Exploration # 52

I took a water sample from the fountain in the flower shop, a water sample from one of the vases with flowers, and mixed them with these gelatin like ball things that we use to decorate flower arrangements that had been hanging out in water in the heat all weekend.  I put all of the samples into a clear glass container and I covered it and placed it by a window.  Just to see if anything is going to grow.  I'm sort of hoping to see a parasite or something by the end of the summer.  Or mayyybbeee the microbes are slowly going to mutate into humans!!! Then it's bye bye God, hello Darwin.  Can't wait. 

that was SO hetero normative

Danica Radoshevich has been a friend of ours (Salma, Ranna, Neela, Bardia, Rene, Genevieve, Nazy, Sanjar, Parsa, Aria, and others) since Salma was 7, and I was 9.  The first memory I have of Dani is one day when she came over for a playdate with Salma, and I was OBSESSED with cutting out pictures of models from magazines and using them as faux paperdolls, because randomly paperdolls were super expensive, and my mom would only buy the books for me sometimes, because after I [carefully] cut out all of the paper doll outfits, I would play with them for a little bit before I would get a little bit bored and slowly the pieces of the outfits would get lost.  Now that I think about it, I had this amazing "Gone With the Wind" collection and it took me like a week to get all of those giant Scarlett O'Hara dresses cut out.  That paperdoll set lasted a while actually.  So did the Christian Dior paperdoll book that Genevieve gave me.  Mostly because my mom didn't let me cut out the dolls for a really long time.  Because just like she knew what would happen with our Barbies* she knew what happened to my paperdolls.

Wow.  I just totally segued into another story completely.  Back to Dani.  So anyway, I was cutting out the models from the magazines and just doing my own thing.  I thought I was so cool as the older sister, playing with my paper people, having a good time.  And Dani's like, "oh hey, can I join you?"  And I like grudgingly gave her one of the uglier models, one of the ones who was standing really strangely.  Like, in the picture, she was probably standing normally, but the cutout was just proportionally wrong to all the other paper people, and she was just the outcast cutoff.  So I gave her that one, and she started to play with me, and the next thing I know, she's like looking into the doorknob screaming, "ICEBERG AHEAD! ICEBERG AHEAD!" And i'm like, "Woah woah woah, WHEN DID THIS BECOME THE TITANIC??!"  But then...somehow, from there, I decided Dani was going to be my best friend.

And best friend she remained.  We lived really close by while we were growing up.  We'd always hang out at each others houses.  Summers were spent together, going to the YMCA pool, bothering our babysitter Evie, playing cops and robbers at night.  Our parents were friends too.  Our dads randomly loved each other, and our mothers would spend time complaining about the eccentricities of our fathers.  Salma spent more time with Dani, of course, because they were classmates, the same age, the same height.  Randomly they were "shoe sisters" because one time they bought matching shoes at Target.  Also, they had this Mario and Luigi sketch they would do because Dani had this ancient game for Nintendo 64, and her and Salma would always play it.  Anyway, Salma would be Mario, and Dani would be Luigi, and they would go around doing this really funny run, and I ALWAYS wanted to join, but Salma was all, "No, it's just for two people."  And I was like, "But I can be Princess Peach."  And Salma would be all, "No, thats not how the game works."  And they would keep doing their thing.

Dani knew everything about us and understood us completely and perfectly.  Even this weekend while she was here, she still after not living near each other for the last six years, she totally just got us.  We laugh at the same things, we get annoyed at the same things.  It just complete honesty and comfort.  It's awesome is what it is.

She came from New York, where she's doing an internship in Brooklyn, to visit for the weekend.  We took her to Eastern Market and she bought a bag.  We went to this Cajun restaurant around there and watched the "Ghana-US" game.  Everyone in there hated us because Salma was loud and obnoxious and every time Ghana would do something good, and everyone would yell, "No!  No!  No!" Salma would yell, "YEAHHH GHANNNAA!!!"  She said she had to make up for the lack of support Ghana was getting.  So Dani and I sat there, watching the game, but getting more entertained by Salma's enthusiasm over her team.  We were scared to see what would have happened had Ghana lost.  So good thing we saw a victory there.  Otherwise we would have seen a very scary Salma.

Dani's super cool these days because she goes to Grinnell which is in Iowa, and she studies studio art.  She's working at a print shop this summer and she throws around words and phrases like, "ableist," and "hetero normative."  I love it.  She's so articulate and manages to get her points across so well using the most brilliant vocabulary ever.  But then, in the midst of discussing something with my mother (who thinks of Dani as her third daughter), she'll be like, "do you guys remember that time we all goozed (cus DUH she knows that word)?"  and then we'll all go and replay that story over and over again.  No.  Not by goozing.  Jeez.  We just do the sound effects.  Haha, that makes it so much better, right?  Right.

It was so completely normal to have her here with us this weekend.  All these years Sal and I have lived in Virginia, we always bring Dani up.  We always say, "if Dani was here, she would do this," or "If Dani was here, we could go here..." But alas, we only get to see Dandan like once a year.  It's ok though, because we decided that one day we're all going to live near each other again.

Right, guys?  When we start our "SaDaRa" band and sing "O-Town" songs.  And Michael Kramer (whose name is actually Michael Fraiser) can be our manager and hire us a choreographer because we really don't know how to dance.  And then Dani can pretend the soccer ball is actually Kevin from the Backstreet Boys head, and Ruth can make moussaka, while Zhivoin complains about Bill Clinton and jokes around with Bardia.  :)

Found Words

I read in the paper the other day that scientists have discovered the meaning of life.*

What was it? 

I forget. 



* Conversation borrowed from Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle

Flower talk

As many of you know, I work at a flower shop these days.  My aunt, Maryam's, shop.  I do a little bit of this and that, but part of my job requires that I address the cards that are sent with the arrangements.  Whenever I take an order, I have to ask if they would like a message on a card, if they do, then I listen to them tell me what they want written.  Most of the time, they are simple, "I love you's" or, "Our thoughts are with you..."  But sometimes the messages people send are really funny.  Here is a collection of some of those messages.  I thought I would share.

" Thank you              Your Baby's Daddy

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.......       Vincenzo

From an admirer       --Admirer

Happy Birthday dad!      Your favorite daughter

When I see the sunlight in the morning, taste the breeze in the afternoon, watch the stars dance across the sky every night, I thank them all.  My heart beats for thee, Jessie Leigh!       Zozo

Good luck and good health, if you're not, its your own damn fault

Colleen, here is to DANCING IN THE RAIN!!!  Love, Your Bear

You know, the Communists just used women as a substitute proletariat where necessary so they could equate support for women's liberation with fidelity to the regime.  "



It's funny and slightly awkward at the same time because I feel like some of the messages are meant to be so intimate, but as the middleman between the sender and the reciever, it's our job to read them and document them onto the cards, without us, the messages would only remain verbal.  Is it bad that I'm posting this as a blog entry?  Am I totally taking away from their privacy?  I mean, they're funny!!!

I've decided on the no shame approach to this.  I'll keep posting these as the months progress.  Hopefully you're just as entertained as I am. 

Love, Ranna

you cant disapparate on hogwarts grounds (story of my life)

It's not fair.  I'm supposed to be sleeping.  I'm sooooo tired.  I was supposed to close my eyes and fall asleep.  Instead, thoughts are taking over my body.  They're creeping over me and making me have restless leg and arm syndrome.  I can feel them infesting me at full force.  I just want to sleep.  Instead.  Instead, I'm looking up ticket prices.  It's what I do when I don't have anything else to do.  I look up ticket prices.  I try to find the best deals, and I try to rationalize purchasing tickets to far off exotic locations.  Yesterday it was Spain.  Just now, I checked ticket prices to Copenhagen, hoping they would be cheap enough for next week so that Salma and I could go to Roskilde again.....yeah right.  It's depressing to see the thousand dollars pop out on the page and know that no matter how badly I want to go, its a little impossible right now.  Plus, I have to keep telling myself: Short term satisfactions?  Or long term ones?  I prefer the long term ones.  That's why I'm working like this.  That's why I'm saving all of my money.
Still, its doesn't mean its not depressing to see ticket prices that are so unbelievably expensive.
And then, to make matters worse (...maybe I'm a masochist that I keep doing this) I checked ticket prices from inside EU.  So I looked up prices from Paris to Barcelona, Barcelona to Copenhagen.  It's ridiculous how cheap they are.  It makes me wish I could just disapparate to Europe and take advantage of their ticket prices.  Then again, if I could disapparate then I wouldnt have to worry about ticket prices.
And I sure as hell wouldnt be here tonight....

Ring Around the Nosey

You know how certain smells can evoke strong emotional reactions?  This is because the human body houses these things called olfactory receptors.  These receptors are directly connected to the limbic system, which controls our emotions.  So, lets say you walk outside in the morning after it's rained and you breath in and get a whiff of the wet grass.  By the time you correctly name the smell, as in, "wet grass," the scent has already been activated in the limbic system and this triggers a stronger emotional response.

In my time alone sometimes I think about the five senses we have as human beings and I try to rate them.  Which one is the most important to me?  Which one can't I live without?  I've ended this self-discussion by coming to the conclusion that sight and hearing are the two most important senses for me.  In their own rights, I cannot distinguish which is more important than the other.  From there, I think I rank smell as third, touch as fourth, and taste as fifth.  I think.  Although, I still argue with myself because taste may be just as important as smell.  Also, I think without touch I would go crazy.  Then again, maybe ranking the senses shouldn't be brought to discussion.  Maybe we take them and understand that each one is as important and valuable as the next.

But anyway, back to olfactory receptors.  Mine must be strong because I associate some smells so strongly with certain sentiments and scenarios (alliteration much?).  For instance, where I work now, with my Ameh Maryam at her flower shop, I work with this woman named Britta.  Britta wears a perfume that caught my attention from the very first day I began to work at the shop.  For the life of me, I couldn't remember how I knew this perfume, but whenever she walked past me I was reminded of Colorado and that feeling I felt when Shannon Saufley came to my house to say goodbye and whispered into my ear, "I'm going to miss you so much," kept flashing through my head.  And then, *BAM* today Britta walked past me and all of a sudden I knew where I knew that perfume.  It was Abercrombie and Fitch's "8" and Katie Rodman began to wear it in the 9th grade.  I used to love how it smelled.  But more than that, it began to remind me of 9th and 10th grade when I used to go over to Sarah Hayes-Davis' house to watch the OC and Katie Rodman would come over looking like she had just walked out of an Abercrombie advertisement, fall down onto the couch next to me, and we would watch Ryan and Marissa's saga and eat sour candy, the smell of her perfume slowly washing over me.

And then there are smells that come and go and I'm left wishing they had lasted longer.  For instance, sometimes, in certain buildings, I'm reminded of the smell of Ramin and Rassah's house.  I don't know how many of you are familiar with that smell, but it's very distinct.  I can't describe it for you either, it is what it is.  And it's another comforting smell for me because a couple years ago I used to love going over to their house, and I always felt very at home there.  I get reminded of going into Rassah's room and each time thinking, "holy crap, and I thought I had a lot of clothes."  Sitting on her bed and sifting through her art.  Or going down to the basement to see a half-naked Ramin dancing in front of his mirror, making that typical, "ints, ints, ints, ints, ints," sound (please tell me you know what I'm talking about).

Scents make me feel nostalgic more than anything else.  Most of the time they are a reminder of what was, and perhaps no longer is.  However, the ones I love the most are those that give me comfort.  The comfort of knowing what they represent and that something beautiful once existed that contained the scent.
Freesia.  Genevieve's old apartment with the awesome basement.  The one she invited all my friends to come and have a sleepover in after the 5th grade Shakespeare play.
Nivea hand cream.  My grandmother.
Zlatan.  Paris.
Nap Champa Incenses.  Camping at Laama Foundation in the summertime with my dad, sister and Genevieve.  Baba and Genevieve would go off and have silent meditation retreats, or go to the sweat lodges, and Salma and I would have to keep ourselves entertained for long periods of time.  Sometimes we would swing on the wooden swing we were always scared was going to break.  Sometimes, we would play four square (we made so many friends that year.  Remember, Sal?).  Other times, we would play 20 Questions for hours on end.  Only, we had an unlimited amount of questions.  And each time it started:
Player 1: Is it a boy?
Player 2: Yes.
Player 1: Is it a girl?
Player 2: No.
Player 1: Is he pushy?
Player 2: Yes.
We never knew where "Is he/she pushy?" came from, but we continue to ask it till this day.  And Sal and I know that there are certain people we have to choose at least one time during the games: Rosie O'Donnell, Celine Dion, and Kate Winslet.  Why?  That's just what we came up with.  My, how we could keep ourselves occupied...


So you see, I'm glad I have a nose to smell with.  I'm glad I can identify smells with these memories, or the feelings with which I associate the memories.  I'm glad that even though there is a deep longing for some of them to return to me, I know I will always have my good ole' olfactory receptors to make sure I never forget them.

Remember, Remember the 3rd of June