Okay, so Nadia (a very very good friend had given this link on her webpage ... www.insanityworks.org ... the link is http://www.rabbitblog.com/ and the woman who writes this blog is mainly a TV critic... hilarious blog!
An excerpt: (very REAL and right now in my life...very apt)
Dear Naysayer,
I understand, wise honky. The problem is, guys in their 20s and 30s have a habit of going out with women for as long as is convenient, regardless of their feelings. Many guys fall out of love (if they were ever in love) but don't have the rocks or the will to move on, even though they know the relationship isn't one that they want to last. Once a woman has gone through this a few dozen times, she gets a little more stringent in her demands.Honky girl asks how committed honky boy is, honky boy offers wishy washy reassurance, buys himself another 3 months - or, if honky girl has bad PMS, another month. The truth is that, wherever love is on honky girl's priority list, she may really, really not want to date Yet Another Wishy Washy Guy Who Doesn't Know What The Fuck He Wants Or Who Is Only Mildly Interested In Her. Let me repeat: Her desire to go out with someone who's enthusiastic and passionate about her does not necessarily reflect her absurdly fucked up and skewed priorities, it may simply reflect her desire to live a full, romantic exciting life filled with intimacy and the company of someone who thinks she's swell. Yes, she may say things like We. Must. Make. This. Relationship. Work. Or. Else., but that's just because she knows the guy's not in the game, and she's in the Angry Phase, a necessary step that comes right before Moving On.Is love too high on honky girl's priority list? Well, that depends. If she's 18 or 22 or 26 and she's obsessed with marriage, I'd say it's probably a little too high - but that's my call, and it's really up to her. Love was way, way too high on my priority list when I was younger, but what can you do? It was an escapist thing - I wasn't sure what else in life was worth getting riled up about. On the other hand, being 32-39 years old and being focused on finding the right guy, the one who's interested in starting a family or whatever else, is not remotely tweaked or odd or screwy to me. I mean, if you want to bear offspring before you're 40, then you have to get serious about this shit in your 30s. It's important to keep in mind that adoption and a million other options are available to you, and that (this is my personal slant) buying a house and adopting a dog and focusing on your own shit are all ways of having a good, full life without waiting for the holy grail of marriage to make your life look "right." In fact, I want to strongly recommend that single women in the 30s consider saving to buy a house - maybe when the current real estate bubble bursts a little, they'll have enough for a down payment. You can often get by with putting down just 5 percent, if your credit is good. If you need to get a roommate to afford it, get a roommate.But back to the matter at hand: Settling down is going to be important to lots of us, because it just is. We're fucking women, for chrissakes. Personally, I would love to be the woman who wants to travel and paint and cook and have a steady flow of lover boys. Yeah! But that's not me. I'm fucking jealous of those women, and I believe them when they say they don't give a fuck about marriage or kids. Hurray for them, they rock, I want to be them. But I'm not them. I like the idea of a family, plus a few dogs. As a result, I've been a hardass about relationships since I was about 29. I don't want to waste my time on someone who's not right for me, or who isn't completely into it. Oh, I have wasted my time, don't get me wrong - I just try very hard to move on quickly ("quickly" meaning "after 2 years" in most cases). Is that lame? What's lame about making sure that you get what you want from life? Why should anyone be embarrassed about going after what they want, whether it's big fake tits or a house by the shore or a hot fireman (I know, redundant)? What's embarrassing is shuffling around, living some mediocre, half-assed existence where you don't have what you want and you complain about it constantly, or you don't have what you want but you pretend it's just fine, or it'll do for now, or we all have to compromise in one way or another, or maybe it'll get better next week. Whether it means moving to another city or dumping your boyfriend or hiring a better couples' therapist to work things out with your wife, admirable actions are those that move people closer to the lives they want. And even though I would, if I could, go back and change my priorities when I was younger, even though I would shake myself and say, "You don't need to base this decision on HIM - he'll be gone in 6 months! Do what YOU want to do!" I suspect that I wouldn't listen to me anyway. Lots of women care a lot about relationships a little more than is perfectly healthy. They just do. All the women I know care a LOT about love. It's not something that's easy to change, and look, the women I know who are really happy are the ones who've acted in accordance with their desires, who have been honest about what they want, without shame. Here's the other thing: It's hard to get a life when you're with someone who's wishy washy about you. If you have to tell your girlfriend to get a life, chances are that should include getting rid of you. Why don't you do her a favor and break up with her instead? She's obviously not earning your respect, with all her focus on relationships and not enough focus on her own thing. She'll probably only straighten things out once she's free from the blah feelings that accompany being with someone who's on the fence. I get your point, Naysayer, I really do. I just keep thinking about the women out there who care a lot about love and can't find men who feel the same way. That gets under my skin. I want those women to make themselves happy and everything, sure, I want them to paint and travel and save money and have great friends and all that stuff, but I also want them to find love, because love is the best. Maybe those are my skewed priorities talking. So be it, honkwinders. I stand before you a deeply flawed motherfucker.
Rabbit
Monday, September 19, 2005
Friday, September 16, 2005
Possibilities
beautiful, beautiful poem. nobel prize winner Wislawa Szymborska from Poland. Fro more on her, clicke here.
Possibilities
I prefer movies.
I prefer cats.
I prefer the oaks along the Warta.
I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.
I prefer myself liking peopleto myself loving mankind.
I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.
I prefer the color green.
I prefer not to maintainthat reason is to blame for everything.
I prefer exceptions.
I prefer to leave early.
I prefer talking to doctors about something else.
I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.
I prefer the absurdity of writing poemsto the absurdity of not writing poems.
I prefer, where love's concerned, nonspecific anniversariesthat can be celebrated every day.
I prefer moralists who promise me nothing.
I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.
I prefer the earth in civvies.I prefer conquered to conquering countries.
I prefer having some reservations.
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
I prefer Grimms' fairy tales to the newspapers' front pages.
I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.
I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.
I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.
I prefer desk drawers.
I prefer many things that I haven't mentioned hereto many things I've also left unsaid.
I prefer zeroes on the loose to those lined up behind a cipher.
I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.
I prefer to knock on wood.
I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.
I prefer keeping in mind even the possibilitythat existence has its own reason for being.
Possibilities
I prefer movies.
I prefer cats.
I prefer the oaks along the Warta.
I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.
I prefer myself liking peopleto myself loving mankind.
I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.
I prefer the color green.
I prefer not to maintainthat reason is to blame for everything.
I prefer exceptions.
I prefer to leave early.
I prefer talking to doctors about something else.
I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.
I prefer the absurdity of writing poemsto the absurdity of not writing poems.
I prefer, where love's concerned, nonspecific anniversariesthat can be celebrated every day.
I prefer moralists who promise me nothing.
I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.
I prefer the earth in civvies.I prefer conquered to conquering countries.
I prefer having some reservations.
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
I prefer Grimms' fairy tales to the newspapers' front pages.
I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.
I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.
I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.
I prefer desk drawers.
I prefer many things that I haven't mentioned hereto many things I've also left unsaid.
I prefer zeroes on the loose to those lined up behind a cipher.
I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.
I prefer to knock on wood.
I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.
I prefer keeping in mind even the possibilitythat existence has its own reason for being.
OPINION
Taken from The Daily Tar Heel, a university newspaper from North Carolina. I dont know what to think about this. Will write more on this later.
It’s sad, but racial profiling is necessary for our safety
JILLIAN BANDES LICENSED TO JILL
September 13, 2005
I want all Arabs to be stripped naked and cavity-searched if they get within 100 yards of an airport.
I don’t care if they’re being inconvenienced. I don’t care if it seems as though their rights are being violated.
I care about my life. I care about the lives of my family and friends.
And I care about the lives of the Arabs and Arab Americans I’m privileged to know and study with.
They’re some of the brightest, kindest people I’ve ever met.
Tragically, they’re also members of an ethnicity that is responsible for almost every act of terror committed against the West in the recent past.
And in the wake of the anniversary of 9/11, I think it’s important to remember not only those who died, but how they died, why they died and where we stand now compared to where we stood then.
Four years and two days ago, we stood somewhere between apathy and ignorance. Sure, there were heinous acts of terrorism being committed in far-away lands, and sure, there was always the threat that some psychopath might do something.
After all, we’re the generation of Timothy McVeigh, the Unabomber and Columbine. The news was littered with coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, nerve gas on Japanese subways and terror in the Balkans.
But those attacks weren’t in the same buildings we toured on our eighth-grade class trips.
They didn’t kill 3,000 of our relatives.
They weren’t in our face.
So Bushie waged war on ’em. He set out to knock the evil off its axis, and we’re still there, duking it out.
And for good reason. You can debate a lot of things about post-9/11 foreign policy, but one thing you can’t debate is that taking out terrorists — or blatant human-rights violators — is a good thing.
You also can’t debate that of the 19 hijackers on those planes, all 19 were Arab.
And you can’t debate that while most Arabs are not terrorists, sadly, most terrorists are indeed Arab.
Given this combination, I want some kind of security.
Done in a professional, conscientious manner, racial profiling is more likely to get the bad guys than accosting my 12-year-old pipsqueak of a brother on his way to summer camp.
When asked if she had a boyfriend, Ann Coulter once said that any time she had a need for physical intimacy, she would simply walk through an airport’s security checkpoint.
I want Arabs to get sexed up like nothing else.
And Arab students at UNC don’t seem to think that’s such a bad idea.
“(Racial profiling) really doesn’t bother me,” said Sherief Khaki, a first-generation Egyptian-American and representative of the UNC-CH Arabic Club.
“So a couple of hours are wasted. Big deal.”
Said Muhammad Salameh, a junior biology major: “I can accept it, even if I don’t like it. I don’t want to die.”
Professor Nasser Isleem, a man for whom I have complete and utter respect after merely two weeks of sitting in his Arabic 101 class, said, “Let them search.”
“It depends on how I’m stopped, but if it is done in a professional manner … ”
Then he nodded.
“There were Muslims in those buildings, too.”
Some people say that racial profiling will make terrorism a self-fulfilling prophecy, or that it’s somehow unfair to designate certain individuals as being more likely to commit an act of terror than another.
They’re wrong.
If 19 blond-haired, blue-eyed, Caucasian Jews had plowed into the World Trade Center with two jumbo jets, I would demand to be interrogated every time I browsed Cheapflights.com.
After each interrogation, I would offer the official a cup of joe, then heartedly thank him for his efforts. And I would not be any more inclined to blow up innocent civilians as a result of it.
Neither would Sherief Khaki. Or Muhammad Salameh. Or Nasser Isleem.
Nearly every Arab American I’ve spoken with has done nothing but condemn the evil that was done just four years ago, and at least tacitly recognize that some profiling is necessary.
I have enough confidence in my country’s imperfect but steadfast law enforcement systems to carry out such profiling the way it should be done: in a professional and thorough manner, without going down the slippery slope of pointless and disrespectful encroachment on the livelihood or decorum of everyday Arabs and Arab Americans.
Stop, as Coulter advises, treating racial profiling like the Victorians treated sex — by not discussing the topic unless you’re recoiling in horror at the practice.
Embrace the race.
It’s sad, but racial profiling is necessary for our safety
JILLIAN BANDES LICENSED TO JILL
September 13, 2005
I want all Arabs to be stripped naked and cavity-searched if they get within 100 yards of an airport.
I don’t care if they’re being inconvenienced. I don’t care if it seems as though their rights are being violated.
I care about my life. I care about the lives of my family and friends.
And I care about the lives of the Arabs and Arab Americans I’m privileged to know and study with.
They’re some of the brightest, kindest people I’ve ever met.
Tragically, they’re also members of an ethnicity that is responsible for almost every act of terror committed against the West in the recent past.
And in the wake of the anniversary of 9/11, I think it’s important to remember not only those who died, but how they died, why they died and where we stand now compared to where we stood then.
Four years and two days ago, we stood somewhere between apathy and ignorance. Sure, there were heinous acts of terrorism being committed in far-away lands, and sure, there was always the threat that some psychopath might do something.
After all, we’re the generation of Timothy McVeigh, the Unabomber and Columbine. The news was littered with coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, nerve gas on Japanese subways and terror in the Balkans.
But those attacks weren’t in the same buildings we toured on our eighth-grade class trips.
They didn’t kill 3,000 of our relatives.
They weren’t in our face.
So Bushie waged war on ’em. He set out to knock the evil off its axis, and we’re still there, duking it out.
And for good reason. You can debate a lot of things about post-9/11 foreign policy, but one thing you can’t debate is that taking out terrorists — or blatant human-rights violators — is a good thing.
You also can’t debate that of the 19 hijackers on those planes, all 19 were Arab.
And you can’t debate that while most Arabs are not terrorists, sadly, most terrorists are indeed Arab.
Given this combination, I want some kind of security.
Done in a professional, conscientious manner, racial profiling is more likely to get the bad guys than accosting my 12-year-old pipsqueak of a brother on his way to summer camp.
When asked if she had a boyfriend, Ann Coulter once said that any time she had a need for physical intimacy, she would simply walk through an airport’s security checkpoint.
I want Arabs to get sexed up like nothing else.
And Arab students at UNC don’t seem to think that’s such a bad idea.
“(Racial profiling) really doesn’t bother me,” said Sherief Khaki, a first-generation Egyptian-American and representative of the UNC-CH Arabic Club.
“So a couple of hours are wasted. Big deal.”
Said Muhammad Salameh, a junior biology major: “I can accept it, even if I don’t like it. I don’t want to die.”
Professor Nasser Isleem, a man for whom I have complete and utter respect after merely two weeks of sitting in his Arabic 101 class, said, “Let them search.”
“It depends on how I’m stopped, but if it is done in a professional manner … ”
Then he nodded.
“There were Muslims in those buildings, too.”
Some people say that racial profiling will make terrorism a self-fulfilling prophecy, or that it’s somehow unfair to designate certain individuals as being more likely to commit an act of terror than another.
They’re wrong.
If 19 blond-haired, blue-eyed, Caucasian Jews had plowed into the World Trade Center with two jumbo jets, I would demand to be interrogated every time I browsed Cheapflights.com.
After each interrogation, I would offer the official a cup of joe, then heartedly thank him for his efforts. And I would not be any more inclined to blow up innocent civilians as a result of it.
Neither would Sherief Khaki. Or Muhammad Salameh. Or Nasser Isleem.
Nearly every Arab American I’ve spoken with has done nothing but condemn the evil that was done just four years ago, and at least tacitly recognize that some profiling is necessary.
I have enough confidence in my country’s imperfect but steadfast law enforcement systems to carry out such profiling the way it should be done: in a professional and thorough manner, without going down the slippery slope of pointless and disrespectful encroachment on the livelihood or decorum of everyday Arabs and Arab Americans.
Stop, as Coulter advises, treating racial profiling like the Victorians treated sex — by not discussing the topic unless you’re recoiling in horror at the practice.
Embrace the race.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Every Falling Leaf
Today is bare-aba's saal (his death anniversary). hate using the term death anniversary, but it is his death anniversary. It has now been about about 9 years since Bareaba left us.
I grew up looking up to a man who believed in beliefs and respected honesty more than anything else in the world. I grew up almost worshipping the kind of love he had for his wife who died at age 33, leaving him to bring up 5 children (which he did...on his own...with help from his sister).
Where are these people now? The kind who think that even giving two pence to someone as a recompense for work done AS PART OF PUBLIC DUTY OR CONTRACTUAL SERVICE, is rishwat (bribery).
I think I was lost for 5 years after he went away. I have only now managed to understand the good that he was, and the purity of thought he tried to teach us....me....
To Bare-aba...who taught me to read poetry when I was three. ..who taught me to think for myself, but with humility... who could see the trouble that was to come in my life... and who tried to prepare me for an uncertain future.
A poem he gave me once:
Baree naik bachee hai Zebunnisa
Kaha apne maan baap ka maantee hai
Nahin kartee beja kisee baat par zidd
Mahal aur maukeh ko pehchaantee hai
I grew up looking up to a man who believed in beliefs and respected honesty more than anything else in the world. I grew up almost worshipping the kind of love he had for his wife who died at age 33, leaving him to bring up 5 children (which he did...on his own...with help from his sister).
Where are these people now? The kind who think that even giving two pence to someone as a recompense for work done AS PART OF PUBLIC DUTY OR CONTRACTUAL SERVICE, is rishwat (bribery).
I think I was lost for 5 years after he went away. I have only now managed to understand the good that he was, and the purity of thought he tried to teach us....me....
To Bare-aba...who taught me to read poetry when I was three. ..who taught me to think for myself, but with humility... who could see the trouble that was to come in my life... and who tried to prepare me for an uncertain future.
A poem he gave me once:
Baree naik bachee hai Zebunnisa
Kaha apne maan baap ka maantee hai
Nahin kartee beja kisee baat par zidd
Mahal aur maukeh ko pehchaantee hai
Career Decisions
Okay, So somethig real for once. When does one know its time to move on...like REALLY move on? Im talking about the first big break up...the letting go of your first job. Its so secure and comfortable and familiar. ...Im at a crossroads...feeling torn suddenly.
I had thought I would be able to decide. Is it possible to leave without feeling guilty, particularly when you know and you feel that you owe a lot to the person who groomed you professionally into what you are and now will not want you to go away???
What does one do? NO...what do i do?
mmmm, life was pretty complicated even without this!
I had thought I would be able to decide. Is it possible to leave without feeling guilty, particularly when you know and you feel that you owe a lot to the person who groomed you professionally into what you are and now will not want you to go away???
What does one do? NO...what do i do?
mmmm, life was pretty complicated even without this!
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