Prolific Immigrant

that believing in God is the first step to becoming a killer, en masse.

I would add: on many levels, this particular line of thinking seems the natural route for those who possess neither the strength of character nor the bravery to look inside and ask themselves what it is that makes us behave the way we do, because whether we like it or not, how we interpret is an extension of how we behave.

The way we view the world is the way we interact with it and how we position ourselves within it with respect to ourselves as well as others. More precisely, it is this interpretation which denotes what we expect to receive from ‘this world’ – and this reality one can see most clearly in those whose trump card is the martyr card.(1)

It’s easier to say ‘I blame you‘ rather than facing, understanding and ultimately changing ‘my culpability’. What better way to eschew responsibility than to pin it on belief in the Almighty? Funny that, because pinning the blame on even the idea of His existence renders it necessary that others believe in Him; because for the likes of those who would carry the above belief, they would be lost if they had nothing to rage against. A fine line if ever there was one.

Baby Jane was giving me ‘directions’ as thus: “Go South – that means down the hill, towards a clock tower, Maha – blablabla” because she knows that directions confuse me to no end, especially when people get all technical and start using big words like North and West.

In preparation for the weekend, we were emailing back and forth lines such as: “YAY!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!! Less than 24 hours and I get to see your beautiful face!”

“Just come up to the building, say ‘Baby Jane’, I will hear you and I will come running to see your gorgeous face!”

“I LOVE YOU!”

“I LOVE YOU MORE!”

“love,
lame-o”

“You mean, love,
wonderful-o”

Pretty strange sh*t, I know. But Baby Jane is the only female in whose lap I could put my head, have her play with my hair and be completely comfortable. Furthermore, she’s the only one of my exquisite friends who I have actually tucked into bed, and whose hair I’ve stroked until she fell asleep because she’d had a rough day. No one questioned her when saying “Maha is the best person to play with your hair! It’s how I got to sleep!”

She’s also the only one with whom I share a strange affection for poutine, with chili powder and a little mayo. (You did read that right.)

Anyway, I’m excited for this weekend both because I get to hang out with such a spectacular woman, but also because I also get to hang out with her mum, whose coming over tonight in order to get caught up. Janey’s mama is a first class woman who shares my Crack fetish and who raised Janey with the rule “no boys on the second floor”, as well as all of the proper lady-like guidelines of etiquette pertaining to hosting, guest-ing and general “tips and tricks every woman should know”.

When Janey first moved to Toronto, she was living at home with mama in the heart of Toronto – we would breakfast every morning on the little iron patio that sat off the kitchen and which overlooked the massive backyard, and the drop off into nothing but green. There are only a few such places in the centre of Toronto, this being one of them. Mama always had a full breakfast and a pot of coffee at the ready for us.

As for Toronto itself, I’ve not been back since a relatively psychotic weekend of partying in September of 2005 at the Toronto International Film Festival. The night Janey and I were together was the night we met Morgan Freeman and LL Cool J, the night I found out that Dylan McDermott was a little short, the evening I hung out with Kim Coates and made fun of people, as well as the first evening I was petitioned to be the third to a threesome and laughed so hard at the proposition that the retarded and likely disease-filled couple thought I was crying.(1)

We’ll see what happens this weekend…but before I go, I strongly recommend you download the acoustic version of “You’ve Placed A Chill In My Heart” because Annie is a queen.

Have a warm and shiny weekend!
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(1) Update: Janey and I are both convinced this is false and that I have, in fact, been back to Toronto since 2005. The only thing of which we’re certain is that it wasn’t in 2007. Strange, how our collective memory sucks.

I get really excited about buying gifts for people – the same sort of excitement and happiness I receive when making and sending care-packages to people I love.

At minimum, I’ll spend a complete month (or more) trying to figure out what to buy someone, making certain that it not only is a reflection of their taste, but also my love for them and the strength of our relationship.

I drive all over the city, haunt the internet, order from eBay, elbow old ladies to get the last one, hide at the back of antique shops, rummage through the attics of strangers…and then get things engraved. I have very rarely only given one item as a gift, but rather several items that complete a puzzle and a message, each piece having had hours of thought and care placed into it.

Among my most prized gift gives was a photo album Dianna and I made for Natasha while we were in Scotland. She had desperately wanted to join us, but simply could not and so we created a sign that read: We love you and can’t wait to see you in Scotland, Tash! Random (and varied) Scots folk carried the sign and we photographed them – we had pictures of the elderly, infants, sheep, priests, actors, girls, queens, boys, families and statues holding the sign. When I gave her the photo album and the sign, she cried.

Then I cried.

Then one of our a**hole friends took a photo that Tash later added to the photo album itself.

For these same sentiments, I am quite nearly jumping out of my skin because of a particular gift I have found for one of my dearest and most cherished friends. I can’t even hint at it because they’ll know what it is as soon as I post anything.

Enough to say THAT it is an antique that I stumbled upon and that is the perfect reflection of who they are. It is for Janey, who has just purchased a new home and I fly out tomorrow to visit and along with a birthday gift that I still haven’t purchased, I had to buy a house warming gift – a part of the house warming gift is this antique treasure which I’ve just found, the other part consisting of a slew of items I’ve been collecting for the past month and setting aside for the occasion.

I’m totally psyched, and I promise to post photos as soon as I can.

Aside: Best gift received, for me, was the graduation ring that Baba gave me when we decided to restart our relationship.

…filled with a lot of coffee, many bagels & cream cheese, Indian cuisine, Thai cuisine, seven movies, late night conversations and late day sleep-ins. My friend’s new apartment is gorgeous and I am super dooper proud.

My favourite pictures from the weekend are:

Cactus

Barbazoo

Maha, night before, trying to move far away from my friend who was taking a photo that at its original range, would have allowed you to see quite clearly up my nose

Maha, morning after, wearing what has amounted to The World’s Most Comfortable Woolen Sweater

Breakfast While Writing

I was barred from internet access all weekend, and I’m grateful for it.
(No. My friend doesn’t want pictures of them posted.)

Aside: Even though you’ve enjoyed the photo stream as of late (thank you for the emails), I haven’t had a moment to really sit down and write anything substantial because I’ve been so busy and I only have 28 hours in my day. I’m flying out of here on Friday for another long weekend, so I’m aiming to post something substantial before then.

(Sumaira: I just got off the phone with Amanda. Your comment was funny.)

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

- Albert Einstein

…and the days of my life as of late have been drops of golden miracles.

A part of these golden droplets is that I’ll be in a few different locations (in North America; overseas is next month, Inshallah) over the coming weekends, so I’ll be sending you random postcards from wherever life takes me.

I chose Moroccan and Russian, because they are the crème de la crème and if I am to emulate any hooker, it would be a combination of the two. My family would be proud.

The following are what Major & Homer call ‘Glam’ Shots and it scares me they are both aware of this terminology…but I actually sort of dig the pictures as I don’t usually go beyond mascara and kohl – and in these pictures, I’ve actually got a little eyeshadow on (hence the SuperTrash appeal).

Fiery: I am, once again, and to your great sorrow, wearing leggings. Let me tell you, my friend, the leggings with that black/grey mini dress and my red Mary-Jane Crack work as a show-stopper. I plan on living in the outfit until my a** hangs around the back of my knees and my children force them off me.

This picture I’m adding for good measure because of the sheer size of my head. When compared to that of beautiful quaint little Sarah, my over-sized head is comical and Godzilla like. It’s huge, just huge, look (I call this shot ‘Big Head Maha’:

You can stalk our week of photos by visiting The Collection here. (Major took a ton of photos of my Crack – while I was wearing the different ones – and I should have them soon enough. And by ‘soon enough’ Major Time, I assume in the next 12 months.)

This is pretty cool…cool enough to be on this ultra cool blog where only the coolest of cool reside.

Apparently, I’m not the norm, for whom she spins anti-clockwise. So, for the retarded, that means I see her spinning clockwise…and that means I am of the sort who:

uses feeling
“big picture” oriented
imagination rules
symbols and images
present and future
philosophy & religion
can “get it” (i.e. meaning)
believes
appreciates
spatial perception
knows object function
fantasy based
presents possibilities
impetuous
risk taking

Hallelujah, ameen. I don’t think I’d want it any other way – although I love you and appreciate your left brained wisdom, my precious little Ranoon.

Have fun!

Where I am looking at these two precious things:

Nora May

& Trenty (who when I pointed my phone at him gave me this face)

We’re about to have dinner & I hope you’ve all had a good weekend…

You’re about to get insight into male-to-male conversations between brothers who love each other to death.

Disclaimer:: The following are some seriously crass quotes that are not the norm, but are funny and jaw-dropping enough that I really must post them. As all of my girls can attest, these young men don’t speak like this anywhere but when they’re together…

Disclaimer no 2: The following is by no means a fair representation of the boys. Remember that these are the same boys who, two nights back, made me a huge glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and filled it with honey because I was starting to get a scratchy throat. They came into my room and placed it on next to my bed and then woke me to tell me to drink it throughout the night before kissing me on the forehead and leaving.

Enjoy!

“Good morning.”
“Hey man.”
“Oh. Uhm…did I mention? My d*ck’s bigger than yours.”

“Dude. I’m totally gonna steal all of your wives.”
“I don’t plan on getting’ married.”
“That’s ‘cus you’re a little b*tch.”

“That girl’s SO hot.”
“She forgot to put her pants on.”
“I think she likes me, too, man. She winked at me when I opened the door.”
“She’s just being nice to a retard.”

“That’s bullsh*t, there’s no way you would’ve partied with Ragheb then. You would’ve been 13.”
“Dude. I’ve had fake I.D. since I was 13.”
“Whatever.”
“Major, I was 18 before you were 16, man.”
“Shut up”
“Ha ha. You’re such a little goodie-goodie. Go back to mama, man.”
“Shut up.”

“How can you not think Eva Mendes is hot?”
“She looks like a man.”
“She’s gorgeous.”
“That’s ‘cus you don’t know what a real woman looks like.”
“Shut up.”
“Dude. You wouldn’t know real p*ssy if it slapped you across the face.”

“I was thinkin’ about opening a t*tty bar. Is it haram? I mean, I’m not doing the stripping.”
“Well. There’s no surrah that says: ‘Thou shalt not open a t*tty bar’, but I’m pretty sure you can deduce that the answer is ‘Yea, it’s haram.”
“Damn. I was hoping I could get away on the technicality.”

Strange boys.

Every once in a while I am approached in a very strange and unusual manner not befitting the telling in a blog of this sort. A rule I’m throwing out right now.

Like the one time I went jogging – a very unusual activity, indeed – and came back to the apartment looking like sh*t with my face as red as a baboon’s a*s, my hair a mess and wearing sweats. I stepped into the elevator and The PIG! inside stared at me, through my clothes and into my skin for the duration of the ride. I stared back, with my meanest ‘Oh yeah?’ and then ran out of the elevator as soon as the doors opened. On the wrong floor.

And then another time when I used to hang at this one particular cappuccino bar and drink at least four lattes a day. It was owned by an Italian family who adored me. I knew a couple of the girls that worked there but I never bothered with the boys because they were boys and I had books to read.

The family liked me a lot (teaching me to say many Italian things such as: ‘mi estomica mi fa mallay’ but not correctly spelling it) and so when one of their regular customers stopped showing up, and avoided the subject around me, I suspected something was amiss. I later found out that it was because the owner overheard him saying: “I’d like her to wrap that mouth around my YOUknowWHAT” only he didn’t say YOUknowWHAT, he used the word that starts with a ‘c’ and ends much like a dock.

(Obviously: ‘Fellatio’ wasn’t among the words the Italian family did teach me.)

Which leads me to earlier today when I was hanging out quietly waiting for my bus, minding my own business and staring down at my new Crack, with much admiration and still a little surprise at their beauty. I may have been mumbling to myself, but that’s only because the battery on my iPod died and I needed company.

Anyway, I looked up and noticed a man of no more than 5′ in a yellow khaki suit, black shoes, olive green trench coat, large sunglasses, much hair gel and a gigantic pimp-like cross (hello, Jesus) studded with diamonds and covering half of his petite unmanly torso.

The reason I was able to tag so much of how he looked is because I was blinded and surprised by the combination of hair gel and diamond studs, that I stared in awe and confusion, tilting my head to the side like a basset hound.

As he approached, I noticed he was heading directly at me – this, I could have confirmed had it not been for the glare emanating from him, like a disco ball. I may have also been a little taken aback by his smallness and obvious Passion For The Christ and yellow khaki.

Right before he would have smashed into me, he shimmied his short stubby legs a little to my left and grazed 2/3 of me because of his shortness. As he did this, he whispered: “Nice mouth to suck on”.(1)

He was so close, I felt his breath; A powerful gust considering his smallness.

Because I’d already been lulled by his overall presentation, I didn’t know what had happened in time for me to say anything like YOU’RE TINY.
or
YUCK YOU! JESUS WOULDN’T APPROVE! AND. YOU’RE TIIIIII-NEEEE.
(That’s right: I wrote ‘Yuck You’.)

When it had sunk in, I was physically revolted that The Trolling PIG! had a moment where he pictured my mouth in any position apart from ‘speaking’ and ‘laughing’.

So next you’re in downtown Ottawa and you see a PIG!gy troll that fits the above description please yell ‘YUCK YOU!’ on my behalf and then tell me all about it. If you’re near a hose, fell free to hose him down and see if he shrinks any more.

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(1) I once had someone whisper a simple ‘You have beautiful lips’ a few hours after I met him and that was acceptable. Nay, it was downright sexy and made my heart jump into my brain and then back into my little toe and then way back into my funny bone. But he’s a Fox. (Peekaboo!)