A Slightly Chilly Evening

I think winter finally started this evening. I walked out of the house around 7 in the evening, and there was a chilly breeze. The internet cafe hadn't yet re-opened from after futoor. So I walked on, walked passed the barber who was sitting down watching the tellie. TV programming during Ramadhan is supposed to be really good. I walked a little further and found a bench to sit on. I was thinking of calling Dina but she was probably still eating futoor.

The chilly breeze felt quite nostalgic of the days when I used to smoke pot. Lately I've been missing that. I don't miss the high as much as the numb escape. I sat on the bench remembering the winter that I arrived in Baghdad nearly 4 years ago. The cooler weather called for some sweets. So I decided to grab the car and go get some konafa. I walked back to my street, and changed my mind and decided to walk to the konafa shop. On the way I called Dina, and continued chatting to her outside the shop until a bunch of guys started walking towards the shop, I obviously had to get priorities right, so I hanged up and ran into the store.

By the time I got home the konafa got a little cold but I dug in anyway. It was rather good. I guess there is something good about Ramadhan.

I was supposed to start the farm accounts today. Didn't get much done at all. I was planning to type in every single journal entry into the computer, but that seemed too daunting a task. I just got the sum of incomes and expenses for the past 6 months and that's it. All I need now is the amount of money piped in and out of the farm to figure how much profit or loss was made. And that'll be taking the easy way out of this whole deal.

Pins and needles owww!

Dad called a short while ago. He's postponed his arrival yay! That gives me more time to do the accounts. But I already outlined that I won't do it the hard way. He seemed to be in a good mood, I hadn't spoken to him in months.

Oh shit! I've got dandruff again. I only just stopped using an anti-dandruff shampoo a couple of weeks ago.

I'm spending too much money talking to Dina on my mobile phone. It was worth it when I had a chance with her. But since that chance has been exhausted there really isn't much of a point on wasting money on the phone calls.

I've got to get a few things done over the next few days. I'm wondering if I should celebrate my birthday party. It doesn't seem like there's going to be much of a point without what's his name who's in the UK now, who's always been in charge of the barbequeing. Seeing the guys try to barbeque last week at Fal's was an awfully pathetic site, wouldn't want to repeat that disaster even though nobody seemed to want to admit it at the time.

India admits to have forgotten that I'm around these days. He's been going out and about without telling me. That honestly is fine with me. But I hope he does give me heads up next time he goes to the market, so I buy a PSP. I did get a Nintendo DS as a gift a short while ago, and oh my goodness gracious me, does that little thing make time fly by while waiting in a 3 hour petrol queue.

I think I need to go back home and smoke a cigarette.

Foiled Again

I told her that I liked her, she gave me the 'I want us to be friends' story.

I'm Trying

Oh this is difficult for me, I think I'm handicapped.

Lately I've been phoning this girl called Dina, she's cute and quite skippy. I remember getting a glance of her in the late 90s and damn her tits looked good in that shirt. I've always liked that girls in shirts. I'm not sure of what kind of shirts but anyway...

So every night I'll call Dina and we'd chat for about an hour. Lately a whole big bunch of our common friends including her best-friend got married or engaged. Anyway, I've been joking about the idea how we should get married together just because everybody else is. She's quite fond of the joke. I really like the girl but I wouldn't go so far as to say I feel a soul-mate type bond towards her, something that I would say that I've felt before with other girls I've known.

I'm quite convinced she likes me alot too. But I think that I've been sending her the wrong message. The message being that I want to marry her. But I do want to get involved with her, as inconvenient and unrewarding as that may be here in Baghdad.

The dilemna for me is that how do I tell her that I really like her but that I don't have the intention of marrying her. I saw Od today and he told me that I should make it clear that I was joking about the marriage and that I really like her.

Cafe is closing down and I've got to pee.

I woke up at 7AM?!

What the fuck is wrong with me? And I'm still awake.

I Fucking Hate Ramadhan

Got back home, over half the electric in the house is bust for some reason. Nahida has been ripping the whole home apart. We've got new tiles in one of the drive ways. The old tiles were only a year old?!

10 P.M. and the internet cafe is closing down. Gots to run to the loo anyway.

I Need To Go The Loo. And Do Number Two.

Stuck in the internet cafe. Obviously I haven't been so bored with a working internet connection for so long which explains why I haven't posted in such a long time.

My internet connection at home is still broken. That's not cool. One would think that being a relative to the guy who owns the internet provider that I'd get some special treatment.

It's that time of year again. God damn I hate it. I hope I can get my hands on some booze. Kiki finally left the country after his electric generator caught fire and burnt down his house. He flew off to Amman and is hoping to go on to Malaysia. Fal's looking healthier i.e. not so bolemic looking.

Dad's coming at the end of the month.

I sent an e-mail to to a girl from my days in Lebanon just now. She's a gorgeous girl and is sexy in more ways than one. I spent many lonely nights fantasizing about her. She's perky and intelligent, doesn't stand bullshit and can keep up a good argument. What's funny is I can't remeber any of her negative qualities. What's scarier is that I haven't seen her in over 3 or 4 years and I still think about her.

I really really need to go the loo.

Other news in the world around me. One of the two Dina's got married. I didn't even know she got engaged. Anyway, that killed my fantasies of marrying the two Dina's simultaneously. The two Dina's are best friends and therefore there's hope in my mind that with the right nudge there could be some lesbian action thing. I had the one that didn't get married on board for the idea of marrying, but the other one wasn't so cool with it, but then again we didn't try convincing her.

My socks stink, nope, it's my shoes that stink. I'm going to buy myself some new shoes next time I get the chance.

Moodiness, Kidnappings, Bolemia and Addiction

I'm in a crap mood. Have been that way for the past 5 days. Could be because of the slightest change in weather. I don't know. It's been over a month since I've posted anything. Well just to bring everything back up to speed. Right now I'm out of cigarettes. Why the hell does everything seem to be an obstacle?

Kiki's brother was returned within 4 days after a 20,000 dollar ransom was paid. That made Kiki's parents very worried about Kiki's safety. For a while he wasn't allowed to go out unescorted. I saw his mom today, she's still worried but not that much. As soon as Kiki's brother was returned there was talk of sending Kiki out of country to do a master's degree. 2 months have passed up till now. Kiki says he'll be leaving on Thursday. K tells me that he's been on the verge of leaving for the past month.

K's been here for the past couple of months. Didn't get to see much of him at all. He's cooped up at CNN offices. He'll be going back to the UK early next month. Saw him today also, he asked me when would I see him again, I replied that I'll see him in the UK.

A couple of nights ago I saw Fal whom I hadn't seen for 2 months. I've known that he's kind of bolemic something that he doesn't try to hide for that matter. He must've raised the pace because for the first time he does actually look bolemic. He's become very skinny and has bags beneath his eyes. India tells me that Fal isn't aware of how serious bolemia is. Which is not his fault, there are no awareness campaigns such as one might find elsewhere. India is putting alot of effort into making Fal aware that he's hurting himself.

India's still waiting for some response in regards to his application for a time extension on his master's degree that he still hasn't got down to doing.

I've got to go find myself some cigarettes. I'm hating this negative mood swing. It better be over soon.

Frail

I'm a bit surprised to find myself posting again. I never thought I'd ever get enough time on the internet. Well i've only got half an hour left at the most, by then the electricity will cut off and whoever I'm stealing my connection from will turn off his PC. Got to love unsecured wifi spots.

Kiki's parrot died a week or so ago. His parrot was called Kiki. At the time Kiki was in Amman. While Kiki's Dad had left the parrot outside in the garage as he's done so many times before. Kiki* usually just stays on top of his cage and may sometimes just stroll around. Kiki* was a depressed parrot. This time however, he flew all the way to the street and got hit by a passing car.

Kiki's brother got kidnapped a few days ago, just a day after Kiki got back from Amman. They called asking for ransom of half a million dollars. I visited him yesterday, his mum was in an awful state. I called him today, the kidnappers have reduced the ransom to a hundred thousand dollars. Kiki's dad made it clear that he's only been able to gather twenty-thousand.

It's scary. It's easy to hear of some person that you don't know being kidnapped. But when it happens to someone you've known for years it becomes alot more real.

At home we've been expecting Nahida's brother to come back from US custody. Him and his brother got taken because some guy pointed a finger at them earlier this year while I was in the UK. The other brother was released a month ago. It was painful to hear what he had went through. I went to jail for a week during the Saddam years but it's hard to compare my experience with theirs.

Went driving to the farm the other day. I'm starting to get the hang of driving long-distance. But I noticed that as the drive went on I began increasing my speed no matter how congested the road was. I realized that my car wasn't very fuel efficient at high speeds. I asked a guy about it, because I imagined that after changing gears at around 120 kmph shouldn't it change again by the time I reach 170 kmph. He told me that it didn't and that I should try driving at 130 kmph.

The road is full of pesky check points. None of them gave me a hard time for that I'm grateful. But whenever I opened the trunk and coolbox within they asked what the cans of soda were. They suspected that it was beer I guess, which to my knowledge is legal. Iraqis hate soda water. During the mid-90s, production of anything containing sugar was banned, therefore the Pepsi factory only made soda water. I guess people got really sick of it and swore that as long as there was Pepsi they'll never drink soda water again.

Stifled

Damn my internet connection!

A Night of Tummy Aches

Been a while since I've spent the night awake. I was very tired late in the afternoon yesterday. Ate a big load of Lasagna and fell asleep. Woke up around 11 in the evening. Woke up with a tummy ache, that's only just begun to subside after several mugs of echinacea and raspberry tea. Damn Lasagna.

The upstairs generator is bust again. I'm smoking too much. 2 days ago I found out that I ran out of asthma inhalers. I wonder how long it's been since I bought one. Must've been years.

Teeth

Met up with India today to go see his dentist. We had time to spare and India wanted to check his e-mail inbox but the internet cafe wasn't working. I was hungry so I ate a felafel sandwich with houmous and amba sauce (pickled mango sauce I think it is). That stuff leaves you so thirsty.

We then went on to the waiting room at the dentist's. The dentist was busy with some woman and her child was going through the magazines in the waiting room. While India and I were chatting he said that we were talking English, India was quick to reply that we were talking Arabic. Before the kid left he said to India that his mouth was so big, India replied: "so that I may eat you with it", and the kid said to India: "Your nose is so big". To which India replied: "So that I may smell you". Finally the kid said that India's eyes were big to which India replied: "So that I may see you".

His dentist took a look at my teeth at made the same remark as the dentist before last made. My wisedom teeth have only half-sprouted and are pushing the rest of my teeth. I need an x-ray and then will have to have them removed. As far as needing 17 fillings, he said that was that my teeth were okay but a couple may need some work done on them eventually.

[...]

Half a bottle of red Lebanese wine later, I'm too tired to finish typing this post.

Blue Blue Sky

My back aches, I don't know if it's because of the bed that I'm sleeping on downstairs or if it's because I'm swallowing too many Lorazepam pills. Nahida told my dad to have a word about it with me. He told me to go see a surgeon, and then I made some remark to point out that he doesn't really care. My dad is supposed to be really sick these days. The insulin he's been fed is hurting his kidneys.

I can't find a single lighter that works. Everything around me is such a mess. I should start reformatting the first 3 months of the farm's accounts, but I can't be bothered to.

41,544,815 Iraqi Dinars

For the past few months my dad's primary objective for me was to figure out how much money was made from the farm last year. Not only for accounting purposes, but also so that I get a feel of the value of the farm which I so sorely dislike. That's about 27k dollars or14k euros.

The ride back was a pain in the ass. Some joint in the front-right wheel broke and we get a quick fix in Hilla. Within half an hour I went over a checkpoint speed bump and it broke again. The breaking of the joint meant that I had to tug the steering wheel to the right the rest of the way. So far we were in good spirits.

Until a couple humvees ahead blocked the highway. We waited for over 2 hours in the heat for them to detonate an IED on the road. And wait another hour till they cleared the road for us to continue.

First thing I did when I got home. Took a piss and a shower. Drank a litre of Vimto. Just now I took a look at the ashtray and saw what resembled lipstick on the butt of a cigarette. A woman was here? How strange. But then I took a look at the cigarette that I was smoking at the moment and it dawned on me that the Vimto stained my lips red.

I haven't eaten anything yet. I woke up at around 10AM it's now 6:45. The whole trip which should of taken no more than 3 hours lasted 7. During my stay at the farm everyday I'd eat a bit of bread and a tin of Saupiquet's Tuna Salads. Just about the only time I eat fish. But my god! they're packed with long-lasting energy.

I'm a-going to the farm I'm a-going

Well I'm still sitting on my desk. But soon enough my stuff will be packed and I'll be on my way to the farm. With tinned tuna-salads for food, and club soda for drink, and a couple of little bottles of beer. Nicotine patches that fall off when I sweat and nicotine gum for that before I go to bed cravings. Sheets of 1mg Lorazepam to take me to sleep. I should be fine. The only question now is will the car make it there.

I've got my calculator with me too, so maybe I'll get some figures for last year, although I rather have my PC. I should get a laptop. But I'm not intent on making any large purchases until I know how much profilt I'm making.

Got to go.

Losing My Touch

The PC seems to work on it's own again. I can no point the fan at myself. The weather today isn't so hot however. Today is a little windy. There's a bit of dust in the air, which has a cooling effect. A couple of nights ago, I went to an old relative of mine with Fozzy to give her measly share of the sale of last year's rice harvest and a couple of sacks of our fine 'Amba' rice. My relative and her husband hosted us in their front garden. They remarked that the climate in Baghdad used to be alot cooler 30 years ago. Baghdad was probably half the size it is now, and the remainder was farm land.

I had a go at my dad over the phone last night because he won't help me settle in the UK. I don't know if there's any point yapping at him.

I woke up at 11 AM today. I've been sleeping late the past few days and haven't been taking care of things. Dropped off the car with Nahida at the mechanic to have some kind of joints between the wheels and the chassis repaired. The risk of not repairing them involves the wheel breaking off while speeding. Very scary! I'm not sure when I'm supposed to go back to pick it up. Well that's another few hundred bucks out the window.

5 days have passed since we picked up the application form for the Hunter's Club, it's still not filled and ready. I got to get in gear again. I also need a hair cut.

My PC Needs The Fan More Than Me

Not really a sign of how hot the weather is here, but more of a sign of how messed up is my 3 year-old PC after I tried running Half-Life 2 on it. My worn-out video card seems to want to give up on me again. The wretched PC hasn't been able to finish the starting up process for the past couple of days till I positioned the fan to blow air into it's open case.

Edging (this post was edited)

Blimey, I'm so bored and I'm tired. I'm feeling really tired. My brain is wasted. My back is tense. I feel burnt out. I'm tired of bitching oabout the electricity. I could say that the sum of all the inconveniences in my life is wearing me out, but that wouldn't be right. I've been wearing myself out for a long time. 17 cavities, I must take better care of myself.

I think I'm more aware of how lonely I am here. All my family being in the UK now. I yelled at my mum for half an hour over the phone the day before last, because she was giving me a patronizing rant about how I should be taking charge of myself and to know what I want.

I really want a break from my life, but I can't find a reason for why would deserve a break. I still haven't figured how much profit the farm off last year's rice harvest. I'm thinking if I could at least get that out of the way and the accounts up to date then I'd deserve a decent vacation.

I've been calling my dad everyday for the past few days. I'm trying to keep some channel of communication open with him. In the hope that maybe if I wait on the line long enough I might hear something from him.

Yesterday he told me how he had one-year marriage contract (in Arabic called a Zawaj Mumta'a) for a year with that Iranian woman in Canada. He justified it by saying he's lonely and that it was okay because she wasn't a virgin because she was a divorcee like him.

I think this sort of marriage is looked down upon within Iraq, I've never heard of anyone doing it here in Iraq. Maybe Saddam banned it. Or maybe society doesn't approve of it here. But I gather some Iranian's are okay with it and do it. When I first heard about of it being done in Iran, it literally sounded like clerics pimping women granting marriage contracts for a time period of a week or less. I would like to add that I'm not a knowledgable person on the matter so as to be able to debate the virtues or lack of virtues of such an arrangement. I personally don't think there's anything wrong with what my dad did especially since he's so old and can't get an erection, but I can imagine how such a thing can be abused, and that if I myself were to do a Zawag Mumta'a it would be no different from getting a prostitute.

I told him I was lonely too, and that I wanted a one-year marriage contract too. He replied saying I can't do that and told me that when he comes later in the year to Baghdad, he'll introduce me to girls from good families and hopefully find one with whom I'm compatible but that I should have a proper marriage. It was 6 months ago that he came to the conclusion that it would be very difficult for me to find a wife suitable for me in Iraq, but his opinion has obviously changed now. His inconsistencies drive me nuts.

Now I'm waiting for the electricity to come back. When that happens I'll swallow a couple more sleeping pills and knock myself out. And tomorrow I'll start my day, I'll go get fuel for the car, drive Fozzy to the bank to deposite that cheque we got from the state silo today. The cheque is a refund on a deposit that we gave so that they give us rice to mill, but which they didn't because the rice in their silos got mixed with bad rice let in by bribed officials.

Oh! the electricity is back :)

17 Fillings Needed

Just popped by a new dentist to get my cigarette stained teeth polished clean. He told me that I had 17 cavities that need work done on. How the hell does someone get 17 cavities within one year. My teeth don't even hurt. From time to time a tooth or another might ache for a day or two, but it's not excruciatingly painful.

Earlier Fozzy and I went to the 'Hunter's Club', it's a social club that to my knowledge has nothing to do with hunting. It's got swimming pools and tennis courts. We got the application form and we've got to fill it in and hand it back before the 15th.

Last night I sneezed a few times, I didn't think much of it until an hour later I began to smell dust. A while later the smell got on my nerves, and I took a look outside. A dust storm was blowing in the air. Had to run around the house and close all the windows. But the dust had settled within the house already. Breathing became difficult for Nahida, and I began hiccuping madly. Nahida got the impression that I was on something again. I popped maybe a few more sleeping pills than I should've and went to sleep. When I woke up, all the dust was cleaned up.

A Moment To Gloat

I got a praising e-mail from Salam Pax, the big-daddy of Iraqi blogs, woohoo! First of all I would like to thank the tens of fans that read my blog regularly who have kept me motivated to post. And then I'd like to thank my family who brought me into this world and who gave me the distorted view of the world that I possess. And last but not least I would like to say a few words about my plant that died back in April. I loved that plant, such was the case that too much love kills. I wish I had treated it better and that it was with me today.

I don't like this place

I've been in such a bad mood for the past week. So much of a bad mood that I got some hash yesterday and did my best to enjoy it. But the come-down was harder than I expected, harder because Nahida caught me high. I drank some left-over vodka afterwards. Nahida made me some fericous meal that made me feel crap all day today.

Iraq's the cradle of civilization. Civilization no longer sounds like so much of a good thing. Iraqis love boasting about Iraq being the country of civilizations. Where's your civilization now and where has it been all these years is what I keep wanting to ask.

I'm starting to think that civilization is simply a by-product of something. Something being the evil of man. Nature before civilization had it's laws, and they were fair enough. But then the evil of mankind pushed in and 'civilization' perpetuated this evil.

Od just called and informed that Maz got burgled at 2 in the morning a couple of nights ago. The burglars went off with cash, jewellery and whatever lights stuff they could carry. The burglars beat up the Maz's old man, and electrocuted Maz and his mother. Od gave me Maz's new phone number and I called him. Maz sounds alright, he's doing his finals but doesn't know what decisions his family will make in the near future.