Excuse my fat ass.

I spent part of last night watching Penn & Teller: Bullshit! on Showtime via my new favorite TV website www.surfthechannel.com. I had my choice of episodes and stumbled upon one named Exercise v.s. Genetics. I had to watch it as a woman, like many others, who has struggled with her weight most of her adult life. Because of this brilliant show with a serious no bullshit attitude, and a penchant for dirty words (fuck is a favorite of theirs and mine) I was once again reminded that you are your genes. As a university graduate from a biology and physiology program with more knowledge about genetics than the average person I couldn't believe I had allowed myself to forget that. I'm a fuckin endomorph. I'm not going to be predisposed to being tall and lean like an ectomorph (although bless the God who made me tall and therefore hid some of my endomorphness) or have a muscular build that allows me to lose weight quickly making me a veritable fitness machine like a mesomorph. As an endomorph I am defined as: soft, round or curvy, and generally pear shaped, predisposed to gaining fat and muscle easily but with major trouble with losing weight and fat. Basically I'm genetically fucked and I should be happy with it, or at least that's what Penn & Teller tell me.

I'll put this into context. I'm generally athletic, I've been a tomboy my whole life, played sports throughout my teens, but I've never be skinny (well at least at no point past 14, really). I've never been truly fat either, although many people have called me that. In my mind if the average woman is a size 12, and I'm a size 12/14 I'm pretty normal, and not fat. But, after all, I'm not a size 4 and therefore, of course, I am indeed fat. I'm a lard ass. I shop at regular stores, and wear all the same things most people do, and just because bikinis scare the shit out of me doesn't mean I'm an obese monster. Granted I would love to lose a solid 25-30 pounds, but you know what, I'm not inclined to do it right now as my life is filled with more important things to take care of.... like my life!

Like most women who are not a size 4 I've received all the lovely epithets such as "You have such a beautiful face...if only you lost some weight" or "You probably shouldn't eat that" or "You should exercise more, its really good for your health" or "Do you know how much prettier you would be if you just lost some weight". Thanks, but no fuckin thanks. Who are these people who feel they have a right to comment on the state of my ass? Do you see me going up to skinny people and telling them to shove a pizza down their throats? NO! Because I'm apparently under the misconception that I don't have any right to involve myself in a person's eating habits, fitness habits or their physical appearance. What's next? Do I tell the girl with a slightly larger nose to get a nose job? Tell the brunette to go blonde? Who gives a fuck, really? So I can't wear a bikini....I can still have a stimulating, intelligent conversation about poverty, AIDS, world hunger, global warming, evolution, and genetics! Why does that not count for anything? Oh that's right, I can't have this conversation while wearing a belly top and short shorts (as if I would even if I could!) therefore its obsolete.

I am proposing that I lose 5 pounds for every important and legitimate personal character trait that I have. So....

- 5 pounds = I am intelligent woman who is very well educated.
- 5 pounds = I am a kind, generous human being who focuses more on being a good person than the state of her thighs.
- 5 pounds = I care deeply about alleviating world poverty, decreasing anthropogenic damage to the earth, taking strong measures to control AIDS and the promotion of free trade
- 5 pounds = I can have an intelligent conversation on a multitude of topics
- 5 pounds = I think I'm funny as hell
- 5 pounds = I find it much more satisfying to give a very personal, thoughtful gift to a friend than to receive one myself

Would you look at that....that's my 25-30 pounds gone in a flash. If only it were that easy to win over the world without getting on a treadmill. The irony of it all is that I am not an over eater (in fact I get full after a second slice of pizza) and I eat very healthy (hell, I'm a vegetarian now), but, damn it, I'm an endomorph. Excuse my genetics.

I do love food because it is a wonderful part of life. Experiencing the flavors, the cultures and the differences in each dish is a gift that is not afforded to all. Many people starve in the world every day and yet somehow in the developed world we are so disdainful of such a life sustaining product. I'm going to make it a point to tell the 25,000 people a day that die of starvation that they should hate food because it'll make them fat. It is this disgustingly hypocritical, socially unaware rhetoric of the Western world that reminds me how absolutely ridiculous it is to worry about fat, rather than to worry about important things....like starvation in the Third World!

So, after being called fat last Thursday by a man who is far bigger than me and told to exercise more by another man who I thought had the sense not to comment on my lifestyle, I want to say that I don't give a shit if I can wear a bikini. The value of life is not in the cellulite on ones thighs, the rolls on ones stomach, the stretch marks on ones arms, or the slight waddle is ones step. Good God people, do we not have bigger problems in the world? Are there not people dying from hunger, aids, poverty, war and injustice? Why are we so preoccupied with something that does not reflect a person's most important traits....like kindness, intelligence, awareness, humility. I sure as hell haven't seen a correlation between hotness and goodness.

At the end of the day I'd rather have a Ghandi than a Jessica Simpson. It is through the work of people who are not "traditionally" attractive that the world has come to see its greatest pioneers, activists, revolutionaries and leaders. Nelson Mandela is no Denzel Washington, Mother Theresa was no Halle Berry, Albert Einstein was no Brad Pitt and to make my point clear, nobody gave a crap if Anne Frank was skinny or fat. I ask you now, what does my weight have anything to do with who I am? If the answer is nothing then we all know where the problem lies....and that's not with me.

The Love Jones

I was reminded of the movie Love Jones....a true, passionate love story with a rhythmic tale about words and poetry, love and fate. I downloaded the soundtrack and after listening to the mellow sounds of love in its many musical forms....jazz, soul, blues....I remembered that love, above all else, is a journey. Love Jones is simply a tale of that journey where love is made to jazz, and inevitably, the souls were made to love.


It's in the words, the verbs, the verses, the soul
Expressed in sweet touches skimming down low
Fingertips laying on the small of the back
While skin to skin it plays out like fact

Ringing out in the silence of the night
The soft caress of the muted limelight
Voices humming in the aftermath
Warm, and lazy, along this destined path

Intoxicated on kisses like juices flowing
Sleeping over love made, but not slowing
Inside the sweetest thing that's ever known
Outside the greatest feeling that's ever shown

Too deep in the bones to lose
A jones so embedded it cannot move
Too heavy on the body to lift
A fate so true it cannot shift

It's in the words, the verbs, the verses, the soul
Played out on the hip, the skin, the lips, the whole

Life and Death

2:35 pm on a Saturday and I was sleeping only to be woken up by the ringing of my cell phone. It was my father calling with the kind of news people seem to be getting more and more these days. "There was a shooting..." that's all I heard before I sprung upright in my bed. See, I have two brothers, one who just turned 17 and another who is 20. In a world where young black men often find themselves on the wrong end of a bullet I hear the word "shooting" and my thoughts automatically go to my brothers. But why does my brain do that?

I come from a middle class family background, my parents have a mortgage, two cars, 5 kids, where 3 out of 5 are in post-secondary education, 1 is in high school, and me, in graduate school in the UK. My immigrant parents have worked so hard to give us the opportunities that our war torn country couldn't and still can't. My family has thrived because of their hard work. We've been blessed with the love of great parents, their time and patience, and because of all of that we've turned out to be good kids. We work hard, and we aim to be educated, law abiding participants in society. My parents have never had to deal with drugs, alcohol, gangs, pregnancy scares and I count that as a serious blessing in a world of teenage pregnancies, gun violence, and substance abuse. So why do I still worry about my brothers? They're good boys (almost men) who go to school, work and are home at a normal hour. They play football with their friends, spend their days playing video games, and bugging their sisters. Why do I hear the word "shooting" and automatically feel like I'm going to have my heart ripped out?

Last week, 6 young Somali boys were shot by one gunman. 5 survived, and 1 died. The place it happened is about 20 minutes from my house, an area I've been to, near one of the malls I frequent, and not so far removed from my neighborhood. The police released a video of the shooting and I felt both disgust and shock while watching it. To watch one person literally shoot out an entire round on 6 men trapped in an enclosed area without any mercy, with such casualty dumbfounded me. But why should it? I'm from a country that's been at war with itself for years and has racked up the death toll to match. I live in a civilized nation where gun violence is rising and the death of a young man is yet another news story among so many others. Why does death surprise me? My aunt was shot in the leg in Somalia a few years ago during a carjacking. My father is a military man who I'm sure has shot a weapon before. I guess I know bullets, but I don't know bullets.

The young man who died, Abdikarim, told his mom he would be back soon before leaving his home for the very last time. I have brothers who say that to my mom when she asks when they'll be back. I have brothers who say that to me if I catch them leaving the house without telling anybody where they're going. Simply, I have brothers. I don't want them to be a statistic. I don't want either of my brothers to be yet another black man killed by a gun. Is it too much to wonder at why there is so much black on black violence? Why do young black men feel that they have a right to claim the lives of anybody, let alone another young brother in the struggle? Can life really seem that insignificant? I ask myself if the lives of my brothers only matter to me and my family. Do others see their lives as unimportant? For me, I see two young men who are benefiting from a great life that their parents sacrificed for, who have so much to live for and to see and yet I am constantly worried that somebody else will not see that and will have no qualms about ending their lives. Why?

Abdikarim had a sister. I actually met her last year at my university where she was a first year student. We happened to know the same group of girls and I remember thinking to myself that she was so young and I felt so old in comparison. I was graduating, she was finishing her first year and the difference in age felt staggering. I remember thinking she had the most beautiful hair. She was, without a doubt, a sweetheart. Young, excited and full of promise about what life in university was going to be like. Now, after the death of her brother, she's an adult. She's been forced to see real life in a way that nobody should have to see, through death. My younger sister's best friend used to go out with Adbikarim. I remember her coming over to my house and telling me she had a boyfriend. I thought to myself, "you're too young to be dating." I also thought, "holy crap, this little girl is doing a better job at dating than I am." I laughed about it. She was almost 16 at the time, and now, at 17, she's witnessed the death of her very first boyfriend. What do I do with that? I can't imagine what her thoughts are, what her perceptions of life and death have now become because somebody thought that this young man's life was not important enough. And it was. It was important to his sister, to my sister, to my sister's best friend, to a community who is in shock and to me, just another girl with brothers she loves and worries about.

This morning when my father called to tell me there was a shooting I felt my heart skip a beat. I couldn't form any words. He was calling to tell me there had been a shooting at a coffee shop in my neighborhood. 4 young men were shot while sitting inside, drinking coffee and talking, by one or more people from outside the shop. The location? The coffee shop in the plaza where I get my pizza slices, where I get my hair cut, where I rent my movies, where I buy my groceries, where I go to the doctors, where my dentist gets rid of my cavities, and where my brothers hang out. How easily could have one of those 4 young men been one of my brothers? Luckily, all 4 sustained non-life threatening injuries and will live to see another day. That's all they have, another day. This happened at 1 am, and my brothers are very much at home at that time, but only because of the iron fist with which my mother rules. Then again, do gunmen run on a time schedule? I don't think so.

The attempted massacre of 6 young men in Toronto has served to remind me of how precious life is, and how easily it can be destroyed. Something as small as a bullet can shatter the lives of families, communities, and make me, a regular girl from a regular family, wonder and worry about her two brothers mortality. I want to worry if they're going to harass me on MSN tomorrow, or if they'll go cross-eyed from watching too much TV, or if they'll do well on their tests, or if they just stole the last slice of cake from the fridge. I don't want to think of their deaths.

I'm in London, experiencing the beauty of life and love and travel, and yet I am now reminded of the other side of life....death. Having said that, I am in deep prayer for Abdikarim's soul, and his family. My heart is with his sister. My thoughts are with his mother. My hope is with our community.

May Allah (S.W.T.) bless his soul, grant him entrance to paradise, and may he rest peacefully in a better place. Amen.

Boyfriend Shmoyfriend

I think I have a boyfriend. I have no idea how that happened. This is not an area in which I excel. I knew I should've gotten a puppy first. Damn it.

Putting brain to paper

In the past I've been extremely motivated by stories that I felt I needed to write. I was madly passionate about them. I especially had a need to make one of them the story, the one that would take me from a sometimes, dreamer writer to an actual one. Enter my neurotic issues. The problem I've found with my writing is that I am fickle like a 15 year old boy just discovering girls. Everything is exciting, the tension overwhelming and most of all the choices so limitless that one project quickly ends to make way for a new one. There lies my problem. I have a 5 minute attention span for any piece of writing I want to put together. Don't get me wrong though because those 5 minutes are the most exhilarating 5 minutes in the history of writing. But eventually the fizzle dies before I can get to page 35.

There was one time I wrote 120 pages of a story that now makes me want to hang myself in shame. I haven't looked at that thing since I was 21. That was it. At 21 I left all attempts to put together a decent story behind because I feared the hell out of losing interest in it. I didn't want to get tired of a really interesting story just because I couldn't seem to remain steadfast. The irony? I am the most steadfast person in the world! I like what I like and it usually stays that way until something catastrophic happens (which is rarely!). However, in the context of writing, I could have come up with the original Romeo & Juliet storyline and I would still have gotten bored if I had to write it. But I love the story! I can't imagine a world where Shakespeare did not write this beautiful tale. Yet if it had been left up to me Romeo & Juliet would have never been written. I would've been off gallivanting in my non-writer state after having got bored with the story. Why must I be this way? This is why blogging is so easy for me. A few paragraphs is short enough for me to remain interested, and boredom never has a chance to settle in. Damn me and my writer's A.D.D!

Anyway, I've come up with a really good story idea. One that I want to write out beautifully enough to perhaps, maybe, send out into the publishing world and see what happens. The thing is that I'm not quite sure where I'll be 5 minutes into writing it in terms of interest. Will I want to walk away? Or will I, for the first time, stand firm and be steadfast in finishing a story I think could be a great piece of work? Oh, who knows. Another problem is that I'm ridiculously pessimistic, and critical of anything that has to do with me writing. Therefore, while the story is a good one, I feel like it won't work and that I'll butcher it. Yep. And I can't seem to ever want to write when I have free time. That time is for sleeping, eating, and reading...all three intercepted with bouts of bitching. When I'm due to write 6 essays in 6 weeks I only want to write the great novel that is living inside of me. I am what you call truly fucked. But I'm pretty sure that's got to be a prerequisite to being a writer so I guess I might be on the right road. Now, if only I could stay on this road for longer that 5 minutes I would be set.....otherwise, see you in the nursing home's creative writing class in about 50 years where 5 minutes is the difference between living and croaking on a dirty linoleum floor.

Thinking? Huh, good God, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing!

I'm fresh from reading A.'s post about thinking. I too am afflicted with this overly cliche skill that is hated by most people who are unfortunate enough to have it. I do my "best" thinking....never. Seriously, there has never been a time when I've "thought" and come up with anything that is a true and clear reflection of reality. In fact, most of the time, it is the manic ramblings of an overthinker who is intimidated by "doing" things and therefore is subject to thinking about every angle that possibly exists to make the act of living easier, or at least, planned to perfection. Or in my case, planned to neurosis. I'll be happy to provide the kind of examples that'll make you think, hmmm, wow, thinking is so not her strong suit....she should stick to sleeping (which I do very well!).

1) When he says he likes me does he mean he likes, likes me? His tone of voice sounded like he was being sincere, but was that because he felt pressured? Hmmm, what did I say before he said anything? I think I might've made him say it. He probably doesn't mean it. Hmmm, but what if he does mean it? You know, he probably does like me, but maybe not likes, likes me, but there are definitely some like feelings inside of him. Right, that's what he said. Okay, maybe I shouldn't call him tomorrow. He probably needs some time and space to think about it. Maybe we should see other people. Oh crap, is he seeing somebody else? I wonder if he likes, likes her? Damn it.

2) I wonder if I ignore the fact that I think M. is crazy that she won't realize that I think she's as fuckin' wacko as Britney Spears on Red Bull and extra cheesy nachos (worse than crack people). I mean, she has to know that I think she's nuts because I can't control my facial contortions that reflect shock, slight repulsion, and awkwardness when she screams out in the computer lab that "she got laid". I think its weird for women to scream that out loud in public. What would June Cleaver think? Probably that M. was crazy as fuck (direct quote?). I'll just smile more. You can't go wrong with smiling when somebody tells you they've just had sex multiple times with random guy #5. Right, the grin will convey that I'm both jealous and happy. Happy about what? Oh who knows, but I'm sure that if I don't smile she'll know she's Britney Spears. Is M. going to shave her head? Oh, that would not be good. Fuck.

3) Black people have a built in anti-blushing mechanism....melanin, is there anything you can't do?

4) If Americans threaten to move to Canada if shit hits the fan, where do Canadians threaten to move to? I hope it isn't Australia. No offense, but Australia apparently got the "countries should not be seen or heard" speech and took it very seriously. When was the last time something happened in Australia? Oh shit, Kylie Minogue happened...to the world, courtesy of Australia. I take it back. I kind of want to see what kind of people would admit to actually liking Kylie Minogue. That's truly fucked.

5) Who is Jessica Simpson going to date next? Inquiring minds don't want to know.


Yeah, and that's it. No thinking left. It's probably for the best. I've exhausted all my crazy here and I'm going to sleep. Now there's something that I can do really well. With sleeping maybe I can even win an award, perhaps a Pulitzer, maybe even a Nobel Prize, or more importantly, win American Idol. Good sleepers make good singers duh!

Don't Cry Over Spilt Man 'cause Love, well, Love is a Battlefield

“Don’t cry over spilt man.” On the verge of my 24th birthday I realized that crying over split milk is one thing, but crying over spilt man is rather, well, monotonous. Forgive my melodrama, or even my attempt at meaningful poetic ramble, but I’m sure we could easily cover the entire surface of the earth with the tears that women have cried over men. Now, could that be said for the amount of milk that’s been spilled over time? In my current cynical state, I would reply with a “doubtful”.

I remember the 6th grade when the extent of my male-female relationships was looking outside Mrs. Hall’s 6th grade classroom’s window at Garth playing basketball when he shouldn’t have been. God, what a rebel. That boy, in all his 8th grade glory, was the greatest thing to have happened to me. Did we date? God, no, he was beyond my awkward reach, but I watched him play basketball, and thought to myself, “wow, if this is how good ‘liking’ feels now, I can’t wait for future ‘likes’ to come my way”. Now I know my 6th grade self should’ve probably captured those feelings in a time capsule of emotions because it was all downhill from that moment on. There is a certain patheticness to having peaked at 11 years old. If I had known back then what I know now, I would’ve run up to Garth on the basketball court and asked him to marry me. It would’ve been the one and only time I would get close to having a man propose to me… while I was proposing to him.

I’m coming too close to feeling what I’ve always promised myself I would never feel, hopelessness. Is there nothing but shit out there in the Y chromosomed world? I hope not, but in that “hope” I’m also feeling hopelessness which means I’ve obliterated any anticipation of a “one day” and “some time” where I would feel some modicum of adult feelings which would be reciprocated by another adult. Now that is a long sentence to get across one simple point…men blow! The crappyness that is the male has led me to kill any residual good feelings I have for that sex and now I must sit at my local Starbuck’s woeing and moaning about “WHY?” and “HOW?” this could’ve happened to me. Being miserable and single was one of the first trends to have entered my life and it has never left. I’ve washed that down with chocolate cake, pizza and every hamburger that McDonald’s has ever put out into the consumer world. I hate men and my ass hates me.

So me and my fat ass are feeling rather like we’ve paid our dues (and believe me that treadmill time looming over my head says enough) and now we’re looking to be cashed into the good times. Fuck you, man, you owe me, and I’m coming to collect because I’m no sucker. Okay, maybe I have been a sucker, but not any longer. I found my Carly Simon tapes, and Janet Jackson CD’s and I bet you think this piece is about you, because you’re so vain and a very nasty boy! God, Janet and Carly know me and my soul.

I also remember a time when listening to the predictably overly sentimental tunes of a man’s voice telling me “he’ll love me forever” and that “I’m his soul mate” would make me curl up in a ball of optimism. Now I hate Brian McKnight, and Boyz 2 Men, and I would burn their CD’s if I wasn't still a fan of Motown Philly (which is not about love, or making love, or doing other stuff with regards to love, but about doing the running man to the beats of the 90s). An angry woman song…that’s what I need. I’ll be listening to a little “Love is a battlefield” courtesy of the lovely and angry Pat Benatar. The 80s were good for at least one thing (80s…one, men…zero).