new blog!

well, i haven't blogged in ages and ages, here at least, but the main reason is i've been working and working on my wedding photography business stuff, and i have a blog up on my new site... the site is still under construction - doing it myself, haven't got any templates, but i'm considering it - but you can keep up with my photo life at theBeauty is Truth Blog (i promise, baraka, that i thought of your old blog only after i agonized over this name for my business! :) ) but do check it out... i spelled out my agony in one of the pages...

hope to see some visitors and comments over there! i'm still keeping this site but once i'm all settled there i'll have more time to blog here... maybe... :)

from wordsworth: the prelude, book first. the story of me, now.

...Thus my days are past
In contradiction; with no skill to part
Vague longing, haply bred by want of power,
From paramount impulse not to be withstood, 240
A timorous capacity, from prudence,
From circumspection, infinite delay.
Humility and modest awe, themselves
Betray me, serving often for a cloak
To a more subtle selfishness; that now
Locks every function up in blank reserve,
Now dupes me, trusting to an anxious eye
That with intrusive restlessness beats off
Simplicity and self-presented truth.
Ah! better far than this, to stray about 250
Voluptuously through fields and rural walks,
And ask no record of the hours, resigned
To vacant musing, unreproved neglect
Of all things, and deliberate holiday.
Far better never to have heard the name
Of zeal and just ambition, than to live
Baffled and plagued by a mind that every hour
Turns recreant to her task; takes heart again,
Then feels immediately some hollow thought
Hang like an interdict upon her hopes. 260
This is my lot; for either still I find
Some imperfection in the chosen theme,
Or see of absolute accomplishment
Much wanting, so much wanting, in myself,
That I recoil and droop, and seek repose
In listlessness from vain perplexity,
Unprofitably travelling toward the grave,
Like a false steward who hath much received
And renders nothing back.
...

how musa tells me he needs a diaper change

"oh no! somebody stinky!"

some recent musa gems

1. "put ammi time out!" (ammi is my mom)
2. "usman, can you do me favor?" (usman is baba)
3. "hey, ayesha! that's a nectarine!"
4. (in response to being told that my dad was in raleigh and couldn't come) "somebody go get him!"
5. "squirrel doing poo-poo" (seeing squirrel in backyard)
6. (to cashier in costco when i was buying, um, feminine hygiene products) "it's mama's diaper!"
7. (upon being caught messing with laptop while people were praying and not watching him) "lemme check my email!"
8. "mama! I'm silly!" (just now. random!)
9. "i want a tattoo." (yes, he said that. knowing that a tattoo is a design on the skin.)
10. "stop the car. gimme kissy."

hijab rant

For anyone who ever wanted to understand why Muslim women wear hijab... here is the only thing you need to know about it:

BECAUSE
WE
WANT
TO!!!
!

okay, so i'm talking about in America.
i'm just soooooooooooooooo sick of it, so i had to say this. in all caps. bold.
i don't wear it because some men in my family told me to. (actually it was my momma, initially). (and if you think she's weak, oppressed or brainwashed... well, just try saying it to her face. i DARE you. i'll videotape it and put in on youtube. before i'm arrested for complicity).
i don't wear it because i don't want people to look at me. they look at me. more. i know this. i grew up in the south.
i don't wear it because i think it will protect me from unwanted sexual attention. i've gotten that anyway. from muslims, actually. in a muslim country. we brown women know all about this.
i don't wear it because i think all men are dogs and need to be protected from the sight of my breathtakingly gloriously stunning tresses. which they are. (my hair i mean).
i wear it because I WANT TO!! it's between me and my Lord! this is AMERICA people. what else do you need to know?

honestly, a more useful question is to actually examine the commandment for hijab in the qur'an and try to understand its place in islamic belief AND muslim society. (and yes, i know that many people interpret that particular verse in such a way that they conclude it is NOT a commandment for hijab. but, many other people conclude that it is. they haven't convinced me, so this is where i'm writing from.) it being 12:30 a.m., i ain't about to touch this in any other way.

for cryin out loud, isn't there enough hate out there??????????????????????
forget about my headscarf. praise God for children instead!

why i love trader joe's

apart from the unique food items and high-inducing, rather than high, prices... oh, and the taste of The Best Orange-Peach-Mango Juice Ever Cartoned, which is why i just refer to it as OPM (say that fast...):

"The first thing you may notice about this cheese snack is the absence of a brilliant, yet artificial, orange color... We're selling each seven ounce bag of Trader Joe's Baked Jalapeno Cheese Crunchies for just $1.79. They won't glow in the dark, but neither will you if you eat them."

"This dessert is such a tart, we almost called it Lemon Hester Prynnes. But then we'd have to put an 'A' on it..."

"While a gorgonzola or an Emmenthaler can be polarizing, Cheddar is sort of the Switzerland in the cheese lineup. Yes, these are the conversations we have at Trader Joe's."

- Trader Joe's Summer Guide 2008

please pray for my friends ali and shafaq

when i want to check my favorite blogs, i usually start off here so i can just click links to those blogs instead of typing in the address bar. but it's been so long i get a shock seeing the "happy birthday musa!" post up!
well, anyway, so since i last posted, we've moved into a new house and gone to england and come back. and it all seems like a lifetime ago since my little brother ali went into the hospital last sunday. it has been such a heartwrenching week that the shock of what actually happened - a heart attack in a 25-year-old - has been sort of numbed into the past, and the fact that he got so much worse while in the hospital has eclipsed it, too. it wasn't a heart attack per se - he's more healthy than most 25 year olds - but as far as we can tell, it's something called fulminant myocarditis, which translates to a raging viral infection of the heart muscle. nobody knows how he got sick or how the virus got into his heart, but it did, and he actually went into cardiac arrest while being airlifted to the heart center at inova fairfax. and that was just the beginning...! then the virus got worse, and his fever spiked, and his heart function went down to like 20 percent, and his kidneys and liver began failing because of lack of oxygen, and he couldn't breathe and was in constant severe pain and his only sister shafaq, my dearest friend, was falling apart and breaking down left and right.
so on wednesday night they took him into surgery and attached to him a biventricular assist device - a six-hour surgery, after which he was sedated for two days and only yesterday had the intubator taken out. the VADs pump the blood for him, leaving his heart to heal on its own, and helping to keep the rest of his body supplied with the oxygen it needs. and his organ functions and heart functions seem to be improving but it's very tentative progress, he's still swollen from head to toe from surgery and very weak, still sick, still in pain. but we know now that that surgery literally saved his life, through the grace of God.
it was so inexpressibly good to see him awake yesterday, able to talk even if weakly, even to see some of his sense of humor coming back. but i am also still worried about shafaq, who is of course committing all her energy to her baby brother and none for herself.
so... if you read this post, please include shafaq and ali and their family in your prayers! i'm off now and will post more later... must do a musa update! my boy is talking now, sentences and everything, it's so much fun :)