Family Conversation

The Family, Papa , Mama , Brian, and Christy in the car on their way to Golden Spoon for dessert after dinner. Brian and Christy in the back seat, their parents up front.

Brian: I don't like living here. It's like... if I can make an analogy between cardiovascular health and spiritual health, living here clogs my arteries.
Christy: Living HERE? ... yeah.
Papa : It's all a state of mind.
Brian: (mutters something about the obvious relativity of the value of place to the beholder, then trails off)
Mama : (to Papa ) You know... this place only has Frozen Yogurt.
Brian: (starts laughing)
Mama : I guessed I'd better tell you before we got there...
Christy: He doesn't like frozen yogurt?
Brian: (still laughing) No, he doesn't like any kind of yogurt.
Mama : ... and you'd see the sign and figure it out eventually...
Christy: Not any kind of yogurt?
Mama : We can go to Walmart and get ice cream for you if you want.
Papa : No... that's ok, I don't need anything.
Mama : It doesn't really taste anything like yogurt.
Christy: It really doesn't.
Mama : It's just a state of mind.
Brian: (upgrades laughter to hysterical)
Papa : No, it's not a state of mind. That's why they call it frozen YOGURT.
Mama : (as they pull up into the shopping complex) Oh, look honey, there's a Subway if you want that.
Papa : ...
(They proceed into Golden Spoon where Mama forces Papa to get something while Brian and Christy laugh behind their backs)
(later outside)
Papa : This tastes like yogurt.

Tremulous cadence, rise and fall,

eons pass, the eye of a storm, the wings of a butterfly, the breath of a newborn babe, hugs and kisses long remembered, hugs and kisses long besought, majestic sunsets, sudden deaths, unlooked for hopes, unhoped for dreams, a split second.

This is life.

At Giovanni's

(Brian and Albert survey the dining area from behind the counter)

Albert: Damn hoochies are hot.

Brian: ... it's a party for a little girls soccer team.

Albert: Yeah, and the mothers are fiine.

Brian: (silently agrees)

What to do?

What am I going to do with myself?

Just a few moments ago I Googled and wikipedia-ed an old professor of mine, Hatem Bazian. I found a transcript of an interview he gave on the O'Reilly Factor, and excerpts of a controversial speech he made at an anti-war protest in San Francisco, April of 2004. In that speech he called for a domestic "intifada" in the United States, a statement which was misconstrued by many people on the other end of the political spectrum, and probably a fair number on the same end. They thought he was calling for a violent uprising; he intended it to be a grassroots movement with non-violent methods. He grew up in Nablus, Palestine, where I will be going in a few short weeks.

I then wikipedia-ed Professor Algar Hamid, who is much less of a controversial figure, but a preeminnent scholar whom I also respect and admire, though I only met him a few times.

I could never be a Martin Luther King Jr. or a Ghandi or even someone of middling stature compared to them. But I could see myself being someone on par with those professors. Someone whose intellect makes deep incisions into the issues of the day and then speaks out openly, fiercely, unapologetically for what he believes in.

Then I take a step back from what future portraits the imagination might paint, and I look at it from afar, and I know...

it still wouldn't be enough.



I only hope that foreknowledge of insufficiency is not a deterrent to action; better to act without recompense or effect than to surrender one's existence to inaction.

Conversations

As I reflect back on recent conversations I have had with Matt, Jeffrey, and Farah (three people whose opinions I always listen to if not agree with) I realize that my current problem is being intellectually stuck in a space between utterly abstract and realistically practical perspectives on the world; I abhor the seeming uselessness of utter abstractions, yet I shrink away from the no-right-answer less-than-perfect thought acts of realistic problem solvers.

So... i dunno what the heck happens from here, but I've gotta go somewhere.... I hope........ who knows.

Random true story from tutoring

She was 8 years old, and initially quiet, demure, responsive to directions the way adults secretly want all little children to be. But because I am nice, and openly so with little kids, they quickly realize I'm a pushover and revert to their true selves. So after 20 minutes, the little girl was dancing like she was hoola-hooping without the hoop, falling out of her chair, and refusing to do the addition problems I set in front of her. Chortling at her own antics, she asked "Aren't I funny? Don't you think I'm funny??" "Yeah, you're pretty funny", I admitted with a resigned grin. I tried again to get her to complete a row of double digit addition problems. I repeated the problem to her, and she suddenly went quiet. "What was I laughing at?" she wondered aloud. Then she burst into giggles again. "I forgot what I was laughing about. That's FUNNY!"

I was mechanically reciting the problem to her, hoping it would eventually take root in her consciousness, when I noticed an unusually lengthy silence. I looked up to see she had quieted down only in order to slouch in her chair so she could touch her tongue to her sternum.
"Sometimes I like to lick myself," she giggled. "I taste like peanut butter." I stared at her, poised over a sheet of addition problems, and then surrendered to laughter. "I know a boy in my class who tastes like crap," she confessed.

When the wall clock struck three minutes until the hour, she leaped up in her seat and asked if she could be done and go look at the prizes booth, wherein were a multitude of goodies offered to students as rewards for their hard work. I said of course, and let her go while I remained at the desk to grade the last of her lesson. I saw her gambol over to the booth and press against the glass casing beside another tutor who was supervising his own student. She looked up at him and asked in all innocence and sincerity, "Hey, can I taste you?"

favorite moments from work at giovanni's pizza

Brian and Ignacio aka Nacho, two workers at Giovanni's
Bob, a Persian man, owner, operator, and chef

Brian: This address doesn't make any sense. It's Campus but the cross street is Kansas.
Nacho: Well that's easy man, see Campus is just right here.
Brian: But... Kansas is way over here.
Bob: Campus, yes. Kansas, yes. But Kansas has no Campus. Call them and ask.
Brian: (calls) Ohh, ok. Campus is the name of one of the streets INSIDE the apartment complex. They named their own streets.
Nacho: Ohh.
Bob: I do not understand this. Maybe kitchen is Campus.
Brian: What don't you understand?
Bob: I do not understand this naming. Maybe now bathroom has name, and toilet has address.
(Brian and Nacho laugh. Bob throws his hands up in the air, and goes back to cooking)

My dearest love is a serious girl; and because she is serious she knows how to laugh and to be silly. She is a somber girl, for the tragedies of our world weigh heavily upon her mind.

Oh my love, let us be happy in our sadnesses. Though life is brutal, unjust, and fleeting, let us divide it, instant by instant, and cherish the singular moments of joy, when we two are clapped in each other's arms and surrounded on either side by seas of woe. Our happiness not so much in that island of warmth, but in knowing we will bridge our way to the next.