You know, I’m starting to get some more of those Cosmoplanetary, Jesmopolitain vibes...just call me mellow yellow, cuz I feel like melting in the computer chair and chillin, just staring at the trippy ambience in the windows media player and listening to Raihan. (Syukur, syukur! syukur ya Allah!)

My brain’s on vacation today, instead of doing its normal processing duties, like English grammar, blogging, and actively not giving a hoot about how dirty the house is, it’s remembering poetry of questionable taste, Monty Python skits, and pondering meaningful questions in meaningless ways. For example:

Hello Mrs. Premise!
Hello Mrs. Conclusion! Busy day?
Busy? I just spent four hours burying the cat.
Four hours to bury a cat?
Yes, it wouldn't stop wriggling about all over the place.
Oh, so it wasn’t dead then yet.
No, but it wasn’t at all a well cat, and seeing as how we’re just going off on a fortnight's holiday, I thought I’d better bury it now just to be on the safe side.
Quite right, you don’t want to come back from Sarento to a dead cat. It would be so anti-climactic.
Yes, kill it now, that’s what I say.
We’re going to have to put our budgie down...
Really? Is it very old?
No, we just don’t like it... -Monty Python

And now, the poetry of questionable taste:

Oh I have been to Ludlow fair
And left my neck-tie God knows where
And brought half-way home or near
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer
Then the world seemed none too bad
And I myself a sterling lad
And down in lovely muck I‘ve lain
Happy till I woke again
Then I saw the morning sky
Heigho, the tale was all a lie!
The world, it was the old world yet
I was I, my things were wet,
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew.... -A.E.Houseman, 1896 (From ‘Terrence, This Is Stupid Stuff)

And now, the pondering of meaningful things in meaningless ways. How much benefit of a doubt should you give people? Where do you draw the line between trusting someone and being duped by them? For example, should I be screaming at my tailor? He always says he’ll make my clothes right, but they always come back way too big, or this time, way too small. Sometimes I get three shirts on the same day and no two of them are the same size. I think it must be a private joke of his, to somberly promise he will do everything right this time, Baji, and then give everything to me totally wrong anyway without flinching.

He’s ruined a pair of my pants this time, there’s no way I can wear them unless I lose twenty pounds and four inches, so what am I supposed to do? I may be a big-talker, but when it comes down to it, I have a hard time yelling at people, especially in another language. I could yell at him in English (provided I could work the nerve up to actually raise my voice) but he wouldn’t understand it anyway. Plus I’m a softie and I like to think, awwww, poor guy, he must’ve been really tired when he was making my clothes. He’ll do them right next time, honest he will...

I did yell at my last tailor. But that’s because his problem wasn’t with sizes, it was with belligerence. He was constantly making my clothes to how HE liked them. Aniraz asked for simple sleeves, and he made her a shirt with cuffs so long and so stiff that they looked like the gold wrist-guards that super-heroes wear. I asked him to embroider a little-bitty flower on one of the corners of a shirt, and he covered the entire shirt in hideous geometric designs. I asked him what the hibbity-dibbity he was thinking, and he said it looked better this way, he wasn‘t the least bit sorry or ashamed. I told him to fix it, and he never did. I ended up wearing that horrible shirt, I still have it. It lives in the bottom of a trunk.

I know that only the ultra-rich have tailors in the US and UK, but in Pakistan, where the ready-made clothes industry is under-developed and over-priced, everyone has a tailor. I have to switch mine again. I know who I’m going to switch to this time too. I discovered an excellent tailor a while ago, who speaks the Queen’s English (or at least the closest thing to the Queen’s English I have heard here in Pakistan) and fixes what he messes up. He also does very little messing up. Problem is he knows he’s good, and he charges you for it. Hmmm.

Oh oh! I forgot to mention the best part about today’s problems with my tailor...I got a new shirt back...and it smelled like MAN ARMPITS! Sweaty, stinky, acrid man-armpits, fouling up my new shirt in the relevant places...y’ani...the armpits of my shirt smelled like armpits. I handed it to him and said, smell this. And he smelled it and made a face and I said, do you smell anything? He gave the shirt a funny look. I said, what, has someone been wearing my shirt? And he shook his head and said, Baji, we hang them up right after we sew them... And that was all.

Aniraz thinks the tailors are all drag-queens. My mom says they wear my clothes when they have to wash their own,. and Aniraz says, no, they get dressed up and have parties wearing all these women’s clothes. I don’t care what they’re trying to do, I just wish they’d do it without wearing my shirt!

Aright, no more complaining about my tailor. My buddy at chaiandapplepie.blogspot.com got herself a tag board...so, ready, on your marks...get set...TAG! I am proud to say that I got there first, neener neener neener, and will be forever honored with the position of ‘First Tagger.’

I spose I shall elaborate on what’s been going on on my tagboard. InshaAllah, my sister and I are gonna go for Umrah this year in Ramadan. (InshaAllah, InshaAllah) and I’m really excited about it! My Uncle goes there in Ramadan every year, and my father might send us with him this time! Yay! :::bounces up and down in chair::: Yay! Yay! Everybody please do dua that our plans are fulfilled and our intentions are accepted as pure and our heaps and heaps of sins are forgiven. Ameen.

“And whoever does evil or wrongs himself but afterwards seeks Allah’s Forgiveness, he will find Allah Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” The Holy Qur'an, Surah An-Nisa – Ayah 110.

posted by Abez @ 4/22/2003 09:41:00 PM