Aya

I was tagged by AMTAF and thought that I haven’t done one of these babies in a while.

(x) Smoked a cigarette – once when I was 14.

(x) Got arrested – twice, in a rally and wrongfully. Sued the second time and won.

(x) Been in love – ugh, I never learn!

(x) Got laid off/fired – both.

(x) Gone on a blind date – a few times, regrettably.

(x) Skipped school - for entire weeks, lectures make me homicidal.

( ) Played cops and robbers naked – wrong freak! *tucks bag of goodies under the bed*

(x) Paid for a meal with only coins – many, many clanking times.

(x) Ran through the streets of New York penniless with someone you love - yes.

(x) Do you have nicknames? – yes, Aya is my favourite.

(x) Tattoos? – um….why do you want to know?

(x) Piercings? – yes.

(x) Favourite vacation spot – so far, British Columbia.

(x) Looking forward to – Meeting some blogger friends in person over the next few weeks/months.

(x) Ever been in a car accident? – yes

(x) How many doors does your car have? – 3 (one doesn’t open since last winter).

(x) Salad dressing – any vinegarette.

(x) Favourite food – flirting with a vegetarian diet now, loving a medley of little cooked and colourful veggies with whole grain pasta or wild rice.

(x) How much do you love your job? – I despise this project with every little cell of my ashy, nomad body. I’ve learnt my lesson and know exactly what caliber gun I want if someone suggests a similar project.

Hmmm, training and working on an oil refinery are my biggest challenges nowadays. I come from a loud and loving home, though somehow I’ve felt like an outsider for much of my life. My mother and I have had that tumultuous relationship that very similar people often have. Despite all the rough waves, she is still the first person I call when distressed and I am the first person she calls.

My father is a different issue and we’re still figuring out how to be father and adult daughter in this stage of our lives. The bond is still painful and fragile but turning around; we had a very hearty phone laugh the other night, who would have thought?

Now about the job. Let me tell you what the evil washing machine did to my underwear 2 days after moving into a temporary apartment. It shred most of them to stringy pieces. In this part of the world, where the toothless far outnumber the tooth-ed, I had no choice but go to Walmart. It is a shopping spot, a place to hangout, an amusement park, and a giant babysitter. I’ve never wanted to kick so many unaccompanied toddlers in my life.

The only underwear I could find, the ones I picked up, and paid for at a 3-feet tall cashier who threw them (and missed) into a bag, are too damn big. Big, fat, cotton underwear. What are they saying?! I couldn’t even button my pants that first Monday from how huge it was. I swear I was going to go commando but I got shame, you know!

Thank god for online shopping.

Anyway, I have a lot more problems with this job than big, fat, cotton underwear but I will burst into tears of anger if I begin.

My hair is driving me mad. This is the 3rd fucking brush that breaks and the bristles get lost in my tangled middle of the head mess. Is there something in the water? Is it because I’m living on an oil field? Nothing is working. Nothing. Now it’s falling at the front too. Are these mofos poisoning me? It wouldn’t be the first time a black person is killed in the south.

I think I’m chopping it all off. I don’t know. I should be straightening it now instead of blogging but the pony tail that’s supposed to tame the flyaways is making it hard to blink. I can hear the strands snap at the hair line. I know people are suffering with real dilemmas the world over but I need help, people. When your own reflection scares the shit out of you, you’re due for an intervention.

Damn.

So I am not afraid of flying. Or so I thought until last night when I flew from Chicago to small town, Louisiana. I took a dinky little xaarness that masquerades as a plane. Can I just tell you that O’Hare is hell’s waiting room? Next!

The first air pocket or turbulence patch as they call them got me into survivor mode. The old dude sitting next to me is tall and thin. But he has a beer gut. Good. I can eat him for 3 days if we go down. The woman ahead of me is loud and fat. There are no seas or oceans where we’re flyin’ but just in case we land in a river or a bayou, I can use her for a floatation device.

Notice how everybody around me is dying miserably while nomad extraordinaire scavenges unscathed? When taking off, there is this large whirr. Why didn’t I take a bigger jet? Swoop, screech, roar! What? Is that the sound of the engine stalling now?!!

The teenager 2 rows down is laughing, joking and high-fiving her friends. Tune her out and read a Sura – one of those short ones Ayeyo taught you. Did she say that it will make you feel better before you crash 1000 miles/hour into the ground and burn into a thousand little (very attractive) pieces. Oh, Ayeyo, how I wish you were alive so I could tell you that you were wrong.

Begin reading “qol howa allahu al…”

Loud, teenage laughter.

Where was I in the Sura? Why am I sweating?

Barely finish the Sura. The Captain says there is more turbulence and to expect it for a while longer. He tells his crew to take their seats while the lights blink on and off. Back to the Fatiha.

A loud roar of laughter. Nervous giggles, maybe. They’re interrupting my catastrophic thoughts. Now she’s just talking loud. What is her bleeding problem? Stupid cunt scab. Oh, no! Look what she made me do. I’m cussing in the middle of pleading for my life. Please don’t kill me. I’ll just bring my bad attitude to your neighbourhood.

Besides, I haven’t had that illicit affair with the professional surfer from the black sand beaches of Greece. Oh mon dieux, did I say that? Je suis vraiment désolé.

Thirty minutes to landing. Wonder where I put my floss. I’ve always fallen asleep once I got on a plane but I gather there is a first time for everything. Even cowardice.

Anyone read the recent research linking being a fat ass to a higher chance of getting that nightmare of all nightmares, cancer? For what it’s worth, I think junk food is crap, pig meat (and pigs) should be banned and most people should unglue their useless butts from the coach.

The air is thick with poisons from cars and industry, and good food costs 3x as much as the crap they sell in restaurants.  Wonder why no one is issuing links to Toyotas or taking away McDonald’s business license?  And why not go all the way and seek to ban work too?  Stress has a lot to do with the misery of modern life, doesn’t it?  I spend my entire frickin’ day in the company of people I would rather run over with my car, repeatedly.

Now, a part of me thinks that we live too long anyway. Who the hell wants to be an old woman for 40 years? There was a time when people had 5 babies by 23 and then died at 30 falling off a cliff reaching for a rotten berry.

Imagine it: walk all day scavenging for food, find an unwashed mate to have dirty sex with (and I mean dirt in the grimy sense), make a few ugly babies (half of whom die at birth or shortly afterwards), and if you had a little sense, you would die birthing one of those uglies.

I would kill a saber or a tiger to live like that. No BBC health section telling me that research shows……….

Research can kiss my black ass, we live too long, work too hard, and worry too damn much.