Thursday, March 19, 2009

The last spin of the old year

It's past midnight.
The last day of the old year has begun.
My small apartment is filled with the loud noise of the dishwasher.
As i listen the the spins of iron and steal and the sound of water waves in the machine,
my mind drifts back to revisit the moment that passed in the past year.
Here's a smiley day; there's a teary one.
Here's a crisp rainy September day bellow a tree in a park, there's a shivering winter night of no sleep.

The machine spins, and so does my mind.
It mixes all the black and white days of the past year.
A gray spinoff in my head. I like the color gray. It goes nicely with magenta, with pink too.
I can decorate gray.
The echos of storm in my dishwasher,
The blood beats in my brain.
The machine stops, my head is still spinning!

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Six Norooz dresses

2004: The memory is kinda faded. It was my first months in US and i was still lost. I wore a organza black top with bids hand sewed on it. I had bought the top in Dubai the past summer when i went for visa interview. I think my roommate lent me her black short skirt to wear with it.

2005: A black and red organza top. It has sleeves but the sleeves were open on top and had stings to tie up in 3 places. It also had shiny bids on it. I wore it with the skirt i had bought in a Frank and Taylor closse out sale, a layered black miniskirt. I liked the outfit, but neither of them fit me now. I've shed a few pounds since then.

2006: The purple velvet long dress. It had pink and purple shinny sequins on its chest. I wore this dress to a friend's wedding later.

2007: A prom dress! With the big puffy skirt and corset top. It was in lilac color, with shinny bids in form of flower stems hand sewed on it. I found the dress in a clearance in DC's Macy's with my parents.

2008: I spent a big deal of time picking a dress for this year. I went to almost all stores in town, and couldn't find anything that would fall for. At the very last minute, in an unprecedented store i found this simple but pretty black and white short dress. It was white on the breasts, then black down. It had a big square shape colar, and i found a big square silver necklace to go with it.

2009: a long brown velvet pattern on organza dress. A gift from my cousin in Texas. I wore it with a black velvet coat on top, and paired it with brown patten fabric shoes my aunt sent me from iran. My mom's big jade earrings complemented the outfit beautifully.

Six Norooz parties in US, and six outfits. May all of you spend the Norooz and the New year in the nice outfits that bring out your beauty, inner and outer :)

Friday, March 13, 2009

Norooz on the way


One of the hits that my blog gets pretty often, is on my old post of "how to grow sabzeh" for the Haftseen. This year i'm going to be home for Saal-tahvil. So i enthusiastically grew 2 plates of Sabze, one lentil and one wheat, as it is the tradition in our family. I will post a photo of them later on.

For now look at this video. Steven Colbert talks about his picture used in an store ad in Iran, and commercialism of Norooz. Very funny.


Sunday, March 08, 2009

The rule of Law

There was a vast power outage in our town today. i was driving, and the traffic lights were off too. However there was no huge mess, no accident, no tied up traffic in the middle of the intersections. The traffic law here states: in the case of a non-functioning traffic light, you give the right of the way to all the cars that are already stopped at the line before you did. This simple. No need for a policeman to be there, drivers follow the rule and stop at the line and cross when its their trun. Now most of you can imagine what a huge mess such incident is going to cause in an intersection in Tehran.

Why is it so? Is it because the drivers there don't know the rule? Is there a rule there to guide poeple in such incidents, at all? Is it because drivers in Iran forget the traffic laws and regulations? Why is there this big difference between here and there? Why?

P.S. "There’s a continuum of disorder. Obviously
murder and graffiti are two vastly different crimes. But
they are part of the same continuum, and a climate that
tolerates one is more likely to tolerate the other.”
-Rudy Guiliani