mariamusic

Sitting and waiting for the “repairing guy” repaying my home’s telephone which has been dead for a week or more, I thought to leave a note or make a posting on my blog saying “hi” to my blog friends.

Life has been good and bad recently, but I survived the bad times, and I enjoyed the good ones.

I am supposed to be asleep but I am not. Yes, it is morning to be sleeping, but I am on my last moments on my vacation before the school starts, and I am used to sleep in the morning till at least 9 am. Oh well, I thought why not to write a posting on my blog while I am awake. The point is I do not know what about, so I suppose I will just be rambling along.

I have been watching lots of movies lately. I used to go to the theatres quite a bit before, but I stopped going to it due to “other people’s perspective” that going to movies is a waste of money. How sad to be in hands of others and realize what I did was a waste… is not it? Which is another story for another time for itself, I re-started going to the movies by going to the movie, “The Dark Knight” couple of weeks ago. I so much enjoyed the environment and the movie that I continued watching the recently made and released movies, to name some, I watched, “Mamma Mia”, “Pineapple Express,” “The Mummy…..” “Sisterhood of Traveling Pants,” “Hancock,” “Step Brothers,” “Get Smart,” “Swing Vote” and more.

I have a lot to say about the movies in general, but one clear point for me was the involvement of Farsi, the language that Irani people speak, in the movies. I heard the Farsi in three of the most recent Hollywood released movies, and in two of them the Farsi spoken people were the bad guys while in one of them the Farsi spoken people were good people. In none of the movies Iran was directly said or pointed out while Russia was, for instance. Maybe, I was too sensitive, or may be I captured an interesting point. Now with all the war between Georgia and Russia, and the nuclear problem with Iran, it is interesting to watch what movies tell to ordinary people, and what will be the real out come. Shall wait and see.

Anyhow, taking a huge step out of that “political quick sand”, I, yesterday, watched a very good movie, perhaps one of the bests of the most released ones, written and directed by Woody Allen. Go and watch it if you like movies. The movie is simple and complicated at the same time; it is entertaining while thought stimulating, and it is silly while serious. “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” is a movie worth watching.


The Moon. I liked how white it was on a black spread sheet.

I have been out a lot these past ten days or so. My therapist thinks I am responding to the anti-depressant medicine while my psychiatrist thinks it is a placebo effect! Which ever, I do not really care. I like it that I feel like I am slowly getting my real self back.

Anyway, Last Thursday I ran in to an
“Old Car” show which I thought was cool, but I figured out today, this Thursday, that the show is held each single Thursday of the week till almost the end of the summer.

Here are some photos of the show, and how crowded it gets for a small but pretty suburb.








Anyway, on one day on my way back to home, I was tired and I was hot. The weather was too hot to walk, so I thought to stop at a bar in which I had little to no clue of. All I used to see of the bar was a wall and a door, so I used to avoid it. However, curiosity and thirst and tiredness encouraged me to have a look inside. To my surprise, the place was fine. Two pool, or billiard, tables, a juke box and other entraining toys and a very pleasant and polite bar tender were the first things I noticed. The people who played pool seemed to be good at what they were doing, so I enjoyed watching them play.

After a while, some one sat next to me since the bar was pretty full and crowded. He was a middle aged guy. I suppose that is how it goes, but he introduced himself and we shook hands. So we started to talk from here and there! He was surprised of my back-ground and very curious about Iran to which, I responded and answered his questions the best I could.
Before I go on, this is a bit of the conversation which took place:

He: Are you Italian?
Me: No, I am Persian.
He: But, Persian includes many countries.
Me: I am from the main Persia. I am from Iran.

Anyway, long story short, he told me that it was nice to have a normal conversation with a normal person.

Here goes the dialogue:

He: It is nice to have a normal conversation with a normal person, do you know what I mean?
Me: No.
He: Girls in bars usually are after your pocket or you pants.
Me:'mute'
He: Do you know what I mean?
Me: Yes.
He: You are a nice person.
He: Be careful.
Me: Thanks for the advice.

Here I am the Normal person who engages in Normal conversations!!! BOY…who is Normal???????

I had a nice walk this morning, and here are some photos of some flowers I saw on my way. I do not know their names, but I enjoy looking at them.







I realized at times I was following my own shadow.

I had a major fight this morning, fighting these thoughts. I am doomed if I go out, and I am doomed if I stay in. I had to force myself to not listen and follow the urge of crashing my car to those hills when I was driving. I was not sure if the accident would get the job done, kill me that is, otherwise perhaps I would do it. No other person would get hurt, and the misery would end.

Before I leave, I, even, did the exercise my therapist taught me, but it did not work. Nothing beats that thought of “die and end it”. I am such a disgusting person that I deserve no life. I can not live. Living is very difficult to do. I must die. I wish I had cancer or had a heart-attack and died. I try to move, but when I move, I want to die. I walked one day morning, and then the next morning when I was tired to walk, I kept blaming myself for not getting out of the house and walking. I do not let myself rest a bit. I am continuously criticizing myself, blaming myself for not being active, productive, alive, successful, useful, helping, charming, rich, thin, sexy, attractive, communicative, intelligent, artistic, sensitive, beautiful, and you name it.

I do not say “well done, I walked one day this week,” I say “damn me. I am lazy, I have to walk” It is far easier for me to neglect my successes and pay attention to my failures. All I see of me is failures.

I am just hanging in there. I did not kill myself while driving today, but I had to fight the thought. I am holding up to it untill I see my therapist tomorrow. I am not sure I will ever get well. She said she sees no reason why I could not get well. I want to believe her, but I am a mess.

I have been listening to the Magic 92.5 for quite a while. It is a, and only San Diego’s old school FM radio station. I like the songs because they are familiar and far smoother to my ears from the majority of the new released ones. Any way, there was an announcement on it about a furniture discount at the GTM store.


A GTM store is a discount store. It is not a thrift store because the materials which are sold are not second handed, but they are mostly stocks. Therefore the prices are cheaper than regular stores. Now, you have a 30 percent discount on already low prices; hence, you would imagine the crowd shopping there.

That particular GTM store is fairly close to where I live, and the good bit for me was that the Magic was going to have a station there and give away free tickets for concerts or shows to shoppers. Of course they would draw and pick the lucky ones, and not all the shoppers would win an additional prize. On my part, however, I went there because I wanted to see how crowded it would get, and I wanted to see the person I hear her voice almost every day on the radio.

Here are some that I captured.




I had to go there twice in order to be able to find a space to park my car. It was very very very crowded the first time that I drove through the parking lot. It took me about half an hour to just drive through it, and get out of there. I, almost, gave up, but the curiosity drove me to that place again. I arrived when she was drawing some names, and giving away the free tickets.




I did not buy anything, but the trip worth the try. I observed

Khosro Shakibai was one of the best contributors in Iran's art, especially in Cinema. He died from Heart attack July 18th, 2008.

My brother said today that he was feeling terrible with his gray hairs as they were shown that he was getting old.

"looking at these gray hairs upset me all last year," he said. He said he did not like people congratulating him on his thirtiest birthday this year. Apparently some one, ok one of our cousins who lives in Chicago, emailed him with this context, "Happy Birthday Old Man!"

I thought those were all so naive.

However, the funny bit accured when I suggested, "Then, dye your hair" after I heard how much his gray strings of hair were making him uncomfortable.
He and my cousin both went like, "aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh, naaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh" as if I suggested him to transgender.


Five minutes trouble, and all the problems were solved if our hair color makes us old.

This was sent to my from my aunt who is living in Tehran. I actually asked for it, and she sent me a ghoori or a teapot.



This photo is not of the teapot that she sent me.

I will scan the photo i took of it if it comes out ok, the one she sent me that is.

Ok, now I need a persian Samovar to make tea. But i love my gift.


Here you see, the persian Samovar was even printed on stamps.

These days the majority of Samovars are electrical, but before we used to have some called Nafti which worked with Naft (someone translates it) , and some were called Zoghali which worked with Carbon...
As you see the teapot goes on the top of the Samovar, and the best tea was made when the teapot was heated up empty while the water was getting boiled in the Samovar. I do not remember the name of that little bowl down there, but it was for wasted tea, water and so forth. Also, as I remember, the best tea was poured in an estekan, or those little glasses which were first rinsed with the Samovar's boiled water.


Some examples of Tea Estekans



this what she wrote on the teapot box.


it says, "My Dear Maryam" and signed "Ammeh" or "Auntie"

Well, every one in the family calls her Ammeh. Some even say Ammeh Khanoom, or Lady Auntie or something like that. If you say Ammeh, every one knows whom you are talking about or referring to. Is it not interesting?

I am still happy with my gifts from Tehran.

I was nervous this morning since I did not know what to expect, a series of Critical comments, or a nice meeting with my brother and my cousin. My cousin is here in USA on vacation from Iran, and my brother has brought him down to town to see the San Diego, they wanted to visit me and my mother as well. To my surprise, I actually enjoyed my time with them.

I had not seen my cousin for three years, and I had not seen my brother for six months or more. We went to a Persian deli for lunch and my mom had a ground beef kabob with rice for lunch,



and I had bread and cheese

but with cucumber and tomato.

My brother had taken my cousin for an American breakfast, so they arrived when we were done with our lunch. It was marvelous to see them. I was so happy to see me cousin that I told him he brought the home with himself. I had tons of gifts from Iran. We sat down and had a drink together. No alcohol of course, my mom and cousin had Cokes while my brother and I drank water. It was nice when my cousin talked about his childhood memories with my mom (I probably was not even born then), and it was nice to see how he chuckled when my mom talked. He said my mother had not changed too much to not be recognized. He had not seen my mom for more than fifteen years. Life has it ways does not it?

We then drove back with my brothers newly, cool and modernized black BMW, and I enjoyed watching the roads and not being the driver. We took my mom back to her place, and then we went to San Diego’s harbor, and the Balboa Park. While driving, I asked my cousin that if people still drive crazy in Tehran? He said that sure they do. He said if he, as a driver, wanted to follow the rules, he would have accidents. I chuckled. Then my brother told this story; he said that he gave his car to our cousin to drive as changing drivers and my cousin miss stop signs. I thought was very funny, and my cousin responded, “well how I should have known? I even did not see the signs.”



The Harbor view

We walked a little at the harbor, but they did not have enough time to get out of the car in order to walk in the Balboa Park. Tomorrow they most probably are going to the SD Zoo. They asked if I wanted to go with them to which I said yes. I was glad that I met them, and I was feeling less “cloudy and grey” when I came back home. They are going to New York next week, and I so much wanted to go along. I might buy a ticket and go on a vacation to some new city I thought.