Author: Abez

I have no idea what time we woke up… I think it was 10:00? In either case, we made a phone call to Ushiville to book a later appointment and found they were free to play immediately. So Hemmie dropped us off on her way to class and we had a lovely time reminiscing and rather unexpectedly watching a good twenty minutes of Ma Shakti. Ah, good times.

It turns out that Ushi & Co. are actually connected with Hemmie and Co., and it’s first degree too! Hemmie went to school with Maichoo, and Maichoo knows and remembers Hemmie Bro too. As Hemmie and Maichoo sat comparing notes on who was now married to whom or working for what company, I felt I could finally relate to Chai who complains that we’ve moved in on her family. It’s true, she has an awesome family. We can’t help but do things like say… drive up to Lahore and visit her cousins without her, he he.

(Ushi & Co are cousins of Chai.)

After coming back home to Hemmie-ville it was time for a power nap, and by power nap I mean one mighty powerful nap where I closed my eyes and opened them instantly two hours later. By then Chij, Niqabified and Sister S. were on their way and I had about half an hour to look presentable. Which I wasted entirely, so I met them in the same jilbab I had spent the day in.

To be fair, I did bring a somewhat nice looking shalwar qameez to Lahore for the express purpose of pretending to be a decently-dressed person. I wasn’t trying to impress Hemmie (too late, she’s seen my clothes, both of them) but Chij, Niqabified & Sister S., meeting them for the first time I should have been better dressed. Should have. But wasn’t. The shalwar qameez I brought never saw use. This was because we were either out of the house (jilbab) or asleep (pajamas.) Yes folks, it was that much fun.

After a rocking good time with Chij & Co. and chocolate cupcakes I couldn’t eat, we drove them home to an area of Lahore that Hemmie was unfamiliar with. Getting lost seemed like an adventuresome prospect, but unfortunately Hemmie found her way back to the road and we got home again.

At about 11 o’clock we decided to zoom by food street. I could tell you how it went, but I’ll let Hemmie tell you.

“They looked at food street and food street looked at them. I don’t know who had more fun.”

To be fair, Lahoris don’t stare more than Karachites do, but they can both be equally bad. At one point it was infuriating, now it’s just irritating, and since I’m fulfilling my responsibility of being fully dressed, I’m pretty sure the na-jaiz fun of staring at me is comparable to the excitement of staring at six and a half yards of black georgette- one and a half for the scarf, five for the jilb.

We did eventually get to bed. Hemmie we packed off around 1:30 am, Owlie and I were up until about 4 am, allowing for about 2 hours of sleep before it was time to zoom back to Isloo the next morn. Over-stimulation can do that to a body.

Tomorrow: Canal Road closed for construction, Momma, Owlie and Abez running amok in Lahore! Mwahahaaa! (I saved this secret for last Luv)

Today: You know how sometimes you love something so much you want to squeeze the person who gave it to you to the point where their ribs crack, but refrain because you don’t want to hurt them or freak them out? This would be one of those times. I have Chai back. And she is the reason why I’m sitting here in fleece pajamas and a blue robe with yellow duckies on it. I wish the digicam were working. The whole world needs to see these. I believe that joy should be shared.

Baji is the expert travelogue writer, not Abez, and with that disclaimer out of the way, here’s the Lahore Weekend Log!

Saturday: We were supposed to be on the motorway by 2pm, but it was actually closer to 3pm by the time we got ourselves out of the house. Having gotten onto the motorway, we were supposed to have maintained a speed of about 120kmh, but no one told our car this, and it protested by shaking so hard it sounded like it was going to fall into tiny pieces (Suzuki, by Mattel). So what would normally have been a four hour drive was actually six, and by the time we got to Lahore and called Hemmie from the Daewoo station, we had sufficiently worried her for me to get scolded, hehe.

After we got to Hemmie’s house we were dined & dined (not wined, just deliciously over-fed, hehe) on Nihari and Aloo Gobi and chicken in black pepper and Saag which was really, really good. Then for some reason we went to Hot Spot (or is it Hot Shots? Can never remember…) for desert. At midnight it was packed, which could either say a lot about their deserts or a little about how bored Lahoris are, but I’ll leave the conclusion up to you because other Hemmie might vanquish me, he he.

But yes, for whatever reason, the place was packed, and I should have had the sense to realize that I was not unseen and unheard as a happily slid into the booth with a very audible ‘woosh!,’ and hands in the air. Sleep deprivation is a funny thing.

Realizing what I had done, I looked around. The people in the nearby booths were busy with their ice-cream. No prob there, but the people on the other side of the huge glass window were highly amused. I had a small audience in the parking lot. I picked my purse up and found a table downstairs. There was no one else there.

Woosh!

Demi-Hemmie (the lil sister) had a peach sorbet and Hemmie had a little of what everyone else was having, which is brilliant because the deserts are too big anyway. I had strawberry frozen yogurt and Owlie nearly killed herself trying to finish a piece of cheesecake by herself. I would have helped her, honest, but I’m being a good patient and cheese is on the list of ‘Abez’s favorite things that the Tabib has forbidden.’ There are other things on the list that I simply forgot about though. I spent the weekend drinking contraband pop. Or soft-drinks as non-Chicagoans say. This is soft drinks as compared to hard drinks, like vodka, which aren’t on the do-not-consume list, but hey, I think I’ll pass anyway.

Chocolate and nuts were on the list too, but I honestly forgot and had a mini-Snickers. I’m going to blame Owlie for this because she realized I was eating forbidden fruit but didn’t say anything. She wanted to see what would happen and has actually been taking bets on how long it would take me to break my parhaizi. (parhaizi: Tabib sez no good eats) It’s not cruel of her, it’s just realistic. I get gastroenteritis from eating stuff like pani poori and limka from thela-walas in the summer, and in addition to the usual course of antibiotics, the Tabib always tells me that I’m not allowed to have anything but yogurt, white rice and bananas. I go home and try. I get bored after one meal and move on to lasagna. Parhaizi is hard for me.

We also got a whirlwind tour of LUMS, complete with a visit to Hemmie’s dorm to find her pajamas and meet her room mate, who looked rather like a pile of blue comforters. I think it was about 1:30 am. I don’t blame her, I was jealous to not be a big pile of happily snoring blankets myself.

Back to Hemmie-land, we laughed and guffawed over old pictures and made merciless fun of each other in the way that only real friends can.

Dear Lord… you were fat.

And you looked like a desiccated mouse.

I don’t know what time we eventually got to bed. It was all a happy blur.

Tomorrow: Hum Hay Blogistani; Hanging with Ushi & Co., meeting Chij & Niqabified & Chij’s sister.

Just got home.

Need shower.

Blog later.

*collapse*

– Leaving for Lahore and Hemmie and Chij and good times in fifteen minutes.

– With Crayon and Chai on my mind.

– And tuna salad on my nose. Heh. 🙂

Sometimes it’s enough just to have a good rage-against-the-machine session. And sometimes it’s just nice to have a hug from your momma. 🙂

AAAAAAARGH! @$^!(*&#$!!$@

This morning I saw Tabib #2 about my badly-behaved head. He said (after the mandatory toothpick) that he thought I was having varient migraines. Then he starting naming things like mint and chocolate and coffee and cheese and I became overjoyed in the false hope that he was giving me a prescription but Alas! he was telling me what I must not eat.

Crayon was asking me whether I was happy with this diagnosis. I think I am. Short of being able to trade your diseases in (I don’t like this illness, can I have a different one please?) this is the closest thing I can get to a downgrade. Migraines, no prob. Take two of these, take a nap, and take a tissue to wipe away the tears as you stare longingly at the chocolate. :p

I don’t know if I’m convinced of the diagnosis so much as I just want to be convinced of it. Either way, I’ll be a good and dutiful patient for a week before going back to Tabib #2 and I hope InshaAllah that parhaizi (Urdu word meaning: no good eats) will be enough to fix things.

Gots to go bake stuff. Abezistan is descending upon Lahore this weekend and this calls for cookies.

I can remember, when I was little, sitting in on a Sunday School class in my mother’s church and being amused at how they prayed; the churchgoers were seated on folding metal chairs that were arranged in a loose semi-circle. Some of them were half-way turned around for people who had been sharing their Bibles and needed to face another person. When it came time to pray, all of these people facing all different ways folded their arms over their stomachs and bowed their heads. It looked half-way between a traffic jam and a communal stomach-ache.

I suppose that Muslim prayer must look as unusual to a Christian as a Christian prayer looked unusual to me, but the direction we face does have a purpose. We’re praying to God and we face the Kabah as a point of unity. No matter what kind of Muslim you are, no matter where in the world you pray, you and millions of others are facing the same direction.

(What happens if you accidentally get turned around hunh? What if you have a horrible sense of direction and pray towards Australia instead. Do your prayers go to the wrong place?)

If our prayers shot out like bullets, they would go right past Australia and then circle around the world endlessly. The same would happen to the prayers of people in multi-story buildings because they were offered at the wrong altitude. That is, if our prayers were headed to some destination here on Earth. They’re not though, our prayers go to God regardless of our religious navigation skills. One simple example of this is the area around the Kabah itself where two or three balconies rise above it. At this altitude, the worshippers’ prayers miss the Kabah entirely, but fortunately, prayers don’t go forward, they go Superman. Up, up and away!

Dear Blogistan

Well, it’s 7 o’clock and there’s no food in the house. I don’t mean that there isn’t anything edible at all, I just mean that there’s nothing that would be appropriate for an meal. The fridge is full to bursting with things like sheer khurma, cake, dahi baray and various other crunchy-munchy snack foods and sweets that you serve for Eid. No food food though, nothing that I could fill a plate with and call dinner.

I could just serve myself a little of everything and call it the variety platter, but considering that I already had sheer khurma for breakfast and a piece of cake for lunch, I think I’m ready for something like… spaghetti? Mmmm… Owlie, though, is not a big fan of spaghetti, unlike both myself and Sofia Loren who owe everything we are to pasta.

Alright, so I’m hungry and there’s no real dinner. There wasn’t any yesterday either, and I made do on salad for breakfast, sweets for lunch and a bowl of jello at midnight. I think we’re all out of the habit of cooking. Mealtimes in Ramadan were 5:10 (tea, fruit and snacks) dinner at 7:30 (leftovers from Sehri) and Sehri at 4:30 (leftovers from Iftar).

Someone, email me some food before I fall into the sheer khurma again. I think I’m getting saffron poisoning…

Pining for Pasta,

-abeZ

But with commercials. he he

Guess who was a call-in guest on Radio Islam, and guess who sounds much girlier on the air than they do in their own heads. *sigh* But at least I still look scary? Where’s Crayon, she knows how terrifying I am…and Owlie, look! *grimaces*

Lissen or click here and select

November 10, 2004:

Host:Samira Said and Imran Husain

Topic: Eid Around the World

I come in just after the news (4min) and am around till they tell me bye-bye. (23 min) And in the middle there’s actually a caller from Kalamazoo. And I thought Islamabad was an exotic location, hmmph!

And uh… some of you may figure out that they’re not calling me Abez. I know this might be hard to swallow, but uh…Abez is my real name. That other one? That’s the name I tell other people to protect my secret superhero identity. You know, just like Superman goes around telling people his name is Clark Kent even though his real name is really and truly Superman. Yep.

Up, up and away!

*flies out of window*

O Friend! we are near you in friendship,

Wherever you set foot, we prostrate ourselves like earth.

How is it permissible, in the religion of love,

That we should see your Creation and neglect to see You?

That Friend brought me up with great care and attention;

He sewed me a garment from skin and veins.

The body is like a cloak and my heart in it like a mystic,

The world is like a monastery and He is my Guide.

Seek knowledge which unravels mysteries

Before your life comes to close

Give up that non-existence which looks like existence,

Seek that Existence which looks like non-existence!

There is a world outside Islam and Disbelief,

We are enamoured of the atmosphere therein.

The mystic lays down his head when he reaches there.

There is neither Islam nor Disbelief in this place.

Whenever I prostrate my head He is the one to whom I bow;

In six directions or outside the six, he is the one I worship.

The garden, the rose, the nightingale, music and the beauteous maiden

Are a mere excuse and He alone is the real object.

-Rumi

www.khamush.com

Imagine my surprise when the doorbell rang around 10 pm and when I went to answer it, I found Poppie on the other side of the gate. My surprise is very toothy, and it looks like the kind of grin on a three-year old discovering mud pies for the first time. It was a blogging hit & run, we had a whirlwind meet & greet in the dirty, post-Iftar party mess of my house late at night while Poppie’s family waited outside in the car. Poppie was quickly hugged, plied with cookies, hugged again and sent on her way. By this time tomorrow she’ll be back home in England.

Ah, Blogistan, I love this country. 🙂

Dear Blogistan, AssalamuAlaikum

I’m slightly delayed in updating because I’m thinking thoughts. Maybe not thinking so much as sorting, here’s what I have.

The state of my head:

-Day one off of medication was fine. A few jabs in the ear but I made a point to relax and breathe and ignore it. Alhamdulillah, no problema.

– Day Two: Better than day one, no pain. All good. Smooth sailing. Until Abez becomes severely but quietly mad about something and within an hour develops what feels like a blow to the right side of the head and throat. Bang!

– Day Three: (today) Woke up and felt fine. No pain, but within ten minutes of waking up I was again faced with what had made me mad the day before, and my ear/face/head (right side as usual) have hurt all day since. It’s 11:55 pm right now.

Mind over Body, Body vs. Mind?

Everything happens for a reason, bi-Iznillah, and I find it an interesting coincidence that at the zenith of my anger and headache an interesting documentary came BBC World about the effect of stress on the human body. Living on stress is the equivalent of pushing the brake and the accelerator at the same time, and although you can mentally adjust yourself to it, that doesn’t stop you from damaging the engine.

The extent of the engine damage varies from one person to another, and basically there are a whole slew of things that stress can do to you simply based on the fact that it’s too much for your body to be running on ‘ARGH!’ mode all the time. And I don’t mean the mind is in a state of Argh, it’s the body that’s in a state of Argh, doing all sorts of slowly deteriorating damage. Could this directly account for me having a head-ache on the right side of my head? I don’t know, because that’s not what a tension head-ache is, but the effects of living under stress for long periods of time do cause damage to the body over time.

I’m hoping some med-savvy blogger will jump in and explain this more clearly, but basically stress races your heart, breaks down your arteries, raises your cholesterol, lowers your immunity, raises blood pressure, scatters your brains (come back here!) and accelerates general unhealthiness by diverting powering from the main thrusters to the forward shields instead. (More power Scotty, we need more Power! I cannae do it Captain! She cannae take the strain!)

Although this may seem somewhat connected to what the neurologist said about me seeing a psychiatrist, it actually isn’t. The gist of what he said was: The pain’s all in your head, (imaginary) see a psychiatrist. The gist of what I’m considering is: Stress has taken its toll on my poor unsuspecting head.

I’m willing to consider the stress theory because my second-rate stomach tried to digest itself (chronic gastritis) for the first time when Aniraz and I were living in Karachi away from the family, which was actually a very mentally taxing time. The second time the stomach tried to digest itself (the sequel, with a vengeance!) was the day after my engagement broke off. Ten months and hundreds of bottles of Gaviscon later my stomach is finally healed Alhamdulillah and I am happily indulging in the occasional nihari without consequence. I’m also drinking tea and coffee again (-zing-), something that was too painful to do when my stomach lining was inflamed.

I was discussing this with, or rather, at Crayon, who’s a saint to let me talk her ear off on the phone, and she mentioned how this might be an effect of me not venting stress. Strange thing is, I never feel the need to vent. I don’t feel the need to shout or swear, I’m not holding anything back. And that doesn’t mean that I’m a saint and never say anything out of anger, it just means that certain comments can be equally barbed at conversational volume levels.

So what am I going to do about my head? Well, I’m going to go with anti-stress first, because stress relief has no chemical side effects and can only do a body good. Although I’m interested, of course, in knowing what exactly is causing my lopsided headache, it’s my fervent hope that teaching my body to relax will help it to slow down and let it heal some of the damage that stress may have caused. At least that way it won’t involve any more drugs, doctors or toothpicks poking me in the face. 😀

If, even after taking chillaxation to the next level (I wanna take Tai-chi!) I’m still having one-sided headaches, then my Abbu basically insists that I head down to AKU and see another tabib, Insha’Allah. Am I averse to herbal medicine or alternative therapies? I don’t think so, but those are treatments, and a diagnosis would be nice too. 🙂 I need to know where I stand before I pick a direction to head in.

A heart-felt and huge JazakAllah for all the helpful suggestions that people have made, believe me, I’m making a list of them, and although I haven’t made a final decision on how to treat my head yet, I am keeping them in mind. 🙂

Love, Peace and Nihari Grease,

-Abez

xi-

They told me to count my blessings

I told them I hadn’t the time

My body hadn’t the breath

My language hadn’t the words

-Abez

good day today. time to go wash the dishes. 😀

Today has been a very hectic day. I woke up and went to the Tabib. To make a long story short, the Tabib has decided that although my pain has responded to the traditional treatment for trigeminal neuralgia, it was all in my head (ya’ani politely I’m nuts) and I should see a psychiatrist. That’s the abbreviated version. The unabbreviated version took twenty minutes and cost five hundred rupees. You don’t want that one.

He told me that I have stress that I’m not telling him about and that I’m having tension headaches. Right. Tension headaches. In my teeth on the right side of my mouth. And my right eye. And in my right ear. But it still responds to both Neurontin and Topamax.

*polite nod and smile*

I would like to have told el-Tabib that I have had my share of stress in life and that I deal with it through prayer, through writing, through raiding the bag of jelly beans in the deep freezer (oops, did I type that out loud?) but not by getting tense on one side of my face. It just doesn’t seem very me she said with an almondy sweetness faintly akin to cyanide.

I developed the one-sided face-ache after a week-long fun-fest in Lahore, the great vacation that followed a vacation to the States before that, both of these set in six months of vacation where I haven’t been working this year.

If I have stress, it must be the kind you get from having too much fun and too little hard work, and the over-exertion of enjoying yourself has to be interrupted by nice, long naps in between. Lest you hurt yourself. Or maybe even get a face-ache apparently.

Maybe my ex-Tabib is used to dealing with people who suffer from what I call ‘creeping hypochondria,’ a mild disease that seems to migrate from one body part to another depending on what aches and how serious it could be and whose uncle had it once and had to have the leg cut off and Hai Allah mai margai! Someone get me an ambulance! Maybe I should’ve taken a whole slew of friends into the neurology ward to vouch for me: Abez is not a hypochondriac.

Abez is not a stresser either. Nothing is a life or death situation unless it’s really a life or death situation, and so far that’s never happened. I’m not a keeper of secret stress, and that doesn’t mean that life doesn’t offer me any stress, it just means that I won’t have any of it. And that doesn’t mean I’m in denial, that means I’m in refusal. Denial and refusal are two totally different things. Case in point:

Denial: Are you ok? You don’t look ok, you look all grouchy.

Go away, I’m fine. Just leave me alone, my head hurts.

Ok your head hurts, I’m sorry, but you don’t have to be so mean about it.

Well you don’t have to be so annoying, just go away.

-VS.-

Refusal: Are you alright?

I have a headache but I’m fine. How are you?

Pretty good, what’s for lunch?

So what’s the plan? Well, plan A. was to bonk ex-Tabib on the head with the rubber hammer that he bonked me with on the first visit to check my reflexes. Ah, irony.

Plan B. was to poke him in the face with a toothpick a lot and ask if it hurt. Which he also did on the first visit, which would not only be irony, but would also be stress-relief. For me and my secret stress, he he. Ahem, ok, pardon me.

Plan C: Refusal. (as compared to denial) I’m quitting Topamax cold turkey. The dose I missed was a few hours ago and aside from some twitching in the bridge of my nose (and the sudden hankering for a carrot?) I feel alright. Does my head hurt? Yes. But I refuse to be badly effected. I’m fine.

I think I’m doing this to push the reset button. I’m going to start over with a new headache (or hopefully no headache) and go from there. If it’s too much to deal with (through prayer and jelly beans) then I’ll get a new Tabib.

I can’t remember where I was going with the conclusion. Oh yes. I’m looking forward to having 100% of brain at my disposal again. I was running at about an 80-90% on good days with Topamax. On bad days it was a foggy 60%. Maybe I should forget about treating the nerve and focus on raising my tolerance for pain? Maybe I can finally convince my dad to pay for martial arts classes!!!!! Ok, I know it’s a stretch, but I’ve always wanted them, and don’t master martial artists break cement blocks and wooden boards and other martial artists into small pieces without even wincing? See, that’s pain management. 🙂

It’s T-minus 30 minutes until Iftar and there are too many yummy smells upstairs. Which is why I’m hiding downstairs. My head feels soupy today, soupy in the sense that if you take a bowl of soup and turn it, the bowl goes one direction but the soup will go another. I’m sure you could try it with a cup of tea too. But don’t try it for another half hour, because we’re still fasting.

My lovely Owlie-Bird has been surfing online for useful information related to the Hippoconvention on my face, and we’ve turned up all sorts of interesting cures, including one lady who swears by Vodka. Well yes, a shot of Vodka every time your head hurt would probably take an egde off the pain, but I don’t know about the side-effects.

Another woman swears my rubbing cayenne (that’s red hot chilli peppers for ya folks, the ones that burn, not sing) lotion on her face every three hours. Yet another woman took this advice and applied it (literally) to her backside, and then wrote a scathing letter (yet again, literally!) about how her derrier got burnt.

A man in the US swears by foot-massage, and his wife explains how the little toe is connected to pains in the abdomen. An elderly couple extolls the virtues of quitting sugars, glutens, and processed foods and ‘living as close to nature’ as possible. That reminds me of a joke that one of my students told me. He was from one of those former Russian-Bloc communistans. The joke goes like this.

A bum goes into a Communist Party rally and gets in line thinking he’ll get a hand out. The line moves up and he finds himself at the front, facing a brown-shirted Comrade with a huge ledger and a pen. The Comrade hands the bum the pen.

“Do you swear to give up gambling for The Party!”

The bum looks around nervously and shrugs. Ok, fine.

“Do you swear to give up drinking for The Party!”

The bum’s lower lip quivers and he gives a slight nod.

“Do you swear to give up women for The Party!”

The bum nearly faints. The crowd props him up and somehow he is seen nodding.

The Comrade’s face turns a pssionate shade of purple and he bursts, “Do you swear to give your LIFE for the Communist party!”

The poor man leaps three feet into the air and shouts, YES!!! He grabs the pen and signs his name on the ledger with a flourish. Someone in the crowd elbows him and asks why the sudden enthusiasm. The poor man says, ‘Without gambling, drinking, or women, what’s my life worth anyway?”

-rimshot-

So yeah, without sugar, gluten or processed foods, what would my life be worth anyway? he he. Alright, this is the height of randomness. I have to go upstairs and help with the Iftar and try not to drool on things.

I hereby resolve not to write about my head unless it’s a.) actual news, b.) actually interesting or b.) actually relevant. With that in mind (my mind being a figure of speech and not necessarily within my head these days, he he) tally ho!

My Cuppa Tea is leaving the country for a well-needed vacation. My Momma and I had a mad last-minute bake-off to ensure that there was enough gingerbread for all of Chai and T-Baji’s relations who hosted us this summer when we went for the T& T engagement. The love & kindness they kept us in couldn’t possibly be repaid in say…cash. Which is why cookies are the currency of kindness. Now everybody go awwww. (awwww!)

Cookies have always been used as more than just a sugary snack in my family, they are a mode of social interaction (invite friends over to bake & decorate some), they are a winter welcoming committee (nothing better than to be greeted at the door with a tray of cookies and some hot chocolate), a canvas for artistic expression (my Trogdor cookie rocks the socks off of your Ninja Turtle cookie. Yeah, but there are four of mine and only one of yours, Turtle Power!) and last but not least, cookies are an international currency. They are not subject to local exchange rates, and although their quantity may diminish over long distances, their value increases in direct inverse proportion to the available supply.

Note: never send back store-bought or bakery-made cookies. Although these can be tasty, and sometimes even delicious (Milano!) they are not made with love. And sweat. And the occasional curly blonde hair that falls into the cookie dough that my mother pulls out later when no one’s looking, he he.

So yes. Cookies.

Went to an Iftar party today and I was doing my best to be upbeat. I thought I was doing good, but Chai asked me, “Abez, you alright? Your eyes look kind of…”

“Do not operate heavy machinery?”

“Yes,” she nodded.

The food was great, the company was superb, and I felt dizzy. It’s amazing how little things like a little dizziness here, some blanking-out there can take their toll on your fun for the evening. I came to have fun though, and I decided I was going to no matter what.

A game of Scrabble started after dinner and LG’s newest baby, The Thinker, was fussing. I got up and picked him up so that LG could take her turn. Btw, one of the medications I’m on, can’t remember which one, causes dizziness when you stand up suddenly, and if you happen to fall down, you might drop LG’s baby. I nearly did. I don’t think anyone noticed. There wasn’t anything to see, just me standing with the baby on my shoulder and my eyes closed. I was trying to make merry-go-round in my head stop.

That was when I stopped having fun altogether. I passed The Thinker back to LG and morosely took one more turn in a lamely-played gamed on my behalf.

Ever hear the term ‘snowballing?’ You know how in cartoons you take a small snowball and you roll it down a hill and by the time it gets to the bottom it’s bigger than a house and half the cartoon’s characters are packed inside it. To take something small and roll with it so that you finish with something disproportionately huge- that’s snowballing.

So I took a little dizziness and a little mental fuzziness snowball and I nearly ended up with a ruined evening were it not for that LG told me about her sister-in-law, who just found out that she has Hepatitis C. ‘Oh, that’s rough,’ I said. ‘Any tattoos?’

‘None, but lots of little surgeries in clinics back at the village.’

‘And they might not have sterilized their instruments well?’

‘No, and they found out another chap from the same village who’s also had a surgery has it too. And she was bawling and bawling and I was trying to say there there, I have it too, and I’m all right!’

I smiled. Yeah, LG’s alright. She has Hepatitis C, she got it from a tattoo and she’s living with it. The board turns and it’s MB’s turn. She’s two year older than me and she had a liver transplant. She alright. And then there’s M4, who’s a junior in high school who’s moaning because she has a stomach ache because she ate too much. She says she’s not alright, and I have to laugh.

I’ve been letting myself snowball lately, I’ve been feeling out of sorts and I don’t know If I’ve come to terms with whatever having Neuralgia means because I’m not even sure what it means. I think it means finding a balance between an acceptable amount of pain and side-effects and finding a level I can live at. I know, logically, that I’m alright, life is a test, and that I’ve been through far harder ones before. I think what makes this one different is that I don’t have my wits about me.

You know in the end of Braveheart when William Wallace is about to go to the execution block and the Princess/Mandatory Love Interest tries to give him a pill that will numb the pain, but he refuses to take it because it will numb his wits. I found that I could relate a lot to that, the idea of always having my wits about me, because many times it’s the only resource you ever have. Especially being female, no offense to some of you stronger ones out there, but most women cannot rely on physical strength to get them out of problems, they have to use logic and reason. I’ve always been very big on thinking things through, and suddenly not being able to, sometimes not even being able to find a simple word for something that I’m pointing to can be frustrating to the point of tears.

And losing in Scrabble hurts too, lol. Not that I didn’t used to lose before, but it used to be because the other players were good. Now it’s because I look at the chips and draw a mental blank. There are a few times during the day when I get my mental lucidity back, when the merry-go-round has stopped and I find my wits and cling to them with desperation in hope that they won’t leave me again. But after a few minutes they’re gone and trying to concentrate makes my head hurt. Right now it’s making my right ear hurt actually, which is a sure sign that it’s time for another Topamax.

But I’m going to close on a positive note because I have no right to be negative. I have my health, I have my family, I have some of the best friends on the world. I have, above all, my faith, and the promise of God, the Most Just, the Most Generous and Kind, that the patient and the faithful will be rewarded. I pray I may be of them.

Burninatin the gingerbread…

I would like to type something brilliant and exciting. But then, I would also like a million dollars. Boing. The guests from an Iftar party my dad threw just left. They were very nice people, but the dinner was a sad reminder of my lack of Urdu skills. Also of my wandering attention span.

Oh look, a monkey!

A Simile

by Matthew Prior

(1664-1721)

Dear Thomas, didst thou never pop

Thy head into a tin-man’s shop?

There, Thomas, didst thou never see

(‘Tis but by way of simile)

A squirrel spend his little rage

In jumping round a rolling cage?

The cage, as either side turn’d up,

Striking a ring of bells a-top?–

Mov’d in the orb, pleas’d with the chimes,

The foolish creature thinks he climbs:

But here or there, turn wood or wire,

He never gets two inches higher.

So fares it with those merry blades,

That frisk it under Pindus’ shades.

In noble songs, and lofty odes,

They tread on stars, and talk with gods;

Still dancing in an airy round,

Still pleas’d with their own verses’ sound;

Brought back, how fast soe’er they go,

Always aspiring, always low.

Terrence, This Is Stupid Stuff

A.E. Houseman

`Terence, this is stupid stuff:

You eat your victuals fast enough;

There’s nothing much amiss, ’tis clear,

To see the rate you drink your beer.

But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,

It gives a chap the belly-ache.

The cow, the old cow, she is dead;

It sleeps well, the horned head:

We poor lads, ’tis our turn now

To hear such tunes as killed the cow.

Pretty friendship ’tis to rhyme

Your friends to death before their time

Moping melancholy mad:

Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad.’

Why, if ’tis dancing you would be,

There’s brisker pipes than poetry.

Say, for what were hop-yards meant,

Or why was Burton built on Trent?

Oh many a peer of England brews

Livelier liquor than the Muse,

And malt does more than Milton can

To justify God’s ways to man.

Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink

For fellows whom it hurts to think:

Look into the pewter pot

To see the world as the world’s not.

And faith, ’tis pleasant till ’tis past:

The mischief is that ’twill not last.

Oh I have been to Ludlow fair

And left my necktie God knows where,

And carried half way home, or near,

Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:

Then the world seemed none so bad,

And I myself a sterling lad;

And down in lovely muck I’ve lain,

Happy till I woke again.

Then I saw the morning sky:

Heigho, the tale was all a lie;

The world, it was the old world yet,

I was I, my things were wet,

And nothing now remained to do

But begin the game anew.

Therefore, since the world has still

Much good, but much less good than ill,

And while the sun and moon endure

Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure,

I’d face it as a wise man would,

And train for ill and not for good.

‘Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale

Is not so brisk a brew as ale:

Out of a stem that scored the hand

I wrung it in a weary land.

But take it: if the smack is sour

The better for the embittered hour;

It will do good to heart and head

When your soul is in my soul’s stead;

And I will friend you, if I may,

In the dark and cloudy day.

There was a king reigned in the East:

There, when kings will sit to feast,

They get their fill before they think

With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.

He gathered all that sprang to birth

From the many-venomed earth;

First a little, thence to more,

He sampled all her killing store;

And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,

Sate the king when healths went round.

They put arsenic in his meat

And stared aghast to watch him eat;

They poured strychnine in his cup

And shook to see him drink it up:

They shook, they stared as white’s their shirt:

Them it was their poison hurt.

— I tell the tale that I heard told.

Mithridates, he died old.

The Aged Aged Man

By Lewis Carroll

I’ll tell thee everything I can;

There’s little to relate.

I saw an aged aged man,

A-sitting on a gate.

“Who are you, aged man?” I said,

“And how is it you live?”

And his answer trickled through my head

Like water through a sieve.

He said, “I look for butterflies

That sleep among the wheat:

I make them into mutton-pies,

And sell them in the street.

I sell them unto men,” he said,

“Who sail on stormy seas;

And that’s the way I get my bread—

A trifle; if you please.”

But I was thinking of a plan

To dye one’s whiskers green,

And always use so large a fan

That they could not be seen.

So, having no reply to give

To what the old man said,

I cried, “Come, tell me how you live!”

And thumped him on the head.

His accents mild took up the tale:

He said, “I go my ways,

And when I find a mountain-rill,

I set it in a blaze;

And thence they make a stuff they call

Rowland’s Macassar-Oil—

Yet twopence-halfpenny is all

They give me for my toil.”

But I was thinking of a way

To feed oneself on batter,

And so go on from day to day

Getting a little fatter.

I shook him well from side to side,

Until his face was blue:

“Come, tell me how you live,” I cried,

“And what it is you do!”

He said, “I hunt for haddocks’ eyes

Among the heather bright,

And work them into waistcoat buttons

In the silent night.

And these I do not sell for gold

Or coin of silvery shine,

But for a copper halfpenny,

And that will purchase nine.

“I sometimes dig for buttered rolls,

Or set limed twigs for crabs;

I sometimes search the grassy knolls

For wheels of hansom-cabs.

And that’s the way” (he gave a wink)

“By which I get my wealth—

And very gladly will I drink

Your Honour’s noble health.”

I heard him then, for I had just

Completed my design

To keep the Menai bridge from rust

By boiling it in wine.

I thanked him much for telling me

The way he got his wealth,

But chiefly for his wish that he

Might drink my noble health.

And now, if e’er by chance I put

My fingers into glue,

Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot

Into a left-hand shoe,

Or if I drop upon my toe

A very heavy weight,

I weep, for it reminds me so

Of that old man I used to know—

Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow,

Whose hair was whiter than the snow,

Whose face was very like a crow,

With eyes, like cinders, all aglow,

Who seemed distracted with his woe,

Who rocked his body to and fro,

And muttered mumblingly and low,

As if his mouth were full of dough,

Who snorted like a buffalo—

That summer evening long ago

A-sitting on a gate.

Just got back from the tabib and atypical neuralgia it is. I got a change of medication which I am actually very excited about. Tabib sez that Topamax won’t have as many side-effects as the Neurontin did, so I hopefully won’t be sleepy, spacy and spazzy. At least not beyond my usual self, he he.

So what do you do with neuralgia? I asked my doc, he said that I’m supposed to take Topamax in increasing doses until the pain goes away. Then I taper down until the pain comes back. Then they put it a little bit up again until they find the perfect level of medication for me, how long I’ll be on that I don’t really know. I could just stop taking medication, and although the pain wouldn’t be too terribly severe, it would be constant and the constant pain made me irritable and emotionally unstable. And plus I couldn’t concentrate and I was getting snippy.

What was I saying? Oh yeah, neuralgia. It’s what happens when the plastic on the outside of an electrical wire gets melted off, and then the bare wire touches another wire and there’s sparks and maybe a short circuit. The 12th cranial nerve has lost its bright-red plastic cover. So my head has a wiring problem. No problem. 🙂 I was sitting in the waiting room for Neurology, which also happens to be the waiting room for Chemotherapy. A door in the Chemotherapy section was opened and in that one instant I saw a young woman wearing a baseball cap and wiping her eyes. See, that’s a problem.

And yet, God promised that no one will get a test they can’t pass, a burden they can’t bear. So the real problem with sickness is not in getting sick, it’s in losing patience or faith. Not that a headache can do that to me. I’m just praying for the girl in the baseball cap. She looked my age.

I’m alive! I made it! And now that I’ve got iftar, dinner and two cups of tea nicely tucked in, I’m ready to work out, pray Tarawih, read Qur’an and then decorate a mess of gingerbread cookies.

Adimittedly, I did have an unscheduled snooze on the sofa when no one was looking, and I had to wake up when they found me. Which was alright, because by then it had been half an hour of me curled up and cold, dreaming wintery and unpleasant dreams. (The window was open)

Right, so back to productivity.

Abez, over and out.

Well, it’s 3 pm right now and I’m only slightly off my proposed schedule. I only managed to stay up until 8 am. Then I woke up at 12:30-ish and had class. I’ve been up since, and so far I’m proceeding nicely into the ‘looking tired and sleepy’ stage of things. By five o’clock I should be thoroughly wilted, by which time I’ll put my head down on the dining table and pretend to be very diligently studying the crumbs until the azhan is called for Maghrib, food, happiness, tea and all that great stuff.

And in case you’re wondering, I’m only slightly cross-eyed.

I don’t care what the Scrabble dictionary says, in my world, Funions is a perfectly valid seven-letter word. I should be able to put it on the board and get not only the 50-point bonus, but an additional 100 for the fact that Funions are so tasty.

Btw, for those of your who didn’t spend their freshman year of high-school tasting everything in the nearby gas station, (except the gas, and the attendant) Funions are these puffy, round things that masquerade as onion rings. They don’t taste like onion rings as we know them, but they have an interesting flavor all of their own.

Kheir. I was supposed to have gone to the tabib today, but for some reason my appointment wasn’t in the hospital computer. That’s the first time that’s ever happened, not that I minded, because half an hour before the supposed appointment, I realized I didn’t have a ride. The Silver Bullet #2 was off having fun with the parents who had forgotten that I needed it that afternoon. Which was quite alright with me. I’ll see the tabib on Saturday instead Insha’Allah.

Ah yes, and I have to be productive now. Ramadan is almost 1/3 done and I don’t think I’ve done a good job of taking the benefit of this lovely month. So I made myself a chart and I have three things to do every day, Read Qur’an, Work Out and Do Sumtin Productive. These things are, of course, in addition to praying, doing my Arabic homework and pretending to be a contributing member of the family, he he, but yes, I think I need to do these three things especially. Otherwise I find that I 1.) don’t get much spiritual benefit, 2.) put on weight and 3.) get lazy because being hungry makes me sleepy.

Speaking of sleepy, I’ve become nocturnal again, which is bad because that means I waste many of my fasting hours asleep. So my plan for becoming diurnal again is as follows:



-Stay up till Fajr as usual. (check!)

–Stay up till 9 in the morn. (four more hours to go)

–Nap till 12. (will need it badly by then.)

–Have Arabic class. ( my Arabic suffer from sleep deprivation? Oh, never.. pbbt)

–Be productive until 5-ish, then make Iftar. (what’ll probably happen instead is I’ll look tired and Owlie will be beautiful and put dates and a cup of tea in front of me)

-Moan and laze around sleepily till ten o’clock. (this is actually quite realistic)

–Crash.

Wish me luck. I’m sleepy already.

This, dear Blogistan, is the second-best iftar in the world; tea, dates and After-Eight chocolate mints. The first is black coffee and gingerjabis. Now if only I could stick to only these things and not wander into the cholay department.

I find that any type of food that you have to serve by scooping it into a bowl or plate is always bad for Iftar, because with my stomach having shrunk through fasting and my eyes having grown through hunger, I always end up serving myself too much. Then I feel obligated to eat it.

Then I fall off of my chair and moan.

I’m better off with finger foods. Since you eat them right off the tray, there’s no commitment to a serving size and it’s not like you have to finish the whole tray. You can just eat a few and stop when you feel satiated. No need to guiltily finish it all, as was the case with the cholay this iftar. I wish I could have snuck it back into the serving bowl, but I thought I would be slick and break crackers over it and then coat it with salad dressing (chaat?) so it’s not like it would blend back in with the native cholay very well.

(Honey, when did you start making cholay with cracker crumbs? And Cool Ranch?)

There’s a hadith (someone find it for me?) about how filling up your stomach is a bad idea. I agree, because the stomach can turn into an unruly beast. People have just now figured out that fatty and sugary foods can be addictive, and cutting back actually has withdrawal symptoms. I find that the more I eat, the more I want, and in order to avoid this, I have to show my stomach who’s in charge by trying to eat according to the Sunnah: filling 1/3 of my stomach with food, 1/3 with water and leaving a 1/3 empty.

I can’t remember what my conclusion was, other than dates, mints and tea are a delicious iftar and that stuffing yourself silly is a bad idea. I’m going to blame it on my brain and see how long I can get away with using that excuse, he he.

Btw, those of you who have inquired about me brainses: I’ll post an update after I come back from the neurologist tomorrow.

Peace & Pakora Grease!

-Abez

Tadaa! My brain, the same people responsible for this layout. And my headache too. Well, no one’s perfect. Not even my brain. :p

To the Monologist, who asked some very interesting questions about my post about Smiting stuff.

1.) “So you’re standing on the battlefield and you’re itching to take revenge,”.

That’s a bad thing, and your religion orders you to do no torture, not to act in unnecessary violence, even in battle, therefore curbing your revengeful fury. Revenge is not the purpose behind a righteous fight, it’s the simple and effective putting of your enemy out of commission.

2.) although many religion stories have war stories, they are what they are, stories and myth, but not direct command as “…thy Lord inspired the angels, (saying): I am with you. So make those who believe stand firm. I will throw fear into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Then smite the necks and smite of them their fingers”.

I’m gonna disagree on this one. The Battle of Badr (about which this verse of the Qur’an was revealed) wasn’t a story, it was documented history, and this is a direct quote from the Qur’an, which tends to be full of direct quotes from God. But if you don’t believe in the Qur’an then that’s a different story. To you is your belief and to me is mine. 🙂

3.) couldn’t you make the streets a battlefield?

Umm, not really. If you mean declaring your own personal battle for the sake of ‘killing infidels,’ then the answer is nope. That’s not battle, that’s vigilantism.

4.) Why would God command another creature to kill another creature?

Can you imagine how safe the world would be if God forbade anyone from killing anyone, ever? Righteous people (thou shalt not kill) would be massacred by the unrighteous (kill kill kill) and religion would die out pretty fast from the world, doncha think?

And what about killing to protect the innocent? A man has been going around bashing people’s heads in, do you sit idly by? Is that righteousness, to stand by and let the innocent die?

Rather, it’s righteous to be able to kill out of self-defense or in order of punishing murder. Because in the death of the murderer and the aggressor, there is life for the innocent. 🙂

I had my first MRI today. I’m sure they probably make pretty advanced MRI’s somewhere back in the first world, but I bet they don’t make ’em with techno music! And train sounds! Yep. I spent 45 minutes in a plastic tube, with my head very firmly harnessed strapped, and foamed in place, and the machine made a thump, thump, thump, thump and something else went zee, zee, zee, zee and the scan itself made two distinct noises, one like a death-ray from an old sci-fi movie, pra-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a and another that was like the sound your manual car makes when you grind the gears. (not that I do that often, oh no…) Basically, it sounded like this.

Ok, maybe not exactly like that, but after 45 minutes of loud mechanical sounds, I started hearing techno-sounds, and then I tried to figure out lyrics, and before I knew it, I was sliding out of the machine again. Then they had to give me a shot that would make my brain glow in the dark. They *said* it was to create an MRI with contrast, but what they meant was: “we’re gonna make some parts of your brain glow so that other parts don’t and then we can see more parts.” See, I speak medical-ese.

I was only supposed to get one shot, but because I was fasting and slightly dehydrated, they had a hard time finding a vein. Which is a first, because normally my veins stand out on my skin like interstate highways on a roadmap, and technicians are delighted to poke me. So I got poked several times before a vein was located and the appropriate amount of day-glo could be injected.

The MRI will be ready to pick up on Monday evening, a time after which I will have to borrow Chai’s digicam, and maybe even her USB cord in order to provide you’all will pictures of me brains.

Btw, I would like to make a disclaimer. I was talking to Hemmie on the phone a few minutes ago, and apparently I am sick, or depressing, or something. To Hemmie luv and anyone else who may be worried, don’t worry. I feel fine, and the extent of the effect the meds/silly brains have had on me are the same as sleep deprivation. I walk into walls all the time when I’m sleepy, honest. Alhamdulillah, la vie est good. I don’t want anyone worrying. It doesn’t accomplish anything. You should all be like Junjun and just send me donuts instead. *teeth*