Stirring The Old Pot

This is not about forgiveness.

No pages will be turned today.

This is not a new beginning, not a fresh start and sure as hell not a clean slate.

This is not about letting go of grudges, not about burning bridges and not about clearing my conscience.

This is not about making amends.

No candles will be rekindled when I leave you with this.

No apologies will be needed either.

This will not be inspirational, emotional or skeptical but it is radical.

This will not send shivers dancing down your spine.

This is not a guilt trip, not a strum at your heart strings and not a plea for reconsideration.

This is not about pointing fingers, or that silent void that lingers.

This is picking up where we left off.

This is facing the music.

This is owning up to actions.

This is a slap in the face, a punch in the stomach, a kick in the guts launching at you like a sneak attack.

This is the hushed voice you've been tuning out.

This is not dedicated to my ex-lover, ex-best-friend or my mother.

This is not really a well-crafted piece of writing nor a crystal-clear epiphany that erases all doubt.

This is about connecting the dots.

This is mapping out a future with lesser regrets.

This is checking in my baggage.

This is wearing my heart on my sleeve.

This is me, canon diving into a sea of "I told you so"s and "you should know better"s.

This is letting the pieces fall where they may.

This is you running away from shadows.

This is you tying a knot at the end of a rope gone aflame.

This is your broken mirror staring you down.

This is when your throat runs dry in search of an excuse.

This is your secret sinful confession.

These are the skeletons in your closet.

THIS  is getting on your last nerve.

This is a bunch of cliches poorly linked together.

This is not my attempt at a master piece. 

This is how such a word as "this" got your ghosts pleading for penance.

This might as well be a load of bull, but this... is your oblivion.

May this not be as disturbing for you as the ones who got it coming :)

صحوة لغوية

من بعد خصام

لماذا السلام؟ كثر كلام و تفادي صدام
أيام و أيام تمضي كالأوهام

و هذا غلام فلا تمدي يدك فيذوب في الهيام 

و هذا حرام حرام 

قلم يكتب و ينفض الركام 

فيهدون فوق رأسي طوبا و رخام 

كمن في عز الصيف أصابه الزكام 

فانطوى متقوقعا تحت ألف حرام 

بلا فلسفة زايدة، نقعد نبني من الطينة أحلام 

فقد ولت أيام القلم الحسام   

كنت نويت إنهاء قافية القصيدة بحرف اللام

فاختلطت علي بالميم اختلاطا تام 

جهل انتشر كالمبيد السام

فأين أيامك يا بلاد الشام؟ 

أيام كانت سماوءك يزينها الحمام

و ما بقي منها سوى عطر زمن الأهرام 

حروف فقدت إيقاعها و يتمت في الظلام 

فيا حزانى و يا أيتام 

هاكم العرب الأهل الكرام 

و إن لم يهبوا و كانو نيام 

هلكين موءرقين باستضافة الأنكل سام 

قوموا و انتفضوا أيها النعام

أفاقت حروفي و أحست بظروفي و تساءلت إلى متى الاستسلام؟

"إلى متى سيبقى السوءال "هاي هام و لا لام؟

ولك إصحى إنت و ياه بلا سخام 

!حاملي هالسلم بالعرض يا بتكفروا يا بتشوهو الإسلام

و مخك اللي أجرتو طمعا بالدودج رام 

مش جايب حق ضميرك اللي منه ما عم بتنام

حتى بدل الحمص و الفول صرت تستسيغلي البينت بتر و الجام

قبل ما ينعوج لساني و ادخل بالتريب اللغوي يا مدام

اسمحيلي أنهي فكرتي اللي باغتتني من دون سلام 

بعودتي الى لغة سقتني فعطشت و خنتها على الدوام 

وعدت زاحفة أتوسل منها الرحمة و الوئام

فتابت علي بحنية الأم و روتني روحا تصقل شعرا مليئا بالغرام 

فيا أماه ما من لسان آخر قد اختار لحسن الختام

وليفتح صوت كاميلا آبواب نهاركم :)

Hipsterism

I recently decided to give the term “drama” a thought. I have come up with a few conclusions and a slap right across the face.

Passive, a word I have come to hate.

Your boyfriend dumps you? You hook up with his best friend because you’re oh so cool with it.

You fail a few courses? What’s the big deal? You barely attended your classes. Right?

Stuck in a job that is sucking the life right out of you? Just wait. Some establishment, somewhere on this god forsaken Earth will for sure contact you and offer you a better job.

Losing your best friend? Well, I’m sure they’ll own up to their faults if you just get on your high horse and act all proud and mighty.

The world is at war? Facebook doesn’t think so.

Such cool people we are.

Here’s my theory… we have acquired this trait, passiveness, as an anti-drama shield and we all know drama is so last year.

Newsflash people! There’s a lot of drama going on around the world and ignoring it will not make you more of a hipster.

So I’ll just need you to excuse me while I dive into the cheesiness of life.

I will nag and complain about my job because it will remind me of the need for change.

I will read a book and cry my eyes out for not having my own Darcy because I know he’s just a character in a book.

I will kick, scream and get ulcers when I listen to the news because I will not settle for being a spectator.

I will be the opinionated snob that gets that beat ticking in your head and heart because it’s nauseating to see you slipping between the gaps.

I will show up at a friend’s house after months of not speaking because that cup of tea will taste better today.

I will defend the drama queens but ask them to give up their thrones, for all I know is if you don’t have something worth making a spectacle of yourself over, you got yourself living between the lines.

I will be the upper case letter at the beginning of the sentence.

May all causes of life be dramatized and never mainstreamed.  

Here's a little pick-me-up :)

I Guess Converse aren’t the “Heels” in “Head Over Heels”

I really and seriously hate the amount of time I have been spending contemplating this issue. I mean it’s been keeping me from beating my own Tetris high score! That is some serious business.

A number of factors have certainly contributed in maximizing the significance of this ordeal. Facebook news feed, high school reunions, graduation, living in the Middle East, living in Amman in particular, and parents, most definitely parents. And while I don’t like to think of myself as easily influenced, these factors kept pressing the-dilemma-that-cannot-be-named, kept pressing it right into my face.

"يما لمتى بضلها البنت زي الورده و عليها العين؟" يما والله ما أنا عارفه! هاتي أجرب أشوف لمتى!

Don’t get me wrong, I am not at all against the idea of being swept off my feet and falling head over heels in love with some not-completely-customized-to-my-taste-but-close-enough-so dude, but at least give me some material to work with!

Between the it-took-me-8-years-to-get-a-bachelor’s-degree-in-floor-sweeping-and-I’m-cool-with-it and the momma’s boys, I started considering compromising my standards. I tried to keep an open mind and even giving credit to those who got through 8 years of college without giving up halfway through. The momma’s boys, I won’t be so lenient with.

Forgive me for being this blunt, but I wholeheartedly believe in the need of a “What in the Name of Everything Holy Are You Exactly Looking for?” motivational speech for the youth of this city. Gender, not specified.

I am especially fond of those boys who take a girl’s ignorance in the kitchen as a faux pas, I mean I can learn to cook in a month if I needed to! Have you ever tried learning Chinese? Probably not, because you did not NEED to. That does not mean you are incapable of doing so if the matter arises. Or take girls who want an “open-minded” guy but freak out as soon as they know he’s been with more than 2 girls in his humble 20 or so years of life. Make up your mind woman! What you ordered comes with additions. Deal with it.

I’m not going to list all the nerve-racking contradictions I see in my fellow unrealistically hopefuls, but I hope that neither the lack of option or my own stubbornness will drive me into that web of never-ending if onlys, at least not now.

I, myself, ask for simple credentials. A, self-made, confident, in touch with his feminine side, doesn’t think John Mayer is gay, does not consider Paolo Choelo’s books are in any way enlightening, preferably plays an instrument or speaks a foreign language, has a sharp sense of sarcasm, tree-hugging, hygienic, politically and historically informed, with a soft spot for surreal art, does not cringe at the sight of babies, honored to be shadowed by his father but strives to be a shade for his younger brother, makes on-the-spot plans, but owns up to responsibility, liberal, intellectual kind of guy. I might have gotten a bit too carried away being picky. But all in all simple eh?

On a more serious note, I just pray that his idea of being original does not revolve around rooting for Valencia instead of Barcelona or Real Madrid. What a rebel that would be!

May all of your standards never face the need to be compromised!

Leave it to John Mayer to tell it like it is ;)

Yata Yata Yata...Bang

Well I be damned if the world wasn’t trying to tell me something today! But here’s the catch. I didn’t know what voice to listen to. There are too freaking many of them, and they all want to be right! You can’t even begin to understand the battle going on between them over typing rights right now.

Let’s sketch out the scene.

I wake up mortified by the voice of Lionel Shriver (author of a too well-written book titled We Need To Talk About Kevin). If you’ve read the book or seen the movie you’d know this is not a voice you’d want taking residence anywhere near your brain cells. The transparency in which the narrator tells her story is truly hurtful. By that I mean it might actually cause physical pain!

As Lionel and her much too mentally deformed characters make themselves feel at home inside my brain, I go through the TV channels. Fight Club, Stranger Than Fiction, and Scrubs, ARE YOU KIDDING ME? 

I am Amani’s choking inner voice.

Oh if it weren’t for the divinity-dipped, soothing tone of Morgan Freeman, I would have gone completely bananas! That might be the only upside to having strangers narrate your thoughts to you.

Now let’s not forget my very own team of crazies! All thanks to them for every moment of silence between what I think and what I say. That might actually be life saving in some situations, but a retard-mode ignition in others.

The whole point of this heartwarming gathering inside my head is far beyond my comprehension. For when it came down to thought-speech coordination we completely hit a brick wall. The bickering all day long must have certainly taken its toll on them by the time I decided to engage in any sort of social conversing, resulting in a major communication malfunction and a low blow to my social image.

We are contemplating group therapy. Till then…

May the voices in your head and yourself have a better-synchronized schedule than ours!

Timshel

“But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.”

- John Steinbeck, East of Eden

I got this ever-nagging need to remind people of that basic concept of “choice”. So I chose a fitting name for my blog. “Thou mayest”, you may or may not - as you got the choice you know! - now proceed to become a part of my utter randomness.

You may or may not be looking for a place where you can let your mind wander off to unfamiliar paths, or paths where you could drown out sense by the senseless blabbering of crowds. If you are, keep this in the vicinity of your mental compass and I’m sure we’ll meet at one mental checkpoint or another. 

This is not a place for shoulds or musts. Keeping it surreal, we all dwell in possibility.

I welcome all you hitchhikers to Timshel! May it be a time shell of spur-of-the-moment-genius.

YEEHA!

Here's a kick start to put things in perspective.