STORIES, STORIES

Gaming was always the exclusive club I wanted to join. My brothers, my friends, they all are gamers. The inside jokes, the references I don't get, the game nights I was an outsider to, all that sad stuff. So I was like That's it. I'm gonna do dis. I've had a PS3 and a Steam account for years (because it's not like my people haven't tried a hundred times to get me into it), and I proceeded to play the first game I saw - Metal Gear Solid 4. My brothers came in to watch me.  Ha ha, Old Snake. That's me. Right off the bat, my brother tells me that my teenaged nephew had already finished this game. Twice. Very quickly both times.  I'd have argued the whole relativity and age-inappropriate thing, but I was too busy screaming at the controller because I didn't know how to make Old Snake shoot at the enemies. "You're not supposed to shoot anyone. Stay low and get to where you need to go." "What?! Who told you t...

Something a few people have said several times about my life here in Jeddah: "Nobody lives like you guys do, like you're in a sitcom, hanging out everyday and stuff." Cue the Friends theme song and a laugh track. And a picture of me and some friends having pop sushi and being moderately funny with our stories. Clockwise from top: Joey, Monica (me), Phoebe and Ross. And why not? Between our first-world whining and not needing to pay taxes, our stunted adolescence is glaring. Just check Instagram and Twitter, we're all about 'being sarcastic' and complaining about getting out of bed in the morning, or posting pictures of ourselves and the fun we're having that OMG EVERYONE IS JUST TRYING TO RUIN FOR US.  We are just SUCH VICTIMS HERE. We can't do ANYTHING, there are no CINEMAS, no FUN PLACES to spend all this CASH COMING OUT OF OUR ORIFICES. When are we EVER GOING TO CATCH A BREAK? Ugh! I do this a lot. I talk about shallow things ...

Emily Shur for TIME Mindy Kaling plays Kelly Kapoor in The Office (I'm only on the 3rd season) and she's my favorite character. She only became my favorite - I have to admit - when I noticed her name in the credits as sometimes-producer sometimes-writer sometimes-story editor. In the beginning, I was like WHA- HOW SHE DO DAT?! when she acts IN the show, too?! And then I remembered the Tina Feys and the Amy Poehlers of the world. And we all know how I feel about the Tina Feys and the Amy Poehlers of the world. (Envy, mostly. But admiration, too.) I got her book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) , natch, which, although not as magnificent as I expected, inspired me to do something about comedy writing. Each chapter of her book felt like a blog entry, and at the end of each one, I was all "hey, I can do that." I saw myself in my criticism of her book, if I'm honest. I am my own champion, but I am also always my biggest critic. I...

No S on my chest, but I've hit 2 of my major fitness benchmarks this month! The Camel Pose Photo credit: The Internet Remember when I was all OMG PHILOSOPHY AND CONTEMPLATION all over yoga on this post ? In it, I complained about how I couldn't do the camel pose, pictured left in the form of a girl who is not me. Now, eight months after that post, EIGHT MONTHS, I can finally FINALLY DO IT. Like, I'm at that stage where I'd camel pose for anyone who makes the mistake of paying me the smallest amount of attention ever. Like, I'd be at work and a colleague could just be passing by and mumbling "Good morning" and I'm all ::camel poses on the spot::. Yeah, dude. In fact, I'm typing this post in camel pose, motherfuckers. Please also remember how I'm one of those people who can't reach to touch their toes. Or knees for that matter. I'm made of hardcore metal stuff. Flexibility is a cylon word to me. So yes, I am accepting awar...

It's Friday, which means catch-up time with friends and family living elsewhere in the world. Our currency: photos, videos and bullet-point updates. Long gone are the days of long-ass emails (remember those?) and in its place, WhatsApp. Internet connection still sucks ass here in Jeddah, and Skype calls or Google Hangouts are more annoying than what they're worth, so I skip that. The lag makes the small talk and the "how are yous" in the beginning of the conversations even more uncomfortable. That's weird, the fact that we still go through the how-are-yous, no matter how close we are to people. Why have we not done away with this already? Chatting and texting cancels this, thankfully, and we can just cut to the chase every time. We're constantly in communication anyway, on Instagram, on Facebook, on Twitter, through blogs, so it's really pointless to ask "how are you" anymore. It really is no longer creepy to start conversations with "I...

My cousin's kids are here. They're outside my bedroom door, yelling for me to let them in. I'm trying my best not to make any sounds, so they think I've died, or that I'm not here. "I can smell your cigarettes!" That's Aisha, she's 7. "You look like Brave." That's Jiji, she's 6. Or 5. I dunno, they're all the same age to me. Brat-year-olds. "No, she doesn't." "Yes, she does. They both don't brush their hair." Meanwhile, I'm quietly building a white MTG deck, listening to their conversation through the door. They're probably seated on the floor, waiting patiently, because I'll have to open the door sometime. 

Whenever I forget, I am reminded of just why it's good to LISTEN to people. I'm a talker. I non-stop blab and I'm loud, and because that's not enough, I like to interrupt people when they're  talking. Listening takes incredible effort. Last night, at a small gathering of Jeddah's young, smart set, I tried this thing where I listened more than I talked. It's stating the obvious, but I really took away a lot from the experience. The subject of Death came up. Like Omar (pictured in left), Death is something that always runs in the background of my mind, like an app you can't really turn off. [ I wrote about it a few weeks ago for one of our  writing sessions ]. Most everyone agreed that we fear death because we just generally fear the unknown, because we fear pain, because we are just built with an innate fear of death, and - the most popular one - because it's the one thing that can stop us from doing all the things we've set out to d...

Of course money can buy happiness. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar, in denial, bad at English, and/or can't argue semantics ("Money CAN buy happiness" does not mean "ONLY money can buy happiness", nor does it mean "Money CAN buy happiness even when you don't know what makes you happy", etc). My own financial state is as follows: I burnz that cheddar as soon as I makez it. I've perfected this skill; as soon as I get my hands on any form of currency, I methodically and systematically (as is my wont) plan all the ways I can burn it and get it out of my hands, and then I execute these plans perfectly and efficiently in the shortest of periods. My exceedingly mainstream brain works for me at a maximum in this situation as it panders to consumerism and validation-seeking.  Lifehacker says my "money memories" play a role in my relationship with money, because everything in our childhood plays roles in everything etc psyc...

I am babysitting Khayra 's non-human child - her computer - and as its temporary legal guardian, I will be posting on this blog from inside it. This analogy is amusing, but I don't see my computers as my children, really. They're more like an extension of myself. Putting aside the stealthily named porn folders we all joke about, there's so much of us that we deposit into our computers. And that's what I'm thankful for today, my computers for carrying my burdens and for doing more than half my work - my Dean Winchester and my Olaf .