'One who goes to bed with a blind person will wake up cross-eyed.'

--Turkish proverb of the day.
This is not politically incorrect, it's supposed to be about the friends/company you keep. ...Ok, it is a bit politically incorrect, but only in a harmless Turkish way.

I am safely in the office...After a close call to bash out my own brains, induced by an increadibly lethargic Sunday, the highlight of which was trying to take a sneaky picture in the underground, of a little Chinese woman donning the most amount of Burberry I have ever seen on the person of a single person. I do declare, she must be the spearhead of a new breed of East-Asian Chavs. Did I succeed? Alas, no. Her little husband was in the way, and they got paranoid when I suddenly whipped out my phone. Who in so much Burberry wouldn't be?
Why was said Sunday lethargic?
Caught daily in the eye of the most heinous draft in the office (between doors is our station) + not wearing enough to bed + no coat or warm clothes = Something coming on + Night nurse and Grandma's paracetemol = drowsy, drugged out Elest.
Ryo, however, would simply call it the following: The insensibility of the Elest "Eleeeest! You need to take care of yourself!" ...Because he's such a dad.
Unfortunately, Elest is the type who learns the hard way, or otherwise never...as with everything in her life. Who needs advice when pain can drive it home to you. And if the pain hurts good, then you're just hopeless. Hopeless, mind you, doesn't necessarily make u an artist though if gross generalisations can be taken as truth, it comes pretty damn close.

17:20
Damn Japanese IQ test, been sitting here for a quarter of my luch break and still I got the fed, the theif and the little boy on the wrong side of the river! How on earth did Huden abla do this?

Highlight of my work day: Saif taking off Michael's tie, while Michael is in the middle of a serious report to the CEO, re-knotting it, making michael take off his jacket, putting it on him and then telling him to make sure he hangs it when he gets home.
Ha ha ha!...ahem.

Nah the real highlight was Saif's speach at the end of the Tsunami Two Years conferance.

I'm off. Off I saaay!

You don't wanna go there,
Let me lead you by the hand.
You don't wanna be there,
Over sea and onto land .

As I look into your eyes,
I pay no mind,
I've found a way to get inside you;
I'll give you peace of mind.

I don't see you falling
I don't see you falling
I don't see you falling beautiful
Sometimes.

Be There : UNKLE ft Ian Brown

'One who tells the truth will get driven out of nine villages.'

--Turkish proverb of the day.
This has no relevance what so ever to the following blog, it simply is, as are many things, and it sounds funny in English.
This notion of 'is' suddenly, and without warning, discovers to mine innner eye, someting to mull over, because I write deeply meaningful verse or prose about my as yet deeply meaningless existence.
Are. That seems to be much of my predicament. To be. Period. Like this --> . The human condition is that man is never pleased with his state in life. The truth is that each and every one of us has a little bit of King Haggard in us. And every so often this realisation of not being in the right place, surfaces in my murky, black pool of the concious and subconcious. Basically, in lay-man's terms, I'm finding my life to be increasingly inadequate. I'm not actively living it, I'm passively living it. I'm a passive liver who has let the chords of priority slip, and that wild beast has gone a rampaging every which way. I've also got a pink rubber band wound arround my thumb.

Conclusion: It is absolutely vital that I start writing again. And when my debts are cleared and I'm somewhat more stable, financially, I must only work part time, so that by the end of this year we will at least have an agent.

Tripped into the office at 11:45 today, snuggly-bugging nose into the-opposite-of-goth scarf my mommy bought me. Now, I Sit at my desk, pissed off at a certain individual sitting across me, and I'm still wearing it- security blanket like. Which is funny because until now, I thought Nyamy was my security blanket but turns out he's not. Turns out he's my little-thing, who I can't mother right now because i'm in pieces.

And from the dark depths of goth-despairing, I wonder if this is a good thing. I wonder if everyone of us needs to be pieced apart every so often, throughout our lives, so that some greater wisdom and realisation which only comes with pain, can penetrate between the gaps while they are still raw, and when the pieces weld together again, we may mend into something better, stronger...and though perhaps less pure, more in search of the purity and truth we have lost through realisation. And in finding it one day, we may become something heartbreakingly akin the once perfect, innocent beings that were complete and did not know it.

I know now what this means: 'When I was a child I used to cry when night fell, I have travelled far since, only to reach the same point.'

--a badly reconstructed rendition of something : by some Sufi sage whose name I can't remember.

And because it is relevant,
Here is the story of my first realisation of tawheed...
or for those of you who are not muslim:
Here is the story of my first realisation of the oneness of a single divine entity, which has to be within yet beyond everything of our world...

When Elest was very little and she was Sevim Ceren in blue fluffy nightgown, pink, bare feet and milk bottle dangling from between her teeth, she didn't speak much. She would silently go about her buisness of being little between the things which happened in the world which still belonged mostly to grown ups. In her solitary little-ness, and bare-footed-ness and silent, wide eyed observation over the pacifier, eventually she began to grow very attached to her milk bottle, from which she was never without. So that, upon the note of security blankets, Sevim Ceren's bottle was that and a thing she had come to depend on for comfort without conciousness, because when you are little very few things are concious.
Until one evening...
Sevim Ceren's mommy was emptying out the dishwasher after dinner, in the kitchen of their home in South Carolina. Sevim Ceren, bare foot and in blue robe as usual, was silently following her arround the kitchen, waiting for her milk bottle which her mommy had taken away to wash and re-fill. This time however, mommy had put the (little did she know, but was about to find out) dish washer un-friendly milk bottle in the dishwasher. When the matter of the bottle's dish washer un-friendliness was revealed to them both in a shapeless, lava-lamp-wax form of melted, milky plastic, mommy was surprised, but little Sevim Ceren was devastated. And the wide dark eyes which oridnarily observed above her pacifier were stricken with something between grief, betrayl, and absolute, frightening loneliness.

...

Yesterday for the first time I did something I could never have imagined doing. I regretted this, and for a split second I wished I'd settled for something else some time and place before. And now, I still regret but not everything. And I do not wish, because of the pieces I am in. Because if I had settled then, i would be living in comfortable ignorance, while now i am hurting, but the pain is the same as being awake...like washing with water so cold it hurts, and it's good.
And if I had settled then, I would not know now that the only consolation is in non, the only comfort and company is in solitude, and the One is between the lines of the clear cut, the shadows of what is blaringly obvious, and the gaps which are still raw and which will weld together and mend soon, so that I will forget this realisation i saw through the shatterred window of my inner mirror which distorted the world before everything else could make sense.

'look ma! No strings!!'

Leave me out with the waste
This is not what I do
It's the wrong kind of place
To be thinking of you
It's the wrong time
For somebody new
It's a small crime
And I've got no excuse
Is that alright? Yeah...

Leave me out with the waste
This is not what I do
It's the wrong kind of place
To be cheating on you
It's the wrong time
She's pulling me through
It's a small crime
And I've got no excuse
Is that alright? Yeah...

Give my gun away when it's loaded
Is that alright? Yeah...
If you don't shoot it how am I supposed to hold it
Is that alright? Yeah...
Give my gun away when it's loaded
Is that alright
Is that alright with you?

-9 Crimes : Damien Rice

...And it is followed by a great deal of pain!

Hello. Today i am OWCH!-ing. However this OWCH!-es less than the OWCH of missing my family.
Speaking of losing innocence last night with Sarah got me wonderring whether I am capable of losing any more. And I know that finding out will either result in losing more innocence I did not know I had left, or just simply be too sad to avoid going into mourning.
I haven't done this in a while. Instead I've bottled them up and turned stone cold.
And that is why, now that Aslan has breathed on the witch's grotesque statues, I wake and find I miss my last and only conncetion to innocence and immaturity. The little one who is not little. The mature one, who brings out the Peter Pan Syndrome from the depths of Elest with pangs of torrential weeping for sorrow and for joy.

Saimecanii.
...

Never should we allow our youngest siblings to grow. We should do all in our power to protect them from what corrupted us and turned us adult.

'The fact is that I find in the day's light, in this diffused, pale almost shadowless luminosity, a darkness deeper than the night's.'

If on a Winter's Night a Traveller: Italo Calvino

...

Elle est Still sober, may God be praised, is not a pessimist. She feels sad about many things, because sadness is a beautiful, comforting place, and she has rather dark inclinations, which is why we (in the multiple personality sense) are goth, but she is not a pessimist. Thank you.
Having said that PMT and the odd depression doesn't count towards pessimism either. They just mean that we are female and we are an artist. Thank you.
Speaking of which: to add to the list of things which should never be under-estimated, such as feline affection and onigiri, there is PMT...

...Because it is a great sorrow that emanates from the merciful hidden soul of that place and that source of life and of love in the world, that God has retained in the fragile, female frame. And though we may never know why, what for and what it is saying to us, it is a sacred cry from the core of our human essence, and it is a reminder in the darkness of monotonous dawns and when stone hearts turn brittle in the banal sound and motion of tube trains, when nothing else could wake you.

I'm going to keep a tally of the amount of times I need to get up to shut the door after people who come in and out of this office fail to do so.
I've spent most of today in the eye of the most vicious draft, very productively producing report after report for the staff news letter, most of them concerning Somalia...CURSE, THEY DID IT AGAIN!

UB40 had this song, where the lyrics went something like, '...there's brother killing brother, people living on their knees, biting sugar coated bullets for the pain of this disease.' I don't know why I rememberred that today...but it got me thinking that one step after another, and eventually the turns you took disconncet you so severly from who you were. Standing here now, I wonder if the person I was, saw that eventually some good would come of this. And I wonder if that person was here now, would she still see some hope, or would she think it more wise to step away now, before I'm lost for good.

It's not the people I love that I'm trying to avoid and sugar coat the truth for, it's myself. And everyday I'm forgetting more and more, why.

Welcome back holy dark.

The woman who says 'mind the gap' at Mansion House station, sounds like she's saying 'mind the duck'.

I haven't gone out with the girls since last Sunday, and am feeling very...errr...cut off? In any case:

• Moved into new place at Earls Court, alhamdullah... Woohoo!

-this means we've moved up the property ladder, so to speak, and are residing amidst the cream of society, and this is good, because my poor, beggarly, self-destructive artist-ness is a romantic novelty in such an area.

• Got a job and working with Muslim Aid, alhamdullah... Woohoo!

-And this means we are using our creativity for the greater good of man and against universal sufferring, which makes us socially aware and as compassionate as an existential mindset would allow.

Why? Alber Camus, The Outsider, that's why. And that's probably the worst thing about existentialism...the fact that in a selfish world of utter human isolation, there really is no room for compassion.

Hello, I haven't blogged in over a month.
Why?
Life.
'Twil throw at you many a thing, like things, like pancakes which fly, and you will be overwhelmed by all these flying pancakes, all flying at you like a school of fishes (but not with wings), and you will not know what to do with them, and in your panic and confusion and struggle to catch as many pancakes as you can, you will spill the maple syrup all over the place, and everything will be sticky and mushy and damnit, who gonna clean this mess now, huh?
...
I've been back in London for over a month, and as of Monday I'm finally going to have a propper place to stay, where I can stop living out of a suitcase. Where I can put my clothes in a cupboard, have my own bed, and prance about the flat in my underware to my hearts desire. Where I won't have to worry about my presence being intollerable or tiring for others and where I will also have my own time, and space and strangeness in which to think and collect my pieces if they are collectable still.
What sucks most is that a week ago, in spite of the uncertainty and nervousness, I thought I knew what kind of a turn my life would be taking from now on. Lo and behold, I was wrong.
Now, return ticket gone, penniless, homeless and with my parents pissed off at me, I'm in London, and I don't know. I just don't know.
However, instead of looking at it like its some huge drama, which it is, I can just concentrait on getting a job as soon as possible, and hopefully figure things out from there.
As Asma said: a year from now, there is no way you will still be in this situation. Things will change. So don't worry.
The scary thing is, a year ago I couldn't have imagined all of this would happen. And I'm dreading what else is possible in the space of a single year.
2007, I aint particularly looking forward to you, but you know what, give it all you've got, coz I'm so down it's starting to feel like up now.

On a lighter note; to Shakila's amusement, Elest got chatted up by the waiter at Taro today.
Once upon a time that would have made me feel good. Those blasted pancakes, how they change you.

You left it, I sent it
I want it back
You left it, I sent it
I want it back

If I had you here, I'd clip your wings
Snap you up and leave you sprawling on my pin
This plan of mine is oh so very lame
Can't you see the grass is greener where it rains

You left, I died,
I went and you cried
You came, I think
But I never really know
I've served my time
I've watched you climb
The wrong incline
But what do I know

Accept it, Don't let it
Turn the screw
Accept it, And let it
Scream back at you

Now this applies both equally to you and I
The only thing we share
Is the same sky
These empty metaphors
They're all in vain
Like can't you see the grass is greener where it rains

And I lie behind you
And a cradle you in the palm of me
And I pat your hair down
I think will we sink or swim?
'Cause we could do either on a whim

In the garden Snake was a charmin'
And Eve said let's give it a try
Now lead us not into temptation
But Eve is the apple of my eye

-Eve, The Apple of my Eye : Bell X1

'But what disgusts me even more are people who have no imagination. The kind T. S. Elliot calls 'hollow men'(...) there's one thing I want you to remember, Kafka. Those are precisely the kind of people who murdered Miss Saeki's childhood sweetheart. Narrow minds devoid of imagination. Intollerance, theories cut off from reality, empty terminology, usurped ideals, inflexible systems. Those are the things that really frighten me. What I absolutely fear and loathe. Of course, it's important to know what's right and what's wrong. Individual errors in judgement can usually be corrected. As long as you have the courage to admit mistakes, things can be turned arround. But intollerant, narow minds with no imagination, are like parasites that transform the host, change form and continue to thrive.'

-Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

As dificult as it would have been to deal with narrow minds on a single front, said parasites have unfortunately penetrated too close to home. As Hamza Yusuf said, when asked by a suspicious non-Muslim colleague if he was trying to convert him: I'm still trying to convert Muslims first. My appologies to anyone whose feathers are being ruffled as I type away, our reality is a Muslim world where 'Muslims' brandishing usurped ideals and theories cut from reality, are murdering innocents, because some ugly, robed ponce, called the Pope, has no sense of history, nor diplomacy. Another narrow mind. And thus evil begets evil. And we're fighting a war against ignorance with Islamaphobes and stupid people who shame a handfull of enduring sanity by calling themselves Muslims. (I'm sorry, call yourself a Muslim by all means, but do it in the privacy of your own home if that is the only way you know how.)

I don't know about the experiences of others in regards to discrimination, but for Elestkimo, discrimination was the Turkish Government, and the random 'Oi Osama!' remark she could laugh off. Nothing that could touch her...this was until recently. I allude to the Tragic Hero metaphor again, because they really do stab you when the armour comes off, where it's most sensitive (think scar tissue sensitive), and it hurts. I swear it hurts. And you feel helpless, and betrayed and misunderstood. And when you finally stop pitying yourself because what you've lost is lost and you have to move on; you know that you can't stand about and not do anything. But biggots don't get converted and stomping them out would require brute force which will achive nothing as they themselves have demonstrated already...
... perhaps we just have to try yelling louder than them.

Yay! The Rant Board is back! Now y'all can shower me with praise or hurl insults and vegetables at me once again, just like in the good ol days :) And then there was much rejoicing, Bible style... as always, because Bible style never goes out of fashion.

'Molly, who am I? Whay am I here? What is it that I am seeking in this strange place, day after day? I knew a moment ago...but I've forgotten.'

-The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle

Words which are very familiar for some of us, less so for others, but non the less speaking to the essence of our human predicament. It's moments like these that the Goth lives for. This and lots of pain, darkness and chaos. If the Goth can find non of this to angst over, the Goth will angst over not having anything to angst over. So when a Goth is angsting, it's probably best to not worry so much, and just simply partake in the dark and deep thoughts they choose to express if they are of the expressive kind. If they are not of the expressive kind, they will probably go sit on a roof for hours on end or under the bed where it's dark. When this happens you should let them be for a few hours and then climb the roof/ squeeze under the bed with them and just share the silence and darkness.
Be absolutely certain of your feelings for a Goth though, because if you do this, there is a great danger of the Goth loving you, and when a Goth loves you it is perhaps the best and worst thing in the world.
The worst: because the Goth will discover the deep tragedy in loving others, and will mope about that too.
The best: because a Goth's love is one of the most genuine and selfless specimines of that human emotion that is talked/sung/written about too often yet rarely really lived.

This is because Goths are Goths. and Goths are Goths because they were either unloved growing up, or they unloved themselves growing up, shutting out all human affection, because they are convinced they don't deserve it or that it's not real.
In retorspect then, at the heart of the Goth is a lack or loss of love. And if somewhere along the course of their grey, moping lives, they encounter it and it penetrates their thick walls, they will cherish it like King Haggard when he saw the unicorns, and thought he was going to die because it made him happy for the first time in all his life of unhappiness.
In truth, we are all looking for unicorns, Goths do so more actively and angst over the lack of them more openly. But I can promise you, when every one of us tastes the hidden disillusionment in the reality of their extinction, we each die a great yet silent death. The ordinary human being will only notice a slight sadness, a discontent from time to time. But us Goths spend the rest our lives mourning that death.

What's worse?
Being naieve,
or realising your naivety and being someting bitter...with a heart that's stronger, yet that much more harder?

I almost believed the latter, but thought's of Shakila's mysterious Baxter, and what he represents of all that is tragic but beautiful in the eyes of the divine perceiver, have made me realise otherwise, because that's how the Universe speaks to you;
through the poignant things people say for themselves without knowing that you, in your own world with your own ghosts, will find a consolation, as though it were tailormade for your hurting. Because the world, though ugly is beautiful like that, because it was fashioned by a beautiful hand.

Now, if I give in completely to your gift of disilusinoment, I will kill the voice which has spoken thus far, heedless of all that threatened it and submit to your selfishness. And though there is no love in the world as you've left it to me after all was said and done, I'd rather hurt to believe in something better.

To Write a Synopsis

It's as hard as you think squared. Basically think of a 100-odd page novel which consists of two storries with very vague connections and nothing really being fully revealed but implied. And then try to turn that into a 2 page and-then-this-happened-and-then-this-happened for some bald, bored literrary agent who'd rather have a story ruined for himself instead of reading the book. A pox'o how things are done, it's a travesty!

Pish! 'Zounds! and and what ever else Jacobean curses you can think of.

Naturally this one keeps having the urge to hide back between the pages of a Murakami, or subject herself to some Miyavi on the iPod...because the best way not to think is by always having something on loud in your ears. Alternatively there is standing under the shower in meditative blank mind mode. I think I fancy that right now.

I had a thought today. I'm gonna be banned in Saudi if I ever get published (inshallah). Perhaps I should go to Dubai while I still can.

Shower here I come.

Miyavi insanity all arround.

I never loved nobody fully
Always one foot on the ground
And by protecting my heart truly
I got lost in the sounds
I hear in my mind
All these voices
I hear in my mind all these words
I hear in my mind all this music
And it breaks my heart
And it breaks my heart

And it breaks my hea-aa-aa-aa-aa-aa-aa-aa-aart
And it breaks my hea-aa-aa-aa-aa-aa-aa-aa-aart

-Fidelity

Regina Spektor has a weird video clip.
She also has a huge clevage.
I draw attention to this simply because it really is huge and not because I suffer from cleavage envy or anything. After all, being flat rocks. And it rocks because you can run (or stomp like an Elest even) without feeling self concious, and do all sorts of fun boy things.

I rememberred a few days ago that at some point in my life my friends called me 'Sevski'...when I asked Tas if she remembers why, and who'd started it off; She said it must have happened during the time we were studying Stalin and Trotsky in Russian history during year 11, and Ruqeya a.k.a Jade, was the culprit.

Meanwhile, I had lots of time to think today -during the long trek from the neighbourhood beyond the hills, over the hills in the dark, and finally home- and I've concluded that life is very weird.
Now, take a moment to look back on the what you've lived thus far. Go on, humour me. And bear in mind absolutely everythig...where you started off, how you grew up, all the changes, all the people, all the crap, and getting through it...till now, and then size it up one more time in retrospect to you at this moment...you think: Damn! I never saw any of that coming at any one point, and who would have imagined.

Now to get out of this mess.

Dear God, thankyou! Hyde's lost weigth, and looks good again.
And Tetsu has a bulldog which doesn't suit his pansy grin.
And you just know I have too much time on my hands. ...either that or I wish I had a car coz feeling this exhausted after going out and about in this damn city leaves me incapable of doing anything vaguely productive afterwards.

The adventures of Boris resume..
Late one evening Boris sits at his favourate corner in the pub gazing very intensely at the empty rum bottle on the table in front of him. The rum bottle sits there. Boris stares. The rum bottle sits...ordinary like...nothing special. Boris stares, all beedy, evil eye-balls. The rum bottle sits. Boris stares. 2 hours later the bottle is feeling very intimidated...but still Boris stares.
8 more hours later, when the pub is shutting up for the day, and the bar tender comes to shake Boris awake, we find out Boris had actually been sleeping with his eyes open.

Mizika caliyor, duyunmu sandin?
Al yesil bayragi gelinmi sandin?
Yemene gideni gelirmi sandin?
Don gel agam, don gel, dayanamiyram.
Uyku gaflet coktu, uyanamiyram.
Agamin oldugune inanamiyram.

-A Turku (folk song (and one of many)) about the historical Yemen war from which too many Turkish soldiers didn't return. No I shant translate it because it'll sound rubbish instead of tragic. But it's relevance is not merely the poetic appreciation kind...
Apparently my great-grandfather went to war in Yemen straight after he got married, and his wife waited for him for 7 years. After which he finally returned.
I find that amazing.

AAAAND, aparently my great-great-grandfather was sent to some Arab country during his army service, when the empire still had it all (though barely clinging) and he married an Arab girl...hence why they called our family 'Arab-ogulari' meaning Arab-sons...hence why our generation is showing vague signs of not looking Turkish.

Hearing: Perfect Moment, Hyde
Doing: The Violinist and Alexis Jezeabel, Elest Bint-Mustafa
Sitting: On Bed
Feeling: ...WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU...I SAID, I CAN'T HEAR YOU, THE MUSIC'S TOO LOUD...

Just remembered something I thought of, walking down Soho with Shakila that day we all had Haagndazs for the last time (and you remember what happens next, right Sha?) and I told her it, because it's a great and indisputable truth of truths. I think it was after she said something about being a disgrace to the neighbourhood.

Elest: That's nothing to be ashamed of babe, you should be proud.
Shakila: Well I aint alone, so should u.
Elest: Oh yeah.

any way, it was thus:
Every White clique should be penetrated by a loud and rude ethnic minority!
Somebody's gotta teach these people how to really laugh.

'nuf said bruv!

Today was Zafer bayrami, in Turkey. This meaning it was the day they celebrate the Canakkale Victory. This meaning, in 1914 with a broken army and very limmited arms, we kicked English, French and Greek hineys to kingdom come, and saved Istanbul.
So how do Turks celebrate? They drape tall buildings with massive Turkish flags and building-sized pictures of Ataturk, the dog of dogs. 'Why?' -you ask, since Ataturk had jack to do with it.
Because every good Turk believes that God's gift of a victory to the Turkish people in WWI was all thanks to Ataturk's great ass, on which he was reclining at the time, while others were giving their lives for it. So lets all praise him.

In any case though, below is a pic of Elest celebrating Turkish facism.



Yes that's a Hitler tash, coz I'm so funny.

...and Elest behaving more naturaly in her natural habitat, when caught unawares.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDvAZgIGoVY

A lecturer once said that the most tragic moment in an epic is the arming of the epic hero part.
Now, I'll tell you why it's tragic.
It's the Samson story.
Perhaps Achilles.
A life time of thickening skin against ignorant prejudices,
growing so strong, their cruelty only curls a smile in the corner of your lips,
and then someone stabs you when the armour comes off.

Hello. This is Miyavi.



As you can see, the resemblance is phenomenal.

(No, he's not an adopted friend for Sushi, he's just a stray kitten with a mohawk who turned up in the living room like he owned the place. Hence meriting a name)

Regret is very bitter, and the bottom-far-bellow of very high places, inviting.
The ability to regret dawns...slowly, slowly, upon the world.
And one can find ones-self lying on ones roof at night, watching the stars (I swear there were a lot more when I was younger and wore funny glasses) and thinking: 'Why is Mars not visible yet? Is this secretly not August or have the astronomers lied?'
One can find ones-self in many many deep and dark silences, and under the influence of bad influence mullings.
Funny that cows are such happy seeming beasts when all they ever seem to do is chew and mull, chew and mull, chew and mull...and swat the random fly.
Which says what?
It says, if I'm resigned to all these mosquito bites I must be more aloof than a cow.


A classic Arabic/Persian (everyone including the Turks seem to be wanting to lay claim to this) story follows:

There was once a young man named Kais who fell in love with a girl named Laila, who wasn't particulalry beautiful or amazing, but this is irrelevant...or perhaps it's relevant because it says alot more about love than it would if she was beautiful. Because you see, thanks to the immortalisation of Laila & Majnun (which existed way before Romeo & Juliet, and is at a higher calibre of tale entirely) Laila has been transformed in the minds and stories of men into the embodiment of unmatched feminine beauty (so much so that according to another story a particular sultan who wished to see the legendary Laila, asks for her to be brought to him and upon laying eyes on her is shocked.
Sultan: Majnun loved you? you're not beautiful?
Laila: You are not Majnun.)

...So, Kais loved Laila, but Lail's family married their daughter off to an older, and very wealthy man. Kais, in his devastation and despair fled to the desert and went mad, hence why he was then called Majnun. Many years passed, word of the love-sick Majnun who roamed the deserts still spread far and wide, until one day, Laila's old husband died. Having been set free at last, Laila who'd heard what became of Kais, set out into the desert in search of him. When she finally found him, Majnun did not recognise her.
Majnun: Who are you?
Laila: I'm Laila.
Majnun: ...then what have I loved all of this time?

The Importance of Being like a child: or Cows and Why Not to Underestimate Any Sign. Ever.

-a rant-

There are symbolic dreams -dreams that symbolize some reality. Then there are symbolic realities -realities that symbolize a dream.
Symbols are what you might call the honorary town councillors of the worm universe. In the worm universe there is nothing unusual about a dairy cow seeking a pair of pliers. A cow is bound to get her pliers sometime. It has nothing to do with me.

Yet the fact that the cow chose me to obtain her pliers changes everything. This plunges me into a whole universe of alternative considerations. And in this universe of alternative considerations, the major problem is that everything becomes protracted and complex. I asked the cow, "Why do you want pliers?" and the cow answers, "I'm really hungry." So I ask, "Why do you need pliers if you're hungry?" The cow answers, "To attach them to branches of the peach tree." I ask, "Why a peach tree?" to which the cow replies, "Well, that's why I traded away my fan, isn't it?" and so on and so forth. The thing is never resolved, I begin to resent the cow, and the cow begins to resent me. That's a worms eye view its universe. The only way the get out of that worm universe is to dream another symbolic dream.

(Haruki Murakami- A Wild Sheep Chase)

The 'cow' and 'me' here, might as well be Khidr and Moses, the time-traveller and the prophet, me (personally) and the snail in my planter...any two individuals/entities existing in separate plains of possibility or dimensions of thought and experience, but encountering one another, for a brief moment in the same now. I feel sorry for the snail in its pitifully slimy and slow excuse of an existance, and the snail, feels sorry for me; a loud and threatening giant, apparently so busy wasting energy with sensless comings and goings, to know the colours of the different levels of silence, and the shades of every depth of peace.

Likewise, keepers of different wisdoms, the cow's motives will never make sense to me, and my motives will never make sense to the cow, because we both see and experience the universe through our own very separate yet limited vision. Hence the worms eye view.

If our human senses are only capable of experiencing less than a billionth of the material stimuli in the immediate space which surrounds us at any given moment, then in retrospect to a universe with boundless possibilities incomprehensible to any one being alone, cynisims is one of the greatest sins we commit against ourselves. As the Turkish idiom goes, What fault is it of the sun, if you're blind?

One of the Prophet's (sas) prayers went something like this: 'Allah, make me full of wonder'. And that is why Lewis Carol put Alice in Wonderland, because she was a child. So, if you find a caterpillar chasing dragons on a giant mushroom, for Gods sake, don't tell him he's not supposed to exist, that's just rude. Instead you should ask permission to partake, and who knows what many other cows with pliers you may encounter on what wondrous trips, which await to broaden our worm universes.

I wish I could surrender my soul.

Shed the clothes that become my skin,

See the liar that burns within my needing.

I wish I'd chosen darkness from cold

I wish I'd screamed out loud...

Instead I've found no meaning.

I guess it's time I run...

Far far away,

Find comfort in pain.

All pleasure's the same,

It just keeps me from trouble.

Tears and Rain, The Blunt-man.

I know now, where I get my simple minded honesty from.
The side of me which spurs from a nation of painfully and stupidly honest people.
Yesterday Huden and I were getting fresh juice form the juice man, and I said I wanted Pomegranite juice and the guy lowers his voice and goes, 'this isn't real pomegranite juice.' Moments later we are trying to buy bread and the baker goes, 'The bread's so hard, look it's like a rock! it's coz of the heat!' naturally we didn't buy bread or the pomegranite juice ...its seems honesty is more important than losing customers though. And that, I think is a beautiful trait, beneath its painful stupidity.

Yes I am in Ankara...and it is safe to say it has taken 2 days for 'Burn it up, Girl make it hot like the roof is on Fayyaaaaaa!' to stop playing itsself on repeat in my mind. Trust crazy, beautiful friends to turn a bloody goodbye into 2 nights of belly dancing. I mention not the quality time and 'moments' because I keeps special things to myself.

I cried on the plane. To which the passenger sitting next to me could only ask: 'Have you lived in America?' -Ntch, foo!
Righteeeo, the Boris within warns that this is turning self indulgent again. Lets see...do I have anything else to say without dear-diarying?
Yes.
Turkish Grandfathers are cute.
So are Turkish guys.
In different ways of course.
The former are cute in the cudly sense that makes Father Christmas look like a pedophile.
As for the latter...I'm still trying to get over the shock of this.

Philosophy of Boris.

Getting to sleep at 3:00-ish after much wide-eyed cieling-staring in darkness, and then waking up at 6:00, can drive one to mull over many a deep and dark thought.
One such deepness and darkness, as any deepness and darkness, one my encounter in the deep and dark mental pool (with water slide!) may be the deepness and darkness of thoughts of Boris.
Aided by very heavy summer rain.

As we know, Boris had lost a leg to the Second World War. When he was a dashing young blade furnished with many a medalion, he believed this was a worthwhile sacrifice, for country and honour. In time, however, the remnants of his life receeded into whisky bottles at cheap bars, to collect with the clear beads he could never get to, even if he smashed the empty bottle. And at these times, when he had no power but to broodingly watch them evaporate over long hours, did he not despise country and honour? Was he not filled with bitterness, the taste of many years of festerring and regretting?

So how does one keep the purity of ones intentions intact?
How does one remember, and never forget?
How does one remain strong in ideals, when country and honour kick you when you're down?

This here is what I paid, what I'm paying for my sins.
Make this me...and maybe then I will not hate others.
Maybe.

Did I say that I loath you.
Did I say that I want to... leave it all behind.

-Blower's Daughter : Damian Rice

Listening to: Regina Spektor.
Horrified by: The amount of weight Haido has put on.
Pissed off at: Just innit.
Sadened by: Lemony Snicket's dedications.

Otherwise, life resumes hectically in a suspenseful, cliff hanger kind of slow motion. Embracing reclusive reclusiveness once again, for want of things to tell people...the unsurity is stifling. At times like this, we flinch at things too easily. And thank God for late shifts and crazy work coleagues brandishing light sabers in the overstock room.
Aiden: (swinging it arround) It was so much cooler when we had two of these!
Elest: Aha. it's kinda damaged right.
Aiden: (Puts it away) Yes that's why it's here.
Johnathan: (walks in with books) Hey you, YOU WERE PLAYING WITH THE LIGHT SABER! (drops books and runs over to the light saber hiding place to have a go at it himself)

But all is well in the world with Boris. To him, everyone's the same. and anyone who buys him a drink is better so. In his vodka bottle swims the doubts and fears he will swallow down and urinate out in an hour or so, if he doesn't vomit them first. That is what I think of thinking twice, you twice thought, he tells the worryful wonder.

I wonder if I'm making a big mistake.

...And if there had to be something which could possibly account for this silence that is always louder than noise or words or banter, because it is so full of an absence of all that is greater and more urgent and more desperate and sad because of inexpressibility (which is a word that doesn't even exist in the English vocab because of it's sheer inexpressiblity), it would be thus:

...

And so it is, just like you said it would be.
Life goes easy on me...most of the time.
And so it is, the shorter story. No love no glory, no hero in her skies.
...
And so it is, just like you said it should be.
We'll both forget the breez...most of the time.
And so it is, the colder water, the blower's daughter, the pupil in denial.

The Blower's Daughter -Damian Rice

Hello.
How long has it been since I wrote something here? ...OH MY GOD, THE 5TH OF LAST MONTH!? wow, when Elest makes a resolution she really sticks to it eh? ..bullshit.
(look we've even started swearing here. Tauwba)

So how has Boris been since then?
Boris has been very well, thank you. He's never been better. He's been drinking more, dreaming less and falling on his face less, but drinking more...and smoking some...And sitting on the wall of The Bottle at the crossroads, holding his pint up at the cars that drive by. Every day. toasting life away.
So he's been well.

Working at Borders doesn't put one off books. Though it's very capable of putting one off bookshops. But one may grow imune to it...who knows. Time will tell. Because time knows. Time knows all, the blasted miserly thief. Actually it doesn't...it just pretends to. It's just a useless, fat, miserly thief who knows nothing, but pretends...and gets away with it.
In any case, there are few things about bookshops that may piss one off. Such a thing may be rude customers, but they may do so less so than shelving men's magazinese with gawking perverts standing about, and also coming across certain books like 'The Almond' by a certain Arab bitch (don't 'tauwba' me! She had it coming) who's written a piece trash about the sexual awakening of a repressed Muslim girl. All very erotic...and you just know the West is gonna love that. Oh yeah, we can see them wringing their hands with glee now, coz they'd already bought into the ideaology since Jacobean England started organising the world it had discoverred (I would quote out of Fletcher's Island Princess if I had an excellent memory, but I don't. You know that purrrrr-fectly well, so don't be stupid (she quotes from The Last Unicorn instead.))

In any case, if there had to be a reading list...just innit...of current reads...a reading list of no particular relevance or connection to any thing, time or person...just innit...a just-innit reading list of GOOD books, it would start thus:

Rememberring God -Charles le Gai Eaton
Wild Sheep Chanse -Haruki Murakami

...and end how, I know not yet.

I heeeeeeeaaar Viiiii-OOO-Linnnnnns

Tonight I had a realisation...nay, an epiphany (it all began arround 11:somtehing in the car park of our flats, and ended very promptly).
This is what it was:
No matter how much one tries to fool onesself or justify it, keeping a blog is self-indulgent and a tad pretentious.
-Yes. It doesn't have to start 'Dear diary' or be about Mr. Rochester to qualify as a journal. And fine, we do sometimes talk about deep and terrible things, but ultimately this blog is about me, right? And writing about me on a weekly/daily basis, is an undeniabley self-indulgent thing to be doing, right?
Right.
...
And so there was a 12th comandment after the 11th; 'don't change'. This is what it was:
Thou shalt not subject innocent cyber-space bystanders to the enterior workings of thy twisted mind, nor the mundane trivialities of thine own existence.
...
Thus, from this day forth, Elle est stoned and star gazing decided that this blog will not be about ME.
'twill be about Boris.

Some information on the origin of Boris follows:
Boris, by all accounts is a fictional figment of my father's alliteration...I mean imagination, who's never tired of trying to convince his children otherwise. Nor has he tired of offerring numerous details of said Boris's life, each more outrageous than the last. The truth is yet to be revealed, but whether or not Boris existed, it is certain that he isn't doing any such thing presently.
According to my father, Boris is dead.
You see, Boris was a one legged, Prussian, World War 2 veteran and a very good drinking buddy. After the war Boris used to suffer from very vivid dreams about getting his missing leg back, which would cause him to jump out of bed with excitment in the mornings, only to fall flat on his face.
One day, in his old age, Boris had a car accident crossing the road, and ended up losing his other leg aswell. Not long after, he dreamt that this time he had both his legs back, jumped out of the hospital bed in his usual flurry of excitment, and fell on his face again, for the last time. He died in hosptial of brain damage.

As of tonight, this is the Blog of Boris, whose story above is as my father told it to me. What follows contains the takings of numerous liberties, and fictional aditives which are not good for your health. Wathch for the 'E' numbers, and Lecitin -make sure it's soya.

...And last but not least, to comemorate this farewell to self indulgence, and hello to utter absurdity of Boris-ness, a very bold dedication to the one person I blog about least or never at all, because sometimes we don't do the things we want to do most, so people don't know we want to do them: ...

I'm your host from the Blog of Boris, good night, and farewell for now.

OWWWCH!

iT'S a bEaUTifuL daY aND i'M OWWWCHing aT HomE.
(sniffle)
I wanted to go to Hampstead Heath with Huden and Daoud.
(sniffle)
ha? nO, i dON't wAnt aNy mORe NutELla...it's made me feel sick.
...
...
(twidles thumbs)
...

Right...this calls for some productiveness which doesn't involve me having to move from my seat. ...oi, this isn't my laptop...this is Huden's...where's my laptop? Ah, I spy it under the sofa. The sofa is across the room. Do I get up and get it myself...or do a start wailing and moaning to get Saimecan to come here from the other room? Nah, I aint that shallow. ...So. Do I get up now, or do I wait for a bit? Do I do it in one sudden movement and leap across the room and back to the sofa, or do I do it very slowly? ...Oh damn, now I gotta pee.
(sniffle)
Help!

Today I saw a woman playing solitaire on her iPod.
I'm ashamed to be a part of this.

'The Matrix has you Neo' ...and it offers your mind not a moment of freedom. This is the occupation of Television screens on busses, gossip/beauty magazines (one glance at the cover of someone elses giving you an eye-full of Jordan to last you a week(...why do I even know this sorry little excuse of a woamn's name?)), PSPs, larger than life advertising blaring at you from every corner of the city in which you reside; selling you everything from looks to a life style...
And meanwhile I'm confused about my priorities when I get pissed off at the megaphone man at Picadilly Circus (now). Every man has his own wares. This one is trying to sell me a joke at the expense of religion...and oh, the degree of stigma attached to that word thanks to the likes of himself. But 'which came firts: intolerant preaching or its subject-matter?' -Tim Winters

Yet, one can find wisdom in all things.
Fast, think, wait -Hermann Hesse Sidhartha
...and adopt a state of mind, the likes of which is the iPod-ers very own. for 3 good reasons:

• Because this refuse of a world is always beautiful to the sound of music.
• Because little stinging things are easier to overlook when your mind is in ecstasy...and if they do more than just sting, then they're so much more poetic to those beats; the tragedy rings with hightened verse.
• And Because you can't hear people being stupid or mean to you...so you can't hate them. And even if you can, you still don't hate them, coz their muffled, mean little words are coming from some far off place, too below this higher plain in which you're experiencing something sublime. ...so instead you pity them, and hope that they too, will one day have an iPod in their otherwise drab and meaningless lives.

...and if you can't tell that all of this is an extended metaphore for something else, you should be ashamed of yourself. And you should sit in that corner and think very hard about it. Yes, that one. Now.

(And yes, I've editted this. so bite me, like!)

Sound: Miyavi - Itoshi hito

Over the course of the past 3 days of being 23 and more drastically changed than ever during the course of the past 23 years...this one has made two new observations, but for what use is any of it in the end? I'm one of those people who'll put great things in writing and not find it in me to live by them. Perhaps it is a lack of self worth. Perhaps it is disillusionment.

Peanut butter and powder hot choclate does not taste like a Snicker bar.
Tanzanian nut-meg-and-other-spices tea tastes great :)

...no these are not the two observations I made, you foo'!

Yesterday I met this cool Argintinian jewlery maker in Camden Town. Today I bumped into him again while I was looking for something else, found out his name is Fabrizzio (Elest: Is that an Argentinian name? Fabrizzio: No, Italian!) and that his hands are all caloused and burnt coz he makes all his jewlery himself (Fabrizzio: look. -spreads out hands proudly). His English was rubbish but he told me that: "In Argentina we have no money, no work, no food... but we have korason -heart."

The universe might be telling me again, that I need to go somewhere where human passion hasn't died yet.

'Fantasies have to be unrealistic, because the moment, the second that you get what you seek, you don't, you can't want it any more. In order to continue to exist, desire must have it's objects perpetually absent. It's not the 'it' that you want it's the fantasy of 'it'. Desire supports crazy fantasies. This is what pascal means when he says that we are only truly happy when daydreaming about future happiness. That's why we say the hunt is sweeter than the kill, or be careful what you wish for, not because you'll get it but because you're doomed to not want it once you do. The lesson of Lacan is, living by your wants will never make you happy, what it means to be fully human is to strive to live by ideas and ideals, and not to measure your life in terms of your desires but those small moments of integrity, passion, rationality, even self sacrifice...because in the end, the only way that we can measure the significance of our own lives is by valuing the lives of others.'

-The Life of David Gale-

...Because it's relevant.

Wallpaper.
I don't have a gun.
In any case though, apparently women tend to leap to their deaths, when committing suicide (La Petite Soldat - Jean Luke Godard. (No offence to those who have a special place in their hearts for the razor blade. (Ah we just love flinching at the idea. (I dare you to visualise something graphic. (No I'm not a friggin masochist, I'm a writer, and I'm trying to shock you.) So a gun wouldn't be much use then...funny though, that someone should bring that up. 'Tis true that it is feminine, but I doubt the appeal has anything to do with cowardice personally...I think the act of leaping is defined by leaping away from and leaping to. Fleeing and seeking some 'measure of release and comfort from the receiving end of the leap. It's also more impulsive, urgent and poetic in its motion...then again I can suck meaning and melancholy out of a theme park ride. Sheer nonsense. Hence my fondness of cynical, railing characters like Jaques (As You Like It- The Bard.) He tha man!...Because he is an intellect and a miserable git. In fact, I must go home and extract some quotes from the play, specifically the one about sucking melancholy, and make them mine own.

Alex, Andreus and the other loud, funny, Norwegian dude just walked into the office, in very selfconciously sharp suits and have promptly started shedding jackets and ties... Ah that's better, they're back to their usual scruffy selves now... Andreus just winked at me. He's nice...but can someone please tell me what it means when men do that? Is it ok for me to continue idiotly smiling back, as I do? I'm not being paranoid, I'm just wondering if I'm being naive.

Woohoo! Amy asked if I'd help her out with something else after lunch! I'm free of the Wallpapers! (Al)

I leave you now, for I must be off to our Beenie-spotting lunch with Shakila, who txs me that she is dying of boredom.

Miyavi love, all around.
Over and out.

Elle est starts writing.
This is what happens when yours truely gets a Royal Holloway creative writing MA rejection.
Hoola hoops man: OI, ROYAL 'OLLOWAY! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
And yet, we care not...I quote Gordon:
'Hi Elest. Stupid Holloway. What do they know? Not much, clearly.'
Yes.
We'll show 'em when 'The Violinist and Alexis Jezeabel' wins the booker, white bread, and pulitzer in every field known to man, and becomes an international, nay intergalactical best seller for the next fifteen years (and 300 light years), after which it will turn into a modern classic and some hundered years later, a classic classic!
We'll show THEM, that Davinci man what can't write to save his life, and Hollywood, who I shant be selling my rights to, thank you! (Inshallah)
Ps. Zadie Smith can kiss my hiney.
The stupid five letter 'B' word.

I leave you with Samuel Beckett:
"Habit is a compromise effected between the individual and his environment, or between the individual and his own organic eccentricities, the guarantee of a dull inviolability, the lightening-conductor of his existence. Habit is the ballast that chains the dog to his vomit. Breathing is habit. Life is habit."

Yesterday afternoon I was high on sheisha.
Last night I was high on bleach.
This morning I'm high on job searches.
I'm gonna go out for a bit to get high on that SunShiiiii-iiiiiine...looks mighty fiiii-iiiine, to meeeeee-eeee!

Why do flowers grow out of little cracks and crevices, in places where no one can even see them?
Because even though.
That's why.
...
Dance to 'be' in the act of dancing. Dance in the face of an oblivion of emptiness, loneliness, sadness and your futility... in a grey, drab, refuse.
Because you are not here to have to prove yourself to the world. You are here to 'be', for one who knows you even when you are hidden. Even when you know not yourself.

There's your sign.

SunShiiiii-iiiine! Over HeeeeREEE! (with a strong Egyptian accent)
...weeehaaee! So nice.

SHIKKKT! I'M SUPPOSED TO BE TEACHING TODAY! OH MY GOD, I'D FORGOT COMPLETELY!

The glorious pod of mainstream in all its mainstream glory and glorified mainstreamness is playing:
Something -Hajime Chitose

I'm reading and writing about all these successful designers with their well established companies etc. and I'm thinking it's all bull shiKt. (with a capital 'K')
For a moment I put myself in their places and think, Jane Gordon Clark of Ornamenta, launched when I was 3 years old...I do not want to end up like you! I don't want to spend half my life, working and struggling at the same game to stay afloat, only to achieve what you have: a state of being too financially comfortable and well established to stop working at the age of...yes, you look well over 50. No offence.
I don't want to have a big massive house in the South London suburbs, and two kids in private schools ...crap, this woman's got real flower petals pressed into her wallpapers! And they're textured! This changes everything...hang on a sec while I write this down...

...Now where was I before I was so rudely interrupted by wallpaper samples? Ah yes...my uncle. South London Suburbs house. Two kids in private schools. And a chain of old people's homes.
So, we've established what we DON'T want...what do we DO want?
I don't know.
I just hope that I don't end up like these people, ia, and my kids aren't brought up pre-conditioned to the notion of fitting a certain criteria. What do I mean? Think my uncle's kids. And then think the following scenario:

Uncle: you guys have actually done really well for yourselves, getting
into the universities you've gotten into. (and you know he's thinking:
considering you're from a broken marriage, grown up in
some crap North London area, and gone to rubbish schools coz your
father never took the responsibility to ensure otherwise.)
Elest: (very pissed off) Yeah, coz we're so messed up, right?
Uncle & Aunt: Oh No! No, we didn't mean that!

Piss off. I know what you meant. My mom did a hell of a fine job bringing us up on her own, and I'm glad I never got the life your kids are getting. Right now, I'm the happiest person in the world, because I can think outside your dumb box.
Wish I'd remember it more often.
Alhamdullah.

Conclusion: Down with Jane Gordon Clark. Up with Chocolate Trufle Aero!

Ps. The weather's amazing outside!

At FRIGGIN last!
Been trying to log onto blogger for the past half hour. And now that I'm on, I forgot what I needed to say. That's just smashing. Shame on u blog! I'm gonna go take a bath, and while I'm gone, u think very hard about what you've done!

Ps. We got our windows today and the kitchen is finaly complete, Alhamdullah...
WOOHOOOO!
Pps. The Tea Building is full of loads of arty farty design companies and publishers, and likewise, lots of arty farty peoples. We are in the midst of cool, once again...possibly cooler than Think Publishing. Our boss, however, is a Canadian guy with a very gay accent, who was having a huge row with some press person this afternoon, so that the entire office fell silent to listen intensely. After which everyone started gossiping about him.
With the boss asside though, I've spent my day writing about something which is so absurdly random in it's sheer mundane boringness, 'twill blow thy mind away...(drum roll) WALLPAPER! Tada!
Now, you're thinking said task is probably as interresting as a life support machine. You're thinking wrong... researching tea-total football heroes was worse. Not to mention, I get to look at lots of pretty pictures. :)
Ppss. My father is in London this weekend.
Pppss. I feel the need to dye my hair again. Red or Pink?

Last night while Elle est star gazer was moon gazing outside her flat, some black guy asked her if she was ok...
Elest: Yes, thanks.
Black guy: I thought you were crying.
Elest: No, I was looking at the moon.
Black guy: The moon. (looks up) oh. What do you call that, a half moon?
Elest: yeah. (thinks: you fool, it's a crescent!)
Black guy: Where are you from?
Elest: (thinks: it's a bit more complicated than that.) Turkey.
Black guy: In London people don't see the moon much.

Now, you think he said that coz he was thinking the only thing that can justify my sheer weirdness would have to be the utter ailenness of my ethnic background.
I like to think he said that coz he was trying to say something. ;)

Elest, are you worried about something?
Can you tell?
...
Does it matter? In the long run, against the bigger picture of things, does it bear any significance at all, when those close to you, can't even care?
We're so lonely. What does it matter if we were just that much lonelier?
I'm only saying all of this now to put off facing it. I swear I don't mean a word of it...yet.

Help,
I have done it agin,
I have been here many times before.
Hurt myself again today,
and the worst part is there's no one else to blame.
Ouch,
I have lost myself again,
Lost myself and I am no where to be found.
Yeah I think that I may break,
Lost myself again, and I feel unsafe.

Breath Me -Sia

Aloof? ...Aphasia -that's what it's called.

Listening to: Breathe Me -Sia
That's it! I don't want to write a short story, damnit! I want to write an epic! AN EPIC! DON'T SMOTHER MY PASSIONS! AND IF I'M MAKING YOU CRINGE, PISS OFF!
(pouts)
So much for being calm. But no matter, some of history's greatest geniuses and most tallented individuals were a bit mad (maniac grin) Half of them committed suicide (even freakyer maniac grin) I'm special (Miyavi maniac grin) I am also craving some Haagandazs...no not just Haagndazs, I really fancy hanging arround central London and eating Ice Cream in Lesceter Sq in the evening. This might be becuase I'm stuck in a spice smelling tip of a living room, babysitting builders who are making drilling noises over my music. I'm not moaning, I'm excited because work is finally underway. With the eminent kitchen asside though,

I WANT TO WRITE AN EPIC!

Pish

DAMN JAMES BLUNT!

Ahem, I've been at the laptop for well over 4 hours now, I've actually managed to cut down 300 words of this short story, which apparently isn't short enough, and I still have another 300 to eliminate into the depths from wence they emerged. Blast them! Insolent little Times New Roman typescript pests.
I've almost worked up the nerve to scrap the entire thing and just dish out a new tale...still have that lingerring idea of Post-Second Coming story about an evil Rock Star, but fear it might verge on the cliche and overly dramatic...not to mention, is probably yet another too-big-to-develop-in-5,000-words plot.

...Hey me, have you noticed that I'm talking to myself?
me: So you are! Oh joy!
me: No, not 'oh joy!', me, we've come dangerously close to sounding self indulgent.
me: How so?
me: 'Dear diary, today Mr. Rochester complimented my imaculately pruned rodedendrons. I dare say he has taken a liking to me...I am after all a wickedly charming girl, he a dashing young blade, and the rodedendrons a mere excuse. Not to mention they vex me. I am terribly vexed by them. I shall get Striker to urinate at their roots...it will truely be a test of Mr. Rochesters affections.' -so.
me: aha. I see.
me: What to do?
me: ...umm, go to bed?
me: An Excellent idea! Lets.

Same thing we do every night, Pinky...try to take over the world!

Chatting to Mags online and because it's 4:00 am in Dubai she seems kind of mental (wants me to turn her into a turnip...my insanity may not be entirely inherited but it's certainly justified by the amount of loonys in this family). You know what this means right? And now she's going on about some martial arts move called The Pest of Harakiri -very deadly.

With that asside though:
Hello, Elle est star gazer is back in the country of very few stars. Thank you light polution.
Verdict: Istanbul is beautiful.
I have too much to say about the trip, so I shall opt for the Goth's way out and aloofly say nothing...I shall keep it to myself, because it's MINE!

Hmmm, the sound on my laptop seems not to work. If it was, I'd be listening to Venus as a Boy -Bjork. Do I have anything substantial to write? No.
Fellow Gothling little-miss-'did you go tinkle'-Sarah is trying to convince me to sign up at My-Space...we are not convinced. Presently we are too busy trying to purchase volume 13 of Fruits Basket. (sigh. Manga...ntch, STOP ROLLING YOUR EYES AT ME!)

This is my manic state. Aren't I fun? I'm also working on being a more calm, and dignified individual...And I'm brushing up on my gracefulness- Amalthea, naked but not so that King Haggard feels the need to hide his modesty -style. (Ha ha, instead of, "What is the matter with your eyes? Why can I not see myself in your eyes?" he should have said, "Why are you perving at me like that! stop x-raying me!")
Speaking of which, to answer your question Sarah, he could not have become King Lear in Shakespear's King Lear because his name's actually spelt 'Lir', Prince Lir. :)

3 things about dictators: All of them were short (in addition to which Hitler had a little bumm). All of them had mostaches (Mussolini had one in secret, and Napolian's one was French so you couldn't tell) And all of them pretended to like classical music.

Ok, I'm off... this one goes out to my very brave Tarik. I love you, man. And I know you're doing well, coz I believe you always are no matter what kind of crap you're in.

Today Huden abla said:
We're God's mountains, Elest, He wouldn't burden any one of us with more snow than we could bear. And snow melts. In time there is nothing left of it.

South Park Elest.
He he he.

...No I don't have too much time on my hands, I just couldn't sleep! :(
I have my numerous reasons.

I'm a bit paranoid about my white earpohnes. This is because absolutely every other person I see on the street also has a pair. For the first time it feels like I'm conforming to something, and it's friggin ugly! Like a dead fish, or something equally vile and bloated being carried off by the currant that is mainstream...(sigh) maybe I should have gotten a black iPod afterall...or maybe I'm just making a big deal out of this.

Had a chat with the great aunt today. Heh heh heh...MUWAHA HA HAA HAAA HAAA HAAAA HAA! I love being shameless ;)

And (because there always is one), in spite of my Peter Pan syndrome (/tragic fixation. Nabokov style. (Nothing beyond the 'look at this tangle of thorns' -openning though, because the rest of the novel was far too twisted to finish reading)) I've finally watched Finding Neverland for the first time, after deliberately having avoided doing so, all this while.
(aplause. wild cheering.)
Thank you.

Now, leaving asside the sad things in life. Thoughts of Rivkah Zim (the personal statements have been completed (more wild cheering)) have brought to mind her Bible freakyness (because Rivkah Zim is the Bible-freak-woman, not the hand-bag-lady, thank you Sarah for clarifying that) and that absurd story about Jephtah's daughter. Now, if Jephtah's daughter is Bible-note-worthy, why does she not have a name? This is one of those Cruly's wife in Of Mice and Men things right? Yes, thought so. I'll roll my feminist critic sleeves back down for the time being, because the question really gagging to be asked is: Why the hell does Jephtah's daughter 'bewail her virginity' before her father kills her? (nay! I tell thee; sacrifices her!)
If anyone has an answer to this they will cure me of many a sleepless night.

Moral: don't make promises to God lightly if you have crazy, virgin daughters.
And there was much rejoicing.

The Peter Pan sadness has gone :) ...for now.

Tonsils are curious things.
What were once a pair of seemingly useless and quiet members of Elest's anatomy, have now suddenly made their presence known by becoming seriosly inflamed.
Can't swallow my own saliva. :)
-Funny how human beings like subjecting their fellow human beings to the grizzly details of their ailments. Why do we do that? Does sympathy offer a degree of comfort in the face of physical pain/discomfort? I'm not seeking sympathy though, I'm basking in the glee of your horrified reaction when I tell you, with a Miyavi-grin, that the back of my throat is oozing puss :)
Also, I think I'm making the most of the situation because I rarely ever get seriously ill like this. In fact, this is the first time in a very long time, that we are actually on antibiotics. (we, in the multiple personality sense of the word -I'm feeling a bit lonely) And No, we're affraid this is not the kind of illness which will feel neglected and leave if we ignore it. In fact, ignoring it for a week seems to have made it worse. See, sometimes you have to know when you can get away with not giving a toss...coz sometimes you can't.
In any case:

Penicillin.
Alexander Fleming.
Ian Fleming.
James Bond.
A damn good British Literrature and Film essay.
English MA.
As yet, still incomplete MA applications.
I promise I'll do it after the review for Shooting Dogs, coz the deadline for that is sooner.
Having a hard time starting...
Arigatou to my illness.
Which brings us back to Penicillin, and I wonder how fast it works...?

Also, as of yesterday, there has been a new addition to our household (which is, and continues to remain, despite all my efforts, a big dump (new boiler. missing cabinets. new kitchen. soon.)) ...No, not the boiler, Elest's iPod.
(!!)
It's theductive.

Shooting Dogs review, here I come.
...Miso soup helps.

Sounds: Joga...Where has Bjork been all my life?
Emotionaly and physically exhausted.


Life is a necklace of fears (my love)
Your uncried tears on a string.

-Bjork, Bachelorette

These sudden ups and downs are making me nauseous.
Maybe I'm bipolar.
Or just a piss-artist.
Or worse, both.

Little Minx saw cherry blossoms today and thought of ideals and passion and sacrifice...and last spring and the one before...and then that James Blunt song: In your eyes, now, I see no bravery. No bravery any more, only sadness.

Walking upto Edgware Road in the rain, with Faaria getting absurdly excited about a van making soap bubbles as it drove past, the wet pavement under NewRocks set off the following:
This moment is so beautiful. And it's sad that we are fragile, because what will become of it when we are gone?
Who is it going to matter to, when there is no one left that knows or remembers it?
Life is one big stupid tragedy if this is all. If all this beauty in our moments, in our memories, in our words, in your eyes, in my sadness, and a fleeting instant of feeling happy...is for naught in the end...of what ever and whenever.
That's why there's got to be more to come after. That's why our souls have got to be immortal, so that we will never forget. And that's why there's got to be God's love, because sometimes the love you feel is too great, and painful and fleeting, to be for anything of this world that can't keep it.

So far the MASTER plan (pun courtesy of Ryo), which is still in progress mind you, is as follows:
Little Minx is curently ruthlessly job hunting and not being a snob about it (as she'd been before) coz she is prepared to settle for any flee-bitten-jew job that'll pay somthing towards funding the MA. (Except working for NEXT or McDonalds)

Meanwhile I'll face the two final weeks of CELTA, I'll fail that bloody course MY WAY and I'll go down laughing like a maniac! Old Azazil style! (mind you, I wonder if Satan did go down laughing...? ok, joking aside, i dont think i want to wonder, I'm geting cold, sad feelings of devastation)

The current predicament now though is as follows:
Do I do a (strainght) English MA
or
the Shakespeare one
or
a Creative Writing one at Royal Holloway? ...I need advice, nay, direction, offered by a patriarchal/paternal figure. Daddy, as you would have guessed wasn't helpful-
Elest: Dad what should I do?
Dad: ... I donno Sev, what do you want me to say?
Elest: Anything. Say anything!
Dad: I donno Sev, whatever.

So, I've emailed Gordon (and for the last time, people, he's not a flirt! He's my father figure! Right up there along with Sting (and with a dad like mine, it's perfectly normal for me to be collecting father figures, Bill did. (And with two films dedicated to kill off one character, Bill's coolness is indisputable...maybe one day I can be like that: Kill Elest I. Kill Elest II (of course the cold blooded seeker of vengence will be myself- that's the twist. (where the hell was I and how did I get here??)))

And then there is the Dubai thing. 'Figure, once I've MA-applied, and if I find a job out there, I can go off for a bit to work and save in the Arabian gulf...Unless anyone has any objections...?

Ps. iPod front: we are £60 and counting. (yesssss!)
Pps. Gordon just emailed back! Who wants to come see him at the British Lib. with me on Wednesday? (Sarah? Misba?)

For Tasy, from the book we'll never publish coz it's probably too self-indulgent.

...See it all began in Stamfordhill, where a Scary Wicked 'Vat-To-Do?!' ruled a dingy little school with an iron fist. The first few days had been lonely, but then on the Friday of that week they sat the new new-girl next to the old new-girl and this is what happened several months later:

"YOU and YOU," fingers jabbing, "Alveeys making trouble! Alveeeys like dis!" Fingers making a fiddling gesture which is supposed to mean something, but the two terrified little girls forget their terror for a moment of mutual bemusement. "Dooon't look at each udder!" the terror returns with a vengeance.

It's gonna be fine inshallah, I promise.
It always has been.

...I just made a life changing decision.
Where was I when the universe, nay, God was trying to tell me something?
I'm here now.
(wrings hands)
And now to do something crazy to celebrate.
(grinns like an idiot)
...
Thank you.

Sound: Disarm, Smashing Pumpkins
Little Minx is going to pack her laptop and go away.
Standing in the 29 at rush hour with some guy's elbow in my face, and feeling like what has become of my life, merely amounts to a series of failiures and massive mistakes, I decided that I've got absolutely nothing susbstantial to stay here for.
Severing every illusion, every self indulgent hope and stupid 'what-if?', and pissing off without looking back is gonna feel almost as good as putting a blade to the real thing.
...
I suppose I could settle for a cigarette, but this would entail me dispensing some currencey. Do I want that iPod badly enough? Yes.
Tas tells me single tickets to Dubai are £270. The question now is, when?
...
Damn this.

Ps. Little Minx got an official (on headed paper) letter today during tutorial, stating that she will be awarded a 'fail' for the stupid CELTA course she never wanted to do in the first palce, unless she drastically improves on a number of points within her next 2 teaching practice lessons. Oh, no pressure of course. And since you'll merit that the odds of this actually happening are rather grim, considerring I've not only lost all self-esteem and motivation after being told there's nothing authorative about my too-casual-and-chummy class room manner, I F***ing quit!
...
There are much worse things in the world.
Alhamdullah.

I've noticed I've been trailing off alot lately. 'tis the curse of the inconclusive sentences of Clare Brant. I think her's was a bit more sinister like though, mine's just...ummm...tired? tragic? I-can't-really-give-a-shiKt-to-finish-what-I've-started-saying-coz-it-will-amount-to-naught-any-way...like? It doesn't really... sigh.

See.

I just cut my foot on the futon and can't be faffed to tend to it, so Huden is trying to stick a bandage on me while i write this.
Huden: Elest, you're not lady-like at all!
Daoud: yeah you should be like, 'oww, help, assist me!' (in a squeaky voice. I'm capable of squeeking. I can suddenly squeek the living day-lights out of people.)

Elle est stoned, is not really stoned, but she is failing her course! WOOOHOO! 'twill be fine. It's not as bad as some things, and I've already started feeling good about it. Resignation becomes me. Shrugging ones shoulders doesn't require saying much.

But do not give up hope,
because He, who can produce weakness from strength, can bring forth an even greater strength from this weakness.

-Rumi-

...upon a darker note, and picking up from yesterday: yeah, all this sounds nice in writing, but it's not a significant other's flaws which prevent us from loving, it's our own. Kindness thrives not, where we are but sorry pieces of self-involvement, who look out only for own interrests. I too am guilty of this. It comes with insecurity, and distrust in the ultimate shape that things will take in spite of our struggles.
There is no love lost, because there is no love left.
And so i fought off the urge to not get off at Oxford Circus this morning. The urge to stay on this train till it's final destination: for re-assurance, for my blind comfort...anything to make this go away.
But I'm re-embracing my dissilusionments. 'breathe in this bitter monotony, which promises to last for ever.'

...and yeah my period's late, what of it?...pisses me off, AND THAT'S NOT TO SAY U CAN UNDERMINE MY ANGSTING JUST COZ I'M EMOTIONAL! THIS IS REAL, AND I EVEN HAVE A POETIC OBITUARY TO LAY IT TO REST WITH!

I need some chocolate to get through today, but I've got no cash or change for the machine outside, and Mark is eating his in front of me! :(

10:15 - Think Intern has just come in! HA HA!
The Lord of the Rings figures on the shelf beind me aren't Matt's. They're Malcolm's. Malcom being one of those old fantasy-nerd men, hence, best suited for the job of talking to ilustrators about dragons, griffins and Rabbits with twitching eyes. I should have known. (of course, this doesn't make Matt any less of a comic book nerd, becaus Matt has a Tigger mug.)
Unfortunately for me though, Malcolm, who looks like Tery Pratchett with long hair, isn't here today. If he was I probably wouldn't be sitting here idley as I am now, coz he was the oly one who had something for me yesterday: 'Elest, how would you like to write a review for a book that hasn't been published yet?!' (Elest: 'ha? You daft?' -I didn't really say this.) Elest: 'I'd love to! I'm used to bull ***ing.'

10:58 - Think Intern has just been given the mind-numbingly dry task of writing a review for IP Review magazine, about a book on Software Patents. That'll teach you not to ask Matt for spare work next time. Matt: 'I'm warning you, you're going to be fast asleep by 11:30. It's certaily not written in lay-man's language.' -oh, thanks!

11:07 - FARHANA'S HAD A BABY BOY! AAAAAAAARGH! -Jeeeezus, this is freaky. It's gonna take a while for me to digest this.

13:23 - Screw this, I'm going on Amazon where someone might be able to explain what this stupid book is about, in English.

14:40 - Lunch break over, and half of Think Intern is back to work, while other half is looking for frequent distractions to keep awake with. Shakila's fallen in love with Wenworth. I aint feeling him...oh I know! I'll google Haido and re-fall in love with him!

...You know, the reason why the amazing ones (guys) are the ones too far to get with, is BECAUSE they're too far to get with. Yes, I'm stating the obvious borderring on a cliche here, but bear with me. With the ones that are close enough to get with, u discover your very-rewarding capacity for overlooking flaws as you discover just how human they are. This, I think, must be a beautiful thing: loving in spite of our humanity, while our natures are actually pre-conditioned to seek perfection on a higher plain. You can call it compromising. I think I'd like to call it the toppling of idols...which are really just as flawed and inadequate as us. And when I can love this inadequecey for all that it is, because it is me, as I am it...then maybe I can worship the perfect hand that fashioned us thus.

SPECIAL FEBRUARY ISSUE OF CEN, AND A TRIBUTE TO WHAT IS LEFT OF THIS SENTIMENT.


...a dream of perfection, an illicit truth of something whole. Something which breathes between the black and white, which fills in gaps and wishes away silence. Something Music tries to, but cannot define and Art clambers to capture but holds in itself. Something you find in sad eyes and crooked mouths, in voices that make you feel safe and hands that hold your secrets. It is the contradiction of violence and despair, the detractor of flaws. I love all that paints the confines of the word Beauty.
Alternatively, I love Seth Cohen from The O.C. and Krispy Kremes.

-Shakila Rajendra, Sub Editor-


...everything that's wrong with everything that's wrong. Because wrongness is in the eye of the beholder, lingering only momentarily, in search of what's lacking, fuelled by the lack's promise of it. You are, because I am not. Because perfection and symmetry is only reserved for the divine, and I can sing my praise to it with the ugliness of my flaws. Because even Sisyphus made meaning out of supreme meaninglessness.
I love me, because I am Your promise.

-Elest Ali, Contributor-

Cookies are being delightfully cooperative today. Yay!
I wonder why I bother coming in so early in the morning if Matt barely has anything to give me till mid-day.
It's Malcolm's job to talk to the illustrators, and as i write this, he's going on about Basilisks, griffins, draggons, and tortoises looking a bit too Disney - "...we're moving off style a bit, could you fix that? and the march hare, has a little bit of froth coming out of his mouth, and his eye's twitching, so that's perfect. But are they playing football?"
What's a sooth and a gulo?
Jeeeezus.
Do I have something important to write here, instead of going on about this office, which obviously doesn't interrest anyone (not that the rest of this will)...?
Perhaps, but it probably won't make sense, so you can just stop reading now.
I've made two resolutions, (Yes, I know it's March tomorrow) a discovery, and have discoverred a fear. (so really, that's two discoverries)

A Discovery: I seem to be less depressed. I hope this isn't coz I'm so jaded most the time...or worse, I hope the high hasn't gotten to my head permenantly, and worse still, I hope this isn't the calm before the storm.
Resolution 1: Instead of moaning and saying I have to do something, I'm just gonna keep my mouth shut and do it already.
Resolution 2: I'm not making any more resolutions.

-I'm shutting my eyes and divig in (or out) blinded. I'm braving any accidents, because i've proably had them coming for a while now any way. But I know you don't want me to hurt anyone else, any more than I do, so mabe you'll help...?
I know I don't deserve to be asking this.
I've screwed things up pretty bad, and gotten too deep into it to realise.
But nothing I've done is bigger than your mercy, and you can turn this into good, because tht's what you are.
Please.
I need you so much.

ahem...
A Fear: I'm scared to death that this is hope.

We've got 40 days.
Why 40 days?
Don't ask stupid questions.

Ps. Thanks Faaria.

--We regret to inform you, that the blasted cookies have screwed us
over yet again. This post is a day late. Gomen.--

(Friday...in composition all day)
...sigh
Think Intern remembers the days she used to blog as 'Office Idiot' -while working at the Faith Regen office 2 summers ago. How things have changed.
Think Intern, spent all of this morning reading through 'Football Heroes' in search of offensive material that will need censoring in the 2nd edition because we have a market at (classier-than-thou (my hiney!)) Marks & Spencers apparently, and we have to cater for the more elite specimines of our society now. (in English, that's called selling out) So basically, I'm incharge of censoring. Which I wouldn't ordinarily have any qualms about, if the material really is offensive, but when Matt tells me 'screw' is one such example of the kind of thing we're scrapping, then I think: hang on, half the anecdotes in this will have to be taken out. Which got me thinking further, borderring on the deep and terrible again (as it happens):
I've become very, VERY desensitised. This is worrying.
Ok, I admit I've always been a bit shameless, and the brave perpetrator of social inpropriety when necessary in situations of
stifling properness...or maybe you'd call it being laid-back and cool. like 'my idea of a celebration is raising both eyebrows simultaneously' -cool...but still, by comparrison to the likes of Tas and Shakila, me is innocent. (ok, correction: me WAS innocent, and still IS somewhat
mentally innocent.) ...ah, sod this.
I'm drinking elderflower presse.
Ian, the other intern, who'd had an asthma attack this morning apparently, hence the reason why he hadn't turned up, has turned up.
and they've given him the job I started.
My new task: Quote clearing. (wrings hands) Rivvetting! (and there isn't a single element of sarchasm in that...no, don't cock ur eye-brow at me, I'm learning the tricks of the trade here!)
They're playing some ancient Madonna album over the sterio, and Like a Virgin is not only pissing me off but depressing me to boot.

Han sarhos, Hanci sarhos.
Yolda yabanci sarhos.
El cek tabib gonlumden,
Icimdeki sanci sarhos.

-Soner Arica

Saimecan: What's 'jaded'?

...all those times I didn't hesitate to use the word without knowing half of it. I lied Saimecanii...This is jaded.

For the last time, people, Matt is not cute! He looks like one of the Wechowski Brothers. When I said cool comic book nerd, I meant it, complete with Iron Maiden T-shirt.
On the other hand though, Mark is ;) ...Oh yeah, Shaikila would be feeling him!
Meanwhile, I've spent my entire day doing research on teetotal/clean-living footballers. I'll be damned if I know why anydone would give a toss, but it's something for a trivia list that's gonna go into the new edition of Football Heroes. So far I only have 3...and you'll merit that this task, for me, is just as stimulating as a life-support machine.
Sigh.

--We regret to inform you, that for reasons beyond our control, the below blog could not be published at the time of its composition. We apologize for any inconvenience, and re-publish it now--

(1:00-somethingish pm)
Think Publishing intern, repoting from our snazzy offices at Ladbroke Grove.
I am on my break.
So far...

• I've been introduced to the people here. One of the guys I'll be
  working under, Matt, is well nice! I quote: "Elest, do you need to
  pray?" -nice. :) And he seems to be one of those very intellegent,
  knows-everything-interresting-but-otherwise-useless, comic book nerds!
  He co-put together 'The Little Green Book of Big Green Ideas' (one of
  the stuff the publish here) among other things, and I suspect the Lord
  of the Rings collector's figures on the shelf behind me, belong to
  him. I shall introduce him to the inner geek in me!
• and I've spent most my morning carrying out the first task Matt gave
  me: namely, researching the dates of the all time greatest Low-Budget
  Horror and Sci-Fi Films. Amongst which, are such gems with titles
  like: 'Attack of the Giant Leeches', 'Creature with the atom brain',
  'Feind without a face', 'Attack of the 50 ft woman', 'Eegah!', and my
  personal favourate, 'the brain that wouldn't die!' Yes, I've been
  keeping myself thoroughly amused :)

...Ok, will get over myself now, and get back to researching these Horror films.
I leave you with: This place Rocks! Al!
Over and out.