NYC this day (10 things to note, +1)

Please Note: I am typing directly into blogger. The following is likely filled with grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. Please forgive…I am exhausted. xo

.1. Breakfast was a cob salad without the bacon. I drowned myself in Le Pain Quotidienne’s lattes because they were so good.

.2. I purchased a book here.

.3. Noticed that LG’s new advertisement campaign for Scarlett TVs has a grammatical error in it; their tag is “…bla…bla…Scarlett TV’s”. Morons.

.4. NYC men are pretty awesome. Two conversations of note:

(a) I was crossing the street when a relatively attractive dude nearly fell into me while roller blading.
“I almost fell in the right direction there…”
“hee hee.”
“ha ha.”
(silence and he rolls away, then turns around and rolls back toward me)
“Can I invite you to my art show?”
“Sure…but I’m only here until Sunday…”
“Where are you from?”
“Canada.”
“Well then why don’t I give you all of my info – maybe this’ll be the romance that spans somethingOrOtherIDidn’tReallyHear…”
“tee hee.”
“SomethingElseSaidThatICan’tRemember.”
“I’ll definitely pop by and see your work.”
“The gallery it’s at is great, too.”
“Well then I’ll make certain to go…”
…and I plan on doing just that tomorrow, Inshallah. Find Patrick Collins’ art here, please.

Update to add: I went to the gallery and checked out his work. Cool stuff.

Aside: I will never ever see Patrick again and that was a quickity split conversation on the side of the street but still: how can you not love that Alpha in some men? The men who just go for it? The men who see something and just: GO. For. IT. Love it when a man does that.

Determination and strength are sexy. A man who knows what he wants is a fox. (I’m not saying this is Patrick, I’m just talking in general random terms here, folks…)

(b) Some well dressed but much too old dude stopped me as I was about to cross the street and head into Karim Rachid’s shop (dude’s a fellow Carleton grad, so I am obligated to support him).
“You are Italiano.”
“No.”
“You are not Italiano?”
“No.”
“Yesssss. You must be Italiano – you are much too beautiful not to be Itali-.”
“I’m Palestinian.”
“Palestinian? What is? Hmmmm. Where is Pales-.”
“I’m a Middle Easterner.”
“Palestinian? You model?”
“No.”
“You should model. Palestinian?”
“MIDDLE. EAST.”
“You are EGYPTIAN?”
“NO!”
“Me? I design special clothing for Scoop. You know Scoop?”
“Yes. I have to go. I’m late.”
“I want you to model for me.”
“I use my brain to make my money…but thank you, anyway. BYE!”
“We use our brain too in my industry. We are full of smart people! Ha ha! You are too beautiful to use your brain, anyway.”
“Smart? Like you? Like you who doesn’t know PALESTINE, you creepy f*cknut? I don’t know if I’d call that smart. Tee hee heeeee.”
And I bolted across the street but not before he’d handed me his business card. Weird and random.

.5. I saw War, Inc.

(You will laugh. You will be sick. You will be sad. Most importantly, you will be enraged.)

War, Inc is about life for sale. It is about the branding of Government, military, religion, relationships and the pornification of the ‘female’. Every single thing is up for sale. I’m not going to say any more about this film except that you need to get your asses in motion and get to a theater as soon as possible. Support this film in any and all ways you can. (Before the film started, I was standing outside and taking photos – three people approached me and asked me why. I fished; They came into the film with me.) I’ll be writing a piece on it and so I won’t give you anything more. You’ll have to wait until the article is complete and published at Rabble to read it.

P.S. Joan Cusack is a fk’n RockStar of gigantic proportion. I want to take that woman out for a drink and tell her all of my tales.
P.S. Marisa Tomei is a beauty as she has a face untouched by botox.

.6. I gave this man all of the cash I had.

.7. I ate a pretzel.

.8. We hung out at Bryant Park with the assumption that there was going to be Opera In The Park. I was completely stoked to sing along…until we found out that we were in the wrong park.

Instead, we took stupid pictures.

.9. We splashed past Rockefeller Plaza.

.10. Ate dinner at La Lanterna in George Washington Square.

.10+1. And finally ran home through the pouring rain. We were soaked and satiated.

Oooh. Politix. Yummy scrumptious wet dripping politics.

John Cusack’s War, Inc CrackSpace has posted one of my political pieces here as their most recent blog entry.

I am humbled that they think enough of my writing to post it alongside the likes of Naomi Klein. I am so uncharacteristically speechless. Scroll down and look at my spaztic comment about my own article – no one knows I wrote it but Nick / Yvonne / John and YOU. (Now you finally know my last name; forgive the coy?)

(Artists are smart folk, yo! )

Have you told people about War, Inc? Have you friended War, Inc on CrackSpace? What about CrackBook? They will not e-reject you. Promise!

GODSPEED! SAVE DARKIE, SAVE WHITIE, SAVE THE WORLD! YALLA!

Men and *That* Woman

So I’ve received some interesting emails from both men and women since posting the blurb that: “(Did you know that men are the ones who fall in love at first sight? It’s not actually women, but rather men who will tell you that from the very first moment they saw her, spoke to her, watched her walk up a set of steps, handed her a coffee over the counter, etc ad infinitum, they know that she’s the one they want to marry. It’s men, not women, who are the eternal romantics (this, not to be confused with a woman’s inclination to romance in the form of flowers and candles.))” (This info I picked up at least a year ago in a men’s magazine but can’t remember which. Apologies.)

People want an explanation and so I am going to pretend I know what I’m talking about. Bare with me as I write in generalizations and from my own experience and observation, please.

(1) A man who needs to be convinced that the woman he’s with is the woman he should stay with is a man who will either: (a) Eventually leave that woman; or, (b) Marry that woman and never feel completely fulfilled.

(2) I have yet to hear a man declare: “I’m ready for commitment” while being single. (Lest they are relatively religious and are actively seeking the covenant of marriage.) Whereas almost every single woman I know has said at one point or another: “I am ready for a family / commitment / marriage / children”.

I do believe – and this is my opinion – that a man is only ever ready for commitment the moment he meets the woman he wants to commit to. And so when that woman comes into his life, she does – usually unknowingly – change things about his life (& ain’t no man changin’ if he don’t want to – otherwise, he’s not much of a man…at least not in my books). She becomes the catalyst for everything else and so it would seem relatively normal and logical that that individual is romanticised.

A lot of women are rooted in romanticizing the situation, rather than the individual. Marriage, commitment, children, family. They sound good to most, and so it is the situation that drives the desire in this case. We tend to romanticise the situation whereas men tend to romanticise the individual. Perhaps this is why a woman’s inclination is toward the visual romantic (such as candles) whereas the man’s focus is on the woman (read: sex) and his connection to her. (Please understand I’m not here discussing a random booty call, but rather the very real connection yearned for when two people come together; in men it’s the driver. And yes it is also a driver for women, perhaps even a stronger driver for women; we just deal with it differently. Again, it doesn’t matter if we’re built that way or if we’re conditioned to believe we are that way. The point is, it is a reality, so perhaps to clarify, I will say that sex is a part of the human condition. It is a part of all drivers. There. Happy?)

I’m sure that someone out there can tie the above to the way men are raised / born. Aggression and risk taking are drivers for them; when they see something they want, they go after it and think about the consequences later. Same could be said when they set their sites on a woman they want for life, from the moment they see her.

Q: Why would an Alpha ever let the ‘perfect’ woman get away?
A: He’s a Beta.

Or…all of the above could be pure bullshit. You decide.

The Secret Lives of Churches: Muslims Gone Wild

Proof that a Muslimah can be inside of a Church without catching Hell fire.

Someone tell McBush, STAT.

My new favourite word

“Shredded”.

I am using it at random times for fun and to freak people out. The most fantastic usage to date is: “My arms are shredded because of boxing” because they’re not. They’re merely toned and yet saying that they’re “shredded” elicits the same facial expression as the one brought forth when a size 22 tells you they’re a size 10.

It’s the gigantic elephant in the room and people are scared to go near it lest it crush them with its big bum. It’s fun to watch.

“Shredded”, as in: My arms.

P.S. YAZO – I am going to create an “ATHLETE” category just for your beautiful self. HiGHFiVE!

Shawn & Kelly (Part 1, 2 & 3 of 4)

You all know Shawn, who I have mentioned on numerous occasions as ‘S’.

Shawn and I have a rare sort of friendship. I don’t believe that beyond a certain age, men and women can be friends. I do believe – that for the most part – in order for us to be close friends, there needs to be a certain level of attraction that exists, and so friendship in its purest form as it exists between two straight women (for example) can never be attained between a man and a woman. Or so is my experience because men always fall in love with me due to my never ending charming.

Shawn is unique.
Shawn and I fell for one another’s friendship immediately and without hesitation and our friendship was based on the trading of secrets (our own, not those of others).

He has offered support when I least expected it and talked me through the most obscure, surreal and craziest moments. He has also always offered an honest and sincere interest in and support of my life. Even though it should go without saying, I will write it anyway: the last two sentences are dittoed on my end.

Understand that Shawn has a special place in my life…and on Saturday he was married.

Part 1: The Wedding
Shawn met a beautiful and sparkly girl named Kelly.
Shawn and Kelly fell in love.
Shawn and Kelly got married…because that’s what folks do when they want to adventure together for an extended period of time. Or so is the case, in my world, shared by the likes of Shawn and Kelly.

My heart nearly exploded through my chest when I walked up to the church and saw him standing in his tuxedo, I was so happy – a word that falls so short of what I actually experienced.

(My heart also nearly exploded because I was wearing a shade of sl*t red entering into a church while others were in subdued hues of brown, black, blue and grey. Hurrah for D who showed up in the same – entirely unplanned – shade of red a wee bit later.)

Not surprisingly for a girl who cries when she sees any act of kindness, I cry at weddings.
On Saturday, I cried a lot, and for two reasons.

The first was because it was in a Church.
I am a Muslimah and so I heart Jesus (as well as Moses and the rest). Consequently, it fills me with unbelievable amounts of warm and fuzzy when I see people standing / sitting before a priest, sheikh or a rabbi and entering into this very ‘covenant’ before God.

There was an incredible moment when the priest mentioned the etymology of the word ‘sacrifice’ and how it is sacrifice and forgiveness that make a relationship work. Sacrifice is rooted in the Latin concept to come together, and so when entering into a union of this sort, sacrifice (a word that too many frown upon) is the key to unifying as one, rather than existing as two solitudes and feigning unity. (Remember that. Also remember that our worth is measured not by our ability to remain a single unyielding entity, but rather how we enrich, improve, challenge to make better the lives of everyone in our path. You did not become so great had it not been for the sacrifices made on your behalf; so always work to return the favour to the universe (so long as you’re not going against your moral code, obviously).)

But I digress.
I still remember Shawn sitting across from me in the fall of 2006 and telling me about Kelly, who he’d already fallen in love with. (Did you know that men are the ones who fall in love at first sight? It’s not actually women, but rather men who will tell you that from the very first moment they saw her, spoke to her, watched her walk up a set of steps, handed her a coffee over the counter, etc ad infinitum, they know that she’s the one they want to marry. It’s men, not women, who are the eternal romantics (this, not to be confused with a woman’s inclination to romance in the form of flowers and candles.))

Needless to say, Kelly’s an easy girl to fall in love with because she’s of the rare few who seem to have an endless amount of love to give, leaving others to wonder how such a tiny chest cavity can hold a heart so big.

Shawn didn’t merely fall in love with her, but rather he fell into a state of adoring her. Seeing this so clearly and in such palpable manner was the second reason I cried more so than usual.

I heard it in Shawn’s voice two years ago and I saw it all over his face on Saturday. What a pleasure it was to be witness to what may very well be the key to ‘ever’ after.

Part 2: The Party
Too much to tell you, and I’ve already told you the most important part.

Let me say that I danced with three wonderful folks, one of whom I will discuss in the following section. First, though, and perhaps most importantly, is that Shawn’s mom and dad taught me how to jive dance.

They had the patience to teach me how to jive dance!! I couldn’t believe my luck – I was so excited and kept tripping at first, throwing my hand up at all the wrong moments, but still keeping the beat and so they kept at it with me.

I can now – sort of – jive dance. I need a little practice, but I appreciate that they took the time to graciously waste on me.

(A little note on Shawn’s family, just so you understand the sort of creativity that exists in their world: Shawn is adopted and in order for the mama and the papa to teach Shawn about that, his mum created a story book about their lives and how they found Shawn. Mama and papa were bears, and Shawn was a penguin brought into their family. I will forever think of Shawn’s mom as The Penguin Lady whose sense of imagination I love.)

Part 3: Salt
I’ve mentioned previously that Shawn is a writer with several Hollywood scripts already under his belt.

A while back, Shawn started telling me about “Max and his amazing family”, with whom Shawn was working on a new project. Whenever Shawn mentioned Max, he lit up with energy and admiration and an overall sense of awe. When discussing Max’s family, I could almost touch how much Shawn’s come to love them, most definitely how grateful he is for their presence in his life.

Max is 27 years old with cystic fibrosis. His beautiful beautiful sister also has CF.

I must admit that before I met Max, I’d not known anyone with CF. I will also admit that I had a deep misunderstanding about what CF does and how it affects those who have it. Max pretty much shattered every misconception I had of this disease and I spent the better part of yesterday grilling my med school cousin about CF.

Please learn more about Cystic Fibrosis and consider supporting a foundation in your local area. Also, please read about and get to know the labour of love that is Salt, borne between Shawn and Max McGuire. (I will provide more info on Salt as it becomes available.)

For all of my blogging brothers and sisters, please consider placing a link to Salt’s home. (Shukran.)

Part 4 is forthcoming; the day in pretty pictures, happy faces and a lot of red lipstick.

Three honourary mentions:
(1) Folks were trying to guess where I was from – behind my back – until Shawn told me.
(2) I fell in love with all of Shawn’s uncles, the Riopelle men, one of whom provided one of the three greatest lines of the evening: “How can the Jews be fighting your kind when all they need to do is look over the fence and see that Palestinian girls look like you?! WHY ARE YOU SINGLE??”
(3) The other two “greatest lines” of the evening belong to Kevin, the best man, who started the evening’s hilarities with his speech as follows: “Fornication! Oh. Uh. Sorry, I tend to speak too quickly when I’m nervous. Let me try that again: For an occasion…“
& ended our night with this goodbye to me: “When I saw you coming towards the church in your red dress, I thought ‘holy shit! I’ve forgotten everything Freud’s taught me! All of that therapy down the drains. Damn!” (Because, really: What more could a girl ask for, yes?)

The Black T-Shirt

I have a crunch on something. Note that it is not a ‘one’, but rather a ‘thing’. That ‘thing’ is in fact WhiteBrook Boxing. I have a crunch on the whole concept and delivery of WhiteBrook Boxing.

I get my ass to class two times a week, excitedly. I look forward to the challenge and my mantra has become ‘mind over body’; often times, I find myself whispering it repeatedly when in class in order to conquer the feeling of either nausea or passing out. It works.

More importantly, I admire and respect my coaches and want them to be proud of how far I’ve come – because trust me when I tell you that I’ve come far. (And I’m only at the beginning of my game and plan on going a lot further.)

When the above is combined with the fact that I am a geek, I immediately want to have everything affiliated with WBK. I want one of all of their paraphernalia and I want to wear it proudly…like, for example, all of their t-shirts.

This inherent geek need has brought me to a cross roads.

See, the reality is that I own two of their three t-shirts; one is the perfect shade of blue-based red (worn to Krav Maga) while the other is a perfect shade of heather grey.

That’s two.
When there are three.
The third is the one to which I have no access.
It is the one which haunts my dreams. The one which drove me to an OK Corral stand off in the girls’ change room on Tuesday evening.
It is WBK’s: Sexy black t, the back of which declares rather proudly something like “boxing for enhanced sport performance because I’m an ‘athlete’ and you’re not nyah-nyah, LOSER!“.

The only people allowed to have this t-shirt are: Athletes.

I am not an Athlete, ergo: I can not have the sexy black t.

My wardrobe will forever be wanting because my family didn’t put me into competitive futbol.
Are you fumbling through this injustice with me?

For clarity, let me offer:

ath·lete, [ath-leet]
–noun
a person trained or gifted in exercises or contests involving physical agility, stamina, or strength; a participant in a sport, exercise, or game requiring physical skill.

WBK trains the NFL boys who slide a puck across frozen water, and they also train Gee-Gees (what is a Gee Gee, anyway? GO CARLETON!) who trip and bump into each other ON PURPOSE while they run short girly distances (you call it ‘football’. Tomehto. Tomawto.).

When I was told the t was only for athletes, I accepted this reality and openly acknowledged that I would pursue the only option available to me: I would date either a Gee-Gee or an NFL person in a covert effort to “borrow” their black WBK t-shirt and then never give it back. Simple, yes?

Well. Simple until Tuesday evening came to pass when I was in the girls’ change room because they threw me out of the boys’ change room after class and lo-and-behold, in walked a girl wearing a black t-shirt meant only for “athletes”. I considered Krav Maga’ing her into submission and stealing the t-shirt, but figured that she’d come after me. Instead, I stared at her wide eyed wondering what sort of athlete she was before finally asking:

“Are you an ‘athlete’?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You? You’re an athlete?”
“Well. I play a lot of sports…”
“I don’t care about that. Are you an athlete?”
“Are you oh-kay?”
“I just. You know. I’m wondering because you’re wearing a t-shirt that only athletes are supposed to wear so I’m wondering what kind of athlete you are and if you’re not one then who are you dating and does he have a friend that is also an ‘athlete’ and who I can date and I’m a little hungry and dehydrated right now after class I see pink dots are you? I want your t-shirt but I’m not an athlete. I’m just a Palestinian and although I can probably throw a rock better than you, I don’t think that qualifies me as an athlete and SO I am not really technically allowed to OWN the black t-shirt and because I’ve been told I need to meet a certain criteria to have it I see that as a challenge and so now I WANT THE T-SHIRT SO HOW DID YOU GET IT WATER! WATER! WATER! SOS! PLEASE!”
“Wow.”
“You don’t want to tell me!”
“WOW.”
“All you ‘athletes’ are the same. Be gone with you and your elitist tight assed perspective on life. ENOUGH!”

…only it was actually: “Uhm. Hi. I like your shirt. What do you do? Did I mention I really like your shirt. A lot. It’s a nice shade of black.” (Really creepy since I was wearing a towel and standing too close for comfort to the nice lady.)

So there you have it. I don’t really know what “it” is, but that sounds like the appropriate thing to say after the hysterical ‘conversation’ I had in my own mind.

THERE. YOU. HAVE. IT.

I have to become an athlete. And I will – whatever that actually means, I WILL. Because no one loves a challenge more than me…and I want the black t-shirt. I will have the black t-shirt even if it takes me 10 years to get it. I will have it; trust me. And I won’t even date a weirdly labelled boy to do it – I’m just going to become an ‘athlete’. Somehow, and by any means necessary, I will become: “a person trained or gifted in exercises or contests involving physical agility, stamina, or strength”.

If McBush can be a presidential hopeful, I can be an athlete.
OLYMPICS HERE I COME. Or…at least…like, the local high school track.
Team sports I LOATHE YOU but I will conquer you if I must.

I will do this even though I don’t have a clue where to begin!

I will have the black t-shirt and my wardrobe will be complete.
I heart WBK paraphernalia!

(Will keep you posted on my endeavours.)

War, Inc

I don’t have a clue how to work myspace, but hopefully you do and you will be able to do something with this link.

John Cusack’s latest and greatest is War, Inc. and it is, from its attempted (& failed) murder by Those Who Would Have You Never Know to the brilliant and shiny reviews of Those Who You Should Be Getting In Bed With…sounding rather spectacular.

Please support it any way you can; it’s these sorts of challenges to the status quo that require our attention.

And if anyone does know how to work myspace, please let me know what the hell I’m supposed to do in order to become an official myspace supporter of War, Inc.

(I like to go here in order to find out in which manner Iraq and it’s folks are being screwed on any given day.

And remember:

Vote McBush, y’all!
Keepin’ Whities strong and darkies screwed.
Your natural resources Whitie’s Mine All Mine.
Praise his Jesus!
Vote McBush!
*Insert pompoms and back flips and fists in the air and up your bum, Darkie! and short skirts over blonde McBush*
YAY!
HURRAH!
GO RICH WHITIE GETTIN’ RICHER & HILLBILLIER!

And finally, honestly and with deep sincerity:

May Allah indeed bless America by giving it back to those who would uphold the values that should be cherished, the freedoms that should be protected and the rights that are owed to all and not merely a few.

Support War, Inc.
Tell your friends.)

K

Most of you should remember K of “M & K”, inspiration for A Home Can Not Be Built on the Table of an Architect.

Before your day is over, please send her your best energy.

(It’s nothing serious, but still warranted.)

Comments here are closed.

Q after Q

“how to tell if you’ve had a boy or a girl”
If it has a peen, it’s a boy.
If it doesn’t, it’s a girl.
If it looks dumb, it’s definitely yours.

“fuck in arabic”
We usually call it: The Terrorist Jab.

“Gerard Butler dates black women?!!”
GO MCCAIN!

“fell backwards knee was bent and sat on leg”
For $800, What is a poorly performed yoga move?

“angelina jolie crotch dropper”
That would be Bradley Pitt.

“female ass and legs”
No head, please.

“what is a canuck”
It’s a duck.

“kinky things to do in london”
…as opposed to the kinky things one does…in other parts of the world, of course.

“recurring dreams of driving from back seat”
You must learn to cede control, immediately.

“can i the lyrics to the child of glass frere jacques songs”
You can to do it any which way to whom it may be possible just ask the moron trying to figure out if he had the boy or of the girl baby above.