3rd Intercostal Space and a .357 Magnum

I had a dream that you shot me, in the sternum by the level of the 3rd intercostal space, using a .357 Magnum. I didn't bleed, but it went well through the bone and I could still breathe as I sat there staring at the entry wound.

i was sitting on a cold ceramic floor while you were standing up. I'd rather marble than ceramic.

I was wearing a gray t-shirt, black jeans and green shoes, you were wearing a white t-shirt, blue jeans and were barefoot. Your hair grew out, you know I like how soft your hair feels.

Still no blood. I should've been dead by now, shouldn't I? And then I woke up.

P.S. I don't like grape flavoured candy, at all.

So you thought girls can't drive here?

Nota Bene: I'm pretty pissed off, i tried to tone it down for my writing to be barely comprehensible.

“I thought girls can’t drive there” commented a girl on Amna’s Facebook status, regarding Sumaya being behind the wheel for a few minutes while everyone else pushed the car after it broke down in the middle of one of the busiest streets in Jeddah.

That comment ticked me off. It may be the fact that I just woke up, or the fact that I am hypoglycemic and in major need of chocolate, or it could simply be the choice of words.

Girls can drive here, there is nothing to physically or mentally impair them from doing so , neither is there a written law. It is only that driving isn’t one of the options given to girls by the society, a.k.a the bearded men*.

I still fail to understand why women are so “nice” in this country. By using the adjective “nice” I am doing my best to avoid the adjectives “passive”, “submissive” and “docile”, as it is better to assume that the ladies of my country know and understand everything but choose to obey those irrational restrictions simply to keep peace at a community simmering at the verge of boiling point.

I would like to imagine that women in my country believe that they are not the root of all evil simply because of their chromosomes. That their voices deserve to be heard and are not akin to their genetalia**. That they should decide what happens to them during their time on this earth, as God will ask them about how they spent this time and not her wali amr.

I would like to believe that they know for a fact that their daughters deserve better, that if we don’t stand up for what we need and believe, no-one will stand up for us.


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* it's not the beards on their faces, it's the beards obscuring their hearts.

** Is the voice of a woman awrah? A fatwa [click here]
The voice of a woman, an essay [click here]
Is the female voice awrah? A personal opinion [click here]

List: To-Do in the next ten days.

List of things to do before the year ends:
1- see an ophthalmologist.
2- Earlier bedtime.
3- sushi!
4- Re-read “The First Century After Beatrice”.
5- Double backups of everything, again.
6- Get scrubs fitted, again.
7- Fix abaya.
8- Get another cover for my phone.
9- Get a tiny Quran.
10- Fix two top drawers of dresser.
11- Arrange dresses in the corridor wardrobe.
12- Arrange shoes in shoe closet.
13- Make sure shoes are clean before they go into the shoe closet.
14- Give Sami the stuff I’ve been getting her all year. They accumulate.
15- Find my surgery recall pocketbook.
16- Get a black leather waist belt, or a purple one.
What else….

Loss Of A Good Soul And A Wonderful Person

I would like to kindly ask you all for a moment of silence and a little prayer for Dr. Tarik Salman Aljuhani. A good soul, a wonderful person and a loving father and husband. He passed away today after being in a coma, due to a medical error, for months.

I only met him once, worked with him for a day at organizing a photography exhibition in the lobby of King Faisal Specialized Hospital in Jeddah two years ago. I was just a girl he didn’t know who showed up with a bunch of photo prints. He had no reason to be nice to me, professionalism would’ve been sufficient since we would’ve probably never crossed paths again after the week of the exhibition. He introduced himself, gave me his card and asked me in the nicest way possible to help them set up the props to hang the prints, only if I had time to spare, he said. He was effortlessly kind, some people strain to show kindness but he was simply kind, and he was loved by many for his kindness.

اللهم اغفر له و ارحمه، و عافه و اعفو عنه، وأكرم نزله و وسع مدخله، و اغسله بالماء والثلج والبرد، و نقه من الذنوب و الخطايا كما ينقى الثوب الأبيض من الدنس. اللهم بدل سيئاته حسنات. اللهم جافي الأرض عن جنبيه. اللهم انظر بنور وجهك الكريم إليه. اللهم تعطف عليه. اللهم ثبته عند السؤال واجعل قبره روضة من رياض الجنة و اجعل جليسه في قبره عمله الصالح و صبر أهله و ذويه وألهمهم الصبر والسلوان.
إنا لله وإنا إليه راجعون.

Friday, December 11th '09

Subnormality: Now Available In Cans [click here]

Read that comic linked up there? Good.

So, what do we really need? Can you pack everything you need in a single backpack? I always thought I cannot possibly live without my books, but in prolonged absence of food and lack of shelter would I care more about having my books or providing my basic needs? Or are my books my basic needs? Would I want to provide food and shelter in absence of my books? Books here referring to whatever any of you cannot live without: iPod, Blackberry, Rubik Cube, Twin Lens Reflex Camera.

Do you agree to the Maslovian hierarchy of needs? Has any of us been deprived of simple basic physical needs long enough to test it? I don’t think we’ve ever been desperate enough. To quote Alia: “I’m not talking about one-time off kind of hunger. I’m talking about ingrained, prolonged and excruciating starvation. The kind that creates the greedy, lonely and anal persona that never seems to be satisfied. Or see beyond their hands-to-mouth rituals.” [click here]

People who lost their homes in the flood are being provided for by companies and individuals donating food and supplies in general. Those people, having lost everything but the rags on their backs, expect to find basic needs in the boxes sent by charity organizations, such as: rice, bread, salt and a clean warm jacket. Knowing what basic needs are, I can perfectly understand why anyone would donate boxes full of permanent hair colour, hairspray, pancake syrup and cupcake frosting. Honestly now, who came up with the brilliant idea of donating hairspray to flood victims?

What do you really need? Can you live but not survive? Or has survival simply evolved?

Music for the soul:

Thursday, December 10th '09

I finally went out of the house today. Not because I am fit to leave the house but simply because I ran out of tea and beer, being solely my diet in the past week. I can’t taste food, thus all food disgusts me.

So I went with mama to pick up Isso, Amna and Sumaya from the Exhibition Centre. As we pull up by the gate, I see Isso and Sumaya sitting on the stairs outside and then notice Amna standing with two ladies in the middle of an intense conversation. Isso and Sumaya entre the car while Amna still seems oblivious of the fact that we’re here. I get out of the car and stand next to her just to notice how hard she was fighting her tears, I knew she wanted to be strong but whatever happened hurt her too badly.

Convincing her that we’ll need to leave now, she sits in the car and starts sobbing. She starts to tell me what happened today:
A man walked into the Exhibition Centre today and decided he was in charge, an important member of a known charity organization which has nothing to do with this volunteer work, showing off his so called efforts to officials from our lovely Capital city while hindering all work concerning female volunteers. Only a handful of boxes made it out while he was prancing around ordering ladies to be virtuous and abide to their God given role in society: to keep homes, fill the boxes with food and sort the clothes. No field work.

The one mistake those young ladies and gentlemen committed today was honoring their elders. Someone should’ve kicked that man’s bum the second he meddled with all that was not his to meddle with.

After dropping Amna and Sumaya home and Isso at Lara’s house, Mama and I go for some tea and I run into Squeek! I miss Squeek, really. He was having dinner with some people from the Exhibition Centre and talking about that same man Amna told me about in the car.

Isso and Amna both told me that medical assistance and supplies to flood areas are going to stop because people are not accepting doctors or medicine. They were taught that medication is “haram”, that is, prohibited by God, and are refusing doctors. Who could’ve ever taught them that? Those damaged areas look and think so differently than Jeddah that they don’t seem like part of it. They were severely neglected and now as they’re dying they refuse our medical intervention. It is our fault that they think medicine is prohibited by God, we never gave them adequate medical attention before.

P.S. This is Ali Al-Ghazzawi's diary of his days volunteering in Quwaiza, in Arabic. [click here]

Something simple. A fur coat over a nightgown.