[you and me. imagine a picture.]

i was tagged by Sebha.

i am tagging JP losanjalis tazzystar sockrebel mareekho

The six word memoir rules are:
write your own six word memoir.
post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.
link to the person that tagged you in your post.
tag five more blogs with links.
leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

Writing | 2 Comments »

Its been a while since my last post. I’ll start with a video I like by TV on the Radio…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqI0FYN-r5c

I would have linked it but the record company doesn’t let me.

Music | 5 Comments »

A bit of apprehension, but more so a state of consideration for what might come this year. A few hours spent reading in preparation. And a last look at the television and other local purveyors of leisure. A washing and drying of clothes. A cleaning out of the bag. A beginning of a ritual. And maybe even a rite.

This is what happens when school is about to start.

Law-ing | 1 Comment »

There are a lot of things that I would rather do right now than face the nasty prospect of writing 20 pages of pithy legal memoranda in the next four or five hours.  I really don’t revel in it.  Really.

But I’ve dug myself into a whole hole this time, procrastinating a bit and piecing through various legal theories in my head when they should have been on paper.

4 hours later…

There are a lot of things I would rather do right now than not sleep.  I am not done, but I will sleep because I’ve gotten past that verge, where completion cannot come unless you do what’s biologically necessary.

Oh, the grave ridiculousness of this late night rant.

Irrelevant to you?, Law-ing | 4 Comments »

Its been a while. So time for something new.

A friend turned me on to an article in the NY Times detailing the post-Iraq life of Shaheen Khan, a Pakistani woman who is now paralyzed after a few months as a laundry worker in the Green Zone in Baghdad. KBR, formerly known as Kellogg, Brown, and Root, and recently delinked from Halliburton’s family, is supplying non-Iraqi contract labor to create another kind of army, one that is without the privilege of combat training, ultra protective gear, tanks, and guns. Perhaps the only shield besides the vest and other government issue nominal gear that Shaheen has is the color of her skin, easily blending in with Iraqis. But in the Green Zone, I’m not sure it makes a difference.

Shaheen is living in a nursing home, and her insurance provider, AIG, is not willing to provide her enough to cover moving out of the nursing home and being cared for at home. This has strained her marriage. This has made life in Houston so different than anything she could have ever imagined. She was asked, “What are you looking forward to?” and she responds with a blankness with the words “nothing” flitting off her lips. When reading, I stopped for a moment to think about those being contracted out to Iraq, and realized its as if the American dream can be found in the Green Zone, that everything that is used to lure immigrants to the United States - the clean homes, suburbs, grocery stores with aisles of fresh food, the calm parks and sunny shores - are maintained by war and oppression abroad. Working for KBR is a chance to see first hand what it takes to maintain the America everyone knows and loves.

And I looked it up - how many jobs does it take to show people what America is all about? As of this post, there are exactly 1019 jobs available in Iraq through KBR. Electricians, IT folks, laundry workers, truck drivers. Salaries are not listed. But everyone knows that you can get a pretty penny. I know because someone close to me works for KBR.

This got me thinking about the level of influence that we have, and what we are influenced by.

I’ve realized that one’s life is filled to the brim with influence, and if one isn’t careful, it can be swayed by corporations like KBR, AIG, Halliburton, and any others. By Starbucks. By Microsoft. By any product we buy that holds a brand. Of course, many of us don’t have much choice; Shaheen was in loads of debt when she signed up to clean the underpants of the US Army. And it wasn’t her fault that both KBR and AIG screwed her over, and vicariously the US Government for generating and stoking the fire that is Iraq. But the corporations that saturate the landscape of the American and Global economy have sway over our daily lives to an extent that we likely won’t be able to realize until years from now. Unfortunately for Shaheen the influence the corporations had on her lives were horribly negative and violent, emptying her of the hope that led her to cross an ocean once again in pursuit of an economic dream.

For me, I have always had a distrust of corporations, beginning from the first time my father was laid off by a company, forcing our family to uproot to a different state, a different set of strangers to try and befriend. The distrust multiplied each time the pink slip would arrive. It got to the point where I would remain distant from those around me so I could easily pack my bags and jet off when the lay off would come.

Although not as violent, but perhaps as disturbing is the recent iPhone phenomenon, when I saw the man who slept and shat outside the Manhattan Apple Store for a week, and whose exuberance at shelling out obscene amounts of money was matched by another kind of obscenity, with him yelling “This is amazing! I can’t believe it!” when interviewed by the media mob. People were dressing their kids up as iPhones. The media fed at the trough provided by Apple, forgetting that bombs are dropping in Baghdad, Gaza, Kabul. That HIV is eating South African families alive. That the courts are chiseling away desegregated schools.

I am trying hard not to forget that which is important.

Resistance, Economics, Palestine, Immigration, Race, Desi | 1 Comment »

Midnight and after, flying on the pavement that cuts through the field of wheat abutting Sugarland’s very own prison, the air unflinching in its heaviness. It renders itself inscrutable, this air. And my thoughts stop as I take it in, my probing ceases the moment the thickness invades my car, pushing me to get home soon so I can get back to normal.

And the thickness comes in slow. Probably because I have been away so long.

This used to be a swamp. All of it. Back at college, you could run your finger up and down a strip of stone on the architecture school to imitate the frog songs that used to pepper this place. A crude honor. They say Houston was built on top of a swamp, not in place of it. In my neighborhood there are alligator warning signs and no alligators. I did see a mutilated animal carcass on one of my walks near where the alligators supposedly reside. Maggots and flies was all that I saw of the alligators.

The air continues as I open the window in my room. The smell is the best now, when I am not concerned about getting anywhere, but more about staying somewhere.

Songs I miss come up in conversations with people, memories I have forgotten because they are associated with place, with the placement of my feet in relation to the placement of my mother’s feet. Where I sit on the sofa and where my sister sits. Where I type and where my dad’s glasses are propped on his nose. The timing of the air in relation to every other piece of me. These are the structures that help me remember.

They help me remember what they were feeling and how I was feeling, what went on in our minds, hearts at those times when we were together.

This is what I miss, this memory that I am remembering. When these structures are no longer there, when they change, I am afraid these memories will be gone forever. These triggers make me think twice about a lot of things, about change, about the immense ramifications of where and what I am living now in LA, and about the kind of air I have chosen to breathe, and wade through.

Suburbia, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

There are those times when an exegesis on some current event, local or abroad, has substantial appeal. When exploring multiple takes on a story in India, in Palestine, in South Central provide ample fodder for a unique take on some feature of the human condition. When understanding that the machinery of global political economics works not only far far away but also next door, when there are people here experiencing the same exact things as people there. The people here are just like the people there.

There are those times when a story you heard from a friend made you laugh in ways that would elicit suspicion from some people in some circles. When the story is intricate, detailed, funny, and lovely. Yet simple. Not elegant in the slightest because everything is messy. Just like a human condition fraught with loops and tangles and ridiculousness. That my friend’s people are just like my people. The people there are just like the people in my heart and on my mind.

And then there are those times when you just want to make your own stories. When you want to take everything and turn the people here into people there, and vice versa. When you want to turn the connections that you feel in the deepest parts of you into a legible mess for others to take a look at. When the spaghetti loops between the dendrites and axons light up, flashing off ways in which my people, imagined and otherwise, begin moving and talking, embodying my hopes, fears, lives, laughs, and wanting to burst out of the tiny spaces in my head. And onto paper canvas, onto emails, and into blog posts.

Writing | No Comments »

Dear Friends - Please come out to this conference on April 13th and 14th, 2007 at UCLA School of Law. It will be an opportunity to discuss some of the most critical issues of our time, to discuss Critical Race Theory and where its been and where its going, and to engage with practitioners, organizers, students, and others invested in contributing to and building a racial justice movement.

Attendance is FREE and spots are filling up quick so please follow this link to register and to check out the agenda: http://www.law.ucla.edu/home/apps/crs/.

Law-ing, Resistance, Race, Politic | No Comments »

so long there is now
when here you were there away
now rain drops itself

Writing | 1 Comment »

Eating oatmeal with blueberries and maple sugar at midnight so I can go to sleep with a warm and full stomach.

Mentally cataloging the contours and innards of “law school life” with an intent to understand why people, including myself, act so strange with each other, with others, while in this high pressure environment.

Organizing radical conferences with some wonderful, passionate people.

Playing capoeira and making new friends in the process. And new injuries. Ouch.

Listening recklessly to MIA, David Byrne, Bjork, Talib Kweli, and various oldie-but-goodie Bollywood and UK hits.

Waking up just in time to make it out of my door just in time to make it to class not in time at all.

Experimenting with sweaters and jackets because its cold!

Spending a weekend each with my extended family and my lovely parents, most respectively.

Receiving surprise, perfect gifts.

Remembering to get some vinegar to put in the pickle my mom made for me.

Reading one of my narrative pieces at a student art exhibit.

Attending class less, enjoying life more.

Stats | 1 Comment »