i got a fast car. It’s never a good idea to leave…

Hit the Road

i got a fast car.

It’s never a good idea to leave the house just a split second before your father does in the morning, because that means you’re on the road together for the first fifteen minutes of your daily commute, and you can see the yellow fog lamps of his SUV shining disapprovingly behind you the entire way, even when you do your slick lane-switching maneuvers and he gets stuck behind some slow truck.

After you’ve both crossed the bridge and swished through the FasTrak toll lane, you split up, he taking 780 towards Napa and you continuing on 680 towards Sacramento. And because, as mentioned above, he was stuck behind some other car and so you didn’t get to wave to each other at the junction, this is the point where your father calls to say goodbye and tell you to have a beautiful day. And because he is highly predictable, he also adds sternly at the end, “And drive slowly. You drive too fast, and you tailgate people.”

You think of this weblog, and want to burst out laughing and point out, “But, Daddy, the whole entire world already knows that by now.” But instead you reply meekly, “Alright, Daddy.”

You don’t sound very convincing though.

so you think you can hold the world up by a string…

Casa420 and Familia, NineToFive outside the 925, Rhymes and unrhymed lines, Suckool

so you think you can hold the world up by a string.

You’re a tough crowd, Blogistan. I recently update this joint after a three weeks’ hiatus, and I get complaints that the post isn’t sufficiently about me. Not to mention the fact that every time I write about male friends/acquaintances/nice guys at Borders/old men at the post office and at cafes, my audience (that would be you) invariably articulates their suspicion that said male figure is hitting on me. JESUS. Peace be upon him.

Lucky for you, I have a love affair with post-it pads (and, more recently, pocket-sized Moleskine notebooks, discovered while shopping for birthday presents for my brother), and carry one (or two or three) around with me wherever I go. The end result? Three weeks’ worth of words, phrases, experiences, snippets of conversation, lines randomly recalled and quickly scribbled down in the midst of lectures and discussion sections, just so I could share them with you all on the weblog. That hiatus turned out to be a but more extensive than I had anticipated. I need to get all this stuff out of my head, and, although I could probably make individual weblog entries out of each of these, I’m far too lazy to even attempt such an endeavor. For your edification and amusement, then, I present an update almost entirely about me, list-style based off my post-it notes, and with minimal references to guys. Imagine that.

– The past month’s conversations included such highlights on my part as:

“Hi, I’m calling to check on the status of that tow truck I called in for, about forty minutes ago… What? No, I’m not in Southern California!”

and

“I’ve taken almost enough English classes at this campus to declare a minor in it, if I wanted. What do you mean I still need to take English 101?!”

Between these and a host of other disagreeable experiences, I’m sure you’re starting to see why I mentally referred to these as my What the French-Connection-UK! weeks. They were filled mainly with thoughts of homicide, and attempts to squash an ever-present rising surge of profanity in my head, and made me feel, by turns, like crying or smashing something. And since I’m not much of a crier, being a lean, mean, green smashing machine felt like a good option. Except I think Najm already has first dibs on being the Incredible Hulk. It felt like one really, really long day, the kind you’re just itching to use the “fast forward” button on.

– Let me tell you about my major advisor. My major advisor has the expressionless, dead stare down to an art. It’s highly disconcerting to be confronted with that blank look when I’m stopping by to get some questions answered and to ask for advice. Because she’s an advisor, no? No, apparently not. My advisor is not supposed to make me do a teeth-gritting, fist-clenching, sidewalk-stomping dance of annoyance in downtown Sacramento while trying not to shout on the phone at her that, “No, my minor is from the College of Letters & Science! So my minor petition is not supposed to go to the Dean’s office at Ag&ES; it’s supposed to go to the Dean’s office at Letters & Science, even though my major is at Ag&ES!” My advisor is also not supposed to ask in response to this, “Are you sure?” Yes, I’m sure, dammit, because I’ve made phone calls and tracked people down and verified everything I needed to know and even everything I didn’t need to know. Why are you not sure, is the question.

My major advisor also has a deplorable habit of answering one single freakin’ question of mine, then getting up and crossing the room to stand by the door while I’m still sitting next to her desk, mouth half-open to launch into my next question. Apparently, this is her signal that my time is up. No “Do you have any further questions?” No “Is there anything else I could help you with today?” Not even an “Okay, bye.” As I mentioned to my sister once, “I want closure, dammit!” The last time I was there, my advisor pulled the same “getting-up-and-heading-for-the-door” maneuver. I rolled my eyes and followed, accustomed to this by now. At the door, she flicked her finger against the stack of papers I held in my hand and asked, “What are these?”
“These,” I replied coldly, “concern other questions I wanted to ask you, but apparently you don’t have time for them today.”

My major advisor is an incompetent buffoon, my minor advisor is never available and should thus never have been granted that position, and how come I have a faculty advisor I never even knew about? No one tells me these things. Also, people who are getting paid to supposedly make my life easier should be doing exactly that. But, no, I am surrounded by morons.

Yes, I’m kind of bitter. I’m almost over it, don’t worry. Like I said, it’s been a long few weeks.

– 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?

– My new favorite word to use in everyday conversation is “periodically.” I do a lot of things periodically. Like skip breakfast, skip class, and not study.

– The last two movies I watched were Fida and The Notebook. I know, I know, I can’t believe I watched the latter either. If I could, I would surgically remove the memory from my mind. The best part about both movies was that everyone dies in the end. There, I gave it all away. Anyway, The Notebook was horrifically sleep-inducing, and I can’t believe all the girls I know kept recommending it to me. Geez louise. My sister and I were not impressed. Bean summed up our disappointment and disgust by pointing out, “Maybe it’s just that we’ve lost our sense of subtle details. We’ve gotten so used to the desi films that we can’t handle stuff like The Notebook anymore, because we’re just waiting for a full-out brawl.” Besides, that night I had a nightmare related to the movie. I swear. And I don’t usually even have nightmares.

– Somayya and I saw a Hummer limousine in Sacramento a couple of weeks ago.

– The first day of NPB lecture, having come to class unprepared, I asked the girl next to me, “Can I borrow a coupla sheets of paper off you?” Yeah, I know, how do you borrow paper? I guess I should have said, “Would you mind if I asked you for a few sheets of paper?” Not that it matters anyway, because I only took about two lines worth of notes and then ended up sleeping through most of the lecture, and the girl gave me a cold stare on my way out. I’m sorry I wasted your paper that I borrowed, geez freakin’ louise. Would you like it back now that I’m done borrowing it?

– My new favorite poem is T.S. Eliot’s Ash Wednesday. Deja vu when I got to the lines, Teach us to care and not to care/Teach us to sit still. I have read those somewhere before, a decade ago in a book I can’t recall.

And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

[…]

Lord, I am not worthy
Lord, I am not worthy
but speak the word only.

– I am taking two science courses this quarter – NPB (neurobiology, physiology, and behavior) and MCB (molecular and cellular biology). Yes, gross, I know. God knows why I felt the need to put these off until now, seeing as how I’m not a science person, except for the fact that I used to be really good at physics. But as long as they don’t start talking about cellular respiration and the Krebs Cycle and all that drama, I should be okay. Taking classes with freshmen and sophomores is always amusing, though. They’re the ones who show up to line outside the lecture hall twenty minutes before class even begins. But it’s okay, because I keep getting mistaken for a seventeen year old anyway, so I blend in just fine. Plus, I’m still perpetually dazed and confused all the time, and I rarely look both ways before crossing the street.

– The first day of class, a guy in my MCB lecture leaned over to ask, “Excuse me, you’re not Fatima, are you?”
Who is Fatima and why does she look like me, is what I want to know.

– I’m officially losing my mind. The following three conversations are all the proof you need:

1) In a phone conversation a couple of weeks ago, Somayya and I were bemoaning the fact that we rarely see each other this quarter. “I know!” I said, “and we don’t even do our regular family weekend visits to see you all anymore.” Except I accidentally said “weekend wisits,” and Somayya and I both dissolved in laughter. It’s over, kids. I am officially a fob.

2) Last week at work, my co-worker K kept urging me to hurry up and finish the stuff I was working on, so that we could have our meeting. “We need to meet before 12!” he kept repeating, “because at 12, I’m leaving to go skiing in Lake Tahoe.”
“Stop trying to rush me,” I finally snapped. “Just because you’re going snowing does not mean our work schedules have to revolve around you and your stupid Lake Tahoe trip.”
“Snowing?” asked Somayya innocently. “What’s that?”
“I meant, skiiing. Or snowboarding. Or whatever the hell he’s planning on doing up there.”

3) “Tuesday Morning’s having a sale,” remarked my dad over dinner the other night. We love Tuesday Morning. How can you not be in love with a place that has everything 50-80% off?
We peered at the ads together.
“I don’t get this one,” I said. “They’re selling watches. Why are there random sunflowers in the picture?”
“You know,” said my dad. “Sunflowers? The sun? Time? Watches? See?”
I continued looking blank. “I still don’t get it.”
My dad gave me a pitying look and rolled his eyes, which is always hilarious to watch, because he absolutely does not know how to roll his eyes, so he always rolls his head around instead. “Okay,” he said. “You know how you can tell the time based on the position of the sun?”
“Ohh…” [pause] “Wait, why are the sunflowers there though?”
“Because sunflowers always face in the direction of the sun. Duh.” Except my dad doesn’t know how to say “duh” either, so it always comes out sounding like “daa.”
“Oh yeah. I think I used to know this, a long time ago.”
In the next life, I am going to be blonde.

– My NPB teaching assistant pronounces the word “iron” exactly the way it’s spelled: eye-ron. [I say “eye-yern.” How do you pronounce “iron”?] This was in reference to the structure of hemoglobin, or something. Clearly, I do not know anything about hemoglobin. Or anything about science at all, for that matter. Biology is bidah. The end.

That was a joke, by the way. I mentioned in an email to a friend the other day: “As one of my favorite Bay Area scholars/students of knowledge said in a speech recently, re. the Muslim community’s tendency to point fingers at one another and obsessively label things as haraam/bidah: ‘Well, you know what, YOU’RE HARAAM!’ “

– I’ve also recently realized that I never pronounce the “d” in “fundraiser”: Funraiser.

– Halaqa outing: As we were driving up Mt. Diablo, I remarked in reference to the hardcore bicyclists who were pedaling up the mountain: “Man, that’s hella exertion.”
My sister: “You just used ‘hella’ and ‘exertion’ in the same sentence. There’s something wrong with you.”
Me: “Hey, I’m a California girl with vocabulary, what can I say.”

– Yesterday, my right eye finally stopped twitching after three weeks. That’s an indicator of stress and exhaustion, someone once told me during freshman year. Some things just never change.

– Not to say that there weren’t good things about the past few weeks either. Like the Friday that was filled with rockstar friends, two (count ’em, TWO!) real meals, ice cream, offers to race down the stairs, jokes about the FBI watch list, and hilarious white-girl renditions of “I love you, 50 Cent! Holler!” And the officially labeled Tuesday From Hell, when I decided to “screw it all” (one of many such decisions in recent history) and finally escaped to the public park and sat on a sunny hill, eating french fries and watching the elementary school team play softball. And…well, I know there have been more memorable (in a good way) moments like that. It’s just difficult to be suitably grateful sometimes, and to keep track adequately. I think this post is an attempt at that. Sort of.

– The funniest thing to happen this week was when I set off the alarm at work. Apparently, you still need to have the security guard swipe you on your way out the main doors after 6pm, regardless of whether you have your employee ID card on you. I, inefficient multitasker that I am, dialed a friend’s number on my cell phone just as I was about to leave the building. At the exit doors, I swiped my ID card, heard a beep, and watched the little red light turn to green. At the exact moment my friend answered the phone, I pushed open the door and the alarms started blaring. It was great stuff, and I think the friend at the other end of the line was just as amused by the whole thing as I was. Luckily, the security guard was, too.

– Does your father call you on his rainy drive home to leave voicemessages in which he sings, “Raindrops are falling on my head! La la la la la lalala”? No? I thought not.

– I’m not a big fan of grape-flavored anything. Except real grapes, and sour green ones at that. But someone’s gotta finish all the popsicles I bought back when I was getting my wisdom teeth pulled. All those mornings of grabbing a red/green/orange popsicle out of the freezer for breakfast on my way out the door to school are over, and the purples ones are the only ones left. Six whole purple popsicles. Not so bad after all, actually, although I’m still not really a fan. But it leaves your tongue looking so dark purple, it’s almost black, which is pretty slick.

– I attended the Birth of a Prophet event at UC Berkeley a couple of weeks ago. It was even more beautiful and spiritually uplifting than I had hoped it would be, and you can keep your outcries of “Bidah!” to yourself, please. Amusingly enough, the event coincided with Cal Day, so I was bombarded with ads and posters and pamphlets and “Hi, do you have any questions?” while making my way through Sproul Plaza. Listen, I know I look like a seventeen year old, but no, I’m not a prospective incoming freshman, okay? I have enough issues being a prospective graduating senior, as it is, thanks.

– Every morning on my way to school, about forty miles from home, I pass a huge yellow/orange billboard advertisement for San Diego, advising, “CHANGE VIEWS, NOT CHANNELS.” 2Scoops, I’m looking right at you: Stop trying to infiltrate Northern California.

– The best way to make yourself feel better about an MCB midterm you more likely failed the hell out of is to sit in the sunshine and drink a medium-size hot chocolate with whipped cream. When the girl making your drink notices your drawn face and bleary eyes and turns around from the machine to ask kindly, “Would you like extra whipped cream on that?” just answer, “Yes, please.” There are few things in life that sunshine, hot chocolate, and extra whipped cream cannot make you feel better about.

– Also, strawberry ice cream with chunks of cheesecake is hella good stuff. Add that to the list. And blue raspberry jolly ranchers, especially when they’re vindictively grabbed by the handful from the candy jar of my major advisor who is a moron.

– As of yesterday, I have officially canceled my minor. Indecisions and revisions indeed. I thought it was going to hurt – and it did hurt for the past three weeks I spent agonizing over it – but, surprisingly, I’m more at peace with the final decision than I thought I would be. So, instead of seven classes (yes, I was somehow registered for seven classes, the seventh one being a microbiology class my advisor thought I needed – which I didn’t, but she’s a moron, as we have already established – and which I had forgotten I was even enrolled in) and twenty-seven units, which is absolutely insane for a quarter system (nine weeks of instruction, tenth week is final exams) if not even otherwise, I am now down to four classes and sixteen units. Much more manageable.

“Pay attention!” I crowed yesterday afternoon to my office colleagues at large, whatever of them remained past 5pm. “This is a monumental occasion!” I typed the “permission to drop” numbers that the Dean’s Office had given me into their respective fields on the computer, then theatrically wiggled my fingers above the keyboard in my best “spirit fingers” imitation.

“What are you doing?” asked K, looking up from his computer.
“I’m saying ‘eff it all’ to the program.”
“What program?”
“The ‘Yasmine wants to graduate with this Social & Ethnic Relations minor that she’s absolutely in love with’ program.”
“Oh.”

Thank you to all you rockstars who offered their input in regards to my “How useful/useless/irrelevant is a minor?” questions. If I didn’t ask you, I’m sorry, I love you, I was lazy, and you’re a rockstar, too.

– That said, this “screw the minor” deal only serves to reinforce my feeling that I’m one of those total slackers who diligently pursues something almost to the end, only to give it up in the last five seconds. This is a recurring theme in my life. Like last week, when I was up until 3am studying for an MCB quiz, only to be late to class the next morning because I couldn’t find parking. So, instead, I skipped class (and the quiz) and slept in my car for an hour, then woke up and, instead of heading over to my next class, I walked over to the student union and took another 2-hour nap in the study lounge. This nap-taking business is outta control.

– This morning, I used the carpool lane to pass a slow bus. I’m pretty sure this is highly illegal maneuver, but, what can I say, I love living life on the edge.

– I’m typing this out at work. K just stalked past me to get to his desk, a grim expression on his face. He pulled out his top desk drawer with a deafening bang, muttering, “I’m so hungry!”
“Yeah, me too,” I said sympathetically.
“And there’s nothing to eat around here,” he continued, fishing around in the drawer.
“Are you looking for your topsecret candy stash?”
“No,” he replied, pulling out a handful of what looked like condiment packets.
“Is that mustard?” I asked, spying a yellow packet.
“No, this calls for honey.”
“Dude. Are you seriously going to eat honey out of the packet like that?”
“Yeah. It’s soo good. See?”
“Good lord. Here, eat some Reese’s,” I offered, shoving my bag of miniature peanut butter cups his way.
“No way, honey is so much healthier.”

– My co-worker B just walked by. He stopped long enough to ask, “Have you ever seen a chicken with its head cut off?”
“Yes,” I replied, “several times,” thinking of all those months in Pakistan.
“Oh. Well, I never have.”
“It’s okay, you’re not really missing out.”
“Oh, okay. Just making sure.”

Why do I work with the weirdest people in the world?

– Yes, I still like Maroon 5, but I have a short attention span and I get highly annoyed when songs I once liked are constantly played over and over on the radio. Therefore, Maroon 5 is not as cool as Keane, whom no one except I seems to have heard of. Besides, how could you not like a band who’s British and therefore sings “cahn’t stop now,” which, to my ears, accustomed as they are to American pronunciation, sounds absolutely hilarious and cool. My lovely L lady, after looking at the cover of Keane’s album, wondered quite disparagingly why rock musicians never have much in the way of looks. Somayya and I contended that it’s because rockstars are more concerned with how good their music is rather than with how good they themselves look. So there, take that!

Yes, I admit it, I have fairly mainstream taste in music. I don’t really know obscure bands. All the obscure bands I do know start becoming rich and famous and everyone else knows who they are, too, and that just ruins the whole thing.

Speaking of music, no song has ever made me grin so widely as Coldplay’s “Yellow.” Perhaps I haven’t heard it often enough, so that explains why I’m not tired of it yet. Which reminds me – Gavin DeGraw, you’re a hella slick singer/songwriter/pianist/guitarist and all that, but I enjoy your music more when I’m listening to it off my discman and less when it plays on repeat on the radio. Stop it. Also, new favorite musicians, discovered while browsing at Borders when I should have been in class, include: Amos Lee, Ari Hest, Joss Stone, and Rachel Yamagata. I think. I’m not sure, since I haven’t listened to everything yet. But still, links are fun. Go explore.

– I need to edit my template. I need to edit the sidebar with the Gavin DeGraw lyrics, because I love that song but not when it plays on the radio. I need to edit my blogroll. I need to edit my life. Lemme know if you have any suggestions. Meanwhile, much love, have beautiful days, all that good stuff.

>continue reading

Corners which seem familiar, leading to unimagined, pebble-dashed estates

Casa420 and Familia

Dinner took almost an hour this evening. We sat at the table, passing around brochures of all the houses that are selling or have recently been sold in our neighborhood and general area. The pile of thick, glossy real estate cards and advertisements thrown across our dining room table grows by the day. Not only are the houses priced at $900,000-$1.2million, they are actually selling for close to their respective asking prices. Next to shopping at Costco, my dad’s new favorite weekend activity for the past month has consisted of him stopping by all the “open houses” held at each home for sale, during which prospective buyers drop in to check out the place. Apparently there have been endless reunions going on around here, since all the neighbors have slyly been stopping by to gauge how their own homes compare in terms of design, layout, construction, aesthetics, value, etc. Especially value.

Like everyone else, my family’s dinnertime discussions periodically flow back and forth between square footage, lot size, layout, decks and patios, yards and gardens, kitchen amenities, skylights and french doors, and, of course, potential renovations in mind for our own home. My father missed his true calling: landscape designer, architect, chef extraordinaire. Every day, he comes home to give us an update: “The house with all the skylights has a ‘Sale Pending’ sign,” he remarked this evening. “But that one at the corner is still not sold. I think they’re asking too much. $1.1 million? It doesn’t even have a yard, and it’s only one thousand square feet!”

“I wonder how much our home will sell for,” he mused at dinner’s conclusion.

“No,” I said sharply, getting up to clear off the table. “We’re not selling it.”

“We’re not?” he asked innocently, trying rather unsuccessfully to bite a grin. He loves baiting us like this.

“No. We’re not. The end.”

The daddy-o fixed me with a stare. “So, then, anyone who doesn’t want to move should help pull some weeds around here this weekend.”

Score –> Daddy-o: 43748587, Yasminay: 0

speed freak this, you ugly box! I know you all fi…

Blogistan and the Wide World of Webs

speed freak this, you ugly box!

I know you all find my story about that one time I tailgated a Hummer highly amusing and unforgettable and, yes, insane, but I feel totally vindicated in realizing that I’m not the only one enjoying such pursuits. Seems like Anjum is doing some gloating of her own, as well. Isn’t it addicting?! (Interrotailgateration!) I’m totally bursting with pride, you can’t even imagine. Go listen!

Shiny smooth automotive goodness, and goodness of another nature

All-Star Crackstar Squad, Rockstar and Crescent, Salaam Namaste

Let me tell you about my friend S. My friend S is one of the most selfless people I know, the kind of person who, I’ve realized recently, is always putting everyone else before himself. Somayya is another one of those kind of people. They know it and I know it and everyone else knows it and they keep doing it, sometimes to their own detriment, but that’s what makes them so tight, dintcha know. It’s a vicious cycle sometimes, but we need more people like that in the world.

S is tight. Actually, he’s the self-proclaimed tightest person in the whole wide world. He used to send out emails to the listserve, signing off as, “S____ a.k.a. Tight One.” Most of the time, though, he’d email us one-liners stating simply, “I am so tight” or “I am hecka tight,” prompting me to fire back responses along the lines of, “Umm, no, the world does not revolve around you, buddy.”

I have to be careful about how I respond to S’s comments half the time though. Most of my conversations with friends and acquaintances revolve around sarcasm and wry remarks that may come off as disconcertingly harsh and are thus somewhat misconstrued by overly sensitive people like S. Recently, for example, in response to something he had said, I told S he was “hella rude and obnoxious.”

He reminded me that he is a fob, chiding me for using “big complicated words he can’t spell or say.” I didn’t realize until the next day that he was dismayed by my comment because he thought he had genuinely hurt my feelings or offended me. So he apologized profusely. Taken aback, I burst out laughing, until I realized he was serious, so I apologized in turn. And then I had to do a step-by-step explanation of the role of sarcasm in my daily conversations. What drama.

“Besides,” I explained later, “it’s not about me. You know I can take it. But you made that comment to someone you don’t know, and who doesn’t know you, and I think it comes off as a hella rude first impression.”

Then I told him how tight he was, to soften the criticism.
“I know,” he said, as if that were obvious. “People tell me all the time, ‘S___, you are so tight.’ I’m like, ‘I know I’m tight. Watch out, people, tight stuff walkin’ through.’ “
I rolled my eyes, as he continued muttering, “Man, I can’t believe I’m so tight.”

I’ve come to realize though that, like many of us, S uses his seeming arrogance, sarcasm, and blunt commentary as a front for masking deeper insecurities and somber life experiences. Once in a while, he’ll remain serious long enough to share unexpected, heartbreaking stories, like the one about the girl in high school who used to treat him like crap for wearing the same jeans every single day, because he could only afford one pair. Last summer, he told me I was wise, and I said, No, I’m just complacent, because life’s always been too good to me. How could I be wise, when I can’t even begin to fathom experiences such as his: “I’ve slept in the airport, on park benches and streets, collected cans at night… I have done all that, and I don’t take it for granted.”

“I remember where I come from,” he always tells me, “and I’m proud of it. Whatever I have now can be gone in a heartbeat, and I’ll give up everything I have, cuz I ain’t taking it to heaven.”

Two Fridays ago, I checked my phone and found the following text message from S, whose house I had left my car parked in front of that morning before hanging out with Somayya the rest of the day: I washed ur car n took most of da scratches 4rm da right door. I couldnt clean da rims.

I called him straightaway to convey my massive gratitude. “No problem,” he kept saying, with a note of genuine surprise in his voice, as if he couldn’t understand why I would be calling to thank him. “I was washing my car, so I thought I’d go ahead and wash yours, too.”

Last Monday, he called to ask, “Hey, are we still on for lunch tomorrow?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Okay, cool.” He reminded me that he was heading out of town in two days, and that he would be back in Sacramento in a couple of weeks. “So hey, just drop your car off tomorrow when we go to lunch, and I’ll clean the inside of it, too.”
“Are you serious?!”
“Sure. For free. I love cleaning cars.”
“Will do, then. Awesome, dude. Thanks so much!”
“No problem. It’ll be ready by the time you get off work. Oh, hey, when’s the last time you got your oil changed?”
“I dunno. It’s been a while, I think.”
“How long a while?”
“A few months?”
“How many months?”
“I dunno, man,” I said absently, sitting down on the floor of my room and warming up my hands at the heater. “Maybe, like…last summer or something?”
“Ohhh my God… Do you know, you’re supposed to change your oil every three thousand miles? Okay, I’ll have to change your oil, too. The hell is wrong with you?”

He was supposed to tell me the lengthy, convoluted story about how he made it to the United States, a story he said would take him anywhere from two to five hours to relate. Instead, he spent our entire lunch berating me for not remembering the last time I got the oil changed in my car.
“I don’t remember, okay?” I said, throwing up my hands in impatience. “So get over it. I just take it to Jiffy Lube every few months, and they take care of all that drama.”
“Every few months? You said last summer. Your car doesn’t deserve you. By the time I’m done with it, it won’t even want to go home with you at the end of the day.”
“Well, I check my oil regularly, even if I don’t know how to change it. And the coolant, too. Doesn’t that count for something?”
He was not impressed.

We finished lunch, complete with much eye-rolling on my part, and then S dropped me off at work. He then called me twice that afternoon. The first time: “Hey, do you want Armor All on your car?”
I squinted. “Almond oil?”
“Armor All.”
“What’s that?”
“Say ‘yes,’ ” mouthed Somayya. “It makes your car all shiny.”
“Oh, yeah, definitely then.”

The second call: “When’s the last time you got your transmission fluid changed?”
“Umm…”
“Okay, I’ll change that, too.”
“Thanks, buddy.”

Preoccupied with work and pseudo-studying, I didn’t make it back to S’s house to pick up my car until almost 9pm that evening, but even in the darkness I could see how clean and shiny my car looked. S and I spent fifteen minutes walking around his driveway, checking out my car from every angle as he relayed everything he had done: washed/polished/waxed the outside, scrubbed the rims, vacuumed and cleaned every inch of the inside, changed my oil and transmission fluid… Thorough detail.

“Oh, and I replaced your air filter, too. Took out your old one and put a new one in.” He fished my old air filter out of the garbage can and held it under the garage door light. “See this?”

I peered at it.
“See how black this is?” he said, pointing out the obvious. “It’s supposed to be all white.”

“Dang.” I skipped around my car again, repeatedly rubbing my index finger against the surface, feeling like a gleeful little kid. “It feels so slick. You musta used hella wax and polish on this.” I laughed. “Dude, it looks so freakin’ clean, I can’t believe it!”

“It wasn’t that dirty,” he shrugged.

I looked at him in disbelief. “Man, are you kidding me? Did you somehow miss the black rims and the inch-thick layers of dust on the dashboard?”

“I’ve seen dirtier cars than that, okay. Make sure you get your oil changed every three thousand miles,” he reminded me. “With all your driving, you have to do this regularly. Wait, how many miles do you drive a week?”

“Umm. Six hundred a week between home and school. Oh, and I work three days a week in Sacramento, too.”

“Dayamm. So that makes how many?”

“Another ninety or so. So let’s make it an even seven hundred.”

“Seven hundred miles a week?!” he yelped. “For the love of God! What are you, insane?”

He handed me a plastic grocery bag. “What’s this?” I asked, peering inside.

“An extra bottle of oil, and one of transmission fluid, left over from what I put in your car.”

“Dude, just keep them for your own car,” I insisted, but he refused to take them. “Okay, just tell me how much all this stuff cost, so I can pay you back.”

“No,” he said obstinately, opening my car door. “Go home.”

“Fine then. I owe you a couple of lunches and ice cream, whenever you get back.”

“Okay, okay. Oh, and wear sunglasses in the morning,” he warned. “The car might blind you.”

I laughed, eyeing the car in the dark. “Buddy, I’m loving the shininess, whatever I can see of it. There’s no way it’s going to blind me.”

The next morning, however, I had to concede he was right, as the sunshine bounced off the interior of my car – especially the shiny dashboard and steering wheel – and attacked my eyes, which were already strained after a late-night study session. Yellow-orange-tinted sunglasses to the rescue!

I called S when I got to campus. “The car looks awesome, dude. Thanks so much!”
“If you thank me one more time,” he snapped, “I’m going to throw up.”
“Please restrain yourself. And get over it.”

In the afternoon, he left me a voicemessage: “Hey, what’s crackin’? I just listened to your message from last night, too. Stop thanking me. I just washed your car, it’s not like I saved your life or something. Have a beautiful day with your 10am to 9pm back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back classes. Oh, and make sure you don’t get stepped on, okay?”

I’ve been more in touch with S over the past week than I have over the past six months before that. This is mainly because I stalk him everyday by calling to tell him how shiny clean my car is, and how much I love it, and so he feels obligated to return all my rambling phone calls. Now that he’s got me all mushy about my car, S is working on two things:

1) Constantly reminding me about how short I am [I’m 5’1″, and, yes, I’m perfectly okay with this]
(Sample voicemessages: “Did I ever tell you that you’re so short? I noticed it today and was like, ‘Dang, Yasmine is hella short! I didn’t want to step on you.’ ” and
“To me, you will always be thirteen years old. Be careful and make sure you don’t get stepped on, okay?” and
“Why are you so short? And your brother is a giant. Why? Genetics can’t explain that.” and
“I’m taller than you. Taller means everything.”); and

2) Harassing me about my lack of study habits
(He called me a couple of evenings ago to check up on how my studying was going.
“Um, actually, I just finished dinner.”
“Dinner?” he said incredulously. “You got home at 7:30. That was three hours ago. It took you three hours to eat dinner?”
“Well, no, but there’s nothing wrong with prolonging a good thing.”
“Unless you’re taking 24 units,” he pointed out. “And your problem is, half the time, you’re driving. And the other half, you’re napping. What’s wrong with you? You’re always taking naps everywhere. You need to stop sleeping so damn much.”
And last night:
“Are you studying?”
“No! It’s Friday!”
“Every day is a Friday for you, isn’t it? How are you planning on passing those 24 units?”
“Shut up.”)

I’m easily amused and impressed by simple things, and so the ways to my heart are many. But because I am also the Commuter Child Extraordinaire, two things will earn you my massive, never-ending gratitude: Washing my car for me (which no one has ever willingly volunteered to do before S tackled the job), and filling up my gas tank to the max (which my dad always does on the rare occasions he borrows my car).

S called me late Thursday night to share a “pretty tight” verse from the Quran. Why do people always assume I’ll be awake at 12:30am?

Oh, wait, because I usually am.

To continue… I was actually asleep for once in my life, so he left a voicemessage with the verse, and the related footnote/commentary. I listened to it early yesterday morning, on my way to school, grateful for the timely reminder in these weeks of ungodly, uncharitable thoughts on my part:

And call not, besides God, on another god. There is no god but He. Everything (that exists) will perish except His own Face. To Him belongs the Command, and to Him will ye (all) be brought back. (Quran, 28:88)

Later in the day, while I was at work, he IMed me with, “Hey, I found another pretty tight verse.”
“What is it?”
“2:255. But I don’t know how to say it in Arabic.”
“Oh!” I said. “That’s called Ayat al-Kursi. It’s one of my favorites. I can recite the Arabic for you, if you want to hear it. Lemme call you when I get off work, okay?”

I finally got around to calling him that evening, while I was on the road, about ten minutes from home.
“For the love of God!” he exclaimed. “What took you so damn long? I’ve had the crappiest day ever, and I was looking forward to the Arabic version of that verse all day long.”
“Sorry. Alright, buddy, here goes…” So I recited Ayat al-Kursi and the two verses that follow it.
There was empty silence for a few moments after I finished. Then he said, “Wow.”
“Yeah, it’s good stuff, huh?”
“That just made you the tightest person in my book.”
“I already knew that, but thanks anyway.”

How can you not love being friends with a kid who sends text messages like the following, a la Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous speech:
i had a dream and i woke up and wrote about it, that one day we will find a place to eat, i have a dream today that we will eat good food and chill, i have a dream today that my stomach will be full of good food, i have a dream today.

Today’s text message states:
u are tight cause u have a friend like me who is the #1 TIGHTEST. ME. i’m Tight. thus making u guys tight cause u guys are my friends.

Indeed.

as if i haven’t already amply proven my nerdiness….

Bibliothek, Rhymes and unrhymed lines

as if i haven’t already amply proven my nerdiness…

Hi, my name is Yasmine and, lately, all my posts seem to be about books. I am a complete and utter nerd. The end.

Alright, so Baji is making me do this survey thingamajig under threat of incarceration, which actually doesn’t seem so bad if it means I get to take all my books with me.

Let’s begin:

You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?

Apparently, everyone is hella confused about this question. If you’re asking what book I want to douse in gasoline and light a match to, then, to be honest, I really have no idea. I usually only buy books I’ve already read and liked, so I’m slightly attached to all the books in my bookcases. If there were any I ever disliked, I most likely sold them back.

Oh wait, I know! Jasmine, by Bharati Mukherjee. It was handed to me by my 10th grade English teacher, who was amused by the similarity between my name and the protagonist’s and thought I would enjoy a novel by a South Asian writer. Umm, no. First of all, we all know how much I hate hate hate the name “Jasmine.” Vomitrocious! [See below.] Secondly, Jasmine was just highly annoying and kept making stupid life mistakes and apparently had multiple personalities because she kept changing her damn name: Jyoti>>Jasmine>>Jase>>Jazz>>Jane. What the holy freakin’ smoley?

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Do they have to be fictional characters from books? Because I did want to marry MacGuyver when I grew up. Okay, fine, at the risk of destroying any sort of literary credibility I’ve established, I would have to admit to crushing on the Goblin King from Labyrinth. Hey, I was ten. I remember watching the movie a few years later and just about dying of laughter (it was released in 1986, so what do you expect? Most other ’80s movies I grew up with totally rocked though). The Goblin King sounded much better in the book than he looked in the movie. I was a shallow kid, okay?

And I don’t think this constitutes crushing, but I’ve certainly always had a soft spot for Sidney Carton (he’s so damn jaded yet genuine) from Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities and for Charlie Gordon from Daniel Keyes’ Flowers for Algernon. I read the latter for the first time when I was about twelve, and I think it was the second book that made me cry. The first book was Wilson Rawls’ Where the Red Fern Grows, when I was ten. I wanted a best friend like Billy Colman, and I totally bawled my eyes out when Old Dan and Little Ann died. Alright, I think that’s it.

The last book you bought is:

How to Eat Like a Child: And Other Lessons in Not Being a Grown-Up, by Delia Ephron with drawings by Edward Koren. I bought it a couple of days ago from the Friends of the Library section at my local public library, and it’s hardcover, so it cost $1. Paperbacks cost fifty cents. The flyleaf says, in cursive handwriting dated 7/25/79, To Alexis, This is so you never forget how to act like a child. Love, Gwyneth.

Highlights include sections entitled “How to Laugh Hysterically,” “How to Tell a Joke” (Immediately repeat ten times.), “How to Torture Your Sister,” “How to Talk on the Telephone” (Hello. Are you English? Are you Swedish? Are you Italian? Are you Finnish? Well I am. Goodbye.), etc. The crowd-pleasing “How to Express an Opinion” offers the following word choices:

Yucky
Gross
Dis-gusting
Ugh
Sick
Sickening
Scuzzy
Smell-y
Oh, barf
Creepy
Icky
Obnoxious
Boy, is this dumb
Creeps
Crummy
Vomitrocious

And how could I not share with you all the author’s sage advice on how to eat ice cream cones?

Ask for a double scoop. Knock the top scoop off while walking out the door of the ice cream parlor. Cry. Lick the remaining scoop slowly so that ice cream melts down the outside of the cone and over your hand. Stop licking when the ice cream is even with the top of the cone. Be sure it is absolutely even. Eat a hole in the bottom of the cone and suck the rest of the ice cream out the bottom. When only the cone remains with ice cream coating the inside, leave on car dashboard.

…and french fries?

Wave one french fry in air for emphasis while you talk. Pretend to conduct orchestra. Then place four fries in your mouth at once and chew. Turn to your sister, open your mouth, and stick out your tongue coated with potatoes. Close mouth and swallow. Smile.

I freakin’ love this book! LIKE OH MY GOD, BECKY, YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW. Okay, I’ll stop now.

The day before that amusing purchase, I bought Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart for $1 from the American Cancer Society shop in downtown.

The last book you read:

Audre Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, a “biomythography” of her life as a queer woman of color. While the writing is pretty sexually provocative at times, it is for the most part also lovely, poetic, and fascinating enough that I’ve left dog-eared pages all the way through the book. If you can handle reading about queer women of color, then I highly recommend it.

What are you currently reading?

Gloria Anzaldua’s Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. It was assigned reading for a womens studies course I took last quarter. I’ve only just started it, so I am quite obviously an academic slacker. Also, I read two chapters of Karen Armstrong’s new memoir, The Spiral Staircase : My Climb Out of Darkness, standing up in the unversity bookstore this morning, so I think that totally counts, especially since I’m planning on buying it eventually, unless I just end up finishing it by reading a few chapters every time I stop by the place. And last night, I started Deafening, by Frances Itani, which I had bought months ago (for $1!) and then promptly forgotten all about.

Five books you would take to a deserted island:

Do you realize how painful a question this is? You’re killing me. Five?! Geez louise. Alright, here we go:

– The Quran, as edited by Abduallah Yusuf Ali, because I agree with Baji – footnotes are a good thing. And I haven’t read the entire Quran in translation nearly enough times yet.
– The Complete Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle. If there was one single book that helped me survive eighteen months in Pakistan (ten years ago) with limited reading material in English, this was it. My brother and I swapped it back and forth and discussed each story in detail, endlessly. Not to mention all the times the binding started coming apart and I had to keep gluing the pages back in. The brother still has it, because we’re all sentimental fools in this family. Hardcovered, four novels, fifty-six short stories, over one thousand pages… The island’s not looking so bad after all.
– The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. “The narrator is a downed pilot in the Sahara Desert.” Hey, if he can make it, why can’t I? It’s a simple, rich, and poweful little book.
– Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales, by Ray Bradbury. Quantity and quality, all at once. I love this man. ‘Nuff said.
– The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, as edited and translated by Stephen Mitchell. As I mentioned recently, I love this book; it’s definitely one of my favorites. The funny thing is, though, that I keep re-reading the same poems and bits of prose over and over, so I definitely need a desert island in order to make it through the book in its entirety.

Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?

Baji is making this so difficult by already having picked the other bookworms I can think of straight off the top of my head. Who else likes books around here? Alright, here goes:

– Najm: because my fellow vampire child was online really late the other night, and, in response to my interrogative inquiries [is this a redundant phrase?], he confessed it was because he had been reading a really good book. In my haste to go to sleep, I forgot to ask what the really good book was. I also want to know what all those other books are, the ones he’s stockpiling on his shelves but has never gotten around to reading in their entirety. [Dammit, kk beat me to this. I shoulda posted this deal last night instead of saving it as a draft. What was I thinking? Well, fine then! I’ll find someone else! So there.]

– BAQ: because he’s a bookworm and I know it, and also because, as with me, conciseness is not his strong suit either, which means I’m anticipating a pretty thorough post in response, so I’m already rubbing my hands together in giddy expectation. Also because maybe this will give him a push to update.

– Queen_Hera: because she is the absolute best QUEEN of books, and I can imagine her eyes lighting up at these questions, and only someone with such an enormous collection of books would appreciate my excessive nerdiness.

– bki./: because he likes Eric Carle (which is always a selling point with me), but he clearly also likes a lot of other literary stuff as well, if his awesomely-composed “globalog” is anything to go by. Besides, he knows German. How many of you know German, huh?

Also, I’d like to cheat (and monopolize this quiz thingamajig) by saying that I’d enjoy hearing from the following people as well, if you’re up to it:

– Yaser: because he’s blunt and straight to the point, which I think is an admirable quality and so I always always trust his book reviews.

– Fathima: because I want to know what books are being read/recommended by someone who writes as amazingly as she does mashaAllah.

– HijabMan: because I’m thinking it’s going to be good, unexpected, or, at the very least, definitely different and thought-provoking.

– Sister Scorpion: because she reads everything. Also, because someday I would like to be as articulate, open-minded, hilarious, and talented (say, “MashaAllah”). So I gotta get a head start by stalking her bookshelves.

– Knicq: because he needs to update that joint already, and nagging fellow ramblers is so much fun. Plus, he thinks I’m funny, for some reason, and I totally suck at accepting compliments, so this is my lame kindergarten way of responding along the lines of, “Thanks, I think you’re cool, too, so, Tag! You’re IT!” [Okay, kk beat me here, too. Ugh! Creeps! Crummy! I give up.]

If you absolutely love books and I’ve inadvertently left you out, feel free to participate. Let me know so I can add to my ever-increasing list of future books to read. On the other hand, if you’re not a bookworm at all, please accept my deepest apologies. We’re so outta control. I accept full blame.

For all my fellow bookworms.

Bibliothek, Links to love

Check this: The 100 favourite fictional characters… as chosen by 100 literary luminaries [via Kottke]

Tin Tin! Dr. Watson! God! Jane Eyre! Paddington Bear! Antonia Shimerda! Anne of Green Gables!

(I think I need to expand my literary collection, is what.)

And, in response: Character witnesses, as chosen by Independent readers

Sidney Carton, Holden Caulfield, Tom Joad, Rebecca de Winter, Jo March, Atticus Finch!, Eeyore!

(Ditto the parenthetical confession above. Good lord, why haven’t I read barely any of the other books on this list?)

And: My anti-Hero (because the bad guys are so much more interesting)

Also, because I am now obsessed with the Enjoyment>>Books section of this site:
– Interviews with authors whose books I want to read:

* Nuruddin Farah
* Eric Carle (one of my very favorite authors/illustrators of children’s books)
* Asne Seierstad
* Sarah Vowell (a.k.a Violet Incredible!)
* Nadeem Aslam (“Most ordinary Muslims say, ‘We just want to get on with our lives. Don’t identify us with the fundamentalists.’ But it’s a luxury. We moderate Muslims have to stand up. As a child I was really frightened of the game Hangman. I was terrified that my not knowing the answer was going to get somebody killed. As a grown-up, I feel that a game of Hangman is being played on an enormous scale in the world, and that sooner or later I’m going to be asked certain questions, and if I don’t give the right answer somebody is going to get hurt.”)

Plus, an argument: Independent versus Chain bookstores

no pain, no political gain. A few weeks ago, I we…

Conversations and Encounters

no pain, no political gain.

A few weeks ago, I went in to see my dentist for one of those every-6-months check-ups. He asked the usual grown-up questions about school and exams and my future career goals after graduation (“Sleeping,” I said shortly). “So I hear you’re going to become a politician,” he said, as he began preparing for my tooth examination and cleaning.

“No,” I said, baffled. “That’s never been one of my choices.”

“I see. Alright then.”

“Wait. Have you been talking to my father?” I asked suspiciously.

He shrugged lightly. “Well, yes, that’s what your baba said. He said you’ve been hanging out with a lot of politicians lately.”

I laughed. “They’re not politicians, they’re university administrators. My baba likes exaggerating because he says he’ll never understand what I’m studying.”

“Well, make sure you get your wisdom teeth pulled before you become a politician though,” he deadpanned, “because you’ll need to prepare for the future.”

On my way out the door, after we had established that my teeth were looking mighty grand, I stopped by the receptionist’s counter to make an appointment for an upcoming wisdom tooth extraction. Having taken care of that, I said to her, “Alright then, have a beautiful day, and I’ll see you in a couple weeks!”

She leaned over the counter towards me, widening her eyes and stifling a burst of laughter. “Did you hear about the two men in Los Angeles who were cleaning windows and the scaffolding broke?”

I stared. “Oh man, that’s terrible.”

“I mean, it’s not funny, but better them than me, right?”

At a loss for words, I continued staring at her unsuccessful attempt to suppress a smirk, then fled out the door before I did something like hit her over the head with…umm…my messenger bag? my flip-flops? the latest copy of TIME magazine? her thick appointment book?

The rest of that morning went somewhat like this:

– I bought a $5 pair of pants and $7 pair of boots from the Goodwill store down the street. (This is why the majority of my paycheck always goes towards food and not towards clothes.)
– I literally almost got my sorry self run over because I thought I was too cool to look both ways while crossing said 4-laned street. Clearly I’m getting cocky from spending way too much time in downtown Sacramento, where jay-walking is normal for me.
– I stopped by another store with the intention of buying hearing aid batteries and walked out with two pairs of flip-flops for $10.
– To celebrate my nice, shiny, newly-cleaned teeth, I ate doughnuts and candy all the way to Berkeley.

Anyway, that was then.

I was back at the dentist’s this morning to get my wisdom tooth pulled. The receptionist prepared me quite nicely for that by giving me a headache when she presented me with change in $2 bills for a $20 bill and then proceeded to confuse both herself and me while counting out said change. $2 bills? I had forgotten those even existed.

So the wisdom tooth extraction was not as much drama as I had been expecting. I walked out of the place half an hour after I walked in. My sister (here on out referred to as “Chauffeur Extraordinaire”) and I celebrated by going to the grocery store and spending tons of money on my prescriptions (for penicillin and ibuprofen. Where’s my vicodin, huh huh huh?), yoghurt smoothies, instant custard, peach-and-mango-flavored applesauce, ice cream, and fruit popsicles. I’m all set for the long haul. Hey, I’m an invalid; I’m entitled.

Then I came home and sprawled on the couch and watched Donnie Darko and Traffic, which were damn depressing. I think I need to watch The Goonies and The Princess Bride to cheer myself up instead.

I also:

– ate a heaping bowlful of custard
– munched on one fruit popsicle (cherry-flavored)
– applied an ice pack to my cheek/jaw 598905839587 times for fifteen minutes at a times
– tried the mango-peach applesauce, which was surprisingly yummy
– spit out and replaced the blood-soaked gauze pads and cottonballs in my mouth 493874902740274 times (you know you’re dying to hear all the gory details, just admit it)

Anyway, the damn bleeding still hasn’t stopped, so I’m stuck on soft, cold food for now and I had to sit at the dinner table and watch everyone eat meatballs and hot roti while I spooned applesauce into my mouth around the cottonballs, because did I mention it’s still bleeding? I mean, I know my favorite color is red and all. But still. Geez louise.

I’m getting (slightly) tired of being all bitter and using the word “damn” multiple times in this post though. So, My Stupid Gum From Which That Damn Wisdom Tooth Was Extracted, can you please hurry up and stop bleeding so I can start eating some real food already? Because I seriously think meatballs taste better than cotton balls, I’m sure you agree, and, besides, I’m on spring break now and I would like to make it revolve around food and not around how loudly my tummy will continue growling before I give up and grab another one of those applesauce containers, because that’s just no fun.

Thanks, much appreciated.

Knowing that life is life, not mood

Bibliothek, Conversations and Encounters, Rhymes and unrhymed lines

I’m not too easily embarrassed. But I don’t need the drama of trying to use a credit card when I know perfectly well that there is no money available there for me to use, and I’m not the type of person who’s so mortified that I will offer the cashier, my companion, and the other customers in the line behind me an explanation as to why my credit card was declined.

So when, on my way out a bookstore the other morning, I swiped my debit card to pay for a pile of books and found it declined, I didn’t turn red or shuffle my feet apologetically or stammer a possible explanation for that unexpected turn of events. But I did raise an eyebrow and say confusedly, “That’s so weird. I know my deposit cleared,” because a quick phone call just five minutes beforehand had confirmed that I did indeed have money available in my bank account.

I was in the bookstore because I can never pass up the chance to duck inside one. And because I love bookstores and their wide floor-plans, comfy armchairs, café tables, window seats, and, of course, the endless array of bookshelves to wander through, fingers trailing along the books’ spines as I hold my head to the side to read the titles.

I really wasn’t expecting to buy anything, until I came across Tamim Ansary’s West of Kabul, East of New York: An Afghan American Story, a memoir that my father had loved and made the entire family read and had raved about to friends and strangers for weeks afterwards. Turning it over in my hands to skim the back cover, I smiled to myself, remembering an email I had written to a friend in July 2002, soon after reading the book myself:

There is a passage in the book, where the author is talking about Pashto, and I was remembering your IM to me the other day that your friend dictated in Pashto. (Pashto is a kickass language, for reals.) I thought you and your friend might find this amusing:

“Pashto was the language of the ruling clan and the official language of Afghanistan, and no one was allowed to make fun of it or insult it. My father infuriated the authorities by going the other way. He championed Pashto too much, loudly proclaiming it ‘the mother of all the languages.’ He drew up lexicons of words in Pashto and other languages that sounded similar, and drew forced etymological connections. The name Mexico, he claimed, derived from the Pashto phrase ‘Maka sikaway’. Pashtuns, he explained, had discovered Mexico but didn’t like it, and when they came home, they told their friends, ‘Maka sikaway’, which means, ‘What are you doing? Don’t do that.’”

Isn’t that hilarious? I think the Afghani Pashto is a little bit different from the one we speak at home, because we would say it as, Muku sukaway. Or actually, in the real order, it would be, “Sukaway? Muku!” But that whole thing about “Mexico” being derived from Pashto just totally made me laugh, though.

I switched Ansari’s book to one hand, knowing that I wanted my own copy. Continuing through the bookstore, I stopped eventually at a table where books were selling for a fraction of their usual prices. I found a 2003 collection of Alice Walker’s poetry, Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth, and flipped through the pages for a few minutes:

Loss of vitality
Is a sign
That
Things have gone
Wrong.

It is like
Sitting on
A sunny pier
Wondering whether
To swing
Your feet.

A time of dullness
Deadness
Sodden enthusiasm
When
This exists
At all.
Decay.

The sticker on the back said it cost $5. I held onto both books and continued down the table, breathless with surprise and delight when I came across Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Fifth Book of Peace. Four hundred pages, hard-covered, for $5 again. Months ago, I had stood in a different bookstore as rays of late afternoon sunshine drifted across the carpet, having just picked out a card for HijabMan, and reading the first twenty pages of Kingston’s desperate rush into the Oakland-Berkeley hills in a failed attempt to save her home and her material possessions. Everything she owed, including the manuscript of her novel-in-progress, was lost as the hills were ravaged by fire in October 1991 just as she was driving home from her father’s funeral. I remember driving up through those winding roads with my own father soon afterward, on one of our endless trips to the Children’s Hospital Oakland, as he gravely explained to me about the fire, while I, ten years old and terrified of losing my home, gazed out the car window at the blackened hills I loved even then.

I had been sorely tempted to buy Kington’s book that first day I came across it, but I had had only enough money for one book, and that had to be The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, as edited and translated by Stephen Mitchell, for which I had been searching for days and had finally found on the bottom shelf of a bookcase, somewhere in my bookstore journey between the revolving card-stand at the window and Kingston’s book on the table in the back. So Rilke it was, an identical copy of the book I love, true to the original German and beautifully rendered into English with both languages displayed on facing pages, clean and smooth compared to my own mercilessly dog-eared copy, the perfect gift for a new friend who possesses amazing wisdom and clarity of vision and who was about to leave on an inspiring journey. And I don’t even give books as gifts. But that’s how perfectly fitting Rilke’s book was.

So that was all a few months ago. On this day, then, I had three new books picked out, which is usually enough to make me giddy, because that’s just how much a nerd I am. To celebrate yet further, I scooped up a few Lindor truffles from the little bowl at the end of the register counter while waiting in line behind a lady with two young children.

When it was my turn to pay, I piled the books onto the counter and laid my truffles next to them. I chatted with the girl at the register as she rang up and bagged my purchases, she asking about my headwrap and I smiling a lot because it turned out she was Pakistani and her name was the same as that of one of my aunts. And then, as mentioned before, my debit card was declined, much to my confusion. “That’s so weird though.” I swiped it again, and again the same. The girl looked apologetic. I shrugged unconcernedly. “Can I put these on hold and come back for them in the afternoon?”

“Sure,” she said. She grabbed a pad and pen to take down my name.

From behind me, I heard a voice say, “I could pay for those.”

I turned in surprise. The man behind me in line was perhaps in his thirties, and so completely nondescript that I cannot now remember anything about his appearance, except how very grim and solemn he looked.

“I can pay,” he offered again.

“Oh no,” I said. “I couldn’t let you do that.”

“I’m paying for my stuff anyway,” he pointed out. “I can just add yours to it.”

“No, really,” I protested, “Don’t worry about it.” He shrugged, still unsmiling, and I looked at him and the counter girl helplessly, torn between laughter and awkwardness and pure amazement at his generosity.

The girl stepped back from the counter, throwing up her hands in surrender. “I’ll let you two fight this out,” she said in amusement.

“Look, it’s okay, it’s not like it’s a hardship for me,” he said, holding up his hand, “I have a gift card, see?”

Oh yeah, I thought, I have one of those, too, suddenly remembering that the university’s Women’s Resources & Research Center had given me one the other day as a thank-you for designing and facilitating the women of color discussion circles this quarter. Flattered and touched at the gesture, I had slipped the gift card somewhere in my messenger bag and then promptly forgotten all about it.

I smiled and said out loud, “I really appreciate the offer, but don’t worry about it, I’ll be back later for all this.”

He stared at me for a second, and I was disconcerted by the juxtaposition of his gruff demeanor and generous offer.

“You sure?” he asked.

“I’m sure,” I said firmly. “But thanks so much for the offer. I do appreciate it.”

He shrugged expressionlessly, holding his hands palms-up in what could be construed as a gesture of defeat. Or an unsaid, Your loss.

“Have a beautiful day!” I said, moving away from the counter.

He nodded brusquely and turned away to place his books next to the register.

For a split second, on my way out the door, still moved by this unexpected kindness from a veritable stranger, I looked back to see him standing at the counter, face blank and eyes shuttered, and wished I had let him pay after all, if it meant he would have smiled.