Dear Attractive, Multilingual, Sweater Vest-Wearing Renaissance Man:

You're cute. Hurry up and come into my life. Take me out for chai. Pleeeease like good music and the same movies as me. Introduce me to and teach me new things. Get my random sense of humor, match my wit, track with me when no one else does. Help me not take life so seriously all the time. And please, for Pete's sake, BE GOOD AT MATH. One of us has to. Heck, you can be one of those guys that's good at everything, I don't mind, just respect my writing. And respect and love me. Be good-natured and full of laughter. Show me how to dance. Pursue me and lead me the way a man should, the way only the right man can.

"It's time to decide which is out of my mind. 'Cuz it'll be me unless I put some thoughts to rest and leave some faults behind."

I've been wanting to blog for SO long but haven't been able to get to my site! The stupid filter my parent's set up on our home computer, like, evolved or something and quit letting me get on blogger, which kept me away for so long. But, alas, Blog, I have returned. I've missed you so. I got a mini HP netbook for Christmas courtesy of my mom's friend Chad (you rock, Chad!!), it's no macbook, but it's mine. And that makes it grand. It's FINALLY set up so I can get on the internet so, yeah, I'm back.
I'm still getting used to the fact that it's 2011. Weird...but sweet. I didn't make any resolutions, I just checked off stuff from my "100 Things I Want to Do Before I Die" list and added more to it. That's my New Year's tradition. I was surprised, I actually was able to check off two or three. I figure you can make resolutions whenever you want to and keep them, even, if you really want to. Any time of the year. But that list, for me, is special. It's just my thing I do.
Almost half-way through senior year. Whoop dee doo.
I feel bad for the negativity, but for real, I keep waiting for it to get better. But it's not fun right now. It's so scary. There's so much uncertainty about where I'm going to end up and what I'm going to do. Everyone's always asking me what my plan is, what I'm going to do, "oh, you wanna study English? and how will that pay the bills?" you know what? SHUT UP. Did YOU have it all figured out when you were 17? Doubt it. Uuuuurggggghhhhh. I hate that. I hate when adults ask me what I'm going to do with my life. I don't know. I'm sorry I don't see into the future and know exactly where I'm going to be. But ya know what? It's not even like they really care. It's just the polite thing to ask kids in high school after the standard "How are you?" and "How's school going?"
Siiigh. Anyway. I know I shouldn't be stressing. I know it's just a waste of time to worry, it really is. I'm going to end up exactly where God wants me, that's always been my prayer and desire. I guess just because, well you know, EVERYTHING has been so uncertain for the past year and a half or so, things can get a bit...hm. I don't know, shaky for me. But that's my journey, every day. Learning to trust that it's all going to be alright. And, really, it will be. That's something I'm working on learning. Something I'll understand in time.
Can I just say something that's been welling up inside me for, like, the past three months? Something that breaks my heart? Why is it that, at least with the people in my life, it's those that have known such unspeakable, unimaginable loss that are the ones who are the fullest of, the richest in love? They're so open to it, so ready to give it out, to receive it. Like it's so easy. I mean, it isn't hard, but ya get what I'm saying? It's just something I've noticed. And it isn't everybody, not by any means. It's not difficult to be bitter when you've experienced loss in such a heavy, fist-to-the-gut kind of way. It's easy to see the bad all around when you've had loved ones ripped away from you, torn right out from under you. But those people that are still so full of light, in spite of it, gosh, I don't know, maybe even because of it? Those that love so easily, reach out for it, grasp at it with both hands. I admire that. I love that. I need that. That's beautiful. It seems so wrong, but that's beautiful.
In closing, now that I feel adequately vented, a list.
The Little Things That Are Getting Me Through It All:
Elephant tattoos (relax, I don't have one. just the idea of one). Orange nail polish. Swedish fish (the red ones). That commercial with Kevin Bacon in it. Business Time. Business socks. Chain-reading because Khaled Hosseini told me to. Lotion that smells like buttercream frosting. Indian food. The Message. That moment when you first lay in bed and shut your eyes, and you have the WHOLE night of sleeping ahead of you. Having perfect comedic timing for those really tormenting moments of Chemistry class. Thinking about how I'm halfway done with Chemistry class (take that, world). 1st period English. The English language. The Persian language. New Zealanders. That laugh where it's so passionate, no noise comes out. Yeah.

Under the Persimmon Tree.

They're beautiful. And when they get to be really, really big, their branches twist and entangle themselves in each other in a way I think is sooo cool. I hope I can have one someday, to look up at the sky through its mess of branches.
I stayed home from school today. Somehwat because I felt sick...but mostly because I just wanted to hide. I couldn't handle school today. Why? I don't know, really. My days start off good but have this way of getting lousy after lunch. Oh, and sometimes by 3rd period...yeah, Chemistry's kind of good at ruining my day, too. And it's not even that they're, like, terrible. It's just that they're not good. People keep telling me that senior year is supposed to be fun, which makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong. Which maybe I am...I don't mean to dwell on the negativity, it just kinda happens sometimes. I'm sure it WILL get fun...soon enough. But right now all I see is cruddy Chemistry grades, an unexplainable feeling of sadness that comes out of nowhere for no reason, a mountain of stuff to do for college and no one who will answer my questions.
On a more thoughtful note... I love my Dad. Sometimes I just hug him over and over again for no reason.
I mean, I know my parents aren't perfect. I know things have been hard. Really hard. And messed up. But he's been a pretty darn good father to me in a lot of ways.
I love the way he doesn't like to eat alone, so he'll come get me to sit with him. And how he's been addicted to Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream for as long as I can remember and that's like the only ice cream he will ever buy. Which makes me think that when he's gone, I'll probably buy lots of it so I can eat it and feel close to him. If that notion sounded kinda morbid and weird...I definitely didn't mean it to. It's just what I'm thinking about. This past summer when I couldn't fall asleep until the wee hours of the morning, he would come sit with me on the couch downstairs and we'd whisper about all kinds of stuff while watching the 700 Club. I will treasure those nights.
My Dad gave me my last name. Culture. A people. And, you know what? I'm really, really, really grateful for that. Yes, it makes me different. But that's just it. It makes me different.
Yesterday, on the way home from school, my car was running waaaay on empty (courtesy of my Dad...but that's a whole different story for another day), so I had to stop at a 7-11 and get what gas I could. I only had three bucks on me, which, if you know me, is a lot considering I'm usually broke. So anyway, the cashier was an older man with an accent I somewhat recognized. He seemed really good-natured, and his eyes shone with a kind of blue I'd never seen before. I asked him if I could have three dollars on pump seven, please. And he said, "Three dollars on pump seven? Sure." with his warm accent. Then I thanked him and he looked at me and asked, "Where're you from?"
Usually getting asked that would annoy me. But only because it's ignorant people that ask it. And a lot of the time, those people don't ask because they care, they ask because any kind of difference than them must be addressed. If that makes any sense at all. It does to me. But anyway. When this guy asked, I didn't feel any sort of flicker of discomfort or irritation. I felt honored.
I smiled and told him my Dad is Persian but I'm from here.
"Persian...Iran, right? Where?" He had this lovely look on his face then, and I knew that this man identified with me somehow, and I liked it a lot.
I told him Natanz and then he asked me where I thought he was from. I had somewhat of an idea, but I didn't want to offend him so I guessed something close to where I thought it actually might be.
I shrugged, "Russia?"
He laughed and told me no. "Afghanistan," he said with pride. And I think he said Pakistan as well, but I can't remember. Which would mean somewhere around Kandahar.
I was really, genuinely thrilled. I'm a huge Khaled Hosseini fan and that area captivates me, for real.
I couldn't hide my excitement and was like "Really?!" and then I spoke to him in Farsi. Which, now that I think about it, was a little ignorant of me because he probably speaks Urdu or Pashto, it's Kabul and more of Western Afghanistan that speaks Farsi. And even then, it's a different dialect.
But, nevertheless, the man smiled broadly. "I know I don't really look Afghani," he began. But I told him he did, in the eyes.
Because Afghans have the most beautiful eyes, they really do. So light and fair and full of light.
And then I told him it was very, very nice to meet him. And I left to go pump my gas. He wasn't wearing a name tag, so I don't know his name. But I will definitely be stopping by that 7-11 more often for more glimpses of him. Why? I don't know, really. Just because.

Falling Slowly. This song knows me.

I don't know you
But I want you
All the more for that
Words fall through me
And always fool me
And I can't react
And games that never amount
To more than they're meant
Will play themselves out

Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you have a choice
You'll make it now

Falling slowly, eyes that know me
And I can't go back
Moods that take me and erase me
And I'm painted black
You have suffered enough
And warred with yourself
It's time that you won

Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you had a choice
You've made it now
Falling slowly sing your melody
I'll sing along

Khaled Hosseini says things like nobody else can.

“I firmly believed that if I had picked up a rifle and gone on a murdering rampage, I would have still had the benefit of her unblinking love. Because I have rid her heart of its greatest malady. I had relieved her of the greatest fear of every Afghan mother: that no honorable khastegar would ask for her daughter’s hand. That her daughter would age alone, husband-less, childless. Every woman needed a husband. Even if he did silence the song in her.” -The Kite Runner

"And then one day I said to him, I said, 'What will it be? Are you going to ask for my hand or are you going to make me come khastegari to you?' I said it just like that. You should have seen the face on him!" -A Thousand Splendid Suns

I've been thinking a lot about family...

How I don't really have that big, loud, everybody gets on each other's nerves, everybody knows everybody's business, laughing, annoying, loving kind of family. I've always kinda wanted that. I mean, it's not that I don't have a family outside of my parents and brother, I do. But my Mom's side is so tiny, no cousins, two uncles, and a Grandma who can have deep conversations about why you never end a sentence with a preposition or the writing styles of Jane Austen versus Lord Byron but won't bake brownies like other people's grandmas do(not that there's anything wrong with that!). And my Dad's side? Well. They're pretty much strangers, most of them. I mean, I have one Aunt and Uncle who live in Virginia Beach and they're great, but the rest of them live in Iran. I probably have about a thousand cousins over there (if you count first, second, and third cousins) that I've never met and who probably have no idea that I exist. But I'm okay with that. The idea of them is cool, but I don't really know if we would have much in common anyway. Not that that matters, it's just...well, I don't know. It's complicated. Iran is complicated. Family is complicated.
But, yeah. I've always kinda wondered what it would be like to be a part of a big, loud kind of family. And I'm hoping to marry into one, though I know it won't be the same. But I've also realized that for what I lack in family and connections by blood, God has blessed me abundantly in friendships. He's given me adoptive families. Mother-figures and fathers and sisters and brothers that I feel so at home with. And I'm so grateful for that. He has blessed me so richly with incredible people who've let me in, shared their lives with me, taught me so much, shown me how to be a woman, a wife, a mother. When I think about that, I know that He's given me all the family I need.

From a mess to the masses...

Nothing really monumental or world-changing to say.
So you know what that means!
Why, yes.
A list!
Here's what's up:
-Lisztomania by Phoenix is officially one of my favorite songs.
-Still haven't gotten all my school supplies and school clothes shopping done.
-Not having money is really, really, really lame.
-I want to try Moroccan Oil hair products SOOOOOO bad.
-I'm in love with elephant stuff. Like today I saw this yellow ceramic elephant and about had a stroke, it was so beautiful. And thus another obsession is born.