i walked through my parents' house today, signs of the break-in visible here and there...

it wasn't as bad as we thought, and a relief that nothing was broken; nothing serious taken*... but seeing my grandfather's war medals strewn in a little pile on the floor of the study had a greater effect on me than i expected. our most valuable of valuables, of course, and they meant nothing to these people

rest in peace, dedushka

*i've since discovered that items of sentimental value were taken...it's hard to imagine a stranger's hands on something so personal

f's phrase of the day: these two were like frat boys gone hipster

you may think you've covered everything--and you have, for the most part.
but somehow, somewhere, there's an (unintentionally) italicized comma.
and someone, somewhere is going to see it.

With an unexceptionally Arab family name like Saïd connected to an improbably British first name (my mother much admired the Prince of Wales in 1935, the year of my birth), I was an uncomfortably anomalous student all through my early years: a Palestinian going to school in Egypt, with an English first name, an American passport and no certain identity at all. To make matters worse, Arabic, my native language, and English, my school language, were inextricably mixed: I have never known which was my first language, and have felt fully at home in neither, although I dream in both. Every time I speak an English sentence, I find myself echoing it in Arabic, and vice versa.

-- Edward Saïd

downtown is a cold, depressing place after 10pm. one man's repeated nighttime howling, ejected from opposite ends of queen st and directed at nothing and nobody in particular, is soon met by a younger man's shout of response. the space between them widens and widens, but this frantic dialogue continues. a hamburger drops from the young man's pocket--he swears profusely, picks it up, and eats it. his wild laughter punctuates the scene.

this is real life, i know, but it feels like something out of someone else's feverish dream..

i did not officially commemorate (on paper) what i consider to be a real victory in Lausanne. there was significant relief at home the minute it was announced; even my mom responded with a flurry of hopeful emails.

we've been assured left and right that it's not a full agreement, but even the "framework" of one is cause for optimism. now if only Netanyahu could keep his mouth shut and act like a human being...

the other day i listened to a recorded conversation in which i took part and noticed the weirdest thing: i have an accent! one or two people have said so, and many others have pointed to my (unnecessarily strong but at this point habitual) enunciation--and yet i've never believed the former.

i hear it now, though... an honest-to-god accent!

И мы будем делать все, что мы захотим
А сейчас, сейчас мы хотим танцевать
Мы хотим танцевать...

And we'll do all that we want
But now, now we want to dance
We want to dance...

- victor tsoi [kino]

simplicity itself, these lyrics, but ferocious in the context of their time and place. i'm surprised at how well this soviet punk-rock group has stood the test of time

سال نو مبارک

...who gets sick on the first day of spring? me, that's who.

still, feeling fortunate to have two new year celebrations :)

wishing all of you the very best... a warm, lovely, and loving year

Борис Немцов

well said, by mark galeotti, on the blog in moscow's shadows

My working hypothesis is that Nemtsov was killed by some murderous mavericks, not government agents, nor opposition fanatics. But the reason they felt obliged to go and gun down a frankly past-his-peak anti-government figure is highly likely to be precisely because of the increasingly toxic political climate that clearly is a product of Kremlin agency, in which people like Nemtsov are portrayed as Russophobic minions of the West, enemies of Russia’s people, culture, values and interests. So, to loop things round, Putin is guilty, I suspect--and all the caveats about the lack of hard evidence yet--the same way that tobacco companies are considered guilty of cancer deaths after they may have known about the risks, or any hate-speaker may be when some unhinged acolytes take their sentiments and decide to turn them into bloody action. 

it's been my opinion all along that this government is responsible for a poisonous environment--one in which violent and discriminatory behaviour is insufficiently punished, often unacknowledged, and disturbingly unchecked. if it's politically motivated, i'm not surprised that it happened...

f: Dooneh came and sat casually on my phone. I couldn't find it for five minutes . . .

this morning, someone spelled my name correctly on the first try.

it's a miracle.

if today were a movie, it would be called revenge of the printers

is there a gene for headaches caused by car heaters? seems my mom and i have the same problem...

f's phrases of several months

me: oh--you have to hear something stupid!
f: do i have to?

---

of my generally dim view about almost everything ("it's broken"; "i'm sick"; "she just wants food")

darling, you're such a pessimistic jew

---

shall i darken the room?
[i.e., turn off the lights]

let the record show that i managed to cook two dishes without getting so much as a drop on the stove.

[before i could celebrate that little victory i also managed to get a sharp piece of dried mint lodged in my thumb. it was later extracted with that universal method of sliver removal: a disinfected-by-fire sewing needle.]

I have now spent two full days with my filing cabinet and Merlin and my head is swimming in a sea of paperwork and badly-written scripts.

This is a show purely for children so I will forgive the bizarrely teenage behaviour of the fully adult actors, the large number of filler episodes--especially in early seasons--and the god-awful repetition. A bit of that is necessary: if anything, the show is a valuable, valuable lesson in humility. It also does a good job with the difficulty of decision-making, with the irrational nature of fear, and with the importance of compassion.

Unforgivable, however, is the lack of character development in Arthur; the troubling focus on loyalty, which is not always grounded in reason; and the even more troubling focus on "destiny"--its existence, its veracity, and its influence.

[SPOILER ALERT?]

Most unforgivable of all is the fact that the dragon was right. About everything. The commendable lessons of kindness, mercy, and understanding--painfully established every season--are really, for me, undercut by all this.

I've taken it much too seriously, as I'm prone to do... but for parents watching this with their children: I would take care to point out its flaws.

dear friends and relations,

wishing you all a peaceful year of love, health, and laughter

С новым годом, с новым счастьем

more dreams of flying... of you being missing and, later, kidnapped... and one long, terrifying death by poison

apparently our cat loves buckwheat...

must be those russian roots