August...Sort it out!

Image via Flickr user Jesus Leon

August is proving a challenging month this year lifetime; it’s like the Tuesday of the week, the middle of a book, the second year of college, the dry bit of a sandwich!

You wake up with no real purpose, you know you have to go to work but you hate your work and “activity” seems to have come to a standstill, hardly any shouting in the office these past couple of weeks, Thank god for Greece, it’s really keeping us busy this summer; in, out, in, out and no climax to show for it! (You’re welcome)

Trains are full of either single or barren people, you know, because all people with kids are on holiday ….it’s summer holidays or half term or whatever it’s called! YAY! Which means trains are mildly bearable, sometimes I even manage to get a seat if I stick out my belly enough and hold my hips. The weather likes to pretend it’s summer but really we all know summer has come and gone during those 5 days in July (during Ramadan).

Tube strikes and general disruption to your life seem to be finding a niche with August like it was the only month of the year where making your life miserable was ok, it’s like a punishment for not having kids and not going away on holiday like normal Homo sapiens!  Even the IS has gone quiet thankfully, perhaps their president is on holiday too, I hear Hell is cheap this time of year!  

As for me and I am sure you as well, no holidays to look forward to, apart from the ones my boss takes, I really look forward to those and he’s French so we know he’s gone for at least 5 weeks!

5 Sundays is a long time “must not waste time”, “must not waste time “(in a robot voice)! So I ogle my friend Cheraz’s DAILY holiday snaps! She seems to be living in a bikini this year, provides valuable entertainment to all my facebook friends who enjoy her toned ass every time I give her a like! (You’re welcome).

I will finish this article when my conclusion comes back from holidays, until then…don’t forget the sunscreen and always use a pseudo when commenting.

Dz-chick…Thank you for your comment, I am out of the office myself until September, I will however get back to you upon my return, Bestest regards, Me!

Confession: I am so bored, I played the lotto! Twice!

The Cautionary Tale

 

It’s probably time I announced to you if you care, that I am planning on moving back to Algeria. Many years and a thousand reasons later I thought it’s about time I returned home.

Reasons? Besides the fact that I miss my family, besides the fact I watch as my parents get visibly older and my nieces and nephews visibly and scarily less innocent.  I find myself missing out on so many things and finding myself alone here always trying to find a justification to it all, usually it’s of the type “What? It’s my life and I decide how to live it”, but more often than not I can find no real justification (to myself) for my lingering here on this island, where I am deeply happy and unhappy at the same time, where I am crowded and alone, lonely and lively, positive yet so gloomy, Always going but inevitably always staying.

So like every couple of years, I declare to all my friends and family that this was it, I am leaving! everybody shake their heads laughing and say “ah what you like!!” and I get a bit indignant but then give up on the whole idea and resume my life of miserable commuting to a shitty job working for a knobhead of a boss and get paid some dineros, half of which is spent on the miserable commute to the shitty job working for the knobhead of a boss.  BUT not this time, not anymore. This time I mean business; and LITERRALLY...well and a bit of fun!

So my mind starts to wonder about what my life would be like in Algeria, when I know I am there for the long haul and not a fleeting week where my mum makes my favourites dishes and my dad suggests to take me out to touristic sites and thinks it’s cute when “Je fais mon anglaise”.

What will I wear? I fear a wardrobe reshuffle would be in order? What do I speak? Algerian, French of English? What will I do? Can I get a job there? Will I be able to drive on the left hand side? Can I go to the cinema when the mood strikes? ; can I go out for dinner and stay out with friends? Will I get used to the infernal traffic, the driving antics of Algerians with their 7 lane motorways (actual lanes: 3) and their “Normaaals” and whatnots! I wonder about how long my grace period will last with my dad before he starts to scrutinise my everything and make me feel like I made a massive mistake!  

I think about how loud the local mosque call to prayer is but how comforting to hear the Adhan again, not so much for its religious meaning as for being one of the only things that never fails or changes, no matter what happens, there will always be that soft magical velvet voice singing, floating on the warm air making you feel home safe .

I think about how life seems so difficult yet so simple! I Think about constant stares in the street that often make me trip, I think about all the French speaking that seems to determine social class! I think about so many things, important and trivial that my head spins and I just want to take a big nap and throw it all to the wind and decide that what you were used to before, you will get used to again.  

But I decide that nobody should force exile on themselves just because there’s a lack of cinemas, first class gyms or Costa Cafés or even freedom, democracy and justice in their country! Not because of the level of corruption or nepotism or the number of things that will rub you the wrong away on a daily basis, or the fact you will hate everyone and want to throw in the towel after about a month.

Time only will tell…

Dz-chick... Announcement one of two!

Let’s talk ...Period!

Day 19 of Ramadan, Day 5 of period

Yes my period, you know that time of the month when women bleed from their vaginas and sometimes have red spots in the back of their skirts (not me)…of course these are not the only symptoms or consequences of this monthly torment but that was already covered, remember?

I find myself increasingly eager to talk about my period to anyone willing to listen or not, something so overwhelmingly natural, half the earth's population endures from the ages of 12 (sometimes even 9) and reluctantly until menopause yet we are not supposed to discuss it openly and without shame and men refuse to acknowledge it unless it brings relief, because the wife or girlfriend is not pregnant or bad news because it means no sex (unless he's into that sort of thing) because the flow came to town (I love this expression haha)!

I like to talk about my period, I just blurt it out nonchalantly like discussing the weather, I say things like I am in pain, I have my period, I am a woman, can I have a box of tampons please?, What’s your strongest period pain drugs?, I am due any minute now I can feel it, I think we’re synched now, I say things like “urgh get over yourself, it’s just a period, we all know it happens”.

Men get squeamish and twitchy and pull faces like you just said Bogie sandwich, some women get a bit timid, most get horrified with shame, others only discuss it in whispers and euphemisms, whilst others just laugh and add on a layer of much needed girly complicity, I personally just like to put in on the table! Yes I HAVE MY PERIOD, I BLEED FROM MY VAGINA and I have several hormones playing havoc with my body! The sooner you deal with it, the sooner you’ll grow up.

And no I am not one of those vulgar girls who likes to talk biology and anatomy in unscientific words, I am not a rebel, I am not a “feminist”, I am just a woman who recognises that a period is something very very natural she’ll experience about a thousand times in her life and would like the world to stop behaving like it’s witchcraft and get “au fait” about it, would like for people to stop behaving like bleeding women are the devil and that menstrual blood is bad, and stop thinking that vaginas are evil, because they don’t seem to mind them when they’re not bleeding.

And now it’s Ramadan, so really I am not supposed to talk about Vaginas or women in general because a woman is really just a vagina.  I am certainly not supposed to eat in public when menstruating because it’ll mean that I have my period and that is shameful; to whom exactly it’s still unclear to me! I certainly don’t want people to start having mental pictures of what’s going on in my knickers but I will not hide my period, or the pain it causes me or that my reproductive system is functional, because really, that’s all it means, if anything it should be welcomed news!

I do not need to be brave, courageous or have a big mouth to discuss my period, my moon cup or which tablets work the best, it’s a natural biological process of the female body, I am proud of my body, when it runs a mile, when it lifts 80Kg, when it withstands 9 months of pregnancy, when it fasts 19 days in a row or when it bleeds for 5 days!

Dz-Chick…You’re Welcome.

A carefree life

There’s a strange feeling around, like the silence before the storm or perhaps the silence when you’re in the eye of the storm, you can feel the general uneasiness of the conscious people, those who know the world is broken.

I have to keep going, have to keep fasting, keep working, keep living deafened by the ticking of my biological clock and the shootings of innocents, I continue planning my future holidays steering clear of certain areas of the world where as a woman I am not really tolerated and realise soon there’ll be nowhere safe, I continue planning my life as if there were no Wars, no double standards or apartheid occupation in the 21^st century and have to keep smiling and be happy.

Feels like a full time job trying to keep as a normal life as possible, to feel the need to adjust certain aspects of your life so that your own friends can see you as the same person you always were and not this Muslim potential explosive person who they look at with bewilderment and suspicion.

Sick of this topic, so let’s just change the tune!

Day 13 of Ramadan today, only another 16 to go! Piece of cake!! I’ll just spend my time reading the news through the main source: Facebook, read irritating comments and dumb opinions that offer nothing but agreement with the first opinion for lack of a better one like “No comment” and “totally agree” and “you said it all” and “ha ha ha”.  

Watch funny videos posted every 3 seconds on various topics, failed hidden Cameras and Muslims trying too hard to show the good side of Islam by overdoing charity and trying tirelessly to mend their tarnished image!

I stalk some old friends on facebook; I find therapeutic the routine they give me, I wait for their 5 daily selfies, posted generally in the changing room of a Luxury shop, at a restaurant, in a bikini at the beach, in the car carefully positioned to show off the horse-logo and of course in bed because they wake-up looking impossibly fresh and gorgeous.  They look good; they’re rich and have more money tide-up in promiscuity futures, they lead extravagant lives full of luxuries, careless fun and beauty, free of Don’ts and Harams (sins)!  They make me loathe my self-destructive thoughts, religious-guilt and deep existential questioning; I am jealous of how careless they seem so I find it easier to question what they would be like if they looked on the outside as they did on the inside. Jealous much!?

Online shopping also proved a good time-killer; I don’t always press on the Purchase button but I do so enjoy to collect items in the basket and drool over them before my anti-consumerist broke self takes over, I shake off the shopping urge and resume actual work which I hate passionately and carefully.

Of course blogging and whining also helps!

 

Dz-Chick…pressed on purchase eventually!  

Day 8: Practically half way..innit?

Today is day 8, and like every morning I had to fight the urge to go and buy a large coffee and a chocolate twist! I don’t even eat chocolate twists in normal days (non-Ramadan time), it’s fascinating the things you do during Ramadan that you don’t do in regular times…

Like fast, pray? , stop drinking, stop , sleep at normal godly hours, and quit masturbating? , trying not to think about sex,  don’t tell anyone to f*ck off when they really out to, be tired and have bags under your eyes without your boss blaming it on Ramadan and generally just behaving like yourself, without the guilt and forgetting the hunger, thirst and general depravation! Another thing you do in Ramadan times is attempt to cook; actually concoct a recipe not just bang a salmon fillet in the oven!

I generally call my mum at the beginning of the month to enquire about recipes, the same she gave me last year but it’s nice to hear them again from her, I have them written in a notebook entitled fondly “Les Recettes de Mama” but I still ask her every year, it’s like a ritual to call my mum and ask for her help when I am sure I can probably (NOT) work it out myself. Then I attempt to cook it, take a picture of it (if it looks good) and send it her to make her proud, although admittedly the last time I attempted to make Galette bread (which is a round flat bread) it came out triangular.

There are a few Algerian restaurants in London! Just ask google

 

Dz-Chick....ceinture bleu!