully and do not let it get to you.
And yet it came and I still can not wrap my head around it.
The news was short, only one line : "He is gone for good..."
I barely knew the guy, he married this girl I knew, a childhood friend. Never met him in person only occasional pictures of him. They seemed happy...
How can someone you know die so young?
When my grandma left us nobody blinked, she wanted death for a long time.
But this guy, he must have been in his early 30s. They did not even have a child yet, they were not ready for it
I remember her 5th birthday party very well, my baby sister was born that day. My parents couldn't give us a ride, so another family friend came and took us to her birthday party. I took the balloons home for my baby sister, it was a good day. I loved the baby, she was different you could tell.
Now the girl who shares the same birthday with my baby sister is a widower. Death has never hit me so up close and personal and so unexpected. I hate the unexpected part, he was so young. I hate surprises like that..
Life is what hits you in the face when you are obsessing over random,unimportant things.
And then you realize that you have not figured anything out, and most likely you will never do.
Rest in peace man....

2010-05-21T20:54:00.000-07:00

I hug them and head out while my sister is telling me that I should stay and have lunch with them since my other cousins will be joining us soon, and I shake my head in disagreement. My uncle smiles: " She has reached her boiling point." and I pretend to disagree....
The truth is that I had reached my boiling point the night before, when I walked to the closest grocery store and bought myself a giant ass beer and a pack of cigarettes. That very moment explained all the years of my dad's chain smoking and drinking. I spent two days with only two of his brothers and sisters in a beach house, my poor dad grew up with those people and no matter how much he tried to escape them, and he still does try to escape them, they never left his head.
Not that they are horrible people, on the contrary they are the best uncles and aunts one can wish for, I owe every ounce of my achievements and happiness in life to them. At the times of despair they are the people I turn to, and they never ever let me down. But the reality is that they are neurotic, grandiose and controlling and see nothing wrong with the way they are.
Failed marriages, unhappy relationships and very few friends does not deter them, they will always be right in their tiny universe.
And then there is the family curse, the curse of memory. It is a right of passage to the old age and death. We lose it all before crossing the gates of heaven or god knows what....
There was my grandpa, his sisters, and then bunch of people on my father's mother side...
We have learned the best way to deal with it is having a sense humor about it...
My aunt has good days, regular days, bad days and there are the impossible days...
Good days are when she asks the same questions only couple of times: "Is there a cure for my memory problem?" She asks me couple of time and each time I come up with a different answer and she doesn't notice...
In regular days she loses her raincoat, she leaves it in one room or some body's car and then frantically searches for it...
In bad days she is nervous and agitated...
And then there are the impossible days when she retreats to a corner and becomes silent. We all know there are consequences to pay, she is gonna kick someone out of her circle of trustees and will never ever set foot in that person's house. My youngest aunt's husband whom she has known literally since birth since he has been my older uncle's childhood friend is still in her black list and nobody really knows why, she has mentioned something about an inappropriate joke that has hurt her pride to my father and we all know her claim has no ground, but then she does not really live in the same world as we do.....
Well all joke about it, maybe she has caught it from grandpa, the bug of Alzheimer, since she was his take care in the last years; when my dad would kneel down in front of him and begging his father to remember him . And he would look at my dad indifferent, looking more interested in his food than a middle aged stranger who claimed to be the son who left home for college some thirty years ago.
The interesting aspect of this disease is that it only inflicts pain on the people around the patient not the patient itself.
I remember my father staring at a Pet Scan of his dad's brain and showing it to me.. " You see this, its my fathers' memory all disappearing." he would tell me. There it was the memory of my father's birth and then his college graduation, then his wedding. My aunt's death, my cousins births and then the famous poetry nights in my grandparents house all fading away.....
My mother is worried, my dad could be next . And sometimes I feel she looks forward to it, maybe he finally changes for better who knows?
I have now crossed over from growing up to growing old....
I now help to care for the elderly in my family, drink beer when I am distressed and take long walks on the beach.....
Sooner than later I am buying a house......
I am now pretty much part of the life, no more escapes, cause really there is no escaping this...

2010-05-01T14:43:00.000-07:00

یک پاترول آبی داشتند که سکینه خانوم همیشه می روند.خودش هم که مثل خان ها می نشست کنارش. مثل که چه عرض
کنم از همه خان ها خان تر بود.شیراز شهر غریبی بود. بزرگ بود اما همه همدیگر را می شناختند وهمه چیز را می دانستند. بابای سحر از اون خانزاده های اصیل بود و می گفت این مرتیکه بچه رعیت بوده و آمریکاییها علمش کرده اند.
بابای من هم که دوست صمیمی دو تا دامادش بود نفی نمی کرد.
زن اولش همیشه سیاه می پوشید و آواره خونه دخترهاش بود. اما چه زنی بود. زیر بار هوو نرفته بود. سکینه بی بی که آمده بود دست دخترهایش را گرفته بود و رفته بود وبا هزاربدبختی بزرگشان کرده بود. ازاون زنهای عشایر اصیل بود. اگر حقت بود کشیده هم ازش می خوردی مرد و زن هم سرش نمی شد.
این قهرمانی که این روزها ازش می نویسند من نمی دانم واقعا وجود خارجی دارد یا نه؟ آن کسی که من می شناختم وخانه اشان دو تا
کوچه قبل از ما بود جاه طلب بود و پدر و شوهر چندان خوبی هم نبود.
خاطره من از سکینه خانوم زن دومش چهره ای بی روح و غمگین است. برخلا ف زن اولش جرات جنگیدن نداشت و نتوانست مثل زن اولش بچه هایش را عا قبت به خیر کند.

میدانی قصه هیچوقت آن چیزی نیست که می خوانی حتی اون چیزی نیست که می بینی.شاید اصلا قصه ای نیست.

یک عاشقانه آرام

2010-02-28T22:34:00.000-08:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/iran/2010/02/100227_l12_evin_love_letters.shtml

بچه بودیم من و لادن داشتیم می گشتیم دنبا ل چیزی نمیدانم چه بود؟ توی وسایل مامان بابا یکهو یک نامه پیدا کردیم که دست خط بابا بود. پایینش یکی با یک خودکار قرمز نوشته بود :بازبینی شد حاوی مطالب مشکوک و ایراد دار نیست. امضا هم کرده بود سرهنگی بود سرگردی بود درست یادم نمی آید. مامان و بابا تازه شش ماه بود عروسی کرده بودند که بابا را گرفته بودند. وخوب نامه هم طبعا عاشقانه بود. بابا هم مثل من است روی کاغذ احساساتی می شود. یادم است نامه به آنجایی که رسید که با با نوشته بود راجع به آن شب مهتابی روی آن نیمکت در پارک که شروع کرده بودند را جع به ازدواج حرف زدن من ولادن دیگر نخواستیم بخوانیم.

راستش عاشقانه های آرام پدرومادر آدم زیاد خواندنی نیست. مخصوصا که دیگر چندان جوان هم نباشند و میزان عشق وعاشقیشان هم در حد همه زن وشوهرهای عادی باشد. بگذریم این برنامه بی بی سی (به قول مرحوم پدربزرگم بی بی سکینه) را که دیدم یادم افتاد به آن نامه. و اینکه آن مسول بازبینی هم آدم بد شانسی هست به خدا که باید بنشیند و خط به خط نامه هایی را بازبینی کند که حتی بچه های نویسنده آن نامه ده سال بعد از آزادی پدرشان دوست ندارند بخوانندش چون زیادی خصوصی است

2010-02-23T18:44:00.000-08:00

Lithium is Monovalent just like Na (sodium).
Two and then one, it will become happily stable if it loses ONE..
They even compete in Loop of Henle...

They come in here Manic, hyperverbal, hyperactive, grandiose,hyper-everything.....
Nobody knows what is the pathophysiology, what is the scientific explanation behind their illness.

Lithium brings them back to life....
Nobody knows how it works...
The discovery was just serendipity..

I am not a religious person, I do not believe in miracles.
My only religion is science

Psychiatry scares me, I just want to be normal, I want to go back to my own ICU....
Fluids, hypotension, respiratory failures, and septic shocks.
Death or Life... They will either survive, get better and go on with their lives or go to morgue. Either or...
Everybody here is alive though, and will go one living with this thing in their head. Today one of them said that he thinks his brain is "Overdeveloped.." And yeah they can stay on Lithium, but how many of them will follow through ???
I once had a boyfriend who was bipolar, he never knew though, I realized years later. The manic episodes made it hard for any guy to compete with him, he was beyond entertaining. But the reality is that these people are depressed 75% of the time. And then he would lie his ass off to justify his manic episodes without even knowing or believing that he was lying. Maybe if he was started on lithium I would have stayed with him, I lie I left him because I knew he was sick and did not want to bring drama into my life. There was so much of the mood changes that I could take. It hurt a lot at first, but then things started to fall into place.

If I go back to ICU, I will be a notch above mediocre. I might be able to work my way up to ER and Trauma. I might become someone, just MIGHT..

But if I stay here I will become someone. It is not that hard to tell, I am one of the few people people who does not struggle with Pscyh. Hell I even aced Dr.P's test and he is the god himself. Just like chemistry back in high school, it is like a breeze to me.
Our chemistry professor once said : It is not a rule in chemistry unless there is an exception. It is even better down here there are no rules, everything and everyone is an exception. I guess I always do better with the chaotic science.

I miss ICU, death I can handle, but uncertainty I know will get to me one way or the other. It did once before when I left him, even though I thought I loved him, and thought that I could stay, but at the end I just got tired and left.

Will see where the life will take me though, somethings are just out of your hands...

اينک موج سنگين گذر زمان است که در من می گذرد.

2010-02-08T13:00:00.000-08:00

غربت جائی است که از تو می گریزند

عاشق اون عکسها هستم .همه عکسهای بابا قبل از دهه شصت. یک حال خاصی داره تو اون عکسها یک
سرخوشی خاص . معمولا تواون عکسها سرش رو به آسمون هست و چشمهایش نیمه بسته .یک عکس هست مال سال پنجاه وچهار.باید تازه از زندان آزاد شده باشه.یک آرامش و اطمینان خاصی توی
قیافه اش هست.شاید میدونه که" شاه دیگر هیچ غلطی نمی تونه بکنه"

بهمن سال شصت ویک من چهار ساله بودم.تو جبهه بود که بگیر بگیر ها شروع شد
آقای عمویی پیغام فرستاد که همه بروید وخودتان را به وزارت اطلاعات معرفی کنید اگر میخواهید بچه هایتان یتیم و آواره نشوند.

از جبهه برگشت و رفت التزام عملی داد به نظام. من ایستاده بودم کنارش ونگاهش می کردم وقتی داشت کتابخانه اش را آتش می زد. هنوز نگاهش یادم هست. رو به زمین بود وچشمهایش باز بود وخجالت زده و شاید کمی مبهوت.و من تا سالها نمی فهمیدم معنی :" انقلابمان را دزدیدند" یعنی چه؟ شاید برای اینکه از روزی که یادم می آید ما غریبه بودیم و ضد انقلاب. هر که را می شناختیم یا زندانی بود یا اعدامی یافراری. خیلی خوش شانس بودی پرونده داشتی تو وزارت اطلاعات . یادش بخیر آدمهای معلوم الحالی بودیم.

بعدش هم از بیمارستان چمران آمد بیرون.همان بیمارستان که به قول خودش "ماها راهش انداختیم." قبل از آن آسایشگاه مسلولین بوده. بابا میرفته سر خیابان زند وانت می گرفته مریضهایی را که نمازی به خاطر کمبود جا جواب می کرده میبرده چمران. کم کم پای بقیه هم باز می شود آنجا و آسفالت می شود. دیگر هیچ وقت پایش را نگذاشت چمران. خودش بود و مطبش که می دانم یک روز هم دلش آنجانبود.

کجا بودیم آها نگاهش دیگر کمتر به آسمان
بود .افسردگی آمد سراغش که آخرهم دمار قلبش را درآورد.تو عکسهایش از آن به بعد خیره می شود به دور دستها. هنوز ناامید نیست و می گوید که مبارزه طولانی است. به براندازی اعتقادی ندارد و طرفدار سرسخت اصلاح طلبی است. اما من میدانم که این بابا خیلی فرق دارد با آن بابای قبل از چهارسالگی ام. حرف عمویم هنوز توی گوشم هست وقتی بعد از بیست سال بابا را دید :" این ضیا اون ضیایی نیست که من باهاش بزرگ شدم." چطور می توانی خودت بمانی وقتی جلوی چشمت تمام امید وآرزویت رابدزدند و تو ازترس جانت بایستی و فقط نگاه کنی. بابا جان حق اون نگاه سرخوش تو این همه غم نبود.

هر شب ستاره ای به زمین می کشند، اما این آسمان هنوز غرق ستاره است

2010-01-29T16:40:00.000-08:00

دهعه شصت را باباشروع کردبا سوزاندن کتابهایش و عکسهایش وشاید خاطراتش.همه را بردند وآنهایی هم که توانستند فرار کردند. ما ماندیم وشدیم زندانی حیاط خلوتی که بابا همه چیز را آنجا سوزاند. ما ماندیم تامحکوم شویم به زجر ابدی.بخوابی کابوس می بینی بیدار شوی زندگی ات یک کابوس است. خاطرات کمرنگ می شوند با گذر زمان اما دردش میماند.

2009-11-18T19:22:00.000-08:00

You know that perfect moments that you have with your friends. When you are walking out of a Crazy Irish Pub towards your car and you say : "If Only I had a cigarette tonight would be perfect." And one of your friends hands you a cigarette and you start smoking while the other friend looks at you with disbelief :" You smoke?" and You reply : " Oh yeah and I teach smoking cessation classes too!!!" And then all of a sudden everyone bursts into laughter. Remember the expressions on everybody's faces....
When people are making love, or simply having sex and are really enjoying it.Remember the expression on their faces? Nobody is laughing, or having a good time. Sometimes it feels like they are suffering, as if they are in pain. And when it is all over, you can even hear the sigh of relief. People don't really laugh after having orgasm. With sex, pleasure is pain and pain is pleasure. Not in a sadistic-masochist sense, just a simple observation.

These days I am down in ICU. So far we have had three people coded on us. One of them tried to drink himself to death after his wife left him for excessive drinking. The other two had multiple complications. One of them kept coming back from dead and we persuaded her family to stop the resuscitation. We let her take her sweet time dying and walked back to our stations.I will never forget the expression on her face, her eyes were closed and it seemed like she did not want to be bothered with Life.
The third was an amputee, nobody exactly knows what happened ( most of the time that is the case). Massive organ failure. I ran down the stairs from the fifth floor down to ICU with the blue box in my hand. I never got to see his face. He was sent to the hospice in the next day or so.
I like it down here in ICU, in a very strange way .ICU is Full of expressionless faces of people who are heavily sedated in order to be mechanically ventilated. Some of them may never get to wake up.
When you look at it from a distance : Joy, death, pain, pleasure, life, sorrow and so many other words are just arbitrary. Why do we Scream while having an orgasm? Aren't you supposed to scream when you are scared and need help or maybe are angry? Why pleasure can be painful but death feels like nothing?
I am not trying to be philosophical here,no on contrary I am learning how to be normal. How to let everything just be.....
Be it death, Orgasm, or Joy....
I have started to like hospitals, I think I am staying....

The Recap

2009-09-27T16:37:00.000-07:00

So the 30 is almost over, me being 30 years old I mean, and in couple of days I will be turning 31 years old.

Good or bad 30 is an arbitrary milestone in our minds. For me it was and still is, even though I have lived it and it did not feel much different than other years. It was as different as 28th and 29th were.

How did I feel about being 30? I felt old, in a very good way. There is a quality to growing old in your skin that I can not describe. I do not have the energy that I used to have when I was in my 20s anymore, and trust me it is the best thing that has happened to me in life next to discovering Tiramisu. I need to budget my energy, so there it goes
1) work to pay my bills
2) clean my house
3) socialize and travel once in a while.
So that means energy wise I can not afford to:
1) think too much about little details in life
2) argue too much about useless intellectual shit
3) stay up so late.
Just like 3-4 weeks ago in a party, I danced only to half of the songs and then by 12:00 am I had the Cinderella urge to leave the party. Because staying up after 12:00 meant that I would wake up late the next day and the preparation of presentations for the next week would be delayed and therefore my grocery shopping and therefore my laundry and so on. So yeah at 30 you become a real grown up..
On a more personal level what happened to me at 30? A lot I suppose or maybe nothing. Nobody disappointed me so you see that is a lot but in actuality nothing happened.
So I am going to scribble down couple of things that happened to me while i was being 30 years old in a very random manner:

A) I went on a cruise to Bahamas and as stupid as it sound I might go on another cruise, it is the gift of universe to the lazy people who like to travel. you do not even have to look for a place to eat ( trust me sometimes that becomes a big pain in a group trip).

B) my brother took my digital camera and moved to South America. In other families people steal better things and move to South America.But my family has always been a bit of loser ,when it comes to lying,stealing and cheating and I am not even sure if that is a virtue.
C) A friend of mine revealed to me that she is dying to have an affair, a very simple one of course, since her husband of 3 years is the only guy that she has never cheated on. I told her not to go for it,because it will never be simple and she might end up regretting it for the rest of her life. That is it, this time around I did not approach the issue from my moral high grounds, because I do not have any. Thirty means becoming practical. A marriage is an investment in time,money and emotions and an affair no matter how simple it might be;is too big of a risk to be worth taking. If the marriage is not worth your time/money/emotions bow out of it with grace, do not let OTHER circumstances end it. Have I ever mentioned that no one in my family has ever gambled or have the slightest interest in gambling?
D) A coup and a following uprising has happened in my country,and for the first time in 100 years nobody even remotely related to me and my family ( even an acquaintance) is on the run, in jail, going to exile, stripped out of all his/her basic human rights under house arrest, executed or burning their Russian Novels. Just for one simple fact: pretty much all the living members of my family and our family friends live outside Iran and most of them can not even write their names in Farsi. This time around the only price we paid was a lot of tears, and return of nightmares and memories that all of us sincerely thought were suppressed after 80s ( dahaye shast) ended.
Btw: Can someone explain to me why my family has no problem gambling their lives so that the world becomes a better place but barely takes any risks when it comes to other matters in life?

E) I went to a silent retreat and did nothing but meditate trying to think about nothing. For a week I did not talk, read,no ipods, or computers. It was tough, at one point I caught myself during the act of emotional eating.I never knew that I was even capable of finishing my own plate and then I found myself overeating. I had no other of way expressing my emotions. At the end though it was great, something changed inside of me. I am not exactly sure what it was and how did the change happened. But it was good, it still is...

F) Not that I ever was big on drinking. But recently I have noticed that I can not be an honest drunk anymore. My job had taught me to hide my emotions very well, I have learned to pretend that people's death makes me extremely upset and is shocking when in fact I knew it was coming and at that point was a way better option that life. Alcohol is supposed to have disinhibitory effect on people and make them feel like their real selves. Twice in a row after having couple of beers, and considerable amount of shots. I continued to laugh and pretended that i was enjoying hanging out with friends and then have rushed to the bathroom started crying, at one point I even kicked the door of my bathroom in rage and then came back to friends all smiling. I have learned to control myself even when i am drunk, and worst of all I am not a happy drunk anymore...

G) This one might not make any sense to anyone. But after all these years, once and for all I have ceased to see the empty chairs. I used to see them all the time. In a party, in restaurant, in bars. But one day we were in a party and it was packed and even though I have always managed to see empty chairs even in packed parties, this time around there was nothing. It is as if an empty hole in me has been filled. I am too old to look for things and people who do not exist anymore I suppose

H) I sat in front of a man who was empty and was not capable of feeling anything. I explained to him how people felt and how he had to react to them. He thought about it and realized it was true and acted upon my advice. I still can not believe it but this man did not react to any outside stimuli. He reminded me of Dexter
I still do not know what has happened to him in childhood that had made him so devoid of emotions,but I command his ability to let his head become his heart in the absence of it.

I) I have grown into a less confused version of myself.I read a lot of history these days, a lot. What I have realized is that at the end of the day nobody is all that innocent and not that many of us will go to heaven, if there is any.

.... to be continued I meant Life

دهه شصت

2009-08-22T14:14:00.000-07:00

این را برای پروین خانم را که دهه شصت به جای مدیریت کارخانه ،خیاطی می کرد و هر چهارشنبه دم زندان عادل آباد بود تا برود ملاقاتی نازنین تر مرد دنیا می گذارم.و مادرم که تنش می لرزید از هر زنگ در چرا که خانه چپی های محل را علامت زده بودند .
قصه زیاد دارم از آن روزها.. دارم می نویسم.آرام آرام ،نمی خواهم احساستی بنویسم و پر از خشم. فقط می خواهم بنویسم تا هیچ کداممان فراموش نکنیم آن روزها را و یاد بگیریم رو به جلو برویم و خدای نکرده عقب گرد نکنیم.
بیست سال دیگر سرمان را بالا بگیریم وبا لبخند یادمان بیاید که دهه هشتادونود دهه شصت نشد.

فضاهای خالی

2009-08-16T12:01:00.000-07:00

آمده ام خانه جدید و مثل همیشه موقتی است. حا لا بگو کدام خانه موقتی نیست خانه آخرت؟ بگذریم . نمی خواهم
زیاد اسباب ببرم که میشود بلای جانم. یکهو فکری به ذهنم می رسد : خانه ام را عشایری درست می کنم. این هم از آن چیزهایی است که باید شیراز بزرگ شده باشی تا بفهمی. یادم هست یک بار نفیسه می گفت خانه مستاجر بختیاری اشان را چه قدر دوست دارد. "هیچ چیزی توی خانه اشان نیست جز وسایل ضروری زندگی حتی یک دست مبل هم ندارند. پشتی دارند."
فکر کنم فامیلهای اصفهانی مادرم بشنوند سکته کنند. (که آدمهایی هستند متمو ل و لازم نمی بینند مبل بخرند.حا لا مبل استیل که هیچ.) اما ایلیاتیهاهمه همین طور بودند. آنهایی که من میشناختم همه چند نسل بود که شهر نشین بودند و همه دوستان دوران دانشگاه پدرو مادرم بودند و همه خا ن زاده های به نسبت متمولی بودند. اما خانه هایشان همه مثل هم بود : خلوت ( به زبان ما شهریها می شود خالی!!) یک قالی عشایری داشتند و چند تا گلیم وچند تا پشتی .
خاله ناهید که قشقایی بود و شوهرش یکی از پزشکان به نام شیراز بود (ایلیاتی نبود) و برو بیایشان واقعا زیاد بود حتی با معیارهای شیرازی ( شیرازیها خیلی عادت ندارند به خانه نشینی همیشه بهانه ای پیدا می کنند برای بیرون رفتن و خوش بودن.) داده بود چند تا مبل چوبی ساده ساخته بودند و پشتی هایشان را روی آن میگذاشتند. آن آخرها هم یک چند تا لوستر خریده بودند به گمانم.
دوستان عشایرما تا یادم می آ ید مثل اینکه همیشه آماده به کوچ بودند. حالا که یادم می آید می بینم آکثرا هم از ما ل دنیا چیزی نداشتند. اکثرا یا خانه اجاره ای می نشستند یا جا های خیلی متوسط شهر. با اینکه موقعیتشان مثلا از پدر من بدتر نبود. ما نه هیچ وقت اجاره نشین بودیم و نه خدای نکرده خانه مان محله ای بو د که خانواده دما غ سر بالای پدری را که گاهی راه گم می کردند و به جای سفر خارجشان می آمدند شهرستان را سرافکنده کند.

حالا من نشسته ام توی خانه مثلا عشایری ام و زل زده ام به سمت راستم . دو تا پشتی قشقایی گذاشته ام و باید سومی اش را از خانه پدری بیاورم. این پشتیها فکر کنم همسن من باشند دست بافند و مادرم سالها پیش از بازار وکیل شیراز خریده بود از دستفروشهای قشقایی. و حالا سرو کله اشان پیدا شده توی خانه دانشجویی بنده در شمال کالیفورنیا لب اقیانوس. جا نی دارند این پشتیها ، مثل جنسهای پیزوری چینی نیستند . می بافندشان که طاقت بیاورند زیر باد و باران و ان همه کوچ ، مثل خود قشقاییها . شاید هم برای همین است که جز معدود اسباب خانه امان توی ایران هستند که طاقت این کوچ را آوردند. راستی کسی میداند مبلها چه بلایی سرشان آمد یا میز پینگ پنگ؟
نگاه سمت چپم می کنم ، خالی است زیاده از حد. مادرم ازراه میرسد و می گوید که یک میز تاشو دارند خانه اشان و می آردش برای من تا بگذارمش این گوشه خا لی و این قدر توی ذوق نزند. ما شهریها را می بینی ؟ طاقت نداریم یک گوشه خلوت را ببینیم. تن به همه بدبختی می دهیم که یک چیزی پیدا کنیم و پرش کنیم. بعد هم می نشینیم غرغر می کنیم که خفه اما ن کرد این همه آشغا ل که یک عمر خودمان را لت و پار کردیم که جمعشان کنیم. شاید از بس دور مانده ایم از طبیعت یادمان رفته که کویر به قشنگی جنگل است.

من یکی که هنوز بلد نیستم خانه خلوت اصلا چه طور میتوان داشت؟ میترسم از فضاهای خالی ، شاید می ترسم صدایم تویشان بپیچد ، شاید هم ازبچه گی یک ترسی گذاشته اند توی دلم ناخودآگاه. شاید هم خانه آدم نشان میدهد که آن بالای آدم چه خبر است. خانه ذهنمان را هم طاقت نداریم خالی نگه داریم. دایم باید پرش کنیم از فکرهایی که پشیزی ارزش ندارند.

آخر هفته می آیم خانه پدری و هر چه که رنگ و بوی قشقایی دارد را جمع می کنم و هزار تا چیز دیگررا که ببرم با خودم . خانه ام رنگ و بوی عشایری خواهد داشت ، به یاد شهرم و خاطرات بچه گیهایم. اما خودم هنوز از تبار فکل کراواتیهای شهری ام .دعا کنید روزی برگردم شهرم و بروم ازایلیاتیها زندگی کردن یاد بگیرم.

2009-07-18T23:03:00.000-07:00

I don't really miss you.
there was nothing about you to be missed..
And that is exactly what I miss, the peace that came upon me when I was around you...
There was absolutely nothing about you. No judgment, no extreme emotions, no expectations...
you would drift into your own world and I would into mine...
Occasionally we would talk about random non-personal matters...
I never knew much about you, and you did not know much about me neither...
And it really did not matter
What is there to know, that we already could not see?
I lied I missed you the first couple of days that I left, I missed that peace of mind that i had while you were in the room. But not anymore...
Unknowingly you uncovered my inner peace,and guess what I am not going to let this one go away....
I guess that means I will never miss you, cause you are always here right by my side...

2009-07-12T11:48:00.000-07:00

It all happened so fast, that I don't even think I got a chance to finish my watermelon. It was a big piece, I told "H," that it was too big for me and he took out his knife cut it into two halves and gave back the two halves to me!!!! We all laughed...
It was the Spring of 1999, and we were bunch of carefree kids enjoying our Weekend somewhere by the lake in between mountains outside our city. It was me , "A" my classmate and her two sisters one of their cousins "H," "R" and the three "P," brothers and couple of other kids. And all we did was eating our watermelons minding our own business..
All of a sudden from the middle of nowhere the army of god appeared with their guns in their tows in a big car. A heavily bearded middle aged guy dressed all in black got out and rounded us all up, yelling and screaming calling us immorlists , infidels or something like that. Growing up in Iran you get accused of so many things so many times that the chronology and etiology of accusations start to escape you at one point.
He had his soldiers to point their guns at us and then took each one of us behind a big rock to interrogate us. I was too young to realize that standing up for yourself and defending your basic rights as a human being will not take you anywhere when dealing with a fascist. And there I felt it, that slap on my face. for stating that I had done nothing wrong and will not give him my student ID. His next words after slapping me was "See you at the revolutionary court."
We somehow managed to get out safe, "A's" older and married sister was able to get us all out by flirting non-stop with the middle aged revolutionary Militia who deemed our eating watermelon immoral. At one point he told her that she should not think of him as a father but more like a brother because their age difference is not all that much!!!
They say they came after my paternal grandpa in the first national Iranian bank that he was one the founders with guns, and took him to the jail. Everybody was confused he was neither a communist ( Todei) or Corrupt. He was a man of morals and principles ( Not that Todeis were not), well known and dearly loved in the circle of writers, poets and intellectuals of his time.His crime " He published books," my father said. The books that were of historical value but were too risky to be published. He used to print them in his backyard, because everyone refused to publish and even print them. "He learned all the tricks of the trade of printing on his own." my father says, " He always said people need to know , they need not to forget who we were." One of his famous friends went to the Notorious "Bakhtiar" ( Not Shapour Bakhtiar) who founded " Ministry of Intelligence," and asked him to let my grandpa go. "This man had done nothing wrong, keeping him is just a bad publicity for the regime." They were smart enough to let him go. But My grandpa did not stop. He loved books, he later found a publisher paid him good money to continue publishing. He backed a lot of big projects. Again he went to jail, for publishing a newspaper during 1950s coup.
My father says" there were times that i would wake up in the middle of the night and think what would happen to our families have they kill my father?"
He survived somehow, and stayed a lover of books. I still remember his library. He had locks on the glass doors of his library. We had to ask for his permission to get our hands on his books. Alzheimer was the only reason he gave up publishing books.
And then there was my father, the young communist, they came for him in the hospital. "They said they would wait until I am done with my patient." He says.
My father is a quiet man, and all he likes to do is to sit and read books. And that is all he did with his friends, they read books and discussed them. They went to villages to teach people about basic hygiene,listen to their stories and read books for them.
My father got lucky, he only was in jail for a year, his family was well connected enough to prevent his execution. Besides two of my mother's students had important fathers who were able to help him. He lost half of his teeth during interrogations,they tried to make him talk but he was a quiet man who did nothing but reading books. He had nothing to tell them......
Nothing will stop my father from reading books but his death.....

Oh where were we? They came after me for eating watermelon, and no i do not even like eating nor am a fanatic fan of watermelon. I still remember those guns pointing at us,it was not as scary as the thought of going to revolutionary court. No one knows what happens there, absolutely no one.
They say when my grandpa came to jail to visit my dad he asked me dad:" Why did you do this son?" and my father replied:" Just like you did!!"
I guess had I been in jail I would have replied to the same question from my father with something like :" Didn't you teach us that eating watermelon is one of our basic rights as a human being?" I was lucky enough to be with someone who was smart enough to use her flirting skills to get us all out. She was old and wise enough to realize where in the world we were all standing.
I left Iran 3 months later at the end of June 1999.Couple of weeks later there were deadly protests. They attacked the students in their dorms while they were asleep, I guess sleeping is as big of sin as eating watermelon or reading books or maybe publishing them..

These days I attend protests all over bay area, wearing green and trying to remember if I ever got a chance to finish that big piece of watermelon that "H," caught into two halves by the lake??? I wish I could send an email to that revolutionary gaurd and tell him that I had a lot of pieces of watermelon by the ocean with my friends, and nothing horrible has happened as a result of our act!!!

امید

2009-07-01T19:20:00.000-07:00

امید به آینده رساترین اعتراض ماست. به سابقه دیرینه این سرزمین نگاه کنید. در زندگانی ما مردم که از کهن‌ترین تمدن‌ها زاده شده‌ایم، فراز کنونی جزئی از یک تاریخ طولانی است. ما در جاده‌ای به درازای تاریخ همه بشریت قدم می‌زنیم. در این جاده چه بسیار ملت‌ها که منقرض شدند و جز داستانی از آنان باقی نماند. آن چیزی که ملت ما را به خلاف آنان و علیرغم سخت‌ترین رویدادها زنده نگه داشت امید بود، زیرا آفت این راهپیمایی هزاران ساله ناامیدی است. مردم ما می‌توانستند با بدبینی و ناامیدی حوادثی شبیه به آنچه را که در جریان انتخابات گذشته با آن روبرو شدیم پیش‌بینی کنند و به صحنه نیایند. آیا آنان اشتباه کردند که به این پیش‌بینی‌ها اعتنا نکردند؟ نه! آنان به مقتضای روح امیدی که هسته درونی هویت ملی ما را شکل داده و ما را در طول هزاره‌ها زنده نگه‌ داشته است چنین کردند. به‌ویژه با جوانان می‌گویم که اگر می‌خواهید ایرانی باقی بمانید از شعله امید در سینه‌های خود محافظت کنید، زیرا امید بذر هویت ماست؛ بذری که با نخستین باران شروع به روییدن می‌کند و جان هرکسی را که هنوز ایرانی باقیمانده است، در هر کجای جهان که بیتوته کرده باشد به اهتزاز در می‌آورد، تا از نو خود را در سرنوشت این خاک شریک بداند.
امید به صرف گفتن و شنیدن شکل نمی‌گیرد و تنها زمانی در ما تحکیم می‌شود که دستانمان در جهت آرزوهایی که داشتیم در کار باشد. دستانمان را به سوی یکدیگر دراز کنیم و خانه‌هایمان را قبله قرار دهیم.

بیانیه شماره 9 مهندس میرحسین موسوی در مورد اعلام تایید نتایج انتخابات ریاست جمهوری توسط شورای نگهبان

2009-06-29T20:51:00.001-07:00

"Another advantage I gained in my new master was, he made no pretensions to, or profession of, religion; and this, in my opinion, was truly a great advantage. I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes, - a justifier of the most appalling barbarity, - a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds, - and a dark shelter under, which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection. Were I to be again reduced to the chains of slavery, next to that enslavement, I should regard being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall me. For of all slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst. I have ever found them the meanest and basest, the most cruel and cowardly, of all others. It was my unhappy lot not only to belong to a religious slaveholder, but to live in a community of such religionists. Very near Mr. Freeland lived the Rev. Daniel Weeden, and in the same neighborhood lived the Rev. Rigby Hopkins. These were members and ministers in the Reformed Methodist Church. Mr. Weeden owned, among others, a woman slave, whose name I have forgotten. This woman's back, for weeks, was kept literally raw, made so by the lash of this merciless, religious wretch. He used to hire hands. His maxim was, Behave well or behave ill, it is the duty of a master occasionally to whip a slave, to remind him of his master's authority. Such was his theory, and such his practice.
"
Ch. 10
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845)

2009-03-02T22:06:00.000-08:00

Not that I mind it, being thirty and life passing me by like crazy; me trying to chase it and make some sense of it all...
Maybe thirties is all about being content and trying to make with what you have ....
Since " Life is not about what the world holds for you but what you bring to it..."
Overall, it is all good... plenty of reasons to be grateful.
But there are give and takes..
So yeah Friday afternoon, after an important meeting and a talk me and a friend were supposed to grab a bite and discuss couple of important things regarding our plans for next year and all... Some work emergency had prompt her to cancel ...
And all of a sudden that little voice in my head told me it is a perfect opportunity for an afternoon all by myself in a cozy coffeehouse in Berkeley, doing nothing....
And then I remembered that I have yet to make plans with two different group of friends, and Friday sounds perfect.. Plus I haven't been to my kickboxing class in ages..
So yeah where were we?
I used to be a sucker for cozy coffee shops in Berkeley and the colorful characters that I would get to watch walking in and out of them...
I used to spend hours by myself, retreating into my world...
Now I am busy planning the next move, the next year, the next decade...
BUSY catching up with the life that is passing me by with the speed of I don't know what...
Not that I have any complaints..
Things are in place in my life, or they seem like it...
It is just that once in a while you stop and look back....
Nothing stays the same... even the person that you are
One thing I am certain though, I will always write; this is the only thing that I know will never change..

2009-01-14T19:20:00.000-08:00

For the first time in two days she looked at herself in the mirror, in a restroom where god knows has what kind of germs in it, she had two minutes only two freaking minutes to herself. Nobody will ever know of the phone call that she received the other day. Sometimes one of the most decent people that you come across your life can call you and shake you to the bones, not that he/she wants to do it intentionally.
Nobody will ever know about the call if he does not need to call again, not that he really wants to call back , nor she really wants to answer his call. Something told her that everything will be alright....
But something inside her has been shaking in the past two days....
Nobody will ever know what she has been feeling for the past two days, because it is part of her jobs. " You owe a smile to the people that you see at work everyday, never forget that." Someone told her awhile back. When you see someone in pain all you do is smile, because that is all that you have to offer them and you can't deny that from anyone....
She looked at herself again, everyday she walks by the people that she knows too much about .. all their histories and stories... but the more she knows about them, the less she knows them...
She wished she could throw up, because she has been feeling nauseated for a while now...
She wished she could just give up and leave....
She only had two minutes, people were waiting for her...
She still has those pills that her father gave her, in case she became insomniac, or too nervous and became paralyzed. Insomnia, whomever thought she will suffer from it? Once her sister confronted her about sleeping 12 hours straight, she joked to her " I live to sleep.."
Yeah that was two years ago, now a good night sleep has become a luxury that her busy mind can barely afford, once a week maybe...
Her father only knew too well what her life was going to be like. The other day she has found yet another white hair...
The other day they held a moment of silence for some patient who would not be around much longer and thought he was fighting a fair battle. None of them had the heart to tell him that at best he would survive another year, and that would be the best case scenario, if he survived longer he would be begging for his death....
And yeah there is a newborn kid somewhere around whose mom might not make it to his college graduation, or maybe she might who knows.. She will smile at the young boy whenever she sees him and his mom ..
Her Life has become all about the random phone calls from hell, the secrets that need to stay safe with her, and the two minutes that she gets to be herself. She has no complaints, nobody has it easier.
In this mad house that made her fancy a vomit once in a while; the mad house with the secrets so burning that most people running it take those little happy pills to sleep on them. In that very place, she had found herself....
Out to the world with a smile on your face, the two minute bathroom break is over...

در نبنديم به روي سخن زنده تقدير كه از پشت چپر هاي صدا مي شنويم

2008-11-15T09:33:00.000-08:00

و نترسيم از مرگ
(مرگ پايان كبوتر نيست.
مرگ وارونه يك زنجره نيست.
مرگ در ذهن اقاقي جاري است.
مرگ در آب و هواي خوش انديشه نشيمن دارد.
مرگ در ذات شب دهكده از صبح سخن مي گويد.
مرگ با خوشه انگور مي آيد به دهان.
مرگ در حنجره سرخ - گلو مي خواند.
مرگ مسئول قشنگي پر شاپرك است.
مرگ گاهي ريحان مي چيند.
مرگ گاهي ودكا مي نوشد.
گاه در سايه است به ما مي نگرد.
و همه مي دانيم
ريه هاي لذت ، پر اكسيژن مرگ است.)

در نبنديم به روي سخن زنده تقدير كه از پشت چپر هاي صدا مي شنويم

I manage Pain and I manage death , three times a week from 8:30 to 12:30. The first day I read through my case and cried, he was an eighty something year old grandpa, Rock of the family. And he didn't want to go on, " I want to die with dignity and in peace." He wrote, no more chemotherapy for him. We have discontinued all the medications that down the line and according to studies will help decrease the morbidity and mortality. His kids still want him around, he is all that they have left after their mother's death some ten years ago. But he is adamant, he wants to go. I read through the notes , I go over his history, his profile and write up my case . I present him to the team we discuss him, make the necessary adjustments , document it and move on to the next patient. We manage pain, bowl movements, sleep, and sometimes inflammations if they are making them uncomfortable. Pity conditions like Cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and all are out of the picture unless they are making the patients a bit uncomfortable. There is no more of Dr.I calling them begging them to check their blood glucose and taking their insulin. What is there to be afraid of ? Losing your sights to diabetes? or kidney dysfunction? Nobody will monitor their lipid panels, they can eat whatever they want , nobody is trying to prevent a stroke or MI.
The first day they gave me a pamphlet about death; and how it is a slow process, most of the time the body knows about it months ahead of the time. It starts to withdraw from the world more and more , memories of the old friends and the people who are gone starts resurfacing and sleep starts to increase. Yeah some people die suddenly without no warning but a lot of people get the prep course before checking out the door.
The first day I cried, I shivered , I was shocked for the first hour. But then something came upon me, something peaceful. And I have to confess this is the first time that my job is actually making sense to me. Working for the people who know what they want out of their lives: Nothing but dignity.
3 months of working in the hospital left me confused , what the hell was I doing there? Cheating on death? At the end of my stint there "G," asked me if I have realized that Medicine is more of an Art than a Science. I shook my head, managing life is an art, and I don not know if our overtly scientific minds can handle that. Yeah there are couple of exceptions like "L," who can handle anything . Long ago he has learned how to be only himself and not anything more or less, and does his job purely based on science and somehow that brilliant mind of his creatively solves the problems. He gives it his all, but then not that many of us are as intelligent or as passionate as he is.
So yeah here i am sitting at my desk, where they can't even afford to even give me my own personal computer and I have to share it with my mentor ( funding is very tight here), and enjoying my job. I do not even look forward to the diabetes or asthma clinic, I want to leave managing life to the others who appreciate it. I am happier with the people who do not fight the pity fights and value their peace above everything else. I feel like I belong amongst the people who are fearless above it all...

2008-10-29T23:10:00.000-07:00

We were once kids playing with each other, and now we have grown into frequent fliers in our own rights. You get out of bed and pack; ready to go, I rush out of bed already packed and get going. You pack lightly, the bare essentials, I frantically try to pack my closet in a carry on luggage. I travel to compensate for all the traveling that was denied from me in my boring suburban childhood. You fly all over the world to share the Love to put it lightly.
I still remember that day in fall when you were going away to college. The best schools in the world wanted you, they were begging for you to pick them whatever major that you pleased, and you sounded surprised. Why the heck were they trying? You said you always knew what you wanted to do, ever since you were a kid. There was never a choice, nothing really to pick from. "My job picked me, I never knew it could be the other way around," you said. "There were kids in our school who talked about security, safety, future, fortune and everything that a job can bring them, why is that?" you asked someone. " My job is my world, and that is all there is to it." and you left the room. People came in that room, people left that room sometimes by choice sometimes by force , sometimes out of shame, but nevertheless nobody stayed in that room and nobody remembers anything about them. At the end even I got tired and left that room, maybe because I knew you were not going to come back but your words yeah them I always carry them around with me no matter where I go...
I grew up too fast to let a job pick me, I fought with life until I gave in. You on the other hand gave in to life a long ago only to conquer and come out on top.
Where was I? Oh right, I gave into the world and went back to where I started and did not look back ever since, and I was half heartedly hoping to see you again at the starting line, but no such luck you have left there a long ago...
The other day I ran into an old friend of yours, we stared at each other and did not even nod. None of us are talking to you anymore, so there is no point for us to connect with each other. Our lives is now all about the broken links, trying hard to erase the parts of the past that did not do any of us good. We are all standing at the doorsteps of that room hesitantly looking inside of it full of our memories, none of us can go back in but none of us really wants to leave it....
I remember one of those ones who once came into the room insisted on staying, and resisted leaving for there a long time. Maybe because I did not have the heart to tell him that his only fault was that he was not you, therefore he did not belong to that room. He begged me to pick him so that he can stay there forever, thinking that I have any power over who can stay and who can leave. He was an ordinary man, with no stars in his eyes, he could cheat, lie, betray, and sweet talk himself into anything. The last I heard of him was that he too flies often...
I walk by the security line of the airport, it is a very long line and there is no chance in hell that I will get to my flight if I want to stay in the line. I ask the other passengers if they are nice enough to let me through, they do I get in right in time to leave and do not miss my flight. Even in the midst of all these drama I look around unconsciously in search of you, to see if I can catch a glimpse of someone walking around with confidence, with no worries in his face the kind of worries that you can easily detect in the face of business travelers . I look around for your long dark thick pulled back locks of hair. I look around desperately so that i might see those stars in your eyes one more time, the eyes that sees the shapes that none of us can see. The shapes that are more real than all of us, even though they are invisible. I have yet to run into you....
As you said years ago, " The world picks you, you never have much of a choice. " And Yeah the world has picked me to carry your words and memory around with me forever and ever....

2008-09-16T19:00:00.000-07:00

1. I saw an ordinary man in the street wearing scrubs only the pants though, I was wondering how come I don't know him. He must work in the same place as I do, he came closer he was wearing jeans. I did not know him, he was just an ordinary man.....

2. I do not believe in Sacredness of life anymore, sometimes ones life becomes a burden on everyone. We are getting better at shutting the door on death's face just to have him come back from the back door and surprise us. I do not know if my mentor believes in sacredness of life or not, but he treats every life as if it is sacred. He is too smart to even contemplate about moral dilemmas, he channels all his nervous energy into Caring for every single person that exists on the face of earth, by passionately doing his job....

3. There is no such a thing as mistakes, there are things that you do and there are things that you do not do. The other day I did not DO this thing that I could have done, just because I would never do such a thing....

4. He told me I need not to judge people who I am caring for, all I have to do is to do my job. If I can not do that, I have to pack my bags and leave. And no it was not my boss who told me this but my dad....

5. I have never lived in a city with so much negative energy surrounding me , for the first time in my life I have given up on pushing things forward, all i do these days is just sit back and watch.

6. For the first time in my life I am not a even bit confused about my life, it is what it supposed to be. As scary as it sounds I am pretty much enjoying every moment of it, even if I am pretending that I am suffering....

7. I can not stand people who promise you hope even though everyone knows that you can not deliver hope. I for one never promised something I am not able to deliver...

عقل گوید: "شش جهت حدست و بیرون راه نیست" ... عشق گوید: "راه هست و رفته ام من بارها"

2008-08-30T19:39:00.000-07:00

I did not see the "BUS TERMINAL," sign and did not make a left on the bridge street. I was walking not driving though, and passed the biggest Buddhist Temple that I have ever came across in my life... of all the places in the Niagara falls...
The old lady told me that I had to go back and make a left on the bridge St.
On the way back I entered the Temple and walked around, the Buddhists were chanting.. I thought of my sister who is on the other side of the world, searching for Nirvana..
I left the Temple, thinking there is no getting lost in the life.. Sometimes you just end up going down a different path that you planned, just to discover something beautiful and completely unexpected.But down the line you will get to the bus terminal one way or the other.
The only place you that you are capable of getting lost in is in your own head....

در میان پرده ی خون عشق را گلزارها ... عاشقان را با جمال عشق بی چون کارها

عقل گوید: "شش جهت حدست و بیرون راه نیست" ... عشق گوید: "راه هست و رفته ام من بارها"

عقل بازاری بدید و تاجری آغاز کرد ... عشق دیده زان سوی بازار او بازارها

ای بسا منصور پنهان زاعتماد جان عشق ... ترک منبرها بگفته برشده بر دارها

عاشقان دُردکش را در درونه ذوق ها ... عاقلان تیره دل را در درون انکارها

عقل گوید: "پا منه کاندر فنا جز خار نیست" ... عشق گوید عقل را: "کاندر تو است آن خارها"

هین خمش کن خار هستی را ز پای دل بکن ... تا ببینی در درون خویشتن گلزارها

شمس تبریزی تویی خورشید اندر ابر حرف ... چون برآمد آفتابت محو شد گفتارها

2008-07-15T11:11:00.000-07:00

She tells me too bad that it is cloudy today, and i ask her how does she know it? she tells me she has looked out the window .." oh, windows yeah that..." i reply

I occasionally look out the windows when i am in between rounds, or lost in this intertwined maze of a hospital looking desperately for some poetry. I see my father walking in front of me feeling suffocated without any luck in finding poetry. It took me all these years to feel his pain, his love and hate for at the same time for his job. " I have everything that a man desires in this world and yet I am not happy, I don't know what it is that I want out of life. " He once told me when I was in my late teens and up until now I was not able to forgive him for saying that very sentence ...

"A" tells me we better get the hell out and go sit somewhere quiet so we can hear each other and I can exactly see what his job is all about. He finds couple of empty terminals and we sit in front of them and there we go , he starts quizzing me. It is the nature of the job you have to be suspicious of anything and anyone even the tiniest bacterias in the world. The guy next door has been moaning in pain non-stop since morning and everybody seems unaffected by it. "A" tells me that I can go and consult him if I am really curious, and laughs " I was only joking." That's his only flaw; he is too soft, too sweet , and too caring. I don't tell him that we all like working with "J," a bit more . "J" always has some surprise up his sleeve; at first he teases you, lets you down and makes you to fend for yourself. He makes you learn on your own , but watches you every step of the way. Maybe it is because "J," is old enough to be our father or maybe its that "J," is a big tease by nature . Unlike "A" he is not much into calculating the whole situation and factoring in people's feeling, he just likes to play the game. "J's" playful nature makes him a better teacher, maybe because it makes him more real than "A," or maybe it is just the Age..

The man in pain is still moaning, and everybody is doing their job. Me and "A" digress from learning into our lives, and talk for an hour . I like talking to him, he is not sarcastic and I do not have to be sarcastic when I am around him. He is a quiet guy by nature, and I have never been much of a talker either, and surprisingly there are no awkward moments of silence, but plenty of moments of mutual silence. Despite being quiet and calculative he has these little moments when all of a sudden he bursts into laughter and fesses up like : " That is why it is called a JOB, so you can hate it."And then goes back to teaching me more about his JOB, which will one day be my job. Or " The reason I went to school out of state was that my application for USC got delayed, well I got rejected." And then creatively ditches me so I can get out earlier and He can go online and surf the net continuing his furniture shopping.
I leave him and the man moaning in pain behind following my father who is still in desperate search of poetry in the hallways of hospitals and look out the windows.
I know that I have a choice to make here: I either have to become like "A," and live a rather normal life sans poetry , or get the hell out of hospitals and live with my current job which is practically a Shakespeare festival days in and out, or as my friend "S," told me the other day :" Learn to write your own poems anywhere in the world that you are....." All I know is that I did not turn out to be as much of a daydreamer that my father used to be. If I am good at anything it is at being able to untangle myself when i am stuck. I look out the window and know that i will never let this maze of intertwind hallways get into me , because the moment that you have let the poetry out of your life is the moment that you are dead....

2008-07-04T00:13:00.000-07:00

I find myself staring at a bowl of cereal at 5:30 am trying to decided if I am able to eat any of it? I have to be at work by 6 am , and I know that the only thing that I can do right now is to go back to bed. I am feeling funny and the nagging headache does not leave me alone.
"It must be from yesterday," I tell myself. I had to rush back to school to drop off couple of stupid papers so that the school fascist administration, thats what I call them, does not pull me out of my rotations. It was hot out there I had to drive in the worst time of the day, and run around between buildings and yeah I got dehydrated. The whole dehydration thing is new to me, but has been happening a lot lately. So much that I have become Heat-o-phobic , the worst part is the debilitating headaches and my ever increasing hesitance to take any medication, ironic I know but you study them enough you begin to resent them as much as I do.
I head back to bed and wait until it becomes 6 am and I leave a message for people at work to let them know that I will not be coming, not that they care nor will be needing me. I am an extra body anyways, I have to call them to remind them that I do exist.
By 12:30 pm I drag myself out of the bed, eat something get into the car and drive myself to my parents house. At first I am hesitant to go, my mom might think that I got kicked out and get disappointed. I think that makes me a perfect Persian kid , between death and disappointing my mom I prefer the former rather than the later. I have no idea how do I do the drive, but I am at my parents doorstep some 45 minutes later. And tell my surprised mom that I did not go to work today and head to my room. Six hours later I get up and go to kitchen, my mom tells me that the dehydration should be the result of my low blood iron.
The other day I read somewhere : "In U.S you might live a better life than Iran, but you will die alone. In Iran you will never be left alone even in your death. " Good thing I brought My Iran with me to the U.S , my family does not leave me alone even in my death.
Other than the recurring dehydration episodes, life is lovely. There is a deep seated happiness inside of me these days, that has become a part of me even in the darkest of moments.
I have become a regular this European Cafe' that has really good salads and free wi-fi , and a patio. I go there and sometimes when my best friend is online I describe the other customers to her and we make up stories about their life. And from there I can walk to my favorite chocolatier in the world. I am going to buy their assorted handmade Artisan whatever chocolate box for my aunt. Whom I am going to see this coming August after so many year in yet one of my many adventures, I have bought two mascaras for my other aunt who will be there too and will not be caught dead without eye make up even after having two kids.
I am most likely going to skip the party tomorrow night, since "A" did not responded to my text message. I need a sober driver and all these years he has been the one who drives me to parties, buys me drinks and then sits in a corner and starts conversations with random strangers and tells them the story of his life. He has been having family issues or something like that lately and flat out ignores me. I am on the lookout for a new sober driver who can drive me around to parties and does not like to party himself.
Happiness is having a job which you like, guarantees you a good salary and not that many people are crazy about. It is the awesomely fresh salads at the European cafe' in downtown and the box of chocolate that you will buy for your aunt and know that she will have everybody indulge in it with her along with some tea. Happiness is the best friend that is there through it all. And the mother who will remind you that you will not be left alone even in your death. Happiness is the sober driver who will always stay one and nothing more...

تانگوی تنهایی

2008-04-03T22:37:00.000-07:00

What if they forced you to sit there and type up every single memory you could recall from your entire life? Eventually your typed account would reach the present time, and the words you would type at this confluence would be these: I was forced to sit here. I was forced to type. I was typing. I was typing. I was typing. Now I continue to type. I'm typing. I'm typing.

"Bobby, the skull bolt"

یک روز پاییزی بود. پاییز شیراز بود چی بگم قشنگ بود. به قشنگی بیستا پاییزی که دیدم و حسرت ندیدنش رو نه سال هست که دارم. روز نبود شب بود ولی خزان که شب و روز نمیشناسه . اون سالهای آخر بود, چه سالهای نحسی بود. چه قدر دلم پر از غصه بود. داشتم دل می کندم و دل کندن به همین راحتیها نبود. یک جورایی مثل جون کندن بود. می خواستم بمونم درد به در میگشتم دنبال یک دلیل محکم که بمونم. میدونستم اگه برم دیگه برگشتنی در کار نیست. یادته اون شب چه قدر خندو نیدیمون؟ وای بشر خدا خفه ات نکنه...

اون شب بعد از مدتها دلم باز شد. نمیدونم چه طور بگم اما وسط اون همه نکبت و نکبت زده انگار یه همصدا پیدا شده بود. یکی که حرف دل من رو میزد ولی همه میفهمیدند. چه زود گذشت , انگار همون دیروز بود. می گم که دل کندن مثل جون کندن هست.

من و تو دنیاهامون خیلی شبیه هم بود. شاید برای اینکه توی یک دنیا بزرگ شدیم. چه خیالهایی داشتیم , چی فکر کردیم چی شد؟ بهمون می گفتند: تو فقط بچه ی خوبی باش ودرست رو بخون. بقیه اش با ما. چه بچه گی بود. سرزمین شیر وعسل , اردیبهشت که میشد بابام میبردم تو کوچه باغیها و می گفت نفس عمیق بکش , بوی بهار نارنج مستت میکنه. تابستونها میرفتیم تیزاب هی میرفتیم , هی میرفتیم مگه بابا ول میکرد. ولی وقتی میرسدیم اون بالا به همه ی سختیهاش می ارزید. کوه بود و آب بود , عظمت بود. سرم رو می چسبوندم به کوه که ازلا به لای خزهایش آب خنک قطره قطره می چکید و فکر میکردم تا آخر عمرم همه چیز به این قشنگی باقی میمونه.دیگه از چی بگم پاییز؟ نمیتونم , آخه پاییز یعنی خود زندگی: خزان , برگها و هزار تا رنگ , خش خش , کلاغها , هوای خنک,عاشقی. نه ساله حسرت به دلش هستم.

کجا بودیم؟ آها یواش یواش بزرگ شدیم و چشمهامون باز شد ودیدیم سرزمین شیر وعسل رو نکبت برداشته. یواش یواش زمزمه های رفتن شروع شد و شاید هم در رفتن. ما بچه های خوبی بودیم ,درسمون رو خوندیم و کم کم فهمیدیم نه خیر باید رفت. اما مگه به این راحتی هست؟ اون سالهای آخر سخت بود , بعضی روزها حتی نفس کشیدن هم سخت میشد. بعد تو اومدی و اون روز نه اون شب هممون رو خندوندی. میدونی چی به دلم نشست؟ این که اهل دروغ گفتن نبودی ,راستش رو میگفتی چه به خودت چه به بقیه. حرفت نه هزل بود و نه هجو ,طنز بود بعضی جاهاش هم سیاه بود ولی خوب زندگی سیاهی هم داره. چه شبی بود ,یادش به خیر. بعد این همه سال هنوز یادم هست. همه چیز خوب بود تا آخرش که دیگه داشتیم میرفتیم. هنوز هم میگم کاشکی زودتر رفته بودم. تو زدی زیر آواز , کاشکی نخونده بودی. تازه داشت یادم میرفت که باید برم , برای چند ساعت. تلخ بود , زیادی تلخ بود. نفس رو که میگرفت هیچی قلب رو هم میگرفت. شعرهای شاملو و فروغ را می انداخت به یادم. دو تا شاعری که نتونستم بفهممشون هیچ وقت , زیادی تلخ بودند. نمیدونم چه طور بگم اما این رو میدونم که زندگی هیچ وقت ثلخ , تلخ نیست حتی تو سیاه ترین لحضاتش. یک چیز قشنگی داره زندگی , یک چیز قشنگی هست توی زنده بودن. من از آدمهایی که اشکهاشون رو می خواهند با آدمهای دیگه قسمت کنند خوشم نمی یاد. از تو همیشه خوشم می اومد , اما اون آوازت رو هنوز که هنوزهست دوست ندارم , این تو نبودی که میخوندی یکی دیگه بود.شاید هم اونی که من میشناختم تو نبودی.

یادت می اید آخرین باری که دیدیم همدیگرو؟ "ف" همیشه میگفت که من و تو انگار دو قلو هستیم از بس که خل بازیهامون مثل هم هست. شب آخر هم عاقل نشدیم , تو خودت رو زدی به جوجه روشنفکر بازی و وسط مهمونی پا شدی رفتی ومن هم خودم رو زدم به بچه با حالی و به روی خودم نیاوردم و همینجوری می رقصیدم. تو رفتی و گفتی به امید دیدار . من موندم و نگفتم بهت که دیگه دیداری در کار نخواهد بود. همین, اصلا نمیدونم چی شد این نامه رو برات نوشتم. بعد از این همه سال هشت سال طول کشید تا تونستم این نامه رو برات بنویسم . راستش برای تو ننوشتم برای دل خودم نوشتم. شاید میخواستم بگم که هنوز به یاد تو و خل بازیهات هستم. بگم که کاشکی اون شب نخونده بودی و یادم نمی اوردی که باید رفت. من که بهر حال داشتم میرفتم. کاشکی اون شب آخر میموندی تا بهت میگفتم که دیگه دیداری در کار نیست. هر جا هستی موفق باشی...

خیلی خوب بابا به امید دیدار!!!

خوابنما

2008-02-11T21:29:00.000-08:00

یک شب توی یک بار بودیم .من و "س" رفتیم بیرون سیگار بکشیم. گفتم : میگم ما آدمها اینجا چیکار می کنیم؟ گفت: دربه در دنبال
خوشبختی هستیم و آرامش هر کدوممون مدل خودش. یادمه اون گوشه بار یکهو "ا" رو دیدم.رومو گردوندم و به خو دم گفتم : دوباره سر بگردونم رفته . اما نخیر هنوز اونجا بود. یکی گفته بود اومده اینورا ولی من فکر کردم چرت میگه. اما نه اونجا بود و مثل همیشه با اون نگاهش زل زده بود به ما. خواستم بهش سلام کنم اما بعدش به"َس" گفتم : بریم . رفتیم همه بیرون پی کارمون .

سالها قبل یک شب خواب دیدم تو اومدی شیراز داشتی اون اول خیابون ساحلی راه می رفتی.خود خودت بودی. یادمه یک ژاکت سبزپوشیده بودی چهار خونه داشت. " ا" عین همین ژاکت رو داشت. اصلا ژاکت خودش بود. بعد نزدیکترشدم بهت از پشت سرت نگاه کردم گفتم چرا اینقدر سبزه شده این بشر؟ یکهو رویت را کردی به من و دیدم تو " ا" هستی. ایستاده بود و با اون چشمهایش به من نگاه میکرد. یک نگاه غریبی داشت همیشه . انگار داشت بهت التماس می کرد بیا نجاتم بده از این جا دارم خفه میشم.هنوزم که هنوز هست نفهمیدم چی شد این بشر تو خواب من سرو کله اش پیداش شد؟

"ا" رو یک جورایی میشناختم ویک جورایی نمیشناختم. باباهامون همکار بودند . همکار یا هم شغل نمی دونم. آخه بابای من دوست نداشت با کسی کار کنه. آدمها رو دوست داشت خیلی خدمت میکرد . اما دردسر نه زیر بارش نمیرفت بگذریم.خونه شون هم نزدیک خونمون بود.همه اینها قصه خودش را داره. باورم نمیشه این همه سال گذشت. اما همینقدر میشناختمش. حتی اون دو سالی که هم کلاس بودیم. کاری به کار همدیگه نداشتیم. اصلا دنیاهامون با هم نمی خوند اون یک جای دیگه بود من یک جای دیگه همین. فقط یادم میاد یک روز داشتیم با "پ" حرف میزدیم گفت: "ا" خیلی تو خودش گم هست. یکی از اون همون روزها بود که یکهو سر و کلش تو خوابم پیداش شد. قبل از اون نه دوستم بود نه دشمنم نه بهم خوبی کرده بود نه بدی. اما بعد از اون خواب دیگه چشم دیدنش رو نداشتم. احساس می کردم اومده و میخواد خوابم رو بدزده. همچین حقی رو نداشت هیچ کس نداره.

من از خیلی چیزها تو زندگی میگذرم اما از رویاهام نه. این که یکی بیاد و خودش رو جای تو جا بزنه رو قبول نمیکنم به هیچ وجه. توی نگاه تو یک چیز قشنگی بود تو ترس نداشتی و لی پر از امید بودی. هنوز هم چشمهات همونطور هست بعد از این همه سالها و یک عالم قصه . درد اومده تو چشمات حتی یک گیجی هم اومده.اما ترس و نا امیدی رو هیچ وقت ندیدم.اون شب تو بار وقتی "ا" رو دیدم هنوز همون نگاه رو داشت . پرازترس و التماس .شاید یک موقعی اون نگاه دلم رو میسوزوند وقتی هجده نوزده سالم بود. اما الان دیگه حالم رو به هم میزنه.

آره دیگه خلاصه اگه شنیدی پشت سر ما که آره فلانی بعد از این همه سال ما رو دید توی یه بار تو سن فرنسیسکو و به روی خودش نیاورد و رفت یا شاید هم نشناخت . گوشی دستت باشه که جریان چی بوده. این بشر خواب من رو دزدید خیلی سال پیش من هم دیگه بعد از اون ماجرا دل خوشی ازش ندارم.این رو بدون که تو هنوز جای خودت رو داری .یکی میگفت تو راهی داری میرسی.هر وقت
رسیدی قدمت روی چشم. من اینجا هستم هیچکس رو هم تو خوابام راه نمیدم.

......

They who dream by day are cognizant

of many things which

escape those who dream only by

night. In their grey vision they

obtain glimpses of eternity....They

penetrate, however rudderless or

compassless, into the vast ocean

of the light affable (Edgar Allan

Poe, cited in Galloway, 1986, p.

243).

2008-01-28T19:22:00.000-08:00

مادرم آی‌سودا هم می‌گفت آدم‌ها دو دسته‌‌ن. آدم‌هایی كه به ماه بالای سرشون خیره شدن و آدم‌هایی كه به ماه توی آب
ماه در آب

یه روزاومدم توکافه استرادا دنبال توگشتم. نمی دونم نبودی یا ندیدمت . میگما یعنی میشه از کنارت رد بشم ونشناسمت؟ می ترسم دیگه بی تفاوت بشم به همه چیزوفراموش کنم همه رو. خیلی وقت هست که باید پاسپورتم رو بفرستم برای تمدید.اما بعدش فکرکردم اون چیزی که من میخواهم با این پاسپورت بدست نمیاد.

من میخوام دوباره چهارده سالم بشه و با خواهرم بریم اونجا خواهرم بگه : اون پسره که اونجا داره حرف میزنه خوشتیب هست. من گوش کنم به حرفاش بگم از اون خلهاست.بعد یکهو تمام بدنم داغ بشه و نفسم بند بیاد. بگم :این به خلی من هست شاید هم از من خلتر. دو سه روزکه بگذره بهش که فکر میکنم هنوزنفسم بند میاد. اون وقته که میفهمم عاشق شدم. آخ من عاشق شدن اون موقعها رو میخوام. نه حساب وکتابی می کردیم نه بده بستونی بود. من دیگه دوست ندارم یکی بیاد یک تیکه از من رو ببره و بره. نمیخوام هم که یک تیکش رو جا بزاره و بره.

موقعی که چهارده سالم بود یک تیکه از من و اون نبود. همه وجود مون بود.

من دلم اون روزها رو میخواد که میگفتم میشه ومیرفتم جلونترس بودم.یادت هست؟ من یک جایی وسط راه گم شدم. یادم رفت اون چیزی که میخواستم همین جا هست. توهمیشه یادت موند. اما اون دفعه که دیدمت یک ترسی تو چشمهات دیدم. شاید هم شک!! اگه بدونی اون آدمی که هستی چه قدرعزیز هست شاید دیگه نترسی.

من وتو ما ل اون موقعهایی هستیم که آدمها هنوز پراز امید و آرزو بودند. یه موقعی توگل سرسبدمون بودی. یادته با هم حرف میزدیم. چت چی بود؟ اون دفعه که حرف میزدی یادم اومد دیگه صدات هم یادم رفته . یعنی با پاسپورتم تو رو هم پس می دهند؟ خودت نرفتی زندگی بردت.همینه که دیگه نیستی توکافه استرادا. شاید هم بودی من نشناختمت.

تو خیالاتم می بینمت که نشستی پشت یک میز چایی ات بغل دستت غرق دنیای خودت.من از کنارت رد می شم سرت رو بلند می کنی و بهم لبخند می زنیم. بعد من میرم می شینم پشت یک میز دیگه مشغول نوشتن میشم همین. نه تو نوشته هایم رو می خونی از بس که تنبلی و نه من از اون شکلهایی که کشیدی سر در میارم. هر کدوممون زندگی خودش رو میکنه راه خودش رو میره. ولی مگه به همین سادگی هست؟ شاید هم باشه کی میدونه؟ میشه بیای خودمون باشیم؟ من قول میدهم کله خری نکنم. تو هم یکهو جنی نشو. اما اون وقت دیگه خودمون نیستیم.

نه بی خیالش همین که هستیم خوبه. فقط شک نکن من هم فراموش نمیکنم.بی خیال بقیه بیا بریم زندگیمون رو بکنیم.دنیای من نوشتن بود و هست دنیای تو هم اون شکلهایت. من و توهم که پشت پا زدن به دنیامون رو بلد نیستیم.

یکی از همین روزها میام کافه استرادا از کنارت رد میشم. هستی میدونم هستی .میبینمت و میشناسمت.باش به خاطر هممون به خاطرخودت.

Well don't you know that its a fool who plays it cool ,By making his world a little colder

2008-01-21T14:00:00.001-08:00

دیشب رفتیم لب ساحل همینجور اقیانوس رو نگاه میکردم که یادت افتادم. تو شمالی بودی و من جنوبی. من هیچوقت نفهمیدم چرا اینقدر دریا رو دوست داری؟ یادته بهت میگفتم: شمال که دریا نداره .اون همش یه دریاچه هست... تو جواب میدادی: دم همونم تو رو راه نمیدند.
منم جواب میدادم: وقتی بری لب خلیجی که به اقیانوس راه داره دیگه دریاچه به چشمت نمیاد.
دست دنیا رو می بینی؟ حالا دیگه من لب اقیانوس هستم و تو لب یک دریاچه .... میگم بخندیم یا حیرت کنیم؟ راستش نه من جنوبی بودم نه تو شمالی.. ما عاشق یکی به دو کردن با هم بودیم.شاید هم برای همینه که دیگه سراغ هم رو نمیگیریم زیاد !! کی دیگه حالشو داره؟ دیگه داریم پیر میشیم
. میگما حالا یک سوال: وقتی میری لب اون دریاچه گندهه توشهرتون یادی از من هم می کنی؟

Leaves are falling down like rain And I look to you again But it's only just a sea

2008-01-13T11:48:00.000-08:00

تموم شد همین...... هممون بزرگ شدیم یک مشت دروغگو ...شاید هم نه از اول همین بودیم. دیگه نمیگم:حیف کاش هنوز قدیما بود. دیگه دلم تنگ نمی شه. اما دیگه امید اینکه آینده بیاد و همه چی بهتر بشه رو هم ندارم.. نه اینکه نامید باشم..نه. دیگه همینه که هست.خوبه شکایت ندارم. حتی اگه هنوز راستش رو به هم نمیگیم. من دروغ میگم چون راستش دل نازکت رو می شکنه. تو هم دروغی نگفتی اگه ازت پرسیده بودیم غایم نمیکردی.
همینه دیگه زندگی ما که همش هم به دوری از هم گذشت....تموم شد راحت شدم.همین
حالا تموم تموم هم که نه...ولی دیگه راحت راحت شدم.....! ...

I am a man with a desitny who will never arrive....

2007-12-03T21:20:00.000-08:00

Back then we were all kids , not all of us were the same age though. But we were kids nevertheless....
It was me, my sister, him, his brother, his sister was too old to hang out with us, and our brother was too quiet young to....
We were still kids when we assumed we are old enough to leave, he was the first one of us. I was the second one and then one day his sister woke up and found herself all alone with her husband and kids...
He is sitting at the dinner table next to my dad and we are all talking... he was two years older than my sister and my sister was two years older than me and i was three years older than his brother..
He says that he has finally got the job of his dreams ... And yeah there is someone in his life and they are looking at the houses and yadi yadi yada....
Everybody is talking but me, i have nothing to say i suppose.. or maybe i just can't get my eyes off of him... not exactly him, but those white stands of hair on his head.. they are too many to be ignored.
Not long ago we were all kids.... and now nobody can ignore his white hairs....
Maybe I have a hard time accepting our aging process....
or i cant ignore the fact that unlike other people who grow into adults in their twenties, we became children in a strange land all over again and are still trying to figure out who we are...
I suppose the day that we got that stamp on our passports and bought our one way tickets ( mine was one way at least) to the land of opportunities; unknowingly we paid for it by giving up on growing into adults.
On top of it all what is so disturbing about his white hairs, is that he is only four years older than me. we are not that old...
I justify it by telling myself that he is just like his father, they grow white hairs sooner than the normal population and then i see that hard look in his eyes... He had the happiest eyes that a boy could have until the day that his father died unexpectedly and he couldn't make it to the funeral . He had a one way ticket too i suppose...
I wish he was a girl, so he would die his hair...
I have started using eye concealer, to conceal the wrinkles around my eyes. The boy in the make up store told me , they possibly cant be wrinkles I am too young for that, he called them dark circles and strongly advised against using the anti-wrinkle creams...
Everybody around the dinner table is talking about the good old days. He asks me if i still the energetic gal that i used to be and i barely smile... i gotta use up my energy for work and school...
I wonder if like all the boys around us he had a crush on my sister?
My mom asks about his brothers and sister and his mom?
Part of growing up is letting go and i donno if we can ever do that?
It has been days since I have seen those strands of white hair , and I am still disturbed by them...
I have a feeling that our generation is growing old without ever having the chance of growing up....

2007-11-19T19:45:00.001-08:00

First dates are just like job interviews or school interviews for that matter. Random questions thrown at you just for the heck of it. He is nice , he is polite, he is intelligent painfully i might add, he is average, he is normal, he is kinda shy...
I tell him My dream job is to tend bars one day. He tells me why do I want to have a job in which I am the only one who is working while everyone around me is having fun? At least in regular jobs everybody is equally miserable. I tell him at least people don't yell at me when they want to pay for drinks, at least people are HAPPY. I don't really know why I want to become a bartender one day, all I know is that I want to do it.
The interview starts : he asks me if I want to stay here for the rest of my life?
I tell him I might leave for a while, most likely in a couple of years. But yeah I have to come back here eventually, I have obligations to my family. It is not only me you see, my parents are not getting any younger. I need to be around
He asks if I ever thought of moving further south, it is just an hour flight.
I flat out tell him : NO, anywhere but Southern Cal...
He says he was 25 years old and once in a meeting at work he looked at his boss and knew he was not going to end up like him. " there should be more to life," I told myself and that was when he decided to leave it all behind and move away....

He says he always had a thing for religion, he believed in it. Even though his father was an atheist, and his brothers moved to Nor cal some thirty years ago to stay away from their people and be themselves. But he decided to observe it since he was twenty-one.
I tell him I had my flings with religion too, it is facinating from a distance. Religion can be a very romantic concept, like Catholicism. To be able to give it all up, and sacrifice for a common cause, one love and serve the people for the rest of your life. To go against your instincts to be able to resist your urges. Yeah it is beautiful, but to give up your common sense that I will never do. He says he knows all about it and tries not to get so caught up in it. I don't remind him later in the night of what he said when they bring the desert and he says he can eat dairy since fish does not count as meat.
He is a happy man, he is normal, he is a good listener, he does not talk much. And that scares me. I know how to deal with the psycho, the manic, the crazy genius, and the borderline retard. Normal and nice that is not in my bag. He is a good listener and that scares me even more, sometimes all i say is bullshit. I am not a big talker, sometimes i just talk to fill the void or to take away the awkwardness. I usually do not have much to talk about, especially with someone I barely know. Yeah with my sister and my best friend I can talk for hours, but others I rather let them do the dirty work. talk is cheap and I say stupid things a lot of times...

I tell him all i know about life is that you have to always stay faithful to your dreams and that is all there is to it. I tell him I am not going to lose faith in myself and throw it all away like most of people around me did. I tell him of this person that I knew who stayed faithful to his dreams all the way, none of us understood him but he did not pay attention to us and went about his life. I tell him it took me years to figure him out, but now I see that he was right about his choices. I don't tell him that this date is no different than any other first dates that i have been to. I managed to mention "K," in a very subtle way. Or maybe I managed not to forget him.. and I don't tell him how I choose I-880 over I-680 when I am going back to my home, even though 680 is safer and has way less traffic. There is something stupid called Hope in my heart that drives me to do stupid things....
I even fail to tell him that those flirtatious text messages which gave him enough courage to ask me out, were not sent by me, but by my half drunk stupid friend "A." It was 2 am we were both still drunk in the car and tired of driving around, and somehow "A" persuaded me to give him my phone so he can send a polite text message.. And that was when he sent those 11th grade type text messages. It will be to painful for him to know that I was not really into him but some 6 foot 2 half drunk, borderline psychotic guy who was moving to New York so felt free to do as many stupid things as he could before leaving California for good.
The next day I pick I-880 to go back to my place, and curse myself once again when i am stuck in traffic.
He calls back and tries to make a small conversation, tells me about his day. I suppose I did good at interview, I am in....
I get home and feel like a piece of shit, he is nice, he is polite, he has manners.
I just can't do it, I still have a stupid hope in my heart which drives me to do very stupid things...

My melancholy times II

2007-10-29T10:35:00.001-07:00

I am scared....
I have never been so scared in my whole life..
even in the darkest moments...
and nothing is dark right now
The future looks as bright as it can be...
Everybody around me is happy and doing well...

And yet i am scared
I don't even know why?

I feel like something went unnoticed from my past...
I left something somewhere...

I know I do not make any sense...
But that is pretty much it..

I do not make sense to anybody including myself, anymore...

Nobody sees what I am seeing
and the problem is that most of the times I do not see anything....

Pardon my confusion and fear...
I can not even find a cause for it..

2007-10-08T09:28:00.000-07:00

Something must have happened during those years, AKA my lost years. These people all seemed to have become possessed, while I was not around. They all looked like the ghosts in a hunted house, wandering around aimlessly with no light in their eyes. I knew them from a long ago; in fact I used to be one of them or better said I was supposed to be one of them. I rebelled, I dropped out or maybe I got lucky and left. I never quiet figure this one out, all I know is that at one point I had to take another road and leave them.

I can swear that one of those ghosts even tried hard to avoid talking to me; maybe he was afraid that I look into his eyes and read into his soul. I wanted to tell him that he had nothing to fear, there was nothing to read into anyways.

One of the few traits that I have always cherished and tried hard to keep and nourish in myself was the fact that when something did not made sense to me I would stop doing whatever I was doing and would do anything to make sense of it before going on with my life. It is hard to explain, but I picked up this habit during the math classes many moons ago. Maybe it was my father who kept telling me: “No memorization, you have to understand it. “ Or maybe it was that time that I just gave up on geometry and memorized couple of problems hoping I would get away with it and I never did. During exam I got things confused and couldn’t remember what was what? I was not about to give up on my “A,” so I sat through the whole exam and finally figured it out. It was the triangles; I was finally able to prove them equal.

Years later my life stopped making sense to me; while it was making a lot of sense to everybody else around me. I clearly remember the day when I broke done into tears in front of my mother and told her I just could not go on.” I don’t even know myself anymore. I don’t understand anything anymore; nothing is making sense to me. “She told me to go and find myself, because at the end that was all that I needed to live my life. So I left or I was forced to leave, or I quit or I had to quit. Maybe one day I write the honest account of the matter and let others pick the right verb, I can’t or maybe I have no desire to do so.

I had to live through many painful years, lost, lonely, depressed, confused, and angry to say the least. There were times that I stood there at the end of my rope wondering if I had to hang myself with the rope. I wished I could go back, I wished I never left or quit or whatever. I envied all of the ones who stayed and lived the life that I was supposed to live. I never noticed that all these years what scared me was the fact that I had to face myself. Eventually I let go of my fears one by one and came to terms with myself. It was hard, it still is. Dark days are always around the corner, loneliness always comes back and looks me right in the face right when I expect her the least and brings anxiety attacks with her. I have learned to just sit in the corner and watch everything without judging myself. Now things have started to make some sense to me, not a whole lot but some, I have a long way to go.

I needed to go back and see things for myself; and I did. There are moments, very short moments indeed; in life when all of a sudden everything comes together and starts making sense, one of those AHA moments. And seeing those hunted faces made sense of all my lost years for a moment at least. I was supposed to become one of them, and I never did. I am neither happier nor more successful than them. I have not traveled more than any of them; I am not cooler nor have more friends than any of them. But I am not a ghost wandering around in that hunted mansion wondering what has happened to my life? I left there a while back.

My melancholy times

2007-09-08T10:27:00.001-07:00

Every night I look outside my window to get a glimpse of the bridge at night. Every morning I see the bay before heading out to the world... and Yeah it is nice, it is pretty and sometimes even breath taking. But I have to confess, it does not entice anything in me. Honestly, water doesn't do it for me. It is just a luxury, memory of vacations in childhood somewhere away from home. I don't miss it when I don't see it. I guess water has never been my element. Mountains now they do it for me big time. The browner they are the more of my breath they take, the more mesmerized they make me. Yeah the bay and the bridge ( not the Bay Bridge though!!) is just a view to me, I do not even feel lucky that I got this place for a very good price. If I had my say and did not have to pay a penalty I would have moved to the apartments in the other side of road, with no view, at least they are not on top of a freeway and I could have some peace...
But for now I am stuck here, with the view that is the envy of my friends and family. And recently I have found a new hobby for myself too. I make myself Chai Latte's , I have found the right spices and recipe for it, and stand in my balcony playing the guess game. I look at the houses on the other side of the bridge and try to guess which one is "K," living in right now..
Yeah after all these years, seven years to be exact, he has moved to other side of the bridge for a short time and is living there. When I heard the news I did not even know how to digest it, why now of all these times? All these years we always lived apart in different coasts, and now that I moved to the east side of the bay, he is here all of a sudden. He has not done this intentionally I know, I am not even sure if he cares to know what is going on with my life or . It is just that it is strange that's all, and even more strange is that I had two dreams about him in the past couple of months; without even knowing that he is planning to move here..
Yeah and who is "K?" That's a good question. I think he was my "first Love," or that's what people call it. One of those things that one day you wake up and you know you have to leave. But then after you leave every relationship becomes yet another rebound and nobody measures up to him. Until one day you finally figure out that he was nothing but one of th ghosts in your past, and no he was not god. You learn that you are able to never stopped loving him for the person that he was, but know that leaving him was not a stupid mistake, when you don't have your heart in the right place that's reason enough to leave. And yeah, you learn to let go of the past...
When I heard of the news, I thought of calling him and offering him help or something like that. A courtesy call maybe, but then I imagined myself meeting up with him getting a cup of coffee or some food sitting in front of him and then nothing... I just did not know what to tell him, there was nothing to say, absolutely nothing... I suppose with some people you move beyond whatever relationship you had with them and in turns into a simple friendship. With others, or at least this one, it just ends up in awkwardness ....
So yeah these days or to be exact nights, I sit in my balcony and try to guess which house on the other side of the bay he is living in? I look at the lights that go out one after another and try to remember if he was a night owl or an early riser? I try to remember if he liked to live on top of the hill or close to the water? I try to... I lie I don't try to do remember anything about him.
I just sit here and give in to the flow of the life, a friend wrote this to me the other day :" Someone once told me life is like a school where you have to go through chains of reiterations both for past and coming chapters ...when people keep popping in & out ...it's nothing like there is something about them you have to learn but something about yourself, there is usually some tiny bit of you waiting to be washed up and there they come...and once there is nothing else left to go A-HA about...they might still do come but this time around you don't even notice they have popped in...so yeah life is a chain of reiterations some of which we've been so much detached from not to even buy or see their resurrection and some bloody zappy...compartmentalize...heh like it's easy""

So yeah here we are after all these years next to the water with a bridge in between us. One by one ghosts of the past come in to my life and then leave. Maybe I am living by the water so to wash them all, so one day I can go back to my dry mountains...
And yeah amongst them all "k," has always been the most dignified one. Maybe that is why he is only staying for a short while...

2007-09-02T18:29:00.000-07:00

It was in the corner of "Shattuck," and "Hearst" that he told her what she wanted to hear all these years without even knowing it...
He said that it was the distances that made the people love each other more, understand each other better and appreciate what they have with each other. He told her the distances are what we need in order to find ourselves ...
While walking in the "Oxford," she told him her secret. That she was finally moving to her own city; she told him how long ago she walked around this city and knew that she will end up spending the rest of her life living and working there. Nobody knew about it, but him... He told her that knowing her all these years he does not remember seeing her this content and sure about anything.
Ten years has gone by, and things haven't changed he still admired her and she still lusted after him pretending that she did not care. She even showed him an old tree and told him it reminded her of his grandma's house. Nothing has changed they were still kids playing in the backyard..
They walked towards "Center," to meet up with other friends when she asked him if he thought she was doing the right thing? Shouldn't she go down the path that others went, the happy people's path? She told him that she was confused about everything, she just did not know anymore. For the first time in her life she told him that she was scared...
It was in the "Center," that he told her that one day he realized life was the steps that he was taking in between his daydreamings.. that yeah that was it, this very moment that him and her were walking towards Shattuk ..
life could've been different yeah, when they took away his father they could've let him come back but they never did. When they took away her father , he could've been disappeared but he came back, and Yeah that made the world of difference...
She looked at him and thought nobody would believe that there are people in this world who are let down by the world before even coming into this world, but never let anybody down..
Nobody would believe that there are people who chose to forgive and move on....
And yeah not that many people will believe that "Life," was the steps that they were taking that very moment in the "Center..."
Couple of weeks ago in Santa Cruz they stumbled upon a Jazz club and watched people dancing to the live music. They had to wait for a friend to come back from the restroom so they can go to the beach and do shots, he pointed to some of the dancers and told them that they danced well. They looked at each other and laughed, they used to dance the hell out of nights with each other long ago. Once in between dances he hold her wrist tight and asked her what she was running away from ? She didn't say anything, she left couple of months later ...
Maybe he came here after ten years to see with his own eyes where did she ran away to. He came at the right time to the right place, maybe you cross the streets of the city that you feel you belong to with the people who belong to your life not the people who come and go...
When he was leaving she told him that they may never meet again and he smiled. And she remembered it was the distances that made you find yourself and love even more. Maybe one day they meet again and then dance the hell out of the night...

The Road Not Taken

2007-05-22T23:50:00.000-07:00

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;



Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,



And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.



I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

From The Poetry of Robert Frost by Robert Frost,

2007-05-10T19:33:00.000-07:00

On the way back home there were two routes to pick from : the short route and the pretty route...
Dad would always pick the pretty route...
That was his philosophy in life : "So what if you get home five minutes later than you are supposed to; you gotta enjoy the ride..."

Happy Birthday Baba joon...
Thank you for all the rides...

2007-05-01T22:49:00.000-07:00

When you can't escape, and you constantly rely on everyone else, you learn to cry by smiling, you know?
" The sea inside"

Yesterday when she came home she heard the news and stared at the wall, just like when they told her that grandma was gone for good or that one time that ....
Once again she was going to gather all her courage to go out and live her life pretending that nothing has happened...
And then the unthinkable happened, the tears started rolling done her face ,and the only thing that she could think of at that moment was her best friend, had she been here she would've been shocked, she had never seen her crying. She tried to get up and look at herself in the mirror and make herself stop the weakness....
She was born in a nation of mourners, her father was a rebel, growing up he taught them that constant happiness is a civil disobedient ; She never learnt how to mourn....
The other night she hold one of the "Mafatihs," that her aunt had donated in the memory of her grandparents and her long lost aunt; her aunt asked her if she cried a lot when grandma passed away and all she could say was :" She was a great woman.." and hold on to her tears just like she always did...

Someone died last night , it could've been anyone. She looked at her end table and saw three different bottle of pills and she knew she couldn't stop the tears anymore, she had hold on to enough tears just to turn them into an ulcer that was gnawing her stomach away.
Someone died, someone dear , someone who once meant something to a lot of people. She knew it wasn't fair, it was too soon, too sudden but then she knew there was nothing that she could do to stop it, there was nothing that she could to bring back anyone from dead....

Last night for the first time in her life she sat down and cried for hours; for the first time in her life she mourned a loss, or maybe more than one. So she mourned the loss of all she couldn't bring back to her life anymore, dead or alive, she even mourned the losses of pieces of herself that were long gone...

The next day she woke up shaking, she was not even able to hold on to her toothbrush. She was not quiet sure what to make of it, did mourning come with a hang over?
In the afternoon again she found herself driving and aimlessly crying....
She still wasn't able to bring anyone back from dead...

She came home and stared at grandma's turquoise prayer beads, the one that she gave her the last time she saw her. The ones that she took to all the pilgrimages that she made throughout her life.

She had not felt so free in a long time ...

2007-04-30T19:51:00.001-07:00

if I could start again
a million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

2007-04-29T14:11:00.001-07:00

2007-04-26T19:27:00.000-07:00

Most people do not lead a miserable life
they are just miserable people going through life...

2007-04-17T10:00:00.000-07:00

"Sometimes it is absolutely necessary to hate yourself.. to be sick and tired of the very person that you are. Sometimes you should stop accepting yourself the way you are, you should stop loving yourself and taking yourself at the face value.
Sometimes you gotta hate your own guts, the very person that you are
the self destructive , self loathing person who makes the same mistakes over and over again...
Really sometimes a bit of anger comes in handy and can be extremely healthy.."

Pearls of Wisdome from my family

2007-04-14T12:02:00.000-07:00

Me: So Jasmine ( my 3 year old cousin) what did you get for your B.Day?
Jasmin: Hmmmm.. Presents

My brother : Dude you burnt the Waffles, they are brown..
Me : Dude they are Chocolate Waffles..
My brother : then you burnt the chocolate waffles..

My Aunt: My husband is so lucky
Me: how so?
My Aunt: He has lost 11 lb because of Colitis, I just wish I had the same disease...

My Mom to me : Honey its not a good idea to get sick when I am not around...

Me to my roommate : Do you think I should eat these eggs? They are pas their expiration date
My roommate: Oh dont worry last Night "L"came over and we made her some eggs, she seemed ok today

Me to my brother in law : What would you do if I steal money from you guys?
Brother in law: Nothing, i will leave you alone with your sister for two hours..

Iranian Masters of Cinema before becoming famous

2007-04-05T14:40:00.000-07:00

... Or How Glue makes life fucking boring!!!

Time to Reach Steady State

2007-04-01T13:15:00.000-07:00

1. I haven't even signed the contract for my new job and it wont start until June But I am already spending the money ...

2. Sometimes I think Had I had Mac and Cheese before coming to U.S I might have chosen a different country as my adopted homeland...

3. I am gonna Buy an ipod Just to block unnecessary people and their noises outta my life.. other than that, I don't even like to listen to music that much...

4. OK Somebody tell me if this makes sense? " I wish you haven't left me and were here to see how lonely I am without you!!!" I mean if she hadn't left him at the first place how could she see
see how lonley he is without her?? Damn the Los Angelesi Music

5. There is something fundamentally wrong with the people who know about " IN 'N OUT" Secret menu.. i mean usually it implies that they don't have much of a life, rather than being COOL!!!

6. Sometimes I wish I didn't get too close to anybody; it's the same story all over, you get close to them, you figure them out, you find out that they are normal and boring ....
Most people are cool only from a distance
Up Close and personal they are just one of US

7. Why the heck your driver's license expires on your birthday??

8. Sometimes me and G sit and discuss the foods that we don't like ; we have decided that if we get married and have kids together there is not a chance in hell that they will ever become overweight...

9. Last night my sister said she likes people who are predisposed to depression better, you just know they are more poetic and sensitive...

10. I am such an unpredictable person that I have become boring to the people around me. They know that they can't predict anything about me... They have figured me out inside out

11. I have promised to my aunt and my friend to meet them for Sizdeh-Be-Dar like two hours ago and instead I am making lists, I am not going there anytime soon...

Cultural preoccupation with regularity

2007-03-29T13:48:00.000-07:00

Inherently I am an extremely competitive person.... I am so competitive that I stopped playing Basketball in Junior High despite being chosen to play for best teams in our city ,because I was sick and tired of myself dedicating all my life to the game and personalizing the opponents' every move and trying to come up with a revenge even outside the court...
Once when I was nine years old I lost in a monopoly game and I went to the restroom and start crying .. everybody was shocked, even the kids my age...
I compete in everything be it work, school, sports, number of books that I have read....
I competed with my older sister almost all my life until I proved to everybody that I am a better student than her.
I competed with my cousins on the father side until finally last year in my grandma's funeral I received more congratulations than my cousin for getting into grad school..
But the more I look at myself the more I notice a pattern...
I have never ever competed in anything with my best friend, we went to the school with each other and none of us knew how the other one did in the class, we both assumed the other one is a good student. All i cared was to see was her happy and the same is true about her.. to me my best friend was and is a true genius and I am just lucky to be her friend...
I never ever competed with my cousins in my mother side, there was no point.. Everybody knew we ( me and my siblings) are smarter, because my mom was an overachiever..
After I gave up the basketball I took up Badminton and I never ever cared if I won or lost, I only played it cause i could have time to myself..

Apparently I compete with the people and for the things that I don't particularly care for.. I just want to make sure that I have proved myself
So the question is :" Does the competitive personality stem from insecurity??"

A license to practice

2007-03-24T10:20:00.000-07:00

All i had was a bowl of noodle by myself in a small restaurant in Chelsea , there were not that many people in there... there were even two other guys eating by themselves... one of them looked at me , smiled and went back to reading his book... Funny how you are never truly alone even in your loneliness...
Today is the 4Th day that I am taking the PPIs , its not a big a deal just a simple acid reflux.. nothing new for me or my family.. The pattern is there, the history is there and so is the cure..
All I have to do is to abstain: from Coffee,ice cream, occasional cigarettes, Hookah, and shots of Vodka.
I just don't know why all of a sudden it came back after all these years? It's the stress I suppose..
Something out there is bothering me, or maybe its a host of factors!!!!
Dad has finally sold our house after all these years, and so there goes the last piece of attachment to my city... it seems like we are being wiped out of the memory of the city that we used to belong to. There is nothing to go back to, if i want to go back one day I have to become a tourist and check into a hotel ....

My writing professor emailed me and asked me how I am doing? I just told her I havent been writing lately... I told her i am busy with other stuff, I think I lied and I think she knows it.. I don't write much anymore, cause I don't find enough motivation or reasons to write..
I used to write to get away from the world, I used to write to create my own world, I used to write in search of happiness...
Now I have surrendered to life.. I have sushi with people who I have not much in common and cant even have a decent conversation with, but then that's reassuring. Just to live in the moment, to know that after this meal there wont be anything else... that all you have is some Sushi.....
I used to write to prove something to myself, I used to write in the hope of changing the world..
Now I just sit back and watch people, I go to bars with them and watch them drinking and mingle.. I don't talk much anymore.. I just watch...
But then I lie I still write here and there; in school newsletter's satire column, in my head , on scratch papers and napkins . Its just not a part of my life the way it used to be, now its more of a habbit, like smoking after drinking..

My sister is back after her long sabbatical from normal life, I don't argue with her anymore.. I don't even ask her about the two years that she was away, and still don't know why she came back... I live in my own island and so does she...

My uncle called me to wish me a happy new year, and told me he knows I will make it ... That he has faith in me, and knows that I will never give up...
I told him if anything not giving up has been my vice.. I just don't know how to give up? and sometimes it gets irritating... the other day I made the professor apologize from the whole class, because the problem that he gave our group was wrong. It just didn't make sense to me, I couldn't figure it out..I made him admit to being wrong in front of 80 people, maybe because I want to think at the end I dont get anything wrong!!!

I don't know where i am going from here but I know its not far away....
I just know I can always go to a noodle shop by myself or others and smile at the other lonely customers, because in some strange ways, Deep down we are always lonely, but never alone in our loneliness

2007-03-20T13:07:00.000-07:00

بوی باران، بوی سبزه، بوی خاک؛

شاخه های شسته،باران خورده، پاک؛

آسمان آبی و ابر سپید، برگ های سبز بید؛

عطر نرگس،رقص باد، نغمه شوق پرستوهای شاد؛

خلوت گرم کبوترهای مست، نرم نرمک می رسد اینک بهار؛

خوش به حال روزگار...

2007-03-17T12:31:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I want to race the time...
Sometimes i want to win the race....
sometimes i even pretend that i don't live in a mediocre world, and am surrounded by mediocre people...
Sometimes I like to write different endings for what happens around me....
Sometimes I wish I could live outside my head....

Sometimes I even try to find real answers to my questions...

2007-03-15T21:22:00.000-07:00

Live through this, and you won't look back…
Live through this, and you won't look back…
Live through this, and you won't look back…

گلگشت

2007-03-06T22:10:00.000-08:00

وقتی که کودکی بودم

من آسمان را باز کردم

وچتر خواب خود را بافتم

پونه ی چشم دو زن بودم

یکی مادرم و دیگری را نشناختم

روزنامه ها را میدیدم

و نمیدانستم که روزی خبرهایشان برایم خاطره خواهد شد

نه بر در ختی

نه بر خانه ای

سیگار زندگی را باتوتون مرطوبی پیچیدیم

من,

مادرم,

سفره نداشتیم

وروی زمین انباشته از خاک,چاشت می کردیم,

و اگر بود, درسفره ی گل دار زندگی را می چیدیم

نه چون پراکندگی میوه ها در بازار شهر....

اما زندگی من,هنگامی بسته شد که در آب حوض خود را دیدم

ماهی ها آن روز,با رنگ های مرطوب زندگی

به گلگشت رفته بودند

احمدرضا احمدی

2007-03-05T09:09:00.000-08:00

One day i am gonna get grown and have a kid.... i donno how, thats to be decided..
but then i am gonna name my kid " NO NAME.." and i will raise him/her....
My kid will grow up with a lot of issues and eventually will go to therapist and blame and his/her name for all her/his issues..
the therapist will help him/her to solve his/her problems...
and then he/she will change his/her name, forgives me and move on and will live a happy healthy life...
One day i am gonna make a good mother

2007-03-02T20:16:00.000-08:00

( tonight is Bahar's B.Day and we are at her place!!!! she is hitting me on the head.. i will let her take over)

hewo!!!!! i am turnin 11!!! Linda (my pimpley,slaping,goozing wierd cousin. i wonder what made her my cousin. because i am a little,cute,adorable ,kissable little girl. :) (\_/)
(="=)
(")_(")
that is ym signature panda!! hehehehehehehehehehhe.L would never no because she is soooooooo. if you were to be a chos or a gooooz which one would you be? i would be a chos because then i would be silent but deadly like a snake eating a rare species of a L.
and what is the difference between an amo and a daie? the daie is older and amoos are younger. doncha no da anchient remedy to noing about our sacred uncles??? you must be a nut.(like L)
WELL L SI A GOOOOZOOO AND I AM AN ADORABLE LITTLE CHOS SO CACHA LATER. EVEN L THINKS I AM ADORABLE AND NOT BITARBIATE AS SHE IS. SHE GOT THE DRUNKADOODLES. IT IS DEADLY LIKE A STAWLKING CHOS

Montezuma's Revenge

2007-02-26T13:47:00.000-08:00

" Disclaimer : this post will make no sense whatsoever, for the 2-3 people who actually bother to read these stuff, not that any of my posts ever made any sense even to me!!! I have something due tomorrow and am suffering a writer's block due to no good reason.. i am just writing here to break that !!!"

do ordinary people have ordinary stories? if so do those stories have an end to them?? i mean one day they wake up and its nothing but a blank page... end of the book, no not death.. because nobody knows what is death like.. nobody have been through it that is able to tell us about it...
and Isn't death just the beginning?
i am talking about their stories, their lives... the twists, the turns, the plots, the scenes, time, space... is there an end to them? will they find happiness at the end or some sort of resolution??
I mean where they ordinary people ordinary from the day one, or just like rest of us they went through life, made mistakes, got hurt, hurt other people along the way, felt guilty, gave up, fought, got up and put their pieces back together or at least tried and moved on with their lives??
Do ordinary stories have plot line? structure? chapters? are they interesting, boring, brilliant, or....
Are ordinary people happy? optimistic, do they dance?
Do they over deramatize life? do they watch chick flick? does it even matter??
Do they get their answers? do they go through life trying to figure things out?
do they run away from reality? do they day dream?
Do they become jaded after horrible experiences? do they lie, cheat or back stab? do they leave in suburbs and drive minivans?
who are they? are they Happy? do they have lunch with their families at least once a week? do they come from dysfunctional families?
Do they write? i know the answer to this one .. NO, writing is a disease, ordinary people do not have diseases like this, they have health insurance, well the ones who can afford it..
they used preventive measures, they care about themselves.. they don't catch diseases.. even if they do they find a cure for it..
no Ordinary people are not pathological writers..
Do they party hardy? do they enjoy it? do they drink Sake ? is it Wine or Beer or whiskey for them? do they do shots of Vodka or tequila? how many?
Do they take chances? do they trust other people??
M told me one day he has become an ordinary person,.. he gave up on Chaos theory and that tension theory thing and got married,.. i like his wife, she is nice... he said she is ordinary and makes him want to be normal... he said i need to become normal too.. i like them.. i like to be ordinary too.. they are boring in a good way, they are happy relatively speaking.. he said he is worried about finding a job after graduation, she has already found a job...
He said i should stop over analyzing,.,. i should become less liberal, i should become someone like others.. she didn't drink, he was a beer guy. He didn't dance, she liked hip hop music... they didn't have much money... we all hated the automatic toilets and flushes..
He said i remind him of his sister; she figured it one day,,, he said i need to hurry up and figure things out soon,,, he said i am smart enough to do so..
he became normal and we gave up on our long discussions about nothing... none of us miss them..
Did his story come to and end... was he on the last page? the page that has like 3 sentences, the 3 sentences that i could never help but read without finishing the book...
How about me? Is there an end to my story?
am i reading it now? the end..
she grew old and happy in suburbs one way or the other... she gave up on freaks and weirdos and enjoyed being normal ... she was even able to tend to her plants nothing like her mother but she was able not to kill them... she forgave a lot of people including herself and found peace somewhere along the way even though she was from middle east..
she stopped being sarcastic all the time, and never ever took cheap shot at others, she started respecting people and their feelings... She was even able to spend a whole day with her younger sister and didn't even bother to remind her that she needs to learn how to take care of her finances, and calling her irresponsible...
She spent the whole night with her friends in the Mexican restaurant without looking out the window trying to find a way out or staring at the empty seat in front of her, she even wouldn't hope for that seat to be filled again,,, she no longer wanted something that wasn't there at the first place..
She never ever uttered the words :" You will never ever have me.." Cause she finally had herself
And one fall she found enough reason to go back to her city and walk in the streets with her best friend, go to the bookstore and then the pastry shop...
She accepted that she couldn't stop the time and the six of them could never be together the way they used to be... she gave up on her fear of commitment because she might one day lose it all...
That was how she was , she liked to read the ending before she finished the book.. she wanted to know how it ends before she even knew what happens in the middle...

So how does it work? do we all become ordinary somewhere done the line...
or ....
I mean that's it? i know its more than three sentences.. but it ain't that long...

2007-02-13T16:15:00.000-08:00

Way back when i was in Junior high... once during my finals, i started reading this four volume epic Russian masterpiece!!! i tried to get away from it as much as i could, but i wasn't able to do so.. i mean i even ended up reading in my parents room hiding in the walking closet... by the time the exams were finished, i lost my interest in the book... Fifteen years later and i am doing the same thing, i just cant study,,, and i am reading something really stupid, i cant even tell anybody what it is. too embarrassing... and blogging, well that's the icing on the CAKE!!!!
I have also started having an existential crisis... since the last time i talked to my father.. i have come to realize that i live my life to please my parents, unlike my siblings.. Today i decided that I so want to go skiing for the long weekend, but i cant.. Because i have to go visit friends and family all over the Bay area, just because.. I have even invited people over to my place, way too many people and I donno how am i going to fit them there? i have to take my baby cousin to see a movie.. because i want to be the COOL older cousin who they come to when they want to install an Instant messengers despite their parents disapproval. I never had a cool older cousin, they never paid attention to me. I donno why i am trying to make it up to my younger cousins??
I donno why i have to go to south Bay for the Saturday dinner at some Mexican restaurant ( i dont like Mexican food, reminds me of ABgoosht) to sort things out between FRIENDS!! i dont even care, i mean things will sort out in a month or two anyways..
I donno why i dont have to go skiing, and instead hang out with the people who are coming up from SO-Cal and go to Napa Valley with them?? They have car, they can drive why the heck i should take them there??
I donno why i have to go and have dinner with my lovely yet extremely opinionated Aunt (you think i am opinionated wait till you see HER!!!) and explain to her why my sister makes the choices that she makes? I donno, why doesnt she ask her?
i dont even know why i come here and Whine?? who cares? i dont... in real life at the best i am indifferent to pretty much everything....
i am not even sad, depressed or anything.. i am extremely happy and content with my life. And i am even able to direct my anger at the right people, and not hurt the people that i care about for no good reason..
i just read stupid things during my exams.. but that's very normal of me, i am just a weird person... who does weird things!!!

A model for making ethical decisions

2007-02-08T09:06:00.000-08:00

"Morality is a set of widely shared beliefs about right and wrong human contact or way of leading a good or bad human life."

I still don't know if I should Blame Catholics for my never ending moral dilemmas, or as my sister says I pretend to be the moral compass of the world just to justify my lack of social skills and my inability to make decisions with my heart instead of my head!!!

Mocha and Wine

2007-02-06T13:22:00.000-08:00

I stay up late for various reasons... talking to people, coffee, endless talks with my best friend who lives in the wrong hemisphere, god forbid studying, guests, god forbid reading books, movies...
I am a night person anyways.. i can stay up for no good reason, just like going hungry for no good reason...
but i am not a morning person, in fact i hate getting up from my bed sooner than like around 12 p.m...
but apparently the world does not work around my biological clock..
I have to wake up and leave before 9 am...
i stay up late.... then i wake up kinda early, i am cranky... i drag myself to wherever i am supposed to go..
i resist the coffee up until 2 pm...
by 2 p.m i start seeing blurry and get a huge MOCHA...
the Mocha takes a while to kick in.. and somehow refuses to leave my body....
i go to bed around 11:30 pm.. i stay up until 2 pm.. rolling around..
the next day i have to wake up and leave before 9 am...
then flirt with Asian guys and promise them to have kids with them after menopause, i come
online and start blogging, i even argue on behalf of illegal immigrants and their right to access health care.. some people believe i have to go to Law school one day, when people want someone to Bullshit they just send me up front and i answer the questions that i don't even understand with such confidence that the asshole professor believes that i actually know something...
the other day somone told me that my biggest problem is that i am very confident in myself..
My parents call me and i tell them that i am the happiest person alive, and put my phone on speaker when my dad starts talking and giving me advice for half an hour and go online and chat with other people..
most of the times i wish i was a normal person, who only types with two fingers and lives a normal happy life, and have some actual goals....
my sister told me the other night that she can never figure out what went wrong with me? " i mean you were on the right track when you were 18, what happened??" she thinks i have some sort of genetic defect... she believes i refuse to grow up and be a part of the real world.. i have even told her that i had given up on blogging, i have told her i have changed.. she thinks blogging world is full of pathetic people and losers.. she wants me to break free..
Wine gives me headache, beer makes me happy..
my dad barely drinks beer; he believes its the drink of low lives.. Wine on the other hand, is something that you can smell, you can look through, you can sip , you can enjoy...
i think i am a low life.. i just want to wash everything down...

2007-02-04T16:13:00.000-08:00

We were all sitting in the lecture hall..
my mom was on the other side, she was pretty young...
me and my older sister were sitting apart...
My baby sister was sitting in front of me next to this boy, they were both really young.. maybe four or five years old... and She was very very happy...
my mom was asking another young mom about the places that she could take her children to...
my baby sister and the little boy were laughing and listening to the lecture, which compromised of my brother and bunch of other geeks discussing their college plans..
My dad was nowhere in the sight...
I still cant get over the fact that my baby sister was so young, and yet in college....
In my dream she was a very happy kid , As a kid she was always very happy
and maybe that's what we have always seen her as JUST a very very happy kid who brought joy and laughter to our lives.
Maybe that's why one day she got fed up, packed and left us . Maybe she was tired of fighting us and our notions..Maybe she wanted us to see her as she was, a grown up, maybe...
I still cant get the dream out of my head... she was a Very happy kid she was barely four or five
But the rest of us were grown ups...

osteoporosis

2007-01-25T14:08:00.000-08:00

1. Having roommate is so much fun, we both do the NOT studying together.. last night we even decided if we were dudes, we would've been big time perverts...

2. Deep down I am jealous of girls who are addicted to Shoe shopping... Being a size 10 I never had much luck with shoes, and not a shot at such an addiction.. In fact I am shoe shop-o-phobic

3. The more I study Substance Abuse ,the more respect i have for Junkies.. let me tell you something those people are smart, they figure out things on their own that giant Pharmaceuticals take like 20 years and millions of dollars to figure out

4. i have joined the basketball team... our team was pathetic.. even the girls in the opponent team were taller than our BOYS!!!

5. I am pushing 30, have great career prospect, come from a very well established Iranian Family in Bay area ( translate every male member of my family is a programmer ).. and yet single.. and I am not even that ugly, or fat or anything...
Somehow this situation reminds me of my acnes...
it has gotten everybody worried but me.. i mean they see it everyday, and it bothers them.. they all want to help.. even my hairdresser is finding me "Khastegar.."

6. Who knew that there are more than 5 synonyms for the word "PIMP," in Farsi!!! That should've been some JOB back in the days in the motherland..

7. Pretty much all the male members of my family ( father side) are programmers who graduated with a degree in E.E... one of my uncles once even justified his son getting his Master's in E.E and yet continuing with the programming with something like " payash ghavi mishe!!"
when one of my cousins was brave enough to actually study C.S , the whole family went into a state of emergency and decided to intervene...
My brother fooled the family by double majoring in E.E and C.S, he later confessed that he always skipped the E.E classes.. and i am not even making this UP!!!

7. The license Plate is real, i go to school with this guy... " This is what my brothers and mom called me since childhood," he claims!!!!

2007-01-23T13:10:00.000-08:00

One day you will wake up and realize that the inevitable has happened...
You are officially a grown up....
you have to get up early , and make your own breakfast...
You have to go out there and make something out of yourself...
You have to get a job, for a whole lotta reasons.. even if you decided to retire yourself at the age of 25
You will even drive by a house and think of owning it one day
You know that you dont want to repeat your mistakes...
You even learn to say " No.." to the others..
You put on make up, wear skimpy dresses, have shots of vodka and flirt with strangers
You realize that life isnt as dramatic as you thought it was four years ago...
that happiness isnt some weird, huge, out of reach thing....
you even start petting puppies,,
You wear the turquoise ring that your grandma gave you long ago and you never wore it because it was "Ugly," and it will actually look good on your fingers..
You will call your cousins out of the blue and invite them over, regardless of the family drama and politics and knowing that for the time being for whatever reasons, you guys shouldnt be talking...
One day you will stop wandering around, and realize that you always had a home...
Parents to rely on, a brother to help you move around, sisters with shoulders to cry on.. Uncle and aunts who will take you in when no one is around...
One day you realize that you have developed a very thick skin, and things don't bother you much anymore..
You will stop being the moral compass of the world and let others make whatever mistakes they want to make...
Then you will have lunch with your friends and after the silly talks and gossip you realize not much have changed over the years..

That growing up was nothing but a marketing trick...
that time is just an arbitrary thing... a man made concept...
You know things will change in a day or so, they will get harder and then they will get easier.. things will change and then will become the same...
One day you will wake up to the sound of alarm....
Make yourself an oatmeal...
Drive to somewhere..
Make something out of yourself...

2007-01-17T22:57:00.000-08:00

" Vay az daste in dokhtareh
bad joori dareh dele man ro mibareh
vay az jadooye khandehash
in ke man ro kosht ba cheshash

mikham negahat nakon
ghalbam taghat nemiareh

kar az kar gozashte
ghalbam digeh dochare

digeh direh
barya az to gozashtan

digeh direh
baraye az to nagoftan

Vay az daste in dokhtare
badjoori dareh dele man ro mibareh!!!"

2007-01-17T22:55:00.000-08:00

" Dooorghgo , Doorooghgoo Pinocio ro bordi az roo!!!"
Sandy!!!

2007-01-17T22:21:00.000-08:00

We have a basketball game tomorrow..
everybody in the team is Asian..
well we have this Mexican dude too..
we already offered our boys and girls to buy them drinks when they lose..
one of the 5 3" Asian guys was rehearsing fake faints and injuries today..
he was studying about it in the library, and researching online..
i suppose thats how Asians play Basketball!!!!

2007-01-17T22:10:00.000-08:00

I made couple of life altering decisions yesterday...
then I watched American idol..
then i went to bed..
then i woke up and went to the school..
then i listened to the lecture..
i learned about Cox 1 & 2
and HLA-B27...

2007-01-17T22:08:00.000-08:00

There is something fundamentally wrong with people with BOBs and Bangs..
especially if they are real estate agents..

2007-01-17T22:05:00.001-08:00

People are too fucking soft in San Francisco? Why???

2007-01-17T22:00:00.000-08:00

Ignore me for the time being..

2007-01-17T21:57:00.000-08:00

Conjunctivitis, otitis media, and sinusitis
Husky voice, aching tooth..
Anybody wanna come over ???

2007-01-17T21:54:00.000-08:00

According to Google Analytics I live in Birds Landing!!!
And btw who is the Cadence Dude?? not a ghost from the past is it??

2007-01-16T22:15:00.000-08:00

.. She was the type who was never into eating, sometime a whole day would go by and she would forget to eat...
but when she moved away, she started cooking...
Sometimes she would close her eyes and smell her mother...

2007-01-16T22:14:00.000-08:00

.. One day she woke up, packed and left.. she had to pick her fights, she wasnt a fighter for hire.. she wasnt there to fight anybody's fights...
She never looked back

2007-01-16T21:51:00.000-08:00

Some people, she would do anything to bring back their smiles...
She couldnt live without the sound of their laughter...

2007-01-16T21:34:00.000-08:00

... She woke up today thinking, that these days there is not enough poetry in her life

2007-01-16T21:07:00.000-08:00

Letting go is hard yeah i know..
but holding on to something that is not there????

2007-01-16T21:03:00.000-08:00

We are here one way or the other...
Does it matter how we got here?

2007-01-16T21:02:00.001-08:00

" It is not the people who leave my life that I miss
It is the little peices of me that they take away with themseleves...
I long for that..."

The Pandora

2007-01-15T23:23:00.000-08:00

I lied to South Bay People, I told them I am staying in East bay for the holidays to catch up with things!!!
I lied to East bay people, I told them I am staying at home going nowhere to catch up with Things...
I drove to south Bay called this gal who doesnt know any of my friends and family and we went out had Sushi, drank , had cigaret; despite coughing like crazy...
The next day I went shopping all by myself...
The South Bay people called, I told them I am in East bay
The East Bay people called I told them I had to go to South Bay for a family matter...
I spend the whole day by myself...
I had dinner with my brother
He told me he is tired of his life
I offered him to go to Thailand..
he said " A smart man runs away from Cheshm Tang girls, he doesn't pay to have more of them.. "He said : " I want to do something that I am passionate about ..." He said he always wanted to be like Marlon Brando in God Father...
He said he wanted to put his skills into some good use, he feels like he is being wasted as a programmer..
We decided to go to blockbuster and rent Godfather and watch it all over again, maybe he finds some inspiration... I told him i dont want to go back to east bay, that I am done with school... i simply dont want to go back,.. he persuaded me to go back using logic and stuff..
I drove back to East Bay.... called my friends in south bay and apologized for not being able to make it to the dinner party once again, calling my family and apologizing for not being able to meet up with them because i was sick in the east bay..
I called my friends in the East bay , and apologized for not being able to go clubbing in the city with them because of the family engagements...
I lie to people, a lot... the ones who love me forgive me , the ones who dont get hurt..
None of them understands that I just want to be in my own No-man's land..
that most of the times i spend time with THEM, because i know how much they hate to be alone... because i feel bad for them..
other than that.. i dont mind being alone at all...

Othaghe Abi...

2007-01-13T19:10:00.000-08:00

ته باغ ما ، يك سر طويله بود . روي سر طويله يك اطاق بود ، آبي بود

The fattest Hamlet

2007-01-09T10:12:00.000-08:00

1. I have bought a pricy hair straightening Iron from a professional salon ; but I still like my curls better

2. My biggest virtue in life is my laziness, unless with my temper god should have had mercy on a whole lotta people

3. One of the biggest problems of my life is that people take me way too seriously, i mean half the time even i donno what I am talking about or What I want to do... who do they think I am?

4. My friends believe that I am such a practical person, that despite being very emotional I have the ability to hide my emotions even from myself.. and that makes me a very conflicted person

5.In three years I went from "Freak," to " ordinary." What will happen to me in 30 years?

6. I usually make my new years resolution on my Birthdays... and to be perfectly honest I dont even remember what was the resoultion that I made this year?

7. Last year I was offered Jobs in both Santa Rose and Napa, and they didnt have anything to do with wine !!!

8. I am a very judgmental person, in fact I am so judgmental most of the times I judge myself..

9. I like to hang out with people who talk too much, because I dont like to talk that much and well somebody needs to do the dirty work in friendship I suppose..

10. We watched an Indian Movie last night, and I missed almost half an hour of it because i was in the bathroom,.. and i was still able to acurately guess the plot line

11. Some people remind me of the viruses, they are only alive when they are attached to another person... They just cant live by themselves.. Viruses have no choice though they are created this way..

Nobody not even the rain had such small hands

2007-01-07T20:38:00.000-08:00

They were all watching the movie, but all she could see on the screen was those hands..
White, old, wrinkled, with visible blue veins...
Somethings in the world age gracefully, no matter what they go through.Those hands were one of them...
She thought of the hugs that those hands had given...
the hairs that they have stroked..
the food that they have made...
The babies that they have held
She missed holding those hands terribly
They left her life a while back...
Those small, white, wrinkled hands with visible blue veins... The ones who aged so gracefully. The hands of a lady, a real one , maybe one of the last ones....
She wanted to hold them one more time, even if in her dreams...

2007-01-04T11:01:00.000-08:00

در باغي رها شده بودم.
نوري بيرنگ و سبك بر من مي وزيد.
آيا من خود بدين باغ آمده بودم
و يا باغ اطراف مرا پر كرده بود؟

Things that Negar does not KNOW!!!

2007-01-03T11:04:00.000-08:00

I know, I know Yalda is long gone...
but then i wasnt really around or something...
anyways, Shady has tagged me and Negar wants me to follow the TAG!!!!

I had to think hard and long to come up with 5 things that Negar does not know about me, because SHE KNOWS A LOT ABOUT ME!!! anyways here is yet another list of mine, and Since i am the original list maker I will LIST as many items as I want to!!!

1. I never drink milk, since I was a kid I couldnt stand the taste of it.. and that's the secret to me being a relativley tall person!!!

2. My parents have the same height and the same shoe size

3. I got my drivers license when I was 21 and that was after a huge family intervetion compromised of my parents ,my uncles, my aunt, tons of my cousins.. I simply dont like to drive

4. Whenever I travel I take 2 toothbrushes with me, in case I loose one of them

5. I always surround myself with the people who are smarter than me, so they can make my decisions for me!!!! it has done wonders for me..

6. I didnt like watching TV ever ever since I was a kid.. I dont have any favoriate TV series, I only watch them when they are on DVD and I can watch them in one seating or two.. well I lie I like Sienfeld, but it is in reruns!!!

7. I am taller than my father

8. My favoriate part of the trip is returning home!!! I just love home way too much...

9. Pretty much all of the real people that I know in my real life dont know about my blog, well most of them dont know what a blog is anyways, and one of them once asked me why anybody is stupid enough to write about his/her life and read about others life instead of living the life? I told you I have really smart friends

10. And the last thing Negar does not know for sure, is that I wrote and published this list while in class, and in between I had to present a case to the whole class!!!

Happy New Year

2006-12-28T21:36:00.000-08:00

Can you move to a city if only for the pastry shops???
Can you go to one place that you dreamed of conquering all your life, just to find out its not where you want to be?
Have you ever published a poem, by writing it on a chalkboard in a pub??
Have you ever day dreamed over a bowl of noodle soup all by yourself ?
Have you ever embarrassed a Hustler, without doing anything special?
Have you ever made the drunk and lonely Detroit fan in a sports bar all by himself laugh his ass off???
Did you ever find out that you are the only one who can put up with yourself???
Are you Happy? Do you have the holiday blues?
Who cares?

2006-12-23T22:32:00.000-08:00

Last night in the party she met a boy; somebody mentioned her cousin and he said he knew him, he asked her about her other cousins, he knew them too.. and before they knew it they found out that they were from the same city, their fathers went to the same school, had a lot of friends in common.. the only catch was that he actually never lived in their city; he grew up in Sacramento, nevertheless he knew everything and everybody from her past...
it was weird but refreshing at the same time to meet someone who shares a past with you but has never actually lived it...He had lived it through his parents, and therefore he only lived the good parts... they couldn't get enough of each other... She even invited him to her party next month.
In the morning she got to talk to a long lost friend from back home after 10 years, she said she has been living down south all these years; she came here one year before her.. she said she will come up north to visit her family pretty soon...
And these were not the only things, in the party "T," told her that she had dated the same guy that she dated once way back.. and yeah he has eventually came out of the closet...
she had to pack and leave the next day.. for a short while though, she was coming back and it seemed like everybody else was coming back too...
There was no point in leaving she thought... It seemed like the whole world was moving into her back yard..