I think that I’ve already used that title before. Not sure. Don’t care.
I’m not a big fan of the French language, but the truth is, I do find it appealing at times… and of all the words in the language… I find comme ci, comme ça to be my favorite phrase.

Don’t ask me why. The word just expresses a haunting mood of mine in a very… sautéed manner.
It says so much about everything.

Yesterday… someone mailed me a present. Four packs of Lipton Caramel Vanilla tea attached to a lovely note, a funny little wink, and a captivating story to tell. I keep looking at the packs… and I’m all speechless.
How could I be such a ranter on my blog and yet… they manage to steal away my words, I wonder?
Thank you, love.

I have changed for a better me; that I know… short time… short notice. Am I ready for this? Am I prepared? Why did I use the word ‘fear’? Isn’t fear as a word supposed to be accompanied by the actual feeling of being afraid? Why am I confident about this even though we’re clashing?
Why does my mind feel at ease? How did I manage to finally ignite the flames?
This is all new to me. Do forgive my silliness.

I’m not a hypocrite, but I’m also not easy. I have my own little world developed in my head; my own little private party with ghouls and warlocks and angels and demons all floating around waiting for me to decide on what music to be played.
The truth is… I can’t decide. I’m a cross of them all.

I am not easy. Would you be willing to bear with me, with my doubts… with my assumptions…
With my tastes of music?

Would you be willing to dig into my dark mine?
The truth is… I don’t know what you’d find…
Would you open that door, to join me on my own ride? My head has got its own highway, its own music…
Its very own wind of change.

I can’t promise anything…

I am my very own comme ci, comme ça, tauntlessly.

Here’s another piece of the truth... I can’t speak French. I can only speak Arabic and English. I can say Je ne parle pas Français and Iuo non Capisco L’Italiano.
I am a fan of catchy phrases that sound enchanting to the ears though.

Care to join my private party?
Care to learn my own language… my language that I clearly don’t always understand myself?

He carefully listened to the ticking of time and prayed to God for life to freeze. He wished for life to be one of those pictures that brought him reason to wish more and more he was a digital camera so he could capture her in his heart. If only he could be the water rushing down her throat to feel the heart that so deserves… so deserves.

He willfully ignored his stubborn instincts and prayed for once that he would be right.
The question of ‘Could simplicity finally exist?’ ceased dwelling in his head as he said another prayer for that moment to stay. The bare need for something simple to happen has drained his soul dry.

Deep down, he knew that their connection wasn’t based on wires and a satellite signal. Deep down he knew there was a lot more to it, like two souls lingering in the dark searching for a hand that brings them hope and makes them feel found.
He held the burning stub between his fingers and watched the smoke vanish as there was nothing else left to burn. He knew it was time to let go, but he couldn’t.
He knew that by the time the smoke went down, that beauty would end as he’d shut his body away from the voice that changed his tone and played perfect tunes, tunes that he never knew existed. The truth is that he would set the world on fire if there was a slight chance that in doing so she’d stay, that in doing so the smoke would twist an eternal smile…
but he couldn’t.

He could only pray for the pictures to evanesce through his lens into a beam of light that makes it all real. He could only wait for a miracle to reverse her digital presence into his life and through his walls so he could see her… so he could tell her…

He wanted to tell her that nothing else matters… that he would gladly grab a sledgehammer and break down his high and mighty walls to let her in.
He wanted to touch her hand and tell her ‘I do exist, my love’.

‘Are you as real as my heart feels?’, he asked, fearing the answer that would forever change his life.

He held his sword up high to challenge the stars and kicked the gravel as he walked the earth. With a plan on his mind and a shadow to follow, he couldn’t help but stumble over the fear growing in his heart. Like weed, fear grew into his newly adopted garden that love has brought to his home. He wasn’t ready. He never was. He feared that at some point, it would shake his being and bring him to his knees. He had faith in many things… His sword brought peace at night to his empty heart.
Then like the tides of the blue seas, his stillness shattered as the big wave brought his heart unfamiliarity to his mighty sword.
Time shifting into a pseudo ice age of freeze, he prayed to the God he trusted to keep them both, that blessing and that curse. Labeling has never been so confusing.

Then the world stood still and the only thing that moved was his heart pumping red confusion into his cluttered brain. He couldn’t breathe as his lungs begged his nose to sniff some more and begged his mouth to stop preaching… and just survive. It was like the air was sucked out by something cruel. He couldn’t see anymore. The only light was that of the moon, reflecting over a sword on the floor casting many rays over the whites of his eyes.

He looked at his Fossil chronograph time machine only to realize that he was too early. With the hours hand missing, he could only count the minutes. He could only wait with his best friend, the curse of patience that was handed over by the gods upstairs; the gods who gave him the power to wait for a thousand years, but failed to give him one missing hand for his watch.

But as he grew he only became certain that he didn’t want to tell time anymore. He didn’t want to feel late. He knew that only like this, frozen, will he ever possess the wild and untamed nature of hope.

And so he waited for thousands of minutes staring at the face of his one armed watch, the face that he now knows better than his own…

waiting for something to change his life forever.

Brace yourselves, ladies and gents… following is a preview of a daily event in the life of a banker…

I am not a fan of routine, even if it comes with praise or money. I don’t see myself as a material person. I like… change… excitement. Sometimes I want excitement so bad that I would allow it to happen at my expense. Bad news is still news.
No… it’s not gossip.
It’s all about seeking the rush.
The rush that sneaks in through your spine right before you close a hard deal.
The rush that comes right after you’ve been audited clean.

One of the many banker secrets is the fact that at every branch of a bank, there has to be an employee who’s “talented”; and by talented… I am referring to forging signatures.
I don’t know if a person’s born with it or if it’s merely something acquired with the job. It only took me one year to adopt the “talent”. Most customers don’t even care if you do forge their signatures… just as long as you don’t say it out loud… just as long as you don’t ask them to drive all the way back to the bank to sign a piece of routine.

Today… I noticed that one could so tell a client’s character from their signature. Usually complex signatures state a clear warning as to NOT FUCK WITH that client. Cursive signatures I love; they usually belong to a female, usually down to earth. People who just write their names are simple, easy… they don’t ask too many questions.
People who just write their names but in English… are usually the easiest at being sold to.

I never forge my own applications though. My clients never leave the premises before I check that everything is in place. Perhaps that’s why I’ve become popular among my clients.
Too many happy clients can be a curse sometimes though. They keep coming back for more.

Nevertheless, today I realized that all signatures look alike.

At the end of the day, the client goes to sleep believing that he owns a piece of the bank, a piece of that banker he met today…

The banker goes to sleep knowing that the client’s money is inside his vault… that the client’s signature is at the palm of his hand.

I’ve been listening to theories lately; many, many theories. I’m the listening type. When encountering a serious conversation, I tend to shut up and listen to what the others have to say; call it an indirect survey without consent of the other party, a search for a better something. Contrary to what my Zodiac sign implies, I like to learn more about theories, personal judgments, and ideas of other people… The will to change to a better person always exists within me.
To tell you the truth, I don’t like what I’ve been hearing. I don’t believe that we’re heading to a better place in this country, a better global standing. Ah eshta, our FIFA/Coca Cola ranking has probably increased to the twenty something’s position… but is that as far as we aspire?
Aspire… I love that word!

Aspire: To long for something great.

Is it a crime to be practical, to aim for a better place in the world?
Being an absolute cynic can’t possibly be a sin if you’re passionate, can it?
I don’t like complaining and whining and bitching… but if I don’t do it here, I could fucking kill somebody.
God bless Blogger.
(The Google guys should fucking pay me for this… Link me up you fools!!)

According to Carl Schmidt, a political theorist who was born in 1888, in order to have a society you must have the image of an enemy’.

If only I could stand in the middle of Ramses square and shout… Wake the fuck up!!
They say that the main difference between the Americans and the Japanese is that when there’s a fuck up, the Americans spend their time looking for someone to blame, whereas the Japs gather up to find a solution.
E7na ba2a… We don’t see the enemy. We don’t see a solution. We don’t see a problem. We barely even exist. We open our eyes but we’re not really awake, we go to work, gossip, throw in a couple of “ma3lesh” and “bokra”, pack our stuff at 2 pm if you’re a public goat or at 5 pm if you’re a private sector slave, go home, eat, watch melody hits or art 7ekayat, go to sleep. We go out to gossip a bit more 3ala a3det sheesha during the weekends and have sex until we have babies… and then that’s it… we’re back to masturbation.
To us, Hope is a porn star’s name… and Aspiration ba2a… oh well.

The truth is… we are the fuck up.

I’ll quote a friend whose words dug deep who said ‘Allah yer7am zaman lamma kan youm 7aflet Omm Kalthoum el shaware3 tefda wel nas tenzel be bedal te7dar el 7afla’.
Today El 7antour wel 3enab are the core soundtrack of our refined culture.

I aspire for a better Egypt. I long for something great to happen to this country.

How long are we going to endure this extreme denial phase?

Do you think I enjoy this?
Do you find this blog page depressing?
Should I take the jukebox off?
If you tend to disagree with me, why even bother to come back here?

Amshy walla a3od? :)

Egypt covers 1,001,449 square kilometers of land. Divide that over 80 million people and each of us gets 12518 m² of land.
Give me my share and I’ll declare myself king over my own world and shut the fuck up.

الحمدلله على كل شيء

Back in 1998, when our national team won the African Cup of Nations, I was a huge soccer fan. I lost interest.
Do they really deserve my attention and absolute loyalty?
I’d like to think not.
Oh well…

I know… I should be proud that we’ve won today, even if it was a narrow win. But for how long will we have to endure that narrow escape?

Ever noticed that the flag of Egypt only rises during international soccer matches? Ever noticed that only after winning a match (over an African adversary usually), that we hang our flags proudly out of our humble balconies?
When has soccer become our happiness scale?
Why do we base our political stand on soccer, strictly?
How do we find union in matches and why are we otherwise individuals?
Do we find nothing more important to cheer for, unite for?
Do you think that I whine a lot for no reason whatsoever?
Well…3ala ra2y a friend of mine… khally el Masreyeen yefra7o.

Wanna know a secret?
I slept through the whole thing…
But don’t tell anyone.
They’d probably hang me for treason.

Do you want me to be proud?
Khalas khalas… I’m proud.
Now go pee around the bush and let me sleep.

x ² + y² = r²
The definition of the word circle is a series ending where it began, esp. when perpetually repeated; cycle: the circle of the year.

And guess who the Circle of the Year award goes to?

Another engagement party… my cousin’s. I didn’t want to go. I hate weddings and I hate engagement parties (no, I don’t hate everything). I keep disapproving things in my head. I keep telling myself if this was my engagement, I would do this… and I would not do that.
I also keep forgetting that this is not my engagement party. That my mind should shut up and stop judging.

Why judge when you’re not even sure who you are or what you’re like?

I walked into the hall and realized that my towel was already on the floor. This… is a lost cause, I thought. My uncles and aunts kept asking me to pick one of the girl’s friends to be my future Mrs. Raven. Is it really that simple? What if I don’t like any of them? Do I still have to choose?
Do I have to compromise in order to grow into a man? What if I don’t want to?
What if I want to, only I’m that selfish?
Do you think I’m evil?

I threw my half smile into the ring of people sitting around me. They exchanging small talk about banking specifically designed to please my surviving ego. Their attempts to break my silence only made me more arrogant and subtle.

Why do people find it tempting to revaluate their lives at wedding and engagement parties?

Someone told me once that its only wise to change, develop the way you think, your perspectives and points of view once every year. Reprioritize, revaluate, re-approximate…
Re-do yourself… Adapt to the changing world.
Find an empty crack in the system and pour your molten self into it.
Fit… can be the right word.

But what if you keep doing that, only to find yourself, ten years later, back to your original state of mind? Like your ten years younger reflection has revolved around a bigger sun and returned a decade later with only bitterness and spite.
What if your “development” lifted you back to where it all began, your square one, your primary ideology?
What if all the questions you’ve answered and buried came back to haunt you?

Whether you should major in Business or Accounting?
Whether you should study acting or directing?
This twin or that one? Ketchup or mustard? Egypt or Canada?
Short skirts or 7ijab?
Whether you want to get promoted or quit?
Masr walla Zambia?
To be or fucking not?

What if you were right from the very beginning?

A circle is also defined as the ring of a circus…

A perfect one, sketched with my bare mind; like I was born to be an engineer.