today i discovered that we have $2 bills in this country. my whole existence has been a lie.

you're not allowed to call someone a "self-absorbed b*stard" until you can, in a volcanic rage reserved only for pages in a journal, list evidence of the fact. then you might find the actual interaction that would have led to the aforementioned insult goes more smoothly, with finesse, even.

the more issues you have, the less you can be there for other people

secret spaces

it is not a curse

the attachments you form are peripheral

how do you explain blood on the windshield?

i had three dreams that gripped my muscles in the morning
they dont seem intense except for their residual meaning

a graying studio executive came to speak to us in class about what it takes to succeed in the industry. he was firm, he was charismatic and although he graced us with his time and knowledge, I sensed he was there because he had a need to feel needed.

later, i ran into him in the elevator. it was a long ride. i told him his lecture was really informative and helped me formulate a better approach toward my goals. i recognized that somewhere in my motivation, i wanted him to like me and hire me as his assistant. we continued talking, mainly about business, the latest mergers, the future of television in the face of new media. suddenly, as he was talking, i envisioned him in a decadent penthouse slamming on the bathroom door, red with rage. his young daughter, in the shadows under the staircase, could hear everything. she held on to the railing and kept listening stoically. he was yelling at his wife to get out. He was late. She was making him late.

She opened the door and left as if he wasn't there at all, tucking hair under her towel. He stared at her as if he wanted to hit her, the inconsiderate, worthless hag he married. She walked away into the bedroom, but his anger didnt abate. He wanted her to know exactly how serious he was. He turned on the bathtub faucet full blast. He went into her closet and gathered her finest gowns, including the one by his wife's dresser, what she was about to wear. He chucked them into the surging bathtub, took a plunger and pushed all the dresses deep into the hot water until their colors began to bleed, as she looked on in disbelief.

Back in the elevator, he asked me a question with one of his trademark charismatic smiles. If I failed to answer with typical wit, it would cost me the assistantship.


----

I was in the first semester of the production program again, in our directing class. we'd just watched a really powerful short film. the lights went on and the instructor asked whose it was. my friend, roland, who is a fabulous person and a great director said it was his, at which point the instructor began to praise his artistic sensibilities and grasp of subtlety in conveying deep truths. After he finished, Roland confessed that it actually wasn't his film, it was hers - he pointed to the girl next to him in a white hijab. Immediately I got jealous. I wanted that film to have been mine. And I wanted to claim it as the sole hijabi. I wanted my classmates' respect. She was threatening me with her presence. She reminded me of my burning failures.

The film was this:

Pale sunshine on the beach. Waves crashed upon the shore, depositing seaweed and claiming layers of sand, back and forth, back and forth, until the waves pushed forth an unconscious surfer. it was a girl with short hair, facedown. the logo on her wetsuit read "DK: the world's elite." next to her, in the sand, names began to appear merged with increasingly audible words from the waves - things that people whisper as they are about to die. "take it" "i love you" "please" "i'm so sorry" "i wasnt finished". silence. the girl in the sand coughs. says the shahadah. she turns over, unable to move a limb. the waves reach higher and higher, rising to her neck, ready to reclaim their loss.


----

I was on a hilly meadow. there was a horse-like creature chewing grass and a gigantic bantha (elephant-like creature) eating a tall patch of leaves on the other side of a mound. I sensed danger in the trees far away. to be safe, i gathered handfuls of leaves and led the bantha to the safe side of the mound, hidden away from the trees. I figured I did my duty to the animal and went on my way. After a distance, a hunter emerged from the trees far away and pointed his gun at me. I ran for it and realized from the pounding earth that the bantha was following me - the hunter was after the bantha who felt only I could protect it. I told the creature to keep running - run the other way, run into the thick trees, run! It slowly got the point, but then the hunter realized what was happening, and decided to take out the protector. He started chasing me. I saw lines in the distant mist and realized it was a new section of the forest - they were treetops emerging from a crater. I jumped into the crater just as the hunter fired. I knew he was still after me, but hoped he hadnt shot the bantha. I kept running.

we exist in etherworld


work with people you trust with your career
make friends with people you trust with your life

i like my bread as i do my yams - canned.
i should plant canned bread at the supermarket and make a doc about the people that take it to the checkout aisle.

fatima's mother showing a latino guy how to shop for saris. love it.

kalie & bob. the kiss and run.

sheep in dino-hoodies

sound editing requires surgical ears.

must not stalk johnny. this requires a conversation to cleanse the system. talking for smart people equals medicine.

like heaven's fingernails on the chalkboard of life.

electric poison

nothing more dangerous than a spinster with time on her hands and nothing to lose.

a dream i had last week

i was a servant in a deserted manor shrouded by fog. the mistress of the house returned from a long absence and brought her daughter, who'd grown into a fine young lady. i peered through a crack in the door at their heated conversation about the upcoming dinner party. the mistress is disappointed in her daughter for never being a proper hostess, and for always giving her a difficult time in selecting her outfits.

i remembered all the fanciful floral headdresses the mistress wore at the parties over the years, but the daughter always wore her usual violets. it was peculiar, how their floral headdresses were innate to their characters. the mistress wore a cap of slender, light green blossoms that completely covered her hair and jingled like earrings every time she swung her head to snap at her daughter. their dresses were also remarkable, long pleated robes with sari-like borders and cuffs, light japanese shades of green and fuschia.

i had enough of the argument, so i stepped out into the gardens, where my husband - 17 and as young as me - welcomed me. He wore a world war II pilot's jumpsuit. he was a ghost. we strolled through the gardens, where he introduced me to other ghosts in the garden, all of them charming. finally, he gave me a drink - a cranberry juice cocktail, as we walked toward his airplane, a world war I bomber. there was a copilot's seat in the rear but he invited me to squeeze into the pilot's seat (oh what an obvious feminist metaphor).

the thing is, as soon as i joined him, i too became a ghost in the plane. and when we took off, the plane became a ghost. and we flew and flew until we reached a field of tall purple and gold wildflowers. we landed among them, got out and stood in awe of how they reached above our heads. we just stood there looking skyward amid the wildflowers, the plane hidden and forgotten.

things you write on your hand in the dark

seema's teaching her masjid sunday school kids the arabic alphabet in the spirit of thanksgiving. yes, there will be pumpkin seeds on Saad and Daad.

the best pick up line ever was when I handed an older african american bro a bunch of dates when he was late for iftar and he said, "i think i'm looking at my future wife"

or the one seema got walkin down a street in DC, again an african american bro who went "Tak-BEER my sista is FINE!"

i want to direct a scene about the endearing moment when a bearded guy and veiled girl realize they're both human, and smile at each other across their pedestals

smiles are the wealth of the poor

cluttered primary colors are for mass consumption, for the corner store

off-tones, dark and deeply saturated hues mark the upper class, ie stores like crate & barrel where kalie isnt allowed to work in canvas shoes

latest pickup line:

so, what's *your* favorite aisle in the supermarket?

i prefer to be the ummah's conscience rather than its cheerleader

i can see how, when a host asks a hijabi soldier to disarm herself, she would ignore her gun and reach for the pins in her scarf.

welcome to 1188
the land of roosters and helicopters
ice cream trucks, copcars and casual gunfire
basketball, barbecues, and
harmonizing car alarms
during an occasional
blitz in grand theft auto

this is the tale of the Peach Farmer's Son

He awoke in the hay
to a streaming tear bead
that splashed upon straw
and transformed into frost
he imagined he were dead
like the cold earth in winter
waiting for his Duchess
to seek him in the afterlife.

She in her tower
remembered their vow
to forsake the other
in a land
shaking with chaos -
She married her Prince
and bided her time
showering compassion upon the people
until the kingdom healed
and he too passed away

Then it arrived
the inevitable Day.
She smiled upon her bed
as the angel extracted her soul
and gathered it for Paradise,
where the Prince awaited
his life's companion

His love was true
His deeds were pure
He asked for nothing more
than an eternity
in her presence

The Peach Farmer's Son
realized then
that a vow on earth
could not compete
with a request granted in Heaven
so he thanked God
for his peaches
and that such love
was only imagined.

there is inspiration in solitude
by the heat of a radiator
on a wintry morning

i've been careless with my head recently.
on saturday at a redondo beach halloween party in the midst of a marionnette war with a grad student from the theater school, i got knocked into a very tall bookshelf, from which a very heavy metallic sharp heavy brutal candlestick fell on my head. no scars, it felt like at the time. although slight tingling of internal bleeding possibly. but today it's sore and bruised up there, and scabbed too (yum).

this afternoon i hit my head on a food cart tray while fetching change from my backpack.

and just a second ago i got up to pray isha but walked into a bedpost in a brightly lit room in which i've lived for over a year.

the candlestick didnt hit my cerebellum but it's certainly warped my spatial sense.

it's wiser not to get romantically involved with romantic figures, as they are wont to meet a tragic demise or tamper with your destiny.

i was terrified that he was going to fire me
but he instead revealed that he's comforted
walking into spo
under my shift
alhamdulillah - a dramatic moment
that couldn't have been scripted any better

maybe all i can be
is someone else's muse

she wrote, "i like the quiet, but not the loneliness."
so i wished i could replay the moment
at the cafe in winter '05
she was sipping mocha
framed by the figure of an ice cream cone
on the window
dreary slush covered streets without
glowing christmas lights within
i wish i could recreate that comfort
i wish my words were that powerful
i wish my prayers were that strong

"Filmmaking is a chance to live many times"
to relate the esoteric courses of certain lives
to those who might otherwise withold their empathy

broad art with the goal of giving people common memories

Bonnie, come home.

the llama with three teeth stared at the people petting chickens. And stopped chewing its cud.

transformations happen beat by beat. day by day.

a balance of what to reveal and what to conceal

relationships are always in flux. always redefined.

a soul extracted from a maze of corn

farewell to the night

the fortress and the street

a name, when called, that allows you to soar

a romanticism founded in being
confounded by existence