Tie boys, specially the bowed ones

Sometimes when I take a smoke break, I go with couple of my colleagues to the back alley of the office building. One day two men were walking through the alley wearing expensive suites. One of the colleagues said it would be funny if we all dress up one day and come to work with suites and ties. I said sure, I'll wear a suit with a bow tie tomorrow. I always wanted to experiment it one day. Next day I did it and when I walked into the office with a black suite and a silk red bow tie everyone was surprised. It seems it's a big deal for most men seeing a bow tie wrapped around another man's neck, never mind about wearing it. A couple of weekends later Ian Brown wrote an article about bow ties in The globe and mail and a couple of days after that I saw him on a TV show wearing an elegant bow tie, talking about books. I've seen different reactions to bow ties. Like when Jon Stewart was on Cross Fire he made fun of Tucker Carlson for wearing bow tie at his mid 30s. Or last night on Who wants to be a millionaire one of the contestants was a doctor wearing a bow tie. Meredith Vieira, the host of the show asked him about the bow tie and then she said it suites you doctor. The doctor said ok -- in a situation like that it think "Ok" is the best answer, it means neither I am taking it as a compliment, nor as an insult. --

Ian Brown writes: More dangerously, a bow tie tells you where to look -- at his face. Rather than emasculate a man, a bow tie desexualizes and sometimes re-sexualizes him by diverting our attention upward to his head, from his groin to his gourd. What's above my neck, the bow tie wearer says, is even more interesting than what's below it.

But why did I want to try it at least once? I am not sure. Ian articulated it very well: For me, it's still an experiment, a test of my own fortitude. I wear a bow tie to see if I can stand the heat.

I was able to take the heat in a small environment like my office full of young and single men in their late 20s who don't take anything seriously.

Allow me!

Time is passing, I don't like my job, I hate my boss, the company I work for is getting richer and richer by sucking bloods and it's being run by some assholes who openly admit they are assholes. I just baby-stepped into my 35th and I feel so unaccomplished. And please don't try to imagine a faceless loser in your mind when you read "I feel so unaccomplished". For we should all know accomplishment is quite a relative concept.

I used to blame myself for not being accomplished, I used to blame myself for being lazy and not concentrating on one thing and never noticed that how much this the urban life style is eating us up. It's like an endless hunger which will never get satisfied of eating. You have to keep the job in order to pay the mortgage and pay the endless bills. Then I notice that not only I have to blame myself for being lazy, I also have to blame myself for giving in to the awful urban life obligations, mortgage, loans, credit card balances and some unmentionables. I take the blame.

Call me traitor

I am an immigrant, like many others here in Canada. Immigrants are involved with many issues and emotions in their first 3 to 5 years of new life -- I guess I am talking about average --. As an immigrant, first thing in your mind would be the barrier of language and consiquently the slowness of job finding process. If you are lucky you'll find a job within few months if not you'll hook yourself up to a college program or a course or if you are brave and not too old, you'll commit yourself to a degree or so. After a while the barrier of language becomes shorter and shorter by daily practice of dealing with native speaking people, after couple of years that barrier will look like a road bump, short enough to ignore, thick enough to slow you down when you are having an intelligent conversation. And if you are obsessed with learning and exploring, you'd try to make friends with people who were born and raised in the host land country. You'll face two different types of people, interesting and sophisticated exotic-land lovers kind of people and none-interested-in-forigners kind of people. The first group are those who are like yourself, obsessed with exploring and learning, the second group who get stuck in their own politeness, so at first they try to figure out what the hell you are trying to say, a couple of frowns or questioned faces here and there and then once you make the first pause, they are out of the conversation like a cartoon character with a circular tail of dust at their buttom while they are running away. They are the reason you become concerned with your accent. After a while accent becomes your new obsession.

And there are immigrants who are so protective about their homeland culture; they live under this constant shadow of “one day I'll go back home with my family, because I don't belong here”. They don't deal with native speaking people unless it's necessary; they find their own people, they make a community of their own, they even get special satellite dishes to watch mother-tongue speaking TV or radio channels. Practically they live same life and same culture in a different geographical position.

I guess I belong to the first group, yet in touch with second group of immigrants and I see the culture shocks the second group goes through. I see how difficult it is to live as an immigrant in a different value system and not contradict your own biased values. I've seen people who suffer a lot for not sacrificing their original values, I wonder what is the point of immigrating then? I came to this land to redefine some principal values which were defined for me, values that didn't make sense to me at all. I was having culture shock of my own when I lived where I was born and it’s hard for me to call it home. To me home means something else. I don't know what but not the place of birth. Perhaps home is where you want to settle in not where you left behind.

Knock knock! Who is there?

Winter is coming. Things haven't been very well lately. Oh well! Life is a roller coaster, isn't it? I had the most amazing winter last year and it gave me sweetest memories of my life. Despite the fact that last winter became a memory or at its best a nostalgia, despite the fact that I am watching a spider walking upon my wall, life is going on. No matter how hard, it seems we manage to carry on with it. Sometimes hope is just a rope for us to hang in there until a better day comes along. Every one has their moments, the very moment that you hear a knock on your door. "Who is there?". You ask. "It's me!" Snow-white says. "Open up! I am home."

I love NY

I was in New York City for couple of days. It was good. I love the spirit of that town. Kinda harsh and not welcoming yet very appealing by its sophistication. I had a very long walk on my third day in there. I started walking from 42nd st. up to south side of Central Park and then walked in the park in random directions for 2 hours and then found myself out of the park in 73rd st. Then I took Madison Ave., Park Ave., Seven Ave., Fifth Ave. and Broadway on and off all the way to lower Manhattan, wondered around Wall st. area and then got really tired. In between I had lunch in a Chinese buffet and in there I started up my laptop hoping to get a wireless connection. I got tones of different signals just like that. All of a sudden this idea clicked in my mind that, if some crazy hot-shot hacker could sit down in a public place like that restaurant and decode all the signals flying around, what stories could come out of it. Lots of financial transactions, emails, file transfers, photos, Instant Messages, string of words going to different weblogs and thousands of more unimaginable other cybermatic entities. It would be like a galaxy of information highway with millions of cars carrying objects and subjects back and forth.

This can be an inspiration for a Hollywood screenplay. And I wish I had a free mind to sit down and write something based on this idea and sell it to a Hollywood producer and make money out of it and travel more often to the Big Apple.

I am still hung up on that galaxy of information and the stories flowing in it. I love stories, especially if they are about New York City or happenning in New York City.

Kids must have been watching the Casino.

I was watching Scorses's Casino on Bravo (we are talking about the better Bravo, the Canadian Bravo, not the American one). Casino is rated. Do you know what I found so bizarre about Bravo last night? They were broadcasting kids' toy commercials. How sick is that? What were people in Bravo thinking? That there were kids out there to be targeted by Fisher Price commercials. Kids who were watching Joe Pesci popping out an Irish guy's eye, or swearing his guts off when he was cracking somebody's head?

Give me a line! I want to get on it.

Since internet and World[Wild]Web became a daily obsession for the young hungry portion of Iranian population, dating with opposite sex became easier than ever in that country unlike my time in 80s and early 90s. Once upon a time in those dark years of Hush! Don’t say I love you or I kill you!, I was walking my girl friend -- who became my wife later on and became my ex-wife later than later on -- to her uncle's apartment around 10:00 pm. We were passing through a park, holding hands and whispering L-word in one another's ear, all of a freaking-terrifying-shocking sudden two 15 year old boys with the unofficial militia uniforms of Basiji forces ran towards us from two different directions and got really close to us and pointed their hand guns at us. We both were totally shocked and terrified. I got rid of them with an old stupid cliché trick which was popular back then and nothing serious happened but that night we had fear branded on our foreheads and on our souls. Now it's different. Same regime, same rules, but different life style. Dating is easy nowadays. Boys and girls meet and chat first in a public/private cyber room, some of them even do their foreplay in the room or their PM and then set up a date in one of the coffee shops in town -- and when I say town I don't mean just Tehran, this is happening in most major cities now. I haven't been in Iran since year 2000 but I've tried to keep myself up to date with news, life style and pop culture, what is hot and what is not, even today’s slang -- which by the way is changing so fast these days, it's hard to catch up. In last couple of weeks I've been in different Iranian chat rooms, I've noticed that it's getting harder and harder to make a simple adult conversation in those rooms. Guys don't want to waste their time chatting with a guy, girls; not all but many of them, don't want to waste da time on regular chat, they want cyber sex or an actual date in couple of hours if you happen living in same town, and some are looking for a man who lives in abroad and wants to get married to an Iranian girl. The other day a friend of mine was telling me that he was chatting with a 23 years old sophisticated prostitute on internet. She was a professional, she claimed having a lot of rich customers and she met some of them in internet. This generation is utilizing a medium to express, to live and to share. The other night I logged into a chat room and sat there and watched. They were talking about cyber sex, rock music and marijuana. It felt like 60s. Sex, drug and Rock'n Roll.

patterns and patterns again

We've heard and read zillion times about patterns in relationships, patterns in break ups, patterns in finding the right ones and the wrong ones, yet most of us deny having our own patterns, while our lives flow into these patterns unconsciously and form the exact same shapes over and over. Three years ago, in my last break up I was way down for 3 months, all of a sudden I got sick of myself and turned into exercising and paying attention to my body. This time, I got sick of being down for 4 days (which is a big improvement comparing to 3 months; can we say I am growing up?) and started heavy exercise and home projects.

The thing I hate about break ups is that, to avoid remembering the "ex" -- this is the first time that I call her "ex", it doesn't sound good, it feels so cold and sad -- I boycott whatever reminds me of her, like songs, places etc. As if I fast her and her memories, because I know if I don't, eventually I will break down and will think about getting back together for wrong reasons; while most of those songs and places and things are my all time favorites, I love them. I have to fast 'till I get over her. Break ups suck.

Slices of nothing

Writing is a relief and thank the Edison of weblog who made writing so accessible to ordinary hands. I am saying writing is a relief for me, because in times like this, when there is no one around to hear you yak without analyzing your words or be wise with you when unnecessary; or when your girl friend is not around or her mom is in town and you can't whisper things to her ears, then you asylum to writing, writing about everything and nothing, writing about slices of life, your life, my life or life of a pedestrian who is just a pleasant stranger to you and means nothing to you but impulsive eye contact which lasts only a blink and half. Here is a slice of my life today, boring may be, but true:

Came back from work; had heart burn, had it since early afternoon; craved for a glass of milk and dates; noticed one missed call from F.; called her, flirted with her like I flirt with my girl friend -- 'cuz F. is my girl friend; sort of complained and nagged about how she's neglected me since her mom came to town -- her town not mine/we live in different time zones; exchanged a couple of "tele-phonny" kisses, said I love you, heard I love you back, hung up; laid back on the coach in front of Friends; released couple of real laughters because of Joey; flipped the channels; fell in sleep during flipping; woke up one hour later starving; warmed up left overs; ate like a perfect modern human being in front of the TV; went to the back yard; chatted a little bit with the lazy guy in the basement and returned him 50 bucks; told him count it twice before handing over your rent; came back inside; watched Seinfeld, Friends, Sex and the city; Got sick of myself and TV; grabbed the laptop; logged into Blogger as SlicesOfLife; paused while looking at the ceiling; started writing like this: "Writing is a relief..."

Get high!

It's been so long since my previous post. I am a total mess, I know that, you don't have to remind me that.

I was reading this post in a weblog which is about - I'm just paraphrasing here- "having crush on someone and letting it go like a passive person, because you were waiting for the chrushee to step forward and ask you out, and since that never happened, the crush kinda expired and now after six months it's too late" etc etc. Like many of you, I beleive a relationship -- which in its most exterem and most intimate form transforms to love; is something you build, something you erect, brick by brick. The more you build up, the more it takes you high, and in its climax, it gets you so high, higher than anything. And of course there is always this risk of this high rise not working some day and it may collaspe and take you down, so down, even downer than ground. But it's the risk we take. After all, isn't the whole life experience a big risk?
I somehow passed my message to the writer of that post that, it's never late for any relationships of any kind, it's just a choice that we make.

Does love work in a binary logic?

If it's only true or false, or if it takes only a yes or no, it's a binary logic. Like job status, you are either employed or not. Now, does that logic work for love? Can you say you are either in love or not? Can you say your love has drifted apart or not? Are there absolute sings about these things or not? Even in surest times, you tell yourself or your lover, hey it's not working, yet in the darkest and most lost corner of your mind you'd question yourself: "Did I do all that I should, that I could have done?" And that question stays there for ever, even after you give it a second or N-th chance, specially for people like myself who suffer from lack of self confidence or per say lack of decisiveness. It may sound doom, but it's like gambling, when you lose all the money, you walk out, yet keep repeating to yourself, what if I'd played one more hand, I might have hit the jackpot or the big prize.

Is it O.V.E.R.?

I've been missing most of the episodes of final season of Sex and the City, why? Well, good question, but let's leave that for another post.
Last Friday night I was watching the very episode that Carry got invited to live in Paris by her b/f -- for those of you who may say hey buddy you are way behind the schedule; up here in Canada, Sex & the City is aired a season behind the American broadcasting sked. -- This episode was so bizarre or it seemed bizarre to me. Characters kept saying "New York is O.V.E.R.", even Carry's narrative voice indicated this sad news; Carry BradShaw, a City paper columnist, a girl from the Big Apple, an absolute New Yorker? It sounded kinda sad; ain't it sad?

But when I think through it and recall the days of my last trip to New York last year, the City was totally different from my previous trips to NYC. The tension in Manhattan on new year's eve and the whole tight security thing in the island; man! Everybody was there to celebrate the new year but they were hiding the fear and the fever under the brim of their hats. What happened to the best city in the world? Is New York over because of aftermaths of 9/11 or it is over because this whole thing was only a party and the party is now over?

Someone was telling me about how his father has cheated on his mother at the age of 63, that he's been having affair with an older woman. He was saying that whenever I saw these things in movies or on TV never got a serious understaning of the situation, but now that I am in it, it feels so bad, you feel that you hate your father with all your guts. He wasn't able to understand how could someone at that age sacrifice his familly and fourty years old marriage for an older woman. And I came up with a why not.

What is age anyway? Isn't it just a number, not a sense. I am 34 and I feel so fresh, and even younger than my second half of twenties, and it's all because of situations and the things I've given or received in last 12 months as oppose to what I've of lost in last 8 or 9 years.

Sometimes at the very first moment I wake up in the morning, I feel, I live in absolute abstraction, I don't have any sense of place or time, that's why I can't really say how it feels when you are 34. For me it feels way better than my 24.

Sinfully committed, Saintly embarrassed

I was sitting behind the wheel on a Friday evening after an exhausting and disappointing week; waiting for a green light to begin my weekend, instead, I was stuck behind one of those giant Envoy SUVs which block your whole view of the world. It was already getting on my nerve. In times like this I play my silly childish game, making words with random letters and digits of the surrounding car plates, an attempt to give some meaning to them or trying to guess personality of car owner. Accidentally, this view blocker Envoy, didn't leave any space for my imagination, since the owner was probably one of those relatively newly wealthy people who buy a customized plate number to send their own message to people who get stuck behind them. The Envoy owner had this message carved on his plate: "Saintly". I had nothing to say or think but rising my eyebrows. But then something from inside the car grabbed my attention like a magnet. The passengers sitting in the Saintly owned vehicle were watching a movie on the DVD player of the car. I narrowed my eyes, focused my vision; cool! They were watching hard core porn movie. I was amazed by the grade of their comfort and choice, I became curious about the passengers of the car, but it was quite dark inside there, I just recognized three female figures. But then said to myself, hey who cares about them, I should enjoy the free porn, so I began watching the movie itself, it was then that they noticed an outsider was stealing their "privacy", they shutdown the screen immidiately. I was so annoyed by this selfishness, so got around them and drove side by side. It seemed to me they were so embarrassed by the whole incident, because they were hiding their faces.

Locked in/Locked out

"She is considering moving to another town, a place far away from here," a mutual friend said. I felt some sort of weakness in my legs, for few seconds my legs began shaking but I managed to hide my anxiety. At the time I liked Lilac a lot, but no one knew about it, not even that mutual friend. Despite that weakness and those shaking legs, I didn't realize what world I was stepping into. I had no understanding of long distance relationships, not in the slightest, besides, emotionally she was standing in a distant spot from me because she had no interest in me and so, I hid my feelings completely. But, as unimaginable things happen all the time, we became involved, more than I expected; we didn't get the chance to imagine things, every thing happened so fast: we were inseparable, period. And it was already too late to undo things, she had no choice but to leave the town, I had no choice but to stay, we couldn't NOT love each other.
After she left, I played it very strong, didn't show any irrational emotions, I even quit smoking the day she left to show my surrounding world that I have everything under control, that I am going to hang in there for as long as it takes, that I have a hold on reality. But when for the first time I felt that heart squeezing agony of missing her, the feeling that eats you from inside and leaves a big hole in your sole, I broke apart into a zillion pieces.
Are long distance relationships possible?
Long distance relationships are like lines, with two ending points, each person stands at one end and they point at each other all the time, as if they are trying to make or claim a path. A long distance relationship is like being locked; one person is locked out, the other is locked in; they are closely in touch, but they literally can't touch each other, something is blocking them off. They both lean their heads on the door, they hear each other so closely and so intimately, but the final touch is not possible, it's not there, it's being missed, just like my Lilac; I miss her. Yeah the truth is: I miss her so.