I persistently set lower personal standards for myself and then consistently fail to achieve them. When my IQ reaches 50, I will sell.

- in·teg·ri·ty (ĭn-tĕg'rĭ-tē) n.
1. Steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code.
2. The state of being unimpaired; soundness.
3. The quality or condition of being whole or undivided; completeness.


- dig·ni·ty (dĭg'nĭ-tē) n., pl. -ties.
1. The quality or state of being worthy of esteem or respect.
2. Inherent nobility and worth: the dignity of honest labor.
3. a. Poise and self-respect.
b. Stateliness and formality in manner and appearance.
4. The respect and honor associated with an important position.
5. A high office or rank.
6. dignities The ceremonial symbols and observances attached to high office.
7. Archaic. A dignitary.

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Not the same, are they?
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In my spam today :

19 Ways to maintain a healthy level of insanity.

Each of us at work picked one to ensure the healthiness of our insanity. I picked 17. Also in my spam was a link to Ahmad's page, which led me to another page which led me to this : persians are known for... which totally got into me :

- interesting...
- just wondering...
- wow...

talk about being prejudiced.

Something that helps me get through a lot in life lately is wandering around this

and then going to the obituary page...

This is the official news paper of the city that I grew up.. and usually the most intresting page of it, was the first page where you could find out who is dead who is alive...
If i only could find those cheap papers , i would print that page everyday..

Brilliant (as Tom says to Chris in thick british accent in that scene in matchpoint) :

- Things you can do with absolutely nothing
- Things you can do with very little
- Things you can do with another person

Simple math sucks.

Through my most complicated and painful agenda during December I saved for my vacation. I made myself lunch every single day, I didn't join the guys for the ski trip, I didn't go to movies every single night, I didn't check slickdeals.net to make sure I don't spend another few hundred on another cool gadget, I cut my own hair with the Target clipper I'd never used before, I only had drinks at home or at friends' places, I didn't use the toll road even when I was late, I missed Si Se and a couple of other gigs in LA, I didn't buy that book that sounded so cool, I didn't...

Total amount of savings before Dec 23rd : ~$1000

Then I went for the christmass trip to Vegas, then the new year's ski trip, then I bought a few gifts, then I paid my bills.

Total expenditure between Dec 23rd and Jan 23rd: ~$2000

Cash balance today : ~$0
Debt balance today : All of my debt before Dec '05 + ~$1000

I just realized I hate simple math with my guts. It's the most evil science of all.

Sometimes i feel like an idiot.. when i make a mistake over and over..
i just wish i didnt ..
most of the times i dont listen to the people who know better and get myself in trouble.. i regret it, but yet i dont listen..
Sometimes i wish my parents would completely give up on me and let me become a bum on a street..
sometimes i wish my friends tell me they have had it with me.. and dont want to talk to me anymore
sometimes i even give relationship advice to people, and when they ask me if i ever had a long term relationship i reply : " is four months a long time?" they shake their heads but they still listen to me.. and come to me complaining about the girlfriend who doesnt like it when he drinks too much, or the bf who is too close to his mom.. or the husband who has changed ever since something happend.. or the fact that they will take any girl, even if she has more hair than them..
sometimes my baby sister's friends find me extremely cool, for no good reason.. they like to grow up and act like me. i never quite figure that one out..
sometimes i just wish there was 1-800- do watever u wanna do.. and i could call and for 5 cents/min i could cry, scream, laugh, sing, or just stay silent
sometimes i wanna smack my friend's face done when she tells me : "Really you too, you care about the kids that are dying of hunger in Africa? I thought I am the only one."
Or the times that people ask me if i beleieve in god..
sometimes i feel like letting my dumb cousin feel smart for a minute.. cause the poor guy got into U.S.C and i didnt... but then i just tell him and the rest of the family who are confused why my father's child didnt kick ass and the idiot uncle's son did something with his life the turth: " I didnt apply to U.S.C, it was just too much of a hassle." I could let my uncle have it for once in his life, for once he can be better than my father.. but nope, i remember that he married someone we dont like.. so i tell them the truth, they very much like to hear..
sometimes i me , sometimes not.. depends on which one pays better

There are a lot of things that I like to write about..
but then who cares...
lots of funny things... intresting...
like... you know
but then..
maybe later...
now ..
it's about nothing..
nothing is good..
nothing is everything
I love nothing..
i wish i had nothing to worry about
i wish i was a nobody ...
oh i even have made my significant other promise that if we break up, he calls me the nobody girl when he is talking about his horrid past relationships with prespective dates...
Oh and after playing badminton off and on for 12 years.. i stilll dont know the rules of double,. people have to show me whethere to stand in right or left for serving..
i will never learn it..
that's why i love to play it...
it doesnt really matter to me...
i dont care about the scores anymore...

I once got a summer job as a part time programmer for this public utility firm back home. I used to watch my supervisor, Mr. T., literally holding a swatter in one hand and sitting motionless in a fully alert position, awaiting the next poor fly who'd land on any of his piles of dusty files and binders. On a good day he'd get 5 to 6, with an occasional gadfly, which called for an immediate tea break to share the hunt experience with the rest of the swatter gang in the tearoom.

A decade and a few years later, I'm professionaly posing for my flat 21-in monitor at my cubicle, my left hand almost permanently on Alt-Tab position. My left eye has developed a direct neuron to my left hand, bypassing my brain, which enables me to switch to my outlook no later than a fraction of a second after the new mail icon pops up in the bottom left corner of my screen, pinpointing the mail folder in which I've just received another spam, selecting it, scanning through it, sometimes detecting a familiar name or two in the middle, and exterminating it by a solid Delete command. On a good day I get 28 to 30, with an occasional super deal at Fry's or CompUSA, which calls for an immedaite coffee march around my floor to share the potential insane profit of buying 50 and ebaying them with a 10% markup...

I wonder if Mr.T. ebays his dried gadflies nowadays. I wonder if he's got an email now, or even better, does he IM? Maybe we could chat online and preserve insect population while debating the best deals for Vaigra or Cialis on planet earth...

I am going on a ski trip, but don't have a decent ski jacket.. Well here is the problem, my brother is coming too.. And growing up with a lotta siblings, you learn to share and not buy the things that don't mean a lot to you... He likes to snowboard, I have never been so crazy about snow...
Now we are doing something together,... why??
I planned my life so that it runs in parallel with my family, so that I never do anything with any of them.. I love them, all 300 of them or maybe 3000 or god knows how many.. but I have nothing to do with them..
the last time I traveled with anybody related to me was years ago, and I made the parallel promise..
I love them more when I don't do things with them...
when I don't go shopping with my sisters, or don't go hiking with my father, or don't go to my uncle's utterly boring Christmas parties, or skip my cousins wedding where I get drunk and accidentally hit on a guy who turns out to be my second cousin from my cousin's previous marriage with a German lady who turned lesbian and now is foster parenting black HIV positive orphans...
I love my grandma to death, it's just that there is no use spending all that money and calling Tehran trying to talk to her on the phone.. she is 95 for god's sake she doesn't hear me, she says something I say something else, it's all gibberish. She will probably not know which one of the 30 grandchildren she was talking to...
Oh and my grandpa... I don't want to talk about him.. Cause I remember that he is not with us anymore.. And no that I cant take. I have even talked about that with my therapist....
Family is a mistake that a man makes with a woman, or maybe a man makes with a man, or a woman makes with a woman.. but being responsible human beings they take responsibility and make more mistakes..
it's a messy thing, and yes sometimes messy things are beautiful and very valuable...
like an abstract painting...
But regardless, i still will go with my brother's car to the resort... I will go with friends in the chraterd bus... I know he wouldnt mind the company, and it's actually safer for him that way, since it's late at nite.. but then I still need my sanity
oh and a decent ski jacket..

I've found a new way to entertain myself.

I could give an arm and a leg for a great conversation about nonsense, philosophizing over the most stupid things around us. I often catch myself fully engaged in justifying some bullshit I totally disagree with myself, yet winning the argument was too much joy for me to give up on. One thing I could never ever bear, was silence.

I've learned to like silence. Now I throw in a word, a sentence at most. The right word indicates the flaw in my own argument, the very idea I need to defeat to win the argument. Then I sit back, sip on my glass and glance over to the opposition in an excruciating silence. All there is to do is wait, eventually he gives in, criticizes my word, criticizes himself, says another thing, takes it back, raises his voice, lowers it, smiles, stares at me, then finally says it, and I hear my own words coming out of his mouth; Bingo, and the monologue is over.

Then comes the next topic, and I throw in one more word, or a sentence. I never realized why I was so scared of silence, now I know : It's utterly powerful. Saying absolutely nothing is the ultimate winning strategy. Try it, silence works, and it's wonderfully entertaining to watch its demolishing power, one stab at a time. You know what they say, if you can't fight'em, join'em.

I'm all out of love, period. Well maybe not entirely, I still do love the morning mist, and winter in SoCal brings me some. On days when it's really thick I take the long route, which requires me to miss the left turn on Glenwood and take Argonaut instead. If it's some quality fog I get to drive in it while going downhill, and I get blind sighted for a fraction of a second. In that fraction of the second I imagine I'm driving down a windy road in the Alps, preferably between France and Switzerland, I'm looking forward to meeting my fiance in our cozy hut above the canyon and spending the evening next to her in front of our fireplace, have some Gluwein and a pot of fondue and listen to some Bocelli on my Bang and Olufson super sleek wall-mounted audio system.( I've got this CD from him and I've never listened to it, I keep thinking I should save it for the proper occasion )...

It's always right after the 2nd glass of wine that I realize I'm sitting in my cubicle and staring at Windows(R)(TM) login screen, with the evil cursor blinking the hell out me, and the next thing I know my fingers are dancing on the keyboard, clicking and ticking my life away into zeros and ones...

Sometimes you have to pretend to things,.,. for the sake of friendship..
like pretending that like your highschool buddy, nothing happens in your life..
that the life has become a big bore..
that your love life is as pointless as hers ..
that you too have had no luck in years..
That like her you too cried for that episode of Sex and the city where she goes home all alone to nobody in her birthday....
sometimes having nothing means a lot to a looser friend..
that's what friendship is all about..
sharing nothing, and everything

I couldn't tell if we arrived before or after bread and butter did. Then arrived a full bottle of Acacia pinot, I asked her if she's been to Carneros (I think I'm cool because I've been there), she hesitates, then replies that's where she got married. The empty bottle left our table some time later.

The vinaigrette walnut salad arrived way too sweet, and three quarters of it left in the table in ten minutes or so.

Then arrived the two orders of sea bass, half of each left the table, I wondered if they'll put them together and make one more serving out of them. Although they had to add the asparagus, not too many of them survived.

Later on the bill arrived and left with my signature on it. I like signing, makes me feel like I'm important. Plastic rocks.

I couldn't tell if we left before or after the restaurant closed. Bread and butter never left. They stayed there, untouched, unattended.

I achieved "nothing" and neither did she, and we couldn't be more satisfied with it. "Nothing" is most fulfilling, satisfying and enjoyable with the right company. "Nothing" is great. It really is.

Yeah so today was a day that i spent doing nothing and lots of great things...
i woke up with a wake up call that i requested last nite, and i think it was pricey for the caller. Since it was from overseas, and promised to call my friend in FL, explaining why i didnt go there during holidays, and do the things i was supposed to do a month ago and haven't done. oh and heard about a place with bras hanging from it's chairs as part of decoration, or maybe i was just sleepy..
then in a triumph over sleep, i jumped outta bed like in half an hour and went to the dog park with my dad.. and since we had no dog we just watched them doggies and argued over how my sister's dog was better off in Iran, eating nothing and running around home all day. Than being pampered and spoiled in Canada... according to dad," in Iran she had an organic life.."
Wat else, i spent the rest of the day all by myself .. Watched E! News channel on Jessica Simpson true story or something.. and came to conclusion that her father is even more controlling than mine, which is unheard of!!!!
Then i watched hot celebrity bodies for another hour.... and decided fuck it.. i will never go to gym.. abs are freaky anyways... guys with abs, remind me of Ex-cons.. btw apparently Ralph Fines has a hot body??? Isn't the dude like my father's age?? It was kinda creepy...
then i decided to do something with my life so i spent three hours straight on some school application thingie.. i wrote couple of letters of recommendations for myself and signed them, sealed in envelopes and signed over the seal... Forging signature Isn't as easy as one might think, especially for a perfectionist with ADD...
then i made myself some steak,,, yeah i can do that. It was big and juicy, and i liked the bread and avocado more.. then i watched TV again, it was about a plastic surgery on a transexual and he/she was there with her/his gf.. and i thought wat if i am really in love with a guy and he decides to change his gender.. Well, yeah i will stand by him throughout the surgery.. but then if i stay with him/her for the rest of our lives, then wouldnt i be like a lesbian? not that there is anything wrong with that, but then i came into this relationship looking for something else..
how do people deal with such things?? and i thought i had relationship issues??
then there was another show in which a Jewish guy was marrying a Christian Baptist gal, and the issue of religion kept coming up... the guy was confused, he didnt want to discuss the religion and how to raise children with the gal.. and even his friends told him religion is an important thing.. and then i thought of my parents, did they have a religion conversation before marriage?
i reenacted it in my head
Mom: well religion.....
Dad: oh yeah that, it's the opiate of masses
Mom: Yesterday i read an article on the opiate receptors in the brain
Dad: Oh speaking of receptors I think our people are now ready to receive socialism with open arms..
Mom: Speaking of people wat do you think of children
Dad: hmm... i had a rotation in OBGYN ward.. i like it when those little things come to the world. but then for myself, i am too busy saving the world from capitalism and sacrificing myself for everybody and not having a life.. so i think it's unethical to have children..

15 years later
Dad: Children , all four of you, come here .. u see this book.. have u heard of Darwin..
Ok i just wanted to tell you that all the nonsense about god and creating the world that they teach you in school, is well nonsense...
It was just an accident... there is no god.. we were all from monkeys
Mom: Honey you are wrong, monkeys are like our cousins not actual ancestors...
My Bro: so, i don't have to study religion B.S in school, i will tell them my dad said it's B.S
My dad: two things... first of all a gentleman with your upbringing will not use the "B," word under any circumstance... i told u i was in jail for one year and under the worst tortures..
Mom: yeah.. he never used a word waist down..
My dad: second. u have to do your assignments and never talk back to your teachers.. do as you are told.. school is good for you.. exams are like drugs, you have to take them..for your own good
Me: But dad, you said we should never lie
My dad: that's for the time that you are not living in a third world dictatorship, when you finally started living in a developed industrial world, " you can live as honestly as you want to..!!!"

And then i saw another show about a white couple, adopting a black baby... and trying to introduce him to his African heritage...

Finally i watched E! News Live.. and i cant remember wat happened!!
i didnt call my friend in FL, i think i will do it tomorrow..
and....
and...
and..
i feel guilty about having steak.. Because of all environment things..
oh and yesterday my dad tried to pursued me there is a higher power in the world, if not god, and i should pray to him/her/them...
and ..
and...
and..
i like this blog.. i think i am giving up on my other one..

Three years ago I moved down here from LA. I told all my friends it's great here since I'm relatively close to all the major airports in the area. Ever since then I've bought all my tickets from SNA only, which is only 10 min away. Ever since then all my friends have bought their tickets to any of the major airports in the area, except SNA.

I love my friends. I hate driving. Freeways are evil, and maps are deceiving. Overall, Life's funny.

I received another email asking me to RSVP for the gala of Campaign for my Alma Mater in this exclusive club....
I should do it by tomorrow...
The school itself wasn't so impressive, but the alumni roster, oh that's to die for... School of rich kids, with richer parents.. Generations of wealth .. I can have it on my rolodex..
All it takes is a RSVP, and showing up in a cocktail dress in that exclusive club that no ordinary man or woman can get in...
One thing I have learnt in life is the power of networking with Alumni of your alma mater... It was the secret to my parents success...
I am good at learning not so good at applying I guess...
Or maybe everything that should've been achieved has been achieved before my birth...
There is nothing left for me to achieve...
I just have to follow the suit through....
I searched E-bay for some cheap ambition... It didn't have any...
I have to RSVP for my Alma Mater thing....
the school that doesn't even have a decent football team, but the golf and tennis team are pretty good...
They even asked me to join a panel to discuss the school's programs with prespective students, I have to pursade them to do as I did... I guess they still like me there
I have to wear my cocktail dress and smile for Saturday...
The Alumni Roster is to die for..

She's voluptuous. She's pretty, sweet, kind and has got the most beautiful eyes. She's intelligent, smart, educated and professional, very well off. She's funny, knows exactly how and when to be sarcastic. She's independent, yet very feminine.

She's voluptuous. Is size just a number?

For New Year we went to my sister's Ex-Bf Party, another Ex of her was there too.. She was somewhere better herself!!!
My brother came too, cause the host was the cousin of his company's CFO...
I was recording a movie for my sister and asking everybody to send her their New Year's Message ... The host ran away to the next room, pretending he was fixing cocktails for the guests
The other Ex who was holding his Gf started shouting, " No movies, only pics.. Ok Only Pics. It's hard to send movies ..."
My brother was busy trying to convince the host to personally introduce him to his cousin..
I sat there drinking my cocktail trying to be ridiculous, in order to make people laugh and feel comfortable...
We watched "curb your Enthusiasm," marathon
I sat there staring at people, without being close friends to anyone...
K, kept refreshing our drinks.. He reminded me of my father, when he throws a party
N tried to sing/annoy everybody with his guitar, A and F jumped in singing with him...
N stared at "K and N" with resentment... He used to date "N," I just sat down got drunk and watched them all...
Things haven't changed much since my childhood...
There is still a couple fighting in front of everybody, there is still a guy who refreshes your drink and has no control over drinking. There is still a guy who likes to sing, another guy who thinks he knows too much.. A girl with lots of Mascara, a broken hearted young guy..
My brother still uses every single opportunity to achieve things in life and get ahead of the game...
And me still cleaning up after my sisters, forgetting that I actually have a life too...
Another year has come by and things haven't changed much...

P.S: It's raining cats on dog in our Neck of the wood, we didn't have Power for 24 hours.. It was amazing, we had BBQ chicken and made Tea in the fireplace...
Me and mom and dad sat by the fireplace.. They argued about things... I told them if there was a god, he would've made " happily married couples," a bit happier
and my parents told me there are some very happy couples " in the stories ,"who don't argue at all...
We had no electricity.. But we had tea Hafiz, Rumi, and my mom's theories and I got to make fire...
I want the rest of the year to be like this...
Nothing happens, with nothing to worry about...

On the way back we passed by exactly one crashed car under a huge pine unrooted by the gusty winds. Today I told Josh I saw a couple, he told Claire I saw a few, she told Angus I saw a good number of them. When Hicham asked me how many of the seven wrecked cars were SUVs I also told him about their colors, number of passengers and their minor injuries, the little kid who almost got run over by the truck coming from the opposite side and how we were so lucky we didn't end up with a flat tire crossing over all the debris on the road...

Not sure what it's called, but I'm positive people take pills for much less severe cases of my sickness.