Does Josh have a job? Thanks for letting me know

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

Hi, P!

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

Happy Valentine's Day!

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

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

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

Hey Jasmine!

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

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

Your bitchin' buddy,
Sandy.

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

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

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

Three things: The Halloween in GMail-chat edition

Originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

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

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

GMail conversation with A, mid-October:

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

A's GMail status on October 31st: "Halloween mubarak!"

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

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

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

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

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

>CONTINUE READING

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

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

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

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

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

Makin' things happen while relaxin' like a Sunday afternoon

Originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your phone was really broken/I tried your number twice, if you need confirmation

Don't worry, it's on silent. Yes, yes, I know, as usual, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

This afternoon, I checked for new voicemessages on my phone, and afterward stayed on the line long enough to hear the robotic lady intone, "...and you have twenty-four saved messages..."

Twenty-FOUR? Holy freakin' smoley, I didn't even know my phone was capable of holding that many. It never has before, that's for sure. My phone has a propensity to kill off saved voicemessages for no good reason, so I thought perhaps ten or so was the limit. Twenty-four? Dang.

Then again, friends laugh at my tendency to hit "Ignore" on incoming calls and blithely continue whatever I'm doing at the moment, so I shouldn't be surprised that whenever I get around to checking messages, I end up saving a lot of the fun ones. If I actually answered my phone more often (what a concept!), I admittedly could be hearing all about these stories directly from the people who relay them. But that's not as fun as saving the messages and then replaying them over and over, you see?

Never mind. Clearly I just have issues.

This phone business is especially amusing in light of karrvakarela's latest post [scroll down a bit to get to the part about voicemail, but, really, you should read his entire post, I insist]. He writes:

So now I am forced to leave messages. "Hello, this is me. Please call me back when you're free." Quick and clean. The old puritan instinct for stoicism. My friends however seem to find this inadequate. They don't say so but I can hear it in their trippy little messages. It's as if they were friends with the machine itself. Crazy people. How can you talk into a machine with such frivolous abandon?

Personally, I love leaving messages. I can talk to your voicemail for minutes on end, which is another thing my friends laugh about. Discounting the people whom I actually enjoy calling [and if I've ever called you of my own volition, consider yourself part of this category], I'd rather talk to a machine than to a real person over the phone anyday - and, yes, I'll admit that I breathe a sigh of relief when I call someone and the ringing eventually turns to a voicemail greeting that encourages me to please leave a message after the beep.

[My voicemail greeting, by the way, if you were to ever call me, is a terse, This is Yasmine. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you. I had recorded it over a year ago, back when I had the flu and could barely croak out the words; then I never got around to changing it, I think. I'm sure it sounds horrible. Anjum once accused me of not having a suitably rockstarish-sounding greeting. What can I do?]

Really, I'm not as anti-social as this makes me seem. Selectively social, more like. If I don't recognize your number, I deliberately won't answer the phone. Sometimes, I'm busy for valid reasons or already engaged in a real-life conversation that I don't want to interrupt, and thus choose not to answer. Sometimes, I'm in my car and I'd rather finish listening to this rocking song, so why don't you just leave a message so I can call you back...eventually? Sometimes, you're my parents, and you choose a bad time to call and check up on me about what I'm doing. Sometimes, I'm eating, and what makes you think you're so special that you're more important than cranberry juice or my piping hot french fries? Sometimes, I'm lazy and can't be bothered to talk. And, sometimes, you're just annoying and I don't want to talk to you because you're all about drama, and I happen to love my gorgeously drama-free life, so tell it to my voicemail, dammit. Sometimes, it's always a bad time.

So, yeah, I had twenty-four saved messages on my phone, kids. I went through and deleted most of them just now, either because I had called the person back and thus it wasn't important to save whatever information was in his/her message, or because I really don't know why I had saved that message in the first place. But there are some fun ones in there:

1. My buddy S, in his best stalker impression: "Yasmiiiiiiiiiiine. What you doiiiiiiiiiin'? Where you goiiiiiiiiiin'? How's the weather like?"

2. The incomparable HijabMan: "If you don't hear from me in two days, call someone."

3. Singing from HijabMan. Then: "Wake your ass up!"

4. My creative brother, whose mohawk is back, by the way: [Regarding an impending visit from the psycho soap opera relatives.] "...And don't forget: Don't take any shit from anybody!"

5. Somayya, calling me for the second time on the day of my birthday because she was struck by an epiphany and laughing so hard she could barely speak: "Yaz?" [laughter] "Do you know how old you are?" [laughter] "You're five years away from THIRTY!" [More gasping laughter] I played this voicemessage on repeat about twelve times when I first heard it, it's that funny.

6. My buddy J, finalizing plans for a Friday hanging-out session in Oakland/Berkeley: "Assalamu alaikum [peace be with you], sister Yasmine!" (He's not Muslim, by the way.) "This is J, just checking to make sure we're still on for that Friday at the end of March!"

7. My high school friend SP: "Yaz, this time I'm giving you a whole week, so you have no excuse now. We all have to get together and do something fun. I don't know what. We can go out for cheap Mexican food. Or something else, I don't know. Cheap movies. Matinee." [laughter] "The word cheap, Yaz. I don't have a lot of money!"

8. Crazy lady D: "I wanna swing! Growing up is no fun!"

9. Anjum, the East Coast rockstar whom I still need to call back: "I'm actually going to Phoenix this weekend, so if you happen to be going to the Grand Canyon, call me." [I think I replayed this one a few times, too, because it made me laugh. I shoulda just gone to Arizona, dammit! Apparently they have hella nice weather. California, you're letting me down. What is this drama?]

10. HijabMan making fun of my voicemail greeting. Also: "I thought of you when I was at IKEA." Something about flying down the aisles in a roller cart? I think? Regardless, I'm so flattered that people automatically think of me when they get into adventures best suited for five-year-olds!

11. Crazy crackstar 2Scoops: "I'm in a very echo-y room. But I'm also not only in an echo-y room, I'm in an echo-y room in San Francisco!" [This was saved for the following reasons: 1) 2Scoops actually in NorCal?, 2) 2Scoops actually in NorCal and letting me know while he's here? and, most importantly, 3) 2Scoops in NorCal, not with the non-sister-friendly brothers, and thus free to hang out? No vay! Who knows when any of that combination of events is ever going to happen again.]

12. And...current award for BEST VOICEMESSAGE EVER goes to my high school friend SP again: [Inviting me along to a party being thrown in San Francisco by a mutual acquaintance from our high school days, with my favorite part emphasized in bold] "...So let me know if you want to go together. That way, if the party sucks, we can take off and...get some ice cream or something." [This is a hilariously direct reference to the skipping-out stunt I pulled at our pointless five-year high school reunion last December. But, still, I'll probably refuse to go to this SF party anyway, because, contrary to popular opinion, I am not much of a party-goer (I know, really, what kinda rockstar am I?), and if I went, I'd just end up standing shyly, awkwardly in some corner. And also mainly because the party is being thrown by high school people, and hanging out with any (but, oh...three?) high school folks makes me feel especially shy and awkward and prone to standing alone in the corner. So we'll skip that. Ahh, but damn, the ice cream... That alone might have been enough to redeem the entire experience... Sorry, SP.]

>CONTINUE READING

Yesterday I got lost in the circus

Four things:

ONE. I finally got a chance to watch Rang De Basanti yesterday afternoon, over at Naz Cinema in the South Bay. I thought it was rocking. I can't remember the last time I laughed so much during a movie. Because our huge group was practically the only audience, I got to laugh as much - and as loudly - as I wanted. And, damn, do I laugh loudly. Is that something I need to be working on?

On second thought, screw that. I'm 25 years old; I refuse to change my loud laugh now. People will just have to start getting used to it.

Also, re. Rang De Basanti: Aamir Khan is way too much fun as usual, Kunal Kapoor is hot and I am considering marrying him when I grow up, and I was actually impressed with Alice Patten's grasp of Hindi. If you're way behind the times with desi films, as I always am, you really need to go see this already. Let me know what you think.

TWO. My favorite crackhead is in the Bay! I foresee lots of ice cream in the near future. Except it won't be mango ice cream from Chinatown, don't worry. Also, we'll have to fit real food somewhere in there, too, since 2Scoops is my self-appointed Nutritionist Extraordinaire.

THREE. It's supposedly 66 degrees Fahrenheit inside the house right now. Lies, all lies. My fingernails are blue with cold. Freakin' hell, yaar.

FOUR. To continue with the disgruntlement, here's a damn stupid question you should never ask me: "What's your GPA [grade point average]?" What makes you think I would even consider answering that question, unless you were a prospective employer or a really, really (REALLY) close friend - of which you are neither, last time I checked. Yeah, really.

CA vs. CA, and it's just so blindingly clear

You know what else is annoying? When you write up a brilliant entry and post it and then come back the next morning and check your weblog and don't see it there. So apparently you just dreamt you wrote it, and now you have to "re-write" the whole thing all over again. What a process, man. My dream- versus my real-life needs to get it together already.

So, anyway, I guess that means I didn't really write about meeting up with Elysium, photographer extraordinaire and all-around cool Canadian who was in San Francisco recently, so here goes all the various randomness that I remember off the top of my head. (Don't you hate it when you decide to write things three weeks later, and thus forget everything?) [I just typed out this post and re-read it one more time, and that part about forgetting stuff was a big fat lie because, damn, is my memory good!, even three weeks later, as you will see. Freakin' hell, man, how did this post get so long? Just how?] And, yes, I always seem to write about things at least three weeks later. This procrastination is a disease.

Clearly, Canadians think they're
cool, and I don't even mean weather-wise
Originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

I always associate Elysium more with flickr than I do with Blogistan, which is just as well for you all, I suppose, since he's the one who kept extolling the virtues of flickr and made me realize that flickr, too, has a community aspect all its own, just as weblogs do. So without his marketing, you wouldn't be seeing photos around here once in a while - and definitely not that pretty banner I'm in love with, which comes from this photograph.

I was first "introduced" to Elysium sometime last year by HijabMan, so we bonded through our common love for HMan and his wild, '80s songs-filled voicemessages. Telling Elysium that my father was a onetime Canadian citizen who keeps hinting that he's going to move back to Vancouver when he retires certainly didn't hurt matters either. Plus, my IM conversations always revolve around food and the weather, and apparently everyone can relate. It's good to know I can easily forge common bonds with everyone this way.

Anyway, levity aside, Elysium is good people. We met up in the Mission district a few days into his San Francisco visit, for dinner at Bissap Baobab, this funky Senegalese place that I had been to once before last summer with SI and rehes.

As we began our walk down the street to Bissap Baobab, Elysium wondered, "Why are all these people just standing around?"
"Maybe," I said pointedly, "they're standing around waiting for their friends who are hella slow in showing up."
"Hmm. No, I don't think that's it."

So much for me trying to make a point.

And, man, was it cold for California. Our hands were freezing. [Clothing with pockets, this is what I need to be investing in, is what.] I agreed with E's theory that this being-cold-all-the-damn-time thing must be genetic. Of course, I would like for it to be genetic, because that's better than my father's theory, which is that "it's all in your head, Yasminay."

Over at the restaurant, Elysium made the worst decision ever. It went like this: He skimmed the menu, closed the menu, sat back, and said, "You decide."

Do you know what making me decide on food choices is like? It's torture! TORTURE, I say! I mean, making food decisions for myself is bad enough, but having to decide for someone else, too, is nerve-wracking. And E was damn unhelpful, because every time I threw an idea his way ("Vegetables in peanut sauce?", "Fish? Do you like fish?", "Vegetarian stew?", "What do you like better, rice or couscous? Dammit, help me out here!") he'd just respond with, "You decide."

In all honesty, though, this was my own fault, because I think I recall E making some sort of food decision and then looking at me for affirmation - "Right?" - which I immediately undercut with, "But that fried mashed potato appetizer did sound good." So, of course, he put his menu away and left it all to me to decide. My potato obsession will be the downfall of me - thanks a lot for getting me into this, stupid Obsession With Potatoes (OWP)! ow, is right.

Here's how you know people are cool: When they're so nice and patient about the ten thousand hours (no, seriously, it was damn long) it takes for you to pick your food, even going so far as to ask about your day and then putting up with your impatient "Hold on, I can't multi-task when I'm figuring out what to eat!" with a straight face. High-five to the friendly waitstaff also, who nodded understandingly at all my "I think I need another minute" requests.

As we sat around waiting for our food to arrive, Elysium tried to make sense of just what exactly I do with my life: "I don't get it. You're always out having lunch all the time. So when do you work?" Yeah, that's a pretty valid question.

I made fun of his huge backpack and "carrying his life around with him," just as I had with HijabMan back in September. At the end of the dinner, he actually made me pick it up, and all I can say is, I'm so glad I'm not the one who has to carry that bag around all day. Then again, unlike those guys, I'm the one without the laptop and the digital SLR, both of which seem like they would be fun investments.

E fished a bunch of different Canadian coins out of his pocket to show me. They're actually pretty similar in size to US coins, I think. While I was looking at them, all intrigued, one of the waitstaff came by and stopped at our table, distracted by the shiny money. He picked up one of the coins and brought it close to his face, trying to read the writing on it. His face carried a comically perplexed expression. Elysium and I watched him in silence; I don't know about E, but I was trying not to laugh the entire time.

"It's... it's CANADIAN!" the man finally exclaimed, all surprised as if he had discovered something so completely fascinating (and foreign) that it had never before been known to mankind. I tried not to burst out laughing. I think the dude took all the Canadian money, too. Maybe he thought it was part of the tip.

Walking back to BART, the following conversation transpired:

E, looking around: "Where are all the brown people?"
Y: "You mean, like, the South Asians?"
E: "Yeah."
Y: "I think they live in the suburbs."

And this is how I know Elysium is good at paying attention: When I made some sort of offhand comment about how I don't travel on BART very often, E pointed out, "I thought BART was your friend." Which totally sounds like something I would say, so I must have said it.

Downstairs, on the BART platform while waiting for my homebound train, I made friends with a short-haired girl who was intrigued by my headwrap. "I bought a whole bunch of pretty scarves so I could wear them as headwraps," she said, "but my sister laughs at me, 'cuz I don't have enough hair!"

"Use multiple scarves and layer it up," I suggested, amused, and then explained step-by-step. My train was approaching, so I quickly introduced myself and asked her name. Julia, she said. She was cool. See, I don't understand why people tell me I would hate BART if I traveled on it everyday. BART is rocking.

Two days later was a Friday - jummah [Friday congregational prayers] at my favorite Oakland masjid that you're probably tired of hearing me rave about all the time, but just deal. Elysium caught a ride to jummah with our lovely buddy, D; my favorite partner in crime - Princess Pretty Pants - and the Lovely L Lady also managed to make it, so I was super excited.

Afterward, while congregating in front of the masjid and then crossing the street back to our cars, we tried to figure out what to do about lunch. Once again, indecisiveness in action: Where/what to eat. W and F wanted gyros, PPP and the Lovely L Lady wanted pasta from Gypsy's, and I didn't really care what I ate as long as we all chilled at Julie's Cafe, because Julie's has patio heaters, dammit, and any place with patio heaters is the place to be. High-five to Elysium, once again, for patiently putting up with us.

Elysium and I got to Julie's first, and took over a long table in the back corner of the patio. The line was out the door, so E suggested we wait until the line got shorter. This sounded fine in theory, except for the fact that, two minutes later, the line was out the door, down the entire length of the rectangular patio, and all the way to the steps at the street entrance. I amused myself by throwing disgruntled "This is all your fault" looks at Elysium and making pointed comments about how we COULD have already gotten our food and started EATING by now, but I think he is immune to guilt trips, which is just as well.

The rest of our group trickled into Julie's, one at a time. "Where's PPP?" asked W.

"She and L are getting pasta. They'll be here."

"Sometimes," said W, twirling his favorite utensil with deliberation, "I just want to pick up my fork and stab her."

"Your plastic fork might not work so well," I pointed out, laughing.

W and his sister, F, with their jokes and sarcasm and mutual hostility towards one another never fail to make me laugh and brighten my Fridays. W, especially, is incorrigible, and his derisive comments have lately inspired me to insult him with the following: "You're the worst Haji I've ever met!"

"I know," he always says, laughing, looking far too pleased. "I came back worse from Haj than when I went!"

W and PPP traded barbs and insults all through lunch, including threats of stabbing each other. At one point, PPP put on her best mean face and said, "Do you know where I'm from?"

I started laughing. "Buddy, we know you're from West Sac, so you're dangerous and scary, but as of March 1st, West Sac has a reputation only for being home to the brand-new IKEA."

"I KNOW!" she exclaimed, face falling. "I'm so mad about that! STUPID BASTARDS."

However, as always, PPP and W managed to kinda sorta bond over their common obsession with hot sauce, so no stabbing occurrences were reported.

W and PPP - as well as the Lovely L Lady and I - are huge proponents of the "tough love" philosophy, which, to us, basically means that you make fun of your friends in order to show your love. Elysium was, I believe, a bit disconcerted by all this; I think I recall a comment along the lines of, "You're so mean to each other!"

PPP tried to unsuccessfully explain, then finally gave up. "Tell him, Yazzo."

I stepped in with the explanation. "If we love you, we will make fun of you forever."

"Yeah!" said PPP approvingly.

Of course, this also led to PPP remarking, "Oh, but Yazzo is mean, though!" She then made me tell the story of the time I cussed her out in chemistry lecture during our freshman year of college. "You tell it better!" she said. This point is debatable, actually, because - while I have told the story enough times to be a pro at it by now - I'm actually not a very good storyteller at all in real life. This is why I have a weblog, kids.

No hanging-out session with Elysium is complete without a discussion about Canada, and I have to admit he did a good job of selling Canada to the Lovely L Lady. She's all set to move, that traitor.

At the beginning of lunch, I peered over at L's pasta from Gypsy's and asked, "What did you get?"

"No- Noch-something? I don't know how to pronounce it."

"Oh, I know what it is!" I said. "I know how to spell it. But, yeah, I don't know how to pronounce it either."

Elysium came to our rescue with the supposedly correct pronunciation for gnocchi. "Yeah, people from Toronto KNOW these things," I laughed.

Over lunch, we discussed Elysium's less-than-stellar impressions of San Francisco, much of which, we decided, was based on the neighborhood where he had opted to stay. "Of all the places you could have stayed at," said PPP, shaking her head, "you decided to stay in the crack capital of the world."

"And it just so happens to be in San Francisco," deadpanned Elysium.

Soon, PPP and L started getting antsy because they wanted to beat the 5 o'clock traffic to the Sacramento valley. I, however, had other ideas: "Let's go get some gelato!"

[By the way: Gelateria Naia was featured on a Food Network show a little while back. Check Week 3, Episode 8 for videos of pretty-looking gelato. (Baji, I'm looking right AT you!)]

While we were walking down Telegraph, back to our cars, Elysium made some dig at my driving skills, which was laughingly echoed by PPP and the Lovely L Lady. "What are you talking about?" I said indignantly. "My driving is -" I paused, searching for the suitable word. "-AMAZING!" I decided.

Once at the gelato place on Shattuck, we had fun test-tasting ten thousand flavors before deciding on what to get. I went with my old favorites: stracciatella and chocolate orange.

I love the funky, bright orange and lime green walls at Gelateria Naia, as well as the decor. "Look," I pointed out one of the wall prints to PPP, "there's the kinda car we should have!"

"It's Saif Ali Khan's car from Salaam Namaste!" she said, delighted. (That stupid, damn catchy My dil goes mmmm song! Ahhhhh!)

Anyway, so we ate gelato, and Elysium took pretty pictures, and PPP made fun of his stalker paparazzi camera. E quite neatly sidestepped PPP's incessant "You haven't answered my questions! So where are you from? And what do you do?" demands. Evading PPP takes some major skill (even I can't do that), so high-five to Elysium. [Clearly, I'm going outta control stealing HijabMan's trademark high-fives for use in this post. Just you try to make me stop.]

Then we headed out to go our separate ways. I abandoned E at the Berkeley BART station because the thought of driving him back to SF in rush-hour traffic was too horrific (sorry, buddy!)

The Tuesday after that, I picked up Elysium from his hotel to drive him to SFO so he could fly back to his beloved Canada. And although he called me a "crazy driver," I will be nice enough to mention that Elysium is a better navigator than HijabMan, I've decided. Also, for the record, I'm not a crazy driver, dammit. (Don't make me run you over.)

I brought E a small bag of tangerines from my backyard tree, since he was dying for some Vitamin C and also because he'd always refuse my attempts to share chocolate chip cookies with him (seriously, what kinda friend repeatedly turns down home-baked chocolate chip cookies?). Anyway, he was a fan of the tangerines, even though he only took two - but he managed to sidestep a potentially hefty fine (up to $400 or something?) and smuggle them into Canada, which I think is the most awesome story ever. I was accessory to a successful smuggling, you guys! I'm going to tell my grandkids.

This post is about four pages too long already, but I have one more thing to mention before I wrap this up:

I am pleased to note that (I think) we sufficiently amused/traumatized Elysium with our constant usage of the words "crack," "stalking," and "stabbing," which E later referred to as "the Yasmine vocabulary." Actually, there was a point - mid-conversation with Elysium, during dinner in the Mission - when I realized just how often the word "crack" (and all variations thereof) spills from my mouth and, seeing the amused look on E's face even though he was kind enough not to interrupt my sentence, I made a conscious effort to cut down on the usage. But it just wouldn't work. So I am pleased to admit that if you know me only from the weblog or AIM, I use the words "crack," "stalking," and "stabbing" just as much in real deal life as I do on those mediums. That's right, kids! Come to California so we can talk.

[p.s. As for the CA vs. CA debate, all the recent pro-Canada description over in the comment box of Anjum's post was pretty damn awesome-sounding, I will admit that.]

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California skies got room to spare

S felt it was necessary to add to the glorious architecture, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

It's a sad testament to my slacker tendencies that not only have I neglected to write about my Blogistan meetup with Anjum about a month ago, but she has updated about her first California trip a couple of times already, and then she was back in the SF Bay Area on a second business trip, and I still haven't gotten around to writing about our hanging-out sessions from a month ago. Talk about major laziness, man. Stab me already.

But I had long ago promised Anjum I'd post my version of our meetup(s), so here it goes, in all its rambling glory thanks to hastily scribbled notes and bullet points, but organized into paragraph-form so late that I'm probably not doing it justice.

[Oh, and in case you haven't figured it out already, check out Flickr for some of the photos from our Berkeley/SF hanging-out sessions.]

TUESDAY, JANUARY 3rd: Anjum arrives in the Bay!

This is after about a week of us exchanging emails and phone calls. At one point, Anjum left me a voicemessage that ended with, "Umm, what's going on with all the flooding out there?" I sent her emails warning her to bring whatever clothing she considered suitable for rainy weather, because it damn well wasn't sunshine-y at this end. Oh, and in regards to phone calls - to be honest, I must confess I can't recall even one single time I answered my phone when Anjum called. This was not deliberate; the reception around here sucks. But I bet it started to seem highly suspicious after the first, oh, four or five times.

The first thing that happened after I parked my car at the Oakland Airport (to pick up Anjum) was that I somehow set off my car alarm. You'd think, after owning the new car for four months at that point, I'd have learned all these fancy schmancy nuances regarding car alarms and such by now. Apparently not. The first week I got the car, I set off the alarm an average of three times a day. I guess setting it off just once in January (so far) was progress then. While I was pressing all the buttons on my keychain and cursing under my breath, a guy walking by called out, "Try locking your car, then unlocking it with your key!" So I did. And it didn't work. But then the alarm inexplicably stopped blaring ten seconds later while I was still pressing the keychain buttons at random. So I breathed a sigh of relief and continued on my way inside the airport to wait for Anjum, who took a while getting out, but that was okay, because I highly amused myself by reading the warning signs regarding what one should absolutely positively not take on planes while one is traveling. Sadly, all I remember is the fact that paint-thinner is a no-no. Just don't do it, kids.

While driving Anjum to her hotel in San Ramon, she glanced out the window at one point and exclaimed, "Palm trees!"
"Where?!" I said. "We have palm trees in NorCal?"
So we had a good laugh over that, because apparently there are palm trees around here, it's just that I never notice them unless they're as abundantly in-your-face as the palm trees in Southern California.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 6th: Jummah in Oakland, Hangingout session in Berkeley

PrincessPrettyPants picked up Anjum in San Ramon, and they drove up to meet with me and my sister in our hometown, where they jumped in my car and we raced through Highway24 to my favorite masjid for jummah in Oakland. While driving through Oakland, my sister turned to the backseat and asked Anjum, "So, how're you liking California so far?" Anjum mused that California folks don't seem to be in as much of a hurry as East Coast-ers, rushing around less.
My sister misheard rushing as washing. "You mean, like, hygiene?" she exclaimed, horrified.
I started laughing. "Not washing less, buddy, rushing less!"

Jummah [the Friday congregational prayers] were rocking, as usual. Afterward, we headed over to Berkeley for lunch at Julie's Cafe (where PPP had wayy too much fun with the hot sauce), then to the Oddball store down the street (where I saw gems like this and this), then to the Berkeley Hat Co., where I was totally busted for taking photographs of - among other things - PPP trying on funky purple beanies with pom-poms attached. Somewhere in between, I saw a store display of children's rain boots, and exclaimed, "I want those! Galoshes! That would be so awesome!"
PPP shook her head. "I never want to see you wearing a pair of those, you hear me?"
"Whaaat? I could totally pull it off!"
"No, Yazzo, even you couldn't pull that off."

Props to Anjum for putting up with our mass craziness, because when we crazy Cali kids hang out in a group, we are insane.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 7th: Hangingout session in San Francisco

This was the best day ever. I invited my friend S to come hang out with me and Anjum in San Francisco - basically, because I had originally invited him to Jummah the previous day and we planned it out a week in advance, but he overslept on Friday and then sent me an apologetic text message ("Good morning, I just woke up looking at the time, I don't think I will make it to the Bay but can I come up tomorrow or Sunday to make up Friday please"). I laughed at the sheer audacity of flaking out on people at the last minute through text messaging, then called S to yell at him, made him feel sufficiently guilty, and then graciously invited him to hang out with us on Saturday, because I am so kind and forgiving like that.

S drove down from Sacramento and met me at the BART station so we could take the train into SF together. He had never ridden the train before, and professed to feeling freaked out about this. I told him to suck it up. "Man up!" as Somayya says. Besides, he was wearing his Superman t-shirt, and Superman is not supposed to be afraid of measly things like trains. Once on the train, S busted out with his Treo and started photographing the interior. I told him to calm down with that a bit, since brown people taking pictures these days is cause for such drama, mygod. Then I took the Treo away from him and started checking my GMail, even though I had done that right before leaving the house. Once I figured out how the tiny keyboard worked, I teased him, "Oh, so this is why I've been getting text messages in complete sentences from you lately! I thought maybe you were just turning into me, or something." I may never pick up my phone or return calls in a timely manner, but at least I'm famous for text-messaging in full sentences, with perfect spelling and grammar.

After that, we commenced bickering about phone calls - S accused me of never returning his calls, while, in my defense, I explained that if I'm in a "not picking up the phone or returning calls" mood (which is most of the time), I'm ignoring not only his calls but also everyone else's. This cheered him up considerably. "Oh, okay," he said. "So it's not me, then. You just have psychological problems."
"Yeah, I think that sounds about right."

We met up with Anjum outside the Powell St. BART in San Francisco, and from there made our way down to Union Square. I was delighted to see how quickly S and Anjum got along - S, like Somayya, has a habit of making fun of people as a way of showing his love, and Anjum not only took it in stride with good humor, but she dished it right back, so that in no time the two of them were all making fun of one another as if they'd been friends for years. A recurring theme of conversation throughout the day was S's Superman shirt, ironic because Anjum and I kept accusing him of being "SO SLOW!" Anjum, fearless East Coast-er that she is, would surge right ahead and cross the street in a split second, while S and even I hesitated and looked both ways and checked the lights and signals before proceeding. Clearly, we need to work on our jaywalking skills. Pedestrians need to take back the streets!

At one point, Anjum and I ducked inside the Mocca cafe not only to check out the pretty food but also for old time's sake because this was the spot where Baji's sister, LB, and I had met up for chocolate mousse cake and a little bit of hanging out at Union Square back in September2004. However, we decided to move along to the Ghirardelli store for ice cream sundaes, but S and I were really in the mood for root beer floats, and no one seemed to have 'em.

We decided to skip the food for the time being and move on to a bookstore, where Anjum browsed postcards and I found a wombat book that would be perfect for DeGrouchyOwl. I was super excited about this, and had to take a photograph. As Anjum and S continued their own browsing, I wandered down to the lower level of the bookstore, where I was delighted to find the Glamour magazine article on WOMEN WHO BLOG. While I was skimming the article, Anjum and S came by, so I gleefully pointed out the article to Anjum, who had heard about it already, too.

"Blog?" said S confusedly.
"Yes, you know, weblogs," we said. "That's how we meet, through our weblogs."
"What?! I thought you were two were related or something!"
We burst out laughing and explained about the weblogs a bit more, but S wasn't feelin' it. He just gave us Why would you do THAT? sort of looks.

At the register a few minutes later, while Anjum was paying for her postcards, S patted me patronizingly on the head. "It's okay, Yasmine, you're a nice blob."
"A what?"
"Blob. Blog. You know. What you guys do. Blobbing."
I rolled my eyes.

We wandered around some more. Anjum was on a quest to find a post office, of which there is apparently one in the Macy*s department store, of all places. Every time we went up and down from one level to another, S, who was quite comfortable chillin' in one spot, kept asking "Why do you keep walking on the escalators?" to which I would retort, " 'Cuz I'm not a lazyass like you." To which he told me how short I am, because this is his favorite thing of which to remind me.

While Anjum stood in line at the post office, S and I went off to amuse ourselves with the plethora of other stuff available at Macy*s: disgustingly expensive fresh-baked bread in animal shapes, Mango-A-Go-Go smoothies from Jamba Juice, and vending machines that dispensed quite another form of (eye)candy altogether: iPods and their accessories!

More walking: We ducked into Anthropologie, where I decided that any store that sells a pair of pants for $165 is damn overrated. Also, I got Anjum and S to take pictures of me with Anthropologie's humongous shopping bags, which seemed almost as big as I was.

Back out to the street: we witnessed the cablecar turnaround, some street dancing, and a reminder about how much Jesus Christ loves us.

We stood waiting in the long line for our turn on the next cablecar, which took us to Fisherman's Wharf, by which time we were hella hungry and dying for some food. S supposedly knew of a good clam chowder place, so Anjum and I just followed his lead. Along the way, we passed some monkeys who made me think of Baji, and an earring shop at which Anjum and I did double-takes, waffled, and glanced at each other uncertainly before deciding, "Alright, let's go in!" So we checked out all the gorgeous dangly earrings to our hearts' content while S waited patiently, then we went and got some clam chowder from Boudin's and saw even more animal-shaped bread.

At the end of the meal, I offered Anjum some of the orange-flavored Trident gum that I love. She chewed it for a second and exclaimed, "This is what your car smells like!" I remembered I had been chewing it the evening I picked her up from the airport. Well, if my car had to start losing the new-car smell, as far as I'm concerned the next best thing would be for it to smell like oranges.

We walked around Fisherman's Wharf for a while longer, taking pictures of each other taking pictures, checking out the lazy sea lions, marveling at the ships and ferries and the little white sailboats. Soon, I had to leave, so S and I said our goodbyes to Anjum, leaving her at the wharf because she wanted to stay for a view of the impending sunset.

S and I walked back to the cablecar stop, and I did some bread-watching from the street along the way. Also along the way, while I was walking along and in mid-conversation with S, a homeless man sitting on the sidewalk shoved a potted bush in my face while screaming, "YAAAAAHHHHHH!"

I jumped in surprise, then yelled, "What the hell!"
S was doubled over in laughter. So was the homeless man.
I was not amused. I punched S in the arm. "What kind of damn friend are you? That wasn't freakin' funny!"
"It was!" he gasped, still chuckling. "You totally didn't see it coming. He made you jump!"
"Well, he freakin' scared the hell out of me! God!"

We got on the cablecar heading back to Union Square. The car was crowded and I had no handhold, so I reached up and grasped the closest thing I saw - the wire above my head. "Don't pull that unless you want to get off!" said the cablecar man quickly.
"Here," said S, "hold on to this."
I looked up at the metal bar he was gesturing to, and laughed. "Do you seriously expect me to reach that? There's no way I'm going to be able to reach that!"
He offered his arm as a handhold, but I stubbornly stood my ground, and somehow we made it back to Union Square - with glorious views along the way - without me falling off the back of the cablecar. Then we descended the escalator at the BART station, got on the next train to the East Bay, and then drove back to our respective homes.

The end!
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The sunshine, it's everywhere! Well, almost

and nothing is more powerful than beauty in a wicked world, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

[Random small update on last week: Went roller skating last Wednesday with my sister, and the Princess of the Pretty Pants, and another friend who, in our initial meeting, made it amply clear that she is just as crackheaded as we are. Anyway, Princess Pretty Pants and I have come to the conclusion that roller skating and ice skating and skating of any kind is stupid and girly and we are not wussy girls, except for the fact that we can't handle skating. So next time we have an outing, we're going to go with the boy activities. Like those mini racecar things, which I'm already gleeful about. Forget this stupid sissy skating. Besides, I fell during skating and hurt my left wrist for the next several days, and I'm quite fond of my left hand, you know. So skating is disgracious. And disgraceful. And ungraceful, if you're me.]

I spent much of the Thanksgiving weekend (Thursday through Saturday) roadtripping it down to San Diego via Los Angeles (and back) with my family, and I can assure you that the above photograph was not taken in Southern California, because I did not see a single speck of red-orange-yellow foliage in SoCal. They were totally right; SoCal doesn't have fall colors, kids.

[The above photo is actually of a tree in a bank parking lot in my hometown, in case you're really interested. Yes, it probably looked weird, some random girl taking fifteen photographs of a quite normal (for NorCal) tree, but I'm infatuated with sunshine colors. And I'm used to weird looks by now.]

In case you didn't already hate me for living in California and obsessively talking about sunshine all the time, you're about to dislike me even more intensely once I update for reals, because all I really want to write about it how much I freakin' love Southern California weather. At least seventy degrees Fahrenheit all day, every day (and even at night in LA), in late November? That's right! Better than this NorCal gloominess we've got going on.

Lengthier SoCal-related update later, and pictures will be uploaded to Flickr when I get around to it. Also, guess which rockstar I randomly ran into at jummah [Friday congregational prayers] at the Islamic Center of San Diego?! (Interro-goodtimes!)

Don't wait up, we'll be fine, somehow we might get it right

Evidence #49247 on the list of Reasons Why Yasmine is an Incompetent Fool involves me accidentally formatting the memory card on my digital camera and thereby deleting the 200-300 or so photos I took yesterday evening during a wedding mehndi ceremony my sister and I attended. Within two minutes of leaving the bride's home, no less. I wouldn't feel so bad if it weren't for the fact that the wedding party's unprofessional photographer had double-booked and then canceled on them last-minute, and they had asked if my sister and I could cover the photos for the mehndi at least.

Right smack in the middle of Bean and I having our post-event "I had a lot of fun!" "Me too!" exchange while hitting the road to head home, it all went zzzaaaaaaaapppppp. The most comprehensive set of photos from the entire evening, all gone in a split second. All I was trying to do was check how much space I had left on my memory card; one slip of the finger had me pressing "OK" for the "format memory card" option on the same screen. Ouch. With a 1GB card, there was absolutely no reason why I needed to verify space anyway. This obsessive-compulsiveness has got to go, and now.

Result: Lots of cursing; a few frustrated, angry tears; and the singularly awesome Bean consoling me that it was okay, because she had gotten about four rolls of photos, too. So yeah, that was one grand f*ck up, and I can't stop wincing every time I think about it, and I'll probably continue grinding my teeth for another week or so. I can't remember the last time I felt so stupid and useless, and I'm pretty stupid and useless by nature, so that's saying a lot. Freakin' hell.

In much, much happier news: A psychopathically crackheadedly crazily huge congratulations to my lovely Somayya, who got accepted to her top-choice post-baccalaureate premedical program like the smart child that she is. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say where, but rest assured it's in the SF Bay Area, because s'all about the Bay, baby! Come join us on the dark side! Now all I need is a job in the Bay, and we're good to go.

The end is nigh

This one goes out to blogger extraordinaire Yaser and to my cousin Somayya [aka SuperDuperWoman aka PrincessPrettyPants (PPP)] and to the at least half-a-dozen other friends of mine who will be taking the MCAT tomorrow. You're almost done, peoples! Rock it up tomorrow, and then you won't have to review physics ever again. Because physics is stinky. Also, make sure you take your three forms of ID with you, and get fingerprinted all nicely to ensure that it's really you yourself who are taking your exam, because we all know that, as M remarked sarcastically this morning, "Yeah, that's what I like to do, take MCATs for other people in my spare time."

Much love and good vibes and blue raspberry slurpees for celebration. Meanwhile, go score the hell out of that stupid test!

birthday in berzerkeley.

[So this was almost a month ago. June 24th, to be exact. So? I'm trying to update you on my life here. Get used to it.]

When you're a recent college graduate and you feel like you can finally start doing exactly what you used to brusquely tell people you'd be doing when they repeatedly inquired about your post-graduation plans (i.e. "Sleep"), it's slightly annoying to be awoken at 8 a.m. every morning by your father shaking you and helping you up to a sitting position and telling you, with effusive cheerfulness, to "Look out the window, Yasmine! See my little fig tree in the courtyard? It's growing up! And did you see those bushes I planted yesterday? You didn't? Oh, you have to go take a walk outside and check them out. Come on, go wash your face."

But then you realize your father and his good-intentioned wake-up endeavors are endearing in comparison to checking your emails and finding out that you actually didn't pass your neurobiology, physiology, and behavior (NPB) class and guess who's going to have to take summer school? (Yeah, just say it with me: Freakin' hell.)

So you spend half the day exchanging emails with a multitude of advisors, and, if you weren't so stressed and annoyed, you'd find the ever-lengthening subject line of the emails almost comical - Re: Re: FWD: Re: FWD: Re: HDE major requirement. The whole ordeal just reinforces your view that advisors are useless, which is, you tell yourself, exactly why you've never consulted people for advice and always went ahead and did things on your own. That way, if you mess everything up - which, let's face it, you just did - then fine, at least it's only your own fault.

(Little do you realize that this little drama is going to go on for the next three weeks, by the end of which time you've mentally cursed your multitude of advisors to no end, especially your useless faculty advisor who is on vacation and your master advisor who is currently conducting research in China but who honors your request for a meeting in person by asking about your availability and then never responds back. Why does he even bother to ask, if, as it turns out, he's going to be in China for the rest of the summer? Good lord, what a waste of time.)

So what's a girl to do?

The best option is to salvage the rest of a lovely day by driving to Berkeley and spending the afternoon with Somayya and the lovely L lady (Birthday Girl Extraordinaire), who is taking an Arabic course at Cal.

So, I did.

I got a phone call from my good ol' ex-co-worker H#3 as I was passing through the Caldecott Tunnel. "So how's work without me and Somayya around?" I asked. "I bet it's all sad and boring, huh?"
"That's what you think," he replied smugly. "Actually, we've been getting a lot more work done without you guys here."
"Right," I said skeptically. "And that means, what? You now play online poker even more often than you ever did before?"

Somayya called me just as I walked down to the corner of Bancroft and Telegraph. "Where you at? W is here, too, but he's about to leave." My favorite Afghan!
"No! Tell him not to move! I'll be right there in a second."
"Alright, but hurry up."

I reunited with W, Somayya, and L on the sidewalk in front of Amoeba Records, and the first thing on the list was to belatedly convey my condolences for W's grandfather's recent death. "Well, he lived a long and fulfilling life, and passed away in his sleep, you know. So, alhamdulillah," said W.
"InshaAllah, may it be that easy for all of us, when our time comes" I said, and asked about his sister: "How's F doing?"
"I guess she's okay."
I arched an eyebrow. "You only guess?"
"I don't know, every time I see her, she's annoying."
"You're annoying!" said Somayya, and tried to kick him in the shins, just as he deftly sidestepped.

W soon left, and, as Somayya, L, and I turned around to walk back towards campus, I recounted the AIM exchange I had had with H#3 earlier in the day:
"So I IMed him this morning and asked for K's number, 'cause you know how I smashed my phone into pieces at Commencement and lost a bajillion numbers, right? Literally three hours later, he comes back with, 'Hola, what you up to?' and then disappears again. The kid never gives me the information I'm requesting. It's so bothersome."
"Wait, he said what?" asked Somayya.
"'Hola.' "
Somayya started laughing, and L joined in. "It's pronounced without the 'h': ola! You don't say the 'h' part. Yazzo, I don't ever want to hear you say 'hola' in public again."
"Well, how was I supposed to know that? I took German, remember?"

I can use suitably impressive English words like juxtaposition and connoisseur and supercalifrajilisticexpialidocious, and I can rattle off the names of some of my favorite desserts at the Austrian bakery (topfenstrudel, palatschinken, zwetschgenflek) with an almost-straight face, thanks to six years of German education, but simple, four-letter Spanish words are beyond me. Clearly, I am not that smart, and it's no wonder I failed NPB.

We sat on the steps outside the MLK building and gleefully presented L with her birthday gift: a new cell phone to replace the one she had lost a couple of weeks before. Although she had been temporarily using an extra phone of Somayya's since, we were tired of waiting for her to replace her phone and knew the whole situation had been stressful on her as well. The expression on L's face - a cross between surprise, gratitude, and outrage - was priceless. Especially when she realized it was the latest model, whereupon she tried to convince us that if she went into the store personally, she could get her phone replaced at a fraction of the amount we had spent.

"Exactly how much did this cost?" she kept demanding.
"We’re not telling you!"
She shook her head disapprovingly. "You kids are out of control. Out of CONTROL."
"You know you love it!"
"This is the freakin' latest model! I had insurance on mine, so I could have gotten a replacement for $30!"
"Well, you were taking your damn time about it," I said snidely, "so we took care of it for you. Stop being a nerd about it."
"I'm going to return this tomorrow, and you're getting all your money back!"
"Nooo, you can't do that!" I protested. "This is our present to you!"
"Fine, return it then!" said Somayya. "But you're keeping all the damn money."
"Fine. Give me the receipt."
I took it out of my bag and handed it over. A split second later, I realized my mistake: "Wait, I don't trust you. You're going to look at the price and start screaming and then you'll refuse to keep the money."
Somayya wrestled the receipt out of L's hand, L tried to grab it back, and I laughed hysterically while watching the entire tussle. "You don't get the receipt until you sign a freakin' contract! Hold on, I need some paper." I felt around in my handbag for a piece of paper, but only managed to come up with my paycheck envelope. "Alright, hold on." I scribbled a few lines on the back of the envelope and handed it over. "Sign it!"

I, LAR, do hereby agree to keep all the cash I get refunded from the returning of my birthday gift phone to T-Mobile and I cannot give the money back to any of my friends no matter how much it is because I have to keep it and spend it for my own upkeep and general happiness and birthday gratitude for as long as it takes to spend it all.

The end.

x _____________________________
24 June 2005
Berkeley/Davis, California

She frowned, shook her head, and signed, I laughed my head off, we duly handed the receipt over, she looked at the amount and shrieked, "I hate you!" as expected for a few minutes, then pocketed the receipt, and all was well with the world.

We wandered around Bancroft and took some hilarious photos at the photo booth (something we had been planning to do every time we were in Berkeley, but somehow never got around to doing). 2Scoops called, and we commiserated about stupid NPB (me) and the bar exam (him), and how driving one's friends crazy is an essential part of every friendship ("Yeah, I think she totally hates us now," I said, as L looked over and mouthed, "Out of control!"). We also discussed how cool Baji is, and L, overhearing this, remarked gleefully, "Baji sent me a postcard from Costa Rica!" We all agreed that Baji is a rockstar. I know you all know this already, but it must be said again.

Then we made a beeline for the elevators in the MLK lobby, only to encounter issues when we attempted to go up to the third floor. We pressed "3," and the elevator kept opening and closing its doors on the first floor. I laughed, remembering the last time something like that had happened. (Is it just me, or does my life really go around in circles?) After the fifth or so try, we gave up and headed back outside, sitting on the grass bordering Sproul Plaza. L let me listen to HijabMan's "happy birthday song" voicemail, and then I busied myself with re-acquiring lost phone numbers with Somayya's help.

She scrolled through her entire cell phone, reading off names from A-Z, no less. "What about ___? How 'bout ___?"
"Nah, don't need that one. I probably won't ever call him/her."
L laughed at my nonchalance, but I figured, there are very few people I actually make the effort to call semi-regularly, so why bother with everyone else? I'm not much of a phone person.

This reminded us that we missed our friend H, who is notorious for never returning phone calls.
"Let's try a new strategy," said Somayya dryly. She called him and left the following voicemessage: "H, this is Somayya. I'm dying. Call me back."

We decided we were hungry, so we high-tailed it down to Naan 'n' Curry, where we scarfed down some aloo parathhas and chicken. Amazingly enough, H returned Somayya's phone call, and good times were had by all as we mercilessly guilt-tripped him for "calling only when Somayya is dying."

As I was walking back to my car, a grizzled old street vendor called out, "Assalamu alaikum!" Surprised, I grinned back and responded to his greeting.

On the way home, I stopped for gas. The turbaned Sikh gentleman at the gas station took one look at my jeans, hijab, and purple kameez and enquired, "Punjabi?"
I smiled. "No, Pukhtun."
He looked confused, so I amended, "Pakistani."
He smiled back. "Have a nice day."
"Thank you, you too."

Back home, I had to explain my NPB drama to the daddy-o. Surprisingly, he only laughed. "Didn't you used to be an NPB major?"
"Yes," I said wryly. "And I didn't stick with it for obvious reasons."

Later that evening, I stopped by his room. "Daddy khana, I need a check for my tuition and registration fees."
"You know where the checkbook is." [This is Daddy-o Speak for 'Get the checkbook and make out the check yourself, you lazy bum.']
I dutifully retrieved his checkbook and filled out the amount, then handed it to him to sign.
"How much is it for?" He glanced at it and sucked in a breath, then released it in a whoosh. "Yours is going to be the most expensive education ever."
Before I even had time to wince, he added, "But it's all worth it."

I'm blessed to have a father who thinks money is never wasted if it's spend on books and education. Alhamdulillah.

When I ran into my friend S a few days later, I apologized for forgetting to return his phone call from the week before.
"No," he said, "you did call me back."
"Oh, I did?" I said in surprise. "I totally don't remember."
"Yeah, you called me the same day. And you were hella pissed off."
I laughed. "It was about having to retake that damn NPB class, I bet. Yeah, I was really annoyed about all that drama."
He smirked knowingly. "It was all those naps you took last quarter, wasn't it? Maybe you shouldn't have slept so much."
"Shut up."

[Okay, the end. Really.]

>continue reading

A Riddle or Two for You...

#1 (Easy): I am cool yet I love the sun, i wear flip flops in the rain and paint my toes blue even though im secretly obsessed with yellow cuz it's HAPPY and i want my shades to be orange cuz it makes the world look happy and any boy who wants to win me over better not ever even think to buy me roses cuz real flowers are SUNFLOWERS...who am I?

HAHA...i told you it was easy!

ok...now a hard one...

#2 (slightly hard...probably wont be too hard considering i'm making it up haha):
I am blue and icy and i live in a dual world...what am i??

oooooooooh!!! you thought it was gonna be only SLIGHTLY HARD, but it's REALLY HARD! i foooled you i fooooled you! hahahaha...so take a guess eh...let's see who has really been paying attention!

shiny smooth automotive goodness, and goodness of another nature.

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 messa