Grow Up Tag Free

Archive for September 2005

T Play Box I

In T Play Box on September 22, 2005 at 2:35 am

All work and no play makes Tololy one miserable “young lady”. I have decided to play a bit with my “tilly putty” of thoughts. I am not sure why I will do that but there’s this urge within me to do something that I will possibly feel uneasy about later on. “Later on” is a catchy couple of words,don’t you think?
So instead of experimenting with toys or synthetic rubber, I will put forward a nutty entry. Perhaps you will be shocked, perhaps not. I do not really know,and I do not desire to learn much at this moment. “For with wisdom comes suffering”. I feel like Oedipus.

I have reasons to believe that some think I sound older. Some definitely think I look older. I’m not sure why that is,given the fact that I am physically petite but not undergrown. Maybe it’s the way I talk but what has that got to do with the way I look?

Gather around my dears, I have a story to tell, a story of age and sanity.

There was this gathering of people at a certain house located at 14 street, Royal Oak,Michigan and I was present. This lady whose name was Christine,I believe, was eating and,being seated next to me, she felt obliged to talk to me. I generally do not start conversations with complete strangers unless they look interesting. I do,however, respond to any friendly and/or hostile gestures by complete strangers. And since “strangers always have the best candy”, I imagined that socialising with Christine could be beneficial one way or the other.

Q: So how do you like Michigan?
A: It’s nice but I feel as if I’ve been here before. It’s like everything is so familiar,coz of the media..you know
Q: Ummm… yeah. So do you miss home?
A: Oh yes. I miss home so much and I miss everyone I know. I can’t wait to get home.
Q: Is that your daughter?
A: No, that’s my niece. Come here Jude, what do you have in that plate? Cake! Yummy, can I have some too?

Then came the ever-green question.

Q: So I guess you left your kids back in Jordan,right?
A: My what? My kids? Why does everyone think I’m older? I mean,do I really look that old? Oh my god! I don’t have any kids!

By this time Christine was blushing. I was hysterical and there was no stopping me.

Continuation of A: No,seriously now, what is it in me that makes people think I’m older? Do I look like I have kids to you? I am still a student, and I am single! I just turned 21. Kids! I am not even engaged or anything. Oh my god!

Christine did not see that coming, you could tell by the way her lips shivered as she searched for a way out of the pit she dug for herself. As I bombarded her with questions the poor small-talker kept trying to calm me. I eventually quit asking questions,realising that she really could not afford to supply me with any satisfactory answers.

I do not think she small-talks anymore. Strangers not only have the best candy, they also have the best insanity sometimes. I provide people with such valuable life lessons. Enough tilly putty thoughts for today.

Claims by Lisa Majaj

In Literature on September 22, 2005 at 12:40 am

In my previous blog,and on October 29th 2004, I posted the following words. (Mood: sleepy). It is amazing how I can still relate to them.

I am “categorised” everyday, call it peer pressure or pure shallowness,it is an innate behaviour in human nature.
One of my all-time fav poems… This poem is straight forward and simple.

Claims

I am not soft, hennaed hands,
a seduction of coral lips;
not the enticement of jasmine musk
through a tent flap at night;
not a swirl of sequined hips,
a glint of eyes unveiled.
I am neither harem’s promise
nor desire’s fulfillment.

I am not a shapeless peasant
trailing children like flies;
not a second wife, concubine,
kitchen drudge, house slave;
not foul-smelling, moth-eaten, primitive,
tent-dweller, grass-eater, rag-wearer.
I am neither a victim
nor an anachronism.

I am not a camel jockey, sand nigger, terrorist,
oil-rich, bloodthirsty, fiendish;
not a pawn of politicians,
nor a fanatic seeking violent heaven.
I am neither the mirror of your hatred and fear,
nor the reflection of your pity and scorn.
I have learned the world’s histories,
and mine are among them.
My hands are open and empty:
the weapon you place in them is your own.

***
I am the woman remembering jasmine,
bougainvillea against chipped white stone.
I am the laboring farmwife
whose cracked hands claim this soil.
I am the writer whose blacked-out words
are birds’ wings, razored and shorn.
I am the lost one who flees,
and the lost one returning;
I am the dream, and the stillness,
and the keen of mourning.

I am the wheat stalk, and I am
the olive. I am plowed fields young
with the music of crickets,
I am ancient earth struggling
to bear history’s fruit.
I am the shift of soil
where green thrusts through,
and I am the furrow
embracing the seed again.

I am many rivulets watering
a tree, and I am the tree.
I am opposite banks of a river,
and I am the bridge.
I am light shimmering
off water at night,
and I am the dark sheen
that swallows the moon whole.

I am neither the end of the world
nor the beginning.

Post a Secret

In Bits & pieces on September 21, 2005 at 12:04 am

A while ago a friend from Singapore informed me that he had found an interesting new site and he shared the link with me. I have found this site to be strikingly simple and powerful. It is built up by the contributions of regular people who want to tell secrets that are bearing heavy on their lives.

Some secrets are painful,some are funny,while others are utterly shocking. I know what secrets mean and I know what they can do to one’s sanity if they stay stored in a mental jar to rot, your mental jar would reek of constant fear and self-blame. Never communicating a guilty secret would torment one endlessly.

Gilbert Parker said: “In all secrets there is a kind of guilt, however beautiful or joyful they may be, or for what good end they may be set to serve. Secrecy means evasion, and evasion means a problem to the moral mind”

I find this site to be both amusing and true, to a certain degree I believe everyone has a secret stored somewhere. I recommend you visit the site and take a look at the secrets posted there. I have personally been impressed by people’s abilities to expose their secrets in so many creative ways,both verbally and visually. I have been touched by the sweet and I took a moment to suck in the unusual, only to conclude that we’re all variations of the same seed.

Cominciamo bene,parliamo d’Arte

In Italiano on September 20, 2005 at 12:35 am

Ho deciso di “bloggare” in italiano perché credo che è importante (per me) praticare la lingua e megliorare le mie abilità linguistiche. È un motivo un pò egoista,lo so.
E siccome scrivo in inglese ed in arabo sarebbe anche una buona idea scrivere in italiano. Chissà che riesco ad attrarre l’attenzione di qualche lettore/ice italiano/a.Non sono sicura di che cosa parlerò ma vorrei cominciare con una mia poseia preferita di Lorenzo de Medici.

Trionfo di Bacco e Arianna
(Quant’è bella giovinezza)

Quant’è bella giovinezza
che si fugge tuttavia!
Chi vuol esser lieto, sia:
di doman non c’è certezza.
Quest’è Bacco e Arianna
belli, e l’un dell’altro ardenti:
perché ‘l tempo fugge e inganna,
sempre insieme stan contenti.
Queste ninfe ed altre genti
sono allegre tuttavia.
Chi vuol esser lieto, sia:
di doman non c’è certezza.
Questi lieti satiretti,
delle ninfe innamorati,
per caverne e per boschetti
han lor posto cento agguati;
or da Bacco riscaldati,
ballon, salton tuttavia.
Ch vuoi esser lieto, sia:
di doman non c’è certezza.
Queste ninfe anche hanno caro
da lor esser ingannate:
non può fare a Amor riparo,
se non gente rozze e ingrate:
ora insieme mescolate
suonon, canton tuttavia.
Chi vuoi esser lieto, sia:
di doman non c’è certezza.

E per aggiungere un clima artistico addizionale ecco un ritratto di Dante dipinto da Botticelli,che lavorava per Lorenzo il Magnifico.

Un altro, più famoso dipinto e uno dei miei preferiti è Il quadro della “Nascita di Venere” che fu dipinto da Sandro Botticelli, come “La Primavera” e “Pallade doma il Centauro”, per Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, nipote di Lorenzo il Magnifico per adornare la Villa di Castello, nella campagna fiorentina. Rappresenta una delle creazioni più elevate dell’estetica del pittore fiorentino.(wikipedia)

Ecco un dettaglio del dipinto, potete trovare l’opera completa qui.

Quoting anonymous on stupidity

In Quoting on September 19, 2005 at 12:10 am

“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”

-Anonymous