Good News and Bad News

I have good news and bad news.

Good News: I've lost weight since the bridesmaid dress fittings.

Bad News: ...I've lost weight since the bridesmaid dress fittings...

My dress is pathetically large on me, and I wasn't even wearing the girdle I defied natural law and quantum physics to get into.

And its not looking to good in terms of bulking back up before the wedding, I am more stressed than I have ever been in my life.

I can't eat and I can't sleep. I'm almost constantly nautious and when I try to sleep at night my mind wakes me up about the most stupid things.

Yesterday was the Belmont Stakes horse race and I was really hoping whatshisface the guy who won the other two and has a son with Usher's disease would win. I don't even know his name, thats how unimportant it really is to me. But yet last night I woke up twice after dreaming about it.

I'm almost to the point that I'm ready to leave everything behind and show up to Egypt just myself and the clothes on my back. What? Luggage? No thanks.

Yesterday was the rehearsal dinner, don't ask me why it was a week before it just was, and it took place at Brunswick Bowl in Blaine. Now, it was great because afterwards we all went bowling and I found that Wii bowling has really improved my game. I'm not even kidding. But I also got food poisoning from the horrific stuff they passed off as food there. I haven't been able to keep anything down for almost 24 hours. I'm currently sipping campbell's chicken noodle and succeeding in keeping it confined to my stomach.

Small victories.

But I've got to figure out how to get my dress taken in one week before the wedding because stress+food poisoning ≠ filling out dresses one size too large.

As soon as I have the energy I'm going to upload a pic of the wicked awesome bag that mi habibtita Gulnari made for me.

{pic to be inserted later}

Today

Today is a bad day. I don't want to go anywhere, I don't want to do anything. I don't want to be here working, I don't want to help people, I don't want to read, or write, or think.

I think I've hit my wall. The wall against all the stress, the loneliness, the worries, the planning, the goals, the expectations, and the world entirely.

I just want to walk, and walk, and walk, and find somewhere to get lost.

Today is definitely a bad day.

Misery Loves Company

I've had a migraine since yesterday and I can't seem to think my way through it.

Hopefully I can shake it before tomorrow so we don't miss Random Wednesday.

I know how sad you'd be.

If only someone would hit me with a hammer right between the eyes, somehow I think that would make me feel better.

Volounteers?

....

Dear God,

Please fast forward today to 4:30.
Thank You.

Your's truly,
Molly

Bunny who?

Well its time again for an awkward holiday dinner with my Christian family. Today is Easter and is, for me, one of my least favorite holidays. Even when I was still Christian I disliked Easter and I don't know why. While I feel fine sharing a big family dinner on holidays like Thanksgiving, which is a completely secular holiday, and Christmas, which is a slightly less secular holiday, when it comes to Easter I have very little desire to even attend a family showdown chowdown.

But I did because I love my family and love spending time with them.

This morning my mom, who loves making Easter baskets and laments my Islam most on the loss of making them for her future grandchildren, had one waiting for me. Oh well, chocolate is chocolate, especially when it is Lindt chocolate, so I quickly got over it and we headed over to my grandparent's house. My mom insisted on listening to her Christian muzak station on the way over "since it is Easter Sunday" so I popped in my earphones and rocked some vintage Sherine on my ipod to drown out the inanity.

One thing that saves my sanity, and that of everyone else in the family, is that I can take off my hijab once I get inside the house. So we arrived and I shucked it off quickly and had a fairly good time and lots of good food until my aunt had those last ten glasses of wine that put her over.

I love my family, I love my aunt- who incidentally is the one who refuses to be seen with me in public with my hijab- but she drinks... a lot. Her and my uncle both will routinely kill 5 or 6 or maybe 10 full bottles of wine between the two of them at family dinners. And I know at home most evenings my aunt will finish at least one bottle herself or two if it was a bad day. Usually she's a friendly drunk who tells everyone she loves them. The first time she saw me in hijab was at a wedding she got soased at and told me that she'd love me anyways no matter what. Sober, her tune changed quickly.

But I digress. Today once she crossed her limit she began to needle me in the socially inept way drunks have. She completely missed the dirty looks all the clear-thinking people in my family shot her, or the awkward silences that descended when she said something particularly insensitive. She decided it was really humorous to tell me that when my marriage dissolved there would be plenty of good Catholic boys waiting for me.

Rip on my Islam if you want, but don't ever talk smack about my marriage.

I ignored her as much as I could, but her volume control mechanism had disappeared five glasses of wine ago and when I ignored her she just talked louder. She had dropped that oh so funny "find yourself a good Catholic" line three or four times when everyone else was teasing my mom about having a date tonight, but I ignored or parried each one of them until she finally cornered me and I glibly replied that I was already happily married (alhumdulillah.) To which she then baldly said yelled, "Well when that one ends like I know it will, there will still be some good Catholic boys waiting for you, or even some Lutheran; I could deal with a Lutheran. But not a Baptist, it would take me awhile to be ok with a Baptist."

Awkward family silence.

Drunken giggle from my aunt.

And then my grandmother turned the conversation to politics, which we all know is such a safer topic of discussion.

It was time to leave so my mom could make it on time for her date (tee hee) and I put my hijab back on and edged towards the doorway hoping to escape a confrontation with my already belligerant auntie. No luck. She caught sight of me and bellowed, "Oh my Gawd Molly, will you please just get over it already?!?"

When I walked over to give my grandmother a kiss she smiled at me and said, "you do look cute in it."

And then they both stalkedwalked me over to the door talking about my (inshAllah) upcoming move to Egypt. Both my grandma and aunt are convinced I will lose all human rights in an Arab country and will become a slave chained to the oven and popping out Arab babies. My aunt defends her position, "I've read those Khalali books!" And by Khalali she means Khaled Husseini which must mean she knows everything about Islam, Muslims, and Arabs.... right? Besides being just one more example of Islam-as-culture not Islam-as-religion, both books take place in Afghanistan not Egypt.

sigh

It was a tough day.

But I have a bunny-shaped chocolate to comfort me.

Oh and just to get completely off-subject for a second: how disturbing is it to eat cross-shaped chocolates? Seriously? Eat them?

I just couldn't see any Muslims chowing down on a gourmet Quran-shaped chocolate bar.

But thats just me.

I hate Easter.

A poem is never finished, only abandoned. ~Paul Valéry

I am never satisfied with my writings, I go over them a million times and revise them a million and one only to end dissatisfied and hopeless.

And then I abandon them to whatever criticism I may receive, throwing them into the trash in my mind with helplessness.

Why am I never satisified?

Gah..

Today is going to suck at work. I had meant to post at some point during this afternoon but work is really going to suck instead.

And I forgot my lunch at home.

Sad, sad, sad.

*pout*

****** lets make this post more random

I walked into the bathroom after one of our doctors this morning and was almost knocked over by the pervasive stench of raw vodka.

Hm...... He LOOKED sober... maybe it was his aftershave...

******

Why is it so yummy when I dip my french fries into MCD's "ice cream"?

******

Despite laughing uproariously about it in Egypt, and teasing my husband everytime he said it, I have been infected by the dreaded "ya3nee" that peppers all Arabic-speakers' conversations and monologues.

Ya3nee, I just can't get rid of it.

******

I have a coworker who insists on calling me Molly-olly. I just might get physically violent if she does it again. I should probably warn her.

******

Someone mixed a large handful of small paperclips in with my large paperclips. This is cruel and unusual torture and therefore illegal by the Geneva Convention. Just saying... I could press charges.

******

I had a bunch of other random thoughts buzzing around in my head. When I think of them I'll add them on.

Who-Wha? The life of a new day in new shoes.

So I have what is colloquially termed as 'the crud' which consists of random aches, pains, nausea, and other icky-no-good things but which cannot actually be attributed to an AMA-recognized disease. Mine also came conveniently packaged with sores on the back of my throat which spawned overnight while I was sleeping. I don't recall eating barbed-wire last night for dinner, but apparently I did because my gullet feels like a battlefield. I decided to slap my two fifteens together and go curl up on a couch somewhere secluded in the massive patient waiting room. And evidently its normal in some people's world to approach unknown women curled into armadillo-like balls and strike up a conversation.

Strange/Creepy Man: So, how are you? (a la Joey Tribbiani + x5 creep factor)

Me: *sitting up immediately and searching for my shoes* Oh, just fine.

Creepy McCreepster: Oh no, you don't have to leave.

Me: *with a shudder and a new world record for putting on shoes* Well, I should be getting back.

C McC: So, are you waiting for a doctor?

Me: *getting up to leave* No, as unprofessional as this sounds I actually work here.

I instead pestered a CA and commandeered an unused consult room that I could securely lock with a couch upon which I sprawled haphazardly like a dying walrus and proceeded to snore away my break. Much better and more comfortable than having to demurely roll myself into a ball in a public place. Thank you, Creepy McC.

I emerged from this cave looking bleary and tousled, much like a receptionist who just had a quick amorous scuffle with the mailroom clerk- without the clerk or the amorous scuffle.

I was generously offered the afternoon off- I wonder if this is more because my coworkers want to fumigate my station rather than actual altruism- but I decided that spending the next few hours fighting with my stomach about unloading the mashed potatoes I was able to choke down for lunch would go better if I was paid for them.

Call me capitolistic.

And just to make my day so much more enjoyable I am walking around in new shoes which haven't been stretched to fit my feet giving me cramped toes and blistered heels. Payless was having a BOGO sale and it prompted me to finally retire my favorite red and black shoes (which have long ago seen their best days.)

(rockstar shoes)


These shoes have been loyal to me for five years, crossing many borders and seeing many sights. They've taken me to three continents and carried me through many airports. They were also the worst shoes I could wear out of my arsenal because with their platform soles and my curved feet I constantly rolled my ankles at random moments to the point that my husband actually looked at me and asked, "are you sure there's not something wrong with you?"

But I digress, these shoes have been the object of much envy and admiration through the years, and I will miss them.

And with the BOGO sale I am now the proud owner of a sophisticated pair of heeled mules and these devilish(ly cute) mary-janes which are causing me so much suffering today.

(the SOH shoes)

(and by SOH I mean Spawn of Hell which I lovingly named them on the long hike back to the parking ramp.)

I knew they were going to be trouble-makers and stood for a good 5 minutes this morning deciding which shoes to wear today. However since the mules looked positively preposterous with my wicked-awesome flagrantly-colored toe socks, I opted for the mary-janes. It usually hurts to look this cute.

So farewell to the marvelous red and black shoes I long ago named Mickey.

It was a good five years.

Can I go home and sleep now?

3araby?

I used my non-existent Arabic today at work.

How marketable is that?

For the past week almost everyday I have been receiving a phone call.

Me: M***** ***** Institute, this is Molly.

Caller: No.

Awkward silence and background noise.

Me again: M***** ***** Institute, this is Molly. (No really, I'm not kidding.)

Caller again: No.

Me: ¿Hello?

Caller: No.

Awkward silence. And I hang up.

Today they took a different route, they called twice. But this time they rounded up enough English to ask "Somali?"

The first time after going through the same routine negation that we had done daily she asked "Somali?" and I answered "No" and hung up.

The second time in I answered in exasperation, "La2, msh Somali." (No, I'm not Somali)

Caller: Mefishe Somali? (There's no Somalis?)

Me: La2, mefishe Somali.

And I hung up. Hopefully this will take care of the problem. I don't like to be informed daily that I am not Molly and I apparently don't work at M***** ***** Institute.

I should have stayed in bed today

This is one of those days where it clearly would have benefitted me, and the world at large, to stay in bed. I forgot my cell phone and my work badge at home this morning, my hijab won't stay pinned, and none of the machines will work for me.

I'm not crabby so much as resigned to my fate for today.

But can I at least go home and go back to bed?

It would benefit us all.

Also I think I lost my readers. *tear* Am I so boring?

Is it Friday yet?

I have just been informed by my coworker (who I adore and is the only reason I stay in this job) that I am, now, officially the biggest dork she's met.
Woot! I've accomplished something today.

What are everyone's thoughts today? How is your day going? Feel free to complain on my comments section. I think its a bad day for everyone so let it out.

Gray: Of Work and Coffee

As my head continues to pound I must finally admit to myself that I am addicted to caffeine. Coffee, O Coffee, why must I hate you yet love you so? Like a crack addict I break down and feed the monster.

I find myself falling into a bleakness in these darkest, grayest months of winter. I wake up and leave for work before the sun has risen and I get out and drive home once the sun has set. Working in the black hole of this clinic filled with negative energy and people who just don't care, and then leaving the hospital to the gaunt and hopeless torn-down ghetto of Minneapolis covered in a thin layer of ash-colored snow.

My world is a lot of gray. Gray is the world when I get up. Gray is the world when I lay down. Gray is even the color of my dreams when I dream them at night.

I want to love my job. I want to love what I do. I want to wake up every morning and look forward to getting something accomplished. Doing something that is meaningful, something that just might change the world even just a little.

In the bleakness of winter it seems like I make no mark and tomorrow is the same as the uselessness of today.

Thank God its Friday

Last night I had a dream where we were having primary elections in this gated community we all lived in and the person I hated the most out of all of the candidates won. I was furious, who the hell was I going to vote for now? I certainly wasn't going to vote for him. It was a depressing dream and an even more depressing wake up. I'm so preoccupied with politics that they are even invading my most precious of vacations.

*sigh*

I also hate my new job.

*le sigh*

Thank God its Friday.