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    Яαgιи Яαvєи
    Cairo, Egypt
    Wanting people to listen, you can't just tap them on the shoulder anymore. You have to hit them with a sledgehammer, and then you'll notice you've got their strict attention.
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Tapping at my chamber door



In 2008, I'll Get Me A Shotgun


I will also:
1.
Yield
2. Get closer to
God
3.
Job hunt some more.
4. Get closer to my
family.
5. Learn a new language.
6.
Finish at least one screenplay.
7.
Lose the extra weight.
8. Get a
driver's license. I will not buy a car.
9. I will
rule my world.
10. I will have my
revenge.

Saturday, August 25, 2007

A stare at the upwards longitude

A corner, by definition, is the space between two converging lines or surfaces near their intersection. The more you get closer to the point of intersection, the smaller the space gets. Get close enough and it can not possibly fit anyone other than you; hence, comes the notion of seclusion, privacy, peace of mind. You can do whatever you want in your corner. It would be wasteful to still bear the burdens of the world in it; absolutely pointless.

I’d like to think that my blog is one of my corners. I’ve been on blogger since April 2006 and I’ve never re-read a post after it’s been published… until last week. They serve as a reminder of how a person grows, how a person changes; and even though most of my posts are hypothetically related to my being, contrary to what most of my readers believe, they all hold a strange non-fictional value to the person I have become.

You know how by changing one word in a sentence you could possibly bring clarity to a story? It’s like that with blogging. Words can change things.

A blog should be your very own personal corner; your friend, your resort, your pain-killer, your psychiatrist, and your vengeance. A blog can be your very own hug. It can also be your punching bag (comment disabling is required then though). It’s the place where you can vent, where you can be your true self contrary to what people may think of you. And even though it runs through wires of digital space and cold hard drives, it can be the warmest corner sometimes.

I hate to be the one telling you this but… even though we’ve established that blogging is the absolute and personal corner, without faith everything is pointless. Deep down, a good person knows that he/she is good and a bad person knows that they’ve screwed up big time. When you know for sure that Allah is watching over you, then you shouldn’t have anything to worry about. You know if you’re really afraid of someone you might actually surrender in hope that they’ll let you be? How about if you’re not afraid of Him, how about if that Someone can be there for you the moment you go for Sojood? Unlike with friends, dialing is not even necessary. All you gotta do is whisper… and He’ll be there.

Words can change things; especially ones that begin with Ya Rab. :-)

One Mississipi

You can’t lean towards an argument. You can’t choose for the reader. It’s the difference between a good writer and a bad one. If you’re gonna take sides... then you shouldn’t write. Just go for a presidential campaign.

Don’t judge at all… just recognize it, magnify it… then throw it in the trash.

Why am I writing this? I have a better question… why are you reading this?

These posts that I write, they’re my newly developed price tags. Something I should have done years ago; but then again better late than never, I guess.

Let me start by price tagging money. Money is of no value. It buys electricity and phone service. It buys food. We end up paying even when we’re asleep as the air conditioner swiftly crawls into our bank accounts. From the moment we wake up to the alarm, we’ve just consumed a few cents of electricity. Colgate it my corporate ‘Good Morning’. We pay to have our suit dry-cleaned. We pay for fuel or taxi to get to work. We pay for lunch at work. We pay for dinner, we pay for marriage. When we have a couple minutes where no payment’s being made, we take up habits like smoking. We pay for cigarettes. We pay for our babies at birth and we pay to have reproduction prevented by buying ‘protection’. We even pay for a small piece of land where we can get buried. In the end you realize that you could have saved your breath if you’d have stayed put.

Money is overrated… and over priced.

The barter system sounds more efficient at times.

I’m confused. Is it really worthless or is my dark prince playing his dirty tricks on me?

Who Moved My Cheese would stand as strong evidence in any courtroom. I have been lazy to change and adapt to the sick regime of this new world. I should have lied. I should have bad mouthed. I should have dated when I had the chance instead of judging my friends who did. That ex-friend of mine was right. I should have stopped trying to act like an angel or a saint. I should have joined the rest of the crew. I should have pursued the new fucking cheese.

But then again… maybe not. I wasn’t built that way.

In 2002, when I graduated from college, I was all about getting certified. MBA, CMA, CPA, KKK, I looked it all up, that whole abbreviation deal. I made researches, bought books and CDs, checked with friends. I even registered for the fucking test; but when I got to reading and (you know me) thinking (it’ll kill me, I know), I realized that this is not me. I want to do something that I like. I bet that over 85% of the people on this planet go for standard rules for highly effective people; something that Stephen R. Covey would right about. But I, for once in my life, want to follow that road, that dream. Ever dreamed of something? Ever accomplished any of your dreams?

Oh well…

Last night I started a To Do list of my own. I only added one item there for starters and I’m already working on it. I’m back to writing after two months of writer’s block. I have about 10 screenplays and two novels in the making. I’ve written a 10-page word document for each with all the ideas, character profiles, alt. endings, the whole nine yards; but I’ve been having difficulty creating that bridge from one scene to the next. Again, I’m just a newbie so I ain’t complaining. I just would have loved it if I could do a quicker job, you know. That rush, I’ve been missing that. They say that the actual “high” of drug abuse has nothing to do with the effect of the drug itself. The “high” peak is reached the second right before you shoot it up your body. The rest… is pure hallucination. The rest… usually is recollected as a complete blackout. Euphoria has been missing and I want to claim it back. I won’t do drugs though. I’m too old and too smart for that shit even though no one has ever died from cannabis. The overdose limit is 15 lbs in 15 minutes, i.e. one has to smoke 15 lbs of marijuana in 15 minutes in order to overdose. To cut it short: even if you want to do it, it’s plain impossible.
… unless you stop time. The only successful measure of stopping time known to man is the fact that when you look at the closest star to Earth, you’re actually looking at it 4.3 years ago. Pretty cool, huh?

What’s even cooler is the fact that the light from the closest galaxy to Earth has taken 2 million years to reach us, i.e. if you’re looking down at Earth from that galaxy, you’d be looking at it around the time when humans first walked the Earth.

Tomatoe, tomato.

But you’re not here to read about physics or time travel for dummies. You’re here to read me whine.

I took a long shower today. I needed to “clean my soul”.

During the last couple weeks I was angry. I was angry for some reasons that seemed right and some wrong ones. I didn’t really care. I was angry at many people and many things, but mostly I was angry at myself. I just needed a punching bag and all I could find was myself to punch, kick around and bleed out.

How could I let that happen to me?

When I’m angry, I usually count to three before I act upon my emotions. I think that’s why among the people who know me, I’m usually the cold one. I hate that. Why O why can’t I just scream and shout, especially when no ones around to hear me anyways? Why do I allow myself to internally bleed?

I let it all out. I didn’t cry. I hardly, hardly ever do. It’s not that I think it’s weak. It’s not weak, but I just don’t cry easy… or maybe my brain does it for me. I’m not sure. I don’t care.

And through my rage and despise of all life forms on this planet, I have forgotten about my soul. A soul is an attachment to a person’s body; but somehow the body can tell when a soul has not been taken care of.

I opened my favorite book and flipped to a random page in the middle. It was page 271, verses 41 and 42.

· وَالَّذِينَ هَاجَرُواْ فِي اللّهِ مِن بَعْدِ مَا ظُلِمُواْ لَنُبَوِّئَنَّهُمْ فِي الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً وَلَأَجْرُ الآخِرَةِ أَكْبَرُ لَوْ كَانُواْ يَعْلَمُونَ

· الَّذِينَ صَبَرُواْ وَعَلَى رَبِّهِمْ يَتَوَكَّلُونَ

*To those who leave their homes in the cause of Allah, after suffering oppression,- We will assuredly give a goodly home in this world; but truly the reward of the Hereafter will be greater. If they only realized (this)!

*(They are) those who persevere in patience, and put their trust on their Lord.

صدق الله العظيم

Lesson 1: I should have been more careful.
Lesson 2: I should be patient.
Lesson 3: Faith, faith, faith.
I’m done.

:-)

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Step One: Pulling out the weed

And so, guided by the strength of my inner dark prince, begins my recovery program.

They say that ambition is the seed of success.

I got promoted today at work. It’s been 20 months since my last promotion. When I got the news of my promotion over the phone, all I could say was OK. It didn’t feel as good as it should. It didn’t feel right. The timing sucked. I’ve been expecting that promotion for over a year now. I hate waiting for anything. I like things punctual.

I received an SMS from my direct manager at 8 pm today that said ‘Congratulations on your well deserved promotion’. I did not reply to the SMS. I did not reply to her call. I didn’t want to hear her voice. Plan A had me in her seat at the new branch. That was the plan I was promised. Secret Plan B is what they settled for. A fucking transfer order. She had good connections with the Head of Branches. They’re both women. They both sit and discuss ma7shy. I could do ma7shy if I had the recipe, COULDN’T I??

Cheap and ironic, they throw in a punch while you’re not looking. What good would it do to plant seeds in your backyard and then crush them in a smoker’s heart beat? And speaking of ma7shy… I hate it.

And so as cold as things become right before they melt, I told my friend who gave me the news about my promotion ‘OK’. He was too happy for me, the newbie. The poor bastard still doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into.

Getting your mood and attitude to the top of that tower is the work of ambition, and ambition only. Falling down is easy when you’ve got a zillion trolls waiting in the dark. They sting you off that mighty tall tower of grace and stupidity, where you thought you were the righteous prince.

But then again you’re not retarded, you just didn’t see them coming. I guess in laymen terms, the fall was inevitable.

That’s just how it works. After they push you over they run back down the stairs to kick you while your blood is still warm. They’ll be everywhere, but like a wise man once said ‘Those who worship God merely out of fear would worship the devil too if he appeared’.

Invisibility scares me, even if what is invisible is anticipated.

If I got to choose one super power, it would be invisibility.

It’s like baking a cake. You can’t bake a cake without baking powder even if you had all the other ingredients, can you? You can’t smoke a cigarette without a lighter, you can’t jump off a ledge without a building, you can’t exist without parents, you can’t go the distance without a pair of legs, and you can’t tell how much time you’ve wasted chasing a mirage without a fucking watch.

There is always a factor of no value what so ever missing from the bullshit equation. No piece of shit factor = No hope.

My valuing system is in the process of editing.

Price tagging all over again. They’re all the same, those unidentical twins.

It can’t be true that I’m right and they’re all wrong. CAN’T BE. My confidence has 5-8 mentos candies and 1 liter of diet coke in it. The judgments that made me defy the kingdom are no longer valid. Feels uncanny to know that the values and morals that you’ve adapted to, hung on to, stood for, and developed are deemed worthless.

You are nothing but a big book of batteekh.

If I was a book, I’d burn myself one page at a time.

But then again… I’d probably need a lighter with infinite gas to get rid of all the crap that I’ve fill my head with for the past 26 years. My irony, my personal anatomy, my very good riddance, my salvation from those weeds eating at my backyard.

It ain’t the 80’s son. Stop being a perfectionist. Let the worlds collide, let the girls strip naked, let Palestine fall, let them all lie, let the earth stop spinning, let it all burn and let the fucking smoke rise until it’s too blurry and dark to see anyway. Fucking choke to death. IT DOES NOT MATTER.

NOTHING MATTERS.

FUCK IT.

Monday, August 20, 2007

The oldies in my head

I think I know what my problem is… I think too much and worry too much. I am thankful to Allah for everything I’ve got and for the person that I am, but somehow I feel like I should train myself to lighten up a bit. I’ve realized that I’m an extremely high maintenance person.

I hate it when people don’t care about things that I have added a certain value too. I hate it when people give too much value to something that I’ve found worthy of discarding. I chose not to live life off the record. Disregarding the absolute notion of God, I live life as if I’m actually being watched.

I tend to give too much excuses to people that it actually gets my family to hate me. Sometimes it also gets me hurt. However, my continuous judgment of other people’s understandings, ideas, and beliefs has shifted my life into one line; straight or crooked, I don’t know. Those who drift off that line fall outside my “zone”. I don’t have acquaintances or friends of friends or exs. Everybody’s either a best friend or someone flushed down my brain toilet. I hate easy, I hate it.

I am not a chit-chatter. I hate uttering sounds and letters and vowels for no reason… even though, YES, I am in love with my voice. I think that sometimes my attitude towards the art of conversations gets on people’s nerves; even though if sometimes I don’t mean to.

A non-verbal conversation is easier to translate. Sometimes… it’s easier to sit at the end of the table and quietly judge, pull their puppet strings every once in a while.

The return of my inner dark prince.

I should lie lose a bit, lighten up, wake up and smell the flowers. I’ll get to it.

In the mean time, I’ll keep listening to what the dirt bag in my head is saying.

The oldies in my head do sound tempting, seductive, and kind.

Saturday, August 18, 2007

My Soothing mirror reflection

Complaints are one thing a service entity employee must expect at any moment in time. A complaint does not necessarily imply that you made a mistake. Sometimes the clients go crazy. They either complain because of you, because of the excessive procedures… or because they’re simply crazy. And since the system and the procedures were also laid down by other employees of the entity, one can only predict that where there’s human there’s error.

Out of the four years that I spent working at the bank, in three years and nine months, I’ve only been complained at once. I gathered three complaints in the remaining three months. The people at work decided that I needed a few days off. And so my best friend invited me to join him and his younger brother to head off to the ultimate destination of summer youth, AL SA7EL.

My friend went through shit trying to convince me to go. I hate road trips. Road trips constitute a minimum of three hours of hoping for absolute hypnosis. The wish to become absent minded for a significant time period. And even though I bought my first CD player in 1995, I was never ever the type of person who plugs the earphones into his head and lifts himself elsewhere. I stopped listening to songs about a year ago. I don’t know any lyrics anymore. I hardly ever listen to music. So I just sat there and stared out the window for what seemed like forever.

It’s levitating how the more you trance yourself in a stare, the more you notice things that significantly relate. Names and images of people and things that may have meant something in the past, the girl that got away, the street that raised you, a job you almost took, the movie you almost wrote, and more signs and things that makes you believe that the world does revolve around you, that you are the pretty center of everything.

The mind does know many tricks. All tricks are below the belt… but then again, like I said once before… everything is legal at the Sa7el.

As mind bending as it was, I seriously loathe road trips. It’s not the destination that is vague; it’s the wondering about what’s after the destination that scares me shitless.

Five days of self valuation is what that vacation brought. I had more fun than I had in years. When I wasn't in my fun mood, I lied my ass off through my acts not wanting to bum people out. I sat there thinking of what went wrong, how and when. But the whats and whens don't say much without the rest of the question. Questions I could not phrase out. For the first time ever, I was out of words.

I quote Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick, who once said ‘A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things’.

Man… is an idiot.

I will always remember that swimming pool; our pool. I call it ours because we were the only ones there all day long. I keep wondering that maybe it was empty because of that huge cousin of my friend who made a big ass splash on our first day there. But then again even though my friends didn't know it, I was glad that we’ve managed to claim the pool our own.

That pool... is where I actually saw where rock bottom was the easy way. I floated on my stomach and stared down there. I think my lungs feel a bit better. I can actually hold my breath a bit longer. I had to develop that skill so that I could actually stare longer.

One of the new things I've learned on that trip was the fact that if you exhale all the air out of your lungs you actually drop to the bottom of the pool. Perhaps that explains why all the things that have taken my breath away, have always pulled me down.

Surprisingly once you can touch the bottom of the pool, something pulls you back up. It’s no the air, since you don’t have any. I still can’t explain it.

I had to learn the hard way. Trial and error, I so hate it.

I envy my best friend’s sixteen year old brother. Even though I know that he won’t listen, his brother always tries to teach him things about life just to make sure that the bumps he’s going to trip over down the road could somehow be anticipated and eased out. He still wouldn’t listen though.

The way I pictured “our pool” at night had cigars and ice cold 7ups at the pool side. But just like many things change during the process of survival, like the fact that you grow a deafening sense of responsibility, the fact that you lose friends, and the fact that you actually grow past the age you wanted to freeze time at... every thing changes without asking for a No Objection Certificate. I couldn't find any On-the-Runs on the way to get the Blackwood cigars that I like and the ice cold can got hit by a basket ball and dropped into the pool. I ended up staring at the bottom of the pool, holding my breath, and waiting for a miracle.

Not wanting to let go is when your body strives to pull itself back up when your lungs are empty, knowing that you can always dive in again. A practice of endurance.

Now here’s the punch-line. When one’s just about to drown, air bubbles exit the nostrils. Ironic yet satisfying to know that when you let go of something or someone, something else liberates.

My friend had only one mirror at his beach house that I only looked at once on the last day. It’s surprising how ambiguous one can get without a mirror. You start to loose your identity. You start to forget who you are and what you look like. The only reflection that you have is that of your shadow hitting the bottom of the pool, sunken like a ghost of something that you’re trying to catch up with. Age is one part of ones identity. Name does not count as identification, unless it’s tattooed on your fucking forehead.

Without a mirror, you adapt to the majority. The majority were kids, different from the time I was at their age. Evolution is gravity’s ugly cousin, inevitable. With all the sixteen year old boys and girls, I was sixteen again… then everything flashed forward ten long years again.

I should have packed a mirror.

Everyone outsmarts themselves by saying that if they had one wish, they’d wish for three more wishes. The ultimate wish is to have a clean slate, start over. I keep making the same mistakes over and over and over again.

I’m back at my desk in my room now writing a post that I hope no one reads. I’ll call it my own as I picture that pool bottom and ask myself as I stare at my sunken shadow…

Now what?

Friday, August 10, 2007

Look for the mushroom cloud

The obsolete nature of his tedious dimensions bored the queen out of her mind. He vowed to pull the lever and lift his soul to the second floor, but didn’t. He spoke to the walls in his doorless cube and punched a hole into his soul. He held the deed in his very left hand and raised his right all the way up to heaven. What is it that makes man so grand in nature and yet still manages to hold his fragility in his eyes? His poker face didn’t last for long as his eyes rampaged against his sword. ‘Alas, O Greatest King of Heaven.’, said the boy. ‘I am but a fragment of the soil’. The boy waltzed across the lobby and stole an orange from the butler’s cart. ‘I’ll eat them all, one by one, and feed the hunger in my heart’, said the fragment. ‘I do vow to change the world.’ Then clawed onto the souvenirs in his mind and left them lying on the floor. Stomped over them, smashing them into little pieces of glass; a mosaic bullshit beauty, a crystal clear enunciation of pain. He panicked, dropped to his knees, and threw up as he crawled up his own skin carrying those pieces he’s made with his own cursed mind. He dropped one piece at a time, leaving behind a trail that he can challenge to ignore, choosing to believe that the amorous void that he’s left behind can so easily forget. Smitten by Thor, he raged against the tides of the waters rising in his eyes. ‘O Prince of Denmark, I have been’, staggered the toddler through the words as he vowed to paint a lovelier picture using the wits that oozed from his sword. Believing he’s indeed worthy of said grace he solved the jigsaw on the floor and rushed into yet another fax room leaving a red trail he’s left before. Let it rain, he said, as he pulled that mightily dark Excalibur from his destiny and plunged its sharpness into his heart.

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Where it all boils down…

And the Gmail inbox’s still empty. I have 1227 spam emails in my spam folder. From the corporate point of view, I must be popular. Most of the days, I only receive email notifications about new comments on my blog. I hardly ever receive new emails from friends. My “updated” contact list has five people on it and they’re usually offline.

My cyber days are running out.

No. I don’t think I mind.

On my computer hard disk I have a folder, and inside that folder I have another 13 folders. Each folder has a certain project that I’ve wanted to do, write, or plain whatever.

There’s another folder saved somewhere with all the info that I would need for that Euro trip that I’ve been planning for the past four years.

That’s all that I seem to have been doing for the past 6000 years; PLANNING.

Have I become an all talk and no walk kind of guy?

I’d like to think differently, but I haven’t been cut a break in a really long time that I’m beginning to wonder if such a notion still exists.

My weekends have become less interesting than the rest of the week. Something interesting always happens at work.

If someone asked you to describe what a dead end looked like from the point of view of a six year old, you’d probably picture a tall red brick wall that you can’t break. A couple strokes of dark colored oil to add a little darkness into the frame. You’d also picture something fancy behind it, but you don’t really know what it is.

You tell yourself that maybe with time that wall would cut you some slack, fall apart or melt… even though you know for sure that it won’t.

There’s a video file on my computer titled 1.mpg. I’ve had that file there for the past four months. Nope. I have no idea what’s on that video. Not really sure if I ever want to find out. It’s one of those fake mysteries you throw into your life to try and spice it up a little. I know that in the end I’ll just delete the damn file and move on… even though its existence has an unexplainable bliss to it.

The silly things we believe in…

Just like that silly break you’re waiting for.

Oh well…

It’s a no brainer really. Everything is. You’re either just too proud or too damn stupid to notice it.

If only I could close my eyes and make it all disappear, make them all vanish. If only I had a magic eraser that I can use to block out their words, wipe out their faces. Maybe I’d add a silly mustache here and there just to add a little comedy to it.

If only I could black out, pretend it’s not even there… that’s it’s all been a bad dream.

But it’s not.

I could always look back and wonder what if things were different… five years ago, six years ahead, 9 years in the past.

When is the “right time”?

What is the “right time”?

Define “right”.

Is it a direction or a merely just a point of view?

I wonder if the notion of righteousness was so obvious, why is the world in such the devastating state it is in today.

I’ll quote one of my favorite sayings that goes…

لولا قشرة الحضارة لكنت التهمتك

Why do we follow instead of lead? Why do we listen to them? Why do we even care? Why do they think they know better? I thought I was the egoistic one.

I keep thinking that I’m doing the “right” thing.

Why the pressure?

The pressure’s gotten too damn hard that gravity is incomparable, that trees can’t emerge from underneath the ground. The pressure’s too hard I don’t even want to think.

That pressure? It could have broken that red brick wall. But instead it chose to stay still and push me further away from every sense of logic.

I hate to admit it… but I just don’t know what to think. I’m tired of listening. I’m tired of thinking. I need a vacation.

Maybe I should use that wall to build me a temple.

Maybe I just don’t fit.

I’ll just pack up my rage and walk away… air quoting myself just to be able to feel a little special.

I’ll just look up… and wait.

Friday, August 03, 2007

Analyze this..

During the last couple of days I attended a course about Strategic selling techniques… whatever that means. They flew a Scotsman all the way down from the USA, paid him 10,000 LE per attendee. The course was held at City Stars Intercontinental Hotel.

It was a three batch course. The total attendees equaled 90.

( 90 X 10000 = 900,000 LE )

The first day, the man spent about four hours talking about how the snooze button is pointless, how singing in the shower makes a better day for a person, and how it’s always healthy to talk to oneself in a mirror.

I fail to remember how the rest of the day went.

At the end of the course, they gave us a CD that explains some strategic whatever techniques and a balloon.

There was, however, an interesting exercise on self definition. The object of the exercise was to find out the kind of person you are.

Self definition is such a big word in my very thin dictionary.

There are four personalities, said the transparent slide; the expressive, the driver, the amiable, and the analytical.

As it turned out, out of 30 people, I and some other stranger were the only Analyticals. I don’t know it that means that I’m better or worse than the rest of the jaw clamped flock. I don’t know if it just means that they all cheated on their answers the same way most of us cheat on cheap self definition quizzes found in cheap magazines.

All I know is that I’m supposed to be the kind that doesn’t do well with human beings, hate touching, prefer emails over face to face contacts… and well, it also said that we, the Analyticals, invented desks in order to avoid hugging and shaking hands.

Whatever… don’t you just hate it when some Freudian manipulative twit thinks that they know you just by asking you five irrelevant questions?

I mean, I don’t even know me.

They all gave me the look. I always give the ‘I don’t care’ look to the ceiling, which was quite ravishing I must say.

That chandelier made my day.

I let go of a balloon attached to my chair and watched it hit the chandelier and make a big boom.

It freaked them out. I loved it.







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