STORIES, STORIES

A few days ago, I was telling my brother about my day. Me: "OMG, you would never believe what happened today. I was--" My brother: "Yes, please, tell me, BECAUSE I CARE." Today, at Bin Dawood supermarket, at the candy aisle. My brother: "You know how there's this candy that makes you think of--" Me: "You know how I DON'T CARE?" The never-ending battle of wits between me and my brothers. - And now, for another Shit We Eat photo. Copyright.

This song cheers me up even when I don't need any cheering up. Let's also not forget my special love for Danes. :) This is Alphabeat . - My 7-year-old cousin Yosra is just now starting to learn how to write in English. I dunno, maybe there's a secret message here that I'm missing? Some Cylon code, perhaps? Anyone? -

My cousin Hani, who just turned 8, walks into my room. I'm on my laptop. Hani: "So. You like Vans, huh." Me: "What?" Hani: "Vans. (He points at my shoes by the door.) They're pretty cool." Me: "Haha what do you know about shoes? Go and play or something." Hani: "Okay. I heard you have Heavy Rain. I've been wanting to play that." Me: "Erm.. It's not for kids. You're not allowed to play it." Hani: "Fine, YOU play it. I'll watch." I love small talk with kids.

I haven't drawn in a long time. A few years ago, I started drawing little comics here and there. I thought they were hilarious and oh-so-artsy, but of course, I may be biased. They're really just squiggly lines. Beautiful, squiggly, inspired lines. It was when I was happy that I was inspired to draw a few panels. It's been a long time. Here's to another fresh start. Because we have an unlimited supply of Fresh Starts.

It's almost 1 a.m. Needless to say, my attempts at trying to be " normal " have failed. My friend Sheri might be right, maybe I'm just doomed to go through life sleep-deprived, hitting all the right depression posts on the regular schedule of a little past midnight. Let's explore this dark place, shall we? Altruism. Pure selflessness, the desire to give and do good for others without wanting reward or benefit, or anything in return. Is there such a thing as true altruism? We give because it makes us feel good to give selflessly, it makes us happy when others are happy. Or maybe we give everything to make another person happy, even when it makes us unhappy, because of that feeling of obligation that we have, to make the people we care about happy. Therefore, we are really serving ourselves. That's the motivation. I've learned to give. But I haven't learned NOT to expect something in return, some acknowledgment, however small. One of the worst feelings ...

Me : I want to be a normal person. I want to have normal relationships, a normal personality, sleep at 11:30pm like a normal person, have a normal life. Sheri : I don't think you'll ever be normal. And I wouldn't be friends with you if you were. ... How normal is normal?

So. Laundry, right? If you've known me for a while, you know about my relatively recent obsession with doing my laundry. I didn't use to do my own laundry before about a year or two ago. Now that I do, though, I'm LOVING it. I love doing the laundry. I love to organize my laundry just so, and I have a very efficient system pre- and post-wash. I only use one kind of detergent, and only one kind of fabric softener. I take about 2 hours to do 3 loads, and I categorize them. Not always by color. There's pyjamas, there's work clothes, there's jeans, there's linen, and there's towels. I also have a special category, my favorite: bags and shoes. I stuff them in the washer. What. I never said I was GOOD at it. I just enjoy it. I once got so obsessed with doing the laundry that I thought to myself, "hey, why don't I surprise my mom and do ALL THE LAUNDRY IN THE HOUSE?" I did, and it was a disaster. I put in some red tablecloth with the white curtain...

The internet is such an Alice-In-Wonderland strange place. Aren't we all more open-minded online than we are in real life? I've been following The Voracious Vegan's blog for more than a year now. I myself am not vegan, but I like to follow bloggers whose lives are drastically (for lack of a better word) different from mine. The only thing we had in common was the fact that we both lived in Saudi Arabia. She (Tasha) is now no longer vegan, after 3.5 years of being a hardcore one, due to some health problems and deficiencies. Read more on her struggle here . When I first read her post " A Vegan No More ", my first thought was how she would be attacked by so many anti-veganism individuals, or even by other hardcore vegans like she used to be, for making this so public. How much mocking she would endure. That's why I felt it was important for me to post this, to show my support for her, and for her decision. We all have our own beliefs. We do things that we think...

If you want to pee your pants mildly (from laughing presumably), here's a blog post to assist you in this noble activity, written by the marra katkoota Daedul . In other news, I want to start a new segment in this blog called "Shit We Eat". Because life is short, and we have to record each moment. And overshare. Send me pictures of shit you eat at diana.blogger@gmail.com. GO!! P.S. If you literally eat shit, send your pictures to iwillbeatyouup@gmail.com.

I am "drunk-dialling" my blog. Hello? Hello? And now, for the quote of the week. "I want to meet the girl who thinks Bill Murray is hot." - my friend M.S.Y. while we were discussing actors and actresses who fall under the category HOT. It was on the same day we all decided that Michael Keaton was, in fact, the best Batman of all time. Paysh!

It's never a good day when your heart is broken, for what seems like the nth time, not even when it's unintentional, or inevitable, or necessary . But it's always, ALWAYS a good day when you've learned to break out of a deeply destructive pattern, to have your eyes opened to change or a fresh approach, to possibilities, to infinitely greater and more important things. Here's to a mind that knows just when to stop , and exactly when to start .

I like to think that if I weren't living in Jeddah, I would never ever forever ever be caught dead watching Glee. I blame it on Jeddah. IT'S YOUR FAULT!! Nevertheless, here's what I just watched: I would forgive myself if it weren't for the cheesy acting. I'm still enjoying that song. I give it 3 more listens before I'm all "FUCK YOUU hoo hoo hoooo!" (I had to.) It's Hajj vacation and I have already started on my Big Plans, first with Saturday Night Live reruns. I swear to god, if money and 10 million other things weren't factors, I would focus all my time and energy into trying to get a writing spot on SNL. One spot. That's all. Just one. I love (the writers of) that show. My other plans are as follows: - Get back to my workout. I have not lost any, but not gained any either, so that's an accomplishment, thank you. - Start reading and/or watching Dune, because really, my non-Battlestar Galactica-watching friends are just about ready to...

What I need is consistency. Something un-shake-able. It doesn't have to be something major. Just.. constant.

Sometimes I'm a total douchebag to customer service reps just so they can rant about me to their co-workers later on while they have their cigarette breaks. Rep : "Ma'am, there is no need for that kind of language." Me : "WHAT KIND OF &%$&ING LANGUAGE ARE YOU @%#^ING TALKING ABOUT, YOU &@#$ING ^*&%?! FIX MY PHONE LINE NOW OR I WILL SLOWLY *&%$ THE *&^% UP YOUR (*&%ING %$#@." Rep : "..." (On a side note, email me your interpretation of my little rant up there. I'd like to know how creatively you have filled in the visually bleeped words.) I know, I know, I know, it's mean. But then this is probably how it went later on, at said cigarette break. Rep: Man, there was this *&^%$ that kept talking @#$%. I wanted to *&#%ing smash her #%&^ing face but what can I do, man, *&@#ing $%@# won't *&@# the *%$$ up and (*!@#$. Rep's Friend: *&@# her, man, you're better than her. Ignorant pieces...

Twitter has made us indecisive over-sharers. By us, I mean myself. I occasionally refer to myself in the first person plural. By occasionally, I mean a lot of the times. We tell people things we don't need to share, we ask people to help us make decisions that we can make on our own, and we flood timelines and feeds with sad faces to denote our unhappiness and desire to be given attention. Just saying. Today, I shall give Twitter a rest. I ask you, Internets, to help me make a decision. I have acquired two games today: Red Dead Redemption and Heavy Rain. What to play? Also, happy "technical" anniversary to That Jeddah Podcast ! Congratulations are in order, not only for surviving a whole year with a lazy producer, but also for getting offers for sponsorship, which was the main purpose of all of this to begin with. Muwahaha!! XD Also also, follow me on Twitter here . To help me make more decisions.