What I mean to say is...

There is no such thing as forever. Mountains move with startling fluidity given an appropriate scope of time, which is but a blink in the context of the age of the universes, which is just one in an evolutionary series of universes, and we’ll never know if we are an early, malformed attempt at success or a singular chance formation, or just a mundane step in the path, like tadpoles with slightly shorter tails and leg buds.
So how can anyone trust, when there is no certainty, when the basis for our strongest science is conjecture, and every time we break down the elements of ourselves, we find only smaller elements. More questions.
In a way, it would make sense for all of existence as we know it to be nothing more than the labyrinth of something larger than us, beyond our comprehension. That would begin to explain the maddening parade of still further obfuscation of truth as our science reaches at singular truths and “laws” with which to restrict our reality.
Or maybe, and just as likely, it’s our problem. We always want to impose straight lines, right angles, put life and elements and everything around us into next order so that we can make statements in absolute terms, when reality is just not constructed that way.
All of the evidence we encounter in life, from the moment we start to develop our powers of observation, indicates the strict randomness of life and the propensity for rules to have exceptions.
Thus the phrase, “the exception makes the rule”.

Really, what kind of bullshit logic is that?

I need...

Someone to claim the mystery-rodent I've been babysitting at my desk for the last 5 hours

Someone to extract the water out of the carpet of the moron who thought they could repair their toilet themselves

A fat free, calorie free, non-carcinogenic, sugar free caffeine substance that tastes like candy but won't keep me up at night

Better-functioning air conditioning

A tetanus shot

Barring a tetanus shot, someone to cut the metal shavings out of my finger, so I don't get lock-jaw

Shoes whose heels last as long as I do

An intelligent staff

An eight-day week, so I can have a two-day weekend

Help with my homework

A little credit

and a nap

To Polish....

I don’t think guys realize how much time it takes to look like a put-together girl. Seriously. My fellah has something of a nail fetish, deeply enjoying perfectly painted finger and toe nails. I, personally, have found nail polish to be a temporary pain in the ass. It takes upwards of an hour to apply correctly, and never lasts as long as you like. Example? Last night I spent my evening sitting on the couch, painstakingly applying the correct coats in the correct order with drying time in between, after carefully filing them all. This morning, in the shower, three of my ten finger nails were already chipped. Granted, I am usually afflicted with chipped nails sooner than the average girl, but that’s just because I actually use my hands to do things. You know, like wash my hair, wash dishes, move things, open and close things.
My sweet fellah, seeing my ongoing frustration and noticing that I now carry three bottles of nail polish with my everywhere for touch ups, suggested I just go get me nails professionally done. Sweet of him, and the pedicure does tend to last a little longer, but I have never been able to make a manicure last more than a day or two, and then I’m shelling out $30-$50 bucks to sit still for an hour in my busy day when I could be at work, at school, doing homework, or catching up on the thousand things I never have time for because I work full time and go to grad school part time.
I know, bitch bitch bitch.
But seriously. If I cut out of my daily schedule make-up time, all nail painting time, smelly lotions and creams to keep all my parts soft and sweet smelling, the shaving, plucking, trimming, coloring, and bronzing, I could save hours every week. Literally hours. And, let the record show, I am a pretty lazy girl. I don’t do a lot of the things considered de rigueur in modern (Los Angeles) society. Frankly, I don’t see how I could fit them into my week. But everyone knows there are tons of fringe benefits to being more attractive, and many of these things are cultural indicators of success. Which I guess makes sense, because you’d have to be successful to have the time to do all this shit. But what about the woman who pursues her career forcefully? Without time spent on creams and getting an appropriate amount of beauty sleep, with out the time to maintain a strict mani/pedi waxing schedule, or even the time to make it to her bi-weekly Pilates class, because she’s busy creating an empire, conducting research, or writing journal articles. Stress and time and regular daily abuse wear down her appearance, and she unwittingly chooses between beauty and success?

Just a thought.

Lost Summer

Every time I think I've made my peace with my shitty job and my shitty work schedule, something pops up inside of me like a cranky two year old and throws a tantrum, screaming "I don't wanna!".

Seriously, I don’t wanna.

Yesterday, I miss out on some good old fashioned family fun, The Our Lady Of Lebanon festival at a park in Van Nuys. I know my fellah said it was boring, but i also know I would have loved it. Food, family, culture, singing, dancing, a chance to practice my eavesdropping on Arabic skills. What's not to love? Plus, I would have included a night cap at our adopted Uncle Milo's afterwards, for the perfect Sunday. Instead, I spent a tedious 8.5 hours sitting behind my desk, trying desperately to focus on work while checking facebook for mobile uploads from the festival every 15 seconds. Time well spent. Whoo hoo.
But I'm okay, I recovered, and I managed to have a lovely evening at home with my fellah after he came home and promised me it was a tedious and boring day. Love him for lying to me, by the way.

Now, here I am, Monday, my Friday. I should be excited. I have two days relatively work-free for school and house cleaning and general relaxation. Except that I just heard it's going to be gloriously hot when the real weekend arrives, like triple digit, pack a cooler and head to the beach hot. My stupid brain won't learn, and won't listen, and so it automatically jumps to the conclusion that I can go to the beach at least on of those lovely days. Like a fool, my frontal lobe does the happy dance at the thought of flip flops, ice cream, water-related activities, and getting the hell out of Diamond Bar for a while, while the sun is still up.

Stupid stupid stupid.

There is a very depressing, melancholy part of me that believes I'll never crawl out of the hole that is this job, that I will never go to the beach again. I had about 4 good months of summer (I mean, this is LA) and I had one beach sunset, and one pool party abbreviated by driving. And Memorial Day. Oh, sweet beautiful Memorial day. That was a good one. Bikes and garlic fries on Venice Beach. But still, I'm not even 30 yet. I need more than 3 days of summer fun to feel fulfilled. I do not feel fulfilled. I feel like a semi-nocturnal parolee, not allowed to leave my area, and especially not allowed to do anything during the light of day.

I'm not even looking for wild, wet fabulous adventures. BBQ by the pool would suit me just fine. Or even just sitting in the sun by the beach on one of those days where it's not really warm enough, but you want to be in your bathing suit anyway.

Maybe I'm being melodramatic; I mean I did get something of a Labor Day weekend, but even that was spent nocturnal, rushed, and in no way associated with summer time, unless you count my optimistic donning of my bathing suit under my clothes, followed by several hours of summer wedgies. And getting into a fight over homework. Yay 3-day reduced to 1-day weekend!

I rest my case. The universe clearly owes me a summer. I can wait, make it up to me.

Little Monsters, But Not Fred Savage

There’s a little monster inside of me, and every once in a while it gets out. It says things I know I shouldn’t, and does things I know I shouldn’t, and then in the deep dark night it sneaks back inside to hide and watch the fall out from the safety of its home in the deep dark places of my heart. I wake up in the morning ironically mournful. I feel apologetic, embarrassed, the usual; nothing out of step with a night of drinking and dancing and toe-stepping. But the little monster creates more havoc than just that. When my little monster sneaks out, and then retreats, I’m left with questioning thoughts for which I can’t seem to draw answers.
I wonder which is more true, the me that keeps the monster locked away, wrapped in chains so that it has less of a chance of escaping, or the me that watches the monster take over my voice, my mouth, my hands, my self, and retreats to the center to watch the immediate fallout and giggle like a naughty child. I wonder if there’s a middle ground, if the monster and I can learnt o co-exist. I had previously thought I’d satisfied the monster, and she had grown into a different creature that would no longer say and do such things, but she was merely napping through the placid moments of my life, waiting for an opportune moment to sneak out and reclaim her place in the spot light, even if only for one night.

I don’t have anything more to say, so THE END. I apologize for the lazy writing.

Into the deep end.

I feel like after a certain point it’s a bit cliché to talk about life and death, but since it’s all around me right now, I feel validated. The thing that seems to give people the most trouble with life and death is the randomness; a 26 year old boy can die in his sleep in a controlled environment, while a 90 year old woman who drinks and smokes can still muster up the gumption to whack neighborhood kids in her yard with a stick. It’s random.


Apparently an obnoxious desire to over analyze things is intrinsic to grad students, because a couple of us polished of beers with a discussion of the reason humans evolved to have religion, and I always come back to the need for an explanation. In ancient times, people created a deity that would explain the incompressible forces of nature; the rising sun, the changing tides, drought and earth quakes were attached to unseen actors who could be influenced and, therefore, appeased. In modern times, we’ve abandoned the fickle agricultural gods of our ancestors for monotheism, seeking to explain just one major question, why do bad things happen? This obviously covers the whole range of life experience, including but not limited to those twin events that bookend every life.


People go to their god to ask when people are born different, born at the wrong time, or not born at all. Similarly, they go to their god when someone’s life ends. Why so young, why so soon, why so slow, why so suddenly? Why at all? And what is the complicated calculus in play when it’s decided who lives and who dies, who suffers and who simply drifts away.


Some take comfort in the idea that someone else’s plan is in effect, some larger plan, too big for us to perceive, but intricate enough to make perfect sense given enough perspective. Others, I think, enjoy having someone to blame endlessly, someone to curse until the pain subsides, someone who’ll never shout back. Many people find solace in the fairy tale of a magical place where everyone you love who is good and decent gets to go, where nothing’s bad and nothing hurts and we can all have a picnic when we get there. But even the people who wholeheartedly believe in this fairy land don’t seem to be in any rush to get there…


But I digress. Because those of us who find faith in the tangible have to find solace in the same. There are no happily ever after stories of living on clouds in white robes, so we have to counsel ourselves with other things. Beer is often helpful. So is talking. Whether you believe people got to a better place, back into the cycle of life, or just into the decaying end of the matter spectrum, we all believe the pain of this life is over. The only other thing we can hold on to is the same thing we always have to hold on to when ever thing get rough, the good times.

So I guess, in conclusion and in the wake of death and pain and life, here’s to the good times.

to my religious friends, please don't be mad at my playful characterization of different systems of belief. I'm an equal opportunity offender trying to figure out my own thing.

Me Talk Good

I think I'm forgetting how to speak English. Seriously. Which is a shame, because I used to be quite verbose. When I was little I had a knack for devouring books, and the continuation of this habit gave me a great vocabulary. But lately life has contrived to give me no free time and little time for the reading and writing I’m required to do by employment or for education. And then there’s the real reason, and I say this with the caveat that I am an incredibly open minded person who used to really love this aspect of my life:

I am surrounded by non-native English speakers. At home, at school, at work, in social situations, on the phone, via email... I honestly have to actively remember incidents of conversation with native speakers. It’s gotten to the point where I noticed I was speaking broken English to a friend whose ESL English was clearly superior. What the fuck?

And I always wanted to be multi-lingual. Anyone unfortunate enough to have heard my drunken Spanish can attest is a goal I’ve yet to achieve. But this goal and my active use of Spanish and Arabic on a daily basis seems to have short-circuited the language center of my brain. I now regularly think sentences in a mixture of Arabic, Spanish and English. My family is not amused. I am not amused. If I start to dream in another language, I am out. If I start to pick up Korean, I am out. I will run away to Kentucky or Iowa, somewhere where the only thing that’s international is the House of Pancakes.

You have been warned.