No, We Are Not Retarded.

What McCain and his camp don't realize is that contrary to what the last eight years of public support has implicated (in regards to the general intellect of the average american voter) the american public is not as idiotic as he and his campaign team would imagine. His attempts to hypnotize the public with speaking techniques such as dumbed down metaphors and hard hitting repetition are as effective as a flaccid penis flapping around in the heat of the moment. McCain, in a debate, often fastens himself to one phrase, like a broken record, proceeded by sitting there blankly like a duck expecting a golden egg (the presidency) to drop out of his ass. Fervently repeating the same imagery throughout the debate does not ensure that a) we will believe it, nor b) it is not infallibly apparent that being assaulted by various speech techniques merely serves as a grandiloquent smokescreen for a lack of substance. McCain would hope that his verbal Monets would hypnotize us into simply ingesting the bitter suppository that there is no one better for the job, without actually having to analyze the job there is to be done. Commencing his war on words with phrases such as, "What Mr. Obama doesn't understand is..." which clearly attempts to paint a portrait, and condescendingly so, of Obama as a naive and very clueless child, he ends the succession of debates with the infamous "Joe the plumber" solicitation, not to mention the constant harping on taxes and government spending which, although is slightly more to the point admittedly, somehow gets morphed from a discussion of valid and relevant issues into "politics as usual" mud slinging, but we will get to that later. It is evident that McCain would like to appeal to the "average joe" of America in this last debate, which is a smart and wholly necessary strategy at this point in the campaign; however, despite his desperate cries to the "average Joe's" out in America, it appears that he has absolutely nothing substantial to say when finally obtaining their prized attention. Bad move. It is rude and insulting to waste everyones time listening to you if you actually have nothing to say. And, if by some misguided PR stunt, he does have an inkling hidden beneath his brand new literary Houdini veil waiting to spring at the last minute, it is even more insulting to the voter that this candidate would play political games and not come straight out and explain his plan like a mature adult to a mature adult audience. His responses to debate questions transparently construct pretty paper mache promises without any visible knowledge of how he plans to execute them, a gaping void which he then attempts to conceal by switching the spotlight to the holes or negative effects of Obama's various proposals, and in turn careening subversive blows to the Obama camp, the latter occupying most of his response time. Doesn't he realize that simply pushing his history as a proponent for why he is the best man for the job, followed by rash negative generalizations about his opponent's plan does not equate to a plan in itself? Yes, we are aware that you are concerned about Joe, and thank you very much for that, but concern is not really the issue (we have enough of that), nor is your history in the armed forces. What is important is whether you know how to do anything about it, an issue which failed to be properly communicated to the public in these past debates.
Then there is the talk of taxes and government spending, which makes clear to us that merely touting phrases such as "no tax raises," "no government spending," and "reform" can seemingly masquerade as an actual plan. What is this so called "reform?" Could that please be elaborated on? Yes, throwing money at a problem does not alway solve it, but if we are going to talk about "reform" in terms of the dying economic beast that seems to have vigorously attached itself to everyones' minds like a barnacle, you are essentially talking about reforming the way our economy has been working since the dawn of our country, reforming our capitalist system, which, if this is the case, we'll need to see what you indeed plan to reform that to. This economic collapse is the natural progression of a capitalist laissez faire attitude that has, up until now, been working out quite well for our country's economy. Leaving the economy in the hands of companies eventually has it's price, and "reform" would signal changing the entire framework of that economy. Advertising that we won't have to spend an extra dime to pull America out of this financial sinking ship, should McCain win, sounds extremely appealing but even the most idiotic person alive knows that this notion is just pink balloon waiting to pop. We would rather hear about how our money is to be spent now, rather than later, which is an inevitability with McCain's so-called plan because believe me, money will be spent. However, for the present, latching onto the idea that illuminating the public to the fact that Obama does intend to use taxes and government spending in his plans to rescue a sinking America, only conversely illuminates the fact that McCain has no plan to rescue America at all. He seems to think that shouting out the words "taxes" and "spending" will have everyone reeling in the other direction before they can realize that there is nothing there. Newsflash: we're big kids now, and we live in the 21st century where we all took an econ course in high school and have a vague idea of how money is spent and gained. We know that it is going to take more than prayers and a strong belief in a higher power to create change, and we're not scared to hear about what exactly it takes to do that. In fact, we prefer to hear it...now, preferably. In berating Obama for using money in his rescue strategies, he wants to appear strong to the voters, "KOing" Obama, so to speak, but without any counter plan, he ends up looking like an angry and impotent child, name-calling on a playground.

Anaconda

I just had the strangest dream. As most of my nightmares begin, I was late for school and had an assignment due that day which had completely (and very inconveniently) escaped my mind. I was living in my father's old house, the epitome of childhood nostalgia to me, and was rifling through my books, which were sitting beneath the bedroom window, to figure out which class I had for that day, how I was going to get there, how long it would take me to ride there, etc. when I suddenly look up and, consequently, out of my second story abode onto our quaint back courtyard area. To my horror, I discover that not only does it appear that no one has set foot back there in ages (ivy vines and pools of collected rainfall had formed a swamp-like milieu behind our house) but there were at least twelve visible snakes of various sizes and colors inhabiting it. These snakes were right out of National Geographic, the biggest of them more likely to be right out of the 1997 blockbuster, Anaconda. They all possessed vivid hues, enabling them to look that much more scary, and were slithering and snaking around through the swamps and vines and broken brick pathways like they owned the joint. I screamed (obviously) and my father immediately came running up the stairs to my rescue.
"Dad... LOOK!" I yelped, pointing frantically at the window. He glanced out of the window in a very blasè manner, cool and collected, like he had somehow been aware of the snakes for some time.
"Well, what do you want me to do about it?" He joked, still gazing out the window as if it were overlooking green pastures and unicorns frolicking. He seemed to be under the notion that my asking him to do something about it was the most absurd thing in the world.
"We have to KILL them!!" I shot back, horrified at the idea of allowing them to permanently reside alongside me while I slept. At least he had my room as a buffer, but what security could I even fabricate? My drapes weren't even opaque.
"We'll do it later, I have to go to work now." And with that, he skipped off carelessly, followed by the sound of the door shutting effortlessly behind him. I knew what "later" meant, and decided that if he was going to brush this reptilian disaster off and simply go to work, I ought to do the same, because there was no way I was going to attempt to deal with the anaconda & co. myself.
I sneered at the big one, he looked like a cold blooded tiger with his saturated orange and jet black stripes. He had just ruined what would probably be the next two weeks of my life and then a residual six months in nightmares, at the very least. I envisioned myself armed with six foot bladed scissors, an anti venom suit, and some type of joint-covering kevlar body armor, hacking away at what had to be the now thirty snakes which had taken over our courtyard. And then there was him. I was scared to even imagine chopping him into two, the thrashing alone might level our house. He was massive...bastard. It was at this point that he spotted me shooting him the evil eye from my window. He lifted his head to face me dead on. With more than half his body still curled around the red brick courtyard and his head bobbing about my second story window about two feet away from my head, I could see that I had pissed off the wrong creature. His expression was so humanistic... it was also full of rage. How dare I enter his seeming "kingdom" and then have the audacity to sneer at him? Who the hell was I anyway? I felt myself slinking away from the window slowly. He followed me with his head, which at this point appeared to serve as a mere socket for the the glowing yellow balls of evil, or eyeballs, which may as well have been shooting lasers at me. "BINK," then a rattle. The glass pane had obstructed him from bobbing any closer to me. I ran into my father's room, reasoning that if I could only get out of the house unnoticed he might forget about me for a little while until I could call a...an anaconda exterminator?! What was I thinking?! Where do you even find these people?! This thing was out to get me and the only thing that was taking formation in my scared and witless little head was to get Steve Erwin at my house pronto, an obvious impossibility, seeing that he's dead! Why can't this type of thing be like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where as soon as one slayer dies, another is born immediately so that the world is always in possession of at least one person to combat evil. I had nowhere to hide, I was a prisoner in my own house with a giant snake preying on me. I decided to hide on the other side of the giant television adjacent to the wall with the window so that he couldn't see me. I could see the reflection of the window on the mirror mounted to the opposing wall of the bedroom. The tiny window loomed orange. At least there was glass to barricade me in, and just as I decided to let myself take a certain comfort in that fact, I heard the glass shatter. My heart sank. Just as I was frantically pondering how I was going to escape my father's bedroom without being seen by the anaconda, who, for some reason had not already completely invaded the house with his bulbous scaly torso, I woke up.

self diagnosed clinical depression

I am sitting here at this greyhound station after lugging all my shit from bus to BART and then to greyhound station, only to find that (just my luck) the bus to FRESNO is sold out. sold out? really? how many people need to go to fresno, shithole of the world, on a wednesday night? all befuddlement aside, this implicates that I am now forced to lug all my shit back to the oakland hills for another night and then lug it back to this fucking rehab ward tomorrow, and by "shit" i mean pounds and pounds of luggage strapped to, hanging from, and nearly ripping off every limb of my swaying and bumbling person. so here I am, buried under the luggage at the rehab ward, out of cigarettes, my plan to escape my life completely foiled, and in the process of mustering up the strength to negotiate the four bulging bags of hell back on onto the various parts of my body but first, i have to get something off my chest.
It seems as if the holidays are approaching and of course, "coupling" has ensued full force around me. i, contrarily, have decided in the spirit of the holidays, to sabotage a completely healthy and wonderful relationship, and partake in an emotional land-mine with an already taken boy. I guess I can't really be surprised with myself. All my actions up until this point have been completely impulsive and lacking regard for the future and anyone around me; this simply fits my erratic and unpredictable mold. On the other hand, I don't quite feel myself, and I have to wonder at how interesting it is that for me, self sabotage is the product of a quickly severe drop in self confidence. I now understand what it means to be self destructive and masochistic because I don't believe I deserve anything better. What happened? And why the plunge into sudden self hatred? Well, apparently i do have some semblance of a moral code remaining, despite all previous efforts to annihilate it. Though this deviation from my moral code - let's call it infidelity - has seized me up and pretty much knocked any love that I had for myself right out of me, I quite oddly don't regret it. The fact that I have no wish to take it back but feel so awful as a result of it puzzles and eludes me. And with this hanging over my head like the stench of a dutch-oven fart, I feel unequipped and uninclined to proceed with any real certainty onto the next step of my life. What does this all mean? And why do I feel so paralyzed because of it? If I locked myself up like this in a cell of self loathing every time I made a mistake, surely you would find a 24 year old preschool student still vacuuming her thumb with her mouth right now. But what is so peculiar about this instance? I suppose that deep down, I always considered myself somewhat a person of moral integrity. I might have let people down as a result of my repeated flakyness before, but there was never so irrevocable a break in my moral code committed up until now. I always knew that I was a good person, and now that is questionable at best. I've never felt so empty before...because if you know that you've lost your integrity, then you have nothing...really, nothing. And now I have to figure out how to forgive myself, which, I can't possibly foresee happening anytime soon because I have no idea how a person who has lost their integrity gains it back if they don't truly regret committing whatever it was they committed in the first place.
Truthfully, I almost feel as if I had to do it. I had to, if for nothing else, to play out what had been occurring in my head constantly for months and months. But what would happen to the world if everyone did everything they really wanted to do? Would we really be any happier? Is it worth it? Letting desire eat you until you are completely ensconced by it, or losing something so much more important than a satisfaction to a carnal curiosity (i.e. your self respect). In this case it was much more than carnal curiosity though, it was love, for my part at least. And I suppose that is why I don't regret it. But that doesn't mean that I feel justified, I just know I would do it again if I were in the same position. So where the fuck does that leave me? Oh that's right, nowhere. Still hating myself, yet still not regretting my blunders, and as a result, still condemned to feeling completely empty and paralyzed for the time being until...well, I don't know.

Lucia y el Sexo

She waited and waited for a bump in the cycle, a wrench, so to speak... always the same let downs, still sweet let downs, but let downs all the same.  You know, the kind that are difficult to forget and easy to forgive.  Those ones that sneak up on you every so often because they never went away in the first place.  The interminable kind that keep on repeating and entertwining with one another...but I suppose it's the same for everyone around.  But now...I wonder if she can´t take it anymore. It appears as if it's starting to drown her, it gets to be too emotional at times.

"What can I do?"...a goad.  "do I stay to see the end, or do I start a new beginning again?" ...a pause. "and why is the water in life always so bloody murky?" A copout. "who am I to make the decision anyway?" And what is that? It can't be!  Is she really relinquishing agency again?!  "I can´t be this person anymore. " The stoke finally falls.  "Please, make me strong again. Take me somewhere else where I can pretend to be new and strong...like...impervious"  but that only lasts for so long, because time wears everything, even steel. 

There was the day she decided to go, actually is was more like a minute. And there she was two days later, in bed, with him. She knew she had had to see the story unfold for herself. Little did she know how her curiosity would change it. He always wanted to "wait and see what happens..." It´s a way of not committing...but then again, who can blame that? Maybe there was no heart in her choice. Maybe there was only desire, and he was banking on the latter. He wasn't up to breaking anyone's heart this time around.  She was banking on fate, so that he wouldn't have to. So she went, and it made everything different. It made him turn into himself, and it made her desire even stronger. But now the desire possessed its own life, it controlled her.

He always talked about going to the sea, and now she was almost scared to go, for it had taken on a new meaning after "Lucia y el Sexo," and it became a behemoth. There was nothing she could express to him to explain her reluctance. It was still so new, the spark between them, but she knew how it would turn out, and it would most likely be bad... But there is always hope isn´t there? And she had only just gotten there. But it was already so intense, yet so detached at the same time, like she could simply walk away at any minute from the controlled chaos that was levitating around her. And she knew there was nothing that she could say to him and nothing she could do to change his mind, to pull him out of himself again. And all the while she was thinking this, he was still stuck in his own little inner monologue. And it was the perfect match.

Fleet Foxes in Fresno

Fresno is drinking a cup of white zin in those pastel plastic lawn chairs on your cemented square of a backyard in the sun. It is minivans moseying down the residential streets, which could probably fit at least four cars side by side, occupied by soley the driver. And it is miles and miles of poop brown or "desert tan" colored houses with the exact same dimensions and trimmings and the exact same annoying dwarf mongrel barking at you through the window. It is not hell to me anymore, it is what it is. A time warp, back to leave it to beaver, but with modern gadgets like a gps system and cell phone head set which may or may not be utilized moreso than the brain cells in a person's head.

It is here that is have rediscovered my affinity for myspace and technological entertainers such as this. For me, Fresno is sitting at my mom's high speed computer and listening to amazing new bands all day long on myspace and youtube and fantasizing about smoking weed upon my return to the Bay Area (shockingly, I have been in california for an entire week and still haven't smoked yet) . At the moment, the Seattle quintet, Fleet Foxes, whirls and turns in the background. The song is "He Didn't Know Why" and I can't deny that I have become a woman obsessed. The sound is benevolent, omniscient, and powerful. It is folk that swells and builds, as opposed to the the meagre yet satisfying simplicity of the starving-musician-armed-with-a-single-acoustic-against-the-cold-capitalistic-realities-of-the-world-type of folk. "He Didn't Know Why" is full of sound, an army, if you will, though it may still encite the urge to wander amongst the redwoods while cradeling some furry woodland creature in your hemp poncho. There are traces of the Byrds, Fleetwood Mac, and harmonic bliss of the Beach Boys hinted at in the track. Like the forest trail it would seem to have been conceived in, it winds into crevaces that you never expect it to, starting with the tightly interweaving harmonies of the Mamas and the Papas and flourishing into dramatic buildups that the late 60s LA scene could never fathom through thier patchouli scented haze. The melody's authenticity can be attributed to the rich voices guiding it, and it's simplicity is never sparse with J Tillman's galvanizing chant-like percussion effects. It is a bloody cut of steak for all the vegetarians out there, and for me, it has somehow managed to transport me to an Oakland redwood forest while I sit here in the concrete great plains of the San Joaquin valley sipping my parents white zin and watching the minivans cruise by.

Dribble

There is no reason why I should stay in one place. I wish for water and the fluid, or rather the fluidity of it, to be the outward reason for this restlessness, it's seeming inspiration and muse. Why can´t they understand it? I am not a rock. I am incapable of sinking to the bottom of the ocean and living forever. No. It may be a sad story, but it will still be a good one, all the same.

poem

“To Know Them”

Make me up with a thought
O, how I let him see so hazy
Once I leave he won’t remember
We never could remember anything, really
And still, I have that goddamn picture.
So now I can’t forget
So now I don’t see so hazy
“I know you,”
Was what I told him when he was sad.
But he wasn’t listening,
He was too embarrassed.
When I come back he’ll remember again
And he’ll be sad again
And I’ll probably know him again
But they punish you to know them.

PICTURES

flickr = http://www.flickr.com/photos/nedatakesontheworld/

i need to acquire the funds for more space for more pics but this should suffice for now.

there are more on my myspace.

http://www.myspace.com/nedizzle

meh meh meh. chance and flow.

i have been rather uninspired lately. the ephemera of traveling, the cloud of drugs and booze that has taken up permanent residence in my already waning head...and for those of you who know me well, the lethargy that tediously follows me around gently prodding and usually succeeding in placating any sort of intrepidation i can muster. but today, after a few calm and reviving nights in sofia, bulgaria, i have composed myself enough to form thoughts somewhat supassing the level of, "what type of alcohol shall i drink tonight?" and i am sitting at the communal computer, which auspiciously never seems to be occupied, here in this hostel which has treated me with the utmost hospitality and warmth, and i will now emit.

chance. and flow. chance bestows the opportunities in life, well... in fact it is life. chance lifted me up by my suffocating jacket lapels in iran and benevolently set me back down in beautiful istanbul, turkey when i had planned to waste away in incarceration, iran for the next four months of my life. what happened next is entirely directed by some incomprehensible force which i will call "flow" and which i will introduce as "the one in the driver's seat." i have resigned myself to two facts as of this very moment: a) never trust anything i say, as it is nearly always a fleeting thought, subject to change on a whim and at any moment in time. and b) i have given up control of my life completely to this so-called "flow" because there is no use in fighting the tide. what is the point? what is the point, really, of trying to orchestrate some kind of plan for your life? this is not a rhetorical question, and if someone has answers, i would really love to hear them. but i have been injected with this sense of classless, boundless freedom since coming to eastern europe where the word "freedom" means not only being able to do what you want to do, but being percieved for who you are, not what you have made of your life. in a sense, "accomplishment" is not neccesarily a word with much value to it here. likewise, your "group" may consist of anyone, ranging in age, economic status, and nationality because these classifications are absolutely and irrefutably invisible here. i often feel utterly ridiculous even thinking about asking someone thier age here because it just seems so peripheral and irrelevant. and so, with that said, i probe the culture which generated me, a cuture in which life is defined by "the dream" or shall i say the quest for "the dream," moving through the system (or outside of the system) in order to achieve the goal, to achieve a place, a name, a title, a life, which is wrapped up in silver wrapping, gold if you go to school for four more years, and platnum for two more years after that, and tied with a neat little bow and set at your feet to open whenever you are ready. i am a literature major, right now i am traveling, and i plan to go back to school for creative writing in boston when i am done. i am 24 years old, half vietnamese and half iranian, and whole american. i have not achieved anything yet but all the people who are holding thier breath for me can rest assured because i have a plan. after all, i am only 24. real "status in life" can potentially be deffered until your early thirties without any real social backlash or recoil. so, they sip thier coffee and breathe easy for the time being with the tangential assurance that my spurious plan provides them.

but why spurious? it seems like a good plan, doesn't it? easy and mindless enough, and then there is the platnum wrapped present at the end and who doesn't like presents? but then there is that little thing called chance. this thing that lifted me up by my suffocating jacket lapels and benevolently set me back down in beautiful istanbul, turkey when i was planning on wasting away in incarceration, iran for the next four months of my life. that little thing that completely disrupted the original plan and now has sent me spiraling into god knows what i will get myself into in the next three to four months. that thing that took me to spain, such a detour, for 15 days, and romania, and bulgaria after that. why did i go to spain? because by chance i met someone in istanbul that i liked enough to chuck "the plan" for to go to spain and spend some time with them before leaving this side of the world. and why did i go to romania and bulgaria? because by chance i found a cheap plane ticket to romania from spain, and bulgaria was an afterthought mentioned to me which i actually followed through on because other plans happened to change. i am closing in on a point here.... and now i am in bulgaria, immune to classifications, boundaries, and what essentially amounts to a contemporary caste system which we have adopted in the states, and i am thinking of chucking the plan again to go to vietnam for a year because of a chance conversation. and flow.

chance and flow. chance bestows the opportunities, and flow is what comes after you take them. you can be bestowed with an opportunity and not go with the flow, not take that chance, and not change the plan. and here is the crossroads. or you can go with the flow, take the chance, change the plan, and be lifted up by your suffocating jacket lapels from wherever you are and be benevolently set down in some other beautiful place when you were planning on wasting your life away in incarceration, (insert wherever here) for however long and your life can take you somewhere and into something completely different. but what do i know?

now, someone is waiting for the computer so i must go. tootles!

A Taste of Normalcy

The Train

 “Place of Martyrdom” is the English translation of
the Farsi word “Mashhad,” the name of the second
largest city in Iran (aside from Tehran) as well as my
last point of venture in Iran up to date.  The slight
feeling of nervousness and apprehension accompanying
my eight hour train ride to this gorgeous city was
somewhat numbed by the fact that I had been “ping
pong-ing” around Iran for the past three weeks, with
ephemeral pauses lasting no more than three days at
the most in one city.  At this point, pure inertia
served as both my propellant and sedative, and for
this reason alone, I was relieved of the inwardly
contemplative spiral of nerves that often prefaces any
visit with either family, people that I haven’t seen
in some time, or people that I don’t know very well.
The family that I would be staying with in Mashhad
occupied all three of these categories for me, but
seeing as how I arrived at the train station a mere
fraction of my normal faculty, it didn’t quite matter.

 They were friends of my dad’s whom in my naïve youth,
I had counted as my blood family (with Iranians, its
difficult tell who your actual family is or isn’t,
especially for an eight year old) but had long been
estranged from them ever since somewhere around my
dubious puberty spurt.  Our visits with them averaged
about once a month, if my memory serves me correctly,
and more often during summers.  I sat in my seat; half
brooding over the bitch next to me who cunningly
exploited my lack of familiarity with the trains here
to steal my window seat and who I hadn’t the care or
vocabulary to debate the injustice with, and half
trying to jog my muddled mess of a brain for some gem
of remembrance as to these people’s personalities.
They had lived in America when I was little but moved
back to Iran sometime later…or split their time
between the two countries…the details are still
unclear to me as to where they actually “lived” this
whole time.  Nonetheless, they were auspiciously
cultured in both worlds, an amazing feat in my
opinion, but their humble manner belied this
extraordinary achievement. 
 
 I had seen them at a party given a week before my
departure from America and it was there that I re-met
the gracious couple and their seemingly demure
daughter as well as her soon to be husband.  We talked
briefly to arrange plans for my visit to their house
in Mashhad and after making my rounds through the
crowd answering questions such as, “Oh wow, six
months? That’s so long, why do you want to go there?”
and so forth, I think I was so exhausted from keeping
face with the double-whammy of grown-ups and Iranians
(imagine the wreck of nerves I was driving up to that
bundle of fun) that I hid in the downstairs bedroom
sprawled out on a bed for the duration of the party.
My chat with them at the party provided me with
nothing to go off of except for the fact that they
actually liked Iran, and so aside from this particular
curiosity, I surfaced from my train trance empty
handed – I would have to go in blind on all sides. 
 
 It was okay, my last few brief encounters with them
since the party, though entirely useless in terms of
unfurling any real personality traits or any other
useful tools in establishing a connection, revealed to
me that a) they spoke English fluently, b) they seemed
Americanized in the sense that they at least seemed to
posses a capacity for “chillness,” and Iranian in the
sense of their indefatigable hospitality and welcome,
and c) there would be two out of three of their kids
staying with them; and here’s the kicker, they were my
age!  So, encouraged by the anticipation of spending
time with someone who was actually less than sixty
years my senior, and who I might be able to conduct a
conversation with involving something other than goads
for my constant consumption of food, I put my best
face forward and dove into the crowd of bustling
passengers climbing over each other in attempts to
escape the train station and meet their loved ones.
 
 I was completely disarmed by the ease of the visit.
Their house, gorgeous and comfortable beyond
reckoning, I was proudly told was built by the father
of the family.  I stayed in the guest room, which was
nicer than 90% of the rooms that I’ve lived in,
accompanied by its own bathroom.  There was fast
internet access, phones that could easily call America
on the first try, and electricity that didn’t go out
once when I was there!  I was in absolute heaven.
Aside from the material comforts of the visit, there
was the aspect that I was amongst people who could at
least fathom the world I had come from.  They were
easy-going, which is something to be said for
Iranians.  I can’t express how un-chill people are
here.  It’s not necessarily that bad of a thing, some
people hate chillness, but it’s just different.  It’s
the culture, like no one here has ever met a “chill”
person before and they don’t even know what it means
or would look like to be that way.  For example, last
night my aunt actually got mad at me and started
yelling in frustration because I wouldn’t eat
something that she heedlessly bought for me after I
repeatedly told her that I didn’t want it and wasn’t
hungry.  It was so ridiculous that I was just sitting
on this stool cracking up as she exploded a foot away
from me in heated rants of Farsi.  I could just hear
the word “chiiiiiilllllllll” oozing out of my mouth,
in true stoner fashion.  But alas, there is no
“chilling” to be had with my family here in Tehran,
only that of other people’s families in peaceful
places I can only dream of.  So in this regard,
providence visited me on my trip to Mashhad.  Compared
to my relatives in Tehran, staying there was like
being back in Santa Cruz again on 420.
 

The Shrine

 I died and went to heaven…what else can I say to
express the sheer grandeur, magnitude, and
exquisiteness of the Holy Shrine, what attracts most
visitors to Mashhad in the first place.  It is where
the Imam Reza is buried (one the prophets directly
descended from Mohammad – and consequently related to
me!), as well as a couple of theological universities,
a couple of museums, a mosque, numerous courtyards…
the place is just gi-mungous.  And yes, in case you’re
wondering, I had to rock a chador to get in.  And yes,
I had to pretend like I am Muslim.  And, yes I had to
leave my camera behind….which is probably the most
upsetting thing ever because this place is
undisputedly the most beautiful man made place I have
ever seen in all my shenanigans about the world. 
 
 First, let me wax on about this whole chador
business.  I can safely say that the chador is the
most nonsensical item of clothing I could possibly
fathom, it just a big sheet that you hold together
underneath your chin with one hand from the inside so
that you have only one other hand free to hold your
bag or whatever else you need.  It is constantly
slipping back on your head to expose your hair, no
matter how tight you hold it under your chin, and then
you are presented with the idiotic dilemma of how to
fix the damn thing without letting go of the sheet
altogether?!  Here’s the key, you find someplace void
of a crowd of people waiting to get by you (hardly as
easy as it sounds), kneel down and bend your head down
so that you are in a ball and as little of your person
is showing to the world, and then pull it up over your
head so that it completely covering you like a
miniature tent while you fix the scarf that you have
to wear underneath the sheet and whatever else is
going on under there that you had to neglect this
whole time walking around because you have no hands –
you are a gimp, amorphous blob.  It is funny, and so
incredibly ridiculous. 
 
 Walking onto the premises, you are taken aback by the
vast courtyard, like a couple of football fields
covered in Persian rugs, to accommodate all those who
are unable to fit into the multiple halls of the
building housing the actual shrine.  In the middle
there is a huge marble fountain that people are using
to wash themselves in preparation for prayer.  The
courtyard is enclosed by the faces of many buildings,
all of which are decorated in intricately designed
striations, indentations, and inverted dome work,
which are then carefully covered in the most
beautifully colored and elaborately painted tiles to
fit each minute groove perfectly.  I can’t even fathom
the work that went into the behemoth that is the Holy
Shrine.  Everything is absolutely pristine, like a
holy place should be, and a place like this, in a
country like this, should be absolutely filthy, but
it’s like god himself created another day to clean up
shop after the tens of thousands that must visit there
everyday.  When you enter the building of the shrine,
you have to part with your shoes, which is fine
because the carpets there are probably cleaner than
the shirt you’re wearing, and you walk in and are
immediately ensconced by families everywhere.  It’s
like you just walked into the Alladin section of
Disneyland because the little people are running
rampant, like they all just downed a pack of pixistix
and a liter of Crush fifteen minutes ago.  Just
imagine: no shoes, your parents are enraptured in some
holy trance that doesn’t seem to be coming to an end
anytime soon, you’re five, and you’re in the biggest
carpeted living room in the world!  I would be running
around in circles with my hands wailing like a flaming
idiot as well. The walls and ceilings are covered in
tiny little pieces of mirror, all different shapes and
sizes that are pieced together by hand, like a mosaic.
There are chandeliers everywhere, emitting this holy
luminescence, and the light bounces off one wall to
another wall to the ceiling like it is alive in itself
and each tiny piece is at a slightly different angle
so that the light is reflected from every which way
and you have no idea where it is coming from and it
looks and feels like you are in one big gigantic
diamond sparkling in the sun, or a prism.  It is
absolutely insane to walk in; it is all you can do to
not bump into everyone everywhere because you are just
so engrossed by the vast diamond encompassing you.  It
is what heaven would look like if you believe in that
kind of thing.       

 The thing about being in this holy place and being in
a sheet is that you are, in fact, finally invisible.
No one cares about you at all; they are all here
because they are so incredibly into their religion
that they don’t even care about flagrantly pushing you
out of the way to get as close to the shrine as
possible, and so you can just sit there in your
invisible sheet and watch these religious people
completely let themselves go.  There are grown men and
women just bawling their eyes out and wailing
uncontrollably.  It’s sad but beautiful.  All the
while you hear these lurid, melancholy voices over
microphones just pouring their hearts out into song.
Even though you don’t know what they are saying, you
still feel your heart sink with every word.  As you
navigate through the rooms trying to escape the insane
pull of the crowd toward the actual shrine (much like
Mecca) you begin to understand how religion can be
such a power.  Men who would never let a tear escape
their eyes normally are soaking their towels with
currents of tears falling from their faces and moaning
cathartically with the rest of the mourning men.
Women, strong enough to withstand the pressure of
everyday life in Iran, breakdown here, of all places,
looking up at you with their huge wet eyes that are a
mesmerizing and heartbreaking mixture of shame and
pride.  It is brilliant, terrible, and tremendous.  I
know that I cannot do justice to my experience there
through mere words but it had to be attempted.  In
truth, I am not a holy or religious person in the
least.  In fact, those of you who know me well
probably would agree that I am somewhat of an
antichrist. But I found myself almost levitating with
this feeling of holiness and reverence that I have
never experienced before.  It truly was heavenly in
every sense of the word. 

Love Letter

“It’s an honest thing, and honest things last…” – Josh
Rouse.
 Being here in this place where love for one another
is so uninhibited has incited this need for me to
express how much all my friends mean to me and what
I’ve learned from the people and things in my life.
This is an excerpt from my journal that explores this
particular train of thought.  So, I hope you all read
this “love letter” to places and people life, so to
speak, and it makes you happy.
 
 “I think this trip has been good for me in terms of
my family issues.  I’m still independent, but now I
feel comfortable trusting them with my life, which is
huge for me.  I actually want to be connected with
them, and close to them…like friends. 
 
 My trip to South America taught me how to trust the
way of things, and not to worry about anything because
everything works itself out in the end.  I also
discovered there that I don’t need anyone, and that I
am perfectly capable of doing anything that my mind
can dream up on my own accord.  In my hardships here
and in Oakland, I forgot to trust the way of things,
but going through so much lately has thankfully
brought that back to me.  And even though I still
don’t believe that I need anyone including my family,
I’ve learned that I do in fact love them, and am
infinitely better off with them than without them.  I
have to remember not to forget that.
 
 I’ve been thinking about what I’ve learned from
people and places in my life.  My first and only
ex-boyfriend Dave taught me to appreciate the
subtleties in people, and that those who do, ought to
be appreciated for their own subtleties.  My lovers in
Boston all showed me the beauty of living an artful
life…that everything you do can be a piece of art and
can be beautiful in some way.  Josh the artist: he is
the only person I’ve ever met who actually lives for
his art, it’s a wonderful dedication that only few can
achieve.  Damian the writer: everything that happened
between us was brilliant.  Because of him, I now know
how to be beautifully used and let go.  I still can’t
find a moment between us that wasn’t completely
mystical and art inspiring…and the way he spoke put a
spell on me.  And then there’s Chris: his whole
persona was just artful, from the way he only listened
to cassette tapes that he mixed himself to his
fabulously messy room which was perpetually scattered
with crayons (of all things) and his walls adorned
with his colorful little drawings and stacks of old
history books.  I will always think of sharing
cigarettes and kisses in bed while listening to Bob
Dylan cassettes in the morning with him as the epitome
of romance.  My dear friend Alex, I wouldn’t be who I
am today without her.  She embodies adventure and
freedom to me; she showed me why I have to be fearless
and I am reminded of this every time I see her.  Malia
exemplifies charming silliness and humility at the
same time, she’s an amazing enigma.  Easy spontaneity
was gifted to me from her, and I know with Malia to
always expect the unexpected, a wonderful
characteristic to have.  Katie, she taught me how to
feel magic.  I swear that’s the only way I can put it,
and it’s beautiful.  She taught me how to feel
uninhibitedly and to love candidly and that things are
just things: you can be generous with then and also
let them go.  When I think of Ceece I think of the
resilience and strength of friendship and the power of
kindredness.  We always knew each other, and
understood each other, without even having to say
anything.  She taught me how to really trust
friendship and that amazing things can come from
places that you don’t expect them to.  I think that
out of anyone, she has taught me forgiveness the most,
and not to take your friends for granted and I am so
thankful for that.  If I wouldn’t be who I am today
without Alex, I can easily say the same thing for my
friend Sophia, who taught me so much about how to deal
with life I don’t even think she knows how much she
has affected me.  Any sense of rationality and
pragmatism that I possess can be attributed to her.
She taught me that whatever I do, I need to make
myself happy, which is such an important thing to
remember.”
 
 To all of my new friends that I have made I Oakland,
I feel like I’m still in the midst of getting to know
you/learning things from each one of you.  As of now,
I know that I was meant to meet my soulmates Brian and
Josh.  I have learned so much from you guys already
and I know that I’m going to learn so much more as our
friendship grows.  For anyone else that I haven’t
mentioned in this blog/journal entry, you are all in
my thoughts and I’m totally grateful to have known and
met all you amazing people.  I can’t wait to see you
guys when I come back.  

good omens, good times

Nothing can be wild unless you consent to feel tame.
 

 My last trip I took to Kurdish Iran auspiciously
landed me next to the most amazing woman I could
possibly hope to meet.  At first glance, she seemed
drag queen-ish: her eyebrows thickly drawn on about a
centimeter higher than they should be, her neon lip
liner a completely different color than her lipstick
(harkening me back to the days of high school when I
idiotically paired black lip liner with frosty white
lipstick), and her hair a mess of color-damaged fake
curls piled into a hillock underneath her flowered
scarf.  She seemed like a badly dressed Tehrani woman,
obsessed with her looks and probably just as gossipy
as the rest (women here often have nothing better to
talk about than other women and their looks).  She
first came to me like a breeze through the automatic
doors of the hotel where everyone was breakfasting.
I, as usual, was alone outside breakfasting on a
cigarette.  On these tours, there is always someone
who takes it upon themselves to befriend me,
dumbfounded and feeling pity for my single status.
It’s one of the beautiful things about Iran; just when
you have given up on the people here, there is always
someone waiting to exceed your expectations of
generosity and love for a perfect stranger.  She
seemed overzealous to meet me, urging me to eat
something, and offering her assistance in anything I
might need.  “I want to be your friend,” she stammered
in her broken English and then smiled her
face-encompassing, gorgeous smile that I would soon
come to fall in love with.  
 
She turned out to be exactly the woman I had only
dreamed this patriarchal society could produce –its
antidote.  Her confidence and strength hit you in the
face like an air bag – I mean, pulling off that look
in itself takes more confidence than I could muster –
and her fearlessness and refusal to take shit from
anyone effectively deflected any man’s machismo or
bigotry they could hope to discharge.  But she was
soft too, and feminine…and actually incredibly
friendly (as opposed to most other Tehran women I’ve
met).  You had to love her, her charm was undeniable.
I was awe-struck as she commandingly assumed the
microphone from our stunned tour guide and commenced
to cracking jokes and singing traditional Iranian
songs to the delight of all the bus passengers.
Always the first to get up and start a dance party on
the bus, she was also indisputably superior at shaking
up and down the aisle with more grace than you would
expect on a bouncing platform, delighting in the
attention she incited as she rolled her hips and
smiled seductively at men and women alike.  As for
myself, I am once again a “bruised banana,” as my
friend likes to refer to me, seeing that my thighs are
now peppered with purple traces of my multiple
descents into bus seats and arm rests while attempting
to display my own dubious grace on the bus.  I am
forever in debt to her for showing me what a powerful
and sexy woman looks like here.  For one, it doesn’t
involve subtlety or mystery; I think the shroud is
mystery enough.  I learned that the most confident
women know how to get attention but never need it. I
don’t even think she knows how to be shy, a trait that
is priceless in life.  And though she now has a
boyfriend of three years, she doesn’t want to remarry,
a flagrant rejection of an ideology so ingrained in
Iranians, that evidently I only have a year to find a
husband, and she simply dismisses it all with a smile.
In a world where most women’s lives culminate in
housewifedom, she delegates an electronics business, a
line of work primarily designated for a man, and does
it in her gaudy flowery jackets that I would never be
caught dead in but that she somehow makes look
graceful.  What a broad…She is indiscriminating,
loving, and impenetrable all at the same time.  I
absolutely love her and my “Iranian Neda” will forever
be intertwined with my image of her.
 
As for the rest of my excursion in these parts, its
fabulousness consisted of, but is not limited to,
swimming in salty sea water, where I couldn’t sink
even if I tried to – it was heavenly, lounging around
all day in the sun wearing a bikini, which is glorious
beyond words when for over a month you aren’t allowed
to enjoy the same sun that boys can frolic in freely,
spending the day at a five star hotel on the beach
where the glittering lobby proudly donned every flag
of the world except for that of the US (quite
humorously, I might add), having tea on the top of a
mountain in a carpeted hut decorated with Christmas
lights and hanging lanterns and roofed by a starry
night with traditional Iranian musical accompaniment,
and singing a disastrous version of “Amazing Grace”
into the bus microphone to excited applauds from
everyone.  The bus we rode in was indeed a “party
bus.”  We would close all the shades to conceal our
debauchery from the police, take off our scarves and
unbutton our jackets, blast the music, and everyone
would get up and start singing and dancing on this
vibrating, dark bus.  It was amazing.  I am beginning
to become quite fond Iranian pop music after listening
to it so exorbitantly, and now I have these crazy
memories to associate it with.  But then they started
playing American music and when Sean Paul randomly
came on, everyone paused to watch me try and shake my
ass down to the floor while the bus was bouncing
around everywhere.  They played “I Will Survive” twice
in a row and everyone was screaming the words while I
did my best John Travolta.  It was a combination of a
disco and an exciting soccer game in there, so much so
that I lost my voice screaming so much.  The best was
when our tour guide decorated his face with bright
pink lipstick like he was five, tied a scarf on his
head, and danced around with us like he was one of the
girls.  It was spectacular.  I learned traditional
Kurdish dancing from some cute Kurdish boys, smoked
out of the most beautiful hookah at the summit of a
mountain town where all the houses were carved out of
boulders, and ate the most amazing food (the cheese
from Tabriz is to die for).  But most importantly, I
discovered my favorite thing about Iran: people are
not afraid to show their affection for one another
here.  In the states, real displays of affection are
usually preceded by the consumption of alcohol or some
other “loosener.”  Here, it is just normal
life…telling someone how much you love them, or
hugging and kissing a total stranger.  They are
uninhibited is this way and it allows people to feel
comfortable enough to do things like get up and dance
or sing a song in front of forty strangers without
feeling self conscious. 
 
On another note, my cousin thinks that the government
is following me.  Evidently, the guy that followed me
from Tehran to Kashan (which is five or six hours
away) works for the government and because I’m an
American that took pictures of the old US embassy,
this incites reason for suspicion.  Because of this, I
can’t go to Israel, or if I did, I couldn’t come back
to Iran.  Their secret service is their army here, and
like Israel, every young boy has to go.  Needless to
say, they spend a lot of money on keeping suspicious
people out of Iran (it’s the most secret country I
know) and apparently they would be able to find out
somehow whether I had been to Israel or not because
the intelligence here is top notch.  Plus, they are
especially scrutinizing against Americans.  So Israel
is totally out of the question for me because I am
unable to change my ticket to fly out of another
country, and I’d like to be able to come back here one
day.  It’s okay though, it makes my decision to come
back early easier.  I’ve decided that I hate Tehran
(the city where all my family lives) and since my
traveling abilities throughout the country are quite
limited due my having a vagina and no husband, once
I’m done with all the tours (there are only so many
you can take) I am coming home.  I’ll be home August
11th and I can’t wait to see you all.  I was going to
go to India but since I have no idea what I’m doing,
no one to go with, and hear that it’s quite similar to
Iran anyway, I think I’ll save that for another,
better timed, trip.  I could just say screw it and go
in totally blind but that last time I did that, well,
I ended up here.  Plus, I have decided to back to
school for writing and am really excited about getting
that underway when I come back to the states.  I don’t
know where I’ll move to…I’m thinking Boston because
it’s good for writers.  New York is good too but I so
loved Boston and miss it terribly.  Anyway, I must see
you all when I get back.  I am beyond excited to come
home.  I’m literally counting the days.  I won’t be
doing much writing for the month that I’m in Turkey
and Greece because I’m not bringing my computer but
I’ll try to journal as much as I can and then
transcribe it.  My trip there is a week away and the
first thing I’m going to do is have a drink and a
cigarette in the sun wearing the most nothing outfit I
can muster.  It’s going to be heaven.     

Identity Crisis

 “How do I explain my ambivalence?  Yet I do have
mixed feelings.  I feel ashamed and unworthy of the
gifts that have been given me; ashamed for not being a
better daughter – both a grateful American one and a
forgiving Korean one, guided by filial piety, ashamed
for opening my mouth, despite everything people have
tried to do for me, in what they thought were my best
interests.  What an unworthy, spoiled, ungrateful,
whining, American brat.”  -Jane Jeong Trenka, Language
of Blood.  

 There’s a deviation that I have either discovered
within myself or acquired through trial and error.  As
of now, I can undeniably distinguish three disparate
Nedas: the American Neda, who I am to my friends and
others in America; the Vietnamese Neda, who I am to my
Vietnamese family; and the Persian Neda, who I am to
people here and my family here.  Due to my
difficulties in adjusting to the culture here, I have
come to the conclusion that I cannot meld or
consolidate these people into one static person; they
will interminably be somewhat different and
irreconcilable.  Whether this discrepancy is merely a
reflection of other people’s varying perceptions of
me, or whether I am in fact, assuming a different
character around different people is something of a
question to me nowadays.  In order for me to “bend
with the winds” so to speak, I am forced by the
differences in culture to assume someone else, some
variation of my other self that don’t think some of my
friends back home would understand.  And the idea of
“being true to one’s self,” what is that anyway? 
Isn’t the idea of a “self” an ever changing entity?
And what is a “self” but something made up of diverse
parts?  If those parts happen to be incongruous should
I have to choose one over the other or simply assume
whatever one works best for the time being?  Upon
coming here I had made a vow to be “true to myself.”
I quite liked my disgusting boisterous self and feared
the idea of taking on the conservative and somewhat
docile attributes that seem to be so ubiquitous among
the women here.  I felt it my duty to fight this tide
of homogeny that seemed to want to drown me.  In so
fervently refusing to submit to a typical woman’s
place here, I became unhappy.  How can this American
Neda be happy in Iran, a place so different and so
inhospitable to diversity?  She can’t.  She must
concede; she must lay down to the differences in
lifestyle and culture and let them blow over her
without getting blown away.  I don’t think I can ever
be too sure of who I am anymore, just what I like
about myself and what I hope to be.  I have let my
mind slip through the cracks of the plan.  “Being true
to myself” is no longer a concrete discourse for me. 

 Now that being said, it’s easier for me here.
Letting my (American) self go has relieved me of some
of the stress that was keeping me unhappy.  I find
that I’m actually liking it here, which is not to say
that I want to stay here a minute longer than I have
to or anything, but I can certainly appreciate it and
find enjoyment here now.  

the women

 My friend Patrick once told me that he thought
Persian women are the most beautiful women in the
whole world.  I think I can I agree with him.  It’s
amazing.  As I gazed up from my seat at these women
dancing with each other and eyeing each other sultrily
(there were two men on our entire bus), I noticed that
every single one of them had such striking features to
their face.  Most Persian women have the deepest brown
eyes that can go on forever if they let you look at
them long enough.  They are like two dark and
mesmerizing vortexes in the middle of their face.
They rarely have too thick or too thin lips; but they
often gloss them over with some natural color that
makes them look unreal, like in a magazine ad or
something.  They all have these seemingly perfect
bodies if you can imagine them under all the clothing,
but to look so good underneath so much has got to be
quite the feat anyway.  And they are always smiling
and laughing…this is probably most attractive.  I
think it’s because they are never alone.  It is
imperative that they always be with friends or family,
as well as that they always have a good time.  When
they are not laughing or smiling however, they look
impermeable…or rather, like they could take
anything.  Their eyes turn to stone or something.
Maybe I feel this way because I know they can take
anything.  I think their strength, to be able to stand
up to life here, and their softness, to be able to
enjoy it, is incredibly attractive.
 
 As I turned my thoughts and attention to what lay
outside of the bus window, I noticed the traces of
life scattered over these deserted mountains and
valleys.  Here and there peeked unsuspecting holes in
the mountains – caves, which were obviously created
as dwellings from another time – as well as the
tattered remains of adobe fortresses.  These ruins
would surely be exploited as some sort of ancient
attraction anywhere else, but here, in this country so
old that it is believed to house the original site of
the Garden of Eden, they remain untouched and passed
over, merely as pebbles in the mountainous range of
Iran’s history and culture.  Birds which I have
never seen before, beautifully striped in vibrant
black and white, stood out against the browns and
greens of the untouched landscape, and trees, tall and
swaying in the wind, appeared to be standing in line
to await the night.  As we were passing a stretch of
completely bare desert, there in the middle of
absolutely nowhere, lay a ‘“K” line’ train car
abandoned on its side and rusting.  What the hell was
it doing there?  I had to laugh as I used to sit in my
car in Jack London Square waiting for those cursed
train cars to pass when I was already ten minutes late
to work.  Why was it in the middle of nowhere, with
not a house or building in sight, not to mention a
train track?  And how did it get all the way over
here?  I took it as a truce, a sign of good faith from
somewhere, and a reminder that there will always be
home, even if it’s slightly different.  But why
worry about it from all the way over here?  I stopped
being sad then.  There’s nothing I can do about
anything over there from here and if things are
different when I return, so be it. 
 

tours - iranian style 2

…Continued from before

Today I woke up to three emails from three of my best
friends in the whole wide world.  I am the happiest
person alive right now.  I am extremely lucky to have
the friends that I have.  It doesn’t matter where I go
and what I do, they are always there for me and know
just what to say to me so that I’m cracking up and
smiling all day long.  If you are reading this, I love
you so much! I can’t even express it.  You girls make
my life…

Anyway, one of my best friends is going to Israel
towards the end of my trip so I might be going there
before I go to Amsterdam.  I wonder how many people in
the world have gone to both Israel and Iran.  That
would be the most amazing thing ever.  After meeting
so many Israelis in South America and hearing such
great things about their country, finally getting to
go there and see what they were all talking about the
whole time would be spectacular.  Plus, I’m a big fan
of Israeli men.  I could just use my US passport, as I
came to Iran with my Iranian passport.  I love dual
citizenship.  I don’t even have to pay for a visa to
Turkey because I can just use my Iranian passport!

But back to the story…the resilience of Iranians.
They really do know how to have quite the bash when
not under the watchful eye of their government.  As we
sped down the freeway in a blur of dancing and singing
whilst merrily passing fruits and flat breads from
seat to seat, I marveled at how lively and fun-loving
these people were.  Iranians are most hospitable and
courteous, outdone only by those in South America.
The only reason I feel that I can make this
distinction is because social interaction here is
rather systematic, as opposed to South America where
it is indisputably heartfelt.  Iranians have a sort of
formalized courtesy system which they call Ta’ arof.
It succeeds plain old-fashioned courtesy in the sense
that there are rules regulating it which everyone here
seems to have grown up knowing.  It’s a double edged
sword, in my opinion.  It strips social interaction of
its genuineness which, I think, in turn can breed a
general fakeness towards other facets of life,
especially social ones.  In addition, if you are as
novice to the system as I am, then you might end up
feeling like more of a sore thumb than you would have
already.  Here’s an example: upon being invited to
anyone’s house for any reason, it is tradition that
you bring at least flowers, however cakes are always
better.  That person must then insist that you stay
for tea at the very least, if not invite you to stay
for dinner, given the appropriate time of day.  You
must stay for tea, but refuse the dinner offer the
first two times in the case that the person doesn’t
actually have enough food to feed you.  This allows
them to back out of the invitation without shame or
embarrassment, but if they persist a third time, you
may accept.  You must then have them over for dinner
in return and repeat the process.  Also, every time
you reach a doorway, you have to practically argue
with whoever you are walking with to let them pass
first, and same thing with paying a bill – evidently,
there is no sharing the bill here.  When you are
offering tea or cakes to people in your house, you
always offer it to the eldest first, and then to the
next eldest and so on, no matter where they are
sitting.  The rules are endless, and as I’m utterly
unaware of social niceties as it is, I find the system
to be more of a burden than something I can fully
appreciate.  You don’t know if someone truly wants to
see you, or if they are simply in your home because
it’s polite to visit; and likewise, you never know if
someone really wants you to stay in their home, or if
they are just telling you to because they have to.  

As for the bus ride, however, I was quite thrilled
when the passengers began to unfurl various treats
which they had brought for the trip and pass them
around throughout the mobile party.  Upon arriving at
the hotel, I was elated to find that somehow, I had
been assigned a huge room with three beds all to
myself.  I immediately dropped my bags, quickly
grabbed the ashtray on the table, my book, and my
cigarettes, and proceeded to park my ass on the toilet
with the door wide open smoking, reading, and
listening to my ipod while taking an extremely
satisfying shit.  I’ve discovered that I have quite an
affinity for doing things while I sit on the toilet.
I like to eat, read, smoke, do my makeup, etc.  It
makes me strangely giddy.

After my toilet extravaganza, we explored the area
surrounding Kashan, one place being Abyaneh, the
oldest living village I’ve ever seen.  The streets
were constructed from these small gray stone bricks
which were polished in a way that they were even
slippery to walk on.  On either side of these
sparkling pathways, emerged these tall yet humble red
clay edifices which loomed over you but were
familiarly comforting all the same.  The window work
framing these dated structures was spectacularly and
intricately crafted out of tiny pieces of woodchips,
wedged together by hand to make complex geometrical
shapes through which the sun could filter into and
reflect on the red adobe walls.  The village seemed to
blend into the mountain as if it had risen up from the
sea that way.  And similarly, the people who still
lived in the village seemed timeless, as if they had
been there for the beginning of earth.  Firstly, they
were all old, or their browned and wrinkled faces
belied them.  The men sported ginormous cotton black
trousers, which could appear as a long skirt if they
stood with their legs together; and this was strangely
without exception as they all wore the exact same
pants.  Likewise, the women all donned colorful
flower-printed sheets which they wrapped around their
heads and upper bodies.  To complete the look, they
wore long black cotton skirts to match the trousers of
the men.  It was the cutest.  They, like the rest of
Iran, were not too fond of pictures however, and some
actually yelled at me for trying to photograph a door
which they were sitting near.  I’m at a loss as to
what exactly Islam’s issue with pictures is, but I’ve
seriously got nothing to work with here.  I can barely
go out as it is, and when I do go out, I apparently
can’t even take a picture to remember my experience by
as I sit at home crocheting a doily or something while
I’m barred from the outside world.  Throw me a fucking
bone, dude.

On the trip I met a guy my age from England.  He’s
originally Iranian, but has been in London for the
past ten years and is visiting with his dad for a
month.  We swapped stories and realized that we share
a strong difficulty in adjusting to the way of life
here (though I must say, he has quite the leg up on
me).  I think his exact words were, “the culture just
doesn’t agree with me.”  Well said, old chap!  I
agreed with his notion that Iran is rather backwards
socially and deathly boring for the typical American
or European twenty-four year old, and he almost shat
his pants when I told him how long I was staying.  He,
going crazy with boredom after one week, hadn’t the
faintest how he was going to survive three more.
Interestingly, there were three Pilipino guys on our
tour, as well, who shared our uneasy and boring
perspective of Iran (the rest of the crowd consisted
of entirely Iranians).  As we were chatting and
laughing about how if someone killed me here, the
government would actually calculate the price of five
camels in Iranian currency and have the murderer pay
that amount to my family – five camels for girls, ten
for boys, the tour guide approached our circle and
chastised the boys for fraternizing with me.  We
parted ways dolefully but with better wits about us.
My conversation with my fellow tourists basically
cemented two things for me: a) contrary to the opinion
I had begun to formulate of myself, I am actually not
the totally narrow-minded American snob I may seem to
be, as there are people from other countries who are
equally as over it here as I am, and have been here
for less time than me, and are men; and b) with this
new found return of normalcy to my psyche, I am now
sorely aware of that fact that I must learn Farsi as
quickly as humanly possible and get the fuck out of
here asap before I begin to doubt myself again.

The next day of the tour was spent primarily at this
castle where another tour group was toiling along in
the heat with us.  Suddenly, I spotted one of the guys
from the other tour staring at me.  He looked
strangely familiar.  A gust of fury shot through me
when I came to realize that this shithead was one of
the six predators who had followed me for forty-five
minutes all the way to my door in Tehran the day that
I went to the embassy!  I wished that I could spit
because I would have hawked a lugie the size of a golf
ball at his pathetic staring face right then and
there.  He obviously recognized me as well but didn’t
dare to harass me this time as I was with a tour and
the tour guide would have had his ass.  I eyed him
evilly as he proceeded to part with his group and
follow me through the castle preying on me with his
vulgar stares.  I couldn’t say anything to him because
a) I don’t know how to and b) I would have gotten
yelled at by the tour guide if I tried.  I just had to
sit there and try to ignore him, as difficult as it
was, because wherever I went, he followed me and would
gawk at me uninterruptedly.  He didn’t even pretend to
glance at anything else.  He clearly wanted me to
break down under his gaze.  I wanted to cry with anger
and frustration.

That day, my return to Tehran was met with the news
that starting tomorrow, the government was “really
going to crackdown on everyone” – a.k.a. arrest women
with too tight a jacket or too much of their hair
showing or too much makeup on, etc. because most
schools are ending now and for some reason, they think
that women are going to “act up” or something.  I
could have stabbed myself in the eye after I heard
that.  It enrages me to think that these “crackdowns”
(a product of the government’s paranoia and
schizophrenia) are reserved solely for women when it
is all too clear that the entirety of their efforts
should be directed towards containing or at least
treating the bigoted men here.  Furthermore, they
ought to be easing up on these rules, not cracking
down on them, unless their ultimate goal is to
propagate a country of rabid dogs and moving piles of
laundry to replace men and women.  My blood absolutely
boils whenever I think about it.

To be continued again…               

tours - iranian style

 Set between the pockmarked moon face of the morning,
and the encroaching mauve colored toe-claw of the
woman next to me, I sat on this bus, trying to drown
out my mind and at the same time wring it of its
emotions.  Being on a bus is my favorite place in the
whole world.  I can isolate myself for hours, days
sometimes if I’m going far away, without distraction.
There is nothing to worry about, nothing I should be
doing, nothing else I can do, and nothing else I want
to be doing.  The only thing on the agenda is just
sitting, thinking, and watching.  I was full of
juxtapositions and contradictions that morning.  On
one hand I was grateful for my thoughts, as they have
served me rather well within the past few days.  I
have been writing an incredible amount and have been
pouring every last drop of my heart out onto paper and
computer screen.  But at the same time, as my thoughts
kept returning to that boy who broke my heart, I began
to wonder, when one persists in mulling over that one
thing that they want to think about the least, what
exactly does it take to stop thinking?  It was then
that my peaceful and reflective state of mind was
abruptly interrupted by a howl of some sort coming
from the speakers in the ceiling. 
 
 This howl, which was followed by an unceasing and
animated yet pointless string of babble/singing/jokes,
was, as I had just realized, the product of my
seemingly crackhead tour guide.  We were on our way to
Kashan, which is five or six hours south of Tehran,
and in no sense did he have any intention of being
silent for any part of it.  Strangely, everyone one
else seemed to be thoroughly enjoying their obligatory
distraction.  For his part, he was quite comical, and
was extremely fond of singing excessively loudly into
the microphone which, for some reason, they had rigged
to produce an echo like he was announcing a basketball
championship or something.  Very tall and thin, was
his stature, and he had a bald spot on the top of his
head which was ineffectively adorned by a few
strategically placed locks of grey hair combed
horizontally to the other side of his head.  Even
though he was of the older sort, he was the most
energetic and deafening person at five in the morning
that I’ve ever met in my life.  “This will never do,”
I sighed to myself as I sunk into my seat and
attempted to drown him out unsuccessfully with my ipod
– despite its being at full blast.  “Is this volume
even legal so early?” was actually the only thing I
could hear myself think.  I was completely opposed to
the idea of sitting there for five hours while this
old man, with a set of pipes that should really be
reserved only for showers alone, abused the
microphone, not to mention my eardrums, with his
musical stylings like a drunken vagabond so piercingly
before dawn.  If you’ve ever heard Persian music, the
vocals can most be likened to some kind of large water
beast that is howling for life while suffering some
agonizing death.  It is most distracting, and this was
unfortunately some bad imitation of it, if you can try
to imagine the horror. 
 
 But Persians don’t like to be left alone with their
thoughts, I have come to realize.  This notion had
been hinted at by some of my more enlightened family
members but I didn’t realize the seriousness of this
odd psychological bearing until this trip.  They
honestly cannot endure silence!  Furthermore, their
distraction has to be something happy and energetic.
I know of some people who prefer not to listen to sad
songs too often but I’ve never encountered this sort
of uncompromising defense against self reflection
before.  I over-think most of the time.  I think about
things, and then I think about them some more until
they have morphed into something else in my head.  I’m
not saying that this is the best policy either, but I
can’t imagine the suppression of every instinct to
contemplate as a way of life.  It seems an utter waste
of god-given brain and emotion. 
 
 On the other hand, as I said before, it is a defense;
and people, especially women here, need it dearly if
they are going to survive.  I, for one, am already
going insane here.  Islam is no place for a woman,
I’ve decided, even a woman as rebellious and
unconcerned with authority as me.  Of the people that
I have spoken with here, no one likes this new Islamic
conservative regime, and I can feel that sentiment
even when it’s not conveyed directly.  But there is
essentially nothing they can do about it; they are
forced to find some other happiness in their own lives
if they can’t find freedom.  I do feel quite bad for
the people here, if that isn’t too patronizing to
say…they love Iran so much, but for something that it
used to be and not what it is now.  All their pride
and love for their country harkens back to a past that
they will never recover, and now they are left with a
schizophrenic and paranoid government that wields its
power against its own people for some earthly and
corrupt purpose.  What did Iranians ever do to deserve
this punishment dealt against them so irrationally?
They live in an alternate universe where they are the
redheaded stepchild, and their government is the
abusive parent with the bottle of Jack permanently
adjoined to one hand and a belt to the other, with a
string whisky flavored drool dribbling off his chin
and onto his bare beer-belly.  Did they bite the hand
the fed them too quickly?  If I were one of those who
protested for the fall of the Shah, only to receive a
psychological imprisonment in its stead, I probably
wouldn’t want to reflect on my world either.   But
what is done is done, and now the effect of this
Islamic revival can be most perceived by the trail of
psychological problems that has infected the
post-revolution youth here.  I have already written
some about it.  Women, who are reduced to a heap of
clothing in the eyes of men, one indecipherable from
the other, and stripped entirely of any visible
autonomy or distinguishing characteristics, become
walking blow-up dolls for men to do whatever they feel
like whenever they feel like.  Our forced homogeny
creates the possibility to deny that underneath our
sheets, there is in fact a person, just like them,
with a mind of her own that they are traumatizing by
their unchecked harassment and abuse.  The limitations
of what people can do here and how they can obtain joy
is so stifling that I think people actually go a
little crazy and lose sense of reality and what is
right and wrong.  In response, the stronger ones must
shut off entire parts of their brain to cope with what
has become of their world.   If they think about it
too much, I think the combination of this degeneration
and their inability to reverse it could cause a plunge
into a deep and unshakable depression. 
 
 But back to the story at hand, if denial is what you
want to call it, you could say that we were sailing in
a ship of singing and dancing denial all the way to
another time and era, which is what Kashan truly is
when you get down to it.  Still half awake, and unable
to decipher the jokes that had the entire bus roaring
with laughter, I stared out of my window.  Before me,
sprawled out in vast ranges like nothing I’ve ever
seen in any other part of the world, lay the desert
mountains of central Iran.  As stark and brooding as
the landscape is, it is majestic and awe-inspiring,
just the same.  It is desert rock, but not like the
red rocks of Arizona, or the flat rocks of Texas, or
even the cactus peppered plains of southern
California, it rolls and weaves in one fluid surface
up and up till your eyes can faintly see smooth
mountain tops barely visible behind the dust, looming
as large as those at the end of the world.  It is
truly something I never knew could be so beautiful and
yet, so bare at the same time. 
 
 When it seemed that the old man had finally exhausted
his voice, I happily flicked my ipod back on and
prepared for deep relaxation.  I was dismayed to find
that once again, my plans would be thwarted.  However
this time, not by his voice, but by the painful racket
of Persian pop music.  Suddenly, it seemed that this
return of loudness had revived him somehow and he
began to stroll up and down the aisle screaming into
his echo mic for us to clap and snap and dance to the
music.  Relentless against the silence, he was, like
skinny yet virile soldier.  I was still asking myself
whether he was really going to sustain this din for
the entire trip (yes) and if he was actually still
yelling over the music (yes, again) when to my utter
surprise and delight, everyone on the bus started
clapping and snapping along with him.  He soon had
half the bus dancing in the aisle to the combination
of his chants and the blasting music as we speeded
through the brown hillock ranges utterly distracted
and carefree. 
 
 I couldn’t believe my eyes.  Within a few short
hours, these strangers were laughing and dancing and
falling all over each other, as the bus rocked back
and forth, like they were the best of friends.  I
couldn’t ignore the fact that even when backed into a
corner, Iran can reveal its resilience and unbridled
spirit in the smallest of spaces.  I smiled, for it
hit me that I spoke too soon.  Maybe denial isn’t so
bad after all.  I forgot about the silence, my
bleeding heart, and my longing for the states, and I
soon found myself out of my seat clapping, snapping,
and bouncing along with the crowd on this deserted
freeway. 
 To be continued…

stupid little words

Here are some poems/lyrics that i wrote last night.

My way.

There’s only one show.
It’s my way.
Whether I get it or not,
Who is there to tell?

And when the curtains rise,
I’ll be gone.
And it will look like choice,
But for the mop on the floor.

There’s only one plot,
I steer it.
Who is there to argue,
That I didn’t plan it?

I hope they believe.
And I hope you believe,
That I made it all,
That I knew it all the ‘till end.

#2

making my way on out
taking my place right now
taking the blame is how
I want to go here on out

I wanted a yard with grass
To drink white wine by glass
To make that look last
Until old age had passed

But then there’s you
Your desires coming true
Your fear separates the two
Just itching to start anew.


Streetwalker

You tell me to take a piece of cloth
To cover up my sins
You touch in the right places
But it’s the wrong person.
You walk next to me
You can’t leave me
You won’t leave me
Am I an enigma?
A body part?
An interest?
Will you let it go?
Or are you attracted to power?
You want it, but can’t
You want to take it away
And you do
When you mock me
With your soft words
And your strong hands
Those hands rest for no one
They heed no one
They eat and eat 
And my words fall on deaf ears.


# 4

I don’t think
That an untied wife
Means an untied life.
There’s still something inside.

It’s not me
To be so hush and mum
Am I as small
As the cockbox I’ve become?


How does an empty heart
Have so much to say?
When serenity is bliss,
The mind is stayed.

Harassment, and more Anti-US propoganda

 

 Now I know why my family is scared to let me go out
by myself.  I had an absolutely hilarious day getting
harassed and nearly raped.  I will start at the
beginning.  I decided to go to the U.S. Den of
Espionage today to check out those anti-US murals
bordering it that I heard about.  It was fucking
great!  There was this one where the statue of liberty
had these creepy hollowed out eyes and was surrounded
by barbed wire, and another one with a US flag shaped
like a gun which was pointed at Iran.  There had to be
like fifty of them; the premises are huge.  They say
things like “THE US IS TOO WEAK TO DO ANYTHING” and
“WE WILL DEFEAT AMERICA, THE GREAT DEVIL.” I managed
to get some shots of three of the murals, the best one
being this evil, orc-like hand with these long grimy
black nails wrapping around Earth and at the wrist,
there are Israel and US sweat bands.  I was so nervous
about getting arrested, as this is a federal building
and you are not allowed to take pictures of any
federal building under any circumstance, especially
not this one.  I was about to take a picture of the
statue of liberty one when I looked behind me and saw
that this man was staring at me with his phone out,
waiting for me to take the picture so that he could
call the police.  I pretended that I was putting the
lens cap on and he put his phone away.  That was
really close.  Anyway, I couldn’t stop laughing out
loud as I walked down the street gawking at them.
They were so ridiculous and angry but what was most
captivating about them was how brazen and bold they
were, coming from a place of is supposed to be
diplomatic about these things.  They just really
didn’t give a fuck. 

 On the way there I took the metro and discovered that
they have women-only cars!  Way boss, although I get
just as many stares from the girls as I do with boys.
I’m just a total misfit here, but I’ve decided to
embrace it.  I do what I would normally do on the T or
on BART which is to audaciously jam out with my clam
out to my ipod despite the fact that everyone else
looks like they are on the verge of dying in their
seats.  It’s funny, they’ve never seen a girl dance
like me before.  Rock is soooooo unpopular here, it’s
utterly baffling.  My rocking out is totally alien to
them, especially in public.  My notion of why they
might not like rock here is because rock is meant to
be listened to live to get the full effect; and only
government approved, traditional Islamic music is
allowed to be seen live here, if any at all.  Live
shows are harder to come by than a Rob Shnieder film
with meaning.  So according to my theory, no live
music means no amazing rock show experiences, which,
in turn, means no interest in rock.  Back to the
women’s subway though, all of the sudden these women
came out of the woodwork selling bras and skimpies up
and down the aisles!  And people were really into
buying them!  It was so funny.  Also, people don’t
drink from water bottles here, or bottles of any sort.
In fact, I actually saw a woman on the subway whip
out an espresso cup and pour herself a shot of water!
It was the cutest.

 Okay, and now for the harassment.  There were so many
instances I can’t even count them all.  First, on my
way to the subway, this guy came up to me and started
walking next to me.  He seemed totally interested in
talking with me like most boys have seemed to be here
but for some reason, this time I catered to his
enthusiasm.  He asked me my name, where I’m from,
where I was going, blah blah; and then when we got to
the subway two minutes later he asked me to go to a
hotel with him!  I just brushed it off as people
thinking that I’m a prostitute here and him being a
very forward man. 
Then, at the Den of Espionage I had just sat on the
curb to smoke a cig, when this dude my age came onto
the sidewalk with his motorcycle and asked me if I
wanted to get on it.  He literally began to beg me
after five minutes and didn’t cease for the next
fifteen.  I’m not even exaggerating.  I protested for
twenty whole minutes repeating “no thank you” in Farsi
the entire time and then, against all my better
judgment, I got on.  I’ve never had good judgment with
boys, and it was really hot and I wanted some wind, so
I figured if things got out of hand, I could just tuck
and roll, right?  He was so stoked and began
immediately proclaiming his love for me, and licking
my hands, oddly enough.  I thought it was funny.  As
he was explaining where we were going and what we were
seeing, I began to wonder what the hell I was thinking
getting on some random dude’s bike.  After
repetitively asking him to take me to the metro, and
then finally just to drop me off in the various places
we were passing, but to no avail, my frustrations with
him grew.  He kept saying that we were going to the
metro but he just kept on going to other places
instead while he told me how much he liked me.
Finally we passed a metro station further down and I
started yelling at him to stop there.  He took me to
this dead end street a few blocks away from it and I
got off the bike.  Then he pushed me up against a wall
and tried to kiss me.  I pushed him off of me and he
tried to fight me but I screamed really loud in his
ear and this distracted him while I kicked him away
from me and ran to the main street away from him.  I
don’t know why I wasn’t scared, it’s like I expected
it or something.  It was weird; I even thought it was
really funny when I imagined myself with my scarf and
my backpack running.  I must have looked like a young
babushka running late to school or something.  I
thought it was over and I was laughing to myself at
how ridiculous it was that I could’ve just gotten
raped when I saw him again.  He was following me!  And
asking me to get back on the bike!  I rolled my eyes
and just walked by him.  But the whole five blocks to
the metro, he was right next to me asking me to see my
glasses or something.  I wasn’t pissed or scared, I
was just dumbfounded that he was still there after
everything that happened and even now that I was again
repeatedly telling him “no” like a robot.  I finally
got to the metro entrance where he couldn’t take his
bike. I stopped for a second and looked back at him,
and then I went in.  I guess he left his bike outside
and then followed me into the station because all of
the sudden he was right next to me again.  He followed
me until he couldn’t go any further without a ticket,
still pleading with me to come back.  It was insane. 
Then, on my way back home from the metro station, six
or seven guys had congregated around me to follow me
home for the entire forty five minutes it takes to
walk back!  They were relentless.  Three were in cars
and were playing a sort of leap frog dealy to follow
me at the pace of my walking.  One guy even had his
friend take the wheel while he got out and started
walking with me to try and convince me to get in the
car.  The other three guys were on foot and were
whispering things to me while I was dealing with
saying “no” to the car people.  I didn’t even have
time to notice that they were moving in on me because
I was screaming at the cars to go away when the
walkers started to subtly grab my ass and tits.  I
punched and kicked them right there in the middle of
the sidewalk and after that if they got close to me I
would just push them away from me like they were
pinballs.  At first I was verbally refusing them all
but this fell upon deaf ears obviously.  The only
things I said the entire time to this entourage of men
was “no” “go away” and “please.” If I knew how to say
“follow,” I would have said “stop following me” as
well.  But it wouldn’t do anything, as I literally had
to keep on repeating these phrases for the whole forty
five minutes.  I tried to cross big streets to evade
them but they just drove on the wrong side and the
walkers just followed me.  Three of them actually
followed me to my door.  I couldn’t believe it.  I
just had to laugh in between my screams because the
whole thing was so ridiculous.

 Here is my problem, why didn’t any one of the other
million pedestrians try to help me out, as I am
obviously not from here and don’t speak the language?
And secondly, I could have totally gotten arrested if
a cop saw them walking with me, as men and women who
are not related can’t be in public together.  It was
so dumb.  I can’t believe that this is what it’s like
here.