sLeEpEr StAlKeR

So any of you Facebook stalk??? My Space stalk??? As you can tell, I’m in need of some serious agreeableness this morning. You see up till a year and a half ago I was quite proud to be a normal & sane individual. I was going about living my independent life, free of chaos, I didn’t care to know who was doing what as long as I was doing what I needed & wanted to do. But soon this thing, this magic called Facebook appeared. It was all well and good in the beginning, I mean how refreshing it was to connect with cousins and friends I hadn’t seen in ages…oh look there’s that boy I had a crush on back in high school…oh my god look at her she’s put on so much weight…FUN…hooked on Facebook!!! Btw I was totally addicted to THE WALL…whoever invented the damn thing…with every new post I felt important…I went from txt’in and callin my friends to messaging them on Facebook “wux up/what’s goin on/u busy?” Within moments you went from 5 friends to 300 friends…all of a sudden I was Catherine Zeta-Jones and Peter Petrelli from Heroes…stupid but felt like maybe I should just leave that stuff on there so people will get to know me better…what’s better than a renowned Personality Test telling you you are as sexy as Angelina Jolie…man, that felt good…but then the craziness started…and soon I began to notice symptoms of insanity within me and around me…little snippets of it here n there…called Facebook stalking!!! It’s a sickness, madness, spurrrreading…and so far, no sign of alleviation is on the horizon atleast for me. This reliance on other people’s lives is noxious for my self-esteem. The other day I ran into people I hardly see unless at dholkees or Eid parties of course yet they happen to be my friends on Facebook (I’m nice that way, I guess I’ve allowed all sorts of people to interfere in my life) and they knew exactly where I had been and what I had been up to the weekend before…I was bewildered…and then the verdict came out “Oh we know because we were reading the comments on your wall”…bummer!! That’s not right! But hell I do the same…well at least I don’t walk up to random people and gladly unveil my stupidity to them. A couple of weeks back I got this insane post on my wall saying forward your message onto your friends to find out who stalks your profile the most…and I panicked…because if I can manage to do that, SO CAN THEY!!! I was so fearful of it I ignored the message altogether as if it doesn’t even exist on my wall…I figured I’d rather not know…because if it works, and those MoFo’s find out I’ve spent countless days n nights staring at their profile page, I’m gonna have to bury my head someplace dark and hope to be never spotted again. A few days later my sister innocently confessed to something…she told me she was browsing thru someone’s profile and her picture appeared on their profile page, right underneath it were the words “YOU WERE HERE”…she goes she panicked…and then just so it would seem like she wasn’t sniffin around, she said she was bound to leave a friendly msg on their wall. After listening to that, I diverted all my energy into some digging in Facebook and HA HA…found out it was a SCAM…altogether…thank GOD for that!!! ohhhh the relief…but it was sad at the same time, to see what had become of this individual I refer to as ME! I was NEVER like that…I could care less about the world around me or other people’s lives…the fuel to my life was my own independence…and now? The source of energy has been diverted to dependence…and this is not what I want my life to become. I don’t like the new ME, the “sleeper” stalker!!! Which leads me to my thought of the day…with this new era of technology, as we grow more connected to each other, are we growing that apart from ourselves?

signed: Thinker-Bell

WORD OF THE DAY!

FORTITUDE: (pronounced FOR-tuh-tood) strength of mind that enables a person to encounter danger or bear pain or adversity with courage

signed: Thinker-Bell

NYC iN aLl ItS gLoRy...

I somehow always manage to be at the wrong place at the wrong time but I can’t help it…
So these days I am supposed to arrive at the hospital by 6:30 in the morning and it takes me an hour to get there…so yes that means that the sun doesn’t even come up when my alarm goes off…
Well like every morning I struggle to get up…sleep in the shower…put on my scrubs… (thank God I don’t have to think about what to wear…that would be a disaster!)…put my hair in a half a** bun…and walk out the door…so basically I do the whole “messy, who cares what I look like” look (of course I regret it every morning when I get to the hospital and all the other girls in my rotation look like they are about to go to a photo shoot even with scrubs on!)
Anyway back to the actual story….so I get on the bus and get to the subway station…walk down the stairs and there is a homeless man sitting on the stairs…sadly nothing out of the ordinary…he says good morning beautiful…I just walk past by….and go to wait for the subway…so as I am standing there I can feel him staring at me...kinda creepy but whatever…so the train arrives and I walk in…the same man from the stairs comes running into my section…he sits across from me at first and then gets up and comes sits next to me….mind you there are like 30 open seats all around…there a few other people on the train already but all passed out because of course normal people are still sleeping at this time…so I start freaking out a little…he grabs my arm and tries to put his head on my shoulder…my instant reaction was to bolt up off my seat as I say “let go”…my heart is racing fast…I walk to the other end of cart….as he yells “hey, hey, you…hey” I get to the other end and sit down facing away from him…near a guy who was sleeping in hopes that maybe he would help me out if something were to happen…so we finally get to the next stop (seemed like forever)…by this time he had walked up to me…and before the doors opened…he got 2 inches from my face, looked straight into my eyes…and says “I’m going to kill you” and walks out….
OMG!! What was that all about?? The whole way to the hospital I was freakin out…I know that it is highly unlikely that he is actually going to do something to me but the fact that he touched me was sending chills down my spine…usually “they” just pass comments but never get close enough to actual physical contact!
So now I have to re-route so that I am not at the place I am supposed to be at the time I’m supposed to be there because apparently that is being at the wrong place at the wrong time!

signed: Macky

WORD OF THE DAY!

for my non-desi Clan...

DESI: (pronounced they-see) refers to someone or something "local", "regional" or "indigenous" to the subcontinent; in North America and Great Britian, it is a term used "informally" to describe South Asian immigrants and their descendants

signed: Thinker-Bell

DiDn'T c ThAt CoMiNg...

Life is full of surprises! We all know that, no surprise there! YET how many times we find ourselves saying out loud, “oh crap! I didn’t see that coming!” Well guys, being 31 years of age living single in one of the most crowded cities of this nation, I didn’t see ME coming!!! I never thought in a million years that I would be where I am right now…at this moment…single, working, struggling, procrastinating, confused, overwhelmed…forget that, NEVER did I imagine I would be SINGLE (period)…!!! Of all life’s mysteries, this one undoubtedly remains a surprise, a mystery! Hey, don’t get me wrong, I’m in no way implying that I make a “great catch” but exactly where does the answer to this mystery lie??? I’m still searching…I mean c’mon I’m Pakistani, we don’t last “fruitless” for this long!!! In my desi world, I’m practically approaching menopause…I mean desi girls I graduated high school with are well on their way to granny-hood! And where am I? rather you don’t ask…if I only knew it would’ve been this challenging to find a good, healthy, fine, breeding desi mate, I would have at least paused to reconsider the ones I puked on…before I got here…the other day, I almost picked up the phone to call a guy I had refused to collaborate with on any level a couple of years back. For all I know, he was proly dead/married/whatever but as I sat there, I began to think: is there anyone I can reconsider…possibly recycle??? Hmmmh

Lemme familiarize my non-desi clan with what it’s like to be our kind in this day n age. Dating is fairly a recent LOB (Line Of Business) for us folks…you have to know, our parents and their parents and their parents before them would rather walk through fire than DATE!!! We practiced what is called the art of Arranged Marriage (would you believe friggin Wikipedia has a definition for that, HA!: An Arranged Marriage, also called a Prearranged Marriage, is a marriage arranged by someone other than the persons getting married, curtailing or avoiding the process of courtship). COURTSHIP!!! Yes, my new faaavvvv word…I love it!!! Anyhow, there was utter absence of courtship and frankly speaking, I’ll be fooling myself if I didn’t admit this is still true to this day. Abstinence from sex is one thing but abstinence from courtship altogether is another and yet, courtship is impermissible in many families even today. You are given one…two if you’re damn lucky…“meetings” to decipher the secret code, will this equation x+y work? Of course with times a changing, mentalities a shakin, we’re now entering the dating zone but remember , you end up dating men/women who are raised in homes where the union of a man and woman before marriage is still considered an anomaly. So even if you think this potential man/woman you’re out on a date with is advanced (term used to describe human types who have conveniently transitioned into and adopted certain lifestyle elements of the western civilization), you may just never know!!! You may just never know that the man you’re having a fine dinner with at P.F. Chang’s probably appreciates you for taking the time out of your busy day to meet with him yet doesn’t help but wonder “hmmm if she showed up to meet with me on a brink of a phone call, wonder how hastily she approached other men before me…she definitely looks like a “fast” type to me”…and must I say if you happen to be a well-dressed, decent-looking, intelligent, independent, and self-assured woman, the rush to judgment on his part is quicker than the speed of light. And so they begin to gear conversations in an attempt to justify their theory: “so…have you met anyone before me?”…okay, I’ll look like America’s most UNwanted if I answer NO to this question so of course I’m obligated to answer “of course, I have…” (pause)…“so… how come you haven’t found anyone special yet?”…“well, just haven’t really clicked with anyone, u know” (pause)…“really? That’s weird…in all your 31 yrs you’re saying you haven’t really clicked with anyone?” (oh crap! What have I done here, he must think I have a haunting alter-ego) “welllll yeeeeaah I did one time but it didn’t work out” (pause) girls…you just eFFed up BiiiiG time here, YOU just admitted to a desi guy that he isn’t going to be your FIRST one, do you realize what you’ve done???!!! You’ve opened up a whole new can of worms…do you have any idea what’s going through this man’s head right now??? “Oh I bet she was physically close to him…see…I knew it…the moment she showed up I knew she was the “fast” type…and this just proves it!” You just gave him a reason to re-consider you as a possible mate…OR a reason to just play cautious according to his standards…which means the antennas are up and be ready for some cross-questioning…but then again, if you had decided to skip the matters entirely by not accepting the invitation politely, you’d have to hear “Why can’t we meet? Don’t your parents allow you to date?” saying to themselves in the mean time “God, this larkee (meaning chick) is such a paindu” (meaning an old-fashioned individual deviant from the practices of the modern culture). So you see, we’re screwed either way, be or not be, we’re eFFed!!! Many of us can’t even get through a simple date without feeling the urge to lie or deceit or simply hop around an issue. Because we cannot absolutely afford to be judged! And why should we be? Truthfully I may seem like the dominant type who insists on getting things done MY way but sincerely, I’m NOT…I can go with the flow just like any other desi woman out there, local or international…I’m just as understanding and compromising…than why am I subjected to such criticism???

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not shying away from questions or asking for preferential treatment here. I lurve conversations, intellectual discussions, BRAINgasms as I like to refer to them. And I would lurve to find out as much as I can about you so dude, it’s your god-given right to get to know me and ask me all sorts of questions…by all means come forth…HOLLA…ask me questions about my life, what I like to do, what I look for in a guy, what drives me, what makes me itch, what makes me smile, asks me my thoughts on fellow democrats BUT don’t really bother too much with where and with whom I’ve been before you UNTIL you can handle what I have to say! Why is it that my past relationships with men are steering you away from me? Why does the existence of men in my life before tonite bother you? Did you really think my life was bare naked until your highness walked in? of course I’ve dated before, who knows, I might have had serious relationships before…yeah…short or extended…and please be my guest, ASK about them…if you intend to use that information to get to know me more and appreciate that I’ve made all the right/wrong decisions in life to get to where I am knowing the point where I am is here…with you…live this moment…make it worthwhile…if I hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t be here…simply…but don’t ask if you can’t handle “sharing” me…and please don’t let your insecurities flow through your veins while you boast about sleeping with some random white chick during college…don’t really care if it was just innocent sex…or a mistake…LOOK at me…you see me smiling? It’s not nice to hold someone to standards you yourself don’t exceed or even come close to. It’s not fair to stamp someone’s past as extra baggage while consider your own a mistake/a learning phase.

But then I pause to wonder, should I even be questioning my desi man? I mean does he really realize what he’s doing or not doing? If he doesn’t know any better, should he be punished at all? See, what I’m trying to get to is it’s not fair to hold someone accountable for something they’re not even aware of. I sit here and think and think and think and think over n over n over again and realize maybe, just maybe, the problem doesn’t lie in the way our parents think or within our society or within the realms of our cultural taboos or with men in general (once again thinking out loud here but feel free to disagree). Maybe there are no obvious problems here. Maybe it’s just US…maybe I’m the epitome of the NEW generation desi woman. Are we the generation representing the First of its kind? Are we the guinea pigs of our society, subjects of a new experiment…of life and times? Are we the generation that has no predecessor? I have no predecessor, I don’t know about you…I have no one like me to look back on and learn from…I have no means to measure myself, I have no frame of reference…which means neither does he…he’s not ignorant or arrogant, he just doesn’t know ME well enough YET…see my life doesn’t come with surprises…I AM THE SURPRISE!!!

Boy, I didn’t see that coming…

signed: Thinker-Bell

A gReAtEr PuRpOsE

So why do things happen the way they happen? I think that is pretty much the same as asking someone the meaning of life? I think the cliché answer or should I say the safe answer is always…it was just meant to be…really I think that is your friend’s honest way of saying you know what I have no friggin idea but I expect you to tell me the same exact thing next week when I am having a crisis cuz even though it means nothing and only offers the temporary, false reassurance that everything is going to be alrite somehow it makes sense! Okay so perfect example…I was sitting at the coffee shop the other day engrossed in my books studying for a board exam which btw is the story of my life…ive been in school for as long as I can remember and I don’t know how much longer I have…it seems to get longer every year. Anyway so I am sitting there taking my occasional people watching breaks…and there is a guy and girl who have been sitting across from me for quite some time…he was studying something and she was helping him…they would take little breaks and have a conversation every once in a while…she would flirt with him in a subtle way…he responded positively…so I thought how sweet she is helping him out hoping that he would notice how hopelessly in love she is with him…then a song comes on and she says “ohh I love this song” and he responds “oh yea the girl im talking to likes this song too”…her facial expression changes completely but in order to hide that her heart just hit the floor she composes herself and responds almost too enthusiastically “oh you met someone”…he gets all excited…his tone changes as he talks about this new girl going on as if she just doesn’t exist…come on he had to have known that she wasn’t just going to give him her whole Saturday because she is nice…I mean all the signs were there how could he not have noticed…who on their free Saturday goes and sits at a coffee shop with someone who is studying just to stare at them…I mean I have studied my entire life and am still at it…so no one knows better than me how excruciatingly painful it is and how it would be even worse giving someone company while they torture themselves …and she just listens to him as he goes on with the occasional and respectable “ohh how nice” squeezed in…*sigh* in my head I hear the song by alanis morisette isn’t it ironic…its like meeting the man of your dreams…and his beautiful wife….I couldn’t have been more sad for her…was it just meant to be… …hmm…so why did that happen the way it did??

Ok so I moved to NYC about a year ago for school…I never thought I would have moved around as much as I have within the last three years of my life…I even went to a small island in the Caribbean for school….before you get all excited…I don’t mean an island getaway…I’m talking bout straight up third world…the side of the island you don’t see because you never leave the confines of your resort…flies in your food…no real stores…no fast food…the skinniest cows you have ever seen standing in the middle of the road…some days the cows even chase you down the road…cant even make that up…yes they chase you…you have to put one foot in front of the other really really fast…I was there for almost two years and every day felt like the longest day of my life…

Well I made it through that time in my life as well…really haven’t figured out why I had to go through it yet. I guess I’m supposed to fill some greater purpose…at least that’s what I tell myself to get through the day…maybe that’s why things happen the way they do…for some greater purpose…hmmm…

signed: Macky

WORD OF THE DAY!

I'm a GeEk for vocabulary...

CONTRARIAN: A person who takes a contrary position or attitude or an opposing view, especially, one who rejects the majority opinion

signed: Thinker-Bell

DeLiVeRaNcE

SO HERE WE BEGIN!! A long-awaited, deeply anticipated, much needed & thoroughly discussed journey coming to an end started by two buddies over sushi at Japanero’s just about a year ago, two girls who have known each other since the forbidden days of uni-brows and non-threaded moustaches!!! (Amen to that sista) Two women, my friend and I, who share similar lives, synonymous struggles, laughters and…to be honest…happen to be no different than anyone of you…really!!! We finally put into words a masterpiece waiting to happen…our very own blog!!! So we can translate our thoughts to you, our view-on-life to you, think of us as The View online minus the celebrities, the Republicans, and the outrage. We don’t do it for ratings...we do it because we like to just THINK OUT LOUD!!! As for me, you may call it an inspiration unveiling itself…or a path destining to happen…or a hampered talent revealing itself gradually…or that I’m just plain ole bored with a lot of time on my hands and just about tired of my monotonous life…AT times though, not always!! (I’d like to point out that I AM a happy, positive person by nature indeed…almost…most of the time) As you can see I love the “…” (dot dot dot)…not the recommended grammatical approach for a writer but oh well, screw English for now. Going back to what I said earlier, I’m HERE because I want to THINK OUT LOUD!!! (and by now you must have noticed I love the “!!!”-exclamation, exclamation, exclamation) YES people! I’ve realized it’s the best self-therapy there is out there and it’s absolutely FREE. As we grow older or so it appears I have outrageously done so in the last couple of years, I’ve come to realize I have the tendency to just get annoyed…like easily…I mean no tolerance, patience watsoeva…or what we like to say in Urdu, no sabar. My argument is most people are either crazy or if not, they’re dead. Normalcy is a scarce commodity to find these days…well isn’t it? Is it just me making this crap up or do I hear an applause???? I canNOT seem to find normal people these days. Hence I get annoyed because somebody somewhere at any given moment does & will manage to piss me off…so I figured if I just speak my thoughts out loud, I FACE it! YES the ultimate resolution…FACE YOUR FEARS...I seem to think it works. That combined with my infinite, outrageously, dreamy mind (baby! that which can manifest everything and anything unimaginable) and my somewhat mildly-humored nature can put these fingers in action and create some great words ever written on the face of I.M. (or as my friend Nad likes to call it “you’re on a roll here”). So yea I LURVE thinking out loud…things people only imagine or question inside their heads but afraid to speak up because they fear of being heard, or looked down upon, or castigated for, or picked on for being too prudish. I DON’T CARE! I’m going to question it…like why things happen the way they happen? WHY? WHY do people ask you how are you doing but don’t care to pause to listen to what I have to say? Damn it! You asked me how the f**k I’m doing…I need to tell somebody …someone…and then YOU came along…and now you won’t even stop??? You could’ve just treaded along for all I care…but you didn’t…so now you MUST hear me! Or…WHY is it sooooo hard to find a normal man these days? NO seriously my single gal pals…jokes aside…we all say that and it’s become sort of an outdated cliché but that shouldn’t imply the question is no longer authentic…the question remains un-answered…why? WHY as a Pakistani-American woman, I’m not wanted by my Pakistani-American men? Excuse me, did I just grow thorns on my head or a tail on my ass when I moved here which makes you want to run away from me as far as possible? WHY would you rather go back home and marry a fragile, obsequious woman who can barely carry on a conversation yet DATE ME??? WHY do people feed on your weaknesses and not your strengths? It’s like the moment they find out OHhh wait, she is a little “PROtective” about her friends, GREeeeAT, how shall we befriend her friends away from her…let’s toy with her for a while shall we…hmmmh…niiice…if I can manage to work around your weaknesses and care to not piss you off, why is it that you DO the first chance you get? WHY do they still allow senior citizens to drive? I’m not trying to be mean…I know you don’t have someone to take you around and we need to treat you as an equal citizen of this nation as bound by our constitution but why not hire a cab? Speaking of which, who do I have to call here to start a senior-citizen cab service? WHY does something embarrassing always happens to you when you’re dead staring at a good-looking guy and you sooooo want to impress him…like a booger flying east to west, north to south, in one of your nostrils and you KNOW there ain’t nothing you can do about it because if you touch it, you’re not just a loser, you’re a EWWWWWW!!! WHY do people make slow right turns…I’m sorry aren’t those the turns NOT monitored by a traffic light??!! WHY is it that desi women (desi meaning people born in or belong to any of the nations mentioned: India, Pakistan &/or Bangladesh) while searching for their precious bahu (meaning a suitable spouse for their sons) always want a tall, gorree (meaning fair n lovely) girl…I mean really…dark girls don’t breathe or breed these days or what?? And WHY is this atrocity such a norm now that we find ourselves justifying it…like (a desi aunty talking) “well you see my son is a doctor and he’s from a good family so he wants a tall, fair and good-looking girl”…hmmmh…or better yet…(another desi aunty talking away) “well you see my son’s fair too so he wants someone just as fair as him”…now…where in the f**kin book of life does it say if you’re born fair, you marry fair??? Huh??? People…jungle fever ain’t that bad especially when it happens within your own darn culture…embrace it! Aiight moving on…WHY do you answer the phone when you don’t know how to speak English? Who were you expecting when I called? Someone who doesn’t know how to speak English just like you? What are the odds of that…happening…in a land where English IS the widely-spoken language??!!! Do you realize you only waste my valuable time when you do that…because then I begin to search for creative ways to communicate with you because what I’m thinking here as the logical person that I am, IF you picked up the phone, then you MUST know some English, rite? {Scoffs scoffs} yea rite! I’m holding the receiver pondering…I say… “ma’am ISsss Jose at Hoooome?”…you say “uggh Que?”…hmmh I say to myself, that didn’t work so lemme try this again, I say “mama-sita, Heee Jose Aqui??”...you wait and reply “Que?”…I whisper “what the f***k”…there was only ONE English word there…HE??? How difficult is that…if you can’t understand HE than why did you pick up the phone?? WHY?? See? You just wasted my time…okay before I move on, I’d like to note that I sincerely do NOT mean NO OFFENSE to my Spanish homies!! I love you guys…you by far are one of the most peaceful and innocent creatures I know of in this country…so please no offense to my Spanish people, I was only making a reference here…as I will make many many more to many many others…to come…you know anything can happen on the other end…someone could be speaking Vietnamese or Hindi for all I know…I love you regardless!!! But I do need to warn you that when it comes to doggin people, I dog mine the BEST!! Okay well…SO here’s the inspiration to OUR blog…

So peeps I hand the keys on the keyboard over to my friend who will and I must emphasize WILL entertain you with her thoughts…bring it on sista!!!

signed: Thinker-Bell