i can write when i'm sad, grieving, longing, but not when i'm stressed. what's that called..

i dreamt of my grandfather in such heartbreaking detail that it hurt to wake.

... simple, everyday motions like walking in the snow, ordering pizza, getting his text: "at the pizza place, unit 3".

the fact that i was an adult. that i held his hand while we walked, like the child i was when he passed.

The beauty of a phrase like

(خط کشیدن (دور

to draw a line (around)

... is the easy image--the visualization of a purposeful (and complete) mental boundary.

Perhaps the closest equivalent in English is to draw a line under. To move on.

But the horizontality weakens the resolve. The air above this line is empty, after all, leaving plenty of room for relapse, for negotiation.

What can be more conclusive, more reflective of the twin concepts of closure/enclosure than a perfect circle of finality...

it's ridiculous that without my "good" pen i can't sit down to write.

only Borges can offer a parenthetical this is not a work of history after providing a historical background complete with references and even--just moments earlier--a footnote.

"Story of the Warrior and the Captive Maiden." Collected Fictions, translated by Andrew Hurley, Penguin Books, 1999, p. 208.

the other day, i correctly translated/identified טעים (ta'im, tasty) based on my knowledge of the persian (which i realized at that moment is actually arabic) طعم (ta'am, taste).

whoa.

someone looking over my shoulder in transit cannot be faulted for coming to a certain conclusion: news on Middle East, Persian Twitter feed, Persian Telegram ("what's Telegram??"), Persian music, keyboard, notes-to-self.

who would guess the heart of this Russian-Canadian Jew.

a dream last night that a lady--a former drug addict--went looking for someone (or something) at her dealer's home. she had a suitcase with her and a plan to disappear into another (cleaner) life. as she walked away empty-handed, someone approached her with an offer. she confidently shook her head and turned towards the elevator, preparing to leave. the doors opened. she placed her suitcase in the elevator and, without hesitation, quickly returned to the apartment.

Who is دونing pomegranate at 1am
.
.
.
I am.

there is a girl who boards the streetcar--olive skin, dark hair, small, thin. homeless. i first saw her a year ago: overly talkative but good-natured; generally neat; generally coherent. every month or two i'm witness to the dramatic deterioration...

i started writing this two months ago.

last week, with exactly these words in mind, i stumbled on her in the queen subway tunnel. as if she'd lived 200 years. as if all the chaos, fear, entropy of the street had run through her head and out her mouth...

it took hours to stop shaking, to stop the tears collecting in my throat..

i still haven't recovered from that scene. i'm not sure i ever will.

x

милая

i have no idea where you came from

but here you are, ten years later

and i couldn't be more blessed

<3

there is no english equivalent for the time i spent with this spreadsheet yesterday.
apparently english speakers, on the whole, have little experience with мучения ...

تولدت مبارک

جان دلم

my همنفس

warmest birthdays
happiest wishes

<3

I didn't know until I opened it that it was my grandparents' dictionary--those neat rows of page numbers corresponding to each English letter; the characteristic script, easily identifiable among Russian immigrants of a certain age. I had forgotten our assembly in the apartment, taking this dictionary and Esenin, two volumes, light-grey hardcovers with emerald green print on the binding.

I had forgotten that the cemetery was old and beautiful; I had forgotten the family of deer who disappeared as quickly as they had emerged from the gaps in the shifting sunlight, seemingly, or the trees.

I was struck, as I stared at this once-blank separator, by the irony: My grandmother always hoped I'd translate. All my resistance. All my doubt. And here I am, Oxford dictionary in hand......

Instead of This

for another (or the same?) reader in Lebanon:

مَمْنونِة عَزْيارْتَك

I am my manager's official proofreader, and I really couldn't be happier.

A reminder while scrolling through Twitter this morning: the sad fact that I know people--friends, loved ones, acquaintances--who were once imprisoned, either in Iran or in Israel, for one political absurdity or another; that there are countless friends of friends who either served or are currently serving equally ludicrous sentences, who've been killed over some Kafkaesque abstraction or other; that nobody should know this, in this day and age, and yet we do.

Why isn't this over yet

it was something like a food court, and everything felt tense; edgy; like the shooting crack before an avalanche. i notice three young men--orange shirts, red, yellow, with checkered bandanas covering all except their eyes. i pull my friend away, worried about a fight, about what these men might do.

a few minutes later, we're outside. a quick glance down a dark alley, and my stomach flops: two rows of people on either side, their backs against the wall. my first and only thought is, they've already started separating people. my friend is gone. as i turn to run, i realize that i didn't even notice the galloping horse between the hostages, its masked rider swinging an axe.

i'm caught on a steep set of stairs between two buildings--more horses, militia, again an axe. i duck into a hole in the wall, find myself surrounded by darkness, cement. a faint light in the middle of the room. a young girl on an operating table who calls the surgeon father, who thinks his experiments are routine, ordinary expressions of love. she's been here since childhood, i think. he pauses his incision to walk toward me, huddled behind a barrier. a cold, gentle smile, pleased with his new subject, the scalpel already touching my arm. during our struggle i manage to point it into his stomach, which takes the blade in a thick, bloodless fold, like the bending of a rolled-up carpet...

word of the day: panicle