Category Archives: Three minute read

Sep 01 2011
2 Comments
Anecdotes, Humorous, Lists, Open Letters, Three minute read

Six Stages of Packing

STOP EVERYTHING! WHERE IS YOUR TUNA?

It is finished. I have moved and am now in a magical place called Mohandiseen, where the honking in the distance almost sounds like crickets, the sky has 3 more stars, and cotton candy grows on trees.

I don’t care if I have to eat beans and toothpaste for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and tea time snack in order to live here. It will be worth it to have this haven where I can literally cocoon myself away from the craziness of Tahrir, in order to appreciate it more fully.

While packing, I gleaned some impressive information on the emotional phases of the moving process. Allow me to elaborate.

Time to Go

The day has come. It’s time to move out of your apartment, the apartment where you have lived. You saw this day coming because you signed the lease and chose this day yourself. Still, it strikes you like a thunderbolt. You squirm in your shoes, you pace up and down nervously as your palms sweat and your eyes swim, but you can’t avoid what’s coming. It’s time to pack. As you begin the laborious process, you start progressing through the six stages.

Stage 1: Despondency

As you survey the grotesque bulk of your possessions, your heart is stricken with an iced lightening rod. Hercules himself would have trembled at the sight of what must be squirreled away…unworn clothing, laughably ambitious shoes, three partially used deodorant sticks, two cans of tuna, etc. You experience earth shattering, heart breaking, soul sucking hopelessness. “Might as well give up now,” you think, as you check to see what’s on television.

Stage 2: Elbow Grease

After weeping briefly, you pull yourself together and realize that today is the first day of the rest of your life, and that if you don’t pack your landlord will confiscate you and your possessions. You start puttering around the room, rearranging and evaluating things, and all the while hope slowly wells within your chest. “Maybe this can be done,” you think, “and where did those cans of tuna go?”

Stage 3: Sweat

You’re really moving now. The hot Cairo sun is beating down upon all the Cairene earth. In the AC-less room, your temples and back grow damp as the pile of material possessions is slowly organized and moved into seal-able spaces. You are happy in your delusion that things are actually going to get done. “I’ll even be able to fit in my cans of tuna,” you contentedly state to yourself.

Stage 4: Despair

Your bags are filling fast and you there is no end in sight. Your forehead is sweaty and you feel like crap for some reason, even though you got three hours of sleep and have only eaten chocolate. Emotions run high as you recall past loves and wonder where they are now. Are they packing too? Do they know what this is like? As you look at the miserable pile of crap your life has become, a mere anchor to a place you are no longer attached to, you begin to wonder what the meaning of it all is.

Stage 5: Rejuvenation

After looking at a tree, you realize things aren’t so bad. You decide to throw away the yards of velvet you wanted to make into a magician’s cape for your niece, and that makes you feel better. Now there’s just the odd shaped things like packing tape left, most of which can be thrown into your backpack. “Wait a second, ” you think to yourself, “WHERE ARE MY CANS OF TUNA?” You lay your eye upon them and a chorus of heavenly angels sings as you nestle them into the perfect spot in your suitcase. The end is in sight and it looks like a celebration at Pizza Hut.

Stage 6: Jubilation

After cramming the last pair of socks through the crack of your suitcase and zipping it shut before it could escape, you glance around your room and realize you have done the impossible. You have packed your life into measurable square feet, and you have done so with only a mild breakdown. Come hell or high water, one thing is for certain. As soon as you get to your new apartment, you’re unpacking everything and cracking open a can of tuna in celebration. Champagne is for squares and people who don’t eat enough protein.

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Aug 30 2011
8 Comments
Best blog posts, Fake advertisements, Humorous, Modern Life, Three minute read

I’m Just Trying to Sweat On Some Strangers

Last night I was the proud and only occasionally unwilling participant of a house party that lasted until the sun came up. This was not an American house party, where you crank up the music in someone’s apartment and stand uncomfortably close to one another for two hours tops before you realize it is the worst thing in the world and then escape. This house party was a public party with “house” music at a club-like location somewhere near the pyramids.

I know that we were somewhere near the pyramids because I saw one as we were driving back in the early dawn. I also saw the sun itself, a fluorescent red disk rising over the Nile. And then I went home, saw I had no notifications on facebook, and went to bed. All in all it was a fun, enriching, and eye-bulging experience. Here’s an advertisement.

Saqqara Oasis: Where There Are No Worries Because Your Sweat Will Put Out the Molotov Cocktail Flames

Hey you! Yeah you with the “One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Dance floor” shirt!

Tired of squeezing into your tightest threads on Monday nights and then having nowhere to go? Do you yearn for a place where the music will make your heart feel like it’s about to explode, where the beat itself picks up you and throws you down in endless mini-earthquakes? Do you find perfect hearing a burden? If you have ever experienced these sentiments or eaten food, then Saqqara Oasis is your destination! You’ll always remember your bomb night at Saqqara tearing up the dance floor with your sick moves and hair product because your hearing will be permanently damaged and your brain seared with images of Egyptian youth like you’ve never wanted to see them before.

When was the last time you sweated so much you created a natural pattern of salt stains on your jeans and then sold them the next day at twice their original cost as haute couture?  Can’t remember? That means it’s been too long! Saqqara Oasis is your only solution. After you sweat your brains out, strip down to your boxers and cannon ball into the pool! Then climb out of the pool and GO CRAZY again! Be the dripping youth full of life that you have always wanted to be.

Are you incapable of experiencing “fun” on account of your extreme coolness? Do you get tremors thinking about your hair moving? Did you wear heels that came with a handicapped sticker? Saqqara is still the place for you! There are numerous locations at your disposal from which you can project an air of mind-blowing awesomeness while doing nothing except for staring at other people with a blank expression or bobbing your head. If desired, there is a short posing workshop before the party begins where you can learn all the latest hand, arm, and leg positions so you can put off the vibe you’ve always known you were capable of.

Have you ever felt like your hands, arms, and heart are actually a different being trying to flee from the rest of your body? Do they flail around wildly and cause your abdomen to move in an inhuman fashion to the eardrum bursting beat? Have you ever wiled out so hard that your body couldn’t handle itself? Have you ever become a music nymph in the heat of the moment? Come to Saqqara! Find your flailing friends and throw your flesh encasement around like it’s something you won’t need tomorrow!

Are you trying to inhale as much smoke as possible in an outdoor setting? Forget sheesha and come to Saqqara, where one could read by the light of the glowing cigarette butts if they weren’t too busy being AWESOME. Let us convince you that there is no better place to partake of second hand goodness. Don’t think you’re a good dancer? Our quasi-non-stop strobe policy will make whatever movements you are capable of producing seem out of this world, and just when you are getting used to making a fool out of yourself, we will flood the entire dance area with yellow light and reveal you sweat soaked youth for what you really are before returning the safety of pulsing darkness.

Saqqara Oasis: You will lose control, sweat, stay out for longer than you wanted to, go through an endless cycle of despairing of departure and then catching a second wind, and discover the heights of who you can be.

This means you too, cookie monster t-shirt.

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Aug 26 2011
2 Comments
Anecdotes, Humorous, Three minute read

Why Can’t We Bite Ankle Biters Back?

Not an actual photo from the nursery

Here I will attempt to speak of something unspeakable, to describe something indescribable, to eff something ineffable. I saw into the depths of horror itself two days ago, and only now have mustered the courage to force it into words.  That may have been too dramatic. Judge for yourselves:

Out of our copious amount of free time and the goodwill of our hearts, my friend and I decided to hunt for volunteer work in this city. A month after baiting our line and casting out, we had a catch!  On Tuesday, August 23rd, we visited a volunteer site where we learned we are going to use our political science, diplomacy, and academic research skills in a preschool whose twenty kids range from 6 months to 8 years old. An impossible task? Not yet. Our coordinator described the preschool as a nursery where the kids get a good education so they can be ready for government-run schools. A screaming den of anti-learning would have been closer to the mark.

“Is this hell?”

This was my first thought when we entered the preschool. Our goal for the day was to see how it was and identify areas for improvement. After observing it, however, it’s hard to imagine how it could get worse, barring natural, biological, or extraterrestrial disaster.

One ankle biter was stomping around the back of the classroom and uttering sounds like a maniac. Another child was asleep on his desk. The big eyed girl next to me, maybe four years old, was wearing a scandalous shirt that revealed half her chest and spent most of her time staring at me or at the pictures I drew for her in my notebook. Barely contained in their chairs, the rest of the children were squirming like my dog does when my family makes it wear sweaters. It was a picture of loosely controlled chaos.

“Oh God, no.”

Unfortunately, we had arrived just in time for English class. The instructor, Madonna, tepidly manned the front of the classroom, clearly holding back the fear of losing complete control over the children and alternatively sweet talking or threatening them. She thrust forward a red card and shouted, “Whatiszeecolor?” Or in English “What color is this?” And the children yelled, “Ahmarred!” Or in English “Red!” This traumatizing process was repeated for all the colors and other various words.

In a flash of unwitting innovation, all colors became compound Arabic-English words. Ahmar means red in Arabic, and thus fire trucks are “ahmarred,” chocolate is “bonniebrowen,” and cotton candy is “bambibink.” At the end of the session, I finally understood that success was measured not by possible ability to communicate with English speakers, but by the volume  and speed with which one could shout the compound Arabic/English color.

“When will this end?”

I had shivers when I imagined how many times they’d performed this exercise, and I nearly vomited when I contemplated the idea it would never end. Though the poor pronunciation of the teacher and the clear lack of learning on the part of the pupils were both painful, the shouting was the most egregious offence. Unlike most “inside voice” classrooms I’ve attended, Madonna would demand the students say the compound color as loud as possible, until some of them were literally screaming “AHMARRED!” while others continued to shriek, gurgle, or chitter in personal monologues or side conversations.

“Please rescue me.”

As pleasant as children’s laughter is, a child’s scream is what is scientifically described as “unbearable.” My patience was rapidly wearing. The kids, despite the satisfaction some of them got from yelling, were just as eager as I to be released from this prison. Furthermore, the idea the pupils would soon be given whistles as a reward for their good screaming behavior was equally nausea inducing.

I wished to flutter out the window and be a sheet hanging on the rows of clotheslines I could see from my cell, since they at least lacked the ability to hear or feel intense hopelessness. Finally, after lunch when the kids were all given sugary suckers for God knows what reason, play time came and we decided we had seen enough and made our escape, the sound of screaming children following us from behind the door. At the very least, it will be hard to make the place worse. At best, the children won’t learn anything but we will have fun and not want to be sheets.

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Aug 23 2011
4 Comments
Best blog posts, Fiction, Humorous, Three minute read, Travelling

Please Send Lactation Cookies

Despite the glistening fountain water the only moisture you’ll get is a tourist’s back sweat.

More content inspired by my trip to Italy:

Postcards to Mother

While lazing about the Italian countryside, I thought constantly of mother and how much she would have liked everything I was doing, so I took to writing little fake postcards to her in order to bridge the miles between us. Of course, they never got sent and oftentimes do not describe “reality,” but it’s the blog that counts.

Rome

Tonight we ate ham, so that was good. I’m staying at a stranger’s house. Hope she doesn’t kill us. It feels so empty here, so sometimes I close my eyes and cross the street. It’s very peaceful. Miss you.

I walked around in Rome with my backpack on today. Do salt stains bleach shirts? Everyone here seems to know I’m not Italian even though you said I looked European. Were you lying to me?

Saw a dumb fountain but was distracted by the writhing mass of human flesh worshiping it. You wouldn’t have liked it very much. The weather was hot and it didn’t look like a mountain.

My vest doesn’t have enough pockets in it to hold all of my allergy medication. Please send me a new one?  And Major Milk Makin’ Lactation Cookies?

Our couchsurfing host was very nice. She didn’t kill us and even gave us a key to her place. I wish the guy I am traveling with were you. Please send cookies.

San Benedetto Del Tronto

I’m at the beach. The only way to not fit in here is to be pale. I felt like I was in middle school again except for I was wearing pale skin and adventure sandals instead of purple every day of the week. You always appreciated my fashion and pastiness.

Saw a field full of dead sunflowers today and thought of you.

Our friend’s parents don’t speak much English and they remind me of you when you speak Spanish. They make up for it in kindness though, just like you, except that you usually have lactation cookies. Please send some.

There are a lot of tattooed and other “weird” people in Italy. You’ll have to ignore them if you come. I saw old men in speedos today and it was more jarring than watching a Lady Gaga performance. You might just avoid the beach altogether.

People here eat Italian food every day. I miss your meatloaves.

I bought an earring, a tank top, and some hair gel for Dad so he can look more Italian. I got you and the sisters matching snakeskin string bikinis. Brother already looks Euro enough. Hope you like everything. It all cost 50 Euro. Pay me when I get back.

My host’s dad was making penis jokes at dinner about the phallic bread we had. You would have disapproved just like his mother. Wish you were here to scold.

Bologna

Traveling companion has fallen ill. I’m feeling weak too. Both very hungry. Please send lactation cookies/medicine.

Mom, I dangled over the side of a cliff today, my feet barely scraping the side of a very deep ravine. I didn’t even want to do it but no one would tell me no. Wish you were here.

Do you remember the check Grandma sent me for my birthday? Could you put the money in my account? Italy is great.

Despite your reassurances that “everyone will know what I’m talking about” no one knows this kind of cheese you want. Are you sure it’s Italian?

Italy is wonderful. I’m not coming back to the states. I didn’t think I hated my family enough to stay abroad forever but it’s just that beautiful. I know you’ll understand. Email me with questions.

Egypt Again

Back in Egypt. Food turns to ash in my mouth. I’m hallucinating that I can hear crickets and didn’t even have the energy to kill the cockroach that was preening itself on the wall for an hour. Please send money and cookies. Sorry I said that I’d never be coming back to the states. What I meant was I am never coming back to Oklahoma.

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Aug 22 2011
8 Comments
Humorous, Lists, Three minute read, Travelling

A Failing Grade for Italian Tourism

This is the sun setting over the Italian countryside near San Benedetto del Tronto. You may now weep from the beauty.

I returned from my Italian adventure at the ripe hour of 2:30 on Sunday morning, Cairo’s hazy smog clouds welcoming me in an open cough to its crowded haphazard streets. Upon evaluating to what extent my trip was a failure or a success based upon a numerical gradation of the number of goals I accomplished, I found that even with partial credit given, I only achieved a raw score of 45.45%, otherwise known as an F. Unfortunately this means I will have to go to Italy once again in the spring in order to try to achieve a passing score and graduate onto other countries.

Below I will evaluate the success of my trip objective by objective:

1. Eat Italian food. SUCCESS

Accomplished with surprising ease. In direct defiance of variety, Italians tend to eat Italian food every day, even eschewing other respectable ethnic cuisines like Mexican or Chinese.

2. Drink fermented Italian beverages. SUCCESS

I made my own Italian wine by stealing some grapes from a neighbor’s vineyard, mashing them up, putting yeast in my sock, throwing it all in an empty 7 UP bottle and letting it sit in the sun. When it was nice and bubbly I passed it an a bottle of Tylenol around and we had ourselves a great time.

3. Sit in a meadow and breathe. SUCCESS

After panting up a rather steep hill, I and companion came upon an old villa that overlooked the city and right in front of it was a steep decline that led into a meadow. I scrambled down it and sat in the shade of a tree for a few moments while my travel companion, who is not the meadow sitting sort, opted to wait for me. I could smell fresh mint around me and had almost achieved spiritual revelation when I remembered my companion and I crawled back up and we got on with our lives.

4. Nap on the beach in a one piece bathing suit. SUCCESS

My ten dollar public-swimming-pool-blue swimsuit I bought in Ecuador is not holding up great, but it sure does accent my pasty white flesh. When I arrived at the beach and stripped down to my swimwear, my Italian host’s parents asked me if it was my first time at the beach, and I grabbed her mother by her shoulders, stared at her with desperate eyes and said “In the sun…it’s my first time in the sun…”

5. Find something with little blue flowers on it to purchase and call my own. Place in someone else’s bag and claim they stole it. FAIL

Lots of crap to buy, nothing I wanted with little blue flowers.

6. Find cool gifts for the family to replace what I originally planned to bring back for them: pyramid keychains and little piles of sand. FAIL

Gifts are way too expensive in Italy. For the price of one scarf for my sister in Italy I could buy her an entire loom and weaving lessons in Egypt.

7. Get in as many people’s photos as possible while at touristy sites like the Colosseum and the Pope’s wax museum. HALF CREDIT

We tried getting in people’s pictures, but the angles proved fairly awkward so we settled for taking pictures of the tourists themselves. Vouyeristic? Possibly. Sue me.

8. Go to a hair salon and get my bangs cut. Refuse to pay and see what happens. HALF CREDIT

I didn’t go to hair salon since, as stated previously, it would have been expensive and the language barrier would have made the “not paying” thing more difficult to explain. I did, however, cut my bangs myself. Since no one notices I cut them, I believe  I have avoided a case of awkward bangs for the first time since I started cutting my bangs myself. Great success.

9. Speak with an Italian accent the whole time and see how many best friends I make. FAIL 

I opted to speak fake Italian and Spanish mixed together. I really felt I could speak Italian after having even one glass of wine, but it was interesting to note that Italians themselves continued to not understand me.

10. Verify my hypothesis that Spanish and Italian are actually the same language. HALF CREDIT

I’m giving myself half credit for this since if I spoke Spanish with people, they would usually understand what I was saying. However, these interactions were usually accompanied by wild hand gestures that corresponded to what flavors of ice cream I wanted, so I can’t say the theory was widely tested outside of ice cream shops.

11. Take a nap at least once. SUCCESS

Napped once in the bungalow, once on the beach, once in the hotel room, and once under a tree.

12. Claim I am the direct descendant of the last emperor and declare my rule over Italy via public service announcement. FAIL

13. Pretend to be German and wear socks with my sandals. HALF CREDIT

Though I did not pretend to be German, I did wear my adventure sandals everywhere. Italians do not wear adventure sandals. If it weren’t already painfully obvious by the pallor of my skin and hair that I was not Italian, my disgustingly practical footware gave it away even before I got to speaking fake Italian.

14. Coat myself in glue and then roll in macaroni. Run through the streets screaming like the famous Italian macaroni monster. HALF CREDIT

My colleague still managed to scare a child by almost running him over on a bike. The bike was unharmed.

15. Say “Mamma mia!” as many times as possible. FAIL

I only said it once and no one even heard me. They do say it a lot though.

16. Stare at my travel companion on the train when he’s not looking at me and then look away quickly when he suspects something. Repeat continually. HALF CREDIT

Instead of staring, I would fall asleep right as we boarded any form of transportation and my mouth would instantly gape open, something equally disconcerting.

17. Politely ask flight attendants to not make eye contact with me and explain I usually sit in the first class but there was a misunderstanding with my company and they booked the wrong ticket. FAIL

18. Blend in with the locals by covering my face in pizza sauce. HALF CREDIT

I unwittingly walked around for a while with some food bits on my face, though I don’t think it helped me blend in with any locals.

19. Pick and eat my own wild mushrooms. HALF CREDIT

My companion and I stumbled upon a park/orchard and we ate figs and plums right off of the trees. We called it foraging but I’m not sure if that term is properly used if one is gathering fruit in an orchard.

20. Make a new facebook friend. SUCCESS

My Italian host friended me on facebook and I accepted and her family has insisted on us coming again next year for a week. I don’t know if they are sincere but I, for one, am sincerely not ashamed of taking them up on the offer. I have proclaimed them welcome to my home in Oklahoma, but I don’t think I’m in any real danger of them accepting.

21. Fight a wild boar to the death. Eat its flesh. HALF CREDIT

I did eat boar on a bed of polenta in a medieval city, washed it down with a beer and was then married off to someone against my will, just like a real medieval lass.

22. Purchase a new spear and go truffle hunting. HALF CREDIT

I ate something with truffle oil on it and it was delicious. It was the food equivalent of being hugged on the mouth by a mushroom.

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