About Me.

Sometimes I make love to Thom Yorke.

زيارات عشتار

لا أفقه كثيرا فى الطب النفسى... ولكنه مهنتى التى أجبرت عليها وورثتها أبا عن جد... لا أشعر بشئ تجاه أى من زوارى المرضى... ولا أشعر بالشفقة... فى ما عدا واحدة...

تزورنى عشتار حوالى ثلاث مرات شهريا... تدخل من باب مكتبى وتنظر الى سريعا وتحيينى... ولكن لا تحيينى بيدها.... تجلس على الكرسى أمامى وتنظر الى الأرض من خلال شباك سيقانها... أحيانا تشعل سيجارة... ومعظم الوقت لا تبكى... تشكو عشتار من حياتها العاطفية... والجنسية... تشكو من الوحدة ومن الاحباطات التى تنهال عليها...

تجبرنى عشتار على أن ابتكر لها حلول ونصائح فى كل زيارة لها... وأشعر أنها تعلم أنى أغير منها أحيانا وأحبها أحيانا أخرى... منذ اسبوعين أعلنت لى عشتار كم حبها لموسيقى جو كوكر... فنصتحها فى أن لا تخلع قبعتها أبدا...

أما هذه المرة... فنصحتها أن تستمر فى ارتداء نظاراتها...

:)

Push Thy Glasses.

Mothers wear glasses. They can’t formulate full sentences either. Thus, the mother walks on the school’s playground with steady steps, as if her high heels don’t sink in the sand or anything. She is too impatient and bothered about why she had to go pick up her daughter, who was detained, for reasons that weren’t revealed on the phone.

Mrs. Madelene also wears glasses. She can formulate long full sentences, for she is the English teacher. Her sentences are grammatically correct too. Mrs. Madelene isn’t as fashionable as the lady with the steady steps walking on the playground who is approaching her. Mrs. Madelene usually pushes up her glasses with her middle finger.

The daughter doesn’t wear glasses. She doesn’t formulate sentences at all. She has hair of equal length and no waves. She has straight lips with no curvatures or smiles. She also has blank eyes that blink mechanically. The daughter sits in a room not so far from the playground, and bets Mrs. Madelene is pushing up her glasses using her middle finger.

The English teacher smiles at the mother. The mother returns the smile coldly. Time seems to stroll slower and slower to the mother, as Madelene starts speaking of weird issues that the mother doesn’t seem to comprehend at all. Weird issues include her daughter’s odd behavior, isolation, silence, insecurities, skepticism and a whole lot of other words that only English teachers say and understand.

Daughters don’t speak to mothers, especially fashionable mothers. There is something about a fashionable mother that turns off the tongue of a little girl, as if it’s a locked door that has a “Do Not Disturb” sign. Fashionable mothers pity English teachers with vast sweaters and short manly hair. They constantly steal looks at their watches in presence of them, teachers.

Mrs. Madelene may be an English teacher, but she still is smart. She spots the mother’s boredom and impatience towards their conversation. She may be an English teacher, but she oddly has temper. She scolded the mother in a rough tone about how she should spend more time talking to her daughter versus her hairdresser.

Fashionable mothers are mean and weak. After demeaning Mrs. Madelene and taking her daughter into the car, she thinks about what the teacher told her. It doesn’t make much difference if the mother screwed the teacher over; she still knew she had a point.

“But nobody wants to play with me…” the daughter replied, as she pushed her mother’s glasses up her nose using her middle finger.


Drawing by Bashir M. Wagih

Prisoners don`t make love.

There are doors. Doors usually have knobs, sometimes a glass window that is not so see-through. Some doors have only knobs from the outside, those are prison doors. Prison doors usually have an opening at the bottom that closes and opens also from the outside. Prisoners cocoon behind prison doors. Prisoners sometimes sit, sometimes pee in a rusty stinky toilet that is in the very same cell. The toilet doesn’t have a mirror hanging somewhere near it. Prisoners sometimes sleep like embryos, sometimes they graffiti using their scratchy finger nails. Prisoners don’t make love. They don’t wear watches. They definitely don’t know what day is today either. Free citizens make love. Free citizens plan vacations. Free citizens save money for their phone bill to have romantic phone calls at night. They pity prisoners. Prisoners pity them back. Prisoners don’t want to be free citizens and they don’t want to hear anything about their activities.

There are prison personnel. Prison personnel have gruff voices. They have big bellies. Prison personnel use very bad vocabulary. They slip plates through the openings at the bottom of prison doors for the prisoners. Prisoners never want those plates, but the opening only opens from the outside as previously mentioned. The plates are persistent. Plates will contain news about American elections. They will tell prisoners about Sarah Palin’s new sex toys and the phone number of her hairdresser. Prisoners don’t have hair. The plates tell prisoners that, a 100-years later, it is 1929 all over again. The plates will tell prisoners, who do not eat, that they will starve and their families will starve and their children, yet to come, will starve too. Prisoners don’t make love. Plates are honest; they will tell prisoners they look ugly, old and cocooned. Prisoners never have a mirror. Prisoners never understand why they are forced their plates each day… for all they need is to sleep like embryos.

Prisoners pretend to sleep like embryos, hoping plates will grow empty.

1- "If I go down the street to buy a pack of smokes..."

There are a lot of things that I hear and I really think how much I want to be put in a situation where I can say such utterances. This "Put On My Lips" series focuses on this list.

1- "If I go down the street to buy a pack of smokes, I'll walk into nine men you've fucked."

The Boondock Saints.

Sanity is easy.

I am the sanest person that you're going to meet. Yes, I tell you, my sanity is something that people sets examples with... all the time. It's true, if you don't believe me go ask anybody we both know, I can give you my parents' numbers too. Everyone enjoys my company, they like it when I speak and when I listen, everyone loves my jokes, I always have a large table with a lot of booze, laughs and people. The people are never the same each year, but it doesn't matter. I have a few flaws - but again, they are made up for by my big table. I mean, it's not a big deal if I cry all the time, is it? Today, I cried when I listened to Massive Attack's "Live With Me". I also cried when I watched the court scene from Kramer Vs. Kramer when Meryl Streep was asked if she thought she was a failure at the most important relationship she ever had. My blanket had cherries, hearts and flowers drawn on it, so I cried. My mother cooked then asked me how I was, so I cried. My father told me that the door porter's son died this morning, so I corrected him and said "you mean the little girl?", he nodded, so I cried. In the elevator, on my desk, in the bathroom, in Aldo - the Korba branch, during conference calls to the United Kingdom and the United States... I am a crying devotee. Sometimes, I am on my way to meet people - who love it when I speak and love it when I listen - but my parents decide to go out as well, so I make a few phone calls pretending I am sick and nauseatic and can't make it to my big table, yes the one with a lot of booze and laughs... so that I can stay home alone and cry. I mean, one wouldn't waste such a chance of uninterrupted crying, would they?

It's easier to win. It's easier to be a healthy woman, with a bright face, shining eyes, expensive perfume and well-done hair. It's also very feasible to lead a healthy relationship, one that's full of big tables that are full of people and laughs, the sounds of cheek kisses, cell phones declaring the arrival of late night messages and choosing the same plate off two different menus. Again, it's a lot easier to smile in photos and to choose to answer your cell phone. Easy to remember the names of the actors rather than the director and easy to have your picture taken rather than take somebody's. I mean, isn't it very easy to call up a friend and blabber thoughts and complaints instead of sending letters to yourself? It's easier to befriend popular women whose photos come up in magazines with a caption saying "ياسمين وميار والجميلات" rather than the girl at the back. The capability to laugh at weakness, that's a piece of cake too, in addition to making fun and public ridicule. It's easier to hate Radiohead and Anathema. Impressing people and having them yearn for the next time they meet you, is also very easy. It's a favored easy thing to make fun of addicts and women and people who are biased-against without any second thoughts. It's easier to go mainstream, to be liked and loved and favored and yearned for. It's easier to be a hero, to be a slave to drama, to make a god out of Ledger because he overdosed... I am a loser - but still the sanest person you're ever going to meet.

Murk inside, murk outside.

“I am supposed to act like they aren’t here, assuming there is a ‘they’ at all. It may just be my imagination. Whatever it is, that’s watching… it’s not human. Unlike little dark-eyed Donna, it doesn’t ever blink. What does a scanner see? Into the head? Down into the heart? Does it see into me – into us – clearly or darkly? I hope it sees clearly because I can any longer see into myself. I see only murk. I hope for everyone’s sake the scanners do better. Because if the scanner sees only darkly, the way I do, then I’m cursed… and cursed again… and I’ll only wind up dead this way… knowing very little… and getting that little fragment… wrong… too.”


A Scanner Darkly - Philip K. Dick