i'm down in the living room, just me and darcy. the baby is in his bed, asleep. the husband is in his bed, asleep. a silence hangs over the house, and i feel like i'm in a million different times at once, like every small timeline of my life intersects here. i am a high school senior sitting on my bed. the glow of the tv bright in the darkness. i am a college student on the same bed, in the same dark, with a different glowing screen, six msn messenger conversations open. i am sitting in a small apartment. the ring on my finger is new, but the silence and the darkness are old, familiar. i am a mother, and though the darkness is wearing a cloak of recess lighting, the silence is still here, welcoming. 

my life often seems like a series of endless loops, some bigger than others. there are the small loops: build a tower, clap as baby knocks it down. build a tower, clap as baby knocks it down. build a tower. there are the bigger loops, like the one that finds me hiding under my blankets with a tear-streaked face again and again and again. and there are these, the loops that you wouldn't recognize as loops unless you look at the whole picture, see the whole timeline stretched out before you. and as loops go, if i am to constantly find myself with only the darkness and silence of night as my companions, well, it's not a bad loop to be stuck in. 

i have not blogged in nearly two months. most days it seems like there is nothing to write that is worth the time i could be doing something else. most days i am not sitting in my living room alone at night. most days the older versions of myself are not at the surface, not flowing through my veins, not breathing through my lungs. 

i used to think that, to come back to this blog, even sure that no one still read it, i needed something big. i should only come back if i have something worth saying. tonight, i should blog because i never stopped blogging. tonight, i should read harry potter fanfiction. tonight, i should talk to friends. tonight, i should fall in love or make someone fall in love with me. tonight, i should watch reruns of 90s television. tonight, i should wash bottles. tonight, i should do the same thing i did last night and the same thing that i'll do tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. 

there's something about sitting in front of a computer screen in the early AMs when the rest of the household is asleep that is both lonely and that comfortable kind of solitary at the same time. it is familiar, but familiar in the way that every person you used to be is.

it makes me miss friends and MSN messenger and trying to stay quiet so my parents won't know i'm still awake.

it is a quiet, tired feeling and a time of blooming possibilities.

everything is different at times like this. the internet is different, the shadows on the wall, the howling of the wind, all of it. but at the same time, everything is exactly the same.

i feel like the sad character in a book or movie who goes back at the end of the story to the bar or the house or the school or wherever and sits alone with the memories of times when those places were not so empty, nowhere near as lonesome.

i feel like i should be having a written conversation about tv shows, or harry potter fanfiction, or life and hopes and dreams. i should be expressing myself in navy comic sans, size ten, bold. (that was my MSN messenger font. always.)

she's leaving home, bye bye

so a couple of days ago we put an offer on a house and long story short, some counter-offering later, i think we just got our house? or, like... we're a step closer? under contract? something? i'm not very good with the whole knowing very much about the house buying process and related terms. part of me is just relieved that this whole stupid thing is almost over. ugh. too many things on my plate and i'll be glad to take one of them off. i have already told my husband, family, and anyone who will listen that i am never moving again ever. unless the move consists of moving back to saudi arabia. (i feel like, between family and the fact that men are supposed to do everything over there, the move will be easier. i'm trying not to think about the fact that, for almost every family i can think of over there, the wife kind of took over the whole moving process. i really don't think i'm cut out for this kind of real life junk. anyway, that's still years away.)

a huge part of me is getting nostalgic already. i'm going to miss my current home so freaking much. i love my tiny apartment right in the middle of everything. (just as much as i sometimes hated it. more, actually.) i love that there is simultaneously the perfect amount of space and never enough space, how the amount of junk i accumulate/make makes the apartment look cluttered no matter how many times i clean (which, granted, isn't very often). i love that i am literally a four minute drive to campus. that i can walk ten steps to cheese enchiladas and hot fudge sundaes and a movie theater. i love my tower and my windows and being on the third floor. i love looking out at treetops and not having to go up a flight of stairs to get from the living room to the bedroom. i love the fact that i can now make a perfect pancake and bake the best chocolate chip cookies in an oven that gave me so much trouble three years ago. three years. i woke up today and stared straight ahead at my wall and thought, how many more mornings will i wake up to this same wall? how many more times will i brush my teeth in this sink, pull an ice cream sandwich out of this freezer (yes, i eat ice cream sandwiches with breakfast. don't judge me. i'm pregnant. and also, calcium. and yum.)

i suppose that the happy will come sooner or later. i mean, i really do like the house. but whenever there is an option for a form of sadness, you can bet your life that that's where my head is going to take me. i remember when my older sister and her husband moved out of their apartment after like a year of marriage, i was heartbroken. this is a million times worse. so many life-changing events happened here. sigh. the younger of my two nephews drew a picture of me this past summer where i am "kinda happy" and i think that it's the greatest depiction of me ever.

but like, yay new house. or something. (i am such a downer oh my gosh. i would be a terrible book character. the worst ever to read. and that is how i judge my life so i should maybe probably start working on this happy thing.)

*She's Leaving Home - The Beatles

and sometimes you close your eyes and see the place where you used to live when you were young

there are some things that act as time machines, that pull us back through time to a moment that we may have thought was lost. these can be songs, pictures, foods, movies... anything really. we all have some, and they are all different. for me, one my time machines is the morning call to prayer (athan).

there is a line that is only said in the call to the first prayer of the day. (it basically says that prayer is better than sleep.)

when i hear that line, i am suddenly back in california. i am six years old, and the house smells like fresh paint. there is new hardwood on the floors where there used to be carpet, and later, my sisters and i will fill some time with sock slides. our screams and laughter will fill the rooms of our townhouse. but now the house is quiet and dark. it is ramadan, and we have finished the morning meal. we have prayed. my sisters are asleep - on the floor since our beds were packed up - and my mom is, too. my dad reads his morning quran by a small lamp, and i sit quietly wrapped in my blanket watching tv. the animated adventures of dorothy gale and david and goliath and gulliver's travels. the tv screen grows brightly in the dark. when the cartoons are over, the house will wake up. but for now, there is only me, only the stories.

when i hear that line, i am engulfed in a pocket of peace from the past. the quiet hum of the tv. the silence of an entire neighborhood, minus two, sleeping. and the muffled call for prayer coming from our first athan clock: gold and shiny and shaped like a mosque but with speakers that don't allow for words, only sounds.

half a breath later, i am twenty-six again and sitting on my couch in my little one-bedroom apartment. it is ramadan. i have finished my morning meal, and i am reading my morning quran by a lamp. the world outside my living room is dark and sleeping. our new athan clock is black and sleek and the words pour from it clearly.

and every morning when i hear that prayer is better than sleep, i am six years old again.

*When You Were Young - The Killers

i know it's hard

back in high school, there was a running joke of sorts about my girl-scout-ness for lack of a better word. you know, because i did things like bake brownies from scratch and we had a craft room (slash box after we moved) in my house. they would make comments about how i probably made my skirt and my tights and my bag and... you get the idea. a friend wrote in my end of the year notebook thingie:

"I'll remember your craftiness/girl scoutness and how you practically made everything you own... I can imagine you probably made this notebook yourself you liar... that man didn't give it to you."

(those ellipses are not me editing the quote. we were all really big on ellipses back then....) she then wrote that if i was a shape i would be a rectangle, but that is neither here nor there.

anyway. it has been eight years since i graduated high school, and i feel like i am becoming the person that they said i was back then. i just want to make everything. i want to spend hundreds of thousands of hours knitting and only stop when my hands are so cramped that i can barely hold the needles. and even then, i'll just switch to crocheting. (who woulda thought? me, crocheting.)  i want every blanket in my house to be made by me. i want to knit all my clothes. (i'm not even joking, i had the strongest urge to knit myself an entire outfit the other day but i refrained because although i'm fine with being the person who wants to knit their entire wardrobe, i don't think i'm ready to become the person that actually knits her own clothes.) once i finish this turtle scarf for my sister, i plan on crocheting a teddy bear. because why not. i want everyone i know to have babies so that i can make them blankets and hats and sweaters and toys. i want to have made every pot, plate, and mug i own. every vase and box and bowl. i want to make my own notebooks. (i've only done paper-making once outside of science class in sixth grade, but i loved it.)

my most recent crafty urge is to take up weaving. my mom has this huge loom (that i totally plan on stealing someday) that we were kind of obsessed with growing up. so she bought a table loom (that i plan to take a lot sooner than someday) and taught us to weave. we made blankets for our dolls, but then moved on, like kids do. recently, though, i have seen a bunch of woven tapestries and cannot shake the feeling of i need to do that. summers are kind of crazy, so i asked my mom to reteach me to weave in the fall, which she said she'd do. but i still want to weave right now. i am trying really, really hard not to buy myself a lap loom which pretty much needs no teaching because that is fifty dollars that could be used on so many other things. but good god is it hard. if i make it to the end of the summer without writing about my new woven artwork for my walls, i think i deserve a prize.

*Keep Your Head Up - Andy Grammer

my neighbors (or, i guess my parents' neighbors) - who have known me longer than a lot of my friends - just moved to florida, and it was sad. like, we've had them over for christmases and thanksgivings and family dinners, they've seen me and my sisters go through grade school and college, they saw me in my dress before my school's quasi-prom senior/junior party, we went pumpkin patching with them and their grandson, the husband came to speak at career day when i asked him to... we were pretty close. and now they're just gone. 

my husband started his first day of work today, and though i know we both dragged this whole student thing on way too long, it's still weird to have him enter the real world and leave me sitting here thinking, "well now what?" (after enjoying all of this alone time that the hermit in me craves, of course.)

i have committed to one too many things and am now overwhelmed by everything that i have to do. so of course i completely shut down and do nothing, while letting the responsibilities crowd into the back of my mind, slowly growing into bigger and bigger worries. 

the above were all supposed to be individual blog posts over the past few days, but of course i feel like i have no time to do anything but worry and then procrastinate to keep my mind off of worrying and then worry some more, and, well... you get the picture.

this post is here because i feel like a lot of things are changing around me. for once nothing directly involving me, but at the same time, everything is affecting me. between the bouts of nostalgia and worry, i realized that this moment in time deserved some - even if it is not a very detailed or well written - recognition. 

remember that time?

do you guys remember when yahoo was a legitimate search engine? and people used to ask jeeves everything before they killed him off to seem more professional or something? and there was an e one. excite? anyway, i remember having research projects and the teachers telling us to use all four of the search engines (redundancy is underrated i guess), and then one day, but it was nothing as sudden and noticeable as that, google just kind of took over everything. and suddenly you're not "looking things up online" you're "googling it." and all the other search engines crawled into the dark corners with their tails between their legs and just let it happen. (i guess backbones are overrated.)

i also remember a project i did in seventh grade. part of it was looking up things that happened (o)in the year, month, and day we were born. it was the first big school project where we were required to use internet sources instead of just books. (remember those days? now they have to force us to use books in research projects and even then i usually lie about it.) anyway, the teacher kept telling me that i was searching wrong because i had too many words in my queries. apparently i was being too specific or something? (i typed 'earthquakes in april 1988' and she went crazy.) now we type entire sentences into google. i've searched for entire paragraphs. i've put so many words into my search bar that google had to cut me off and tell me to shut up halfway through my request. (every time i do though i feel my seventh grade english teacher glaring at me.)

anyway, i really don't know where i was going with this or what even brought it to mind. but yeah. there it is. google. and searching. and... stuff. here's a quote i like to make up for my lack of a point (it's secretly one of my biggest fears. (the quote. not not having a point. i got over that one ages ago)):

“As the poet says, all happy couples are alike, it's the unhappy ones who create the stories. I'm no longer a story. Happiness has made me fade into real life.” ~Charles Baxter, The Feast of Love

i think i abused my right to use parentheses in this post.

*Stutter - Umbridge (A Very Potter Sequel)

if i could relive those days, i know the one thing that would never change

[day eleven: your favorite school binder]

okay, so this one seems like it was put in the list just for me. senior year of high school, i was sitting in ap calc when a friend told me to start a story. being a loser, i couldn't, so she started one and i added to it. i'm not sure what we were expecting to come from it that first day, but the writing of the story spanned months. it was six hundred hand written pages (not counting the pages we rewrote/edited/scrapped). i spent the last month or so of school and most of the summer typing it up.

anyway, when it became clear to us that carrying around loose-leaf papers was not the smartest idea, i used a red binder (i wanna say it was for physics, but i really have no idea. i know it wasn't my english, arabic, or math binder, as if this makes a difference) to hold it in. when the red binder was getting too full to close and the rings were starting to deform, i emptied my purple english binder for the rest of the story. at the end of the year, i took the purple binder (the second half) and my friend took the red. but those two binders were by far my favorite schools binders ever. the purple one still sits next to my bookshelf with the rest of my books.

and i promise that that will be the last time i talk about the story here. at least for a while.

before those, however, i had this lavender floppy binder that i loved. i used it for eighth and tenth grade. during tenth grade, our english teacher would sometimes do a binder check to make sure we all had them with us. one girl from the other english class didn't, so she ended up stealing mine from my locker. when i confronted her, she said it was hers, though it was a pretty unique color and had my doodles on it. anyway, on the last day of school it was put back in my locker, so i guess there was no harm done? i dunno... i was still pretty annoyed with her.

*Photograph - Nickelback

we'll leave behind a life and time we'll never know again

[day ten: something from your childhood]

well isn't this just the perfect topic for my nostalgia-addicted self. when i was little i was a big stuffed-animal person (i still think they're pretty awesome), but i think one of my favorite stuffed animals by far was this stuffed cat i named pierre. depending on which generation you're from, you may remember these. they were little stuffed cats with a ball or rattle or something in their head so they purred when you pet them and they had this balloon thing in their stomachs to make them feel real (as opposed to stuffing).

thanks to google, i have found that they were called kitty kitty kittens plush cat purrs (is that a mouthful of a name or what?), and here's what they looked like:

they're a little sad looking now, i think. pierre was that black and white one in the bottom left corner (apparently named midnight). my older sister had "patches," and my younger one had "tiki (possibly "smokey?"). (names are in quotes because that is not what we called them.)

anyway, i thought pierre was magic. not only did i carry him around everywhere i could, get super upset when someone squeezed him too hard (i was afraid of his bubble popping), and never let anyone play with him but me, but i also knit him a scarf, wove him a blanket, and whenever someone got sick i would let them borrow him to feel better. i seriously thought the world of that cat.

i haven't really thought about pierre for years (though he's still up in my parents' attic), but the minute i read the topic for today, he came into my head like he had never really left.

*Please Remember - Leann Rimes

it's just my luck to end up getting stuck to everything

after installing and updating a new virtual machine on junior, fitting it with an operating system i have never used before, and continuing with this semester's murder of the free memory space on my computer, the programs and plugins i need to do my labs are finally downloading right. i spend the time they are downloading alternating between watching the orange bar tell me how much progress has been made and doodling words and song lyrics in the notebook open next to me. i'm sprawled out across my bed on my stomach, the sunlight glares off my computer screen, and the hum of a soccer game on the tv reaches me from the living room. i rest my head on the back of my hand, my wrist bent, and i can smell the ink in my black pen - taken from mason's parking services a couple years back. it's almost sweet, and it tugs at a memory in the back of my mind.

and suddenly i'm in a different room, lying on my stomach on the carpeted floor, bathed in the sunlight of early spring. i'm scribbling furiously into a red binder, desperate to get this thought out before i forget how to word it perfectly. i could smell the ink then too, sweet with a hint of something else i couldn't take the time to pinpoint. my mind is lost in a world of magic and cocky teenage guys with perfect hair and rolled up sleeves. my sister pulls me out of the story to tell me i'm pathetic. i ignore her, thinking instead of the reaction my part will get tomorrow at school, at how my friend will continue where i left off. i put my pen down and flip back over the pages i had just written, my handwriting covering both sides. the stack of written pages is thick, we'll soon need another binder. i add the page number at the top outside corner of each page, circling it, amazed at how much we've already written. the thoughts that there are only a couple months left of school, that the story would have to end, that i wouldn't experience the thrill of seeing my friend walk in with the binder in the morning for much longer, that i would probably rarely see my friend at all anymore are pushed out of my head. there's still enough time left that i can ignore them for now. and i am happy.

*All Hail the Heartbreaker - The Spill Canvas

steal away into that way back when

when i was in kindergarten, my friends and i would sometimes play aladdin during recess. i don't remember actually playing the game much, but i do remember the five minutes or so before when we would choose characters pretty well. i would always choose to play raja. for those of you not fully educated in disney characters, that's jasmine's pet tiger. i'm not sure why i was so pressed to play an animal, but i was the tiger every. single. time.

when i was in second grade, my friends and i made a teddy bear picnic kind of club where, once a week, we would each bring a teddy bear to school to play with at recess. i would always bring a small white bear i got with a pair of pajamas. he wore a matching pair. his name is stuffy. he still sits in the toy box in the playroom at my parent's house. i have this distinct memory of us all letting our teddy bears climb up the jungle gym. stuffy was the smallest one there.

when we were all much, much younger, my sisters and i would play this game about witches and small children. the details are a little foggy, but i remember two of us being witches (usually me and my younger sister) and we would catch a little girl (my older sister) and we always ended up turning her into a cat. we would play this while wearing our footsie pajamas which were fuzzy like fur. we would also play whatever my older sister was learning at school. i remember playing ancient egypt (my younger sister and i were slaves and whipped with a jump rope) and reenacting the experiences of chinese immigrants coming to san francisco.

my younger sister and i would also play these long, elaborate games that would last for weeks with little figures (rainbow brite and these small dogs and cats come to my mind) and the boxes from those hickory farms cheese and meat gifts. every night we would shove everything under my bed to be pulled out and continued the next day. the figures went on wild adventures, had little song and dance numbers, and even suffered through the mundane things like cleaning their houses/cars (the boxes).

one time, my sisters, a neighbor girl, and i all played doctor to a tree that had a root that was sticking up. another time my sisters and i made a lemonade/lemon stand (the only business we had was the neighbor girl and a lady who took some lemons, said she had to get the money from her house, and never came back. every saturday was filled with softball and soccer games, and whoever wasn't the one playing would hang out at the snack shack and playgrounds.

sometimes, i look back on my childhood and see all of the stuff that we had that kids these days don't, and what we didn't have that they do, and i'm just so grateful for everything. i had a great childhood, especially those california days. sometimes i think about how different i would be without that.

*Stay Gold - Stevie Wonder

and now you're back

a few weeks ago (or something like that) my high school bus driver sent me a friend request on facebook. this bus driver was, well... it's a little hard to describe him. i can't quite paint an accurate picture of him with just words. you really had to have been on my bus (which had some super awesome people on it) to really get him. but to try, he spent most of his time with his eyes on the giant rear view mirror thing he has watching the girls, he sometimes made some pervy comments, and not to brag or anything, but i was his favorite student on the bus. he would let me talk, eat, and stand up when no one else was allowed to (of course, everyone did anyway, but that's totally beyond the point). he tried to be our friend by copying the stupid things we did on the bus, like saying hi to random strangers we passed, but he would get annoyed when i brought a camera on the bus because "it made the kids crazy." (this was after he had me take a picture of himself, of course, and email it to him.) anyway, i have fond memories of that bus, and a lot of them include making comments about him being creepy.

the other day, my ap history teacher added me on facebook. this guy was also a character. he was our third teacher for that subject that year (our first one died and our second one was the vice principal or something of the boys' school and couldn't do both) and probably the craziest. the first day he taught us, he broke into song. a week or so before the ap exam, he had us coloring buffaloes in class. because, you know, studying is so overrated. one time, he started shouted something so loud (i forget what, but i think he was being a revolutionist or something) that the teacher from the next room over ran in because she was sure something terrible was happening. another time, he had me read a packet about harvey brown or someone that was as thick as the text book. i read for fifty minutes straight, and it was the most boring class i have ever attended. i still feel sorry for everyone who was forced to listen to me drone on that day. oh, and once, he said that he hoped his daughter grew up to be like me. (yeah, i'm pretty cool, and by that i mean very, very far from it.) i'm painting myself into quite the nerd, aren't i? also, i think his disappointment to the gift we got him at the end of the year - that we thought was perfect - takes the cake for the worst reaction to a present i've ever seen.

anyway, there is a point here. i recently decided that i was going to stop being nostalgic, mopey me. i was going to look to the future and live in the present, etc etc. do you know how hard it is to do that when, not only am i going against my nature, but my past is also on teen nick every day, on the radio every night, and now adding me on facebook? i'm not sure my resolution is going to last very long.

oh, and in case you were wondering, mason still hasn't answered me. anxiety is beginning to take over. i better have an answer before i go to florida.

*I Will Survive - Gloria Gaynor

write me a letter, write it today

there are very few people that would ever call me an optimist. i'm generally not one to buoy myself up with false hopes, but there is one time that i just cannot seem to suppress them, though i know deep inside they are most likely to come crashing down. every time i walk to the mailbox - and this has been going on for years - i will inflate the bubble of hope that there will be something there for me. something good. more often than not, i am wrong. on a good day, i might get a credit card offer. most days, though, find the mailbox filled with things for everyone else. it's very crushing. i recently starting receiving spanish pork catalogs. i'm still confused about them seeing as i'm not spanish, don't eat pork, and never signed up for them. but once a month one will be delivered to our mailbox with my name neatly printed on the back.

i was not always so mail deprived. once upon a time i was a little girl who would receive mail on a regular basis. and good mail, too. i had a few pen pals when i was younger, and it was great. looking back, my letters were formulaic, boring, and pretty pathetic. after the salutation, i always started with a mention of the weather. always. it was either, "the weather here has been warm lately. how is the weather over there?" or "the weather here has started to get cold. how is the weather over there?" sad, i  know. but i was only like eight. give me a break. regardless of the fact that the letters were nothing to write home about, i wrote them regularly. every time i would get a reply from one of my pen pals, i would run to my room, pull out my stationary - which i used to have lots of - and start a reply. it would be in the mail the next day and then i'd wait for a reply back.

the recipients of my letters were an odd bunch: my great grandfather, my mom's great aunt, and my grandmother's first grade teacher are among the most prominent in my mind. sometimes along with the letters they would send little treats - a bookmark or an eraser - that would make my day. the teacher used to send my sisters and i big packages full of old jewelry and books. they were great.

the point is, i grew up having a really good relationship with the mail. i developed expectations that, fifteen years later, have yet to die, though all of my pen pals have. (is that too blunt of a sentence? i cringed a little when writing it.) i miss the thrill of getting handwritten letters in the mail, the excitement of getting a glimpse into another's life, even if that other was literally ten times my age. i miss getting good mail. i need to find myself some new pen pals is what i'm thinking.

oh, and i went to see cirque du soleil: qidam yesterday. i felt that it should be mentioned to, if for no other reason, make sure it is remembered.

*Write Me a Letter - Aerosmith

where'd you go? i miss you so. seems like it's been forever since you've been gone

so yesterday we took the boys to see the lion king at the movies, and can you believe that they had never seen it before? i felt like i had failed my duties as an older sister. they had seen lion king one and a half. it came out when they were younger and when i bought it they would watch it on repeat all. day. long. over and over and over again for months. they had seen lion king two recently on the airplane. we used to have it taped off the tv, but then ali recorded free willy over the last fifteen minutes or so when he was small. but they had never seen the original one, the best one. we had it on vhs, but it got lost in one of our house moves. i was devastated naturally, because along with beauty and the beast and aladdin, it's up there with my favorite disney movies of all time. if you haven't already, i suggest you go watch it on the big screen before it stops showing. it's a guaranteed good movie in a time when a lot of what is being shown is just mindless crap that makes billions of dollars anyway.

while i was watching the movie, listening to baby simba talk, all i could think about was where did jonathan taylor thomas disappear to? he was my first celebrity crush - well, him and aladdin, but he was my first non-animated one - and i definitely wasn't the only one. i remember him taking off time from acting to go to college or something, good role model as he is (it was the biggest news of my elementary class), and then he came back and did a few guest spots on shows that he would probably be starring in if he didn't leave, and then he fell off the face of the planet. where did he go?

**UPDATE**: shortly after posting this, i did a quick google search and found this, an interview with him from the home improvement reunion (which i didn't know about?) about a week ago. apparently he's been "going to school, and traveling quite a bit, getting to read a lot of books [he's] wanted to for quite some time." basically a very me-sanctioned way to spend his time out of the spotlight. twenty three year old me approves of eight year old's me choice in crushes. eight year old me feels validated.

i'm going to go find my slap bracelets now and continue reliving my childhood.

*Where'd You Go - Fort Minor

you disappoint me

today is just one of those days where looking at me will get you blacklisted and talking to me should make you fear for your life. you know the kind? i'm trying to read to pass the time until i can eat, but the characters are all annoying me too much.

anyway, it occurred to me that after a couple of posts talking about hurricane irene and the end of the world, i should probably mention how very anticlimactic irene turned out to be. at least for the area i was in. there was some rain, yes, but nothing too bad. we had a little wind, but we've had a lot worse. i couldn't even hear it howling outside, something i actually really like. the electricity didn't flicker, let alone go off. i had phone, internet, and tv up until i went to bed. early. i woke up the next morning to blue skies and sun. there weren't even any puddles outside (at least, nothing i could see from my window). all in all, i was a bit disappointed.

don't get me wrong, i'm thankful that there wasn't any damage for us to deal with, but i was gearing up for a good old storm. i wanted pounding rain and howling winds. i wanted power outages and candlelight. one of my favorite childhood memories happened when i was in fourth grade. we were living in california at the time and it was in the middle of el nino. we had a bad storm and were powerless for what i remember to be the better part of a day, but of course time seemed longer to my nine year old self. it might have just been a few hours. it was during ramadan and my dad cooked the food to break our fast in our fireplace. i remember playing charades by candlelight in my pajamas and how the house seemed different when viewed by flashlight. it was exciting, though we didn't really do anything too out of the ordinary that day. since then i have loved power outages. they bring with them the bittersweet nostalgia that tells of better days.

so to be told that we were having the biggest hurricane in the history of the world and to stock up on food and get ready for loss of power, ending up with a little rain and wind was pretty disappointing.

*Passive - A Perfect Circle

you were just always talking about changing, guess what i am the same man

i started this post writing about the fact that i finally watched the 90s are all that on teen nick last night and how it was awesome and slightly sad at the same time. and kenan was so young! i mean, they all were, but he's the one i see the most these days and he was hosting the thing so we kept seeing him all grown up and facial haired and then we'd see him in all that and he was a baby. seriously. the post started to drag so i deleted it but still wanted to let you guys know that i miss 90s television.

anyway, i've been thinking about making a change (because, you know, getting married isn't a big enough change for me). see, i was talking to my cousins before i left saudi arabia and they were convincing me to get a new haircut (i have had the same hair style for as long as i can remember) since i'm married. it was apparently the first thing my cousin did and she said it was such an amazing feeling. they just about convinced me to cut bangs at my next haircut until a couple of days ago when i was thinking about it and realized that bangs can get really annoying and i just don't think i want them. she was also saying that her friend got a pet immediately after she was married and i should do that since i've always wanted a rabbit. that was an exciting idea for about three seconds until i decided that i like the idea of a pet rabbit more than i'd really like the actual pet. at least right now. it's just too much work that i don't feel like dealing with at the moment. plus, i want to be able to just get up and go on a spontaneous road trip without having to worry about who's going to take care of my pets. i mean, sure, i probably won't be going on many spontaneous road trips, but i want the option. 

so i got to thinking that maybe the problem isn't that bangs are annoying and pets are a lot of work. maybe it's just that i really do have an aversion to change that's too strong. maybe  i want to stay the same a little bit too much? to test out this theory, i am trying to think of a change that i won't have a million doubts about, but i'm coming up blank. maybe i will just go chop up my hair (every time i decide to do this though i remember my older sister cutting bangs a few years ago and absolutely hating it, plus, i'm not sure how i'd look with bangs seeing as the last time i had them i was five). ideas for changes? 

*Changing - Airborne Toxic Event

caught in a craze, it's just a phase, or will this be around forever?

i've gotten too comfortable with not posting any new blog posts. it hasn't been that long since my last post, but i feel if i don't force myself to write something today, i'll end up just stopping this thing. dunno why, exactly.

anyway, yesterday i was teaching my brother how to finger crochet. when he got the hang of it, he was super excited. this was his first reaction: "awesome! now i have a way of making a living. i'm gonna live in a cardboard box and when anyone gets near me i'm gonna yell at them to go away cause i'm finger crocheting." a boy after my own heart, he is.

also when we were in the car going to pick up my sister, this was our conversation.
him: sarah, if you could go back to any time in history, when would you go to?
me: the victorian era. (this is always my off the top of my head answer for this question.)
him: i dunno what that is.
me: it's when queen victoria was queen of england. a lot of books i read are about that time. and they wore pretty dresses.
him: oh. i would go back to my childhood.
me: you're only ten.
him: no, i mean my childhood before school. when only hannah was in college and daddy would take us to play by the lake and he would chase us and me and ali would run away and hide and we'd have to jump over mud puddles. those were good times.
i had some stupid answer i can't remember. it made me kinda sad.

random note, i woke up this morning suddenly thinking about my old inflatable chair. remember how those were so popular back in the day? (well, if you were a 90s kid.) and speaking of the 90s, i feel like i'm going crazy because whoever i mention pogs to has no idea what i'm talking about. pogs were a raging fad back then, weren't they? i couldn't have just imagined the whole thing. and MASH. do you guys remember MASH? that's still how i decide my future. oh, and what ever happened to skorts and overalls? i was having a conversation about them the other day. i used to own both and loved them both. they were the cool things to wear. okay i'm gonna stop before this just becomes a 90s nostalgia word vomit thing.

*Stop - Spice Girls (i thought it was appropriate)

i want you to keep everything

it's amazing what you find when you clean your room. really clean it, not just doing the top three-quarters of the mess. it's what slips into that last quarter among the piles of batteries that may or may not be dead and old pens that are missing their caps that can really surprise you. uncovering all the hidden reminders of days so long past that the memories are fading can really put into light just how much you've changed over the years. i've been living in this room for almost a decade, give or take a year or two, so there are many years worth of stuff piled up in here. i'm a pretty sentimental person, and end up keeping a lot of junk most people would throw away. i am also a major pack rat (a characteristic i like to pretend i don't have) which means even more stuff. going through it all was just... weird.

for example, in a pile of old papers from high school (including every math test from tenth grade forward. even i had to raise an eyebrow at that one) i found this math packet that was half solved by me and half solved by this kid i used to have the biggest crush on for years. he had filled it out one day on the bus in a confusing, rather pointless story that i'm not gonna write out here. but anyway, i haven't seen this kid since our graduation in 'oh six (actually, i think i might have seen him on campus a couple of weeks ago but i'm not sure) or really talked to him aside from a couple of facebook messages a year or so back. i kept a packet just because it had his writing on it, i could pick him out of a crowd from a mile away, and now he's just not in my life at all. and i don't even notice his absence. like a lot of people i used to know. a lot of high school memories were surfacing today. 

i also realized that i suck at sending cards. i have an entire pile of thank you and get well cards, signed with little notes in addressed envelopes, that i just never got around to sending. talk about a waste of money. i can't even remember when some of them are from but judging from my handwriting they are nowhere near recent.

oh, and looking at how my handwriting has changed on all the papers was interesting. the fact that i had handwritten essays in junior year surprised me too. so did finding a paper that didn't make me want to scratch my eyes out by rereading it. that rarely happens. (there's this essay i wrote junior year of high school on gone with the wind that i was obsessed with. i thought it was the greatest thing ever written. i can't even look at it now without wanting to take a red pen to it.)

there were magazines i had saved because of some actor/actress/singer on the cover that i couldn't care any less about now.

there were things i had lost years ago like my mini stapler from my freshman year at college and the silly putty i bought for my brothers when they were four and five. they are now nine and ten. i found my high school diploma and tons of old hallmark cards, some not even for me. 

and i kept every. single. thing any kid ever drew me. i have tons of stuff from my brothers from over the years, but also drawings and notes from the kids i used to substitute for and girls on my bus. it's crazy. 

there were lists of songs i had wanted to download, half of them i never got around to, and statements from my old bank that doesn't even exist anymore. 

there's just so much stuff and it's taking forever to get through it all because i have to stop and read everything. 

*I Want You to Keep Everything - These United States

but you could never go back there again

for my sister's birthday last night, after a bunch of family stuff, she and i made popcorn, got root beers, and watched harry potter 7 part 1. actually, it might not have been for her birthday at all. it could have possibly been for mine. the point is, we watched the movie. i'm always halfway jealous of her when she watches these because she stopped reading the books after the fourth one came out. everything is new to her. everything's a surprise. it's the same kind of jealousy i felt when i got my fiance to read the books a few months ago. or when anyone really is freshly introduced into the plot. the stories haven't been new to me for years. i have read and reread them so many times that there are no more surprises. there are no sudden twists or cliffhangers that leave me guessing. i know what's going to happen next. and while i think the wait in between the books - filled with anticipation and wild theories - gives me a level of appreciation that the people who read them all together can never get, while i would never give up the feeling of getting the books the day they were released for anything, while i love the fact that the series was such an integral part of me growing up, i'm still jealous. because i remember the amazingness of the series the first time i read it. and i can never get that back.

i can never read it for the first time again.

*Scenes from an Italian Restaurant - Billy Joel

it makes you sad on the stage

this made me so sad. like that lump-in-throat-nostalgia i felt at the end of senior year, and whenever i read the story, and when i think about the summer.

also, i have always wanted to know what happened to the dursleys. did harry just never see them again? did he not go check on them to make sure that they were still alive after the war? dudley had had a change of heart about harry near the end, does that go completely ignored forever? do harry's awkwardly named children never meet dudley's kids? this is stuff i need to know.

*The Past is a Grotesque Animal - Of Montreal