The Weather Outside is Frightful

I appreciate glittery frost on the cobwebs and the beauty of leaves blown about in a winter gale, individually chaotic yet corporately streamlined as they whip around the barren trees; I love the clean softness of freshly fallen snow, the way it muffles the world for a few hours until it is inevitably sullied by warmth and humanity. I love that the change of weather changes the sound of the air from lush and deep to tinny and thin, that the cool, refreshing breezes of summer turn gradually into whistling - and later howling - blusters that pull at scarves and prod errant litter down the empty, echoing streets.

Warmth is something I understand. It makes me want to breathe deeply and go conquer the world. But I hate being cold. I hate the prospect of being cold. I hate, hate the sudden streaks of hard goose bumps that rush up my legs as soon as the wind licks my jeans. I hate the hot sensation of truly cold fingers; the numb nose; the red, raw eyes. I hate the wooden, stiff feeling that permeates my muscles as I attempt to thaw. I hate the feeling that I am one thermostat, one winter coat, one fireplace away from death.

When I lay in bed, warm under my comforter, next to my radiator (which is usually dressed in tomorrow’s clothes so that they are warm when I put them on,) I usually can’t help but think, “…But for these walls…I’d be dying or dead, frozen somewhere in a corner, unable to move.” It’s a bit ridiculous because, of course, there ARE walls there, and I DO have a radiator, and I am not dead or near-dead because of the cold. But those walls are a thin separation, psychologically and physically, between me and that numbing temperature. And a jacket and gloves, although effective, are an almost comical boundary between my skin and the elements: how easy it would be to be stripped of that protection and be rendered helpless, my thin skin against the cruel winter.

When my brother lived in Alaska, he got frostbite because his ear was not sufficiently covered as he walked between his dorm and the library. This would not happen in Hawaii. You would not be this frighteningly close to frostbite, hypothermia, and death from exposure if you lived in San Diego, where when you walk outside, you are not a potential victim of the weather itself. One is not afraid, during the summer months, of being stripped of one’s sundress and sandals because (save for the possibility of being extremely embarrassed) it’s not a life-threatening possibility. Naked threats like illness, boredom and dehydration are benign until paired with looming, billowing cold that rushes down your neck, paralyzing you even as you attempt to defend yourself from illness, dehydration, boredom.

Cold makes everything harder, slower, more laborious. Cold is confident that, given enough time, he could permeate even your most carefully planned layers of clothing. Cold wants you to recognize his tyrannical presence and bow to him as he passes. Cold and I are not on speaking terms.

At the Lighting of the National Christmas Tree, Freezing. December 6, 2007.

Land of My Fathers

My grandfather was tall and gentle and moved as old men move, with slightly bent knees and a lanky body of boney angles. But he had not withered as some old men do; his former strength was not hidden under years of alcohol and cigarettes. It was still tangible -- his hands sat on his lap like sleeping jaguars, full of lean control. His old skin tugged around his ears and shoulders and his movements were slow, but his eyes were still sharp and blue, like my father’s eyes, and his cheekbones were still commanding. His speech was slow and simple, as if he were always remembering something and trying to make sense of it, and his way of ending with a slight shake of his head and a soft “huh!” of a laugh buffered his words with kindness. Talking to him over a cup of coffee and a bologna sandwich, I got the idea that he had never been rushed, that he had approached life deliberately, cleanly, with a vague distrust of emotion but a very real sense of duty and family. And I also felt that if I ever wanted anyone to feel loved and honored and respected, it was him, who had raised his children in the Wisconsin winters and driven his cement truck every day and built himself a humble, honest reputation.

I have seen a few pictures of him and his young family circa 1955. They looked their parts; my father as the tallest and eldest of 5, 6, 7 siblings, standing straight and bright. There is something about him that is perpetually so innocent and so strong. He was the eldest of 7 on the 1950s Midwest farm, and seems to be the incarnation of everything I ever vaguely believed was good about America: honest, hardworking, protective, tall and strong, silent. The old photos of him on the farmhouse seem almost manufactured to create this impression: My dad's skinny kid frame clad in plaid flannel shirts; his dewy calf eyes under a limp 1950s hairdo, parted precisely on the side, cut close above his ears; a one-room schoolhouse; toys made of wood; the huge, loving frame of his father, also clad in plaid.

It is not a family of lavish tribute or gregarious compliments. We are a quiet people who see no need to offer excessive commentary. We are wary of telephones and intimate conversations. We prefer typewriters and books and silence. Any praise and encouragement, therefore, is simple, and the plain honesty of it moves me to tears sometimes. My aging grandfather and my middle-aged father, a successful doctor with a happy family, walking through the Wisconsin fields together, slowly and surely, for both were familiar with the terrain. Their powerful frames fit the landscape beautifully and even their light hair ruffling in the wind echoed the waves of the grains in the fields. “You know,” Grandpa said slowly, in his crackling voice, “I’m proud of you.” And my heart breaks with the pride and humility when I think of those words because I knew that these laconic men would never say more than that, and that the very absence of extra words makes the sentiment weigh heavy.

His funeral took place in the winter, on Thanksgiving, which seemed final and cold, an appropriate time to be buried and move on the warmer, friendlier lands. Yesterday's snow laced in doilied patterns across the stiff brown grass and the speckled sun shifted in a layer above the lace, giving the whole cemetary a rich, deep aura: layer upon layer of nature's patterns, from the nubby black frozen dirt through the lace up the rough tree trunks to the roof of waving pine needles and a few dead brown leaves languidly waving in the breeze, hanging from their branches with golden threads. The watercolored gray sky was thin with Wisconsin winter cold.

His children were there, and his close friends, and a man with a guitar. His sons dug the hole; his eldest gave the simple benediction. It is always hard to imagine the loss felt in others’ lives, and we gathered in possibly the largest gathering of Ranges I have seen in my 25 years, ate a post-Thanksgiving feast, talked about everything, and watched silly TV shows. We all knew the reason we were there, and we all felt the solemnity of it, but it was joyous and encouraging to see all sizes, ages, experiences, from his widow to his 2 year old great-grandson, connected only by thin lines of blood, marriage, and love, here remembering the man who had fathered us all.

Thanksgiving with Other Americans

On Thanksgiving, the Ranges got on a plane and went to Chicago. We drove across the gray plains toward Wisconsin, mile after mile of road, exit, road, the soft rolling hills punctuated with the sharp edges of the harvest's skeletal remains, dried stalks jutting up into the gray sky. It was Thanksgiving day, early afternoon, and only a few cars whooshed by us. We pulled off to a rest stop to get something to eat since we hadn't eaten since morning. A few snow flakes meandered down around our scarves as we entered the only restaurant that was open: A combination Diner/Popeye's/Burger King/gas station.

And here, in the middle of America, in a gas station in the middle of the plains, were scattered couples, truckers, single women working the counter, eating their Thanksgiving meals. Music tinkled from the ceiling and the lights were cold, not the warm Thanksgiving lights of home on a snowy day, and the air was tinny and smelled of fried chicken and convenience store preservatives. Weathered men with hats and layers of flannel and corduroy and wrinkles across their brows folded into plastic booths behind plates of turkey and gravy, boiled green beans, pumpkin pie. An middle-aged couple, her black hair just set, both wearing thick-rimmed glasses, shared a piece of pie and two cups of steaming coffee. A small boy and his mother decorated the Burger King/Popeye's seating area with Christmas decorations. Two languid young men slouched behind the counter. Some looked so weary.

Popeye's fried chicken basket is...not my ideal Thanksgiving dinner. But I felt a strange sense of camaraderie with the other solitary figures in that plastic oasis, and I wondered to the point just short of getting the nerve to ask them -- Where were they going? Why were they here, of all the places to be on Thanksgiving? What did she do? Where are their children? Which truck is yours? How long is your drive? Do you want another cup of coffee?

And it felt very American, somehow, the weary, independent loneliness of Thanksgiving dinner in a truck stop, with strangers you'll probably never see again, on a holiday that is neither sacred nor profane. And I felt a heartbreaking urge to hug everyone and listen to their stories because the sum of all the lives and experiences in that room could add up to a storybook of laughter and sorrows and love and hate.... But we sat alone, with our own thoughts, taking a mealtime to nod to the holiday and our fellow travellers, and then dribbling out, speeding away and leaving that very temporary place with its oddly permanent smell of ice and plastic under the fluorescent humming of the lights.

Do you need another reason to avoid Air France?

There are some flights that go exceedingly smoothly: the ying. I boarded my flight from Colombo to Doha to Amman with no hiccups. I saw the sun rise over the impending chaos of Colombo as I sat on my scarf to protect my jeans from the dampness of the taxi seat, as if it had been washed carefully but had never quite dried in the intense humidity. Skinny men in colorful wrapped skirts stepped lightly along the sides of the road, men whose arm veins I could see from the car, so little fat did they have. Young girls in blue and white school uniforms that looked all shades of gray in the morning light, darted between the traffic like it was a game, a real life pacman, and their long black braids swung back and forth. It smelled like rain, heat, gasoline, rain, heat, fish, mangoes.

The new Colombo terminal boasts a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, shiny and new, and the mocha-colored cushions and smooth wood and wicker feel very colonial when you sip your cappuccino from a thick white mug while looking out over the South Asian jungle. I tell the barista that even in DC we don’t have a Coffee Bean yet, and why on earth did Sri Lanka, arguably the Tea Capitol of the World, get one before we did? He shrugged and handed me my debit card. I bought souvenir tea from delightful young women whose skin was the color of the tea they were selling, and they explained with the trademark South Asian head bob the difference between the types of tea: U.V.A., Kandy, Ruthuna, this one comes from the south, this one from the mountains...this one is light, this one is dark, this one is a little stronger, and this is a very nice assortment...

The connection to Doha, with its high ceilings and sparkling duty free, and then to Amman, was seamless. My suitcase was the first one out, and I was picked up right away. It was a lovely Jordan afternoon, and the landscape rolled away from the highway in amber waves with golden froth of the sun sparkling on the windows of the distant houses. That strangely fresh smell of soil, desert and diesel whipped around our heads as we sped across the plain.

And then the yang, a week later. I arrived at 1 AM for my Air France flight to DC via Paris. In the Amman airport, there are a variety of men milling about in blue jumpsuits, and they will help you (often whether you like it or not); one of them informed me that the Air France counter had already closed. So I rushed through, and yes, it was closed, leaving me and a bunch of French guys stranded, asking anyone who looked like they knew anything, How can we get on the Air France flight...? WHY DID THEY CLOSE THE COUNTER? The French guys yelled at the only man who looked like he had any control, who insisted repeatedly, “SHU MALAK, I don’t have any idea about Air France, I’m with Royal Jordanian! I have no idea! Get a hotel!” He muttered angry Arabic and sucked his cigarette. The French guys yelled some more, then gradually disappeared, presumably to get a hotel.

Luckily, I have a travel agent, and they have a 24-hour emergency number, and Vita, who is my favorite person right now, confirmed me on the Frankfurt flight leaving in an hour and a half, although the man in the blue jumpsuit tilted his head in a tick of disbelief and raised his eyebrows as he inhaled, “It’s overbooked maybe 30 person.” I pointed at the Blackberry pressed against my ear and whispered, “Si7r...” Magic.

Although I was confirmed on the flight, which was indeed magical, this was only the first hurdle: the Lufthansa computer system was down, resulting in a crowd at the counter that had been growing for thirty minutes. As departure time approached, they announced that there would be free seating for those who did not already have their boarding pass. This was good news for me because, well, first come, first serve, so I paid for my ticket with my own credit card because my government card’s limit is low, low, and I got a blank boarding pass with FREE scribbled on it.

Being on a flight with free seating means a mob at the counter and then the same mob at the gate, random blue jumpsuited men who take you to the WRONG TERMINAL, and also only being able to check your bag one leg, which in turn means picking up the bag, then entering the airport again to find the correct terminal, which may involve a variety of stunts, like climbing up a down escalator because I had gone into the wrong baggage claim. This, my friends, is much harder than it looks, and not as much fun.

But not as hard as the young Palestinian woman next to me in the airplane from Amman, who had never flown before and was wide-eyed, overwhelmed. She and her shy three year old son Hamza, dressed impeccably in a tiny black three-piece suit, were en route to Sweden. She didn’t speak a word of English. I knew I had a while to wait in Frankfurt, so I told her to follow me, and we’d find her plane together. Frankfurt airport is a maze of hallways, checks, arrival and departure computer screens, passport controls, German women in navy suits who speak quickly and unforgivingly. My baggage claim and her gate were in the same place, roughly, which was good, because it was completely confusing to figure out which Lufthansa counter she needed to find to get her boarding pass, and how exactly she was to get to her gate--and I am a veteran traveler who speaks English. I saw her off at the security gate and watched her glide into the crowd, Hamza trotting dutifully behind her in his tiny blazer, four steps to her one.

I wouldn’t have had the chance to help her on her maiden voyage if I had made the Air France flight, and I don’t know why things happen the way they do, but sometimes your inconvenience doesn’t matter in the long run after all, and sometimes you get a glimpse into someone else’s life that makes you think deep thoughts about destiny and chance while you wait with your laptop and German gummy bears at Gate 55.

GOALS.

One day in third grade, we had a lesson on GOALS, written boldly on the whiteboard in squeaky blue marker. “GOALS,” my teacher warbled, “are very important. You can’t accomplish anything unless you first establish some GOALS.”

I had never heard this, or if I had, I didn’t know that it was so terribly important. I knew that I certainly didn’t have any GOALS. I listened intently, trying to understand this important concept to which I had somehow never been exposed.

My teacher explained further. “You should be able to measure how far you’ve come in accomplishing your GOALS, to check your progress.” I understood this, ok, fine. “Now let’s everybody write down three long-term GOALS. Make sure you have checkpoints. The checkpoints are like mini goals, and every mini goal should lead up to your main GOAL. It’s good to have a checkpoint once a week or once a month, depending on how long your GOAL will take.”

I got out a fresh piece of paper, a sharpened pencil, and stared at my fingernails. My heart began racing and my face flushed in panic, as it always does when confronted with a task I have no idea how to complete. I had no GOALS! My third grade self couldn’t think of any thing I needed to set a goal for, especially not one that would take months to complete. A month in third-grade Catherine time was...well, it was impossible. I concentrated really hard, trying to think of something that I needed to improve about myself, something that would take a long, long time, like a month. Maybe I could make a GOAL to ride my bike faster. Or maybe I could make a GOAL to read more books. I recognized that both these GOALS were very silly and not really measurable, and it seemed like cheating to make a GOAL of something that I would do anyway, regardless of checkpoints.

I don’t remember what I wrote down for my goals, but I do remember that it was basically BS. It is the first time I remember making something up to accomplish a task, just because I knew that if I didn’t write anything down, I would get a bad grade, or, worse, come off as thinking that I was already perfect and didn’t need to set any GOALS. (Even at this age, I was aware that humility is a virtue that will always eventually work in your favor.) I was a good kid, and an impeccable student who got hot, sweaty palms if there was even a chance that I was unprepared for a class, an assignment, a presentation. (Until I got to college and realized that I could procrastinate and still get straight A's...) I was afraid my teacher would see that my GOALS were counterfeit, and then I’d have to admit that I had made them up, or that I didn’t really have any. I would have to think on my feet. I hate thinking on my feet.

But she didn’t see through my fake goals, and I’m sure no one ever thought about my GOALS after that day, but for the next few years I felt anxious dread whenever I thought about my lack of GOALS, because what if I never accomplished anything with my life because of my distinct lack of GOALS? Was I doomed to failure because I simply didn’t know WHAT to do? Did a successful person like the President make more GOALS as a third-grader than I did?

Clearly, I have accomplished some things in my life, whether or not I had clear GOALS: sometimes I did and sometimes I didn’t. Mostly, I think I trust my gut more than my to-do list and mostly, it works out, because my gut usually self-organizes and creates a mental to-do list which threatens me with that anxious dread if not immediately addressed.

And yesterday when I thought, “I really want to write a decent op-ed and get published somewhere,” my 3rd grade teacher’s thick, quivery voice echoed in my head: “You can’t accomplish anything unless you first establish some GOALS.”

So, internet, here’s my GOAL. It doesn’t have checkpoints yet, and I hope it won’t take months, but I intend to write more, an op-ed, to get into a newspaper or a magazine, something modest, but something I can use as a checkpoint for a grander goal, because seventeen years later my GOALS (always, always capitalized in my mind) are too numerous to mention, and some of the harder ones require some sort of published accomplishment. I want to improve my Arabic, become a *real* tanguera, keep a cleaner apartment and a stricter budget, go to Argentina and gradauate school, pray more, read more nonfiction, get published, write better poetry and more letters (combined, if possible), improve my photography, keep up my French, get a decent 6 pack or at least a 4 pack (don’t laugh), be a better sister, daughter, friend, girlfriend, neighbor...

You can be my checkpoint. Next time you see me, ask me how my GOALS are coming along. And when my op-ed is published, you can be sure it’ll be on this blog and you, my checkpoints, will receive due credit. Checkpoints really do make it so much easier.

The More Things Change

Over a year since my last trip, I landed again in Amman yesterday night. It's the same. It smells the same, it feels the same, the sunsets are just as rosy pink, the houses are just as limestone white, the taxis still honk as they pass you at 40 mph, just in case you want them to stop. It's election season, and banners fly above the roads advertising candidates and slogans: "We won't settle for anything less than the stars!" My taxi driver shakes his head, "Big nice promises," he sniffs, "But you can only be elected if you have money. All of them, rich men." Sounds familiar.

The Holiday Inn is pleasant, nothing remarkable, but the breakfast, as unremarkable as it was, so so refreshing: tomato, cucumber, and green pepper salad, mana'eesh, shai bi n3n3. Laughing cow cheese. Pita. It never tastes quite as good in America.

But Amman has grown, and seems to be swarming with people, ideas, frustrations, like bees who have outgrown their hive. The traffic is backed up all day: before I could take a cab for a quick Swefieh shopping trip and back to Webdeh; now that ride takes at least 15 minutes longer and costs double. The hotels are always fully booked, the Iraqi accent floats around the city. There are towers under construction, huge, stark metal and glass towers, blatantly defying the city rule that all buildings must be limestone, and under 6 stories. They look like transplants from Doha. There are new pedestrian walkways, to be lined with glamorous shops,under construction: transplants from Beirut. "Everything changes," my taxi driver says, sighing glumly as the traffic comes to another halt, his cigarette dangling out the window.

I told a colleague that in DC, smoking has been banned in restaurants and bars. He looked at me in blank surprise. "This," he said, gesturing with his cigarette, "is the only thing keeping most of us sane."

After I checked in at the hotel I wandered up and down the nearby thoroughfare. I don't know the street's name, if it has one, but it's busy, and lined with a random assortment of shops and restaurants. I didn't feel like playing frogger with the traffic, so I stopped in the restaurant nearest to the hotel, a quick meat sandwich place advertising shawerma and kebab. My Arabic fell off my tongue hesitantly, and the consonants sounded all off to me, like I was speaking through cotton balls. "You speak Arabic?" the meat man asked. "Well...yes, but I studied here a long time ago, and I don't practice a lot." He shrugged, "Soon you will remember." I sat outside and watched the cars zoom pass while the waiter stopped by occasionally and enthusiastically told me Arabic words. (He gestures to the bottled water: "Water: maii. MM-AA-YYYY." I nod pleasantly, "...yes, shukran.")

I remember certain things distinctly: the Burger King sign at the intersection where AMIDEAST was, and perhaps still is, located; the that one block next to my house in Webdeh, with the Jasmine spilling over the edge of the walls; the block between the Zara and the Mango stores in Swefieh, where there is now *gasp* a Starbucks; the street at the North Gate of the university with the Turkish Pizza shop and the smell of that falafel/shawerma stand where we ate every lunchtime with a bustling crowd of students; the hill up to CSS at the University, the smell of those trees, the crunch of that mulch under my feet; the November rain and wind mixed with the clear, dusty, only vaguely polluted smell of Amman's streets, whipping around my umbrella. Memories are rarely one-time events, but those events which are repeated daily, so you hardly know you're creating memories until one day after your habits have changed, you're struck by a smell, a sight, a voice, and you remember...

I don't have any claim to this city, except that I studied here once, and I have visited twice, and that I know some families, and that I speak some language, and that I really like mansaf. But I often feel that the whole of Amman, or Jordan, is greater than the sum of its parts: I don't particularly love the language, the food, the people, the politics, the limestone, the jasmine, by themselves: there are other places with purer language, better food, prettier flowers. But together, they create something so beautiful that I often stop as I'm walking down the street and take a deep breath and look at someone's white porch overlooking a crowded street and a herd of sheep, and all the beauty and nostalgic pain of my memories settles on top of my eyelashes and in the middle of my chest, and for a second, it doesn't matter that my memory is often faulty or that things change so drastically so quickly. I feel that tingle of deep, dizzying recognition, and think that maybe...maybe I'll extend my trip a few days.

There are so many reasons not to bomb Iran.

Fareed Zakaria's Newsweek article. I know I could just post the link. But it's worth reading, so here it is, saving you an extra click.

At a meeting with reporters last week, President Bush said that "if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." These were not the barbs of some neoconservative crank or sidelined politician looking for publicity. This was the president of the United States, invoking the specter of World War III if Iran gained even the knowledge needed to make a nuclear weapon.

The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. Norman Podhoretz, the neoconservative ideologist whom Bush has consulted on this topic, has written that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is "like Hitler … a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism." For this staggering proposition Podhoretz provides not a scintilla of evidence.

Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland's and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?

When the relatively moderate Mohammed Khatami was elected president in Iran, American conservatives pointed out that he was just a figurehead. Real power, they said (correctly), especially control of the military and police, was wielded by the unelected "Supreme Leader," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Now that Ahmadinejad is president, they claim his finger is on the button. (Oh wait, Iran doesn't have a nuclear button yet and won't for at least three to eight years, according to the CIA, by which point Ahmadinejad may not be president anymore. But these are just facts.)

In a speech last week, Rudy Giuliani said that while the Soviet Union and China could be deterred during the cold war, Iran can't be. The Soviet and Chinese regimes had a "residual rationality," he explained. Hmm. Stalin and Mao—who casually ordered the deaths of millions of their own people, fomented insurgencies and revolutions, and starved whole regions that opposed them—were rational folk. But not Ahmadinejad, who has done what that compares? One of the bizarre twists of the current Iran hysteria is that conservatives have become surprisingly charitable about two of history's greatest mass murderers.

If I had to choose whom to describe as a madman, North Korea's Kim Jong Il or Ahmadinejad, I do not think there is really any contest. A decade ago Kim Jong Il allowed a famine to kill 2 million of his own people, forcing the others to survive by eating grass, while he imported gallons of expensive French wine. He has sold nuclear technology to other rogue states and threatened his neighbors with test-firings of rockets and missiles. Yet the United States will be participating in international relief efforts to Pyongyang worth billions of dollars.

We're on a path to irreversible confrontation with a country we know almost nothing about. The United States government has had no diplomats in Iran for almost 30 years. American officials have barely met with any senior Iranian politicians or officials. We have no contact with the country's vibrant civil society. Iran is a black hole to us—just as Iraq had become in 2003.
The one time we seriously negotiated with Tehran was in the closing days of the war in Afghanistan, in order to create a new political order in the country. Bush's representative to the Bonn conference, James Dobbins, says that "the Iranians were very professional, straightforward, reliable and helpful. They were also critical to our success. They persuaded the Northern Alliance to make the final concessions that we asked for." Dobbins says the Iranians made overtures to have better relations with the United States through him and others in 2001 and later, but got no reply. Even after the Axis of Evil speech, he recalls, they offered to cooperate in Afghanistan. Dobbins took the proposal to a principals meeting in Washington only to have it met with dead silence. The then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, he says, "looked down and rustled his papers." No reply was ever sent back to the Iranians. Why bother? They're mad.

Last year, the Princeton scholar, Bernard Lewis, a close adviser to Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal predicting that on Aug. 22, 2006, President Ahmadinejad was going to end the world. The date, he explained, "is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the Prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to 'the farthest mosque,' usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back. This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world" (my emphasis). This would all be funny if it weren't so dangerous.

Meme, pilfered from Meg

These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. Here's how I shape up against them.

The books I've read are in bold, the ones I started but couldn't/didn’t finish are in italics, what I couldn’t stand has a strike through, those I've read more than once have an asterisk*, and those underlined are on my To Be Read list.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and punishment
Catch-22
One hundred years of solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi
The name of the rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary I watched the movie, though.
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre ...I watched this movie, too.
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and PeaceVanity Fair
The Time Traveller’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A heartbreaking work of staggering genius
Atlas shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran: a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury tales
The Historian : a novel
A portrait of the artist as a young man
Love in the time of cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo* (LOVE LOVE LOVE)
Dracula
A clockwork orange
Anansi boys
The once and future king
The grapes of wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & demons
The inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One flew over the cuckoo’s nest
To the lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s travels
Les misérables*
The corrections
The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The curious incident of the dog in the night-time
Dune
The prince
The sound and the fury
Angela’s ashes
The god of small things
A people’s history of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A confederacy of dunces
A short history of nearly everything
Dubliners
The unbearable lightness of being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves*
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud
Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita (thanks, Lisa!)
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In cold blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

Lesson: Nothing, really, except that I clearly have more books to read.

Miss Range...with a lead pipe...in the kitchen

Freshman year in the USC dorms, Friday the 13th of October. The sink in our kitchenette clogs, someone turns on the disposal, and a cloud of dark black oily liquid gurgles up from the drain, like squid ink. We were a bunch of 18 year old girls who, while quite capable in many respects, were not really experience plumbers, but we did manage to bucket out the black water and dump it in one of the two communal showers (I know, gross.) As we sloshed from the kitchenette to the showers, we realized that it was not only black and oily, but had a putrid, pungent smell not unlike rancid tofu. It was past 5, when the maintenence guys had already gone home for the weekend, and there we were in our dorm, an unknown substance gurgling up in spurts from the drain in a spring of glossy ooze. It gurgled to a slow halt as we kept our eye on it, and we slept in peace that night, from what I recall. The next day, a USC football game, I was alone in the dorm studying at the table in the common area when I heard a splash! and looked up to see a sheet of water spilling over the sink's edge into a lovely muddy puddle on the floor. I lept up, tied a bandana around my hair, and retrieved our bucket. It stopped of its own accord after a few hauls back to the common shower area. The next Monday, a man came and knocked a hole in our bathroom to fix the pipes. I still have no idea what the black ooze was.

---

Yesterday I came into my apartment after Bible Study, dumped my purse on the bed and went to the kitchen for a drink. There was about an inch of water standing in my sink. The faucet has had a steady drip for a while, but it had never clogged before, not like this. I looked underneath. The seams of the pipe were dripping. I sponged out the water in the sink and dumped it down another drain. We tightened and loosened the seams, and the water just kept rushing out--the sink water level never changed. The Manly Man and the handyman came determined that this was not a problem with my drain, but with the pipe system in general: my first floor apartment was the lucky recipient of waste water that couldn't drain properly because of a clog somewhere else in the system. Turns out that the apartment next to mine experienced the same problem. In other words, the water that was threatening to flood my kitchen was not my water. It was OTHER PEOPLE'S WASTE WATER just looking for a way out. Beautiful.

---

One day soon after I returned from Egypt last October, I was standing at the sink doing my dishes and minding my own business when I looked down to see that I had a fat, hairy visitor: one of Dupont's resident rodents had moved in while I was away. (S)he was quite at home on my yellow floor, and looked startled when she realized that she was not the only tenant in this studio. She bolted behind the oven. I bolted to the phone to call my landlord. I then moved to a friend's apartment because NO WAY WAS I SLEEPING IN THE SAME APARTMENT AS A BIG FILTHY RAT, EW, WHAT IF HE CRAWLED INTO MY BED OR SOMETHING, EW EW EW GROSS.

After a few days tempting her with peanut butter on unset rat traps, to lull her into a false sense of security, we set the traps. The next evening, a Friday, I opened the door to see...a bleeding rat. In my kitchen. I closed the door without moving an inch, went to the front desk and left a note saying something to the tune of, "There is a rat who may or may not be dying/dead in my apartment. If the maintenance guy is around, could you please have him look after that?"

The next day, Saturday at 11 AM, I came back to a laughing front desk clerk who thought that I probably was exagerrating and the rat was probably dead, and was I even sure that it was a rat? Mice can get pretty big, you know. We opened the door, and there she was, with her beady bright eyes, nursing her injured paw in my foyer. The desk clerk thought this was hysterical and screeched with a mixture of disgust and delight. We couldn't trap her with a box and broom, and only succeeded in scaring her to seek refuge under my chair (EW EW EW) so that night we set more traps. The next afternoon, I was greeted with a truly dead rat. The landlord took her away so I didn't have to witness the carnage. There had been, he told me, construction in the basement, leaving a small hole(s) through which the rat had probably discovered my cozy, warm, person-less apartment.

I spent the next 24 hours bathing my studio in bleach and vinegar. I think I dry cleaned every item of clothing I owned. My dishes had never been so clean, my wood floors had neevr gleamed with such precision. I cursed the cumbersome 1950s oven that was stuck to the wall, preventing me from cleaning between the wall and the cupboards.

The moral of the story: Never buy a first floor condo. Let someone else deal with the ooze and the pipes and the rats.

No One's Ever Thrown Me A Surprise Party Before

I turned 21 in Amman, Jordan, on a Tuesday. The store that supposedly sold the "best milkshakes in the Middle East" didn't have any milkshakes, so we went to a tea shop in the middle of downtown Amman with a bunch of people I had just met three weeks ago. There was not much fanfare, but the tea was decent. We went home early to study for our history midterm the next day. In the following week, I came down with a case of Hepatitis A. It was not a miserable birthday, but it could have been better.

I turned 18 at a Buca di Beppo's somewhere in LA with people I had just met in my dorm, the first year of college. It was nice to get out of the dorm, but I'm not sure we had much to say to each other. There was a lot of, "So! This is pretty good food." "Yeah, I've never been here before." "Yeah!" "Yeah." Not miserable, but not really fantastic.

I turned 24 on a rainy day in Adams Morgan, and most of the people I had invited to dinner were sick/out of town/lazy/stuck in Alexandria/whatever. The people I ended up sharing it with were wonderful, but there were only four of us and a lot of mojitos. Again, not miserable, but I can't say it wasn't lame, either.

Not to say I haven't had some good, fun birthday parties: I turned 23 at Mama Ayesha's after living in DC 9 months and accumulating enough friends to make it a true birthday quorum. We ate Arabic food. We went salsa dancing afterwards. Some of us drank mojitos. I met Anthony, who now has surpassed me in Arabic skills and remains one of my dearest friends, despite the difficulty of the weekly Arabic quizzes he administers (Well, I had met him before, but not really.)

And I kind of assumed that birthday parties diminish in quality as one ages: nothing will ever compare to the fantastic day that was my 6th birthday party. Not only did we have a TEDDY BEAR PICNIC, but we also wore PARTY DRESSES and FANCY HATS to said teddy bear picnic. It was pretty much 6-year-old heaven.

So I came back from Geneva on the 13th of September, after exchanging a few e-mails with Lisa and Anthony, "We should do something for your birthday! But I'm busy. How about Sunday?" I had a vague impression that something would be happening Sunday despite the fact that my birthday was on Saturday, which as everyone knows, is the PRIMO BIRTHDAY PARTY day, especially if it is actually the day OF your birthday. I half-heartedly attempted to arrange something, but people were vague/busy/disinterested, so I gave up and decided that going to a war protest would have to suffice as a birthday celebration.

I went to the protest, my first protest ever. I ... am not a protesting person, but it was a liberating experience, and Sasan bought me a nice bumper sticker, so ... that was nice. The weather was beautiful. The crowd was energetic.

On the way back from the protest, Sasan insisted we go to Trader Joe's: "You SAID we could go to Trader Joe's!" ...what's the big deal? I thought. But fine, sure, we'll go to Trader Joe's. He bought nuts and chips and LOTS OF SALSA. Because he really likes salsa, and he goes through it so fast (?) Ok, fine. And I believe I made a comment on the way home about how I Don't Want To Have A Lame Birthday wah wah wah. I believe I also thought, Wouldn't it be nice if someday someone threw me a Fun and Exciting Birthday Party, with friends and family and food and if it were a surprise, wouldn't that be even better! Maybe next year.

We went back to my apartment to drop off the groceries, and I still had the vague idea that we'd be going to Busboys and Poets later on for a Brazilian carnival thing. Sasan declared that it was a Persian tradition to clean up the house/apartment on one's birthday. "It's like starting the new year off, you have to clean your house. However your house is on the first day of the year, that's how it will stay the rest of the year and besides, it's not NICE to be in a messy apartment." And I protested. I don't want to clean my apartment I want to go do something who wants to spend their birthday cleaning the apartment that's so lame. But we cleaned despite my protests. And then he declared another Persian tradition: To take pictures on your birthday. We have to take pictures every year so that we remember the years blah blah blah. He says this to me, in my undone hair and ratty T-shirt. So of course, I go to change. I take my time. We don't have to be at Busboys til 10. It's like, 8:30. Sasan hurries me along: But no we have to go now because we have to walk to Busboys afterwards and we need plenty of time let'sgolet'sgolet'sgo.

He runs me to Dupont, where we took precisely one picture. I was annoyed: WHY ARE YOU WALKING SO FAST. GEEZ. He slowed down. "Ok, I should buy you dessert, it's your birthday. Where do you want to get dessert?" We were walking down 19th street. "Fondue!" I said as we walked by the Melting Pot. I love fondue. "Ok." He steered me in, and I protested, again. "Um, isn't this expensive? We can't just go in an order dessert fondue...um...Are you sure? We can just get ice cream." "Let's just SEE." He said.

So we walked through the dining tables to the corner. I was looking at the various fondue selections, the steaming pots on every table, the couples cuddling and feeding each other strawberries dipped in chocolate. Then I looked up and the first thing I saw were balloons...then I heard a crowd, "SURPRISE!" ...then I recognized Lisa, in the middle of the crowd, and I realized that I was The Surprised One. I was the surprised one.

And then everything made sense. Lisa didn't have a prior engagement. It was a foil to prevent me from planning anything on Saturday night. Sasan didn't need 5 jars of salsa. It was for the party afterwards, when we migrated from the fondue to my apartment. Cleaning one's house on one's birthday is a bogus Persian tradition (although cleaning on the new year is not.) And the picture ploy was just to get me to go willingly to Dupont. He had planned and executed it all, the whole program, designed to the last detail (he even e-mailed my parents to warn them in case they had conflicting plans with me.) He predicted my reaction to people's inquiries about what I'm doing for my birthday, knowing that I shouldn't think that everyone's forgotten, but I should think that it's really not that big a deal to them. He anticipated my reaction to friends', "What are you doing to celebrate?" verbatim: "I guess we're doing something Sunday night...?" He combed through mass e-mails to find friends' contact information.

Sasan gets the gold star.

Carolina brought a decadent chocolate cake, Melissa brought balloons. Anthony brought paper plates. My cousin was there, Kutaiba was there. They had all arrived on time (we had not: I took too long figuring out what to wear.) and were waiting to celebrate MY BIRTHDAY. Because they are the best friends ever.

Carolina, Leila, Azucena, Katie, Melissa, Me, Sasan (Project Manager Extraordinaire), Lisa, Christina. The photographers: Jason, Anthony

If You Forget Me

Just because I like it, here is a lovely poem by Pablo Neruda.

---

If you forget me
I want you to know one thing
You know how this is

If I look at the crystal moon
At the red branch of the slow autumn at my window
If I touch near the fire the impalpable ash
Or the wrinkled body of the log
Everything carries me to you
As if everything that exists - aromas, light, metals
Were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me

Well, now
If little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you, little by little

If suddenly you forget me
Do not look for me
For I shall already have forgotten you

If you think it long and mad the wind of banners that passes through my life
And you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots
Remember....
That on that day, at that hour
I shall lift my arms, and my roots will set off to seek another land

But... If each day, each hour
You feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness
If each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me
Ahh my love, ahh my own
In me all that fire is repeated
In me nothing is extinguished or forgotten
My love feeds on your love, beloved
And as long as you live it will be in your arms
Without leaving mine

How Taking Taxis Improved My Spoken Arabic

When I was wandering around the Levant during my junior/senior/whatever year of college, I took a lot of taxis. In Beirut, I carried around a pack of expensive cigarettes and offered them to the cab driver if we were taking a long enough ride to warrant a cigarette. Although I can't condone smoking, it was an extremely easy way to make quick friends with the driver, and sometimes he counted that as payment, which always gave me the thrill of a Good Deal. They're going to smoke anyway. I may as well get a cheap cab ride out of it.


Without losing much time, most cabbies steered conversation to one's personal life, things one would not dare ask in an American taxi, questions which were endlessly amusing to answer, but sometimes crossed into the terrain of the Intrusive. If you speak Arabic, so much the better, because then you are instantly intriguing. It's excellent practice. Where are you from? (America/Canada) Are you married? (...yes.) Where is your husband? (He's in America/Canada/Portugal, he's coming to meet me here shortly.) Do you have babies? (...no.) Why NOT?! (...)


The best answer to "Why NOT?!" is to say that you've only been married 4 months. This usually calms them down because then they can't say that you're not TRYING, and it's possible that you could still have a baby within an acceptable time frame.


If a young single American doesn't say she's married (i.e. if she tells the truth) she will probably notice his ears perk up slightly. "Why aren't you married! It's better to be married!" To which she may respond, "...I don't want to be married yet," or, "I don't know anyone I want to marry," or, more amusingly, "I don't need a man to make my life complete." Any one of these may inspire an incredulous stare in the rearview mirror. And any one of them may inspire a proposal, which may be dismissed by something as simple as "I don't want to marry a Muslim," or, "I'm not interested," but more often was persistent. "I make good American husband!" many claimed earnestly. "It is PERMISSIBLE for a Muslim man to marry a Christian woman!" (...yeah, but it's maybe not permissible for the Christian woman to marry the Muslim man. What about that?) "You want to live here? I marry you, you stay here. It's beautiful." I once heard a despairing cabbie's woeful tale of converting to Islam in order to marry a Muslim woman, only to have her call off the engagement and leave him stuck with a religion he didn't really believe and couldn't legally denounce. His solution: marry me, move to America, forget about Islam. My solution: Tip him and get out of the cab.

After the first few proposals, I began wondering: what response did they really expect? Did these cab drivers (who were, I'm sure, friendly, hard-working, upstanding citizens) understand the absurdity of their suggestion? Did they think it was possible, or likely, that a single American girl would find love, or at least, a mutual admiration, with a cab driver in an Amman suburb and just decide, in the time it takes to drive up one of Amman's rocky hills, to change her previous plans, marry him, and stay there?

I guess people do that. I guess it's conceivable that one would be so taken with the city, so enamored of the jasmine wafting through the valleys, so flattered by the prospect of a sudden relationship with a dark man in a new country, that one would shrug off her previous life and transplant herself to foreign soil. Conceivable, but not very likely for a free and easy college-educated girl in her young 20s whose possessions fit in one large, wheeled duffle bag.

This is not an easy concept to explain in halting Arabic. I did my best. I'll never forget the words for "My husband is in another country right now," "No, I don't have babies," "I don't want to marry you," "You've got to be kidding," or "That's not important. I'll get out here."

So the moral of the story is that public transportation helps your vocabulary.

Stolen from Lisa, who stole it from Paul.

If your life was a movie, what would be the soundtrack?
Instructions:

1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend your cool... & a lot of the songs fit with
the setting"


Opening Credits:
Quequ'un M'a Dit, Carla Bruni.

(I like it!)

Waking Up:
Freylekhs (Joy) from Songs of My People, Simon Wynberg

(This is a very perky song. It's an appropriate waking song, I think.)

First Day At School:
Amor Verdado, Afro Cuban All-stars

Falling In Love:
Dudu, Tarkan

(hahaha. I do love this song, and it kind of makes me want to fall in love, but I think it's about him being sad that he's not loved back, yes?)

Fight Song:
New York Gotan, Gotan Project

Breaking Up:
I'm No Angel, Dido

Prom:
Route 101, from the Definitive Hits, Herp Albert

(Sounds about right, yeah.)

Life:
Carmen Suite -- Aragonaise, LA Guitar Quartet

(This is one of my favorite songs ever. I would be happy to have it be my life soundtrack, so long as I end up better than Carmen did.)

Mental Breakdown:
You Know I'm No Good, Amy Winehouse

Driving:
It Had Better Be Tonight, Lena Horne

Flashback:
When You Called My Name, The Newsboys

(This works. I like it.)

Getting back together:
Besame Mucho, the tango version by Mantovani

Wedding:
Complainte de la Butte, Rufus Wainwright from the Moulin Rouge! soundtrack

Birth of Child:
Nekreh El Keld, Souad Massi

Final Battle:
Somewhere, Leonard Bernstein, West Side Story (Sung by Tony as he's dying. Sad. Maybe better for after the battle?)

Death Scene:
My Baby Needs a Shepherd, Emmylou Harris

Funeral:
No Jive, De-Phazz (Hotel Costes, Vol 1.)

End Credits:
Sadani Khalas, Amr Diab

Very appropriate end credits song.

Captain Obvious

Here is an actual question asked to Bill Clinton by Tim Russert on Meet the Press.

MR. RUSSERT: Do you ever think of the historical significance, a husband and a wife both being president of the United States?

...

Bill Clinton has probably never ever thought of that, no.

I think Clinton's response should have been, "...Whoa! You know, you're right! Dude. That's deep."

Something for a Friday

5 Things I Am Afraid Of:

• Getting stuck in an elevator
• Scuba diving
• Death in my immediate family
• Public speaking and performing
• Causing a toilet to overflow somewhere that is not my home

5 Fears I Have Conquered:

• Cutting all my hair off
• Touching my eyeball/putting in contact lenses
• Getting a brazilian wax
• Quitting my stable job in order to pursue something that may or may not work out
• Traveling alone

5 Things I Am Good At:

• Sensing the moment at which the conversation turns from "playful!" to "...awkward" and thinking up something to say to change the mood
• Cooking with what I have in my fridge at any given moment
• Walking in heels
• Vocabulary words
• Packing

5 Things I Am Bad At:

• Remembering to mail my rent check so it arrives on the 1st instead of leaving my mailbox on the 1st
• Estimating distance and the time it will take to travel said distance
• Getting up on time
• Not getting distracted by shiny objects
• Studying if I know there's not going to be a test

5 Things I Want To Get Better At:

• Keeping my closet organized
• Getting enough sleep
• Dancing in nightclubs
• Giving other people the benefit of the doubt
• Returning phone calls

5 Things I Will Never Be Able To Do and Therefore Covet The Ability To Do Said Things In Others:

• Be the life of the party
• The splits
• Act
• Speak English with a convincing foreign accent
• Stay friends after breaking up

5 Things I Wouldn't Give Up, Not For Anything:

• Good rhythm
• Willingness to taste any food put in front of me
• My fantastic and inspiring friends
• A good relationship with my parents
• My faith

5 Things I Would Be Lying If I Told You I Wouldn't Sell My Soul To Possess:

• A six-pack
• A lucrative career as a photojournalist
• An old house with a veranda
• Thicker skin (in the metaphorical sense)
• A clear complexion

The Price of Freedom is Eternal Vigilance

Most of you know, and some of you don't, that I come from a conservative background, where Republicanism was sort of assumed, not necessarily in my family, but definitely in the community. We were calm and had a general idea that we should let our political voices be heard, we should vote, we should make sure we voted for people with our values, but we were not a protesting people. We did not stream into the streets, we looked with disdain upon what we saw as brash, liberal, dangerous actions of the ACLU, we generally support authorities unless they were Really, Really Bad, bad enough to make you go against your religious beliefs, etc. It is my nature to protest, perhaps, by writing a letter to my congressman, and not much else. I am not an extremist. I (like most Americans, I think) believe profoundly in the self-correcting system of democracy: the pendulum will always swing back.

However, since moving to DC and becoming much more politically active, my attitude has changed. I have begun attending marches in protest of the war (some of my high school friends are shocked at this, I suspect...:) ), and especially in protest of the looming war with Iran, out of the simple conviction that our discontent with the current state of affairs needs to be seen in throngs of unhappy citizens on the streets. I have had for years now the vague sense that something isn't right with our democracy, but I didn't know what it was, and I didn't have the words, motivation, or education to really figure it out; nor did I really even believe there was something TO figure out.

On Monday I went to a book signing with Naomi Wolf, a Yale-educated writer whose latest book, The End of America is very easy to read, thorough, and short. It's the number 10 bestseller on Amazon, but she hasn't had any media requests to discuss her book on the major networks (unlike her first book, The Beauty Myth.)

The book is chilling. She researched 6 governments who have, in the last century, shifted from democratic open societies to fascist/dictatorial closed societies: 1930s Germany, Italy, Chile, China, etc. She found that there are 10 predictable steps in the blueprint of a fascist shift.

She found that the current state of American policy is lining up precisely with the blueprint. For example, the first step is to invoke an internal or external threat, real or invented, as a national unifier. The following steps are to establish secret prisons, a paramilitary force, to surveil ordinary citizens, restrict the press...

With just a little research, provided by Ms. Wolf, any ordinary citizen can see that this blueprint, which was effectively used by Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, and other dictators and would-be dictators, is remarkably resonant with what is happening in American today. The secret prison and daily torture, legal or illegal, at Guantanamo, the case of Jose Padilla, the invoking of 9/11 and the "war on terrorism" to justify violations of civil liberties, the presence and continued growth of paramilitary forces such as Blackwater (a military force not held accountable to military law), the increased wiretapping, confiscation of normal citizens' computers, the orchestrated firing of journalists and university professors for disagreement with the administration, the coordination between the White House and the mass media (also see the book and/or film War Made Easy by Norman Solomon) the fact that the President can now deem anyone - including you or me - an "enemy combatant."

These things all upset me before, and I recognized them as infringements of our rights, but only when I saw it so clearly presented was I struck with the realization that they aren't individual freak occurrences, but could be the result of a master plan that could-and will--eventually result in a closed, dictatorial society. Of course, it's not a sure thing: this theory could be wrong. But examine the evidence, piece it together, and you find a dangerous trend: anyone in a place of power with enough smarts and menace could easily, easily, manipulate this situation and close the door on American society. As Ms. Wolf said in her talk, "Can anyone name a country that opened secret prisons that did not eventually become a dictatorial state? ... No one can, because there isn't one."

This is urgent: the pendulum may not swing back. It doesn't matter where you stand politically, it doesn't matter who you voted for, it doesn't matter what your religion, race, or creed is. It doesn't matter what you think of the ACLU or of Republicans or Democrats or liberals. This is about the whole of American citizenry. Please read her book, or at least the interview with buzzflash.com (which is basically what she said in her talk and is very thorough) and then that you do something with this information.

You can also visit www.americanfreedomcampaign.org to voice your commitment to upholding the constitution, petition the upcoming presidential candidates to uphold the constitution and be informed of upcoming events. It's a first step, and an important one. Because even if we're not on the edge of a totalitarian state, shouldn't we as Americans hold the government accountable for what makes America America? Shouldn't all detainees have the right to formal charges and a fair trial? Shouldn't we hold habeus corpus sacred for everyone, even suspected terrorists? Shouldn't we outlaw torture in ALL cases? Should there even be a debate about these fundamental rights?!

I have to take this seriously because the pieces fit together almost too beautifully for it to be a mistake.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Poem Spree!

From the dawn of your smile on me I could see
Its magnificence might cause a fatality
For it lit up the whole night and warmed me like sunlight,
Inspired my surrender: a white flag at first sight.
I couldn't resist the allure of your lips,
And the smile in your kiss tastes like mist and rose hips:
So fresh, like the first glimpse of sunrise. I know I
Am in way too deep to pretend I can keep my
Emotion a secret-I know you can see it.
My love was inside, and your smile unleashed it.

And that was my demise, not the light in your eyes,
Nor the glow of your skin or the way your hand glides
On my hair. No, its there: above your clefted chin
Where the tan of your whiskers turns into pink skin
Of your lips, turning up like the curve of your cup,
Framing pearls of your teeth. You don't know how to stop
Tempting me. So you see, to that smile I'm a slave,
Don't know how to behave since the moment you gave
Me that grin- I gave in. I give in. And you win.
And I hope I have something that you delight in,
That inspires your poems and fills up your dreams
The way I am inspired when your smile beams
For then you understand what I try to describe:
Mere words can't convey what your smile does inside.


If one day I awoke and I found that you'd gone
My world would collapse and I'd find before long
That its easiest to forget things I loved so:
The slant of your cheekbones, the flare of your nose.
The shade of your eyelids, the silk in your touch,
The lilt of your voice... might not haunt me...too much...
And little by little I may seem less bereaved,
But that smile-your smile- it might never leave.



---



We've been frequenting Open Mic at Busboys and Poets on Tuesday nights, and I've been inspired by the great - and sometimes mediocre - poetry. I decided to dust off my writing cap and try my hand at it since I do enjoy poetry and also want to exercise my writing muscles (particularly as I prepare to write grad school essays...) I've started with easy, inspiring things: Sasan's voice, which was the first thing I noticed about him; his smile; and a heartfelt plea for forgiveness (Have you ever felt like that? Don't you hate it? That urgent, humiliating, nauseating realization that you - yes you - have done something so beneath you?)



Next, maybe I'll tackle something more socially aware. Like the war.

Asking for Forgiveness

My heart can't sleep, my eyes can't weep.
I prostrate myself at your feet,
Hands held up, weak, for you to speak
Forgiveness into my parched ears.

Your words - my manna from above -
Condmening my negligent love
Will also nourish that part of
My heart that's longing to be near

To you...I write these humble words
To put my penance into verse,
In hopes that I can break the curse
My foolish actions brought on me.

For if a poem my transgression
Then a poem my redemption:
Please forgive my indiscretion.
Come from heaven, set me free.

Sasan's Voice

The drizzle of his chocolate voice into my ear was not my choice.
But his lips part, my heartbeat starts Kaleidoscoping abstract art-
Like rain on the Serengeti pounds sandcastles of confetti
Into a pulse of colored flecks...his cocoa kisses on my neck
Feel like a rainstorm's throbbing drum, within my ears, upon my tongue.
Kahlua's an intoxicant, dark chocolate's antioxidant
But leave to me my drug of choice, my only fix: his velvet voice.

It is best to schedule your wedding on a weekend when a tornado is not also scheduled.

I took my time on Friday morning, had some breakfast, caught the metro to Reagan National, took a nap on the plane, read some Lolita, landed early, no problems. Jess' fiance was going to pick me up, but he was a few minutes late. When he arrived, he said, "Yeah, we've had some...weather...here..."

No kidding. There were uprooted trees, flooded streets, whole stretches of road with no stoplights. Apparently on Thursday night while I had been singing along to Emmylou Harris while I packed my carry-on, Chicago was experiencing a major tornado. Flights were cancelled, some delayed, people were on standby, waiting in Atlanta, New York, Mexico. The logistics of picking everyone up at the airport while managing to tie together the last-minute preparations (Wait, which side do the bride's guests sit on again? Did you pay for the cake? Did you pick up the veil? Do we need to get cash for the band?) and operating in a neighborhood without electricity...it was interesting. The rehearsal, with the three pastors and the herd of small children, in a dark church, wasn't as ... illuminating as rehearsals usually are.

Saturday morning, at the mall after a leisurely breakfast, we got nails and hair done, quickly and beautfully. We were still in the shower when we were supposed to be leaving the hotel. We weren't sure how to put her veil into her hairdo, fitted around the tiara. The pianist had an hour to practice. She started walking down the aisle an hour after scheduled, but no one really cared, because here she was, beautiful, walking down the aisle with her tall father, surrounded by little Mexican girls and white tigerlilies, and her fiance was waiting at the end for her, that petrified groom look melting into a look of love and joy. The lights came back on in the middle of the ceremony.

And the reception was a fiesta, with a mariachi band! And food! And family! And delicious cake!

It just goes to show that neither rain, nor tornados, nor delayed flights, nor humidity, nor not knowing how to put on a veil, nor not having enough cash for the mariachi band, nor not paying for the cake on time, will keep two lovers apart.

They Grow Up So Fast

The last, heady days of high school in Colorado Springs. The weather was warm, we had all picked our colleges and purchased the requisite apparel, proudly advertising our school of choice. Our homework had dwindled to a trickle-nominal things that merely punctuated our drifts in and out of the school building, like commas in a long run-on sentence. We spent a lot of time in each other's backyards, strumming on guitars, eating ice cream, talking about the adventures that surely awaited us when we arrived as freshmen in a few months. Graduation day wasn't as climactic as graduation season itself.


Somewhere in graduation season, the idea occurred to me, the result of some long conversation some warm spring night, to give my friend Jessica a graduation gift. Not a monogrammed Bible, not an envelope of cash, not an address book so she could keep in touch with us and always remember to STAY SWEET! BFF! No, I drove down to the south of town and purchased the last duckling for sale in the whole city. He was a white-crested duck. He looked something like the hatted duck in this photo:

I took the duckling in his box, with feed, of course, to Jessica's house. Although I had warned her family, Jessica was surprised, which was just how I planned it. We christened the duck Homer, in tribute to a movie that had affirmed our nerdiness and provided hours of entertainment, much of it having to do with our physics class.

Homer, it turned out, was a girl. She taught herself how to throw herself up the stairs of the front porch, crouching as much as she could and then hurdling up like a fluffy cannonball and landing on her belly on the next step. She lived in the backyard kiddie pool or in the bathtub. She went on walks. She exercised her quack. She maintained the fluff atop her head with pride. She was a good duck.

We all went off to college-I to California and Jessica to Pennsylvania. Homer stayed home and paddled around the kiddie pool. The next time I heard of Homer, I learned that, lo and behold, she had attained her 15 minutes of fame, picture published in the Gazette, had even showed up in court.

Jessica' mother had sold Homer to her yoga instructor, who had provided Homer with a loving and caring home. The neighbors, however, were not terribly fond of the new pet, and claimed that the duck, and her quack in particular, was a nuisance and should be forcibly removed from the neighborhood. The spat went to court. Homer won.

Homer's new owner, celebrating her court victory and Homer's 15 minutes of fame, threw Homer a sangria party. The invitations pictured Homer wearing a red party hat. Jessica and I were so proud.

Jessica's since gotten her Masters and lived in Mexico, moved to Chicago and fallen in love. She's getting married next week, and I'll be there. There are some friends you just feel like you *live* with, no matter how far apart you've gotten or where you've moved, some ceremonies we have to go to because we've crissed and crossed in and out of each other's lives so regularly, with such unexpected joy and coincidence, that there must be something real to this friendship. Some friendships are solidified by a trip to the Turkish baths (you know who you are), or a night in a haunted Sri Lankan hotel, and some, by a white crested duck.

And the Living is Easy

It is nice to think, "Maybe I'll go out tonight," and then stand up, pick up your purse, and go, ignoring the coats hanging in the foyer, the boots stashed under the bed 'til winter, and the scarves that are neatly folded on the upper shelf. It's nice to meander down through the farmer's market, run your eyes over the fresh tomatoes, and then continue meandering to a terrace, order some coffee, and drink it outside without adjusting your sweater to protect against the intrusion of a cool breeze.

I appreciate the change of the seasons, the ripple of cold in the air as autumn approaches, the urge around the end of September to wear something warm and camel colored and maybe bring a thick red scarf just in case, the sudden appearance of pumpkins in the grocery stores. I appreciate the cold winter with the long warm coats and the fresh snow and the hot drinks. I appreciate the spring when the greens are tender and the flowers are innocent and nothing seems to have ever heard of age or death. But summer is my favorite. Summer is when I feel that I could, if I set my mind to it, conquer the world, when art is most meaningful and friendships more invigorating. There is something about the heat and the sweat and the constant temperature, the sheer bliss of having a cold drink in the hot sun, the ability to sit out all night on your roof and never fear the cold, that makes me feel immortal and capable. Summer is when I Plan My Life, consider things that I'm too miserable to consider in the winter when it's cold and I'm preoccupied with thawing my fingers. Summer is when I get up the energy to call old friends and invite people over and drop in uninvited and buy plane tickets in anticipation of a lazy August and peruse grad school catalogues.

I don't know if it's the fact that the seasons here do change and I have therefore learned to appreciate summer all the more, or if I just really like warmth. I think it's the latter: I have only visited Florida once, and it was August, and what I found alarming, in a pure rush of realization, was that the water and the air were not only the same color, but the same temperature. You could wade and wade and hardly tell where the water ended and the air began, only sometimes by looking down through the ripples and seeing your toes in the sand, broken by soft, soft waves and tiny, tiny grains. The California waves are cold and harsh and loud, but here, there were no waves, there were no crashes or rocks. Just water and sand and water, turquoise and aqua, warm as a baby's bathtub, smooth and wet. It was beautiful and inspiring and made my heart beat faster.

Maybe if I lived by the Florida beach and saw it every day, or under a palm tree in St. Martin, or by a Tahitian lagoon, the refreshing feeling of warmth and summer would wear off and it would be same, same, uninspiring and boring. Maybe. Maybe I would miss the metallic smell of winter and the gradual thaw of spring.

For now, I'll stick with the four seasons and enjoy the trickles of sweat that begin creeping down my back as soon as I step out of my air conditioned office, the sticky smell of skin and sun, and the feeling of life, life! that surges through my fingers when I step out into the heat.

My Dad Looks Like Harrison Ford

See?

Harrison's got nothing.

Urban

The District's DMV has a deservedly, erm, disappointing reputation. My last encounter with them brought me to tears. So when I got the notice in the mail that my registration was about to expire and I should plan another trip to the DMV by June 26th, I promptly put the letter in my (growing) pile of To-Do and made a conscious decision to procrastinate. I accomplished this goal very well and finally got around to doing something about that letter on June 27th.

Last year, I came out to my car on a crisp spring morning to discover that my driver's side mirror had been shattered. The mechanics still worked, there was just no mirror. I called a few Toyota dealers and auto parts stores. The estimate was $500-$600. "For a mirror?" "Yup, 'fraid so. You gotta replace the whole piece, can't just buy a mirror." Yeah.

So I bought a hand held mirror for $2.99 and ripped the plastic casing off. Then I bought a glass cutter and cut a piece of glass the shape and size of the mirror casing. Then I Krazy glued it to the frame. Heckuva lot cheaper than $500. It did its job for a good year, but I knew it wouldn't pass the DC inspection.

Knowing that the inspection was coming up "sorta soon," (I was deliberately trying to avoid thinking about my debt to the DMV) I called the Toyota dealership again on Saturday. "Yup, we can get that. Nope, it's not $500. It's easy to install. The total will be $150." $150 is still not that great, but it's better than $500. So I picked up the part on Tuesday night. The Toyota lady seemed confused that I didn't want it installed, but she shrugged, "Ok, good luck." I left with my new mirror.

Wednesday morning the 27th, I drove to the Vehicle inspection site. I parked in a nearby gas station with my wrench and my new mirror, ready to replace it and removed the black plastic casing to reveal three easy screws. The morning was just heating up, the smog was beginning to feel thick, and the highway was beginning to give off waves of heat. At that moment a short, unkempt middle-aged African-American man came over and offered his assistance: "I fix my daughter's car like this, it is pretty easy..." He clearly knew what he was doing. I held the screws while his short fingers removed the offending mirror and found the plug for the motor. It took about 10 minutes and there I was with a new mirror. I'm sure it would have taken me longer, although I would have figured it out eventually. "Thank you!"I smiled, truly grateful for his time-saving help. His eyes were sad, "Could you help me out a little?" Of course I could. I gave him a ten. He tottered off to the gas station for a cup of coffee and a pack of cigarettes. I drove to the DMV and was first in line for inspection.

The inspector failed me and my newly mirrored Toyota for non-operational headlights. I tried to smile prettily and told him I would get it done RIGHT AWAY, but rules are rules. "Where can I get a headlight?" I asked. "Try Dura, up on Rhode Island Avenue."

I called Dura, "I need a headlight for a 2001 Corolla. Can I get one there?"

"Yes ma'am, we have a lot of those, and they're only $9.95."

"Can I put it in myself? Is it pretty easy?"

"Shouldn't be too hard, no, ma'am."

"Great! See you soon."

I drove up 395 and was on Rhode Island Ave in no time. The road and sidewalks widened and the houses began to look disheveled. The boring but approachable strip malls disappeared and the shops looked more...local. I passed churches on big lots, beauty parlors, and local donut shops. There it was, 2066. I parked and hobbled in in my white suit and fat walking boot. I must have looked conspicuous: Maurice behind the counter looked up kindly and said, "Are you here for the headlight?" He looked a lot younger than his voice sounded, and he held up the small package. I was amused by this and smiled, got out my credit card, and said, "Yup, that's me!" Maurice gave me tips on how to install the light and told me to "be sure and stay cool out there today!" I haven't gotten service that friendly in a long time.

I pulled my car into the shade and opened the hood. I poked around a while and decided that I had no idea how to install a headlight. So I walked across the parking lot into an AutoZone and asked if anyone there knew about Toyota headlights. The woman was clean and professional. "No, but you see that guy over there under the tree? His name's Joe. He'll help you out." I followed her finger through the heat waves undulating over the parking lot to see a tall, lean, black, black man sitting under the tree with a tall, large white man wearing a black t-shirt. They looked quite at home in their lawn chairs, not comfortable, but not uncomfortable. Just there, sitting still, in the heat. Something about the picture made me feel truly urban and summery, these two unlikely shapes reflecting through the heat, drinking cold beer under a sparse tree growing up and out in a city parking lot. The air smelled hot and urban, the sky was clear, soft blue with a brown haze hovering over the horizon. I think they had seen me looking forlorn in my white straight skirt and broken foot poking around cluelessly under the hood in the AutoZone parking lot in the hot sun. As I left the store, the tall black man casually approached me, his wiry muscles glistening in the hot sun. His eyes were deep and black above his chiseled cheekbones. He squinted at me.

"Whatchyou need help wit?"

"I need to replace a headlight and I've never done that before."

His expression didn't change, and he lead me back to my car. "I been working on cars for 42 years." Pause as he fingered the headlight under the hood. "It's the only thing I can DO, you know what I'm saying?" I nodded and expressed my respect for a good mechanic. "It's how I make my survival, hear me?" I nodded again as I squinted at him through my windshield. The headlights turned on and he closed the hood. "Now, you gonna pay for that sweetheart..." "Of course. Let me just go and get some cash." I asked the woman inside, "So Joe, how much to people usually tip him?" "Oh, five, ten." "Great, can I have these batteries and cash back for Joe?" "No problem." She was efficient and fast and friendly. I placed the ten in Joe's long, bony, ebony fingers as I left and thanked him again for his help. His expression didn't change, but he nodded, turned, and sauntered back to the lawn chair under the tree.

I passed the inspection and re-registered my car, easy as pie. Got to work before lunch. Breathed a few prayers of gratitude for the two men who helped me that morning. Wondered what the rest of their lives are like. Decided to return to Dura and AutoZone if ever I need another headlight.

Cast

This time around, I was pretty lucky: no plaster cast. Last time, I had a big, heavy, itchy plaster cast up to my knee. It was small enough to slip bootleg jeans over it, but still bulky, still unmanageable, and by the end of the 2 months, completely filthy. When they removed it, my skin was pale, pale, and my calf was jell-o, atrophied and sickly, decorated with spindly leg hairs that hadn't been shaved in weeks. My foot was alarmingly skinny and boney--but healed--and there was two months worth of dead skin sloughing off at the slightest touch. I remember sitting in the shower for at least an hour, scrubbing and scrubbing, shaving and re-shaving, massaging and marveling at the appendage I hardly recognised.

Now I have a walking cast, a big black boot with five thick velcro straps, room enough to wiggle my painted toes. I can take it off when I bathe, when I sleep, when I get home from crutching up from Dupont Circle in the sweltering 90 degree humidity. The heavy support of foam and bandage and long cotton sock feel good on my fragile foot, but not on the rest of my sweating body. I am grateful to not have to scrape off two months of debris, for being able to shave and massage my weakened calf, for the stability of a wide, flat surface that I can balance my left foot on without putting pressure on it.

Crutches chafe under your arms, they make your triceps, pecs, and deltoids sore, sore, sore. After a few weeks of sweaty palms, the handles feel positively grimy. You can't carry anything that doesn't strap on your back. (Although yesterday I did make it home with two pints of Ben and Jerrys in my right hand.) A three-block walk is daunting, and your knee feels heavy and strained from holding your bum foot up.

But at least I don't have a plaster cast.

Say something!

I know you've all been dyyying to comment, but for some reason, the comments have been disabled lately. But lo, they are again enabled. Comment away.

Silver Lining

My triceps are getting very strong. I have all this time to re-learn my guitar scales since I won't be dancing anytime soon. People hold the door for me all the time. I have a very easy conversation starter. My toes peep through my cast so at least you can see the pretty color of pink they are painted. I have a walking boot instead of a plaster cast, so I can sleep and bathe and shave my legs without having to worry about my bum leg. I can still manage to do the ab workouts at my gym. I get to ride the motorized shopping cart in Trader Joe's. I have a valid excuse to do nothing with my afternoon except sit in Tryst with my legs up and read my latest novel.

I noticed, last time around on crutches, that by the time they were removed, I had developed an acute sense of the handicapped. Although I was myself handicapped to some degree and couldn't help anyone, I was alert to the needs around me because I was so alert to my own needs. The girl with the books piled in her arms, she needs someone to open the door...The woman with the wheelchair can't reach the elevator button...The man with crutches can't balance his crutch and his latte...Does no one SEE that I can't open this door by myself?...

I also, to a lesser, but more interesting, degree, began to be aware of hidden needs...The lonely one in our group who never spends time with anyone one-on-one because she's so easily forgettable and people neglect to invite her...the girl who blamed herself for her parent's nasty divorce...The self-assured, confidence of a hig achiever that hides an intense confusion about what she's achieving... In many ways, I began to see my injury--and my crutches--as a metaphor for all our daily struggles. Even when I am perfectly healthy and capable, there are internal handicaps that are just as daunting as that heavy door at the bottom of the church steps, the one that was so difficult to open with one foot and crutches: I'm quick to judge, slow to realize that I've judged. I'm often more concerned with how people see me than how I really am. I am lazy when I think no one will notice. Although I don't lie, my first inclination is always to fudge the truth a little, to make a better story. Maybe these are your handicaps. Maybe yours are completely different.

Thomas Aquinas said, "Be assured that if you knew all, you would pardon all."

We all have handicaps of some sort. Some of them, we can see.

Somebody get this woman a violin.

So I woke up Sunday morning with no way to hold my head that didn't hurt. And not because of alcohol (that's never happened) but because of an ear-splitting cold, complete with runny nose and cough. And! Crusty...pink...stingy...eyes. Pink eye. Add it to the list: torn contact/scratched cornea, broken foot, head cold, pink eye, all within three weekends, and all overlapping at some point.

So do you think I'm being tested or do you think I'm being punished for somethihng I did? Or do you think it's all a complete fluke and hey, it happens?

I'm going to go drink more tea.

Don't Break Your Foot in New Jersey

I broke my fifth metatarsal on December 31, 2001. On January 1, 2002, I had it x-rayed and set, and I spent that semester, until my Spring Break in Paris, in a cast cleverly painted with orange flames by my artistic roommate, Lori. It was a pain, but I managed, with the help of the roomies and the USC shuttle bus, the drivers of which knew me by name within a few weeks. I relaxed on the couch with my fire-engine red hair and my casted leg propped up on the armrest, typing on my laptop. I finagled a bookbag that rested on the small of my back so as not to throw me off balance. I got my shower time down to ten minutes: garbage bag, blue artist's tape, plastic bench to sit on in the tub, leg propped up on the side.

Walking with crutches is sort of like riding a bike. I suspect that once you've learned how to maneuver, you never really forget, so when you have to do it again, you pick it up easier, get stronger faster, and don't have to try as hard to figure out how to go up steps or carry your purse.

--

Saturday night. 11:15 PM. Lower East Side of Manhattan. Walking across a small street on our way to a milonga. Two sets of dance shoes in purse. Pothole.

The pain that I felt when I first felt myself falling from twisting my foot on the pothole I don't really remember. I remember not being able to feel my foot and not being able to really breathe. I remember grabbing Sasan's arm, sort of, and knowing that I couldn't put weight on my foot as he helped me to the curb. I sat on the planter under the streetlight and he took off my espadrilles, and I gasped for air. I looked down and saw the purple bump on my left foot, growing bigger and purpler with every minute. The more I sat, the more I could feel the pain, until I knew that this wasn't a bruise. 'Do you want me to call a cab and go to a hosptial?" "Yes," I said weakly.

Sasan carried me to the side of the road and the cab pulled up and drove us a few blocks to New York Downtown Hospital. The staff put me in a wheelchair and wheeled me down the hall to the ER. My foot was swollen and bruised, shaking from the strain of keeping it elevated. A man and a woman approached me, took my blood pressure, temperature, and got my statistics: name, birthdate, date of last menstrual period...the man tied an ice pack onto my foot, which felt instantly relieved. Both nurses talked to me at once, but slowly, as if in a leisurely conversation, and I couldn't see straight to answer both of them. "What medications are you on?" "Ortho tricyclen-lo" The elderly nurse offered me a tablet to write the name down. "It's birth control," I said, puzzled. "Oh, well, I don't need any of that, so that's why I don't know what it is."

They wheeled me into a room with a bed and turned me around. I gave them more information, signed a release, gave them my Aetna card. It took forever, and I sat there in the curtained room, crying, looking at my iced foot, holding Sasan's hand. "Maybe it's not broken! It's probably just twisted or something," he offered optimistically. I looked at my foot dully and shook my head. I've broken it before. I had a hunch it wasn't just bruised.

The wheeled me into the x-ray room. The man gestured to the table with a pillow at one end. "Should I sit up there?" "Yeah," he said, "Your head..." "My head goes there or my foot goes there?" "Your head." "On the pillow?" "Yeah." It seemed like a lot of effort just to find out which way to lay on the bed. He didn't wheel the chair over to the bad, so I got up and hopped on the bed. My foot--still raw and throbbing, still without painkillers, rested on the x-ray film. The technicion ripped the ice pack off; I cringed. For each x-ray, he moved my knee abruptly, causing me to gasp and cringe, clearly ina lot of pain. "I need you to put this side on the film" he said. "That side HURTSSSS" I gasped. He looked at me as if this had not occured to him. "Oh...sorry."

When that was done, he tried to put the ice pack back on, but didn't have any tape. So he wheeled me, sans ice, back to the waiting room. "Hey, this girl needs an ice pack, I didn't have any tape to re-tape this one back on." Nothing. I looked at Sasan. "Where's my ice pack?" "I have no idea..." He got up and asked the nurse, "Um, she needs an ice pack for her foot..they took it off..." The didn't exactly jump to attention, but they did hand him an ice pack, which he held onto my foot with two paper towels. I sobbed quietly in my wheelchair. At some pointthey gave me some percocet, but I don't remember when. The doctor approached. "You do have a fracture..." I sobbed more. Sasan droped his head and looked at the floor. I don't recall what other information she gave me, but it wasn't much. we had to ask what kind of fracture, what the next step was, who should I call in DC, what medication should I take, will it take long to heal, will I need a cast, should I keep it elevated...

She left to get some painkillers and I sat there crying in my wheelchair. I cried because it hurt and because a fractured metatarsal means no tango, no salsa, no swimming...for three months or hot, sticky, DC summer. Our weekend in New York was shot, we were going to be up all night figuring out hotels and cabs and prescriptions and busses and pharmacies. The doctor returned. "Mrs. Range!" she looked alarmed, "why are you crying?" I didn't answer, just looked at her, dumbfounded. I'll give you three guesses why I'm crying...

They wouldn't give me a percocet to go, although they did give me two and told me to take one or two every six hours. By this time it was 1 AM. Where is a 24 hour pharmacy? At 14th and 4th. But if we go there, we'll miss the bus to our hotel, which is in New Jersey. The man at the hospital desk called a cab, which came, but wasn't announced to us. He drove us to Port Authority, where we did get our bus. The bus driver was the same that had dropped us off that afternoon. His eyes widened: "What happened to you!" "She broke her foot..." He shook his head in utter sympathy.

The bus dropped us off, with all his condolences, at Hasbrouck Heights. We called the Hilton. "Could you please send a cab? One of us is on crutches." We waited, and waited, and waited, kept company by a wasted young man in a baseball cap who thought he should tell us all about where he was from and what he was doing in Jersey. I sat on the curb. Sasan looked at the pharmacy hours. We waited. We called the Hilton again. We waited. We called the Hilton again. Finally, a cab came, a big black car with a tall accented driver. Could we plase go to a pharmacy first and then to the Hilton? He seemed confused by our request, but obliged, looking up pharmaciies on his GPS. The CVS that was nearest to us was closed, opening at 10 AM on Sunday. He drove us to the Hilton. It was nearing 3 AM.

Now, the prospect of waking up the next morning without painkillers was unappealling. Sasan approached the concierge again. "Corey, my man, do you have any idea if there's another pharmacy near here open 24 hours?" There was! 6 miles away, he'd call a cab. We called the pharmacy, we called the cab, we waited. We waited. We waited. Sitting in the matte beige lobby at 3 AM, drugged up, sleepy, foot throbbing, sitting on the square, boring ottomans looking out the revolving doors into the blackness. Easy pop songs played over the speakers...2 am and she calls me cause I'm still awake...the revolving door thump thump thumps every time someone comes in. The cab approaches. Finally.

The driver was Persian, or his mother is Persian. He and Sasan exchanged pleasantries and he drove us past the previous CVS...two blocks. On our right hand side there's a RiteAid. It's open. Five blocks from our hotel is a 24 hour RiteAid.

The lady at the pharmacy slumped in her chair and raised her eyebrows, "On Sundays from 2 to 4 AM the computer doesn't work...so..." Sasan and I stare. "The computers don't work? We need some percocet...she just broke her foot...it's kind of important..." She sighs and says, "Well, I guess I could TRY the computers..." They worked. She filled the prescription. Ten bucks for Percocet, 2.50 for granola for the morning. $25 for the ride back to our hotel, five blocks.

At 6 AM I take two percocet and fall dead asleep, foot elevated on two of the Hilton's fluffy pillows, sheets wrapped around my body leaving my foot exposed. I would wake up thinking, "Where am I....Why does my foot hurt...Wait...Why is my foot broken?..." and fall back into a fitful sleep.

Don't break your foot in New Jersey.