i froze myself in a still life painting

The night the pure sand grains gathered

2006-12-03T22:28:00.000+02:00

Blessed is what I am to have strangers guide me to what's best for me. One can tell a lot more from a piece of paper than from a pointless conversation that would probably focus on the latest edition of Campus or a new concert down at the Culture Wheel.

For that I thank you.

I have been going through rough times lately; the roughest since… ever probably.

Our generation ain't about financial depression. We have the internet and we blog, we must be blessed then, huh.

الحمدلله على كل شيء

But then again… I think the plague of this era hits where it hurts the most. It hits the soul for those of us who've got one.

Any sheep can fall down, but it takes a man to get back on his feet.

Bring it on, I'll say.

I deserve better. I ain't a bad person. I must be worth something on somebody's price list.

This page means nothing to me now. It's served its purpose well. I will keep it out here as a souvenir; a reminder that one shouldn't really give up on things, a reminder never to be left off guard.

I will keep posting. I'll do it on a new page that marks a new beginning for me. I need it. I deserve it.

Something inside me died the past few days. This dead page should resemble the remains of that thing.

I don't want it anymore.

I'll keep it here.

I'll look at it and laugh at myself.

It helped me learn a valuable lesson.

The more you dream, the harder you fall… and the harder you fall, the more you learn.

I'll shatter this life painting into pieces of worthless glass…
And the glass morphed into a mirror that scared her off…

Thank you and goodbye

2006-12-02T14:59:00.000+02:00

I want to thank the people who’ve been stopping by to check this page. I’ve been somehow threatening myself every now and then that I’ll just stop blogging, that I’ll quit writing, but every time I say that it only takes me a week to regain my cruel senses.

Well… this is it. I’m done. I lost my reason to write.

They say that everything has it’s price, including people; but it so happens that when you walk into a store and pick a box that holds your name and realize that that there’s no price tag attached, that’s when you realize that it’s not because you’re so priceless…

Cheapness comes last to all; the true unspoken one. People go through all self-realization stages and always manage to go up a level cleaner, more mature, less discounted, and fine; but when you’ve reached ‘Cheapness’ however, that’s when somebody’s dropped you, and you’ve already morphed into shattered glass. If only people knew they were that fragile…

Let the God up there hear me. I want to live a normal life…

I don’t want to dream anymore.

The way they cut through me

2006-11-29T23:44:00.000+02:00

They cut through me, the bars. Six rays of sunlight cut through my hole like teleporting angels skimming into my life, giving me hope in slim portions of yellow visions from someplace beyond. I choose to live on the hope that on the other side of the dark walls something sweet awaits me. It takes more than a jailbreak to feel free and it takes much, much less than a couple bars to feel encaged.

I know what I'll do now. I'll just get back to my daily ritual of getting down on my knees and begging that whatever it is that is outside that I'm waiting to get to is as reviving as I dream that it'd be. Then I'll grab on to the prison bars, not sure whether I'm trying to breakout or whether I'm holding on to it so it wouldn't leave me.

I look up at the square shaped window from heaven, not sure whether I'm staring at the light of freedom or at the bars that encage me.

I don't even care… I've been encaged far too long.

Either way I know I'll manage just fine.

The Counted VS the Countee

2006-11-27T22:49:00.000+02:00

I picked it. I'm trapped now and there's nowhere to run for cover. Facing the music becomes inevitable at this stage. It kicks sleep out of your eyes and the meadow becomes sheepless. All you can do is wait for the batteries to run out.

I'm counting the seconds instead now, hoping they'd bore me out of consciousness. They didn't though. They sound like an army of ancient warriors marching up my brain to achieve something spectacular, glory, and be a part of history. The History of my nights by R.R… by very own bestseller that I've been tricked into buying.

Every single night… what an idiot!

I can't wait for tomorrow.

Fine Art

2006-11-25T20:40:00.000+02:00

He picks a handful of mud from the ground and covers his face and clothes. Not wanting to be recognized he dips himself into the dirt like a candy dips into sour cream. He had also picked a hobby of pulling eye lashes and blowing them into the wind; along the air waves, carrying a wish that he had once whispered, hoping no one else would hear it. He was shy like that. He didn't want them to think that he wanted anything. He wanted them to believe that he was content. Satisfaction comes hard.

Confident and certain, he doesn't know what to do. He's no longer making sense and everything being said sounds gibberish. He forgot how to think. He forgot how to taste things. Colors no longer carry a valid excuse for significance and originality, the reason why he likes things in black and white. Animals are lucky.
Black and white don't lie.

He chases his shadow into another dream, into a room, empty as a desert; where his voice can echo back to him in silence. He liked echoes. They come back telling him that no one out there hears his cries. At least upon hearing their return he can shut up.

He writes down his prayers on a piece of paper, folds it into the shape of a bird, a bird that can fly, a bird that can go to places that he couldn't touch, and throws it out the window. He didn't sign his name though. Names don't matter where the bird's heading.

He knows now that he'll be fine.

And on marched the fearless knight

2006-11-23T21:32:00.000+02:00

Words he formed out of his dreams
Along the lines of what's real and what seems
Marches on a fearless night
Who took a black phoenix for his ride
Amidst the shadows no one could see
That he feared the gold dragon in his dreams
He fought the spider and the ghost
He grew a beard on like a goat
He used the broom for spider webs
And all the guts that he was fed
'Carve it inside', his father said
'Be grateful for the father who once led'
He passed the salt off to those of needs
And everywhere he buried the seeds
He's swallowed every bullshit word
Of every knight who held a sword
Be good, Principles, and shit like that
Trust is priceless. Never rat
He should have cut his eyes out blind
And stuck a fork deep in his mind
He should have loved himself some more
And fucking stab them at the door
Swines in human form a pact
They rise together, hand in hand
Twenty five years ago he cried for breath
And now he weeps and begs for death
But deep he knows he will be missed
By the spider and ghost and an arrogant bliss
The many signs that stood out strong
The many places where he didn't belong
He gave up long before he died
He breathed out what was already dead inside
He turned to her and held her hand
Hoping for once she'd understand
'Put me to bed. I beg you to stay
Until my eyes are shut away'
The knight inside demands the rest
He hates the person that he knew best
He's old enough to rule the world
Yet fears the dragon made of gold
That he made out of pillows and dreams and hopes
He washed the soot off with blood and soap
Took off the nightmare and wore a fake smile
And picked a sword long as the Nile
Walked through the door and through the crowd
Leaving behind his fear and shroud
'Behold. I am the fearless knight'
And lied as he promised to make it all right

That Special Thing

2006-11-22T19:05:00.000+02:00

An endless stream of thoughts I write
About my fever of the night
I've often feared so many childish things
Ghosts and spiders and things that could have been
My hands keep shrinking, and reaching out
For an era of desire when tongues were drought
I drown in a time frame made of sand
While she moves around with her ringless hand
Playing her games, her 'out of reach'
A lesson I've learned that now I can teach
To empty handed fools like my self
Who once thought they were above all else
Stomp all over. I don't care
She's that special thing that I used to wear
In… Put me back in
Don't you dare touch my braided strings
It reasons how I've dealt with matters that long
When all my logic's served me wrong
Spoon-fed particles of dust of shame
I figured maybe, just maybe it'd fade
But then at a pier of nonsense she rose
Passed through me as I watched her go
Away in negligence of the thing she's left behind
Her fucking candy, lollypop; her magic ride
They all grow up and leave me here
In my own special third hemisphere
I cross the border. I cross the guards
They chased me on and through the yards
And gates of Cairo. Down on my knees
I beg for rest. I pray for a dreamless sleep
Where ration can play the part it should
Where logic fails when all else could
I should have went that extra mile
I could have made it worth her while
But I didn't… I thought the strings may fade
Oh they didn't and now I'm too afraid

Something Dark

2006-11-19T19:53:00.000+02:00

I shut it all out, the ray of light
I shut my eyes from the so-called bright
To welcome the pain of the deep color red
An iris so colorful, so easily fed
Rushes in the daggers of worried thoughts
To witness the morph of a dreamful boat
Mischievously lurking behind a lid so cold
Crushing me eyes, wrinkling me old
I should have wept, I should have cried for help
But Instead I went blogging, alas, it didn't melt
I welcome the thunder of something weary and dark
To wait for its sparkle and the road it'll mark
The dream of falling into the deepest of wells
And the more I dreamt, the harder I fell
The instincts I've trusted and the ones I named 'friend'
The ones that died and the many more that went
A killer in red lurking behind a skin
That covers my eyes and darkest of sins
They could see through me. They could see through my whites
I shut every space. I shut them tight
Underneath a layer of skin I'll pretend and hide
I'll cover my white lies, the ones I named pride
I’ll cover my dreams and self deal with my shame
I'll throw them away with my collection of mind games
In a box so big I call it 'the world'
With things that never changed and others that got bold
Amidst the fog a time machine that I'd built comes to life
Carries me to the days when all the wrongs seemed alright
On board I keep them closed, shut away from all the scars
Marking a map to eternal flames that I thought once were too far
The foolish games that I've played, the unanswered prays
I've given up on many things. It seemed easier back in the day
When I threw my heart on the table begging for a lover
And upon their birth I shut my eyes and run for cover
And the good ol' shoe glistens, lighting up another dark
Through which it once carried me through an untouched park
That held in all the secrets, all the sins, and dreams
That once seemed possible however ludicrous they may have seemed
I lurk like all else, I crawl back home
Through the hallway, through the door, and up my throne
Unaware of the raven that's claimed over my place
Unaware of the ugliness the creature held with grace
All tired and restless, I hold my white flag up high
Still shutting them I try to ignore the unanswered whys
Then a black monster crawled up from behind a leaning shadow
Crawled up my spine, in need of someone else's life to borrow
I lie again on my back counting the days that were theft
The life that passed in vain and the moments I have left
I could have done more. I needed another chance
But in a lifespan so short, all you get is one glance
With all things averaged, I'd say I did fine
But the guy with the scoreboard said now you have to die
I still have them shut away from the monster I have tamed,
A raven hideously lurking, bearing my name
Have I been such a fool? Have all those been clear cut signs?
Giving me hints that in the end the loved dies
The black shadow now surrounds me. My lids are no longer there
I'm alone and naked, needn't of lies to wear
I can see clearly now, but it often comes when it's late
When you're about to meet the master, the keeper of the gate
At last, I'm flying. My dark fate carries me on
Deluding me into thinking how I'm not empty to the bone
They're calling out my name and pointing their black fingers
Laughing, shrieking… I can only linger
And think to myself. Nah, this can't be true
I shook off the dust and tidied up my suit
Egoistically cunning, as always, I lurk myself
The troubles and doubts I'll throw back on the shelf
And watch them as they rot amidst the dust I shall become
Along with the raven that carries me. All becomes one.
The loved ones with the hated I throw in my box
'Adaptation' I add to the combination that's locked
Me out of everything I've ever loved. I've been known to be slow
And before I could blink I lost my lids, they're also buried deep below
Right next to my box of haunting secrets that marks my grave
Enchained to the bottom of my dream well I fall again enslaved
Still shivering cold. I feel naked still
As I highlight their names in my final will
I'll lie there waiting for the ravens to return
To carry me off to a brighter future where heads won't turn
Every time I cross the river off and away from their remorse
I don't need your moment of silence. I've gotten over my curse
I'll just look away, eyes opened. I no longer give a damn
Then a black demon that now possessed me cried 'I am what I am'

'The world as it is' by O. Twist

2006-11-18T20:04:00.000+02:00

Poverty, famine, wars, corporate greed, oil, terrorism, money, money, and money. Man's first accomplishment was probably killing a mammoth. Sign? I'm not really sure anymore. I usually demand certain things that some people may find naive. I try not to stab people in the back and to think about the overall welfare of my surrounding individuals before myself. I'm a workaholic. I've had one sick day off for the past four years at work. When people ask me why work so hard, it's worthless… and of course the endless strings of على قد فلوسهم I respond by saying that what you do defines you.

I'm an easily inspired person. Not easily influenced… inspired. A song can drive me on for months, an instrumental, a good movie, a book, a look.

A part of my job is to tell people 'This is where you make da big bucks. Give us your money and I'll make you rich'.

Personally, I never touch the money. I don't see it and I have no idea what they, my proud owners – the corporate entity, actually do with the money except have it stored away for a long time. I guarantee things that I can't control, but then again I guess this is what we all do one way or the other. It's part of a job, a lifestyle, a promise to a friend, a father's pledge, a line from a marriage proposal. Everything is uphill from here… that's what they all said.

The way I see the world? I think the world's become too complex for simple answers. The simpler you are, the less ambitious people may think of you. The deeper you are, the crazier you must be. I hold a job that pays well, I have friends, not so many but enough, I have a family that I love… and still the little leprechaun inside demands MORE. Oliver is not the only poor soul that demands more. We all do.

If I had more guts I'd quit my job and do music or write screenplays or novels. I'd even do it for free. I chickened out of the things that I want a zillion times.

رفعت الأقلام و جفت الصحف

So if every man's supposed to seek his own destiny… if it's all been written up there somewhere, I'd really like to know what's in it for me? What's next? I'm not lost, but I do need motivation… that something spectacular is bound to happen. I need a manual, a guarantee.

Call me an idealist… but I just wanna die in my sleep.

All big and grey

2006-11-17T14:41:00.000+02:00

He wanted to travel the world, to explore, to have an adventure of his own to tell his grandchildren when he's old and wrinkled. He wanted to point and say 'I did this and I did that', to look back and smile in triumph. He wanted to love be loved, pure and senseless. He wanted heaven and beyond.

He wanted to learn to fly. Was that too much to ask for?!

He wanted so many things.

He learned how to walk. He waltzed into the world and tried. He fell, but then he got up again and tried some more. 'Drastically doomed', that's what they told him, but he was too arrogant to give up.

It only took two spears to strike him down; one hit his brain and the other hit his heart. His soul remained untouched, as always, all stubborn and decomposing.

And so he crawled back into his cave to worship his reflection on the wall chasing a mammoth all big and grey, thinking to himself 'I could have done that'.

He could have done it all.

Savor it

2006-11-15T23:38:00.000+02:00

Revenge is a frozen tear wrapped in a triumphant smile; a false self-portrait of a man's finest hour.

Revenge has never tasted so sweet.

The meter just keeps a-ticking

2006-11-14T06:54:00.001+02:00

Monotoned, gray-scaled, black & white… my favorite complexion. Unfortunate for me, it's also the paint job they chose for Cairo's taxis. Sometimes I get the feeling that only because I like that complexion that the taxis appear to me that way. For someone who's into orange and blue, taxis probably look that way to them as well. For yuppie chicks, a combination of pink, light pink, and dark pink is probably what makes a taxi unique from other city cars… for them that is.

The moment you stand in the middle of a crowded sidewalk waiting for one to show up, you know you're in for a big disappointment. Perhaps that's why the Egyptians have been known to be خير جند الأرض; maybe that's why we think we're the best amongst all, that we're the center of the world… it's that ability to swallow the disappointment and wait… or settle for a short-people-customized vehicle such as the microbus where, contrary to floating in space, you actually get out feeling shorter. Some people prefer to walk instead, and to that latter group I belong.

Walking is not only healthy; it also spares you the bohemian and prehistoric caveman pop music that they play in microbuses, sung by people named after ancient Indian tribal warriors such as Sa'ad the small and Hassan the dark. Oh you can avoid that and get into a cab (preferable over microbuses if you have one limb and can't crawl), but then you'll have to deal with the chatterbox monster that's been locked away from civilization for the past 100 years that you've released the moment you got in… that is IF you got in in the first place. There's something about taxi drivers in Egypt that makes me bow my head in respect, it's their ability to control the road. I hate to think that in ten years from now they're probably going to control our destination as well. Get in and see where he talks ya… pretty much like destiny don't you think?

Destiny's defined as not knowing for sure where you're heading or when you'll crash and die.

Yes that's my definition of the word. I own a challenging dictionary. Memorize that!

With the street brawling, the rear bumps, the badmouthed slang, the overcharge, and the angry drivers with bad breaths, the streets of Cairo become a war zone, all in all battling for road glory. Schumacher wouldn't stand a chance. NASCAR should drop by some time. We've got many special talents, starting from microbus hit-and-runs and ending with multi car accidents… and don't get me started on the traffic lights.

Oh I've had many, many late penalties deducted off my paycheck, but I still refuse to buy a car. I ain't cheap. I just refuse to drive in the streets of Cairo. I get pissed off this planet just sitting there. I can't drive without a shotgun license.

Yeah… twenty years from now, car dealers would probably give those away with cars for free.

Hmm… maybe I should buy me a car.

Now where's my hockey stick?

To read between the lies

2006-11-11T04:26:00.000+02:00

Another light earthquake hit Cairo today after yesterday's. I only read about the one that happened yesterday in an SMS that I received from a free news provider service that I've subscribed to three weeks ago. At first, I figured cool!! I seem to be reading less and less newspapers lately and I've become a corporate slave. I thought that service would help keep me updated, but I guess I was wrong. It depressed me. It tends to send around 10 SMSs everyday (Thank God for silent mode)… and unfortunately the news are usually unfortunate. This guy got arrested and that guy blew himself up. A plane crash, a Palestinian massacre, an Israeli gay parade, an earthquake…

What the hell is the world coming to?!

With the vibe of Cairo's sexual harassments going on around the blogosphere, I couldn't write about that incident. I won't deny the fact that, for the first two days, I didn't even believe that it happened. Maybe I didn't want to… I dunno. A fellow blogger wrote somewhere that what happened is not just wrong… it's UNACCEPTABLE. I agree. Wrong is when you rob someone out of their money because you think that you deserve it more. Wrong is when you lie because you think that it held a valid excuse at the time. That sexual incident is beyond wrong. It can't even be performed by human beings. A wolf pack wouldn't have done it. And with all the shame running through the veins of my fellow countrymen I find a few names suing people right and left, demanding an explanation, a scapegoat. A dean at the Actors' Union whom I don't care enough to remember his name filed a legal claim against Dina El ra22asa. Apparently, they said that Dina and a couple other jerk offs named Riko and Saad the small were riding Cairo's #1 public transportation vehicle i.e. al microbaz when they decided to dance and sing in the middle of the street. That's also when Dina decided to get on top of the vehicle and do her thing. (Cheap strippers should learn from her) Apparently, she must have showed too much flesh. They all got horny or whatever and they marched down the streets of Cairo, hunting for their preys. What do I think? Nah… She maybe guilty of many things. I personally think that she should be burned on a stake, but she ain't guilty this time. No matter what she did can't and won't serve me an excuse strong enough to justify that shit.

The problem doesn't only lie in the fact that those animals did what they did; it also lies in the fact that nothing happened & nothing is happening still. People talk and bloggers blog. Tabloids write all sorts of details, real and fiction, with one purpose on their minds. Sell Sell Sell.

So what's next?

If I were elected president or minister of internal affairs, I wouldn't jail them. I wouldn't hang them or gas them either. I'd nullify their citizenships and kick them out in the middle of the ocean. A friend of mine argued that and said that they should be enlisted in the army for ten years, but I disagree with that. In my country, I would only send the trustworthy to defend my people. I'll just throw them out. I don't give a fuck where. Out!! خلّي بلد تانيه تلمّهم

Yeah I can imagine what happens after that. The ever humble USA will come along with their user-friendly business cards that say at the bottom 'Give me your hungry and needy and poor', grant them a green card and ask them all sorts of questions about their country… the home that betrayed them.

'The only gossip I'm interested in is things from the Weekly World News – 'Woman's bra bursts, 11 injured'. That kind of thing' – Johnny Depp

So what the fuck next?! What news does my SMS inbox hold for me? More about the Sudan, Lebanon, Palestine? John F. Bolton's nomination? Another bombing in Iraq? Armageddon perhaps?

The more I read the news, the more I wish I was illiterate. Ignorance is bliss!

In the end I'll say that if you don't love this country enough to die for it, then you might as well leave, let the West nourish your ambitions… and that doesn't just go to the rapists.

Don't be a fucking liability!!

Je suis content

2006-11-10T02:28:00.000+02:00

It's cold.

The ice storm caught up to his feet making them feel parted from the rest of the body. The winter illusion of a deformed figure of a man who was once beautiful and warm.

It rained cats and dogs and everything else. The raindrops freezing in the middle of the raging skies on their way down from heaven, morphing into cold bullets aimed at his emptiness. The snow impersonated the nature of dead molecules and cruised the sky in random manner, blocking a distant horizon, walling out an exit door.

Then the shadow of something dark haloed over his chest, deepening his voice, shortening his breaths. Marathon of the heart rapidly effervescing like a shaken cola. He sought liquid to quench the thirst of a hollow soul, but alas the ice has taken over and his tongue stuck trapped and speechless to a lake that he remembers was once nice and cozy.

He should have moved on when he could, but the crossroads were signless and the destinations were all ambiguous; they still are. He needed a man to grab his hand and show him the right path. He needed a father figure that never showed up.

'If only the wind would take me', he said, 'If only the storm could carry me'.

The darkness lurked into his eyes as his eye lids felt the need for comfort…

He's cold, but he's happy now.

The winter seasoned in and climaxed my desire to breathe
I want to remember the summer, yet I can't wait for the freeze

Another diary excerpt

2006-11-04T18:09:00.000+02:00

You reach a certain point when the words 'I care' don't mean shit to them anymore; when they start to question your true intentions; when they begin to feel that the best description of you is to name you a puppeteer, a person who strives to declare himself as your rightful owner.

Sweet talk is easy; a string of words fitted to change the course of another person's thinking. I hate sweet talking and I've always believed that words that fall along the lines of sweet talk are probably synonyms of the word bullshit quoted from the thesaurus book we use to stabilize the kitchen table.

Suddenly your image becomes faded and the people you've most cared for begin to question you and everything that you ever stood for. That is also the point in time when everything that you've worked for and done for the sake of that person falls into that same thesaurus page. You never wanted to change their course of thinking. You just wanted them to understand.

You think that everybody loves you and respects you, but she doesn't. Perhaps you should have crucified yourself in order to make them believe you.

To her you're a fraud… but you don't care anymore.

You're only a thesaurus page that people will now refer to whenever they feel betrayed.

The only problem is that you still do it gladly.

What haunts the blogosphere

2006-11-04T00:47:00.000+02:00

The issue of the veil, the recent sick display of sexual harassments that lately took place in Cairo, the virginity department… and more issues of advanced logical proportions… those were the main issues discussed lately on the lonely charismatic blogosphere.

Come to think of it, didn't most civilizations end when efforts were taken away from religion and put into science and what was referred to as logic and philosophy? I dunno. I always felt that I was the logical type. I dunno anymore.

One of the neglected issues was the issue of Al-Zakah. How many bloggers out there pay Zakah anyways? And how many of those who don't often preach about veiling? How many of those who do break their fast whenever they want to by lighting up a ciggie or staring at the hot babe at work?

Aren't we all a bunch of hypocrites?

Just a couple days ago, a friend of mine asked me whether I do something else other than paying zakah and giving sadaqa. She said that those things are the given norms, their obligatory anyways… 'What else do you do?', she asked.

I, personally, don't do anything else other than giving away money. I'll go back to one of the Egyptian habits that I've developed since I moved back to Egypt and make up my own official statistical analysis of the whole thing. I'd say that at least 60% of Muslims out there don't pay their Zakat. Yes… I made that up… and I believe it. It's my blog and I'll say whatever I want. I don't settle for those Zakat calculators they keep sending in email fwds either. I calculate it by checking my bank account balance at the end of the year and giving away 2.5% of it for Zakat. I usually pick a family whom I know needs the money, one of the poor police 3asakers that guard my work premises 24/7, one of the care service dudes… whatever. 2.5% of a year end balance is by far more than what is required (in my case of course), but I do it anyways. I'd pay more if I could afford it.

Now imagine if everybody did the same. 2.5% thrown into a special bank account, designed to serve the poor and needy. Every month we pick ten families and give them a lump sum of money. Isn't that what Bait Al Mal was all about?

Do that… and watch people feel more appreciation, admiration, love, and respect to the Muslim faith. Do that and all young men can afford buying apartments, getting married… there will be no more sexual assaults, no more robberies. Rich people would then care less for new Nokias and Minis and more for those who deserve food and shelter and better education for a change.

Maybe I don’t go to shelters or ask kids on the streets if they need my assistance in getting them a better life and making their dreams come true, but I do try from a distance. I wish I could go to shelters and directly do some help… but I don't think that I have to… not really. I don't!!

I'd like to do it because I want to.

Sue me!!

In the end there are two kinds of people in this world (yes this is my blog and what follows is what I think)… there are men of logic and men of faith…

Our generation?... naaah.. we're all just lost in between.

I believe they'd refer to it as اللى رقصوا عالسلم

We're the ones that don't know shit.

A. K. A. Prague

2006-11-03T03:15:00.000+02:00

He uttered a few words in silence then left. He's grown a bit taller. He has matured a bit more. He now knows how it feels to be left to drown in a Petri dish, to be looked down on through a microscope and analyzed.

Maturity can only be described as an endless analog scale. No matter how fully matured you feel, there's always a chance to develop that maturity hoax a little more.

How mature can a person get really?

Deep down he knew that maturity is just a life long April's fool that everybody's fallen for. Deep down everybody's as childish as the very next person; dropping banana peals on the sidewalk, squirting guns at strangers whom we feel would forgive us for being the figure of innocence that we are, and other mind games that you wouldn't believe. If we're not in it for the fun of it, then what the hell are we doing here?

Add a very big mouth to a diminished physique and a narrow mental capacity and watch the human form evolve into something godly. Those are excerpts from our national anthem. Those constituted our religion, that thing we've lived by and swallowed…

… and life does go on!

It does… and he wondered if he'd be missed.

Le Martine once said that sometimes, when one person is missing, the whole world seems depopulated. If only bullshit had an a.k.a.

He rushed into a brick wall on the other side of the street, thinking strong, believing invincible. 'Nothing can break me', he said as he hit his mortared destiny, and off he bounced chasing a shadow of maturity in its most glorious form. He chased it off to the gates of Naples where he found his true heart, his old and originally stunning self.

The snob in him stood tall and lonely. He grinned with teeth that could light up Prague like a sun of day in the center of an infinite sky and cried 'Oh I still exist'.

They hated him. Yesterday he was their Olympic God. Today he's just a shadow of somebody who once was. How engulfed by life can a man become?

It's their loss. He so deserved better.

One day they love him. The next day they just don't. He's easy. He's small, insignificant, demanding his a.k.a. Like words from Holy Books that's been altered to cover the new and improved, he pretty much felt the same. He's easy to change, adapt, compromise, substitute to fit the newly established needs of the fellow men of the new age.

In the end the other warriors told him that all roads lead to Rome. What if the roads aren't clear enough to pursue?

Not even the microscope could find him.

Rome, I seek thee.

In Doc we trust

2006-10-28T21:09:00.000+02:00

Again I find myself crawling towards them.

I went to get a sinus x-ray at Alpha Scan about two hours ago. I had to. I had to know what's going on up there where it makes no sense.

Don't you find it funny that they usually don't have any clocks hanging anywhere at the doctor's office?

I went up to the reception counter where some dude asked me about the type of x-ray I wanted to have taken, wrote my name down on some form, then asked me to wait; and so I did. Fifteen minutes later, some other dude called my name out and asked me to follow him through a door with a sign that said Restricted Area, the hoax of restriction and confidentiality. In there, I met a woman that looked like she was the one. She asked me whether I wanted a normal scan or a cross-sectioned one, to which I replied 'normal please'. She then wrote some meaningless abbreviations on that same form that held my name and gave it to the dude who escorted me back outside to the waiting area and asked me to wait again. At that point, of course, my seat had been taken.

What the hell just happened? Why did they ask me to go in there and ask for the same goddamn x-ray that I asked for at the counter? Why do they even have reception? Disguised unemployment! How insignificant would I feel if I held that reception dude's position? They just fool us into believing that they're all about professional help, don't they?

I waited some more, ten more minutes probably. No clocks to tell time and I felt like I've been waiting forever and a day. They might as well put us all in freezers until it's our turn to be scanned; at least that way we won't feel like we've aged a zillion years.

My name got called up again and I followed the same dude into an elevator. They've had that dude's job replaced by machines designed to call out your number and give you directions like two decades ago. I elevated to the second floor on which they asked me to wait again.

I waited for twenty fucking minutes. They had a film about a Napoleon wannabe playing on mbc2. The scene playing was when he got escorted to a mental asylum. It felt like a big fat sign to everybody there waiting for their forsaken turns.

And then it happened. They called my name.

I walked into a room where I met some dude who wasn't a doctor. He was a "technician". What the hell does a technician do anyway? They said that the detailed report signed by the official doctor would be ready by tomorrow, which probably meant that the technician didn't know how to do it himself. Did they even have doctors working there? Would that "official doctor" signature even be real? If I owned that place I'd probably fire half the staff and hire doctors who study for over seven fucking years and get to make 2400 LE a year. How is it that the two most important professions in Egypt get the lowest pay? Doctors and engineers should get what they deserve. They should also be executed if they ever made a mistake.

Technician my ass.

The dude asked me to stand in front of a board and took the long awaited picture or whatever. The board was attached to a big machine that looked like an electric converter with the word TOSHIBA written across. If only that machine could read my mind it would probably read the words Fuck You.

I was done in ten minutes, after which the technician said 'حمدلله عالسلامه'. I walked out of there thinking what if that whole thing was a big hoax? What if that Toshiba machine was actually an electric converter? What if they had one x-ray sample copied a zillion times and all they had to do is change the width and height of the skull to match the patient's skull size? Even a seven year old can do it nowadays; the miracle of Photoshop.

I felt scammed… again. I needed assurance and satisfaction.

I should have more trust in medicine.

I'll be getting the results tomorrow.

Another becoming

2006-10-27T00:36:00.000+02:00

He became her stranger, her acquaintance, her friend, her soul mate, her lover, herself… then before he could blink, he found himself falling back to square one where he's not even there, where he's just someone she once knew, where he's not part of her circle of trust; not anymore, he's not; even though he'd give up everything just to become an insignificant part of that circle; even if he knew that he could be nothing more than a chair on which she could sit, perhaps kick away when she's bored.

Today, his name just rings a bell. He let her sleep on it, sweet moron that he is, as he indistinctly watched himself become one part carbon and two parts oxygen that she can easily exhale.

She once made him a better man.

Today, she made a big fat nothing out of him pointlessness, right before she elegantly walked away.

Insignificance!

How can a word mean so much and yet still remains the emptiest word in the English language?!

He really does deserve it all.

On bullet in the west of potential

2006-10-26T18:17:00.000+02:00

No pain is worse than the pain of not being able to do.

The right-hand hemisphere of the human brain is the side that controls the creative functions. It is also the side of the brain which is underused by the majority of people. Because it is underused, much creative talent in many people remains untouched throughout life, stressing the fact that, until we try, most of us never know what we can achieve and what we could have accomplished.

One in six people in Egypt have the desire to write a novel, yet only a very small percentage of these people progress any further than the initial stage of just thinking about it.

Would that mean that we should try and use the right side of the brain a bit more? Certainly not. Where the right side is used to create things, the left side is used to actually come to the state of organizing the things that we create. The left side controls lingual capabilities, academic studies, and rational intellectual work. Eventually the right side won't stand a chance on its own. What good would it be if we created a zillion ideas with no string to attach them altogether?

Lately, I'm been finding it very difficult to organize my thoughts, make rational decisions. My left hemisphere is a battlefield in flames, burning down every action and every decision that once stood firm and solid. This is where the headache lies, digging in, burying its flag, marking a new territory, singing its own national anthem of triumph over my unorganized, irrational self.

Ever feel that there's a bullet inside long before you aim a gun to your head? My brain's left half is saying its prayers now, while the right half ain't complaining, singing Good bye yellow brick road, creating a hundred ideas every second of every day…

…no strings attached.

It takes one bullet to quench the enflamed thirst for revenge. It takes one bullet to shake it all down.

The dawn, the sky, the contact list

2006-10-24T08:11:00.000+02:00

To go out at dawn, heading towards the mosque, is probably my second favorite thing ever. My first being staring in silence at the Ka'aba.

I usually go to pray at a mosque close to wear I live. It's not a small one, yet not big enough to handle the crowds that go to pray every year at Eid. To solve that problem, they usually let women have the mosque for themselves and all the men get to pray outside; by outside I don't mean on the street though. There's this unused piece of land that is owned by the army where men get to pray at Eid right next to the mosque. They spread a long carpet and they're ready to go.

My best part of it all is sitting there and staring at the big and empty sky, looking up, waiting for something. You might also say that it feels as if God is watching over us pray.

The whole setup always amazes me. Families going together, hand in hand, standing row by row, praying, rejoicing, wishing each other the best. What else could a human being ask for?!

My Eid morning usually continues with me heading to the kitchen. I fix me a cup of coffee and go spend some quality time with my computer early in the morning until my family wakes up. I remember, seven years ago, when I used to log into the ICQ only to find my entire list of contacts online. They're all there ready to chat. The ones in North America haven't gone to sleep yet and the ones in Egypt or the Gulf have all come back from Eid prayer and are all waiting online to wish everybody else the best Eid ever with many more to come. I miss those days.

Time changes. Life changes. My contact list is offline. I lower down the volume of my speakers and listen to the Cranberries' Everybody Else is Doing it, one of my most precious music possessions…

and I started blogging… Why am I writing this post? Well, I guess it's because I'd like to feel that nothing has changed. That all is well in the wild, wild world.

الحمدلله على كل شيء----

That bitch!

2006-10-23T02:07:00.000+02:00

Lately, I've been waltzing through many newly discovered grounds, sticking my flag into everything that I'd either like to claim or kill off. And to think that at a certain age you stop learning! The truth is learning is fun. It's OK to fuck something up. It's OK to be open minded to new ideas. The sweetest thing of all though, is killing off.

To kill off, in my dictionary, is to kick out of one's life once and for all. It doesn't matter where you do it or how, the act itself shouldn't even be a concern. To kill off, basically, is to actually let them KNOW that they're out.

Oh well, I'd like to write about bitches today, and I'm not just referring to bitches in the traditional understanding; I'm talking about bitches that are proud of being ones.

They talk cool and pretend to be strong, progressive, open-minded. They can tell you all sorts of stories about the things that they do. They're usually very articulate, but when put under pressure they break. Squeeze that bitch hard enough and enjoy a couple minutes hearing her moan; just like with teddy bears, they don't repeat the 'I love you' recorded message buried deep inside until you have them squeezed.

A bitch can also threaten you indirectly. She can also do it directly, insulting your beliefs and ideas, your religion, your 'basic solidarity', and even your very self. What strikes me, however, is how most people enjoy being around her, winning her approval, getting stamped on the ass by her well drawn lipstick. How can people be so fake, I wonder?

Of course, a person can never foresee a bitch. A person who foresaw a bitch wouldn't say that he did for the reason of not wanting to stand out as the black sheep amidst the cheering fans. Why do we even bother having her amongst us? Why promote her sick, shallow, demented being? I wonder if she's as strong in the real world as she pretends to be in her pretty pink bubble of a fake bitch world, thinking that she's special enough to claim Life as her first name. The fact of the matter is… life's a bitch too.

But then again, come to think of it, a bitch is someone whose services you'd gladly pay for, especially after you've been fucked. Oh she's so damn good at it, although I never felt satisfied. She was just way overdone!

Oh if I ever met that bitch, I'd probably kill her off… literally.

Call me childish, but that, my teddy bear friend, is as direct as a threat can get!!

I'm off the subject for good… but don't you dare fuck with me again!!

The realms of death below

2006-10-21T20:17:00.000+02:00

Men often make up in wrath what they want in reason

Today I add another item to the list of the things that I regret.

I look at him and I see the respect he's earned by his utmost rage. He's managed to control them, own them, earn a level of respect that I most envy. I crave to be like him, but I can't. I love them. How could a man express his anger without hurting the people he loves the most? Should he repress that anger, learn to adapt to the punching bag routine? Find a stranger in a dark alley and kick them until he's paid his dues to the lords of wrath that lurk deep within his mind and soul?

Why do they let him behave that way? Is it out of love, respect, fear? How fragile are we?

Two decades and a half; that's how much it took me to learn that to be able to control one's emotions is one's truest strength. I say to myself that giving in is a sign of weakness. I have managed to control many things, repress them if I may say. I have learned to forget but not forgive. I couldn’t care less about revenge. I've always managed to walk away and eventually forget. But it so happens that, during the past fractions of time, I have severely broken all of the rules that I've planted inside myself for many, many years.

I've found someone to hate, seek revenge of; I'm smart about it though. They think I'm neutral. I'd bet it shows. I'd bet they know. What are we waiting for? Are we waiting for one of us to drop dead?

Guilt and shame are self-induced. I carry them with me wherever I go, thinking that if I lay them up ahead, wear them as a mask, I'd never fall into their holes again. I wonder if that is normal. I wonder if that is healthy. Don't answer, it won't do any good.

I've also come across love and gave in to it. I did need a push, though, but I guess so would any emotion. It takes one push to fall off a cliff.

Wrath, however, is what I've feared the most. It so happens that when you lose control of wrath your mind and eyes shut for a few minutes and you black out, thinking that you've clicked the pause button and nothing would be affected by your inability to control your rage. I must have yelled, screamed, shouted at them and at every piece of the surrounding furniture. But then I opened my eyes only to see that look, disappointment…

…and so I left the room, escaping everything that may have happened when I lost my temper, my control, the only skill that I've been developing through out the years. I crawled back to my hole and bumped into a mirror that I've found across my solitude…

I ended up crying.

For a fire has been kindled by my wrath, one that burns to the realm of death below.

Why didn't they come up with a word that means more than just 'Sorry'

Random 'I can'ts' and vigilant 'I won'ts'

2006-10-20T23:13:00.000+02:00

I'm thinking.

Philosophers along the centuries have all stressed the importance of thinking.

I can't do it right, the thoughts rushing through my molecular brain that is already filled with sinus fluid, the grind of the head, I shall call it. It's basically the happening of pollen grains hitting the air in the fall, disguised as particles of dust or as air itself, breathed in by people like me, ones that depend so much on their thoughts, the fools. The grains produce a bacterial thing that causes sinus voids to release some sort of mucus into the head. The ears, the eyes, the brain, and the neck ; they're all on the same list. Like me, they find it hard to run.

I've never trusted doctors. They're all frauds, money hunters, just like everybody else. They're not men of God, they're not angels; what good are they? The moment you walk into their office they write you a couple medications and ask you to come back a week later for another check up, another 50-500 pounds out of your wallet. They keep trying all sorts of newly produced medicines on their patients, their guinea pigs, when it could only be a bad case of influenza.

They also say that half of the healing process is based on trusting your doctor's advice.

How come they make us sign a statement that relieves the doctor of any responsibility whatsoever in case of several whatevers including death? Why don't we make them sign a statement as well the moment we walk into their office for advice?

I'd never be a doctor myself. If I ever were one, I wouldn't recommend myself. I wouldn't trust my own judgment on people. Who am I to decide what is right and what is wrong for strangers? Who'd give me the right?

Been there and done that. The medications ain't helping either.

The headaches still stand tall and proud, that fucking leprechaun.

Eventually, that's when I'd turn to God for help and guidance. I've been turning to Him a lot lately, asking Him for signs and answers, but the road is just too vague for me to follow.

Maybe this is my sign. Maybe I should stop and think. Reconsider.

I just don't know anymore. Maybe I don't need a doctor. Maybe I need an exorcist.

Maybe I'll just wake up and find that I'm 15 again and everything's the same way I left it a decade ago.

If only I was that lucky, but I don't believe in luck.

Isn’t it true that when people use the words 'chance', 'luck', 'opportunity', 'freedom', 'salvation', you immediately think 'bullshit'? I think that might also be the reason why I don't trust doctors.

It's also the reason why the minute you say that you're being honest they'd immediately presume that you're a lying scumbag.

It might also be the reason why most people don't believe in God anymore.

We're too cool and too smart to follow the things that our ancestors believed in. We've sold out what was once the reason to be.

We're masters of our own destiny. We're our doctors, priests, teachers, and gods. We know what's best for us and it's all uphill from there.

Am I babbling?

I'm just blogging here so don't judge me. The truth is the more you blog about being this and that, people would eventually believe you, even if all those posts were actually copied off someone else's blog, an Eskimo's blog titled '100 things you wouldn't care to know about me'. I've said that I'd stop blogging like a thousand times and I think the end is near. One or two more posts and I'm done.

What is the fucking point if you don't find justice in your entries anymore?

I'll say fuck it! I don't need any of this. I was doing great before any of this. I don't need you to tell me how good or bad I am. I already know the truth.

Would this even count as blogging? It's one big ass BLAH, that's what it is.

I've been infatuated by so many things, most of which have been described as a waste of time in many people's dictionaries. This usually happens when everything that you ever loved and cared for end up throwing sticks and stones at you. It happens when they eject you, like a 50s Jazz cassette tape that won't play on a convertible 4000Watt CD/DVD/FUCK player. You should have known that I play different kind of tunes.

We keep thinking that we're strong enough to do this and that, but what about the don'ts?

Freedom is not the 'I will' illusion. It's the 'I won't' that sets us free.

I won't take this anymore. I refuse to chase a dream.

O I've been wrong about many things...

I should have learned from the first hit, but I guess it takes more than just one strike to straighten up my thinking.

I have fooled myself, haven't I?

I'm off to chase a fresh start. I so fucking deserve one. I also deserve better.

Totally vivid. Totally fucked up.

2006-10-19T00:46:00.000+02:00

Everything is a cliché of something. We're all copies of something that we thought was cool when we were 15, when we were young, strong, and stupid.

It's when you grow older and when your doubts paint a blur in your eyes and another in your heart; when all that you can see and feel is indistinctive fog.

True love doesn't exist. Selflessness is a lie. Don't get me started on soul mates!!

Life is a cruel joke.

Six years pass and you still can't find a better match. The only change that ever happened is a hair that lost its color. That's what happens when you find true love; when you use it as a benchmark for you to measure people. You're lying to yourself, giving it a name, calling it perfect. Define perfection. It's one of those things that people lie about to make themselves feel better about themselves or about others. It's one of those traits that we, proud ruling creatures, can't be rid of; our ability to categorize everything, percentile, overrate, underrate… O we love to judge. Six years of solitude, waiting for someone to stand a chance at kicking her off the chart, out of your mind… Oh you've wasted so much time and chose to overlook so many chances.

Was it even worth it?

Love is a word that we've swallowed on in so many ways. Movies and pop songs have ruined the way that love can be expressed. 'I love you' don't mean shit. Call me a cynic, but it's so damn true. We do, however, choose to ignore it. The truth is the only love that is genuine and unique is the love for a parent. It only comes once. Children don't count. Children are toys that we bring into our lives when we start to get a bit bored. We choose to love them when they smile and hate them when they break something precious. That, my friend, is the absolute truth.

Get a fucking dog.

Unlike the other human emotions of hate, revenge, shame, and guilt; love is a whole that is composed of respect, appreciation, admiration, glorification, and my personal favorite: delusion. Mix those things, throw them into another person's hovering shadow, and you've got yourself that lovey dovey aroma all over your life. Unfortunately, this is how love is found. If only it was as individual as guilt.

Shame and guilt, these are self-inflicted. Revenge is based on self-gratification. However, it requires the presence of another person or a group of persons to hate, which brings us to hate. Hate is the only emotion that, same as love, can only be delivered by adding a person other than yourself to the equation. I have hated so many things.

You can't categorize love. You can't set up a profile for your Mr. and Ms. Right. It just happens, same as shit.

Six years!

You tell yourself that you should have passed and moved on, that what if it never happened, what if she ain't that perfect, what the fuck are you waiting for?

But you still do wait, gladly.

Add a few sacrifice drops to the love formula that you're stuck for good. You're willing to go the distance, but you're just horrified. What if it didn't work? What if she wasn't really all that?

I still strenuously believe that the notion of true love ain't real, that people do move on. However, find someone who makes you happy, laughs at your jokes, shares your hopes, respects your foolishness, and wouldn't mind spending the rest of their life with you, give all of those up, and live your life trying to make them happy. Cost ain't relevant. You know that you'll love them and their children for the rest of your life.

Love doesn't come easy. You choose to try to make a good life for them, a life that they deserve. You challenge complications.

She's messed up. You are too. You tell yourself that maybe the reason you're scared is the fact that it's just too good to be true, that love ain't real. You've already told yourself so many stupid things.

You just don't know anymore.

You're waiting for a hint. You've never believed you'd need reassurance, but now you so fucking do.

The questions still stand tall and mighty: How clear can it get? Is this even love? Is she the one? Are you her one? If you die would she still raise your children the same way you'd have wanted to have them raised? Do you trust her? Does she trust you? Are you still waiting for a sign?

It's a yes or no question basically. You don't need to know more.

Cogito Ergo Sum

2006-10-16T22:09:00.000+02:00

The fragile spinal cord asked him to shut up. It said 'Enough of this bullshit. This ain't good for you'. His nerves broke the silence with heavy beats of a pulse that went babbling endlessly.

'Paradise is but a step away', it said, but the road was way too foggy for a vision to conclude.

Words are easy, the sweet ones. It takes guts to oversee them and crawl out of a misty shadow and wipe off everything that once was. He wants to become, but fails.

He should have known better.

He should have listened, but his ego told him that he deserves better, that he ain't a quitter; an ego he so desperately wanted to follow, an ego he's so willingly indulged.

He is that weak.

The freewill illusion revolves around the belief that no one can interfere with your decision, not even gravity.

'Never fold', it said, 'Just keep running and spinning and falling and rising, chasing your fucking rainbow, and bluffing'.

He fell for every word.

That idiot!

And to think he held a winning hand.

He deserved a better life. He deserved a better hand; but no matter what cards he held their's always had higher scores; wild cards, they were all wild cards.

He was by all means outplayed.

And the tribal beats echoed inside his subconscious, marking the downfall of his own freewill.

Freewill is underrated.

Tough Luck!!

تطعيم ضد البطيـــخ

2006-10-15T21:45:00.000+02:00

Today, after a one good year streak of trying to avoid any kind of encounter with our beloved government, I willingly chose to get back into the game. I had to get a vaccine shot against… err… something that I can't even pronounce. Dumbstruck I was when I realized that those public sector health centers had their weekends shifted to Fridays and Saturdays, same as mine, instead of the good ol' Thursdays and Fridays, hence I had to either take a day off from work just to go and get that shot or to try and get a one authorized hour before heading to work. I should have known that it ain't that easy in Egypt. I must have forgotten what it's like.

So I headed to the office and asked some dude 'So what do I need to do in order to get a vaccine against whatever?'. He said that I needed to pay the fees first fel khazna in order to proceed with my request. So I said 'Alright. So where's the khazna?'

Unlike ordinary government entities, ours tend to locate different departments far away from each other as possible. Perhaps Egyptians find it fun to go through the hassle of locating the right person for the job in question, a good time killer perhaps; or maybe there are hidden cameras located everywhere, a big brother sort of shit, where top level monarchists can watch and laugh their asses off. Naaah… my theory is that the more you kill your countrymen's time, the less time they have to worry about how good their government really is.

So, apparently, el khazna was located across the street, and off I went chasing time, crossing a street jam-packed with vehicles. I walked into what was supposed to be a health department office. It was basically a six-room apartment. Each room had at least five door signs signifying the grave importance of each room. Signs such as edaret el tebb el weqa2y, edaret el teb el nafsy, edaret el teb el psychopaty, and the list never ends. All hung on each and every door. I, curious as I am, walked into some of them only to find one or two desks per room. Yup! That's it! Empty ones. There was also the switch room with a sign on it saying 'Mamnoo3 tanweer el noor'. Ya far7ety!!

There was also the secretary room. I also checked that one out. In there I found fifteen desks with at least thirty women in there jabbering like a fucking machine gun. They talked as if it's the end of the world and there was an important message that needed to be told. Each of those women talked and didn't listen. In fact, I don't even think that they cared enough for a reply. I didn't even know who they were talking to or where that would even count as a conversation?!

So anyways, I found a room with a door sign that said EL KHAWANA that I later realized was El Khazna written by what can only be assumed to be a five year old with Down syndrome. I FOUND THE KHAZNA… Hallelujah… and the door was locked. 'So where's the khazna dude?', I asked. 'Oh he's authorized to arrive late today, an hour late'. WTF man!! Well, alright. So I checked a sign PRINTED in small font that said that the Khazna dude arrives at 9:30. So why the hell does the daily shift start at 9 when the khazna dude, who's supposed to be the preliminary access point to all other services, arrives later than all the others? What do they even do from 9 to 9:30? Oh well… I'll just wait and pray.

So it's 9:30 and my rage leaked out from my bleeding brain. 'Where's the manager?', I asked some lady (Did you ever realize that all women who work at government entities look the same?). She said 'Well, asl Sala7 7ay2addem eseqalto orayyeb.'

Oh they should have given that expression I owned deep within at that point a name.

'Sala7 meen?'

'Sala7 beta3 el khazna', smiled the government thing.

'Wana maly? Meen makano?', I asked with tears leaking down my brain.

'Ramadan masek makano', said the thing.

'We feen Ramadan?'

She said 'Well, he went to pick up the general manager to drive her to work'.

Another unnamed expression took over.

'So is he the health center's driver too?'

She said 'No. He's probably on his way… MA3LESH'

Ahhh… the word that works magic. We should replace that pointless eagle we've had on our flag since forever with that word.

And so I waited for what seemed like a decade. I knew I was going to be late for work; another 70 pounds ripped out of my paycheck… and then it happened!

Some dude who looked like he should be driving a prison bus walked past me and into the secretary room… and the machine gun jabber talk stopped for one second then continued with a newly added tenor. I asked some lady in one of those five-department rooms, 'Oh please don't tell me that that's Ramadan'.

She walked in there, called Ramadan, and he wrote me a receipt for the payment on a piece of crap, not paper… CRAP!! And off I ran across the road. They gave me the shot; stung like hell (are those even nurses? Are those even human?). I put my shirt back only to find blood all over the shirt.

I couldn't comment. I still can't. What would it be good for anyways? Another Ma3lesh perhaps?! Fuck it!

I left with blood all over my shirt, pain in my head, and off to work… with a promise that I'd come back and submit a complaint. Am I even the first one to do that? Anybody? If we lived in a normal system, such a complaint would get 9-10 people fired, at least; but this ain't even a system, is it? This is BATTEEEKH!!

I guess that the true vaccine I needed to inoculate myself with should have been in avoidance with incredible systems like ours.

I quote a friend of mine who said that such acts of incompetence are fun when you're really bored.

I agree.

Ya ah ya ah!!

Endurance

2006-10-09T01:41:00.000+02:00

A dance, a pop song.

A symphony.

Only a fool believes that a perfect relationship lacks arguments and fights.

I've always hated Mozart. I don't like his work and I personally believe that he was just a fraud. Surprisingly, however, as I grow older I always seem to picture his work along the road. His orchestra plays vividly in the background as life passes by, and even though I never learned how to read music sheets, I choose to believe that I can follow the keys.

The slams and pitches, the unfinished C minor, the low notes and monotones that, during which, some people unwillingly fall asleep; and the high notes that wake them up from their dreams about watching a ballet about Bo Peep and her cattle in an empty theater, the high notes that drive your inner rage into salvation. You sit back up and stare at the maestro, discharging your anger, waiting for your turn to speak and cry and shout, only to find another low note that begs you to take a deep and cleansing breath, to ease your way back into your dream about a sweet girl and a meadow filled with love.

That entire piece… was salvation.

Mozart was a genius.

The high notes and the low notes, that's what life is all about; the ingredients to a perfect relationship that I choose to hold on to forever.

An endurance classic.

Life.

Felt that baby?

2006-10-08T21:18:00.000+02:00

Headaches

2006-10-08T21:08:00.000+02:00

That fucking little leprechaun sitting in the middle of my brain, whistling devilish tunes, making himself heard, blowing smoke into my nerve strings, pulling me down into his dark void, making me humble, making me beg.

'Leave me alone', I cried, but he wouldn't listen. He kept smoking his big brown pipe, pretending he's sitting in his own fucking terrace, watching the peaceful stars, following the galaxies, listening to the soft breeze brush against cheeks that hold a big ass grin on a cool summer night.

'I'd do anything', said I. 'Go away.'

'Leave!'

He didn't. He just wouldn't.

He stained my skull with tar from the inside, that cruel joke of a man, until there was nothing more to grieve for.

Oh I hate you.

Why not?

2006-10-07T23:06:00.000+02:00

You really can change the world if you care enough.

We've all been motivated one way or the other. At school, when you aced a test and found a new pair of Nikes waiting by your bed. At work, when you find an email in your inbox from your boss thanking you for a job well done and find that the email was CCed to your colleagues and members of top management… There's also the financial motivation we'd like to find on a piece of paper often referred to as 'paycheck'.

Do motivation and inspiration share the same meaning?

No… they unfortunately don't.

We can walk around for days, months, and decades waiting for something to inspire us, to make us change for the better and discover our truest self. This inspiration could come in several forms; a photograph, a hug, a speech told by a person who says it from the heart, a mere hug.

I demand my Martin Luther King. He wasn't a bullshitter. He actually believed in something. He just got up there and talked and fought for the rights of his people. He gave them hope, but didn't lie. Nasser was an idiot, a bullshitter, a fake. He was a good man and probably a good person, but zalamooh lamma 3amalo menno rayyes 3eleihom. Everyone loved him back then, but today, people argue his fakeness, that he made Egyptians believe that they were something that they're not, a higher race, an Egyptian Reich. We still think we're the center of the world. Allah yer7amo ba2a.

Is this world the world of "Show me the money and I'm yours"?

People went crazy when that Telecomm Italia Ghandi commercial was made by Spike Lee. The world needs to be inspired. I'm tired of demanding material. I need to follow something great.

I understand that this is the world of fast food, fast cash i.e. ATMs, a faster internet connection, a shorter film, a shorter novel; a world where people just… don't… have… time to spare, but I do need something more than just a commercial.

Some people see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not? – George Bernard Shaw

Inspire me.

Picture this

2006-10-07T22:02:00.000+02:00

A picture is worth a thousand words… or so they say.

We write poetry and diaries in order to vent or express. School articles served that a bit too when we were younger. They also added educational material from time to time.

Why is it that whenever we read a novel or a piece of poetry by a certain someone we insist on seeing the face behind the words?

Why do we get bummed out when we check a blogger's profile and find it empty, with nothing but an answer to a stupid random question and sometimes not even that?

Why do we build assumptions about a person's personality or childhood trauma or financial status based on a chain of words or an opinion about a specific issue? A complexion of letters wouldn't, shouldn't say much.

Don't people have the right to escape their personal world and their mirrors and log into a kaleidoscope of thought, even if it's only for a few minutes everyday?

Isn't that the how and why of the origin of filmmaking?

Bertolt Brecht, a German dramatist once said that people remain what they are even if their faces fall apart.

Sure some posts immediately throw in the image of a stressed out individual or a suicidal one. Sure you can instantly assume that this person is cool and that one's dull. Why would you assume that that blogger is a person in the first place?

Why would I want to meet you or see your picture?

Why do readers act as therapists when they log in to comment on a post? Why do they even pretend to be your friends?

What does a face say that words don't?

Why bother?

Do me a favor and don't try to picture me. These posts… are as far as you get to knowing me.

On being tagged

2006-10-03T21:09:00.000+02:00

Well, I've been asked by Arima to write my top 15 favorite things. I don't think that I ever considered that, so I guess this should be fun.

There you go, orderless.

Coffee and cigars
To laugh and be laughed with
Reading books at dawn in my apartment's balcony
Long dreamless sleeps after which I wake up looking and feeling brighter
A good movie
A moving opera (Laugh all you want people, still won't change a thing. 'Tis a fact)
The pursuit of a dream or an objective, not the accomplishment, but the journey itself. I've gotten used to the disappointment. I do believe that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger
A long chat with a dear friend that includes an argument or two
Convincing someone of a belief or an idea; also being convinced
Staring at the sea. I hate going in though. I never was a good swimmer
The smell of perfume mixed with the smell of a cigarette that was just put out
Singing. Yes, my voice is good enough to tune
White chocolate
Typing original material, nonstop at dawn
The sound of a guitar string
European meadows (Yes, I know. I cheated. I don't care)

I prefer not to tag anyone, but I would be interested in checking out whoever's interested in getting tagged and following the chain of very bored people… lets see how far will this tag chain get. :P

China perhaps?!

Substitute Something

2006-10-03T02:24:00.000+02:00

The definition of the word substitute is the condition of being second favorite.

People are divided into two basic groups, first choices and substitutes. Subs are often settled for; not sought, but settled for, and once they've experienced it once, they spend the rest of their lives swallowing that feeling just in order to breathe and move on. Subs probably experience that kind of feeling in their earliest of memories, family picture memories. They become a substitute for a brother who's managed to gain a little more appreciation just by being born a couple years ahead of them, and as the years pass, they find it harder to have a meaningless small talk with a parent who does love them but not as much. They're not good enough to match a benchmark set by a brother who was there first. They can try and heighten, grow taller than that first choice of a brother, a son, but they still can't see them. They're still tinier than a fetus and shorter than grass. Savannas are lucky, they're tall, and as for unborn children, they go straight to heaven.

You go to school, ace them all, only to find that you're still not cool enough. You take up sports, but they wouldn't let you play. You practice a foreign language, you're fluent, but you're still not a native, not original. You… are… fake. You still are a substitute, one that prays for a player's injury just in order to walk in and mingle. Subs hate mingling. They just don't belong.

You grow up only to find that people do like you after all. You're not their number one, but they do seek you when their topnotch isn't available. You become their resort for time killing, for harmony of life. You're good enough to help them feel desired when ditched. They're your first choice. For the few minutes they spend talking to you, you feel special. You pray for a disaster that makes you stand tall above all.

You're Madrid when the Paris tickets are sold out. 75.5 million people arrive in France annually, as opposed to Spain with 48.2 million. Madrid that's just ain't good enough. You're silver when gold's already taken; you're tea when they run out of coffee. No, you're not British.

You're the last shoulder they seek to cry on. You fool yourself then… that you… are… special.

In a way, I guess, everyone ends up content.

Airport Love

2006-09-29T22:30:00.000+02:00

Today I went to the airport to pick up a family member. I kept remembering how beautiful the sight of families meeting and hugging. That look of anticipation itself that you find on people's faces is worth a million dollars; and that worried look when they announce a delay on the flight schedule on the big black board that tells people how far are they from meeting their loved ones and holding them tight; and the eyes that speak with tears as their native language saying 'I'll never let you go again'.

It was 3:30 pm when I left to the airport. The flight was scheduled to arrive in Cairo at around 5 pm, but my parents wanted to be there earlier and wait. My mother kept saying what if her flight arrives early and she finds no one there. Oh well, God bless the information desk. I called them up and they assured me that the flight is due to arrive at 5 pm so I figured that time is a fact that is easily killed… after all we're talking about one lousy hour anyways. The moment we got there, they told us that there's been a delay and that the plane's going to land at 6 pm. Damn information… I'll go get me a Mad Magazine and kill off the extra hour. Of course 6 pm meant that we're going to have to break our fasting at the airport. We only had some dates and small bottles of water with us… and the food they sell at airports ain't exactly food if you know what I mean.

By 5:30 they said that there's been a mistake. The flight's going to arrive at 7:01 pm.

7:01?! I mean WTF man?!

The flight got delayed by two hours so '01' doesn't exactly say accuracy, does it?

The peak of my rage was too high that if I had jumped I'd have probably died. I went in search for the information desk only to find no one there. The office was empty, left with a big shiny sign that said INFORMATION to make people feel like someone inside that office knows something that we don't, but with nothing but emptiness inside, all I had to do was to go and wait for one more hour then walk off to the cafeteria, order a cup of coffee and drown my growing rage in it. I didn't smoke any cigarettes since I'm on the verge of quitting so I thought what the hell, one or two more nicotine free hours ain't going to kill anybody.

Information my ass!! Those lying bastards!! Yeah you better run you pathetic piece of…

I don't know if it was people's lack of nicotine or whether that's how airport love has turned into, but everyone waiting for flight 312 was seriously beyond pissed. I even had my own share of the drama when I fought with a woman who had that look like she's just killed her husband and cut him into small pieces that would fit her Metro market plastic bags. She even called a cop to take me away. Can you bellieeeeve that shit?! The nerves on that… Grrr

Everyone was fighting, yelling, getting ready to rock'n'roll. The 60 year old policemen were all shouting in vain and one of them looked like he'd need a doctor soon.

Oh I don't think I like airports anymore.

At one moment, I knew if I had a bazooka I would have blasted every single one of those annoying people out of existence. Now that I think about it, I was annoying myself, and I don't think it's just the lack of nicotine that made me see the hatred all around me. I do think that the airport theme has changed.

I holstered my bazooka back into my imaginary belt and that's when she walked through the gate, my sister and her little one.

Oh I hated today… but it was totally worth it.

PS One last piece of advice, if you're planning on going to the airport anytime soon, make sure your gun ain't loaded. The mind gets tricky there when you're staring at a big black board that knows nothing whatsoever. God damn information!!

Dear Dad,

2006-09-29T00:56:00.000+02:00

Thank you for bullshitting when I needed a simple answer to put my mind at peace, even if your intention was to sneak out of a question that you had no answer to.

Now that I've grown older, I should be the one passing my wisdom over to someone smaller.

I guess, what I'm trying to say is…

Never bullshit a bullshitter.

Oh piss off!!

2006-09-27T02:57:00.000+02:00

A new encounter with daytime TV drama hit my reality buffer today. Get hit by news that you've been the talk of the town and you'll know what I mean when I say 'For the love of God, get a fucking life'.

When a Loser with a capital L breaks the news very very VERY gently that it has been rumored around the block that you're this and that when nobody has no clue what they're talking about in the first place, I just feel like donating a couple bucks to the sad, helpless, and extremely annoying organization; a sad case of bullshit drama needs to be rectified.

Assumption is the mother of all fuckups... that is what some people need to start learning.

Don't you find it cool that people whom you don't give two shits about have been spending more and more minutes discussing your lifestyle and how naive you've been and how they wish you'd wake up, judging you and making decisions on your behalf… out of pure love?

I mean WTF is wrong with people? Grrr… You can take that love in its purest of form and shove it.

And to hear the news from a dude whom I believe would take the first baby step into sanity if he would just do a course of 'home made tranquillizer shots'… or shoot a couple fireworks into his belly. Is it too hard for people to just say 'I don't care' and move on. Isn't that what normal people should do… just mind their own fucking business.

This 'encounter of the stupid kind' ended with me asking him of his reaction to their "talks" to which he answered that he told them that they were right.

He did break it gently.

I, in return, broke his heart by calling him an asshole…

Very very VERY gently.

'Deep cleansing breaths',

2006-09-25T21:44:00.000+02:00

she said … and it worked like magic.

He was angry. He was pissed. Unfortunately, He knew how his mind worked and how his psychological self functions. When pissed, his mind tends to seek peace in solitary confinement. Solitude has always been the answer, his only answer; his excuse to be left alone unbothered.

'Deep, cleansing breaths', she said.

He smiled.

He wasn't angry anymore. He didn't fear tomorrow. He knew that all he had to do was take a deep and cleansing breath to reassure himself that everything is alright, just like she said.

He still had unanswered questions, but he knew that her breaths would do for now...

and he ended up smiling for no reason whatsoever…

The month of redemption

2006-09-25T21:17:00.000+02:00

We've currently been embraced by the holy month of Ramadan where from dawn ill dusk, we're supposed to be all clean and spiritual inside or whatever.

My friends and I of course return every year with a new challenge for ways to enhance the concept of relaxation, basically being all about being a lazy ass. It becomes a contest with only one objective; to show who'll stay out of sight the longest. Which friend will just lay back in a room and not give a damn.

We eat, smoke, soak our souls in a huge coffee tub and sit back enjoying life, alone.

After breakfast some people settle for Shammi desserts that basically all taste the same. Well, for most of us, the moment the Imam hits in with the Maghrib Athan, we get our lighters out of the locked drawer, a big ass coffee mug… and then it's ROCK'N'ROLL baby!!

(Some don't even wait for dusk to break their fasting but oh well, I'm not here to judge.)

Two hours later, it's like shooting fireworks. The three hours that pass right after breakfast are always, unquestionably, the most gratifying, rewarding, pleasing, ego filling with mint chocolate syrup and cream…

Not to mention the dozen tv sitcoms with the same actors switching places to play each others' roles in a new Ramadan TV fest.

I wonder how much do TV channels make out of commercial breaks during the month of Ramadan alone as compared to the rest of the year. Anybody?

Pepsi, food, food, food, and Pepsi. Holiness does come with a new onion soda stench every year.

Yeah I'll just lay back and watch you come and go…

Still Life Cinema

2006-09-25T19:55:00.000+02:00

Poseidon (2006)

Dylan Johns: [to Richard, who has Valentine clinging to his leg as they dangle at the entrance to an elevator shaft, with an elevator above them about to fall] Shake him off!
Richard Nelson: What?
Dylan Johns: If you don't, then we both die!
Richard Nelson: [to Valentine] I'm so sorry.
[shakes him off, Valentine falls to the bottom of the elevator shaft and is impaled]

'Shake him off. Shake him off now!!'

Don't we all just think we could be the last action hero who comes around to the occasion? Well, this one visualizes just how fragile a person who thinks they're everything can be when it hits them that this is it!!

The rest of the film wasn't as bad as its imdb rating. It felt a lot like "every other disaster" movie; not to mention that the scene where Kurt Russel goes to turn off the propeller was a bad copy of Bruce Willis's in Armageddon. Filmmaking clichés filled the screen throughout the picture, but that scene when Dylan Johns (Josh Lucas) tells Nelson (Dreyfuss) to shake off the guy who held a bar over which everyone walked, passing over to higher ground, remains my favorite. This is as real as it gets. Cinema should have more of that and less pretentiousness.

Le crème de le crème

2006-09-24T00:53:00.000+02:00

Churn, churn, and churn.

We're rats born into a world of cream, a bucket. The moment we stop churning, we fall out of the bucket and get replaced by a younger, more efficient mouse. We try hard and churn hard not to let that happen, not to face termination. At least that's what I used to think I was, a rat.

I've come to learn that the truth is, however, is that we're the bucket, we're the cream, and each of us possesses their own quality, nature. The rats are but life altering events churning into us, making us wiser, deeper, steeper, and more solid; making us fall into rot or rise to an occasion of appreciation and self respect.

One can accept becoming a block of edible cheese that would eventually be absorbed by life or stored on a shelf to rot away in vain, or struggle into remaining pure cream and fight the rats away from their essence.

Would you change in order to please a couple rats?

I believe we've all done that.

Well, my darling will

2006-09-18T01:41:00.000+03:00

Well, (My lovely appetizer)

It only takes one layer of sheet.

Basically, it begins with childhood, swings, and football. Words like mommy and play seem to be the most used vocabulary thrown in on that first roll, and words such as manipiolation is a long word that we can't even spell.

Then comes weird, girls, no one gets me, I want, and I hate; Adolescence and dreams of becoming something impossible and hating an imaginary creation of the brain that we make up in order to expand a newly discovered emotion. Play grows into a new meaning by then and the list of things that we want and desire grow beyond what a fool's hand can reach out for.

We grow as we learn how to step on certain things. Facts, sacrifice and reality reach a new level of significance in our dictionary. We start to give up on our dreams in order to accomplish what's humanly possible. By then we start realizing Faith, God, Love, Nobility, and Patriotism. By that age we learn how to believe and what deserves to be believed in and followed.

Another dark layer can be rolled over now in order to cover up the stench of the decomposing soul that we're trying to deny is getting wiser, older, and weaker. We face disease, life, and death. Tragedy becomes more than just a word that sounds catchy. It becomes more difficult to laugh and a mere smile becomes all that we aim for, sacrifice for, and die for. If only we'd have known sooner.

We start asking for mommy to explain to us where we have gone wrong, which turn has led us astray.

And finally, we roll one last sheet of paper with the word will silver plated across. For some reason, I never thought I'd be writing one. I always knew I was invincible and immortal. Oh I've been a fool on so many levels. You start looking at the things that you really have, own, possess and begin the process of choosing heirs to your greatness, but then you realize that those things are few and small. Money at a bank that you write over to a family member, a couple CDs, a DVD collection? You set flames to your random thoughts and dreams and stories that you've written that you thought were so great to take for granted, when you realize that when you die they're worthless. We've played for so long. If only we'd have known sooner.

The final sheet is short and there's not much to say other than give away a couple material elements to family members and sign at the bottom. Words, the vocabulary you've lived your whole life piling up becomes totally worthless when you realize that there's nothing more that you'd like to say to 'them'.

The final sheet is complete and a pretty little knot is tied.

The shroud is set.

Now you start wondering about the vocabulary you'd like to use with Him. You want to say I'm sorry…

…but your mind is a total blank.

And then he spoke

2006-09-16T15:59:00.000+03:00

"You want to know what the crime of the century is?

Is it the WW2 Jewish holocaust? Hiroshima and Nagasaki? It's 2006 now. Most of the people surviving now have only read about the holocaust in history books written by Jewish scholars. The Japanese mushroom cloud that used to be the most tragic scene of disaster has now transformed into becoming a ready made still image to be used in award-winning commercial documentaries about tragedies or to portray a figment of a lead character's nightmare in a Hollywood flick.

The crime of the century is the indifference of good men. So you want to tell me that there is still good out there. Muslims? Jews? Christian children of god and Jesus? Buddhists? They all believe in saving your ass for your children's sake, teach them to become stronger men than they ever were. Yesterday it was the struggle for human rights, religion; the struggle for faith... but here's the beef that's going to kill you; today they all row the same boat towards an indifferent society, where nothing of real value matters. They've all become obnoxious pricks seeking and needing the sight of value in each others' eyes. Arrogance is what marks the end.

I am here because of their indifference."

He said that… and then I woke up…

and everything was still the same.

My inadequate thoughts on freedom

2006-09-15T17:26:00.000+03:00

Is it just me or has the internet become plain unsuitable for people of certain decency standards?

Lately, I've been conducting my own personal research regarding the matter, and I've realized that it has become difficult for an average person, who somewhat abides to their religion, knows right from wrong, and isn't stereotypical, to find something suitable to expand their cyber entertainment luxury, whether it's educational or for their mere fun pleasures.

Beginning with video sharing websites, such as YouTube and Vidilife, that seem to revolve around a couple funny videos, a hundred or so political/celebrity scandal videos, and a zillion porn flicks. Free porn for everybody, softcore though. The small person that lives inside of me who thinks that he's cool would scream out "Awesome", but the older person who's starting to realize certain facts in life and prioritizing matters that stand out is thinking "Where the hell is the world heading to?"

Moreover, some idiot registered my email on a website subscription and now my email keeps getting all sorts of pornographic spam. I have 1500 spam emails in my gmail spam folder and I've only emptied it on August 31^st. I should be calling my digitally hired attorney and file a lawsuit against the cyber world for the distress that it has caused me.

I've also realized lately that the most popular Egyptian bloggers out there happen to be freakishly rude, frequently using terminology that are anti-decency, and have a severe tendency to refer to their personal life as being as hippy and anti-culture/religion as possible. Starting with five to six people that discussed sex with their girlfriends, preferable sex locations, their temptingly cool drug addictions, and how their husbands and children perceive the "boobs" account…. as if the cyber world really cares… GET A LIFE MAN!! I don't really care if you don't mind drinking alcohol and I don't care if you've had sex before marriage. No one does. Get… a… fucking life you "open minded" prick!!

Not to mention some other dude who finds it funny to throw in phrases and Egyptian terms that I wouldn't really want to highlight furthermore. We, Gypo men, tend to use such terms amongst ourselves. That's right… we do and everybody knows that, but a certain points we hold such language back in an attempt to appear to be as decent as cabbage. Hence, the way I see it, the usage of such language on blogs only introduces the jargon used into the main core of the language. Is this how my children are going to be communicating? I'd hate to see the day when all we're left with is a bunch of rude, progressive, sexually explicit human trash.

Sex-oriented blogging and Youtube and pornographic spam and dick comedy ain't the worst that could happen. In fact, I shouldn't even bother. Freedom of speech and expression, huh!! I should start minding my own business I guess; but then again if you don't like my blog page you might as well leave, dude. I sure did leave yours.

Freedom my ass.

(Maybe I am just getting older)

Needless to say,

2006-09-15T02:19:00.000+03:00

I'm too lazy I don't even want to go see a doctor. I'd rather stay home, lay back, and adapt to the newly found pain.

Any blogging doctor out there who wouldn't mind doing a house visit?

and while you're at it... get me some a medium Italiano pizza from Dominoes...

and one large Pepsi... DIET!!

Yesterday it was either Bach or Mozart.

2006-09-13T05:49:00.000+03:00

Diversity and choices, options and variety, multiplicity.

We have noodles and sushi, Pepsi or Coke. We got French fries and onion rings, curly fries and crispy fries.

We have Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox, Google or Yahoo. For instant messaging we're down to Yahoo, MSN, G-Talk, ICQ, Pal talk, Skype, mIRC, and the list continues to grow until it becomes harder and harder to locate people. Globalization has reached its peak and now it's dropping back to ground zero.

Yesterday we had the local yellow pages, everyone was listed.

What once was music and freedom now is just plainly "being cool". It used to be either Bach or Mozart; now we have pop, rock, house, trance, chill out, rave, metal, gothic, old school rap and gangsta rap, hip hop and R&B, jazz, techno. And with all the diversity in the music industry, sadly, they all sound the same. No more originality and no more catchy tunes. The mood driven by the music has lost its essence and the lyrics all share the same words and the same conclusion. It's like one big plagiaristic conspiracy to drive us all into the same hole of indifference.

What do we really have?

Since the 80s, people have changed, things have changed, ethics, principles, the senses for justice and morality. It's as if we've become mere vessels through which life can just pour in and out, one vessel after the next, until all that remains is emptiness.

I miss the world that once was.

Yesterday it was either Bach or Mozart.

Today… we've got nothing that is real.

Mirror, mirror on the wall

2006-09-12T02:39:00.000+03:00

A distant cry for help and a crouching gladiator, praying for remorse. Meanest anguish for plain deceit, he thought. I quench a desire for a pizza and grow a tummy that I shall name Todd. It grows old, antiquates over my age. I still crawl up to my mirror and cry,

'Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who's the fairiest of them all?'

'It is but you, my lord and host', said the lying mirror.

I walked past a distance to a place unknown still and wished for a cup of tea that would highlight my day to be marked on a suppositious calendar on a hypothetical wall that I have in a room abstract upstairs in my pillow-walled, two-leveled fictitious house, where my mirror dwells in peace and for always.

Everything was reversed in this illusive world that I've created for my blissful spirit to find peace within itself. Pigs were crowned kings and wives hit men with sledgehammers and children ruled over the household. If only I could find a small hut for me to reside at and be at peace and die alone. I don't care. If only I had magic powers I'd make that hut disappear with me in it. I would rejoice in my own self inflicted void and praise the lord that I still am. Not to mention a silent perseverance that would stand out to the non-existent raving crowds and cry in anger 'I still do exist', needless of my mirror.

'A fuck up, an outcast, a degenerate fool, a marine soldier, a Roman gladiator; I'm somebody's guardian angel; I'm the king's jester, and the kingdom's traitor. Hang me. Free me from guilt and shame', disgracefully he voiced that nobody was listening to.

An Infatuated self pity of a soul that cries for help, with no one around to listen and no hand to reach out for, grabs the mirror standing tall and cries 'mirror, mirror on the wall. Who's the fairest of them all?'. Hypocrisy hasn't served me well, never served me at all.

'It is but you, my lord and host'. She said the words I've been longing to hear.

Still reversed, a parallel fictitious universe of my own foolish creation; a world that I've been leaning on for so long. I drown the house and calendar and mirror in my own blood that's leaking out of my vessels, seeking another host with a far better vision.

I should have stopped. I should have listened. I should have overlooked.

I should wash the soot out of my eyes and pray for a better tomorrow in this real world I have returned to.

Then I found myself rushing into the ladies room.

كلنا بطحه... و بطحه للجميع

2006-09-11T02:23:00.000+03:00

نظرا لارتعاع عدد المشاهدين تم انشاء بلوغغ (كلنا بطحه) لأنه قد لوحظ مدى تدنّي المستوى الفني و الفكري لبلغغ الفروزن لايف بينتنج دي... و بالتالي لعدم التشويش على الفكر الراقي تم نقل التفاهه الى صفحة عتريس علشان ياخد راحته و ميقرفناش بتفاهته و تفاهة المجتمع المحيط بالواد عتريس بتاع البطحه.

متحسّسش هنا ياد يا عتريس... عندك صفحتك روح حسّس هناك..

ولاّ أقولّك... حسّس ياد حسّس... ماهي بايظه بايظه

سلسلة بطحه - حكاية ليلى مع التحسيس

2006-09-10T18:54:00.000+03:00

ماما شافتني آعد عالنت و بدأت الفضيحه

كان لازم أبربر موقفي علشان تسيبلي سلك الكمبيوتر. و لمّا حكيت اللى عندي عينيها دمّعت و البقبق اليمين بقى أكبر من البقبق الشمال و قامت واخده الماوس و حدفته من الشّباك و عملتلها بلوغغ هي رخرى سمّتها "كلّكم..." و كلمه كده مرضتش أكتبها. أول بوست ليها كان اسمه " بيتك بيتك يا بت منّك ليها"

معلش يا بنات ماما لسانها طويل حبّتين.

لقيت أنا حريم كتير مركّزين على نقطة المعاكسه... كأنه حرمااان و حرييم تانيه مركّزه عالجنس قبل الجواز.. معلش يا ليلى هوّ حرّ الصيف بيعمل في الناس كده. و النفس أمّاره بالسوق.. والبنزين "حرّكوا" سعره و اللحمه البتلّو بقت مبتشبّعش و الحياه بقت كرب.

ولاّ البت اللى جت قالت "لا يا محموود.. أنا مش عايزه أخلّف بنات عشان أنا كان أخويا بيعاكس و يصاحب و يعمل حاجات عيب و أنا كنت محرومه علشان المجتمع ميقلش عليّا لا مؤاخذه عاهره. ده أنا لو المجتمع بس كان فهمني... كان زماني عملت العجب"... يااادي النيييله السووده... دول غيرانين ان الرجاله بس هم اللى من حقّهم يعملوا معصيه... ناولني يا وله البندجه خلّيني أطخ البت دي هي و محموود بتاعها ده.

الواد عتريس جري على أمّه و هي قاعده على اللاب توب بتاعها "بتتصفّح البلغغز" و سألها يا ستّ الحاجه يا ترى البت دي حتسيب ابنها يصاحب و يضبّط حريم و يعاكس طالما معندوش اخوات بنات؟

ماما قالتله خش نام و كفايه انترنت. البلوغّرز جالهم عته.

قال لها بس يا ماما ضميري بياكلني...

قالتله نيّم أمّه بدل منيّمهولك.

أمّا البت اللى متضايقه انها بتتعاكس فكل اللى أقدر أقوله هو أن البت اللى مش عايزه تتعاكس عارفه كويّس أوي تلبس ايه و تتصرّف ازاي.

ده أنا حتّى رحت سألت أختي سنيّه (اسم الدلع سنسن) هم بيعاكسوكي يا بت؟..

قالتلي ليه ياد يا عتريش (البت لدغه في القاف زي نص الشعب المصري) شايفني لابسه عريان ولاّ محزّق زي ما يكون البنطلون متخيّط على جسمي.

قلتلها لع.

قالتلي شايفني ماشيه و صاحبي حاطت ايده على ظهري ولاّ مريّح دراع اللى جابته على كتفي؟

قلتلها لع

قالتلي شايفني بتكلّم بدلع زي ما أكون بدوّر على عريس و حاطّه اللبانه في بقّي بعمل بيها فقافيع؟

قلتلها لع

قالتلي و رجلي المسمسه شايفني كاشفاها ولاّ لابسه جيبه نص كمّ و قاعده حطّه رجل على رجل في الكوفي شوب علشان أبيّن الجمال الأنثوي بتاعي؟

قلتلها لع

قالتلي طب سيبك من ده كلّه يا وله. شايفني قاعده مع الرجاله راقعه ضحكه تسمّع رمسيس بعد ما نقلوه من تربته؟

قلتلها لع

قالتلي شايفني قاعده في وسط الرجاله بنكّت معاهم ولاّ بضحك معاهم على نكت سقيله زي وشّك؟

قلتلها... بت يا سنسن.. عدّاكي العيب والله.

امشي انجرّي روحي احلبي الجاموسه دي أحسن بقالها كتير متحلبتش.

قالتلي حاضر يا شي عتريش... و قامت سنسن و أنا عمّال أفكر...

يا ترى هو التحضّر هو ان البت تلبس بلوظه قصيّره ولاّ بنطلون أخوها الصغيّر؟

يا ترى التحضّر هو انهم يشيلوا من قسيمة الجواز اذا كانت البت بكر ولاّ لأ؟

لو انتم حاسّين بالاضطهاض فعدكم حق.

الاضطهاض موجود و أمر معترف بيه... لصالحكم طبعا...

كل اللى ليلى و أخواتها عليهم يعملوه انهم يعرّوا حتّة لحمه ولاّ يرقعوا الضحكه المتينه ولاّ يلبسوا جي سترنج في أكسيجين و كل الطرق بعد كده مفتوووووحه.

البت سنسن كان عندها حق لمّا قالتلي "صدق اللى قال ياد يا عتريش... البت عالنت زي التت في التربت"

واللى على راسه ليلى...

حسّس ياد يا عتريش... النهارده التحسيس ببلاش... بكره يحاسبوك بالليله.

و عجبي.

اللى على راسه ليلى

2006-09-10T04:44:00.000+03:00

مشاكل الجنس اللطيف:

1. واحده جوزها بيضربها. – ربنا معاها بقى حقول ايه

2. واحده جوزها مش بيحترم رأيها علشان هو الراجل و هي الست - "سي لا في"

3. واحده مش طايقه جوزها علشان بيبصبص و محسسها انها لا شيء... ما انتي أكيد في حاجه غلط بتعمليها. ولاّ يمكن بقى جوزك مش مقتنع بانّه يغض بصره في الحاله دي انتي اللى في ايدك المخرج الديني.

4. واحده مش طايقه جوزها علشان مخليها هي اللى تذاكر للعيال و تطبخ و تكنس و تغسل.. طب و هو بيكون فين؟ بيعمل ايه؟ قولي له لو قاعد فاضي يساعدك... خلّيها حاجه مسلّيه. و بلاش التفكير يروح لبعيد... ورانا شغل لازم يخلص.

5. و واحده شايفه ان الناس بتبصلها نظرة الطفل للفراشه... كائن جميل بس لو يفضل ساكن... و احيانا بحس ان فعلا كل ما يفتحوا بقهم تحصل كارثه.

كل اللى أقدر أقوله كالتالي:

أولا، بالنسبه للفتاه المثمره العامله... حد خد باله قبل كده من ان نص البنات في مصر ممكن ياخده شغل أقل من الراجل لو عرفوا يهرجوا مع المدير سنّه زياده؟ أكيد خدتوا بالكم... للأسف الحريم بيجوا يطالبوا بحقوق معيّنه و بعدين يتملّصوا منها بحركه حرّه غير مباشرة تحمل معنى بريء لاكن كله وطيّ و حقاره.

ببقى قاعد في الشغل شايف البنت بتضحك مع ده و تخبط كف مع ده و أتخيل مراتي انها ممكن في شغلها تبقى واحده من دول.

راح فين زمن البنت المحترمه اللى في حالها؟

طب لو الرجّاله كلاب تهوهوو في وشهم ليه؟

تدّونا فرصه ليه؟

ولاّ في الكافيهات و البوس و الأحضان

ولاّ في مارينا وللى بيحصل تحت سطح الماء

ولاّ ولاّ ولاّ... و الكلام كتر يا عتريس... ليلى دماغها لسعت.

ازاي لو أنا راجل محترم أتجوز واحده بالمنظر ده؟

طب ألاقي فين ليلى المحترمه؟ لو في الشغل مش نافع و في النادي مش نافع؟

أقضّيها صالونات؟

مش يمكن المحترمه اللى في حالها في الصالون دي بتضرب حشيش و اتباست من طوب الأرض؟

طب الحل فين يا جماعة ليلى يا بتوع حريّة المرأه؟

بقينا في زمن "أريد حلاّ - للرجال فقط"

أظرف حاجه فعلا ان على حد علمي ان اللى بدأت الجماعه دي مصريه.... و دي حاجه مش محتاجه لا سب تيتلز و لا مترجم من السفاره... و لمّا تيجي ماما تسئلني ليه ياد يا عتريس اتجوزت سوريه ولاّ لبنانيه ولاّ صينيّه... حقوم فاتحلها بلوغ من بتوع تانت ليلى و أقول لها آدي ليلى يا ماما... لسعت و الطاسه اللى فوق اتحرقت... و نهار أبوها اسود اللى حاجي أتجوّزها و تيجي تقولّلي في شهر العجل واحنا في مارينا تحت سطح الميّه... "مش أنا كنت بكتب بلوغغغ برضه.... و كنّا عاملين حاجه اعتراضيه للثأر على المجتمع اسمها كلنا ليلى".....

حذاري يا ليلى حذاااري... نهار أبوكي مش فايت!!

الظريف برضه في الموضوع انضمام أصوات غير مصريه للموضوع... العدوه المصريه فعلا فتّاكه.

طب بقولكم ايه يا هوانم جاردن شيتي...

ايه رأيكم في قضية الشرق الأوسط؟

ايه رأيكم في اللى حصل في العراق و أفغانستلن و لبنان و فلسطين؟

ولاّ الكلام ده مقرف و محزن بالنسبه للكائنات الرقيقه أمثالكم؟

ايه رأيكم في برامج الحزب الوطني و ايه رأيكم في...

ولاّ بلاش... تلاقيكم مش عارفين حاجه غير اللى بتقولها أبله منى الشاذلي الله يمسّيها بالخير.

حاجه تحرق الدم فعلا...

حسّس ياد يا عتريس... حسّس

البطحه كبرت و بقى ليها صوت.

كلنا بطحه... و بطحه للجميع

2006-09-10T01:54:00.000+03:00

تابعت مؤخرا حاجه ظريفه جدا... البنات عايزين حقوق تانيه يا رجاله. كنت عارف اني لو قلت لأي حد الكلام ده حيت### من الضحك. الغريب في الموضوع اني اكتشفت ان معظمهم منضمين لنفس الحزب العبقري ده.

و سبحان الله

لو أمي قرت الكلام ده حتقول لي دع الخلق للخالق يا عتريس.

بس أنا مش قادر يا ماما.. أنا مضطر اسفا اني أقول اللى عندي.

البنات عندهم ايه يا حسرة... دول غلابه

1. مش دول برضه اللى بياخده نص فرص عمل الرجاله لو لابسين قصير ولا بيتكلموا و اللبانه في بقهم ولاّ حتى صوتهم ناعم؟

2. ولاّ يا عيني عالماتيرنيتي لييف... كلمة السرّ = سفروووت. كل ما واحده تزهق من الشغل تقوللك طب ما أنا أخلفلي عيّل يأعدني سنه حلوه في البيت. تيجي تفتح السيره تقوم رزعالك بّقّين غن عملية الولاده و الحمل. يا أخي مش كده يعني. ده أنا بيطلع عيني في الشغل من كتر الحريم اللى واخده أجازة وضع. و ببقى حاطت ايدي على قلبي أول ما واحده تقول أنا دايخه و محتاجه أروح. بيخلص الموضوع اني ببقى أنا و دكرين تانيين شايلين الشغل كله. و نص البنات في ماتيرنيتي و النص التاني لازم يروح بدري.... يروّحوا بدري ليييه؟ عشان بنات طبعا. لو شغلوا رجاله بس كانت والله مشكله البطاله دي اتحلت.

3. و يا عيني بقى في الجامعه و الدكاتره اللى تشرح الموضوع مرّه و اتنين و تلاته لو بنت هي اللى طلبت عشان غبيه. انما لو ولد اللى سأل ال دكتور يقول له "هات الكارنيه"

4. و مش البنت برضه اللى بتقعد معززه مكرمه متمكيجه في بيتها و الراجل هو اللى بيروح يتقدم و يعرق و يركّز في كلامه؟ مش الراجل هو اللى بيعد متراقب كأنه أسامه بن لادن في الصالون الشيك بتاع الضيوف اللى عمركم ما قعدتم فيه؟

5. و مش البنت برضه هي اللى بتقول "أنا شبكتي مش حتقل عن مبلغ و قدره" اللى هو كل اللى حيلت الشب الغلبان اللى نفسه يدخل دنيا؟ دنية ايه دي بقت دنيا فقر.

6. ولاّ الفرح اللى في فندق الجراند حياء... و كل ده عشان صحبتها فرحها كان في دار الدفاع الجوّي. متموّتوا بعض و تريّحونا

7. حتقوللك بس لأ.. دلوقتي كل حاجه بالنص. يعني عايزه تفهّميني يا بت انتي انك دافعه حاجه من جيبك؟ ماهو بابي هو كمان ندمان ان خلفتو جت فشنك.

و قريت حاجه ظريفه جدا... واحده دمها خفيف بتقول عايزين نشرب شيشه و سجاير و نرجع البيت وش الفجر و نعاكس ولاد و نصاحب و نهيص. و نلبس قصير. يعني احنا يعني اللى ماشيين في الشارع بالمايوه؟ طب بزمتكوا أرد أقوللها ايه دي؟ مش قاااادر أرد. طب متيجوا نفتحها عالبحري و نقول الألفاظ اللى بالي بالك لبعض بقى.

مش هي دي الحريه اللى انتم عايزنها؟ حد يشيل البت دي من قدامي.

امشوا اتلموا في بيوتكم بقى مليتو البلد.

كل اللى أقدر أقوله هو أن المحترم محترم لنفسه. ولد أو بنت.

متجوش تمسكوا الصيع و تقولوا عايزين من ده يا بابي.

بابي زهق من الصنف اللى ياخد و ينكر ده.

كفايه #@%$# بقى

و يخرب بيتك يا مصر

و اللى على راسه بطحه يحسس عليها... ولا التحسيس عيب؟

كلها سنتين و تحللوه

هاليلووويا جيمبووو

2006-09-09T18:44:00.000+03:00

بسلامته نائب وزير الخارجيه الأمريكي معزوم على اجتماع الحزب الوطني القادم.

يا ترى ليه؟

يمكن علشان نفسهم يدوّقوه المحشي بتعنا؟

الموولوووخيييه جايز؟

يا ترى بطنه حتستحمل؟

ولاّ يمكن لزوم ال... نفاق؟

ولاّ يمكن حيتنحّى مبارك عن العرش و يقوم بتزكية مسيو جيمبو، القائد الفعلي و التنفيذي؟

و ساعتها بقى يبقى الشاب الأمريكي "ولش" شاهد على التزكيه؟

و ساعتها يبقى هو رئيس الحزب؟

و كلها كام يوم و يتنحّى الرئيس و يتقدم رئساء الأحزاب الحاليين للترشيح لمنصب رئيس الجمهورية.

و طبعا حييجي أمثال أبو طربوش و الواد بتاع ورشة صيانة التلفزيونات و الوليّه دي بتاعة الغاء الرقابه على الأفلام القبيحه و يرشحوا نفسهم هم كمان.

و هاااليلوووويا لمسيو جيمي

أنا برضه سمعت من بتاع الفراخ ان فيه ثلاثه بس بيستوردوا فراخ مدبوحه من البرازيل علشان رمضان (كل سنه و انتم طيبين):

الباشا أحمد عز للتسليخ

الباشا الطويل أحمد نظيف

الباشا الكبير قوي قوي قوي مسيووو جيمبووو

و الله أعلم..

و اللهم احفظنا...

و يا عيني على جمالك يا مصر

If only

2006-09-08T22:31:00.000+03:00

Today I came across a quote that I've always fancied.

"If only. Those must be the two saddest words in the world". I couldn't agree more.

I've forced myself into leading a life with no regrets, but then again Oscar Wilde once said that 'one's real life is often the life that one does not lead'. Eventually I find myself wondering… what have I missed on?

I look back at the choices I've made, at the chances I've ignored, but I look back long enough only to find myself missing on new chances, tripping over more and more things to regret not following, not falling for, not believing in. There is still hope, I tell myself. Life will still make it up to me.

I still do find it funny that no matter how long it has been since I've made a mistake, I often do still have to pay its price on a monthly, weekly, and even a daily basis.

Another cliché-ridden question hits me hard when I ask myself, if I go back in time, would I be making the same mistakes over and over again?

If only I could just pay my dues and move on.

If only I could get a fresh start.

If only. Those must be the two saddest words in the world.

Amen.

The sickness that haunts me

2006-09-08T14:56:00.000+03:00

The one thing that I hate the most about catching a "common" cold is the way my eyes feel. Some people hate the continuous sneezing, the dry cough, the need for nose blowing in public followed by stranger stares. To me, it's always been the eyes.

Basically, every time I catch a cold, my eyes feel as if they're bound to fall back inside my head, detached from the very tendons that hold them tight. The eye sockets become a big hole, a grave for my eyes to fall into, my inevitable void of sickness.

Smokers would also hate the fact that they're unable to find peace in smoking a ciggie the way they used to. What once was an Indian tribal peace pipe has morphed into merely becoming a necessary nicotine shot for nerves to sustain their strength. Caffeine, being an amphetamine form in nature, doesn't feel like home anymore. Every sip of coffee drags my blood pressure down to the floor. It's settling for sugar free lemon-tea that drives me insane. I used to be a lemon tea addict, back in the days before I gave it up for the sake of caffeine and the Internet; back in the days when I was closer to being normal.

Not to mention the heat.

Not to mention the headaches; the headaches, accompanied by the captivating sensation of depth in my eye sockets; not to mention the way everything sounds like beginning with your own funny voice and ending with your urge for silence, when every phone call and every mouse click sound makes you want to hit something hard… except that you're too weak to do so.

I wish I could install a small camera inside my blood vessels in order to see what my lymphocytes are doing really. I always get the feeling like they need a Thought Police or a Big Brother in order to proceed with their course of action. In the end, they're just employees that need a good smack or a demotion every now and then. I should have hired foreign UN consultants to help restructure my chain of command.

I wish I had more control.

I've always hated medications. Right now I inject my body with Flukit pills, Panadol Extra, Viotic eardrops, Secam for dry cough, lemon tea, mint tasting honey, Visine eye drops, and the list keeps growing. I seek rest in a six hour daily sleep, but then I wake up to a nightmare with me marching a pharmaceutical brigade against all that is viral and microscopic. Ironically, I always lose the battle.

My teeth also tend to disobey my sanity, where my canines and first molars shoot dissatisfactory pulses into my brain. If only I could pull them out and grow new ones when the "common" sickness is due, but sadly we only get one chance when it comes to teeth. We only get one chance when it comes to everything really. It's as if there's always a hidden message inside the sickness that takes hold. Virus couldn't have been wiser.

I should learn more from disease.

طريقة تحضير علم الجمهورية

2006-09-05T10:32:00.000+03:00

سيداتي آنساتي سادتي

موضوع حلقة اليوم هو كيفية تحضير خلطة كنتاكي السحرية على الطريقة المصرية اللولبيه

1. أولا حتجيب علم مصر المتأصل الجميل الكوتشي كو ده و تجيب مهاه طشط و شوية صبغه من على دماغ واحدة مش عاجبها لون شعرها.

2. حتحط العلم في الطشط و ترش شوية يصل مهروس لاضافة رائحة التراث و بعدين ادلق البوية في الطشط و شكلها على شكل قطار من بتوع اليومين دول و يا ريت يكون فوق النسر علشان بيتكسف

3. و ممكن لزوم الواقعية تحط قطر كمان. حنضحك على مين؟؟

في الحله دي طبعا يرجى مراعاة تواجد النسر علشان ياخذ باله من السكة الحديد.. كده كده مالوش لازمه... اهه كده على الأقل يبقى فيه شاهد عيّان

4. ولا أقلك... قلته أحسن

5. و ايه الألوان الزباله دي؟ شيل يا ابني بلا قرف

عملنا ايه بالألوان؟

6. حط نسر في النص علشان يبقى اثبات رسمي ان كل مواطن شاف الحادثه أو كان جزء منها دفع نص جنيه دمغه حكوميه و مصاريف تطوير خط السكه الحديد طبقا للمعايير الدوليه و الآدميه.

7. و أخيرا.. قف أمام الطشط و غني النشيد الوطني...

غني من قلبك يا حيوان ... متكشّرش

و يا عيني على جمالك يا مصر

Joffrey's with a capital G

2006-09-05T02:13:00.000+03:00

Today I went to Joffrey's. They were out of coffee… and it's supposed to be a coffee place. بالعربي اسمها قهوة و مكنش عندهم بن من الآخر

The floor supervisor at Joffrey's thought I was flirting with her when I asked if she thinks any tables would be available soon. We ended up going to Segafredo. I hate Segafredo. The color mapping of the place always makes me feel like I'm sitting in a formula one race track. We sat there for an hour then went in to see Garfield 2.

Garfield 2 is not a film. Garfield 2 is one of the many mistakes made by mankind. I would have it listed right after the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombing in WW2, and this is coming from Garfield's #1 fan. I even happened to have enjoyed the film previews more than the film itself. Have you ever gone to a cinema and found yourself waiting for intermission and then after the intermission found yourself again waiting for the film to end? Yeah well, I won't tell you to go see Garfield 2 with low expectations. I'll just throw in the towel and ask you NOT to see the film. Should I have walked out in the middle of the stupid thing? Maybe I should. I just couldn't think of anything better to do and at least now I have a life altering event that I can tell to people and make them smile in pity.

After the film we went back to Joffrey's that was still crowded and since I needed real Turkish coffee (my friends know what I meant when I said real there), we settled for a table that seemed pretty much as if we were sitting in the middle of the mall (I'm considering buying off my favorite table). The floor supervisor came over to our table and started making silly jokes in regards to the menu or whatever. I ended up ordering Espresso, an item that should never be ordered by a coffee addict. I know it's concentrated coffee supposedly, but who cares anyways? We coffee addicts would attach a coffee grinder to our arms if we could guarantee that society would still accept us amongst them. Espresso at Joffrey's basically is a shot of some dark liquid with a drop of something caffeinated. I swear when the waiter landed the cup on my table I asked him هو البتاع ده مشروب قبل كده ولا ايه

It looked as if they feared that people might find the drink intimidating or as if they figured that alcoholic drinks should be served in shots. This wasn't alcoholic, it was espresso. الله يرحم نظرية الكبيات المليانه. I ended up gulping it up and striking it on the table asking for another round.

I should have had my coffee at home.

A generation's hero

2006-09-04T16:38:00.000+03:00

This wasn't about freedom. It wasn't about love. I had no family to protect and to kill for and I didn't believe in God. My countrymen are not worth fighting for and my country is a naked whore not worth dying for. I did it for the mere adventure, to see what'll happen, if I'll get away with it.

At the age of 10, I owned my first cell phone and at 12 I had my first kiss. At 16 we slept together. We used condoms and pills. We broke up when she got pregnant at the age of 18. She got married at the age of 23 and her hubby still thinks she was a virgin when they got married. I got my second Ferrari on my 23^rd birthday. It was lime green.

I wasn't the perfect student in high school. I didn't study. I didn't even go to school, but I passed. My father paid for tuitions and was an active parent at the school council. My allowance money afforded a life style that a prince would envy. I moved out when I was 20 into a shrine of my own for my friends to crash in.

From cigarettes to marijuana and from marijuana to x. Cocaine waltzed in on my 24^th birthday and still accompanies my everyday. My creativity was fertilized by the seeds of chemical addiction. I read many books, political and philosophical. I even developed my very own philosophies and posted them on an online Blog page. I said words that shook my readers' thinking. Being articulate, well-mannered, and stoned, I spoke like a true gentleman. By the age of 25, I had my own cult. We talked about politics from our own point of view and we believed we were hippies. We listened to Radiohead while discussing rebellion against society. We believed people were asleep and that we could make a change. We plotted political assassinations and ran over wild animals with our cars. We had the time of our lives. The authorities said that the road kill count went way above average during that year. They said it could only be explained to be a trademark of a cult and since they knew about us we had to get rid of the clues. I downloaded the anarchist cookbook from iMesh and we planted a bomb at the local police station. It was made out of tangerine, graphite, and a couple chemicals that a friend purchased over eBay. The explosion was small, but it killed two cops and five were injured. At that point, we freaked out. We needed more Radiohead sessions that day.

The next day I woke up alone and all my friends had gone. Later I read on the news that one of my friends strangled his father then committed suicide and another had a car accident that killed a family of five; one of which was a six months old baby. He was 21 when he did it and was also drunk. The next day I burned down my shrine and rode my feet down to the local police station that I once blew up.

You want to know if I'm guilty of my crimes? Everything I did was but a chemical reaction that began when I was 10. It began when I watched cult films and exceeded my potentials when I read more about Marxism while humoring my ears to the sounds of Radiohead. You may find me guilty, but more of my class will follow. Censorship of art and literature isn't really the answer, is it? Is it the effect of drugs because I think not? TV, perhaps?

Lock me up; set me up for public hanging. Make an example out of my death. I'll be this generation's hero and tomorrow's legendary warrior. It is all going down and you can't avoid it. You can't look away.

We branch out at 10.

Links, links, and links

2006-09-03T19:52:00.000+03:00

A link that made me laugh and another that made me cry... and they're both strangely addictive.

Telecomm Italia - Ghandi (Directed by Spike Lee)

The Llama Song

So? :-o

Insignificant ass kisser

2006-09-03T17:49:00.000+03:00

You are beautiful and stunning. You are powerful. You electrify me. Plug my wire in to your source of everything that ever meant. Your presence adds value to my mere existence and your essence lights a candle deep within my mourning soul.

I love you. I need you. I want you.

I don't deserve you. I fall into your river and swim against your infuriated tides and cry 'Poseidon, your must set me free, for I have an offer that might be appealing to your grace'.

You said 'Speak up, drowning fool. Glorify my beauty', but I went speechless, for I'd rather drown in your depth just to feel like I belong, like I actually deserve being a part of your alluring abyss. Take me; take me home. Guide me into the remoteness of your perfect void. I am but a small person with no will of my own, not enough to withstand the battles we've fought back when you were human and before you became my sole logical perfection. Shut my eyes and take me. Fill my lungs with your potion of immortality for I want to hold on to this moment forever.

Stay tuned. We'll be back after the commercial break

2006-09-03T05:27:00.000+03:00

Go to Jeoffery's. G or J doesn't matter.

Excellent service… and I say that because I work in the field of service… and because I'm the complaining type of customer i.e. customers with "special" needs.
Don't you dare order the Lemon Mint drink. It sounds interesting and the name adds sweet aroma to the setting, but when I took the first sip I said 'Did I catch a cold that I'm not aware of?'. Trust me, it tastes like the lemonade you're forced to drink when you're really sick. They have a couple mint leaves sparkling on the top that looks like parsley aka بقدونس. I remember asking the waiter to take it back and adding some ice to it… A LOT OF ICE. It was too warm he may as well bring me a honey jar and a blanket. I also remember asking him if I could exchange it for a glass of water but he said no. Well, fear no more ladies and gents, I mentioned that they should immediately remove it from the menu on the small suggestions' card they throw in with the check.
The prices are pretty reasonable for a place of its standard, I thought.
The seating arrangement is fabulous. You don't have to worry if other tables can overhear you. In fact, at one point, I didn't even feel like I was sitting at a public coffee place.
The cheesecake was pretty impressive, and this comes from a guy who can not boil an egg, can not cook rice, left the gas leaking into the apartment while he was boiling some water that leaked out of the container to extinguish the flames, but can prepare the best cheesecake ever.
Their Turkish coffee was superb and I loved the fact that when they throw in the option of LARGE in the menu, they do mean it. Apparently, they say on their menu that they import their coffee from KSA yet surprisingly the Turkish coffee that they have over there have the words 'Original coffee from Yemen' or something of that sort written next to the item on the menu.
I didn't try their tiramisu, but a friend of mine did and said it was excellent. (I can call it tramason ya Freudianslip if I want to)
They have WiFi and computers linked to the internet and believe it or not there was some dude there checking porn. I can't believe this country.

Hmm… well, we always leave a generous tip... and no, it is not related to porn.

If you ever go there, make sure you drop by and say hello. I have a two week vacation coming up so I'm probably going to hang out there more often. Less desserts for me though. I need to watch that weight.

PS No they didn't pay me to write this post and no I don't own the place.

Egyptian habits do grow on people

2006-09-03T04:42:00.000+03:00

I've recently developed the Egyptian habit of staring. Judge me all you want, but it's the funnest thing I've done in ages. You just have to develop your radars into knowing who and what to stare at. Don't rush into it. It'll take time, but is truly worth the trip. Just think about it. Didn't you ever notice that the prettiest, cutest, sexiest girls out there always hang out with the dumbest looking fucks to ever exist in real life? I mean if I was assigned as the ruler of everything, I would have them guys hanged in public to set an example for beautiful girls out there to know that it just ain't happening sweetheart. On second thought, I'd probably add another line up for the girls. I wouldn't hang them though. Beauty should be appreciated and held on to. I would just torture them a little bit myself probably.

Earlier today... well… last night… I was at Jeoffery's. At the opposite table sat the most beautiful couple girls I've seen in years. I never was the type that gets up and talks to a stranger in a coffee house, I'm just too shy I guess, but I do know the techniques.

If you're alone. Go home and don't bother. You probably already look pathetic to them.
If you're with another guy and there's only one girl, one of you must excuse himself away. As far away as possible. Of course when that happens, you're back to #1, therefore, go home. Beetak beetak. Beyendahoolak yabny. And no… she might be alone, but she doesn't have to go home cos she's still hot. She stays. She must. People need to stare at beautiful thing. It's man's right. It's some men's only possession. Forgive our sickness.
If you're with another guy and there are two of them, there's always the problem of the two of you liking the same girl. In that case, well, then we have:

El ragel be meet set theory. (If you're the less attractive one then you're wishing you knew more ugly people)
May the best man win theory. (and back to the jungle where we belong)

If you're with another guy and there are two of them and you like different girls, then try to grab their attention by indirectly talking to them. Pick up lines don't work anymore, unless you're into being slapped; in that case, also, go home. Your father can do that trick. You can always listen to what they're talking about and start a conversation about something that would eventually lead to the exact same topic. Of course in that case it's usually a problem since most cute girls out there are shallow and stupid… no offence… and I'm definitely not complaining. They have all the right to be stupid.
If you're with a group of guys and there are only two girls out there you can still do #4… and that's what happened at Jeoffery's. (Is it spelled with a J or a G? I've been going there on weekly basis for the past three months and for some reason I've never really cared to look) Annnyways… back on track, I tried to concentrate on what they were talking about, but one of my friends possesses a god given high pitched voice that happens to be extremely loud and was engaged to be married so apparently he's cut off his thing I guess. For some reason he just stopped paying attention to the things that mattered most to US. To cut to the chase, a couple guys walked, kissed them on the cheeks, and joined their table. Grrr… let me begin being more descriptive of how inhumane they looked.

Guy #1: Had hair that looked like someone on the roof spit on his head, was extremely short, skinny as hell, and looked as if they were babysitting him or something. He also looked sleepy enough to be dropped next to any trashcan at the mall.

Guy #2: Well, where do I start? His eyeglasses looked more like binoculars or goggles from a chemistry lab. His skinhead looked as if someone cruised over it with a lawnmower. He had a long scar on the back of his head that looked that the barber shaved his head off with a butcher knife. He was also short, chubby.

And you girls wonder how attractive men start turning gay.

Conclusion:

1. Jeoffery's a cool place to hang out at, but that's another post that I'm planning on throwing in after I'm done venting over here.

2. Cute girls should be lined up and punished… but then again they're stupid so what do they know. They're not to be blamed I guess. Stupidity takes over… but don't you girls have EYES, two sockets with a pair of balls that look like boiled eggs with an olive in the middle?

3. I went home, still single, while those two fucks left at 2 am with those two girls. Ain't life a bitch?

I also thought I should comment on the way people are dressed these days, both genders in focus here. Why do I recently feel like I belong to another era? Why do I recently feel like I'm walking into a Sci-Fi studio every time I walk into a mall?

Have I actually grown old? Does anyone out there agree with me on anything at all?

Ain't mime

2006-09-01T20:33:00.000+03:00

I haven't blogged in a week. Blogging has lost its meaning. I'll just blog now senseless, styleless… no objective in mind.

I've always wanted to learn sign language.

I often wonder why people need to talk or write in order to communicate. If the voice and the words define the person we are then would it be right to assume that quoting people would probably be a sick attempt to become a person that we're not. You can tell a lot about a person from their use of words, vocal and non-vocal, online and offline; you can even mark it in their blogs. Some people have many 'I's all over their blogs. I did this and I did that. They rave about how they should be respected then come back with a sad story to make others sympathize with them and justify their actions. Brag away my blogger friend. I'll just block your page out of my life. That's just me. I guess some people are more prone than others to boredom. I easily lose interest.

You can also tell from a blog, if a person is suicidal.

Sometimes I fear that if I speak, I'll lose a part of my soul. I fear that speaking out my mind gives others the right to stick their banner into my words and mark them as their own. We exhale in order to speak, and every time I do I feel like someone out there is sucking out my life, wearing me as a jacket over their deformed self. The funny thing is that I'm not even that good.

Do you ever get deeply affected and influenced by someone else's style of writing? Do you ever enjoy it so much that you try to use their author trademarks? Do you even know what an author trademark is? Don't you just love it when you tell yourself that it's ok to do that just as long as others won't find out?

In the end, I think that the only reason that we communicate is to listen to our own voices and read our own words, load up our pages every hour or so and stare at the beautiful template and the interesting font and the self designed pictures; to feel proud and list 'creative' as a quality on our resume. As for the meaning of the words and the ideas, it doesn't matter if they're ours, the words make us look smart, deluding ourselves into the trap of thinking that we actually deserve the applause of strangers.

Are you even sure that all of my previous blog entries are actually mine?

Ever copied somebody's blog entry, idea, writing style?

Yeah… I thought so.

Incognito

2006-08-25T12:58:00.000+03:00

Slightly unambiguous.
Mournful desires.
Cheese cakes and hard work.
I want out.
Graffiti imagination.
I paint my last will of testimony on the walls of my world.
They called it art. They applauded, said it was deep.
My honest smile and my familiar eyes
Hide a filthy monster deep within.
I bury a four-leaved clover inside
And polish my crippled rabbit leg with cream soda.
I remain inconspicuous. My daily routine, my vitamin pill. It makes me happy.
Makes them think.
Keeps me anonymous, keeps me safe.
Incognito.
They seek my invisible self for advice.
My mask resembles their deep, deep well.
Caped heroes, their very own. Anonymous individuals don't repeat secrets.
Nobody knows them.

The Blog Age

2006-08-21T22:53:00.000+03:00

Everybody who's anybody's blogging these days. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, has started a blog. His first post discusses his childhood and the Islamic revolution in Iran. There's also a poll there that asks readers to vote if they think the US and Israel are "pulling the trigger on another world war". The blog is translated in English, Arabic, and French. Moreover, you're allowed to email him with any inquiries or questions you may want to ask the Iranian gov't.

I liked what I read. Way to go bloggie.

I don't give a #$%@

2006-08-21T20:25:00.000+03:00

I don't give a fuck is the most underrated phrase in English language.

You should consider therapy only when you've met over 5 people who wish to kill themselves... and of those I've met a lot. 'I DO NOT GIVE A FUCK' has always worked magic with me; it's what therapists around the globe should tell their patients; only then, unfortunate for the therapist, their patients would learn how to move on. It'd be a one-session-therapy and psychiatry would be the least popular profession since all therapists would be poor.

Bi-polar depression: Is when you're too depressed that you want to go live at the North or South Pole.

My very personal steps of recovery start with denial; when you think that everything's alright inside your own perfect bubble. Consequently, someone comes along and burst your bubble. Little did you know that the air escaping your bubble now stinks; that's when rage comes along. You start hating scapegoats, all sizes, all shapes, all forms; people whom you don't know, your friends, your own father. You hang the middle east problem and world famine on your acquaintances' shoulders. You unknowingly search for ways to make everything someone else's fault. It is always by far easier to hate someone you can't see in the mirror. Hating oneself can be dangerous.

Fuck it: Most people's last words before, ironically, taking a leap of faith.

Fear comes next. The things that had made you rage are now the cause of your upcoming doom. You fear that you're going to end up alone, that you're going to quit someday out of the blue, for no reason, and end up asking your brother for money. You fear all sorts of sicknesses. A single ache becomes a potential tumor... and even if everything works out just fine... you fear the end of the world. That's when you pass this step and over to adaptation. You realize you're helpless and small, that you're only a sample of the human form in all its glory, that you can't change the world. You give up and give in to the precious, precious life. This is where I am now. I am strangely adapting.

In conclusion, the only things you can't control are your own choices. There's always a point in time when you can make a choice. When you think you've made the right choice, throw your ego in the trashcan and think again cos you're going down baby. It's when you think you've hit rock bottom, you bring out the shovel and start digging some more into a new meaning for the word depth. Thus, when people say you're deep they don't know how really fucked up you have become.

Reach out and hold on to the new value of the 'I don't give a fuck' lifestyle. It's the only survival technique that's been proven to work.

The reasons why I hate her

2006-08-20T20:41:00.000+03:00

I stepped forward, she stepped back. She stepped forward and I back... and so we danced. Our hands touched for a split second that was enough for our hands to merge into an extension of our souls. Her hair reflected the sun light that made me see in the dark and her face, I wish it to be the last thing I see before I go back to the darkness I call life. It's when weakness and strength combine into becoming the creature I've become. The weakling I become when she speaks to me, the strength that evolves when she gives me that look, that look that makes me feel needed, that my presence would leave a trace, make a difference. She fools me into believing that I'm a better man. She brings out a soft side I've so managed to push away and hide from everybody, including myself, myself especially. She makes me curse at time for not bringing us together sooner. I crave for our contact. I fear out contact. She makes me feel weird. I want this to stop, to end. Oh I hate her.

149.6 million KM away

2006-08-18T13:27:00.000+03:00

You're melting.

You can't stand the heat. Your brain is boiling. Your hands are soaking and you're drowning in your own sweat. Your precious and unique genes are deforming into a melting monster. The earth is detouring off its axis and now heads towards the light, the hope cliché; the sun, the center of it all. Incredibly annoying you're sweating all over the room. You need to quench your thirst but you fear drinking as you fear more sweat. You'd rather dehydrate and die dry. The more you shower the more you melt. You can not stand the heat. The fan you own propels like there's no tomorrow, moving hot air around the room, expanding the heat zone; the anticipation of hell. You're boiled chicken. Ironically, you've become healthy food. Everything's surreal now. You're melting. You're a Dali painting and you demand to be sketched out for remembrance. Dehydrate you silly bastard, divert off your fears and worries. A melting body is by far more convenient than a melting mind. Melt away you sad fuck. You can't escape the heat. Your eyes blur out the surrounding life you've held up proudly. You're decomposing. The ants are coming. You can't run; your legs are liquefying. You can crawl, but you wind up leaving bits and pieces of your melting shades of a body behind. Dissolve like a chemical reaction of a formula you've been preparing in your secret lab for the past 25 years. You miss the winter; you're old, cold self. Newton was right. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Re-act you red, burning chick. Don't you dare pass out. Slap yourself. Wake up. Experience. Evaporate. Learn.

No, it won't go away. Your air-conditioner is getting repaired; your missed freedom.

And so he writes...

2006-08-17T21:50:00.000+03:00

A little marinara sauce won't make it taste better; a twist of lemon won't flourish it either. That refreshing mint rush he's always fancied absorbed in by his lungs, burning up his nostrils, shortening his breath, cutting out air. Mint justice. It all goes down to this. He flips a coin and waits for his fate to decide. The earl grey, the marinara sauce, the lemon twist and the mint... they won't make it any better. They all have the bitter after-taste. He rips out his tongue, thinking that life can be a little bearable then, and he stuffs it into a dossier along with his bad necks and hard disk failures and heartbreaks and heart strokes and shaky hands and sleepless nights and stashes it all under his bed, hoping that making them visually inaccessible will make things alright after all. Then he pulls out another folder where he keeps his souvenirs of the loved and lost and places it carefully under his pillow make-believing that once his eyes are shut his dreams would come true, even for a one night stand, but they never do. He breaks into a classical moment of truth. Another cliché to throw in to the wind, the wind that hates him, that carries those restless clichés and throws them into his eyes and through his mind along with the rest of his remains of a breathing being. A mobster with a cigar being put out in his chest. A princess walking out his door, saying that she loves him, lying flinchless. A turtle carrying him towards his destiny and a god sending him signs to exit, and every time he follows the signs he finds the door locked. Drink up, pretty boy. Temptations and seductions are the elements of life appreciation without which we'd have been ungrateful to the al mighty... it's what separates us from the rest of the beasts, what gives us the will not to howl at the moon. He's ready for bed now, places the silver pennies on his eyes before they shut just in case he never wakes up again, at least then he'd have paid off his dues... however, he wakes up and his dues still stand tall, and so he begs for more. He can absorb his morning caffeine like shattered glass engraved in his skull, asking him to grieve the death of common sense. He carves it in like morning paper arbitraries, saying the best in him for strangers to mourn him and miss him. He hopes he's made them proud.

And that's all he fucking wrote...