Contrary to popular belief, I am still alive and having a great time in Canada. Just too busy seeing things and doing things right now so I can’t get myself to sit around and write something valuable and/or coherent. And oh, I only saw one moose so far and it was made of plastic.
Sorry folks, will blog when humanly possible…
You heard me right. I am leaving to Toronto – Canada first thing tomorrow morning. I’m super excited because I will get to see my Canadian uncles and cousins and it’s been so long since I last saw them. And you know, it’s twisted in a way but I click with them better than I click with my Jordanian uncles and cousins. Go figure, huh?
So as you might have guessed already, this means I had to pack again. This time though I did it in a more structured way and my “fictitious yet possible scenarios” were much better than, say, when I packed for Michigan in 2005 and slightly better than when I packed for New York.
I do not have any plans or expectations on where to go and what to see in Toronto. But that’s perfectly OK because I believe I will have a great time with my uncles and that they will take care of all my sightseeing needs. I bet my uncle will still beat me at cards, too!
At the risk of repeating myself and coming across as a complete numskull; I’m still going to say I’m super excited to go to Canada! If you’re there and want to meet up, drop me a line and we’ll see what we can cook. No promises.
There is this one person whose blog I have been following religiously for the longest time now. She doesn’t write much or often, but her posts are always well worth the wait. They’re like my dreams.
She takes gorgeous, mysterious, antique pictures of herself and her passions. She has invisible retro glasses to match her retro lifestyle, and it’s crazy refreshing to see things in sepia.
Simply classy.
I wonder what it is with girls and ponies… I’ve always wanted a black horse.
“Send her to make keys.”
The chubby bald man obeyed. I remember that he wore the queerest glasses I have ever seen; they were exceptionally thick, very rectangular, and somewhat dimmed out by the black frame. His belly extended at least one and a half feet below his belt, but it didn’t look like jell-O. It looked firm in a strange way. Max himself looked like he has just popped out of a cartoon.
When I first set foot in that dungeon, Max introduced himself as “Maher, but everyone calls me Max.” He didn’t look like a Max to me, maybe a Boobah at best. I made sure my face did not reveal what I was thinking. To be honest, I was thinking “You looked so much better on the phone, Boobah!”
And he did. I had imagined him to be a tall, athletic, blond guy with a perfect smile and a taste in fine art, or at least nice hands. You see, he had a deep quality to his voice and it’s easy to drift away with that type of tone. Reality, on the other hand, was a totally different thing.
Max reached into his pocket and fished out some keys attached to a round key chain. He handed them to me and asked me to go make my own copies. An office virgin as I was, I didn’t mind. Besides, I thought I would get out of the dungeon and enjoy the sun outside. After all, the weather that day was great and the dungeon was full of strangers and suspicious cartoon characters.
I returned at around 10, triumphant. I felt proud that now I had keys to an important office, and on my first day, too! I figured they must have seen my potential, the sparkle of success in my eyes, my professionalism. They trusted me in a blink.
“We’re ordering breakfast now, want anything?”
I passed. Max ordered something and our German boss passed. Klaus had made his breakfast at home and brought it with him to the office. He gave me a task to do and sat to his desk reading e-mails from Berlin and mumbling under his breath what seemed like nasty curses in German. Then the unthinkable happened…
Klaus and I shared the same office. Not for lack of space mind you, but because our work was both crucial and intertwined and consequently we could not be separated physically. To add insult to injury, the window of our office was right next to Klaus’ desk so he was in complete control of it. At this point, it was closed shut.
I was absorbed in my task when I heard the sound of a plastic bag being pulled out from a cupboard. I looked at Klaus and there he was, extracting a tomato from a blue plastic bag. His bulldog cheeks were filling with saliva as his big wrinkly hands searched harder in the bag for something else. That something else was a boiled egg, and a salt shaker.
No way he is going to eat that in a closed space with a closed window with a newbie in the house? Think again! I watched as Klaus’ email reading was replaced with boiled egg biting, tomato consuming, and salt adding. Rinse and repeat, over, and over, and over again.
The room smelled horrible. The old man himself definitely came from a remote hole where they had no table manners or common courtesy. His food was not only offensively smelly, but it also sounded like ten little men and a pig were fighting over poop in a pigsty. Yeah, that twisted.
Chew. Chew. Drool. Add salt. Chew. Spit. Drool. Chew. Spill something. Chew.
I was not so sure about how I felt towards my new job anymore. The words “boiled eggs” and “professional” did not seem to go so well together. Said episode lasted for about ten minutes, but I was scarred for life.
TO BE CONTINUED…
- The Little Theater. At MoMA, July 12th 2007.
You may want to watch these two short clips about Dali and his art:
Even if it wasn’t for my twisted dreams involving elements of his surrealist works, Robert De Niro and a finger in an open bullet wound in my throat, honestly, you know I can relate to someone who said:
Take me, I am the drug; take me, I am hallucinogenic.
So a couple of hours ago I went to an Arabic food store called Ya Hala, you know, to buy some food supplies meshan el tabeekh. Mosh ino ana ba3raf atbokh ya3ni…
The minute I stepped into the store I discovered that speaking Arabic and getting away with some nasty remarks just doesn’t work in this store. Everyone, and I mean everyone, spoke Arabic. Even the Mexican guy by the deli section!!!
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The place is owned by a Palestinian man and it had everything to make me feel at home in el balad, downtown Amman. Arageel, samnet el ghazal, roz masri, freekeh, borghol, jebneh, labaneh… and almost everything was made in Lebanon. So I concluded that Lebanese people are either really smart or their stuff is just very cheap.
The visit to the store was like a brief trip home. So refreshing, but you don’t want to stay there for long.
I just woke up from a nice nap, regretting that I spent the day at home instead of going to Manhattan. Just when I was about to start counting my stupid points, I saw that some news on TV were talking about an explosion in NYC.
A steam pipe obviously exploded very close to Grand Central, which is the station I would have used to arrive to NYC and to head home.
Imagine that! If I were there today, I would have possibly been hurt by the explosion or simply stuck as the police closed the streets and the people ran around. Horrible!
This reminds me of the Amman bombings and how close I was to getting hurt back then. This is freaky…
Around the same time last year I was sinking in a state of deep depression because of the July War between Israel and Lebanon. It was one of the darkest periods of my life. I was also juggling two jobs, one I was not the least bit interested in and the other I hated with all my heart. It was pure hell.
The war was not something new. There is war everyday in Iraq and Palestine and numerous other places around Jordan. It was just that these wars had been there for some time, and time blunts feelings. The July War was sudden, highly destructive, chaotic, and depressing. It made me question my attitude towards people and politics, and it made me wonder if there is any hope at all trusting the world. As a result, I became a pessimist supreme and I effectively maimed my fingers.
At a certain point, it seemed like there was no escape from death and dullness. I felt trapped in a cycle of horrors that I could not stop or ignore. But then just as the last straw was about to slip away, things looked up.
A year later, I am now in New York enjoying myself and having the time of my life. I am meeting new people everyday, exploring NYC, shopping like there is no tomorrow, and splurging on utterly useless items sold by African and Chinese men. I can’t believe the change of mood and setting from last July to this one — it’s mind-boggling. Great living!
Via AndFarAway and Subzero Blue, I just learned that Tololy’s Box was mentioned in a Jordanian magazine titled Pulp as one of the most popular blogs in Jordan.
Very awesome. I like. Thank you Pulp.
But there’s an itsy bitsy problem.
The brief description about this Box says that “this blog’s got everything, mostly about Tabbuleh.”
Tabbuleh is a form of salad that I worship. But my blog is not mostly about Tabbuleh. My blog is not mostly about anything, really.
The Tabbuleh part is hilarious and extremely inaccurate, unless it’s a joke. Then Ha-Ha.
Otherwise, do your research people! Look at more than the 1-2 pictures I posted of Tabbuleh once upon a time. READ for the sake of everything sacred and precious!
What’s next? “Tololy’s Box is really not a blog. It’s an EMPIRE!” … Wait, that could be accurate in a stretchy kind of way, so we can’t possibly publish it. Write: “Tololy’s Box is about butterflies and merriment, but mostly about lost candy.”
Thanks to Roba for uploading a scan of the mag page, you can see it over at her blog. Click here.
Also, could someone please send me the contact information of Pulp Magazine? An e-mail or a telephone number would be great, thanks a bunch. I would like to get to the bottom of this drama.
I seem to always pick the most attitudesque and verbal T-shirts to wear. Today I had a red “Too hot to handle” T-shirt on complete with a drawing of dynamite and everything.
I went to Madison Avenue today and its being a Sunday, the street was closed and stands were all over the place selling everything from shawls to accessories to metal toys to Chinese antiques to shish kabob to smoothies to portraits to bras. It was amazing and an Egyptian young man gave me free coke because we’re, um, Arabs. It was really sweet of him. I always love it when someone says salam and says I’m their sister when they see me in the street. It gives me a nice feeling of friendliness and having something in common with otherwise perfect strangers in a strange city.
One of the most fascinating and creative things I have ever seen I found at a Metal Park stand. The people behind this company are really brilliant, look at what they make out of scrap and motorcycle parts:
I bought so many useless, but very pretty, things today. One of them was a Metal Park figure, others were copper monkeys and small marble animals, bags and rings and other cool things. Hey, that rhymed!
After shopping I bought grilled corn from that Egyptian young man, and got my free coke, and I even bought a skewer of very fresh chocolate-coated strawberries. I love eating and shopping in the open air, it’s so refreshing.
So then I went to pier 85 and hopped on a cruise boat for a three hour cruise around Manhattan. I had such a great time and I saw everything there is to see from the rivers surrounding this marvelous city, including the Statue of Liberty:
I give today a full mark, no other day has ever earned this rating. It was perfect; the weather, the shopping, the setting, the people, the sightseeing, tutto! Ahhh… long live Sundays like this one!
I’ve been thinking of the hijab issue lately and how some people have major problems with it and others do not. I finally got to a conclusion that I think sums up my opinion on the whole thing. Are you comfortable in your seat? Good.
Here’s what I think: People who have a problem with other people who wear a head garment are shallow. The word “hijabi” itself does not appeal to me as it sounds too much like “jihadi” and we all know the negative connotations that word holds. The two words do not even exist in the Arabic language to which their creators think they belong. How stupid is that?
I find it absurd and offensive to the human race that some people would stop at the level of what another person is wearing and go no further. It is even more offensive when these people hold hostile or dismissive attitudes towards people who wear a specific thing, in this case the hijab.
I am not defending people who wear the hijab and I am not saying that some of them do not represent an embarrassing lot. I am not even defending the hijab itself. This isn’t about religion or social norms, it is about human interaction and understanding. My opinion is that if we stop at the level of clothes, clothes people!, and judge each other and dismiss each other because we cannot see someone’s hair and cleavage — then we are a miserable race and we deserve the wars and conflicts that we live in today.
How can we have a decent conversation with one another if we have already judged and belittled one another in our minds? How can we expect everyone to believe we’re progressive, educated, and intelligent human beings when we lower our standards of human interaction to mere clothes and hair? Why do some of us still live in the Middle Ages when it comes to openness and understanding, when they claim to be liberal all the time?
By the same token, I do not defend people who go around half naked. Hijabi or not, clothes are either a choice or an obligation. Either way, you just cannot make up scenarios in your head about what other people think and who they are or what they believe in based on what they’re wearing. Who do you think you are, anyway?
There’s a mysterious sense of achievement that you feel when you have been to all the “top places” mentioned in a city guide for a particular area. I love that feeling, I have it now for Midtown Manhattan.
I went to the Empire State building today and went up to the 86th floor and took some amazing shots of New York City. I am particularly proud of the fact that I went so early that the notorious line over there had not even been born yet. I did not wait at all and just went straight up. Another thing that made me a happy, happy tourist was that I took superb shots of the city and even took four stunning panoramic shots from up there. Love that fact!
After the Empire State building I headed to The Museum of Modern Art and on my way there I saw the Rockefeller Building, which had an amazing Atlas doing his thing holding the globe on his back, right in front of it. There were also fountains and exotic plants and all sorts of other interesting things.
I also caught a glimpse of the grand St.Patrick’s Cathedral…
Then I finally got to the MoMA, which is right across the street from the American Folk Art Museum and the Museum of Arts & Design. Once there, I explored the five floors of the architecture, paintings, photography, and sculpture galleries and tried to absorb the creativity and make it mine. There was a lot of garbage there though. Honestly, some “art” there was pure trash and I can only say that I can do so much better than that — both artistically and popularly. And I’m not even boasting or anything. Laugh. Here is the result of that attempt at taking the creativity in, I call it “Infinitely Idle” :
You can check out my Picasa album for some more of the pictures I took today, if that’s your thing. I am definitely going to do crazy things in my room when I get back to Amman, and you know I will call them art. After the Museum tour, I headed towards Times Square where I had lunch at Red Lobster and missed my train so consequently had to wait an hour and a half for the next one.
Is all, will write more when more happens. Stay good.
I know the 4th of July was a long time ago but I didn’t get a chance to post about it. I watched the fireworks on the shore of the Atlantic and it was a hot, wet night. It started pouring just as the first parcel of magic lit the sky… People were running around trying to find cover and laughing and yelling, it was really funny.
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| From New York |
I enjoyed myself tremendously still, but I remember that in Michigan I saw a much bigger show to celebrate the occasion.
Now I’m not a spy but I do think America has every right to celebrate the 4th of July as flamboyantly as possible — to keep everything as it is but perhaps cut back on the democracy speeches that don’t sell.
I for one sure am glad America is independent, she earned it.
My solo tour started from Grand Central Terminal at 8:30 AM. I was at Madame Tussaud’s at 9 but had to wait until 10 for the museum to actually open. I had a blast there and took dozens of pictures of wax statues of people I admire; think Gandhi, Malcolm X, Hugh Grant, Lenny Kravitz, Bob Marley, Scott Fitzgerald, Oprah, Morgan Freeman…
While the statues were very well finished, they still looked pretty statue-like. I was really surprised though by some of the people represented there. I mean I had no idea Hugh Grant was that figuresque, or Shakira that not-so-chubby, or that Julia Roberts was as bald as I always said she was. I took tons of pictures that I cannot possibly upload and make available (at least not for free!) but here’s a quick glance at my “The Faces” gallery:
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| From New York |
(clicking on New York will take you to my Picasa album where I keep all the shareable pictures of this trip)
After Madame Tussaud’s I went to Bryant Park and sat there for a while. Then I walked towards Greenwich Village and I really walked a lot, I think for a couple of hours. I reached Union Square and saw so many fruit and vegetable stands just like we have in simple places in Amman.
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I finally got to Astor Place and then saw Minetta and The Cage, where there was a game of basketball going on and a crowd of men cheering and yelling. I stopped for a minute and watched the game, then realized that the weather was too hot and moved on to find myself glancing up some tall NYU buildings.
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I walked on until I got to Washington Square Park, in the heart of Greenwich Village. There was a Jamaican drummer and an exotic performer with him, and groups of students discussing things and walking their dogs. I sat there for a while to rest.
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Now the reason why I wanted to go to Greenwich Village is that I really liked the place when I went on a bus tour in the city. It is so original and beautiful and real. It’s bustling with energy and life and it’s really inspirational. I will buy me a place there one day…
After Washington Square Park, I decided it was time for lunch. I saw a McDonald’s and I was almost going to go in but then figured that I’m there so I should try something new. I normally never experiment with food, it’s the only thing I don’t experiment with really, but the setting was as I said inspirational and I thought what the heck and went to the first place I saw.
As I walked in, a young man held the door open for me and asked me what I was up to. I took the iPod earplugs out of my ears and “Wha? Oh, the shirt!” — I remembered that people actually read what the shirt said and secretly cursed myself ten times and mumbled ‘nerd’ under my breath. He even asked if I was a spy, at which point I put the earplugs back in my ears and walked to the farthest table.
The place I had lunch in, French Roast, is owned by a Cuban man. I am obviously guessing here but he had a fine Cuban air to him, or I imagined it all. I could see he was riding the waiters’ backs all the time. The food was OK, the best part was when I first came in, sweaty and hot and disgusted by the weather, and the non-English speaking waitress poured me a big glass of very cold water. I also really liked it when I discovered that the restaurant was recommended in the life-saving and very valuable city guide I had with me.
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French Roast looked out on the Jefferson Market Library, which was a really beautiful building to look at. At that, Greenwich Village is so gorgeous and it has a lot of beautiful buildings and small tacky shops that sell antiques and old clothes and costumes and all sorts of other things I never knew I needed so badly.
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After lunch, I decided I wanted to go back up 6th Avenue and go home. That meant two hours of walking back up to where I started off, and so I walked. On my way up I bought gorgeous necklaces and earrings from a cheap accessory stand operated by an African guy.
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Then I came to Manhattan Mall and decided to go in and find a place to sit down. I went in and bought rings and other things and completely forgot to sit down.
Eventually, I arrived at Grand Central ten minutes before my train. I dragged myself inside and just closed my eyes. Twenty minutes later, I dragged myself out of the train and headed home. That ended the most amazing day I’ve had in a really really long time. Next time I will go to East Village :)
I just got home from a solo tour in NYC. I spent the day walking basically, all the way from East 42nd St to 11th St in Greenwich Village, and back again (plus a lot of I’m-lost distances). I am sunstruck I think, and every bit of me hurts like a truck is drifting over it.
My mistakes were many, and I thought about them during the 20 minute train ride home. Here they are in no particular order:
1- Forgot to check the weather forecast. Today was “very hot and humid” — and I quote an AccuWeather scroll ad in Times Square. 91 degrees.
2- Wore black.
3- Wore new flats that sliced my feet. Then got ruined.
4- Had a synthetic leather bag. The leather got hot and burned my shoulder + left arm.
5- Preferred to wander aimlessly trying to prove I’m the Queen of Directions instead of asking someone where Washington Square Park was. I kept going round and round and round in circles around it for 20 minutes in the scorching sun.
6- Wore a T-shirt that read “I’m definitely up to something.” NEVER again! Strangers were asking me what I was up to. Not comfortable.
7- Had an I Heart NY bag. Total tourist.
8- Entered the Manhattan Mall to find a place to sit down and ended up buying rings and forgetting to sit down.
9- Did not video the Jamaican drummer and the exotic performer with him.
10- Went to Madame Tussaud’s New York Wax Museum alone.
That’s a wrap for now. Will tell you all the good things later. This day was the greatest day ever!
I am not a fish person for some very good reasons. Think about it; fish don’t interact with you, they’re slippery, you can’t take them out of their tank or they’ll die on you, and they’re really stupid. No such thing as a good reason to like fish, unless they’re cooked.
I went to the New York Aquarium in Coney Island two days ago and got to see all sorts of fishes and sea creatures swimming around. The lighting was often poor so my attempts at taking pictures were thwarted repeatedly. So there, another reason not to appreciate fish — they can’t pose for the life of them!
Some pictures survived though:
I love boxes. Square, round, pale, colorful, artistic, locked, open, boring, enticing, practical, luxurious; I love them all.
You never know what is inside a box until you open it, and it can have anything inside. Just thinking of the possibilities is arousing. I enjoy this type of suspense and I indulge my senses in an anticipation fantasy every time I see a box.
Did you guess why I call my blog Tololy’s Box?
I came across a poem titled The Box via Slate Magazine, and I just had to share:
The Box
So I remember the hidden: every night my zaydee
at the ballet watching Zizi
kicking her petite leg above the outstretched claws
of the chorus line as they moved in perfect ruby unison
through third position and then spun
their tulle skirts into a twirl.
All that I know of the interior paramour
I learned from patient zaydee sitting shirtless
off-stage in his old pajamas,
waiting for his crop-haired Zizi to flick
her gypsy fan onto his lap in a mighty crescendo
of leaps and bounds and how could I not love this
and him and all his knowledge of the carnal
life inside the box and so it is
for his sake alone I placate the lovers shaking their fists
in the park, pitched in battle over all the new thinking
outside the box they call their lives
and the faces they make as I pull from my coat
the Lobster Ballet I can never remember
because always I am too busy abandoning their hearts
and engaging the subtle mechanisms of dance
and pointing and blabbering in my delicious nervousness
so that I even forget to tell them they should hum
something Iberian or Basque
and that even “April in Paris” will do
as I gently shake the scarlet dancers of Carmen
to stockinged attention and then the watching,
the blessed watching of lovers
rediscovering the pageantry of the interior.By Tomás Q. Morin
The only “fixed” goal I had when my plans to visit NY were confirmed was to get me an I Heart NY T-shirt. I wanted a white one, and maybe a pink one, you know. I thought I would tease all of my friends when I go back to Jordan with my new T’s, and they will turn green with envy because the T’s are from The Source. I thought of this in the office one afternoon when all my chat buddies were offline.
That goal remained with me but my list of ‘things to get’ grew, and grew, and grew. It became this fat, shapeless sequence of numbers and things and I developed an addiction to fantasizing about “stuff” that I wanted to buy. Of course I fully realized that there is no way I can afford all of that expensive fantasy material, but I wrote everything down for good measure.
I went to Manhattan again yesterday. This time, I will get my T’s no matter what, I thought to myself. I even protested verbally before and during the tour in Manhattan to the people around me. “I want I Heart NY T’s,” I told them, “Remind me to get I heart NY T’s!” — “OK seriously when is this bus going to stop? I want to buy things!”
The bus eventually stopped and I got off. I ran to the nearest T-shirt stand I could see. I didn’t want to go into a souvenir shop and pay twice as much for the same items (let’s pretend), because I’m smart like that. There were so many African men selling things in the streets, and they had everything from fake (who knows?) designer bags to T-shirts to small souvenirs.
“T’s for 2.99″ caught my eye. I noticed that the stand had black and white T’s just like the ones I’ve always wanted. The African young man who worked the stand told me that the black ones go for 5$. How come?, oh it’s just that they cost more. I figured OK maybe black cloth dye is more expensive. Besides, this is an African man who came all the way from Africa to sell T-shirts off Times Square and has been through numerous hardships to realize his version of the American Dream. Who am I to argue with that logic?
I asked him where he was from. Guess. I don’t know, you tell me. West Africa, with a smile. I thought West Africa was a name of a country so I didn’t investigate further and instead followed with another sign of mental density: So you came from Africa and you live here now? Yes. It was only after I asked that question that I realized how stupid it was, but I forgave myself right then and there. Strange city, strange times — who’s keeping track?
The West African had exquisitely white teeth and his skin had a beautiful glow to it. He asked me where I came from and we talked a bit. I counted my money and handed it to him, but he wouldn’t take it. I found that strange for a moment then I realized that he was telling me to “give it to him” and looking behind me.
I looked behind me and there was a small old Chinese man, just like the ones you would see as Kung Fu masters in movies. The man’s face was deep with wrinkles, his body shrunken by age. He held a batch of dollars expertly in his hand, so I understood he was “The Stand Master.”
The old man smiled at me and I paid him. He, too, asked me where I was from, but initially thought I was Indian. When I told him I was from Jordan, I had to explain that Jordan lies in the Middle East. He was from China, yes, he told me. Then the old Chinese Stand Master lived up to my mental image of him as a legendary Kung Fu Mentor; he enlightened me with his wisdom:
“Only in New York this happens. You, me, him (points at West Africa) are in the same place. We are all together and we are all equal. Only in America.”
Yes, yes, so true — I told him. Maybe not the equal part, but the moment was so poetic so I let that slip without letting a class of American Society interfere. Wow. I was being handed my first Chinese wisdom from a real Chinese man who probably lived in Chinatown.
I was overwhelmed by the moment. Not because the Stand Master had said something I did not know. But because he acted out the role I assigned for him in my mind — A wise Chinese man teaching me something profound. I loved that encounter more than anything. I had my dose of Chinese wisdom and it was priceless. On top of that, I had my I Heart NY T’s and they cost 8$. I heart NY!
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