I just finished texting a message to one of my friendsanswering the ultimate question that was raised 2 weeks ago in our social circle that day.
We just finished cleaning the mess left by the guests who attended the birthday party of one of our friend's daughter who just turned one. We decided to hang in the garage so that most of the guys could host their special closed session (similar to those in 70s show if you get what I am saying). There were two conversations going on. I was part of one that went like this (note: the following conversation have been modified where all the R-rated and swearing words were filtered, which were going at a rate of one x-rated word every 3 words):
"wow man, time flies by. You were the first among us to get married and look at you, you are a father with a cute little girl" - humpty
"yea man. I never imagined that I'll spend my morning blowing balloons. hahahaha" - birthday girl father
"hahahaha, I wonder who's gonna be the next guy among us who'll get married and screwed" - humpty
"man, it is a huge responsibility. My life has turned upside down. I miss the days I was single" - birthday girl father
" what are you talking about? if I were you, I'd marry two more. hahahha..especially since your religion allows for it" yogi
"oh man, trust me. You are lucky if you could manage one..hahahaha" - birthday girl father
"What you saying guy? screw management. I am talking about doing threesomes all the time" yogi
....We all stare at him till AKA said:
"is that even allowed in Islam?"
"I...I...don't know..it never occured to me" - humpty
another moment of silence. eyes shift towards me since I am considered the most religious and supposedly most knowledgeable among them. heh, that was totally unexpected.
"well...I have no clue. as far as I am concerned, there is neither a statment that prohibits it nor a statement that permits it..Its just....hmmm...that would be a good justification for another wife plust it will spice up....aaah...WHAT THE HELL you guys are thinking? threesome with two wives.." - me
the question remained unanswered, but it left my mind churning for an answer. I didn't have the guts to ask a sheikh in a mosque or anybody if threesomes are allowed with two wives. They'd think I am some kind of pervert and that will fuel the debate that some have about my sexual preference that's already in question.
I could only search the internet for an answer, but I repeat that I am not satisfied since I question the validity of those fatwas on internet. I only came upon those three links (the rest turned out to be all ads to some porn movies)
1- IslamOnline
2- Aqoul
3- Threesomes - Halal or Haram?
in brief, the major view is that it is Haram for two reasons: a) Details of intimate relationships should only be kept between husband and wife only b) women are not permitted to look at the 'Awrah' of each other. Based on that, the other view goes to the extreme of saying if the two wives agree, and that it is done in dark (so that they dont see their 'awrah'), and they never discuss it after, then it is permitted.
Honestly, opening this topic and delving more into it left a O_o expression on my face.
a O_o moment
my Canadian Holiday
Its been almost a week since I arrived from my summer vacation to Canada and I can assure you that it was exotic and I relatively enjoyed it. With the exception of few moments and things that I did not achieve, like the fact that I got reminded by how much I hate the loonies, the toonies and their children, I am satisfied in total.
My checklist was as follows:
1- Walking - People back at work thought I got a tan from going to the beach. They don't believe me when I swear to them that I haven't gone to any beach and its just a natural tan I got from all the walking I did.
2- Reading - I stayed for hours in chapters just reading books. I finished the novel "coma" by alex garland that I started reading 2 years ago. I stopped at page 120. I resumed from where I stopped and finished it. loool. I even started reading another book by Ian McEwan called "amesterdam", but i didn't finish it yet. mind you that i did all that reading INSIDE the bookstore. hehehehe. But in the end, i bought up a nice collection of books which are as follows:
To tell you the truth, I am surprised how did the last 2 books got through saudi authorities undetected
3- taking a LIMO - for the first time...:D
4- Wonderland - I even rode on the infamous behemoth ride. 125 km/h, 70 m in height, descent at 75 degrees is more than enough to send an overdose of adrenaline up my body that kept it shivering for minutes.
5- Niagara Falls- priceless
6- walking in Downtown - and i even attended the American express show of dining in the air.
7 - Movies & Theatres -
A must see amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing movie.
kind of half half.. nice twist to the story but nothing exceptional..Wait for the DVD
character and acting is amazing. I feel it could have been better, but overall a good movie too.8- Massage Therapy session - money well spent. The feeling i got from the massages I got for my neck, back and shoulders is overwhelming and I felt vibes moving in my body..oh and for those who might dare and ask me (coz I already got asked like 3 times)...I did NOT get a "happy ending". I did not ask for one.
9- Meeting a fellow blogger
There are only 2 things on the top of my head that I planned on doing and couldn't:
1- Going to a psychiatrist
2- Trip to Montreal (I so wanted to go on this one)
Most importantly, I got to spend alot of time with myself where I had to reconcile few issues between me and myself. Myself is demanding more rights from me. This means that I had to officially give more recognition to myself and live with 2 parallel characters. Anyway, I decided to do 3 things:
1- revive my quest that I had 4 years ago in unraveling the mystery behind "voynich manuscript" - whether by studying it more and more or donating money for researches. I will start doing this soon
2- Get a pet - I highly doubt that I'll ever do this coz I never took care of a pet in my life and I highly doubt that mom will allow me to..But we'll see
3- Start studying Tantra and practice it when possible - I think I'll start with textbooks and see what i can do to practice
4- .......(I'd rather keep it private and to msyelf)
Stay tuned for more funny and awkward stories about my trip. I so wanna tell you about the time i gave my roomate the talk, and the drunk guy who was trying to levitate, and much much more. Readmore »»
The true meaning of a vacation
A vacation for me is not about doing as many different entertainment activities as possible. My vacations used to be stressful because I always thought that I am on vacation and I shouldn't waste my time on sleeping, relaxing and wasting time. I thought it was about utilizing time as much as possible.
But not any more.
This vacation, I decided to do two things, do whatever I wanna do as they come without overthinking about who to meet, when to meet and where to meet, what to do, when to do, and where to do.
So what was the first step?
Drop the watch.
You can't believe how relieving it is to live a day without having any sort of commitment to time. Without worrying about getting to finish a task before a certain time.
In those 2 days, I never made any commitment to see anyone. I always tell my friends to call me and i just keep updating them on my location like a GPS device.
So what have I done during my first day here?
Walk, walk, and walk. Yesterday I have walked a distance equivalent to what I would walk in KSA for 3 days. I started my day with a bagel of cream cheese and hot chocolate from TIM HORTONS.. I kept shouting in my mind: "TIMMMMMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYs....." oh how much I missed TIM HORTONS. I am definitely buying their coffee and bring it back to me to KSA (looool, I don' even drink coffee)
It took me a couple of minutes to try and remember the bus system. Ok, take bus 29W to south common mall. oh, South Common Mall is still the same. Not much has changed. I spent 9 months taking the 26 bus from sheridan transport to my college. The whole trip lasted 45 minutes. I then took 1E dundas to stop by Hurontario Street & Dundas.
Later, I went to square one and just walked and walked and walked. My friend called me and we went to watch the spain vs russia game in JACKASTOR's...a pub next to Chapters in Square one. Oh man at Chapters, I remember the days where I was bored and I used to sit all alone by myself hide in a corner and read the books inside the bookstore before the owners kick me out at 9 when they close. hehehehehe
Watching the game was fun, especially when you always have smiling waitresses who enjoy doing their jobs, no matter how clumsy you can get when you get superexcited and spill the jug of beer all over your friends and all over her. She doesn't complain. She smiles back, cleans the table and the floor and adds the icing on the cake with the wink telling you: "this one is free of charge". You can't help but be very generous in your tip especially since she constantly kept supplying me SPRITE refills. I drank about 4 cups of SPRITE that my friends thought I am getting drunk on SPRITE.
3-0 was the ending result. Celebrations all over the street. We drove to streetsville, bought a couple of jerseys, screamed and cheered with spanish fans who we don't know. People thought we were spanish because we were wearing spain jerseys (except me :( ) and because of our super hyperactivity in our celebrations.
Later, we went to an Italian restaurant to try their veal sandwiches. As usual, my rooomate and his friends kept making fun of the italian team and how they 'choked' in this competition. I was siding with the waitress and her friend who were making our sandwiches till I discovered that they were InterMilan fans.
What I still don't understand is how do all girls we asked (the ones we know and the ones we don't know) find Sergio Ramos to be the cutest guy on the spanish team.
I didn't do much later. Went home, chilled for a bit. Then asked my friend to drop me in ERIN MILLS mall. The mall that I usually visit to do all my shopping errands. Had to buy the things that I forgot to bring with me like a hairbrush, and a travel adapter plug for all the electronics i have from the Middle East.
Oh man, here I was, walking again through ZELLERS, WAL-MART and SEARS. Lol at Wal-Mart. I just remembered the campaign I did 2 years ago where I vowed to myself to try all the different candy types they have on those 3 different aisles. It took me over 5 months to try all of them. But hey I did it. am I Crazy? guilty as charged. My favourite ones are the sugary jelly worms
As I left the mall, the sun was setting. I wondered what time it is. and for the first time in this day, I loook at my cellphone clock. It said 9:10 p.m. Wow, the sun is still up at 9:10 p.m?
Went back home, tired and exhausted. I didn't feel like doing anything. I guess I still didn't shake the effects of jetlag yet. I played a couple of FIFA 2008 games with my roomate on his xbox 360 (yep, he still has it) before I decided to call it a day.
I woke up half an hour ago. Its 9 a.m as I write this. My legs are hurting me. I guess it is from all the walking I did yesterday. Its ok, I am gonna walk more and more. Oh how much I miss walking. Let's see what this day will unravel for me. :)
The Milestone of this year
I can't believe that almost a month passed since I wrote anything.
I acknowledged the fact that i had a blackhole growing inside of me. Now whether this is associated with depression or not, I don't know coz I didn't feel i was depressed and I had many joyful moments. Unless my situation is so bad that I am depressed but I didn't know about it.
So what was going on with me lately? I had mentally blogged in my head many topics.
I could have talked about the hectic week from 31st of May to 4th of June where we had our annual meeting. An event that took more than 2 months of organization in order to prepare for hosting over 102 ministers coming from over 56 Islamic Member Countries. The Main conclusion of that meeting was establishing the Jeddah Declaration where 1.5 Billion Dollars will be dedicated to solve the Food Crisis in the Muslim World.
I could talk about my role as an event manager for one of the seminars hosted by a partnering organisation regarding "Corporate Social Responsibility". I could talk about the poor attendance of the seminar where only 30 or 35 ppl showed up and where I was the only representative from my workplace. I could talk about the embarassing moment when the President of the organisation approached me to ask me that the Directors in his organisation are very interested in meetng our Experts in the Consultancy & Procurement Department. He asked me how big and how many people we have in the Procurement & Consultancy Department. I was too embarassed to say that we only have one person and i managed to divert the topic to something else.
I could talk about the humiliation and the lack of organisation that resulted in having the secretaries and general staff storming and filling the Lunch Buffet leaving the High Delegates and VIP guests standing outside waiting in a queue for a vacant place to sit & eat. That's assuming that there were any food left.
I could talk about what was stressing me for last two weeks in which I have to decide on where to spend my next rotation at work. I shortlisted two departments. Structured Finance Department is a small and growing department with alot of potential. The exposure and learning experience is extremely high. However, the working environment is hostile. Colleagues are not that friendly. There is no sense of teamwork and people tend to work in silos. As for Treasury Department, the situation is mysterious. The whole department has a big question mark over it. They say they are going through a reform and they need to change the way they handle investments. It looks interesting, assuming I won't be in for some shocking surprises.
but all this does not matter. What matters is that I am going through a great moment these days. I finally managed to complete my 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. You can find the final picture here:
I started working on it 15 months ago. Long time definitely but what matters is that I finished it. It took me 2 months to assemble 60% of it which is the lower part. The upper part (which is the sky) took me all the time because assembling it was extremely hard. all the pieces looked almost the same. It was so hard to distinguish them that i could not use normal room light to differentiate between the pieces. The only time I could work on them was using sunlight. i.e. only during weekends from 10 to 2 (since I have work during weekdays).
Nobody can imagine the overwhelming sensation I felt as I put the last piece. I made this puzzle represent my life where each day I'd piece one piece in it so that i discover myself in it. I used to wake up every morning to look at it and give me the boost to start my day. Finally, the day came where i completed it. Nothing is impossible after all.
I would like to thank all those who have given their support during this period. Regarding the vacation that many of you told me about, I will be taking it next week. I will be going to Toronto for 3 weeks. It'll be definitely a change for me. I am tired of hanging around the close-minded stubborn arabs here. It will be good to hang around foreign people for a change and to re-enjoy the services and the efficient system of Canada. It might not be a full vacation as I have many things on my to-do list. One of them could be roaming the subways in search of a 5 month pregnant woman with Arabic features reading a book titled: "notes from underground". [hint hint at a blogger :P]
The Blackhole inside of me
How many times have I stared blankly at this screen?
wanted to type, and write but no words would come out.
15th May passed. I felt bad that all my blogger friends wrote about Palestine Day while I didn't.
21st May passed. Wanted to write about how I wanted to explore the number 23. By watching the movie "number 23". The first statement of the movie was describing me. "today is my birthday". Wanted to write about 23 unique things about me.....Yet I didn't
What's happening to me?
a month has passed since I watched any of my regular series..."Lost", "Prison Break" or "Smallville" or any other show. the same goes for movies.
Why have I stopped reading? I used to always read before I go to sleep. I barely read 30 pages in the last 3 weeks.
The gym--- heh...I just remembered that I have a subscription that i haven't used in a months time
What's happening to me?
I have not been faithful to my close friends like I used to. I am not in touch with them as i used to. I am missing out on their news. Has the choice of moving on with the new friends affected my relationships with the older & faithful ones who has always been supportive and gave too much for me? for how long will they tolerate me?
What's happening to me?
The first thing i used to do when I wake up was stare at my incomplete jigsaw puzzle. It was a simple of my incomplete life that I try to piece each day. I used to work on it whenever I had free time. Its the same jigsaw puzzle that I bought 16 months ago and I still didn't finish it. Nowadays, it is just sitting there collecting the dust.
I am afraid of this growing blackhole and what else it will strip from my inner core and the values that it will consume..
3 family relatives in 3 weeks
they were 3 hectic weeks. All of a sudden, my relatives decided to utilize this time to visit us.It started around a month ago when my aunt came for an umra. A week later, our uncle joined us. A week after it, my other aunt and her daughter came out of Palestine for the same reason..i.e. doing Umra. As it is always the case, that situation has unsettled me and made me a prisoner in my own house as I had to be careful before walking into any room that my cousin is veiled. Other than that, I'll leave it to you to imagine the terrible situation we had at the house.
Thankfully, throughout the period, I still retained the luxury of sleeping in my own bed. My relatives have lived all their life in rural areas & its normal for them to sleep on floor mattresses. Thus, our spacious living room proved to be the ideal sleeping place.
Speaking of being accustomed to rural community, I was not saved from few embarrassing (yet funny) moments when driving with them & handling few errands they have here & there. Such moments were like:
1- Imagine this situation. All of us are sitting on the corniche near the sea. Me lying on the floor gazing at the moon and slowly entering that special place romantic private place in me before I get interrupted: "Hamza, they need to use the washroom. Drop them somewhere near by"...Oh boy, how much I hate this. How am I supposed to walk to a restaurant/ hotel just to use the washroom and leave? I wish I could take them to my house. But its half an hour away and judging from their standing posture, I highly doubt they could hold themselves. So, i end up complying to do it. the nearest thing to me was PIZZA HUT. I walked in with a high confidence and drawing that cheesy smile on my face. I scan the area around me..Men washroom here, I signal for my uncle. Further scanning, women washroom located..I signal for my aunt. Ok, I am all by myself. the Pizza Hut waiters are anticipating the moment I sit down so they could raid me with setting up the table and handing out the menu. I was walking around the area, trying to avoid eye contact with them and praying in my mind that my relatives won't embarrass me and hope that they know how to use the washroom that might be too advanced for their sophisticated minds to comprehend.. those were among the longest 8 to 10 minutes I spent. As soon as they both finished, I escorted them out of the restaurant not looking back. but I swear I could have felt the -ve vibes and hatred the staff had to me for abusing their facilities
2- My dad is usually smart. However, I doubt that taking my eldest aunt who have lived all her life in palestine to STEAK HOUSE was a good idea. She kept throwing hilarious comments here & there. "why are they cutting the salad like that?" "what are those weird sauces here?" "why is the meat cooked that way?" "what kind of bread is this?". But the best comment was when she saw one of the waiters who was changing the salad items on the salad bar and he was wearing a hair cover, a mask and gloves. My aunt was like: "allah yatmo, leish shaklo hada metl il dacatra? 3am bi3mal 3amaleyeh lal salata?" (why is he dressing up like a surgeon? is he doing surgery on the salad?)....My aunt is so hilarious.
I have always been nice to them but sometimes I face situations that make me hate their backward mentality. For example, me & my siblings were raised that each one of us should be collaborating on arranging, cleaning and organising the house. Sometimes, but not frequently, my sister end up doing more work than us because she is the "girl".
When my relatives were around, I was being myself where my actions have raised few eyebrows. My cousin jumped each time I attempt to serve drinks/ clean the table etc. She goes like: "no no you shouldn't. this is our job. OMG, what if my husband sees you? he'd never offer to do anything like that". My uncle shouts at me with this disgusting look of : "what are you doing? you are the man, Sit down". I am shocked by this backward mentality. What kind of stupid logic is that? and what of this extreme sexism? so what if a guy is helping in housekeeping? I only stopped coz my dad signaled to me a sign of: "just play along".
Oh well..but overall, I was happy to see them especially since I won't be visiting palestine/jordan anytime soon. I also felt a bit satisfied in attempting to try to repay them for their generous hospitality I receive each time I see them.
I hate you Robert Zoellick
