one of those days

here's a really sad day.

for the first time in a long time, i did NOT wake up at 4 this morning just to desperately try to get back to sleep only to finally fall asleep an hour at least later. i slept right through it all and woke up at five to my cat, licking my eyelids in protest, as if saying "hey, we've got a ritual here, you wake up at 4 and you're so bored and tired you brush me for half an hour, then feed me and clean my water. you can't sleep. wake up and carry on with our ritual." black bastard.

at 7 in the morning, i woke up to the sound of my mother, yelling over the phone, "i will not inform you or anyone else! if i feel like going to lebanon for new year's i damn well will!" she's going to lebanon for new year's. i think it's lebanon at least, she didn't say when i asked. but yeah, basically, i'm getting kicked out of the house on wednesday because that's when she's leaving.

at 10 in the morning, my brother woke me up. "fayoor, why aren't you in school?"
"it's right between christmas and new year's, why do you think i'm not school?"
"oh. go back to sleep, sis."

by then i couldn't go back to sleep, and so i got up and started working on lunch for the family. the phone rings and rings, but i don't answer, i never answer the house phone (ask andy). finally, it bugs me so much i pick up. it's my uncle waleed. his daughter diana is in the hospital again. she's got a fever of 40, blood PH 8.6, she literally cried herself unconscious.

noon, my boss calls and needs me in for an emergency. i tell her i'll be there as soon as i can. i'm already thinking, "emergency my ass".

at one, my mom is back home from work, i tell her about my boss and uncle waleed, and we decide we should probably go visit diana in the hospital. we have a brief lunch, i get dressed, and she drops me off at work while she gets some stuff from sultan (giant supermarket type place).

i get to work, and the big emergency is with contracts that i had printed out about two weeks ago. i show her that they were on her illiterate, good for nothing secretary's desk the whole time and sit down to type out a speech that i'd put off the last time i was there until my mother was done shopping and came to pick me up.

my mother absolutely has to go to the salon to get her eyebrows done, and i figure, what the hell, i could go for that too. so we do, and the women botches up my left eyebrow. great.

we're finally ready to go to the hospital, but first, let's stop by aunty badriya's and make sure she doesn't want to come along. guess what, she does want to come alone. so i jump into the backseat and try to get some sleep except my mom's playing a sermon by a saudi arabian bedouin really loudly.

we're at the hospital. diana's eyelids are literally purple and her lips and scarily blue because she hasn't stopped crying in hours. her mother, aunty alexandra, has also been crying, because the doctors don't know waht to do with her daughter. "she needs sodium bicarbonate!" she cries, "why can't they just give her the sodium bicarbonate?!"

when we drove my aunt badriya back to her house, my mother again just had to step inside for a minute to see 7asoon, my baby cousin. i spent 3 hours trying to be civil around fa6ma, the oldest cousin in that particular household, while she watched kuwaiti soccer games and flipped through the arabic music channels. i tried to fall asleep, but i couldn't.

we finally left and stopped by a bakery where my mom spends half an hour making a purchase. they didn't even have a doughnut i could munch on while i waited.

we left the bakery and just as we neared my house my mom pulls into city centre, the ghetto mothership of the city. she shops for 7ajj, i trail behind her, tired and sleepy. i just want to go home and collapse.

just to gild the lily, everytime i got in or out of the car i hit my head on the roof of the car. you do the math and tell me how many times that is.

and now that i'm back home, done with the dishes my brother left in the sink from when he had lunch, done with two piles of laundry, i can't fall asleep.

but that's ok because i got a phone call from shannon crying about how big bad myla hit her in the face. so i called myla, we had a nice talk, the end. if shannon thinks she's going to drag me into this shit, today of all days, she's even more stupid and more french than she seems.

i'm through. i don't feel like anything else for the rest of the night.

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