Saturday, August 11, 2012

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 ;)



Saturday, August 4, 2012

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!