like a fish needs a bicycle...

God willing, it'll be your turn next...

my friend negin is pretty smart. she works about 30 feet away from me. from time to time, we like to talk about things that concern us. everything from bringing ourselves to account (see "intelligent person" mentioned in previous post) to the joys of being a hairy persian girl. of late, we've been discussing our experiences as persian women in our early 20's... especially the experiences we have as we attend more and more weddings.

on a side note... i personally have lost count of how many weddings i've been to in my life (that's how we roll, you know... weddings galore). but i have been keeping a rough tally of how many of *my* friends or cousins in *my* age group have gotten married since we've all come of marrying age. i think it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 weddings in the past 4 years. wow.

here's the fun part. negin and i, being the different individuals that we are (albeit both brilliant, beautiful, and amazing), and living different lives composed of differing social circles, somehow manage to have frighteningly similar experiences. what's more, we're pretty sure these experiences are somehwat pandemic, affecting all unmarried persian women between the ages of 18 and 35 who happen to attend weddings where there are persians.

so basically, it goes like this. we show up at a wedding and:

a) smile and keep our mouths shut
b) exchange polite formalities with our grandpa's cousin's former classmate's friend's mom, who remembers seeing us when we were "this big" (accompanying hand gesture with palm approaching the ground)
c) spend 5 minutes talking to the bride's mom, assuring her that, no, we really haven't gained any weight since she last saw us
d) talk to our friends in english and pretend we don't speak persian (this one is rough because it embarasses our parents... but hey, do what you gotta do)
e) hide in the bathroom, hoping that we won't be found by one more grandma trying to marry us off to her grandson/nephew/great nephew, etc.

regardless of which course of action we pursue, we inevitably get accosted by a stream of persian ladies (of varying ages) who smile with pity and tell us in the most tarroff-y persian possible, "God willing, it will be your turn next." charming, really.

here are some possible responses that negin and i have brainstormed, not only for our own use, but hopefully for that of all other women in our position who could use some help in dealing with the absurdity...

so, she says "God willing, it will be your turn next."
we say:

1) "i'm already married." (only funny if you're lying)
2) "i'm already married--to your son, actually. you didn't know?" (funny if you're lying, but ridiculously hilarious if you're not lying)
3) "i actually got married--you just weren't invited." (be careful, could result in bodily harm)
4) "maybe i'm just too ugly to ever get married." (this one is great for shock value, but watch out because it might prompt them to suggest new body parts to tweeze)
5) "i can't make persian food." (always good, even better if it's true)
6) "yeah, well, I have this odd growth, you see..." (powerful if true)
7) "sorry, i don't like men." (doesn't it possess some degree of truth for all of us?)
8) "i'm actually committed to a lifetime of celibacy. i'll never give you grandkids." (that one's the kicker)
9) just wait til the next funeral and say the same thing to them. (JUST KIDDING! way too evil to use) :)
10) *slightly ribald* "well, what's your son doing tonight? / what's your grandson doing tonight?" (extra points for saying both, let us know how it goes)

ok, not that we would really say any of these things (well, maybe we would if pushed far enough... so consider it a potential resource), but it's nice to envision the satisfaction that might be had if we suffering young persian women were to say such scandalous things. y'all got any more?

bring thyself to account

Bahᒵ?llᨠsays:

O SON OF BEING!
Bring thyself to account each day ere thou art summoned to a reckoning; for death, unheralded, shall come upon thee and thou shalt be called to give account for thy deeds.

so i've been thinking a lot lately about what it is to bring myself to account. last week, an intelligent person i know made a passing comment about being emotionally honest with herself when bringing herself to account. i didn't say anything at the time, but those few words brought an entire part of my mental processing to a complete halt. i continued the conversation normally, but the corner of my brain that stopped and took notice during that exchange has been working on this issue since then...

there is a small piece of paper, taped to the wall by my bed, right above where i lay my head when i go to sleep. it's says "bring thyself to account" in colorful block letters. i made it several months ago, thinking it would be a good way to remind myself to do so when praying and meditating before bed. since then, i've been much better about trying to bring myself to account... but now i'm wondering how i can improve not just the frequency and consistency of my accounting, but the quality of it.

mostly, i think about what i did each day and do some kind of strange arithmetic about "things i did right/well" and "things i did wrong/badly." somehow i feel like this can't be the spiritually nuanced understanding and evolution-oriented process that Bahᒵ?llᨠwas talking about. i mean, if death unheralded came upon me, and i were called to give account for my deeds, i don't think He would want a two-columned laundry list of my daily transactions.

i think i initially started doing it that way because i once heard a speaker at a bahᦣ39;í £onference talking about achieving excellence in all things, and he suggested building from strength to strength, rather than weakness to weakness. for some reason, that created a mental model for me where i could just categorize my actions, attitudes, or interactions into strengths and weaknesses and do a tally a the end of the day.

sure, evaluating strengths and weaknesses is good. but surely this can't be the deep, reflective, growth-oriented spiritual process that He had in mind when He told me to bring myself to account. my understanding of most other aspects of life tells me that things aren't really that dichotomous anyway. that's where this whole "emotional honesty" thing comes in...

so, said corner of my brain has been tossing all this around lately... am i truly examining myself and my relationship to other human beings? am i really learning through a cycle of action, reflection, and new action based on the reflection? am i really tapping into the essence of my existence?

how can i account for my deeds in a meaningful way? how can i be emotionally honest with myself? i saw episode 3 last week (quite liked it), so this phrase has been ringing in my ears: "search your feelings." i feel like i do that often... i blog, i journal, i think about and talk about my emotions all the time. and yet somehow, i don't know that my daily self-accounting is the searching, reflexive, productive process it needs to be.

should i be writing things down? do i need some kind of formula or worksheet? i'm wondering how i can become systematic and fruitful in bringing myself to account...

any ideas?

national convention photos

as promised, here they are! look, laugh, enjoy, leave comments under the pictures if you'd like... :)

(also, if you haven't seen them yet, here are all the pictures from my argentina trip...)

blinding lights

oh my goodness, still reeling from my recent excursion into the "city of blinding lights." i saw U2 in concert last night--for the third time. ummmm, wow. i'm really too lucky. soooo glad i got to see them in chicago! thank you, greg... talk about a fantastic valentine's day gift. :)

so, needless to say, it was an amazing show. delara and i were so psyched to go, and we were not disappointed. it's always nice to see my boys again... they've held a special place in my heart since i was 15, and i'll just never stop loving them.

as usual, the concert was at once an amazing musical journey, a stunning visual spectacle, an expression of social conscience, a profoundly unified display of love and loyalty from thousands of elated people, and above all, a soulful experience...

i never cease to be impressed. not only did they have excellent stage production--talk about "city of blinding lights," dazzling and in full effect--but the band itself gets mad props for playing a truly exceptional set. sometimes, bands don't do justice to their full range of musical beauty and diversity because they make some strange and poor choices of songs to play in concert. such was not the case last night...

first of all, they rocked the house with 2 encores. 2 encores! i've never experienced that at any concert i've been to, and it was awesome! the first encore was entirely from achtung baby and it was amazing! they came out with "zoo station" (sweet early '90s throwback), went into "the fly" (so much fun), and ended with "mysterious ways" (i'm so in love with this song, and, of course, i couldn't stop dancing). during "mysterious ways," bono pulled a girl up on stage to dance with him (i soooo wanted to be her... oh well.)

the second encore was mostly from the new album, and it was high-energy and a good way to end the night. of course, in looking at their set lists from the 2 previous nights in chicago, i was saddened to find that, during their last encore, they played "40" on both previous nights, but they didn't play it on the third night, when i was there. "40" is one of my favorites. fortunately, though, they also didn't play "yahweh," as they had the previous 2 nights ("yahweh" is definitely not one of my favorites). so maybe it's trade-off. oh! and, during the second encore, the crowd sang a spontaneous and sweet "happy birthday" to bono! sooo cute!

also, while it's not included in the set list, they did play "party girl" during the last encore. that was awesome, since they pulled a girl up from the audience and had her play the song. she was standing in the front row of the floor section, holding up a poster that said "party girl" (so i'm assuming she'd practiced and was ready for this). they pulled her up on stage and gave her an acoustic guitar to play alongside adam and edge while bono sang. how cool is that?! i love their spontaneity! and, in general, being treated to 2 encores, i was so awed by how much youthful energy they still pour onto the stage, even after 25 years of doing this. see why i love my boys?

they played a fair amount from their new album, "how to dismantle and atomic bomb" (also see here). my previous entry about this indicates that although i wasn't thrilled about this album, i liked it ok. after hearing it live, i like it much more. so that's good. they opened the show with "city of blinding lights," which was really gorgeous. i think that one might be my favorite track off the new album.

meanwhile, they were definitely still on top of their game with the old standards. "pride," "where the streets have no name," "sunday bloody sunday..." they all had the crowd on its feet and chanting in unison. meanwhile, they did an amazing rendition of "new year's day." seeing edge play the keyboard with his guitar on, then go straight into one of the most amazing guitar riffs in rock'n'roll was really just too much for me to handle... i think i'd really like to bear his children, just for the sake of having my own kids be born with that much musical genius.

there were also some refreshing surprises. they played "electric co." and then went into "an cat dubh." didn't think those songs lived outside of under a blood redy sky, so that was cool. they also played "running to stand still" in honor of all the U.S. service men and women overseas. and finally, there was the requisite sermon on humanity... they displayed the universal declaration of human rights on large projection screens, bono spoke on the need for african aid, encouraged everyone to text president bush about it (this doesn't work of course, when 20,000 people in one stadium are tying up the networks trying to do so), and then went into a very heartfelt rendition of "one." it was pretty amazing.

in general, all the songs were stellar, though i would've appreciated a little more of the classics. for instance, if they'd played "in god's country," i might have screamed. if they'd played "with or without you" or "all i want is you," especially during one of the encores, delara probably would've had to pick me up off the floor when it was time to exit the premises. so yeah, i really would've loved to hear some of that, especially since i don't think the joshua tree got enough representation. also, pop got no love whatsoever. but that's ok--i love hearing the good stuff, no matter which album it comes from (for instance, "beautiful day" and "elevation" were awesome).

so i think i'll have to quit now. this post is approaching the length of many scary government documents. so i'll stop. suffice it to say that i'll be feeling the elation of last night's experience for some time. i mean, having beer spilled on me 3 times and still enjoying it that much... that's really testament to the caliber of the concert. i just can't help loving them...

really, U2 is the most amazing rock band out there. i can't express my profound respect for them as musicians and as agents of social consciouness, and i don't think i'll ever lose that child-like wonder i feel everytime i hear one of those truly unique songs that harmonizes my insides ands puts me at peace. can't believe i got to experience it live for the third time. like i always say, truly a blessed life.

hellooo chicagooo!

yup, that's right. 70 degrees. sunny. i'm in sandals. (!) it officially feels like may! too bad it wasn't this nice last week, during ridvan and national convention... hard to feel like you're commemorating the most great festival in the garden of paradise when it's unpleasantly chilly. oh well... we celebrated anyway. and it's nice now... so YAY! i'm just hoping we don't have some freak cold days and revert back to coats and boots weather before the month is out. i'm so ready for an uninterrupted summer, it's not even funny.

you know... sunshine makes me so happy! so here's to hoping for 4 months of warmth, starting today (all you native chicagoans can just forego your snickering and smile with me for now, thank you). meanwhile, convention pictures to come ASAP. :)