Category Archives: All-Star Crackstar Squad

So you catalog in the angle you notice/in a vacuum you recharge to record this

All-Star Crackstar Squad, Blogistan and the Wide World of Webs

Orange opening: Somedays, I have hella good timing
Gelato! (Back to business), originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

Wandering around aimlessly in downtown one day, I stopped by one of my favorite little shops, only to see the following sign on its door: UNOPEN. Which is a hell of a lot better than the deliberate finality of Closed, you know? UNOPEN means, We’re taking a little break, but we’re not gone, don’t worry! A return is imminent, within the next 5 minutes, or later in the day, or tomorrow, or in two weeks, who knows, but rest assured, we’ll be back! And that’s exactly how I’ve felt about this website over the last few months – except for the fact that I never talk about myself in the plural.

I can’t believe it’s been nearly four months since there has been a new post here. “Update your goddamn blog,” demanded HijabMan at the end of May. Several of you have left lovely comments exhorting me to update. In mid-July, I was watching a poetry slam in downtown San Jose when HMan called to inform me I was GROUNDED for not updating this website in over two months and “may you never taste a blue slurpee again.” Nearly every other day, the sister says, “DUDE! Update!” Even the blogistanis on flickr and facebook are getting into the swing of things. My excuse has been that I’m “too busy with work and livin’ it up.”

Hashim, one of my favorite flickr rockstars, doesn’t understand the point of weblogs. I tried to address his question as well as I could. Contrary to what my four-months absence may have made you think, I lowve blogistan, and although my flickr response seemed to focus more on the functionality of blogging, it’s the community I love the most. I didn’t spend five days on the East Coast for the “Newunion007” for nothing, you know. [Stories about that coming soon, too.]

Madelyne of Persisting Stars, whom I actually first met through flickr, wrote too many undeserved nice things about me recently, and made me realize how much I missed the blogging community. So, I thought I should come back to this little space of mine to share my stories, silly and mundane as they often are.

So. What do you what to know? Mainly, it’s been a summer of hellos and goodbyes and hanging-out sessions in the sunshine. I once wrote the following about my lovely friend, H:

H#4 (I have too many friends with “H” and “S” names. I swear I’m going to start numbering them like this) tried to talk me out of skipping class one day by grimly informing me that, based on her calculations, each time I skip one lecture, I am wasting $25 of that quarter’s tuition. My friends are such engineering nerds, can you tell?

Now, H – my official Eating & Napping Buddy – has left for graduate school in New York state. When we got too scared talking about how cold NY will be in the winter, I comforted her by saying, “Don’t worry, buddy boy. We’ll all come stalk you!” She will hold me to it, though: Over dinner at her home, the night before she left, we laughed about the two photo albums I had brought for her (a birthday/going away gift, filled with hundreds of photographs from the last several years; “You’ve documented my entire college career in here!” said H. “This is the best birthday present ever!”), and nicknames (“It’s so funny to hear you call her Yasmine,” H said to her parents. “Why, what do you call her?” they asked. “I call her ‘Yaz,'” she replied, then added hastily, “But you’re not allowed to call her that.” “Why not?” “Because only my yaars call me that,” I drawled), and my propensity for photographing food (“Yaz even takes pictures of french fries!” H told her parents). I ate three servings of fish, and two of potatoes, and one bowl of soup; when her father urged me to add some white pepper, his favorite, to my soup, H said, “Try it! It’s so good!”

“I bet you’re going to miss it when you’re in New York,” I said smugly.

“No, I won’t. You’ll bring it for me when you come visit.”

And that was the theme of the evening: “If all my sweaters don’t fit in my suitcase, you can bring them when you come visit.” “When you bring some oranges from your tree over for my parents, make sure you bring a few extra ones for me to New York.” “Oh, those photos you forgot to print out? Don’t worry, you can bring them with you when you visit me.”

I miss her, and those afternoons in college when I would climb the stairs to her apartment and sprawl on her couch, studying biology and physics while she pored over engineering notes, laughing as she pulled one tupperware container after another out of her fridge and freezer and demanded, “What do you want for lunch? Let’s eat!” We watched daytime TV (psycho soap opera dramas), traded music CDs, dozed off and took naps on that comfy couch. H gave me so many HIGHFIVEs that summer, as I passed one neurobiology quiz after another, much to my amazement and my friends’ collective refrains, I TOLD you, you could do it! Now I’m the one sending her highfives through GMail chat, as her status messages update us on negotiations with her landlord and newfound internet connections and settling into her apartment.

A left just a few days ago, too, back to Jeddah after a decade of school and work and play in the U.S. I’m going to miss his voicemessages, all of them with some variation of: “Hey, cracker. I know you’re a busy lady, but call me back!” I called him the other evening to say goodbye, since he is one of the few people with whom I enjoy having lengthy phone conversations [the others are pretty much Somayya and 2Scoops]. “Come visit!” he said.

“Saudi? Sure,” I said sarcastically.

“No, I really mean it!” he said. “When you come for Hajj. My sister lives in Mecca. And we have family in Medina, too. Stay with us. We’ll take care of you.”

“Lookit you all, A, taking over the WORLD!” I laughed. And although I’d rather stay close to the haram while on Hajj, it was a sweet offer and much appreciated, thoroughly in character with what I’ve come to expect from A, who is sort of the big brother I never had.

We always laugh about how we first met – last fall at the ISNA convention in Chicago, where he was tabling and translating at Haji Noor Deen‘s booth. I struck up conversation with A while waiting in line for the Haji to pen some calligraphy with my sister’s name, then lost patience with A as he kept mispronouncing her name. Finally, I grabbed a pen and scribbled it in Urdu/Arabic on a sheet of paper. “It’s like this, see?”

“That’s what I said,” he replied blandly – before repeating it incorrectly all over again.

The next afternoon, I saluted A on my way to stalk HijabMan at his booth, then backtracked for some conversation with A. “Long day,” he commented tiredly, then shrugged in that quintessential way he has. “But it’s okay. My friend and I will be hanging out in downtown this evening.”

“ME, TOO!” I exclaimed, all excited. “I’m going to a poetry slam with my friends. You should come with!” And that is how A and his buddy T became my new favorite friends.

Over dinner that evening, our lively conversation faltered into silence as B rapped the table and called out, “Okay, we need introductions! How does everyone here know each other?”

The silence was deafening, as we all looked around in confusion. “Uhh,” I said. “Well. I guess it revolves around me? I work with B. D is my jummah-buddy, and H is her friend from San Francisco. And these two guys…” I paused. “Well, I don’t really know them. But I invited them to the poetry slam in downtown Chicago. The one that WE ARE MISSING because you were all so damn hungry, THANKS A LOT.”

Even a year later, after ISNA2006 and hanging-out sessions in both San Francisco and New York and mile-long, reply-to-all “ISNA buddies” email threads and incessant text-messaging, none of us have forgotten the the fact that we missed a poetry slam in favor of “fine dining” on Devon. I have made sure they are periodically reminded of this. Okay, maybe constantly.

But even amidst all the goodbyes, there are friends still here. D, my favorite swing buddy from college, is now in the Bay for graduate school, and I’m looking forward to our future hanging-out sessions at the park.

And J, the one whom 2Scoops had said sounded a little bit like Malcolm X when I wrote about our interview, is in the Bay now for grad school as well, so I foresee an expanded circle of South Bay shenanigans.

And then, my phone vibrated the other evening with a call I hadn’t expected. I stared at the screen in astonishment, then flipped open the phone to shout my friend’s full name: “K____ A____, is that YOU?!” K is one of my favorite ex-coworkers from our old downtown Sacramento job, sort of another little brother to me, and it felt so good to hear him laughing at the other end of the line: “It’s me! How are you, buddy?” It’d been a long time, and I felt surprised and honored that he called me of his own volition. Scrolling through my phone again just now, I found three text messages I had saved from K:

1. [“Happy new year” in Farsi. At least, that’s what I think it is:] Eyde noruz mobarak. Omidvaram sale khubo khoshi dashte bashid.
2. “Hey, G is organizing a fashion show. Call her and bug her to be in it!”
3. “Hey, how is everything? Long time no see. By the way, give me back my hole puncher that I stole!”

Clearly, we will never tire of conversations about office supplies.

It’s been a summer of rockstars and reunions, as you can see. I shall have to tell you all about them.

Meanwhile, I’m back! SweepTheSunshine is OPEN for business, buddy boys.

[+]

NOTE: I will be in Chicago (for ISNA, naturally) over Labor Day weekend. You guys were not happy campers when I neglected to tell you last year, so I hope this is enough advance notice. If you want to hang out, let me know! [My email address is on the About page.] I foresee a Newunion, Part Two, to be had, since I’m coordinating hanging-out sessions with blogistan buddies and flickr folks and all-around rockstar friends. So, if you want a ready-made entourage, get in touch. Maybe we can even manage to make it to the poetry slam this year.

Just give me moments/Not hours or days, just give me moments

(3)BeautifulThings, All-Star Crackstar Squad

Tomatillos at $1.99 per lb
My life is little things that make me happy – like tomatillos at $1.99 per lb.
Originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007 – Beautiful things: The mid-week edition

one: flickrphotos. I get to work, check my emails, and the first thing I find is a facebook message from my sister’s friend, which makes me laugh and pretty much makes my day.

two: hanging-out sessions! There will be dinner with the lovely A this Sunday, and a hanging-out session with rockstars in San Francisco the Sunday after that. And, even better, when I email 2Scoops with yet another small-world connection I have found which concerns him and our mutual friends (“So check this – this is a funny story [well, sort of, since I am easily amused]…”), he replies to say he will indeed be in the Bay soon, and ends with the best postscript ever: “Work is stinky and overrated and you need a break which we will be taking the week I’m there.” Yes! I foresee gelato in my near future.

three: touching base. I have not mentioned my friend H on this weblog in years, I believe. He was always part of what I called our “core group” while in college, but then he graduated the year before I did and returned home to Los Angeles, leaving behind those days of shuffling our belongings from table to table, trading batteries and CDs, sharing books and lecture notes, practicing Arabic calligraphy on white boards meant for neurobiology review. We initially remained in close contact, but lost touch in the last year and a half or so, after he settled back into life in LA and stopped returning our emails and phone calls. Then, last month, after I forwarded an email to “my favorite SoCal buddies,” he unexpectedly replied back with his new email address. I was elated, but, in my usual Yasminay way of doing things, never got around to emailing him back.

Today, H comes up again in a conversation I have with Somayya. “He couldn’t have changed,” I tell Somayya. “In that email he sent me last month, he still started off by calling me ya Yasminay.” It has always been one of my favorite things about H. “I’m disappointed in him,” she says, and I remember all those months when we were worried sick, not knowing where our friend was, and how to reach him. “I know,” I reply, but I also understand what it’s like to be disappointed in yourself, to distance yourself from those who know you until you feel you’ve made something of your life.

I sit down and email H back to say hello and catch up, and, as a pointed reminder, give him my cell phone number again. During the course of the day, I have two missed calls from him. The next morning, he calls again while I’m driving to work, and I answer the phone, laughing: “H, my friend! How goes the life, buddy?” Even now, years later, there is no one else I know who can say “Alhamdulillahhhhhh!” [All praise is for God] with such gratitude and enthusiasm as H does. I am so glad to have this friend back in my life, this young man who still speaks so quickly and punctuates his breathless sentences with the same familiar shout of laughter.

four: chapstick. I have just enough time after work to swing by Target and pick up a couple of my favorite Dr. Pepper-flavored chapsticks. Lip gloss is too much of a process sometimes, and I don’t believe in lipstick, so chapstick it is. I do believe in color, though, which is why I always buy the Dr. Pepper-flavored chapstick, which has a nice reddish tint to it. But I always peel off the blatant Dr. Pepper wrapper, otherwise I’d feel like a twelve year old. Still, I’m amused I’m not the only one who’s thought of this. Months ago, visiting my lovely Hindku-speaking buddy N one evening, we sat talking on her living room floor, and she stared at me when I pulled out my chapstick and quickly swiped it across my lips. “Where did you get that?” she asked, almost accusingly.

I stared back in bafflement. “Umm, from my bag?”

“Oh,” she said, relaxing, laughing. “It’s yours? I have those, too! I was so confused.”

five: citrus scents. Against my better judgment, I also stop by the earrings section at Target, but nothing catches my eye. So I buy citrus-scented perfume instead, because I love citrus-scented things, and I believe in smelling good, no matter what idiotic boys say. This one’s called Tuesday. What are people thinking, I wonder, when they decide to name perfumes after days of the week?

six: meditation. This one deserves a separate post of its own.

This is the “six degrees of separation” version of finding Yasmine online, when it should have only been one degree

All-Star Crackstar Squad, Blogistan and the Wide World of Webs, Links to love, Rockstar and Crescent

Trying to be difficult
Trying to be difficult at the Berkeley Marina, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz

Yesterday morning, I checked my emails and found the following facebook message from my sister’s friend and classmate (this makes her my friend by default, too, I think). S wrote:

hooooly, lardki!

omg omg omg, i just discovered your mad photo hobby. ummmm, what?? you take photos?? so i found this link to muslim-a-day photos, right?? and then i was like, hey, i want to do this! so i was reading up on the contributors, right??? and then i was like, hey there is a link to someone’s photos! so i clicked the link and it took me to yaznotjaz’s flickr photos.. and i was lookin at it and i saw a picture that said “today i am 8” and i was like.. hey, that looks like it was taken at the marina and then lo and behold there was another photo that was OBVIOUSLY the marina, and i was like, hey, this person knows berkeley. and then i clicked on a photo of the photographer’s reflection, and i was like, hey, that looks like… like… omg… i know that wardrobe. and then there was a comment that said, oh, there’s another picture of my face ish, and i clicked it and i was like, HEY THAT’S YASMINE ______!! HOLLLY!!! hahahahah… so i just wanted you to know that i got a pleasant surprise and it’s all your fault. :) and your photos are exceptionally beautiful. yeah.. i think i have not left anything out.. so
salaam alaikum !

Wasn’t that great? Yes, indeed it was. As I was telling S, I couldn’t stop laughing to myself all day.

This is also an apposite time to encourage you all to stop by Muslim-A-Day, which has stunning photographs every single day. The project, a brainchild of the ever-creative HijabMan, strives to keep ignorance away by “debunking the myth of a Muslim Monolith.” On the About page, he writes:

The main thrust of Muslim-A-Day is simply to show the multiple facets of Muslims’ lives. The best ideas always seem to be the simplest ones, don’t they? Here we are, you and I, presented each day with images of Muslims as the enemy… the veiled, bearded, mysterious enemy that worships a God named Allah.

That’s where Muslim-A-Day enters. Muslim-A-Day aims to provide you with a photograph of a Muslim everyday. Here, you’ll find Muslims in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Some have piercings, some wear the veil, some are clean shaven, some are even Malaysian (Imagine that!). They all believe in Al-lah. Literal translation? The [One] God.

When the opportunities presented themselves, I captured the faces that touched me. I love to witness the reflection of the Divine in all that I experience; I love to make you a witness by posting these photos.

I added one photo back in February (it was taken during the ISNA conference in Chicago, and originally uploaded here). I really need to get on the ball. While I get my life together and try to be more diligent in uploading photos to flickr and elsewhere, why don’t you add some of your own? Muslim-A-Day is always looking for contributors. Also, stop by the website and check out the beautiful photos and say hello to everyone else who lurks around there.

I hope my proposition to be your friend will not be an exemption

All-Star Crackstar Squad, Salaam Namaste

Is it just me, or is this sign disturbing?
“Not that I’m a handwriting expert or anything but that handwriting looks kinda needy,” originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

I came across the above Urdu sign last fall while wandering around with friends on the infamous-amongst-Desis Devon Street in Chicago. My buddy, Zana, calls the sign “dodgy.” The translation reads: “Girl needed for computer work.”

Speaking of dodginess, Somayya forwarded me the following email a couple of mornings ago, adding, without any prompting from my end, “You can certainly post this on your blog and we can all get a good laugh out of it. HAHA.” While she was sincerely confused as to how the…uhh, GIRL…got ahold of her email address, the note is hilarious, regardless. I present, unedited for your enjoyment, Vick from Russia:

Hi,

I got your contact from the cyberspace on my search for a sincere man who is marriage minded and have value for love and friendship and recognized the significant of having a good and sincere relationship, so I saw your profile on zackvision.com and decided to contact you and I hope my proposition to be your friend will not be an exemption.

Well I am Vick Mazur as you may know me and I am from Russia, which my father is from Russia and my mother is from Liberia but at present I live and work in the Republic of Benin in a Charity Organization but I am a very good girl from a good family, my hobbies are playing basketball, reading the bible, working hard and watching movies. I dislike people that lies and dishonest things, i am not too fat and not too thin, i am average in height, i do not smoke nor drink, white in complexion with blonde hair and a nice eye ball and i am also a easy going lady but i will leave that for you to to judge when we start this friendship and I hope you are satisfy with this little details about me and I will also pray to God to make our friendship last longer without regretting knowing each others.

Please I will like to stop for now, kindly tell me more about yourself, your profession and country so as to march one more step towards forever, honest and sincere friendship and I will send you my picture when I hear from you.

You can also reply me at my yahoo email address: [ ]

Yours truly,
Vick.

Does Josh have a job? Thanks for letting me know

All-Star Crackstar Squad

When I came in to work yesterday morning, I checked my personal emails and found this one – accidentally, I’m assuming, sent the evening before by an administrator from my alma mater, to the University’s pre-health sciences listserve, of which I’m still a member (yeah, don’t ask – I don’t know why, either):

Hi, P!

Hope you had a good time with Earlene and Dorothy–and that you made it back in one piece to CM :-) I didn’t hear a peep out of SV for my birthday, but just received a message that her car is not running well because they had to put chains on (what’s that about?) and that she doesn’t have money for food or rent. Sigh. And what to do. If I call, I will have to ask that question I’m not welcome to voice (“Does Josh have a job?”), so perhaps I’ll just wait a bit. BIG SIGH!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

My first reaction was, Holy freakin’ smoley, she is going to be SO FREAKIN’ EMBARRASSED when she realizes she sent this to the entire list! My second reaction was, YEAH! Does Josh have a JOB? Get with it, Josh! And, hey, what’s THAT about CHAINS, huh? And then I kept laughing to myself the rest of the morning. I was so amused by this hilarious start to the day, that I changed my GMail away message to the following:

It’s so funny when people send emails to the wrong recipients. TOO MUCH INFORMATION, kids!

A few hours later, as I was frantically preparing for an afternoon meeting, I clicked through my open firefox tabs and found a new email in my inbox, this time from blurker, erstwhile blogger, and fellow GMail user, Shaheen, with the subject line: “Friday night.” Her email read:

Hey Jasmine!

Just thought I’d let you know that I won’t be able to go out Friday night anymore. I have to take the kids this weekend; their father’s being a real jackass and saying he can’t look after them. He probably just has another playmate on the side to take to some fancy resort, again. I don’t know when the fuck he’s gonna quit that crap. I’m just glad I got out of it as soon as I did.

Anyways… I hope you have a great night without me. Don’t drink TOO much, and make sure you tell all the hotties about me too.

Your bitchin’ buddy,
Sandy.

It is a testament to my utter cluelessness that I spent about two minutes staring confusedly at my computer screen, wondering, Whaaaa…? Who was this supposed to go to? Who is this from again?! Maybe it IS a real email! And then I laughed my ass off and IMed Shaheen with, “SUTT PANJAA!” (except I misspelled it, and she thought I was saying, “SAAT PANJA,” which means “seven fives” or something).

Shaheen, I’m sorry you’re going through so much drama and turmoil with that jackass husband of yours, but we all know I need more drama in my life anyway, so at least I get to live vicariously through you. As soon as I get back from my night of binge drinking, I’ll be sure to lend you an emotional shoulder.

PS: I love Shaheen because she introduced me to “SUTT PUNJAAA!”, which is how the Punjabis say, “HIGHFIVE!” It literally translates to, “Throw a five!” Isn’t that great?! I think it is. (Almost as good as “Oopar/ooncha paanch!”, the Urdu version.)

I want to stay another season/see summer upon this sorry land

(3)BeautifulThings, All-Star Crackstar Squad, NineToFive outside the 925

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head
Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

The heat wasn’t working at the office today, which means I spent most of the day being aggravated about the cold and – of course – engaging in monologues with God about how much I disapprove of this winter business.

“It’s all in your head, Yasminay,” my father would say, but my father wasn’t the one who had to sit there with blue fingernails all day long, either. It’s enough to make a kid want to turn around and return home, even though it took said kid 1 hour and 40 minutes to get to work this morning. (Californians are idiots when it comes to driving in the rain, apparently.)

Leaving work at the end of the day, I stepped out the front door into the evening darkness and the first words out of my mouth upon seeing the pouring rain were, “Aw, f*ck.” Needless to say, I felt a severe dearth of things to be happy about today, but my earlier comment-gone-too-lengthy over on Chai’s “Three Appreciations” post forced me to rethink the gloominess. (It took far too long to brainstorm all this, though, trust me.)

Driving home too fast on roads that were too wet, blinded by inky-black asphalt and incessant rain, I turned up both the heat and the music and kept my eyes on the yellow line for guidance, smiling wryly as U2 sang, You got to get yourself together…

Here, then, unnumbered and expanded, is my list of rocking things about today, in spite of the freakin’ rain that makes me shake my fist at God:

Co-workers who make me laugh so much about pointless things that my stomach hurts and tears pour out of my eyes. We laughed about falafel, of all things. Falafel are funny.

New philosophy, stolen off the incomparable Z: “I like to call things I don’t wanna do ‘adventures,’ to make them suck less.”

Deciding that I am going to start bringing cocoa powder and milk into the office, so I can make myself hot chocolate while everyone else stands around drinking their (nasty!) tea. Also, this is just an excuse to warm up my hands on a hot mug. The co-worker Zee offered me tea today while making some for everyone else, and I just smirked and shook my head in refusal. “Yasmine doesn’t drink tea,” laughed B. “She only drinks cranbery juice, and eats doughnuts and candy and string cheese.”
“Hey, I bought some dried fruit from the grocery store yesterday,” I protested, but no one believed me.

Friends who check out my gmail status message [“every day is yasmine day”] and IM me with, “Happy Yasmine day!” Another variation:
J: “Yasmine day is today!”
Me: “Dude, what are you talking about, it’s EVERY DAY. Get with the program.”
J: “I didnt say it wasn’t everyday. I said it was today. Isn’t it today? And tomorrow I’d say it again.”

In conversation with a friend, I make a point and finish it off with my requisite threats of stabbing and an emphatic, “The end!”
He responds with, “To be continued,” and I can’t help but laugh: “I hate you, no one has ever waylaid my ‘the end’ line so well before.”

Jogging down to the end of the street to grab the umbrella from my car for a co-worker, I’m reminded of how much I miss running. No – how much I miss enjoying running. (Un)fortunately, I am no longer 12-17 years old; now, I’m ostensibly grown-up and I like who I’ve become, so I don’t have anything to run from anymore, myself included.

Male friends who can admit they have “boy crushes.”
Me, as a wholly rhetorical question: “How come I don’t have any boy crushes?”
MF, generously: “You can have some of mine.”

Trying to explain to the buddy Z where to locate the seat-warmer buttons in his car. Seat-warmers on a day like this? Freakin’ ROCKING. When I become dictator of the world, I will ensure that everyone has seat-warmers in their cars – and their very own personal blue raspberry slurpee machines, too. So, vote for me, kids – I might even have another discussion with God about the weather, while I’m at it.

Three things: The Halloween in GMail-chat edition

(3)BeautifulThings, All-Star Crackstar Squad

Colorful mobiles
Originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

I first got an inkling that Halloween this year was going to generate funny conversations when my buddy Z IMed me at the beginning of October with, “I’m gonna go as Ahmedinejad for Halloween.” Seriously, I didn’t even have a comeback to compete with that. In true Yasmine fashion, I believe my response was laughter and resounding approval: “ROCKING.”

The evening of Halloween, I got home from work at 8pm with a pounding headache, crawled onto the sofa with my favorite psychedelic-colored comfort blanket, and watched Dancing with the Stars and Boston Legal while eating Chinese leftovers from dinner with T and B the evening before. In between exchanging text messages with T – who was trying to convince me to 1. invest in orange flares and 2. visit the East Coast – I kept an attentive ear out for trick-or-treaters stopping by. (Un)fortunately, only about half a dozen kids showed up in total – since Casa420 [my home] is located on a narrow, winding, “scary” street, as I had been explaining to Z earlier in the day – which meant I ended up with lots of leftover Halloween candy. I’m not complaining. As the following conversations show, I’m a huge fan of free candy – and so are my friends, it seems.

GMail conversation with A, mid-October:

yasmine: i like halloween
yasmine: well, i like candy, so i jump at any chance to get free candy
A: same here
A: I once got into an argument with someone that Halloween is haram [forbidden/prohibited]
A: it was quite amusing
A: I don’t think they got the commercial aspect of free candy
yasmine: “HALLOVEEEN IS…BID’AH [religious innovation]!”
A: hahahaha
A: I was like, “you can make it halal [permissible]”
A: can dress up as your favourite Imam, that type of thing
A: “I’m Bukhari! I’m Bukhari!”
yasmine: that’s freakin’ hilarious
yasmine: i want to be al-ghazali, in that case
yasmine: al-ghazali was a ROCKSTAR
yasmine: mashaAllah
A: hahahahaha
A: yeah, I’m an idiot
A: needless to say, haven’t spoken to that person again
A: they started telling me about how it’s all so paganistic
yasmine: oh yeah, i bet
yasmine: they probably think you’re all haraam now
yasmine: vat a BLASPHEMER!
A: and then I told them about the days of the week in the Julian calendar
A: and how they’re based on pagan gods

A’s GMail status on October 31st: “Halloween mubarak!”

yasmine: so, are you dressed as your favorite imam?
A: no, not at all
A: I kinda went the other route!
yasmine: hahaha and what would that be?
A: I dressed up as a devil
yasmine: what’re you wearing, exactly?
A: well, got the hair-band thing with the devil horns that light up
A: and then got a mini-trident that lights up
A: wore all black clothes
yasmine: oh dude, you’re rocking it up, aren’t you
A: and came into work, made a sign in MS Word
A: using the word art font
A: that said “Prada”
A: taped it on my back
yasmine: i am silently laughing so hard at work right now
A: and I became “The Devil Wears Prada” :)
yasmine: you are so freakin’ hilarious
A: hahaha
A: I’m just an idiot
yasmine: to steal a line from my buddy hijabman: “HIGHFIVE!”
A: I thought this up last night at the dollar store
A: Oopar paanch! :)

And, of course, the incomparable Z, who started it all:

Z at 4.30pm: Attention: the secretaries have chocolate and lots of it
Z: they are sitting behind it right now
Z: but they leave in precisely T minus half an hour
Z: this is when we strike

Z at 5.05pm: READY YOUR MEN
Z: ATTAAAAAAACK
yasmine: mygod, you’re on crack
yasmine: CANDY CRACK!
Z: we had to retreat, the guard hadn’t retired yet
Z: which is weird, they’re usually gone by 5
Z: but we’re gearing up for another pass
Z: and man, is it gonna be glorious
Z: see? i can have fun at work without you
Z: it just takes a little imagination
yasmine: i hate you. stop having fun without me, dammit

Z at 5.43pm: carla took the candy
Z: stupid carla

>CONTINUE READING

Example #452, in which we give an overview of How to Get on Yasmine’s Good Side

All-Star Crackstar Squad

I went to sleep the other night and accidentally left my AIM on. The next morning, I woke up to find the following IMs from my buddy Z, indicating quite clearly why we are friends:

Z: Yessiree bob, she likes her crack
Z: Always has something funny to share
Z: _____ is her younger? sister [The question mark is there because my younger sister acts a lot more mature than I do.]
Z: Mummy is yummy: rule of acquisition number 281
Z: In the garden is where the crack comes from
Z: Never ever misses an opportunity for a good stabbin’
Z: Everybody’s favorite stalker!
Auto-response from Yasmine: M says: i hear you have crack. [Fool and I are gonna be doing some crack-dealing after next Sunday’s halaqa. Ooooh, BLASPHEMOUS.]
Z: The crow smokes crack at midnight

This was all amusing enough (and Lord knows I do appreciate people who indulge my repetitive conversations about stalking, stabbing, and crack), but what was even funnier was an exchange we had had a few days beforehand:

Z: Goriyay… sun goriyay… tenu kee hoya hay goriyay… NACHLAYYYYYYYY GORIYAY
Yasmine: vat songs are you singing?
Z: i dunno, i found it on my friend’s profile
Yasmine: singing is HARAAM!
Z: so are stabbing and cursing
Yasmine: no, they’re not!
Yasmine: God says it’s okay for me [And this was the part – right after I hit “Enter” and then immediately winced – where I sat back and waited for a lambasting from my buddy about blithely talking about God in such a manner…]
Z: LOL
Z: that made me laugh out loud
Z: i’m still laughing
Yasmine: at least, He says it’s okay for me to joke about them ;)
Yasmine: it did?
Yasmine: hahaha
Z: okay, i stopped
Yasmine: i thought you were gonna get all serious and be like, That was SO haraam
Z: dammit, i started laughing again

I don’t need nobody flyin’ in my jet stream/Take the bus, go on and get yourself your own dream

All-Star Crackstar Squad, Resident Rockstar

Underfoot
Originally uploaded by yaznotjaz

“Everyone’s a critic, yaar,” said my friend over IM. “Let’s just call ’em all biatches.”

I started laughing, which was a good thing, because I had just spent most of the morning cursing a stranger I knew nothing about. This was two Fridays ago. It started with an email: GMail automatically refreshed my open window, I clicked over and saw a subject line I found vaguely but not unduly interesting, and clicked further to read the email. Two lines in, I sucked in a shocked breath…and expelled some expletives while making the rest of my way through the succinct, two-paragraph note. What the F*CK is THIS drama?

The irony, of course, is that I am famous amongst friends for constantly gloating about the fact that “my life is gorgeously drama-free.” And it is, dammit. I still stand by my smug assertion. Just a few minutes earlier that morning, I had been reminding my friend about the very same fact, until I checked my emails and then interrupted my cursing long enough to IM him with, “I gotta reply to an email some stupid biatch just sent me. Freakin’ drama, yaar.”

It is a testament to my friend-choosing skills that his first reaction was, “HAHAHA YOU SAID BIATCH!” Reaction number two, when I shared the contents of the hateful little email: “HOLY SHIT.”

Thus followed a mainly-one-sided discussion about the best way in which to respond. I was still on a roll with the profanity, but my friend presented thoughtful justifications for why someone would be driven to compose a note like that. “Be nice when you respond,” he suggested. “Kill her with kindness, you have the word skills.”

“BASTID!” I fumed. I stared at my computer screen, seething. “What the f*ck is this woman ON?”

I was feeling rattled and caught off-guard and seriously just plain pissed off. But I couldn’t dismiss the friend’s approach of looking at this situation from a different angle; it made too much sense. So I sighed and buckled up and wrote a sweet, rambling yet pointed response that covered all the key details in question. I used big, important words like ANATHEMA, and sent a draft of my response to the friend, to look it over.

“Anathema!” he cheered. “Ten point word. New record! Crowd goes wild!“

“I am so essmahrt, yaar,” I acknowledged, adding with malicious satisfaction, “Maybe she’ll have to look it up in the dictionary. Oh, and is it wrong to call her ‘stupid biatch’ still?”

I sent off my reply, then straightaway began to feel both relieved and amused: “I’ve never had so much drama! This is kinda exciting. No wonder people feed off this sort of stuff.”

I thanked my friend for his amusement and advice (but mainly the amusement), then left for Friday congregational prayers – in Berkeley that week – to repent for my blasphemous profanity (except I wasn’t really feeling remorseful about it, not one damn bit. But I’m sure God understood. He and I understand each other quite well). At the YWCA on Bancroft, where the UC Berkeley MSA holds Friday prayers, I listened intently to a sermon on setting long-term goals but using the short-term to accomplish them. It was just the sort of motivation I’d been needing for months. Afterward, while meeting and greeting all the people I knew, the lovely H touched me with her comment, “I like your blog and your writing style,” and then made me laugh when she admitted that she had been reading the weblog instead of her physiology textbook. Don’t I know that feeling very well myself.

I declined the traditional lunch at Julie’s for reasons I can’t recall at the moment, and mentioned I’d just stop by Cafe Milano for a frozen drink. “Try the chocolate chip cookies from Milano,” suggested my sister. “They’re even better than the ones from Julie’s.”

“Yeah?” I said interestedly. You know our family well enough by now – we’re constantly on a chocolate chip cookie quest. So I stopped by Milano and bought a cookie as advised, as well as a blended frozen mocha – the only kind of coffee I can handle, except this one wasn’t a smart choice either, since I took two sips while walking down Telegraph to my car and immediately felt the sick, anxious feeling I get from caffeinated beverages (like all those endless energy drinks I downed in college).

I drove from Berkeley back to my hometown and still felt sick, so I continued straight on Ygnacio Valley Road with the sunroof wide open, blasting music. There’s not much that an extra-loud mixture of Niyaz, Outlandish, and DEBU can’t fix on an icky day. [I love DEBU’s song Lautan Hatiku/The Sea of my Heart, by the way. Watch the video/listen to it here.] I drove twenty miles out of my way, hoping the drive would clear my head, and it did a well enough job of it.

I got home and immediately made a beeline for my computer, only to be disappointed that there was no reply from “the stupid biatch.” (There still has not been, even two weeks later. Somayya remarked yesterday, “I think she probably read your email and just felt really, really stupid.”)

While I was busy making faces at the lack of an acknowledgment/reply, my lovely partner-in-crime, Somayya, called to share exciting news: “Yazzo! Just wanted to let you know the 7-Eleven in San Mateo has blue slurpees! Come visit!”

The local Target carries blue icees, too, I realized just a few days ago. I knew I loved that place for a reason, and not just for the fact that I spend too much money every time I’m there. And, seriously, who gives a freakin’ damn about stupid biatches when my year-long quest for blue raspberry-flavored slurpees is over?

Makin’ things happen while relaxin’ like a Sunday afternoon

All-Star Crackstar Squad

Headwrap in red Headwrap in blue
Originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

The Sunday morning before last, I accompanied my sister to Berkeley, where she – along with a group of other students at her university – had designed outfits (seven, in her case) for a fundraising fashion show being held at the campus later that day, once at 3pm and again at 7pm. The sister had put a lot of time and effort and super rockstar-ish creativity into her designs, and I went along ostensibly to hang out with the designers – because even rockstars can be groupies – but mainly to cheer her on and help out with the headwraps on the girls who were modeling her funkycool fusion outfits.

Out of the seven students who were modeling for my sister, all but two were nonMuslim, and everyone took the whole headwrap thing in stride. I was impressed by their patience and overall sweetness, and if there was anything that made all the standing on my feet all day and the trying to be creative under time constraints while not knowing exactly what I was doing absolutely worth it, it was: one- the lovely girls I got to know all the while trying not to stab them with pins, and two- seeing my sister’s creativity and her imaginative designs in action.

As I mentioned in the Flickr photos linked above, DAMN, is it difficult to:
1. Be creative in thinking of headwrap styles for other people,
2. DO headwraps for other people [especially when not in a style I wear myself], and
3. Not (accidentally) stab people in the head while pinning their headwraps.

I think I basically alternated between two phrases all day long: “Tell me if it’s too tight!” and “I’m sorry if I stab you in the head with the pin!”

Not only did we get everything done and arranged and everyone looking rocking in record time for the 3pm show, we had to do it all over again for the 7pm show (by which time we actually knew what we were doing, so everything seemed to go amazingly quickly).

During our quick lunch break for about half an hour in the afternoon, we stopped by Julie’s Cafe, where I was highly depressed to learn that their so-called “home fries” were only on the breakfast menu, and the breakfast grill was closed for the day. I made enough sad faces – and the rest of the sympathetic girls asked the guy enough times, “Can we order home fries?”, even though no one really seemed to know what home fries were – that the nice guy gave in quite graciously and fired up the breakfast grill all over again and made me some home fries, which were damn good, and that is what good customer service is all about (as he reminded me when I thanked him profusely for the trouble).

While I was waiting for my fries, my lovely friend SP (she of the ice cream voicemessages) whipped a tall can out of the fridge and presented it to me with a gleeful, “Look, Yaz! This is for you!” I laughed to see it was the ROCKSTAR energy drink, and felt super special and honored simply because SP has never seen me use the word “rockstar” before (I know you Blogistan kids are so used to it, but not everyone reads my weblog, you know).

We returned to the campus and the crazychaotic second floor of MLK, where preparations for the 7pm fashion show were already underway. I laughed at the male model guy who asked to have his face powdered because it was too shiny. I also laughed (derisively, I admit it) throughout the day at the theme for (the scandalously issue-prone) American Apparel, who were also showcasing some of their clothing during the Berkeley fashion show. Their theme went something like this: I think I’ll step out of my house wearing nothing but a t-shirt and knee-length socks today. Damn, do I look HOT! –

– whereas my sister’s designs were more along the lines of (as I laughed and pointed out on the way home), Imagine that! Who knew you could wear CLOTHES and still look hella good! What a concept!