Moti

She’s complicated like a viol played by Jordi Savall. Mysterious, decisive, strong, and vulnerable all wrapped in an irresistibly beautiful shell. Moti houses profound emotions and pains. Yet, her heart blows out of the chimney of her house.

There are people who create distance because they want to maintain freshness. I view that as the levity of life and a cute game. I even play that game because it comes from the place of desire to be important. The root of it is housed in sweetness of the dream we call life.

I got to know Moti years ago. There were some wavy periods between us –but she ended up being all heart. All of our encounters happened around the apple tree.

The Block

There are days when the only way I can survive is by pretending I’m someone else. I talk to people, but I quite never know if I have said too much, or not enough. The worst part of those days is not being able to read and write.

It has been a few weeks since I’ve been able to write anything that seems meaningful or creative. The context and direction of my thoughts don’t align.

I need to find myself…

GrayTurf.Com

Today, I changed the .com name of the blog to GrayTurf.Com. This should not materialistically change anything if you’re following the blog through WordPress, Twitter, or Facebook.

I needed to assign the old website name (graykey.com) to a business. Thanks for understanding.

Asshole Kid

There is always great drama in things being unspoken and hidden specially when one has an urge to tell them. There are times when you think someone is dreamy because of their oblique behavior, but the fact might be that they never chose to be dreamy. Perhaps, dreaminess was thrust upon them because they didn’t get noticed. What you’re hearing from dreamy people isn’t necessarily what they’re imagining you’re hearing.

In the household I grew up in, my brother was the smart kid and my sister was the beautiful kid. The only vacancy for me was the troubled asshole kid. So I embraced the role and I became pretty good at it. So much so that, my mom once said “If I didn’t have you, I wouldn’t know how it feels like to have a son”.

Close to the end of winter, I went back home to visit my parents. On the second day of the visit, I took the entire day off to lay down on my bed. While staring up to the ceiling, I found myself fighting confusion, because I had no idea where or how to begin the process of reconciling what was going on in my memories -and the reality of my present life. I went out for lunch, surely, and at night, but otherwise remained flat on my back on the bed.

I had assembled enough thoughts to fill a silo, and now I had no idea what to do with it. I thought to write them down and ultimately I couldn’t write even one sentence. I was blocked by a shrill dichotomy. I was stymied by unsophistication. I had never tried to put so many different components, characters, description, dialogue, narrative, set pieces, humor, history, drama, and so forth into a single bundle. So I slept on it until I got back.

After a long period of evaluation I concluded: a complicated story is just another story. This one is personal. It’s one man’s experience trying to reconcile the past and present. The passage between east and west. The tale of transitioning from respect to fairness. It has become my challenge to appreciate, and hopefully, relay something of it. I like stories when they’re just there for cheap laughs, but occasionally experiences like this make me reflect and feel there’s something to twig.

I might have been the asshole kid during those remote years. But in the end, I think I’m only a combination of all three kids.

eMale

A couple of days ago I had a chat that reminded me of a blog I posted back in 2007 about online dating. So I decided to re-post a few paragraphs of it, again.

[October 2007]
I’m usually fascinated by subjects that don’t immediately urge me to place an opinion. Online dating is one of those. A few weeks ago, I had dinner with an old friend and during our long conversation she said “I’ve put a profile on one of these dating sites and I go on a lot of dates with strange guys”. For some unknown reason our conversation temporarily got to a tongue-tied place after the disclosure:

… eating …
… long silence …
… eating more …
… awkward silence again …
… eating with vengeance …
… not looking at each other, but continuing to eat …
… heaving a sigh …

“Why don’t you say anything? You always have an opinion” said she. I really didn’t know what to say. I had no opinion one way or the other. She continued by asking “Have you ever dated online?” … “No” I replied and explained the reason by saying “it’s difficult for women to know me in person, how could such motionless correspondence work for me? Besides, People use ‘I’ a lot and they pretend to be someone else, and …”. She didn’t like what I said and passionately challenged me by saying “Why don’t you try to write something honest about yourself that doesn’t include ‘I’ too much?”

… I took my friend’s challenge very seriously and tried to put something together if I ever had to introduce myself online. Here it is:

(( My name is Kamran, a man who bathes every day. I believe in princesses, quality women, and other fantasy creatures – but fortunately, you don’t have to kiss the frog to find me. My understanding is that women often seem to be like phones: they like to be held and talked to, but if you press the wrong button you’ll be disconnected. Willingness to share the remote, jumping on Oprah’s couch, and vacuuming the house are among my compromises. Giving gifts is an incomparable gesture for me, however electrical appliances, cooking utensils, or lanterns are not adequate gifts for a lover. There is indeed a mischievous inner child in me. While opening the door for you, my inner child might tempt me to trip you on the way in. Like a dream job, excellent benefits will be paid by me but you have to pay taxes. I support you like your bra, tirelessly and as long as necessary, and you better show up at my soccer games and watch me yelling at and with 22 adult men. Last not least, if we end up in a relationship, I’m willing to lie about how we met. ))

Obama Jeans

There are many items to point out in the 2014 version of fashion Faux Pas since much of people’s cognitive behavior have changed. With that, here is the list for this year:

– Ladies: No baseball cap please. It’s so 80s on the muscle beach. It’s even more disgusting when some women stick out their ponytail from the hole in back of the cap

– Multi-Stripe Socks: these are fabulous socks designed to make a tiny dent in the stagnate world of men’s fashion. But guys, if your style includes striped pair of socks with striped pants and striped shirt, that doesn’t work. People get dizzy around you.

– Sloppy Pants Break: excessive amount of fabric spilling over your shoes kills the vibe your suit and tie combo is trying to radiate.

– Flip flops: toes are arguably the ugliest organ in human’s body. So if you don’t take care of your toes, don’t wear flip-flops especially in the workplace.

– Barak Obama Jeans: high-waisted jeans are dorky. They emphasize on all the wrong parts of your body.

– Belts add proportion to female body. That’s the main function of a belt for women. So if you wear your belt too high or too low, you’re actually making your body disproportionate.

– Life is short, but shorts don’t have to be so short. Ladies: if your fashion includes wearing a short in public which is not elegant, at least make sure the short isn’t that short.

– Sunglasses: Take sunglasses off at entrance. Period.

Until the next time, stay chic.

Giorgio’s Family

Giorgio

“What’s your name?”
“Giorgio”
“Is this your hotel?”
“This is my family’s property”
“But are you the owner?”
“My family owns the hotel”
“Can I take a picture of you?”
“You should wait until tomorrow morning and take a picture of the whole family”

Hero

photo

“I’m a freelance reporter”
“What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned as a journalist?”
“I’ve learned: in societies where people don’t have much to lose, they will either die or become a hero”