these are my car accident pants.

if i ever write books, that's going to be the title of one of them. walking down the stairs of doom, and my friend with a stiff neck and bruised shins says "christ, you guys, these are my car accident pants. and i totally forgot to wash them. this whole side of my leg is muddy".

i love her. and i can't believe the things that come out of this girl's mouth.

as a sidenote, im getting slightly better at arabic. which is impressive because my ameiya class is a joke. im a little frustrated about it. i mean, it's a million times better than the french instruction i got in paris, which was 3 hours a week (meaning virtually none). but here's the setup: i have roughly 3 hours a day of fous-ha, which is the formal language used by authors, theologians, and journalists. it is only spoken for speeches and recitations, never in everyday interaction. so i have 11 hours a week of fous-ha class, and 3 hours a week of ameiya. ameiya is the everyday language that everyone speaks. but i only have 3 hours of it per week, and the class is a total waste of time. all we do (EVERY DAY) is go over the pronouns (seriously? im in advanced arabic.) and conjugate as many verbs as possible. which, fyi, is completely and utterly useless. i should practice conjugating verbs, a lot. but i shouldnt be doing it in class. and we can all conjugate verbs all day long, but if we never practice using them in sentences (which is what we all need HELP with), we'll never be able to speak.

im really frustrated with it. i mean, i want to learn fous-ha. i really really want to be able to read and write, and listen to al-jazeera. but can we just pause for a second? i am in jordan. i live here. and i want to learn how to talk to the neighbors. not to read, or write, or anything else that i can learn in a classroom in the states. you can learn formal arabic anywhere. anywhere. all you need is a book and a teacher who knows a bit. that is NOT what i am here for. i wish i had 3 hours a day of learning how to interact with the people i see on the street. honestly? it'd ridiculous. and i am putting so so so much effort into learning this language, i dont know what else i can do. i go to vocab club once a week, i meet with a peer tutor, i have 12 hours a week of arabic classes plus 2 hours of listening lab. i watch al jazeera on the reg. i study. a lot. and im frustrated. because i feel like it's kind of hopeless. ive been here a month. the only people i can talk to really are taxi drivers because i have to do it twice a day, and vendors because the only words required are "how much?" "that's too expensive". and "ok". siiiiiiiiiiigh.

ok rant over, i promise. on a lighter note, i haven't stopped loving amman yet. i was supposed to not like it after 2 weeks, apparently. and the verdict is? love it more every day. i had a lemon off of our tree the other day, when it was hailing. it was amazing. and seedless? i didnt know that happened.

i'm also debating a gym membership. it's not expensive, like 90 JD for 3 months. which is a bit of money, but not for a gym membership. in amman, "gym membership" means something different than in the states; it means a gym, and a place where i can go running and not be stared at, and a hot shower whenever i want it (which is rare), and a sauna, and the ability to wear normal workout clothes (and, i hear, even shorts? i dont believe it. not that i would). and that all sounds really good. but a) it's money, and b) i have enough to do here. like way more than enough. and of course i could make time, it would be really nice to be able to exercise, since the only time i get to DO ANYTHING is scaling the stairs of death. so we'll see. i'll have to decide.

i look like a pirate today. apparently. that's what im told. i've developed the new and interesting habit of tying things to my head, mostly to hide whatever is wrong with me that day. like yesterday, didnt take a shower because i just couldnt make myself get up 20 minutes early to pour freezing water all over me. so my hair was less than cute. solution? no big deal, just tie some cloth around your head. not a lot, just like a thin scarf or something. like a giant headband. then, i did it today because my hair was wet. for those of you who aren't jordanian and haven't heard me complain about this previously, going outside with wet hair is a no-no here. it actually means you have just had sex, and people will assume such. this is a problem for me. because i go outside with my hair wet on the daily. dont even do anything to it, just dry it off and go. blowdrying? out of the question. but since "the blonde american-looking girl who obviously just had sex" is not really the image im trying to give off, i bought a blowdryer. but today i didnt have time, and i hate the thing anyway. so, again, solution? no big deal, just tie a scarf around my forehead so my wet hair is less noticeable. perfect. a funny side-effect of my take-a-year-to-expand-perspective plan is that when i get back to the states, i will have THE strangest clothing style. i mean as if that wasnt already true. but isla vista+paris+amman? = sundresses+peter pan boots+headscarves. you cant get weirder. watch out, chanel, im about to rock your world.

bought some flower seeds at the grocery store yesterday too. pretty excited about it. if you dont know why i would have done that, dont worry about it.

anyway, that's enough stream of consciousness for the day. im gonna go make food and try to be less horrible at talking to the neighbors.

arrrr.

shorthand sightseer

and then she said she can't believe
genius only comes along
in storms of fabled foreign tongues
tripping eyes, and flooded lungs
the northern downpour sends its love.

it is hailing today. in jordan. there are icicles forming on the roof. there is thunder, and lightning, and dark skies, and such. and the city is just covered in this white haze, that is made of dust and mist and light reflecting off of tiny drops of water.

the traffic is worse than usual. which means better for us, because they have to go so slow that if they hit us we wont die. unless we're on our way to school and late (like this morning), in which case the snail's-pace traffic is less than ideal. also, i notices today that there are no lanes here. i mean the roads are about 3 lanes wide, and i assumed that they actually existed, and were painted on, and people just ignored them? not the case. they actually do not exist here. dear god this country.

also do you know what's really weird? drunk driving is a joke here. like, people think it's funny. they do it all the time. at a party the other night one of our jordanian friends was laughing about how the rule in amman is "always drive drunk". which in itself was funny because the driving here is so bad, until we realized that he wasnt joking at all. and that he's only one of like 6 of our friends to talk about how he does it on the reg, like once a week or twice? i mean i know i grew up in the thick of the anti-drunk-driving campaign, and it may be viewed differently here, but i was shocked at how normal it is. i think drunk driving is one of the most disgusting, stupid, short-sighted things i've ever heard of. it's RIDICULOUS to me to get so drunk you can barely stand and then climb into your own personal rocket and zip home at 75 mph. so grossly inconsiderate of yours and anyone else's safety. so many people do it here, and no one takes it seriously. i mean, so many people die here because of cars accidents. it's really, really, really not funny. i guess i just don't get the joke.

anyway. i gotta go pick up my passport from the office. wow im a ridiculous human being, in this 4 paragraph entry i talk about the weather, quote the song that's been stuck in my head since it started raining, and rant about drunk driving. i am so strange. love me? (please? haha)

love.



the ink is running toward the page
it's chasin' off the days
look back at both feet
and that winding knee
i missed your skin when you were east-
you clicked your heels and wished for me.

rethink

lines
walls
culture
unbelief is its own creed
self
authenticity
i am we are we are imported
relationships
romantic visions
life without
caricature
responsibility
monogamy
identity
history
red roses
control control control control
obsession, speaking of the above
universals can only ever be fluid
because time is fluid
and because we are fluid
we

self-expression
integration
communication
segregation
perception
memory
collectivity
ourselves
selves

rethink

command+option+identity

she says wake up,

it's no use pretending.

i'll keep stealin, breathin her.

i've managed to improve my embarrassingly bad vocabulary a little bit in this first week. however, the modern standard vs. colloquial arabic thing is killing me. i know nothing about how to talk to real people. so i've picked up enough words to say goodmorning and how much? and todirect a taxi driver to where i want to go. that's it. but i try, boy do i try. most people speak english here, so they hate me haha.

and im trying to get used to this city. i dont feel like i know where im going at all, because i dont walk anywhere. we take taxis to school and back, and everywhere else. theyre cheap, but i want to walk. if onyl i wasnt alone, and i wasnt blonde, and i wasnt a girl, and there were sidewalks that would make walking anywhere less of death, i could do it.

im currently stealing internet from the kevork family (whoever they are- i hope they dont read my blog!!!!!!!!!!!!!! omg!!!!!!!!!!) . which means im sitting out on the second floor of the garden, next to the lemon tree. want a lemon? i can pick one for you. i hear theyre good, but i havent tried one yet. we'll see soon enough.

sittin in a park in paris, france; reading the news and it's all bad. the weather here is gorgeous. it's just like isla vista. and i kind of really want to go to the beach. sigh.

assuming that the kevork family is willing to lend me some more time, im attempting to upload pictures. we'll see how it goes.



an hour later: looks like it's going like failure, haha. well, next time maybe. back to the tea and leila.

be who you want, minute by minute.

sea lion woman

this is a poem, by ayisha'a al-taimuriya. it was written 100 years ago.

I challenge my destiny, my time
I challenge the human eye
I will never sneer at ridiculous rules, and people
That is the end of it; I will fill my eyes with pure
Light, and swim in a sea of unbound feeling
I have challenged tradition and my absurd position,
And I have gone beyond what age and place allow.

this is her magnum opus. it is her declaration of independence, her creed. light, in arabic, is noor, is knowledge. felix culpa. and she fills herself full of it. here, where restraint is everything, where women are the "custodians of the family's honor", destined to put on a smile every day of the week no matter what, unbound feeling is an impossibility, an unheard-of sin.

and maybe she's talking about death, suicide. as her agency, as her power. swimming? in light? in unbound feeling? is this the end of it? maybe this is a suicide note. but not an angry one, or a sorrowful one. she is anything but apologetic. her suicide is her door, to a life in which she is powerful. in which she is her own.

the semicolon speaks. "that is the end of it;"- if it were really the end, there would be a period. the semicolon is an invitation, to dialogue. to discussion. it is a refusal of the absolutes, a moving beyond lines in the sand. enemies or not, we both have voices.
that is the end of it; but i have more to say.
that is the end of it; but i want you to know.
that is the end of it; maybe it's the saying that matters, and not how the words are received.
that is the end of it;








and now it changes. crescendos, and becomes not "i am", not "i will", but "i have challenged". "i have gone beyond". she has already done it, whether or not anyone ever sees or believes. she is the agent, and her left hand knows what her right hand does. she has, and the others and their eyes are unimportant.

here, as in many things, the act of speech is the important thing. trees do fall in forests. whether or not anyone ever hears her,

there is freedom in the saying.

i have so many questions

about jordan.

this place is so deep, it's unreal. i can feel it. it's bigger than anywhere ive ever been.

i want to know everything. and i want to understand everything. and i want to be able to speak arabic more than ive ever wanted to be able to do anything in my life. i want to read everything ever written in this country. my brain has changed so much already, in 2 weeks, i dont know how ill be able to handle even one month here.

it bothers me when people refer to the middle east, as if it were a homogenous group. as if it were any sort of a logical group at all. really, it bothers me to read most things written about "the middle east". im offended by the essentialism and the assumptions and the judgments. and this was true before i came here, but i now find it intolerable. and i know that im an american and i dont have any idea either, so it's probably hypocritical of me to say, but it's how i feel.

do you know what i find fascinating? the hijaab.

probably... around 90% of the women i see on campus here wear some form of the hijaab. it differs, most wear the tight headscarf that completely hides the hair and neck. some women wear one that covers their entire face except for an eye slit, and some don't wear one at all.

and i like the hijaab. i think its history is interesting, and its significance is important. since meeting all of these beautiful, funny, radiant girls for whom the headscarf is an integral part of their daily lives, ive been performing thought experiments. and ive tried to imagine me, and my life and my identity, and my everything, plus a hijaab.

and i cant.

i felt kind of bad about it. and i wondered if maybe im not as open-minded as i thought, and maybe im secretly really prejudiced, and my western background is further deep in my brain than even i really knew, and blah blah blah. but, having thought about it, i dont think that's the case. as perviously stated, i like the hijaab. and i think that it can be a beautiful thing. i admire the women i know who wear it. they are strong.

but i cant do it. and i dont know what it is about my background, or my experiences (specifically with my lutheran-school background, as well as a certain unhealthy relationship in my recent past), or my brain, or my values, that refuses the hijaab. but for me, a headscarf would feel like an apology- for how i look, and what i am, and who i am. and i know i know i know that for the people who wear it, IT'S NOT. at least for the ones i know, it's a symbol of pride in their heritage, and love for their culture, and commitment to their beliefs. and i think maybe they are much more grown up than i am? but i am what i am. and i refuse ever again to apologize for myself, as i am, here. now.

i wonder what it is about my self-perception that cannot reconcile my identity as a beautiful, powerful woman with a headscarf. that sounds very childish to me. but, for reasons that are obvious to those of you who know my secrets, and probably sound completely ridiculous to those of you who dont, i can't compromise myself. i can't even do anything that looks like im compromising myself. it's maybe something i am overly conscious of or sensitive about, again for obvious reasons. i'll have to think about it. but i'll say it again, i am what i am. i will be what i will be. and that should be good enough, i think.

lunch break blog time

do you know what blows my mind?
jordanians.

so much here is different. and i know you know that, and you're like "duh laura, youre in jordan. obvi everything is different". but trust me, you dont know.

ive gotten very used to moving, to readjusting, to adapting. to not understanding half of what anyone around me is saying, and being even more conspicuous than i am in the states, and walking as if i knew where i was going, and fitting everything i need into a backpack, and dealing with the absolute ridiculous that i think uniquely comes of being an english-speaker in a country with another native language.

in paris, there's a sandwich shop called "boys just wanna have fun".
on queen rania street, there's a computer store called "square". just, "square".
my notebook has instructions in it: "to be special: never miss a class". thanks.

english is fashionable. here even moreso than in paris. it's like those restaurants in every shopping center in california called "happy eat" and "yum yum good". theyre run by people who dont speak english that well, but know enough to know "happy" and "eat". logical, right? but ridiculous. and i am in a country full of "california internet" and "happy eat" and "square". it makes for daily hilarity, really.

sigh. oh, jordan. it's only week 2.

i need to come up with a leonidas-style jordan kick. ... just read. you'll get it.

so my friend got hit by a car today.

dont worry, i mean she's fine. somehow. but really, when i talk about how dangerous the streets are here, i am not kidding. 10 people die a week in this city because of car accidents. the taxi i was in yesterday NARROWLY avoided 2 head-on collisions in 4 minutes, and i didnt even blink. it's normal. there are no seatbelts, in any car. there are no crosswalks. and for some reason, GOD KNOWS WHAT IT IS, when a driver sees pedestrians in the street in from of him, he accelerates. wtf. i didnt believe it when my jordanian friends said it, but it's true. we pretty much just play human frogger and hope we don't die.

so we were on our way to school, which meant crossing garden street, a big street for amman. its like 3-4 lanes going each way, and we have to get across it to catch a taxi to get to school. we had just made it down the stairs of doom. pics will be posted of the stairs, i promise, they are the most ridiculous thing i have ever seen. so we were crossing the street, and the cars were all stopped at a red light, except the last lane before the median ,which didnt have any cars in it.

none of us even saw the car coming, it was this massive boat of a station wagon accelerating as fast as it could toward the red light where it was planning to screech to a stop. typical jordanian stoplight behavior. and we were crossing, and the driver didnt see us, and all of a sudden there was screeching and i screamed and one of my roommates was rolling in slow motion over the hood of the car and crashing onto the pavement. it was a long and very surreal moment.

then, of course, she stood up and brushed herself off, and started laughing. tij, this is jordan. sparta aint got nothing on us.

the driver was freaked, and understandably- the penalty for hitting a pedestrian is 10 years in prison. she opened her car door and started screaming, we didnt know what to do. my friend started apologizing profusely, until noe of our other roommates reminded her that, in fact, the car had hit her, and not the other way around. we crossed the other side of the street, and she complained that her leg hurt a little and she needed some advil and her sweatshirt had streettar all over it, and we all just laughed and shivered and tried to hail a cab.

wait what?

i love this country. i love it love it love it. and it is so ridiculous, and so funny, and so insane. i live in jordan. here, it is illegal to NOT have a picture of the king in every public place. there are also, somehow, few and far between good pictures of the king, which is strange because he's not a bad-looking man. you would think that the KING of this particular HASHEMITE KINGDOM could find a photographer who was willing to do a second take. who knows.

our apartment has as many living rooms as bedrooms. one for each of us. does that make sense? also, 3 pink bathmats appeared in our bathroom today, randomly. im assuming it's our landlady, since she has also brought us beans and pizza, but who knows?

there is a random cement room in the garden. i- being very pc about things like this- call it the maid's house. (backstory for those of you who dont know, i.e. everyone: most homes in jordan have a maid from southeast asia, who may or may not be paid, may or may not sleep on a mat in the living room, and may or may not be treated fairly poorly. we dont have one, which is the only reason i can make the joke.) there's a doorless archway on the side of this room, and if you go through it you will find a real door, which is rusted and has been ripped off its hinges, possibly by bruce banner. it's just leaning against the doorway. the combination of this "door" plus the curtains in the window freak me out to the extent that i havent explored it yet. pretty sure that's where they keep the bodies.

no, my landlord and lady are very sweet. they live 2 floors above us, just above the friend who got hit by the car. theyre pretty much a host family (like a homestay?). they have an adorable dog, and they love animals. they are so old and cute and wrinkly, and they love cigarettes. the woman keeps trying to feed us and the man told us that if we dont destroy anything he'd be very disappointed. he likes to fix things.

i told him i'd try my best.

we live very close to the israeli embassy. which is hilariously unhelpful. see, there are no street names here, really. i mean there are, but the signs were put up 3 months ago. 3 months. most people in amman didnt have a street name and number as their address until 3 months ago. so, needless to say, no one uses street names, or numbers to find anything. it's all landmark-based. i went to an interview yesterday, and the secretary who called to schedule it told me to take out a pen so she could give me the address. this is their "address":

"leave UJ (the university of jordan) via the north gate. go straight til you cant go any further, and at the end of the street you'll see binaayat (building) RSS. turn right, but only kind of right. a veer, really, more than a turn. we're in the 2nd building on the left, on the 2nd floor."

which is even funnier when you find out that there is NO WAY to go straight out of the north gate, and that by straight she meant turn right? when i called to ask her about this, she maintained that i should cross the street and continue going straight. i told her that this would put my in a shawerma stand's kitchen, but she insisted. i dnot know how i ever fuond the place.

so, we live by the israeli embassy. but, we're in jordan, and frankly, no one likes the israeli embassy here. even after seeing the guards in jeeps armed with ak's on every corner, i still wonder how they ever got it built. the elections are today, meaning that i may or may not be able to get to my house because of protests. we'll see. welcome to jordan.

this country is crazy. on our first day here, we had orientation scheduled all day. so all 89 of us american kids, having been sufficiently lectured on our lack of unerstanding of the culture we were about to become a part of, were loaded onto the oldest train in jordan, which used to go to saudi and back. we were taking a trip.

so when we realized that we'd been on the train for almost an hour and had no idea where we were, other than "in the desert," we were curious. and when our train was stopped abruptly by a clan of bedouins riding horses and brandishing rather intimidating weapons (which i will not specify for the sake of my mother's health), shouting things we couldnt understand, we were a little scared. and when people started shouting that the bedouins had taken a few of the girls, and our jordanian girlfriends were flipping out and screaming at us not to take pictures and not to get off the train, we were wildly curious and confused and fascinated and probably not scared enough. and, when we got off the train and there was a ceremony wherein our bedouin arabic department head begged for our lives and permission to cross their land on his behalf, and the tribal leaders agreed, and all kidnapped prisoners were released. and an hour later, when our program director couldnt contain herself any longer, and erupted with laughter at her joke, we thought it was hilarious, too. but we were confused. we're now in a country where it's a joke to wave guns around and pretend to kidnap people? wow.

the bedouins were very nice, actually, they would never have kidnapped anyone. we rode their horses and wore their scarves. they also gave us some peanuts and asked my friend and i to come back tomorrow.

also, if we ever want to be bedouins and ride horses forever? they have declared that they would accept us with love.

i dont know how im going to live here for the next 4 months. it's been less than 2 weeks, and ive been kidnapped by bedouins, and bought a notebook that says "to be special: never miss a class" (sweet, instructions). and i have no internet at home, and we dont go 2 days without argila (hookah, for the uninitiated), and we go to underground clubs with valet parking in the alley where its located and chandeliers inside and scandalous behavior. apparently the christian girls and the muslim boys get it on, but can't get too serious or their parents will kill them. literally. and you're not allowed to flush toilet paper in the toilet because of the water shortage, and all the houses are made of white stones, and gnats really like my hair because im blonde. didnt know they could see colors? and we eat hummus and pita every day, and thyme-covered bread costs 40 cents, and at burger king they dont know what you're referring to when you say "cheeseburger", and today my friend got hit by a car.

and then there's the propane truck, oh the propane truck. picture an ice cream truck-style van, that drives around playing ice-cream-truck-music, and sells 4foot propane tanks just off the street. it must be making good money somehow, because it goes around about 4 times a day.

... can we talk about how ridiculous that is?

tij, i guess.

when the moon fell in love with the sun

so i'm back. meaning im gone again. i flew to jordan last week, and these are some things i wrote.

disclaimer: this blog post is very, very edited. let me know if you'd like to read the confidential word document version and your wish is my command.

airports, airports, always airports.

i swear, all i do is leave. i left home to go to college, and i left college to go to DC, and i left DC to go home, and i left home to go to paris, and i left paris to go back to america, and, this morning, i’m leaving america for jordan. i never really come back, because i never go to visit. when i go somewhere, i go to live, to work or go to school, always measured in months, not days. by the time it’s time to “come back,” the place im going back to isn’t home anymore. every time i get comfortable somewhere, i leave- not forever, just long enough that when i come back, nothing is familiar, and i am an alien. what if i could just manage to stay somewhere where all my values and routines weren’t challenged and exploded every moment? i don’t know what i’d do. i guess i’m a brancher.

i am flying to jordan today. i am what? flying to jordan. well, i’m supposed to be, that is, whenever united airlines gets their shit together. i’m at gate 95 of SFO, at the bottom of the escalator, maybe 6 rows back. i’ve been scoping out this guy across from me; he’s studying an al-kitaab book. must be in my program. there’s only 3 of us going from california, funny that i spotted him.

17:47 (according to my computer, set to california time)

iron and wine - naked as we came

sweet, sweet and low, little girl. i saw you like the sun coming up from space. space. im halfway to space, halfway to the moon. and we’re flying over new york city, and no one down there can feel us, up here, flying, like a whale in the deepest part of the ocean. we might as well be jupiter, once you’re 40,000 feet up, what’s a few more stories?

jupiter, what is jupiter?

and there’s the ocean beneath us, no land in between for people to stand on. just air and water, natural deities we’ll never hope to conquer. we’ll only ever conquer nature the way men think they conquer women: blindly, greedily, and not at all.

and im not ready. i’m so not ready. but i keep remembering that of course im not ready, i never could have been ready, no one ever would have been ready, you weren’t ready the last time either. the point is not to be ready. i keep remembering, in flashes almost, that i didn’t plan to change in paris, that i didn’t plan to lose and find and recreate myself in 10000 different ways, that it just happened. and it will happen again. i’ll find friends that i love, and places i’ll always plan to go back to, and pieces of life that i never knew were anywhere. and i’ll be outraged, and angry, and heartfelt, and exhausted, and overjoyed, and never the same again. i thought it was weird the first time, going away to study in paris, embarking on a year that everyone said would change my life. i always said i’d never done anything that i knew beforehand would change me; either i had made a conscious decision to be someone different in a specific way, or it had always just happened to me. trust me, it’s even stranger now, now that i know how much bigger this will be than i’d ever imagined.

i’m going to be a giant. and i’m afraid i’ll never find any other giants who know what i mean.

be brave, eat well, write often, she says. i might cry.

i read daisy's letter again, i also read it this morning, before i left. cried. copied and pasted to the desktop so i could read it on the plane to jordan. wait, here. here. i copied and pasted it so i could read it here, where i am now.

she says wake up, it’s no use pretendin’... this is the first day of my life. i swear i was born right here in the doorway. im always in a doorway.

we’re over the ocean now, there’s nothing out the airplane window but black. cold and air and water and fish and organisms and molecules and pressure formations and clouds and currents and wind and oil spills and giant squids and sailors’ bones and silent planets and shipwrecks and all i can see is black. the window might as well be ink on a page up close. and i keep seeing that light out in the distance, about as high up as we are, and hoping it’s a friend? but really it’s just us. the only thing we find in the reflection of the black is the echo of ourselves.

maybe giant squids and silent planets and shipwrecks are all the same. maybe shipwrecks are all there is.

maybe we’ve been chasing our reflection this whole time.

19:58, according to my clock, which is still trapped in california. ironically, it’s still got a 24-hour clock setup leftover from paris. funny.

bright eyes- first day of my life.

so, that other boy- kevin, it turns out- and i are now writing arabic notes back and forth to each other. funny what 7 hours on a plane can change, haha. we’ve already written several notebook pages. pretty hot and heavy, i know.

he seems nice enough. said my handwriting was pretty. careful, laura, this is how it always starts. haha, it’s so funy that that’s true. you’ve no idea how many declarations of undying love have been the ultimate result of a compliment to my penmanship.

i need to get better hobbies. or something.

so with this person, i am exploring the familiarity phenomenon. you know, how when you’ve known someone well for a long-ish time, you remember the first time you saw them and you don’t recognize them, even in your memory? i wonder how i’ll feel about "kevin" (i know him so little that his name is still in quotes) in 4 months. hwo knows?

but i think that’s why i feel the way i do about tourism. to me, seeing something once doesn’t count. it’s the second time, the re-seeing, that is important, i think. there’s something very important to us about familiarity, and i don’t know what it is, or how it works, but it’s there. i think that’s really interesting. god, brains are amazing.

and it’s weird to me, familiarity, because i’m realizing that all the people i’m about to meet are going to have burned into their memory the first time they see me. like i remember daisy, delirious and ranting in a yellow and black dress, maybe? about how the aepp staff had woken her up like 2378569874 times to move the beds around. and snapdragon and how she didnt want to awkwardly cut in line. and ander and how he didnt talk ever. how i remember people introducing themselves and thinking totally uncalled-for things about them, right or wrong. not in a bad way, i mean im not superjudginggirl, but i mean who did i think i was to believe i could know anything about them? and im realizing that all these things im unsure of are things that people will attribute to me, to my self, they’ll see my new earring and be unable to imagine me without it, like daisy’s short hair. god i cant believe she's gonna have long hair. i secretly hope it never grows back.

should i have edited that?

but here i am, with clothes i’ve never worn and an earring i bought 4 days ago, and giant crazy-colored headphones. people are going to secretly assume i’ve looked like this for years, and not even they will know it. that’s so interesting. they’ll know the changes in me before i ever see them, and they’ll never know the difference. jesus, that’s weird.

21:35 california time

panic at the disco- when the day met the night

always golden in the sky, always golden when the day met the night.

i’m officially excited. i don’t know why it takes me until the plane flight there to be excited to go somewhere, but i am. and really, do you want to know the reason? it’s sad. i’m excited because i looked at the itinerary, and i don’t really have to do much of anything today. HA. ok by that i mean i have to arrive in amman at 12:30 jordanian time, which will be 2:30 am in california and 6billion o’clock in my brain. then i have to change $50 in US dollars to jordanian dinars (called JD’s, which i love. my currency will be a typical name for a sweethearted, misguided, 14-year-old asshole main character on some 90s nickelodeon show. could not possibly be better). then, after that (or maybe before), i have to, excuse me, buy a visa so i can actually live in jordan. i have to make it through passport check with my sketch emergency passport, hoping no one notices that MINE IS A STICKER. then i have to acquire my bags and try to meet up with my program people in the “arrival lobby”. which i will be easily able to find... somehow. BUT, that said, after that, we’re just going to our hotel and our job is to chill out until tomorrow. thus, i am excited. because i am really happy to meet people, and be in jordan, and take a nap. everything i want.

i wonder how people will feel about me in jordan. i wonder how people will react to a strawberry-blonde, green-eyed california girl with a weird ear piercing, a stuffed giraffe, and an affinity for flipping people off.

my dad suggested today that perhaps i should dye my hair? i don’t think so. i mean, if in the future i work in the middle east, and that is a necessity, i will do so. but this time, this time, i feel, needs to be a collision, between me—as i see myself—and a totally different culture. this time needs to be a crash, and an apology, and a melding, and a melting, and a nuclear explosion caused by the chemical reaction of laura with jordan—whatever those two things really are.

p.s. really good flying song is iron and wine’s cover of such great heights. god.

and im watching the people on the tv screen 2 feet from my face, and they’re screaming. they are having a crisis, i don’t know what about. but there they are, screaming at each other, and cars screeching around corners, and explosions, and guns. and all silent. i’ve been watching them, silently shrieking, for hours, and all i hear is iron and wine. it makes them sadder, i think. can we also please refer to the deaf-mutes in sitt marie rose? it’s easy to pretend pain is nothing when you can only see someone scream. it’s no wonder they danced when she died. they danced to the vibrations of the bombs, and every abstract mutilation they inferred. what made her any different? it’s no wonder.

everything looks perfect from far away, come down now. but we’ll stay.

2:16 california time. flight number to, headed to amman

the same people are having the same issues on this flight’s tv screen as the last one. it’s unfortunate that the people include shia labeouf. poor boy, i’ll never take him seriously.

and wine with lunch/ dinner/ midnight snack. no. big. deal. and i’m starting to be really excited, and really confident. i mean, i keep stressing this, but honestly? i’ve never done something like this badly. it will be awesome. i will make it awesome. i will sing songs and make people stare and laugh a lot and read in arabic. and maybe it’s the wine, or maybe it’s the 2am sunshine, but i’m really, really happy to be going to jordan.

so i just read that for the first time, and i have concluded that i am a crazy person.

turns out i didnt take a nap when i got there- oh wait HERE, we went out and smoked argila instead. i do not know how to spell argila in english. sheesha for those of you who are confused. the shia laboeuf movie was fine, i was forced to actually watch it after my computer died and the plane decided that i wanted to watch it a THIRD time. jordan is great, i love it. lovelovelove it. i promise i will upload pics when i get the internet next. which will hopefully be soon. stories will follow regarding a bedouin kidnapping, serious taxi issues, my new 2 living rooms, and the CRAZY underground nightlife in amman. but now i haveto get out of here and back to my internet-less home. i love you all and i miss you.dont forget me?

love.