the desh in me

springy...

2006-04-15T16:17:00.000-05:00

my friend and i have a saying we always say around april or so in chicago.

"it's spring and i'm sprung".

indeed. i love spring almost as much as i love summer... and so does my body chemistry. i've been rubber-necking all over the place! all the girls are out and about and i'm getting whiplash trying to keep up with them. i also made an observation about myself the other day... mindless trivia, actually, but hey. i seem to have a thing for women in the service industry. you know, like baristas, bartenders, restaurant hosts... hmmm... i wonder what it all means...

anyway.

on a completely different note, i had the weirdest dream EVER. it all stemmed from various things in my subconscience that have been floating around for days, mainly the fact that i'm really, really, really through with my job. it's been a year, and i'm just not comfortable there anymore. i was at first, and i really actually liked my job, but then they went and hired a complete nimrod as my direct supervisor and i'm just not having it anymore. it's time to move on.

so, i was on the phone with my mom the other night and she immediately asked me "is everything alright? are you ok? are things ok with your job?" and i was instantaneously struck by how intuitive my mother is. she said she dreamt that i was leaving my job after arguing with someone. well, sure enough she felt my pain because for the past few days i've been drudgingly going to work with absolutely no enthusiasm about my job whatsoever. i even called a headhunter.

so after explaining everything to my mom on the phone, i went to bed cuz it was late, and that's when all this funky dreaming shit happened.

in my dream, i was walking down sheridan road in broad daylight and felt so sleepy that i stopped in my tracks and slept on the sidewalk. when i woke up, bill gates was hovering over me asking if i was ok and said "if you need a place to crash, you can crash on my couch" to which i responded, "no, i'm cool... i have a condo just up the street, and i'm really not sure why i fell asleep on the sidewalk".

and that was it.

so of course my paranoid ass started dissecting the whole thing and i think this is what it means: the conversation with my mom left me a little worried about my job and the dream was sort of a warning of sorts that if i don't get my shit together i could potentially be homeless.

right? i mean, why else would i be sleeping on a sidewalk?

not that i'd ever let myself become homeless. i'd move to bangladesh before any of that happened but still, it could happen to anyone right?

as for bill gates, i think that somehow worked its way into my brain only because i caught a few minutes of oprah when she had him and his wife on her show.

weird.
weird.
weird shit yo.

but it's spring and i'm SPRUNG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

what...???!!!

2006-03-20T17:14:00.000-06:00

i have a story to tell.

i was at a lesbian bar called T's last weekend. this story involves two girls who were sucking face in a corner every opportunity they got, thereby seemingly "together". one of them was a short pony-tail wearing butch girl and her supposed "girlfriend" who had long curly hair and a lot of cleavage. i ended up playing pool with ponytail butch girl and she seemed nice enough while we were playing, but i later got attitude from her in the form of a lame, disinterested handshake after i beat her. anyway, after that game i was pretty much done for the evening, so i headed to the bathroom and when i came back to sit next to my friend lenny, the following ensued:

lenny: ponytail butch girl came by when you were in the loo, she said her friend wants to meet you...

me: her "friend"?? the one she was sucking face with??

lenny: yeah. her...

me: (confused) but i thought they were together. why would she want to meet ME?

lenny: i don't know, but let's go find out.

we approach ponytail butch girl and her girlfriend, and lenny introduces me to the girlfriend and walks away.

me: (after the introductions) so what's up?

girlfriend: (smiles a sort of guilty smile) nothing much.

(silence)

me: umm... my friend lenny says you wanted to talk to me about something?

ponytail butch girl: yeah, well, my "friend" said you were looking at her.

me: umm... looking at her?

ponytail butch girl: yeah, she said you were looking at her.

i looked at girlfriend confused, and not knowing what the fuck was going on, i said: umm... no, i can't say i was (truth ya'll).

ponytail butch girl: so you weren't looking at her?

me: (thoroughly confused as to the purpose of this exchange) umm... no.

(silence)

me: well uh... you ladies enjoy the rest of your evening.

and i walked away.

if anyone in the blog world can shed light on what the fuck that was all about, i think i might actually become enlightened.

thank you and good night.

rudimentary, they say...

2006-02-20T02:20:00.000-06:00

so, as i mentioned before, i submitted an essay which is supposed to be included in an anthology coming out in june. well, lately i've been reconsidering my submission. i mean, it's not that i don't want to be published, i mean, who doesn't? but a few things have come up in the past few days that make me hesitate.

for one, my editor just did some extremely last minute edits... without my approval.

so i need some advice, but first a little background:

i latched on to this project towards the tail end of the submission deadline; i.e. i had a month to write and submit a first draft. a month, when you're a full time employee of corporate america, is not really a lot of time when you consider how little free time is left after a 9-5 day. i didn't have the luxury of cutting myself off from the rest of the world to retreat to some writer's camp in the middle of a forest in montana to clear my thoughts and focus on writing, like many seasoned writers do. needless to say, it was kind of hard to meet the deadline, but i did it anyway, and i was sort of happy with my piece. not bad for an accountant, ya know? my editor worked with me and made a lot of helpful suggestions and constructive criticism, and at the very beginning of december, my essay was considered final. or so i thought.

just last week, i got an email from my editor saying that my essay was too long, and that parts of my arguments were redundant in relation to other essays within the anthology. therefore, she was getting pressure from the publishers to cut it down some and they made some last minute changes and hoped that i was okay with it. well, i wasn't. they practically chopped my essay in half.

not only did they chop my essay in half, but they cut out parts that i felt were crucial to my cause. the essay deals, in part, with islam and my editor felt that some parts of my writing in relation to that were "rudimentary". and you know what? she's probably right. but here's my thing: rudimentary or not, they're my feelings, my understandings and my interpretations of how i grew up as a muslim. maybe she couldn't relate, maybe the publishers couldn't relate; but i know many people who can. many... many... many! it's an experience that i share with several bengali muslims and several muslims in general. but the fact that i laid it out in a very simple and non threatening way, didn't seem to jive with the editors. and frankly, i'm pissed. they cut out enormous parts of my essay that dealt with my feelings about islam under the guise of "redundancy" and then later decided to be honest with me and say that my arguments were just too rudimentary. well you know what? fuck that shit in the ear i say. if my shit is rudimentary then don't fucking print it.

i mean, really, here's the thing: it's not like my editor woke up one day last week and decided my islam issues were rudimentary. she had to have felt that way about it back in december when she accepted my final draft. why didn't she say anything then? why wait until now, in february, when she's on a tight deadline and leaves me with a fucking ultimatum that i have to accept the changes or withdraw my essay?! on top of that, i'm out of the country with a twelve hour time difference, and can't call her, so we're emailing back and forth arguing over the timing of all this, and she basically tells me that i need to give her a final word by such and such time (which already passed by the time i read the email) as to whether or not i want my essay in.

what kind of shit is that?

so my question to you readers, especially those of you who've had experience with being published (shalini? anyone?): is this common? am i overreacting? i mean, i went ahead and ok'd the submission, but i'm still really torn about it. and if i'm still torn, a week later, then maybe it wasn't the right decision for me to okay it, right? i don't know... i mean... a part of me is ready to write to my editor and say fuck it, pull my shit, i'll find someone else to publish it in it's entirety. i'm not saying that my shit is all that and a bag of chips, i'm just saying i don't agree with their edits. i didn't have a problem with my editor's initial edits, and we seemed to have established a pleasant relationship. but now, i'm feeling a little bit duped. i'm feeling like they waited till the last minute because they knew i'd be pissed but with the timing and her deadlines i'd have to make a quick decision and i did. not only that, i'm a little bit annoyed with her for waiting until now to tell me my shit is rudimentary. frankly, and i told her this, rudimentary isn't always a bad thing. not everyone is a scholar and an intellectual. some of us are just regular fucking people with simple fucking ideas who want to be able to say shit in simple ways that other simple people can understand. i'm not a muslim scholar, nor am i some graduate from an ivy league institution with twelve million letters behind my name. i'm a fucking accountant for chrissake! how many accountants do YOU know who have submitted an essay for an anthology on women and islam?

it's after 2am here in dhaka, and i was laying in bed trying to fall asleep, but i couldn't because i kept thinking about parts of my essay that were no longer included in the final edit. it made me kind of sad. i mean, i think i should've been able to at least ok the edits. i shouldn't have to deal with a fucking ultimatum at the last minute when my editor has only a few hours before she has to turn everything into the publisher for good. that just doesn't seem like the right way to do this.

and if i'm losing sleep over it, well then that's a problem, no?

so... what do you think? any advice? suggestions? comments? please... help me out here.

33...

2006-02-09T12:36:00.000-06:00

today was a really nice day here in chennai. the weather has been gorgeous since i got here, and today was no exception. it's been a balmy 75-80 degrees or so, perfect deshigrrrl weather and a nice refuge from chicago's cold. though i have to admit, january in chicago was pretty warm, relatively speaking. i think most of the month saw temps in the forties which really ain't bad. but of course this is way better. anyday.

for my birthday i was greeted with really early morning phone calls from dad and a friend and then my sister made plans for us to have lunch at the park hotel. man, this hotel is the bomb. see for yourself. the restaurant we ate at overlooked the rooftop pool which boasts a great view of the city of chennai. after lunch, we lounged in one of the cabanas while the waiter brought over a lovely chocolate cake and my niece sang happy birthday to me. it was really sweet. the rooftop pool area is amazing and it was really unfortunate that i didn't get to swim in the pool, but oh well. we opted not to get massages simply because we all ate so much food and cake that i couldn't even fathom lying flat on my stomach...

but enough about my birthday... (thanks for all the wishes!)

you know what rocks about chennai? two main things, really:

a TON of women ride around on motorcycles. actually, there are usually more motorcycles on the street than there are cars and it's just great to see so many women rocking the bikes especially with saris on! they kick ass. i love seeing them... riding around the busy streets of chennai with their pony tails sticking out of their helmets.

the other thing i've noticed is that the men don't leer at me. total change from dhaka men. i can't walk down a street in dhaka without a dozen guys stopping to stare at me wondering if i'm a boy or a girl. here, they might just throw a glance in my direction but then they just carry on because i'm not so freakish to them as a lot of indian women dress in western clothing.

a very interesting aspect of indian culture which i don't think is specific to chennai, is the nodding of the head. most of us are used to interpreting a side to side nod of the head as a "no". but here, it usually means yes. or at the very least an acknowledgement, if not a straight up "yes". it's not quite a straight line nodding from side to side, but more like a downward curved nodding from side to side. at first i took it to mean no, and was often confused especially when asking questions that you expect to get a yes out of, but i think i'm getting used to it. :)

so yeah, chennai is a pretty cool city. i've done a hell of a lot of shopping here, from clothes to home decorating stuff and artwork. i don't even really want to know how much money i spent in the short 6 days that i've been here. things are relatively cheap compared to US prices, but still...

we're off to dhaka on saturday, and i'm looking forward to seeing dad after over a year.

the india job folks never called, so i'm taking that as a no. too bad though... it was a stellar opportunity for me but alas was not meant to be.

pardon my disappearance...

2006-02-07T10:34:00.000-06:00

have i lost my audience? i think i might have. i apologize, dear readers, for my hiatus of sorts. it wasn't intentional or planned, it just happened. i think the last time i blogged was back in september of last year shortly after katrina, and then all of a sudden things just started happening in my life that made it really difficult to find time to blog. and then i just got lazy and figured no one was reading my shit anyway cuz i hadn't written in so damn long.

but my original reason for not writing was a valid one. i promise. sometime in late august i decided to respond to a call for submissions for an anthology and so i needed to save every ounce of my writing energy to write an essay. it was worth it though; my essay was accepted and will be published as a part of an anthology sometime in june of this year. i'm psyched as hell, it'll be my first published piece ever! email me in june if you want to know the title once it comes out in stores.

right now, i'm in india. chennai to be precise. my sis and niece live here now so i'm splitting my vacation time between here and dhaka. my mom is here too, but i won't see dad until mom and i fly out to dhaka next saturday. i decided this year, that i wanted to spend my birthday with my niece, because, um... frankly folks, she seems to be the only person in the world who is excited about the fact that i have a birthday coming up and that she'll get to spend it with me for the first time in her life. i arrived here late last saturday after a sleep-filled-long-ass-uneventful-journey via london, and the morning after i arrived my sister (and niece) surprised me with a quick getaway trip to a resort called temple bay in mahabalipuram which is about an hour drive from chennai. my birthday isn't until thursday (the 9th) but they wanted to do it over a weekend since my niece has school and sis has to work. let me just say, it was the best fucking birthday i've ever had. period. i spent the weekend swimming in an infinity pool overlooking the indian ocean, lounging in the sun, eating like a pig, relaxing and reading on a hammock and just all around chillin'. it was great. i loved it. i can't even say enough good things about it.

so yeah, turning 33 has so far been great. i'm looking forward to this year. it's funny how you get older and you start caring less and less about birthdays and you sort of stop getting presents and the specialness of the day just fades into oblivion and then it takes an 8 year old to make you feel like your birthday is indeed a special day and should be celebrated as such. as for the actual day of my birthday, i believe a visit to a local spa for a massage and a chocolate cake are on the agenda courtesy of my fabulous sister.

i really do feel special.

so let's see, i suppose i should catch you all up on a few highlights of my life in the past 6 months. i'll never be able to write it all up, so bullet points it shall be:

* i applied for a job in india. actually, they approached me, i wasn't even looking. i still don't know if i'll get it, but from the looks of things i don't think i will. the plan was to interview with them while i'm in chennai, but the company is having problems trying to work out a visa thing that would allow me to work in india and the prospects are looking kinda slim. i haven't heard from them yet, and i'm only going to be in chennai for 3 more days, so... you do the math. it would've been a great opportunity and i was really ready to make the move, but as with everything else in my life, being a bangladeshi citizen doesn't come with too many perks in the global visa department.

* i finally painted my living room and bathroom! yes, after living in my condo for a year and a half, i used thanksgiving weekend to get down to business and paint. it then took about another few months to actually put up all my artwork and stuff, but the place is really starting to come together nicely. it actually feels like a home now instead of a half-assed, bare-walled, temporary abode with a pool table in it!

* my new job was going really, really well until they hired someone in late september, who, let me really emphasize that i'm not lying at all, is a complete moron. normally i wouldn't care, except that the guy is my direct supervisor. it's one of those situations where the guy has a shit load of letters behind his name (and never fails to remind you of it), yet he somehow has no concept of some of the most basic stuff that you just have to know to be in the business that i'm in. i seriously know more than he does, and i feel like my intelligence is insulted every day that i walk into the office and have to deal with his ignorant ass. personality conflicts aside, the man is an idiot. i have no idea how he got all those degrees but i'm assuming he's just a really good test taker. the issue is actually a lot worse than i'm making it sound, and i'm hoping that my manager will see through his bullshit eventually and after the standard 6 month probation they'll fire his dumb ass. but one never knows. all i know is, if he stays, i go. i cannot, in my right mind, continue to work under this guy knowing that he's an imbecile. i'll give them until april (my one year anniversary) to figure out what a jackass he is until i start looking for another job.

* i had some really weird experiences with women in the past few months. remember raquel from miami (see private dancer post)? well, i went to miami again in december and my cousin, true to form, took me back to the same club and of course, raquel was there! she recognized me, and um, we went into the back room, and um, i did things to her that according to my cousin, men aren't ever allowed to do for the mere price of a lapdance. i also went out on a few non-dates with this chick who didn't have any eyebrows. well, ok so she didn't have real eyebrows, but she painted them so badly that they just looked downright whack. i really couldn't get past it. i think i might've been a little desperate, but nothing happened in the end except that i wasted a lot of time and drank a lot of wine and got sick on new years day. a few weeks later i had an make out session with a butch girl and um, i think i've come to the conclusion that i really just can't do butch girls. the chemistry just doesn't work. i mean, i'm sorta kinda butch-ish a little bit already, but i've always been attracted to androgynous girls. some of them turn out to be butch and some not. i just need to stick to the ones that are not. you know what i mean? i hate to blindly make statements like that, but i guess it's not that blind when you speak from experience, no?

* i'm officially calling myself a swimmer. i, deshigrrrl, am a swimmer. ever since august or september of last year, i've been swimming regularly at least 3 times a week if not more and not only am i getting really good at it, but i've also regained much of my girlish figure. i'm so proud of myself! at first i could only swim about 5 lengths of the pool before getting winded, but now i can swim 100 lengths without stopping (and i still smoke!). it's one of the most pleasurable achievements i've had in a long time and i simply can't get enough of it. i have a friend in the neighborhood who is equally freakish about it and so together we try to motivate each other to go. we call ourselves the aqua unit. yes, we do.

* i went to san francisco in early november with summer homeslice and fell in love wiht the bay area. summer's posts would do the experience more justice than this here little blip, but i must say that we went to a party in oakland that was quite possibly, hands down, the best fucking house party i'd ever been to in my entire life. the women in the bay are just gorgeous and i blame the superdopecaliweed on the fact that i spent the entire party dancing my ass off instead of trying to get my (lack of) mack on.

surely i'm missing things to write about, but my memory escapes me and, well, it's late here in chennai and i'm a bit tired from all the shopping i've been doing! :) i'll try to be a bit more regular about posting and hopefully i haven't totally lost all my readers. in the meantime, i'll be chillin' here in 80 degree weather, eating mom's home cooked food and getting ready to go see my dad and my friends in dhaka this weekend. i'll be back in chi at the end of the month. drop me a line in the comment box and let me know that you're still reading. i'd love to hear from you!

if you don't know, now you know...

2005-09-08T22:25:00.000-05:00

this is an excerpt of some old news:

It is unclear exactly how much the disengagement plan is costing the Israeli government. But last month it was reported Israel is seeking an additional $2 billion dollars or more in aid from the United States to help pay for the plan - which would in effect double the amount of aid Israel already receives from the U.S. The costs of the withdrawal include operations carried out by security forces as well as moving and compensating the settlers.
A majority of the settlers have accepted a compensation package from the government in return for leaving Gaza. An average family can expect to receive the equivalent of $150,000 to $400,000 in compensation, depending on house size, the number of children and length of residence in the occupied territories. On top of that, there are removal expenses, two years" free rent and redundancy compensation.

and this is an excerpt of some (relatively) new news:

Dispossessed families of Hurricane Katrina will receive debit cards good for $2,000 to spend on clothing and other immediate needs, the Bush administration announced Wednesday, working to recast a relief effort drawing scant praise from Republicans and scathing criticism from top congressional Democrats.

this says it all...

2005-09-02T12:02:00.000-05:00

here's a link to a powerful transcript of an interview with new orleans mayor ray nagin. god bless him for speaking so honestly.

flooded with sadness...

2005-09-01T17:06:00.000-05:00

i've been so busy the last few days that i hardly had any time to think about hurricane katrina. outside of what i read online, i hadn't really had a chance to watch any footage or sit in front of the tv long enough to get an idea of how devastating the situation in the south really is.

until yesterday.

i started watching a special report on the hurricane, and it blew my fucking mind. i mean, bangladesh has floods every year, so i wasn't really surprised by the way people were talking about this hurricane. but when i saw the footage of people walking around in shoulder-deep stagnant waters while two and three story houses just sat there submerged just shy of their rooftops, it really hit me. the sight of people standing on their rooftops just waiting for hours, without any kind of food or drinkable water, for a rescue helicopter to come by and get them was just heart wrenching.

my initial thoughts on the matter were that surely the u.s. had more resources than bangladesh does, to handle such a disaster. but as the days go by i'm wondering if that statement is in fact true. there are still thousands of people unaccounted for, areas that haven't even been searched yet, and thousands of other people dead, dying or just trying to get a scrap of bread to survive.

it is truly shocking how nonchalant president bush has been throughout this whole thing. i mean, his speech did really nothing more than state the obvious, ending it with a promise to send help as soon as possible. so he's gonna hit congress up for some emergency funds and what not. big whoop. how long will that take? how is that going to help the 60,000+ people that haven't eaten or drank a decent glass of water in the past few days? why aren't there a million national guard folks in helicopters out there distributing relief to the survivors?

well, maybe because THEY'RE ALL IN FUCKING IRAQ!

i don't know. i mean, sure things don't happen overnight (except natural disasters) but it just seems like everything is working so slowly. and i'm not even down there, so imagine how the people down there are feeling!

as for the looters... is it really necessary to divert 1500 soldiers from their rescue mission to go deal with looters? i mean, i can't say i blame the folks for going into stores to get food. where the hell else are they gonna get it? relief efforts are slim, and people are starving with no money. money, right now, means nothing down there. it's only about survival. and you can't survive without food. so let 'em steal some food... what's the big fucking deal? what's this "zero tolerance" bullshit bush is talking about? if he were out there he'd do the same damn thing. and so would i. especially if i had to feed my kids.

it's just such a sad situation down there right now. i cried. it reminded me of how i felt after the tsunami. here we are, at war for no reason, scared to death of another terrorist attack, when overnight an act of god causes destruction so much worse than any terrorist attack so far. this should be a wake up call for america, man. a wake up call to say "get your fucking nose out of everybody else's business and take care of your own damn people".

weird shit...

2005-08-20T20:54:00.000-05:00

ever wonder why weird shit happens to you sometimes? i mean, weird shit people. just weird shit.

it's like you go along life minding your own business, trying to do the right thing while remaining true to yourself. life is good, despite the ups and downs, and work gets crazy and the body gets tired and you go on with your routine. and then something happens to totally excite the shit out of you and knock you off your ass! it makes you have thoughts you haven't had in a while, and feel things you haven't felt in a while... and then poof! it's gone. it's gone before you even realize what you had and then you go looking for it, try to relive it, but it's nowhere to be found. it's like a tease. and then you wonder why it happened at all. you wonder if there was some secret purpose behind it but you can't figure out what.

sure, after a while the memory fades and life goes on, but you still wonder why the hell it happened and what you should've learned in the process. i've thought about it quite a bit and i think i've come to realize that i have an inability to seize moments. i let things happen and i let things flow, but i never stop to take hold of a situation and think through the fact that if i let the moment pass wihtout somehow acting on it, i may never experience it again. it's like i'm constantly on the inside looking out but not necessarily on the outside looking in. or is it the other way around? who knows. i'm just a fool. learning life's ropes. in my own special, special way...

a small one...

2005-07-25T20:05:00.000-05:00

my mom left this past saturday after spending about a month and a half in the states. she divided up her time between chicago and miami in order to visit me and my grandmother. while here, she cooked like a mad woman and i ate like a mad pig. and i have about 2 weeks worth of food in the freezer. i love my mom. i don’t care what any of you say, my mom is the greatest mother in the world. :p

the last time my mom visited was in june/july 2002. at the time, my ex, c and i, were living together. i’m sure if you check the archives you’ll see an entry about it somewhere along the way. it was one of the more difficult moments of my life, because it was during that trip that i came out to her.

but this time around, things were much different. we actually talked. there was no avoidance of the topic of my lesbianism. in fact, if anything it almost seemed like every time she turned on the tv, there was some show or another, be it will & grace or golden girls or ellen or even the damn simpsons, that kept using the word lesbian, and each time i heard it i cringed. not because i’m embarrassed to be one, but simply because i just wasn’t sure if mom was ready to have the word rubbed all up in her face. i think, however, it helped to make her realize that it’s a much more prevalent issue than she ever imagined, which, of course, is a good thing. i think she still thinks it’s a western thing, but hey, one issue at a time please.

so… i guess she’s at a point where she’s somewhat comfortable, or maybe just accepting, of the fact that her daughter is gay. though she probably really still thinks it’s a phase that i’ll eventually grow out of. she seems to think that there was some horribly earth-shattering experience i must’ve had that led me to give up on men entirely. of course i reassured her that this was not the case. i even told her that i haven’t “given up” on men and that i just don’t find myself veering in that direction any more. i told her about an incident i had recently with an ex-boyfriend who tried to make out with me and i just wasn’t feeling it. it just wasn’t what i wanted. however i did tell her that i would be stupid to completely cut myself off from being open to finding true love, no matter the gender.

so anyway, i think her biggest concern is that i’m single and living alone. i explained to her that i was happier that way. i tried to tell her that it’s in my nature to be alone, not necessarily in a social sense, but on a personal level. i’m a huge believer in having my own space both figuratively and literally (i am claustrophobic, after all). i can be sociable at any given moment, but at the end of the day, i need to come back home and just be with myself in solitude. i love that word… solitude… despite the fact that deep down i’m afraid i may need to be careful what i wish for. nonetheless, she worries that if anything were to happen to me there’d be no one around to take care of me. i told her that i have lots and lots of friends who would have my back in case of an emergency, but her fear, and it’s a valid one, is that friends may not necessarily be in a position to drop what they’re doing to come to your rescue; whereas lovers will (one hopes). i told her not to worry, and reassured her that i am indeed taking care of myself and that while it does get lonely sometimes, i’m much better off single right now. she asked me if i was dating anyone, and i said no, to which she said, “maybe you should”. maybe i should’ve had her read my recent blog entry, no? lol…

but to have had such a discussion with my mom was phenomenal let me just say…

so anyway, this whole discussion led to the topic of my father. until recently, he didn’t know. and until recently, i didn’t even know that he knew. but apparently, after repeated discussions between mom and dad about the fact that i’m 32 and unmarried, mom finally broke it down to him. she had kept it to herself all along, but i guess she just couldn’t take his constant badgering anymore, and i honestly don’t blame her. and my dad’s response? well, he was really upset. and he thought maybe i should go see a doctor.

that last line right there? it chokes me up. and really, it shouldn’t, because that’s the response i always envisioned him having whenever i imagined myself telling him the real reason why i’m still not married. but to hear my mom say it out loud was just really, really… heart wrenching. but see, here’s the thing… i understand where he’s coming from. my dad is a conservative, introverted, traditional, muslim, bengali man. in his world, homosexuality isn’t a word that gets used very often, if at all. so for him to think of it as a disease or something that can be cured by a doctor, isn’t too far of a stretch of his imagination.

the funny thing is, though… if anyone else had said such a thing, i’d be ripping them a new asshole right this minute. but he’s my dad. if anything i have to acknowledge the fact that i know him and i know how he thinks and i know where he’s coming from. but i suppose that’s about all i can do. i can’t change who i am nor can i change who he is. all i can hope is that he’ll still love me and that i’ll know it right away the next time i see him face to face.

i’ve always felt that the issue of visibility (i.e. being out) was the biggest challenge facing the gay rights movement, and in light of that i kind of feel like i’m currently in the middle of my own little mini revolution... it’s not a bad place to be, but i still somehow internally fear a face to face discussion with him...

preparation instructions...

2005-07-24T19:19:00.000-05:00

preheat your oven (do not use a microwave) to 450°.

once the oven is preheated and ready, open the door and stick your head in it for a good 5 minutes.

that's what it feels like in chicago today...

(ed: this is just a joke to make a point. do not try this at home)

drama-repellant®...

2005-07-18T19:21:00.000-05:00

lately i’ve been contemplating the status of affairs concerning my inability to attract sane women in my life. i mean, to begin with, i am an extremely shy person when it comes to interacting with people i don’t know. i’m just not one to randomly start conversations with strangers, let alone women i’m attracted to. and yes, this is a confession of sorts… not with the intent of divulging my entire inner-self to you readers, for never shall i do that, but simply to invite thoughts and commentary from you all on the simple concept of flirting… and why oh why is it that i am always attracting drama or unavailable women?

now, at the ripe old age of 32, i’ve realized that there are several kinds of flirts. let’s go over them, shall we? there are those that are just simply born to flirt. it’s ingrained in their personality at birth. their flirtation means nothing, and it never will. it’s just what they do, mostly to attract attention because they like to always be at the center of it. they could flirt with the ugliest people in the world… it doesn’t matter, so long as they are the center of attention. let’s call them the deceptive flirts, shall we? and i say this because those who are drawn into the aura of these flirts are more often than not, in for a huge smack of disappointment.

then there are those that flirt with a purpose. that is, they flirt in order to attract the attention of another person that they are truly attracted to. now, here’s where we have a sub-split. some of these flirts are only flirting to have a good time because at the end of the day they know that it won’t lead to anything because they are either already taken or just simply unavailable for whatever reason. let’s call them the non-committal flirts. the other kind, however, will flirt to get attention from a person they’re attracted to with the express intent of getting to know them followed by a phone number or some other kind of information that could lead to a future meet-up/one-night-stand/booty call, whatever. i call them serious/sucker flirts. serious because they’re, well… serious about the object of their flirtation, but suckers because it often leads to nothing (in my case, at least).

then of course you have the flirts who just flirt for the hell of it… because they can and are good at it… smooth, if you will. they’ll flirt with you and then turn around and flirt with your friend, and then before you know it they’re at the other end of the room flirting with six other people. now, whether or not all that flirtation even leads to anything in the end may depend on several factors such as beer goggles, or what have you but i like to call them flaky flirts.

if i’m missing any other categorization of flirts, by all means, let me know.

now me? i’m a serious/sucker flirt. i don’t flirt with people unless i have an interest in them. i don’t flirt just to flirt nor do i flirt to be the center of attention. if anything, i run for my life whenever the spotlight even begins to make its way toward me. i guess in a way some would say that i’m no fun because i’m too serious, but in all seriousness, i don’t see the purpose of just flirting with someone for the hell of it. not to mention i don’t think i am even physically capable of flirting with someone i have no interest in because it just wouldn’t come naturally.

now, having said all that, i’ve had experiences with all of the above mentioned flirts (the serious/sucker flirt being myself, of course). and for sheer shits and giggles, i thought i’d share with you some of the most recent episodes i’ve encountered that have made me seriously contemplate leading a life of celibacy for a while for fear of… TMD.

what’s TMD you ask?

too.much.drama.

back in december when i went home for the holidays, i met a bengali girl. now, for those of you who don’t know this, it’s my hearts desire to be with a bengali girl. i have this romanticized notion of speaking to my lover in my native tongue. there’s just simply nothing hotter than that in my mind. so, i met a girl at a party in dhaka… actually, let me rephrase that: i met a fucking gorgeous ass bengali girl at a party in dhaka, and i’d bet all the money in the world that she’s gay. ok, well bi i guess, considering she was engaged to be married. i flirted with her all night long, and being the serious/sucker flirt that i am, i flirted with the express intention of getting together again later. now, she flirted back despite the fact that she was otherwise unavailable and i swear that under different circumstances, i might have woken up the next day saying good morning to her in bengali. but of course that didn’t happen because sucker flirts and non-committal flirts just don’t mesh. and let’s not forget she was engaged, and is, in fact according to reliable sources, currently already married but apparently asks about me from time to time. TMD.

earlier this year, i met another girl in chicago who is a friend of a friend. she told my friend that she thought i was cute (and i thought she was too), but of course she was already in a relationship. the second time i met her, she indicated to all of us at a get-together that she was “on a break” from her girlfriend and practically single. of course this was my opportunity to make my interest known and so i turned on my flirt button a little bit just to see if she’d bite. i can’t say she entirely bit, but she did run her fingers through my hair completely unexpectedly, and um, i don’t know about you all but to me, that’s kinda flirtatious, wouldn’t you say? i mean, it’s not like we’re friends and touch each other casually like that… so of course, a few days later i emailed her a very harmless invitation to dinner and it took her about 10 days to respond with a very non-committal ‘yes’ that bordered on patronizing and required me to be extremely flexible. so i wrote back to her and pretty much retracted the invitation as politely as i could because aside from her delayed response there was some other shit that went down as a result of her being a friend of a friend. way TMD and not even worth getting into. my conclusion? she too is probably a non-committal flirt.

most recently i was supposed to hang out with this girl who flirted with me a lot. i mean, she gave me her phone number the 4th day we met which i subsequently lost (not on purpose). she’s cute, but you know, not totally my type. so anyway, she’s a barista at a shop by my job and so i’d see her pretty much every day and she’d flirt with me each time i came up to the register. later i’d realize that she was a flaky flirt. or just flaky period. but one day, before i realized how flaky she was, i told her that we should hang out, to which she said yes, and we made plans to do something over the weekend. well, to make a long story short, we made plans to order in one night and eat and chill at my place. so she called me at 9:45pm to say she was leaving her house and that i should go ahead and order the food, which i did. at around 10:15 the food arrives and so i’m waiting. and waiting. and waiting. at 10:45 the phone rings, and i’m thinking she’s downstairs waiting to be buzzed up. but of course, she still hasn’t left her house, and apparently, isn’t actually going to come over after all because, get this… she just started her period. now, i realize that women have different degrees of period issues. but that to me, was just rude considering i spent money on food for her which would now go to waste because it was some nasty ass vegetable/tofu shit that i don’t even eat. i mean, who the fuck does that? not to mention she waited a whole hour before she called me back to say she wasn’t coming. WTMMFD.

so, a friend of mine said to me that the reason i attract so much drama is because i’m so laid back and chilled out. she said that drama queens look for their opposites and i happen to be exactly that. so i think the only way to repel all the drama is to become the drama. right? i mean, wouldn’t that be a logical conclusion? only, i don’t think i could actually do it. i try my damnedest to avoid drama at all cost, so i'm thinking maybe i just need to invent some drama-repellant®... or just retire from "the game".

private dancer...

2005-07-09T14:23:00.000-05:00

as an aside to the main content of this post, i just wanted to share that i recently got tested for all stds (including hiv, syphillis, etc.) just because i wanted to know for sure that my body wasn't secretly harboring some wretched disease unbeknownst to me. my doctor called me last week to say i was clean and clear and disease free. i can't tell you how good it feels to actually know this without having to resort to mere speculation. for any of you who've never done so, i encourage you to. it's just simply better to know.

ok, so onto the main topic...

so, there seems to be a pattern going on in terms of my miami escapades. some of you may recall my adventures with "peaches" last time, and while i enjoyed it thoroughly, i vowed never to go back to a strip club because i just felt, well, skanky.

my cousin (male, about the same age as me) and i are really, really tight. we can talk about anything and everything under the sun from how we feel about our dysfunctional family to the various psychos in our childhood that somehow (albeit unknowingly) played a part in the development of our sexual maturity, to, well, plain old sex. so during one of these late night soirees that consisted of me and him sitting outside on his patio getting drunk, stoned and introspective, the topic of sex came up and i told him how i hadn't had any in quite a while. of course his solution to my problem was to take me to what he calls a "tittie bar". (i hate the sound of that).

now, feminist thought aside, i just don't like the idea of girls dancing around naked for the sole purpose of providing entertainment for sleazy men. i don't like the idea of men going up to them and slipping dollar bills between the various cracks of their anatomies with the promise of more if they agree to go to the back room with them. i also just simply don't like the general aura of strip clubs period. now, of course i have varying degrees of issues with the strippers themselves, but i'll save that for another day. but my cousin convinced me to go. and so we went.

long story short, i had a little back room rendezvous with "raquel". and let me just say that "raquel" was a hot little puerto rican mama who managed to absolutely thrill me to bits (i was fully dressed, thank you). i think we both had a good time, despite her fake perfect titties. :)

and while the remnants of my memories of "raquel" linger on, i have to admit i do feel skanky again.

but i'll get over it soon... probably before my next trip to miami, no?

greetings from miami...

2005-07-02T18:17:00.000-05:00

due to the sensitive nature of the author's emotions over the weekend, portions of the original entry have been removed.

it's hotter than hell out here. if i wore an orange robe i'd probably burst into flames. but i got in the atlantic ocean for a bit yesterday but i didn't have my bathing suit with me so it wasn't as enjoyable as i would've liked it to be. we had a little picnic and hung out at the beach and fried for a while but it rained later and after that the weather was a lot more bearable... but generally speaking the air quality is stagnant and humid and not comfortable at all. it's all about the air conditioning here, let me tell ya.

tomorrow will probably call for more beach activities but this time i'll be prepared with a bathing suit. i'll be watching out for sharks no doubt cuz i could really use both my legs for the remainder of my life.

still haven't gotten laid (but thanks for the good wishes mwilli)... gay pride was non eventful. i was home early and exhausted as hell. i'm just getting old... yeah, that's what it is.

what's going on on your end?

june...

2005-06-15T19:23:00.000-05:00

i can't believe it's the middle of june already. i've been busy as hell the past few weeks. several things: caught meshell in concert twice; once in madison and once in chicago. i'm not even gonna go into how disappointed i am at chicagoans for the way they treated meshell for performing with the spirit music jamia instead of her usual solo singing performance. but i got to meet her both times after the shows, so that was cool as hell.

driving back from madison was no easy task however. my friend r and i were smack dab in the middle of a thunderstorm which was both beautiful and scary at the same time. as the driver, however, i was not thrilled with the way the flashes of lightning were, at times, blinding. we actually ended up pulling over for a few minutes because at one point the rain came down so hard that i couldn't see shit and literally felt like i was driving under water. not.fun.

i've been cleaning like a mad woman the past few weeks as well, in anticipation of the arrival of mi mama. it was a blessing in disguise however, as i finally got my shit together and cleaned the whole house and rearranged (and threw out) furniture. my bedroom is complete. i managed to get rid of a shit load of junk that was making my bedroom look quite messy and crowded. now, it's beautiful. i finally bought a desk and a file cabinet. add to that the bed i bought last february and those are the three single pieces of furniture in the room. as hard as i try to be a minimalist and sometimes fail, i'm really proud of the way i did up the bedroom. it looks just the way i want it to. clean and spacious. the only thing left to buy is a low nightstand. as for the living room, i just got through purchasing this coffee table which is on sale like a motherfucker. and it's on casters! deshigrrrl loves furniture on casters. mobility is a good thing! so eventually i need to buy a tv stand and i'm all done with my furniture purchases. it's all coming together now. the condo is starting to look good.

so mom's here, safe and sound, though feeling a bit under the weather. and of course i've been consuming copious amounts of home cooked bengali food. it's great to have her here, though it's annoying to have to go to work and leave her alone. plus it's always a bit hard at times to see my parents so infrequently (in this case, six months). they're getting older, of course, and it's just really saddening to see all the aging signs. like, she walks a little slower, gets tired more easily, etc. which is so weird to me considering it wasn't so long ago that i was the little one trying to keep up with her. the mortality of my parents is quite possibly the single most fearsome thing in my life.

but onto less morbid topics.

i'm traveling quite a bit this month... my job is sending me to hotlanta for a few days next week. and i'm looking forward to meeting ej and the brotherlove while i'm there!

when i get back, it's gay pride weekend in chicago which is always fun. this will be the first time in 3 years though that i'll be single during gay pride, which is just a tad bit interesting to say the least. and of course i've timed my mom's trip to miami to see my aunt and grandmother accordingly... yes, i know, i'm evil.

the following week i'll be joining mom & co. in miami over 4th of july weekend and then when i get back i have a week and a half of chillin' out before mom comes back and gets ready to leave for bangladesh the following week.

but it's already mid-june and i feel like summer is slipping away... i need to make plans... roadtrips to canada or a trip to the caribbean or something... i half thought about going back to amsterdam for gay pride in early august, but i don't know if my finances are quite up to par. though my sis and niece will be in copenhagen so it would be a great opportunity to meet up with them. ugh. i need to play the lottery. and win of course.

so that's the scoop ladies and gentleladies. be well. if i don't blog for a while it's because i'm either (a) busy with family, (b) traveling or (c) getting laid. actually, umm... scratch (c)... cuz that's just wishful thinking.

me? a bookworm... no.

2005-06-03T20:22:00.000-05:00

but summer tagged me, so here goes:

total number of books you own: gosh, i'm ashamed to admit this, but i suppose a rough estimate would be, like... fuck, i dunno... like 40 or 50? yeah, i know, pitiful. thing is, similar to movies, i didn't used to feel the need to actually own things that i'd only read or watch once. i've since changed my view on that with regard to books. i now own them instead of just borrowing them, but i still don't buy movies.

last book i read: babyji by abha dawesar

current book reading: the god of small things by arundhati roy. i've been reading it for a while now, but only because i haven't had TIME to finish it! deshigrrrl has been lacking quality coffee-shop-reading time lately. sad, but true! i've also started reading the angela davis reader but it got a little heavy so i set it aside for a little while until i have the time and brain cells to continue.

fiction or non-fiction: fiction for the most part, but i do enjoy some non-fiction every now and again.

first book read: shit, that's a hard one. probably the one with "see jane run" in it, whatever it's called. is that a dr. seuss book??? as a kid though, i used to love reading the little teenage mystery novels, like the hardy boys and nancy drew or the sherlock holmes novels. and archie. man i loved me some archie comic books. my mom would have to bribe me with archies to make me go places with her when i didn't want to go.

largest impact: i've no fucking idea. i guess that means none, right? i don't think i've come across a book that actually impacted me. i mean, i like a lot of books, and some books make me think about shit i wouldn't have thought of, but i can't say any of them actually impacted my life.

favorite scholarly book: does "the 99 critical shots in pool" count as scholarly? i mean, i learned a lot of little tricks from that one... haha...

most read book: i don't think i've ever read a book more than once.

sexiest book: when i was 12 or 13 i read some trashy little book whose name i can't even remember. but it had its hot moments for sure.

biggest disappointments: i'm gonna have to hop on the personality chix bandwagon here. love by toni morrison. i just couldn't get through it.

see? i'm a boring ass book person. i've only recently starting reading a lot. i used to pretty much be a non reader when i was a teenager but that's only because i was always out and about looking for trouble.

my favorite girl...

2005-05-30T00:31:00.000-05:00

my neice m just turned 8 years old yesterday. 8 years old! time really does fly, man. most of you don't know this, but i witnessed the birth of my niece first hand. my sister was in chicago when she was born a month prematurely so neither my mom nor my sister's (now ex) husband made it from dhaka to chicago in time to be there for the impromptu celebration. it was just me and my sis hours before the delivery and i was scared as fuck.

so as a result of actually being there to witness this precious event, i feel exceptionally close to her. she's extra special to me. it saddens me on occasion that i really wasn't there for the majority of her childhood what with my family living in bangladesh and me being here, but thankfully i do get to see her at least once a year.

but i really can't believe that she's eight years old. i mean, i have a t-shirt of hers that she wore when she was only a month old and i can pretty much wear it on my hand!

but now that she's older, and has her own little fierce personality, she's all the more fun to talk to and tease and interrogate. so in honor of her birthday i thought i'd blog about her and let you, my readers, in on my favorite girl in the whole world. hmmm... let's see: she doesn't particularly like school, she's quite the girly girl, and she won't admit to me that her favorite color is pink. she likes hello kitty stuff, she watches dora the explorer among other shows, she scowls at the television frustratingly when blue takes forever to find his clues, and she totally digs bob marley (for which she gets extra brownie points and is thereby automatically excused for liking teeny bopper pop music of the 2000's). she eats lots of vegetables, has traveled much of the world at her tender young age, she's three quarters bengali and one quarter french which enables her to be fluent in english, bengali and french, and she absolutely adores her 18 year old half sister (who happens to be 3 quarters french and one quarter bengali) and no doubt wants to be like her. she loves silly slapstick movies like the hot chick from which she'll take any opportunity to recite some corny line or another, like "ling ling, you forgot your bling bling..." followed by incessant fits of laughter. she probably owns about 20 different pairs of shoes (thanks to my sister's fashion uber-consciousness) and loves to play with barbies. thanks to her ultra hip aunt she owns a multicultural group of barbie and ken dolls and continues to hint at me about getting her a barbie townhouse. i don't see that happening anytime soon, but shh! we won't tell her i said that.

during my last trip home we sat together on the couch on a saturday morning and watched tv. i think we were watching scooby doo or dora. but at one point she got up to get something and when she came back she literally sat on my lap, wrapped both her legs around my waist, both arms around my neck and settled her right cheek against my left cheek and proceeded to watch her show. we sat like that for several minutes and it was during that time i thought to myself, damn... there aren't too many people that would show that kind of carefree affection towards me. it was literally one of the most heart warming moments of my life.

so i ran across a birthday card the other day that made me smile at how absolutely on point the message was. it said, "having you as a niece is one my favorite things in life". and it truly is.

pimpin' my ride...?

2005-05-23T22:16:00.000-05:00

i, deshigrrrl, non car owner by choice, became the center of attention on many streets and highways all over chicago this weekend. not because i'm beautiful, smart, charming, witty and just generally cool as fuck as some of you might jump to conclude (hehe)... but because i happened to rent a 2005 ford mustang over the weekend by sheer chance.

see, i'm a (hertz discount weekend) compact car kinda gal. i go for the cheapest car i can get. no frills, no thrills, just a fucking car that'll get me from a to b to c to z. that's it. but this past weekend i had to make a last minute reservation cuz my uncle was in town, and the 2005 mustang was the cheapest they had (and not at all bad at $25/day i might add).

so anyway, it's a nice car, as you can see. a bit flashy for my taste, and not at all something i'd ever buy for myself. but it was definitely fun to drive. the funny part was that at first, i noticed people looking in my general direction quite a bit and while my gut reaction was to stare back in a "wtf are you looking at?" kinda way, i was reminded that it was the car they were looking at, and not me. one guy pulled up next to me and said "nice car!" and i'm all "thanks!" like i own it or something. for the most part though, the oglers were straight white men and i could see them mouthing the words "that's the new mustang!" every time i passed by them.

what i didn't like about the car, however, was that it said "mustang" in big letters on the lower half of the side doors and to me, that shit is just overbearing and unnecessary. if it's such hot shit as it seems to be based on people's reactions i witnessed, why does ford feel the need to point out the obvious? if it's such a classic car that's recognizable instantly why is it even necessary? anyway. that's neither here nor there i guess, and my point is that i hate that free advertising shit. it's like, for example, buying a tommy hilfiger shirt that says TOMMY on one sleeve and HILFIGER on another in huge ass print. that's free advertising. i mean, if it's subtle, that's cool. but no need to get all obnoxious about it, you know? if i have to advertise for you then you should pay me to wear that shit... is all i'm saying. a mere symbol should suffice, in my opinion, no?

but i have nothing much else to write about so i thought i'd tell you all how popular this new mustang really is. if you're down and out and feeling neglected, rent one of these suckers for a weekend and your ego will automatically be inflated by straight white men. unless you're a non car owner like me who really doesn't give a shit about cars.

did i mention it was hella fun to drive tho? :)

32 flavors...

2005-05-14T20:44:00.000-05:00

aah... today was a good day. the weather cooperated nicely. it wasn't hot, but it was... springy. a light jacket and you were good to go.

so i went to get my hairs cut this afternoon. iris is my girl. she cuts hair out of her house where she lives with her sweet old mom, and she's quite possibly the cookiest, craziest, funniest character i've ever known. we've become good friends and always catch up on life during the two whole hours it takes for her to cut my short ass hair. but that's the lovely part about her. she's meticulous as hell. i never walk out of there disappointed. except that one time when she accidentally shaved off half of my eyebrow.

anyway, half way through, i asked her if she ever cut hair outdoors and she said yes. so we grabbed her stuff and the chair and sat out on her sidewalk in the sun while she chopped away. it was lovely. we here at deshigrrrl.com love iris.

on another note, i've been elected (yes, actually elected) to be on the board of directors of my condo association. i already feel like it's gonna be nightmarish because i came home to 13 emails last night. 13 emails from board members trying to figure out a good time to have a meeting. good lord. there's only one lady on the board that i don't care for because she comes off very condescending. and i literally volunteered to serve on the board just to keep her in check because she just seems like the kind of person who would get carried away with the power of being on a board (fear not for deshigrrrl will save the day). the rest of the folks seem nice enough though. besides, i had to get at least one brown person in on the decision making. this is a huge investment for me. i'm not a trust fund baby. my parents didn't pitch in to help me with my downpayment. i'm not wealthy by any means. so i gotta be a part of what goes on around here. bottom line.

good god, what have i gotten myself into?

longing for summer...

2005-05-11T16:52:00.000-05:00

less than 24 hours ago, i made a split decision to turn left instead of right as i exited the building after work. i had two hours to kill before pool league, and it was literally in the high 70's and sunny as all hell. not a cloud in the damn sky. i walked east all the way to the brink of lake shore drive... cars speeding by, the blue of lake michigan straight ahead. i found a secluded expanse of grass on a slope that literally led down to lake shore drive and decided to sit down and relax. i rolled up my pants, lay my jacket on the ground so i could lay down, turned the volume on my ipod way up and minutes later, noticing that there wasn't a soul around me, i started singing out loud. it was one of the most cathartic 2 hours i'd spent in a long time.

this morning at around 7:15am, the temperature dropped to 54 degrees. as i got off the bus to cross the street to work, it.started.pouring. the sky was so dark you'd think it was evening time. and now it's even colder outside. it's like 47 degrees or some such ridiculous formula, and windy as hell.

this schizophrenic chicago weather is killing me softly.

fuck spring, i just want summer, man... summer.

damn summer, talk to your namesake for me wouldja? tell her to hurry up and make up her mind already. ;)

sans wisdom...

2005-05-06T21:04:00.000-05:00

did i tell you i have jacked up teeth? yes, i think i did. so last week when i came home from work and experienced some seriously throbbing pain on the right half of my gums, i wasn't so surprised. i couldn't tell the exact source of the pain, but the thing is, i popped a tylenol with codeine and it still didn't go away.

now, anyone who has taken tylenol with codeine before knows that it stops all pain. but not that night. three hours later the pain hadn't subsided, so i popped an aleve. two hours later, i desperately popped another aleve and finally managed to fall asleep.

so of course this week found me in the dentist's office and an hour later i left minus a wisdom tooth. whatever pain killer he gave me, however, was magical. i felt zero pain. that shit was so potent that the following day at work i was groggy as hell all day, and at one point literally nodded off at my desk in the midst of writing a work related email to my supervisor. i should've never hit send because that shit was all kinds of incoherent. imagine slurring via email. that's exactly how it read. i had to apologize to her later explaining my drug-induced status.

but enough of my dental woes. though i know for a fact that there's more to come. i'll be sure to keep you all posted because i know how important it is to you.

man, my life is really weird right now. i can't really explain it and it's not like i'm depressed or in a bad state or anything, but i'm just all kinds of discombobulated. there's a lot of shit i need to get done and i'm procrastinating like a mofo. i feel like good things will happen once i get these things done, but i can't seem to motivate myself to do them even though i'm dying for these good things to happen. you know what i mean? yeah... i know you do. so anyway, perhaps this weekend will be productive. perhaps it won't.

but hey, at least the weather is finally being nice to me. i work downtown, right next to millenium park, and so i had a mini-self-picnic during my lunch break today. it felt so good to sit outside without a jacket on and just relax. after i finished eating i lay out in the sun, on the grass, staring at the sky while listening to my ipod and literally dozed off at one point. unfortunately i woke up in time to get back to work.

speaking of work, i'm really diggin' my hours. i work from 7:15am to 4pm instead of 8:15am to 5pm. the earlier hour really makes a difference! i avoid all the commuter traffic jams and have longer evenings. granted, i have to get up earlier, but i don't mind it so much. eventually i think i might take advantage of the flextime and start working four 10 hour days with 3 day weekends. but 10 hour days are sure to be brutal.

the job is starting to get challenging though, which is a good thing because it keeps me busy which means the days literally fly by. before i know it, it's time to go home and that's always a lovely scenario. my coworkers are nice enough. haven't really clicked with anyone yet though, but that's quite alright with me. i can be a loner when i need to be and am perfectly content with it.

on a completely different note, and in conclusion of this pointless blog entry, for those of you who haven't heard, meshell's spirit music jamia is touring in select u.s. cities this summer. you'd be remiss not to catch one of her shows. as always, fmh has all the details. yours truly, in a manner consistent with her fanaticism, will be attending both the madison and chicago shows.

life isn't all ha ha hee hee you know...

2005-04-26T18:55:00.000-05:00

i have been coming across some of the most entertaining novels of late, and they've all been written by south east asian (mostly indian) women! it's actually really weird how i've just been stumbling upon these novels one after another. it's like my brain is in full deshi mode (which it always is anyway) because everything i've been reading lately has been deshi-related and i'm absolutely lovin' it!

if you look at my reading list down below you'll see that i'm currently reading babyji by abha dawesar. oh.my.god. it's scandalous! and i mean that in a good way. it's about a 16 year old girl in delhi who discovered her sexuality and then proceeded to have affairs with not one, not two, but THREE different women of all different ages, at the same time. can i just say that this chick is getting more pussy at her age than i am at mine? excuse my french, but there's just no other way to say it. at anyrate, thank goodness it's fiction cuz otherwise i'd be really fucking jealous. ok, nevermind that, i am jealous!

but it's a great read! the character development of the main character anamika is ferocious. i'm half way through it and am sorta sad to be nearing the end, but i highly recommend it! the funny thing is that i only found out about it through a teeny little ad in the latest curve magazine that i was browsing at borders to kill time before having to be at pool league last week! what a find, i must say.

the title of this entry comes from the most recent book i finished called life isn't all ha ha hee hee by meera syal, which i came across just browsing through amazon. the title is a classic! my dad used to say that to us all the time if my sis and i were unusually boisterous or cackling madly about some silly thing or another. i couldn't believe that the phrase actually made it's way to the title of a book! so i absolutely had to buy it. and it's a great read too.

i love south east asian women.

now if i could only find one to bring home to my mother... ;)

anyway, gotta run. i'm off to catch pamela means at schuba's tonight. cheerio!

in four parts... (with pics!)

2005-04-20T18:54:00.000-05:00

part i

new gig

i have to get this out of the way. the job is aight. the people are cool enough. tho one lady said to me today in defense of a coworker "oh she's a christian woman, but...". t'was funny. the work so far has been semi-challenging. and trust that it's been a while since i've actually "worked" entire 8 hour days. i hate my seating arrangement though. any ounce of my privacy is in the negative. the other negative is that they block all kinds of websites. even webmail, not to mention blogs!

part ii

london

i had fun in london. but it wasn't so much because of london. it was because of my peeps. london, to me, is overrated. and i only say this because, as you can tell from my previous posting, it's ridiculously fucking expensive! if i curse a lot during this entry, please forgive me. but to pay double for everything from a bottle of water to a taxi ride to a train ride to a postcard to a bus fare to... i mean damn! you get the picture, right? it irked me. a lot. but my therapist says i need to get past it.

so we arrived in london and checked into our teeny tiny hotel room. can i just say that "big" things in america just have me spoiled rotten? everything, and i say everything in london is tiny. from the rooms to the size of our bathroom sink to the narrow streets... eh. they must not have many claustrophobes in london.

later that night, i got to see my dear old friends!!! that was just amazing! we had dinner at a little noodle cafe called... get this: waga mama. or wag yo mama. the food was good, the company was grand, lisa got to meet my bengali crew (some of whom i went to elementary and/or high school with)! also making an appearance was miss nubian soul herself, the ever-gracious tour guide!

several drinks at a pub later, having ditched all the straight girls (haha) and running into several places that were closed (on a thursday night??? what kind of town is this?) we landed up at the end. yep, the end. that's what it was called. it was probably a really happening place, but i was so exhausted that day that watching the energy in all those kids just made me even more tired! but it was cool. decent music for the most part.

so of course the following night we saw meshell at the jazz cafe which really, truly was a great show. but we ended up on a very high traffic stairwell which fucked with my view of the show, not to mention my concentration. grrr.

but i cannot sit here and truthfully describe to you how great the london show was because i am absolutely biased now, having experienced the amsterdam show. i mean, never mind the stairwell distractions, the music was damn good. i was literally glad to have gone all the way to london to hear the new band, her new project. meshell ndegeocello has never disappointed me as a musician. it was a great show. i looked forward to seeing it again the next day in amsterdam. all was good.

cuisines consumed in london: good ass indian food near paddington station; asian food at wag yo mama in covent garden; a free continental breakfast at our hotel in hyde park; savory (not sweet) crepes near bond street; tapas in camden and finally (because we just had to) fish n' chips which weren't really that great.

part iii

amsterdam

(pics courtesy of lisa)

did i mention that i love amsterdam? say it, sing it, live it!

no... really.

i'm sorry that i still don't have pics (i'm just a lazy motherfucker, kids). i can't make any promises. i don't have a digital camera. i actually have to go to a walgreens and have it developed like in the old days. it's just too much work. eventually i'll get to it.

but, so back to my story. amsterdam is a romantic ass city. i mean, the brick laid (is that what they're called?) streets, the architecture, the cute little row houses over looking the numerous canals (i need to get those pics), it was all so beautiful! i fell in love with the city. granted i was hardly sober during the entire trip but just walking around the city with its castles and quaint shops, and church bells ringing in the back ground... it just felt like the europe i had always imagined. minus of course, the round four-stall open men's urinals spotted every so often around the city.

oh, and the bikes! ooh... the bikes! everyone and their mother rides a bike in amsterdam. some places are just full of bikes, like parking lots and there are literally hundreds of them lined up in a row. the kicker is that they all really truly look the same! they're all old school, rusty black bikes and for the life of me i've no clue how anyone knows which one is theirs! and we won't talk about the bike that fell down on its own with lisa standing two feet away from it during a photo op.

the lesbian bars we went to were less than stellar though. not much of a crowd anywhere, really. as it always happens, the one lesbian bar that was actually fun (and featured a gorgeous dutch/moroccan sister behind the bar with whom i chatted quite a bit) was found the very night before we were leaving. go figure. she later directed us toward the gay sunday night party in town, which was full of mostly gay white men who were really, very tall. now you may be thinking, well shit deshi, a lot of people are tall compared to you, but just ask lisa who herself is pretty damn tall.

i bought a painting at a sunday market and paid a lot of money for it even after the artist knocked down the price by €160 (almost $250)!! but it was worth it. i now officially own way more artwork than i know what to do with. could you all come by my house sometime and help me paint so i can finally put the shit up on my walls though? please?

speaking of spending lots of money... i bought a pair of shoes in amsterdam that just make me moist whenever i wear them.

so anyway, i promise to put up pics asap. you'll have to ask lisa to put one up of the fabulous bathroom we had at the hotel in amsterdam.

the concert at the paradiso was just outstanding. i couldn't even articulate how wonderful it was. you'll have to read lisa's entry to get a fair idea of how absolutely fucking breathtaking the show was. as i said before. it was the best live music i've ever witnessed and i've been to almost 100 shows in my life.

cuisines consumed in amsterdam: mediterranean food (falafel & chicken shashlik which was really damn good!); good ass indonesian food; the best garlic chicken sandwich on a brown oat bun which sounds so fucking simple yet was so fucking good. i'm missing something though, because surely we didn't just have 3 meals in 2 days.

part iv

spring

it's spring in chicago (finally). and i'm sprung. man oh man am i sprung.

i wanna live in amsterdam...

2005-04-12T21:31:00.000-05:00

* roundtrip airfare from chicago to amsterdam via london: $678

* 15 minute train ride on the heathrow express from london heathrow to paddington station: £16/$32 (using the spot rate of £1 = $2.02)

* 20 minute silver mercedes benz taxi ride at 5am to london heathrow driving at 125 miles per hour with me having uncontrollable visions of princess di and dodi: £40/$81.

* getting ripped off by a taxi driver in amsterdam to take us from centraal station to our hotel (he actually went around the city twice just to prove the ride was worth the money even though our hotel was only a 5 minute drive away): €15/$21 (using the spot rate of €1 = $1.41)

* metered taxi ride on our last day in amsterdam from our hotel to centraal station: €7/$10

* being witness to what i would call hands down the best show, musically, i've ever heard live (meshell ndegeocello and the spirit music jamia live at the paradiso in amsterdam on saturday, april 9th): absolutely positively god-fearingly fucking PRICELESS!!!

details on our trip to follow when time permits but i just want to say really quickly that i am a happy, happy soul. the concert at the paradiso (which faaaaaar outdid the show at london's jazz cafe) was out of this fucking world. they blew my fucking mind with their improvisational jazz. meshell ndegeocello and every member of the spirit music jamia are musical geniuses. that show...? well, it made me happy. i've never felt so happy after a show.

and bob's your uncle...

the year of travel and adventure®...

2005-03-31T12:12:00.000-06:00

ladies and gentleladies, meshell ndegeocello and the spirit music jamia present...

the lisa/deshi european tour!!!!

ok, so maybe not.

but close!

some of you already know from lisa's earlier posting that she and i are embarking on a two-country european tour to catch our hands-down-favorite-artist meshell ndegeocello in concert with her new project, the spirit music jamia.

i've been hesitant to blog about this because i didn't have all the necessary visas in hand to be absolutely fucking sure that i was indeed going. and i'm superstitious like that. but i just picked up my passport, freshly stamped with british and dutch visas, and am so ready to go!

basically it all started after i came back from bangladesh in january, feeling sad and blue that my vacation was over. so my way of getting past the sad and blue was to make a determination to myself that 2005 would be the year of travel and adventure!®. in light of that proclamation, i began listing out countries i wanted to visit, and one of the top five was the netherlands (or, specifically, the city of amsterdam). well, wouldntcha know as i was browsing through the freemyheart website, i came across meshell/smj's european tour dates and almost instantly formulated a plan in my head. i mean, i was already getting impatient with the fact that meshell hadn't been in chicago for over two years, not to mention i was dying to see smj live. by the way if you haven't heard their recently released cd dance of the infidels, you are sooooo missing out!!! so i figured, fuck it. cuz you know, sometimes you just gotta say fuck it. if she won't come to me, i'll just have to take my ass to europe. and since amsterdam was already on my list, i figured i'd just use the smj concert as my official excuse to spend money i don't need to be spending on a trip to amsterdam! meshell ndegeocello always makes for great excuses in my life. word up (shout out to summer!).

well, the next problem was deciding if i should go it alone, or if i should drag a friend with me. i scanned through the list of friends in my head, (which took me like four hours... haha just kidding!) and realized that none of my friends shared my passion for meshell's music. in fact, most of my friends don't even own her cd's as much as i try to shove her music down their throats! so, i figured i'd just wing it by myself. after all, i'd never visited a foreign country by myself so it would really be an adventure. in line with 2005 being the year of travel and adventure!® of course!

but then it dawned on me. the one person i know (a blogger whom i've met in real life) who would actually embark on such a crazy journey... is lisa!!!

so i sent her an email, (albeit a little skeptical as to whether or not she'd just think i was a babbling fool) laying out the plan and asking her if she'd be interested in joining me. and true to her meshell roots, she was as ecstatic about the idea as i was and had even thought about doing it on her own until she checked ticket prices.

and the rest is history. or soon to be, once we get back. ;)

so, we leave next wednesday and arrive in london the following morning. a british airways special offer ended up getting us two free nights in london which of course worked out extremely well because we'll be attending the meshell/smj show at london's jazz cafe on friday night. then the next morning we arrive in amsterdam, catch meshell/smj (yes, again! pay attention!) that night, and then just chill in amsterdam for a few days before heading back to the good 'ol u s of a.

i'm so excited, i can hardly contain myself! i'm feeling all kindsa grown up now. i'm telling you man... 2005 is the year of travel and adventure!®.

see ya... suckas!

2005-03-28T09:24:00.000-06:00

there isn't quite anything like it in the world. to resign from a job you hate, full of certain people you've absolutely had enough of... there's just nothing like it. you all are well aware of how much i hated my job, right?

anyway, i've been on the hush hush about this because i'm just a tad superstitious that way... but i got an offer i couldn't really refuse and the rest is history. there was some drama involved with um... you know... having to take a certain test and all, but it's no longer a concern, and uh... amsterdam here i come!

so yeah. i turned in my letter of resignation on friday and my last day is next wednesday. it worked out really well because on wednesday, i finish my last day and head straight to the airport to meet up with lisa so we can hop on a plane to london for our european spirit music jamia tour. more on that later, i promise! then i get back from europe, have one day off, and start work the following day.

life is good. i have so many blessings to count. i'm fortunate to get another job in this economy, and i know this. but i cannot even begin to express to you how happy i am to know that after seven years of working for the same company day in, day out, i'm actually moving on...

don't get me wrong... i'll miss a bunch of folks i work with here... and while it hasn't really hit me the way it will on my last day, i'll definitely be taking a lot of memories with me...

gender (in)equality in islam...

2005-03-22T16:45:00.000-06:00

so, some of you may have heard that dr. amina wadud, pictured above, led a prayer session last friday in nyc. it's all a big deal and shit... because it's always been men who lead prayers. i'm all for it of course, and i hope more and more muslim women step up and try to level the playing field. but some of the comments coming out of this whole thing within the internet muslim community are just fucking ridiculous. so ridiculous, that i'm all riled up from reading some of these absolute asinine comments (especially on naseeb dot com which i hadn't even heard of until all the hoopla over a female prayer leader started swinging).

but you know, as riled up as i am, and as much as i can say about the topic, i don't think i will. i'm just not even gonna write about it. i can't. it'll take too long. i won't do it. you can't make me. it's almost 5p and i have to leave work anyway. so yeah, it ain't gonna happen. sorry.

the nostalgic feminist...

2005-03-22T09:09:00.000-06:00

back when i was a wee little teenager, i remember reading a quote that i absolutely loved. i was in the beginning stages of realizing the need for gender equality and my own personal reasons for being a feminist, and this quote summed a lot of it up for me. of course it comes from a very western perspective but rings true nonetheless. i recently ran across it again, almost 19 years later(!!), and it brought back memories of womens day celebrations and protest rallies from when i lived in bangladesh. those were some good ass days.

at any rate, i just thought i'd share it you...

"because a woman's work is never done and is underpaid or unpaid or boring or repetitious and we're the first to get fired and what we look like is more important than what we do and if we get raped it's our fault and if we get beaten we must have provoked it and if we raise our voices we're nagging bitches and if we enjoy sex we're nymphos and if we don't we're frigid and if we love women it's because we can't get a "real" man and if we ask our doctor too many questions we're neurotic and/or pushy and if we expect childcare we're selfish and if we stand up for our rights we're aggressive and "unfeminine" and if we don't we're typical weak females and if we want to get married we're out to trap a man and if we don't we're unnatural and because we still can't get an adequate safe contraceptive but men can walk on the moon and if we can't cope or don't want a pregnancy we're made to feel guilty about abortion and...for lots of other reasons we are part of the women's liberation movement."
~author unknown, quoted in the torch, 14 september 1987

a beautiful mind... an addendum

2005-03-20T16:39:00.000-06:00

more on corporate globalization and the "call center" industry in india:

"the call center industry is based on lies and racism. the people who call in are being misled into believing that they are talking to some white american sitting in america. the [indian] people who work in those call centers are told that they're not good enough for the market, that u.s. customers will complain if they find out their service is being provided by an indian. so indians must take on false identities, pretend to be americans, learn a 'correct' accent. it leads to psychosis.
one way of looking at this is to say, 'these people at least have jobs.' you could say that about prostitution or child labor or anything - 'at least they're being paid for it.' the premise is that either these workers don't have jobs or they have jobs in which they have to humiliate themselves. but is that the only choice? that's the question.
we hear all this talk about integrating the world economically, but there is an argument to be made for not integrating the world economically. because what is corporate globalization? it isn't as if the entire world is intermeshed with each other. it's not like india and thailand or india and korea or india and turkey are connected. it's more like america is the hub of this huge cultural and economic airline system. it's the nodal point... if america goes down, then everybody goes down. if tomorrow the u.s. decides that it wants these call center jobs back, then overnight this billion-dollar industry will collapse in india. it's important for countries to develop a certain degree of self-sufficiency."

i'm done reading the book, so that is all. but i urge you, if you've found any of this edifying, to ready more of her work. she's written countless essays, most of which are published for sale, that deal with important issues that face the world today. i personally am looking to get my hands on any and all of her writings.

a beautiful mind...

2005-03-19T11:30:00.000-06:00

this morning i read half of what has become one of the most engaging books i've read in a very, very long time. arundhati roy continues to move me with her fierce eloquence. and in addition to what i consider to be her beautiful mind, from the pics above you can see that she is strikingly beautiful to look at. but nevermind that.

i'm reading the checkbook and the cruise missile: conversations with arundhati roy which essentially chronicles a series of four long conversations between ms. roy and david barsamian.

the purpose of this entry isn't so much to review the book, than it is an acknowledgement of the intensity and brilliance of this passionate woman who speaks ever so eloquently of the struggles of the oppressed (particularly in india)... so much so that i wanted to share with you some excerpts that i found particularly enlightening and/or moving. the simplicity with which she expresses her views allows for the kind of articulation i can only dream to possess one day. perhaps some of these passages will move you the way they did me. or perhaps not. i'll let you decide:

on the notion of development:

"when you travel from india to the west, you see that the western notion of 'development' has to do with a lack of imagination. a taming of the wilderness, of the human soul. an inability to understand that there is another way to live. in india, the anarchy and the wilderness still exist. but still, how are you going to persuade a naga sadhu - whose life mission has been to stand naked on one leg for twenty years or to tow a car with his penis - that he can't live without coca-cola? it's an uphill task."

on nature:

"i think it was in tanzania that farmers began to shoot hippos because they were raiding and destroying the crops. when the hippos disappeared, so did the fish in the river. later they discovered that these fish used to lay eggs in the shit of the hippos. when human beings don't respect something that they don't understand they end up with consequences that you cannot possibly foretell.

the western notion of thinking that you must understand everything can also be destructive. why can't we just be satisfied with not understanding something? it's all right. it's wonderful not to understand something. to respect and revere the earth's secrets... must everything be poked at and prodded and intervened in and understood?"

on taking sides vs. being a neutral observer:

"once you've seen certain things, you can't un-see them, and saying nothing is as political an act as speaking out. there is no innocence. that i'm sure about. there's no innocence and there isn't any sense in which any of us is perfect or not invested in the system. if i put money in the bank it's going to fund the bombs and the dams. when i pay tax, i'm investing in projects i disagree with. i'm not a completely blameless person campaigning for the good of mankind. but from that un-pristine position, is it better to say nothing or to say something? one is not powerful enough nor powerless enough not to be invested in the process. most of us are completely enmeshed in the way the world works. all our hands are dirty."

on being a writer:

"just the fact that you're known as somebody who's willing to speak out opens you to a universe of conflict and pain and incredible suffering. it's impossible to avert your eyes. sometimes of course, it becomes ludicrous. a woman rang me up and said, 'oh, darling, i thought that piece on the narmada (river dam project) was fantastic. now could you do one for me on child abuse?' and i said, 'sure. for or against?'"

on the united states:

"it's not that i haven't been to america or to a western country before. but i haven't lived here, and i can't seem to get used to it. i haven't got used to doors that open on their own when you stand in front of them, or looking at these supermarkets stuffed with goods. but when i'm here, i have to say that i don't necessarily feel 'oh, look how much they have and how little we have.' because i think americans themselves pay such a terrible price... in terms of emotional emptiness. watching michael moore's film bowling for columbine you suddenly get the feeling that here is a country with an economy that thrives on insecurity, on fear, on threats, on protecting what you have - your washing machines, your dishwashers, your vacuum cleaners - from the invasion of killer tomatoes or evil women in saris or whatever other kind of alien. it's a culture under seige. every person who gets ahead gets ahead by stepping on his brother, or sister, or mother, or friend. it's such a sad, lonely, terrible price to pay for creature comforts. i think people here could be much happier if they could let their shoulders drop and say 'i don't really need this. i don't really have to get ahead. i don't really have to win the baseball match. i don't really have to be the highest earner in my little town.' there are so many happinesses that come from just loving and companionship and even losing."

on globalization:

"we ought not to speak only about the economics of globalization, but about the psychology of globalization. it's like the psychology of a battered woman being faced with her husband again and again and being asked to trust him again. that's what is happening. we are being asked by the countries that invented nuclear weapons and chemical weapons and apartheid and modern slavery and racism - countries that have perfected the gentle art of genocide, that colonized other people for centuries - to trust them when they say that they believe in a level playing field and the equitable distribution of resources and in a better world. it seems comical that we should even consider that they really mean what they say."

at the risk of publishing the entire book right here on this blog, i'll end with that one. and i'm only half way through the book.

to order your own copy of the checkbook and the cruise missile, go here.

oh... just one more itsy bitsy thing... ms. roy paraphrases a quote from winston churchill that i found particularly horrifying considering he was considered "the master statesman [who] stood alone against fascism and renewed the world's faith in the superiority of democracy" by time magazine. in 1937, in reference to the palestinian struggle, he said: "i do not believe that the dog in the manger has the right to the manger simply because he has lain in there for so long. i do not believe that the red indian has been wronged in america, or the black man has been wronged in australia, simply because they have been displaced by a higher, stronger race."

nosey motherfucker...

2005-03-15T17:05:00.000-06:00

i hate sitting in cubicles. and i'm beginning to develop a severe dislike for the guy who sits in front of me. we're actually friends.. despite several differences between us.. like the fact that he's a republican among other slightly less heinous attributes.

anyway, lately i've been noticing a trend with him. he claims to be somewhat hard of hearing, yet every so often he'll ask me about something that i just got through discussing with someone else on the phone! i mean, i realize cubicles are open spaces and i try to keep my voice down and all. but this shit is starting to get ridiculous! it's happened like 12 days in a row now where he'll ask me a question about something that i didn't even bring up in conversation. and later i'll realize that he must've overheard me talking about it with a, b or c on the phone. and i'm like.. whatsthefuck? the other day i called my dentist to verify my next appointment and considering it didn't qualify as a secretive conversation i wasn't all trying to be hush hush about it. but as soon as i hung up he turned around to say, "so how do you like your new dentist?".

again.. whatsthefuck?

at any rate... i've been trying to keep my voice down lately and this morning i had a particularly low-toned and very confidential conversation with a woman who used to work at my office. as soon as i hung up, he goes "were you just talking to so-and-so? how's she doing?". at this point i'm fucking furious. i mean, damn.. at least pretend like you weren't trying to eavesdrop on my conversation! i personally never hear any of his conversations because frankly, i don't give a flying fuck who he's talking to or what he's talking about! i'm either too busy working or fucking off to even bother paying attention to what is going on in front of me in his cube. can i not get the same courtesy?

so this afternoon at lunch, as we were talking about random shit, he proceeded to bring up yet another topic of conversation regarding my life that i just chatted with a friend about over the phone... and this was the last straw. i looked at him point blank and said "damn, p. you either have way better hearing than you claim to have or i'm one loud motherfucker when i talk on the phone... do you listen to all my conversations?!!". and of course he replies "i try not to" to which i replied "sure you do" and left it at that.

i'm so annoyed. i'm so ready to get the fuck out of this place. when a person you actually used to like starts annoying you, you know it's time to go.

it's not even green... the card, that is...

2005-03-10T20:30:00.000-06:00

well folks... i'm sure many of you have read and sympathized (or not) with me over all my green card woes... and i'm sure that if you haven't witnessed it personally, you've most certainly witnessed bureaucracy at its best vicariously through reading about my experiences... and finally, i'm sure you're really, really hoping to god this isn't another deshigrrrl bitchfest about yet another glitch in the process in her ever-sought-after road to becoming a permanent resident of these here united states of m'erka.

well, hold your breath.

ok, no.. just kidding. it's all over folks!! yours truly has officially been granted permanent residency (i.e. green card approved). i am no longer a non-immigrant "alien", but a permanent resident "alien" which basically means that i can do pretty much everything you americans can do except vote in major elections. i can travel freely in and out of the country, i can quit my accounting profession and flip burgers at mickey d's, i can go to canada and mexico without a visa (damn.. maybe i should check on that before i get my hopes up), etc. etc. etc.

it's a great feeling, ya'll. i've been going through this process officially for five long ass years, but it almost feels like the process technically started back when i first came to the states for college in 1991. i mean, i always knew at the back of my mind that i wanted to have the option to live here, and for that i needed a green card. so i had to go through all the proper channels of adhering to strict rules, getting a job (in my major) right out of college, applying for an H-1B visa which lasts 6 years, and in the meantime trying to convince my employers that it is indeed 120% worth it for them to go through mounds of paperwork and legal fees to sponsor me for my green card. of course as much as i bitch about my employers, i am indeed grateful to a few key individuals at my job who put in a good word for me that resulted in them agreeing to the sponsorship.

and trust me when i say, there were times when i just wanted to quit and go back home. a really good (male) friend of mine even offered to marry me for convenience when things started looking kinda bleak.. but i declined.. because i wanted to do it the right way. and i did. and it took a while. but now it's done.

i got word from my lawyer that i was approved last friday, but the official hotness, i.e. the official letter of approval arrived in the mail today.

so yeah.. with a deep breath and a sigh.. i say, congratulations to me on the end of a long ass journey. cheers!

i'm sick of being sick...

2005-03-08T10:58:00.000-06:00

i've been under the weather for the past week. and i'm sick of it. although i managed to milk 3 days off work from the whole ordeal, i must say i'd much rather be healthy right about now. being sick sucks ass.

ok.. so while sitting at home on the couch in front of the tv (as all sick folks do), i realized that my cable company was offering free showtime. my cable company also provides this on demand thing where you can go back and watch shows you missed or movies in a database so long as you have a subscription to the channel. long story short, with the free week of showtime i managed to figure out that i could get in and watch episodes of the L word that i never saw. in the past, since i never had showtime, i've had to rely on michelle's recaps which were oftentimes quite funny to read. but i figured i'd go ahead and watch a few episodes to get the visuals, and check out my girl pam grier in the process.

i know i'm a year late and several dollars short with my views, but the show is a fucking drag. granted, i've only seen 3 episodes, older ones at that, but for the most part i was bored off my ass! i've met so many lesbians recently who refuse to make sunday night plans because they're all eager to go home and watch this boring ass show! ok, granted.. it's the ONE lesbian themed show on tv and for that alone, i suppose i can give it props.. but.. it's so lame!

i mean.. first of all, every single scene that had anything to do with jenny had me bored to fucking tears. why is she even on that fucking show? she's so boring and so undynamic.. what is her fucking point? she's like a waste of valuable airtime (not because she's bi) because she's so bland and boring.

secondly, despite the fact that 98.5% of the cast is white, not a single one of them even look like lesbians! and i'm sorry, but i say this because in real life, a lot (i'm not saying all) of lesbians look like fucking lesbians! and this shane chick.. she's supposed to be butch to the point where harry can't tell that she's a girl? gimme a fucking break. even i'm more butch than she is, and i really ain't that butch!

even the acting is for the most part, pretty bad. maybe they've all improved in the second season, but damn. i know l word fans are gonna jump down my throat for this and diss me for making snap judgements and all, but the truth is, it just wasn't as enchanting as i thought it had the potential to be.

ok, ok.. let me stop. i just had to throw in my 2 cents because that's what i do.. but i mean.. it's cool and all that this lesbian show is thriving and all.. but i don't see the big to do over it. if nothing else i know for sure that it's not worth spending the extra monthly fee to get showtime. not to mention it doesn't fit an iota of my reality of lesbian life, but then again i'm not white, rich and living in l.a. either. but by no means should you cry for me..

13 random things about me...

2005-03-03T18:52:00.000-06:00

at the suggestion of summer (and i'm even copying her format) here's some random shit you've never wanted to know about me:

13 random things i love:

1. my ipod
2. pool tables/playing pool
3. live music/concerts
4. swimming
5. square patterns
6. activism
7. traveling
8. comfy pajamas
9. waking up to the sounds of life in bangladesh
10. warm weather
11. hanging out at my neighborhood coffee shop with a good book
12. a nice, long, hot shower with good water pressure
13. my new bed

12 movies:

1. fire
2. heat
3. bound
4. a bronx tale
5. boys don't cry (hard to watch, but a poignant flick)
6. kids (also hard to watch; also poignant)
7. wolf
8. the sixth sense
9. st. elmo’s fire
10. mo better blues
11. great expectations
12. monster

11 good bands/artists:

1. meshell ndegeocello
2. bob marley
3. lenny kravitz
4. prince
5. u2
6. gil scott heron
7. ani difranco
8. annie lennox/eurythmics
9. a tribe called quest
10. tracy chapman
11. sade

10 things about me physically/personality:

1. vertically challenged at 5’ 2”
2. mellow
3. laid back/easy going
4. terribly opinionated
5. adaptable
6. obsessive about some things
7. i have a little belly, though some have called it cute
8. not afraid to cry
9. sometimes stubborn
10. shy

9 favorite songs:

1. mellow mood – bob marley
2. faithful – meshell ndegeocello
3. sister – lenny kravitz
4. the bottle – gil scott heron
5. is it a crime? - sade
6. i wanna be your lover - prince
7. the promise – tracy chapman
8. educated guess – ani difranco
9. mary magdalene – meshell nedegeocello

8 favorite foods/drinks:

1. chicken curry!
2. chamomile tea
3. samosa
4. water
5. absolute citron/cranberry juice
6. shrimp dopiaza (curry)
7. stir fried noodles with beef or chicken
8. larb gai (thai dish with ground chicken and spices)

7 things i always wear:

1. my watch
2. a necklace my mom gave me when i graduated high school
3. hanes hipsters (and um.. yeah.. i look that good in them.. sure, uh huh)
4. vs second skin satin bras
5. flats, never heels
6. pants, never skirts
7. t-shirts

6 pet peeves:

1. people who aren’t punctual
2. men who come to my house and leave the toilet seat up
3. piss remains on toilet seats
4. mixing pork items with non-pork items on the same plate
5. ripe smelling bums that stink up an entire train
6. people who have no spatial consideration

5 things i touch everyday

1. my face
2. my hair
3. my toothbrush
4. soap
5. tv remote to turn on the news

4 shows i watch:

1. west wing
2. nip/tuck
3. golden girls
4. cnn headline news

3 celebrities i have a crush on:

1. meshell ndegeocello
2. lenny kravitz
3. johnny depp

2 current wishes:

1. to quit my job, travel the world and end up a beach bum
2. to live a fulfilling existence that i can look back on fondly

1 person you could spend the rest of your life with:

1. myself

you win some, you lose some..

2005-02-25T09:56:00.000-06:00

today, friday, is a really weird day for me. it started off weird with an unexpected phone call in the middle of the night which then led to some really, really weird and crazy dreams. i can't get into details behind the phone call, but let's just say it didn't leave me in the best of spirits, and it's carrying over into today. i'm a little saddened actually.

but it's friday, so i'll make the most of it. my social calendar for the weekend is way too hectic for my own good, and it wasn't really planned that way.. shit just sort of started presenting itself. it also doesn't help that it's tax season and i'm busy as hell.

speaking of tax season, for the first time in my life, i owe money to the irs. and it ain't chump change. i'm pretty annoyed. i was looking forward to a refund. you think maybe if i started one of those paypal thingies, i could get 1,500 visitors to donate $1 each between now and april 15th? yeah, i didn't think so either.

i want to get this really badly. i want to sell my honkin' huge 51 cd changer stereo and just buckle down and get it. it'll take up practically no space, it'll even be portable, and when you think about it, it's actually quite genious. and i've never owned anything bose before..

if you haven't heard ani difranco's new album, knuckle down, you probably should (if you dig ani that is). i like it. there are several songs on there that i love, but i'd have to say manhole and knuckle down are my favorites. she's playing two shows in chi this weekend, but i'll be catching the sunday night show at the intimate vic theater. here's hoping all the annoying teeny bopper fans will be at the saturday show at the auditorium theater..

i saw million dollar baby last weekend. it was very moving. i was very moved. i'm glad i saw it but.. it was hard. next up, hotel rwanda.. but i really have to prepare myself for a movie like that. speaking of genocide.. check out the link on the side bar for info on how you can help with the crisis in darfur. i wasn't really interested in jumping on the wristband bandwagon, but this cause is definitely one i'd join the trend for.. it's seemingly the most overlooked and urgent issue in the world today. too bad they don't have gold mines or diamonds in darfur. if they did, there might be u.s. and other western troops over there as we speak, helping to end the violence. there are other ways to help besides wearing a wristband so follow the link if you'd like more info.

i played poker with some friends the other night.. texas holdem.. it was a lot of fun despite losing $10. i'm learning all the lingo now.. blinds, flops, etc.. the good thing, though, is that i'm supposed to be joining some co-workers for a serious game next weekend.. so it was good for me to get in my first round with folks that actually didn't mind teaching me the game without taking advantage of my novice. the co-workers on the other hand are sure to be brutal.

how's the smoking going you might ask? i don't know. i'm revisiting day 2 for the 12th time. i didn't smoke all day yesterday. i even went out to a bar with a friend and managed not to smoke at all (she's trying to quit too). there were about 12 different instances when i could've easily tried to bum one off someone, but i resisted. i kept telling myself that if i could get past an evening at a bar without smoking, then i'm two steps further than usual.. and i did it. not one drag. and actually, the beer tasted different without a cigarette. it tasted good. tonite i have a dinner invitation to hang out with some bengali friends. the nice thing is that none of them smoke, so hopefully it'll be an easy night for me.

i've made a lot of new friends in the past few weeks.. and it's nice.. i'm surprised at my own openness in doing so, as well. i'm usually really shy and introverted, but lately that hasn't been the case. i suppose after my other friend fucked me over a few weeks ago i realized that in life, sometimes you win some and sometimes you lose some...

brace yourself...

2005-02-22T15:40:00.000-06:00

my teeth are jacked up. so says my dentist. well, not all of them.. just a select few.

i hate when you go to the dentist with one issue and come out with 12. i mean.. after my tooth extraction in december, i figured all i had to do was get a bridge to close the grand canyon gap in the back left side of my mouth, but i wanted to wait until i got back from vacation to do it. but then i got lazy. so in the meantime, i've been chewing all of my food almost exclusively on the right side of my mouth... until of course my right jaw starting hurting in the middle of the night a couple of nights in a row. so armed with my layman's understanding of dentistry i concluded that i probably needed to go ahead and get that bridge so i could go back to chewing on both sides like normal human beings.

so i went to the dentist this morning (a new dentist at that, because i hated the guy i went to before) and after doing a full set of 18 x-rays and a physical check of my teeth and gums, he pretty much dismissed the chewing factor as the reason behind my jaw aches. he said that my bite was off, and probably has been for years and years and that the only way to fix that would be to get.. (yikes!!) braces. he'd have to do some work on a few cavity-ridden teeth first before i go to the orthodontist, but it could happen as soon as the middle of this year.

now, truth be told, my shit should've been in braces back in the stone age when i was a teenager. but i never really cared. my parents sort of didn't care either, and i guess i don't blame them entirely.. only a little bit though.. cuz i mean, what the fuck do i know about scheduling regular dental check ups when i'm a teenager?! i'm pretty sure i had way more important things on my mind at the time.. like how to score a duran duran poster in exchange for a glow in the dark pen, for instance.

but that's ok. i suppose it's far better to get braces at the age of 32 when i'm secure and stable and not worried about public opinion, rather than as an immature, self-conscious teen. i mean.. fuck it.. if tom cruise can do it, then so can i dammit!

but maaaan, braces and psoriasis? all the ladies will be lining up to get a piece of me.. i can just see it right now!

perhaps i should scope out a girlfriend before the braces come in (shh.. don't tell anyone i said that!). then if she leaves me after i get braces i can blame her for being trifling and superficial! ;)

i-bummer..

2005-02-19T17:08:00.000-06:00

so, perhaps i'm not completely comprehending how i-tunes gets their music/licensing/whatever that allows me to buy tunes for my ipod for the low price of 99c... but i'm a little disenchanted with a couple of things.

first of all, how the hell do they have "partial" albums?? did they just get lazy or run out of money and decide not to buy the license for the "whole" album?

and while the concept of i-tunes certainly has its merits, i'm a bit baffled at why they wouldn't have a particular artist's entire collection.. i mean.. again, perhaps i just don't understand how they get the rights to the music... for example, (purely hypothetical example here) does prince decide to let i-tunes sell lovesexy and not purple rain ?

another issue: i really dig ub40's version of many rivers to cross, and i-tunes literally has 40 different artist's versions of it.. but not ub40's.

and finally, i'm in absolute shock and horror at the fact that they do not have a single song by gil scott heron. can i get "the bottle" please? please???!!!

damn...

smoke free: day 2 - revisited

2005-02-17T09:48:00.000-06:00

hmm.. yes.. well.. ahem.

i didn't last very long at pool league. i tried. i really did. every time one of my teammates lit up a cigarette i cringed in my seat trying really hard not to ask for one. but you see, the problem with not asking for one, is that it then becomes the one thing you constantly think about until you finally do ask for one and subsequently light up. it's like the thought of that one cigarette, just a small request away, consumes your entire being and prevents you from being able to concentrate on anything else. your brain becomes fixated.

so you justify it a million different ways. "just one" you say, and that's it. or "i can't be that hard on myself.. maybe i can allow myself one once in a while", or "i wish i could just be a social smoker, dammit!". see....? it's the easiest thing in the world to justify having a cigarette. and so i did. i finally broke down and asked for one.

did i enjoy it, you ask? eh.. sort of. after almost two days of not smoking it feels a little weird, but it really doesn't take long to get used to it all over again. and so i had yet another one that same night. and then i chided myself for doing it because it essentially brought me back to square one. that's the problem with trying to quit smoking. it's so easy to get back to square one, yet it's so hard to get several days of abstinence under your belt.

so.. i'm back at day 2. only, tonight i have plans with some friends to go see a play at the steppenwolf called intimate apparel. normally it would be cool, except they're smokers, and we're meeting for drinks before hand and that is always a dangerous spot for an ex-smoker to be in. but can i really even truly call myself an ex-smoker yet? no. not really. maybe if i can go by for a year without smoking..

perhaps two days from now, i'll be revisiting this revisit. who knows? what i do know though is that just two days of not smoking has made a tremendous difference in my lung capacity as far as swimming goes. last night i swam 3 laps in a row without stopping, when before it was a struggle to do 2.

these no-smoking progress reports maybe boring and repetitive in nature, so consider yourself warned.

smoke free: day 2

2005-02-15T11:48:00.000-06:00

before you go patting me on the back for making it to day 2, let me just inform you all that i've done this a million times. i've actually lost count of how many times i've tried to quit smoking. the longest i ever lasted was 110 days.

i clearly remember the day too.. when c and i originally met, i had just quit smoking about 2 weeks and found out that she was a smoker.. and smoked my brand! so even though we started seeing each other i felt pretty good about the fact that i was ok with her smoking around me.

well, we had a bit of an argument one day about 3 months into our relationship, and as soon as we parted ways i went straight to the store across the street and bought a pack of camel lights. but it really wasn't the argument that made me smoke. the argument was just an excuse to do something i'd been wanting to do for weeks.

so anyway, that was pretty much the last time i really, really, consciously put any kind of effort into not smoking. and that was 3.5 years ago! so now that i am consciously trying again, i figured it wouldn't be a bad idea to have little blog notes to track my progress.

did you know that i smoked my first cigarette when i was 8 years old? yep.. that's pretty sad isn't it? my best friend at the time, who's dad was a chain smoker, stole a cig from him and we both went down to a secluded spot near our building and smoked it. the irony of it all is that she never smoked, and i became addicted later in life. i think i pretty much picked up the habit when i was 16. sure, you can blame it on peer pressure or what have you, but the truth of the matter is that i thought it was cool. and of course i was totally stupid in my teens and never gave heed to all the warnings of addiction and lung cancer. not that i didn't think it would happen to me, i just didn't pay attention to it.

so now, 15-16 years later, i'm ready for this monster to be gone. but it's sooo hard! for those of you who've never been addicted, let me just say that it's harder than anything else i've done in my life. everything else is just peanuts compared to this. you have no idea how easy it is for me to justify a having a drag or "just one" cigarette.

but yesterday wasn't so bad. i smoked so much this weekend that my chest was actually in knots from all the abuse. once you get through the work day, it's sort of easy, but when i got home and had dinner, i pretty much craved the hell out of a cigarette! so instead, i turned off the tv, grabbed the book i'm reading (fasting, feasting by anita desai) and went to my bedroom at the oh-so-early hour of 8:30pm. i think i was asleep by 9.

today however, will be even harder methinks. i have pool league tonight; smokers all over the place, including 3 on my team. i'll have to do everything in my power to get through tonight, and if i do, i think i'll be okay.. for now. after day 3 it supposedly gets easier because by then, all the chemicals are out of your system. but then how does that explain day 110 last time i quit?? well, from speaking with several ex-smokers, i've made a mental note in my brain that the craving never really goes away. it just gets easier to say no.

if you've never smoked a cigarette in your life, i absolutely urge you never to do it. and if you have, and are thinking about quitting, do whatever you can to quit. i actually have some zyban handy just in case but i'm hoping not to have to use it.

smoking is for suckers. i'm gonna try to quit while i still haven't been diagnosed with emphysema or lung cancer. and also because i think it's time to be the change and prevent my niece from ever picking up such a filthy habit.

draggin' out the birthday..

2005-02-13T13:55:00.000-06:00

well, my birthweek is officially over, i am officially 32, and my hangover yesterday morning officially reminded me of that fact as i struggled to move around with any sense of grace or dignity. i managed to waste away the day, sleeping, after stumbling home on sunday morning at 6am! and to top it off, it rained all day yesterday which made for perfect under-the-covers reading and dozing.

i invited a bunch of my friends to meet me at joie de vine saturday night to cap off the birthday celebrations. almost everyone came! it was fantastic to be surrounded by all but a few of my closest friends in chicago. everyone seemed to really enjoy the ambience of the bar and had a great time. needless to say the drinks (mostly wine) were flowing freely along with flights of cheese and chocolate! at one point yours truly was busted double fisting with a glass of wine in each hand! yes, i was drunk, like i haven't been in ages.

but i have to admit, as gross as this is going to sound, i was very proud of myself at one point after taking note of the rumble in my stomach... i very calmly walked over to the bathroom, and because there was a line, i basically turned around and very calmly walked out of the bar, turned the corner into the alley, grabbed hold of a pole, and took care of business. yes, it was like that. it had to be done. but at least no one knew about it. that's a sure sign of age and maturity no? being able to handle oneself enough to puke in private? haha..

so yeah, i felt much better after that, and well.. the party went on. a couple of us ended up going to the crocodile afterwards for some dancing, but it closed not long after we got there. that was followed by late night eats at the white palace grill which i will never again go to because the food absolutely sucked ass. i don't know if it was because of my drunk ass tastebuds or what.. but you'd have to really work hard to fuck up some pancakes and hash browns...

choose your friends wisely..

2005-02-07T11:22:00.000-06:00

sunday morning drama is the last thing a person could want. sunday mornings are supposed to be special. that one last weekend morning where you can sleep in as late as you want, and linger around in your pajamas for as long as humanly possible.

but this past sunday morning you woke up to some outrageous drama which essentially forced you to give up a friend you'd known since 1994.

you see... sometimes, you find yourself in a really fucked up situation and analyze it to death only to realize that there are just some people in this world that don't have a place in your life. you've played the role of big sister to them. you've tried and tried for years and years to be patient and tolerant and understanding and forgiving. you've tried not to be judgemental and gave the person the benefit of the doubt over and over again because you figured that one day the person would grow up and realize the true meaning of friendship. you've been loyal to this person, as you are to all your friends, and you've been there to bail them out of difficult and/or embarrassing situations. bottom line: you went out of your way to do all of these things because the person is your friend and you had faith in the person's ability to be your friend.

but then one day something happens to make you realize that the person who you thought was your friend didn't so much as think twice to use your friendship as leverage for their own selfish needs. not only did they use your friendship, they used your absence as a way to manipulate the situation to their advantage.

as a result you just sort of sit there, baffled, as if knocked in the head with a rock. you find yourself having been put in an embarrassing and awkward position, wondering how in the hell this person had the audacity and complete lack of respect for you to do such a thing. and you play the scenario back and forth in your head and you wonder if you could've, would've or should've seen it coming and then you finally come to the all important conclusion that it was probably your own naivete along with the other person's lack of common sense and generally immature disposition that got you in this position.

but at the end of the day, after the initial anger and boiling blood vessels subside, you weigh the pros and cons of the friendship and ask yourself some very crucial questions: "has this person enriched your life in any way?" and the answer is "sort of". followed by: "is being this person's friend more of a chore than a joy?" and the answer to that is a resounding "yes". but then you also have to follow up with the question of whether a drastic change is necessary and whether or not that drastic change will actually make your life easier. and the answer to that is, well.. yes. and so you decide from that point on that this person is no longer your friend. and it makes you sad, and it makes you nostalgic, but it also makes you relieved to know that you no longer have to associate with someone who has taken advantage of you and your kindness and your trust and the friendship you've given them for 11 years. a line has been crossed and there's just no going back. once they drag your family into their mess, it's just.all.over.

so at the age of 32, you realize that you really do have to pick your friends wisely. and you wonder, deep down inside, why it took so long to come to that very important revelation.

ma...

2005-02-01T16:49:00.000-06:00

remember that post i had a few weeks before my trip home where i bitched (i do that a lot huh?) about having to get a london visa, etc? right.. well if i managed to express my rage with that situation, you might want to close your ears (or eyes) as i express my fury over this little morsel of absolute insanity i'm about to divulge.

[taking a deep breath; calming myself down; trying to prepare to write without using "fuck" too many times..]

you know what? fuck it. i am woman so hear me fucking roar.

let me share with you some fucking bullshit that came to my attention today. i went to see my immigration attorney because she got something in the mail from the powers that be (re: my green card) requesting additional information to verify the details of my parents. now, you all know how much i love my country. i love bangladesh like i love myself. but it turns out that when i was born, the details on my birth certificate failed to properly identify one absolutely crucial aspect of my birth. confused? yeah. me too. let's play a game shall we? let's play find the missing link..

now, my birth certificate lists several details about my birth and just for shits and grins i'll indulge you in the list of items:

1. serial #
2. # in register
3. date of birth
4. place of birth
5. name, if any
6. sex
7. name of father
8. name of grandfather
9. father's residence
10. religion of child's father
11. name of reporter of birth
12. when registered
13. remarks, if any
14. signature of officer in charge of register

let's see.. anybody notice something missing here? something crucial? someone crucial??? ummm... my MOTHER maybe??? my poor mother carried me in her womb for nine long ass months!!!! and it wasn't easy either. i weighed 7.5 lbs when i popped out one fine morning after hours of causing my mother tremendous labor pains. and do you know where on this historical document her name is listed? i'll tell you. it's on line # 11. yep.. waaaay down on the list. she's not reported as my mother, she's reported as the REPORTER OF BIRTH. like, fuck the fact that she did all the work, she's just the reporter. fuck the fact she carried me for nine months, gave birth to me, lost blood and sweat over me.. she's just the reporter of my birth. almost like just a witness, if you will.

they even identify my grandfather (rip) on the damn certificate and not my mother!

[blood boiling again for the fifth time today over the same thought]

it pains me to even think of the oppressively patriarchal nature of this little document that announced my arrival into the world. and the sad thing is that this piece of paper is currently the only thing holding up my green card. the fact that the imbeciles that (used to) run my country are incapable of recognizing the importance of including a line for "mother" on such an important document just makes me cringe in shame and disgust. and in my opinion all this shit basically stems from muslim law regarding property rights. nevermind the fact that as women, both my sister and i only get my father's property if his brothers are kind enough to pass it on. but when it comes to property rights in bangladesh, it's more important who my father and grandfather are than the queen who gave me life.

but anyway, it's not so much the fact that this is holding up my green card that makes me fucking tremble with disgust. it's the fact that the authorities back in the day didn't give a flying fuck about women. they refused to even acknowledge the fact that children have mothers and that birth certificates couldn't possibly be complete without there being a mother involved. what the fuck???

so now my parents have to find a document that properly identifies and designates the three most important people involved in the scenario of my birth. me, my mom and my dad.

i talked to my sister about this and she said the law has recently changed and that "mother's name" has now been added to all current and future birth certificates.

bangladesh fucking jindabad.

promise me you'll quit smoking...

2005-01-30T19:51:00.000-06:00

the weekend is pretty much officially over. and i made an impulse buy yesterday. sure, i needed it, but it wasn't urgent. but i fell in love with it and therefore i bought it. pretty simple, no?

i'm talking about a bed. saturday morning some friends and i had brunch at charlie's ale house followed by a casual stroll up and down clark street in andersonville. all of us just recently became homeowners and so furniture (window) shopping has become quite common for us. but the bed is really gorgeous. it's a dark cherry wood queen size platform bed and if you didn't know, deshigrrrl loves platform beds. it wasn't back breakingly expensive, but lavish nonetheless considering the current time, circumstances and other plans in mind that obviously involve spending more money in the near future. but hopefully a tax refund and profits from my business will help.

and i deserve it dammit! having slept on a futon my entire college life i only bought a bed (read mattress, frame & boxspring) in 1999. no headboard, no footboard, just the basics. so now i have a real bed.. an adult bed.. with a very stylish headboard might i add! i'm gonna sleep real good next weekend (they deliver on saturday!).

other than that the weekend has been pretty non-eventful but busy. gotta get ready for tax season again.. have been getting calls from anxious refund seekers already! i'm so not ready but of course i need to be. i'm actually still in vacation mode. it's hard to come out of that. not to mention the 3-2 is about ready to hit which always reminds me that i have lots of growing up to do... fast!

ok, well.. excuse the boring entry, but i felt like gushing about my new bed and now i'm done.

new years eve.. dhaka style..

2005-01-21T16:09:00.000-06:00

there should be a law against traveling between countries that have drastically different weather patterns. how does one's body, really truly adjust from 70 degrees to 5? it shouldn't be humanly possible. i should be dead right now.

but i'm not. i am in fact living amidst the bitter cold that will always be chicago. and this having been my fourth day back at work makes me no less disgusted to be here.

but i shall bore you not with my effortless whining over the weather and my job. instead i'll continue with stories and tidbits of my trip. i'm in the mood for storytelling, you see.. because the actual work i should be doing does absolutely nothing to excite my nerve endings.

how about i tell you all about my adventures on new years eve? ok, well a dear friend of mine who used to live in chicago and recently moved back to bangladesh, invited me to join him and his gurl and their friends for nye celebrations at the american club in dhaka. this was his pitch: "look, you'll be able to have american beer, american food, and hang out with american people".. to which i stared at him blankly for a good.. 12 minutes. now, why would i go all the way to bangladesh only to surround myself with all things american? at any rate, i knew where he was coming from.. he misses america. he misses american beer. i could've possibly related had i been in dhaka for oh, about a YEAR! but two weeks into my trip i wanted nothing to do with american anything. i wanted to be surrounded by all things deshi. because i am, after all deshigrrrl. [where's my cape?!]

i did, however, oblige because he's a dear friend of mine and i wanted to spend time with him, not to mention he took the liberty of already buying me the $25 ticket before i even agreed to go. so after about two hours of bad ravioli, stale miller lites and a horrible cover band that drew old white people onto the dance floor, i'd had enough. at promptly 11:30pm i bluntly informed him that i was leaving to go to another party at a turkish restaurant called topkapi. i had another group of friends meeting me there and i wanted to get there before the countdown.

i arrived at topkapi at 11:45pm and managed to run into my friends who were just arriving at the party around the same time. we drank and danced and mingled for a while until we realized that it was already past midnight and there was no sign of a countdown! how absolutely anti-climactic! nonetheless we continued with the festivities until about 12:30 when all of a sudden there appeared to be a little chaotic something going on towards the entrance of the restaurant. i'll spare you by making a long story short, but basically there was a scuffle involving some photographers who were outside of the gate and trying to get into the party. apparently there were some of dhaka's elite youngsters in attendance (i.e. the spawn.. err i mean son of a minister of parliament) and therefore a big deal was made over something or another and suddenly the music was turned off and a procession of police officers started crashing the party. i hate to be so vague, but frankly i really couldn't tell you what exactly happened to cause all the commotion. all i know is that soon after the scuffle, the police were raiding the party. keep in mind folks, as you wonder why the party was being raided, that bengalis (muslims) aren't allowed to have alcohol. that doesn't stop us, mind you..

so the madness continued for a while. not only was the music turned off, but the doors to the restaurant were closed and we were all asked to patiently wait for the chaos to die down before we could leave.

from my claustrophobic point of view, i was livid. i mean, we claustrophobes are always looking for a way out. so when homeboy (the owner) comes along to say we can't leave, my claustrophobic ass is ready to panic. but i managed to calm down and distracted myself with food and random run-ins with old friends, and before we knew it an hour and half passed when homeboy finally came back to say it was okay for us to leave.

so as we all made a bee-line towards the exit doors, i looked around and noticed that every single woman leaving the party had a head scarf or shawl or something with which they covered their faces. turns out the photographers were still outside the gates taking pictures of poeple coming out. now, i wasn't in a position to cover myself because you know, i was all dapper in my ann taylor suit.. but i'd be damned if i was the only dumb ass bengali woman who's picture got flashed on the front page of the local dailies! so i grabbed the free end of my friend's shawl and proceeded to cover my face too as we exited the party. and for a split second there i felt like a good little muslim girl (surely i jest).

the rest of the evening was smooth sailing as i continued on to the heritage restaurant at about 2:30am where things were much calmer, and several of my friends were already there turning the party out. even the folks who were at the american club ended up there later on. they all took turns chiding me for going to topkapi because it was a "kiddie party", and we all know that at the ripe old age of 31 i am no longer allowed to go to kiddie parties.

lesson learned.

i stumbled home to my sister's pad at around 5am. aside from the drama, it was a great night. i danced to prince, drank scotch and coke (which i rarely ever do), admired all the beautiful bengali sisters who all seemed to be entirely off limits from my lesbian point of view, and caught up with great friends from back in the day. what was most refreshing of all is that there i was, out and about on december 31st/january 1st and for once in a long, long, long ass time, i WASN'T FREEZING MY ASS OFF!

see? it all comes back to the weather. full circle.

back to life.. back to reality..

2005-01-15T03:15:00.000-06:00

wow.. this has been the longest vacation i've taken in a looooong ass time! and as we speak i am jetlagging like a mofo..

the trip back was.. exhausting! i barely slept on the plane even having only gotten 2 hours of sleep the night before. 10 hours to heathrow, 3 hour layover and 9 hours to o'hare. gruesome i tell you! the seats were uncomfortable as hell and all along the only thought in my head (aside from a safe return) was my bed.

ahh.. to have slept in my own bed this past night was, pun intended, dreamy.

obviously there's an element of excitement lacking when coming back to the grind of life in chicago versus vacationing in dhaka, so you gotta take what you can get.

but my trip home was fabulous! i really, really, really had a nice, relaxing and fun time with my family and friends. there were days when i had twelve thousand things to do and others when i literally camped out on my sister's humongous ass verandah, no one home but me. i lay out on oversized pillows, a cozy blanket because it was pretty nippy that day, and a good book (i'm reading life of pi by yann martel). and this went on for several hours, and i mean five or six, straight. that was perhaps the most peaceful time i enjoyed in dhaka.

other days found me waking up late to home made breakfasts of daal puris or bombay toast or parathas and omelettes.. hanging with my mom and throwing in my 2 cents for her daily crossword puzzle.. talking politics with my dad while watching cnn..

speaking of cnn asia.. it's so nice to see the diversity of their newscasters..

but i digress..

let's see.. i spent the last day of the year in a village called bhaluka which is about an hour and a half drive outside of dhaka. my dad organized a family picnic at my uncle's guesthouse so i got to see a ton of my relatives all at once. it was actually quite an enjoyable day.. and if it weren't for the fact that i had new years eve party plans that night, i would've been tempted to stay over. it was such a beautiful, peaceful and relaxing place. i think the only bit of physical exercise during my entire vacation was had while playing badminton with my cousins. the next morning my arms were sore, and i had to stop for a good minute or so to wonder what i had done to cause the soreness! but i love badminton.. i used to play all the time when i was growing up..

but i am so jetlagging. i guess i'll continue this later, cuz i need to sleep and establish some sense of a regular pattern before i start work in three days. ouch...

[title song plays in head..]

about a boy..

2005-01-09T05:09:00.000-06:00

i'm still in dhaka.. only 3 days left of my vacation. i'm definitely feeling a little sad about leaving.

but that's not what this entry is about. this entry is about a boy. i.e. me. i'm a boy. here in dhaka that is. never mind my vagina and my boobs and my general feminine nature. here in dhaka, and pretty much everywhere in bangladesh, i'm a boy.

from the moment i stepped foot on my country's soil, i've had to endure comments about the length of my hair, the lack of jewelery on my body, the lack of girly clothes in my suitcase and my general boyish disposition. uncles and aunts didn't recognize me from behind because they thought they were looking at a boy. my father tells me to grow my hair long, because i look like a boy. my mother chides me for sarcastically calling my bag a man purse. never mind the plethora of people on the streets and in shops that stare at me with the most confused looks on their faces trying to match the short hair and clothing with the protruding chest. even my sister while out shopping with me, often points out things that she thinks i should buy that are girly, or frilly, or sparkly. they think i do this on purpose. they think i go out of my way not to be girly, when in absolute fact, i never was girly to begin with. it's not about being a lesbian, or being butch or being averse to all things pink. it's me. it's all me. and at the age of damn near 32, if i can't be me, then what the fuck am i living for?

this afternoon, my niece, bless her heart, who is the girliest of all girls, and so adorably so, exchanged the following words with me:

niece: don't forget what we're supposed to do tomorrow!
me: umm... i forgot already! what was it again?
niece: you forgot? oh no..
me: i'm just kidding girl, i'm taking you to mango cafe after school, right?
niece: yes! oh, and could you do me a favor? when you get to my school, please please please don't come inside, just send the driver in.
me: why would i do that? do you think i'm going to embarass you in front of your friends?
niece: yes.. please, don't come inside, i'll be really embarassed.. please!
me: now, wait a minute, what exactly would you be embarassed about? i'm a pretty cool cat, wouldn't you say?
niece: yes, but you look like a boy!
me: ....

it's time to have a serious little chat with my niece about the dynamics and varieties of gender methinks. she's pretty smart, i think she'll understand.

south east asia..

2004-12-30T05:45:00.000-06:00

greetings from dhaka..

i hadn't planned on writing while here at home doing absolutely nothing of substance, but i felt compelled what with the recent goings on in south east asia. i still find myself in shock as the newpapers update the death toll which seems to be exponentially rising as a new day dawns and more bodies are discovered. i can't even begin to tell you how the hairs on my arm rise up whenever i watch the cnn or bbc coverage of the quake/tsunami.

the most ironic part is that my sister and i had every intention of visiting sri lanka, quite possibly around the time of the tsunami, except that once we figured out the cost vs. the sizes of our collective wallets we decided against it. and thank god that we did.

can you even imagine being on holiday (not to mention just living there, going about your day to day life) and relaxing on the beach feeling as though all is right with the world, when all of a sudden, without even a moments notice you're swept away and thrashed around mercilessly by 30 foot waves?? i can't. i just can't even fathom it.

it makes me wonder why we even bother to fight wars. what's the point? in a matter of seconds the entire world could explode and there wouldn't be a damn thing bush or rumsfeld or bin laden or saddam or any human being could do about it. not a damn thing.

there are millions of people in south east asia right now who will not be having a happy new year. but i still hope that those who can, will.

lovin' the ipod..

2004-12-13T09:04:00.000-06:00

sometimes i just don't put a lot of thought into certain decisions i make. let's get right to the point, shall we? i had a chipped molar on the bottom left side of my jaw that had already been through the ringer in terms of having had a root canal, etc. well, i was eating a toasted bagel of all things, when it chipped. i went to the dentist the friday before last and she basically said there was no saving the tooth because of all the work i had done on it previously, and that i would need to get it extracted. i wasn't in any pain, however, so there was really no rush, except for the fact that i kept getting food stuck in it, which annoyed me to no end. so i decided, what the hell it can't be that big of a deal, let me just go ahead and get it extracted before i leave for bangladesh so i can just get it over with and enjoy my vacation.

well, it turned to be a bigger deal than i thought.

i went to a referred oral surgeon this past saturday to get the tooth extracted. he took a look at it and said that because of blah blah blah, he would need to drill it to get it out. whatever, i'm numb, drill if you will so long as i don't feel it. well, the procedure took a bit longer than expected and my jaw was sore as hell from having to keep it open for so long, but it was done and the bad tooth was out.

the dentist said i'd be pretty sore and that i should expect some swelling, and he prescribed me tylenol with codeine and a 7 day course of antibiotics.

well, let me just say, thank god for the tylenol with codeine. that shit was a lifesaver!

anyway, after the numbness wore off, i started feeling around the area with my tongue and all of a sudden realized that there were areas of flesh missing from the inside of my cheek! the fucking doctor drilled the flesh off my fucking cheek! and the fucked up part about it is that my cheek was in more pain than the area surrounding my extracted tooth!

so now, i can't laugh, can't smile too hard, the left side of my cheek is slightly swollen, and i can't eat anything harder than fucking pasta. but i have been sneaking a couple of drags of a cigarette even though i'm not supposed to smoke.

i have a follow up with the butcher dentist tomorrow right before i get on the plane, and while i'm not sure if this flesh hacking comes with the territory of tooth extractions, i plan on letting him know that i'm not happy with his surgical skills.

i'm sure i'll be okay, but i just wish i had waited to do this when i got back from vacation because now it'll just make my 20 hour journey all the more uncomfortable.

you think tylenol with codeine works even better when you're 32,000 feet up in the air? i certainly hope so. and i hope it won't be long till my mouth heals so i can enjoy my mama's cooking!

satellite radio rocks...

2004-12-06T14:59:00.000-06:00

i've spent the past few days doing my least favorite thing: shopping.. for other people. well, not so much "other people", but my family. it's not that i mind spending money on my family, i just don't enjoy shopping. especially these days when everyone and their mother along with all fifteen of her kids are out and about. shopping cart rage is the new road rage, didntcha know?

but i managed to treat myself pretty nicely in the process. i found a swim shop out in the boonies, and while the sales gal was less than helpful, i managed to find a speedo swimsuit that wasn't granny looking. and it was on sale.

not only that, but as i was driving along I-94 i saw the brunswick home and billiard store. a couple of u-turns later i was inside the store absolutely drooling over a $13,000 pool table. man, that was one sexy looking table let me tell ya. but of course i already have a pool table and nowhere near $13 G's, so instead i came out of the store with a brown leather cover for my table which wasn't cheap, a brush for cleaning the table, and a set of billiard ball coasters. i seriously had to pause to stop myself from going too crazy in there.

oh, and did i mention i bought myself an ipod? yeah. i went ahead and did it. it should be arriving on friday with my name engraved on it for free. it started off with a request from my sister who wanted me to take one back for her when i go home next week. so in the process of shopping for my sister, i found myself thoroughly interested in getting one for myself as well. it just seemed like the right thing to do.

so yeah. i spent way too much money these past couple of days. *sigh*

i'm headed home next week. not sure if i'll have time to write before i leave as there are plenty of errands to run and packing to do along with endless social commitments i've managed to entangle myself into this last week before i leave.

but i'll be sure to write while i'm home on my dad's computer with *ahem* dial up internet service.

happy holidays!

the season of hibernation begins...

2004-11-25T22:39:00.000-06:00

i cannot begin to tell you how absolutely full i am right now as i write this. ugh. i had thanksgiving dinner at a friend's and although i honestly didn't eat like a pig, i sure as hell felt like i did to the point where i was really uncomfortable for a good 20 minutes. or maybe it was the cheesecake. ;)

nonetheless, i'm absolutely stuffed!

and the weather in chicago is just atrocious. or at least it was yesterday.. no one in their right mind should've been out and about yesterday.. but there i was, walking around various shops looking for a friggin' bathing suit. of course they're out of season and therefore so hard to find these days, but the places that did have them, well, let's just say they weren't quite my style. maybe if i was about 30 years older... nah.. still not my style.

at anyrate. the hunt for a bathing suit continues, and i'm not a fan of ordering such items online as the hassle of dealing with returns is more than i care to take on. even niketown didn't stock them anymore! what the hell kind of sports store doesn't carry swim suits, no matter the season!?

so yeah.. the weather last night was atrocious! it was so windy, parts of my umbrella snapped apart. what started off as rain, soon turned into snow and not only was it coming down hard, but the wind was forcing the snow to blow horizontally!! what a freakin' nightmare. once i got home, i stayed home.. despite a party i was supposed to go to. when the weather gets like that, deshigrrrl goes into hibernation mode. call me when the weather hits 80 and i'll be back to my regular self.

in other news, we were shopping for a turkey the other day and came across a 12lb organic bird that had a price tag of.. get ready for this.. $67 big ones! are there idiots out there that actually pay that much for a damn turkey? i can just hear it now.. "darling, this turkey tastes marvelous!"...

i'm now reading monica ali's bricklane. so far so good! i'm really enjoying all these south east asian female writers lately. they're making me awful nostalgic.

supposedly the bangladesh government denied ms. ali a visa to visit her birthplace (i'm guessing she's a british citizen now) because she's a writer. it amazes me how some men can be so threatened by a woman with a pen and a brain.

darkie.. bad!!

2004-11-11T19:10:00.000-06:00

so.. check it.. i'm really getting tired of all the backlash resulting from the whole war on terror. seriously. it chaps my ass..

as some of you may know, i'm headed home for the holidays. i'll be gone for an entire month, for which i am ecstatic to no end, but trust that after about a week my family will no doubt get on my nerves, and surely vice versa.

so my travel agent tells me, as i spend a fortune on the plane ticket, that i'll need a visa to transit through heathrow. and as i'm talking to him, no doubt sounding a tad baffled, i repeat the fact that i'm only transiting through and that i'm not planning to leave the airport to take a ride on the double decker or to have tea with the queen. but he insists that i look into it by contacting her majesty's consulate office here in chitown to make sure so that i don't run into any problems.

well, lo and behold my man was right! it turns out, that if you're a citizen of any country on the wrong side of the world where the majority of the population are brown and muslim, you need a visa just to sit in the transit lounge.

can i say that again? please, indulge me in this one.

you need a visa to sit in the heathrow airport transit lounge while simultaneously spending money shopping at their ridiculously over-priced "duty-free" (my ass) stores.

oh, and did i mention the visa costs a whopping $51? add to that a fedex fee of $16 if you happen to be one of those poor souls who literally can't afford to take a day off work to stand in line at the embassy. and yes, that would be me.

so i'm spending $67 to go sit at a transit lounge for 4 hours on the way to dhaka and 3 hours on the way back. that's almost $10/hour just to SIT MY ASS IN A FUCKING AIRPORT TRANSIT LOUNGE!!!

can you sense the rage here? can you? really?

no. i don't think you can. because i couldn't possibly curse enough in english to get my point across. if you all could read bengali, i'd have a mouthful for ya..

untitled..

2004-11-04T11:08:00.000-06:00

there are no words....

there are just simply no words...

none at all...

to describe how i've been feeling since late tuesday night.

i'm sick. i'm sick and i'm angry, and i just can't shake the ill feeling that's been sitting in my gut for the past two days.

when i lived in bangladesh, i used to think so highly of america. outside of the whole "land of opportunity" hype, i used to think, wow.. their women are so free.. their society is so free.. people can do anything they want.. they don't have to answer to anyone.. they don't have to worry about being persecuted for their beliefs, they don't have to worry about being gay or being short or too dark or too tall (yes, i was a little naive). and to tell you the god's honest truth, those are the things that made america so wonderful in my eyes. i was so full of hope when i came to this country. in my view of the world as a teenager, america just seemed to be the most progressive nation in the world. a place where people moved forward not backward, in time.

i'm certainly not feeling that way anymore, and frankly, haven't felt that way in a long time.

i'm just so.......... pissed off and hurt and sad. i'm numb yet emotional as all hell. i couldn't bring myself to come to work yesterday. but here i am now, and really, nothing much has changed except that i look at my co-worker who voted for bush a little differently. i can't help it. i know that i can't pick my friends based on their political beliefs, but dammit.. this time was different. there was a lot more at stake this time than ever before. while he voted for bush simply for selfish reasons, i'm sitting here wondering what the fuck will happen to all the people (including myself) who are now negatively affected for the next four years by this overwhelmingly holier-than-thou administration that really, at the end of the day, doesn't give a flying fuck about anyone that doesn't fit into their agenda.

i'm even more mad at myself now for having actually invested a lot of time, money and energy into my stay in this country. so much so that i can't just pack up and leave without incurring some heavy losses. too many sacrifices have already been made.. and i've found myself stuck in a horrible rut.

i can't vote, so would you do me a personal favor?

2004-11-02T09:01:00.000-06:00

please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please.....

GET OUT THERE TODAY AND VOTE!

never mind the electoral college, never mind the long lines, never mind the possible opposition... just make your voices heard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

gogol ganguli...

2004-10-28T13:25:00.000-05:00

i've recently discovered swimming as my favorite new form of exercise. i randomly walked into the (relatively) new health club in my neighborhood two sundays ago with a couple from the neighborhood who i've become good friends with. the health club is literally a 5 minute walk from my house. i shied away from it before because i couldn't justify paying $50/month to become a member of a gym when i have workout equipment on the top floor of my condo building as well as a small gym at the basement of my office building. but once i got there and saw the beautiful junior olympic size pool, i ended up swimming for a good 2 hours!

i realized then how much i enjoy swimming (not competitively) and enjoyed myself so tremendously that i signed up to become a member right away! justification out the window! the fact that i found a form of exercise that i actually enjoy made me very happy! i've since been swimming 4 times a week for an hour each time. then i cap it off with a good 20 minutes in the steamroom. i'm not sold yet on the hygenic attributes of steamrooms, but damn that shit feels good! at first, i have to admit, i was a little scared to go in. i felt claustrophobic almost immediately and chickened out. but my 62 year old neighbor/friend literally came out and insisted that i go back in. he held my hand (yes, i know.. i felt like a child) and led me back into the steamroom and at first i found it hard to take a deep breath, but was comforted by the fact that he was sitting next to me, and that i could see just enough to make my way to the door if the claustrophobia got too bad. you see, i'm extremely claustrobhobic, and the thing about claustrophobes is that we always have to have an exit strategy available and in plain sight. otherwise panic sets in and then it's all over.

so yeah.. swimming is great exercise. i'm hoping this new obsession will help me shed some excess flab. and so far, it hasn't gotten boring. let's hope that continues.

on another note, as many of you may or may not know, the gay games are coming to chicago in july, 2006. i just recently found out that billiards is one of the sports included in the competition!!! i'm seriously thinking about signing up for it. i have a little less than two years to prepare for it, and considering i now have a table in my own house, i have no excuse not to..

it's kinda exciting.. just to be a part of something like that! i think i may go for it..

let's see.. what else? oh.. i randomly picked up "the namesake" by jhumpa lahiri the other day at borders. i flipped to the first page and saw the word "bengali" in it and was sold by the time i got through the second page. it's a fantastic read! i'm so diggin' it right now. she very amazingly taps into the intricacies of bengali culture and describes and translates various bengali words, situations, etc. with such detail and familiarity and at times subtle, yet hilarious humor. it's rare that i find a book with which i can relate so well! not only that, but the characters in this novel are kolkata (f/k/a calcutta) bengalis who just happen to live in boston! how amazingly familiar is that to my life!? kolkata bengalis are slightly different from bangladeshi bengalis. we're all a part of the same region, you see.. only divided by a line that separates india from bangladesh. and i've always been interested in the subtle disparities between the two "bengalis", but from what i've read so far in her book, there aren't too many aside from the obvious hinduism that is prevalent in kolkata. ms. lahiri herself is a kolkata bengali which explains much of the knowledge behind her uncanny descriptions of the bengali cultures and traditions that make up her book.

i absolutely love this book! in two nights, i've gotten through almost half of the 291 page paperback! i can't wait to finish it and then get started on her first book "interpreter of maladies" which is a collection of short stories that won her the pulitzer prize...

"what my worry is is that, you know, it looks like it's from canada, and it might be from a third world.."

2004-10-14T09:57:00.000-05:00

i am really glad that the presidential debates are over. really. i mean, i watched all three of them with great interest, and at the end of the day i'm left with thoughts of presidential candidates who have a very limited vocabulary. if you look closely at the transcripts of all three debates, you'll notice that several issues were handled (by both candidates) with the same responses and same wording over and over again...

it really annoys me sometimes. it makes the skin on my forehead crinkle which causes my eyebrows to bunch up together and forces a sigh from my mouth and a nodding of my head, all the while thinking.. wow.. both of these guys are yale graduates, yet they can't seem to get past all the catch phrases and unimaginative words to describe their policies.

and then every so often my ears perk up because someone says something different, like: "a plan is not a litany of complaints..", or "in his last litany of misstatements.."

ooooh... big word!

but then right after the debate i hear bush's advisor use the same word, and then all of a sudden i'm not so impressed anymore.

i know.. i'm making a big deal over vocabulary which shouldn't really be an issue. but it is dammit! the more you really believe something, the more you should be capable of describing it in many different ways. there's no need for memorization! there's no reason why two intelligent yale graduates who are vying for the spot of "leader of the free world" can't articulate themselves well enough not to be repetitive! i mean, really... what gives?

ok, so now to the meat of last night's debate. they sure did cover a ton of different topics last night, didn't they? let's see..

homeland security
flu shots/health care
outsourcing american jobs
homosexuality
immigration
roe v. wade
minimum wage
social security
draft
ban on assault weapons
affirmative action
religion
a nation united
the women in their lives

that's quite a bit for a 90 minute session, don't you think? but i liked it.. i liked the fact that they weren't harping on one topic for too long. and the questions asked were really good.. really solid questions. not questions that allowed you to beat around the bush which, actually, the president is really good at beating around the bush (pun intended) wouldn't you say?

i found it really, really interesting, that the two questions the president completely and totally avoided answering were the ones in regard to overturning roe v. wade, and affirmative action. essentially, women and minorities. that's really interesting to me. and it really solidifies my opinion that he really doesn't care about us.

but i will admit this, and i'm not totally certain how i feel about it yet on a social level, but i agreed with the president when he commented about immigration and giving amnesty to "illegal aliens" by saying "there are plenty of people standing in line to become a citizen. and we ought not to crowd these people ahead of them in line", these people of course being illegal "aliens". on a personal level, i agree with this because i myself am a victim of an over-extended immigration system. i applied for permanent residency (not citizenship) well over four years ago, and have been waiting and waiting and waiting. and i really have no fucking idea how much longer i'll need to wait. so yeah.. amnesty for illegal "aliens" chaps me a little bit because it's taking the immigration authorities' attention away from folks like me and several others i know, who've gone through the relentless and tiresome and lengthy process of doing things the "right way". it just doesn't seem fair.

however, i'm not one to allow my personal experiences to cloud my judgement of the experiences of others which is why i'm not sold on getting rid of amnesty entirely.

another interesting issue that i thought the president clearly shied away from was affirmative action, and the need for it. kerry did a good job of admitting and even acknowledging the fact that yes, there is indeed a need for it. that discrimination still exists. bush didn't even go there. he didn't even acknowledge the needs of women and minorities. all he did was start talking about how people need to be educated.

"do you realize today in america, we spend $73 billion to help 10 million low- and middle-income families better afford college? that's the access i believe is necessary, is to make sure every child learns to read, write, add and subtract early, to be able to build on that education by going to college so they can start their careers with a college diploma."

now, this strikes me in two different ways. first of all, yes.. education, for the most part, is the foundation from which people grow in this society. however i'm struck by the implication of the presidents comments, that all people who benefit from affirmative action are somehow not educated enough.. which brings me to the focal point of my annoyance with some people's perception of affirmative action, and possibly some people's application of affirmative action.. which is that somehow being a beneficiary of affirmative action means that you were less than, but because of your skin color or your gender, you managed to slide in. of course we all know that was never the intention behind the program, but unfortunately it has become a common perception among many non-minorities. and the president's response proved this. yes, we need better education programs at minority schools, and yes we need to start with children on a going forward basis.. but what about the minorities and women who are applying for jobs and colleges and loans and housing now?

moving on, now.. because, you know.. i could talk about the plight of women and minorities all day long.

i'm not sure how i felt about kerry using cheney's daughter's name when responding to the question of whether or not homosexuality is a choice. eh.. i take that back.. i am sure how i felt.. i didn't like it. edwards used her name during his debate with cheney as well. what gives? just because she's an out lesbian doesn't make the use of her name fair game for debate discussions! did they get her permission to use her name in the debates? if not, they should have. i think that was pretty fucking weird if you ask me. and i don't care if it's because she's related to the vp. it's just weird. it's unnecessary.

and why the fuck would anyone ever need and assault weapon if not to bring harm to another person?

woah, where did that come from?

ok, so we all know where my allegiance lies (even though i can't vote), despite my disappointment with a few of kerry's remarks. but he really made up for it with his last comment about "marrying up". that's was damn funny.

still, he could've been more aggressive. he could've taken advantage of some of the stupid shit bush was saying. he could've made bush look even dumber had he pointed out, as i did, the flaws in his affirmative action argument among others. there were several missed opportunities. it's unfortunate he didn't seize them.

i bet you taste like dark chocolate, only sweeter..

2004-10-11T11:07:00.000-05:00

being single again hasn't quite hit me yet. maybe it's because c and i still see each other quite a bit, although not in a romantic or intimate sense. we're still friends, which is a great thing, but it sort of makes me hesitate when it comes to dating again. i guess you could say i'm still carrying around some baggage.

i haven't been to the bars in a long, long, time. not that that's ever been my pick up spot of choice, though i must admit most of my dates with women have resulted from us meeting at a (gay) bar. in fact, there was one bar in particular where i met three of the women i dated (including c). but outside of gay bars, i find it somewhat difficult to approach women because sometimes it's hard to tell whether or not they're.. you know.. gay! i guess i'm just shy like that.

but there's a beautiful, dark-skinned lovely that works at a store in my neighborhood. she's got the greatest smile and the most amazing complexion. i've had my eye on her for a while, only, i have no idea if she's family. it's a tad frustrating, and while my gaydar is normally on point, i'm not really sure what my gaydar is telling me about her.

i may have to do some investigating..

UPDATE:

right.. so.. i saw her staff profile at the store.. she's into "fine dining, fine wine and fine men"... with her fine ass.

oh well.. they can't all be gay, now can they?!

note to self: if you're not really sure what your gaydar is telling you, chances are it's telling you she's straight.. you just don't want to hear it.

nip/tuck is a wonderfully trashy show...

2004-10-06T20:54:00.000-05:00

this is just a quick entry to let all you readers know that i've finally posted at my spin-off blog called "chotpoti" which i'll use to share some of my short stories with you. some are fictional, some are not.

feel free to leave comments, critiques, etc..

on another note.. i took the day off work today to be home for a couch delivery and it arrived with two major parts missing. how annoying is that? so i called customer service to bitch about it and got $50 off my order.

skim capuccino.. to go..

2004-09-28T14:58:00.000-05:00

lately i've been following a routine with respect to winding down after work. in the past, my wind downs have always been on the couch, with a cigarette in hand, watching tv. but nowadays i'm not watching tv so much. maybe it's because i still don't have a couch. but also, i don't smoke in my condo. so whenever i can with the weather still decent, i go to the coffee shop and sit outside with my capuccino and light up a cigarette to just chill for a few minutes before i head back home to deal with whatever chore is at hand.

but i think yesterday might have been the last day for that kind of frivolity because it's downright chilly outside today.

if you took note of the heading to my last post, you might've read between the lines to realize that i ended up playing hookey that day. *cough*... *cough*

but it was indeed the last 80 degree day of the year methinks. and i took full advantage. it was hot and sunny out and i lay on the beach for hours. it was a good day, and i'm glad i had the sense not to go to work.

over the weekend i rented a car to visit ikea for this bookshelf which i absolutely love (in brown).

and don't you know they didn't have it in stock?

yeah.. i was royally pissed. but i managed to run several errands while i still had the car, so it wasn't a total bust. but still..

i priced a ticket to dhaka for the holidays. i'm waiting to hear back from the bosses that be on whether or not my month long vacation has been approved. it's not like i'm asking for any extra days or anything.. it's all legit. they just like to keep me waiting is all. but it'll be nice to go back home for a month. i'll even be spending new years eve there for the first time in 13 years!

so i'm still unpacking... gawd.. yes.. it's just that when i moved to the new condo, i had these high hopes of buying really nice furniture so i tossed some of my old furniture, and somehow.. i've no idea how.. but somehow, i didn't have as much money leftover after the closing as i thought i would.. and i'm pretty much broke. not broke broke, but i'm having a hard time figuring out priorities.. as in what do i need first.. a desk to put away all my files and have something decent to put my computer on? or an entertainment center to put away my cd's and knick knacks? or a couch and loveseat so i can get comfortable? it's hard i tell you. hard. this homeowner shit is overrated.

ok, so maybe not. but i hate being on such a tight budget!

tomorrow may very well be the last 80 degree day in chicago this year...

2004-09-22T11:50:00.000-05:00

yesterday after work i had about an hour and a half to kill before i had to be at our home bar for pool league. so i figured i'd walk down to millenium park to check it out since i hadn't really been there since it opened this summer. my cousin told me about a free outdoor photography exhibit called the family album which showcases a photographer's journey around the world taking pictures of all different kinds of families from various countries and all levels of society. it was really quite interesting. i was especially enthused when i ran across a few family portraits from bangladesh.

the funny thing is, i felt like a tourist.. in my own city. considering i live in chicago, it's kind of weird that this was my first time visiting the new extravagantly expensive park, but hey..

i hear daley spent $425 million on this project. i personally can think of 425 million other different uses for that money that would actually better the lives of the people that actually live here, but hey.. priorities, right? we all know daley's a big spender.. he'd rather use the money to build a park to attract tourists than to spend it on education, feeding the homeless and other less urgent issues.

he's also backing the governor's new plan to increase state funding by issuing tickets to people caught with marijuana possession instead of sending them to jail.

but back to millenium park. that bean thing, or cloud gate as they call it, is so overrated. i mean.. really..

so i'm walking around, checking out the park, when all of a sudden from the corner of my eye, i see something moving, quite vigorously. i look to my left and to my horror, i see a homeless guy lying on the grass not far from the millenium park outdoor restaurant, spanking his monkey. thankfully his dick wasn't out there for the world to see, but he had his hand in his pants, and a relatively blank look in his eyes as he proceeded to go at it. it was quite possibly one of most disgusting sights i've witnessed in a long time and pretty much ruined my millenium park experience.

i looked around to see if anyone else saw what i saw, but people seemed to just be walking around obliviously. he wasn't that far away from folks sitting at the restaurant eating their moderately overpriced dinners.

one more day til tax day...

2004-09-14T11:57:00.000-05:00

for all you home decor enthusiasts out there (i'm slowly becoming one, didntcha know?), i've got a website for you to peruse. if you've already visited the site before, then boo for you.. but if not, it's got quite a few nifty little thangs to spice up your digs. and in appreciation for me introducing you to this website, feel free to send any of the following items my way *grin*:

this uber modern spice rack for which i would gladly kill a spider (i was told as a child that muslims aren't supposed to kill spiders and i therefore never have as tempted as i may have been)..

these wonderfully colorful coasters and a matching bowl..

skyscraper vases.. which are pretty cool looking, but i've always been fond of the traditional kind as well..

and last but not least (i haven't been through the entire site yet!) billiard plates!!! which c said she'd get me as a housewarming present..

a little pricey them things are, aren't they? yep.. especially that spice rack.. ouch. i want it so bad i can taste it.

wait! tomorrow's payday..

aww.. shite. no can do.. gotta buy furniture first methinks.

i swear, new homeowners should get an automatic $5,000 shopping spree just for taking the plunge.. don't you think??????????

alan keyes is a dimwitted fruitcake...

2004-09-11T13:21:00.000-05:00

i've decided to change the way i title my posts. from now on, expect the title to have absolutely nothing to do with the post (unless i choose otherwise). instead, the title will just be a reflection of something other than the subject of the post that is on my mind but for the most part needs no further explanation.

aside from the most previous post about aaron, i haven't really written anything about my move to the new condo. it was pretty effortless and drama free. i hired movers which was lovely, so i hate to disappoint you but there's no scam story this time around. he, he. and that's a good thing.

since my move, however, i've had major headaches with the developer's project manager. he's quite the irresponsible, undependable, full-o-shit smart ass who at times seems really nice though i can't quite help but think he's a tad patronizing towards me. at the end of the day he makes all sorts of promises that he can't keep and truthfully i just think it's a memory thing and that he should really walk around with a pen and paper to jot down all the shit he needs to take care of. thanks to him, i haven't had cable for the past 2 weeks since i moved in. some story about how comcast needs to come in to open the cable box to let directv switch my line over. supposedly the project manager (pj) hasn't had any luck in getting comcast out here to take care of the switch.

ironically, this morning as i walked back home from getting a cup of coffee, i saw a comcast truck in front of my building. the guy was roaming about the building trying to find the cable box. of course i could't help as i have no idea where the freakin' cable box is, but i called pj and of course it went straight to voicemail. i apologized for bothering him on a saturday and told him that the comcast guy was here to hook up someone's cable and couldn't find the box. the call was more so in the hopes that i could get the comcast guy to switch me while he's here, but alas pj has not returned my call.

now, i'm sure pj is a smart guy who knows what he's doing.. but damn, if he could just keep me posted and let a bengali know what the fuck is up, i'd have no issues with him. but instead he just doesn't answer his phone whenever i call which leaves me in the dark and mighty frustrated. you know what i'm sayin'??

and can i just add that i've missed 2 weeks of my favorite show nip/tuck!!??? do you realize how tragic that is? and let me tell ya, if my cable doesn't come on before west wing starts up again, there will be hell to pay. i'm just sayin'..

on a brighter note, i've finally fulfilled a dream of mine that i've had in my brain for the past 10 or so years. deshigrrrl is the proud owner of her very own pool table!!!! yep, ladies and gents, that's the first thing i did when i moved in. i bought a refurbished table for a decent price and literally sat there and watched as the two guys came in and set the table up from scratch. it took a good 3 hours or so, but as geeky as this sounds, it was fascinating to see how a pool table gets built. i had no idea..

i went with black felt. i had a choice of several colors, but in the end i chose black, because a) it's my favorite color and i've always wanted to see what black would look like on a pool table and b) i didn't want the color of the table to dictate the color of my walls (when, of course, i get around to painting them).

so yeah.. i'm a homeowner. and it feels good, except that i need to buy some furniture to make the place a little more homey/comfy, but i'm really short on funds. the closing tapped my bank account quite a bit (as expected) and while i did have some cash left over, i decided to put it to good use and paid off all but one of my credit cards. the one still remaining has a smaller balance than the others, so it's not a big deal. but it feels good to be almost debt free. hell, what with mortgage payments being double what i paid in rent, i'll need all the extra money i can get.

it's nice and all that i'm being smart with my money, but it's taking every ounce of will power in me to not go out and put a couch set on my credit card. yeah, i'm thinking that would be pretty fucking stupid. i thought about that 0% financing over X years that all these places advertise, but i'm just gonna sit tight for a while before i make a move on buying furniture.

speaking of will power, or lack thereof i should say, i tried to quit smoking last tuesday and only lasted through wednesday. not a good sign. i think i'm gonna go with the patch, because it's just way too hard to go cold turkey. i'll start again on monday with the patch and see how far that takes me. smoking is a bitch. i would never wish it upon anyone to pick up this nasty ass habit.

maybe i'll start a separate blog once i quit to track my progress and even use it as an outlet to vent when i go through withdrawal. they say the first 3 days are the hardest. i quit for 3 months once.. that was 3 years ago. it's time, people. it's really time..

2004-09-09T17:56:00.000-05:00

heavy on my mind...

surely you've heard the news. a huge section of the blog community is talking about it. and i've been wanting to blog about it all day but just couldn't pull away from work long enough to get my thoughts in order.

i'm at home now, and oddly enough i'm still bewildered by the whole thing. and it's all so very strange to me in a way, because i didn't know him, i've never met him, and hell for a while there i didn't even really have a clear picture of what he looked like until pictures started appearing on people's blogs today in memory of him.

aaron hawkins.

the uppity negro himself.

the really, really strange thing is, though, that he's been on my mind for the past week or so. i'm not kidding. i've been reading his blogs for a while now, and i've always found them to be buckets full of information on anything and everything under the sun. i was always amused by his wealth of knowledge and vast array of interests. and the fact that he was a chicago blogger made him all the more interesting.

so, yeah.. i'd been thinking about aaron for over a week now, because there's a coffee shop by my house that i frequent, and there's this black guy with dreads who's in there every time i go. he's always on his laptop typing away, and i kept wondering to myself whether or not he looked like aaron. not because any black guy with dreads looks like aaron, but because he's mentioned my neighborhood in several of his posts, and maybe in the back of my mind i figured he lived in the hood. so i pictured him typing his blog entries from his laptop at the coffee shop. i glanced over at the guy a few times, trying to see if i could match the tiny little picture on the bottom right corner of aaron's website to this guy and while my gut feeling was that it wasn't aaron, i couldn't help but wonder.

and that's why he's been on my mind.

but of course, the guy didn't turn out to be aaron, and frankly i have no idea who he is. but aaron's gone so i suppose there's no need for any further speculation.

it's so weird how the death of someone you've never even met can affect you the way aaron's death has affected me. i mean, sure, we knew of each others existence and communicated via comments on various occasions, but i didn't know him half as well as some of the other bloggers did. but i figured all along, that being a chicago blogger, i'd probably meet him eventually..

so i'm kind of sad now, because that will never happen.

and i'm even more sad that he was going through so much that he felt the need to bow out. i can't even begin to imagine...

rest in peace brother...

2004-08-20T15:51:00.000-05:00

snail mail..

say.. ya know it's nice and all that the world is so technologically advanced that we can email each other from far corners of the earth. but i gotta tell ya.. opening up my "real" mailbox everyday for the past several years has been oh so boring! i mean.. ever since email, the only things i ever get in my mailbox are bills, junk mail and more bills! no more postcards, no more greeting cards, no more handwritten letters from friends or family that i haven't heard from in a while..

it's really kinda sad.

i mean, sure we all still keep in touch via email.. but the actual physical process of opening my mailbox no longer excites me anymore. i remember when i actually used to look forward to checking the mail in case i got a letter from a friend or a postcard from my sister who tends to travel quite a bit. in fact the last postcard i did get was back in june when my niece, who is 7 years old, wrote me from nepal. that was nice.. but very rare. bless her heart for not having email yet..

anyway.. just thought i'd rant about how opening my mailbox these days is really just another chore. i'm thinking this post probably dates the hell outta me.. eh? i need to stop starting sentences with "i remember when..."

2004-08-15T20:23:00.000-05:00

bougie bengali...

my ass hurts as i sit here in front of the computer browsing the internet. i spent the majority of this afternoon scoping out furniture options while simultaneously staying abreast of spectacular athletic events on tv courtesy of the olympics.

like how puerto rico beat the shit out of the usa basketball team!!!!!!!!!!!! ouch! i was rooting for the so called "dream team" at first, but that short little puerto rican #7 (arroyo?) was seriously schooling some of the dream teamers at various points of the game.. so i couldn't help but start cheering for him, and therefore puerto rico.

how ironic is it that the u.s. lost and iraq won? ok, so it wasn't the same game, but.. still! i think the olympics is how wars should be fought. seriously.

anyway. as i sit here and look around me, i realize that my stay in this shitty little apartment is slowly but surely coming to a close. it never really felt like home, and justly so, as it's just a temporary abode until i move into my condo. but as i look around me i also realize how sucky my furniture is. hence the lengthy web browsing to see what kind of furniture i want to have in my new condo. i'm feelin' a little bougie as a result. mm..hmm.. it's all about the leather baby.

i'm thinking brown.. cappucino.. chocolate. mm.. chocolate. i spent the majority of the 90's and early 00's having decorated my apartment(s) with mostly black furniture, and i tell you i'm sick of it now. it's time to move on to the next color. earth tones.. browns, olive greens, beiges. fall colors even. the thought of redecorating from scratch excites me to no end.. yet the thought of how much i'll probably have to spend scares me. but i've been good.. really good actually. i've saved more in the past three months that i have in some years, so maybe it won't be so bad...

i haven't blogged in a while. i worked two straight 14 hour days last week, so i've been pretty exhausted. haven't had a lot of alone time lately which exhausts me even more. perhaps this coming week will be different.

a couple of things of note since i last blogged:

the prince concert was fantastic! what a show! he played a ton of favorites and few extended jams. he's just oh so cool.
i hosted a summer bbq last weekend that was just magnificent! the weather was fabulous, i got to hang out with a ton of friends i hadn't seen in a while, and ate like a pig.
speaking of pigs, the cops showed up later that evening to try to ruin the bbq festivities. they made us empty out open wine bottles and take a cooler full of beer back to my friend's car. while that's completely justified thanks to illinois liquor laws, they felt the need to take it a step further on the asshole power trip meter and made me take down my tent with some excuse about how the (plastic) stakes were damaging the grass... whatever. as they left they mumbled something about not playing football because the lakefront isn't a football field. again.. tip of the asshole power trip meter. after they left we busted out four hidden bottles of wine and continued the party for a few more hours.
my boy lenny must've felt my disappointment with his hairdo, because he is now sporting a nice, fresh, short fro. i like it.. i like it! peep the new do here.
the timing of nbc's coverage of the olympics very badly coincides with valuable outdoor sunshine time which left me torn both yesterday and today. then i figured i could just tape it while i was out, considering the shit isn't even broadcasted live anyway.

my ass hurts. i can't wait to get a new office chair.

2004-08-01T17:38:00.000-05:00

short shorts...

this weekend was perhaps the most summery weekend in chicago this year. it was beautiful!! saturday was 80 degrees, and today is probably closer to 90.

now that's what i'm talking about. that's the summer i know and love.

upon realizing last week that we were already close to the end of july, i started to panic, thinking that once again, i was letting the summer breeze right past me. the three short months of blissful temperatures that we get in chicago are not to be taken lightly. as i've grown older while living in this city, i've realized how much you really have to make a conscious effort to get out there and enjoy the weather while it lasts. but my work situation doesn't help much, as most of you know summer is busy season for us and i absolutely loathe my job because of it.

at any rate, i spent the past few days making it a point to hang out at the lake which is literally a hop, skip and jump away from my current abode. yesterday i wandered about the lake front and walked over to hollywood beach which is the longest strip of beach on the north side as far as i'm aware. i went over to a vendor to buy water and realized that they were renting out beach chairs for $5. i wasn't quite prepared to just lay out on the sand, as i hadn't brought a towel or beach blanket or anything, so i ended up renting the beach chair and plopped myself down in the middle of the beach facing the lake while listening to meshell ndegeocello's bitter and ani difranco's educated guess, took off my shoes, rolled up my pants and bathed in the glistening sun. it was marvelous.

but at one point as i sat there for well over two hours, i started feeling a little sorry for myself. because everyone on the beach had on shorts except me.

as some of you may know, i suffer from a somewhat common and cosmetic ailment called psoriasis. it's a skin condition which causes my skin cells to reproduce faster than my body can shed the old skin cells. as a result, the overproduction causes the cells to surface on to my skin and cause flaky patches on my legs, arms, back and stomach. i say cosmetic, because it's neither fatal, nor does it really cause any pain or discomfort except when it itches.. and it's not contagious. so really, as far as diseases go, it's not a bad one to have, if that doesn't sound too bizarre. but it's still a disease. and the way it looks on my skin can at times be unsightly. my legs are the most affected. my first outbreak happened in 1999 shortly after my trip to the bahamas, and at first i wondered if there was something in the water. but later i went to the doctor when it started spreading all over, and was diagnosed with psoriasis.

so getting back to the point of this entry. i rarely ever wear shorts in public. i have my good days and my bad days. sometimes i feel like i don't give a shit, and wear shorts to the beach. other days i'm a little more self conscious about it. i've been in many situations where people have passed by and i've caught them glancing over at my legs. i take tremendous solace in the fact that it's not contagious, but there are some days when i just wish people would stop staring. somehow though, when i'm on vacation, i manage to get by wearing shorts without much problem).

so saturday was one of those days when i ventured out alone and just didn't feel like dealing with the whole self conscious routine (when i'm with c, somehow i don't feel as self conscious). so i wore pants. and the whole time i sat there on the beach i wished i had just said fuck it and worn some damn shorts. but it was too late, so i just rolled my pants up to my knees and stretched out my legs so the little asshole psoriasis patches could get some sun. it felt so good to have my legs out in the open, feeling the breeze and soaking in some sunshine. i was isolated enough on the beach that i didn't really have to worry about too many people passing by. so that was nice. it was relaxing. but i couldn't help but get a little upset at the fact that this is actually something i have to deal with. in the grand scheme of things it's so vain and trivial. and i am so thankful that i don't have some fatal or debilitating disease. yet it manages to get me everytime.

i'm undergoing treatment for this incurable disease, but it's been five years now, and while the rest of my body has seen results (like my arms, back, stomach), my legs are still the same. when i was a teenager and into my late twenties, i used to get a lot of compliments about my legs. and now i can't even stand to show them...

i'm not one to really care what other people think. i've never tried to mold my appearance or behaviour to suit society's expectations. yet, this whole psoriasis thing puts a dent in that attitude bigtime. it's not that i'm vain in that i don't want people to see my legs the way they are.. it's just that i don't want people to look at my legs and think i must have some communicable disease and therefore they should shy away from me.

but of course there's no way in hell i can ever control other people's thoughts. so i think i'm just going to adopt a fuck it attitude for the rest of the summer and just wear shorts whenever i want to. it's obviously easier said than done because it's a huge mental thing for me.. but i'm gonna try.

2004-07-28T10:37:00.000-05:00

color coordinated..

gotta love how summer affects people's wardrobes. i just got back from the smoking room in our office building and saw a woman with the most colorful outfit i've seen in a long time. not only was it colorful, but she was oh-so color coordinated.

i'm assuming she started with the shoes and worked her way up. the base of her shoes were pink, with orange at the heel, orange in front and a yellow strip across the top.

so of course, she had on yellow pants, a pink tunic and an orange jacket.

no lie.

at least she matched.

2004-07-15T14:49:00.000-05:00

grammatically hilarious...

i am literally the only non-american person that works in this office. literally. yet of all the 80 or so fully english speaking americans that work here, who does my boss come to when he sometimes needs help formulating the right sentence to get his point across in his correspondence with the irs?

yup. you guessed it. my bengali ass.

i love the irony of it all. i absolutely love it...

2004-07-10T21:00:00.000-05:00

homeowner to be...

well, it's a done deal folks. i've accepted the seller's counter-offer and assuming all goes well with the inspection and attorney review and mortgage approval, i'm all set to go and close sometime in late august.

to those of you who offered your advice from the previous post... thanks! i went ahead and decided to buy the 4th floor condo. i don't want to look into an alley everyday for the next few years and that was pretty much the deciding factor.

it's scary as hell to think that i've actually made such huge commitment, but hopefully it's all for the best, and hopefully it will become a worthwhile investment. i know for a fact that i'll certainly enjoy living there!

cheers!

2004-07-07T20:08:00.000-05:00

condo..

as most of you regular visitors know, i've been searching for condos for the past two months. well, i think the search may be over. but i'm having a bit of a decision dilemma. the condo building i'm looking at is right across the street from lake michigan, however i don't have a lake view. in fact, the unit faces the alley which is actually quite clean, and then another apartment building across the alley, but within enough distance that the windows aren't really looking right into the other building's windows because it's separated by a parking lot in addition to the alley.

the reason i'm going to go into some detail about this decision making process is two-fold:

1) it gives me an opportunity to put my thoughts in writing which will hopefully help me decide which is the better alternative, and
2) it allows me to get some feedback from you readers, if you so choose to provide feedback.

the decision is basically whether to get the unit on the second floor or on the fourth floor. the two units are identical. the condo is a brand new conversion, very modern looking with new and beautiful hardwood floors. the kitchen features stainless steel appliances, beautiful maple cabinets, granite counter tops, and mirrored backsplashes (i.e. the space between the cabinets and the counter tops is mirrored). the units have plenty of closet space with built in organizers (even a set of drawers in the bedroom closet) and a very spacious living/dining room which will comfortably fit a pool table and still allow lots of space for the living area. i saw a furnished model, and it looks awesome!

while i don't have a balcony (it would cost an extra 20 grand!), the penthouse floor of the building (on the fifth floor) comes with a huge outdoor deck, a very fancy party room where i will no doubt be throwing several soirees, and an exercise room.

if you're wondering why i'm not opting for a lake view unit, it's because it's literally a sliver of a view. there are two highrises in front of the building and so the view is cut short by virtue of being in the middle of the two highrises.

so here's the deal.. obviously by being higher up, the fourth floor gets much better sunlight from the west, in the afternoon/evening. the second floor unit.. not so much, but it's hard to tell because today was a pretty cloudy day. also, since the units face the alley, i'd be closer to any unwanted alley activity by being on the second floor. there didn't appear to be much activity when we were there, but you never know.

the kicker here of course, is money. the fourth floor unit costs a whopping 9 grand more than the second floor unit. though, when you divide that up by a 30 year mortgage, it's not a lot in terms of additional monthly payments. so the question then surrounds resale value. and that's always tricky. will the next buyer care about sunlight? will they care about being close to the ground? will they care to pay extra to be higher up when the view isn't really much different?

hmmm... decisions, decisions...

i'm thinking i want the fourth floor unit. and i'm thinking that because i don't think an extra 9 grand will make much difference when it comes to my monthly mortgage payments. but i just feel like i might get shafted when it comes time to sell. though i can probably bank on the fact that the two units won't be offered for sale at the same time once they're both occupied, so a future buyer may not really have a choice once they decide that they like the unit for its features.

am i confusing things by thinking too much? i don't know...

but i definitely know that i want one of the two. the building is awesome. it's not a highrise with 12 million units. it's only five stories high with a total of 30 units. the grocery store is 3 blocks away. the express bus is right at my doorstep. the train station is 3 blocks away. the lake/beach/park is across the street. it's ideal. but i'm always worried about resale value. i can't help it. while owning my own place is the goal, i can't say i'm not thinking about making a profit when it's time to sell. hopefully that profit will help me relocate when it's time to do so.

so, as you can see, i've got a big decision to make. i'm gonna sleep on it and call my realtor tomorrow with a decision..

so help a sister out and feel free to drop any suggestions or opinions or other ways to look at this whole thing...

2004-07-03T17:52:00.000-05:00

monster...

wow. i realize i'm a slacker, but i just saw the movie monster today and i'm feeling a little speechless about it. but i will say this: the academy did good by charlize theron. she deserved that oscar, big time. that movie had me scared at times and teary eyed at others. it was a fantastic, deep and moving flick. i highly recommend you see it if you haven't already.

on a completely unrelated note, what is it with grocery store baggers who just have no fucking clue how to bag groceries? they put all the heavy shit in one bag, and then separate the lightweight shit into three different bags! every single grocery store i've ever been to has done the same thing. i guess they just think every single shopper has a car, so weight distribution isn't an issue.. well it is... i have to walk four long blocks with my damn groceries!

2004-07-02T18:26:00.000-05:00

no shows, no goes..

this has been a week of no shows and no goes. by that i mean, two very anticipated events of the week were busts. last saturday i was supposed to go to the prince concert. but he had a strained vocal chord, so he was a no show. i was certainly disappointed, but at least the show has been postponed and not cancelled. he played the next day, but then cancelled the rest of his shows because his drummer had a death in the family. so i'm scheduled to go to the aug 3rd show.

yesterday, i was supposed to go to barbara's bookstore at uic to get bill clinton to sign my book. i had a hot ticket which was in high demand as not too many people had one. it was hard enough to take time off work what with it being busy season and all, but my boss agreed so it was all good. billy was supposed to arrive at 1pm, and at first i just figured i'd go at around noon and stand in a long, long line. then i changed my mind and decided to go early in the morning at around 8am instead.. that way i could get a head start and be out of there shortly after 1pm and head back to work. well, that's where my naivete gets the better of me. when i got to the bookstore shortly after 8am, the line was already 4 blocks long. what was i thinking? people were camped the fuck out. i saw lawn chairs, sleeping bags, coolers, umbrellas to block the sun... it was a mess. and at that rate i'd be there all freakin' day... so i made an executive, albeit disappointing, decision to just leave and head back to work. if i didn't have a shit load of work to do with a friday deadline, i might have just said fuck it and stayed all day. but i couldn't. i would've pissed off the man royally had i done that.

and while meeting billy for 30 seconds for his john hancock may have been worth the wait, it just wasn't the right thing to do at the time.

but back to last weekend.. now, as you all know it was gay pride weekend. and fun was had by all. c and i attended the parade, cheered the paraders on and came home with plenty of promotional goodies and a few priceless photographs which didn't quite come out as well as i'd hope so i apologize in advance...

gay marriage at it's finest..

always a righteous cause..

pretty in pink..

is that belly for real??

always a crowd pleaser.. parents and families of gays and lesbians..

as much as i hate the cta, the little girl riding was too cute to pass on..

the classic booty shot.. at least one person does this every year..

and finally, a tittie shot of a blurry but true sticker on yours truly. (sorry for the blur.. you can blame c for that. it's an hrc sticker that says "dubya.. you're fired")

they called for not only rain but thunderstorms at about 3pm that day. just in time for the parade to be over. and it sure did look like it was going to rain.. but as we all know, god loves gay people, so the rain never came until much, much later in the wee hours of the night.

so our plan after the parade was to head over to cricket hill at montrose which is where most of the gay people of color converge to exhibit their pride, if only for a day. c and i lugged our picnic gear over there and proceeded to grill out, chow down and take in the sights and sounds of beautiful gay people everywhere. literally. days like that you wonder where they've all been hiding!

about two hours into the whole thing, we hear police sirens all over the place. we look to the west and see, i kid you not, 50 cop cars racing right through the park heading due east towards the lake at speeds i wouldn't recommend in a park setting. it was like a swat team took over the grounds. it was like a scene from cops or america's most wanted. c and i were curious as to what was going on, but as soon as we saw a few paddy wagons in tow, we decided it was best to pack up and leave.

we later found out from some folks that were close to the scene that there was a brawl involving a knife and blood. one of the bicycle cops was apparently involved and he got on the horn "calling all cars"... and before you knew it, all cars were on their way. i swear it was almost like they were just waiting around the corner for something to happen, cuz there's just no way all of them could come around all at once like that. that many black folks congregating by the lake (on the north side) is all the excuse they needed.

so we left, as did a herd of others, and came home to change clothes and head back out to the bars for some much needed alcohol (i was sober all day), dancing and fun.

and that folks, was my gay pride.

although i had fun, i'm thinking next year i may have to try celebrating in another city. any recommendations? atlanta? san francisco? nyc even? (ooh.. how brave of me).

2004-06-25T18:18:00.000-05:00

chicago is not new york...

the cta, chicago transit authority for those of you not living in chicago, is getting on my last nerve. not only did they just raise the price of trips in january of this year, but now they're trying to "test" a different pattern of train seats to mimic the nyc trains. the old trains (which are still mostly in use) used to have approximately 40 seats in each car, but now they're trying to arrange the seats new york style which only allows for about half the number of seats per car. it's annoying as all hell. what used to be pairs of seats, have now been replaced by rows of seats that face each other. now, i'd understand if the trains were bigger, like they are in new york. but they're not. the rationale behind it was to provide more space for standing passengers so they could pack more people into each car.

i had the unfortunate pleasure of riding one of those damn cars this afternoon on my way home from work.

the car was packed to the hilt, to the point where i couldn't even find a comfortable footing to stand properly without feeling like my legs were being twisted out of their sockets. people were leaning on each other, and that only added to my claustrophobia. now, i've been on crowded trains before, but this was ridiculous! it didn't even feel like the cars fit more people.. it just felt really uncomfortable.

my train ride is about 45 minutes each way, and usually half way through, enough people get off the train to allow me to find a seat eventually. today that was not the case. my ass stood the entire 45 minute journey with a heavy ass back pack and i was not a happy camper. the train emptied out quite a bit once we got to belmont, but thanks to the fact that they got rid of half the seats, there was nowhere to sit down.

it's friday, and i've had a long day. is it too much to ask to have a seat on the train? i don't like it one bit. i feel like we're paying more in train fare, for less and it's annoying the living crap out of me.

but on a brighter note.. it's gay pride weekend coming up, and a busy one for me personally. tonite i'm going to a friend's house for a small get together before he leaves for costa rica and peru for (get this) 45 days... (i hate teachers and their long ass summer vacations). after that c and i are heading out for a night on the town to partake in some of the several pride themed activities. then tomorrow, i have an appointment to look at 7 condos in the afternoon with my realtor. after that, a friend's bbq at 5pm and the prince concert at 8pm. i'm not sure if i'll be able to make it to the bbq, but i'll try. then of course, sunday is the parade and all the after parade parties. it should be a fun weekend, but i'm gonna try my best to get as much sleep as i can, when i can. deshigrrrl on limited sleep is not fun to be with.

i've been on a tight budget lately and it's really taking its toll on my social life. i may have to break down and spend a little extra this weekend, what with it being pride weekend and all. but the budget is for a good cause.. saving up for the condo.

boy will i be glad when i'm out of this temporary state...

2004-06-19T13:10:00.000-05:00

short and not so sweet..

i couldn't help but feel, when i saw/heard the president's reaction to news of the most recent american beheaded in iraq, that he sounded so very arrogant and detached. i didn't hear him say anything that represented sorrow or heartbreak for the families that are now dealing with such tremendous suffering. instead, his response was full of remarks about barbarism and thuggery and how he would not back down. granted, the terrorists that seem to be having a field day with these horrific acts are nothing shy of barbarians and thugs. but how about showing some feeling for the tragic loss of another american? some simple human heartfelt sympathy for the family of the victim? his anger and arrogance is getting really old. he just seems so devoid of any other feelings... so outrageously detached. it's kind of really fucking sad how one track minded he can be...

2004-06-12T13:40:00.000-05:00

feelin' the need for speed..

i got a fantabulous deal on an rcn bundle for cable, phone and high speed internet at my new place, and can i just say i am so diggin' the high speed internet thing!? it's even faster than the T1 line we have at work! i had to use dial up at home for the past several years just because i didn't want to dish out so much money for high speed internet capabilities, but this shit rocks! i sat up and watched this fabulous live streaming video of ani difranco's appearance on my favorite radio station kcrw out of santa monica. and now that i can actually listen to kcrw all the time via the online broadcast, i'm hardly watching tv anymore! i love it, i love it, i absolutely love it!

last night was my first night alone since c and i moved separately. it pretty much took us a few days to come to grips with it, and while i really did miss her, i was reminded of all the benefits of living alone. i fell asleep trying to finally finish reading toni morrison's love and i woke up this morning.. err.. afternoon.. at 12:30p. it was lovely. i haven't done that in three years. no lie.

i was a bit worried that i'd get bored without her around, and while that's still a viable possibiity, i didn't get bored last night. in fact i ran into a friend at the granville el station and we very spontaneously decided to hook up for dinner at moody's. that was a nice change.. the spontaneity that is.

this morning i took a leisurely walk to my bank to get some cash and then got a cup of coffee and am now chillin' on the net writing this blog. it feels good to be the sole planner of my day. and by my own choice, i'll be heading to c's a little later on to hang out for a while. it's a day by day thang, you see...

it's such a gorgeous day today! my mood is lifted, and i'm no longer stressing over the fact that i didn't get to buy the place i wanted.. but there's sure to be other ones out there that i'll fall in love with..

until then, this bengali's gonna enjoy summer to the fullest. it would be nice though if my dear friend f (mageeeessss!) were still here.. she left for bangladesh last weekend even after i begged her to stick it out until the end of the summer. anyway, i know she's reading this.. so.. um.. i just want you to know that you're terribly missed!

2004-06-10T19:36:00.000-05:00

would you like to comment on that?

ok ya'll.. back to the old comments system. yeah! it's so much better, no?

well, an update on the home buying front. a disappointing one, no less. i finally found a place that i fell in love with AND was well within my price range. a few outstanding amenities included the much priortized room for a pool table. maybe not an 8 footer, but hey, i'm a flexible kinda gal. a 7 footer would do me just fine.

next, the kitchen was spacious enough to fit my (small) dining table. the place had a dishwasher, new appliances (though not stainless steel, but i'm ok with that), a front balcony AND a back porch and a decent sized bedroom.

and as a finale, i'll fill you in on the most beautiful bathroom i've ever seen in my not-so-long journey of house hunting. the bathroom had white italian tiles with a few tiles of green, blue and maroon thrown in the mix with a stackable washer-dryer in the corner, a square shaped toilet seat and a corner jacuzzi tub with - get this - a rainshower head that had to be at least 12 inches in diameter that juts directly down from the ceiling. i kid you not. i've since had dreams of taking showers under that thing!

but, as all good things come to an end, so did this. i went through the whole round of offers and counter offers and the seller actually came back with a price that matched the amount i had set as a limit in my brain. but then after reading through the association's financial statements (i am after all an accountant) and their budget for next year which i got via fax after the original counter offer, and several conversations with my realtor and the building's property manager, i realized that it was not a financially sound investment. the assessments are just way too high for what i'm getting. the worst part was when i found out that they've had "special assessments" on going for the past 7 years, and will continue indefinitely because it's a really old building. now, if ya'll haven't been able to fix all you need to fix in 7 years, then damn, ya'll have some serious problems! albeit the seller was going to pay me 2.5 years worth of special assessments at closing.. but what happens after that? and when i try to sell? after the 2.5 years, i'm looking at close to $400/mo just in assessments! that's like paying rent in addition to a mortgage! not to mention 2 or 3 years down the road if i try to sell it there's no way i'll find a buyer willing to pay that much in assessments and still make a decent profit on the sale. i've been shying away from lakefront highrises for that same reason! but at least they had swimming pools and doormen and cable included!

so yeah.. i wasn't born yesterday. my realtor says i should sleep on it. and i will. but i doubt i'll change my mind.

so, my friends.. the search continues. wish me luck!

2004-06-04T15:15:00.000-05:00

i've been had...

you know.. i consider myself to be pretty street smart. there's no doubt in my mind about that. but at the same token i can also be a little too trusting of people that i don't know. it's the part of me that seeks out the goodness in people no matter what... my own private naivete, if you will.

last weekend was the most hectic weekend of my entire adult life as far as i can possibly remember. as you know, it was the weekend of the big move. while i never really got into the details of the move here in blogland, i guess i'll spill the beans now and say that c and i have moved separately. it was a mutual, mature and logical decision that we both made and while i will miss her sorely, it's probably for the best for both of us. i sincerely hope that the friendship we've maintained this past week will continue forever.

that said, allow me to indulge you in a story which outlines a part of why the weekend was so hectic.

having stood in line for, i kid you not, an hour and a half for the u-haul truck on what appeared to be the busiest moving day of the year, we finally loaded up all of c's stuff and headed to her new apartment. it was just the two of us moving her stuff and it took us about an hour and a half to load and unload. hard work indeed. just as we were finishing up, this guy rolled up in a car that looked like one of those white chevy caprice undercover cop cars. he was a white guy, in his early 40's and pretty much looked like your average construction worker/handyman. as we got out the last load of boxes, he asked c and i if we needed any help. we told him that we were pretty much done, but that i had another move (my stuff) later that afternoon which might require an extra hand (since one of my male friends wasn't sure if he could make it). he offered to help load and unload for $40 which was a steal in my opinion [missed clue #1]. so i gave him my name and cell phone number and asked him to call me at around 2:30 and i'd give him directions to my house.

so mover guy called and showed up on time, and helped load among other things, a pretty heavy queen sleeper sofa. that was my main concern, really because that thing is heavy as shit. so anyway, there's 2 guy friends, myself, c and 2 girl friends and mover guy. i never knew how much shit i'd accumulated until we started loading! we loaded up the truck and headed out to the new pad which is just about 4 blocks away. when we got to the new pad, we found out that the elevator was out of service until after memorial day and that just put a huge damper on things!!! nonetheless, i was only on the 2nd floor, so it wasn't too bad. things were going pretty smoothly for a while there with everyone trying to carry as much as possible to avoid too many trips up and down the stairs. mover guy included.

and then my cell phone rang and the caller id said "restricted number". in my rush to get things doen, i didn't hesitate and answered the phone:

caller: hello, is this 773-###-####?
me: yes
caller: ma'am, my name is tom scott and i'm calling from verizon wireless. our records show that you have a past due bill in the amount of $45(and change).
me: ok.. (thinking that sounds about right..)
caller: ma'am, your account is currently 3 weeks late and we'll need to have you take care of this today or else we'll have to disconnect your service.
me: [flustered, shocked, confused] what??????????????
caller: [repeats above]
me: you're gonna cut me off for a 3 week late phone bill? you can't be serious! [missed clue #2]
caller: yes ma'am, if you want to avoid disconnection you'll have to make a payment over the phone right now.
me: ok, i'm smack dab in the middle of a move... can i call you back in 10 minutes?
caller: no ma'am, our offices are about to close for the holiday weekend. this is your last chance to avoid disconnection. [missed clue #3]
me: [flustered, confused, angry, irritated, annoyed as all get out and partially panicking at the thought of not having a phone at all since my land line wasn't due to be installed until june 2nd] ok, fine. what do you need

[i give my debit card number, etc]

caller: can you give me the last three digits on the signature panel on the back of your card?
me: hell no, i'm not giving you the last 3 digits!!!
caller: ma'am.. i won't be able to process your payment without it.
me: [thoroughly frustrated] ok, fine... [###]
caller: could you spell your name and address for me?
me: you're kidding right? you don't have that on your records?
caller: it's for verification purposes...
me: you want the spelling of my name for verification purposes? are you kidding me? what kind of business are running here?
caller: ma'am, please just spell your name
me: [frustrated out of my fucking mind, feeling rushed and confused and slightly disturbed by the phone call - missed clue #] fine.. it's _______
caller: and your address?
me: i don't have time for this shit right now.. verify it against your records dammit.. [click]

now, perhaps you're reading this and thinking.. that whole thing was damn shady. but when you're in the middle of the move and in a time crunch to return the u-haul and stressed the fuck out by the general tediousness of moving, it doesn't register that there might've been something wrong with that whole transaction. i was just focusing on the thought of not having any form of phone service for the entire weekend. but still, at the back of my mind i kept thinking something wasn't right.

moving on... about 15 minutes later we finished unloading and mover guy asked if he could leave so i paid him the $40 and he left. about 10 minutes later, we all headed back to my old place to grab the second load of stuff and on the way we drove through an alley, and i noticed that mover guy was parked in the alley and there was a someone in the car with him in the passenger seat. i immediately thought that was kind of odd, because i hadn't noticed him before.. so when i got back to my house i asked carlos if he noticed the other guy in the car, and he had. and then almost like magic a lightbulb went off and i turned around to face all my friends and said "i think i've been conned!".

to make an already long story short, as we all retraced the events of the afternoon, i realized that basically this mover guy had a partner who was waiting in the car all along, only no one ever noticed him. and while mover guy helped load boxes, he possibly found the one box that was open because i was just tossing miscellaneous crap into it as needed, and that one box probably had a few unopened bills in it. he probably took the verizon bill and quickly put it in his pocket and then when we drove over to the new place, he handed it to his buddy, who then perfectly timed the phone call to catch me off guard during the move and scam me for my credit card number.

thankfully i figured it all out in a short period of time and proceeded to cancel all my credit and debit cards just incase he got his hands on any other bills that might have been in that box. luckily he didn't have enough time to do anything before i cancelled all the cards, so no transactions went through. the next day i called the police to report it and they weren't much help because since no fraudulent transactions had been made, i technically wasn't a victim of fraud and had no way of proving who the caller was. nonetheless the were helpful in that the detective gave me the number to put a fraud alert on my credit information with all three major credit bureaus which i almost didn't think to do.

what a fucking retarded ass mess! i had no access to cash all weekend, but managed to borrow some money from a friend.

i never thought something like that would ever happen to me.

then again, isn't that what they all say?

luckily he wasn't successful at screwing me out of anything more than the $40 i paid him... but i definitely learned my lesson about being too trusting.

2004-05-26T08:58:00.000-05:00

dolly..

some of you may recall a previous post many moons ago where i discussed my loathing for dolls. well, there's no place that scares me more than "american girl place". my first experience with that horror came about one summer day a few years back when it first opened a store near michigan avenue here in chicago. i was walking down chicago avenue that day and couldn't help but notice a couple and their child exiting the store. it wasn't so much the couple that caught my eye, but more so that the mother was pushing a stroller which was empty because the child who was supposed to be in the stroller was busy pushing another stroller that had a precious little goo-goo-ga-ga doll in it. and they all matched. the strollers, the hair, the outfits, the whole kit and kaboodle. it made me want to hurl.

so anyway, i bring this up again because there's just a feckin' (my irish realtor keeps saying "feckin'" and i just love how it sounds) hilarious
article i read in gaper's block that i just had to share.

enjoy!

2004-05-21T16:43:00.000-05:00

blogabloggiebligablog...

i've been fooling around with the new templates and i think i like this one, though the font colors are a bit drab dontcha think? anyhoo.. i've decided i don't like the new blogger comments. i want my old comment box back. but i don't have time right now to figure out how to do it, so bear with me..

the weekend is finally here and c and i will be spending the entire weekend packing. did i ever tell you how much i hate packing? i mean, the "spring cleaning" aspect of it is cool and all because i love getting rid of useless shit, but i absolutely hate packing.

so, i finally found a place with a short term 3 month lease and it's a one bedroom apartment not too far from where i live right now. in fact i'm a block away from the lake, which is fabulous, but the place is like a little box.. no back porch, balcony, nothing. in fact if i remember correctly, the view out of my window is that of a parking lot. i'm feeling claustrophobic just thinking about it. but for a decent and rather spacious one bedroom, it's damn cheap.. only $600 a month, which is peanuts when you're talking about the north east side of chicago. you're lucky if you find a decent studio for that price. i guess the landlord was despertate, what with it being a renter's market and all these days, so he agreed to a short term lease at a low price. i guess i should count my blessings instead of whine about how i'm feeling so unsettled about being unsettled for the duration of the next 3 or so months...

2004-05-17T09:30:00.000-05:00

busy, busy..

i know i haven't blogged in a while, but it's mostly because there haven't really been any new developments. i've decided to take the plunge and go ahead and get in the market to buy a place. in the meantime, i have to find a sublet for three months and move out of my apartment at the end of the month. i have a few leads that i'm looking into this week with regard to sublets, and one back-up in case the leads don't come through, but it's been ultra stressful for the past few weekends because there aren't that many sublets available right now that meet my criteria.

at first i set my sights pretty high, thinking i wanted a one bedroom sublet and was willing to pay more than i pay right now. but then reality hit me and i realized that i should probably start saving as much as i can in anticipation of ridiculous expenses i'll most certainly incur for buying a place. closing costs are outrageous! so instead i'm opting for something small and cheap.. am even considering a studio which while inducing claustrophobia at the mere thought, will no doubt help save some cashola. plus it'll only be for 3 months, and being summer and all, i can't imagine i'll be spending too much time indoors. this whole buying thing is definitely gonna burn a huge hole in my pocket, but i figure it's worth it rather than blowing my money away on rent.

on a completely different note.. a funny thing happened yesterday.. c and i were headed to see an apartment and while getting off the train, some european guy (he had a strong accent) pushed her to get in front of the train doors. she did the classic hand in face and said "excuse me, don't you see me standing here?" but he proceeded to barge right through her and their shoulders collided pretty roughly, but all he did was mumble "i'm in a hurry!" and continue on. well, he fucked with the wrong girl. c does not take shit like that. especially from a white dude. at this point he rushes in front of her just as we're at the top of the stairs leading down to the street and c gives him a swift kick (in her defense, she was completely justified after he almost trampled over her) in the ass.. hard! he turned around and screamed "you didn't have to hit me!" and then ran down the stairs like a little bitch. of course c gave him one of her classic dirty looks that pretty much said "i dare you to come back up here and try it again" and when he got to the bottom of the stairs he flipped her the bird and called her a cunt. i love how men think that cunt is the most derogatory word you could possibly use on a woman. obviously he's never been to the vagina monologues. say it with me ya'll.. cunt.. cunt.. cunt! ha, ha.. it was pretty funny. here he was running away from her and she's the one being called a cunt? the guy was so frustrated that he ran out towards the exit and then started screaming what had to be obscenties in his language.

now, normally i don't condone anything like that, but he was truly in the wrong. but we laughed at his ass all the way home.

c might not be a big girl by any means, but she's toned and muscular by default(genetics). she doesn't work out a lick (and i hate her for that!), but my girl is all kindsa tough and stuff. so people don't usually think she can pack a good punch just by looking at her. gotta love it.

so anyway, back to the the housing front. the house buying hunt is well on its way. i saw a few properties. some good, some horrendous. i have one important criteria though, and that is the condo has to either have a separate dining room, or a living room large enough to fit a pool table and a lounging area. my realtor laughed when i told him that, but at least it allows us to eliminate certain places right away.

i'm excited at the prospect of being a homeowner. but i'm upset that i'll have to move twice this year. oh well... c'est la vie..

2004-05-06T09:17:00.000-05:00

the sasser bitch got me...

my home computer caught the damn sasser virus and i'm pissed. at first i couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. i was online for ten minutes or so with no problems. my goal was to update this page for the new may audio pleasure and calendar, but before i could, i started getting the "your computer will shutdown in 60 seconds" warning. so i let it shutdown, not knowing what the deal was, and after it restarted i logged back on to the internet and not two seconds later the warning message came back up. i did it again about two more times, but the same damn warning message came up until i finally gave up and turned off my machine. it wasn't until i was watching cnn later that night where i saw one of the scrolling bulletins at the bottom of the screen referencing the sasser virus that it finally dawned on me why my computer was acting up.

so this morning when i got to work i printed out the microsoft instructions on how to get rid of the virus, and here's hoping that'll work when i get home tonight.

i know how much you guys rely on my monthly music samples, so i apologize for disappointing you all so terribly [insert sarcasm].. i hope to have it updated in the next day or two.

on another note this weekend is all about apartment/house hunting. i prequalified for a mortgage loan yesterday which is great news, but at the same time i'm kind of confused about whether or not to just look for a place to buy instead of rent. then again, considering our lease runs out at the end of this month, i don't really have enough time to bank on buying a place. who knows how long it'll take to find something i like, and then deal with all the time it takes to close, etc. i wish i had acted on it sooner, but of course there were other barriers in my way that delayed everything. but i'd really hate to have to move twice. i hate moving period. though i dig starting "fresh" everytime i move.

in an effort to confuse things in my life even more, i've been looking into a possible move to miami. if that comes through, then it sort of cuts my decision making issues in half. but i'm not counting on it.

[sigh].. life is really stressful right now. too much shit happening all at once.

either way i think i'll have to find an apartment to rent until a) i find a place to buy or b) the miami move comes through. there's no way either of those things will happen by the end of the month, but a friend of mine offered to let me stay at his place if needed, while in transition. he's returning the favor for when i let him crash on my couch for two months after he moved back to chicago from a year long hiatus in costa rica. karma is a good thing.

i guess i'm just a little baffled because i have too many options right now. too many decisions to make. it's making me stress out in a big way and i don't like it. uncertainty does not sit well with deshigrrrl.

2004-04-30T09:57:00.000-05:00

muslim ninja grrrls..

wow.. check out gaddafi's ninja bodyguards.. they're all women..

now, i would never want to be in a position where i would ever need bodyguards, but if i did, i'd want his little elite squad of black belts.. wouldn't you?

2004-04-21T10:07:00.000-05:00

boricua world premiere in nyc...

two summers ago i was asked to do some accounting work on a movie that a friend of mine directed right here in chicago and it's finally ready for viewing!! they won a coveted spot at the tribeca film festival this year, so those of you in nyc should really check out this movie. it was made with very little funding, and the entire cast and crew basically offered their services for free. it's an indie movie in every sense of the word. the writer/director is a very good friend of mine and i can't even begin to describe how proud i am of her to have finally realized her dream!

here's some info on when and where you can catch the screening of boricua.

tribeca film festival screening:

all screenings will be held at united artists battery park theater 11 (UA), 102 north end avenue (at vesey street)

UA04 9:30 pm wednesday, May 5
UA06 4:00 pm thursday, May 6
UA08 6:00 pm saturday, May 8

tickets go on sale april 18th (with an amex card), april 22nd for nyc dowtown residents, and april 24th for the general public and are available through the festival web site.

please... do me a personal favor and go see it! i've read the script.. it's fantastic!

chicago headz, don't worry, there'll be a screening here sometime in mid-june. i'll keep you posted.

2004-04-15T10:25:00.000-05:00

down south..

virginia is truly a beautiful state. all the mountains, trees, greenery in general were so refreshing to see after chicago's bleak winter! everything is already in bloom out there and just so purty!

not too many highlights of the trip since we were only there for 2 full days, but the weather was gorgeous. we were all tank topped out and of course as soon as i got on the plane to come home my throat started feeling sore and scratchy. you all know what that means.. yup, i've been sick for the past three days, but i only took monday off from work and a half day on tuesday, since i have so much shit to do here. i'm all behind now.

i've met c's family before, so that was no big surprise. except that when we walked into the room we were staying in there was a big ol' open faced bible laying smack dab in the middle of the bed with a plastic rose laying on top of it. that was definitely a little, um.. weird. but i found out later that c's mom does that in every room, so i felt just a tad bit better knowing that it wasn't solely directed at us sinning lesbians. i did get to meet her brother though who is really cool, as well as one of her old friends and his new boyfriend and we all (not the brother) went to one of the very few gay bars in roanoke. it was cool.. but you know.. a bar is a bar is a bar. they're all pretty much the same.

we did however go to the smithfield plantation museum while visiting the virginia tech campus. c and i don't like the word plantation no matter what context it's used in. anyway, that was an annoying experience. annoying for obvious reasons.. i mean, who gives a fuck that a bunch of governors lived there? it was essentially a throwback to the days of slavery. a big ass house in the middle of an ever bigger ass plantation with two smaller cabins if you can call them that, one of which is referred to as a "weaver's cabin" (read: slave weaver's cabin) and another one which is now a restroom but was obviously previously used as slave quarters. we did not, however, take the $6 tour of the inside of the house because i was in no way interested in patronizing the museum. i don't even know how they can turn a place like that into a museum.. what exactly are they so proud of? i don't get it. it must be some white nostalgia shit.

anyway, all in all, it was a nice, relaxing trip. i hate that i got sick though because it's completely thrown off my workout/eating routine. i've got an 8 mile run/walk to do on may 14th and another 3.5 mile run on june 3rd (the chase corporate challenge) that i need to train for. but i'm just not feeling fully well yet to even get into training mode. [cough, cough]

2004-04-08T09:55:00.000-05:00

tidbitties..

well, for all intents and purposes, today is friday for me. and i can't wait to get off work. this week has been dragging like hell. i'm taking the day off tomorrow so c and i can go to virginia to visit her family. i've met them before when they visited us for turkey day in 2002 and they're really nice. though her mom can sometimes be a little too nice if you catch my drift. but it'll be a fun little weekend getaway. and surely the weather will be nicer than it is in chicago. i swear chicago weather is schizophrenic to say the least.

in other news:

i want you to check out this article because the subject matter is just really stupid. i mean totally stupid. i mean ridiculously stupid. so if you want some really stupid news, click on the link, ok? thanks.

here's an article that's actually kinda funny if indeed it was referencing the 'ol g. dubya..

finally, i'm glad that condi's little testimony is over so we don't have to hear about it "coming up" on the news every freakin' minute of the day. actually, now that i think about it they'll be analyzing what she said for the next 10 weeks. ugh. as i expected, her testimony was clear as mud. like she was really going to go up there and tell everyone what was discussed behind closed doors. yeah.. like we were all sitting here with baited breath waiting for the truth to come out. sure.

on the other hand, i think i've come to the conclusion that condi's hairdresser must be the evil behind lenny's new do.

gosh, i'm really mean aren't i?

2004-04-05T16:57:00.000-05:00

say it ain't so lenny!!!

oh.my.god.becky... look.at.his.HAIR! it's.so... relaxed!

i'm really upset that lenny went and relaxed his hair. his hair looks like a mix between prince and.. james brown.

i'm so upset!!! previously lenny was at the top of my list of men i'd fuck in a new york minute. there aren't many on that list, mind you. but the man used to exude sex. not to mention he was definitely in touch with his feminine side which makes me want to pant like a dog. but what on earth is he thinking with this new do? who is his hairstylist and why hasn't he/she been fired? and why does his face look so damn thin? wow.. i'm scared to listen to his new album "baptism" for fear that it influenced his current style or vice versa. i mean, i'm all about him wanting to change styles but this is just.. bad.

shiiiiit.. lemme tell ya, he's definitely not going to be the father of my child looking like that! *sigh*.. all my fantasies of lenny are slowly fading... somebody help me!!!

aaaaaahhh.. relief:

whew.. now i'm just hot all over again.. lord have mercy!

2004-04-05T14:19:00.000-05:00

april showers..

i just got back from a baby shower for a co-worker. she's actually one of the few co-workers that i genuinely like as a person, so i didn't mind going. two weekends ago i went to a bridal shower for a really close friend of mine.. and both of these events were firsts for me.

see, we don't do showers in bangladesh. it's definitely very much an american tradition (though i can't really speak for other countries). what really amazes me about these showers though, is that the recipients really make out big! i mean, damn! why can't somebody buy ME a whole dinner platter set or a set of martini glasses and a shaker? i mean, i've got dishes that used to be a set but are no longer due to breakage. same goes for my glassware. i've got cups and plates and glasses of all different shapes and sizes. this bengali could use some new housewares... any takers? granted, i'm neither having a baby nor getting married.. nor are any of the above events likely to happen to me in the near forseeable future.. but i just can't believe how utterly profitable these showers are! ok, so maybe profitable isn't the right word.. how about lucrative? yeah.. that sounds better.

then you have this whole business of registering, which has got to be an american concept because i had never heard of it before i came to this country. i completely understand the efficiencies behind the concept, and most certainly agree that it's better to get the things you want/need rather than having to return stuff. but in a way, i can't help but think it's a tad tacky. gifts are supposed to be, you know.. gifts. put some thought into it, make sure it's something the person will like based on how well you know the person, and then wrap it up all nicely, top it off with a thoughtful card, and you're done. registries throw that whole creative process right out the window. another co-worker of mine is getting married in july (actually he's getting married in hawaii next week but the reception is in july), and is already registered at some of the most expensive stores in chicago.

i mean, sure i have a choice, and don't have to buy them stuff off their registries, but it just seems like such a lazy concept on the one hand from the buyer's perspective, and a greedy/almost demanding concept from the recipient's perspective. not only that, but it also tells the recipient exactly how much money you chose to spend on them, which in and of itself lacks quite a bit of tact, in my opinion. don't you think?

ah, hell, what do i know. i'm probably just jealous cuz no one wants to buy me a new stereo or couch or pool table (minimum 8-footer, please) or large L-shaped-desk-with-hutch or a brand new set of non-stick cookware or even a used car. cuz you know, if i had a registry, those are some things i'd put on it...

2004-04-02T09:31:00.000-06:00

april foolishness..

i got pranked yesterday. big time. and i'm usually pretty good at avoiding pranks.

there's a guy i work with, j, who is just the biggest joker you've ever seen. he's always trying to pull a fast one on somebody and i'd be surprised if he ever got any work done around the office as much time as he spends on pranking people.

when i got to the office yesterday i didn't even really think about the fact that it was april fools day. it just didn't occur to me. so i went about my usual morning routine: check email, surf the web a bit and then head down for a cup of coffee and a cig. i came back up and started working on a project i've been postponing, and at one point i went into my manager's office to ask him a question. when i came back, i continued on with what i was doing and reached for my coffee and took a sip.

it was the most disgusting tasting coffee in the world. it was ultra, ultra sweet, and when i looked at it, there were little chunks of white stuff floating on it, as if someone had spit in my coffee! i was totally baffled (again, not realizing it was april 1st) because i had already tasted that same cup of coffee earlier with my cigarette and it tasted just fine! so i spit it out and tossed what was left in my cup, thinking maybe the half and half i used went bad or something..? i just couldn't figure it out.

it wasn't until several minutes later when as i was writing down the date on the top of a workpaper i realized it was april fools day. and then a lightbulb appeared. duh. so i picked up the phone knew exactly who to call and sure enough j was on the other end of the line cracking the fuck up!! apparently he put 4 packets of sugar and a couple of teaspoons of creamer in my coffee while i was away from my desk.

grrr...

on another note, i put up two new songs for april, both by pamela means, recorded live. they're both off her "pearls" album which is currently oop but her latest album "single bullet theory" is damn good too. if you like what you hear, you can purchase her latest cd here.

2004-03-31T16:44:00.000-06:00

who says i can't change my mind?

ok, so i lied. after reading this review of prince's show in l.a., i decided i just had to go.

so i logged onto ticketmaster all the while feeling a tad nervous because i figured the shows were sold out. well, thankfully he's doing two shows. and while the first one appears to be sold out, the second one isn't. i'm not sure what's going on with ticketmaster because last time i checked, they were only offering nosebleed seats. but this time i got good ones: section 103, row N. pretty damn good if you ask me considering the show's been on sale for over a week now. let's not talk about the price though, ok? mm.. thanks.

so yeah, i'm excited!! the review i read just got me all nostalgic, especially knowing that he wasn't just doing a bunch of medleys. this should be a really good one. june 26th.. pride weekend.. i'll be jammin' to some prince. mm.. hmm.. yeah.

update: the june 25-26 shows are officially sold out. for those of you still interested, he added another date - june 28. tickets go on sale monday (4/5) at 10am.

2004-03-31T10:19:00.000-06:00

neighbors

a few months ago, we had a couple and their two kids move into the apartment next door to us. we live on the second floor of a three-storied six flat, so obviously ours are the only two apartments on the second floor.

now, our neighbors are really friendly and quite pleasant in general. in fact, at first we thought they were a little bit too friendly, and at times we even avoided getting too friendly with them for fear that they might (god forbid) ask us to babysit their kids for them one of these days. but so far, thankfully, that hasn't happened.

but they're really trashy!

ever since they moved in, they've pretty much taken over the common areas of our building and it's really starting to get on our nerves. i'll give you a few examples..

1. their two-seater baby stroller is permanently located on the landing between the first and second floor of the front stairwell.
2. the husband's bike is permanently located on the landing between the first and second floor of the back deck outside (which, really i don't mind that much cuz it's locked up by the railing of the deck so it's not really in the way).
3. their cat roams freely around the front stairwell.
4. on a daily basis, they leave a plastic bag full of either soiled diapers or cat litter right in front of their back porch entrance which is 2 feet away from our back porch entrance, even though the garbage dumpster is within spitting distance but they're too lazy to walk down to the garbage dumpster.
5. their kids 'play' in the carpeted front stairwell area and leave behind a trail of crumbs, wrappers and who knows what else so the carpet is pretty much visibly filthy.

now, c and i almost never use the front entrance to go in and out of the house, but we do of course use it to go downstairs to check the mail everyday and we've noticed that they never clean up after their kids' messes. frankly, i'm getting a little tired of having to look at their shit everyday. i mean, who does that? not to mention, now that it's tax season i always have clients coming in and out to drop off their taxes and i'm always embarrassed and apologetic when i walk them out through the filthy front stairwell.

thankfully c and i are moving out of this godforsaken place at the end of may. we already planned to move because we feel like our management company is nothing shy of a slumlord who doesn't give a rat's ass about the place. whenever we call to get something done, we're lucky if they come in two weeks, if at all. a few months ago they installed a new buzzer system and the engineers left a gaping hole right next to the newly installed buzzer in our apartment and another even larger gaping hole in the ceiling of our coat closet. one would think they would've patched it up before they left, but no.. we had to call the management company to come in and fix it, but of course they never did.

the entrance to the basement/storage room out back is even filthier. about a year ago we consistently ran into a bunch of high school kids at all hours of the day who used the area as their little weed smoking lounge. one day i happened to walk down there and saw a little bar stool, a raggedy chair and a box used as a coffee table set up all nicely down there. how convenient. of course c and i took all that out and threw the chairs in the dumpster. so now it's just filthy with bags and dirt and empty six pack containers and whatever else the wind blows in.

it's disgusting. and we've asked management to come in and clean the common areas about a million times, to no avail. c and i even cleaned it up ourselves once, but the very next day it was littered all over again. why bother?

anyway, it's almost time to move. and while i'll thoroughly miss the spaciousness of the apartment and the in-unit washer/dryer, i can't wait to get the hell out of this dump.

2004-03-26T14:34:00.000-06:00

i'll pass on madonna..

i'm not nearly as torn about madonna as i was about prince. i'm definitely going to pass on miss madonna this time. but i thought i'd put it up here for those of you chicago headz that might be interested. tickets go on sale tomorrow.

now, there are things i like about madonna and things i don't. when she first came out i didn't care much for her but then i saw the virgin tour on video and fell in love with the choreography/dancing in her shows. and i was in bangladesh at the time, so actually attending one of her concerts wasn't even an option. so when the drowned world tour finally brought her to chicago in 2001, i decided i'd go see her, if only for nostalgic reasons.

despite balking at the price of the tickets, i figured what the fuck, i'll pay $125 to see madonna. i've waited over a decade for this, so why not?

well, it was not worth it, my friends. i mean, the show was good and all.. but it was not worth $125. maybe if i paid $20 i'd have come out of it a happy camper. but i was not a happy camper that day. i cursed myself for buying into the hype and swore off madonna concerts entirely.

tickets for this coming tour range from $45-300. i pity the fool that pays a dime over $45.

the thing that really bites though, is that i could go see one of meshell's gigs for like $20 (she had a show in nyc once where she only charged $12!) and come out of it feeling like a million bucks and then pay $125 to see big hyped ass madonna and come out of feeling like i'd been duped. funny how things work.

i'd pay $125 to catch a meshell gig any day... but not everyday, of course cuz then i'd just be a broke ass fool!

anyway, i hope you all have a great weekend! i'll be livin' it up at a really close friend's bridal shower and bachelorette party. ya know.. i am way to butch* to be attending a bridal shower [this will be my first] but she's a really close friend so i will.

*i'm not really that butch.. i'm just so not girly..

2004-03-26T11:10:00.000-06:00

premature aging..

when i was 17 i found a gray hair on my head. just one. it was kind cool back then, actually. i had long, curly hair and on the left side if you looked closely you could see it, nestled in the mix of my curls. it was kinda distinguished looking in a indira gandhi kind of way. and yes, i was completely kidding myself with that notion. actually, there's an old wives tale in bangladesh about how if you have premature gray hair, it means that your mother loves you more than your siblings. believe that one if you will but my ma is an equal opportunity parent.

when i got to college, this guy who had a crush on me came by one day and said "ooh look.. gray hair!" and proceeded to yank it right out of my scalp. needless to say i was livid and if he even thought he had a chance of winning my affection i put him out of his misery that day. i mean, who does that?

at any rate, of course it grew right back and is still there. only it's shorter now. after a fresh hair cut it sort of pokes out and waves hello to passersby but once my hair grows out a bit it sort of goes back into hiding, but if you look closely you can still see it.

well, a couple of weeks ago i noticed that it made some new friends. they're coming out of nowhere and multiplying when i'm not looking. c says she saw them a long time ago, but clearly i don't have eyes in the back of my head so i've apparently been blissfully unaware for a while now. according to c, i've got about seven of these rugrats on the back of my head and i personally can count about five of them sprouting out from either side of my scalp. that's twelve for those of you keeping track. sometimes i joke around and tell c that she's causing me to go prematurely gray and she retaliates by saying i'm causing her to have premature wrinkles (this after she noticed her first facial wrinkle where the start of her nose meets her forehead).

anyway, i suppose i don't really have an issue with it. i mean, i've never pictured myself dying my hair or anything to cover up the inevitable gray. i guess i just have issue with it popping out so early. it is early right? i mean, i'm only 31. [only she says..]

oh well, i suppose there's no running from it. i'll just have to look forward to my salt & pepper days.

[..push it real good..]

2004-03-23T09:35:00.000-06:00

trifling young thang.. conclusion

from that point on, tibg starting blowing cold air my way for the duration of the trip. i couldn't understand why.. i mean, i didn't come on to her at all, nor did i do anything to my knowledge to elicit any bitchiness from her. so i was baffled by her behaviour. but i wasn't going to let it ruin my trip.

we went to paco paco that night and it worked out such that m and i hung out together and met some cool people while tibg and s hung out together and flirted with a bunch of mexican dudes. and that pretty much set the stage for the remainder of the weekend. and that was just fine with me.

the next morning i woke up pretty early and since everyone was still sleeping, i decided to head out straight to the beach. the beach was totally empty and so i grabbed a beach chair, put on my headphones, and listened to meshell ndegeocello's "bitter" cd and relaxed by the ocean until i dozed off. i woke up to the sun in my eyes and decided to take a little swim. when i got back to my chair, i found tibg sitting on it, waiting for me. she said she had been looking for me all morning to which i asked her very puzzlingly "why?". she didn't answer my question but said that the girls were up and getting dressed for breakfast and did i want to join them. so i grabbed my things and we headed up to the room and as we were walking i asked her the inevitable question: "so.. considering you invited me to visit you here, why the hell are you acting all cold with me?" she answered nervously and incoherently about how things here in mexico are "different". "how so?" i asked. but at that point we were already at the door to our room. so i stopped, thinking we'd finish the conversation before heading back into the room, but she went ahead towards the door, and before opening it, she said "look, i don't want to talk about it, and i'd appreciate it if you wouldn't mention our little fling in chicago in front of s", and walked into the room leaving me feeling even more baffled by her behaviour.

i stood outside for a while longer and came to a decision at that point, to continue on with the vacation as if tibg was not an issue. and that's exactly what i did. my whole mood changed. no longer did i feel the need to figure out why tibg was acting the way she was and no longer was i going to allow her presence to affect my trip in any way.

we all ate breakfast, chatted and then headed out to "blue chairs" beach which was the designated gay friendly spot. there we met a bunch of fantastic people who not only entertained us throughout the day, but also hooked me up with some much needed green which m and i happily indulged in. after some more fun and frolicking in the ocean, we headed back to the hotel room to rest up for the evening's festivities which included dinner and another night on the town.

so basically, throughout the day, tibg was avoiding me entirely and doing immature things like offering gum to m and s but not to me even though i'm standing right there. or she's bitching about me and m smoking in the hotel room even though we've got the windows wide open and we're standing with our heads out the window. just straight up bitching the entire time. m and i are looking at each other and rolling our eyes, while s is telling tibg to calm the fuck down and relax because you can't really smell the smoke and we're on vacation, so just chill.

well, i have no qualms about saying that i was basically the bigger person during that whole trip. she bitched and bitched and i just ignored her. i was growing to dislike her completely. in my mind i was starting to picture her as a twelve year old and just let everything she said roll off my back.

the next day, sunday, we were supposed to leave at around 4pm to make it back to guadalajara before 9pm. before i got to mexico, the plan was that i was going to spend the night with tibg in her dorm room before leaving the following day on a 1pm flight back to chicago. but there was no way in hell i was going to do that. i made up my mind that i'd stay at a hotel and so i asked m if she knew of any that were nearby so she could drop me off. well, at that point m and i had bonded enough that we genuinely enjoyed each others company. i confided in her about the way tibg was treating me and she completely agreed that tibg was being way immature about the whole thing. so she said she'd check with her girlfriend and if it was ok with her, i could crash at their place as they have an extra bedroom.

so pretty much the remainder of sunday was spent alternating between the pool and the ocean and drinking fruity decorative drinks served in coconuts at the swim-up bar. i love swim-up bars. at one point m and i got floating beds and just drifted out into the ocean with the sun shining directly on us as we chatted about life, love and a host of other topics. m was the coolest. we got along really, really well, and i'll never forget her. she made the entire trip worthwhile for me and despite tibg and her trifling self, i had a marvelous, wonderful time. i was thrilled that i got to spend three days in mexico, floating aimlessly in the ocean. tibg was more of a nuisance than anything, i'm so glad i didn't allow her to ruin my trip or my mood.

the ride back to guadalajara was fine, although tibg's bitching never stopped. if i asked to stop at the next gas station to use the bathroom, she rolled her eyes and sucked her teeth. she constantly nagged me about the green stuff we had and demanded that i throw it out the window in case we got searched. i ignored her and that made her furious. needless to say, we never got searched. but i threw it out anyway because i wasn't about to jeopardize m in anyway, since it was her car. besides, m said she had plenty more at home. :)

so, when we dropped tibg off at her dorm, i got out of the front seat to let her out and looked at her and said "you know, i guess i should thank you for organizing this trip because i really had a fantastic time. but next time you feel the need to act like bitch with someone, don't call me." she didn't say a word and stepped out of the car to grab her things from the trunk. she turned to say "have a nice trip" and we gave each other the lamest hug ever known to mankind. and that was that.

m and i got to her place shortly after 9pm. her girlfriend t, was totally cool and friendly and we all sat outside on their massive porch and smoked and drank and laughed and chatted, and bitched about how immature tibg was acting the entire time, and chatted some more until we were all tired and ready to go to sleep. i was so glad to be at their place instead of tibg's room or some tiny little hotel room. in fact i was just glad to not be in the company of tibg anymore. but despite tibg's issues, i made some wonderful friends with whom i kept in touch even after i got back to chicago. i'll never forget their generosity in letting me stay at their place. a month later i sent them a care package to thank them for their hospitality.

shortly after i got back to chicago i sent tibg an email. i just had to let her know how fucked up her behaviour was and that all she had to do was explain her situation to me and i would've understood. but instead of communicating with me she decided to act like an asshole and i felt that was completely uncalled for. and in conclusion i told her to grow the fuck up.

m and i kept in touch for a while, but the last time i heard from her was about a year ago. she and t had split up.

2004-03-22T14:16:00.000-06:00

unfuckingbelievable..

i can't believe virgin airlines even thought for a minute that they could get away with this. i saw it on the news a couple of weeks ago and was certainly horrified.. but thankfully the national organization of kick ass women spoke up and tore the idea down.

hurray for feminists.. and i don't give a flying fuck if you think i don't have a sense of humor..

2004-03-22T10:57:00.000-06:00

the nerve of some people...

this ad was posted in chicago's craigslist jobs section:

Attractive, Non Smoking Female for Reception, General Office

Read no further if honesty offends you.

Our business has grown, and is continuing to grow. We are looking to find an attractive female to work part time in our comfortable, well appointed office in the West suburbs. This receptionist position would be ideal for a woman who is married with kids and just wants out of the house a few days a week...or conversely, an erotic dancer/masseuse who wants a different type of work for the daytime hours.

It is a rather private environment, without a lot of personal customer interaction. Our receptionist will likely only see 2-4 people during the week, and most of her time will be devoted to phones, filing and follow up of various tasks. She would report to the office manager, a very open minded female who works closely with the business owner.

To be honest, the business owner is somewhat unconsciously seeking a "hottie" for the front desk...but also someone who can be detail oriented enough to file and complete paperwork. He's married, and not going to approach anyone he works with, but he really enjoys an "attractive" office environment. He is also looking to this person to evolve if they desire into a full time position with a variety of other tasks, including customer service. The receptionist should be computer literate and a NON SMOKER.

If any of this doesn't offend you, feel free to respond to this post with what you are looking for, including number of hours and expected salary.

Compensation: $8 - $10 hourly, part time..

are you offended by honesty?

2004-03-22T09:14:00.000-06:00

the purple one..

i have exactly 40 minutes to decide whether or not i want to pay $50-75 on tickets to see prince at a venue i'm not too fond of in late june. i'm torn. if a similar opportunity was presented to me a few years ago there would've been zero hesitation. but he's since gone a little nutty butter for my personal tastes, so i'm not sure anymore.

ah.. who am i kidding.. i'm probably gonna go.. but i am truly torn and 40 minutes is not long enough for me to make a thought-out well-informed decision.

but supposedly he's gonna be playing ALL his oldies for the supposed last time...

arghhhhhhhhhh..

~~update: i guess they're all sold out because ticketmaster online is acting like a little biyatch.. oh well, i guess the decision was made for me...~~

update: thanks to tasha, i found out that they're NOT sold out.. but at this point all the available seats ticketbastard is generating are of the nosebleed persuasion. for $50 a pop, i just can't see it as a worthwhile investment.. as much as i'd love to hear him jam the classics. i think i'd rather spend the money to take a trip to see meshell perform in nyc or louisiana or atlanta, since there appears to be no plans for chicago in the near future...

2004-03-19T10:11:00.000-06:00

trifling young thang.. part 2

after cute asian girl left, we emailed each other sparingly over the next few weeks mostly catching up on her adventures in guadalajara, mexico. she told me about a weekend trip she took to puerto vallarta and how much fun it was and how i should visit so we could hang out by the beach, etc. she also told me about a new friend she made at her school who was, you know.. family.

now, our emails were by no means romantic and there was no indication from either of us that what happened that weekend was anything more than a fling. but i won't lie.. when i decided to take her up on her offer i most definitely had a few other things in mind besides just hanging out on the beach. and while a long distance relationship is definitely not my thing, i certainly wouldn't have minded another roll in the hay, you know what i'm sayin'? right..

well, a couple of days before my trip i started stressing bigtime. i'm not really sure why, but i was nervous about the whole trip. i mean, i'd never been to mexico and here i was planning a trip all by myself to visit some girl i barely knew with no guarantees as to the status of our "friendship". what was i thinking? i was about to spend over $500 on a plane ticket and who knows how much else on hotel stay and sundries... was i really sure about this? what if i ended up having a really shitty time? what if cute asian girl totally disses me and leaves me hanging at the airport with nowhere to go? what if...????

oh boy, all that worrying took it's toll because a few days before the trip i broke out into a million little pimples right across the entire span of my forehead!! now, not to brag at all here, but i have really good facial skin. it's hereditary. i've never really had more than one or two zits a year and i'm blessed for that. perhaps it helps that i never wore make up in my life and never used anything on my face barring mild facial cleansers and face cream. now, the rest of my body is another story. thanks to my freakish outbreak of psoriasis in december, 1999, i have random patches of dry skin all over my body, especially on my legs. to this day it's hard for me to wear shorts in the summer and that alone pains me to no end. every once in a while though, i'll just say fuck it and wear shorts because i don't give a shit if people want to stare at my legs, but in general i'm pretty self conscious about it. thankfully it isn't contagious or else c would've left me a long time ago.. hehehe..

but i digress. my psoriasis issues are enough for another post in and of itself.

so yeah.. i've got a million zits across my forehead. i think i actually tried to count them and when i got to 40 i just gave up.. that's how bad it was. i couldn't believe it. it was the most unusual thing that had ever happened to me and i was this close to cancelling my trip for it. but then i came to my senses and reminded myself that i'm not really vain enough to do that, and so what if i have a million zits on my forehead.. i'm gonna go to mexico and have a fantastic fucking time!

so it's labor day weekend and i'm flying out to guadalajara, mexico. cute asian girl was going to meet me at the airport with two of her friends; the lesbian girl, and another straight girlfriend from school. just so we don't get confused here (since i'm not gonna use their real names), the lesbian girl m and the straight girl s (who turned out to be from chicago) were both exchange students as well at the same school cute asian girl went to. m had a jeep wrangler and was going to drive us all to puerto vallarta, about a 4 hour drive from guadalajara.

to my relief cute asian girl was indeed waiting for me at the airport and we both gave each other a hug, hopped into the wrangler, and headed for pv. the drive there was a lot of fun. i got to know m and s and found out that m was living with her "wife" in guadalajara and her wife was a writer who was trying to finish a novel while m finished school. the wife wasn't with us though because she had other things going on that weekend. the four of us chatted and laughed and exchanged some wild and not so wild stories about our pasts as we drove through winding roads and vast fields of blue agave (tequila) plants along the mexican countryside which was beautiful and reminded me of bangladeshi villages at times (the countryside that is, not the tequila plants!). i would so love to go back to mexico one of these days...

when we arrived in puerto vallarta, we checked into the hotel, changed clothes and headed straight to the beach. during this whole time, cute asian girl and i haven't really had any time alone, which is cool though, because we were really having a great time with the other girls and hanging out at the beach, splish-splashing against the waves and just being all out silly. the weather was fantastic. it was a great day and we ended it with a drive into town to have dinner at a "real" mexican restaurant. needless to say margaritas were definitely in the mix and the food was just fantastic.. mm.. real mexican salsa.. mm.. .

when we got back to the hotel, we were all exhausted but still planned on heading over to paco paco, a local gay bar in town. cute asian girl was apparently not feeling too well, and said she wanted to take a nap in the hotel room before we went out. so m and i went over to the beach and sat down and chatted for a while. she asked me how i met cute asian girl and i proceeded to tell her (the truth of course) and then she asked me if i was hoping to "hook up" again. of course i said it would be a nice by-product of the vacation if that happened, but i wasn't going to push the issue. m also mentioned to me that she didn't think cute asian girl was "out" to her friends, which left me a little confused, yet it wasn't really such a shocker considering i wasn't completely "out" myself. i mean, all my friends knew, but my parents didn't. so of course, far be it from me to judge her for that.

after our little discussion we went back upstairs to check on the other two to see if they were ready to head out. cute asian girl wasn't napping, but she was up and about chit chatting with s and rifling through fashion magazines. i went over to sit next to her and ask how she was feeling but as soon as i sat down she very nervously and hastily got up and went over to s to show her a picture in the magazine she was looking at. i totally felt her nervous energy and was a little baffled by it. it's not like i went over to sit on her face or anything.. damn! what gives?

and thus began cute asian girl's transformation into trifling immature bitch girl, herein after referred to as tibg.

well folks, i was really hoping to finish this story today but it's taking longer than i thought. wasn't intending on a cliff hanger (hehe..) but i'll have to continue this another day.

stay tuned.

2004-03-18T12:16:00.000-06:00

trifling young thang.. part 1

i've been meaning to blog about my little mexico fiasco for a while now.. but kept getting distracted. it's quite the entertaining story.. really.

so.. i went out one saturday in july, 2000 with an acquaintance-friend to the now defunct "girlbar". every so often i liked to go there to play pool and show off my skills in the hopes of attracting one of the several ladies that stood around to watch, but that never happened. i also went to indulge in some much needed eye candy. of course i was single back then and quite the care-free lesbian. in fact, if memory serves me correctly, i think girlbar was actually one of the few establishments i frequented all by my lonesome. we're talking back in the day when i was a fresh 25 year old baby dyke and figured that if i wanted to meet other lesbians i'd have to go to girlbar. because if you're a lesbian, you must hang out at girlbar, every weekend. funny how time cures everything...

right.. so back to the story in progress.

so we're at girlbar, just chillin' and i'm about to smoke the last cigarette in my pack. just then, a girl comes upto me and asks to bum a cigarette. i look at her and look at my pack and look at her again and say "sorry, it's my last one, but you can have a drag or two if you like" (i don't usually share cigs with strangers, but for some reason i did that night). she accepted my offer and went on to tell me that she quit smoking a while ago but was just jonesing for a few drags.. and i can totally relate to that kind of jonesing.

as we're talking, another girl comes up and starts getting into the mix of our conversation. we all exchange names and i find out that the two women are friends, visiting from minneapolis for the weekend. the second girl is this really cute asian girl who turns out to be 21 and full of spunk and starts vibing with my acquaintance-friend while i'm chatting away with cigarette bummer girl. as the evening progresses, the four of us are vibing really well; we're doing shots, laughing, chatting and having a grand old time.

we bar hop a little and end up at the closet, another one of chicago's several hundred lesbian bars [insert sarcasm here] where we continue to drink, get to know each other and laugh and party some more. there ain't much to do at the closet. it's about the size of my bedroom and the bartenders and i.d. checkers are so not friendly! they're a bunch of biyatches i must admit.

so after a brief stint at the closet, and a chow-down at the nearby ihop, acquaintance-friend decides it's time to go home and leaves me with the out of towners. the out of towners are staying with a friend who lives way the fuck out somewhere which would cost them about $30 in cabfare. so, being the gentile, considerate and whacked out person that i am, i invited them to crash at my place for the evening. err, i mean morning because i swear by the time we got to my place it was 6am.

aah, the wild and crazy days of my youth...

so we get to my place which is a one bedroom with a stunning view of lake michigan. they both ooh and aah over the view for a good 20 minutes and then cute asian girl decides she wants to take a shower, which she does, and very casually leaves her panties hanging on the shower door after she's done. i love how people take a mile when you offer them an inch. not only does she ask to wear a pair of my shorts and a t-shirt but after changing into my clothes she plops herself onto my bed and starts to fall asleep.

inch.. mile..

meanwhile, cigarette bummer girl makes herself cozy on my couch in the living room and i slip into bed with cute asian girl. we both fall asleep and wake up at around 10am and what ensues thereafter is some shit i never imagined i would do. yup, you guessed it folks.. cute asian girl and i are all over each other and have mad, passionate morning sex.. twice.

to make a long story short, cute asian girl and i end up spending the remainder of the lust-filled weekend together after dropping cig bummer girl off at her friend's house. when monday morning came around, i was genuinely sad to see her go but pretty damn happy with the way the weekend ended. a casual weekend summer romp was a-ok with me.

well, it turns out that not only was cute asian girl leaving that day for minneapolis but she was also headed to mexico in a couple of days on a year-long exchange program. when she left, we exchanged email addresses and she urged me to think about making a trip to mexico to visit her.

two months later, that's exactly what i did.

stay tuned for the conclusion to "trifling young thang"...

2004-03-17T16:08:00.000-06:00

loose change..

a few months ago i started thinking about how great it would be to have a "vacation fund" of sorts. a place where i could put money away whenever possible to save up towards a vacation. well, that never happened. but i did start to drop all my loose change into a drawer at work. every morning i would gather up all my loose change and toss them into one of the compartments in my drawer tray, separating the pennies from the dimes, nickels and quarters. i even made a conscious effort not to dish out exact change when buying things if i could help it.

now, while i'm far from having saved up enough for a real vacation, i'm definitely pleased with the collection so far. i empty out the coins and put them in a black bag about once every two weeks to make room for more coins, and each time i do i count about 15-17 dollars in change. considering i only started doing this in december, and have tallied about $80 in change so far, i think i'm doing pretty damn good!

i'm not sure when i'll actually take it to the bank in exchange for bills, but i'm just happy that i managed to collect so much! a few more months and i'll be ready for that vacation! the best part about it is that i don't even feel like i had to sacrifice anything because loose change is almost always spent.

2004-03-15T10:11:00.000-06:00

godspeak..

before i go into the details of what i thought about "the passion of the christ" which c and i went to see on saturday night, let me shamefully admit first of all that i've never really been too familiar with the bible. or any other holy book for that matter, including the qu'ran (and i call myself a muslim). let me also digress a bit to explain the background of my religious/spiritual beliefs.

the reason i call myself a muslim is because i grew up a muslim; by default of course, having been born to parents who are both practicing (but not fanatical) muslims. while living in the states during our childhood, we (my sister and i) were told not to eat pork, we celebrated eid instead of christmas, we were told that our god was allah, and that we were muslims. and to this day i don't eat pork and i'll be the first to admit that it's a 100% psychological phenomenon. i don't believe i've ever consciously indulged in anything pork related, but the thought/sight of it makes me turn up my nose in disgust and the smell of it makes me nauseous. and that just can't be helped.

i am not, however, what most would call a practicing muslim. i pray to allah, in my own way. i don't pray five times a day, nor do i fast during ramadan. but i still believe in allah, and muhammad and the fundamental basics of islam (which i happen to think are really not that different from the fundamental basics of any religion). there was a short period of time in my life when i lived in bangladesh, when i somehow became uber religious: i prayed five times a day, started to learn to read the qu'ran from an arabic teacher who came to our house once a week, fasted everyday during ramadan, etc. i was headed towards the path of being a good little muslim girl at the tender age of twelve.

but then something happened. i started to develop critical thought.

for those of you unfamiliar with muslim prayers, they involve a variety of ritualistic stances and sayings and motions, and the sayings are all mostly verses taken from the qu'ran, in arabic, which i had to memorize (and did). but soon i started to question why i was memorizing verses in arabic and learning to read the qu'ran when it was clearly in a language that i didn't understand. why should i have to learn arabic in order to read the qu'ran? and why should all my prayers be in arabic when i have no idea what the hell i'm saying in my prayers? why was islam so biased towards the arabic language? i didn't get it.

so instead i started praying in my own language. i would talk to my god in english sometimes and other times in bengali depending on what was at the tip of my tongue. and i knew that my god understood what i was saying no matter what language i used.

so you see, the foundation for my beliefs come from islam. but my spirituality is what brings me comfort on a daily basis.

i do believe in god and i do believe that all the prophets were living beings whose lives were spent spreading religious thought. but muslims don't believe that jesus was the son of god; muslims believe that he was one of god's prophets, like muhammed (who was the last prophet). and while i've dismissed and accepted a variety of the teachings of islam based on my ability to think critically, i've somehow managed to hold on to that belief all along.

so when c and i went to see "the passion..", i was a bit skeptical about how i'd feel about the whole "son of god" aspect of jesus' life. but i knew not to go into it thinking everything portrayed would be the absolute truth. and frankly, i felt a little nervous about the blood and gore aspect of the movie, as most reviews were so adamant about revealing.

but as soon as the movie started, all my inhibitions left me and i found myself very deeply focused on the story being told.

according to c, the entire movie was pretty much depicted right out of the bible. there weren't any surprises (save for the hellish torture that led upto the crucifixion). but to me, a lot of it was a history lesson, again, because i wasn't familiar with the bible and it's stories. and while i didn't cry at all during the movie, i have to say that the torture inflicted on jesus was heart, mind and gut wrenching.. all because he was feared by a group of people for gaining popularity and being able to heal the wounded. ok, so maybe it wasn't quite that simplistic.

but i have to admit that i didn't come away from the movie thinking it was in anyway anti-semitic. i didn't come away from it feeling like jews were 100% responsible for crucifying jesus. in fact, if anything, i think pontious pilate (sp?) had a lot more to do with the actual crucifixion than anyone. he was given the authority to make a decision and he chose to save his own life and avoid an uprising, instead of saving jesus, whom he obviously (based on his portrayal in the movie) believed to be a holy man. and i don't care if he washed his hands of it.. he gave the order and then jesus was crucified.

as for the depiction of jews wanting nothing less than death for jesus.. i have to be completely honest here and say this: you could've put any power hungry religious or political group in there to replace the jews and i think they would've done the same thing. we're talking about a time when "whores" were stoned to death and so-called heretics were burned at the stakes. there was a group of people who feared jesus because of his abilities and his growing popularity and felt threatened by him and therefore wanted him dead. bottom line. insert religious/political group (from that era) of your choice [here] and i tend to think the outcome would've been the same. that's just the nature of power hungry religious/political groups.

and of course that's just my opinion.

while i was disappointed that jesus was depicted as a white man, i was pleased that most of the extras and several characters (including some of the disciples) were indeed people of color (persian, arabian). i also appreciated the fact that the movie was entirely in hebrew with english subtitles. and i truly did enjoy the movie. it was educational for me and inspired long hours of fantastic post-movie discussion between c and i. i don't know that all that credit should go to mel and his movie, but i'm glad i saw it.

the movie didn't change my life, nor did i even fathom it would, and i'm by no means giving up islam, but at least i now know more about jesus christ than i did before. and that's all jood.

2004-03-12T10:35:00.000-06:00

friday five...

i don't usually do too many memes but i figure i haven't posted in a while and don't really have much to say lately courtesy of my busy tax season and a host of other mind numbing distractions. so instead, i entertain you with this week's friday five:

1. what was the last song you heard?

it's in my head right now because i just got back from getting a cup of coffee from the cafeteria and they were playing it on the radio.. "i hear a symphony" by the supremes.

2. what were the last two movies you saw?

* pirates of the caribbean for the second time. c and i were supposed to watch it back when it came out in theaters but we never got around to it. then they played it on the plane during my trip home to bangladesh in october so i watched it without c and she gave me loads of shit for it. so we rented it from netflix and watched it the other day. i love johnny depp.

* once upon a time in mexico, another one with johnny depp. only i couldn't really get through it. i'm not a fan of antonio banderas, maybe that's why. plus it was late and i was sleepy. we still have it, so maybe i'll give it another shot this weekend.

speaking of movies i couldn't get through.. lord of the rings. am i the only person in the world who thought it was boring as all hell? we rented the first two parts and i barely got through the first one, let alone the second one. goes to show the oscars and i don't really agree on everything.

3. what were the last three things you purchased?

* a couple of pairs of hanes hipster underwear in gray, white and baby blue.. very cute, very comfortable and tagless!

* some office supplies for my tax business including a much needed electric pencil sharpener. i'll never go back to the manual kind. ever. (i'm a closet dorky accountant, what can i say?)

* two very cool dress shirts from petite sophisticate (because i'm both petite and sophisticated, didn't you know?). i love them. they have french cuffs and the cutest little cufflinks that look like miniature balls of yarn. got one in white and another in blue. i'm such a stylish lesbian sometimes i don't know what to do with myself.

4. what four things do you need to do this weekend?

* sleep, sleep, sleep...!
* do tax returns (for my business, not the j.o.b.)
* workout... either curves or swimming.. haven't quite made up my mind
* veg on the couch in front of the tv

5. who are the last five people you talked to?

* c, of course.. as i do everyday
* my co-worker who sits next to me
* my boss
* a client that came by last night to drop off his tax return
* my friend m, who i had lunch with yesterday

have a great weekend!