walking around naked, even by yourself, is somehow arousing

it's always worse at night..

никогда

so this is who i am now.. the girl who weeps on the subway.. believes herself to be nobody to you, and nothing

the smell of the ravine on my way to work.. the butterfly i couldn't save.. the snail

dreams that i'm being pursued by a single vulture; that a homeless man leaves a trail of blood here, after being invited in

i feel that i can make a decision to put this aside.. live fully, breathe easier.. ignore it.

but, bizarrely... i'm unwilling to invest the energy. perhaps the hurt has become such a part of me that i'd rather return, every time, to those familiar pathways; to pick at the scab.. not even hoping for a different outcome - just expecting blood

who is poor little arash next to amr diab
nobody.

i love that egyptians clap with their entire bodies..

3 is an excellent number

some interesting questions posed in class:

- can canadian poetry be referred to as "post-colonial" if there was no struggle for independence
- is a struggle necessarily required for a nation to be "born"; is some degree of self-sacrifice a prerequisite
- can one classify a work as "post-colonial" if it's written in the acquired language as opposed to an indigenous one

i think one can anticipate the way i would respond (or possibly rephrase), given my complete skepticism, disregard and dislike for the concept of "nation" as a whole

it's not necessarily the case that people who watch executions are psychotic. they feel strongly about the "integrity" of the judgment (about which they are easily convinced, as most humans are, about anything); they want the satisfaction of seeing it carried out.. 

one would imagine that after the shock of watching your first, sympathy and disgust would prevent you from seeing the next. what actually happens, i think, is an enormous feat of self-conviction; an attempt to force the act into the existing paradigm

such is the way your ambivalence drains, becomes certainty and hardens into stone

מזל טוב!

to commemorate:

my mom's birthday
sandy's excellent acquisition
and parvaneh's wonderful move forward

dried apples from tavazo' remind me of my grandfather who, in the short time that he was with us when i was young, enchanted me with all his mushroom-picking, jam-making, fruit-drying russian habits

"There is an hour in the Arab Mediterranean when the sun, as if in a state of indecision, hovers a palm's length above the horizon."

-- hisham matar, the light, the new yorker (sep 12 issue)

sinking under the weight of unspoken words and unpleasant memories..

deluge

"The sea was indistinguishable from the sky, except that the sea was slightly creased as if a cloth had wrinkles in it."