Gratitude

They say you need to appreciate the things you have in your life in order for more to flow. To have Gratitude...

I have so much gratitude towards the custodian in my office who cleans my trash daily. Without him, I could not get a new and fresh start every day.

http://www.withthecurrent.com

Time

50 years ago, today, 9 black students were blocked from a entering a high school in Arkansas.

10 years ago, today, Princess Dianna of Wales died in a tragic car crash.

7 years ago, today, I bought my first car--a 1997 Nissan Altima. I loved that till the moment I parted with it.

11 months ago, my parents left and I am not sure when I will see them again.

Time flies, they say. I personally believe Time does all sorts of things, it can fly, it can crawl, it can sit for a while or it can run. Maybe it takes the train at times, and it might be stuck in traffic at other times.

Sometimes I am angry at Time, maybe resentful, maybe even jealous and envious---for simply not being able to catch up with Him, for all the people that are left behind in the past as prisoners with Him, and for all the future moments that He brings when I am not ready yet.

I hate Him because he overpowers me.

They take my hand lotion away at the security check at the airport because it's too big. They think I have put in something poisonous or harmful in there and will use it to injure/kill passengers on the plane. How one would do that, I can't even fathom. Maybe one would open the lotion and start putting it on people's bodies on the plane?

They do this after 6000 people crashed within 15 minutes.

Too late. Stupid Nation.

As Forrest Gump said, "Stupid is as stupid does".

Today our office was de-virginized. Officially.

This is how: 6 people gathered in a tiny room, the so-called "conference room" for a deposition. They were 1) a rather fat court reporter lady, with a familiar face and smile, whom I had seen before at WDBM, 2) a young Mexican tall male lawyer whom I first assumed was the Spanish interpreter, 3) a fifty-something Jewish female attorney with a heavy Long Island accent, 4) a fifty-something male Spanish interpreter with a sense of humor and a small bladder, who called all the bathroom breaks and 5) a typical little Mexican shy lady--a former house cleaner, who lives in East L.A., has lived in the States for 28 years and still needs an interpreter to understand English well...

And then, there was Me.

It was a scene from a movie.

Hair stylists and nail salons are closed on Mondays. Apparently, there is an assumption in the industry that people don't need to groom on Mondays and look pretty. Well, that's F'd up. People need to groom 7 days a week.

They must have really long life expectancies for being closed on Mondays though.

She is back.

Last year, on Sept 20, 2006, I wrote that She is gone.

Today, I walked to her work, we went to lunch to her house where I spilled soy sauce on my very white skirt, and she washed it and put it in the dryer during lunch.

Then I put my white clean skirt back on and went to work.

She has miraculously come back to my life, where she is accross the street now.

Last year, I thought everyone who love and enjoy leaves one day.

This year, I know some of them return again in mysterious ways.

She is back.

I feel blessed.

me X 4

Just realized I have been a mom and a dad and a sister and a brother to my mom, my dad, my sister and my brother...for a long time now.

This should call for a new mathmatical equasion perhaps involving logrithams.

Go figure.

I am coming back!

I missed the feel of it so much the other day, I decided to order it again. The anticipation of a heavy package at your door, every Sunday morning...laying on the couch and lazily reading the Opinion section, sorting through the sales ads of the week, cutting out coupons I would never use, making a mess on the floor...the feel of newspaper, the feel of being in the loop of things, the feel of belonging to this world, taking a part...I have missed it all.

I am slowly coming back to this world....


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People with kids

People who have kids only talk about their kids: What the kid ate, what he said, what he wore, what his teacher said, what he will wear tomorrow, what he will eat tomorrow...

People who have kids lose themselves into their kids. They merge with their kids. They become one.

I don't want to be like that when I have kids.

What is adulthood?

Adulthood is being sick, and going to the grocery store by yourself with a runny nose, and buying ingredients for making soup, because your mom is not here to take care of you.

Adulthood sucks.

Compromised Immune System

I have one.

And I am too sick to write about it.

The Great Pretender

I pretend I know what I am doing.

I make sure I am dressed well to look like I have more than $50 in my bank account.

I pretend I have great connections socially.

I pretend I am ready to buy a condo soon in Irvine.

I pretend I did not grow up during war.

I pretend I have a great vision for my future, and I am not just living day to day.

I pretend I am calm.

I pretend I wasn't diagnosed with Major Depression, and Anxiety Disorder.

I am the Great Pretender.

Things I really detest...

I detest many things in life but one of them is this:

Seeing Halloween stuff already in stores in the middle of August, when it's still so hot.

Shameful.

We need to snap out of living in the future...always the next moment seems better than now.

Shameful.

Anchor yourself, she said, when you move down there.

"I want you to anchor yourself" was the exact sentence she used.

And I listened, believe me.

But it seems like it never ends. You have to re-anchor and re-anchor and re-anchor...

And I have learned to do that.

Her hand

Last time we flew together I must have been five.

I remember every time we flew, she sat next to me and put her hand on top of my small hand and held tight at take off, and landing. Just at the right minute when the cabin pressure is too much and your body feels too light as if you will be flying off your seat, the same feeling you get on a roller coaster. She held my hand tight and smiled. She told me it will be over soon.

Last time I flew with my mom was 25 years ago but the warmth of her hand still feels so strong on my hands, at every take off and every landing.

Lena the teller

She has all white hair. Her skin is choorook, her hands are shaking. She must be at least 80 years old, no joke. Her name is Lena.

And she is working as a bank teller at Bank of America. I wonder how old she was when she first learned to use the computer?

I am not comfortable when she calls me to her window because I have never dealt with a teller her age. But she is pretty quick, knows the job well and we move quickly. Of course I don't have a BofA account and she gets a chance to make a sales pitch to me.

Well, I had a BofA account. In fact, BofA was my very first bank. I opened it in 1993, last year of high school, but then certain things went wrong and that account was closed. Oh well...

What happened to her retirement fund? Social Security not paying enough? Did she lose her husband early? Does she not have any kids to support her? Did she fail to save enough money as 70% of Americans fail? Or is she simply just bored at home and this job is the highlight of her day?

I want to know her life story. Can I take her out to coffee?

She asks if I am interested in opening an account. Of course, I am...why not? let's have three or four checking accounts. But I don't have time today. So she writes her name down on a "Teller Referral Form" and hands it to me. If I use this form, she will get some point, which will eventually accumulate, hopefully, and she might get a bonus at the end of the year. Or a stupid placard stating "Employee of the Month".

I take the referral form and decide that I will come bank and open an account later, just for her so she could get that one point.

That's the least I can do for Lena.

Site Inspection

Chico, Ca.

7:30 a.m.

Serenity.

Greenery.

Early morning crisp and clean air.

Birds singing

Golf course view.

American Flag displayed.

Someone playing piano in the background.

30-year-old non-American female climbing a ladder to go up to the roof, in the presence of three white males in their late 40's, and a few construction workers of all races, while feeling as comfortable as hell, feeling completely equal to them.

And this is why this is America.

ALANIS MORISSETTE Tribute

Sunday night. 10:35 p.m.

I realize I am out of checks so I call the 1-800 number of the bank to order checks on their automated machine. Long behold they route my call and a LIVE person picks up. She has an indian accept, of course. She is very personable and you can tell she tries to speak English to the best of her ability. She takes care of my request and i have my checks in the mail...as I hang up, I laugh and thank outsourcing. In fact, due to out-sourcing I was able to talk to a LIVE person, whereas if I had made a call during "nomal business hours", I would have been put on hold and or never gotten past the automated voice. The one that says..." I am sorry I could not understand what you meant...try again." The one that I sometimes scream at, being 100% aware that it's just a computer.

As I hang up and get a task done on a late Sunday evening, I smile and say to myself : Thank You Inida... and of course, the song pops up in mind...so this is for Alanis:

how bout getting off these antibiotics
how bout stopping eating when I'm full up
how bout them transparent dangling carrots
how bout that ever elusive kudo

thank you india
thank you terror
thank you disillusionment
thank you frailty
thank you consequence
thank you thank you silence

how bout me not blaming you for everything
how bout me enjoying the moment for once
how bout how good it feels to finally forgive you
how bout grieving it all one at a time

thank you india
thank you terror
thank you disillusionment
thank you frailty
thank you consequence
thank you thank you silence

the moment I let go of it was the moment
I got more than I could handle
the moment I jumped off of it
was the moment I touched down

how bout no longer being masochistic
how bout remembering your divinity
how bout unabashedly bawling your eyes out
how bout not equating death with stopping

thank you india
thank you providence
thank you disillusionment
thank you nothingness
thank you clarity
thank you thank you silence

Babayeh Pool Daar

Babayeh Pool Daar Nadaaram...

vali babayeh mehraboon daram...Yek baba daram, who did not miss a single event that all three of his kids attended including but not limited to school plays, musicals, graduations (holding a camera recorder at all times even though the films came out shaky because he could not hold his hands still), basketball games, etc. He came for every move and helped pack stuff.

Yeh baba daram keh hamisheh boodeh...and has provided the utmost amount of emotional security for us, that no matter what happens in life and what goes down and what comes up and no matter how much the gas prices are, or if you don't pass the bar the first time around...no matter what, he has been There. Period.

If I got a second chance at life, I would still take him over a Babyeh Pooldar.

You can make the money yourself but you can't find a mehraboon Dad that easily.

Displacement

that's the best way to describe how I am feeling these days...

and of course she had to ask me to go back to my childhood...that with every move I get reminded of the night we moved oversees and how that very same night, I felt a discomfort in my stomach that has since stayed. And I told mom in the bathroom upstairs that condo in Marina del Ray that we should go back, that already I missed everyone.

That was 17 years ago.

And since then with every new place, I feel the same discomfort, the same "I don't belong here" feeling...

Then of course, you work on it and make a "home" and buy things and put things up and cook and have friends over...then...one day, it comes when you have to get the boxes and wrap the same shit again and move them... you do this a few times until you die.

Some moves are mandatory like what happened to me after the Red Wall. Some moves are unjust like what happened to my parents. Some moves are by choice like when we bought the townhome in AH. And yet some moves are fortuitous. This move was the latter.

The move from Iran 17 years ago was of course, a combination of all of the above.

i m not my mother, i am not my mother, i am not my mother, I am not my mother, I am not my mother, I am not my mother, I am not my mother, I am not my mother, I am not becoming my mother, I am not becoming my mother, I am not becoming my mother, even if I act like her sometimes, I am not my mother...even if I have some of her personalities, I am still not my mother...I will not end up like my mom, I will not end up like my mom, I will not end up like my mom, i will not end up like my mom, I will not end like my mom...

i love my mom i love my mom i love my mom...i am so afraid of losing her...

I am not perfect...I am not perfect...I am not perfect
I am not perfect, i am unperfect, I am unperfect...I am not perfect. no one is perfect, I have flaws. I have made mistakes, I have screwed up, i am just human...I am not perfect...i am not perfect...I am not perfect...I am not perfect, every body makes mistakes.

random thoughts

Sedaayeh jeerjeerak sobhgahi

A new messy room waiting to be decorated

A brand new office waiting to be discovered

A big black piano sold to buy a small white lartop so I can write my random thoughts in the early dusk hours

Change, change, change and more change to come

An undetermined destiny waiting to be determined? defined? discovered? or just simply lived...