The Muppie Chronicles

I was doing some basic arithmetic earlier this evening after visiting an apartment I might rent for the summer, and realized that despite my running around like a [I don't like the dead chicken simile, but it would fit nicely here], paying my bills all by myself this summer may be a harder task than I anticipated, before I bought about ten (fifteen?) books for summer reading in celebration of my new jobs.

Drat. At least if I become homeless, I’ll have plenty to occupy me.

What now? I think I’ll offer up a new prayers during my inevitable anxious insomnia tonight. Other than that…ask for more work from both bosses? One of my major problems is that I don’t have a schedule. Not knowing when I’m supposed to show up some days, or if I’m supposed to, results in a lot of wasted time that could be spent either working or writing. Not that my writing gets me any dollas at the moment, but you know. With time, God willing.

Oh and I’m having a low-grade panic attack about the fall. There’s a chance that I’ve worked out a roommate arrangement for myself, in which case AWESOME, thank God. If not, I’ll have to live by myself. And I may not be able to afford living by myself. And my parents grow tired of helping me, God bless them. Gulp.

Funny thing about this whole education thing. In theory, I have a splendiforous ace in the hole any time I want to use it, in the way of my sparkling diploma from a famously picky college. So far, this shiny laser-cut diamond of an education hasn’t really gotten me jack. I haven’t gone to grad school, unless you count the adult education course I’m attending at Harvard (yes, it’s Harvard, but it’s the Extension School. There is no application process. If you have a credit card, you’re in). So no value there. I work as kind of a secretary, and kind of a Muslim networker/basic educator. I assure you that none of what I teach is stuff I learned in college. Nor did fancypants college teach me invoicing, which I currently do. Which leads me to the following freak out:

WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE???????

I want to be a writer. That’s the first problem. What I’m finding is that this is something everyone will congratulate you on, but in reality it’s kissing goodbye any hope you ever had of living not hand-to-mouth, paying for your own car’s tune-ups (you’re still using Mom’s Emergency Card, because it’s still an emergency), or having professional dignity. I’m ashamed to say it, because both of my jobs are with people and organizations for which I have the upmost respect, but having to tell people I meet who know that I went to Amherst (and know what Amherst is) that I work part time (even though 1/2 job+1/2 job=1 whole job) is totally and utterly humiliating.

If I ever write a bestseller, I will look back on this post as charming. In all likelihood, I’ll be looking at my same battered screen ten years from now screaming GET OUT, GET OUT NOW!!! I STILL CAN’T AFFORD NEW SHOES!

I’m barely keeping my head above water, and I don’t think I can do it indefinitely. For a lot of reasons. For money, for pride. I’m really bad at being poor. It’s a skill that requires discipline and budgeting, neither of which I’m very capable. Also it makes me kind of bitter, and I don’t like that, because, yuck, bitter people. I’m afraid that if I wallow in this making-ends-meet-maybe-hopefully-next-month space for too long, my educational currency will run out. I already didn’t go to med school. What will I dabble in next, in financial despair? Law school? Maybe I’ll take a crack at the LSAT and fantasize about a nice corner office where I can spend a hundred hours a week. Sure, I’d never get to be home and my life would probably be extremely tedious, but at least I wouldn’t have to listen to my father telling me That’s it! You’re cut off! every other week or so.

Out of my father’s four children, I went to the highest-ranked college. Out of his four children, I am the only one who can’t pay her own rent. No wonder he gets all beflustered with me. I’m all beflustered with myself.

Why can’t I just be a normal person and go into some established career path? Why didn’t biology totally tickle my every nerve? Why couldn’t I just have GONE to med school already, and make peace with handing over the next six-to-ten years of my life to the fluorescent inside of a hospital? WHY WHY WHY?

I have this total pipe dream of writing something that will 1. be important 2. touch people 3. educate people 4. earn me a nice chunk of change. And if it doesn’t happen, at this rate, I won’t have much to show for it. In fact I won’t have anything to show for it. Twenty years from now I’ll still be driving my ‘97 Honda, praying that it passes inspection, probing the depths of craigslist for a cheap studio apartment. Of course I mostly imagine it differently, but tonight Despair is my companion. I should have known not to add numbers together and see if they add up to rent. They don’t. In fact they can’t, and that is my tragedy.

This is the problem with the coupling of me and my dream of becoming the Queen of Muslim Noveldom: I’m just smart enough to think that it’s a good idea to put my eggs in that basket - because hey, I have something to say, goshdernit, and eventually my brilliance will emerge and people will loooooove reading my shtick. Unfortunately, I am also just stupid and undereducated enough to not be able to actually pull it off. Who am I kidding? I’m reading Dostoyevsky. And I’m telling myself right now, right here, with all the internet as my witness, that I will never produce anything like that. Not even close.

God forgive me. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. The problem is that I could give up, but I don’t exactly have an alternate plan. So what now? Am I wasting myself? Do I bite the bullet and go to grad school (any grad school), not knowing where that leads either but hoping that it leads to some kind of salary - somewhere, someday? Or do I keep at the novel, the blog, the random magazine gigs that may or may not pay? I don’t like this crazy road. It’s taken some happy turns lately (near-solvency), but I’m starting to feel like I really need at least one more. I’m almost always full of hope, and yet ashamed of myself for not being my classmates who are now lawyers and almost-doctors, Fulbright scholars and Ph.D. candidates at Harvard (the real Harvard, not my pretend Harvard) and development workers in India, that I can never resolve it, and I swing between extremes…especially when I think about things like rent. My roommate is going off to get married in two weeks (lucky duck) and will never pay rent again in her life (see? L-U-C-K-Y. I guess the guy is nice too. Least of my concerns right now). Meanwhile I can’t afford to go to the wedding and I’m giving myself an ulcer just contemplating getting through the summer on my own. I can’t even begin to think about the fall yet. OhGodno.

Please please please say a prayer for me. And be liberal with advice.

Ever think Muslim women don’t get the mic enough? Check out sister Aaminah Hernandez’s Muslimahs Speak Up! blog carnival, featuring sage advice.

So. When I began this little endeavor, I was totally and completely without any sort of gainful income. I was taking a course in journalism, but that was about it. The course, and reading, and writing all the time.

Not a bad life.

Since then, God in His mercy has blessed me with not one, but two jobs, plus a couple of small writing gigs (not regular….yet!). Plus, still the course. Now, part-time is supposed to be the chill person’s way of earning (in my naive naive mind of February). Turns out that juggling all these things is, um…it’s hard.

Which is why Writer’s Progress hasn’t been updated in so long, why my cat is feisty with me, and why I’m so tired today I can’t even think straight.

I’m happier to be working than my whining implies. It’s just…well, I feel compelled to explain my vacation from the blogosphere, however abbreviated. I feel that I have neglected myself, and you - whoever you are - and, worst of all, my writing. One of my major loves and dreams in this life. Which is bad. Bad bad bad. Writers are to write. It’s a very simple, straightforward idea, and I ought to stick to it. Tired or no. Busy or no. Writers don’t write only when they feel like it. They write because it’s got to get done. And it does. I need to stop starting things, and finish something. One thing. Do one thing well. And in a timely manner. Yes. That’s the ticket.

It’s odd; when all I had to do was sit in a cafe all day and read, stare onto the street, observe my fellow addicts, and think, ideas came easy. You’d think that being out in the world more, becing more “active” and social with people, would fuel the fire of thought. Not so. I’m shuttling myself between Cambridge and Boston  - home and work and other work and friends’ apartments and cafes. Because I am pathologically social and, well, love to read at small tables with a mug of steaming tawny liquid in one hand. It just ain’t the same at home in my sweats. I don’t know why, but it’s not. And the thing is that I’m so segmented between the ten things/places I have to do/go to in one day, that I end up feeling like I don’t actually get anything done. Not like a normal person does. Including, sadly, thinking thoroughly and well.

So despite being introduced into the World of Consulting (about which, before two weeks ago, I knew less than the average toddler), I am hopelessly, hopelessly without insight into the world. Or myself. Or religion, or literature. Maybe my brain has just given up. I don’t know. But hi, Dry Spell, what’s up? I’ve introduced him to Writer’s Block. They’re cohabiting happily in my living room. I think it’s getting serious.

Over the past couple of weeks, I would sit down to write something, and then think: no. I can’t write about that. It’s so trite. Or transparent. So I have a few drafts just sitting there collecting WordPress dust (dust collects at roughly the speed of light in my apartment). I’m not sure to bring them out or just let them lie. Obviously I’m letting them lie for the moment.

I am rambling.

Here’s my problem: I have indulged in being amazingly personal on this blog. Which I do not regret. I am a what-you-see(read)-is-what-you-get kind of girl and I’ve come to peace with that. But the reason I can be so deeply personal is because I’ve been writing about things that (get this) I can toss out there without really caring too much. Not because I don’t care at all. But because there’s nothing really riveting happening in my life right now, so there’s nothing to conceal. Baring my secrets is totally my bidness, and I can do it without really harming anyone else, or embarrassing them, or anything. Which. You know. Is nice. But so is having an actual life. One that you feel compelled to guard from the eyes of the world. Because it’s personal. Which would lead one to think that I have a problem.

Dicey. Do I want to write, or live, more? This is kind of sad, but I waver. Actually that’s really sad.

Case in point:

When I was in college, way back in the early days before Facebook (ah, the days!), my college had this thing called PlanWorld. The fancy computer-literate people would post various images and links and things, but most of us Neanderthal liberal-arts folk were of the text-only persuasion.

I had just transferred in from an all-girls school, and the tiny tiny cliquey, jock-ridden world of rural Amherst was a bit of a shock. Plus the witty banter was like nothing I had ever heard before. It was the only social currency, and boy were these kids LOADED. It was clever, it was sparkling, and I stuck out like a sore thumb.

An acquaintance from high school kind of adopted me in a fit of pity, and I promptly engaged in accidentally seducing one of his best friends. When I became aware of this one fine Saturday evening, to my very pleasant surprise, I was totally taken in by this guy. To the extent that you can be, in the basement of a dilapidated brick dorm, with a keg in one corner and a blue strobe light in the other, and some guy named Chaz stripping in red-faced, drunken, this-will-embarrass-you-when-you-wake-up-tomorrow glory to the cheers of a circle of miniskirted, tanktopped coeds.

So. You know. Not the stuff of romantic legend, but a boy does what he can. And a girl can’t blame him for Chaz’s last keg stand. It wouldn’t be democratic.

The next day, true to my transparent, exhibitionist, shout-it-from-the-rooftops self, I wrote about my unbridled, democratic enthusiasm on my plan. And my own personal Don Juan read every word.

Which sent him running for…well, the campus is on a hill. He was running for the lowlands. Which was sad, because I did really like the guy. Silly Lizzy, mucking it up again. Story of my life.

At nineteen, I was too naive to understand why transparency isn’t always the best social option. I’m not sure how well I’ve learned my lesson (I still have this notion of everyone in every room I’m in being able to read my every thought, no matter what I say), but I’m certainly putting some effort into it. This all gives me a new appreciation for Jane Austen’s spinsterhood. I wonder if a married woman would have had the moxie to write what she did. It would have been personal. But as the casual observer, she was free to comment on what she liked. Was it worth it? Is it? Can it be?

I more function as a casual observer of myself, or my past, than the people around me. Because the present - well, let me put it this way. Writing is precious. But so are people, and my relationships with them. And I don’t have strobe lights to detract from the charm of it all anymore. So I am stuck, and I’m not ashamed to say that much.

(…and Joe, if you’re out there somewhere reading this, I’m sorry about PlanWorld.)

Here’s the rough draft of a fake op-ed I’ve written for my journalism class. In case any of you out there are regular purchasers of US Weekly, or OK, or People, I thought it might be worth a post. Here goes:

Britney Goes Completely Bonkers, and the Whole World Cares
Look away, America. Look away.

Britney Spears’ downward spiral is drawing more and media attention, even as outcries against her paparazzi stalkers abound. In January, The Pew Research Center published a study revealing that Britney gets more headlines than George Bush. The week after Heath Ledger died, only he, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were in the news more than Britney. Our foreign wars, the tense situation in Gaza, and concern over the economy all took a backseat to Britney’s breakdown.

Most of the more conservative voices out there calling for a reinstatement of journalistic ethics in the Britney debacle blame her photographers, the journalists who cover her stories, and the tabloids and media outlets that pay big money for piteous photos of the star. Asra Nomani called for a moratorium on the Britshow until her mental health stabilizes. Jon Friedman of Market Watch wrote, “Enough is enough.” Jeff Bercovici of Portfolio.com argued that the media has an obligation to leave crazy enough alone. These criticisms, not surprisingly, seem to be falling on deaf ears.

Why? Because Britney makes people a lot of money. Britney makes the media more money than any other star. She makes other people far more money than she makes herself – even though she is cashing into the frenzy with her recent single, “Piece of Me.” So calling off the hounds is complicated. It would lose people jobs (however seedy they may be). It would hurt the revenues of countless companies – perhaps most of all the paparazzi conglomerates that send photographers out to stalk Britney 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

So the ethical journalists of today may holler all they want about mental illness, tragedy and common decency, but the reason they are ignored is that they are missing the point. At the heart of the paparazzi phenomenon is our growing, unabashed voyeurism. The best representation of this is David Samuels’ “Shooting Britney” in The Atlantic Monthly. He writes, “The paparazzi exist for the same reason the stars exist: we want to see their pictures. Happier, wealthier, wildly more beautiful, partying harder, driving better cars, they live the lives that the rest of us can only dream about, until the party ends and we are confirmed in our belief that it is better, after all, not to be them.”

The most Britney- and celebrity-obsessed members of the population are young women between the ages of 16 and 34. This is the saddest component of the Britney phenomenon, and is really the crux of the issue. The reason that Britney is a goldmine is that people – mostly women my age – can’t get enough of her, and quite frankly, don’t care what that does to Britney. We couldn’t get enough of her when she was 17, beautiful, and advocating abstinence before marriage (how refreshing!). We couldn’t get enough of her when she became a slave 4 us. We couldn’t get enough of her six-pack, and then her post-pregnancy chub. We were jealous of her deal with Pepsi, her childhood romance with Justin Timberlake, and her seemingly impossible rags-to-riches story, with nothing but a passable voice, the ability to dance, and a tolerably pretty face as her assets. So when she married her back-up dancer (what was she thinking?) and started driving around with her babies not strapped in (let alone in a car seat), we reveled in our self-righteous condemnation. We wanted to be her so badly that we needed a reason to feel good that we were not, in fact, her – or anything like her. And Britney, ever the slave, delivered.

We’re the problem. It is the consumer, not the paparazzo, who is fueling this obsessive train. If nobody wanted to buy a picture of Britney without her underwear – if nobody cared – then Britney could live in loony peace. At the end of the day, the media is a servant to the interests of its consumers. And we’re interested in the wrong things. Imagine a world in which the overdosed death of a handsome actor commands more attention among professional, educated people than the atrocities of war. The depraved, schadenfreude-ridden society you’ve just imagined is the one you actually live in.

It is not only Britney at stake. It is our identity as a decent and caring society. If Britney dies in a fiasco that recalls Diana’s harrowing demise, we will all be to blame. My fear is that the thought might never occur to us, even after it is too late. We want to know and can’t help ourselves – and while we might feel some indignation at the paparazzi for stalking our darlings, the fact remains that we pay their bills. For those of us who value our privacy, our sanity, and our peace, we should curtail our spending such that it allows Britney a right to the same. Because we all made her bed, but she’s the only one who has to lie in it. And if that doesn’t make us cruel, I don’t know what would.

*     *     *

I hope you have enjoyed this foray into my journalistic aspirations.

The more concerned members of my family, who would like to see me happy and settled, and have a less intimate knowledge of the Moslems, occasionally pipe up to give me some love advice. This being:

Dear Liz,

If you want to marry a pious Muslim, stop yapping about your male childhood friends hugging you on your blog. Also, never ever ever mention that you have “a past.” Also never talk about your screw-ups. The pious Muslim men won’t have it and will think you’re some sort of libertine. And maybe you are. Regardless, bottle it up and shut up about it. The Christians accept you for who you are, because, you know, we’re very reasonable people, but you know how small-minded Muslims are. So please do yourself a favor, and become someone you’re not. Or at least pretend to be someone else. Until after the wedding. Then, good luck living up to the lie! Protestantism is always here for you, should you ever tire of the charade.

Love always,

your loving family

Needless to say, I haven’t taken their advice. Why? Well, I’ve tried. Boy did I try. I tried to be what I imagined everyone would want, and I tried to ignore the pieces of me that you might not expect. I tried to ignore the fact that I’m a convert, and American, and that the culture I grew up with is very different from the subculture in which I now find myself. I tried. And it kind of backfired.

We all have our struggles, and I’m not saying that this (i.e. Islam) is supposed to be a piece of cake. It’s not. Talk to any convert. Forget that, actually - talk to anyone. What you’ll hear from almost everyone, in one way or another, is this: I wouldn’t have it any other way. But sometimes it’s so difficult I fear I’m about to bust something.

We’re all Muslim because we choose to be. Lord knows that the easier and infinitely more convenient thing to do in this society is give it up - give up the prayer, fasting, your beard, covering your hair, no gambling, no drinking, no dating, no sex. We don’t do those things because it’s fun. We do them because we’re committed to something greater than ourselves, because we want to travel towards and not away from God throughout the course of our lives, because we believe that within struggle lies growth. Like, you can’t become patient if you get everything you want the second that you want it. You’ve gotta wait sometimes. Like that.

Thing is, I do all that stuff (minus growing a beard, of course). By most people’s standards, I’m considered very conservative - even by my own family (see very disconcerting advice above). But my family, and occasionally the Muslims around me, keep warning me (between telling me that I’m CRAZY conservative like those loony fundos) that I’m too liberal. Too liberal for the hardcore fundos out there - and we all know that that’s precisely what all of the practicing Muslims are - but not what you might call a “progressive” Muslim.

Which leaves me……where?

Eeny meeny miney, community?

The bizarre thing (I find) is that some converts are able to cast off their “past lives” with total disregard. It’s like the first twenty/thirty/forty/whatever years of their lives disappear into the ether and they’re the first ones to forget about it. And I’m sitting there….wondering how. It’s not that I’m stuck in my past - it’s not that I romanticize it (Ah, the days I used to do haram things! If only I could go back!). It’s that I want to be able to admit that it’s there, and develop naturally, and without cultural amnesia. Is that so much to ask?

Sometimes I’m asking this of the community, and sometimes I’m asking it of individuals. I was at the local mosque last night, and there was a scene that recalled my early days in Islam all too well:

There was a girl laying on the floor waiting for prayer. Two women sat on either side of her. She was bright-eyed and asking a lot of questions: What do I say after the adhan? What do I do when _____ happens?

An Egyptian woman was answering her inquiries. Every sentence she spoke to this newbie began with one of two words: do or say. And I’m listening to her and thinking: You’re teaching this girl like you have a Ph.D. in prayer and you’re mispronouncing your “tha”. It’s atheem, not azeem.

Now there’s nothing wrong with this unloading of advice per se. It’s all kindly meant, and most converts (myself included) do arrive at the mosque with roughly a billion questions every other day. But still. Don’t cram it down her throat like that. Write it down. One thing at a time. Leave her wanting more, not feeling dizzy with information she can’t hope to remember - and doesn’t understand.

Here’s what I want: I want someone to say to her: Hi, salaam alaykum, welcome to the community.

How are you?

Anything I can help you out with?

How are things going for you? How is your faith? How is your family? How are your friends?

Can I grab you some tea?

So here’s what I did: I introduced myself. I said welcome into the fold, gave her my number, took hers, prayed maghrib next to her, and told her that I had to leave to give a friend a ride, but that she should never hesitate to call me at three in the morning. I told her that I’ve been Muslim for two and a half years. And sometimes it’s rough. And I get it.

The trouble is that with all of our fussing over the newbies learning all the “right” things (most of which, mind you, are not required by the religion), we teach them a thousand things a minute, tell them what to do and what not to do, and then wonder why they get overwhelmed, or why they haven’t been to the mosque in a while. There’s no real effort to get to know them. It’s not like, hey let’s go grab coffee and chat cuz we’re sisters now, it’s like, perfect yourself perfect yourself perfect yourself. Yesterday! There is no subtlety in dealing with the converts. NONE.

Maybe the right answer lies somewhere in between my way of dealing with this girl and the other woman’s. I’m not sure, honestly - I’m figuring this out as I go. But what I want is to not be imposed upon by another culture. I want to be Muslim, but not Egyptian. Or Pakistani. Or Turkish. Because I’m none of those things. I want to be Muslim and white, and for that to be my  identity. I’m Irish and Polish. I’ll be teaching my kids to pray and making them golumpkis for dinner, thankyouverymuch. I’ll teach them thikr, hopefully pronounced correctly (God willing), and read Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson with them - and Al-Ghazali. Because they will own all those things, and they should be able to. They should be proud of that. Not all of the ideas, art, and culture borne out of the Anglo-Saxons is bad. It is not all to be rejected. It is to be refined.

To be honest, I stayed away from Islam for a long time because I thought: square peg, round hole. Because I was a dancer, and a singer, and a theater chick - where was I going to put all that stuff? Three years later, I’m discovering that I can put them in a blog, in speaking, in poetry readings. But it took that long. And you know what? I hate to say it. It’s the community’s fault. We’re all so obsessed with the deen beauty contest that we forget that people grow, and it takes time to come into your own, and that’s okay.

So that’s why I put it here, I guess. It’s half declaration of identity-independence, and half prayer. I want to be able to say: I have a story, and not have everyone balk at it. Because you know what? If you can’t handle someone with a story, then you can’t handle converts. The fact that people come into this religion is purely the mercy of God - because the Muslims certainly don’t make it very easy for them. The Muslims make it so hard to be Muslim that converts’ family members tell them to hush up. Doesn’t that strike anyone else as extreme?

And maybe they’re right. Maybe I am making it harder for myself. Maybe some really great, really conservative guy who would otherwise be interested in me is reading this and thinking: never mind. You know what? So be it. Even if I didn’t have a blog, this is still who I am. And it’s not going to go away, no matter how much I don’t talk about it. And when I do find the guy for me, God willing, I want him to accept me for who I am - past, flaws, virtues, talents, quirks, all of it. What’s the point, otherwise? If you have to become someone else to be loved, then you’re not really being loved - someone else, some other identity that you’ve put on, like an outfit - that’s what is being loved. And nobody wants that, including me. I want to be loved, or bust. No masks, no pretending. And I’ll wait as long as it takes.

Slowly, oh so slowly, I’m finding people who love me just as I am, and still help me to be better - but don’t try to make me into someone else entirely. And it’s more cheering than I can possibly say. We buoy each other up, we laugh together, we protect each other, we encourage each other - but never absolutely, never with an iron fist. And isn’t that the way of our beloved Prophet, may the peace and blessings of God be upon him? Who was gentler? Who loved people more? Who accepted people more? Did he (pbbuh) teach the Muslims their religion in one day? Did he (pbbuh) ask Umar ibn al-Khattab (may God be pleased with him) to become a different man, once he came to Islam? No. The Prophet (pbbuh) asked Umar to use his talents and his personality in the service of the religion. And that was all. If that was all we were asked by the community - love what you love, be who you are, and when you can, do those things in the service of your Lord and this community - my goodness, what a relief that would be.

What my family asserts, or sees, about the community, isn’t wrong. They see us all “starched up into seeming piety” (Mansfield Park, I can’t help myself) and wonder how authentic it is, and see - quite rightly - that there’s no room for WASPs/WASMs (read: White Anglo-Saxon Muslims). My family doesn’t want to deal with all of the cultural/social/emotional confusion and pain my brother and I went through - and who can blame them? Are we really all that welcoming, if we ask everyone to be instantly different from the moment they convert? Where is our patience with people? Where is our love for each other?

What I’m hoping is that we’re moving towards a happier balance. I think we are. My brother changed his name when he came to Islam, but by the time I followed seven years later, he advised me not to (resulting in something I like to call “Lizzy pride.” I love that someone with my name introduces herself in hijab. I have such a WASP name, and I’m so Muslim. Surprise!). The struggles of the converts in the 70s, 80s, and 90s were much greater than ours. So there’s hope, I think - for the girl in the mosque yesterday, and for me. There’s hope that I can admit that I struggle, and I can sound off on my insights into the community that are inevitably through the lens of my past (both Muslim and before), and that yes, when I see the guys I’ve known since third grade and love like brothers (and who know me better than some of my family) hug me, I don’t shove them off rudely, screaming, For shame! I don’t touch boys anymore. It’s called chastity, you lecher. And that despite all that, I have friends - and hopefully, God willing, I’ll have a best-friend-roommate-husband who will love me because/despite it all.

And then I will say: I told you so. Until then, here’s my line:

It’ll all turn out all right in the end.

How will it, you say?

I don’t know. It’s a mystery.

Very often this happens: I start to write about something. An event, maybe. An idea. And then three-quarters of the way through, or even after I’m done, I realize that I was writing about something else the entire time. Usually the something else is loneliness.

I’m not really sure what to say about it. We all feel it, and yet we can’t seem to solve it for each other, which puzzles me a great deal. It seems that things get confused, like my writing. We think we want one thing, but after we get it we discover that we wanted something else entirely. Back to square one, a new post, a new project, a new something, chasing something else. And then the refinement of that. And so on.

I think the loneliest time in my life was probably during junior high. I had kind of a clique in elementary school, but it busted wide open in seventh grade, spilling its contents in different classes, separate hallways and lunchtimes, and a wide range of rungs on the social ladder. I landed somewhere near the middle-bottom. I think. No way of really knowing.

Here’s what junior high is like:

1. All the same people are cool. There is some predefined coolness that is unchangeable and unknowable until you get there. There is not a lot of room for originality, unless you want to totally give up and embrace becoming an outcast. Few people have the courage to do this early on. It usually takes a couple of years of swimming in pointless circles.

2. All of the people - cool, uncool, pretty, unpretty - have crushes on the cool people. Now this is interesting. The cool people aren’t necessarily the prettiest. They’re not necessarily the most accomplished. They’re not necessarily interesting, but the people who have crushes on them don’t know this, because they’ve never actually spoken before. These crushes are feelings borne of wallflower moments at school dances where one person seems to shine or appears immoderately happy, out of imagined intimacy when one arm brushes another in the hall, out of the aura, the mystique, created by the fatal combination of distance, new, overgrown desires, and active imaginations.

3. Everyone wants to be cool, but no one is sure why. There is some social currency in popularity , but it’s not clear what it will get you. Maybe a boyfriend on the JV basketball team. But maybe not. Nobody knows, but it doesn’t seem to matter.

4. The psyches of barely-not-children are pretty trampled on the way to the top. Example: I once had my two best friends bring me to the Guidance Counselor’s office (who, keep in mind, is there to reign in reason and protect the sanity of the innocent) to tell me that they couldn’t be such good friends with me anymore, because I wasn’t cool enough. That’s right. That was the only reason. They were magnanimous; they would let me say hi to them in the hallways. But no more weekend sleepovers. It was over.

Time passes, and a few things happen:

Sometime in high school, or college, depending on where you’re at, you realize that all the hullabaloo is a sham. The cool people are bland. Or you realize that the girl who sits next to you in homeroom is actually prettier. Or you develop some interest that allows you to interact with people in a way that isn’t based on mutual advantage. Like, you like the same things. Hey! Who thought of that as the basis for a friendship? Genius.

You become interested in and interesting to the people who are like you. It’s not really based on prettiness anymore, or status. It becomes about whole people, and this is totally refreshing. And affirming. The rate of rejection is relatively low, which, you know, ROCK, plus you actually enjoy your time more. No surprise there, but it still seems like a novel idea.

You realize that this obsession with popularity is a blip. It’s a stage. It’s developmental. Children have wholesome friendships, and so do adults, but somewhere in the middle there we lose all sense and fly at each other like dogs - and there is only one bone, and it is golden, and it is called The Perfect Social Life. But you have to rediscover either that it doesn’t exist or that there are a million different versions, once you enter the world of See and Be Seen. Because then, it’s not only about who or what you like. It’s about the consensus about who and what you like. And you can’t escape the pressure cooker of public school, so you get all twisted up faster than you can untie yourself.

Which brings me to the latent effects of this syndrome in the Muslim population. It is sad for me to say it, but some of us are kind of still in junior high. Every girl wants to marry the MSA president (or, if the MSA president is a girl, vice versa). Every boy wants to marry the prettiest girl he has spied out of the corner of his eye in the musallah. Which, you know, to each his own, but (and convert alert here, I’m coming at this from the outside) these impulses seem to miss the point that marriage is about soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much more than the ability to give a good speech, or really great recitation, or good looks. Those things, frankly, don’t matter much when it comes to being happy in a relationship (don’t say I didn’t warn you). When was the last time you gave a speech in your kitchen? And let’s face it, people - we’re all going to age. Have you ever seen a beautiful old person? That beauty is from character, and wisdom, and goodness - good genes give way to wrinkles eventually. Now, I’m not advocating for marrying someone who doesn’t appeal to you at all…I’m just saying that when it comes to domestic bliss, in all respects, and thank you for not making me spell that out, a lot more comes into play than a pretty face. I mean, we’re talking roommate for life, God willing. Not only is this person going to share your kitchen, and your bathroom, and bicker with you over window dressings, but you have to share a bedroom, too. And a bed. And the covers. And trust me, you’re not going to care how hot she is if she won’t give you the blanket in January. Trust me. If you’re going to have no refuge from someone, have no refuge from an interesting someone. From a nice someone. From a merciful and loving and patient and kind someone. No refuge from a hot someone gets old pretty quick, if that’s his/her crowning virtue.

So let’s all make an effort to get along. Let’s be mavericks and throw middle school to the dogs! Let’s dig each other for the important things. Things that matter to us. Let’s be nuanced individuals, and be, like, interesting, and stuff. I mean, I know it’s hard, and you’ve all been good, and you feel like your kiss with the prom queen is ten years too late and you deserve it already, but overvaluing the transitory elements of people, allowing yourself to be guided by the intoxicating cocktail of an aching desire and a rich fantasy life, amounts to shooting yourself in the foot. And besides, what happened to the prom queen of your high school? Do you even know where she is now? Do you care? You see my point. Balance in all things. If middle school was raging, repressed hormones, and high school was discovering your angst, and college was finding your niche, be in college. Marry the girl/guy who likes pina coladas (virgin, goes without saying) and taking walks in the rain.

Sometimes I feel like I’m looking around at this plethora of lonely, awesome people, and I feel like: what is our problem? Can’t we hook up, already? It’s all most everyone wants. But nobody manages to pull it off. (Well - some do - and may God bless them all, and bless us poor single folk with the same happy fate! But not enough do it. Not nearly enough.) And I’m not sure this is the solution, but I figure I’ll throw it out there just in case. Fuel the brainstorm, you know. I’m nothing if not brazen. So here are my brave ‘n brazen two cents for the day: we need depth in our interaction, and nuance, and love. We need to let each other be a little quirkier, and embrace it. Join that knitting group! Or dig on your hopscotch! Or whatever it is, rock! Be it, and be it like whoa, and find other Muslims who will do it with you and support you and make you feel like a million bucks. And who knows? One of these days you might wake up and look at that brother you get along with like peas & carrots but just aren’t that into (he’s no Brad Pitt) and think: smokin’.

It’s been known to happen.

[Comments, please. Stop being so shy. For those of you who have already - thanks!]

Familiar is: being crushed against a chest whose shape you have accidentally memorized over two decades of touching. Being so wrapped makes you think that you will melt, or at least never let go. Remembering yourself with a kiss on the cheek - there is something else to do: you have to be introduced to the friends.

Familiar is telling your mother to stop calling you to check on 1) whether or not you’ve met Mr. Right and 2) your new part-time job every day. Too much pressure for news. And then feeling terrible and wanting to talk to her, and calling back to apologize, and hearing her say: I don’t just call for news. I miss you. I want to hear your voice. And you telling her you can’t make a life out of no life, and her protesting that she is the one who doesn’t have a life, so she lives vicariously through your tiny one. And both of you ending up laughing at the race to entertain each other.

Familiar is the feeling of your niece’s small body relaxing against yours and twitching asleep to your hushed lullaby that is actually a pop song. The tiny sigh when she wakes up and looks at you like a stranger. Little hands wrapped around your neck, and kiss after tickling kiss on your collarbone. Balancing her few pounds on your hip in the kitchen. Her laugh when you hold her against you and waltz. Going down the stairs one at a time, down, down, down, stepping backwards, holding your coffee and her toy in one hand, and engulfing her gripping fingers in the other.

Familiar is the sound of your own voice rehearsing a speech you don’t want to give to someone who is not your friend, and after the speech never will be. Wanting to be wanted and knowing that you’re not. Familiar is realizing that disappointment, like elation, is nothing new. You have survived, and you will again. Your own thickening skin, wishing someone would come along who would make those callouses wither and fade. Knowing it’s a fairytale. Wanting it anyway.

Familiar is the curve of your lower lip left in lipstick on the ten-thousandth coffee cup you’ve drunk from, and piles of papers around you in your thirtieth favorite coffee shop. Late nights of drinking coffee and tea, staying up to write or read, and not caring, not knowing any other way to be. Wishing you were a morning person. Your mother worrying about you being out late alone at night. You worrying too, but reassuring her, because what are you supposed to do? Some nights you have to get out of the house. It’s too quiet in here.

Familiar is the loud clicking sound of your high heels on the street, and the embarrassment of coming home late yet again and making a racket on the tile floor of your apartment building when you walk in. Your silent sorry to the people who live by the mailboxes. Shushing your cat as you come in the door so she doesn’t wake your roommate.

Familiar is the dread in your throat when you get two missed calls in a row from your mother. Your first thought now is: either Grandpa or Dad is is the hospital. They both were, too recently. Familiar is your grandfather’s labored breathing, and his telling you you’re pretty, and hugging him every time as though it is the last - because it might be. Familiar is everyone asking how your father is, because they met him, and they worry about him too. Familiar is your father’s advice, no matter the ailment, to focus on work. You feeling annoyed with him when he says it, and thanking him half-heartedly, and then realizing later that you’ll miss those weird things about him when death separates you for a time. Feeling terrible for every undevoted moment, because you will miss it all. What bothered you most will be endearing in hindsight. Hating that you think about that so much.

Familiar is monitoring your own heartbeat inside your chest, and wondering what makes it go. That feeling of it overflowing with affection for the people who have known you for so long that when you do something, they say, of course you did: the people you trust, and are trusted by, despite differences and time apart and failed plans. The eyes of those people, how they look at you and know you. How nothing can take away how you used to tease each other on the bus, and compete, and how that eventually turned into some sort of bond. How seeing them is wonderful, because you can gush, and it doesn’t matter, because they already know. A guaranteed I love you, too.

This is the new part. You pull away and hear the news: a mutual friend’s father has died. Someone you both grew up with, familiar to both of you. One of you has been home for the funeral. You start to cry. You didn’t know the father, but suddenly he is yours, because you are all growing up together or apart and none of you can help it. Because you remember when the mutual friend was a boy, and you had a crush on him, and he had a crush on you back, and he yawned and slinked his arm around you during a slide show in the fourth grade, and you were both so vulnerable - because that boy’s father has died. Because the father wasn’t sick, you’re hearing, it was a fluke complaint at a physical, that led to tests, that led to surgery, that led to a coma, and waiting, and death. Because a fluke at a checkup caught something that almost killed your own father not six months ago. Because life is barreling ahead, and the eight-year-old you once met, and then knew, and grew up with, is standing before you: a man with a beard, looking in his pockets for a tissue because he feels bad that you’re crying. And you’re standing in front of him, a woman who feels like a girl and can’t help it, a woman who can’t get rid of her childlike heart that wants to wrap her small hands around a neck, and be rocked and sung to sleep by anyone whose touch she has accidentally memorized.

On a day like today, life is waking up. With the marvelous blustery wind kissing our faces, we’re reminded of our summer selves. We come back to life and back outside, prowling the city sidewalks in hope of a warm raindrop on the face, or the glimpse of an opening crocus. All of life is singing a chorus of living - and it is wonderful to be alive, and here in New England.

Almost all of the charm of living here is wrapped up in today’s wind - in its hope, its promise of summer, its reminder that the cycles are about to move again - just when we were beginning to think we’d lost them forever.

It is plain, and yet still amazing, to see and feel for oneself how much sway nature holds over us. Over our moods, the hours we keep, our dress, our manner with each other, and whether or not we drive with the windows down. It’s such a liberating thing to do after a winter encased completely in glass. You wouldn’t think it - but it’s transformative. It always has been, for me. And I’m suddenly in high school again, singing along to, I don’t know, Dave Mathews Band or Mambo #5 (remember that? what an awful song) and sneaking cigarettes between ballet and home.

I don’t smoke anymore, thank God, and I don’t want to; but still the feeling of sticking my naked hand out the car window and feeling the air go over it, and not freeze it, is like nothing else in the world.

It’s my hometown, and my first car (a navy ‘88 Volvo 250 GL named Stella), and every spring break, and summers in Maine, and sleeping outdoors - spring is coming of age all over again.

I have no desire to relive my teen years. I’m nostalgic about certain things, but the fact remains that a lot of the experience, at the time, was nothing short of brutal. Even so - nothing compares to the memories of catching fireflies on my high school’s baseball diamond at four in the morning with my best friend - and, well, I just don’t do stuff like that anymore. For starters, I don’t even know where the nearest baseball diamond is. And wandering around the streets of the city in your pajamas at four a.m. is a lot creepier than giggling down a couple of hushed country blocks at thirteen. Too bad, really.

It’s these kind of harmless and vaguely stupid things that I miss. I have a distinct feeling that, eleven years from now, if I happen to catch my niece (who is now two) sneaking back into the house after a few hours of bug-catching, half-naked gallivanting, I won’t kick back and tell her, “Yeah, I used to do that, too. Ah, the days!” I more imagine myself saying something like, “Good way to get grounded.” Not because I’m into being tyrannical - it’s just, well, she’s two. And a tiny two. She’s tiny, and precious, and the thought of her being out without some tenaciously protective relative like myself in the middle of the night makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Of course, my mother would have reacted the same way if she knew about my teenage nocturnal wanderlust. Cuz that’s how the adults are. And I suppose I am one now. (If not now, when?)

So yes, I feel a bit of a pang thinking of those sillier days running barefoot down my street with eight other girls under a full moon. Or night-swimming (my generation takes REM’s advice very seriously) in some pond.

(There are stupider and funnier stories, but I’ll leave it at that, in the interest of my dignity.)

The real power of the emerging spring is in reminding us of glories past. The fact that they’re returning makes the memories more vivid and more delectable for our minds…I can’t speak for the rest of you, but my enjoyment is wrapped up in also planning all of the warm things I’ll do this year - picnics, hikes, reading poetry under a blooming tree, walking through the grass barefoot, wearing sandals, preferably a walk in the warm rain at some point with a good friend to discuss the meaning of life, frisbee, soccer, iced drinks, the condensation on the outside of said drinks, fruit pies, and sleeping with the windows wide open. I’m planning on all of these and more. Perhaps it’s more powerful this year because I missed last spring encased in Cairo’s fine dust. God knows best.

And while I’m planning, I’m reminded also of things I miss and can’t have back. I’m going to be honest with you: I miss the nineties a great deal. It might be unfair of me - I can’t have been all that involved. After all, I was a green seventeen when we rang in the new millennium, so the early nineties were admittedly a bit of a blip. But I believe we’ve lost some of the natural, earthy charm of the nineties - spring’s dirty smell is a bittersweet reminder that not everything is controlled by the human race, and I think we were better at accepting that ten years ago. I’m willing to allow that it might be my nostalgic fancy altogether, but I don’t think it is.

Remember when our heroes were Ben Harper, Eddie Vedder, and Janeane Garofalo? Remember when a pleasantly plump, philosophically-minded Ethan Hawke was the heartthrob? I mean, way back when, before anyone ever thought you needed to bring sexy back? When sexy was not antithetical to slightly worn clothes and something other than a six-pack? Man I miss those days. I miss matte lipstick, and pajama-clad brownie fights that turned into love scenes. Now we’ve got perfectly-coiffed kisses even when they’re in the rain. Can’t someone’s mascara at least run? And what happened to grunge, and flannel, and Doc Martens? Remember when social activism wasn’t a popularity coin celebrities could cash in with the tabloids? (I’m sure some of them are sincere….I just think the mixing of the two is a little insidious.) Remember when everyone used Manic Panic? Dying your hair a really awful color used to be a right of passage. Now the fifteen-year-olds are better with makeup and hair irons than I am. I mean, everyone’s prettier - and maybe that’s great - but isn’t there room for a little bit more, a little bit different, a little punk? I miss the freedom of those days. I had frizzy hair that was occasionally different colors, and braces, and fairly awful tapered jeans, but at least I was comfortable being myself.

My own imperfect charm (real or imagined) is likewise wrapped up in that remarkable decade. I started out pleasantly buck-toothed, but by the end of the it I had a perfect smile - however fake. I was (still am, truth be told) missing a tooth up front. It was attached to my retainer after I got my braces off, and I used to “forget” it some days, just to flash my pirate smile at my friends. They would play-cringe and then marvel. My sister advised me to never have a permanent bridge made; now I have one, but it’s broken, giving me back that snaggle-toothed appeal (work with me). When her friend called me pretty, the same sister simply said, “Did you see her tooth?” We’ve been spoiled out of appreciating the irregular, the arresting, the unusual.

On a day like today, I miss that. I miss the variety - is it possible to say that I miss the counter-culture being popular? But I feel that the Parises of the world have taken over in a bleached, starved fury, and I miss it when the popular kids in school played “Angel from Montgomery” at the talent show and had green hair. I miss my own bleached-blonde stripe in the front of my hair (homemade, of course; a brassy yellow declaration of independence). I did it in the spring; no surprise there. I did it sunbathing with my sister in the secluded backyard. My parents hated it, but at least there was some variety.

But hope springs eternal. The flowers are about to come back, in all their sneeze-inducing, mutlicolored, variously-shaped glory, and we’re all more than ready for them. April rain will run our mascara, and soak the hems of our jeans, and leave us all soggily unattractive - even if the movies deny us the pleasure of a parallel reality. And after all, the fifties reigned in starched, stiff, regular beauty - and then the sixties came and tore down that unanimous empire. I’m not holding my breath - and I’m the first to admit that it ain’t all bad (hair products have certainly improved, to no one’s disappointment).

I’m just going to say this, then: here’s to the coming season, and greasy-haired leading men, and acoustic music. And while I’m at it, here’s to my missing pirate tooth. Yar. Take that, ye pretty ladies.

This one goes out to my brothas and sistas.

It’s possible, at times, to see and feel nothing but the cruelty of the world. It’s possible to feel alone and vulnerable. It’s possible to feel cornered. It’s possible to feel like there is no way out.

The worst one is feeling like there is no one to turn to, no one who will understand, and no one who can help.

The best solution to this sort of problem is friends you didn’t even know you had swooping in over stale coffee at 2 a.m. to say, “I’m here. Whatever you need, I’m down. Period.”

I know people who have gone through one, or a series, of bad experiences that would tend to bias a person against some category of people: women, men, some culture, etc. I suppose that it’s tempting to write off the category altogether. I hate men. I hate women. I will never have a _____ mother-in-law. All _____ people want is ______, so I won’t talk to them.

I’ve never fallen that far into my distrust. If anything, if I find that the experiences that cause me to feel vulnerable only endear good people to me more. What would it mean to have good people, if there weren’t any bad ones from whom we needed refuge? Sometimes the best thing a person can do is step up when they’re needed. And the need would never arise without an offending party.

Still, it’s horrific to say: I need you. We really like to feel independent. Perhaps it’s a post-feminism thing. Maybe it’s just my personality. I’ve never thought of myself as reserved, but I recently gave someone the impression that I was - and maybe this is where that comes from. I’m always willing to express a thought, but I’m far more reluctant to say something that might lead to my disappointment. And what could be more devastating than someone refusing to help when you really need it? We’re not sure who is trustworthy - but in a moment of crisis, the line is drawn between  friends and acquaintances. You’re hoping the person in front of you will say, “Yes, of course I’ll do thus-and-such.” But you’re fearing that you’ll hear, “Sorry, I’m just not sure I can help.” There are some people with whom these requests are not problematic: family, best friends. But if none of those people can help - if they want to, but are unable - if they can’t understand - it’s really harrowing to have to go to someone new and untried with a need that must be met. Some things can be weathered. Some things are tough. And some things need to be fixed, and they need to be fixed now.

And that’s where beauty and mercy come in. And how wonderful it is when they do.

It is amazing to me that we fashion these little interdependent communities with each other, and are able to be there for one another, in affection, in mercy, for the sake of God. Because so many of us live far away from our families. So many of us are new in town. So many of us have so many different wants and needs, and for so many of us, it comes down to trusting in God. Sometimes faith in humanity is not enough. Sometimes we lose that - but we are able to turn to God and beg for His mercy, even when we have nothing else, even when we see nothing on the horizon. And He sends these people to us, these brothers and sisters, who can fulfill our needs and fill us with boundless gratitude and wonder at the mercy of people, and their capacity to love and be just - when we were lately so despondent, so distrusting.

Muslims call each other brother and sister. It’s taken on new meaning to me now - and that’s not thanks enough - it never will be - but I hope that for tonight, it will suffice.

Lemme tell you something about white people:

We have more spiritual impediments than everybody except politicians.

Now before I insult some really nice, pure-hearted white person, let me explain myself.

We’re not raised right. This is my thesis. We’re not raised right in this country (perhaps I should expand beyond the whites here; still, if Islam has taught me anything about culture, it’s that we white people have more of a cultural identity than I had previously thought, in my whitewashed existence. And God knows best).

We’re raised - and by we, I mean, of course, I - to believe primarily in the self. To begin with, we’re raised in small families. Mine is fairly giant by today’s standards, with a whopping six members in our nuclear unit alone! But even so, I grew up not sharing a bedroom, or a plate, or a doll, or much of anything besides the dog. And to think, I criticized only children for being naturally selfish. God forgive me. If only they could see me now, with more pet peeves than Jack Nicholson in As Good as It Gets.

The four kids in my family had wide-ranging interests that sent my mother into a carpooling frenzy for an untold number of her middle years. God bless her. My two older siblings went to boarding school while my brother and I (who are much closer in age) were still quite young. But we two kept our parents busy shuttling us from soccer to hockey to piano to ballet to gymnastics, and then, as a result, to the orthopedic surgeon for a number of dislocated years. And by we, I mean, of course, I.

In school, I was naturally competitive, and was further encouraged in the trait by my teachers. I spoke out in class, a surprisingly dedicated and feisty feminist of twelve. I aced math and science exams, and excelled in just about anything I could get my hands on, except - you guessed it - team sports. Dance was my thing. Very individual. Also very cooperative. It has that tasty balance of trust and love for your fellow dancers, and beauty-body-talent-skill-flexibility-grace feuding every night of the week. Delicious.

My parents, in loving support, told me, You can be anything. Anything, indeed? Yes, darling, anything. The world is your oyster.

Ah. There’s the rub.

See, I’m a girl, and a member of one of the first generations raised in the aftermath of the feminist movement - equality is a female president, and women eating the corporate food chain like chocolate, baby! - so it’s understandable, it’s expected, and it was very kindly meant by everyone who said it, hinted at it, or spoonfed it to us in one way or another.

With such assurances, high school trained up my arrogance and selfishness very well, and I planned on going on to college and, after a brilliant thesis, changing the world. But it wasn’t all bad. My adolescent self was a tad self-serving, but not evil. I had a good heart in there somewhere, however fatally arrogant and self-centered I was. I cared about people, participated in causes, protested Bush’s first ascent to Washington like a good little liberal, and cooperated with my fellow theater enthusiasts in putting on shows.

But it was still my oyster, and I didn’t like sharing. I didn’t deal with disappointment well, and to a certain degree I still don’t. Under a kindly facade, I liked things just so. I might not say so, really - I was brought up too well for that - but I resented every imagined and real affront and nursed it in my heart like a baby seal or something. I’ve spent my twenties trying to train this out of myself, in fits of grumbling, self-censured bitterness.

The problem with ‘the world is your oyster,’ besides becoming a serious spiritual handicap after too many years, is roommates. Wait no, let’s revise that - any relationship at all. Teacher-student, friendship, sibling, cousins, uncles, you name it. According to the doctrine of ‘the world is your oyster,’ all these people are, in peeved moments, are obstacles lying in the way of us having everything the way we like it, the way we left it, or how it ought to be. And then we have to bite our tongues - perhaps, in the process, building mountains of barely-concealed ill will in our psyches, or risk seriously offending people we actually care about very much, under our festering resentment.

The problem with crowning individualism is that the people who live out solitary lives are actually devastatingly lonely. Sex in the City is painful to watch even if it doesn’t make your moral hairs stand on end. Because the oppressive, fashionably-clad loneliness is stifling. And it’s real. Those characters are fictional, but there are a lot of people close to forty, and forty, and beyond, out there who are still single - and I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the reasons is that we just can’t live together gracefully. We’ve got too many doggone ways.

Tricky. Very tricky.

I had a revelation the other day. It’s very obvious, and very sad that it took me this long to see it exactly in this way. (Someone like my lovely sister-in-law, God bless her, who was raised around numerous family members she was taught to serve selflessly out of love, no questions asked, would, I imagine, smack me playfully for my shameful white stupidity.) So here it is: all those people that bug me, in their very tiny and harmless ways - it’s not them that is bothering me. They’re not the problem, and whatever it is that they’re doing that is like nails on a chalkboard is not the problem either. My feelings of having been slighted, my taking it personally, and my annoyance - those are the problems. If someone else leaves a mess, say, I can clean it up - either doing it because it’s the nice thing to do, and I should place myself at the service of others whenever I can, because therein lies the spiritual path, or with a black and angry heart that only gets blacker and angrier with every wiped up crumb.

Now I’m wondering why I’ve consigned myself to such torture. For Pete’s sake, woman, clean up the freaking mess and be done with it!

…I just want to submit, briefly, that I’m not maligning the idea of equality between the sexes. I do think that the Western version of the idea is, frankly, bizarre - please see Martha Stewart and Britney Spears for further reference - but I’m not suggesting that men are better than women. What I mean to hint at here is that in the fifties, maybe American men were a little selfish and a little hard on their wives - prompting many “mysterious” depressions and The Feminine Mystique, among others. But the “feminist” solution was not to tell the men to be less selfish - it was to tell the women to be equally as selfish as the men. So instead of fighting over equal rights to education, we find ourselves bickering over whose night it is to cook or whose turn it is to take out the trash - and God forbid that either party would lovingly budge and actually try to do extra. Which leaves us in our current quandary of either being resentfully yet lovingly attached, or serenely yet lonesomely single. No dice, if you’re asking this white girl.