Road to Jannah

Things that annoy & frustrate me & a few things I luv.

Things that annoy & frustrate me:

-Every aunty at every wedding that says “Ohhh don’t worry YOU’RE NEXT! I’m making Dua for you”. Yes, apparently it’s worked, hasn’t it!

- PDA… on Facebook…. get a room!! Haramness… on Facebook. Almost everything about Facebook. Add to that Myspace, Twitter and anything else that’s a “new and improved” way of “social communication”.

- That we as an Ummah cannot unite on a simple methodology for moonsighting.

- Guys who are looking for perfection, who then marry very empty headed trophy wives. Perfection indeed!

-That nothing in our community is ever advertised properly. Sometimes you hear about something the day before. Sometimes you never hear about it. Sometimes something is advertised at Jumah or at a specific Mosque’s Jumah. Sometimes it’s advertised only on Facebook. Can’t we start planning ahead and try to reach out a little more?

- Chauvinistic FOBS who think they know women/relationships/what they’re talking about.

- New people who come to the community and you’re extra nice to them to be their friend, and then they find some other group of friends and you never see them again!

- Cultural traditions that are being mixed up with Islam. Cultural parties. Indians inviting Indians, Pakistanis inviting Paks, Arabs inviting Arabs. Yes, and they all live in America.

- Elders in the community that refuse to let go of their “leadership” power.

- My car when it breaks down and let’s add to that when I try to get it fixed, cheating mechanics.

- So called “experts” on Islam, who are really Islam-haters, being interviewed on every news channel with their “best-selling books on Islam(bashing)”.

- People who think they know me because they read my posts on my website/blog.

- Guys who when angered get personal and insult the other person in a way they think will hurt the most. Guys who use Hadith to insult a woman/women (usually when angry or they don’t have a response/valid argument). Guys trying to prove an “Islamic point” who resort to swearing and calling you names. (I run a website so I’ve encountered all of these )

Things I luv:

- Enlightened men, especially if they’re scholars like Sh. Mokhtar and Imam Hamza and Abdullah Adhami.

- Dark chocolate on strawberries, gulab jamun at weddings, ras malai at iftars, chocolate fountains, Lindt truffles, fresh biryani right after qurbani, soft vanilla ice cream in july, samosas of all kinds and possibly anything yummy anytime.

- Ma babies (niece and nephews: Meriyumyum, Hamza & Iboo)

- Spending time together with friends on couches with food.

- When white people compliment you on your Hijab.

- Listening to an awesome motivational lecture in front of a packed house at ISNA on Saturday night.

- English breakfast tea or green tea Chai (the one with the Taj Mahal on front)

- Walking in woods with only the canopy of trees and green above you.

- When my kitty meows meows meows and I pick her up and she’s happy.

- Books and movies set in the 1800s aka the Jane Austen era.

- Connecting with Allah in your prayer.

- Forgetting you’re an adult and having fun with the kids like you’re one of them.

- Curling up in bed and reading a new exciting book on a rainy day.

- Listening to sad songs/reading sad poetry when upset.

- Married guys who are nice and funny and good husbands/dads – gives me hope.

- Cute stories about Rasulullah saw or the Sahabah/Sahabiyat.

- People who try to hook you up even if it doesn’t work out.

- Visiting an exotic and old foreign city and just walking around, ie Damascus, Cairo, Madinah… New York.

- Shopping when I have Eidi $$.

How about yours?…….luvs & hates?

For a number of future posts I’m going to be using a password. This will be my kitten’s name. I kind of want to write about more sensitive interesting things like my daily life happenings, love life or lack thereof and controversial topics like girls taking off their hijab and stuff i noticed on facebook and deeper spiritual and other things and i really can’t figure out who reads this blog?? Meow

They say blogging is therapeutic and a stress-reliever. I think I’ll try blogging more to release some tension, to avoid some treadmill time, and pretend I have an ever-listening-sympathetic friend — that’s right it’s YOU BLOG! You’re my new best friend, buddyyy fo ‘lyfe, west siiiiiii” uh i mean northeast albany siiiiiddde’, bff forever! (Real people: Run now to avoid mindless anecdotes, complaints about life and wack ‘why does this only happen to me’ situations. I will also stop making sense now so it behooves (SAT word +2 points!) you to just close your browser now.

Ok so now that there are only mindless google bots and spam accounts… this last week I went to visit a friend in NYC who just had a baby. (No real names should be a rule on my new-and-improved blog. Let’s just call her… Belinsky.) Baby was cute, mama was stressed out, but taking it in stride with a black baby carrier with palestinian scarf motif nyc style. We went out to lunch at an Afghani place (overpriced as usual for the city) and then went shopping at a 2 floor Forever21, Zara’s (omg so beautiful clothes), Vicky’s etc. I was going to buy a Zara coat but the two friends with me, we’ll call them… Bunty and Babli… said the coat was too big for me! *cry……. since when is anything too big for me…I’m still fat…I think I should have bought it because I could wear it with winter clothes like sweaters, but nooo 90 bux for a coat with two missing buttons that is slightly too large was apparently too much for them. Since they are my fashion advisor/stylists I had to leave it at that. But I mourn still… mourn the beauty that might have been.

A few days ago there was a ‘conference for the youth’ type thing here and they invited a very active ex-MSA national president, let’s just call him… Falafel. Falafel and I go way back to the time where I was roomates with his wife, who who was a teenager then! Then we knew each other through my ultra active MSA years and even through my ‘first job’ working type years. So he spoke and it was great. Brought back so many memories of those years of sending emails, making flyers, having ‘ice breaker msa events’, east zone conferences, ‘leadership retreats’, campus events, etc etc. Sigh. Back then it felt like we had a purpose and that we were making a difference in the world. Maybe we were? When did it happen that I stopped believing anyone could make a difference?

I look back and think and I can’t find when and where it happened?? Was it being out in the real world for the first time after college (kinda similar to that first cold spash of freezing water at fajr time?) 9/11? Aftermath of 9/11? The terrorism “sting” in Albany? Going overseas and coming back? Maybe even Hajj for some strange, unexplicable reason made me feel like I was just 1 among millions, so it just didn’t matter anymore. I don’t know. Somewhere I lost that idealism and inner magnetic compass that always pushed me to a certain active direction in life.

At the conference there were tons of high school and middle school age kids, many college students and girls I’ve never seen before that turned out to be freshmen at my old alma mater (We’ll call it…K.U.K.Y). A few of the organizers were former students of mine when I taught way back at ICCD. Some in the audience were old students of mine from Troy and from Albany mosque. Some I remember as being 6 years old were now perfecting that one bang across the forehead style of hijab and texting feverishly to their own bffs one row behind them. I also witnessed that 2 feet apart “salam how are u *giggle *cuteglancesateachother*” thing between someone who can’t drive yet and someone who still wears candy pink lip gloss. Can I just say it now…….I am sooooooooo old. I AM SOOOOOOO OLD…………SO…….OLD. Old. *cough cough *splutter *die Ok I feel better now.

Maybe this blogging thing has something to it??

Well, I did it.

Something no one should EVER do.

One day while randomly surfing the internet I ended up on myspace and there it was.

Look up alumni and friends. School: Year of Graduation:

So I did it.

And there they were my old 90s big haired friends. The ones I went to school with from the first grade. The ones that shared Madonna, leg warmers, the goonies, sign-in books and garbage pail kids with me. The ones I hung out with in the library and cafeteria and shared international club trips to montreal with. How amazing. They’re still alive out there.

Many are still around in the area which makes me wondrous at the thought we might have passed each other by at the local grocery store or mall at some time or other. Most are married and parents of numerous children. Most depressing (sigh). A few have accomplished some interesting things. One became an artist in NYC that does portraits and works at the guggenheim. Another is the CEO of a popular mp3 music player. The most popular girl in school ended up as an Epidemiologist with an added dash something to her last name. The boy I had a crush on in 6th grade is pictured at a wedding with a receding hairline looking quite older than I would have thought. The girl who always dressed goth with piercings is wearing pastels and has 4 adorable boys with biblical names. The artsy girl who starred in all the plays is now a lawyer. My old best friend who was always anti-establishment is buying a house and sending her first child to school. My friend who said she never wanted to get married because she wanted to be a doctor is a surgeon and just had twins. The pro-athlete boy who did all the sports is holding a little baby all in pink. And is an engineer. Working at GE!

Amazing. Yet kind of depressing. Disturbing.

Don’t do it.

You’ll be much happier thinking of them as they were, as your good friends as kids and leaving their memories where they were.