Category Archives: Conversations and Encounters

Because if I’ve done nothing else in five years of blogging, I’ve at least indulged in drug references as a form of public service

All-Star Crackstar Squad, Conversations and Encounters

Brick walkway leading up to our front porch

From an IM conversation with a friend:

M: bas yaara, sorry for boring you

Yasmine: dude, not at all, hope i helped in some way

M: I need some crack

Yasmine: crack is always good
just stay away from the real deal crazy estuff
i don’t want to have to tell your ummy i introduced you to that

M: No way, I already know that and tried that
Kidding
Actually, I didn’t know that and I was a shareef bacha
And you introduced crack to me through your weblog
I will sue you now

[+]

Dude, who knew I’d have to deal with liability issues related to “the Yasmine Vocabulary,” i.e. stalking, stabbing, and crack? If this continues, I just might wake up one morning wishing I had gone to law suckool after all. Vat drama!

Also, I have recently expanded my Pukhto vocabulary to include crack references as well. (My father will be so proud, I know.) I’ve learned that charsi means “crackhead.” And charsi janan means the beloved who is on crack (welcome to Pukhto songs and literature).

I’ve also learned that there is a restaurant in Peshawar called Charsi Tikka Shop. In deference to my love for food and crack, I must eat there. Someday. Soon.

So, I’m taking the Mister from out in front of your name

Conversations and Encounters, NaBloPoMo2007

From the Textures & Textiles set, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

I’m sitting outside the Nordstrom’s fitting rooms – impatiently checking my watch, hating the idea of being in that specific store, and waiting for my friend, N – when a guy settles into the armchair next to me with a loud, long-suffering sigh. I look over in amusement.

He catches my glance, and shakes his head. “These are the most uncomfortable chairs I’ve ever sat in.”

I shift in my chair, and reply, “You know, I just might have to agree with you on that one.”

“What do you think this fabric is?” he asks, pinching the armrest distastefully.

“Fake velvet?” I venture.

He guffaws. “It’s FELVET!” He shifts around uncomfortably in the unyielding chairs, then throws up his hands. “That’s it, I’m writing to Mr. Nordstrom about this! There must be a Mr. and Mrs. Nordstrom somewhere. Excuse me, Mister Nordstrom…”

“…Your chairs SUCK. You let me know how that goes,” I say dryly.

“I need to lodge a complaint with Mr. Nordstrom about these felvet chairs,” he says loudly, angling his head at the saleslady in the vicinity. She looks at him coldly, then returns to assisting her customers.

A woman I take to be his girlfriend comes out of the fitting room, wearing a long green skirt with ruffles at the hem. “That’s the most unNicole-like thing I’ve ever seen!” he says disparagingly. “You sure you want to get that? If you take it off and throw it on the bedroom floor, you’ll never see it again. It’s CAMOUFLAGE!”

After she leaves, he leans over conspiratorially and whispers, “What did you think of her skirt?”

“Not bad, actually. Better than the velvet any day.”

He nods approvingly, then flags down a woman passing by. “Excuse me, we’re talking about these chairs. They’re covered in…in…fake velvet. FELVET! What do you think of that? It’s ridiculous, don’t you think?”

The lady laughs, shaking her head. Other women peer over the nearby clothes racks, and chuckle at his loud proclamations as well. Even the frosty saleslady actually cracks a smile.

The girlfriend exits the fitting room, no green skirt in sight. The guy springs up, glad to be rid of the chair. He waves at us all, then swoops off with his girl, talking to her excitedly. His exiting shot, as we hear it: “It was FELVET!”

Someday, the light will shine like a sun through my skin

All-Star Crackstar Squad, Conversations and Encounters, NaBloPoMo2007

Mid-day meditation
Mid-day meditation, orginally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

From Wednesday, September 26, 2007:

D text-messaged me again late on Tuesday night: Can we please go to meditation group tomorrow? She is in graduate school now, and I detected a hint of desperation.

So, we did. And it was beautiful, as always. D drove down from Vallejo, S came from San Francisco. I had been nervous about how to integrate the Ramadan iftar (the breaking of the fast) into the meditation gathering, but it wasn’t much of an issue at all, since the former was at about 7pm and the latter began at 7.30. My favorite little coffeeshop by the post office was closed, so I stopped by at Starbucks – much to my own self-disgust – to pick up a slice of coffeecake and some fizzy clementine-flavored juice to fortify myself beforehand, in hopes that this would be enough food for me to hold out until the 9.30pm dinner. And it was – much more than enough, actually, since my stomach seems to have shrunk over the past couple of weeks, and a simple serving of fruit and a small helping of salad are enough to fill me up.

I was so focused on my own iftar. It humbled me to remember, much later, that Mrs. Mehta – who opens her home to host the gatherings every Wednesday evening – fasts that entire day, even as she provides home-cooked dinners for the dozens who show up at her doorstep and meditate in her den.

Meditation-time is in darkness again, which is comforting to me. The first time I went to meditation during a Spring month, sometime back in early 2005, I was blinded by the sun directly in my eyes and got lost and missed my exit off the freeway. The previously-familiar streets became strange and unrecognizable in daylight. But once again, sunset is earlier now – it was almost completely dark by 7.30, and I was reminded of those November evenings nearly three years ago now, when I first began attending the Wednesday meditations, driving there in two hours with minimal traffic so that I could sit in silence with like-minded individuals whose company brought me such joy.

Their company still brings me joy, whether they are people I know or not. Every Wednesday that I attend, there are new faces and stories and reflections and smiles. And what brings me even more joy is that this is really the first year I’ve regularly made a habit of telling others about the Wednesdays. To see the level of interest people have expressed in attending – and to see my friends follow through and actually attend – always make me smile inside on the days leading up to the Wednesdays…and even on the days after the Wednesdays, such as this morning, when a friend – who, it turns out, lives in the South Bay and regularly meditates himself – messaged me out of nowhere with,

Do tell about the meditation sessions. What have you been doing? I’m curious.

I joke that every time I go now, I have a different “entourage.” Why did I keep it to myself for so long? People love these gatherings just as much as I do – it’s something to be shared.

After dinner last night, we all stood around and chit-chatted, as always. Nipun dispensed hugs and highfives and pats on the back, as always. I laugh to myself whenever Nipun wanders by and throws an arm across my shoulders or gives me an exuberant little side-hug. It reminds me when I first began attending the Wednesdays; that was the year I wasn’t shaking hands with – much less, hugging – guys, and I’d politely fend off the highfives and hugs that came so naturally to Nipun. “I’m sorry, I keep forgetting,” he’d say, laughing (with Nipun, there is always laughter).

Last night, we talked about Karma Kitchen and the Disco Dishes write-up. (So many rocking stories! I can’t believe I haven’t made it there yet.) Afterward, I stood in the Mehtas’ hallway, talking to S, and was interrupted by Nipun calling out my name as he walked by. “Yes?” I asked.

He pointed. “Smile Cards!”

To my surprise, D was already there. While S and I talked, D had already joined the assembly-circle around the square table that unfolds so amazingly, and was busy chatting away with new friends and sponging envelopes closed. I inserted myself into the circle and joined the effort. Some of us counted Smile Cards in batches of ten, some of us inserted them into pre-addressed envelopes, some closed the envelopes, others added stamps. There is so much love in these simple tasks. It’s never about the numbers. And that’s the beauty of it.

Two years ago, D was the first person to ever accompany me to the Wednesday meditation. That evening, she took one look at the items (notes, magnets, cards?) on the Mehtas’ refrigerator and said, “They’re Gujarati!”

“How can you tell?” I asked.

“I just know.”

When I retold this story in the Mehtas’ kitchen last night, Nipun laughed and punched us in the arm and said, “Gujaratis are known to be the most generous, you know.”

We laughed and nodded, Of course, and I remembered the same night, two years ago, driving home with D sprawled in my passenger seat, smiling to myself as she babbled loudly and excitedly in Gujarati to her mother at the other end of the phone: Mom, I met this family, and it was so beautiful, I felt just like I was home!

“How do you meditate?” I had asked D then, baffled. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.

“You just kinda concentrate on your breathing.”

“How?”

All these years later, I still don’t know what to do with myself as I sit there for an hour.

But, somehow, the silence and stillness are always enough.

And the food, and the sharing of stories, and – always – the laughter.

[+]

The photo accompanying this post is one of my favorites, and I’ve wondered for months when I would add it to the weblog. It seemed fitting for this entry. And I never talk about the post titles (most are song lyrics, some are lines of poetry), but this one is from a piece by Brian Andreas at StoryPeople, a rockstar website which I love.

City days: River, culture, speech, sense of first space and the right place

Conversations and Encounters, Rhymes and unrhymed lines, Rockstar and Crescent, Salaam Namaste, Travels and Travails

I thought this was the question I most despised...
Near MACLA, downtown San Jose, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

I was taking BART into San Francisco one Sunday a few weeks ago when a young man got on the train at the MacArthur station and glanced curiously at me for much longer than I was comfortable with as he made his way down the aisle.

A few minutes later, I heard someone call out, “Excuse me!” I looked over my shoulder, as did several people in my vicinity. It was the aforementioned young man. The train was packed, so he was forced to stand in the aisle, a few rows behind me, from where he delivered his bombshell question to me: “Excuse me, what language do you speak?” Everyone’s head expectantly swiveled my way, waiting for an answer.

Being asked, “Where are you from?” generally annoys me. But I hadn’t known until that morning that being asked, “What language do you speak?” could make me so furious. Was he serious? I wanted to ask, “What the f*ck do you think I speak?”

Thrown off guard, I stared over my shoulder at the guy, mentally calculating my possible responses – my totally b.s. Pukhtu, my fluent Hindku, my ever-dwindling repertoire of German, my passably conversant Urdu. But then, still angry, I responded as coldly as I could: “English.”

“Yeah? Well, I just wanted to say that…” – here, he paused to swing his arm around his head and torso – “your style is really beautiful.”

“Thank you,” I said shortly.

“Where is that kind of style from?”

“Guess,” I snapped, and turned around to face the front, eyes forward, jaw tight. Apparently, a red&white wrap-around spring dress from Forever21, and flared jeans, and dangly earrings and flip-flops, and, oh yes, the headwrap, are all exotic items that have no space or sense of belonging in American fashion.

I understand that I look different, and that this will raise curiosity wherever I go. I understand, too, that some people are genuinely interested in learning about others. But I have a right to be angry about how such interest is sometimes articulated, and the manner in which such questions are sometimes posed. Really, I was fuming over being asked – point-blank and in a completely rude manner (how is it okay to make that the very first question you ask anyone?) – about what language I spoke.

Goddammit, I’m surrounded by effin’ MORONS.

I comforted myself with the thought that at least he didn’t tell me how great my English was.

Several people got off the train at the next stop, and, next thing I knew, Mr. Smooth & Charming had found a seat in the row diagonally across from mine. “Hey,” he whispered loudly.

I ignored a couple of the Heys, but I didn’t have a book with which to pretend to distract myself, and, up and down the train, people’s heads started swinging back and forth from me to the guy, so finally I turned my head, eyebrow raised challengingly.

“So, you’re not going to tell me where you’re from?” he asked in a wheedling tone, sounding a bit hurt, as if I were doing him a great disservice.

“No,” I said, spitefully spitting out clipped responses. “You just keep guessing over there.”

I turned around again. A minute later, he ventured, “Are you Gypsy?”

“No.” I didn’t even bother turning around, but could still feel him staring.

“They’re the oldest race, you know.”

I sighed, raised my eyebrow again, tried to give every indication of being uninterested, but couldn’t help asking, “Who? The Gypsies?”

“No. The Egyptians.”

“I’m not Egyptian, either,” I said.

I felt like I was actively participating in a guessing game, in Twenty Questions or something, and the ridiculousness of the situation (and, perhaps, of my antisocial – even defensive? – reaction) started to hit me. Everyone on our side of the car was silently watching our childish exchange. I tried to suppress a smile, and he must have noticed my face softening, because that’s when he made his smooth and charming move: “You’re very beautiful, you know.”

“Ha. Uhh, thanks.” And I was trying not to laugh, because somehow, in his cocky yet completely bumbling way, Mr. Trying Too Hard To Be Smooth reminded me very much of my co-worker from my old Sacramento job, and I couldn’t wait to get off the train and call H#3 and say, “Guess what idiot on BART just reminded me of you?”

I turned my head to the left to look out the window. From my right, Mr. Smooth added loudly, “Your beauty will never fade.”

Mein Gott, can we get to the city already? This is killin’ me.

A young mother of two, sitting in the seat across from me – and directly in front of Mr. Smooth – smiled. Most of the other people seated in our vicinity smirked as well.

“Did you know that?” he repeated loudly. “Your beauty will – ”

“Yeah,” I said hurriedly. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“When?” he challenged.

“What?”

“When will you keep it in mind?”

“Forever,” deadpanned the man behind me. I started laughing, and so did he, and Mr. Smooth, shameless flirt that he was, smiled winningly, as if his charm had finally achieved victory over my cold war. I was still chuckling a few moments later when we reached the Powell St. station, and something about laughter as a letting down of the guard put me in a good enough mood again that I even saluted Mr. Smooth as I stepped off the train, calling out behind me, “Have a good one!”
Continue reading City days: River, culture, speech, sense of first space and the right place →

I just opened up my eyes, and let the world come climbing in

Conversations and Encounters, Loss and laments and letting go

Abandoned
A child’s shoes on Muir Beach, September2005, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

At the start of every single week, I think to myself, Let’s go to meditation this week. The last couple of months, I have had to defer my personal Wednesday evening preferences in favor of work-related meetings and events. Last Wednesday was different: Today is free, and all mine, I tell myself, and off I go to meditation. The familiar rituals of 7.30pm: Park at the curb, shoes off at the door, enter the darkened hallway, down one carpeted step and find a seat on the cushions already laid out on the floor of the dimly-lit living room. Close my eyes for one hour and focus on breathing, relaxing, dhikr, reflection, even inadvertently napping, as used to happen when, as an exhausted university student, I’d regularly drive two hours from Sacramento just for this lovely experience.

Then, one hour of sharing thoughts. We talk about pain, and I am reminded once again of my friend H, and the strength that lies in professing our vulnerabilities. I am so tempted to pass on sharing my thoughts – I even joke about this when the mic makes its way around the room and is finally handed to me, because the three people before me chose to pass – but then I take a deep breath and decide to jump right in. So, I talk a little bit about emotional pain, because our default association with “pain” is usually the physical, and that’s the sort for which I have a high tolerance level. Emotional pain, however, is a whole other thing as far as I am concerned – public displays of tears and weakness have never come easily to me, and I am not one to focus often on awareness and acknowledgment of my emotional vulnerabilities and insecurities.

The people around the room nod as I speak, whether in understanding or encouragement, I don’t know, but I find it reassuring. I pass the mic down the circle.

One young woman, a kindergarten teacher, relates that someone once told her that people remove their shoes when they enter sacred spaces, and how moving it was, then, when she arrived at this place tonight and found a sea of shoes at the front door. I think about the fact that even in this space, a living room in the heart of Silicon Valley, people have created an environment that is reflective, compassionate – and, yes, a little bit holy. I think about how there is peace here, and grace, and light in everyone.

The kindergarten teacher continues her story. “Bear with me,” she says. “This may be a little bit of a stretch.” But we are all leaning forward attentively. “There’s an elephant tent in my classroom,” she says – a tent shaped like an elephant. She has turned this into a private space for her students, a place they may enter when they are feeling particularly lonely or upset or worried or angry or hurt. She has promised her students that this is their space, and she will not infringe on it in any way. The children have readily adopted the elephant tent as theirs, and treat it with care. They take turns stepping into and out of it, instead of fighting and struggling over who’s been using the space.

It is a little bit reverent for them, this ritual. They honor everyone’s right to use the elephant tent, and are respectful of one another’s emotions, needs, allotted time, and privacy in times of pain. The children practice diligence and care towards that space, even if they aren’t usually as mindful of the rest of the classroom: “Just this morning, someone left a tuna sandwich on the radiator,” says the young teacher with horror, and the rest of us laugh out loud.

And somehow, her students have silently, unequivocally, decided to remove their shoes before entering the tent.

Their teacher references Nelson Mandela and the concept of Ubuntu, which she is teaching her class. A popular definition is: “The belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity.” Desmond Tutu explained it this way:

A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.

Nelson Mandela described Ubuntu in the following manner:

A traveller through our country would stop at a village, and he didn’t have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food, entertain him. That is one aspect of Ubuntu but it’ll have various aspects. Ubuntu does not mean that people should not enrich themselves. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to improve?

There is no specific translation for Ubuntu in English, it seems. But Ubuntu is about relationships and sharing, about unity, about connectedness with the rest of humanity.

The teacher tells us how, this afternoon, she ducked her head into the tent and found something created by one of her five year old students: the word UBUNTU written shakily but in reassuringly large letters, on a sheet of paper taped to the inside of the elephant tent.

Sometimes I get the feeling that I’m standing in the wrong line

Conversations and Encounters, Salaam Namaste

Having ordered and paid for a caramel pecan cream pie at Baker’s Square last week, I was idly checking out the tattoos on the young man named Brian who was boxing up and bagging my purchase. Suddenly, Brian glanced at me across the counter and asked, “Do you know what sundar means?”

“Sorry, what was that?”

“Sundar. Do you know what it means?”

“It sounds familiar, but I really have no idea. What language is that?”

“It’s Hindi,” he said.

“Oh, well – “

” – I was going to impress you with my Hindi,” he added, smiling. “But I guess it’s not working.”

“I guess not,” I said, smiling back. “I don’t speak Hindi.”

“But your English is great,” he said magnanimously, handing me the bagged pie across the counter. “You don’t even have an accent or anything.”

“Well, I would hope not,” I said, a little annoyed but still smiling politely. “I was born in California.”

“Yeah, it’s perfect.”

“American born and bred, what can I say,” I replied wryly, turning to leave. “Have a beautiful day.”

Later, while cutting the pie in Somayya’s kitchen, I asked, “Hey, what does sundar mean? The dude at Bakers Square was asking me, but I had no idea.”

“I think it means ‘beautiful.’ He was totally hitting on you, Yazzo.”

“You think everyone’s hitting on me. You needa stop with that business.”

“You’re just oblivious all the damn time. And I think sundar really does mean ‘beautiful.’ “

“What a stupid boy, then,” I said derisively. “Telling me how great my English skills are, is not the way to impress me.”

Seriously, people, get with the program. Also, for the Hindi-speaking Blogistanis: what DOES sundar mean?

As an aside, a few of my friends have been teasing me lately about how my “gorgeously drama-free life” was shaken up recently for a day or so. Everyone who knows me knows how much I love my lack of drama, and those few whom I’d confided in took great pleasure in gleefully throwing my drama-free mantra back in my face. Over the phone the other morning, I was updating Somayya on the situation, and explaining why I wasn’t going to take advantage of this opportunity, why I didn’t think it was right for me, and all the off-the-top-of-my-head reasons why it just wouldn’t work.

Somayya overrode my objections with an evisceratingly sharp retort: “Oh, shut up, Yazzo. Just shut UP.”

“I’m just sayin’,” I said lamely.

From the other end of the line came the impatiently blunt, cuttingly clear voice of the one person who knows me best: “All you’re saying is a bunch of BULLSHIT.”

See? I love this kid.

The street, and those who served themselves who only stood to wait

Conversations and Encounters

After leaving work the other day, I stopped for gas. Fidgeting impatiently while the gas tank filled up, I decided to duck inside the gas station to satisfy my hunger. As my co-workers are all-too-fond of reminding me, this “eating a granola bar for lunch” business has to stop sometime. Real meals are the key. Which is why, at 5.30pm, I came to the conclusion that a quick candy run would alleviate my hunger pangs and ward off boredom while stuck in traffic on the way home. Maybe they would even have blue slurpees – any slurpees, dammit – inside the gas station.

Have I mentioned how hot it’s been in Northern California lately? It’s been really hot. So hot that I’ve taken to carrying a water bottle with me everywhere, which is a huge step for me, since impending dehydration is not something I’ve ever worried about before in my life. It’s so hot that when I closed my car door after removing my wallet from inside, I unlocked the car and reopened the door just to remove my water bottle as well, because I knew the water would become warm if it stayed inside.

I tucked the water bottle under my left arm and grasped my wallet with my right hand as I prepared to walk into the gas station’s convenience store. On second thought, What if they didn’t realize the water bottle was my own? I switched the items around, so that I was now loosely, visibly holding the water bottle by its neck.

Squinting at the numbers on my gas pump, I wandered into the convenience store. It was smaller than I had expected, and there definitely weren’t any slurpee machines to be seen. I scanned the few rows of candy. Nothing looked appetizing, all of a sudden, because I realized that I was hot and tired and what I really needed was not solid food, but, rather, something really, really cold to drink. Cranberry juice? There was none, except for cranberry-apple, if that counts, and, if you’re Picky Yasmine, then no, indeed it does not. Soda? No. Lemonade? Mmm, tempting, but lemonade makes me feel even thirstier when I’m already thirsty. Energy drinks? Just say no.

I stood with my face scrunched in uncertainty in front of the cold drinks section for a full two, three minutes as customers walked in and out of the store using the door right behind me. Finally, I gave up, turned around, and walked back out to my car.

I replaced the gas nozzle, then got in my car. As I fastened my seatbelt and fiddled with my CD player, I noticed a man standing a few feet away, seemingly directing a question at me. I watched his face, confused. Something about water? What the hell? I wondered. He saw my questioning expression, and repeated whatever he was saying, but I had no idea what he was going on about, besides the fact that it seemed to concern water.

Before my just drive on instinct had fully kicked in, I realized he was dressed in the uniform of a gas station attendant, so I rolled down my window. “Sorry, what was that?”

“You didn’t pay for your water,” he said flatly.

Oh, good lord. I was torn between annoyance and anxiety, but mostly anxiety. “No,” I denied, “it’s my own bottle. I walked in with it.”

“Oh,” he said. “I didn’t see you walk in with it.”

Without another word, he turned on his heel and went back inside.

What? That was it? I remained in the car, head turned apprehensively towards the store. Was he going inside for back-up or something? Wait, no, seriously, that was it? For reals? Did I look like someone who would steal a $1.25 water bottle? Even as I asked myself that last question, I knew it wasn’t about looking a certain way, and the man was quite justified in clarifying whether the bottle were mine or not.

Still, as I drove away, that last question made me laugh out loud, because I was quite a kleptomaniac in my childhood. Plastic jewelry, candy, makeup, Pez dispensers, knick-knacks and trinkets from the Exploratorium museum store… you name it, I managed to somehow smuggle it home. I only got caught once – for the Pez dispenser. Not that I’m proud of this, or anything.

But, no, as a 25-year-old, I’m not the type to get a thrill out of stealing $1.25 water bottles. My currently-preferred method of living life on the edge is to drive too fast (I tend to think of the speed limit as a suggestion – one which I conveniently ignore), gobble down fried foods with no concern for cholesterol, and thumb my nose at those who claim I’ll die of skin cancer because I deliberately spend so much time sitting directly in the sunshine, sans sunscreen.

Besides, if I really wanted to steal something, I wouldn’t go for $1.25 water bottles, anyway. Dangly earrings would be more in line with my tastes. Or perhaps I could concoct clever schemes to finagle cash out of sympathetic individuals, so that I could buy endless supplies of french fries and blue slurpees and crack, my ostensible drug of choice.

Which reminds me of another story, recent as well:


Smile on your brother!
Originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

While at the gas station sometime last week, waiting for my tank to fill up, I opened the glove compartment, pulled out the maintenance manual that came with my car, and tried to figure out if it was time for another recommended oil change, since I had just hit the 10,000-mile mark. I was flipping through pages when I heard a voice outside my open window say, “Sorry to bother you, ma’am, but…”

I looked up from my book and out the window. “Sorry, what?”

“Could you please help us out with gas money, maybe?” He was young and skinny, maybe in his late teens. He gestured at his car, parked on the other side of my pump.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Fresno,” he replied.

[That’s in the Central Valley, at least a three-hour drive.]

I flipped through my wallet, pulling out what little cash I had. “Here, I hope this helps.”

“Thanks so much!”

They looked slightly familiar, but, then again, I’ve spent time in so many different places that everyone looks slightly familiar to me, whether they’re acquaintances or strangers. They reminded me of the other boys at the gas station, months ago, and I momentarily watched them suspiciously, wondering if it were the same ones.

“How do you tell the difference between them?” Ray Bradbury wrote. “How can you tell which is honest, which isn’t?”

I can’t tell; perhaps I’m too nice or too gullible or I too easily trust those who don’t owe me the truth. But I believe in karma, I believe that what goes around comes around, I believe the world is a small place and we’re all connected somehow. These are some of the reasons why I give random boys gas money and why I smile sunnily at people who solicit donations in front of my local grocery store for various organizations, because even if I rarely ever have cash on me I still always pause just long enough to say, “Have a beautiful day!”, because that’s still a connection – however minor – and an acknowledgment that we share this world together.

And maybe I’m too trusting or too easily touched, but the fact that the recent gas station boy turned and waved across the parking lot as I drove away was enough to make my day.

You probably got some inside connection, so many numbers that you gotta rolodex them

Conversations and Encounters

Did I tell all y’all that my camera‘s broken? I probably didn’t. I think I got saltwater and sand in it, but who knows. Not I, since I was too busy blithely taking photos in said saltwater and sand to really be careful. Right smart of me, I know.

Anyway, a few days after my beach escapades, I turned on my camera. The lens wouldn’t retract, and the camera refused to take photos. Seriously, what drama. So I hunted around for my Costco receipt, stuffed everything back into the Canon box, did some research on another camera I had my eyes on (two upgrades up yet still cheaper than my old one, 2.5″ LCD, and a new ISO 800 option? Hell yeah!) and off I went to Costco.

Some guy named Carl at the Merchandise Return counter took back the camera, remarking, while inspecting it, “I like this camera.”

“I love this camera!” I said. “I’m really sad it’s not working any more.”

He counted out cash in twenty-dollar bills, handing me back $375. I stared. “Dude, I can’t even remember the last time I had that much cash on me.”

He laughed. “That’s a good thing, you know.”

I agreed.

I wandered off to the camera section, where I was disappointed to not see the SD600 I wanted. An employee named Madeline informed me it was only available online. GROSS! I said mentally. Outwardly, I just sighed and thanked her and inspected the few cameras displayed. I was stuck trying to decide between two little point-and-shoot digital cameras: One was smaller and cheaper, the other was a bit larger and more expensive, but it was a Nikon. But nothing looked as good as the SD600 that wasn’t there. What to do, what to do… I scrunched up my face, as I am wont to do when I can’t make up my mind (which means I perpetually walk around with a scrunched-up face, since I am so indecisive, it’s not even funny).

“Excuse me,” I asked the stranger next to me, “when they say ‘instant rebate,’ do they mean you get the rebate right at the register, when you pay for it?”

“Yes,” he said. He glanced at me curiously. “Are you looking to buy a digital camera?”

“Yeah, I wanted the Canon SD600, but they don’t have it here. I’ll have to check it out online, then.”

“My wife and I just bought a digital camera for our graduate recently, and now we’re looking for one ourselves. I think he really likes his.”

I smiled. “I bet he does. Mine was sort of a graduation present, too. Best thing ever!”

“Have you figured out what you’re looking for in a new camera?”

“Well, basically, I just returned the Canon SD400, and now I need a new one.”

I guess he took my response to mean I didn’t know much about cameras, because the kind man took it upon himself to educate me in the finer subtleties of digital technology. “Well, see, this one is 6.1 megapixels. That’s really good. You can even record videos on this one! Plus, it comes with a memory card.”

“Those are useless,” I said a trifle impatiently. “You can only fit, like, four photos on there, so you have to buy another one separately.”

He laughed. “Yeah. But, see, this Kodak one has internal memory, too, so you can save images directly to the camera, if you ever want to do that.”

“Oh.” This, then, I hadn’t heard of. “That’s kinda cool.”

His wife looked like she was done with her camera-browsing, so he started to turn away to join her. “Good luck!”

“Thanks, you too!”

I stood there for a long while, playing with the Kodak camera. I turned it on and off, and on again, checked to see if it had a manual setting (yeah, it’s called “Custom,” apparently), familiarized myself with the setup menus, looked to see if it had continuous shooting and a self-timer (yes to both), and took several photos of the advertising sign using the macro setting.

Another man stood nearby, doing his own camera-browsing. While I inspected my macro photos, he glanced over. “Excuse me,” he said, “do you know anything about digital cameras?”

I swallowed a laugh. Here I had gone from one guy thinking I didn’t know jack, to another guy thinking I looked like I knew what I was doing.

“A little bit,” I said. “I just returned a Canon, which was really good. They don’t have any Canons on display here, otherwise I would recommend those to you. And I don’t know anything about the other types of cameras here, except Nikon is, obviously, really well regarded.”

He nodded gravely.

I continued with a basic explanation (because that’s all I know) of megapixels and memory cards, shutter speeds and the different types of settings available. “You can record videos on some digital cameras, too!” I added excitedly.

“Thank you for your help,” he said formally, but smiling.

I approached Madeline the Camera Girl again. “Could you turn on that little Nikon for me, please?”

She couldn’t do that, for whatever lame reason I can’t remember, probably because it was so lame and useless. But she seemed friendly enough, so I harassed her into helping me make a decision: “See, what I really want is the Canon SD600, but, like you said, I’ll have to buy it online. Meanwhile, I need a camera to get me through the next week or two. Would you pick this Nikon, or this Kodak?”

“Girl, you need to just get one of those digital SLRs!” said Madeline.

“Buddy, those are rocking cameras,” I said, laughing, “but I’m not at that level yet. Plus, if I had a big camera like that, I wouldn’t be able to take it with me everywhere, and then I’d never use it.”

“Well, I saw one of your pictures when you were returning your camera, and I think you’re already at that level. Forget the point-and-shoot, we have a really nice Nikon SLR over there that you should look at instead.”

I shook my head, protesting, “I’m pretty much decided on that SD600.” I felt like a parrot, repeating the same thing over and over. “I wouldn’t have returned the one I had, if it hadn’t stopped working. I loved that thing, man.”

She smiled in sympathy. “I used to have that exact same one, too, until someone took it from me. It’s an awesome camera. I even read the entire manual that came with it, and everything!”

I started laughing. “Are you serious? I thought I was the only one who read instruction manuals! I felt bad, because I just returned that camera and forgot to take out all the little sticky-notes and marked pages I left in the manual.” We shook our heads at one another, amused.

“Okay,” I said, “but seriously, between the Nikon and the Kodak, which would you recommend?”

“Well,” said Madeline the Camera Girl, “I’d say go for the Kodak. It’s cheaper, and you’re going to be returning it in a week or two anyway, so you might as well save money meanwhile.”

“I like the way you think.”

“But,” she added, “I’m turning on that Nikon dSLR for you. You just let me know if you change your mind.”

I shook my head, smiling. “Maybe when I have more money, buddy.”

She tossed a parting shot over her shoulder as she moved away: “Start saving up!”

“I’ll try!” I called after her, knowing I wouldn’t, because saving? What’s that?

But I did stop by to check out the Nikon dSLR, which was suitably intimidating, and the only thing I managed to do was turn it off and then on again.

“How is it?” asked Madeline the Camera Girl, passing by.

“Scary,” I said.

I went off to pay for the Kodak camera, and ended up in a line adjacent to my friend of the camera lessons. “You picked one out!” he said, excited. “Congratulations!”

“Yep! Thanks!”

I waited for my turn to pay, and thought the guy before me in line was joking when he added, “And I’d also like two hotdogs and a Coke, please,” but apparently he wasn’t. When it was my turn, I asked the cashier, “We can pay for the food court items here, too?”

“That’s right.”

My eyes widened like those of a kid in a candy aisle. “Oooh,” I said. “Well, then, can I get three churros, too, please?”

“Sure.” He took my Costco card and swiped it, inspected the photo, and remarked in amusement as he handed the card back to me, “You’re smiling like a supermodel there.”

“Ha,” I said, uncomfortable as always with compliments. “That was the day I got my own real deal Costco card, and I was just hella excited about it.”

I paid for my new camera with some of the wads of cash that Carl from Merchandise Return had given me, and then picked up my churros from the food court. As I walked back towards the store exit, I passed none other than Carl himself, who glanced at the camera box under my arm, smiled widely, and exclaimed, “You found another one!”

“Yeah!”

I felt like a superstar. It was almost as if Costco had opened its doors that day only so that its customers and employees could cheer me on in my camera-shopping expedition. It was a feeling akin to that one song, Tell me what it’s like to be the one and only All American Girl, the All American Girl, the all amazing crazy girl.

The camera excitement lasted all of one afternoon, before I decided I hated this stupid Kodak camera with its horrendously grainy photo-viewing on the LCD screen, no viewfinder (Who cares? you say. I care, dammit!), and horrible menu setup.

I like viewfinders, even if I rarely use them. But what I mostly want – because the SD400 totally spoiled me – is easy-access setup and controls, like ISO settings and auto vs. manual switching on the main camera interface, so that I don’t have to stand there for 45 seconds too long, scrolling through menu options and switching settings when I could have taken five photos already. Geez, Kodak, get with the program already.

Also, since I feel the need to add a disclaimer, it’s not that I’m some sort of professional photographer. Digital cameras are now as ubiquitous as cell phones: Everyone and their grandmother has a digital camera these days; so do all my friends. But I do carry my camera with me everywhere, and I actually use it more often than anyone else I know, as evidenced by whatever I’ve uploaded to flickr (which is only a fraction of the photos I’ve taken, because my harddrive shows 10,000 photos since I bought my camera last August). A ten-month lifespan for a digital camera?! Well, that’s what I get for carrying it around 24/7, I suppose. And since the SD400 spoiled me so wonderfully, it’s only right that I find a replacement that lives up to the same standard.

I ordered the SD600 online yesterday, and now I keep logging into the Costco website every chance I get and compulsively clicking on “Order Status,” which doesn’t tell me anything except Your order processing is in process. Bear in mind that I went with the Express Shipping option, and my order is still in process? It’s enough to make one want to stab somebody.

This morning, I woke up because my cell phone beeped, and it was a text message from my buddy J, asking, “‘Sup, photo paparazzi supreme?” Seriously, I love my friends. They know how to alleviate stab-worthy situations.

Conversations about hair

Casa420 and Familia, Conversations and Encounters

Originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

[Because even if no one sees your hair, there will still always be conversations nonetheless.]

* Last December, at home:

I walk into my room with my hair all tousled and standing up in weird waves and curls all over my head because I just took it out of the bun it’s been in for the past couple of days. Because my hair is naturally annoyingly straight, I view the crazy curls as a delightful change.

My mother, on the other hand, shakes her head in despair. Ey kay ayya, Yasmine? Jindoo dariyn vaykhh na zara. Banda akhhay, dunya thay thud kaday bhi vaalan ni kandee na maree. “What is this? Just look at yourself – one would think you’ve never in the world combed your hair before.”

I laugh. “That’s right, Ummy. You know I never do comb my hair.” She gives me a what kind of monster did I raise sort of look.

I am notorious amongst close friends for never (okay, rarely ever) combing my hair. I wash it, I dry it, I style it by putting it up in a bun again. But combing or brushing? Waste of time. Besides, the hair is so damn straight, it doesn’t really require any of that drama anyway.

Lately, I’ve flirted with the idea of chopping my elbow-length hair all off – like I did a couple of years ago – but it’s a nice anchor for the headwraps, and I really do love the headwraps.

Which brings me to the next conversation…

* Last Wednesday evening at Rasputin Music, Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley:

A man approaches me, grinning widely as if we’re long-lost friends. I stare warily. “Are those dreads?” he asks without preamble.

“Dreads?” I repeat stupidly. “Uh, no. No, I don’t have dreads.”

He raises his eyebrows and checks out my headwrap, wide-eyed. “Wow, you must have a lot of hair, then.”

I start laughing. “No, I don’t really, it’s mainly just the scarf that makes it all look so huge. Seriously.”

“Oh, okay, ’cause I saw you and I was thinking, ‘Man, that girl must have some serious dreads, or maybe she just has lotsa hair!’ “

“Nope, neither, just big scarves to work with, more like!”

We both chuckle, and I make a quick escape to the register to pay for my CD.

Later, I laughingly relay the conversation to my sister, as we settle down for dinner with the brother in Berkeley.

She and the brother share a glance across the table. “He was hitting on you,” she says bluntly.

The brother nods in agreement. “Yeah.”

I stare. “Well…grand,” I sputter. “Clearly, I didn’t notice that part. I thought he was just excited about the dreads.”

It’s kinda not fun when non-oblivious people point out those sort of things, you know.
It just ruins the story.

A cold winter sun, my feet underground/a pale winter city, numbness for sound

(3)BeautifulThings, Conversations and Encounters, Loss and laments and letting go, Rockstar and Crescent

Bittersweet
Feeding the birds, Lake Merritt, Oakland, CA, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

[You can find all my photos from this day here. They’re more fun when you view them individually, so take the time to click through one by one, if you get a chance.]

Three days ago, I stepped inside the County of Alameda Administration Building in Oakland and set off the alarms on the security machine just inside the building’s entrance. Not just once, but twice.

Right, I am a serious danger to the world.

Was it the silver bracelets? I have skinny wrists but bony hands, and putting on and removing bracelets is too much of a painful process for me to do it regularly, so I’ve pretty much just left the same ones on for the past couple of years. Or maybe it was the hearing aid batteries. Thanks to those, I distinctly remember setting off airport alarms multiple times as a kid.

But no: “Are you wearing shoes?” asked the white-haired man at the…what is it called? security checkpoint? He tried to peer over the machine. Shoes? Why, yes, indeed I was, for once in my life. Stupid shoes. I resisted an urge to shake my fist at the ground. I always knew shoes were no freakin’ good for you.

“Raise your hands in the air and step back through the machine again,” suggested the man. I gingerly raised my hands in the air (I haven’t had much practice at it; hopefully that was the last time I’d ever have to do that) and walked through again. Another alarm.

The man just nodded and smiled and waved his hand to let me go through. I guess he had somehow come to a conclusion that it was the shoes, and that they were harmless. I took care of the business I was there for, and managed to walk out in five minutes. Across the lobby, the white-haired gentleman laughed and waved again as he saw me leaving. I waved back and called out, “Have a good day!” What a nice man. I liked this day already.

Once outside, I started for my car, conveniently parked right in front, but paused at the row of plaques hanging on a low wall that lined the building’s front plaza. It was a memorial wall dedicated to the children of Alameda County who have lost their lives by violence. One plaque for each year from 1994 to 2004. Some of the names stood out to me and I wanted to take photos, but wondered nervously whether that would be a bad idea. Setting off the security machine for wearing shoes (bracelets? hearing aids?) was amusing enough; getting busted for photographing an official county building might be a whole different thing altogether. But then I figured, The hell with it. It’s a memorial wall, I’m sure people photograph it all the time.

As I stood there taking photos, a man scrounging through the garbage can a few feet away looked over at me and muttered, “‘Bout time!” I glanced over, surprised. ‘Bout time, what? ‘Bout time someone noticed the memorial and photographed it? I wanted to ask him to elaborate, but he had already shuffled on to the next garbage can down the street.

I got in my car and sat there for a few moments, wondering what to do with myself. I had thought the Oakland stuff would take at least an hour, but it had taken only five minutes and I had nothing important to do for the rest of the day. I decided to stop by the lake I had passed while circling the block for parking. It looked pretty, and I felt like taking pictures.

I glanced cautiously around the perimeter of the lake as I was getting out of my car. Was it safe to be hanging around here, in this town I barely knew and a lake I’d never been to? But the lake was swarming with people jogging and strolling, alone and in pairs, and when I made my way down the path and stopped to take photos, I had to keep moving aside to let people go by.

I photographed a man feeding the birds. He stood calmly at the edge of the lake, throwing out bits of something, while the birds hopped around expectantly and, now and then, made a mad dash in the general direction of where he was throwing. Just as quietly as he had stopped for the birds, he was soon gone. I turned around from photographing the lake, and he had vanished. I shot photos of the water, the orange lanterns, and, oh, the birds. The birds were everywhere.

Two men paused while walking by me. “Taking pictures of the birds?” asked one in amusement. “Don’t you know you have to feed them first?”

I laughed. “Oh, don’t worry, they’ve been fed already.”

“What kind of camera is that?” asked his friend, “An SD40?”

“SD400,” I corrected.

He nodded.

“Have a good one,” said his friend.

“You, too!”

They continued walking.

I decided it had been a beautiful day so far.

I would be lying if I didn’t admit that, in the past month, I’ve felt safer in my little bubble of suburbia than anywhere else [even though I now won’t drive to the grocery store just four minutes away without locking my car doors from the inside], that places like Berkeley and Oakland, which I once fondly considered only “genuine and eccentric,” now make me feel guarded and wary.

But you’ve got to get out and live, no matter what the cost or the outcome sometime. And maybe, if this is all that life comes down to, even this would be enough: Walks around the lake, words exchanged with kind strangers in passing, the remembrance of those whom we’ve loved and lost and never stopped loving.