THE BIODATA

The parents are now asking me to put together a matrimonial biodata. There was one that the they cobbled together for me a few years ago, using my work resume and anecdotal experience. I think I proofread and signed off on it at some point. Alas, the biodata, which was saved on my father's old PC, is no more (the PC crashed; I highly suspect that my explosive biodata had something to do with it. Ahem).

Now, everything (ie my future...ie whether I grow up to become a fabulous wife/mother or a miserable and curmudgeonly old spinster type with lots of cats to whom she's allergic) apparently hinges on my curriculum vitae, which will include, amongst other details, my education and work experience, appropriate measurements (height, weight...I don't think these things include THOSE kinds of measurements), personality, hobbies and interests and a seperate section where I can include a personal essay of sorts.

Part of me wants to put together the most ridiculously heinous biodata I can. Part of me wants to satisfy the 'rents. Then there's the part that actually wants to be curmudgeonly and old and spinstery and unattached. Of course, there's another part that wants to be all Emily Dickinson-ian and remain in a world of perpetual childhood. Worry not, you romantic types. There is a part of me that wants to eventually meet someone decent enough to hitch myself to for eternity, but I seriously don't care enough at this point to condense my life into a 1-2 page resume in order to meet this dude. This part, perhaps apocalyptically, still believes in romance.

For the record, this last, unacceptably lame and foolishly wide-eyed part of me is obviously a remnant of my teeny-bopper days. The other parts of which I'm comprised don't care very much for it and are working on exorcising it for good...because intelligent folks can't be stupid like that.

THE NERD PONDERS: Why Do Men Love Bitches (continued...)

I'm just glad I didn't have to pay for this bloody book.

THE NERD PONDERS: Why Do Men Love Bitches (continued...)

I've never been able to do the whole self-help book thing. I read (parts of) the first chapter, feel decidedly enlightened (or not so much) and toss the book aside.

Yah, this Why Men Marry Bitches book might be informative and enlightening and my mom would probably want me to read it from cover to cover but I'd much rather finish reading Giraffe. I just finished The Ruins by Scott Smith, which was EXCELLENT and comes highly recommended by me!

Que sera.

THE NERD PONDERS: Why Do Men Love Bitches?

Read the following book and find out!

WHY MEN MARRY BITCHES

The Nerd is skimming through it as we speak. She'll report back to us shortly.

BACK ON THE MARKET: Oh Crap (part II)

My mother nagged me for pics all day yesterday. Each telephone conversation (and there were five of them altogether) went as follows:

Me: This is Sabila.
Amma: Have you emailed the photos to your father yet...
Me: I'm at work, amma...
Amma:...because we promised your cousins they'd have your photos...
Me: I don't have pics on my work computer.
Amma: ...two days ago, but you haven't sent us anything...
Me: I'll do it as soon as I get home.
Amma: ...and your cousin called me this morning asking about the photos...
Me: I'm really busy right now--
Amma: ...I told him you'd send them right away...
Me: --so let's talk later, okay?
Amma: ...so just send the photos, okay?
Me: Okay.

I suspect that a lot of thought goes into which rishta photos a family decides to circulate.

*There's the requisite natively-garbed shot, which illustrates the respect a girl has for her cultural heritage, thus proving that she must be a good person.

*Photos of the girl dressed in Western garb, demure enough to appeal to the parent's (well, more likely than not, the mother's) sensibilities, but edgy enough to attract the eligible bachelor's interest (please note that the ratio of natively-garbed shots to Western-garbed shots is directly proportional to how traditional or progressive an interested family is).

*While one must appear to be happy in most of the photos, happiness must manifest itself in varying degrees:

1) the open-mouthed smile (aka, the big smile) shot: because what kinds of dental monstrosities is a girl trying to hide by not including at least one big smile shot in her rishta portfolio?! No mother wants her son to have a dental case on his hands. And good teeth are indicative of overall goodness of character.

2) the close-lipped smile shot: because the big smile, when displayed too often, might be suggestive of loose morals.

3) the smile-with-your-eyes shot: I was channel surfing the other day when I happened upon reruns of this past season's America's Next Top Model. I watched long enough to witness Tyra Banks demonstrate how to smile with your eyes and not your lips. I'm not exactly sure why a girl might want to include this shot in her rishta portfolio, but I'm guessing that

a) it might further reinforce that she doesn't have loose morals,
b) shows that she watches reality television and
c) is downright model-like, all of which
d) confirms that she is a really good person.

4) the unsmiling shot: one should never frown in the unsmiling shot because no one likes a recalcitrant girl. Instead, a girl must appear to be pensive and lost in thought; perhaps she's dreaming of her wedding or imagining the dozens of children she will birth for her husband. This shot will surely add depth and dimension to her character...and she will come across as a very good and decent person.

*THERE MUST BE AT LEAST ONE FULL-BODY SHOT IN A RISHTA PORTFOLIO because too many close-up photos might lead the eligible bachelor as well as his mother to suspect that the girl is fat. And everyone knows that fat people can't possibly be good or worthy of marriage.

*A few overachieving parents pay to have professional pics (read: heavily airbrushed, close shots) of their offspring taken at photo studios. Prospective families (ie, moms) sometimes fall head-over-heels, not so much for the eligible bachelorettes featured in these shots, as much as for the time, effort, thought, care and money devoted to these shots. Surely, this means that the girl comes from a good family and, as a result, must be a good person, herself.

For my readers who are not familiar with the Pakistani or Indian mathcmaking process, these rules don't necessarily apply to men because a degree in medicine or engineering trumps all photos they will send to a girl's family. The degree, in such cases, becomes interchangeable with the bachelor.
All of that being said, you best believe I'm getting ready to ogle some male glamour shots!

THIS ONE TIME, THE NERD'S COUSIN PROPOSED TO HER...

...and it was gross. It was very, very, very gross.

So's my life.

Welcome.

I'm not going to go into the details of the surprise incestuous proposal--all I'm going to say is that it happened earlier this year, while I was vacationing in the motherland with the family. It certainly was not cool. Instead, it ranks amongst the most bizarre experiences of my life.

In all fairness, I realize that marriages between cousins are accepted and even encouraged in many cultures. Additionally, research conducted only a few years ago--and discussed in a front-page New York Times article--revealed that the chances of first cousins having offspring with birth defects are only minimally higher than those of biologically unrelated parents; ultimately, there is no biological reason to discourage cousin marriages.

All that being said, may none of you ever have to dodge the advances of a lovesick first cousin because the heebijeebies such situations inspire are downright debilitating.

Ew.

BACK ON THE MARKET: Oh Crap

What the eff am I getting myself into?

Mom: Sabila, email five or six recent pictures of yourself to your dad.
Nerd: Um, why?
Mom: Your cousin X called from Florida. He knows quite a few Pakistani families that are looking for girls.
Nerd: Um, why?
Mom: Sabila. Stop joking around.
Nerd: I thought you were going to look for boys in the tri-state area, amma. Florida isn't in the area.
Mom(talking to the ceiling): There she goes again, jinxing herself even before we've started.
Nerd: How am I jinxing myself? Florida isn't New York, New Jersey or Connecticut. It's a fact, not a jinx!
Mom: Just be grateful for the proposals you get.
Nerd: I'm not wasting time emailing strangers. I want to meet them.
Mom: And you'll meet them.
Nerd: I feel like a piece of meat...and I'm a freakin' vegetarian, which makes it even more awful.
Mom: That's something that I don't want you to mention on your first meeting with any boy!
Nerd: Ugh.

I'm thinking I'll just email the link to my profile on Friendster to my dad.
This is such bs.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: Find Aging SabilaK a Husband...Maybe

So, I expertly manuevered myself out of having to attend not one but two weddings this past weekend. "But amma, I have SO MUCH reading to do," worked for the first wedding; "But amma, I already have plans with my friends," with a "Why didn't you tell me sooner. I'm going to miss out on SUCH a GREAT matchmaking opportunity!" thrown in for good measure worked for the second wedding.

Amma met up with a gaggle of her girlfriends at the second wedding and, upon her return, she spent a good hour bemoaning my absence from the nuptials:

"EVERYONE was asking about you and all of the women admitted that they were there to find single girls! Oh Sabila! You need to start attending weddings. You aren't getting any younger..."

Of course, as (my miserable) luck would have it, we met a woman at the Pakistani Independence Day street fair (or another WONDERFUL matchmaking opportunity according to my mom)who sized me up, declared that I was pretty and pulled out a pen and slip of paper to take down our number.

"How old is she?" the woman asked. Mind you, I was standing right there.

"27," I announced, smiling and standing up a little straighter, knowing what was about to come.

"Ohh, she's too old to get married now," the woman announced.

My mom, who is just as aggressively amiable as I am, smiled and said something about kismet and such things being out of our hands.

"Yes, but we're supposed to try. We can't leave everything to kismet," the woman preached. She actually looked annoyed with us.

I had to keep myself from laughing in the woman's face. Surprisingly (and much to my relief), my mother wasn't too bothered by her since we'd already had a countless barrage of women inquire about my availability for their cousins/brothers/neighbors/dentists/cabbies etc. Of course my mother responded to each woman with a "Yes, we're looking." Of course this response, as often as I heard it over the course of the day, threw me off guard. "We are?" I wondered each and every time.

I suppose we are.
Oh, the lengths I go to to keep the parental units satisfied...and my readers entertained.
And, worry not. I'm constantly working on my emergency escape plans.

Sometimes..........................................

ILIKEBOOKSMORETHANILIKEPEOPLE!

There, I said it!
Don't get me wrong. I like people A WHOLE LOT. But books are so great. And so are the folks who write them. Really.

Ahem.

In any case, Shirley, recognizing me for the book groupie that I am (a bookie to some...grook to others...I don't enjoy being called a grook, by the way...or a dirty hooker, for that matter. so stop it. Just FYI), asked me to answer a few questions. I suspect this might have something to do with homeland security, but who am I to ask questions? I just answer them.

1) One book that changed your life?
As I Lay Dying by W. Faulkner

2. One book you have read more than once?
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (cliché, I know, but I find myself returning to the Holden Caulfield per annum)

3. One book you would want on a desert island?
Leaves of Grass by W. Whitman (because books of poems best count in this questionnaire; and because Walt knows a thing or two about life, loafing, grass and such things)

4. One book that made you laugh?
Good Omens by N. Gaiman and T. Pratchett (so, so, so funny)

5. One book that made you cry?
Wuthering Heights by E. Bronte (I cried BUCKETS of tears that night. BUCKETS)

6. One book you stayed up all night to finish?
All of the Harry Potters. That series is just pure sorcery, I tell ya.

7. One book that took you too long to read?
Crime and Punishment by F. Dostoevsky--I was reading way too many other books/manuscripts at the same time. But I enjoyed the F. Dostoevsky thoroughly.

8. One book you are currently reading?
Among the dozens of books/manuscripts I subject myself to at any given moment, this moment's shining star is The Ruins by S. Smith. Yes, I'M STILL reading it.

9. One book you have been meaning to read?
Gravity's Rainbow by T. Pynchon (I swear I'll read it some day, RR)

10. Now tag five people.
I have no idea whether or not these people actually read, but here goes:
Adventures in Anonymity
Rich, the Thespian
The Hipster Douchebag
Mist
Puntabulous

AUGUST ANYONE?

The beauty that is August is upon us. Didn't I tell you that August would be a star that overshadows its bastard brother July?
This probably goes to show that I'm always right but following are discoveries made this month, which have proven otherwise:

1) Crepes are great: I don't know how I managed to go 27 years without a single crepe but I suspect immigrant parentage had something to do with it. While the fact that my friend with whom I had crepes last weekend is also the product of immigrant parentage likely proves that my suspicions are ungrounded, I'd rather not dwell on such details.

2) Eating out doors = not so bad, in spite of annoyingly vicious city flies.

3) Sometime it's not such a bad idea to answer the parents' phone, even when the caller ID warns you not to do so.

4) Jacques Torres' giant chocolate chip cookie is all hype OR I have defective taste buds. I think most people would go with the latter of the two choices; in any case, I always thought that JT's giant choco chip cookie would be much better. I was wrong.

5) According to an older Pakistani lady my mom and I ran into earlier today at the Pakistani Independence Day Street Fair that my father organized, I’m too old to get married now. And here I thought I actually had a shot someday at matrimonial bliss.
Alas.
Oh well.

6) Point number 5 was soon proven incorrect as about a dozen women of varying ages announced that they wanted to play matchmaker for me.
Alas.
Oh well.

7) Pakistani street fairs = not so bad.

8) Pakistani street fairs = a pretty damn good time.

9) Walking around a Pakistani street fair for 6 hours = brutal (I always knew this to be true).

10) It ain't no thang: If one believes that it's no big deal, even the biggest deals will inspire only the slightest of shrugs.

11) Life's good. Life's chill.

12) Stepping outside of my schedule once in a while won't kill me.

13) Professing my love for people I love is grand (but I always knew this to be true as well. I'm a notorious dropper of "I love you"s--and I mean it every time--and I follow it with loud, smacking, trippy kisses. This annoys the hell out of my mother, inspiring countless "I-can't-believe-you-come-from-me" looks, but everyone else seems to be all right with it).

PATH PANTOMIME?

I was leaning against one of the columns on the platform of the Christopher Street PATH Station last night, waiting for my train to show its tired face and take me home when, as is usually the case when its late(ish--it was actually only 9:30PM) and one is tired, the other train--Hoboken--barrelled in. So, I remained resting against the column and momentarily contemplated fishing out the weatherworn galley I've been reading for the past month from my bag but, deciding that my bag was too busy to navigate in my state, I gave up even before I started. A little bit bored, I happened to glance into the PATH car standing next to me and a tall, good looking man seated between a much older woman, who might have been his mother, and another guy, who looked like he could have been his brother caught my attention. The following exchange ensued between the four of us entirely in mime:

Good looking man: Hey, baby, wanna join us?
Me: No, not my train.
Older woman: This guy's crazy. Don't trust him at all. He's a ladykiller, I tell 'ya, a ladykiller!
Good looking man: C'mon. It's a train. It'll take you somewhere.
Me: No, no.
Brother: You sure you don't want to join us? Because my brother would like it very much if you could.
Good looking man: I tried.
Me: Alas.
Good looking man: You're hot.
Mom: I think he likes you.
Me: Too bad I'm on the platform and you're in the wrong train.
Good looking man: I know. Sucks.
Me: So is life.
Brother: Man, I'm tired. Are you sure you don't want to take this train?
Me: Yah, sorry guys.
Good looking man: Why don't you call me?
Mom: You should call him.
Me: No, no. YOU call ME.
Good looking man: I will. You have my heart (holding his heart).
Me: Byeeee (blowing them a kiss)!
Good looking man: Bye (blowing me a kiss)!
Mom: Bye (waving)!
Brother: Bye (waving)!

PENCIL SKIRTS AND HOT POTATOES: The Nerd's Almost Pre-Teeny Bopper Moment

Yes, in spite of the general awkwardness of my younger years, I too enjoyed a couple of close brushes of the romantic kind with the opposite sex as a youth.

There was that occassion of my 12th birthday party. I remember it like it happened yesterday. I was wearing a black knee-length pencil skirt, a black t-shirt topped off with an olive green jacket that had tassels sprouting out from both sides of the waist and black ankle boots. My mom had pulled my hair into a sideways ponytail that was secured with a hot pink scrunchy. I must have looked odd back then in 1991 but, clearly, I was fashion forward.

As with all of my (legendary) birthday parties, this one had games that were supervised by my brothers--who were 19 and 17 and much cooler than me--and their friends. Most of my guests were girls; while some of them had been forced to bring along their much younger brothers, the number of boys in attendance who were close to me in age was two. For the sake of anonymity, let's call them Tom and Joe.

So, Tom and Joe happened to be the only two boys who sat in the circle during our game of hot potato. For those of you who aren't familiar with this game, a cushion, or any lightweight object, is passed from person to person while someone mans a radio. The person who's holding the potato when the music stops is not only left feeling like an asshole but has to pick out a random dare from a container full of dares scribbled on folded up paper scraps. It can potentially spell WORST NIGHTMARE for a kid at a party. Really.

Of course, in all of their teen wisdom, my brothers and their friends included a "give the birthday girl a hug" dare, probably secretly wishing that one of the two boys, who seemed to be well-entrenched in their "Ewwwww, girls are gross and have the cooties" ways, got stuck with said dare. The pre-teeny bopper gods were on duty that evening because Joe, who I didn't know very well, got stuck with that dare first. He twisted his face into the picture of disgust; he dry-heaved and refused to get up from his spot on the floor, while I giggled and wrinkled my nose with my friends, safe on my side of the circle. The "Ew-I-so-don't-want-to-hug-you" shenanigans went on for a good 15 minutes or so before Joe and I pulled the downing- disgustingly-bitter-cough-medicine-while-pinching-your-nose equivalent of a hug.

Since the teeny-bopper gods were fully awake and up to no good that night, a very quiet and demure friend of mine confessed later to accidently returning the "hug the birthday girl" dare to the cup of dares (surely, the moments leading up to the hug left the poor child momentarily hot, bothered and confused)and who got that particular dare during the next round of hot potato but Tom, the other boy at the party. I was buddies with Tom, had known him for years and, not wanting to waste any time with dramatics, we just hugged amidst the juvenile "ooooh"s and "aaah"s and "Tom and Sabila sitting in a tree" chants. Whatever.

Shortly following the game, however, there was a moment that would make any writer of the pre-teeny bopper genre proud. My friends and I were stepping out into my balcony when Tom suddenly emerged from the shadows, nearly running into me in the doorway. He asked to speak to me alone. My friends gave me sly looks as they tripped away, already dissolving into giggles. I stood with Tom outside on the balcony. He was scuffing the toe of his sneaker on the ground. His hands were buried in his pockets and he couldn't meet my eyes. So, we stood there for a while, rather awkward in our silence, until I asked him what he wanted to talk to me about.

"That hug back there," he started, still unable to look at me.
"Yah..." I said, not knowing whether or not I wanted to encourage his weirdness.
"It wasn't that bad," he said, shrugging.
Now, I probably should have closed my eyes and went in for that first kiss. But, alas, I enjoyed the horror and classics (especially the horror classics) reads much more than I did those pesky pre-teeny bopper books, so, instead of puckering up, I said, "Oh," and then after a very long pause asked, "Is that all?" to which this poor kid who'd very clearly put his heart--or his raging hormones, but what's the difference, really--on the line said, "Yah," and I walked back into the party leaving him to scuff the toe of his sneaker alone.

We never talked about that moment again. And then he moved away.

Surely, the gods pulled out their hair that night and sure, I kind of regretted the missed opportunity shortly thereafter but knowing that I was wearing a cute outfit at the time of the kiss that never was mostly makes me not regret it so much.

Dear Persons Who Mispronounce My Name, I Don't Like You: An Open Letter

Dear Persons Who Mispronounce My Name:

I don't like you.

Maybe I should start calling you Effin' Imbecile. What? That's not your name? But doesn't J-A-N-E D-O-E spell out Effin' Imbecile?
I don't know, Effin', that's how we pronounce it where I come from.

For everyone out there who's even a little bit unsure of how my name is pronounced, following is a phonetic guide that will be of great assistance to you:

Sabila: Sa-bee-la

No, it's not Sa-bil-la or the ever wrong but oh so popular, Sa-bee-lee-ah. And, thanks for trying to make my name just a little bit more exotic by pronouncing the single "l" like the double Spanish "ll". I appreciate the effort on your part but no, my name is NOT Sa-bee-YA. Say-bee-la, Sha-bee-la, and Sa-bla are also not cute.

Clearly you folks must have the same sort of twang I have when I attempt to say Effin' Imbecile.

Now that you know how to say my name (see phonetic guide above), please correct all of those individuals who have picked up on your bastardization of my beautiful name.

I suspect that I will continue to hate you even after you've mastered the pronounciation of my name.

Sincerely,

SABILA (once again, please refer to pronunciation guide in the body of this letter)

THE WEEKEND: A Review

I have two words for you: the Whitney.
I have two more words for you: Edward Hopper.
I have a declaration (not for you but for the above-mentioned): I heart you, Ed Hopper.
I have five syllables for you: Good Enough to Eat.
I have an omelet made with Granny Smith apples, Vermont white cheddar cheese and served with two biscuits and strawberry butter: The Gramercy Park served at the above-mentioned five-syllable eatery.
I also have crepes. I mean I had them. Filled with gouda. And tomatoes. Yum. And a blue star-shaped lollipop and coffee.
I have three people I love: my brothers and my mother.
I have nineteen sylabbles: a dingy, hole-in-the-wall, meat heavy Pakistani restaurant THEY love.
I also have this: relationship advice. Lots of it. Ladled out between mom and siblings like the chicken korma (and other varieties of meat-heavy salaans) I'm not eating.
Instead I have this: a tall iced coffee. Perfection. Another.
I also have this: the giggles. Lots. And ginger candy. Lots. Lots.

I heart the weekend.
Is it really the start of another work week?
I have to sleep.
And vacation.
And read. And write.
Clearly, I'm tired.
And strange.
But all of you are cool.
Bye.

THE NERD AND HER BFF PARASAIL

Just for the record, this is what I was wearing during the hair-raising, knee-knocking parasailing adventure.

It's comfy. And a determined enough breeze sometimes finds its way inside. The shoes were a pain in the ass but I lost them halfway through the adventure.

Ahem.

THE NERD AND HER BFF PARASAIL

I found myself thinking about Pakistan and the Caribbean all day today, which probably means that I'm desperately overdue for a vacation. I was in Pakistan with the family back in January and I last sailed the high seas of the Caribbean last winter with the best friend. Many of you are familiar with THE hair-raising moment of the Pakistani vacation. Read about it here.

Well, my last Ultimate Caribbean Cruise (that's what the itinerary--I will NEVER learn how to spell this word, ever--was called) had it's very own hair-raising moment. Coincidentally enough, this nightmarishly frightening experience unfolded high up in the atmosphere as well. Now, before I delve into this knee-trembler, I would like to state for the record that I do not suffer from acrophobia (interestingly enough, my father does). I just doesn't like the thought of crashing from tall heights. Thanks.

The bff and I had originally wanted to kayak on Royal Caribbean's private peninsula in Haiti called Labadee but when that excursion was scrapped due to the absurdly small number of people who'd signed up for it, we decided to go parasailing, instead (you have to understand that this particular cruise was teeming with older people. Remind me to tell you about the sleazy geriatric who dragged me to the dance floor in the ship's lame club and proceeded to shake his pelvic region in a manner not befitting anyone, let alone someone old enough to be my grandfather. The bff was useless during what I now recognize was the second hair-raising moment of the cruise. She just stood back and giggled) who called it a night by 8PM and had neither the youth nor the vigor to kayak.

So, we were a little jittery about the parasailing but excited nonetheless. That is until our dinner tablemates--three sweet couples from a retirement village in Florida, who were a sitcom waiting to happen--told us a tale, which they'd heard from a waiter, about two girls who were parasailing when the rope securing them to the speed boat snapped. They ended up drifting out aimlessly over the Caribbean until they fell into the water, at which time they were rescued.

By the time the bff and I found ourselves on a speedboat taking us out into the sea with three much older couples and two Royal Caribbean employees, who I hoped to God were Ph-freakin'-Ds in parasailing, my heart was in my throat. Hell, I was chewing on the damned organ and it DID NOT TASTE GOOD. Meanwhile, these geriatric couples (in all fairness, one couple was a pair of newlyweds, so they weren't THAT old but most certainly older than us) were kicking back and enjoying themselves as if the thought of thrashing around 400 feet above the sea was of no concern to them at all. It was decided that since the bff and I were scared shitless, we would go last. The older folks tried to calm us down but we just looked on grimly as one couple after another sailed and landed, throwing thumbs ups and high fives on their return.

When our turn finally came, Roselle was silent with terror. I, on the other hand, in typical Sabila fashion, jabbered on and on. I had questions about everything. I was damned near asking the parasailing experts their bloodtypes when one of them said, "Just do it. You'll see, you'll have fun." The bff and I strapped ourselves into the double harness and I found some comfort in the fact that we were taking this risk together. There was no one else with whom I'd rather drift out over the perilously dark and incomprehensibly deep waters of the Caribbean potentially risking our young lives. We followed instructions and, pretty soon, the rope connecting us to the boat (our freakin' lifeline) unwinded as we were lifted skyward by the wind.

The following conversation ensued between me and my bff:

Nerd: EEEEEFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
BFF: AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH
Nerd: FFFFFFFFFFIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNN
BFF: AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH
Nerd: MOTTHEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRR
BFF: AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH
Nerd: AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH
BFF: OOOHHH MYYY GODDDDDDD

An unsettling silence broken only by the unsettling sounds of the parasail canopy whipping unsettlingly loudly settled but for a moment between us.

Nerd: WHY ARE WE GOING HIGHER? FUCK, THE BLOODY ROPE BETTER NOT SNAAAAAAPPPPP!
BFF: HOLY CRAP, HOLY CRAP, HOLY CRAP!!!!!
Nerd: AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
BFF: AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!
Nerd: FUCKIN' HELL SHIT DAMNATION! I DON'T WANT TO BE LIKE THOSE GIRLS!
BFF: SABILAAAAAAAAAA! WHAT IF WE DRIFT OUT TO THE OCEAAAAAAAN!!!!!
Nerd: AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! GODDDDDDDD!!!!!! WHY DO WE KEEP GOING HIGHEEEEERRRR!!!!!
BFF: I HOPE THERE ISN'T AHHHHHHHHH PROBLEM!
Nerd: OH NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Utterly exhausted, another brief but overwrought silence alighted between us.

BFF: Look Sabila! Look at the beach! Wow. We're REALLY high up here aren't we? It's beautiful.
Nerd: Look at how small our boat looks from up here! I had no idea we would be so high. The water's so blue and the air--

The boat turned a sharp left, whipping us along like rag dolls.

Nerd: FUUUCCCCCKKKKKK. WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!!!!!!
BFF: oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.
Nerd: IS OUR ROPE STILL ATTACHED TO THE BOAT! I'M NOT A STRONG SWIMMER. I DON'T WANT TO DROWWWWN.
BFF: BITCH, I CAN'T SWIM! SHUT THE EFF UP! YOU'RE SCARING ME!!!!
Nerd: I HATE YOU! THIS WAS YOUR IDEA! AND NOW WE'RE GOING TO DIEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!
BFF: I CAN FLOAT. I KNOW HOW TO FLOOOOAAAAAT.
Nerd: I HATE THIS SHIT! IS IT EFFIN' OVER YETTTTT? AAAAAAAHHHHHH.

We started pulling in and as my heart settled back where it belongs in my thoracic cavity, I turned to the bff.
"Wow, that was really amazing," I told her.
My bff smiled warmly at me and I was glad that I'd shared this experience with her. "I want to do that again!" she exclaimed.

"It was no thang," I shrugged, high fiving one of the geriatrics, once we were back on the boat.

17-YEAR-OLDS STAND OUR NERD UP: Our Nation's Enlightened Yet Eff'd Up Youth

So, remember those 17-year-olds to whom my mom pimped me off ?

Well, the boys and I were supposed to have a sushi lunch yesterday but they called me at 1:00PM--which was when we were supposed to meet--to tell me that they had just woken up and could probably make it by 2:00PM--which I couldn't do.

Sure, they stood me up but, just for the record, they totally want to hang out with me. They came over on Monday night, trying to convince me to play pool with them until I finally had to say, "You do realize I'm 27, right?" They hadn't. And then yesterday, after standing me up, they were like, "C'mon. Let's hang out tonight," to which I responded, "Er, no," to which they wondered if I'd hang out with them over the weekend, which only inspired another "Er, no." I mean, they're good kids and all but the day I start hanging out with 17-year-olds, I'm definitely expecting my loved ones to stage an intervention for me.

All that being said, your Nerd might be pretty cool after all--the youth of the nation definitely think so.

But then again, the nation's youth are pretty effed up:

HEAT WAVE AND ALL, AUGUST IS GLORIOUS

So, as many of you know, a dangerous, blistering heat has blanketed the eastern half of the nation. Yesterday was bad but today is IMPOSSIBLE. The temperature is expected to reach 100 degrees F, while the heat index will be as high as 115 degrees in areas. Oppressive and ugly, this heat wave is a tyrant. It was overwhelming on my way in and by the time I finally reached my office, I felt like I'd been stripped of my energy. Of course, now my office is freezing and I've had to throw on a sweater.

What upsets me is seeing people who aren't dressed weather appropriately. There's this one woman at work who wears woolen pantsuits with long sleeved button-down shirts in the dead of summer, which I just don't understand. Even when she wears skirst, she insists on wearing skirts made of wool with pantyhose. Looking at her makes me uncomfortable.

To each his (or her) own, I suppose (but I still don't get it). Who am I to judge, eh?

Anyway, August has been good so far, in spite of the heat wave. My right knee, which had a geriatric moment that lingered over most of July, is healed and I ran for the first time in weeks yesterday. I'm dressed weather appropriately, which makes me very happy. My friend just text messaged me from the doctor's office, informing me that a kid in the waiting room, who doesn't look to be more than six-years-old is reading Hemingway's The Snows of Kilimanjaro. This last piece of news makes me ecstatically giddy. I love lit. prodigies. They are, most certainly, my favorite kind.

Happy heatwave everybody!

CHALLENGE: More Adventure, Less Routine (update)

Yah, it was pretty much all routine today.
Ahem.
What do you want? Being spontaneous requires a lot of thought!

August

It's about time.

CHALLENGE: More Adventure, Less Routine

I need to be more adventurous. I have to learn to stop thinking, rethinking, analyzing and dissecting situations. I want to skydive and rockclimb and wander off the beaten path once in a while.

Seriously.

I'm such a creature of habit. I take solace in routine and, frankly, I'm starting to get bored. I've weighed out actions and reactions for long enough. It's time for me to freaking' lighten up.

So, be it hang gliding or skipping a workout session with my trainer, I'm going to try new things and shake the old things up a little (try being the operative word here).

Suggestions are welcome.

...AND MY MOM MANAGES TO PIMP ME OFF TO TWO 17-YEAR-OLDS. SIGHS AND JOY ALL AROUND. THANKS.

It's not really a big deal. I practically raised one of the two boys and both he and his buddy are sweet and respectful kids. However, the way my mother just offered me up for lunch with them was hilarious. "You should call Sabila baji during the week and she'll treat you to lunch in the city." Baji is older sister in Urdu.

I really love my mom (I am not at all trying to be sarcastic here. I swear. She's just such a great, unique and mighty personality. I truly love her).

CABBY: The New Match.com (yikes!)?: My mom's reaction

After we're done laughing at my yellow-cab-matchmaking story, my mom points out, "You know, Sabila, most of these boys who drive cabs are doctors and PhDs. They've probably just moved here and are waiting to take their exams. They're good boys. What did this cabbie look like?? Did he sound like he came from a decent family?"

Ahem.

CABBY: The New Match.com (yikes!)?

Today started with brunch with a couple of friends at Sarabeth's on Central Park South and was followed by a trip to the MET where we checked out two special exhibitions. The first exhibit was the lushly bizarre AngloMania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion. The exhibit examines the simultaneous celebration of and rebellion against noble pageantry in British fashion of the last 30 years. We then saw the exhibit of works by a lesser known artist from revolutionary France, Girodet. It was all breathtaking and enjoyable stuff.

After the MET, I hung around the upper east side long enough to work on a nice tan. When plans to meet a friend up there eventually fell through, I ended up hailing a cab to take me back to 34th Street (nice tan and all, I felt like I was on the verge of heat exhaustion).

So, my cabby was on the phone when I got into the cab. I noticed that he was wearing a Muslim prayer cap; not thinking much of it, I quietly took in the cool air. Eventually, he put down his cell phone and I, my core temperature cooled down considerably, tried to strike up polite conversation with the guy (this proved to be a very bad idea, as you will see), who turned out to be very well spoken:

Me: Are you Pakistani?
Cabby: No. I'm Bangladeshi. Are you Pakistani?
Me: Yep. Parents are from Pakistan.
Cabby: I was wondering if you were from the subcontinent.
Me: I am (I was pretty much done with the conversation at this point).
Cabby (sounding apologetic because I suspect he thought I'd overheard him talking to his friend about me): That was my friend I was on the phone with a second ago. He's Pakistan but grew up in London. I was telling him about you, that a passenger who looks just like Salma Hayek just got into my cab!

(Okay, I totally cracked up at this point because 1) I don't think I look a spit like Salma Hayek. I'd be lucky if my right nostril looked like Salma Hayek's and 2) I get that "has anyone ever told you you look like Salma Hayek?" question A LOT, leaving me, my best friends, and my brothers scratching our heads in confusion).

Me: hahahahah!
Cabby: He's a singer!
Me: Hahahahahah!
Cabby: He's Pakistani!
Me: hahahaha!
Cabby: He lives in London!
Me (still giggling to myself): giggle
Cabby: you should talk to him!
Me: Oh, um, what...
Cabby (on the phone): Hey, remember that girl I told you about? Yes! She's still here and, guess what? She's Pakistani! Here, talk to her!
Me: Er, actually...(Cabby turns around and shoves Razor Moto in my hand)
Guy on Phone: Hi.
Me: Oh. Hi.
Guy on Phone: This is Saif.
Me: Oh. Hey.
Guy on Phone: What's your name?
Me: Oh. Sabila.
Guy on Phone: So you live in New York City.
Me: Oh. Um. I live around...in Jersey.
Guy on Phone: So, I'm a singer. I live in London.
Me: Oh. Wow. Great.
Guy on Phone: You should come to my concert. I'm having a concert tomorrow.
Me: Oh. Thanks. But I'm not in the UK. Ha.
Guy on Phone: No, the concert is in Queens. I'm in New York at the moment. You should try to make it tomorrow.
Me: Haha. Oh. Um. I don't think that's going to happen.
Guy on Phone: It's tomorrow. In Queens.
Me: Oh. No. Seriously. I can't make it.
Guy on Phone: Well, I'm in New York until the 6th. We should meet up.
Me: Um. Yah. That would be totally bizarre. It's not going to happen.
Guy on Phone: Oh.
Me: Yah. Sorry.
Guy on Phone: Well, it was nice talking to you...
Me: Great. Ahem. Bye.
Cabby (talking on the phone): Yes, she's great. She's beautiful on the inside and out (please, he was laying it on a bit thick. whatever).
Still on his cell phone, Cabby turns around to look at me as he stops at a red light.
Cabby: Please try to come to the concert tomorrow night. My friend would really like to meet you.
Me: Um, I have plans.
Cabby: Even if you can drop by for a little while. Tell you what! You can bring your parents! It will be nice if my friends can meet you and your family! He's a very great guy. He's handsome.
Cabby pulls up to my stop.
Cabby: Listen, I'll give you my cell phone number. You think about it. And then, please, do us the honor of coming with your family.
Me: Yah, how much is the fare?
Cabby: Here's my number. The concert is in Queens. If you need a ride, just call me and I'll send a car to pick you and your family up. It would be our honor.
Me (taking Cabby's number): Um. Great. Thanks.
Cabby: It'll be a lot of fun.
Me: Sure. How much do I owe you (reading the meter, I see that it's $8.20). I owe you $10.
Cabby: No, no. I can't take your money.
Me (digging through my ginormous bag for my wallet): No, you must.
Cabby: Please. It is unacceptable to take money from a friend. Think of this as a ride from a friend (he says this with his hand on his heart, which makes me feel bad about the fact that I will not, under any circumstances, be attending cabby's friend's shady Queens concert).
Me (unable to find my wallet in my big ass bag and not being able to stay in weirdo matchmaking cab for another second): Okay. Thanks! Khudha Hafiz!
Cabby: Khudha Hafiz!

Mommy: The New Match.com?

*Flowers rock. Clearly. Sigh.

So, I'm waiting for a friend at 71 Irving earlier, when I pick up a random section from today's Times that someone's left by my table. It's the Styles section. The front page article that catches my eye: "Spouse Courtesy of Mom the Matchmaker." Check this:

"For some people parental intervention may seem like an arranged marriage. But for today's superattentive parents, involved in almost every aspect of their children's lives, dating is merely one more sphere of influence. Surprisingly, many adult children don't seem to mind."

Americans are coming around to the meddling ways of the 'rents. One woman interviewed says of her mother that, in spite of their difference of opinion on what is handsome, "I kind of trusted her to find me a nice guy. I stopped asking her about looks."

What bothers me about my parents' method of pimping me out (I hate calling it "pimping," but whatever...that's what it essentially is, no?) is that matches are made parent to parent. The kids are just randomly thrown together, without the slightest bit of consideration going into whether or not they're at all compatible. They work on the philosophy of "If we get along, our kids will DEFINITELY get along!" It's almost like they're expanding their social networks at our expense, which isn't cool.

All that being said, I am seriously considering letting my mom put me back on the market, just so I can have some juicily hilarious material for your reading pleasure (I'm so selfless! Gosh! And isn't "juicily" a tremendous adverb?! It's almost as good as "sexily" (shout out to Craig of Puntabulous fame. That's so our FAVORITE adverb, isn't it Craig?)).

ps: I pity the fool who shares the aforementioned Times article with my mom.

pps: While I am slightly nauseated by flowers (and every other piece of sentimental, heart-shaped garbage) on Valentine's Day, I do accept flowers on my birthday, most Tuesdays, Flag Day, Yom Kippur, the Great American Smoke Out (Day), Eid, as well as on other people's birthdays. Thanks.

THE NERD'S MOTHER "CONVERSES" AND MAKES A SAD PREDICTION ABOUT THE NERD'S IMPENDING SPINSTERHOOD: Alas

Conversation (noun): The informal EXCHANGE of ideas by spoken word

Lately, "conversations" with my mom have been abundant in ideas and spoken word but grossly deficient in the exchange part of the definition. This leads me to suspect that what we may actually have taking place here is not so much a conversation but instead a method of systematic persuasion (ie brainwashing), by which my mother thinks I will eventually succumb to the deluge of information she's pumping my way and defer to my parents' knowledge of the relationship scene, thereby allowing them to marry me off to some random dude in some remote region of the planet.

Our "conversation" from last night follows:

Me:Hey amma. What's going on?
Mom: Oh! X's daughter is married!
Me: I thought they were vacationing in Pakistan.
Mom: Yes, they were. They found the boy there for her. Part of the reason X went was to find a son-in-law.
Me: Really--
Mom: I spoke to her earlier today. I think she was right in taking her search for a good, honest boy from a decent, respectable family to Pakistan. She told me that there simply aren't any good boys left here.
Me: Oh--
Mom: Y did the same thing. Her daughter was born here. She's just as American as everyone else. Yet she trusted her parents enough to find her a husband in Pakistan. And now, she's probably going to LIVE there. What a good, obedient girl.
Me: But, it won't be--
Mom: Z's daughters grew up here but when it came time to finding husbands, they let their parents do the searching because you know what parents have that kids don't?
Me: I--
Mom: Experience. Parents have lived longer, parents have seen all different sorts of people and parents know their children better than anyone else. Experience is a good judge of character.
Me: B--
Mom: Z's brother's daughter was the VALEDICTORIAN of her university's graduating class. She was smart. What happened to her? Her parents found her a nice young man who comes from a family of jewelers! He lives in India? So what? Now she's practically swimming in jewels. Be it in India or Africa or in outerspace, she's happy and she's SWIMMING in luxury. Smart, smart girl.
Me:

Eventually, I gave up trying to interrupt her and just nodded as she ran down a list of "smart, obedient girls." I pretended to watch television.

Finally, during a commercial break, when my mom had slowed down her spamming, I said, "I don't trust men. One minute they're with you and the next minute they're running the other way and you're left wondering what happened during the interim. Look at Christie Brinkley and she's a SUPER MODEL!" I laughed. "Good riddance to all that garbage. I'd rather be alone."

It was my mother's turn to pretend to be engrossed by the television.

"Wait," I continued, perking up with a bright idea, "Why shouldn't I have kids? I'll adopt a bevy of children."

My mom supplied the following nugget: "And you know what will happen? Those kids will probably end up MURDERING you."

"Eh?" I asked.

"One, they're not your blood so they wouldn't have any loyalty to you and two, most of the adopted kids they show on Dateline are on the show in the first place, for murdering their parents.

She says such bewildering and ridiculous things when she's angry.

I was reduced to a baffled silence as she returned to watching television.

I FEEL LIKE...

...I'm going to hurl.
Just thought I'd share that nugget of information with you.
Ain't I eloquent?

TAKE THAT YOU SPAMMING BIATCHES

I was hit with nearly 200 spammers-posing-as-commenters over the weekend. I have now activated the word verification feature on my blog, so that I can weed these automaton bastards out.

Take that jerks (and by "jerks," I actually mean "assholes," but I don't want to sound like a pottymouth or anything).

PAKISTANDARDS: Topics of Impolite Conversations or Operation: Find Grandma's Bra

There are certain things, like female undergarments, that are never spoken of or even alluded to in polite Pakistani society. Like menstruation, sex, and dating, dainty underthings are topics of hushed and giggled conversations, which usually take place amongst members of the same gender and age. Not once during my vacations to the motherland have I ever seen ads for tampons, sanitary napkins or bras.

Naturally my mother is demure when it comes to such taboo subjects. I, on the other hand, am not. Imagine her shock and outrage when, as a teenager, I’d often preface my usual declarations directed to my brothers of “I don’t care so much about the smooth move you just made in John Madden’s Football, so no, I wouldn’t be interested in watching an instant replay,” with, “Dudes, I have monster cramps right now. It feels like my uterus is doubling as someone’s stress ball.” Even mentioning that I need to purchase a new sports bra in front of them makes my mom’s eyes widen in disapproval, her cheeks flush with embarrassment. I’ve explained to her a million times that things such as periods and breasts are biological inevitabilities that one shouldn’t have to skirt around (no pun intended). She just harrumphs her disappointment in me.

Earlier today, my mother joined me in the kitchen as I prepared a salad. She had just returned from Sears where, she told me, they were having a sale on (dear goodness, she would just melt with shame if she ever discovered that I was blogging about this!) Playtex bras (I like to call them “Mommy bras”). She ignored me when I wrinkled my nose.

She told me that while trying on bras, she overheard two women in the fitting room next to hers. Both were Pakistani and sounded to be a (very old) mother (or mother-in-law) and her daughter (or daughter-in-law). Now, the younger woman was trying to convince her mother to try on the bra that she’d picked out for her. “The poor woman had probably never seen a bra in her life,” my mother said, holding her hand to her cheek, embarrassed on behalf of the older female. In any case, the daughter was speaking very loudly and in Punjabi, which makes the entire scenario all the more hilarious.

So, the daughter says “Amma ye burdha chunga hai. E pao na!” (Mom, this is very good/nice [referring to the bra]. Try it on!).

What sounds to be a struggle ensues followed by the old woman sadly declaring “May ne payna, burra thung hai.” (I don’t want to wear this. It’s very tight.)

“Es vastay ye thung hai, ye cotton ka hey. Dusra jersey kah hain. Who burdha chunga hain.” (This one’s tight because it’s made of cotton. The other [bra’s] made of jersey. That one’s very nice/good.)

"The way that woman was talking, one would think that her mother was still in Pakistan!" my mother exclaimed.

My mom exited the fitting room to discover that the search for this bra made of jersey had become a family event. Not only was the younger woman searching through the sales racks, but she had enlisted her husband as well as her little boy to participate in what seemed to be “Operation: Find Grandma's Bra.” The old woman looked mortified. Even as she tried to contain her giggles, my mom was mortified on the woman's behalf as she stood before me in the kitchen.

“And then,” she continued, “the little boy yells out to his dad: ‘Abu jee, vaykho, e bra burdha chunga hai! (Dad, look at this bra, it’s very nice!),' before he tosses it in the pile his mother's carrying."

We were both cracking up at this point. "Amma, I swear to you that my future husband and children won't have anything to do with your undergarments," I declared as solemnly as I could.

"People have no shame these days," she sighed. And then she laughed some more.

On Hating July

Okay, I promise there will be no more July hating.

JULY

How many more days until August?

ADDICTED TO LOVE?

According to a love addiction expert on the Today Show this morning, men fall in love faster than women do and 3 out of 4 jilted lovers who end up taking their own lives are men.
Somehow, I'm not buying that.

Dear Persons Whose Ears I've Held Hostage in the Past: An Open Letter

Dear Persons Whose Ears I've Held Hostage by going on and on about topics of conversation that you might not necessarily be interested in: I'm sorry. I'd like to think that I'm a superior conversationalist (possibly among the top 100 conversationalist in the world even); if this isn't the case, and you've previously found yourself cornered in a room as I've gone on and on and on about my love for American literature, my concerns about animal welfare, my anger at this adminstration and war, my love for baseball, etc., I blush.

Really. I do.

I bring this up because recently, a dear friend mentioned that I love talking about myself and my brother commented that I talk a lot: "Sabila, you don't even pause to take a breath sometimes. It's amazing, really." And, of course, there was that one time over brunch that my mother said, "I REALLY hope you don't talk this much in front of boys" (trust me, I didn't take that one too seriously). Oh, and that time when my family left me, one by one, to watch Two Brothers on my own because I couldn't stop my tearfully bitter diatribe about the cruelty humans inflict on animals.

It should be noted, however, that while I apologize for the pain, boredom, frustration, etc. I may have caused, I'm not going to change anytime soon. So love it or leave it…in which case, I suppose, I’m not apologetic at all!

…okay, I’m officially retracting my apology and changing the title of this post to "Dear Persons Whose Ears I've Held Hostage in the Past: Whatever; it's painfully obvious to me that you have no soul if my conversations leave you uninspired, bored and/or frustrated. And it's not that I'm full of myself or enjoy talking about myself or anything. I simply enjoy making you laugh at my own expense. That's bloody selfless if you ask me. And I'm pretty goddamn entertaining! I offer everyone plenty of opportunity to jump in and tell me a thing or two and I listen (hello! I was nominated a Peer Helper in high school because other students felt like they could talk to me about their teen-angsty problems) but if you don't have anything intersting going on in your life, that's your problem. Clearly, I rock (ahem)."

I LAUGH AT BOYS: A Haiku

Dear boys, sorry you
can't wear skirts in bitter heat.
Must suck to be you.

OUR NERD'S MOTHER PIMPS HER OUT (AGAIN)

It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you’re a Pakistani male who works at the mall and helps the Nerd and her mom, you will be rewarded with the Nerd’s business card, whether or not she wants you to have said business card. Sure our Nerd’s mother pimps her out with only the best of intentions in mind; the pimping out is always unintentional, a byproduct of our Nerd’s mother’s genuine interest in people, an interest that has been passed down to the Nerd herself.

Let’s take the example of what happened earlier today.

While at Macy’s, our Nerd is purchasing a lovely blush and two lip glosses—who knew lemon and papaya would look so good on her?!—when her mother rushes over, insisting that she MUST take a look at a pair of shoes that she’s found in her size. The Nerd, who loves shoes just as much as the next girl, purchases her makeup, bracing for the beauty clerk to ask her for her number (to be explained in a future post), sighing with relief when she doesn’t, and follows her mother to the shoe department. The shoe salesman, it turns out is a fellow from the motherland. The Nerd’s mother has the gift of charm. With her eyes aglow and a dazzling smile that belies her years, she reels the boy into conversation, discovering that he hails from the Pakistani city of Lahore, has an older brother, has been in the states for just over 4 months and will be starting college in September. His father has some sort of construction business, a home in the same Islamabad sector as my uncle—they MUST be from a decent family if they live so close to your uncle, amma declares, when he heads to the back to look for a pair of shoes our Nerd’s spotted—and he misses home terribly.

The Nerd engages in funniness with the boy, who’s clearly 19.5 years old, because she engages in funniness with everyone; however, she’s much too preoccupied with shoes to take much of an interest in this very decent boy about whom her mom is already concerned. “He’s so young and on his own! Give him a year and he’ll be corrupted!” she tells our Nerd sadly. “What a nice, decent Pakistani boy, tsk tsk tsk. He’ll fall into the clutches of a very fast girl. You mark my words.”

Meanwhile, the Nerd debates whether she wants these terribly cute wedges she’s found in black or tan. “Black or tan? Black or tan? Black or tan?” she struggles.

She goes with the tan. With a boxed pair of shoes under each arm, she marches to the cash register where the nice, decent, Pakistani boy will ring her up. And then her mother goes and pimps her out:

“Sabila, why don’t you give this nice boy your card.” It’s clear that she’s telling more than she’s asking.

The Nerd smiles and pretends to search through her busy wallet.

“Strange,” she says, throwing up a hand in mock confusion, “but I can’t seem to find my business cards. Oh well—“

“Oh, I see them right over here!” amma announces, reaching over to pull out a vertical Penguin card. “Here beyta,” she hands him a card. “If you need anything at all, give us a call. I know how difficult it is to move to a new country.”

The boy thanks them and then rings up the shoes. He puts the boxes in a bag, staples the receipt to the bag, carries the bag around the register to hand them to the Nerd and her mother (as is Macy’s policy); clearly the nice, decent Pakistani boy is also a 19.5-year-old gentleman.

The Nerd doesn't bother giving her mother the silent treatment. There are some battles that one can never win. As they walk out of Macy's, our Nerd's mother is suddenly struck with a thought:“Oh no Sabila! Do you think he’s going to start calling you at night and asking you out like that other boy did?!”

You see, dear reader, this has happened to our Nerd once before. It was two years ago; the store was CVS, located in—you guessed it—the mall. A young, Pakistani employee (he was seriously 18 years old) started talking with the Nerd and her mother. When he rung them up, he insisted that they use his employee discount card, which he had to run to the back of the store to get, and chatted with the mother and daughter in Urdu even as his manager looked on, clearly displeased. The boy was from Islamabad, had moved to the states a year ago; he lived with his brother, was paying his way through college by working two jobs. All of this gave the Nerd’s mother reason for great concern. She thought that the boy needed a surrogate family and that the Nerd’s family could be just that. So, once again, she insisted our Nerd give him her card and plucked it right out of her wallet as the Nerd made a great show of looking for it. And then she made the Nerd write her cell phone number on the back of the card, “Just in case you ever need anything.”

The boy called the Nerd a week later, insisting that they date. She explained that she was six years older than him and that, contrary to what he might believe, she had not given him her card because she was interested in him. She was, in fact, old enough to be CVS clerk’s much older sister. He called three more times before he decided to mack no more. Our Nerd boycotted CVS until her mother reassured her that she hadn’t seen the boy in quite some time. The two of them believe that the young gigolo has moved onto bigger and better shores of part-time mall employment.

“He won’t call you,” the Nerd’s mother continues as the Nerd considers her mom's question. “He comes from a decent family like ours. Decent boys never take advantage of situations like this.” And then, "What a shame. What a nice, decent Pakistani boy. Give him a year on his own and he'll be corrupted."

The Nerd has decided to leave her business cards at home when she goes shopping with her mother.

Finis.

"To World War Two"

I nearly had an anxiety attack watching coverage of the Israeli-Hezbollah war on Anderson Cooper 360 earlier.
If we're lucky, the polar ice caps will melt very soon and rescue us with watery graves.
It's more likely, however, that things are going to suck for a very long time.

I know it's long, but please read:

"To World War Two"
by Kenneth Koch

Early on you introduced me to young women in bars
You were large, and with a large hand
You presented them in different cities,
Made me in San Luis Obispo, drunk
On French seventy-fives, in Los Angeles, on pousse-cafe's.
It was a time of general confusion
Of being a body hurled at a wall.
I didn't do much fighting. I sat, rather I stood, in a foxhole.
I stood while the typhoon splashed us into morning.
It felt unusual
Even if for a good cause
To be part of a destructive force
With my rifle in my hands
And in my head
My serial number
The entire object of my existence
To eliminate Japanese soldiers
By killing them
With a rifle or with a grenade
And then, many years after that,
I could write poetry
Fall in love
And have a daughter
And think about these things
From a great distance
If I survived
I was "paying my debt
To society" a paid
Killer. It wasn't
like anything I'd done
Before, on the paved
Streets of Cincinatti
Or on the ballroom floor
At Mr. Vathe's dancing class
What would Anne Marie Goldsmith
Have thought of me
If instead of asking her to dance
I had put my BAR to my shoulder
And shot her in the face
I thought about her in my foxhole--
One, in a foxhole near me, has his throat cut during the night
We take precautions but it is night and it is you.
The typhoon continues and so do you.
"I can't be killed--because of my poetry. I have to live on in order to write
it."
I thought--even crazier thought, or just as crazy--
"If I'm killed while thinking of lines, it will be too corny
When it's reported" (I imagined it would be reported!)
So I kept thinking of lines of poetry. One that came to me on the beach on
Leyte
Was "The surf comes in like masochistic lions."
I loved this terrible line. It was keeping me alive. My Uncle Leo wrote to me,
"You won't believe this, but some day you may wish
You were footloose and twenty on Leyte again." I have never wanted
To be on Leyte again,
With you, whispering into my ear,
"Go on and win me! Tomorrow you might not be alive,
So do it today!" How could anyone win you?
You were too much for me, though I
Was older than you were and in camouflage. But for you
Who threw everything together, and had all the systems
Working for you all the time, this was trivial. If you could use me
You'd use me, and then forget. How else
Did I think you'd behave?
I'm glad you ended. I'm glad I didn't die. Or lose my mind.
As machines make ice
We made dead enemy soldiers, in
Dark jungle alleys, with weapons in our hands
That produced fire and kept going straight through
I was carrying one,
I who had gone about for years as a child
Praying God don't let there be another war
Or if there is, don't let me be in it. Well, I was in you.

All you cared about was existing and being won.
You died of a bomb blast in Nagasaki, and there were parades.

EFF YOU JULY

It's official.
July 2006 and I are through.
Someone effin' bring in August already.

THE BOYFRIEND: "This Holding Feeling Does Not Accumulate..."

...so says Kameo, the genius Japanese manufacturer behind the Boyfriend Arm Pillow.

Check out the product link:
Boyfriend Arm Pillow

Unless you can read Japanese, translate the page with the help of Babelfish:
Babel Fish

Clearly, a single girl would rather hold onto the man-boob of a severed torso-pillow than sleep alone.

Clearly.

On behalf of single girls everywhere, thank you for the Boyfriend Arm Pillow, Kameo! It's so dreamy!

Dear July: An Open Letter (or an open threat??!)

Dear July:
You've given me nothing but suckage this year. You and I are gonna have some serious words if you don't shape up soon.
Why can't you be more like June? You could learn a thing or two about how spectacular months work from June.
Well, you have 21 more days...no, actually, that's 20 days (in a few minutes anyway), to prove that you can be more than a terribly disastrous and poor excuse of a month (A SUMMER MONTH AT THAT!).
If you fail me again, I shall remove you from the will, publicly disown you, and leave everything to June.
I hope we have an understanding.

Anxiously waiting for you to prove yourself,
SabilaK

PERSONS UNDER THE AGE OF 10 LOVE (AND UNDERSTAND) THE NERD

*Hey buddy, you better believe I'm no dummy.

The nerd gets on remarkably well with children, toddlers, infants, newborns and fetuses at various stages of development. She, however, refuses to baby young people simply because popular opinion dictates that anyone under the age of 10 is, in fact, an idiot, responding only to unintelligible baby talk and constant smiling of the face-cracking variety. Frankly, baby talk and all of that cooing, peek-a-boo garbage makes her very uncomfortable so she refuses to partake in such silliness.

Instead, the nerd talks to persons under ten years of age (this age range includes the above-mentioned children, toddler, infants, newborns and fetuses at various states of development) just as she would talk to any adult. For instance, check how she deals with a random aunty’s strange(r) toddler granddaughter during an encounter at the mall last year: Baby

Our nerd engaged the toddler in talks ranging from the virtue of celebrity chefs—a la Rachel Ray—to the housewares faux pas, committed by countless Pakistani families, of not having matching dinnerware and silverware, to the pressures to get hitched faced by South Asian women of a certain age. Sure, the toddler didn’t have much of an opinion on the matters discussed, but she seemed FASCINATED by what the nerd had to say and the nerd could almost see her little brain cells dancing a happy thanks-for-not-talking-to-me-like-I’m-retarded dance.

Some would say that toddlers are too young to participate in grown up discussions. This is not true. The nerd’s own cousin’s daughter, soon to be 5 years old, used to be able to walk her through her picture books, talk to her about the weather, her mother’s bad mood, her baby sister’s cold or her opinions about the educational system at the age of 2.5 years. Was she just smarter than other toddlers? Well, yah, because she IS related to the nerd, after all. We must point out, however, that this particular toddler was not coddled like most children are; instead, her parents are also proponents of the socializing method practiced by our nerd.

So, reader, the next time you come across a person under 10 years of age, please restrain yourself from becoming a dancing monkey. Go ahead: ask the little person what she thinks about the Bush administration’s foreign policy, the radical emergence of American Modernism as a cultural and literary movement following World War I, or the appeal of reality television programs. Chances are, that while she might be too young to respond, she’s never too young to listen and to comprehend.

Or maybe she is too young to comprehend. In which case she’ll probably just spit on you and, utterly disgusted, you’ll return the bundle of joy to her mother and be glad that you’re not breeding just yet.

POETS IN SPACE: An Open Letter to NASA

Dear NASA:

Since the inception of the space program, you've sent a variety of scientifically-inclined persons to outer space: aeronautical engineers, chemists, biologists, biochemists, aerospace engineers, ecologists, electronic engineers, geologists, meteorologists, physicians, computer engineers, physicists, geneticists and many, many more. I say ENOUGH is ENOUGH (and simultaneously shake my fist at you)! Have these scientifically-inclined persons REALLY taught us anything new from their trips to outer space (for the sake of argument, the answer we're looking for here is NO)?

NO.

I suspect a large segment of the population agrees that it is high time we send up someone who can give us a fresh perspective on and, perhaps, capture the true essence of outer space: naturally, said someone should probably be a poet (God knows, those shuttles could use some good ol' English Department drama out there in space. Gosh, who DOESN'T miss the English Department?). Anyway, I say we suit up either Maya Angelou or Ted Kooser for the job. Had he still been alive, Walt Whitman would have naturally been our first choice (read "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer") but Angelou or Kooser will have to do--the former because she's so well known and the latter because he probably has a lot of time on his hands now that his term as US Poet Laureate is up.

I look forward to hearing back from you and discussing in further details the possibility of sending poets on future space missions.

Thanks and best,
SabilaK

ps: Our "Poets in Space" program can pave the way for other artsy-fartsy types to travel to space. The possibilities are endless:

Novelists in Space
Muralists in Space
Interpretive Dancers in Space
Screenwriters in Space
Rappers in Space
Mimes in Space
Yanni in Space
Comedians in Space
Rhythmic Gymnasts in Space
Synchronized Swimmers and/or Skaters in Space
Canine Musical Freestylists in Space
etc, etc, etc

JADE: Chapter 6

You guys have waited long enough for the next installment of Jade: The Mystical Power, the zombie thriller I wrote when I was 10. Hopefully, the gruesome blood-spillage and zombie action will start now (as I mentioned before, I'm reading this story as I post it up, chapter by chapter, so I have no idea where it's going).

CHAPTER 6

Zach woke up at 6:30 the next morning. Todd had already left (what? no post-coital cuddling?!).

Zach stood up and walked into the shower. As the warm water sprayed around him, he thought about what had happened the other night (some strange voodoo crap, if you ask me). Right when Sean was about to finish communicating with the "spirit world" (I hate unnecessary quotations), the flashlight had gone out (duh. Tell us something we don't already know Zach). Sean later said he had put new batteries in the flashlight...and that draft of wind, it was a long one...

Later that night, the phone had rang when Zach was fast asleep. It was Sean. He said that when he returned to his room, the flashlight suddenly came on again (you know Zach was all like, "You woke me up to tell me THAT fool? I'm gonna destroy you!"). It was amazing, just amazing. Then the draft of wind had went past him, the same draft they'd felt on the third floor when the flashlight had gone out (stalker wind).

Feeling scared all of a sudden, Zach stepped out of the shower and got ready for school (I bet he didn't even wash behind the ears. Ew.).

***********************

Zach met Mike (great, here we go again) and Sean after third period.

"Wow, it's really windy today," said Mike. "Do you think that draft last night was from an open window or something?"

"I've been here the longest and the windows are never opened on the third floor," Sean said.

"And how come the flashlight went out?" Zach asked.

"And then started working again in my room?" Sean asked.

(How many Kettleburg University students does it take to figure out that they've opened the portal to HELL?)

"Why are you guys asking me, now I ain't THAT smart," Mike joked (jerk doesn't know when to stop. WE'RE TALKING THE PORTAL TO HELL...A portal, anyway).

"This ain't funny Mike. I'm serious," Sean said (I'm hoping he's gonna kick Mike's ass on the following page!).

"Sorry," Mike apologized.

"That's more like it," Sean said with a smile on his face. After that, Mike knew Sean was kidding (Dammit! Too bad.).

"Do you still hav the book?" Zach asked.

"No, I returned it about an hour ago," Sean answered (good going. How the hell are you geniuses going to close the portal now. Thanks for bringing upon the apocalypse guys. Your folks'll be proud).

"Did you read more of it before you returned it?" Zach asked.

"No way, it was too spooky, even for me," Sean said.

"You jerk," Zach said. "We could have found out more about the draft (Jeez. If only they knew how much more they have to worry about than the freakin' draft). We could have commuicated with the dead. It would have been fun, you know (wow, this is out of character for Zach)." Zach's blue eyes were looking directly into Sean's.

What had happened? One minute Zach was okay and the next he completely blew up at Sean. His voice was different too, rougher, wilder (AHEM).

"I'm sorry Sean. I guess I completely lost it and blew up on you, ha," Zach said, softly.

(Ah, no shit).

"No problem Zach, I know you're tired. All of us slept really late last night," Sean said.

"Well, I'll see you two later. I have to go to class, " Zach waved and walked away towards one of the large brown buildings.

"Wow, I don't think Zach has been feeling good the last couple of days," Mike said.

"I think so too, and all of us got pretty spooked out last night. Don't worry your head off Mike, he's going to feel better," Sean said.

"But it was like a complete mood swing. Hey, do you think my hair looks allr right," Mike suddenly asked (dipshit).

"Yeah, it looks fine to me," Sean said.

"Maybe I should look at it myself to be sure," and with that Mike pulled out his pocket mirror and a comb and started combing his hair while the two boys walked towards the building (I can't express to you, dear reader, how much I HATE Mike; I can't believe that 10-year-old Sabila was able to create such a contemptible character).

THE NERD

The above photo clearly demonstrates how much I rock. CLEARLY.

I LOVE...

...that life is full of the funnies and that as mortifyingly awful as things seem sometimes, I can always laugh about them.

I HATE...

...pain in the thoracic cavity. It effin' sucks.

I LOVE...

...ES for spending Saturday wandering the East Village with me and making me happy with iced coffee and a pay-by-the-pound macrobiotic meal that was so delicious it inspired me to profess my love for lotus root, announce my wish to marry a piece of wheat gluten and go into transports of delight for shittake mushrooms.



Clearly, it doesn't take very much to make me happy...ahem...

I LOVE...

...…my kick-ass personal trainer, who is an even better friend, shrink, and dramatic foil and who—after I woke him with a phone call at 9:30 this morning, blubbering about knee discomfort and pain in the thoracic cavity region—stumbled into the gym earlier than he is physically programmed to do so, sporting heavy-eyed bewilderment and bed head and muttering, “I swear, if it was anyone but you…,” but, nonetheless, prepared to heal me.

:)

THE MORNING AFTER: How Natural History Saves

I was nine or ten years old the last time I woke up with puffy eyes in the morning. It was a Sunday morning and my body ached with emotion. A pair of my cousins who’d been visiting from down south had left very suddenly the previous night after promising me that they were staying for another several days and would accompany my parents, brothers and me to the Museum of Natural History. There was buzz of the early departure among guests at the dinner party my parents were hosting that very same night but surely, these were vicious lies I was hearing.

So, I tried not to think about my cousins leaving on Saturday night until my mom, coming into my room, informed me that everything I’d been hearing was, in fact, the truth; instead of going to the Museum of Natural History with us on Sunday morning, they were hitting the road in a few hours.

I was livid and dejected, heartbroken and fuming. I locked myself in my room and cried until my eyes stung and my head throbbed painfully. How could my cousins back out of our plans? How dare they not tell me? Did they not love me as much as I loved them? Oh, the sorrow. I cried myself to a fitful sleep congested with nightmares.

The following morning, I stumbled out of bed, hung over on tears and sadness. In the mirror, I saw that the lids swelled over my eyes like dough. I looked unlike myself.

So, I washed my face with icy cold water. I showered and changed into my Sunday museum best. With my lips pursed into uncharacteristic and solemn silence, I accompanied my family to the Museum of Natural History, determined to have a lousy time.

But how could I have a lousy time ambling down the stretches of darkened hallway with softly lit dioramas of mammals and ancient man, ocean life and geographical locations on either side of me? My sadness faded away, a relic of a bygone time, as I stood amidst the larger-than-life wonders of reconstructed dinosaur fossils, a nearly 100-foot-long blue whale model suspended over the ocean life exhibit and startling images of the cosmos.

Whether or not my cousins had stayed a few days, the question of their loving me, even my furious tears and seemingly inescapable sadness no longer mattered; I was but a speck on the timeline of natural history and none of it mattered.

STUPID EFFIN' KNEE

Stupid effin' knee. I have no idea why it hurts. And today was leg workout day. Damnation.

I DON'T CARE FOR...Nail Salons: Why the Nerd Stops to Smile Even Before the Manicurist Pulls Out a File

I hate getting manicures and pedicures.

I can feel precious minutes that could be spent on more productive endeavors being clipped away and brushed aside like fingernails and toenails. The vapid women’s and celebrity gossip magazines that nail salons offer bore me until I’m squirming in my chair, eager to be free of base coats and buffer blocks, cuticle pushers and cutters, nail polish and fingerbaths. The most excruciating part of the entire ritual, however, comes after my nails have been perfectly filed and painted: drying the polish to a hard and long-lasting gloss. Yes, the drying process is even more agonizing than the pressure of having to choose one or two colors from the hundreds of polishes that salons offer as time-pressed manicurists look on impatiently. I never know how long to expose my finger- and toenails to the six minute drying cycle (fan-only followed by heat plus UV light followed by fan-only). So I end up sitting through four or five cycles, looking on embarrassedly as women who start the cycle after me breeze out before me.

It all leaves me extremely distraught.

EXHAUSTED, Part III

I could go for one of the following treatments right now (preferably the carrot & sesame body buff; sigh):

http://www.blissworld.com/spa/location/soho/spamenu/body/

EXHAUSTED, Part II

I'm bone-tired yet I can't fall asleep.
I don't even have the energy to write a haiku about insomnia.
Damn, that image is effed up.

EXHAUSTED

I'm exhausted and need a timeout.
Please talk amongst yourselves.

AN OPEN LETTER TO ANNOYING GYM GUY: EW

Dear Annoying Gym Guy:

You look like an idiot wearing your khaki shorts, Hawaiian shirts and white socks that barely cling to your calves to the gym of all places. You look like an even bigger idiot when you start bopping your head and playing air guitar on the elliptical machine. When you do this, I don't know what I hate more: you or that poor excuse for a cardio workout machine. Plus, you smell funny, like you don't wash your Hawaiian shirts or (shudder) those khaki shorts. Try to take care of that, please.

Sincerely,
The Nerd

JADE: Chapter 5

So, 10 year old SabilaK spent a lot of time setting up the story and introducing the characters in the first four chapters but, rest assured, the action (as well as the "spookiness"--young SabilaK's favorite word) begins in Chapter 5 of Jade.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

It was 11:50 and Zach and Todd were ready to leave. They had to go to Michael's room to get to the third floor (why?).

Todd followed Zach, singing a song to himself, loud enough to be heard in China (gosh, this is so 10 years old of me).

"Todd, will you shut up?" Zach whispered angrily to Todd.

"Don't blow up, cause I ain't gonna sing anymore," Todd said (Todd's so stoner chill; I really hope I don't kill him off).

They finally reached Michael's room and tiptoed upstairs (Michael's apparently living in a duplex). They reached the third floor to find Michael, Jim and Earnest.

"Hi guys," Zach greeted. "Where's Sean?"

"Sean is waiting for the girls from Lakewood and, oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, he's bringing Scott Johnson along," Mike said (it's apparent that I'm just throwing in random characters to be killed off by zombies at this point...like a zombie version of Dynasty Warriors, with the zombies killing large quantities of Kettleburg U students).

Suddenly, the five boys heard something.

"Let's hide," Zach ordered.

Everyone scrambled to hide somewhere.

They heard footsteps followed by a door opening.

"Guys, it's us. Sean and Scott," they heard Sean's nervous voice.

"I knew it was you guys all along," Mike said smartly, as he got up from behind a large box (punk).

"Sure you did," Zach said, plainly (clearly, the Nerd was a fan of the adverb back in the day) annoyed.

"Well, I brought Scott, the book, chips, beer, and girls (doesn't all of this sound like a Budweiser commercial?). There were six girls standing behind Sean and Scott. "Guys, this is Betty, Jessica, Mary, Karen, Wendy and Elizabeth (Jesus. I'm imagining the requisite big breasted women in demure cardigans and poodle skirts).

"Sean, why is it so dark? Aren't there going to be any lights?" Betty asked (I imagine her already clinging to Sean's arm).

"Sure Betty. We have a flashlight," Sean answered (what an asshole).

"Hey, let's pass out the beer," Mike suggested.

"I don't drink," Zach said as Mike came towards him with a beer (Mike should know better than to offer his childhood friend who happens to be a teetotaler a beer).

Mike didn't answer and just walked away (jerk knows he doesn't drink! He's gonna act all pissy and disappointed now. Shoo!). Zach could see he was angry.

"Sit down everyone. Sit down as I read from this book...ah...," Sean started, "...Jade, the Mystical Power." He turned on the flashlight and began to read. "Jade was a power used ten thousand years ago to communicate with the spirit world, the world of the dead. It was named after a peasant girl. Her name was Jade (...since Jade was such a popular name among peasant girls at the end of the Ice Age...).

"How did they communicate?" Scott asked.

"Let me see," Sean said, turning the pages. "Here we are. It says everyone has to sit in a circle. Now, join hands and repeat after me: Dono apros aloo shanpar."

"Dono apros aloo shanpar," everyone repeated.

"Donts, carpon, lartusee, menk, sha--" the flashlight went out before Sean could finish (spoooooky). "There's something wrong with this thing," he complained.

Suddenly, a draft blew through the room.

"Ah, listen guys, we have to go and er...ah, study," Mary said nervously and before the guys could say anything, the girls quickly got up and left (I was so wrong about the floozies from Lakewood. They're not floozies at all. They may just be the most intelligent token big-breasted girls--if not the most intelligent characters, period--in a scary movie/story/novel. I was very obviously a feminist at 10).

All of the boys, except for Zach, started shouting at each other, arguing (about what exactly?). Zach sat back and stared at them innocently.

Michael turned around and looked at Zach. "I don't drink. Just give me milk in a bottle," he said, imitating Zach (seriously Mike, you punk, freakin' get over it already).

"Come on you guys, let's get back to our rooms, cause it's not anyone's fault those girls left. It's their fault. They don't know how to have any fun," Sean said.

"Yeah! That's right. It's THEIR fault," Mike said like a little boy (more like a despicable git).

They all returned to their dorm rooms and went to sleep.

(Okay, so there really wasn't any action in this chapter, after all...but I promise it's coming!)

*End of Chapter 5

Stalker Nerd??!

*A few years ago:

At the insistence of her only Pakistani friend, our Nerd grudgingly signs up to join Naseeb.com, an online social network very much like Friendster and MySpace, but geared to young Muslims, looking for the same things as everyone else: friends and activity partners/soulmmates/etc, etc. She doesn't immediately upload pics or thoroughly describe herself in the section labeled "about me." However, she goes on once or twice a week to read her friend's original writing (Naseeb has a journal feature where members can write about whatever they please).

One day, while trolling around the site, our Nerd stumbles across the profile of a person, who shall remain unnamed, who did her wrong a few weeks earlier (sure, he wasn't right for her and sure she wasn't really that into him to begin with but, oh, the mortification of being beat to the "you aren't right for me" and "I'm not so into you" email was…well, it was mortifying). So, she becomes slightly obsessed with said person's profile on the site and calls her colleagues over so that they too can see the mug of the person who has done our Nerd wrong (or right, depending on how you look at it). Over the next couple of (ahem, several) days, she carefully studies person's profile, reads person's journal entries and canvasses person's friend's profiles.

Not too long thereafter, our Nerd has dinner with her Pakistani friend and proceeds to tell him about person-who-wasn't-right-for-her's profile on Naseeb and her mild but shortlived obsession with it.

Pakistani friend sits across the table from our Nerd, butter knife frozen over roll. "But you're not a paying member," he states.

"Ah, duh. The day I pay for that shit," she laughs.

Friend puts down knife and then puts down roll. Placing his hands on table, he leans forward in his chair. "You do realize that each and every time you visited his profile, your profile popped up in his "Who is Viewing Your Profile?" window.

The Nerd finishes chewing her roll and then very calmly asks, "And when you say each and every time, surely you don't mean each and every time."

"Oh no," Friend says, still sitting back, his eyes circles of shock now. "I mean EACH and EVERY time. And your screenname…"

She looks at him, hovering somewhere between laughter and tears.

You see, her screenname on the site is SabilaK.

Our Nerd laughs. Friend laughs.

The following day, our Nerd chooses to "pay for that shit" and become an official member of that site (with ability to invisibly browse profiles…ahem).

MOMMY, I HATE YOU

Clearly, my future offspring are screwed:

article

JADE: Chapter 4

The Nerd's 17 year old story continues with chapter 4...

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

CHAPTER 4

Mike entered his dorm room. "Hey Jim," he called out to his roommate, Jim Dawson.

"Yes, Mike?" Jim asked in a low voice.

"Do you want to come with us to the third floor at midnight tonight?" Mike asked. "Sean is going to bring some girls from Lakewood and we are going to read a spooky book."

"I don't know Mike..." Jim said.

(C'mon Mike, pull the Nick card, pull the Nick card!) "Jim, you HAVE to come tonight, OKAY?" Mike said.

"Well, all right," Jim answered (wow, that didn't take much convincing. Clearly, Jim is a wuss).

Jim's family was in the construction business. Even though he was filthy rich, Jim didn't brag about his fortunes (a filthy rich wuss then. Apparently, one has to be a multi-millionaire to attend Kettleburg University, the all-boy's prep college. Where are the scholarship students, dammit?).

"What time do we hav to go?" Jim asked (someone needs to tell Jim that he doesn't HAVE to do anything. What a sad sack).

"Twelve midnight," Mike answered.

"Who's going to be there?"

"Sean, Todd, Zach, you, me and five or six girls."

"Can I ask Earnest to come too?" Jim asked (Jim is becoming lankier and more acne-ridden as I continue reading this chapter).

"Sure Jim," Mike answered.

Jim quickly dialed Earnest Pokamen's number. Earnest was Jim's best friend and a nerd like Jim. With his thick glasses and ugly clothes no one could believe that Earnest was the youngest son of Dan Pokamen, the owner of a chain of health clubs, who also had a perfect built (WHY is everyone a bloody millionaire???)!

"Earnest said he will come too," Jim said after haning up the phone.

"That's fine Jim," Mike said (since when has Mike been a man of such few words? He probably thinks he's too good for Jim. Jerk).

"You have to help me pick out my clothes for tonight," Jim continued (how Queer Eye for the Geek Guy).

***************

Sean Robinson called up the last girl on his list, Betty (but is anyone called Betty anymore; like Bruce, it's a dead name), who said she would be glad to meet up if she could bring two of her friends with her. There were a total of six girls coming.

Finally he asked his roommate Scott Johnson if he would like to come along.

"Sure thing," Scott said (wow, the third floor spells P-A-R-T-Y for these sad losers).

Sean looked at his watch. It was 8:00 PM, exactly four hours to go to the third floor.

*end of chapter 4

WHAT ABOUT SabilaK?

One of my brothers' closest friends, who is also a great friend of the family, is getting married in the winter. My brothers are groomsmen in the wedding. Sabahat received a plus one invitation, as did Shafaat. My parents received a seperate invitation addressed to both Mr. and Mrs. K.

It's all a great family affair, right?

Well, what about the SabilaK? What about our nerd? Is she invited to the wedding? If so, does she have to go as one of her brother's "plus ones" (a slightly humiliating prospect)? If not, is it assumed that she's the third wheel that will tag along with the Mr. and Mrs. (an even more humiliating prospect)? And what if her brothers have "plus ones" of their own to take to the shindig? What then?

Hell, what if the nerd has her own plus one? Is it that unbelieveable that she might have her own plus one by December?

I suspect she may boycott the wedding.

THE NERD DOES SORBET

I made a mean sugar-free apple blueberry sorbet last weekend (pictured above) only to leave it in my brother’s freezer and totally forget about it. When I dropped by his place this morning he asked me when I planned on eating the sorbet and we removed the ice cream maker from the freezer to find that the surely delectable dessert was rock solid. I carried the bucket home and then spent a very long time scraping the sorbet out into bowls for my parents. After using several utensils to scrape the sorbet (a fork, a teaspoon, a tablespoon, a large plastic fork, a knife), I found the tablespoon to be the most efficient scraper. Even so, the entire process required me to walk away, wave and stretch my arms (I’ll tell you one thing…scraping rock solid sorbet hurts as much as any of my more challenging bicep routines), and read a few pages of a manuscript I need to get through by Monday before I could start the scraping all over again.

It was a pain in the ass.

My parents enjoyed the sorbet (or whatever the hell it ended up becoming) very much.

I’m never making sorbet again.